Spring Break

I've been on Spring Break this week (I think I mentioned that in my last post, but I can't remember!!! lol) and it has been SO nice to be able to relax and not have to worry about classes. It's also allowed me to get some much needed rest, which I know I'll be even more grateful for next week during Bible conference, where we have two speakers in the morning chapel and two speakers in the evening service.

I think this is the first break where I am not ready to go back. In the past, I have always been anxious to go back, but this time I wish break were longer. Don't get me wrong, I do love it down there at Ambassador, but it has been so nice to be able to be home. Even just the simple things, like either making or helping to make dinner every night this week, and doing housework, and other tasks that we usually consider menial and mundane are what I've enjoyed the most over break.

I've also enjoyed being able to spend time with my family. This is the last time for awhile we'll have a chance to spend time together as a family, because exactly one week and one day after graduation, Holly & Andrew are getting married. As of right now, we will have people here from the Wednesday before the wedding until the Sunday after the wedding, and I'm sure that whole week will be packed full of last minute details and preparations for the wedding, which will leave very little family time.

This week has been busy, but also not busy. I know, that's totally contradictory, but it makes sense to me!! Let me explain my reasoning: Compared to what my weeks are like when I'm down at college, this week has been a very SLOW week. My typical week down at college is: Monday-classes, homework, piano practice; Tuesday-classes, homework, piano practice; Wednesday-classes, visitation, helping with Master's Clubs, and fitting homework in where i can; Thursday-classes, piano lessons, homework; Friday-classes, homework, piano practice, volleyball games (or whatever sport the leagues happen to be playing, depending when in the school year it is); Saturday-homework, piano practice, & frequently, especially towards the end of the spring semester, a special event or something to do; Sunday-church in the morning, stay at church and do homework in the afternoon, church at night, get back to school just in time for dinner. With that schedule, and the occasional (although this year it's been frequent) special event thrown in here and there, it keeps me busy!!

So, as I was saying, compared to that schedule, this week has been really slow, but compared to a normal week at home (like in the summer, or before i went to college), it's been busy.
On Friday, I didn't get home till almost 12:30 (well, I guess that would technically be Saturday...lol).
Saturday, I slept in till about 11am, got up and kinda puttered (I know, that's a strange word to use, but i don't know what else to put!) around the house for awhile, and then we had something going on that night, though for the life of me I cannot remember what!!
Sunday was church, of course, and since we attend a church that's 45 minutes away from our house, that takes up quite a bit of the day when you include the travel time there and back for both the morning and evening services.
Monday was wonderful; I had absolutely nothing going on except having to make dinner, so i just kind of lazed around all day.
Tuesday, I had an appointment with my asthma & allergy specialist (more about that in a later post), and afterwords, shopping with Mom. We got home around 3:30pm or so, and by that time, I had time to do a few things, and then I helped Mom with dinner.
Wednesday was another slow day, making dinner, and then church that evening. Thursday (today), I had to go to the Verizon store in the morning to get my phone looked at (people were complaining that they couldn't hear me) which was kinda a wasted trip because they couldn't find anything wrong with it, then I stopped at the library on my way home. When I got home, i spent the rest of the day (from about 10am to 5:30pm) making meals to freeze. (I did this to make it easier on Mom & Holly; they both work, so this way they don't have to come home and worry about making something for dinner.) I managed to make 6 or 7 meals worth of food today, and I'm planning on making a few more things tomorrow. At 6pm, the lovebirds (my name for Holly & Andrew) and I went out to eat with my Pastor and his family at Tom's Ice Cream Bowl (the absolute best place in Ohio to get ice cream). By the time we got home, it was about 8 or 8:30pm.
Friday (tomorrow) is going to be another busy day. In the morning I have a dentist appointment (I HATE the dentist!!! I always have and always will!), then doing a little quick shopping. (I have to be home by 10 because the lovebirds have a premarital counseling sessions with Pastor and right now we're down to just 3 cars. (we usually have 4, but one just died.)) When I get home, I plan on doing a little more freezer cooking, as well as finding something to make for dinner...that is if we have anything left after I get done with all the freezer cooking!
As far as I know, there is nothing planned for Saturday, which is my last full day home before I go back to college, so I'll probably be packing and doing last minute stuff to get ready to head back.
Sunday, I'll be going to my church in the morning, and then meeting up with a friend at her church right after the morning service to leave for NC. It's an 8 hour drive, so that means it's going to be a LONG day even though I won't really be doing anything.

Well, that's what my busy/not busy week has been like/is going to be like. I've really enjoyed, and am not looking forward to it ending, but, alas, all good things must come to an end, or so goes the English Proverb. I'm trying to be content knowing that I had a wonderful week (10 days) home, and that in about 7 weeks, after graduation, I'll be home to stay.

The End is In Sight!!

Well, the semester's almost over. I have six finals left, and then I will be done with my freshman year at Ambassador Baptist College. It's kind of bittersweet. I'm excited to be going back home for the summer, but I am definitely going to miss all of my friends. Thank goodness for cell phones, email, facebook, and skype. All of my friends have at least one of those, so I will be able to keep in touch with them during the summer.

The school year has absolutely flown by! It's hard to believe that it was almost nine months ago when I first arrived. It seems like only yesterday. Out of the two semesters, I would definitely say that this semester has been the most difficult. I've been through a lot this semester, especially wiht my asthma. It has gotten way out of control, and no one can seem to figure out why. I have had so many doctor appointments in the past month that I've lost count. Thankfully, my last one is this Thursday, and my Mom and Dad will be here for it!! A week ago Monday, I went to the hospital to get some tests run and the doctor is going to let me know the results at my appointment on Thursday. The test results will hopefully tell the doctor why I'm having so many problems with my asthma. I'm hoping that it's something simple and easy to fix, because I'm tired of having all these asthma attacks.

Holly will be graduating this Friday! It's so hard for me to believe! I'm really going to miss her next year. She has been such a great help and encouragement to me this semester with everything that's gone on. I wish she sould come back, but she odesn't have the finances, and she wants to plan her wedding, which will hopefully be taking place next spring. NO, there's no ring on her finger yet, but hopefully she'll have one on there before the end of the year. The parents' permission has already been given, so now it's just a matter of time until Andrew asks her.

I don't really have any plans for the summer other than working. I'm going to be babysitting Chase and Cole four days a week to start, then hopefully five days a week. RIght now, Cahd, their dad, is only working four days a week. One nice thing about that is that I'll have my birthday off. That means i won't have to get up at the crack of dawn!!! That was one thing I wasn't looking forward to. I've always taken my birthday off before, but I wouldn't be able to do that babysitting. The Lord worked it all out.

One thing that i really want to do while I'm home is become active in my church, New Lexington Bible Church. I'd really like to get involved with the children and teenagers. I'm going to be teaching my mom's Sunday school class, which is grades 2-6. I'm very excited about that. One of the things I'll be teaching on is the book of Esther. This is one of my favorite books of the BIble, so I'm really going to enjoy studying it out and teaching it to the kids.

Well, that's about all for now. I'll try to post as often as I can during the summer, but I'm not sure how frequently i'll be updating. I'm always horrible about that!

My boys

I babysat my boys Friday night for the first time in about three months. Okay, okay, so there not really my boys, there my next door neighbor's, but I've known them since they were born and helped mom babysit them since the oldest was ten weeks, so it practically seems like they are. It brought back so many memories of babysitting them when they were little.

Chase, the oldest, is now six. He's in kindergarten and rides the bus to and from school everyday.

Cole, the youngest, is now three. He'll turn four in April. He's very independent and talks up a storm. He still has those big blue eyes and that adorable blonde hair. He is still going to preschool someplace in Pataskala.

We watched the movie Cars and then Chase played Tonka Search and Rescue 2 on the computer. Their parents came home as soon as we finished playing the game, so that was the end of our night.

Home Sweet Home

Well, I'm finally home for Christmas break. I've made it through my first semester of college!! There were a few times when I wondered whether or not i really would make it.

I love college life. I can't believe how fast this semester went! It seems like just yesterday I was arriving on campus, scared to death about starting my first year of college, and now I'm back home.

This semester has been very rough. Just a few weeks into the school year, the college experienced it's most serious car accident involving students. A church van carrying 13 students was on it's way back to school from visitation when it rolled over. It's only by God's grace that no one was killed or seriously injured as only three of the passengers were wearing seatbelt. Praise God for his protection!

On top of that, I've experienced some very serious asthma attacks this semester, a couple of them the worst I'd had up to that point. They had to call the squad for one of them. The paramedics came and gave me oxygen as well as administered a nebulizer treatment before it subsided. Needless to say, it was quite scary. A week or so after that one, I had another. Thankfully, we were able to get it under control without having to call the squad. I've had a few minor ones since then, but nothing real major.

I've had my share of sickness this semester. First, I got bronchitis. I had that for about two months. I got over it, then a week or so later, I got the stomach flu. Not fun! :( A few weeks after that, I got laryngitis, and just when I was starting to get over that I got a horrible cold. I'm still fighting that a little bit, but I'm almost over it.

The beginning of October, I got in a car accident on my way to work. Thankfully it was minor and my friends and I, as well as the people that I hit, were okay, but it took a few weeks to get the car repaired.

This seems to have been the year for car accidents. On top of the van accident at the beginning of the year and my car accident, there have been several other accidents as well, thankfully all minor ones. The school lost both of it's vans that the ensemble travels in due to car accidents, and a few students have wrecked their cars as well.

Enough about the bad stuuf. Let's move on to happier things. I'm in the Marjorie B. Jordan dorm this year, which, in my opinion, is the best girls' dorm on campus. I have one roommate, Christy Godfrey, who is engaged to be married. She can be crazy at times, but she's a lot of fun.

I have four best friends, two girls and two guys. The girls are Laura Dillon and Lindsey Castano, and the guys are Nathan Houck and Caleb Getty. Nathan and Lindsey are dating, as are Getty and Laura. I do feel a little left out at times, but most of the time I really don't mind being the only single person in our group. Pretty much whenever you see one of us, you'll se at least one of the others.

I enjoyed all of my classes this semester. I'm not sure I can really pick a favorite, but if I had to, it'd probably be Life of Christ. I've learned so much from this class. I thought that I knew pretty much everything about the life of Christ, but boy, was I wrong! There was a lot that I didn't know.

I think my faorite part of the semester was singing in the school's annual Messiah concerts. They were held on the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving. The best part of that weekend was Friday morning right before chapel, when my parents walked into the R. A. Torrey auditorium. I had no idea that they were coming, so, needles to say, I was pleasantly surprised!

The Saturday and Sunday before I left to come home, my church in North Carolina, Emmanuel Baptist Church, had their cantata, "When Jesus Came." It was so good!!

As wonderful as this semester has been, and as much as I love college, I'm so glad that Christmas break is here. It will give me a chance to rest up before starting next semester. I'm very anxious to see what God has in store for me!