Life

My life is crazy. Part Two.

- Melody 2 Comments

Wow. This week has been crazy. Four outfits and not a single picture. Tomorrow I’m off to Commerce with the family to help my sister move into her dormpartment, which you can read about here how God fit things together for her! I’m really hoping to get those outfits posted up here next week, but I also thought that at the beginning of this week so we’ll see how this weekend goes. In other news, my entire harddrive was completely full so I transferred about 14,000 pictures to my external one and then 34 GB of music over as well. I tried uploading about 300 pictures from my camera but my version of iPhoto won’t read raw files. Flarp. So now I have tons of pictures of Pepper but can’t figure out how to get them on my computer! (Anyone know of any free programs that’ll read raw files?) Because of this, I tried to update my OS so I could update iPhoto, but since my OS is such an old version I have to buy two new OSs. But, since Apple is so mighty, I can’t just download the middleman OS for $20 from their site anymore. Oh no. I have to buy the disc from Amazon for $100 and THEN buy the newest OS from Apple for $20. Uh. No thank you. So if anyone has a Snow Leopard OS disc laying around… ahem… I’m here.

Also, I haven’t seen my husband all week. The school he works at starts back up on Monday and he has been working, literally, like a dog every day this week. Going in very early, staying really late… Plus on Mondays he leaves soon after he gets home for ultimate frisbee. That coupled with late nights for him and school for me means we are both beat and really fried by the time we actually see each other again. Which is usually as we’re getting into bed. We were hoping for a date night tonight but we both fell asleep when we got home. Then the stress of my tuition cost got to us and we’re just real… tired. So if you would, pray for us to get some alone time and give each other a break!

Thanks for still visiting here even though there hasn’t been any new content in a few days! I promise once I am rested up and refreshed after a weekend with family I’ll get back to this old blog!

My life is crazy.

- Melody

First of all, hi. I’ve felt disconnected from you! I’ve missed you. Take me back? That’s sweet of you. Let me catch you up…

Last week was crazy. Crazy like waiting for five packages to come in that I’ve been looking forward to for months. Crazy like my power cord being chewed through and my laptop completely dying in the middle of me transferring 14,000 pictures to my external harddrive. Crazy like waiting five days for a new power cord. Crazy like me starting my senior year of college! Crazy like only getting five hours of sleep Sunday night. Crazy like losing patience often.

BUT! My new cord came in, I’m completely in love with my new camera and lens, and my first day back to school was a success. Want to meet my camera?

Ain’t she purdy? Nikon D7000. Life made.

Well! I’ll be blogging (hopefully) tons this week since I’m back on a semi schedule! I only have class three days a week! But right now I’m going to conk out… zzz…

Boohoo for my booboos.

- Melody

Well this week has been a doozy. Like, forreals. I haven’t blogged all that much this week because some animal, who shall remain nameless, may or may not have chewed through my laptop’s power supply. So until the new cord I may or may not have ordered comes in or doesn’t come in, I can’t blog! Except from the iPad. And we all know that’s not happening. It’s real hard to do that. How do I know you ask? I’m doing it now. So you won’t be seeing any new pictures of Pepper for a few days. Oh, I know you’re heartbroken. Try to cheer up! 🙂

Sunday night girls’ night + our life update.

- Melody

Remember our story about Direct TV? Well one of the things that was also cancelled/rescheduled that week was Girls’ Night. My two sisters, Shelby and Rudy, with our friend Chaney were going to spend the night and have a royally good time swooning over Pepper. We moved it to Sunday night and it couldn’t have been a better time. Direct TV came out the next morning and we spent Monday watching the Olympics! Weee! Would you believe the only two pictures I took were of food and Pepper? You probably would.

We spent the night talking about everything under the sun and eating red velvet cheesecake brownies until our heads fell off. We watched the ultimate chick flick, Something Borrowed, (have you seen it?! So. Good.) and stuffed ourselves full of s’mores trail mix. (Who eats that stuff out on the trail? It’s mostly chocolate!) It’s nights like these that remind me of why we are ready to move (and why I love people). Living 45-55 minutes away from our families, friends and civilization is a real bummer. Feeling guilty for inviting people over and asking them to drive 45-55 minutes is a bonus bummer.

Since late spring/early summer we felt God shifting our path a little bit. We knew moving to Laneville that we weren’t meant here for long but we just didn’t know how long. We are now really feeling God starting to gently push us out. There are still a lot of unanswered questions and uncertainty about where my own life and career will be in ten months. This right now is where God shapes us as Christians. This is where he molds us and asks us to trust Him fully. This, guys, is the very hardest part.

Being married and coming into a big transition like this is totally new; for both of us. When I graduated high school I just kind of gravitated towards Kilgore College and later knew that that was where God placed me. Graduating KC I had a very tentative plan to attend UT Tyler. I know now that God has me there for a reason as well, even though I’m not entirely sure of it yet. The thing is our house is such a temporary space we can’t be sure of when we will actually leave. There is freedom with that, but with that freedom comes a lot of uncertainty and a little fear. Now more than ever our lives are changing together. We each have visions of where we want to be but asking God to take our visions and make them His is… well, humbling. And hard. Real hard. But oh so very exciting.

In times like these I am thankful for my Savior. I don’t trust myself one bit to make these life altering decisions. Does that stop me from planning them out anyway? Nope. It does, however, make it that much sweeter and beautiful when I crumble and let God’s glorious plan wash over me. Oh, I can’t wait to see what our life together looks like in a year.

 

What I’ve learned this summer. Kind of.

- Melody 2 Comments

I only have about two and a half weeks left of summer vacation before my last year of school starts! I know I made a list of summer intentions a while back, so I’m kind of making a mad dash to get some one those done. I’ve been really bored lately which is typical me during the summer. I relish in the break for a couple of months and then, after several bouts of heat stroke, I keep really bored and want structure and things to do. Also typical me is regretting feeling that way once school starts. I honestly think that if I had a job that I loved I wouldn’t mind it so much. Of course, with a job I wouldn’t have a summer break. So it’s bittersweet. (Wait, is that bittersweet? Did I use that right?) To think that in nine months I will be a college graduate with a bachelor’s degree with no job prospects is both scary and enticing. In nine months I will be done with school forever! No more papers, no more classes, no more choir concerts, no more tests… ahhh. Just thinking about it makes me feel relieved. However, I still have no clear view of what God has planned for Jason and me or my sister for that matter. I’ve known what my purpose is since I was eleven, but still don’t have a clue as to how it’s going to play out. Though Jason and I have a fun project we’re working on. 🙂

So, I guess I’ve learned that I need things to do or I get restless, bored, and depressed. It’s only taken me sixteen years of school to learn that. 😉 To appease my boredom, and to stave off thoughts of the upcoming school year and the outrageous stress it will bring with it, I’ll try to finish up my summer intentions list. A new skirt, some new recipes, and some piano practice! Interspersed with pictures of Pepper, of course. 🙂

Also, I’ve been waiting literally all.day. for Direct TV to show up and install cable. Nowhere to be found. I just want to watch the Olympics.

Hope your summer is going well!

The long awaited surprise…

- Melody 4 Comments

First of all, you guys are hilarious. Thanks for texting, posting, and generally being the best. It’s kind of neat to know you guys care enough to check back and see what all this hub-bub has been about. Thanks for sticking it out with me, Awkward McGee. Hope you guys are just as enamored as we are… 🙂

To say I’ve always wanted a dog is an understatement. Most all of my friends growing up had dogs. Beagles, terriers, labs, great danes… My family? We’re cat people. Always have been and always will be. Smoky, Freeway, Ally, Mittens, Buster, Sophie, Pippin, Izzy, Caroline, Penny, Ike, Rusty…

But no cat could fulfill the longing to rub my face in that fur and to scratch those velvety ears. And oh! Those sad, puppy eyes! Hearing claws tap tap tap on our wood floor before that wet nose is pressed to my hand, or to see that happy tail wag when those eyes meet mine! My heart!

We’ve talked about getting a dog since before we were married, so this decision wasn’t a light one. Plus, Jason didn’t initially like the idea of having three pets. (Like we were going to turn in to some crazy pet people. Ha!) So one day I was having a dog moment, and I launched us into the ‘Dog Talk.’ We talked about it again and decided now is as good a time as ever!

I’ve always, always wanted a golden retriever, literally since I was ten. So that’s what we looked for. And on a Tuesday evening, when I was coming really close to my wits end and starting to think it would never happen, I found her. I emailed Byron, the man who had posted the ad, and when I didn’t hear anything after waiting a whole five minutes, I called the number listed. (Type A? Who, me? Okay, yeah. Me.) I made an appointment for the next day to go down and check her out.

My drove down there and made it to the man’s house, but no one was home. My heart was pounding in my ears, my stomach was in knots. This is fake! I wasted all that gas! I didn’t even get Starbucks! Shelby talked me down and made me call the guy. I was semi-relieved when he said he’d be home soon, though I was still convinced he would show up, trap us in his house, and murder us.

When he got home, we took the plunge to walk inside armed with tasers and pepper spray. To our huge relief, there were twelve golden puppies scurrying to meet us. Look at these guys!


 Byron showed us the two girls left and Shel and I took turns holding them. As soon as I picked my girl up she licked all over my face!

Look at that hilariously goofy grin. The goofy grin of a girl in love, I tell ya!

I was so overwhelmed with emotion that I wanted to walk out with her right then and there. He snapped that snazzy green collar on her though and told me to wait.

Wait we did, and today we went back to finally bring her home. Pepper!

I’ll be posting a “day of” post next week along with several photo dumps/fawning posts. I can’t get enough of her!

And that is the end of my very long blog post full of italics and parentheses overuse. 🙂