M is for...

Marriage

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DISCLAIMER: Ok, before you get all eye-rolly on me, I just want to say that I will try not to make this pathetic. It's not so much about my three months experience in marriage, but in my decision to get married. So stop with the rolling of the eyes! I couldn't come up with a super fascinating M word, ok??

I also have to say that I'm a giant hypocrite. I realize this. That actually came THIS CLOSE to being my word for my H-post. So, that being said, just know that I realize that I don't practice what I preach. I realize that I don't know anything about marriage. I'm new at this gig! But, I've got to try to take what I can learn from people around me and apply it. Chances are, I'll read this post a year from now, shake my head, and smile at my silly childish ignorance. But, I've got to try. And, hey, that's the risk of a blog, right? Spout your opinions only to be proved wrong later.

So, please, if an attitude of smugness or high and mightiness is seeping through this post, just stop reading. I'd rather it didn't be read at all then to be misunderstood. And then shoot me an email and tell me to get off my high horse. Ok? Done.

Is it still technically a disclaimer if it is longer then the actual post? No, seriously. I'm done now.
*******

Through the wonders of Facebook, I found an old friend I worked with in Kosovo. He is Albanian and currently finishing up school. We soon ended up on Yahoo Messenger to chat a bit and to catch up. The wonderfully refreshing thing about this friend is that there is no faky-ness in him at all and he had soon opened up to me about some struggles in his life. He's currently "dating" a girl in his church and his family and her family are expecting marriage soon. But, he's nervous. He has a head full of doubts about it, but culturally, it is the thing to do. Their dating is the same thing as engagement, so to date for a long time and never get married is somewhat unheard of. He soon asked me the question, "How did you KNOW you were with the person you want to be married to? I mean, how do you have that assurance that they will love you always?" I smiled as I typed my response, "I don't." He was very confused by my response, so I clarified by saying that the only person I can control is me. Rather then asking the question "Will this person love me always?", I needed to ask the question, "Will I love this person always even if he doesn't love me back?" I told him that I believe that love is a choice...and it's fleeting. While I dated Jerod, we talked endlessly about the commitment of marriage and how we both viewed it. We talked about love a little, but we both realized that was kind of secondary, since we knew we are both selfish and imperfect beings, especially at the love thing. Can I love as Christ loves? Can I choose to say, "Ok, I know you aren't always going to love me. I know you'll hurt me and betray me. But, you know what? I'll try my best to love you anyway. I'm committed to this."

At one of my bridal showers that some ladies from my church put on for me, they went around the circle and gave little snippets of wisdom to me. One lady cracked me up by telling me that she believes the reason that her marriage works is because God never allows them both be mad at the same time. There is always the loving, calm, rational one during a fight...and it's not always the same person. The more I thought about it, the more I could really appreciate what she said. I loved that thought of how God kept watch over them by, at all times, giving at least one of them the ability to speak in love and patience. If only we could all be so blessed.

So, really, it's not so much about trusting your spouse that they will honor their commitment, or they will love you forever. It's about trusting God that he will help you with the commitment YOU have made. That sounds a little depressing doesn't it? Don't get me wrong. I love Jerod. I trust Jerod. But, I also know that he is, like me, a sinner. And we'll both make mistakes. Our only hope is to have God in the center of our relationship and rely on Him that He'll make us the spouses to each other that He has intended.

L is for...

Lazy

I'm sure this comes as no surprise to anyone, but I'm extremely lazy. I think that's an inherent trait in programmers. They only write programs that will do for them something quickly that they are too lazy to do the long way.

"I don't think necessity is the mother of invention - invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness. To save oneself trouble."
--Agatha Christie

I don't even really like computers in and of themselves. I only use them because I'd rather shop ebay from sitting on my butt then taking a shower, putting on makeup and going shopping in a real store. Seriously. My Christmas shopping last year was done entirely from my office chair. No exaggeration. Facebook? I'm only on it because I don't want to excert the energy on picking up the phone to call a friend or on actually writing a real-life letter. Here, let me throw a sheep at you to show you how much I care.

Jerod and I like to watch The Biggest Loser sometimes, but the only time we can get to watching it is during dinnertime. Nothing screams lazy like hunkerin' down on the couch with a blanket and a sandwich to watch a bunch of people try to lose weight. I'm inspiring, aren't I? It's almost as bad as sitting down to watch a workout video.

When I go to the gym to workout, I will drive around for 5 minutes trying to find the closest parking spot to the door as possible. Makes perfect sense to me.

When Jerod and I are both on a computer at home, rather then getting up to walk to the other room and actually talk to him, I just IM him instead.

Ok, that's enough. I'm too lazy to write more anyway.

K is for...

Kosova*

I can write a book about this topic. I actually should and then maybe my feelings for the place wouldn't be so bittersweet. But, I'll try to keep this as short as I can.

When NATO bombed Kosova in 1999 and the world was made aware of what was happening there, I remember sitting in front of my TV and for the first time, being moved by something happening outside my world. I was just graduating high school and had my scholarships and funds set up so that I could attend college fairly financially pain-free. I remember watching the news and thinking, "I want to help. Here I am, blessed and free, and there are people being pushed from their homes and being separated from their families." It was the first time I'd ever really been aware of suffering in the world and actually wanted to help.

I went on to school and eventually became involved in the Baptist ministry on campus. We had a high population of International students from the Middle East because of the Petroleum Engineering program. I started becoming interested in Islam and started researching it. I felt like I wanted to spend a summer doing some sort of mission work with Muslims, and I got on the Baptist's International Mission Board website. I entered in that I wanted to work with Muslims, I entered the dates I wanted to go and the budget I had, and guess what opportunity was the first to come up? I quickly signed up and soon was approved to go to Kosova for a 10 week stint teaching English to ethnic Albanians.

The summer of 2001, I got on a plane all by myself and went overseas for the first time in my life. I remember flying into Prishtina and seeing the evidences of NATO's bombing from the plane. My heart instantly broke for the country and the people and my tie to the place was bound. I spent that summer teaching English and making wonderful friendships with some of the coolest people I have ever met. I worked with the children of the neighborhood I lived in teaching them Bible stories and we even put on a play for their parents at the end of the summer of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. I cried when I left and promised my friends I would try my hardest to come back.

The next year, I worked hard to be able to return to Kosova the next summer. I did my required internship for my major while I was going to school full-time just because I wanted my summer free of obligation. That year of school was the most difficult ever, but I was focused. God provided, and I soon had the time and the funds to return. I returned as an independent missionary and lived on the balcony of a missionary that was there with the IMB. I quickly found that if you go into the local university and say, "I'm a computer science student from America and I would like to volunteer tutoring or teaching." you are soon snatched up and have more work then you know what to do with. I taught beginner database classes to people through a program at the university that provided the classes free of charge. Many of my English students from the previous year even signed up for the classes. It was, by far, the most fulfilling thing I have ever done. It is still to this day the only time I have felt that my degree was used for something bigger then just myself. I was able to give job skills to people that lived in a country with a unemployment rate that was almost 60%. It blew me away.

Like I said, I could write a book about the people I meet, experiences I had, lessons I've learned. I think about how driven I was. I've never been that determined about anything like that in my life...and have yet to be again. That's how I know it was a God-thing that I went and that it all happened for a reason. Why else would someone sleep on a foam mat on concrete getting bit by bed-bugs every night, or never know when you'll have electricity or water, but yet still be completely happy? My time there shaped me. It changed me forever. My view of God, the world, and people are all different because of it. I made lifelong friends. I made a difference. And I made some big mistakes. I learned about evil and ego and the true depravity of man...in myself. I didn't realize until much later that the reason I was sent there was not so that I would help and change others, but it was so that God would help and change me.

*Please note that the spelling I've chosen to use is not because I'm on one political side or the other, or I'm anti-Serbian. It's just that most of the people I met during my time in Kosova were Albanian and that is how I learned to pronounce and spell it during my time there.

J is for...

It stinks how some letters are SO HARD to come up with a word for, but others are so easy that you have a tough time choosing what to write about. That's how I feel about J, so I'm doing two words.

Jen
She's my sister. And my best friend.

Jerod
He's my husband. And my best friend.

The three of us have had a tough go of it.

I thought it was so funny that when I started to get to know Jerod, he reminded me so much of my sister. Not in a creepy Freudian way, but in a "You're cool and quirky and you make me laugh" kind of a way. No one understands me like my sister. I can be a little dry and sarcastic with my jokes, and that makes me misunderstood by most. My sister gets it. Then all of a sudden there was this guy that got it too. I couldn't wait for them to meet each other. (I even had a freaky thought that they might get along too well and Jerod would fall for her instead. Yeah, welcome to my brain. You like it here?)

So, then they met. And I was so confused as to why we all weren't instantly a hilarious threesome of best friends that could hang out and understand each others' weird jokes. They both didn't quite know what to think of each other and I translated it as them each not liking the other and it pissed me off. I honestly don't know why the first meeting went so badly. I can't speak for either of them. It might have been me. I maybe came across as insecure and both their protective claws came out. I don't know. All I know is that it broke my heart that they didn't instantly adore each other.

I'm not the best sister to Jen when Jerod is around, and I'm not the best girlfriend/fiance/wife to Jerod when Jen is around. I'm still working that balance out. It's hard to do because I never meant for one relationship to be a replacement to the other, yet I'm afraid it came across that way. I was living in the perfect world in my head where each relationship would supplement each other all would be peachy. I'm totally green at this stuff, but I suppose a lot of girls struggle with this when they get engaged or married. The whole girlfriend/husband relationship balance is hard. And it seems all three of us don't know quite what to do about it.

I know I get all "doomy" about it, but I'm not really. I know both my sister and my husband care about me and because of this, I know they won't give up on each other. They both know how I feel about them and I'm hoping that it will just take some time to find our balance.

I is for...

Independence

This word has evolved a lot for me in the last year. I used to be a pretty dang independent woman. I tried to at least appear strong enough and smart enough to handle anything on my own. There were a few years towards the end of college and after that I kind of adopted a "man-hater" attitude and decided that I needed to approach life with the thought that I would always be alone and I needed to remain strong enough to handle that. I planned for my future in a way that would suit me the best. After starting work, I immediately bought a house and set up my retirement fund because I didn't want to wait until I had a family to do that. I didn't want to count on that. I liked that appearance I had. I felt like I was intimidating. People didn't understand that I could go on a long road trip by myself and not be lonely. People would shake their head at me when I would go camping or hiking with just my tent and my dog. I remember one day in particular, I felt very proud coming into work with dirty hands from changing my own tire in about a foot of snow and freezing weather. I liked being single. I liked being independent. I liked being alone.

Then...Jerod happened. Just like that. We really enjoyed each others' company and spent almost all of our free time together almost immediately after we started dating. I have talked about it in a few of my blog posts how I would have freak out moments of how fast everything was happening and how I would suddenly miss my independence and try to cling to it desperately. I would let it build up and then have a crazy fight with Jerod and end up telling him that I just wanted to be alone for a day or two. It would hurt his feelings and confuse him because I would make a complete 180 turn on him. But, then I would go away and then come back in a day in a great mood because I had my independence "hit" and I was good to go for a few more weeks. He finally learned that when I get all crabby and snappy, he just needed to leave me alone and I would be just fine after awhile. It was a really tough adjustment.

When we got engaged about a year ago, I had a few more freak-out episodes because I felt like I was losing that independent personality and appearance that I was proud of. I wanted Jerod and my independence and I didn't know how to have both. It's tough in those months of wedding planning because you are so absorbed in yourself as a couple. You are learning about each other and you are dealing with family issues and other stressful things and it's really consuming of your time and energy. I guess that made my world smaller and the loss of my independence didn't become such a big deal anymore. I started focusing on US instead of ME and I wanted to work hard at making the US part work.

I wasn't quite ready for this dramatic of a change. The other day I was listening to that Avril Lavigne song "When You're Gone" and I was shocked that I could actually relate to her lyrics. (Usually, all I can do is criticize Ms. Lavigne's lyrical skills.)

I always needed time on my own
I never thought I'd need you there when I cry

This is how I feel about Jerod. I have never needed another person before. He isn't my identity and he doesn't define who I am, but he's my cohort in life and we're in it for the long haul. He is and always should be the second most important relationship (See "B" post for my #1 guy) in my life and I need to work to sustain it. So, that inevitably means a downsizing of my independence. That doesn't mean that my independence is completely gone, but it's nothing like it used to be. And I'm VERY ok with that.

On a sidenote:
Now that the wedding mess has died down, the world is bigger again (and now I have a wonderful partner by my side to face it). I feel like I need to apologize to my friends and family that I neglected in the very selfish wedding phase of my life. But, it needed to happen. Jerod and I needed (and still do need) to figure out "US". I haven't changed. I'm still me, but now with new and improved priorities. And I'm hoping this can only make me a better friend, sister, daughter, etc. Please bear with me.

H is for...

Honey


Yeah, that's right! I have another dog! Did you not realize that? I know I talk about Cache a lot just because there is always something newly destructed in his world. I realize that I neglect talking about my other puppy, but that's only because she's such a good dog and rarely shakes things up.

We rescued Honey about a year ago. Jerod had been researching Akitas and we decided that we would start looking for one. We looked into breeders, but a puppy was really expensive and since we were saving for a wedding, we didn't really see that as feasible. Jerod discovered an Akita rescue shelter in Oregon and on their website was a sweet picture of a little girl they had available to rescue.


After several weeks of phone conversations, coordinating drop off times, etc, we picked up our Honey bear in Spokane around the middle of December. She was extremely aloof and standoffish. But, after some bonding time with Jerod in Nebraska and after a couple weeks of getting to know Cache, she was quickly part of our family.

It has been so much fun watching her personality emerge since her rescue. We've been told by several people that have rescued dogs that it takes awhile for their true personalities to show through. Honey was very skittish and ambivalent to us for a long time. She slowly started becoming more attached to us and more responsive. She still had weird moments (like her sheer terror of thunder, or her irrational fear of the color white, or her crazy obsession with digging at carpet), but for the most part, she is nothing but a joy to us. She is quirkier then you think she is and just when you least expect it, she'll do something completely hilarious. Like the way she waits until you turn your back and she swipes your foot with her paw. Or how she will come up to you, do the playful puppy bow and then take off tearing across the yard.

I'll admit that it took me awhile to warm up to Honey. She was always intended to be Jerod's dog, but since she lived with me until we got married, I was the one that took care of her. I never felt that I played favorites between the two dogs, but I couldn't deny that connection with Cache since I have had him since he was just a tiny pup and it was just us two for so long. But, Honey has a way of worming her way into your heart and planting roots. From her playful pawing at your feet, to her extreme head tilts when she listens to you, she just oozes adorability. Ask anyone who has spent a little bit of time with her and they will tell you the same thing. She casts a spell on you and soon you can't wait to bury your face in her soft neck and give her a big ole' hug. I just can't imagine our lives without her.

My mom took the picture at the top a couple weeks ago when the dogs and I were home visiting.

G is for...

Grace

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.
~Ephesians 2:8,9

I used to have a very different picture of grace in my head. I used to just think of it as a free gift. Through God's grace, I'm saved. It wasn't until later that I linked it back to God's forgiveness. By grace I am forgiven as well. This is when I put the "undeserved" in my definition. Grace isn't just a free gift, but a very much undeserved free gift.

That's like if I had a giant wonderful home. And a son. And some punk meets my son on the street and kills him. Instead of being bitter, I forgive the punk and invite him to live in my home and I feed and clothe and take care of him the rest of his life. The punk is never thankful and oftentimes destroys parts of the home and even lies, cheats, steals and murders even more peoples' sons. But, I let him remain. And I love him. And I keep my promise to take care of him and provide for him forever.

Uh....what?

Who has believed our report?
And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant,
And as a root out of dry ground.
He has no form or comeliness;
And when we see Him,
There is no beauty that we should desire Him.
He is despised and rejected by men,
A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
Surely He has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted.
But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way;
And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed and He was afflicted,
Yet He opened not His mouth;
He was led as a lamb to the slaughter,
And as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
So He opened not His mouth.
He was taken from prison and from judgment,
And who will declare His generation?
For He was cut off from the land of the living;
For the transgressions of My people He was stricken.
And they made His grave with the wicked—
But with the rich at His death,
Because He had done no violence,
Nor was any deceit in His mouth.
Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him;
He has put Him to grief.
When You make His soul an offering for sin,
He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days,
And the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand.
He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied.
By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many,
For He shall bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great,
And He shall divide the spoil with the strong,
Because He poured out His soul unto death,
And He was numbered with the transgressors,
And He bore the sin of many,
And made intercession for the transgressors.
~Isaiah 53

Yeah. That's grace. Undeserved salvation through an undeserved sacrifice.

Goosebumps.

F is for...

Food

That may seem like a bizarre topic, but I'll try to make it applicable. I love food. Any and All kinds. (Well....except fish. I can't do fish.) I grew up eating awesome home cooked meals. Between my mom and my grandma, we were never in short supply of roast beef and mashed potatoes. I don't remember it ever being an issue for me to not finish my plate. So, I guess it comes as no surprise today why I have weight issues.

Ever since high school, I have been conscious that I wasn't a skinny girl. I didn't play sports, but instead worked through high school...at a restaurant. That's where I fell in love with more F's:
French Fries
Fried Food

In college, I started working out regularly for the first time in my life and maintained my weight pretty well. My senior year was an emotionally stressful year and I put on about 30 lbs. When I moved to Billings to start my job, I took my new paycheck and joined Weight Watchers and managed to lose 40 lbs in a little over a year. I got down to a very lovely 140 lbs and felt SO GOOD. I made lifetime member at WW and vowed to keep off the weight. I suppose you know what happened. Five pounds became ten. Ten became Twenty. I realized my whole life will be a yoyo if I kept this up. When Jerod and I started dating, I had managed to lose ten pounds of my weight. But, dinners at fancy restaurants, drinking wine and watching movies didn't really do me any favors.

I joined a weight loss group at church and started taking dieting seriously again. The great thing about having a weight loss program rooted in the Word is that it really makes you examine the reasons for your weight problems. Most women in the group discovered that they were obvious emotional eaters. I was quick to cross that off my list because I am the exact opposite. When I'm depressed or stressed, I go the other way and end up not eating much at all. It was several weeks into it when I discovered that I was, in fact, an emotional eater. But, I eat when I'm happy. I realized that growing up, we would always eat in celebration. We always had guests at our house and my mom always had yummy food to eat. Holiday dinners were always held at our house and when we got together, there was always food. That's why I love food so much. It links back to happy times in my life. And I believe that's why losing weight since being with Jerod has been extremely difficult.

Jerod + Me = Happy -> Food -> Pudgy Andi

So, where does that leave me? A happy, but pudgy yoyo. I struggle every day and I know as I get older and my metabolism slows down, it will only get harder. It's my Achilles heel and I will never be able to get over it. There will always be calorie counting and portion control and gym membership and multiple sizes of clothes. So, if you ever see me and I'm totally skinny, be sure to ask why I'm so sad.

E is for...

Amanda is in!

Eggs

When deciding what my E would be, I had little trouble coming up with a word that has held a lot of importance in my life. I have had a relationship with chicken eggs since I was old enough to walk and to open and close an egg carton. My parents used to load us up in the car almost every night (or it SEEMED like every night) and we would go over to the egg house. My brother, sister and I would drag our feet to the packing table and start our ritual. Adam would take the eggs from the flats to the cartons. Jen would close the cartons. And I would load them up into the cases. Do you know what an egg smells like? I'm not talking about a yummy friend egg you smell in the morning. I'm talking about the smell of the raw egg in the shell. Once you've handled several thousand, you will know what I'm talking about. The one redeemable thing would be our prize at the end of the egg packing adventure where we would walk up the road to Grandma and Grandpa's house for a chewable Vitamin C or a few Angel Food Cake crumbs.

Well, that may not be the only redeemable thing about packing eggs, but it was the only thing I could see at the time. I think my parents used it as ammo when the college-talk came up. If we didn't want to pack eggs anymore, we would have to decide what we wanted to do and go to college and DO IT. I also think packing with my siblings taught us all about teamwork and the importance of working together. I remember if there was a fight or something (usually between my sister and I), we would be stuck in the corner packing our own case of eggs by hand.....and our nights would last twice as long. Packing gave us work ethic. And I'm thankful to my parents for working us and making us realize how cold, hard and smelly the real world can be.

See how sunny and cheery I can be about packing eggs? But, don't get me wrong. That still doesn't stop the gag reflex and the rock in the stomach when I hear someone say those words. My mom even likes to mess with me every once in awhile and asks if I want to go pack some eggs and then laughs when I almost puke.

D is for...

Melodee has joined the bandwagon too!

Daughter

I spent this last weekend with my parents. Just us three. Jerod was off driving cross country, so I took advantage of my free weekend and drove home to eat Mom's cooking and take naps in my old bedroom and just be "the daughter". A pleasant surprise I wasn't expecting was when we sat down to watch some old home movies. My mom wanted me to set up her new VHS to DVD recorder, so of course we had to sit down and watch the videos while we recorded them. Watching old birthdays and Christmas's showed me how blessed I was to be the daughter and the granddaughter of my parents and grandparents. I'm so lucky to have had relationships with all four of my grandparents (plus two great-grandparents!) and also to have developed a friendship with my parents. And they are all VERY cool people. It was sad to watch the grandparents that I've lost, but it also made me thankful for the time I had with them. It made me smile and tear up to watch my Grandpa Davis's teasing and my Grandma Howe's hugs. It also reminded me that I need to take advantage of the time I have left with my remaining grandparents and of course my parents. I often take for granted the fact that I am a loved daughter and granddaughter and so many others don't get that experience.

C is for...

My friend Marlene has started doing this too!

Caching

About three and a half years ago, my life was greatly enhanced by the addition of a little puppy. He was a little ball of fire and has kept me on my feet the whole time we've spent together. He was born to a junkyard stray dog under a bed of one of my uncles. When he was still little enough to do it, he would always squeeze into the tightest of spaces to take a little nap. He came by his name Cache very honestly. I remember one time when he was little, I had him outside and I turned my back for one minute only to discover that I had completely misplaced my little puppy. I soon found him curled up into a little ball under the bed of my guest room. To this day, he still loves to camp out under things if he can still fit. He lives up well to his name. People that haven't seen the spelling think that I name him after money or Johnny, and my geeky friends think I named him after memory space on a computer. It's a fun name it has fit him so well that I can't imagine calling him anything else.

Lately, Jerod and I have had another type of caching in our lives. We've become highly addicted to geocaching. Jerod bought a new fancy GPS off of ebay and we're already up to 58 finds and it would be lot higher, but we haven't been out recently. We had to take a tiny step back from it because it was quickly becoming an obsession that was eating up every spare minute. Did I mention it was addictive? The only bad thing about it right now is my gimpy Cache can't go along caching with us most of the time....and he's OBVIOUSLY a good luck charm

B is for...

Belief

I believe in a lot of things. I believe that my dogs fully understand what I say to them. I believe that chocolate should be classified as an official vitamin. I believe that naps are essential to maintain my good mood, good looks and effervescent personality. (Ok, that was a bit much.) But, there is one belief that truly defines who I am and in whom I put my hope.

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
the Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:

Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.

He descended into hell.

The third day He arose again from the dead.

He ascended into heaven
and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty,
whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting.

Amen.

I had a friend in college that always endured my attempts at theological conversations and questions. I'm a linear, logical thinker and I tried to make sense of so many confusing aspects of my Christian beliefs. One day after I had expressed concern over whether or not "all this stuff" was actually real, he stopped me. He said, "Andrea, it's the difference between knowing (pointing to his head) and KNOWING (pointing to his heart)." That was pivotal. It doesn't have to make sense all the time. It's a decision to believe in my savior and trust that it's all taken care of. God's quite a bit smarter and broader then I am. I don't have to get it all...because that is a God-sized impossibility. And THAT I believe.

A is for...

So, apparently I need a new motivation to write stuff. I can't get clever about my day to day activities and make it interesting to read about, so I'm trying something new. I've read a few blogs that are doing an entry a day in their own Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life. I thought maybe I'd give it a try. I'm not promising I'll get my butt doing it everyday, but I'll give it a shot. I'm also not promising wit or panache, but I do see you learning something new about me....for whatever that's worth.

Let us begin.

A is for...

Andrea

I've always loved my name. When I was little, I thought I was so fortunate to have a gorgeous flowing name like Andrea. It is unique, but not strange. And it begins with a vowel....which is very cool.

I hate it when people pronounce it like AUNdrea. Sounds too pretentious.

Although, my Albanian friends in Kosovo always called me AunDREa (with the stress on the 'dre', if you couldn't tell). That, for some reason, was ok.

Speaking of pretentiousness, I did go through a stage when I was a kid that I thought I should change my name to Penelope. Why? I have no idea.

My family has always called me Andi. With an 'I', not a 'Y'!! Andy is a boy's name. Although, I have always considered attempting to change the spelling to Ande. Like the mountains....and the mints.

Jerod calls me Andi too. I love it. Growing up, only my family was allowed to call me that. I was always Andrea in school or less-familiar settings. So, when he calls me Andi, it's a very intimate thing. Did I mention that I love it?

Ok, that's all I got. That was kind of fun. I think this could be cool....at least on my end, anyway Anyone want to join in with me? I'm not going to "tag" anyone, but you all know you wanna do it. Leave me a comment with a link to your first A post! Ready? Go!