Facebook.

I have had a love-hate, (mostly the latter), relationship with facebook for the past year. This has caused me to deactivate my account on several occasions. However, I decided enough is enough; lately I cannot take it. I deactivated my account, I pray for the last time. When deactivating it, I choose the option "other", my reason was stated as this, "I am tired of the contradiction of a "social network." Being social and interacting requires physicality. Facebook cannot offer me that." I hope that I will be able to stick it out. If anyone truly wants to chat with me, I'd be more than obliged to set up a time and place to encounter true and meaningful interaction. Many of you already know how much I do not agree with "social networks". When I fully weigh my options of being a part of such a wide online world or not, I always result in saying "No, I really do not need to be a part of it. I can be more beneficial without it." I also feel the major need to apply more of my time to my school studies, rather than reading up on utter meaningless statuses. So, for now and hopefully forever, I will being parting my ways with the facebook world.

More to come,
-R

Clean and Clear

Where to start off? I guess I'll start by saying this terrible excuse for a week ended up pretty good starting from Friday. I was immensely bored from Wednesday-late Saturday. However, I cannot thank God enough for what He gave me; making up for a really boring and lonely week. What I didn't realize, until Saturday night, was that God allowed me a few days by myself to evaluate my life and get caught up in my devotions. I unconsciously evaluated my life which still freaks my mind. I realized many things that make me annoyed; and things I need to let go. For instance, there are many pseudo-Christians out there, and much hypocrisy that lies behind their actions. And I know that there is NO way I can justify my hypocrisy by looking at other's lives. I need to look at my own life; judge MYself and MY actions. I also realized I just need to worry about certain parts of my relationship with God, instead of trying to pry into other's personal life. I do have a bad habit of that which is something I'm gladly working on. That was just a biggie I realized, and another big thing I saw was how I was called on earth to live a certain way; to live as Christ, to die is gain. but to "live as Christ" gets so utterly twisted the majority of the time. To live as Christ lived is to be humble. It's to serve and not worry about always being served. It is also to be in a constant loving state, even when we're wronged; when we're mocked; when we're ditched by our "friends", and the likes. So, next time I ask God to, "help me to love as Christ loved", what I understand that I'm really asking is, "God please be my stronghold, when I can no longer stand from the treacheries and pain life and the world daily brings; help me to praise you in the most dangerous storm. and give me the faith that You are the beholder of all."
So, yes, I had a lot of time, many hours, to talk to God and to think; to ponder. I no longer want to live my life for myself. I want to live it for God; only God; the One. Saturday morning I met up with my lovely friend, Michelle, at yoga. It was very relaxing and stress-relieving. I love yoga and my yoga instructor. Afterwards, I asked Michelle is she wanted to watch the sunset that night, and she said of course. And for this I was glad. The word glad was exactly how I felt. I thought as I walked to my car, "After not having anyone to hang out with this week God, You managed to find me someone. Thank You." However, last night there was no sunset due to the overcast, so Shannon, Michelle and I went to Starbucks and talked for hours. It. Was. Amazing. Does anything ever just make your heart jump because it makes you so happy? Or the feeling of floating on clouds? That's precisely how I feel when I am in a philosophical conversation with another intelligent human being; that is exactly how I felt all night with the girls. We started at five in the evening, and finished talking around ten, so I imagine how amazing our conversations went considering how much time we used to talk about things pertaining to the important aspects in life. I could go on and on about our night, but I'm leaving for church soon so I'll move on. (Best night I've had in a while, no doubt!)
To-day I decided to be very productive and rearrange/ clean my neglected room. It went very well, and now I feel very clean, from the spiritual cleansing last night, and from this entire day of cleaning my room. I'm in the very sluggish process of re-doing and decorating it. Mainly right now I'm looking for cheap black bed sheets and a curtain rod, since mine is barely in commission. But alas, I am being patient and put it low on the priority list. I'm just grateful that God helped me be very productive to-day, seeing as I did not have a lot of sleep last night;  my doing, of course though. Here are some photos I took of my room .In my opinion they didn't turn out very well. One thing you can tell is that my room is very blue. I didn't get to pick any of the colors or anything, I just made do with what I had;)

before

before

after

after

clean mirror!

 There you have it, a couple of great days in one blog. More to come,
-R

Humor Me, Mr. Mail Man

To-day, my mind was filled with boredom due to the unfortunate circumstances of my fellow friendlies. Long story short, Atumn was stuck in the snow, Hannah went back to school, and Shannon was as sick as a dog. So this left me to play by myself all day. I indulged in a random set of activities, which included thus: my morning devotions, three cups of tea, (which were drunken sporadically throughout the day), countless games of losing miserably at solitaire with real, live cards, (not the computer), and two walks to the mail box, (which shall be expanded more later). Devotions were great this morning, and such a way to start the day. After that, I played nurse for my sister because I know how much I utterly despise being sick. So, after taking care of her, many games of losing solitaire, and eating a home-grown salad with homemade dressing, I decided I would go walk to the mail box, taking dog with me since he insisted on not leaving my side to-day. As dog and I walked down the street, we admired the amazing sunset, however I did not care to bring my camera, due to laziness, so I just took it in for myself. Arriving at said destination, I was disappointed to see there was no Netflix for me, and was too sad to notice I had three letters to me in the pile. Walking back solemnly, I noticed one of those three letters was an envelope I had been waiting for, for months. Ecstatic I walked home faster. However, on this particular envelope, there was also a message from my mail man rubber-banded to it. I found this humorous. Mr. Mail Man fined me $0.34. I don't necessarily know what happened, but my guess is that the envelope, which beheld the flash drive I had been waiting for, only had two stamps, perhaps it needed three? Contrariwise, the attached envelope told me to insert the amount due into it, then send it back in the mail box.

My $0.34

Signed by yours truly, Mr. Mail Man

Humor.

On the back of the envelope, they reminded me of this. However, what they didn't know was that I walked, not drove.

Congratulations, Mr. Mail Man. You have suckered $0.34 from my pocket, and are now on your way to earning that Caramel Macchiato w/ soy, with only $3.31 to go, which means you only need to collect from about nine more citizens. $0.34 seems like nothing to me, and I was almost too lazy to do it, but it sure does add up. None the less, keep doing your job Mr. mail Man. A random thought has occurred, not just to my mail man, but to everyone: fill up that piggy bank and save up, seeing as gas will be going up to $4 per gallon this year. Disgusting, but that's the world we live in to-day.
On a brighter note, the other two letters I received were Get Well cards from my relatives in the East. Much appreciated to get these on a gloomy and boring day such as to-day.

Though I didn't sleep in until noon, I have gotten 10-12 hours of sleep per night since surgery(:

A picture, which came with the letter, that my second youngest cousin colored. This made me smile(:

This blog has been filled with silliness and such, but I felt the urge to write...something...anything...school's been out for two weeks now, give me a break(:
More to come, soon,
-R

From Shannon With Love,

Shannon's 2nd Christmas present to me were two pairs of super, super soft slipper socks and one of my favorite movies: 500 Days of Summer. I'm not exaggerating when I say these socks are one of the softest things to hold my feet, and I am very happy about them. The movie on the other hand, I was over excited about because it is very dear to me. All in all I am so grateful for the entire present. The best part of this whole thing was that as I was opening up the presents, she and I could not stop laughing about some inside jokes. Those twin moments are always the best.

(She wanted me to get a close-up on the softness ;)

More to come,

-R

2nd Christmas

This Christmas year my family and I agreed on a second Christmas, seeing as I was in the early stages of recovery from my surgery. So, for the past couple of days during my breaks between working shifts, I worked away on my family's presents. For my three sisters, I made them pillow cases and for my parents I made small pillows. For my second sewing project, I would say it was an ultimate success. Another short blog because I am exhausted from the vicodin. Here's how they turned out:

pillows for my parents

angelica's

kaitlin's

shannon's

More to come.

God bless,

-R

Hernia Surgery

A couple weeks ago we got our tree, and I never saw the photos of our journey until today when I was uploading the photos of my incision. The surgery went well and I haven't had a lot of pain yet; hoping I won't feel pain. This is a short blog because I feel wozy right now. Here are some photos:

that's rain in my hair; it was pouring at some parts of the evening

My after surgery pics:

God is good and held my hand the whole time. More to come,

-R

Christmas Party

Last Saturday I was invited to spend the evening at my friend Mary's house for her Christmas party. It was very fun and enjoyable, and I'm super glad I went. The night started off when we were dropped off at my friend Michelle's house, and from there we went to the party together. After being acquainted with the people of the party, we played the orange and chin game, which was as awkward as it was funny. After the we played the white elephant gift and shared tons of laughs. It was interesting hanging out with high-schoolers, since I haven't been around them the entire semester outside of church. All in all I had a really great time; a nice way to begin the week before surgery. On Monday I had a preop doctor's appointment, which consisted of a lot of waiting in the waiting room. And hour after we arrived for my appointment, we were seen by a surgeon and she explained to me some of the surgery procedures; what I need to do to prep such as shower twice with anti-bacterial soap and not eat or drink anything after 10 pm. After the appointment my mom and I drove up to Idywilld and wow, the view was incredible. Strawberry Creek was flooding and flowing with rushing waters, and everything was extremely green, due to the non-stop pouring rain. I stayed in Idyllwild from Monday to Wednesday, which is today, and it never stopped raining for a moment. No snow, no decrease, no sun, just rain. Tons of rain, everywhere. The short walk from our room to the kitchen caused us to be instantly soaking wet. Despite the rain, we had a great time. (Well, as far as great can go.) So blah blah blah, and we come to today, Wednesday, the day before surgery. I must tell you friends, I am not looking forward to tomorrow. The past couple of days I have had some interesting conversations with God, some good, some great. Overall, God is God, and He is good. No matter what. I have nothing to fear. And I found a pretty good verse to how I'm feeling; blunt and to the point, no matter what the circumstance is.
Matt 10:28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

The passage gets lighter, though, so don't fear ;)

Matt 10:29-31 Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father's will. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.

Oh, and when we came down the hill to Hemet today, it was amazing. I said wooow many times. The scenery was pure genius. It felt so right as we all stared out the windows and listened to mixed tapes. At one point, we were amazed to see a waterfall spewing and flowing from the side of the mountain, along with the creek, which had grew since Monday. Simply amazing, I was sad to leave Idywilld, as I always am. Possibly more this time, considering I will not be able to work for a while. Ah well, I'll come back someday, and this time I'll be stronger than I ever was.

More to come,
-R

Men Can Be Difficult...

Yesterday was a blast, even in the depressing weather. When there is a lack of sun, I tend to lack a lot of my normal energy, which gives me a sense of sluggishness. However, it was really fun to say the least. Michelle picked me and Shannon up after getting Rosie, and we headed to town to the local thrift stores, in search for the perfect ugly grandma sweaters for our friend's party to-night. We started at Salvation Army, and even though they had some really cool stuff there, we had no luck in the granny department. So we headed to Angel View, another thrift store down the street. There, we found three sweaters with much potential. I found a red over-sized sweater, (which is a dress on me), with Christmas-colored diamonds around the collar. This is perfect, and just what I was looking for. I plan to add my own ugly to it, so we'll see how that turns out to-day. After our success in Angel View, we headed to Nessa's house, and picked her up. From there we went to Michelle's, to make ginger bread men. The recipe was called "The Perfect Men", and even though the name was cute, the recipe turned out very difficult, which is what men can be, so I hear. However, mine turned out pretty perfect;) Which means I can make perfect men, but it does not mean they exist. On the contrary, as we were fighting with the dough, so to speak, I thought how God molds us and shapes us into what He wants, but we don't always turn out perfect. Instead, we put up a fight, which turns out ugly. I also thought of how much I was practicing patience with that dough, because it was almost frustrating, especially because when it comes to cookies, I am somewhat of a perfectionist. When the boys were finally rolled, cut, and baked, we started decorating. We ended up having a realllly good, fun girl time. And Michelle's mom made us all tacos for taco night; delicious. After taco night, we sipped on some sparkling cider, super yummy(: I also just kept thanking God for the girls He's blessed me with in the past year, and I realized how important it is to have those kind of relationships. Here are some pictures of our night:

hmm, Michelle's mom made the BEST hot cider..

Our weapons of choice

perfect man, not-so-perfect recipe. But we fought through!!

We started off eating FA(:

The girls making the dough

Michelle's view is soo picture worthy. The fog looked amazing

Michelle mixing(:

Add caption

Kenny helped us mix the dough because it was so rough

Love them(:

Nessa'a a bird

Our jump attempt

Difficult dough(:

Me and Michelle

Shann and Michelle

Peelin off the men(:

Nessa's photography;)

Taco nightt was sooo goood

Kenny taught me how to play chess, however, I'm going to need more practice(: 

Knight

Hmmm, they were so good!!

My men. The first one has abs, the second one was my art form, and the third was angrily-happy

Of course I ate abs man first

Shannon's Men

One of Michelle's

 Another very splendid night out with some people God's blessed me with. For now, my sisters are homoe so I'm going to hang out with them. To-night, the ugly sweater party. Until then, more to come,
-R