hellew

Hello, blogging community. It is still really funny to me every time I get on here and try to summarize my life. HAHA.

I will begin by sharing a near-monumental decision in my life (this is not as much an exaggeration as you might think)... and that is to give up Facebook for Lent. I was not raised in a denomination that observes this particular tradition, and I do not think it is necessary to the Christian life, but I have grown more fascinated with liturgy and other traditions of church history and think they can be quite beneficial when we choose to observe them in a balanced way. Wikipedia has a good summary of Lent in the first three paragraphs here. And quite honestly, not logging into Facebook so much will be a good exercise in self-denial and will free up some time for prayer:) I will likely still log in on my days of Sabbath. It will be a lovely little experiment if nothing else.

In other news, my dear friend Christy is in town and I am LOVING IT. Thanks to my busyness and tiredness I haven't seen as much of her as I would have liked, but we have treasured the times we have had. Last night we got shaved ice from Bahama Buck's (I've never had a strawberry cheesecake flavored anything that was so right on!) and then played some cards. Thanks to Christy's lovely knack for spontaneity and the wonderful hospitality of her sister and brother-in-law, we then proceeded to have the most wonderful camping experience ever put together in five minutes. They already had a fire going in their living room. (Only in AZ would you light a fire in February when it's 60 degrees outside!) We set up the tent, filled up the air mattress inside, and opened the door to watch While You Were Sleeping while eating some Thin Mints and drinking milk. It was splendid!

Here are some things I have learned that I like within the past couple weeks:

• Glory Revealed, a compilation that is WONDERFUL and I highly recommend to anyone who loves God's Word & laid-back song
• The scent IslandHop from GapBody... it is seriously so great
• Guacamole. Oh, no. I never thought I would. But I have overcome the texture barrier because it's just so stinking yummy. And the fact that I can get it free almost every day is very dangerous.
  

Speaking of Gap, Inc. I have some "Give & Get" coupons to send to family & friends so you can get 30% off. If you might want one, let me know and I'll be sure to get it to you. You get 30% off your purchase (some weekend in March, I forget) and 5% goes to benefit a charity. I have tons but probably won't send them at random:)

Also, this particular couple of weeks has been hard for me. I'm getting discouraged about not having a nursing job, getting worried about my finances, starting to fret about my silly thyroid pooping out, and really wondering why God brought me to this state! I humbly ask for your prayers... if you're the praying type:) Thank you.