25 Before 25

I'm not big on the whole "New Year's Resolution" thing. Why should I set myself up with goals that I know I will not meet. I'm done with the weigh less, look prettier, finally find love crap that I always set myself up with.

That being said, I do have things that I would like to do over the next few years. Jon Acuff, the writer of the Stuff Christians Like book as well as the blog by the same name, recently posted his "40 before 40 list". It inspired me to do the same thing. Instead of doing 40 though, I am focusing on a closer birthday. My 25th birthday. That gives me a little over 3 years to accomplish the things on my list. So without further ado, here is my 25 before 25 list.

My 25 Before 25
1. Graduate from college
2. Run a 5k
3. Start my own business
4. Go to Time Square for the New Year's Eve ball drop
5. Become better at slowing down and enjoying the moment
6. Weigh less so I have more energy and get off the sidelines.
7. Learn biblical Hebrew and Greek
8. Take dancing lessons
9. Learn to play the guitar better
10. Visit Martha in Buffalo
11. Go on a mission trip to Haiti
12. Move out of my parents' house
13. Buy my first car
14. Go geocaching and actually find something
15. Help (at least) one person to become more compassionate toward the world outside of the USA
16. Spend less time angry with God, and more time in praise-filled prayer
17. Go on a cross-country road trip
18. Spend time in Seattle
19. Help build a house (with Habitat or another group)
20. Go back to New Orleans to help with the rebuilding
21. Visit Ground Zero in New York
22. Go to Daytona for the Student Life at the Beach youth conference.
23. Go back to DC for a little while
24.Try Deep Fried Kool-Aid
25. Pay off all or most of my student loans (this one may be a stretch, but a girl can dream)

As I accomplish things on this list I will cross them off right here. That way, by my 25th birthday I will have a totally crossed off list. That day will be such a good day; one truly worth celebrating. :)

BTW: If you want to buy Acuff's book (which I would highly suggest), you can do that here.
Or you can check out his blog here.
And here is a link to his "40 before 40 list", just for good measure.

Chazown By Craig Groeschel

Chazown is a really interesting and thought provoking book. Craig Groeschel leads you through a number of different categories and life circumstances that help in the discovery of what it is that God created you for. He helps you to discover what your core values and your spiritual gifts are, as well as what past experiences helped form you into the person God desires you to be. According to Groeschel, where these three overlap you can see what God's vision is for you life (your Chazown).

It is a very well written and well thought out book with a strong biblical base. I had a difficult time with was that some of the chapters seemed to be geared towards someone who was older than my 21 years. Eventually, however, I will be at the point in my life where those chapters fit better. So, that's not much of a quarrel, and more of a need to wait and read it again later.

This book is absolutely worth the money ($14.99) that it is listed for on the back cover. It facilitated many nights of retrospection and introspection. Both of those lead to some very surprising, and oddly comforting, realizations about my life and future. I would highly recommend this book.

Buy it here.

Kitamu Coffee

A new coffee shop opened in the Tinapple shopping center in Hilliard recently. There used to be another coffee shop there, but they recently went out of business. I think the lack of traffic had to do with that. The shop is hard to notice from the road because it is in a little shopping center that I regularly just drive past without looking at it.

The new shop is called Kitamu Coffee.The name, according to their Twitter (@kitamucoffee) means tasty, which is an incredibly fitting name. There coffee was very good, which is to be expected since they get their coffee from Stauf's. I was very excited to see they have a pumpkin pie latte.

The shop itself is very warm. The burnt orange, browns and olive(ish) greens keep it very earthy, but make it warm and inviting as well. The walls are decorated with different styles of art. From photographs to an impressionist painting, different local artists are represented. While that is nice, the art doesn't really unify the whole shop. However, they have only been open for a week now; maybe that will become more cohesive with time.

I went to Kitamu twice over the long weekend. On Saturday, when I was working on my Race and Ethnicity midterm I was a little disappointed. This was only at first, and because the customers at the shop were literally 7 years (at least) younger than me. They were running around like maniacs, but then again that is exactly what my friends did in middle school and early high school. Once they left the shop was much quieter and a lot more pleasant.

The staff are fantastic. I was talking with the owner, Mahmood, about my midterm and then when I went back today we talked about fall. I was saying that I love fall, because the pumpkin lattes are available, unlike the rest of the year. He told me that the Kitamu staff is considering keeping that as a year-round flavor. That means I could get a pumpkin latte in the middle of July if I wanted to. Very little makes me happier. :) One of the baristas, Harris, is also quite friendly.

On a whole, I am really excited for this new coffee shop to be opening here in Hilliard. We need a quality independent shop that can compete with Starbucks. I'm hoping the word will spread and this shop can flourish.

Coffee: ☺☺☺☺☺
Staff: ☺☺☺☺☺
Location: ☺☺☺
Decor: ☺☺☺☺
Overall: ☺☺☺☺

moving

Well, over the next two weekends my family is going to be moving. We didn't end up being able to buy the house. I'm really not ok with this. I don't want to leave my house. We have so many friends near by. I don't want to have to try and restart making relationships with the neighbors. I don't want to have to have a different room, or driveway. I don't want to move.

I don't think its fair. I feel like bad stuff always happens to my family. Every time I think we might be about to catch a break the rug is yanked out from under us and bad shit starts all over again! I'm starting to worry that there will never be an end to it. Is this going to follow me into my adult life as well? Am I going to die a lonely and bitter woman who never had a chance to feel comfortable in her surroundings or her own skin? When will it end?

I have such big hopes and plans, but it's hard to think that I will achieve any of the goals I have set in front of myself. I don't know how to beat it. Dad always tells me he wants me to do better than he did. I don't know how to. I feel like I'm trapped where I am. I will never move up the socio-economic ladder. Not just that, but I will never have the opportunities that I hope and pray are available to me. What do I do with that? How do I fix that? I didn't choose to have all of this thrust onto my shoulders.

I don't feel smart enough to do anything about my desire to be a professor. I don't think I will ever be at that point. Professor just know everything. I don't. No one should listen to me, I have no authority. I act like I know whats happening, but I don't really feel like I do. I feel like it's a fluke that I have gotten this far. Is that possible? Could it be a mistake that I have done well in school?

I feel like I have so many lies to try and fight. Lies like I'm not smart, I am not pretty, I am not worth people's time, I am weak. How can I beat these when I am so tired and I don't feel like many people tell me otherwise? Sometimes I just want to give in to the melancholy and let it consume me. What would be the problem with that? Maybe that is who I really am, maybe my life will be less disappointing if I don't think anything good will ever happen to me. Then I won't be let down.

Guilty Pleasure

I've discovered a "new" guilty pleasure. I use the word new loosely, since it's one I've had for quite sometime, but haven't really put a name to it. Said indulgence is found in hokey supernatural movies. We're talking movies like The Order, and Dogma. Tonight, I really wanted to watch one that I watched last year. It's called Ba'al: The Storm God. Yes, it is as wonderfully awful as it sounds. Well, they didn't have it and I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty bummed out. But instead I rented Dogma and a movie called Gabriel that is advertised as similar to Ba'al on some websites, so I figured it would be a safe bet. I'll know tomorrow after I watch it.

I think my favorite part about these kinds of movies (other than the obvious religious ties running through them) would be the tag lines. For example, the tag line of Gabriel is "Between Heaven and Hell lies the fate of mankind." Like, how epic is that!

Anyways, I really need to go to sleep. I have a pretty big day tomorrow. It's Family Weekend, meaning mom (and maybe dad?) are coming to visit for Senior Wine and Cheese. I'm really excited, so I need to catch some sleep. I'll update on the epicness that is Gabriel tomorrow. :)

In A Tight Spot

So, buying the house seems to have fallen through. We couldn't fix our credit score enough to get the loan to buy the house. I'm really worried about what that means for my family and myself. Mom emailed Pastor Paul at my church and asked if there was anyone who wanted to buy our house to rent to us for the next year until we can fix our credit and get the loan. We haven't heard back yet though. I'm really concerned that he's not going to help us. I don't think he likes me very much and I'm nervous that he will take that out on my family.

Last year when our church first started talking about leaving the ELCA I wrote him a letter detailing why I thought it was the wrong move. I did that in September and didn't hear back from him until like November. His letter back was pretty curt and didn't really seem pleasant. Now, I could very easily be reading into it emotions that aren't there and I acknowledge that possibility. However, when I stood up in our town hall meetings to discuss this issue he seemed to not be happy to see me. It could be something else. I'll be honest, I haven't dealt with him much before this, so it could just be his personality, but I don't know.

If he doesn't help us with the house because of me, I'm going to be so upset. I don't know how I will handle that. I'm not going to do anything stupid, but it's probably not going to be very productive either.

I feel like through all of this madness God and I have become pretty tight. But I still doubt that this will all work out. Like, I know in my head He is going to take care of my family and me, but in my heart I feel like I'm going to be let down. Why do I feel like this? I mean, He's God! He can do whatever the hell he wants. Maybe that's why it scares me. He can do what He wants. Like, maybe He wants my family to in essence be homeless. Maybe He want's me to suffer for some reason. I don't know, and that terrifies me. Does that make me a bad Christian? Probably...

Oh! So, I'm going on the Common Ground retreat tonight. I'm not staying over, because I have way too much work, but I'm going to go for a while. I'm really looking forward to it. I heard great things about the one from last year, and I'm hoping this will give me a chance to work somethings out with God.

Right now, I have a ton of homework and a headache that is rivaling a migraine. So I'm going to go to Un Mundo and work for a couple hours and drink some coffee and eat some lunch/dinner and hope everything works out.

Housing Update

Ok, so here is the latest on the house situation. We are going to try and buy it. Actually, Mom and Dad put in an offer yesterday. I guess as long as we get approval by the morgage company we are good to go.

In other news, I got a haircut today. It's a little shorter than I wanted but I know it will grow out to a good length in a couple weeks. So that's cool.

Ok, I'm off to bed. Night!