Catchin' up

Ok...well I give up on the whole posting a picture thing. It only took me 3 weeks to figure out how to post links to other journals but I finally figured it out.

So I guess a lot has happened since my last post...well kinda. Saturday was my birthday. I turned 22 (so exciting I'm sure). Anyway, I had to work which wasn't a whole lot of fun simply because of all the crazy people out shopping after thanksgiving. The store was so busy. And the funny thing is that people were meaner on day two than they were the first day after thanksgiving. I don't really understand...maybe they were working off of not enough sleep from camping infront of the stores the night before.

So anyway, I came home and Homeslice and Pepto had bought me a cake for my birthday. Tastes yummy (acutually a little too yummy). Definately have gotten way off track on any sort of weight loss which is depressing but thats a whole other story. Anyway, that evening we just had some friends over to hang out. It was a lot of fun, TV Dinner, Piano Man, Banana, Scuba, Blue Jacket, JMac, and Coffee all came over. We had a lot of fun playing Uno,Catchphrase, Oodles, and "Never have I ever" (oh and did you know that none of us girls have ever gone through menopause either ... haha...thanks Scuba).

So yeah, after that we ended up calling DP&L and having them come out in the middle of the night. Our lights (well power in general)kept going in and out. I brushed my teeth in the morning and the power went out enough that the watter stopped running and then all of a suden turned back on again. So yeah, it turns out one of our wires was falling apart on the outside of the house. Good thing we called...had we waited longer we may have had no power...or worse.

Anyway, here's something interesting, I was calling my landlord to let her know we went ahead and called DP&L ourselves since she obviously didn't pick up on the emergency aspect of it....she said that they haven't had nearly as many problems with all of their other houses...some of which are older than this one. Makes you feel good huh? So, needless to say, we aren't staying here next year...we'll be going out seperate ways anyway, but who knows where I'll be then.

Sunday was good, Beef preached at church so I was glad I went. I get a lot out of what he presents when he teaches. He is challenging and doesn't sugar coat anything to make people feel better about themseleves. I was glad I ended up coming. I almost didn't...for fear of having to answer to everyone asking me why I'm not going to be in the praise team. I know I don't have to answer to anyone, its between me and God, but it feels weird when people are asking me so many questions I can only come up with so many ways of saying the same thing. Most of you who are reading this know and understand that already though, and I'm so grateful for that. I worked Sunday afternoon (blah) I spent a great deal of the time there in the back room working on bible imprints. Not too bad, at least I didn't have to deal with the uptight customers "frantically" getting their shopping done, forgetting that they still have a month to go. I don't like working on Sunday's , but I found out some interesting reasons as to why they are open:

1. They tithe 10% of their profits from all of their stores every Sunday to the Jame's Fund and other non-profit organizations that they support. WOW!!!
2. They also see it as a ministry opportunity. Even people who aren't "believers" think about church on Sundays. So what better resource than a Christian bookstore if the church isn't "open" in the afternoon. Also , those who have made desicions at church, can come and load up on bible study supplies to begin their new spiritual journey.

My boss actually told me about a case when someone who wasn't a believer came in one Sunday and after talking with her for a while she ended up spilling out all of this horrible stuff they had been through and she ended up praying with her before she left.

OK..... what else...jumping to Monday afternoon. I was working all morning long ... kinda bummed that I wasn't going to the Casting Crowns Concert. I happened to stay a little later than expected because I we were busy. I answered the phone and took a message for Perky, when she came back she called them back and asked if I wanted to go to the concert. This lady had called and offered us free tickets to the concert. Her church was a sponser for the event and had some extra tickets. So I got a ticket for me and someone else to go. I ended up going with Pepto. I had a hard time "enjoying" the first half because I was too busy being totally freaked out and distracted by the hyperactive teenagers around me on all sides. Appartently I was sitting smack in the middle of this ladies youth group. Anyway, by the end I was learning to ignore it and forgetting about my "allergy" to that many teens and began enjoying it.

I really liked hearing what Mark (CC lead singer) had to say to introduce all of their songs. It really made each of them mean a lot more. I also really really enjoyed the speaker. Overall, I found the evening to be ok...I should have moved to some of the other empty seats and I may have enjoyed it more. But I guess I can't complain too much , because the tickets were free.

Last night I met with HBM for the first time a a few weeks. We had a lot to catch up on. When I came back, I had the house to myself. I was pretty board, for a while but I found some stuff to do. I ended up going back to FCS to pick up a gift for Homeslice and just chill for a bit (pathetic when your evening involves going to work for fun), then I cleaned up my room a little bit, watched a movie, did a little knitting and then went to bed. When I woke up with morning, Ibaked a cake for Homeslice's B-Day while cleaning up the dishes too. I'm gonna leave in a bit to go to B&N to hang out with Coffee and JMac for a while. They are soooo much fun.

I hope everyone else is doing good.

Talk to you later

Here is a trial post...I was reading the help thing with blogger to figure out how to post pictures to my profile. They said you have to post them to your journal and then you can use the url to post to your profile. Anyway, pictured here is me and some of my "home girls" at the Starfield/Bethany Dillon Concert last summer. Boy was that a lot of fun...

What a Thanksgiving

Well, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone...a day late. We just now got out internet up and running again after it was down since Wednesday. Have I ever mentioned how irritated I get at Time Warner sometimes. I called to ask about downsizing our service because we just can't afford anything fancy between 4 poor college students. Anyway, because I am such a "valued customer" they offered us the "same services" we have now at "50%" off for the next three months and if we still are having financial issues then we can downsize then. Well the second I got off the the phone our internet disappeared and so did our HBO. I know i can't complain too much because we are getting it a a better rate than the $96 we would have been paying (even though it really didn't get knocked down 50%) but that didn't mean half the service. Anyway, after talking to about 6 different people in one morning, we finally found out that they messed up some info thing on our account as far as internet goes and the cable thing...well to keep HBO we will have to pay an additional $10 (which wasn't clearly stated to me and made sure they knew that too) but we just aren't going to have that anymore.

Enough about that, Thanksgiving was fun. We had an interesting combination of people. You see, originally we (me, Tessa, mom, and dad) were going to go to Mt.Vernon to visit Grammy and Aunt C for the holiday. Because of the "threat" of bad wheather those plans changed and we decided to stay here. Well my mom said their was going to be plenty of food so I was feeling generous and asked if I could invite people who didn't have a place to go. So I'm sure you are sitting on the edge of your seat wondering who was there. Well to back track a few days earlier I heard from Michigan and we were chatting on the phone and come to find out his family was going to be going to Indy on Wednesay for the Holiday but he wasn't leaving until Friday afternoon cuz he had to work a half day. He was going to end up spending the day watching football and eating Arby's (can you believe they are open then). Anyway, I felt bad and the second I found out we were staying in town I immediately thought that we should invite him since he didn't have anywhere else to go I didn't now if he would actually take me up on the offer especially since he didn't return my call until a day later, but he went said he would like to come over...So while I'm pretty excited about this I'm reminded of a couple of minor problems...Tessa really doesn't think to highly of him (for obvious and reasonalbe reasons) and I didn't want anyone to start thinking that this meant something would start up again...needless to say, I had NO IDEA how this would end up working out. Also, I found out that Tessa's Mom (I'll call her pattycake) also didn't have a place to go so I invited her too.

So here we are on thanksgiving (Me, Michigan, Pepto, Pattycake, Mom, and Dad). Lets just say the miniute I walked in the door at my parents house I felt sick to my stomach because I was nervous about how things would end up. It didn't help the Michigan was like a half an hour late either, but then he pulled up and I felt a little better. It took some getting used to. This, after all, was the first time I had spent this much time with him, let alone in my house, in about 2 years. But...guess what...we ended up having a good time. The food was delicious, although my tummy didn't necessarily agree. I think I might have still been kinda nervous but its still bothering me today, so I think that I may have some kinda bug. Anyway, after lunch we played UNO (the cool new way) and watched football and then had a pick between pumpkin pie, brownies, and pecan pie for dessert. Yeah...figure that one out for yourself (can I say BLAHHHH).

Oh I forgot the mention the stinky thing about the afternoon. About 3:15 rolls around and my mom gets a call from work saying she was supposed to be in at 3. Yeah, apparently that wasn't clearly stated on the schedule, so my mom ends up leaving shortly after we finished eating to go into work until 11. Good thing we didn't go to Mt. Vernon then huh.

So that was that. I'm glad I was able to have such an "eclectic" group of people together and have fun for the holiday. I have no idea what is going to happen now, I'm just glad that I was able to open up "my parents" house for people who didn't have anywhere else to go.

Well I'm not looking forward to working from 2 - 10:30 today (this BLACK FRIDAY). I'm sure it will be crazy but I'm hoping that I'm able to find the blessing in it. Tomorrow is my B-DAY...so thats exciting. Don't have anything big planned but thats ok...I'm there will be small surprises here and there.

Have a great day everyone...stay safe if your out and about battling the crowds for the sales : /

Stacy

Well, I've decided to go ahead and switch my journal to "blogger" just like everyone else. Not that I actually keep up to date much but, I thought I would at least give this one a try too. I still have my Xanga which I may post to every once in a while too.

Anyway, sorry it has been forever since I've posted. The combination of school and ... well life... happening really has kept me busy. It's been really exciting, though, because I've really been seeing how God has been teaching me some stuff lately.

For so long, I've always had a hard time understanding what God was trying to say to me. And I often used that as an excuse to ignore Him...but now I've decided that its time to step out in faith that I'm doing what He is leading me to do. And...if I'm not, well God is gracious and merciful and above all forgiving... and that is just a good thing to know.

With that being said, I'm making some changes in life. Not necessarily life alterning but definately BIG to me. After almost 6 years of leading worship at my home church I've decided that God is calling me to step away from that for a while. This has been a really scary decision to make, but as I've been thinking and praying about it, I've discovered that for so long I've placed my identity in that particular ministry, not necessarily in God. I've been blessed to serve alongside some amazing individuals over that last few years. I've seen the team go through so MAJOR ups and downs too. But I found myself almost deciding and planning out my future without taking God's plan into a whole lot of consideration, whether for myself, for the team, or for the church as a whole.

So now, I'm stepping back and seeing what God wants to do in my life. After all, its hard to listen to God when your spending so much time preoccupied with what you assume your life is meant to be for. I'm totally excited to continue to use music as a ministry in my life again some day but for now I'm leaving it up to God to lead me...still very uncertain where that may be.

Other than that, no new news...unfortunately. I know, its been so long since my last "cliffhanger" journal entry on my other site but nothing terribly exciting has happened that is worth talking about right now.

I'll continue to keep you posted.