Learning to Love

My lovely sister Lauren has been doing a Bible study called "What's in Your Thought Closet?" by Jennifer Rothschild and she kindly sent me a link to part of the book so I could follow along too. It took me about two seconds to realize that I have things in my thought closet from years and years ago that are sometimes pushed to the back and forgotten but will spill out occassionally. I desperately need to make myself over and through this Bible study I realized that I don't just need to make myself over for me, but also for God. Through different Bible verses, Rothschild made me realize that my thoughts are not just hurtful to me and other people, but also to God. He made me exactly how he wanted to and through my hurtful thoughts I am demeaning his creation. God does not want me to condemn myself and only think negatively.
Something I have always struggled with is God's willingness to love those who are not perfect and who do evil things. I regularly feel undeserving of God's love and forgiveness and that's probably why I am so hard on myself. While having a conversation with my Mom, she reminded me that I can't truly love others until I love myself. I am nowhere close to that. I think I am going to have to start with the concept that I am loved by God before I can fathom that it is okay to love myself. I have no problem loving others, in fact I truly think I love lots of other people more than I love myself and many times I also feel unworthy of their love.
This Bible study has really opened my eyes and made me take a deep look at myself and my relationship with God and others. I've only done the first two days and I need to order the book so I can finish. Although it is probably the most difficult thing in the world to look deep inside ourselves and reveal the secrets that lie within, it can also be the most rewarding and lifechanging experience.
Some of my favorite Bible verses that I found tonight were:
Psalms 56:4
"In God, whose words I praise, in God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can mortal man do to me?"
Jeremiah 29:11
"I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not evil, to give you a future and a hope."
Proverbs 16:3
"Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed."

Life Lessons To Be Learned

So, Lance left me on Sunday afternoon, but not alone. He left our precious perfectly prim and proper puppy with me to take his place. All was well around here yesterday and due to the wonderful advice of my doggie guru, Alisabeth, we found out about the haven of Bear Hollow. It's a beautiful little park area with a fenced-in area specifically for puppies to romp and play. There were no other puppies in sight yesterday when we got there, but after about an hour one showed up. The owner wasn't exactly friendly and I wasn't sure he would want his dog being jumped on by the most hyper dog on the planet. I felt so bad making Finn leave without even letting him play.
After my second class today I came home to a wonderful surprise from my little angel! I bought a 12 pack of toilet paper and a pack of 3 boxes of tissues yesterday from Target which sat untouched in my room until today. Baby Finn decided it might be fun to rip open both packages and tear 7 rolls of toilet paper to shreds! I salvaged 5 but I still feel a little funky about using those! The boxes of tissues are long gone! To make this situation even worse, when I walked in I found him lounging on my bed taking a nap! Does this remind anyone else of that scene from Beethoven when the dad walks in a finds the room ripped to shreds and the dog asleep on the bed?
To take the place of these products, Finn decided he should purchase a new training or "Bad Boy" collar immediately after his mother cleaned up the hurricane in her room! Technically, I don't feel like I can punish him because I didn't catch him in the act, but his bottom did get a little spanking.
After getting his new collar, we decided to go back to Bear Hollow to try it out! It works great by the way! He used to be able to pull me all over the place, but with the new collar he doesn't pull or try to run away! Yay! He absolutely LOVED playing with the other puppies and he gets along so well with them! His second favorite activity besides making new friends is getting wet. One of the dog owners filled up a huge bowl with water for the dogs to cool down with and for some reason Finn kept going to the bowl, sticking his two front legs in, and digging in the bowl splashing water everywhere! Horrified, I ran down the hill to make him stop and thought that would be the end of his misbehaving but he did it two more times! I was so ashamed! Finally a really nice guy filled up a big bucket and put a fallen limb infront of it so he couldn't splash anymore water!
Aside from being disgustingly dirty and tired, it was all in all a really nice afternoon! In other news I got a 92 on my first English test! Go me! A's in both my classes already! I'm ready to start celebrating the 4th of July even though my family won't be there when I get home!

On a Lighter Note

I'm not obsessed with my dog or my boyfriend. Honest. Ok, maybe just a little bit..but wouldn't you be too if your dog and boyfriend looked like mine and were this much fun?!? How can you not love those faces!
*look for Finny's new favorite toy! I got him an unstuffed animal for his chewing pleasure! His name is Leroy the Elefonte (I tweaked the pronunciation a little and I asked Lance how to spell this and he just spelled elephant! What does he know about naming animals?)

I feel like McMama, blogging 3 times in one day! I don't usually blog this many times in one week! Wow!

Struggling

I have to be honest...I posted last week about my absolute and total boredom and I was not being totally honest. As the saying goes, "Idol hands are the devil's tools" and that has probably proved true for me lately. Due to the immence amount of time I now have on my hands, I have been extremely aware of everything around me and allowed everything to become an annoyance. I am ashamed to admit that although my next door neighbor plays her music extremely loud usually from 10-11pm, I have not behaved in a very christian like manner. Instead of politely going over and knocking on her door and asking her if she would mind turning her music down a little, I have banged on the wall separating our rooms on several occassions. I even sunk so low that I turned up the volume on my TV extremely loud to "battle" with her music. Each time she has reciprecated the gestures accordingly and banged back or turned her music up louder and I can't say that I blame her for her actions. She honestly has every right to turn her music up and play it when she wants. It took me a long time to realize that she wasn't really hurting anyone with this music and that includes me.

This is just one of my many and rude offences this summer and I have another confession. Instead of behaving like a lady and being polite to others no matter what their offences might be, I have chosen to be cruel and rude to them. This hurts me so deeply because I do not like being hateful to others on purpose. Sometimes I do let myself get upset over trivial matters and I behave like a child. The saying "an eye for an eye" comes from the Bible and essentially means that equitable retaliation should be taken for an offended party. I should not be using retaliation to settle problems I have with others especially due to the fact that I am 23 years old. No matter how old you are, there are always lessons to be learned and hopefully I can learn that all the harm I have caused is to myself. I have made myself into a rude and selfish person which is not anywhere close to the person I want to or know I can be.

I think my problem stems from the fact that I am absolutely frightened of negative interactions with other people. I have never been good at standing up for myself and I have very little confidence in myself when dealing with the opinions of others. Since childhood I have been extremely sensative to the emotions and feelings of others. When I was in middle school I remember being a nervous wreck! I would literally come home from school and lock myself in my room and sob if someone at school said something bad to me about someone else. I was terrified that it would be twisted around and that other person would think I had been talking negatively about them behind their backs. Middle school was a really difficult time for me, but as time went on I eventually started to move past this fear and I was actually a nice person who didn't need to talk negatively about others. In high school I found the courage to tell someone when someone else was bothering me and after that the emotions just poured out. Now, as an adult, I find no difficulty in running my mouth and speaking negatively about others behind their backs, but I seem to have a meltdown the second anyone confronts me about anything. I desperately need to find a balance between standing up for myself and not being offensive to the needs of others.
I want to take this opportunity to appologize to anyone I have hurt through my drawbacks. I am desperately aware of these negative things in my life and now that I am fully aware that I do not want to live this way anymore, I will try as hard as I can to be more understanding of the space and desires of others. God gives us these struggles to make us better people and to challenge our characters. I want to thank Lauren for one of her last posts about looking at the way we treat ourselves as opposed to others. This post really made me realize that I need to make some major adjustments in my life!

A Weekend With Lance, Is a Wonderful Weekend!

It's been a really long week and a really short weekend! At this point, I've been living for the weekends for two and a half years and it's getting pretty tiring! Lance got off of work at 3:30 on Friday, loaded up Finn and their bags and headed for Athens. When they got here, we played with Finn for a little while then got ready and went out to one of our favorite restaurants. Gnats Landing is a seafood joint here and in St. Simons that leaving you feeling like you've traveled to the beach!

I broke my no meat rule and ordered mahi-mahi blackened with sweet potato fries and veggies! Yummy!

Lance ordered shrimp and grits!


We both broke down and got some strong margaritas!

We love coming here and sitting outside (even if it was nearly 90 when we got there) because they always have some kind of live music on the weekends. There was a guy there playing great music from the 60 but also some recent stuff too!

On Saturday morning I woke up feeling under the weather from what I thought was the strong margaritas. I had a terrible headache all day and my eyes were really puffy. Now I'm pretty sure I was having an allergic reaction to some CVS eye makeup I purchased on Friday. Lance quickly reminded me "you get what you paid for" and I bought some new Clinic eye makeup today!

Even though I was feeling terrible, we still decided to take Finn for a walk at the Intramural Fields. We lost him for a split second but thankfully he was in a gated area and some other dog owners allowed him to play with their dog until Lance got there! We are terrible puppy parents!

After that we decided to run some errands and then we eventually got ready to go out to dinner. Lance and I have been eating Asian food lately and we decided to keep the trend going when we ate dinner downtown at Doc Chey's in Athens. After dinner we walked around and happened to stumble upon Athfest which is just a downtown festival with all types of booths where people sell different products and different bands perform. While we where there we heard Patterson Hood (previously known as Drive By Truckers) and they were awesome! We left after about an hour due to the fact that Lance and I lack tattoos, piercing, or an addiction to cigarettes! haha! It was still fun to hang out with some hippies for a little while!

This is from the beginning of the night. Lance and I parked in a parking lot well known by the Tifton crowd. Instead of having to walk all the way around the fence, Trip, one of our friends, decided to pull the bars back on night to make things a little easier. We use it frequently. Here's Lance demonstrating how it is used.

All in all it was an extremely fun and unexpected weekend. The only downfall is that Lance left me today and for the first time in about 6 months I cried and cried. He was kind enough to leave behind his adorable companion and mans best friend! I'll let you know how an entire week with a 7 month old golden retriever in an apartment goes!

Absolute and Total Boredom

Taking classes during a normal semester is so much more time consuming and although I am technically taking a full load of summer classes; I have never been so bored before in all my days. I literally go to both of my classes for an hour each day and going that frequently is wonderful because it gives me something to do, but it also only requires me to do about half as much studying as I would normally do during a normal class load.

In my English class, we are reading plays by Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams. I absolutely love this class but I only have to read about one play every week and a half. If you've ever read a play, you'll know it only takes about two hours from start to finish. So...once again I'm left with very little to do. I know, I know, I could read ahead and I do. I already started the third play we were supposed to read before we started on the second play in class. My first test in this class is tomorrow and I will be studying tonight not only to make a good grade on the test, but believe it or not, also as a way to keep myself distracted and entertained. A girl can only watch so much TV before feeling like her brain is about to fall out.

Great news! All that studying I did on Sunday night for my Spanish test paid off big time! I got a 92 on my first test in that class and I deserved every point if I do say so myself! It was extremely hard and I studied my butt off! If any of you remember, I tried to take that class last fall and had to drop because I made a 69 on my first test in there. I think this test is proof that I had the absolute worst Spanish teacher of all time the first go round of this class and I am so glad I waited until I could concentrate better to take it!

I desperately need some suggestions of what to do with all this free time! I've been continually packing things up in my room (maybe when I get a little farther I'll post some before and after pictures)! Laying out is really and truly only fun if you have friends to hang out with and all of my friends are either taking classes or working all day so they just don't have as much time. I'll admit that the shopping bug has been bitting me lately, but I'm really trying to persuade myself to be a window shopper instead of actually buying lots of things I really don't need! I'm trying to be extremely careful about how much I eat versus how much I exercise. Trust me, a girl could get really fat just sitting around eating junk and watching TV all day and I don't want that to happen! I've been walking on the treadmill at my apartment clubhouse for the last two days for 45 mintues and it seems to be working because my legs were a little sore today!

Someone help me figure out what to do with all this free time I have during the week before I just go absolutely crazy and decide to drive home during the middle of the week! For heaven's sake, that would just be ridiculous!

Could I Have More Clothes?!?

Ok, so I know I blogged yesterday about my new cheap finds, but I'm also trying to down size my closet right now because I have to move home at the end of July. I quickly realized what a clothes horse I've become after four years of college! I might be buying on sale, but I guess I also need to make a trip to Goodwill! This is only about HALF of my winter wardrobe. The other half was taken home months ago after it broke 65 degrees in Athens. You might be confused from the gigantic pile of winter clothes I have, but I don't actually like to wear or buy winter items and therefore I have about twice as many summer clothes (just look what's left in that closet and I actually have two closets)! Fortunately I'm not really into buying shoes or else I would definately be in BIG trouble. It's amazing how many things have accumulated during the two years I have lived in this apartment and now I have to pack it all up and take it home every weekend to avoid a big move out with the rest of the tenants at The Summit!

Weekend Rewind

Whew! What a busy weekend! Fortunately for me, my English professor only wants to have class four days a week instead of five (love him) so all that was standing between me and the weekend was an hour of Spanish. A lovely three hour drive in the car awaited me at 2:00 and to make matters worse, my seat recently broke and I now have to make the drive sitting straight up.

Friday night, I pulled up to Lance's house and said hello to my puppy before being wisked away to Kyle and Kayla's house. Kyle is one of Lance's coworkers and we really enjoy spending time with them. They've been married for three years and since they only moved to Tifton a few years ago, they still don't really have many friends there. They made some delicious steak and chicken fajitas, but I ate mine with just veggies. We left there house around 10 to go home and let the baby dog inside so he could watch a movie with us. Lance chose Walk The Line and I forgot just how sweet that movie is!

Saturday was even more crazy than Friday! After the backache I got from my car seat on Friday I decided to get a mechanic to take a look at it. If only they had been open...hmmm...just my luck! We decided it was about time to break in Lance's new house with a party and after inviting a few friends over, we went to the grocery store to pick up some supplies. My old roommate, Alisabeth, came over with her lab, Ophelia, to play while Lance grilled us some burgers. Eventually Josh Barnes, one of our friends from high school, came to hang out and eat and then one of my best friends, Meg, and her boyfriend, Mark, drifted in.

This weekend reminded me why I love summer so much! Grilling and hanging out with new and old friends is always the best form of entertainment, especially in a small town! Now, if only I didn't have to start studying for my Spanish test tomorrow, then this weekend would be perfectly relaxing!

Hope To Become a Sharp Smopper 1101

Everyone knows that I'm a total thrift shopper. I can't stand to spend more than about $15 on one item of clothing and if I can get it cheaper, I always do! Considering the fact that I am about to graduate from college a be a real adult means that I really have to become a sharp smopper (or smart shopper). Recently, I've been finding what I consider to be some really cute and really cheap finds at our local discount stores (K-Mart and Wal-Mart).

I got these really cute sandals from K-Mart for a mere $16 (they were originally $22). I've been eyeing them for a few weeks and when I saw them on sale, I had to have them! Any girl out there knows how expensive clothes can get and I for one refuse to pay the big bucks for two scraps of waterproof fabric. I frequently make trips to Wal-Mart and when I saw this cute suit for a $7.50 apiece, I bought the red one immediately and later when back to get another color. Apparently I'm not the only girl who likes a sale though, they were almost all gone a few days later!

I'm the queen of cheap shopping and I get some pretty cute things, if I do say so myself! The key is to look at cheaper stores and to keep your eye out for discounts. I'm pretty determined to get things onsale and I usually won't breakdown and by something unless it's onsale or I absolutely have to have it and it's already pretty cheap. Some of my favorite cheaper stores are Forever 21, H & M, Target, Wal-Mart, Old Navy, and K-Mart. Now it's your turn to go out there and find the deals!

I'm Like a Bird

Sick, sick, sick. I'm so sick of school. I absolutely LOVE physically being in a classroom and listening to a professor explain the deep intellectual aspects of literature in a profound and life altering way, but I absolutely HATE studying, doing homework, and taking tests! If I were a truly smart person, I would have looked into taking a study abroad for my final section of Spanish, but apparently I'm not! Right this very minute I could be taking in all the beautiful scenery of Spain or Costa Rica and actually being graded on sightseeing! Don't get me wrong, I am so thankful that my final classes at UGA are going well (so far), but I am also dying to travel! I haven't been anywhere I couldn't drive to in such a long time. Last summer, Lance and I drove down to Key West with some friends. Although we had the time of our lives, I want to go somewhere farther. If you can believe it, Lance has never actually flown on a big commercial airline. The first time he flew on a plane was about two years ago for forty-five minutes on one of Sonny's friend's private planes. He needs to go somewhere far far away! Hopefully this time next year I will be touring Europe and having the time of my life, but for now, it looks like I'm stuck in Athens for just a little longer!

No Me Gusta Hablar Espanol!

Even though I participated in the UGA 2009 graduation in May, I don’t technically graduate from college until I have passed my final two classes. I had one last English elective to fill and that gave me the freedom to choose which genre I’m interested in opposed to being forced to fill a pre 1800 requirement! No Beowulf or Chaucer for me this summer! Thank goodness! Instead, I choose a class focusing on the writing of Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller, taught by one of my favorite professors at UGA. Dr. Vance’s classes focus more on the small details of the works and then tests rather than numerous papers! Even though this class starts at 9 am four days (it’s supposed to be five days per week but he informed us today he doesn’t want to meet 5 days a week) a week, I’m still really really excited about taking this class!
Anyone who knows me is aware that I am petrified of taking foreign language classes at UGA. My first Spanish class was a combination of level 1 and level 2 that I had four days a week Spring ’08. Fortunately, I had a great experience with my professor and other class members and passed it with a B+. Spanish 3 gave me even more anxiety! Once again, I was so fortunate to have one of the most AMAZING professors I have ever had for any area in college courses. Having a great professor makes a class so much more enjoyable and I was able to get a B+ in this course also. When signing up for Spanish 4, I didn’t get so lucky! I stupidly thought that because I was taking the fourth class immediately after taking Spanish 3, I would be absolutely fine! Boy was I WRONG! Technology provides us with so much information but unfortunately I didn’t use that to my advantage the first time I signed up for Spanish 4. Instead of checking my professor grading scale online and looking up other students comments on him, I just walked blindly into a classroom with the worst professor ever. Trying to be brave, I stuck it out in that Spanish for about a month. Slowly slipping behind, I just gritted my teeth and tried to keep my head above water. The breaking point came when I took my first test for the course. Normally I’m a pretty speedy test taker (if I don’t know it the first time I read the question, then I’m probably not going to know the answer if I stare at it for another 20 minutes) but on that day I ended up staying 10 minutes after class was supposed to be over. I hesitantly handed my test to my professor, made it to my car, waited all the way until I got back to my apartment and then I burst into tears! The entire weekend I was anxious and upset just waiting for my professor to post the grades like he promised he would do before Monday’s class. Being the horrible teacher he was though, he failed to post the grades and waited until we were all in class together before letting me know that my intuition was correct in assuming I had failed the test. Never in my life have I made below a C- on a test, but I managed to make a 69 on this test. Once again I went home and burst into tears and then sent my professor an email basically begging him to let me drop his class with a W instead of a WF (withdraw/ withdraw failing). The only kind and helpful thing he did for me the entire class was allow me to drop his class while I was considered passing!
All of that debacle left me extremely nervous about signing up yet again for Spanish; however, I went at 1 o’clock today for my first class and was relieved to discover that my teacher seems to be a very nice man AND I was actually able to understand almost everything he said (you’ll know that this is an extremely huge deal if you’ve ever taking a foreign language)! Whew! What a stressful day of anticipation! I’m so thankful today is Friday and I don’t have to go back to classes for another 3 days!

Surprises!

Today has been an extremely exciting and tiring day for me. It started about seven this morning when I woke up and decided to make blueberry pancakes for my last breakfast in Mom's house before going back to lonely Athens! After Mom and I finished our delicious breakfast we got ready and loaded down our cars with stuff! Our family got some VERY exciting news yesterday! Lauren and Eddie found out their baby is a BOY and our family couldn't be more excited! Mom and I decided we just HAD to go see Lauren. We picked out some cute baby boy items that represented our favorite things and gave them to her today. Mom is always wearing a robe and slippers around our house and felt it would be fitting to give the baby something she loves to wear in a miniature size. Anyone who knows me knows that I absolutely love blankets. I have special blankets that I sleep with every night in my bed up in Athens and some for my bed at Mom's house. I found an extremely soft blue baby blanket and decided it would be the first of many I would give to the new baby!

After giving our fun presents to the baby we decided to go for lunch at Mellow Mushroom. Eddie met the three of us there and we had the most delicious pizza! Unfortunately, I had to be back up in Athens before five in order to extend my parking permit. I had no desire to be back up here so early, but you gotta do what you gotta do sometimes. Fortunately, one of my very good friends, Anna Chestnutwood, invited me over to her house to keep me company. Her roommate Lauren is hysterical and I always get a kick out of hanging out with the two of them! They always know how to cheer me up when I'm sad about leaving Lance and my family to come back to school! Lauren's boyfriend, Chance, works at Long Horn in Athens and he invited us to come down and keep him company tonight while he worked! Hanging out with old friends is always a hoot!

Wish me luck on my first day of classes tomorrow! My first one starts at 9:15 and the second one starts at 1. I'm so nervous about taking Spanish 4 but Lance was so wonderful and encouraging before I left. He always knows how to calm me down! The plan is for him to bring Finn up to Athens tomorrow so we can spend the weekend together up here, but his truck has been acting up! Hopefully they won't break down on the side of the road!

Growing, Growing, Growing

Our baby boy is growing up SO fast! Finn turned six months old last weekend and he's growing like a weed! He can wipe out a forty pound bag of food in about 2 months! His adult teeth have come all the way in and although he does still have a nasty habit of bitting our hands, he has gotten tremendously more obedient. He knows how to fetch a ball and drop it at our feet afer bringing it back. We are working on teaching him to shake (sometimes he puts his hand up immediately and other times he's just more interested in getting a treat). Much like his aunt Dixie; Finn LOVES to be brushed!

Recently Finn's best friend, a boxer named Bama, moved back to Alabama with his mom, Jen (one of Lance's co-workers). We were all so sad to see them go because the puppies played so well together. Bama is about 5 months older than Finn and when they were together they would wrestle and chase each other for hours!

In other news, Mom and I are leaving on Thursday morning and driving to Lauren's house to see her baby video! After we spend some time with her, I have to drive back to Athens. I am extremely nervous about starting Spanish 4 considering it has been exactly one year since I took Spanish 3! Hopefully everything will turn out well and then I will officially be a college graduate!

I'm so excited about being an aunt to a new baby boy! I can't wait to meet him in October!