Wordless Wednesday

Faith

When it rains, it pours. However, God has never thrown me into a storm without carrying the umbrella. Never ending faith and lots of prayers get me through many things. I'm not a strong person, but through the many hurdles I am getting ready to jump I hope to become stronger. Sometimes things happen, and it makes me question why certain things happen to some people. People who don't deserve anything less than the best. But then, I am reminded that these people are so good and full of God's love, that God hands these big struggles only to those people that He knows can handle them. Some people go through some of the worst possible experiences, all while keeping their head up and giving all the glory to God.
One of my favorite bible verses is Hebrews 11:1
"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we do not see."
I have found a whole new meaning in this verse. No matter what happens, I'll never loose faith.

baby girl

As promised, here are a couple of my favorite pictures of Babygirl. After showing us straight from the start that she was in charge, little Isabelle was transferred & had some tests run. Luckily, God allowed everything to be fine and Izzy is home with her mommy and daddy, and everyone is safe and healthy!!




These next few weeks will be action packed- to say the least! I have a ton of school work, and two big events going on. One of which, Richard leaves for basic. T-Minus 16 days until he's government property. Lots of prayers will be appreciated for him, as well as another big obstacle that we are going to conquer over the next several months!!

xoxo

did ya miss me?!

Since I haven't done anything with this in ohh about 2356493 years, let's try again. School is back in full swing, and I'm starting to see more of the teacher side than the student side. Yesterday was the big day for us early childhood gals; we got our pins & our placements at our first big clinical! I have a K5 class at a school about 45 minutes away, and I can't tell whether I'm more nervous or excited. Hopefully I'll be in the school before next week, so lets hope those kindergartners don't eat me alive!
On another note, Richard leaves for basic training in 22 days. I know they say its tough being in the Army, but you should try being on the other end of it! I'm not so sure Army Strong even does it justice to describe how brave I'm trying to be. Good thing God has this in his hands! :)
I'm about to head on out to Charleston to go meet my brand new neice, and I'm oh so excited! More blogs and pictures to follow!
xoxo,
-l.e.b.

wow

it has been for-ev-er since i've done this...i've been driving myself crazy i've been so busy (and partially lazy)...but i can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel! i've realized that i'm only going to graduate a semester behind...and that last semester will be my student teaching so it's not like i'll be at school the whole time anyways...i was pretty excited when i found that out, since i figured i had at least another 2 full years. :) but as soon as i realized that, i became overwhelmed with all of the stuff that i've still got left to do! my first half of screening is this Friday, so I'm pretty anxious about being stuffed into a classroom with 40 something other education majors and given an hour to write an essay, which I have no clue what its about and won't know until we start writing. ugh! on the other hand, I've only got about 3 weeks of classes left for this semester...but my to-do list is longer than ever! I'm up to my neck in lesson plans, papers, presentations, and clinical observations to write...this whole teacher thing is goin to require me to work on my horrible procrastination habits!! it seems like i can't ever find time for all my school work because i'm always working...i've been pulling 13 hour days about twice a week for probably over a month...between classes & both of my jobs i'm always on the go constantly. i'm so ready for a break...however, among all of this stress, i have managed to find a little time for "academic enrichment";) it's be awesome to start hanging back out with my old bff who i've missed being inseperable with!
it seems the past couple days that i've been happier than ever! and i love it! even beyond being stressed beyond belief, my amazing boyfriend has still managed to have patience with me (for the most part) and encourage me. know that i have someone who supports me so much has made me so incredibly happy! i'm not sure why...but something just hit me right smack in my hard head the other day, and i've been able to come to accept some things that I've been super worried about. God has definitel sent Richard to me, and spoken to me about several things. and I'm so blessed to be surrounded by such awesome people!
I guess I've done enough procrastinating and should probably try to get a little school work done while i'm sitting at my desk doing nothing at work...hopefully i'll put some more updates before long!
love: me!

this &that & 21!!

ok. so. i've actually turned out to be pretty terrible at this thing. but, since i go to school full time & work 2 jobs, i think i sorta have an excuse. they pretty much run my life. almost every single day i leave my apartment about 7:30, or 8:30 (depending on which day) and don't usually return for good until about 9:30 pm. i'm so ready for a break i'm about to pull my hair out! but. that's not the point of this...

after pretty much the longest week of my life, i got off work friday afternoon to come home & pack my bag to head on up the road to clemson to start my 21st birthday weekend. as soon as i walk out of the building, i get a call from my mom telling me that my grandma, who lives across the country, is very sick & unresponsive. she started bleeding internally the night before & they still weren't able to get her to keep any blood, much less find out where it was coming from. they didn't know how much pain she was in (because she wasn't repsonding), so they gave her some medicine to make her comfortable. & that was pretty much it. about 3 hours later, my dad calls & tells me that grandma meadows passed away. this was literally as i was getting ready to walk out the door to go start celebrating my birthday. i haven't seen my grandma since i was in 6th grade when my whole family flew out to cali to see her after she had moved out there the year before because of her health conditions & needing someone to take care of her...so that kinda hit me hard. knowing how my grandma was, i knew she'd be madder than a hornet at me if i stayed around & moped. especially because there's nothing i could do here in SC.

so. after loosing the 2nd grandparent in less than 2 years (when i've only had 3 my whole life), richard and i spent some time with family & then headed up to anderson to go eat & then to clemson with my friend. richard drove us to greenville, where the doorman at the blindhorse made me wait until 12:01 to get my bracelet so i could order a drink...then casey & i went to TTT for lunch saturday so i could get my shirt! :) then, richard & i headed back home. after some family time, we had probably the tallest bonfire i've ever seen in my life! probs to Fireman Richard for makin that happen. & sunday was just relaxing & more family time. this week hasn't been anything exciting. but my weekend pretty much starts tomorrow so i will tryig to finish off the rest of my awesome pj i had for my party. it's very well deserved i do believe.

i'm not as good at this as i thought i was

So, as always, my plans fall through and i become a slacker. However, this week has been crazy busy & the next one will be just the same. We got our heat fixed before the big snow storm of 09 haha...it snowed for like 2 hours and didn't even stick, therefore I was at school while it was snowing. Definitely a first for me. Wednesday wasn't anything special; just school and work all day, story of my life! Thursday I had classes & worked for a few hours at school, then Laura & I went to the Rascal Flatts & Jessica Simpson concert! Honestly, I was pleasantly surprised with the out come. Since I'm not number one fans of either of them, I wasn't really expecting much. But the concert was great & I enjoyed spending some time with the roomie :) Even though I almost had to take out half of the people in the audience, I totally dominated & managed to snatch one of the huge balloon things that fell from the ceiling at the end.


Friday I, once again, managed to wait til the last possible moment to write a paper that was due that night. After that, I was ready to celebrate my hard work so Richard and I went to eat at TW Boon's & then we had some friends over later that night. Leslie & I are always freaking out about school work, so it was super nice to relax & kick back with her, her boyfriend, Boda, Laura, Kennedy & some others. I definitely paid for it Saturday morning, though, working alllll day up at Ultratan. :\ Note to self: next time you have to get up at 8 am, don't stay up until 4 that morning!! Needless to say, I took it easy Saturday night & hit the sack much earlier than I did the night before. I got to sleep in a little this morning, then shared a breakfast with Richard & then worked all afternoon. It was super busy, so I'm pretty much spent. I went the the 'rents house after work & did the fam thing for PJ & Steph's birthdays...and now I'm here. in my pj's. drinking coffe. trying to stay away long enough to do a little reading for school. I'll probably just put it off until tomorrow; I guess I haven't learned my lesson yet. One day! I've got to pick up my slack this week, because I'll definitely be out of commission next weekend on account of it being my birthday!! Countdown to celebratation commencement: t-minus 5 days! thats all for now from this worn-out, legal-to-be little girl! xoxo

hospitals, heatless, & snow

After having the heat running for over 24 hours straight, without it automatically turning off not even once, I woke up to a very frigid apartment. I decided to turn the heat off (it's like 20 degrees outside max) , and within 10 minutes it was already 2 degrees warmer. That was on Saturday. It's now Monday, and still no heat. To make it even better, they're calling for snow/flurries starting this evening lasting until about 2 tomorrow. fantastic...Being from the south, and having seen snow only a handful of times in my entire life, whenever there's a winter weather advisory we make it a pretty big deal down here. And of course my roommate& I are crossing our fingers for no school tomorrow. good luck with that one, my college is like the only one in the state of South Carolina that doesn't see a need to cancel class if there were tornadoes and blizzards and hurricanes all at once. Oh, well.
To back up a little more, on Friday, I was getting ready for work when, after hours of not replying to my texts, Richard sends me a text asking what I'm doing. When I tell him & ask him the same, I get a response that he's sitting in the hospital getting checked out. Needless to say, I absolutely freak out, especially when I learn that he had been at a house fire for over 2 hours. After that, he doesn't reply to anything else, which of coarse makes me even more worried. To top it off, one of his firefighter buddies calls me to ask about Richard (this is the same guy that I was about to call, to get reassurance that everything was ok). Because this guy was there & didn't know what was going on with Richard, I almost completely lose it-and I have to be at work in 15 minutes. Thankfully, I learn that he was taken just as a precautionary measure & he just had some pulled muscles or something in his back & chest, but he's still in some pain & slow to move. Hopefully, he'll hurry up and get better before long.
After that ordeal, I made it to work, my mind still frazzled because I wasn't sure what was going on. I learned that he was ok & ended up having a not too bad shift. By about 9, Richard felt well enough to come to Greenwood and we kept our plans to go to my friend's birthday party, which was really good because I got to see one of my best friends who I felt like I haven't seen in forever. I was so glad Cam got to make it down from Columbia! We ended up leaving a little early because Richard's back, but I still had a great time & loved seeing Cameron. Saturday, we were pretty lazy, and Richard did a lot of resting. It was a good day though, because we got to spend time with Mammy, which is rare, as well as his family & mine. Yesterday wasn't anything spectacular, I just worked at UT for the majority if the day, then had to be back up there 3 hours after I got off to drive everyone to a meeting in Greenville, which was like torture for all three of us from Greenwood. I booked it back home & then hit the sack as quick as I could, which still wasn't until about midnight.
Hopefully the office will be open today, even though it's MLK Jr day, and they can have someone fix out heat asap! Until then its time for me to go crawl under the covers & finish my hot chocolate while I was a little tv... and keep my fingers crossed for lots and lots of snow & no school!

Here we go...

OK, so this is my very first blog, and I'm not too sure about this whole thing. I've been following some college mates blogs, and on top of me always wanting to make one, I finally decided to make myself give it a try. Hopefully, with lots of practice, I will become a much better writer, as well as an advanced blogger! I'm not too sure how to go about this, but I guess it's worth a try.
School just started Monday, and I think I'm going to really like this semester, for the most part. Since I'm in my 3rd semester at Lander, I've finally gotten to know some great people in my program & I'm actually enjoying school now. I still miss Clemson, much more than I ever let on, and still wonder almost everyday if this really was the best decision for me. However, I know deep down that I'm in the right spot. I've kept the same major going on three semesters now, which is record for me haha. I've gotten a good many of my GenEd classes out of the way during the past three years, so last semester & this semester I've been in mainly Education classes, which I'm growing to love more and more each day. I tried to start out the semester ahead & on task, but feel as if I've already started sliding. Not a good sign for the third day of school! Let's hope I can keep up the work. I'm really only worried about one class, which just so happens to be history. My daddy always says history should be easy because everything's already happened...but it's just not my cup of tea. Hopefully, I can keep up with my reading and at least stay somewhat on track. Unlike last semester, I'm not stuck at school until late, so I actually got out before 3 today & even made time for the gym. It felt great to go run a few desperately needed miles, especially since I've been slacking terribly for the past few months. I know it wasn't much, but coming from the girl who despises running so much I quit cross-country half-way through the season my sophomore year in high school, it felt great to get on the treadmill. Other than that, I've been pretty much useless all day. Oh well, hopefully I'll be worth a little more tomorrow! But for now, it's time for this early bird to get to bed so I can manage to be somewhat awake for my 8 a.m. class tomorrow...at least it's with my favorite teacher ever!