Brotherly Love

 This is my baby brother. Yes, he is about that much bigger than me. He's almost 16, which means he almost has his drivers license. I pray for the drivers in Illinois often. But, he came into my life when I was 9 years old. Honestly, I really hoped he was a girl, but I got over that. Now I am just so grateful he's in my life. We have a special relationship. As you can see from the picture. He's a gem. Really...he's annoyingly charming and good at almost everything he does. He's very musically gifted and I love listening to him. He's awesome. It makes me sad that I am not around to watch him grow up and suffer through his teen years, but I am so grateful that we have the relationship that we do.

 This is my other brother. (Actually it's both of them, but he's the bigger one.) He's my big brother. I've never known life without him. He's just always been there. He's in med school now. Getting married in less than a year to one of my best friends. He's so grown up. I'm really proud of him for pursuing his dream.

He and I too have a special relationship with him. It's different than the little bro, but its still good. We went to the same college, which is exactly what I didn't want, but it ended up being the biggest blessing. Even though, he actually ignored me for the first two weeks so I would "make friends." I am not sure if he thought I wasn't capable of it or what. 

But needless to say, this is the first year that we haven't lived in the same state, or at least I haven't seen him at least once a month. It was a big adjustment and I miss him terribly. I loved living close, and its saddens me to think that we may never live in the same town again. But, who knows...maybe we'll be neighbors some day! Even if he doesn't admit it...he would LOVE that!

Some people don't have any brothers and some don't like theirs but for me...I like 'em. I think they're pretty great. That's all.

Happy weekend!

Pride & a Puppy

Sometimes I have a pride issue. Shocker, I know! But really...I have a tendency to make the statement "I will never" and usually when I say that, it means that's exactly what is going to happen. It's awesome. Ha.

Recently, this pride issue has been rearing its ugly head a bit. You see, I also have a tendency to not be content as well and usually these two traits like to pal around together. As in, I may think less of the job that I do or where I am because I am worried about what others think about it. Or as I am looking to move, I may not want to live in one location because it's not a "nice" as I think I would like. See, pride.

Most often my discontentness occurs because I am not being thankful. I am usually just being selfish. Yuck. What an honest moment when I realized this. Right now I feel like I am being taught a lesson in humility and, yet another, lesson in control. When I stop worrying about what other people think or get rid of my elitist attitude about that I think is good enough, I'm very content. I'm very happy. I'm satisfied and I'm grateful.

You see, I am here for a purpose. Sometimes I forget that and its in those times I am not grateful. I'm working on it.

But on a lighter note: WE GOT A PUPPY!

Click here to see more pictures what she looks like.

Ah, can't believe it! We pick her up on Saturday. I'm afraid we have no idea what we got ourselves into. So, if you have any advice on raising a puppy I'd be more than happy to read it...and we need a name. Suggestions are greatly appreciated!

Don't worry there will be more pictures soon!

A Time For Rest

As I wind down from another busy week. Side note: I realized today how often I say that it's been a busy week. Every week is a busy week...therefore, it is just a week. So I need to start reserving the word busy for when I truly am busy. Back to point. My thought for today has been on the concept of rest.

As I am working more and more I am really starting to understand why people always make such a big deal about the weekend. I never realized before how great it is to have a couple days where you don't have to get up and go to work...even if you love you're job. Weekends are great. So as I started thinking ahead and planning my weekend. What I want to do, what new recipes I want to try, thinking about the out of ordinary things I want to experience or the conversations and time spent with out of town friends (ughmmm...Ashley & Charley). I was reminded of the importance of the need to rest.

Emotional, spiritual, and physical time of rest is so crucial to us. It's even in the Bible. If God wants me to rest, you think I'd take more advantage of it :). But it is abnormal for me to just stop and rest. Sometimes it's even physically hard for me to do. I have a hard time sitting still.

However, this week I have been exhausted nearly every day. Waking up has been so hard. I think I may have even slept in every day. Whoops! I'm learning to get ready even faster, which has its perks. But its hard to enjoy the things you do when you're exhausted. Hence, the important of rest. So as I go into this weekend, I am no longer going to plan or figure out how I should spend every minute. I'm going to simply let it go and try to get some needed rest. I hope you do too. As I think about rest, I think of things such as these:

I could fall asleep right there.

Why not...this would be awesome.

It's like heaven.

Ok, not really, but how adorable is he?

Happy weekend...get some rest.

But I want to know why?

Last night as I was reading, I came across a verse that struck me. As I kept reading, I couldn't help my mind from going back and thinking about that verse. It says:

"You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before even a single day had passed."

~Psalm 139:16

Every moment was laid out before even a single day had pass...

Really?!? So, God knew that last night I would eat Banana Nut Cheerios for dinner? Or that today my morning meeting would get cancelled so I would have extra time to get work done? Or how in high school I would, once, get in trouble for "misinforming" my parents on where I was going ? Or that I would endure events as a child that altered the rest of my life?

I'm not trying to start a debate about free will and the choices we make. I completely believe that we as humans make decisions that can change and affect the outcome of our life. But what it does make me ponder is "why?" Why do we endure some of the bad things that are done to us? Were these moments laid out before even a single day had passed? Ok, so if they are....why?

I struggled back and forth, playing devils advocate in my own mind, basically arguing with myself. I'm sure if you were looking from afar, I would somewhat resemble Jan Brady in The Brady Bunch movie as she's having conversations in her head. Unfortunately, yeah, I do that too.

Click to listen to Jan's voices

As I was pondering this, a couple realizations came to me. First, maybe we aren't supposed to understand why, maybe that's not supposed to be part of our journey. (Not exactly the simple answer I was hoping for) and second another scripture came into my head.

"...the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God."

~2 Corinthians 1:4

Maybe the reason we experience those things, is so that we can be of comfort to others who go through similar experiences or that we can share in the truth that there is hope. There is hope that no matter what you go through in life, that you can get through it, get over it, rise above it and persevere.

I guess I'll never full understand, but that's going to have to be ok. Pretty simple.

Weekly Recap - List Form

I am thinking it is time for another set of lists! Yay! So here are my lists for this week.

Top Ten Best Moments of This Week  (Disclaimer: these are not in any order, just as I remember them)
10. No work on Monday
9. Spending Monday poolside (minus the intense sunburn)
8. My lunch date with Lisa
7. Glee concert with my best friend
6. Wednesday night dinner with Jake
5. Wearing dresses 4 out of 5 days
4. Watching the Bachelorette with the roomies
3. Frazier's Ice Cream
2. Celebrating Jake surviving his first official state survey
1. Girls weekend in Kentucky...I get to see my two college roommates and I can't wait!!

Top Ten Lessons/Insights I Learned This Week
10. Happiness is the by-product of an effort to make someone else happy. ~ Gretta Brooker Palmer
9. Being content is a choice.
8. So is joy...
7. If you get a sunburn, wearing pants hurts.
6. Do not broil garlic bread in the oven on high, it will burn and make the house smoke.
5. Shaving on a sunburn is a bad idea.
4. Action before attitude, just because I don't feel like it doesn't mean I shouldn't do something.
3. Sometimes you just have to do things without being asked.
2. No matter how hard I try, I will never do everything perfectly.
1. God has me exactly where He needs me to be right now.

I am truly excited about seeing some of my very best friends this weekend. No matter how old you get, it is still always great to get together with some of your best girlfriends to stay up late, eat junk food, talk about boys, clothes, shoes, and your hair. And enjoy some of the simple perks of being a girl! So that is what the next couple of days will be for me...some girl time.

Also, can I tell you all how much I'm in love with pinterest.com. Oh my goodness. It's my new favorite way to waste time. If you're on there, look me up and start following me. I'm addicted to it now! Actually...I'm going to go pin a few things right now...

Happy Weekend!

Not sure how I got here

If you would have told me about 7 or 8 years ago that when I was 24 this is where I would be in my life, I would have laughed in your face and told you that you were, in fact, crazy. Believe me when I say this, nothing in my life is even remotely close to what I thought I would be doing, especially that fact that I would be living in central Indiana. (I mean no disrespect in that, but where I'm from its not uncommon to hear a snicker when someone mentions being a Hoosier.)

As I was jamming along to my country radio station the on my way home from work, the new Darius Rucker song called "This" came on. It occurred to me how much of my life resonated with what he was saying.

I don't really know how I got here
But I'm sure glad that I did
And it's crazy to think that one little thing
Could've changed all of it

Believe me, I have no idea how I got to be where I am in my life, but I truly am glad that I did. God reminded me this week how so blessed I am with loving, caring people who surround me in my life. And if my life had gone as I'd planned I would have never met most of them.

  

 Thankfully, I have these people in my life and that I've made the mistakes I have that have led me to where I am now. If there is one thing that I have learned it is to "never say never." Every time I do that, I end up doing exactly what I said I wouldn't do. But I'm just so glad that God's plan is far more intricate than anything I could have ever come up with and that He is faithful to provide what it is that He has for me.

Despite all the struggles, and challenges that come across the path during this life, it worth it because it's led me here to all this.

Music Musings

As I've stated before, music speaks to my soul. So here are a couple of tunes that I've enjoyed recently.

The sun is out. Time to go enjoy it. Happy Friday :)