Old friends

One of my favorite things about Christmas is getting to catch up with old friends. This is Angela. We met in junior high thanks to espanol class and even roomed together in a tiny cell all 4 years of college. We knew our friendship was tight when we made it out of UCA still loving each other!!

Christmas Scenes

This is my strawberry tree. Even used mint grown in my own gardern. Watch out Martha!
The Crump family eating. This was the first year to have Christmas at our house. It was fun decorating everything!


My little cousin, Presley. Isn't she sweet! Just wait till she squeels, though. Ouch!

My sister-n-law, Liz and I--the 2 queens of the house!

A wild game of Nertz to end the Christmas festivities.

Singing Love

As many, many people know, I really miss living in Turkey!! Just about every day I think of someone or something that I miss. BUT, I LOVE being in America for Christmas. This week I participated in one of the most meaningful things I've ever done at Christmas, and I never could have done it in Turkey (which is also why we need to BE in Turkey). My mom and I and 3 other of my favorite women from church, went Christmas caroling with chimes. The music was really beautiful. But, the most beautiful part was the encouragement and love felt by those we visited. We made a point to carol several of our older church members who are either ill or recently lost a loved one. Every single one of the sweet people we sang to actually said they really needed someone that very night that we came by. It really put the holiday in perspective. In a nation where materialism overwhelms everything else, it was an incredible reminder that love is still the most important gift of all.

Calling all single women...ok, there's only 1

Have you ever experienced the feeling of being the ONLY young single in a church of about 1000 people?? For the past year and a half I had suspicions that I was the only single girl under 30 in my entire church, but you know, it didn't really come up a lot. So, whatever. This past Sunday, though, those suspicions were absolutely confirmed. It was focus on Lottie Sunday, so our pastor brought in an ex-Jguy, under 30, single, to share his story and promote the work. I was super excited that we were actually having a Lottie focus and the Jguy's message was right on! Beyond that, I hadn't thought much about it, until I tried to leave peacefully to grab some lunch. Before I could get out of the sanctuary, a well-intentioned choir lady grabbed my arm and said I HAD to meet this guy who was "PERFECT" for me. So we go trudging, arm in arm, up to the front where others were gathered to speak to the Jguy. Then, as I tried to play it off as cooly as possible, the choir lady thrust me forward and announced that, "Thiiis is Rindy. She was a Jgirl and loves the people you spoke about!" Oh my word!! All I could do was laugh, as did the very gracious Jguy. He then replied, "Oh, I've already heard allll about you." The horrorrr!! :-) Apparently my pastor had shared his thoughts on me with the Jguy the night before. Anyway, he was very nice, we knew lots of the same people, and then we went our separate ways. The story continued at church that night. At LEAST 10 other women approached me and informed me that I should follow him to South Asia b/c he was definitely the ONE for me. As my dear friend Teri would exclaim, "HOLY BUCKETS!" *laugh* I guess I should be flattered that the men and women of my church recognize that only a man with God's heart for the world will be the ONE for me. But, yikes, it was a bit overwhelming for practically the WHOLE :-) church to throw me at a single guest speaker. If anyone else has ever experienced something quite like this, care to share how you handled the situation with grace and dignity???

Relief

Wow! I'm finished!!! I celebrated the end of finals with a bag of popcorn, a Diet cherry vanilla Dr.Pepper and the finale of Amazing Race that I had recorded 3 days ago while being disciplined to study!!!! Hard for even me to believe! Hooray for freedom. I think I'll take a nap now.

1 more final!!!

So I'm definitely in the "doing anything to keep from studying, but really need to be studying" phase of finals. I just took my 6th test of 7 and have exactly 19 hours left to study before the last, most important final. I hate that my hardest test is the last one. Of course, I should have been studying for it along the way, but I find it impossible to study for one subject when I have 6 tests before it to take. Anladin mi??? :-) It's moments like these that I REALLY wish I lived in a more civilized part of the world where i could find a Starbucks, or something equivalent, to study in. But, I'm stuck in one of the tiny cells they call study rooms at the school library. I need MOTIVATION!! Comprehensive...the most feared word in college. It makes absolute sense to give a comprehensive final at the end of the semester, especially for a degree that requires standardized board exams at the end, but WOW, oh how i hate comprehensive exams!!! I am forever "winging it" on comprehensive exams, and so far it hasn't proven fatal, but it really causes more stress than is necessary. The way I see it, I've already studied all the material once, right? So it should be in my brain somewhere, right? Like I said, I need MOTIVATION! Ok, here I go...studying...

tired of being a college student!

Ok, so my "new leaf" of frequent blogging hasn't worked out so well. Sorry. Excuses: school, and school, and boring life other than school... But, I have been reading lots of blogs lately, and I'm going to take a cue from others and just tell the mundane events of today.

So, I'm in two weeks of finals. I had a test yesterday and 2 today. There's another one on Friday, and then one on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I am officially sick of being in school!! The super exciting news, though, is that I have only one more set of finals after these!! GRADUATION is in sight. Of course, who's to say that after I work a few months I won't decide to continue my nursing education, but for now I am ready to simply be an employee of some fine hospital!

So, I guess I'll get back to the books and my next glass of a caffenated beverage. Seriously, I'm too old for this!