Vintage Pearl Giveaway!

Vintage Pearl is a company that has fresh ideas when it comes to jewelry. 

I love pearls. They are absolutely my favorites gemstone, if you will. 

They are classic, versatile, and a true sign of beauty.

I have a couple of blogs I want to direct you to. 

The first blog I want to direct you to is The Vintage Pearl, where they are doing the giveaway! 

Leave a comment, write a blog post, and tweet for 3 chances to win a piece of jewelry that is 

not only beautiful, but holds great meaning. Their jewelry is customizable so it can easily 

become a treasured piece for years to come!

The other blog is where you'll find a story on the meaning behind pearls and how valuable they are, not only monetarily. Gretchen's post "Pearls of a Great Price" is remarkable and touches places in my soul that are deeper than sometimes I even knew were possible. 

Enjoy!

Ordinary

I never write here.
I think most of my posts have something in them that say, "Man, I really wish I blogged more!"
I guess I just never feel like there's anything so important to say that it matters to write it down.
That can't be right, though.
I look around me and see people writing very important and meaningful things on their blogs all the time.
How could I be the only one that doesn't have something to say?
I'm not accepting it.
There have been so many times when I thought, "Jeepers, I'm just gonna delete this thing."
It just seems pointless to keep it up.
But wouldn't deleting it be giving in?
Wouldn't deleting it be allowing myself to give up on something I really want to do?
I feel like my whole life has been one of mediocrity.
Everything I do, I do it almost half-heartedly.
Basketball. Volleyball. Running. (Why can I only think of sports right now?)
Piano and Guitar.
My faith.
Friendships.
Exploring my creativity.
I just never feel like I really do something with everything I have.
I can't give up.
I won't.

I was once told that I give up on things because I'm afraid of failing at them.
My level of perfectionism for myself is so high, that I'd rather not do it, sometimes not even start it, because that would mean there's a possibility I will fail.

The other day I wrote a friend, saying I was afraid to commit to meeting with her at a specific time every week. I was afraid I was going to let her down, going to make an unrealistic commitment, and not be the friend she needed me to be. She said, " You're cute :) I think anyone who has high expectations of themselves always kind of feels like they're not always doing or capable of doing what they wish they were." I was totally blown away. I've seen this girl on a handful of occasions, we've had a couple conversations, and she's already got me pegged. It was actually really helpful, though, to know that she understood where I was coming from, and that it's not that I just don't want to do something, it's that I'm afraid of not being able to do it.

How do I break this cycle?

I guess this little note is going to have to end with..."to be continued."

:)

*sigh*

I need to post....

It's been forever. The same pictures of baking cookies have been staring at me, taunting me, telling me I need to post again.

It's been almost 3 months.

Ridiculous.

So here's a quick post.

What's been going on?

• I went on a pre-vacation vacation with GS1 (Gretchen). We flew the coup and headed to gorgeous Mexico for a week. We slathered on sunscreen, ate to our hearts content, read fictional stories, met some wonderful people, went snorkeling, got burnt, saw cultural dances from each of the states of Mexico, took a taxi ride (my first!), swam in the ocean, saw the Gulf Coast oil spill from the plane (sad face), went on 7 airplanes in 9 days, chatted about life and its ups and downs, haggled for souvenirs (she's got a much more convincing poker face than I do), played beach volleyball, lost a life jacket while kayaking, and just had an all around great time. Here's to 9 years of friendship, and many more to come!
• We're losing an entire Biola class, one that we've grown to love and will seriously miss. 
• That class that we're losing GRADUATED so we're also happy for them. We're happy for them. We're happy for them. We're happy for them. I have to keep repeating it so I don't selfishly fall back into the "I don't want them to leave" phrases. It was so fun standing and cheering for so many incredible students at graduation. We were awfully proud "parents".
• The students have since moved off campus. It's eerily quiet.
• We are babysitting. Four turtles and a handful of fish. Two tanks. 
•  Our humble apartment home is about to be vacated by GS2 (Garrett) & I, and then inhabited by two of our RA's. We've given them strict instructions to be nice to our non-stick pots and pans. :) 
•  G & I are finishing up work this Friday and then off for a 2 month vacation together and with our families. We're totally looking forward to the break, and the time together to be refreshed, learn more about each other, and see more of the country. Our vacation looks like this: June 8-June 21-Time in Roanoke with the Suhrs! Hanging out with Garrett's parents, as well as Jason and Rachel and the four kiddos. It's gonna be awesome to get some quality non-stop time with them. Garrett is so relaxed when he's at home, so I'm glad we're getting to do this first. We're planning on hiking a good bit of the mountains around Roanoke, so we're excited about that. We'll celebrate Father's Day with them, then we're heading up to Harrisonburg to hang out with my family and celebrate with them as well. We'll spend a couple of days in Harrisonburg, head up to Pennsylvania to see some friends we haven't seen in over 2 years (crazy!), head back to Harrisonburg for a night, then head down to Alabama for the annual beach week at the Gulf. It will be a little different this year with the oil spill and all. I'm anxious to see it firsthand and see how it's affecting everyone in that area. But we get to be with family, and that's the purpose of the trip. We'll be there for a week with my extended family, and then we'll head back home and spend a couple of days in Harrisonburg again before flying straight from there to Alaska! This is one of Garrett's dreams, and I'm excited to be going with him as he gets to see this part of the country for the first time. We're going to be doing some hiking and sightseeing, as well as just enjoying the views and wildlife (I'm hoping to finally see a Moose!). We'll spend about 2 weeks there, and then head back to LA. We'll have a couple of days before we start back up again for another year here. It's crazy that we're going on our third year in California. Time really truly flies. 

I'm missing my family more and more. It's hard being so far away. I'm looking forward to the time with them, but wish I got to experience the more day-to-day stuff.

I also get to see BELLA! She's 4 now and it's oh-so-hard hearing about all the wacky stuff she does and not being around her.

Anyways. There's an update. Life is crazy, but it's definitely good. Garrett and I are having a blast and really enjoying each other's company. This marriage thing can be hard at times, but it's so fun to be able to say "I'm looking forward to how much more we're going to grow together as a team this NEXT year!" It's truly a one-of-a-kind relationship.

Slacker-ish

I want to post more. I do! I just get behind and then get overwhelmed with how far behind I am and then I avoid it because I'm too far behind to even try. It's too much to handle!

Isn't that life?

I want to post when something funny happens. Something silly happens. Something sad happens. I find out interesting news. I find out ridiculous news. I find out news. I'm dissapointed. I'm happy. I'm lethargic. I'm hungry.

I want to post about random things that aren't big deal things and not feel like I have to have some huge revelation before it's a big enough deal to write about.

But I can't do it.

So tonight. I did it. Here's a random post about nothing. Because I wanted to. And had nothing to write about. But I did it anyway.

That's a milestone. Ha.

Oh. My first Half-Marathon ever is in two days. I'm a tad bit nervous, but more excited than anything! Bring. It. On.

Bah-Bah-Blogging

I don't get it. I will go through the day and think, "Hmmm...I should write about that." Then I sit down, pull up "new blog post" and....nada.

Sometimes I am just brimming with things to write about. Other times. Dry. Like the desert.

Tonight's a dry like the desert.

So I will ramble.

I was sick today. Last night really. Now it's in my throat. So I stayed home from work in hopes of recovering. While I was home I worked on finances. When I was single, I had this whole system thing going. Then, after Garrett and I got married, and I was pretty much jobless for a year, I think I just fell into this "I don't know where the money goes and I don't care" vortex.

Now that I'm back to contributing to society (or at least to our back account), I feel the need to know where things are coming from and where they're going, when they're going, who's sending them there, and if we're gonna live to see another month (woah, dramatic much?)

So today, I broke out the calculator, excel sheet, and passwords to all the bills and accounts I could come up with.

Not surprisingly, Garrett came home and was a little overwhelmed by all of it. All the sudden, someone else (me!) cared about what was going down with the finances. I think he was surprised, a little confused, and maybe even slightly threatened. I think it made him feel like I thought he wasn't doing a good job with all of it. He was, though! He's done a great job with finances this year! It's probably the last thing we worry about. We do have conversations every now and then about curbing my spending. He's not naturally a spender, and it's not that I'm a huge spender, either, but I'm used to being able to use my money to buy the things I want, when I want to. It's weird to ask permission again. No, permission isn't the right word. It's like permission, but a little softer. But seriously, he's got it all under control!

So here I am, feeling like I've just accomplished something huge by trying to get us all organized, and he's just thinking that I think he's a failure at keeping us alive! (Maybe slightly overstated?)

Don't worry. We talked it out and then had a great time (I love stuff like this for some reason) figuring out which paycheck this bill was coming out of, and who was paying that bill when. I'm still working on a nice neat excel sheet, and hopefully we'll be debt free by May!

And then we ate a nice dinner of tuna steaks, couscous, and guacamole. Yum!

It's just amazing to me that people can come at something from completely different perspectives at times.

a picture's worth a thousand words

So I live a ways away from my family and several of my friends, not all of which are cool enough to have facebook, obviously, or they would. I've just found that facebook is the easiest way to post up pictures of life as I know it in neatly stored albums with unlimited capacity. I like blogger cause I can write and post pictures, but for straight up albums I'm going to dump my pictures on facebook. The cool thing about facebook is that people that don't have facebook can still see the pictures. I just found this out so I'm...needless to say...excited.

So Mom, this one's for you.

http://olivet.facebook.com/photos.php?id=69600685&l=aa740

Here's to finding a place to write. Not always thinking about what's coming next. It's almost a reflex, my mind on the screen.