Organize my life please?

I'm a fairly busy person. I don't know how I manager to remember to do anything - I am a LITTLE organized but not nearly enough for all of the things I do. Ideally I would have a folder with information from each portion of my life.

I bought a house in January 2010. I don't believe I officially moved in until March 2010 due to "busy season". I barely got settled in when I had knee surgery. I had completely torn my ACL and had partial tears in both my medial and lateral meniscus. The doctor put in a new ACL and was able to repair my lateral meniscus - however, my medial meniscus was beyond repair so he just shaved what he could and that's that. I was off work for a whole month as I was unable to put weight on my right leg - the physical therapy has been two times a week since then! That takes up a lot of my time.

I have officially started studying to retake the CPA exam again after my last review. I was thinking I didn't really want to but in discussion with my manager and partner I decided it may be worth it for now. I don't believe I will take it again if I don't pass this time though and that has caused me to be more serious in my studying. My favorite coffee shop: Bunna Coffee has recently extended it's hours during the week - which works out for my studies as well :-)

Work has recently really started to push us marketing the firm outside of work. I feel that I'll do okay with this task since I usually go to happy hours and my other groups - plus fundraising gets me points as well and I do a lot of that with the Breast Cancer 3 Day!

I also have recently committed to a year or once a week meetings with a homeless family, where me and a group of others who each have a position to fill at the table mentor the family in what decisions they should be considering to help get them out of their current situation. Check out the program - I feel it could be life changing for not only myself but for many families involved in the table. www.theopentable.org

Church has started becoming important in my life again as well. The young adults group - Kairos - at Grace Community Church has proven to be a good stepping stone in my life. I have made some decent friends there and have learned and gotten motivated to start reading the bible again. I joined a bible study with some people in the group and we are currently studying the book of James. I hope to continue being diligent in my studies and at the very least commit to attending a bible study small group. There is a Financial Peace University starting at the end of August on Wednesday nights that I want to attend as well. I think it would be smart to get real with myself about becoming debt free as soon as possible so I can start saving towards my future, towards schooling for either Aubrey or maybe my own child, and toward missions trips - which I have felt pulled to start doing one day in the future when it is possible to take off of work for such things. I also want to be debt free so more of my money can go toward giving freely to the organizations I truly believe in. (one example being Outreach International). I want to also start becoming more aware myself and bringing more awareness to others about poverty around the world. Outreach International has some great ideas - such as a bean and rice meal (which I fully intend to try to hold one of these within the next year).

Also, due to my reading the Grace Community Church newsletter - I have gained an interest in the International Student's Inc. program. They have something called "Friendship Partners". Friendship Partners are individuals (or families) who build friendships with international students from surrounding colleges by going to monthly events with them. I am going to a training session Aug. 15 and will hopefully get involved in this. I think it is a great opportunity for me to meet someone new who has different perspectives and get to know about their culture as well as show them ours. I am excited to see what this program has to offer me.

Other than that - life is life. I have been loving watching my baby Jasper grow up! I honestly have no idea how I could love any other dog as much as I love him - so unfair to other dogs...he has such a personality and is his own dog. He is just so loving and playful and definitely the cutest dog around! He also keeps me from being a homebody - I have to take him to the park which is good for me.

Sherwey and I have been dating for about 2.5 years now. I can't figure out why he has put up with me for so long...I have issues ha. He takes good care of me and Jasper though and life would be way hard without his help! I love him lots and appreciate the time I've gotten to be with him and his patience with me and all of my little random quirks.

Anyway - the whole point of this blog post is - yes I am involved in a lot right now...but I also am very blessed and things have gone very well over the past few years since I've moved out here to Arizona. Organization? Eh - maybe one day it will come...I wish I had a clone to do the mundane organization....and the everyday life things (like getting my work completed....doing the dishes...making the bed...shopping for clothes that aren't worn out....etc) - but things always seem to work out and that's all I can ask for. God is good.

Peace.

Something new.

I have decided to do something different this year. I am collecting names of those you donate in honor of, in memory of, in support of -- and I will place each name on their own ribbon and attach it to my t-shirt the first day (the first 20 miles) to recognize them. Please feel free to send me names - I truly wish that there were no names...but we all know that is not the case. Even if you can't donate monetarily - please feel free to send me names. I walk in honor of all!

The 3 Day - How you can help me...

Below is my 3 day donation website. I need to earn $2,300 to walk 60 miles over 3 days in the fight against breast cancer!

I completed the walk in 2008 and took a year off to give all of my friends and family a "donation break" but I am back at it again. This year I plan to join a team as well! Check out the Ta-Ta Sisterhood's blog for more information on my team!

This years walk will also be a challenging one as I have just had ACL and meniscus repair surgery exactly 3 weeks ago today. I have not been able to put any weight on my right leg and will be on crutches through next week. Then it will be a matter of building my leg back up enough to walk every single step of the 60 miles beside those who have beaten cancer, those who have not yet beaten cancer, and those who represent their loved ones who were taken from us prematurely due to the horrible disease!

If you'd like to go to my personal site directly...click HERE!

Jasper is awesome.

As most of you know, I have a dog. I didn't think I was a dog person...but Jasper is changing all of that. He is the best dog in the world.

One of the things he enjoys doing is hiding out under beds - and every now and then if he is in a playful mood he plays what I like to call "Hungry Hungry Hippo". Here's a video of us playing :) ENJOY!




Now, I realize some of you may not have the slightest idea what Hungry Hungry Hippos is...so i thought I would help you out. Here's the commercial from the 80's game:

Love.

This past weekend was spent in community with 12 others in a cabin in Pinetop, Arizona. It was absolutely beautiful weather and absolutely beautiful communion. With the current condition of my knee (almost 3 weeks out of surgery for my ACL and meniscus repair), I had a lot of time to sit and view the others as they interacted with one another. If only the love I saw coming from each of them for each other could multiply exponentially to the entire world! I saw people sitting and discussing important issues with one another - not only giving their own opinions, but also actively listening to the other person's thoughts/concerns. We not only grew in knowledge of one another but we formed bonds of trust and love.

Yesterday morning was the final "bible study" which was an extension of the theme started at the bible study Saturday morning. "Love".

Twelve of us sat around picnic tables outside of the cabin - one in the Spirit - and read scripture. The first scripture brought up was 1 John 4:7-12.


"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he so loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us."

Also stated was Romans 5:6-8.


"You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."


Love is one of the greatest gifts we have been given and as such, we as Christians should be walking pictures of what Christ's love is. Through our discipleship with Christ and our serving of our Brothers and Sisters (not meaning only other Christians...meaning....EVERYONE) we can truly learn to love. Perfect love is not attainable in our current states - I do believe however that it is something we can each work towards and will be achieved in our eternal life through Christ.

To end our bible study yesterday, the teacher had prepared us for taking communion together that we may truly remember the love Christ had for us. Many times we as Christians seem to go about our daily lives and will forget - Christ gave us a way to remember his sacrifice and love for us. The 12 of us (yes just like the 12 disciples) tore off bread and drank from the same glass in remembrance of Christ. If I can take but one ounce of the love and oneness in the Spirit that was felt in those moments out into the world, I believe so many lives could be changed. I pray that God helps me to pass it along to others without judgement, without fear and that somehow even just one person's life could be changed as a result.

In ending - here are lyrics for the day:

THE FACE OF LOVE

by Sanctus Real

I’ve seen your face on stained glass, in colored lights

In pictures of you looking to the sky

You’ve been portrayed a thousand different ways

But my heart can see you better than my eyes

‘Cause it’s love that points the portrait of your life

The face of love

The face of love

You look more like love everyday

I’ve read your words in the pages of your life

And I’ve imagined what you were like

I may not know the shape of your face

But I can feel your heart changing mine

And your love still proves that you’re alive

The face of love

The face of love

You look more like love everyday

You are the face that changed the whole world

No one too lost for your love

No one too low for you to serve

So give us the grace to change the world

No one too lost for me to love

No one too low for me to serve

Let us see....

Let us be your face

Camp Ziyoca 2010

Well, it has been a while since I've posted a blog update so here we go. I figured camp was the appropriate topic for right now - I can't believe it is already only a month and a half away! I'm such a horrible camp director! So far I have a few committed counselors yet many many spots to fill as far as activity planning wise. I hope to get more commitment now that we are down to the wire.

I recently found out that my main campfire leader/talent show organizer/P.R.U.N.E. Radio organizer may not be there this year. If he isn't there - that also means that his fiancé will be missing as well which means I also need to fill the Banquet organizer spot! Ugh! I would step up and help with some of this but I really have very little creative bones in my body and they would not turn out that great at all. There's also the problem that we can never get a camp nurse and that is definitely a requirement from World Headquarters - double ugh!

All will work out in the end. I realize what I really need to sit myself down and do is have a little heart to heart with God and see the true direction he wants to lead us down. Facts are facts - camps have been getting smaller...we have been losing money as our budget is never hit...we just can't keep going like this. It is hard as a director because camp costs keep going up as the campground fees increase and we get fewer campers each year and I KNOW this is financially difficult on many of the campers' families and therefore some can't come. I want us to start growing again. When I was younger our camp was so strong and vibrant and over the years it just started to dwindle. It seems like everyone is getting busy over the summer and moving out of the district and their kids aren't coming to camp due to these facts. I just wish I could get us all together and remind everyone of the spirit of the camp and how God truly does bless everyone who meets on the mountain.

This year's theme is B.O.O.T Camp (Building on our traditions) as I would really like to focus on the traditions we have at camp as well as the traditions of the campgrounds and on a higher level, the traditions of the Church. It is imperative that we educate our youth and let them in on all that has been special to those of us who have grown up at the campgrounds in order for them to stay alive.

Anyway, that is my rambling thus far about camp. I love it - my favorite week of every year. I cannot wait to see all the campers gathering in June and I can't wait to meet with the counselors that I have become so close with. I pray that God helps us make this one week out of the year the most special/spirit-filled week for each and every camper and that the Spirit we send them off with at the end of the week is contagious and they can remember that feeling for a whole year until they come back in 2011 WITH all of their friends.

I will end with the lyrics of my favorite campfire song:

Pass It On

words by Kurt Kaiser

It only takes a spark to get a fire going, And soon all those around can warm up in its glowing; That's how it is with God's Love, Once you've experienced it, You spread the love to everyone You want to pass it on. What a wondrous time is spring, When all the tress are budding The birds begin to sing, the flowers start their blooming; That's how it is with God's love, Once you've experienced it. You want to sing, it's fresh like spring, You want to pass it on. I wish for you my friend This happiness that I've found; You can depend on God It matters not where you're bound, I'll shout it from the mountain top - PRAISE GOD! I want the world to know The Lord of love has come to me I want to pass it on. I'll shout it from the mountain top - PRAISE GOD! I want the world to know The Lord of love has come to me I want to pass it on.

Introducing Jasper

I couldn't have picked a cuter puppy. I couldn't have picked a worse time!

So I get my puggle at 8 weeks...have to do the training thing for the first time in my LIFE (our dogs as a kid were always outdoor dogs and we never trained them or did anything by the books with them for that matter!).

I love him...I hate him...it varies depending on the exact minute it is in the day. Luckily I have an amazing boyfriend who knows I need to study for my CPA exam and need to get sleep on certain nights in order to function at work....and I love him for that. He has Jasper tonight actually. This helps SO much.

Anyway - are you prepared to fall in love with the cutest pup in the world? Well here goes: