Thankful

So it looks like its been a while yet again. I guess timeliness isn't one of my qualities or ambitions of late. A lot has happened since the summer, almost too much to recount. So instead of trying to go back and highlight the past 5 months, I'm just going to skip right to present day. And here we find Thanksgiving. Can't believe the holidays are here and 2008 is about to be over. The year has simply flown by. I actually thought that we would never get here, that it was so far away in the future, but here we are. And what comes after this year is a life-changing, exciting, scary, uncertain, dream-come-true kind of thing that cannot be dwelled on now for risk of missing the present, yet cannot be ignored either for risk of being unprepared. I therefore must choose now to be in the present and hold off on what is coming until that too, becomes more present.
As we are in the season of being thankful, here goes. I am thankful for my husband, obviously. He has been the best surprise of my life. I am so thankful for the man he is, the man who follows God where He leads, no matter how hard it gets. And I am so thankful for the man he is becoming, the man God has big dreams and plans for yet. I am also thankful for my family. They don't always understand the decisions I make or the paths I choose, but they always support me. And now they are doing that for David. I am thankful for fall, and this one in particular. I love when the leaves change colors, and this year has been the most brilliant ever. Despite the drought and how ugly things looked in the summer, fall came in with an incredible display of beauty. Only God can do that. Only God can make something out of nothing, only He can make beauty from drought. And I am so thankful for what He has done in my own life. He truly has dreams bigger than I could ever dream, and I am thankful that He gives me the chance to live them. I am thankful for the places He has brought me out of, and how He has used those places to make me into who I am right now. I am thankful for the life He breaths into me everyday and that I don't have to do it on my own. And I am thankful for the people He has surrounded me with, the great cloud of witnesses, who come along side of me when I can't walk it alone. I am truly blessed and I shouldn't be, and I am thankful. Only God can do something like that.
Here's some pictures of what He's been doing up here, although its not the same as actually being part of it. Hope your Thanksgiving is great and that you are thankful too.







PS- Jenny, Laura Susan, if yall read this, or if you know them and can pass this on, I miss reading your blogs! Please let me back in! Sorry I'm late with my request!

We're going to the Beach!

HOORAY! We areleaving in 6 days for the beach! We are going to Jekyll to stay in an apartment with my mom and Erin and Brandon, and the whole rest of my mom's family will be just a short walk away. All 25 of them. So it should be a blast! And who knows? Maybe we'll see some Fritchies while we are there! HOORAY!

Where has the time gone?

Yep, it's definitely been almost half a year since my last post. Isn't that ridiculous when you say it? We've been as busy as ever, though we have definitely learned when to just rest and love each other instead of feeling obligated to do everything we are invited to. Mostly that translates into having not finished painting our house yet. We have been done with the kitchen and den for a long time now, and recently finished 3/4 of the hall before we ran out of paint. And of course we have not been back to Lowe's to get more. But oneday, it will be done and we will invite people over. It's not like I even mind painting, because I don't. I actually enjoy painting, once I can make myself get started. But we will deal with my procrastination later; on to more important and more fun things.

I have had a birthday, David has had a birthday, and we have had our 1 YEAR ANNIVERSARY since my last post! We went up to Pigeon Forge for a few days and stayed in a cabin and took in the sights and had so much fun. My favorite thing was going to Dollywood. Since I was a little girl I have loved Dolly Parton, so I loved every part of Dollywood. David had fun too, but with a little less enthusiasm than me. We ate a ton of good food in Tennessee and took tons of pictures. We also had a lot of time to just be together. I feel like we do a good job of communicating, which is big if you knew me when I was younger, and I love just talking and sharing and snuggling and dreaming with David. I am so blessed and truly REDEEMED in my marriage, and its only been a year. People say that the first year is the hardest, but ours hasn't been very hard at all honestly. Of course there have been a couple of bumps, but we weren't broken or bruised from them, we just got over them and came out stronger and more unified and ONE on the other side. And so I am thankful for the foundation we have built during this first year, and that it wasn't hard. But I also wonder if that hard year is somewhere else down the road. Sometimes I try to tell myself that its not, that since the first year is supposed to be the hardest and ours wasn't that we're home free, but I know that is not reality. So then I just have to say a little prayer that God would continue to draw us into Him and into each other, and that the foundation we are building would not crumble when things get hard.

On another note, I am moving departments in the hospital. I will still be working nights, but only for a little while longer. I will be on 6th medical and there are a lot of people closer to my age there, so who knows what could happen. I will miss my friends on Neuro, but its just time for a change. I am going to be cutting it close for our vacation this year, so pray that I can get the week of July 4th off. We are planning to go to the beach with Erin and Brandon and mom, and I have the time off, but my request will be last minute since I don't start until May 13 and I can't ask off until I get in that department. Our schedules are for 4 weeks at a time, so that means that on the first full schedule I work, I will have to be off for a week. So pray pray pray that I can get the time off, otherwise it'll be like last summer and we won't go anywhere again!

Here's some pictures of our trip; enjoy!



Riding the sky lift in Gatlinburg, Tennessee



Dolly was waiting for me when we checked in to our cabin



Such beautiful scenery-one of hundreds of pictures



Happy first anniversary Davey-I love you forever!

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

It seems like once October gets here the rest of the year goes by in a flash. We move from holiday to holiday, from Halloween to Thanksgiving to Christmas, and then the year is gone. And then the new year starts with a couple of holidays in a row, New Year's of course, my birthday, MLK holiday(really only applies if you're in school), then Valentine's, Easter, and then its spring and winter is gone. It just seems like things are going along fine in the summer and fall, and then you hit Halloween and things pick up speed.
Our lives have not really slowed down at all, which is good and bad. We are closing on a house Dec 10 pending our inspection on Thursday. That means we are going to pack up our stuff, move it, dump it in our house, and then leave for Christmas in Macon the weekend before Christmas. So we get to pack up until that point, and then ring in the New Year unpacking. Wishing it wasn't at this time of year, but so excited that we're getting a house. It's just a standard 3/2, but it has 2.57 acres with woods, so it's peaceful and quiet. We also have a well, which David grew up on and loves, and which should be beneficial in all this drought.
Besides moving, we have been in and out of town a lot. We were gone every weekend in October but one, and now with all the holidays, we haven't slowed down much. But I have always loved travelling and being on the go, so it's fun. Sometimes I wish we could just have a quiet weekend to ourselves. And actually, we are going to Vogel State Park in Blairesville this weekend to go camping. We got all this stuff for our wedding(tent, air mattress, lantern, etc) that we haven't even used yet, so we thought we try it out this weekend. Hopefully it won't be frigidly cold. David and his family go camping a lot, and I used to go a lot when I was younger, so we're both pretty excited about it. We will be taking our two dogs, Scout and Penny, and hopefully there won't be any mishaps with them on this trip.
On a sad note, our rabbit, Amos, died. It was the weekend after GA-FL and we came home from a friend's house that Saturday night and he was dead. I had to be the one to find him of course, just like I found my first rabbit dead when I was a child. Not a good night. I of course cried a good bit, and I was actually surprised by that. I mean, he's just a rabbit right? But sudden death is tragic, even in a rabbit. He wasn't sick at all. And this was mine and David's first pet together; he got him for me as a birthday present, so that was sad too. So we went to church on Sunday and every song we sang had something about death in it; I almost had to leave the service. But after that I have been fine. We may end up getting another one, but not for a while yet.
So that has been us in a nutshell the past couple of months. Here are some pictures of what we've been doing.


We went to the Georgia National Fair with Erin and Brandon







My dad turned 50 and we had a party at Erin's house


Sorghum Syrup Festival Biscuit Eating Contest




David ate 5 biscuits and was the winner at his table!


We went to the Georgia-Florida game-GOOO DAWGS!


Our first Halloween-we carved our pumpkin that night. Scout was scared of it.



We got Penny and Scout a new bed. I love our girls!



So I apparently just decided to add pictures to my blog. Hope you like them. There will be more of the holidays to come, and of our new house. Be blessed, be thankful, and Merry Christmas!

Just a few reminders

It's been a while, and honestly, a lot is still the same. I still have my same 7pm-7am job, and its ok for now. For a short time it felt like things were out of control and that something had to change to fix it, but really, I just needed to be reminded of some things.
1) Emotions/feelings are rarely synonymous with truth/reality. And decisions made out of emotions/feelings generally aren't as wise as say decisions made out of careful consideration/prayer/truth. My emotions were telling me that my life was out of control and that I needed to change it, but the Truth was telling me to trust in the One who has already proven Himself trustworthy to me and to WAIT for Him to reveal the next steps.
2) My life isn't anybody else's, and therefore, doesn't have to look like anybody else's. It's hard to see and appreciate all that God is doing in my own life when I whine and complain about why it doesn't look like someone else's life, or someone else's marriage.
3) The things I/we go through now are in preparation for what is to come later. And if I, in my own self-centered, self-determining nature, changed things every time I didn't like the way things were going, or every time it was hard, I would miss what God had for me in those moments. And then later on, when it got hard again, I would lack what I could have had by staying the course and trusting in His goodness and mercy and purpose for me.
4) I can't see what's coming, and I don't know what's best for me, but the Lord has promised to draw near to me if I draw near to Him, and in those moments of nearness I am reminded of all that He is to me and all that He has for me. And then the peace comes, and all that isn't falls away, and only the Truth is left.
So the work situation hasn't totally changed, but David and I did decide that I would only work my required 3 nights/week instead of the 4 nights/week I had been working. If we need extra money at any point, I can work extra, but we don't need me to work 4 nights/week right now. So now we are able to spend more time together. I also decided to stop looking at the job postings every time I went to work and to just wait on the Lord to lead me into another department rather than trying to "make it happen." And things aren't so out of control anymore. I just needed to be reminded to step back and look at things through the right eyes.

Summer?

It's obviously been a long time since I blogged; almost 2 months. A lot of the same has been happening up here in A-town, mostly work. I have been working extra for the past month at the hospital, which is good for the paycheck but bad for everything else. Working 4 nights a week leaves little time to do anything else during the 7-day week, since 5 of those days are spent sleeping to be able to work 4 nights. After 5 weeks of doing this I have decided its time for a job change. I have applied for a day shift job and have an interview next Monday morning. It's too hard to be apart from David for over 100 hours a week every week, especially when you consider that there are only 168 hours in a week. So I am making a change for the good of our marriage. I don't really feel like we can build a solid foundation on 40% of time spent together. Some people can, but we can't. So thats where that stands. I'll update after the interview on Monday.
With all this working going on I almost forgot that its summer. And then I got a little sad. This is the first summer I haven't been on vacation. I guess everyone thinks that since I'm not in school and I'm married I have to make my own plans for vacation. Well we see how far I got on that one. It just seems like normal life right now, not summer. Nothing stopped or got put on hold for a few months; summer just started while we were at work. I mean really, how significant is summer if you aren't in school or don't have kids who are in school, or don't work in youth ministry? Not very. I guess I have just been spoiled my whole life, especially the glorious 5 years in MBY. My summers were pretty much planned for me, I just packed my bags and went wherever they took me. Now I have to be in charge of my own summer vacation, which I guess I didn't realize until halfway through July. Next summer I intend to do a better job.
On a higher note, David and I did go down to Hazlehurst for 3 days for a break from work. And my mom and sister and I are going to Amelia for a weekend in August. I am thankful for the short breaks; they have somehow redeemed my lack of planning. Nevertheless, I have already begun getting ideas for next summer. I won't be making this mistake more than once. Happy rest of the summer!

8 weeks and counting

Well we've been married for 8 weeks this past Saturday. I feel like we have been doing so much since we got married, life seems to be busier now. We had Easter the day after we got back from our honeymoon, we've had 5 showers to go to, David graduated, and we've had Mother's Day. Every weekend there's been something to do it feels like. And it'll just keep on for the next few weeks with 2 weddings in June and then Father's Day. Not that we aren't having fun at these functions, because we are, but sometimes its just nice to just have a day or weekend of nothing planned and just see what happens. Maybe at the end of June we will have one of those weekends.

In order to keep perspective and not get lost in the busyness of life, I thought I would reflect on these first 8 weeks of marriage. I can remember how I didn't want to go to sleep at night because I didn't want to miss one conscious second of being married. Everything was exciting and I was a little sad for each day to end and for us to be separated by sleep. Now I welcome sleep, when I'm home that is, and enjoy watching David sleep late at night and early in the morning. I remember how I grieved the end of our honeymoon and the beginning of real life the Monday we both had to go back to work. He left at 630 that morning and I cried all day long. It was completely unexpected and intense. I cried when he walked in the door at 530, cried when he said the blessing at dinner, and cried when I had to leave at 620 that night for work. I thought I would be a wreck all night, but by the grace of God I made it through my 12 hour shift at the hospital without one tear. I remember going to get my Driver's License changed, my Social Security card changed, changing all my insurance information for work, getting my mail changed, and getting a joint account. I still have to get my magazines and credit cards changed.
So much change in a short period of time, and there's only more to come, with buying our first house, going back to school for a master's degree and getting a different job, and having babies.

In the midst of all the busyness and change that is inevitably coming our way, we have to remember to make time for each other everyday, which can be a challenge when 3 nights out of the week I'm at work, time for the Lord, and time for our little pet family. It's been fun figuring out how to live together and what really matters at the end of the day-unpacking another box or sitting on our porch eating ice cream at night. Life is good; God is good. I thought I was blessed before this whole new life, and I definitely was, but the blessings keep coming and the goodness of God is more and more apparent and I just keep thinking that the surface has barely been scratched. When I'm 100 I wonder what all of God I will have seen and experienced, if I'll even begin to be able to adequately express all that my heart will contain.

Truly, I am redeemed and am living a life that only the Most High God could have designed for me to live.