Saturday, April 29, 2006

And then it Rained...

It's been raining for two straight days here. Which isn't so bad considering I love the rain, but unfortunately what I love is curling up on the couch and being lazy while it's raining. Which hasn't been an option the last two days because I've had to work, which is where I'm headed in about a half an hour. We've officially reached finals week here on campus. Finals start bright and early Monday morning. Usually this is the weekend where I relax in the semester and recover before finals start. Not this year. I have two photo projects due next week during finals and my Romans final promises to be a killer. Since I have my own room I'm responsible soley for white glove cleaning as well as packing everything, etc...
So it's off to work I go. It's my last day of work today. I'm glad to be done but I'll miss the people. I had the chance to share the Gospel with an older man I work with. He didn't want to hear any more when I told him living a good life wasn't enough to get to heaven. His name is Dan and I would appreciate your prayers for him and his salvation.
I'm ready to leave I think, but there seems to be so much to do still. It's hard to believe that a week from now it will all be over and I'll be graduating. Then it'll be packing up the vehicles and moving all my stuff to our Apartment. Andy's moving in there this week, at least a little bit. It's kind of scary to me now. It's exciting, but wow, it goes so fast. I can't believe 9 months have come and gone...I kind of realized this morning that I'll be leaving Pillsbury and probably never returning as a student...wow...
So I'm feeling contemplative today...somewhat sorrowful and wistful, but excited for what lies ahead. Now as to whether or not I can pass my finals and get packed this week...well we'll see...

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

The Bride? Who Me?

I had my first official bridal shower last night, and no, it did not rain. My adopted "mom" from church here at school and the amazing 78 year-old lady I work with in AWANA had an absolutely perfect Bridal shower for me. It was so fun to have about 10 girls from school as well as our handbell director's wife and the librarian from school there. It was the perfect shower, the way you hope a shower will be. I felt special and so incredibly blessed the whole evening. They did the devotional around 12 different verses that we had to match the references to and I got to open a "present" for each one. They were anything from "joy" dish soap to a teddy bear (bearing with one another in love) to a calling card (you can always call on the Lord). It was so wonderful and sweet. It was such a blessing to be able to be counseled by these older Godly wives who have an amazing testimony of Godly marriages. Plus I got to wear flowers and eat ice-cream so those were extra bonuses. I got some really fun gifts as well. Overall it was just such an amazing blessing to be surrounded by people I love and enjoy and get laugh and almost cry together. Must be a girl thing, but definitely every girl's dream to get to be pampered like that. It hit me yesterday afternoon and again last night though, I'm officially the bride!
I knew I was getting married, but to now be the bride, wow that's pretty cool. It only happens once, at least it should, so I'm soaking it up. This engagement has been long, but I think we've hit the fun part. I starting to really enjoy the fun things about this wedding and getting married. It's close enough now that I can be really excited and anticipate it without rushing. So YAY for friends and fellowship. Now if I could just finish getting these invitations out...

Monday, April 03, 2006

Who Me? Have Ethics? What Ethics?

It's a beautiful Monday afternoon here at college. The nicest day yet this whole year in fact...Kind of brutal considering today's the first day back from Spring Break. Kind of rubbing it in our faces, especially since I'll be spending the afternoon not outside enjoying the sunshine and warm temperatures, but rather glued to my computer screen trying to convince my teacher that I can in fact write a decent Ethics paper. Anybody have an ethics paper they feel like selling? Just Kidding! I do have ethics, depending on your definition of course. It's the kind of class you learn a lot from but feel like beating your head against the wall everytime an assignment comes due. I studied 13+ hours for the midterm exam, and garnered myself a B-, which I was very thankful for. Supposedly it's the hardest test you'll ever take here. Anyway, our group project comes due on Thursday (a 30 page paper) and I need to have my 6 pages done by tomorrow morning or risk losing my head to another group member. And since I'm rather attatched to my head, I better get it written. I got called and asked to go into work today, which I promptly had to turn down since I spent Spring Break working on wedding plans instead of writing my paper.

Which is the good news of the week, The Wedding (duh, duh, dun *scary music*) as I'm now calling it, is coming along quite nicely. Seriously, I'm excited, especially since it's only a little over 2 months away. Andy and I managed to pick out tuxes, order flowers, order the cake, and address many invitations over Spring Break, along with a few other random things like applying for a marriage license. This is probably the first time I've ever correctly spelled license, since I finally saw it spelled right as we applied for ours. Anyway, the marriage license story is rather well, comical. We realized we had to apply for it this last week if we were going to do it in Koochiching County, which was the preference, since you have to do it more than 5 business days in advance and this would be the only time we would both be up there together except the 3 days before the wedding. As we went to apply for it we realized we had forgotten to bring a signed specific paper from Mr. Hudson saying that we had received marriage counseling, which makes about a $70 difference in the cost of the marriage license. So we worked it out that we could fill everything out and I could bring that paper back in May. So we signed our names and I got to write my married name for the first time, and I also accidentally checked the yes boxes when it asked if we'd been convicted of any felonies. Oops! Bummer...at least the lady was understanding. It was a bit distracting while we were there because this lady who was either getting married for a large multiple time, or getting a divorce, stood right next to me and kind of laughed the whole time we were doing this. Not sure what that meant...Anyway, it was an adventure for sure. Kind of weird to because the bride (that's me!) has to fill out this section saying that I do intend to marry ____ (Insert Andy's name) and then sign my name. Leftovers from the days of kidnapping and forced marriages? Not sure on that one.

Anyway, wedding plans are coming along and hopefully invitations will go out sometime late next week, depending on how soon I am able to get the maps printed out and if that goes okay. Plus, as I said, huge paper due this week along with tons of stuff to do the next 3 weeks. On a side note, Andy and I did manage to find an apartment to rent in Alex, so we signed the lease and he's set to move in on May 1st. That's exciting, because it's OUR home, Andy's and Mine, which sounds pretty cool. It kind of makes this marriage seem like more of a reality. It's a small apartment, but we'll give it character I hope.

There's only 4 weeks of classes and a week of finals left of this school year, but there's a lot of stuff between now and then to get done. I will say that I'm glad Spring Break was so late this year if only because then April Fool's Day fell during Spring Break so no one could cause problems here. Last year someone put minnows/goldfish in every toilet. Kind of creepy as your rubbing the sleep out of your eyes to see something dart to the back of the toilet. Presumably that same someone also put Easter Egg Dye tablets in every shower head. Thankfully I had later classes so the dye had washed out by the time I took a shower. This sort of thing makes me wonder why people think the average college student is mature. Granted most are, but there are those few that drag us all down. Okay, so I hate pranks, so April Fool's Day is my least favorite day of the year. All I have to say is that great pain will be caused should anyone decide our wedding is a good reason to pull any pranks. I will not be smiling then.

But I digress, the next 3 weeks are the killers, My goal is to make it to April 20th. If I can do that, I just might make it. Andy's not coming to visit until then, so hopefully that will serve to keep me going and not be a distraction. He's trying to not be a distraction so he's not coming, but I wonder if it'll be a bigger distraction to be missing him. We'll see I guess.

So enough procrastinating for me, I need to go see if I have enough ethics in me to do what's right and go write my paper. Happy Spring Everyone! Go enjoy the Sunshine for me!