phew!

wow. so it's been a while. the last month has absolutely flown by. (plus i'm absolutely terrible at keeping up with this whole blog thing...) let's see, what's happened since last i wrote?...

well, as i said, i got a job. i worked as a lead cashier at murdoch's for a little over a month, before i quit to move back up to va for another year here on liberty mountain. my mom and i made the trip together again; we had several close calls, but God kept us safe, and we arrived last thursday in lynchburg, va, where we unpacked my junk, ate, and crashed. and i was thrust strait into student leadership orientation and the full title of prayer leader on my hall. i won't lie; it was a little nerveracking at first, to think i might be responsible for the spiritual welfare of a bunch of girls. i struggle enough with my own messes; i don't need to be screwing up other peoples' lives. but, as always, isaiah 40 prevailed, and last night i led my first ever prayer group.

and it was amazing.

if i needed any more convincing that this year is going to be an amazing year for my hall, i don't now. the freshmen that we moved in over the last three days are absolutely amazing, and i can't wait to get to know them better and spend a year both teaching and learning from them about Christ.

and now, leadership orientation is drawing to a close with one last 40 minute seminar tomorrow morning, and the returning upperclassmen will begin pouring in tomorrow with a few early arrivals. and i won't lie; i'm a little nervous for them. (if i screw up with the fish, they don't know; but the uppers will know in a heartbeat...) but i'm also really excited. i firmly believe that a lot of the hall's attitude will be determined by the attitude of the leadership core. and ours is amazing. so i think we're set. i have some butterflies, but i'll make it.

in other news, i have a fish. he's a betta. he lives in a huge vase-bowl-thing with texan decorations all over it, and his name is pecos bill. he's about as random and adhd as me, and he loves the david crowder band. life's good.

i'm also struggling a little with homesickness. i just found out a friend from home is pregnant again, and i miss being home and hearing in person. but what's even scarier is when i think that the next time i see my family, i will be graduating in exactly a year. that's positively terrifying...maybe i need to go read isaiah 40 again...

hope your week's been as amazing as mine. :)

oh, the irony...

so, i have a job.

but not where i wanted. those who know me know i was trying to get some different experience this summer by getting a different job that i had last summer. i actually was really excited about this position at hallmark, but the lady turned out to be kinda leading me on, and i didn't get the job. so, as a last resort, i went back to murdoch's, because they told me last summer that if i needed a job again this summer, they'd hire me. and they're not so bad. they pay's alright, and the people there are always really nice. most of my bosses and managers are great, and i've met some really amazing people working there, because the place is this pier out over the ocean, a total tourist trap. like i met this one lady (kinda) from japan last year, and we didn't really talk much, because she didn't really speak much english, but the cool part was that she used a credit card, so it was like this really weird cool looking japanese credit card, and when she signed the receipt, it was in japanese with like the symbols and everything. my manager and i admired it for a while later that day, when she was cleaning out my register. but yeah, the job's not bad or anything, it's just that the hours suck. on weekends, if you work the late shift, you don't get home till after midnight. ridiculous. anyways, so i went over there this morning to drop off an app and i was home maybe ten minutes when i got a call from the owner patrick, saying i start tomorrow morning at nine. so, that's you're update. i wound up back at the place i was trying to avoid. the unfortunate thing is, i know when my dad gets home, it won't be "well done, you got a job for a few weeks before you go back." it will be "see, i told you. if you'd gone over there in may, you'd have had a whole lot more income over this year." alas, i dread those words. isn't the important thing that i got a job? why does he have to turn it around to a lecture for me. i'm sure there's a lesson God's trying to teach me out of all of this, but i'm feeling just a bit hardheaded at the moment, so i'm not gonna think about it...

blessings in disguise...

so yesterday, my mom, who was borrowing my car while hers was in the shop, was turning a corner about a block away, on her way home to her loving, perfect, eldest daughter, often mistaken for an angel, when, lo and behold, my muffler fell off. just fell off. are you kidding me?? yeah. my luck, i tell ya...anyways, she managed to get the car home, where i laid hands and prayed...and then cursed it to oblivion in nothing...so, i had to drive my mom to the dealership, and my dad's brilliant idea is to use his old car, the one i'm taking my stereo from...yeah, that piece of...junk...so, i had to drive the clunker. half way there we realize there's something wrong with the tires, but we have to get mom's car. so we keep going, we get to the car place, and i check my tires. there's a bubble each on at least two of them. brilliant. so i have to drive home. i drive about 25 the whole way back, because testing my luck is inadvisable, and finally make it about a mile and a half away, when, oh yes, it starts raining. well, the windows were down because myrtle doesn't have a/c, but i soon realized i couldn't put them up. why, you ask? the wipers don't work, and it's generally advised that you stay on your side of the yellow line. loads of traffic (it's the weekend on a tourist island), a zig-zag way back, and it starts raining while i am without wipers. oyve. so, i'm making my slow way home amongst the traffic and now rain, windows open with the water pouring in so i can watch the line and look for the stop signs, the tires, shady as is, don't have traction because they've been sitting for a year and a half, on slippery roads that are just wet enough to make hydroplaning a likely possibility. i make it home (the trip taking altogether about 3 times as long as it should have), roll up the windows, turn off the car, open the door, and it stops raining. inevitable. i was wet.

but see this thought occurred to me. maybe i needed to get wet. when all was said and done, it wasn't that big of a deal. it only rained toward the end of the trip, the part of the road i know best. it could have rained the whole way, and i think i've only ever driven on harborside rd twice. i didn't have a blowout, and i could have. very easily. but the best part of this story happened this morning. a friend from church came over, for other some reason unrelated, and found out about my muffler issue. and he offered to fix it. just like that. amazing. people like him deserve a metal.

in other news, i spent most of the day trying to find random tools to get my car stereo out and never actually could find them anywhere. it seems they make everything to put them in, but never expect you'll want to take them out or, heaven forbid, lose the thing that came with the stereo. oh well, i'll have to figure out some ingenious way to make it work. at any rate, i'm out for now.