Finding My Place

Life confuses me.  It seems that no matter what I choose or where I go, it's not right.  I feel the Lord leading me, but sometimes I feel like once I arrive, He abandons me.  I know this isn't true, but that's sometimes how it feels.

That being said, it looks like change might be once again in the air.  Maybe it's something in the water... Nothing concrete yet, but I'll keep you posted. All I can say is that I feel like I'm living the real-life music video to Michael W. Smith's Place in This World. I find this interesting because that was one of our Senior class songs my last year of high school.  Anyhow... hopefully I'll find the place where I belong soon!  This is just getting ridiculous!  Don't worry... I don't expect you to understand or even agree with me.

In other news, my wonderful-amazing bestest friend in the whole world is coming for a visit this weekend.  I haven't seen Laura (unless you count some sketchy Skype) since we took her away in August.  Her birthday is this coming Wednesday, so we get to do some serious celebrating this weekend! I soooo love that girl!

I guess that's all for now.  Stay tuned!

A Wonderful Weekend

I love this time of year.  From now to the first part of January, I will be {for the most part} a very happy person. It begins with the hint of fall in early September, and ends with the celebration of a new year in early January.  In reality, it's all the stuff in the in-between that I love the most:  crisp, cool (maybe rainy) days, my sister's birthday, Thanksgiving, the day AFTER Thanksgiving, my birthday, another sister's birthday, Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, and my precious niece's birthday in mid January.
Anyhow, this weekend was the beginning of my favorite time of year.  The weather was simply fantastic!  I love rainy, cool fall(ish) days when all you want to do is curl up by the window, crawl under a blanket, and read a book or watch a movie.  If I hadn't kicked my Spanish class to the curb last Tuesday, I'd have been cuddled up with a big binder of garbage I didn't want to study and my laptop.  Thankfully, instead, I was able to be curled up with my favorite two little girls: Bethany & Alexxa.  My cousin and second best friend, April, and her sister Alisa came over for awhile to watch a movie.  Verrrrryyy relaxing!
On Saturday, I started working the sales floor at Peebles.  I think I'm really going to love my job. After work, I went with the fam to celebrate "Grandma" Edith's 80th birthday.  "Aunt" Nancy was home for the occasion, so it's been really fun catching up with her this weekend.

Well... I guess it's time to get back to the homework for this fresh, new week!  Hope you all have an amazing week!

Alexxa and I ended up matching (for real... it was NOT planned!).  

I sure do love these girls!

Teaching & A Parade

Upon my sisters untimely (at least in my opinion) departure, the role of 3-6 year old Sunday School teacher became mine... kinda.  I didn't actually start teaching until... today! Anyhow, most of you won't care whatsoever about this, but for my wonderful sister, here are a few pictures of my first bulletin boards in my new classroom.  Enjoy!

Attendance: each student chooses a leaf to staple to the board

Harvesting Love, Joy, Peace, Faith, & Gentleness 

 The somewhat festive hallway...

We also took in the Rodeo parade in Ft. Madison this weekend.  

Bethy is a huge fan of parades where they throw candy!

It says "Cute & Adorable Cowgirl in charge"

And In Other News...

Yikes!  I can't believe I'm already two weeks in to the new school year!  Where on earth did the time go?  I'm really enjoying my classes, or at the very least, I've done a fairly good job of convincing myself (and my professors) that I am.  I started the semester with 19 credit hours (one freebie), but after a little discussion and common sense, I dropped two classes (3 credit hours) and am down to 16. What classes am I taking, you may ask?  Well, here ya go:

• Composition (a 4-credit writing intensive course for Freshmen)
• Developmental Psychology
• Education of Exceptional & Diverse Persons
• Readings in Literature for Adolescents
• Spanish I

Three of the five courses also have a service learning component, which means part of my grade will be based on a community service type project.  I have to have so many service learning hours completed in order to graduate, so this is a great way to get some of those taken care of.  The work isn't too hard, nor is it terribly time consuming... at least not yet. I'm sure these things will come.

In other news, Lindsey and Alexxa finally arrived this morning.  Bethy was ecstatic, as was the rest of the family.  Baby A is so cute!  I can't believe how tiny she still is; she looks like a newborn even though she's actually 2 months old (on Tuesday). So stinkin' adorable!  Now I actually get to actively be the favorite aunt of two! I guess we'll see how that goes... having a baby in the house while I'm trying to do homework. :)

Not much else to report.  Yes, Laura is still gone.  She needs to come home, or I need to move there.  Either way would be fine.  I miss her sooooo much!  I haven't seen her in three weeks, which is far too long!  She and I are still both seriously in need of jobs.  Nothing seems to be opening up for either of us, so if anyone out there knows of something, let us know. We're trying to keep ourselves from being anxious.  God will supply our needs (Phil. 4:19), and all we need to do is actively trust and pray (Phil. 4:6).  I'll keep ya posted!

Thanks for stopping by! :)