Hello blogging sister!

I have completely forgotten about our blog these days! Honestly.. I have completely forgotten about blogging in general these days. Life has been far to scattered and inconsistent, lately. It seems like it is always this way during the spring. This spring it is much worse however, and that is to be expected with the changes that are happening this year.

I hope that we can have some peace in our lives soon and just know where we will be next year. I am starting to settle into the idea of teaching for another year. (There are pros and cons to that idea, but I am going to try and cling to the pros.)

It is awesome that you gave things up for lent. To be honest, I don't even know when lent begins and ends. The Vineyard doesn't really talk about these things in their church. However, we are doing this FREE series in our small groups and that is basically the same concept of giving things up. The whole book that we are going through is about giving up the things that keep us from being free to love God fully and live life to the fullest. It is based solely on individual freedom.. specifics to each person. It has been a really great series. I have learned a lot about how to let go of the things that hold me back. (Mostly worry and fear.)

How has your lenten season been going?

By the way.... IT IS YOUR BIRTHDAY TOMORROW! I hope that you have a wonderful/beautiful day! You are going to be visiting soon... and I am SOOOO excited!!

Well... much love and talk to you soon!!

It's my birthday month.

and soon, it will be my birthday SEASON. i can hardly wait!

how was philadelphia? i hope it was all you had anticipated and much, much more. i can't wait to hear about it. it still makes me daggone sad that you were so close and i couldn't see you. man... i miss you.

april 23 cannot come fast enough!

this is officially the shortest and most meaningless post ever. i'm really tired. but i love ya! write to me sooooooooooooonnnnnnn!!

LOVE.

WAZZZUPPP

i gave up facebook for lent. and boys. and capital letters (not really). but i gave up facebook because i waste too much time on it and it's sad. and i always get depressed when i'm on there--like hoping somehow the friends will come alive and be in my living room and we'll play hold 'em and drink troeg's... such a disappointment! i always end up just alone in my condo (which i actually pretty much love, if i'm not wasting time wishing for something else).

and boys----i gave up boys, even though i have none, because i allow myself to be stupid about them. so helen and i (one of my favorite people--you have to meet her sometime :) decided that for lent, we're not thinking about them. we're actually not sure EXACTLY what we're going to do (ooops.... i already used capital letters four days in... haha). we're going to come up with a plan in the next day or two about tangible action steps or something, but the goal is to have a 40-day period where we re-focus our hearts on God in this area of our lives. cuz i've been distracted! blah. i hate it.

and i think along with that--i really want to seek God about what's next in my life. because in the back of my mind, i've sort of been thinking, whatever is next may not be here. but i don't know. and i sometimes think: i'm not moving again alone. i want to be married and move WITH someone. i want to share it with someone. but along with the boy distraction and prayers for it to go away, has been an awareness that i might need to move alone again. and my life doesn't start when i get married; it's going on NOW. single or not. so i want to embrace that and trust that He knows best. which i do, but at the moment, i'm just distracted.

we need a phone date soon again. but until then... MUAH. and... i love your new valentine's day necklace :) tell toby i said "good job!" and don't forget the exclamation point!

Aw.. Shucks..

Thanks for the sweet love! I love you too! Question: what does B-T-Dub mean?

Sounds like you had a busy day with GREAT friends!

Toby and I celebrated on Saturday. I had a pretty miserable day teaching on Thursday, so when I came home he cheered me up by giving me my Valentine's Day gift early. He got me a really awesome necklace at Banana Republic. (Pictures will be on my blog soon... if Toby remembers to bring home the camera battery charger today.) I was possibly going to wear the necklace to school on Friday, but decided against it, because I didn't want anything to happen to it when I hadn't even worn it for him yet. Friday night we basically laid around all night.. we watched the opening ceremony for the Vancouver Winter Olympics and then headed to bed.

Saturday we got up, made cinnamon rolls, and watched some TV. Then I got ready to go, and put on my new necklace! We went to Chipotle for lunch, went and saw Valentine's Day (which I liked as well... btw... Toby and I have a tradition that every V-day we go to the movies and see a romantic film.. this is our fourth year doing so!) After the movie we had some time to kill before church, so we walked through Value City Furniture for fun and then went to Starbucks and got a cinnamon dulce latte! Yum! Then we headed to church. I was scheduled to be in the children's church to help with the little kids. It was just me and Denise (the lady in charge of the children's church) with seven little kids! It was sooo fun! I LOVE helping in children's church! After church we mingled with people for awhile and then headed to Pad Thai for dinner! We then came home and turned on the TV to watch some Olympics, but our satellite receiver decided to break on us. So instead we looked through the Design Sponge blog at the "Before and After" sections and dreamed about our future home.

Then yesterday, we slept in, got up, made cinnamon rolls and watched "Amelie." Have you seen it? Then we actually went back to bed and napped for like two and a half hours!! It was pretty great! When we woke up we decided to go rent some movies and get some lunch. We took Matson with us, because I thought she would love a break from the house. We rented "Couples Retreat", "No Impact Man", and "Whip It." Then we decided to take the Element through the car wash... and Matson was SCARED TO DEATH! We got some Quiznos for lunch and headed home. The rest of our day consisted of three movies and a frozen pizza. All of those movies were excellent, by the way! I am sincerely considering buying the "Whip It' soundtrack!

This morning I received a text message at approximately 5:45 that informed me that school was cancelled for the day! It is snowing a LOT here! (Not really in your terms.. but for us.. a lot.)

That is enough about my weekend.. let's talk again soon.

i love ya!

(I'm not very good at blowing a kiss to the camera)

Happy VALENTINE'S Day!! :)

Valentine's Day is so funny to me. I really can't describe it. I really don't wanna be one of those people who is anti-Valentine's Day and gets all upset and has to assert the fact that she's single. Cuz that's silly. Like, it really is just a commercialized day, but it's also kind of cool to take a day and just think about the love I have in my life--it's pretty awesome. B-T-Dub, I'm kinda thankful for you :)

I spent yesterday and last night with Danielle and Liz--we ate at B-Dub's and rented the Hangover, but we didn't start it until like 2am and we all fell asleep before it was halfway through! So we slept at my Bible study leader's house because Danielle is house-sitting. And then we went to church at the Weinberg Center in downtown Frederick because we usually meet in a school but all schools activities are cancelled until Tuesday per the weather. Then I went to Helen's church in Rockville and then Kayla and I went for Mexican and went and saw Valentine's Day, which was actually pretty cute :)

I was asked on a date, but I told him no and that's a whole different story for another day...

How did you and Toby "celebrate?" (if you did)

Pink Fingernails!

I thought I would share my freshly painted pink fingernails with you! All in the name of boredom and getting excited about Valentine's Day! Love you!

Kitchen renovation

When we were in Cleveland last year we went into this cute boutique called "Room Service." Well when I got home I checked out their website and found out that the owner also has a blog.. so I decided to follow it. Well I just went on and checked out what she had been blogging about and found photos of her recent kitchen renovation. I love it... but I think it would take another girl to understand! So you should go check out the rest on her blog. You should check out her shop's website too!