Rhonda's Ramblings

Today’s high: Making ornaments and decorating the Christmas Tree. Enjoying the crisp air and beautiful day.

Today’s low: That’s hard. Nothing comes to mind, really. I guess rude people in the store. Some people just don’t realize they are not the only ones who exist.

When I was at Target today, I saw a tree-topper that I really liked.

(For some reason, I have recently fallen in love with the color red) It wasn’t very expensive, but it was a little damaged, so I asked if I could get a discount. At first she said that she could give me 10% off, which I would have been perfectly happy with. But I eventually got 25% off. So, at that point, I had a tree-topper, but nothing else to decorate my tree with except for lights. Oh, and I had no tree. So, I went and bought a tree. Yes, a real live tree.

In my family, we all have our own Christmas ornaments from when we were growing up. And the deal has always been that we get them once we have our own house, or have established ourselves outside of my mom’s house. But none of us are married, and so we always still have Christmas at my mom’s house. And none of us have really had a Christmas tree outside of her house. So, I could get those ornaments and decorate my tree with those. Which I probably will.

But, until then, I decided to go with the star theme of my tree-topper, and spent the evening making my own ornaments.

I bought a bag of wooden star shapes, painted them red or outlined them in red and hung them with raffia.

Then I found some wire in my craft box, and made some star shapes, which I then wrapped in raffia or in more wire.

And here is the (half-finished) product. I still have more ornaments to finish. I love Christmas.

As I was driving to work on Wednesday, I saw three things that hit me. They inexplicably brought tears to my eyes and made my heart swell with the joy of living.

None of them seemed very significant, but for some reason they impacted me.

Children riding their bike at the park.

An elderly woman, in her skirt with her gray hair regally swept into a french twist. As she walks along (to meet somebody, I presume), she is making sure that each piece of her hair is in place.

An elderly gentleman waiting to cross the street where there is no crosswalk. This is the same man that I see working in his yard, raking leaves on a regular basis. After I pass, I look in my rear-view mirror and see him running across the street. Obviously not as spry as he was in his younger years, but still able to run.

I know I’m a cheesy girl. But it’s the little things that make life wonderful. Like last night when I came out of the store and the hills covered in pine trees were gilded by the sun. It was beautiful.

~Cast your burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain you. He shall never permit the righteous to be moved. Psalm 55:22

~In times of trouble, remember that God is too kind to be cruel, too wise to make a mistake, and too deep to explain himself.

~Heart shattered lives ready for love don’t for a moment escape God’s notice. Psalm 51:17 (msg)

You saw my mistakes and watched my heart break
Heard when I swore I’d never love again
And when I was weak, unable to speak
Still I could call you by name
And I said, Heartache Healer, Secret Keeper,
Be my best friend
And You said, I Am.
-Nichole Nordeman–I Am

This weekend’s high: hanging out with Colleen and her kids at the Mandarin Festival. Even though Tayven was in a whiney mood. But I always love spending time with Colleen. And I bought 10 lbs of Mandarins. Any mandarin recipe ideas?

This weekend’s low: A really rude customer who totally yelled at me, even though she was the one who walked out the door without paying. Of course I followed her out the door to get her to pay. And she had the audacity to yell at me.

So, I watch Fear Factor entirely too often. It is on every night at 11:00 pm. So, I watch it when I get home from work. I don’t know why I enjoy watching people make idiots of themselves. Do some daredevil stunt where they are locked in a box in the water or consume pig rectum or live cockroaches or balance on some stucture that is hanging perilously in the air.. All while trash talking each other. For 50, 000 dollars. That’s not even that much money. I could barely put a down payment on a house with that much money. It’s definitely not worth almost killing myself over. But these people think that money is gonna change their life. One girl the other day wanted to win the money to go on a Spring Break trip. What kind of trip is she taking for $50,000? Definitely not a week at the beach. Not that I would turn down that much money.

I just don’t know why I am fascinated with the show. I do really like the host, though: Joe Rogan. He is a strange mix of encouraging yet mocking at the same time. Watch it sometime. It is strangely compelling.

So, what would you do for 50,000?

I know this is a boring post, but everything else I wanted to post was depressing me, and I don’t want that. Fear Factor…not so depressing. Just dumb.

Today’s high: laughing with Chelsea (my co-worker) at Carlos when he called me a “wiss”. You may wonder what a “wiss” is. I’m pretty sure he was trying to say wuss, a word which I had earlier called him.

Today’s low: my still aching calves

My sister had to do an assignment about divorce for one of her classes, so she interviewed me, since our parents were divorced. It was interesting discussing it with her. We have talked about our feelings and thoughts on the divorce before. She had a list of questions that I was supposed to answer, but it was a bit different because she wasn’t interviewing a stranger. She was interviewing somebody who was involved in the same situation she was.

One of the questions that she asked is something that I have thought about a lot before.

Divorce can definitely become a generational pattern. My parents were divorced. My mom’s parents were divorced. And “they” say that children from stable two parent homes are more likely to have successful marriages, while children from broken homes are more likely to have marriages that end in divorce.

In the Christian circles that I have been involved in, I have often heard things such as “You should look to marry someone that has grown up in a stable two parent home, because they are more likely to stay together in their marriages.” That’s probably true.

So, my sister asked me something along the lines of whether I would rather marry someone whose parents are divorced or still married. And of course I would rather marry someone who doesn’t come from a broken home. My family is dysfunctional enough for us all. The more things that we have stacked in our favor the better. The less emotional baggage we have, the better.

But it is kind of a double standard. I don’t want guys to hold me to that standard. I don’t think that I am destined to fail in marriage just because my parents’ marriage failed. Though I come from a family with a pattern of divorce, I am determined, with God’s help, to break those patterns. Divorce will not be an option for me.

(As a disclaimer, it doesn’t really matter. This is not gonna make or break a relationship…if I fall in love with someone, and feel like God has led us together, it won’t matter what their family is like..)

Today’s high: Getting a really sweet note from a friend.

Today’s low: My aching calves.

I went to Yosemite this weekend with my friend Vanessa. It was great fun, other than the fact that I barely slept because it was so cold in our tent. Well, it was cold outside our tent, too.

Yesterday we hiked up to the top of Yosemite Falls which has an amazing view of the valley. It’s not a super long hike (7 miles round trip). But, it is a bit strenuous, at least for me. The first mile of the trail has a 1,000 foot elevation gain, and 60 switchbacks (according to the park ranger at the visitor’s center.) That is a big elevation gain, and my calves and quads certainly felt it, and feel it even more today. But it was all worth it. I wish I had my pictures developed so that I could share the amazing view with you all.

Can I just say that I love my friend Vanessa? She is a lot of fun, and also enjoys the same dumb things that I do. Who else will play National Geographic trivia with me while we are hiking? Or play National Geographic trivia for 15 minutes until the man at the exit gate gets off work (so that we don’t have to pay the entrance fee)? Or play the dictionary game on the drive home? She reads a word (while I am driving in dense fog)…and I see if I know the definition. (You can also play that game without the dense fog). Who else will read “The Man from Snowy River” out loud while we are sitting around the campsite and before we go to sleep? I think I put her to sleep with my reading the first night, and she put me to sleep the second night. Who else gets so excited about the “attic” in their tent? I love her tent, for the record. And who else will got to Yosemite with me and camp in 30 degree weather on the spur of the moment?

Maybe tomorrow I will share more Yosemite moments and have visuals to go with them.

I’m sure google will enjoy this post title and will send lots of peple to my blog who aren’t gonna find what they are looking for, but oh well.

I have been looking through photo albums. And am reminded lately how much I miss my friend. If ever I have had a bosom friend it would be Avril. And like Anne and Diana, we are very different. (If you didn’t get that reference, you are probably a boy.)

Avril is a romantic. I am a realist. She is what might be called loud and loves to be the center of attention, and I am generally more quiet and like to sit back and watch what is going on. She is a dreamer. I tend to be more logical. I am much more of a rule follower than she is.

I think when I first realized how opposite we were was when we were in a lecture about learning styles. We took a test on “types of intelligence”. There were 7 possible types of intelligence or ways we learn best. Linguistics and Logic were at the very top of my list and the very bottom of hers. Our whole lists were exactly opposite. So, we think and interact quite differently. But we sure managed to get past those differences and become fast friends.

I met Avril when we were in Australia attending a 6 month DTS (Disipleship Training School). (Someday I will blog about that…an amazing time in my life.) She and I lived in the same house along with 16 other girls. And she thought that I didn’t really like her at first. One thing about a DTS is that you tend to become close to people very quickly. God is doing so much in your lives that you share a lot of stuff on a deep emotional level and plus you live together, and spend so much time together that bonds are formed right away.

So many memories of our times in Australia. Swimming. Sitting together in lectures, and getting dirty looks for talking too much. Laughing together, crying together, praying together. Falling for the same guy. Oops. (more on that later) Interpretive Dance. Planning trips around the world. And making hand signals for the name of our trip. (Around the world 4 Him) Camping in the rain in my tiny $20 tent.

One thing we do have in common is that we are both super competitive. One of my favorite stories is when we became “the dirty girls”. For some reason, in response to some sort of challenge by our guy friends, 5 of us girls decided to see who could go the longest without washing our hair. Thankfully, we could only go two weeks, because we were leaving for ministry outreach and we had to wash our hair before going. But this became quite the competition. The guys were determined to force us to wash our hair, so they did things like put sugar and flour and dishsoap in our hair. But we remained strong. And maybe fought back a little by putting butter in their hair. So, they decided to smear onion dip in my hair, which they thought would force me to wash my hair. But they were wrong. I, for some strange reason (pride) still refused, even though I had to wear a hat when I slept because it smelled so bad. I also sprayed a lot of country apple body spray on my hair. But, thanks to the onion dip, I won the contest and was declared “Dirty Girl #1″. Something to be proud of. Avril came in second, and the competitive nature of our friendship is locked in. It was a really dumb thing to do, but really fun. And the guys bought us Dirty Girl t-shirts in the deal with the motto that they made up for us “Total Pride, No Shame”.

OK…this is getting long and I have only touched on the first couple of months of our friendship. I guess I will be like Kari and spread this out over a few posts.

Here is a picture of Avril and I (with clean hair) and with our boys who remained our friends despite our dirty girl status.

You know something that makes me sad?

Kids always have to sit in the back seat these days. I mean it’s bad enough that they have to be always strapped in and have to be in carseats almost until they hit puberty. My brother and I never wore seat belts when we were little. And we survived. My brother only fell out of the car once, but he wasn’t really hurt; he was more upset about losing his sandwich. But kids now can’t even sit in the front seat, because every car now has airbags and kids might get hurt by these safety devices.

This would have taken a lot of the joy away from my childhood. How many times did my brother and I fight over who got to sit in front. I’m surprised my mom never really implemented a policy. She kind of left it up to us. Once in a while, she would make us take turns and put her foot down. Otherwise, it was a free for all. “All” being my brother and I. I recall that at times, shotgun would go to whoever yelled “I call the front!” first. But it had to be after we were outside of the store or the house. You couldn’t “call it” while we were still inside.

Sometimes we would determine who got to sit in the front by whoever touched the car first. I inevitably lost in this one, because my brother was older and more athletic, and therefore quicker. So, he would tag the car first.

And the other way we would decide who got the front was by arguing over whose turn it was. Of course, we always theought it was our own turn. So, we’d argue about it, until one of us gave in, or my mom got frustrated enough to make one of sit in the back.

Kids nowadays don’t even know what kind of sibling bonding they are missing.

My kids will be sitting in the front seat.

I am a part of the “J.F.” club, also known as a JF-er. “What is a JF-er?”, you may ask. Thanks for asking.

One time when I was in Australia, a few of my girl friends and I were sitting on a bed lamenting the fact that we are the kind the girls that guys love to have as friends, but nothing more. We are treated as “one of they guys”, but never seen as potential romantic interests. So, to celebrate our solidarity, we formed a club, the aforementioned “JF-ers”.

Now, many girls think that they are JFers, but aren’t really. Most true JFers have never really dated much. They usually have at least one guy friend that they are very close to. A true JFer is not dating someone, and guys do not often express interest in dating them. They have had guys tell them on multiple occasions, “You are a great girl and will someday make some guy very happy, but I just want to be friends.”

Just Friends.

Just Friends.

Just Friends.

Just Friends

It echoes in our ears.

J.ust F.riends: J.F.ers

Most of the time, we are okay with this, but not always. All we ask is that just once, some guy will see past the “just friends” label and realize that we are girls who not only are great friends, but can be great girlfriends and great wives. And guys, please read this next sentence carefully. JFers will make wonderful wives.

There are definitely benefits to being a JFer. You end up having amazing friends. I love having guy friends, and in looking back on my life I realize that there is rarely a time where I haven’t had a close guy friend. I love having guy friends, because you get a different perspective on life. And they aren’t as catty and spiteful as a lot of girls.

A quick recap of my close guy friends.

High School: Brian-
We forged an unlikely friendship on our hour long school bus rides. These long bus rides gave us time to talk about everything from arm wrestling (he loved the movie “Over the Top” with Sylvester Stallone) to algebra to relationships to Jesus to “the popular exclusive group” (which he claimed I was in and he wasn’t) and beyond. I graduated a year before he did, but we wrote letters to each other regularly while I was away at college. That is until he decided that I talked about Jesus too much, and stopped writing.

1st year of college: Sam-
…and his roommates The 3 girls that I hung out with all lived in the same room, and the four of us would always hang out with Sam’s room. Before we did anything, we would call their room to ask if they wanted to come. We never went to the cafeteria or walked to the campus post office or went to class without calling them first. We even all went to the spring formal together. Sam and I really became much better friends through writing notes to each other during our theology classes. We would spend the entire time filling pages of paper with discussion, both meaningful and mundane. Sam got married that summer, and didn’t come back to school the next year, and we gradually lost touch.

Junior and Senior year of college: Eric-
Another very unlikely friend. We disagreed on a lot of things, but really challenged each others ways of thinking. We started to become close friends when we had geography class together. We were both very competitive and couldn’t stand if the other one got a better grade. He always beat me, but I blame that on the fact that he has lived all over the world. We became even better friends the next semester when we had every class together. And we got reprimanded often for talking too much or messing around in class. We also connected a lot outside of class, and had great conversations about everything. When his fiance broke up with him and gave him back the ring, he came to my house to cry. (I promptly handed him a tub of ice cream [that's how girls cope ] and told him that it was not a good idea tocome to his best girl friend’s house when his fiance breaks up with him…she probably wouldn’t be so happy with that]. They eventually did get married and he asked her if I could be in the wedding, and she said, “no way!”. Sadly, his marriage was the death knell for our friendship. We have talked a couple of times since graduation 6 years ago. It is probably the friendship that I miss the most. Well, almost. It ranks #2.

Post-college: Andy
We met while we were in Australia doing a DTS (Discipleship Training School). Kind of an unlikely friendship. He was an 18 year old reserved British boy and I was a 23 year old American not really interested in making close friends, especially guy friends. But somehow, through discussion of sociology, and God working in our lives, and going on outreach to Thailand together we formed a deep friendship that has continued for the last 4 years, despite the fact that we are always living on opposite sides of the world. Andy probably knows more about me and my insecurities than a lot of people. We have lots of fun together and have pulled a great prank (convincing all our friends that we were engaged ). I got to spend a week with him on my way home from Kenya a couple of months ago. We have had our ups and downs and times where we have been closer than others, but we are still friends. Neither of us have gotten married, maybe that’s why. But I have hopes that this friendship will survive if either of us get married.

And if I can count people that I’ve never met in person, then I’d have to add Luke to that list. We have talked on the phone on a pretty regular basis for about the last year and a half. And I consider him a good friend.

But can guys and girls really be just friends and have the friendship last? I guess I don’t have time to address my thoughts on this question in this post. So, I will save those thoughts for another day.

*For the record, this is not necessarily a list of guys that I have been interested in. This is just a list of my closest guy friends through the years.

A little bit of advice for you all.

Never be the good employee. It doesn’t pay off. The other night we were SO slow. And for a waitress, when we are so slow, it means NO money. I had 2, count them, TWO tables the whole night. So, I asked Carlos (my boss) if I could go home, since there was another waitress there, and I have never gone home early the whole year and a half that I have worked there. He thought about it for a few minutes, and then said “No”. His reason: because he doesn’t trust the other waitress to be able to handle it if by some slim chance it got busy. And he doesn’t trust her with money. So, we both had to stay and I made $11 dollars the whole night. When I could have been at home doing something more productive. Or just watching a movie or something not productive.

And who gets a phone call when someone else calls in sick? It’s me. It’s me. Because I’m a good employee, and I will probably say yes to covering someone else’s shift. So, today, I am working both the lunch and dinner shift, because the lunch girl is sick. So, hopefully, I make more than $11.

(And I just used a kajillion commas, but I’m not gonna go fix it right now. )

I feel like I have to write something about the election, since it is the main issue of the day.

I am currently watching election coverage, and it doesn’t make me cringe as much as I thought it would. Though I do love Dan Rather’s quaint little sayings that he always throws in.

I voted today, and proudly received my “I voted” sticker. Thankfully, I live in a small town and didn’t have to wait in line for hours.

I have to admit that I have not even followed the campaigns very much over the last few months. Frankly, because both the presidential candidates get on my nerves, and I didn’t really want to vote for either of them. It always feels like I’m choosing between the lesser of two evils. But, in the end, my Republican roots won out. And I’m surprising myself as I watch the projected results coming in. I really am pulling for Bush more than I would let myself admit before.

I don’t love some of the things Bush has done while in office. But, one thing about Bush, you know where he stands and that he will follow through, which to me shows integrity. Though I don’t always agree with the stands that he does take. And he does seem to be a bit arrogant. Though I guess that might be necessary to be “the leader of the free world”.

Also, in California, we had a bunch of propositions to vote on, from decisions on Indian Casinos to stem cell research. I did a bit of research on them. By research I mean reading the voter information guide and discussing them with Vanessa, and then recapping that for my mom.

:rant: While we are on the subject of politics, can I just ask a question? Why is abortion the ONLY issue for so many Christian Republicans? Now let me clarify that I hate abortion, and in no way support it. I think it is horrible and it is the killing of babies. But, there are so many other issues that politicians support that also are sin. Why do we choose to make abortion the main issue? Why must we tell people when they vote for a democratic candidate, “Way to vote for the killing of innocent babies.”? To those people who voted Republican, I could say “Way to vote for the killing of innocent Iraqis”. I just don’t see why it is the only issue that it comes down to in the end. If you agree with someone on every issue except his stance on abortion, you won’t vote for him. But if there is someone who is pro-life, but you don’t agree with him on a few other issues, then you still have to vote for him? I don’t know. I think that I have always voted pro-life, but I don’t think it is the only issue. There are so many other important issues that are important. :end rant:

I voted, and I am holding my head high, proud to be a part of this country, despite all of its problems. Proud to be able to participate in the electoral process, despite all of its problems. Proud to be an American! And cheesy.