Yay for summer fun

Super fun night playing the card game "Hand and Foot" with friends, old and new.

And we ate hot dogs. Mmmmmmmmmm.

Nummy nummy. Sleepy girl now, waiting for her laundry to finish and trying to get Dibby to quit begging for food.

Smooches, friends,

--B

Happy camper :)

I've been in a pretty strange mood lately.

And by that I mean a positive one.

Right?!

I mean I've been positive in the past year--granted it was probably around this time last year--but even this is a different type of positive.

Hopeful.

I know!

Now, and I don't mean to sound super negative when I say this, it might go away. Who knows, maybe not. I certainly hope it sticks around.

I don't know if it's because my schedule is (overall) more slow, because I'm in a pretty positive, team-oriented environment at the newspaper, because I'm getting more sleep, because it's sunny...all of the above?

But last week was my best friend's wedding, and to be honest earlier this spring I wasn't sure what kind of mood I would be in surrounding her big day. And obviously I wanted her to end up with a good guy who she loves and who loves her and who loves Jesus, and I'm so happy she did, but raise your hand all of you who think that watching your best friend get married is super easy.

Yeah, that's what I thought.

It's hard! I mean for one, we are human and if you're not in love yourself, then it can arouse jealousy when you see others in love. Particularly to a point of making a confident life commitment to each other.

Let's. be. honest. here.

And the truth is that when people get married their lives change, and the friendships they have change. Not in a bad way, necessarily, but it is another change to adjust to, and it is usually a big one.

I can speak on this matter because I've already been there for the weddings of two of my brothers. And I've started to think on the toast for Riley's next week and have already shed tears in doing so. A lot of that's because I love him and Caitlin so much, but I know that at some point there will be tears over the changes that their marriage will bring about, and there certainly have already been some as a result of my anxious thinking-ahead.

He's my baby brother...

I've dealt with change--we all have, but some to different degrees than others--several times in my life. My family moved three times before I graduated high school, for crying out loud. So let's just say I'm pretty seasoned to "adjustable friendships" (that sounds really bad), but that doesn't make me give them a big smooch (the friendships, not my friends), saying, "Oh that was fun, moving cross country and trying to keep in touch! Now let's, hmm, let's see what happens when one of us loses access to email, just for kicks."

It's not fun dealing with change, but after dealing with it over and over it gets "easier" to utter the words, "Well let's move forward," and find a way to do just that. And, for me anyway, I get "better" at greeting my emotions at those crossroads, detours, roundabouts, changes in direction--for the most part--with an, "Okay, let's get to feeling. Tears, are you here? Anger, I expect to see you soon. Numbness, okay you want to hang out for a while? Well come on in..."

So I thank God that I was in such a good place for Corie's day, and have been since then. We had sooo much fun, and it was beautiful, and I cried not because I was grumpy gills but because I do that and it means I was actually feeling things that day which is better than being numb. And we had soooo much fun.

And I've been friends with Cor for almost ten years and we haven't always been in the same city--we aren't now--and we're still friends. That's huge. I've been cavorting with Nicholas for almost eight years now, too--also huge. Those two have helped keep me afloat so many times.

And ever since Cor's wedding I've been in this freakish Positive Polly state of mind, thinking about my future husband with a sense of, "All right, I'm ready for him!"

...but not in the sarcastic, bitter way that I would usually make that statement.

I don't know what's up, but I like it.

Aisle 3: Weird items or weirder

Just had a delightful evening with Emoke, drinking wine, chatting, watching Becoming Jane.

And Em cut my hair, thanks lady!

Well to prepare for our night o' relaxation I bought wine and hair cutting shears with leopard print handles. Do you think that made me look a little...strange to the people at Wal-Mart?

In through the nose, out with the worry

Bailey Kathleen,

STOP. The spending.

A skirt, shorts, and two tops are not going to make the summer go any faster, make your anxiety level lower, or change who you are.

God made you you. You are anxious. You are sometimes not as anxious.

Yes, you pray the anxiety will flee you when you hit your thirties, or have kids/get married, whichever comes first. But you don't know if that will happen even then.

You worry, that's what you do. Should you trust God and try to worry less? Yes. But can you help it if you continue to worry anyway, even though God is always there? Well, maybe. But God made you, you didn't make yourself, and if He decided to wire you to worry (although I'm not sure He does that...Matthew 6:25-34), well that's really up to Him.

But you can stop the spending.

Take deep breaths. Call your friends (turn on those ringers, guys, you might be hearing from me soon). Read. Run. SLEEP. EAT. Pet Dibby Darling.

Pray.

Breathe.

Pray.

Love you guys, I could use your prayers. Let me know if you need some of mine. Now I shall post this and move forward in my summer.

Time for dinner, Fannie!

So I have a quiz tomorrow over part of the AP (Associated Press) Stylebook (and our local newspaper stylebook, but blah blah, I'm sure you don't care that much about these details).

Anyway, the AP style guide (I'm calling it a guide, I like the way that sounds better--haha, which is ironic, since the book/guide tells you all about preferred terms) has a bunch of rules for how to abbreviate military titles, when to hyphenate, what's considered derogatory, names of international airlines, blah da bee blah da bee blah.

Oh and if you're wondering the proper spelling is "G-string," with a capital 'G' and a hyphen. Pay attention, people, there will be a quiz.

Oh man, I hope that's on the quiz tomorrow. It's open book, but I've got that one down.

Well the bulk of the book is an alphabetical list of, well, a whole bunch of stuff that you might come across while editing a news story (see G-string, above).

So, in order to study for my quiz(zes), this essentially feels like reading the dictionary, albeit abridged.

So this goes without saying, but it's pretty boring. I definitely skim. However occasionally some interesting things pop up (see G-string).

Tonight, for example, I discovered the following terms:

Ginnie Mae, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac.

None of them are people.

I still don't really get what they are/do exactly, but they're all housing/mortgage organizations (Ginnie Mae=Government National Mortgage Association, Fannie Mae=Federal National Mortgage Association, Freddie Mac=Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation).

Say what?!?

Did you all know about this?

I would have had to come across one or more of these terms several times within context before I would have deduced on my own that these were governmental giants, I think. Otherwise I'd think the New York Times was chatting about its cousins in Georgia.