A Thousand Words

Nothing like a 60-something minute Skype date with a beautiful friend to get you pumped about writing a post! And it doesn't hurt that said friend has an amazing blog which you should all read! I can't even choose just one post for you to feast your eyes on, so feel free to peruse the whole blog :) You're welcome.

Since I'm pretty sure my lack of pictures is going to start turning my few faithful readers away soon, I figured I better rectify the situation. Here are a few takes for your viewing pleasure--

View from the top of the Navy Pier ferris wheel :)

Does that apple seem abnormally large to anyone else...?

 

                 

Two of my favorite non-Disney classics! (or at least they were when I was a wee one...)

Phones with cameras keep us occupied for hours, aka Jordan being an excellent babysitter...

                                     
What my house looks like on laundry day:

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Exhibit C (and yes, those are glow in the dark Nightmare Before Christmas wall decals, thank you for asking) 

Chocolate chunks are so last year. Cows are the way of the future, people!

Check out this AMAZING bed head. Obviously, we're really enjoying it.

I found these in a box under my bed the other day. There are a few too many participation ribbons if you ask me. Though I did get a chuckle out of the fact that 6th place is brown.

What girl wouldn't take him back with a gift like that??

I was told to tell a friend about my accomplishment...feel free to set up an intervention anytime as I'm sure it's completely warranted...

In what language are these letter combinations considered words?? Also, if I were a robot, I think I'd have learned how to type out these strange hieroglyphics. That's what robots are for after all. And finally, why do they have to make it so hard to read? If the used normal font would a robot be able to read it?

Alright friends, that's it for today. I hope you enjoyed this pictorial journey. If you didn't, you're probably a robot.

Quick Takes (5)

And just like that, it's Friday again. Do the days go by this quickly for everyone else, too? Well, I'd hate to keep you from my thought-provoking thoughts for much longer, so here goes--

1. I started joining the other daily mass goers for coffee, tea, and cookies after mass each morning this week. And they make it seem completely acceptable to have cookies for breakfast. Maybe it's only something you can get away with when you're retired?

2. There was only one other girl at Bible study this week so we decided to make cards and paint our nails instead of do a full-on study. But we did talk about our mission experiences so that still counts...right? haha

3. I was cleaning out a box under my bed that contains ever card or letter anyone's ever given to me. I came across the diary I kept very sporadically as a 6th grader. It was hilarious reading some of the stuff I'd written. If you want a good laugh, give it a looksie.

4. I've been reading I Believe in Love the past couple of weeks, and it just keeps getting better. One of the passages that stood out to me last night was about suffering.

"Accept the unexpected crosses—they are the most painful: the sickness which immobilizes you, the feeling of being useless and a burden to others, of knowing that while you are needed you are being prevented from doing what you ought to do; the humiliations, contradictions, slanders, calumnies, ingratitude, bad will, criticism, good intentions misunderstood, and reverses of fortune. Put up with yourself, with your thousand physical, intellectual, and moral miseries. Accept without complaint the anguish willed by God, as did the Curé of Ars. How many sufferings there are throughout our lives!"

And then:

"Jesus will never let the Cross crush you; on the contrary, it will lift you up toward Heaven. It is no longer you who will carry it; it is the Cross which will carry you. Jesus took it upon Himself the bitterest Cross, and He will add a balm to it before giving it to you—that is certain." 

It's so easy for me to forget that God brings good out of suffering, so I need constant reminders like this one.

5. I went and saw Argo Tuesday night. You should see it, too.

6. I've decided that I don't care for daylight savings time, and that's putting it lightly. I walked out of CCD on Wednesday night and decided I wanted to stop and get a McFlurry. It was so dark out after class that I thought to myself "I hope they're still serving ice cream!" It was 6 o'clock... I do not appreciate all the darkness.

7. There's a man on a riding lawn mower who's been riding up and down my street for the past 15 minutes...I haven't seen him actually mowing any grass so I can't figure out what he's doing. How odd.

Happy Friday to all! Head on over to Jen's for even more fun :)

Dear Diary

While going through a box of old letters and cards, I came across two gems that I just had to share with you. If I remember (and have better internet connection), I’ll put up pictures tomorrow because they add so much, but for now, you’ll just have to picture it yourself.

1. The first thing I found was the first (and only…) love note I’ve ever received. It reads, “Dear Jordan, I was stupid for ever duming you. When I dumped you I knew I wanted you back. You’re the first girl I liked! I always like being with you and to show you mean it I got you something. P.s. will you be Valentines! Love, Stephen.”

Obviously I know you guys want all the details so here they are. We went steady from 3^rd to 6^th grade, at which point he tragically broke up with me for another little lady. According to my diary, I was pretty torn up about it. (more on that later). I mean, 3 years of holding hands at the skating rink and picking each other during “popcorn reading sessions” at school is pretty dang serious. After this letter, though, I gave him another shot, and wouldn’t you know it, the same thing happened again. We went to a few more skating parties together and then he dumped me for my best friend. Ouch. Don’t worry, my heart has had time to recover from this piercing blow, and I can picture him without tearing up ;)

2. The other thing I found was even more hilarious—the diary I had when I was in 6^th grade. I wish I had written in it more because the things I said were absolutely ridiculous. Judging from my entries, you’d think I had the hardest little life EVER. I’m constantly complaining about my sister or sports or my mom’s boyfriend. Apparently everyone in my life was very mean to me, and my diary was the only one who understood. Here are a few of the funnier things I thought needed to be put on paper--

            “I puked on the side of the road. Mom had to stop the car, I ate chicken noodle soup. I feel a little better.” Well I’m so glad mom didn’t make me do it while the car was still in motion; what a gal.

            “Today was one of the greatest days of my life. Stephen and I got back together.” And yes, that’s the Stephen from earlier. I guess not much was going on in my life back then ;) Little did I know that he would dump me again 7 months later. Dun dun duuuuun.

            “I feel bad for Jessica. I think she broke up with Sean. I think she is heart-broken losing her boyfriend right before the Winter Ball.” Jessica was my very cool older cousin and makes a number of appearances in my little diary. It’s nice to see I have at least one thought that’s not centered around one complaint or another.

            I devoted one whole entry to categorizing my classmates. The classifications were “troublemakers,” “people I really don’t like,” “people I like,” “people who think they are really funny but sometimes aren’t,” and “people in my class who think they’re all that.” Clever, no?

            At one point I used the phrases “sucks butt” and “meanie head” to describe the park in our town and my mom’s boyfriend.

Hopefully you enjoyed delving into my past as much as I did! If I ever have kids, I'll have to encourage them to keep diaries so they can discover them years later, too. Do any of you have your old journals?

For the moms :)

As I was replying to a comment left on an earlier post this morning, it struck me how truly blessed I am at this point in my life. Lately I've spent a lot of time complaining about loneliness and friend problems and lack of community at home, but when I really take the time to reflect on my life, I see that I have nothing to complain about. I have a roof over my head (which I don’t have to pay for). I have clothes to eat (I was going to correct this error, but I figured you’d all enjoy a good laugh. Hahaha). Yes, clothes to eat ;) Anyway…I have clothes to wear and food to eat. I have friends and family who love me. I have a running car and a job that starts in January. But most importantly, I have a relationship with Jesus, and I have the opportunity to work on it each and every day. My open schedule allows me to attend mass each day, spend time in prayer, read good books (like True Devotion to Mary!), and watch episode upon episode of the Catholicism series. There are so many people I know who would love to have the amount of free time I have. All of this reminds me of an experience I had this summer.

From the end of May to the end of June, the Newman center at U of I turns into a training center for FOCUS. Hundreds of missionaries gather in the dorm to spend five weeks learning how to evangelize on college campuses. A plethora of priests, brothers, and sisters join the scene at various times throughout the weeks to offer spiritual direction or teach a class. Anyway, many of the missionaries have started families that they don’t want to be away from for more than a month, so Newman becomes the temporary home for loads of babies and toddlers! And since young children don’t make the best class companions, FOCUS hires babysitters for the families. I was lucky enough to be recommended by one of my missionary friends to be a sitter, and I couldn’t have been happier. For five or six weeks, I spent 14ish hours of my day bouncing from one family to the next every few hours while the parents attended class (or in some cases, taught a class). I became pretty good friends with all the parents, which may have been helped by the fact that we were all around the same age! Unlike some of the sitters who babysat for the same family all day every day, I was just an on-call watcher of babies who could be utilized by anyone. This meant that I got to spend time with ALL the beautiful kids at one point or another!! It was fantastic J. Okay, by now you’re probably wondering what the point of this whole post is. Well, get ready ‘cause here it comes.

During the middle of training, I was introduced to a mom with two youngins under 2. Her husband was one of the missionaries in charge of everything so he was gone pretty much allllll day. She hadn’t brought her own babysitter with her, and for a reason I can’t remember now, she hadn’t called upon any of us on the list for a little help every now and again. By the time I met her, she really needed a break. As you can imagine, it’s not easy entertaining little ones all the livelong day when you’re living in a college dorm room…Anyway, we clicked pretty much right away, and I started stopping by every day just to see if she needed an extra pair of hands. She was always so grateful, and at one point she told me that she really appreciated all of the help because she hadn’t been able to make it to a chapel to pray since her first daughter was born…two years ago! It began to dawn on me how much sacrifice it takes to be a mom. There’s no such thing as a “sick day” for stay at home moms—rain or shine, the kids need you. And as much as you love your kids, it’s gotta be lonely just having the company of a baby or toddler during the day until your husband gets home. I realized then how much I was taking my situation for granted; as a young, single, and fairly unemployed woman, I had no (good) excuse for why I wasn’t devoting more time to my relationship with Jesus. I had nothing taking time away from me or really requiring my attention. While I’d like to think that my lack of effort was due to the fact that I just wasn’t really reflecting on what I was (or wasn’t) doing, it’s more likely that I was just being lazy, ungrateful, or unaware of the blessings God was giving me.

I’ve been thinking about that encounter a lot lately, probably due to the fact that I read so many amazing mom blogs. And once again, I see how good God is and how much He longs for us. He gives us exactly what we need, and for me, at this point in my life, it’s time. Time for building my relationship with Him and His Mother. Time for figuring out who I really am and what is important in my life. Time for counting my blessings.

So this week I’ve decided to offer up all my masses for all the moms I know. I only had a very small taste of the sacrifices you make each day for your children, but if your situation is anything like that of the women I met this summer, I’m sure you’ll appreciate the extra prayers J And if any of you live in Illinois and ever need a babysitter, you know where to find me ;)

Where are all the notifications??

I think Blogger owes you all a big apology. Or maybe the problem I'm about to express is only happening to me, in which case I'll wind up owing Blogger some condolences, but I'm okay with that. In the end, someone's gonna owe someone an apology!

What's all this ranting about you may ask? Comments. Now it may just be because I'm a noob that I don't already know this, but shouldn't I get an email alerting me to the fact that you've replied to a comment I left on your very amusing or very thought-provoking post? How are we supposed to dialogue if I don't even know you've spoken back?? I guess one way to do it is to write down every comment I ever make so that I can go back and see if there's a later response, but that seems very time consuming and semi stalker-like. I mean, don't get me wrong; I'll go down that long and winding road if I have to, but if there's an easier way, I'd be delighted. Maybe I'm just too used to Facebook where you get notifications for everything from status likes to farmville requests (>:-O). And on a quick side tangent, has anyone else noticed how creepy Facebook has gotten?  You can now see how many people have "seen" a post in a group and if someone edited the post you're currently looking at (which, by the way, seems to completely negate the whole purpose of being able to edit your wall post in the first place, but who am I to argue with the mighty and powerful book of faces...)

But back to the whole blog-post-reply-to-a-comment fiasco I was going on about. I just want to know if I'm getting a reply so I know whether or not I need to say anything else back! Sometimes people say more than just "thank you," and I'd like to be kept in the loop. But if that's not going to happen, then get prepared to see your page views start skyrocketing due to my return visits :)

And while we're on the topic, I truly appreciate all of the feedback you ladies leave me. I get so excited when I check my dashboard and see that I have new comments waiting for me. All of them put the biggest smiles on my face, and I thought you oughta know :) Virtual hugs for all.

p.s. Pictures coming tomorrow! I hope the anticipation doesn't keep you up all night ;)

Just can't contain my joy!

So I had a whole other post started and almost finished, but I decided it was too complain-y, and after my drive home, I just wanted to sing praises to God for how amazing my weekend was (too much? Well too bad 'cause that's how I felt. And please excuse the run-on nature of that sentence).

Did the weekend go exactly as planned? Of course not. They rarely do. But ladies (I assume only women are reading these rather feminine posts), I can't even explain the joy I felt as I was driving home. I had soooooo many wonderful conversations with some of the best friends a girl could ask for. I got to let out all of the things that have been eating away at me the past few weeks but also reminisce about all the great things that God has been putting in my life (e.g. all you fine women reading this :) ). I received advice on things I've been struggling with (like how to start forming a relationship with our Blessed Mother), and I basked in the gloriousness of beautiful friendships. Honestly, I don't even know what the highlight was, but one of them was definitely having the opportunity for so much prayer. I had so much time to reflect on things as they were happening (or at the very least, right after) instead of months after the fact. And I finally started coming to terms with the fact that I don't have to be 2 minutes away from my friends in order to keep up a good friendship, which was something I just couldn't seem to grasp with all this dang free time on my hands to sit and obsess about how much I miss them and how much it feels like I've been relegated to the "out of sight, out of mind" category. But that's obviously not true, and I guess it just took a wise friend to tell me so before I would believe it. Better luck next time, devil. Oh! And another big highlight was seeing two shooting stars on my way home tonight! A friend likes to think of them as winks from God ;)

I guess the point of this little post is just to express my amazement once again over how quickly God pours out His graces after just a small act of faith from us. Making time for prayer and attending mass seem like such small gestures to me (despite the fact that I still struggle to do them on a daily basis...), but this weekend has taught me (or at least re-instilled in me) how much God yearns for us and how much He desires to show us that He loves us, if we would only let Him. I'm still processing everything that's going on, so if this seems like just one big rambling, I apologize. I just needed to start the reflection process, and blogging seems to be a good outlet for me to do that. I feel so blessed to have friends who challenge me to become a better version of myself (props to Matthew Kelly for that phrase). I can't thank them enough for the constant support they give me and the changes they've caused in my life. They just have a way of getting me to think about things I normally wouldn't think about, and they invite me to do small things (like praying night prayer) that wind up having big consequences (like wanting to develop a better prayer life). And the best part about it is that everything is done over a cup of coffee. They just make having a relationship with Jesus seem so effortless and it makes me want to do everything I can to reach that point. So I ask them how they do it and find new ways to continue to grow.

Okay, I really am just rambling now because I just can't stop smiling and thinking about all the happy things this weekend contained. I hope all of you had weekends as astounding as mine! And if you didn't, that's what I'll be praying for this week. Have a great night :)

P.s. I finally got the new Mumford and Sons CD (along with some Audrey Assad and JJ Heller). AND THEY'RE ALL SO GOOD! I heart music.

Quick Takes (4)

I feel like I've been very lacking in the picture department lately, so be prepared to be bombarded! (okay I thought I had more relevant pictures, but after looking through my phone, I see that the options are preeeeeetty lacking. So bear with me here...)

1. This past Sunday I had to babysit from 4:30am to 6:30pm. Needless to say, it was a very long day, so I brewed myself some Keurig coffee (and tricked a pumpkin spice latte for the very first time ever!). As I was getting ready to take my last sip, I noticed this little guy in there...apparently the baby didn't want her grape and thought I might be interested. I wasn't. 

   

2. Yesterday was my last day of pet-sitting. I had been going over to take care of them every other day for a month. I wish I could say they were happy to see me, but I think the cowering in the first and third picture gives away their true feelings...

3. I've been going to mass each morning this week. I don't know how all you mothers and working women get up at the crack of dawn every day because 7:30 has NOT been easy! Buuuut God gave me this beautiful sunrise on my drive yesterday, so that helped :)

4. I thought I would try and get a little artsy one night. Turns out professional photography may not be my calling. But I do enjoy a pretty scenery picture. 

5. Aaaand that's the end of my picture slideshow. Not impressed? Story of my life. Speaking of stories of my life, a new theme seems to be a-brewin'. I don't know what it is about college students (or maybe just people in general) and their inability to commit to plans, but it's been a big problem for me the past two weeks. I've had plans with several different people who have confirmed plans days or even hours before said plans were to take place, only to text me later and say they can't make it. Do people not consult their schedules before making plans? I have a hard time believing that something else can come up so often, and I'm beginning to develop a complex over here, as I seem to be the common factor!

6. I think my town may have cancelled trick or treating...I didn't hear any kids outside the whole night. But Morgan's didn't!

7. This weekend will be my last one in Champaign for at least a month. I know you're all very sad for me and I appreciate the condolences. (hahaha) Although I'm not sure what I'm going to write about if it's not my adventures down here. I'll actually have to go out and find friends at home! But never fear, I have many episodes of Gilmore Girls to keep me company ;)

Wow talk about lame quick takes. Luckily Jen's got what you need!