For Anna

Today has been an ok day. Brad had to go into work this morning, so when he got up at eight I surprised him by making him breakfast while he was in the shower. I made him bacon, eggs, a huge pancake, and cut up an orange. It was pretty good, if I do say so myself. After he left I worked on some homework and did the laundry until Brad came home at 12. Since we had eaten a pretty big breakfast, neither of us were hungry for lunch so we went to Solheim and worked out. When we got back and showered we ate pizza (the pizza dough in the bread maker is pretty good). Lunch was really late today, so that means neither of us are hungry for dinner yet! But that's ok, we have left over pizza and snacks for when we do get hungry.

This semester is shaping up to be a very busy semester. My school work isn't too bad, it's just my other commitments. They all happen in the evening... so my evenings are jammed. I made the decision today to not go to Bible study. I am very sad to have to make that decision, so I've been thinking of ways all day to avoid it. I think I might talk to Carl and see if it would be possible to only work two shifts a week. If not, my compromise is to work from 4:30-5:30 on Tuesday and Thursday, which would only leave me a half an hour short of the required hours. I'm hoping, though, that he'll just let me drop a shift. We'll see though, he gave me grace last semester. I've also been thinking about quitting my job just because I'm really busy. But I think our finances say that I need the job.

I did get a part in the play that the school is doing. I am sharing the role of Susan with a friend of mine (Kelsey) so we get to split the performance time. I'm kind of excited about being in a play again; it's going to be so much fun! The only unfortunate thing is that rehearsals are at 9pm. So that means I'm going to have to give up going to bed early and getting up early. That's ok though, I'll be able to manage. Instead of getting up at six i'll get up at 7:30. I think I can take that. Haha.

I haven't got much other exciting news to relay. My life is getting back into the swing of things, so that means routines, routines, routines! 

World Vision

 Yesterday evening Brad and I decided to sponsor a child through World Vision. I chose a little girl from Kenya, who lives in a community severely affected by HIV and AIDS. Through our sponsorship we can help provide education, health care (including HIV/AIDS counseling and prevention education), food, clean water, care for their sick or dying parents (so sad that this is even a service that needs to be offered), and other things we like to take for granted over here in the States. We chose to sponsor a Hope Child, which is a special program that works with children and families in AIDS affected areas. The little girl we are sponsoring says her health is satisfactory, so I am assuming that means she is not HIV positive. I'm sure, though, she knows many people who are. Her name is Amina.

Auditions, life, and spoiled Hamburger.

So yesterday had a great start to it. I remembered as the alarm went off (i'm not sure why) that I had probably left some ground beef on the counter all night. When I went and checked, of course, I had. I took it out of the freezer while I was cooking dinner the night before to let it thaw a little before I put it back in the fridge, that way I wouldn't have to leave it out tomorrow and I would be mostly thawed by dinner time. I could have sworn I put it back in the fridge after we were done eating, but apparently I didn't. I was extremely annoyed.

Yesterday I could not for the life of me get motivated to do anything. That's probably going to bite me in the butt, but for some reason I'm having a difficult time making me buckle down and do homework. I really need to get over that before the semester gets too busy! I have another Greek quiz on Wednesday, I have about half of the words memorized. If I buckle down, I should be able to get them all memorized today. I also have some tour guide training today after my Noon class. I'm giving tours for admissions this semester. I'm a "back up" tour guide which means I only give tours during preview weekends and when the regular tour guides can't make it or forgot about their tour. Grading is going to be less this semester, but that's ok. I'll stay plenty busy, I'm sure.

Last night were auditions for the play "All My Sons". I think I did pretty well. I'm hoping I get the part I want. I think I have as good a shot as anyone else. There is another round of auditions tonight, and i should find out after the auditions (so probably 11 or 12. Haha). I might just wait until the morning to get my email and find out, depending on how tired I am today.

Babysitting!

I am here at Christian and Krista's babysitting Sam. He's napping right now, so I took the time to do some homework and make a blog post!

Tonight I think it's going to be pretty low-key. Matt is in town, so he wants us to go to the skate night (it's put on by the school) with him and Bekah. I think Brad and I are going to pass... it doesn't start until eleven and goes into the wee hours of the morning. We're losers and are in bed well before midnight. Haha. Besides, we're going to do something with them tomorrow at some point. I think we might try to go bowling or something. We'll see, i'm not sure what everyone is going to want to do. I envisioned dinner and a movie, but we'll see how that goes over.

This week has been a pretty long week. I guess it's all about falling into a routine. I hope to have mine established soon! On monday night I'm going to audition for the play Stage Right is putting on this semester. It's "All My Sons" by Arthur Miller. I'm going to try out for the lead role, Ann. The only thing is that the role requires me to kiss another character. Brad and I discussed it, and we're ok with a stage kiss. It's, well, a stage kiss. Devoid of any emotional attachment. And it's just acting. So we'll see how that goes. I should know by next week whether or not I got the role. I think I have a fairly good shot at it. There aren't usually many girls that audition for the lead roles. They're usually begging people to fill them.

I've memorized six verses already this year. I'm already "behind"... I'm supposed to get in 3-4 a week, but I just don't think that's possible with school and everything. My new goal is to have two done a week. So I won't get through my whole stack in a year, but that's ok. I can keep working on it for a while. :)

I think I hear Sam, so I'm going to go check on him!

First week of school

School started on Tuesday. It's been interesting. I don't think I'll have to bad of a semester. I need to get organized and start writing out all the stuff I have to do for school so I have a better feel for when projects and stuff are due. That's the nice thing about college; you get a syllabus that details everything you're going to be doing. You know well in advance about that major paper due at the end of the class. I only have four classes this semester: Doctrines II, Greek II, Marriage and the Family, and Evangelism and Discipleship. I'm really excited for most of my classes, but mostly Marriage and the Family. I think it will be a good class, and i might even learn something about how to do this whole marriage thing. Greek has started off at a run. I have a quiz tomorrow over 100 words I've never seen before. UGH.

The Sherlock Holmes movie was really good. I very much enjoyed it. The acting was excellent, the story was excellent, and I didn't even mind the action scenes in it. It kept me entertained. There were some good previews too for movies coming out soon. I'm personally excited for the Percy Jackson movie to come out in February. Brad and I might have to go see it as our Valentine's date or something. We're going to keep Valentine's day pretty small this year because Christmas was so big. We'll probably have a nice dinner and go to a movie. I might even cook said nice dinner! I'm thinking a lasagna. I've never attempted to make Lasagna before, so I'm thinking I should. It could be fun.

We get Monday off of school, so I have a long weekend! I think I'm going to make a couple scrapbook pages on Monday. This weekend we have got to get our Christmas stuff down. It's getting embarrassing.

I need to go study though, sorry the update is so short.

Scrapping and Relaxing

Those are some pages I've been working on. I'm out of pictures, for now. So I'm going to have to print some more off for MLK day (we have the day off school). The pages I have done are out of sequence. I need to print off more pictures that go before some of these. But that's ok. It's been fun to do some scrapbooking!

Today I am going to babysit Sam at 2:00 until five. I'm going to take some laundry to do, so hopefully I'll be able to get a good chunk of it done. Other than that, I have no plans for today and it's kind of nice. Tomorrow Brad is going to take me on a date to see a movie. I think we're going to try to see Sherlock Holmes. I'll let you know how that goes. Well, I need to shower and get some lunch!

Apple Pie day

Today I made an apple pie. I even tried to make my own crusts. Tried being the operative word. The crust was tough and not flakey. :( I'm not sure what I did wrong. Any ideas? I also used the pie bird! The pie ended up bubbling over anyway, but I think it was more due to the fact that I didn't do a very good job sealing the crusts. The pie tasted pretty good, though, despite the bubbling over and despite the semi-icky crusts. Here's a pic:

 I did learn that I needed to push the crust down a little further. It made a gap between the filling and the crust. But it was still pretty good. :) I think the Pie Bird is cute.

This evening we went shopping. Brad needed to return a DVD he got for Christmas and instead got the copy of the latest Harry Potter on Blu Ray. He also went to kohls and got a winter jacket that was 130 bucks for only 32 dollars! It was the deal of the day! He's pretty excited about the jacket. No more borrowed winter coats for him. I also pierced  my left cartilage again. I had two pericings there at one point, but I had taken them out some time ago, and I kind of missed them. So I got one of them redone.

Other than shopping and pie baking, I haven't really been up to much lately. Just relaxing and enjoying my last few days of Christmas break! Tomorrow I am teaching youth group, so I have been working on that a bit. I'm also teaching next week. Jerod, the Youth Pastor, is getting married on Saturday. This week he's gone to go help with wedding stuff, and next week he'll be on his honeymoon.

Well, it's time for bed. I am exhausted!

Quick Update :)

This is going to be quick, mostly because there isn't much to say! Haha. Brad and I have been relaxing here in Asheville with his family. We've been playing lots of games, mostly variations of the Uno game and scattergories. As with many family get togethers, hanging out and relaxing also means FOOD! I feel like I don't really eat defined meals, I just snack all day. I think I'm going to have to run off 10 pounds after this visit! Haha. We will be leaving Asheville tomorrow at 7am. We wanted to get an early start so we can try to get back to Longview at a decent time. If we leave at 7 we should be home by 9 eastern time, which is 8 central time. It's going to be a very long day, but Monday will be even longer for Brad if we don't get home at a decent hour. The poor guy is exhausted with all the traveling he's been doing lately. I think he will be glad to have his routine back.

For Christmas Brad's Grandpa gave me Ruth Graham's Treasures (Billy Graham's wife). It's a box of scripture verses. I think this year I am going to try to memorize all 180 verses in Ruth Graham's Treasure Box. They aren't too long, so I think I can do it. I've been trying to do more Bible memorization recently, but I didn't have a very good system of going about it. So maybe this will help me. If I memorize roughly 3-4 verses a week, I can have all 180 memorized by the end of the year. The Verse I'm working on Right now is Matthew 1:21- "And she will bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."