mish-mash

Ouch. I haven't blogged in awhile. Well, I haven't blogged here in awhile. What's new? This....

That's right! It's officially been just over 3 years since I started working on my degree, and I finally have my diploma. You know, it's a lot of work, time, money, stress, tears, victories, failures, ups, downs... etc, for a piece of paper. But at least they put it in a nice fake leather binder-thingy. And I got to learn Calculus. So I'm happy. :) 

Other news.... I sprained my knee (long story), may have talked a friend into doing college the same, awesome way I did (yay!), I'm going to a wedding tomorrow (fun-but-not-excited-about-the-long-drive-there), and last but not least, I made this the other day:

:D :D :D

Oh, and something I've been thinking about lately (this post really is a mish-mash of stuff, isn't it?) - contentment. I believe that God gives us desires for a reason - of course - those desires have to line up with His word. If you have a desire to get slobbering drunk, that's not from God imho. Anyways, about the desire to get married. I keep seeing that it's soo important to be content in your singleness.... and is it really? I mean, I totally get the fact that I can't be Facebook friending every guy and asking them how they feel about having 12 kids, and I can't be crying in my bathroom all day every day because I don't have a boyfriend. I need to be loving life, enjoying what I'm doing, and I am! But I don't want to be content that I'm single... mostly because I'm scared that if I get to that spot where I'm totally content with being single, I'll then be okay with maybe never being in a relationship. And I really do want to be in a relationship, and I think that's one of those good God-given desires.

It could be the English major in me just getting picky about words and meanings too... but personally I see a lot of difference in 'being content that I'm single' and 'being content while I'm single'.

What do you think? Should we be content while being single? Maybe a better question is - what defines being content while being single? And, most importantly, have you ever played Angry Birds? ;)

new blog :)

Shameless plug: I have a new blog! It's a recipe blog entitled 'Single and Vegan'. Check it out, if you wish!
http://singlyvegan.blogspot.com/

confession: I'm a spender.

My confession. I used to be a saver. I wouldn't spend a penny on anything unless I had to. Then I got a few good jobs, and had kind of a lot of money to spend (after I spent what I had to on school). Then I became a spender. I got lots of stuff I didn't need, and I loved it. It was so much fun to go shopping and spend money that I had! Who needs to save, right? Clothes, shoes, music, music players, random stuff I didn't need, .... yeah, all that - and more that I won't mention.

About a year ago, God nudged me in the 'maybe you should start saving money' direction. I opened a savings account, but didn't really put anything in there because it was so much more fun to spend it. Fail. 2 weeks ago, I stopped by a fast food place for lunch, and paid with my debit card like I always do. Nothing wrong with that, right? Well... to make a long story short, the guy I gave my card to was super creepy, and started asking me all these questions.... not cool. And here I had basically handed him my identity!

I was scared, and for good reason (God does things like that to make you learn, ya know?). So I decided to only buy stuff with cash that I had with me. And to only take x amount of cash out of my account every week. So far - it's been amazing. I've been spending less money, and really thinking "do I have enough cash to buy this, and if I do buy this, will that leave me lunch money tomorrow?". Plus, I'm not handing my name and life information to any random stranger. Life is good.

But life is harder. I was in a bad rut of being able to buy whatever I wanted, and it's hard to get on this new path. God's been helping me in the past couple weeks to turn away from my spending-ness and to save more. I still really want to buy that really cute necklace in the store window. But do I need it? Nope. And I've been learning (while still failing sometimes) that living without the stuff you want but don't need, is really an okay thing.

(the confession idea was started by Ally Spotts on her blog, continued by my friends Caitlin and Michael - and I thought I would join in) (even though I'm not quite 20 yet)

do hard things

Dance started yesterday. From then, to now, I've done 14 hours of dancing (and the week is just half over!). Right now, I'm so tired that I want to sleep for a week. My muscles hurt, my brain hurts..... but it's all awesome! My students are great, and the people I work with are more than great. :)

Cute moment: taught preschool dance today - the girls are 4. Love it! Randomly, during class, one of the little girls goes "Miss India, I have a question." I tell her to go right ahead and ask - she goes "I - I - I just love you." This is why I do what I do. That, and it doesn't really get any better than getting paid for doing something you love (even if you hurt when it's all done). :)

powerful words

"If possible, on your part, be at peace with all men."

-Paul, via the book of Romans, via the Bible