The Best Thing About Halloween

I'm not going to get into the whole "Christian's celebrating Halloween" controversy in this post, except to say that I plan to let my children celebrate the fun, non-scary parts of the holiday. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, and I have some great Halloween memories from my childhood, too!

Now that I'm older, my favorite thing about Halloween is simply seeing kids dressed up and having an awesome time! Last night I helped out at our church's Trunk 'R Treat night, and it was so much fun!

Me, Luke, his entire family, and my mom were all the donut-making crew. Luke got this fryer for his birthday the year before last, and we haven't been camping enough to use it yet! (which makes me sad-faced). Anyway, I got a picture of him beside it since he finally got to sue it!

The men did most of the frying, and the ladies did most of the glazing.

These donuts? were the best donuts I've ever had. You might think I'm biased since it was my family making them...but we heard that from other people during the night too, so it's not just me :-) Patty had to go buy more supplies at one point because we were running out so quickly! The donuts are usually made when the family goes camping. Patty mentioned that this is a camping tradition that we will have to pass down to our own children someday, and I can't wait to do that! :-)

The moms :-)

Overall, the night was a success. So many kids showed up to get their candy from the adorable trunks, devour a donut or two, and eat some delicious chili and hot dogs. It was a fun family night!

The trunks were so great!( We did one a few years ago and had so much fun :-))

Our friend Shaun is a racer and he and his wife Jamie brought these little cars. SO CUTE!! Apparently I did not get a good picture of the cars, but I got an adorable picture of Jamie!

And I almost DIED of cuteness with all the cute kids in their costumes! Here's my cousin and her little kitten :-)

We took a break halfway through the night for some delicious chili. It was COLD outside, so that was perfect!

What a fun night! As I was standing there glazing donuts I paused for a moment and breathed in the chilly air; I just listened to the kids laughing, and watched the men throw a football around, and heard the women chatting...and that is why fall is my favorite season. It brings people together

What a fun night spent with this guy and our family and friends :-)

Week in Review

~On Sunday we went to Sarah's church with her and her boyfriend. It was kind of fun experiencing a new church and a new type of worship! Afterwards we went out to lunch at Quaker Steak, where Sarah and I had never eaten before. We found that they have fun straws...

And delicious desserts!! (Luke and I shared this one...caramel apple nachos with vanilla ice cream)

~On Monday I got a sub job with 6th grade. When I was in college, I never would have thought that I'd like teaching 6th graders sooooo much more than kindergartners, but I do! It was a fun day :-)

~On Tuesday it was hot and I was thristy...and Starbucks was calling my name. Java chip frappuccinos may be my new favorite thing in the world. Although I do not plan on ordering them often!

~Wednesday I took a trip shopping with Luke and JC. You see, I cracked the screen of my iPhone in the middle of the summer, but I've been using it fine since then. But recently, there seem to be a lot of internal problems going on with the phone. So we thought maybe the Apple people would be nice and help me out since we weren't sure what was causing the problems. However, the man at the Apple store said the problems were probably due to the fact that I had dropped it, and couldn't really help me unless I wanted to spend $150. No, thank you. I'll use my broken phone until I can upgrade. Anyway, that was a long story. But the night wasn't a total bust, because we did enjoy a late dinner at Five Guys.

We sat down to eat, Luke handed me my burger, and I exclaimed, "This is a little burger?!" Then Luke sat his down beside mine. Ha! It's all relative, folks :-)

P.S. I'm a little embarrassed that all my pictures have been of food so far.

~Luke washed the dishes on Thursday night without being asked or even hinted at. This was the highlight of my week.

~On Friday I had to take the dreaded GRE (a 4-hour test to hopefully help me get into grad school). And while my nervous, upset stomach had me almost unable to leave the house, and subsequently I was almost late getting to the testing center, and then I was so frazzled I forgot to pee before the test and had to wait until my 10 minute break two hours into the test to use the restroom, and then I got stuck in a traffic jam on the way home on the freeway, and then I got lost.........I think I did pretty well on the test, so it was all worth it :-) and I somehow did make it home in one piece!

~Saturday morning was a bridal shower for one of my best friends from high school, so it was fun seeing her!

~Saturday night I went with Luke and my mom to see my old high school's performance of Sweeney Todd. Luke's cousin Leah played Johanna, and she did so great! It was a pretty dark musical for a high school to do, but I thought they did really well, and it was pretty fun for Halloween weekend!

~ Remember this post about my purple tights? Well I've decided they're finally making their debut tomorrow at church (I'm writing this Saturday night). I'm a little self conscious, but I thought I'd try them out once just so I could say I did it. The color is horrible in this picture, but here they are anyway!

Have a blessed Sunday!

Just Some Stuff

Creative title, huh?

Here are just a few quick things on a Friday:

1. I'm dropping the "@Called to Serve" from my blog name pretty soon. Please don't forget who I am!!

2. You should hop on over to In My Twenties and check out my post. It's all about my high school days, and it's complete with some fun pictures. Including this one, circa 2001:

This was taken at a cookie-baking party for my youth group. We did this every year to pass out while Christmas caroling. Do you recognize those people on the ends? I'm on the far left, and that's Luke on the far right! If only we could have seen into the future ;-) But we barely even noticed each other back then, and sometimes I even forget that we knew each other! Haha...God's timing is perfect, and I'm glad we didn't fall in love until later! Anyway, click the link for more :-)

3. I take the GRE (a test that will help or hurt me getting into a graduate program) in just over 2 hours, and I'm a little bit terrified, but at the same time, completely excited to just get it over with! It's been hanging over my head that I have to take it since the middle of the summer, and I'll be glad when it's done. On the practice tests I pretty much rocked the verbal section, and I'm not worried about the writing section (I do that here everyday! haha). But the math section??? Umm...it's been 8 years since I've had a math class. And I just don't remember that higher level algebra and geometry stuff. I've tried to brush up a bit, but I was never very good at it in the first place! So I'm hoping I don't totally bomb that section. Prayers are appreciated!!

4. It's the weekend!! TGIF!! That is all :-)

It's OK Thursday!

It's Okay

...to be in such a good mood that I listen to the Disney Pandora station the whole way home from Akron on Tuesday. True story.

...to then later in the week, watch Beauty and the Beast while I folded laundry because the music put me in the mood.

...to still be a little excited about my birthday coming up, even though I'm going to be 27

...to let a Starbucks Frappuccino totally change my mood

...to get annoyed with Macys for being totally decorated for Christmas. Umm, I'm pretty sure it's still 8 or 9 weeks away. As much as I love Christmas, they're jumping the gun a bit. Let Halloween and Thanksgiving have their turn in the spotlight too! :-P

...to not really love Halloween, and to think it will be much more fun once I have kids.

...to realize coffee is my own form of NZT (only people who have seen Limitless will get that!)

...to hate my fertility problems, but at the same time, when I see a screaming child while shopping, sort of thank the Lord that I'm not in that mom's shoes yet.

What's okay with you?

School Update

Today I thought I'd do a little update on how things are going with my classes. This is a really unique stage of my life, and I want to keep a record, I guess. I never thought I would go back to school full time again, but our plans are not always God's plans!

My Classes:

As far as my classes go, I have four this semester: Anatomy & Physiology + a lab for that, Principles of Audiology, Language science and Acquistion, and Phonetics.

My least favorite classes are Audiology and Language Science and Acquisition. Audiology is very interesting, but I'm going the speech-language pathology route after this year and not audiology. Some of what we're learning feels a little irrelevant. And Lang. Science and Acquisition is an online class and all of it is simply a repeat of what I learned in my education classes when I was getting my undergrad. degree. (Piaget, Vigotsky, blah blah blah. I'm sure you teachers probably say those names in your sleep. And while it's important, I've already learned it!) So it's pretty boring and repetitive, and is also my easiest class by a long shot (not because of the content, but because of the professor).

That means that my two favorite classes are Phonetics and Anatomy & Physiology. In phonetics our main task is to learn to use the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to transcribe. This is something that will be used a lot as an SLP. Basically, there is a different symbol for every sound in any language (luckily we just have to learn the English ones!) Some of the symbols are the same as letters in the alphabet, but some are totally different. Here's just a little taste of the transcription we did last night

Just to give you an idea, #10's words would be "Sues" and "shoes." Pretty cool, right?

I am a total nerd, and completely love transcription! It's a good thing, because we do it for about an hour or an hour-and-a-half during every class! And then some more for homework.

Like I said, my other favorite class is A&P. It's also by far my hardest class. I'm so glad I'm good at memorizing things quickly! Making it harder is the fact that I took the online class, so I kind of have to teach some things to myself. Luckily our professor puts the lectures online so that helps a lot. Anyway, I absolutely love it. It's so fascinating to me! I can't believe how complex our bodies are, and I only have to focus on the systems of speech and hearing! (Props to all the doctors and nurses out there. I don't know how you do it!) Anyway, the lab that goes with that class is not online, so once a week I get to go and do fun things like color 8,000 parts of the skull (exaggerating slightly :-P) or dissect gross yet awesome things.

(this is 2 pages out of 10 in that packet. Yikes)

Cool things I've done this semester:

Since I'm a post-bac student (meaning I already have a bachelor's degree but I just need to pick up a few extra classes before I begin the graduate program) I was kind of thrown right the middle of the SLP/audiology world at The University of Akron. Kind of like just jumping into the middle of a freezing swimming pool instead of taking it one step at a time :-P Anyway, because of that, I've gotten to do some pretty cool things right off the bat! Like...

• Dissecting a pig's larynx. It was pretty cool. However I'm not looking forward to the sheep's brain dissection that's coming up in a couple weeks!
• Conducting an oral mechanism exam. I got to perform this on my lab partner. Basically I just had to look at the different parts of her mouth, count her teeth, and make sure everything was normal and functioning correctly. This is something I will have to do a lot as an SLP.
• Conducting an air- and bone-conduction hearing test on someone else from class. this was fun, even though I'm not going to be an audiologist. Basically I got to sit in the testing room and run the machine that does the testing, all while plotting the results. It was the basic "raise your hand when you hear the beep" test, but it was much more complicated than I would have imagined! You have to test certain frequencies in a certain order, and it's different for air-conduction verses bone conduction. Then you have to test at certain decibels for each frequency to find the hearing threshold. and then you have to do it for the opposite ear with air-conduction. And then you plot it on an audiogram like this:

What I love about The University of Akron

• I love that Akron is big and there is a diverse group of students there.
• I love that attending a college right in the middle of downtown Akron has made me get out of my comfort zone as far as finding my way around, and I've become more competent in some ways.
• I LOVE that there's a Starbucks right, smack, dab in the middle of the building where all of my classes are. This is not a luxury I'm used to, since the closest Starbucks to my home is about 45 minutes away. It was actually pretty warm yesterday, so an ice-cold Frappuccino was perfect. Seriously? It kind of made my day :-)


• Speaking of Starbucks, I kind of love the whole lounge area in my building. I have sat there hours upon hours doing homework, blog reading, Pinterest-ing (thanks to my new laptop!) and people-watching. There are some very interesting people that hang out in the lounge! (and some creepy ones, but we won't talk about that).
• I love that it is so close to where my sister lives and where my aunt works. All three of us went out to lunch last month. And I've spent a lot of afternoons on Julie's couch in her cozy apartment watching shows/movies or talking. Last night she texted me wanting to hang out a week from Thursday for my birthday!! Yay! I'm a little excited :-)

Things I don't love about Akron:

• As much as I like the diverse group of people there, if Malone University (the little Christian school where I got my first degree) had an SLP program, and if cost wasn't a factor, I would totally choose Malone again. I just loved the small school feel with the Christian atmosphere. I liked that the professors were allowed to talk about faith, and incorporate it into our education. And I even loved going to chapel twice a week! Also, I loved that Malone was like a separate entity. The University of Akron is just kind of incorporated into the city, if that makes sense. So I love Akron, but I love the atmosphere of Malone just a little bit more.

What's next?

Next for me is applying to the SLP graduate program. I'm actually in the middle of getting things together for that right now, because the deadline is in January. I take the GRE on Friday, so pray for me! Haha...I am soooo nervous, and not even expecting to do that great. I'm hoping my grades, resume, and past experience will pull me through to get into grad. school. This graduate program is highly competitive (to get into, anyway) at nearly every school. So I'm just trusting God that He is in control, and I will get in if it's His will.

Also next for me is another semester full of classes. From what I've been told, though, it will be a lot easier than this semester. So I'm happy about that! I'll be taking:

• Hearing and speech science
• articulation and phonological disorders (this is the one I'm most looking forward to because I think it will be fascinating)
• language disorders (also looking forward to this one)
• Observations and clinical techniques. I'll be required to do hours of observation in this class (I think 30 hours?? Not sure). I'll be able to do them in schools, hospitals, nursing homes, etc. I can't wait to get out there and see actual SLPs in the field!

Wow, that was a long update. I'm sure no one cares except for me. haha...but like I said, this is an interesting stage of life for me, and I want to remember it :-)

Take a Stand Against Fear

I want to start out this post by saying what a blessing our infertility prayer chain has been for me. I can't believe that we are already adding praises and seeing hope in these situations! Praise God! If you are going through infertility and would like to be added to our prayer chain, shoot me an email and let me know: mysomethingbeautifulblog {at} gmail {dot} com. Don't feel like you have to be struggling with diagnosed infertility to be added, either. I know for me that it was almost as difficult when we had just been trying for 5 or 6 months as it is now. No matter what your situation, we would love to pray for you!!

***

I have been thinking a lot about fear today. There are a lot of bad things that go along with infertility, but fear is among the worst of them. Here is a glimpse into my thought patterns involving fear:

"What if it takes me a long time to get pregnant?"

6 months later...

"What if there's something wrong with me preventing me from getting pregnant?"

6 months and multiple doctor's appointments after that...

"What if I never get pregnant?"

"My friends all have kids now. What if we grow apart since our lives are so different now?"

"What if my husband starts resenting me because I'm not getting pregnant?"

"What if our parents start feeling sad because they aren't grandparents yet, and all of their friends already are?"

"What will I do with my life if I can't be a mom?"

"What if I can't adopt either?"

And on and on and on it goes. Along with these questions and fears come anxiety, anger, jealousy, and depression. Before you know it, you're sprawled out on the floor, having a panic attack, feeling hopeless, and crying hysterically.

Yeah, I've been there.

A person could pretty easily and quickly drive themselves crazy this way. And I am not proud of all the times I've done this to myself.

God commands us to trust Him, and when we let fear grip us, we aren't being obedient to His command.

As soon as I let go of my fears and hand them, once again, over to the Lord, everything changes. I feel hope, I feel confident to face anything, and my eyes are opened to all the blessings surrounding me. I feel lighter and my anxiety disappears.

You see, the only reasons I let those fears creep in are because:

A.) I want to wallow and have a pity party,

and

B.) I am trying to control things myself.

Those are both bad reasons. Because:

A.) I'm not five years old

and

B.) I shouldn't be controlling things. I should be letting God have control. Plus, fertility is something that cannot be controlled by me alone. In fact, the more I try to control it, the more stress I put on the situation. Stress is not good when you're trying to get pregnant.

There is no reason for me to let fear grip me and control me the way it has in the past. And I'm taking a stand today to say that I'm not going to let it grip me or control me anymore!

Who's with me?

Week in Review

Highlights:

~Had lunch with Luke's family on Sunday to celebrate his sister and dad's birthdays

~Really enjoyed our Love and Respect Bible study on Sunday night!

~Went out to lunch and shopping with my mom and sister on Monday

~Celebrated my grandpa's birthday on Monday evening.

~Thursday between my classes I hung out at my sister's apartment with her and her adorable puppy. TV and hot chocolate were involved so it was the perfect little rest and de-stress time between my classes. We won't talk about the fact that I spilled said hot chocolate all down the front of my white shirt.

Oopa!

I tried a crock pot tortilla soup recipe that I found on Pinterest, and it turned out to be sooo good! I had a chair beside the counter because this is a necessity for a short person like me :-P My cats thought I put it there so they could get closer to the action, I think

~On Saturday night Luke and I stayed in and watched Limitless. It was a pretty good movie! I didn't care for the ending, but the concept was great. Has anyone else seen it? what did you think?

And that was about it for last week. Pretty boring! I was too busy studying to do much fun stuff. Last week our A&P quiz was over the muscles of the face. Which wasn't as bad as the bones of the skull, but it was still a lot. The good news?? Our professor told us that we only have 2 more muscles to learn in this class. And considering that we've learned hundreds already, plus their origins, insertions, innervations and functions....that is about the best news I've heard since class began. I'm in the home stretch!!

Home Organizing Binder Part 2

Last weekend I was able to work on a few more sections of my home organizing binder. The first was my blog section.

This section is pretty brief right now. I'm sure I'll add more to it as time goes on. But right now my main purpose in adding a blog section was to create a space where I could keep all of the blog post ideas that are just floating around in my head. I can't tell you how many times I think of ideas for blog posts and then can't remember them when I need them. This way, I will have a whole list of topics to pick from when I'm out of inspiration.

The first sheets in this section are simple "Blog Idea" sheets. I designed them in Scrapbook Factory, and I decided to keep the theme seasonal so I don't get bored with them :-)

And the next section is where I keep a print off of my emails for the infertility prayer chain so I can just turn to that page during my prayer time.

And that's it for the blog section: simple, but functional.

***

The next section I completed was the Mail section. Let me paint a picture for you: every time I wanted to send a letter before, I would have to search through all the files on my computer to find my address list. Then I'd have to search every nook and cranny of the house for where we had left the stamps. Next I'd have to find an envelope the right size. That's just too much work. Last time I wrote about my binder, I said that my goal was to keep everything in one place. And that's what I've done with the mail section.

The first section is a print out of all our contacts

Then we have the folder full of envelopes, stamps, a few random thank you cards and eventually some birthday cards if I can get it together enough to stock up or buy them ahead of time :-P

Finally, I have a print-out for each month where I can write down birthdays, anniversaries, and any other important yearly dates. Again, I made these in Scrapbook Factory.

I would show you a few more months so you can see how festive they are, but my new computer hates me and no matter what I do, will not display these photos in the right direction. They're all weirdly flipped on their sides when I add them to Blogger, even the ones that weren't originally flipped that way. Hmmm....weirdest thing ever.

Anyway, that's pretty much it. Again, simple and functional are my two key words with this project!

I'm currently working on the meal/recipe section and the schedule/to-do list section. I will hopefully have another update in a week!

It's OK Thursday!

Aw Thursday, how I love you. Not only are you my last day of classes for the week, and not only are you The Office, Parks and Rec, and Big Bang Theory day, but you are also the day when I don't have to come up with a creative idea for a blog post, because Neely and Amber have already done that for me!!

It's OK

...to write run-on sentences in a blog post. Exhibit A above ^

...to be proud of your first homemade apple pie because it was delicious. Even though it was hard to look at because you tried (key word) to get creative on the crust with a cookie cutter.

...to reward yourself immediately following a really difficult test at school. 220 calories? Don't mind if I do! (And no, that's certainly not a Dr. Pepper back there propping up the bag. Ahem).

...to have a sore throat because you were trying to sing like Adele (okay, okay. I stole this one from Pinterest).

... to inadvertently blind the cat, forgetting the flash was on

...to spend "just 5 more minutes" on Pinterest.

...to seriously mourn the fact that you haven't been able to read even one page of a book for leisure since classes started on August 23. (Ummm...but to be fair, that's partially Pinterest's fault. Not just school's).

...to mention Pinterest no less than 5 times in every blog post.

...to plan on not taking your nose out of a book for four straight weeks during Christmas break! Which is a month-and-a-half away, but still.

Happy Thursday!

All the Single Ladies

I know I already posted today, but I'm fired up about something I read on Twitter. This post has been writing itself in my head for awhile anyway, and I just had to get it out in the open.

To all my single friends:

For every time I've asked you if you were dating anyone...

Or when I've asked if it's serious with the person you're dating...

And every time I've asked if you're going to get engaged soon, or if he's going to pop the question soon...

For every time I've asked if you've set a date for the wedding...

And every time I've complained about my own relationship or any aspect of married life...

And most of all, for every time I've taken my own marriage for granted...

I want to offer my sincerest apologies. I know now how it feels.

The longer I go on without being a mother, the more I understand why these questions are too personal, and really, they're nobody's business unless you want to open up about them. Because every time someone says any of the following to me:

"No kids yet?"

"It's your turn next!"

"When will you guys be ready?"

...I die a little inside. Seriously, there isn't much that makes me feel more upset.

The only thing that's worse than that is when pregnant women complain about the normal things that go along with pregnancy like morning sickness, fatigue, weight gain, etc (of course, I'm not talking about extreme situations. I have compassion for women who have extreme morning sickness or difficult pregnancies). Whenever someone makes a petty complaint about these things, I just want to take them by the shoulders, look them in the eyes, remind them of how lucky they are, and tell them I'd give anything to be in their shoes (anything short of my God, husband, and family, that is. Yes, I have thought about this before :-P).

Oh wait, there is one thing that's worse than that: bragging that you got pregnant the first month you tried. In my opinion, unless someone asks, this is not information that needs to be shared. Seriously, after 16 months, I feel like my heart is being ripped out every time I hear someone say this.

So I guess what I'm saying is that I need to be a little more sensitive to people who may wish they were in my shoes, and not take advantage of what I have. And this post is my PSA that I wish some pregnant people and moms would do the same.

Somewhere out there, there are people who would give anything to be where we are and have what we have.

My First Apple Pie!

Last Friday I made my first apple pie! From scratch! Crust and all!

This is a big milestone for me because every fall since we got been married I've had the intention of making one. But this year I actually did it instead of just planning to do it.

It's also a milestone because this scores me a few homemaking points. Because you know what?? It was good! I didn't mess it up! One step closer to domestic goddess. Still miles and miles away, but one step closer ;-)

In my delusional efforts toward creativity, I decided to use an apple-shaped cookie cutter on the top crust because I had seen something similar but with stars on this blog last summer. Go ahead and click the link...I'll wait here for you. And then we can have a good laugh together at the comparison :-)

bahahahahah! I wish I could blame the terrible lighting for how bad it looks, but even perfect lighting and a professional photographer couldn't have made my pie look good.

But ya know what? It was delicious. Like, really, really good. Luke and I enjoyed warm slices with vanilla ice cream on Friday night, and it was heavenly. And delicious trumps pretty, right? Right??

Here's the recipe, in case you're interested :-)

Face Your Problems, Don't Facebook Them.

The title for this post is a quote I found (where else?) on Pinterest. And I literally shouted "Yes!" out loud when I read it. My thoughts exactly as of late.

I have a few friends on Facebook who can find something negative to say about any situation you could ever possibly think of. And they're usually trivial things. I feel depressed just reading their posts. This is who they remind me of:

As more and more of these "Eeyores" have been popping up recently, I decided to take a look at my own Facebook page. And while I am not negative all the time, I've posted some negative things that I probably didn't need to. Does everyone care or need to know that I'm having "one of those days?" Or that I'm not feeling well? Or that I'm angry about gas prices? Etc? The answer is no. No they do not.

So I've recently started a "no complaining on Facebook" rule. Now, I'm not talking about being fake happy all the time, but just erring on the "glass half full" side of things. Ultimately, I don't want to bring others down on Facebook; I want to build them up...make them smile or laugh or feel encouraged.

Or at the very least, not make them roll their eyes in annoyance like I know I do to people airing their dirty laundry on Facebook.

So who's with me? We can change Facebook, one status at a time :-)

Lessons I Learned from Watching "Up"

I started a private blog about a year ago when things started getting really difficult regarding our fertility problems. I started it not only for myself - to help me deal with things, but also because I knew I planned on sharing some of these thoughts on my public blog someday.

The other day I remembered a post I had written about the movie Up, and knew I had to share it. The first part is a little depressing, but I promise it gets better :-)

"November 10, 2010

I had a rough day yesterday. I recently resumed temping in the mornings after taking a break for a month for my sanity, and my BBT [basal body temperature] had been high. Even though I was sick, I got my hopes up that maybe I was pregnant. I took a test yesterday morning, and of course it was negative. I had a ROUGH day. It felt like I had a relapse into the time a few months ago, before I started coming to terms with things.

But today I keep thinking about that scene in the movie Up. The scene where they find out that Ellie can't have a baby, so they decide to travel to Paradise Falls and essentially conquer the world instead. That is how I feel today. If I can't have a baby yet, I want to conquer the world today. I want to take advantage of my freedom and do things that I couldn't do if I had a little one. [just a warning if you haven't seen it...the clip is cute but really depressing at the same time :-P]

Babies will come in time. But for now, I'm happy with my sense of adventure...which is something that will probably die a little bit when I become pregnant."

Almost a year later, and I feel the exact same way! A big lesson I've learned during the past year-and-a-half is that you can't put life on hold while you wait for something. Whether it's waiting for the right guy to come along, marriage, the perfect job, or a baby, you must keep living.

My sense of adventure is something that has really blossomed in the past year-and-a-half, and I look at it as a blessing that came with this awful situation. Because of my new-found sense of adventure and the increased awareness of how much freedom I have without a baby, I've:

• Taken on more responsibility at church like when I wrote the church building project blog, worked on the campaign committee, wrote the campaign newsletters, and became one of the head library workers.
• Done things I wouldn't normally do, like in January when Luke and I spoke in front of the whole church on a Sunday morning
• Packed up and headed out to Arizona in the middle of winter, and in the middle of the school year. And those were some of the best days ever! (funny sidenote...I told Luke if we became pregnant while we were in Arizona, we were going to name our child Sedona if it was a girl. I think he was happy that didn't happen :-P)
• Stayed up late and slept in. A lot. Because I could. And I did not feel guilty about it one bit.
• Enjoyed time spent with my husband and relished in the flexibility of our schedule.
• Went to Cedar Point and rode every ride on our 3-year anniversary
• Lost weight (9 lbs to be exact!)...that wouldn't have happened if I had been pregnant!
• Quit my job to go back to school to follow a dream.

So does it stink to not be pregnant after 16 months of trying? Yes. But all the things I've gotten to do and all the places I've gotten to go have not escaped my notice. Somehow this situation has made me appreciate all the good things so much more. And it has helped me see that there are blessings every day in the freedom of not having a baby too. The last thing I want to do is wish this time away.

I'll let Pinterest deliver my final thoughts...because everything has more impact with a pretty font :-)

Source

Week in Review: Finding the Good in a Bad Week

As I mentioned in a post a few days ago: this week was tough. There was just a lot going on with school and I was overwhelmed. However, there were still plenty of good moments this week :-)

Highlights:

~On Sunday I went to see a play with my mom and some friends of ours. I really do love local theater (and any other kind as well). The show was The Odd Couple - Female Version and it was pretty funny.

~Sunday night was fun because Luke's aunt and uncle were visiting from out of town so the whole family had a big cookout at his grandparents' house.

~The leaves have officially changed!

~Oh yeah, and I got a new laptop! It was sort of a surprise from Luke, and it's so much bigger and better than my old one! I love it :-)

~I survived my A&P test even though it was torture studying for it all week!

~ I made my first ever apple pie on Friday! And it was good! I was so nervous that I was going to mess it up.

~Continued to make progress on my home organizing binder...I added a very important section ;-)

~ On Saturday I got to see and hold Luke's newest little cousin...It was so cute watching Luke hold her too :-)

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So this week was stressful but good at the same time. Hoping for a better week next week, though!