Back on Track

It's been a while since I have posted, and there are several excuses that I could use to try to explain myself, but really, I just haven't known what to write, and haven't really felt "up to it". Life's been very "unexpected" to say the least, and I have been experiencing what I can only call a streak of "bad luck"? It's not as if I lost my life savings in a gambling spree (I don't have a life savings... I spent it at the outlets last month! Retail therapy works wonders!), or even that I have lost anything of material value. But sometimes life deals us a disappointment here or there and I seem to have had a plate full...

HOWEVER, that doesn't mean that I don't have a ton of things to be grateful for, or that I really have anything to even complain about. Though I wish some things in my life were going in a different direction, the Lord has blessed me to be at peace and keeps reminding me that I am surrounded with a FANTASTIC family who loves me more than I think I really realize and friends who love me and are cheering for me - even if I can't hear it (because they don't live with me, and they can't yell quite that loud).

So, lets talk about what's been going on that has been wonderful... or should have been wonderful if I could only come to accept that each year you get older and there's nothing you can do about it. I mean really! GET A GRIP! This past month I turned 27. Okay I said it. I am 27! I hate that I am not in my mid-twenties any more and I hate that I have become one of those people who now has an issue with getting older. I KNOW I am still SO YOUNG! Yeah, I hear that a lot, but I don't know that I feel "young" anymore. Not like I am hunched over and have back aches or anything, but lets face it - When I was "young" and thought about being a single 27 year old (wait, I'm mormon, I didn't think about being Single when I was 27!... lets be honest here!), I just think that I thought that I should either be in this fantastic, "important" career with lots of money and a passport (period!) with lost of stamps in it OR own a nice house OR something that is a little more showy. I do have a career, but I don't even have a passport, let alone a stamp in it, and I don't have a house (or savings... remember how I teach school!). So, I guess that I just thought when I got this old, I would FEEL more like and adult, instead of this person who in reality doesn't know what to do with themselves MOST OF THE TIME.
Which leads me into another tangent... what to do with myself! I recently finished my masters (the one thing in my life that I feel like is a grown up thing to have accomplished... so I guess I am not hopeless!) so that is "done", I will be finishing up my last class for my gifted endorsement, which will be "done" and then I am going to be done with my service mission in May. I don't know what to do with all this new found "free time" - I like a little free time, so I don't get suffocate, but I generally don't do well without something to occupy my time and thoughts. A project of sorts! Please feel free to offer suggestions - otherwise I may be sent to the loony bin over the summer! 2 months with nothing just might do me in...

Okay, Sorry - no more tangents... another great moment this past month was that I got to go visit my sister and her family in "the Ohio". I missed out on the traditional Christmas day, but I certainly enjoyed the next 5. I got to make cookies with my favorite older sister, watch movies, enjoy trips to different stores, jog in a t-shirt (while everyone in Utah was enjoying 18 degree weather... yeah that was nice!), go to the library, read the "Jesus" book about 25 times (it was Allison's new favorite) and MY favorite... getting an early morning wake up call to the sound of, "Chisha (that's what my niece calls me) WAKE UP! WAKE UP, aunt Chisha." I do LOVE my little Alli and miss her a lot - so even though it was 5 a.m. to my body, I was happy to get up and do whatever she wanted... okay so I did ALMOST whatever she wanted... I'm not perfect! So, though it wasn't what I pictured my December to look like, it sure had some HIGH points! Hopefully my "luck" will be changing to include a lot more HIGH points in the near future!