Snow is coming...again.

Each time the roads and sidewalks finally lay bare their cement and asphalt bodies from beneath the cloak of snow, the weather people start forecasting.

Starting Fresh

At the end of this month we will be changing residence. We've found a two-bedroom apartment for a comparable price about 15 minutes from where we are now. It's the upstairs of an 1899 carriage house. We're pretty excited to leave behind our creaky place and noisy upstairs neighbors. We're optimistic that this change will be positive all around. And lucky Jeremy will now be only a mile from his work!

Moving inevitably causes me to ponder my overflowing library of books. What can I live without? What books haven't I read and figure their one-time reads anyway? We have a constant battle to keep books at bay. I'll be parting with a couple stacks and hope I won't regret their empty spots on my shelf. Those spots won't stay empty for long though, they never do.

Acceptance

So often I wish I could change my personality. Of course I know this is logically impossible. And I also know this discontentment with how God created me isn't healthy or honoring of Him. I don't want to think this way, but I find the thoughts creeping in over and over.

At 28 I can still be crippled by shyness. And, with a year and a half of continual changes and adjustments to marriage, a new city, 2 churches, 3 jobs, apartment living, and trying to make friends, I've grown weary of my inability to overcome this shyness. I let fear of embarrassment and assumption that people don't really care, hold me back from talking and letting people get to know me. I've always been this way, but as an adult, I imagine it looks worse than as a shy kid. Literally, Jeremy and I can go to social events and I say almost nothing after the "hello, how are you" start.

I long to be more outgoing, to not second-guess every word I think about saying (and usually decide not to say). It's so hard for me not to compare myself to the bubbly, easy-going girls I see all over the place. I envy them. They seem to enjoy everything more fully. They can converse and laugh and participate without having to open their mouths around the molasses feelings of shyness and then agonize over what they just said. They have their troubles too, I'm sure. But today, if I could choose, I'd like to be the happy, outgoing, easy-going, optimistic kind of girl.

Will I ever learn to really accept that God made me as the quieter, more observant, shy kind of girl and that's okay too?

The Groundhog Has Spoken...

there will be 6 more weeks of winter.

As I drove to work on freshly snowy roads this morning, I'm not the least surprised.