Just a Blip

So tonight I had some girl time with a good friend of mine curling hair and looking pretty.

Oh, and a random note: I colored my hair black. Well... it was supposed to be dark brown... but, as you can see, it ended up darker than that. I think it looks pretty cool. (Especially when it's curled)

But anyway, after a week of craziness that made me go completely bonkers, going to the mall with friends sounded like it would be the cure for a hard week's worth of stress. We hung around for a bit. I went and looked for a t-shirt I have been trying to buy and couldn't find it. However, I did find a Zelda t-shirt that was fun. Oh. And an awesome $4 hat. Which, by the way, I am wearing while I am typing up this post.

Just another day on the college ant hill.

Resting in the Shadow of the Cross

Sometimes we do not understand what is going on in our lives. We question everything, wondering why our world gets turned upside down, or in my case, comes to a skidding crash. Sometimes I asked God why He allowed me to be hurt like this out of curiosity, but never once have I been angry about it. I fully understand that God is working something out in my life. He is making me a teachable vessel wherewith He fills me with the ever living water, His Word. Through this situation, I have learned to love God more. Why would I love a God who let me get into a horrible accident where I could have died? God created me. God gave me the very breath I breathe. God gave me life. Why WOULDN'T I love God? You know what else God has done for me? God has redeemed me from my life of sin. How? He sent His Son, who lived a perfect life and knew NO sin to die for my wages of death. Jesus paid my ransom, my debt. Sometimes I fail, I stumble, I fall, but God always lovingly picks me back up again and reminds me that He is always faithful and that He gives me grace for every need. My prayer is that I become so completely and totally in love with God that I put no other 'god' in my life before Him. "And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." Mark 12:30

Just a Small Town Girl

During the second half of my summer I spent my days at home being bored. I was not able to get a job, so instead I enjoyed the leisures of every day summer fun. During this part of the summer my car brakes were starting to go out. I was talking about it to a friend who I used to volunteer with at the pound (and during my break was volunteering again). This gentleman has his own garage and offered to help me fix it on one condition: I have to help.

I was pretty excited to have something to do. Spending my day with Murphy, working on my car, getting dirty? Sounds like fun to me! Working in the garage was a fun experience as Murphy and I jacked up my car, took off the tires, and inspected my brakes. Murphy did most of the work and directed me to do this and that. We listened to his country music mix all daywhich made me smile. It reminded me that I was from small town Iowa. Once he figured out what we needed to fix my car, Murphy took me to an O'Rileys to get the parts. Being away in a different country where I felt like I knew no one made me forget that I practically knew EVERYONE in my home town. I ran into different people while we were out and chatted with them while Murphy got the parts I needed.

After a few hours of work on my car we ate lunch at the gas station down the street. Murphy goes there very often and knows the people that work there. After a quick lunch we went back to work. Seeing as my car is also very loud because of my exhaust system, Murphy wanted to fix that too. So we put on a new muffler and tail pipe. Here is a picture of some of my piping underneath my car:

Fantastic! After buying pipes Murphy realizes that we needed to bend them in order to put them under my car correctly. Uno problemo: he didn't have a pipe bender. What to do? Well... ONLY in small town Iowa can you walk down the street and find someone who happens to have a pipebender! We went into his shop and bent the pipes the way they needed to be and went back to his garage and continued to work on my car. This was an all day affair and very exhausting, but totally worth it!

This day that I had was a reminder of the small town girl I really am.

Just another day on the ant hill. :)