So what's up with you?

Wow. Lot’s of change. Hmmm… Let’s see. Where to begin...

First of all, this is the summer of weddings. I’ve been to 4 weddings and 1 reception and I have another wedding in 13 days. I think there’s something in the water.

Sad news: My friend Shad has found another job. He has already been gone a week and I miss him like crazy. I mean, he makes me crazy. I forget which one. Anyway, after having Shad as my next cube neighbor for 4.5 years, the silence I am now experiencing is deafening. I miss you, buddy!

Although, his departure will make mine that much easier. That’s right, I’m leaving my job. I still have five weeks left, but I’ll be on vacation for two of them. I’m sneaky. Hahaha. No, I haven’t found another job yet, but I’ll be starting seminary in the fall and my current job is just too far away from the school.

So that introduces another change. Moving. I’m moving in with my friends Rachel and Tasha who live in a house closer to school. It’ll be VERY nice being in a house instead of an apartment. Living in an apartment with a dog is a big pain. It’ll be nice to just open the door to let the little guy out to do his business. And no stairs!

But I’m VERY SAD about not living with Christy anymore. Can’t think about it. I’ll cry.

So the next few weeks will be INSANELY busy. I move this weekend and then the next weekend is the BIG WEDDING where I will have to fulfill maid of honor duties all weekend including the rehearsal dinner, the bachelorette party, and the actual wedding itself. It'll be fun! Then EARLY the next day, I leave for Philly for the aforementioned vacation. And then school starts two weeks after I get back! Yay!

So be praying for me to find a new job. I’ll have to work fulltime while I go to seminary cuz school ain’t cheap and I have bills to pay. So that’s the big question mark for me right now. So glad everything else is falling into place!

Although I think all the change may give me an ulcer.

Life change part I

Sometimes life changes drastically in a short period of time. Sometimes those changes are good. Other times, not so much.

We find a case of such here.

He used to be class president. He is the son of a preacher. And he got arrested for robbing a bank to pay off his online poker debts.

Can you imagine being in orchestra practice and the police bust in and arrest the cellist?

I think it would go something like this:

Cellist: What’s the problem, officer?

Officer: You are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Please do not play your cello.

The dude sure looks grumpy...

Other interesting stuff I have found on the internet:
All you ever wanted to know about hot dogs
Recommended daily allowance of cuteness
Antidote to above cuteness site, just in case

Have any interesting links you’d like me to post? Send’em my way!

Grossness

Root beer floats gross me out.

They feed us a lot at work. Today it's ice cream floats. People all around me are eating them. The foamy stuff disgusts me.

Ick.

Geographically illiterate

On CBSNews.com today, there was an article about how many Americans can't locate obscure places that no one ever talks about like Louisiana and Iraq on a map. Having grown up putting together puzzles that were maps of the US I just couldn't understand this. I love maps. And not just of the US. I love maps of places I've been, like Ghana. Of places I'd like to go, like Israel. Of places that I'd like to go even though they don't exist, like The Shire or Rohan.

Here is another of the findings that I found interesting:

Six in 10 did not know the border between North and South Korea is the most heavily fortified in the world. Thirty percent thought the most heavily fortified border was between the United States and Mexico.

The border between the US and MEXICO?! Freaking A, people. Crimeny, we're so freaking full of ourselves.

Two-thirds didn't know that the earthquake that killed 70,000 people in October 2005 occurred in Pakistan.

But we sure as heck know that it costs $2.89 for a gallon of gas. And WHY do we get charged that much? There are many reasons, of course, but one of them is "BECAUSE WE WILL PAY IT." We will pay out the wazoo to fuel our SUVs and H2s. But if 70,000 people die in an earthquake, we get all pissed off because the special report interrupts American Idol or some crap like that.

Sorry to rant. But stupid people get on my nerves. It's a good thing that I'm the most brilliant person to ever live. :)

Dr. Pepper at its best

I grew up drinking Dr. Pepper. Everyone in my family had a different drink. I drank DP. My brother drank Coke. My dad drank Pepsi. My mom drank caffeine free Diet Coke. (When I was young, we called in diet caffeine free Coke but I think caffeine free Diet Coke is better. Not sure why.) The fact that we all drank something different meant that going to the store for ‘coke’ was quite an expensive excursion.

As I got older, I began adding other drinks to the rotation. Coke, Root Beer (YUM!), Pepsi. Sometimes even RC Cola. But lately I’ve been sticking mainly with Coke. For some reason, Dr. Pepper just didn’t sound very appealing to me anymore and I didn’t understand why.

But yesterday, I figured it out. At work, we have a coke machine. Drinks come in a can. I get Coke. At restaurants, they have fountains. I get Coke. Why? Because out of a can or from a soda fountain is not Dr. Pepper at its best.

Dr. Pepper is best out of a 2-liter bottle. It’s weird, I know. It just tastes different. I suppose a 3-liter bottle would work, and MAYBE a 1-liter. But a 20-oz. bottle? No way. It just don’t taste right.

Questions? Comments?

Yay for food!

I’m not a big BBQ fan. It’s almost a sin to live in Texas and not love BBQ. But I don’t. There. I said it. And I’m not ashamed!! Also, I’m not a big fan of the side dishes that always accompany BBQ. There’s baked beans, coleslaw, and potato salad. What’s up with potato salad? I mean, of all the wonderful ways to fix potatoes, why do we have to go with potato salad?

I work for a tax and accounting software firm. A quick check of the calendar reveals that today is April 13th. Things are pretty busy over in the tax department. Luckily, I don’t work there. I work in the accounting department and we are painfully slow today. Our call volume always goes up the day AFTER tax season ends. Apparently people are too busy doing taxes to worry about their books right now. And I’m okay with that.

Anyway, because it’s getting near the end of tax season and the powers that be like to take pretty good care of us so that people don’t go crazy and start yelling at clients and other such nonsense, they decided it would be a good idea to feed us. And I won’t argue with that.

Monday was La Hacienda Ranch. Oh, my goodness. I LOVE La Ha. They have the BEST beef fajita meat EVER. When I go there, I order a side item of just the fajita meat. It’s scrumptious. Thinking about it now is making me hungry again!

Today was Sonny Bryan’s Smokehouse. And I must say, THIS BBQ is worth something. The BBQ chicken…mmmmmmm. Yum. For real. So if you are ever in the mood for BBQ, you must see for yourself. Click here for a location near you.

Lil’ Tiny Baby Duckies!!!!

I love spring. But I guess you already know that. I particularly love it today.

At my apartment complex, we have a pond that is home to numerous birds. First off, we have swans. Swans are mean. They hiss at my dog. And so my dog is scared of them, but he hides it well. We also have these ugly turkey-looking ducks. They make cute lil’ babies, but they, too, grow up to be ugly turkey-looking ducks.


But then we have NORMAL ducks.

I’m not particularly fond of birds normally. I’m afraid they will bite me or poop on me. Or both. But in the springtime, ducks make duck babies. And this morning I saw them!! About 10 lil’ tiny baby duckies!

Dey was so coot!!! I dust want to pick dem up and queeeeeze dem!!!! But I fink Dywan might twy to eat dem.

NOTE: To understand the above, you must say it in the “talk to the dog/baby/cute-little-anything” voice.

Another random survey

I took a survey today.

Here's what it said about me:

"You are constantly trying to make a favourable impression and endeavouring to be considered as that someone 'special'. You are pretty good at using various tactics and strategies that give the impression that you are in control. Maybe you are - but you are constantly watching to see whether or not your endeavours are truly appreciated. Be careful... just as 'you' may be endeavouring to influence others, 'they' may indeed be influencing you.

You 'need to be needed'. As an idealist you are intolerant of anything short of special consideration from those close to you. If you do not get what you seek you are apt to become reclusive and you will close the doors on all those within your sphere of influence.

You feel tired - worn out and listless. The last thing that you want to do is to be in an open conflict with those around you that are forever tormenting you. What to do? That's the rub. You are feeling that you are being choked - unable to breathe.

You pretend that you are a carefree individual and that nothing really bothers you - that you are so self-sufficient that whatever problems beset you they simply flow off you as water flows off a ducks back. You are experiencing considerable stress, trying to conceal yourself from the rest of the world. In actual fact - deep down, you are not at all happy. You feel lonely and you need someone with whom you can 'Let your hair down' and share your hopes, dreams and high standards. You are imposing unnecessary self restraint on yourself. You would like to demonstrate the unique quality of your character to all and sundry.

Sometimes one fears that its not worth formulating new ideas and projects because whatever you seem to have done in the past has never worked out and you are tired of, as they say, banging your head against a brick wall. No one seems to care. So now you are trying to get away from it all by withdrawing into a 'fantasy land' but unfortunately 'fantasy land' is just that and sooner or later you will have to return to reality so why delay the inevitable? When you do return, you will find that the situation is not as tough as perhaps you thought it was."

It's pretty interesting, although I think there's some imperfect grammar in there... I wonder what THAT says about me.

So what do you want to know?

I read my friend Jocelyn's blog today. She posted a very honest assessment of herself, listing all kinds of things about her, both good and bad. It sort of inspired me, so I will attempt to do the same.

I'm a big chicken and can't watch scary movies. I frequently dream about tornadoes. I think that guys lie about their height. I used to listen to country music and I know how to two-step. I know how to say, "You wanna fight?" in Korean. I am the queen of the snooze button. I once snoozed for 4 hours in college. Snoozed right through my class. My dog is on a diet. I love reality TV shows like Fear Factor, Extreme Makeover Home Edition, Beauty and the Geek and The Biggest Loser. I'm in love with Fitzwilliam Darcy. I get grumpy when I'm tired. It's worse if I'm hungry too. I think 'your mama' jokes never get old. (But your mama is old.) I'm scared of sushi. I operate on Jan Standard Time, which is roughly 10 minutes behind Central Standard Time. My mind works best late at night, but that makes it hard to go to bed, which means that it's hard to get up so I snooze a lot. My parents are divorced. It freaks my mom out that I'm 28 and not married. But I think she's really only afraid that it freaks me out that I'm 28 and not married. I'm not freaked out that I'm 28 and not married. I'd like to adopt someday. I don't have cable TV and I get 99.9% of my news from here and here. I hate using the mouse and prefer to use hotkeys. I love Quicken. I like to paint my nails weird colors. I think manicures are awesome. I love Barq's Root Beer. (It has caffeine.) I'm self-centered. I'm a control freak. Sometimes people just don't get my sense of humor. Sometimes some pretty outlandish things come out of my mouth, but I rarely wish that I could take them back. I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve. You wanna know something about me? Just ask. I'll probably tell you. I'm a commitment-phobe. Marriage scares me. I still wish I could be an astronaut when I grow up. I loved Sudoku way before it was cool. My favorite movie is The Princess Bride. I wish my name was Buttercup. I like to talk about myself. (Hence, the blog.) I love asking hard questions. Oh, yeah. And I'm human.

Ouch! That's gotta hurt!

So, for those of you that have been around a while, you’ve seen some of the words studies I’ve done in the past. We’ve studied love, we’ve studied hope, and we even did an unofficial study on truth. Today, we’re gonna switch gears a little. Today’s Word of the Day is “grace.”

I know you probably think I’m going to talk about the biblical meaning of grace. And so you aren’t disappointed, I’ll touch on it briefly. Grace is undeserved acceptance and love received from another. Although the biblical words for "grace" are used in a variety of ways, the most characteristic use is to refer to an underserved favor granted by a superior to an inferior. When used of divine grace toward mankind, it refers to the underserved favor of God in providing salvation for those deserving condemnation. In the more specific Christian sense it speaks of the saving activity of God which is manifested in the gift of His Son to die in the place of sinners.

But that’s not what I wanna talk about today. For the purposes of today’s discussion, this will be our working definition: elegance and beauty of movement or expression.

This is one of those interesting cases where the exception apparently proves the rule. Let me relate to you my recent experiences with ungrace.

Yesterday, Ben and I went and saw Mr. and Mrs. Iyer at the Indian Film Festival at SMU. I had never seen an Indian film before and it was actually a pretty good movie. It’s really interesting getting a glimpse into other cultures and seeing things from other perspectives. Afterwards, we had a little Indian food. We weren't sure what it was. It looked like a juicy, orange funnel cake. Ben said he thought it was fried juice. Anyway, it was very sweet and it made me wish I had a glass of milk to drink with it.

The movie was shown in a fairly small theater on the 3rd floor of Dallas Hall. It’s a stately sort of building, with a seal of some sort on the floor and a very ornate dome ceiling. As you can see from the picture below, as you leave the building, you walk down a number of stairs before getting to the ground level.



Out in front there is a large grass field. It was a nice day, so people were out just lounging and playing with their kids, etc.

I started walking down the stairs, in my cute skirt and heels I wore to church. And then I bit it big time. I completely fell flat on the ground. Actually, that’s not entirely true. I fell DOWN the stairs. I don’t know what happened. I didn’t twist my ankle or anything. I’m just walking and then I’m on the ground. Real fast. Oddly enough, I remember thinking as I fell, “Wow, this is gonna hurt.”

I didn’t damage myself too bad. A few bruises and a skinned up shin. Oh, and a few sore muscles in my side and arm. I tried to take a picture of my leg so I could post it, but the picture didn’t turn out very well. Oh, well, it’s probably better that way. Luckily, the most injured part of myself is invisible – my ego is currently very humble… Ben thought it would be funny to preach at me: Pride comes before a fall. But I’ll just blame it on that dang fried juice.

Luckily I learned somewhere along the way to laugh at myself, so I sat there on the stairs and laughed hysterically for a few minutes. Then I took my shoes off and walked back to the car barefoot. If only there had been a hole I could have crawled in between the stairs and my car…

So, apparently, in addition to humility, I also need to learn grace. But at least I have one thing going for me: at least I can elegantly eat french fries... :)

(I did figure out what the Indian food was. It's called Jalebi.)

Rain on my parade

It just wasn’t in the cards for me to have a perfect day.

I spend hours every week compiling numbers for the boss lady. Then she found out that the numbers were automatically being generated for other departments, so she had the reports guy create it for her, too. So basically, I do nothing at my job. Here is the email that I sent to my boss.

From: Me
To: The Boss Lady
RE: I quit

Basically that little spreadsheet just made me obsolete. Can I spend the rest of the day looking for a new job? I thought about sending an email to the report guy congratulating him on the accuracy of his numbers. Can I go home now?

Jan

I love spring. It really puts me in a good mood. I found myself singing today. You know what I was singing? B2 25M. My friend Tracy has a meeting in B2 25M and I just thought it was fun to say and even more fun to sing, so I started singing B2 25M to I’ve Been Working on the Railroad. You know the end where it goes

“Fie, fi, fiddly i o
Fie, fi, fiddly i o
Fie, fi, fiddly i o
Strumming on the old banjo”

Yeah, that part fits perfectly with “B2 25M.”

Also, I’m in a good mood cuz tonight is the P&P party. What does P&P stand for, you ask? Pride and Prejudice, of course. It came out on DVD on Tuesday so a group of us are getting together tonight to watch it. There will be between 10 and 15 girls there. Sort of scares me, actually. That’s a lot of estrogen in one room. But we’re gonna get together and eat and watch a pretty good movie based on my favorite book in the whole world.

Today is a good day.

Beautiful

Here in Texas we have been enjoying fantabulous weather. For the past few days, I’ve been riding around with the windows down and the sunroof open. I’m even sleeping with the window open. I LOVE early spring. It’s a bit cool in the mornings, but by afternoon, it’s lovely.

I had to email my bro, who lives in Philly, to tell him how great it was here. On Tuesday, I checked the weather in Philly – 33 degrees. HAHAHA!

Also, just off my balcony is a Bradford pear tree. I noticed this morning that it had little baby leaves on it. Which is sort of odd since last year’s leaves didn’t fall off until the week before Christmas.

It’s okay that we don’t get much of a winter here. Spring is my favorite anyway.

The Olympics

I get hooked on the Olympics. Every time the Olympics come on, all I can do for two weeks is watch. They always show the good stuff during Prime Time from 7-11. But it’s not very good for my productivity level. It even got to where I would check the stats during the work day and then go home and watch, even though I knew what was going to happen.

But this year, I was confused by the Olympics. See, here’s the thing. I know a little Italian. (And when I say a little, I mean VERY LITTLE.) Roma is the Italian name for Rome. Napoli is the Italian name for Naples. And Torino is the Italian name for Turin (as in the Shroud of Turin.) I’m just confused as to why they used the name Torino instead of Turin. I mean, in 2004, the Olympics were in Athens, Greece. I’m sure Athens isn’t the Greek name for Athens. It doesn’t make sense to me.

But then I found this on the Shroud of Turin website. HAHA!!

My little baby dog - okay so maybe not so little...

Okay, so I officially agree: my dog is fat. I was walking him the other day and we passed one of my neighbors. She said, “Oh, what a cute dog. And fat.” And then my roommate had a friend over and he said my dog looked “well fed.” In case you were wondering, if you tell someone that their dog is well fed, it’s the exact same thing as telling them that their dog is fat. And if you tell someone their dog is fat, they aren’t going to like you.

So just because I say that Dylan is a tub o’lard doesn’t mean that YOU can.

So I’ve started measuring his food to make sure he’s not getting too much dog food. Now if I can just cut out the table scraps, too…

I also bought him some more toys. Did you know they don’t make very many dog toys that either A) don’t squeak, or B) aren’t made of some sort of rope that sheds worse than my dog? I finally found a few. His favorite toys are the tennis balls. He LOVES them. We have to play with two, though. If I’m about to throw one, he’ll drop the one he just fetched. But if we only have one, he likes for me to take it from him. It’s a game I call tug-o-fetch.

Anyway, I’m hoping that with the cut back in food and the increase in play with the tennis balls will cause him to shed some pounds.

If I had a digital camera, I’d take a picture of him and post it for the “Before” picture. But I don’t.

Languages

I’ve always been amazed by people who could learn other languages. I’d like to someday. In the meantime, I'll just make fun of other people that learn other languages.

Anyway, as most of you know, I really like words. Which will hopefully explain why I like the Babelfish translator site so much. My friend Shad is taking Russian, so he decided to take the normal phrases that he uses quite frequently and translate them into Russian. I thought it might be fun to then take those words and translate them BACK to English. See below for the results of this experiment.

*Disclaimer: Yes, these are phrases that Shad uses with at least moderate frequency. The last one he uses several times a day.

First I will list the original English phrase and then the same phrase translated to Russian and back.

Smell my feet.
Smell by my feet.

You really hate me.
You actually hate me.

I don’t know what to tell you.
I do not know to say you.

Are you mad at me?
You sumashedshi on me?

Then I tried it again translating to Chinese and back.

Smell my feet.
Smells my foot.

You really hate me.
You truly hate me.

I don’t know what to tell you.
I did not know any tells you.

Are you mad at me?
You live my gas?

That last one concerns me a bit...

Chai tea

I never was a Starbucks fan. Nothing against Starbucks, I just didn’t like coffee and assumed there was, therefore, no reason for me to ever step foot inside one. Oh, how I was wrong. First, a friend introduced me to the Chai Tea Latte. Pretty good. Not quite chocolate milk (my fave!) but it made me feel a little more sophisticated drinking a hot drink at Starbucks. (That should clue you in a little as to my level of sophistication…) Anyway, I then discovered the VANILLA Chai Tea Latte. Now this is praiseworthy. Seriously, I look forward to my weekly trip to Starbucks on Sunday mornings before church. Yes, I only allow myself to have one per week. The ‘tall’ which is Starbucks talk for ‘small’ is $3.41. I’m not doing that every day. Oy vey.

Anyway, I have discovered something else that just might allow me to enjoy my hot drink more than once a week. I found the Vanilla Chai Tea Latte Mix by Oregon Chai.

So I was looking at the package today and I found this:

Mispronunciation of Oregon Chai
may result in derisive snickering.
Oregon \or-y-gun
Chai \eye with a ch in front
At least they are upfront about the fact that they make fun of people.

This is starting to get depressing...

March 7
Liz says:
The question at hand is only this: Is he making lame transparent excuses about marriage to cover for the fact that he really doesn't ever see a future with you? That's the hard question. And women are smart. If they really got quiet and stopped listening to the excuses, or believing what they wanted to be true and what they hope he's really saying, and just got all centered about it, I think women would always know. They'll always know the difference between a man who truly has issues with marriage but is deeply committed to the relationship and them, and a guy who's just being a weenie.

March 15
If you can find him, he can find you. If he wants to, he will.

March 17
Ladies, you are going to meet, and have already met, many, many men in the years that constitute your dating life span. And I hate to tell you this, but some of these men will simply not be attracted to you. I know you're hot, but that's just the way it is.

March 20
Are there men who are too busy or have been through something so horrible that makes it hard for them to get involved? Yes, but there are so few of them that they should be considered urban legends.

March 25
Greg says:
The big questions is, "Is it okay for a guy to forget to call me?" I'm saying to you, "No." Barring disaster – someone had to be rushed to the hospital, he was just fired form his job, someone keyed his Ferrari – he should never forget to call you. If I like you, I don't forget you, ever. Don't you want the guy who'll forget about all the others things in his life before he forgets about you?

March 28
You can feel like crap and be alone. Or feel like crap and at least have someone to spend the holidays with. It seems like it might be a fair trade, except for the fact that it means the only two options you are giving yourself involve feeling like crap.

March 30
No matter how traumatic a divorce was… the person you plan on spending your life and having kids with should love you enough to get over it if getting married is important to you.

Pride

I struggle with pride.  Most of you probably already know that as you've either seen it first hand, or you've heard me confess it, or both.  Actually, from what I hear from other people, most of us struggle with pride.  It's just funny how it manifests itself in different people.  Have I written about this before?  Feeling a little déjà vu…  Anyway, for probably over a year now I've been thinking about the idea of humility and pride and all that stuff, but humility is one of those things that it's real scary to ask for.  How does God teach humility?  He humbles you.  And it ain't no fun.  But, luckily, sometimes God teaches us things in other ways, too, and hopefully I'm not so stubborn that I can't learn things the not hard way.

So I've been reading a lot recently, which is part of the reason I haven't been blogging as much.  Reading and writing are both very time consuming and I think that other people have written things that are so much more interesting than what I would be writing about, so sometimes I opt just to read other people's stuff.  Plus, I don’t have to think as much then.  Writing sometimes makes my brain hurt.

So, what have I learned about pride and humility?  First of all, just as a person can CHOOSE to act in a loving manner even when they don't FEEL it, a person can CHOOSE to act in a humble manner even when every ounce of their being is screaming in indignation.  That's for starters.  So even when I think I'm right and the other person is wrong, that doesn't mean it's okay for me to tell them how stupid they are.  Even if I think it.  The goal, of course, is to actually have the appropriate attitude to go along with it, but that comes with time.  In the meantime, I can choose to suppress my own will and let God's mandates dictate my behavior.  But it's so hard…

Some of the other things I've learned have come from what I've been reading lately.  So tonight, let's take a look…  

I've been reading the Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis.  I just finished The Horse and His Boy.  In this book, there is a horse named Bree who is an intelligent, talking war horse from Narnia, not the dumb, nontalking kind we are used to.  During the story, he and his boy, Shasta, and another horse and her girl, Hwin and Aravis, are being chased by a lion.  Shasta falls off Bree, but Bree continues to run in fear and leaves Shasta and the slower Hwin and Aravis behind.  

Bree is shamed when he realized what he has done: "Slavery is all I'm fit for.  How can I ever show my face among the free Horses of Narnia?- I who left a mare and a girl and a boy to be eaten by lions while I galloped all I could to save my own wretched skin!"

The wise hermit responds: "My good Horse, you've lost nothing but your self-conceit.  No, no, cousin.  Don't put back your ears and shake your mane at me.  If you are really so humbled as you sounded a minute ago, you must learn to listen to sense.  You're not quite the great Horse you had come to think, from living among poor dumb horses.  Of course you were braver and cleverer than them.  You could hardly help being that.  It doesn't follow that you'll be anyone very special in Narnia.  But as long as you know you're nobody special, you'll be a very decent sort of Horse, on the whole, and taking one thing with another."

I'm good at some things.  Other things, not so much.  I had let my little brain get so wrapped up in the things I COULD do well, that I had begun to think myself better than other people.  

I think that sometimes as Christians, we get to where we begin to compare ourselves to nonbelievers and end up feeling prideful.  Like we're better than them because we don't do some of the things that are so obviously self-destructive.  But we forget that things aren't quite so obvious to them.  We have been given the light, while they are still in darkness.  We forget the condition in which they live their lives, without the power of the Holy Spirit, without the hope of future glory with our Lord.  We begin to feel like talking war horses from Narnia, much superior to poor dumb horses.  But compared with who we SHOULD be, we are no one special.  And as long as we (and by 'we' I mean 'I') keep that in mind, we just might turn out to be a decent sort of horse.

Really, he's still not that into you

Okay so the first post of He's Just Not That Into You was a success. Here's what we have from February. And no, I can't actually WAIT until February to post it. I'm impatient. Get over it.

February 1
Calling when you say you're going to is the very first brick in the house you are building of love and trust. If he can't lay this one stupid brick down, you ain't never gonna have a house, baby. And it's cold outside.

February 13
If a dude isn't calling you when he says he will or making sure you know that he's dating you, then you already have your answer. Stop making excuses for him, his actions are screaming the truth: He's just not that into you.

February 17
Greg says:
We may try to make you think differently but we men are just like you. We like taking a break from our generally mundane day to talk to someone we like. It makes us happy. And we like to be happy. Just like you. If I were into you, you would be the bright spot in my horribly busy day. Which would be a day that I would never be to busy to call you.

February 21
Why rush? It's only been five years. He's going to know you so much better after ten. And you have all the time in the world, right? You know, in case after ten years he decides he's still not ready. I hate to tell you this, but here's why he feels rushed: He's still not sure you're the one.

February 22
Wasting time with the wrong person is just time wasted. And when you do move on and find your right person, believe me, you're not going to wish you had gotten to spend more time with Stinky the Time-Waster or Freddy Can't-Remember-to-Call.

February 24
Seemingly Innocent Words and Phrases that Can Also Be Used For Evil

FRIEND
What it should mean: I would never do anything to intentionally hurt you.
What it sometimes means: I'm just not that into you.

February 25/26
Instead of praying: "Dear God, bring me someone fabulous," try: "Dear God, make me into someone fabulous."

February 27
Hey. I know that guy you're dating. He's that guy who is so tired from work, so stressed about the project he's working on. He's just been through an awful breakup and it's really hitting him hard…. He is a man made up entirely of your excuses. And the minute you stop making excuses for him, he will completely disappear from your life.