Because, sometimes we have dry spells.

I'm going through one of those dry spells in my faith.

I. hate. dry. spells.

It's one of those times when I'm having a hard time connecting to God, and I know why, and I'm being stubborn about fixing it, and I'm annoyed with myself for not fixing it, and the cycle continues. It's Satan playing his little games and me being all ADHD and jumping in on the fun.

So, I don't have any words of wisdom from my own personal studies in the word these days, because my studies have been surface level. And it's driving me nuts.

Why is that? Why do we let ourselves get all stubborn? I know GOOD AND WELL that my life is infinitely greater when God and I are totally on the same wavelength (okay, I legit realize I can never be FULLY on his wavelength, but you know what I mean), but I keep letting little things get in the way. Little sins I'm having a hard time shaking. Little distractions from spending more time with him. This happens on occasion. I'm over it. I want to be completely washed up in his awesomeness in the very near future.

The beautiful thing that I keep reminding myself when I fall into these spells is that the mere fact that I KNOW what I'm missing out on PROVES how great my relationship with him really is. Think about your close friends. When you and your close friends have been unable to speak on a regular basis, you RECOGNIZE that. You feel it. When you do or say something that hurts that friend, it weighs on you. I'm actually experiencing a little taste of that with a good friend of mine right now. There are plenty of people out there who I'm just not that close to. Those people, while I enjoy spending time with them, I don't really care if I go out of my way to do so. It's not like I'm sitting around thinking "Gosh, I really wish I could talk to that person right now." I'm just glad when I do. My close friends, I feel their absence. I miss them. All the time. I think about them. If not talking to them is my own fault, I feel that distance even more heavily.

THATS how I know what I have with God is special. I miss him in that way. It's not that we aren't talking. We just aren't talking the way we used to, in that really close, day-to-day intimate way. I'm not going out of my way to learn from him like I like to, and I feel it.

So that's my goal, to get refocused, repurposed. To be reminded of just how amazing he is and the ways he provides for me and takes care of me and genuinely loves me.  I'm thankful that, while I'm failing him, he's here reminding me that he hasn't gone anywhere, and it makes me want to run to him even more.

So I've been quiet lately...

I've had a bazillion blog topics on my mind and haven't had time to sit down and organize my thoughts on any of them.

I started my second-to-last semester of grad school in the last few weeks, and on top of trying to organize my readings, go to class, adjust to a new internship, and start back to work, I had my big brother in town for a few days AND I've become addicted to Breaking Bad, like the rest of America
***************I'm just now finishing season two tonight, and if you spoil anything for me......

Anyway, so my internship this year is in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at New York Presbyterian Weill-Cornell Medical Center (The Cornell University Hospital).  It is INCREDIBLE!!!  I was a little worried that, while the work seemed interesting, I would feel as though I was abandoning my vision a little - since I feel a strong calling to working in social justice among youth with disciplinary problems.... and this is NOT that. BUT the skillset I'm acquiring is absolutely phenomenal in terms of learning to work systems, support people through really tough times, etc... which is EXACTLY why I asked for this type of job. Not to mention that my resume was forwarded to them before NYU received my email about wanting to work in a NICU (totally a God thing, yall). 

So, someday soon, I plan to jump on here and discuss topics God has been laying on my heart, like I usually do, but for now, I'm going to eat some New Orleans flavored Brooklyn-made Steve's Ice Cream and watch the last two episodes of BB season two - while I avoid doing any school work... 

Snail Mail is FUN

My last post was about a mug exchange, which was AWESOME! But EVEN BEFORE that, I got to be a part of a monthly Snail Mail Collective for the first time. This was great, because I had the incredible opportunity to get to know Beth over at That Little Spark for several weeks via email before sending good old fashioned snail mail. It was so wonderful to make a new friend that way, and to be able to think about things that she might enjoy receiving in a package. As with the mug exchange, I was in New Orleans when it was time to send it, so, while sticking to the theme for the month: Under the Sea, I also threw in some fun New Orleans goodies. 

Beth is from Arkansas, but lives in Texas, so my package was mostly Texas themed. I may never want to live in Texas, and I may say some not so nice things about it sometimes, but undeniably the people I know there are great!


Beth is a designer, so her package was really adorable! She had such fun little drawings all over the box! See the cool little sea creatures?!?

Fun Packaging

She sent me a package of goodies, including a really sweet letter, a t-shirt, a postcard, a little Texas license plate with my name and a WIND UP FISHING GAME! That, I kid you not, I tried to buy at Wal Mart to send to her but they were out! Crazy!

I already signed up for Septembers's exchange and am so excited to be paired up with yet another great blogger!

Mug Swap!!!!

I've obviously been on a bit of a blogging break. This is mostly because I was in New Orleans for the last two and a half weeks, and if you know anything about New Orleans, you know that time and care and things you're supposed to do tend to slip to the wayside there. I was on vacation. It was amazing. More on that later, though.

I returned home today anxious to see if I had a package waiting, and sure enough, there was a little pink slip with my name on it! Thankfully, I live really close to the post office, and by some miracle today's package pickup line wasn't that long (I had been on a plane and some trains for several hours and really just wanted to sit down, but I didn't want to miss out on seeing what was waiting for me at the post office!).

To my surprise, I received my package, only to realize it wasn't from the same person I had sent my package to! I guess I misunderstood things, so I was super excited that I got to meet ANOTHER blog friend through this exchange. I'm currently involved in a snail mail collective too and we were paired up so that you sent mail to the same person who sent mail to you. I guess I got confused.

Being the goofball that I am, I totally forgot to take a picture of the mug I  mailed to my assigned person, Emily at Naptime is My Time. Emily is an awesome crafty mama in the Cape Cod area who described herself as a minimalist at heart, so I didn't want to send her anything too outrageous. Being that I was in New Orleans, I went with a mug from a certain famous coffee & beignet stand.  It was their newest mug in their collection, so I could be pretty well assured she didn't have one already from any trips of her own to my city. I also threw in some Southern Candymakers pralines.

So now, back to the awesome mug I received today. Amber over at The Butterfly Effect was assigned to me.  I could tell the second I opened the package that she had really put thought into it, as purple streamers came bursting out of the box.

Check out the fun polka dot tape!! So excited!

Purple paper!!!!

Amber knew that my favorite color combo was purple and green, but I'm not sure how she also knew that I like to throw blue in there now and then too (maybe I put this in my info for the mug swap... but probably not.  I got a beautiful green mug with a set of green and blue pencils and some cool green sticky notes!

Adorable!!

And also TEA!!!! HERBAL TEA!!! THAT TASTES LIKE BERRIES!! I am so excited to sip this down as I do my reading this semester :) 

The note she wrote along with it so was encouraging, and it was so fun to know that she'd been reading my blog and really putting thought into what to get me, despite the fact that we'd never even communicated! I'm really looking forward to following her blog and keeping up with her! She's located in Texas, making this the third package I've received from Texas in the past month.... Including my snail mail collective partner (I'll post about that soon too... I'm a few days behind on that one), and from Ashley, who is just awesome and sent me something awesome because that's the kind of person she is (you should totally read her blog too).  

I hope to do this mug swap thing again next year. It's so much fun getting a surprise gift in the mail from a total stranger - and not in the creepy unibomber kind of way, obviously....