Goodness- two years later...

Sorry for my lack of attendance here the past couple years.  This website has been driving me crazy with all its little bugs and things, so I gave up for a while.  Now, so far so good.  And A LOT has happened since I posted last. I'm still in school, and still working- two jobs actually! John's grandfather died last year, and that's been tough.  AND we're trying for baby #1.  That's proven to be more difficult than we could have expected it to be.

It all started when I had to have surgery back in December about a week and a half before Christmas to remove a cyst and a couple other things.  Physically since then, I've felt fine.  Emotionally, it's been very tough.  our first year of marriage we didn't really try and we didn't really prevent either.  In our second year of marriage, we were more serious about trying, but again, we weren't  really going out of our way to encouraging it.  I've had a history of being irregular, so I half expected that I may have a problem, but never really went to go check it out or anything.  We knew we wanted to have kids, and because we weren't getting anywhere, we were growing more and more discouraged.

The surgery left me a little limited on how frequent I have my cycles, not to mention I've been irregular.  My OB/GYN and I have determined that I'm most likely dealing with PCOS, so that limits me even more (but am in NO way unable to have kids at all, so that's good).  So, I've been dealing with bouts of depression (I'm guessing) for a few months.  It made things harder when my husband's brother and his wife got pregnant after being married about 4-5 months, and here we were married almost three years with nothing and issues on my end.  It made it harder for us because my husband and I are the oldest children in our families.  We wanted SO badly to be able to give our parents the first grandchild.  For my family, that's still going to happen, but not for his family.

Here more in the past month and a half or so, I've had more good days than bad days with all this, and there is a possibility that I could be pregnant right now.  I went hand had some blood work last week at my DR's appointment, and had some done again yesterday.  I have an appointment with my OB/GYN on Monday, so we'll find out then if we don't find out before then where we stand.  I LOVE my Doctor. He's been so wonderful! I'll be on more often now and I'll be blogging my journey more often, so I hope you'll follow me through this.

So, here's what's been going on. I don't know what has made my blog so uncooperative lately, but it has been and it's made me very unhappy. I ended up getting a tumblr account to kind of tide my blogging 'cravings' (if you can call it that) until I could get this one fixed. I'll be updating the tumblr one, too, when I update this one.

Lately, I've been busy. I went as a chaperone to our youth group's fall retreat. It was fun, but I came back sick. I ended up missing 2 classes, and two tests have had to be made up. I was able to make one up, and I'm taking the other one this coming Friday. I've been on Fall break this week and it's been nice. I have only one class, and that's on Friday. I was an extra in a Nick Carter video yesterday with some friends. If you don't know, Nick Carter used to be in the 90's boy band, Backstreet Boys. I liked them, but I was more of an NSYNC fan growing up. I ended up spending the night last night with one of my friends at her house. It was fun! I missed John, though. Anyway... Mid term week is next week, and I have a paper due. I'm kinda stressed about it and I'll be ready to turn it in. I won't have to worry about another paper for that class until later. Thankfully!!!!

Sorry I've been away so long. My blog on this site has been acting up and not letting me post at all.

Prayer Request

Hey, all. I have a prayer request for you all because 1. I know prayer works, and 2. I know you all will pray. I have been babysitting my friend's niece, Faith, off and on for about the past couple weeks or so. She's a very loving two year old that has the most beautiful red hair anyone's ever seen. This little girl has been through more in her 2 years of life than I ever have in my 23 years, which is REALLY saddening to me when I stop and think about it (or what I know if it at least). I'm not sure what's going to happen to her here in the near future.

Faith's mom is going to court on the 13th of this month with several different charges against her, and she hasn't been a great mom for Faith. Cassy, my friend and Faith's aunt, was granted temporary custy of Faith this past Wednesday. After the 13th, I'm not sure if that's going to stay the same or if some other arrangements are going to be made for Faith.

Faith doesn't talk, but she understands what she's told and responds to what she's told the best way she knows how to. I think she's been confined to small spaces (and has gotten in trouble for things- like not being quiet and other petty things), and not been given the love that she so desperately craves and deserves. Her daddy's not really in the picture (I think), because she is SO attached to my husband when she's here and he's at the house. She's got him wrapped around her fingers, it's great.

So I would appreciate it very much if you all would pray for Faith, her mom, and for Cassy that God's will be done in their lives and good will come out of this situation. Also, pray for my husband and me so that we can learn why Faith was put in our lives and how we can best help her. Thank you so much. I know that this will mean more to them that we may ever fully know.

Loving God, Loving each other, and Loving the world

A couple weeks ago, we started a new series where I go to church about our mission statement as a congregation. It's been an amazing study so far. We're talking about "Loving God (through Worship), loving each other (through small groups and spending time getting to know brothers and sisters at our congregation at a deeper level better), and loving the world (through mission and benevolence). Last week, we talked about making worship a priority. It was a great lesson, and I learned a lot. I was raised in the church, and going to worship was always a priority for me, so I understood a lot of what our minister was saying. This week we talked about praise. It was another great lesson. We sang some songs that we'd been learning the week before and it really helped put my mind (at least) where it needed to be. It helped remind me that I should always have an attitude of praise. As we talk about more subjects, I'll talk about them more in the blog and share what I learned.

For every season- turn, turn, turn

There is a series of movies that I absolutely love called the "Love Comes Softly" series. It's based on the books by Jannette Oke (I think that's the correct spelling). I'm in the middle of watching the first movie of the series right now and I've forgotten how much I love this movie in particular. This is the plot that's on the back of the box: "Based on the Janette Oke's best selling book series, and directed by Michael Landon, Jr., Love Comes Softly is an inspired storytelling for the whole family. Marty and Aaron Clardge (Katerine Heigl and Olver Macready) travel waest in search of a new opportunity. But when tragety strikes and Marty is suddenly widowed, the young woman must face the rugged terain, bleak weather, and live among strangers- alone. That is, until a handsome widower named Clark Davis (Dale Midkiff) suggets a platonic "marriage of convenience" until Marty can return home. As the months pass, though, Marty and Clark discover an unexpected new love where there was once only loss."

I love this movie partly because it's written by a 'christian' author and it's a good wholesome movie. I also love it because of the seasons and the time period it was written in. Maybe that's the whole history part of me. I don't know. It takes place during the time of Western expansion (kinda like Little House on the Prairie). I just love that time period, and I would go back to that time if I ever had the chance. I also love this movie in the series in particular because of the theme that runs through it. It's a beautiful theme (it's been made into songs and is quoted ALL the time), but also a ery sobering and almost scary theme if you really think about it. It can also be found in the book of Ecclesiastes. This is how it reads:

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace."

If you haven't figured that out, it's from Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. When I think about this, I see that we all have hope. I also see that even through the bad times, God works through them for a greater good/better outcome (eventhough He doesn't cause the bad things to happen). I love this movie and this scripture because it helps remind me that there is a time for everything. I think that's why I love spring and fall so much. It shows that there is a time for things to grow and bloom, but also there is a time to rebuid and for everything to recoup after the harvest. I just love it all!! That's just what's on my mind as of most lately.

So about camp

I know this is quite a few weeks late, but I just thought I'd share a little about my experience at camp this summer with my old youth group. It was an incredible year. We had eight baptisms (two of which were re-baptized), lots of growing was involved, lots of seeds were planted and lots of changing happened... Even on my part. One thing that I love about camp is the special time that the senior campers get to take advantage of at night. We have time in the schedule where we can get together and just sing praises to God while on the ball field on our property. One night at one of these ball field devos, we were given the opportunity to get together with about three or four other people and just talk and confess stuff that was going on in our world. I was lucky enough to participate in this. It helped me see what I really needed to change and I was able to get the guts to confess it to other people and to really admit to myself that I needed to change this part of my life. It has been very beneficial for me to have done this. The change has not yet been easy, but is getting easier with each passing day. Thank goodness. So pray for me. Yet again, we thought the girls would win the egg toss. It was SO close. It was down to one girls team and one boys team. But we lost, so the boys gave the girls an egg shampoo. I'll have more later. This is just what I had to say so far.