Aren't you worth more than they?

If I had the time to do the things I say I really want to do, would I really do them? (Didn't someone say this before?- There never seems to be enough time to do the things you want to do once you find them. So melancholy, someone pour a glass of red wine and light the candles.) Like reading more, writing more, creating things with my hands or learning a new skill or activity. Would I stroke the keys of the piano again, or try to finish any work by Jane Austen? Because so often I think when I do have time to do these simple, relaxing "just for me" things, I choose to clean the kitchen sink with Comet instead.

I've been working hard to find ten or fifteen minutes of me time daily. And this shouldn't be hard, but I'm usually doing some mindless thing instead. SO... I've started reading Anthony Bourdain's book, Kitchen Confidential and even though I'm hardly into the first chapter, I love it. I like Anthony though, I like his show on the Travel Channel. So his rugged, realness doesn't shock me or offend. He's just human. And in my quest to do odd things that make me happy, I've continued to cut out bits and pieces and hope to create something at some point. I told Chris the other day that even though it seemed very 19-year-old-girl-living-in-a-dorm-room I may just buy a piece of poster board to glue and tape and make a collage.

Sometimes I feel like the things that matter the most in this short life I let slip through the cracks. Slowing down- experiencing anything. I long for simplicity sometimes, for fewer options and less things. (However I am thankful for Coke Zero with cherry- When did this happen? I just discovered it today at Ride Aid on my lunch hour!)

I want to cherish my time with my amazing husband. We have been so blessed and it's just us and we can do and go and buy (or not buy) as we please and I don't want to look back ten years and two kids later and say, "We really had it great then." I want to appreciate each day, each breath, each opportunity. I want only ask for my Daily Bread and not my Christmas list from God each day.

Yesterday, with my Samoas, Tagalongs and Trefoils in tow I stopped at The Healthfood Store for my healthy junk food- Soy Crisps (140 calories a bag and 10 grams of soy protein, Yum.) When I arrived home I had received a small box from my mom with a valentine treat. However, what was sweeter still was the necklace that my 12-year-old brother had picked out and sent along for me. It's a silver snowflake and on the back in tiny letters it reads, "You make me smile." It's a sister charm. I cherish everything he gives me; which probably has something to do with the fact that I was seventeen when he was born and I'm more like cool aunt that lives far away than a sister. I'm realizing he will be thirteen this year. And I will be thirty. Oh, where does the time go? But time itself is a man-made thing, a tool of measure that we place on life. God knows no time, no beginning or end. I really like that.

Following some tomato soup, an episode of Bones, and some journaling Chris and I turned in pretty early. The moon shown so bright through the kitchen window as I prepared the coffee for the next morning. Glowing like a solitary headlight- beams reflecting off the East River. At about 3:00AM I rolled over to see it illuminating our entire bedroom, now on it's way around the earth again. It appeared so massive. And I like seeing the moon at night like this.

It's as if I am the only one awake- experiencing this moment. The moon reminds me that I am still on planet Earth, even though sometimes it feels so surreal here in NYC. Even though I hardly ever leave this little island, this overwhelming large island, of Manhattan. It fills me with hope, it reassures me that God is God and I am not, that it's not about me, but it's about the one that created me and the moon and the glasses on my nightstand that I reach aimlessly for at 3:00AM that help me see the night sky outside my window.

I do realize that I am odd. That I'm the kind of person that re-uses plastic baggies (I put carrots in my carrot baggie each day and saltines in my saltine baggie) for two or three days. I can not go to sleep with dirty mugs or glasses on the coffee table. Sometime I go to the ladies room at work just to walk away from my desk and do a few stretches- in the ladies room. And all sauces, dressings and gravies- "on the side, please." But my mom would wake us up in the middle of the night to see meteor showers or to make it to the blueberry orchards by 6:00AM to pick buckets of berries before the 100 degree temperatures hit. My mom popped popcorn in a popcorn popper. My mom was really odd. (She has a vitamin basket!)

I wish that I could see myself as my Creator sees me. Aren't I worth more than they?