I'm sitting here, with a stack of things to do (literally, I should take a picture. The stack's high). But I'm taking a 15-minute mental break, as my friends at Red Cross say.

I love being busy. Anyone who has known me for more than two seconds knows this about me. If I'm not running in 5 different directions, I get slouchy, grumpy, and lazy. But over the past 2 years, I've been looking for something to really commit to. Something where I can take a leadership role and work hard. So, back in December, I applied to serve on one of the Engage! Charlotte committees as well as one of the Club Red committees.

Here's what's funny. Both of them accepted me. The exact same week.

For anyone who doesn't know what these two organizations are, here's the nutshell. Engage! Charlotte is the young professionals arm of the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce. The purpose is to create activities that will grow job opportunities for young pros and retain talent to the city of Charlotte. As someone who's lived here for 15 years, now, you could say I might have a small passion for this. Plus, I'm a huge Economics geek.

Club Red is the young pros arm of the Red Cross. I have been volunteering off and on with Red Cross over the past couple of years, and have a very good working relationship with them as well, so when I heard they needed help, of course I jumped on it! You all know how attimate I am about helping good, solid nonprofits.

Both of these will suck up a lot of my time. I love this. But it will also mean backing off in other areas. And, I've found, it has led to a few more 15-minute mental breaks.

Break over.

Boys are stupid. Throw rocks at them.

When I was in college, I lived on a sorority hall with 48 other women. Break-ups were pretty frequent. So, my sorority Big Sister would make these cookie cakes with a great big "boys suck" on them and we would rent movies, get some sugary sodas and pizza, and gorge on the cookie cake. Best therapy ever.

I had a philosophy on break-ups and how to get over them which I frequently shared with my sisters. Find one reason you dated, and one reason you broke up. Throw the rest of the reasons away. This helps you find one thing worthy enough of the guy to stay friends, but one thing that will keep you from having that desire to get back with him.

Since college, I've dated 4 guys, none of them very seriously. I've been seriously interested in 2 others that I never dated. And I continue searching for these reasons. But one of them, I haven't been able to give that consideration. I feel the hatred welling when his name is even mentioned. I can find a list of "break up" reasons for a list long enough to stretch across the Carolinas, but can't think of anything other than "I made a huge mistake." And what's worse than just hating him, I have this horrible attitude about a lot of the people who surround him. It drags me into this horrible place that I can't get out of.

Please pray for me. That I can forgive him, forgive myself, and find a way to be who I really am again.

Thoughts about last night

If you don't know what was last night, click here.

A couple of us "girls" were talking at dinner afterwards about how depressed we were about the message. It was upsetting.

In a two second summary, Voddie talked about how we should strive for families and to raise our children in good Christian homes. That discipleship should start at home first.

If you were a single woman sitting there last night, probably all you remember is the part where your number one job is to be a wife and raise the kids. And even for those of us career driven/career obsessed women, it made us a little sad.

Men, don't let the girls fool you. We all want to be wives and moms. Even that crazy girl that you think is just out to sleep around. She just wants to be loved. She just hasn't found the guy patient enough to learn what's inside of her.

So, I want an opinion.

I have two options (I will probably look into a third as well).

1-Keep everything the same, and have my car paid off in May
2-Transfer a high interest credit card into my car loan, and pay off my car and the credit card in 22 months, saving $150/month until May, but after that, adding $120+ per month from what I would've been spending without the car.

In the long run, option 2 would save me on interest if I paid the minimum payment, but option 1 would mean freeing up cash so I could make larger payments.

Thoughts?

I feel like the time for me to move has come.

But I'm not ready.

So you don't think I'm crazy...

Yes, I hate the mast to this blog, too.  I don't have any money to spend on a new blog, but I'm trying to fix this one so it's not so, er, unattractive.  So, I decided to try and fix the mast first.  I'm not insane with bad taste, I promise.  Just don't always know how to get my stuff to look like I have good taste.

Will post photos soon.  Promise.

After a lot of stress, debate, and wondering, I made the decision to go to the NoDa School of the Arts benefit this year for New Year's Eve.

I had two groups of friends throwing huge New Year's parties, and I felt like this decision was making me pick between them.  When it came down to it, I decided that it's time for me to settle down, act like a big girl, and commit.  And that meant going to the same party two years in a row.

Last night, on New Year's Day, a friend was having people over to watch the games.  Since USC had already made a miserable showing, my night consisted mainly of talking and catching up with people.  It was the same group of friends from New Year's, even though a few of them had done a midnight run instead of the party, but most of my night on New Year's had consisted of dancing and making my way around the room to at least say "hi" to everyone, so I looked forward to the chance to catch up.

As I was talking to one of my newer friends--we've known each other for about 3 weeks--the question, as it always is asked, of "where are you from" came up.

This is always a difficult question for me to answer, since at this point I could probably consider myself from Rock Hill, except for the fact that I graduated from Clover High.  Add in several moves before that, and I'm used to only being in the same spot for 4 years, max.

So, this new friend asked me a question right out that I can honestly say I had never been asked before.  "Do you find it difficult to make deep connections with people?"

And the pure and simple answer is, yes.

I love people, anyone who has ever met me knows this, but I have a hard time letting people in.  I'm usually ready to move on after a year or two, I don't like to get close enough that someone associates me with a "clique," and my longest relationship was 3 months.

So this year, as a New Year's resolution, I've decided to try and commit more, particularly with girl friends.  I've decided that, like my New Year's, it's time for me to be a big girl and let people in more.