If I'm honest...

If I'm honest I probably won't stick with the original idea for this particular writing but I liked the title so I'm keeping that. Actually, I honestly have no idea what is about to be typed. I'm just going to type and try not to put so much thought in if the subjects go together, if it's something anyone would want to read and so on. So shall we begin...

What is it about saying certain things that suddenly turns it into a competition? If you say you are sick then someone will say something along the lines of, 'Oh I bet you wasn't as sick as I was when...' There are so many examples of how this can happen. In fact, I recently had this happen about vision. I had made a statement something along the lines of I had bad eyesight and couldn't see without my glasses. The person then stated, 'You want to see bad eyesight let me show you my glasses.' and the proceeded to go get their glasses while I'm sitting there thinking when did this become a competition and I'll let you win. Granted I'm a pretty competitive person and hate to lose, although there are times I'll even purposefully lose for various reasons but that's somewhat off point. So I just smiled and agreed as they were pointing out how thick their glasses were and offered to let me look through them to see how bad their vision was which I declined. Since they wanted to make it a competition I'm declaring myself the winner simply because they had to actually go get their glasses while the only time I can take my glasses off is when I'm sleeping and taking a shower. To be honest I've only had these new glasses a couple of weeks and I'm already having trouble reading/seeing certain things. But my whole point was why does it have to become a competition, I just don't understand. It's not really something I want to win at or see the need to make sure I figure out a way that I can win. I'm guessing for the most part people don't even mean, or possibly even realize that it has suddenly turned into a game of I can do one better than that. I know I've done it before and I can't with 100% assurance say that I wasn't trying to do one better or make some now unknown point to the person. Perfect example is my previous statement of declaring myself the winner. Perhaps it just reminds people of something they have gone through and they are trying to point out they have the same problem, even perhaps a little worse, and I'm just taking the whole thing wrong and it seems like they are competing when it isn't the case at all. I don't know because to be honest I don't get people at all. It's kind of but not really like how you can't wait until you get a certain age so people will believe, understand and/or take you more serious. When in reality no matter what age you are someone will, or seemingly, always see you as to young or old to understand, do something, etc. 

I'm not sure, but imagine that I'm not the only one that has certain shows they grew up watching that they still miss watching. Many of the shows I love aired and ended long before I was even born but there were shows that began and ended in my time that I still love to watch. Thanks to reruns and DVD's I can still watch them. One of those shows I've started watching again and still love is Boy Meets World. Even with the inconsistencies in the story lines, especially with how and when Cory and Topanga met, it was still a great show. It's funny how certain characters from shows and books just stick with you and at the mention of them you get a feeling of nostalgia. The Ricardos (I Love Lucy), the Petries (The Dick Van Dyke Show), Darcy and the Bennets or even just the mention of Pemberley (Pride and Prejudice), Narnia, etc....all just a mention of a word will suddenly take you to another time and place that for a moment you can almost wish was real so you could go visit. Sometimes you just need to find a character in a book, television show or even a line in a song to say what you are feeling that you have been having trouble saying. But alas they are not real but that's okay because in some way there is still a little bit of the characteristics of those people in places here in the real world. It's nice to have a little escape but in the end can't beat the characters and places that can be found around you and the story that can be made with them.

If I'm honest I think I'm finished writing now and will leave you with a few pictures I recently took.

Good Title, Where Art Thou?!

Sometimes things happen and they just strike me way funnier then they probably are. Perfect example would be yesterday when I open the door to leave for church  and see five or six cows just standing in the driveway blocking my car. I found it absolutely hilarious. After I had a good laugh and realized they wasn't going to go anywhere anytime soon and I really needed to leave I went walking to my car. Funny moment happened there too because as I was walking this little calf peaked its head around the backside of its mama and then I got major stare downs from a couple of them. I made it to my car getting ready to get in the car and look at the cow that is staring me down and said, 'What don't look at me like that I can't help I got to leave.' So after slowly backing up while honking my horn the cows reluctantly moved out of the way no doubt talking bad about me in cow and I got a good laugh that morning. Guess it was one of those you had to be there moments.

I got to take a little day trip and ended up at Natural Tunnel Park and got to see a blockhouse and learned some very interesting facts about it and the folks that lived in the area at the time. I write that to get to this point: the lady that let me in the house and was telling me all about it made the statement I saw you reading some of the signs on the way up to the house. Now my first thought was oh no I really hope I didn't talk out loud to myself while reading them because I have a very bad habit of doing that. I realize how often I do it especially when I go to the grocery store and have to constantly stop myself from doing that especially when there are people around. Anyway, my second thought was you really don't know who is around and who is watching you. Sadly, all to often a lot of people are just hangin' around watching and waiting to see you fall/fail. I guess if they can point out others faults and shortcomings it helps ease their own conscience and/or take their mind off of their own faults and shortcomings. If you can find people that are there to reach out a hand to help you back up after you fall or fail keep those people around because they are to few and far between. So I guess the lesson is just cause you think no one is watching doesn't mean they aren't so be careful when talking to yourself....or picking your nose...hahahaha!! don't know why I went there but I am so leaving it!

I hate when life gives you pop quizzes, I never did like any kind of tests the whole ordeal just stresses me out. I'm a terrible test taker. For the most part in my tests in life and even back in school days I somehow manage(d) to pass. Granted, sometimes it was barely passing and sometimes I would ace it with a fantastic grade and some I failed and had to retake again.  I always found it odd how the tests I always thought would be so easy sometimes turned out to be the most difficult ones. They took the longest to take, no answer on the choices to pick seemed right, and it seemed to take forever to get the results back to see if you did pass or not. And I'm not just talking about tests I had to take in school that were/are like that.

To conclude this post I figure I'll include a video of a song that I've heard a couple times quite randomly over the weekend. Perhaps I'm trying to be told something! Nah, probably not but it is a good song with a good message.

I'm pretty sure all two people that even read this have seen these pictures and my apologies cause you just got an extended version of a couple of posts on my FB page but either way just in case and just because here are a couple of pictures.

Here We Go Again

On my way home tonight I saw lots of lightening and like I do way to often I had a ridiculous thought. What's that, you'd like to hear it good I was hoping you would. So after a few lightening strikes I thought the angels must be having a photography class. Oh, wait it gets better and by better I mean worse. There was one of those blinding lightening flashes that make it look like daytime and I then say, wait I wasn't ready for the picture. And then people want me to talk more, is this really what y'all want to deal with.

I have decided that the puzzle I started may never end up finished. Again just like life how to often I don't finish what I start or say what I want to say. Eh, maybe I'll keep going back and eventually finish or just lose patience/interest and go to something else. I need to stop doing that so much in life though.

It is no secret I love to read and I started a new book today. What may not be known is there is a certain subject I avoid reading because it hits to close to home, opens emotions and memories I prefer not to visit. I even bought and started reading a book without knowing it dealt with this no need to name subject and I couldn't keep reading it so I gave the book to a friend. So I started reading my book today no big deal until I got to chapter two. That's when I realized it dealt with that thing I don't like reading about. I was really enjoying the story and decided this shouldn't last the whole story so suck it up buttercup and kept reading. I'm now at chapter six and it's still dealing with that but it's not been unbearable and I think I can survive that part to finish the book. Usually I love when I can relate to a character but that one thing I struggle with reading but I'm thinking with this story I may just get something out of it. I've done that, read a story just thinking it'll be a short vacation away from reality but by the time I finish I've gotten so much more out of it.

That's all folks

Life is like a puzzle

Tonight, as boredom reached a height where reading, drawing or watching television just wasn't working I got the bright idea to start a one thousand piece puzzle. It wasn't that bad until after a very long time and I was still separating the pieces then I thought this probably wasn't such a great idea. So there I sit in the floor surrounded by groups of puzzle pieces and that wonderful over thinking/analyzing kicked in once again. Yup, life is like a puzzle, or mine sure seems to be.I try to go and get all the edge pieces and get those put together first. Now in my life when I get that put together that just ain't enough I got to go building more walls up but I digress. So after I get that done, or maybe after or as I'm searching for the edge pieces I separate the other pieces in what part of the puzzle that piece may go. However, you go about starting the puzzle you'll have different pieces all around. Side thought, just like how we all may go about separating and starting a puzzle in different ways but we still end up with a completed puzzle how people start out on their journey may not be the way we'd go about getting to the destination but that doesn't mean that person is wrong. It's like someone wanting to take a trip to California and they tell someone they are driving out there but that person asks why would they do that when they could fly and get there much quicker. Both ways of transportation are fine and will get the person to their destination but what matters is that the person takes the route they want because it makes them more comfortable and it allows them to make the stops they want to because sometimes no matter which way you go there may be unforseen delays so you may as well be on the road in the mode of transportation you want to be in for those possible delays.  Anyway, sorry for that slight delay due to side thought, now back to another thought. After I got the pieces separated I began to try to put the pieces together but that wasn't going so well. It got to the point I was just staring at the pieces and could see somehow they could and would fit to make the picture on the box but no matter what pieces I picked up they wouldn't fit even though at first glance they very much looked like they would fit. Life feels like that sometimes. You see pieces and they look like they'd be a perfect fit but sometimes quickly and sometimes after awhile you realize they just don't fit. Then there are times you get on a roll and the pieces are lining up perfectly only for you to be unable to find that one piece to keep going. You look everywhere and just can't find it so you panic thinking they didn't put that one piece in the bag or you somehow accidentally threw it away. However, that piece is almost always found and usually right where you looked several times just like that puzzle called life. Just like how it can get frustrating when you try to find that lost piece or cannot get the easiest part of the puzzle together no matter how much you try life can get that way too. Sometimes you just want to give up put all of the pieces in the box and forget it and run as far away as possible. Granted, in life sometimes walking away is the best decision but there are times when we want to give up that we don't even realize just how close we really are to that goal. It's like how sometimes you hear that faint little voice that whispers try one more time. Sometimes you do and sometimes you don't. If you try again perhaps you find you actually manage to put a couple pieces together and sometimes you try again and don't get any pieces together but you can still see how eventually, in some way, the pieces will fit together.  So basically, no matter how scattered the pieces are, very few pieces are being put together, or it is taking you longer to get the puzzle put together then you or others think it should just remember eventually the puzzle will be complete and it is worth all the troubles, delays and such to get to see what the final piece looks like. Because unlike the real puzzles there is no box to look at to see if you're putting the piece in the right place or not but that's what makes life better than the puzzles because the picture can be changed and it's not limited to the picture on the box. But neither puzzle will get finished if you don't try to put pieces together and I think I've used the word puzzle enough so this sentence shall conclude another post...

Driving through a storm

I had a fantastic opening sentence and a half way decent idea to write about but that was while I was trying to sleep and I knew  by the time I turned on the light and got my journal the thought would have left and unfortunately it didn't stick around so I could remember it this morning so this is the not nearly as good first sentence you get to read. And now if you so choose to continue reading you are stuck with the current thoughts rolling around in my head. I've pretty much given up trying to figure out how I get what I get out of the things I see around me and just try to take it and put it in my file for when it will help me at a later date or help me figure out what I'm currently going through or even use it to help someone else out. Yesterday I needed to run an errand and I decided to do that right in the middle of a severe thunderstorm because that's just what great timing I tend to have. I love storms but hate driving in them. It was a good one to with the can't even see the lines in the road or a car in front of you kind of heavy rain, windy and even some hail. In hindsight and even at the moment I realized this was the perfect real life analogy of the way I've been feeling and such. So I'm driving hoping I'm on my side of the road and thinking boy I'll be glad when I've drove through this storm (and how many times does that not apply to those 'storms' in life). Well I made it to my destination fine get that over with and I'm driving somewhere else and as I'm going down the road on one side of me is clearing up the light from the sun reflecting on the remaining clouds is making a beautiful scene and then on the other side it's dark, cloudy, lightening, it just looks like it could come another bad storm any minute and here I am driving down the road right between the two of these scenes. Now at this point I had a well huh if that ain't a perfect real life scenario of how life can be. Bear with me I went somewhere with this, it still probably won't make sense, but still bear with me. Picture it: in the little car called life and driving down the road and you look to the side and see what could potentially be a bad storm coming your way, or perhaps you're driving in that bad storm right now. So you're attention gets drawn, as it naturally would, to the storm and all that could happen in it but you take a quick glance away from the storm and something catches your eye. You turn your attention to the other side of the road and you see a clearing, I don't know maybe you even see a bit of a rainbow (I feel like I just turned into Bob Ross talking about what we are going to paint, just don't forget to paint a friend for your tree!). Anyway, you see that if you keep going you'll get to that clearing eventually. Even though you may have to face a few more storms before you finally reach that clearing you do end up getting there. Yeah, from driving through a storm I got the thought of how easy it can be to focus more or even get lost in the storm but if you remember to look back to the road you may find you aren't that far off of the trail and above all else you may see that clearing and realize that with one simple turn or even just staying on the road you're on your way to that clearing and the view is totally worth the storm that you just drove through. Doesn't always make it any easier or fun to have to drive through those storms, the real or hypothetical ones, but it's the journey to our destination where the stories get written, learned and shared and sometimes it takes a storm to finish or start a story. Just like that storm I drove through yesterday I've made it through the other side and to the clearing on my most recent storm and many I've had to face in the past. I know I got many more to to drive through on this road called life but storms are needed to appreciate the sunny days. Sometimes it's the only way I can finally see the clearing because the darkest hour is just before the dawn.

There's no real reason to adding the video, I guess if you gave me enough time I could figure out a way how it somehow goes with this, but I just really like the song and wanted to add a video just because so that's what I did!

Patience is a Virtue

Jonathan: Come on Evey faster!

Evelyn: Patience is a virtue!

Rick O'Connell: Not right now it isn't! 

 

Why am I starting this post with a quote from The Mummy, besides that it is one of my many favorite quotes from that movie, and I couldn't figure out any other way to start it out. Sometimes I feel like life is the Evelyn character and I'm Rick because some days I just don't feel like patience is such a virtue and I ran out of my supply, or more accurately I just misplaced it and no amount of retracing my steps is helping me find it. Or just for the fun of it here's another analogy, it's like not wanting to go for a ride but someone promising they won't go that far and you'll be back in no time only for them to get you in the car and their version of a not long car ride includes going through multiple counties and stopping for all kinds of errands all while they ask if you care if they go/stop here and you give your best evil look all while saying nope. Life is the driver and you are the passenger that got lied to and now are in a ride you are wondering when it will stop for a much needed break that will get you back to where you want to be. So in the real life version of that, because that has totally happened to me, I don't really have much control over when the person takes me back home but in my hypothetical life as the driver I do have a bit more control although sometimes I think I forget that and let life take over and drive me around in circles while I'm over there in the passenger seat having lost all patience and just not seeing the whole picture or point to any of this. Then suddenly, perhaps while sitting at one of the red lights that are holding forever, it suddenly dawns on me that I started out as the driver on this ride to begin with and I can take back control anytime I want to so just before that light finally turns green I put my life back where it belongs and take back over driving duties. Like it says in the song Not Gonna Die by Skillet, when life pushes me I push harder what doesn't kill me makes me stronger. 

 

Looking at a situation and seeing many, many different possible scenarios can be a blessing and a curse, some days I'd lean mostly toward curse.  For example, back to the patience example. I reluctantly can admit that I don't have much patience so it easily can get buried by all those scenarios I come up with in a situation or all those frustrations that I keep bottled up so that even when I try to retrace my steps I have my patience so buried with junk that I can't find it. Usually that means I'll only find it when I've really lost my patience and then enough of that junk gets moved so I find my little treasure of patience where it had gotten buried and promise that I will put it in a safe place so I won't lose it again, only to often to have that cycle repeated at some point again in the future. It seems I can't ever find a decent enough place to keep my patience so it won't get buried and I can remember where it is. Although there are times that I can see what has happened and to try to prevent a true loss of my patience I'll try to muster up enough courage to bother one of the very, and I do mean very, few people I can kinda sorta just a little bit open up to and get just enough out of that pit so it's not so full and the risk of an unnecessary eruption can be avoided. 

So I guess after many not needed analogies and the like the point is that patience really is a virtue and in every situation it's worth one more look to find it and make sure you have enough before you face something, or someone and end up saying or doing something without enough thought or patience that you have to eat your words and apologize for the wrong that may have been done. Easier said than done I know as for me I know I'm going to mess up but I won't use that as an excuse to not try to be prepared and potentially avoid a mess up. And when all my steps and tries still aren't enough and I mess up I just try to quickly make it as right as possible, apologize etc and say, 'uh, it's me again God. You know that one thing I thought I could fix and do alright on my own with, well turns out I was wrong I still need your help and most importantly forgiveness for....' I was once told we're not perfect but we just keep asking God to help us and I have to remind myself of that a lot. And I guess that's all I got to say about that, I got to go find my patience before it gets buried any deeper!