I was just reading Olivia's blog and saw this:

Fast forward to the end because you'll get the point... anyway, this led me to think about the formal this weekend. Jamie, Chelcie, and I asked the guys in a much less creative way. Oh well, we still all got "yes"s despite the countless hours of waiting for a response. Good thing boys usually do the asking- it wasn't even a big deal and we were still freaking out.

I've never actually met Olivia, but she is Anna's sister and I love love love her blog.

I really don't like studying, and I'm really bad at it. So even though I said I probably wouldn't blog much this week, that might actually mean I'll blog a lot- it's a great way to procrastinate and I refresh my "blogger dashboard" every fives seconds but people don't blog that often so I figure I'll just blog myself if I have already read everyone else's!

Tonight my small group is having a progressive dinner, and I'm super excited... even though it means I'm going to have to go home and FRANTICALLY clean when I get out of class. And I have a paper due tonight... don't know when I'm going to write that (that's what I was attempting to do before I ended up blogging- much more important)!

While I'm sitting here blogging, Scott is skyping me from his western civ class so I'm awkwardly waving to him, Jamie, Chelcie, and Melissa... the girl behind him is staring at me. I FEEL FUNNY.

My home for the week. Please come visit.

Only posting this because this girl and this guy

are bothering me about blogging.

TTS- time to study

WHYYY...

... are plane tickets so expensive?!?

I just want to spend time with these wonderful people.

That's all.

Mom, Dad- Christmas is coming soon! :)

Update on the past week and a half of my life...

I know, I know- it's been a while...

Thanksgiving was wonderful and such a great reminder of how blessed I am. Also a reminder of how strange my family is. Gotta love em. My mom invited this new lady at her work to come to our Thanksgiving lunch at Aunt Cindy's so we picked her up and on our way my mom was telling this lady who all would be there. This is when I really realized how weird it is.

"So you know it's not my family, it's my ex husband's, but they're every bit as dysfunctional as my own. Ed and I are compatible. Delaney's an only child. Well... sorta. She has a half sister- Ed's other daughter. With his other ex wife. Olivia's a wild 7 year old."

and she continued to go on about Milt, my cousin's fraternity grandfather, and all the other random people that could possibly show up.

Today I went to the mall to volunteer at the Angel Tree like I have every year for as long as I can remember. People watching on Black Friday is always entertaining. Chelcie and fam came and visited for a little while, and then I went and met my mom for lunch. My car is pretty much completely out of gas. The light's been on for a while and the needle's at E. So my plan was to get my dad to drive my car... but he still hasn't. Meaning I'm either stuck at his house or going to have to buy my own.

The other night Nicole and I made buffalo chicken pizza. It called for GORGONZOLA, PARMESAN, SMOKED CHEDDAR, MONTEREY JACK and bleu cheese, but we decided just to use cheddar and jack. We substituted ranch dressing for the bleu cheese and used a rotisserie chicken and pilsbury dough instead of making our own. It was really good. Just ask Beezy. He came over to have some and loves my blog so I figured I'd give him another shout out. Something else he really loves is Hannah Montana.

Matt is leaving for Rome ridiculously soon and it makes me so sad to think about, but I am so dang excited for him. What a cool experience! And he promised to call every day (ha). I don't think he realizes yet just how much he's going to miss me!

Chelcie called me when she got home from the mall to see if I had gotten my acceptance/rejection letter from the Education program. She told me she had gotten in so I was a little nervous to hear my results. As I was dialing my mom's number to ask if it had come in the mail, I received a call from her and answered by saying, "You can open it." Turns out that IS why she was calling... so she opened it, read it to me, and I got accepted!! So now Chelcie, Nicole, and I are all in the Education program at UT and scheduled to intern in the Fall of 2012. We're growing up too fast, folks.

I probably won't be blogging a whole lot the next few weeks because I really need to be studying for finals. Yuck. And spending as much time with Matt as possible before he leaves me!

I'm blogging from my dad's computer or you know there'd be a picture. Another problem with my dad's computer... it doesn't spell check for me as I go like my computer does. So forgive any typos seeing as there are probably even more than usual!

The blog about what I'm thankful for will have to come another time because there's so much! and this post is already way too random.

Go read about our new Japanese grandmother on Melissa's blog. This time Melissa didn't make the story up... promise!

God.is.good.

I've been preparing my first ever Young Life talk this past week because I'm speaking at club tomorrow. Public speaking is one of my biggest fears so I've been a little nervous. Honestly not too bad yet, but I know that I will be freaking out come 7:00 tomorrow evening.

Today the sermon at church was about facing your fears... we heard a guy share about how he overcame his fear of speaking in front of people when he was asked to give his testimony at a men's retreat.

Pretty much every week at NorthStar I feel like God is speaking directly to me through Scott... and I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that way. It's amazing.

--Okay, I wrote all the above yesterday but never published it... so now I'm going to continue but it's today- the day of the talk! Ahh. I'm still not too terribly nervous, but I just did it for Chelcie and it was harder than I thought it was going to be.

Continuing on the "thankful" theme... I am so thankful for God speaking through Scott at church yesterday about facing fears. Because God has given me this privilege of talking to these kids, I am confident that He is going to speak through me tonight. I am confident in the fact that it is not my words, but His.

I want to blog more about yesterday's sermon sometime... I'll post the podcast link when it's up! but for now I need to keep going over my talk and study for my test tomorrow!

Thankful

Have I mentioned recently how much I love my small group? Because I do... a lot. The girls in there are just so encouraging, loving, and nonjudgmental. Most importantly they have a huge desire to be more like Christ- and it's so great to have a small community of believers with the same goal. Then we have Paulette to lead us and teach us. She is the wisest woman I know, and I just learn so much from her. I cannot express how thankful I am for this group.

I'm sitting here preparing my talk for Monday and just reading through verses that I've read a million times, I am overwhelmed by the love of my God. Thankful for those reminders.

Last night after small group I went to the guys' soccer game. Jamie met me there and brought me clothes to change into (I was still in my interview clothes). So thankful for this sweet friend and her being willing to do that for me. Even more thankful for her being at Sharp Top with me this weekend. I wouldn't have made it without her. She was so encouraging all weekend... and just seeing her smile would remind me that I was not alone. This was a reminder of how grateful I am that we get to do ministry together at CAK- it has grown so much since this time last year. Even though our ministries look completely different, we are in it together... and that is such a blessing.

Then Jamie and I went to dinner and Chelcie joined us. Thankful that she's going through the application/interviewing process with me and thankful for her blog yesterday that reminded me that I am not even close to big enough to mess up God's plan. He has it all under control.

I'm getting ready to go to lunch with my best friend Matt. Thankful for a chance to finally get to spend time together. Especially since he's leaving me so soon. Thankful for our friendship in general that started so randomly and has grown so much just in the past few months.

Later today I get to hang out with the other wonderful person in the above picture- Nicole! Thankful for no Wednesday night classes so that I can spend these afternoons with her. And even more thankful for her friendship.

Also so thankful for all the encouragement from so many friends yesterday before my interview.

Praying this week for discernment about spring break plans. Also praying for God to speak through me to these high schoolers on Monday night.

SHARP TOP

Sharp Top was incredible. More than I could have ever hoped for. God is so good. I loved spending time with these awesome sophomore girls and spending time with the west side leaders. It was great to get away to such a beautiful place for the weekend. The weather was wonderful- a little chilly, which made the half coffee/half hot chocolates that much yummier. These girls have captured my heart.

Our God...

... is greater

... is stronger
... is higher
... is healer
... is awesome in power


My precious small group
(plus my sweet friend Nicole and beautiful roommate Natalie)

Our gracious small group leader Paulette sponsored all of us to walk in the Race for the Cure in honor of my wonderful mommy.


As well as asking for prayers for the Campbells, prayers for my mom and my friend Casey's dad would be greatly, greatly appreciated. You can learn more about their situation on my dear friend Meredith's blog or this Facebook page. I've only met Casey's dad once, but I know he is a great man of great faith and would really appreciate you praying for him and his family.

I'm just so thankful that our God is healer... that He will take care of us even through these hard times... that He is comforting me in a way that I cannot understand... that He has a purpose and a plan for our lives... that He is using these trials for His glory... that He can use me as an instrument for His kingdom.

Sickness, such as cancer and Amyloidosis, is something that I will never understand, and something that will always be so hard to cope with. I can't imagine going through something like that without faith that God is filtering it through His hands and taking care of us in all of it.

"Just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to doesn't mean they don't love you with everything they have." -Unknown

One of my precious CAK friends, Macie, just had this quote as her status and out of the hundreds of status updates, this one really stuck out at me. Lately I have been so bad at getting frustrated with friends for not loving me [they way I want them to]. I know I just need to get over it, and I try... but then I just get frustrated again. It's not about me anyway. Whyyy am I so selfish? I am not the one who sets the standards for how someone loves. Maybe they are in fact loving me the best they can.

Praying that I can just focus on loving others well and not worry about how they are loving me in return. Thankful that Jesus loves me perfectly! :)

This is supposed to be a picture of Jamie and me "studying" at Panera. Hopefully I uploaded the right one and hopefully we look decent... I can't see my screen at all so this is quite risky. Jamie convinced me to take a personal day. I had no intentions of going to my first class so I just came to Panera to read Lord, I want to know You. Jamie made a surprise visit to my house this morning while I was getting ready so I told her to join me at Panera after ice-skating. Apparently I was moving kind of slow because she got here about the same time I did.

Last night I decided to go to the library. Solely to socialize because, like I said, I have nothing school-related this week. Needless to say, I was REALLY good at distracting my friends. We laughed. A lot.

Jessie and I gave up diet coke. Not going well so far. I mean, I've been successful... but I've been miserable. Good thing Jessie's being a Natzi and checking up on me. Can't let her down. Because of the lack of diet coke in my life, I got coffee before club last night because I was really sleepy. I usually don't drink caffeine after like 3. The coffee gave me zero energy for club. I was still so sleepy. But by the time I got to the library, it was DEFINITELY kicking in. Sorry friends. I was up til about 4 this morning. Just laying in bed. I knew this would be the case, but since I wasn't going to class this morning, I figured it didn't really matter. Woke up at 9. Didn't even set my alarm because I wanted to sleep in. Still woke up at 9. I'm glad I did though. Wouldn't want to have wasted any more of the day sleeping.

This is a special shout out to Beezy-- he makes fun of Jessie and me for blogging (did you know this Jessie?), but he will soon realize how cool it is. I'm sure he reads ours daily, and he'll probably start his own soon.

I'm excited to see my small group tonight, then hopefully some friends at their soccer game, and then West Side leader meeting for camp! Ahhh. I'm so excited for this weekend!!

pink punk pirate

While I was being super lame and writing a paper on Halloween... this is what Olivia was prancing around in. Apparently one of the houses gives out homemade kettle corn every year, so she brought me some and it was incredible. I like kettle corn and I like popcorn but I LOVE this stuff. It's pretty much a mixture of both- a little sweet, a little salty, and a whole lot of deliciousness.

She's sassy.

My teacher required that our paper be in Turabian style. You're probably wondering what in the world that is, and so am I... even after I've turned in my paper that hopefully somewhat resembles it. It took my dad and I HOURS to figure out how to make the footnotes correctly. I would've actually been done with the paper at a decent hour had I not had to cite it. Never knew citations could take SO long... so I didn't even leave my dad's til 2 and then woke up early to proofread my paper. There really wasn't any point in that because I don't have a working printer so I couldn't fix the mistakes. Oh well. I'm just glad it's over with... this week should be easy which is good. I need time to rest, relax, and spend time with the Lord preparing for this weekend. I'm so so excited to get to hang out with 19 of my favorite sophomore girls at such a wonderful place! On that note... time for a nap!