08.23.09
Stationary Pictures
I made two sets of stationary a while back, but just haven’t got the pictures posted, so here they are.
Beach Pictures - I took some of the pictures I took at the beach and turned them into stationary.
Freehand Butterflys - I used my Prismacolor markers, and freehanded some butterflys to incorporate into these cards.
08.21.09
I <3 Paper Source
I think I’ve mentioned this before, but after the last couple weeks, my affection for Paper Source has grown.
1st, they have an India collection that just came out, and in case you hadn’t realized it, I also <3 India. I also discovered that they just started carrying some recipe cards, something I’ve been trying to find for a while. They also have terribly cute little mini file folders for the recipe cards too.
So, upon realizing these new developments, I had to high tail it to my nearest Paper Source store, and did so a couple of weeks ago.
I picked up several things, but was unable to get the recipe cards, and a couple of the stamps from the India collection because the store was sold out, however they offered to order the items for me, and have them shipped to my house, so that’s what I did.
Unfortunately, UPS has some issues, and the package, although it says it was delivered, never arrived. So I called UPS, and they told me to call Paper Source. To my surprise a real live person answered the phone at Paper Source, and the same said, real live person, helped me without transferring me to someone else. I didn’t realize companies still did this, but I was thrilled. She was nice, she was sympathetic, and she was helpful. Paper Source resent my order at no extra cost to me.
And when the order arrived, there was a nice little hand written note with it, apologizing for the loss of my original package (even though it wasn’t their fault). Now that is some excellent customer service.
I have some cute stationary projects that I’ve done recently, and documented with pictures with the intent of posting them on here, but I never seem to have the pics when I think about posting, but I’m gonna try to get that done soon. Maybe this weekend, we’ll see.
08.14.09
The Break Up Survival Guide (Part 2)
Ok, so this is a list of all of the things I keep thanking God for, that I’ve been doing for a while, that just make this whole thing SO MUCH EASIER.
- Putting my hope in God. I think this comes with spending time regularly with God, and reading his word. I’m finding that I still have a joy/excitement/anticipation about the plans God has for me, cause my hope is in Him, and I’m confident that He’ll come through. As opposed to feeling like M was my hope for the things I want. I would be that much more devastated. It’s hard enough to loose a relationship, so if you don’t have to loose your hope with it, that makes a big difference! This is something you can and should do in the moment after a break up, but I put it on this list, cause it makes it so much easier to do, if you’ve been doing it all along.
- Having a relationship that was free from impurity. It means there wasn’t any unhealthy attachment, that is that much harder to break.
- Guarding my heart well. For me this means not spending excessive amounts of time daydreaming (being anxious) about the future, and all that it could be with M. It’s not that I didn’t think about it, I just tried to not dwell on it, and essentially let myself get overly attached to an idea of what it would look like. See Philippians 4:6-7.
These things kind of all blur together for me, it’s hard to separate one from the other, and they all support the others. I’ve done these things wrong, and I’ve done them right. It makes a huge difference. I also think there are huge payoffs for doing these things throughout a relationship if the relationship continues on into marriage. Either way, you win.
08.13.09
The Break Up Survival Guide (Part 1)
I wish I did not have enough experience to be writing this post, but alas - I do.
There are some things I’ve learned along the way in my dating journey, so I thought I’d share what I know about how to survive a break up, at least for me.
I think some of the biggest things that make breaking up easier are things that you have to start doing long before a break up ever happens, but since that’s not necessarily the most encouraging thing to hear after the fact, I’m gonna talk about that in another post (part 2).
Here are my practical in the moment things:
- Talk to God. Just be candid with Him, poor out your heart and start praying…. and listening.
- Talk to your friends. Hopefully you’ve got some great friends that you can be real with - talk to them, tell them how you feel about things. Don’t try to go it alone. I have some awesome friends, and they are there for me. It means the world to me to be reminded that even though one relationship is over, I have a lot of other people, who love me, and who want things to happen in my favor. One of the most helpful moments was when my friend Melissa came up with a plan for my “rebound relationship” - obviously I’m not going to go rushing into another relationship right this instant, but it was funny, it made me laugh, and it also said in a big way, that she wants the same things for me that I want for me. The plan by the way, included making a detailed list of all of the churches in the Kansas City area, and doing research on single men in those churches. She’s probably already started the excel sheet, and if you know Melissa, you know I’m not kidding.
- Feel what you feel. I’m not one for “medicating” my sorrows with ice cream, chocolate, a pedicure, going shopping or other luxuries… I let myself feel what I feel, and usually I think it’d be a waste to eat something great, or do something nice, when I won’t enjoy it as much as I would at another time. Maybe that’s weird, but I think letting myself feel bleh if I feel bleh is good, I tend to not feel bleh for as long if I just let it out. And I think I’ve just learned over time, that those things don’t help anyway, and honestly sometimes make things worse, cause you get down on yourself for eating so poorly or spending so much.
- Find something you can look forward to, and enjoy for what it is. I’ve planned a trip to visit my BFF from college in NC over labor day. I genuinely am looking forward to time with her and am so excited about doing our usual watch Clue, and eat sugar cookies with cream cheese frosting. I’m totally looking forward to going to the beach, I love the beach. It’s something that no matter what is going on in my life, I know I’m gonna have a great time.
- Make a list of take-aways. The things that you have or can learn from your time in the relationship. I think it’s helpful to give the experience purpose in and of itself. They don’t have to be major things, but I find it helps me to not continually ask “why?”
- Say what you need to say, but make sure it’s something that you need to do for you, and is not an attempt to manipulate or control the situation, and then do it in a respectful way. This can be a little tricky to do right, and I’m sure I’ve failed in the past. For me, I tend to be a very emotional person in the moment… lots of tears, and lots that goes through my head. I’ve learned it best to not always say things in the moment (I don’t always do the best at that), but to give myself some distance and time to let rational thought come to the surface. After I’ve processed, sometimes there’s something that I really feel strongly that I still need to communicate. I think about why I need to, what I have to gain for myself in doing so - regardless of the response I’ll get. For me this time, I needed to say a few things out of fear of holding on to them, and not letting go of the relationship for having never said them. So I communicated them, and then I…
- Let it go. It’s really not helpful to hold on to hope for things to work out. It doesn’t serve you well. It only ends up being a reminder of what you don’t have. And if you think about it, holding out hope doesn’t even make it more likely that it would work out, so you aren’t loosing anything, you are only gaining. Obviously, it’s not an instantaneous thing, it’s a conscious choice that you have to make over and over again to not spend time thinking about it, or hoping for it, but it’s so much better not to.
Those are the biggies that I’m trying to focus on right now, and like I said, I think the biggest things that help are things you have to be doing for a while, and I’m going to write about them next.
08.12.09
And so the story ends
M and I broke up.
Just thought I’d let you all know. I’m not going to go into detail, but this verse certainly applies.
“There are three things that are too amazing for me, four that I do not understand: the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a snake on a rock, the way of a ship on the high seas, and the way of a man with a maiden.” (Proverbs 30:18-19 NIV)
In a nutshell he said there was nothing missing, nothing he was looking for or wanting that I wasn’t, just that he didn’t have that intense passion to move forward, and that we were at a place where we needed to. He even took some time to try and figure out why the passion wasn’t there given that there was nothing missing or wrong. I think it’s just one of those things that I’m not going to understand.
I’ve been thinking about writing some sort of survival guide for a break up, so you might see that in the next few days.