Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Snow Day!

Today was a snow day! Woo hoo! :) It was so great to have a day off. Here is what I did:

Exercised (I did this "fit for soccer pro" game on the wii and it was intense!)
Cleaned the apartment
Made scrambled eggs and cinnamon rolls for breakfast
Made BBQ pulled pork sandwiches for lunch
Made chocolate chip cookies from scratch
Painted my nails
Watch Footloose
Took a nap
Paid bills
Did homework for a class I'm taking for work
Did a load of laundry

It was a good mix of getting things done and doing fun things. Hope you all had a great day too!

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Parts of Psalm 63- my favorite Psalm.


Psalm 63[a]

A psalm of David. When he was in the Desert of Judah.

You, God, are my God,
    earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
    my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and parched land
    where there is no water.
I have seen you in the sanctuary
    and beheld your power and your glory.
Because your love is better than life,
    my lips will glorify you.
I will praise you as long as I live,
    and in your name I will lift up my hands.
I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods;
    with singing lips my mouth will praise you.
On my bed I remember you;
    I think of you through the watches of the night.
Because you are my help,
    I sing in the shadow of your wings.
I cling to you;
    your right hand upholds me.

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Ice Skating.


Last night we went ice skating. We had a groupon for it and had been saving it for awhile (actually we tried to go once in December but they had run out of skates, so we couldn't get in). Last night was a great night to do it! It was so nice to get some fresh air after being cooped up inside all week, because it was too cold to ever go out for recess at school. But it finally warmed up some yesterday- yay! It was fun to break out the old skates again. I took lessons back in Jr. High!


Fun date night. :)


The rink. We went to this outdoor place downtown. It was nice to go while the sun was setting!


View of downtown. :)


My favorite sights at the rink were: 1. This boy was wearing hot pink gloves, and he kept bending down and wiping his gloves on the ice, and then licking the remnants off. He would lick the entire glove, and he kept doing this over and over. Yuck. 2. This little boy was skating with his dad, and he was so excited he was flailing his tiny legs everywhere. His dad had to hold him up the entire time. 3. This older couple got on the ice, and initially they didn't look very good, but then they surprised everyone by doing coordinating dance moves together to the pop songs on the radio. It was funny. :)

Then we went to Texas Roadhouse, but it was so packed that we ended up getting takeout. This was a great idea since we were both so famished after skating/eating late. It was one of the most delicious things we've had in awhile. :)

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Count your Blessings.

This January has been tougher than normal to count my blessings. Kley was off from school (started back today!), and it's been very cold the last few days. Also, I've gotten several new kids at school this month, which always takes time for adjustment. Adding more kids to the room makes it more chaotic, and adjustment periods are always tougher when they aren't used to it. So, I've been working on counting my blessings this week.

Here are just a few of the things I am thankful for:

A place to live.


A warm bed.


Spring Break Vacation coming up to Florida!


Seeing my good friend Stephanie for most of January (she hasn't been home that long in awhile!).


A trip to Denver coming up to visit my good friend Lauren! (Taken the last time we visited them.)


My siblings. (I was looking through old pictures the other day and stumbled across this one. It's my new winter favorite. Ha.)


 My parents (taken in 2008 in Michigan).


Beautiful creation.


 Sunsets. (Always makes me think of Psalm 19:1- "The heavens declare the glory of God...")


Oh, and I'm pretty thankful for this guy too. :)



Sunday, January 20, 2013

Spirituality in Marriage.

This post has been floating around in my mind, not really knowing what to say and wondering if I should even post it, but not wanting to ignore the topic either. Because I think it's important. But I also don't want to share too intimate of details, as part of our marriage is just for us.

Sometimes, well, all the time, I think spirituality in marriage is hard. It's hard to find the balance between having healthy and growing spiritual lives apart and together. This past month has not been good for us spiritually. When one of us was doing well, the other one wasn't, and we didn't do a very good job of connecting together spiritually.

We find, and assume that most other Christian couples find, that when you are having marital problems, a lot of it stems back to how you are doing spiritually. It's ironic that God is the most important thing, yet often times when you are diagnosing a problem, He can be the last thing you sometimes think of.

We had a good, and much needed, heart to heart last night about our spirituality. We have been not doing many things together to connect spiritually. And you know what that's brought? A lot more fights, disagreements, short tempers, and all in all, a lot of things we don't desire our relationship to be.

It's so good to clear the air. Realize your issue and come back to God. But sometimes it's hard for be to trust and wait for the change, because I want it to be better RIGHT NOW. But that's not always how it works. I will never appreciate the mountaintop experiences if we never go through the valleys.

I am proud to be married to a man that desires to be the spiritual leader, and a good one at that. I am blessed to be married to someone that isn't afraid to admit his mistakes, that pushes me to talk about it so we can get better, asks for forgiveness, offers forgiveness, and tries to do better.

Thank you God, for always using our experiences to mold us for the good. Thank You for forgiveness, and the opportunity to grow and be better.

Sometimes it's okay to not have everything together. Sometimes it's okay to be broken.

(Kley pre-read this post and okay'd it, as I would never want to post something he didn't want me to or that revealed something he wanted private.)

Skiing and Tubing!

One of my Christmas presents to Kley was an outing to Sleppy Hollow Sports Park for a day of winter fun. We brought my little sister, Kayla, along too! We went skiing and tubing. It was quite fun and neat to do something different!

This was only my second time skiing. This is a picture of the beginner hill, which I am proud to say I mastered. It was also fun to teach Kayla to ski- it was her first time! She got the hang of it in the end. :) 


Kayla and I (not the best picture, I know). We hung around the beginner slope while Kley ventured onto the big ones. Most of the trouble was hanging on to that crazy rope that yanked you to the top!


Kley and I.  A successful and fun outing! :)


Tubing was so crazy fast down those hills that I couldn't get a good picture. We were flying!

Friday Food.

Friday night was pretty laid back. We got Panda Express takeout (one of our new favorites), and I made homemade banana chocolate chip muffins. Yummy. :)




Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Blast from the past.

Sometimes I like to watch our old wedding slideshow for fun. So, here are some of my favorites from years past. Enjoy.




























Sunday, January 13, 2013

The hole in my heart only You can make whole.

Sometimes I get upset over people making the same mistake over and over again. Sometimes I get upset over the same issue in marriage coming up over and over again. Sometimes I get upset over teaching my kids the same things over and over again.

Psalm 145:8- The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love.

What a great verse! Thank you, Lord, that you ALWAYS embody this verse. I would like to consider myself a gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, and rich in love person. Sometimes I am. But a lot of the time I am selfish, impatient, quick to judge, and lacking love.

I am a type A person. I like to plan, know what's going to happen, and be organized. Mostly this is a good thing, but, sometimes your strengths can also be weaknesses (said wisely by my husband). This becomes a great weakness for me when I play God in my own life and try to live without Him.

I can't believe how many times I have had to relearn this lesson. Over and over again. Yet God always yearns for me to come back, always displays patience and forgiveness towards me, and never leaves.

This week wasn't very good for me. I felt grumpy and easily annoyed this week. It felt like a long week because it was the first full week back after break. I was grumpy because it was cold and the sun wasn't out. I was grumpy because my kids were misbehaving. I was not patient and loving like I should have been. I was grumpy because I had to go to a teacher training at night after working all day. I was grumpy to have to fast all day to give blood at the doctor after work. I was extremely grumpy to get a filling at the dentist. I was grumpy that Kley is still on Christmas break while I had to go to work and do those other things.

I also let my spiritual time slide this week, which only compounded the situation and made it so much worse. What I really needed was to fill myself up with Him to help me deal with the tasks I had to complete this week, but instead I grumbled to myself in my mind.

It's astounding how easily I forget God. I was driving yesterday, feeling grumpy and wondering why, and it hits me like a brick that my God-sized hole in my heart is gaping open, completely unfilled.

I am so thankful that God never forgets me, and He welcomes me back with open arms.

John 14:6- Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

Jesus is the only way to true life.

I am thankful for a relaxing weekend to help me recharge after last week, and I am thankful for God's never ending love and forgiveness. This weekend I am thankful  I got to go to Target (and Kley even came with me!), order Olive Garden takeout and had my favorite soup for my sore mouth after a filling, watch a movie, catch up on sleep, see my best friend, have dinner with my family, and have a relaxing Sunday afternoon with Kley with great conversation/connecting.

Thank you, God, for blessing me even when I am grumpy, for rejuvenation, and for loving me even when I mess up. Thank you, God, for filling up the hole in my heart.

Not to us but to Your name be the glory.


Thursday, January 10, 2013

Joy in sledding...Conspiracy of naughtiness.

Hello! Last night I was going to post about "joy in sledding," but blogger was freezing and wouldn't let me. I was going to rave about how awesome of a day Tuesday was, but today tainted my vision of the wonderful post because it turned to a conspiracy of naughtiness. Funny how that works.

Tuesday and Wednesday my awesome coworker was sick. But, thankfully Tuesday was a really good day anyways. Tuesday was "bring your favorite outside toy" day, and someone brought the most perfect sized sled for a two-year-old with a rope attached for me to pull it. It was so great and the kids had such fun! It makes the 20 minutes before of getting everyone's snowpants, boots, coat, hat, and mittens on so worth it. Their laughs and smiling faces were such a blessing to be a part of. I was sweating by the time I was done! Also, one of my kids who I have been struggling with some behavior wise had a super good day on Tuesday, and we even called dad to tell him about it, I was so proud.

But, today I think my kids had a secret meeting before school and decided to revolt and all be naughty together. This was one of the worst behavior days I've had in awhile. It was unreal how off almost everyone was. The student who had a super good day on Tuesday had one of their top worst days today.

On the bright side, we did have a really good Bible time today. I was so encouraged. This week at school we are talking about how Jesus chose 12 disciples and they were followers of Jesus. We've been talking about how we can be disciples. Today we looked through a picture book of Bible stories we have learned about, such as Noah, Jonah, David/Goliath, Daniel, Mary/Joseph, and talked about whether or not they were good disciples of Jesus and why or why not. It was incredible how well they remembered previous stories and were about to talk about them and make connections. I was so happy! Their little hearts for Jesus are inspiring and encouraging.

So, there you have it, the highs and lows of teaching, all within a few days. Thankfully, the good so outweighs the bad. :)

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Weekend of seeing loved ones.

This weekend was a pretty good one! Friday night was our work Christmas party. We ate, talked, and found out who our "Secret Sister" was and gave them our last gift. It was so much fun and I was so glad I was able to go. It was great to be able to be together just girls, enjoying our time and fellowshipping. I am so blessed by my coworkers and my job!

Saturday I was able to hang out with my friend Stephanie, who is here for two more weeks until she moves away to DC! We went to Target, and I got a new swimsuit and a few groceries. (I am just a little excited for spring break! :) Also, as a side note, I LOVE going grocery shopping. I was discussing this with Steph, who said she hates it. Funny how people are so different! Going grocery shopping is seriously one of the highlights of my week. I love the feeling of providing, planning, accomplishing a task, and cooking! We also got some Starbucks and painted our nails. A great outing I would say!

Saturday night we hung out with my family, eating Little Caesar's pizza and playing a rousing game of Taboo. :) My sister, Karlie, is still home, so we wanted to see her again before she goes back to school tomorrow. (My brother, Keaton, went back on Wednesday.)

Today was spent at Church- it was so great to have Lifegroup again after having a few weeks off for Christmas. This afternoon we took a nap, and have been spending a lot of time reading the book Radical by David Platt (a separate post about that later). We are almost done with it.

Hope you had a great weekend!

P.S. Tomorrow the Bachelor starts! Unfortunately I won't be able to watch it on Mondays due to teacher training for the first few weeks, but I will definitely be catching up on Hulu. :) Also, the next three Mondays in a row, I'm getting a new kid in my class at school. I am praying the transitions go smoothly and that they adjust quickly (and me as well with my class growing)!

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Your love never gives up on me.

Sometimes I struggle to let things go. It's something I am working on. You know when you feel like you've dealt with, mastered a situation, and moved past it, but then you see something that instantly reminds you of the situation and you feel angry all over again?

That happened to me today. I was hurt a lot by my previous boss. It's something I can't/don't want to reveal intimate details about on the blog, but I felt like I was handling the situation really well, but then today I saw something that reminded me of the hurt and I felt so angry again.


As hurtful and hard as the situation was, God definitely use that situation to mold me in many ways- as a teacher, coworker, professional, and helped shape me spiritually. It was a huge lesson for me in letting things go, which was something I needed.


That instance today was a vivid reminder that no matter how good I think I am doing, I NEED Jesus and will ultimately fail without trusting in Him.


On the way home, I heard this song, and it really struck me today. Your love NEVER gives up and it NEVER runs out on me. Always. No matter how many times I've messed up. Thank you, Jesus! 



"One Thing" by Jesus Culture


Higher than the mountains that I face

Stronger than the power of the grave
Constant through the trial and the change
One thing remains
One thing remains

Your love never fails it never gives up it never runs out on me x3

On and one and on and on it goes
It overwhelms and satisfies my soul
And I never ever have to be afraid
One thing remains

In death and in life I'm confident and covered by the power of your great love
My debt is paid there's nothing that can separate my heart from your great love


Today I am thankful for my current boss and that I got to love on my kids again after a long break! 


Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Continuation of greatness (2013).

Happy New Year friends! 2013 has officially begun.

We rang in the new year super low key, and I was totally happy with that. This was the first year we felt like old adults with no plans. My best friend, Stephanie came over and hung out with us- yay! My brother and his girlfriend also stopped by, but they were only here for about an hour. We made dinner, ate Steph's yummy desserts, watched the movie New Year's Eve, and then watched the ball drop and people sing on TV. It was pretty boring, but I loved it. (And how funny is it to watch New Year's Eve ON New Year's Eve? Ha.)


I was going to title this post the beginning of greatness, but that's not true, so I changed it to continuation of greatness. 2012 was pretty great for us, and I'm looking forward to 2013! If your 2012 wasn't too great, I hope you can have a great beginning to 2013. Kley and I are blessed with great family, friends, Church, a place to live, a great law school, and a great teaching job. Nothing too monumental happened to us in 2012, and that's okay. Sometimes the ordinary routine is a wonderful blessing in itself.

This Christmas break was so awesome- it was so nice to have extended time off and to be able to relax. As sad as I am do see it end, going back to school is pretty great too. I truly do love my kids and I'm excited to hug them again tomorrow.

2013 here we come! I'm ready to visit Colorado, Washington DC, and Florida, and to keep trucking through law school! Thank you, Lord, for many many blessings. You are GOOD!

Psalm 136:1- Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. His love endures forever.