puppy, please!

{from here}

we are going to wait as long as possible
to get a puppy.

baaaahhh hardest thing ever.

speaking of discipline...

{from here}

woke up early this morning
for yoga with a friend.
we laid our mats on a ledge over the water
by cameron park.
a homeless man fished beside us.

we stretched & challenged our minds and bodies;
reconnected with nature,
embraced beauty.

to be disciplined is:
to focus with joy, to give up bad habits
in exchange for positive & productive ones.
it is to live a full life, to stretch and challenge oneself,
to center one's thoughts.
to celebrate lent.

i think God likes yoga.

i wish i was a hippy...

discipline

it's funny how God seems to convict you & instill ideas in you through every aspect of daily life. like when you've been thinking about one thing, and on Sunday morning that's the very topic the preacher talks about- as if he's speaking directly to you from God.

lately, God has been challenging me again and again to exercise discipline. it's my last semester at college, and senoritis keeps creeping in. why study when i can just coast? why go to class when it's perfectly sunny outside? why workout when i can hang out? well, because we are called to live responsibly, which takes discipline.

"If you are wise and understand God's ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom." James 3:13


this past sunday our premarital counseling class discussed finances. talk about discipline. ross & i calculated a budget based on an estimate of my future salary...scary but really good. times will be tight, but ross always reminds me that we don't need much and that we are not of this world. i agree, i just hope we can pay the bills! our class was so enlightening though because we looked at finances from a biblical perspective, which is not always my first instinct. for example, borrowing money is absolutely not biblical. verse after verse point out why we should not do this.

"owe nothing to anyone- except for your obligation to love one another. if you love your neighbor, you will fulfill the requirements of God's law." Romans 13:8


which brings me to my biggest struggle with discipline of the week: ross and i are trying to figure out where we will live next year. with the market the way it is...it's so tempting to try to make buying a house work. whether or not we do, i am completely obsessed with our future home. not only am i fully addicted to design blogs and before-and-after pictures, but i can't stop researching terms, listings, forclosures, etc. the sooner we find a place, the sooner i can start planning how to decorate, right?



the truth is, today i am not in college station. i am still here in waco, a Baylor student involved in organizations, a community group, classes, and everything else associated with this season of life. while it's good to research, plan, and dream, i need to exercise discipline and live in the here and now.

"Look here, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business and make a profit.' How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog- it's here a little while, then it's gone. What you ought to say is, 'If they Lord wants us to, we wil live and do this or that.' Otherwise, you are boating about your own plans, and all such boasting is evil." James 4:13-16

i am very excited to see where the Lord puts us all in the next year. until then, i am praying for discipline to focus on today!

sarah's secret garden

life is good, and my goal for this week is to write down seven things i am thankful for everyday.
#1 on my list today is: beautiful, sunny days!

my roommate sarah is equally grateful and joyful,
and so she set on a quest
to move her beloved cilantro plant into a real garden for it to thrive in.


p.s. she plated the garden right outside her bedroom window
so that she can watch it grow.

she also realized that her life is like that of a cilantro plant.
shes started out small in a safe environment,
but now she is ready for a new, bigger place to grow.

for her, that new place is spain.
for me, college station :)

valentines pt. 2 & 3

definitely the best valentines day weekend of all time.
we kicked it off with our "let's wine about valentines day" party. obviously, i don't believe there is anything to whine about- but i'm all for wine parties and puns.
{side note: hosting a party is one of the most humbling activities... the first hour or so my roommates and i looked around and thought to ourselves, 'i thought people liked us...we just need one friend to come over...' turns out we do have friends, thank the Lord. they just all happen to like to be fashionably late}
i'm also pretty proud of our decorations:



ross went above & beyond as usual. he spent all evening on an incredible dinner. he didn't even let me help. our one and only 'engaged valentines day' could not have been more special.



one of the best parts of this weekend (which is saying a lot) was our premarital counseling class. we discussed roles & responsibilities of the husband & wife in a marriage. i don't know what life is like without the Bible as a guide and Christ as a role model. obviously, i fail all.the.time at trying to die to self and live like Christ calls us to, but that is the most exciting and daunting parts of marriage: you have to die to self in order to fully love and live!

"Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself."

Ephesians 5:21-28

radiate love

{from here}

valentines pt. 1

{from here}

valentines came early this year, as it always should! our tribe celebrated with affirming & silly valentine cards {i printed off ones like above} some were made with construction paper, others came with butterfly tattoos, and they were all awesome.

we talked about the amazing healing, strengthening, and teaching powers of
community, communion, meditation (Christian fused with Eastern),
and free association writing. in fact, our homework for the week is to meditate on a verse, and also write as much as we can about it- stream of consciousness style.

i'm thinking it might be a good time of year to write about the word love for a minute,
and see where your thoughts and pen take you. it might make for a nice valentine's card, too :)

also, miller and i made this rockin' pink cake. needless to say, we are pretty proud of our first multi-layered cake!

party vs. paper

wish we were all still
dancing our hearts out
in new orleans.

but paper writing is cool too...

not too many papers left
to write in my Baylor career.
ah, crazy!

happy monday!

this video will brighten up any monday, especially a gray & rainy one like today.

we made it rain

this weekend:
road trip to new orleans
for my roommates mardi gras ball!

highlights:
playing the park, carriage ride through the city,
jambalaya, laura's candies, bourbon street,
and bringing the dance party to the ball!

best mardi gras ball tradition:
whenever a boy wants to ask a girl to dance,
he gives her a trinket from his trinket bag.
it was awesome :)

polaroids galore!

this site is way too fun.
when you download it, a little 'poladroid' camera
appears on your desktop.
all you do is drag over a picture and place it on top of the camera-
and then: coolio!

love is in the air!

{from here}

isn't this the sweetest little valentines day card?
i'm so inspired to make pretty notes this year!
yet another way to distract myself from school...

thanks smiller

{santorini}

{lake como}

"the boy began to envy the freedom of the wind and he realized that he could be like it. nothing was stopping him except himself. the sheep, the merchants daughter, the pastures of Anna-Lucia, they were only steps in his Personal Story."
-the alchemist

breath of fresh air

ross and i were talking the other day about how crazy the whole wedding planning process is.
countless hours are spent searching, thinking, planning, budgeting, changing the plan, etc...
...all for one day.

what would it be like for us to spend HALF that amount of time praying for our marriage, our future, and for God to refine our hearts. how did we get to spent so much on one day?

thankfully, wedding planning really hasn't been stressful- it's been fun. we got a lot done this weekend, but the best part was that we started our premarital counseling class! it was like a breath of fresh air. a cute married couple in their early thirties teaches the class, and two other couples are in there with us. this is by far the most exciting part of the engagement period.

one of the first verses we read in the introduction to the course is:
"By wisdom a house is built and through understanding it is established, through knowledge its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures." proverbs 24:3-4

this class is already water to my soul.

food, lately.

yep, it's probably time to start eating a little differently.
it's just been one of those (yummy) weeks.

my neighbor is trying to eat healthier. here's his version of a healthy sandwich:



that is a white bread, strawberry jelly, peanut butter, and chocolate chips sandwich.
mmmm...