I think that it is important for prospective spouses to get to know the parents and bridge the gap between both sides of the couple’s family, if it is feasible. Marriage is a community experience and relationship that is supposed to foster community, not be an isolated experience, apart from others.

When I started dating, I went out with men with minimal guidance from my parents. In fact, I made many naive decisions and ended up with men who were not very kind to me and had not made any headway in dealing with serious family of origin problems. Being involved in a relationship was more of an isolating than a communal experience. It was always just me and “so&so”.

Since I became a born again Christian, I haven’t been involved in any long term and serious relationships of substance, but I made a decision to be receive my parents’ blessing before whomever I am with in the future and I make a decision to get married.

I have a tendency to attract loners because I have a strong and gregarious personality, so I have developed a very high sensitivity to screening out prospective interests who exhibit serious signs of those traits. Solitude can be very good and healthy, but when it becomes antisocial and sometimes isolating, it can shut out the guidance family can offer us in navigating relationships. If a man I date doesn’t want to get to know my family and doesn’t want to do anything with my family and even worse, strongly discourages me from contacting my family and friends – he will have to go and look for someone else.

I recently donated about 30 pounds of clothing and shoes that I accumulated over the years. I had always wanted for more clothing and wanted to add more to my wardrobe until I saw that I was in over my head with the *stuff* accumulated with my closets. I finally had my wake up call after wading through my closets and tripping over my many pairs of shoes.

I am not “anti-shopping” or against keeping up with trends and updating my look. After all, I feel kind of sad when I look or feel as if I look outdated. But, I noticed that my time has freed up when I resolved to spend less time shopping and more time with people, taking walks, cooking, and cleaning, etc.

I was never a serious shopaholic, but I spent discretionary time that I could have spent more productively in malls, Target, Discovery, etc. I had virtually no savings from my previous jobs because I spent more time shopping and buying extra clothes (sometimes of very poor quality). Had I not put away chunks of money into an interest bearing account, I would have been broke as a joke.

I still shop, but I have a budget and I usually make one targeted trip a month to a place I trust – cheap or expensive. By targeted trip, I mean that I have a purpose for visiting a certain store with a vision of what I should get and I will tell the sales associate exactly what I am looking for. If it doesn’t fit and can’t serve many purposes, I will thank him/her for his/her time and I will move on.

It is strange – I have not made too much money, but I have been at my financial best for the first time over a year. I paid down my debt and I have more money than before. But for the first time, I actually feel satisfied and not constantly in want.

When I was upset, I used to go to the store to relieve my stress. But when I realized how much I spent or owed by the end of the month, I realized that I was in over my head, I would make these false resolutions to stop spending and would be depressed again – then the cycle would continue.

When I discovered that my obsession with finding perfect produce in the city was a way to quell my anxiety and sadness, I was able to scale back. Instead of buying things or grocery shopping to make myself feel better, I would call a friend, go for a walk, pray, vent in my journal make myself a cup of tea, exercise and I see how these things have provided more long term, qualitative stress relief.

Not Eating Out in New York

Can somebody socialize too much? I am not sure, but I realized that I have become more of an introvert as I have gotten older. Here is a recap of my after-work activities:

Monday – Impromptu invite to a co-worker’s house to see her vacation pictures. Lots of fun. Stayed there from 8:30-11 – came straight from work.

Tuesday – Small Group from church at someone’s house from 7:30-9:30

Wednesday – Dinner party at a friend’s house. Connected with dear friends I hadn’t seen in awhile. I was there from 7:30-11ish. Dropped my friends S and E off by their house.

Thursday – Samba and Drinks for a friend’s birthday at a Puerto Rican Restaurant in the heart of Humboldt Park – fantastic martinis – 9:30-11 – they razzed me for leaving early

Friday – Rented Big Love (HBO series) Season 1 and watched Episodes 1 & 2. Beforehand, I walked the labyrinth at the nearby Episcopal Church to cleanse my head.

Saturday – Sitting at my parents’ house. Dead quiet, blogging, and actually kind of relaxed.

Thank God for downtime and for pockets of time to rest and just be. A lot has been going on in the professional and personal spectrum and I am finding that simply having time to just goof around on the computer and watch whatever my heart desires has been restorative for me.

Internal Tension Thursday Night at the Puerto Rican Restaurant

I want to linger on this a little longer because I was the first one to leave this celebration and I was in a rather wierd mood because I had developed an incredibly heavy heart about things – mainly wanting to simplify my life in order to make room to work towards living according to Biblical principles and listening to God, and not man. I admit that I was not the best company because of the loud music and a desire to listen to the music over trying to force conversation with other people. On top of that, people kept on trying to encourage me to stay later, even though I had a full day ahead of me the next day and I was not particularly jazzed about what I had coming for the weekend. Family dynamics have not been positive for quite a few reasons for quite a long time and I think that the upcoming visit has really led me to be kind of tense on Thursday and Friday.

Today is Saturday and it was the last day of my class at my second job. I found that every term has become easier for me because I have picked up on a lot of different ways to make students feel at ease and to efficiently care for the administrative issues that could so easily disrupt a class. After class, I went out for lunch with a co-worker/good friend of mine and we talked about many different issues that were weighing on us.

I went to my parents’ house and I am here now. I could have found an excuse to go out window shopping at Best Buy, TJ Maxx, and Target as a “diversion”, but I forced myself to stay at home and at least try to engage in some interaction with family members. As a lone wolf by nature, it would be easier for me to just be immersed in looking for the best price for a bottle of bleach or conditioner rather than being around family.

With all that in mind, I know that I can’t hide behind a ton of friends and social outings in order to avoid the sense of loneliness and sadness I feel when I visit my family. It can really suck to be here, but I know that God is honored when I choose to be a better steward of my time and money. I could just not come home – ever – but I would only be benefiting Exchurchmouse. I could find a myriad of excuses by digging up an errand to run (that could be done on another day), a friend to visit, a person to work for, another goddamn social engagement.

Like a turtle, I have hidden behind busy-ness and social engagements in order to avoid engaging in contact with family and it is quite shameful, considering the brevity of life and the fact that God gave me a family that loves me and tries to work for the best of me. But what a blessing it is to discover my inability to uncover my hidden motives – The Holy Spirit did it for me!

I have decided to at least spend 2 nights out of the week doing something leisurely by myself and to intentionally contact family members once a week in person, email or over the phone. When life and its obligations keep slip, sliding through the months that turn into years and decades, the last thing I want to do is cheat myself out of developing in a way that is honoring to God.

By no means am I aiming to become what is cullturally acceptable as a Christian or to please a certain segment of the Church – it takes more than just listening to a sermon or reading a feel-good book or even memorizing scripture to really get at the root of sin.

I cancelled my account on a prominent dating website. It has nothing to do with the website or online dating – it is more about wanting to simplify my finances and my lifestyle. I hardly have time to check this website and to follow up on corresponding and meeting up with multiple men. Perhaps it may decrease my chances of meeting a viable Christian dating prospect, but I feel a lot of financial peace after having completed the cancellation.

I have always believed in 2 Corinthians 5:7 – I shall walk by faith and not by sight.

Another thing that this verse has inspired was for me to hang back and think before making a final decision about several issues in my life. I am glad that I have been able to think about listening to God’s soft, still voice and being nudged by the Holy Spirit. When I say soft and still, I don’t mean syrupy, sweet and cheesy nothings that you hear through some spiritually misleading sermons about a God that is only grace. Listening to God’s voice and being still is like being directed in a ship so that I will be headed in a direction that is in accordance to following His plan.

Praise the Lord, for He is good and knows all that we need and gives us abundantly more than we ask for and expect. He had predestined for me to be where I am at now and I don’t have to fear for what He has for me in the future.

When is the last time you have praised God in the wilderness? In the good times? In times of poverty – or abundance?

Savvy has written about this young man who is an intellectual and apparently has the means to afford appropriate clothing and to feed himself – but doesn’t know how to properly use a bar a soap. Why is it – in this day and age – that people who have the intellect and means – not bother grooming themselves and making sure that their fragrance is at least neutral, if not pleasant for other people. It is an insult when people smell or allow unpleasant odors to remain in a space – especially when it is enclosed.

Dirt under the nails. Many skipped showers. Dragon Breath. Goat smells.

When I take the CTA train and sometimes the bus – I get whiffs of goat farms, port o’ potties, flatulence, BO and unfortunately, onions.

This afternoon, I heard my co-worker greet a man who walked into the office. She greeted him in Polish and he yelled,”Gas! Gas! Gas!” I was busy doing paperwork that involved some number crunching, so I wasn’t about to get up unless if it was serious.

He stormed to the back of the building wearing a sick mask. I was thinking that we were having a carbon monoxide problem and that we should probably be evacuated.

After he left, I asked my co-worker if there was something wrong with the building. She said that he was complaining about how our garbage dumpster stinks. She went outside to do a sniff inspection.

After she came back in, she told me that it wasn’t our garbage can – it was his garbage because they have two dogs and they put the doggy business their garbage.

Cute title huh? If you said that last night, I probably wouldn’t have smiled at that remark. Here is the scoop on what happened to me.

July 4 – I was out with my friend at a BBQ in the suburbs. They have a beautiful yard with a pond/lake view – but lots of mosquitoes. Guess who was too proud to put on bug spray? Me! I didn’t put any out because I didn’t want to touch any chemicals. Needless to say, I went home itchy.

July 5 – My index finger and two knuckles swelled up. It looked like my finger was extra bionic and strong, but really – I could hardly bend it. I spent half of the day trying not to scratch *To scratch or not to scratch, that was the question* I was so uncomfortable because the itching was very intense and because my muscle started to ache in my wrist. But, I put on the topical Benadryl and went to bed, hoping to sleep off the itchies and the pain.

July 6 – 12:23 a.m. I couldn’t sleep because the pain was really getting to me. I was beginning to wonder what bit me (6 or 8 legs?)and why I was too prideful to go to Northwestern U Hospital emergency room. I finally swallowed my pride and drove to NU Hospital.
12:30 a.m. – Arrived at NU Hospital. Dealt with some annoying security guards and a smelly fellow patient (boy, he stank so bad, he could have started a small country called Stankonia) and a woman complaining about the ER not having plates to put her unhealthy food on.

12:40 – A nurse called me into an examing room. I had one intern (probably, he said he was the lowest on the “totem pole”) and then one more experienced resident and probably his supervisor come in to take a look. They perscribed Prednisone and gave me a little pill Benadryl. I was very relieved to have gotten a positive diagnosis and not something like “Uh, you should have come in way earlier because you were bitten by a recluse/black widow spider.”

2:30 – I got home and went back to bed.

I have to work very late tonight, so I am glad, in a way that this drama happened overnight last night and not on a day when I have to come in early.

Right now, I feel fine, but now I am definitely hoping that I will be more watchful of these things because it could have been a lot more serious. I am very allergic to mosquito bites and I should have taken the right precautions and I failed.

So what is the moral of the story? Swallow your pride and use bug spray. Check yourself for ticks when you enjoy the outdoors. Go see a doctor if there is really big swelling and you are sore and uncomfortable because if it was dark, you probably couldn’t tell what bit you and it is hard to self-diagnose what you have been bitten with unless if you have done it several times.