why i love jesus. really.

blogs can be a funny thing.

sometimes i need to be reminded of why i started one in the first place.

i really, really love to write.

i also really love to make people laugh.

and also, i just really love people.

ever since i can remember my dream job has been to be a writer for SNL. sitting around a room, one upping each other, creating genius material, eating junky snacks and being around people that are way funnier than me. but for now, 30 rockefellar plaza will have to wait, cuz i'm to busy preparing homemade organic baby food for my 6 month old and homeschooling my older kids.

(for those readers who don't know me that well, nothing about that previous sentence is true).

which leads me to this latest rant.

those readers.

i might be talking about you. here's the thing. i like to think i have a pretty good idea who reads my blog. my family, most of my close friends, some acquaintances, and the odd internet blog stalker. just kidding. about the stalker part. not really, cuz how else would you find this? in any event, every once in awhile i'll run into someone i haven't seen in awhile, or get an email from someone i don't really know telling me how much they enjoy my stories and horrible grammar. i recognize that a big part of having a blog is opening yourself up to not just those closest to you, but to people you don't even know. so, for those of you that are new to my blog, here's a bit about the biggest part of me. and if you have been reading for awhile and didn't know this... i guess its a good reminder for the both of us.

i am a christian. not like someone who goes to church cuz its good for me, or talks loosely about faith and love, but a christian... like the real deal. you might even use the words born again... shriek!!!

i became a christian when i was 21 years old. without telling you the whole story, it was something that when i found it, i realized i had been looking for it my entire life. i knew christians in high school, but was pretty sure they weren't for me. i spent the first part of my college years reading self-help books, pondering buddhism, researching deepak chopra, re-visiting a course in miracles, but nothing ever seemed to stick. i'm not tryin to hate, it just wasn't for me. the way i became a christian wasn't by yet another book, it wasn't by some life crisis or painful event. it was simply by seeing another person's life and realizing she had something i wanted, and it wasn't tattoos. everything about her life screamed jesus, but her approach was so not abrasive. honestly, she just loved me, and listened to me and then one day invited me to church.

after i made the plunge and started to really take a look at my life, i realized in order to get my shiz together i needed to start looking at my influences. i begin to break away from those closest to me-- friends i had known my entire life. i often joke that to my high school friends me becoming a christian was more scandalous than me starting to smoke crack. the gossip about my new found faith was that juicy.

i'm not saying i didn't give them reasons to talk, for with all new things comes a certain zealousness. for me, that included moving to the UK to be a missionary (loosely termed) my first year of marriage. i wasn't trying to push my old friends away, or rid myself of everything i once held dear, it simply became a time that took extremes to rid extremes (in my case certain self-destructive behaviours).

without sounding to 'christianese' i really had a lot of shit sin in my life and was feeling super helpless to overcome it. the things i was involved in may seem harmless to most, but the reality was, i was experiencing a lot of guilt and shame. and to complicate things further, those around me were living the same way, so i felt suffocated and often justified in my behaviours. the long and the short of it was i was not happy. i had more pain and sadness in my life from my lifestyle than i wanted. sounds cheesy, but i really said to myself 'there must be more to life than this.'

as i mentioned before, when i experienced God for the first time, i knew it was exactly what i had been looking for my entire life. some may say its what we were created for, others not so much. i can only speak for myself, but i felt such an intimacy with God that i really, honestly just wanted to get to know him more. i spent a lot of time with like minded people, read my bible, went to church, etc. it was really an amazing time in my life, a time where i felt like i was really able to build a solid foundation in God that would sustain me for most of my life.

then i got married, had a few kids, and even though i felt like things were cool with me and j-town, i knew i was not living the intimacy i once relished in. i felt satisfied by the love from my husband and kids and the simple joys in life. there have been surges over the years to try and get back to that place, and try as i might, i just can't. that time in my life was filled with lots of time... and little responsibility.

though my 'faith' looks different than it did 10 years ago, i have NEVER doubted how real God is in my life, and in those around me. i've seen Him in the tears streaming down my husband's face as he lifted my veil, i heard Him when my firstborn came screeching out, and i've even felt Him as i sat with my best friend and cried tears for the loss of her mom. the thing is, God feels just as real and relevant to me today as he did so many years back, it just may look a little different.

though some parts of me waiver in the 'christian rules' sense of the word... i mean i voted no on prop 8, i've been known to drop the f-bomb on this blog, bitch is one of my most favorite words, i love me a few good vodka tonic with lime, and i like to get dirty with a little T.I., but the truth is i really, really love God... and i don't want anyone to think differently.

today as i sang in church one of my favorite songs, 'into marvelous light i'm running, out of darkness out of shame, by the cross you are the truth you are the way,' i was reminded again how real God is, and how it really truly is because of HIM that i really love my life.
i feel a freedom these days like i've never known, not to sin recklessly, but to love. to love the way jesus did. when you read the bible its crazy how often jesus did exactly the opposite of fox news what the religious right of the time thought he should. he really loved everyone, in every circumstance. at the end of my life do i want to look back and say, 'well, i followed all the rules and worked hard to never blow it' or do i want to look back and say, 'yeah, i really blew it. a lot. but i loved hard and played hard. and life was good, and God, you were why.'

hugs not fists

hey y'all, just a quick exhortation (big word huh?) to let you know how encouraged i am by all your comments. nice to know you all are really like me, as in you like to talk about yourself.... i know i'm asking you too, but you get the gist. with that said, i want to tell you a little story about a time when someone didn't like me so much....

picture it, laguna junior high 1992. me awkwardly skinny, just pushing 90 lbs. thanks to my last post you have a pretty good mental image of what kind of clothes to expect me in, its a wonder that a boy would even have been interested in me. yet, enter jared bonkowski. jared was one of those fringe types, definitely not a 'soc' but not a nerd, quite possibly in a band (not the school one). with his ponytail and camel light's stolen from his mom, he had a lot to offer for junior high. so we held hands a couple of times, passed a few notes and possibly kissed once or twice behind the portable math buildings. then one monday i came to school and saw none other than my bf holding hands with the dreaded helena quintanar. now, if the name doesn't give it away, i don't know what else will. the whole quintanar family was a force to be reckoned with, with 2 older brothers in and out of juvie, helena was following in their footsteps. she was pretty much the only girl at laguna that had ever been in a fight. i later found out that she had ties to BWA and would talk about getting 'jumped in.' she was one scary tween to say the least. so naturally, when i saw jared with her i knew our time was over and not one bit of me wanted to fight in any way shape or form for him. in fact, i was hoping that she never even knew he had liked me.

fast froward to thursday night. my friend and i decided to head down to farmers market. the last 4 days had been status quo, no rumblings of anything to do with helena or jared and like i said, that was fine by me. so there we are out in front of the cigar shop, probably trying to find a way to buy some nasty cherry tobacco to smoke out of my friends dads cigar pipe... when up walk four of helena's closest cholas. when i saw them approach, my heart started pounding. i knew they were there for me.

as casually as can be, one stepped forward and said, 'hey holly, hey just so you know... helena's looking for you.'

i froze, speechless as they left laughing.

'oh shit!' i said as i turned to my friend. 'what am i going to do?!"

she, like the good friend she was, said- 'lets just keep walking, your going to have to face her sooner or later, you might as well do it when there are lots of people around.'

so off we went, heading up higuera, it wasn't two minutes later that i saw her.

she had on white jeans and red top with her huge raiders bomber over it. her hair was tied back with a black bandanna. her lips were bright red, contrasting her big silver hoop earrings.

as soon as i saw her, i seriously thought i was going to throw up. i have never been as scared as i was right then.

she looked up and saw me. i froze right there in the middle of higuera. she kept walking toward me with a smirk on her face. she got 2 feet in front of me and said with all the authority in the world, 'hey, i been looking for you.'

looking back there's a million things i could have said... in fact i've often rehearsed the scene... i could've been snotty, confident, apologetic or i like to imagine myself just hitting her in the face (just kidding, not really).

but instead, it turns out i did the exact right thing.

i started to cry. real tears.

she looked at me confused, then her face change. it became soft and sweet. she reached out to hug me, and said, 'hey, its okay. its fine. i wasn't gonna hurt you.' and there i was letting the scariest vata in SLO county hold me in the middle of farmers market.

and that's the story of the biggest, baddest, scariest fight i have ever been.

and so with that long, detailed introduction, i wanna know this tuesday...

'have you ever been in a physical fight?'

what not to wear

i guess it all began a few weeks back when i went to grab a jacket out of my closet. as i was heading out the door i realized i had grabbed a blue abercrombie and fitch sweatshirt. on my 15 min drive to the kids preschool i kept looking over at the sweatshirt. thoughts like, 'you're 30, can you really still wear that?' or 'do i look like one of those mom/ladies that is trying to hard to look young?' you know the ones- they wear a lot of animal print and camo? man, i'm getting old. i would never have thought this one little sweatshirt would have sent me into such a tailspin.

i know this may come as a shock to most of you, but i've never been on the cutting edge of fashion. when all my friends were rocking their wet seal body suits, i opted for my cats the musical sweatshirt, cuz nothing says cool in jr high like andrew lloyd weber. now don't get me wrong, i desperately wanted to snap on my unitard and show off my mosquito bites to all those jr high boys, yet apparently genetics god had a different plan.

after my friends convinced me that broadway musical attire was getting me nowhere, i tried to start paying more attention to what those around me were wearing. but since my mom didn't care at all what i wore, and i just didn't have the boobs body to wear what my friends were, i spent most of high school in argile sweaters, baggy jeans and old thrift store t-shirts with logos like, 'i got crabs in morro bay, ca.' don't be jealous....

it probably wasn't till college and my early twenties that i finally began to come into my own. i realized the body god had given me wasn't nearly as dreadful as i had once perceived and that most of the fashion industry really did make clothes that would fit me. i discovered aber and got in touch with my inner teeny bop that missed the window on those clothes so many years ago, then SLO got a gap, and things were looking up.

before i knew it i was 25 and my first child was born. a year and a half later another. it seemed like overnight i found myself more excited to see what was new at baby gap than on a store wide sale at banana. and then seriously, one day i woke up and i was 30.

who knew that harmless little blue aber sweatshirt would make me so crazy. i began to question everything i was wearing. it didn't help that i had a bacherollete party coming up. suddenly i was a mess thinking how i could razzle and dazzle the regulars at native (slo's hottest nightclub hee hee) yet also present myself as a classy mother of 3. as i perused my closet by the dim light of a wall nightlight (because the baby was sleeping in our room) i realized that i had very few dresses that were going to work. don't even get me started on shoes...

anyway as i tiptoed into the bathroom to put on some makeup (practically in the dark) and definitely totally silent (no kesha to get me pumped up) cuz i didn't want to wake the kids sleeping in the next room, i finally realized, i am old. getting ready in the dark, in silence, and by yourself at the time i usually go to bed, officially equals you are now 30. the real kicker was hitting the dance floor and realizing that the only new dance moves i had from the last decade were ones i picked up from watching ellen.

yet sunday when i woke up to a nursing baby and a naked 32 3 year old in my bed, i realized i'm not that old, i'm just a mom. i just need to figure out how to start dressing like one. i wish i could tell you i suddenly had an epiphany or a knock at the door from clinton and stacy... but unfortunately i still don't really know what it all means, cuz monday when my mom and i left for farmers market she grabbed a sweatshirt. it wasn't till we were on the grass hanging with the other moms that i realized low and behold, she was ROCKING the blue aber sweatshirt.

so i guess from all of this, the only thing i've really learned is for me, aber is definitely out, for my mom, maybe not so much. oh, and bodysuits, i'm about to show all you middle school hussies how a lactating mother of three's still got it.

tuesday comes fast

gosh, just when i think i'm gonna have time to write a little somethin somethin, its tuesday again.

oh well. i'll admit its been pretty fun for me to check the ol blog everyday to see what clever fun stuff you guys got for me. after last weeks massively successful question, i feel a bit nervous to try and top it... i was soooo loving all your guys' answers. it was especially fun to hear from some of you who never comment, even if it was about poop, diarrhea or ahem, size... of course i was also loving roxanne weighing in with 30+ years of experience. thanks again y'all. even though all you guys -- don't pretend like you aren't out there-- were to chicken to comment, the rest of you definitely made me smile.

so with that said, i'm reaching my hot little hand into that clever little box and here's what i got....

'should we have a national healthcare system?'

oops! now that we know as clever as this little box is, it does not tell the future...so lucky for you, you get a hall pass on that dreadfully boring heated subject.

because i want to help you conserve your energy for what really matters this week (easter) i'll give you one that has some choices. again, feel free to answer why, or in a lot of your cases, which one you've actually done and how it turned out for you.

'would it be worse to discover your teen had thrown a kegger in your house, slept with her boyfriend in your bed, or wrecked your car?'

remember this tickle?

so i'm feeling like our introductory week of tickled to meet you tuesdays worked out pretty good. thanks again for making me feel like i'm not ranting to an empty screen.

this week, i'm already breaking the mold. i'm not even going to reach into that clever little box i didn't invent to blow your minds with some heart wrenching question. instead, i actually came up with this one on my own. its something i'm really excited about and honestly would love it to be something bigger someday.

with that said, some of you may remember a mere 2 posts ago where i gave tribute to my man. with all these kids running around, i often forget my baby daddy. even though i didn't get a huge response comment wise (surprise surprise) i did have a lot of people tell or email how much they appreciated it. though the vast majority were women, surprisingly a few of them were men.

as mothers, i feel like we often forget how much we love romance. after 10 years of being married, kids, work, finances it quickly falls to the back burner. but whether its because you watched cinderella for the first time with your 3 yr old daughter and saw that glimmer in her eyes, or you started reading twilight- we remember, that try as we might to suppress or forget it, we love to be wooed, we love to be romanced, we love to be wanted, and mostly, we love to be loved.

so with that said, i really want to know...

what was one main thing that made you fall in love with your husband/wife/partner so many years ago?

feel free to make it long or short.... you might be surprised at how fun it is to access those memories you've long since thought of. oh and guys (i know some of you are reading)- i'm not making any promises, but if you weigh in-- you just might get laid tonight your favorite home-cooked meal.

tickled to meet you tuesdays

in a vain attempt to try and get more comments hear from my readers, i thought i'd try something new. those of you who have been around a while may remember my fleeting affair with 'would you rather thursdays.' we had a lot of fun, didn't we? tackling some of life's biggest questions... i felt like i really got to know and love you guys...

since i'm fresh out of would you rather juice, i'm gonna take another route in order to whore myself out for validation get to know you guys again. enter, tickled to meet you tuesdays.

for christmas i received a lovely gift from one of the most special people in the world to me... it was this *clever little box* with lots of questions to help make any already awkward situation even awkwarder (cuz that is a word).

sooo, i've randomly selected a question for you and would love to hear your answers. the irony is that the first question i pulled was, 'what extent have you gone to when you had a crush on a celebrity?' since most of you have painfully humiliated yourselves by commenting on my last post, i'm pretty sure no one else has anything else to say in the matter. ahem. rob. ahem. pattinson.

moving on. i present you with...

'what would be one good thing about being the opposite sex?'

oh, and please brace yourself for my husband's answer... it seriously took him all of about 3 seconds to answer.

*this is my veiled attempt to make sure everyone know's these questions are not original. but i thought if i just put asterisks and write really, really tiny you won't read this and realize that i'm really not that clever or funny and didn't come up with most, i mean all of these questions. now forget what you just read and keep thinking i'm funny. thank you.*

an open letter to stephenie meyer

dear homewrecker mrs. meyer,

on a dare, and after some serious peer pressure, i conceded to read your first masterpiece. i had some time in between reading 'real books' for my book club, and a weekend in the snow- the combination of the two events made everyone i know convince me i had to give your vampires a try.
upon arrival at the cabin, i tried to resist you. but there you were laying so casually on the table beckoning me with your sleek black cover and shiny red apple. who do you think you are? the wicked queen from snow white?

did i mention this was my kids first trip to the snow when they would be cognisant enough to feel, experience and actually remember? did i want them to think back on their FIRST trip to the snow and wonder why their mom was hiding in the van hovering over a book written for tweens? i even brought a real book along-- on adoption-- on something that really matters... only to kid myself. i feel sorry for you that you make people skip books on adoption to read about boys with golden eyes and large white hands.
it wasn't enough that i was avoiding my inlaws, kids and husband, you wanted more. you got in my head, and tried to compromise my usual stellar judgement. you made me start asking myself things like, 'i can't remember, is it rude to read at the dinner table?' or 'would it be super awkward to ask my mother in law to run to the store and buy some formula for the baby so i could stay up all night and read this masterpiece load of crap?' but i'm pretty sure i hit rock bottom when i was basically drinking strawberry hill (rose wine) and cowering in the corner while everyone frolicked in the snow.

like the sweet, and trying to be understanding family they are, they had to ask me what it was that was so great about these books. which is kind of the worst question ever. how do you answer that one steph? its kindof impossible huh? cuz no matter what you say, you sound like a total douche. you start stammering, wondering how you can make them deeper and more meaningful than the stark reality that we are really just reading a 'dumbed down' version of danielle steel (which btw no one knew was possible)

your're a family girl, right stephenie? i wish i could tell you how much the kids loved the snow, and about all the adventures they went on, or the blast they had sledding and building snowman's... cuz i know you would appreciate it, but sadly i can't. instead, these few pictures will have to suffice. notice how i'm not in any of them? i'm starting to wonder if i was even there. thanks for ruining my weekend, and my life.

your biggest fan,

holly

PS- oh, and you bitch. perhaps the worst part about all of this is that i could have written these stupid books. my 5 year old prolly could have for that matter. i could've been a millionaire, not stuck trying to sling juice plus. you suck. unless you buy juice plus from me, or better yet, let me be your realtor. then maybe we'd be even. otherwise you owe me big time lady... and worse, you owe my kids, and millions others their mom back. how do you sleep at night?

nothin like some yellow snow