Certified!

I am more and more convinced that God has a great sense of humor.  Little things are happening all the time that lead me to believe that God is having some fun with me.  I'm O.K. with it, I like to laugh and I laugh easily sometimes (maybe a little too easily).  It may be that I'm in a better place and able to see God's humor in life clearer or maybe I'm just looking to God for a little laughter.

In late May, when I was pretty sure I was moving on to the next thing in life but hadn't told anyone about my decision, the Pastor asked if I had finished my Certificate in Youth Ministry that I had started years before.  It got me to thinking that I had taken the final class a year before but hadn't yet seen anything that said "Congratulations!  You're done!".  The Personnel team was wanting the official piece of paper saying I was certified, so I sent a quick email to the program administrator and found out that I was supposed to fill out a piece of paper.  Who knew?!  Obviously, not me!

I filled out the paper and sent it in.  I did notice the little box on the paper that said "please give us the address you will be at in 6-8 weeks". Hmm...would it really take 6-8 weeks?  Evidently, it does.  Today, about 6 weeks after mailing the paper in, I got an email.  I am officially certified!  My paper certificate will be arriving in the mail.  My transcripts will reflect my certification status AND I can officially update my resume (seriously, it said that). 

It's just a piece of paper, but it seems like so much is coming full circle and that God is having a little giggle.  Seems fitting that I get the piece of paper just as this chapter of my time in Youth Ministry is coming to an end. 

I'm adding a new line to my resume--Certificate in Youth Ministry...wonder if that will come in handy in the future?

Life

In dot form:

• Wednesday night Opinionated Friend, YL GalPal and I went out really late. Really, really late. Saw a movie and then drove YL GalPal to the airport...at 3 in the morning. It was fun to hang out with them, a good movie and a good reminder that I am SO not 20 anymore! Getting home at 5am meant getting about 4 hours of sleep. At one point the next day I was sitting at work and my eyes were crossing I was so tired. Would do it again...but with that cup of coffee at 11pm. :)
  
• Friday I went to leave the house in the afternoon. I had taken the morning to just breathe before focusing on writing the final paper for my final class for my Certificate in Youth Ministry. Housemates had left earlier in the day, so I locked the front door and headed to the garage...and found the garage door locked. There's no direct access to the house from the garage, so the garage entry door is outside the house. There's a lock on that door. It was locked. I peered through the windows and saw that the main garage door was down. My car was inside the garage. Are you tracking with me? It gets better. Inside the locked garage was my locked car with (drumroll please) my house keys safely tucked away inside. Yep. Locked out of the garage, locked out the house. Nice. I rescued my car but not without practicing some stealth moves. Fun.
  
• Friday night instead of heading to shop as originally thought I joined Yo Momma, G.G. and Fab Friend B for dinner and a movie. Good food, good conversation and a really silly movie. Yeah, nice end to the day.
• Saturday Yo Momma and I braved the crowds at the mall and went shopping. We have this Black Tie thing to attend in, oh 22 days and, well, my idea of getting dressed up is a nice pair of jeans and a pretty shirt. Not gonna work. In the first 2 hours I found a beautiful top that was over 75% off. YES! Yo Momma found her business attire (that's one of the nights) but decided against the dress that was so tight it left NO room to the imagination. We laughed a lot!
• And today, today I finished that paper. Tomorrow it's time to focus on Youth Sunday, songs for VBS at neighboring church and revamping my job description. Life goes on.
  

A beautiful day

It was a beautiful day here. Just beautiful. After church I knew that I had to read a book...not usually a hardship for me but this one was for my LAST CLASS!!!!! Which makes it kind of a text book, but not really, which is hard for my mind to completely wrap around...I just have a hard time reading text books without zoning out. But seeing as how my last class is this coming weekend and I have three books to read, three papers to write and one oral presentation to prepare for (not to mention working 40 hours this week and still having a life or at least sleeping some), I had to read today. HAD to.

So I decided to grab lunch and head to the beach. Did I tell you that it's a beautiful day? Yeah. I forgot. Beautiful day + beach=way too many people and cars around. There was no parking my car overlooking the ocean and enjoying a comfy seat with the sea air and sound of the waves surrounding me. No. I wound up at home on the front deck with the sun on my legs and the breeze wafting over me, stirring the new wind chimes into melody.

I got my book read AND I got to go to a movie with friends...(Back-up plan...eh)...and I'm pretty sure that one of the tones the new wind chime makes is the "ding" an elevator makes when it reaches it's destination floor.

It was a beautiful day.

Saturday night--Updated

And the house is quiet. Lil Bro, New Sis and Baby P were here this week. It was nice to have them around, even though life just kept moving along. They left this morning so it's a quiet house tonight. I have to say I already miss this face:But having a night to myself is good for this soul. I'm taking a my FINAL class for the Certificate in Youth Ministry I've been working on for a few years. It's a good class, but as I told K today, God always seems to push me towards classes that speak directly to whatever stage of life that I'm in at the moment. It wrecks me. Bad enough that it's school and I have to read text-like books and write papers and do presentations but the spiritual themes of these classes just push me to the edge. My emotions are right on the brink of spilling over.

So tonight, I'm taking the night off. I'm gonna read a book that is SO not about spirituality. I might watch a movie that makes me cry (Steel Magnolias or Life as a House always work) and I'm gonna enjoy the quiet. But I still miss this face.
UPDATED: Movie that actually made me cry: Armageddon. That scene where Bruce Willis' character says goodbye to his daughter...sobbed like crazy!

Big city, small town

Friday night in a big city. I was in town for a class that was running Friday night and all day Saturday. I could have technically driven home and back but chose to sleep instead and just got a hotel room. There was a fridge in the room, so in my wisdom I decided to head to the local grocery store after class and get some food for the following day. So there I was, at Safeway, in a big city at 9pm at night on a Friday and what did I see...teenagers everywhere. Literally everywhere. In the parking lot, in front of the store, in the store, sitting at booths (inside the store), in every aisle...what in the world?

The teens in our town complain that there is nothing to do. They are eager to get to a big city where there is "more to do". Makes one wonder...Why are the teens in this big city hanging around Safeway on a Friday night? Is there really not that much more to do in the big city than there are in the small town? Is there really no place better to go...or is the reason the teens hang around Safeway in the big city the same reason they hang around Safeway in the small town? Oh, I don't want to think about that.

And that fridge in my hotel room...yeah, it didn't work. Lovely.

March 20th

29 lectures
1/2 Textbook
2 Exams
1 paper
ALL DONE!!!!!

Life can now return to normal!

Celebrate good times, come on!

The best sound of the day was the sound of the post office worker stamping that big envelope "March 20th" and throwing it in the outgoing mail. Woo-hoo! I'm done!...for now.

Studies as of today

3 lectures listened to--5 more to go I think.
Final chapter read in text book.
1 paper to write...that I still have no idea about!
1 Final exam looming.
1 week left.

Halfway there!?!?

Mid-Term done. 15 lectures, one paper and one final exam to go...in the next 2 weeks. Excuse me while I go into hiding!

Sunday's ramblings

It's too warm outside. I walked out of the garage toward the front of the house and this warm gust of wind made me think that it's summer time. Seriously. Which bums me out 'cuz I just got one of my Christmas presents in the mail, fabulous sweatshirt that says "Washington D.C." on it and I really want to wear it but it's too stinkin' warm.

I wore it tonight anyway but sweat my way through R.A.W. I haven't really worn a pullover hooded sweatshirt in a few years...switched to zip ups and all my other sweatshirts don't have hoods. But putting this one on with jeans and tennis shoes reminds me of my college days and makes me feel good. It's strange how something as silly as a sweatshirt can take me back a couple of years...or a decade. Geesh.

Speaking of college, if Fuller accepts my late registration, I am back to being a grad student again. I've been trying to work my way through their Certificate of Youth Ministry. It's been slow going but there are only two courses I need to take, so I signed up for a Distance Learning Course. Which means I'm going to need to study again, take tests and listen to lectures. Can you feel the excitement rolling off of me? No? Neither can I. I like learning, I don't like tests and studying stresses me out. But I'm determined to get this Certificate done! The chunk that it's taking out of my savings account is hefty but that's what I get for attempting to feel qualified for the position I'm in.

The weekend has been pretty non-eventful. I've done a lot of laundry, shredded a bunch of mail (so many American Express applications I can't believe it!), thrown stuff away, cleaned off some spaces, put other stuff in spaces and spent a lot of time pondering the lack of entertainment on television. After pretty much going non-stop since Thanksgiving, it has been nice to have a down weekend...though I'm going to pay for it tomorrow 'cuz I told my housemate that I would make sure the ornaments were off the Christmas tree and I didn't do that. She comes home tomorrow...that's the first thing on my list for the morning!

Good stuff

I'm always busy. It's rare to find a day when there is just nothing on my calendar to do. The last two months have been filled with activities, responsibilities and just plain busyness. Sometimes I dread the activities but then there are days like the last 4 that are filled with good stuff.

Friday was concert night. I love going to concerts especially with Fun Aunt and Cutie Cousin and especially country concerts. Friday it was The Wreckers and Keith Urban. Good stuff.

Saturday my parents and I drove 7+ hours round trip to celebrate with a long time family friend as she got married for the first time (she's in the over 50 crowd). It was such a special ceremony and pretty fun to sit with my mom, dad and brother shedding tears of joy as our friend married the man of her dreams. Good, good stuff.

Sunday's worship service was jam packed but it was so fulfilling. I assisted the Pastor in an infant dedication for Little Boy and then had the honor of being commissioned with our Pearlington Team for our upcoming trip (1 day away!). It was an extra special service as old friends from out of town were there, college students were home and people I love were sitting in the pews. Very cool worship service and pretty darn good stuff.

Sunday night it was dinner by the beach with Yo Momma and The Dad celebrating Fathers Day. More good stuff.

Today spending the day with youth at the beach, though super cold, was super fun. No bad attitudes and lots of laughter. That's good stuff.

And tonight opening the mail and receiving the grade from my class, an A thank you very much, that is good stuff. Sometimes being busy pays off.

Procrastination 101--update

DONE!!!! Not only done, it's all in the mail! YES!

Procrastination, my old friend

I recently re-entered the world of graduate school. I'm not really sure why I feel the need to torture myself like this every-so-often. Seriously. I am so good at procrastination. It comes naturally. I put off writing papers until the last possible second and then am a stress case until it's done. There was one paper in college that I didn't write until the last minute (literally hours before class started) and then the printer in the computer lab wouldn't let me have my paper. And every printer on campus that I had access I couldn't get on to print the paper (because so many others were late with their own papers). My only option was to run home and retype the whole thing on my old computer and print it out (dot matrix printers...gotta love 'em!). I was 45 minutes late for class, but I got it in! And got a lower grade.

Yeah, procrastination and I are old friends. These days it's even worse. When I was an undergrad I didn't have DSL or cable. I couldn't afford it...actually DSL wasn't even available. But now, I have On-Demand and Wi-Fi. The possiblities for procrastination are limitless! Not to mention a full-time job, friends, books that I like to read, ITunes and a blog! I'm even considering cleaning the shower or any room in the house to avoid writing the papers I have due in two weeks. Now that I think about it, my apartment was always really clean when I was procrastinating on school work. Hmmmm.

It's not like these papers are hard. 2 pages, double-spaced, reflections on three books that I read for the class. I liked the books. It shouldn't be so hard to write out my thoughts on paper and be done with it. That's what I'm doing here, right? So why is it so hard to get myself motivated? Sigh. Old habits die hard, as the saying goes. Yep, procrastination and I are old friends. It has been awhile since the shower was cleaned...