I need to be more humble in my daily life.
I need to meditate on better thoughts.
I need to be more aware of my actions.


Please hear my plea to guide me.

I've been reading too many blogs, too many news articles, creeping on facebook, tweeting, and flickr-ing.

I'm trying to remind myself that I am working towards what I want to do in life... unfortunately, I feel that it's at a slower pace than I anticipated.

France unveils $33B stimulus plan

There's a little big of snow outside, Snow That Actually Stuck Around Snow, and I wish it were this epic snow storm instead. I wouldn't mind experiencing a snow day since I became a career lady.

I went on a date the other week, well, maybe two dates? I'm so bad at this stuff. I was kinda oblivious that it was a date because I was thinking of things more casually. A mutual friend had the intentions of playing match maker, but they had to cancel plans and I wasn't going to meet some strange guy on my own. So, Coupon Guy (you will understand later) had emailed me and suggested we meet up for coffee one night after work. Okay. We met up and had a great conversation, I enjoyed it and he clearly did to to ask me if meeting up for lunch later that week would work out. We're at lunch and he excuses himself to use the restroom, only he's gone for 20 minutes! I'm wondering if I will need to pay for two lunches, but then realize that his jacket is still there and it was pretty cold outside... so he'll need to be back. He eventually returns and it comes out later in conversation that he needed to go feed the parking meter. Which then lead to an in depth run down of his morning itinerary and why he drove when he lives within walking distance to where we met. When the bill came, I pulled out my wallet to hear the statement, "no, I have this." But instead I heard, "no worries! I have a buy one get one free coupon! it's practically nothing!" HAHAHAHA. I hope that my facial expression wasn't what I thought or how I was laughing deep down inside. We parted and he hugged me. meh.
I walked throughout the city laughing out loud. I just couldn't believe it. It's took funny to me. I had to call my childhood best friend and ask him if that was labeled a date. His response, "Yes, I believe that was his intentions, but I'd never ever do that." Oh, and the mutual friend also told me it was a date. I just wanted to make sure, because that's stuff that friends and I will do. And, I am very lucky to have a great group of guy buddies who treat girls wonderfully and will pay the tab a majority of the time (and I make sure to leave tip, because I don't go out expecting that every time). I met up with a friend later who bought two coffees and handed me mine saying, "you deserve something that wasn't bought with a coupon today!"

Earlier this week I had received an email from the mutual friend asking if Coupon Guy and I have talked recently. I said, "no, why?" His response, "Cause he asked me if we can have lunch and then all three of us have lunch." "You mean a pre-lunch to a lunch?" "Yes."

WHAT?! I have no expectations or anything, but really, what is that?
All of this has lead me ponder my relationship status as of late. I'm quite happy being single and being able to accomplish things and not plan around someone else. I'm entirely too involved with getting things done for myself. Granted, a good cuddle now and again would be great... but it's just not necessary.


I've been watching the OC (provided by shudder2think) and it's such a great guilty pleasure. I'll never forget having food poisoning and watching season 1 within two days. I've always had a thing for Adam Brody since he was in Gilmore Girls (<3).

I've been listening to my Leona Naess and Yael Naim albums on repeat lately. For some reason they're the only songs to match my up and down moods.

I read this as port of a email/magazine thing that gets sent to me and found it rather interesting... so I wanted to share-

Love Path: FAQ, by Joe Beam


Where can I go to get answers to my questions about love and marriage?
Where can I go especially for those hard to ask questions? Where can I
turn to deepen my relationship with my spouse? What can I do when
things are a mess between my spouse and me? How can I better understand
God's Word and what it says about love and marriage?

On Thursdays, you get to ask those questions and get answers from Joe
Beam. Over 100,000 people have enrolled in Joe's courses, seminars, and
workshops. He's appeared on national programs such as NBC's Today,
ABC's Good Morning America, The Montel Williams Show, and Focus on the
Family. You may have seen him in People magazine or Better Homes and
Gardens or read one of his books or articles. Joe is also a Christian
minister who will answer questions about love and relationships. Send
him your questions: ask@JoeBeam.com.

So let's start with two frequently asked questions.

How can we fall more deeply in love?

The good news is that you CAN! No matter how much you love each other
now -- or how much you DON'T love each other now -- you can find
increasingly deep and wonderful love. When you think about it, love
must be something we can make grow or God wouldn't have commanded it (Ephesians
5:25; Colossians 3:19; John 13:34-35)! But how can you do that in your
marriage?

No matter how much you love each other now -- or how much you DON'T
love each other now -- you can find increasingly deep and wonderful
love. However, you may want to decide which type love you want to
increase. Romantic? Infatuation? Fatuous? Companionate? Friendship?
Empty? Consummate? According to the research of Robert Sternberg, PhD,
all seven of those are a type of love that may exist in a relationship.
You can learn more about those in my book Your LovePath.

Right now let's narrow it down to two broader kinds of love -- passion
and bonding. If you want to replicate the type of passion you had in
the first years of your courtship, sorry. That's called limerence and
it won't be coming back -- except possible brief spurts -- no matter
what you do. The other kind, bonding, can and will get deeper, more
fulfilling, and more important each year of your life together. It
doesn't have the same type of thrill early romance does, but it has a
depth romance that courtship by itself can never achieve.

To bond deeper with each other, do the following -- and there is strong
medical, scientific, and Biblical evidence for everything listed. Treat
each other with warmth and kindness. Hug and kiss often. Hold hands.
Talk about intimate matters while accepting the other as s/he truly is.
And bless each other with sexual fulfillment ... which leads us to our
next question!

How often should a married couple make love?

That's fascinating in light of our command!

My PhD work is in Biomedical Science at the University of Sydney. More
specifically, my research is in marital and sexual satisfaction. In
essence, my doctoral work is in sexology. That means I read thousands
of pages of the latest research every year. Much of this research
intersects God's principles in Scripture in powerful ways.

The psalmist proclaims that we are "fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm
139:14). You see, God made us to share in a "one flesh" union as
husband and wife (Genesis 2:24; Matthew 19:4-6). He makes clear in
Scripture that we are to bless and fulfill our spouses sexually (1
Corinthians 7:2-5; Proverbs 5:1-23). Medical research has helped us
better understand just how wonderfully we are made in this regard.

We used to tell a couple that they should work out a lovemaking
schedule best for them. We now know better. Medical science is
discovering just how often God designed our bodies to be sexually
fulfilled. An Israeli study showed that the more often a woman has
sexual fulfillment (orgasm), the less likelihood she has of having a
heart attack. (No, I didn't make that up, nor did I make up any of the
following.) A British study showed that the more often men reach sexual
fulfillment, the less likely they are to have a fatal heart attack.
Regular sexual fulfillment for a man also reduces his chances of
getting prostate cancer. If the husband's issue regularly enters the
wife's body (no barrier such as certain birth control devices), then
she has less likelihood of having breast cancer. That works even if
he's had a vasectomy. The list goes on and on, even to the point of
pain control. Achieving sexual fulfillment has an analgesic effect. One
famous sexologist has a lecture titled, "Please, tonight, I have a
headache."

So how often should this "regular fulfillment" occur to get all these
benefits? Two to three times a week. Most of the studies cited above
found that frequency to be important to the medical benefits.
Interestingly, a man's body makes a new batch of millions of sperm
every seventy-two hours, which is more evidence that God made us to
have sexual fulfillment two to three times a week. And in addition to
the medicinal benefits, making love that frequently also releases
oxytocin, which helps bond the couple to each other. That's fascinating
in light of our command to fulfill each other found in 1 Corinthians 7,
isn't it?

I was taking care of my 95 year old grandmother yesterday-

"Madre said she wants me to take pictures of you, since you said you were getting all fancy and dressed up today."

"Okay, well let me take my teeth out. I'm tired of her taking pictures of me all the time."

HHAHAHA. The camera is left in her apartment because my mom wants it there to take pictures whenever my great grandmother does decide to get dressed and etc. She wants nice pictures to remember her by, which is well understood, but a little annoying to always pull out the camera. I just can't wait till I get the phone call, "WHY DID YOU TAKE A PICTURE OF HER WITHOUT HER TEETH IN?!"

more cat pictures