I need a VAY-CAY

In the words of my good friend LeeAnn, "I need a vay-cay!"  So what is a girl to do, but take one!  It is going to be a a weekend full of early rising and fun.  I am going to Canton tomorrow with Mark's mom, grandmother, and aunt!  It is going to be fun stuff.  My Noni is already there camping so that is going to be good to just see her too.  I will be getting up early to drop Mark off at work about 15 min early and then head to Tyler from there.   I don't know what I am going to get, if anything, but it is fun to just go and look.   When I get back I am going head straight to Mark and to a Halloween pumpkin carving Sunday School party!  I have an idea of a pumpkin, so there will be pictures of that to come as well.  

Saturday I will be up early again and at Harleton by 6:30 A.M.!!  Mom and I will be heading to where else but Canton again!  We are going to go and meet Noni there, and possibly Edith, Mark's mom, too!  I know, I know, Canton twice in a weekend?  But a girl has to do what a girl has to do!!  I am hoping to maybe find some decor things for the house or a few Christmas gifts that I can go ahead and get out of the way.  

So, with the looming vacation,  this week became extra long just because I wanted it to be over so soon!  Today I had to take a practice PPR test that I had to pass for the school before I would be allowed to take the real one (for $120!!!).  I was sorta nervous about this because if you don't pass, you have to take it all over again!  Stinky!  However I ended up getting 67 out of 80, and needed to get 60 in all.  That was a load off for sure.  Now I just have to pay to take the real one and pass that!  

I also had to go out to intern today in Harleton ( I know my list just keeps getting longer and longer) after the test.  I was driving out and enjoying the scenery (It's about to be my favorite time out of the whole year. . . NOVEMBER.  My mom will vouch that just about everyday in November I will comment on how much I love it!) and decided to listen to a CD.  The CD that I found was My Geoff Moore and the Distance live CD.  It is one my parents used to just blast in the mornings to get us up and ready for school.  I just drove down 154 singing at the TOP of my lungs to these songs I love!  I got to thinking as I was driving and singing at this is probably something other people do, but I don't know how many do it to "Homerun".  It just made me really happy for the upbringing I had and the fact that those ARE the songs I love and know by heart!  So yeah, pictures to come I promise!!  

Life in general

Life in general is still going on here at good ol' ETBU. I am still in classes and sadly I have found out I will be there until this next December. It was a long time coming and no matter how hard I worked, how many hours I took, how hard I tried, it all stopped when a dean in the english department refused to go and ask the higher ups above her to help me out. Such is life. . . So it is looking like one more year at ETBU rather than just one more semester. It is sometimes kind of hard to swallow as I sit in all of these senior classes with all of my senior friends and I realize as they are literally counting down the days until graduation (and believe me it gets announced every week how many are left) I will not be walking with them this May. I wish I would have known how inevitable this was because I would have done my scheduling alot differently. Oh well, there is a reason for everything.

I have a couple of prayer requests. One prayer request is for me. I am trying to figure out where I would need to work this coming up year. I have about 3 places I am thinking about, but all of them have their pros and cons. I am planning on talking to about all of them to see how well they would work with me. . . I hope it all works out. Please just be in prayer that I would feel God's guidance, that I would know which one to do, that they would work with my schedule, and that it would fit into my busy life and I would not be oevrwhelmed this rest of this first year of marriage.

The second is for Mark. . .I don't remember if I have told this or not, but he is looking at going back to get his associates as a PTA (Physical Therapist Assistant). He is looking at Kilgore or Mt. Pleasant to do this at. Tomorrow he has an appointment with the head of the department at Kilgore to see if he can apply and start the program in the fall. Long story short, if they don't let him, he will have to wait an entire year until he can apply to be accepted in the program and start it. Please pray for God to just soften their hearts, for the higher ups to see how hard of a worker he is and recognize he knows how to do college with already having a bachelors and all. So yeah there are alot of changes. One thing that will happen if he gets in in the fall is that I will be student teaching (a.k.a. busy all day with no pay and no time for a 9-5 job) and he will be taking classes full time. We will both be needing a job that is flexible and that will sustain us through that time in our lives. We already have given it to God, but it has never hurt to ask for other prayers.

Thanks so much and I hope yall are all having a wonderful day!

New Attitude

So I am laying here on a Saturday morning typing this because Mark is still snoozing right beside me. . . It is homecoming at ETBU but we have slept through almost all the festivities.  The parade I am sure has already started and ended (oh goodness he just rolled over. . . and now he is awake oopsies), and he game will start in half an hour.  Hopefully we will make it to that one.  

Jammishia is over right now in the living room sleeping too.  She came and spent the night with us.  I am so glad she feels comfortable enough to do that.  It has been a long time coming and a far cry from the way it was when we first started dating.  Mark and her have a great friendship and I am glad it can continue through marriage.

I felt a change in myself yesterday as I was running last minute errands before heading out to Harleton. . . I went from being completely stressed with school and everything and what not, to just feeling good for the first time in a while.  Like I didn't care about that and I was going to focus on something else besides how stressed I was for a change.  You know what?  That was the best feeling ever, such a unique difference.  I remember feeling this way before and I just didn't know how to get back there again.  

So yeah that was my random babble for the day.  Mark is up and I am trying to talk him into making me some breakfast.  

Still here. . .

Once again you find me sitting the library working on what else but school. The library has now become a home away from home for me because I have been here sssoo much this semester. I am constantly working on something. The good news is I got the majority of one notebook for a class knocked out. The unit is still looming over my head, but at least it is getting closer to being finished. I hate doing all these stupid little projects, but I have made it halfway, there is no turning back now.

Mark is at Conclave, a showcase for youth ministers is one way to put it. The Cliftones set up a booth there and show what they have to offer. It sounds pretty cool, though I have never been able to go, but he always comes home with cool stories. I am ready for him to come home tonight, he has been gone since Sunday afternoon and I miss him alot! Especially at night, when everyone is settleing in for the night. I went to my parents house last night for some good supper and to get laundry for me and my brother. Yeah I know, I have wonderful parents. It was fun to see them and nice to have someone cook me a meal lol.

I then went back to my house and ended up staying up watching my wedding video! I love that thing, I mean I love home videos, but my wedding will always be special. I just remember that day as being such a happy and exciting one that I love to go back and relive it. Yeah I know, I am a dork, sitting in the dark, watching my wedding, but what else is a girl to do? Well, I guess to should stop taking my break and get back to work. I have two article reviews I have to do and I haven't even found the articles yet. I never feel caught up. . . never. Maybe thats because it is neverending lol!!

Getting it accomplished

So as of right now I am sitting in the library where I have been for hours on end feeling very accomplished and proud of myself. I just got done 3 WHOLE unit lessons. Like pretty much all the stuff for them and everything! I just lack 2 little things that I am going to ask about tomorrow, but for the most part those 2 are DONE!!! WWOOOHHHOOOO!! Now I only have like 6 more to go lol!! I have ideas for them for the most part, it is just time consuming and tedious to write them all down. This is why I needed the blogging break because I knew I needed to start and get ahead on the next few that I have coming up, but I also needed a break from the tediousness of it

Today has been ok. Mark is at downpour and wont be home for like another hour and a half which is probably why I have gotten so much done lol. That and I just sat down and went to work actually. It feels so good to be marking things off my little list on my post-it note in my planner. Though there are a million more projects such as finishing my children's book that I have been writing for class, doing 10 more book reviews out of the 50 I have to finish over the semester, making 8 writing center lesson plans and one real one, finishing the rest of my unit lessons and a billboard, teaching two lessons in my internship, writing refelctions on how it goes, writing chapter reflections before tests for a class, tests in general, typing an observation (which I probably should do next), and well you get the idea. It sounds like so much, but what I have already finished looks good too. I am just trying to stay on top of it all, but sometimes I just get so tired of always doing work.

This day was pretty good. Despite me being stupid at certain points I have enjoyed it. I opened my car door and the edge of it caught my head, so that didn't feel to great, but other than that nothin major. Tomorrow we are going to a Magnet school in shreveport so that should be exciting. Well I guess that is about all for right now, plenty of things to do and not enough time to do them!

Don't know a good title really. . .

Well I am up here at the church right now for our longest day of the week, Sunday. We pretty much stay gone from our house from 7:30 AM to 7 PM, which can make for a long day to say the least. Mark is around doing something musical and I sit here in his office doing homework, though today has been my least productive day so far. I have done just what I need to do to be ready for tomorrow and nothing more, which is not good. It is just the mood I am in right now sadly. I am getting worn down and that is not a good thing when this is only the halfway point of the semester.

Today I was going back through and reading all the previous blogs I had written. So much has happened in my life the past 4 months or so, I cannot believe time has just flown by me. I miss the lazy days of summer, when nothing called my name when I got home for the day, I miss just being able to get away, I miss my Sundays being a day of rest sometimes, I miss alot of things. But a lot of things are so good for me, I am so blessed. I have amazing friends who love me, put up with me, and just are a great support. Mark has a job he enjoys and he is a wonderful husband to me. I got to hold a sunday school members newborn baby girl and she was so beautiful. I am alive and well, I am staying on top of my school work, I am happily married and surviving which is cool. I have many blessings to be thankful for, and for the most part I am not,

I tend to think towards the negative, get stressed out about issues I shouldn't be stressed about, and am tired more than I would like to be because of it all. I am trying to make a change to not go to bed with my mind full of all these negative things that keep me from falling asleep and give me nightmares that I wake up from and cannot go back to sleep from thinking about what all I have to do next. No, life is good, and it is too short and precious to be living it the way I have been.

Tonight at church I think I am going to go and help with the children's choir. Our sunday school teachers (the music minister and his wife) are in charge of that, so I am excited for a chance to get to know them a little bit better and work beside them as well. I truly do enjoy working with kids, a fact I have to remind myself as I swim through the miles of paper work I am having to do so that I am able to work with them for the rest of my life. Hopefully tonight goes good, the kids like me, and I am able to help Bob and Janet out some.

Mark also has some new things happening. He might possibly be going back to get an associates degree in order to be a Physical Therapy Assistant. It has been something he has been thinking about quite a lot for the past couple of weeks and is looking into pretty intensly. He has always like the body and learning about how it works and what all it does, and he loves people, so this really does seem like a perfect fit for him, both to him and to those who know him best. I am excited about this because it is going to be something he wants to do and will enjoy as a career.

So yeah, I think I have babbled on long enough and really should go and do some homework.

Long Long week

It has been one of the longest weeks and it is only halfway over.  School problems with stupid classes and just the amount of work has been the name of the game, which can make it very trying.  I spent ALL DAY Tuesday trying to iron out things, but only time will tell.  It just made for a really really long day.  I even drove out to Mark at one point because things just got way to overwhelming for me.  Babyish. . . maybe, but at the time I didn't care.  Please just be in prayer for the school situation, more information will come later on what is really going on.

Then today, it started with classes, homework due, lectures, and a trip to attempt to go and get ice that resulted in a ticket.  Not for speeding or reckless driving, but for a registration sticker being out!  I also didn't have a current insurance card, but I keep all of my old ones in my glove compartment so after giving him around probably 8 of them, he said "I reassure you Mrs. Clifton I believe 100% you have insurance" so that was good.  Anyways, I thought he was going to let me go with like and "okay go do it", but sadly thats not what happened.  He ended up writing me a ticket, which then ended up as a crying phone call to Mark for the second day in a row.  Poor Mark.  He was so great about it though, telling me it was ok, he should have noticed it too, it was just one of those things.  

I really do have the best husband in the world.  He encourages me, is level headed, helps me out with stuff more than words can say, just is constantly selfless, God blessed me over and above with him.  

Well I guess I should stop putting off unit lessons and the lesson I am supposed to teach tomorrow and get to work.