Break Time!

I am finally on my two week break for the semester! It has been a full few weeks leading up to it, and I'm glad for the rest. I am currently in a hotel in Jackson TN in the middle of my journey back home. I'll get home tomorrow and spend a few days with my family, and then I'll be spending a bit of time with Silas next weekend too. I'm really looking forward to not being at school and not having much schoolwork to do for just a few weeks.

A week ago I received my tentative internship assignment for next year. I am very pleased with the placement, but I'm not going to say anything publicly until I hear from my supervisor and know that he has ratified the placement as well. I'm really excited about internship now, especially now that I can begin picturing the church that I'll be working in. I'm also definitely looking forward to the experience of having a full-time job that isn't being a student! That's basically all I've done for my life, and I'm excited about getting a chance to do the work I'm learning to do for a whole year.

The past two weeks of school have been a rush to the first finish of the semester! Last week I realized on Monday that I had something due every day but Wednesday and I hadn't done any of them yet! Monday it was a presentation on feminist ecclesiology, Tuesday a presentation on Psalm 27, Thursday a sentence flow/diagram of a passage from 1 Thessalonians, and Friday an 8 page paper on my understanding of ecclesiology. I got it all done, and that Friday at noon when I turned in the last paper was a relief! This week I only had one paper due, but I was also working on getting my apartment properly cleaned and getting ready to leave for two weeks.

Now that I'm looking more seriously at my move at the end of May, I also began to look at what things I don't need in my apartment to move. I took four reusable grocery bags of books to Half Price Books last week and exchanged them for four cookbooks that I'll actually use. I need to continue paring down, and then deciding what I'll take with me to internship and what I'll put into storage, so that's going to be a continuing project over the next half of the semester.

These two weeks, though I'm going to put all of that out of mind and spend some of my free time reading for fun and some of it working on a sweater I'm knitting for Silas that I may finish by the time I graduate from seminary! I have very little time to work on my crafting projects while I'm in school, so it's nice to have a chance to play with wool again.

For now, George and I are all settled in for the night, looking forward to another long drive tomorrow. I can hardly wait to be home again.

Peace be with you all.

Advent Time!

It looks like my blog is becoming more monthly than weekly! Maybe next semester I'll be able to balance my time a bit differently, but I certainly have been busy!

My semester is winding down to a close now, with just three more classes for me to attend and three more papers and one more sermon for me to finish! It's been a crazy busy semester, but it has been wonderful.

It's the advent season now, which I absolutely love! I love moving into blue instead of green, and I love getting ready for Christmas. It's cold up here, and this whole season just makes me incredibly happy. I'll be driving back to Texas next week, and it probably won't be cold enough for my taste, but I'm really looking forward to being home and getting started on all our family Christmas traditions, which I insist on every year. I'm looking forward to a chance to preach again at Abiding Grace, and I'm looking forward to both Kevin and Amy coming in for Christmas day. It'll be great to have a bunch of people home and then to help cook Christmas dinner. Silas will come down before Christmas for a weekend and then will come in for New Years, like he always does, and it'll be wonderful to see him so much this month.

As I finish one semester here, I'm already thinking about next semester and next year! I am looking forward to all of my classes next semester, and I've already begun the process leading to internship. I had my pre-internship meeting this morning, and I am so excited about my prospects for next year. I can hardly wait until I actually know where I'm going to be spending the year.

Thanksgiving this year was great, although a pretty full week. I got home the Thursday before Thanksgiving, and my family from Birmingham came in the day after. Then the next day I ran up to Oklahoma City to spend some time with Silas, and we went to Stillwater to see a friend in The Messiah and spend some time in the town where we met. It was an absolutely wonderful weekend. Then my parents, grandma, and I went down to Austin to see Kevin and Amy and had a wonderful Thanksgiving day. Plenty of food and plenty of time to spend together. Then I left for Columbus at 3:30 on Tuesday morning, so I could make my 5am flight out of town. It was a long travel day, but I got back in time for meetings and classes. Now I have less than a week here to finish up before I drive home next Wednesday! Crazy busy end of the semester.

I have so many craft projects in the works for Chrsitmas presents and just because I want to get a few things finished, so I actually plan on spending most of Saturday at my sewing machiene. I love finding time to make things in my busy schedule, and I love having something I've finished that I can use or give to someone else to use.

For now, I'm off to the famous (at least here) Common Meal, and then off to maybe actually get my apartment to a state that I wouldn't mind showing to others!

Peace be with you all this Advent season.

Full Fall Break

I've certainly had a full fall break. And I've been able to read several books.

This week I attended the Healthy Congregations national gathering, which was an interesting couple of days. I have been learning a lot about family systems theory in the past few weeks, and this conference was a continuation of that learning for me. The theory is interesting and I think it is helpful for me now and will be helpful for working in a congregation in the future. However, it was a couple of days of a lot of introspection, which left me rather tired by the end of it.

I also worked with a few other students today to pick out furniture for a room that we are remodeling so that we will have a new gathering space for relaxing as well as group studying. It should be a very nice room by the time it's finished, and I am excited to be a part of it. Picking out the furniture was fun, and I'm proud of us for coming up with a design that worked well together.

On Friday I had a long meeting about the installation service for our new president, which will take place next week. I am the leader of the banner people, and we will be helping with a procession of about 100 people. This service will be huge, and I am pleased that I will be able to help with it. It's neat to be here when something important like the installation of a president happens.

All around these meetings, I was working in the library this week. They gave me a key last week, which was good because I needed to open it up two different days this week. It was even quieter than usual, which made for some great reading time. I read a biography of Saint Augustine of Hippo, which was really interesting. I actually enjoyed my reading this week, and I feel like I've been able to catch up and even get ahead a bit for the rest of the semester.

This Friday was Silas and my second anniversary, and Friday morning I got a call saying that someone had sent me flowers. They were beautiful and it was great to talk to him that day, but I am definitely looking forward to being able to see him again in about a month.

Yesterday, after my rather busy fall break, I slept in and decided to have an introvert day. I only went out to get groceries, and in between cleaning my apartment I stayed in bed relaxing. I'm still trying to make sure I make time for myself and take care of myself. I'm trying to practice yoga regularly, and I am also trying to have a small personal devotion time every day so that I can get out of my head when it comes to my faith on occasion. Talking about theology all day is different than actually practicing faith, I have found.

Today I had a bit of an adventure, as the girls I was picking out furniture with for the room, Dr. Ott, and I drove up to northern Ohio to attend the church which gave us the money for the furniture. We left at 5:30 this morning, and had a really nice time at the church. It was nice to see others and be able to thank them for the money. They have a large mission endowment fund that they spread out every year and it was interesting to see the other mission programs they gave money to as well. We went out to lunch after the service, and then I crocheted on the long drive home. It was a full day, but it was a nice way to spend the morning and early afternoon.

I also decided this afternoon that I needed to rearrange my living room so that I would be able to keep my sewing table out permanently. I moved some things around, and now I have my sewing table out as well as room to lay out my yoga mat whenever I need to. Both are good practices for me for my own mental well being. I also made hummus and black bean burgers for my lunches this week, and decided that I may have to invest in a food processor soon.

Now I'm off to have dinner and a movie date, before I  begin the second half of my semester. I can't believe how far I've come already.