Blessing #5- Driving in the Dark

It has been a long day and I'm exhausted, but I promised a post a day, so this one'll be short  : )

I had an amazing day with some of my best girl friends (that's a blog post for another day after I get pictures of our goofiness from my friend). The 35 minute drive home from Cleveland Heights was in the dark. There's something about driving late at night that I love. The taillights seem to continue on forever and ever in the distance. The moon and stars twinkle above. There are fewer cars on the highway, which I appreciate when driving through the Cleveland area. There's a certain stillness and peace about it all.
My instinct a lot of times when I get in the car is to turn on the radio. But something about tonight made me want to ride in silence; to just treasure the quiet. I was able to sort out my thoughts from the day, to plan out tomorrow, and to spend some quiet time with my Father. I can't tell you how refreshing that was. So often I feel like I get caught up in the busyness of life and don't take time to stop, even just for a few minutes and really think about life. And if it takes getting in the car and driving around at night just to get that time, I think it'd be worth it =D

Blessing #4- My Awesome Brother

Um, yeah. We're sitting in my room right now. He's brushing his teeth. We've had a fun night together talking about nothing at all. I mentioned that I needed a subject for my blog post tonight. And Jacob, being who he is, says "Well, you could write it about me. You know you're thankful for me!"

And as much as that made me laugh, he's right. I am SO very thankful for him. He's my best friend.

He says that if there are any single gals out there, send applications to his email address. He also says that if I post that he'll kill me. He'll hunt me and my family down. I point out that that would include him and we both burst out laughing. I love him so much.

Blessing #3- Bookstores

Bookstores are awesome. Enough said.

But since that would make for a boring blog post, I'll expand on that a little. This evening after having breakfast for dinner at IHOP with my awesome cousins and a few other people, we wandered over to Borders and looked around for over an hour. I honestly think I could stay there for a few days! There are so many different, wonderful books :) But there are also many really weird books which make browsing the shelves so much fun!

Here are just a few of the most intriguing titles:

- Recipes Every Man Should Know (the first chapter was titled "Meat and Potatoes").
-Married With Zombies
-Are You There Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea.
- The Atheist's Guide To Christmas
- The Depression Cure; Six Easy Steps To A Happier You
-The Book of The Dead
-Becoming a Millionaire, God's Way
-I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell

Now, I'm not condoning nor condemning any of these books because as they say "you can't judge a book from it's cover." I just find it extremely interesting what bizarre/interesting titles you can find wandering around in Borders, a lot of them which I wouldn't pick up and read simply because of how strange their titles are.

Oh yes, and lastly, another fun thing to do in bookstores is to get a group of young people together, sit in a circle on the floor, and listen to someone read "The Polar Express." It was fun, despite the funny looks we got. You should try it sometime :P

Blessing #2- Freezers

         Yes, the title of this post does say "freezers," and hopefully after I explain why I feel this way, you all won't think me so crazy.

         This coming week is going to be a blast!!!! My mom's side of the family is getting together to celebrate Thanksgiving and my grandparents' 50th anniversary. That means that altogether we'll have my grandparents, 4 uncles, 5 aunts, 1 great uncle, 1 great aunt, 18 cousins, and the 6 people in my own family. That many people = a LOT of food! Not to mention that a lot of the family is from out of town and will be staying at either our house or my aunt and uncle's in Alliance, so people need to be fed not only on Thanksgiving, but the day before and a few days afterwards. This is the reason why I am so thankful for the freezer. My mom and I have been pre-baking/pre-buying and freezing everything that we can. Right now our freezer contains (along with all the frozen meats, corn, blueberries, cherries, peaches, jams and jellies, etc that was already in there): 2 large turkeys, dozens of dinner rolls, cool whip, ice cream, 20+ dozen cookies, a few dozen blueberry muffins, breads, and other such things. This will mean less cooking and more visiting while everyone is here!

14 Days of Thanksgiving

          Hey y'all! Anyone else super excited about Thanksgiving?!?!? I am! Break starts at 11:15 tomorrow and I'm counting down the minutes : D
          So, I was thinking yesterday about the season of Thanksgiving. It's truly my favorite holiday. No worries about giving or recieving gifts; just food, family, and counting your blessings. It's just a really special time of the year, and I love it!
          And because it's my favorite day of the year, I'm going to dedicate two weeks (or 14 blog posts) to Thanksgiving Day. Nothing major, but every day I'll just post something little that I'm thankful for. There are so many big things that I'm thankful for, such as the death of my Savior on the cross to save me from my sins, or the wonderful country that I've been placed in where we have freedom to worship our great God, but I'm gonna focus more on the little things in life that God blesses me with; the every day blessings that sometimes go unnoticed.

SO....Blessing #1

This week has been super stressful. The last 2 days I've had 3 exams, and tomorrow I have another. This morning at 8:00, we had nursing exam #5 (it's the last exam before the final!!!!!). Usually after exams, we have lecture and then lab. But today, our lab instructor wasn't able to make it, so we were let out an hour and a half early! Didn't I tell you I'd be blogging about the little things? : ) But you know, God knows just what we need right when we need it. I cannot tell you how much I treasured that hour and a half. I was able to do some reading FOR FUN! I've had John Piper's Don't Waste Your Life sitting on my night stand half-read for the last few weeks, and I finally have an opportunity to read it and not feel stressed about homework that I should be doing instead. I cannot tell you how wonderful that feels right now!

And yes, my stack of nursing books for 1 class
this semester really does look like this :P