NAS: "Guess who's engaged" --Part 2

I had no intention of having a part two to this weeks NAS topic but sometimes inspiration strikes twice.  I have read about half of the NAS posts (Ladies, I really do try my best to read every one every week) and I noticed a common word mentioned among the posts--Facebook.  Ahh the joys and the sorrows involved with the blue f.  Nearly everyone talked about getting depressed/sad/angry about engagements they saw on Facebook.  Now before you get your panties in a bunch, I am not going to suggest you delete your Facebook I just want to add a little perspective to this situation.

Pre social media era (collective gasp) you pretty much only heard about the engagements and ogled over the ring of your close friends' engagements.  You were happy because you knew them, you knew their story, you knew who they were and you were delighted for them.  Now, thanks to social media like Facebook you know about the engagement of the girl who sat behind you in Geometry class freshman year of high school.  Now that we are connected to nearly anyone we have ever known we have all their "good stuff" shoved in our faces but lets be honest you never heard about that girl's break up junior year of college, her failing economics, or her struggles with her roommate post college graduation.  Before we get too down on ourselves because eeevvvveeeerrrryyyoooonnnneeee is engaged, lets but it all in perspective and try to focus on and rejoice with our best friend who is newly married to a great guy and pray and pray and pray for our own future husband.  

NAS: "Guess who's engaged!?"

Do you struggle with balancing the sting of hearing about yet another engagement with genuine excitement? What emotions come into play? What virtues do you enlist to help with it all?

I went to five wedding this past summer, I am no stranger to knowing alot of people who are getting married.  I am senior at Franciscan University, people here get engaged, married, and start popping out kids like it is a hobby.  Do I get excited when my best friend, household sister, nursing classmate, or acquaintance shows me their rock?  Of course I do!  Do I sometimes get a little low and depressed because why isn't it me with the future hubby?  Of course I do!  Neither of those feelings are wrong but they must be in the context of trust.  Trust that the Lord of the universe is pursuing you.  That He has a plan for you that is better than any chick flick or story you could come up with on your own.

" 'For your thoughts are not my thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,' declares the Lord. 'As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.' "  Isaiah 55:8-9

If you are at ropes end because you just heard about yet another engagement and you are on your way home to watch another episode of Drop Dead Diva while cuddling with your cat and eating cookies and you might just cry a little, stop and put yourself in His presence and let Him write love in your heart.  Hear His whisper to keep trusting.  Cry and ask over and over again "why isn't it me."  But when you ask that question, pause long enough for Him to whisper, "Do you trust me?  Do you trust that my thoughts are higher than your thoughts?  Do you trust me my beautiful beloved?"

7QT (Vol.23)

--- 1 ---

I voted for the Sheenazing Awards @ A Knotted Life.  Did you?  Also I would be lying if I said I didn't vote for the Not Alone Series as the Best Link-Up.

--- 2 ---

Did you notice that those links are easier to read?  I needed a little tune up on the design here at this bloggity, I wanted the links a littler darker so that they were easier to read and the tabs on the left weren't working.  Rebekah @ LeCharmedBotique took care of it real quick without any question.  Seriously, if you want an affordable custom blog design you have to check her out.  So I see she has figured out how great she is and has raised her prices since I used her but it is only because she is worth it!

--- 3 ---

So I have been doing alot of research into essential oils lately. I have recently ordered and started using Young Living's Thieves oil (rub it on my feet every morning).  However, I am just not convinced that Young Living or DoTerra are worth it.  I am really interested in Eden's Garden.  Anyone else into essential oils who can share some of your thoughts?  Especially anyone who has used Eden's Garden?

--- 4 ---

I guest posted for Sarah this week @ Footprints on my Heart.  The series is called "Our Friends the Saints" and I wrote about Our Lady of the Annunciation.   Go check it out, it isn't a half bad expression of why I love Our Lady under her title of Our Lady of the Annunciation so much.

--- 5 ---

Despite being a nursing major I don't normally post anything about poop on here, but sometimes things involving poop are just too funny not to show you.  Read this.  You will be laughing out loud.  I just don't think you can make that stuff up.  My favorite, "Be sure to also buy a tub of Oxyclean...[for] your underwear, clothes, furniture, pets, loved ones, ceiling fans."  I am sorry, I promise not to post anything else about poop for at least another 3 months.

--- 6 ---

So this semester for my preceptorship, where I work with a nurse one-on-one, I will be working nearly only night shifts.  Any tips for how to be up all night and still have a resemblance of a normal life from you veteran night shifters?

--- 7 ---

After that poop and night shift talk I have to leave you with something precious so why not this video of a restaurant owner who happens to have down syndrome.  He doesn't let an extra chromosome mess with his dreams.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

I am not at the March for Life

source: reginamag.com

But I really, really wish I was.  Here at Franciscan, the University doesn't have classes so as to encourage their students to March for Life in Washington D.C.   However I am one of those unlucky students who has a night class that I don't have the option not to go to.  I really want to be in D.C. being reinvigorated to fight the culture of death and marching for the sanctity of life.  But because it is out of my control for me to not be there, I am here attending Mass, fasting, and praying for an end to abortion and for a universal recognition of the sanctity of all life.  If you are reading this from the March stay warm and thank you for taking the time to show our country that we believe life begins at conception.  I can't wait to hear your glory stories, see your pictures and know that with God's grace Roe v. Wade will be overturned.

"It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that we may live as we wish." -Mother Theresa 

NAS: Beauty

What does authentic beauty mean to you and how can you be better at believing/accepting that you are, in fact, beautiful?

I almost didn't answer the prompt this week.  Beauty, so cliche, so elusive, so big.  But who am I if not a chronic blogger linker. 

Authentic beauty means knowing you are beautiful when you climb out of bed and still look comfy cozy in your pajamas (you have to look past the morning breath obviously).

Authentic beauty means being before our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament in complete adoration, littleness, and awe.

Source: Franciscan Sisters, TOR of Penance of the Sorrowful Mother Facebook 

Authentic beauty means the joy of doing a hobby you love--creating a masterpiece on the stove, achieving a great run or the wonder of a hike.

Authentic beauty means laughing with a child. 

Authentic beauty is loving an elderly woman who is sick and suffering.

Authentic beauty is walking down the beach with sand between your toes side by side with your best friends.

Authentic beauty is knowing you are beautiful because of the Lord's love for you.

Create this beauty in your home, in your life, in your soul.  Surround yourself with people who know beauty isn't skin deep.  Invite people into your life who don't need a magazine, guy, TV show, or model agency tell them they are beautiful.  Authentic beauty-deep, know down in your soul beauty-makes a guy want to be a man.  It is powerful and it is needed in our world today. Accept you are beautiful first because you are  loved by the Savior but also because our society needs women who know they are beautiful.    

Be beautiful.  

NAS: 2014 Goals

Ladies I am so ecstatic for the Not Alone Series to be back again (don't let the late Tuesday posting fool you).  I really have missed interacting with all of you on a regular basis and reading about your life as a young, single, Catholic lady.  The holidays were blessed, even the stomach flu AND cold that graced my lovely body.  I got to email back and forth with my accountability partner Sarah at Footprints on My Heart which was awesome.  She is a super cool girl with a big heart and a genuine love of Our Lord and Our Lady so you should defiantly go check out her blog and get to know her.

I am back at school again for my last (l.a.s.t. LAST.) semester of nursing school which is just crazy, so please pray for me with that because big life decisions are fast approaching.  But before we get too dramatic about this whole graduation and big kid life thing I gotta point you towards my goals for 2014.  Not all of my goals are for the whole semester (Jen, having a perfect goal for this post I consider a little cheating since you knew the NAS topic while writing your goals ;) ) but they are my real honest to goodness goals.  Key into the faith, family and friends and blogging goals.  And if you want a little more new year goodness just check out my word for 2014.  I hope you will follow my little bloggity here so that you can journey along with me with the Not Alone Series and as I conquer my goals for 2014.

Head on over to Jen's blog to see more goals for 2014!

2014 Goals: Blogging

So at the beginning of this new year I made a list of Goals for 2014 including some goals for my blog.  I said "I want to have more purposeful blogging.  What would I want to read, let me create that here.  I want to make sure what I post here on this bloggity is really reflecting the image that I am and want to be."

So where the heck do I begin?  Obviously (or not so obviously) I began by looking at what I liked about the blogs that as soon as they come on my Bloglovin' feed, I read.  Six blogs came to mind.  So what are my favorite things about my favorite blogs and can I achieve that?

1. Funny.  Hilarious.  Makes you literally laugh out loud (LLOL).  Ok there is only so much I can do  about this.  I try to be funny and sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn't.  
2. Stunning Pictures.  I have a nice DSLR camera and learning how to use it better is totally something I can do and something that I do try to do.  Make this more of a priority.
3. Honest about real life issues. This I can do and do do.  However, I am always aware of making sure that I don't confuse blog and journal.  Can I do anymore?
4. "Relationship"  I really like having a relationship with a fellow blogger.  I can't force people to be my friend but I can always respond to comments in a personal non-generic way.
5. Life.  Some bloggers just have a really interesting life.  God is the author of my life and there is nothing I can do about that.  Besides I don't think I live an uninteresting life.  
6. Franciscan Grad.   As a current Franciscan student I really enjoy reading Franciscan students who have graduated and made a life for themselves after Franciscan.  Being at Franciscan can be a marathon pushing you to grow in ways that as a freshman you feel are impossible.  It is enjoying to read about grads who have run the race and still live life for His kingdom.  

So there you have it.  I really like having a blog and if I am investing time and energy into it I want it to be something that is beautiful and good.  I want it to inspire my readers.  I want it to be something I am proud of.  

(By the way, I am currently drinking a protein shake and struggling to move without winching thanks to Miss Jillian Michaels so nutrition and fitness goals are being worked on too. Yeah!)

That Harmonium Project Again.

From the indigogo page

Remember when I talked about the Harmonium Project and the Audrey Assad concert?  Guys I cannot say enough how great this project is and how much hope it is and can bring to the city of Steubenville.  Rather than saying anything I am going to direct you over to their fundraising page and tell you to watch their video. The video is so well done (I am sure one of my household brothers made it so I am a little biased but still) and just makes you want to go out a do something great.  So go watch the video.  Especially if you are a Franciscan U grad reading my page, see whats going on in your old home and view the vision for all the things it can become.  And don't just take my word for it but go over and read the Bad Catholic's Marc Barnes' post about the project that all started one late summer night on his front porch.

7QT (Vol. 22)

What day is it Friday? Saturday?  Still on Christmas break is my excuse for posting this on Saturday.

--- 1 ---

With stamp prices going up this week I invested in $36 worth of Forever stamps.  I just wanted to start this out with a really exciting first take.  Yeah I know all of you are hook, line, and sinker.

--- 2 ---

So Advent is over and so is my "Advent:Purposely Waiting" series of posts.  Looking back Advent wasn't all I wanted it to be but I know I entered into the season more than I would have if I wasn't purposeful about it.  My favorite and most enriching part was reading parts of Luke 2 often.  Next Advent I will defiantly be coming back with more.

--- 3 ---

So Christmas.  Blessed as always.  I was really humbled when during prayer I began to think about how much Christmas meant to the Jewish people.  Christ being incarnated meant everything the Lord had promised His people was true.  Everything they based their faith on was real.  The incarnation is something we have so taken for granted but we need to stop and reflect on what a big deal it is that the God of the universe came down from heaven to be incarnated as a man.  Wow.

--- 4 ---

As always I was also very blessed with gifts-some winter weather running gear, Naked 3 palatte, a few new sweaters and jewlery, these awesome jeggings from Old Navy, and new scarfs.  This is what I wore to Christmas Eve Mass.

--- 5 ---

Did you see my 2014 Goals post?

--- 6 ---

Target post Christmas clearance.  Where else can you get shot glasses for 30 cents each (the two I had both cracked) and make up remover wipes, 30 for 90 cents. When my mom asked why I would need shot glasses I first said mixed drinks and then laughed and said really I needed them for dessert shooters like the ones from Applebees.  Mom, I wanted them for mixed drinks.

--- 7 ---

Did you get your patron saint for the year yet?  Hope on over to Conversion Diary and get yours.  I am pretty stoked, I got the one and only St. Joseph, aka foster father of Jesus.  Yeap be jealous.

It is good to be back for regular random posts.  So what do you want to see here in the new year.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

2014 Goals

I am not one for New Year's resolutions because for the most part these mean creating high reaching unachievable goals that last for about a week.  However, the end of the year and the beginning of another is a great time to take a look at your life and figure out how you want to be a better person at the end of the year than you are right now.  While I am not one for the typical resolution I am all about developing small goals that actually can happen in the new year.  So I present to you my 2014 goals.

For a side note, I got these topics from a secular vlog and adapted them to my life (i.e. removed "kid" goals and added blog and spiritual goals).  I allowed myself up to 3 subcategories after each of the 8 categories.

1. Faith
a.  The ever present, increase my prayer life.  I highly doubt this goal will go away until the day that I die.
b. This past year I have gotten better about opening my Bible and diving in.  I want that to increase even more this year.
c.  I think this one is the most measurable and important.  With my graduating coming in May and the ease of daily Mass at Franciscan coming to an end I want to make sure I don't lose weekday Masses in my life.  I know they won't be able to be a daily thing but I do want to make sure I do strive to go to a weekday Mass at minimum one day a week.

2. Fitness
a.  Continue running.  Running has been less frequent with the cold snowy weather but I want to make sure it doesn't halt.
b.  Increase the speed of my running.  Since I began, running has just been about being able to run a few miles.  Now I want to make those miles faster.
c.  With that I want to train to run 5k races well not just finish them.

3. Nutrition
a. With a time without a meal plan looming in my future I want to make sure that when I begin being on my own for good I create good habits.
b. With that lack of meal plan I also want to budget the amount of money I spend on food and be smart about it.
c.   This is a constant thing in my life but I am always (sometimes more purposefully than other times)  trying to increase the amount of fruits and vegtables I consume.

4. Friends and Family
a.  Love my family and friends selfishly.  Easy to say, hard to do.
b.  As I graduate and leave the consistent social life I have had for the past 5 years I want to start off my life as a college graduate making new friends.
c. Pray for my family constatnly

5. Financial 
a.  Again with this graduation thing, I want to start managing my own real money starting with good habits that include saving and spending wisely
b. I do not want to have any credit card debt.  Student loans I will have and I think I am ok with car loans but credit card debt will not be acceptable.
c.  I want to pay above minimum payment on my loans.  I know this may not be feasible right away but I want to start working towards that.

6.  Home
a.  As I create a home for myself post graduation, I want less clutter.
b.  With that new place I want to make sure I create a purpseful sacred space which will help with number one point a.

7. Fun
a.  Enjoy the last semester of college, I don't think this will be hard
b.  Travel.  If there is a wedding I wan to be there.  I haven't seen a friend for a while, lets road trip.

8. Blog
a.  This isn't something that can be forced but I want more good friendships through this blog world.  I have already been blessed with the beginning of so many and I want to cultivate those and accept any others I am blessed with.
b.  I want to have more purposeful blogging.  What would I want to read, let me create that here.  I want to make sure what I post here on this bloggity is really reflecting the image that I am and want to be.

So there you have it, my goals for 2014.  Please help hold me accountable to them.  I look forward to reporting back to you with much success this time next year.  I would love to here any goal creating going on over at your blog so please leave links in the comments.

Word.

So I realized that I never wrote about this last year but for the first time last January I decided to have a word.  A word that I would focus on and reflect on.  I let the Holy Spirit pick it out for me and throughout the year I would forget and remember it.  My word for 2013 was PERSEVERANCE.  I thought it was important because I thought my semester last spring would be brutal to get through (I actually ended up really liking my Psych and MedSurg class) and as it turns out there was more social things that made this year hard.  I actually ended up spending an entire semester studying and writing about Hebrews 12:1-2 because of the word perseverance.  The funny thing is I studied this verse and then didn't start running until the summer.  I don't think that was an accident.

This word was important in ways I never expected.  I let the Holy Spirit do his work for 2014 and have decided on the word EMPTY.  Empty of myself, empty of this world, stripped of things that don't matter so that I can be filled with the Lord, grace, virtue and things of heaven.  I don't know where this world will take me this year but I am excited to find out.