Mayhem!

First of all, I finished my art project from those pictures I took in Mexico a few years ago and my newly discovered life verse. Tada! Ignore the Carebear sheets that I sleep on. When I can find where I hid the picture nails it will go above my bed.

In other news, I sat down with my fall schedule today. I think I may have lost my mind. I know I always say that about my schedule. It's just that I want to do everything and I can't say no. Well, I don't want to work at the Y quite as much but I don't really have a choice. Rent and food certainly isn't free. Anyways, here's a grid of my fall schedule. I'm a nerd and the colors correspond with my weekly dry erase board calendar marker colors and my planner pen colors. Black is school, blue is church or cru, red is work, and green is crisis center. Pencil is for things that I don't know yet. Here's a picture of it. This goes from 7:30am to 9:30pm to give you some perspective. What still has to be added is running with Lauren a few times a week, a weekly 4 hr crisis center shift, hopefully still meeting with Emily every week, babysitting or hanging out with my mom friends, my online class, and doing the homework for the 19 credit hours that I am taking. There is one thing that I'm happy about schedule wise. I get so stressed out about exercising enough, and I've made so much progress this summer on that. But my schedule has exercise built right in, I teach aquacise 3 times a week, and I have ballet for sure twice a week (but hopefully 3 times a week), and Lauren and I run together a few mornings a week. That's plenty of activity and I'll be too busy to stress out about trying to do any more. But am I taking on too much?

good song

I needed some think time this afternoon, so I set off on a walk down Salisbury to the Happy Hollow trails. I was listening to Craig Aven on my Ipod. He was one of the worship guys at my old church in Cincinnati and he got a record deal in Nashville, very exciting. Anyways, I'm walking along listening to his stuff, humming this other song that we used to sing a prayer and praise.

"You said, Ask and you will receive
Whatever you need
You said, Pray and I'll hear from heaven
And I'll heal your land

You said Your glory will fill the earth
Like water the sea
You said, Lift up your eyes
The harvest is here, the kingdom is near

You said, Ask and I'll give the nations to you
O Lord, that's the cry of my heart
Distant shores and the islands will see
Your light, as it rises on us"
Shane and Shane

Such a great song. It was the only thing I could think about on my walk. How cool would it be to work in an orphanage in another country some day. In high school I wanted to be a missionary but it was strongly discouraged so I changed my mind. But I still think it would be really awesome to have an orphanage in another country. We'll just have to wait and see.

life verse

One of my goals for the summer was to find a life verse. Something that reflects my mission in life, what I'm all about. Sarah inadvertently found it for me during our talk about wanting to adopt every unwanted kid in the world.

"Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those being crushed. Yes, speak up for the poor and helpless, and see that they get justice." Proverbs 31:8-9

That's it. That reflects the heart that God's given me for orphans, abused kids, single parents, people who are being taken advantage of, etc. I found a few pictures that I have from the last time I was in Mexico. I'm going to do something with at least one of them together with this verse and make something artistic to put over my bed. I really want to go back there, I miss the kids and I want to know how they're doing....maybe next year when the RVC kids are a little older and can come along we could make a trip happen. Or maybe I'll convince the family to take another trip there together.

brain fart day

I think my brain has turned itself off today. I was so proud of myself this morning, I got up early and was out of the house dressed up for the wedding by 8:45. I went to Cafe Royal to work on reading The Lord of the Rings. (sidenote: so annoyed that my professor got me all interested in it and now I actually want to read it). I of course left my phone in the car so that I wouldn't get distracted. I got all in to my book and when I looked up at the clock it was 1:02. Heather and Calvin's wedding started at 1!!! So, I panicked, for a second thought about not going, but realized that was stupid, and got going. I walked in to the wedding at 1:19 and it was already over! I jumped in the receiving line and just pretended I was there. Then I went to put my card on the table and realized that I forgot to put the envelope on it. Dumb Mindy. Then on the way home I stopped at Payless because I have no food. I was checking out and thought it was weird that the bagboy put my diet cokes on the bottom of the cart because no one's ever done that. When I unloaded my groceries at home I realized that I had left the diet cokes on the bottom of the cart because who would think to look there! So I missed my friends wedding, forgot the envelope on their card, and left the ever precious diet cokes in the cart at the grocery store. I better pull it together before tomorrow...

save the kids

Good conversations yesterday. I hung out with Sarah for a bit, went to work, then came back to watch the kiddos for their date night. Then when Sarah and Tony got back we talked about some pretty intense stuff until it was midnight and we all realized that we had to get up early the next morning. By the time I got home, calmed down from what I got to walk in to at home, and could make my brain stop spinning around everything we talked about it was 3am. Oops.

Today all I can think about is how much I want to adopt lots of kids or have a big giant foster house. As Sarah put it yesterday, we want to save and take in all the unwanted or needy children in the whole world. As much as I appreciated Tony's suggestion of marrying a rich guy or do it as a single woman and get on Oprah so that I'll get some money, that's not realistic. It's hard to wait on your dreams. It's just not possible right now, and I have to wait. I can do what I can in my current life situation and wait for the bigger stuff. Every once in a while the patience fades and I get online and start investigating adoption agencies and the Indiana foster care system. I could apply to go through the foster parent process now, you don't have to be married yet. At one point I tried really hard to convince myself that I could have like one or two infants at a time at the apartment, I would just bunk my bed and put the crib underneath it and keep all the baby stuff in my 9x9 bedroom. My other 3 roommates would never even know they were there. I obviously lose touch with reality sometimes. I just need to be patient and let God develop my passion for saving all the lost and unwanted kids more until I'm ready.

One more week

One week left until summer semester is over. Thank goodness. I do not like my lit class, in fact I have begun to boycott it by reading books that I want to read, not the ones that are assigned. I'm still doing well in the class, every paper I write gets the comment that I am obviously engaged in the text (which I am not) so I'm getting by. I just really want to get back to my child development and family classes. And then graduate and get a job.

I'm really struggling with my schedule right now. Usually I could tell you exactly what I am doing and when 6 weeks from now. I can't even tell you what I'm doing tomorrow, I just don't know. I'm struggling to keep my work schedule straight because there is such a language barrier. Most of my kids are Asian and their parents speak very little English. And I have lots of people who want to take lessons from me, I'm building up a pretty good reputation, but there are more kids than I have lesson slots and parents just don't understand that. And lots of the aquacise classes that need new teachers have asked for me because I give a good workout. I want to make everyone happy and say yes to everything, I just can't. I want to enjoy my last semester of school. I just need to take it one day at a time until my schedule makes more sense.

good morning

Church was interesting today. Everyone who I usually sit with and talk with is out of town or their sick and their kids are sick. I felt so disoriented. There weren't kids to talk to and play with, and I just didn't know where to sit or who to talk to. It was good, stretched me out of my comfort zone. I even sat right up front in the middle instead of hiding in the back. The sermon was on Mark 10:13-16

"One day some parents brought their children to Jesus so he could touch and bless them. But the disciples scolded the parents for bothering him. When Jesus saw what was happening, he was angry with his disciples. He said to them, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children. I tell you the truth, anyone who doesn’t receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.” Then he took the children in his arms and placed his hands on their heads and blessed them."

One of my favorite passages. Tony told some great stories about the kids in RVCkids and explained kind of what goes on back there. I love that we have church back there, I think it's really important that they get the exact same quality of stuff we do in big church, just aimed at a kids level. I got all teary hearing what the kids said to their parents about what they learned and knowing that they do understand what we're teaching them about. It was good to think about why I feel called to work with kids and why it's so important. I thought a lot about how much I've learned working with the kids. I think it's funny that I can pray no problem with the kids and I don't even think twice about it, but with adults can't do it. I don't know what that's about, other than sometimes I feel a lot more comfortable with the kids than people my own age. I know that is where I'm called to be, I just don't know what it looks like yet. I'm really battling with whether or not I want to work in a place that's not faith based because you can't really talk about Jesus with them. There are so many laws that you have to be careful of working in social services or in schools. But they need to be loved on and prayed for and have good role models in their life. I just don't know. Something I really need to pray about and since I'm a big verbal processor need to spend some time chatting this up with someone who will be really honest with me.