Believe It and Be Satisfied

I have had this forever and just found it on my computer. It so beautiful and so true. :D God is amazing and I am lucky that He has given me the perfect man, that we can love and grow in Him together :D


Believe it and Be Satisfied

Everyone longs to give themselves completely to someone,
to have a deep soul relationship with another,
to be loved thoroughly and exclusively.
But God, to the Christian says,
"No, not until you are satisfied and fulfilled
and content with living loved by Me alone,
with giving yourself totally and unreservedly to Me,
to have an intensely personal and unique relationship with Me alone.
I love you, My child, and until you discover that only in Me
is your satisfaction to be found, you will not be capable
of the perfect human relationship that I have planned for you.
You will never be united with another until you are united with Me
-exclusive of any other desires and longing.
I want you to stop planning, stop wishing, and allow Me
to give you the most thrilling plan existing
-one that you cannot imagine.
I want you to have the best.
Please allow Me to bring it to you.
You keep watching Me, expecting the greatest things.
Keep experiencing the satisfaction that I am.
Keep learning and listening to the things I tell you.
and you must wait.
Don't be anxious, and don't worry.
Don't look around at the things others have gotten
or that I have given them.
Don't look at the things you think you want.
Just keep looking off and away and up to Me,
or you'll miss what I have to show you.
And then, when you're ready,
I'll surprise you with a love far more wonderful
than you would ever dream.
You see, until you are ready,
and until the one I have for you is ready
(I am working right this minute to have
both of you ready at the same time),
and until you are both satisfied exclusively with Me
and the life I've prepared for you,
you won't be able to experience the love
that exemplifies your relationship with Me,
this is the perfect love.
And, My dear one, I want you to have
this most wonderful love.
I want you to see in the flesh a picture
of your relationship with Me,
and enjoy materially and sincerely
the everlasting union of beauty and perfection and love
that I offer you with Myself.
I love you utterly.
I AM God Almighty.
Believe it and be Satisfied."
Love, Jesus

Friday Favorites

It's finally Friday again! :D YAY! I have had a MUCH better week- thank goodness! haha.

1) Staff Dinner at Benihana- I took my staff for our holiday dinner to a place called Benihana. It's a Japanese steakhouse and it was AMAZING! We also did secret santa and all exchanged gifts. It was a lot of fun and I love my staff :D

2) Closing- We are in the process of closing! It's a BUSY few days, but it means all the students are going home :D YAY! it's SO quiet now- all we have left are graduating seniors (the ceremony is today) and a few international students whose flights leave today. SO HAPPY. It also always puts me in much more of the holiday spirit, because for the past 7 years this time marks when I get to go home and do Christmasy stuff! :D

3) Christmas Shopping/Date Night- John and I went Christmas shopping this past weekend and went on a date. I mentioned it in an earlier blog, but it was a lot of fun. We didnt finish Christmas shopping (still havnt-YIKES) but it was nice to get away from campus for most of the day. Plus any time with the husby is awesome :D

4) Gone With the Wind- I know this was a favorite of mine last week, but the book is getting really good!! :D

5) Krystal- Yes, you silly :D As I blogged about last week- I had a horrible week last week. So this week- my sweet best friend text me almost every day, trying to lift me up and make this week better. And it did. Krystal- I am beyond blessed to have you as my best friend and whether you know it or not- those texts really made my week special :D Thank you beyond words :D LOVE YOU!

6) My Fridge- I saw this on pinterest and just HAD to do it! :D

Happy Friday y'all! here's to a great weekend!

Flash Mobs

I am in love with this flash mob!

Downtown Disney Flashmob Proposal

What an adorable way to propose. For future notice, if any of my friends would like to do this for their girlfriend, I will be happy to particpate. I know I am not always coordinated and I am a really clumbsy person, BUT I would practice really hard for you! :D

After seeing this flash mob, I am not going to lie to you- I may have spent some time on Youtube watching other flashmobs. THEY ARE AWESOME! :D

My Weekly Focus

Here it is :D
I think this is beautiful and how I am going to focus my week :D I plan on being in a good mood ALL week long :D

Ratatouille

I mentioned in my last post that I had a dead rat living in my apartment. GROSS. I wish he could have been cute like this:

Or this:

but alas, he was huge (I didnt see him, just the bag he was in), gross, and decomposing.

Two Saturdays ago, John and I got out our Christmas stuff and put up our tree. YAY! Well since it all was out in storage, it was a bit musty and needed to air out. That Monday, I started to smell something that stunk pretty bad. Well, John and I decided that it was just the Christmas stuff and it needed to air out. So, I pulled in the air purifier to help with that.

Tuesday, it smelled even worse. So, I took out the trash thinking it may have been some raw chicken I had in the garbage. It still didnt go away. Tuesday night, I told John that I was pretty sure there was a dead rat somewhere. I told him I was going to call facilities to come and find it. John thought I was being dramatic (who? me?! never!) and that we should clean our apartment real good first.

Wednesday morning the smell was even worse. I put some airwick plug-ins in the wall and basically tried to drown out the smell. I took my lunch break and cleaned EVERYTHING. and it still didnt go away. Well, it just so happened that one of the facilities guys was changing our air vents that day and when he was done he came to tell me that I had a dead rat. I KNEW IT! I called the exterminator right away......and he had left for the day. Of course.

I lived with a dead rat above my laundry room for days! I still cant get the smell out of my nose. SO GROSS!

Quick Update...

Last week was the longest week of my life. It was a crappy week too. BUT it's over now! YAY! haha.

I dont even want to reflect on the negative of last week, so here is a short summary:
-I was on duty. All of the students went crazy. It included multiple transports, mutiple drug issues, and 2 Baker Acts (A Florida law where if the police think you are a danger to yourself, you get arrested and put in the hospital. One of those students told me he would kill himself and leave my name on him. Needless to say that was the hardest duty incident of my life.
-After work I had something pretty much each evening, including RA interviews for the Spring and Late Night Breakfast.
-A dead rat was living in my apartment.

I dont even remember most of the rest of it. I was WIPED out by the weekend. In fact, I dont usually sleep past 9 or 10 anymore but I didnt wake up until 1 on Saturday. Much needed though :D

ANYWAY, this weekend was AWESOME! We continued decorating for Christmas, started watching Season 1 of Modern Family, went Christmas shopping, had a date night Saturday night where we saw some live music, and we were just lazy. Oh I also scrapbooked our entire honeymoon! It was a very relaxing and very fun weekend. I am glad I married a nut who can have a lot of fun. :D

YAY for a great weekend and an even bigger YAY for all these kids going home this week! haha :D

Friday Favorites!

The fact that it's Friday should be one of my favorites in itself! hahaha :D But I wont be that lame:D

1) Not running- while this is making it harder to run next time I do, I only managed to run on Thursday. It's been really nice to sleep in though :D
2) Gone With The Wind- I finally started reading it! that's very excited, BUT it's really hard to get read. Hopefully, it will get easier.
3) Christmas Decorating with my staff- We decorated our lobby for the holidays this past Tuesday and it was a lot of fun! Definitely got me in the Christmas mood :D
4) Movies- There were a lot of really good black friday deals online and John bought some movies to add to our collection! I AM SO EXCITED. We also got the first two seasons of Modern Family. Oh yes we did. :D
5) The weather- It's finally starting to cool off. I dont start sweating as soon as I walk out the door anymore! It's been in the 60's in the mornings and kids here have on heavy coats, gloves, scarfs, etc. lol. I have been wearing sleeveless shirts or dresses and have enjoyed every second of it! This weather is awesome and these kids are crazy if they think its cold! haha :D

Happy Friday Y'all! :D

Life Updates

Exercising and Losing Weight

Well, as I am sure you have read in previous blogs I am doing pretty well with running 3.1 miles! I also got up to 4 miles while at home! YAY! This week when I went to run, it was EXTREMELY more difficult than back home. It's also always harder running the longer you wait and it had been a few days. The air here is finally starting to cool off, but it's still humid :( I think the coolness masks the humidity, but while running I can definitely feel the difference than the air from home. Oh well, I'll keep on truckin'. :D I plan to sign up for an 5k in January or February! I'll keep you posted. As far as loosing weight goes, I had started to get very frustrated because since I have been running, I have actually gained 2 lbs! I am hoping it's just muscle, because I have been staying in my calories. When I weighed this past Thursday (my weigh day) I had lost both of those pounds- so YAY! AND that's after eating all that Thanksgiving too. Score! I still have a lot of weight I would like to lose, but I feel a lot healthier and that counts a lot.

Plans...
Once again, I'm home sick. Going back always makes it harder to come back to Miami. I just love being around our families and friends and really just the familiarity of Raleigh. I always thought that we should or would want to live somewhere else after Miami before we have kids, but I dont. John feels the same way. Now it may work out that we have to live somewhere else first, but we would prefer Raleigh.
So I made a HUGE mistake when we got back from Raleigh. I was super homesick, so just for fun I started looking at houses. That just made the homesick worse! lol. Of course John and I found some houses we would LOVE to buy, in the areas we would prefer to live. We are not planning on buying a house right now, obviously because we would wait until we moved back to Raleigh, but it was nice to see that there will be houses available that we can afford in the areas we want to live. It also made us change some of current plans- so even though it made me want to move back home NOW, it was good for us to do. We decided that instead of paying as much as we are towards loans right now, we are going to pay a little more than the minimum balance and save the rest towards a house. Now we are putting even more aside for a house, so when it comes time to put that large down payment down, we'll have it. We weren't sure if this was the best thing to do, but after some research and talking to John's dad we decided it's what we are going to do. Since student loans have such a small interest rate we think it's better to put the money down for a house so we can get approved for the size house we want and put a large down payment down. Not only that, but if we do decide to pay more towards our loans then money is in our account still accessible. All of this just made me very hopeful that maybe sooner rather than later we will be able to move to Raleigh and buy a house! Keep us in your prayers while we figure out what He wants us to do! :D

Winter Trip
So we are still trying to figure out our plans for our Christmas trip home, but it looks like if John is able to get it off we'll be home the 24th-Jan 1 or 2nd- It's still up in the air until John works it out with his boss, but I am SUPER excited!! I cant wait to get home again!!! Also, Dec 24th happens to be Carter's 1st birthday- so birthday party plans are in works! Just get ready family!! There may be party hats and a peanut butter cake involved! I love Christmas time and I am very glad we'll be able to be home for at least a little while to spend it with family and friends. I think if I didnt get to- I would cry all break. haha :D SO SOON! only 21 more days till we head home! YAY!

Carter Updates

I'll start with the pup because he's so much apart of our life :D Carter is doing well!

Health

As I said in my last post he had to go to the vet for tail, but it's doing MUCH better. He doesnt mess with it at all anymore and it's healing nicely. The vet also said he was a chubby boy, but he already looks like he's lost some more weight. He's been working on his figure with me ;D. He still sheds a ton, so we have started to defurminate (the name of the brush, it's supposed to get underlying hairs out of his coat on top of the ones already loose) him more often. He's been eating MUCH better lately. I guess because he is no longer in cone :D

Toys

He still destuffs them all and loves to make a mess. BUT he knows which toys are his and which are not :D He's such a good boy when it comes to that. We got him a bunch of goodies from Bullysticks.com and he has been enjoying them very much. I also went to goodwill and got him a bunch of cheap stuffed animals. Since he rips his toys apart from the start, no need in spending a ton on them. One of his favorite toys right now is a squeaky tennis ball. He LOVES to chase it and will play fetch with that longer than anything else. Tug-of-war is also still his favorite game:D

Tricks

Still working on teaching him give and take. He's gotten really good with give it, not so much with take. He'll take it and then drop it. haha. I hope to teach him a new trick by the time we go home again. We'll see. He has been getting a little better at walking on his leash but will sometimes have that puppiness in him and dart off. He's so cute.

Trip home

He did GREAT on our trip home! The care ride up- he slept most of the time or watched out the window. While at our parent's houses (they dont have doggy doors) he was really good about letting us know he wanted to go outside to go to the bathroom. The steroids were supposed to make him have to go to the bathroom more, so he had to go a lot! Every time though he went to the door to let us know! I was really proud of him. He was very good for Mom and Dad Martin while we were at their house too. The first day he had a TON of energy (even after running 4 miles with me) but he still listened pretty well. At my mom's house the next day, he slept most of the time. haha I think he was so worn out from the day before! Then on Saturday the Martin's said he was well behaved again. I love hearing that I have such a good puppy! There were a few times during the trip he took off in the yard to chase something and we had to chase him down. He got time out twice because of it. I chalk that up to him being a puppy still though. We also learned that he LOVES to be outside. I cant wait for him to have a backyard one day, so he can play out there whenever he wants :D On the trip back, he was also great! He slept most of the way then too. He got kind of clingy too- he wanted to ride in whoevers lap wasnt driving for a long time on the way home. haha. He just loves us :D

That's all for now! :D He's also decided he is going to start taking over our bed. Not when we are in it, because he gets too hot, but it's his place when we are at work. haha.

Thanksgiving!!!!

John and I had the BEST time this past week! We were finally able to drive home on Wednesday. However, before our drive John had to work Wednesday morning and I had to take Carter to the vet. He had continued to chew on his tail and it was looking really bad- he needed medicine. I also took him running to help wear him out for the long ride. Anyway, the vet looked him over and said that it looked like a bug or something had just bitten him and it turned into a "hot spot" for him. Meaning he wanted to keep messing with it and doctoring it himself, but really he was making it worse and licking and biting it raw. They gave us some steroids for him to take and they were to help relieve the itching so he would leave his tail alone. They also said he was a little chunky and needed to lose 5 more lbs. haha. CHUBBY PUPPY! :D I actually dont think he looks overweight at all, but apparently you are supposed to be able to count his ribs by looking at him. He's almost there. He weighed in at 69lbs. So it looks like he will only end up being a 65lb pup after all. I like his size though, it's perfect- not too big or too small :D

Anyway, John left work a little early (his boss said he could) and we make the 12 hour hike to Raleigh! We were really surprised traffic wasnt worse than it was. Really, it was only heavy near Jacksonville (it also happened to be 5pm)and other than that it was smooth sailing! When we got near Savannah we stopped at one of our favorite restaurants, The Smokin' Pig. YUMMY southern food! :D We got in around midnight, which was REALLY good timing! We said our hellos and then headed to bed.

It was really nice to be able to sleep in! 10am is now sleeping in. LOL. Even though it was Thanksgiving, I asked Julie if she wanted to go running because I had to exercise the dog anyway. She agreed and we went out into the neighborhood and ran :D IT WAS SO HARD! I am SO not used to running up and down hills! and the wind was SO cold. Julie was a lot faster than me, but I did it! In fact, she had me for the first 2 1/2 miles but I decided I wanted to keep going so I made her go with me. haha I'm not bragging, but I cranked out 4 miles!!!! WHO AM I?! Once I got used to the hills and air, it was MUCH easier running there than down here in Miami. Too much humidity here. Needless to say, I ate my share and more of desserts to celebrate my awesome run!
Of course I didnt take many pictures, but here is the beautiful neighborhood we went running in :D
When we got back from our run I showered and then it was time for Thanksgiving lunch! YUMMY. Dad Martin spent a LONG time in the kitchen and there was a TON of delicious food. He really outdid himself :D My tummy was much appreciative! After lunch, it was nap time! haha :D We watched some football and I took an amazing nap. After all that running and eating, it was much needed. John took a short one, but then he went to fix our car window with his dad's help. I forgot to mention that the entire 12 our drive our driver side window was broken. It wont shut all the way, so the wind was SO loud. John's amazing though and he fixed it! :D After that and playing with the dog some, we ate some leftovers and then played some games with his family. Wits and Wagers is an amazing game if you have never played!! Since Mom Martin and a guest they have staying with them had to work early the next morning, we all went to bed kind of early. It was much needed though. John and I were just still exhausted from everything.

The next day we got up and helped John's dad out with a video he is making for the church. He is making a promotional video for the Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace class. Which I HIGHLY recommend ALL of you to take. Then we headed over to my mom's house to spend the day with my family. John and I were both nervous about it because they have 2 cats and we are allergic, but the night we drove into town we stopped by and dropped off an air purifier. It's supposed to help with allergies. IT WORKED! That and some Claritin. lol. I didnt get sniffly or sick at all! John got a little stuffy, but for spending the day there it was great! I cooked with my mom and then spent time with my mom, sister, brother and John. After lunch/dinner we played Wits and Wagers with them too :D We had a lot of fun!

After spending time with them, we had a few errands to run and ended up getting to see some of our friends. We had a lot of fun with that too and boy do I miss being home. We went to bed as soon as we got back and were up and ready to tailgate at 6:30am! Yikes, that's early. haha. We got to the tailgate lot about 7:30ish and enjoyed the rest of the morning tailgating with all our friends. We had a HUGE tailgate going and it was SO incredibly nice to spend time with our friends like that and catch up :D

Here are the girls at the tailgate :D
and my ADORABLE godson!!!! He was SO good the entire day. He almost makes me ready to have babies, but I know mine wont be as good as him. haha
A baby looks weird on my hip...
About Noon, we headed into the game! I WAS SO EXCITED! :D
Then we were all of the sudden down 14-41. :( I lost all my excitement. HOWEVER, my brother and sister came to the game! It was my sister's first NC State football game ever!! We had SO much fun!
YAY SIBLINGS!
THEN out of nowhere- we started coming back!! AND WE WON!!!!!!!! This win means we get to go to a bowl game! YAY! :D I was VERY proud of my pack and it turned in to a great first game for my sister!!

After the game we waited for everyone to get back to the parking lot and we said some goodbyes and made dinner plans. John and I headed off to Brad's to take a short nap and get ready for dinner. I took about an hour nap and it was time to go. I told John I didnt feel good and then proceeded to throw up for the next 4 hours. :( Needless to say I didnt go to dinner. haha. I'm pretty sure I got food poisoning. There is no other explanation for that kind of sickness. I was dry heaving. I have never thrown up like that in my life. My body was making me throw up and there was nothing there! I was crying and I just didnt know what to do. I'll spare you the rest of the details...But it was seriously one of the worst pains I've ever experienced. :( Sad way to end a trip.

The next morning I was still queasy but had stopped throwing up-I mean there was nothing else left in my body to go! John and I had sorta slept in and then it was time to hit the road. I was scared to eat, but ended up drinking some Gatorade Mom Martin got for me and a biscuit. Later I had some Brunswick stew- it also hurt my stomach. It's so good, but I shouldnt have eaten so much of it on my tummy in that state- it just hurt. Anyway, traffic was TERRIBLE! We left at 11:30am and didnt get home until 3am. Traffic was stopped on 95 in many places, so we tried to go around when we could. At one point, we got off of 95 onto 17 and got a speeding ticket immediately. :( The speed had dropped from 55 to 45 like immediately and as soon as it did we got pulled for going 58 in a 45 :( It was a total speed trap- there were 6 other cops swarming around that place pulling people over. Frustrating, but not the end of the world. I told John that if he averaged a ticket every 9 years (that was the last time he had one) he was doing pretty good. haha After that we stayed on 95 regardless of traffic.

Since traffic was so bad and we had been in the car for what felt like forever, we stopped in Savannah for dinner. We thought after dinner, the traffic would lighten up some. For some reason John and I both LOVE Savannah. Neither of us had been there before though. haha. Well, it lived up to our expectations! We stopped and ate at Moon River. It seemed to be a bit fancy, so we threw on some stuff from our suitcases and went in. The food was AMAZING and we had such a good time. It was a very fun spontaneous date during a very long car ride home. haha ;D I love my husband. He knows how to make everything fun. :D

Anyway, like I said we got home at 3am. I decided to take the next day off but poor John had to be at work at 5 :( He has been SO tired all week because of it. Poor guy. So beyond in love with him for all that he does. <3

Despite the food poisoning and ticket- John and I had one of the best trips home. It was very quick, but SO worth the drive there and back. Every time we go back it gets harder to come back to Miami. I love Raleigh. I love my family. And I love my friends. I know we will end up back there sooner rather than later :D