I'll be Home for Christmas...

@ Home. A perfect day of shopping, starbucks, pizza, knitting, nintendo, and the people I love. Finals seem years ago already. Now let's see...

My goals for tomorrow:

-Sleeping in

-Beginning another knitting project

-Get ideas for Wedding flowers

-Drink lots of coffee with mom

-Accomplish an Uber trick on SSX tricky.

I think the list is do'able. Goodnight.

Christmas: Round One

On Saturday my friends and I had our first Christmas party together. It is weird to think that we have become so close in less than a year. We did a not so secret "secret santa" gift exchange and made a delicious meal together. We also further worsened our "wii shoulders" with a few games of golf. Here are some pics from the night...

FRIDAY

It's here. I survived the week of tests and paper.

Now just one more day of work, and i get a weekend of relaxing. (For the most part) Just a math test on Monday to finish out my finals.

It is supposed to be above freezing this weekend. That means my face won't freeze the second I go outside. Winter hit us fast up here because it had been pretty mellow for the most part until this last week. And then cold. Very cold.

I think I will have to do some baking this weekend. Maybe some Christmas cookies and some bread in my bread maker. mmmmmmmm.

Okay off to work. Counting down the days left with the kids. It is getting harder and harder to ever say no to them...

Too many hours of homework

Had breakfast with Mom and Dad this morning. It was nice to see them, and I am looking forward to going home sweet home over break. I miss my family...

Then came the Homework.

8 hours later...

sick of homework, showered, full of pizza and starbucks, and thankful for my friends who break up the monotony of writing papers.

Now off to sleep.

Goodnight

My evening after 10 hours of living in toddler land (work)....

spaghetti, coffee, history term papers, grooveshark, photographs,a glass of wine. blogging. Now sleep?

Listening to "January Wedding" by the Avett Brothers

Life Happens...

So I now officially 22. Well I have been for a few weeks now, but I figured this live changing age was worth mentioning belated or not. The age of twenty-two is such an odd age, because 21 seems like the last exciting age, so turning 22 is well, so....expected. Thankfully, my wonderful friends and family helped to make my birthday much more than ordinary.

On a more exciting note, I had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I didn't go home because my roommate was getting married nearby on Friday, so driving home three hours just to turn around and go back for a wedding seemed a little pointless. So Ellie's parents invited all of us that stayed for the wedding to come to their thanksgiving. It was amazing, and I am so grateful for their kindness. I also got the chance to use my new Kitchenaid mixer to make a pumpkin cake to bring. Here is a picture of my new adored kitchen appliance. I have been without a mixer for awhile now, so now that I have my new mixer I want to postpone all homework, papers, etc just to use it.

The rest of my Thanksgiving break was filled with coffee, church, sleeping in, Black Friday shopping, and Sara's wedding! It was a beautiful wedding, and I feel so blessed to have gotten the chance to get to know Sara so well over the last few months. She is a great friend. I am so happy for her and Lee!

And one last thing, Black Friday shopping is so bizarre. I went with a couple friends, and it is always amusing to see the intensity of the shoppers. Everyone is half asleep but determined to get their shopping done. I think we went more for the experience than for the shopping, but I actually ended up getting a lot of my Christmas shopping done.

"Home" Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic (Monday Music)

A new song from Sarah :)

Monday's Music

Ben makes me sing the Regina Spektor's part....and he takes Ben Fold's part. We are getting pretty good I must admit, haha. Well we at least know the words....

Christmas BEFORE Thanksgiving

mmm....It's hard to do Homework when a tree waits to be decorated. Good thing we got to put up a tree this weekend at the cabin. A little early (usually thanksgiving is as early as we go)...but we couldn't help ourselves. Here is a pic of the tree...or at least an ornament.

A long week of History...

Two history tests in one week is a lot to cram into my head. I covered the death of Constantine through Justinian which is a good couple hundred years in case you wanted to know. ( Justinian is pictured on the left here) He is considered to be the last of the Roman emperors. Those that came after him most likely considered themselves Roman, but from our viewpoint they seem more inclined to the Eastern Constantinople than they do with Rome. And then there is his wife Theodora, whose father was a bear trainer at the Hippodrome. Her whole family came from the circus actually. It was love at first sight they say. Hmm....on to the next one. I'm ready for Christmas to be here. I bought some new ornaments at Walmart. I rationalized them by telling myself I would use them next year and next year and the next year, etc. Good purchase right? ha hopefully. I'm also thinking about Christmas gifts for everyone. So far I have no good leads, but each person's gift will fall into place. I do have a good month and a half before Christmas anyway. Ok well off to bed now. Goodnight.

Engagement Photos!

Here are some of our engagement pictures....we really like how they turned out! Camera Love Photography took them for us.

early morning

Good Morning!

I woke up at 6am this morning...and only pressed snooze once. My thoughts this morning are on...


Grace


"your worst days are never so bad that you

are beyond the reach of God's grace. And you best

days are never so good you are beyond

the need of God's grace."

-Jerry Bridges





A gift we will never truly deserve but we receive everday nonetheless.

Pumpkins

The pumpkins we carved...

(and Ellie's favorite infamous joke)

Why were are the basketball players holding their noses?...
Because they...

A good weekend.

Monday morning is here again. Thankfully I got a good 7 hours of sleep so crawling out of bed wasn't too difficult. A recap on the past weekend....

FrIdAy: Ben Folds Concert! It was a fun night. I big group of us went which made it even more great. We finished up the night with some games at our place.

SaTuRdAy: Slept in......perfect. Then, went to lunch with Bekah and Ellie to visit Ben at work. He gave us free ice cream. Then we traveled to the thrift store and bought a random selection of books, christmas ornaments and glassware. Next we traveled to walmart to pick up pumkins for everyone to carve that night. I think we ended up buying 8 of them. We had to dig to the bottom of the bins to get the good ones with stem still intact. We also managed to buy a lot of food for the night. The menu included Pizza, Spinach and artichoke dip, pumpkin bars, candy corn, and roasted pumpkin seeds. Needless to say we didn't starve. We carved our pumpkins and then finished off the night with the movie "What Lies Beneath". Good stuff :)

Sunday: Went to church with everyone and then made our way to subway for lunch. Then a little cleaning, homework, and baking of banana bread before some girls games over for Women's Time.

Overall, it was a great weekend. I haven't been here for a full weekend in awhile. It's nice to stick around and relax. Now off to work!

Lee & Sara

My roommate asked me to take some engagement pictures for her and her soon to be husband Lee this past summer. It was my first try at engagement photographs. We had a fun day! Thanks Sara (and Lee) for being so patient with me as I learned on the go. I can't wait for your wedding next month :)

Flowers

I have homework I could be doing right now, but I haven't really done that much wedding planning this last month besides having our engagement pictures taken. This being said, I decided to take up a little of my Saturday afternoon with some wedding details. I change my mind on a weekly basis about flowers and other little details. Like I mentioned in an earler post, I love the red poppies, but I love the blues and greens as well. These pictures are all random boquets that I like different aspects of. Next week I will probably like something different. Which is why planning these types of things so early seems pointless. The more time I have to change my mind the more likely I will do it regularly. I am glad that at least all the major plans are confirmed....

1.) The ceremony and reception site

2.) Caterer

3.) Photographer

4.) DJ

5.) Groomsman and Bridesmaids

We still need to do a lot, but I am enjoying the planning. I love planning a small dinner party with friends so planning such a big event is great. I am forcing myself to be very organized througout the process. So far so good :)

I am trying to be very patient while waiting for our engagement photographs....They said it will take a couple weeks maybe. It will be one week tomorrow. So I wait. Meanwhile checking their blog everyday. Once I get those photos I can start with the Save the Dates. Which will require a lot of writing with all the addresses. I would like to get those sent out before Christmas. That used to seem so far away, but now it's really only two months. My roommate Sara is getting married on Novemeber 27th and that is coming up quick! I have loved being able to hear about her wedding plans. She has also been great for me to bounce ideas off of as well. It's a blessing to have a roommate going through the same process. I am so excited for her wedding and marriage, but I will also miss her dearly when she moves out. Ok well off to a lunch date with Ellie and Bekah! We are going to visit Ben @ work and then go find some pumpkins to carve. I will post the results!

A video before bed....

This video always makes me smile....Thinking about Jack Johnson makes me realize that summer is gone. Why? because Jack Johnson falls into my "summer music" catagory and rarely does he make it to my winter playlists.

Thursday

Thursdays are so much better than Tuesdays. My Tuesdays and Thursdays are pretty much identical. I have all my classes on these days. The thing is, Thursdays are so much more enjoyable because I know that the weekend is so close. As I sit in an hour long lecture I can think about what I need to get done over the weekend, how I can sleep in on Saturday, how nice it will be to go to church on Sunday with my friends, etc. And on Thursdays it doesn't even it matter if homework is assigned because it wouldn't be due until Tuesday anyway. That's a long time to procrastinate between Thursdays and Tuesdays. Well there is my try at being deep for the day, ha.

Lately I have loved looking at photographers' blogs. Most of them are across the country, but it is so interesting to see their work. I have been considering buying Photoshop. I realize that my work is far below that of professionals, but I think I would enjoy playing around with it. It's not too expensive, but it is more than I usually spend on an editing program.

On another note. I am searching for flowers for the wedding. I can't help but love these red poppies. But, my colors don't exactly include red. I had to post this picture anyway for some type of inspiration to get the same style but in our color scheme.I am so glad God made such beautiful things. Hmmmm...

quiet mornings

I woke up a little early this morning for work. If I have a few minutes to relax in the morning the entire day seems to go by less frantic. Just me, a cup of coffee, toast with raspberry preserves. Perfect. I need mornings like this to get me through a 10 hour day with two year-olds. Don't get me wrong, I love the kids, but days always have their stressful moments. Usually they occur about the entire hour before nap. The kids are crabby and ready for nap, and it's all you can do just to get to nap time. Then you take a deep breath and listen to lullabies while rubbing backs. Patience is rebuilt during nap time, and trust me- Patience is a must. I am going to miss my kids so incredibly much when this semester is over. It will be a new experience not working there during school. Yes it's not the most carefree college job, but I've grown to love it. There is always something to make you laugh or smile most days. Even on the crazy days in toddler land, I still love to sit down and play with the kids. Back to my coffee and quiet time. '

To the Cities we go...for Pictures!

Going home to Ben's house this weekend. We are taking our engagement photos on Sunday! It should be fun, but interesting to be on the other side of the lense. I get so used to taking the pictures that I'm not sure how comfortable I am in front of the lense. Oh well :) Should be a good day. The weather is supposed to cooperate I believe! There is only one thing standing in our way. My left eye. It's pinkish...but according to the doctor, it is not pink-eye. I am trusting that he knows what he is talking about. This happened before on my birthday last year. (I guess my eyes like to rebel on non-ordinary days). I'm hoping some eye drops, cool rags, and a few days will bring it back to it's usually color. If not, hopefully the photographers have some good editing skills, haha. I'm not going to worry about it too much yet. Maybe it's just allergies or something. Worse case we can reschedule the photos and just enjoy the weekend with Ben's family. Well I better get to bed since working @ 6:45 is looming closer and closer. I have given up on getting eight hours of sleep on thursday nights. It just doesn't happen, so why force it?

"Everything" Tim Hughes

Just got back from a Spirit-filled weekend :) Retreats are such a refreshing experience. The weather was pretty cold and brisk, but that didn't keep us from having fun together. It is hard to believe that the first time I went to the fall retreat was three years ago. It makes me feel a little old, but all the while blessed to be given the opportunity to year after year. Most of the sessions dealt with how God isn't looking to improve our lives, but instead he wants to transform them completely. Jesus is our substitution atonement. A payment had to be made for our sin and Jesus made the payment for us. There is no "sin calculator" that will tally up our sins when we reach the end of our lives. There is no score you must pass to get to heaven. All because Jesus Christ died for every sin we will ever commit. The gift of salvation is ours if we ask for it. Basically we have two options. First, we can self atone which will ultimately mean n life separated from God. The second option however, is to Jesus-atone. He has already taken the hit for us. Each one of us has the choice to accept him or reject him. We also talked about idols, and how each one of us, we are our own biggest idol. Moment by moment we will take care of ourselves and worship ourselves. There will be times we will follow the Lord, and times that we fall away from him. The amazing thing is though, God will breathe life into us.

Ezekiel 37
The Valley of Dry Bones
1 The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. 3 He asked me, "Son of man, can these bones live?"
I said, "O Sovereign LORD, you alone know."

(we can be spiritually dry just like the bones. Alone they will remain dry, but with the breath of God they can be restored)

4 Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, 'Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! 5 This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.' "

(We can be "bone-tired", weary, and dead spiritually...But Jesus can change all of that. We were given the Holy Spirit so that God was always with us. We were never supposed to always have Jesus here with us physically. You cannot be a Christian without the Holy Spirit. We were never meant to do it alone!)

This was only a small picture of things we learned this weekend. As much as it was spiritually filling, the sleep side of it was less fufilling :) It's always too hard to make yourself go to bed when everyone else is up having fun. Thankfully I have only a half day of work tomorrow and then no school tuesday. Rest is good.

Topics of Discussion (in my head)

Good Morning :)

Topic 1:The more and more I look at engagement pictures the more I realize that I want to wear a skirt or a dress for one of the outfits. The things is...it's not warm anymore. So, I would have to wear a more "fall'ish" dress/skirt...which I don't own many of. Hmmmm.....Maybe I will change my mind in a couple days but for now I would like to find a nice skirted option. It's difficult to find an outfit that I won't look back at in a year and be like "ugh, why?" haha. Oh well I guess that is bound to happen anyway. I usually just wake up and put something on, so to plan a single day's outfit this much is ridiculous!

Topic 2: For school I have to read a number of novels and textbooks. This has become very annoying for me because while I pour over books that I have no desire in, there are stacks of books waiting to be read on the bookshelf. Books that I actually want to read. School seems to take away all my ambition and free time to read for the enjoyment of it.

Topic 3: I have a few photographs to upload from this weekend. I am purposely holding myself back from putting them up however....because I will want to edit them etc, and before I know it I will have spent an hour on this blog instead of studying for my test today. Patience :)

It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas...

what?

yep. chance of snow on sunday.

What happened to autumn?

rain.

Its been raining for most of the day, and most of my time was spent in the classroom. Now I'm free from listening for awhile to teachers talk. I'm thinking a nap is in order. What is better then a nice afternoon nap on a rainy day? The test went well today, when the question came up about what Contantinople is called today I had to laugh a little to myself. My academic week is done, just one more day of work to finish off the week. Then (sigh) it's the weekend. I plan on going to the family cabin this weekend to help take out the dock and boat lifts. Hopefully it won't be too cold, and I hope that I'm not the one in waders while standing in the cold lake. I am going to bring my Nikon with so hopefully I will be able to take some great fall shots. Weather cooperating of course. Either way it will be a cozy weekend curled up with my homework, camera, coffee, and scrapbooking stuff. I think we all need a weekend to make us slow down sometimes, but for now an afternoon nap will do.

"Istanbul not Constantinople"

Studying for Byzantium test still....was a mildly productive day. Worked 7:30 to 6....and then had a nice dinner with a friend. I attempted to study at Bekah and Ellie's tonight but that didn't go so well. Way too many distractions, but entertaining always. "Homework Parties" are my weakness.

Ane now a little inspiration for my test tomorrow.... and just in case you didn't know it...BEFORE Constantinople it was Byzantium. Constantine felt a need to create a new Rome with his name included.

Get up and go.

Today was a great day....

I even managed to work out today without Ben. Usually one of us has to motivate the other one to go...but today he worked right after class. So it was up to me. It took me awhile. First I came home and ate lunch. Then I watched a little TV...I think the only things on were Reba and Tyra, haha. What a selection. Then I took my time on the computer until I realized I needed to just get up and go. So I changed and grabbed my shoes and waterbottle. I saw one girl make her way into the gym room before I got there and to be honest I did consider having to not work out if the machines were filled. But unfortunately, and luckily there was an elipitical open. I did my usual routine and as the sweat beaded on my forehead I felt accomplished that I managed to work out even though I was tired from class all day. After stretching and showering I was almost prepared for my next battle of self motivation...studying for my Byzantium history test. After watching funniest home videos with the roommates however, I shut the TV off and began to study. Right now I am taking a little break from studying. The test isn't until thursday, and I don't want to overload on Constantine too early on. My inner nerd finds his life very interesting however.

Tuesday, Tuesday.

Today is a good day. Reasons why I conclude this....

1.) It is sunny

2.) Today I start my new devotional with Ben

3.) I have time to relax and drink coffee this morning.

4.) I got 7 hours of sleep.

5.) No math class today

6.) I have high ambitions to work out by myself after class.

I will let you know the outcome, but so far today is looking lovely.

BIKES and DAIRY QUEEN

A Lovely Friend...

I don't know if you know my friend Ellie, but if you do, you know exactly why I am so lucky to have her in my life. She gets me in ways that no one else can. I can be crabby around her and she still loves me. She goes out of her way to encourage me, and I can only hope that I can encourage her in some way in return.

Cinnamon Swirl Toast & Coffee

Going to some friends's bike race later this afternoon. It will be my first experience actually seeing a bike race so it should be interesting. I will load some pics later...After that I'm forcing myself to be holed up at home to do homework. I have way too much reading to get done and as much as I'd like to do numerous other things with my Saturday afternoon I really need to read. If I can stick it out for a good couple hours then i am rewarding myself with going to a play on campus with some friends. Should be a busy day and I already have two loads of laundry going! Productive.....hopefully.

The Date is Set

August 6th, 2010.


A little less then a year away...thankfully the planning has been going along nicely :) I got a lot of things figured out before school started. Now, however that classes and work have begun full swing the planning is crawling along. Oh well, it gives me time to look for new ideas. There is so much information out there....it could easily become overwhelming I'm sure. Well I'm off to sleep, more to update soon!

Another Tuesday with the Feel of Monday.

It's been awhile so it's tempting to write everything that has happened in the last two months, but the time that would require would make me late to work. So here is a quick list of happenings...

1.) got engaged! (Excited doesn't even begin to cover it)
2.) finished summer classes.
3.) went home for a nice long vacation
4.) I have a new roommate.
5.) Still working my grueling 3 day weeks.
6.) I am very happy.

So there it is. Ha, ok maybe it wasn't really that long except for the engagement part. Pictures to come I'm sure. The summer is winding down with only a few weeks to go, but I'm not dreading school. I like school, and really am blessed to be able to be a student.

Change.

Sometime you can pour all you can into a friendship only to see it crumble away. It's frustrating. Part of me wants to force it to get better, but I know I can't do that. It's out of my control. I was looking at old pictures and then thinking about the awkward situation that has developed. I just wanted to be able to look back and know that we ended on a good note. The note we did end on was a little flat to say the least. Some friendships just need to be let go I guess. If they are too draining, then that defeats the purpose, right? I just want to pour into her, but she is out of my reach. hmmm. maybe it's 1 am bringing this out in me. Anyway, my hair is darker. not sure if that was a good idea with my pale winter like skin, haha, oh well. I needed a change. Ok off to bed.

2:22

It's raining and I can't sleep. Too much coffee, but at least tomorrow is a day free from finals and work. Sleeping in has now become necessary for 8 hours of sleep. I wanted to take a picture of the rain on my window but my battery is dead and the charger is in my car I think. So much for falling asleep to the sound of rain outside...

The Day is Here...

The nights is almost finished and the day is almost here. So we should stop doing things that belong to darkness and take up the weapons used for fighting in the light.
-Romans 13:12

Romans is such an amazing book. I don't know why it took me so long to discover that. Even though it was written thousands of year ago it is still perfectly relevant to my daily life. I loved the passage in "The Message" on this verse so i want to include it here....

"But make sure you don't get so absorbed and exhausted in taking care of all you day-to-day obligations that you lose track of the time and doze off, oblivious to God. The night is about over, dawn is about to break. Be up and awake to what God is doing! God is putting the finishing touches on the salvation work he began when we first believed. We can't afford to waste a minute, not not squander these precious daylight hours in frivolity and indulgence, in sleeping around, and dissipation, in bickering, and grabbing everything in sight. Get out of bed and get dressed! Don't loiter and linger, waiting until the very last minute. Dress yourself in Christ, and be up and about!."

Wow....ok so besides the fact that I'm still sitting in bed in my pajamas, this really hit me. What a lazy Christian I am while God is working everyday to prefect my salvation. I complain about the weather (since it is almost summer and still not as warm as I would like) and about finals ....but really I should be preparing myself for the return of Jesus Christ. Dawn is about to break, and where do i want to be when Jesus comes back. Laying around watching tv or doing something that shows my love for my savior...? The answer is obvious, I want to be glorifying the lord when Jesus comes back in all his glory. Day to day obligations too often take hold of my life and choke out my quiet times with God. I tell myself..."oh I really should read the Bible, but that history homework needs to get done." When in reality I know I have more than enough time to spend on God and my homework. It's the procrastination that stops that from happening. The thing is though that when Jesus does come back the last thing on my mind is going to be how I did on the Science lab....it's going to be completely on my Savior in front of me. I realize this in my head, but actually acting on it is a whole other matter. Why am I so on top of studying and doing laundry etc, but Lazy when it comes to what should be MY NUMBER ONE PRIORITY. So that's my goal this week, to dive back into the word. I want the bathe in the truth.

The Creator of Everything

"They traded the truth of God for a lie. They worshiped and served what had been created instead of the God who created those things, who should be praised forever. Amen."
-Romans 1:25

How true is this everyday...it seems extreme (worshiping things). Everyone must hear that and think "I don't worship things, that's crazy". What we don't get though is that you can still worship these things without bowing down on your knees. What do I worship? all of my things that I spend my time and money with....time that I could have spent worshiping God instead....and money that I could have done so many good things with. I sit here looking at my closet full of clothes and shoes that I just had to have. What good are they if my ultimate goal is to be saved by Christ and go to heaven when I die. I can't take these material things with me. They are nothing. mere dust. Some days I spend more time trying to decide where to put all these things in my apartment then i do worshiping the God who loves me. Too often my days are spent serving objects.....and all these things are nothing. I love this verse because it makes it so clear that here we all are worshiping things instead of the God that created them. Why praise something so little as material things when we could be praising the God who created EVERYTHING!