Tag, Your it!!!

I've been tagged! So here are a few things about me.

1) What was I doing 10 years ago today? probably what most eight year old do when there is nice weather. Ride my bike, roller-blade, etc.

2)5 things on my to-do list. Print off a few papers, clean my room, go to the store, get my glasses fixed, and put my air conditioner back in my room!!!

3)Snacks that I enjoy. I'm like my mom, anything chocolate is best

4)Things I would do if I were a billionaire.Pay off our house, pay off our car, pay my college tuition, buy my mom a bakery and my dad an old car to fix up and a place to fix it up.

5)3 of my bad habits. Being to quick to give my opinion, not putting things back in their proper place and procrastinating

6)5 places I have lived. Tecumseh, MI, Tecumseh, MI, Cincinnati, OH, Tecumseh, MI and can you guess, Tecumseh, MI

7)5 jobs that I have had. Babysitter, Cashier, Volunteer campaigner, secretary, babysitter

Okay. Now I tag Sam McConkey, Leanna Martin, and Melissa Phelps. Have fun!

A good break!

Well, I leave to go back to Cincinnati today! I'm really not ready to go back, but I know I have too and I don't have that much longer before we get out for summer. I can't believe how fast this year has gone by!! I have really had a good year though. God has been good to me and has supplied my needs. I have had a good time at home! The other day me and my mom decided to build a snowman. Actually, mom decided she wanted to build a snowman. Thursday morning I had just woke up and was coming out of my room and my mom said, "Let's go build a snowman!" "Can I have time to wake up?" I asked. So she let me wake up a little and she even gave me a little time to eat breakfast before we headed outside to build a snowman. Then we ran across a little problem. It had just snowed the night before and the snow was still a little to powdery to be able to pack round balls and roll them. So, we improvised! We made a snowman laying down. We used potatoes for the eyes, carrots for the nose and buttons and skittles for the mouth. It actually turned out pretty cute and it was a lot of fun doing it. We even made a sign to kind of give the reason for him laying down. It read, "You stand up all winter," we thought we were clever! We named him Charlie. Poor Charlie though. The next day we let my dog out and forgot about her eating Charlie. Well, when we let her back in we went outside to see if there was anything left. There was, she only ate the skittles and the funny thing is Charlie still has a mouth, it's about two inches deep though. Bailey, my dog, scooped out the skittles leaving a big hole where his mouth used to be! Now, there isn't much left of him at all because it rained and most of the snow is melting away. Oh well, we had fun doing it.

I also got to see everyone from Bird Lake this weekend. Saturday their church was having a basketball tournament. They have enough people playing to be able to have four full teams and the teams played against each other all afternoon. It was a lot of fun to go and see everyone, but when I left I felt like I really didn't have enough time to see everyone. So, Sunday night I went to Bird Lake for their evening service. The thing is to be able to go I used up all the money I had to take back with me. I really didn't have that much in the first place but my dad didn't really want me to go back to school without any money. My dad told me it was my decision, if I really wanted to go see everyone that was fine but that would leave me with no money, since Bird Lake is an hour away and gas prices are so high. Well, I decided I really wanted to go and I would just trust God to provide for me in the next week. Well, I didn't have to wait long! You know, God is really good!! He loves us so much that every once in a while He spoils us. He knew how much I wanted to go and see everyone and He also knew how much I was going to need money when I headed back. Well, today my grandpa was going to take me shopping for clothes but decided that since I still had some homework to finish and to pack that he would just give me the money. He gave me enough to fill my tank and still leave me enough for laundry money and spending money, more spending money than I really need. Isn't God great!! I got to see all my friends, twice, and I don't have to go back to school completely broke! Well, I hope to be able to come home in a couple of weeks for the Bird Lake Spring Drama and then a couple of weeks after that I will be home for a few days for Spring Break! This year is really going by fast! Hope everyone has a great rest of the week. God Bless!

Hello Once Again!

Well, I have been meaning to update my blog again and I just never got around to it. A few things have happened since I last blogged. First, about three weekends ago a friend of mine from the Akron, Ohio area came to Cincinnati for a few days to visit. We had an awesome weekend. We even had a picnic in the middle of winter, how cool is that! Pardon the pun. It was a very interesting experience. Then the following weekend me and a couple of my friends, Sam and Rochelle, went to my house for a Casting Crowns concert. That was a lot of fun! It was a very good concert. I was very impressed with them. I had seen them in concert before and had been impressed with them then but this time I got to see more of them than before. I was impressed by the fact that the lead singer on more than one occasion would stop and say a quick prayer before he would sing. Later on in the concert the lead singer, Mark Hall, said that before the concert he and the rest of the band went through the rows of seats praying for the people that would be coming to hear them, then he asked if we would mind them praying with us now that we were there. They spent the next fifteen to twenty minutes praying with us. I had never seen that before at a concert. It was very refreshing. They really made you feel like they were doing this as a ministry not just for the fame. Well, the concert was on Friday and we went home on Sunday. The following Wednesday was the beginning of Mid-Winter Break, so I now I am home until March 3. I was so happy to get home! Janette came and stayed at my house for a couple days and we had a blast. I got to babysit my niece, Emma, a couple days as well. I really have been having a good break. I have pretty much done nothing and it has felt so good!!

I cannot wait until Summer!! I have some exciting things planned for this summer. For one, I have applied for job that I am hoping I will get. I think I have a pretty good chance of getting it though. Two summers ago I worked on a campaign for Tim Walberg who was running for US Congress. I ended up working mostly for his wife, because she took a liking to me and wanted me to help her and keep her company when she was stuck at the house doing paper work or planning fundraiser dinners. I really enjoyed working with her and we became pretty good friends. Well, whenever she sees my mom she always asks about me. Recently she asked my mom if she thought I would be interested in working on their campaign this summer, and if I was to tell me to send in an application. So that is exactly what I did. I really hope I get it. It would be so much fun to work on the campaign as more than just a volunteer. That's one thing I have planned for this summer. I am also planning on going to a few different camps. My parents are both planning on taking a few days vacation this summer so we can all go to the Rock Lake Bible Methodist Family Camp for the whole time. This past year was our first year there and it was so much fun! I can't wait to go back there again this year. Then the week after Rock Lake I am wanting to got to the Appalachian Youth Camp in Pennsylvania. Janette goes as a counselor and she said I could stay with her which will be a blast. The only thing is whenever we stay the night somewhere together we never end up going to bed very early. We always seem to stay up until three or four o'clock in the morning talking. You would think that we would run out of things to talk about but we never seem to. I just can't wait until this summer!!

Well, I guess that is about it for now. I do have one more thing that I would like to share though. For the past couple of weeks I have been studying Jeremiah 29 for my devotions. Verses 10-14 have been a real encouragement to me, but really the whole chapter has. It takes place when the children of Israel are in captivity in Babylon and God sends them a message. He tells them to go ahead and settle down, build houses, get married, have families, and when their time there is up He will let them know and will bring them out. I'm the kind of person who likes to plan it all out. When I'm planning a weekend with friends, I don't really worry that much about the details, we can just go with the flow. But when it comes to my life I like to have it all planned out. Recently I have been struggling with the decision of whether I should go two or four years at GBS. As of right now, I am going with two, but I'm not sure that in two years I will decide to go another two. And that bothers me because I want to know NOW what I am going to do. When I read Jeremiah 29 it was almost as if God was telling me to just live my everyday life and when it was time for me to move on He would let me know. So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to go one day at a time and trust God to tell me where He wants me to be and when. Well, everyone, stay warm and enjoy the snow while it lasts! Bye for now!!

Smile!

The other day I was on my way up to Mr. Profitt's office and I passed a fellow student who was sweeping the stairs. He said "hello" and I gave him my usual reply with a smile. He stopped sweeping and asked me why I was smiling. "Everytime I see you, you are smiling. Why are you such a smiley person? What makes you smile?" I was a little caught off guard. Why did I smile? I told him it was because I like it when I receive a smile. A smile somehow makes someones day brighter and why should I be the one to make they're day bad just because I didn't smile. But is that really the reason? I thought about that for the rest of the day and have thought about it on more than one occasion since then. Why do I smile? I don't always feel like smiling. In fact there are somedays where smiling is the last thing in this world that I feel like doing, but do you really have to feel like smiling just to smile? And why does it matter if I smile anyways? Do people really care whether I smile or not? I once did an experiment for psychology on smiles. I found this little test on line where you watched twenty different people smile and after each one you had to check whether it was a real or fake smile. The day I found the test I really wasn't in the best of moods, but by the time the test was over I found myself smiling and in a better mood. That gave me an idea for my own experiment. I had a few other people take the test and afterwards I asked them if they had found themselves smiling or in a better mood then when they had started. Most said they did find themselves smiling back. So, I guess that brings me back to the question, "Does it really matter whether or not you smile?" I think it does. But most of the time I find myself smiling at someone and I don't even realize it. So why do I smile, if not just to make others smile? "Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the LORD his God: ~ Psalm 146:5" Maybe that's why I smile. : ) Are you smiling?

Winter Wonderland

Well, I was able to go home this last weekend. I was originally going to go home on Friday, but then my parents called and said that we were supposed to get a big snow storm and they would prefer for me to get home before the storm hit. That was Thursday night around 9:30 so I ran down to the dean of women's office to make sure it would be alright for me to leave and was given permission. By that time is was already 9:40 and I still had to pack. I was so ready to get home that I was packed and heading down the road at 10:20. It was raining a little bit when I left Cincinnati but by the time I passed Troy it had stopped and I had a pretty clear drive until I got closer to the Michigan boarder. That was around 1:30 in the morning. Well, then I took the wrong exit, which really wasn't that big of a deal. I knew where I was, I was in Petersburg when I should have been in Dundee, but then that meant I had to take Petersburg rode, which is horrible even on the clearest days, to get home. By this time the snow storm that the weathermen where predicting had hit. So I didn't get home until 3 o'clock in the morning. That was okay though. At least I got to go home and I even had an extra day.
I will be coming home again next weekend for a Casting Crowns concert and then the following Wednesday will begin Mid-Winter Break. So this semester is going by pretty quickly and I really don't have that heavy of a load. So I guess I said all of that just to say that God is Good. He was with me as I drove home at 1 o'clock in the morning and He is with me as I continue my schooling here at GBS. Well, I guess that is all for now!

Fearlessness!

Well, hello again everyone! Sorry it has taken me so long to write again. I am just not very good at this blogging thing. I don't ever seem to find the time to blog and when I do have the time I never know what to write. Shocking isn't it? Me not knowing what to say! Well, I certainly wasn't sure what to say Friday morning. Last weekend was the basketball tournaments here at GBS. I think there were about five or six highschools that came for the weekend. It was a lot of fun and I was so excited because Bird Lake came as well and I got to see my friends from High School. Well, Friday morning they decided to have a special service for all the schools and they asked four of the college students to share a short little testimony about life at GBS. Well, I was one of them, along with Ryan Watters, who was asked to speak. I found this quote that night and had to laugh because it sure wasn't me!

" Fearlessness is not the absence of fear. It's the mastery of fear. It's about getting up one more time than we fall down." --Arianna Huffington

I was so scared I thought I was going to be sick. When they asked me if I would do that for them I said, very hesitantly, "I guess I can, but that's a lot of people." In which I was told, "Oh, it's not that many, just 3 or 4 hundred." Well, needless to say I did it and, amazingly, I didn't get sick. I didn't really feel like I did all that great, I left out a few things I wanted to say, but I guess all in all I did okay. Well, things aren't too busy in the office right now. We are in the process of moving offices around and I am also in the process of writing a few faculty and staff biographies for the GBS website, a wee bit stressful, but other than that things are pretty much the same. I'm sorry I don't have any pictures right now, that is one of the many things (my camera) I accidentally left at home when I came back from Christmas Break, along with all of my towels. Oh well, things are working out and I'm going home this weekend, so I can bring the things I need back. Hope everyone back home is doing alright! Bye for now!

Hello again!

Well a lot has happened since I last posted anything on my blog. To much for me to really mention everything. I do give my apologies though, I haven't been very diligent in keeping everyone updated. Well, I can tell you a little about what has happened in the last week or so, I think.

A couple of weekends ago was the weekend for the Christmas pagent at GBS. It was December 7th through the 9th. It was also the weekend of my eighteenth birthday! I sang in the choir and was also in one of the street scenes. It was so much fun! My family wasn't able to be there on the first night, which was my birthday, but they came down on Saturday and we all went out to eat at Max & Erma's for my birthday. Then after the play we went out again, this time for a friend of mine's birthday which would be the following week. It was a really fun weekend. I was so happy to have everyone there. My mom and dad came down with my grandpa and Ashley Frye, a friend of mine frome church and school. Amber Plemmons also came down and was able to go out to eat with us. That was the weekend before finals! AHHHH! No, it really wasn't that bad. I made it through alive and actually I don't think I really did that bad on any of my tests. My last final was on Thursday so I was able to head home Thursday night. I was so excited to be able to come home. I came home on the 13th and get to stay until January 7th. I can't believe the school year is already half over! It has gone by so fast!!

I am really blessed. God really knows how to take care of me! Last time I was home, I went into Hobby Lobby, where I worked over the summer, for a visit and they offered to let me work while I was home for Christmas. So I started back to work on Monday. It's going pretty good. I had to refresh my mind on a few things and they have gotten new registers since I worked there last, but other than that I'm think I'm doing pretty well.

Today was the funeral for Bro. Shoemaker, a man from my church. He was a very sweet man and his wife really means a lot to me. She told me that she really worries about me when she knows that I am traveling back and forth to GBS. My dad and brother Michael had the funeral. During the funeral I was sitting there thinking about my grandma. This will be the first Christmas without her. It all seems so strange. It just doesn't seem like she is gone. But you know, this is probably the best Christmas she has every had!! She's sharing it with the ONE who is the whole meaning of Christmas, Jesus Christ.

But enough of the melancholy this is the season to be jolly. And jolly I am. It snowed!!!! I was so excited! Hopefully we will have a white Christmas. The day after it snowed I let my dog outside for a little while and she had so much fun in the snow that I decided to go outside with her. So we went outside for a while and played. It was so much fun!! I can't wait until Christmas!

Christmas really is my favorite time of the year. The lights that sparkle on all three of our trees, the snow, the decorations, it all just seems so magical. There just seems to be something in the air that is contagious. I love it! Yeah, you will run into those grumpy shoppers every once in a while, but you run into more that wish you a "Merry Christmas" instead of the controversial "Happy Holiday." If only people would understand the true meaning of Christmas and experience that meaning in their own lives, then would it truly be a very Merry Christmas. Yeah, this isn't my normal type of blog, but I guess it's like I said before, there is just something about this season that makes one really contemplate. Hopefully I will have a new post before Christmas, but until then, have a Very Merry Christmas!!!