Farewell Reitman's, So Long 50% Discount...

Today was a bitter-sweet day. It was my last official shift at Reitman's. For the past year retail has been my 'pay my way for school' job. I have enjoyed working there, being in the mall, buying clothes with a sweet discount. However, I have learned that the way of sales is just not for me. I hate selling, I hate the pressure of forcing people to consider spending more money that they probably could be putting to better use! In my heart of hearts I am just not a sales girl, although many of you would probably beg to differ....sorry for those of you who I upsold! Today was a great last day, it was busy, I worked with a great team and I think that provided good closure. So for those of you who occasionaly make special trips to visit me at the store I would like to inform you that I am now just another shopper just like you. For those of you who avoid Reitman's while I am working so I don't try and upsale you, the coast is now clear, you can shop again! I will still be available if any of you need a fashion consultant. In other news I learned that my dear friend and sister BJ, most of you will know her as my YouthBuilder teammate is also a fellow blogger, I linked her site on my favourite links. As she would say "y'all better check it out"! This evening Diana and I made our third trip to starbucks this week. We figure since I am going to be in Myrtle Beach for a wedding for 5 days we better get as many trips as possible in. Tonight we scored the really comfy couches, so we took advantage of the comfort and wonderful atmoshpere and talked the night away. That has become one of my favourite things to do. Go to Starbucks with some close friends and just talk. Diana and I often play the question game. We take turns asking each other questions about everything, one topic leads to another and we find ourselves in the most fascinating discussion ever. I highly recomend it. We also made a random trip to Gateway Niagara just because we felt like a late night cruise. To make things even more random we bought matching sweaters from 'The Great Canadian Superstore', who knew they sold clothing! For the record we only bought matching sweaters because we both loved the same sweater and the other colours it came in were just not very appealing! Oh it is wonderful to have friends who you can feel so free to be yourself with and have a blast! Well it's getting late and I should head to bed, tomorrow morning will probably come too soon. I am glad to have a place to write, there is something about writing your thoughts out that is like a release. Whether it is my deepest thoughts to my thoughts like today, I love it. Thanks for reading! (oh and for the record the picture shown is actually of my Reitman's store at the seaway mall =) )

Sweet Dreams,
Darc

I Want To Be Your Last First Kiss...

Recently I have become an Anberlin fan.
Their newest CD entitled Cities is awesome.
I have been thinking and loving the words to one of their songs in particular called Inevitable.
These are the lyrics...







Inevitable by Anberlin

Do you remember when we were just kids,
and cardboard boxes took us miles from what we would miss?
School yard conversations taken to heart,
and laughter took the place of everything we knew we were not.

I want to break every clock.
the hands of time could never move again.
We could stay in this moment for the rest of our lives.
Is it over now hey, hey is it over now?
I want to be your last first kiss
that you'll ever have.
I want to be your last first kiss.

Amazing how life turns out, the way that it does.
We end up hurting the worst, the only ones we really love.

I want to break every clock.
the hands of time could never move again.
We could stay in this moment for the rest of our lives.
Is it over now hey, hey is it over now?
I want to be your last first kiss
that you'll ever have.
I want to be your last first kiss.

Is it over now hey, hey is it over now?
Is it over now hey, hey it's not over now.
I want to be your last first kiss
that you'll ever have.
I want to be your last first love
that you'll ever have.
Lying here beside me, palms and eyes open wide,
I want to be your last first kiss
for all time


That one line gets me every time, I want to be your last first kiss. For a moment, stop and think about some of the simple things that are so beautiful that people take for granted and miss the beauty in. Like a kiss. I hear so many young people talking about "going all the way" before they're married or I watch people make public displays of themselves in public with another person and I think they have missed the beauty of the kiss. I hope I never forget the beauty in the simple things. I hope that there is someone worth that last first kiss.

Yours Truly,
The Kindred Spirit, the romantic

Despite All, I Am Seen By God....

I suppose you think that I am slacking on my writing. I am. I'm sorry for those who actually take the time to read the random thoughts of my life. This summer has been the craziest summer and I feel like it is almost a blur. This past weekend I was at a young adults conference in PA called 'The Call'. I have to say I had great expectations of this conference. I guess I hoped to leave feeling encouraged and inspired in my faith. I left feeling discouraged and somewhat confused. I have taken the past few days to mull over in my mind just what didn't sit right with me about it all. I guess I should explain a few things to begin with. There were some great parts of the weekend. I really enjoyed meeting with other brothers and sisters in Christ from around the BIC and it was great being able to spend time meeting new people and being blessed by them. Over the past few weeks I have been struggling with some issues. Deeper than the average 20 year old. Issues with how the world works, with justice, with God's sovereignty. To most of my questions there really are no solid answers. Many people have theories and personal convictions but those things all fall in their exegesis and I am left to hear what they say and figure out my own. Somewhere in my mind I went into this weekend desiring for God to just remind me that even though I am struggling with these things it's ok. There is much emphasis in the Christian faith put on the "feelings" of the faith. People come out of an amazing retreat, or concert or conference with an emotional high and for the next week or two or maybe even a month are excited and passionate for God and after that time they feel discouraged because the feeling is gone and therefore the Lord is too. I am an emotional person. I feel things deeply. However, I want my faith to be more. I want to be able to love God and trust him without the feelings. I have prayed this in the past. Clearly the Lord is honoring that prayer. I went into a weekend full of the "emotional" emphasis. I looked around me and saw the Lord working in people's lives and from what I saw He seemed to be speaking to many people. I didn't feel that emotional high. I wasn't experiencing "The Call". So for the weekend I made myself believe that God must be angry with me for struggling and therefore he must not be speaking to me. It's rather silly now that I think about it. I came home, sat on my bed with my mom and cried because from the depths of my heart I felt so unloved and overlooked because I wasn't experiencing God the way I was led to believe I should be. Now after a few days of process and wise counsel I have come to a few new conclusions. First of all I serve a God who is huge and able to meet with people in different ways. I would never want to say that because I struggled with some of the stuff happening that God wasn't working. I believe that God was at work in many hearts in many different ways. I am now reminded that God is just as real to me without all of those feelings. Feelings come and go like the wind, I want something deeper. Something that leaves a mark on my very soul, something whose roots go down deep. I am sure that someday I will go to another event and maybe I will "feel" God in another way. I am also reminded that when we are walking with the Lord and seeking him, we are already in his will and he doesn't always need to get our attention in a big way because he already has it. I don't think I really agree with the idea of "The Call" either. It makes it sound like there is one call, if they are talking about following Jesus then I agree but if they are talking about life then I disagree. I think life is a journey, we grow and change and make mistakes and fall and get back up again. As we change often the things we are called to or our circumstances change as well. Life would be boring if there was only one call. I guess the weekend has taught me more than I thought it did. I was reminded of what my faith shouldn't be rooted in, my feelings. I was reminded of my heart for the people living their everyday lives to know Jesus. I was left energized to continue my work in children's ministry. I met some wonderful new friends and now would really like to learn Spanish so I can speak with my Latin friends. I got to see my friend Freddie Colloca and his band lead worship, which was awesome. I suppose that is the wonderful thing about process, you are able to look at something for what it's worth, take the good and leave the bad. Anyways I would like to encourage you if you are reading this today that you are so deeply loved by God, no matter how you experience him. He sees you and does not overlook you. In Zephania it talks about how the Lord sings over you.....I love singing, even though I make a joyful noise, and it gives me great joy, I imagine it gives the Lord great joy was well. I also want to encourage you in whatever you are doing. You don't have to be a missionary overseas to be doing the Lord' most important work, maybe you are a teacher paying special attention to the kid everyone picks on, maybe you work with youth who are dirt poor, maybe you are an eye doctor or a janitor or maybe you are a writer or a singer or an actor or maybe you're a mom or dad and you love God and want to serve him....those are all jobs that when from the Lord are a most high calling. The Lord sees you wherever you are and he thinks you are wonderful. Remember that today.

Blessings,
The Kindred Spirit

Beware of Hair Straighteners on the Floor...

Well to say the least, this has been a busy week. So much to do, can you believe it is already August! I am heading back to Chesley Lake for a few days on Saturday....that is hopefully, if my work schedule permits it. I am looking forward to that. I will probably have to make both trips, there and back, alone, just me and my rav. The 4 hour drive hopefully will only take me 4 hours if I don't get lost and if traffic is good. I better load some sweet tunes onto the ipod! An interesting and not so lovely thing happened to me yesterday. I know that you will probably laugh at me when I share this. I burned my foot yesterday morning. Then proceeded to soak it in cold water, put Rollies salve on it and call my mom so see what steps I should do next to ease the throbbing of my baby toe. She said I should put frozen vegetables on it for most of the day. So I headed to the freezer in search of the frozen veggies. My close friend yesterday was a bag of frozen yellow corn, may I add it wasn't so frozen by the end of the day. You may ask what is funny about this and may cause laughter. Perhaps you should ask me how I burned my foot? Well before I went in the shower yesterday morning I turned on my hair straightener to heat it up and I laid it on the floor so it wouldn't burn my sheets if I put it on my bed. At that point there were several things lying on my floor since I was rounding up items for the laundry, I forgot about the straightener and stepped on it. Somehow I managed to get my foot right between the hot plates. One of the guys I work with mentioned that it was pretty impressive that I managed to strategically place my foot between the two hot metal plates, I wasn't so ammused. Anyways so I brought my frozen corn to the office with me to help ease the pain. Fortunately it was just a little burn so by evening I was feeling much better. I suppose it was a lot of fuss for a little burn but it did hurt for a while. That will teach me to lay the straightener on the floor where someone, most likely being me, can step on it! In other news it has been very very very hot lately. Almost unbearable to be outdoors. I do love the outdoors but in this heat you break a sweat standing still! Which reminds me that I need to remember my fan to bring to the lake. I am one of those people who sleeps with a fan on every night in every season. There is something about the noise, it is soothing. Tomorrow is my good friend Vicki's birthday, she will be 24. So a couple of the girls are getting dressed up and taking her to dinner, it should be a great night. It's wonderful to have friends that you love, I feel so blessed and I know I am. Well I think that's all for tonight, I hope you are all doing well braving this heat!

Sleep Cool,
The Kindred Spirit