June 1st

It's June. My last post was in April. Blaaaarrrrgggghhhh.

Every single day I have multiple moments of  "I should write about that," "that would be a good blog topic," "I should write about this," "or that," "or..."

Why don't I do it? Probably because I'm either driving to work, at work, or driving home from work for 11 hours every day. 11 hours. If we lived closer this would only take 9 hours plus a few minutes out of each day. I love my job, but the long commute is slowly eating away at my soul. It doesn't help that  on MSN yesterday there was a big ol' artice about the downsides of long commutes. Higher divorce rates, health problems, lack of productivity. Yippee.

As well as just making time to write more often, I also need to decide if I want this blog to be mostly contemplative and topic-y (as it has been up to this time), or more focused on daily life, with contempative-ness thrown in every now and then. Would posting daily events prompt me to write more often? The "daily" part of that seems to suggest that it would. But I don't want this to just become a "this is what I ate, bought, watched" blog. I love reading those blogs, and I know I'd have fun writing it, but I also want to keep writing on longer, more complicated subjects in order to hone skills. Writing a monthly editorial was one of my favorite parts of being a college newspaper editor. I still hope to make writing (especially writing a magazine/newspaper column) a career, or at least part-time career, at some point in my life. And, like everything, it means keeping those skills well-practiced in the meantime.

So here's a little of both. For the dose of daily life: I hope to paint my office this weekend. This prospect excites me, as I haven't gotten to decorate/organize/re-vamp a space of my own since we last had our own apartment. And that was over 8 months ago.

For the "deeper:" I've been thinking a lot about missions lately. What it means to be a missionary. What it takes to be a missionary. Be it long-term or short, missions are something you commit your whole self to. I think about doing short term trips but know we don't have the money. And I don't want to ask other people for the cash when I know they could use it themselves. Is it wrong to choose to pay bills over funding a mission trip? Am I selfish to think, month after month, "I'll contribute when we don't have bills, when we aren't scraping pennies to pay loans, when my husband's education is finally complete." Is that putting my life above God's will? I love hearing the stories of friends and family who have set out on a great adventure for God, reaching those in ways I never could imagine. While for myself, I think, "It's just not possible right now. It's just not me." And then I question it all over again.

Last one, I promise:

Blargh.