Contentment

I have been living here for 10 months. That is crazy talk. So here are some fun memories from my time here.

Catching this touchdown!

Attending Passion 2012 at the Georgia Dome!

Watching this bearded lizard the kids I nanny own.

The building where I attend all of my classes.

The text I got at that ungodly hour from my friends informing me they were heading to Atlanta from Virginia to attend Passion 2012.

My friend Ashley and I took a day trip to DC on what happened to be the rainiest day ever but we still had a good time.

My roommate and I at the Norfolk Tides game.

Celebrating the bride (pink skirt) at her bridal luncheon in Chattanooga, TN.

Nannying these two goofballs.

Visiting Charleston, SC and getting to see Brad and this gate which was made into a necklace I own.

Playing with these two cuties a lot.

From our visit to Zoo Atlanta. I took this picture with a monkey named Grant and a bronze gorilla statue.

Running the Shamrock 8K in 48 minutes!

Gavin DeGraw in concert at Norfolk Harborfest fo free!!

The Andy Warhol exhibit at the museum around here. They have the coolest t-shirts; I will own one eventually.

Budgeting

I've always been a fan of the principle "spend less than you make." I thought it was enough to pay off my credit card each month and call it a day. I mean I am in grad school so it's not like there are too many questions about where it goes. Food, tuition and rent about sums up my three biggest monthly expenditures.

In the spring, however I took a free Dave Ramsey class offered on campus. Money has always intrigued me; how to spend it, how to save it, etc. So I signed up and everything made sense and I did most of the things he recommended EXCEPT budget.

Fast forward about a month and I have a new job with a consistent monthly income so I decide to give budgeting a whirl... Because that's how budgeting works... on a whim.

Let me tell you, I don't much like the word no from others, which is why I hesitate to use it on myself when it comes to my spending. Hence my lack of a budget and my blown food budget from the month of May. I mean blown. Wow. Good thing May ended and it's June which means a fresh start.

If you'd asked me before what was holding me back from budgeting I would have said either my poor math skills or my inconsistent income from part time jobs. However, I can now say the true reason I didn't stick to it was because I have a really hard time saying "no" to myself. Self control is a fruit of the spirit that I'm lacking.

I'm here to tell you that conviction, money management and self control are all good and healthy and lessons I've learned this past month.

So with that, here's to hoping for even better self control in June.

Relationships

Moving away from a community of close friends and family has made me realize the importance of not only keeping those close relationships I had but also making new relationships.

I went home for Christmas break and got to babysit Grace again. I've watched her over the past two summers all day long and sometimes overnight on weekends her parents and brothers go out of town. She's 6 years old but we're best friends I feel like. She's cute and really funny and smart and she loves me too. Over break I was babysitting her one weekend. She took the bus home and I was waiting on the front steps for her to get off the bus. I hadn't seen her since October at this point and didn't know what her reaction would be like. Sometimes she's really shy and sometimes she's very affectionate. Well this particular day she was so excited to see me that she ran off the bus and sprinted to me with her arms open wide yelling "Emily Emily!" It was the best way I could have started off Christmas break.

I ran to her and gave her a hug and we got to spend the whole rest of the weekend together. We also talked about our love of summery patterns on clothes and we sat on the swing and sand Adele's Someone Like You because yes she knows all the words.

Just getting to be with her was such a blessing and I'm still happy thinking about that time I got to spend with her. I'm no where near getting married but I've already decided she'll either be a flower girl or junior bridesmaid in my wedding. I feel so lucky to have a relationship like that with her.

I also got to see some other close friends and there's nothing like the familiarity that comes with being around someone you know so well and they know you so well and there is total acceptance there. I love being in relationships like that and I'm so thankful I got to experience those over break as well.

Now, being back in Virginia, I'm starting to realize that I've got relationships like that here. Not as close yet but definitely on their way to have that familiarity and mutual love and appreciation.

A Soft Place to Land

I read A Soft Place to Land by Susan Rebecca White and I really liked it.

It's about two girls whose parents died when they were 13 and 17 respectively. They are half sisters so when their parents passed away the older daughter went to live with her father in Virginia and the younger one went to live in San Francisco with her aunt and uncle.

The girls grew up in Atlanta so I loved that the author mentioned so many Atlanta/ Buckhead places I was familiar with. It was a little taste of home as I read it up here.

I love books written from the narrative perspective of a character because you really get to understand their thought processes and they develop as someone I can really identify with in the story. This main character had problems she was reeling from because of the death of her parents and other life choices she made so I loved seeing her struggle and wrestle with the problems.

It was a great book and it made me hunger for more books by Southern authors- especially Atlanta ones.

Jane Eyre

So I finished Jane Eyre about two months ago but haven't had the thoughts to write about it. Well let me just say I loved loved loved it. People have recommended it to me but I hadn't heeded their advice yet. It was because when I was younger I watched about 15 minutes of the movie on tv and it was so sad that i didn't want to ever read that book.

How wrong could I have been. I loved her humor and her wit. She talked to herself all the time and tried to talk herself out of having a crush all the time. I found myself understanding myself better by reading her words. it was so great to read about a heroine that was young and independent and funny and smart. I could not have read a better book at that time in my life.

You should definitely read it. Anyone would benefit from Jane Eyre's wit, her honesty and hopefully you'll laugh out loud a couple times like I did.

God is a Good Behaviorist

So in my theories of counseling class we are learning about the cognitive behaviorists. You probably know them as Skinner or Pavlov (of Pavlov's dogs). The ideas they have about humans is that our thoughts or emotions don't really matter. What matters most is the fact that we have outward behaviors that can be changed.

Well within this learning theory are the terms fixed ratio, fixed interval, variable interval and variable ratio. These put into terms the response we expect to get from a specific event. An example of  a fixed ratio is putting money in a vending machine. You put in your 75 cents and you get back a bag of chips. A fixed interval is every Friday getting a paycheck. You know it's coming and you can expect it.

So where does God come in? Our prayer, us asking God for things, is on a variable ratio. We ask for things and our prayers are not answered every time. Do you remember the last time you put money in a vending machine and it didn't give you any food in return? Most of us, what do we do? We walk away. We certainly don't try to put more money in. We know that we put our money in and we should get our chips and when that doesn't happen the system is broken. Well it goes the same for prayer. If God answered our prayers every single time we would just expect it. Then the one time it didn't happen we would immediately leave and not ask for anything from Him ever again. But because it's on a variable ratio we keep asking and keep checking back and keep praying.

My professor talked about this in class and I was amazed. Sometimes it amazes me how God so deeply knows the inner workings of our mind.

Experiment Gone Bad

So I tried my chocolate oatmeal experiment and let me say it was not successful. I cooked it according to other people's suggestions and recipes but it was really bitter. I even sweetened it with no-calorie sweetener but to no avail. Some of the recipes recommended cooking it with milk instead of water so maybe that would have helped the bitterness of it? Here's the picture of it.  I decided to put apples in with it which turned out to be the only good part of this whole experiment.

This is it cooking in the pot. It looks good- kind of like no bake cookies but let me tell you that is not what it tastes like. I'll have to do some more experimentation, but not when I'm hungry for breakfast.