Dollar Daze

Today was super needed emergency laundry day. My Dad called yesterday at ohhhh 4:30 and informed me that he was coming into Lubbock today and would be crashing on my couch. D’Oh I didn’t have any clean sheets for him and my last “clean” towel was hanging up in my shower, I’d used it that morning on my hair. So i really needed to do laundry yesterday, but it was way more important to go shopping right????? So my master plan was to beat him to my house today and do a secret load of laundry and pick up my house. Well I end up not getting off of work early and rushing home right as he calls to say he is in town.

So I get home right at five and I am cramming clothes in my closet and hampers, and shoving dishes in the dishwasher as he walks up my little entry way. I give him a quick hug grab my laundry basket, a ten dollar bill and lavender scented laundry detergent then head for Spinway my local laundry mat.



When I get there try as I may the stinking change machine didn’t want to take my money. BOO I noticed a nice man trying to avoid eye contact with me because he can tell I am not winning my battle with the Change-O-Rama. As I walk around the machines he notices and walks at an increasing pace away from me. I call out to him… Sir…. nothing… Oh Sir… still nothing. (So I yell at him used my outside voice) Excuse me Sir. He sighed and turned around I asked him for change for my ten and he reluctantly gave me a wad of ones.



My Dollar



I get my change start my laundry and head back home to hang out with my dad. As I am checking out my money I notice one of my dollar bills has a stamp on it. This stamp says Track Me at www.wheresgeorge.com. I show my dad and we get excited this could be really cool. We eat dinner then head to the local McDonalds to use their free Wifi too look up where this dollar has been.



I am expecting this amazing story of this dollar bill’s five year life; imagining all the cool places it’s been and sweet things it’s bought. We get to Micky D’s I open up my laptop enter all the serial numbers from my dollar bill and boom. My dollar bill is from…. Drum roll…. San Angelo. Sad day, but a fun time with my pops who at this moment is chilling in McDonalds like he owns the place. LOL I love you dad.



My Dad Owning  McDonald's



It's a Girl..... well it's a 17 year old girl.

Day 4 : A picture of you and a family member.

Well I think it is time that I introduce the one the only….. (drum roll) STEVIE!!!!

Stevie is my little sister. She was named after Stevie Nicks but her real claim to fame is that she shares the same middle name as none other that the most fabulously wonderful awesome woman in the whole world.  You guessed it ME! Kaye is our middle name. I wish our dad would have spelled it normal, she thinks it cool.

I love her more than words can say. It was not always that way, well secretly it was but I didn’t want her to know that. When I was little I was wickedly mean to my little sister, but don’t tell her all my passwords were her name. (Hey I said WERE so don’t try to hack me)

I figured we had both done some growing since those days and I was ready to present us to you as the fine mature ladies we now are.

But as I began scrolling through all my pictures…. These were the kinds I found.

So I figured. What the heck being grown up is over rated right??? Especially when my lil sis is only 16. Ok ok  so she’ll be 17 in a few days but to me she will always be my beautiful baby sister.

LOVE you STEVIE!!!!!!

Around the World and Back Again.

Day 2 – A picture of you and the person you have been closest to the longest.

This is a wicked old picture of me and my momma. I wish it was a better quality but we did not have digital cameras back then so this is what you get.

I love my mom very much.  She is my best friend and the first person I call when I am happy, sad, hurt or mad.  She taught me how to do so many things and walked me through the pains of childhood. There is another sweet little pic of us in my Living a new “Always” post.  

My momma flew back home to Texas from Florida for my birthday this weekend.  I am her super special daughter.  We went to the library, ate authentic Tex-mex and laughed until we almost peed our pants. 

She is a wonderful mother, she wasn’t perfect and I could have used a little more discipline, but she loves me so unconditionally. I have a very small apartment and no extra bedroom much less a bed. She selflessly slept on the love seat and let her children sleep in the more comfortable spots of the bed and couch. 

She gave me everything I ever wanted and sacrifices so much for me, I could never thank her enough.

I love you so much mom, Thanks for coming to church with me this morning. I know new crowds are not your favorite thing and you would have preferred to skip church to get on the road a little earlier, but it meant a lot to me that you again sacrificed your comfort to do something that was so important to me.  

Mom,  I love you around the world and back again.

Happy Birthday

I can’t believe it. My Baby brother is turning 14 this week. I know I jumped the gun by a few days but it just amazes me. He is a brilliant young man.

Cody I hope you read this…. Happy Birthday!!

It truly seems like just a little while ago that I sat in a waiting room, anxious as to what the day had in store for me. You came into this world with your personality blazing. (He was ornery and defiant even before he was born) Determined to be different, you refused to flip and were a breeched baby. ( If you know him, it is exactly how he would have chosen to come into this world, on his own terms and different than most other children. ) I was scared I didn’t really know what breeched meant except that both you and mom were not exactly safe. The whole time mom was pregnant I was not a happy camper, I was scared that you were going to come along and change everything, and I needed my mommy. And you know what I was right, you did change everything, you made it better, you made us complete.

It is amazing how many days in my life have become fuzzy and hard to remember, but not this one. I even remember the smell of that day, the Planet Hollywood t-shirt that I rocked, with my hair in a half up ponytail and an awesome 90’s hair wrap I got at the Fair that year. It was a Thursday, I remember because I got to skip that day at school, Macarena was the # 1 song, Spice Girls was the CD in my walkman and we had just elected Bill Clinton to his second term in office. (Whatever that meant)

Fast forward a few years and I am cheering in High School and reading you bed time sorties. When we were at the mall or something together people would always give me dirty looks like you were by son. (As if that was a reason to give us a dirty look) I would be sure to call you “Bubba” and ask really loudly if you could see our mom. LOL One night as I was doing my math homework you were playing just a few feet away on the front porch. You called me and mom over to show us your masterpiece. You laid out rocks on the front porch in concentric rings; while you were still in diapers you pointed and announced “Planets.” Most children your age were working on the concept of yours and mine and you were already contemplating astrophysics.

I got older you started kindergarten and I started my Senior year, poor mom didn’t get a break. That was a rough year but I was so proud of your quickly developing reading ability. I went off to college and never knew how much I would miss you. You drew me pictures and sent them to me in care packages I made you a CD for Christmas and you constantly sang “I love you more” by Matthew West. It kind of became our little theme.

And now here you are a 14 year old young man about to go into High School yourself. I don’t know what I’ll do on your graduation day but I can’t wait to draw you pictures and send you care packages when you go off to college. I wonder who you will be.

 And I still love you more than the Sun and the Stars.

Sleeping Stevie

This is me and my sister Stevie at our brother's wedding last year. I love her very much. She is currently still in High School even though people often mistake her for my younger sister I am almost 10 years older than her. She will be going to Tech soon and I can't wait to have her closer to me so we can grab lunch or dinner sometimes. Miss ya girl!!!!

This is a wonderful little christmas morninig when I wanted her to wake up......

Basically I just wanted to learn how to edit, upload, then post a video. Working with the one video I had and the sample videos they gave me on my computer this is what i got. Hope you enjoyed it.

Sleeping Stevie from Robynn Oglesby on Vimeo.

Living in a new "Always"

I know I lack a lot and I have a lot of growing to do. However it has always been sort of a gift of mine to have compassion for people, or well “always” since I’ve been born again into my new nature under Jesus. And if you want “always” to get more specific, it would be since I started my personal relationship with him the summer I turned 17. Now again, this compassion hasn’t always been a deep consistent compassion especially when I was hurting, scared, or just flat out running from God. But all that aside, it has “always” been a part of who I am now.

It is natural for me to have compassion for my friends when they hurt, it is my job to have compassion for the fatherless that our society often forgets, it is the teachings of my savior to have compassion toward my enemies, and it’s my specific calling to have compassion for the suffering of countries who yearn for the gospel. But, today our happy little friend, Facebook, that we would all be lost without, put my compassion to a test.

After church, lunch, a movie and a nap I decided to venture out to a coffee shop and borrow their internet. While I love Sugar Browns and speak highly of them frequently, today I went to the heart of Boho chic college-kid’s ville. That’s right my friends I am writing this to you at J&;B coffee house, where the coffee is cheap, the internet is free and dreadlocks run amuck. No lie, right now as I type this there is a rainbow outside the window, acoustic guitars, a Frisbee game in the parking lot, apple computers everywhere, what looks like a bicycle rally in the front, and more dreads than a Bob Marley concert. But I enjoy the atmosphere.

I found myself a little corner opened up my out of place IBM ThinkPad and went right to my fall back time killer, Facebook. When BAM! There it was, slander, hate-talk, internet bullying, ignorance, immaturity, crudeness, whatever you want to call it. It sent the blood coursing through my veins. Some random person had called someone, I love very much, a very derogative, dirty, hurtful name right there for the whole world to see.



My Mommy and Me

 Something in me snapped, I wanted very much for this person to hurt; I wanted justice for the pain they had caused my loved one. The only way I can think of to describe this is to compare myself to a lioness defending her cubs from the scrounging hyenas. So what did I do? I called my mommy. My mom is my best friend and usually helps me through these things. She is very level headed and always thinks of things objectively. But she didn’t answer, that’s her one flaw. She often forgets to turn her phone off silent after she returns from work leaving me stranded to handle my own messes like an adult.

So instead of thinking about the situation in a rational way or taking my anger and bitterness to God like I needed to, I let it sit and fester inside of me. Eventually my mom called me back and just letting the anger out helped but it didn’t make it go away.

As I sat for a while and thought about what had just happened and why I felt the way I did toward a complete stranger. It occurred to me that Hate breeds Hate. So I used the same internet that had been used as a tool to stir up this hate to open up ESV.org… My online bible. It’s not as good as the real thing but in times of need serves its purpose. I read Titus chapter 3. Titus 3:3 says 3 For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.

This is true. It was like this for me in the time before my “always” but God came and gave me a regeneration, he justified me and game me hope, read further. Titus 3:4-7 4 But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life

And because of this new “always” in my life I shouldn’t hate this hater who hurt the one I love, but rather devote myself to goodness for the Lord because it will be more profitable for all people. Titus 3:8 8 The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people.

I want to make it clear here that the following scriptures emphasize not to put an emphases on the good works because it is by God’s mercy and not the law that we are found righteous in Christ. But it was this chapter that reminded me: to hate this person not only goes against my “always” but it is not profitable for this person either. If I hate him but claim to love God am I a liar. Therefore I am sorry, Facebook person, for my anger and hatred toward you. I am not a liar and I love God therefore I must also love you….. But please stop calling people ugly names. Ok? Ok.