A Little Arizona Sunshine

The past 3 weeks I've been here at UCA, one thing stands out. I only cook for 1 person. Do you know what this means? 1. Lots of leftovers 2. You eat the same type of food all week so you don't have items going bad in your fridge 3. Lots of leftovers 4. You get tired of that same type of food, but realize that 40 minutes of prep time isn't worth it to make something else. 5. You start wanting to cook for other people My best friend (for those who don't know who that is, it's Heidi) was always the one in our friendship to invite people over, make food for them, and to take joy in service. I personally never felt that joy. I just felt prune-like hands at the end of it from doing the dishes. (Okay, in all honesty, we had a dishwasher and when we didn't, I usually just entertained her while she cleaned... I know I'm a horrible best friend. I have, for the record, done dishes at her house a few times when I wasn't the partaker in the food. Please...

Are you familiar with Cognitive Distortions? If not, you should be. Understanding them may greatly impact your life for the better. One of my strongest distortions is All or Nothing thinking. I'm coming to realize that this invades every area of my life. - Job Tasks - Hobbies - Spiritual Convictions - Reading Books (I have read through an entire series of books in 2-3 days. Pages and pages of information. Done. Because I had to finish the series. It's a problem.) - Relationships - Food - Facebook While I'd love to discuss and throw around ideas about all of these areas, the one I'm most hit with right now is actually..... Facebook! I deleted my profile (Completely deleted it, like, gone gone. No re-active life for me) in July of 2012 and was FB free for 2+ years. Why? There were many reasons. But in August (I think?) of this year I decided to open it up again because I was moving to Spokane in January and wanted to keep in touch with several friends that...

In December, I completed the HEALTH program with 30 or so of my new friends. Here's how it impacted my life: - I lost 22.6 decagrams... that just sounded more impressive than .5 lbs lol - I gained more or less 5,000 pounds... of new friendship. My expectations of the program when I signed up were very different from what I encountered. In some ways, that was negative. But in many more ways, it was such a blessing. What did I expect? - To be thinking about myself and my own health the entire time - That I would be alone for the most part other than my outreach partner (Shout out to JUBY!! I miss you cuz!!) - The programs would be dull, but necessary to learn how to facilitate. - I would change drastically in a physical sense - I wouldn't change that much in the way I viewed my world - That I'd make simple friendships that wouldn't be that deep because, hey! we're only here for 4 months, so why get attached? (Right. Like that ever happens in a Summer progr...

I'm currently studying the Old Testament and came across something incredibly applicable to me. This is just one of the numerous, amazing ways in which God speaks to me directly. After Joshua leads the children of Israel into Canaan to conquer and settle, you see an interesting transition period in the book of Judges. The people of God have, up to this point, been either in slavery or in a migratory status. During this journey they have had several issues they've struggled with. The food, the leadership (although they literally had the best leaders ever in Moses and Joshua), discomfort in moving around all the time, having to be dependent on God for every little thing (the soles of their shoes never wore out), and other such inconveniences. THEN you have them entering into Canaan. The amazing leadership is gone. They have to learn to grow crops and sustain themselves in this new environment. They are now living among non-believers and figuring out how to stay faithful to ...

I finished a Journal recently (Journal of Doom, not the one I write only pretty handwriting in) and wrote this poem to reflect on that feeling of finishing a notebook that you've written on every page. Enjoy! The weight of a journal filled with ink will for years communicate what I tend to think Does it glorify God? Does it show I'm in love? Did I focus on the positive events in my life enough? Am I living in the past or the future ahead? Am I fully in Christ? Or into myself instead? The weight of this book when the ink is on the page will show if I've been free or trapped in a cage.

The long awaited post. First and foremost, I apologize to each of you who count on me to update my posts in an orderly way. I have failed you. I basically let my blog burn in that Weimar fire a few months ago. I am ashamed. BUT IT IS RESURRECTED! so please don't hate me too much. Today will be a reflective post... not so much funny. I just got to Spokane Washington for my new stage in life at Upper Columbia Academy. But before I flew up here, I had the privilege to be apart of several things. HEALTH Graduation, A Christmas Benefit Concert, Pet Ownership, GYC Pre-Conference Outreach, and GYC. I want to do a separate post for everything, but what I want to write about right now is GYC Outreach. I (cringe) didn't go on Outreach this GYC because my bestie and her husband were taking me out somewhere special. But I went to the training and gained a blessing. Was Ricky hilarious? Obviously. Was AJ just as funny? Um, when is he not? It was actually during the appeal for at...