english really is my SECOND language

i haven't updated this sucker in a long time. mainly because i've been working 50 hour weeks. when you work 50 hour weeks at a job an hour away, you really only have time for sleeping and eating outside of working. but it is time.

i've been thinking about a lot of things lately about work, and life, and all kinds of other thought provoking things. here's kind of an update.

before my current job, i had a life. not only did i have a life. i had calluses on my fingers. good calluses that didn't peel a week later. i had an almost 5 octave range. my guitar did not collect dust and i went through a song-writing book a week. want to know how long i've been writing in my current one? almost 3 years.

i am mortified and ashamed at this fact. mainly because the Lord provided me with a priceless talent and gift that i am not using. also because nothing makes me happier than writing and playing. it is how i connect with Christ, it's how i purge my overactive brain, how i express what my speaking cannot. music is my language. i am more fluent in expression through music than i am with words. my husband can testify to this.

there are lots of musicians. lots of people who play and sing. lots of people who truly appreciate music, regardless of region, root, and genre. not many, though, that can really say that music is their first language. i was humming before i was speaking. i could true sing harmonies at the age of 5. music expressed more to me as an infant than expressive faces and babble.

john mayer, for example. john mayer's first language is music. there are lots of other artists i am convinced that are the same. there's a list that i won't list right now. but these are those i can listen to and just weep. not because of what the song is necessarily saying (although that can be the case), but because someone is speaking my language! someone is communicating beyond a bunch of consonants and vowels, strung together like pearls in hopes that someone will understand. music comes from the soul.

i don't want to be more fluent in english than music. my soul is dusty and dry and it aches. playing my guitar the other night made me weep, not because of my own music or talent, but because God speaks to my soul through my first language. i always feel closer to the heart of God when there is music, when i am singing his praise, when i'm utilizing his gift.

please ask me. ask me if i am playing.

have you finished your christmas shopping? i have not. almost. but not.

maybe i'll throw a new years party. i throw good parties and have lots of good serving pieces that i need to use. i also got some really great hors d'oeuvres recipes and ideas. hmmm....

christmas is in a few days. are you ready? i'm ready. for a break!

a letter to joni mitchell, vanity, and a list

dear joni mitchell,

although your music and lyrics are incredibly haunting and poignant, i wish you hadn't smoked so much.

love,
jen

p.s. sometimes you make me cry. in the good way.

1 peter 1:7

it's been a rough week. 


recently i had a tough realization about my life. i'm young still, but despite all the blessings i've received, there is little i can say for my 24 years. yes, i got married, i graduated from college... twice. i wrote some songs. i volunteer at church. i try and make a difference in the lives of the people i work with. yet, i'm not doing what i love, what makes me happy. i have made few decisions about my own life. 


we all know the following two things:
1. God has an intense and unmistakable sense of humor.  
2. Faith produces endurance.


some circumstances at work have changed and not in a good way. i have been put in a very difficult situation and am stuck, pretty much. my only option is to leave. these circumstances presented themselves immediately after i found this handy little ditty by mr. charles spurgeon. funny. very funny, God. 

"1 Peter 1:7
The trial of your faith.

Faith untried may be true faith, but it is sure to be little faith, and it is likely to remain dwarfish so long as it is without trials. Faith never prospers so well as when all things are against her: tempests are her trainers, and lightnings are her illuminators. When a calm reigns on the sea, spread the sails as you will, the ship moves not to its harbour; for on a slumbering ocean the keel sleeps too. Let the winds rush howling forth, and let the waters lift up themselves, then, though the vessel may rock, and her deck may be washed with waves, and her mast may creak under the pressure of the full and swelling sail, it is then that she makes headway towards her desired haven. No flowers wear so lovely a blue as those which grow at the foot of the frozen glacier; no stars gleam so brightly as those which glisten in the polar sky; no water tastes so sweet as that which springs amid the desert sand; and no faith is so precious as that which lives and triumphs in adversity. Tried faith brings experience. You could not have believed your own weakness had you not been compelled to pass through the rivers; and you would never have known God's strength had you not been supported amid the water-floods. Faith increases in solidity, assurance, and intensity, the more it is exercised with tribulation. Faith is precious, and its trial is precious too. Let not this, however, discourage those who are young in faith. You will have trials enough without seeking them: the full portion will be measured out to you in due season. Meanwhile, if you cannot yet claim the result of long experience, thank God for what grace you have; praise Him for that degree of holy confidence whereunto you have attained: walk according to that rule, and you shall yet have more and more of the blessing of God, till your faith shall remove mountains and conquer impossibilities."

i am broken, WE are broken and lacking and imperfect. my imperfections and lacking helps me see God's power and that without my faith in his ability to scoop me out of the raging rivers i would have drowned before even a toe touched the water. i neglect to realize how my lack of faith fails to glorify Him, and the whole point of all of this is to reflect the glory to the Father.

although this situation is a major thorn in my thumb, it should immediately redirect my focus from how hard things might be for a while to how glorifying this is going to be for Him when i rely on Him. touche.

very funny and touche.


on another note, my funny and wonderful husband wrote me a poem. it goes as follows:
Thank you God! Thank you Jesus!
For giving me a wife that's sweeter than peaches!
She's beautiful and fun,
Quite smart, not dumb.
So that you God and THANK YOU JESUS!

lovelovelove

hungry

Jeff & started the Fat Smash Diet this week. It was put together by Dr. Ian Smith (or something) who was the nutritionist on Celebrity Fit Club. It is a detox diet that is pretty intense and is based on several phases. The first phase, which we are currently in the midst of, is 9 days and we are only allowed to eat fruits, vegetables, 1 cup of brown rice & 2 egg whites per day, and that's it. It's hard. I just really want some cheese and a piece of bread. Peanut butter sounds great too. 

I cannot believe that we are already in November. Thanksgiving is in three weeks. I feel like my life is flying by. I've been married for almost four months and I feel like I can't remember much of it. How crappy is that?

I had lots of stuff to say this afternoon and forgot my password to this thing and now I've forgotten it all.

I'm going to try a new recipe for a three-bean soup. I'll let you know how it goes.

everyone else i know...

"all our friends have a blog & we don't get to see our friends as often as we'd like..."

this is how i rationalize getting a blog. really, i'm a good writer plus jeff & i have lots to say about lots. if you know my husband you know this to be the truth. jeff tells the most elaborate stories you will ever hear. ever.

here is to funny stories, honest confession, and sarcastic quips...