Casey Anthony

Unless you've been living under a rock lately, you've heard something about the Casey Anthony trial and have some opinion on it.  I honestly watched none of the trial and knew little to no information about it until yesterday on my drive to my internship.  I knew she was found not guilty and people were pretty dang upset about it.  All morning on the radio I heard people calling in with their view on things and parts of the trial that made it seem like there was no way she was innocent.  I was crying at one point on the trip because it's just so emotionally overwhelming, especially since the DJ was getting really emotional because she has a 2 year old son.

But then I found myself thinking 'God can forgive her, no matter if she did it or not'.  I turned off my radio at this point and just sat there and prayed for her.  In God's eyes, her sins (whatever they may be) are no worse than anything you or I have ever done...and we're no better than her.  This is where the grace and love of Christ comes in.  Without Christ taking my sin and giving me His righteousness, I'd be destined for hell for the "not so bad" things that I've done.  When it comes down to it, without Christ we're all the same sinners destined for the same end.

I know this isn't a popular idea and it's super challenging.  It's much easier for me to be angry and bitter at a woman that may have ruthlessly killed her little girl.  It's a horrible crime that should never be committed by anyone.  But nothing is too horrible of a crime for God.  Christ's grace is sufficient for ALL sins.  How amazing for us.  How blessed we are.

"But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me." - 2 Corinthians 12:9

Praise the Lord that I'm weak and His grace and power can be made perfect in a weak sinner like me.

Week....Wrap-Up?

Long time, no blog huh?

The mission trip was AMAZING! I want to go back to West Virginia.  It was just so much fun and I got to know the members of our team from our church so much better than I did before.  I also grew to have a bigger heart for the Lord and His people and understanding why we do things like mission trips.  It was so amazing.

We got home Friday evening and then Saturday was Jake's cousin's wedding.  It was a blast.  I love family functions, especially when there are weddings involved :)  Of course, pictures were taken!

The bride and groom!

And my favorite picture of the night...thanks Andy for the wonderful photography :) Jake and I were singing My Girl to each other and we  noticed Andy was wanting to take a "candid" moment picture so I guess we were laughing about that?

Needless to say, it was tons of fun!  Sunday - Jake's Aunt Sandy (the mother of the groom) had people over at her house for a barbecue.  Chris and Jillian also opened some wedding presents before taking off on their honeymoon.  It was fun but Jake and I had a nice drive back to our apartment that afternoon so we couldn't stay long.  We got to relax a little bit and then went to a Wii party night at Nikki's apartment...which really just turned into everyone talking and watching Juno. It was a great time though!

Monday - We did NOTHING. It was fabulous. I loved all the time I got to spend with people over the last week and a half...don't get me wrong...but I have a limit on social-ness and mine was up wayyyyy before the wedding on Saturday.  Jake and I were supposed to go to an annual root-beer float party thing at our Sunday School teachers' house but I was not having it. At one point I told Jake I just needed to be alone so being the loving and amazing husband he is, he left the apartment to buy himself a new dress shirt and to get me some chips that I had been craving and Reese's peanut butter cup ice cream.  He's the best. I needed the alone time.  He also sacrificed his love of socializing and stayed home with me to watch the series premiere of Love in the Wild, which we missed while we were on the Mission Trip.  We also watched some episodes of Heroes on Netflix and ended the night with Inception.  It was possibly one of the best 4th of July's that I've ever had.  Of course, I would have loved going out to a barbecue or something...just not after the past week and a half of no alone time for me or us.

Overall, I enjoyed this past week and a half and grew a lot but I'm also glad to be back in my apartment (while it lasts) with internet and my own space :)

How was everyone's weekend?

Confession Friday

I confess that I don't really have time for a post. Too much to do today! I'm leaving on a mission trip at 5am tomorrow so I won't be posting again until around the 4th of July probably!

Don't miss me too much :)

Confession Friday

Sorry for being such a boringggg blogger lately guys! Not much to tell here I guess and I'm not really sure anyone actually reads this blog anyway...haha.  Anywho...it's Friday and you know what that means!

I confess that I've been a big mopey crabby mess this week. I have no idea what my deal is but I'm starting to annoy myself so I feel bad for my husband.  Of course he's great though and would never say anything about what a jerk I can be.

I confess that I have NO desire to go back to school in the fall.  At all.  I just want to keep working here or volunteering or something.  None of my classes are teaching me anything worthwhile anyway.  I'm learning way more through experience here than I am in school.

I confess that I keep getting cold sores in my mouth and they're getting freakin ridiculous.  I used to get one every once in a while but now I have one at all times.  They hurt and they make me eat all weird because I can't close my mouth completely. Hate it!!

I confess that I'm officially an old person....I'm ready for bed at like 9pm every night. It's ridiculous.

I confess that I'm trying to stop drinking caffeine....once again. Good luck with that right?  I'm challenging myself to do it until we leave on our mission trip in 8 days and then I'm allowing myself to cheat because we'll be driving and getting fast food on the way and I really love Dr. Pepper...haha.

I confess that I treat my cat like a child...I feel like I've confessed this before.  But seriously...he sleeps in bed with me, I give him little kisses, cover him with blankets when he's sleeping, and just like playing with him and watching him sleep. Creeper I know.  It's going to be 239408230 times worse when I have human babies. Ayiyi.

I confess that I'm hungry...so I should probably get going and get some lunch.

Your turn! Leave me something to read in my boredom!

Our story

So I have to leave for my internship in approximately 15 minutes....so we'll see if I get through this whole post or have to come back later.  Today marks the six year dating anniversary for the hubby and I :) Sooooo I decided to dedicate a post to our story...it's pretty unique...at least I think so :)

I guess it really started during the end of our freshman year of high school.  To set the situation up: my grandpa was in the hospital and it was basically a matter of time before he passed away...everyone knew he wasn't getting better. My boyfriend at the time had completely stopped talking to me and dumped me about 3 days before my grandpa passed away. Meanwhile, Jake had been calling me and talking to me on AIM about things that were going on and seeing how I was doing with everything. We kind of started talking more seriously, me about Luke (ex-boyfriend) and Jake about Kaci (the girl he liked that started dating another guy...I also ended up becoming really good friends with her when I moved up there about a year later....she was even in our wedding...funny how it all works out!).  We lived an hour away so we could each talk about these people without the other one really knowing anyone involved in the situation.

Anyhow, I kind of started liking Jake and church camp was coming up in June so I was like what the heck...something might happen, right? Fat chance, but a girl can hope.  We talked and hung out a lot for the first two days and on that Wednesday night, June 8, 2005, everything changed. Gosh, I'm so corny today. For real though...the way I remember it is we were sitting in the middle of a couch with four people squished on it. Someone got up at one point but neither one of us moved away at all. Neither one of us had any idea that the other one liked us. So we're just sitting there and our hands are laying REALLY close together. All the sudden our pinkies are intertwined. Still no talking or even eye contact at this point. At one point someone turned the light off to play with a glow stick and we took the opportunity to hold hands (because you can't do that in public at church camp!). The lights would come back on and we'd go back to holding pinkies. It became a game...we kept convincing the guy to turn the lights off to show us the glowstick so we could hold hands. So sneaky!  It was so totally unlike us to make any kind of move like that. Reason number 1 I knew we were meant to be together :)

Haha there's a picture from that night I'm pretty sure...soooo young!

However, Friday came quickly! We had to leave and we lived an hour away from each other. We were both 15 so we couldn't even drive.  We had no idea if we were going to continue to pursue any kind of relationship or anything. We didn't really even know if we were dating, boyfriend/girlfriend, or nothing at all. It was a weird situation. After we got home Jake talked to me on AIM about how he didn't think this would work or know what we were doing at all but there's no way it would work out and I, of all people, told him let's just see where it goes for the summer. If any of you know me, you know how unlike me that is.  I'm a planner. I HATE not knowing exactly what's going to happen. It was so not like me to say anything like that...Reason Number 2 I know we were meant to be together :)

Long story short, we saw each other on and off that summer...about once a month. The longest we went without seeing each other was 2 months right before homecoming.  I got my license in December so we started seeing each other almost every weekend at that point, whether I would go up and stay at my amazing friend Emmy's house :) or we'd meet up at the mall or something...we made it work.

So I can't find the picture of Jake and I from his homecoming...so this was my homecoming a week after his!

So this went on until I got an ulcer in February...too much long-distance stress I guess.  I debated my next move for awhile and eventually asked my parents if there was anyway we could move to Jake's hometown. I played the whole "better school system" blah blah blah expecting them to say...ha yeah right, nice try. However, my mom said we can look at houses. Reason number 3 I knew we were meant to be together.

So we moved in August and that was a whole new adjustment for our relationship.  We had long-distance down...we didn't know how to be in a relationship where we saw each other every day.  It definitely took some getting used to.  We dated all through the rest of high school and ended up going to the same college...because we both liked and could afford that college and NOT because the other one was going there. Yeah, that was a bonus but we didn't want to be THAT couple that made their choices solely based on what the other person was doing. We dated our whole first year of college and then on July 7, 2009 Jake proposed! We had gone to look at rings and then out for dessert and the little stinker had already picked out a ring 3 weeks ago...he got lucky and it was the same ring that I picked out that night when we went to look.

On the night he proposed.

The rest is history! We got married on June 26, 2010 and are quickly approaching our one year anniversary.  We've made it through one year of college as a married couple and we have one more to go.  It's been challenging and busy but I wouldn't do it any other way if I could and I don't think Jake would either.

Sorry for such a long post...I just love our story :)

P.S...I did not get that written in the 15 minutes before my internship. It's about 7 hours later than when I started this sucker.

Weekend Wrap-Up

Ahhhh....the weekend. Except I was sick for most of it...so it's almost been more relaxing last night/today than most of the weekend. Let's see though...

Friday - Jake left at like 7am for work and I couldn't fall back asleep.  I don't really remember what I did. I know that around 2ish I left to meet my sister and we drove down to meet my parents at work.  We went out to dinner for Mom's birthday and then went and each got a book (Mom's treat because of all the overtime she's been working). Bekah had to work so I went home with Mom and Dad and spent an hour-ish sorting through a bunch of my books that were in the garage. It was so hard to get rid of some of them...I secretly kept some just because I want to read them with my kids someday. Is that weird? Idk I started feeling pretty yucky that night so I went to bed at like...10:00pm on Friday night...woke up once at midnight and I couldn't breathe through my nose AT ALL. Sick. Woke up again at 7am and was like oh noooo we're sleeping in today. So I finally really woke up at like 10:30am on Saturday. Success.

Saturday...oh goodness. I felt TERRIBLE. Stuffy nose, headache, cough, super sore throat. Gross. So I stayed up in our bedroom at Jake's parent's house almost the whole day watching Giuliana & Bill, The Hills, and reading.  Lazy day but I felt so awful.  At one point Pam (Jake's mom) had brought me a chocolate chip cookie from a grad party they went to...I couldn't taste it....nothing. No taste of chocolate or cookie at all. How terrible!  I eventually drug myself out of bed at like 4:30 (I had gotten up to eat breakfast and shower earlier...no worries) and went to tell my family bye since both parents had to work on Sunday so I wouldn't see them at church.  Then Hanna (Jake's sister) got off work early so I went to pick her up...I was starting to feel a little better but not great. I got in bed around 10 I think and fell asleep by the time Jake got home at 11. He came in and said he had to go eat and shower but I left the little lamp on for him....apparently fell asleep and did not wake up until I felt the cat walking on me in the early early morning hours.  It scares me how he can come in and get in bed and I don't even wake up. Kinda creepy. Oh well.

Sunday...church in the morning.  Went with Nicole (Jake's sister) to pick up her skateboard at Wal-mart....she hardcore like that...bahaha.  Ate lunch. Chilled out and packed everything up. Went to a graduation party and ate some more...not that I needed to.  Finally headed back home!  We walked in the door and were just sitting on the couch and I was just like...this is relaxing isn't it!? It just felt so peaceful. That's the way home should be :)  We just kind of hung out, watched The Big Bang Theory...ate a little bit. There was some minor drama for me and Jake got to hear me vent a little bit but what's done is done.  It is what it is and I'm moving on. The whole situation is still on my mind and I'm just kind of blown away that it actually happened but...what can you do? Not that anyone knows what I'm talking about. Oh well.

Overall, boring weekend. Wish I hadn't been sick...I planned on spending some time at the pool :( Oh well.

Confession Friday

First of all, I'd like to wish my Mom and Uncle Mike a VERY happy birthday!!  You are both amazing people and I don't know where I'd be without you...especially Momma :)

I confess that I love Fridays when I haven't been into work since Wednesday....I thought yesterday was Friday/Saturday. I thought today was Thursday/Saturday when I woke up. I love that part about summer...never knowing what day of the week it is.

I confess that I'm getting all sicky. Boo. I don't know if it's sinuses or something I caught form some little kiddos at my internship.  Either way, I'm sick of all this pressure/snot in my head. Guh-rossss.

I confess that my plans today are to catch up on 16 & Pregnant, The Voice, and watch reruns of The Hills on Netflix. Don't judge me.

I confess that the bar scene is obviously not for me. We went to watch Nicole (Jake's sister) perform last night and I felt like an old person. I hated half the bands because their music was ridiculously loud (to cover up how bad the lead singer was, I'm sure) and I felt like the whole place was too dirty and creepy to order any kind of drink...unless it came in a bottle and even then I was skeptical.  And I made sure to hold my pee until we got home because I was not going near those bathrooms. I sound like a huge snob.  But seriously...it was decorated with Halloween decorations. Ew.

I also confess that I'm pretty sure half the people at the bar last night were staring at me while I played Angry Birds on Jake's phone waiting for Nicole to go on because they knew I was completely out of place. Oh well.

I confess that I kind of feel like I'm in a rut. I feel like nothing I do on a daily basis is helping others out in any way and it has no impact on others.  I feel this huge desire to serve and I have no idea where or how to start that...or maybe I just lie to myself and say that when really my heart isn't fully in it :/

I confess that I can be way too judgmental of others. And I jump to way too many conclusions without any evidence. I don't like that about myself.

How about you guys....any confessions!?