beautiful!

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain in to joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.

(taken from http://bravenotsafe.blogspot.com/2008/10/dangerous-benediction.html)

Fall break!

This past Thursday- Sunday was fall break. I totally needed it because i'd survived nine weeks of school and managed to make it without getting sick. (Here's hoping i don't get sick at all because i got my flu shot.) Most of the weekend was spent hanging out with Andy because he took the days off to spend time with me since last Monday was my birthday and last Wednesday was our three year anniversary (if you wanna be all official like that, though we've technically been together longer than that...) He took me out to lunch and dinner and bought me the flowers in the picture because i'm SUCH a girl like that. I like to get flowers at every opportunity. Overall, it was a really relaxing break because we didn't do much other than sleep, eat, read, watch tv and movies, and hang out with my cats. That's my idea of a good break!

The other thing that i FINALLY got done was my felted purse !!! (Can you tell i just learned to add pictures?)I've actually been done knitting it for a long time, i just hadn't taken the time to actually felt it, mostly because i was a little nervous about how it would turn out. But after two times through the washer with hot water it turned out beautifully! (Thanks to Emma and Dawn for the encouragement to knit something that's hardre than a scarf or a blanket. And for their help for some of the more technical knitting stuff that i didn't understand at the time.) I did pick up some knitting books when i was at the library so we'll see what i end up knitting next, besides the scarf that i'm working on, which i should add i'm very proud of because i managed to figure out the pattern all by myself!

I...

I am: complicated.
I think: too much.
I know: words are beautiful.
I have: two kittens.
I wish: I could make my students care as much as i do.
I hate: depression.
I miss: my roomie.
I fear: icky bugs (aka all bugs other than ladybugs...)
I hear: purring kittens.
I smell: laundry.
I crave: ice cream. Mmm...
I search: for awesome stuff at Goodwill.
I wonder: why i'm tired when i slept more than normal today.
I regret: not being confident earlier in life.
I love: Andrew and my family.
I ache: cause my trainer kicked my butt today.
I am not: able to come up with an answer for this one...
I believe: in God and that people are good.
I dance: with people.
I sing: A LOT. Almost every time i'm in the car.
I cry: to express almost all of my emotions.
I fight: my expectations of how things are going to happen.
I win: at scramble. I am a scramble genius (most of the time).
I lose: my patience.
I never: agree with going to war.
I always: love kittens.
I confuse: my students.
I listen: when i need to.
I can usually be found: with Andrew or my family.
I am scared: of losing the people i love.
I need: reassurance.
I am happy about: being on fall break.
I imagine: getting engaged and married.

We play Wii

Today has been a good day.

• I woke up in a wonderful mood. Spent some time reading and drinking coffee, before heading to Sunday school.
• Andy and i headed over to my parent's house where we hung out with them and Sarah since she was home for the weekend. Andy brought his Wii over and we got my parents addicted. The funny thing is that their favorite games were the shooting games (aka duck hunt). They seriously were cracking up while they were playing.
• We watched the crappy Colts game and decided that #23 needed to be pulled from the game, or that Peyton needed to "accidentally" tackle him...
• We had cake, ice cream, and presents for my birthday. My presents included an Indian purse and blanket, a black beaded shawl, and 3 purple Pyrex dishes to add to my ever growing collection of 20 some pieces.
• Now i'm watching Andy and my dad play tennis. My dad has decided that his new favorite Mii to play Wii with is Buddha:) And i have to say that i absolutely LOVE how well Andy gets along with my family.

Oh. My. Goodness.

I have discovered what could be the coolest website ever. It's dailylit.com and there are bunches of books available (many of them for free!) that they will email them to you in installments. The idea is that most people read their email more than they read a book so that way you can read part of a book simlply by checking your email. I love it so far!!!

Just a thought

"When a group of folks are committed to mutual spiritual development, we can be transparent and vunerable because we can trust that others will have our best interests at hear as they speak the truth in love to us. They will know us as we are and will lovingly force us to arrive at the same knowledge." -Monk Habits for Everyday People: Benedictine Spirituality for Protestants by Dennis Okholm

I love the idea of this as something to strive for in a community. At Chris and Steve's wedding i got to hang out with a lot of friends from church, all of whom i know and love. It made me realize, yet again, just how much i appreciate having these people in my life and getting to be a part of their lives. It's nice to be able to be yourself around people and have them love you.

4 things

4 things i did today

• woke up early and then was sad that i don't get to watch my yoga guru anymore (note to self: call comcast...)
• taught my darling children
• ate salad for lunch even though i was at Max and Erma's because i was thinking about talking to my trainer tomorrow
• drank at Debi's for WAY longer than expected and felt totally taken care of when she made me a grilled cheese sandwich;)

4 things to do

• pay rent!!! (hopefully this is the month i figure out my online payment)
• drink LOTS of water (to negate the previous drinking )
• try not to concentrate on my current wedding planning obsession since so many of my friends are getting married
• finish reading at least one of the four books i'm reading

4 guilty guilties

• reading other people's blogs
• playing scramble on facebook
• listening to books on cd (i think it's pretty dorky, but i just love being able to accomplish something while i'm driving to work)
• watching pretty much every design/style/cooking competition on Bravo

4 randoms

• I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE perogies
• i kind of like grading papers
• having a fan running while i'm sleeping is essential to my getting a good night's sleep
• i don't think i could live without my kittens;)