Aaron and Michelle

Meet my older brother, Aaron, and his lovely girlfriend, Michelle. I had the pleasure of torturing these two crazies in the frigid wind in downtown Grand Rapids, this past weekend.  All for the sake of art and late Christmas gifts.

These two have been together for a little over four years, and it shows in these pictures. Aaron being the goof that he is, and Michelle patiently (sort of) putting up with him.  These two make me laugh. 

Hopefully this summer I can track them down again, as they rush through their busy schedules, and force them, yet again, in front of the camera. Sans the freezing temperatures and numb appendages.

Cause this was fun!

Thank's you guys!

There and Back Again.

January 5th marked a strange day in my life.  It was the beginning of the winter quarter at Sullivan and I wasn't in Kentucky.  One year ago, I was sitting in an airport, waiting for my delayed flight, headed back to Kentucky after Christmas break.  This year I was watching my friends and family go back to school and work as I stayed in my pajamas till noon.  That's when it really hit me.  I was done with Kentucky.

Despite my grumblings (and yes, there were a lot of them), Kentucky had become my home.  My pictures hung on the walls there, people who make me smile and laugh are there, and there were three happy animals ready to greet me every day.  I worked there, I lived there, it was my home for over a year.

Then my pictures were in boxes, I had said farewell to my friends and had one last hoorah, the animals had successfully hidden in my luggage, I quit my job, I packed my stuff, and I didn't call it home anymore.

Now it is strange, living somewhere I haven't called home in over a year.  I'm not the same person, which is horribly cliched to say, but accurate. In someways I'm better, and in some ways, worse.  I needed to come back to Michigan to heal myself, but I needed Kentucky to break me.

I needed the wake up call that Kentucky gave me, both the good and bad ones.  The realization that I really can do anything for eleven weeks, I really can do this career, I am really not as good as I thought I was, and I really need a lot more help than I let on.

The people I met in Kentucky have changed me forever, whether it me the boys who harassed me for months, or the instructor that literally held me as I cried out for help.  I wouldn't be who I am right now without them.

My time in school not only taught me how to sous-vide a duck breast, but also how to handle life and its curve balls... and there were plenty.  A long distance relationship was started six months early, a suburban girl was thrown into a big city, a fear of abandonment was kicked into overdrive, and I survived my hardest year yet.

There have been days when I regret what happened in Kentucky, who I was there, things that I said, or decisions made under the circumstances.  There are days I wish I had never left Michigan.  But today, as I write this on the brink of starting a new job and more life changes, I miss Kentucky.  The normality that I had become accustomed to is now gone.  I have to find a new normal, and I'm not good with transitions.

Today, I want to be back in my musty apartment, making dinner for myself and getting my uniform ready for tomorrow. Instead I am sitting in my room, with my friend, Erika, sitting on my bed playing music, waiting for my mom to finish my dinner, and dreading driving to my first day of work tomorrow.

In two months, I won't remember what I am feeling at this very moment.  I'll have found my new normal and will be content with it and happier than I ever was in Kentucky.  But that is not today. Today is strange because I was there and now I am back again.

Promises.

This is the time of year for promises.  Promises to eat right, work out more, be more organized, or to enjoy life more.  Most promises made will be broken within the next month or so.

I, personally, don't make resolutions at New Years.  I am notorious for breaking promises to myself and change is not my strong suit.  Promises, in general, seem unreliable to me.

There are many broken promises in my life and though I don't have trust issues, I do have a pessimistic view on promises.  That way, when one is kept, I am surprised and pleased, and if one is broken, I don't get upset.

Trust in other's promises is something that I have struggled hard with in the last three months. Believing that I was wanted back home, that I was loved by someone who felt so distant, that people were going to help me, that people would pull through. All that was difficult and emotional for me. I spent nights crying out to God, trying to make him hear how much I was hurting, how much I wanted these promises to be true.  Trying to make Him, and myself, understand exactly how much I needed those promises to be kept, but at the same time, bracing myself for them to be broken.

I forgot God made promises to me too.  That he promises to always want me, to love me, to provide, and to never leave me.  Hopelessness overwhelmed me last night.  I couldn't do it on my own, and those who I ran to for comfort didn't do what I wanted them to.

I wanted them to fix it.  To give me what I needed right then and there.  Or I wanted them to hold me, comfort me, just tell me it was going to be okay.  Some weren't around to hold me, and words on a phone screen do not hold the same level of comfort that arms do. Those who were close, didn't give me the comfort I wanted.  Their words weren't peace giving, and I didn't know what to do.

So I picked up the only words I knew of that might help.  My bible.  I sat it in my lap and let it open where ever it wanted. Job 37 is where it fell too.  In those words God showed me his power.  That he is the one who tells the thunder when to rumble and the lightning where to strike.  That he alone is the one who controls this.

If he is powerful enough to control the storm and where it falls and when.  Then he is also powerful enough to control the storm in my life.  He knows that rain is falling, and that I will need shelter, and he let me fumble around in the dark trying to protect myself.  He heard my cries and waited there, my ever constant shelter, for me to find him.   He saw me run to others, those who could not do for me what he could, and he saw me give up.  Sitting in the rain accepting my fate to be struck by lightning.  Then he called, very gently, very softly, to me.  Asking me to come back to him.

Last night I found him, my shelter from my storm.  One that has been raging for months.  And I woke this morning to find the storm had passed.



Over the last three months, I have been searching for an internship in Michigan in order to complete my degree.  I have been met with a lot of dead ends and unanswered phone calls. I was a week away from my dead line and I still didn't have anything. Last night I broke down, from the weight of not knowing.  I felt unwanted and even considered the fact that I had made a mistake coming back home.  After reading God's Word and feeling peace about how powerful he is, and that he did promise me that he will provide, I was calm enough to finally get some sleep.  I didn't know what I was going to do, but I trusted Him enough to know that I would know what to do when the time came.

This morning, I was woken by my phone ringing.

I now have an internship and I start next week.  EVERYTHING was taken care of and I no longer have any fear.  God only wanted me to come to him, and when I did, he showed me what he can do.  He calmed my storm, and for those of you who feel as if you are also stuck in a storm, he can calm yours as well.  Just run to him.

Job 37:5
"God's voice thunders in marvelous ways;
he does great things beyond our understanding." 

Holidays and Life Changes.

Tis the season to be... beyond busy, stressed out, and gaining weight! Some people call that jolly. The holidays bring back a lot of memories for me, as I'm sure they do for everyone else.  This year, memories involve so much more than Christmas's past.

As of the seventeenth of December, I am no longer a resident of Louisville, Kentucky.  Academically, I have finished college. No more scantrons, no more product IDs, and no more Kentucky.  I'll be brutally honest when I say, "Thank God."  I have been dying to move home since I moved away last fall.  Then again, now that I am gone, it seems a little sad, a little lonely in a way.  I miss my old room, my kittens, my routine, and my freedom.  Instead of that, I gained my dog, my family, my safe home, my best friends, and someone a little more special.

After six months of bad cell reception, grainy Skype quality, poorly timed text messages, and overall not niceties, I got this man back.  It's not been an easy six months, between his overwhelming work load in the Marines, my stress over school and internship, and a three hour time difference, things with us have seemed to fall the wayside.  We spent his birthday, our one year anniversary, and Thanksgiving over two thousand miles apart.

All sadness aside, I now have him back for the remainder of the holiday season and then will regretfully have to hand him back over.  Until then, look at some happy pictures from this break and my happy friends and family.

I was able to go Christmas tree hunting with AJ and his family.  Erika brought along her boyfriend, Keegan, and they are the dictionary definition of a handsome couple.  So obviously there were photos snapped.

This family means so much to me. They have become my Holland family, and my two best friends belong to it.  The Wells have made me feel so welcome, they have given me support, wise words, coffee in the morning, and reason to smile!

To say that I am just excited to be back with this girl, is the understatement of the century.  I am a happy girl, back in my home state, ready to see what God has to throw at me, and I know there will be a lot.

Stay tuned and have a great New Years!


Any photos you see of me here are from my beautiful friend Erika! See past post and her blog here!