It's almost 3AM and I can't sleep. Today was bizarre. This cold weather is depressing and there's no sun, only grey. Today my mom and I helped my sister paint her office. It was fun but exhausting-it took all day. And now I think I had too much caffeine, since I can't sleep and my heart is racing.

There was a terrible shooting in Arizona today, it's so sad. A congresswoman and other innocent people were brutally shot, her in the head, others fatally. Apparently she is hanging in there. It makes me sick, and so sad. I keep thinking, this happened in America? It's the times, I think. Bad news from every which way.

I can't wait for the Spring. School is starting soon, and the weather will be changing, finally. I can't wait for a beautiful Northern California spring. I just have a good feeling about this new year. Maybe the more I say it, the better chance that good things will happen.

What a great day! I got my car back from the shop and I am thanking God that it was something minor this time. My car truly has 9 lives.
Yesterday I wanted to explore the Sac City campus so I took the light rail down there, always an experience. It wasn't bad... I think I'm going to try and take it most days. I'm just in such a good mood because of my car, and I am having one of those motivated/excited/inspired days. If I could control it, I'd feel like this every day.

WOW. BLOOD ORANGE SODA is delicious. Until next time, Goodbye!

woes!

Yesterday I wrote an entry about worrying and how it gets nothing done, because I had been stressing about debt and money and everything people worry about. I felt pretty darn good after I wrote that and I decided I'm going to force myself to make this a good year, worry-free and taking chances. A couple hours later, my CAR broke down!! It's funny really, because, I was just asking for it.
But in all seriousness, this car is definitely on her last leg, and has been for quite some time. And I told my mom, 'Ya know? This is almost a relief. The one good thing about your car breaking down is no longer worrying about your car breaking down!' I really feel like "stuff" just weighs us down and adds stress.
Anyway. My last two entries have BEEN stressful, it just seeps out of me.
Finally, I would like to add, another of my goals this year is to meet more new people, because I forget how nice it is. :)

so this is the new year

Thank God for this new year! I know it's purely symbolic but I need a new start. Only problem is, I'm already starting it with fears and stress and worrying. If I wasn't worrying about something, I wouldn't know what to do with myself. If I wasn't scared of EVERYTHING, I wouldn't know how to do anything. Why is it so easy to say that I want to be fearless, and know that it's how I should live my life, and yet I can't actually put it in practice? I'm afraid I'll make a huge mistake and have big regrets, but if I do nothing and be paralyzed by fear, what greater regret could there be than that?
Anyway, this year MUST be the year of action, and being fearless, and getting out of my anxious head, and making decisions for myself instead of waiting for others to tell me what to do. I feel like a lot of this is recent, so I know I can change. And no matter how in over my head I feel, I know there's always a solution. I have people that I love, and I love God, and I can just take deep breaths and remind myself that life is hard for everyone but we all just have to keep moving on.

"existing's tricky: but to live's a gift." -e.e. cummings

I already know what I know, (but sometimes it's easy to ignore what I already know)
Jesus says, "Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?...Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6:26,34

worth fighting for

Frodo: I can't do this, Sam.
Sam: I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.
Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?
Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for.

Christmas Partying

Last night I went with my mom to a Foster Care Christmas party, where the families, kids, and prospective foster parents get together and meet one another with some yummy food. This hall they rented out was so beautifully decorated with lights and trees, and they had activities for the kids. I have never seen more adorable kids in all my life; I wanted to hug them and squeeze them to death. And when Santa made a surprise visit and the kids started screaming and jumping up and down and running up to him to hug him, I almost cried it was S'DARN CUTE!!!! I love Christmas, even though this year it just doesn't feel like it's that time of year. Next week when we go to Victorian Christmas in Nevada City maybe it will get me into the spirit.

Tonight I'm flying out to Long Beach to meet up with red Rachel for her birthday, we're (most likely) going to San Diego on Friday. Definitely, nothing screams Christmas like Southern California!

e.e. cummings

a wind has blown the rain away and blown
the sky away and all the leaves away,
and the trees stand. I think i too have known
autumn too long

(and what have you to say,
wind wind wind--did you love somebody
and have you the petal of somewhere in your heart
pinched from dumb summer?
O crazy daddy
of death dance cruelly for us and start
the last leaf whirling in the final brain
of air!)Let us as we have seen see
doom's integration.........a wind has blown the rain

away and the leaves and the sky and the
trees stand:
the trees stand. The trees,
suddenly wait against the moon's face.