The good times...

I have a little bad habit of focusing on the rough things in life. I started this blog as a focus on the positives in my life, and lately every time I get the urge to blog, I just want to vent about junk. Hence the reason there hasn't been a lot of blogging going on around here. 

There has been a decent amount of junk lately, but I won't give in. Instead, I'm going to share some of my favorite things from the past few weeks.

Jamie at our campsite

Orangeleaf!!!

Valentine's Day Dinner at the Melting Pot.

Jamie stuffing his face with Orangeleaf. =)

My Dress for my sister's wedding!!!! So excited!

Qdoba with my love.

My beautiful flowering bush in front of my house. =)

Bazbeaux pizza!!!

Best camping dinner EVER.

(P.S. I originally posted this from my iPhone app, so I had to go add the captions later.  And that's why they are strangely out of order.)

♥

It's official...

My best friend is moving to Florida.

In 3 weeks.

Her husband got a job there.

I'm so tired of all my friends moving away.

I know I need to stop having a pity party for myself,

but I don't make real friends easily.

And they've all moved away now. 

Seriously, this sucks.

uggh.

I'm sick and it's ISTEP week. 

Boo to everything.

There is nothing worse than ISTEP.

Except maybe sinus pressure.

The good news is, my gardening and painting is going awesome.

Updates later.

When I don't feel like my eyes are going to explode out of my head due to sinus pressure.

And I miss my husband. 

Lots.

Uggh.

♥

Yeah, I thought I needed sleep last week....Haha

I am 20x more tired tonight than last weekend. 

The reason for this is that I had a little adventure last night. 

To make a long story short, my best friend Amanda and I went to dinner, 

and we were driving back to my car so I could drive home, at about 10PM.

Her brothers car (which he had switched with her because he wanted to use hers for a long trip) was making a strange noise. 

And, in the middle of the street, while we were driving through a residential area of Indianapolis, 

our tire came off.

Like, completely off our car. 

We went right into the turn lane as our tire rolled left across the street.

It was scary, and we were pretty shaken,

but safe.

Amanda's dad drove 40 minutes to save us and put our tire back on,

because her brother's car didn't have a tire iron.

Seriously. 

It happened around 10P.M., by the time I got home, it was 1AM.  

I get up at 6:30 AM.

Boo. 

Honestly, though, someone upstairs was looking out for us.

It could have happened to her brother on the interstate far from home. 

We almost took the interstate, and didn't.

There was no damage to the axle of the car or the tire. 

We were able to pull into literally the only turn lane on the entire road.

We found all 5 lugnuts in the street, none of them rolled into the rocky ditch or across the road.

We were lucky,

and I am so thankful.

Also adding to the sleep depravation, 

I started full time student teaching on Tuesday.

It's been quite an eventful week, in an urban public elementary school kind of way.

One drug deal, one abuse report, a screaming match full of swearing, hungry kids, a bedbug outbreak, and of course, lots of kids with need.

but good things too.

Successful learning, a lot of good relationships made with my students, and, especially today, lots of smiles. 

But, I am exhausted.

I start officially teaching next week, 

math all day, all week.

I'm actually kind of excited about it!

I love these kids so much already,

and I want to be a positive in their life.

Looking forward to the weekend, but I have so much to do.

I'm already overwhelmed.

Oh boy.

I think I'll start with some sleep.

♥

Seed starting

Woohoo! First gardening post of the new year!

I have decided I am going to add one thing to my gardening regimen each year,

and this year it's seed starting!

The nice thing about seed starting is that you just have to by the light and flats once, and then you can use them year after year!

The point of seed starting is to give you a jump start on having produce.  If you wait until the ground is warm enough to plant the seeds, 

You have to wait up to a month just for the seeds to become sprouts.

But, if you start the seeds before the weather is just right, you then have starts to plant, and you have saved yourself almost a month of time, meaning more produce, earlier.

I ordered the seed starter kit and light from Johnny's Selected Seeds,

who are quickly becoming my favorite supply store.

They even sent me strong starter soil to use.

I also order all my seeds from there, because they have an awesome selection of organic seeds.

I'm pretty excited about this.  

I think it's going to be a fun and interesting endeavor.

Also, Jamie has agreed to build this rain barrel this summer,

which I am ecstatic about!

I can't wait to start gardening.

It's so great.

♥

I need sleep...

Haven't been sleeping well again. 

This is becoming a recurring problem. 

I think it's because I've been stressed about school, 

plus I was up until 2AM on Tuesday finishing a paper, and had to get up at 7AM Wednesday morning.

But, i got that one turned in yesterday, and now I just have one paper between myself and student teaching.

I'm so ready to start student teaching, 

Graduation is so close. 

After we turned in our papers yesterday morning, we literally had discussions and presentations for the rest of the day.

Can you tell where my mind was?

This past Saturday we spent 10+ hours driving to Joliet, IL, to get Jamie's new motorcycle!

A lot of people don't know this, 

but he sold his first one to pay for my engagement ring. 

I love that man.

So we have been saving up, and he is more excited about his bike than he's been about anything in a while.

Unfortunately, it has been snowy and rainy and freezing since he bought it.

Which is kind of lame.

But, I just keep telling him he'll have every summer for years to come to ride it, so just be patient a little longer. 

He named it Mila, after Mila Kunis, hahaha.

Jamie and I are celebrating a belated Valentine's day this weekend, with a homemade fondue night!

We normally go to The Melting Pot (If you haven't been there, go, it's amazing)

but this year we just wanted to keep it simple. 

He also left this rose for me Tuesday Morning, which was very sweet. 

I hope everyone had a good Valentine's day!

I'm off to cook some lunch. 

♥

Keeping things moving...

Things are going well, my friends.  

This past few weeks, I've gotten locked into school mode, 

and it has been going really well.

I'm succeeding.

And that feels amazing.

I start my final session of student teaching on the 21st. 

I'm ready to go, ready to get it moving, and be done!

I started my volunteer tutoring on Wednesday,

through School on Wheels.

I love it! 

I feel so good doing it, it's totally worthwhile. 

The only negative is that I am back to seeing Jamie only on Thursday mornings and weekends.

Once I start student teaching, I won't see him Monday through Friday.  

Which is going to be really hard, but we've done it before, 

we can do it again. 

We just need to remember what is important, 

and to put each other first when we are together. 

Another thing that's happened recently is that my beautiful friend Misty gave birth to her beautiful baby Isaiah!! He is so gorgeous, and I cannot wait to meet him! 

It will also be nice to catch up with Misty, whenever that is. =)

I will leave you with my finished Metal and Glass still life, 

which I am incredibly proud of,

and the VERY early beginning of a landscape, which is my current project.

It if goes well, we are going to frame it and put it over our bed. 

Finishing up homework all weekend, 

only two big projects and I'm done with class!

Let's get this show on the road!

♥

Feeling good...

For the first Sunday in a while, I feel really blessed and lifted. 

We tried a new church (again) today.

Trying to find a new home church is so hard.

I started the morning feeling so frustrated and fed up.

We were running late, so we almost didn't go,

but I'm SO glad we did.

We tried "The Blended Church" this morning, 

and for the first time in a long while, I left feeling lifted and happy. 

We were hesitant at first, because it sounded too good to be true, but it turned out great!

For starters, I absolutely love seeing people come together despite different races and cultures, to worship our one God.

It was very inspirational, there were literally people of all ages and races there.

The building was simple, and I found out it is because they do a massive amount of outreach and community and missionary support, which is something I passionately believe in.

The worship was very gospel, with a little rock and even some funk thrown in, which is right up our alley. They have connection groups, and many great programs going on. 

The preaching is a bit more...enthusiastic 

than I'm used to, but it's not a bad thing, just different. And they have 3 pastors on staff, so I'm interested to see if it changes.

We haven't decided yet by any means, but I'm looking forward to going back.

I'm excited and feeling positive about Sunday mornings again, and I think this church has more potential then any others we've been too.

Yay!

♥