Another Life Update...


This has been a whirlwind of a month!  I've been incredibly busy, which is why I haven't really posted here much (my apologies).

Anyway, here's what I've been up to:

Work
I have a client for whom I've been building a rather complicated website/database combination, part of which  went live already, to a select list of about 17,000 people, and the other part of which is scheduled to go live next Monday, to the rest of the world, but initially marketed to over 700,000 people.

Dance
I've been taking dance workshops and dancing pretty much every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday night: blues dancing at the Firehouse 5 on Sunday and Wednesday nights, country dancing at The Davis Graduate on Mondays, Fridays, and occasional Wednesdays after blues, and on rare occasion I'll hit up salsa or swing or hip-hop/club here or there on a Tuesday, Thursday, or Friday night.

I'm not going to go into too much detail, but I got myself involved in some drama at The Grad a couple of weeks ago, which is still ongoing, but lessened now.  So that's been really stressful.  Dance is not supposed to be stressful!  Last year I stopped salsa dancing during Lent; this year, I think I'm gonna stop country for the same duration, for two reasons: 1) I've been noticing that it's affecting me spiritually...as in the dancing itself (or rather the compliments and attention I get) is starting to feed my pride.  I need to give it a rest, reset and center on God again.

And 2) I need to get away from the drama, not so that I can "escape" it, but also because it's feeding my other passions, such as lust, jealousy, (unrighteous) anger, pride, etc.  I need to withdraw from that so that I can focus on Lent, so that if/when I return I can approach the situation from a healthy spiritual and emotional standpoint, and be a light, rather than add darkness to it.

Church
Speaking of Lent: although Lent has begun already according to the Gregorian calendar, it doesn't start for another few weeks on the Julian, according to which the Eastern Orthodox Churches practice it (both old style and new style).  But it's coming!  We had Zacchaeus Sunday already a couple of weeks ago, which signals the beginning of the Lenten Triodion two weeks thence.  I felt a wake-up call in my spirit that day, and am really looking forward to the work of Lent, and the joy of Pascha.  Pray for me, a sinner!

Additionally, as the church Treasurer, I've had to get everyone's tax records in order, and boy has that been a chore!  We had a couple of major incidents in the life of our parish last year that really threw the records out of order entirely.

Finally, I've been fairly involved in the remodel process, which has also been somewhat stressful.

Family & Life
Without going into too much detail, my family has been in turmoil for a several years now.  Certain aspects of that have peaked over the last couple of years.  One has peaked and faded into a new "norm", but the other is just beginning to peak, and has been adding a ton of stress to my life.  So we beg your prayers.

Furthermore, on both a "this is stressful" and "this is still a good thing" note: I've moved!  Not far -- just about 10 minutes up the road to Vacaville.  But still, I moved.  I'm now in a (slightly) larger place (one bedroom now, as opposed to my previous studio), and for $40/mo. cheaper!  What sucked was having to pay for two places at once, because of the 30-day notice law.  But whatever; the tradeoff has been that I've had nearly a month to complete the move and cleaning the old place (I'm officially out of there on Feb. 24th, and I moved in here on Feb. 1st).  That's been really nice, 'cause I can take it easy and don't have to spend money on movers to get it done quick. :)

Conclusion
Well, that's about it.  I'll have more posts for you after next month (next month is going to be pretty busy as well).

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