For those of you who don’t know Matthew West…. let me say this…. you SHOULD.

While I’m not usually a huge fan of the sub-par garbage that the Christian music industry exposes the world to… the songs on this album really spoke to me… well, one song in particular.

And I liked it the moment I heard it (almost a year ago). But given my recent state of mind/transformation/finding of passion… it didn’t really affect me as profoundly as it could have until now.

Here are the lyrics to the song “Motions”… aka, my new anthem for 2010.

The Motions by Matthew West

This might hurt; it’s not safe
But I know that I’ve gotta make a change
I don’t care, if I break,
At least I’ll be feeling something
‘Cause just okay is not enough
Help me fight through the nothingness of life

I don’t wanna go through the motions
I don’t wanna go one more day
without Your all consuming, passion inside of me
I don’t wanna spend my whole life asking,
“What if I had given everything,
instead of going through the motions?”

No regrets, not this time
I’m gonna let my heart defeat my mind
Let Your love make me whole
I think I’m finally feeling something
‘Cause just okay is not enough
Help me fight through the nothingness of this life

‘Cause I don’t wanna go through the motions
I don’t wanna go one more day
without Your all consuming passion inside of me
I don’t wanna spend my whole life asking,
“What if I had given everything,
instead of going through the motions?”

take me all the way (take me all the way)
take me all the way (’cause I don’t wanna go through the motions)
take me all the way (I know I’m finally feeling something real)
take me all the way

I don’t wanna go through the motions
I don’t wanna go one more day
without Your all consuming passion inside of me
I don’t wanna spend my whole life asking,
“What if I had given everything,
instead of going through the motions?”

I don’t wanna go through the motions

Jared and I had a long talk on Wednesday. About everything and nothing…( you know how those conversations go. ) It blows my mind that two and a half years have passed since we promised forever to each other. And that third anniversary is just around the corner.

I am 26 years old, and the same things I have struggled with in high school are still there. The heart of the struggle is the same… though the titles may have changed.

At my core, I deeply need to feel passion for what I do. I need to feel like I am making an impact, or difference, or that I matter. I need to feel special. And perhaps, after all my years loving God… I have a God shaped hole I have still not filled with Him. Whatever the reason, I feel like my life needs more. More of everything. More music, more people, more commitment, more selflessness… And I know where I need to start, but it is a scary prospect to let God lead you. Faith has lead to some crazy things in my life… and if you let Him, He’ll rock your world. He will pluck you out of your comfort zone and drop you into something better.

Harder??  Very possible. Challenging?? Very PROBABLE. Good for you??? Always. 

So, here I am. I have a husband who loves me, supports me, and would do anything for me. I was blessed to come from a loving family and married into an equally loving and giving one. I own a house and have my own mini-zoo at home. I am blessed to have close friends that I can share anything with, and who love me anyway. I have the perfect environment to put my faith in God.

And should the lesson I need to learn, be that I fall flat on my face, broken… I will be ok.

Ok, so don’t make fun of me… some of the music choices may seem adolescent. If you DO feel like mocking, remember… I fully expected it.

Every now and then I stumble across an album that really hits a nerve. 4 years ago, the week before I left for Japan, I bought the first Kelly Clarkson C.D. And I’ll tell you what, when 9 out of 12 songs explore something that is actually happening to you – or something you are still hurting from, I call that amazing. (Heck, even liking HALF the songs on an entire album of ANY genre is rare.) I listened to that C.D., every day, for 365 days, until I came home for good. It never got old. And I can still listen to it and get that rush of ” it’s a sunny day, driving with the windows down, blaring the music, and singing at the top of your lungs” feeling.

It  FEELS great to listen to it.

But that was four years ago, and my life has changed a lot since then. I am no longer mourning a boyfriend who broke up with me (and then realized his error and asked me back ). I am not “Breaking Away”. NO longer am I pursuing a fuller life experience by living in a foreign country, 6000 miles away from everything I love, and needed to get away from. I am not trying to prove I can do anything, because I have.

So I’ve been sans Soundtrack since 2006. Until Saturday.

In a totally different genre than my last soundtrack, Superchick has always represented youth, vibrancy, girl power etc. etc. I discovered them in high school, (while working in a Christian Bookstore) and their first album fit my life at the time. I even shared it with one of my best friends. Who would have thought, YEARS later, that same friend would turn me on to their latest album??? Once again, the rarity of liking 9 out of 12 songs has happened. I LOVE them. They make me FEEL… And they touch on EXACTLY what I am dealing with/wrestling with now.

And while this is starting to sound like a plug/review or persuasive essay, the bottom line… and my point:

Life is so much richer with music. It adds so much. And I am SO sad to say, I have forgotten that.

“Everybody dies but not everyone lives….”

So, our trip to P.S. went really well. Drove through a MAJOR monsoon on the way there, saw a snake on the side of the road ( I presume, still alive) and we saw a bobcat cross the high way right in front of us. Got our carpet, dreamt about snakes in my house, and came home.

Today I got to spend the morning with my friend Rebecca! That was a good time. It’s always a good time.

And the rain came. I miss Colorado summers where you get rain every day. And the forecast is for rain and COOLER temps tomorrow!

I think I’m pretty much in heaven now. 🙂

I can relax a little today.

My job is to clean up the house, do laundry, and pack for a trip that will last less than 24 hours. I do find much comfort in the fact that I will be sleeping on a Tempur-pedic bed tonight.

Usually the drive down to Pagosa is something similar to playing the old IBM Oregon Trail…

You are driving.

It is sunny warm weather.

Uh oh, it looks like a blizzard.

You made it through the blizzard.

Sunshine everywhere!

Be careful of the wild life!!

Oops, another blizzard!

Your provisions and fuel are low!

One of your family members is ill !(usually me with whatever my school has to offer)

Congratulations! You made it!

I am sure I’ll have SOMETHING to write about tonight, once we are there. Something interesting always happens en-route.

In other news, I plan to see Angels and Demons next week. I finished the book before the movie came out. I think Dan Brown got it pretty right this time.  It’s definitely something I can picture happening. One man going absolutely insane to prove something (what??).

And I have to see Star Trek again. Actually, there are quite a few movies I want to see in the near future. I’ll keep you posted…

First of all,

After three years of searching, I finally found a way to watch sumo tournaments online!!!! The only catch is you have to watch it LIVE. Which means watching in Japanese time. Which means watching it from 12am – 2 am.

And second,

God gave me a snow day today.

I am so happy.

We attempted to go to breakfast this morning, but we got there at 11:15… they stop serving at 11.  Which was a bummer since the only time I get to Taco Cabana is when I come to Texas. We’ll go tomorrow,

So we got yogurt parfaits at McDonald’s… which were good.

Then we drove downtown to this HUGE mall where I spent a $40 gift card on ridiculously expensive chapstick.

We were going to go to Red Lobster but we had a chick-fil-A sandwich. We are going to go to Red Lobster tomorrow.

Then Barnes&Noble to spend another giftcard.

Tonight I made dinner… lemon chicken and fried rice. Rana helped.

It was really good!

Again, closing the night with The Office Season 2 and dessert. AWESOME.

So, I finished that last post and read a bunch of posts from when I lived in Japan. I ended up going to bed at 5:00 AM.

Which was fine…

I was startled awake around 9:30 am… thinking it was Rana’s dog (Radar) that had jumped on top of me on the bed. It was actually Rana. 🙂 And actually, kind of a fun way to be woken up, since that is how we used to wake each other up when we were younger.

Rana made a “‘Texan” breakfast of eggs, venison sausage, and optional salsa. ( I opted out, and instead put shredded cheddar cheese… that we found to be slightly past it’s prime…. ) But all still good.

Since we’d left the “universal gym” in the cars overnight, we set out to carry everything up to the new workout room. Around 11:00 Rana and I started to scramble to get ready for a baby shower that we needed to leave for at 1:00 to get a present. As we were ready to walk out the door at 1:07… Rana looked at the invite again and realized it wasn’t until TOMORROW.

So we went shopping!! …after we helped Garrett take down an ancient/absolutely impossible to remove ceiling fan, install two fans, help Rana recover from a slight shock from hot wires… (she is fine) oh, and all this on a second floor with no air conditioning… which, oddly enough, has not started working again.

So, around 4:00 we finally went shopping! ( Considerably less fresh and certainly a lot sweatier than we had been 3 hours prior)

We hit up Ross, Walmart and the Dollar Tree. It was a GREAT shopping experience!! We got some really cool stuff, like scrapbook stuff, dinner stuff for me to cook next Tuesday. And we (read : Rana) got gifts for the baby shower that we will go to tomorrow after church. 🙂

Then we came home and Rana made spicy-venison-sausage with cheese running through it. (“Spicy” being an understatement, since I think there were 3 jalepenos per square centimeter.) And we topped the evening off with Season One of “The Office”.

The AC is still not working.

I revisited my college days yesterday. I showed another teacher at school homestarrunner.com. She has a college aged son. It was pretty great getting to laugh over the silliness that is that website.

I turn 25 on Sunday. It’s crazy how life can suddenly zoom at light speed.

Changes are ahead.

Red Lobster is tonight.

I have been craving crab legs ALL day.

Bring it on.

Heath Ledger died this afternoon.

Somehow, a part of my teenage soul is grieving.