New Year Post

A lot has happened this year. I went to Mexico, started working at countess place, graduated, got married, moved out of my parents' house. Through it all I was trying to read through the bible. I was more often ahead and behind.

So, a new chapter of my life begins, and new year. But this time, most of my decisions have to be brought up with Wade as well. It's been a year of many spiritual up's and downed. Some of these things have been recorded in my blog entries this past year. I've got lots of hopes for this year. It's my hope that I'm following God's plan for a relationship, I'll be able to follow His plan for other parts of my life.

Today, I'm full of hope. I can't say the whole year has been so wonderful. I felt crushed and hopeless many times. Just after getting married was very hard for me. I was homesick, and scared of having to take control of my life and direct my own path of. I felt hopeless because I figured I'd never be able to do what God it asks me, or maybe, God wouldn't ask me to do anything because I'm not faithful. Anyway, this has been a pretty rambling entry, but it's a record of what has come to mind thinking about the year.

The Mexico trip was amazing. I can look back on that as a blueprint of what my daily walk with God should look like. We ate together every day, met together for prayer every morning, had morning devotions every day, had a study every evening. Each day we did some work of help. I tried handing out tracts to people and reading them to them, I asked a lady how to pronounce Spanish words so I could.

What a beautiful eight days of my life! I dreamt of starting a mission trip to Portage, of inviting my neighborhood into my home for bible studies, of handing out tracts and telling people about Jesus, heaven, hell, and god. These are my dreams. They're even bigger than I can put on paper. I dream of Christians who would sell everything and live together, meeting every morning for prayer and evening to share and learn. Each day to go out and share the gospel and lend help.

I have a plan for the next 90 days starting tomorrow. I hope two: choose a one day a week to fast, read through the bible, pray every morning, read and learn from " the love dare"

7 Weeks Pregnant (didn't know it yet)

Religion:

Introduction:
If it's false:
Who invented it?
Why did they invent it?
How can it be confirmed as false

If it's true:
Who learned about it?
How did they come to know about it?
How can it be confirmed as true?

Religion is a way of seeing the world. It is a set of beliefs concerning cause, nature and purpous of the universe and offten contains a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
This set of beliefs if it is to be taken as true, is responsible to consistently and logically account for any and all questions that may be asked of it concerning the origin and authenticity of the beliefs origin and the answers to life it is claiming to be.

The belief must answer to it's origin (where it came from) becuase truth must be found, it can't be invented.

It must answer to your questions because it claims to be that answer. It claims to be your answer for cause, nature, and the purpous of the universe, so it better answer questions concerning those things and it better be consistent with what is known and evident about cause and nature.

Ultimately, this belief must answer among others, these questions:
The earth came from somewhere, where did it come from?
Plants and animals came from somewhere, where did they come from?
Humans came from somewhere, where did they come from?
All matter came from somewhere, both living and nonliving, where did it come from and how did it come to do what it's designed to do (one example of countless: cells splitting, hair growing only so much in diamiter then only growing in length from there, same for fingernails, and the growing, development, and aging of living things each predictably in it's proper time)?
Besides simply functioning living matter, humans have minds which are composed of but not limited to: thought, conscience, reflection, observation, comparison, decision, respect, hatred, compassion, empathy... where did these come from?
All nature is governed by unbreakable laws (physics, chemistry, etc) where did they come from and what is keeping them in place?
People have a sense of right and wrong, where did this sense come from?
What is good, why is it good?
What is evil, why is it evil?

Why can't we not ignore these questions and simply believe nothing and just live life? Because without belief where does our moral code come from and what governs the conduct of human affairs? The questions must be asked because there there is injustice and what is just can only be determined by a moral code which cannot be determined without beliefs.

Conclusion:
These questions have been asked because there has to be an answer. We see the end result, but we want to know how it got there, and if it's there, it must have gotten there somehow according to cause and effect. We see the effect and wonder about the cause. Where do babies come from? is prompted by the effect of seeing a baby, because the baby is there, it must have gotten there somehow, so the question is asked: "what is the cause."
because science shows us, everything makes sense, the world functions because it all works, it will continue to work wether we know how it functions or not. But knowing how it functions can be of great benefit as we have discovered in the field of medicine, chemistry, and even physical fitness as some examples.

The answer's have great significance to the way we lead our lives, what we think and what we do.

There is an answer for every question that has been prompted by a cause and is asking for the effect (because it's impossible for there to be an uncaused effect). it's just a matter of finding the right source.

7 Weeks Pregnant (didn't know it yet)

Wade's 22nd Birthday

My stomach felt absolutely misserable today. Wade and I went over to Jed and Lindsays for a visit and I threw up about three times, I couldn't even keep down water it was gross.

In the evening Mom and Dad took Wade, Jed, Lindsay, and I out to the Keg as a late celebration for his 22nd birthday. Unfortunately I was still feeling awful which made everything on the menu pretty unapealing. I did manage to enoy a glass of red wine though.

Afterward, Jed and Lindsay took us all out glow bowling, first time glow bowling, third time bowling, good stuff.

2 Weeks Pregnant (didn't know it yet)

I love my husband

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WADE!!

Since it's Wades birthday today I'm writting an entry all about him, how much I care about him and think of him as a very standup guy in this fallen world. We have been a very blessed couple. How few couples in history get to select their marriage partner and have this beutiful and intimate desire to be together? This is the way God intended relationships to be.

I am looking forward to a life spent with Wade. He's a thoughtful and affectionate husband, a concerned and devoted friend, and a faithful employee.

He's sincere about whatever he believes and allows his beleifs to influence every area of his life. which is an excellent quality especially when paired with another fine quality of his, teachability. If what he believes can be logically challenged he will change his perspective, especially if it is some truth from the bible that is questioning his mindset.

He's devoted to his dreams and can sacrifice smaller joys for a larger purpous.

I'm constantly amazed by how attentive he is to both myself and the people he cares about around him. How willing he is to drop whatever his priorities may be for that day or moment and do what his wife or friends need right then instead.

I also have to commend him for being an excellent provider and taking good care of us. We can pay the bills every month, do grocery shopping, and on top of that we've been blessed with a house two cars and all the clothing we need, maybe a little bit more on my part =3 . Thanks Wade for your hard work.

I hope in this marriage I can be a blessing from God to Wade, as I submit to him as the man in my life, and leader of our life to come. As we delight in and struggle through work, play, relaxing, learning, and all the other wonderful and at times confusing things of life, doing it together side by side. Trusting him as the forrunner in each situation.

And this going out espcially to Wade, More than telling you about these things, I hope you can see them in my life as I grow in maturity.

How's it been going

Still haven't managed to get a regular or decent bed time going, but I am getting better about waking up at a good time and not taking any naps, eating well is not as I would like it but is definately better and yay, I've been sketching again. I've been going through some art teaching books from the library my art has been stagnant lately and I hope to make some progress there.

One of the things that has motivated me to get up and do these things is something I read recently in the bible, "A slacker's way is like a thorny hedge, but the path of the upright is a highway. Proverbs 15:19"

I got to thinking about this, a thorny hedge is difficult to navigate through, but on a highway you can speed right along, the slacker thinks their taking a short cut, not doing work or what is necessary, but their short lazy way is far more difficult than if they had just done things the proper way.

I think of how I would like to read and study the bible more so I understand more about God and what He says, I want to know Him more, I'd like to spend more time in meditation and prayer, I'd like to learn more about art, more time studying art books and doing sketching excercises, I'd like also to memorize, but so often I figure I need a little more sleep first, or get on the computer and wittle away a couple hours browsing and on facebook, instead of personal study or meditation I listen to sermons, and when my head won't take in any more sermons I listen to christian music, and when I can't take in any more of that I go to classical and jazz.

I want the satisfaction of accopmlishment, I want wisdom and knowlege but these small satisfactions and educational puruits that take minimal effort get in the way of my greater satisfactions and understanding that take hours, days, weeks, and years of concerted concentrated effort, and this slackers way is thorny. If I just had the dicipline, I'd be on the highway instead of wrestling through these thorns.

August sunset in Portage close to where we've been living

I took this picture as a resource for a drawing a want to do some day

Lenny the horse

I was invited to go into Winnipeg with Lindsay and Deanna to shop for some horse accesories for Deannas horse Lenny. There was so much lovely shiney new horse stuff there, I wants a horse =D

Brushing the pretty boyNew blanket, halter, and lead rope

Sleeping life away

So I thought I would try something out the first of last week which would be the sixth. I was going to focus intentionally for two weeks on the things that I want to accomplish especially with an emphasis on the waking up early, getting to bed at a good time, eating well, and ecxercising. With the rest of my list falling in line somewhere among those.

Update: Tuesday, Week 2

• Waking up early... 8:30-11:00 AM that's terrible, I'm going to sleep my life away at that rate.


• Bedtime for all days of the week... 12:00 - 1:30 AM and no, that is not what I consider good time


• Eating well... the first two days


• Excercising... VICTORY, yay, I did my whole weekly routine without skipping a day.

The thing is, as soon as I'm done all the good things I have to do in a day that add up to a great thing later I can do all the other things I wanted to do instead of mill around stalling the whole day, what a waste of time, ew. Like yesterday I woke up at 10:25, quickly neated the appartment before the staff meating at 10:30.

Already I wasted a good three hours sleeping but I didn't redeam the time, I got onto Sims and started building a house, "oh, I'll workout later, read later, draw later, use my brain later bla bla." guesse what, four thirty rolls around and I'm still making the little house perfecting every d-tail. Fortunately I had arranged to go see Deannas* horse, so Deanna, Lindsay*, and I took off at five and hung out together until like, 9:30. Then Wade and I helped Lindsay and Jed* clean their house.

We got home at 11:00 but I didnt' get to bed until 1:30 as usual, it would help a lot if our wash machine wasn't broken. In the evening we remember that it has to be done so run it 10 minutes out of town to my parents house. On the plus side while it was washing I did my workout I had put off all day.

I kept thinking, "what a waste of a day, why couldn't I have done this earlier, oh well I'll do better tomorrow." That got me thinking about life. I once heard two old people talking together as me and my sister passed by, one said to the other, "there's a few more things I would have done if I was young like that again." the other said, "isn't that the truth." So I deliberated that you can't say, "what a waste of a life, oh well, there's always next time," like you can with a day, your young once and old once, there's no cicling begining like there is to a day.

As for today, I already woke up at a good time, 7:30, and have finished half of my workout for today. It is just about 10:00 and I'm off to a good start.

*Deanna is Wades brothers girlfriend, I was in one of her classrooms at school.
*Lindsay is distantly related to Wade from his moms side and married to Wades cousin on his dads side
*Jed is Lindsays husband and Wades cousin on his dads side

The Portage Fair

Tyrone with Medori and Izzy doing that firepower thing Catherine, Izzy, Medori, and Tyrone... loving his moneys

My idealistic world

Things didn't go exactly according to plan today, but improvisation is the way life works eh? It all began in the morning when I discovered Wade didnt' have to work, I can't get up at 6:15 if he's going to sleep in until 9:00, first part of the plan, goodbye.

There are so few things in a day that above all other things that may happen, I want to see them done consistently, among eating and cleaning house, personal hygene and taking care of pets, and of course driving, five things need to be done, just five.

However, it seems wrong for some of those on the priority list to take presidence over relationships and conversations. What really matters in life is people, I mean seriously. So offten I wish that I could live the exemplary life I have all worked out in my head, and I'm not talking fancy car big house on a beach kind of ideal, that's not my sort of dream.

The optimal life in my eyes would be one saturated with contentment and gratitude, not being surounded by appeasing situations but to be content in whatever circumstances. Instead of rushing around keeping myself busy or entertained every moment of the day patiently enjoy each task and when there isn't anything necessary to be done:

• Find a quiet place outside or in my home and meditate


• Sit outside on the front porch and soak in the nabourhood


• If there's people around make a point of dropping things and spending time with them

Ultimately I desire a life of commitment, do the things I really want to do instead of what's easy. Satisfation from Sims, TV, and movies comes easy but is unlasting, it's humdrum and empty it's composed of false goals false acheivments, getting to know people who don't exist, living a whole lifetime in an hour creates discontentment to live this real lifetime minute by minute. This pleasure has no lasting value because it didn't cost anything.

Comparing the lasting joys of dicipline to instant gratification of the passing whim

1. eating well and excercise vs. food and lazyness


2. reading, writing, and studying vs. electronic entertainment


3. social interaction vs. electronic entertainment


4. meditation and quiet thinking time vs. electronic entertainment

Conciously pick the ones on the left and be on the way to having a life, continue to pick the ones on the right and spend this short lifetime in a world that doesn't exist.

Hopes for tomorrow

It seems to me that morning is the most inspired time of the day, "aha! There is surely a new world out there to conquor today, a different one than yesterday. This day, I shall do all that I wanted to do, First of all, the omnipresent to do list running in the back of my head, secondly:

• Eat healthy
• Excercise
• Meditate
• Read and study
• Spend less time on the computer, more time socializing
• Maybe even brush my teeth (ew, gross I don't brush my teeth enough)
• Go to bed at a decent time

By evening a sense of realism, or possibly, a false sense of realism sets in and the lines between today and yesterday and tomorrow become a little less clear, "well, yesterday I got away with doing this" and, "there's always tomorrow after all" and for some reason it's between five and nine that I will eat cookies, coffee, donuts... hop on the compy and play Sims 3 a couple of hours, "Mreh, there's no more time left in this day to do do anything anyway" four hours later, 12:00 AM, I supose I should be getting to bed now... etc

It's in the evening that the high hopes I had for that day, pass on to hopes for tomorrow, I'll do better at all the things that matter tomorrow, really I will. "I have high hopes for tomorrow, I'll even wake up early, 6:15, do my workout, make hubby a lunch, read for a while, and be awake and alert to help the guys on the construction site by 9:15, I'll even bring them ice cream"

Yes, it's 1:14 now, and I have high hopes for tomorrow

I've got it good

I've really got it good. From looking in some people might say we have it rough right now, but I know otherwise.

We began this new adventurous leg of life with the best foot forward. On the wedding day Wade was extremely considerate of me and making sure the whole thing went as perfectly for me as he could make it, and as I was floored with this romantic surprise, I returned the favor. He had no attitude of "you give I give" but rather one of genuine love, I followed suit and also took this stance.

Attitudes like this are hard work and difficult to maintain, they require time concentration and effort and as with many attitudes come in waves of dedication, here a while gone a while. This time it persisted a good two weeks, just long enough to be on the recetion for the honey moon.

Let me tell you, we had a few "trials" that week, if you can call them that. Really though, how can you call it trials, we're out in the beutiful Canadian scenary with all the delicious food we could want, gasolene, and shelter, I mean c'mon what more can you want? Just cause we only caught two fish in four days of fishing, after driving three hours to a new lake on the fourth day the boat trailer broke and we had to wait in the car for help three hours (six hours sitting in the car) and cut the whole trip short... oh no the worlds coming to an end we have it so rough... I'm kidding

If we're kicked out of the house because of renovations: it means we own a house and have wonderful people who are willing to work on it for us, If we catch no fish: it means we have the time and freedom to sit in a boat on a beutiful lake and listen to the birds. If the boat trailer breaks: it means that we own a boat. If we have to wait three hours for help: it means there are people who care about us enought to drive so far.

I'm not meaning, "make life perfect by looking at the posative side of everything" because sometimes there really is no posative side, I just realize there's a need for gratitude sometimes.

Relaxing in the Prairies

Kick off the sandals and chill

Our sweet ride, 2003 Hyundai TiburonKevin caught a little sucker Wade and Jed chatting, and looket that Lindsay has a fish!
I'm not fishing, I just like enjoying the sunshine and scenary

Ready and set to go

May 9th was the big day, my name recently went from Moman to Marks: this is the blog of a newly wed.

I'm not the only one who thought it would never happen, I graduated from high school today and got married on May 9, 2009, just last month.

Now in this newly revealed wide wide world I'm stepping out into, I am recently uncovering the freedom and terror found in making my own choices and tackling that scary concept called planning.
Wondering what next. I don't want to spend my life playing Sims or watching movies what do I want to do with my life?

Here I sit this evening married and graduated with our own house and car... and monthly payments, isn't this where every young adult dreams of being? A cause of grief today is our inability to live in our house just now because of serious renovations, but it's a hope in progress and I wouldn't have it any other way.

I am fresh to many things, fresh to marriage, to adulthood, and being at long last independant of school

The new discoveries of this fresh day

TKD tournament

Our first taekwondo tournament as a married couple, only a month of marriage at this point. I got gold for patterns and bronze for fighting (aka there where three people in my divition and I lost)

My single fight of this tournament, I'm the one in blue in the first fight.

Lissys 18th birthday

Wade and I stole Lissys thunder on the 9th by celebrating our wedding on her birthday, her 18th birthday none the less! Lissy wanted to celebrate by going for a photoshoot in Winnipeg

And suddenly, we decided to dance!!

Bachelorette Party

Dancing, singing and embarasing moments.