Tag: writing

holy caffeine

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so I’m feeling a little bit jittery and I’ll tell you why.

coffee. caffeine.

I’ve been cutting down the last couple weeks and actually was trying to quit. But I did it crazy, like my all-or-nothing self tends to do, and just totally stopped all caffeine intake for a few. And I was starting to get a head cold because of the withdrawals #facepalm

anyway, I’ve been having a cup of coffee each day, which is better than 2 every day, and sometimes a third special drink every couple days…

today I had a k-cup (120mg of caffeine) and then I went to starbucks to get a “tall” dark roast, which I THOUGHT would also have only 120ish mg’s but NOPE I just googled the caffeine content and it’s a whopping 260mg!!!!!!!!!!! :O

I could NOT believe it! And to top that off, I also bought a Zevia cola which had 45mg of caffeine. Gee whillickers, I’m caffeinated!!!!!!!

And also fasting #facepalmagain, so my body is like umm what. Some of yall might be like “you ain’t fasting if you having caffeine but listen.

I’m still hearing from God and have enjoyed His presence greatly today, thank YOU. (imagine me saying the “you” part very high pitched) 😀

Anyways. I’m off to go salsa dancing in just a little bit here. Hopefully some of my favorite dancerz will be der!

I miss writing about dancing! It was super fun to build up the anticipation with a post about dancing, doing some writing before I went and finishing the post afterwards. I won’t be able to do that tonight because I’m leaving my laptop at home because it’s so dang cold that I don’t want it to stay in my car for several hours while I’m dancing. But I’ll try to do one of those posts soon.

Random question for thought: have you ever anticipated something for a super long time just to try and ward it off when it finally comes around??!

Liiiiike “all talk, no action”? I wish I wasn’t this way, but I diffuse too many words quite often and then end up regretting it. But here we are, with something anticipatory in my midst, and I’m looking at it in the mouth, like that old horse that was gifted to someone rude long ago. I spose I’m just like that new horse owner. Unless he/she actually succeeded in giving the horse back to its’ original owner?? Idk whatever happened to that rude, obnoxious giftee of the horse, though we know we don’t want to be like them.

But I am :/ at first, at second, at third. God knows better what I need for myself and I usually have trouble seeing that bigger picture a lot. Until later when my precise 20/20 vision comes into focus when I’m looking back at the way God played things out for me. Only then am I able to be like “wow. you dunnit again Lord”.

Anyway, I just got a

….

So I forgot to post this earlier so I’m posting it meow! Just danced and it was supah funz. Got to dance wit a couple of my faves anddd yeah good time all around!

Now it’s 2:19am and I got to go to bed cuz I have to get up in 6 hours and start another day!

Buenas noches friends. Look for the beauty in life!

XXX <3

V

brrr

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You can’t tell how cold it is by looking outside.

The sun is shining brightly, the sky is cornflower blue. A bit of wind can be heard in the distance, and a few leaves are rustling. But if you didn’t read the forecast, you would have no idea that it were 20 degrees outside.

Yesterday morning when I left for church, my car thermometer told me it was 63 degrees.

We dropped 40 degrees and change throughout the day and night because of the cold front that traveled down the east coast. Two days ago my mother told me they were supposed to get 2-3 feet of snow on Saturday night in New Hampshire. This same cold front that dropped dozens of inches of snow onto my family up north sucked up dozens of degrees from the state of Virginia.

But you couldn’t tell by looking outside. It looks beautiful out there. And it is beautiful out there. Beautiful doesn’t always mean warm.

That’s how I feel about myself and my emotions. “Wow, isn’t she vain”. Some people might say. But I’m okay with that. It’s good to know you’re beautiful.

I remember a few years ago before I knew my true worth, my cousin would refer to herself as beautiful or hot or attractive and I would be jealous. I would judge her a little bit, be jealous of her a little bit, and question if it was okay to say such things about yourself.

Turns out it is. It’s okay to know you’re beautiful, and be warm about it. There’s no need to pretend that you aren’t beautiful. Because you are. I know there are some things you don’t like about yourself. It might be your skin. It might be your teeth. It might be your stomach, or your arms. It might be your wild hair, or your short torso, or your fat ankles. But you are beautiful.

You are beautiful because you were created. You were thought of, designed, and created. With your specific face. And your individual body. And your one-of-a-kind personality. And your hopes, your dreams, your aspirations. Your mind, your heart. Your soul.

You were created in the image of God.

And He made you utterly beautiful.

Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone knew how special and beautiful they were? Then again, there are those folks who know a little *too well* how beautiful they are 😉

But for you who are doubting your beauty and your worth, know this: you are amazing.

You are a living, breathing, amazing, beautiful creation. You have such worth.

Sometimes when I doubt my beauty or worth, I go to the psalms.

“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.” Psalm 139:14

God knew what He was doing when He made you.

Now.

Don’t you spend one more second pitying yourself. I want you to get out there and have a great day. I want people to know how warm you are. I don’t want you to be beautiful and cold. Be warm and be light to others. If people can’t tell if you’re warm or cold, it’s because you can’t tell if you’re warm or cold.

So which are you?

Love yourself, but don’t spend too much time loving yourself.

Give God the glory for creating you, and then give back to Him by pouring out love and blessings on others! Being consumed with ourselves is a waste of time and energy. We are awesome creatures, but we gots to share our awesomeness with other people who need our gifts!

As for going outside today, bundle up east-coasters/Virginians.

This turned out to be an interesting post. I love starting somewhere with no particular direction and seeing where it ends up.

Carpe diem & happy Monday you beautiful people.

xxx

<3

V

bedtime

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I’m headed to bed in a minute. Right after I get my laundries from the dryer. Or maybe I’ll wait til the morning to do that hehe

It’s just so far awayyyyy

All the way upstairs and at the other end of the house. #lazy

And it’s 11pm and it’s been a long day! I got up at 6:40 today. It’s Sunday, and I had to be at church early to sing! Also, before church I went to my friend’s house to take care of her dogs. Soo there’s that!

NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION IS *still* TO DO LESS. To rest more. Idk if I even posted about that yet. But I should.

This post is now about resting.

I want to embrace my humanity. I want to embrace God’s design for my body. It is not limitless. I am very much human and require much rest! Much more than I think necessary or would like to have.

I always be wanting to runrunrunrunrunrunrun around all the time and nevah rest. It’s so dang obnoxious! I’m hardly ever at home! Makes my head spin. But I schedule myself so so much so I don’t spin around inside my head. Or at least that’s what it seems like I’ve done.

I’ve been running for years. It’s time to slow down. It’s time to do less. I used to live with a family where I had kindof a mother figure who impeded my plans all the time. And at the time, I wasn’t grateful for her doing that. But now, I see how it was good for me and how I tend to do too much.

But I know I will find freedom in resting more. I won’t be so dang tired all the time. Today I was at my aunt and uncle’s house and my aunt told me that she had a word for this year: it’s “freedom”. Freedom.

Freedom. We would all like to be free, I think. Free from the chains that bind us to whatever addiction we have. Stress, anxiety, numbing, running. Drowning ourselves in whatever capacity we know how to so we can avoid the pain and suffering and conflict that this life brings. But God wants us to go through the hard times.

And He wants us to know that He’s right here with us!

Romans 5:3-5 are such important verses:

“Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”

Suffering produces hope. It challenges me to persevere. It forms my character into a more resilient, humble, understanding one. It gives me hope that the best is yet to come.

God’s plan for my life is in action and I can rest in knowing that He is taking care of me, and He equips me for every trial that He allows me to go through.

My problem is remembering Him. Remembering to take all my requests to Him in prayer. Prayer is talking to God. That’s what we teach the children at Bible Study Fellowship. There’s a song called “What is prayer”, and the lyrics are simply: “what is prayer, what is prayer? Prayer is talking to God”.

Have you talked to God lately? About your trials? Sufferings? Blessings? Gratitude? Requests? Doubts? Fears? Complaints?

He’s your Father and He cares about you and your concerns. And He hears His children. He hears and he listens. Listening is different from hearing. Listening is concerned with what the person is saying. Listeners respond thoughtfully. Even if the response is simply to acknowledge what the person is saying and let them know they’re heard. We don’t always need to respond with wordy words.

And on that note, my friends, I am off to dreamland. I may swim in the morning before work, but it’s going to be less than 20 degrees so we’ll see.

BUENAS NOCHES!!!!!!!!

xxx <3

V

mmm

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life is good. Sometimes I feel too busy to write. Too busy to chill. To be still. Even now as I type my body feels adrenaline and energy. I would like to thank my pool for that, as I had the privilege of going swimming this morning! I honestly feel better getting less sleep…

Also, I’m trying to eat less sugar/carby stuff as well. I have more energy when I don’t eat large quantities of carby sugar. It makes me wanna nap when I do. Eating smaller portions in general has been good. Getting in touch with my body. For real, for real. Getting healthy. Eating less junk not because I hate it or hate myself, but because I can recognize what makes me feel good. My mental state is in a whoooooole different place now. I am thankful. So so thankful.

I’m about to head out and go for my very FIRST massage!!!!!!!!!! Complete with a full body scrub! Not sure what that entails but it sounds luxurious. I hear I’m going to fall asleep. I also might cry. Which is quite alright. I’ma rest and it’s going to be great!!!!!!!!

After my massage I’m going to my cousin Natalie’s house! She’s going to feed me dinner and we’re going to enjoy some chocolate wine together!!!! We’ll chat, catch up, she’ll spoil me, I’m sure! Perhaps watch a movie or a show. I am sooo excited. 😀 <3 😀 <3

Rest. I planned some rest for myself tonight. 😀 And earlier today I rested in the presence of the Lord as well! I went to a spectacular prayer meeting with two beautiful, lovely women of God and we had an awesome time of prayer and singing. We talked about the authority we have as believers to pray and believe. To ask the impossible of God. To go before Him and trust Him and fight the spiritual battles we’re called to fight.

It’s so important to know who we are. Do you know who you are? What gives you worth? What makes you a valuable human being? If not, know this: you are made in the image of God. He created you from dust and dirt and breathed life into you. He knows everything about you and created you with specific purposes.

Do not be afraid of life. Fear holds us back. Fear tells us lies. Fear is not from God.

Mmmmk that’s all. Get some rest peoples. <3

xxx

V

the little things

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like chocolate covered peanuts and sesame sticks

cold lemonade and iced coffee

when your head is cold and you happen to have a hat in your car

when you’re worried about a situation and everything falls into place

when it’s 10 degrees warmer than you thought it was going to be that day

when you’ve been praying for someone to see things eye to eye and they show signs of change

patterned, fluffy blankets covering my lap and toes

the prospect of a hot shower and clean hair

soft leggings and large sweaters

3 jobs that I absolutely adore

dinner with a friend and sister and mentor and encourager

surprise good gifts that seem too good to be true

provision

plans for the future

enjoying what’s right in front of me

phone calls with a dear friend and sister

my new 2019 grumpy cat planner

the perfect living situation

privacy and quiet and solitude

my rainbow keyboard

wifi

future trips

the promises from the One True King

life

life to the full

the road map to living the right way

love and trust

faith

looking back and seeing how much progress was actually made

compassion for people

I could go on and on and on

There are so many things to be thankful for! Let’s not take any God-given day for granted. Look around; taste and see that the Lord is good! He is the giver of every good and perfect gift.

Thankyou Abba!!!!

xxx

<3

V

decaf chronicles

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I’ve been told I should switch to decaf. When my neurotic mind is racing at 1.4 light years per second and the words coming out of my mouth can barely keep up.

Or when I’m going to meet somebody and end up word-vomiting all over them before we even say hello or hug.

Or when I was at a party playing a game where you have to shout the name of a Christmas song when your teammate is sounding it out and I turn the sentence-long song title into a single garbled word. “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer” became “Roo-doo-roo-doo”.

Slow. Down.

Living in a constant state of planning. Futuristic. Thinking ahead. Overthinking. How much of this is related to caffeine? Honestly, I don’t know. Caffeine gives some people jitters and makes them think quickly. Now that I’m NOT having caffeine I am experiencing these symptoms as well as many others.

Withdrawal symptoms.

This isn’t the first time I’ve kissed my friend Caffeine goodbye. This goodbye is longer and more drawn out there. Not entirely cold-turkey is what I’m trying to say. But it’s still been pretty cold. I could have weened off slowly. Have a quarter less coffee than normal. And then a half. And then cut back another quarter.

Day 1. But instead, I stopped drinking it for a day.

Day 2. Woke up with a major splitting headache. Drank some coffee.

Day 3. No coffee. Foggy head.

Day 4. Had some caffeinated tea. Much less caffeine content than what I’m used to.

Day 5. Same as day four.

Day 6. Tea, and I caved at 4pm and had one small cup of coffee. And then some black tea. *facepalm*

Day 7. No cofffee, but an entire bottle of wine. Over the course of 9 hours people!!! Nbd

Day 8. Nada

Day 9. This is today. Aaaand I kinda have a head cold. And lethargy. And brain fog. This could also have to do with the fact that I didn’t sleep as much as I should this past weekend. I often times get colds when I get run down. Also, that sugary popcorn I ate a few days ago weakened my immune system. I’m WEAK.

But His strength is made perfect in my weakness 😉

I was working outside today raking leaves for an hour and I had to leave work early cuz I wasn’t feeling well. My boss was like “uhh, are you okay?? Maybe you should go get yourself a cup of coffee.”

hahah

Ugh.

The point of me quitting, btw, is so that I’m not addicted to anything. I don’t want to be dependent on coffee for my dang eyes to open. I don’t think it’s really helping me with anything if I have it every freakin’ day. Clearly it’s hindering because then when I DON’T have it, I trip. Hard. I stumble. But I don’t fall. I stumble, but don’t fall. Though I do feel close to falling. Asleep, for one. But also, I don’t want to get siiiick from this.

It didn’t help to Google caffeine withdrawal symptoms. Some crazy coffee fanatics listed off all sorts of scary things that can happen from quitting caffeine including tremors, anxiety, depression, and flu-like symptoms. I don’t have tremors, but I have been feeling rather anxious, and slightly depressed because of my flu-like symptoms. Curses!!!!!!!!!

So now I’m going to try to sleep this thing off. And maybe get some dang caffeine when I wake up so I can go salsa dancing tonight. Am I nuts? Lol don’t answer that. I mean, I’m not giving up on my decaf endeavors. But if I grab a LEETLE caffeine to get me thru the evening…………………………………….

ohmigoodness. I feel like I’m being super inwardly focused rn

This is not okay. Lord forgive me. I should be working on my BOOK right now. Will I ever finish that thing. Sigh.

Okay I have rambled for long enough.

Have you ever quit drinking coffee? What happened?

xxx

V

I get it

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I didn’t know what to say or how to say it, so I didn’t say anything. And now I’m thinking that may have been worse than if I did say something.

I let actions speak for the words that I couldn’t formulate and I realize it’s soon. I wish it weren’t so that things get harder as we get older.

That alternate world you spoke about, I am wondering if it actually exists somewhere. And if it does, I’m sure lots of good is happening there.

I’m sorry that I didn’t have the courage or the boldness. The know-how. The truth is that I didn’t want to hurt your feelings. I didn’t want you to overthink it. I didn’t want to ruin your night or prevent you from coming out. These are my own thoughts that I projected onto you of course. And it may have hurt even more to have handled it the way that I did.

If that’s the case, I hope you will forgive me. I didn’t aspire to be in this position. It’s all come on very fast and I’ve been taken by surprise. Life can happen so so fast and even if we think we are prepared for anything, things still take us by surprise.

I’m surprised. Nothing is certain, but I am surprised.

And sorry. I am sorry. And I understand. I hope you will too…

xxx

V

dear one

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there’s so much I wish to tell you my dear

but I know you can’t hear my words

I’ve tried describing it in five different ways

but each time my words reverberate off of your aura and explode in my face.

You’re incapable of hearing them

Your mind has been long made up

You have no intention of changing

You’re solid like a brick wall

You’re firm like my old mattress

You’re hard like the cold cement under my feet

and I’m not sure what it’ll take to dissolve you.

To cut deep and create a crevice for my speech to seep into

An opening that my words can travel into and slowly make their way to your brain

A channel to allow my point of view to challenge yours, and maybe change it.

You know the truth about what I’m saying in your heart

Yet you choose to build a new blockade whenever the subject is breached.

Time is my friend, dear one.

Our friend.

Time will reveal if clarity will ever be achieved

Time exacerbates character

I’m dying to experience yours under lights of every color

But God only gives us one day at a time

and tells us not to worry about tomorrow, for there’s enough to worry about today!

So I ask Him:

Lord,

If this is not of you, please close the door.

Amen.

xxx

V

Thursday afternoons

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Rest.

Ahhh.

It’s time to rest. I’m not so great at it. I used to be better at it when I was tired all the time. But I’ve gotten better and better at taking care of myself properly so I can accomplish more throughout the day! Praise Jesus for taking care of me. He knows exactly what I need and gives it to me!

So this afternoon I’m going to chill. Chillax. I have about 4 hours before going to a meeting and then going to coffee with shumbody. 😉 And then going to work 11-1:00amish.

THEN SLEEPING. Then working tomorrow morning at 8:00. Lol. Gotta get that rest in today…. a nap would be beneficial to my mind and health. As soon as my neighbor comes over and drops off my Christmas present I am taking a NAP. lol

Welp! She just dropped off my gift! It was a hand-crocheted scarf that her 82 year old mother made for me! So sweet ^_^ 🙂 <3

Hmmm to nap or not to nap. Yeah I could definitely nap actually hahah may have something to do with all the Harry & David’s “moose munch” popcorn I just ate…. y’know that sweet caramely chocolately goodness?!?! I freakin’ LURVE that stuff. A lil too much hahah dang it why WHY are my teeth so sweet?!?!?!

Live and learn. This popcorn may be inducing this nap. But live and learn. 😛

Hope y’all have a great afternoon.

xxx

<3

V