Hazelnut latte for me (because mochas are way too sweet for me these days) and double espresso for Brandon. There were some folk musicians playing, which made for pleasant background music as we enjoyed our coffee and whispered to each other. Eventually, we decided to walk because the weather was quite nice, for a change! July has been so blazing hot, that it was nice to have a reprieve into more normal temperatures. We walked by the town square.. which is actually a triangle.. where they were about to start an outdoor move showing of UP + free ice cream. So tempting! We decided to keep on walking and check out more of our current fascination with Victorian architecture. Kept on walking, kept on talking, as the sun was making the sky a fiery mess of rays. We noticed a hill up ahead... and thought maybe we could see the sun better from there.

Up a hill quickly... and as we topped the ridge, we saw this:

From our 'childhood memories' date over the weekend. 

Cemeteries are the best places for thinking, talking and solving problems. SO QUIET.

 

You ever have a revelation about yourself and it smacks you like a brick in the head?
Yeah, I'm starting to feel that way. Recently, I realized that, a) I often care alot more about people's opinions than I should, b) I often say yes when I should say no, and c) I often do things for the wrong reasons.

I have internal struggles that go something like this:

"If I don't say yes, people will think I'm uncaring...."

Will they? Are you? Or is it that you just know you are supposed to be caring to your husband first, and everybody else gets to drop in the priorities... and that's what the Bible says.

"If I don't say yes, people will think I'm unspiritual..."

Brandon's responses: Sounds like their problem, not yours.

"Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven."

Matthew 6:1

"f I don't say yes, our friendship will die!"

Wow. Way to be over-dramatic, Naomi. Friendship does not rise and fall by one invitation, one coffee date, one party, one event. Reality says that we all have different schedules and commitments and if you can't do something, you can't. If friendship doesn't survive that, then it probably wasn't friendship. Real friendship is enduring and not limited by distance/schedules and always believes the best.

"If I don't say yes, I won't be a success."

A success at what? Being an awesome photographer? Not my ultimate goal. Being an awesome blogger? Not my ultimate goal. Being an awesome anti-cult writer? Not my ultimate goal. Being an awesome worship leader? Not my ultimate goal. I can try to be 'good' at stuff without having to be the best and without it being what defines who I am.

"If I don't say yes, I must be selfish."
Know yourself and ask honest questions. Am I really selfish?

Selfishness is often disguised. In my life, I tend towards saying "yes" to everything and sometimes for selfish reasons. I do spiritual or nice things that look unselfish, but are actually unselfish because it's so I don't have to feel the pain or rejection of telling someone no. Completely self-motivated. Isn't that silly?

Saying no is healthy.

Saying no is setting proper and appropriate boundaries in your life.

Saying no is a good thing.

Things that I'm learning about setting healthy boundaries:

* This season in life (married college life while working full-time) has limits. It has financial limits, time limits, energy limits.

* I am only one person.

* I cannot do it all.

* I cannot do as much as when I was single.

* Or rather, I have to focus on different things than when I was single.

* I do not have to be the best at anything... except the best servant of God I can be and the best-possible-wife-and-adoring-lover to my husband.

* I am not indispensable.

* People don't have to understand my/our decisions.

* Just because someone has a need does not mean that I have to fill it. In truth, usually what they 'need' from me is actually a 'want.' They will not die if I do not "help" them.

* Just because I "feel bad" for saying no, doesn't mean it was the wrong decision.

* Self-imposed guilt is NEVER a good reason to say yes to anything.

* Crying often because of 'busyness' is a good sign that the word "no" has been not exercised enough.

Just say NO.

Sometimes saying NO to one thing is actually saying YES to the best things.

"But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith."

Friday. Ahhh, date night.
I love date night. We enjoyed all that Pennsylvania State University had to offer. ;)

1st stop. Racquetball. It's our new favorite hobby/exercise. The perfect combination of intense competition and running without realizing you're running. FYI - Brandon was the victor this week, all four games! I'm not too depressed, though, because I beat him thoroughly last week. ;)

2nd stop. One of the benefits of Brandon being an 'adult learner,' aka. PSU college student that is not 18 years old is that sometimes there's special events for the old folks. :D We went to one such event with free pizza, ice cream and a family-friendly outdoor movie! Except, it rained. So no outdoor movie. Booo for that. It's the second time this year that our outdoor movie plans have been cancelled because of rain.

3rd stop. COFFEE. There might have been kissing, too. But like my good-friend Rebecca says, "it's okay because we have a license!" :P

4th stop. Brandon says that I "ninja-ed" him into a grocery shopping date. Really I just wanted to show him Trader Joe's. And buy coffee beans.

5th stop. We decided that since this was our 'date night on the town' (as opposed to our usual date-night-at-home), let's go see a movie! This is so rare that I almost fell over when I realized that the tickets cost almost $20 for us both. I guess it's really great that we had free food already. Kinda evens things out.

Anyway, we saw... Monsters University. :D Yup. G-rated, baby, 'cause that's the way we roll. :D It was great! And clean! And hilarious! And full of monsters!

And now I'm done with seeing movies in the theater for like another year. Waste. of. money.

Saturday. I conquered the monsters of cleaning house + photo editing. Back and forth, back and forth I went. I was up the stairs and down the stairs, in the living room and sitting on my bed with the laptop. GETTING STUFF DONE. It's ridiculous how much I love to check things off of my to-do list. I've learned to make my tasks smaller for ultimate satisfaction. Instead of writing "Clean house" on my to-do list, I write "Clean Kitchen," "Vacuum Dining Room & Living Room," "Clean Bedroom", etc. So if I only get one task done, I have still accomplished something. MIND GAMES ARE MY FRIEND.

Saturday evening. We headed over to Brandon's coworker's house for a BBQ. 'Twas fun after we got through the initial awkward stage of we-don't-know-anybody-except-the-host-and-he's-busy. More coworkers arrived and we busied ourselves chatting and munching on pulled pork. And I was super-proud of myself for making the healthy choice of sticking to bottled water, especially when I realized that the iced tea... was not iced tea. Neither was the fruity lemonade actually fruity lemonade (alarmed face). Oh yeah, and embarrassed myself by stepping on their dog's paw while walking down the deck stairs. He yelped LOUDLY and thirty people stared. It's actually kinda funny looking back, considering that I will probably never see those people again, so I don't really care. ;) It's interesting how your perspective changes with age. A teenager would be mortified. My more mature self realizes nobody thinks about you as much as you think about you. Being self-conscious is mostly about being self-obsessed. Once you become less self-obsessed, you aren't as self-conscious. Praise the Lord for growing up.

And then, I went grocery shopping. I'm intense when I shop for groceries. Somehow, I always get the slow cashier or the one with major talking skills. Which I despise. ESPECIALLY when said cashier comments on what you are buying. "Oh, what are you doing with these marshmallows?" Of course, I'm nice and talk about having a bonfire, but I want to go buy things like ammunition and puppy posters and see what they say about my purchases. "Yes, I fantasize about killing puppies. Thanks for asking." (Sarcasm, people, just so ya know. I actually like puppies. And ammo. For their respective uses.) It's like coworkers commenting on your lunch food. This is not curious. This is not friendly. This is AWKWARD. Mind your own business.

Sunday. What a great day. It was our return to church after two weekends away, and MAN, it was good to be back! I like everything from joking with my fellow worship team members/friends to waving goodbye to the teenagers that never fail to dog our car at the end of the services.

In keeping with my "monsters" theme this weekend (I love themes), there were two major monsters that were talked about, and I've been thinking about them both for the past month or so. 

1) In the Sunday school hour, Pastor Darrell talked about "maintaining our Pentecostal distinctive." If you know anything about the Pentecostal/charismatic movement, you know that there are some CRAZY folks out there. Like super-crazy. They attribute so many things to the work of the Holy Spirit that isn't even close to what the Holy Spirit does. Basically, there's alot of people that take the doctrine of the Holy Spirit baptism + spiritual gifts as a license to be WEIRD. Three dollar bill weird. Two-headed monster weird (too many monster references?). 

The point is... we can and we will hold firmly to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit's work in our generation, without it becoming a freak show or a mockery of the holy. 

2) We had a guest preacher! Our pastor's brother is also a preacher (we call him the Southern bishop, referencing the fact that his church is in southern Pennsylvania). It's always great to hear him preach, because he's similar to our pastor ... and yet different (younger!). Pastor Reuben is also a straight-shooter, and I appreciate that. He preached about or rather in response to the hyper-grace/ultra-grace movement. That their main tenet is that "What you do does not define who you are."  Which is such a silly statement, if you ask me. Throughout the Bible, we see that we cannot separate our actions from our character. Our actions flow out of our hearts. We make decisions based on our character. We need genuine conversions resulting in practical holiness... rather than vain, powerless religion based on mental decisions and giving in to church rules without actually walking with Jesus personally. To say that grace is the answer to everything and the excuse for sin is a gross misunderstanding of the person of Christ, the power of the Cross, the victory we have in Christ and what is a normal Christian life.

Anyway, lots of good words to 'chew' on. Onward to home for other wonderful parts of our Sunday. REST. Loooong nap. Delicious dinner of cheese ravioli with pesto. Long walk through our little town together. We happened to end up at the Bellefonte Twist (former Dairy Queen) for some sweet treats. I really wanted to tag this instagram #zimmerman #defense #donwestkilledit. And then laugh hysterically. If you don't get it, do a little research on the George Zimmerman trial going on now. The biggest scandal thus far includes one of the defense attorney's daughter's instagram of ice cream cones... 

I'm still laughing. While you're at it, look up the joke that Don West told during his opening statements. It was funny. Brandon is currently completely intrigued by this trial and we do daily updates/discussions where he tells me about the current state of the trial and what is going on. It's like a real-life Law & Order episode and we are riveted. When you really boil it down, the real question of this trial is this: who is the monster? *Insert Law&Order gavel sounds now* And no, I am not making light of death. I am, however, mocking the media circus that this trial has become, and relating it to our ice cream treats.

I hope your weekend was fun like mine. :D