Some City Talk and Some Lessons Learned

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Things I learned this season:

1. City skylines are among one of my favorite things in the world. It never got old driving into downtown. The Houston skyline is definitely one of my favorites. Breathtaking, soothing, and instantly therapeutic to me. No matter where God leads me and my family, I’ll always be a city-girl at heart, and I love that.

2. Seasons always change no matter what. The good, the bad, the boring, the exciting…. Just give it time. Things will shift, life will settle into a new season, and you will be adding up your “lessons learned” thanking God for bringing you out alive.

3. Sometimes the grass is greener on the other side. Don’t be such a pessimist.

4. Some people are just impossible to please. Do your best, and be confident in who you are, and allow God to be the one to promote you through every season of your life. Don’t try to move the pieces around yourself. He specializes in details.

5. Driving “across town” in Houston is VERY different than driving across town in Centralia. Like over an hour different.

6. The bigger the grocery store, the higher the grocery bill. Me and the giant HEB Central Market had such an intense love/hate relationship. Even with all of it’s fun gourmet selections, organic snacks and ingredients and ready-made delicious meals, I had to draw some severe boundaries if I wanted to continue partaking in the divine selection. Mr. Budget, meet Miss Coupons and you both say hello to Mr. very strict grocery list.

7. I am capable of forming healthy habits in my life that are way outside of my personality.

8. Sonic drive-in definitely puts crack in their raspberry tea. Pretty sure I’ve had one a day for the past several months of my life.

9. I miss celebrating fall. I LOVE fall. It’s easier to celebrate the seasons when there are actually seasons.

10. My husband is an introvert. I am an extrovert. This was a huge thing for us to figure out! We discovered this through the help of our counselor. Side note: I don’t care how “amazing” or “awesome” (or any other trendy adjective) you think you marriage is, all marriages (and/or people) could benefit greatly from a counselor. Me and Seth have both counseled teenagers and even a few couples here and there through our years in ministry, and we were shocked to find out how little we really knew about the ins and outs of each others personalities. Possibly the biggest discovery that opened our eyes and instantly increased the level of grace given to each other, was the fact that Seth is a hardcore introvert who is really good and playing an extrovert when needed, and I am a hardcore extrovert, who tends to act like an introvert when around new people or large groups. Basically it all means we are both kinda screwed up. (accepting this fact about yourself will be one of the most freeing moments of your life) An introvert/extrovert doesn’t mean that you are just shy/outgoing. An introvert can be a great people person, like Seth. If you are an introvert it simply means that you are recharged, body, mind and spirit, by spending time alone. If you are an extrovert, it means that you recharge by being around people. Sounds like a simple discovery, but after some research and learning what it can do to an introvert to be around large crowds all day everyday, and vice versa, things really started to make sense to us, and we were able to arrange our life accordingly. This is one concept on personality types that doesn’t get to deep into all the psycho-babble. It is simple to figure our which one you are, and it was an easy adjustment for us… just one we were totally oblivious to.

11. I love knowing that the beach is there, but sure didn’t go as much as I would have thought. Moral of the story: I think I care about my skin a lot more than I used to. (in case you don't know me, I am a red-headed freckled girl who does not have sun-friendly skin)

12. Celebrate the good stuff. All of it. Even if there will be bad stuff to follow. Celebrate God’s goodness. God receives glory from out outward celebrations of Him. He inhabits our praises and so where there is praise (or celebration of Him) He dwells! So why would we want to push his presence out of our life by refusing to dwell on the small victories?

Ending a Chapter

Today is my last day of working for Fellowship of the Nations. This chapter in my life will be closing over the next several days until Sunday, when it is officially our last day here. I will be leading worship, worrying that all the media goes off, seeing my husband on this stage welcoming all the new comers, and celebrating Jesus with so many people who I love for the last time... on this side of Heaven at least.

Bittersweet completely describes this day.

I updated my "about Me" section with our latest adventure. A few posts back explains it quite a bit as well.

Getting excited about all of the new blog ideas floating around in my head. I'm thinking a whole new re-launch, since this blog was always so connected to my cupcake business. What do you think?!

Also, speaking of chapters coming to an end, I can't believe I haven't talked about this yet, but seriously, I've been a little distracted.... but I totally chopped off all of my hair. From my mid/lower back, to my chin. I will blog later about my attachment issues and how I've been feeling about it. I have a love/hate relationship with my short hair. Currently, I am loving it enough to maintain my decision to keep it short.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Happy Talk: Sunburn.

Happy Nails!

Some Happy Talk

To keep it short and sweet: (because if you didn't already know, I like sweets!) After a lot of prayer, My husband and I are packing up the house and moving cross-country (again) and will be planting a church in his hometown of Centralia, Illinois. Crazy God ordained details combined with the stuff dreams are made of, combined with an awesome God who continually blows my mind day after day after day.... you get the picture. I sent a letter explaining our timeline and more details to our close friends and family, if you would like to know more, send me your email address... or facebook me here, and I will be happy to send you the letter.

I'm always working on new blog ideas here and there. (the trick is finding the time to let it play out into an actual blog post!) City talk has been fun to think about (see previous post) and with our upcoming move, it will definitely become more interesting. Centralia, Illinois is an interesting place to dwell. It's a mysterious mid-western region, with everything from charming traditions to mind-blowing routines. This city-girl has found peace and a quality of life from all that the small city life has to offer.

We will be moving soon, and along with that move will come less work hours for me, more creative time, and most importantly, more mommy and wife time. This will hopefully result in more blog time.

Also along with the move will come new challenges, incredible potential, extreme faith, overwhelming peace, resettling into old friendships and the excitement of new friendships.

I'm hoping to have more time for my poor little blog. She has suffered since our move to the big city! I'm still thinking about an entire re-launch or the blog, but we will take that as time allows. For now, I have a house to pack and an exciting future to dream of.

I wanted to go ahead and start up one of the projects I've had going for a while, but just always finding an excuse for not posting. I'm an optimist and am always looking for the joy and happiness in all (or at least most) things. Inspired by many like it on tumblr, I started keeping track of some of those little, and sometimes big, moments in life. Out of this came "Happy Talk" and a new found appetite to discover the overlooked joys in life. Hopefully we will cast a little bit of a God loving, professional day dreaming, edgy pastor's wife and mom twist on it.

If you would like to submit your own daily discoveries of "Happy Talk" topics, please feel free. I would love it!

City Talk!

A little something new that’s going into the blog rotation: City talk.

In my adult life, I have lived in both a big city and a small city. I love both for many different reasons and no matter where I am, I am constantly trying to gather the most of of every season of life. Each has their own charm to offer. I am a big believer in writing things out and listing your pros and cons. Out of this habit I have birthed the idea of a Big City vs. Little City segment in my blog. In my head, no matter what the circumstance, I am always comparing the two. My and my love find ourselves missing the pace of life that the small city has to offer, but loving the convenience that the big city has to offer. They are indeed two different worlds, but I have somehow found a strong love that somehow ties the two together in my heart. This might only speak to a very specific audience, but the audience it DOES speak to I know will completely and totally get it!

I have a couple more ideas I’m tossing around for the relaunch of my blog… stay tuned.

Is this Normal?

Is this normal?

My husband seems to think that it's not. I have what you could call, a sliiiiiight coffee cup fetish. An entire cabinet is devoted the my eclectic collection of coffee cups. I don't know when it started really, and I have no intentions of stopping. They've been collected from all over the place...rummage sales, Good Will, and dollar stores to Anthropologie, Starbucks, and The Galleria. I now can not leave Good Will (or any store for that matter) without a walk past the coffee cup section. If one happens to catch my eye, it goes home with me and I find it a nice cozy spot in what is now know as our coffee cabinet.

I guess I just always assumed everyone had lots of coffee cups. What does you coffee cup collection look like?

Do you have a slight... or even a major collection? What is it?