Like a Zipper

"What if things are actually falling into place?"

This is a recurring question in my conversations with God as of late. This familiar conversation ("I feel like everything's falling apart." "What if it's actually falling into place?" "Well, maybe I'd rather have it actually fall apart so I'd feel better.") has taken place multiple times over the last month or so. It's a very small picture of the circular pattern of thought that's been hamster-wheeling through my head about God's perspective and free will versus predestination.

When I was (much) younger, I spent a good deal of time on a message board community based on the audio series Adventures in Odyssey. My favorite board was the debate board (which really shouldn't surprise anybody that knew me between the ages of let's say 11-17 or so). I distinctly remember the topic of predestination coming up a handful of times and a few of them got particularly ugly. I've been fascinated with the tension of this discussion ever since. Not because I want to explain it, but because the very nature of its inexplicability speaks something very special to me about the sovereignty and mystery of God.

For another (seemingly unrelated) piece of the puzzle, I go through seasons where I have a passion to wrestle in prayer. Unfortunately (or not?), my heart is usually not in praying for the nations or the lost (yet), but for the people in my life and their life situations (as well as my own). Last night, as I was writing a list of the things that are currently on my heart, I started to muse on the idea of wrestling in prayer. I know two seemingly contradictory facts: (1) God is sovereign and all-powerful; (2) He invites us to participate with Him in prayer.

Now, how can our prayers change anything when God has all the power to do whatever He wants and knows exactly what's going to happen? His plan can't depend on the participation of people with free will because then He would cease to be all powerful, given that the plan would fall apart if the free will of the people didn't line up with His (sin?). I can feel my brain getting dizzy even as I start this spiral of thought.

In any event, however it works, whatever the reason, I do believe that God hears our prayers and that persistent prayer can change things. How? I don't know. Maybe because God "foreknew" that a particular person was going to pray for a particular thing and accounted for it in His plan. But what if that person decided not to pray that thing for whatever reason that day? Would it change God's plan? No, because God would know the person wasn't going to pray it. This, again, is where my brain starts hurting and I fall back into blissful dependence on worshiping a God surrounded by "clouds and thick darkness" (Psalm 97:2).

What does this have to do with my dialogue with God (or a zipper!)? I feel like things are falling apart. But my sovereign, mysterious God knows exactly what's happening. He can see from the beginning of my life clear through to the end and knows with complete clarity and infinite wisdom what pieces are falling where and how close (or far) they are to (or from) where they are supposed to be. What if when I felt most like everything was falling into place it really was the furthest from where it was supposed to be? What if when things feel least peaceful or most tumultuous they're actually much closer to where they are supposed to be? (I'm not trying to say at all that this is a standard for all situations or all individuals, though there is a prevailing truth that God is closest to the broken and weak, so maybe I'm not as far off as I think I might be.)

God hardened Pharaoh's heart (Exodus 10:1, which is remarkable to me because God even gave Moses a reason why He was doing something that seemed a lot more like "falling part" than "coming together"). God gave Daniel favor in the eyes of his superiors (Daniel 1:9). God can change the hearts of people. What God wants done, He will make happen. Does that mean I believe that every person that doesn't do what I think they should has had their heart hardened by God? No. Not at all. Does it mean that I think every time I have favor with someone God has divinely and miraculously moved? No. That leans a little too much towards the God is to us as we are to Sims argument for my taste. But I do very much like the idea that God has the power to change people's hearts and will exert that power if necessary. It makes it much easier for me to believe that I'm actually in the middle of a plan that is going somewhere, rather than a forgotten afterthought.

So what about the zipper? What is a zipper, exactly? Two separate pieces of fabric that have to be precisely lined up (have you ever tried to sew a zipper onto clothes?), shaped properly, and brought together by a third piece. (See where I'm going with this?) While I was praying earlier (yes, that "falling apart" dialogue may have been the origin of this line of thought), I saw a picture of a zipper... working like a zipper should: bringing things together. What if things are actually coming together? What if I'm one of those pieces of fabric--precisely lined up and shaped properly--in the process of being brought into place by a third piece? What if the feeling of everything falling apart is the very real feeling of being stretched and pulled apart from whatever's on the other side of the fabric?

I'd Rather Be an R Than a Z

aka The Embarrassingly Contemplative Thoughts Mandy Has While Playing Words with Friends

I was looking over my letters the other day and thought, "Stupid R. It's not worth anything. Why do we even have Rs. Rs should be struck from the language. I would really hate to be an R, if I were a letter."

Then, I realized....

Rs are really useful and it's often difficult to make words without Rs and other low-scoring letters. This is why they score so low. But think about it . . . Zs are a flash in the pan, one-time-use type of letter. Sure, they score a lot, but their use is very limited and quickly outlived.

I'd much rather be an R.

Day 20: Current Events

Yes, I skipped yesterday. It was somewhat intentional. I got home after midnight and was much too tired to blog and instead fell asleep on the couch.

Quite honestly, I can't think of a single current event that interests me off the top of my head, so I'm going to find a top-10 news stories site and choose one.

...

All right. Really, the only current event that at all piqued my interest was the tornados in Missouri. Because I have friends in Missouri. They were all fine, but after two-and-a-half years of laughing at every single earthquake we have here in California, they finally have tornado stories.

Day 19: A New Home

If I could live anywhere in the world, I would live in Northern Ireland, I think. Somewhere that has ocean nearby, lots of nature and green, lots of rain, and sometimes snow. I loved the more mountainy parts of Oregon I saw, too. But it's so much more exciting to say Northern Ireland.

Truthfully, though, I'd rather live where I live and put up with the heat and dry but have the people in my life than live somewhere rainy and cool and beautiful without them.

So, not terribly long or interesting at all, but all I have to say on the topic.

Day 18: Joys

People make me happy. Rain makes me happy. Snow makes me happy.

These are things about the world that make me happy. Especially people in the rain or snow. Really, people anywhere. Good company in the back of my car is far more fun than being by myself at Disneyland (one of my favorite places). I'd much rather eat a salad with a good group of people than bacon by myself. (Shocking, I know.) Apart from the "Conversations" post on Day 9, I don't have much else to say about what makes me happy.

The challenge of getting to know people and so-called "inclement" weather. That's what makes me happy in the world.

Day 17: Annoyances

Prompt: "Something about the world that annoys you."

If we're speaking strictly of the physical world, I'm annoyed by the fact that I live on a part of it that gets so warm. But that's not really what we're asking.

The thing that gets under my skin the most is bad grammar. Sometimes in speaking (though I'm not frequently around people that often use bad grammar) but primarily in writing. I've recently (as in, in the last hour or two) realized that I get quite annoyed by people that use big words to mask insecurity in writing.

I would far rather read a paragraph comprised entirely of one- and two-syllable words that made grammatical sense than a paragraph filled with lofty-sounding words strung together that make little or no sense.

Now, I'm not without my faults. I would by no means purport to have perfect grammar. (If you like, revisit my 15 facts wherein we discover that for most of my life I misspelled "ridiculous" and to this day consistently misspell "occasionally" [as I just did and had to re-type it, as a matter of fact; but I got it right the second time].)

Grammar pet peeves (in no particular order):

• "Could care less." If you could care less, why bother saying anything? It's like trying to say the water's too cold and instead saying "it could be colder." Or trying to say you really want something and instead saying "I could want it more." Or trying to say that you don't care about something at all and instead saying it would be possible to care less (which, if I'm not mistaken, is actually the case).


• Lie vs. lay. Lay requires a direct object. Lie does not. It's quite simple. If you don't know what a direct object is, imagine the actual thing of which you're speaking in your bed and see if it works. "I am (lying/laying) on the bed." I should be in bed, so it's "lying!". "The hen is (lying/laying) eggs." I'd really rather not go to bed if there are eggs in process of being laid. "Let me (lie/lay) these groceries on the counter." If you leave the groceries in bed, they'll spoil. Bad idea. "Let me (lay/lie) down and rest for a minute." I suppose you can rest anywhere. The floor; your car; inside a dryer*. But truthfully, the best place to lie down and rest is your bed. Which is where I should be. All right, perhaps it doesn't work in every situation. So you should probably ignore my advice and just figure out what a direct object is. But it was a fun ride, no?


• Unknown past participles. "Swum," "drunk," and "woken" are actually really terrible. I'm not going to argue that. But especially the misuse (or lack of use) of "woken" really bothers me. If it hurts you that much to say such an ugly (yet correct) word, just say "awakened." Yes, you sound pretentious. But those are really your only two options. (Unless, of course, you restructure the whole sentence and just take responsibility for the time you awoke and say, "I had gotten out of bed at..." Or you could go with "roused." I think I much prefer that option to any of the aforementioned. One of my friends (to be left unnamed) who has impeccable grammar the majority of the time consistently uses "ran" as the past participle of "to run." It bothers me every time.


• The "I" vs. "Me" debate. I'm so over "I" being used as the object of sentences because so many of us have heard the correction, "Sammy and I want to grow up to be fat and lazy." Really, it's not correct in all situations. If it's the object of a sentence, it's "me". Unless of course, it comes with an unstated conjugation of "to be," most often following a comparison with "than" (e.g., "Cara is far more noxious than I [am]," or "Though Patrick may have well-defined abs, Theodore's noble chin makes him far more attractive than he [is]." Though the latter comes with its own pet peeve....).


• Poorly constructed sentences that leave the listener/reader unclear to what the modifier refers. "Eli bought a cat but then he got hit by a car." The cat or Eli? Should I be panicked or elated? (There's a lot of cat-hating going on in this post; I apologize. I don't hate cats. Specifically. I'm more of an equal-opportunity animal critic.) "Joe went to buy a car, but before he decided to spend the money, he wanted to buy a cup of coffee and a scone, but then he decided it was too expensive." The coffee? The scone? The car? If he thought the scone was too expensive, what business did he have going to buy a car? Or perhaps that was the problem. He was spending so much on a car, he couldn't bear to spend $8 at Starbuck's. But we'll never know will we? (I don't even know and I wrote it.)


• Questions that aren't really questions. "Jim and I were wondering if you and Kate would like to come over for dinner Saturday night." If I were having a bad day**, I might not respond at all to this, honestly. I am that snarky. It doesn't beg a response. In fact, it begs a non-response. If I'm in a bad mood, Jim and Shelley will continue to wonder if Kate and I would like to come to dinner because they have yet to ask. But probably only if it was a really bad day and I didn't particularly care for Jim and Shelley.


• Saying "do you want" instead of "will you please." My answer will almost always be "no" to the former if I feel like it should have been phrased as the latter. Luckily for me and everyone around me, I've learned to keep this gut-response "no" inside my head and respond as a decent human being.

Although, now we've spring-boarded into a whole new world of word choice as opposed to grammar. My final bullet is not so much a grammar issue as it is a communication issue.

There are probably quite a few grammar mistakes hidden within these words. I quite honestly didn't care enough to thoroughly proof-read. There are also probably quite a few personal stylizations (nope, not actually a word) that don't fit into proper grammar rules (I point you to the above statement "I'm so over..."). This is a blog. It was never intended to be an academic paper or a comprehensive grammar manual. It was intended to be a fun (and now, I'm sure, quite terrifying) peak into my head. If you, as a reader, would like to compile a list of all my errors and post them in a comment, feel free.

I may have to buy you a cup of coffee for your efforts.

*If you're a cat, maybe. A suicidal cat.

**I took this opportunity to finally research the past subjunctive conjugation of "to be," because saying "I were" has always felt strange to me. If you don't know what subjunctive is, you probably never learned a foreign language. I didn't even know there was a subjunctive until I learned it in Spanish 2.

Day 16: Three Wishes

I've never been much for these questions. It's hard for me to come up with material things I'd want to ask for and if I ask for concepts, I feel pretentious. Off the top of my head, three things I would ask for:

1. A grand piano. Or a baby grand. I'm not picky. I have a dream of having a grand piano some day.

2. A house in which to put this grand piano. If I'm going to be specific, I'd like a big house. Maybe 4 bedrooms and a couple of bathrooms. Jacuzzi, for sure.

3. Someone willing to pay to let me record some stuff. No, not unlimited money. Not even a finite amount of money. Someone in one of my classes had someone give her $1000 to record as much as she could. Something like that. Like, "I'll pay for you to record five songs." Or something like that.

Not terribly exciting, I guess. But maybe I'm just too practical to be terribly exciting.

Day 15: The Future

(By my own rules, I've failed since it's after midnight; by other people's rules, however, it's still before I go to bed, so it's technically within a day. Besides, I'm doing too well to give up now because of 56 minutes.)

When I was 8, I wanted to be a mom and a doctor (specifically, an obstetrician).

Now, I want to be a mom. So, not much has changed except I realized being a doctor and being the kind of mom I want to be were mutually exclusive. I chose the one that was most important to me.

I want to be a worship leader; I want to be a good (future) wife; I want to be the kind of person that speaks life to those around me; I want to be a good friend. So, I guess I want to be a lot of things. Not just when I "grow up," but now. As I'm in the process of growing up.

Day 14: Literature

I read mostly non-fiction. Spiritual formation, relationship/communication, biographies, educational . . . for the most part, that's what I read.

If I do read fiction, it's mostly classics (apart from "Redeeming Love" and a Lori Wick book called "The Princess"):

• Anne of Green Gables
• Elsie Dinsmore
• Chronicles of Narnia

...

That's all I can think of at the moment. I really don't read fiction all that often.

Day 13: A Day Out

My default outing is Disneyland. It's not just that I like Disneyland. But I find Disneyland is a good setting for some really good times with people I love. You have a lot of time for conversation, a lot of fodder for conversation, and there are rides and shows on top of all that.

Other than that, I'm pretty simple. A good outing could be a latte at a coffee shop; a game of catch with a softball and gloves or a football; a drive up to the mountains to play in the snow; even just running random errands can be a real treat (honestly, though it sounds sarcastic) with someone (or a group of someones) if the conversation makes it worth it.

And that's all that it comes down to for me. Like I said back on Day 9: it's all about the conversation. This is the number one reason why I've never been a particular fan of going to a movie theatre. It's fine if there's something I really want to see and I want to be by myself. But I enjoy movies a lot more when there's some amount of discussion allowed without everyone around getting upset about the talking.

Really, anything can make a good outing in the right company.

Day 12: An Average Day

An average day will have four components:

1. Some amount of social interaction.

2. Some church appointment or meeting or service or something.

3. Some amount of Netflix (TV or movie).

4. Some reading.

That's the only way I can really generalize my days. I spend much of them at church. Sometimes even when I don't have a real reason. I like to go out and have lunch or hang out with people frequently. If I don't have anything to do and am feeling well, I'll read. If it's late or I want to multitask or I'm bored or don't feel well, I'll watch a movie or a TV show. There will most likely be coffee (preferably a latte) and music mixed in there somewhere. Usually some online social networking will occur.

An average day.

Day 11: My Dream Pet

I once watched a pet-related show on a Saturday afternoon. The pet expert guy was describing how to care for a certain animal and the joys of owning this animal.

I decided I wanted one.

A pygmy hedgehog. An illegal-in-California pygmy hedgehog. They have soft bellies, apparently. And they are absolutely, heart-melting adorable.

And I'll never forgive California.

Day 10: My Name

My blog username is Mandymoo488. Shocking, I know. It's my name for everything. The Mandymoo started back in jr. high when I decided I loved cows. "Moo" was my swear word of choice and at some point friends started tagging it onto the end of my name... not as a swear word... I hope.

But apparently there are other Mandymoos in this world, so I had to choose numbers. 488 is my birth month and year and I like the evenness of it as well as the way it sounds when I say it aloud.

As for the blog title (Mandy's Musings), I think I really like alliteration and I very much like somewhat obscure words.

I started blogging as a requirement for a worship class I took from SSU in 2007 (as you can see from the leftover links that exist various places on my page). This class moved to WorshipTraining as did my course-related blogs.

But, inspired by Chandler, I returned to this blog as a more personal blog and have continued to sporadically post whenever I feel I have something worth sharing.

Day 9: Conversation

Something I will never grow tired of.

I will never grow tired of true, honest, heart-felt conversation. I'm not one for much small talk. I get bored very quickly talking about current events, pop culture, or the doings of people I don't know and will never meet. I like for my words to mean something. I like for my time to mean something. I like to get to know people. I like learning where they come from, how they process and communicate and adventuring into applying the things I've learned into those relationships.

It's kind of like time-series decomposition. (Everybody gasp; I'm applying something I learned in school to life.) In time-series decomposition, you take a data series and identify the patterns so that you can use those patterns to make an educated guess about the behavior of the data in the future. I do that to people. If I've spent a lot of time with someone, I can generally have conversations with them in my head and be at least close to what they say in reality when I have that conversation. But in order to know someone like that, you have to have conversations. Meaningful conversation.

And I look forward to each and every meaningful conversation that may come my way in a day.

Day 8: Games

I love board games. I love card games. In fact, I think the only card game I've ever played that I don't particularly enjoy is Rummy. After playing Continental (and it's close relative Phase 10), Rummy bores me.

Some highlights:

Alibi. It's like Clue, only way more fun. No board. Instead of what, like, 20 possibilities there's like 45. And there's no board. You can ask whatever questions you want, but everyone gets to know the answer so you have to be way more careful about the way you phrase the questions.

Pinochle. I grew up playing it with my family every holiday. It's complicated. It's strategic. And you have to have exactly 4 people for maximum fun. I will never stop loving this game. But I may never be able to find 3 other people willing to play.

25 Words Or Less. It's like Catch Phrase only harder. You bid for the least amount of words to describe the five words on the card. We ditched the timer 'cause it made it too hard and it becomes an amazing game of careful phrasing.

Linq. I never get to play this game because I may be the only person in the world that likes it. Two people get a word on a card and everyone else has to bluff. Everyone gives clues. The two that have the word have to guess each other and everyone else has to guess which two people have the words. Easy if you have the word. Challenging if you don't. Fun either way.

Duck Feet and Golf are fun card games to just pass the time. I like Settlers and Monopoly every once in a while, but only if I'm in a non-competitive mood or I usually just get angry.

Day 7: Celebrity Crush

I've never been much for celebrity crushes. It mostly seemed like a waste of time, so I never bothered. Upon pondering it just now, I've come up with him:

Mostly because I was just watching the YouTube video of quite possibly my favorite song of all time (Goodbye Love/Halloween from Rent: Filmed Live on Broadway). He plays Mark. He's kind of the narrator and he sings a good portion of the above mentioned all-time favorite song. It's the only song I've ever heard that can consistently give me chills the 20th or 30th time I've listened to it. But only this version. Now I've definitely talked more about the song than him at all. His name is Adam Kantor. There. I said something.

Day 6: Film

So, I really just don't watch that many movies. I don't like investing so much time in something that rarely ends well. (And by "well" I mean that I feel like it was time well spent.)

While You Were Sleeping may be one of the only movies I will consistently watch over and over without getting tired of it. Beyond that, I have to be in the right mood to enjoy most movies. I like the Ocean's movies, the Bourne trilogy, The Proposal, First Daughter . . . and even staring at my movie shelf right now, I can't come up with a whole lot more. I'm just a hard sell for movies, I guess. I do enjoy more movies than those listed, but to really be a favorite of mine, it takes quite a bit.

Day 5: Channel Surfing

As I said in my 15 facts, I much prefer TV over movies. So this is a hard one. As far as current TV shows, I only dedicatedly follow 3:

• Chuck



• Psych



• How I Met Your Mother

I watch Criminal Minds from time to time, but the Chinese website I was watching it on got slow and complicated and missed the eighth episode of the current season and I haven't really been able to catch up since.

As far as syndicated or DVD-ed shows, I pretty much stick with detective shows with a bit of humor (probably the reason I like both Chuck and Psych). Scarecrow and Mrs. King, Remington Steele, and Moonlighting all fall into those categories.

Mostly, I just like character development. I like long-running shows where you get to know the characters (like ER . . . at least, the first 8 or so seasons) and they have inside jokes within the show you only get if you've been watching since the beginning (e.g., Monica and Ross's fake flip-off, Slapbets, or pineapples). Of course, I like the opportunity of romance between characters. But it really has to either be super thought-provoking (like Criminal Minds) or have some amount of humor to catch my attention for any period of time.

I like Chuck because of the strong relationships between Chuck and his family (including Morgan) and later on, between Casey, Sarah, and Chuck. I like Psych because of the long-term friendship between Gus and Shawn. Come to think of it, How I Met Your Mother, Friends, and Will & Grace are also shows I've enjoyed based on long-term friendships. Maybe I'm drawn to shows about groups of people that have been together for a long time (at least, parts of them).

Maybe studying my TV-watching habits is far more insightful than I expected or really wanted it to be.

Day 4: Música

I've been looking forward to this day. I was recently asked by a friend what kind of music I liked and I couldn't answer until much later.

I have a very eclectic taste in music. It's extremely hard to predict what I will and won't like because my opinion is so VERY unique. But in pondering the question my friend asked last week, I realized that I have three standards for the music I listen to:

1. Technical skill


2. Musical simplicity


3. Lyrical complexity

For the most part, every single piece of music I voluntarily own falls into these three categories. If a song in particular falls short of any of these, it means it excelled in at least one of the others to the point that it was worth it for me.

Technical skill: I have almost perfect pitch. If a singer has questionable (or bad) pitch, I probably won't give them a chance. It would take some SPECTACULAR lyrics for me to get past bad pitch. Even if pitch is good, if the tone quality of singer's voice is below average, I probably won't enjoy listening. Also, in most cases the singer has to have good annunciation or I won't listen. If I can't understand the words, I don't want to listen to the song.

Lyrical complexity: By lyrical complexity, I don't mean a lot of ambiguous metaphors. I'm usually pretty dense when it comes to metaphor. But I like big words. I like structure. I like to listen to a song and tell that the writer actually put some effort into crafting the song, as opposed to simply vomiting feelings onto a page and singing them.

Musical simplicity: I don't ask much from my music. I like fun melodies, but arrangement-wise, I'm drawn towards simple. I like simple chord progressions. I like minimal instrumentation. I like vocals, really, so the less drawing away from the vocals and lyrics, the better.

That said, it's really difficult for me to be able to just state artists that I like. I like songs, not artists for the most part. The only artist I can almost be sure to enjoy is Daughtry. Any other artist is basically on a song-by-song or album-by-album basis. I tend to like Lifehouse (I actually bought Smoke & Mirrors after seeing Lifehouse open for Daughtry because they were so good), some Switchfoot, Tim Hughes, and random Broadway musicals (which are far less of an artist and more of a genre).

I'm open to almost any genre of music, but will be turned off pretty quick by bad vocals or cheesy lyrics. To sum things up.

Day 3: Thirsty?

I have absolutely no self control when it comes to soda. If there is soda in the house (with the exception of anything diet or Coke or Pepsi), I will drink it. I don't like Sprite or 7-Up, but if there is some in the fridge, I'll drink it. I managed to shake my Dr. Pepper addiction last year and don't particularly care for it anymore, but Barq's root beer still allures me. But really only the first sip out of a can. After that, it tastes like anything else.

Smart Water is my go-to hydration drink. I discovered this at last Equip when I had to be outside in the heat and singing for hours without the option of a bathroom break. Smart Water hydrated me without over-fluid-ing me.

Vanilla lattes are my coffee shop drink of choice. It's the first thing I ever ordered at a Starbuck's and I've had very little reason to deviate since then (though I haven't had one from Starbuck's in forever).

I truly enjoy a good cup of a tea. If it's late at night, bed time tea or peppermint is ideal, but I prefer Twining's Vanilla Black Tea. This tea has a very special story for me. I had it once at a friend's house and fell in love with it, but she'd received it as a gift and didn't know where to purchase it. So I went to every grocery store within like a twenty-mile radius over a couple weeks and found that nobody sold it--not even World Market. So I went online and found it in six-pack boxes (as in, six normal-size boxes of tea to a package) on Amazon and bought a package. It shipped from England. I ran out in December and my mom bought me more for a Christmas present, but Amazon didn't sell it anymore. Somehow (I don't know how), she found some. It ships from Singapore. I don't really care where it comes from as long as I get to drink it forever.

Day 2: Lunch

When it comes to food, I really, really love to eat it, but hate to prepare it. So if I'm choosing my own lunch, if I'm not getting fast food, I'll go for something like a lunchable (I especially love the perpetually difficult to find Chicken and Bacon Ranch wrap) or a chicken salad sandwich. But if I'm not making my own food:

• Meat. I love meat. Mostly beef. Especially bacon (which I realize is not beef). Hardly a day goes by where I don't have something with bacon in it. Poultry doesn't count unless I'm desperate. Chicken can slide if, as I said, I'm feeling lazy.
• Bread. Particularly of the garlic variety. I'm especially partial to sourdough, though homemade anything pretty much trumps store-bought bread.
• Vegetables. I actually love vegetables. Asparagus, lima beans, and brussels sprouts are honestly some of my favorite foods.
• Dessert. Baked goods. In any form. Cookies, cake, pie, cupcakes . . . I love them all.
• A good cheeseburger (especially In-N-Out) will probably trump everything.
• I recently discovered that if there is an infinite supply of rice krispies treats, I will continue to eat them until I feel sick. Or until they're gone. Whichever comes first. (Not that I've ever had an infinite supply. I think I had 3 once. And if there was an infinite supply, I would definitely get sick first because they would never be gone. )

When it comes down to it, bacon is about the only food I get truly excited about. Especially when combined with a cheeseburger. Bacon cheeseburger = happy Mandy.

Day 1: 15 Truths and No Lies

15 facts

• 1. I have MANY grammar pet peeves, the top two being: "of" instead of "have" (as in, "I should of...") and "I could care less."


• 2. I'm a little bit of an armadillo.


• 3. Ok, I'm a lot of an armadillo. I used to be a porcupine, but God's been faithful to keep me growing. Hopefully in the future at some point I'll be something cuddly and soft. Like a puppy.


• 4. My biggest driving pet peeve is people braking before using their turn signals...if they use them at all.


• 5. Speaking of driving, I can't hear emergency vehicles (specifically fire trucks) when I'm driving because I live so close to a fire station, it's white noise to me.


• 6. I begged my mom to let us play Sims for over a decade and eventually went in with my sister to buy it when we were adults. After our PC crashed a few months later, we bought it for our Macs. Only a few months after that, I realized it wasn't all that fun and I really can't play it for more than 10 minutes or so without getting bored.


• 7. I much prefer TV over movies. I like the character development potential in the time of a series, whereas right about the time you start to love characters in a movie, the movie's over.


• 8. I'm not a big fan of fantasy. Sci-fi can get me occasionally with cool gadgets, but otherwise, I think real life is so interesting, I'd rather stick with human characters in real places.


• 9. I consistently misspell "occasionally" "ocassionally," then "occassionally," then, finally, spell it right.


• 10. I always thought "ridiculous" was spelled "rediculous" until Chander pointed it out to me in a FaceBook chat one day.


• 11. I really, really like to read nonfiction, but find it hard to sit down and actually do it.


• 12. A discipleship group Mike started last fall genuinely changed my life.


• 13. I truly, honestly spend most of my music-listening time listening to worship because I'm a musical sponge and will sing whatever I hear, regardless of whether or not I'm paying attention and I'd prefer to spend more of my time dwelling on Jesus than on other things.


• 14. I slightly begrudge the fact that my name was the third most popular name for girls the year I was born, while my parents invented my sister's name.


• 15. I have two girl dogs with boy names.

And I suppose I have to include a picture if I'm to do this right:

This is at Disneyland at Christmastime in November (of last year). I'm especially fond of taking pictures at Disneyland during Christmastime. And hats. I really like hats. So I guess you get two more random facts based on this picture.

I'm Gonna Go For It

So, I've been toying with the idea of joining Chandler's 30-day blog challenge pretty much since he started it, but was daunted by a couple of days (especially the first one, thus the reason I never started). So, I sat down yesterday to see if I could come up with 15 random facts and they sort of just flowed, so I'm actually going to do this.

Chandler's Awesome 30-Day Blog Challenge

Day 0-Post Challenge and explain why you’re doing it.

Day 1- A recent picture of yourself and 15th facts (random or whatever) about you

Day 2- Favorite Foods

Day 3- Favorite Drinks

Day 4- Favorite musicians/bands/songs

Day 5- What TV Shows are you into? What do you like about them?

Day 6- Some of your favorite movies.

Day 7- Celebrity Crush

Day 8- Favorite Game(s) (Board, Card, Video, etc)

Day 9- Something you will never grow tired of

Day 10- Any meaning behind your blog name? If not, why did you start blogging?

Day 11- A picture of what animal you’d like to have as a pet and why.

Day 12- What an average day looks like

Day 13- Your idea of a good outing

Day 14- What do you like to read?

Day 15- What did you want to be when you grew up at age 8? Now?

Day 16- You are granted 3 wishes by an all-powerful genie. What do you wish for?

Day 17- Something about the world that annoys you.

Day 18- Something about the world that makes you happy.

Day 19- If you could live anywhere, where would you live?

Day 20- A Current Event that’s interesting to you and your opinion on it.

Day 21- What’s commonly found in your backpack/purse/pockets?

Day 22- What are you passionate about?

Day 23- What do you know a lot about?

Day 24- Tell us about someone who has impacted your life in a significant way

Day 25- Tell us about someone who has taught you some good lessons.

Day 26- Write a letter to someone who has hurt you recently.

Day 27- What comes easy to you?

Day 28- What’s difficult for you?

Day 29- Explain, the best you can, the way you see the world (Worldview)

Day 30- Summarize the experience of this 30-day Blog Challenge. How did you change/grow/stay the same?

Really, I'm mostly doing it because I think it sounds fun. I have very little desire to be a consistent blogger and very much like just blogging when I feel like I have something meaningful to say. So, I'm going to do this challenge because I think it sounds fun.

Meanwhiles

This was intended to be a journal entry, but ended up having a blog-type feel to it, so I figured I'd share it.

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It's a meanwhile. I don't know if it's a "meanwhile until I get married" or "until something happens with worship or music" or all of the above (or even something entirely different), but I know it's a meanwhile.

Which is what makes it so frustrating.

It's hard to believe that meanwhiles matter. After all, they're just the space between milestones, aren't they?

But life is meanwhiles. I am who I am because of the meanwhiles.

So, while my tendency is to define myself by events--or lack thereof--(which, the more I think about, the more I realize is sort of a cultural mindset) I'm defined by the meanwhiles.

While culture identifies by age, education, and relationship status, what I did, the choices I made, lessons I learned, and character I built are what matters. The meanwhile I spent in highschool was incomparably more important than the two-hour ceremony or piece of paper (which I subsequently lost and had to get replaced). The meanwhile I spent between my last two birthdays was infinitely more important than the 24 hours of birthday (as will the next one I hope).

I've heard it said multiple ways: "Enjoy the process." "Eat what's on your plate." Most recently, "Take joy in the life God's given you." But I always imagined the plate being empty at some point or the process ending.

But it's the meanwhiles that compose life. And even if all I learn in this meanwhile is just how meaningful meanwhiles are (and how important it is to enjoy them), then this meanwhile will be worthwhile.