Melilyn.com

Today, at work, I was cleaning up the dining room… washing tables, refilling napkin holders, throwing away stray straw wrappers and coffee cups, and gathering today’s paper from the four corners of the room and setting it back in a neat stack (for the next three old men to come in and redistribute). I just had it all stacked up when a comic on the top caught my eye (in the middle of that boring office comic and the daily sudoku game); one of those circular “Family Circus” cartoons.

“Do caterpillars know they’re going to be butterflies, or does God surprise them?”

Aww, how cute. But seriously, it got me to thinking. Becky and I have this extended metaphor with the butterfly that we came up with… oh, years ago. So without boring you with all of the situational details, I’ll tell you how this struck me.

See, I don’t think caterpillars know they’re going to be butterflies at all (assuming, of course, that caterpillars are just as cognizant as we are). I think they’re just doodling along, munching on some leaves, having a grand old caterpillar life (why does this remind me of that book with the holes in the pages?). And maybe after a while they start feeling differently, start feeling the need to do new things. They start feeling uncomfortable and maybe even a little cranky. And then one day (more or less), God surprises them with wings that they had no clue they could get themselves.

I guess we’re a lot like that in life. To go with one facet of Becky’s metaphor, here I am, a little Meli Caterpillar, doodling through life, just trying to make the best of it. Now, on one hand, I do know that there is a possibility of me becoming a butterfly… but at the same time, I have no way of knowing. And so I start feeling differently, needing different things, wanting different results from my life. I’m not sure exactly how it’s going to work out or what I need to do to make it work, but I just keep trusting Him to lead me along each step of the way.

Caterpillars build cucoons, having no idea how to begin or how to make it work. It’s the same in my life. “Lord, you want me to do what?” I find myself thinking a lot. I just have to keep plodding on and trust that He knows what He’s doing.

Another thing… do caterpillars know when it’s going to happen? Nope. They might start getting a feeling that something big could happen in the near future, but having never experienced flight or wings, they don’t know what it’s going to look like when it gets here. That applies to areas of my life as well. A lot of you know that it is my dream to someday get married to someone wonderful (even though I should probably go ahead and buy stock in cat food and kitty-litter while I’ve got the chance). And honestly? It isn’t happening anytime in the immediate future.

But maybe it’s good that I don’t see it coming. It’s like the end of the day at work. If I keep on going, stocking and waiting on customers and such, not even looking at the clock, all of a sudden my boss tells me that I can get going, and it’s a nice surprise. If I know it’s coming, however, I find myself lagging and looking at the clock and time just drags on and on. I guess that’s a lot like finding the right person; if I keep on going about my life, doing all of the things I need to do and not worrying about how old I’m getting (my mom was married when she was my age, by the way), someone wonderful could creep up out of nowhere and take my by surprise, instead of me wasting my time waiting for that moment.

Sorry for the overly-personal entry, you poor blogathon allies. By the way, yes, I know I missed about a week. But you know what? I’m blogging again, and I guess that’s really what matters, right?

For those of you who are girls and about my age, I’m sure that a lot of you had a healthy obsession for a boyband when you were about… oh, eleven? Twelve? Back in the day of the Backstreet Boy or N*Sync, right? Posters on the walls, anyone? CD’s? An unhealthy urge to ogle MTV every time one of their videos came on?

Back up, back up. No, I didn’t. I promise you. See, I was a good little Christian girl. My obsession was for Plus One.

Recently, like within the past week or so, I was surfing through iTunes when I came across Plus One’s most recent album. Now, don’t get me wrong, it was released in 2003 and it was only three of the five members, but it was the one CD I hadn’t ever really listened to.

Cringing at the memory of me at thirteen, screaming and yelling and obsessing all over these poor guys, I bought the CD.

Anyhow, the point of all of this is that one of the songs that I’ve been listening to constantly really touched me. It just seemed really weird to listen to Plus One and actually get something out of it besides how nice Nate’s voice is or how cute Jason is in person. (more…)

What’s it like to be twenty? Feel any older? Feel more mature, more wise, more in-control? Honestly? It feels exactly the same so far. Mostly, it’s just making my parents feel old!

Okay, nerd relapse. I got this book from the library. Wait, wait, let me back up. I have this thing for the “Dummy” books. If I don’t know anything about a subject, I love to browse through them and get a gist of what’s going on. If it’s a book concerning something I know pretty well, I love to read through and tell them what they’re getting wrong or teaching stupidly (read: German, web design, or the like). So, wandering through the library the other day (well, you missed the part about the old ladies and the “tachyon” music, but that’s really a long story), I picked up this book called “Head First HTML” yadda yadda.

Ha, I thought, picking the book up. This oughta be good. Shawna, you’ll especially appreciate this. Every time I pick up a book like this, they teach you the old, outdated, clunky, stupid way, and then halfway through the book they try and fix their mistakes and attempt to teach you the right way.

This one was actually pretty good. By chapter three we had a website built, by chapter six we were validating on the W3C page using XHTML, and we NEVER ONCE used the <font> tag, the “bgcolor” attribute, or any image without an alt tag.

Q: My friend showed me a cool trick where he did all of his page layout right within a table. He didn’t even have to use CSS!

A: Go straight to CSS jail. Do not pass go; do not collect $200.

Shawna, I don’t know what you should be prouder of… me picking up this book and already knowing most of it… or the fact that I was cheering them on.

Okay, no more nerdiness today. I’m off to bed.