By saying "a little disconnected", I meant VERY disconnected. Oh well... similar subject.

This is kind of a stupid thing to write about, but whatever. Tomorrow I'll make it up to you by writing my thesis on quantum physics and eschatology.

I have never been inside an Ikea store...until 3 nights ago. I just want to state for the record that I think Ikea is my new favorite store. I knew it was going to be kinda cool...but I didn't know the extent of its' wonder. As a friend told me the other day, "It made all my dreams come true". I know a lot of it is cheapo stuff...and I also found out that Ikea blatantly funds radical causes promoting abortion, gay pride, and other stuff. As a matter of fact, so does Starbucks, Sears, Southwest and a lot of other corporations. Maybe I'll save that discussion for another day though.

In Ikea I just kept walking around saying, "Oooooo" "Aaaaahhhh" "I want that! and that! and OH look at that!" I felt like a total goof in there because on the inside I was ridiculously excited about it. I of course didn't buy anything for myself, because I don't think the airlines would appreciate me showing up with a leather couch and entertainment center on the way to Slovakia.

The funny thing about being there was that it kinda made me sad. I feel stupid saying that, but it's true!

It's just that... I believe someone's natural tendency as a human, more specifically women, is the desire to make a home. I guess they call this "nesting". One of my desires is to nest. To make a place for me and my family to live. At this point, I've had to move so many times in my life that right now I am now really satisfied with having very little.

Side Note: For years I've acquired tons of useless crap. Up until a year ago I was flat broke all the time--so when someone wanted to give me something I took it with no hesitation, even if I didn't need or want it. I even picked through the trash of some really rich people I worked for cause they had some good stuff in there! I think I took some canned vegetables. Off topic. So for years I've had a lot of useless stuff I've carried around with me and a few weeks ago I sold or gave almost all of it away. It is a REALLY great feeling to not have much stuff to worry about. If you are in the same boat as I, and have a cluttered room or house, I encourage you to sell or give away what you have that you don't need. It's liberating.

That is where I am now, but even though I enjoy that freedom of having little...and even though the stuff you own can end up owning YOU right back in return...I still have this urge to make a real home.

Floating in same thought-pot in my brain, lately I've been coming to terms with the idea that it may be years until I get married...if at all. I don't like thinking about that, and maybe I'm too young to consider it, but there is never any guarantee that anyone will accomplish anything in their lives, especially marriage. I've always heard that God will give you the desires of your heart...but I also know that God CHANGES the desires of your heart sometimes. So what if my desires change to not wanting to be married? What if God changes my desire? All I can say that if I am called to be single, I sure wish I didn't have the desire to be married because it's hard. I still don't like thinking about that.

So believe it or not, all of these things were running through my mind while I was at Ikea. What I want versus what I might get. Is what I want now really what I should want? I can't even shop in mental peace!

What I've been dealing with for the past few weeks is trying to figure out which direction I should be going in. I'm trying to decide whether what I wanted for my life when I was young is really where I should be, or whether I should stick with attempting to attain a normal 'white picket fence' life. I'm feeling the fork in the road coming up soon and I don't know whether to just sit in the driver's seat on auto pilot and let God do His thing, or whether I should hop in there and start making some turns. Should I pursue life #1 with a successful career and 'normal' comfortable living, or life #2 with pursuing an unbelievably rewarding live-changing unglamourous mission life. It's a really strange feeling to THINK you know what you wanted, and felt confident in that...but then all of the sudden question your goals. I feel kind of fickle. Which way do I go?? Don't know.