eavesdropping on grace

While sitting in my bed tonight reading my Bible, I couldn't help, but eavesdrop on a conversation going on right outside my bedroom window. At first I was just angry that someone was speaking so loud and interrupting my quiet time and soon to be interrupting my sleep. Then I begin to listen to what was being said. I had to just sort of smile at God's irony. I had just finished reading in Ephesians 2 when it says, "But because of his great love, for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved." The girl outside was talking on the phone to what sounded like a good friend of hers about God's grace and salvation. It's kind of a surreal feeling listening from the outside the gospel being told to someone that sounds so lost in his transgressions and lost in the world.

I had to praise God for the diligence of this girl to preach the gospel in love, though it might hurt her friendship with this person. After hearing the topic I just couldn't find it in myself to be mad. Guess it's a good thing my loud next door neighbor lives next to a girl that can't get mad at spreading the gospel at 11pm. :)

So the next time your neighbors are being loud, stop and eavesdrop on the conversation and if it's not about the gospel, then yell at them that they need Jesus. :)

unanswered prayers

Today at church my pastor talked about the topic of prayer. It wasn't your typical sermon about how you should pray unceasingly or even the sermon about how to ask God for things in prayer. It was a very interesting sermon because it was about the issue of what seems like "unanswered prayers". I had never heard a pastor talk about unanswered prayers the way my pastor did today.

He made three points about how God chooses to answer our prayers. They are:
IF the request is wrong, God says no.
IF the timing is wrong, God says slow.
IF we are wrong, God says grow.

So often I pray for something that is very important in my life and I expect an immediate and obvious answer. Many times I find myself only expecting an answer that is to my liking. When I should have the mindset and heart desire that the answer will only be God's will and not mine. I had never thought of my request being three possibilities as my pastor taught. I generally think of it as my request is wrong or I myself am wrong. Rarely do I think of the timing as wrong.

I enjoyed the sermon and it caused me to think. It seems that here lately have my so very many requests to God. While many are answered, many are still unanswered, but I rest assured in knowing that God is listening; however, he is answering in His timing, which is always the best. :)

energy, oil rigs and a long, long week

While last week was incredibly relaxing, this week was as far from that as you can possibly get. Tomorrow we are publishing a huge project we have been working on all semester on energy. This week leading up to it has been incredibly stressful because on Monday when I got back from spring break I had hardly any photos and no set appointments with local companies. By the grace of God I got an appointment with a wind farm to allow us to climb up to the top of a wind mill and get photos from inside the turbine and another appointment with an oil drilling company that allowed us to climb up on the rig and get photos. Then we went with the drilling company to a drilling site and watched them tear down the rig, transport it to a new location and then put it back together. It was pretty amazing to watch!

I am finally done with the project and it feels good. I also had a research study project due this week and I am finally done with that also. So I am pretty happy. It feels like we are getting so close to the end of school. I am more than ready for it to be here.

Other than these things not to much else has been going on. Well it's off to bed for the first time in a long time at a decent hour!

unexpected blessings

Well spring break is over, which is sad. I really enjoyed having the time off. I realized today though that it's always so wonderful to have time off, but it's always so hard when you get back from the break to get back on schedule. The first day back is always the hardest too.

I do have some good news to share though....I am sure you all remember in my last post that I shared the sad news that all the kittens died. Well my sister called around to humane societies to see if anyone had an kittens who needed a mother for nursing. She found a litter of 4 kitties plus another kitty from another litter that needed a mother. So we had fun the last half of the break taking care of little kitties. Our cat, Dandelion, absolutely fell in love with them from the moment she heard their first meow. It was amazing to see how nature works like that. How a mother could so readily take in kittens that were not her own without question.

Here are some photos of the kitties:



We have a tradition of naming our cats after flowers. Don't know how it started, but it did and so we felt like we should name them all after flowers. Unfortunately, we've always had girls so it's been easy and this litter had 4 boys and only one girl. So we had to come up with more manly sounding flower names. We named them Venus Fly Trap (orange striped), Snap Dragon (creamy white), Hosta (runt that's white and brown), and Bachelor Buttons (the larger brown one from the other litter). We named the gray girl Petunia! :) I love that name!

Other than that not too much happened over the last few days. My Uncle Brian and Aunt Amy came into town with their kids to visit. We had fun with them. Our Easter went well too. We just hung out, had an egg hunt, ate a big meal, and then launched potatoes with my dad's potato launchers him and my uncle built. [Those are a story in themselves.]

Anyways...I better get back to some work.

ode' to a dandelion

I am finally home for spring break after spending several days at my grandparents. It feels good to be home. This week is unfortunately going by quickly. I am not ready to go back to Abilene, because I know I have a lot waiting for me there to complete. Ugh...

Today Lexie and I drove my Dad to lunch and then to a mechanic to get his car fixed. Then we came home and I have worked on cleaning my car all afternoon. The combination of rain, driving back, and then a weird mud rain last night my car was nasty! I also needed to clean it out in the inside which always takes forever.

I have some sad news...our kitty who is pregnant is slowly having the kitties, but they are all being born dead. She has had a really really long painful labor and we don't have too much hope left that any of them will be alive. I feel so bad for her because she has been so miserable for the last week or so. We were so excited about having kittens, but it seems like that is not going to happen. I just pray that the mama kitty makes it through this labor.

I don't want to end this post on such a sad note, but there's not much more to say. Hopefully, I will have better news to report next time.

“You cannot forget if you would those golden kisses all over the cheeks of the meadow, queerly called dandelions.”
-Henry Ward Beecher

flying wonders

Today we went to the air show! It was so much fun. We got to see the Thunderbirds perform. They are a group of air force pilots that perform in jet airplanes and make formations in the sky. They were absolutely beautiful. I am not one to think things like airplanes are beautiful, but the things these planes could do were absolutely amazing and they were just beautiful. My grandma and I kept saying that they simply own the sky.

It ended up taking us about 45 minutes just to get into the airport and parked because there were so many people. But once we got out there we had great seats and a great view. It was very fun. After the show was over we walked over to military planes they had on the ground and walked through some of the HUGE cargo planes. Those are amazing! They are so big! It's hard to believe that something like that can get up in the air. After that we headed home because we were all tired and very hungry. We barbecued for dinner and sat outside enjoying the evening. I also made the hat for my great grandma. It is so much fun! It's big and puffy and beautiful! :)

I noticed this evening when we were sitting outside waiting for the food to cook that the tops of my legs were sunburned! Oh well, that's what happens when you go to an air show.

Well it's late again and I am sooo tired from our day in the sun. Oh and in case you are wondering about the pictures, I totally forgot my camera. We were in line at the airport for about 20 minutes when I remembered it and there was no turning back. I was pretty frustrated with myself. Not sure what I was thinking!

Feeling that makes me feel good for the day: The warmth of the sun on your skin on a cool day.

exhale and breathe

I am writing so late because I am finally on spring break and I have nothing to do tomorrow, but relax. It feels so good. It's interesting those moments in life when you all you feel like doing is taking a big breathe and simply going "ahhhh". You realize that it seems like it's been a long time since you last exhaled. Those first days of long breaks, vacations, days off always seem like heaven. You know you have nothing to do for a long time and you can't help but feel good inside.

There are lots of things in life that create good feelings like that. Maybe I should start writing in my notes one of those things each day and see how many things I can come up with that creates those good feelings. I will add them at the end of my blogs.

I am now at my grandparents house and really enjoying getting to spend time with them. My grandma and I hung out all day. We went to visit my great grandma and got sundaes. My great grandma mentioned that she needed a hat for good Friday. I, of course, piped up with the response, "I could make you one!" ha ha ha....so my grandma and I were off to Hobby Lobby to buy supplies. We got a big straw hat with a wide brim, beautiful flowers, some ribbon, and shimmery tulle. It's going to be wonderful! I love doing stuff like this and I haven't gotten to in such a long time!

The we went back home and my grandaddy got home. We all went out to dinner to Red Lobster....which was soooo yummy. After we went to Sam's Club then home again to watch a movie we rented....August Rush. It was a pretty cute movie. I enjoyed it. Tomorrow we are going to an air show to watch the Thunderbirds, som military jets that do tricks, perform. I am pretty excited about that. I am bringing my camera so hopefully I can post some pics on here.

Anyways....I better scoot off to bed. Buona Notte!

Feeling that makes me feel good for the day: The feeling that you know you have a long break ahead of you of pure relaxation.

scrutiny, exuberance, and blue bell ice cream

Today, I thought, was going to be a tough day because I had a portfolio review with a couple of professors. From the others that I had talked to that had gone before me it was a pretty tough meeting. Many came out pretty upset with hurt feelings. I was very scared to go into this meeting. I went in bracing myself and expecting the worst. By the grace of God it ended up being an excellent meeting. I got a lot of good feedback from the professors and they had some encouraging words for me.

Over the last few months I have been discouraged with my photography. I think it is a combination of the stress of my job and the constant desire to do my absolute best. I never allowed myself any room for mistakes....and that's not good. I was getting to the point that when I looked at my portfolio I didn't feel confident. But the meeting today made me feel much better and encouraged me greatly.

Other than that my day was pretty normal. Classes, newspaper, etc. Blake and I went and got some ice cream from the food court on campus. I was so excited because they had pints of Blue Bell Banana Pudding. That is probably my all time favorite ice cream and it is just one of those things in life that make you feel so good inside.

My spring break begins tomorrow and I am soooo happy it has finally arrived. It won't be too long and this school year will be over. It's been a tough year. I am glad to see the end near. At times it's hard to believe I only have one year left, then at other times it still feels so far away. Anyways...it's off to bed I go.

crème de la crème

Flowers make me so happy inside. Something about knowing that I can keep something alive that is so beautiful just makes me feel good. Since this is my first year in my own apartment I had bought a flower pot at the end of last summer. My one flower pot has quickly multiplied into 3 flower pots! So a few weeks ago I decided that I needed to go and buy some new flowers for my pots. I bought some yellow daffodils for the bigger pot and yellow, red, and red/white tulips for the smaller pot. So far the daffodils and yellow and red tulips have been blooming. They are so very pretty. Unfortunately the red/white one hasn't bloomed yet, but I am still waiting patiently for it.

My third pot already had a plant in it that my grandma gave me at the beginning of the fall. During the winter I kept it indoors so it would survive. It wasn't looking too great so this afternoon I trimmed away all the dead stuff and was left with 2 sprigs still alive. So I dug out those sprigs, root and all, and I re-potted them with fresh soil.

I also have 3 small vases that have bulbs in them that will eventually bloom into crocus' (Jeanne d'Arc, Pickwick, and Remembrance). My grandma also bought those for me back in November. I have done everything I can do to make those bloom. I have "forced the bulbs" as it is called by keeping them in a cold temperature. I've kept the water line at the level the box says. FINALLY, yesterday I noticed that on one of them a shoot is springing up.

I couldn't help but think of all of my flowers being such excellent metaphors of Christ's love for us. While I am no gardener and definitely no god, I love my flowers each and every one and I want so badly for all of them to grow into beautiful plants. With the tulips and daffodils there are people that immediately understand God's love and bloom and grow. They reap God's many blessings and have a marvelous life. Then there are those like the indoor plant. They live the early part of their born-again life in full bloom, but after a while they slow down and start dying. Like I did with my plant by bringing it indoors and trying to bring it back to health, God does with those people. He may have to re-pot them and give them fresh soil, and even that may never bring them back, but he still loves them.

Finally with the bulbs in the vases there are those people who never understand God's love. He tries and tries and yet they do not bloom. I did everything that the instructions say and God does everything he can to get to us, and yet they refuse to bloom. Like I am with the one that is now finally blooming, he delights in their final acceptance. He opens his arms wide and says "my child, welcome to your life of abundance, I've been waiting for you."

My flowers are a joy in my life and I love to see their daily blessings. I can't help but think of the beauty of God in his wonderful creation.

**If you put your mouse over the slide show a bar will come up at the bottom of the photos and you can click on the little icon that is the second from the left that looks like a dialogue box. This will make captions come up for each photo.**

changes happening

Well as you can see I have changed both the name of my blogger site and my url. I was not using this blog for what I had intended to use it for. I never felt like I had a lot of info to add about the adoption so I decided to create a blog that is for me to just share my thoughts and experiences on. My mom and sister do a much better job on updating about the adoption than I do!

To begin....
I can't promise that I will post every day, but I want to try harder than I did before. I think it's good to keep an online sort of journal if your experiences so I want to try better. Some days I know will be more eventful than others, but I will still try and post about my day.

Today was a pretty normal day. Went to classes, worked on our student newspaper that I am the chief photographer of and other normal things in my daily routine. I did get to tour the central plant of our campus today in order to take pictures for an energy project that our newspaper staff is working on. We are looking at publishing it on March 28. I am a wee stressed because I am trying desperately to get photos of "energy" things. Such as wind mills, oil rings, solar panels and on-campus energy departments. Let's just say I am more than ready for for this project to be done with.

Next week is spring break and I am going to try and not think about anything that has to do with school or newspaper. I'd really like to go to the beach. Something about the beach just sounds so nice, relaxing and so far away from everything in Abilene!

On Thursday this week I have a "portfolio review" for my photojournalism class and I am quite scared. I have talked to a few others that have gone through it already and they said it was tough. They got a lot of criticisms and very little positive feedback. I did get to go this past Sunday to the historic village of Buffalo Gap, which is only like 20 minutes from here and photograph a historic baseball team that they have. They play almost every weekend and they try to recreate baseball as it was in 1860ish. It was really a lot of fun. I don't always enjoy all of my assignments, but this was a fun one. I am using it as a photo story for me class. I will have to add it as a slide show on here when I am feeling less lazy and more up to it.

Anyways....I better sign off, but I will try my best to be better at posting on this thing. Adieu!