Weekend Smorgasboard of Happiness.

This past weekend was spent with family doing fun family things... and school.  I start out with Thursday, even though that's not a weekend.  Thursday is Introduction to Basic Chemistry 101.  My Chemistry professor is hilarious.  He has this nerdy, dry, awesome sense of humor that I can relate to.  During lecture he threw me off while discussing Lewis dot structures and bonds...

...Well, I thought it was funny.

Friday Dave and I took the kids to their school's Fall Festival.  It was a bit of fun.  I got Cotton Candy.  Yum.  Lindsey Hula Hooped and Brendan tried to shoot some hoops.  They got to run around, bounce around, and have a bunch of fun.

 Everyone who has seen this says that I look like one of the kids. ha.  Oh well. 

My mom's birthday was the 23rd.  What a perfect birthday.  The day after Fall arrives.  Fall is my favorite because of the colors, smells, pumpkins, apples, candy, halloween, thanksgiving, sweaters, and temperature.  Love this time of year.  Well, it was a perfect fall day to be at Silver Dollar City so that is what I did with my mom for her birthday.  No kids, just us.  Riding rides, eating free cowboy food, and riding whatever rides she wanted to ride.  It was a great day.

Here my mom was giving the "eeeek face" because we were about to get on Powder Keg

She loves thrill rides... me... I used to like them until I started freaking out about my mortality ha.
We had a blast.
I'm so happy it's fall/autumn whatever you want to call it.  My favorite time of year.  It's the best.  Time for this...

You know your favorite season has arrived when all things "pumpkin" start hitting the shelves.  When you can't afford Pumpkin Spice Latte's everyday, this stuff is a wallet saver.  I also bought a can of pumpkin and a carrot cake mix to make my favorite easy peasy pumpkin muffins.  I am going to make a streusel topping for them and see if that makes them even more fantastic.

Happy Autumn you all!  Woo hoo!

I Guess This Needs a Title.

Just a few things to give you an idea of what is happening in my world.

First Chemistry Test was last Thursday.  I got an A.
First Math Test was yesterday.  I got an A.

All the iPhone 5 news has me starting to weigh the pros and cons and if I am going to go back to the iPhone or not when I am able to upgrade.  I use my phone heavily for school and my college is going to be releasing a blackboard app to iPhone and Android soon... that will leave me out... because I'm the geek with a Windows Phone.  Plus.  I miss having immediate access to Instagram.  Stupid that Instagram is that important to me in a smart phone.

First Psych test is this Saturday.  I should be studying for that instead of typing out this blog.

I've been doing photosessions again.  I feel a bit rusty, but I have taken some images I'm pretty proud of.  Like these images of Selah, Becca from Life in Technicolor's daughter.  She turned 21 months, so we chased her around for an hour.  She is so curious and her smile is like watching a firework.  It's just so big and bright, you can't help but smile too.

I also did a maternity session for Danielle from Flourish blog. 

I'm enjoying getting back into photography a bit more.  I missed it.

That's all the new happenings in my life right now.  What's going on in your world?  What do you think of the new iPhone, or do you not care about smart phones and gadgets?  Have a great Thursday everyone.

Avery is 9 Months!

First of all, I want to thank you who left me some advice and encouragement on my last post.  Don't worry, I am not giving up... I'm just regrouping.  I know it will all work out how it's supposed to.  I am going to talk to a guidance counselor tomorrow.

Avery!  She is 9 months old now.  It's neat to think that this time last year I was 7 months pregnant!  She is already as old as a pregnancy is long.

• She is crawling EVERYWHERE!
• She loves to holler, I am not even kidding.  If you hold a note out or say AHHHHHH really loud for a long time she will do the same thing, it's so hilarious.  She will even match your pitch!  Yes, my baby is a musical genius. Ha.
• She is eating regular food.  She never liked the mushy baby food.  She is a very good eater.  
• She is pulling herself up on furniture and cruising around.
• She likes PBS Kids cartoons, Yo Gabba Gabba, and listening to music.
• She is still a sleep fighter
• She is clingy to Dave and I.
• She has 8 teeth.
• She likes to make it nearly impossible to change her diaper and clothes by rolling, crawling away, and grabbing for things.
• She sleeps through the night very well.  Goes to bed at 8 and wakes up at 7am.

I think that's about all.
Here she is in her happy 9 month old baby glory.

Somebody asked me when I was going to stop doing the monthly pictures.  I will stop at 1 year.  Her birthday, December 9th, will be the last monthly Avery update.  After that it will just be whenever I feel like posting pictures of her.  Nothing scheduled though.

I hope that everyone of you has a wonderful week.

What Now? (UPDATED)

I started today out with such a good feeling that I was on my way.  The plan was to go to class this morning and then take the math portion of the Compass Placement Test again.  The first time I took it I scored 63 which landed me in Math 050, basically beginners algebra.  No big deal.  Made an A in Math 050.  Found out last week that I still needed to score a decent number on the Compass Placement Test and my A in Math 050 wasn't going to get me into the nursing program.

It wasn't even a thought in my mind that I would score low.  I had a good grasp on pre-algebra or so I thought.  I took the test; it wasn't ANYTHING that I expected.  Word problem after word problem using ratios and percentages.  Word problems aren't my forte; I can figure them out generally, but I couldn't today when I needed to.  I let the fact that the test wasn't giving me the problems that I EXPECTED get to me and I shut down.  I scored lower this time than I did the first time I took the test.

I don't know where to go from here.  I can't retake the test.  I only have 2 chances and I failed them both.  There is no way I can get into the nursing program at Ozarks Technical Community College.  I have NO IDEA what to do now.  I don't know if I can try to get accepted at another nursing school... do they look at Compass scores?  This is all stuff that I have to figure out and fast.  Should I continue to pursue nursing?  Should I look into another field?  I have no other way to describe how I feel right now except to use a horrible cliche.  The wind has been taken out of my sails.

I have a lot of praying, searching, and figuring out to do.
Bad day.

UPDATE:  I didn't want to type up a seprate blog post for this update.  I am one of those people that needs a freak out period.  If something I don't expect throws off my plans, I inevitably freak out.  It's horrible, but necessary.  After the freak out, I always have a calm period where I begin to let rational thought seep back in.  I know that this wasn't the end of the road for my schooling, it's just the end of the road for OTC once I get my per-requisites out of the way.  I know I am not meant to go to nursing school at OTC.  I do feel I am supposed to go to nursing school, but that's in the future.  I will cross that bridge when I get there probably during the summer.  God has this.

Steadfast

There is a "devotional" app that I downloaded for my Windows Phone, but I know it's available on iPhone and Android as well.  My facebook friends are probably sick of hearing about it, but it's been so revolutionary for me.  It's called Another Day of Victory.  It sounds so cheesy, but really it's so good.  I get something from it nearly everyday that I read it.

One particular devotional that I read recently hit me in such a personal way.  It was about faithfulness, and I wanted to share with you a peek into my life the past 4 years spiritually.

In April of 2008 I was going to church regularly, I would sing on the worship team and in the choir.  I was on the whole, faithful to God.  I was wavering though.  I was letting little things pull me down and because I wasn't strong in my prayer life they were allowed to grow into BIG things that eventually caused me to lose faith and completely withdraw. I let myself get hurt by what should have been some Godly wisdom meant to strengthen me, but instead I took it as an offense and I let that be my justification for leaving church and letting my relationship with God slowly deteriorate. By 2010 I was completely out of church and I was letting things into my life that had no business being there.

Fast forward to July 2012 and God was barely a blip on my radar.  He had VERY little to do with my life.  There were times that I wanted him to, I knew that I needed to get back into church, but I had gotten so far away from what I knew to be right.  I had so many problems and for some irrational reason I wanted to hold tight to the one or two parts of my life that I felt made me happy.

Finally God got my attention in a big way!  Helped me to see a lot of the ways I was being ridiculous and selfish.  My life had to almost fall apart before I would realize that the 90% of my life that wasn't good was that way because of the 10% that I considered a fun and happy part of my life was actually contributing to the unhappiness of the other 90%... I see that now.  We don't realize that some of the seemingly innocent things we let in our life can lead to compromise on a much grander scale.

This brings me to faithfulness.  I consider myself a very loyal person.  It is built into who I am naturally.  I have an easy time being faithful to family and friends, so why did I have such a hard time being faithful to God?  Is it because I can't see him?  Is it because I let doubt slip in?  Probably, but if I truly love God the way that I say I do, then I should show God the same Faithfulness that I show to the people that are in my life.

Faithfulness is being steadfast.  Even when things aren't going so great.  Even when I feel that God isn't listening or doing things quick enough for my liking.  Faithlessness is a very selfish act.  Ironically it is an act of faithfulness but it's faithfulness to one's ego.  I detest selfishness and egotistical people... yet, I was being that person to God.  I want to be STEADFAST in my love and relationship with God.  I want to be FAITHFUL!

Maybe some of you can relate, maybe some of you can't.  If you can't relate in a spriritual way, then maybe you can see how this realization that I had can translate into the relationships you have with the people who are close to you.

Have a great Wednesday everyone!

LINKS!

As you can see, it looks a bit different around here.  I'm really liking it.  It's simple.  It's clean.  That's not important.  What is important is that I want to be sure I am following YOUR blog.  So please, if you can take a moment, leave me a link.  I tried to go through your profiles, but some of you don't have a blog linked up to your profile... so PLEASE, leave me a link here in the comments.

Thanks!

Happy Weekend

It's been a terrific weekend so far.

Started it out on Friday by meeting Dave at HIS favorite restaurant since, well, forever. ha.  He loves Mexican Villa.  Burrito Enchilada Style.  I am not a huge fan of the place, but there's something fun about being in a place that your spouse loves so much.  It was fun to see how excited he was when I told him where I wanted to do our lunch date.  :)  I encourage all you couples out there, eat at your spouse's favorite restaurant even if you don't like it.  It's a great bonding time and odds are you will find something you don't absolutely despise on the menu.  

This is the Burrito.  It's HUGE.  Dave took this picture and ate this food ha.

Saturday we cleaned and I baked a pie for Dave.  He loves apple pie.

The apple wasn't intended to look like the "apple" apple... but it does. ha.

My favorite day of the week is Sunday.  I love my church, I love the pastor, I love the people... It's home.  I took this picture this morning.  It was a pretty day today.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend.  If you get Monday off for Labor day, I hope you have a great 3rd day of your weekend.  Tonight, Dave and I are going to stay up late and watch a movie.  Maybe.  I might fall asleep.  I'm tired ha.