I am on my way home from Steamboat Springs, Colorado and can't help but think that tomorrow is the true beginning of the new year for me. It has been a crazy but amazing week and now tomorrow starts reality, all over again.

Yesterday Aris, Melessa, and I all skipped out on skiing to go get 'the best massage we have ever gotten.' It seriously was way worth the missed ski day. My massage therapist asked me in the middle of the massage if she could say a sort of blessing over me. Well. . . knowing me, of course I did not tell her no. I prepared myself during the rest of my massage for what this blessing could be like and really opened up to see what her beliefs were. She surprised me. She spoke words in a way that completely opened my eyes to life and really made me think about my year to come.

With the new found peace that her words provided me with, I was inspired to write my own little 'blessing' for my new year:

May I continue to dream big and only live in a way to conquer those dreams.

May I cherish my family and never cease to be amazed by the bond we have together.

May I wake up each day and treat it like it is my last.

May I leave the past in the past and only live for a bigger, brighter future.

May I take my goals and allow them to grow to higher places. [This world is big enough for an even bigger Alexandra]

May I .love. with all my heart and give love to the ones who will adore it in return.

May I have hope, may I have greater faith, and may I have stronger, deeper courage.

May I have more patience each day and continually allow people to bless me.

May I live my life fearless in knowing that there IS a plan for my life.

May I grow in Spirit, in knowledge, and in wisdom so that in 2012 I can be even greater than I am today.

With hopes that you all live life to your fullest this year, and that you take the life that you are given and make a difference in someones life. We are all here to be better, and use our own individual talents to help those around us.
Go out and make more of your life this year. . . I challenge you.

a. elizabeth

Wasted Time

People always worry about wasting time and say things like 'time is of the essence.'
Why is time such a worry? Why must it not be wasted? What makes time 'of the essence'?

Essence is defined as the most essential or vital part of something. So, people are saying that time is most important in their lives.. Well this may very well be true. Time is very important in our lives, we do not get time back and each moment can be used to be bigger and better. Time is a great thing but what gives us this time? How do we make sure that we still have this part of life that is the most essential thing for us?

Our life is measured in heartbeats... With each new breath and each new heartbeat you have more life, you have more time. The very core of our time to be better, to live longer, and experience more things is all based on the amount of time our heart gives us with each beat.

Sitting here thinking about wasted time and asking myself, 'why did you even bother wasting your time,' I began to think about what was worst... The wasted time or the wasted heartbeats that were put into the experience?

I thought about brokenness and healing time and dug deep into what really mattered. I came to a personal conclusion that...

To me the time does not matter. Waste all my time that you want... But shame on you for wasting my heartbeats and my own gift of life that was being measured in each breath. Shame on you for wasting my time in the heartbeats that come after that are needed to fix the hurt that was caused.

Go ahead and waste the time... Waste the minutes in the days and the hours in the weeks... But think about the core, the heart, the soul, the feelings and emotions behind the time that you are wasting. Is it fair? I really don't think it is at all.

-alexandra mason

This New Year, I am going to be different!

Dr Phil proclaimed, "The way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you may have started and have never finished."

So... I looked around my house to see all the things I started and hadn't finished. Before leaving the house this morning, I:

(a) finished off a bottle of White Zinfandel,

(b) a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream,

(c) a package of Oreos,

(d) the remainder of my old Prozac prescription,

(e) the rest of the cheesecake,

(f) some Doritos,

(g) a box of chocolates,

(h) and a half bottle of scotch.

****You have no idea how freaking good I feel right now.

Happy New Year!!!

When Snow Comes In The Middle of The Summer

Everything was just how she had planned. Perfect job, perfect car, perfect pets, perfect town, and perfect schedule. It was all so easy. Living to her was routine and she loved it because, she was comfortable.

"She had set her own destiny," people might say. She lived by, "If it is meant to be. . . it will happen," and that made her content.

She had her way with words, she was great. What she felt, she told. In turn, she hoped that her open-ended message would allow them to think they had a choice but really would just lead them to hers instead.

What it left her was brokenness and disbelief. It was snow in the middle of summer.

There is only so far someone can go before they have to stop. When pressure is kept on something it soon will fall over.

In the middle of summer she never would have thought this would happen. Everything was just where it needed to be. She was growing up, staying strong, and living her life in a way that kept her schedule planned and not too far off key. She had done the things she needed to do, and said her "God's will" where it needed to be said. Life was going how she had it planned...

Then it snowed right in the middle of her damn summer. Smacked her in the face when she least expected it. She should have known...

She realized this, that life is not by schedule. Life is not planned. Each day is a new day, a new dawn, and a new chance to be better than she was the day before. She stopped living by what she thought was going to happen and started living by what she felt in that moment. She turned left when others were saying "right". She said "yes" when everyone else was saying "no". She was doing things differently and that was when she realized that life isn't destined by your own plans, and your own hopes. Of course you can turn left when others are telling you right, but in the end you will still get to where you are supposed to be going.

We all think that if we make this choice or tell this person this thing that it will change everything.. it doesn't. && that is what she realized... that after all her words and after giving all her heart and vulnerability it really could end in a way other than she thought.

She thought that it was all going to happen how she had it planned.. she was wrong. She shouldn't have ever put it past her that it possibly could end up snowing in the middle of the summer.

-alexandra elizabeth

It Isn't Easy, And It Isn't Clear

"I wish I was a twin," is what most people tell me when they find out that I am one. "What is it like? Can you read each others minds? Is it true that one can feel the others pain?"

It has taken me 20 years to answer these questions, yes. Yes, we can read each others minds. Yes, I can feel her pain and she can feel mine. And yes, she is the biggest, greatest gift that God gave me in this world.

Yesterday was my 20th birthday. Two decades on this earth, what an awesome blessing.
The first call I received was from a friend. I picked up to sobs, "He's dead, Roman died last night." I couldn't even talk to him, I didn't believe it.

It took Millie and I all day to finally grasp that our 'Boi,' her boy, our Romeo had passed away. . . on our birthday of all days. Roman Limonchenko was a friend that will never be forgotten. Ever since the moment I met him I loved him. God put it on my heart to love this boy like my brother, and that's exactly what I did. He was one of the most giving guys I know. Everywhere we went he was paying for everyone, making sure everyone had a good time and that his girls; Alex, Melle, and Coco, were taken care of. He LOVED ME BACK.

All of this made me look back at my life. The crazy life that I live and realize that I don't think I would have made it without Melle, my twin. We've been through more than I can even think of and I know that it wasn't my strength that got me through, it was hers.

She's my best friend. I can read her mind and understand her mumbles that no one else can understand. I know what she's thinking and will always be there when she is sad. She is the exact match for me. We were made for each other. We were given each other as a gift because God knew that we would never make it on our own.
She's my strength and I am hers.

Most people say, "I came into this world alone, and I'll leave this world alone. . ."

As I sit here on this flight back to Orlando, I smile because . . . I didn't.

Blind Sumerians

Today I am digging up this thought from last fall.

"This morning I woke up with the type of joy many people crave for... Thankful for the new day that our God gave us, I woke up and got ready for class. By the time I made it to breakfast I had even more JOY than I had woken up with. How GREAT is our God?
On this 18th day of November.. I will live it just like normal..
class and work; the non-stop timeline.

Only one more week until we go home to enjoy one of the great holidays of America. Thanksgiving, a day we celebrate to remember the Pilgrims who came over and started this country we call America. The country where garments are made to a size no hungry child can imagine.. Where gold and silver fall out of our pockets like lint. A country that has more idols than the blind Sumerians. The people and the streets are no different than the wretched gimcracks of Rome.

Freedom is the least of our worries when there is no peace.

So, as a prayer, I pray for our free country. She depicts a prison. I pray she will one day become different, That the people will stand up and go against the grain. That our beautiful country will one day strive to be original. This is a prayer that aches for world peace and no partiality.

This "new world" we live in has contorted to the ways of the Romans and Greeks. As Americans we can be different and not strive to be the ones who have it all.. because after all, in the end, these things we call ours are all just worthless pieces of matter that take up space here on earth."

My Drive Home to Mt Dora

The drive from Gainesville to Mt Dora is one that I often take. The more I think about it I could drive it with my eyes closed.

Today, while I was driving down i75, all I could do was sit and talk to Papa. Whether it was through the words in the music or quiet prayers to Him, I spent that hour and a half with our God. It’s funny how I catch myself singing some of the most beautiful love songs written to a woman by her lover as if I have written them myself. . . just for our King. About halfway through the drive a song came on.
A song I have heard a thousand times and usually skip over because it is so overplayed. This time, however, I let it play. I listened to the words by ‘Big Daddy Weave’ and tears began to overwhelm me. In their song What Life Would Be Like they say,

“He made the lame walk and the dumb talk

And He opened blinded eyes to see That the sun rises on His time Yet He knows our deepest desperate need.”

These words stuck out to me today and while I was sitting there thinking about my life and all the crazy bumps in it, I began to smile because I am not in control. As much as I stress about getting work resumes in, spending time with family, the health of my loved ones, and my education I have yet to remember that God is in control.

“The sun rises on His time,” that just puts a smile on my face. =] I immediately wrote my cousin Gabe and told him about those words.
“I am listening to this song and it just reminds me that this WHOLE earth is God’s... All of it, He knows it all and made it all.
“It is so encouraging. . . HIS LOVE,” I said to him...