Where Have Ya' Been?

What do the following things have in common?

I have been thinking really hard about a concept for my new blog. As many of you know I am graduating in two weeks and will no longer be “Nonsense from a grad student”…but “Nonsense from a GRADUATE!!! As you can see this title doesn’t really fit my life. I kept praying, wracking my brain, emotionally eating cookies, ran around in circles, threw my hands in the air…and finally the concept came to me.

It was as clear as a lightening bolt. Despite my recent absence in posting, blogging is something I am passionate about. I have spent the hiatus from blogging to read and research other blogs I am in love with. And one night while drifting into a pleasant slumber it came to me. My new concept will include the things I am most passionate about: My love for Christ, the many struggles I face with being a new therapist/wife/future mom/neighbor/friend/sister, and of course my love for all things beautiful and crafty. So while these pictures do reveal a bit of what I’ve been working on. Much is yet to be determined. I will be releasing my new blog re-design on June 1^st, for all of you anxiously waiting!

In the meantime, I will be out of town in Corpus Christie for my brother’s wedding and then graduating when I get home on May 12^th. Hoping to get to spend some time baking in the sun and working out my tired bones from sitting 12 hours a day. ‘Till then Happy Easter!

~Lindz

My Beautiful Core

This week I've been extremely disheartened. I feel like I keep searching and praying about an opportunity that will give me answers and lead my heart a certain direction. But what am I hearing instead? NADDA! I was watching Eat, Pray, Love today and got extremely excited about our trip to Italy and Greece next October. I've always wanted to travel in my life and for some reason I've gotten so side tracked away from that. I spent my whole life living under such strict rules that I feel weird now having all this freedom. I can paint my nails whatever color I want, I can eat whatever I want, I can garden whatever I want, I can go/do/think/believe anything! So why do I feel so stuck?

There is this amazing woman living in my complex that I have had the great privilege to get to know over the course of the past year or so. She is extremely gifted in writing woman's devotionals and I can't wait to work with her on bringing a woman's Bible study to our apartment complex. This week on her blog, she challenged women everywhere to shed their makeup and then asked the following questions, that I LOVE:

1. If you participated in our intro Tuesday (yes that means we are doing it again next Tuesday) of Redefining Beautiful today, share with us what that experience was like. How did you feel when you looked in the mirror before walking out the door? Did people notice? Did it cause you to focus more on your inside beauty today? If so, how so?
~It's interesting that this was the challenge in order to help woman kind see how much time is actually spent on noticing their beauty. I actually tend to have the opposite problem. I do not spend longer than ten minutes getting dressed, brushing teeth, pulling hair back. I haven't worn make-up in months, and I rarely look in the mirror. When I look in the mirror and take the time to notice myself I see someone who doesn't care about how they look and I feel tired. Working four jobs and oversleeping some days and becoming sleep deprived the next. My body is exhausted and telling me to slow down. Either I have too much energy or not enough. Either I eat extremely healthy, or not at all. I'm living in extremes. I've been ignoring my inner beauty because it's easier to take care of my clients, husband, family, friends than to focus on myself. To focus on me seems so selfish. But it's not just me that I ignore sometimes, It's my Father. God takes a back burner too some days when I sleep in and miss church because I worked for a coworker overnight Saturday. I'm so busy helping the hurting that I forget to ask God to replenish me, and help me feel beautiful when I can't stand to think about it.
2. What do you see when you look into the mirror and deep past those eyes? Negatives and positives encouraged!
Once again all I can see is exhaustion. Ultimately it reminds me of a time about seven years ago. I had just celebrated my 18th birthday and was in the bathroom of a friends house at a party. I was so completely drunk that all I could do was stare at my eyes in the mirror. I kept asking myself...who's in there? Who are you? What are you doing? And my answer was empty. I felt nothing, just complete numbness. It was the first time I had dared look at myself, deep into my eyes and saw nothing. Just a whole that longed to be filled. Of course the story does get better, I ended up meeting my husband a few months after that, made a commitment to get sober and ultimately accepted Christ into my heart and changed my life. It wasn't easy to start a new life, to begin realizing that I had beauty. Now when I look deep into my eyes I feel love. It isn't even really coming just from me it's from all the people in my life, it's from God, and it's from me. But without that missing component of accepting God's love I wouldn't have felt it. So even though I see an exhausted version of that...I still see the glimmer of light and love that God radiates through me.
3. What things are really difficult to love about your inside and why?
I think it all comes down to acceptance. To love yourself is to accept yourself regardless. This is what makes a marriage so difficult in my opinion. It's that acceptance and love you trust in someone else. The same is true for yourself. In a sense we are our own worst enemy. We are the only one's that can make the decision to forgive ourselves for our sins and love every gift that God has blessed us with, including the gift of ourselves.
4. What things do you love about your new inside? What beauty do you see on the inside? Can you think of something in your "heart" that has really flourished since you began your Christian faith walk?
Love. Love. Love. I never knew love like I now know love. So I love that I can love now in a trusting way that gives faith and shows kindness. Through this love I feel and give I can serve others, be kind to those that hurt me, and bring others to know a love that I know so well. To think back to the drunk girl who had spent so many hours hurting herself in countless ways I realize that that girl had no idea what love was. That girl had never felt loved and was seeking love in so many harmful ways. God built us to love and once I truly felt that from him, I was able to show it to others. This love is what allows me to see the good in myself: caring, compassion, loving, honest, gracious, empathetic, creative, intelligent, sensitive, humorous...the list continues.
5. Do you believe your self-worth in Christ is invaluable? If so, how are you doing in the area of your day to day life reflecting that invaluable self-worth?
I'm keeping this one simple. There have been days in my life where I was so worn down I couldn't love myself and I had to trust that he was there doing enough loving for me that I could rely on him to lead me to self-love. Being able to trust in Christ to provide his unconditional love, it's a love that we don't feel from anything else in this world. So even when I let myself down and slip into a low self-worth day, He is there redirecting me to see the truth.
6. This post contains a lot of contradictions (life is full of them) and things I could expand for pages on (aren't you glad I spared you?!) so what things are difficult to grasp? On what things would you challenge me? On what ideas do you need further clarification and expansion?
None...I loved it :)

Happy Linzday!

O.k. so I've been dreading this weekend because I promised Matt I would help volunteer for this youth retreat thing this weekend. Little did I know that I had a huge project due Monday, many hours of paperwork, school work, and future job searching to get done. Well the past two weeks have been crazy with Matt beginning his new job...oh and getting sick...did I mention that?
Why are men such baby's when they are sick?
This is him snuggled up with our Audrey cat who we nickname "Little Kitty" because she is a huge ball of gray fluff but underneath that she weighs Mayyybe 6 lbs. Anyway, so after taking care of three people (Matt, and the two cats) I pretty much am at the end of my patience. I also determined that I was suffering from compassion fatigue last week. I have a huge case load of clients right now and then we had an incident at work that has just been eating at me. I couldn't put my finger on it but when I came home and Matt was sniffing and coughing I basically handed him some NYquil and said "Get over it". Obviously, it only took about one day of my being a total jerk for me to snap out of it. It was like once it hit me that I was just empathetically depleted it all made sense and I was able to push it aside and continue on with taking care of the house and him. These last ten months have been so hard that I didn't think I could make it any longer, but I am feeling so much better now. My new schedule this semester has drastically changed my life, especially since I haven't been called in to work in a week now!!! My first week without working at my fourth job :) It feels good :)

Anyway, back to this weekend. So by some rather unfortunate incidents all of the girls signed up to go this weekend are now unable to attend, so they didn't need me anymore. So I'm like whoa! Wait a minute...I'm going to be alone in the house? For one night and two days!!!! My list of things to due is endless!!! But here is a taste of what I have in mind...
I'll let you know all about it when Lindzday has been fully celebrated :)

Controlled Chaos

Man o man it has been a crazy week! First off let me begin with Valentines day! Ever since seven years ago my husband made it his personal mission to change my mind about valentines day as the wonderful boyfriend he is. I was so spoiled on our first valentines I'm not sure if it can ever be topped it included delicious Italian, my favorite handpicked flowers (Indian paintbrushes), my first time to the carnival, and my first ever Beta fish. Yes 2005 Valentines was a good year. So this year like every year after this one has been a big deal. Let's just say I had a lifetime of disappointing valentines day's. One including getting dumped, so it hasn't been a good day for me up until this wonderful February in 2005. OK well I was disappointed when I found out that Matt had to work on V-day and that it was his first day no less. So all weekend we were rushing around buying him first week at work clothes and preparing for his new job. Well the day came and I woke up extra early to make him breakfast, get him ready and off to his first day.
I hadn't been feeling super great so I decided not to see clients on this day and instead stayed home to rest and clean the house. So 5 o'clock rolls around and Matt comes home with a super sweet card and a beautiful flower all for me :) I just gushed about how much it meant to me and it was the most thoughtful thing ever! Then he takes me to Dallas to a book signing of the pioneer woman! I couldn't believe that he would spend his Valentines with me to stand in line to meet one of my favorite bloggers. Anyway, so we went and found out that the line was SUPER long. But my trooper of a husband without complaint just offered that we go get dinner and come back. We went across the street and had burgers. Not before of course getting my picture taken with the pioneer woman's dreamy farmer husband :)
And then at about 12:15am I met the funniest blogger I know! If you haven't read her blog then I suggest you do, she has some amazing recipe's as well :) Oh and by the way...she liked my necklace! Me? Have style? Well it was totally worth the wait to see her. Note to all of you who attend book signing's...get there early :) Well that's all for tonight to cure my insomnia...more to come.

Stuck

I feel like maybe I'm not the only one stuck right now.

Stuck in school until May.
Stuck inside from the snow.
Stuck in debt.
Stuck in relationships with friends.
Stuck at work...afraid to drive home in the weather.

Yeah I would say that many Texans right now are as stuck as I am.
So one day last week I was walking to the counseling office and decided to check my bank account to see how close we were to hitting $0. And realized our account had overdrafted by $200!!! I began hyperventilating! I immediately called Matt and became let's be honest angry, stressed, and I'm pretty sure there were veins popping. I had just had a conversation with him about watching our account and keeping up with when bills were due and then disaster struck!!! So I basically informed him that he had until 5:00pm to fix this problem. Then soon after he called me back and informed me that he heard back from the job he wanted and he got the position! I think it's so funny how the same day our account turned upside down his career turned right side up. Can you be joyous and angry at the same time? Not really, that's why I worked toward letting go of that anger. So about the job.

He will be officially titled Systems Administrator Level II for Texas Health System's Cardiology team. Matt will be working with doctors and sometimes during their surgeries on the many computer and other equipment used to help patients. So basically a computer doctor.So we have been celebrating for like two weeks straight. My hubby begins his new job on Valentines day!

Back to the temporary anger...

I am in need of serious prayer to let go of this anger that is seemingly possessing my spirit. It takes away my job, it robs me of pleasure, and most importantly comes between me and God. He is the one that has provided for this family of below poverty line earnings for the year of 2010. He has provided love and comfort and a supportive heart in my Husband when Matt is the one that needed it the most. He has provided me with peace throughout most of this process of Matt being unemployed. And He had shown me how societal views of financial standing and status can be ignored in order to be happy.

Lessons learned? Absolutely. But I'm still seething in anger. I'm so angry that we are struggling to realize our dreams for our family while working so hard. Everyday it seems so senseless sometimes for me to be working two jobs that aren't even paying me anything, and one that pays barely over minimum wage. Is this some funny joke? I mean I knew that going to graduate school would be hard...but how do doctors do it? I mean those people are in school for like ten years? Who supports them? I've been thinking about this for a while now. God truly works miracles. How did we pay our bills the last ten months? I don't even remember it's all such a blur. So I guess we can be patient for another month. Just one of the many lessons God will teach Matt and I. In the meantime I'm working on letting go. Because I'm NOT in control...which is a hard lesson to learn.