new blog

for when i'm feeling crafty, adventurous, wistful, and just plain happy

click here to visit


i suppose this blog is reserved for whiny days

career

i want to wake up early because i'm excited to go to work

i want to do something different every day

i want to write

i want to talk

i want to see children

i want to hold the hand of the elderly

i want to speak with the sick

i want to be smiled at

i want to travel

i want to have a snuggly, homey home

i want to see my kids in the afternoons

i want to laugh

i want to be in charge

i want to dress up

i want to make people feel better

i want to be creative

i want to be spontaneous

i want to create new ideas

i want to keep people safe

i want work to be work and home to be home

do i even want to work?

i want to cook good food and teach my children to be ladies and gentlemen and make homemade Christmas presents

i want to write cards

i want to video and memorialize my children's lives

i want to do things

i want to be my best


so if anyone has a career to go with that, you can let me know

tonight i want to cry because we're the church, and some person may only catch one glance of the church, and it will be your facebook status about how God hates sinners, and they will turn away

and all the while we spread hate, other people are trying to find love in other places

they can't have love without Jesus. stop making them look other places.

let them see the love in you

hmm

I never feel the need to blog anymore.

Except just now, when I realized that I never blog anymore. So I'll do what I normally do when I can't figure out the answer to something. I'll blog about it.

Possible reasons why Shauna has stopped blogging:

1. I am becoming more independent, no longer needing the attention of an undetermined audience to solve my problems or absorb my irritation, but learning to solve my problems and quench my irritation on my own.

2. I'm becoming less sure of myself, uncomfortable with expressing my deepest thoughts in fear that I will be judged. *dun dun dun*

3. I forget.

4. I rarely sit down at my laptop anymore since my recent acquisition of a smart phone.

5. I like change. I get bored with stuff. Maybe I got bored with blogging.

6. I'm possessed of a devil that wants me to bottle emotion rather than express it.

7. I'm learning to express myself to actual people rather than to said undetermined audience.

8. Blogging ceased solving my problems, such as in this case in which I am definitely more befuddled now than I was before I decided to blog about it.

weaknesses

I think my weakness is fault finding. Or call it judging, if you want. That doesn't seem to call it just right. It isn't so much a measuring of the individual but rather imagining a better scenario with perfect human beings, or imagining myself placed in that individual's position and how my actions would always be better than theirs. Seeing other people's faults.

It scares me that finding my own faults is actually a pretty hard thing to do. I know we profess all the time that "I'm not perfect, I've got flaws" but do we ever actually meditate on what our flaws might be? It's hard. We don't get to watch ourselves live our lives. Just like when you think "oh, I look pretty cute today" and then somebody takes pictures and looking back you're thinking "wow, I so did not look cute that day" or when you're singing in the car and feeling like a rockstar but listening to a recording of you singing... yeah, I'm so not a rockstar. But nobody is recording my life to play it back to me. I've gotta figure this thing out by myself.

So I guess it's natural. To want to fix things, and to see so clearly where other people are doing life wrong, to want to show them a better way. But that's missing the point I guess.

I lied, I said I've gotta figure this thing out by myself but that's completely impossible. I need God to help me figure it out.

I gotta get past trying to make the world better until I figure out how to make me better

while drinking milk

I'm feeling blogsy. Very blog-esque today. This could be dangerous.

Hey guess what? I will never be a high school student ever ever again. Did you catch that? I'm moving on up in the world.

Lately I've been quite obsessed with stalking a thread/staying in a chatroom with my fellow freshie freedies. They're all so cute. Such cute people.

I bought an amazing combination of comforter/sheets/pillow/BODY pillow (love whoever invented that, probably a woman) and it's all just so cute that I just giggle looking at it. And it matches but not really, which is the best feeling ever. I feel like a real lady.

Also I found a way to stack my t-shirts in my drawers in such a way that twice as many fit and you can see every. single. one. How magical.

Did I mention I'm SO READY FOR COLLEGE



Shout-out to all those amazing freedie freshies. You're my favorites.

I live in a country who murders her own children.

That's SICK, America. It's so SICK. And you know what else is sick? We talk about the mound of shoes in our closets and what in the world we're gonna do with all of them and who slept with who and who's wearing what and how we need to feed these poor starving children overseas and that's all just great but four thousand babies died in America today because we're not talking about THAT enough. Four thousand.

I promise you my life is gonna be about more than buying more shoes to fill my closet and raising pretty little perfect children and training them to ignore the world around them because it's impolite to talk about those sad things. They better be warriors, my children. Because that's what I want to be.

one day i hope i'll be able to take a guitar and play it in such a way that people can see my soul from the outside. i love to hear that. i like songs where the words aren't even important. even without the words, you just get it. i want to learn to do that.

deep

Haley asked me to tell her a deep thought I have had recently. Or "the thing you contemplate most." Or something like that.

I felt very simple minded in that I didn't really have anything pressing on my mind that I felt the need to verbalize. And this bothers me. I don't want to be shallow.

Everything that I think about, college and grades and chacos and the mountains and boys, it all seems so simplistic compared to what she thinks about. What causes people to choose good or evil. Why does childhood seem to be becoming shorter and shorter as our society's morality declines. If you were born of a different race, into a different family, into a different era of a different continent, would you be the same? How would you be the same? And so what really defines us? And on what grounds can we be judged when our personalities are so distinctly affected by uncontrollable circumstances?

It must be very burdensome to have a mind that always contemplates questions for which we can never really know the answer. Personally I would rather relax, let the worries slip through fingers onto guitar strings, let the world keep turning and keep its questions to itself.

sad post

I feel like tragedy is striking all around me full force and logically I've got to be next but I'm not ready.

I want to hike, into a high high mountain, far away from sadness and dying and leaving. Closer to God and His beautiful things and far away from the sad things. So I won't forget that there are beautiful things.

And maybe I can get ready.

the temple of God

your body = a special present that (should be) for your husband

walking around naked (yes, you're naked) = letting everyone else see the present

your wedding night = giving your husband a box that's been opened and resealed numerous times, a present that's been used but made to look like new

purity isn't just about sex. it's how you dress, how you carry yourself, how you TALK, WHAT you talk about

also, watch this


^"Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s." 1 Corinthians 6:18-20


"I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart." Matthew 5:28

clippings of my soul for today

How long have I been in this storm?
So overwhelmed by the ocean's shapeless form
Water's getting harder to tread
With these waves crashing over my head

If I could just see you
Everything would be all right
If I'd see you
This darkness would turn to light

And I will walk on water
And you will catch me if I fall
And I will get lost into your eyes
I know everything will be alright
I know everything is alright

I know you didn't bring me out here to drown
So why am I ten feet under and upside down
Barely surviving has become my purpose
Because I'm so used to living underneath the surface


"Storm" by Lifehouse



"Inside the bundle Ama packed for me are: my bowl, my hairbrush, the notebook my teacher gave me for being the number one girl in school, and my bedroll. Inside my head I carry: my baby goat, my baby brother, my ama's face, our family's future. My bundle is light. My burden is heavy."


"I have been beaten here, locked away, violated a hundred times and a hundred times more. I have been starved and cheated, tricked and disgraced. How odd it is that I am undone by the simple kindness of a small boy with a yellow pencil."


- "Sold" by Patricia McCormick


Tomorrow is my very last band banquet. I miss my best friend. I am confused and startled. I am lucky. My burden feels heavy, but to some it's light as glass.

hmm.

My exact thoughts right now.

Thank you, God, for letting that happen. I got angry. I didn't understand.

But now I don't know who I would be if it didn't.


It's almost a little hilarious how upset we get when people do us wrong, plans get changed, priorities get shifted, people leave. Who would we be if nothing were ever wrong? What character can be shown when there are no obstacles to overcome? And all the while we think the world is ending, God is guiding us down a path we didn't even know existed. And that's why He's in charge.

puzzle pieces

I think life is composed of transition. I used to think that there were only humongous transitions like SAVED and MARRIED and BABIES and RETIREMENT but that turned out to be not true at all. A lot of things I used to think have turned out to be not true at all. Maybe life is composed of those realizations too.

I just got back from my very last honor band. To most people that sounds about as significant as losing a sock but to me it felt like a part of me died, quite literally. Because I'm me when I'm at honor band. So I feel like that part of me died. Not to be a Debbie Downer, but I did cry a little bit.

But really I didn't intend to talk about honor band, I was gonna talk about this one song we played. I say we: this band composed of extraordinary musicians that I somehow came to be a part of played this song. And I knew during the 11 hours that we rehearsed that I would have to cry when I heard that song for the last time. And sure enough, I did. Funny how I can gauge my emotions like that, I think I'm beginning to get to know myself better.

That song was so beautiful, and I think it really summed up why honor band is such a part of me. You take 170 people and bottle up all their passion and then everything is silent and then the silence breaks with all of our passions flowing together. And I really think in that moment I got this little puzzle piece for my soul that God saw I was missing. So I cried. I played horribly. But it was worth it.

best love story ever

"He made steps up to the front porch, seven real wide, shallow ones. When I asked him why so many small steps, when four would have done the job, he said, Well, children have short legs, and he grinned. Luckily I was standing real close to him when he said it, because the idea of it made him want to kiss me again and I was glad to be handy."

"I wonder if we are just a little part of the world, like that rooster, and that the real things go on around us while we strut in our own yards trying to take charge of things."

"Our children weigh hard on my heart, and thinking about them growing up honest and healthy, or just living to grow up at all, makes a load in my chest that is bigger than the safe at the bank, and more valuable to me than all the gold inside it."

"It seems there is always a road with bends and forks to choose, and taking one path means you can never take another one. There's no starting over nor undoing the steps I've taken."

"Mostly I just raise my children and cook and clean, flirt with Jack and enjoy his company, and read aloud the books he gives me for silly holidays he makes up. Like, Oh, here's a gift for The Third Tuesday in October, didn't you know that's a holiday? Well, I bought you a book. He is amazing."
 (that pretty much describes the perfect life to me and I can't wait to have it)

"My life feels like a book left out on the porch, and the wind blows the pages faster and faster, turning always toward a new chapter faster than I can stop and read it."

"I've been a hard man to live with, I know, he said, but I've always admired you and loved you. You are some kind of woman. You'll be fine. You keep your powder dry, and an eye on the horizon."

- from These Is My Words by Nancy Turner. Read it.

my God is so Big.

twitter and devilish social networking sites

You know, I think twitter is the most tempting thing to me right now. It's my biggie. It's like my Godzilla of temptation. And I'll tell you why.

If I get a twitter (as I've been inclined to do lately), I'm sure I will end up saying things directed at certain individuals( though indirectly, without using their names) but that should either a) be said to them in person or b) not be said at all. It's all too easy to let off steam through that "indirect verbal attack" that people like to use on Twitter (and Facebook statuses too) and pretend that no one will ever know who they're actually talking about. That's immature, but tempting. Because while we're trying to act Christlike and love our enemies and give blessings to those that curse us, we still want the attention from others of "hey, that person did you wrong and you have a right to be angry, I'm on your side". But letting off steam in this way just isn't Christlike at all. It hurts other people and it hurts us. And I know this because reading things other people have posted, and knowing that it's directed at me, hurts worse than if they'd even really said it to me. But if I go to this person and question them about their feelings toward me, it only seems that I'm trying to stir something up. And I'm not a drama stirrur upper.

I don't know, maybe that's what I do through this blog sometimes. I need to let off steam and the typing feels so good under my fingers and maybe it wouldn't feel so good if I didn't know someone was going to read it and sympathize. But what if the person who reads it believes I'm ensuing a verbal attack on them? I don't want that. I want selective readers but that can't be guaranteed at all, can it? It can't.

But anyway, I've become so attached to it, an addiction, of reading what a certain person says and figuring out how they really feel about me. That shouldn't be the case. First of all I shouldn't even be that concerned about other people's opinions of me, but second of all it only continues to hurt. I need to stop it. I'll never forget if I don't.

So this is why Twitter is the devil.

delirium

remember when i said i'm trying to rediscover the version of shauna baker who doesn't always have to have her phone on her because she isn't obligated to text anyone anymore and how i'm trying to fill my empty places?

i found her. she likes books


"You know you can't be happy unless you're unhappy sometimes, right?"

"Love: a single word, a wispy thing, a word no bigger or longer than an edge. That's what it is: an edge; a razor. It draws up through the center of your life, cutting everything in two. Before and after. The rest of the world falls away on either side."


- both from Delirium by Lauren Oliver, a book about a dystopian version of the United States in which love is seen as a disease that must be driven out by government intervention. And a girl who chose to love anyway.


"You have to understand. I am no one special. I am just a single girl. I am five feet two inches tall and I am in-between in every way. But I have a secret. You can build walls all the way to the sky and I will find a way to fly above them. You can try to pin me down with a hundred thousand arms, but I will find a way to resist. And there are many of us out there, more than you think. People who refuse to stop believing. People who refuse to come to earth. People who love in a world without walls, people who love into hate, into refusal, against hope, and without fear. I love you. Remember. They cannot take it."

"Women of God can never be like women of the world. The world has enough women who are tough; we need women who are tender. There are enough women who are course; we need women who are kind. There are enough women who are rude; we need women who are refined. We have enough women of fame and fortune; we need more women of faith. We have enough greed; we need more goodness. We have enough vanity; we need more virtue. We have enough popularity; we need more purity."

- Margaret Dyreng Nadauld

"Only a few hairbreadths make the difference between this face and faces I have seen many times before I knew you; yet what a difference- the difference between everything and nothing at all."


- The Return of the Native

yay

me. "we're pretty legit matchmakers, it's weird how we're actually the ones who are single though."

other person. "yeah, but i'm single by choice..."

yeah, thanks. life is grand

people change a lot. it's like right when i think i've got it figured out, this whole thing about connecting with people, cause it takes practice. i finally get someone figured out and then they change. and i have to learn a whole new way to connect with them again, or maybe i just can't. i have to watch from the outside and wonder if i'll ever be inside again. but sometimes the people who you could never connect with before suddenly come bursting through your door like "hey! we're alike! we can connect!" and those are some pretty beautiful moments. but i guess the only perfect thing that's made to last forever is God. and everyone can't fit into your house at once.

i got rid of my labels

i feel like i'm preparing to be rewritten, and i wanna have a clean slate for when that happens

dear life,

you crack me up.

dear freakishly bipolar and annoying body,

i would love to be able to work out really hard. just once. without random shooting pains that remind me that you hate me. i mean pains that are associated with the exercise i understand, like after running two miles maybe my legs would hurt or i would be out of breath but nooooo. that's not what you do. normal people don't double over in pain after exercise. exercise is GOOD FOR ME. just no more random and freakishly intense pains. i would really really like that.

sincerely,
the soul inside you that has no control over you whatsoever obviously

(this rant directed at my own body is a testament that yes, i am definitely going crazy)

a book I love

"I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night."
- Amir, The Kite Runner

kony 2012

imagine you go to sleep tonight and in the middle of the night you are abducted. if you're a boy, you are now a soldier. not by choice, by force. if you say no, they will kill you. if you try to escape, they will kill you. you are now part of a rebellion. you are ordered to murder your own family.
if you're a girl, you are now a sex slave.

imagine all your life, you knew this might happen. you lived in fear every day. imagine that life.

now imagine that for twenty years, people knew about this man. joseph kony. they know about him and the 30,000+ children he has abducted in Uganda and other countries. people know. and they do nothing.

but now, it's time for this to end.

it's time to care about humanity: not in self defense. not because it is our own affair. but because we are human. and we care.

troops are currently deployed because of overwhelming support. watch this video

Make Kony famous.

angels

i'm rediscovering how to be a version of myself that never has her phone on her because she isn't obligated to text anyone. surprisingly, that's hard. i never knew how much time that consumes. now i'm always looking for things to do, always busy but never busy enough.

but right now i feel like i'm the most of myself that i have been in a long time. and i like that. i pray a lot now, and i like that too.

also, did you know that God brings people to you right when you need them? it's true. i have a family that i never even discovered in four precious girls and i'd be just nowhere without them. absolutely nowhere. they're my angels. God gives me what I need. He's so good.

i have discovered within myself a tiny voice which will always say "i am okay"

when i've been holding and holding and holding mightily for so long, letting go is so frightening

because releasing my grip means everything else will fall apart, too



i wear belts and pull them tight to hold me together

looking back

i used to be so good at seeing the good in people but i've found that lately and it's mostly because i've come to know some people who i truly don't really care for but i'm finding it so hard to be positive about them and to keep searching for good when people do and say stupid things and that scares me because i like when doing good is easy

this good of "loving your enemies and blessing those that curse you" is becoming a problem and i never dreamed that it would be but now it's here and i need all of you to pray for me and pray for my enemies while i do that too and i'm gonna try to go back to being the optimist that i used to be. i've heard that if you count ten of your faults before pointing out a fault in someone else that you tend to view that fault as less significant so i'm gonna start counting mine now

i judge. and i flatter. and i complain. and i have no right to make anyone else's faults any larger than mine

i have

friends that are so much more than friends that by definition they must be significant others (but not always in the lovey dovey significance, which always seemed a very bland term for someone you are so in love with anyway and i don't understand it. also it bothers me when people call young couples "lovers". i don't know, it turns my stomach in an upsetting way)

but my friends are like... i don't know. something metaphorical. they aren't ever together all at once but i get to experience bits and pieces of them and i'm not always thankful enough for my pieces

this is the most bittersweet time i have ever experienced in my life and i don't know whether to laugh or cry but usually i just do both

i don't know what i'm saying. i feel lost and found all at once and is that possible? i mean i've heard it said that one in four people are mentally unstable in some way and i know at least three normal people so...

pet peeve #1

"I hate doing _____, it's so stupid and I don't even know why I do it so I'm just going to constantly annoy everybody around me with 'ughhhh's and 'seriouslyyyyyy's and 'I hate my life's and pretend like I can't just QUIT and make everyone else happier in doing so"


if you hate your life, CHANGE IT. for pete's sake, stop making everyone else miserable.

my happy post

i rarely feel the need to blog when i'm happy, usually i have to be stressed or extremely annoyed or disappointed in society or just generally sad but today let me just tell you what's right

what's right is that there's a lady named barbara at the nursing home who is blind but has a precious soul and i like to hear her play piano, and i have a for real valentine this year who was well worth waiting for, and my family is hilarious and insightful but mostly hilarious such as this scene which I must share

Haley: "Pepper (our adorable shih tzu), you're everything I've ever wanted in a man. You're handsome, brave, loyal..."

Mom: "Short and hairy?"

*exploding laughter from me and mom for about 5 minutes*

also I really really love this song 

and my hair is just the right amount of curly finally so i am just happy in general

:)

young

i am not a young person.

young people don't have mental breakdowns over the apathetic nature of other young people and they usually have somewhere to be on friday night like i guess

they like the movies or just hanging out in a random parking lot somewhere

but they don't sit up reading cleopatra

or become so emotionally attached to friday night lights to the extent

that they are swelling up in tears every time julie rejects matt over the phone because he left her alone to pursue a life in chicago

(i'm almost done with the last season and i'm pretty sure i will need a therapist when that happens)

i would love to go back to hugging my best friend for no reason while we wait in line at subway 

and squealing as we check off the names in MASH and find out who we will marry one day

and taking 30 pictures in a row with every facial expression we can think of

but even worse than not being a young person is not being an adult either

being in this in-between where i don't really belong in either category

floating somewhere between the people i've left and the people who seem to have left me

and wishing that life could push me farther forward to catch up

this place i'm in, it feels very useless. very vague and foggy so that i can't even see the ground i'm standing on sometimes

i am so impatient but i would be completely happy being an in-betweener if there was anyone to stand with me and complain about it too. i feel that i am an annoyance to both groups because my puzzle piece just doesn't quite fit

little

i think life would be easier if i was grown up
not in the cynical i want to be closer to my death way but in the mentally and emotionally mature way
so i would know how to handle more things without crying and see
the bright side when all i see is gray

i feel very little today. little and silly

a horror story

in the eerie blackness of night under a starless sky, the young teenager blindly led her dog into the darkness to do, you know, dog business. the naive and wistful puppy frolicked around on the grass, grabbed a stick and ran with it. the oblivious teen (not in the mood to play games) pulled the dog to within reach and tried to rip this foreign substance from his iron jaws. but upon TOUCHING it and closer examination of this strange object...

it was a rat. he ate it. the end

i hope none of you will have nightmares because i know i will

i wish i had wildly curly hair that was hard to contain. something about myself that said strong willed and unpredictable. maybe even red

les miserables

The man took three steps, and came near the lamp which stood on the table. "Stop," he exclaimed; as if he had not really been understood, "not that, did you understand me? I am a galley-slave -a convict- I am just from the galleys." He drew from his pocket a large sheet of yellow paper, which he unfolded. "There is my passport, yellow as you see. That is enough to have me kicked out wherever I go. Will you read it? I know how to read, I do. I learned in the galleys. There is a school there for those who care for it. See, here is what they have put in the passport: 'Jean Valjean, a liberated convict, native of ____,' you don't care for that, 'has been nineteen years in the galleys; five years for burglary; fourteen years for having attempted four times to escape. This man is very dangerous.' There you have it! Everybody has thrust me out; will you receive me? Is this an inn? Can you give me something to eat, and a place to sleep? Have you a stable?"

"Madam Magloire," said the bishop, "put some sheets on the bed in the alcove."

book

i'm going to write a book one day. and it won't be an autobiography because i'm way too boring but it won't be completely fictional because those are only read for fun and i want people to sit up at night reading this book, miss meals and disregard their friends and be so enveloped by it that they can't rest until they've read every word and probably cry a lot and laugh a lot and probably half the time they won't even know what in the world i'm talking about but they'll love to read it anyway

i hope it's one of those books that people will study in their youth groups and pass around their book clubs and give to their daughters and granddaughters for christmas. i hope it makes people listen louder and speak a little softer, i hope it draws them to the sunrise early in the morning and to their bibles late at night when the world is quiet. i hope somebody will write a song about it or paint a picture about it or pray a special prayer because of that book. i hope somebody will let go a little easier or hold on through the fiercest storm. i hope it makes people care about something more than they've ever cared about anything in their lives. i hope it makes them live loud and love deep.

i think i overestimate myself. i get so frustrated with life because i think that i should be doing something more influential and dramatic than completing my senior year of high school in small town alabama but maybe i will always be searching for something bigger. i want to be big. i am so little.

i like to think that God gave me this special anxiety because He has something planned. something in my timeline that will fulfill my enormous desire for change and passionate living and influence, i can sense it but can't see it. or maybe while i'm on earth i will always be small. maybe i will only be big to the people i keep close, maybe i will be big to my children one day. maybe if i work hard enough God will even let me be big for Him like brave women who turn the world upside down

i have so many dreams and maybe i'm a little reckless or maybe i'm just homesick for somewhere i still haven't found yet, but when i do i'll know it and i'll probably write a book about it

can't i be at freed-hardeman yet?

i just want

to take God seriously. and for people to encourage me while doing that.