Wounded.
27 Apr 2012 4 Comments
Some times I try to imagine what my life would be like if I never met my Best Friend. Quite frankly, I could not even begin to fathom my very existence without my sweet Prince at my side, especially when I encounter days like today.
Words have such power. They have the ability to raise up, but sadly, they also have the power to tear down. As I sat in my chair, I felt the words pounding against me. With each syllable, I felt like everything around me was being torn down. I held back the tears. My heart was aching. Everything that had been built up around me was now nothing more than a pile of rubble.
I was wounded.
As I fought the tears, I heard a whisper. It was my Prince.”You are a beautiful woman,” He began.
Sitting there in my brokenness, He began to re-write every discouraging word that brought me down. He was building me back up. “It doesn’t matter what the world thinks of you. You mean the world to me.”
The wound was healing, and as my Prince spoke more words of encouragements, I watched as even the scars began to fade.
I was whole.
As I look back on my day, I am extremely grateful to have such an amazing Best Friend at my side.
Remember, words are powerful. They have the power of life and the power of death. It’s time to step up and speak life into people.
Above and Beyond
19 Mar 2012 1 Comment
It amazes me how, regardless of any situation, my Best Friend always goes above and beyond anything I could ever ask for. He is simply amazing.
This weekend, I have to help feed about 40 students for a conference. However, in the last few weeks some original plans fell through, and suddenly the biggest meal of the entire event was in jeopardy; I had no place to host it and I didn’t even have any food to serve. Needless to say, I was a little on edge. I kept talking to my Best Friend about it, hoping that He could help. This last Friday, as I sat at the computer staring at google maps, I turned to my Best Friend and asked him where He thought we should go. He simply pointed to this small restaurant on the screen. Trinities. Funny enough, it was literally within a 5 minute walking distance from where we would all be staying. So I found a website, made a call, and next thing I knew, we not only found food at an affordable rate, but we were also offered a banquet hall that fits up to 50 people. I was speechless.
My Best Friend seriously never fails me. Things may not go as I plan them to, but He sure makes it clear why His plans are better. Thanks for always going above and beyond my sweet prince ♥
Opening and Closing Doors
04 Mar 2012 1 Comment
If there is one thing I have learned in life, it’s that life is full of opening and closing doors. I know this sounds similar to the commonly stated “when-one-door-closes-another-door-opens,” but I have a slightly different take on how these “doors” work.
When one door closes, I do believe another door opens. However, that door that opened up may not be in our immediate sight. Some times that open door is staring you straight in the face, but other times, it takes walking down a few hallways to figure out which door actually opened. It also might be a small door like one you would see in Alice in Wonderland that, with assistance from others and a little bit of patience, you can finally enter through into the other side.
Within the last few weeks, I have watched many different doors close. Standing in that hallway, hearing doors opening and closing, I called out to my Best Friend for assistance. He faithfully came to my side and we began down the hallway to find my open doors. Little did I know, my open doors were far beyond anything I could imagine. I am so thankful that my Best Friend is here to guide me on this journey and give me peace about my closed doors.
It all started a few weeks back while on a frantic search to find a job. After sending many resumes and applications, I finally started to get some responses, and much to my delight, one of the jobs I had applied for offered me a phone interview. I was so excited. I could have been working for a language school here in the US as a center director, promoting languages. However, as I was preparing for that interview, my Best Friend and I had a long talk about my next year. He brought to my attention another job that I had essentially set aside; mostly out of fear. But as we talked, I was quickly reminded that this other job, the one that I had put on a shelf, was truly my ideal job. I still interviewed for the language school, but deep down in my heart, I knew that it wasn’t for me. Two days after my interview, I received an email. “Dear Miss Amanda, We regret to inform you that you were not selected to move on to the next set of interviews.” *SLAM*
Later on that day, I received two more emails of rejection from companies that I had applied to. *SLAM*… *SLAM*… Standing in the hallway of doors, I could only hear the echo of these slammed doors. Three closed doors at once; I was in shock. I looked to my Best Friend and just as I was about to ask Him what I should do next, I heard a door open. But this door was unlike any other door I had encountered. This door had a majestic look about it and was more grand than anything I had ever seen. I knew that this was it. This was the job that He had shown me only a few days prior. Next thing I knew, I was interviewing with recruiters and this time, rejection was no where to be seen. I was instantly moved on to the next step. Although I still have this next step coming up in the near future, I feel confident. I know that those three closed doors could have never compared to this one amazing door that opened.
Later that week, I found myself back in the hallway. *SLAM*
A sharp stinging pain shot through my side. It was a familiar pain, but one that I hadn’t felt in over six years. Next thing I knew, I was on my way to the hospital. After waiting countless hours, I was told that my gallbladder was the cause. I was told that it was nothing too serious and that I was clear of any acute diseases. However, in order to prevent serious issues, I would have to alter my diet to a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet. At this moment, I was confused. As they explained my limitations, I didn’t hear any doors close; I could only faintly hear the creak of an opening door. An open door? Really? How in the world could this actually be an open door? I turned to my Best Friend puzzled. He gently smiled and assured me that I would understand soon enough.
As I write this entry, it is exactly one week from when I was in the hospital, and I can honestly say, I now understand why a door opened that day. I feel great. Not only am I pain-free but I feel better than I have in months.
Doors open and close. We can’t prevent that nor would we want to. It’s simply learning to trust that doors are closing because the doors opening are better for us, whether we immediately see it that way or not.
Here is to no longer grieving my closed doors and embracing my newly opened ones.
Addicted.
30 Jan 2012 2 Comments
You know you have a coffee problem when ordering an extra large coffee seems like the right decision.
I’m a real girl!
28 Jan 2012 3 Comments
When I was little, the thought of wearing a dress made me cringe. Don’t get me wrong. I still wanted to be a Disney princess… I just didn’t want to wear the stereotypical dress. I wanted to wear skechers, jeans, a cute tee shirt, and a tiara… I was a typical tom boy.
However, within the last year, I’ve had a slight change of heart… Instead of instantly passing by the dresses at the store, I actually stopped, and began to sift through them. Next thing I knew, I was in the dressing room, spinning around in a beautiful dress. This was the beginning of something new.
Now when I go shopping, I end up in the dress section quite frequently, and have even become bold enough to purchase a few.
I guess this tom boy has officially blossomed into a girl who loves to wear dress…
Now, I just have to work on learning to walk in heels…
Fitting into the Dress
21 Jan 2012 5 Comments
So the other day I picked up my dress for my best friend, Danielle’s, wedding. As her Maid of Honor, she put me in a beautiful brown dress.
Picking it up, I was initially a little nervous. I have never worn anything entirely brown before, and I was curious to see how it would look on me. The girl at the bridal shop came out from the back with the dress and I was stunned. It was beautiful. I then tried it on and was happy to discover that I didn’t look that bad in brown. Although, the dress was a little snug at the hips (Story of my Life) so I am now back on track for losing weight. My dad and I have started working out at the gym again and I am calorie counting using Fitness Pal on my phone.
So here is to 5 months of working out so that I can fit perfectly into the dress!
Spent the Weekend in China… Well… Sort of…
16 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in The Aftermath Tags: asian market, hot pot
This weekend, even though the snow tried to stop it, I got to enjoy a little taste of China.
One of my sweet friends who had lived in Chengdu at some point recommended that we have hot pot, so that’s exactly what we did on Friday.
We met up at our local Asian market, which I was very excited about. I hadn’t been to this one before but I had heard great things about it. I now know why. The Asian market had so many selections and a lot of the food was from China! I was beyond excited. We started with the produce, grabbing mushrooms, bak choy, and my favorite, lotus root. We also found some tofu, hot pot mix, quail eggs, and something I have seriously missed, peanut milk. It ended up being a little different than the peanut milk I remember. This one had literal peanuts in it as well, but it ended up being amazing! It simply gave it more flavor.
After buying food, we headed to my friend’s place to prepare the food and wait on another friend to join us. Once the other beautiful lady had arrive, we started preparing our amazing feast. As we chopped up food and got everything ready for a more traditional style of hot pot, we talked about our stories and how we ended up in Chengdu at some point in our lives. It was so funny to listen to their stories and compare. It seems like for all three of us struggled a little bit with the idea of originally going, but once we got there, we grew to love it.
Finally, the moment we had all been waiting for had arrived. The food was chopped up and ready to cook, and the soup was boiling; we were ready to eat!
It was so much fun! What I love about hot pot, is the fact that it one of those meals that once all the preparations are done with, it’s beyond enjoyable. You throw the cut up foods into the boiling soup in the middle and wait for it to cook, which a lot of times only takes about a minute. But as we do this, we are able to talk and actual enjoy the company of each other. I can definitely understand how it became such a big cultural element in Chengdu.
After eating, laughing, and finding the ever disappearing meat that kept hiding from us, we decided to watch a movie. It was actually a movie I had wanted to see while I was in Chengdu, but I never got around to it. It’s called “A Beautiful Life” (不再让你孤单), a beautifully directed Chinese movie about a couple who go through many trials to be together. I loved it! There were definitely moments that made me tear up a little bit, but for the most part, I kept it together. It also helped that my friends provided some comic relief on occasion. ^.^
Overall, it was a wonderful night full of laughter, reminiscing, and lajiao (辣椒).
The next day, Saturday, I met up with my best friend, Danielle, to drop off her car that she had let me borrow for the week. Danielle was starving and asked me if there was anywhere I would like to eat, but I honestly didn’t care where we ate, as long as it was edible. Danielle then decided she was in the mood for Chinese, which I was not opposed to at all. So we went to a local place called Chen Garden and had some AMAZING Chinese food. We ordered dumplings, tofu, and my all time favorite, eggplant (鱼香茄子)! It was seriously so delicious!!!!!
I truly had a great weekend! It was almost like I visited Chengdu for a brief moment.
Oh the weather outside is frightful
13 Jan 2012 3 Comments
This morning was an interesting one to say the least…
I woke up to my mother telling me that it sleeted last night and to make sure I left a little early for work because the roads might be a little slippery…
I got ready as fast as I could and was out the door and hour before work was supposed to start… I figured it normally only takes me 25 minutes to get to work on a good day so double the time and then some seemed reasonable… That is until I got on the road…
Trudging through snow, I brushed off my car and was off… And as I headed off, I got a quick taste of what my morning drive was going to be like… The roads had not been plowed yet… Even on the highway… Seriously no bueno…
To make matters even more fun, it was my first time really driving in snow without my parents…
Within my first few miles, there were several cars in the ditch… I also became a little nervous when I saw a van in the ditch near our exit that looked just like my moms… Fortunately it wasn’t her… I’m pretty sure there were at least 4 accidents within the first 15 minutes…
It was clear that no one had plowed anything and as a result, we were doing 40 mph max on the highway…
I was feeling uneasy and so I started to talk to my Best Friend. We talked about the other cars on the roads, hoping that they were all safe. What originally felt like a never ending drive from hell (iced over?… interesting turn of events…) ended up becoming a fairly decent ride. I felt at ease as we talked.
It ended up taking me 1 hour and 10 minutes to get to work… but I made it safely, so I am thankful.
Time for Change
12 Jan 2012 2 Comments
So I decided to change my hair style
From lacking all volume to waves and curls
Working Girl
10 Jan 2012 3 Comments
in Uncategorized
You know you’re cool when you get to wear these at work
