I was driving Saturday when I had a very philisophical conversation with myself about beliefs and what I believe.

I've always been very forthcoming with what I believe; I'm a Christian, that's just how it is.  I'm probably more liberal than others, and much more accepting, but I believe in a God, a risen Savior and the presence of the Holy Spirit.  I'm not going to spoon feed you my kool-aid, and I respect the right to believe differently - but I don't shy away from talking about it - if it comes up.

So while driving I started thinking about beliefs in an arm's length kind of way.  Stepping back and looking at the trappings and rules - and you know what?  It's hard to believe in something.  I have faith because I just do, I can't explain my faith to someone who doesn't want faith, and that's difficult to deal with on the best of days.  It would be so much easier to believe that this life ends with your last breath, the last beat of your heart; you're time's up, you've had a great run of things - and now it's over.  Like the wind-up toy that no longer windes, you're done.  That would simply life so much; there wouldn't be any teetering on the precipice of right and wrong - there would just exsist a state of being, answerable to only yourself.

I've always needed rules or guidelines in my life.  I need to know where the line is because I've always struggled with balance in my life; I tend to throw myself into something and do too much of it, or consume all of it.  Books?  I read them in one sitting, and that's kind of how I treat a lot of things in my life.  I give myself over to it wholly, I want to read the finish line, have an end product, reap the rewards of having completed that task, etc.

I know I should be a 'better Christian'.  I don't go to church as much as I should.  The fact that it's hard for me to find a place where people don't stare at me and wonder what my real reason for being around is, or where people are friendly and open enough to let you into the click, or any number of other social situations.  It's not God in the church that keeps me out, it's the people.  That's a terrible mindset; we're Christians, we're not supposed to live solitary lives, but for me it's easier 'being on my own' than around others.  And that's not really a good mindset - but I also know that I'm playing with a specific hand of cards that you, my reader, probably don't know so don't judge me too harshly because you don't know the whole story.

And this leads me to the question - what makes a 'good' Christian?  I believe.  I try not to sin.  I'm not as good about reading my Bible or praying as I should be.  I'm not affraid to talk to people about what I believe, but I don't initiate that conversation very much (Okay, that's not true, I have the prophet Hosea tattoo'd on my arm and THAT gets a lot of attention and starts the conversation - so maybe I am guilty of starting the conversation....).  It would be easier for my off-balance life if I had a few simple guidelines to tell me when enough is enough, because I constantly feel like a failure because I'm not burning the candle at both ends where my faith and beliefs are concerned - and I don't know if that's a right or wrong sentiment.  I just don't know, and worrying about it makes me not want to even think about it - and then I wonder if believing in nothing at all would be better, but that's not true, because my beliefs are integral to who I am and are part of me.

I'm not looking for an answer, I'm just wanting to express this knot of thought inside my head; believing is harder that not believing at all, but without my beliefs I'm denied hope in something bigger and better than myself, so it's okay that things are a little hard sometime.  I'll figure out a balance, life will make sense, and maybe I'll realize that it's okay that I live in America, working a regular job, doing my own things - and not something more dedicated.  Sometimes I feel like a failure because I didn't try harder to be a missionary when working in a church became impossible, but I can't change the past and I can only move forward - and for now forward is right where I am headed.

Anyone else watch it?

I have a lot of friends who do, and I had no idea what they were talking about when they started spouting off about TARDIS and sonic screwdrivers - most of the time I just smiled, nodded and acted like everything made perfect sense.  Sounds like a good plan, huh?  And it was!  At least until I decided to dip my toes int he pond and see what it's all about.

And ya know what?  I'm loving it.  I'm almost through season 2 of Dr Who, trying to convince myself to stretch it out instead of jamming it all in one weekend, but it's not working out so well.  I've been knitting and watching it a lot.  Yup - so far I have a new hat and I'm almost done with a book cozy.  Made my wristies watching a big chunk of it too.  Now if only I could finish those scarves.... if only I could remember where they are.

So anyways, I'm watching Dr Who, and it's fun.  I should post pictures of my knitting, but it's all up on Ravelry if you belong to that fun little cult.

NaNo stuff has and hasn't picked up.  There's plenty of stuff that goes on behind the scenes that takes up time, and we're planning stuff and doing preparations, but nothing that's huge - at least not until this weekend.

I need to finish the book I'm working on now so I can focus on my November projects, which I blogged about over on cidwrites.com - yes, I'm blogging more!  Be impressed.

Okay, off to get a snack and do stuff.

Okay, so yes, I've been a sucky blogger so to get me back to talking about stuff, since it's October, I'll talk about my Halloween costume.  I knew after reading Feed by Mira Grant that I wanted to be Urban Survival Barbie, sort of like Alice from Resident Evil, but with glam.  I debated for a long time if I wanted to do it glitzy like, or do more of an urban feel.  I couldn't decide, but I thought that Barbie would have to be pink - so I went on a search for something that would work, and last weekend I found the perfect Barbie zombie fighting dress.

There's still important parts that I need.  I'm going to look into getting a pagent style sash this next week, like Miss America style, but with hot pink letters saying Urban Survival Barbie, and I'll probably make a patch for the back of it that says, Rise up while you still can.  I found the company that makes the Miss America and Universe sashes, I'd like to see the faces on the people when they get the order.  It's going to be funny.

Oh, I also have these killer boots that also came from Ross.  Yeah, Ross is a great place.

So, once I have the sash, now that I have the dress and the boots, I need those fancy, jewel hose, I'm going to try to find a mini-black leather jacket, a blonde wig is a necessity, and also a bedazzled machete.  Yup, I'm going to bedazzle me some metal.  It's going to be great.

Now, where will I be wearing this, you ask?

Two places.  First, on the 31st to the NaNo midnight write in.  It will be great fun.  Then, the second is to the Readers'n'Ritas costume ball in November.

So yeah, I'm going to be Barbie.

I should blog more.  I keep meaning to, but then I feel guilty that I haven't been blogging, so I keep not blogging.  Yes, that makes a lot of sense, I know.

So what have I been doing?

Not a lot, really.  Mostly reading, writing and knitting.  I started back up with belly dance classes, so that's a good thing.  I've started a new novel and I'm 75% of the way through writing the first draft.  I'm knitting my first ever hat - and Alice gave me these super awesome stitch markers that have pretty beads on them.  I've also knitted fingerless gloves based on a Dr Horrible Wristies pattern.  And I'm reading a lot.  So far the best new releases I've read in the last few weeks are Bayou Moon by Ilona Andrews (I've read it four times now) and The Iron Duke by Meljean Brooks (read it twice, it came out on Tuesday, like two days ago).

And, I'm getting ready for NaNoWriMo.  I'm an ML so things are going to be busy, but I'm excited.

Yup, time for me to go to bed.  Night!

I don't think my lack-of-motivation streak is at an end.  In fact, I think it's dug in hard and doesn't wan to leave, but I'm tired of my apartment looking a bit cluttered and messy.  I don't think my friends really mind, I mean they come over willingly enough, but it's bothering me.  I didn't get any of the desired cleaning done yesterday because I got frusterated with my other website and started hand updating files.  It took two hours and it didn't fix the problem I was having.  I think I'm at the point where I'm just going to pay someone to fix it.

But!  But I have been successful about getting some things done.  I've written a lot recently, in fact more consistently and with more gusto than I have since I finished Abs.  That is encouraging!

So, I'm going to look for small steps this week.  I want to tidy up the apartment and go to bellydancing on Saturday morning.  I've been putting off going back to classes for, well, I don't know why, but I have and I will be going Saturday because I just will!  I think I'm going to only go once a month until I'm back into a routine and then kick it up to twice a week again.

I'm going to try to keep my dishes under control, and be a bit more tidy with my laundry.  Those are my goals for the forseeable future.  Start small, right?  Well this is small enough.  Little steps create habits, and making them good habits is kind of the focus I need right now, so there you go.

Tonight I really need to take out the trash and clean the Chinchilla cage and go grocery shopping.  I'm going out to lunch because I didn't have anything else to bring with me to work to eat - even for breakfast.  If I can squeeze in putting away my laundry I'll be thrilled and try to tackle the clutter in the livingroom tomorrow.

I'm hoping to start using the WiiFit again as I watch back seasons of Dr Who since it's on the Netflix Watch Instantly.

All in all, it's a start!

I'm making up my own knitting pattern.  Yes, you heard me right, I'm coming up with my own set of stitches.  I think I've figured out what I want to do with it so far, so now it's just a matter of knitting it to length, but I'm hopeful.  Thankfully the point of the pattern is to be rather holey and messy and not quite perfect; it's a very forgiving pattern so far.  When I have more than a few inches to show for it I will post some pictures, but for now it looks like a black rectangle with stylized holes in it.  Not much to look at.

So it seems I'm having an issue with lack of discipline.  Not surprising; I was never very disciplined before I went to college and it took me a year or so to figure out how to not drown in my classes, but then I cracked the whip and got through it.  Somewhere in the last year my discipline has crumbled.  I stay up late, I skid into work just in time, I put off finishing my laudry or dishes, and I really would rather not clean.  I'm lazy - which has always been one of my biggest vices - but mostly I've been able to hem myself in.  Lately I've lost even that ability.

If it didn't affect my life - like the things I want to be able to do - I doubt I would be upset about it.  But I can't really write or knit much when I'm exhausted from having stayed up two nights in a row until the wee hours of the morning because I didn't feel like going to bed just quite yet.  I'm not sure what I need to do to motivate myself more, but it needs to happen.

Mostly because I want to finish my Dr Horrible Wristies and finish writing this book, but getting other stuff done too would be nice.

Okay, so Alice and I have been hitting the idea back and forth like a never-ending game of ping pong about how we needed to get together and knit - and then there was the other conversation about doing a Harry Potter marathon since I've seen only a few of the movies in their entirety and another one in bits and pieces.  Well, yesterday was devoted to knitting - and Harry Potter.  Yup.

My goal for a while has been to knit a pair of fingerless gloves.  I want a pair.  I want to make a pair.  So after lots of digging around, Alice found this pair of wristies that were inspired by Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog.  They used to be up on Ravelry and on Knerdy Knitting, but the site went down or expired.  Through some very impressive creative thinking on a friend of ours, we discovered that we could access the pattern through google's chache.  So, if you're interested, h e r e is a link to that pattern.

The wristies I made are a little different.  For one, my thumb hole isn't comfortable at all.  If I make another pair of these I'll have to experiment.  I also made the button track wider, and after I discovered I had no idea how to actually make the button holes, I just knitted a solid track and sewed the wristies together and will add buttons once I find some better suited to the jewel tone colors.  I have one almost completed wristie that's just missing buttons.

I've also completed another book cozie.  This one was going to be for me, but I ended up hating the way the self-striping yarn patterend on the book, so I'll be giving it away with a future book giveaway on Book Addicts.  Stay tuned!

This morning I started experimenting with an idea I hatched for a pattern for fingerless gloves, so I'll have to report back on how that's working, but later - because I need to do a lot of writing since I took yesterday off to watch Harry Potter and knit.

I swear I'm going to blog more this week.....

So I'm sitting in a Starbucks in Longview, out in east Texas, just hanging out until a reasonable time for me to head over to the country club for my brothers wedding.  This is day three of my staycation - no I don't care that it's a Saturday!

So far it's been all about the reading and revisions.  Thursday I think I finished reading Married with Zombies, did a bunch of writing and revising, read an ebook called Until Emie and read Blameless.  Yeah, I read a lot!!  Friday I got up and finished reading Never Trust a Rogue before putting in some serious revision time on MPG and then heading off for a quick B&N trip before the Writer's Date Night.  We're trying it out on Friday nights for a few weeks, but I don't think it's going to work.  There just isn't a night for everyone to get together that doesn't conflict with anything else, so we're going to have to make a group decision about what we want to do.  It's going to suck because any way we hatch this egg someone is going to get left out.  Boo. 

Today I slept in on accident and missed dance class - again.  I haven't been in like two or three weeks.  Ug.  I'm a dance failure!!!  Hopefully after this weekend and the whole crazy trip for the wedding I'll be back on track and doing stuff normal like.

And my brother just surprised me at Starbucks.  Awe.  I'm supposed to meet everyone over at the country club in like half an hour.  I'll get snazzied up over there and meet everyone.  Tonight promises to be really interesting.

Okay, so I'm a *little* late with this - gimme a break!!!

Reading Goals