My New Low Carb Life

Well, I must admit there are some elephants in my closet that I haven't shared on the blogosphere. Due to certain circumstances, the other elephant in my closet I have not shared, I have come to grips with the fact that I won't be eating out as much lately. Therefore, I have decided to make some lifestyle changes. Like all too many Americans, I have jumped on the Atkins bandwagon. My days now consist of counting carbs and cooking meals. I've been losing about a pound a day which is an awesome feeling! I am a little lethargic however. Tonight I need to be studying some Greek, but I am so tired that I can only watch survivor. Otherwise, I'm doing great. I think my appetite has actually shrunk which is a really really good thing. I don't even think I've been seriously tempted to cheat. It's great to think that this might actually work for me. The first phase of Atkins, which last for two weeks, is called induction, and it is by far the most strict- twenty carbs a day, with no bread, no fruit, no sugar and no caffeine. Yes, I am taking a multi-vitamin. So wish me luck friends. I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch, but you could be seeing a noticeably thinner Janalee in the weeks and months to come.

The Gang

I feel like my life is a lot like this show, although without the sex, or even the dates for that matter.

A Girl's New Best Friend

Tonight, I had a pretty amazing experience. For the first time, I watched Sex in the City. When if first aired on HBO I thought that the title alone would probably make it the most irrevant and immoral show ever. Well, it maybe, but I guess the fact I like it now proves I have changed a little. It must be said, for all of you who are slightly disappointed in me at the moment, that I don't even like it because of the sex part. Out of all the shows I've ever seen, this one seems to really portray the very real, very girly side of women. I feel like I really have this ongoing commentary in my head just like Carrie. Seeing that show tonight did prove to me one thing, and that is that I am not as weird as I sometimes think I am. I've felt really weird and almost like a desparate girl reading these last few post which are all about me. Well, I am a little weird. I'll give you that, but mostly I am just a girl who's not afraid to speak from my heart's imagination. I think we girls all want to do that. I just don't have the filters the rest of you do. It's a blessing and a curse. Needless, to say I'm always up for some good girly blog banter, so click that little comment button and let's be girly together.

There and back again, a country girls' tale

I wrote this when I was in my real home. I'm back in Waco now, and this has been my first opportunity to publish it.

I can’t tell you how good it’s been to be back in Mississippi. A free trip home for fall break was just the ticket. Of course, it means I had to miss class and I’m getting even further behind on school work, but I wouldn’t trade this visit for a 4.0.

Allison and Ashley are just as frisky as ever. They picked me up at the airport, and we’ve been keeping them for the past two days while my sister and brother-in-law are out of town. We’ve been helping them with homework, giving them baths, and putting them to bed. Their big thing right now is stories. Ever time you turn around, they want you to tell them a story from when you were a kid or a Harry Potter story or a snake story, etc, etc. They were really rough tonight, and they wallowed around all over me. I’ll probably be sore tomorrow. I forgot how much they wear me out, but they are very loving children in spite of their rambunctiousness.

Sunday, I went to my home church for the first time in what seems like forever. I cried most of the time. Not because of anything spiritually stirring from the songs or sermon. When I sat down in the pew I realized I got more hugs in the five minutes that I walked into the doors of that church than I had in the past five months in Waco. There is something about the south that makes people not afraid to hug.

I always griped and complained about getting the hell out of Mississippi, or especially Kossuth. This is the first time home I’ve realized the value of a place like this, and how much I really love it. I had forgotten what it is like to walk through Wal-Mart and see someone you know every time you turn the corner of a new isle. I never realized the familiarity of living in a place where people have known each other all their lives. Things that happen in places like Kossuth may not be important to the rest of the world, but there’s something about being there that makes you feel like you really are important to the people in that community. That’s something I think we could all use no matter who or where we are.

Charlie Mars, hot musician from Oxford, only an hour's drive from Kossuth. I just got his CD and it's really good. Kind of an angry rock feel to it, which is pretty good for me right now. Just another reason to love Mississippi.

The Man Himself

Here he is.

Donald Miller, My Celeb Crush...Kind of

So I just re-read what I wrote last night. Dang, I'm weird. How did y'all ever let me get this crazy? I just wrote a story about how I concieved my third child with a man whom I have never met. He is one hell of a writer though. Have I told you about how much you desperately need to read Blue Like Jazz? Well, you do, and then you need to read his brand new book Searching for God Knows What. I've read a little of it, and it made me laugh and cry. He's just such an honest writer. He says things that you think in ways you could never dream of articulating to anyone. I'm glad he is sharing that gift with the rest of us.

Now, I'm not one for celebrity crushes. Not really. Sure, I think people like Johnny Dep and Matthew Machonogey are beautiful, but... you know, six of one half a dozen of the other. They're like dreams. Donald Miller is real. After I read Blue Like Jazz, I imagined him as a tall, skinny, with glasses that made him just nerdy enough to be cute. I've liked my fair share of tall skinny boys in the past. There's nothing wrong with them, I just feel like the zero in the number ten when I'm with them. I was hoping for something different. Then I thought to myself, "Nah, there's no way he could be remotely attractive." In order to put those questions behind me, I went on line to find his picture. Low and behold, he's not what you would call gorgeous but his chubby little cheeks combined with the way he can write a loved poem sealed the deal for me. From what I could tell, he's kind of short and stocky, and you know what? That is something I can relate to.

Other things that might make us a great match? I am glad you asked. Here they are.

- He used to have this thing for a Southern girl who was also a writer. That means we know that accents don't bother him. Score!
- His new book is currently ranked #381 on Amazon. One day I would just like to have any book on Amazon.
- He grew up in Texas. I now live in Texas.
- He's not afraid to meet new people. Neither am I.
-He currently resides in Portland, OR. I am willing to relocate anywhere. The west coast has always sounded nice.
- We both really want to be in love.
- I love guys that can write. With him, I'd have a never ending supply of love letters.
- If he ever read anything like the excerpt from his play Polaroids, to me,I would have no choice but to marry him. For I would not be able to keep my hands off of him.

Here's a little sample of what I mean. Girls, eat your heart out.

I will give you this, my love, and I will not bargain or barter any longer.
I will love you, as sure as he has loved me. I will discover what I can discover
and though you remain a mystery, save God's own knowledge, what I disclose of
you I will keep in the warmest chamber of my heart, the very chamber where God
has stowed Himself in me. And I will do this to my death, and to death it may
bring me.

I will love you like God, because of God, mighted by the power of God. I
will stop expecting your love, demanding your love, trading for your love,
gaming for your love. I will simply love. I am giving myself to you, and
tomorrow I will do it again. I suppose the clock itself will wear thin its time
before I am ended at this altar of dying and dying again.

God risked Himself on me. I will risk myself on you. And together, we will
learn to love, and perhaps then, and only then, understand this gravity that
drew Him, unto us.

Wow! Reading that reminds me that he's probably way out of my league. But can you imagine what kind of wedding vows he could write? But seriously, don't we all long for someone who can read the deepest longings of our heart. The things that we don't even realize are there. I'm sure a lot of other people feel the same way about this extraordinary man. Maybe it's just because he's so in touch with the things in his heart that really matter. Unlike the rest of us, he doesn't write off those needs and longings off as unimportant. I wish I was more like that.

So here's to you, Don. We may never meet, and I am probably just as likely to marry you as I am to wind up with Ben Affleck, but nevertheless, I think God has already used you to make me a better person.

Weird Daydreamin' at 10 pm

This is something I wrote last night. I really need wireless so I can quit giving you these darn disclaimers.

I needed a change of scenery tonight, so I’m studying in the new trillion dollar science building on the campus of Texas’ Harvard wannabe. Such man made beauty built with my hard earned tuition dollars, that will truly be hard earned as I will spend the greater part of my life paying them off, does not usually capture me in such a way as it has tonight. I’m sitting in a semi-plush chair, listening to Andy P, sipping on my Sunset tea which is now cold, and look out at a water fountain that reminds me a bit of Old Faithful….hmm….old faithful….

If I could snap my fingers and suddenly be in my dream world, I’d be in Yellowstone National Park. It’s ten years in the future, and my family and I are going on our second annual camping trip. Donald just came off his book tour from his sixth amazing work. He continues to challenge the college students and beat poets alike with his candid words on life with Jesus. I recently wrapped up my third annual conference for my organization that focuses on equipping women to be spiritual and cultural leaders for the next generation. We’re all glad to leave San Francisco behind for a few days and to simply be a family, to enjoy nature and one another.

Bobby Shadburn, now age 8 and little Kindred, our daughter who just turned six, are sound asleep in their tent. The chill of fall has just slipped into the air. Don and I are sitting by the fire. Words aren’t needed. We’re just glad to be in close proximity again. I slip my arm through his and he turns and kisses me on the temple. Again I hear the beautiful silence of just being with the one and only love of your life and knowing, without any word or expression, that you are loved just as completely as you love him. When we can barely hold our eyes open any longer, Donald throws a bucket of water on the fire, and we go to bed. Not to sleep, but to bed. And that’s how we get little Faith.

Back Again

Well, I'm home again, if I can call Waco home. Catalyst was an overall good experience. Now I'm about to have an anxiety attack due to the mountain of school work I'm trying to catch up on, and the mounting financial difficulties I am experiencing. Still no job. I'm going home to Mississippi for fall break on Friday, and it's not likely that I'll find one between now and then.

So what did I take from catalyst? The biggest thing was that I need to be more concerned about what God is doing in me, than with all the big things I want to do for him. Studying spirituality and how we relate to God in the realm of academia is not the same as actually relating to God and focusing your life on your spiritual needs. I've struggled with this in seminary, and spiritually there's a lot I've neglected. It's thrown lots of stuff out of wack, I'm sure. That's probably the reason my past few posts sound so depressing.

I'm praying for something really good to happen, both circumstantially, spiritually, and with my attitude towards life in general. I don't know about you, but really depressed and whinny Janalee is starting to get on my nerves. If you want to know or remember the happier and more optimistic me, take a gander in my archives back to May. Life was good then. I know there are good things about it now too. I'm just having problems seeing it.

Whoops...

Never mind about me not being able to publish something. I published my entry "The Way Love Should Be", about 15 times. My computer just wasn't registering it. Weird.

Give me a Break

So I've been trying to bog now for several days, but I can't publish from my laptop and now I'm at the library. It doesn't afford a girl much privacy, so I will have to squash a little of the past few days' drama. If I was alone at the moment I would be in tears no doubt. Here's a rundown of what's been going on:

- On Saturday night I went to see the Notebook . I have an entry saved on my laptop about the movie, but unfortunately I am presently to access it. On the way back, my car overheated.

- Sunday was not a good day for the old self esteem. I felt shot down once again by a boy whom I would really like to date. Then one of my oldest and dearest friends agreed with me that I am not mysterious or attractive, and that it will be hard for me to find someone, especially in Waco, aka hot girl capital USA. He tried to recover with, "Well, you have a cute accent". To which I replied, "Tell me someone who will want to wake up to it every morning." Then he made a lame joke that I wouldn't be single anymore after I met Donald Miller. I left my cell phone in his car, and freaked out for an hour after I got home because I couldn't find it.

- This morning, I took my car to the garage. I missed a job interview, and probably the chance at a job with my name written all over it, because of I had no transportation, and everyone else was too busy to take me. The bill was $300. That's never good, but it's 10 times worse when you don't have a job.

- I've been crying a lot today, because it seems like nothing good happens to me in this town. I missed the majority of a panel discussion with my favorite professor, Terry York, and my favorite author Brian McLaren. I showed up 30 minutes late, but Brian was 50 minutes late for his own panel. His three hour flight became a nine hour flight, and he waited for hours on a tarmac in Abilene, TX. Yikes! Then a kind lady, who just happened to be the top Weinarammer trainer in the world, drove him to Waco. If you have to have a bad day, at least I get to share it with B-Mc. I can call him that because we're bff.

In the morning I leave for the Catalyst conference in Atlanta. Thank God I'm getting out of this place for a week. I hope the conference will be worshipful and refreshing. If you are reading this please pray that God would grant me a better attitude and that I would learn to see all the good things in my life.

The Way Love Should Be

The Way Love Should Be

Finally, after an anguishing wait, I got to see the critically acclaimed (at least by my girlfriends) motion picture, The Notebook at our local dollar cinema. “Agh!” and a somber “wow” were the only words I could manage as I exited the theatre. At some point in time, because time is a little fuzzy after that experience, I did muster the words, “That’s the way love should always be.”

I didn’t cry just a little during this film, I sobbed. The two main characters, Noah and Allie, had a love that withstood all the fearful circumstances that life throws out: criticism, distance, war, other lovers, and even the loss of all memories. I know I could not write a more perfect love story if I tried. It may have been idealistic in some ways. Being caught in the midst of a torrential down pour and then running indoors only to rip off soaking wet clothes to make mad passionate love to a guy in a gorgeous house that he spent his entire life savings remodeling just for you may only be in the movies, but let’s face it, it is every girl’s fantasy. It was real though, I saw a 70- something aged man crying as he left the theatre with his wife. That let me know that there was something more real about the love in this movie than I could imagine even after soaking at least one Kleenex.

A girl just wants to be loved and wanted. Noah could not bear to be without his sweetheart. He ached for the one and only love of his life. Now I am just silly enough to hold out hope that somewhere in this world there’s a guy that might feel similarly about a loudmouthed and sometimes bitchy country girl like me. We’ll fight, and he’ll tell me I’m a pain in the ass, and I’ll tell him he’s a world class s.o.b, but in the end we’ll love each other all the more for it, because that’s who we are, and we won’t be afraid to call each other out for it. We’ll love each other through our imperfections, and in the end, he’ll be a better man and I’ll be a better woman because of each other. Yes, I am crazy enough to think that’s what true love should be and that it really does exist, even for some one like me.