3 weeks in a row!

Well I am currently laying in bed not feeling well at all. As long as I don't move I am not in pain so I'm gonna try to write this while moving as little as possible. I woke up this morning with an intense pain that has been present all day. I'm really hoping it goes away and I will be better tomorrow!

Do you ever have those days when it just feels great to do nothing?!? That is what yesterday was for me. I slept in, ate breakfast, showered and then read all day long. It was so nice to just have a nice lazy Sunday. I got to read for fun too which is something I have not done in a long time.

Also big news is I think I have found my future home! I spent all of last Thursday and Friday looking at apartments. I looked at a total of 16! I came home Friday night and watched Fireproof (which I recommend to all of you, especially my married readers... it's cheesy but good). I narrowed down my choices but did not feel totally confident about any of them. Today I stopped at one last place and I really liked it!! It's near to where I use to live so I know the neighborhood and they have a great student special so it was cheaper than most I have looked at. The community is only 5 years old so it is also very nice. I'm going tomorrow to put my deposit on it!

Well I am going to bed and praying that I feel better come tomorrow morning!

CHECK, CHECK, CHECK!!!

My Monday morning was CRAZY! Let me walk you through it, 9:00 Spanish Mid-term, 10:00 turn in English paper, 11:00 turn in History paper and take a quiz over FDR's Folly (which I did not read... 20 questions, I guessed on 20 of them!), 12:00 go to the office and put final touches on grant and HAND IT IN!!! It was such a busy morning but so good to have it all done. I had a crazy couple of days leading up to Monday also as I was trying to prepare for the crazy day. I feel like I need a break from spring break! It felt so good to check these things off my list though!!

I must say that I am SUPER excited about having the grant turned in and even more excited to hear back from board. We should know unofficially April 8th if we got it or not. I continued to get more and more excited about it as I was writing but I was trying not to in case we don't get it. I think it's going to be a great program though and my supervisor does also!

I am realizing more and more how much I love working with teens and young adults. The oldest daughter of the family I nanny for Alisha has had some hard things going on in the past couple of weeks, a friend of hers was cutting, another friend is pregnant (she is only 14), and then last week she lost a friend of hers unexpectedly. All of these things have really opened up our relationship and I have been able to walk through some of this with her. She reminds me A LOT of myself when I was 14 and it's neat to be able to be to her what a woman dear to my heart was to me at that age! It just continues to confirm to me that I am doing the right thing by getting my Masters in order that I will have the skills to do what I love!

Ok, so I'm exhausted and going to bed. I wanted to include a picture of my new dishes though! I'm super excited about them!

The last month...

Ok so it has officially been a month since I last wrote on here. It has been a crazy month, but some very exciting things are happening! So here is the update...

I have decided that Mondays are going to be my official day to blog so if a Monday goes by and I haven't blogged yell at me!

Well in February I flew out to Kansas City to surprise a dear dear friend of mine for her birthday. Natalie is a friend from MSU who has become so dear to my heart over the years. I had realized that it had been over a year and a half since we've really had time to just sit with each other and catch up. I worked with her husband Bob to plan the surprise, and it was AMAZING. I flew in early and got to have coffee with Melissa, one of my old residents from Heartlight and then I drove to Bob and Nat's apt. It was such a sweet weekend to my heart. It is amazing how the Lord continues to use these people I love in my life!

The next big thing is that I moved out of my house I was living in. I know that it was the best decision, it was just a bit sudden! I am currently staying with a friend of mine while I look for my new apartment. I'm so excited about living by myself! I'm excited about this new stage of life! I'm excited to find new stuff and decorate my new apt (I just bought new dishes this past weekend!)

I said earlier that my life has been crazy busy, and the reason for that is an amazing opportunity I have been given. My supervisor at my internship came to me a few weeks ago to tell me about an opportunity she had been presented to develop a Summer Youth Employment program for disadvantaged youth. She knows this is the age group I want to work with and asked me if I would want to develop this project. If we get the grant she is going to hire me on for the summer to run the program! Of course I said YES! So I have been developing this program and am currently writing the grant proposal. I'm getting more and more excited about the program and pray that we get the grant! I will be ok if I never have to write another grant in my life though!

I think that is all for now. All the major things anyhow! I'll be back next Monday at the latest to fill ya'll in on anything I forgot!

Blog challenge

So my dear friend Emily did this and as a response I am now doing it also. I thought it was an amazing idea so here we go...

The deal is, the first 5 people who comment will receive something in the mail that I've made. The stickler, is that if you comment, you have to do the same on your blog. Cool?

I really don't know if 5 people even read this so you have a good chance of being one of the first 5 to comment. I'm so excited to think of things to send to each of you.

There is nothing better to me than to recieve fun things via snail mail. I love to send things also, I wish I was better about this. I think that may be one of my new goals for 2009, to send people more mail. So maybe this blog will give that a jump start.

So go ahead... comment away!

Have you ever....

Have you ever been blamed for something that you did not do? Have you ever felt as though people were holding your past sins over your head as though they defined who you are? Have you ever felt as though no matter what you said, it would fall upon deaf ears? Have you ever felt as though you would never be able to make things ok? Have you ever felt as though every step you took and every move you made was being judged? Have you ever felt as though the people who say they love you, are attacking you? Have you ever thought that love should look differently? Have you ever felt like someone was always looking for a fault, even though you were doing everything right? If so welcome to my world!

It's interesting to me how I can be in such a great spot and how the enemy thinks he knows exactly how to hurt me and tries to knock me down... well guess what?!?! I'm not falling! 2009 has begun very interestingly for me. It has been hard and yet though all of that I have grown so much closer to God. I would say that these last few weeks have been some of the sweetest times I've had with the Lord in awhile. Life has been very busy and then there is the situation explained above that is a daily struggle and yet at the end of the day I am rejoicing because I am a child of God.

Yesterday someone dear dear dear to my heart called me out of the blue. She is someone who since I have known her, has been a prayer warrior for me. As we were talking she told me that she wanted to encourage me by telling me that my worth is not found in the relationships I have here on earth. That the people who say they love me may hurt and disappoint me but that I should never find my worth in that. Her call came at such a perfect time for me as I needed that reminder. I will press on towards the goal and keep my eyes on HIM!

Newness...

There has been so many new things in my life over the past few weeks and I'm really interested to see what these next few week and months are going to look like!

I started school this past week along with going back to Texas ReEntry Services. Let me just say that my schedule is FULL. The plan is to leave my house at about 5:45 each morning (I didn't do this this past week!) in order to get to the gym by 6. I then have class from 9-12 MWF and then I go directly to the office till 2:30 when I leave to go pick up the kiddos from school. I then hang out with them until 6:00. On Tuesday & Thursday I go from the gym to the office till 2:30, when I pick up the kiddos. So everyday I'm going going going! It wouldn't be so bad but I have things Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings also! Ahh it's going to be a LONG semester!

Also, there is a new friend in my life. His name is Jacob and it's been kinda a roller coaster ride getting to know him but it's been really good. It's kinda tricky because we both have developed feeling for each other but don't feel as though the Lord is leading us towards anything beyond a friendship at this point. So this is all new to me and I'm really interested to see what this looks like. We have decided to use this time to really build upon our friendship and getting to know each other more.

So anyhow I'm really interested to see what these next few weeks and months look like. This is all new to me...

A new year!

2009 has been a crazy year and I am only 15 days into it! There were some really hard things that happened in the last days of 2008 and then some of my bad choices from the past came back to the surface. 2009 started with much hurt, and I've had to spend the last 15 days trying to figure out what I'm going to do with, how I'm going to respond. There have been so many times in my life when I have been the victim and I can either sit in that or I can trust God that things will be ok and continue with life. This is the path that I have chosen. It has been very sweet in the past few days to just sit with the Lord and hear His truth about who I am. I'm excited to see how He is going to use these hard things to His glory.

There have also been some changes in 2009, the major one being that I am now nannying for a family. It is a hard family situation but I'm so excited to be able to be a part of what God is doing in this family. There are 4 kids (ages 7, 10, 13, 15) and they live with their dad who is going through a divorce from his second wife. So these kids are going through their second divorce. I did not know this when I first started but was filled in before my first day. Anyhow I pick the 2 youngest up from school, help them with homework and then cook supper and do household chores. It actually has been a great set up for me. I feel as though I am able to use my gifts very well in this position. I'm glad that I am able to be a stable person in these kids lives. I'm glad that I am able to be able to talk through how they are cooping with the divorce. It's just been a great opportunity to serve!

As hard as 2009 has been so far I'm so excited about what the year holds. I'm excited about the newness of it all!