we're alive

i just wanted to let you guys know that yes, we are alive and okay. life has just been... crazy. work is going really well for me. i'm loving it more and more everyday. i think i'm realizing that yes, this is what i was meant to do. it's weird because during school, i would have complete break downs wondering if i was making a bad decision getting into design.

things that are constantly on my mind are: how i can be more objective and express my opinion, how to be more intuitive, and how to process information before blurting out my initial reaction (if i have one). there are a couple of people at my office that i really admire - i think they're brilliant. they're good at what they do. quiet unless they have some profound, remarkable statement to make. one of the critiques i've received from jeff is that i need to feel more free to express my opinion. he has some pretty awkward moments with people in the office because things get heated - he's very sure of himself and tends to ask you questions and make you do things until you get to what his idea is...in many ways, this is manipulative and a waste of time. (he's not necessarily one of the people i admire per say in our office). but the people he gets in heated discussions with he tends to respect and admire. i'm not quite sure why... i think my "manners" tend to play a role in this and automatically i see someone arguing as being rude or breaking the rules. anyway, i've just gone off on a tangent i didn't intend to.

there have been some fun things that have happened. yesterday, we had bag-pipe players outside our building, playing loudly and causing people to honk their horns all day long. it was just annoying to listen to until we found out that they were a religious group protesting against proposition 8 (the right to gay marriage). as i've mentioned before, a large part of my office is gay, so this was pretty uncomfortable for me. i don't think the tactic of using bagpipes and yelling about people who are homosexual being condemned to hell is the best way to go about things. in the grand scheme of things, we ALL have sins, and in God's eyes, alcoholism and homosexualism are equal. the greatest sin is refusing God. this is a hard concept for me, and i think for a lot of people, to realize that our "earthly" views are not the same as God's. we are much like the pharisees in that we become so caught up in the law that we forget how to be Christ-like. all i know is that despite the protesting, i realized that i love my co-workers and i want them to see me differently than others. i think in some small ways they do. :)

we're still going through the membership class at our church, which is taking up our monday evenings. since i leave earlier from work to make it there, i work later on tuesdays and wednesdays. thursdays we have our MC (missional community, aka: small group) for church. it's amazing because our small group has grown a lot since dustyn and i have moved here and in two weeks, they're breaking it into 2 groups, potentiall even three. dustyn and i are really trying ot figure out which place God wants us to go to now. we love jenny & eugene, where we've had MC so far. however, we've really gotten to know pat & chelsea, where the new MC will be, and connect well with them. pat and dustyn can talk computers and have a ton in common and chelsea is so loving, compassionate, and caring. we need to pray about this more because it can't just be about where we FEEL like we should go, but moreso, where we'll really grow the most and where God is leading us to go.

friday's are also days that i somehow get stuck at work later than i possibly should be here. it's kind of frustrating. i haven't had a lot of free weekends lately because my responsibilities are starting to grow at work. it's something i've been longing for - to be more of a designer instead of just a CAD monkey making changes in the computer for a co-worker - and it's happening, slowly. last weekend, i didn't have to think about a thing at work, and dustyn and i were able to catch up on life. you know, buying TP, dog food, shopping for groceries, washing clothes, etc.

i must comment that even though we've downsized to a smaller place, dustyn's collection of boxes has not haulted. i decided to meander into his "office" space because it was looking a little cluttered. well, i got on a cleaning frenzy and started realizing he'd tucked about TEN BOXES from things we've bought since we've been here in any small nook, cranny, crevice, niche, whatever-you-want-to-call-it around his office. i couldn't take it! i piled every single box up on his office chair (carefully) so he'd have to move them before monday morning in order to be able to work. needless to say, i'm pretty sure most of the boxes are gone. i think he may have snuck a few of them back into a secret hiding place, but at least things aren't crazy cluttered anymore. :)

okay, well, i am having writer's block and this isn't a very organized post, so i'm just going to leave it at that. we're alive and well. love you guys!