Seasons of Change

I think I may have mentioned this before, but just in case you've forgotten, this is my absolute most favorite time of year!  The weather is changing, and the promise of winter is in the air.  The changing leaves remind us of God's perfect plan for His creation as they drift to the ground.  My three favorite holidays are just around the corner:  Thanksgiving, the day AFTER Thanksgiving, and Christmas!

As some of you know (and all of you will know after reading this post), life has been pretty crazy for me over the last few weeks.  I'll give you the short rundown here, but if you really want to know every single little detail, I can probably send you a seventy-five page e-mail later. :)  Last weekend, I had a little mid-life crisis.  This scares me a little bit because I'm only 22.  I hope that doesn't mean I'll be dying at 44!!

Anyhow, I was sitting at my desk working on my homework, and it hit me:  I really don't want to do this!  Now, it wasn't just the typical college kid "I hate homework and would rather be doing ANYTHING else!" kind of thing. It was more of an "I definitely do not want to do this for the rest of my life" kind of realization.  This realization, combined with a large number of other things God brought to my attention sealed the deal. So the short version is that last Monday, I withdrew as a student at Iowa Wesleyan College effective immediately.  I got a pretty sweet refund out of the whole ordeal, and I am SOOO much happier and at peace with my life!

God is so good to us, is He not?  I knew for positive sure that He was leading me back to school, so it was hard for me to understand at first why He would lead me away from college half way through my first semester back. However, after thinking it over during the last week, I came to this conclusion:  God led me back to school so that He could SHOW me why He doesn't want me to be a teacher.  I tend to be a little hard-headed, and God knows that, so He told me the only way I would listen (or at least the way I would listen the fastest).  I'm so thankful that God works very suddenly in my life; otherwise, I'm afraid I would over think things and rationalize my own agenda.

So now what, you may ask?  Well, that's a very good question.  I applied for a few full-time jobs.  One was in Des Moines, the other is pretty close to home.  Again, in keeping with the "short" version, I can tell you I'm pretty sure that I will NOT be moving to Des Moines.  I have not yet been offered the job, and there were just a number of other things that led me to believe God had other plans for me at this time.

I have applied for what I think will be the perfect job (close to home!!), but I have yet to hear whether or not they are considering me for the position.  I am definitely qualified, as it is a secretarial position, and that is what I went to college for!  I'm really hoping and praying that God will open the door to this huge potential pseudo-ministry! 

As soon as I know for sure what's going on in my life, I'll be sure to let you all know too!  Thanks for stopping by!

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! :)