The Little Things

Its a chilly, rainy dismal looking day today. It almost feels like February is trying to be Spring, but can't quite get there. Its warmer than it has been, though not warm enough out to suit me. I'm ready for the weather to be out of the 30's. The birds have been quite noisy, and the other day it even looked like Spring, but, Winter it remains.

I'm sitting by a window in Starbucks. I just finished putting together the rest of my message and creating a powerpoint for youth group tonight. Having finished that earlier then expected, and not needing to leave for my meeting with the Pastor for a while, I thought I'd sit here, enjoy my caramel macchiato and take in my surroundings. Its nice to not have to be doing anything in a hurry. I like to just take things in at times. It feels like we live in a world that is so rushed, we don't notice the little things going on around us.

A group of airforce members just left. I believe that they were having a recruiting meeting with the young man at their table who seemed to be contemplating enlisting.They were all in their dress blues, two men and a woman. My friends older sister is in the airforce, and her younger brother is planning on  enlisting and attending the air force academy after he graduates this year. I've always wondered what it would be like to be a part of our nations military. I don't believe that they always get the recognition they rightly deserve. It seems like in the 1940's America was fiercely patriotic, and it was their greatest honor to be able to do something to help the soldiers of our country. Perhaps it was because of the war going on, which I suppose seemed to hit much closer to home than the war America is fighting now. At any rate, I am proud that we have men and women in our country who have chosen to serve and protect our nation.

There are a couple of ladies sitting in the easy chairs in the corner, who have been here since before I arrived, drinking coffee and have long chats. Its nice to have long chats with your close friends. I have 3 close friends who I can talk to about anything and everything. One is away at college in a neighboring state, one lives in Europe, and the other I see at least once every couple weeks and text almost everyday. I wish I could see them all more often, but conflicting schedules and distance really does make it hard.


The artist by the door has been having meetings here all morning, with no less than 3 different groups of people. Some of them discussing artsy things, some looking at his portfolios of sketches, and some just seeming to have friendly chats. It seems like everyone here knows him, which I suppose is because he is here every week, in the same spot by the door. Perhaps one of these days the people who work here will know me by name as well. As it is, they still don't get my name right. But, one day...

Looking Back

I found some old journals of mine that I had forgotten about today. It was interesting to read through them. I used to be a faithful journal writer, and would fill pages and pages with what I supposed to be interesting bits about life. I never wrote my thoughts though, or at least not my emotions. They never filled my pages. Why? I had this wretched fear that if I were to suffer an untimely death, someone would discover my journals and read them, and I couldn't bear the thought of them discovering something uncomplimentary I had written about them, or angry rants I'd had in a fit of frustration over something they said or did. In doing so I pretty much wrote bits and pieces of  the emotionless daily grind of life, experimenting with different writing styles. Reading them, I know exactly which authors I had been reading at the time, as my writing style would be a complete mimic of the authors of the books I had been reading. The journal entries I'd be most embarrassed to have anyone read are the ones from when I had been reading L.M. Montgomery books for the first time. Wow. I can't believe what on earth could have possessed me to use such descriptions as I did. I had decided I should start naming the little places I liked to go sit or be alone in. I shudder to think how I would be teased if anyone saw the names I came up with. There honestly isn't a single poetic bone in my body, and the names I gave things is a living proof of that. I did used to try and write poetry. It was pretty terrible. My belief in what poetry was was something that rhymed . As long as it rhymed and was written in the same format of the poems we read in books, it must be poetry. The thing was, I never knew when I should move onto the next word to rhyme with. I could have 3 stanzas filled with  words that rhymed with each other, but didn't have anything to do with anything I had begun to  write the poem about.
I never even liked reading poetry. There was only one poem I ever really loved. Its been years since I read it, but it was written by an unknown soldier during WWI. the foot note under the poem said that the poem was found on the body of a soldier who had fallen in battle. It was about the war and fighting. The rantings of a young man missing home and wondering what on earth he was doing in those trenches. It really was a touching poem to me. It always stuck with me, and its the only poem I've ever read that really captured my attention. Perhaps its my love of that era. Perhaps it was because it was a story written as a poem. Whatever it was, I'm sure that the young man who wrote it nearly 100 years ago would have never guessed that it would be found and published in a book of poetry to be read by thousands of people, and especially takenk to heart by a young girl of about 13, who did not like poetry.

The Sad Saga of Max the car

I never really consider myself as poor, per-say, but when you have to chuck over 600 bucks into your car within less than a months time, your bank account does make one thing clear to you: You are poor. Max, I'm afraid, is approaching his last miles. Within the last year I've had to get fuel lines replaced, transmission lines fixed, new alternator installed, new belts installed, and, the latest, exhaust pipe and muffler replaced. This latest being confirmed by my exhaust pipe falling off on Sunday, right as I pulled into my drive way. the pipe rusted through and rotted out. However, this latest disaster is now fixed, and I have a shiny new muffler to boot! my car sounds so...quiet. Turns out when your exhaust pipe is rotting away and your muffler has holes in it, your car becomes very loud. As in, deafeningly loud. So yesterday I was able (after my brother wired up the remaining pieces of my exhaust so I could drive it to the mechanic) to finally get it fixed. I took it to a little muffler shop. It smelled horribly of cigarette smoke, and I'm almost certain I could have developed lung cancer had I had to stand there much longer. The shop was run by two seedy looking older men, who I'm sure were probably both at least 10 years younger than they looked and that chain smoking, as evidenced by the pungent stench that seemed to be ingrained into every available surface in their tiny little waiting area, caused them to age prematurely. They were very nice though, and showed me what was wrong with my muffler before fixing it. They seemed to agree with me that I should start looking for another car. Max does have approaching 170,000 miles on him. I suppose that that is an admirable amount of mileage for a faithful 13 year old little car. I did hear the Chevy Cavaliers run great until around 160,000 miles on them, and boy is that the truth. I've had Max for nearly 4 years now, and he has served me wonderfully, despite the little hiccoughs endured along the way. When it is time to move on to another car, I have a feeling that though I'll be excited to have a new (used) car, it'll still be sad to have to let go of my little black Max. I passed my driving test in him.He is the first vehicle I ever drove solo in. On the road that is. When I worked on the farm I drove the trucks through the fields and woods all the time. The first vehicle I had been rear-ended in (twice, actually). There are a lot of memories tied up in that little heap of metal and rust.I do dearly love my little Max, and hope I have many more miles with him before he finally dies.

Impatience is NOT a virtue.

I'm horribly impatient. So much so that I'm actually feeling strains of anxiety. I'm generally a pretty chill type of person. Sometimes I am going crazy inside, but I have mastered the calm-cool-collected exterior, so even if I'm freaking out on the inside I can usually be the voice of calm and reason in a trying situation. But not today. And I admit that its really over a stupid thing that I'm being impatient about. I have totally geeked out and purchased and Android tablet. This will be my first experience with any Android product. I'm pretty excited about it. And why am I anxious? because it was supposed to be here Saturday. Then they changed the date till today, and I have yet to see any FedEx trucks come down my road. Ever have those feelings like something is supposed to happen but you know its not going to? I feel like that about my package that is supposed to be here today. Which is why I'm feeling impatient. And why I am complaining on a blog when I should be writing my youth message. A youth message that I've been planning for weeks but have only written a couple paragraph of. A youth message which I need to teach tomorrow. I guess now would be the time to say that I've got the art of procrastination mastered as well. Seriously. I have no excuse for it. So with that much being said, I better get to work on my youth director duties. After all, I'd hate to add irresponsibility to my list of personal bad qualities.

Nothingness

I began writing this blog, and then deleted it. I felt like it was one huge conglomeration of never ending run-on sentences. I seem to have a penchant for run-on sentences. That and overusing commas. I never said I was a whiz at grammar though. I was always good at the subjects that for me, didn't require too much thinking. Which was mainly Vocabulary, Writing, History, Art, Geography, Music etc. I was never bad at Grammar, it was mainly those pesky semi-colons and sentence diagramming. I never understood the reasoning behind sentence diagramming. I read a sentence and I know what it means. I found it a waste of time write out what the preposition was, what the object of the preposition was, and where the verbs are. I know what a preposition is. I know what a verb is. What I don't know is why I had to go through pages and pages of diagramming to prove it. I never did bad in Grammar, it was actually pretty easy, it was just frightfully boring.

I'm not sure what I wanted to write about in this blog. I just had nothing to do so I thought I'd write something. I have no unique surroundings to write about. I'm at home this snowy morning, the roads not being fit for much travel. There are no people to muse about, because with my family, I know them so well that there is nothing to muse about. I do, in fact, feel an acute writers block at present. Maybe I should go find a book to read.....

Literary-ly Speaking...

I'm at Starbucks again. I promise, I'm not addicted. I've just been working on my youth stuff for this evening. There is something about the atmosphere here that makes it easy to get things done. I'm able to focus. Plus, when I'm all finished I can people watch. This is my usual Starbucks store, and I found something out to day about 'Doris Day'. Nothing really personal, just surprising. Apparently Doris is a smoker. I don't know why I never thought about that. Not that I think about whether or not people I don't know are smokers. Its just to look at her, you'd never really expect it. How do I know? when I parked my car here, I parked next to a Hyundai, which apparently belongs to Doris. And inside was Doris, smoking away on a cigarette. just something that startled me.

I also found out the artist who sits here every Wednesday by the door has a name. Or rather, I know he has a name, just never knew what that name was, but I heard Doris say it a few minutes ago. Some how or other the name was surprising, one that I would have never guessed it to be, so in the future I believe his name shall remain, 'The artist by the door'. I spoke to him today. I'm sitting at the little table kind of caddy corner to his table by the door, and I needed to plug in my computer and the nearest available outlet is under his table. Apparently he is used to such requests, because as I was plugging the chord into my lap top out of the corner of my eye I saw he already had his hand out for the chord before I even mentioned it.
I guess that he has been here a while, as there are exactly 3 Starbucks cups of various sizes sitting on his table. Now I may like Starbucks, but 3 in one day?

Somehow I feel kind of 'hip' while working on my internship stuff at Starbucks  I don't know why though. Its not like I dress hip-ish. I have exactly 1 pair of skinny jeans, everything else is boot cut. I associate skinny jeans as being a hip kind of thing to wear. as well as scarves and big sunglasses (which I own plenty of those, but am not wearing them today). And if you are a male who is dressed 'hip' then that must include a fedora. Perhaps hip isn't the correct word for a male but either way, I associate it with fedoras. A man who was sitting across from me a while ago was sporting a brown fedora, placed precariously on top of his head. He only looked hip from the neck up though. The rest of his clothes bespoke of construction, or some other sort of out-door labor job.

People are interesting. They are interesting to watch. To write about. I've always liked to write. I used to want to be a nurse, then I learned how much science went into it. I hated science. Then I wanted to be a carpenter, but I learned how much math went into it. I'm terrible at math. Then I felt called to work with teenagers. I love it. I love watching them grow. Even though this is only my first month as the intern youth director, I've enjoyed it. I like writing out my messages and creating ideas. It seems to fit me, and I feel like God has me here for a reason.
I'd love to write a book someday. I constantly have stories running through my head. I have a very vivid imagination, and I feel like if I can put my imagination into words, I could make sense of the story lines that seem to jumble through my head. Somehow I haven't felt the courage to actually put those words to paper yet. I'm not sure why. Goodness knows they keep me awake at night often enough, i should just write them down. Somehow though, I feel like I can't write until the setting is perfect. I haven't found the place yet to actually write a book.Maybe one day I'll stumble upon a little out of the way coffee shop or cafe and will know that that is where my literary efforts should begin. Or I can make my dream trip to England, Scotland and Ireland and feel inspired to begin a story then. As of now though, internship work and blog writing is the extent of my writing endeavors. But one day...

surroundings

Im sitting in Starbucks right now, surrounded by all sorts of people. I have seen exactly 1 phone that was not and Iphone. Many people are on their laptops, ipads, tablets, or sitting visiting with eachother. we are all so plugged in and connected. Even I have my Iphone 5 sitting next to me, and my headphones are plugged into my lap top and I have an Ingrid Michaelson station playing on Pandora (seems appropriate, being in a coffee house)
In a way, this is sort of a dream I've had, sitting in a coffee house surrounded by people I don't know, being able to write about the people I don't know, and the afore mentioned people I don't know have no idea that they are being mentioned. For instance, the older man sitting in the easy chair next to my little fire side table had been studiously reading and marking notes over some book, then had his ipad out. young Man across from me is reading a magazine, listening to something on his tablet with with his lap top bag on the floor next his feet. one elderly lady across from me is sipping her coffee and reading the news paper, and her elderly lady companion with her has been staring into the fire place for quite a while. This isn't my usual Starbucks. This is actually my first time to spend any length of time here besides waiting for my drink to be made. I've been here for a couple hours, writing up my message for my Youth group, of which I am the current director. Having been doing that for so long, and really finishing it, I decided to take a break and write a blog. Because coffee houses filled with techy people and blog writing seemed to go hand in hand with each other.
As I was saying though, this is my first time to sit and do anything at this Starbucks. My usual place is much more predictable in its surroundings. For instance, there will always be the man there in the table to the right of the doorway, every Wednesday with a portfolio of sketches and drawings laying out, and he sits there, either drawing or taking in his surroundings. There is the Barista who looks just like a young version of Doris Day, always there (though she thinks my name is Carol, which is what she writes on my cup, usually a caramel macchiato, with, of course, an extra shot of espresso) and the young man with gaged ears and too-tight pants making drinks. Its a comforting feeling sometimes, knowing things will be as usual, at least on Wednesdays at my usual Starbucks.But this being a different Starbucks, I got a different drink from my normal caramel, and decided on Vanilla latte (with, of course, that extra shot of espresso). Nothing like breaking the mold every now and then,  just to shake things up. With that being said, and my latte being gone and my berry coffee cake eaten up, I will go now, out to my old little chevy, ( named Max). I never have trouble finding my car in this city. Its generally the oldest one in the parking lot (its a year 2000, but this is a very wealthy area) probably the noisiest, despite my new alternator and belt, and definitely the dirties, though hopefully this rain will take care of that problem. And thus ends my first post in my new blog.