i've moved!

so with all of the change going on...

with getting ready to graduate, getting ready to marry, and the list goes on....

i am moving to my new blog just to try something out and to mark a change in my life....

although this time is characterized by so much change.

please keep checking me out here!

jason is this girl's best friend (well plus mama bird)

so, it's been a while (once again)... but i was suffering through finals and then took a vacation to mexico with my.... well, he was a boyfriend, but now he's my...

FIANCE!

yep, we're ENGAGED!

i can't begin to tell everyone how excited i am (we are) and what a huge blessing jason has been in my life. i am still in shock that i actually get to share the rest of my life with him, especially with the blessings of family and friends that God has blessed us with.... like He says in the Bible:

"there are three things that last: faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love."

-1 corinthians 13:13

God has already poured so much love on us already, our families and friends have been fantastic and so supportive... and we are ready to start this amazing time in our lives... and do it together!

please stay tuned for all of the excitement and i promise to keep things up to date on here... :)

song of the day:

love never fails

by: brandon heath

just listen to it, every single word in the song is absolutely perfect and amazing. God wrote the song for brandon to sing and it's perfect.

it's the most wonderful time of year!

i am back, after much too long of a sabbatical. whoops. how does time fly so fast?

rather than apologize and say i need to get better at consistency (though i truly believe that i do) i am going to share what i have learned the last 26 days in my not posting period.

1. i love being unemployed.

i am enjoying my last bit of time as a student and have decided to take a break from being a working student (plus, as everyone tells me, i have the rest of my life to work!). boy, oh boy, is life so sweet this way. i get so much more done, in school work and in reading my bible and running and being a much more fun and spontaneous daughter with my sweet mama bird.

2. i don't want to do any job that requires extensive field note writing.

i'm taking a class that requires me to write field notes twice a week and, to be quite frank, by the end of the two and a half hours it takes me to document every detail i could possibly recall during my volunteer time, i have zero desire to sit in front of my computer screen again.

3. i am madly in love with my other half, jason.

i made a promise to myself to not be ridiculous, or remotely reminiscient of a hormonal teenage girl, in writing about my beau. however, he has just bloomed into quite the funny man and i am so proud to call him mine. not only do i think he's absolutely one hundred percent precious, but most everyone else does too. let me just say,

he is a TOUCHDOWN!

(he'll appreciate this being the football lover he is, although i'm much more partial to SCOREEE!)

4. mama bird = best friend for life (yep, now i'm sounding like a second grade girl)

everything that has happened with my dad has brought my family closer together and this makes me thankful. but more than that, my mom is more my best friend now than ever before. yep, she's a real life version of house, m.d. (great show!) and i'm proud to get to call her mine.

5. there is a time for everything.

God has set out a great path for me, for my family, for my beau... and i'm thankful to be a part of all of the crazy adventures that life throws our way. plus, He is providing us all with time...

a time to cry

a time to fear

a time to question

a time to rejoice

a time to thank

a time to wish

a time to embrace

a time to pray

a time to cling

a time to laugh

but in all of this time, He has given us hope, faith, and love to an endless, infinite degree. thank God for His goodness that goes so far beyond the greatest stretch of the imagination.

thank you, thank you, thank you.

in ecclesiastes 3:4-8, God lets us know about time... about how things change but about how they return... just like the swing at the playset in elementary school. back and forth, back and forth, but in the end, it's all in His control.

a time to weep and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn and a time to dance.

a time to throw stones and a time to gather stones;

a time to embrace and a time to shun embracing.

a time to search and a time to give up as lost;

a time to keep and a time to throw away.

a time to tear apart and a time to sew together;

a time to be silent and a time to speak.

a time to love and a time to hate;

a time for war and a time for peace.

yay for his perfect timing. thank goodness i'm not in charge of all this and can just enjoy the ride (as much as i want to be a planner!)

song of the day:

let it snow, let it snow

by: lady antebellum

yipeee! it's that time of year for Christmas cheer!!!

charlie the cheez-it

i introduced you all to my dear little friend marcell the shell, who was quite precious and i wrote a couple little post on him. well, this little man, charlie the cheez-it, is marcell's friend. but it's the story behind charlie that i truly love!

an eight-year-old girl saw the marcell the shell video and loved it so much that she decided to make her own. her aunts helped her get it all together.

i truly appreciate the sweetness in it all. and i'm thinking maybe i should try my hand at making one of these little critters for all to adore.

song of the day:

trademark

by: relient k

watch out for my trade marked little buddy for charlie and marcell. it's not going to be right away, but it'll be. maybe later this month on my break from school for thanksgiving?

oh, and, just for everyone's peace of mind, the bugs are dead and all blocked out. whooooo what a close call!

yuck, yuck, and more yuck

i am quite possibly the world's cleanest person. i clean like it's going out of style and i know that sometimes it drives poor jason nuts when i'm busy cleaning and he just wants to watch a movie. however, a tragedy has come over my clean little apartment.

cockroaches.

yep, there is a hole in the roof of my bathroom and they crawl in the fan and wah-lah! i have a new roommate. it is repulsive, disgusting, absolutely freaky. and, did you know they have wings? oh, you bet they do... and i don't think they use the wings to keep themselves cool during hot weather.

poor jason has been playing exterminator and killing the few that i have seen. but i don't know how much longer it'll be before i find one on my own time... and the screech that will follow as soon as i find my first one will be the screech heard around the world. (i'm getting the creepy crawlies just writing about it right now)

and i guess killing them with bug spray isn't really an option because they're crazy little buggers... no wonder people say that cockroaches could survive a nuclear bomb. yuck. i guess they can't survive being stepped on by a boot... however, i hope to never know that for sure.

please pray for my safety... and sanity... because i'm thinking i could be abducted by a bunch of critters and be never seen again.

song of the day:
don't panic
by: coldplay

as much as this song is soothing and wonderful... i can just hear little bug legs creepy-crawling in the background.

when life gives you Lyme's, make a margarita and CELEBRATE!

i wrote a blog in april about the tough road that my family and i have been enduring... you can see it here. but the story doesn't end there, in fact, the end starts here!

last time i wrote i spoke of the goodness of God during times of difficulty and the fact that my family was leaning into His promise in jeremiah 29:11 during this extraordinary difficult time. we, as a family, were being refined and perfected for His work.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future." -Jeremiah 29:11

well, the story has come so far since april. after lots of test and many months of patiently (or maybe not so patiently waiting) we have an answer. Lyme's Disease. yep, the disease you get from being bit by a flea that is carrying it. i know, i always thought that hunters out in the wilderness of montana got this... but it turns out a southern california man can contract the disease and suffer from it for a decade without detection.

thank goodness for a doctor who was as committed to finding answers as house (yep, the show). and now we work with the doctors to find the best way to get the disease under control --nope, it's not curable.

oh, how great is our God. life has changed in a way that we could never have imagined, but i wouldn't take a minute of the trials and tribulations back. i hope God thinks i'm a shinier piece of gold in God's collection after enduring years of fire.

"And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good." - Genesis 1:31

just like genesis, this is good.

God is good.

amen.

song of the day:

light up the sky

by: the afters

when stars are hiding in the clouds, i don't feel them shining

when i can't see You beyond my doubt, the silver lining

when i've almost reached the end, like a flood You're rushing in

your love is rushing in

hallelujah, the sky is bright and shiny again.

speak now or forever hold your peace

for those of you not madly in love with the world of country music like me... taylor swift's new cd came out yesterday. oh, it's amazing. if you haven't listened to any of her music yet, her brand spanking new speak now cd is a great place to start (even though it's her latest one).

this cd is for the girls that were picked on from a young age, young loves that have broken not only your heart but your trust, wounds from mean, brutal words. yes, she's amazing, i know.

when i sing along (yep, i'm so obsessed i know a lot of the words already) i feel like i'm being freed from all of the things that can make life so hard. how does she make it so cute, but still so real? what a talented young lady (i can say that she's younger than me!).

please enjoy every moment of her songs like i did. :)

songs of the day:

long live

by none other than, taylor swift

really if should be every little lyric on the speak now cd.

oh taylor, how do you do it?