Feeding the soul

It's funny... the soul is often treated a lot like the body.  We don't generally think about it until it's quite obvious something is wrong.  My friend back in MD reminded me in the depths of my despair that my soul needed to be fed.  I'd become bad at going to to Mass, I knew I needed confession but didn't want to get up early to go to Seoul.  You know, the last time my mental health had deteriorated to the point where I wanted death, going to Mass gave me the hope I needed to carry on.  Not surprising that this time it took a virtual Catholic conference, several talks with fellow Catholics, and the eventual realization that the love of God isn't meant to be understood.  I know how bad I screw up, constantly!  To think that the creator of the universe still loves me, still wants me, and is still happy that he made me - truly boggles the mind.  However, the mind is not where we need to accept that love.  Acceptance comes from the heart, and now I find myself wanting to fall in love with God.  How does one go about doing that?  Well, reading the Gospels to get to know Jesus would be a good start, praying, going to Mass every week, going to confession more often than once every 6 mo or so, and by loving what God loves - that's right, loving my fellow humans.  There's the catch!

I struggle with people, as you well know by now.  I mean, I know you can love someone without really liking them.  To me, that means not making their life any worse just because you're not a fan of them.  I may not like someone, but I'm not going to go out of my way to make them miserable.  Maybe that's not totally what Jesus meant by "love your neighbor as yourself," but it's sometimes the best I can do.  I don't like gossiping about people because I know EXACTLY how that feels and I refuse to be a part of it.  I still hate knowing that I'm a topic of other people's convos - unless it's family discussing how much they love/are proud of me.  :D  Anyway, how do you show the love of God to people who make you want to run a cheese grater on your forehead rather than talk to them?

Good new is that we will have the kids back on Monday.  OK news is that we will have the kids back on Monday.  I'm definitely going to keep my counselor for May to make sure that I can handle the kids in the classroom.  Or give myself some new coping mechanisms for dealing with the lack of respect that I know I'm going to have to deal with.  I do like talking with her - tho on Wed we had to push back our session because I cooked for J and I'm still getting used to cooking in a toaster oven.  I know what to do differently next time, that's for sure!  LOL.

Minor setback that I want to blow out of proportion: we have to work 2 Saturdays in May.  Now, I'm going to sound like a spoiled, bratty child and my only excuse is that I'm PMS-ing so BACK OFF!  I'm bummed because I was starting to look forward to having nice weather weekends to myself.  I was going to go to Seoul on the 9th and check out Seoul Forest, wander along the Han river, find somewhere yummy for food - it was going to be a great day of Mandi introverting in public.  Now- NADA.  The weather is finally nice, I could work on my tan, but NOOOOO, now I have to work.  We have about 2 months of nice weather before we hit the "holy crap, that's right this is a peninsula" humidity.  Part of me KNOWS this is just PMS (cycle-tracking apps are AMAZING, mine is Flo), because I generally get bitchy around this time (see also: another reason for my good mood this week).  We have to wear masks when the kids are here, and they do too.  (Silver lining - saving on lipstick.) We are also supposed to try to make sure that they are not touching each other too much and riddle me how we are supposed to control THAT?!  So yeah, I'm bummed... it's a minor inconvenience but the way I'm feeling right now I want to get on a boat, throw my passport in the sea, and go figure out how to live on a desert island... or get a job working as a bartender at some skeezy resort.

So M(C) reminded me why we are having to work on 2 Saturdays, and it's a legit reason.  We had been expecting this last month, but the kids weren't back yet.  After talking with him about it, the inner bitch was mollified.  Then I had my pizza, wine, and movie night and the funniest thing happened.  I was in my laundry room and I saw a guy below my window come over, look left, look right, and take a wiz.  I kept the giggles in until he walked away, but MAN that was tough.  LOL.  The important thing is that the inner bitch has been mollified - apparently my PMS manifests as either me being overly emotional or super bitchy.  Good to know, really.

Anyway, I'm in a good mood again.  Sunday should be a good day of confession, Mass, shopping, margaritas, and making brownies.  It's gonna be a long day, but a good one, I'm sure.

Rockin' the RTL shirt today.  It used to be too tight... now it's almost too big.  Hehehe!!!  Don't worry, it's still coming home with me.  I still need my band shirts, you know.

So the plan didn't work.  There were no confessions, no Mass in English at the Cathedral.  So we got coffee, J went home, M(H) and I went to Gangnam where we had lunch, looked at a couple of book stores, and stopped in at Lush.  Then she went off with some friends to the Han river and I went home.

 I like this... there were a LOT of wine and beer places in Gangnam, but I thought this one would be good for a FB cover pic.

 Anyone else remember these books?!?  Finding this at a used book store in Korea made me so happy.

 I didn't get Bunnicula, but I did get this one.  Figured J and I would get a kick out of it.

 Cheese mountain pasta at a place called Brotherhood Kitchen or something along those lines.  Do you see ANY pasta in that MOUND OF CHEESE?

 This was funny.  We went to a place called Double Trouble to have sandwiches and fries.

M(H) got a pulled pork and mac and cheese sandwich, I got the bacon guacamole sandwich.  What you don't see on mine is the fried egg and carmelized onions.  Frankly, could have done without the onions.

 The pulled pork and yes, that's mac and cheese in the sandwich.  It was good, I now know where to go for my pulled pork.

 We went downstairs to Laundry Pizza to eat.  So I assume this used to be a laundromat that became a pizzaria.

 Isn't it cuuuute?!

 When walking around we found this efficient use of space in a place where it's at a premium.

 We also found the most 2020 thing ever - that's right everyone - this is an abandoned 2020 planner.  I kinda want to submit this pic as high art.  I could call it "A year, abandoned in May."

 The scariest Statue of Liberty EVER.

 Mosaics outside of the building that had our last bookstore in the basement.

 I like the colors.

 And this one... I couldn't resist - doesn't that pup just look BRUTAL?!  Reminds me of some of my metalheads back home.  LOL

Anways, much love to all, stay healthy, big hugs, and MUAH!  :*