Living for Thanksgiving

Living for the weekend is pretty much the story of my life this semester. I generally feel like I start Sunday night at 9:00 pm and go until Friday at 3:00 pm without stopping. I know this isn't exactly the case, but man I really like weekends. But they sure do go by fast.

This weekend, I'm really hoping we'll get the Christmas spirit started, regardless of Rachel's silly "no Christmas before Thanksgiving" rules. This means waking up tomorrow and making a delicious breakfast, decorating our stockings, and trimming a tree, all with "Elf" playing in the background.

I'm excited for this weekend, but I'm even more excited about THANKSGIVING. It is most definitely one of my favorite holidays for a lot of reasons I won't go into, but a lot of it has to do with the focus on my family and yes, delicious eats. My Uncle Rick is a Thanksgiving Master.

Every year, we trek down to The Woodlands to spend Thanksgiving with my mom's sister (PoPo) and her family (Uncle Rick, Cat, and Liz). I hear so many stories about people who aren't very close in age to their cousins, and therefore not very close to them at all. One of the things I'm thankful for is two girl cousins who sandwich me in age. I've always loved family gatherings with them. When I was younger, this mostly revolved around the fact that I would finally have girls to play Barbies with. My brother, shockingly, never seemed to get the hang of it and saw it as a prime opportunity to push my buttons. For many Thanksgivings, me and "the girls" as we have so lovingly dubbed them, would wake up and dress up as pilgrims, which usually meant wearing any black clothes we could find with white trash bag aprons.

These days, we're satisfied with waking up and snacking on biscuits and coffee while we watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. It seems like every year, Uncle Rick suggests we go to the Houston Thanksgiving Parade, but we are lazy and that would require leaving our pajamas. Finally food is ready and PoPo puts on whatever new Christmas music she's bought at Starbucks to go with our meal. Thanksgiving night always means going to a movie.

And then it's Black Friday. We always say we're not going to go or we'll go for just part of the morning, but it almost always turns into an all day affair of spending way more money than we'd planned on. But Christmas gifts are a go.

Wow, I'm getting excited just writing about it. I really love Thanksgiving. The food, the traditions, the relaxation, the leftovers, and even just hearing about how others celebrate.

For the record, my favorite is the stuffing.

Bring It On....when the time is right

My life is just a little too easy most of the time. I'm thankful for what I've been given, but where is that dividing line between blessings, and just being spoiled? I think I may have accidentally crossed it a while ago.

I wonder what would happen if I was called to leave it all. Though I consider myself to be a pretty low maintenance gal, I'm not so sure I could make that switch so quickly. I always wish I was more adventurous than I actually am. I say it's because opportunities don't present themselves, or I get really close and then back away. The fact is I'm just plain scared. I'm scared of seeking out those opportunities or even taking advantage of those that are staring me in the face. Even worse than being scared, I'm lazy.

There are quite a few things that need changing before I'm ready to hear and accept God's call. I have a good feeling He knows that too. While it's scary now, and there's a chance I will chicken out when that day comes, just as I chicken out on so many things, I can't wait to find out what my adventure is, because I know that by that time, I'll be ready.

So, so bored.

I'm sitting at the Gardner desk bored out of my mind. I have a Spanish test today and brought my stuff to study, but finished all that business about an hour and a half into my shift. Sometimes I underestimate my intellect.

So now, after drinking all my coffee, facebook stalking just about everyone I know, and completing my USA Today Crossword, I'm writing really just for the sake of writing. I generally talk about how busy this semester has been for me. Sometimes I think I'm exaggerating, but then I realize I'm not. Between taking 15 hours (2 classes with labs), peer leading for a U100, working 20 hours, and staying as involved with club as possible, there is little left to do at the end of the day but crash. Especially considering I usually have to start all over again in roughly 5-6 hours.

I am so, so, so excited about my lineup next semester. I'm only taking 12 hours, which will make working so much way more bearable. I'm also hoping to volunteer somewhere that could really teach me a lot about a possible job field. Not to mention, SING SONG, which is probably my number one favorite thing about ACU (waterball is a very close second). Overall, I'm really looking forward to a semester that will probably be just as busy, but hopefully a more fun busy, rather than a wake up at 4 a.m. busy.

Next semester? Check.

Which only leaves summer... I've already been asked quite a bit if I'm planning on reprising my role as counselor at Kadesh and MPulse. While a summer without camps seems incredibly hard to imagine right now, I can't help but feel like it may be time for me to move on. Moving on to what is the problem. I've talked about looking for internships, but more recently I've been questioning whether or not I should stay and work in Abilene. Yes, Abilene is boring to many, but I can't help but smile at the thought of spending a couple of restful months with some of my favorite people. Camp is in Abilene, but I'm rarely given the opportunity to just take it easy. After two and a half-ish extremely busy years of college, the thought of just hanging out sounds just blissful.

I have plenty of time to think about it, which is mostly my way of saying I just don't want to think about it right now. Until further decisions must be made, you can more than likely find me at the ACU pool watching whatever waterball game is underway.