Busy, Busy Bees

This week is going to be incredibly busy.

Not really for me, but for Reed it is going to be intense. He is working 40 hours a week and on top of that is having to take 2 tests, 3 or so quizzes, revise and add to his poetry portfolio and write a couple papers....oh and study for finals....

Oh and he has his brother's graduation and his own bachelor party this weekend, which leaves next to no time this week for anything but studying.

I literally blocked out his time this week and have a "life planner" as I like to refer to it. But basically every night after work or class he has to stay up until midnight doing homework. And then he has to wake up early just to start it all over again.

I know that a lot of people function like this all the time and you could think, "What's the big deal, my life is that crazy." Well I'd like a different response, I'd like you to think about how hard those weeks are and pray for us.

Pray mostly for Reed that he would persevere and dedicate his work unto the Lord (Colossians 3:23-24) and then pray for me as I try on the "strong, encourager and supporter" hat...it's my job from now on, but I know I'm going to stumble around a bit as I practice my role as the helper for Reed.

Today is only the first day and its already been intense. I am now officially our moving committee. By myself. Reed isn't allowed (by me) to think about the moving of all of my stuff into his house this weekend. He isn't allowed to think about any logistics for this weekend's move or for our move in July. His priority is school and trying to not build a heart of fear and anxiety towards his responsibilities with school.

He's done an AMAZING job so far. He's even gotten to see one of the most embarrassing thing I've ever done.....You ready?

I took a drink of Diet Dr. Pepper and like half a drop went down the wrong tube while the rest went down the right tube. It's not that abnormal right? Well naturally my body is coughing to try and get the small half drop out of the wrong tub when, UUUUURP, I spit out the rest of the gulp from the right tube.

Yes....I spit up Diet Dr. Pepper, very similar to how an infant would, on my bed, while Reed was watching me cough.

So poor Reed took a break from studying (which he did about 7ish hours of tonight) and brought me a towel so that it didn't get all over my bed.

He then called me cute about 15 minutes later. I'm sorry but I couldn't help thinking, "ummmmmm, please tell me you remember me just SPITTING UP ON MYSELF".

Oh thank goodness Jesus has a sense of humor...It's those little weird things that get us through these rough weeks.

Last Week of School...EVER

This is a crazy feeling. I don't know that I feel like I am going to miss school so much...but I do think it will be an adjustment.

I've been in school for 18 years of my life. All I have ever known is the seasonality of a school year.

My mom told me the hardest thing will be getting used to always working and not having a three month break for summer or a month long break for Christmas.

I think she is right on the money. I feel like I survive and countdown until the next "break". I won't be able to do that anymore. I won't have the break to look forward to. It will be life from here on out...and there won't be a month long break.

I feel ready though.

Not like I'm going to not have to adjust, but I feel like this time in my life is definitely meant to be drawing to a close. I feel like it is the natural movement of my life.

You know what I'm really excited about? I'm really excited about getting married, about starting life with Reed, about getting to come home to him every night, about being able to finally be one in marriage.

I'm can't wait for it.

Every day I look at him, how nerdy he is, how sensitive to me he is, how spectacular he is, how he loves the Lord, how encouraging he is and how laid back he is.

God made him for me. He had a sovereign plan and from the womb, Reed was molded for me and I for him.

Doesn't mean its going to be perfect or that either of us are always going to act the way we should.

But I look at our two dispositions and just am in awe...I could never have imagined someone as amazing as him to be my husband. I just lack the capacity to dream that up.

So all in all, even though life is changing...I really couldn't be happier!

Spring Break Update

Okay so I thought I was going to take pictures this spring break, but ended up not. I'm sorry. I promise I'll try and take pictures sometime so you guys can remember what my face looks like.

The biggest reason why I didn't take any pictures is because this break was ridiculously busy. It started with us getting into town late Saturday, then waking up the next morning to go to church, then running around after church trying to find some stuff for my first bridal shower and then racing to the bridal shower.

The shower was just EXHAUSTING. In the best way ever, but it tires me to have to be social and smiling for that long. I loved it though. It was so neat to have so many woman around me that loved me and were supporting me. All in all, I feel incredibly blessed.

The next couple of days were a whirlwind of dress fittings, shoe shopping, dress shopping, floral shopping and meeting with our event center. Reed's mom and sister were also in town, which meant that we spent a day in Fredricksburg too. By Wednesday, I was SO exhausted! But we managed to go shopping AGAIN that day to try and find a dress for my mom. It was good, but by the time we got back, I was pooped.

Thursday was an interesting day. It started with studying and then meeting my friend Meredith Harrell for a little lunch break (which was amazing and so needed). When I got back, I hung out with Reed and watched him beat the original Zelda game on our wii. We eventually had dinner and then Kristen (my sister) and I played mario party 8 on the wii. At the very end of our game Reed got a call from his dad that his grandparents (his dad's parents) had both died earlier that day in a car accident somewhere between Denver and Casper, WY (that is where they live). His dad had just found out and was calling him to let him know.

Reed was just shocked. For a while he just needed to sit and cry. Eventually, we started talking and decided we needed to go to Dallas to be with his family. We had heard that his grandparents didn't want a service, but Reed's dad was having a hard time so we knew that we needed to just be with them this weekend.

So the next day we ended up going to Dallas and the car ride was good. We just got a chance to talk and it really helped Reed settle down and feel a little better. We laughed and listened to music until I got a text from Jennifer telling me that CPA exam scores were up. I immediately went into nervous mode as Reed and I searched for free wi-fi. We finally found a Subway and I checked my grades and I PASSED! It was really exciting and Reed was really excited for me :)

After that, we kept on to Dallas and spent the weekend with his parents and sister. Reed helped to write the obituary and spent some good time with his dad. One evening we played diceology and his dad had such a great time. It was so good to see him smile :)

Things are still hard for their family, especially Reed's dad. I think he is just going to be sad about it for a while. The whole family is headed up to Wyoming this weekend for the reception, so please keep Reed, his dad and the rest of his family in your prayers.

God is good. And His timing is good. Pray that that truth would be a comfort to Reed's family.

sitting at work

Thanks for the prayer everyone! I'm not sure I'm completely ready to tell the exam story. I feel like I've told it at least 5 times yesterday and once today.

Honestly, I'm mostly not ready because it was bad...like really bad. There is definitely more to that story. But for now, I'm wanting to choose peace and I'm just not ready to let it all out yet.

BUT! Guess what!

I get to have a date night tonight! My mom sent me some money for a "post-exam celebration" dinner and Reed and I are going to go to Pei Wei and then we are going to go to Barnes and Nobles to get ideas for our ceremony and vows.

I am SO excited! We are meeting with Toney, the pastor who is doing our wedding, tomorrow, so tonight is the night where we sit nerdily in Barnes and Noble isles looking at ideas for how our ceremony will go.

I cannot tell you how much my heart melts when I think of marrying Reed. Everyday I just want to tell someone how excited and ready I am to marry him. I know people probably expect that, but he is amazing....

He is the one who:
-makes me come to his work so that he can sit in the car with me while I cry about my exam.
-buys me groceries so I can have extra time to study
-desires for our marriage to be about Christ, even if that means we have to do things out of our comfort zone
-takes his poetry class seriously and could talk to me for hours about how to put a poem together correctly
-plays wii with me and lets me talk trash, even though he beats me every time
-tells me how proud he is of all the work I've put into the CPA exam, because he knows how important it is for us
-constantly builds me up and encourages me
-doesn't mind that I'm goofy and a tad bit nerdy
-would pick me over soccer any day
-texts me every morning with "Good morning beautiful :) How did you sleep?"
-doesn't think I should be ashamed of being sensitive
-has grace with me when I repeatedly don't deserve it

I just, plain and simply, love him.

Well, if Jane does die, it will be a comfort to know she was in pursuit of Mr. Bingley.

I wanted to have some cute quote from Pride and Prejudice in my title but I ran across this one and I thought it was befitting.

How many times do we "die", spiritually, in the pursuit of our own Mr. Bingley.

I know that I am not exactly single, in fact I'm quite near the opposite.

But I remember the days when I would crush on any and every guy, feeling as if my life would never quite be complete without a man. I know I'm not alone in this feeling. It's amazing how sometimes we can let our parents, our culture and our own bleeding hearts convince us that it is okay to "die" in the pursuit of a man.

We lose our satisfaction in Christ. We lose our trust in His sovereignty. We take control and determine our own destiny. Because "naturally", we humans, who are as the dust of the earth, we must know how life should play out.

I guess I just wanted to write this as an encouragement to all ladies. Single and those in relationships.

It is not as if I still don't struggle with lofting unrealistic expectations on Reed. I realize how much I truly expect the perfectly cute, Mr. Bingley out of him. How I still pursue my completeness in Him. It is folly and ridiculous pursuit and I am still working on just loving him and not expecting Him to be my savior.

I'm not saying Reed isn't wonderful, but I'm just saying that looking from the outside in, it seems so comical that we are so willing to damage ourselves for feeling "loved". That is not real love. Christ is real love.

Watching the movie pride and prejudice, no one can help but laugh inside when Mr. Bennett makes the comment that it is a comfort to know Jane might die in pursuit of Mr. Bingley. I'm not sure if Jane Austin meant it or not, but she has tapped into probably one of the biggest struggles woman have...this fear of not having someone love you in the end. Everyone around sees that it is making you sick, that you could die and they see how trivial a man is compared to the vitality of life....but still we pursue.

I don't know if much of this makes sense, but I know that there has got to be a healthier balance in life.

Are men wonderful? Yes! I love Reed so incredibly much.

But neither of us would know how to love each other fully if not for the all surpassing love of God.

We both have to continually shed this idea that we "complete" each other. Were we made for each other? Most definitely. But the piece that will complete us is a true, real, honest, deep, raw and meaningful relationship with Christ.

I have to be careful of the times that I put Reed in a position that makes him become my everything. He physically, emotionally and spiritually cannot be my everything. He is a human. I'm still learning this. I'm still trying to put into perspective and proper balance how relationships should be in our lives.

Just some thoughts on Valentine's.

Love is what makes the world go round. God is love.

My Love

Yesterday Reed and I were hanging out and I told him that my mom had gone to meet with the event center coordinators at the place we're getting married and that it had gone really well.

His reply was "That's so good...I can't believe it's only four months away..."

I said, "Really, its that short? I thought it was five?"

We counted it and he was right...only four months away as of February 6th.

My favorite part is what he added right after we realized it was four months away....

"Yeah and February is a short month, so its even better."

Love him. SO much.

Welcome to the School of Rock

Well hello everyone! I thought I would take this opportunity to recap my first week of getting into the studying grind for the CPA exam. Overall, it was not too bad. I only felt a little discouraged/defeated maybe twice and REALLY briefly, its amazing how faithful God is when you call on Him in those moments. I'm reading this book called "Abba's Child" and it is talking a lot about the empowerment and strength we can have if we just recognize Jesus Christ's present risenness (basically meaning that we should not just appreciate Christ rising from the dead 2000 years ago, but that we should understand that it means He is walking with us constantly today). We can literally meet with the Lord at anytime...As much as you can say "oh yeah I knew that", I just don't know how much I actually realize/take advantage of the amazing power that exists when your Savior walks along side you.

So here goes the actual recap:

Monday- Started off with our first Becker review class, which I kind of alluded to in some past posts. Really the review class is a whirlwind because your highlighting and writing notes the whole 4 hours. It was really good to have friends with me though...I'm trying to only speak words of encouragement and hopefulness. Our God gives us hope, so I'm going to be a bringer of hope.

Tuesday- Got into serious study mode at my house with Jennifer, Toni and Patricia. Intense. The first "chapter" we went over was not too tough, so I got through the notes and homework pretty quickly. Then I played wii.

Okay so I'm going to digress a little. I LOVE my new wii. It is SO much fun and has facilitated the goofiest moods that I have had in a while. Now, I have also realized that I can get too into playing the wii and it can be a major distraction from spending time with the Lord or studying, but kept under control, it is just freakin amazing. My favorite games are wii tennis and mario party 8...mario party being like my WAY all time favorite.

See doesn't it look like so much fun! See the cute red-headed character in the back? That's who I play, her name is Daisy....hahaha too much! I may seem like a little princess on screen, but I can dominate in that game!

Okay, back to recap time:

Wednesday and Thursday: We had another Becker class that night, but this time it was a little more challenging material and I remembered going home that night thinking, "Oh man I didn't remember a thing that lecturer talked about".

However, the next morning I went to Starbucks and spent a good 3 hours re-looking over the notes and the concepts began to make sense. The only hard thing about it, is there are so many rules to remember. Only do XXX if ALL of these 4 requirements are met. There was like 3 different things like that.

Thursday was also strange because Reed texted me in the morning saying his stomach wasn't feeling good. I thought maybe it was just one of those days, but nothing serious. Then at around 4 I got a call that he had thrown up at work and was headed home. Odd, but still I thought he should just get some rest and lay down. We discussed at this point that since he was CERTAIN he had caught this from his roommate Zach (who had been sick a few days before with the EXACT same symptoms) that I should not see him for a couple days, just because I still feel some lingering mono symptoms and since my immune system is low, it might not be a good idea. Well later that night after I hung out with Rachel (and her new kitty :), SOOOO cute) I got a text from Reed saying he had thrown up like 6 or 7 more times this evening. I called him and we talked and I realized that he was unable to keep ANYTHING down...water included. So that led to the next predicament, Reed was starting to get dehydrated. He called his mom and started taking this medicine that still didn't work. After a couple hours he started to get a dehydration headache pretty bad because he was still unable to keep down liquids. So at around 11, Zach took him to the hospital so that he could get an IV and get some fluids in him. CRAZY! I was left at home only texting Reed back and forth to hear how things were going. Apparently the IV helped a lot though because he felt a lot better the next day and actually ate two pieces of bread! He is MUCH better now, actually he is perfectly normal! But it was a seriously crazy 36 hours!

Friday- I did NO studying, which I later regretted because the homework for the chapter turned out to be REALLY hard...but I did have fun babysitting the Perryman's (couple who disciples Reed and I) kids.

Saturday- I woke up around 8:30 and started to study, but was having some serious distraction issues, not even to anything in specific, its just that my brain did not want to do accounting problems. Plus the problems weren't even making sense! So I went and saw Valkyrie with Jamie, which was WAY sad, but I thought it was a pretty okay movie in the end.

Sunday- Reed and I went to church together, like we do every Sunday we are in College Station, but it was just so good yesterday. I missed FBC Bryan and brother Tim just gave a really raw and vulnerable sermon that really challenge everyone to simplify life.

After the wonderful morning, I felt so much strength to start off my really busy day ahead. Because I had slacked off Friday and Saturday, I knew I needed to get a solid amount of studying in, so I studied from 12:30ish to 5:30 at Sweets and then came home and studied from 8:30-10:30. It was good, there were little moments when I would feel exhausted and want to give up, but there was always something keeping me going. I know that it was most definitely the Lord. All good things are from Him and I am feeling it so much throughout this process.

So here I am, Monday morning, at work and feeling really positive about this week! I have A LOT of studying to do, I'm going to try and study about 10 hours more than I did this week, which is huge, BUT I know that the Lord will help me through it. I just need to not kid myself and think that I have strength enough to accomplish that kind of a task on my own. I know I don't.

Anyways, here is to a wonderful Monday!