This semester has been really hard. I’ve been working on my practicum for my masters in counseling. Practicum is a part time internship  for 20 hrs a  week.  And we also have to have so many hours of individual counseling and group counseling and they have to be taped so we can turn them into our professors and they can give us feedback. So that’s been difficult, because the site that i”m working at, doens’t allow audio or video taping.

so I’m trying to figure that out. Plus I’m goign to class  2 nights a week.  Plus I work as the secretary of SGA on the lakeland USF campus 20 hours a week. Plus I’m tutoring for 3 hours a week. Plus trying to take care of our pets and do laundry. 

and we had to put my cat to sleep Monday night beause his health just kept deteriorating. That was sad. I didn’t realize how hard that was going to be. I didn’t realize that he’s around me all the time.  For example, every morning when I would get out of the shower, he would be right outside the door waiting to see me. Or when I would get ready in the moring He would hop up on the toilet and watch me get ready. Whenever i would watch TV on teh couch he would hop up in my lap and go to sleep. Whenever I washed the dishes he would sit right by my feet. I just never realized how much he was around until now. It’s sad. I really miss him. I’ve had him since 7th grade. But I’m glad that he’s not suffering anymore.

I heard this song on the radio the other day and I just burst into tears, it was so encouraging and it was like God understood my struggles and how hard everything is right now and He cares. It’s by the Sidewalk Prophets, I’ts called “the words I would say”.

Three in the morning,
And I’m still awake,
So I picked up a pen and a page,
And I started writing,
Just what I’d say,
If we were face to face,
I’d tell you just what you mean to me,
I’d tell you these simple truths,

Be strong in the LORD and,
Never give up hope,
You’re going to do great things,
I already know,
God’s got His hand on you so,
Don’t live life in fear,
Forgive and forget,
But don’t forget why your here,
Take your time and pray,
These are the words I would say,

Last time we spoke,
You said you were hurting,
And I felt your pain in my heart,
I want to tell you,
That I keep on praying,
Love will find you where you are,
I know cause I’ve already been there,
So please hear these simple truths,

Be strong in the LORD and,
Never give up hope,
You’re going to do great things,
I already know,
God’s got His hand on you so,
Don’t live life in fear,
Forgive and forget,
But don’t forget why your here,
Take your time and pray,
These are the words I would say,

From one simple life to another,
I will say,
Come find peace in the Father,

Be strong in the LORD and,
Never give up hope,
You’re going to do great things,
I already know,
God’s got His hand on you so,
Don’t live life in fear,
Forgive and forget,
But don’t forget why your here,
Take your time and pray,
Thank God for each day,
His love will find a way,
These are the words I would say

my friend sent this to me in an e-mail! it’s freakin awesome! Go Ben Stein!

Remarks from CBS Sunday Morning – Ben Stein
 
  I Only hope we find GOD again before it is too late ! !
 
The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday  Morning  Commentary..

My confession:

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish.  And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees.  I don’t feel threatened.  I don’t feel discriminated against. That’s what they are, Christmas trees.

It doesn’t bother me a bit when people say, ‘Merry Christmas’ to me.  I don’t think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto.  In fact, I kind of like it.  It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn’t bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu .  If people want a creche, it’s just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don’t like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don’t think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians.  I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period.  I have no idea where the concept came from, that America is an explicitly atheist country.  I can’t find it in the Constitution and I don’t like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren’t allowed to worship God as we understand Him?  I guess that’s a sign that I’m getting old, too.  But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different:  This is not intended to be a joke; it’s not funny, it’s intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham’s daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her ‘How could God let something like this happen?’ (regarding Hurricane Katrina)..  Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response.  She said, ‘I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we’ve been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives.  And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out.  How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?’

In light of recent events… terrorists attack, school shootings, etc.  I think it started when Madeleine Murray O’Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn’t want prayer in our schools, and we said OK.  Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school.  The Bible says thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself.  And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn’t spank our children when they misbehave, because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock’s son committed suicide).  We said an expert should know what he’s talking about.  And we said okay.

Now we’re asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don’t know right from wrong, and why it doesn’t bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out.  I think it has a great deal to do with ‘WE REAP WHAT WE SOW…’

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world’s going to hell.  Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says.  Funny how you can send ‘jokes’ through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing.  Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing yet?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you’re not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit.
 
If not, then just discard it… no one will know you did.  But, if you discard this thought process, don’t sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in. 

My Best Regards,  Honestly and respectfully,

Ben Stein

do you remember this commercial?

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=582112

This song is amazing! It perfectly describes the pressure girls face to look a certain way and it’s a great reminder that God loves us exactly the way we are imperfections and all and that one day we will meet a guy who sees us that way and loves us that way too!

http://www.jonnydiaz.com/?page_id=5

We found this show by accident, we were just flipping one night and now we are totally addicted! His all over the place humor and exhubrant energy are intoxicating!

My favorite part of the show is that he does crazy monologues sometimes with puppets or songs, sometimes he’ll get random actors (that aren’t even guests on the show that night) to make a cameo in the monologue. It’s just fantastic.

But this has to be my favorite so far. Here is craig and two other guys singing a song! It has a couple of cuss words in it, but they are pixelated out. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAvpSdfYAlI

I’m not sophisticated enough to actually post the video in the blog, so you’ll have to click on the link. LOL

I really don’t like inconsiderate rude people! I mean what the crap is their problem? Why do they think they can just walk all over everybody and do whatever the crap they want, but then they expect everyone else to make accomodations for them? It just upsets me because it seems like they get to do whatever they want and they get away with it! Why? They don’t deserve it!

I’m just so sick of getting treated like the bad guy when I’m just trying to get things done, or when I’m actually shocked at their behavior. It IS A BIG DEAL! 

(long sigh)

rant over.   Do you deal with rude people where you work? How do you deal with it?

So…did everyone have a good St. Patty’s Day?  Anyone drink green beer?

I didn’t do a whole lot:

I worked…and went to walmart, taco bell, and went home and watched The Mentalist and House and went to sleep. Good times! lol

But I did wear Green, I wasn’t getting pinched. I still have nightmares  from being pinched when I was a kid. lol  I wore a green shirt, green eyeshadow (yeah I said it) and a huge green and gold USF football necklace with a big USF logo on it. I was big pimpin with my bling! Yeah, yeah!

What did you do?

Okay so I went to the doctor a while back and she said that I’m PRE-diabetic and that my cholesterol was high. So she told me to change my diet and start exercising 30-45 minutes every day.

Well I did pretty good at first and then KFJ (the freakin awesomest person ever) started encouraging me to run, so that’s been good.

And I started eating Lean Cuisines becuase some of them actually taste good and they are healthy for you. Well I discovered something, Lean Cuisines do not fill you up at all. So unless you have mass quantities of healthy snacks around you to eat inbetween Lean Cuisine meals, you will fall off the wagon.

I dont’ know what it is but for some reason, Lean cuisines just make me want a huge bacon cheeseburger from Gatordockside with french fries and good ranch. (sigh) yummy goodness.  : (

Which one had you rather have? lean cuisine? cheeseburger?

Are any of you dieting? What works for you? What doesn’t work for you?

I don’t know if you know this about me, but those who know me well, know that Ranch could be a food group to me. I don’t know what it is, but I loved good ranch (the homemade kind, not the bottled kind). And now only a few restaurants carry homemade ranch. Beef O Brady’s used to carry homemade ranch but now they switched to the bottled kind (bleh). So far Longhorn in Winter Haven, has become my favorite homemade ranch place. If you get the chicken tenders with veggies and get some homemade ranch. It is heaven!  I love it!  And there’s a new restaurant in Lakeland called Gator Dockside and they have amazing homemade ranch as well! heck yes!

What food are you craving right now?

This is kinda long so bear with me.

This Christmas was going to be different this year than all the other years. We didn’t have a lot of extra money this year so we were going to cut back. I was fine with that, in fact I think I’ve reached the point in my life (hence getting older-maybe too old) where I realized that I wanted stuff I needed for Christmas that I couldn’t afford for myself this year instead of extraneous stuff. For example, some new tennis shoes, my were getting holes in them, some new jeans (my old ones don’t fit thanks to KFJ making me run, I have lost weight, haha) I actually asked for new hubcaps this year, no joke b/c one of mine came off, a new hose, so I can clean my car, and going out to eat and a few other things. And honestly, it seemed like Christmas seemed more meaningful this year. I was more excited about Christmas and I felt like for once my heart was in the right place, it seemed so much more special.

And my mom had explained to me that I may not get everything on my list, even though she usually kills herself trying to get me everything I want because she loves to give presents rather than receive them. (She is awesome like that) She is also the person who is hardest to buy for (for everyone who was at church last Sunday) lol.

But anyway, the point is I wasn’t expecting much. And God has just blown me out of the water with blessings this year! For some reason everything that I wanted was on sale and we ended up having more money in our budget than expected. In fact my mom came to me a few days ago and was like “what else do you want for Christmas?” and I was like “you already got me everything on my list.”  Everything! Yeah. So it was really cool that we were trying to cut back and God blessed us.

THEN I GO TO CHURCH SUNDAY!!!!….here’s where it gets good

And our church has come up with the idea that as a congregation we can try to cut back a little this year and give the money that we would normally spend to kids in Africa with no clean water.  Its part of an organization called “living water” A small donation will give entire family clean water for 15 years.  15 YEARS!!!   That blew me away!

And I caught myself this week: I was getting some water and I thought I should drink about 4 water bottles a day to get 64 oz a day (which is supposed to be the recommended 8 glasses of water a day, correct me if that is wrong, I’m bad at conversions) and I was filling up my water bottle and I thought, “I’d drink more water if I had clean cold water at my fingertips all the time” (meaning that I wanted filtered water) and it dawned on me. There are kids halfway around the world that are drinking mud infested with bacteria (that they die from) and I’m complaining because I have to drink room temperature water that doesn’t come out of a Brita filter? What the crap is wrong with me?  I get to drink clear water and not just that, it’s COLD!  Who am I kidding?  God has blessed me so much just by being born in America and I take it for granted so much. I mean I heard someone say that most of the kids in Africa die before they are age 5, in fact they aren’t named before the age of 5 because most people don’t expect them to live that long…Yeah…

So if that tugs on your heartstrings and you want to be a part of it go here http://wellsforafrica.com

Or you can go here http://www.water.cc/living-water/get-involved/ways-to-give/

Also you can go to this website to help save women in Uganda. They make jewelry and sell it to support their families. It only costs $5.  www.beadsforlife.org

I just think it’s worthwhile to do something for others for Christmas. It’s so easy to make lists and get caught up in the shuffle, but what about the people that really NEED something that we take for granted every day?

HOW HAS GOD BLESSED YOU THIS CHRISTMAS?