2011

HAPPY NEW YEAR FRIENDS!!! May 2011 for you be a year of love, family, and joy in the Lord!

(sorry, I *had* to do a New Years post. and you can't do a New Years post without at least one sort of sappy sentence. at least this wasn't toooo bad, right? :P)

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

I was looking over some of my favorite quotes I had saved earlier, and this one struck me particularly tonight. I really love it. Sometimes, I get caught up in what's going to happen, how I've failed before, etc, etc...and I forget that all I should really care about is that Jesus is dwelling in me, and He has conquered everything, even death. And I have no reason to be anxious or upset or fearful or anything. Only content.

You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 1 John 4:4

The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen. 2 Timothy 4:18

But the Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen and protect you from the evil one. 2 Thessalonians 3:3

Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ. 2 Corinthians 2:14

But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 15:57

"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? Psalm 27:1

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:14-19

Ephesians 6:10
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.

Philippians 4:13
I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

We're fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance. ~ Japanese proverb

You're only given one life here on earth. So don't hold back, live it to the fullest! Fall in love with life today. Don't worry about what others think.....just *dance*!

♥

Snow!!

It's snowing! Loads of beautiful, fluffy snow! ♥ Yay! :D We have a few inches now, but my brother says we're supposed to get at least 10 more overnight! O_o My dad very nicely offered to get up and drive me to work at 6 am tomorrow. Since there is no way I am driving to work in the middle of a blizzard. :P

Soo, yes, lovely snow. A day late for a White Christmas, but at least this way we had safe travels yesterday. :)

My Christmas was lovely, for the most part! ;) Christmas Eve most of us went to our church's Christmas Eve service, which was very nice. Singing carols, hearing a nice message, and visiting with church friends was a nice way to start off Christmas festivities. After the service, we were up kind of late...made some food for the next day, and watched another one of our old Christmas movies that we always watch, "Christmas in Connecticut". Lots of fun! ♥

Then Christmas!! My sister woke me up around 6:30am. We stayed in bed chatting for 15 minutes (well, she did most of the chatting...I did most of the keeping-my-eyes-closed-pretending-it-wasn't-morning-yet ;)), then we went out and plugged in the tree lights, and looked at all the gifts under the tree, and brought ours out. We managed to get the rest of the family up by 7:30ish, and started opening gifts at 8. :)

I got a GPS for my car (guess my parent's got tired of having to draw me a million maps for every little place I went too :P), new Taylor Swift cd, some pretty notebooks, some Reese's (my family knows me sooo well!), and a few other little odds and ends. Our family also got a Wii! I've been holding out on playing the Wii (my family's played at friends houses, etc, but I never had). But now that we own one, I broke down and played some Wii bowling. And decided that we never have to go real bowling again, since I stink at real bowling, but I did really well on the Wii. :P

Anyways, we also went to my Uncle's house in MA for Christmas, around 2:30. It was a really long day, and I had a bit of a headache for some of it (I was tired, plus his house seemed a bit smaller than my Aunt's, where we've had Christmas the past few years, and it felt a little crowded :P). But other than that, it was really fun! I love my dad's family, it's always fun to catch up with them, or just watch them all laugh and talk and joke together. :)

We ended up getting home around midnight though, so it was a long day. Today has been a restful day though....church in the morning, some Wii and a nap in the afternoon, and we all went out sledding tonight! It was fun!

I hope everyone's Christmas was full of fun, family, food, love, and of course, Jesus! ♥

Squirrel! ♥

I love squirrels!!! They're like, fuzzy.... little... rats. :P

No, but seriously, have you ever thought about the word squirrel? It's one of those funny ones, that never looks quite right when you spell it, or sounds quite right when you say it. And it's kind of fun to say fast.

Ok, that's it. Thank Amy for this post, she's the one who told me to write about squirrels. :P

(I was just kidding about squirrels being fuzzy rats. They're actually kind of cute, but rats are definitely not cute. Nowhere near cute. Disgusting, even.) ;)

*dances*

I'm HAPPY!!! School's officially over forever!! ....well, till the middle of January anyways. But that's good enough! ;)

My grades aren't the *bestest* they could be this semester, but I'm happy enough with them. I knew having only A's in college wasn't going to last once I started taking hard courses anyways. ;)

And just like that...it's Christmas week. I'm super excited about the going-on's of this week. Tomorrow, I have work (which is not super exciting :P), then, I get to see Amy (!!!! :D :D), and I might go to a Christmas party that night with some ladies from church too! Tuesday, I'm working, and we're having a little Christmas party after work....some pizza, secret Santa gifts, and who knows what else. Hopefully it should be fun. ;)

I looooove everything about Christmas!! Christmas shopping (which I'm, like, 95% done with. :P), wrapping gifts (which I haven't even started yet. heh ;)), watching Christmas movies, getting together with family, Christmas songs and carols, Christmas tree, and of course...celebrating Jesus!!

We have all these Christmas movies that we always watch this time of year:

Christmas in Connecticut

White Christmas

Miracle on 34th Street

It's A Wonderful Life

A Christmas Story

Holiday Inn

...and I might be missing one, but I can't remember right now. We watched most of them already, but we haven't watched It's A Wonderful Life yet, since it's like an unwritten law that we have to watch it with our whole family all together, and that has happened yet. ;)

Anyways. I'm pretty excited!! :D

I've been having 'one of those nights' tonight. You know the kind, where it seems like every little thing that can possibly go wrong, goes wrong. Yet nothing major goes wrong....you're still alive, your family's fine, your house isn't burning to the ground, you have food and warmth, etc, etc. It's these nights where I struggle. I *want* to...to not necessarily complain, but to get my feelings out. But yet, I feel like I shouldn't. I feel like I've been blessed with so, so much, and it's wrong to complain about little things. I feel like I shouldn't burden other people with my trivial little problems, and yet, I want someone to listen, and to care. And I know nobody can listen if I don't talk.

It's kind of like, I heard somewhere that as a Christian...we should just kind of grin and bear it, and it's selfish and petty to indulge in our own feelings...that just since we're having a rough go of the day, is absolutely no reason to 'bring others down'. That we should just be happy, smiley people all the time.

And yet, it's important to be your true self, I feel like. Like you shouldn't just hide behind smiles when your heart is hurting, even if it's for a silly reason. Life isn't all sunshine and roses, even as a Christian.

And then I wonder about my motivations for complaining, or what have you. Am I telling people I had a bad night, since I need to get it out, or since I'm looking for attention and pity?

I don't know. It's just sooo confusing sometimes, and I don't think this post is making a lick of sense. It made more sense in my head, I promise. :)

Basically, it all comes down to this: when do you share your burdens with others, and when do you hold it in? is it ever right to smile and pretend you don't hurt? is it ever right to not? where do you draw the line? am I being silly for making a deal out of this? (well, I know the answer to that one anyways.)

If anyone has opinions or thoughts, or anything at all to share, I would love it if you did. :) (you don't even need an opinion or an answer. even if you just want to say, "I feel that way too sometimes" or "you're an idiot" please do, I want your honest to goodness thoughts.) :)

Check it out...

...and get excited. ;)

http://www.xmasclock.com/

(sorry. I couldn't help it. I'm a Christmas freak.) ;)

Seriously! :P

Sight

For my Health, Safety, and Nutrition class, I've been writing a research paper on blindness and vision problems. All of which has made me increasingly grateful to God for blessing me with the gift of sight, and fully functioning eyes! It's such a blessing, and one that I very often take for granted. So I'm taking a moment to thank Jesus for blessing me with sight, and with so many beautiful things to see! ♥

Way too often, I take God's blessings for granted, and complain about my trivial problems. But I want to change that! Because when you think about it, the small thorns don't even matter when you look at the beauty of the rose.

Arms of Love

The choices are before me

Calling out my name

Which way should I turn?

Which path do I choose?

The darkness is calling,

Calling ever so loud

Yet the Light is whispering

Tugging at my heart

Lord, I'm stumbling again

Always turning the wrong way

So here I am at Your feet once more

Begging for Your mercy

Desperate for Your love

I'm so undeserving

Always going astray

Yet Lord You always welcome me

Welcome me with Your arms of love

So here I am at Your feet once more,

Receiving Your mercy

Receiving Your love

Original poem. Written by me. Dedicated to my Lord, Who is simply the most incredible Lord ever. Thank you Jesus! ♥