So I have a part time job that I hardly ever work but ended up accidentally committing to working a ton this weekend so sorry for the hiatus in posts.  I did get my good deeds done though so now I will share them with you.

Friday I worked my regular job from 8-5 and then worked the part time job from 6:30-10 so I didn't have a lot of time to do anything extremely drastic but in the time between jobs I went to Target to kill time and to also get dinner.  While standing in line I remembered the Target text coupons having one for a free drink with purchase of an entree. I showed it to the guy behind the register who scanned the coupon and the guy behind me asked what I did.  I then showed him how he would be able to get them by texting OFFERS to TARGET (827438).   Now all of you reading this can get the coupons as well.

Saturday I had to work 12-4 and I meant to get out of the house by 10 to head to vote.  That didn't happen.  I'm not sure what happens to time in the morning but I'm pretty sure it has mystical powers where it speeds up.  It is either that or it really does take me 12 minutes to put on mascara or 53 minutes to eat a bowl of cereal. I have an alarm clock that yells at me in 7 different voices which means that it also takes me about 40 minutes to get out of bed as well. Anyways, I got to the closest early voting location at about 10:50.   It was at the local library.  I work at a library and when I saw this good deed I felt like it would be a cop out to use it for work but since I went to a library different than the one I work at then I felt I could use it.  I waited in the line that wound all the way around the building and as I was standing outside the room with the voting machines it was 11:32 and I knew that I needed to go through a drive through, eat my food and drive the 10 minutes to work and have my computer set up and I needed to be ready to answer phone calls by 12:00 sharp. It became clear that I could either vote or eat but I couldn't do both.  I chose to eat.  I told the guy I had been chatting with for the 40 minutes we were in line that I had to go and he couldn't believe I would leave.  I probably should have stayed because when I went after I got off it then took a full hour to get through this time even though the line was shorter.  Well I did my civic duty to vote for a person I don't really like and think might lose but I feel it makes me a good citizen.  Yay democracy!  Smaller cities certainly have shorter waiting times.

Okay, so while I was working at my part time job which is interpreting phone calls for people that use sign language to communicate I tried to make a special effort to smile while answering the phones.  Once I was in the call I had to assume the feelings and attitudes of the people I was interpreting for but I made sure to smile as a said goodbye at the end of the call.  There was a crazy amount of angry deaf people today compared to other days so it was a bit harder today to smile but I tried.... for the most part... not on that one lady though... or that other one... but I swear all the sane, kind people got a big old smile from me!

*Oh and this book is copyrighted by Chronicle Books LLC.  I wanted to give credit where credit is due.

Hello!  I'm not sure where on Earth you are reading this from but here in Nashville it was beautiful today!! Absolutely gorgeous!  While I typically eat my lunch in the break room with a nice guy named Rick (I think. I keep wanting to call him Kirk but my boss said she thinks his name is Rick. It is just that I have met so many new people since moving here and I've struggled to remember them all.  What makes it worse is that he says my name ALL the time.)  Well today I told good old Rick/Kirk/whatever-his-name-is that I would be going out to our courtyard to enjoy what might be the last warm day we have before fall/winter settles in.  Now there are several things I love about the new job and one of them is our rocking courtyard.  In the summer they have concerts there on Tuesdays.  It is like an oasis in the middle of the big city.

I took this as I left today because it was too packed at lunch and I felt like people wouldn't appreciate their picture being taken.  I wasn't the only one that wanted to spend lunch out in the sunny oasis.  There were a lot of people out there and many of them were under the trees and under the shades of the trees but I went to the only open table that was half in the sun and half in the shade.  I wanted to soak up the sun and get as much vitamin D as possible and let my freckles pop out for the last time this year. I was in the middle of eating my meal and reading my book when I noticed a woman come in and settle down on a bench with her kindle and Subway sandwich.  I offered for her to share my table and she turned me down. Well, fine then, don't share my table!  After a few more minutes a guy came in and he had a take out box.  He sat down on a bench and I could just see how he was trying to figure out how to eat his take out without a table and he looked kinda awkward about the whole ordeal.  I offered for him to share my table and he was very grateful.  I asked him where his food was from and he enlightened me to the fact that there is a fairly good Mexican place half a block from my work.  While I may not be changing the world, I did offer a table for a guy that would have probably gotten his meal all over his lap if not for me.  

                                               

On another note I am having to get used to Twitter since I use it for work and Desiring God posted a link to this article that I totally loved and wanted to share a few highlights from. If you want to read the entire article you can find it here.  It is about a pastor that has lost the use of his arms due to disabling nerve issues. His perspective is amazing and inspiring. 

"I need other believers to encourage me with the hard texts of suffering and God’s sovereignty. I need to be reminded that God has plans to glorify himself through me because of my pain.

As a person who experiences chronic pain and physical disability, I need to be reminded of God’s sovereign goodness. I need to know that God can use me no matter my physical potential. I need to see lightning bolts of God’s grace shoot through my depression as I wrestle with nerve pain in the middle of the night. I need to be reminded of God’s good design in my disability to strengthen me in the daily reminders of my physical weakness."

His arms are what hurt him so much and ironically he has found solace in this verse: 

Psalm 90: 17- “Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!” 

I thought that was so funny because for me the first body part that I had issues with was my feet and a verse I have relied on through the years has been:

Isaiah 40:31- "but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.  They will soar on wings like eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." 

Isn't it funny that we both are drawn to verses that deal with our broken body parts?  I know that the last time I ran on a treadmill was in high school.  That is when I started feeling like somebody was popping me with a rubber band on the bottom of my foot with each step.  It was actually my muscles tearing.  I have had times when my feet have hurt me worse than other times.  I have discovered that when something hurts on my body there is no telling how long it is going to hurt.  The pain might last for a day, a month, or several years.  There is no telling.  Sometimes I can be in a lot of pain when I first get up and by 10 that morning I feel fine.  I am starting to learn to just be appreciative when the pain isn't there and to not freak out when it is there. It is easy to start thinking that since it hurts this bad at age 29 then how much worse is it going to feel at age 45 or 60 but I can't let myself go there.  There is no telling what the world is going to be like, what medicine is going to be around, and what my life is going to be like then.  I might hit the lottery and have a maid to help out around the house. I might be blessed enough to met a great guy and have a husband to help me.  Who knows?  I'm just learning that while it might be simple to immediately picture the worst case scenario I can choose not to focus on that and to put my hope is someone bigger.  It takes effort but in the end I'm much saner and calmer and the world appreciates a saner and calmer me.  

I guess I should go back and explain why I wanted to start this blog in the first place.  It seems as though for the last two years all I have gotten is bad news regarding my health.  All my life I have been super flexible.  I'm talking Gumby, Cirque du Soleil, Elasti-Girl flexible.  Since high school I have dealt with an amount of daily pain in either my neck or my feet.  After 4 years of doing sign language interpreting and transcribing I started to have pain in my wrist.  After a month of doing Jillian Michaels DVDs and now I have a knee cap that won't stay in place.  It ends up that all of the joint issues are caused by a genetic disorder.  So at the time when friend after friend is having a baby I'm struggling to cope with the fact that I will never be having one because I could never chance passing this on.  In the summer of 2011 it was becoming clear that I wasn't going to be able to stay in my career for much longer.  After applying for several jobs I found one that I loved but it sadly was in another city.  After turning it down once and regretting it for half the year I got a second chance at it and ended up moving to Nashville last month.  Right before I moved I decided to make appointments with all my doctors and specialists to get recommendations for who to see in Nashville and to make sure that I was as healthy as I could be, you know, being all elastic-y and all.  Ends up some blood work came back bad and one of my doctors feels pretty confident I have lupus.  At this point I don't know whether to be so incredibly upset over how the crappy news just keeps on coming, scared because both lupus and my joint disorder are horrible and life changing in and of themselves but together I can't imagine what my future is going to look like, resigned that life just wasn't turning out all too swell for me, or hopeful because regardless of what is on my plate I serve a mighty God that can change it all.

Over the last two years I feel like I have been doing everything I can to stay afloat and keep my head above water.  Every day comes with pain in some form- both physically and emotionally.  I'm sick of it.  I'm sick of thinking about me. The fear of the possible future is overwhelming and you know what?!? I'm not a prophet or a psychic or prognosticator and I have no flipping idea of what the future is going to be so why am I acting like I have a death sentence?!?  I refuse to let this be the end of me and the best way of doing that is to stop focusing on myself all the time. So this blog is my chronicle of a journey of not focusing on me and all my hosts of problems.  This will be a time to step out of myself to help show kindness to others in small actions everyday.  I'm not even going to say that I will be 100% consistent with this because, well, I know me and it takes a lot to be consistent with a blog and I have never attempted it before and just the fact that people will read this is a bit scary.  I'm good at putting it all out there and that scares a lot of people away.  Some call it word vomit and they are totally right... but that's me.  I wish I was better at keeping some things in and not over sharing but I believe in being authentic and with me you will get the whole truth- all the ugly, beautiful, tarnished, broken and restored parts of it.

I had been thinking about starting up a blog for some time and now that I'm in a new city, in a new job, at a new church, I figured, what the heck?!  What better time to start a blog?!  Then I was walking through a cute stationary store here in Nashville because who doesn't love cute stationary and I came across my little book of inspiration.

It has some really good ideas for good deeds and some kinda lame ones but I figure when I am feeling lazy I will like that there is a lame one that is as easy as "holding eye contact with the cashier."  There was one that I was a bit nervous about.  Not because it was hard to do but I thought this person would be hard to cross paths with.  I thought this profession was pretty much non-existant but here it is:

So I read that about a week ago when I was reading through the book and I was like, "Where am I ever going to find a meter maid?!?"  Well I was sitting in traffic yesterday morning and look at this car trying to turn onto my lane and wouldn't you know that it was a meter maid... well kinda.  Not only did I smile at them, I let them in my lane and waved at them.  Talk about going above and beyond! Here is the proof:

So there it is.  The first deed is done.  There will be more to come.  I promise you that.  If you have anything specific that you would like to see me do as a good deed then by all means, please share.  I'm excited for this journey. I hope it radically changes me and I invite you to be along for the ride to see it.

Laura: The Raw Details

1.     I lead an interesting and boring life.  

2.     I have the weirdest, strangest, out of the ordinary things happen to me and I have no explanation for it. 

3.     My body is literally falling apart and that has led to my life figuratively falling apart. 

4.     I am horrible with follow through. I have the best ideas for sweet things to do for others and then never do them!  I also love starting projects but either don’t finish them or don’t clean up after them.

5.     I love people and learning their stories and why they are like they are.

6.     I am by far the most selfish person I know.  That is probably why I am still single. I’m selfish with my time, my money, pretty much everything.  (Several people have told me that they feel this is not the case.  After living with my roommate who truly gives no thought to others, I can say that I do think about others very often.  I also like to do what I want, when I want which I was considering as being selfish but when I am doing what I want- which a lot of the time is doing stuff for others, then can you really consider that selfish?  I don't know.)

7.     It is unfathomable to me that Jesus died for somebody as messed up as me.  Crazy.  As grateful as I am for his grace and mercy I struggle with ever feeling worthy enough for him to even glance my way, much less die for me.

8.     I have no idea how people feed their families. At the end of the day I’m so worn out it is a feat to eat something other than cereal or pop-tarts for supper. (No lie, last week I had pop-tarts and popsicles for dinner three (yes, 3!) nights!  Pathetic!!  I’m totally risking developing diabetes with my laziness.

9.     Authenticity is the number one thing that I appreciate in people.  

10.   Being able to admit weakness is something I think almost everybody can improve in. Why do we try to hide our crap thinking that others don’t have their own crap also?  I’m drawn to people that can be vulnerable and admit their flaws, faults and challenges.

11.   I’m skinny. A big reason for this is that my body has a ridiculously high metabolism since my muscles have to work so much harder than normal to hold my body together since my joints are nonexistent.  I HATE it when people comment about my weight. Oh, you want to be skinny?  Well I want a body that functions properly and doesn’t cause me daily pain.  Be grateful your body works regardless of what size you are.

12.   I spent way too much time and energy trying to be popular in high school.  I never was. I was always a wannabe that missed out on a lot of good friendships I might have had if I wasn’t so concerned with popularity.  Once I found my identity in Christ I could care less about popularity but have almost gone in the opposite extreme where I should care more about what people think.

13.   I absolutely love dance movies even though I’m a horrible dancer.  Atrocious!  I am eternally grateful for the friends that get out on the dance floor with me at clubs or wedding receptions.  It’s totally embarrassing but SO MUCH FUN!

14.   I sometimes feel like I love friends and family more than they love me.  At the same time I sometimes feel like my friends and family must love me more since they put up with me and all of my mess.

15.   I am good at seeing potential in people and seeing what they can be and get frustrated when they don’t rise up to their potential.  This totally sets me up for unrealistic expectations.

16.   Ironically even though I see people’s potential I tend to think the worst about people or situations.  I hate being a Negative Nancy and it is the number one thing I would change in myself if I were able.

17.   I tend to be overly sarcastic.  Seriously, no kidding.

18.   I’m not sure I’m ever going to get married.  I’m very content in my singleness and I struggle with respecting and trusting men.  I’m not sure where this comes from since I grew up watching my parent’s happy marriage but it is what it is.  If a spiritually strong, hot guy comes my way I might change my mind but I’m not holding my breath. 

19.   If you couldn’t tell from the last point I am somewhat cynical.  A Doctor Who episode had a qutote that totally applies: “If cynicism burned off calories we’d all be as thin as rakes.”

20.   When in a store, retail or grocery, and they are playing music then I MUST sing and dance along!  I once got caught doing the chicken dance in the grocery store. It actually led to a date. My friend Hannah got to experience this when they played the song from the Kevin Costner Robin Hood when we were in Whole Foods the other day.

21.   I have a record breaking number of awful first dates!!!!  Sometimes it had to do with the guy and sometimes it had to do with the circumstances. Regardless it is exhausting to go on these dates and know the exact moment when things start to go bad. Like when their mom calls to hear a play-by-play of the date or when they tell me they will keep their job if accused of rape but not domestic abuse or when I get punched in the head.

22.   I recently got diagnosed with lupus… maybe. My Knoxville doctor told me when I ran into him at church that my blood results turned up things that made him think I have lupus. I have some symptoms and not others. As scary as lupus is (which is pretty dang scary) it is not as big as deal as my joint disorder. But it works to make the joint disorder worse. Joy. Since I haven’t gotten a chance to meet with a doctor about it other than his passing comments when I saw him at church I won’t know for sure until I meet with a new doctor here in Nashville.  I’ve decided to nickname lupus Louie.  When I say, “Louie has been a pain in the rear,” you know I’m talking about lupus.

23.   I not very pretty without my makeup on. That is why you probably will never see me without makeup. I once met a roommate’s friend when I didn’t have makeup on and the next time I saw him, he introduced himself.

24.   I have been seriously blessed with amazing family and friends. I think that is a big way God has shown Himself to me. Through the amazing people He has brought into my life through the years. He gave me an angel on earth for a mom and knowing I didn’t have a sister brought me a great sister-in-law.  My brothers are great and it has been interesting to see how the way we relate to each other changes through the years. God showed his sense of humor in making me so much like my father, even down to the Ellison shaped head.

25.   As I learn to live this new life in my new city, I’m hoping to gain a new perspective.   I want to be one of those joyful people that exudes the love of Christ and that only comes from having peace and trust in God. I’ve been living with so much fear and anxiety over the future because of the physical pain I’ve experienced or will experience but I don’t want that to define me.  In an effort to change my focus I’m starting a yearlong journey of doing a good deed a day. I even found a journal that tells me what good deeds to do.  There are a few blank pages though so I’ll need suggestions on good deeds I should do.