Bring on the connection: in response to "Online Chatting"

This whole connection through the internet thing is interesting to me. I'm not exactly sure how I feel because I really do value that person-to-person contact, but, like you said, some contact seems to be better than none. I like knowing what my hallway and classroom buddies are doing, and that quick connection with the occaisional coffee-date friend is nice.

My real dilemma is this: were we made to keep contact with those people we wouldn't normally have kept in contact with? Is it necessary to keep up on the little things? Are we created to have such stretched relational capacities? Has God blessed us with this complete (?) connect-ability, or has the Adversary confused us?

I don't think there are easy answers to any of the above questions and I'm trying to figure out how to balance answering them and living within them.

What I know I do love, however, is the accessibility the internet gives me to those I definitely should be connected to--like my family. Thus, I uphold the facebooking, emailing, texting, and chatting with the ones I do long to see, touch, smell, know. So, when it comes to you all, my lovely family, bring on the connection!

Life's Work, Prayer and Conviction

My life’s work has been the raising of you girls. There may be something else coming, I’m not certain. But generally I have found it a satisfying and enjoyable lifework. As you have grown up it has become even more full of pleasure and joy because of the hours I have to myself. I was always one to enjoy my own company. And yet, I get lonely and look forward to the end of each day and Friday evenings when I’ll have my family around me. But for me to have hours and hours alone—in solitude, was a great balm to my soul. I spent much of that time in everyday activities: cleaning, laundry, cooking, etc. but many hours were spent with God in prayer and Bible study. Never did I take that time for granted.

The time I spend in prayer for each of you is significant in a real way to your lives. When I pray for you—it’s like I’m with you—making a difference in your life. There is a special understanding and affection cultivated in prayer that comes by no other means of expression. A blessing is extended that changes things and brings protection and wisdom and goodness into your life. The Spirit mysteriously honors such requests with power and action.

I have great regard for the grownup people you girls have become. I could not love you more. I have watched every moment of your lives when you were still at home and follow still as much as I can now with facebook, texting, emails and the occasional phone call. The courage and passion I held to through the years deciding to stay at home and raise my own children—really raise them—looks awkward and provincial to people now. I stand up tall and declare: It was not a mistake. And God has honored the choice and we have suffered very little materially for it. We have held things loosely and learned not to miss the vacations we didn’t get to take and the new cars we didn’t drive. I would do it all again. I am ferocious about this.

Online Chating

As nerdy as it may sound, I love chatting online. This love started back when I was 15 and first became introduced to the internet. I quickly became engrossed in Instant Messenger (IM). Before IM I would spend 2-3 hours on the phone with friends till my ears were to hot to stand holding the phone anymore. Once IM came out my little 15 year old life changed. I could be talking to a friend on the phone and simultaneously talking to 3 or 4 friends on IM. It was brilliant. I loved coming home from school and logging on to hear that little bleep noise that means you have a message.

Pretty quickly I realized that I could type to more friends online if I lost the phone...So I stopped talking and began typing. Who knows what about. Random stuff. Sending each other smiley faces and hearts probably...Actually I don't know when the face icon came around so maybe I wasn't doing that from the begining... :)

When I was a sophmore in Highschool I wanted to take a typing class because I knew it would be an easy "A." IM gave me my keyboarding education. I would be talking to 10-15 people all at once telling them all stories and trying to keep up. Today I can type like 65 wpm consistently. Impressive I know.

Somewhere along the line IM died. I am not 100% sure but I think it is once facebook (FB) came out. IM turned into away messages and idle usernames. It became a ghost town. I think I was a spohmore in College before it really faded away. I love stalking people FB, but I am not gunna lie...I missed chatting with friends.

Recently, I switched e-mail address to gmail and discovered g-chat. It's good, but you can only chat with other people who have e-mail address with gmail. THEN, FB came out with Facebook Chat. It's wonderful. I am not on it to often but, everynow and then I will get to catch up with someone who I haven't spoke to in a really long time. Even though it isn't as personal as a phone call it get's the "stay-in-contact" job done.

Maybe I am being to impersonal and distant, but honestly I probably wouldn't ever talk on the phone to some of my friends that I FB chat with so I say it's better to type than to never talk. I am part of "generation y" what do you want from me?

True or false...i googled what generation I am in. Generation y aka The Net Generation, Millennials, Echo Boomers, and iGeneration.

Hands, Painting Nails and Painting

Hands. What stories they tell. My dad’s hands were so sweet to me. They weren’t particularly attractive in the traditional sense, but I loved them. I remember that his nails began to get ridges—much like my Grandpa’s—as he got older. I have ridges now. I found online that it might be a vitamin deficiency. It just feels like old age. I begin to look like my parents and grandparents.
But, I digress. Painting nails is the subject. Or hands. Or painting. I choose painting.
I love to paint. I often look at my facebook photos in the album “Some of my art” and yearn for the studio I had at Otterbein for a few short months. How I loved to go there and paint. The thrill of creating with my hands, colors and some implement to transfer the paint…sometimes my hands! It’s hard to describe. Of course, others will ask why I don’t paint all the time—or even more often—if I love it so much. This is also hard to describe. There is a hesitance and vulnerability involved. When you mash that into the problematic issues like where to paint, money for canvasses, when to paint—the painting sits aside. But, oh the joy when I do…

Stubbs

I was always jealous of those girls who had perfectly painted nails that they could do themselves. I would practice and practice and still end up with smudges and paint all over my fingers. I have shaky hands apparently. Then I discovered clear nail polish and that is practically all I use on my fingers now. Helps to keep me from biting them and turning them into stubbs...

However, I DO love a good mani/pedi at a salon. I used to be slightly addicted to them in high school but then realized that I didn't really have the means of income in college to keep up the "mani/pedi" lifestyle. It seems like every salon you go to is the same. You walk in and you are inandated with the strong smell of acrylic nails and polish remover. Then a Koren woman shouts a greeting from the back of the room by the pedicure chairs and trys to upsell you on ever service they offer for "Only six dollar more." Click here to watch a video of Anjelah Johnson a comedian that talks about this whole experiece. It is quite funny.

I don't know why this experience is so great. Maybe it is because of the massage chairs, or the high you get from all the fumes when you leave. But, honestly, I think women just like to be pampered and pretty. And for those of us who can't "paint within the lines" this is a plesent change from the norm of clear polish and bitten nails.

My Fingernails

My fingernails are kinda ugly. They just aren't like pretty fingernails. Pretty fingernails (almost) fit the shape of the fake fingernails you can buy at the dollar store. Pretty fingernails are curved and thin. The grow out and look elegant.

My fingernails, on the other hand (rather, on both hands), are simply none of the above. My fingernails are barely curved. They lazily sit flat and grow flat. Short, square, wide fingernails don't grow out well, they grow out big, and the fake fingernails never fit.

I try to make them pretty (I constantly shove back my cuticles so that the nails look longer). Acutally, I usually just try to keep them from being noticed. That's why I haven't painted my fingernails in years. Painting my nails used to be one of my all time favorite things, but not for a while now. I didn't even bring any nailpolish to school this year.

Frequently, in the evenings, Angela, Marie, and I gather in their room (right next door to mine and Sara's) and spend time together. We talk about boys and pray for comfort and theorize about peace and play with each other's hair. One evening Angela and Marie had this great idea--"Let's paint our nails together."

We all sat down, I sat cross-legged on the floor with polish bottle secured close by and Marie and Angela were in their corresponding ready-to-paint positions (each girl has one, you know, for it is a percarious process--you wouldn't want to spill polish or mess up your nails by slipping and painting "outside the lines"). They smiled as I half-complained, "I don't really like to paint my nails since the polish always chips so quickly." And on we painted.

Heasitantly, I began to slowly but ever so steadily paint the deep red color onto my naturally naked fingernails.

Avoid the cuticle if possible. Not possible.
Oh, bummer! "Where's the remover. I got it on my finger."
Silence. Don't get too much paint on the brush. Ah, It's dripping!
"How's your day, Marie?"
Time for the right hand. Now you'll have to be extra careful painting with your clumsy left hand, Becs.
Why is the opening for the bottle so small?
Finished. Wave your hands around.
"What about you, Ang?"
Keep waving. They'll dry faster.
Just don't hit anything. Don't touch that yet.
"I'm fine. Doing really well, actually..."

For the first few days before the polish began to chip off I noticed my fingers. I really noticed them. And I didn't mind noticing. As I washed my hands, picked up a pencil, lifted a glass to my lips, twisted a door handle, put on my mascara... my hands looked elegant. Wherever they moved, whatever they did, my painted fingernails were pretty.

Football

Autumn brings back tons of memories. Some of my most fond memories are of watching OSU football games with friends and family. Countless times, In Columbus I have shouted "O-H" fondly replied by "I-O" from a random stranger. I have adored gray sweater vests for at least 7 years and can't get enough of "Michigan-is-stupid" jokes. However, this past season I see this tradition of engrossing myself in touchdowns and quarterbacks slipping through my fingers and I am not 100% why.

When I lived in Ohio and Indiana I was always the first one to be in the living room on the couch wearing my Scarlet and Gray at kick off. I think the decline might partially be because the OSU games aren't consistently aired on T.V. down here in the south. The only games you get are SEC stinking FL/Auburn/Bama games...OSU games are only aired when the Bucks are playing a major competitor, probably from the SEC. I also think, contributing to the down slide is the fact that EVERYONE down here is a massive Tennessee Vols fans. It's kinda gross. Let's just say I hate the color orange now.

However, I have come to the conclusion that the main reason I am not an avid watcher of the OSU football this season is because I don't have the family/friend support to do so. It is really tough being a Bucks fan by yourself down here with no one to eat chili with, cheer with, laugh with, cry with, and celebrate with. Non-Buckeye fans are very critical and angry with the Bucks for some reason. I know some of you are thinking, "Man, what a fair-weather fan." but I promise you I am not. My blood runs scarlet and gray no matter what part of the country I am in. Let me close with this about being a fan of The Ohio State University in the south... it's harder than it looks people. It's harder than it looks.