Friday, March 29, 2013

Another week passed

Well, hard to believe it's been a whole 7 days since I have wrote anything.
Last Friday I got to see Kenneth Copeland when he came to my school. I have grown up around this guy's teaching, so I was very excited to get to see him in person for the first time. Once again, this is one of the benefits of moving to the Bible belt.

The night was even better than I expected. He is very different in person. He's more personal, and funny. His sermon was complete with stories, jokes, goofy faces, and my personal favorite....sarcasm.

Here is a video I got of one of his funny moments.





I took a lot of pictures of him that night, and uploaded them to facebook. In the days following, when I mentioned to people that I had taken pictures of him, people were shocked and said, "I saw those pictures! You took those? I thought you got them off his website or something. They look so professional!"
Here are four of my favorites that I took:






This Wednesday was another highlight of my week. For the last 3 weeks my friend Kale has been trying to help me get a picture with the school president Mark Rutland. I told Kale that it had been a goal of mine since before I even came to school; and it was now 5 weeks until Dr. Rutland moves to Georgia. So finally on Wednesday, Kale helped me get a picture with Dr. Rutland!


The weather has been beautiful this week, and I have taken advantage of it by borrowing a friends bike and riding down on my favorite trail that runs along the River. I call Riverside, my "happy place".

Friday, March 22, 2013

Rough week that ended fun

Sunday I was less than content, reading on facebook all my friends spring break adventures; Hawaii, Florida, Mexico, Puerto Rico, cruises. I was sitting in my dorm room with work as the only activity I foresaw in my week.

Monday started well, with an early morning trip to the eye doctor. The drive back to campus was filled with smiles and giggles at all the things I could see so much better now wearing glasses.

This was how my Spring Break began, and I thought it was going to be the most eventful moment of my week. But I was wrong!

Tuesday was going to be a lazy day, but I got asked to come work on my day off. One of the higher up managers was there. He asked me a few questions through out the shift to see if I had learned the stuff I was supposed to know by my 1 month mark of employment.

 He also pulled me aside a few times to compliment me on several things I did right through out the shift. Before he left for the night, he told me he was impressed by my work ethic and speed, and he asked me to come in and work a 10 hour shift the next day because he wanted to see how I managed.

9pm Tuesday night, I started feeling not so good and decided to go to sleep early. 11pm I woke up vomiting and I was up the rest of the night with the toilet and a garbage can as my sole companions.
6am rolled around with zero sleep, and no end in sight to the sickness, and I was imaginably upset to have to call in sick after feeling I had won brownie points with management the night before.

Around 2pm Wednesday the vomiting finally ceased, and I ended up sleeping straight through to Thursday evening.
By Thursday night I was regaining energy, and wanted to get out for fresh air and civilization, so I hopped along on a Walmart trip with my buddies Joey and Michael.

At Walmart I admired a snazzy dinosaur cup and Joey convinced me to spoil my inner child and get it. Not to shabby for 98 cents! (Another interesting thing this week is that I just today learned the word "snazzy")

Right after taking a picture with my new favorite dinosaur cup, my favorite singer Avril Lavigne  put a post on facebook looking for photos to add into her new music video for her song, "Here's to Never Growing Up". The timing was hysterical, so I submitted my picture.


Another highlight was getting out to find this AWESOME book:
The Pop-up Book of Phobias

I reserve deep respect for the mastermind behind this book.





Tonight is the most exciting part of the week. I've been hearing him on CD and TV since I was in diapers, and tonight, for the first time I get to see Kenneth Copeland in person as he is coming to my school. I will save another blog post for that though!

It wasn't paradise, it wasn't even traveling, but I'd say spring break was a success. I got my eye sight back in a stylish way, impressed my boss, got a debilitating stomach flu, survived the stomach flu, got a new favorite dinosaur cup, potentially featured in a famous music video, learned a new favorite word, found the best book ever written, and get to see a lifelong influential minister....yep, pretty fun break!

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Wanelo and my favorite dress

A friend introduced me to the website wanelo.com

It's a cool site where you can find all sorts of neat apparel, jewelry, crafts, and more. It's kinda like pinterest except it has the bonus of a link to websites where you can by the items you like. So I guess it's more like a super duper Christmas wish list website.

I found a dress, that is possible the cutest dress on earth, that's for sale for $50.


As of February 10 I needed to lose about 90 pounds to be at a good BMI. Since then I have shed 15 of that.


I have told myself that once I lose half of that weight, 45lbs, I will buy the dress. 30 to go and then that dress will be mine!!

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Running



I have recently picked up a new hobby, in addition to my obsession with moon picture lol. I love to go running! It may be considered more like slow jogging in the running world, but it's new and exciting for me.

I started out this summer with jogging, and would be out of breath within just a few seconds. There is a trail about two miles off campus that I love to walk, and then there is a trail on campus which goes in a loop which I also love to walk. Sometimes when I am a bit more hyper than usual I will pick up my pace on the on campus loop.

But then one day while walking the off campus trail, I got back to the city area, and got into a sticky situation where I had to run out of the way of a car that didn't see me on the sidewalk. When I started running something in me said to keep running, and I did. I ran for quite a while. When I finally stopped I thought, "Man! That felt great!"

That night I decided to run some more around the loop on campus. I ran as fast as I could for as long as I could, and got around about 1/3 of the loop.

Since that day, I've been running about 3 times a week, and love it even more every time. Tonight was a milestone, when I was able to run the entire loop. Not super impressive, but very exciting for me!

All this makes me even more excited about the fact I signed up for April's Color Run.

I cannot wait to be doing this in 1 month....:


Friday, March 15, 2013

Memories from the missions field: $1000

About ½ mile from my home in Oregon, is a logging road. It goes up a very steep hill. I loved to walk to the top of that hill and look out a large green scenery. It was my favorite place to go pray and journal. One day my mind was troubled by upcoming payments to go to Peru, and the fact I was still $1000 short. As I sat up on that hill, I was reminded of the quote, “Sometimes that mountain you’ve been climbing is just a grain of sand. When you figure out love is all that matters after all, it makes everything else seem so small.”
I felt God telling me to trust him for the money, and to keep my focus on showing his love to those around me. I told God that I was placing my trust in him, that he would provide that $1000. Sure enough, just days before the deadline, I was handed a check for $1000!

Our 2nd to last day of ministry in Peru; I was with a group of little girls, spinning them in circles. I got worn out after a bit, and told them no more. I sat down for a little break and started talking with one of the girls, when I felt a gentle slap on my knee. I looked down and there was a little boy, maybe 8 months old, propped up on my knee. I picked him up and about that time his mom came over. She talked some about how long she had lived in the village, and told me her kids names and ages, and how they all worked on crafts to try to make money. After a while the woman asked if I was American. I told her I was. She began to cry, and asked if I could take her baby to America to find a better family.

I was shocked! After a lot more emotional conversation, I learned that her husband had been laid off, and they were running out of money for food. She told me that lunch the day before, was the last time she had eaten, and that her kids had not had food since dinner.

I told her I would be right back. I got several friends, and went back to the bus to make a bunch of PBJ sandwhiches. Once we had filled up a bag, I brought it to her. I told her the story of how I was $1000 short for being able to come, and that I trusted God, and last minute it was provided. I handed her the bag and told her to trust God that by the time that food was gone, her husband would have a new job. The woman looked at me, then at the bag, then at her son, and then she burst into tears, apologizing to her baby.
She said that she had been so desperate for an answer to her struggles, that she thought giving her children away was the only hope for them. But now she knew to pray for help. Later that day the woman came back with all six of her children, and they all came to become a Christian.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Hair Fiasco

Hair fiasco, I think we have all had one at least once. Well, mine is a current 3 month adventure.

It started in early December. I decided to dye my hair blonde.

The first few days I loved it. I took a picture with my missions team a few days before Christmas break started. It was a kind of light brown to almost blonde. It wasn't what I was hoping for, but I was very happy with how it turned out.

I went home to Oregon for Christmas, and was very content with my hair color choice. But by Christmas day, a picture was taken with me and my grandpa, and when I saw it I realized something had changed greatly. I wasn't sure what to think of it.

But by my last day in Oregon, it had changed so drastically. I got a picture with a family friend/ former teacher, and I was now horrified by how it looked. It was a super bright orange!

When I got back to Oklahoma, I knew I wanted to change it, but I had been warned about dying hair too much. I put off changing the color for a few weeks, and it seemed it just got worse and worse.

Finally! Finally I could see my dark brown roots showing, and decided it was time to fix my entire head. I got a new package of dark brown dye. The final product, again, I loved.

But that was not the end of it.

By just a few days later, my hair was getting lighter again.

Now, March 11, my hair is once again a weird shade of orange, with my dark brown roots showing!

Sighs...time to dye it again.




It's now 1 hour later....I have dyed my hair again....the hair fiasco continues with an even weirder twist!!!
I used a dark brown dye again. I dried my hair, and it is now even more blonde!!


Spring break is next week. My floor mates have convinced me, it's time to stop with the home jobs...it's time to seek professional help.

Will see what comes next! =}

Saturday, March 9, 2013

The Everyday Joys

College is a fun and exciting place. It's all about getting where I want to go. Big dreams being accomplished. But sometimes, in the hustle of accomplishing all these big goals, I get struck by something very common, that reminds me to enjoy everyday normalcy. It is the small giggles that happen every day that make life worth living. And yet I so easily overlook them when trying to remember the events that happened in my day/week/year.

Like on Wednesday, when I got a good hard laugh, out of my friend attempting to print pictures instantly, and being told she would get them in 13 hours.

I laughed at the contradiction of the message, then I laughed more at my friend pointing out the contradiction, then my sides were hurting as I was still laughing at the expression on my friends face as the store clerk said it was just a computer glitch.

The little joys in life, the every day non-extraordinary events, that make me laugh, that keep me smiling, that make me say I had a good day, that keep my spirits lifted high; these are the things that I often forget to appreciate. However, these are the things I need the most.

They say you don't know what you've got until it's gone. What would life be without the unremarkable, everyday giggles? That's not a day I want to live to see.

So these days, I try to recognize and be grateful for every normal thing that puts a smile on my face.

Like the advertisement that I spotted today in the baseball parking lot that sparked a brief laugh for me:



Monday, March 4, 2013

Sylar

Today is a day I want to remember all my life. I am now the president and co-founder of a 501c3 non-profit organization. Two years ago I teamed up with 6 others to create an organization that would help save children. All 7 of us had our lives forever changed by one little guy, Sylar Newton.
We live all through out the nation, and only met after each of us had our hearts broken by Sylar's story.
Together we held a 1 and 2 year anniversary memorial for Sylar, who had his life taken away by child abuse. Together we spread awareness of how to prevent child abuse, and together we rallied support for 3 children hospitalized by abuse.
This day we got word that we are a fully functioning IRS approved charity.
Before Sylar, I never would have imagined this day. This little guy who I never met, made me a better person. He was only here for 2 years, yet he has left a lasting impression on me, and countless others.

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Memories from the missions field: Follow Jesus

Here is another favorite picture from missions. Sadly I never found out this little girl's name. When we stepped off the bus to begin hair washing ministry in Peru, she came running right up to me and jumped into my arms. I washed her hair first. Then she stood beside mimicking me as I washed others hair. The entire day she did not want to leave my side. 

Mid day we got on costumes and preformed a play about Christ. Through the whole play she kept wanting to run around following my every move.
She hardly ever spoke, but was full of hugs and giggles.
I got this picture after the play.
I sat and snuggled with her for a bit, and tried my best to tell her in child-like words...in spanish too... to follow after Jesus in life the same way she followed me that day.


Just as we were packing up to leave her sister came looking for her, and hurried her away.
She darted back to wave, "Adios Amor!"
I hope to meet many children with her attitude in Africa