New Year

Wow! A new year already! Time flies. I've been terribly slack in my blogging, but I'm hoping to get better. I told Paige I would do this get organized challenege with her as long as it was something that I could do. Obviously, I can't organize kitchen drawers, which was the challenge yesterday. Another one of my goals this coming year is to try a new restaurant every month. I don't know where I'm going to go in january yet, but if you have any suggestions let me know. I have several changes that are coming up this year, but it's nothing I haven't faced before i.e. moving. The job thing probably will be a little more challenging, but I'm working on trust. I like to be in control and I need to let God be in control. Today I went to FBC Charleston with my friends Krista and Jason. Jason is leading worship at the sunrise service which is their contemporary service. Today was their first day and I wanted to go and support them. They did a wonderful job. The church is gorgeous and very old as it was founded in the late 1600s. I really enjoyed the service. I went to sunday school with them as well. Jason is also in charge of the young adult ministry and so they were going to go the singles class. There really wasn't any one there except for the teacher and one girl. I do think that a few more people come, but they just weren't there today. The teacher's wife actually was the one who taught since he was sick. She told us that they are trying to build up the singles class, because a lot of people are leaving once they finish college. I knew exactly what she was talking about. Those who know me know that I've struggled with that for a long time. Not about leaving the church, but how everyone else does. I've struggled with the lack of fellowship and that's what she talked about in sunday school. FELLOWSHIP! I don't know if God wants me to leave the church I'm at or not. I do know that I heard exactly what I needed to. It's definitely going to be a prayerful decision and a step way out of my comfort zone. Anyways, on a more light hearted note, a goal I've set for myself is to go to the gym twice a week and spend at least 30 minutes there. Reading all these medical books has made me realize that I need to take care of my body and one way to prevent sickness is exercise. I'm not kidding. It was listed in almost every disease as one way to help prevent it.

Busy as a Bee

I've been so busy lately with school and work that I just haven't had time to blog (who knows if anyone reads this anymore). Anyways, I've decided that starting in January, I want to try to eat at one new resteraunt a month and blog about it. Anyone have any suggestions or want to try places with me, let me know! I made some really yummy cookies a few weeks ago. It was a recipe I found online. They were peanut butter cookies with a surprise inside. I found a recipe online that was called Santa's Snicker Surprise Cookies. I bought some snickers to put inside but I also tried reeses and rolo's. The rolo's were the best! The caramel and chocolate spread through out the middle of the cookie! So good! I now have a new cookie to add to my christmas baking list this year.

Exercise

I decided to join the Y at the end of september, mainly because I could join for half the price. I haven't been as much as I should, but I'm working on it. I was told to start at a 3.5 pace on the treadmill. The first day, I went a little over 2 miles at that pace. The next time I went I did a 3.5 pace for a mile and a 3.7 pace for the second mile. I ended up doing 2.2 miles. Today I went again and set my pace at 3.8. After the first mile, I increased it to 4.0 for a .1 mile and then went back down to 3.8 after that. When I hit 1.4 miles, I decided to increase it up to 4.0 for another .1 mile (the song on my ipod made me want to run). 4.0 wasn't quite a running pace, but I stayed at that pace for about .3 miles. I ended up doing 2.2 miles in about 40 minutes. Hopefully, I will gradually be able to increase my speed and build up my endurance. Right now, I'm fighting a cough and a potential sinus infection so hopefully once I get past that, I will be able to do more.

Life

I'm starting classes to get my medical coding certificate. I'm hoping this well help me get a full time job in the next year. I'm ready to just have a steady, stable income, which in this day and age is going to be hard to find. Anyways, I've been having fun editing photos in photoshop. I must say once I get started, its kind of hard for me to stop. I LOVE IT! I also bought a cupcake book. I just made brownie cupcakes. I have no idea if they taste good or not, but the batter was good. I made everything from scratch! I don't know if I've ever made a cake from scratch before. It was definitely interesting! Here's a picture of my cupcakes.

Disappointment

I've been thinking a lot about my church lately. It's gone through some major changes. I've tried to adjust to these changes. However, I just feel like the spirit is just gone. I have been getting more from the sermons, which was a complaint of mine, but other than that, nothing. I have no fellowship with anyone. I'm not involved in a sunday school, because right now I teach. However, even if I didn't teach, there is no sunday school to go to. I was talking to a friend about it and she made me think about how it's so different from when I first started going there. It was smaller and there was definitely more fellowship between people of all ages. They had dinner on wednesday night and once a year would have a big dinner on the grounds. That's all fallen to the wayside as the church has grown. I found out some recent news that upset me and made me question the decision making. I'm unsure what I'm going to do when august is over. Prayer would greatly be appreciated, because I've been at my current church for over six years and any change would definitely be out of my comfort zone.

Reading List

Most everyone knows that I love to read. Normally, I read a lot of fiction. However, lately I've been reading a lot of books besides fiction. Some of my most recent ones have been:


Forgotten God and Crazy Love by Francis Chan


Radical by John Platt


I Am Hutterite by Mary-Ann Kirkby


The Price of Stones by Twesigye Jackson Kaguri


On my to read list are:


The Christian Atheist by Craig Groeschel


Hinds Feet in Hinds Places by Hannah Hurnard


Has Christianity Failed You? by Ravi Zacharias


No More Christian Nice Girl by Paul Coughlin & Jennifer D. Debler, PhD


Plan B by Pete Wilson


Becoming More Than A Good Bible Study Girl by Lysa Terkeurst

Jesus Career Counselor by Laurie Beth Jones

Photoshop

I by no means claim to be an expert on photoshop. However, I'm slowly learning. Here's a little thing I put together which shows the progess I made on one picture. It was really washed out because of the position of the sun, but I figured out how to edit it to make it look a lot better in my opinion anyways.