Bye Hair!

Hey everybody! I got my hair cut! It's really short, but I like it. Hope you do too! One of the AIM girls here has her beautician's license, and so she cuts our hair for free. Yay!

I'm so sorry it's been such a long time since I've written. Life here has really picked up and gotten busy - we had midterms and some big tests and some hard assignments, so I haven't had a whole lot of time lately. But I will try to get better at writing and putting pictures on here. I know I keep saying that, but it's so hard!

I really need to go and get some homework done, but hopefully I'll get to write more later. I love you guys, and I miss you. Thank you for helping to get me here...you are a blessing.

Overload.

Wow, what a busy weekend! From my birthday to Area Church to procrastinating studying, it's been crazy. I'm ready for some stability!

I never have enough time to do anything. Actually, that's not true. God gives me enough time to do things - I just don't manage it well. I really need to work on that.

I miss you guys. But I'm hanging in there. This week is going to be better.

What I make it.

So my birthday was good, but it was hard. It was really hard. I think it was because it was my first one away from home. I was really homesick. And I think I just had a lot of expectations for yesterday that didn't happen, so I felt let-down and sad.

But all together, when I look back on yesterday, I'll remember how loved I felt. My classmates really took care of me - they took me out to eat, made me a cake, broke curfew to get the eggs for that cake, made cupcakes, bought me cards, everything. I felt loved, cared for, cherished, and valued by people I only met a month ago. It was wonderful.

Nineteen, wow. I hope it's a good year. But then again, I know it is what I make it.

Birthday.

Today is my birthday. I am nineteen years old. How did that happen?

To my family members who were supposed to come down -
I'm sorry the plans didn't work out. I wish I could see all of you, because I miss you a lot today. And every day. But we'll work something out soon. And be reassured by the fact that I'm surrounded by people who love me a whole, whole lot.

My classmates are showing me God's love every day - especially today. It completely blows me away.

God is so good to me.

Out.

I'm sorry it's been so long. Life has been really insane! I'm pretty much scraping by on everything - food, laundry, energy, sleep - so it's hard to find time to do anything! Most of my time goes to homework, which is getting more difficult as we speak. Yikes!

So anyway. I'm sorry for not doing better on keeping you updated - I promise, I really will find a way to get pictures up soon. And once things start to settle down, and once there are clean clothes in my closet, and once there is edible food in our pantry...then it will be easier to come on here and write blogs every day. And I really want to do that - I want you guys to be informed of what's going on here. It just gets hard sometimes.

Encouragement from home is much appreciated. Whether it's in the form of a letter, a package, a phone call, a text message, a comment, anything...I love it and it helps me. But if it's a comment, please put your name! Isn't there a way you can click "other" and then put your name? Maybe you should try it. I really like knowing who they're from.

Love you guys. I'm hanging in there, so you better do the same.

California, here we come.

We leave for California in a little more than EIGHT HOURS! I am so excited!

I have so much packing left to do though, and it's already eleven o'clock. Yikes. But all the shopping is done, now I just have to find a way to cram everything into my bags!

But in other news, our Area Church trip today was awesome. I took so many pictures, and we had such an amazing time. More details later though, I promise. I have to go pack!

I love you guys, and I'll miss you. But don't worry, I'm sure you'll hear from me somehow during this next week!

Love, love, love you.

How hard it is to escape from places. However carefully one goes they hold you - you leave little bits of yourself fluttering on the fences - like rags and shreds of your very life.

-Katherine Mansfield

Link.

Here is the link to a video that the director made of my class so far! I hope it works!

http://www.youtube.com/hossbegone

Hello September.

Good morning everybody, and Happy September! I think today will be a really great day.

I don't have a lot of plans or anything, mostly just doing laundry and going to Walmart and getting things ready for the California trip. I have so much to do, and so many little things to buy! I hope I can get it all done.

You might be curious as to how the laundry situation is going. It's actually really awesome, because one of my roommates, Ashtin, has a great-uncle who is an elder at the Sunset Church of Christ here (that's where the Sunset International Bible Institute is, and that's where AIM is), and he and his wife have been letting us come over every Saturday to do laundry and have dinner and work on our homework. They live out in the country, about 10 minutes away from the apartments, and it's just really nice to get away from everything and have a quiet place to study. So that's where we've been doing our laundry. It usually takes about three loads total for all of our clothes, so that's not bad. After December we probably won't be able to do our laundry there anymore, since we'll have to walk everywhere we go and who knows - I might not even be in Ashtin's apartment anymore - so I'm sure sometime before then we'll all pitch in together and get them a really nice gift.

After we do laundry, we are going to Walmart to get stuff like luggage tags, earplugs, snacks for the road, etc. I need to get shampoo and conditioner and deodorant (not that I'm already out, but I might need some before too long!) and some Sharpies. Then I need to do some packing. We've been told to "pack lightly in a small bag." What does that even mean? How big is a small bag? Heehee! Most girls don't even understand that concept. My problem isn't that I have so many clothes that I want to wear - my problem is that I think, "Well, might need an extra tshirt or two just in case I spill something on this tshirt, and I'll need an extra pair of pants..." And that turns into way too much stuff in one bag! But I'm sure I'll get it figured out eventually.

Right now, my roommates are sleeping and I'm watching "Pride and Prejudice." It's one of my favorite movies ever. So romantic! I also just ate some blueberry waffles (they were frozen and not hard to make) - I figured Saturday deserved a better breakfast than the other days.

I need to start taking more pictures. I want to figure out how to put them on here so you guys can see what my apartment looks like. I'll definitely be taking pictures as we're on our trip this next week, so that's something to be looking forward to! I'm so excited to see this part of the country and to go places where I've never been before. It's going to be really awesome. Keep us in your prayers though, okay? It's a long way to go on a bus that may or may not be reliable. :)

Just one quick story and then I need to go jump in the shower. The day before yesterday was my friend Aaron's birthday, and we had a little party for him. Somebody made him a cake, and it was so good! Except, there was no milk. So I, being my father's child, came home to have a glass of milk really quick. (This was after the party disbanded - it wasn't like I left my friends to go drink milk! That would be sad!) So I got out a cup and poured the milk, and took a drink. The next thing I knew, I was saying, "WHOA! WHAT??" It was soured. Oh MAN it was nasty! It was pretty much the worst thing I have ever tasted! Looking back though, I guess I should have known it was coming. I mean, it had been in there for a while, and when I was pouring it, it did look kind of weird, and now that I think about it, it might have smelled a little strange as I was bringing the glass up to my mouth...But oh well. You live and you learn, right?

Hope that made you guys smile. Love you and miss you truckloads.