Questions

Does Geico always give you a personal lizard to keep you safe when driving?




Do cats enjoy snuggling as much as humans?


Is my hair too long?


Am I totally blessed to have a wonderful family throw me a wedding shower? (I'll answer this one...um yes!)




Did Grey and I really just commit to something for 30 freaking years?










Happy Saturday!
-B

Things that "Irk" me

This one is depressing. As my oldest sister would say, feel free to come back later.

It seems like my life currently looks like a rollercoaster.
1) My days at school are either really good or really bad. Mostly, really bad.
2) My hormones are either right where they're supposed to be or I'm crying every hour. It bothers me that I can't control them.
3) I eat dinner, but I crave other foods so I'm never satisfied. When I don't eat dinner, I become Oscar the Grouch and I'm miserable. It bothers me that food affects me that much.
4) I go to bed at 9:30 and wake up at 6:30 begging to go back to bed. It bothers me that 9 hours of sleep don't satisfy my body.
5) It really bothers me that I don't have a home church yet. I have no small group to attend, no accountability, no discipleship...nothing. I feel like my walk with the Lord has truly suffered because of it.
6) It bothers me that my students make bad decisions that end up hurting themselves. Why does everything have to be a battle? I want so badly to just look at them and tell them that they desperately need Jesus, but alas, I'd no longer have a job.
7) It bothers me that one of the adults at my school walks into my room every day now and tries to convince me to not get married. "Marriage is horrible, it's unfair. It just ruins relationships." Now granted, this lovely fellow has been divorced twice, but it bothers me that he even has me WONDERING if I'm doing the right thing.
8) It bothers me that when I go to a math conference, all I hear from the teachers around me is how stupid their kids are, how they know nothing, how the teachers can't get them to do anything, etc. False. If we're truly in the educational field to EDUCATE our students, then you darn well better believe that they are capable of doing something. I realize that math is hard, but I would NEVER say that my students are incapable of doing something. I love my kids and believe in every one of them. It bothers me that some teachers view their job as merely babysitting.

Apple Picking!

A couple of weeks ago, Grey and I went apple picking with a lovely couple of ours, Susan and Will. We had TONS of fun and to show you, below are this lovely girl's pictures.



Isn't she beautiful? She's the photographer of our apple picking adventure.

Our group(Grey looks really happy doesn't he?):


What my life will be like in a few years - that of a very awkward church family photo:


The tree from the movie "The Ring"


The next two are from Grey attempting to launch me into the tree like cheerleaders do in order to get a really good looking apple. Needless to say, I couldn't do it.




Then we decided that maybe we should switch places...I had after all been doing my push ups :)


Still no luck...However, here is one of the final pictures with my sweet fiance


In case you were wondering, no I'm not wearing a mini skirt...I had gotten hot and so I had rolled up my pants past my knees.

Can you believe that in less than 60 DAYS, these two crazy people will be married! :) AH!


What happened to the apples you might ask? Well some of them went into an apple fritter recipe by the one and only, Pioneer Woman!


I can't say that I tried them (I'm not big on fruit desserts) but Grey said they were good! :) I'll take his word for it.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! Yay for the Tigers finally pulling out a win! Oliver was SO excited that Clemson was doing well that this is where he decided to sit during the game (a commercial is on in the background).


-B

P.S. I love this little girl....Isn't my little niece absolutely beautiful?

Independent Woman

This past weekend, Grey and I had pretty wonderful, but hard to hear conversation.

It's a known fact that I am one independent woman. I have this thing where I feel like I need to stand up for myself, to prove to the world that I am capable of accomplishing things - thus the reason for striving to be really athletic, cooking a lot, getting my master's degree...etc. It's all to make me more capable of living on my own, to stand up for the female race and show people that women can be really successful.

This weekend, on the way back from apple picking (pictures are hopefully coming soon), Grey very gracefully and kindly brought to my attention that sometimes, my independent outlook on life can be rather hard on a guy who is trying to pursue. It's both Grey's and my desire that as the man, he pursue me! However, when I open the door for myself, refuse to let him do things like empty the litterbox, and pick my own apples, it's hard for him to be the gentleman that he wants to be and take care of me.

My pride took a huge hit.

But I realized that by allowing him to serve me in ways like opening the door or cooking me meals, I'm giving him a sense of joy - joy knowing that he's providing for me and taking care of me. It's not that he doesn't think I'm incapable of doing these things, but he purely wants to show me that he loves me.

So for right now, I'm working on graciously allowing him to serve me even when I think I am capable of accomplishing these things.

Thoughts?
-B

Randoms part two

1) I made my first big mistake as a teacher.
I gave one of my students lunch detention and called her parents to let her know that her child needed to pack a lunch for the next day. I was frazzled from a rough day at school and ended up apologizing for giving the student lunch detention and ended the conversation with, "Is it ok that I gave your child lunch detention?"
Whoops. :)

2) I have some of the sweetest ladies that clean my room every day. After that one particular rough day mentioned above, the lady came in while I was just sitting at my desk starring off into space. She asked how my day had gone and I told her that it was ok and asked her how her day had gone. She looked at me and sighed, and said, Well, ya know? I've always got to remind myself that there is always someone else out there who has it worse off than I do."
So true. I thanked her for reminding me that.

3)Apparently Oliver doesn't know that when you get out of the litter box, you leave the litter IN the box. The culprit is sitting right by his mess. :)



Also, Oliver almost broke into my stash of cat food. While I was taking pictures, he was behind the door trying to get in to the laundry room. He's a sneaky stinker.






I hope you have a good rest of the week!
-B

Randoms

1) I officially made a wedding playlist for the next two months. Ready?
Hey Soul Sister - Train
I told you so and Sweet Thing - Keith Urban
Fallin for you - Colbie Caillat
Just the way you are - Bruno Mars
Farmer's Daughter - Rodney Atkins
Someone to watch over me - Ella Fitzgerald
Boogie Shoes - KC and the Sunshine Band
All of Creation - Mercy ME
Forever - Chris Brown
I never told you -Colbie Caillat
Love Story - Taylor Swift
These are the nights - Making April
You got me - Colbie Caillat
Stuck like glue - Sugarland
My life would suck without you - Glee!!!!!!!!!!

Exciting right? I'm trying to get in the mushy gushy mood so my husband-to-be will have plenty of loving once we're married. :)

2) I love Mercy Me's "All of Creation" song - particularly the verses that say,
"Separated until the veil was torn
The moment that hope was born
and guilt was pardoned once and for all

Captivated but no longer bound by chains
left at an empty grave
the sinner and the sacred resolved"

and

"the reason we breathe is to sing of his glory
and for all he has done praise the father praise the son and the spirit in one."

It's a good reminder for me that we are given so much hope in this sinful world. Our only purpose for being in this world - hence the reason we breathe, is to purely sing of his glory, to bring him praise, and to worship him.

We went to Renewal this morning and one thing that both Grey and I took away from the service was when Matt talked about taking the Lord's name in vain. He said that we think that taking the Lord's name in vain is so bad but every time we profess to be followers of Jesus and we do something that contradicts that, we are in essence doing the same thing as using the Lord's name in vain. Ouch.

3) We went to the Clemson homecoming game this past weekend and while I thoroughly enjoyed the trip and hanging out with Grey's fam, I hated it. I was brought back into a world where gorgeous girls dressed so immodestly that it made me sick. The bad part was I was so jealous. I know I can't control what Grey looks at and believe me when I say that I completely trust him. But - I was in a situation where I no longer had control. I wanted so badly to punch all of those girls in the face. Sinful thoughts of comparisons started coming back and by the time the evening was over, I was absolutely sick with what I saw when I looked at myself. It was like my sophomore and junior years in college were back. I had worked so hard at having a healthy body image and I felt like all of it, within 12 hours, was shot in the foot.

However, I realized that those thoughts were purely from Satan himself and that I was a beautiful creation in the Lord. I read a blog some time ago where it talked about how painful a girl's comparisons can be. The summary of the blog was this - that Jesus didn't die so we would feel good about ourselves when we looked in the mirror or so we would fit into what the world deemed as being beautiful. How selfish of us to even think that way. Here we've been given the most beautiful gift of salvation ever - eternal life with the King of Kings and all we can think about is how the Creator's creation isn't good enough. Jesus didn't die so we would think of ourselves as beautiful in the worldly sense. Nope - Jesus died so we would think of ourselves as beautiful worshipers of the Most High. He died so we would have hope that after living through a painful world filled with sin and comparisons, we would get to celebrate for all eternity with him in Heaven.
What can you be praying for?
That especially as the wedding approaches, I wouldn't be tempted to compare myself with other girls or think that if I was skinnier or blonder or prettier that Grey would be more of a lucky guy to be marrying me.

It's been a whirlwind of a weekend.
Next weekend? APPLE PICKING with Susan and Will!! :)

76 days till we're hitched!
I love you all and thanks for praying!
-B