Claratin and Kindness

Installment Two: (like five years later... sorry I'm so bad at this) Pony.
Yes, my second installment is about Pony, Montana. Contrary to popular belief, it exists and is not quite as lame as its title betrays it to be. The connotation of it is a pleasant one, but the only cognate between the location and it's attributes are found in it being little. Like tiny. Granted, this 'town' has a post office, but other than that it resembles nothing of a horse.

So, what then, was the appeal, the draw, the sanity that would take me to a place like Pony? My best friend Megan. I spent the weekend visiting where she grew up, where she works, and where she is spending the summer. The place is beautiful and even my pictures betray its exquisite creation. It rocked because we went camping in the middle of it all. It sucked because for the first time in my life I decided to have allergies.
Okay, Claratin, Benadryl, Walgreens... It's all rubbish. I took like five of everything and the only relief I felt was this funky anti-histamine drunkenness that made it dangerously impossible to roast marshmallows. Then when I decided to retire to the tent, I discovered we planted it on like a 50 degree slope so all my sinuses were tragically impaled because my snot ran all the way to the back of my brain. Miserable is hardly the adjective.
In the morning I was slightly coherent enough to have an incredible conversation with Megan's mentor and family friend Krystal. We discussed politics, drinking, pregnancy and evangelism. This woman carried a heart for God like none other, and she reminded me that it is the Kindness of God that leads us to repentance. Beautiful.
For the first time over those first 24 congested hours I looked around to discover Grace. Visible to the eye in the simple complexity of the flowers, the gentle anthem of the stream and the glorious location of Pony Montana. God is so kind. Even when we have allergies.

Mesa-me-happy

Here I am complaining about a Pharmacy, and musing over what to write, when I have a number of things to blog about. Consider this installment one: Arizona.
I had never visited this great arid state before and was pleasantly surprised when I landed there a few weeks ago to spend seven days with my friend. After an enchanting introduction to 115 degrees of delicious perspiration, I got down to business. I was there for one purpose, to preach the Word of God to some adolescent females at a girl's retreat in Pinetop AZ. Those of you who have known me for like three seconds know this is what makes me tick. Seeing young women set free to live pure, amazing, beautiful, divine, Jesus-saturated, whole, lovely, God-enormous lives... and by golly, since I had something to say about it, I was going to encourage them to do so the only way I knew how: making an absolute fool out of myself whilst talking about Jesus and reading the Word of God. To my unabashed surprised... they didn't mind. In fact, they liked me! (insert warm happy fuzzies here)

The retreat was called 'FLOURISH' and although I went to minister to some high school girls, I didn't bargain on having my life changed! Throughout the entire 54 hours we were on this mountain, God showed up big time. Girls shared their stories, they made new friends, they ate lots of chocolate, they prayed with Holy Spirit insight, they decided to live for God, they had revelations of what it was all about, they got intimate with Jesus, they took steps toward freedom, they got an glimpse of who they are: the beautiful daughters of a King who were born to make manifest the glory of God. And SHAZAM! in the meantime, God ruined me for the ordinary. Something like this has to happen in Missoula. Stay tuned.

What a rip off!

So when I first re-entered the United States I was super excited to watch TV again. I'm sorry but dodgey public Australian TV leaves much to be desired for the cultural pop-trend overload found on all 50+ channels delivered to my tube here in the states. What intrigued me most about my re-introduction to channel surfing was the commercials. One in particular. For Walgreens. They left me breathless.
Imagine a perfect world where your neighbors brought you flowers everyday and your house never had a speck of dust. It was Christmas all year round and sugar plums and fairies danced all the time and you never had to go to work or pay your bills. This is seriously what the commercial portrayed. Then it said "In the real world, there's Walgreens". I was gone.
Did Walgreens really have dancing fairies? I was convinced this place was magical. When I heard Missoula was getting one I flipped! I was so excited to go check out this amazing place of luxurious enchantment.
Yesterday was my day. I visited it at the corner of Reserve... but I was sorely disappointed. I'm here to make it known that Walgreen's is a fraud! There was nothing magical about the place, except that maybe it carried four more brands of toothpaste than Target does. I was so upset I left... without any fairy dust, without any flowers, without flying. I just want to let you all know that Walgreens is deceiving and that you shouldn't watch their commercials. They will lead you astray and make you cry. The end.

This blog thing takes it out of me!

Gee Whiz Wally. I have like, what? three posts on this thing and already I'm scrambling for ideas of what to blog about? Maybe my creative crisis is due to the fact that my other friends have such brilliant blogs, that I simply cannot match their astounding genius. You should check these literal works of art...

www.bottleofwhoop.blogspot.com - my heroine writes this one
www.knitload.blogspot.com - makes me laugh, takes my breath away cause she's GENIUS!
www.theveve.blogspot.com - beautiful daughter of a king has insights and honesty for all
www.livinginthelight.blogspot.com - Funniest woman in my world authors the awesomest blog!
(is 'awesomest' a word?)
www.lancefisher.blogspot.com - basically the best blogger in the world. no contest!
www.chialpha.blogspot.com - everyone knows how obsessed I am with this Chi Alpha thing... who knew it came in a friendly websurfer's version?
www.ohiodawa.blogspot.com - pretty much the most entertaining to-date...
www.freelancepoedry.blogspot.com - THIS HAS TO BE THE MOST CREATIVE BRILLIANT FUNNY BEAUTIFUL WONDERFUL FEEL GOOD INSPIRATIONAL BLOG EVER!!!!! it's pretty good...

So here I am reading all of these awesome brainschilds and what am I thinking about when I try to sit down and write a blog? How I could invent a dryer that dries in half the time... which might be scary for the care of your clothing. How great John Mayer's lyrics are "these days I wish I were six again, oh make me a red cape. I wanna be superman"... but actually I'd probably wish to be WonderWoman. Seriously, though, who could pull off her outfit? What will I wear tomorrow? I should really be vacuuming. Dogs get all the luck. Mine sits at home ALL day and gets pampered, gets attention, gets fed on a silver platter (I'm exaggerating). Maybe I'll invent a robot that can sit in the mall and make smoothies for people. Then I could sit at home and get pampered, get attention...Laughing at how scared my friend is of moths. Mental note: buy film. Thinking of good opening lines for a short story: Marci was the type of person who felt sorry for inatimate objects and grieved over tossing the bottle of lotion that still carried the few impossible drops to squeeze out. Severely Random, but it has potential... possibly... Pondering what Pony will be like (I'm visiting this weekend.) Oh I think the my laundry is done. Peace out.