Home

I love being home so much. Ever since I've been gone, I've appreciated it so much more. I do everything I would've done when I was five years old -- make cookies, sleep in my Christmas pajamas, and watch Beauty and the Beast. I absolutely love it. Getting to see my family is amazing.
I've gotten to see a bunch of my friends too because I'm here working Fright Night. I haven't gotten to hang out with my best friend this time or last time I was home which I'm kinda disappointed about, but I've gotten to hang out with my other best friends. But sometimes there's just that one person you need, you know? 

Ducks

Today I got out of class early. That means I was done with classes by 9:00 AM. Thursdays are definitely my favorite for that reason. So I came back to my dorm and did some required reading lying in my bed and eventually ended up taking an hour long nap until my alarm went off playing "Wonderful Cross" which I've set as an attempt to give me a reason not to hit snooze in the morning. I did some more homework then went and grabbed a smoothie with Sarah and watched her carry a huge care package all the way back to her room. Her mom basically sent her a box full of cans. hahaha. So then I made some microwave pasta and finished up a bit more homework. Then came the fun part of my day. I grabbed the ends (and one good piece) of my new loaf of bread and headed over to Lake Mary Nell again. I wrote Michaela a letter (which I know I'm going to forget to mail for a couple days) and just sat on one of the swings for awhile. Finally I decided to pull out the bread and wake up the ducks who had been sleeping under one of the trees. I easily lured them back to the swing. They were so excited I almost stepped on a couple of them. They still make me laugh at how excited and friendly they are. They were very curious about my camera too. A couple even bit it trying to figure out what it was. I kind of got stuck behind my camera for a few minutes and when I finally looked up I realized one of the swans had come over to check things out. That's the closest I'd ever seen any of the swans to a human before. It was pretty cool. He wasn't even excited about the bread, he just wanted to check things out. So I spent WAY too much time playing with these ducks and taking pictures of them. But it was definitely worth it. After that I had practice which was really frustrating because we still haven't gotten lib down. It's mostly my fault, so it's extra frustrating. We should definitely be able to hit it. Oh I should probably explain that I'm a cheerleader on the coed team at Elon University for all of you who don't know me too well.  I'm a new flyer though -- I was always a base. Anyway, we should totally be able to hit lib by now. Matt's strong enough and I've done them with Hampton before.  Hopefully we'll get it soon though.

I have so many of these pictures, but I won't bore you guys right now.

<3

I’m not a good writer, but sometimes you just have to write.

I’m normally more of a visual person so writing is a pretty foreign concept to me. Words never seem to come out like I plan them to. They’re always all rearranged and misspelled (I’ve used spellcheck twice so far) but recently I’ve felt the need to write. Not so that anyone will read it, just so that I can get it out. In fact, I’m not sure that I’m even going to tell any of my friends I’ve made a blog. Maybe it’ll just be for me and all the strangers who happen across it.

Anyway today has been a rather relaxing day in spite of things. I went to my two classes this morning, got a salad for lunch and ate it while venting to my mother over the phone. Then I had a meeting with my philosophy teacher (aka. peter pan meets aristotle — girl version). That took literally about five minutes. Afterwords I walked down to Lake Mary Nell and found the ducks. I’d brought the ends of my loaf of bread which they rather enjoyed. They tried to bite my fingers off a couple of times. Good thing ducks don’t actually have teeth or I’d be hurting right now. So basically I sat with the ducks for about an hour laughing at how they were acting like dogs. I kept getting weird looks from people passing by who saw me giggling to myself. But you would’ve laughed too. I promise. Feeding the ducks is probably my new favorite thing to do. I think I’m going to try and stop by again on Thursday, this time I’ll bring my camera and try to get some good pictures of them. After I ran out of bread I just sat on one of the swings by the lake and read for awhile. The ducks all fell asleep. Around 2:45 I headed over to one of the coffee shops on campus and treated myself to a white mocha and worked on a paper for a bit. I love how the coffee shop always has good music playing. Old stuff, like Frank Sinatra. That’s my favorite to hear in a coffee shop. I’m back in my room now. I should be doing homework because I have practice in about an hour. Oh well. 

I started reading this book. It’s called Crazy Love by Francis Chan. It had been recommended to me by numerous people and now I see why. I didn’t think it would tell me anything new. I don’t know why I always assume to know everything, especially about something so complex. Of course I’m learning new things like crazy. I love seeing other people’s thoughts. Francis knows God. I want a relationship like that too. I’ve been messing up a lot recently, but I think I’m finally getting back on track. 

Hold me to that.

There’s a quote from the book that’s been governing my thought today. It’s really helped me a lot, so I’ll share it with you…

“Worry implies that we don’t quite trust that God is big enough, powerful enough, or loving enough to take care of what’s happening in our lives. Stress say that the things we are involved in are important enough to merit our impatience, our lack of grace toward others, or our tight grip of control.”

God is powerful enough and he loves us enough to take our worries and our stress away if we just trust Him. So what are we holding on to them for??