they will know us by our Love

Moving on over.

2011-06-24T22:52:00.000-05:00

So it's official. I will be posting solely on the Jensen fam blog,

Be sure to follow us over there!!

Consolidating.

2011-06-23T17:36:00.000-05:00

So I am trying to figure out how to combine blogs in a way that won't be completely abandoning this one. First, because I just redid the look and I love it. Second, because I have so much on this blog from the past four years, and it would be so sad just to dump it.

But I would love for our Jensen blog to become the primary blog, and then the Providence website to be our ministry blog.

I think I will update the family blog a little and then perhaps say goodbye to this one. I won't delete it, just let it sit for ever and ever and ever.

lovely internet finds

2011-06-22T11:41:00.000-05:00

First, if you would like some lovely, free music by Josh Garrels, you should click HERE. You won't regret it.

Second, check out this super awesome coffee table. Well scratch that. I have been trying to add a picture for the past hour, but since blogger fails at life, it will not add. So just click HERE to see an awesome blogpost on an awesome coffee table. I am in love. We have multiple pieces of furniture that need to be painted... A coffee table, three book shelves, two bedside tables and a dresser. I would love to do something like this for the coffee table. I am trying to think of a different letter or number we could stamp on the top.

Actually, if you have any suggestions on how to resurface a dresser, please share. I was thinking a distressed green to match our duvet.

state pillows

2011-06-21T21:36:00.000-05:00

Today, Nick and I tackled a fun little project. We made state pillows for our next home! I drew out the states on the fabric and cut them out. Nick sewed them using my grandmother's sewing machine, and then I stuffed them and added the finishing touches.

We placed little homes at the cities where we have lived.

Missouri! Probably the easiest of the three.

Tejas! My personal favorite. I love the fabric.

And Rhode Island... Minus the islands. Sorry, Newport. This one was definitely the most difficult of the three. First, it's weird to make something so small on a map so large on fabric. Second, RI has so many little islands and such, and the bay goes right up to Providence. But I didn't want the pillow to have an awkward handle. So I sewed on some blue fabric to be the Bay.

Needless to say, I am pleased. I am envisioning them sitting in the rocking chair Nick made.

Just a few things.

2011-06-21T13:29:00.001-05:00

A. I desperately want to make the Pioneer Woman's Iced Coffee. It looks so amazing. And I love good iced coffee.

B. Speaking of good, iced coffee, a trip to Waco is in order. WOOOHOOOO. It has been entirely too long since I have walked around Baylor's campus, sipping Cowboy Coffee, feeling astute. We are hoping to visit this week.

C. Third, you should check out THIS WEBSITE to see what new adventures are around the corner for the Jolly Jensens. Jolly makes us sound like pirates. The Jensen scallywags are about to set sail on a new escapade. I guess jolly could also allude to Santa Claus. But when I think of "ho ho ho," I think of "yo ho yo ho" which brings me back to pirates. Yarrrrrg....

D. While I was working out yesterday, I was watching the Disney channel, of course. And I realized that Disney has already moved on to a new generation of stars. And now I feel especially old. I feel like I had finally come to grips with shows like Wizards of Waverly Place replacing Lizzie McGuire and Even Stevens. But now those are being replaced with shows like Good Luck Charlie and Shake It Up, whose stars are even younger than my baby brother! Maybe it's time to watch more cooking shows.

E. Speaking of cooking, if you don't make this chicken pot pie recipe (just add chicken instead of turkey), you will be judged.

That is all. Peace and blessings.

For Better or Bratwurst.

2011-06-15T10:07:00.000-05:00

Meet Kaitlyn. You have seen her before.

Kaitlyn just got married, and has started a food blog. And it's awesome.

Check it out. Follow it. Cook. Be merry.

For Better or Bratwurst.

2011-06-15T09:55:00.002-05:00

Me: I love you, my little petunia.
Nick: I love you, my wildebeest.

.....

2011-06-14T16:36:00.000-05:00

Nick and I worked on this craftiness most of yesterday afternoon.

We made the J out of cardboard, hot glued the pieces together,

and then glued/stapled the padding and fabric to the cardboard.

I love the fabric. I found it in my Icee's closet.

She thinks it was my great grandmother's.

Today I am working on the book Kaitlyn and I are writing. Tomorrow, I would love to make Texas, Missouri, and Rhode Island shaped pillows for our couches.

2011-06-12T00:56:00.000-05:00

2011-06-12T00:39:00.000-05:00

lessons learned.

2011-06-12T00:28:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, my husband steals the covers while he is sleeping.

I used to try to pull them back over, and then just whimper until he woke up and gave them back.

But I've learned that hitting him is much more effective.

2011-05-29T13:30:00.000-05:00

My beautiful Kaitlyn got married this weekend! The wedding was so perfect!

I love you, Kaitlyn and Joshua! I am so glad we are married friends now!

2011-04-25T13:33:00.000-05:00

Three of my favorite people turned 23 within a week of each other. This is for them.

Dearest Kaitlyn,
Thank you for being a constant friend. I am so sad I missed your birthday, but since Harry Potter was involved, it's like I was there in spirit. I will never forget the countless hours we spent at your house, eating nutella and baking, watching Mary Kate and Ashley, and drinking chai tea lattes. I was so blessed to have you stand with me in my wedding, and I can't wait to stand by you in yours... in a month!! I love you and I am so proud of you for getting into med school. Also, we need to finish our book.

Allison, aka Pea,
I am so grateful for your friendship, and the fact that our lives are in the same newlywed stage right now. All those late night talks before bed were so sweet. I will never forget our road trip together and the hilarious moments that took place then. I love being able to call you and talk about being wives and our future plans. I cannot wait to see you this weekend!!

Blair Bear,
I'm so glad you got to spend your birthday at Hogwarts. I can't wait to watch HP dh2 at midnight with you this summer! I love that we have so much in common, and can text each other random quotes whenever they seem necessary. I love watching Glee or Friends with you while drinking strawberry daiquiris, or doing puzzles, or laying by your pool. I will never forget summer 2009, whether it was crying together in the upper room, or walking in silence to breakfast. You are my lobster, and I can't wait to see you this weekend, too!!

Things I am currently loving...

2011-04-09T12:27:00.000-05:00

This awesome purse my mom brought back from South Africa.

Our new mugs! I made the little one, and the other two are from our trip.

My husband. As of yesterday, we have been married for 3 months!

This book. Discipline is an area that I really struggle with when it comes to my faith. This book is extremely practical and extremely challenging.

Adele. Oh how I love you. Thank you, Glee cast, for tweeting about her and bringing her into my life on February 28th, 2011. I foresee a long friendship.

Projects, lately.

2011-03-22T11:36:00.000-05:00

I saw some wall art at Target that I really liked, but it was $30! So I figured I might be able to recreate it myself, using different materials. This is the result:

I really like the little bird. But I just like birds.

And then yesterday, I decided to make some pinwheels for decorations! I wish we had better paper, but I still like how they turned out. A nice way to welcome spring.

And then I made some delicious Snickerdoodle popcorn. I got the basic recipe HERE, from Picky Palate. But I tweeked the recipe since I didn't have everything... I used the microwavable butter popcorn... and regular cinnamon... and instead of white chocolate, I sprinkled powered sugar over it. It was pretty good, I must say. I would recommend it.

Tata for now!

Pain.

2011-02-08T14:14:00.001-06:00

One of my favorite things about gymnastics is that it teaching life lessons. Most of the time, the little girls don't even realize they are learning more than gymnastics. As a coach, I also get to learn from their experiences. Over the past two weeks, I have had two different girls wipe out on the beam. One was a tiny kindergartner who was learning how to turn on her tipy-toes, or as we call it, in relevé. The other girl was a year older, more experienced, but lacked self-control. She was practicing assemblés on the low beam. The first girl slipped as she turned, straddling the beam with her legs and landing on her back on the floor. She started crying immediately. The second had not been paying attention and was very sloppy as she hopped from one leg to two on the low beam. She missed both feet and smashed her hip into the beam before she fell to the ground.

Neither falls were tragic. In fact, they were both extremely common. But for these fresh, novice gymnasts, they were wake up calls. To both girls, I said something along the lines of, "I know this hurts. You're going to have a bruise. But that is part of gymnastics. You will be ok. Would you rather sit out for a second or keep going?" The first girl, with tears in her eyes, informed me, "But I don't want to have a bruise!" I couldn't help but laugh a little.

The falls didn't surprise me. In fact, with the second girl, who had not been listening to my corrections, I even saw it coming. Having experienced the same falls myself, I could see past the pain and encourage them to keep going. Until then, they hadn't associated pain with gymnastics. It was fun, easy, and safe.

This is such a blatant picture of life! We pass through, unaware of certain pains until we fall. We may know that they can happen, or that they do happen to other people, but until they hit us personally, we often don't think about it. And then it happens, and we don't know if we can keep going. And of course, God knows the plans He has for us, and He sees past the pain.

I have been learning recently just how many hurting people there are around me. They are in serious emotional pain and, whether they know it or not, are longing for peace. I want to encourage you to pay attention. We live in a dead, hurting world. If you are a follower of Jesus, you have the Remedy. Don't keep it to yourself, pretending that life is painless. Share it.

"I am leaving you with a gift- peace of mind and heart.

And the peace I is a gift the world cannot give.

So don't be troubled or afraid."

[John 14:27]

Life Changes

2011-01-18T13:44:00.000-06:00

Well, I am entering into week 2 in Rolla. We are moved into our quaint apartment! It is quite lovely! The weather is monsterous. It's finally above freezing today, a first since I've been here. Fortunately they have snow plows here, so I can actually drive, since driving in the snow is so foreign to Texans.

Things I am getting used to:
- Living on a budget. Freeing yet frustrating.
- Living without internet. We don't have internet at our apartment, which is fine. I just have to get used to it!
- Living in sub-freezing temperatures. Yuck.
- Living with a boy. He killed my sea monkeys. But he also makes me breakfast.

Things I love about Rolla:
- The size. It's tiny, and it literally takes 5 minutes max to get anywhere. The only problem with this is that the car isn't warm by the time you need to get out.
- The old houses. They are everywhere and they are so cute!
- Downtown. Old, cute, small. It's a true downtown.
- Community. Just last week we had people over three different nights for dinner. Last semester, I missed the community I had at Baylor. Nick and I have been praying for community for me this semester.

Updates:
- I got a job! I am going to be coaching gymnastics!
- A second job is in the works! Tomorrow I am meeting with a lady who runs a day care/babysitting program and she wants me to work 3-4 days a week! Hopefully the two jobs combined will be around 30 hours.
- Nick and I are leading a home group in his organization. The title is "Living Life Worthy of the Calling," and the subject is Godliness. We have 12 people signed up! Woohoo! Please pray for our time together and for the relationships that will be built. 8 of the 12 are girls, which is awesome! And there are 2 married couples! Hooray!
- We are enrolled in Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University at a local church. We are eager to see what we learn from it!
- Nick and I went to the same church as mentioned above on Sunday. We went to the Young Couples Sunday school class, and then to the worship service. It was funny because a lot of the couples had multiple kids and were probably in their thirties. We definitely felt young.

Cooking:
- If you have any great, easy recipes, send them to us! We love cooking together, plus we are going to need some great recipes for our home group every week.
- I made twice baked potatoes from The Pioneer Woman cookbook the other day. Oh my goodness they were delicious. And so easy!

That is all for now. I am sure there will be more updates later. If you are reading this, please come visit. During your spring break. Or just over a weekend. We have a very comfortable couch.

Book lists

2010-12-19T23:54:00.000-06:00

I seem to always have a reading list that never diminishes... In fact, I think it just gets longer... Too many books, too little time.

Here is my current reading list:
- The Bible, especially Mark
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
     - This is my third time to read it, and I am still catching things I missed before. I think that is because for the first time, I have read all seven in the span of a few weeks, so I am able to mesh together the big picture. I have said it once, I will say it again. J.K. Rowling is a genius.
- Sacred Marriage- Gary Thomas
     - Recommended to anyone currently married, or who wants to get married sometime in the future.

Here is my "started, but still need to finish" list:
- The Cost of Discipleship - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
- Life Together- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
- Men are Like Waffles, Women are like Spaghetti- Bill and Pam Ferrel
     - I stopped reading this because I liked "For Women Only" much better... It's almost like they are trying to be funny, but are just super cheesy. But it has some interesting ideas and I still need to finish it.
- I Believe- Grant Teaff

The "I own but haven't started yet" list:
- The Tipping Point- Malcolm Gladwell

And finally, my "don't have, but want to read" list:
- The Connected Child- Karyn Purvis
- Adopted for Life- Dr. Russell Moore
- Letters to Children- CS Lewis
- The Summer Kitchen- Lisa Wingate
- The Divine Conspiracy- Dallas Willard
- Radical- David Platt
- The Prodigal God- Timothy Keller
- Transform a City- Eric Swanson
- Tale of Three Kings- Gene Edwards
- Mere Christianity- CS Lewis
- The Great Divorce- CS Lewis

And here is a little list of I think you should read in the near future:
- Life of Pi- Yann Martel
- On Fairy Stories- JR Tolkien, along with his own fairy story, Leaf by Niggle
- Train Go Sorry: Inside a Deaf World- Leah Hager Cohen

Child Abuse Prevention

2010-12-05T00:41:00.001-06:00

I don't generally let the silly things on facebook or twitter make me upset. I think that social media is a brilliant way to communicate with large groups of people, but sometimes, things just go wrong.

This new "Change your profile picture to a cartoon" business actually made me angry. We have gotten so used to using Facebook as a form of identity that we think that changing your profile picture in order to fight child abuse and bring back warm fuzzy memories is the way to protect the hundreds of thousands of children in the US alone who suffer from abuse each year. "Well, I changed my profile pic for a couple days, done my good deed for the week." Hiding behind Facebook makes us feel like we have actually accomplished something. Like we are making a change.

If you want to change your profile picture to a cartoon, go ahead. But don't pretend like you are saving a child's life. How about raising awareness by introducing advocacy centers and shelters? How about educating people on the symptoms of abuse so anyone who comes into contact with children will know what to look for? And if they notice something, letting them know who they need to call and why it is important to actually do something.

So, in case you hadn't gathered, I am not changing my profile picture to a fun childhood cartoon. Because child abuse isn't fun. It isn't nostalgic. It kills thousands of children every year. Instead, here is some information on how you can get involved.

In Central Texas:
- Family Abuse Center- I spent 2 semesters volunteering at this center. We led group play therapy sessions for the kids while their moms were in their own group therapy. It was hard. The kids were in desperate need of healthy attention. But it was an incredible learning opportunity for me. The FAC does a great job at providing a clean, safe, and free place for families running away from abusive homes. They provide education for the moms, and stability for the kids. The FAC is always in need of donations. If you live in Central Texas and are interested in volunteering, they love that too. Just check out the VOLUNTEER section on the website.

- Talitha Koum- While TK is not specifically for child abuse victims, they do work with many children who suffer from neglect and abuse. These kids come from the poorest of poor neighborhoods in Waco. Talitha Koum provides a nurturing, healthy environment for the children to grow up in. They not only provide for the kids while they are in the nursery and preschool, but they continue to work with the schools as the children grow out of the programs, providing food, clothing, school supplies, and toys. They also hold weekly parenting meetings. Every child is part of play therapy and is under the watch of a child psychologist. Like the FAC, TK can also benefit from donations and volunteers. I worked here as a part of a research lab my senior year, and my life was seriously changed.

- Children's Advocacy Center

In DFW:
I do not have experience with the centers in the DFW area, so I am just going to post some links, and if you are interested, you can check them out!

- Children's Advocacy Center of Collin County- Plano
- Alliance for Children- Tarrant County
- Child Abuse Prevention Center- Dallas
- Dallas Children's Advocacy Center
- Dallas CASA

Finally, know the signs. This is something you can do with little time or sacrifice on your part. You think that children aren't abused where you are? You're wrong. I know it is easy to assume that my neighborhood and my city are "too nice" to be a place for something like this. But it just isn't true. HERE is a great website with information on how to spot child abuse.

It's better to act and be wrong, than to think everything is fine and be wrong. If you believe a child is being neglected or abused, you are breaking the law if you don't report it. (The same is true for someone over 65 and for those with disabilities). CLICK HERE for some Texas hotline numbers for Child Protective Services. You can also call 1-800-4-A-CHILD. Please call 911 if you believe the child is in immediate danger.

a poem.

2010-11-30T22:13:00.002-06:00

From my diary when I was 7:

"Birds"
By Haley Purdy,

Red yollow brown
white ~~blake~~ black
and Pink They

are very Prettey

The End

trust.

2010-11-11T16:41:00.000-06:00

"He made their hearts, so He understands everything they do..." - Psalm 33:15

I don't have a problem forgetting that God created me. But I think that I fail to fully comprehend what that means. When I read Psalm 33:15 this morning, I was reminded of something I often forget.

God made my heart. He understands me better than anyone, because He made me that way. There are times when I do something or struggle with something and I don't understand why. An example of this is fear. Sometimes there are fears I just can't get over. It doesn't matter how irrational I know they are, I am still afraid.

When I was younger, I was a competitive gymnast. During my last season, I missed my hands doing a back walkover on the beam during my routine. I was able to pull my legs around fast enough to land on the ground instead of the beam, so I was not physically hurt. But emotionally, everything had changed. I still did the skill by myself for competitions, but during practice, I had a total mental block. I was absolutely terrified, and I could not help it. I could barely do it with my coach spotting, even though she had been there for me since I was seven years old, and had saved me from many falls. I had no reason not to trust her, I just couldn't get over my fear.

This was so frustrating for everyone involved. I didn't understand why I couldn't just get over it like I had gotten over so many other fears during my gymnastics career. It wasn't my first time to fall, and it definitely wasn't my worst fall. I had been hurt many times before doing other skills... fallen on my face or neck... slammed into the beam or vault... whacked my legs against the high bar while dismounting... but I had been able to talk myself out of the fear and keep working.

This is just one example. Of course, there are many other, more serious instances where I don't understand why I feel and think the way I do.

But even when I do not understand myself, my Creator does. How comforting is that? I don't know why I can't just trust Him... But He does. And because He understands, I know He knows how to help me. Sometimes I don't know what to do about the problem because I don't know why I feel that way. But He can fix the problem, because He understands my heart.

Humans have this need to feel understood... Think about how many times have you heard someone say about their significant other, "He just gets me..." While it is important for me to feel understood by Nick, I need to remember that the Creator of the universe already understands me better than anyone else ever will.

ASL

2010-11-10T14:14:00.000-06:00

This semester, I am taking American Sign Language at the local community college. This has definitely not been the blow off course you would think it would be considering where I am taking it. I have already learned so much in the past 3 months. In order to complete the course, each student is required to go into the Deaf community five different times for at least 1.5 hours each time. I have been to two different Deaf churches and then a community/living center for Deaf senior citizens. I went to the community center twice, because there, you actually sit and have conversations with the residents. It is very interactive. They are so kind and are sure to sign slow enough so I can understand, and they ask over and over again if I get what they are saying. Most of the time it takes two or three tries, but I am definitely learning! I wish that my other foreign language courses had required something like this, because there is nothing like entering into a community where you are forced to communicate using the language you are learning. And there is nothing like signing something wrong and having someone laugh at your efforts.
We are also required to spend at least 20 hours in lab. This lab is run by Deaf instructors, and there is a strict no voice policy. I definitely learn more in lab than I do in class, and it is supposed to be that way.

Now, you might be wondering to yourself, "Self, why is she taking ASL?" Well, that is a great question! I want to be a clinical psychologist for children, especially those who have experienced trauma or neglect. Many Deaf children face a form of trauma because they are unable to communicate and participate fully in the world around them. Many hearing parents refuse to learn sign language and are not able to talk to their Deaf children. If a Deaf child goes to a public school, they may have some friends and teachers who can talk to them, but for the most part, they go through the day without communicating with many people. Just imagine having to go through every single day without being able communicate efficiently with those around you. And not only can you not communicate, but so many pieces of life slip through without notice because you can't hear.

Because of this, many Deaf children suffer from depression and anger issues. They are trapped inside their heads with hardly anyone who is able to help. They need counselors and psychologists just like regular children do. But most of the time, they have to bring an interpreter with them. It's hard enough to tell your struggles, worries, and problems to a health care professional without a stranger standing in the room listening. But many Deaf clients are required to tell their problems to an interpreter who is hired for the job. Even the highest assurance of confidentiality does not make this easy or comfortable. I want to be able to eliminate the middle man. Deaf children can feel safer talking directly to me. Deaf parents with hearing children can feel more comfortable because I can talk to them directly instead of using an interpreter or their children to communicate.

Ultimately, I hope that learning ASL expands the pool of clients I am able to help. So many psychologists are able to help hearing children. I want to be able help both the hearing and the Deaf.

Google Calendar

2010-11-09T14:30:00.000-06:00

I just wanted to take a moment to blog about a little gadget I have recently come to love.

Now, I have loved Gmail, Google Documents, and Google Reader for years now, but I have only recently tried Google Calendars.

It is very similar to iCal on my mac, which I LOVE. But there are some key differences/additions that have gotten me hooked.

1. I can pull this up on any computer as long as I have internet. My iCal is great because I don't need internet, but I have to have my computer. If I am at work or on a campus computer, I am out of luck. But Google Calendars is accessible anywhere, even on slow old PCs.

2. It has an awesome Tasks List.

I am a list maker. I love lists. Sticky notes with lists. Everywhere. The best part of a list is that you get to cross something off when you are done. Yes, I am one of those people who will just write something down so I can cross it off. In the summer of 2009, when I was working in the main office at camp, Jason had a huge list written on the board in his office. Above it said, "Haley's List." I worked very hard to get things done on this list. But Jason never let me cross anything off! He would always do it himself. He said that it was his list, so he got to get the joy of a job completed. I don't really know what is fair about this, but lets just say it forced me to work with the intrinsic motivation I already had instead of for the extrinsic reward of crossing things off a list. Or maybe I am just being a little dramatic. He still rewarded me with Sonic.

Anyway, this list maker is awesome and super easy to use! When you check something off, it is checked AND the words get crossed out! Amazing! Your tasks also show up on the calendar if you give them a due date.

3. I can share my calendars with anyone.

Nick and I can both have our calendars in the same place. This is definitely one thing we can't really do with iCal. I like it because we can see what we have going on, and it helps avoid conflicting schedules.

That is all. If you don't already use Google Reader, you should look into that now. And I would suggest checking out the Calendar feature while you are at it.

they're here!

2010-11-04T17:51:00.000-05:00

Well, we got our 2 other portraits in the mail from Walgreens today!!! I love these!!

This one is the same size as the one we got before... 12X12

This one is a little bigger... I want to say 16X20

An angled one so you can get an idea of the size...

What do you think? I love them!

Modern Bird Studios

2010-11-02T15:42:00.000-05:00

So recently, I have become obsessed with Modern Bird Studios.

They make awesome art like the portrait above. I would love to have one of me and Nick done.

Anyway, Inspire Me Baby is currently having a Modern Bird Studios giveaway right now. You should go check it out!

Walgreens Canvas

2010-10-28T16:41:00.000-05:00

So, if you know me, you know that I love pictures. They are all over my room.

Well, Nick and I had talked about getting a couple of our engagement pictures put on canvas, but it is pretty expensive.

The other day, Walgreens had a special where you could get $10 off a photo purchase greater than $20. I stumbled upon their canvas options and decided to try it out. I ordered the 12X12, because that is the smallest that we wanted them, and I chose a picture that we love but weren't planning on using for the wedding. I didn't want it to end up being really crappy quality but still feel like I needed to use it since I had paid for it.

First of all, their canvases are already much cheaper than what I could find before. For the size we ordered, a typical price is around $60. The original price for the Walgreens version was $35, plus I had the coupon!

Well, I must say, I am pretty pleased with the quality! And for half the price, I think it was worth it!

I hope to order the other two pretty soon!

Love Is

2010-10-26T19:01:00.002-05:00

Well, I have added 2 canvases to my Love Is collection.

I chose this translation because it is more of a literal reminder for me, personally. I can more easily catch myself demanding my own way than being self-seeking. Also, being irritable covers more than being easily angered. It's easy to say, "Oh, I'm not getting angry... I'm just upset." But getting irritated is the same as getting upset.

Anyone have any suggestions for the next few?

2 months. 2 weeks. 2 days.

2010-10-21T19:47:00.005-05:00

In 2 months, 2 weeks, and 2 days, I am moving to a town with an estimated population of 18,438 people. There is no Target, no Starbucks, no Chick-fil-a. The only sit-down major chain restaurants are Denny's and Applebees.

Now, this might not seem like a big deal. But let me paint a picture for you. I grew up in a "town" with an estimated population of 273,611 people. This town has around 20 Starbucks, 2 Targets, and 4 Chick-Fil-As. It is part of a metroplex with an estimated population of 6,447,615 people. When I went to college, I moved to a town of 126,217 people. This place was considered small and lame to most of its college inhabitants. I spent my summers in outside a town of 83,650 people. So basically, this is a big deal, people.

While it kind of freaks me out that a Target will now be a special event place instead of where I go when I get homesick or bored, I am still really excited about starting my new life such a new way.

Reason #1:
Nicholas.

I mean, look at him. He's adorable. As much as I love skype, I can't wait to get to hang out with my best friend every day in real life.

Reason #2:
The weather.

This is partially true, and partially a fear. I am going to be there in the dead of winter. It snows there. A lot. Like, it's normal. I am excited because it is a change. Maybe I will like the cold weather! And I also love the clothes that go along with cold weather.

Reason #3:
New adventures.

As much as I am going to miss Common Grounds and IKEA and Target, I am excited to create new adventures with my soon-to-be husband! Everything will be new for me so I will just have to drop my expectations and get ready to learn.

Reason #4:
New friends.

Now, anyone who knows me well knows that I do not make friends quickly. But once I make them, I keep them. Being in Rolla will be a challenge for me, because I will only there for about the same time that it takes me to make friends. Ha. So, if I want to have any friends besides Nick and the 3 other guys I know, I am going to have to be vulnerable. Obviously, I want to have community with some of the girls who go to Nick's school. I know this is going to be difficult and painful for me but I am excited to jump in.

So, with that said, please keep in contact with me when I move. Skype is great. So is the phone. I am also a fan of written letters. :)

2 months, 2 weeks, 2 days...

He is jealous for me

2010-10-18T22:50:00.003-05:00

I had a little fun last night making some simple art with some supplies I already had laying around the house. It's inspired by the song, "How He Loves" by John Mark McMillan. Another pretty popular version is by David Crowder* Band. Check out their awesome music video for the song HERE.

Anyway, I just took a few minutes to put this together... You can't tell from the picture that the music pages are more of an ivory color rather than the same color as the sketch paper... I loved it when I put it in the red frame... it's hanging on the wall outside my room now.

just a great picture...

2010-10-14T22:45:00.002-05:00

I mean come on, this is totally a framer.

2010-10-13T14:33:00.001-05:00

*Phone rings*
I answer.

Me: "Halllooo Pooh!"
Nick: "Hallllooo Piglet!"

He gets me.

2010-10-12T23:36:00.000-05:00

1330 miles from my lobster. aka Blair. dumb.

Wait... what!?

2010-10-11T23:59:00.002-05:00

I am so confused... what is "BOBS" even supposed to stand for? hahah what the heck. I can't wait to see how this goes.

New recipes

2010-09-30T19:46:00.002-05:00

Last week, I tried out some new recipes! They are both Pioneer Woman recipes, and I would have to say they tasted pretty good. I love her recipes because I can see step by step pictures. They are really easy to follow and I can tell if I am on the right track.

The first was this tiramisu recipe. Let me tell you. This recipe just about killed me. So many things went wrong... First, I couldn't find the cooking wine or the ladyfingers at the store. Then, I over whipped the heavy whipping cream so it was chunky. Then, my sister over stirred the cheese, causing it to become liquid and chunks... lovely. Fortunately, it still tasted delicious!

The second was this bread recipe. Oh-my-gosh. This is the best bread ever. I followed the instructions and cut it into small slices, and it was perfect. I used Italian bread instead of French bread, and there was no way I could fit all of the butter on it. But I still made sure it was covered. And it was amazing.

Do you have any recipes you have tried out lately? Nick loves to cook so hopefully when we are married we will be trying out a ton of new recipes together!

2010-09-26T15:32:00.000-05:00

"Live. And Live Well.

BREATHE. Breathe in and Breathe deeply. Be PRESENT. Do not be past. Do not be future. Be now.

On a crystal clear, breezy 70 degree day, roll down the windows and FEEL the wind against your skin. Feel the warmth of the sun.

If you run, then allow those first few breaths on a cool Autumn day to FREEZE your lungs and do not just be alarmed, be ALIVE.

Get knee-deep in a novel and LOSE track of time.

If you bike, pedal HARD… and if you crash then crash well.

Feel the SATISFACTION of a job well done—a paper well-written, a project thoroughly completed, a play well-performed.

If you must wipe the snot from your 3-year old’s nose, don’t be disgusted if the Kleenex didn’t catch it all… because soon he’ll be wiping his own.

If you’ve recently experienced loss, then GRIEVE. And Grieve well.

At the table with friends and family, LAUGH. If you’re eating and laughing at the same time, then might as well laugh until you puke. And if you eat, then SMELL. The aromas are not impediments to your day. Steak on the grill, coffee beans freshly ground, cookies in the oven. And TASTE. Taste every ounce of flavor. Taste every ounce of friendship. Taste every ounce of Life. Because-it-is-most-definitely-a-Gift."

Kyle Lake

Family Tree

2010-09-16T21:26:00.002-05:00

I had to do a presentation in sign language on my "family tree" the other day. This is the slide I brought. We could only do 4 people, so I chose the siblings! The presentation went pretty well... It's fun getting better at sign language, because I am starting to be able to have small conversations... sweet!

Look at what I found!

2010-09-16T21:15:00.005-05:00

Everyone loves Etsy... I love finding super cute stuff there... Here is the latest etsy shop I found.

Volume Twenty Five

They have the cutest art! Here are some of my favorites:

Love Happens

"I measure my life in coffee spoons"- TS Eliot

You should go check them out!

Waco Arts Initiative

2010-09-15T21:48:00.002-05:00

One of my favorite programs in Waco:

Learn more about Waco Arts Initiative HERE and HERE.

2010-09-13T22:53:00.002-05:00

(Photo by Bakerella)

I reaaaallly want to try out this recipe I found on Bakerella. They look DELISH.

My last 10 iTunes purchases

2010-09-13T20:01:00.000-05:00

1. God of This City-- Chris Tomlin
2. Mystery-- Charlie Hall
3. Like a Lion-- David Crowder
4. Revelation Song-- Kari Jobe
5. Come Thou Fount, The Dress Looks Nice On You, Chicago, and Enchanting Ghost-- Sufjan Stevens
6. Eternal Flame-- The Bangles
7. Show Me, Restless, and For Love of You-- Audrey Assad
8. Anything for You and The Lucky Ones-- Brendan James
9. Try, Nonfiction Love Song, July & June, and Songbird-- Jillian Edwards
10. Our Kind of Love and American Honey-- Lady Antebellum

More about some of these artists to come at a different time.

Have a stellar week! And go check some of these out!

3 Children's Books

2010-09-12T20:01:00.001-05:00

I love children's books. I love reading them and collecting them. One of my life goals is to write a children's book. My favorite kind is one that is considered a book for a child, but is so well written that it appeals to adults, too. Not only does it appeal to adults, but it draws them in to the worlds that they haven't visited since "growing up."

There is no way that this is a top 3 list. I couldn't do it, I love too many too much. However, this is a list of 3 books that I can't wait to read to my children. I think everyone should read them, regardless of how old. They are brilliant, regardless of whether a person reads them to himself, or out loud to others. I think every library should contain these three books.

1. You Are Special by Max Lucado.

This has been a favorite of mine for quite a while. It is a great story that shows how great the Creator's love is for us, His creation. Every child needs to know that he or she is special. My favorite line is, "Remember, you are special because I made you. And I don't make mistakes." It's so simple, but so powerful. It is also a great book to read to groups of girls to discuss self-image issues. It can be used as a powerful tool to show the importance of seeing yourself how God sees you, instead of how others see you.
When I was a counselor at Pine Cove, I read this book to my girls every Sunday night before lights out. Sometimes I wouldn't have time to finish, and they would be so anxious to get into bed on Monday night so we could continue reading. They loved both the story and discussing the meaning afterward.

2. Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie

I could probably talk about this book for hours. Of course, most are familiar with the story. But that doesn't make it any less amazing. We read this book in my "Classics in Children's Literature" class my last semester at Baylor, and the discussions made me love it even more than I already did. The symbolism and literary style is so beautiful, and this is such a great book to read out loud. The themes of growing up and the imagination are portrayed in ways that most people never consider. If you haven't read this book in the past year, I really think you should go do that soon. And then lay it somewhere accessible and read it to anyone who will listen.

3. The House at Pooh Corner by A.A. Milne

If you have never read this book, I need you to stop what you are doing right now and go read it. Milne was a genius on so many levels. First, this book is great to read out loud. Since he originally came up with these bedtime stories by telling them to his son, Christopher Robin, they are captivating and creative when heard. Second, these stories are written creatively, utilizing methods that a child would use if he or she were writing a story. Because they are so simple, they can be read by beginners. But they are also intelligent, which enables them to entertain more advanced readers at any age. Third, the pictures are so cute, and add to the stories so well. I want to just frame different pictures from this book and hang them on my walls.
When we read this for our Children's Lit class, my roommates and I spent two nights reading the stories out loud to each other. We each had different characters with different voices, and it got pretty hilarious. It is definitely one of my favorite memories from my senior year.

I hope that you have had the opportunity to read these books. If you haven't, then go find them from the library or Half Price Books and get started! And don't rely on the Disney movies to provide proper entertainment. They definitely do not suffice when compared to the books.

Have a great day!!

Waco, Texas: Food Edition

2010-09-11T23:15:00.004-05:00

I miss Waco a lot. If you had asked me three years ago if I would miss Waco when I left, I would have said absolutely not. I loved Baylor, and I loved parts of Waco, but I was never attached to the town. But as I spent 4 years there, it grew on me. Working at Talitha Koum sealed the deal: I love Waco. In case you are ever there, here is a list of places you need to go:

1. Common Grounds-- Great coffee, great atmosphere, need I say more? When you go, I would suggest getting Cowboy Coffee, a 254, or a Summer Sparkler. The Arnold Palmers and frozen flavored coffee drinks are amazing too.

2. Health Camp-- This was my first favorite place in Waco. My family would always go there during trips to Waco when I was younger. It's a super old burger place, and it is DELICIOUS. Get whatever you want, just make sure you try the tator tots... Best tots ever.

3. Bush's Chicken-- Bush's has the best chicken strips for the best price. It's better than Chicken Express, and I will stand by that statement. The tea is better, too, and a lot cheaper.

4. Mr. Snow-- Mr. Snow's sno cones are amazing, and so much cheaper than the ones from Bahama Bucks... Wedding cake with cream is my personal favorite.

5. George's Bar and Grill-- George's is another place we would go to as a family after games when I was little. It's famous for its chicken fried steak, and has been known to occasionally feed President George W. Bush. It was also immortalized in the country song, "College," by Pat Green, who, although did not go to Baylor, did grow up in Waco.

6. Kitok's Restaurant-- Who knew Asian food and hamburgers went so well together?! This place is so random and so hilarious. I would recommend getting a cheeseburger and oriental fries. You have to get the oriental fries, that is not even an option.

7. Katie's Custard-- Katie's is a great place used by Baylor students for many different occasions. I must admit that I like Andy's better, but this isn't a blog about Tyler... Katie's still has great custard with a ton of options.

While there are a ton of other great local places to eat in Waco, these are definitely some great choices. I hope you get to visit Waco soon and try out some of these places.

Prayer Requests

2010-09-10T23:59:00.002-05:00

Hello friends!

I was wondering if you could join me in praying for a couple of things.

The first is for discipline. I am really struggling with remaining disciplined and having the urge to get things done. From Scripture reading to GRE studying to just keeping my room clean, I definitely need some work. Please pray that God teaches me to be disciplined in my tasks so that I can give all glory to God and do everything with excellence. It's hard to perform excellently when you just don't care.

The second is for a beautiful girl named Ellia. Ellia is the three-year-old daughter of Brett and Chris, the chaplains who lived in my dorm freshman year. She is absolutely hysterical and so cute, and her parents are pretty awesome too. Last year, a virus attacked her muscles, causing her to be in severe pain and remain in the hospital for special care. Today, she started experiencing similar symptoms again, and has been admitted into the ICU. Please pray for her and her family!

Thanks, guys! Yall are awesome!

blogs of the day

2010-09-09T19:31:00.002-05:00

As I sit in my 3 hour class and listen to my professor go off on completely random tangents in an effort to make himself sound awesome, I am going to write about three recent blogs I have enjoyed. The first is a singular blog post and the final two are blogs as a whole.

1. The Pioneer Woman-- Ten Important Things I've Learned About Blogging.
- I have been challenged by this blog, for sure! She gives different ways to help develop your blogging skills, and I can't wait to apply them to mine.

2. Young House Love
- I stumbled upon this blog yesterday, and I am IN LOVE. I have tagged so many ideas for our wedding and for art projects. Some of my favorite sections are Projects, House Tour, Art We Heart, and DIY Decor. I love it all, really... This couple is uber creative and uber cute.

3. Kevin East
- Kevin, better known as "Opee" to those Pine Covers, is a relatively new blogger. I encourage anyone who reads this blog to check his out. He has chosen some great things to write about. Some of my favorite posts are, "Tough Conversations: With Your Child," "What Every Child Should Hear From His Parents," "What Does Excellence Look Like?" and, "Fostering: When The Music Fades."

I hope you check out these blogs and maybe learn something in the process.

Thanks for reading!

To do for the weekend:
- Write a paper for Sign Language
- Go to Sign Language lab
- Go to the zoo (hope it doesn't storm)
- Go to Taste of Downtown Plano (hope it doesn't storm)
- Study for a Sign Language quiz
- Run

He's the King

2010-08-27T19:11:00.003-05:00

Recently, I made this:

It was inspired by my favorite quote from The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis.
I love this because it is such a great reminder that God is omnipotent, completely and fully powerful and just. He is also Love, and fully good.

Love is not proud

2010-08-11T13:25:00.003-05:00

The next part of the verse is "Love is not proud." I wanted to do a male peacock because they seem like proud creatures to me... and I just thought it would look cool. :)
This is definitely not my favorite... I still like my owl one the best. I am trying to decide if I should outline each feather with black like I did the body. Any thoughts?

Love is not proud: We all know the sting of someone else's prideful words, but we often don't notice when we ourselves are being prideful. After reading Matthew Henry's Commentary and Henry Drummond's The Greatest Thing in the World, I came to an interesting conclusion. Love forgets itself. Drummond describes humility as, "To put a seal upon your lips and forget what you have done." I cannot truly love when I love myself and my accomplishments more than others.

I will be joyful in God my Savior!

2010-08-11T10:51:00.003-05:00

Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.
-Habakkuk 3:17-18-

short update

2010-08-07T23:18:00.002-05:00

Hello! We got our final addition of engagement pictures back! Check them out HERE.

Summer is finally coming to a close and I cannot believe how fast it went. Now, to find a job!

I get to hang out with some kids at a local baseball camp this week and I am super pumped.

More to come later!

Wedding blog

2010-07-30T20:25:00.003-05:00

Hello. You should follow our wedding blog.
Click here to check it out!
You can find ramblings, ideas, wedding party info, and registry info.
Enjoy!

Texas on my mind

2010-07-26T01:51:00.003-05:00

So, I have been in Missouri for the past week, and will be here for another week and a half, but here are some things we have done:

- Ate at Lambert's, home of the throwed roll. It makes me cringe to write out "throwed," but that's how they spell it, so I will stay true.

- Made cake balls and ranch pretzels

- Explored downtown Columbia, Mizzou, and saw Inception!

- Visited Nick's family in Kansas City and wandered around the Plaza with one of his close friends.

- Played in the grass in front of the capitol building as the sun set.

- Had a campfire complete with mosquitoes and s'mores.

- Covered a canvas with paint swatches.

- Tried to learn how to skate board. I must say, I improved greatly in the short time I tried.

- Completed Crazy Birds on our iPhones.

Tomorrow, we are going to go on a mullet search. Wednesday, we are going to the lake! I have been reading Jane Eyre during quiet moments, thanks to the free BookReader app!

Shake it like a polaroid picture

2010-07-09T00:14:00.009-05:00

I love polaroid pictures. Too bad the film is so expensive.

1 Corinthians 13

2010-06-29T23:45:00.004-05:00

So, I started a new project. I am painting 1 Corinthians 13 phrase by phrase on different canvases... This will take me a while since I don't have money just to spend on canvases all at once. But these are the ones I got done today:

The cloud in the first and bird in the last are made out of fabric. The owl one is my favorite.

This verse has always been a favorite. I want to use it in our wedding, and at first, I was against this idea because it seemed cliche... but then I realized, "Since when did God's Word become cliche?" This words are so practical and so beautiful at the same time. It has become an important verse to me and Nick as we have been learning what it means to not only love each other but love others too.
My first friend at Coram Deo Academy, the lovely Mollie, used to always quote a phrase that applied to the situation when we were in 7th and 8th grade. While Mollie had a huge influence on my life in many ways, this is definitely something I will never forget about her. We would be sitting at lunch, dealing with silly middle school drama, and she would say, "Oh, he is so aggravating... but love is not easily angered..." And we would move on. Or she would be telling me a story of her siblings (she has a lot), and instead of staying upset she would say, "But love is patient and kind..." Her example really encouraged me to do the same.

Love is patient: Another word for patient here is long suffering. It's so easy to be patient with someone when they aren't doing anything wrong. It's when they are hurtful, mean, or annoying that it gets hard. I think that word "long suffering" is perfect because it is a reminder that love is not always easy.

Love is kind: Matthew Henry says that this is another word for bountiful. Love is not only being patient with someone but actually actively overflowing with kindness. Someone who is kind is not just polite. He or she is eager to do good.

Love does not envy: I like the way Matthew Henry puts it in his commentary, so I will just quote him: "It is not grieved at the good of others; neither at their gifts nor at their good qualities, their honours not their estates. If we love our neighbour we shall be so far from envying his welfare... that we shall share in it and rejoice at it."

Love does not boast: When we love others, we lift them up, not ourselves. It is so easy to make life all about me, but if I am truly going to love like Jesus loves, then I will spend more time and more words building others up than making myself look good.

Well, that is all I have for now. I will post more when I finish them.

Today, I attended Watermark's Young Adult service. First, there were more people there than go to UBC. Second, I am in love with that church building. I don't think that's a very good reason to go to a church, if by itself, but oh my goodness. They also gave me a cookie and it was delicious.

To do list for tomorrow:
- Get my ring cleaned (still)
- Check my mail 300 times
- Clean out my closet
- Finish moving into my room

Peace.

2010-06-28T23:49:00.003-05:00

I decided to pull out the old Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible today. Let me tell ya, that thing is huge. It was a gift from Coram Deo when I graduated from high school, and I haven't used it much.
Recently, I decided to study Proverbs 31:10-31, verse by verse. Honestly, it is difficult for me to understand all of the commentary... there are so many words. But if I find something interesting, I will write about it here.

Today's verse:
Proverbs 31:10-- Who can find a virtuous and capable wife? She is more precious than rubies. (New Living Translation)
Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. (King James Version)

First of all, did you know that the 22 verses about being a virtuous woman are in alphabetical order according to the Hebrew alphabet? How cool is that?! I really wish I knew Hebrew instead of Latin or Greek... Or I guess maybe as well as Latin and Greek.

Anyway, I find the translation of virtuous so cool here. Henry says that this word also means "a woman of strength." Also, "it is the same word that is used in the character of good judges..."

As a growing, Godly woman and a future wife, I should be living in strength, not fear. I should stand firm upon my principles because "a virtuous woman is a woman of resolution" (according to the commentary).

This is all for tonight. I addressed half of the save the dates tonight! Now waiting for the other half to be delivered...

Tomorrow's to do list:
- Deposit a check
- Get my ring cleaned
- Paint
- Check the mail 300 times to see if I got any checks or letters from Nick
- See Toy Story 3 again with Clay, Etienne, Callie, and the grandparents
- Attend Watermark's young adult group with Hannah
- Wear my AWESOME hat that I got in Austin

be still

2010-06-28T19:14:00.001-05:00

"At the beginning of the day, let all distractions and empty talk be silenced and let the first thought and the first word belong to him whom our whole life belongs." -- Life Together, Dietrich Bonnhoeffer

Ode to Rachel

2010-06-28T00:05:00.037-05:00

Every now and then, I like to write about specific people in my life. I have featured my Pappa and my Caleb.
As a side note, I just read through a bunch of different entries trying to find those... I love rereading old blog posts. I read the one describing my experience with the flu and laughed out loud... I was so miserable...Anyway, back to Rachel. Just as a fyi, this is long.

Let's go back four years and 1.5 months ago. I am sitting at my friend Josh's house, checking my email, and FINALLY get the one I have been waiting for: my housing assignment. I see that my roommate now has a name, so naturally I look her up on facebook to put a face with the name. We talk on facebook and aim, figure out rooming necessities and discuss life. Honestly, we didn't have much in common at the time. She loved band and ballet, I loved softball and gymnastics. She loved classical music, I didn't just listen to classical music often. She had a boyfriend, I didn't. She was spending her summer taking classes and in marching band, I was going to be at Pine Cove. However, we did both love Grey's Anatomy. And we had the same Baylor orientation week in June.

I still remember standing in the lobby by the door into Waco Hall, looking at the girl I was about share a room with for 9 months. We hugged (ha!) and talked and everything seemed great. Our parents became instant bffs. While we were in special student sessions and taking entrance exams, they were talking about our accomplishments. I got to hear all about Rachel's study skills from my dad. I was glad that my roommate would at least like to study so I could study too.

Then, our parents had us take a picture. After visiting our dorm room, they made us stand outside the door and take a picture. It was uber awkward. I really love this picture now because it is so funny. The other day, Rachel's mom mentioned it to me after Rach's wedding. She said, "I still remember you guys standing for that picture with unsure faces thinking, 'Is this going to work out?'"
August came around and we both moved in. My 18th birthday was the 2nd day of welcome week. I cried. But Rachel gave me an awesome Grey's Anatomy poster. I had a few very close high school friends who were also at Baylor, so I spent most of those first few weeks with them. I was trying to find a balance between living life as a college student, staying friends with my high school bffs, and keeping in touch with my baby ruth sisters. Rachel and I did not spend a lot of time outside the dorm together at first, but it was a good speed, for me, at least. We walked to classes together, and talked about homework and boys (hah let's be honest, HER boy) and home. I still remember her face and the pang of regret in my heart when I told her I dropped chemistry (8:00 class of terror) and she replied with, "NOO! YOU CAN'T ABANDON ME!"

By the time November came around, I was starting to feel more comfortable in the dorm. This may seem like a long time for others, but for me, it was right on time. And then, our home flooded. That was some definite bonding. This picture is disgusting but just imagine both of us getting little sleep and having to clean out our rooms due to standing water everywhere. Also, notice Rachel's nerd shirt.

In December, we took our first classic picture. I don't even remember what we were driving back from, but oh my gosh this picture is so funny. For years we have tried to replicate it, but nothing can beat the original.

Second semester solidified the friendship, with NY Times collecting and decorating, Grey's Anatomy watching, late night laughing, music sharing, midnight ice cream eating, and Cove toilet paper stealing. And of course taking care of our pets. There was Jack the Bean, from my salad, Rasputin the Roach, from Rachel's drawer, and Puff the Dragon from the pipes above us. Rachel sat there beside me as I murdered my computer, Bobby, and stared in horror as I freaked out about it. I was there when her computer stopped working, and I stared in horror at her as she completely melted down. Here are just a few other pics from freshman year:Taken in February, an effort to replicate our original

Our collection of New York TimesCleaning our bathroom during finals week

Sophomore year came along and she lived in the same dorm and I moved to an apartment. But I still spent many many nights sitting on her bed or laying on her floor doing homework and laughing when delirium hit. We both had different struggles and pain, but the bond remained. We sat together during Dr. Null's Social World first semester or groaned together during large group Social World second semester. And my camera broke so there weren't very many pictures...

Sophomore year efforts to replicate our 2 originals

Late night studying at 7th and James

Junior year came and weird housing situations put us back in the same room once again, but this time, off campus. I really believe that God used my failed efforts of other things to put us back in the same place.

This year involved a lot of StuFu for me and APO for her. It was full of hard classes and bed bugs and crying and Friends and doctors appointments and the flu. We played dress up and made some awesome music videos.

We retook our door picture on Rachel's 21st birthday
We were both up super early to be in the largest collegiate parade in the nation for homecoming!

And then my roomie got engaged. And I screamed. And we had a party.
And replicated our original picture, of course.

And then senior year came along, even though we never thought it would. We lived together again in the same room. I think having an actual roommate creates an unique type of vulnerability. Over the 3 years we shared a room, I had spent more time with her than anyone else. I had trouble sleeping when I came home because I wasn't used to being in a room by myself. I always had someone to talk to and laugh with and share stories with. If something happened with Nick, she knew, even if I didn't tell her. If something happened with anyone else, she knew. I trusted her more than anyone else at Baylor, because she had proven her trustworthiness time and time again for years.

Senior year was full of bearobics and Glee and sociology and children's literature and Harry Potter. She planned a wedding, and I got engaged. We enjoyed new things but also reminisced about old times. We played in the snow and watched Baylor win basketball games.

First day of classes for senior year, second semester
Last day of college

And then we graduated. And moved out. And our time as roommates came to an end after four years.

So we went back to our door and took a picture.

And then, my roommate got married. It was beautiful and perfect. And now she has a new roomie.

I have been so blessed by Rachel and her willingness to put up with me for 4 years! :) I love you SO much, roomie! I can't wait to go back to that door and take a picture by it at homecomings in future years. You are a rockstar, and my life would suck without you.

2010-06-18T17:36:00.001-05:00

"How much time we lose by refusing to lower the wings of our spirit and become totally quiet before Him! Imagine the calm, the rest, and the peace that will come as we wait in His presence until we hear from Him!" - L.B. Cowman

2010-06-18T17:33:00.002-05:00

"It is easily forgotten that the fellowship of Christian brethren is a gift of grace, a gift of the Kingdom of God that any day may be taken from us, that the time that still separates us from utter loneliness may be brief indeed... It is grace, nothing but grace, that we are allowed to live in community with Christian brethren." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I take community for granted so easily.

2010-06-18T17:31:00.002-05:00

"The Kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wants to be among friends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ! If Christ had done what you are doing who would ever have been spared?" - Martin Luther

Well, this is convicting.

2010-06-15T22:59:00.002-05:00

It's time for healing, time to move on.
It's time to fix what's been broken too long.
Time to make right what has been wrong
It's time to find my way to where I belong.

There's a wave that's crashing over me
And all I can do is surrender.

Whatever You're doing inside of me,
It feels like chaos, but somehow there's peace
It's hard to surrender to what I can't see
But I'm giving in to something heavenly.

Time for a milestone, time to begin again.
Reevaluate who I really am.
Am I doing everything to follow Your will?
Or just climbing aimlessly over these hills?

Show me what it is You want from me.
I give everything, I surrender.

Time to face up, clean this old house.
Time to breathe in and let everything out
That I've wanted to say for so many years.
Time to release all my held back tears.

[Whatever You're Doing-- Sanctus Real]

2010-05-27T21:23:00.002-05:00

So, I'm moving back to blogspot. I like tumblr, but I had no motivation to write what was on my heart. By the time I got done looking at all the new posts, I was either tired or needed to move on to something else.

Anyway, I am currently at camp, which means I am in a constant state of exhaustion. It's been fun being able to be in the office and see Nick during meals. I've also had a lot of fun with the East kids, when I get to see them. Today, I asked Walker what he wanted to be when he grew up. He replied, "A man." Bravo.

LOST is over. The end was great. I am still sad, though.

Here are some things I have learned since graduation:
1. Einstein's has the best chocolate chip bagel EVER.
2. Sleep is in fact not overrated.
3. It is in fact possible to miss a city so bad it hurts.
4. Common Grounds withdrawals are sad.
5. Surrender is healthy. And hard.
6. Only Jesus saves. Nothing else.

Ok, I'm tired. Bed time.

2010-04-19T22:31:00.001-05:00

wedding website!!

click HERE!!

2009-12-05T16:19:00.002-06:00

yes. another update.

click here.

happy studying for finals.

2009-12-02T16:29:00.000-06:00

New blog post!
Click HERE to read it!

:)

oh hey, I've moved on to better things

2009-11-19T14:31:00.001-06:00

THIS BLOGGER HAS MOVED. PLEASE FOLLOW HER TO
WWW.HALEY-ELISABETH.TUMBLR.COM

I mean, it's only natural that I would use tumblr since I used to tumble... :)

quick update on life. pictures provided.

2009-10-28T10:52:00.015-05:00

It's been a while since I posted last… and I have a lot to write about...
I will provide an outline of what I am about to discuss...
1. Tailgate and adventures that followed
2. U2 concert that I did not attend
3. Kids conference
4. The GRE and grad school
5. Power
6. Reading
7. Theatre class
8. Restlessness
9. Homecoming
10. Pictures
11. Pine Cove is here!

Ok. Let's see.
1. I went to the Pine Cove tailgate at A&M… It was great fun. Tons of people… We ran out of food before I got any… just because I am slow. So Jason took me with him to the Sky Ranch tailgate and a nice man made me hot dog. Nick got a shirt… haha.

2. U2 was in Dallas… I wanted to go so bad. My brother, Aaron, bought a ticket months ago… And then my mom and other brother, Clay, got to go for free with the One Campaign. They were just rocking out, having a blast, when Bono looked out into the crowd, saw Clay, and motioned for him to come to him. And then Bono pulled Clay on stage, ran around with him, sang "City of Blinding Lights" to him, and gave him his glasses. Check out my facebook for videos. Its unbelievable. I put on the glasses the other day. I felt powerful.

3. Last weekend, I worked a kids conference. I had forgotten what it felt like to be famous. All these kids saying, "Hey, Troggie!" or "Hi Haley!" I didn't know who half the kids were… but, they knew me! haha… One of the Forgies, Grant, has been a dear friend since before my freshman year at Baylor. He's great. So great, in fact, that while performing in a Towers skit, he jumped off the stage and broke his leg. But instead of falling onto the floor crying like any sensible person would have done, he got up, finished the skit, and climbed all the way up stairs! And then broke down and said he couldn't stand up… I got to see Blair and Abby and Allison… I spent the night with Blair and Abby at the Murphy's house. Katie is a great host.

4. I have been preparing for grad school all semester. Too bad I should have been preparing all my life. I have been so stressed out about it.. completely freaking out. So much to do: Letters of recommendation, resumes, personal statements, GPA, GRE, application fees… Oh and just figuring out which ones I want to apply for. I have really been looking at schools in Denver, Virginia, DC, and other Northeast states. And then came the total freak out. I just don't have enough time to do all of those things at the same time! So I think I am going to wait a year to go to grad school. Get a job doing research somewhere. I might still apply to some schools nearby but that's just because my dad wants me to. I took the GRE on Friday. It went better than I expected. I got good enough to get into grad school! whoop! But it wasn't good enough for my taste. But at least I know I am average. haha

5. I have just been so encouraged lately by Ephesians 1… The fact that the same power that conquered the grave LIVES in ME. wow. Why do I ever worry? He defeated death! And He lives in me! And has given me every spiritual blessing… I am so lame for worrying about life.

6. I decided that I am going to read the top 100 books according to Modern library… I have already read some of them. But I just love reading and I feel like it can teach you so much and I love entering different worlds, especially the classics. I want a library. I need a book shelf. My 2nd favorite book, Grapes of Wrath, is number 2 on the list… My favorite, Tale of Two Cities, didn't make the list, but that doesn't surprise me. I am surprised, however, that Pride and Prejudice isn't on there. That book is SO much better than "O Pioneers!" or "All the King's Men"… But that is just my personal opinion.

7. I learn quite a bit from my Theatre class… some of what I learn is actually about theatre, and all the rest is about the failure of American public schools. Last week, we were talking about Classical Greek theatre. Our teacher was talking about the common Greek playwrights, like Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes… I LOVE Aeschylus… We read the Oresteia in 8th grade at Coram Deo. My teacher informed us that we didn't actually have to know anything about what Aeschylus wrote, including the actual names of each of his plays in the trilogy, because that is too much to remember. I'm sorry… How hard is it to remember "Agamemnon," "The Libation Bearers," and "The Eumenides"? I feel like it should be a requirement to graduate high school to have read each of these plays. First, they are so good. Second, their stories penetrate so many other parts of culture! I was appalled that barely anyone in there had not read them.
But then today happened. I was sitting in class, and our teacher asked us how many of us had read "Pilgrim's Progress." I think 5 people raised their hands. Maybe. This class has 300 students. Oh my gosh. Yet another book we read at Coram Deo in 6th grade. I can't even talk about this. So upsetting.

8. I have been so restless lately. I just want to be a vagabond and explore the world. I want to drive until I am way out of Texas and explore every little town all the way to Charlottesville, VA. I am so ready to leave Texas for a little while. I want to explore the Northeast, with all its history and culture. I love that everything is so close together. Texas is so big that half way to anywhere is just getting out. I love Texas, I love living here… I am just ready to explore.

9. Homecoming was this weekend! It was so fun! My family came… we went to the bonfire, to the parade, and to the football game… It was Baylor's 100th homecoming! hooray!
10. The roomies took pics the other day. I have added some so you can get a sample! Check out facebook for more…

11. Pine Cove is here this week! Lunch with Adrianne today! whoop!

pictures of my day.

2009-09-23T11:38:00.006-05:00

Hello... I am waiting for my theatre class to start... I got out of social psych early because we had a test... which didn't go as bad as I was expecting...
I was sitting outside for a while, but I got so cold! I have decided that I am going to make this a day-long blog following what I am doing with pictures and commentary... and then other important information inbetween.
Anyway, until just now, I was sitting outside the science building, and it was so quiet and peaceful... All you could really hear were the fountains and the wind blowing...Yup... But then I was getting a little chilly... because it is currently extremely overcast and 66 degrees outside... so I moved inside the science building...
So this is where I am sitting now.
Updates:
Wednesday, I had my theatre exam. I got a 100. And was done in less than 15 minutes. SCORE.
Thursday, instead of having coffee with a friend, who is the social worker for UBC, we went on an adventure with our community pastor and hid David Crowder Band cd release party tickets in the library... they were giving them away on twitter for the partayy that was on Monday. It was fun.
This weekend, I went to camp. I went to the main office and sat in Jason's office while he was in a meeting with Kevin and went to Sonic with Adrianne and talked to Matt and Amanda and a random assortment of forge students who stopped by at different times.
I definitely miss the main office the most from everything this summer. aahhh I love that place. And the people there.
The conference at the Towers this weekend was Mother/Son. aka AWESOME. Those conferences are always so sweet. There were so many little 5 year old boys who couldn't read and they were so cute! I worked at the high ropes course all afternoon and it was so great to get to talk to different moms and sons... I talked to a couple kindergartners about Star Wars... Another precious 2nd grade baylor bear about the differences between an iPod nano and an iTouch... One mom had just started sending her 6th grader to Coram Deo... Well that's convenient, I started going to Coram Deo in 6th grade... We talked about the different pros and cons about CDA and I tried to assure her that if he could stick with it, the school wouldn't kill him and he would probably even leave for college more prepared than most.
My bears lost on Saturday. Lame.
On Sunday, I talked to two moms about abuse and community... It was definitely interesting, because I found these women asking me for advise... I had never thought about the possibility of these middle-aged women looking up to the college students that volunteered for a weekend as spiritual role-models... I'm so glad we were able to provide encouragement and refreshment for them that weekend. The speaker was a Baylor graduate and has a daughter who is a senior at Baylor right now! She was great!
On Sunday, I went to Sarah and Meloni's house... Brittany wasn't there, but I sat in Sarah's room and we talked about life, goals, and dreams...
Now, I am going to walk to class... It is quite dreary outside... But I love it!
Ok, well now I am sitting in class waiting for it to start... I am sitting by two freshmen. Oh freshmen... you bring me such unintentional joy...
Oh, we have a "special" guest... the dean of the theatre department...
Memorable quotes from walking to class this morning:
* "It's ok, because today is Wednesday, which means it's almost Friday..."
* There was another great line but it is slightly offensive so I decided not to write it.
CD review for the week:
Church Music- David Crowder Band
LOVE it. My favorite song is probably Shadows... but I really like Eastern Hymn, and their version of How He Loves too...
Go check it out, yo!
I love the line from Eastern Hymn:

"Bring us love, You who are Love.
Bring us peace, You who are Peace.
We need love, Oh divine Love.
We need peace, your merciful peace."

Yesssss.... That, along with a few other lines on the album, just continue to speak to me about what I learned this summer about peace and rest...

"In His shadow, there is peace.
In His arms, there is rest.
In His word, there is hope.
In His hands, there is grace."
[In The End]

I've decided I don't like the term, "Christian music..." "oohhh I only listen to Christian music, I am such a good Christian..." or "If you don't listen to Christian music, you love Satan..." What does that term even mean!? How can music be a Christian? Does it have to be about Jesus to be Christian, or just honorable lyrics by Christians? Is it the Christian label? Relient K is with a Christian label but most of their songs have nothing to do with Jesus... Does that mean it isn't Christian music and shouldn't be listened to at church, etc.? What about Eisley? The family isn't on a Christian label, doesn't sing all the time about Jesus, but leads worship at a church in Tyler... What about the instrumental pieces by Michael W. Smith and Stephen Curtis Chapman? I'm just going to go out on a limb and say that most "Christian" music is LAME. It's as if all these people want an excuse to be heard on the radio so they pretend they can write music and yell in a mic because they "can do all things through Christ..." Those people might be really nice and love Jesus a lot... But that doesn't mean they should be making music. It's the artists that get past the "Christian" theme and use their amazing talent to create art for God's glory that actually sound good. The other day at church, dcb played the theme song for the NFL because it was opening Sunday... No one was singing, but there were 6 guys and gnome on stage passionately worshiping the God who gave them the ability to make music.

ok, enough of that... After class, I went back to the apt and watched the office.
Me laying on my bed watching the office. This was the freak commercial on hulu while I was watching the office.
Guitar was canceled...
I went to work... only got hit in the face twice by girls doing backflips. Well, it was the same girl twice...
Then I came home and watched last year's sing acts with Lacey and Abbey...
Then watched Heroes... ooohhh man it was intense! And then Nick interrupted me... so I took pictures while talking to him/listening to him and Dan fight over something dumb.
Then I finished Heroes... Oh, hey Milo... You're cute.
And now I am going to finish reading for my BIC class... "The Importance of Living" by Lin Yutang. Bestseller, apparently.
Peace.

Take Control...

2009-09-11T18:34:00.002-05:00

hey-O!

well I have been meaning to update this thing for quite some time, but always found a reason not to...

I got my macbook pro!! And yesterday I made the most ADORABLE website on iWeb, but I don't want to have to pay for a website... boooo! I saved it just in case. haha.

Update on classes:
Social Psych- Still in the basics... aka not that interesting.
Theatre- Still super easy. And interesting. I have an exam on Wednesday, and it's my goal to get a 100. haha.
Guitar- I HATE the F and G7 chords!! What the heck!? F is just stupid and G7 KILLS my little hand...
Extreme Deviance- We have a group project, and my group is doing white supremacy. haha. ooh man. We are reading Tearoom Trade right now... I'm not going to write what it is about here, but seriously, it's WEIRD.
Intro to Sociology- Still easy. Still fun. Still a slight waste of time. ha.
BIC- Well, we are now into the core part of the class... China... and it's super interesting... Except for the fact that on Tuesday, I was assigned 92 pages of reading for Thursday. Yeah, bombed that quiz.

I had my first home group for UBC last night... it was stellar! I love my leaders... He is a professor in the film department and she is just great! We had taco salad and some great conversations and I really enjoyed it...

Ok so my word for the semester is Freedom... I've said that a few times... Anyway, I was sitting by Judge Baylor the other day between classes, studying for the gre, and this girl who I have never seen before walked by me, smiled, but kept going... I saw her stop, stand in one place for a few seconds, and then came back and was like, "This is going to sound so weird... But I just feel like I should ask you this... Is there anything I can be praying for you about?" I couldn't think of too much, but I shared a little piece of how I sometimes have anxiety attacks, and how I didn't want to get one that weekend with friends and family traveling... So she asked if she could pray for me there, and she did... and the first thing she said was, "Lord, just give her freedom from anxiety and fear..." YEAHH... FREEDOM... :) I wanted to tell her why that was so exciting, but I didn't...

I was reading in 2nd Corinthians the other day... and I just loved it so much! Paul talks so much about confidence, which is something I was really convicted of recently... I need to be confident in the promises God has given me, and I need to encourage others to grow in confidence as well. I love these verses:
* But thank God! He has made us His captives and continues to lead us along in Christ's triumphal procession. Now He uses us to spread the knowledge of Christ everywhere, like a sweet perfume.-- I love that the analogy of a captive is used... Because we are free to be captivated... :) I love it.
* But whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. For the Lord is the Spirit and wherever the SPirit of the Lord is, there is FREEDOM. So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord- who is the Spirit- makes us more and more like Him as we are changed into His glorious image.

So I started this last night, and was once again interrupted... my amazing friends had a little surprise for my birthday... that was a month ago... haha. And Blair and Allison and Abby and Lindsey came and surprised me! Ohhhh man I have missed them so much... I don't think I realized how much until I saw them... We went to dinner and then watched friends... The waitor, who happened to be a week 8 camper with me and Abby (ha), got me a free drink since it was my birthday... It was pretty good... The only problem I had with it was that it was artificially blue, and I don't eat artificially blue things... But it's ok, it didn't turn my mouth blue. haha.
Anyway, I love all of my roomies and friends so much and they just make my life so much more amazing...

Take control of everything.
Of our lives, our hopes, our dreams.
All we are and all we will be,
we surrender to our King.

Seniors, 2010... wait, what?

2009-09-02T23:30:00.003-05:00

Hello!
I don't really have a computer right now, which is why I have not posted in quite a while. Well, technically, as of a few hours ago, I have a computer... a freakin sweet brand new macbook pro. However, it is not in my hands right now. It is probably sitting on my dining room table with my siblings and parents drooling over it right now. I'm too happy to let that make me nervous. As badly as I want to drive home after class tomorrow to pick it up, I am going to wait until my brother drives through Waco on Friday. I can wait that long, right?

Well let's see. Life is good. Senior year is REALLY good. Besides worrying about grad school and studying for the GRE, it's a walk in the park, and I'm loving it. Here is a summary of each of my classes, in the order that I have them. Of course.

* Social Psychology- My only psychology class this semester... I love my teacher and I love the subject. People are so interesting. I am an observer, and this class is about what observers observe when they are observing! Thus, I am a fan. Right now we are going over research methods... Something we learn over again in every single psych class... and in case we didn't get it all those times, we had an entire class on it... called Research Methods in Psychology... Needless to say this week hasn't been too difficult.

* Theatre Appreciation- With 300 of my favorite Baylor freshmen. This was when I realized that I loved senior year. It's easy. My teacher is so great. She's like 4 years older than me, ps. And it's interesting. I mean, who doesn't like to take an easy class where you actually learn? I feel like it's helping me become a more well-rounded individual. And helping my GPA while I'm at it.

* Beginning Guitar- Besides the fact that my fingers HURT, I really like this class. My teacher is a little strange, but he knows what he's doing and is very eager to help. There are 14 of us, so it's small enough to make it personal. We haven't learned much yet... Just started chords... And of course we started with the chords that I have the most trouble with... C, G7, and F. Ouch. My fingers aren't long enough! But hopefully I will have them down soon.

* Extreme Deviance- Oh man. This class is so strange. And my professor is the strangest man I have ever experienced in my entire life. He needs to write a book. He tells the greatest stories of big foot hunts and ghost explorations and visiting Westborrow Baptist Church. He is just fascinated by people and their strange beliefs and will follow them around asking questions until they let him see for himself. This class is not hard. I'm not sure how it will apply to the rest of my life, but at least I'm learning something.

* Introduction to Sociology- Another freshman staple. But with my roommate! Hooray! There are 4 seniors in a group of 150 students. Our professor is an incredible woman. She's so nice and really wants everyone to learn. And wants to get to know every single one of us. She says, "Go bears go" after every single sentence. haha.

* BIC- World Cultures V- The class that could possibly ruin my 4.0. Oh well. We have spent the past 2 weeks talking about globalization. And the past couple days talking about how globalization and religion have worked together. Globalization is fascinating, really. Although I have gotten tired of the lectures, it has been interesting for the most part. After tomorrow, we will break into small groups for the rest of the semester, and each group has a different country/worldview that they are studying. My subject is China. I am excited because I am pretty sure China is going to take over the world over the next decade or so. The United States dynasty has ended and I believe China is next. I had my professor sophomore year and he's great. I'm excited to see how it goes.

I chose a word for this semester/year. Freedom. Toward the end of camp God really started drawing my attention to the concept of being free. I love the idea of being free in Christ! What does that look like? What does that even mean? I feel like there are so many levels we don't realize are there. I also love that it goes so well with my word for the summer, surrender. When I surrender, I am free! And when I abide, I am free to surrender! Oh, it works together so well! I cannot wait to see what God will teach me about freedom and my freedom in Him.

I am reading The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I have only read 2 chapters so far but I am really loving it. Here is one of my favorite quotes thus far:
(He is talking about cheap grace and how it's the "deadly enemy of the Church" and how it just involves living in the world and asthe world and being no different from the world...)

"The upshot of it all is that my only duty as a Christian is to leave the world for an hour or so on a Sunday morning and go to church to be assured that my sins are all forgiven.
I need no longer try to follow Christ, for cheap grace, the bitterest foe of discipleship,
which true discipleship must loathe and detest, has freed me from that."

What a great reminder. Slash slap in the face.

I am also reading Life Together by Bonhoeffer. I have not gotten as far in this one, because that little book has so many hard words! It's not as easy to read as TCOD. But I have really been challenged by this quote by Luther... I would love for it to become a reminder for myself and my roommates as we face our last year in Waco together.

I am so glad a few people in this world decide to be bold and speak truth into our lives rather than say what we want to hear.

And in light of no school on Monday, as my favorite little singing mutated beans say, "let's paint the town, we'll shut it down, let's burn the roof, and then we'll do it again."

haha. peace.

Sweet Jesus Christ my Sanity

2009-08-22T20:56:00.003-05:00

So.... it's been a while... I really just haven't felt like posting for the past 6 weeks...
This post will be sans pictures, because my precious computer, Bobby, is having brain issues and won't function properly.
Let's go back a few weeks, shall we?
Week 6- good, rather uneventful.
Week 7- fine... nothing huge... sent kids home sick.
Week 8- Boom. I'm not sure if I actually claimed week 4 to be the worst week of all weeks, but if I did, it was premature. Week 8 started out just like any week... I took temperatures, everyone was fine, Monday went smoothly... And then Tuesday. Now, I hate Tuesdays at camp. They are by far always the worst days. I don't know why... Tuesdays are just hard. Tuesday week 4 was when our program director and a senior counselor and a counselor and 2 band members went home with the flu. Tuesdays are when everything starts.
Mk well on this particular Tuesday, a HUGE HUGE HUGE storm decides to come out of nowhere and swamp camp. Club was canceled. We really thought there was going to be a tornado. Finally, the storm calms... ish... and kids go to bed and program staff are setting up the dining hall for breakfast. That's when the power on the entire left side of camp goes out. The dining hall and all the girl cabins. Well, we set up for breakfast in the dark, and then discover that the fever room has been opened. Oooh the fever room. Each camp had to have a backup plan for all of the sick kids to stay to wait for their parents to come pick them up... If they have a fever high enough to get sent home, they get sent to the fever room... Which was the old dining hall. They got to watch movies and do crafts and eat all the dry cereal and fruit they could ever want.
Anyway, fever rooms opens Tuesday night... Counselors are dropping like flies. We had no work crew, every sr counselor guy was in a cabin, and one sr counselor girl was in a cabin, and all the band guys who could be spared were in cabins, and our worship leader and full time guest service staffer were senior counselors... So half of the camp has no power, it's still raining, trees have fallen down inbetween cabins, Doo Dad 2's roof is leaking... And now the fever room is open. The next morning at 7 I was trained on how to make calls from the fever room to let parents know their children were sick and needed to be taken home. Oh joy. Or joy killer, that's what you can call me now.
So from 7AM until midnight every night until Saturday I sat in the fever room... Helping where I could, entertaining children when I could, making bracelets all the other times, and calling parents when clipboards were handed to me. This was without a doubt the hardest part of my summer. I prayed over every single clipboard before I dialed just asking God to let them be understanding... I got some frustrated parents, but never any really mad ones... Every time I got to break free from the fever room, my phone would ring, and I would have to run back... I started saving parents' numbers in my phone with their children's names because I wouldn't know who was calling me... I didn't mind calling parents during the day that much... It was the calls at 11:30 at night... Oh man... I only broke down and cried once... during the week. The weekend is a different story.
It was so so so so hard and I hated every single second of it... But I am SO glad I got to go through it... I learned so much about surrendering my will and my desires and my fears... It wasn't about me... at all... I never want to go through it again and I would never wish it upon anyone, but it was still so good.
Week 9- Towers staff were put on flu medication... We really learned what the power of prayer looked like... Instead of praying and pleading God to just get us through the week, we prayed with anticipation of how He was going to protect us and change lives. We never opened up the fever room for the rest of the summer.
Weeks 10 and 11 were good... I don't remember much... Week 11, I was lonely... But that's ok. Saturday, when I said bye to the Main Office and my job there, I got so upset... I love that place and the people there... Even the hard parts of my job I absolutely loved...
After week 8, I had a breakthrough... Week 4, I had been learning about how God will literally make us rest... One of His promises is to provide peace and rest for us. It came in a physical way week 4. Week 8, the theme of rest was revisited... This time, it was emotional. I was so emotional exhausted, doing things I hated doing... Telling bad news to every single person I talked to, spending more time with sick people than healthy people... I was totally drained. But God provides emotional rest, too! And He doesn't even have to make us rest... He IS rest. When I am abiding in Him, He gives me what I need to find peace and rest. I have it with me! I was sharing this with the camp secretaries one day week 9, and one of them wrote me a note later with this verse in it:

"I am leaving you with a gift-- peace of mind and heart.
And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don't be troubled or afraid."
John 14:27

Yesss... Jesus' words just bring me so much encouragement there. This semester might be totally crappy and really hard... But God's peace lives in me! ahh!

Then, I came home. And I turned 21. And I went to ikea. Sorry, Matt, no such luck with the chairs...
I had great coffee converstations with my dear friends Sarah, or Cinco, and Kaitlyn, or Kaitlyn. Blair and I layed by the pool and swam and watched Friends and the Hannah Montana Movie on Thursday... Our one real summer day. It was beautiful.
And now I am back in Waco! I am so so so excited about school starting!! I got my room all set up etc... I love being back with my roomies and all the Baylor people and Common Grounds and the bears... Oh, I just missed it so much.
I can't believe I only have 1 year left. Whaaaa? Totally crazy... Speaking of which, I need to fill out my graduation card... woops...

Well, church tomorrow! Etc., etc. Catch yall on the flip side. Buenos noches.

peace.

week 6, go hard

2009-07-05T08:54:00.003-05:00

Hola! So my shoulders and back are sore from using a computer all day... so this is kind of the last thing I want to be doing right now, but o well...
I'm sitting at Caffe Tazza in Tyler. It's a nice place... I got iced chai tea...

I can't believe first half is already over... the days and sometimes weeks were so long, but the half went so so fast... I didn't post after last week because I was such an emotional wreck, I couldn't bear thinking about it again... So, now that I am feeling better, here it goes... an edited version.

Week 4 was pretty terrible, not gonna lie. It all started with me saying, "I just feel like this is going to be a bad bad day..." on Tuesday morning. oh, Tuesday was the best of the bad days. Wednesday night ended late with most staff not getting much sleep... kids were getting sick and counselors were getting sick and the others were getting tired... just to be clear, there was not a flu outbreak at the towers... it was a virus of some sort... The same kind that any group of children anywhere could get because they lick their hands and eat mulch and touch everything and everyone. Thursday, the storm hit. We had to close down camp, and it was AWFUL. I spent all day with the sick kids, which just killed me emotionally. The next two days were spent cleaning the camp... there's a video on pinecove.com if you want to see what all was cleaned. aka everything. Mulch, trees, the sides of buildings... if a kid could touch it, it was bleached.

It was a pretty terrible week, and I would never wish it upon anyone... But what everyone gained from it was incredible... First of all, that Monday... literally hours before it all started, my Bible study went over Psalm 23... We talked about how He provides rest for us... not only does He provide it, he makes us rest... He leads us through the valley of the shadow of death... Now, it wasn't like we were walking through death... please don't read that that way. haha. But it was still an ultimate low for everyone there... we were tired, sick, and confused... the kids were freaking out and the only reason we weren't freaking out was because we didn't have time to stop and think about it. We were without rest... then all of the kids left. He literally forced us to rest. The whole time it was going on, I kept praying, "You lead us to rest, you lead us beside calm waters..." and then He provided rest...
Another thing that we gained was the fact that we were living out the Bible study that the kids were going over... They learn about Joseph all week, and let's be honest, Joe's life wasn't that great... They were being taught that Joseph remained joyful despite and regardless of his circumstances. All of a sudden, we were in a situation that no one liked and no one had control over and no one understood... But the kids were able to see our joy... We were living out the story of Joseph in front of them...
Finally, we unfortunately got to see a statement that is said to us over and over again during orientation become reality... "Make every moment count, we are not promised tomorrow with these kids..." Welp... we really didn't get tomorrow with those kids... Counselors were so so upset because kids went home without having one-on-ones... The gospel talk was moved to Thursday night this year, so they went home without hearing that... Our mission was broken... I think this really woke the staff up... There is never a moment where your actions and your words should not be showing these kids Jesus... What was really cool was that these kids and parents were able to see Jesus by the way we reacted to the situation...
Week 5 was much better... It went by fast, and now a lot of people are going home, but I don't do goodbyes because I get freaked out by the fact that I might not see some of these people ever again. Totally freaks me out. So I just stand in a corner and let people come say bye to me if they want to... if not, talk to ya on facebook, yo.

Well... I hope week 6 is better than all of the weeks previous... ha.

Been a month... I've already been sick, but already gotten better... ha.

2009-06-19T22:02:00.002-05:00

hey-0!

1. I am SO tired. I can't believe it's been 4 weeks since I updated... The past 4 weeks have gone by so so so fast...

2. I LOVE my job at the office... love love love it. The first two weeks were so hard adjusting to Towers life during the evenings but it's getting better... only every other day was tear-full... ha. No, not quite that much...

My job first consisted of 2.5 weeks of paperwork. Every. Single. Staffer's paperwork... we have about 900 staffers. No big... The weirdest part of it was that I would realize that I had spent 8 hours purely filing paperwork... and only realized it had been that long AFTER... I guess it's a good sign that I don't get tired of tedious work? haha. This past week, I have started calling schools and hotels to get recruiting trips planned... I have my own computer and phone... It kind of scares me that I enjoy this job so much bc I DEF don't want to spend the rest of my life doing something like this... but... I totally could, ya know? ha... hmm... career change? doubtful.
I do a lot of other random jobs too... Like, really random. I get to go to other camps a lot, which I love, because it's given me a HUGE appreciation for God placing me at the Towers... there is no way I could work at any other camp... I love all those camps, but seriously, it's so cool how everyone ends up exactly where they need to be...

3. I will post pictures later. But after I struggled so much week 1 with being at the Towers, God placed some AWESOME reminders of why I do what I do weeks 2 and 3... Week 2, the nurse's 6 year old daughter came with her to do day camp... so in the mornings and evenings, she hung out with me! A single girl has never brought me so much joy... She would scream my name and run up to me and jump in my arms every single time she saw me... We did crafts together, and ate meals together... oh my goodness, she was incredible! She was so honest and so blunt... It was a great reminder to speak with confidence the things I know to be true... Another fact that I was encouraged by today reading John... Jesus was overflowing with truth... the part where he is calling his rebukers sons of the devil... I've been reading John in order to familiarize myself with Jesus again... to examine what he was like, his characteristics and his personality... I LOVE how honest He is in that passage... I've always felt bad for being honest... I feel like people make it sound like a bad thing... but Jesus is just constantly speaking truth into these people's lives, and He doesn't apologize for stepping on their toes... It was encouraging for me to know that my honesty is a gift... and also a challenge to stand firm in what I know to be true and to speak that out... That doesn't mean I need to be harsh or rough... I definitely need to grow in gentleness too...
Anyway, Josie, the girl just absolutely MADE my week... On Friday, she gave me this necklace her mom had made with a pine cone charm... it's yellow with a few green beads... I LOVE IT... omg... I missed her so much this past week...
This week, I got the incredible blessing of being the adopted staff for the crib... These girls are HILARIOUS... they are constantly one-uping each other and telling little lies to impress me... haha... One girl told me that her family calls her Troggie... hahaha... huh, that's ironic... I've loved getting to spend time with them and listen to their ridiculous stories and (not) so funny jokes... I also got to spend a little time with 2 of my castle rock cribbers from last year... omg omg I love them so much! They are going into 2nd grade now, and one of them ran and jumped into my arms and then told me, "ever since you were my camp teacher, I have dreamed that you would be back here with me..." aahh! Today she called me Froggie... that made my LIFE.
God has just been beating into my head the idea of placing my hope or expectation in Him and Him only... It's so easy to place my expectation on my friends, or my superiors... but let's be honest, they fail to meet those expectations, and I'm left frustrated or even angry. Psalm 62: 5 says, "Let all that is within me wait quietly before God, for my hope is in Him." My hope shouldn't be in those around me, or my bosses, or my family, or my roommates... It should be in Him... He is the only one who will truly satisfy...

Ok, I'm going to go back to camp... Hopefully I will get pics up tomorrow... Pray for perseverance and joy and strength in the Lord for all the staff this week... Week 4 is hard...

Live from Hollywood...

2009-05-20T19:49:00.004-05:00

I am currently watching the American Idol finale... I haven't really watched ai this season, but I always like the finale... I always thought I wanted Adam to win, bc he has an incredible voice... but I had never heard Kris before... yeah now I want Kris to win... He's so adorable!
I love this show so much... haha! Here is my take so far: First of all, I died of happiness when Jason Mraz walked out... gah I love him.
The Keith/Kris/Kiss A Girl combination basically sold Kris for me... a. I love that song, b. Kris is a better singer than Keith Urban... sorry... but that's what happens when you are American Idol bred...
I called it early on, I didn't think a girl would make it to the final two based on the one show I did see 10 finalists ago... The girls were WEIRD... And I still think so... Fergie just blew them all to peices... Can I just say that I love that Black Eyed Peas came out with a new song!? oh boom boom pow... now, I am not endorsing the lyrics... but I really do like the song... ha. And that girl can sing... although I kind of think she looks like a man.
Oh gosh, Allison Iraheta was just outweirded... Cyndi Lauper is STRANGE... Please find that on youtube if you can...

I started studying for the GRE today... that was an epic fail. Aaron and I went to this coffee shop in Allen, and I studied, and he... sat. Well yeah, I scored a LOT lower on the diagnostics test than I need to score on the actual test... but I guess it's ok, since I haven't studied yet...? Ironically, I scored higher on the math section than the verbal section... I took the SAT 3 times, and scored higher on the verbal section every time... Granted, I kept having to ask Aaron to look up formulas for me... But I haven't done real math in 2.5 years!

Adam is singing now... He has... wings? haha... Man he really is incredible... But I feel like Kris is more the face of America... and could make it better in the mainstream music industry... We all already know Adam is going to have plenty of offers to do... whatever it is he does... Oh, Kiss just showed up to sing with him... naturally. Yeah I like the Kris/Keith duo a lot better. haha. eewww they are so gross... I didn't realize they were still together... I am actually really repulsed right now... I mean, I do like this song... Yet another example of where the Idol is a better singer than the guest performer...

oooh a toms/AT&T commercial! hooray! I could call Blake without charge...
AAAHHHH HARRY POTTER COMMERCIAL! man two of my favorite things right in a row! Blair and I already asked Robby for that night off... haha!

Steve Martin is OLD.

Most of my camp friends are at camp by now, and it's killing me... I am still trying to get myself pumped up for the next 12 weeks... but wanting to be with those people is definitely helping.

I found this book the other day in an unsuccessful search for The Cost of Discipleship... It's called How to Stay Christian in College... I received it as a graduation gift... I got a LOT of books like that for graduation. Sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Hudgins, I didn't read it... But it definitely peaked my interest when I stumbled across it the other day... my first thought was, "welp, managed 3 years without needing this book..." And then I realized that I'm pretty sure I did stop being a "Christian" during college... Not necessarily Christian as in follower of Christ... but the religious part... Christianity as a religion is about rules and check lists and all the things you aren't supposed to do and everything you should do to "remain Christian"... Christianity as a relationship is about abiding in Christ and obeying Him... Who needs checklists when you're walking with Christ? I've learned that most Christians would probably be appalled with the things Christ did, and the things He actually calls us to do...
I skimmed the book, and while I'm sure there are stellar parts that I didn't read, but what I did read... in order to stay "Christian," basically, I needed to join a Christian Fellowship club thingie(plus church)...(oops...), date only Christians, and have only Christian friends. Sweet. Unfortunately, college taught me that being a Christian doesn't really cut it when it comes to dating... (let me interject with the fact that the two finalists are singing We Are The Champions with the still living of Queen right now... yeah Adam rocks the voice, let's be honest. Go play the Phantom on Broadway... Let Kris be the rockstar...) Anyway, back to what I learned... yeah, I've dated Christians... but I've learned that there are deeper theological issues that Satan uses to tear the church apart, much less a marriage... The book talks about being "equally yoked," but the author interprets that as just being a "Christian..." Well... someone can claim to be a Christian and not actually be following Christ.

He's announcing it right now... KRIS!! YESSSS... gosh I have a gift for these things... haha... oh man I am SO buying his album... American finally got it right... :)

Well... camp starts for me in 2 days... maaaaannn I don't like thinking about that. There are definitely some ways yall can be praying for me... These are the desires of my heart for this summer...
* Humility
* For God to break my heart for what breaks His...
* An undivided heart
* Joyful countenance

Since this is probably my last post before camp, if you are reading this, please write me! :)
I seriously cry sometimes when I get letters... haha. Sadly, I am so not kidding.

Trogdizzle the Explorizzle
Pine Cove Towers
PO Box 9055
Tyler, Tx. 75711

Is it sad that I have had that address memorized since I was around 14 years old? baha...

Much love!

2009-05-09T20:57:00.002-05:00

Since I typically use blogging and a form of procrastination from studying, and I did such a great job of not doing so last week when I lived in the library, I figured now would be a good time to do so...
I love lists. I am going to make a list right now. However, there will be no order... When I make playlists on my iTunes, it takes me 20 minutes to decide on an order... If I mess up and end up making a cd with the wrong order, I have to skip that song that is out of place because it bothers me. So I'm just going to word-vomit it out in no particular order.

This is a list of things that I will remember or that impacted my life or whatever from my junior year of college. Some of them are happy, some of them are sad. That's the only intro it's gettin.

* Roadtrippin to Kansas City with Lacey, Abbey, Lindsey, and Allison for Mark's wedding... The time in the car is a memory on it's own.

* Then there is the night we explored Kansas City with Josiah and Bryce... Seeing that creepy "scientology rips families apart" man standing at the corner of the street, and Josiah pulling his gun out to protect us...

* All of us trying to make it up what seemed like a huge hill to the house we stayed at in Kansas City... slipping on the ice and freezing to death and Allison with snot running down her face and Lacey wiping her nose for her...

* Waiting for my roomie to get engaged and then hearing about her getting engaged and then screaming with her about getting engaged and then getting to live with an engaged person... which is so weird, let's be honest.

* Waiting for my Caleb to get engaged and then realizing that my first best friend from childhood/high school was engaged which is so weird...

* Watching Lindsey and Stephen get engaged.... Running across Texas A&M campus in a dress carrying my shoes to get to the Century Tree in time... So basically, three of my really good friends all got engaged in the span of a month. And so it begins.

* Surviving Greek with Sam... Barely surviving Greek with Sam... crying in class and in my professor's office over Greek. Celebrating by never opening that book ever again when Greek was over.

* Finding an apartment to live in with Rach, Lace, Alyssa, and Abs!

* Waking up at 4:00 am to work the Bearathon...

* Receiving a scholarship from StuFu... which just blew my mind and provided such encouragement.

* Driving home from work and crying uncontrollably for some weird reason, and then getting home, and crying through Heroes... and then Friends... and forgetting why I was crying but still not being able to stop...

* Flying to Corpus Christi for Baylor... and getting my own suite... and then driving all the way back 2 days later when Waco was iced over...

* Realizing that I had bed bugs dwelling in my mattress and coming out every night to feed on me... and then having to get rid of my mattress that I've had since forever.

* Getting the flu. boo.

* Seeing Phil Wickham... and Robbie Seay... and Dave Barnes... But mainly Phil Wickham.

Ok well that's all I can think of right now... I'm sure there are more, I just don't remember! Which I guess is the point of this list... Things I won't forget... haha. :)

2 weeks till camp. Am I nervous? Yes...

Forensic Psych final on Monday... I have been so spoiled at Baylor... Dallas has no where to study after 11:00 pm... What kind of library closes at 6:00pm!?! haha... They need Common Grounds in every city. But only not as cool as the original. Just bc then it wouldn't be as cool...

All my delight is in You, Lord...
All of my hope...
All of my strength...

Ode to Caleb

2009-04-28T14:23:00.009-05:00

So... one of my best friends from high school, Caleb, got engaged the other day... I knew it was coming, but I'm still so excited! So... even though he probably won't ever see this, this is my ode to Caleb.
You know that core group of friends you have in high school? The ones you do absolutely everything with and celebrate holidays with and attend distant relatives birthdays with and their parents basically consider you a child, and you cried so hard after graduating because you knew that your friendships with those people would never be the same? Yes, well, mine consisted of Kaitlyn, Caleb, Bryan, and myself. It was an interesting dynamic... we were each independently very good friends with each other, and our individual relationships were very different from the others... It's almost like the cast of Friends... Ross and Rachel have a unique friendship, and so does Ross and Chandler, and Monica and Rachel, and Monica and Chandler, and Ross and Monica, and Chandler and Rachel... but they are all still very good friends as a whole, too. Caleb... Caleb was the friend that I called when I didn't understand my science homework... and who I called when I was mad at Bryan... and who I could sit with in his living room for hours in silence, because we both appreciated silence just as much a talking. He should be recognized for my passing of the physics lab senior year... haha. We started going to school together in 8th grade, but really did not become friends until Junior year... My high school experience was a funny one, since I didn't start speaking until senior year. hah... But that's another story. Actually, my first memory of being friends with Caleb was sophomore year, when I sat next to him in Geology, and he would share his lunch with me, bc it was the period before the period before lunch, so we got hungry! I loved the fact that his mom packed his lunch... and baked fresh cookies every morning before school... My mom wasn't even awake when I left for school. Junior year, we dominated Chemistry together... But senior year is really where our story began.
Caleb and I sat by each other in Rhetoric, my least favorite class at Coram Deo, second only to Algebra 2 in 9th grade... The picture of me making a face... yes, that's us in Rhetoric. And I wasn't making a face for the camera. We also were part of the group of Calculus survivors that year... Calculus was optional, so slowly, during the first semester, the class dropped from 10 people to 5... 4 of which were me, Kaitlyn, Caleb, and Bryan... and then Kaitlyn's ex boyfriend. haha, I'm sorry, I just still think that's so funny. I can honestly say that Kaitlyn and I held our own in that class, even though the guys thought they understood it a lot better... We would have competitions to see who did their homework right... which we had all done together at either Caleb or Bryan's house the night before...
The social aspect of our friendship was my favorite part. We would watch SNL at Caleb's house on Saturday nights, Leno on weeknights... His dad would make us popcorn, even though Caleb doesn't like it... haha. Caleb's family has this huge chair, and 3 of us would always cram ourselves into it... and just sit... sometimes fall asleep... I feel like we mainly just enjoyed eachothers company, regardless of what we were doing...
Every Friday, after Physics lab, Caleb, Bryan and I would go to this legit donut shop and eat donuts... We would make regular trips to Target, the main hang out in Flo Mo... haha. We would also make trips to Whole Foods a party. That was fun.
We went to the Village together, enjoyed Coldplay together, ate meals... sometimes both lunch and dinner in the same day, together... Many New Years were spent at his house...
Last year, his family moved to a different house, and I seriously almost cried... there were so many memories in his old house, I didn't think I would be able to go to the new house... But it's become just as enjoyable.
Caleb's family is very... well, everything has a place and a purpose... For example, they have milk glasses and juice glasses... The juice glasses have fruit on them, and the milk glasses have little cows on them... Well, when I learned this, I thought it was absolutely histerical, so, it's now tradition to drink water out of a milk glass... every.single.time I go over there... Much to his mom's horror. haha
When we graduated, Caleb went to TCU, Bryan to Tech, and Kaitlyn to UTTyler. We were basically spread out across Texas... I was so upset, and breaks were spent hanging out with each other every moment we could... But then Caleb got a girlfriend.
This is important. Caleb had never dated in high school... Seriously guys, this is what we had to listen to all senior year: "I'm never going to get married, I'm going to be single forever, No one likes me, I hate my life..." Well, turns out, he's the first in our graduating class to be engaged. HAHA... he would be...
Well, Amanda is adorable, and she's perfect for Caleb... the Walle picture is them... see? Aren't they so cute?
Anyway... I love and miss him... and our Leb, Lyn, Ley, Bry(haha his name never worked) group... But I can't wait to see his and Amanda's relationship grow and be at his wedding next year! yay!

all creation felt a Father's broken heart

2009-04-28T01:26:00.003-05:00

So I'm sitting here trying to figure out what construct validity is... and of course I get distracted, because that's what I do best. hah.

A few things:

1. I can't believe this year is almost over. I can see the end of the tunnel and I can remember a in February when I honestly didn't think it was going to end... or I just wasn't going to make it out alive.

2. God is so freaking awesome. I was awarded the Bill and Nancy Harlan Endowed Student Foundation Scholarship... I got this sweet trophy that says, "The scholarship is awarded annually to a junior member of the foundation who has made a distinctive contribution to the Student Foundation as identified by the Steering Committee." Still not sure how I ended up with this... haha. I was shocked and confused, if you can only imagine. But I do know that it's a $2,000 scholarship... I'll take it!

3. True Love is still blowing my mind... So many great lines... When blood and water hit the ground, walls we couldn't move came crashing down... we were free and made alive... I just love that it starts out saying "True Love died..." and ends with singing "Jesus is alive..." because that's the best part! Our God conquered death! A feat no other god has accomplished before!

4. So I figured since I tell yall about my physical illnesses such as puking everywhere with no shame, I could tell you about my emotional symptoms without being awkward about it, too. Plus, it's nice to have an outlet. Even if you never bring it up, you still know, in case you need to know... if that makes sense. Anyway, I had an anxiety attack today. Fun. No, actually, not fun. I just hate that I feel like everything is completely out of control when that happens... I know the things going through my head freaking me out are completely irrational, but I can't help it. So then I just get so angry with myself. But no worries, I haven't been having these very often since I started the meds... This is only the 2nd one, I think. And it only lasted like 10 minutes... It just kind of worries me about if it happens while I'm at camp... what will I do? Well, actually, Allison and I already discussed how I am going to go into her cabin when I have a panic attack in the middle of the night... She said she'd have a bunk saved just for me. :)

5. I LOVE this: "We who have fled to Him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us. This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. It leads us through the curtain into God's inner sanctuary. Jesus has already gone in there for us. He has become our eternal High Priest..." -- Hebrews 6:18b-20

6. I love good conversations with dear friends. Especially when those dear friends understand you. And make you laugh.

7. Group projects are the dumbest idea since dark chocolate. Seriously, what were they thinking?

8. Tomorrow: Group presentation 1, group presenation 2, forensic psych, tennis, tutor, law school seminar, tutor, write write write write write.

*search your heart, you know you can't deny it. come on, lose your life just so you can find it.*

A love more faithful than the morning...

2009-04-26T14:44:00.003-05:00

So... the Phil Wickham concert rocked my world. His voice is without a doubt the best voice I have ever heard live... ever. the end. His recorded songs give him no justice. The night was so refreshing... Charlie Hall opened and set the mood as a worship concert... It was so cool to be able to worship with 400 other strangers crammed into the backyard of Common Grounds... One of my favorite things about going to Baylor. Since I go to David Crowder Band's church, for the past year I have contemplated how I felt about worship concerts... A lot of people don't like to go to UBC bc they feel like very Sunday is just another dc*b concert. I've decided I absolutely love the environment of worship at UBC. These guys are SO talented. So so so talented. By offering the Lord their best, they are worshipping... They don't have to be singing or even playing a worship song to praise Him... Once, during Christmas time, they played Carol of the Bells, and it was beautiful... There was no singing involved, and the congregation watched as they played, but they were pouring their hearts out to the Lord, giving Him the talents He gave them as offerings. Just because their "best" happens to be a lot better than some other worship pastors "best" does not mean they are making it into a show. They are offering their Father all they have. I thought about this while I was at the Charlie Hall concert too... What a blessing it is to be led in worship by the men who wrote the songs... I just get so encouraged by watching them use their gifts to worship Jesus.

And then there was Mr. Wickham... oh, how I love you. Quote from the evening:

Me: Is he married?
Aaron: [peering over the crowd] Looks like it...
Me: nooooo... Maybe it's a purity ring.

Haha... Seriously, the man is a stud. That wears girl jeans. haha.
Anyway, I just was so encouraged during his set... Something really interesting has happened in result to my depression this semester... My entire life, I have been absolutely terrified of death. Knowing that I would get to spend eternity with my Abba never helped... It scared me so bad. The idea of Jesus coming back again resulted in the same emotions... I think what scared me most about that was the fear that Jesus would leave me behind... that I wasn't really a Christian, or something like that... But over the past semester, it's not that I have come to anticipate death, but I have much less of a fear for it. My depression has made me want to leave this life and be with Jesus, because I feel like my life sucks and life with Him will be so much better... This shouldn't scare anyone... I don't have suicidal thoughts and I definitely don't want to end my life to accomplish this... But I guess it's made me realize how crappy this life is and how great that life will be... If that makes sense... For 20 years, my life was great, and I never had anything real to complain about... Not that that has changed... I am still so blessed... but I guess I've had a wake up call, and can actually understand why Paul tells believers to be encouraged by getting to hang out with Jesus for eternity... something that had always scared me before. Phil played two songs that literally brought me to tears and have been on repeat on my iTunes since Friday night. Here are those songs:

Come close listen to the story
About a love more faithful than the morning
The Father gave His only Son just to save us

The earth was shaking in the dark
All creation felt the Fathers Broken Heart
Tears were filling Heaven's Eyes
The day that True Love died, the day that True Love died
When blood and water hit the ground
Walls we couldn't move came crashing down
We were free and made alive
The day that True Love died, The day that True Love died

Search your heart you know you can't deny it
Come on, lose your life just so you can find it
The Father gave His only Son just to save us

Now, Jesus is alive
[True Love]

I see Your face in every sunrise
The colors of the morning are inside Your eyes
The world awakens in the light of the day
I look up to the sky and say
You’re beautiful

I see Your power in the moonlit night
Where planets are in motion and galaxies are bright
We are amazed in the light of the stars
It’s all proclaiming who You are
You’re beautiful, You're beautiful

I see you there hanging on a tree
You bled and then you died and then you rose again for me
Now you are sitting on Your heavenly throne
Soon we will be coming home
You’re beautiful, you're beautiful

When we arrive at eternity’s shore
Where death is just a memory and tears are no more
We’ll enter in as the wedding bells ring
Your bride will come together and we’ll sing
You’re beautiful, You're beautiful, You're beautiful

I see Your face, You're beautiful, You're beautiful, You're beautiful
[Beautiful]

--1 Thessalonians 4:13-18--

Thanks for listening...

this is too long. but i like it.

2009-04-24T12:58:00.007-05:00

I have a sudden urge to update everyone on my life. And by everyone, I mean the few stragglers that read this thing. To you, I am grateful. You continue to read these even though I probably sound like a crazy person.

Well, last week, I was a crazy person. Ok... wait. FIRST OF ALL, my TR classes have just been da bomb dot com lately. I have learned a ton. I feel like I could just talk for hours about what we discussed in my classes.

Ok, now, LAST Thursday, I went to class, ya know, the usual...I went to my Christian Ethics class, and we had a discussion on using technology to prolong life. I did not realize that people were actually trying to make it to where we are immortal... People actually think that's possible! Well, actually, what blows my mind even more is the fact that people want to be immortal! It shows that without Jesus, this life is all we have... How scary death is without our Savior! We discussed the secular and religious problems with immortality... Would you really want to live forever in the equivalent of an 85 year-old's body? We would have to first improve the quality of life... That's just one of the problems with these efforts... I seriously was just shocked the entire discussion.

Then I went to Forensic Psychology, and I decided that I want to learn how to hypnotize people. haha.

That night, I drove to Tyler to surprise my best friend from high school, Kaitlyn, for her 21st birthday! hooray! She was so surprised! I got back at 3:30 AM and then went to aerobics the next morning at 8:00. That wasn't too pleasant. But it was so worth it to see my Kait!

On Saturday, I saw Robbie Seay in concert... oh, and Avalon. Remember them? My middle school obsession... We weren't planning on seeing Avalon, but the concert was running behind, so we basically got the whole show. ha. They sang Everything To Me, the song that Stephanie and I had solos on for Youth Choir once... And Testify to Love. I was laughing the entire time... especially when they sang to a track.
Robbie Seay, however, was legit. I love them. So so so refreshing and challenging at the same time.

Sunday, another birthday road trip took place. I drove to College Station for my lobster, Blair's 21st birthday... You know that person that understands you so well because she would do the exact same thing? Well, that's Blair. We are both Introvert-Sensing-Thinking-Judging on the Myers-Briggs Test... and I'm Lion/Beaver and she's Beaver/Lion... together, we complete the task oriented duo. Anyway, her partay was hilarious and funny... and I got to spend time with some people whom I love so much but don't get to see nearly enough...

Tuesday was another learning day. I went to the McLennon County Courthouse to sit in on a court session... The man on trial was charged with 5 accounts of aggravated sexual assault on a child and 3 accounts of indecency with a child. He could potentially get life in prison. The first time I sat in and watched, they were finalizing jury selection, so the people were having to answer questions about how they felt about the case and judging him fairly. A lot of people did not believe they could be fair because of the severity of the crimes he committed. This is a problem I have with the court system. I realize it has to be done, but I hate it. The prosecution has to prove to the best of their ability that he committed these crimes, and the jury has to decide if it's enough proof to convict him. Based on one decision, this man could be spending his life in prison! What if he didn't do it? Despite the lies of CSI, it's not seriously possible to prove 100% to the jury that someone committed a crime, unless it's seen by the jury with their own eyes. I really don't know if I could hold the prosecution to a reasonable burden of proof when it comes to crimes that involve life or death. I honestly believe that people are conviction pron, especially in cases that involve children. They see these hurting children on the witness stand, and they want someone to pay. Just the fact that the man was in the courtroom about to go on trial had already convinced most of the 50 semi-finalists(haha) that he deserved to be punished. We have the "innocent until proven guilty" rule... but I don't think that protects people like it should.
But, in this case, this man was toast. His own son ratted him out, basically. The fact that all 8 of these charges involved his 13 year-old daughter probably sentenced him to a very long jail time.

I left the courthouse to go straight to my Christian Ethics class, where we discussed Euthanasia, which ended up being a very heated discussion. First of all, I really don't like it when people who don't know the Bible try to talk about Jesus as if they understand Him. One guy talked about how we should do everything we can to keep someone from dying or to continue his or her live(feeding tubes, machines, etc.) because Jesus healed everyone He could, and we are supposed to be like Jesus. But, Jesus didn't heal everyone he could. He let Lazarus die. I do not think that Jesus healed for the sole reason of healing. He healed in order to bring glory to God. I understand why people want to keep their loved ones going as long as possible with the hope that a miracle will take place, but sometimes I think it would be better to let them go. I don't know, this is another subject I have not put a lot of thought into, and I have opposing ideas that hinder me from taking a side... I think there is a very big difference between injecting someone with something to cause them to die and taking them off a machine to allow them die... And I think that once a life cannot naturally go on, maybe it's time to go...
This is one of those things that I cannot comprehend how people who don't believe in Jesus can make it... If I didn't think eternity with my Father was waiting for me, I guess I would want to stay here as long as I could...

The other day, a homeless man came up to Rachel in our parking lot and asked if we had a place for him to stay... Reasonably, Rachel was freaked out. It makes me so sad that this has to happen... So many people in America have huge homes with rooms they never use, but people have to sleep outside on the ground every night! I realize that a lot of these people don't want to work and just want to live off of other people, but Jesus didn't say to love and care for them if they were contributing citizens. His call is love without conditions. I also think it's so sad that this grown man had to resort to asking a 21 year old girl for shelter. How humiliating is that? I wonder what happened to him... Obviously, I do not think it would have been wise to let him stay at an apartment with 3 girls... but that doesn't make it any less frustrating!

Thursday=Diadeloso, aka Day of the Bear... aka no classes! haha! I love Baylor so much! I slept in, went to court again, and then Abbey and I went and had lunch at Dia... which ended up being fiasco, but it was free, so whatevs. And then... Dave Barnes and Eisley!! hooray! I love outdoor concerts! Especially when those concerts are free! It was great, although it got over at 1:00am...

Tonight= Student Foundation Scholarship Banquet, which means fancy food and business professional clothes. boo. Then Phil Wickham and Charlie Hall at Common Grounds! yay!

Tomorrow= Baseball game, Rachel/Corey engagement party, and ZZZ Pajama party... ahahaha.

One week of class left. Then one week of finals. I will be home 2 weeks from Monday... YES.
Sorry this is long. I feel like my life is one big story.

Let's not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don't give up. Therefore, whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone-- especially to those in the family of faith. [Galations 6:9-10]

Community... it comes in strange ways.

2009-04-12T03:39:00.003-05:00

welp... it's 3:40 am and I can't sleep. I laid in bed for about an hour and then gave up.

Let me tell you about my week.

Last Friday, a road trip to Tyler, Texas took place. It involved the tunage of "Jessie's Girl," High School Musical 3, "Shake It" and Jack Johnson to name a few. Poor Daniel had to endure the HSM3 and Taylor Swift for a little while. It's what happens when 3 future roommates slash musical soul mates are in one car. Somehow, I think he lived.

Camp was a blast. This was my first time back to camp since December, and thus the first time back since the depression had kicked in. A loss of interest in PC had been involved, and so I was nervous about going back... I mean, the medication has definitely helped, but at the same time, I I had also spent months moving on and letting go before finding out I was coming back... I had already given up the name Troggie... I was ok with the idea of no longer pushing children on swings or telling them not to step on the rope at the Breathtaker or cleaning up their spills in the Rock. Even though I'm still trying to totally pump myself up for this summer, the weekend was almost successful. Almost.

There were some new staffers at this conference, and honestly, I think getting to know them helped me get excited about camp more than the food or the cheers or setting up for Pitch Black Attack. Again. I cannot WAIT to hang out with them every day all summer. They are studs. On Sunday, we forgot to serve grapes to the campers for breakfast... Which meant we each got to take home AT LEAST a bag of grapes. Lacey and I actually took 2 bags each. This turned into a fun little game. All of us were sharing grapes and throwing them at each other and these grapes actually served as a type of community builder. Unfortunately, they may have also been our demise. God was probably laughing at us touching all these grapes and then throwing them to see who could catch them in their mouths... oh silly us. If we only knew.

Driving home was not quite as pleasant... I wasn't feeling too swell. But I got home, managed to eat a couple strawberry twizzlers and peanut butter crackers... and then it hit. Oh. My. Gosh. The PAIN. My stomach hurt SO bad I thought I was dying. My roommate ended up cooking something for dinner that I'm sure tasted delicous but my poor stomach could not handle the smell so I had to leave right then. I thought that maybe I was hungry, so I stumbled to my car and drove to Panera, the only place that almost sounded edible. I got there at 8:16. Panera closed at 8:00. Since I had already spent most of my energy trying not to pass out while driving South on 35, I sat in the parking lot and stared at the door of Panera for a few minutes... and then slowly made my way back to my apartment. But remember, I couldn't go back into my apartment. So I rolled down a window and turned the heater up and laid in my car for about an hour, praying that I wouldn't throw up. I guess I thought I felt good enough to go to StuFu meeting... so I did. But I left after 10 minutes and drove back to my apartment parking lot and laid there for another half an hour and then texted Rachel, who was at a meeting, to see if she could bring me some sprite. So she did, and then told me to go to Jessie and Alexis' apartment and lay down on their couch. So I did. She also gave me some pepto pills, which I took, although I was skeptical. I kid you not, 5 minutes after taking those pills, I threw up really really nasty things. And also, what kind of bathroom has carpet in the toilet area? Whose idea was that? I was hoping after this, I would be feeling better... But I wasn't, and it was getting late. So I went back to my apartment and Rachel lit candles in our room and I opened a window because I was sufficating and then curled up in a ball on my floor. Don't worry, I only puked one more time after that. eewwwwww. I hate throwing up. I cry every time. I stand there and feel helpless and alone. Luckily, this is only the 2nd time I have ever thrown up since middle school, so it's not like I feel helpless and alone standing over a toilet on a regular basis.

I tried to go to Aerobics the next morning, but alas, one lap around the room made me regret this decision. No class for me. I went back home and laid on the couch. All day. My dear friend, Jonathan Break It Down Fletcher came all the way from LSU and sat with me... and then fell asleep on my floor... and then sat with me when I fell asleep on my couch... and then watched Hannah Montana with me. Seriously, I love that kid. We came up with the phrase, "There are more buffalo in the pit..." For Towers staffers who are distressed because their camp crushes don't like them back... because let's be honest, they NEVER do... It's all good, there are more buffalo in the pit! :)

Well during this awful turn of events, I found out that at least 5 of my fellow staffers and many of the campers at the Towers that weekend were going through the same things I was! Hooray for community through puking! I felt so overjoyed to know that I was not alone! Now it's turned into this huge joke and we seriously are better friends because of it. ha. God is mysterious.

Well don't worry, folks, my week gets EVEN BETTER. On Tuesday, I wake up, still feeling weak, but much better, only to find that there are bed bugs. EVERYWHERE. ooohh my gosh. I wish I could tell you where all we found them, but I'm afraid you might have nightmares. Yes, my apartment is infested with bed bugs. How does that even happen? Where on earth did they even come from? Rach and I had been getting bites all over our arms... legs... backs... faces... for about a month, but we really had no idea where they were coming from... I mean, yeah, at one point the thought, "What if I have bed bugs?" did cross my mind... but who really thinks that their bed is home to hundreds of tiny little blood sucking bugs?

So that has been an adventure. Goodbye mattress that I have had my entire life. I'm trying not to think about it right now since sentamental things like that are what sometimes spur my crying with no control moments... but seriously, someone's gonna pay. :) But seriously. haha.

During this time, I hadn't been taking my medication... a bunch of different reasons... So on Wednesday, when another emotional blow that isn't worth mentioning took place, I completely lost it. I thought I was going to sufficate. I have never packed up my things so fast. At first I was just going to go home, but I decided to see if Allison would take me in for the night... and she would... because she's amazing... So I drove to College Station and hung out with her and Blair and Kimberly for the night. Best decision of my life. The drive there and back was just long enough to exhort any extremely negative emotions, and they were able to distract me slash talk to me about it in a positive way to where I was feeling much better when I left...

Although... at the Bonzai, they had grapes... THE grapes... Blake had been at camp that weekend and had brought them back with her. When I said, "oooh no I can't eat grapes" Blair snatched them up and rushed them to the fridge. haha! I have the best friends!

Anyway, I am now home. And I slept until 4 on Friday... I'm pretty sure I have never done that... ever. I don't even know what happened. The only time I woke up was at 7 that morning when my alarm went off. WEIRD. That didn't last long, though... The next morning I was awake and ready to go at 8:30.

Ok I apologize for this ridiculously long post. It's now 4 in the morning. Maybe I should go try to sleep again. Since my alarm is set to go off in 4 hours.

peace.

2009-04-01T10:52:00.002-05:00

So... this semester has been interesting. Ok I'm just going to be completely honest. It's been awful. The worst semester slash 3 months of my life.
In February, I learned that my brain has a deficiency of serotonin and noradrenaline... If you have ever had basic psychology or neuroscience, you know what is wrong... Obviously, the symptoms showed up before I was actually diagnosed.

I have to go to class now, but I am tired of lying about how I feel and making it sound like my semester hasn't been that bad and hasn't affected me in huge ways. Because it has. I'm keeping a journal for the days that I feel really bad, so it's been nice to write out everything, since that's how I express myself best. Maybe it can be a memoir some day... :)

And now for Greek... yeah that really helps the situation. haha.

peace.love.sic'em

psh

2009-03-26T21:31:00.002-05:00

For some reason, I always have a strong urge to blog when I need to study.

I have been feeling very opinionated recently. There is something else I have been wanting to write here, but I have resisted. Maybe some other time.

Have you ever been in the middle of a conversation with someone, and the topic makes you so angry that you can't contain yourself and you go off on a rant about the subject, and the other people are just sitting there staring at you, not because they disagree, but because your sentence was so long they thought you were going to pass out from lack of air to the lungs?
Once, I was sitting with a group of stufuers, and we were discussing mega-churches, and the pros and cons. That led to a very drawn out, never ending sentence about how these churches line their children ministry walls with flat screen tvs and gaming systems and spend millions of dollars for uber nice facilities etc. for a couple hours of comfort a week while there are people literally on the other side of those walls who are sleeping on the ground and starving every day. Yes, those churches may be reaching lost souls... But even a small portion of that million dollar budget could actually care for the least of these just down the block. And maybe the children won't get to play Wii during sunday school. (I'm trying really hard not to be sarcastic right now, so this topic ends here.)
A couple of days ago, some friends and I were discussing how some kids at Baylor think it's so cool not to wear shoes anywhere... rain, shine, whatev, they don't wear shoes... It's not because they don't have shoes... Or even because they gave their shoes to someone who doesn't have them. No, actually, sometimes their chacos are hanging from their backpacks. My friend actually got asked why he wears shoes when it feels so much better not to. Now, I hate shoes. Seriously. I think it has to do with growing up running around a gym. But there are people who can't afford shoes. There are people in Dallas who wear houseshoes as they walk around Downtown because they don't have any other kind of shoe. And that's in America. There are people in other countries who get crippling diseases because they don't have shoes. A lot of people. And we snotty, hippie-wanna-be Baylor students have the audacity to walk around with no shoes because we think it looks cool.
I also find it horrifying that some people are more concerned with saving animals than people. Ok ok, the puppies are cute, they all need a home. It really would be really sad if certain animals went extinct... I'm being serious, in case that sounds like mockery. But sometimes I really get the feeling that some of these people would rather the tigers and dogs live than people. Is this another America thing? I really don't know... I do know that there are orphans, homeless people, starving people, neglected children... I feel like at least SOME of this money going to save the dogs and cats could be put to better use feeding humans. Or providing medical care for humans. I'm not saying let all the animals run loose and to let all the elephants die out... But I have serious problems with choosing to feed them and find homes for them and save them when we can't even find homes for the children who have no hope, no food, and no future.

Where there is pain, let there be grace...
Where there is suffering, bring serenity...
For those afraid, help them be brave...
Where there is misery, bring expectancy...
And surely we can change, surely we can change... something.
Let us be the remedy. Let us bring the Remedy.
[dc*b]

i'm the bomb like tick tick

2009-03-24T00:38:00.002-05:00

So, just to let the 3 people who read this know, I am not dead. Almost, but not quite. I'm supposed to be studying for a forensic psychology test. But... I had to take a break. I'm going to be up much later anyway... I just made a common grounds run and got a No Bull. Cowboy Coffee with espresso instead of coffee. I thought about getting the Nervous Breakdown, that has 4 shots of espresso, but I was scared of how the results might turn out. haha. I also got a bag of Cheetos. These are my friends on this dismal night. Along with Matt Nathanson, Miranda Lambert, Jennifer Nettles, Lil Wayne, Beyonce, and Lady Gaga. Please don't criticize my music choice... it's going to be a late night.

The other day, my intramural soccer team played in a tourney... somehow, I ended up as goalie. HAHA. Pictures to come later. Anyway, I guess it turned out ok... Only because I'm not scared of the ball... or people... and the fact that my hand-eye coordination is much better than my foot-eye coordination. Plus the fact that I am ambidextrous so I can never decide which foot to kick the ball with makes offense difficult. It's a disease, I'm sure of it. I also enjoyed making the opponents mad enough that they started cussing me out when I wouldn't let the ball through... SUCCESS. hah. However, I now have bruises all over my legs. Oh and a girl kicked my fingers... inches away from my face. That was awesome.

Bearathon this weekend... I'll be up at 4! sweet! OH and StuFu was asked to attend a reception in our honor at President Garland's house this week! Something that we have no record of ever happening before! It's funny, bc a couple of weeks ago, I was walking past the President's House and thought, "I really want to see the inside of that place someday..."

mk well I am going to end on this note... it's from my Forensic Psych textbook:

* "Each week, child protective services agencies in the US receive approximately 60,000 referrals alleging that children have been abused or neglected. During 2004, an estimated total of 3 million referrals, including approximately 5.5 million children, were made to CPS."

* "The United States has 3 times as many animal shelters as battered women shelters."

Cribs-haley edition, vl. 2

2009-03-12T16:02:00.002-05:00

cribs-haley edition

2009-03-11T22:19:00.002-05:00

spring break... got my hair cut... :)

2009-03-11T16:02:00.007-05:00

it's kind of tough getting older

2009-03-03T22:38:00.004-06:00

I feel like now is as good a time as ever to blog about this past weekend. Oh my goodness.

Ok so ASAP leadership conference.... It was at University of Houston. And we stayed at the Hilton Americas in downtown Houston. An incredible hotel. It had 24 floors, and we were on the 18th! There were so many groups of people staying there, it was crazy.
We were the only group from a private school, much less a Christian school. And it showed. Here are some other schools who were in attendance: Texas Tech, Texas State, UTA, TWU, UTD, UCDavis, UTEP, Utah, New Mexico, Central Arkansas, Southern Arkansas, New Orleans... Ok so please imagine the UC Davis group and the Southern Arkansas group interacting. Probably the most incredible culture block I have ever seen. haha! The Californians were horrified that we had styrofoam cups and plates. The Southern Arkansasians probably don't even realize that there is a green movement going on. I'm sorry, it's true. It was seriously shocking, the way they behaved in public, and the way they gave their presentations, and the way they talked about things. They cussed and screamed innapropriate things on the bus and used PDA in their group presentation. It was so weird.

On Friday night, there was 2 hours of karaoke. To songs like "Baby Got Back" and "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy." This was put on by the university! Oh, ps, UofH has a bar on campus. hah. I really wouldn't have expected the type of dancing and singing by anyone other than drunk middle schoolers. But apparently I have high standards. That night was interesting, to say the least.

I can honestly say that I came away with a HUGE appreciation for Student Foundation and what we do... No other school does everything we do with such success. I also have a new appreciation for Baylor. I have been so blessed to go to the school I do... They give me the responsibility of representing the University by myself to high school students... They provide a nurturing, Christian atmosphere. It really was shocking to see the difference between everyone.

Here is an example of the culture shock I experienced... Our group was sitting in between the UC Davis and Southern Arkansas groups on the bus on the way back to the hotel on Saturday night. The student leader for UofH was telling everyone goodbye and had given club suggestions for anyone who wanted to go party (hah). And he suggested that the Californians tell people about hyphe. I had no idea what hyphe was, and neither did the Southern Arkansas people. So their advisor was like "hey show us hyphe!" to the California group, and a California girl was like "well, I don't think I can... it's a movement..." He replied with, "well then get up and show us!" The California people really didn't know how to respond to that... They were really confused and were trying to figure out how to explain themselves better... All while they are talking to each other, the Arkansas man is saying, "Come on, show us your moves..." Finally, frustraited with the confused, I yelled, "It's a movement, not a move... like the hippies[held up a peace sign]" The Arkansas man says, "oh..." It was hilarious seeing the difference in cultures. haha.

I had a great time with my group. We really got to know each other well. We played loaded questions... That was probably the hardest I have laughed in a long time.

I have decided I don't like the death penalty.

Spring Break next week! 2 tests before then! Ah!

Our great desire is that you will keep on loving others as long as life lasts,
in order to make certain that what you hope for will come true.
Then you will not become spiritually dull and indifferent.
[Hebrews 6:11-12]

I've been thinking a lot about leadership, and what it means to be a real leader, and I was reading in Hebrews the other day, and it talks about how Jesus giving his life made him the perfect leader... and I think that is such a cool description... Jesus is the picture of perfect leadership, because He sacrificed Himself... Isn't that what a leader should be doing? Sacrificing him or herself for those he or she is leading? Leading them by serving them? Putting them first?

Mk... I just need to make it to Friday.

Current playlist:
Lucky-- Jason Mraz and Colbie Caillat
Magic-- Colbie Caillat
Older-- Colbie Caillat
Come On Get Higher-- Matt Nathanson
You Found Me-- The Fray
Put Your Records On-- Corinne Bailey Rae
Bubble Toes-- Jack Johnson
Kiss The Girl-- Colbie Caillat
Still Fighting It-- Ben Folds

ps- Kimberly and Allison, I miss you both mucho!

History will know who we are

2009-02-25T23:33:00.004-06:00

well my blog is still weird... but we're working on that.

I have found the song I want played for my first dance at my wedding. I will keep it a secret until then... Mainly to avoid ridicule.

I am loving knowing how to get my computer to take a picture of the screen! Genius, I say! I also like having it on the "black and white" version, if you can't tell by the pics. Me and my brother freaked my mom out with it, once. haha! It's also fun to turn the screen lighting down all the way so they can't figure out why the computer is off...

I am excited slash nervous about the leadership conference this weekend. It's going to be so fun but I'm scared I am going to do something wrong.

I hate school. boo. Spring break soon! I walked the bear trail with a friend today... it was glorious. The weather is incredible!

I seriously need serious help with this capital punishment project. ha.

I now have 3 tutoring clients! whoop! 2 with latin! I don't remember my 6th grade latin teacher trying to make it easier or kid friendly. We just had to memorize everything, just like I would now. But kids these days... haha :)

²² The faithful love of the Lord never ends!
His mercies never cease.
²³ Great is his faithfulness;
his mercies begin afresh each morning.
²⁴ I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance;
therefore, I will hope in him!”

²⁵ The Lord is good to those who depend on him,
to those who search for him.
²⁶ So it is good to wait quietly
for salvation from the Lord.
[Lam. 3]

2009-02-24T10:08:00.002-06:00

So I have these tabs up on my blog, now, right? But I don't know how to change them. hah. boo.

You are mine

2009-02-23T21:35:00.002-06:00

Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine.
When you go through deep waters, I will be with you.
When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown.
When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up;
the flames will not consume you.
For I am the Lord, your God; the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.
Others were given in exchange for you.
I traded their lives for yours because you are precious to Me.
You are honored, and I love you.
You have chosen to know me, believe in me,
and understand that I alone am God. There is no other God--
there never has been, and there never will be.
From eternity to eternity, I am God.
No one can snatch anyone out of my hand.
No one can undo what I have done.
[Is. 43]

all i wanna do is be with you...

2009-02-20T21:32:00.003-06:00

So I watched HSM3 for the first time today... I had already heard the soundtrack quite a bit from work, but I must say, the movie was just as good as I had hoped. I will now live vicariously through the soundtrack until I find my Troy Bolton. baha

This week was weird. I almost failed a forensic psych class! whoopee! mmm yes.
Kaitlyn is coming tomorrow morning... I'm so excited.
I need to find business professional attire to wear to a conference next weekend... let's be honest, I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO LOOK FOR. I was in Forever 21 the other day and felt so lost. so so lost. But I found the cutest pair of shoes I have ever seen. I want them. I've never understood why shoes are so expensive. Jeans, too... It's ridiculous.

I am so ready for this semester to be over. I feel weird.

I found encouragement from this song this week:

You raise me beyond the skies, into a city of eternal light
Looking down on the stars, I fly into heaven, caught up in your arms

I breath Your fragrance, taste Your goodness,
Crumble to pieces into Your love
In Your presence all my existence crumbles to pieces into Your love

I’m speechless, what can I say
Words become tears as You wipe them away
All my kisses and crowns at Your feet
Fire of heaven burn love over me

It’s such a beautiful story
I’m face to face with the King of Glory
You rescued someone unworthy, I know this is Love
[Crumble to Pieces-- Phil Wickham]

i'm not sure if i should post this. haha.

2009-02-16T23:02:00.002-06:00

I'm alive!! I still feel sick every now and then, and take long naps during the day to ward off weird, feel like I'm drowning headaches, and walking to class makes me extremely out of breath... hah. But other than that, I feel much better than I did last week.
Tuesday through Thursday I did absolutely nothing besides lay in the middle of my living room floor and watch Friends, The Big Bang Theory, Pride and Prejudice, and Mamma Mia, and then of course Lost when it came on. I realized that every love song is so trivial after watching Pride and Prejudice. What the heck, just give me Darcy.

On Friday, I ventured out into the world. I took a shower first, which resulted in me laying on the couch after for 10 minutes because I almost passed out in the shower... Until then I had not stood for longer than 3 minutes. Then I walked 2 blocks to the StuFu building to pick up some paper work... oooh that was brave. I came back and fell asleep for an hour. haha! I felt like a grandma!

On Saturday, most of my family came to visit! yay! We went to Common Grounds for a Falling Whistles benefit, which I just had to sit inside CG for most of it bc I got so tired... Then we went to the Baylor/aTm mens basketball game, which, although it ended spendidly and I will never regret going to that game, resulted in the awful, I think I am drowning in my head, headache that did not go away until this morning. The energy at that game was freakin incredible. The last time aTm was at Baylor for basketball, they(the players) were terribly arrogant and a rivalry had already been instilled because a month before, we beat them on their court in the 5th overtime... Anyway, I remember leaving the game absolutely furious because of their disgusting attitudes... in fact, "Donald Sloan dunk" is a suggested search on google, so I guess people like to watch it... hah. uughhh I was so mad. People started throwing things at him. hahaha. So on Saturday, there was a little hatred left over, especially for Sloan, and so he was booed every.single.time he touched the ball. Now, I think booing is immature and stooping to their level, so I do not participate, but I still thought it was funny. He would touch the ball and they would boo... he would pass it soon after, and the booing would stop immediately. I just find it so weird that guys have this universal alarm to boo a specific guy every time... I don't think girls think of that... at least, I wouldn't have... It's not like they had a rally before, saying that is what they were going to do... they just did it... Oh and I wasn't one of the crowd members cussing or throwing things or even booing at either games, so... please don't give me a lecture on sportsmanship or class. Both teams could work on both. I honestly don't think I had the lung capacity for booing at that point in my healing process. I probably would have passed out.
Anyway, the game was glorious, and now we have another player to boo, because after chasing Jerrells around the court trying to foul him for the last 4 seconds of the game, he shoved him right when the buzzer went off, resulting in an explosion on both benches and a fight almost taking place. It was pretty lame but I guess aTm wanted to make sure the tension was still high for next year. Seriously, don't touch Curtis.

I am writing a paper on the liberal Christian's view of capital punishment, so if you have any good books about it or any good insight, please let me know!

I think the "25 Random Things" on facebook is so weird. haha. It's seriously taking over the world. And I think it's so funny when people use it to make themselves look good. As if writing about your high school accomplishments is really making you look good. And I've read some of them, but honestly, I think people just want to write about themselves more than actually have anyone read them. Now, I filled it out, it's true. I'm not going to try to explain the conflicts that go through my brain every day. But I also think I just made myself look like a freak. haha. But if you really did want to know, I have in fact "sung and spoke in front of hundreds of people since I was 5... and I played softball for my high school... and I won pottery and quilting awards in elementary school..." yes yes, I excel as a person. Thank you, facebook, for allowing me to share this with the world. And I didn't even write those on my 25 things, you blog readers got special insight, right there...

Speaking of facebook, it's boring and I deactivated my account. Which was really lame timing when I got the flu for a week right after, and the only thing my mom allowed me to touch was my computer, blanket, pillow, and phone. boo germs.

I think that people decided dark chocolate was good for you because they just wanted an excuse to eat chocolate. And dark chocolate is a lame excuse for chocolate, ps. Oh and drinking milk is unnatural. I will stand by that statement. People say I am an opinionated person... I'm not sure how I feel about that...

Amos 5:15

2009-02-10T17:57:00.002-06:00

you know how i said that i thought i was getting sick on the last blog title...

well. I have the flu. And I feel AWESOME. This is the first time I've been able to sit up for longer than 3 minutes. I haven't had a fever over 101 in a long time, and I must say, the fever breaking is almost as unpleasant as the fever itself.

I am missing out on so much stufu fun, I'm so bummed.

But my mom is here, making me food. I'm praying Rach doesn't get it...

I think I'm getting sick.

2009-02-09T23:17:00.003-06:00

Short and sweet:

* Today, a miracle took place. The Dean of the CASA let me switch greek professors... something he even told me would not be possible. I don't really know what happened. He didn't even have my name right. He kept calling me Heather... haha. But for some reason, he decided to go against everything he has ever done as dean, and let me switch. I had a dance party.

* I am officially old. I just got an email saying to order my senior ring. At first, I thought it didn't mean me... hah. But I looked at my transcript, and, sure enough, I have more than enough hours. I'm sorry, when did I turn into an old person? Ew I'm so freaked out right now. I'm not even 20.5 yet. haha.

* Two tests tomorrow. ew.

* They showed my hotel video to all of student foundation on sunday at our meeting. oh my gosh.

* No more facebook for a while.

* Oh and I'm going back to camp. baha.

peace.

ps, Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack= SO worth ten dollars... buy it!

close your eyes.clear your heart.cut the cord.

2009-02-04T21:11:00.003-06:00

So when I find a song I like, I listen to it on repeat until I find another one... Right now, that song is Human by The Killers... I have absolutely no idea what it means, but I like it. If I owned You Found Me, by the Fray, that would be the new song. However, I only have a video with it on it to a preview of Lost... I don't think I explained that properly. Oh well.
Anyway, Basically the only 3 songs I have listened to on my computer for the past couple weeks are Human, My Life Would Suck Without You, and Feel That Fire by Dierks. I guess I don't really get sick of songs that I choose to listen to... which is funny bc I get really sick of songs that are overplayed on the radio. I'm convinced the most overplayed song in the country genre is Cowgirls Don't Cry by Brooks and Dunn, followed closely by Teardrops On My Guitar by Taylor Swift. The most overplayed song in the Christian genre is I Can Only Imagine...

I just filled out a Random 25 Things thing on Facebook... and so now all these random things are flashing through my brain... I hate taking showers. And brushing my teeth. And I get really upset when I have to stop what I'm doing to go to the bathroom. Sometimes I get to the point where I am about to pee my pants because I want to finish what I am doing first. I love sweeping... I hate folding clothes... I won't even turn them right side out most of the time. I love the fact that hotel doors lock behind me. In fact, I love the smell of hotels... and the feeling of hotels. I don't sleep with a top sheet... just a bottom sheet and a blanket... Because when I do sleep with a top sheet, I just kick it to the end of the bed. Answering the phone in a professional way gives me chills, I get so excited.

I need to do homework.

If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and He will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. But when you ask Him, be sure that your faith is in God alone...

Whatever is good and perfect comes from God our Father, who created all the lights in the Heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow. He chose to give birth to us by giving us His true word. And we, out of all creation, became His prized possession.
[James 1]

PS Human has come on 5 times since I have been writing this... :) Oh and I just looked up the song to try to figure out what it means, and I like it even more now. whoop.

we have boys here... a few...

2009-02-01T11:52:00.002-06:00

Here is a pic from the plane on Monday... it was nice once we got above the fog...
Yesterday and today have been absolutely gorgeous days... It's so funny that classes were canceled on Wednesday due to ice.
I'm pretty sure I'm all baylored out at this point... Thursday was the only day last week I wasn't talking about Baylor to the masses...
On Friday, I gave a tour to middle schoolers... Too cool, gangsta middle schoolers. There were about 55 of them, so a friend and I split the group in half and each took a group. First of all, middle schoolers don't care about Judge Baylor and Pat Neff... They care about boys. Most of the kids there were girls... oh my gosh. And in middle school, you still have that level of boldness that you never regain after you hit 9th grade because you have no idea what it means to be socially appropriate and you are at the top of your game in 8th grade! Below are a few samples of our conversations:
Them: Where are all the people?
Me: In class...
Them: Are we going to see any of them?
Me: yes, they will be getting out when we are walking around...
Them: Are there boys?
Me: Yes, we have boys here... The ratio is not in your favor, though.
Them: Are they cute?
Me: Some of them...
Them: Will we see any basketball players?
Me: I don't know, maybe...
Them: Are there any crazy parties here?
Me: You can find just about anything if you look hard enough...
Them: Well, are they good?
Me: I've not really been to any crazy parties, so I don't know...
Them: How are the clubs?
Me: And moving on...

[The boys are let loose... aka between classes]
Them: OMG BOYYYSSS
They proceed to say heeyyy to EVERY_SINGLE_GUY who passes us... I was laughing so so so hard. They had no idea how ridiculous they looked... and how old I felt... hah.

Them: Why can't we see any of the basketball players?
Me: They aren't on display!
Them: Well, are they cute?
Me: Some of them...

We get to the bears, and they FREAK OUT... They were so excited...
Them: Do they bite?
Me: They are bears... so I would think so.
As excited as they were, the excitement level sky-rocketed when I informed them that we were going to be eating at Penland, the largest freshman guys residential hall... oh screams of joy.

It was the most hilarious tour I have ever given.
Yesterday was Winter Premiere, which was ironic bc it was a beautiful spring day... So more tours, but with people who were actually interested in going to Baylor. I had one group who was seriously attacking me for saying that Baylor was unashamedly Christian and that you have to take two Christian courses and chapel to graduate. It was odd. One of the guys in StuFu was trying to get his group to open up, so when they got to Pat Neff and he was telling them about the 23.5 carat gold top, they didn't really react to him asking about it's blinding glare, so he said, "it's so bright because God's glory is around the top of it..." hahaha I love Baylor!

I saw Slumdog Millionaire on Friday night. Great, great movie. Go see it. There is this one part that was a complete slap in the face to Americans. Like woah. Just go see it.

First greek test this week. dangit. ugh. I hate everything about Greek. hah. I've never had a class that has the potential of making me feel physically sick when I think about it.

Since it is such a beautiful day, I am going to go outside and read and journal and study until the SUPPPERRRRBOWLLL PARTAYYY tonight! whoop! It's my favorite holiday. Although the commercialism of it is absolutely disgusting and so American and we should be ashamed of ourselves. So now at this point I am reevaluating my favor of it... I like the competativeness... and the community that takes place at the parties... But what would America be without trying to "save the world" and spending billions of dollars on a night of football at the same time? Oh, I know, the economy has affected the superbowl too... The lowest price of tickets is now $500 instead of $700... Whatever, I don't even know what to say about that. I generally pick who I want to win based on their helmets... Unless they are the Patriots... I always want them to win. Don't ask me why, I don't remember... I chose them in high school and just stuck with it. So this year, I guess I want the Steelers to win. Let's be honest, I don't care about professional football... I come from a MLB family... the World Series is much easier to choose for.

peace. love. sic em.

2009-01-28T21:18:00.002-06:00

So I just got back from Corpus! Oh man, what a trip!
I met one of the admissions advisers and the department chair of psychology and neuroscience at the airport on Monday morning... Our flight into DFW was delayed due to fog. Now remember, I am scared of flying. So this whole fog thing was not working for me. I actually came to the realization that I have a major trust issue. I did not want to trust the pilots to do their jobs... I really wanted someone to explain to me how flying in fog works... But I mean seriously, even if I knew, what was I going to do about it?
So we finally got to DFW, and we missed our original flight, so we ate lunch at chili's too... and then flew to Corpus. I only had to keep myself from crying once... for this flight, I pulled out the iPod and listened to Matt Chandler.
The weather in Corpus was INCREDIBLE! The church we spoke at was on the coast, so we drove along the shore, and now I am dying to go to the beach. Around 100 people showed up to the rally that night... My presentation went well... didn't pass out or throw up or trip or anything. haha.
Uhm yeah ok so then we went to our hotel... We stayed at the Embassy Suites in Corpus. I got my own suite at the Embassy Suites in Corpus. It took EVERYTHING in me not to scream and jump up and down. Of course, the 4 people with me are older and were used to staying in hotels on their own. I literally did not know what to do with myself. I have NEVER had a hotel room to myself, much less a suite. So, of course, I gave a video tour for anyone who enjoys watching me on the camera. hah.

The next day, we left Corpus at 11 for Harlingen... The car ride was fairly uneventful... I was crammed into the back of the van. We got there around 2 and ate lunch. We were around 30 minutes north of the border, ps. And there were palm trees EVERYWHERE. I wanted to go to the beach so bad! We stayed and talked at the restaurant for 2 hours. There was the department chair, two admissions advisers, and the director of admission advising with me... I was the only student. So at lunch, I basically felt like I was in a faculty meeting. I learned SO much! About admissions, recruiting, scholarships, President Sloan, President Lilley, President Garland, President Obama... It was insane! I loved it! I was just soaking in as much as I could...
We did the rally at the hospital in Harlingen... About 150 people showed up. I really enjoyed speaking to them about Baylor and answering their questions from a student's perspective. It was awesome!
After, we went to Chili's in McAllen, where we were staying. I was so tired, I was about to fall asleep at the table. McAllen is an interesting place... It really reminded me of Plano, with palm trees... and a lot of spanish speaking people. The hotel here wasn't as nice, but it was just fine... :) I still couldn't believe I got my own room.
This morning, we had breakfast at the hotel, and they had a texas shaped waffle maker! haha! We thought that was so funny! I don't think Ohio or Colorado have waffle makers... I love Texas!
Although the weather down South was incredible, the weather in Dallas was not, so our flight was canceled. The next one we would be able to get would get us into Waco by 10:00 pm, so we decided to drive... 7.5 hours. Oh my goodness. It was crazy! I mean, I've done longer road trips, but I was mentally prepared. Not so much with this one... I slept in my little cave in the back and listened to my iPod for a lot of the trip. All the Baylor people had little wireless card things for their computers, so they were able to work in the car as we drove! How weird slash awesome is that!?! Baylor hooks people up, man. I can't believe I just flew to Corpus and ate yummy food and slept in king sized beds and didn't pay a thing! ahh! I am so blessed... seriously, it blows my mind. Why? Why on earth did I just get to do that?

Well anyway, it was a blast! the blog is not letting me upload pics or vids so check out my facebook!

:)

sniffle

2009-01-24T17:14:00.004-06:00

Well I promised a pic of my hat I made... and I finally got to wear it today! So here's the pic... I don't like pics of just me... so taking it was amusing... Anyway, how hilarious is that hat?!
Allison came! We went to this cute little store, and then drove around the circle 3 WHOLE TIMES without getting off!! aahh! and went to Common Grounds... and ate at Health Camp... ya know, just chillaxed. We also drove to the Waco airport so I could see what it looked like so I wouldn't have a complete nervous breakdown on Monday morning.
I am getting sick... spring allergies hate me. Or I hate them... Maybe both. But I am losing my voice... NOT GOOD. My nose is so stuffy! I am taking sudafed every 4 hours... merrr.
You should run the bearathon. This was my picture for my journal on Thursday bc I walked by and saw this and got so excited! Not that I am running the bearathon... haha. But I think you should!! Check it out!
I'm in the middle of watching lost... I think I watched them out of order... daang it. As in the first one second and the second one first... :/ O well!

Love.

So Heartless

2009-01-21T14:18:00.006-06:00

I've just been really into blogging recently.
I have come up with a new journaling technique I am going to try. I taking a picture every day of something... none of myself or anything... just something that signifies my day. Then I will leave a space in my journal for it, and then print them out later and paste them in! I'm excited! The picture from 2 days ago was that day's picture. These are the two from the past two days:

I took this picture in the middle of class. haha! I was so scared I was going to get in trouble! But I turned my flash off, so he didn't notice. That's him teaching in front of the power point. It's a smaller class.

This is the view I had as I walked to class this morning. It was 29 degrees outside. Cold. But the song that was on my iPod as I was walking to class (not very happily, btw), was "Face of Love" by Sanctus Real... So those are some lyrics from it.

Speaking of songs, there are some good ones out there!
* My Life Would Suck Without You-- Kelly Clarkson
You've done it again, Kelly. Given us a great song to scream to in the car! I've had it on repeat.
* Live Your Life-- Rhianna and TI
I am still obsessed with this song... "We mighty full of ourselves all of a sudden, aren't we?"
* Single Ladies-- Beyonce
I mean, seriously. It's good.
* Just Dance-- Lady GaGa
I don't like her name. haha but the song is so funny!
* Untouched-- The Veronicas
I love the Veronicas! I am so glad they came out with this song.

I've been rather impressed with the rap songs lately. I'm not really a fan, but I've liked most of the songs recently... and then I heard this song:
Heartless-- Kayne West
Leave it to Kayne to ruin it. The first part is so cool, and I really had hope... and then it just gets dumb!! "How could you be so heartless?" dumb! The best line is "How could you be so Dr. Evil?" hahaha what on earth...

Anyway
I should probably do some homework or something. :) I can't wait for the weekend! Allison's coming! And then I get to go to Corpus! Hooray!

2009-01-20T19:11:00.003-06:00

Today is my Pappa's birthday! So this is my ode to him. He gave me my first hair cut... and always gave me dimes and bubble gum for sweeping his barber shop! I loved hanging out there, and playing with the air blowers, and sitting in the chairs and watching all the people come in to get their hair cut.
My Pappa and Icee used to go on vacations with us... My parents put me on this awful, disgusting, traumatizing gluten-free diet right before we left for a family road trip to Yellowstone. So basically, I ate nothing all week. Well, the only thing I remember eating the entire time, every meal, was a turkey sandwich, with homemade waffles that my Icee had made. But my Pappa would sneak me bites of ice cream when all of my younger siblings and both parents got their own cones, but I couldn't have any. Man those memories are vivid. That diet didn't last long.
When we would go on vacations, each adult would hold the hand of a child... I always held my Pappa's hand... or he always held mine, one of the two.
He taught me how to skip rocks... and helped me fish... and taught me how to play real solitaire. and once, I broke his glasses in a pillow fight. When we were in Colorado. In the mountains. That was a sticky situation.
We would always read the Sunday funnies together... Now we do sudoku puzzles together. Most of the time we just mess them up.

Well, I'm going to go call him now... and then finalize my speech! and then do Greek homework! And then go to bed!

2009-01-19T23:07:00.003-06:00

oh snap today was beautiful! The wind was blowing pretty hard so sitting in it was not pleasant, but it was so pretty to look at! I walked to common grounds to do homework for a while. And listened to Mae while I did it. It just made the experience so much more pleasant.

This past weekend, I went to my grandparents' to relax. We went to Golden Corral! haha! I hadn't been there since my high school rented out the room for the 10th and 11th graders after we took the PSAT! Anyway, I decided that with whoever my next boyfriend is, the poor soul, I want to go to Golden Corral for the first date... and I am so not kidding. I figure that first dates are awkward as it is, and I really don't like cliche cutsy stuff, especially for the first date, and I'm a fairly awkward person, so why not just make it funny and go eat somewhere you never would otherwise! My love language is quality time, so I really don't care where we eat or what we do, so why not?!? :) Well anyway, I'm excited. haha

I got to see my girls that I've coached for over a year today! I missed them so much! Ah I love them!

I'm so excited about Corpus, although I am still so nervous about flying. :/

Oh, back to the grandparents outing. I made a hat!! I will take a picture some time and show you. It's a great hat! haha. I didn't think it would look turn out ok. But it is wearable. The weekend was good because I actually wanted to come back to Baylor. Last week, I didn't want to be here at all. I don't know, even today I am struggling with the "Be Here Be Now." But it was good because I was able to get away and then was able to actually miss Baylor.

I am a major advocate of making lists and scratching things off. Sometimes I add things to the list that I already did just so I can make lines through them. I have to scratch off calander days in syllabi or I freak out.

Ok, going to bed. More life later.
peace.

2009-01-15T21:49:00.002-06:00

I really should be studying for greek, bc we have a quiz tomorrow, but I have basically accepted the fact that I am going to bomb it no matter what, soooo.... why stress? haha.

Um fact numero uno: I AM SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SORE. My body is aching. Aerobics killed me yesterday. I can't walk down stairs, spotting my kids at work was awful bc it took me about 30 seconds to get down on my knees and then I just wanted to stay there... After my 8:00, I laid on our couch for an hour... just laid there, in a very straight position. I was imagining that I was in a giant massaging machine. Blair gave me a massage last night... but that was when my arms were only tingly and weak, because the soreness had not kicked in.

Fact numero dos: So I had the training where we all thought they were going to help us write our speeches for the Baylor rallies... yeah well turns out they decided to throw us a curve ball and wanted to see how we performed under pressure. So, although less than 24 hours had passed since we had found out we were speaking, we had to get up and give impromptu 5-10 minute presentations. AHA. I do not like impromptu. I was freaking out. It ended up being fine once I started speaking, but I was dreading it the whole time.

Fact numero tres: I got to have lunch with Drew Stallard today and that made me way happy.

Fact numero four: I hate Greek.

Fact numero cinco: I'm spending all weekend at my grandparents house. So I can sleep. and learn Greek. and eat. and sleep. And my grandmother is apparently going to make me take a bath in epsom salt bc I sound so miserable on the phone.

Fact numero six: I really do love the swings at Baylor. I've been people watching. I love just sitting there in silence and swinging... I was having an emotional break down yesterday, and I went and sat on a swing for 20 minutes... and read a few Psalms... it was so so wonderful. I flipped my Bible open to this:

Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be.
Remind me that my days are numbered-- how fleeting my life is.
You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand.
My entire lifetime is just a moment to You; at best, each of us is but a breath.
We are merely moving shadows, and all our busy rushing ends in nothing.
We heap up wealth, not knowing who will spend it.
And so, Lord, where do I put my hope?
My only hope is in You.
Rescue me from my rebellion...
[Ps. 39:4-8]

Great quote of the day:
Set up: We are at Vault, and I am asking one of my new girls, who is five, some questions about herself.
"What does your mom do?"
"Punishes me?"
"What does your dad do?"
"Spanks me... sometimes..."
"I meant... where do they work?"
"Oh..."

hahaha I laughed so hard.

Be still, and know that I am God!
I will be honored by every nation.
I will be honored throughout the world.
-
The Lord of Heaven's Armies is here among us;
the God of Israel is our fortress.
[Ps. 46:10-11]

they will know us by our Love

Moving on over.

Consolidating.

lovely internet finds

state pillows

Just a few things.

For Better or Bratwurst.

lessons learned.

Things I am currently loving...

Projects, lately.

Pain.

Life Changes

Book lists

Child Abuse Prevention

a poem.

trust.

ASL

Google Calendar

they're here!

Modern Bird Studios

Walgreens Canvas

Love Is

2 months. 2 weeks. 2 days.

He is jealous for me

just a great picture...

Wait... what!?

New recipes

Family Tree

Look at what I found!

Waco Arts Initiative

My last 10 iTunes purchases

3 Children's Books

Waco, Texas: Food Edition

Prayer Requests

blogs of the day

He's the King

Love is not proud

I will be joyful in God my Savior!

short update

Wedding blog

Texas on my mind

Shake it like a polaroid picture

1 Corinthians 13

be still

Ode to Rachel

oh hey, I've moved on to better things

quick update on life. pictures provided.

pictures of my day.

Take Control...

Seniors, 2010... wait, what?

Sweet Jesus Christ my Sanity

week 6, go hard

Been a month... I've already been sick, but already gotten better... ha.

Live from Hollywood...

Ode to Caleb

all creation felt a Father's broken heart

A love more faithful than the morning...

this is too long. but i like it.

Community... it comes in strange ways.

psh

i'm the bomb like tick tick

Cribs-haley edition, vl. 2

cribs-haley edition

spring break... got my hair cut... :)

it's kind of tough getting older

History will know who we are

You are mine

all i wanna do is be with you...

i'm not sure if i should post this. haha.

I think I'm getting sick.

close your eyes.clear your heart.cut the cord.

we have boys here... a few...

*sniffle*

So Heartless

sniffle