puffy eyes...

Ok, so this morning was pretty crazy. I was up until 2am preparing a presentation, didn't fall asleep until close to 3am because I was still on a coffee buzz. And woke up this morning to the radio and Michael saying, you have to get up now, it's 7:25. What!?! The alarm is supposed to go off at 6:45, so I can slowly wake up and make my way to the bus stop for 8am. Well, the alarm wasn't turned on last night, so Michael's body clock is what woke us up and just in the nick of time too. I discovered something this morning. Since I was presenting I actually took an extra 3 minutes to apply some blush and eye makeup (not normal for my early morning class). I find it much easier to know where to put the eye shadow when my eyes are all puffy from sleep deprivation! My make up looked great (unless of course I just couldn't see clearly because of my bleary eyes). I don't think I'm ready to live in a sleep deprived state just for the sake of easy make up application though.

a moment of bragging....(revised)

Ok, so I'm not emailing everyone about this post, which means I'll get to find out who checks this of their own volition! I know I haven't posted in ages and today's won't be much either, be sure to check back, because I will eventually post all the half written posts from the last two months, with their original dates on them (I will rig things so that they all show on the main page, you won't have to click on the archives). So, the reason for this post is because I want to jump up and down and do some kind of victory dance! I got marks back today in my Death and the Family class. I wrote an 8 page book report that I got an amazing 98% on (that, by the way was the highest mark in the class!) wahoo! We also got marks back in the same class for a group project we had to do. This group project was a little challenging in terms of group dynamics and the class presentation part was a total bomb (at least to me it's really bad when one group member takes up over half of the time limit, the next member just reads her part of the paper and also takes too long and the prof has cut her off and ask the next person to do their piece in the last minute of the presentation). I guess our written work made up for the disastrous presentation because we got 29/30! I'm really pumped right now because I've been so swamped and feeling pretty discouraged about school in general because I feel as though I haven't really been putting out my best work. These marks mean that I'm really just being way too hard on myself. I did have on assignment that I handed in that was probably my most shabby ever (it was 1/4 of the recommended length) and even that got me a 72%. Given my circumstances right now with struggling to juggle my classes, dealing with personal and relational struggles, I can live with the 72% and rejoice in the other marks! Ok, I'll stop bragging now...it just feels so good to have all the hard work and putting my nose to the grindstone pay off with marks like that! On another note: Michael shared with me earlier this week that he's feeling pretty discouraged and stuck in his job and is thinking about a change. He also was getting the sense that God might be asking him to stay and learn the hard lesson that his identity as a man is more than just his work. Then on Thursday his boss told him he got a raise! It was like God arranged this just to give Michael a little boost to stick with it! Yay! I'm proud of Michael because he has definitely worked hard and deserves the raise!

anniversary...

well, we have reached the 3 year mark. it feels well, shocking. three years has been so long and yet so short, to think we'll be spending another 50 years together if we live to be 77 and hopefully even longer! it's hard to imagine what we'll be like in 50 years! this past year of married life has had it rocky spots, as we adjusted to our new 8-5 lifestyle, but we're getting used to each other in the new routines. I think in some ways, this is what it must be like in the first year of marriage for most other people. We spent ours in a truck, which is a whole different type of getting used to each other! At the end of the day, we both still kiss each other goodnight and say 'I love you.' To celebrate our anniversary this year we went to Celebrations Dinner Theatre. The show was called Frasier: the College Years. It was a pretty cool experience, neither one of us had ever gone before. The place seats about 400 people and has a center stage, with two side stages, so you feel somewhat surrounded by the set. The food was pretty good, although anything good suffers when you're doing it for that large of a crowd. All of the servers were part of the acting crew, we had some good laughs with the crazy characters we met. At the end of the night they hauled up all the people who had a birthday that day and made them do the hokey pokey. Then they called up anyone who was celebrating an anniversary, and because we were at a table with friends ( who chanted and heckled until we no choice but to go up) we got to waltz on stage in front of 400 people! For the record: Michael and I both do not know how to dance, let along waltz. In the words of our pastor on the way out, "nice mennonite waltz!" I'm kind of glad I don't have pictures of this to prove it! Thank you Michael for a special day to celebrate 3 years of being together! The very same night we got a phone call at around 11pm from my Dad, who told us that my sister was in the hospital in diabetic shock. that was a really unexpected phone call! I didn't sleep much that night because my mind was racing about the possible implications of this. Since I am writing in hindsight, I'll tell you that my sister spent a week in the hospital and came home, everything is going well, she's healthy and started a new job shortly after this incident.