Bloggity Blog Blog

Well, it's been only about a bajillion years since I've updated...but I thought I would share with you all 7 truths that I have discovered:

Truth #1: Spin classes are evil and should never EVER be attended. I went one time...afterward I could barely stand, threw up my entire dinner, and couldn't properly walk or bend my legs for an entire week. Never again. Never ever ever again.

Truth #2: If people want to get married, they should give themselves at least a year to plan, and also be millionaires. Weddings are extremely time consuming and expensive things. I'm eloping...if I ever get married.

Truth #3: Psych is quite possibly the best TV show ever. Definitely my new favorite.

Truth #4: Apparently parents think that signs saying "Bus Parking Only" actually mean "Anybody park here! Really! Even though now there is a giant bus stuck in the parking lot that has nowhere to park! Just park here, and take your time!"

Truth #5: The salted caramel hot chocolate from Starbucks is AMAZING!

Truth #6: When your family lives 9 hours away, you miss them.

Truth #7: Romans 8:28 "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose."

Decisions, Dust, and Dispatch

Decisions:
I have decided to stay in SoCal, though my family is moving up north to Redding, CA. This may be a long or short-term situation...I suppose we shall see how hard it is to be so far from my family. But for now, the Gallachers, a dear family from my church, have agreed to let me stay with them for awhile. Which brings me to...

Dust:
Seriously, twenty-seven years of stuff collects a LOT of dust. But here's the question: Why do I have SO MUCH stuff???????????????? Well, I have so much stuff because I keep stinkin' EVERYTHING! Seriously...I have book reports from 2nd grade. This is not good. I don't have room for all my homework from college...but how can I get rid of it? Notes from Bible classes...of course I'll need those some day! Textbooks from Music History...I hated that class, but I might want to look something up sometime...I totally need those! And the syllabus from Children's Literature...well, I can't get rid of that!
It was actually really fun to go through some of my old memorabilia with my friend Heather Kern. Heather and I have been good friends for more than a dozen years, and so many of my memories have her in them: pictures from a Counseling seminar, curriculum from Children's Institutes, pictures from summer camp, a Thanksgiving play that our families wrote one year...so much fun! Thank you Heather for being such a wonderful, faithful, fun, encouraging, comforting friend! And also, thank you for helping me pack and move! You are the best EVER!!!

 P.S. You are totally worth more than $599! :-)


Dispatch:
To dispatch is "to send off to a destination or for a purpose." My family is being dispatched...and I am sad to see them go. I'm sad that I won't be able to pop by and visit them whenever I want. Sad to say goodbye to the place I have called "home" since I was 4 years old. I guess I just thought that wherever I went, I could always come back here. Well, God had other plans, and though I'm sad, I'm also excited to see what God has in store for me and my family. As much as I dislike change and turmoil, I know that God often uses them to draw us closer to Himself. So, I choose to find joy in the unknown, and I choose to be excited about this new adventure, and I choose to trust that God will be glorified in this.

Shaina

¡Ay Muchacha!

Well, it seems that I have returned to the United States of America. My trip to the DR was amazing and absolutely life changing, but you can read all about that at www.americanamuchachas.wordpress.com . They warned us a lot about transitioning back to the states and going through culture shock and all that jazz, but quite frankly I haven't had time to deal with culture shock. While Jennifer and I were in The Dominican Republic, my father made the tough decision to put our house up for sale. Shockingly, the house sold within a week of being on the market and went into a 45-day escrow. Everything happened so quickly and I was in a completely different country and I couldn't deal with this impending change! As mentioned in previous posts, I am not a real big fan of change, and I feel like I've been dumped into so much huge change! So, the last several days since I've been home have been filled with prayer and conversations and trying to determine what the next step is that the Lord has for me.
Basically it breaks down to two choices: 1) Move to NorCal with my family, live with my grandparent's for a time, find a new job and a new church, or 2) Find a place to live here in SoCal, continue working for Pacific Camps, and stay involved with Lighthouse Bible Church. There are so many reasons to go with both choices, and I have never been a really good decision-maker. I have less than a week to figure out what I'm going to do with myself. Meanwhile I am catching up with friends here, packing and trying to put together a presentation of our trip for church. Incidentally, if any of you are interested, the presentation of our trip will be this Sunday, August 8th at 6:00pm at Lighthouse Bible Church 4910 Cochran St., Simi Valley, CA 93063. Please come by! There will be lots of pictures and stories :-)
Well friends, thank you all for your prayers and friendship!

Of Spanish and firefighters and old ladies with 40 cats...

Life is full of transitions. I have discovered this inescapable fact, and have found it to be quite disconcerting. Generally I like for things to stay the same. I get comfortable, and I like for things to be the way they are. But change is unavoidable, and then I find that once I've become accustomed to it, I enjoy the change...much like the constant changing of facebook :-P

Recently, Jennifer and I applied for a 6-week internship to the Dominican Republic, working with an organization called Kids Alive International. They are an organization that has schools and orphanages all over the world. This trip will be from June 14-July 27. The thing about such a trip, at least for me, is that it means I have to consider more things then just visiting another country. Will I go back to Pacific Camps (which is a job that I do love)? Where will I live (my lease is up in July)? What am I gonna do with the rest of my life? Go into missions? Become a teacher? Sooo many things to consider. So...I'm praying a lot. Even if I have no idea what I'm going to do, I take great comfort in the fact that I have a personal relationship with someone who knows EVERYTHING! In the last year or so, I have really been meditating on Ephesians 2:10 "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." So, there is change in the wind...but I know that my God has it all worked out and it will be good.

On a lighter note, I was very excited when I found out that the fire department would be visiting Pacific Camps today. I mean seriously, how could I not look forward to seeing firefighters? When they came I was upstairs overseeing a craft, but we quickly cleaned up and went down to see how cute they were...I mean...we wanted to see the cool hook and ladder truck :-) Unfortunately, the firefighters turned out to be older, and not the most attractive. Nevertheless, I'm sure they are quite heroic gentlemen and I am grateful for their service.

Also, today I met one of my neighbors. It was a nice day and I got off work early, so I decided to walk over to the office to pay my rent and to check my mail. As I walked, I saw an older woman with a spray bottle spraying at a couple of cats trying to get them away from someone else's apartment. When I came back through after paying my rent, she was sitting outside her apartment watching her three cats enjoy the sunshine. She struck up a conversation with me and told me (in great detail) how she acquired and named each of her cats...then she told me that over the years she had fostered more than FORTY cats! FORTY!!!! Now, I am not a cat person, so to me, this sounds insane. Then she said something that I found interesting, "You know, if everyone would foster forty of anything, this world would be a cleaner, better place." Well, I don't know how true that is, but  do believe that if we cared as much about people as we do about our pets, then we might find the time to alleviate  a lot of suffering...just a thought.

So...if I'm going to the Dominican Republic, then I most definitely need to learn how to speak Spanish. I really don't think that being able to tell someone "The plate is very hot" or being able to ask for the location of the bathroom is going to get me far...

Procrastination

So, when I was in college the only time my room actually got cleaned was when I had a huge paper or project due. I am apparently a "procrastination cleaner." But here's the problem: I'm not in college anymore. And I don't have anymore huge projects or papers. So HOW IN THE WORLD AM I SUPPOSED TO GET MY ROOM CLEANED??????????? I've been sitting here staring at the piles for quite some time now with no success...I made a microwave fudge brownie, I talked to my roommate for the first time in like 2 weeks, I checked out pictures on facebook, read my email, played with my hair, and put lip gloss on...but I haven't managed to clean up a single blessed thing!!!!! So now I am further not cleaning by writing a blog post about how I'm not cleaning...this is truly ridiculous...

Fullness of Joy

So, I have come to the brilliant conclusion that joy is a choice. You can choose to be joyful, or you can choose to be a cranky-pants. Today, for much of the day, I chose to be a cranky-pants. And I made all kinds of wonderful excuses for why I deserved to be cranky: I had to get up at 5 this morning, I had a headache, the preschoolers were not well-behaved, the kindergarteners were not well-behaved, I didn't have enough coffee, etc... But, as I went through the afternoon with this amazing, self-pitying outlook on life, I realized that basically I was just a whiner and I needed to suck it up and get over it. I mean seriously...you think Jesus didn't have to deal with headaches and not enough sleep and stupid people? Come on! He had to walk on this earth as the God-man, and he dealt with all kinds of unpleasant situations. What was His response? Complete and total trust in His Father, and an unconditional love for His creation. Who am I? What right do I have to be frustrated with these 3-6 year-olds who come from broken homes and who spend more time with me than with their parents? How could my response be anything more than love for their little lost souls and a desire to show them Jesus? So, I made a choice to be joyful, and believe me, it wasn't easy - I really had to work at it for the rest of the day. But by the time chapel rolled around, I was able to dance with my wonderful campers through two rounds of the "Round-up" song, and have a completely marvelous time!

Psalm 16:11 "You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore."

Shaina

What? Another blog??

Here are the problems with me and blogging:

1) I intensely dislike the word "blogging." It seems like some kind of weird combination of the words "blob" and "log." Who puts those words together? What does it even mean? 

2) I have a  tendency to write, read-over, re-write, read-over, re-write, read-over, etc...It'll be a miracle if I'm ever happy enough with what I wrote to actually post it :-P

3) Who really wants to read my random, hodge-podge thoughts anyway?

Here are the good things with me and blogging:

1) I am more likely to write here than in a journal

2) If I have a particularly ridiculous thought, people can comment and set me straight, "Shaina, that's ridiculous! Why would you even think that???"

3) I have a really cool daisy picture :-)

I decided to start this project after reading over my old Xanga site. Does anybody remember Xanga? Anyway, I found that it was fun to reminisce old times even if my post was only like this one from February 22, 2007:

"The Death of Me:

Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 11, Op. 26, Mvt. 3

Oh stink-face-head..."

As cryptic as that is, I remember exactly what was going on at that time and it makes me laugh! So, I guess this blog is mostly for me...sort of an online journal. Perhaps others will enjoy it...perhaps no one will read it. Either way I intend to memorialize this year so that I can look back and smile or cry or be encouraged.

Shaina

P.S. My word of the week is:

de·fen·es·tra·tion 

Pronunciation: \(ˌ)dē-ˌfe-nə-ˈstrā-shən\

Function: noun

Etymology: de- + Latin fenestra window

Date: 1620

1 : a throwing of a person or thing out of a window
2 : a usually swift dismissal or expulsion (as from a political party or office)