What a wonderful Thursday...

It's the last day of May. Our five month anniversary. A Thursday. I guess everyday has something really special about it if we get down to it.

I am taking a break from my mountains of work to do for these online classes. Pretty much the only thing that keeps me going is knowing that at the end of this crash course in Management, there is a Master's degree waiting for me! It's pretty interesting, too, to be able to study some things that are not in my "field." It's neat that I am finding ways to apply the ideas and concepts from these courses that are for people getting their MBA to education and life in general. Neatttoooo.

The day ahead, hmmm... so many things. Ben is out right now seeing if he can find a job closer to home. We are currently sharing my Cavalier that has over 100,000 miles on it. I bought that baby brand new, so it's hard to see it aging. I know I sound like a nerd, but you get attached to a car when you're always driving it. Anyway, the job he accepted and is supposed to start Monday is pretty far from home, and he is expected to use his own vehicle (my baby) to go to job sites. Most of them are in the DC/Northern VA area. Once I got more details about this, I encouraged him to start seriously looking for something closer to home, since it shouldn't be a problem finding SOMETHING. He's frustrated with me, but I've had to make this drive he is going to have to make daily. It's not pretty, not to mention that the car is having some minor transmission troubles. This job will not be compensating us enough for tearing apart our personal vehicle. So, that is one of the things on my mind today..... We are waiting until later in the summer before we buy a new car for me, and quite honestly, I don't want to be making two car payments, so I'm praying that the Cav will survive a little longer.... I'm also praying that he'll find something close to home that he enjoys. I don't want him traveling so far everyday, not just for the car's sake, but for his safety and in the long run, happiness.
There is nothing pretty about rush hour traffic.

I looove being back "home." It's fun that I can IM or call someone and be like, "hey, come over." I had a few good friends in Frostburg, but it wasn't like I could ever just call and be like, hey come over and hang out. I guess I did a few times, but my point is that I love being back!

Well, I guess I need to get back to work. I have some cleaning up to do (trashing boxes) and hanging up some more things, because our pastor is coming to visit this afternoon. He is pretty new, and made it a goal to go visit every single member at their home. I think that is awesome, and something I haven't experienced before. It was funny, we're so not used to this, that Ben was like, "whyyyy is he coming?" It's sad really. But anyway... back to work! Have an awesome Thursday.

Change of Plans...

I hate it when my plans get changed. I mean, for real, who doesn't? We love to be in control! I, definintely looooove to be in control of everything... isn't that one of the signs of a firstborn?

Alright, so yeah... back to my story. In this post, titled, change of plans, I will attempt to explain why I have only gotten about 4 hours sleep total in the past two nights.

Thursday morning I woke up around 9 and was like, hey Ben... you REALLY need to go out box hunting today, we are moving in less than a week. I was starting to work on materials for my tutoring session that was to be at 4pm. A friend instant messaged me and wanted to go out for lunch. I agreed, and Ben came along. It was a late lunch, and since it was going on a little after 2, I said we needed to get going since I still wasn't ready to go tutor. Our friend Gail drove us back to our apartment, and as we were getting out, Ben's phone rang.

The conversation sounded crazy, and I asked him who was on the other end. He said here, talk to my wife. I KNEW this was going to be a doozy. Pass the phone off on me... goodness... So, I get the phone, and it is a wonderful worker at the leasing office of the apartment complex we were supposed to be moving into on May 31 letting us know that they would be paving the entire parking lot of the complex and that we wouldn't be able to get our moving truck, or any vehicles for that matter, near our building on that day. They are telling us that we must move in early or wait indefinitely to get in....

You say, Lindsey, what is the problem here. Well, I will list them for you:

1. It is Thursday afternoon before Memorial Day weekend.
2. Ben graduates Saturday.
3. We already have Budget truck reservations for May 30-June 1.
4. It's Memorial Day weekend.
5. It's Memorial Day weekend.

I will just sum up about 3 hours of calls on my cell to various places that rent any vehicle large enough to move a small apartment, calls to friends of Ben's to see if we can borrow their trailor, calls to Ben's dad who wouldn't agree to tow the trailor with his truck because of the mountainous terrain. (I have towed this particular trailor, back when I was a lot younger and less experienced as a driver, through VERY mountainous terrain. We drove the whole way to Georgia with it. I had a lot of the shift through some real mountains.) So, don't call my cell phone til June.

Ok, I am tired of this story. I will just say that it's been ridiculous, but Ben graduated, all our stuff is in Abingdon, and I am exhausted. I am tired of telling this crazy story. I will just say though that this girl here can move her whole apartment in less than 48 hours with even less notice than that.

I actually see God's sense of humor in this, in that just the night before all this happened I posted that blog about missing camp. I feel like I have been working camp the past two days. Working like a dog on no sleep. Road tripping, packing like a pro, etc. uhhh...

Oh yeah, and something is wrong with our ONLY car's transmission. Lord help us. We were going to be buying a new car hopefully by the end of the summer, but I don't know if those plans will have to change? We shall see. The transmission isn't doing what it did this morning, but I can say that it's not allowed to make another trip to Frostburg!!! Ugh.

I know this was disjointed and random, but I am soooo tired right now. I am still all wound up though, so it's hard to sleep. AND, this apartment is ridiculous. The neighbors upstairs keep making noises like they're hammering the floors at all hours. PLEASE pray that they will chill out during sleep hours or that God will help me not wake up to it anymore. Uhhh the woes of being a light sleeper.

Well, I think I need to go.

I am soooooo going to miss camp!

Alright, I know I already posted once at this obnoxious hour, but I started watching stuff on my youtube account, and I saw one of the flashback videos I made two summers ago while I was the video producer on the most awesome Crosspoint team there ever was! OK, enough of that, anyway...



Oh my goodness I am going to miss camp. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do, thus far in my life, but it was one of the most worth it. Ohhh... camp.... I... miss.... you.....

Word of God Speak!

I was reading my cousin Terri's blog. By the way I am thrilled that she has one, and no, not because I am tired all of her emails :) Anyway, this made me think of an awesome time in my life. This is basically the comment I left her. It was just too good not to blog for myself!

I think it is amazing how God, when we are at our extreme lowest, sends us specially personalized encouragements. I was going through a time of depression about four years ago now, and I didn't even want to get out of bed in the morning, let alone have to go to work and hold it together all day with a ton of kids!

I was on the way to work, listening to the radio, and Mercy Me's, Word of God Speak, was on the radio. The sky was sort of overcast, but a little sunny. It really didn't look like rain. I didn't think much of the song, since it was pretty popular back then...overplayed, ya know? I didn't even pay attention to the words really. I was stuck on my misery... I turned off the car and got out to go into the building, ready for another day of trudging through and wallowing in self pity.

Then, the song came into my head as I walked. "Word of God, speak. Would you pour down like rain," And, wouldn't you know it!? It started seriously POURING DOWN SERIOUS DOWNPOUR RAIN! "Washing my eyes to see, Your majesty. To be still and know, that You're in this place. Please let me stay and rest, in Your holiness. Word of God, speak!"

I instantly felt like God was giving me the go ahead to rest in him! It was all I could do in the joy that filled my soul to not just stand there in the rain in awe. I think I kind of did for a little while. It was a pretty surreal time, one of those ones I always treasure. That was my, "Lindsey, I love you, I am here for you. Have hope!" message that I needed at that moment.

I had hall duty that morning, so I got to stand in the hallway, soaking wet, and greet all of the kids as they came down that particular hallway. They all asked why I was soaking wet. I just smiled. I think I smiled the rest of the day. I couldn't help it. There wasn't a whole lot I could say. It was just what I needed. Thank God for those times! They mean more to us than we can even explain to another person, and that is awesome. They are right to us, from the God who loves us more than anything!!!!

We're moving in 8 days! Yay! I'm so like a kid when something exciting is happening. I don't think it's all bad, though. Just because I'm adult does not mean I shouldn't get excited about things. I think that one of the most fun things about me is my enthusiasm for even the smallest things. Yeah, I know, enthusiasm about some things is a little overboard... but there is just something wrong if you can't get enthusiastic about sooomething, right? I feel bad for people who aren't enthusiastic about anything, ever. So, I'm like a kid looking forward to Christmas... ready to move in and decorate the muuuch bigger apartment. Praise the Lord!

So, I have some wacky insomnia or something. I have always thought there was something wrong with my circadian rhythm or whatever. I have no idea what's wrong with me, but I can't sleep well unless its between 6am and noon. I stayed up until 6AM! I just wasn't tired. I was bored out of my mind and didn't want to make a lot of noise, because Ben's circadian rhythm must be normal... weirdo. I decided to make a video of our goldfish. Rachel Ray was on in the background. I wasn't paying attention, but her rambling about fish tacos is pretty funny since I am filming my fish. Let's see if I can get it to post, since it's a myspace video...

Fishies



Add to My Profile | More Videos

Did that work? If not, I will youtube it later

Awesome

Embedding is not allowed, but you HAVE to watch this video... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYTIWcXbYfY

I saw this a long time ago, and I just found it on Youtube! It meant a lot to me, and I hope it will to you as well.

Random Smathering of Thoughts and Feelings.

So many things going on in my brain at the moment. Things are going well, that's for sure. I think sometimes I put myself in a tizzy when there is change coming up. Sometimes I think I worry more when things are going right but changing than I do when things are so-so, but stable. I find myself being here in Frostburg wishing soooooo badly we could just move home already. There are some pretty awesome people here, do not get me wrong. I just miss home. This is a place to be at the moment, not home. "Home" isn't really home either if I look at my life with an eternal standpoint...

I went to an orientation for one of my classes I will be taking online this summer. It's all about Leadership. One thing the teacher talked about was being out of our comfort zone in order to grow. I am actually sort of sad that I won't have this class in a traditional way with him, because he seems like he would be pretty interesting to have for lecture. Anyway, I needed to be reminded about the whole comfort zone idea. I think that for this year I have been out of my comfort zone a little. The adjustment to being here was a little rocky. I've been pretty depressed on and off while I've been here. I've gained weight, and every woman knows that adds to the viscous cycle of being depressed. When you already feel crappy, your jeans being too tight doesn't help things much. Oh the woes of womanhood...

So yeah, comfort zone. I went on a little tangent there. :) I know from the past that God teaches me the most when I am not in my comfort zone. I think that Frostburg started out not being my comfort zone, since I really don't like change too much. I kind of avoided opportunities to hang out with people, for whatever reason. I can recall more than one instance last fall when I turned down invites to go do things. I don't know what my problem was. I can't go back and change things, but I can remember that next time I am in a change situation, and one is quickly approaching, that I need to take advantage of the invites to get involved and make new friends. I know that I will be closer to home, but it will be different.

I know that it might seem that going back where things are familiar would put me right back in my comfort zone, but my roles will be changed in every aspect of when I was there last. I'm "out on my own," not living with my mom anymore. I am a wife. I will be a teacher, not merely someone's assistant. I won't be in school anymore. These are all things that I hoped for when I was trying so hard to get through school. It seems to me that God took me away and is bringing me back there with a new role in life. It's both awesome, because my dreams are coming true, but scary because it's new.

I feel that God has prepared me so well for the things that will be happening here in the near future. I need to trust more and not worry. There is just a lot of emotion that goes into how excited and happy I am to finally have a teaching position!!!! It amazes me that I ended up at a school where I know so many of the teachers and am already familiar with the culture. I guess within the whole comfort zone mentality, I will be at a familiar place but with a new job. I remember how hard it was for me during the time of my life I was there. I was struggling with so many things in my life. I was ready to break off from the familiar things and the role of always being someone's sidekick. People wouldn't let me grow up. I don't mean within the job, but within my life. I was so sick of school. I just wanted to be done. It seems like it was so long ago, I think because of how different I am as a person. It was interesting to me as I interviewed that I was able to give answers that included my ability to see the big picture. I was a "little" person. I worked my way up.... I get to see things from so many perspectives. It's so neat to go back where I came from, a different person. And, despite my new roles and changes, people will still call me Lindsey Bennett! :) <--- which now is kinda like my mom yelling "LINDSEY JEANETT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I'll deal though.

So, ugggh I need to stir up the motivation to get these assignments done for one of my classes. The term doesn't start until May 29th, but since we are moving that week and I have 3 classes all together, I am wanting to finish most of this class in the next week. It's interesting stuff, I'm just not in the thinking mode at the minute. I also have this crazy pillow project going on. I couldn't find any pillows I liked for our living room at the new place, so I got some fun fabric... and I am putting those sewing skills my mama instilled in me to use!!

Wow, I am so random. I think I really might have a touch of ADD. I am so serious. I took the online adult ADD screening a while back and I had most of the warning signs. Oh well. I think it helps me better understand my students! :) Later alligators!

Thanks God, and good night.

Yeah, yeah... so a few of you are on to my big secret! Ben and I both have jobs and we're moving to Abingdon! (I couldn't have asked for a better job, quite honestly....good things come to those who wait.... I know and love the school, and although I won't know many of the kiddies, I am SOOO excited to work with the teachers again, and get to know the new youngins!) I won't post everything up in cyberspace, but if you want the details, email meee! We are also officially moving into our apartment on May 31, since they ran our credit and criminal background checks and we're good to go. (I knew we would be, but I get freaked about about that stuff. I used to get all A's in elementary school and be scared to death when report cards came out that I would fail. Yeah, I can be slightly eccentric!) I am pretty excited. God is amazing. More blogging to come, but for now... I am sleepy and ready to go to bed. Nighty nighters!!

Random Fun.

I found this in my YouTube account... I made it over a year and a half ago. Enjoy..

Lindsey, just be patient!

I am waiting and waiting by my cell phone to see if I end up getting any calls back after my marathon of interviews on Monday. I feel pretty good about at least 2 of the 9, since I knew the principals. I'm sure the others went well, too, but yeah.... So I'm just waiting. Trying to be patient and remember that it might take some time for things to end up in the right place at the right time, etc. So, I will update you when I know!

My walk to work...