HELLOOOO, Friday!

Ah, Friday is here, yet again! Glorious, isn't it?

I am ridiculously excited about this weekend...and upcoming week!

Come this evening I will be on the road to the San Marcos area with CarrieHammie and Catia to see SKate! We will be making an appearance at the recently transplanted Sherwood Forest...oh, yes, you read that correctly. Sherwood Forest has been transplanted to just outside Austin, TX, and we are going to play in it!! Should be loads of fun and I absolutely cannot wait to see SKate and her new digs!

From there I get to go back to CS!! WHOOP!! I am seriously beside myself with excitement to see everyone again and get some more work done in the lab. We are getting closer and closer to being finished with manuscript number one!!!! I hope we can at least get it accepted by a journal by the time I head off to grad school.

But, from CS I'm off to RR to see Elaine&Josh!!!!!!! It has seriously been TOO long. Ok, so maybe it's only been about 2 months since I've seen them, but still...that is too long. That's just all there is to it.

All of the above will make for a lovely start to my March :) I absolutely, absolutely love all of the amazing people I will get to see almost too much for my own good...but I don't care. They have all been there for me time and time again, through thick and thin...and I would seriously be so far gone without them.

I know I say this a lot, but I truly have been so blessed and smiled upon by God to have all of those amazing people in my life. I can't imagine continuing through life without them by my side...whether we are near or far apart. They are simply the best of the best. And yes, I hereby grant you permission to be jealous of my friends ;)

As much as I might complain about being back in Arlington and having nothing to do right now, it has really been a blessing, because it has allowed me to focus on staying in or getting back in touch with the people who are most dear to me. Friends from high school, friends from college (still weird to say "from college"), family, etc. Huge, huge blessing. I know I won't be able to talk to as many people on a regular basis once grad school starts, so this time now has been perfect.

So, I wanted to touch on a few other things in this post, but my morning is quickly coming to a close and I really need to get a move on with laundry and packing and errands before I hit the road tonight. So, for now, my loves, I must close.

Wishing you the best of weekends!
Shalom!
~MW

Back to....

...the old grind?? Hmmm, I guess we can call my overly exciting life that ;)

Fair warning, I have a feeling this entry will be erratic and probably will not flow...at all. Fasten your seat-belts, kiddies!!

Let's start with why I have so terribly neglected my faithful readers for the last week or so: I...was visiting with friends in CS and Houston....and...spending precious time with them was more dire to me than posting my thoughts... I know!! I'm terrible. But, don't you worry, I've been storing up things to tell you in my forgetful steel-trap of a mind! Ok, so I was also working back in the wasp lab during the day last week, but my lunches and nights were full, full, full of visiting and simply enjoying my loves. I had a blast staying with my lovely Humphreys the first half of the week. Ricci taught me how to make petit fours! I think I have a new addiction...in fact, later on today I just might go get some "play-doh for adults" and fiddle around with it :) I just have to say that I absolutely adore Ricci and Josh...they have so blessed my life and I can't imagine not having them an email/text/chat/letter/phone call away. The Lord is so, so very good to me. The second half of the week I spent with BMetz & KZhaurova - love them! Haha, we totally nerded-out one night and watched NOVA specials on Netflix whilst playing Scrabble...oh, it was glorious. I had an awesome time going to Hope Group, hangin at MugWalls with my loves, watchin some olympics, making dinners, and just all-around enjoying the people who have come to mean the world to me. It was a productive week in the lab, too. And, Wharton is awesome and surprised me with a happy belated-birthday/congrats on getting invited to the U of M welcome weekend ice cream party on Friday - he's such a great boss/mentor/prof.

Over the weekend I went down to Houston to celebrate Kacydilla's BDay! It was way fun to just get to visit with her and JJ. I was blessed to help them around the house with some things and we went and saw Valentine's Day on Saturday which was way fun. {I may or may not have cried....again} And the young adult pancake lunch was tasty and I got to visit with my buddy Brandon, so that was delightful. Kacy and I also got to take a run to Kohl's where I may or may not have bought these beauties...
{Ricci, I think I have a problem... ;) }
Anyways, after Kohl's I hit the road to Arlington. But, I stopped back in CS on my way. I know...I just couldn't stay away! I got to visit with B, Paul, and Alyssa. It was truly great. I watched them play tennis for a bit and visited with the "loser"...haha, but I'm pretty sure they were the real winners, cause they got to visit with me!! ;) We got to have dinner with the amazing Freemans, too. Truly a blessed evening. After dinner we headed back to the courts and I hit the road to Arlington. I think that was probably one of the most difficult drives for me.

I have yet to cry when leaving CS since graduation...yeah...well, that trend is now broken. It was so hard for me to leave this time around, because it's becoming more and more real to me how difficult the move to Minnesota is going to be. I've never been afraid of moving. My family has moved a lot over the course of my life, so I've grown accustomed to saying good-byes. But this time will be much more difficult, I think, because I haven't only been here for 2-2.5yrs...but rather 4.5+ It makes a huge difference, one I hadn't realized until this trip. No matter how I slice it, it's going to be an extremely painful move. I was talking with my mom about it yesterday and she said she had been thinking the same. Haha, she said maybe I should just go to grad school at A&M... I'd be lying if I said I hadn't considered it to stay fairly close to my friends and family here. But I think I need to take this step. I need to have an adventure of my own. If a handful of someones come along with me that'd be awesome, but either way, I think this is just one of those things I need to do - part of my personal growing-up process. It's totally going to suck, though...

Anywho...that said, I had a truly blessed week. And I can't wait to go back next week! :)

It was nice to come home, I must say. Especially because I was welcomed home by these:

I'm totally and completely in love!

I wore them all day yesterday...and felt totally awesome on my trek to WholeFoods :D TOMS are pretty much the greatest shoes on eath...so beyond comfortable and an amazing organization. If you don't have any, you should get some!

Well, now that I'm home, I have tons of freetime...what am I going to do this week?? Hopefully sort through some boxes of junk. What fun!! I also want to whip up some canvases I have laying around. And as mentioned above, I think I will be playing with some "adult play-doh" :)

So, random thought here: have you ever been entering the word verification on a comment you are leaving and thought to yourself, "man, that would be an awesome word!!"? Well, I think about that pretty much everytime...it's so annoying, because some of them would totally be awesome, but alas, they are not real. Haha, I'm a dork, I know. But I love words :)

Well kids, the day is quickly fleeting, so I'm out for now!

Shalom!
~MW

Snow...snow...snow (Sung to the tune of "All you need is love"

I am SO in heaven today...God has given me the amazing blessing of SNOW all over the ground today :)

Look at this amazing beauty!!

I absolutely love it....

And just because they are cute...terrors as they might be...here are the pups :)


So cuddly and cute :) Happy day, all.

Shalom!
~MW

I am in love.

Ok readers...don't fall over out of shock from reading my title yet. I'm not in love with someone but, I am in love with something.

What am I in love with??? Well, I need to address something first, so you will have to wait!! Hahaha! Please don't leave!!!!! Just bare with me for a few minutes here. Thanks, you're the best readers, ever!

OK, here is what I need to say: THANK YOU!!! My deepest and most sincere thanks to all of you who so encouragingly responded to my post yesterday. I seriously cannot imagine life without you all to continuously lift me up. God is SO SO good to me. He never stops reminding me how much He loves me through the people He has surrounded me with...even if we aren't near to each other physically. So, thank you all 100 times over for lifting me up - I can't even begin to explain to you how much it means to me to have you by my side.

OK...now for my love interest!! So, as most of you know, either from talking to me or from yesterday's post, I had the amazing opportunity to spend time with a Boy Scout troop last night, teaching them about the wonderful world of bugs. I had the time of my life, kids. The absolute time of my life! I have certainly found my calling. I am, without a doubt, a teacher. It's so funny, because all through my life I've had people tell me I should be a teacher, but I always thought they were crazy - like, certifiable! But, as most of you know, about two years ago I started falling in love with science outreach education...say, what?? Well, as much as I enjoyed my times with the kids in CS, I never lead something on my own - I was never the actual teacher. I've only ever been like, oh what would you call it...? An engager, maybe?? Basically, I did all the fun stuff - playing with the bugs with the kids, flipping through picture books with them, looking through microscopes with them, stuff like that. I never stood in front of them and actually taught a lesson.

Well, last night, that's what I did - ALL BY MYSELF!!! {And some wonderful advice and suggestions from KReddick, of course...not to mention prayers that I'm certain went up to the Lord for me, because I definitely felt His hand in it.} It went wonderfully well, I am very happy to say. It was definitely a task, putting together a presentation for the kids and coming up with something (on the fly...yeah, I didn't get to prepare an actual talk...yikes!) that would be interesting and engaging for the kids. Well, I'm going to go ahead and say that I did a decent job, because those kids had question after question, after question!! It was so great!! One thing I am going to have to figure out though, is how to get around answering some of those questions...maybe I should show them boring pictures of insects instead of cool ones...kidding! But, I had slides for a 20min, 30min tops, presentation...it took almost an hour!! They had soooo many questions! Even the parents were asking questions. They loved getting to look at the specimens I brought and Tevye and Little Bubba, my darling MHC (Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches), were a big hit. Like I told my mom: there were 3 categories of reactions to my MHCs, 1) CAN I HOLD ONE?!?! Please?!?! 2) Uuuhh.....I want to touch it...but I'm reeeeally kinda nervous...ok, I'll at least pet it 3) I'm just going to peer over everyone, catch a glimpse and not get any closer, thanks. Haha, it was great. I couldn't get any of the parents to touch them...I was kind of bummed about that. Ah, I had so much fun!! I loved it. I was definitely born to do this. I cannot wait to do it again. This was definitely a "merry adventure."

Oh, I think at some point I'm going to go on a collecting trip with the Boy Scouts and maybe have a merit badge day were we work on some of the projects they have to do for their insect merit badge.

On a side note, last night gave me the confidence I was lacking for my first day of subbing coming up on Friday. I'm subbing at my high school...weird...for the art teacher. I was, and still am a little, really nervous about it, since I haven't ever been in that teacher/authority position. Now, I know, I know, subs get the short end of the stick a lot when it comes to respect and stuff like that, but after last night going so well, I'm much more confident and excited about Friday. Wish me luck! I'll take prayers too :)

Well, that's about all I have to report - I am definitely in much higher spirits than I was when I wrote my last post. Funny, how and hour, or less, of something joyful is sometimes all it takes to lift you out of your slump. I'm off to make myself presentable for the day and go galevanting around with The Mamma.

Blessings to all. Shalom!
~MW

Birthdays to Boy Scouts

Hello my happy readers. I trust you are all fairing well on this {for me} gloriously rainy Monday. I do apologize for having not updated in a while...it's just been one of those weeks...you know, the kind of week where you just don't want to do anything and so you don't and thus have nothing to report and your brain is kind of void of any form of coherent thought...yeah, it was one of those.

So, Tuesday was my birthday, and I must take a moment now to thank each and every one of you who took the time to call/txt/email/facebook me to send me your thoughts, wishes, and love - definitely made my not so thrilling day a blessed one. This was a very strange birthday for me. For as long as I can remember I've had friends around either day of, or shortly there after, to celebrate with me...and, for the first time in my 23yrs I didn't have any of my beloved friends with me. Don't get me wrong, being with my family was definitely nice, but this birthday made me really realize how dearly I love my friends, and that they have truly become my family, and I miss them all dearly. So, I have been in a bit of a funk about that... This is no tantrum about not having a party or something ridiculous like that, this is simply my heart-breaking realization that I miss my friends much more than I thought I did. Thinking about all of this and reflecting then lead me to a terrible realization: next year is going to be even worse!!! I don't know anyone in MN...oi, if I thought this year was bad, I won't even have my family with me next year. I'd better toughen up and put on my big girl pants now, eh?? Ugh...can I just stick all of my friends in my pocket or a tupperware container and take them with me??

Well, that said, I must admit that I've been a little off this week, due to all the above..err...dwellings, I suppose we could call them. But, my family was so great. The Mamma made me dutch pancakes like she used to do when I was in high school...I did have to get up at 6:45 to partake with the fam, but it was totally worth it. The Mamma and I proceeded to munch on the leftovers throughout the rest of the day - heavenly! And then...I spent a rather hefty part of my afternoon {J-Hump, please overt your eyes...} window shopping online with Miss Ricci...it was awesome...we had so much fun! My evening consisted of a Valentine's Dinner Prep Meeting, followed by Bible study, and finally, my ultimate birthday present: the Season Premier of LOST!!! The only thing that could have made that better would have been being with all my peeps at the LOST party down in CS...I was definitely there in spirit.

Probably one of the best things I did last week was dig my rickety, I mean lovely old bike out of the garage give it some TLC and take it on a nice little 3mi ride. Nothing, huge, I know, but it was beyond great to take it out for a spin and do some work on it...I also discovered, that much as I had suspected, I am severely, severely, out of shape...working on remedying this situation :)

I did finally get my new phone on Friday! Oh, I am so in love with it...I have named him Reuel. Can anyone guess where that comes from?? You get a gold star if you can figure it out. :D

Saturday was quite a full day: took Faja to the airport, had a morning visit with Gela, Alyssa, and Samantha - that was simply delightful, had a mid-day coffee date with Lu - also wonderful. And then, my dear ones...I did it...I - CLEANED - my room!!! I still hadn't unpacked everything from moving up here in December...awful, I know. But it is now done, and it is awesome. Have some pictures us, and everyone seems to be happy. Mid cleaning though, I stopped to have a spot of tea and lost it...the missing all of my friends and not seeing my here-friends very often and not having a job/outlet finally got to me and I broke down. I simply felt lonely even though I had seen a ton of people that day, that might have been enough to put me over the edge. I felt better after allowing myself to put a label on what I was feeling instead of just pushing it under the rug and pretending like nothing was wrong. This is hard...that's about all there is to it.

Anyways, congrats to the Saints on their Superbowl win - props, kids. Although, I must confess that I boycotted the game with KT and went to Borders instead. It was nice to visit and sympathize with each other about feeling lonely.

But, now a new week has begun and it's off to a crazy start! Tonight I will be undertaking the task of teaching the local Boy Scouts of America troop about....you guessed it, BUGS!! I'm really excited about this, but pretty nervous, this will be my first outreach education endeavor all on my own. I brainstormed with KReddick last night and got some awesome ideas on organizing it all and cuing in to how the kids are responding to the subject matter. So, for the rest of today I will be polishing that up and getting ready for the kiddos! I had intended on taking another bike ride today, but the forecast is for rain...all...day...long, which I love just not when I had planned to be active. Ah well, such is life.

Best wishes for the new week to you all!

Shalom,
MW

We are called to be RESOLUTE...a twist on New Year's Resolutions

Ok..I've been promising this post for nearly a month now...and I finally got ahold of the sermon I needed to refresh my memory on to make sure I had it all right...so, here goes:


How many times have we made resolutions for the new year only to forget we even made them by the end of the first week {or sooner...}...? How many times have we said, "This will be the year that I actually do it!"? Pastor Willis brought this point up the Sunday following Dec, 31/Jan 1. He even brought up, what many of us have come to do, that there's a number of us who have resolved to not make resolutions!!! {sheepishly raising my hand right now} But then he want on to say that as Christians, we are called to be resolute and so cannot not make resolutions. I know, my face was somewhat twisted in a confused look, too. He then brought to our attention Paul and his 1st letter to the Corinthians: For I resolved to know nothing amont you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. 1 Cor 2:2 ...As Christians, we are called to be resolute.

Now everyone has wiped their faces clean of expression and all are quietly listening...where are you going with this, Pastor??

His next statement was dumbfounding: This year, I want all of you to know Christ and Him crucified by drinking, cheating, stealing, and lying more that you ever have before....

After a brief pause, to let it all sink in, he explained...and let me just tell you: it was amazing.

Drink: Drink the Water of Life.
- When we are all so busy with anything and everything else in our lives/the world how parched do our souls become?? How starved are our spirits for that nourishing elixir of life that is God and His precious Word?!
- Everything else we fill our lives with is nothing but dust in our mouths. Gross...but so true. And, what an effective analogy to demonstrate how much damage we do to ourselves when we aren't drinking from the Word...daily.
- I remember Butch talking about this one time at Living Hope: he said something along the lines of people will die from thirst in something like 4-5days...how often do we go for a whole week without drinking from God's Word??? Scary to think about.

Cheat: Cheat Satan.
- One of Satan's many names is "The Accuser." That's one of the things he will do when we stand before the gates of Heaven -- He will accuse us of all of our wrongs, before the Lord's throne.
- Satan will do anything and everything to fool us into sinning...and then rub our noses in it...awesome.
- How many of us are plagued by sins we have committed in the past...even though we have confessed and been forgiven?? That guilt is something Satan uses against us. Pastor Willis made a good point when he said that sometimes it only takes something as small as hearing a song...even just a line! Or a scent, or a place...a street name...anything can trigger our recollection of whatever happened and result in us resuming ownership of the guilt that came with that sin.
- The Devil robs us of that glorious joy found in Christ crucified...what a tragedy that we allow him to.

Steal: Steal time with God.
- Our lives are too busy...simply too busy. How can we know this? Pastor Willis used the illustration of noting the minuscule numbers of Bible study attendees on Sundays...Tuesdays...Wednesdays...Thursdays...etc. It was a pretty good reminder that we too often hear of an opportunity to grow in the Lord and spend time with Him but turn around and say, "Well, I have this or that on that day...so, I can't go..." Yeeowzas!
- Pastor Willis encouraged us to make time in our day for the Lord.
- We should want and desire to spend time with Him, to be at church/Bible study, to be fellowshipping with our brothers and sisters in Christ. We should WANT this!!
- Another sharp point was this: What if we spent even half as much time with God as we do pointing something at a screen...even half!!! OK, Pastor...we're getting it.
- So many of us envy those who truly know the Bible and look something up or rattle off a reference with hardly a thought about it. We want to have that knowledge, but it seems we are rarely willing to make the "sacrifice" of giving up "our" time to spend time learning God's Word and putting forth the effort required to commit it to memory.

Lie: Lie back and rest in the Lord.
- He wasn't telling us to be lazy with this, but rather to find respite in the Lord.
- Time flies so very quickly in the fast-paced world of today. This is especially true when we are investing ourselves and our time in anything and everything but God and the people around us.
- Psalm 46:10 tells us to "Be still and know that [He is] God." What if we really were still and allowed ourselves to truly know that He is God.
- Slow down. Rest in the Lord.


Basically, all this combined means that our lives depend of knowing Christ and Him crucified. Don't discount His call and desire for us to be in Him. Don't be afraid to be resolute and KNOW Him.

So, there is your permission to drink, cheat, steal, and lie more than ever before. Enjoy and good luck!

It was truly an eye-opening reminder of how we, as Christians, ought to live out our lives in and for the Lord.

Shalom!
~MW

P.S. - If any of you want to listen to the sermon yourself, you can find it here, click on "January 3rd 2010 Sermon"