Sebastian

I now have a puppy and an apartment and the best job in the world! WhooO! God is great!! Sure so life isn't perfect but that is what makes it so exciting. I never know what will happen next.

Did you ever consider that a puppy could teach you something about love? I've never been a big fan of animals, but I have had a soft spot for puppies. So because I don't like to be alone, I got a cute little puppy named Sebastian. He's so bad! He eats my clothes and bites my nose and chews up sticks in my apartment and pees on my rugs. Yet, I really care about him and enjoy taking care of him. But he's just a dog. I can't imagine how wonderful it would be to love and raise a child who is also capable of love and created for heaven! wow. I would love to be a mom!

10 Facts About Alicia

1. I am very shy when meeting new people or when I'm in big groups of people...but put me in charge of that big group and suddenly I am no longer shy.
2. I enjoy public speaking.
3. If I could do absolutely anything with my life, I wouldn't have a paying job. I'd just be in Ministry working with teens and women.
4. Horror movies give me nightmares.
5. I hate being wrong.
6. I don't like showering, and if I never smelled, I wouldn't take one.
7. I like to be silly.
8. I LOVE adoration.
9. I thank God everyday for the family that He gave me.
10. Sleep is overrated.

Missing Home

I just got home for Christmas, and I'm already leaving. In my mind it always seems so simple to fly away, but now that I have only a couple days left with my mom and younger sisters, I'm really sad! Yes, I'm just as excited as ever to move to Birmingham and attempt to get a job, but I really wish I could be in both places! I don't want to miss out on any more family memories than I already have! Since that's not possible, I'm praying that God will bless them so much more than if I stayed. The crazy things we do when God is tugging at our heart. Who can resist him for very long? I have big dreams, and I'm not going to sit here and pretend it's impossible.

Happiness

Do you want to be happy? I certainly do. Yet so often I find myself making choices that are far from what fulfills me. I eat too much; I pray too little; I complain too often. And at the moment I'm choosing any of these, I choose them because I want to be happy, whether consciously or subconsciously. What a paradox: In seeking happiness, I choose the very things that are obstacles to my happiness. Today I was reading Archbishop Sheen's book "The World's First Love," his thoughts on Mary. In it he writes, "The humble are necessarily the joyful, for where there is no pride, there is no self-centeredness, which makes joy impossible." Christianity seems to be the religion of paradoxes! So to be joyful we must not be concerned with our own happiness at all. Joy* is one of those things you can't try to grasp. It's like a butterfly. You can chase it for hours and never catch it, but then it lands on you when you aren't even looking. You see, we experience joy when we find fulfillment. We find fulfillment when we meet our end (as in purpose). Our end, our fulfillment, our joy is God. God is Love. And love is sacrifice.


*I'm using joy and happiness interchangeably, even though joy and happiness aren't the exact same thing.Beatitudo, perfect happiness, complete well-being, is to be attained not in this life, but in the next.

Does your blinker freeze?

I am convinced that there is blinker fluid. I was driving the other night when it was about -22000.500 degrees outside, and I needed to turn right so I put my blinker on. The light turned on, but it refused to blink. I at least thought to frantically turn it off and on to make it appear like it was blinking. I had to make that silly blinker blink. Without success, I hit it and jiggled it and flicked it up and down until I came to the moment of realization. It just needs to thaw! And sure enough, the next day when I needed to turn a corner, my blinker blinked.

If I had to be someone else...

I would be Audrey Hepburn, ok so my first choice is Joan of Arc but I wouldn't mind being Hepburn! She's elegant, beautiful, with a silly innocence in the way she carries herself, but she has an unexpected spunk. Many of her movies are some of my all-time favorites like "Breakfast at Tiffany's." Classics. I'm currently watching "Funny Face"...well while double tasking. She's silly and beautiful and sort of out of control. Ah so absolutely beautiful! ;)

afraid

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JMJ

Sometimes, I am scared of the next day or the next year, and sometimes when I really get to thinking too much, I 'm scared of life. And it's when I let the fear take over that I freeze. I can't go on. But then I go to mass, and I'm forced to stop for just a moment, really stop and take a break from the rush of life. What am I afraid of? Failure? Loss of a loved one? Pain? Death? How can I fear these when I can receive my God in the humblest form of bread? Neither failure nor loss nor pain nor death can ever stop me from fulfilling my purpose, to love and be loved by God. He is my beginning and my end; and if I only surrender all of my fears to Him, I reach All that Matters. The one who is anchored to the cross can never be destroyed by trial.