Issue

Here's my latest issue. On our trip we are limited to what type of clothes we can wear. For those who know me you know I usually wear jeans, t-shirts/polos, and tennis shoes. Dressing up most of the time is left for special dinners and events. Ocassionally, I will dress up for church but not much.

Here's where the problem comes in. We are supposed to wear ankle length skirts or dress slacks and loose shirts. Bascially, conservatively dressed, nothing too tight, and no jeans & tshirts. That's not a problem for me except I only have 1 ankle-length skirt and maybe 1 or 2 dress slacks that still fit me! That's even a big maybe! I have lost a lot of weight in the past few months (I'm not complaining) and so most of my dress clothes that I own don't fit me anymore. Let me correct myself. Most of my clothes period don't fit me anymore. I have recently had to purchase some new jeans to have something that actually fits.

I have been searching high and low for ankle-length skirts and I have only been able to find one in all of the places I have looked. The skirt didn't have any sort of belt or belt loops and if I lose anymore weight I wouldn't be able to wear it. So I didn't buy it. It's so frustrating when you can't find anything in your size anywhere!

Thankfully, I can wear some of my polo shirts because they are solid and nothing is written on them. I also have a couple of dress shirts that will work too.

If you can please be praying that I can find some clothes that I can wear and are affordable I'd appreciate it!! What's in my wardrobe will certainally not cover me for the time I'm gone.

Thanks!

Sunset

Last night, David and I went to Honeymoon Island State Park. We walked along the beach picking up sanddollars and shells. I took off my shoes so I could walk in the water and I had my shoes filled with sanddollars & shells by the end. David kept picking up sanddollars and handing them to me and then he'd tell me that I didn't need any more when I'd go pick up one. LOL. I probably would have wound up soaked had I not had my mom's camera with me. :)

I'll take a picture of the sanddollars later. They are soaking in water right now and I'll be bleaching them soon.

The sunset



David and I



Another pic of David and I

One thing that I found out is that I may not have the ability to send email while I'm on my trip. One of my pastors is there now and is unable to send mail but he can receive email and chat on messenger. I'm not sure if it will be the same for the group of us when we go. He's posting to his blog so I may be able to post to mine but I'm not 100% sure. Please be praying for me for that because not having the ability to comunicate back with my friends and family will be difficult. Please don't hesitate in sending me email because I'll love to hear from you even if I can't respond back!

Post Office

I went to the post office today to get the mail. I'm standing there sorting through the mail to make sure we didn't accidently get mail for someone else, which occasionally happens. I hear this child say hi a couple of times. I didn't think much of it because I was thinking they were saying hi to people coming in and out of the post office. I looked up and Kyler was standing there saying hi to me! He and his brother were there with their mom. Praise God that Zachy is feeling better!! He was one sick little dude earlier in the week.

Wow!

Wow. I actually scrapped a page last night. It was a page that I should have done a couple years ago. LOL. My best friends and I have this notebook that we are all taking turns scrapping pages in it. Somehow I wound up with it and it kept sitting on my scrapbook shelf and moved with me when I moved last fall. I pulled it out last night and actually scrapped the page. Not anything fancy but I like it. Susan is coming to visit next month before I leave and I'll pass the book on to her for her to complete a page.

Lissa is moving back soon!! She and the kids will be coming to FL next month and her hubby will come a few weeks later. Then they'll go up to their new station for a week and come back to FL for his leave. They are going to be stationed about 5 hours from us!!! Hopefully we'll get to see her more than every 6-12 months like we have in the past!

Hello

Not much exciting is going on. I'm housesitting but that's about it. I'll look forward to a good night's sleep tonight. Brittaney has decided the past 3 nights to wake me up about 5 AM. I have these Japanese tea cups my brother bought me and a couple of shotglasses that she'll knock over. The klinking has been waking me up. Yesterday I put them up. This morning she finds something else...the Japanese doll my brother bought me. That went back in it's box on the shelf so that wouldn't get boken if she knocked it over. Auggh!! She's driving me crazy.

She gets excited when David comes over. She go hide when she first hears his truck pull up but as soon as she sees him she'll go running over to him to say hello. Then she'll pester us while we are playing card games.

I'm looking forward to my day off on Monday. I'm planning on sleeping in and scrapbooking. I have only completed a couple of pages this month. It's okay because the layout I just completed I have been working on for weeks. I can't throw together layouts and they usually take me forever to do. Another reason I haven't done much this month is because the monthly crop was cancelled...I had plans anyways. We are supposed to have an all nighter next month so I should be able to complete a few more layouts. I don't know if I see that happening because I am usually a chatter bug. :)

Have a great day everyone!

Praise God!

Praise God!! I have 100% of my funding in for my trip to London!! One of my relatives asked me how much more I needed to be at 100% I got the amount that I needed and let them know. Today, they mailed a check for that amount!! Our God is so awesome!

My team and the other teams going out on the field are still raising their funds. Please be in prayer that all of the funds they need will come in by the time it's needed.

I am looking forward to getting to know the other members of my team a lot better.

Also, our former pastor and his family need prayer. I heard from one of my friends who keeps in touch with them that their daughter, Madison, is going to have to have more heart surgery sometime soon. I'm not sure when but hopefully they'll update their website with the information soon. The link to their website is on the right of my blog under "Blogs That I Read" (Buck Family). They haven't updated it since the time they moved to Texas. I miss them but I am comforted by the Lord and know that it is all part of His wonderful plan!

Have a great day!

Now I Know It Works!

Now I know the feature works! If I am able to update my blog while on my trip it will be easier and quicker to update it via email!

test

Testing the update blog via email function!

Now I Remember

Now I remember the third thing. It's not that exciting but it was to me. I was at the Post Office yesterday buying stamps for the office. I overheard the postal worker list the set of stamps he had available. One of them was the Favorite Children's Book Animals! I have been waiting forever for them to come back in to stock. So I bought three books of them so I'd have enough to last me for a little bit. I'll be sending out letters in the not too distance future with the update on my mission's trip so I'll need a bunch of stamps. You can view them on www.usps.gov.

I haven't worked on my website in a while. The place where I got my websets from closed their free webset area because of too many people illegally taking them and using them to create stationary, stickers, etc. :( I want to try to update it before I leave but it probably won't happen.

Went out to lunch today and will be haning out with my friend Maggie tonight. Other then that nothing much has been going on here.

Have a great day!

A lot of things

A lot of things going on.

First...I got my paperwork yesterday with my funding. I have $1250 (including what the church will be giving me) of the $1600 needed to go to London! This is such a huge blessing from the Lord!! Even though I shouldn't have been surprised I was. I didn't think my total was as high as it was. Our wonderful Lord will supply what we need! Interesting thing I thought about yesterday. The Lord provided money back in February so I could pay my car insurance for 6 months so that is one less monthly bill. Then I didn't know that I would be going to London. It's a huge blessing because the paychecks that I will be getting the month I go will be enough to cover my rent, car payment, tithes, Leaving a Legacy/Gideon, and the other things I'll need for the month.

Second...The Mocs have been given a bid to the NCAA Div II South Regionals! Tampa will be the host school and I'm going to try to go to a couple of the games. Due to what I have scheduled I don't think I'll be able to go to any of the games this weekend. That's okay because I can go to baseball games anytime. GO MOCS!!

Third...I can't remember what I was going to say. :)

Have a great day everyone!

Yeah!

The Mocs won in the bottom of the 9th! Paul Ryan hit the game winning home run. Even though it was a non-conference game we needed to win the game to keep us from dropping in the polls. We finished the season 38-17. The NCAA will be making the announcement Sunday as to who is invited to regionals. I remember in 2001 when we lost our final game of the season and lost the bid to regionals because of the loss. We lost to the University of Miami and it was the year they won the NCAA Div. I National Championship.

Series & Season Finales

Last night I watched the series finale of 7th Heaven. The episodes have been dragging all year and this one was the same. I actually quit watching 7th Heaven this season but I wanted to watch the final episode. I have seen better episodes than the one last night. It was written more like a season finale than a series finale. They left Sandy needing to talk to Simon hanging. Even though we can all assume what she wanted to tell him. Then the family never did find out Mary's second surprise...even though we did.

Tommorrow is the final regular season game for the Mocs. They will be playing Rollins in a non-conference game. They split yesterday's double header with Barry. They finished 2nd in the SSC behind Tampa. Hopefully, it'll be enough to be invited to regionals. I plan on going to the game. I've only been to one other game this season and that was back in Feb. I wouldn't be surprised if Tampa is the host to regionals since they are #1 in the region and they will probably be the #1 seed for the tournament. That'll be great because I can go to a few of the games.

Did you know that they are coming out with an Oceans Thirteen? David and I rented Oceans Tweleve Sunday night and the guy at the rental place told us that. I started falling asleep during the first part of the movie. I was surprised that I made it through the entire movie.

Looks Like Rain

I pray that everyone's NSD (National Scrapbook Day) was great! The local scrapbook group I'm a member of couldn't hold a crop today and the other sb group I'm a member of didn't do anything this year. We had a lot of fun last year! My mom's friend couldn't come over and scrap because her daughter decided that she wanted to walk at her graduation for her masters.

I slept in to about 10 and then just chilled for a bit. My help was needed at the office because we are redoing it. One of the tech's who was the one needing the help was supposed to be there between 2 & 2:30 and at 3 he wasn't there so I left. I didn't want to sit around wasting my afternoon waiting for him so I left. My grandfather wouldn't have even waited as long as I did. I had a meeting that evening so I couldn't stay much later anyways. The time between that and my meeting I worked on a layout. I decided not to use the font from the challenge for the layout. I didn't like the way it looked with the layout once it was printed.

Lance

My mom just sent me this link. It's a picture of Lance Niekro who is the Giants' First Baseman. He played for Florida Southern while I was there.

Frustrating

I decided to adjust the size of the pictures from yesterday's post and wound up having to delete it and repost it today because of formatting troubles. So if you are wondering why there are two posts stamped with today's date that's why.

Of course my plans to scrapbook last night were throttled when cooking dinner took A LOT longer than I expected. I think we sat down to eat about 7:30 last night (usually we eat at 6). I burnt my finger last night when I accidently touched the pan with the side of my finger. I'm surprised that I didn't get a blister from it. Although, I do have a red mark from it. I don't think it turned out too bad. I tried a new recipe that looked good. My parents loved it.

I have plans tonight and tomorrow night so I won't be able to scrapbook. On Saturday (National Scrapbook Day) I am planning on scrapping with my mom and one of her friends before I have to go to a meeting at church. There's a font challenge on Scrappy Chatters. I am going to use it on a layout I have been working on. I normally like to journal by hand on my layouts but this particular layout is going to have a lot of journaling (all of it hidden). When I saw the font I knew I could use it on this layout. I'm going to see what I can have showing using the font. I may wind up using a quote or something.

All for now.

Missing Lakeshore

Like Josh said at the end of our trip that the Lord appointed us to be at that particular place for a certain amount of time. When it is time to leave that's when he planned for us to leave. It wasn't hard to leave because what Josh said is so true. I'm ready to go back again. It hasn't even been a month since the trip and I'm ready to go back. Once again, Jeremiah 29:11 comes back to mind. I need to rest in the Lord and allow him to show me what He wants me to do. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is wait.

Here are some links to check out:
http://elbourne.org
http://rebuildlakeshore.com
http://lakeshorebaptist.net

Lakeshore Baptist is the church our church is partnering with. I have been blessed by the Lord to be able to go to Lakeshore twice, once in Nov. 05 and then again in April 06. If it's part of the Lord's will I would like to go back as many times as He wants me to go.

One of the most amazing things from my trip in April was the strength the Lord gave me. I was really sick the first couple days and had no voice the remainder of the trip but I had such an amazing strength that could have only come from the Lord. Among other things the Lord reminded me of was the importance of prayer and resting in Him. I didn't take something in Him in prayer during the trip and wound up hurting one of my friends because of my actions. Of course, I apologized to my friend later on in the evening.

The trains are running again through Lakeshore! That was a pleasant sound to hear! Sometimes they would go through 7 or 8 times in the course of the day. When I was there in November the tracks and guards were still messed up.

They are starting to clear up debree. The stuff that was there in November was gone in April. The sides of the road still have debree but it was debree that has been cleared out since the last time they hauled off debree.

Some of the stuff that my group helped with was building a trench, building a ramp, building a bookcase, cooking, cleaning, organizing, and probably other stuff that I don't know about. One of the days I spent out at Pastor Don's house helping painting his home office while the guys that went worked on the bookcase. Pastor Don was in need of shelves to put all of his books. The trench we helped dig was to help keep the church and the property from flooding when it rains. There was one before the hurricane but when Katrina came through it filled it back up. The little boy (he's in the picture above second from right) was a cutie. While we were working on the ramp he would hang around. With some of the excess wood he made his own cross. Now thinking of it I meant to take a picture of it but I forgot to before I left. While we were taking pictures he would say Maccaroni & Cheese before the picture was taken. :)

It's great to see the progress that is being made between November & April but there is still a lot to go! If you visit Pastor Don's site there are some more pictures of what's currently going on in Lakeshore. He updates his blog quite frequently and I always look forward to seeing a new post.

Hodge Podge of Stuff

Okay. This week has been interesting. I had a rough start but the Lord has made it better as always. Jeremiah 29:11 says, 'For I know the plans that I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.' This verse is very comforting to me especially during the rough times. I know He has me going through what I am going through for a reason. Looking back at what I have gone through in past I wouldn't want to change it one bit because what happened then is part of who I am in Christ now and it has drawn me closer to Him.

I had a late afternoon appointment scheduled. It turns out they weren't quite ready for me as they were waiting on disks and a few other things. So it was rescheduled. It works for me because it's actually more involved than the time I had originally blocked out on my calendar (a couple of hours) and I'm cooking dinner tonight. It's not that big of a deal but I eat with my parents most nights and that would have disrupted their schedule more than anything. Plus, one of my friends is coming over.

Britt update: It's hilarious because ever since David started scaring poor Britt she is more jumpy at sounds. I have scared her by just moving my computer chair (I have hardwood floors). I have bumped another chair and she took off running. Well...so did Mocs and I don't know which of the two moved first. Stuff she'd never run at before. My stereo's tape deck is broken and so you can hear it clicking when I first turn on the power and Britt gets spooked by that. It's also still amazing that the cat still comes around David. Maybe she blames the hats because she won't go close to any now. LOL.

It's time for me to get going and start dinner. Have a great evening!

-J