Updates of sorts

Since I moved into my townhouse in June, I have become more of a homebody. I haven't wanted to get dressed, put on makeup, drive, park, fight traffic, spend money somewhere, and then drive back home. I just want to stay in comfy clothes, drink my coffee at home, read a book, watch TV, play a video game, journal, etc. Along with that, a bible study I've gone to for 13 years (but not for 2 years in the middle there) ended, and although it had been a slow transition out with lots of people moving or leaving, there were still a handful of people I had seen every week for all of that time, or for different brackets of years at a time. And now we plan on hanging out a few times throughout the year but it's not the same. 

I'm thankful to still have great coworkers that I consider friends, though most of us don't hang out outside of work. But I see them more than I see any of my friends right now, and so I feel like it's a weird time for me. I am also thankful to have my church that I've been at for a year and a half now and to have friends there too, but I also switched bible studies there from the one I've been at for a year and a half to a new one. The new one is young adult women, ages 18-30, and one of the leaders is 32 and one is 23. I'm going to pour in to anybody in the group and assist but not lead. It's a small group and we're meeting at Starbucks once a week. I don't know any of them personally, I've just seen some of them in passing. 

I've been reading books and studying hard questions - What does it really mean to fear the Lord? Why did God have the Israelites kill large amounts of people as they went through to take over the Promised Land? What did the original readers of the creation story understand from early Genesis without having any knowledge of Jesus or science? I've also been doing a thing that John Mark Comer created, a series of videos, podcasts, books, questions, and applications on spiritual disciplines that they just call spiritual practices, called "Practicing the Way." HIGHLY recommend it. Each practice is four weeks long. It's meant for small groups, but I'm doing it on my own. The first one I did was on the Sabbath. It was so good. The next one was on fasting, and I have one left to do. I think the next one is silence and solitude. 

It's time

Joshua told the people, "Consecrate yourself, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you." - Joshua 3:5 (NIV)

Purify yourself - NLT 

Sanctify yourself - NKJV and AMP

In early August, my pastor preached on this and it was a one-week sidestep from our year long series in Genesis. I felt God say that this one applied to me. (In a very specific way that I'm just not writing here.) Multiple other things confirmed it, in ways that only God can. It called upon something I heard God say 7 years ago that has yet to be fulfilled. Over the years I have just stopped praying about it because it's just been so long, and all circumstances point away from what He said. I know that doesn't negate what He said, but I just couldn't hold that promise in my heart anymore because it was just too heavy. Years pass without any sign of it happening. 

But I said ok, let me just start to prepare and sanctify myself as best as I can, and we'll see how it goes. Some days I feel like all of the signs in the world are pointing to it. Let's go. And then there are weeks of nothing, of normal days. However, I'm hopeful again. 

It feels like 7 years ago I got an invitation to a party, and I was excited about it. I showed up, and nobody else did. The room was empty and bare. I kept coming back, and every time I did, no one was there. I asked God if other people got their invitations, and if they did, why weren't they there? I don't know. But He kept telling me there's going to be this amazing party. I eventually stopped checking in to see if anyone showed up. I never threw away the invitation, I just packed it away in a box in a place I never see it. It's dusty and faded from the sun. 

And then He said to me "Ok, it's time." And He wants me to decorate the room for the party, and get food and buy a party dress. I feel like I'm going to do all of this to let it sit in an empty room again. But I got out the invitation and have started the process. 

I hope that some day this will be a story of hope and God's promises to share with lots of people. Until then, I'm showing up again. I'm getting ready. 

A whirlwind

I had a major surgery on my tailbone at the beginning of May. I went to a specialist doctor 6 hours away. The whole thing was miserable. I'm almost at 11 weeks past the surgery and I still have painful days. But I'm doing better. 

I FINALLY MOVED. I'm renting a townhouse 20 minutes from my previous home, slightly closer to work. It's two bedrooms so one is my office! It also has a good sized loft area in the hallway, so that is my prayer loft, as well as just where I sit to read and write and plan out my days. Some good things about the place is that I have a garage, and I don't have to take my groceries up and down stairs to get it into the kitchen. Previously I only parked my car in the garage for a few months in the winter and my dad parked in the driveway, and I had a set of stairs to take up all of my groceries. My laundry is next to my bedroom now, whereas before it was in the basement and my room was on the 2nd floor. It's good to have a desk with two monitors and a good chair to sit in for my two days working from home, whereas previously I was sitting on my bed or on a chair with my laptop on my bed, and sometimes standing with a portable standing part for my computer on my bed. It's been nice to have a few friends over so far, and more to come. 

Moving itself though was a pain. It was my last time asking friends to help me move since it was just boxes and my bed and two bookshelves, because I had to buy all of my furniture and house stuff after I moved in. So the next time I move I'll have a lot more to pack, but also bigger furniture that will need a real moving truck. I had a lot of boxes to unpack, but also a lot of the stuff I bought was online and boxes upon boxes came, so I had boxes sitting around forever that I couldn't fit in my car, and it was driving me insane. I finally got a junk removal place to come get all of the boxes, and although it was expensive, it was worth it. Putting together all of the furniture has been awful. I've had some great friends, and my mom, come help me build some of it, and the other things I've built by myself. Literally everything says to nail the furniture into the wall so it doesn't fall over and kill you, and I'm not nailing all of my furniture to the wall in a rental. Also, IKEA furniture sucks. No seriously. They don't label things, they put ALL of the screws and tiny pieces in one bag, there are too many tiny pieces, and it's confusing and stupid. 

I've been moved in for 6 weeks and it's been hard not having routines and rhythms to my days. Not knowing exactly where I should put things like my shoes, my purse, my work laptop... not being good at going to bed on time, trying to figure out the right temperature for the house because the upstairs stays a whole lot warmer than the downstairs... 

I bought a PS5 and played Hogwarts Legacy - it was great! I went to Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios at the end of April and saw Harry Potter world for the first time, and it was as great as I had hoped it would be, and I don't even ride rides! The whole place was immersive, creative, and the frozen butterbeer was better than I thought it would be. I tried to replicate it when I got home from some recipes online and it was nowhere near it. 

I've been at my "new" church now for a year! I've been in the same bible study for the past year too, with some people coming and going but a lot the same. It's been great. It's funny because a lot of the staff come from bigger churches and keep calling our church a "small" church, but to me it's pretty big because the ones I've been to before were smaller. It's actually hard for me to go to a church where I don't know most of the people in the room. I couldn't begin to tell who is new or who has been there as long as me, besides the handful of people I do know. However, it's still good. 

I am thankful. 

Fancy, fun, and friendships!

Soon I get to take my first "business trip" for work, to work at a symposium (not a conference) at a resort (not a hotel) in Florida. I feel so fancy. I've never stayed in a resort. After it's over, I'm taking a vacation day to go to Islands of Adventure and see Harry Potter World with a friend! I'm so pumped because it's been on my bucket list to go to HP world, and no one I know could ever go with me. Since HP world is split between Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios I do have the day pass to skip between the two, but honestly I don't care about Universal Studios. I went to Islands of Adventure when I was 13 and 15 with my youth group, but HP world didn't exist then. I took a few pictures on my disposable camera that turned out terrible, so it'll be nostalgic for me to go back and also nice to be able to take more pictures! I'll be staying two nights in a hotel near there that is themed like the beach which will also be fun, and we're going to Disney Springs for the first time as well. On a scale from 1-10 of excitement, I'm at a 10. 

I am also on the brink of moving. Still. For the past 3 years. But this time for real. I wish I could say I was about to buy a house but I still can't afford it, so I'll be renting for the time being. But I am still hopeful for good things. It won't be a far move since I'm still at my same job.  

This past August I started going to another new church. My previous one was 45 minutes away, and I just wasn't meshing with people. It just wasn't what I was looking for. The one I've been at since August is GREAT! It's definitely more my style, I've already had meals and coffee with lots of people, and am going on the second semester of a bible study with the same people that are awesome. I've even had dinner with the pastor and his wife, which in previous churches they were too busy to do even after years. 

In October my brother is getting married, so I'll be going to Texas for the first time! We'll be staying in little one room cabins on a property they're getting married in, and I'll have my own. 

I've been at my work for 4 years now and I'm immensely grateful. 

Other things that have been occupying my time these days are listening to the Pod Meets World podcast (Boy Meets World!), reading a million books, watching The Chosen (go watch it right now if you haven't), watching Boy Meets World for the first time, playing Disney Dreamlight Valley on my PC (I can't play Hogwarts Legacy until I get a better PC because my laptop won't run it), going to two bible studies (one with my church and one that I've been to for 11 years), coffee shop hopping, photography, and time with friends. Overall, things in life are good. 

A year later

 A year! This is the least I've ever written on this blog in 13 years. But who else has had a blog for 13 years? Yeah, nobody that I know. 

Health - I got covid at Christmas, and have had long-covid ever since. I had an infected cyst on my tailbone that I had to have drained in March and it was the worst pain I've ever had. 

Work - I've made a lot of new work friends and have lunch with a group of them almost every day in a conference room. Others that I've been friends with before, it has been good to see them again every day. I won an admin award in December for my immediate organization out of 9 admins, and I'm nominated for an award for the admins of the whole country's company (not sure how many) that gets anounced this Friday! Even if I don't win it's cool to be narrowed down to the top few. 

Church - I've been there for a year and a few months now. Since I live 45 minutes away from it though, it's hard to be there / serve more consistently, and like most people in life, everybody is either extremely busy or have babies/toddlers and so it's hard to connect with people. 

House - dang, what a miserable MARKET! I am saving a lot, but not at a place to buy yet. I always feel close, but it's a pain to wait. 

Bible study - My friends started a nonprofit a year and a half ago, and part of that is a Bible study called Roots. I've been going to the same Bible study for 12 years (minus 2 in the middle there), and most of the people have changed except for a few that remain the same. It's ever evolving (and we are ever aging), but it's still a blessing in my life. 

Friends - There's a large category of people now that I miss deeply. The ones I used to do ministry with, live my life with, share everything with, or at least spend quality time with them frequently. I know that some friendships just aren't for life, but to me it often feels like a death. Some of those people moved away, but others just... disappeared. I hold hope that someday our paths will cross again, or that we'll be back in each other's lives again later. For example, two couples in my bible study currently were in my lives for a long time around 2010-2015, and then they went to different churches and I didn't see them much for years. And now I see them every Thursday again. 

Trips - I went on a vacation by myself in October because nobody wants me to go on vacation with them, so I went alone. I'm mixed between feeling deeply sad and also deeply grateful. I stayed in a tiny house - the same model as the one I wanted to buy but will now never buy. It was surreal. I went to a great tiny town in the North Georgia mountains, took beautiful pictures, visited new coffee shops, watched Gilmore Girls at the tiny house, and had a great time. Alone. It would be nice to be married and travel with a husband at least, but I'm not going to live a boring life leading up to that. I also went to NC with my Mom to visit my grandparents who I haven't seen in years. Not a vacation, but it meant a lot to them. 

I just turned 34. Things I've learned this past year - or at least became better at actually doing it even if I knew it before: 

-It sometimes feels awkward to put forth love and friendship to new people, and you never know how they're going to respond. But a lot of people are thankful that someone took the risk on them. 

-Some people, even if they're awesome, don't have time for friends in their life. Either emotionally, or in their schedule in life. It doesn't mean they don't like you, it means they just have no space for you in their lives. The earlier you realize that about a person, the easier it is not to try. That feels like the opposite of the above, but there just has to be a healthy understanding of which category a person can fall in. I've asked people at my church for a YEAR to get together, and they never have, and so I am not going to ask them anymore. 

-I took the last 6 months to "do less." Serve less, have less commitments, have a lighter schedule, and mentally rest. It has been great, and needed. I have needed the margin. I don't want to be that person living life so fast and so full that I don't have time for other people or if I get sick I end up letting a million people down or my anxiety is so high but I can't stop to get it back down. "The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry," by John Mark Comer is a book I highly recommend on this. Not only does it do well for our bodies, but also our relationship with God. 

Summer in the year of change

I'm going back in to the office 4 days a week in 2 weeks, and some weeks 5 days when I'm needed. It's been a year and a half of working from home, with only going in once a month from November to April, and then once a week from April until now. Again, so many pros and cons for going back. But, because I am, I want to make the best of it. 

I'm looking forward to seeing people at work again. Some have started in the past year and I've barely seen them, and some I've still never met. So I hope to make some new friends, and maybe go to lunch with them sometimes. I'm going to bring some snacks to work, because it's always nice to have a snack drawer. I may look for some new things to decorate my office with too. We're allowed an hour for lunch but myself and most others just work through lunch so that we can leave at a good time. But I want to go out to eat a little more, or to a coffee shop nearby during my lunch, either alone or with others. Or the park when it's nice weather, which is a very short amount of time here in GA. Of the year and 3 months I was in the office, I never went to the park nearby, and it's a nice park. 

I've been at a new church for 4 months now, and it seems like both a long time and a short time. I am so thankful I found it in only 7 weeks, because in previous church searches I've looked for months up to a year. I miss my previous church sometimes and in some ways, but it's like when you leave high school and all of the people who made it high school leave, and only a few teachers or younger friends you liked were there, and over time they all leave too and what you miss are the people and how it used to be. There were a lot of new people that went to that church in 2020 that I just didn't get to know well enough to miss a whole lot when I left. I really like them, but I just didn't grow close to them. A few of my best friends are still there, but most have moved on too, or left before me. 

In the middle of a transition still, I struggle to know who my friends are. I have a lot of surface level friends right now - some with big potential that I'm excited to get to know but have been too busy this summer to get together, and some that I see is having to move from my close friend circle to my "see you once a year" friend circle. And some just every 3 months or so. It's honestly painful. At the same time, I know that some people who don't go to church and only have work friends haven't been in contact with many friends at all over the past year, so I am thankful for the friendships I have and will have. A few weeks ago I went to dinner with a bunch of people from my new church, for the purpose of people getting to know each other or staying in community if they already knew each other, and there are three during the summer. All went really well, and at the end I ended up talking to a girl and we started having a really good conversation, and she was so kind and encouraging that I almost cried. 

iPhone game reviews

-Family Feud - I like and recommend, it's just hard to type fast enough. 

-Solitaire TriPeaks Card Game - I'm shocked at how fun this solitaire game is but the competition when you're in a group or club is stupid. People have rules like you can't go longer than 20 hours without playing. 

-Brick Out - Shoot the ball / Bricks n Balls - the monotony and chance of these games is entertaining for some reason.  

-Doorman Story - This is a "Diner Dash" type of game but with hotels. It's fun for a while, but eventually it gets crazy and pretty much impossible without paying real money. 

-Lily's Garden: Design and Relax - It's a mix between candy crush where you mix colored tiles, and a decorating type of game. It has a good story line behind it that makes you want to see what happens next and improve the place and explore new places, but it just takes a really long time to do anything eventually. 

-Tetris - I like the ones where you compete against someone live time and clearing more than two lines at a time sends the other player an extra line. But I go as fast as I can and lose most of them, so I don't understand people's speed with it.

-Snaker.io - This game is really fun!! Although I think you're playing against bots instead of real people. The only thing is, eventually I figured out a way to almost win the whole thing by just going in circles really close to yourself so that no one can get inside of your circle and eventually you keep getting bigger and nobody can hit you. 

-Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp - Nope. It got really boring and repetitive, and the furniture wasn't that great and I couldn't organize things to make it look nice, and quickly ran out of room. It was a cool idea though and I like the RVs. 

-Paper.io - this game is so great!! You are trying to make your color bigger than everybody else's and not let anybody else steal your color too, and not get hit at the same time. Again, if you go in circles it's helpful, as well as staying near the edges of the map so that nobody gets passed. If you get good at it though, each game is REALLY long. 

-Harry Potter: Wizards Unite (Like Pokemon Go)  - I hated it. I don't "go" anywhere enough to get cool stuff. 

-Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery - It was really boring. You just tap a lot and run out of energy a lot. 

-Idle Miner Tycoon: Gold and Cash - A lot of the "Idle" games are fun to me, but this one a lot more so because it seems to be never ending, and while you aren't playing the miner people keep getting more, and when you come back you have a lot more to do. Some idle games cap out at a certain number and then it's not much fun. It honestly sounds stupid when you first play, but for me it was entertaining. 

-Candy Crush Friends Saga / Soda - I was overly obsessed with this game for too long - not only enjoying it and needing to keep going, but also competing against friends. I started actually paying money to skip levels I was stuck on or get boosts, and it got to be ridiculous so I never want to play them again. 

-Hole.io - This game also sounds stupid - you're a "hole" trying to swallow up surrounding things on a map, and the more that falls in, the bigger you get. If you get swallowed by another hole you die. You want to be last alive or the biggest in size. You start to learn patterns of where is best to start that has a lot of small things that eventually gets you bigger faster. 

-Sims - there are two sims apps - I hate both of them. Haha. At the moment I can't even remember why.

-Super Mario Run - When this first came out I loved it!! You have to know the right ways to jump and how long to hold down a jump...it was a strategy not to get hit or to get the highest points. It was fun until I mastered some and then couldn't even complete some levels. 

-The Trail - This is similar to The Oregon Trail. You're a person walking though, and you pick up things as you walk. You stop at the end of each walk at a campfire to trade things with real people, or sell things, and eventually you have a house. You create / craft things, need new clothes as they wear out, and need food. The scenery changes all the time and it's a pretty game. Again, I became addicted to this game so I had to delete it. I couldn't play it in moderation. 

-Hungry Shark World - I can't explain how stupid / weird this game is (you eat people along with other fish) but also entertaining at the same time. It just is. 

Hi, I'm a PC

 PC games I've played in the last few years and my reviews on them... 

Ooblets

It's similar to Animal Crossing. You come to a town where you get a tiny house that you get to upgrade as you go, you meet random people in the town, you accomplish tasks, you plant things in your yard and keep it up, etc. The most unique thing about it is that you get to have "Ooblets," these little creatures, that follow you around. You win them by having dance battles with them by choosing the moves your ooblets do that is supposed to trump the others. It gets redundant but there's this Pokémon feeling that you "have to catch them all." I played it in the testing stage, so they have added more to it since I played, but after a while I just ran out of stuff to do, my house couldn't hold any more furniture, and I'd pretty much collected all of the ooblets that existed. Still, I would recomend the game. 

Firewatch

This had beautiful graphics and scenery. It has an open world feel, where there is a massive amount of the world you can roam freely in. It's story based though, so you follow instructions, have tasks, and follow a compass through the woods and on trails. The premise of the game is fascinating - you are at a fire watch tower for the summer, making sure to report any forest fires you see, or going out to tell people to stop making fireworks or camp fires. The only other person you interact with it someone on another tower through a walkie talkie. A mystery begins, and weird things start to happen. Overall I hated the ending, and I got lost a LOT. There's a lot of walking / hiking in the game, and I wish that you could just spawn at the place you'd last been if there wasn't something for you to do on the way. 

Beneath a Steel Sky

This came out in 1994 and they remastered it recently. It's a sci-fi, point and click adventure game with an intriguing story of trying to figure out a mystery and also trying to get out of this weird city you're stuck in. It was good! I am definitely glad for walkthroughs on Youtube though because I got stuck a few times and didn't know what else to do / how to progress the story at times. 

Beyond a Steel Sky

The sequel to the the above came out in 2020! It had a lot more to do, it was a longer game, it obviously had way better graphics, and overall I really liked the game. Everything was very futuristic. Again there is mystery to it, and you have to figure out what is going on in the game and solve a mystery. I had to use walkthroughs again because I got stuck sometimes. 

Life is Strange

A lot of times I'll watch someone on Youtube play the first 30 minutes of a game to see if I'd like it before I buy it so I don't waste my money. I did that with this game and was excited about it. You play a girl who finds out she can rewind time to change her choices. You're at a creative arts high school where you are studying photography. You talk to lots of people, the graphics are great, the conversations and people are engaging. And of course, there is a mystery to solve. You know up front that a girl is missing. But at some point things get really weird and dark, and it just keeps getting worse and worse. At one point I almost didn't finish the game because it was so bad, but I did finish the game. I wouldn't recommend the game to anybody. There was so much creativity in this game, but depth of the darkness in it ruined the whole thing for me. 

Gone Home 

This only takes about 2 hours to play so it's pretty short. A lot of people love this game but I didn't. You come home to an empty house after being out of the country for a year and don't know where your family is. It's stormy. You start exploring this mansion - which is your house - and think the whole time that they're going to be dead or missing or something tragic / scary, when in fact nothing scary is happening at all. It tells a story as you pick up things or collect things, and you find secret doors in the house. 

Tell Me Why

This is by the same people who made Life is Strange. This was set in Alaska, so again, beautiful and creative scenery and towns and people. You switch back and forth between these two twins as adults, and then also as kids. They are trying to figure out what happened with their mom - she was murdered - and their memories aren't very good because they were traumatized. They are on the search for what really happened as they are also trying to sell their childhood home. The game focuses heavily on the brother who is transgender, and how people relate to him either positively or negatively. It's an overall very sad game without a good ending. 

Sims 4

I started playing Sims 1 when I was 12 years old and loved it for the gameplay, and then didn't play it for years and years. Now, on Sims 4, I love it more for building houses, the decorations, and sometimes the gameplay still. People can create houses, stores, schools, amusement parks, disney castles, anything you can think of, and upload it for you to choose to download and play too, for free! Some people are so talented at it. I like watching people play the Sims on Youtube sometimes because they are funny or creative, with things like the 100 baby challenge, rags to riches where you have to start with no money and then slowly make money somehow without an official job, etc. There are always new additions coming out and new worlds, from the big city to a Japanese world covered in snow, to a college town, to a magical world. They have stayed big for over 20 years with no signs of stopping. 

Unravel 

You play as a little yarn person who has to travel through scenes by unraveling parts of himself to hook on things to swing, jump, push, and then pull the yarn back to him. If there isn't enough yarn to use then you did it wrong and have to find another way. Although it was an interesting idea, and they even had a second one, I didn't play this for very long. I got bored with it and didn't continue. 

Fall Guys, Among Us, and Fortnight 

I'm combining three that most people know about. Fall Guys - I was just really bad at it so I didn't enjoy it. Even practicing over and over again I couldn't get the hang of it. Plus there were several rounds that actually made me motion sick. Among Us - if I played with people I actually knew and could talk to them, that would be way more fun. But when I'm playing with strangers every round, it's annoying because you don't know if people are telling the truth, and everybody just jumps on one person to kick out for no reason. Or lots of people leave when the game starts because they didn't get imposter. I like watching people on Youtube play the game though because it's funny and they are creative with it, especially with different mods to make people different roles. Fornight - that's a big no for me. I can't aim and shoot at the same time already, much less build things! 

Civilization

I've played lots of Civilization games. I don't remember all of their names, and some of them are not called that either but have the same premise. I like a lot of them, but the problem is I can't stop playing them and I get addicted to them. You're constantly upgrading your town/city, your army, etc. and for no end in sight. Just bigger and better, always and always. Some of them that you play with other players where there's a chat has an amazing amount of drama and angry people! People make up rules for you like "You can't attack another clan" when the whole point of the game is to attack and gather resources. 

Nancy Drew games 

There are 33 Nancy Drew games - I started playing them at 12 years old and have played all of them. They are where my love of mystery, point and click, adventure, task driven, beautiful and creative scenery, and interesting dialogue games come from. They are much more PG in nature, and I wish there was more like them. The last one came out in December 2019 and it had a whole new engine that created it, new graphics, new people who created the games... and it wasn't that great sadly. But I loved most of the other 32! They are set all over the world in all kinds of places. Amusment parks, trains, Europe, a boarding school, a haunted mansion, Italy, and more. Even though they are PG, tons of adults play them, and I got stuck all of the time and had to use walkthroughs. They were hard! There were lots of puzzles, things to collect, people to talk to, etc. 

Next I'll be reviewing some iphone games I've played over the past few years! 

The in-between time

 The things that occupied my time during a normal week: 

-Wednesday afternoon planning meetings for high school youth at church 

-Wednesday night I led a women's bible study 

-Thursday night I attended a young adults' bible study 

-Sunday church 

-Other miscellaneous meetings and events on any given week for church stuff 

I've been gone from my church for 6 weeks, so none of the above has happened in that time. My weeks are weirdly empty as other people's lives have stayed busy. I know that some day soon I will have a new church with new things to do there and ways to serve, so I'm trying to appreciate this slow time in-between. But it's still weird. And I miss pretty much everybody. 

I've been watching a lot of movies / TV shows, reading books, and watching Youtube videos (mostly of other people playing video games like Among Us because they're funny). I've spent some time with friends, but not as much as I would like. 

I am almost finished with a bible study about Elijah that Priscilla Shirer wrote, a 7 week study. It has been phenomenal. Right off the bat she talked about how as soon as Elijah told King Ahab there would be no rain until he prayed for it again, God sent him into a remote wilderness where no one could find him. There, the Lord provided food for him by ravens bringing him food (which are normally angry birds that eat other animals), He protected him there (people were looking for all of the prophets of God to kill them), and God prepared him there. In a much less drastic way, I am there in that wilderness, waiting for God to say it's time to move to the next spot. I'm eagerly anticipating God's direction and guidance because I am expecting Him to do great things in a new church, and when I finally move to a tiny house. But as Shirer reminded us, there is something to learn and appreciate in each season. So I am trying my best to stay positive and thankful in this season of not only slowness, but also of much less friends than normal. 

I'm thankful for:

-My job - the time working at home, and the times I go into the office 

-My coworkers and the times we get to talk and laugh 

-My parents

-Good health

-Nothing being messed up with my car

-My savings are going well for my tiny house 

-The time I've had with friends 

-Good books 

-Good movies/TV shows 

2020 recap / look back

It's December?! What a bizzaro year. But, let's start the recap now, even though there's a month left of 2020. 

Decisions I made/Goals: 
-To buy a tiny house! (And land.) Goal: Move in December 2021 or January 2022. 

Places I went: 

-Lake Charles, Louisiana for hurricane cleanup 

-Cleveland, Tennessee to visit a friend for the weekend 

-Alabama for a middle / high school youth camp 

-Lots of new coffee shops 

-Spent the day at my friends' house in Jasper, GA for New Year's Day and my birthday 

Best TV show I watched this year: Stargirl on CW - and it's shot in Dallas, GA!

New things I did this year: 

-Led a women's Bible study from August to December 

-Got a new iPhone 

-Got a nicer new car (because a deer hit my car in March and it got totaled) 

Other noteworthy happenings: 

-I've been working from home for 9 months now, only going in to the office one day a month, and no return date in sight 

-My friends Anna and Wilfredo both moved far away this year. :-( 

-We got a puppy, Lucky, in August when he was only 3 months old

-We had youth weekend in October 

My favorite times were times spent with friends. Sitting in the living room until 1 AM talking. Sitting in coffee shops. Standing in parking lots. Long phone conversations. 

For as crazy as 2020 was, it still turned out way better than I could have imagined.