'ole sucky

i am afraid to tell you that reading this entry will not bring joy, laughs, or even silly memories...but more of sadness and fear. these are two emotions that i do not like to admit but they remain to be haunting friends that will not go away. sadness because i wake up and feel i have no purpose. fear because i have no idea when or where i will get that job i love. god has continuously orchistrated my entire life. even when i did not trust him or at times think he didn't care, god continued to lead me...yes i have to admit i made him lead me from behind but he always had a plan. so why am i finding it so hard to believe in his plan now? i want to say i have never felt this way, but i know i must have sometime ago. terry and i washed our cars this weekend and the outcome was his truck looked brand spankin' new and mine looked like it had been spit washed...the outcome, a new name...'ole sucky. me and my car...'ole suckies. (you have to say it with that twangy and redneck alabama drawl to get the full affect of just how sucky we are!) deep in my heart i know that yes my car may in fact be 'ole sucky, but me, i am not. but i feel it. and that makes it real.

i don't want to cry anymore. i find myself asking what is causing those tears...sometimes it is because i don't feel like i am good enough at what i do, sometimes it is because if i have to teach one more elementary class i might lose it, but lately i cry because of my sin. my sin of not trusting god. my sin of wanting to wallow in self-pity. my sin of failure, faithlessness. my sin of self righteousness. my sin of thinking i actually deserve an incredible job. my sin of being human. and then a whole new wave of tears come and boy are they colossal...but not because of sin, but because of grace. tears that allow me to rejoice in the gospel. tears that allow me to stand in the face of my enemies with all the armor god dresses us with. but over and over again i become weak and all the armor it too heavy for my own strength and i fall. and once again i am caught in the "ole sucky cycle".

i read a novel called redeeming love just a few weeks ago and i seemed to have learned more from the author's biography than from the pages in the novel. she wrote romance novels before becoming a christian and was quite successful. but once she became a christian she couldn't find the words to do the one thing she loved and was gifted to do...write stories. she said she stuggled and struggled for what felt like forever. in the end god had restored her gift but it was not without a season of discipline (right mom!). this author had experieced discipline from god...god had to make sure that he was her first love and not her writing. now i have no idea if god is trying to teach me that same lesson, but i do know how it feels to love doing the work you were blessed to do. i love interior design. as i even write the words my sight becomes blurry. my tears are from the strongest desire i have to have a career in interior design. i love it. i know to many people i complained all last semester because of how much work i had to do, but i loved it, i do love it. so my ultimate desire: to praise god through this incredible gift he has given me. my ultimate question: when oh god, when?

so forgive me for being weary and sad. i pray it will not stay long. my heart was born to laugh and it is aching. i cannot wait until the day that this too is just a memory. until then...

carrie and me at the koodu 

koodu groupie

lakeview district is a popular place here in b'ham. sometimes if i scrunch my eyes real tight and i dream real hard then i can imagine i am back in athens. i can smell the same smells, hear the same sounds, and sometimes the redneck accents don't become so redneck but more like something i would hear at bird dog. coming out of a guy with nothing less than that shaggy hair we all love so much. though i do not frequent the lakeview nightlife often, when i do we always end up at a "juke joint" (as grandma would say) called the barking koodu. as i sit here and type i am not even sure of the spelling of this place but i am sure of its popularity. you see, carrie's smile can light up a place in an instant, the koodu gets graced with this light often. i do not write this as a negative response to her love for weekend indulgences, but as a love of who she is. she loves to meet new people, hang out with friends, listen to white guys attempt to rap the latest outkast or usher song, and on top of it all...she loves to dance.

dance...something i cannot seem to grasp a love for. something i cannot seem to get a coordination for. but carrie...she can dance. maybe that is why i am drawn to her so often. she loves life. she allows herself to taste all the sweet things god made for her. although i do not share a love for the 2-step as she does, we do share a love for shopping, shoes, cokes from mcdonalds, chick-fil-a (while i eat her french fries, of coarse), seaside, new york, sex and the city. she allows me to taste these everyday simple pleasures with her. she allows me to love life with her.

since moving to b'ham, carrie has opened her life to me. but what amazes me most about the unlocked door to her heart is that she has tons of friends. she has friends everywhere, from all walks of life. she has a mason jar full of friends but instead of closing the lid and letting just those few chosen ones grow and perserve over time, she continues to pack us in. her jar is so full of people we begin to mesh with one another and soon we cannot even remember how we all came to know one another. but then i always remember...we became friends because carrie invited us to dance.

mere 

mrs. bill malone

there is a train up the hill from my apartment. every night i hear it come from someplace and journey on to another. in the midst of my own day to day comings and goings, i have yet to look and see where the trains tracks even are, but one thing is for certain...it is always coming and going. as i sit and hear that notorious train engine, i am reminded that even though i do not know its daily purpose i do know of its consistancy. i can always rely on the horn to wake me up from a nap, or to interrupt me when trying to talk on the phone. but that train also reminds me of deep friendships. friendships that involve special people and thier own day to day comings and goings. i go not know where their life leads them everyday. i do not know what excitements are happening, or the things that brings a tear to their eye. but what i do know is that these friendships are consistant, reliable, and unending. just as i know that the train will never stop blowings is warning, i know that mere's friendship will never stop giving its love.

many of you know my mere...a friend who is constant and steadfast. i often sit back and think of "us" and do not remember where the beginning lies. it is as if she has always been there. she is classic, timeless, the eptiomy of grace, a true southern lady. the picture above is mere on her wedding day. i love that picture. she is beautiful. but what amazes me about ole mere is that on that special day, she looked more like herself than ever. she was elegant but she is always elegant. she was tender but she is always tender. she had hives but she always has hives. she laughed but she always laughs. she loved her man and she will always love her husband. i was her friend and she has always be mine.

mere and i are at the point in our friendship where most of it has been spent apart. apart by going to different colleges. apart by meeting new friends. apart by moving into new homes. but no matter how apart we get, we will always be together. we will always have fpd, softball, the dreaded basketball, prom, those certain heartarches, those special christmas trees, afternoons at grandmas, crazy moms in france, and hell on the slopes of canada. but even more, we will always have new memories, new laughs, new announcements, new stories. i do not know what time mere wakes up in the morning or when she says goodbye to bill, which comes first makeup for hair (although i do know the hair part takes quite a bit of time) or if she even tries to cook after an exhausting day. but that is ok. because even though i do not know mere's comings and goings, i know she is there, i know there is always an "us".

living wih a boy

Originally uploaded by wlelliot.

he is a coach, a sports nut, has tendency to yell at the tv, espn psycho, sometimes ghetto, he definitely snores, is a cookie monster, hates anything healthy to eat, romatically challenged, let us not forget vertically challenged, a thinker, not so much a comedian, likes fruity drinks while i guzzle the beer, an alabama fan but in time a georgia convert, a wonderful cuddler, great kisser, my best friend, love of my life, overall...the man who keeps me smiling.

he does not understand my love for georgia, midnight runs to mcdonalds, van morrison, my surprise cry fests, need for girly movies, coffee and katie couric in the morning, sleeping marathons, or my constant need for new shoes. however, he does know how to love me.

since it is valentine's day, i thought it was only appropriate to honor my husband, my best friend, my terry. i live each day for a dream and he lives in reality. he keeps me grounded while allowing me to round up a life of fantasies. he has a family i adore, and is adored by my family. he is a know-it-all at times, but if i am really honest, he does know it all. he sees my stubborness not as a roadblock but as another reason to love me. no matter what i look like, he tells me how beautiful i am. he prays for me , he prays for us. we let each other be ourselves while remaining one. i miss him during the day. i miss kissing him when i sleep. i miss cuddling when i am awake. i joke and poke fun that he is hard work, impossible at times, and who needs kids when i have terry...but it is my way of saying he is all mine and i don't want to share him. i love being us. i love terry.

what am i doing?

Originally uploaded by wlelliot.

so what could be so important to say that i am not picking up the phone, but yet, trying to be computer savvy and dare i say a computer "nerd"? well, after being in birmingham for almost three years, finding the love of my life and let us not forget finally graduating from college, i have come to accept that i officially live in alabama...and doom of all doom, i have the dreaded alabama tag! with that comes the sadness of having friends far away, not so far away, and then those new friends who are close to home (alabamians are not so bad). i often find myself day by day thinking of various friends, trips, experiences, and moments in time. those moments are in my thoughts for a reason...because i love my life, i love the people in my life, and i love how that has shaped who i am.

i have shared with many of you the various feelings that overwhelmed me after my wedding. one of those feelings was that of blessing. i was blessed beyond belief that i had so many of those that i love around me on such an important day in my life. if was fun to look at everyone and remember something precious and priceless about them. so, here i am, copying my sister once again (she is the one who introdued me to this nerdy crap), and wondering what exactly i am trying to do with this. well, this is a salute to you...my friends, my family, those stupid days in highschool when we thought we were so grown up, those crazy nights in athens when life couldn't get any better, those summers away from friends only to meet new ones that will only add to the quality of life, and let us not forget the midnight runs to mcdonalds! yes we have all certainly grown up, not much, but we do have to portray a sense of responsibility. so, we get married, we stand up for one another at weddings, we move to new places, some of you get to keep experiencing the dating world, while some of us keep answering the dreaded question "when are the babies coming?", and then somehow in the day to day life of busy schedules and lives, we sit back and dream about the memories and wish we were young again.

all that to say: keep checking in, saying hey, remember i love you, and the next time you look, i will be telling stories of another person who has made my life a blast!!! one day you will find new words, words about yourself and maybe even a dreaded picture that you had hoped was burned by now!

thanks for being in my life and here's to those midnight runs to mcdonalds...