Maternity Shopping...mini Adventure

I went maternity shopping today. I just had to! All my pants are too tight. I was wearing them unbuttoned and unzipped. Well, I went to my favorite thrift store in town and was just trying normal jeans. Okay, it made me feel so...frustrated! They were perfect in the waist but short, big, and anything but what I need. I did end up finding a maternity shirt which was only $3.99. Yay! It was cute too! All the pants in the maternity section of the thrift store...well, they were not size small. So I decided to move onto the Motherhood store in the mall. After trying on about 8 pairs of pants, I found the ones I needed. Yay! But they were $29.99. I was looking for a better deal, but go figure...I found the expensive ones. They were not, however, the most expensive in the store. I LOVED looking at all the different cardigans they have. (I'm a sucker for a lovely cardigan!) But, my budget didn't allow for more than what I got. So, maybe in a couple weeks I can convince Brent to go with me and see how cute and comfy it is! lol!
While on this shopping adventure...I ate too much candy from the Sweet Factory. I just felt the need to confess. He he he...

My best friend Maria is in the hospital having her baby right now. Little Sebastian was supposed to come on Sunday, but he didn't. Well, sometimes babies just aren't ready when we are. I'll probably be heading over there later tonight or tomorrow, depending on when she calls and says she needs me or when the baby is born. I'm so excited for her! It seems like she's been pregnant forever! lol...well, I guess it feels like that for her too. =)

New Post...finally

Ah! My last blog was awhile ago. Since then, as I'm sure you all know, Brent and I found out we're pregnant. I'm now 14 weeks. Exciting! I'm praying that my energy keeps up with me as I go to class all day long! My baking lab is 5 1/2 hours. It's been hard on my back and legs to just stand there all day, but I'm sure I'll get used to it. I find myself wanting to be very lazy. I like just staying home and reading, cleaning, cooking, or my new hobby...crocheting. But, it's my last semester for my Baking Certificate! yay! I have been thinking about possibly going back to school after the baby comes. I just don't know if I can bring my lazy bum to do it. We'll see...

Baking Lab, An Answer to Prayers

Sorry this post was such a long time in coming. I have no excuses that are excusable!

God answers prayer! You have to be patient sometimes but He does. I wanted to get into the Baking Labs so bad this semester. When I went to register for classes, the labs were already a closed course. I was planning to take a totally different class. I didn't really mind. I was still checking every week to see if the class had opened up...no. I just had to be patient and trust that God knew better things about my schedule then I did.

I started having coffeebook time with God, an idea given to me in a book called "You're Late Again, Lord." Just sitting outside, having a nice cup of iced coffee with my Lord. I was writing in my coffeebook (it's like a prayer journal) to God for about 2 hours or so. I'm going to share some of my conversation...

Deuteronomy 31:8 "The Lord Himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged."

In coffeebook: I have no need to be discouraged. You go before every step I take. It reminds me of the footprints poem. You not only go before me, but when I'm feeling low, you carry me. ...You are big enough to hear and answer all prayers. What a mighty God! ...I still want patience from You, Lord. I know this is definately one of my problem areas. I know I don't pass most of the tests you send my way. So, send me more please! ...You have been putting a dream in my heart. I pray for courage. I know your plans for us are 10 times better than what we have planned for ourselves. Just help us to surrender to them. Is it a copout to say "help us" instead of "we do"? I DO surrender my future and my husband's future to you. There! No more copouts. Just a true surrender.

That coffeebook time took place the morning God opened the door for me to get into the Baking Lab. Praise God! Doesn't He work in such facinating ways? I don't really care that my issue was trivial compared to other people's problems. I wanted to talk to my Best Friend about it. As I said before, God is big enough to hear and answer ALL prayers, no matter how insignificant or huge they seem. Just have patience and truly surrender to Him.

TVs & Lessons Learned

I can't believe it snowed...can you believe it? April 17th and Albuquerque gets snow. I find it absolutely gorgeous!!! I would probably love it if the heater in our house wasn't broken.

Yesterday Brent put our taxes to good use and bought us a 37" LG flat screen TV. Yes, we're excited. You see, we could live with our tube TV but the color is literally going out in some spots because it is old. It's purplish in the right top hand corner. So it was a blessing from God that we could get a new TV. And a new entertainment center or TV stand, whichever, will be coming with it. Yay! Because it will match our brown furniture!!! haha...I know, I'm silly. It's not important whether it matches, but I like the fact that it will.

For anyone who doesn't know, or doesn't have Facebook and hasn't read my status updates. I got a new job. I think of it more as a career opportunity then a job though. I will soon be working at the Flying Star Cafe on Paseo and Wyoming. I say career opportunity because I am a culinary arts student, emphasis on baking, and a cafe is just where I want to be! I will start as a server and prayfully move up to baking!!! Yay! God is so good.

Before going to apply for the opportunity, I talked to Brent for about 45 minutes about how God has been teaching me about contentment in my daily devotionals. And patience too. I told Brent, and God, I am totally content at JCPenneys, no matter how much patience I'll have to practice. Brent said that it would be a good idea to still apply, not expecting it to happen but not expecting it not to happen. And it happened! Lesson learned: BE CONTENT! God knows what the desires of your heart are. He hears your every plea. But until you learn to be still and know that He is God, He might decide to teach you a thing or two. Also, God knows your needs and your wants. He will supply needs first, wants second. It might be hard to accept, but once you do, He blesses.

Beautiful Creator

God's creation is just so beautiful. I can't get over it! Even though I live in a desert, it's still beautiful! I mean, this flower was the pop of color that God added to this dry, dead area. Yellow...a very happy color. And I was very happy when I saw this beautiful flower. I had to capture it on camera! But it wasn't the only thought that passed through my mind when I saw it. I had to think of the Creator again! God is so great! His creation is awesome, but how much more awesome is He! Some people get too caught up in praising the creation instead of the Creator. So I wanted to take a minute to praise the Creator!

How great and beautiful God's creation is...God is better! He is more beautiful and wonderful than all creation!

Psalm 8

"O Lord our Lord, how excellent is they name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; The fowl of the air and the fish of the sea, and whatsover passeth through the paths of the seas. O Lord our Lord, how excellent is they name in all the earth!"

My Birthday

I turned 23 this year and it was a fabulous birthday!

I woke to a bouquet of daisies, my favorite flower! My husband had them sitting on the kitchen counter waiting for me. He knows where I will be heading first when I wake up, obviously. I decided to bake myself something tasty for breakfast so I made Raspberry Cream Rolls. So yummy! And I know some people might be thinking, "Isn't your birthday supposed to be a break for you?" But trust me, there is nothing I love to do more than bake! It was totally relaxing!

After eating breakfast, I decided I wanted to pamper myself a little more. =) I went to the salon to get my hair done. It was fun! New age, new cut.

Once I was all ready to truly begin my day, Brent took me to see Bride Wars. What a man! He's the only man I know who would take their wife to see that movie! lol. Towards the end of the movie he was playing with his wedding band. It is kinda big and it fell off his hand. oh no! I could hear it roll pretty far. I was worried someone would steal it. I know...I shouldn't assume such horrible things about people, but I can't help it! After the movie was over, a couple ladies, Brent and I started searching for it and we were successful! yay! The movie was funny, by the way.

After the movie, we met up with a few friends (Lindsey, Melissa and Dustin). We ate at St. Clair's Winery and Bistro. Brent had been teasing about something I asked for last year for my birthday. I couldn't remember. He left the table at one point but I was distracted by my friends. He came back with a single white rose. So beautiful! Dinner was so much fun! The food was great. And there was live jazz music so I was completely satisfied.

All in all, it was a great birthday. One of the best! yay!

Choosing the Unknown

“The Road Not Taken” is one of Robert Frost’s most well-known poems. Frost was awarded four Pulitzer Prizes for his poetry. He was known for using images as a pastor would in his sermons to his congregation. “The Road Not Taken” is a powerful poem about life. Sometimes life hands us different options. It is our choice which road to travel. Sometimes life seems easier if you take the path that many other people have taken, but sometimes, an unknown path is the most exciting one. Although an unknown path may be difficult to choose, it makes you stand out among the crowds.

At the beginning of the poem, the author uses the image of a fork in the road: “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.” This is a familiar analogy to most people. One might have a decision to make in life, like a decision about an important job offer. It is considered to be a fork in the road of life. You have to make a huge decision. Many times you might wish the decision simpler because it would be nice to be able to travel both roads. “And sorry I could not travel both” is the author’s way of saying that he would enjoy taking both roads, but he simply cannot take them both. He is only “one traveler” not two. He cannot travel both paths.

The man in the poem stood there for awhile and “looked down one as far as I could/To where it bent in the undergrowth.” He is trying to see what might be ahead. He is straining to see where the road might take him; the road bends and he cannot see the end. You will not always know the end result. Life has twists and turns that make it difficult to see what is in front of you.

When the author says, “Then took the other, as just as fair,” it means that both roads were reasonable roads to be taken but then he says, “And having perhaps the better claim/Because it was grassy and wanted wear.” It seems as though he is still debating in his thoughts whether this road was the road he was supposed to take or not. At first he says the roads are the same; then this one is better. Now the roads are the same again: “Though as for that the passing there/Had worn them really about the same.” He is having a difficult time. By the end of the poem, we know he had taken the road “less traveled by” which means that he is not taking the path that everyone takes. He is not following the crowd.

The day he was deciding which path to take, nobody else had been down the roads. There was no sign of anyone traveling either road. “And both that morning equally lay/In leaves no step had trodden black.” This is an image of him being alone in this decision making process. It is easier to have a friend by you when making a life-altering choice. Yet sometimes, you must choose the path alone.

In the poem, both the paths are sitting there, waiting for a traveler to walk down them. The author makes his decision: “Oh, I kept the first for another day!” With his use of punctuation here it seems as though he is in distress over the choice he made. The next couple of lines of the poem tells us why he is so distressed when he says, “Yet knowing how way leads on to way,/I doubted if I should ever come back.” This also paints the image in our heads of once a path is taken, you cannot go back and choose again. You have just one chance to make the decision of which path to travel. Once that decision is made, there is no turning back. Unfortunately, there is no rewind button in life. There is also no fast-forward button to see the end results.

“I shall be telling this with a sigh/Somewhere ages and ages hence.” I believe the author’s sigh is a sigh of satisfaction. I do not think that he is upset that he chose a path that many other people would be afraid to choose. The fact that he said, “Somewhere ages and ages hence” is somewhat funny. Years later, the author is still communicating with us about his decision with no regrets.
How many people can truly say they have lived their life with no regrets? I am sure the author does not mean this entirely. Although, with my interpretation of the poem, the author had a very important decision to make and he made it. His decision seems to be a very difficult one. By choosing the pathway he chose, he stood out among the crowd. Standing out in a crowd is difficult in the current day and age we live in. I am sure standing out was quite difficult back then too. The path was probably one that the average person would not choose. Yet by choosing it, he says, “And that has made all the difference.”

Does it take effort in our society to stand out and make a difference? I believe that depends on who you are, but most of us would say yes. It seems like our whole lives revolve around being part of the “in crowd” or “popular.” As a young child, we wanted all the toys our friends had. We wanted them simply because that was what our friends had. We decided to ask our parents if we could have the toy. This was the path we chose as little children.

As a teenager, we always heard of peer pressure. We had to handle problems such as smoking, drinking, drugs, and sex. How we handled these issues as a teenager would later affect our whole life. These decisions were quite a bit different than the choices we made as young children. They were more important than the trivial decision to ask our parents for a toy we wanted. These decisions are an example of how going against the crowd might be a little bit difficult.
As an adult, we may have to make choices similar to that of our young adulthood. Besides those decisions, some others might be marriage, children, and job offers, as I mentioned earlier. These decisions are difficult ones. For example, the more acceptable choice might be marriage, children, and to be a doctor for life; but what if someone does not want to be a doctor but dreams of being a fast-food manager? It may not be what the other adults are doing, but it was this person’s choice. He chose to take a path that some might think crazy.

Sometimes life’s decisions are complicated. At times, you might feel like you are making the wrong choice. A friend once told me that life is like a cruise. You are on this huge ship. This cruise ship has many events that you could attend. It has many attractions. You could go dancing, swim, play golf, play poker, and many other things. Yet no matter what you do, the ship will still dock at the destination it had in mind when it set sail. You playing poker instead of golf will not change the destination of the cruise ship. Unless you jump off of the cruise ship, there is no way to escape where that ship is going. Life is like a cruise ship. You could call it fate. You could call it destiny. Whatever it is, picking one road over another will still lead you to your destiny.
Making these tricky and intricate choices is part of life. Hopefully, in the end, we can be as blessed as the author was. He was able to say, “That has made all the difference” without an ounce of regret. Let us choose our path and not look back. Let us live a life of no regrets.

Note to readers:
I wrote this for a writing class this semester. When it copied into this, some paragraphs ended up together. Sorry about that. But it was an A paper. Praise God! haha!