Because I Need to

I haven't posted in a loooong time. And to be honest, I feel like I have nothing to blog about. I need to get in the shower in 9 minutes, so for the next 9 minutes I'm going to write about whatever I can think of. And share random pictures from my phone.

1. Flowers. After my grandma's funeral, my sweet best friend Jaime sent me flowers. She ordered them online and they were supposed to deliver them to me directly. I'm not home much, though, so the delivery guy just left them on the doorstep when it was like 10 degrees outside. Not the smartest, I guess. So when I got them, they were frozen and dead. Like they wouldn't even stand up straight.

So I told Jaime and she called and complained (you should make sure your product actually makes it in good shape...) so they sent new ones for free. And did the exact same thing. These weren't outside for quite as long, but they were definitely frostbitten. So she finally just called and had them refund the money. I tried to tell her to just not worry about it - I had definitely received the thought and so appreciated it, but it wasn't worth killing all the beautiful flowers in the world.

She tried again a couple of weeks ago when the weather had gotten warmer. We had a string of days with temperatures in the 50s and 60s, so she felt pretty confident sending them. Ironically, they arrived on the one day that week that was in the 30s. Tessa got them pretty quickly, though, so we finally had living flowers in the house! They were beautiful! Combined with the spring sunshine, they brightened this place right up.

2. TFA. I have only 9 weeks left as a Teach For America corps member. This picture is of me and my friends Rebecca and Kelsey at a TFA training.

Regardless of what I decide to do, I'll be done with TFA at the end of the year. Whether or not I'm done with teaching is up to me. And...I'm pretty sure I am. I've just been feeling over it and ready to move on. I talked to some people from a really awesome charter school in Chicago, though, and they convinced me to consider applying for one of the schools up there. So last week I went to Chicago on a visit to see what the schools were like. They were amazing! Every classroom was focused, engaged, and attentive, and they were getting really amazing things done. Even in that positive environment, I still didn't want to be there. I took that as a confirmation that it's ok for me to move on. I'm sure I'll miss certain things about teaching (namely, Christmas Break, Spring Break, and Summer Break), but I feel confident that this is the right thing for me to do. I'm not exactly sure what I'll do instead or where I'll end up, but I'm trying to keep an open mind and allow myself to be guided as Heavenly Father sees fit.

3. Family History. I've still been working hard on family history. One of the great side effects of doing family history work is that it makes me want to go to the temple more often, because I've got work to do! I have to go frequently or these ordinances will pile up and I won't be able to get them all done! A couple of weeks ago my mom and I went down to the temple in Louisville on a Friday night, stayed overnight in a hotel (I LOVE hotels!), and went again on Saturday. It was really nice to be in the temple and not feel rushed to get back home before it was too late. We estimated that we were able to have about 60 ordinances done - some by us and some by the youth in the baptistry. It was such a productive weekend!

4. Thesis. My master's thesis is due this week so I've been busting my butt this weekend to try to get it done. And it's not there yet. It takes so much work! I don't know what I was thinking, but I was definitely not prepared for the length of time it has taken, so I'm now looking forward to an incredibly busy and stressful week. But it will feel so good when it's done!

5. Candy Crush. I deleted candy crush from my phone over a year ago because it was a giant time sucker. But a few weeks ago I downloaded it again because I was bored (more accurately stated: I didn't want to do the things I really needed to do), and it has once again captured my mind and focus. I feel like I'm doing better about not playing it when I need to do other things, but I do play it a lot. And it's only fun some of the time. What is it about this game? I gotta get rid of it.

It has now been 17 minutes. I'm not very good at time limits, I guess. Good thing there's no one at church that I need to look good for...