Week 17

So as week 17 comes to an end it is a little hard to believe that I moved in with the rents 17 weeks ago – kind of crazy. This week wasn’t too bad, so that is something to be really thankful because sometimes after they are gone for a week their first week back in the house is rough on all of us. I think the fact that I lost my mind and agreed to go to the midnight showing of Harry Potter on Tuesday night had a lot to do with it. The movie was really good and I am glad I saw it even at the midnight showing – it was actually kind of fun to be out in the ciaos of North Park mall. The movie wasn’t over until after 3am – yikes that meant that I only managed to get around 2 hours of sleep before I had a full day of work with a couple of big meetings. Thankfully I survived the meetings and stayed awake but by the end of the afternoon I was crashing – so I got about a 40min nap before I have community group and a student ministry dinner which ended with my first snow cone of the season. I love snow cones – there really should be more snow cones around here – hints another good thing about living up in the suburbs. Besides the power randomly going off on Thursday night for a couple of hours on our entire block – nothing else really exciting happened. Sorry this week was so boring of an update.

This is the song that never ends...

"This is the song that never ends, it goes on and on my friends, some people started singing not knowing what it was and they'll continue singing it forever just because it is the song that never ends..."

Okay now that I have you all singing the song that never ends let me explain. This song randomly popped into my head this afternoon and as I started thinking about it I realized that it kind of describes my life right now in a humorous sort of way. I have found myself continuing to learn the same lessons over and over probably because I continue to make the same decisions/mistakes over and over - each time I really do learn the lesson for a short while but then I quickly forget - I think you get the picture. I think most weeks God looks at me and has to laugh at how dense/stubborn I really am when it comes to living my life. I know on more than one occasion God has given me plenty of warning signs and better options but yet I still insist on living life on my terms. Very thankfully I do get it on the big things in life and I realize that God's plan is so much better than my plan but it is the little daily things that I get caught up in doing it my way. I have recently been really convicted about how I am not being completely obedient because I am still trying to live my life on my terms on a daily basis with the "little daily things" and not God's terms. The verse in Matt 6:23-25 has been something that has been running in my head lately "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, of he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money." While money isn't my issue and something I thankfully don't struggle with being in control and lack of trust is. I know that in order to stop living a life that is like the "song that never ends" I must be someone who is willing to change and someone who will submit and be obedient to God even in the little daily things of life and I know that in order to do this I need to first yield to myself and my ways for my life - much easier said that done for me. But it is something I am working on and each day it does get a little easier. So hopefully I will soon live a life that doesn't represent the song that never ends because of the daily decisions and choices I make.

My question to you is, do you have any area of your life big or small that you are singing the song that never ends? And if so are you sick of being on repeat yet?

Week 16

This week was pretty uneventful compared to the past few weeks which were full of lots of fun traveling. Dad and Marsha left to go out of town on Monday and I didn't get back in town until really early in the morning on Monday - so since I had the big house all to myself it made for a super quiet week (especially since as I type this I hear my dad and Marsha going back and forth at each other over something being out of place). I have to say though that I did enjoy just having my own space and not having to worry about whose space I was invading or what I was doing wrong. I also enjoyed being able to cook - who knew I missed cooking so much - crazy I know. Work overall was a pretty typical week - Lesa wasn't to crazy and we all managed to survive the week without making her to mad at any of us. The definite low point of the week was my doctors appointment where I was informed that I had four more weeks in my boot and if it isn't healed after that then I get a hard cast for at least 3 weeks. Needless to say I was really bummed out because I had in my mind that I was only in the boot for a week or two more - wrong! The high point of the week was having some down time and being able to connect with several friends that I hadn't seen in a while, which is always fun and much needed. The week came to a close by heading out to Marisa's moms lake house with several other girls - granted it meant another weekend out of Dallas but so much fun. Sorry week 16 was a pretty boring update - maybe week 17 (wow I have I been with the rents for 17 weeks) will be a little more exciting.

Simple Little Joy

It is such the little things in life that me happy, most of the time anyways. One of my simple little joys in life right now is being able to cook. Okay so I realize some of you are laughing at me but I use to be able to cook dinner every night of the week if I wanted – now that is not the case I am lucky if I am able to cook one night a month. One of the downsides of living at home is that even though there is an amazing kitchen I am not allowed to use it and for that matter no one is allowed to use it and if you do have to use it you better watch out b/c you are going to hear about it for weeks on end from my step mother. So since they are out of town this week I have enjoyed cooking in the kitchen. I didn’t make anything to fancy or to messy – the most fun thing I made was fruit salsa and homemade cinnamon tortilla chips for breakfast club at work. I know it is sad that this brings me so much joy but it really does.

All the fun summer fruit - yay for a healthy snack

Who knew making chips was so easy - I will have to do this more often

Colorado (week 15)

So only 47 hours of this past week was actually spent on the ground in Dallas and the 47 hours are from wheels down to wheels up. Brooke and I landed at Love Field a little after 4:30pm on Tuesday from Seattle and we took off a little before 3:30pm on Thursday for Colorado. The 47 hours that were actually spent on the ground are a complete blur to say the least between working, laundry, unpacking, repacking, community group or a counseling session as we all ended up calling it – nothing bad just some big life changing decisions to process. So a great 47 hours just not a lot of time for sleep in there – oh well I can sleep when I am dead.

On Thursday afternoon after mine and Brooke’s quick 47 hour stop over in Dallas we were off to Colorado with 17 of our friends for the long 4th of July weekend. We left Love Field a little before 3:30pm and had a stop over in OKC for what we thought was only 30mins – well let’s just say that 30mins turned into around 3 hours of hanging out in the OKC airport thanks to bad weather in Denver, a fuel leak on our plane that they couldn’t find, and a strange package left in the Denver airport that closed the airport. Thankfully Brooke and I all took this in stride – as did our friends even poor Kelly who was waiting for us to arrive in hanging out in the Denver airport. Mind you Brooke and I are texting Kelly and Emily (who is having her own plane issues in Dallas) the exact same thing at the exact same time while we are sitting next to each other on the plane – we didn’t think. Once we finally made it to Denver we didn’t have any problems and we were all delirious at this point – I am sure Luke, Chris, and Jason all thought Brooke, Emily, and I were a little crazy as we took pictures of each person that arrived for our car. We finally all joined the rest of our group a little after 1am at our house in Breckenridge and pretty much all fell right asleep – sort of. Friday was a full day of hiking (yes the boot is 4 wheel drive approved – sort of) in the Royal Gorge, white water rafting (yes I fell out of the boat and floated in the river for a little while – the one thing I wasn’t suppose to do), relaxing in the hot tub, a yummy homemade dinner (thanks Jessi), and lots of late night laughs with the girls. Saturday the actual 4th of July was a really relaxing day – we slept in, hung out on our amazing front porch, went into Breckenridge to shop, had a cookout, and watched some amazing fireworks. Sunday we were up early b/c we wanted to attend Watermark Denver’s 1st Sunday morning service so that meant we had to drive back to Denver. I am so glad that we were able to attend their 1st Sunday morning service though – so worth it and so fun to be reminded of where we started out as Watermark. Sunday afternoon was spent at a Rockies game and then off to the airport to hurry up and wait for most everyone’s flights to be delayed. Thankfully, mine, Erin, Brooke, and Chris flight were all only delayed about an hour b/c everyone else didn’t end up getting home until around 4am. It was amazing trip, with amazing people, and great weather – can’t wait to go back.