okay yes, interwebs. I’ve avoided you long enough.

Have you ever had so much to say that  you knew if you started writing you’d never stop and no one would read it and your fingers would go on strike and then you’d be unable to do anything like a normal person?!!? well?!!

I have. Lately. But I’m not going to write all of that on here. It’s all experience, and my words right now are flowing from the fingers of the person who experienced them. So that’s translation enough, for you. Bah.

The foremost things on my mind right now? Seeing Jonathan tomorrow and how much I love kittens.

My parents got home from church around 11.

Then we made sausage gravy and biscuits – southern styyyyyle!

To make sausage gravy like a true southerner you need: Jimmy Dean Sage Sausage, milk, flour, salt, butter, a well seasoned skillet.

• brown the sausage patties in skillet – this step is more about getting sausage flavor and sausage remnants on the skillet than actually making sausage. take the sausage out of the pan and set aside.
• turn the heat to low; add a couple pats of butter to the skillet.
• After the butter melts and turns slightly golden, use a whisk or something to scrape up the sausage bits that are on the skillet and mix them with the melted butter… add a couple tbsp. flour and give it a stir.
• In a mason jar, put two cups of milk and two heaping tbsp. flour and SHAKE WELL! this is a thickening agent and provides most of the body of the gravy.
• By this time, the flour in the skillet should be golden and bubbly, so slowly add the milk mixture while STIRRING.
• Turn the heat up, all the while stirring while it gains a gravy-like texture (thick).
• Add salt and pepper to taste and add some crumbled sausage (from the first step). Serve it over hot biscuits! Throw some apple butter on the table, for the rest of the biscuits, of course.

*if you like thinner gravy, add more milk.

I hope you enjoy this recipe!!!  It is simple and delicious and will make your morning glorious.

I’ve had the flu for four days, which means i feel like I just woke up from being asleep for 3 days. I missed lots of things, but mostly being with people.

And my mother is driving me crazy. Absolutely crazy.

Don’t ask, I couldn’t even begin to explain it to you. Just believe me. Do you ever feel like you’re just going to scream? I mean really….. just SCREAM!!

Good news? Oh yes.

Cale and Elisha made me a Kahlua cake today and brought it over while I was stewing in sickness. They are so thoughtful and amazing and I can’t believe I have such good friends!

For the record, my mom made me homemade soup and has been my constant nursemaid, but that doesn’t change the fact that she drives me insane. I’m sticking to that.

Sorry for the grumpishness. Honesty is my policy, after all.

I’m alright, I really am.  My world is just teeter-tottering on the edge of academic, financial, and emotional chaos, is all. Believe me, it sounds worse than it actually is. Emotion is my middle name – tears are almost vital to my existence.

I was talking to JoAnna about today – right after I lost it and started sobbing in her room.  I see it like this: I used to be really bitter. I used to be skeptical of people and their intentions, and had a pretty ominous looking wall set up against all persons who might be capable of wounding me further.  God is the Healer – He is healing me of that. I acknowledge this. What I didn’t figure in were the consequences of such a catharsis. When you unplug your finger from the hole in the dam, the flood breaks the whole thing down.  My bitterness was the finger in the hole.

I am happier than I have ever been (eerrr… that I can remember), and sadder, and angrier.  I can feel again, praise the Lord. I can feel it all. It’s just that missing Jonathan is the hardest thing to feel.

Wahhhh wah, Angie. Yeah, I know. I’ll stop. Really this is a good thing. But boy, do I miss him.

Anyways, these last few weeks have been rediculous and zany and moody, but so so sweet.  Family, German food, Apples, friends, autoharp, new hair, gettin’ stuff DONE, moving on…. all good things, all in good time.  Howsabout sum pichurz.

Now let me explain.

Last week in chapel, a man asked the collective captive audience “who among you is truly happy with the life that you have?” My hand shot up impulsively, scarily fast.  And that’s when I knew that God had changed me.

I mean, let’s be honest (thanks, Cale), “truly happy?” That’s a pair of heavy words. And my spirit answered, not my slowpoke mind. In fact, when my mind caught up with my spirit and my body, I took my hand down and scolded it for not thinking the action through.  But I realized that I was being honest -  the truth is, I am truly happy with my life.  Travel back a year ago and ask that Angie if she’s happy.  She won’t give you a straight answer; she’ll rather pace through her mind, sorting the good and the bad, weighing in, convincing herself that things are not as bad as she feels them to be. But God has been working on me for a loooong while. Change crept up on me, with a sneak attack vengeance, happiness – no, joy – relieved my spirit  of a depression that did not belong to it. Praise the Lord.

So Hallelujah says the Hebrew.  Allelujah says the Greek.  Praise the Lord. But not just praise.

A Hallel is a praise that sacrifices the individual’s entire existence, and adopts a lifestyle of an outpouring of love. Praise the Lord by pouring yourself out as Jesus did – loving.

And the red thread and needle? Psalm139:5 says

“You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.”

I am just recently learning to recieve this truth. It didn’t just begin to be true – it’s been true forever; I’m the one that’s just catching up. Plus, I’m learning to sew, and costume design is a huge part of my life right now. So there.

So will I be happy every second of every day? Nope, it’s just not going to happen. But there is a deeper change that has happened here – and I am a daughter of the King that did this in me.

haypee fayce

dark chocolate

the photography of the Polaroid Kidd

Tiny image, sry

*gushes* this album is so great! believe it!

Just some things to keep me smilin’

• mini-muffins are small, bite sized, and non-committal.
• regular muffins are large and  involve at least a half-hour of commitment, in which the participant usually has at least one guilty thought such as ”I should be eating an apple instead”
• mini-muffins are free
• regular muffins are not
• mini-muffins get to have a hyphen in their title
• regular muffins have no outstanding marks of any kind in their name
• mini-muffins make people happy
• I guess regular muffins could do that too. Foiled again.

Well, for the most part, mini-muffins are pretty super.

so there.

Yesterday was a really great, much needed get-down-with-the-fam time. Will explain in more detail later!

P.S. I’m at work. It’s 7:41 AM. I’ve been here for an hour and a half and just had my first customer. yay Labor Day!

lurves.

no death, no glory.

Here I go a-drowning – time for self to be laid to rest.

you know it.

When I am with you we stay up all night.

When you’re not here, I can’t go to sleep.

Praise God for these two kinds of insomnia and the difference between them.

-Rumi

I’ve only been away from Jonathan for over a week now, but I’m already experiencing a little phantom limb syndrome.  Something’s missing. My best friend is physically missing.

But last night Bethany and JoAnna poured into me their love and sweet laughter, and I forgot to be secretly sad.  Partially because I was able to be openly sad – they let me rant about how I miss Jonathan; they even let me talk about our courtship, stories that I know JoAnna has heard over and over.  Throw in some Thai food, a freak chocolate craving run, and watching JoAnna learn to use chopsticks, and it was one capitol evenin’.  Good gals.

And tonight Mandy came over. It was her birfday – hooooorays!  We got sparkly temporary tattoos and made quesadillas. It was nice to have company and to just  be.  She is a gem of a person.

Basically, I’m blessed beyond all reason to have these people, these friends around me while I’m pathetically wallowing in “I-miss-my-fiance” land.  But God knows that this need is real; and He is faithful for even seemingly small things.  It makes it easier to trust Him with big ole gigantic things.

JoAnna found a blue heron feather and gave it to me!! I felt so honored and immediately initiated it into my feather collection after looking it up on The Feather Atlas – go there to see what kind of feather you found by the ocean or in your back yard!

I am going to dinner tonight with some lovely loverlies – Bethany and JoAnna.  To Doc Chey’s or Whatever! It’s mine and Jonathan’s spot, but alas… he’s on the other side of the country, so I substituted him with some beautiful women for tonight. Yeehaw.