Metamorphosis

Fess Up Friday

2012-01-20T14:57:00.000-06:00

It's been a while since I did this, but I've got some fessin' up to do today. And I think it's pretty good. Or bad. Whichever.

My hubby's grandpa was just diagnosed with lung cancer, so Matt went up to Michigan to visit him. I got online to find cheap tickets and was able to get last minute flights for my hubby and his brother for less than $700. Which was awesome. Until I didn't realize that their flight departed from Love Field, not DFW Airport. So they had to pay an extra $100 to transfer their flight because I dropped them off at the wrong airport.
So Matt's gone and the only thing I've REALLY smiled about in the last 24 hours was last night's episode of The Big Bang Theory. Forget anti-depressants. Apparently they don't work if you don't have a husband.
This morning I woke myself up by talking in my sleep. I was telling one of my students to sit down. This was after dreaming about physically restraining a particularly disrespectful 5th grade girl, and yelling at a certain 5th grade boy, asking him why he is so rude. And I thought I liked my job...
During one of my classes, I told a 1st grade boy to keep his eyes on his own computer. He ignored me. So I said it a little louder. Still ignored me. I called his name, and he STILL ignored me. I shouted his name and he finally looked at me (as did half of the other kids in the room) and the little girl sitting next to him said, "That's not Will, that's Caleb." Oops. I did apologize for yelling at him.
It's 2:45 and I haven't been to the bathroom since 6:20am when I got up. I think I might wet my pants. If I do, you'll hear about it next Friday, I'm sure.
I'm addicted to Facebook Gaming. Triple Town and Gardens of Time, specifically. And apparently, I am smarter than a fifth grader, which is way more affirming than it should be.
I am also addicted to my Jason Mraz Pandora station. I also added We Are the In Crowd to the influences for that station and I've been rocking out. I need to start working out, which I thought of because "rocking out" sounds a lot like "working out" to me.

I think that about covers it for this week. See? Didn't I tell you it was good? Or bad? Whichever.

I'm Hungry

2011-12-09T09:33:00.001-06:00

and Pinterest isn't helping! I missed breakfast this morning because didn't realize that tonight's dinner plan was to make game hens in the crockpot until 6:42 this morning as I was putting the milk back in the fridge and saw the hens, all thawed out and waiting to be potted. So I dumped my cereal down the drain and threw together what I am sure will not be my most spectacular meal ever. Although, I did get all the ingredients into the pot. So that fiasco made me 5 minutes late to leave the house, which meant that I dropped my hubby off at work 5 mintues later than I normally do, but I still had time to make a Mickey D's run. Until an enormous contruction vehicle pulled into the road in front of me, blocking my lane and the passing lane and moved forward so unbelievably slowly. I think I saw a snail sludge past me. Seriously. By the time the monstrosity has gotten out of the way, I only had 3 minutes to make it to work on time and that's the story of how I missed breakfast.

Unfortunately, when I got to work, I logged onto Pinterest and started looking at all the new recipes that had been posted since yesterday. I think my stomach is going to turn itself inside out over some of those pictures I saw. Namely, this one:

Seriously? How can you look at that on a day that you missed breakfast and not drool all over your keyboard?

*sigh*

In other news, we're doing Secret Santa at work and the other day, I walked up to the person I drew and said, "Did you get anything good?" The person sighed and said, "I got another soda and more candy. My Secret Santa is trying to make me fat!" Facepalm. I should've known better than to ask.

My Christmas tree only has a string of cranberries around the top 2 layers because the string I made wasn't long enough, and I don't have enough cranberries to make a string long enough to go around the bottom of the tree and I keep forgetting to buy them when I go to the store.

Yesterday, I told a kid that I wasn't going to send him back to class unless he lit something on fire. He promptly got out of his chair and started to fiddle with the printer. I also told a class of second grader's about "pinch, punch, first day of the month!". And now their teacher is telling me that they're pinching and punching each other. I'm just going to stop talking to these kids before I give them any more dangerous ideas.

I've been writing this post over the last hour, in between helping kids do stuff on the computer and my mind had gotten off of the fact that I missed breakfast. Then I sat down to finish the post and I saw the picture of the eggs and bacon baked in the potato and I got hungry all over again. I have decided that Pinterest is self-defeating. And yet, I will be going back there as soon as I post this. I just can't stay away.

Have a great weekend!

Rip Van Winkle

2011-12-06T13:32:00.001-06:00

Have you ever heard the story of Rip Van Winkle? If not, I'll recap for you: he slept for twenty years. (There's more to the story than that, but that's the part on which I want to focus.)

I kinda feel like Rip Van Allison. The last few months have been ridiculous. I stopped blogging in September because I forgot to take some photos for my 30-day photography challenge and didn't want to blog again until I caught up. Needless to say, I didn't catch up. Then October came, and with it, a visit to the doctor and a diagnosis of severe depression. Like, really severe. They wanted to send me to an inpatient facility. Which I refused. But I did start taking an anti-depressant and seeing a counsellor. Then I discovered Pinterest. And a game on Facebook called Gardens of Time. And all the energy I was spending on blogging was suddenly being spent on my scroll button as I gazed longingly at the houses I will never have, the crafts I will never do, and the food that I have already begun to make.

And that's about all you've missed (if you missed anything) in the life of me. I did host my first Thanksgiving gathering at our apartment. I found a fantastic recipe for a whole turkey breast, which I really want to make again. Ooh! And I finally decorated our apartment! I put pictures in the frames and hung them on the wall. I dragged my best friend to Hobby Lobby, Goodwill and Garden Ridge to help me pick out throw pillows and a mirror for the wall. We bought a Christmas tree and it's almost all decorated and our apartment is really looking like a woman lives there now. (It certainly took me long enough.)

And in case you were wondering, the anti-depressants are working fantastically and I am feeling MUCH more like myself. But be warned, because happy Allison whistles and makes REALLY dumb jokes (put your pointer finger horizontally under your nose and go tell your spouse that you "mustache" them a question.") and sings ALL the time.

And just because I wanted to use the word "and" again, I need to tell you that the Jim Brickman Holiday station on Pandora is WONDERFUL instrumental Christmas music. It is making my stressful school day so much calmer.

I don't know how much I will be blogging in the future, but I'll try not to disappear again. I can't wait to catch up on all the blogs I missed, I hope that your lives are more exciting than mine! :-)

Day 8: A Bad Habit

2011-09-08T21:04:00.004-05:00

I have lots of bad habits. But I didn't want to take a picture of my nibbled-on nails, the half-empty can of Pringles in my pantry, or of the speedometer as I went home going 45 in a 35. So I took a picture of my kitchen sink. My husband has agreed to do the dishes after dinner. He hasn't done then dishes since Monday. That's his bad habit. My bad habit is that I don't do anything about it and let the dishes pile up. So, here's a picture of our kitchen sink, with some photo editing.

:-)

Day 7

2011-09-08T08:35:00.002-05:00

I know, I know, today isn't really Day 7, it's Day 8. But last night, my computer was being sooo slow and I couldn't even get the picture to upload to my editing site. So I waited and posted it first thing this morning. Please forgive my tardiness. And don't worry. Today's picture should be posted later today.

Days 5 and 6

2011-09-06T22:32:00.002-05:00

Day 6: From a low angle.

Day 5, Coming Soon

2011-09-06T10:07:00.000-05:00

I did not get a chance to post my Day 5 picture yesterday, but I took it, and I will get it up later today, along with Day 6. I skipped Music Monday in honor of the Labor Day weekend, and due to the fact that on Friday, my sinus and respiratory system staged an all-out attack on my well-being. On Saturday, my asthma joined the assault. It was so sad that the weather was so lovely, but I hardly had the energy to go downstairs to lay on the couch. By Monday evening, I was feeling better, and today, only the final vestiges of battle still remain: a hacking cough and the remnants of what could have become pneumonia if I hadn't stared taking Sudafed 12 hour decongestant and Mucinex. (FYI, those two meds together are what I swear by when it comes to sinus infections and respiratory infections. They clear everything out and keep you from getting really sick if you start taking them at the onset of sinus symptoms).

I did manage to bake some bread and some Nutella Cupcakes this weekend. The cupcakes turned out pretty well, but I think that next time I will frost them. They were just a bit on the dry side.

So that was my weekend. How was yours?

Day 4

2011-09-04T21:35:00.000-05:00

I have to be honest. I cheated on this one. I waited for DH to come home from work to take me to the park for this picture. But then he didn't talk me till after it got dark. So I'm posting a picture from our honeymoon.

Day 4: Something Green

Day 3

2011-09-03T20:09:00.000-05:00

I love my point-and shoot, but I have to wonder if a better camera with a more sophisticated lens might have better captured the moon, which is that tiny little crescent shaped thingy just above the tree.

Photo Challenge: Day 2

2011-09-02T18:26:00.001-05:00

Photoblog Challenge

2011-09-02T08:57:00.000-05:00

Good morning everyone! It's Friday! I am very excited. Know why? Because it's a 3 day weekend!!! The only thing better than Labor Day weekend is Thanksgiving Break. And the only thing better than Thanksgivng Break is Spring Break. And the only thing better than Spring Break is Christmas Break. And the only thing better than Christmas Break is... you guessed it, the LAST DAY OF SCHOOL! But I digress.

Yesterday I was going to start a 30 day photography challenge. But the assignment for Day 1 was a self-portrait. And after I got home from work, I slept for two hours, woke up to say goodbye to my husband (stupid football game and friends who like to watch the stupid football game), and then pretty much just sat on the couch, waiting for it to be late enough for me to justify going back to bed. So I took my self portrait with my phone on the way to work. And I'm going to post Day One and Day Two today. But not now. I haven't taken the Day 2 photo yet. I'm not even sure what it's supposed to be, but I have my camera with me at school today. So I'll get it and then I will blog it. Be excited. I'm sure it will be epic. Or not. But at least it will help me get some pictures on this thing. I realize that my blog is extremely picture deficient. That's probably because my life is really photo-op deficient.

Anyway, without further ado, please allow me the pleasure of introducing you to the Metamorphosis 30 Day Photography Challenge. *drum roll*

Music Monday: Nothing But the Blood

2011-08-29T13:42:00.000-05:00

It's Music Monday again!

This weekend, God really broke my heart over the flippant way I view my sin. I tend to look at it as a normal part of life, something that is inevitably going to happen, and therefore, not something to cause me to freak out. Our pastor preached Lamentations 3 yesterday. In Lamentations 3 are the verses which inspired the hymn, "Great is Thy Faithfulness". It's a chapter where the prophet Jeremiah is mourning the destruction of his people, Israel. He says that God has broken his teeth with gravel and covered him with ashes (v. 16). But then he remembers the covenant promise that God made with Israel so many years before. He promised that they would be His chosen people, and out of them would come Messiah, who would save His people from their sins. And even though Israel continually failed to hold up their end of the covenant, God was faithful to keep His promise.

What I've never realized before is that God made a blood covenant with me, when He called me to accept the sacrifice of His son and to become His daughter. His covenant with me promises that He will cover all my sins with the blood that Jesus spilled on the cross, that He will claim me as His own, that I will not die, but will have everlasting life. My covenant with Him says that "it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me" (Gal 2:20). I no longer have to right to live in my own will. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. My covenant promise is that I will live for Him and the way He wills. I must conform my will to His.

And even though I fail miserably at holding up my end of the covenant, God is faithful. He does not nullify the covenant with me when I fail, just as He didn't abandon Israel. He is faithful.

I have entered into a blood covenant with the Almighty God of all. And I am a fool to think that violating the terms of that covenant is something to be taken lightly. When Israel violated the covenant relationship, God responded with warnings, and when those went unheeded, He sent other kingdoms to destroy His chosen people. I have spent too long treating my sins as mundane and unavoidable. I have sought to execute my own will instead of seeking His. And now, I am filled with wonder and gratefulness that He is infinitely more faithful than I.

Consider the blood of Christ today, and what it means to you. How seriously are you taking the covenant that God made with you when He called you as His own?

My set list for tonight is as follows:

Glorious One (Steve Fee)
Mighty to Save (Hillsong)
How He Loves (David Crowder)
Glorious Day (Casting Crowns)
How Deep the Father's Love for Us (Stuart Townend)

I hope you have a blessed week.

Introducing.....

2011-08-22T10:50:00.000-05:00

Welcome friends, to my new "thing". Today shall henceforth and forevermore be known as Music Monday here at Metamorphosis! Whoa, that's a lot of M's. Totally didn't do that on purpose. The point of Music Monday is to share music! Music that you just found and are absolutely loving, music that you've known FOREVER, but want to share again because it's so stinking awesome, or even music that perhaps shouldn't even be counted as such. I will hopefully be able to post at least a clip of the songs that I find each week, if not a YouTube video. On Music Monday, I will also begin posting the setlist of worship music that I will be playing for my Bible study group.

So here we go. The very first Music Monday. I feel I should pause in honor of this auspicious occasion.

...

Good enough. :-)

The song I want to share this week is becoming one of my favorite worship songs. It is a good song that reminds me a little more of Who God is when I consider the lyrics. I hope you enjoy it and it touches your heart!

My setlist for tonight:

Happy Day - Tim Hughes
Marvelous Light - Charlie Hall
Cannons - Phil Wickham
Revelation Song - Jennie Lee Riddle

I hope you have a wonderful week! I'm having fun seeing all the little ones from my school who have gone from pre-k to kindergarten, kindergarten to first grade and so on. They are all so cute, and even after only knowing them for one school year, they still seem too young to be such big boys and girls. I can only imagine the way all you parents feel.

Whew.

Happy Music Monday!

Chocolate Cake and Flying Pups

2011-08-12T10:04:00.000-05:00

Happy Friday everyone. Except me. I didn't want this Friday to come because this Friday signifies a very sad thing. Summer is over and I have to go back to work on Monday. UGH. I am thankful I have a job. I am thankful that I have a job that I don't hate. I am thankful I have a job where I get paid to not work for two and a half months. All that being said... I do not want to go back to work on Monday.

Last week I made a chocolate cake and icing from scratch. I ate some. It was good. My best friend's husband also ate some. He said it was good. My husband ate some. He said chocolate isn't his favorite. This week, I made spice cake and butter icing from scratch. I ate some. It was gooooooood. I ate some for breakfast this morning. My husband ate some. He said that he likes chocolate better.

Facepalm.

One of my favorite things that we've begun to do as a married couple is go hang out with our friends, Amanda Jo and David. Amanda and David have a dog named Benny. I do not like dogs. I'm sorry if you think that is unAmerican, but it is true. Dogs are hairy, dirty, smelly and they have breath that smells like death. Benny is not a dirty or particularly smelly dog. I like Benny more than most dogs. But not enough to let him cuddle in my lap. Which is what he tried to do last week. So I picked him up and threw him. Which didn't seem like such a bad idea in my head, but the execution of tossing the poor pup to David's lap failed miserably.

So the next time we went to Benny's house, I let him sit in my lap and I petted him.

I think he forgave me.

I have spent way too much time over the last few weeks playing SIMS 2 on my PS2. (It's better than watching a zillion and one depressing crime shows.) I've completed about 50% of the game. And I haven't turned off the PS2 in days because I can't find the memory cards and I don't want to lose all that hard work.

When I was 19, I got a new-to-me car. On my one-week anniversary with this car, I showed it my appreciation by sidling it up against a huge truck. The passenger side front door would never open again. Now I'm 24. And I got a new car this week. I am staying far, FAR away from all ginormous pickup trucks.

I go back to work Monday. The kids show up the Monday after that. I am going to be teaching computer this year. Pray for me. I've never taught computer before. I am scared.

Have a good weekend! :-)

Confessions of a Newlywed

2011-07-29T15:37:00.000-05:00

Hello again! It's been so long, I hope you still remember me! My confessions aren't going to be in bullet points today. They're better served with paragraph-like form.

I've been married 48 days, and, to be honest, I think that the newlyweds who gush that newlywed life is, "so great! We've never been happier," are just being cliche. That's not to say that I'm not happy. I am. I love my husband and I'm very glad to be married to him. But this whole newly wed thing just seems like a natural extension of normal life. It's not the fairytale that I used to think it would be. He leaves the toilet seat up right before bed, and I fall in when I go to the bathroom in the middle of the night without turning the light on first. I creep him out by leaving hair in the shower. We bicker about who takes up more space when it's time to sleep. Then I apparently kick him in my sleep while I'm having nightmares about getting pregnant and being chased through the street (no more NCIS before bed). He tells me he's leaving for work and then scares the crap out of me when he comes back upstairs, looking for his keys (no wonder I kicked him). I make dinner and he does the dishes. I fill up the trash can and he takes it out, although after last trash day, I feel the need to check the locks after he comes in. He tickles me when I'm not paying attention to him. I do laundry (it works better when you don't get the fabric softener mixed up with the detergent) and bake (also works better when you don't confuse baking powder with baking soda), he acts like I'm a culinary genius when my first attempt at yeast rolls turns out perfectly risen and moist and yummy and gratefully stops eating when his picky, but creative wife proclaims the new recipe she tried is absolutely disgusting.

All of this is just life. It's messy, and boring and fun and normal.

I guess that's what happens after the fairy tale ending. After the credits roll and the music ends. Life just happens. And I guess that IS the happily ever after. Because the alternative is life not happening. And that;s just a buzz-kill.

Welp, it's date night, my hubby will be home in about 2 hours and I still haven't washed my hair or shaved my legs, so I should probably sign off.

I go back to work August 17. School starts again August 22. My principal called me yesterday and instead of being the library aide this year, I'm going to be the computer teacher. I'm excited to try something new, but I'm sad that I won't be in the library. Wish me luck, I probably won't have anything new to post until after school starts. Most of what I do these days doesn't merit being written about.

Take care, everyone!

A Wedding Story

2011-07-12T11:29:00.000-05:00

I know it's been almost a month, but I finally got the pictures from the wedding! So now I can tell you the story of our wedding. (Since I know you've been waiting with baited breath to hear all about it)

The first thing I learned about planning my wedding is that I should have taken more pictures myself. Or else I should learn to draw. I am fairly certain I will never forget June 10-11, 2011, but I didn't take the pictures that speak so much more than the descriptive words I could use. Oh well. On Friday, I spent all morning and the afternoon at the church setting up for the wedding. I could not have done it without my wonderful friend Amanda Jo who stepped in at the last minute to be my maid-of-honor (that's a story for another day), packed up her laptop and Star Wars movie for her little guy to watch, got me a sandwich from Chick-fil-a, and came up to the church to help me set everything up; my mom and sister Amanda, who also came up to the church and helped set tables, dye water, distribute Hershey kisses, etc. We also made the buttonieres for all they guys. Even some of the groomsmen came and helped move tables and stuff. We set each table with a white table cloth, a 12" by 12" square mirror, a half-fishbowl type of bowl half-filled with purple water and floating ivory candles, and a mix of milk and dark chocolate Hershey kisses.

The guestbook table

I chose not to decorate the sanctuary, so there aren't any pictures of how we did that. :-) (Side note, I think not decorating the sanctuary was a GREAT idea. Less to do = less stress = happier bride)

After decorating all day, I had just enough time to go home, shower and get ready for the rehearsal dinner.

Everything went smoothly, and we walked down the aisle for the first time.

The dinner was yummy. Matt's family did most of the cooking, and we had barbeque. After we ate, I went back to my apartment with Matt, John (the Best Man) and his girlfriend, and Cody (one of our ushers) and his wife Sarah. Then I realized I didn't have any shaving gel, so we had to go to Walmart.

Saturday morning, I woke up at 6:45. Not because of nerves, but because my sister CALLED me to tell me that I was getting married that day. I was rather mad at her for waking me up when I was so peacefully unaware that in just 7 hours and 15 minutes, I would be walking down the aisle, but I was also happily excited that in just 7 hours and 15 minutes, I would be walking down the aisle, so I didn't even give her a hard time for waking me up at such an ungodly hour.

We stopped at the florist to pick up the flowers for the girls and everything was BEAUTIFUL. I wish I had taken a good picture of my bouquet, but there were other things on my mind... In addition to looking beautiful, our flowers smelled lovely too, thanks to the addition of purple freesia. Mmm. FYI, if you need flowers and live in the DFW area, call Cooper's Florist in Bedford. Jamie is a wonderful Christian lady and she did a beautiful job for a very reasonable price.

Then we were at the church and it was time to get ready! (And I'm totally about to blow it up with photos. (Yay!)

My dress! I was so excited to get to wear it. My momma picked it out and it is so beautiful. Now I'm kinda sad that I won't get to wear it again. (Nerd alert!)

I will never, EVER wear a petticoat in June again. It made my dress look AWESOME, but it was hot.

As in, I had to put anti-perspirant on my upper thighs.

Yeah.

Ugh.

My momma laced up my dress. In the top picture I was apparently talking animatedly about something, but I don't remember what. Sorry. In the bottom picture, I was holding my breath and sucking in, praying that the dress would fit. Guess who had nightmares about ballooning to the size of a gorilla?

Amanda's friend Crissy gave me a HUGE blessing by coming up to the church and doing our makeup. She even had fake eyelashes for me! (They kinda freaked Matt out at first, but I thought they looked epic!)

And after my hair was fixed, the veil in place, makeup done, dress on, flowers in hand, this was this finished product.I felt so absolutely beautiful. Which I have decided is a minor purpose of weddings.

After all the pre-wedding photos were done, we still had to wait 45 minutes for the ceremony to start. One of my bridesmaids prayed Proverbs 31 over me,

and I ate a granola bar. But I don't have a picture of that. Aren't you sad? I'm sorry.

Then everyone left me to go line up, but I couldn't leave the dressing room because I didn't want Matt to see me, and he wasn't in the sanctuary yet. And I had to watch my flowergirl because there wasn't anyone else to keep her from running amok and messing up her sash. So we sang songs from the Sound of Music and then it was time to go. I got in line with my grandpa and waited for the doors to open.

Then I walked down the aisle and got married. :-)

My Ring Bearer and Flower Girl

The doors opening

I'm not sure why I made this face.

"I...

...do."

Alrighty, I know I'm stopping in the middle of the ceremony, but my computer is freaking out and I've been working on this post for 3 days and I really don't want to lose it. So I'll post the second half of the ceremony and the reception pictures later.

Hope you're having a good week!

~Allison~

Breaking the Ice

2011-06-23T21:31:00.000-05:00

Following Amy at Ha ha, Wait. What?, I have discovered a new blog. I'm going to try this out today. Not sure if I'll do it again, but I enjoy these little questionnaires and they help when I have writer's block. Which seems to be more often than not. Oh well. Hope you'll link up too!

Tell one thing that not many people know about you.

-My bellybutton is pierced

If you had to change your first name, what would you change it to?

-Hmm... I haven't ever really thought about it. When I was little, I wanted a shorter name. But I dunno. I've really gotten into Hebrew names lately. But I want those for any kids we may have. Eliana is my favorite. It means, "The Lord has answered"

What are your three favorite songs at the moment?

-1. Honey Bee by Blake Shelton

2. Dancing Like This by Paco Estrada

3. Why Don't We Just Dance by Josh Turner

List 3 goals on your life's to-do list.

1. Become a mommy

2. Go skydiving

3. Become a person who is a living example of Jesus Christ

What is one of your favorite quotes?

"I am not, but I know I AM" - Louie Giglio

Fill in the blank: "If I had an extra $10, I would buy ______"

Ten bucks? Probably an extra sushi roll. Love me some sushi!

What's your birth date?

March 9

Do you have a hidden talent? If so, what is it?

If I told you, it wouldn't be hidden.

What do you think of when you hear the word, "blue"?

Skies, I suppose.

Finish this thought, "I need..."

"...another glass of water."

I hope everyone had a lovely Thursday. See you all tomorrow for Fess Up Friday! (And do I have a doozy for you!)

I'm Baaack!

2011-06-17T17:08:00.000-05:00

Hello lovelies! Did you miss me? I certainly missed all of you. Last week was so crazy, what with the wedding and everything and then this week, my hubby and I went off the grid for our honeymoon (we just went to San Antonio, but we turned off our phones and didn't check Facebook for 4 whole days... except when I sneaked it while Matt was sleeping, shh, don't tell).

I have a ton of pictures to share, but I haven't gotten the ones from the wedding yet, so I want to wait to show the honeymoon pics till after I've shared the weddings pics. Keeping it all in order, ya know?

I have some really funny Fess Ups from the week before the wedding, when I had total Bride Brain. I would've lost my head last week if it wasn't attached to my neck. It seems to be coming back now though.

So here we go.

Friday evening, after spending all day setting up for the reception, I went home to take a shower and get ready for the Rehearsal Dinner. I was out of the shower and mostly dressed before I went to apply my deodorant and discovered that I had only managed to shave one of my armpits while I was in the shower.

Also Friday evening, I was getting ready for the Rehearsal dinner, I had to dry my hair. Once I was finished, I flipped the vent hood switch on the wall to turn off the dryer. When that didn't work, I flipped the switch back to where it had been and tried the switch next to it. That switch turned out the light in the bathroom. At this point, I was getting frustrated. After all, I'd never had any trouble turning off the hair dryer before! I flipped the light switch back on and tried the vent switch again before I realized that if I wanted to turn off the hairdryer, I would need to slide the switch on the dryer's handle into the "Off" position.

On Saturday morning, my sweet friend Amanda Jo was working on my hair. She did something goofy with it, just joking around, and I kinda laughed and said, "No, I don't like that." She continued to joke with me (and I knew she was joking), and I freaked out a little. (I yelled, "PANICKING, STOP!!!!)

While waiting for my cue to come out of the dressing room, my aunt (also the pianist) asked me to keep an eye on my cousin (also the flower girl), so that I could keep her (my cousin) calm so she wouldn't mess up her dress. To entertain her, I asked what her favorite song was. I spent the last 5 minutes of my single life singing songs from The Sound of Music.

On Tuesday night, Matt and I were sitting in bed and I just started bawling because I was sad that the wedding is over. I was like, "What do we do now???" And my husband sweetly answered, "Be married! Have fun! Hang out with other married couples and have fahncy din-nah pahtees." I think that just might have been one of the sweetest things he has ever said to me.

2011-06-06T14:02:00.000-05:00

Happy Monday to everyone out there in Bloggerville! It's already 99 degrees Fahrenheit here in Northeast Tarrant County, and today is only the 6th day of June. Days are a bit warm, but the evenings are beautiful right now.

I don't really have a good reason for clicking the "New Post" button this afternoon, I was just reading the blogs that I'm subscribed to and realizing how much I enjoy blogging. I love reading about what other people are doing, seeing, tasting, etc. It's just alot of fun. And even though I only exchange comments with a few of you, I still feel like I've got this crazy online network of friends that I know better than I would if we were just on Facebook together or something like that.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is, "Thank you!" Thank you for sharing your life with me. We're all in different stages of life and those of you who are ahead of me in the marriage and motherhood department make me smile with your stories of daily life, and make me look forward to the days when it's my turn even more. Those of you who may be my age but in a different place open my eyes to the fact that the world is so much bigger than the path that I have chosen. There are so many other, different choices to make and things to do and places to live. I am very happy with this life that I have chosen to love (no, that's not a typo), but it's cool and exciting to see what else is out there. And those of you who are just stepping out into this journey called life, you make me reminisce about the happy times I had when I was where you are, and then I hope and pray for you, that God will grant you the joy and love that He has seen fit to shower upon me. I am excited for you, because you have such grand things ahead of you, so many choices and decisions and things to do, see and believe! It's exhilarating for me to see the excitement in you.

I haven't met so many of you, but I've had the privilege to share in your life, just a little bit. And today I am realizing that it is such a treasure to share with you. I only hope that I am able to touch you in the same way that you touch me.

So thank you! And keep the blogs coming! I'm getting married in 5 days, I need something to keep me sane! :-)

Lost at Sea

2011-06-03T01:20:00.000-05:00

So I apparently got in the sea of things that I have to do that do not involve the clicking of a keyboard as I type about random things.

I haven't even been able to keep up with all of your updates. I feel so out of the loop. And I'm sure that it's only going to get worse over the next week. 8 days to go.

How was Memorial Day? Mine was busy. I went shopping with one of my bridesmaids that morning, then I went shopping with my momma. Then I went to CareNow, because I contracted pinkeye in my left eye. By Monday at noon, both eyes were infected . Ugh. It's clearing up now, though, so I'm very thankful.

I'm trying out Pinterest, but I'm not very good at it.

My sister has something like 136 followers on her Tumblr. I'm jealous.

Maybe I should read it. And copy her style.
........
Or not.

It's Friday, technically, but I'm afraid that Fessing Up won't happen again till after the wedding. And it may not happen again till after school starts back up. I'm just not as exciting when it's summer and I don't really have anything to do.

And we all know that I am so exciting normally. :-)

Have a good weekend everyone!

Rain, Hail and Swirling Vortexes

2011-05-24T22:17:00.000-05:00

It's tornado season. As I type this, I can hear the rain beating against the window and I am just waiting for the "Emergency Alert System" to start blaring from the TV that my fiance is watching. I don't know what the rest of tonight will hold as far as the storms go, but it seems to me that there has been a lot of disaster lately. Between the flooding in the Mississippi River basin and the tornados in Alabama and Missouri and the one that touched down not 10 miles from my house earlier this evening, combined with the arrest and suicide of a local pastor and the continued unrest in the middle east, I'm feeling like the world cannot continue like this much longer.

As much as I disagree with those who would try to predict the day that the world is going to end, I cannot say that I blame them for thinking that the end must be near. This is a sad and scary world that we live in. But in the middle of all this sin and destruction, there is hope.

And that wonderful hope is that God is in control. And He works all to His glory. I cannot say that I understand how He will gain glory from what I see to be horrendous disaster, but I can most certainly take comfort in the fact that He is a very good God, and that everything He does has a purpose.

Being reminded of the wretchedness of this world makes me long for the perfection, peace and joy of Heaven, which is a wonderful thing. Too often I get caught up in the temporal pleasures of this life. It is good to be reminded that this is not our home.

Hosanna Adonai. Come, Lord.

'Fess Up Friday... I Got Nothing

2011-05-20T14:33:00.000-05:00

So... it's Friday again. and I'm not all that excited. I usually love Fridays. But this Friday is just taunting me. Because it's not next Friday, which just happens to be the last day of school. That Friday is looking all bright and shiny and special. Which makes this cloudy, rainy Friday look like... well... a cloudy, rainy Friday and when school is over today, I will go home and have nothing to do because most of my friends are busy (work, families, other plans) and my fiance is going to be busy with his buddies at his bachelor party and I won't even be allowed to tex him.

*sigh*

Well, I can probably text him, but I've been informed that he will not be allowed to text me back. And I don't really want to text him during his bachelor party. That would kind of defeat the purpose of a bachelor party.

*sigh*

I feel really lame.

I didn't even change my Facebook status all week.

Maybe if I go shopping I will feel better.

But I think that will probably remind me that I haven't lost the weight that I need to lose for my wedding that is 3 weeks from tomorrow.

It's good to know that next Friday I will not be so depressed. I will be ecstatic about the end of school.

*sigh*

5 more days.

Fess Up Friday

2011-05-13T14:04:00.000-05:00

It's Friday! Blogger has been down all day and I've been so sad. But now it's back ond the world is right again. What a crazy week. Two more weeks of school and I'm getting antsy. 10 more days. There is so much to do! Between running inventory and trying to make sure all of the books come back and get repaired and shelved and trying to control the kiddo's in the cafeteria, I'm surprised I haven't lost my mind yet.

Added to that is the fact that my wedding is 4 weeks from tomorrow, and I've still got to send thank you cards for shower gifts, re-send the invitations that came back with an incorrect address, decide how I'm going to wear my hair, pay the florist, choose a punch recipe, and a dozen other things.
Woot. Gotta love being busy. Welp, on to the confessions.

I led worship for evening service last Sunday. I wore a cute white skirt and a brown top with a pastel-melony colored cami. I was trying really hard to focus only on God while I played and sang, but all of a sudden, I started feeling this trickle of sweat run down the back of my leg, and all I could think about from that point on was, "Lord, please don't let anyone see!"
I've recently discovered that I have a mild lactose intolerance (as if I needed something else to add to my nerd factor). This week I decided to try removing dairy from my diet to see what happened. I posted that I was removing dairy from my diet on Facebook, after which I noticed that the ads that run on the margins of the page had changed from wedding-themed to soymilk and ice-cream. Not sure how those two go together.
I had two more things to add. I was thinking about them last night. I thought, "Oh yeah, I can't forget about these. I've got to remeber so that I can post them for Fess Up Friday...." Guess what. I forgot.

Sorry that's all I've got. I've got a shower for me this weekend, a shower for someone else and a wedding next weekend, a shower for me the next weekend and I'm getting married the weekend after that. Holy cow time is speeding by. My ringbearer pillow came in! It's a lot bigger than I thought it would be, but oh well.

Still waiting on the cake topper.

I'm really excited. Have a great weekend everyone!

Questions for me

2011-05-12T10:02:00.000-05:00

Happy Thursday everyone. Although I have recently decided that Thursdays are pretty useless. (Except for the fact that The Big Bang Theory airs on Thursday nights) Seriously. Poor Thursday is the day stuck between Wednesday (Hooray, the week is half-over!!!) and Friday (WEEKEND!!!). It's not special and it's nothing to get excited about.

But I digress. I was reading Inside the Cabinet of Wonder and Nicola mentioned doing a question post. Once she explained the idea to me, I thought it sounded fun and now I am shamelessly copying her. So ask away! I'll collect the questions until I feel I've got enough to create a sufficiently interesting and lengthy post, answer them and then I will post the result.

Doesn't that sound fun? I think it does. Woot... Speaking of which, I need to check Woot.com, I haven't done that yet today!

I hope you find something good about Thursday!

Question for those who know more than I do

2011-05-11T15:04:00.000-05:00

Today marks the beginning of the "One Month Till Marriage" countdown. Yikes!

Today, I'd like to blog about a situation that I don't know what to do about, and now seems to be resolved, but I can't because I don't want to talk badly about my fiance, whom I love very much and am trying very hard to respect.

Oy vey.

31 days to go.

Fess Up Friday

2011-05-06T10:58:00.003-05:00

It's Friday, it's Friday... I'm so excited! Oh. Wait. I've got an inclement weather make up day tomorrow. Ugh. Oh well. Only 15 more days of school, and 17 more days of duty and then... SUMMER. Then 2 more weeks and then... MARRIAGE. Eek. Time is flying and crawling at the same time. It's kind of like when I was little and Christmas seemed to take forever to get here, but it's different.

*sigh*

Oh well, on to the 'fessions. :-)

I am in love with a book written for kindergarteners.

Isn't it cute?!?!? But why, you may ask, is this a confession?
Because I don't have children.

Along the same lines, I started a book by one of my favorite British authors on my birthday (in March). I still haven't finished it (or the other 2 books I bought with it) because I'm too busy reading books that were written for little kids. See the following:

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

And the slighty less embarassing because it has more than 10 pages,

Exhibit C

I played Scrabble with Amanda Jo last night. I won. By like, 30 points.
We're hanging out again on Saturday. I probably should not have bragged about beating her because pride comes before a fall.
Not sure if this counts as a confession, but I wanted to brag, pride fall or not.
I was in charge of bringing the snacks to Amanda's last night, I was really good and brought carrot and celery sticks. Then this morning, I went to the donut store. Oops.
I tried to say "phooey' and "poop" at the same time, in reaction to something not fun that had happened. I don't remember why I said it, I just know that when I tried to combine "phooey" and "poop", I got "foop"
I don't even wanna know what "foop" would look like.
I had to edit this post 3 times because I kept forgetting things I needed to put on here, like the "Fess up Button". The last time I had to click the "Edit Post" button, it was because I forgot to add that I had had to edit the post 3 times. Blah

I think that's all I've got for today. I'll add more if something else occurs to me. Have a great weekend everyone! And hug your momma. She deserves it, I know mine does!

2011-05-02T09:06:00.000-05:00

Wow. It's not even 9:00 and this Monday is already par for the course. I can't find my keys ANYWHERE, so Matt had to drive me to work this morning. I'm not sure how I'm going to get home. Locked inside my car are my school ID, my school keys, all of my jackets, extra wedding invitations, address labels and stamps. I still can't find my guitar chord notebook, and I'm supposed to be leading a night of worship at Bible study tonight.

To top it all off, it's raining and cold and my asthma is having a field day. Ugh. Happy Monday, right?

Fess Up Friday! Woot.

2011-04-29T10:49:00.000-05:00

Hooray! It's Friday. After spending 2 years waiting tables, I have a new appreciation for Friday. It no longer means a long, stressful evening of, "Would you like parmesan cheese on your pasta?" and "I'm so sorry I spilled that glass of iced tea all over your 5 year-old!" (that only happened once) or, "I'm sorry sir, but you've already had 16 beers, I can't bring you another one."

Ah, the adventures of waiting tables. I now have a solid appreciation for waitstaff. I do expect a little more from them, since I've done the job and I know what it takes to do it well, but I usually tip at least 20% because I remember how much it meant to me when I got a tip like that. (It meant I could have Wendy's for dinner that night instead of having to slurp down some Ramen when I got home).

But I digress. How was everyone's week? Mine was pretty good, I got a lot done for the wedding. I still can't decide how I want to wear my hair. Or how we're going to decorate the church. But I've still got 6 weeks. So I'm still not worried.

I'm more stressed about the fact that we're doing a night of worship at Bible study on Monday. I've never played the guitar and sang for an hour before. And I can't find my chord notebook. Ugh.

Okay, on to Fessing Up. I know that's what you came for. Alriiiight.

Easter was on Sunday. I planned to go to church with my mom and sisters. My middle sister called me Easter morning and said, "Hey, I thought you were going to church with us." The phone call had woken me up, so I groggily replied, "Yeah, I am. What time is it?" My sister then proceeded to tell me that it was 10:45 (the service started at 11) and that they had already left.
So that's the story of how I didn't go to church on Easter.

I went to try on my wedding dress on Tuesday. Remember how excited I was that I'd been so good and lost the 10 pounds that I needed to lose? Well... I found them again. :-( That might have something to do with the fact that I am mildly addicted to Chickfila.

I could not remember to go to the store to get milk to keep at school. So I kept having to buy the little cartons from the cafeteria.

I check woot.com every day. And while I'm there, I always click on the shirt.woot.com link.
I think I may have a problem.

I tried to get out of my desk chair a few minutes ago. Instead of putting my foot on the ground, though, I put it in the trash can under my desk. Fortunately, I did realize my mistake before trying to stand up and walk away.

I was so proud of myself for not calling that kid James Polk again this week. Then I remembered that I didn't see him this week because of TAKS testing.
What a letdown.

Okay, I think that's all I've got. Aside from this parting, unpaid advertisement. If you didn't watch The Big Bang Theory last night, you need to. Now. Seriously, click here.

Have a great weekend!

:-)

Etsy

2011-04-27T12:03:00.000-05:00

So... I have discovered Etsy. In love! This week I have purchased the following items from various shops on Etsty.

A personalized guest book.

A pen holder to use with said guestbook

And

A ringbearer pillow

I am so excited about how cute these things are and cannot wait to have them!

I know it's a short post, but that's all I'm really excited about today.

Except for the fact that I've chosen my music!!! I'm just going to post the processional and bridal entrance since I posted the other stuff a few weeks ago.

Enjoy!

The Butterfly Waltz will play during the seating of the mothers and the bridesmaids procession.

The Bridal March by Johnathan Cain is the song to which I will be walking down the aisle.

Hooray! Things are really falling into place!

46 more days.

:-)

'Fess Up Friday!!!

2011-04-22T08:51:00.000-05:00

Happy Friday everyone! I am so excited that the week is over! Only 5 more weeks of school! And today is the 50-day mark of the Wedding Countdown. This was a big wedding week. I bought the stuff to make our reception centerpieces. I wrote Thank You Notes for shower gifts.I stuffed, addressed, sealed and stamped the invitations. *Whew*

Time for some 'fessin' up! Woot. Are you ready for this? Here we go.

I spent most of Wednesday and Thursday alone in the library. That resulted in shelving all the books, a fnished template for address labels, and a little bit of dancing to my Michael Buble station on Pandora.

On Wendesday morning, I woke up at 6:37. I needed to leave for school at 6:40. And I was supposed to get up at 6 so I could start a crockpot meal for dinner that night. My alarm went off as I was pulling out of the drvieway at 6:50. Ugh.

I went to the post office to get stamps for our wedding invitations and was all excited because the poster for the stamps that are coming out next month was out and I saw that they were "Love" stamps and they were so pretty and I thought that I could get those stamps and they would be perfect, but then the postguy said that they weren't available yet and I was so bummed but then he pulled out a sheet of stamps that had purple flowers on them which is perfect because purple is one of my colors and the point of telling this story was so that I could make one of the longest run-on sentences I've ever written and guess what, I'm not even going to fix it even though the grammar nazi inside me is hollering for punctuation so there.

I called that kid James again. He laughs at it now. But he still corrects me.

I follow a blog called Fit Foodie Finds, and I love seeing her recipes and every time I read one of her entries, I get all motivated to start cooking at home and eating things that are more healthy and all that jazz... Then lunch time comes around and I go to Chick-fil-a and order a spicy chicken sandwich with a large fry and Chick-fil-a sauce and realize that I am much too happy with my slightly overweight self . I guess it's good that I don't hate myself, but I've got to find some sort of motivation to get in shape. I haven't seen Jillian Michaels in weeks. *shame*

On that happy note, have a great weekend!!!

Wedding Music

2011-04-20T10:13:00.000-05:00

It's Wednesday! Only 5 and a half more weeks of school. Only 7 and a half more weeks of singleness! Holy crap. :-) How is everyone? From the blogs I'm reading, it seems that everyone is well. Yay! Keep posting, I like stalking you!
Last night, I was so proud of myself because I wrote thank you cards for every gift that I received at the shower on Sunday! (I'm normally the kind of person who doesn't even know what a thank you card looks like). Now I just need to address and mail them, but hey, a job well begun is half-done, right? :-)

I'm trying to decide on music for the ceremony, and it's kicking my butt. We've chosen the prelude, "Out of My League" by Stephen Speaks:

And during the sand ceremony, we're going to have Paco Estrada play and sing his song, "Never Let You Go":

Then we'll be walking out to "All In" by Lifehouse:

That leaves the prelude and the processional. I want something that's heavy on the piano and lyricless. And I do not want to have the Bridal March or Canon in D. Those are beautiful songs, but they are too cliché and I can't stand that. I've been listening to a lot of Jim Brickman and I found a very talented lady whose name is Miranda Wong, but I just can't decide. If you have any suggestions, I am so open to hearing them! Literally!

Alrighty, well, I suppose I should get back to work. I've got a cartfull of books to shelve. Have a happy Wednesday and I will see y'all on Friday! Looking forward to 'fessing up, I did some goofy stuff this week!

Ciao!

Monday, Monday.

2011-04-18T11:26:00.000-05:00

I used to have the Garfield and Friends tv show on dvd, and today I am remembering a particular episode where Garfield made a wish that there would never be any more Mondays. Getting rid of Monday turned sour though, when Jon stopped getting paid because Monday was payday and he couldn't go to the grocery store because he always went on Monday, and the kids never went back to school because it was never Monday...

It's a little silly, but today I am wishing that there was an extra day between Sunday and Monday and it was illegal to be busy on that day. I could've used another 24 hours to rest and recover from this weekend. Don't get me wrong, it was a really good weekend, just a crazy one. Friday was pretty low key... I think... I'm not sure I remember what we did Friday evening. On Saturday, we drove all over the place picking up furniture, dropping off furniture, rearranging furniture, and getting ready to have friends over to dinner at my apartment for the very first time. I wish I'd taken pictures of what I made, because it turned out really good, and I was so proud of myself, even though my friends laughed at me when I insisted on using the china (the only real plates I had) to serve the pie I made.

Sunday was church day, and then we rushed to the mall so I could use the coupon I was saving to buy a dress for my bridal shower. We got to the mall at 12:45 or so, and the shower was supposed to start at 2. We made it though, and I scored the dress I wanted for less than 50% of the price on the tag. We rushed back to the church just in time to start saying hello to people as they came to the shower. It was a really nice shower, and for the first time, I really felt like a bride. It's kind of unreal. Especially considering there's only 54 more days till the wedding... We were very blessed by the shower, we got a lot of the kitchen stuff that we wanted. And a lamp, so now the living room isn't so stinking dark after the sun goes down! And some of the softest sheets I've ever felt. Mmm. :-) We got everything unpacked and put away before the sun went down. It's becoming more real. Eek!

I still need to send out invitations, pick all of the music for the ceremony, put together a playlist for the reception, create a "day-of" schedule, choose a hairstyle and accessories, buy gifts for my bridesmaids, send thank you cards... and do anything else I forgot... Maybe we should just elope. Just kidding.

Happy Monday!

'Fess Up Friday: Fiber, Freeways and... something that doesn't start with "F"

2011-04-15T10:04:00.001-05:00

Happy Friday everyone! I am so jazzed that this week is almost over. Only 6 more weeks of school and the kids are going nuts. I'm considering bringing earplugs to school to wear during cafeteria duty.

But then I wouldn't be able to hear it when they start strangling each other.

*sigh*

In other news, I get to go pick up my dress from the alterators (is that even a word) this afternoon! I hope it fits... Otherwise, I'll have to hop back on the diet bandwagon. And I am not a fan of that bandwagon. I like fried chicken, fried mushrooms, fried oreos (I only have those once every few years at the fair though).

And cake. I like cake too.

*sigh*

In different other news, I got the money from my wedding fund! So now I can start buying things. Pray I don't go into a maniacal spending spree... Because the irresponsible, money-blower inside me is just waiting till I drop my guard and then WHOMP, my bank account suddenly has a hole in it and alllll my money is gone. And the overdraft fees don't help.

*big sigh*

And now on to the main event: Fess Up Friday! Yet another reason to be jazzed for Fridays. :-)

Here we go:

A second grader asked me if it is okay to eat the skin on a baked potato. I told her, "Yeah! It's got a lot of fiber and that's really good for you!" She looked at me and said, "What does fiber do?" At that point, I told her the truth. "It helps you poop." I hope she didn't go home and tell her parents that...

I was driving to work yesterday, and I remember every moment of the drive, up till about a mile before I should've exited the freeway. At that point I completely spaced and didn't come back to earth until I'd driven past my exit. It kinda scares me that I have no memory of those moments. None whatsoever.
I am no fun. I am reminded of this every year as we drive down to the SENT conference because every year, someone decides to play Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" and I cannot stand that stupid song. But everyone else in the van loves it. Case in point: this video. I am the one with her head down on the seat, covering her ears, praying that the song would be over before my eardrums broke from the volume of the music I was blasting through my headphones so I wouldn't be able to hear anything that my friends were singing.
I burnt the back of my hand while boiling eggs. There's gotta be a first time for everything, I suppose. Oh! I also figured out how to blow a boiled egg out of it's shell. SO much easier than trying to peel the shell off. Don't worry, I waited till the eggs were very cold before attempting that. I wouldn't put my lips around a boiling hot egg. Just thinking about that hurts. Ouch.

I only have 3 followers. This bothers me, since I am following... more than 3 blogs. I should probably be worried about things that are happening in my physical life, but I'm stressing over cyberspace. Poo.

That's all the 'fess ups I've got, but stay tuned! I've got more to say!

Sunday is my first wedding shower! I am very excited. It's tempting to go online and check my registries to see what's been purchased. But Matt's mom has informed me that doing so is cheating. All I really want to know is if we've gotten the HDTV we registered for. Or the dishes. Or the bedding. Or everything.

:-)

Have a great weekend!!!

Fess Up... Thursday?

2011-04-07T10:31:00.001-05:00

Happy Thursday everyone!!! I'm headed out of town this weekend! We're going to Houston for the SENT conference at Champion Forest Baptist Church. It's a conference made to equip believers to live SENT, on the mission field and in every day life. This is going to be the third time I've attended this conference, and I am really excited. It's going to be a really good weekend. Because of this conference, I will not be able to blog tomorrow like I normally do, so I thought I'd just jump the gun and do Fess Up Friday today, even though it's a Thursday. If you are apalled that I would do Fess Up Friday on Thursday, just don't read any more of this blog until tomorrow. Then it will be Fess Up Friday and all will be well. No sweat.

Here we go.

We took engagement photos this weekend. I think you can tell we had a good time, the people walking past us as we took this particular picture were laughing at us. So I thought I'd give y'all the opportunity to laugh too... He proposed without any encouragement from me, I promise!

I am such a loving woman. Matt accidentally rammed "himself" into my knee and while he grunted in pain, what did I do? I laughed.

Hard.

Matt had a piece of pepper stuck in his teeth. So I used my fingernail to get it out. I thought I was preparted for anything (I keep everything but the kitchen sink in my purse) but apparently I forgot the toothpicks. Ugh.

I'm 24 years old and I still love climbing in, on and around trees. This one was hollow. I thought it was super cool. That might be why I got made fun of in high school... Hmm.

I think that'll do it for this week . I'll post some of our engagement photos next week, after I've had time to edit them and choose my favorites. Until then, I'll leave you with one of my favorites. Have a good weekend!

Comment Question

2011-04-06T08:54:00.001-05:00

I'm not sure that blogging this question will help at all, but I'm going to try.

I follow several blogs, and I love to comment on what I read! I think that the point of blogging is to share ideas and inspire conversation. The problem I'm having is that with a couple of the blogs I follow (namely Fit Foodie Finds and Wonder Woman Wannabe) is that I can't find the "Comments" link. And it frustrates me! Am I missing something??? Am I losing my eyesight? I know I wear glasses, but I didn't think that my eyes were that bad...

If you're reading this, and you can help me, I would be so very grateful. I might have to hug you. Unless you live in another state. Then I'd just send you a thank you card. Or e-mail. Something like that.

:-)

'Fess Up Friday: Kolaches, Chickens, and Littering

2011-04-01T08:33:00.001-05:00

Happy Friday Blogville!!! Only 7 more weeks of school! And only 10 weeks till I get married! Holy crud, there's a LOT going on. My sister is still in the hospital, but they've moved her to a regualr room, so that is an improvement. I hope she gets to go home today. She's been really bored because even though she's been sick enough to be in ICU, she doesn't feel very bad.

I'm reading The Lightning Thief. It's really good. It's one of those books that I can't read fast enough. I just want to curl up in bed and read till I'm finished with it. But I haven't had the time to be able to do that. Ugh.

We're taking engagement photos on Sunday, and I still haven't found time to go shopping for an outfit. Grr. Oh well. Everything will work out and it will be good. And now, here's what you've all been waiting for: my confessions! Enjoy! And have a splendiforous day!

On Sunday after church, my fiancé, myself and a friend of ours piled in Matt's car and drove to a town about an hour away to get kolaches. Let me repeat, we drove almost an hour to get kolaches. If you were wondering about our priorities, now you know.

On the way back from Kolache town, I saw a live chicken on the side of the freeway, next to the dividing wall between the North and Southbound sides. After my initial shock at seeing a chicken on the freeway ("Holy crap! Is that a live chicken?????"), my first thought was, "That isn't going to be a live chicken for long..."

I was driving with my sister and my fiancé last night. We had gone to Wendy's earlier in the evening and were headed to Sonic for ice cream when we had to stop at a red light. My sister opened her door, threw her Wendy's cup out of the car and said, "I mess with Texas." I was all set to lecture her about the importance of not littering when my fiancé handed her his cup so she could throw it out, too. Mortified.

I just used the word splendiforous. I don't think that's even a word outside of UrbanDictionary.

Tuesday's Tidings

2011-03-29T10:22:00.000-05:00

This has been such a dreary day. The weather is cold and wet and so far today, the following things have happened:

My mom texted me to tell me that my little sister is in the hospital
During my first class, a kid I don't normally have trouble with snapped at me,
My second class didn't come due to a field trip, and it's just been sooo slow.
I'm still waiting to hear from my mom that my sister is okay, and to top it all off,
I forgot that I needed to go to the store on my way to work this morning to get something to have for lunch.

Blah. I hope your Tuesday is going better than mine.

April Fool's... A Few Days Early

2011-03-28T15:13:00.000-05:00

Last night at church, I go to talking with a friend about practical jokes. February 16 was their 16th wedding anniversary, and on their first April Fool's Day, she convinced him she was pregnant. Oh lordy. Anyway, to get in the spirit of this mischievous day, I wanted to know a little about it's history. I searched the topic on Wikipedia, and was unimpressed with the results. Apparently, no one really knows when the tradition of playing pranks on the "fool" began.

So then I wanted to know about the most hilarious pranks. Since I am not a prankster myself, I am always amazed at the creativity of those who are. (Once, after coming back to the office from a work-related trip, I discovered that a co-worker had wrapped EVERYTHING on my desk in newspaper. Every pen, every pencil, the tape dispenser, stapler, and even my computer... and it wasn't even April Fools!)

In that research, I found that many people have pulled some pretty epic pranks. I found some pictures on Google that I just had to share. Enjoy. And may you not be as horribly pranked as some of these people.

Personally, I find this one pretty tack-y. Sorry, couldn't help it, the pun just jumped out.

I don't even want to know where they got that much plastic wrap.

This is just mean.

I think that my friend would've done this, but it would've broken her heart to waste that many Post-It notes.

:-)

'Fess Up Friday

2011-03-25T10:42:00.001-05:00

So I followed a friend of mine to a blog called Kissing the Joy as It Flies where I found something called "'Fess Up Friday". I'm jumping on the bandwagon and am going to start 'fessing up each Friday. Here we go.

I finally gave in and went to see the chiropractor my sister works for. When he popped my neck back into place, I cried. Not because it hurt, but because I can't stand the sound of popping joints.

Yesterday, I stuck to my Special K diet for lunch and breakfast, I did level two of Jillian Michael's 30-Day Shred for the first time. On the way home from working out, I went to Wendy's and got extra chicken nuggets. Talk about cancelling out the good stuff.

I went to school yesterday wearing flip-flops. That's against the dress code. Why did I do this? I wasn't awake enough to realize what shoes I'd put on when I dressed myself.

I called a kid by the wrong name 4 times in 30 minutes. His last name is Polk. I keep calling him James, after the former President. Who was President from 1845-1849. It's not like I was alive then.

I found this picure. Enough said.

Alrighty, I think that'll do it for my first try. :-) Have a good weekend everyone!

Borrowing Underwear

2011-03-21T14:26:00.000-05:00

Spring break is over. Sad day! It was sooo hard to get up this morning. At least I like my job and I was blessed by the time off. Such a busy week though! I feel like I hardly had time to breathe, which is not good, considering I was planning to sleep through the whole week. :-)

The break started early for me (due to food poisoning from my birthday dinner) and I spent most of Thursday and Friday in my bathroom, praying for Jesus to come back. By Friday evening though, I had managed to keep down a few slices of toast and was no longer running for the bathroom or gasping in pain as a cramp seemingly ripped through my abdomen. Praise God for acidophilus and for my friend Jacqueline, who told me about it.

Saturday began the family birthday celebrations, and I hung out with my family for most of the day (my sisters' birthdays are a week before and four days after mine). Sunday, we sprang forward and I still made it to church on time. :-) I was SOOO looking forward to catching some major Zzzz's while Matt worked on Monday, but at 7:30, my phone rang and it was my wonderful fiancé, who had hurt his wrist doing laundry (he tripped on a shirt). He thought it was broken and wanted me to take him to CareNow. So what did I do? I lugged myself out of bed and went to work out at 7:30 on the first day of Spring Break. Then I went and took Matt to CareNow. (His wrist is sprained, not broken). They told him not to go back to work till Saturday, so we got to spend the week together and that was really nice. We spent Tuesday doing wedding stuff (I picked out my flowers!!!) and on Wednesday, we had lunch with my grandparents.

Thursday and Friday, we babysat Amanda's little guy. We took him to the courthouse downtown on Thursday, and on Friday, we went all over kingdom come with him. My favorite moment from those two days? We went to Target because Matt needed to buy some underwear. Ethan didn't want to go shopping, apparently, because the next words out of his mouth were, "You can borrow some of my dad's."

What a week! 10 more weeks of school. 49 more school days (plus a few inservice days, but I'm not counting those). 12 total weeks until my wedding. I'm so excited!!! I hope the time flies by. Everyone keeps telling my that it will.

Success!!!

2011-03-09T14:54:00.000-06:00

Check out this sweet action: I had my first fitting for alterations on my wedding dress last night. When I bought the dress, it was just a bit too small and we were planning to have it let out. That was when I went into panic mode concerning my weight and began the Special K diet and started working out two or 3 times a week. That was about a month and a half ago. Last night, when I tried on the dress, the seamstress told me that the dress fit perfectly around the middle and proceeded to pin it up to take it in around my bustline!!!!

And I bought my shoes!!! Sparkly white Converse sneakers. Heck yes. :-)

And today is my birthday. Such a good present. :-) Wedding in 93 days. Spring break in 2 days!!! Yay! Have a good afternoon everyone!!!

Counting Down

2011-03-07T14:52:00.000-06:00

I've got several countdowns going on right now.

My wedding is in 96 days.
Spring Break starts in about 49 hours.
My birthday is in 2 days.

Woot! I am excited. I think I am going to sleep through spring break. Seriously. I'm just going to hibernate for the whole week. Ugh, too bad that would be a waste. :-)

Tomorrow is my first bridal fitting. I've got to go buy shoes tonight. Blah. I hate shoes. I want to go barefooted. But my mom says that's poor etiquette. And I think she's probably right. So it's off to the mall to buy shoes, because I still haven't spent a giftcard I got for Christmas.

In other news, I've done the 30-day Shred workout 3 times and while I still feel like it's kicking my butt, I can feel it getting easier. 7 more workouts and I'm going to move on to level 2. My goal is to shed about 20 pounds. Then I'll be 10 pounds away from my 2nd goal and from there I'll be 10 pounds away from my ultimate goal weight. I'm considering cutting out carbs for the next 4 weeks to see what that does, but I don't know if I have that kind of willpower. I've been trying to ask myself, "Is it worth it now to eat that large fry, or is it worth it now to skip the biggie fry and look stunning on my wedding day?" But I'm not sure I could convince myself to give up cereal, yeast rolls and fried chicken cold turkey just so I'll be super-skinny again.

One more random thing, how do you like the new look? I know I've been changing it a lot recently, but I think I've finally settled on something that's clean and attractive.

Wish me luck on my great shoe search! Have a great week everyone!

It's a New Day

2011-03-04T15:07:00.000-06:00

Hello! It's been a while since we've chatted. How are you? I am doing much better than I was a couple of weeks ago. I've had a good conversation with the person I was so mad at, apologized for judging and reacting the way that I did. I participated with a youth retreat at FBC Watauga and was reminded of how every stinkin thing we go through, how every little thing about us, God created and intedns to use to bring glory to His name (amen!).I've been working out between 2 and 3 times a week, and yesterday I started a new workout plan (Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred).

What a humbling experience! You're supposed to do the 20 minute workout every day for 30 consecutive days. There are 3 levels to it, and I started on level 1 last night with my friend Jacqueline. I couldn't do the whole thing! I am SO badly out of shape that I couldn't even get completely through the work out correctly. I didn't stop, but I really wanted to stop. (I probably would've if I hadn't known I'd look like a wimp in front of my friend). There was a part of the strength training that instructed us to do push-ups, and I couldn't even do the girly ones! I'm not really sore today, but I can definitely tell that I did something unusual yesterday. I haven't yet done the workout today, and I'm a little worried about it. I'm hoping that I will be able to get out of bed on Saturday morning. Because I'm supposed to get up around 7:30am and go do the workout again with Jacqueline. I think I might be crazy, but I've always heard that there's a high price to pay for beauty... I just always equated it with the pain of having your eyebrows plucked or something like that.

I am glad that it is Friday. 98 days till my wedding, 7 days till Spring Break starts, and 4 days till my birthday. Lots of countdowns going on right now. :-) I hope you all have a great weekend!

A Valentine's Adventure

2011-02-15T11:12:00.000-06:00

So yesterday was quite an adventure. After school, I had to rush to the OB/GYN for my first-ever appoinment. It was uncomfortable and I was so nervous that my heart was racing fast enough for the nurse practicioner to comment on it. Long story short, I'm now taking birth control pills and praying that the possible negative side effects won't affect me. I really don't want to spend the next 1-3 months feeling nauseated. Blech.

I then made abee-line for Matt's office, because I was supposed to donate blood. Unfortunately, my hour-long wait at the doctor's office ate up the time that I was planning to spend at the donor center, so I got there after they'd closed. So I sat in my car and waited for the staff meeting to be over. When it was, Matt came out of the building carrying a vase full of pearly pink roses and clouds of baby's breath. He looked so proud of himself and it was so cute! He also gave me a giftcard to Barnes and Noble because he wants to be able to spend time doing something that I really enjoy doing with me. (During a discussion on a part of the book we're reading for pre-marital counselling that talked about how a man needs a woman to be his recreational companion and that they should accomplish this by finding activities they both enjoy, I had said something about how he's accepted the fact that I'm not ever really going to enjoy hockey games, just like he won't ever enjoy laying in bed and reading together.) I guess this means I need to get tickets to a hockey game... :-)

We spent the rest of the evening with our Bible Study group. We had so much fun playing the "Two Truths, One Lie" game, regaling each other with embarrassing stories (most involved pooping, peeing or belching at an inappropriate time) and playing Mafia.

All in all, it was a very nice Valentine's Day.

Forgiveness? No, thank you.

2011-02-10T14:17:00.000-06:00

Is there ever a perfect time to be engaged and plan your wedding? I thought that now was a pretty perfect time for Matt and me. And it was. For about 4 months. And then a bomb dropped.

Please don't misunderstand, I still love Matt more than I've ever loved anyone, and I am still beyond excited to be planning the beginning of our life together, but some family issues (his) have come to light and trying to deal with them is proving to be difficult.

How do you handle a family member, who also claims to be a fellow believer in Christ, who does something extremely hurtful? How do you handle it when their deed is made known and not only do they refuse to take responsibility for the action, but also refuse to stop doing it or apologize for the pain they've caused? Normally, I have no patience with this type of person. I have no patience for someone who lies about something of which they've already been PROVEN guilty. My instinct here is to completely avoid this person. I never want to even see them again. My instinct is to be MAD, and when I get MAD, I can get vicious. I've been thinking all sorts of mean, ugly things about this person.

But the biggest problem is that the love of my life still loves this person who has made me so MAD. Don't get me wrong, Matt is probably more hurt, angry and confused than I am, but because he has a strong family tie to this person, the love he has for them acts as a buffer for the bad feelings and softens them. I, on the other hand, have no ties to this person whatsoever, so my anger and viciousness have no buffer, I feel like I have no reason not to strongly dislike this person. So the hateful feelings spewing out of my heart are hurting my fiance. And when I realized this, I got even angrier at this person because they have now driven a wedge between Matt and I, because I can't tell him how I'm feeling about all of this because it causes him pain when I do.

This is our first experience with dealing with something big as a couple. And we're finding out just how different we are. At least in this situation. The way he is dealing with it is not the way I'm dealing with it (if I can even call getting angrier and angrier dealing with it). I'm not sure how we can come together in this. I want to be supportive for him. I want to help him through this. But I am so angry right now, that if I was able to confront this person (which I can't, because I'm not a member of the family), I would be tempted toward some serious verbal abuse. So I guess it's a good thing that I can't confront them, since I would probably say something that I might regret later.

*Sigh*

I understand making mistakes. Really, I do. I make them ALL of the time. I know that no one is perfect. So I'm not judging this family member for their actions. I understand that life is hard and that we are sinners. I get it. I even understand being seriously ashamed and embarrassed when someone else calls you out for sin in your life. I know what it feels like to be angry with the person who dared point out the sin in my life. I really do understand. But that doesn't mean that I am not affected by the choices those who live their lives in proximity to mine make. And when the poor choice that someone else makes has an adverse affect on my life, and that person shows no remorse at all, and in fact, continues to act in a way that is arrogant, selfish and just downright mean, I have no pity for them, no matter how miserable they say that they are.

When Jesus was on the cross, He cried out to God, asking Him to "forgive them, for they know not what they do." He prayed forgiveness on the very men who condemned Him to death and crucified Him. They did not know that they were murdering the Son of God. I think this means that I also should forgive this person who is hurting me. But I'm pretty sure that this person is fully aware of what they are doing and is still choosing to do it, knowing full well the effects of their actions. So do I still have to forgive before this person has repented and asked for forgiveness?

Because I don't want to forgive them.

And if I don't, I will be hurting those around me. Which makes me want to say, "Thanks for making me hurt the ones I love. It wasn't enough for you to screw things up in your own life, now you've caused me to stumble too. Way to go. I think you deserve a trophy."

But I know that's not right. And I'm ashamed of myself for thinking it. But that doesn't stop me from thinking it.

And until I stop thinking it, things won't be right in my own heart.

Oh, Father God, help me please.

Something to Smile About

2011-02-04T17:44:00.000-06:00

I've been confined to the house yet again today. For the most part. We did get out for a couple of hours to go to the video store and Walmart and then we tried to go to Chickfila. We sat at the drive thru menu thing for about a minute and no one said, "Hello" or anything. So we drove around to the window and, SUPRISE: they were closed. So we went to McDonald's instead. I took some pictures of the snow, but then I accidently washed my memory card in my jean pocket, so I'm not sure that I still have them. I'll let you know after it's had some time to dry out. Until then, I found this picture of a hamster. I hope it makes you smile.

Snowed In

2011-02-03T21:30:00.000-06:00

Today marks day 3 of the Winter Weather Extravaganza here in good ole North Texas. We've been iced in since Tuesday and the forecast is calling for snow.

...

What's going on??? I've lived in Texas my whole life. I've only seen it REALLY snow like, twice. I've only had to drive on ice a handful of times. I've NEVER seen school be closed for more than two days at a time. This is like living in the Twilight Zone.

Or maybe the TwilICE Zone.

Haha.

No, please don't go. I promise, no more corny jokes. It's just the cabin fever talking. I hope it's going well for all of you out there in bloggerville! Stay warm and dry!

~Allie~

Pictures!!!

2011-02-01T13:32:00.000-06:00

Hello everyone! It's been a week since I last blogged. I was so excited about cooking last week that it was all I really thought about and I didn't want to bore y'all with constant talk about food. So here I am, a week later, with pictures of everything I cooked this week.

Tuesday: Salmon Croquettes with Baked Asparagus and Angel Hair Pasta in Herb Sauce

With this, I discovered that trying to cook in oil on an electric stove in a nonstick pan is not a good idea... But it turned out really well. The sauce on the asparagus is a mix of balsamic vinegar, soy sauce and butter.

Wednesday: Beef Stroganoff

I made this in the crockpot and served it over wide egg noodles. The recipe called for cream cheese to be stirred in before serving. I think next time, I'm going to use sour cream.

Thursday: Swiss Chicken Casserole

Another crockpot meal. SO GOOD! I got the recipe from a friend, and I will definitely be making this again.

I made this on Thursday, too. My fiance had a long day at work, so I surprised him with his favorite: butter cake with chocolate icing.

Friday, we had leftovers Well... I had leftovers, Matt had hot dogs grilled on the George Foreman Grill. They smelled really good, but since I had so much leftover from the week, I wanted to eat it before it went to waste.

Saturday morning, I got up and made scrambled eggs with sliced olives and cheese, bacon and toast. As you can see, I was hungry and took a bite out of the toast before I remembered to take the picture. I also discovered that the four and 3.5 settings on my toaster severely burn bread.

Yikes!

So that's my week in the kitchen! I've got a plan for this week, but with the ice junk that has recently come to town, I can't get to the store, and I'm not sure it would be very wise to even try to drive home until the temperature rises above freezing. Just in case though, here's my plan, and I will be posting pictures of anything I cook this week. If you want any of my recipes, just ask: I'm more than willing to share!

Please leave comments and your site locations!

Menu Planning

2011-01-25T14:35:00.000-06:00

Alright. So now that I'm all moved in to my own apartment and I have pots and pans I have no excuse. It's time to get a handle on the way I eat at home. I have created a menu plan and a grocery list and am planning to hit the grocery store after work this afternoon. This is my plan. I'm going to try to take pictures and maybe post some of my masterpieces. We'll see. No promises. But here's what we're having this week:

Tuesday: Salmon Patties, baked asparagus with balsamic butter and angel hair pasta with herb sauce
Wednesday: Crockpot beef stroganoff over egg noodles with salad
Thursday: Crockpot Swiss Chicken Casserole
Friday: Crockpot Pot Roast with potatoes, carrots and green salad
Saturday: Tuna Noodle Casserole
Sunday: Roast on Toast (leftovers)

I think that looks pretty good for my first attempt at menu planning. Now I've just gotta follow through and execute the plan. I'll let you know how I do. Wish me luck!

What a Weekend

2011-01-24T11:40:00.000-06:00

Dontcha just love it when Monday rolls around and you feel like the weekend was more like a weekextension? And the sad thing is, it really wasn't a bad weeked. It was just busy and full.

Friday
-Work
-Pre-marital counselling
-Dinner at Red Lobster, thanks to a raffle Matt won. (I was good, I had grilled fish and more broccoli than I ever want to see again in my life.)

Saturday
-Bridesmaid dress shopping with Amanda Jo
-Lunch at Chickfila
-Quick stop at Aldi, where I discovered I didn't have any quarters, so I couldn't rent a buggy
-Read 6 chapters of the book we were assigned for pre-marital counselling
-Dinner with Matt's family
-Hanging out at the Mauk's

Sunday
-Church in the morning
-Lunch with friends
-Walmart run, to return duplicate Christmas gifts
-Home, to clean up living room and kitchen
-Grocery store
-Made dinner for a friend while she let me use her laundry room
-Played MarioKart and Pit while waiting for clothes to dry (at 11:00pm)

And then up again at 6:40 this morning to get to school on time. I believe Darryl Worley put it best in his song, "I love this crazy, tragic, sometimes almost magic, awful, beautiful life."

It's so good to know that in the midst of the craziness, God is in control. Happy Monday, everyone!

Verdict? Guilty

2011-01-20T15:25:00.000-06:00

An interesting thing has happened to me in the last few weeks. I've begun reading my Bible almost every day, following a reading plan that my Bible study group is doing. It's been longer than I'd care to admit since I've read my Bible on a daily basis, so I am really excited with the consistency I've so far achieved. I know it's gotta be God making this important to me. And I love knowing that He is enabling me to do what He's called me to do.

But that's not the thing that gets me the most. To tell you what that is, I've got to tell you what happened last Wednesday night at praise team practice.

Basically, I got into an arguement with one of the other ladies on the team. We argued about who was right about a certain part of a song and when I didn't agree with her she said, "Well, Allison, I guess you just know everything," and turned away from me. I knew I should've let it go, but I let my temper take over and I sarcastically replied, "Yeah, I do. Thanks for noticing." This led to more unpleasantness on the part of both parties and I left church that night feeling angry and insulted.

Trying to sleep that night, I kept replaying the argument over in my head, trying to convince myself that I was right. During the next few days, I managed to keep the incident out of my head while I was out in public with other people, but at home, or when I was trying to read my Bible, I kept going back to this spat I'd had with a sister in Christ. I couldn't concentrate on what I was reading, and I kept thinking about how I could've avoided the whole mess if I'd just squashed my pride and quietly thanked her for her advice and then even more quietly, ignored it. Instead, I chose to lash out and be rude and disrespectful. And I was feeling convicted about it!!!

It may seem strange to be excited about conviction, but that conviction is a sign of life! It's a sign that God is working in my heart to mold me into the woman that He has called me to be! And even though I had to swallow my pride and go to my fellow team member and tell her that I was sorry I'd disrespected her, I rejoiced! I realized that, in doing so, I was overcoming my own selfish nature and following Christ.

How cool to see conviction in such a positive light. Yay, God! :-D

Four Letter Word

2011-01-18T12:17:00.000-06:00

Welp, it's time to jump on the wagon. The dreaded DIET wagon, that is.

I bought my wedding dress a few weeks ago. It's absolutely gorgeous, and it fits almost perfectly. "Almost" is the key word. It's just a smidge too tight around my tummy and I have now realized that I simply cannot afford to gain any weight at all between now and June. And since I've been steadily, albeit slowly, gaining weight almost constantly over the last two years, I need to put a stop to the madness.

My plan is to cut back my daily calorie intake (nixing my carb intake the most) by trying the SPecial K thing; eat regular, planned meals and snacks so I don't go diving into the ice cream container when I get home or running by the golden arches on my way to church; begin exercising at the gym 3 days a week and doing Pilates at home on the days that I don't go to the gym, minus Sunday.

I think it's a good plan. I've got a work out buddy for my days at the gym, and my computer is cued up to some pictures I took two years ago when I weighed 50lbs less than I do now. I' m just praying I can stay strong.

I've never done this before, and I think that the key to success is going to be changing my mindset, reshaping the way I view eating. I need to stop eating because I'm bored, or eating just because it tastes good. I think that realizing those things just might be the first step in making better nutritional choices.

Wish me luck!

Metamorphosis

2011-01-12T13:47:00.000-06:00

Hello all! I hope you're having a happy Wednesday. Mine's been kinda crazy, but when you work at an elementary school, pretty much every day is kinda crazy. :-)

I wanted to take a moment or two to address the new look and blog name.

When I started this blog, I was getting ready to embark upon an adventure in my life. This blog was a way to stay connected with my friends and family as I spent the summer travelling and working at several youth camps and doing mission work in Honduras. "living loudly in the light of the Truth" was exactly what I was doing at that time in my life.

That was 2 years ago. Today, I am settled in a job that I love, I'm engaged to be married to a wonderful man in June, I'm about to be 24 years old and my life has quieted down a bit. This season of my life is one of growth and change. As a believer, I know that God will forever be changing and molding me into a woman after His heart, and this season is just the beginning of the changes that He will bring. Hence my new title: "Metamorphosis". Rather than running from and being scared of the changes that are coming, I want to embrace the things to which Christ is calling me.

This is only the beginning.

Mawage

2011-01-04T11:11:00.005-06:00

The Princess Bride... I so love this movie. But that's not why I posted the clip.
For those of you who don't know yet, I'm getting MARRIED!!! My fiance is a wonderful man who loves God and loves me and I cannot express how blessed I feel when I am with him.

We've set the date for June of this year, but haven't signed a contract with the church or anything like that, so I guess I have to say that the date isn't set in stone yet. So far, I've purchased my dress and chosen my color scheme, picked out bridemaids dresses, and decided what I'm going to give as bridemaids' gifts. Which means I've got a long way to go of this thing is going to come together before June. Eek!

I have never been the kind of girl who dreamt endlessly about her wedding. (I was more concerned with the groom!) Since meeting Matt and getting more involved with him, I've started thinking more about the big event and how I'd like it to come together and look, but my ideas changed and I never wrote anything down, so I never really got a complete picture in my head. So now I've got to put this thing together and to be honest, I feel like I' have no idea what I'm doing! My budget is tiny, and I'm thankful for that, because I wouldn't know what to do with anything bigger.

Point in case, I've got a little less than 6 months to plan a simple, beautiful, meaningful and frugal wedding, without losing my mind. HELP!!! :-)

Harry Kwannukkmas!

2010-12-08T11:33:00.007-06:00

It's that time of year again! Time for snow (if you don't live in Texas), evergreen trees, Bing Crosby songs and crowded malls filled with lovely decorations and not so lovely people. That wonderful time of year when all men are wished goodwill and peace on earth and reminded to be politically correct.

Seriously. I don't mean to be cynical, but this whole arguement bothers the crud out of me. I really don't understand why it is so offensive to hear the words, "Merry Christmas!" I understand that not everyone celebrates Christmas as I do, and I respect your choice to celebrate as you see fit. Have fun, make merry, be happy and filled with hope and goodwill. What I don't understand is why it became so offensive for someone to wish you well in their own manner. It is estimated that 89% of Americans celebrate Christmas, 5% of Americans celebrate Hanukkah and 2% celebrate Kwanzaa. I am not trying to disregard the smaller percentage that don't celebrate Christmas, but how am I supposed to know that you celebrate Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or something else besides Christmas?

So why do you take my smiling, "Merry Christmas!" as an insult? I'm wishing you well and a happy holiday season. I'm not shoving my customs down your throat. If it really bothers you, stop me and tell me that you celebrate another holiday and I will probably put my hand on your shoulder, my other hand on my heart and say, "Then I hope you have a wonderful insert holiday here!"

And to all of you Christmas celebrators, stop being angry that people have started saying, "Happy holidays"! It totally defeats the purpose of the reason you celebrate! For you, this is Christmas, the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, the Messiah and Savior of the world. But you don't shove your Christianity down other people's throats during the rest of the year do you? You try to show them your faith gently and with love. So why is Christmastime any different? Please stop making this wonderful time of year a source of contention and just accept the "Happy holidays!" that the clerk has offered you, and if you feel so moved, you could say, "Yes it is a happy holiday, because of the love of God."

Thanksgiving

2010-11-22T09:27:00.002-06:00

Tis the week of Thanksgiving
And all 'cross the nation,
Families are gath'ring
In glad celebration!

Now that I've gotten the rhyming bug out of my system... Happy Thanksgiving!!! I saw an interesting phenomenon on Facebook this November: People listing the things they are thankful for in a status update each day. I didn't do that, so I've decided to ponder the things that I am thankful for and list them here. I also would like to know what YOU are most thankful for this holiday season. It's cool to see things from other's perspectives.

Here we go! I am thankful for...

My fiance
My family
A good job
The kids I work with
My paychecks
A warm place to live
A lovely place to sleep
Good food to eat
Fusion (Bible Study)
My church
Godly coworkers
Sweet friends
A new apartment
My guitar
Music
Smiling faces
Giggles
Books (and the fact that I can read)
Funny movies
Calculators
Computers
Bottled water
Kleenex
Modern medicine
My pillow

I saved the most important thing for last. I am thankful for the sacrifice that Jesus made for me, how He shed His own innocent blood to pay for my sins. I am thankful that God has chosen me to be the recipient of such marvelous grace.

May God bless you richly this Thanksgiving.

Waiting for Superman

2010-11-09T11:36:00.005-06:00

Director Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth) has struck again. This man who seems more interested in political propaganda than facts and reality has a new film out. It's called Waiting for Superman.

The film documents the academic journeys of five public school students who are desperate to escape the public school systems of Washington, D.C., New York, Silicon Valley and Los Angeles because they are, to quote chancellor Michelle Rhee of the DC ISD, "getting a really crappy education."

The basis behind this film is that the American public education system is horrendously behind in the global eduaction market. The movie postulates that the root of the problem is the teaching staff. The problem with this postulation? While the impact a teacher has on his/her students accounts for 10-20% of school-related success, non-school related factors impact student success by a whopping 60%! These non-school related factors include family income, family status, etc.

I bring this to my blog because it is amazing to me that people are looking to place societal blame everywhere but where it belongs. Since when is it a teacher's job to raise the children in his/her class? Since when is it a teacher's job to teach his/her students manners and personal hygiene? Last time I checked, those responsibilities were assigned to the family. Which means that the root cause of these societal problem is the deterioration of the family.

Isn't that a novel idea?

I understand that it is hard for unmarried mothers and fathers to raise their children and work at the same time. I understand that it is hard for grandparents who've adopted their grandchildren to have the energy needed to raise a child. I really do. But at the same time, anything that's worth doing is often hard, and I'm not sure I can think of anything more worthy of doing than raising a child well.

So, to those dedicated to education reform, you might want to start thinking about reforming the divorced, drugged, dead-beat, abusive, and neglectful family. It's a societal cornerstone that is currently crumbling.

Dear Sir or Madam,

2010-08-18T17:04:00.002-05:00

I started a new job this week. Encountering new people is always an adventure. I'm finding that everyone is really nice, and even though I sometimes feel that I'm swimming in mud, I think I'll find my feet before too long. This week has been such an emotional roller coaster. I didn't cry today! Haha. Monday I cried because I felt really overwhelmed at Convocation because I showed up and didn't have a clue as to where I needed to be, what I was supposed to be wearing, and who I was supposed to be looking for. Tuesday I cried because I hit my head on the corner of an open cabinet. Today, there were no tears and I was so relieved.

Something that I always find interesting is people's reactions to respect from a peer. I'm one of several Educational Assistants at my school and one of my coworkers, who happens to be older than I am, has been really helpful and on Tuesday he told me that if I needed anything I should let him know. I said, "Thank you, sir," and he stopped dead in his tracks and told me that I didn't need to call him sir because we were on the same level. This same type of thing happened to me a few weeks ago with a coworker who I was pretty close to at my last job.
All of this makes me wonder why my mom worked so hard to teach my sisters and I to show respect to our elders and even our peers. I was taught never to call my adult relatives by their first names only, always to say ma'am or sir, please and thank you.
Why is a society that is so focused on tolerance and acceptance and equal treatment seeming to run away screaming from politeness and respect? What do you think? If you have kids, what are you teaching them? What did your parents teach you? If you were raised like me, tell me what you think. If not, please explain your point of view! I want to know what you're thinking about this!

Contentment

2010-06-16T02:22:00.002-05:00

Here's a question for the general public: If you're satisfied with where you are and what you have, do you constantly wonder what else is out there? If you love your job, do you think about leaving it to do something else that pays better or has better prospects for advancement? If you're happy with your body image, do you spend time wishing you looked more like someone else? If you're completely in love with your significant other, do you wonder what it would be like to either be single or be with someone else?

I know those questions are really dumb, because the answer to all of them is NO. Of course not! When you're satisfied in your job, family, yourself and most importantly, in Christ you don't need to go chasing the wind. But I find that's what I want to do in so many cases... I want practically any job but my own, I want my tummy to look more like Britney's than Betty White's, etc.

Sometimes, I know that discontentment can be used as a means of motivation. I'm unhappy with my current weight, so I must change my eating and exercise habits. I'm unhappy with my job, so I must go back to school and get my teaching certification. I'm unsure of my relationship, so I must pursue a relationship that is centered around God.

But what if my general discontentment is merely a sign of a lack in my relationship with the Lord? Is this discontentment a nudge from God to say, "Come sit with Me and listen to My will."? I suppose doing that would help clarify everything... Duh.

Sometimes I feel so far away and so devoid of hope. In fact, I feel that way much of the time. Most of the time I can ignore it by thinking of nothing at all, but what kind of life is this? It is not the full and abundant life Christ promises... It's not really life at all. I want to thrive and grow and be joyful again, but it's as if I've forgotten how. And I can say this here, in cyberspace where I know it is unlikely to be read, but those around me are unaware of the depth of this pain. I try to keep it hidden, mostly by inadvertently avoiding those who can read me too well...

It's a strange place to be, wanting help, but not knowing how to ask for it or if I'd be able to take it if it were offered. That all boils down to my laziness and pride. I want this to be rectified quickly, but it's not a quick-fix problem. It's going to take time and effort and right now I don't know if I want to exert the necessary effort. I'm so tired... I don't know if I have the drive to change right now, and that scares me and makes me feel even more hopeless.

I have no answer.

Late-Night Musings

2009-12-18T01:34:00.003-06:00

It's much too late for me to be up blogging. Because when I stay up too late looking at the Facebooks of people I used to know, I get sad. I feel disconnected and out of touch. I feel like I haven't done what I could have done and wonder how everyone else ended up somewhere different. I wonder if they're all as happy as they seem, even though they're living completely different lives than they were the last time I spoke to them...

So tell me... Are you as happy as you seem? And why are you so happy? In what is it that you find joy and fulfillment? I really want to know how you're making it work. What is it that you've found that seems to avoid me like the plague? Perhaps it's merely stability. Perhaps it is contentment in who you are and what you are doing. Perhaps it's something I'm missing so completely that I can't even guess what it is.

You know the funniest part about this whole thing? At one point, I had it too. And I've lost it somewhere along the way. I'm not sure where, because as I look back at the last few years of my life, I realize that I've become more self-confident (and more self-centered), I've become more comfortable with my appearance (bordering on vanity), I've grown as a person (but maybe in the wrong direction)... And how do you find something when you don't even know when or where you put it down in favor of something you didn't really need?

If you're out there, and you're reading this, please take a moment to tell me why you're happy. What gives you joy?

Maybe I'm avoiding the obvious... Maybe I know what I need to do in order to be content... Maybe I'm just too comfortable wallowing in my own self-absorbed pity party to do anything about it. Because change involves work. And work is hard and requires effort... And who wants to exert effort? Not I, apparently.

Somewhere along the line, I stopped living loudly in light of the Truth. And I think that's my problem. At this point, I'm not even sure that I'm really living. Just wasting time until it's over.

But what kind of life is that?? Waiting for it to be over? If I continue in this pattern, one day, it will be over and I will have missed out on all that could have been. I will have missed out on realizing the dreams and purpose I am here to realize.

Oh Lord help me! Show me what to do, where to go, who to become. I never used to be afraid because I knew that You were in control. But I've begun to doubt that and I've begun to live as though You didn't. And if I don't believe You are then what am I living for? Why am I here? I don't understand how my friends and co-workers who don't know You live on a daily basis. I need You. And yet I persist in running from You... I make no sense, even to myself. I need to be consistent, honest and trustworthy. Not only to those around me but to myself and even more so to You. God, I don't know where to go. I'm afraid of making the wrong choice and so month after month, I sit and don't make any choice, becoming stale and stagnant... choking and dying, losing the will to live. I need the courage to make a decision, right or wrong... At least if I make the wrong decision, I will have done something and will have to do something else to undo it!

Again I say, oh Lord, help me.

Failure-ish?

2009-08-26T09:52:00.004-05:00

Failure-ish... is that even a word? Dang, I even fail at that.

Just kidding, I'm not quite that down on myself today. Maybe tomorrow though....
So I just need to vent. Today I am feeling like a total failure. I am 22 years old, halfway to 23 and I have no college degree (although I do have almost 60 hours of credit), I still live at home with my mom and grandparents and sisters, and I have not one, but two dead end jobs, neither of which I particularly love.... And now I want to cry.

I hate that I'm feeling this way, mostly because of what has brought this on. Last night I received adn e-mail from a friend that I graduated with. He has since graduated from A&M, spent a semester doing missions in Senegal and is getting ready to go through yet another discipleship program before he heads off to be a missionary. This morning I saw on Facebook that one of the girls that I was good friends with in high school had her first baby this week. On Monday, I heard from another of my high school friends who finished his training at CFNI and is living his call as a youth pastor in Kansas. As I type, I'm reminded of my best friend, who loves her job, her husband and her son.

I'm not trying to paint my friends' lives in a rosy light. I know that each one has their struggles. And I'm not saying that I wish that I was where they are. What I am saying is that I wish I was not where I am. Yes, there are certain aspects of my life that I love and am very happy with, but on the whole, I feel like I have nothing to show for my 22.5 years on this planet. I have accomplished nothing that I want to accomplish and if I don't get on the ball, I'm going to look up and I'll be 30 years old, still just barely squeaking by, without a degree, working at a job I couldn't care for less. And that scares me to death.

*sigh*
Happy Wendesday... yeesh.

A day in the life of a waitress

2009-07-29T14:29:00.002-05:00

So. I had a thought the other day. There are tons of reality shows. There are shows about finding love, shows about chasing a dream, shows about being a backstabber... Then I thought about the new movie, that I have not yet seen: Julie & Julia. The plot is a joint story about Julia Childs and a woman who cooks through her cookbook and blogs about it. Then I thought about the fact that I have a blog, but I don't use it very often. Then it came to me: Why hasn't anyone ever decided to do a reality show about the lives of waiters and waitresses? (Or to be more politically correct, servers.) So then I decided that I would begin to blog about some of the exploits I have on the floor of the restaurant I work for. Who knows? Maybe it will be interesting and maybe Lifetime will buy it for a miniseries. And maybe pigs will fly.

Tuesday, July 27, 2009

I showed up to work 30 minutes early, thankful that traffic had not been as bad as I'd thought it would be. My new slip-resistant shoes slid off of my feet with every step that I took and I worried that by the end of my shift, I'd have blisters bigger than Sasquatch. After sitting in my car for 25 minutes, I finally made my way inside the restaurant, to be greeted by no less than 6 of my coworkers gathered around J*, who had fashioned a pair of balls out of bread dough. Charming. I think I rolled my eyes at J, who has been threatening to kiss me "square on the mouth" for my attitude. He has yet to get close, and if he does, I will slap him.
After washing my hands and clocking in, I got to work. I kept greeting people by saying "Good morning!" even though it was after 5:30. So I got laughed at a few times.

At this point, I realize that my dayjob really isn't all that exciting and I really shouldn't bore you with the rest of my shift. But you may take comfort in knowing that my new shoes didn't e=give me blisters. Yay!

*Names changed to protect the somewhat innocent.

What's in a name?

2009-05-21T15:26:00.004-05:00

So. How is everyone? I'm going to guess that since it's been months since I posted, no one is reading this. But hey, I'm going to stick with it, and maybe someday, the world will know my name! Just kidding. I don't really want the world to know my name. Which brings me to my point for this post: names. What does yours mean? Do you know? Do you care? Does it matter at all?

To be quite honest, I'm not sure. I love the concept of names and the meanings behind them. I want to give my children very meaningful names. I think, though, that a name will not have much affect on a child unless he knows what it means. Take me, for example, my name means "nobility." Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think that I am particularly noble. However, look at Jabez, his name actually was a word meaning "he who brings pain." And everyone knew it! You wanna talk about an inferiority complex?? Goodness gracious. The man is recorded as having prayed that God's hand would be upon him so that he wouldn't cause pain!

I think that meaningful names are a lost art. These days we have celebrities naming their children things like "Apple" and "Lyric" and "Ireland". And you know what? I think that these children just might have some issues with their names. Because these children are named with simple words that they know the meanings of. Unfortunately, these names don't have much substance behind the meaning, but still.

William Shakespeare once wrote, "A rose by any other name still smells as sweet." It appears he would have thought that a name means nothing. And by today's standards... I tend to agree with him, though I really would like to change that for my children... I want to give them names that have deep meaning, and I want them to know it from the moment the names are given to them. Perhaps this is an out-dated and romantic idea... But who cares? :-)

Rambling......................

2008-11-15T12:36:00.004-06:00

Ever hear the Rascal Flatt's song "Too Good Is True"? I've decided it's all a feel-good ruse. :-)

So, it's been a while since I've updated this thing. Between being a college student and waiting tables, I don't have a whole lot of extra time on my hands... Even my Facebook usage has dwindled alarmingly...

Life on this side of Christmas break has slowed... I only have one more paper to write for school, and I've read all but one book that I've been assigned to read. Yay me.

Thanksgiving is fast approaching and bringing with it all the festivity of the holiday season. I saw a sign in someones yard the other day. It said, "Happy Turkey Day!" That irked me, as I'm sure it does every believer who knows that the fourth Thursday in November is about so much more than turkey, green bean casserole and pumpkin pie. As I drove past that sign in my frustrated state of mind, I realized that it had been a while since I'd slowed down to ponder everything that I have to be thankful for, and it occurred to me that I complain on a fairly regular basis. I don't want to be that person... We all know someone like her, the person who never has anything good to say because she's too busy complaining about the fact that boys are stupid or that gas prices are astronomical or that she'd really rather not go to work... I think I'm becoming that person though. And no one has proverbally slapped me for it yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if it happens soon.

So, even in the midst of my almost-the-end-of-the-semester-semi-depression, I want to remember that I am blessed beyond measure. That I am bought with the blood of Christ, that my Father has, does and always will take care of me, that I have friends who love me even when I foolishly taper off my time with them to spend it with a boy, that my family loves me and wants me to be around, that my tuition is taken care of, that I have a job, that I don't go hungry, that I have the ability to sing, that the sun is shining and I'm not dead. :-)

If you actually read this, bless you. I'm sure you could find something better to do with your time though! :-) Until next time, I do pray that God will bless your life as richly as He has mine.

Soli deo gloria!
~Allison~

I'm Back

2008-07-25T08:59:00.002-05:00

So... it's definitely been more than a week since I last posted... I've been home for almost a week now. I'm sorry I haven't blogged, but I needed time to process things.

The last week of camp at Campbellsville was great. It went by much too quickly. That week, I was placed on Ping-pong duty for rec and that ws fun. Campbellsville U has a really cool thing that they call the Student Activity Center. It's an old gymnasium in a building that has 2 stories. The bball court is on the top floor, and on the bottom floor is a room with 3 pool tables, 2 ping pong tables, 2 air hockey tables and a fooseball table. There is also a TV and several couches in that room. It's just a great place for the students to hang out. Which is exactly what many of the GO TELL campers did.

On the first day of camp it rained. It was absolutely lovely, the kind of rain that I LOVE to sleep during. But it was fun to get out and run around in the rain with the kids. During services, I was assigned to run the jam cam, aka the handheld, which is the camera that gets carried around stage. The cool thing about the jam cam is that you can get some really cool shots with it. The bad thing is that it's kinda heavy and after carrying it around on your shoulder for 30 minutes it starts to feel REALLY heavy. But it was still fun!

One of the campers kinda latched on to a few of us interns and she found me on Facebook when she got home, so she and I have been messaging back and forth and that's been neat.

The coolest thing that happened that week (for me anyway) happened on Friday morning. I woke up on Friday still not knowing how I was going to get to the airport in Louisville. I'd been asking about getting rides for the last 6 weeks and had come up with nothing. When I walked into the room where we had staff meeting each morning, there was a young man who I'd never seen before drinking coffee. Turns out that he had been an intern with GO TELL in 2007 and he and his wife had come down to Campbellsville to help close out the camp. Since he was a GO TELL inern, I knew that he probably went to one of the 7 colleges that partner with GO TELL. I asked him where he went and he said Boyce College. Boyce College is in Louisville. At this point I asked if he and his wife lived in Louisville and he said yes. I asked if I could ride back to Louisville with them and they said I could. Problem solved. God took care of me. Again. Big surprise, huh? :-)

So then it was off to Honduras. What an eye-opening experience. I've never before lived in a place where clean water is something very preciously conseved, where the land is so pretty, but the people don't have the resources to care for it so trash is just thrown here and there, where people hear about what Americans have and do and can only imagine such extravagance.... It was quite an experience. But you know, the coolest thing about Honduras was not the beautiful beaches or the jungle or the fact that I could walk under a tree, bump my head on it's fruit and realize that I'd just hit my head on a mango. The coolest thing about Honduras is that the people who are Christians there are just so excited about Heaven. They are not tied down to this earth by their earthly possessions... going there gave new meaning to the verse, "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven," for me.

I was placed on a construction team while in Honduras, and I helped prep a site for the laying of a foundation for a playground. I didn't get to interact with the islanders much while doing this, so I was kinda bummed about that... But I know that God called and provided for me to go on the trip, so I know that He had a purpose in doing so.

So now it's back to real life. Job hunting starts this Saturday (I've been filling in at the SBTC for the last week) and I move into my dorm room next Friday. It's pretty exciting and I still covet your prayers. Thanks for keeping up with me over the summer and thank you so much for praying for me. I cannot express how much I appreciate it. Until next time, God bless!!!

Soli deo gloria,
~Allison~

Saying Goodbye

2008-07-05T07:52:00.003-05:00

Today is the day we pack up and head out. Half of the group has already left for Texas, and it saddens me to think that I probably won't see them again. 6 weeks isn't that long in the scheme of things, but when you live with someone and do ministry with them, you bond quickly. And then it's no fun saying goodbye to people you've grown close to.

It seems like it's barely been 2 weeks, let alone 5. We've only got one more week of GO TELL left and then it's off to Honduras for me. I'm excited, but I can hardly believe that the summer is already drawing to a close. It's been a crazy awesome ride.

I'm riding up to KY with Olivia and Jenny and we're leaving in about an hour. The drive is about 6 hours. Please keep us in your prayers if you read this today! :-)

This is probably the last blog I'll post while I'm gone. I don't know if I'll be able to access a computer next week, and I don't know how much time I'll have. My flight back to Texas from Kentucky leaves next Friday. The plane for Honduras leaves Saturday morning and we'll be back on July 19. I'll blog again after I get home.

Thank you for keeping up with me this summer. I appreciate all of the prayers and support!
Oh! If you want to see some pictures from the camps, click here. I'll post some of my own when I get back and can upload photos from my camera.

Love you!!!
~Allison~

Hiatus

2008-07-02T20:13:00.003-05:00

So, I was reading my best friend's blogand she posted a blog with the ABC's of her. I thought it was cute and wanted to do it too. It's kinda pointless, but I think I kinda needed the goofiness. :-) Enjoy!

The ABC's of Me
A) Age ~ 21, woot!
B) Burger of choice ~ Umm... I'm actually in the mood for a turkey burger at the moment. Mmm.
C) Car ~ 2005 Kia Optima
D) Dog's name ~ I've never had a dog.
E) Essential item you use every day ~ Air
F) Favorite TV show ~ Big Bang Theory, CSI: Miami, HIMYM
G) Favorite Game to play ~ Scrabble & Egyptian Rat Screw, woot!
H) Hometown ~ Fort Worth, TX
I) Instruments I play ~ Toco la guitara. (Which means, "I play the guitar.")
J) Favorite Juice ~ Concord Grape. Yummy!!!
K) Whose whatnots would I love to kick? ~ What's a whatnot?
L) Last restaurant I ate at ~ Piccadilly's (sic)
M) Favorite Muppet ~ Umm.... I think I like Beaker. You know, the skinny one with the red shock of hair.
N) Number of piercings ~ both ears are double-pierced
O) Overnight hospital stays ~ None that I remember. I had one when I was a baby
P) People I was with today ~ GO TELL people
Q) What do I do in my quiet time ~ pray, read my Bible and write
R) Biggest regret ~ I try not to regret things. What's done is done and wasting time wishing I could change it doesn't help.
S) Status ~ Single
T) Time I woke up ~ I think it was 8:15
U) What I consider unique ~ The love of Christ
V) Vegetables I love ~ Spinach, broccoli, potatoes...
W) Worst habit ~ BITING MY NAILS
X) X-rays I have had ~ Teeth and my foot
Y) Yummy food I ate today ~ Umm.... I don't think I've had anything all that yummy today.
Z) Zodiac sign ~ Pisces. But who cares?

Alrighty, that's all for now. Thanks for reading! Please keep praying for me. I love you!!!

Home Stretch

2008-06-29T14:58:00.002-05:00

Hello from Atlanta again! I've been to Virginia and back again. Camp seemed very different this week. It seemed more laid back and... I don't really know how to describe it. We only had 300 kids this week, which was SMALL, compared to the 1000 we had the week before. It was a good week though. I had my own room and bathroom, which was pretty great ;-). Other than that, I don't have much to report. I didn't really get to interact with the kids this week, which kinda bummed me out, but I'm doing a job and I understand that what needs to be done needs to be done. :-)

A touch of homesickness hit this week, so if you are reading this and you're from FBC Watauga, the SBTC or you live in my house, know that I MISS YOU!!!

So... sorry this was so short, but that's all I have to say. Please keep praying for me! I love you!!!

GO TELL Camp - Week 2

2008-06-20T14:38:00.003-05:00

Well, we've made it through the second week of camp. And it was pretty much amazing. :-) I was in charge of Four Square again, and that was fun. There were a lot more kids this week. Played Miss Teen South Carolina 2007 again, manned cameras during worship, pretty much just hung out with the kids and had a blast.

Tomorrow morning, the interns are splitting up. Half of us are staying here and half are trekking up to Lynchberg, VA to work the camp at Liberty University. It's kind of sad. We're a great team and we all get along so well. It's going to be interesting to try to cover all of the bases with only half of the manpower we've had for the last 2 weeks. I'll let y'all know how it goes after it's over.

I'm starting to feel a little tired, but I think that might be because I stayed up too late on Wednesday and Thursday nights. But it was fun!

I hope that my cell phone will start receiving signal when we leave tomorrow, but I have no guarantees of this. Ive discovered that, although it's kind of inconvenient not to have it, it's also not absolutely necessary to have it. :-)

Alrighty y'all. I hope you know I'm missing you and I can't wait to see you FBC Watauga people in Houston and you people who are related to me in a few weeks. Oh! I almost forgot to ask y'all to pray for me: I still haven't figured out how I'm going to get to the airport in Louisville, KY to catch my flight down to Houston on July 11. Please pray that God would work out that small detail.

Thanks for reading! I'll try to update again next weekend. I love you!!!
~Allison~

GO TELL Camp - Week 1

2008-06-13T19:39:00.002-05:00

Hello again everyone! I am still in Toccoa, and this morning we completed our first week of camp. What an amazing time. So many salvations, rededications and kids who surrendered to the Ministry.... It's got me way pumped for next week.

So... it's going to be hard to sum up a whole week worth of awesomeness in a blog that won't bore you to death as you continue to scroll down and down, searching for the end of the unbelievably long blurb... therefore I have decided to just touch on the highlights.

I was given my responsibilities last Sunday night, and this week I ran the Four Square court during rec. Not surprisingly, it was pretty quiet. The quietness ended up being great when a couple of girls from Laurel, MS stopped to play on Tuesday and ended up staying and just chatting with me for almost 4 hours. They came back and we talked more on Wednesday and that night I went to their church share group time. I shared my testimony with them and I really felt like God moved in a big way in the hearts of some of those kids. It was really, really amazing.

I was also assigned to be a "Camera Assistant," which means that I've been filming the worship services, which has been SO MUCH FUN. It's so cool to set up shots and see how you can do it differently to get different effects... I can't really explain it, but it's GREATNESS, take my word for it.

I performed in several skits this week and that was a lot of fun. On Monday night, I played Miss Teen South Carolina on a "Jimmy Kimmel Live"-type improv skit. That was a hoot and a half. :-D

I went into town today and had cell service, so I got to talk to my mom today, which was nice. :-)

I guess that's about it. All of the interns are still getting along well, so thank you for your prayers! I think that we have to change rooms this weekend because we've got so many campers coming in next week, which means sleeping 5 girls to a room instead of the 3 we're currently enjoying. So please keep praying!

I think that wraps it up... please keep praying for me and the other interns as often as God brings us to your hearts. Thanks y'all! Love you! Have a great week! I'll try to update again next weekend! Soli deo Gloria!!!

Hello from Toccoa!!

2008-06-08T13:56:00.001-05:00

Hey everyone! I feel like I haven't seen you in FOREVER!! (Yes, I know it's only been 6 days...)

Tomorrow our first camp starts and I am totally JAZZED! I can't wait to find out what my assignment will be. We'll get them tonight. I spent all day yesterday helping our tech crew, Acquire the Fire (aka ATF), unload all their equipment and begin to set it all up. I never knew how HEAVY all that sound euipment is! The cool thing about that is that I get to see how all the tech stuff is done. Yesterday a crew of about 10 interns helped ATF with all the stuff (about 6 girls and 4 guys) and when they told Tyler, the lead intern, that they would need more people to help today, they specifically asked for me and my new friend Olivia to come back and help them. They said we'd worked really hard and they wanted us back. I thought that was pretty cool.

Anyway... I have to go back and help do more tech stuff at 3, so I'd better close. My cell phone gets absolutely NO signal out here, so e-mails and comments on here are the best way to contact me. My e-mail address is chiquitaxbonita@hotmail.com. I hope everyone has a great week! I'll try to update again at some point this week, but if I were to guess when I'll get a chance to borrow someone's computer again, I'd say it'd probably be next Sunday. Have a wonderful week everyone, and please pray for our team. We're getting along wonderfully right now, but I know that as camp gets running, we're going to get run down. Please pray for strength, endurance, wisdom and lots and lots of understanding! :-) See y'all in about 6 weeks, give or take. I love you!!!

Hello from Toccoa!

2008-06-08T13:45:00.003-05:00

A Message From Allison!

2008-06-06T08:34:00.003-05:00

Hey everyone! I am writing tonight from Norcross, GA.

We've been here for almost 3 days now, learning everything we can about how to be a youth camp staffer. It's been SO crazy busy, but it's been wonderful. All of the other interns are so great. I can tell we're probably going to get along famously. : )

Tomorrow we will load the truck and pile into the cars and high tail it to Toccoa, GA, where we will begin our first camp on Monday. I cannot tell you how excited I am to get this show on the road.

The highlights of the week would definitely be being selected as a member of the drama team, gaining more of an idea of what being a GO TELL intern is all about, and a really sweet time of sharing & exhortation that spontaneously occurred during lunch today. I feel like there is a place where I will fit here, and I know that God is going to do some awesome moving and shaking in the next 6 weeks.

That's all I have for now. I'm posting this by way of my wonderful friend Amanda who received this in a facebook message. I have yet to find an available computer here in GA, so I've used my phone to access facebook and message her all of this. Thank you Amanda Jo!

Good night everyone!

I'll try to update again sometime this week or next weekend. Love you!

Amazed

2008-05-24T20:32:00.002-05:00

You know, I'm not sure I understand why I'm always taken by surprise when God paves the way for me to do what He's called me to do, but I am. I don't know why I'm taken aback when He provides exactly what I need completely exactly when I need it. I don't get why I sell Him short by worrying and fretting and doubting Him. I don't know why I do all these things when time after time after time He does what He says He will do, when He is true to His character and does not call me to something He has not planned out.

All that to say that, once again, God has shown me that He is in control and He will provide when He calls us to do things. Yesterday I received the bulk of my support for GO TELL. I'm still slightly in shock. I thank each of you who have been praying for me and ask that you would continue to do so. I will be leaving Texas on June 3. (If you received a letter that said I'm leaving on the 4th, I'm sorry about that. I scheduled my flight for the wrong day!) I'll be back July 19. I am so excited about the weeks between those dates. God is going to do some AWESOME stuff this summer and I cannot wait to see His hands move. It's going to be astounding! :-)

Well, that's all I have for now. I'll update later. Please keep me in your prayers and have a blessed day. Love you!!

~Allison~

Encouraged

2008-05-15T12:02:00.004-05:00

Worrying comes very easily to me. Perhaps it's because I come from a family of worriers. I think it goes deeper than that. I think that worry is a symptom of a disease I like to call Distrust of Almighty God-itis. To me, worrying basically means that I don't trust God to be in control of something. I don't trust that He has it all in His hand. When I worry, I doubt Him and that does no good whatsoever. After all, the Scriptures say, "So Jesus answered and said to them, 'Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, "Be removed and be cast into the sea," it will be done. And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.'" (Matt 21:21-22 NKJV)

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not a "name it, claim it theologian." (I'm not any kind of theologian actually.) But I do believe that God wants us to come to Him with our needs and desires. He created us to have needs and gives us certain desires and I believe that He wants to take care of us. "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." (James 1:17 NKJV) "If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!" (Matt 7:11 NKJV)

So here is my dilemma: when I worry, I am not having faith and I am doubting, contradicting Matthew 21:21. When I worry, I am not asking in prayer believing that I will receive, contradicting Matthew 21:22. I've been telling myself these things for the past several weeks. But for some reason, my head and heart aren't making the connection and while my head understands all these things, my heart is having a difficult time completely believing.

Then something amazing happened. Yesterday we had a luncheon at work and my boss's wife (who is without a doubt one of the sweetest, gentlest, most godly woman I know) was asked to bring a devotional for us. She chose to base her sermonette on the last half of Luke 18:1, "...that men always ought to pray and not lose heart..." When I worry, I'm losing heart in God. I become discouraged... But the cool thing is that I really think that the first part of that little passage is the remedy for losing heart. If we are always praying, always in a state of communication with God, we will be listening for His voice of confirmation and we will hear it and not lose heart. Even with these words ringing in my ears at my desk later that afternoon, I continued to fret over what God's will is and whether or not I've discerned it correctly. I was thinking about this very thing when part of a verse popped into my head and I stopped what I was doing. The passage is Eph 3: 20-21 and it says, "Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Jesus Christ to all generations, forever and ever. Amen."
....... WOW. If that wasn't a direct mandate to stop fretting, doubting and worrying about provision for GO TELL, then I'm not sure what would be.

Anyway, I just wanted to share my heart with you today. I've only got 6 more days at my job and about 20 days till I leave. I'm getting very, very excited. I cannot wait to see what glory God will get in this. Please continue to pray for me, specifically that I will not doubt Adonai Nissi (The LORD my miracle). Love you!!

Letting Go

2008-05-02T17:58:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone. It's been a while. I hope all is well for you.
I've been having a tough time the last few weeks, mostly because I can't seem to grasp that God's will is perfect and He Himself is sovereign. It's interesting to me that I have seen God provide miraculously in so many ways on so many different occasions, and yet, again I doubt His faithfulness. Perhaps this is just what sinful nature does. Perhaps this doubting of Almighty God is simply the result of a heart that has been blackened by sin time after time. But there are no excuses for doubting. God has more than adequately displayed His power, not only in creation but in my own life.
I was struggling with this most strongly last night. I've got 4 more weeks left before it's time to leave home and go to GA. I'm still rather short on the funds that I need. Okay... very short. I've been praying that God will provide and my prayers have sounded like this, "God you know I need this, when are you going to take care of it? I'm starting to get worried because it's looking like You might not come through. God I know this is Your will for me, so umm... whenever you get arouond to taking care of it, that would be good. Okaythanksbye."
Prayers like that will get you nowhere, in my opinion, because they are all about us and not about Him. My focus was stuck on the fact that I want to do GO TELL, and since I've decided that I want that, it must be what God wants, right? WRONG.
I don't think that God minds giving us gifts and sharing His wealth with us, after all, the Bible says that every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights. What I think God does mind is us coming to Him like He's obligated to do what we want Him to do the moment we "ask" Him to do it. So I changed my approach to petitioning God for provision, and insight into His will, and let me tell you something that I found amazing: the moment I finished praying for God's will to take root in my heart over my own, for God to glorify His name through the life He's given me, for God to take GO TELL and only give it back if it was way He would get the most glory, I was peaceful. For the first time in a few days, I had a calm spirit that was not fretting over funds. God quieted my heart... and in that quiet, God said, "I have taken care of it, my daughter. I will take care of you."
Please don't mistake me and think that I think that I literally heard God speak. That's not what I'm saying here. I'm saying that God spoke to my heart. And when I "heard" the words, "I have taken care of it," I did not immediately wonder who had paid for my summer, or how GO TELL is going to work out, I knew that He meant that He has already orchestrated His will. My life is taken care of, and He is the One doing the caring.
Anyway, I just wanted to share that with you. Please continue to pray with me that God's will be done, and that He gains the utmost glory from my life.

Right or Wrong?

2008-04-17T10:23:00.000-05:00

How do we decide what is right and what is wrong? Is there such a thing as black and white when it comes to morals? How do we know if Biblical commands are applicable to us, have figurative meanings or were meant solely for the person to whom the command was written?

There are basically 3 main groups when it comes to right and wrong. There are the people who say that right and wrong are determined by situations. There are the people who think that what's right and wrong changes with the person - that everyone has their own truth and what's true for them may or may not be true for everyone else. For these people, there is no such thing as absolute truth and there is no "black or white." Lastly, there are people who believe that everything is either right or wrong, no matter what. For this last group of people, there is no "gray area" in morality, everything is morally absolute.

I tend to lean more towards the view of a moral absolutist. I cannot Biblically say that there is no such thing as absolute truth because that would mean that I was saying that the Bible isn't absolutely true and that would be discrediting it's inerrancy. I do not like situational ethics, because they are wishy washy. God is a God who stands strong on the laws that He has placed in order to govern man. He does not waver in His character. I believe that situational ethics go against the very nature of God.

In any case, this was the topic of discussion last night at church. Eric C (the youth/associate pastor at my church) preached on this issue. His text was Matthew chapter 5, and he summed it up in 7 points.

Christ didn't come to get rid of the Law. (The Law is the Old Testament_
Christ did come to teach the TRUE application of the Law.
The Law will last until the end of time.
Those who practice and teach the Law incorrectly are least in God's kingdom.
Christ was specifically speaking to the Pharisees when He said this, but it still applies to those who misinterpret the Law today.
Those who practice and teach the Law correctly will be great in the kingdom of God.
Unless a person is more righteous than the Law, there is no way he will make it into Heaven on his own. (FYI: It is impossible to be more righteous than the Law, if you don't believe me, go read Exodus - Deuteronomy and check out some of the Laws the Jews were expected to follow.)

Eric then presented us with "6 Things to Consider When Asking About the Universal Application of a Biblical Teaching" I've listed them and my own notes.

Consider God's Nature as it is Revealed to us in the Bible and Creation.

Look at those things which stirred the wrath of God.
Idolatry and a lack of respect, fear and awe of God are 2 that are HUGE.
God is a jealous God! This DOES NOT mean that He is jealous of us!!! It means that God desires and deserves all of hearts, worship and adoration.
In order to know what God has revealed, we have to read His Word - we must know the Bible.
We cannot just assume that we know God without taking the time to get to know Him and to LEARN!!!

Consider God's created order. (The way He made things to be: Genesis 1, check it out yo.)

In order for this to be operational in one's heart, one must first believe that God created.
Anything that goes against the natural order of things is immoral, things like homosexuality, adultery, fornication, abortion, murder, cloning, lying, etc.

Consider the situation in which the command was given.

The passage about the rich young ruler, for example. In this case, Christ was specifically speaking to that man, not to humanity in general.

Consider what the rest of the Bible says about the issue.
Consider what Jesus says or emphasizes about the issue.
Consider whether or not the command affects people being SAVED.

QUIT BEING SO STINKIN' LEGALISTIC!!!
Sometimes things can really be a matter of spiritual life and death, don't risk ruining some one's eternal future just because you think that it's wrong to wear a hat in the sanctuary, have more than your ears pierced, listen to certain kinds of music, etc.
As followers of Christ, we should be as He is, loving and compassionate. In this way, our witness will be good.

I just thought this was interesting and, as you can see, I got a TON of notes out of a one hour session or so.

Thanks for reading, here's a tiny update about GO TELL.

I'm still going. Still have no where near the amount of money I need to be able to do this. But I KNOW that God is faithful, and will continue to be. Please pray with me for God's provision and preparation, His protection and His direction. Thanks!!!

PS. You can still go to www.gotellministries.com, click on the "Support Your Intern" link and support me monetarily with a tax deductible donation. :-)

Until next time, God bless!!

~Allison~

The Schedule

2008-04-08T10:55:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone! Are you ready for this?? (Drum rolls) Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you the first of the GO TELL updates!!!

I cannot tell you how excited I am to be serving as an intern with GO TELL Ministries this summer. It is going to be absolutely a-mazing.
So far, God has already proven faithful (of course.) I looked up flights with AA this morning and discovered that a one way ticket from here to Atlanta is only about $99. I have yet to find out how much it costs to get from KY to Houston, but I know that God has gone before me and that it will be taken care of. How exciting is it to know that God Almighty cares enough about us to plan things for us and use us to further His kingdom?? Pretty exciting if you ask me. :-)

I got my schedule for the summer and will be travelling all over the place this summer. I'll be working camps in Virginia and Kentucky, as well as spending time in Georgia before heading down to Honduras. It's going to be absolutely insane, but I am SOOOOOO psyched.

Well, that's all for now. Look for another update soon. Please pray for me!!

~Allison~

PS I'm still working on getting together all the funds I need for the summer. If you want to donate, please visit http://www.gotellministries.com, click on the INTERNS link, scroll down a bit and click on the "Support Your Intern" link. :-)

Infinity

2008-02-12T12:09:00.001-06:00

was listening to the radio again last night on the way home from YACS. There was a sermon playing entitled "Good Fences Make Good Neighbors" (Listen to it here! http://www.haventoday.org/audio/021108-64k.m3u ) It was an interesting concept and I was really agreeing with what the pastor was saying. That is, I was really agreeing with what the pastor was saying until he said something to the effect of, "One day, we will know Christ as He knows us." *Tires screeching to a halt*
Excuse me? Did I hear that right? Did he really just say that one day we will know everything there is to know about the Lord Jesus Christ? Houston, we have a problem.
But seriously. I do have a HUGE problem with that statement. We are finite beings, and I believe that we will always be finite in some capacity. Even in our new bodies, we will have those finite limits. I don't believe that, once we finish this life and go to Heaven, we'll be able to fly or read minds or walk through walls or any of that crazy stuff. Heaven is the city of God and it is made of physical materials such as gold, pearl and precious stones. There is water in Heaven that flows from the throne of God. What bothers me about the statement that one day we will know everything about Christ is that Christ is God, and God is infinite. As finite beings, we can never fully understand and infinte God. It's simply impossible. If finite beings could grasp everything about God, then He couldn't be infinite.
I looked up the definition of "infinite" on www.m-w.com. I found the result to be quite interesting. ": extending indefinitely : endless 2: immeasurably or inconceivably great or extensive : inexhaustible 3: subject to no limitation or external determination." My favorite is the second one. "Immeasurably or inconceivably great or extensive."
God is not only infinite. He is infinitely immutable. He does not change. (Hebrews 13:8 "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.") Therefore, if God is now infinite and God is immutable, then God has always been and will continue to be infinite. There will never be an end to God. If there is no end, then how can we discover it? If there is never an end to God, then how can we ever know all there is to know? I believe it is impossible for us to know all there is to know about God, and it will always be impossible. For if we could fit the entirety of the infinity of God into our finite beings, then there would be no infinity because there would be an end. An end means that there can be nothing further and therefore negates the possibility of infinity.
Yikes... my head hurts now. Did that make any sense at all? I'm really interested to get feedback on this, I've already spoken of it with one of my coworkers (who also happens to be a good friend) and we disagree on the matter. Let me know what you think!!

Beyond the call?

2008-02-11T13:10:00.001-06:00

I'm discovering that things they say on the radio are good food for thought. Or debate.. Whichever. Lol
Anyway, I was listening to the radio one the way to work this morning and they played a feature that they play every morning called, "Beyond the Call." This feature is about a minute long and tells brief stories about people who went "beyond the call." I really enjoy the feature, but this morning, when I heard the title something struck dischord in me.
Beyond the call? As Christians we are called to live our lives as living sacrifices. We are called to care for the needy (Deut 15:11 "For the poor will never cease to be in the land; therefore I command you, saying, 'You shall freely open your hand to your brother, to your needy and poor in your land.'") and the widows and orphans (James 1:27 "Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress...") We are called to love even our enemies (Matt 5:44 "'But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.'")
My question is, can a Christian go beyond the call of Christ? I don't believe so. The call of a Christian os so far beyond human capability. Only with the power of Christ can we "press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Phil 3:14). The world's view of things is so different than God's (Is 55:9 "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.") and what the world may see as "going beyond the call" is really simply trying to fulfill the ultimate call.
There is nothing a Christian can do that would be "going beyond" what Christ has called us to. Even those who have died for the sake of His name did not go beyond the call. They merely followed and obeyed, even unto death, and that was the call. They couldn't go beyond because God expects the utmost. There is no beyond when it comes to the call that is on the life of every believer.