All that I know is I'm breathing....

  **Deeeeep breath**

What a crazy couple of months or so it has been up here in the FT.

Sometimes I feel like my life is moving so fast that I wake up some mornings and I can't remember the day before or what day it is or what I have on the docket for that day.

Sometimes I feel like I'm simply going through the motions and that I have forgotten why I am where I am, and why I'm doing what I am doing.

Sometimes I have so much to do, that I just can't sleep.  I can't turn off my brain.

Sometimes I just want to disappear into the North Woods and simply be and be with my God...I haven't been the best daughter of late.

Sometimes I think I forget to breathe...

But I do know that I am still breathing...and right now that's about all I feel that I can do.

This semester is proving to be busier than I could have ever imagined.  Courses are proving to be heavier than expected (by myself and SW...she's just as surprised as I am, thankfully); the to-do list regarding my research seems to be growing daily; I have loan specimens coming in from all over North America on just about a weekly basis - and, processing them is extremely time consuming; forming a committee is turning out to be quite trying; getting prepped for my first committee meeting means I have to have a bunch of stuff written up about myself, my research, etc.; the whole department is getting ready for the ESA-NCB meeting in March - which means we have to get our abstracts written and submitted by then end of this week, and then actually preparing our posters/talks, a number of us students are busy studying and practicing for the Linnaean Games (kind of like an ento quiz bowl), and then there's always the general prep that comes with hosting a meeting (yay...); we are about to be busy getting ready for the prospective student "Welcome Weekend" the end of March; there are number of outreach opportunities coming up that we students will be busy with; oh, and fellowship/grant applications are all due here in a couple of weeks; oh, and that thing called a social life...trying to keep that one going too; and church is getting busy in the best possible way (we start small groups this week!!).  Whew!  As a result of all of that, I feel like I have been a neglectful daughter, sister, student, friend, girlfriend, etc.  The days leave me so incredibly exhausted that all I want to do is fall into bed and sleep, but I simply do not have the time to do that, and even when I do finally let myself fall into that dreamy bed of mine I find no rest.  I'm tired.  I'm spent.  As Bilbo Baggins would put it, " I feel... thin. Sort of stretched, like... butter scraped over too much bread."  I'm ready for this semester to be over.  Even though I am so incredibly happy and blessed here - so incredibly blessed, I cannot even begin to explain.  I am simply ready for the "lazy" summer (haha...funny joke) to arrive so that I can go home for Mak and Wes's hitching day, play with my moths and actually get research done, make another trip home for when Jake and the Stones come home from Africa, head back up to the FT to do MORE research (!!!), go to Arizona to learn about collecting and prepping leps for a couple of weeks (!!!), help Panda get settled in (he's been accepted here at the U!!!) and hopefully do the same with Jake, maybe take a few museum trips with SW to look at type specimens, aaaand go camping and collecting (!!!) with RH and Frenatae amongst and between the other events of the summer.  I'm just ready to be done with classes, really.

But!  My God is not tired, He is not spent, and I can find rest, comfort, and peace in that promise.  He is never failing.  Even when I feel like I simply cannot keep moving, He carries me along.  How beautiful it is to know that being a daughter of the King means that even when I fall down (which is quite often) He is always there and ready to pick me back up again and help me dust off my hands and knees, pour peroxide and rub ointment on the scrapes, and bandage them up for me.

I love my God and I love that He loves me unconditionally...scrapes, bruises, scars, and all  :)

Speaking of scars, I've been dealing with some of those lately...old experiences/memories/heartaches have been floating above my head and lingering there.  It's frustrating at times, but forces me to stop and remember how much I have learned and grown through those experiences and how blessed I am to now have that wisdom and knowledge that I probably would not posses otherwise.

What funny things scars are.  I don't think you can really ever forget where one came from.  It's interesting to me how different scars are from bruises.  You can find a bruise and have no clue how it got there, but the deep wounds that result in scars are incredibly difficult to miss.  I find it funny, too, that scars don't have to be, necessarily, tied to a bad experience.  Some of my scars remind me of awesome runs on the mountain bike trails, or running around llama farms as a kid, or some of the best performances from my ballet days; while others remind me of running into things or wrestling with kittens at the vet clinic (kittens are eeeeevil!!!  Cute...but eeeeeevil!!!).  Now, those are all physical scars of the flesh, but I think the same can be true for emotional/spiritual scars.  I have scars from mission trips where I saw such unbelievable poverty that pieces of my heart were tugged away, but the experience was so beautiful in seeing people abandon themselves recklessly at the feet of Christ, and seeing myself and the other people on the trips with me grow in their faith and relationship with the Lord, that those scars remind of beautiful things along with the heartbreak.  And, of course, other scars are simply reminders of heartbreak.  Can't be helped.  But, I digress.

Things really have been exhaustingly (it's a word...promise...thank you, English language for being absurdly ridiculous so as to allow us to pretty much make any word we want into a "real word"!) wonderful here.  I had one of the best birthday weeks I have ever had - it's definitely going down in the record books as one of the best.  I was surprised by many of you with little cards and messages and gifts throughout all of that week (THANK YOU!!), and a few are still trickling in!  Y'all are awesome.  I received some of the most breathtakingly beautiful orchids from Jake...RH made me go pick them up from the office and bring them to class with me, haha...everyone was quite impressed.  And, I am very pleased to say, that they are still alive and well in their little vase in the Insect Museum - everyone gets to enjoy them on a daily basis.  I really want to try and sprout one or two of the spikes...I need to look into that or run by Linder's and talk to the plant people to get their thoughts and suggestions on that undertaking.  Anyways, I was also surprised by the Bug Dork crew up here with a fantastic dinner part at Chino-Latino!  I don't think that I have ever been so surprised before.  Megan did an awesome job of pulling it all together, and everyone here was amazing at keeping me totally and completely clueless, well done, kids, well done  :)  Once those pictures get forwarded to me I'll throw some up.  We had a blast...though we all paid for it a bit the next morning...it was definitely worth the mid-week late night.  That Saturday RH and a number of us Bug Dorks took on the frozen waters of Lake Owasso and went ICE FISHING!  We had a great time, despite not catching a thing.  So fun.  Really...haha.  And then, Sunday, of course, we had a rockin' Super Bowl party.  SO MUCH GOOD FOOD!  It was glorious.


This weekend everyone seems to be catching up from last weekend, haha.  We were all rather unproductive on the school/research front.

So things have been busy, stressful, crazy, but wonderful all at the same time.  I'll try to post some pictures later on, but for now I need to get back to work.  I have grant drafts and abstracts to finish by tomorrow.

Praying all is wonderfully with you, my lovelies.

Shalom!
~MW

P.S. - I promise I haven't forgotten about finishing the new blog layout...it was either work on the layout or write a post this weekend - I figured you would all rather have an update  :)  I'll get to it...eventually, promise!

P.P.S. - I almost forgot to share this little gem with y'all!  This little article about 20 Obsolete English Words that Should Make a Comeback is pretty amazing -  and, I vote we start using these words again  :)   Also, MY BIG BROTHER IS FAMOUS!  Check out this little article talking about his new band Shivaree (it talks about some other bands, as well, but Shivaree is the best...of course!).  Check out some of their songs - they are way fun...raw recordings, but still awesome  :)

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