The Princess Gets Married!

Today at work I encountered an angel child sent straight from heaven. Seriously. I'm not sure where she came from but I sure loved it!!! Zoe was soooo well behaved I couldn't even believe it! She acted like such a big girl and was an amazing listener! Ah! I loved it! Well behaved children really are possible! :)

So as part of this amazing day with the angel child, we wrote a story together (word for word from her mouth) and it was so cute I couldn't help but share it!
We are going to put it together into a book and she is going to make pictures and everything. Should be fun :)

The Princess Gets Married
By: Zoe

Once upon a time, there was a princess with long hair and her name was Sleeping Beauty. And she lived in a cottage where here fairies protected her. And then her mom and dad protected her too. And then her prince killed the dragon so she would be safe. And then there were a lot of queens that were her friends that were coming out of the tummy of the dragon and turning into dragons and he fighted off all of them and all the people were in the cottage safe. And then more dragons came out and he had to fight more and more and more. And then more princesses came and more dragons came and more princes came to help him. Then all of them got married and got in one big coach and went to their castle. And when they got to their castle they got married again because they didn't kiss when they got married before and then they kissed again before getting in bed and they went "good night".
THE END!

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions!

THIS is what I'm excited for this summer. Sitting at the beach with friends (hopefully) and listening to music on my ipod while I bask in the warm sun's rays and possibly soak up some knowledge from a good book. But the question I find myself asking is: How do I enjoy the summer and find time to relax before going full boar back to school in the fall, plus make money, PLUS start getting clinical experience working with families and individuals in therapy type settings? Again, its all about balance.

Today I'm trying to decide what route to take. To work 2 jobs, not have to take out loans in the fall, try to get experience and end up burnt out by the time fall rolls around. Work only 1 job and find a meaningful volunteer experience, take out loans and have time to relax and have fun before starting back in the fall. Decisions, decisions, decisions!

Balance

Balance. What does that mean??? And how exactly does one find "balance" in life? When I started this blog and called it "Balancingn Bethel and Believing in the Best" I knew that I was going to need to learn balance, but I didn't really know the magnitude of such a learning experience. And its not something that I have learned yet. I'm still trying to figure it out. How do you find equality in all areas of your life and yet be fulfilled and not just giving of yourself?

My first quarter of seminary lacked balance to the EXTREME! Taking 4 classes and working 30 hours a week was NOT a wise choice. Not sure why I thought that would work. By the grace of God I made it through and didn't even flunk out! ha ha Winter quarter I decided to take a few less classes. VERY wise. It was a much better quarter. Actually just finished up and I'm now on Spring Break and will be starting Spring quarter (the last quarter besides my week of summer school) in a week. Although life has been better taking fewer classes, I still don't have this balance thing figured out. Mainly, how does one balance work, school, and friends? Especially when friends aren't the focus of your life like they were in college....

I definitely feel like this tipsy stack of rocks....Balancing.... but maybe this stack is more of my goal. i think MY stack has more of a lean currently....

Penny the Pumpkin

So I have this tradition of naming my pumpkins each year. Tonight I finally made time to carve what came to be named "Penny".

Meet Penny!



Amanda got pretty creative with her pumpkin and used a stencil. It turned out super cute!



And of course we lit them up and put them outside right away! However, its a little too windy still for them to stay lit.
But they still look neat! Amanda's is the "adult" pumpkin and mine is the one that looks like a child carved it ha ha



Now, its time for bed. Another long day ahead of me tomorrow...nannying from 8:30-5:30 then heading straight to class until 10:15...ugh. Gotta love Hermeneutics! At least my exegesis paper is finished :) PRAISE THE LORD! Too bad I have another one due next week.... Also, praise the Lord for reading and research weeks! Without which I have NO IDEA how I would ever get everything done. Well, nighty night!

The House Began to Pitch!

Can you say Wizard of Oz?? Definitely thought we were going to blow away last night! I was nannying and the kids were pretty scared when bed time rolled around...of course. Jaden actually woke up screaming hysterically, and Zoe, well she started bed time crying. And then I remembered Zoe's love of the Wizard of Oz and Dorothy. So I told her we could pretend to be Dorothy. And everything was going to be fine. After making this analogy, I thought to myself, "Shoot! That was a scary thing, the house blowing away and killing someone!" But, for some reason, Zoe found this analogy encouraging. And before I knew it, I had 2 little "munchkins" sawing logs despite the hurricane powered winds! :)

Exewhaaaaatt????

Exegesis. An explanation or critical interpretation. In this case, it was an exegesis, or critical interpretation of 1 Corinthians 15:20-28. Taking into account all historical and cultural context. I honestly had never read the whole book of 1 Corinthians, and this was necessary for doing the exegesis of this passage. Soooo.... I read the whole book of 1 Corinthians today!! And officially spent around 9 hours studying this passage today to write my exegesis paper for my Hermeneutics class!!! I hunkered down just before 9am this morning, with a stack of books, a cup of coffee, and of course the Bible!



My books and, of course, coffee!!!! :)



Where I spent my day...

I have my summary sentence and my defense. And DEFINITELY learned a TON about the Corinthians and Paul!!! It was interesting, but almost made studying the Bible too much work. Seriously. If that is how we should read the Bible, I don't really know if it's realistic to read it every day....or even enjoy it.... But I'm proud of my final product!! Just need to check out some commentaries and see how my summary compares. Hopefully it's close!

And a BIG thank you to my grandma for talking through the scripture with me!!! I really lack insight into the scriptures...or maybe I just don't know as much as I thought and my grandma is super knowledgable. I'm very lucky to have her in my life! Love you grandma! <3

All Things Wonderful...

The weekend is already over and its seems like it just begun! I had been looking forward to this weekend for about a month now, and while it was wonderful, it wasn't really all that I was expecting it to be and it definitely went too fast! This weekend was my annual Mother-Daughter Weekend with my mom! :) The 2nd annual get together for us and this year we decided to go to Women of Faith at the Xcel Energy Center. Most of the speakers were very interesting and inspirational, and yes, even FUNNY! But it was much more focused on story telling, than actually relating anything to scripture, which was a little disappointing to me and not what I am used to at a conference. It also was very geared towards moms, so if it weren't for the fact that I have now been a nanny for almost a year, I wouldn't have been able to relate very much. I think out of all the speakers, Anita Renfroe was my FAVORITE!!! She was absolutely hilarious and has some great parodies about life! Luckily enough, she is on Youtube! Momsense and Love Story are probably my favorites, but Wrinkle Ladies isn't bad either!





We also had GREAT seats! 4th row from the stage!!! And we got to see Steven Curtis Chapman! That was pretty exciting for me. And hearing about his family's life story was also very interesting. It gave me a lot of insight and appreciation for a lot of his songs. I think I want his "Cinderella" song played for my father daughter dance at my wedding...hopefully someday! And "I'll Be Here" might be a nice first dance song! ha ha



Soooo close to the stage!



Steven Curtis Chapman singing "Cinderella'



Steven and his wife, Mary Beth, singing a "rap" song!! It was funny!!



One last pic of Steven singing



As mom and I were leaving the Xcel on Friday night, there was a line at the elevator so I said .... "Let's just take the stairs" These were the stairs..and we needed to go up several flights, however, we couldn't find the parking garage by taking the stairs and almost got locked in a stairway!!!



Mom and I Saturday morning. Leaving for the conference 30 minutes late...but we were still on time :)

The conference wasn't too bad. I did enjoy it. But I wouldn't say that it's a MUST go to. Now TCX...that is a must! I just wish I could have spent more actual time hanging out with my mom. Even just sitting around the house with her doing her lesson plans and me working on homework. I miss that. At least I'll get to go home for awhile in a few weeks for Thanksgiving. And oh, I can't wait for the month off at Christmas!!! Only 365 more days until our next Mother-Daughter Weekend! :) Can't wait!



Love you mom!