Hey Hey Hey! Tomorrow is FRIDAY!! You know what that means... JEANS! hahaha

Well, this week has not been so bad at all. It's actually been pretty good. No big complaints. The students have been great for the most part and I'm learning a lot and making some headway with a lot of them.

Michael Wolfe is standing over my shoulder as I type this ... Haha..

This weekend I am staying with the Wolfe boys while their parents are out of town. We have some big plans .. hehe.. Tomorrow night we're gonna hang out and have a FEW friends over. This is not a party however. Just a movie night :o)

Then Saturday --- PAY ATTENTION TO THIS --- We're going out to dinner to celebrate Wendy! YAY! So 8pm at Koppe Bridge on Harvey. So if you're interested, please leave a comment. We're just meeting out there and then hanging there for a little while. But it's just a time to hang out with Wendy before she leaves. So please come out and hang with us!

So please continue to pray for Ginger and for Wendy as they are living and preparing to live in their new homes!

And pray a little for me too - still goin through some weird times, but I'm doing a lot better.

Love ya!

Wow - Good post Lauren - I really identify with this :

Is it possible for everything to really be going okay, but for some reason you just still feel all empty inside? thats what I have been kinda going through, and it is soo hard to explain, because...nothing is really "going wrong" but, I just dont feel complete...

You put it into words at near perfection.

I also used this phrase ... came up with it on my own..

How can my world be falling apart when things are just falling into place?

Just some thoughts from the bottom of the chili bowl

Gag. Kassie says I should update.. but really the only stuff I have to say is that things are goin okay. No complaints about the job other than trying to figure out what I have to wear everyday. . . I guess when there's more to say, I'll blog it.

Wow! Is it only Thursday?! It has been a great week! And tomorrow is Friday which means I get to wear JEANS!! Haha.. I never thought I'd be so excited to wear jeans... they're only my favorite piece of clothing next to t-shirts.

School has been good! The kids in our class are great. The first three weeks are going to be interesting simply because it's a different schedule than what it's going to be for the rest of the year because most of our kids are in work programs that haven't started yet. But it's all good. I did have one of our guys hit on me and is constantly asking me to be his girlfriend... It's so funny because I have a guy with a mental disability asking me out but I don't have any guys with a normal mental capability even considering me. .. Haha.. OH WELL .... I'll get over it.

Last night Kat and I went and helped Wendy do some packing which was fun and I'm glad we got to help her simply because she has so many clothes! It was good just to hang out and then we went to Shake's afterwards... instead of getting a shake I got ants in my pants :0) But it's all good.

Okay well, my lunch break is over!! I have to get back to work ... lol ....

“ For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. ”-Philippians 1:21

So the good news just keeps coming! I found out earlier in the week that I will get to do the coaching thing!! (reference an earlier post..) What an amazing blessing. It comes with a lot of boundaries but it's part of the job I guess.
All this week I've been doing inservice stuff at the school. It's been pretty good but I'm totally wore out athe end of the day. And yet somehow, I've been given the strength to hang out with friends. It's totally worth being dead tired the next day. I'm actually just dead tired now. Haha... I don't have a lot to add here today. School starts next week and I guess I'll be ready when I get there! Who knows what tomorrow brings...

Hebrews 6:15 "And so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised." (bold mine)

Good and bad

Hey so if you haven't heard, I got a job!! Whoop! Yeah! I'm gonna be working in the Lifeskills room at the highschool in College Station. Basically, I'll be an aide, but I'm okay with that. I am just happy to have a job and to have some income coming in soon. I don't know if I was totally up front and honest with myself, because it is less than what I could have, but because I didn't work hard enough early on in the game, I am here. And I'm not going to look at it as being stuck here, but more as an opportunity to grow and learn. I'm looking forward to being in this environment and to get into the groove of how districts and schools actually work. Student teaching doesn't really show you that part.

... ... ...

I just thought of something really really sad. Wow. Ginger is leaving tomorrow. Gosh, that does not make me happy. I absolutely hate saying goodbye. We had breakfast yesterday morning (on Monday) and I couldn't say bye. I just had to say see you later... I mean, how do you say goodbye to a best friend? I've never understood that. I didn't feel this way at highschool graduation... probably because I didn't have close friends like Ginger and Wendy and Kat. It's one of the worst feelings ever.. How stinky.

I am going to miss you, Ginger, SO MUCH!! You bring me smiles all the time and even though I roll my eyes when you crack corny jokes or bust out in song, I envy your joy. Thank you for being so good and nice to me. Thank you for being an older sister to me and for caring so much and wanting so much for me. You are a true friend and you have such a caring heart. I will miss you so so much and I will definitely miss your quirks and fun habits that made me roll my eyes on the outside, but made my heart smile all the time.

Things just keep getting better tonight .. off to bed.

Wow. So everyone's blog is really sad. . . Ginger's is inspiring though. I guess it is a time of saying goodbye... But as Ginger mentioned, it's a time to start new. It's like going to college again, but this time, you don't have to take tests :) whoop for that. I dunno. I don't have a lot of words right now but know that this is hard for me too. It just hasn't hit me yet I guess...

Wow. So I was really pissed yesterday when I wrote all that. Apparently. Wow. I apologize for that! I am probably that pissed, but uh .. who knows.

Today was good fun. I went to lunch with Kat and Sara then headed out to the Smith house to get PAID and then over to the church. We worked so hard this afternoon/evening!! It was great fun just getting to work with people. Hung out with Will for a little while after that, then came home. Hey yall please pray for my mom, she is so stressed out this week, and I don't know why because I haven't been home at all. But she's super stressed, so please pray for her.

I am going tomorrow to Kemah with the youth group and then also to Galveston this weekend for my last youth trip. It's bittersweet! But I'm looking forward to a great time and LOTS of sunscreen!!

Keep praying for my job hunt!!

ugh . Gag me with a bowling ball.. I hate life right now .. not really life, just my life. Have you ever had the feeling of .. not having a purpose? Like, right now, living in CS, I have no purpose. I don't have any reason for being here. Or so it seems... That's how it always is, until 2 years later when you look back and see that, "hey i was there because this" ..... Like I'm just not doing anything. I hate that feeling. School doesn't start for me soon cause I'm not in school. And cause I don't have a job. So I don't have a job, so I don't have work to go to. And I'm almost done being a youth counselor because my time has come to an end there. (I know it's stinky, but it had to happen, so it is. Lauren, if you really want to know, you know..)
I hate that my friends are moving away. Not all of them, but quite a few. All but two of my college friends have moved. I have a few friends here and family. That's it. That is all that is tying me to this place. I have no other reason to be here which makes me want to leave so much more. I'm sorry if this is hard for you to hear, but it's harder for me to say.
Life is rough. Get some good shocks.

It's a long one!!

Well, that was a fun trip! :) It was, that's not sarcasm...
Got back last night from Cali and went straight to the girls' night function for youth! Whew.. I was tired this mornin, but it was worth it.
Here's a quick run down of what Wendy and I did over the past few days...

Tuesday:
Got up at the butt crack of dawn.. actually it was more like the lower back of dawn because the sun wasn't even up when we left CS. So we left super early and got to the airport at a reasonably good time! We made it all the way to the airport in an hour and a half! Yeah, that's good time.
Anywho so we got all boarded and stuff then took off into the wild blue yonder. The in flight movie was Beautyshop with Queen Latifah.. I'm really glad they have headsets for that stuff because I really didn't want to have to watch that, much less, listen to it all the way to CA. It wasn't necessarily a long trip, but it seemed like it took forever I think because you can't really see where you are. You know when you're in a car, you can see what towns and states you are riding through. But on a plane, you can't see state lines and stuff.. all you see is dirt or mini mountains or squares of land. A nice flight nonetheless. We landed and Wendy saw Kat Osterman in the women's bathroom! I don't know what she looks like so I completely missed her.
We got our rent car and headed out onto the highways of California. We took an exit and were going to go look at the USC campus, but ended up driving downtown to the big buildings of LA and seeing tons of cool stuff. We drove all the way through downtown and eventually somehow decided to get onto Santa Monica Blvd and see what we could see. We didn't see much.. haha. No actually we saw some fun stuff! We drove through Hollywood and Beverly Hills and saw lots of nice cars. We didn't recognize any person of fame while driving, but it was fun all the same just to be driving!! At one point, we were driving down a different road and Wendy said something like, "No, I think that's back in Hollywood, we're in Beverly Hills." She then proceeded to say, "This is not real." Haha! Seriously though, who thought we'd be driving through Beverly Hills ???
So anywho, then we drove over to Pasadena, where Wendy's school is. As we drove in, we saw lots of just shops and stuff and just tried to figure out where the heck we were. We saw parts of the college and even drove past Wendy's new apartment! (more on that later) We checked into the hotel and then got ready for an "Evening Visit at Fuller." Basically it's a night thing to let people know what Fuller is like and if they want to come, it's informational and stuff. It was pretty cool actually. We sat at a table with other students who were interested in the school of psychology. They were pretty cool people. We had dinner which was salad and some breads. Welcome to California! Haha.. no, it was really good actually. After dinner, there were some formal stuff that we did, like hear a short speech from one of the deans of the school and watched a video of alumni testimonies. (I think that was my favorite) We went and listened to a mini-lecture from one of the professors of the psych school and had a little Q&A time there. The lecture was Wendy's favorite part, and it was a highlight for me simply because I could see the interest that she held for the subject and also because I understood what he was talking about!!
After the function, we went back to the hotel and went to bed cuz we was wiped out. :)

Wednesday!
We got up, had breakfast, got ready and headed out! Wendy wanted to drive around Pasadena a little bit and see what we could see. There are SO many shops!! I was in heaven.. all my favorite shops! But we stayed in the car and pressed on. We drove around Pasadena for probably an hour, just seeing what streets did and exploring.
Then we headed out onto the highways again. I wanted to put my toes in the ocean, just to say I had, so we headed for the coast. We were going to take a very direct way there, but instead hit Sunset Blvd because it goes all the way to the coast. So we drove down Sunset and saw a bunch of stuff. It's kind of like Santa Monica Blvd, but I think there's more. We drove through Beverly Hills again and saw the Beverly Hills Hotel :) And then we drove through Bel Air !! Whoo hoo! Fresh Prince! hehe.. Then we drove through Brentwood, which as Wendy informed me, is where OJ lived. tsk tsk.
We hit the Pacific Coast Highway and went South to Venice Beach. It was sooo cold !! The atmosphere, not the water! It must have been like 75 with no sun and a breeze. We had lunch at this little Mexican food restaurant, it was really yummy!! We walked to the beach and saw the muscle men, and I stuck my toes in the cold water for all of two seconds! It was just too cold ... We left Venice and went back to Pasadena .. I think. .. What did we do after that.. ? OH!
Yeah.. We headed back to Pasadena because that afternoon, we were going to see Wendy's apartment!! So we went and met Irwin, her floor director at the bookstore and walked to the community where she would be living. It's called Koinonia, which I absolutely love because I love the idea of Koinonia and everything it stands for. Yay! So we walked around the community and found out where the laundry facilities and everything is and then went upstairs to see her place! Wow.. can we say small? It's wow, small. But I think it's totally liveable for one person. Her bathroom is bigger than mine right now!! But like I said, it is totally do-able for two years.
After that, we went and got ready for Hollywood Blvd!! We were going to meet Lindsay and Aaron and his parents for dinner out in Hollywood. It was fun!! We drove down Hollywood Blvd for quite a while and saw Grauman's Chinese Theater and also the Kodak Theatre where they have done the Oscar's for at least two years now.. It was cool (and dorky) to think that we were walking on the same ground that celebrities have walked on before! We ate at Mel's Diner, a little place off the blvd that serves burgers and all sorts of stuff. I got a BLT with avocado.. so yummy! And it totally hit the spot .. We walked around for a while after dinner, up and down the blvd there are the stars in the sidewalks. You know when you hear about so and so getting their star on Hollywood Boulevard? Well, that's what we saw! There are so many of them!! It was hard to walk and also read the sidewalk at the same time. But fun all the same. And in front of Grauman's are all the concrete slabs with people's handprints and footprints! It was cool - Lindsay saw Shirley Temple's and I saw Tom Cruise's and even R2D2's ! haha.. It was cool.

Thursday:
Wow. Today we were so tired waking up!! But it was all good. We got ready for the day and then checked out of the hotel and got back on the highways! We drove to Burbank, which is not far from Pasadena. Wendy wanted to check it out. We drove down Burbank Blvd, but there was like, nothing there. Bummer! We headed to the airport to return our car and eat. We got the car returned and then ate our most expensive meal of the whole trip... a hot dog, fries and a drink for $9.50 !! Holy mackeral. That's what we get for eating in the airport I guess. We boarded our flight and made it back home!!
It was a great trip and I gotta say I'm so lucky for Wendy letting me go with her!

Be praying for the Cooper family as they follow God's voice to different points of the earth!!

Ugh. I'm so mad at me. It's like 12:30 on Monday night (Tuesday morning) and I'm still awake. It's just pissing me off cuz I got into bed at like 11 and even took some Tylenol to help me sleep a little. I'm leaving in the morning at 5:30 w/ Wendy so that means getting up around 4:45 to take a shower and get to the church. Argh it's just so frustrating because I want to sleep but I can't. My mind is just going like 80 miles a minute. No reason... I should have taken Advil .. it helps me sleep better.. I never take Tylenol.. and it hasn't been long enough to take Advil anyway ... frustration!! Well, if anyone reads this, please be praying for our trip. It's gonna be fun, but it's a new environment for both of us. I love you all!!

It's been a fun evening! Dancing at Maggie's, hangin w/ Andrew and Pest at Water-Burger with our Whata-Picante Sauce .. and an okay game of softball ... It's nights like these that I wish would never end ...

So rehab isn't working ...

I think I'm getting cured... I only had to watch my favorite part in My Big Fat Greek Wedding three times to be satisfied .... hehe.. there she goes again !!! BAH!!! HAHAHAH ... Okay ... four times. Why can't I stop laughing???! Oh.. there are the tears ... good times, Steph, good times. :)

And I'm back !

Okay so last night I had written all this stuff but I got tired, so I left it up so I could publish it this morning. I got up this morning and wrote like two more sentences and went to publish it. Well, it all got erased... so here's what I pretty much had...
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I'm back from UMArmy! This week was super fun and we all had a great time. I am too lazy/tired to write everything out, so if you really want to see what happened this last week, you're gonna have to read Lauren's blog and just ignore all the gooshy stuff that she had. ;) We were on the same work team, if that explains anything.

Our group was awesome - we didn't always get along, and I got fired at least twice during the week, only to get rehired at the end of the day. But I tell you what, we worked hard and we never gave up. We touched some lives and planted some seeds in Galveston. Let's see.. who was in the most awesome group of GREEN N ... Well there was Lauren, the most excellent encourager and my go-to girl when I needed to vent or basically who I could go to whenever cuz she's just that awesome. There was Steph, a young woman who is learning so much about herself and about building. She has a beautiful heart and I only wish I could have gotten to know her better. Andrew, who we could always count on for a laugh and who is an awesome servant of the Lord. John, who introduced us to new phrases and made me love him even more. And Hugh, who hated my music selection, but was always willing to help out in any way he could. And an adopted Gwen, our fearless color group leader who made sure we were doing okay and joined us for lunch everyday. OH! AND WILSON .. Our adopted crew member, whom without we could not have finished our project. He is a wonderful teacher and is so awesomely patient with the students, it's just amazing.

Our week was fun at the least!! We had some trying times, but who doesn't?? One of our projects, the door, was the most frustrating thing ever. (Can't you see the storm clouds??) But we learned tons of great lessons this week while on the worksite. Like: 1) You can still hammer pretty darn good while hanging upside-down. 2) Stay out of the bushes unless you want to get cut up. 3) Don't ever look through an old man's stuff... ever. 4) Always always always measure and re measure and re measure because you never know. 5) You should trim the door, not the door jamb.

I personally learned some good stuff this week as well. I guess I kind of re-learned it... * I can't worry, because worry is the opposite of faith. * It's not about me. * God's plan is perfect and is perfectly timed. My prayer this week was that God would put me where He wants me, when He wants me. I have to get onto His timeline, and jump off of mine because mine is super flawed.

I'm so grateful for all the encouragement I received this week and for all the support I received from friends, new and old. I am truly blessed.

That's it for now! More to come as I think about it.

Off to UMArmy! So I won't be here for a while .. not like I've been here much in the past few days anyway. Please be praying for me and my group! I don't know who they are yet, but you can be praying all the same.

And please be praying for me. I have not found a job yet, and I know that I have to be patient, but it's really trying my faith.

So yeah, yeah. Okay. Have a great week and I'll fill you in when I get back !

OH YEAH.. pray for next Saturday too.. Kelly & Charles are getting married !! :) Yay!

For more links on G8 stuff, see the G8 links on the sidebar over there ------>

Oh and here's some of my friend, Danny's, photography. This is one of my favorites. If you want to see more of his photography, go to this website.

I named this photo, "Peek-A-Boo." I don't know what Danny named it. :)




(Photo by Danny Boyle)

As I was watching The Sandlot tonight, I saw my favorite part where they play ball under the night sky, lit by fireworks. To go along with yesterday's post, here's a quote from that scene.

"There was only one night game a year. On the fourth of July the whole sky would brighten up with fireworks, giving us just enough light for a game. We played our best that night, because I guess we all felt like the "big leaguers" under the lights of some great stadium. Benny felt like that all the time. We all knew he was gonna go on to bigger and better games, because every time we stopped to watch the sky on those nights, like regular kids, he was there to call us back. Ya see, for us, baseball was a game. But for Benjamin Franklin Rodriguez, baseball was life."

You know, there's just something about standing in an open field with thousands of people around you, and staring into the sky in awe of the fire balls that are exploding, creating a beautiful array of color and sound.

Standing in the middle of Zilker Park in Austin last night, I felt like I should be standing in the middle of the Sandlot. I honestly felt like a 12 year old again. It was so cool. My eyes were just glued to the sky.

It was awesome to think about how the Chinese invented fireworks so long ago and today we're using them to celebrate our freedom. I love fireworks. There's just something about lighting a little string and watching the light travel into a tube that holds this ball of gunpowder and other chemical powders, then watching it explode in the sky. What is it?! I don't know but it's fun.

Last night was truly fun. We spent the afternoon at the park, just chillin, eating, playing catch and enjoying the outdoors. It was hot, I won't lie, but I think it was all worth the sweat and the dirt and the tiny little ants.

Yesterday felt like a true 4th of July. Playing outside in the hot sun with best friends, eating watermelon and sandwiches and drinking ice tea and lemonade, listening to patriotic music as the sun set, and finally watching fireworks light up the sky. It was great. :o)

Happy Independence Day, America. You're one lucky son-of-a-gun.

Reach One More . . .

My thoughts:
Now, I didn't know a lot about this whole G8 thing until extremely recently. I'm talkin' last Thursday here. And from what I've learned, seen on TV, heard, etc, this is a huge deal. I mean, I've always known that that there has been poverty in Africa and that AIDS is a big deal over there that is very much out of hand. But I've never had the desire or concern about it until now. Maybe it's because Ginger is going over there, she's taking a present action. But knowing that there has been stuff our nation has been able to do for so long, but we haven't is really frustrating. I mean, if we gave only 1% of our government budget to Africa to help with poverty and AIDS, that's a really large amount of money!! My question is why have we waited? What's the deal? I mean, yeah, it was important to free the Iraqians from tyranny and to help with the tsunami and we wanted revenge on Bin Laden, so that's why we chased him... but Africa has been in poverty for hundreds of years!!!!! Ugh.. Let's just keep praying that our President and the rest of the leaders involved in the G8 make some good decisions that will help the entire continent of Africa and the millions (or billions?) of people who live there.

Some facts: (these just kill me)
- Around the world, 104 million children do not go to school because of poverty.
- Each day more than 8,000 people die of AIDS.
- 15 million children have already lost one or both parents to AIDS. Unless more is done, there will be 25 million of these children around the world by 2010.
- ONE person in seven goes to bed hungry each night.
- ONE person in seven lacks access to clean water for drinking, cooking or washing.
- ONE in five people has to survive on less than $1 a day

If we gave an additional ONE percent of our national budget to fight world poverty and AIDS, we can help: (**This is what we want Pres Bush to pull for!**)
Prevent 10 million children from becoming AIDS orphans
Send 104 million children to grade school
Provide clean water to almost 900 million people around the globe
Save almost 6.5 million children under 5 from dying of diseases that could be prevented with low-cost measures like vaccinations or a well for clean water

(All facts from www.worldvision.org)

This is what else the ONE Campaign (www.one.org) is calling for:
*Trade Justice: Reform trade rules so poor countries can earn sustainable incomes.
*Drop the Debt: Cancel 100 percent of the debts owed by the poorest countries.
*More and Better Aid: Help the poorest people of the world fight poverty, AIDS and hunger at a cost equal to just ONE percent more of the U.S. budget, on a clear timetable.

And here are a few things of what GOD says about what we should be doing...

Proverbs 31:8 "Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute."

Luke 3:11 "John answered, 'the man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same.'"

James 1:27 "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

If you want to know what you can pray for specifically, click on the following link (PDF)
http://worldvision.sitestream.com/ONE/prayerpoints.pdf