Life Update

Sooooo.....I don't know if you guys remember me or not, but my name is Jordan and a loooooong time ago, I used to be the author of this blog. Then absolutely nothing happened and I didn't post for over than a month. I hope you'll all accept my apologies and welcome me back without any hard feelings. Hahaha and what better way to do that than with a numbered list? ;)

What I've been up to since I last posted:

1. Well, I spent 6 days in Florida at an amazing conference, which you can read about here. In a word it was exactlywhatIneededittobeandmore. (If you say it in one breath, you can pretend it's one word). As you ladies (and whatever men happen to stumble upon this blog...) know, I was having a bit of a rough time last semester. And yes, it's still acceptable to divide your life into semesters even after you've graduated, thank you very much. Anyway, life = not as great as I wanted it to be pre-conference. Then I was surrounded by 6200+ of my closest friends, priests, religious, and missionaries for about a week! Honestly, I don't even know how to describe it, so I'll just focus on the best part for me--the conversations I had. Obviously, the speakers they brought in were phenomenal and I learned so much from them (more on that in a future post perhaps), but I had been yearning for good conversation so much, and I definitely got it. I caught up with friends I hadn't seen in months and others who I'd seen more recently but hadn't had any good heart-to-hearts with. Going into the conference, I prayed that God would bring me genuine joy again, and He went above and beyond that (what a guy ;) ). Soooo yeah. It was amazing. And exactly what I needed before I started my internship.

2. Speaking of internships, I started mine the day after we got back from Seek. Originally I was supposed to start the day we returned, but thankfully, my boss was okay with moving it forward a day! After a 20+ hour bus ride, I definitely needed a day to relax before getting into the swing of things. Anywaaay, I was pretty nervous about this internship. I really didn't have any idea what I would be doing since I've never taken any tax classes or even filed my own taxes. Me and uncertainty don't really mix that well...so I didn't have that great of an attitude about it either. Luckily, it's turned out to be a pretty good experience so far--the people I work with are really nice and very willing to help me out. Plus, they know that I don't have any experience so they're explaining things slowly and not overwhelming me with work (which is both a blessing and a curse since I spend a lot of time just sitting around waiting for them to give me another task...). But! so far, so good. We'll see how crazy it gets once the government finally passes all the tax laws and we can start actually filing this year's returns!

3. I got to spend Friday night celebrating a good friend's birthday and see this girl! After a couple weeks of not seeing my friends, it was great to have an opportunity to spend a good chunk of time with them. Plus we watched Perfect Pitch, which I was a little unsure about but the music was AMAZING!! and it wasn't as inappropriate as I thought it was going to be. Bonus.

4. Then on Saturday, my family celebrated what we like to call Second Christmas. Real original, I know. Since we can't all get together on actual Christmas, we've set up a date in January the past few years so that we can exchange gifts, play games (think Minute to Win It), and enjoy each other's company (sometimes that one is a little questionable. haha). I got all 3 seasons of Parenthood so you better believe that's what I'll be doing this weekend! Plus!!! My grandma got me the 4-volume Liturgy of the Hours set, which I've fallen in love with already. Seems like I should have more to say about this, but how much do I really need to explain opening presents? Haha.

5. Now that I've started my internship and my friend has started student teaching, we've decided to start spiritual bootcamp. Sounds intimidating. Basically we're going to spend the semester (or however long it takes) reading the Diary of St. Faustina. We haven't exactly hashed out all the plans, but I'm really excited to start because I feel like I'll get a lot more out of it (and actually DO the reading) if I've got an accountability partner. I'll keep you posted on how it goes :)

Well, I think that's about it on the updates. I plan on spending my lunch breaks catching up on all the posts I've missed of yours! I hope you all had wonderful Christmas seasons and are surviving this single digit weather (which I am NOT fond of...).

I'll leave you with one of the quotes that stuck out to me at Seek. It's a prayer from St. Anselm:

O my God teach my heart where and how to seek you,
where and how to find you…

You are my God and you are my All and I have never seen you.
You have made me and remade me,
You have bestowed on me all the good things I possess,
Still I do not know you…

I have not yet done that for which I was made….
Teach me to seek you…

I cannot seek you unless you teach me
or find you unless you show yourself to me.
Let me seek you in my desire, let me desire you in my seeking.
Let me find you by loving you, let me love you when I find you.