Goodbye for Now

Hello world.

Before I say anything more, I would like to apologize. I am super cranky today, and I just can't handle my emotions. Aside from getting virtually no homework done last night (the school's computer server was down), I also found out that my husband has to work on my birthday. He asked for the day off, but so many people asked for that day off that, well, someone had to work. That someone is him.

I'm really having a hard time accepting that I'll be home alone eating Ramen on my couch on my birthday. It doesn't seem fair. It feels like a punishment. Will it steal my joy? No. But I have to say, I'm feeling discouraged.

So, instead of pretending all is well and writing something poetic and hopeful, I decided to just tell it like it is this morning. Nobody's life is perfect, and we can't expect them to be. Next month, when I'm looking for ways to make money by writing during a few weeks without employment, I won't even be thinking about this day.

I apologize because this is my last post for about a month, and it's not a great one. I have to finish this semester strong, and then I plan to get some hours in with the schools. So I'm sorry to leave you this way. If you haven't been around for long, please go back and read some of my previous posts. If you like what you read, please hit the little "follow" button. Or subscribe. You will be notified next time I post, and that way you won't miss a thing once I'm back. Also, it's always encouraging to gain more followers. You guys push me to do better.

See you in a month.

String Theory

I'm posting a little late today because Mr. Wonderful and I both have a day off. We spent the extra time this morning sleeping in and eating a big breakfast. It was so nice. But now it's time to register for next year's classes. Senior year! I haven't decided if I want to go on to grad school yet, but I'll definitely leave that decision for the future. Far in the future.

I'm using the free internet access at McDonald's right now - kinda sketchy, I know -  so I'm a little anxious to get offline. Here's a flashfiction piece I'm working on for a class portfolio. I've really enjoyed writing these, so I hope you appreciate this one.

String Theory

            She didn’t care for love. Or boys, for that matter. She hardly had time for friends, and at her age, who needed a boyfriend anyway? She didn’t need a reason to dress up to be told she looked perfect.

            Her mother had her in enough extra-curriculars to keep her busy through college and beyond. She hoped to break free during college. Not that she didn’t enjoy the city chorus choir, volunteering Thursday nights at a local food shelter, voice lessons, piano lessons, lessons for every stringed instrument, enough to make her her own small orchestra.

            She loved knowing she was admired, especially when her mother was outwardly approving of her work. But it got to be tiresome. Each night she would come home just past dinner-time and instead of sitting down to relax, she would have a mountain of homework. Honors English literature, pre-calc, chemistry, and with the expectation from her mother and instructors that she would practice any one of her instruments for at least an hour each day.

            It was during one her of her longer practice sessions, in fact, that she broke her violin. She had felt the urge to do it before, but feared the consequences, the disappointment, and always talked herself out of it. At one o’clock in the morning in her basement practice room, driven by fatigue and pure frustration after getting the same two measures of music wrong for fifteen minutes, she did it. With both hands she raised the violin over her shoulder and swung it like an axe. Wood splintered into a thousand pieces in the most awful symphony she had heard from the three-thousand dollar instrument.  She stepped over the mess and went upstairs to bed, sleeping in fits.

            Her mother found out the next morning when she went to the basement to collect music for the next Sunday’s church service from the practice room.

            “Do you have any idea how upset I am with you?” was all her mother said when she flipped on the bedroom light.

            The satisfaction of the wood splitting musically in her fists faded like the final note of a cello concerto solo. Her parents used part of the college fund to buy her new violin. She would just have to make up for it in scholarships, her parents told her.

            She held the delicately crafted instrument, running her hand over the fingerboard and feeling out the strings before dragging her bow across them. The instrument shrieked to life, a voice more sure than her own.

Priorities

Today I traded in the mocha for a hot mint tea so that I could feel good about buying breakfast along with my coffee. Unfortunately, my mocha has become sort of ritual for me, telling my brain when it's time to write for the blog-world, and I'm finding that I either need to drink a mocha each time I sit down to write this blog or get myself out of the habit of drinking a mocha every time I sit down to blog. For me, this goes under the category of problems to solve another day, and I choose to make note of it and move on for now. But I couldn't help noticing that as the barista rang up my total, it was less than I normally spend on my one small mocha.

This year has really been about finding priorities. Last semester was busy and hard, and I ended up quitting one job and significantly reducing hours in another. Putting schoolwork ahead of employment is not normally the advice I would give to others, but after looking at our budget and finding that with my husband's income we would have, once again, *just enough*, I decided to spend the year focusing the majority of my energy as a student. But prioritizing isn't always easy.

I have a friend who is in a training program to become a pastor who tells me she can't do anything around the house until her homework is done (with the exception of taking care of her children when, say, they need food or a diaper change). Her husband, on the other hand, can't focus on writing a sermon or speech or making a budget until the housework is done and he can be free of distraction. They're lucky, they have it figured out. They know exactly what they need to do in order to focus and complete their tasks.

I have met students here who are killing themselves over grades. I met one girl whose philosophy is to get all of the homework done, sacrificing sleep, work, anything she can cut out of the day to get work done. She and others strive for A's and anything less is unacceptable. Of course, I can understand this, but I don't think it's any more healthy than putting everything off until the last minute and doing a minimalist job.

What I have found this year, especially after spending a year in the "real world" where you have to work hard and make a sustainable income, pay bills, etc, is that there are no A's in life. I am learning that most of the time family comes first, gainful employment is important for a sustainable lifestyle, community involvement helps more than the individual.

It's hard to find a balance in a world where everything is graded, but you can't neatly file learning, understanding, gaining of knowledge. As my colleagues and I get closer to graduation, it's harder to regurgitate exactly what the professor wants. What professors want these days is not to see how much we can remember from text books but how we apply what we learn in class to our own work, and how we develop. In the real world, we need to know how to prioritize.

Because ultimately, what we become is far more important than what we know.

Vulnerable Me

 About a week ago we discussed vulnerability in one of my writing classes. The class started with some uncomfortable shifting in seats and possibly some eye-rolls. However, it turned out well, and we had a good discussion. Maybe it's just the dynamic of a classroom setting, but most students left agreeing with the professor's main point: we must learn to be vulnerable.

While writing my short story for that same class last weekend, I was struggling with the ending. I will point out to you here that to talk about this I must make myself vulnerable. So, I was writing my short story, trying to figure out where I went with the ending because my professor didn't find the first draft believable. In the first draft, my main character finds out she is pregnant after a rare and accidental one-night stand, and decides, since she is pretty fresh out of college, to get an abortion. I just couldn't let her go through with it and had to find a way out, so I had her call the baby daddy at the prodding of her roommate to ask for some help with the decision. He, of course, is far from okay with the thought of abortion and offers to raise the child if she will only carry to term, which ultimately causes the main character to change her mind and not get an abortion.

Don't worry, I now see where the story went wrong. I think I did at first, too. But I was having a hard time really being open to taking a risk in this story. I decided that a risk had to be taken, and while I was re-working the end of the story, the end became a story of it's own, and it is now the beginning of the piece. Yup, I chucked out the whole first draft, and basically, started over. All because I was willing (finally) to become vulnerable. In allowing myself to potentially be hurt by taking a risk, I actually wrote a much better story... which would be tooting my own horn if I didn't know from the writing process that it really is a better story.

Our culture tends to think of vulnerability as synonymous with weakness. It makes sense, considering the dictionary definition: capable or susceptible to being hurt or wounded; open to moral attack, criticism, temptation (definition from dictionary.com).

Vulnerability is the main topic of Brene Brown's Ted Talks, which can be found on the Ted Talks website or on YouTube. Brene Brown studies shame for a living, and found that while dealing with shame one must become vulnerable. She is pretty inspiring and I would recommend taking the time to check out some of her speeches.

Now, we have established the definition of vulnerability, but does that make it synonymous to weakness? Yes and no, I think. If you've ever looked in a thesaurus you are aware that looking up the definitions of words is also important; not every word listed as a synonym actually has the meaning you may be looking for. So, where vulnerability is synonymous to weakness, it is not necessarily weakness.

In order to be vulnerable, you need to be willing to make yourself susceptible to weakness - to being hurt. These days we work really hard to close ourselves off and be strong so that we can't be hurt by anyone; we won't allow anyone to hurt us. But in order to be real, and according to Brene Brown in order to be truly happy and free, we need to learn to allow ourselves to be vulnerable.

Vulnerability is honesty. Openness. In being vulnerable we do open ourselves up to be hurt, but we also learn to trust that way, too. Meaningful relationships can't be built through a wall. To develop a truly strong relationship with anybody - a friend, a potential dating relationship, a therapist, even - we must be vulnerable.

In opening up we learn the freedom of trusting people, and find little pieces of ourselves on the way.

Preview

Good morning, Tuesday readers. Thanks for doing this day with me.

Today, I have a theology paper due, a short story to re-write, a personal essay to look over, and an essay about SPAM to edit. Needless to say, I'm short on time. Spring break is just a week and a half away, and I have so much to complete before that big fat due date next Wednesday.

Hey, maybe I'll post something new and exciting for you in the next two weeks. It's about time I become a real writer, after all. I'll admit, though, it's hard to feel O.K. about showing my work. Really dang hard. I'm currently overcoming my fear of letting things be finished and presented to the public.

Yesterday in my fiction writing class we spent most of the hour talking about vulnerability. Yeah, I really need to get better at opening up and being honest, allowing my work to come through me and not just out from wherever a mediocre Twilight-type story comes from. Popular doesn't always mean exceptional.

Come back next Tuesday for a discussion on vulnerability.

About the College Student

It's a little bit funny, sometimes, to think I live in a climate where underground tunnels between buildings are necessary. Downtown Minneapolis got it right, maybe, when they built the skywalk (an above-ground system of hallways connecting buildings). At least you can experience the beauty of day from above ground through the windows that way. Either way, in Minnesota winter, it's just too dang cold to be outside for more than five minutes. Especially when it's under 10 degrees with a windchill that brings it to 35 degrees below 0.

As I tunneled over from the cafe to the library this morning, I noticed a Coca-Cola machine with a sticker on it that read, "Open bottle carefully." I thought it was kind of funny that the school felt it necessary to remind college students that their pop would be shaken after tumbling down the chute, but then I had a picture of a sticky mess of caramelized drink in that hallway made by a delirious student wanting the immediate satisfaction of caffeine, and realized they probably had good reason for putting up the sign.

I have noticed lately that college students, though considered 'adult' and 'independent,' aren't vastly trusted by the general public, especially by those who run educational institutions. When I first realized this, I was a little offended, I guess. But then, just as with the sign on the pop machine, I thought that maybe it is for good reason.

College students, almost by definition, are irresponsible, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Hey, we have a lot going on at this stage. We have to balance homework, relationships, social functions, and if our parents don't have the desire or means to give us everything, gainful employment. For the most part, we're all generally sleep deprived and, if my own recent experience is any indication, bewildered. Maybe from lack of sleep or maybe from the sheer volume of what we cram into our heads, but I think all college students develop some form of attention deficit during the learning years.

 I have a writing professor who always tells her students that we know nothing, that we're not good at what we do, and that we can't be. This is always offending, but I understand. After all, I, only six years older than students in high school, think of them as inferior in art and thought, even if they're decent at anything for their age. Yet, when I was in high school, I thought I was kind of on my way to something. I thought I was okay. So I forgive my professor, because I know she's right, even if I feel that my effort warrants thinking there is some form of possible talent on my part.

It's true, we're inexperienced and still learning. I just wish we could be told when we're doing well. I think people forget to tell us we're doing well at this stage. Life is an unending venture of trying, failing, and finding success, after all. Is there ever the fabled satisfaction of a job well done?

I guess this comes from feeling a little on the end of worthless these days. How should I feel that going on is worthwhile if I'm only ever told what it is I'm doing wrong, and not what I'm doing right? How do any of us decide it's worth it to go on? To prove someone wrong? That is true for some, I know.

These are the years that we learn whether we're worth our salt. We work hard, strive, seek, and keep getting batted away. It's not failure, but it is something like trial. When we make it to the end, at least we know what doesn't work. Maybe life will prove what does.

Grappling Understanding

It's not quite 8:00 yet on a Tuesday morning, and here I am. This is the one day each week I take the time to sit down and write whatever I have a mind to write. No theology papers, no forced, edited, tweaked, deconstructed and entirely re-written essays or short stories. Just my thoughts, my experiences, my own judgment.

Today I have to write a paper on what I believe about God's character, His works, and His Trinity. I know what I believe about these things, but I never realized how much theology has to say about just these aspects of God. For centuries people have put a lot of thought and time into trying to explain God. Truly, there is nothing new under the sun.

The Trinity. Three in one. It's hard to grasp, yet Christians insist it is the true nature of God, and we try to explain it, attempt to understand. In the end, only to find it's impossible to fully understand.

God is Father, God is Son, God is Spirit (or as my theology book put it, an inversion: Father is God, Son is God, and Spirit is God). All three separate, all three equal, all three one. It's paradoxical. It doesn't make sense to our little human minds. It's been argued that it's not even biblical. But it is, isn't it? It certainly explains how Jesus spoke of God and himself. If it's part of God's nature, why is it so hard to understand? Why can't we just know?

It's part of God's nature for us not to understand. He's so big, so much more than we are. How could we begin to understand the mind of the one who created the universe. It's impossible. We are just the tiniest reflections of the Creator, and we are consistently imperfect creatures trying to reflect on the nature of One who holds all things together and abides outside of time. It's crazy to even try to understand.

But we have to try, don't we? Our knowledge grows with trying. And though the more we know the more we realize we don't understand, still the closer we come to Him in our attempt to know Him.

God is good. All powerful. Gracious, loving, merciful. He is patient and constant. He is eternal, infinite. This is what I know, and as I explore and falter, it's all that matters. To know Him.

A Coffee Break Study of Nature

Writer's block. A masked man with a gun to your head when you don't have the answer.

Eventually he goes away, right when you expect to be shot through the head, usually. Still, it's paralyzing.

I took a break this morning when I got to campus at 7:30, bought a mocha and sat in the campus cafe to sip my drink and nibble my strawberry Pop-tart in peace. It's funny how if you go to a coffee shop without a laptop these days, or at least a book, you get funny looks. One sir even stared directly at me as he passed after saying hello. It's mysterious, I guess, to just sit and take in life.

I just needed time before retreating back inside myself and relinquishing the precious knowledge of anything I've learned about writing, about theology, about analyzing style. Time to clear out the corners of the mind and find all that's there, if possible. With a laptop in your lap, a cellphone in hand, a book to hide behind, it's hard to take in the world around you without distraction. So I sat, undistracted, and watched.

It is said that writers pay closer attention to nature, have more reverence.  I don't know if that is necessarily true, or if we just document our observations more than most. This morning, at the window in the cafe with my coffee, I was a student of nature.

I watched the birds in their flight patterns, swell and dive, swell and dive, two by two. I contemplated the ice cracking and melting and running, forming puddles. I saw the few people here this early take slow, safe steps, cautious on today's ice layer.

Sitting as a silent observer, I overheard the different volumes of the baristas, listened in on the topics of their discussion. What's important to strangers. We're all a little bit the same.

This morning, I took the time to soak in the mysteries and revelation of the flitting birds, the tedious steps, the words that say nothing but reveal more of us than we know.

I watched the trees, reaching up, always reaching up. Even when the snow and ice weigh down as if to break their strength they remain firmly planted, reaching. But even strong trees sometimes fall. Yet they maintain their upward stretch until their time is over.

I want to reach up like the ancient pines and great oaks. Up, beyond the trees and clouds and stars. I want to stop being so conscious of the ice sheet on the ground, afraid of falling, and focus on what is all around. In front, behind, above. Reaching for the answer, the reason, the strength against the things of this world that weigh down. Always up.

Calm Coolness of Winter: A Reflection

Right now in the Twin Cities, MN it is -11 degrees. The high today is 1 degree above 0. Walking the one minute walk from the Billy Graham Community Life Commons (called "the Billy" by students) to the arts building on campus, my coffee had sufficient time to cool to a reasonable temperature. Question: how did anyone ever see this region as habitable for humans?

Then again, how do people survive the Middle East in their burkas? I mean, it seems to be hot enough there in the desert without them, right? What I mean is, there is probably something to complain about no matter where one lives.

I do have the hope, however, looking ahead, that spring is approaching. With each passing month, the weather will get warmer. For now, we're still in the deathly cold. But soon enough we will get our thaw.

The day, though cold, is beautiful. The sky is blue as the sun rises on the bricks of campus' oldest building, which used to be a monastery. After last semester's tears and hair loss (not major, just stress-related), I am finally able to look around campus and remember the beauty. I like it here.

So I drink my mocha and watch campus come to life from the library. I'm here (at the library) enough during each semester that it's actually a wonder why I don't work here. It's too late to apply now (I checked), but maybe next year. For now, I'll do my homework, people watch a little, write a little, sip my cooling mocha, and enjoy the opportunity to be properly educated. Life, as I see it, is good.

Your Short Story

I hate it when I get a magnificent idea for a topic for this blog while I'm sitting in class and neglect to write it down. I suppose I could write it in the margin of my notes, but at the moment the idea comes to mind I always think that I absolutely need to find a way to sneak my little notebook out of my purse and write the idea in there. My thought journal organizes my thoughts, but man, I really need to learn to write things down wherever there is available space just for the sake of keeping it with me.

That said, welcome to my new topic. That is, what I was learning in my fascinating Writing of Fiction class at the time I thought of (and subsequently forgot) a topic for this blog. Short stories, and the necessity for conflict.

I'm not talking about a page long, I'm talking twenty-six words long. Twenty-six being the maximum number of words we were allowed to write for our story during class yesterday. Does this seem impossible? Well, if you're a writer, you're already thinking up multiple different sentences that tell a story. If not, well, let me explain.

Ernest Hemingway wrote this one: For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

See the story? This one sentence all on its own brings the reader to ask so many questions. Most questions trying to answer "why were the baby shoes never worn?" Yes, the questions go unanswered, but there is still conflict, still tension. That is what it takes to make a story.

The child ran out into the street while chasing a ball. His mother looked up and let out a scream.

The dog chewed up my only pair of work shoes for my new job.

He leaned in a little closer and Sara could feel her breath catch, but nothing happened. When she opened her eyes, he was gone.

There was so much traffic on the way home that the ice cream melted all over the trunk of the rental car.

These short lines tell a story. There is no climax, no resolution, yet there is story. The Post Secret website (www.postsecret.com) is filled with these short strings of words that tell stories on post cards sent anonymously. As a society, we have become people who think of our life situations in the form of short story.

Status update: My car battery died last night when I closed for work. Fml.

Anyone with any form of social networking, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, etc have become accustomed to these little stories. Everyone has become an author, sometimes only of their own stories. We're all writers, even if the traditional conventions of "being a writer" aren't present.

I find the interconnected relationships of our minds simply fascinating. We are so many, yet we are bound to one another by experience, tendency, and desire.

Not Another Abandoned Blog

This may be more for me than it is for you, but I just have to make something clear: this is not an abandoned blog.

I understand what happens when blogs aren't written in enough, when the writer walks away never to look back, or gives up because he or she can't keep up. But this girl is not going to abandon this blog.

Recent readers may have come across this blog and find that it hasn't been written in for awhile and never return. That "follow" button may go unclicked because the content is neither interesting nor frequent, but I'm working on it. Readers will return, or there will be new ones, or I'll just go on to make a new blog (the link of which will be posted on here for anyone who may somehow be interested).

Writers write because the words eat their way out eventually. The need for expression through words is a weight that cannot be bore for long before it becomes crippling. Sometimes so crippling that the words all come out at once and can't be sorted to make logical sense.

So, as I do school and try to work despite the copious number of homework assignments, as I try to balance classes with cooking and cleaning and making money so that my dear husband is not the sole provider, I promise this semester, this year, to make time to write something that is not a required assignment.

As the creator and author of this blog, I will breath new life into it and do my best to make it something that may bring hope, inspiration, and at least entertainment to you. Whoever you are.

Just wait and see.

2000 Page Views!

Well hello there. After weeks of learning how to juggle life (and dropping things many times), I have some (at least to me) exciting news. My blog has had 2000 page views... as of today! It's also been somewhere around a year now since I started this blog. How lucky was I to log on and see this perfect number.

In celebration, I will go out to dinner this weekend.

Actually, I was already going to do that. This weekend is in fact Mr. Wonderful's birthday. Really, I'm so excited I could poo. (Name that quote in the comments below! Feel awesome for a day.)

I am finally getting into a rhythm being back in school, and thank the good Lord above, because I really felt like I was sinking. Drowning, actually, in paperback textbooks and guided reading assignments. Oh, and the poetry, Lord help me with the poetry!

I used to love writing poems. Really, I did. Until I found out that I suck at it. Does it matter how the "conventions" are if people legitimately like it already? Seriously... my self confidence has really taken a hit in my poetry class. And to be honest, I don't even like some of the "professional writer" poems that we read in class. They're dry. They're boring. They don't mean anything more to me than the stuff I write matters to my professor.

There are some really good poets, with poems so cleverly designed I can probably only dream of ever writing like them. When I try, oh boy... let's just say when a wanna-be poet sees a "C" on her first poem for poetry class, the emotion that gushes forth isn't pretty. I mean, come on, think poet here. Emotion... yeah. You'd think a good poem would come of that, but no, just goober and snot, and angry words on a page. Nobody wants to read your anger. Frustration, maybe, injustice, for sure. Angry words written to a college professor, nope!

Not to make you think poetry class is my life or anything. Poetry doesn't even take up a corner of my life, it's like 10%. Probably less, even. It's just the one that has broken me the most, maybe. The other classes are much more time-consuming and technical, and I won't burden you with the load of information I cram into my poor brain's throat every day. (Brains don't eat, I know this, but I'm a writing major, not biology, and just take in that visual, okay? Now you're getting it.)


I'm hoping sometime soon, I'll be able to clean my apartment and invite some friends over. Seriously, I haven't cleaned at all since we moved in (not that we've been home to make a mess), and I also haven't spent time with any of my dear ladies in over a month!

Oh, except for my dear German who was visiting last month! I'm so glad I could have her stay with me the last week. It was so much fun comparing how the school systems here and in Germany are so different. I so wish I would have had less work to do while she was staying with me.

Something must change about that. Soon. Very soon, things will be different. My apartment will be clean and the laughter of beautiful women and the smell of cheesy garlic bread and spaghetti will fill it.

So, as I have a battle of wills with God and my husband, who both tell me to do things contrary to what I would like to be doing (i.e. not suffering through schoolwork), I wish you all the best in your many endeavors. May you feel perfectly and pleasantly whelmed, nothing more, nothing less.

Here's to the next year of blogging.

So Much Life, So Little Time

After so many weeks of quiet from my end of the internet, I finally have a moment to write (and not for a class). Yes, I chose to do it here.

The beginning of school came too early for me this year, honestly. I was working every night at the MN State Fair, and the day after class started Mr. Wonderful and I had to move. We both started the semester really strong... behind in every class. We are actually caught up by now, but other areas of life have suffered. For instance, most of our belongings are still in boxes (especially kitchen things), and I haven't cooked a single meal in over two weeks (you're killing me, smalls!). The area of life that has suffered the most, though, is my time with my dear husband.

I know, wa, wa, wa, cry me a river, right? Well, not for me. I need that time; I crave it! My love language is quality time, and without it, there is little thought or feeling of love received from my end. I feel so alone. If life had a pause button, I would certainly be pushing it the next time my spouse and I are home together.

So, as I look at what comes up on the horizon, all I see are piles of homework and work shifts that begin after (or during) dinner and drag on until midnight. Maybe someday we'll have the chance to sit at home together and enjoy our new place, unpack boxes, and feel relaxed and at home. Not this week, though.

Okay, so there's my outlet for complaining. I'm having a hard time seeing the upside to life right now. Pray for me?

On the other hand, Mr. Wonderful and I are both gainfully employed, and I am back in school (even if it might be the death of me). Also, our new apartment is more affordable, and somehow we have more space! It's quite wonderful. I'm excited to make it home.

Also, it's 9/11 today, so I don't plan to only focus on myself. I never write too much about this day, because honestly, it's overdone. I don't feel that I was close enough to the incident to really make any calls on it. I have no gushing poem, no emotional essay, no exhaustive account of "where I was that day." Just this:

I am so grateful to those who were willing to risk their lives to save others. I am thankful to live in a nation that can be shaken to its core and still rise from the ashes fighting. I am proud to live in a country blessed by people who continue to try, even when it seems everything has been taken away from them; and for people who help heal and protect those who have lost everything. Thank you to our soldiers, the firefighters, cops, and police enforcement officers who train hard and risk their lives on a daily basis, and who are willing to risk their lives in a tragedy like the one that took place eleven years ago. You are uncommon people to come by. May God bless you and your families, and also those who were close to the tragedy that day.

Note to self: School will make me a better, more prepared writer for life's future endeavors. Be thankful for life's opportunities, others are frequently robbed of them.

Note to readers: Thanks for reading. Those tiny little spikes on my reader stats poll keep me going some days. It's nice to see that somehow, this might all be worth it someday.

Finding the Treasure Trove

So, I normally try not to say this but, "it's been awhile." I know, I know, don't worry I'm not going to whine about how awful I am at keeping up with this blog, and I'm not going to apologize. Nope, no apologies here. 

Really, I have been busy and lethargic at the same time. We have been facing big changes here along with a lot of uncertainty, and when I get around to writing it seems everything comes out at once, with no rhyme or reason. I think that means I've been suppressing my thoughts for too long, but thoughts eventually sort themselves out over time. I have also been focusing on my novels more, so when the mood to write strikes, I'm more likely to go to that. Which is going quite well, thanks for asking. This, paired with my obsession with Pinterest (curse you, evil, time-consuming site of wonders!) has kept me from doing many of my normal activities.

As I said, recently Mr. Wonderful and I have been facing some uncertainty, which made his at-home nick-name even more fitting (he is quite wonderful, no matter how much I cry over our worries). But we're finally coming out of that. He was having a devastatingly hard time finding a job, and I was wondering if it was going to be possible for me to go back to school this fall. Just over a week ago, we finally had a windfall; right as everything seemed to be going down the drain, it all came bubbling back up at once. Blessing after blessing.

First, Garth was called for a job interview at Chipotle. It wasn't his number one choice for work as far as hours and pay goes, but as far as a work-place (and restaurant to eat at), it far surpassed all others. He was stoked to have something to write on our calendar, and I can only imagine that his good attitude and excitement showed in his interview. They interview three times there, and after his second interview they gave him a t-shirt; they seemed ready to hire him. After over a week of scheduling and re-scheduling to meet with his final interviewer, he finally went in yesterday, and filled out the paperwork last night! For a married, working college student, this job is probably going to be a very good thing. God knows what He's doing, and His plan is the best. I can only assume it will be just the right amount of pay for now, and that we will still have plenty of time to spend together.

In the midst of the job conundrum, I was given some very exciting news of my own. The college called and let me know that they're deferring my payments on my unpaid balance from my first semester there! We don't have a lot left, but it's more than can be paid right now, so this is huge! Garth has two years of undergrad left, and then he'll be off to grad school, which means I have limited time to finish my degree before I'm whisked away to our new life! I am now officially re-enrolled in school and taking steps to go back this fall. I don't know if you're feeling this on your end, whoever you are, but I'm so incredibly excited!!!

What we learned in our rough time of uncertainty was that we had, without realizing, tried taking on everything ourselves. Preaching a bit here, I know, but before all these blessings we had been praying for fell into our laps so effortlessly, we started reading the Bible together every day. This was something we had done when we first got married, up until about January. We got a nightly devotional for Christmas, and started it on the new year. Yes, there are Bible verses at the beginning of each devo, but it's a marriage devotional, not a daily time with God. 

The effects of recommitting to a (for us nightly) time in God's word, learning, communing, feeding our souls, were immediate. We felt general comfort and peace to begin with, and Garth was asked to a job interview the next day. Just a day later, I received news that it was entirely possible for me to go back to school. A week later I received an email stating my official enrollment. So now, above every other thing we do each day we make time to be in God's word together.

Want to know how to achieve happiness and assurance of your future? Always remember this: reading the Bible daily, and praying constantly bring many blessings.

First time

I used to have an internet journal that my friends could read, before there was myspace, but that didn't work out so well. Hopefully, this will be more successful. A place where I can communicate without picking up the phone to fit the unpredictable schedules of my mom, mother-in-law, and myself.

This will also serve as a sort of practice tool for me. As Lady Catherine de Bourgh in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice insists, practice makes perfect. As a writing major on an involuntary leave-of-absence from school, I need to stay in practice in order to have any hope of surviving when I can go back (whenever that may be). I can't guarantee I will update this frequently, but if successful in communicating with my family, I will do my best to try.

So, here it is. Blog #1, done.