good morning.

he watches over you
he is your shade at your right hand
the sun will not harm you by day
nor the moon at night
he will keep you from all harm
he will watch over your life
he will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore
p121

i've had tons of blog worthy thoughts these last few weeks.. days.. just didn't have time to convert them into comprehensible thought pieces in digital form. even now i'm simultaneously untangling my hair, pulling on socks, and trying to find something that matches to wear for work (need to be out the door asap!!) but regardless of what i write or what pseudo-thought provoking ideas i have, the answer (like in all bible study discussions = ] ) is always god. and so this is my prayer for today..

god i don't always understand the things that go on in this world, in this country, in my circle of friends, in my life... but i believe that you are merciful, that you are just, and above all else, that you love us so much. so i pray for wisdom to acknowledge you in all things and a heart that longs to serve you and others in a way that glorifies your name.

dear lord,

my desire is to wake up with praises on my lips.
my desire is to be overwhelmed by your creation.
my desire is to pray consistently for the ones i love.
my desire is to talk with you as if you were always by my side.
my desire is to have a heart full of joy and thankfulness for your mercy and grace.
my desire is to cherish this brief time i have on earth with my family and friends.
my desire is to be satisfied with only you alone.
my desire is to convey the passion i feel in my soul through my actions.
my desire is to go to sleep whispering your name.

lord, you put these things in my heart and with your help, make them happen.
i love you. amen.

oil change in 200 more miles.

my parents came to visit me this weekend.. yay! it's becoming harder and harder to find time to go home and visit these days..

after they left, my entire neighborhood lost power for about an hour. no big deal.. i just turned off my laptop, lit a few candles and decided i was gonna do what the amish do and go to sleep early. i also started thinking a little bit more than usual because that's what happens when i'm not staring at a glowing screen all day = ]

i love being with my parents. i don't really notice it but there's a lot of things to think about when i'm living on my own - whether my refrigerator's stocked with things i can easily grab on my way out to work, if my bills are all paid on time, that my car gets an oil change every 5000 miles, i'm scheduled for dentist appointments every 6 months... it seems like at least for a moment, all that load is taken off when i'm with my parents. i guess that's just the mentality i've gotten used to growing up.. as long as my mom and dad are around, i have nothing to worry about.

before they drove up, my mom called to ask me if i still had enough toothpaste.. shampoo.. spaghetti sauce.. socks.. warm sweaters.. hehee

but jesus says, if you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him. i definitely think that my parents fall pretty low on the evil scale but in comparison, christ is infinitely more loving and caring than they could ever be. how crazy is that!? that his love is more deep and more wide than the love of these two people who would do anything for me. my prayer today is that i learn to put even more trust in my god..


things that i love today:
freshly ground coffee
vanilla torani syrup
pandora -playing music like yiruma
spiral bound notebooks

what do you love today?

queen helene is coming to visit tonight.

it's nearly 8pm right now and it seems like the day should start winding down from here on out but i can't help but feel more stressed than i did when i woke up this morning. i have about a million more chapters of reading to get through before the end of the week, my room is a mess and my parents are coming to visit this weekend (yay!!), i have emails to reply that are long overdue, and just about 349857209 more things on my mind than i have room for. ahhh!!! what happened to the days when i could watch house marathons all night on the usa channel and spend hours working on a paint project?! meh.

..thank god for speaking through pandora amidst ringing phonelines and crashing pots and pans ^_< hahaa just kidding. i haven't heard this song in long time and was just reminded of how much i like it:


Find Me Here
Speak To Me
I want to feel you
I need to hear you
You are the light
That's leading me
To the place where I find peace again.

You are the strength, that keeps me walking.
You are the hope, that keeps me trusting.
You are the light to my soul.
You are my purpose...you're everything.

How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?

You calm the storms, and you give me rest.
You hold me in your hands, you won't let me fall.
You steal my heart, and you take my breath away.
Would you take me in? Take me deeper now?

How can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?
And how can I stand here with you and not be moved by you?
Would you tell me how could it be any better than this?

Cause you're all I want, You're all I need
You're everything,everything
You're all I want your all I need
You're everything, everything.
You're all I want you're all I need.
You're everything, everything
You're all I want you're all I need, you're everything, everything.

(lifehouse)


despite having to work on weekends, i'm thankful for my job.
despite living away from family, i'm thankful for fellowship.
despite emerging stress pimples, i'm thankful for his love that says .every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the father of heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.



and if you've never tried queen helene's mint julep face mask, it does great things for pimples :D

the beginning of the rest of my lif.. 2 years

first day of [grad] school tomorrow!!

maybe i'm way too old for this but i miss the years when my mom would have to wake me up several times in the morning to get ready for school.. sometimes she'd lay out my clothes on my bed so i wouldn't even have to think about what i'm pulling over my head - or whether my top and bottom matched. in elementary school, me and my sister would pick out hair ties for my mom to put in our hair while we ate breakfast. and then, if we weren't being sent off to the bus stop, we'd be rolling into the minivan on our way to school. of course, if it were the beginning of the school year, our new backpacks would be filled with folders, notebooks, binder paper and sharpened pencils and a new box of crayons to stock my desk with. oh yes, and lunch. my mom always made my lunch for me :D

fast forward 15 years. first day of school.. i scrounged around my room for a blank notebook unused because i slept through most of the psych 1 class i'd originally intended it for. found a few pens and pencils and stuffed them into the front pocket of my backpack. lunch? ehh. i'll probably just stop at in n out before class. no back to school clothes shopping. no cute folders with smiley pikachus on the cover. no ride to school....

don't get me wrong - i'm sUper excited about going back to school.. in davis of all places! all the events that led to me getting the (emailed) acceptance letter to grad school has been a crazy god blessing in every single aspect. i really can't be any more happy = ] a part of me just misses being a stinky kid at home.. coming in and out of the house knowing my mom's always gonna be there.

rats. i believe this is what people call .homesickness.

nevertheless, SUPER excited for tomorrow!!!

faith and salmon

i think this is an appropriate follow-up post to my (lack of) exercising entry:

last night after work, i decided to go pick up some salmon roulettes (sUper delicious with a great price) for dinner at trader joe's. (luckily i was able to find parking at the folsom blvd location before the slough of vehicles that followed closely behind me)

after entering the store, i made a straight beeline towards the frozen seafood section and grabbed 2 packs of salmon. ..not that they ever run out of anything, because that is the awesomeness that is TJs ^_< afterwards, i went to check out what frozen desserts i could potentially fortify my evening meal with when i was approached by this big beefy looking dude. at first i thought he was just gonna grab a box of mochi ice cream but instead he looked at me a little surprised and said, "heyy weren't you just at gold's gym??" oh mann.. i nearly died with surprise first of all because going to the gym is not something i would subject myself to. ever. and second, do i look like i go to the gym?! i have a coworker who calls me .veal. purely because of my lack of muscle tone. hahaa so instead of raising one eyebrow and saying ::what?! you kidding me?!!:: i laughed politely and mentioned that he'd mistaken me for someone else.

walking away, my first thought was dang, that was weird. later i decided it was probably the best compliment i could ever receive.. someone thinks i work out!! as ironic as that sounds, i like it. unfortunately, logic set in pretty quickly and realized that he probably just saw another asian girl and decided we were all the same person.

excellent.

haha i guess i should also mention that due to craziness of schedule and other sorts of things i do, i haven't turned on my wii fit in about a month. >_<


another reason why i have no time for physical activity is due to the following:


people keep telling me to put these up for sale, which honestly doesn't sound too bad at this moment with tuition and all >_< but i think one of the reasons why i love making these little monster dudes is because i love giving them away.. i really wouldn't know how to put a price on them because the sum of all the materials is seriously less than $2. and for some people, relaxation and de-stressing means working out (HA), reading, doing laundry.. for me, it's making yards of fleece come alive = ] so... instead of setting up an etsy shop or self advertising, i think i'll just keep them for myself until someone worthy of monster possession comes along.

also... i've been thinking a lot more about missions lately.. maybe because it's been such a huge point at dccc and acacia this summer ^_< but really thinking about the little talents that god's blessed me with and how that all works in the whole scheme of matthew 28:16. i'm beginning to really believe that this mentality i have of what life should be like has so much been bent by a culture that has gone so far from what god originally set out for us. i mean, when someone can't stand to throw away food because of .starving kids in africa. do you really believe that? that child slavery and human trafficking occur across the ocean and maybe even in your neighboring city? that water is a scarcity elsewhere and something as common as diarrhea after mcdonald's can mean death for millions of individuals? a lot of times when i think about it really hard, i get really cynical and frustrated over why these terrible things exist. i mean, using john 9 to explain suffering really doesn't do it for me when innocence is sacrificed so crudely. how will god's glory be revealed in all this?? and yet we are called to continually serve the weak, and the poor, and the orphans, and the hungry.. with the spirit of god and the strength of his love.. that's big!

so what about wanting to finish a master's program or working a full time job or wanting to raise a family in a home with a super awesome kitchen? i don't think these are necessarily dreams that come solely from the american culture rather than a desire that god's implanted in me. the difference is how i live this life to give him all the glory. and that's how i started thinking of how i can also contribute to this global operation carrying out god's love to others. mm.. i don't have any answers right now but i'm getting more and more excited to see how god would reveal his heart to me.



where a little faith's enough to see mountains lift and move.
how cool is that?!

so much good stuff!

crazies! i was featured on the front page of the sacramento bee today for my monster making skills.

FYIs for the DIYers

By Carlos Alcalá
calcala@sacbee.com

Published: Monday, Aug. 31, 2009 - 12:00 am | Page 1D

Deborah Lee was a senior at the University of California, Davis, when she sewed a little monster doll and took photos to show friends how she did it.

She was going to use her brother-in-law's online photo album Web site – mixbook.com – when he asked whether she'd heard of Instructables.

She became hooked.

At www.instructables.com, do-it-yourselfers share their expertise on everything from making fresh mozzarella to making bookshelves from cardboard, from tapping a watermelon for its juice to making your own audio speakers.

That makes it the do-it-yourself counterpart to blogging, YouTube, Wikipedia and the many other parts of Web 2.0 that enable people to put their individual stamps on the broader consciousness.

Such efforts have changed all media as newspapers and TV embraced citizen participation in providing content. In a salute to average experts like Lee, The Bee is publishing her step-by-step instructions on how to make a monster friend.

Instructables is as much for sharing your own work as for picking up tips, said Instructables chief executive Eric Wilhelm, who co-founded the site in 2006 with a bunch of high-tech engineers in the Bay Area.

"I'm always on the (Instructables) Web site," said Lee, who works in the nutrition department at Mercy General Hospital in Sacramento. "There are always really good ideas on there. Some people are really creative."

Lee is modest about her efforts, but she is among the creative. She contributed (under the screen name cuteaznprincesss) a simple way to make the monster dolls.

Instructables, which gets 4 million unique visits per month, featured her idea. More than 100 users complimented the project, and some showed photos of how they'd followed it.

"Someone made it out of a sock, which is kind of gross," Lee said.

She also provided instructions for making a decorated shoe rack from a fruit box because, she wrote, "not many of us own a Carrie Bradshaw-sized closet with walls devoted exclusively for our humble collection of footwear."

Lee has made three of them for her tiny east Sacramento apartment.

The uses for Instructables are myriad.

However, this report was not produced with the aid of the Instructables project titled, "Write a creative nonfiction article in 10 difficult steps."

so hilarious..