Today is my 10 year blog-o-versary. On January 13, 2002, I decided to check out this "Livejournal" that everyone on Kiwibox seemed to be talking about. Since then I've made 2,650 journal entries, categorized under 395 tags, received 3,812 comments, and posted 8,055 comments.

I went through and looked through some of my old entries, especially my first entries on here. Let's just say, there is a reason why I went back and locked everything. I mostly just talked about day to day activities and the Backstreet Boys. The more things change, the more they stay the same, I guess.

But things have changed, quite a bit. Back then I was nearly desperate for attention for some kind. I didn't know how to express myself outside of my blog, I was desiring people to talk about the few things I was really interested in. I was blogging before I knew what a blog was. I made friends and loved reading their writing.

But now, a decade later, things are different. I haven't been posting much on here just because my connection to other people have changed. There's Facebook and Twitter and Tumblr to keep me in touch with the people I care about. I don't watch as much TV as I used to, one of the few things that kept me connected to the people around here.

I've grown up. Shocking, I know. And LJ no longer provides the services I need or want. I think I'll be moving over to tumblr because I spend enough time on there already reading all of the different blogs I follow. But I don't know, doesn't feel quite like home yet. It might just be something that takes some time, but we'll see. And I took it as a sign that my 10 year anniversary came up right around the time that FB stopped importing an RSS feed into their Notes and my paid account got extended until 4 days ago because of all of the problems it has been having lately.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that LJ, you've been good to me, but its time to move on. There are multiple places you can find me if you want:

-Twitter
-Tumblr & the Fun Tumblr
-Goodreads
-GetGlue

Feel free to connect with me on there if you would like. I'm hardly done with annoying the internet, just choosing different means to do so.

In no particular order...

• I joined Worship Team this year. It kind of feels like I have been there longer just because so much has happened this year that it feels like we've already been through so much together. I said no to joining worship team for so long. However, one of the main things I learned this year was that God has given us all talents and I was just wondering if I was going and doing something with them, or am I too scared and just burying them in the ground?


• I got a new job. God always provides. Always.


• Losing people around me. Older brothers. Cousin. Family and friends have gone on to heaven and I cannot wait to see them again.


• Running a Half Marathon. I still can barely believe it and see the medal every day. We are capable of so much more than we think we are.


• Concerts. The Arcade Fire & The National; NKOTBSB x2; CSO performing LOTR; Blondie; Ra Ra Riot; Wilco. Great times, great friends. Can't wait for more.


• $3,155 for charity:water. Still cannot believe it and I am still so thankful for everyone who helped.


• 50 Books in one year. Took me years to do it, but I finally reached it!


• Baby Naomi. My best friend had a baby girl and I became an aunt again. It is constantly crazy to me how much we are "adults" and I love it and hate it simultaneously.


• Regional Conference. The entire experience behind Regional Conference was kind of a whirlwind. I originally wasn't going to go, and then I was asked to speak in a track session, which led to me going, playing on the worship team, while also have multiple anxiety attacks over actually speaking in public. In the end, God used me in ways I didn't know were possible… that I come to the table with absolutely nothing to offer, and God takes that and somehow creates something that completely glorifies Him. I don't get it, but it is amazing to see it happen.


• Lots more realizations. Benefits of a blog, it is a lot easier to see your emotional progress and remind yourself of the things you've been through.

As far as 2012 is concerned... well, I have nothing beyond this week planned for. There are plenty of potential events, options, changes coming up but God only knows what will actually unfold. And as long as He does, I am fine.

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Colossians 3:1-17

I have lived on this earth for 25 years. Two and a half decades. A quarter of a century.

It is weird when you classify yourself as a quarter of a century old because then you realize that while you are still young, you have made a dent. I have seen too many people in my life not even reach this point. And I know that the only reason why I am still here while those people are not is because God has me here to do... something.

We live such a large part of our life just trying to hit the milestones. First steps. First words. Learn to read and write.

It is easy for you (or others) to see how you are doing based on what everyone around you are doing. Get a 26 on your ACTs. Graduate high school at age 18 and get into a great college program. Finish undergrad in 4 years. Do a post-grad program for 2-4 years. Graduate. Get a job right away. Get married by age 25. Have 2.5 kids.

While there is nothing inherently wrong with doing any of these things, it is easy to become distracted by what the world expects of us and not see what God requires of us. Like the text says, if we call Christ Jesus our Lord and savior, we are not required to necessarily follow the list above. We are required to leave behind the earthly things: "sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry, anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth."

What are we to take on? "Compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other."

The past year God has shown me so much of my own sin and just completely disgusting nature, and that I need to change the way I have been living my life. He has revealed so clearly how undeserving I am of anything, let alone the overabundance of blessings he has given me. Why I have been born in a family filled with privilege instead of in a slum filled with poverty is beyond my comprehension. I do not deserve the house I live in, the car I drive, the laptop that I am typing this post on. And yet, He has given that to me along with a family who loves me, friends who care for me, a church community that helps me.

And beyond even that, He has given me eternal life when I deserve to be in the depths of hell.

I don't get it. And I never will truly get it because God's infinite love and grace and mercy for me will always be beyond my finite comprehension.

At the same time, this past year, God has shown me of how much I am capable of through Him. I constantly doubt myself and my abilities, but when I trust in Him... it is possible. I have written 50,000 words of a novel, and am on track to finish it this year. He provided me with a job. I have learned more and more about what it means to serve His church, my family. I ran a freakin' half marathon. And together, we have raised more than $2,500 to help people in subsaharan Africa receive clean water.

This year has been kind of ridiculous.

He has refined my character so much that I feel like a drastically different person today entering 25 than I did beginning 24. And that is kind of the point, right? We should not be living this world as stagnant people, wandering aimlessly. We need to be seeking God constantly in all that we do, praying for our lives to be different, our characters to be ever more refined, and our lives to be the ultimate glory to His name.

So bring on 25. I cannot wait to see what He has planned for it. I know that things will not always be sunshine and rainbows. Trials will come, but they can be overcome. There is one thing I have learned so well -- if I am seeking God first, then I have nothing to fear. Because if God is for us, then who can be against us?

[+] Nanowrimo is like a week away. um, WHAT? I had a minor spaz out this weekend when I saw that the countdown on the main site got down to under 10 days since I had no freaking clue what I was doing. I decided to just finish the novel I started last year since I didn't actually finish that story, I just hit 50,000 words and stopped. Today I sat in Starbucks and re-read what I wrote so I can actually remember my story as well as create an updated outline to help me finish it. I was expecting it to be uber painful.... it was not as bad as I thought. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely cringe-worthy parts but I could at least get through it. I need to finish going through & outlining and taking notes about it by like tomorrow and then figure out what the heck I am doing by like Sunday.

[+] I am at 43 books for the year! An all-time high! And for the first time ever, I am actually on track to read 50 books this year! More exclamation points!! Anyway, if nanowrimo wasn't causing me enough anxiety, I also want to be able to keep up with my book reading. My goal is to finish all of my writing by 9 p.m. so that I can read until bed. Hopefully that will at least keep me on track. Also, Mindy Kaling's book comes out on November 1st, so if you think I am waiting to read that you are crazy.

[+] My television watching has become almost nothing... at least by my standards. I've dropped a lot of shows because, well, if you are boring me, why I should I waste a half hour to an hour every week on you? So this is what my current TV week looks like now.

On my radar, but I'm still not too excited about week-to-week
Cannot wait for this to be on my television computer

Sunday - Once Upon A Time [only the pilot is out, but I liked it!], Good Wife
Monday - The Sing-Off, Castle
Tuesday - New Girl, Parenthood
Wednesday - Up All Night, Modern Family, Happy Endings, Psych, Revenge
Thursday - Community, Parks & Recreation, Prime Suspect

Who would've thought Wednesday would be my favorite night of television? Of course, you can add Bones into that mix because we are only 9 days away from the premiere!! Finally!

[+] Rock 'n' Roll Marathon Series has marathons and half marathons across the country. Apparently for the New Orleans one, they have a special where they provide a discount based on the spread every time the Saints win. On Sunday, they won by 55 points, which meant a $55 discount, which meant their half marathon was only $35. I ended up signing up and convincing my sister to do the same. Things that we need to figure out 1) airfare and 2) hotel. Hotel shouldn't be too difficult since there are discounts through the company, but airfare is currently $350 roundtrip. Eep... I'm going to be praying there will be a discount sometime soon so that this doesn't turn into a ridiculously expensive trip. Other things I realized after signing up: 1) I have not run in about a month. 2) I need new shoes because I think I need more support and that is why my knee got kind of messed up. 3) I still do not have an ipod or headphones. *sigh* So much to figure out, you guys.

My icon = the most GPOY ever.

There is this really great bookstore in Chicago called Open Books. Twice a year they have this huge warehouse sale. It was $1 for media [DVD, CDs, records], $2 for paperbacks, $3 for hardbacks, or you can grab a box and pay $30 for whatever fits in the box. It is kind of the greatest thing ever. I went with three friends and two of them went pretty crazy and legit filled up their boxes to the brim. One of them came to my house afterward and she had 33 books. 33 books for $30. Best. Deal. Ever.

I couldn't find quite that many books. A lot of the books that I saw were books that are already in my collection so obviously no point in picking those up. So I combined my books with my friend so we split the cost of a box between us so I got 17 books for $15. Pretty freaking sweet.

I also decided to finally upload the Excel document that I use to keep track of my books to Google Docs. Why I didn't do that earlier, I do not know. Also, my number are getting quite far up there in terms of my unread-to-read ratio. I mean you combine this sale with all of the Borders going out of business sales combined with the other miscellaneous books that I have in my collection that I never read and it is getting kind of ridiculous. I really need to not buy any more books until I work my way through this set.... which will be quite a few months. Let's see what kind of self-control I will have. I am hoping that the fact that I have a giant pile of books on my floor will be my constant reminder to not buy books... but we'll see what happens.

[+] You guys, it's already October. Which means we are less than one month away from NaNoWriMo. I am still debating about whether or not I want to do it this year. And if I do, what the heck am I going to write about? Ugh…

[+] My charity:water campaign is almost at $1,000!! Thank you so very much to everyone who has donated so far. I know I keep saying this, but I am seriously taken aback by everyone's generosity.

[+] Phil Wickham's new CD came out today. I am already in love with the song Sun and Moon.

[+] Yeah… so I guess I'm not really recapping or talking about shows anymore. You can blame that on the fact that the only shows I seem to get excited about are The Good Wife, Modern Family, Happy Endings, and Parks & Recreation. Psych is coming back soon… and there is only a month left until Bones. So, yeah.

[+] Also the lack of good television lately has me flocking to Netflix. I finally started watching Mad Men, and I do enjoy it. Although I really don't care about Don Draper very much and am mostly enamored Harry Crane. Maybe it is because of his midwestern sensibility? Or the fact that he is one of the only characters who actually seems to care for his significant other? Oh, who am I kidding, it's the glasses.

[+] On a relatively related note: three images that are entirely too accurate to my own life: one, two, three. Looking at all of these together, I have a feeling I am going to be single for a really long time.

[+] Speaking of being single, I am really thankful that I have a sense of humor about it because holy crap everyone in my life has suddenly become very interested in that fact. My mother told me to "use my computer to look for boys and not just to watch movies" which set me off into a laughing fit not because I have a problem with online dating but because 1) that makes it sound like I should be checking out escort websites and 2) my mother barely knows how to turn on a computer. Here's to hoping God allows me to keep this sense of humor for a long time.

[+] Once I finish the book I am currently reading, I will have read 40 books this year. 40!! I have never read more than 40 books in a year. So excited!

So far the number of new shows for has been low, so I am condensing everything into one post to keep it simple. Expect my posts to increase next week significantly as the premieres start piling on. Here's to hoping I can at least keep up for premieres and it'll probably taper off to the usual one or two a week for my favorite shows.

In a few words, here are what I thought of the three pilots I watched this week.

( pilot season 2011 )

In other TV news, the Emmy's are this weekend. I am kind of excited just because there are some different nominees that could potentially shake up the broadcast, but at the same time I can see the Emmy's being as stale as usually. Below are my wishes & guesses for this year's winners.

( Read more... )

And in other non-TV news, I am obsessed with the new Florence + the Machine song Shake It Out. I have been listening to nothing else since I heard it on Wednesday. It is great and I cannot wait for the new album.

Fall TV is back this week. What the what? I should probably be more excited, but this year’s pilots are such lame-o’s and anything I was interested in last spring isn’t premiering until 2012. The other problem is the fact that since a lot of these pilots are neither great nor total stinkers I have no idea which ones I should actually watch or not.

So here is what I have been able to come up with so far based on the limited information out there. Do not be fooled though, a lot of the new shows on my list are on there only because there is an actor I enjoy, not so much because I actually think that I will enjoy the show. The color system is pretty straight forward:

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Has anyone seen any pilots yet? I watched the New Girl pilot via iTunes and was not over the moon about it, but it wasn’t completely horrible. And I know the Revenge pilot was [is?] online and I tried to watch but didn’t care enough to make it through more than 15 minutes? Then again, I didn’t really try to watch it either because I was distracted.

In other TV news, the cast and writers of Happy Endings are performing at the Upright Citizens Brigrade Theater in Los Angles and they are providing a live webcast. I am kind of excited, but I would be more excited if Damon Wayne, Jr. was guaranteed to be there. I kind of love him a lot.

Either way, I feel like I’m only going to enjoy fall TV season until October-ish once the favorites are back, including Psych… and Bones isn’t even back until November. Bah.

We have been through a lot these past six and a half years. I mean, time just flew by. I can barely believe it has been that long… but at the same time, I really can. And honestly, I think it is about time that we moved along our separate ways.

It's not you, it's me. I am not the same person I was six and a half years ago. My needs and wants have changed dramatically. Back then, I was graduated high school, ready to take the world by storm. And you were there, by my side, every step of the way.

I loved having you there with me as I tackled college. Carrying you along to all of my classes. Surfing Facebook taking notes or chatting with friends. You were a key component of my social life. And then there was the school work. The endless papers, the late nights. You were with me for the only two all-nighters I ever pulled in college. And I couldn't have done it without your warm glow.

I loved everything about you. I loved that you were an iBook, not a Macbook like everyone else. I loved that you didn't have a webcam, it gave you such a unique quality. I think I loved you even more once your letters started to fade away and strangers got frustrated using you. It meant you were mine. We had a special connection unlike any other.

But not only have I changed, but the world around us has changed significantly. Streaming music and video is the norm. Heavy flash websites are everywhere. You could barely stream a YouTube video, and I could not even connect you to Netflix streaming because you weren't Intel-based. It made me sad, but I pushed through and made it work.

However, I feel like I have sacrificed long enough. And when I saw Harvey… well, I just could not resist. I mean, Harvey is so sleek and smooth. He loads websites in a second, and doesn't freak out when I have more than three applications open. And the backlit keyboard! Gosh, it is like a treat.

You and Harvey will be co-existing for a while. It will take some time to transfer over some of the important files from you over. And I'm not quite ready to completely say goodbye to you just yet. But the end of our road is near.

You were a great computer, Tommy. We had a great run together, twice as long as most people have. But I think we both knew that this was coming. Thanks for everything. I appreciate it.

[+] I've had a lot of people talking to my about my charity:water fundraising and praising me for what I'm doing. Let me just say this, I am doing nothing worthy of praise. It takes very little effort to set up this little fundraising page and ask people for money. It is because of all of YOUR generous hearts that my little page already has more than $600 in a week. I've loved this foundation for a long time and I am just honored to use my birthday as an excuse to help them complete another goal.

[+] I'm currently obsessed with Of Monsters & Men. Their debut album comes out in a couple of weeks, but I've already had the three songs that are kind of out there on repeat for days now. So much love.

[+] I went and saw Blondie on Wednesday at the House of Blues. I don't have much to say about it only because it was so great I can barely put it into words. But holy cow, for a 60+ year old woman, Debbie Harry can still freaking work a crowd. She was so dynamic and her voice is still top notch. I even enjoyed the newer songs that they played. I highly recommend seeing them. Also, Tommy Kessler is a good looking guy and an even better guitar player. I may have slightly swoon-ed.

[+] Thursday was a friend's birthday and we were supposed to get our diva on. I'm not quite sure if I fulfilled that requirement, but I have to say it was a lot of fun being in the city and being all dressed up and just have fun with the girls. I miss stuff like that.

[+] Today [Saturday] I went to Evanston to hang out with a friend and watch Charade [which I had never seen before, but how can you go wrong with Audrey Hepburn & Cary Grant] in the park next to the lake. It was gorgeous and perfect weather and oh my goodness I want to move to Evanston. I sometimes wish I was able to live on my own because I can often feel suburbia crushing my soul just a little bit. I want to live in an apartment again and walk around to run my errands and visit little bookstores and boutiques and record stores. And Evanston is that perfect middle ground between being in a city without actually being in the city. Le sigh.

[+] I went to the Borders close to my house because it is officially closing on Thursday. I got 6 books for less than $18. It is ridiculous, I am not used to getting those kinds of deals unless the books are REALLY old or beat up or something. Also, I picked up a bunch of books that I might not have otherwise. I was going through and looking up reviews of the books as I rifled through the shelves. I am excited to see how my picks fare.

[+] It has been a great week and tomorrow is going to be another busy day with church early in the morning and the Bears opening day. Not that I'm necessarily expecting the best season ever from the Bears, but a girl can hope.