Balancing Procrastination

Moving

2009-03-11T14:26:00.001-07:00

Hi

I am no longer at this address since I am no longer leahalouie or Balancing Procrastination

Wont you join me at my new blog site

http://marriedinamerica.blogspot.com/

Thanks

one year

2009-02-02T17:24:00.000-08:00

one year ago today i met my honey
last night at midnight my honey suprised me with my laptop all fixed and tuned up

today i found out that my laptop wont let me on facebook, hotmail or blogspot...all the things i love the the most on the internet so i resort back to my honeys computer

tomorow i hope it will be fixed so i can post some pictures

one year sure goes by fast

Hello

2009-01-23T08:29:00.000-08:00

So the stew was yummy, I think we ate it for the next week and even got Ava to try some. I ended up making another soup 3 or 4 days later...I am seeing that soups are a hit at my house since they are easily re-heated without the use of a microwave.

My computer is still broken and Tim's computer is too old to except my memory card or the right USB cord to transfer pictures so I still wait until the day I can show some more current pictures of life on my new Island.

It feels like it is becoming more home to me here. These last 3 months have been bit of a hard transition...ya I get to be with Tim and am married but sometimes I miss everyone at home more then I can handle. Some days I wish I could just call up my friend Leah and then show up at her house 20 mins later or walk in the mall and see 2 or 3 people that I just know ! But with that being said God has faithfully provided me with a new family of people...good people, annoying people, friendly and interesting people and I am extremly glad for that. I asked him for a friend around my age since most tend to be a lot older right now and for that I am still waiting.

I think when I get my social security number it will be even better because then I will be able to work...ohhh how I miss working...the mailbox has become my best friend, i check that thing religiously every day at 3:30...so if you ever want to send me mail I will gladly except.
xoxo, Leaha

Stew

2009-01-14T15:41:00.000-08:00

I wanted to start with some new photos today

but my husband didnt want me to bring my computer in until he looked at it first, he has a "fix it complex" that didnt come into effect until now ( my computer has been broken for 2 months). I told him I would probably have to pay some money to bring my laptop back to life so now he wants to help, go figure!

But anyways I am going to venture into making some stew, it was suppose to be lamb, but lamb is too expensive so it will be beef.

I will tell ya'll how it went once I have accomplished my task.

Change.

2009-01-13T20:48:00.000-08:00

I have been thinking

Thinking that I don’t write here enough

When I first started this blog I was a single girl living in Vancouver Canada with my vegan red headed roommate.

Now I am married living on a little Island in the US with my curly haired electrician husband and his own version of Dakota Fanning 6 year old daughter.

I want to perhaps start a new blog

A blog about my new life

A life which consists of lots of dish washing, laundry folding, church activities and meal creation.

Doesn’t sound as interesting as it could be but I didn’t think that looking at my friends feet for a week would be exciting yet it was.

I was thinking of starting a new blog that discusses my newness to being a wife, step mother and homemaker (I am still a student and that takes up a lot of my time too).

I was thinking of talking about my newness to cooking meals which I try to do about every second day, some are good many are failures...tonight was "outstanding" in the words of my husband...good ole chicken pot pie.

I want to add pictures (which means I need to get my butt down to a computer repair shop since mine is broken :( )

I want to share with ya'll how I have been living in a construction site since I have been married...right now I sit on a couch that sits on plywood with a sledgehammer, broom, huge garbage tin, electrical tools and nails all around.

I want to share how I will one day decorate this place (believe me it needs help)

I want to share my new life with my old life friends who are still my present friends.

I want to copy my friend Leah and do a "week in my shoes" post.

Tuesday

2009-01-06T09:48:00.000-08:00

Last week was horrible

This week has been amazing

Things are better :)

What!

2009-01-01T11:34:00.000-08:00

I feel as if I am living someone elses life right now, more specifically in these last 24 hours.

I had a crappy crappy new years eve day and night
anD
I had a wonderful realization of Gods love.

My husband did something yesterday that now requires consequences to his actions, leaving me alone and semi worried ( only because I dont have any information on his situation/condition) but along with the heaviness in my heart there is a comfort.

God has shown me how much he cares for me by sending people my way or sending me to people as a strength and reassurance of his plan.

I have felt more loved in these last 24 hours by God's people here in Anacortes then ever before.

Doors have been opened
Food has been served
Shoulders have been given
Prayers have been said

and the majority of my anger and fear has dissolved...

I feel completely bare and motionless right now as I am unaware of what my next task is...should I do laundry, should I take the dog for a walk, should I eat, should I pray, should I cry, should I pretend nothing happened, should I prepare for when he comes home, should I just sit and be still?

I want this to be a dream, I want to wake up next to the man I love and forget these past two days.

Update

2008-12-29T17:20:00.001-08:00

A year ago around exactly this time I started chatting with someone who would drastically change my life.
9 months and 16 days that someone shared their feelings of love towards me.
A little less then 7 months ago my love asked me to be there's forever
About 2 1/2 months ago we got married

Post Wedding

2008-12-23T13:08:00.001-08:00

GAHHHH

who invented thank you cards?

Cant I just phone everyone and say it?

Dinner

2008-12-12T11:24:00.000-08:00

If you know me then you know that I am not much of a cook. I have been trying alot lately and have somewhat succeed at; lasagna, Shepard's pie, spaghetti and recently enchiladas ( i didn't eat the lasagna though)

Today I will try to conquer a new dish

trusty ole meatloaf.

I am not even sure if I like it or if i have even eaten it before, but I think I heard my husband say that he likes it so its worth the try...apparently many websites have encouraged me to make it alongside cornbread and mashed potatoes....

hopefully the gym can overcome what appears to be a very yummy unhealthy dinner tonight.

No Mas

2008-12-07T15:05:00.001-08:00

How do you study when you have a final tomorow?

You dont

Your read trash instead

Sunday Nights

2008-12-01T22:39:00.000-08:00

My husband plays an open mic night Sundays quite regularly at a local bar called the Watertown. He is quite amazing but that’s not the point of my thoughts at the moment.
I usually find myself sitting alone being a consumer/observer/fan of the talent that comes together to live out their passions.

Tonight I find myself being an observer of the others in the bar.

There aren’t many.
I am one of two females present, the other is a lady wearing a leopard print mooo moo type dress and a rain man’s hat, she is quite inebriated. Later on I will learn her name is Lydia and she will ask me to dance with her, kindly I will say no. She is sitting next to two men, one is an older gentlemen totally lost in the music ( I wonder what he thinks, maybe he had dreams of playing the electric guitar when he was younger, maybe he never pursued it or was never encouraged to) the other is a younger guy with curly hair down to his butt covered with a blue fleecy toque… later he will bring out his trumpet to jam with the rest of the musicians.

There are two young men who look like they stereotypically belong in this place, they are covered with tattoos and piercing. You can tell they are there for the music and the beer, they sit in the beaten up lounge chairs closest to the stage..you can tell this is a place they feel comfort in.

The singer I like is about to play a song alongside my love, so there my attention goes, my ears, my senses and my thoughts wanna be carried away to the song he sing, the song I requested.
There is nothing better then live music, good live music
He sings Redemption Song by Bob Marley
and he does a beautiful rendition.

I wanna close my eyes and get carried away by the words he sings ,
But I wont because I cant, because just as I am looking at the people in the bar I feel there eyes watching me and it makes me uncomfortable, it makes me feel vulnerable, so i do my best to brush it off and I go back to watching the singer sing, and my bass man play and the words fill my heart and I feel moved inside.

Today

2008-11-28T19:16:00.000-08:00

I love how the simplest of days can be the most brilliant.

We woke up late today, like 1 pm style late and began a day of cleaning and reorganizing (Jenn style)

He made me my favorite eggs coupled with the most delicious food ever invented.

TOAST.

I choose the kitchen and bedroom therefore eliminating the bathrooms from my list (they are boy type gross, plus he dirties them more then me) ... As I washed dishes I thought of how good it feels to be in this new season of life.

I love the;

New paint colours (orange, brown, coffee, red, and olive)
New floors
New organization
New fridge (hopefully)
New cream in the fridge
New step daughter

New (older) husband
New country (although sometimes i do have my worries about becoming Americanized)

Everything is fresh, beautiful, innocent, fragile, calm and overwhelming all the while being a great challenge and a non deserving expression of GODS love towards us.

I feel so unworthy but have a huge heart of graditude and awe at the same time.

Love is good but

GOD
IS
BETTER.

photo by leah tan

Back In Action

2008-11-26T18:56:00.001-08:00

Have you ever thought it was strange how ones emotions can go from feeling; lonely, hurt, angered, betrayed, unsure to completely happy, blessed, excited and then back to upset and unrest again?

Maybe you've never felt that before or you have had a variation of such, but it has happened to me recently and has completely derailed my sense of sanity and balance.

I have had moments when I have wanted to write but just can’t seem to make any sense of my thoughts or don’t want to write them down because they might convince me that i really am crazy or something close to it.

I like words, I like thoughts and imagination and insight and writing and balance and reading all of my friends blog's and sleeping in. I don’t like feeling purposeless or unbalanced or unfriendly or unthankful or unhappy.

I am in the most wonderful season of my life, shheeesh sometimes its mind-blowing and exhilarating and great and i want to share it with everyone but I don’t know how cause everyone i know is far away and/or what if they don’t believe me and what if they don’t care and what if i am not in the mood to share?

My thoughts are all over the place, but you get the point right?

Love is great, friends are great so is reading and hugging and sharing and eating pasta together, I just got married and that is even more then great, its humbling, warm, scary, beautiful, passionate, quiet and more then anything that i could ever have dreamed of.

photo by Leah Tan

life

2008-11-01T14:07:00.000-07:00

everything is wonderful

just

wonderful

Moving Time 2

2008-08-25T12:12:00.000-07:00

A year ago I sat in this same empty space scared that I would not be able to live in a new place with a new person in this new neighbourhood and make it out semi alright.

I sat here with joy that there was a starbucks in view of my bedroom window with hopes that they would hire me and I would be able to start some sort of structured life.

And it happened, I started school, church, friends, work and life began and it was exciting

Now I am leaving, this will be the last time that I will call this place my very own without having to be a guest in it.

I am sad to be leaving but the sadness is more about leaving my friend here… I know I can come visit but it won’t be the same….
My roomie Jenn has been someone that I have been able to be completely myself around and still be loved…. Who else besides my sister (who has no choice), would allow me to fall on knees and grab there legs in a whiny plea to make me food and actually DO IT while laughing and probably thinking in her head that she lives with crazy. She has been the one who has seen me in my most girlie giggly *sigh in love stage as well as the one who has laid next to me and prayed for me when I was hurting inside. Jenny has danced with me down hallways, dressed me up for a fancy dinner, cooked me many AMAZING meals, motivated me to clean up and work out and reminded me how important reading books is. I am going to miss her. I am going to miss life together with her.

So I am excited about this next phase in my life but I kind of wish I could put a jenny in my pocket and bring here along.

Dress

2008-08-08T16:22:00.001-07:00

I bought my dress today

I cant believe it

I have a dress

A pretty dress

No, Wait.... An Amazing dress

wedding

2008-08-06T02:16:00.000-07:00

me and my love have gone back and forth on how we want to get married….we are not really the tradition wedding type, so we have come up with other options about how we want this done…..but it seems after all the discussing we have come to the conclusion that we want a semi-traditional wedding…you know with the church, dress and tux! So I have been up for the last 2 ½ hours looking at wedding venues in his area and dresses for me. I tried to sleep but all my mind keeps thinking is that “ I need to get this done before school starts” partnered with “why doesn’t the internet just do it all for me” .

I am super stoked to get married to him but have never had the wedding planning bug, so I am kinda stuck since we both are kinda poor and not the planning type...

Great Big Mystery

2008-07-29T22:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning as I was rushing out the door I grabbed one of my roommates cd’s (she has a collection that I have never heard before, keeps my ears fresh) so that on my drive to work I could sing along with something new….well I ended up grabbing a cd by the singer Bethany Dillon and only listened to one song over and over again (if you’re a girl you can relate to the repeat button syndrome…its in us all) …. The song was great, every time I listened to it, it would say something different to me…..here are the main lyrics that I like ….

I have tried to be the queen
I have tried most everything
Leads me to the same place
On my knees or on my face
On my knees or on my face

Nations fall when You speak
And You have spoken over me
I am tired of giving in so easily

The way You keep on loving me
Is changing everything I see
It's a great big mystery

The first lines to stick something in my head are “nations fall when you speak and you have spoken over me”….. WOW, if nations can fall when God speaks to them, what will happen to me if I just allow his leading…what is happening to me because of his call on my life……

After that my very plea was mimicked in the lines “ I am tired of giving in so easily”….. so many times I have given in because I was lazy, scared, apathetic or just being prideful…and I am tired of it….

Then the last lines to keep playing over and over again in my head were/are “the way you keep on loving me, is changing everything I see” ….. Isn’t it true that because of the way God loves us we see things differently…

-the value and potential in people
-being good stewards of our earth
-caring about social justice and the hopeless
-the gifts in ourselves
-love..true loce, right love, love without getting tired

As i was listening to this song i felt humbled and empowered as if God werre trying to tell me something, something wonderful,something beautiful....

Home

2008-07-29T00:57:00.000-07:00

It felt very nice to come to my place today after a somewhat stressful day…made me feel a bit peaceful and energized even though I am tired.

Maybe because I got to snuggle with my roommate
Maybe because it was clean and clutter free (not my room of course)
Maybe it’s because there is stuff here that is mine
Maybe it is because I can see starbucks from my bedroom
Maybe because my cell phone is completely dead
Or because I had some yummy amazing cereal for dinner.

I wanna to cook my food and stop eating just toast……and I want to cook good food…sheeesh I have lived with an amazing cook (its not just me who think this, she has more fans) …well I have lived with her for almost a year and never fully watched her do her thing…and her thing is awesome…..

I am sleepy and grammar is extra hard for me, so I am going to sleep

the photo above is of my future family.

Blessed

2008-07-27T19:39:00.000-07:00

There have been these moments that happen upon me

Where I realize how in love I am with Tim

Moments when I am sitting in the bar watching him play his bass at open mic night

Moments when we are watching a movie and he kisses my hands

Moments when we are reading together

Moments when the love in my eyes catches his and the overwhelming sensation that we were meant to be together sweeps over me with no other explanation then “you just know”.

I feel very undeserving and blessed in this area of my life… very thankful too.

There are other areas to where I don’t give GOD enough praise and glory for treating me far above what I deserve

- For protecting me from abuses
- For bringing amazing caring people into my life
- For helping me go to school and think
- For the Grace upon Grace I receive
- For giving me chances every moments to make things right

There are moments, many moments when I allow myself to think that life is all about me but its not about me, or you …its about him…. Serving him ….loving him….. Praising him…. About living what you believe instead of just saying it… (Thank you Donald Miller)

I want to live what I believe…. I want to believe more … I believe but I am so forgetful

God is so faithful even though I am so faithless

I am blessed.

Lost in my own thoughts again

2008-07-22T13:45:00.000-07:00

I am hard on myself to the point that it causes me to be my own self-inflicted stumbling block.

I want to deal with everything myself so I barely talk about how I am feeling; this helps me maintain a certain amount of superficial until finally it blows over.

And when it blows over my soul and heart tighten and I am left feeling incredibly inadequate.

These things can’t be kept in. I don’t want to always be like this….

For the last while I have been keeping myself hidden (feelings) at the expense of my joy;

I have been moody, cold and non-responsive because I dislike and am scared of those thoughts in my head that say I am not good enough ... this doesn’t happen much but when it does it comes in huge quantities.

Part of me wants to feel alight with it (my feelings) because I want the freedom within myself to be what I am and sometimes that is who I am (all sensitive and stuff), but Mainly I want to fight it because I want to be a light that shines and makes people feel welcomed in my life, especially those I love.

I hate letting people down, its on of the reasons that I am non confrontational. I don’t want to be a disappointment. I don’t like feeling that I have caused people discomfort. I know it will happen and does because of my own flaws and humanness but it scares me because I see myself slowly pushing at people because if I push them away then they cant do it to me….

With all that being said… I know that I am loved and accepted and it’s mainly me being hard on myself and listening to untrue thoughts. As cliché as it is I am just a work in progress and I don’t really want to feel bad about it anymore…so if you catch me then call me out… I give you permission…. I need it….

When I feel like this it is easier to think and write and feel ok about it.

Crazy get gone.

2008-07-22T09:17:00.000-07:00

I feel like I have become this person I don’t recognize
Not particularly bad but just unrecognizable. ( this picture makes it look bad but it doesnt represent anything, i just thought it was funny)

I am in love with someone who is pretty darn amazing and we have decided to spend our loves together and it is all very exciting. All the things that come along with it are pretty cool as well but there are moments when I feel the weight of it all pushing on my emotional button. Sometimes I feel like screaming at it (the emotional thingy) but it would be screaming at air and I already feel crazy and that would probably just make more people around me agree that I actually am crazy. Being out of whack makes me act in ways that are not me, take these last two instances which both occurred last night.

1) I had a fight with the one I love about stupid things. I hate fights. I love peace. I like my heart beating at a semi-normal pace, and fighting throws it off.

2) I went grocery shopping and bought lots of things that I shouldn’t have but particularly two because of my neo emotional, pre marriage, pre move out of my country, post annoyance with trying to pick classes and figuring out how I am going to pay for it all stress.

So if you’re around please come eat those things that will not do my body good (cookies and some super sugary cereal). Plus last night I ate some greasy chicken wings for dinner and I am going to get married soon, like 2-6 months soon and I have been so good lately with my choice of food (not last night of course) and I don’t want to let my emotional state dictate my behavior. I want to be consistent and reliable. And another thing, I love my bed and prayer and showers and sugary cereal for breakfast and the birds twirping outside my window right now… they are all so very comforting

Ok so it wasn’t all bad food that I bought…there were some apples, cucumbers, tomatoes, tuna, mini cans of beans…hmmm who knew they came in mini.

hmmm

2008-07-15T23:22:00.001-07:00

Bachelor partys !

Who needs them really???

Right?

Am I crazy for thinking that they are not an essential to pre marriage events?

RISK

2008-07-09T11:50:00.000-07:00

"I’d rather burn with desire deep in my soul,
And love like a fire that’s out of control, and laugh and dance and fall
and chance and kiss
I’d rather live my whole life
with a sense of abandon,
Squeeze every drop out,
no matter what happens.
And not wonder what I've missed
I’d rather risk.
I would rather risk"

Lately I have been listening to a GREAT song,

It has been playing in my head without me even trying to think about it

The best part is it is a Canadian singer.

Aren’t the lyrics great!!!! I wanted to share them before I told you all it was a country song because I know that some might pre judge the integrity of the song, so shame on you: P

I have loved country music every since I met my dad (whom introduced it to me when I was 10)

It’s because I love stories

And not because I enjoy twang

Risk - Paul Brandt
And because I love my dad, who just celebrated his 48th birthday yesterday 