Rae concludes yet another visit to her folks by bringing home a new budget.

Lets pray and hope that She has the diligence to keep this one up! (And call out people who owe her money…)

Today I went to Mariners with my folks… and… I think I saw one couple that was deep in prayer… a couple people raised their hands in worship… oh, did I mention that the main worship building is a 3200 seat facility? Yeah. Sad.

I would just like to state that God is wonderful, and not in the corny cliché kind of way, but in a "I can't believe our sovereign Lord gives me grace like he does… every day." It wasn't the song that taught me that, or even experiencing grace, it was experiencing the lack of grace that made me see how good God is.

SERVE DAY WAS THE SHIZZLE! It was a smaller group that went to this place called "The Grapevine" in Downtown Fullerton. This lady cuts hair to keep up business, but most of her time is serving the kids, battered women, and women in prison from the Fullerton area. I got to spend the entire morning making roses from craft putty foam stuff and painting them. Of course I was talking with kids from the Downtown Fullerton area the whole time. I tell you, some of these TEN-year-old girls have some amazing wisdom, for example:

Amy (serve day girl): *in hysterics *
Me: "you OK?"
Little girl #1: "it's a good thing laughing is good for you"
Everyone: in agreement that laughing IS in fact a healthy thing
Sonia (or little girl #2): "yeah, laughing is good for you, and so is crying"
All serve day people: *mouths drop open *

This is an amazing statement because most of these kids are from abusive backgrounds, where showing your emotion is not only something that is looked down upon, but can put one in danger. The leader of the center then made sure to announce to all the kids in the room how right Sonia was. I also got to hear Donna (the leader's) testimony and personal trials (if you would like to hear them some time ask me, it's not a blogging type of subject).

Anyhow… I'm going to go paint (because as hard as I tried to fall asleep at midnight last night I didn't fall asleep till 2, so if I must be up, I might as well be making money!)

Love you all- Rae


For our unrelated image of the night:

The radiant Polychrome, one of the many beautiful Daughters of the Rainbow. (From Baum's Tik-Tok of Oz

I've lived in Irivine 13 years of my life... I've lived in Fullerton 2 years of my life... it takes 20 min to get from Fullerton TO Irvine... why is it then that it took me an hour and fifteen min to get to Mariners tonight?

I'll tell you why: BECAUSE THAT BIG MAP IN MY HEAD DOESN'T EXIST!! arg.

In other news... I have made progress on my painting and the kitchen is a mess. I am now going to fall asleep to the Village... oh wait, I'm supposed to watch that with AJ soon... ok... uuuuuh... I'm going to fall asleep to a movie now in hopes to go to bed at a decent hour tonight. I have to be at Eve Free at 8AM tomorrow morning for Serve day! RIIIIISE AND SHIIIINE and give God the GLORY GLORY!

goodnight all.... two of you....

And for our unrelated image for the evening:


I'm gunna have one of these rock awesome dogs someday.... pretty puppy...

Yes, yes, Thank you Thank you... you who are out there... give the ol' blog some support and comment please. It is much easier to post knowing it will be read. Right AJ?

I must admit I cheated a bit... I published this blog before I was done with it so that it would be marked as Thursday and not Friday... but it was only kind of cheating because Friday starts much later than 12am!

Today was better... although I didn't get much work in.... strange... I'm convinced I am supposed to be a homemaker, I mean, I don't get work done... cause I'm cleaning. What kind of weirdo am I? That's what happens when I work at home, the house is actually clean :P


So I don't really have any pictures relevant to this post... so... here are my roommates under my belly dancing jingles :D

So since no one requested anything, and I'm still warming up my blogging fingers, I'm going to write about the double date. Cause that was loads of fun.

A bit of back story: I had been hanging out with Gaffney quite a bit and he was telling me I should go out with Kyle. My response to this was that I don't really know Kyle that much and I've never dated a guy who I didn't already know really well... I would like to say that shut him up, but for any of you who know Gaffney, it didn't.

He continued to say, "But Kyle is AMAZING! If I were a girl I SO would marry Kyle." In hopes to get him to back off I made a false, uhhh, threat? "Well why don't you go out with Eleanor? If I were a boy I would marry her!" With much enthusiasm he replied "SURE!"

Somehow that idea turned into a double date, and for some reason I was playing along with it. Skip ahead a few days to Eleanor's return to France. This is the first time I have seen my best friend in an entire year, I run into her aunts house, tackle her, then shout out "YA WANNA GO ON A DATE?" laughing she responds with out hesitation "SURE!"....... "uh, oh, wait, huh?"

I then proceeded to tell her everything I just told you folks, she agrees and I call up Gaff and we set the date. Now mind you, Eleanor had never met Gaff before so it was one of the many firsts of the night, let's see how many there were!

-Eleanor's first blind date (Gaff how bout you?) -My first date with someone I wasn't already in a relationship with -Both Eleanor and my first double date. -Kyle's first Grad Night…. Oh wait, he was with us. -Ryan (Gaffney for those of you who don't know… it's Ryan Gaffney, aka Gaffney or Gaff) anyhow, his first date on crutches.

Back to the story: Tuesday rolls around, I had to rush from my belly dancing class to wash up and get ready. Eleanor had arrived to the apt shortly before I did, and as soon as I burst into the door we were on our way to be beautified! Shortly there after the guys showed up (and very handsome like I must say!) we grabbed our bags and we were out the door.

Realizing I had forgotten to tell Eleanor about the door rule (of course that wasn't the only thing I forgot to tell her… there was the bit about Gaff being in a cast, woops!) I told her that through the night neither one of us was allowed to open ANY doors, entering or exiting. Of course, as soon as we got to our first destination I was half way out of the car and I hear “OH, oh, ooooh” from the back seat and I quickly retracted my exit and shut the door… this continued to be the pattern for the night. It's tough being cultured as a city girl.

Our first stop was the Old Spaghetti Factory in downtown Fullerton. It was my first time there and oh, was it lovely! While we waited for food Kyle and Gaffney described every detail of their ideal car… now, most of you would think this subject to be a ghastly thing to talk about while on a date with two artsy girls, but believe you me, it was most entertaining!

After dinner we went… oh wait… there was a long period before *after dinner * and *we went *. First we sat in the car discussing where we should go, or really, Eleanor and Gaffney started a conversation about Eleanor's future while Kyle and I tried to out “I don't know” each other. Eventually we decided to go to a beach, and off to Balboa we went (not without a few U-turns and calls for directions of course)


Now, this is Balboa... it didn't look quite like this... much darker... yeah... no red

Now for me, Balboa has to be done in a very particular way. You park on the “main land” and ride the ferry to the “island” (I quote those because it's really a peninsula) However since it really ISN'T an island we ended up on Balboa first… this part gets a little confusing because I insisted we ride the ferry. We first got in line with the car to ride across, but then we would be in the neighbor hood area and not the beach area, so then we were going to ride it back… but then we would be riding it three times. SO someone with a little common sense said we should park it on the island then ride it back to the main land. Good for you who ever that was!

We parked and got out the wheel chair for Gaff (which was an adventure in itself, involving Eleanor and I back to back going in circles while flapping different objects from the back of Kyle's car) We walked… I mean RAN to the end of the pier, looked over the pier then walked around the closed shops for a while, talking about how it used to be, and what they plan to do to our beloved balboa island. Eventually we got back in the car and drove to Irvine for some good ol boba!

We arrived at the University Center across from UCI. We exit the car and WOOPS Kyle locked the keys in the car! So he calls Triple A (which is more fun than saying AAA) They say they will be there in a bit so we all walk to Cha FOR TEA and get our assorted boba drinks. (of course Eleanor and I were drawn to the fitness room like two little hip-hop moths to a flame) a group was practicing and we stood out side and practiced a few moves with them. Once we got our drinks and Kyle got his keys we all sat around and attempted to tell jokes. The guys took us back home to conclude the evening.

It was lots of fun, and the fact that it actually happened makes me laugh. I enjoyed it very much :D

---

Now there was other things I was going to write about… but it being 1:32 and I wanted to go to bed at 11, I can't quite remember what it was! Tell you what, I'll write about it tomorrow after the Serve day rally. THAT'S IT!

So, tomorrow night I am going to a Serve day rally in Irvine, YOU ALL SHOULD PARTISIPATE on Serve day! Find out more here: http://serveday.com/ over 30 churches are participating and events are happening all the way from LA down to… beach area near New Port! I am going to be apart of a children's art thing right here in my hometown of Fullerton! NO EXCUSES!

Good night and God bless! (and comment!)


Rae

So today was a bit of a rough spot. First of all it was a bummer before it started! Waking up happy is rather difficult when one has bad dreams :(

I then got a call from the chinese girls Eleanor and I were hoping to live here... Nope.
Please keep that in your prayers!

DESPITE all that, I managed to make progress on that darn painting! Ben is like the never ending illustration... or like that cerial I hated as a kid, ya know those Grapenuts? You would put them in your bowl and it was like they never ran out... no matter how much you ate the bowl would still seem full!



Anyhow, as I have not blogged in half a year, are there any requests? Perhaps me almost passing out at the public library? oooor me cooking for a professional chef while staying in a house in THE Beverly Hills.... maybe the one about the blind double date? IF THERE IS ANYONE ANYONE ANYONE OUT THERE... let me know ;)

So, with the help of a friend I figured out how to post with my computer... its called... Explorer! DUN duuuun DUN!

Ya know, I was looking through my archives, and I had some heafty posts. I think though, I was trying to blog as mark does, and thats really not what will keep me going. (for those of you who dont know Mark posts blogs that are a million miles long) and it's hard to set time aside for such things. SO I will do my best for the little blogs, and see if it grows from there. I also like the random thing blogs, which have to do with my life but not nessisarially controversal. Speaking of which... There was a story I wanted to tell of my adventures at Playa Vista... let us begin!

---

SO, if you ever see the studio I'm at you'll have a much better understanding of all this. For now, picture a construction site with huge old buildings in the middle of a lot of dirt.

After 8pm you can't enter the site through the main gate (the guard goes home and they lock up) so you have to go through this back way. I knew this so I headed straight for the back. Now, last year there was only one gate with a combo lock attached to many other locks and I knew the combo to get in. However last Jan they changed the locks. Along with cutting off the main road so we have to drive along this dirt path that all the huge earthmovers go on (mind you, almost every day it changes, so I have to drive super slow as to not end up in a pit)

Well, I was expecting all of this, except when I got through the first gate I found that not only was the main road blocked with a second gate, but there was no more dirt road accessible from my location (And to make it all the more adventurous I had left my phone at the studio so I couldn't call Kent to find out what to do).

I noticed a large cluster of locks on this gate as well, so, in hopes that I could open it I was trying the combo locks, however, I could not get my hand through part of the gate to access the lock, so I squeezed through a small opening in the corner of the gate that was bent up (and managed to slam my side into the end of a rough cut pole)

I got through the gate (with out my car) and to no avail, I didn't know the combo. SO, I climbed back through the gate to roll up my windows and turn off the head lights (they were on so I could see the combos) and then proceeded to go back through the gate, which ripped my clothes and I head on foot to the studio. In pitch black.

I get to the studio and Kent was all worried about me, I told him what happened and he was surprised to find out I had no idea they changed things around AGAIN. I was notified that the numbers to the combo locks on the second gate were actually the old combos from last January. (I then proceeded to kick myself for not thinking of that)

So I grab a flashlight, move past the creepy abandoned factory buildings (which were much less scary when I COULDN'T see them)

Oh, I forgot to mention, when I was checking out the dirt road I couldn't get to, I saw one of the routine security trucks driving around and started to drive towards him... (hoping he would open the door for me) unfortunately he was on the other side of the gate and paid no mind to me

SO, I unlock the gates, get my car through, and as I was exiting the car to lock up the gate, I hit the hilt of the flash light on my steering wheel and WHOOSH! went all the batteries. So I'm crawling around on asphalt in the dark looking for the last double A, when I see the truck from a distance high beaming me... most likely not realizing I wasn't in the car

I figure, I'll hang here, look like I'm looking for something I dropped and he will either ask me what I'm doing or go away. NOPE! He drives closer but stays at a distance, I wave and he just hangs out about 40 feet from me... not really doing anything... except for creeping me out. I would feel rather silly at this point crawling around on the ground, to find the last battery... so I make it look like I'm putting the flash light back together, I get in the car and start driving towards building 3 (the studio)

He follows eventually, and I park in the back. STILL he parks from me at a distance, not really doing anything other than watching me, and I walk to the studio. Little did he know, I was the one watching HIM! Dooooo do do do!

THE END

Just for Stephen, the spider friend I made:
(and for AJ as well)

Rae opens a creeky door to an attic room full of old memories and scrapbooks... opening the dusty book of semesters past she wonders if anyone has visited this place within the not so distant past. With no evidence of life, is there still hope for moments of madness in this attic of expression? "HELLO... HEllo... Hello... hello..." echoes through this dusty space. Looks like its Spring Cleaning time! 

"Protect Yourself with Positive Thinking.
Positive thinking helps you remain physically active and strong, whereas a negative mental attitude may quickly lead to physical deterioration. To see the glass as half full, spend time contemplating the good things in your life and avoid repeatedly mulling over your negative experiences."

Well,

Crap.

Rassafrassin’ Rootin’-Tootin’ Dagnabbit!

"Emotions" are fine to deal with until jealousy tries to rear its ugly head in.... arg.

School: see the first line.

Good news is if i make it through this week alive then ill have a relaxing week working for NZA..... HAHAHAHAHAAAAA! ..::whimper::..

I have no tolerance for being irritable. <-- Rae going nuts = very yes.

THE TOUCH OF THE MASTER'S HAND(Original poem)
By Myra Brooks Welsh

Twas battered and scarred, and the auctioneer
Thought it scarcely worth his while
to waste much time on the old violin,
but held it up with a smile
"What am I bidden, good folks," he cried,
"Who'll start the bidding for me?" 
"A dollar, a dollar"; then two!" "Only two? 
Two dollars, and who'll make it three? 
Three dollars, once; threedollars twice; going for three.." 
But no, from the room, far back, 
a gray-haired man came forward and picked up the bow;
Then, wiping the dust from the old violin, 
and tightening the loose strings, 
he played a melody pure and sweet 
as caroling angel sings.

The music ceased, and the auctioneer, 
with a voice that was quiet and low,
said; "What am I bid for the old violin?" 
And he held it up with the bow.
A thousand dollars, and who'll make it two? 
Two thousand! And who'll make it three? 
Three thousand, once, three thousand, twice, 
and going and gone," said he
The people cheered, but some of them cried,
"We do not quite understand what changed its worth." 
Swift came the reply: 
"The touch of a master's hand."

And many a man with life out of tune, 
and battered and scarred with sin,
Is auctioned cheap to the thoughtless crowd, 
much like the old violin, 
A "mess of pottage," a glass of wine,
a game - and he travels on.
"He is going" once, and "going twice,
He's going and almost gone." 
But the Master comes, 
and the foolish crowd 
never can quite understand the worth of a soul
and the change that's wrought
by the touch of the Master's hand.

This week has certainly been interesting for Rae. Met with disappointment because of a failed test, frustration with wanting to actually learn from the classes she takes (how novel) and in confusion as to why she continues to stay up late so often. Forced to walk the fine line of faith and apathy she prays she will make it through the semester (and not just alive, but acceptable grades... of course, without the acceptable grades she will be killed!) In defiance of all the work to be done she commits to attend the LTT every day at church (other than wed) being consistent with her involvement to her Southlands family. If sacrifice is needed it CANNOT be covenants with God. Learning that sacrifice isn't always rewarded, even recognized she learns to be more humble. Of course there is always the questioning of what God has in store for her long term, relationally speaking... confessing that her current interest is an atypical person to like... she realizes that the only consistency in her past interests is that they are tall. Ironic isn't it? Her mother once told her when inquired about why that is, she simply said "Perhaps it's God's way of evening things out" a whimsical perspective that is most agreeable. Interesting that liking people of such nature arouses one of her biggest insecurities...

 

Leaning on the Father for assistance and persistence her only other hope can be expressed in two words. Thanksgiving Break.