Thinking...

Hi. This has been a tough day. Before I expound (is that right?) on that comment, I must first give thanks to a person who definitely deserves some blog-space.

Eric Ade has been my best friend and boyfriend for a year and two days now (!!!!!) and I am just so thankful for him. On Friday we celebrated our 1 year anniversary with a virtual date, haha, it's true. Since we are miles and miles apart, we decided to hang out all night using ichat & our sweet mac cameras. Sound cheesy and boring? It wasn't. At all. Before we knew it, 4 hours had passed and we hardly noticed! So anyway, I just really want him to know that I feel so blessed to have had his support, friendship, and love for this past year. I hope and pray that we continue to grow together and spend many more years happily together!

Ok, I'm done gushing now. On to other stuff.

I'm not sure that 5 minutes doesn't pass without me thinking about the choice I have to make soon. I knew going into this summer that at the end, I would have to decide if I wanted to move home or pursue opportunities elsewhere. Well, the end of the summer is growing near - and I feel just as hopelessly lost now as I did on May 9th (my first day at SBP). That's not true - now I have friendships here and thoroughly enjoy my internship and could see myself staying there to start my career (I did not have that on May 9th!) For the past few weeks, I've been spending about 50% of my time thinking "I'm staying!" and the other 50% thinking "home... ericmomdadroxyashfriendschurchfamilymrfreezecedarpoint." And the thing is, it's not like I'm wavering during those 50%s, no because that would make sense. In reality, during each of those moments, I am 100% certain that is what I'm going to do. Make sense? Probably not. Are you surprised? I hope not. Anyway, in the last week more and more of the 50% 'I'm staying' moments include some doubt. I'm not going to blog any more than that right now as I don't trust what I'm feeling right now no matter how 100% it feels because I'd hate to have to take it back.

So that's why today has been rough. Also, I decided to fast today. Recently I've been feeling really bogged down by what I eat - quite literally as well as figuratively. Literally, I eat and eat and eat food that does not "do my body good" (a reference to the 90s milk ads). And by figuratively I mean, I seem to run my life based on meals and food. Sounds pretty crazy right? I find it hard to explain so bear with me. I've been feeling like our lives are just completely saturated with food. A trip out with friends almost always includes some sort of food. A trip out by myself usually includes picking up some lunch or dinner or heading to the grocery store. While I'm at my apartment, if I'm bored, I'll find something to eat. On tv - food. On billboards - food. In movies, In the store, at church. Everywhere! Food! At your fingertips, easy to make, easy to order, easy to pay for... ahhhhh!!!!
Eric and I have been reading John and I think that's where this all started. I think it was when we read chapters 5-8 that I noticed it. Even then, food was this all consuming thing (ha, no pun intended) that had people following Jesus just because he fed them. Jesus then used food and drink in chapter 6:

35Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. .."

So food/hunger must have been a pretty powerful thing to these people as well if Jesus chose to use food and drink and hunger as this very very important point. Right, well, if you're still following me, let me get back to why I'm fasting. I think food, for me, has become this way of passing time, this way of choosing how to live. If you know me, you know that I always struggle with how I feel about my body - and food is the villain. By fasting today, I hoped to break some of the ties food has with my mind and with my body, strengthen my self control, and focus on prayer. OH man, I hope this makes sense. If not, then I'm sorry to waste your time!

After all this, I'm going to tell you that I just recently got back from a Mexican restaurant with Tina and Debbie and... I didn't eat a single thing! I went for the company and I went knowing that it would probably be one of the hardest things ever to not eat those tasty chips. On my way there, I prayed for strength and self control - and check it out, I had strength and self control! Happy day!

Thats it for now. I'm hungry.
over n out

A long overdue update!

Ok so I apologize profusely for the long hiatus between posts! Things have been a little crazy lately. My trip home was a lot of fun! I got to see plenty of my family, and spent an amazing night in Bowling Green with some of my very best friends! Of course, seeing Eric is always one of my favorite things :) And seeing Roxy? Priceless, I already miss her tons and tons. I will be home for graduation in a little less than 3 weeks! I can't believe I'm actually done with college... it's pretty surreal to me. I have decided (tentatively) that I will stick out my lease here in Charlotte which leaves me staying here until the end of October. We'll see what happens with all of that later on. I'm a little to tired and a lot too stressed to worry about that now. I will definitely be home for a week or two around labor day. I'm shooting a wedding and just want to take some time off before I come back to Charlotte.

The last few weeks have been insane! When I got home from Toledo, I got into Charlotte at 10, went straight to work. After working a relatively normal day on Monday, I had my own shoot to do on Tuesday. I drove to Raleigh to shoot a Real Estate assignment. It was pretty stressful because I was 3 hours away with dying batteries and afraid I'd botch the whole thing. I was told that I took too many good photos though! I could definitely make worse mistakes than that! haha!

Wednesday brought another Bank of America Fantasy Baseball camp trip. This time, Peter and I headed off to LA. OR at least we thought we would get there... We got to the Charlotte airport with plenty of time only to be told that storms had shut down the airport. Our connecting flight in St Louis left 30 minutes after we were supposed to land, so naturally we missed that flight. We thought it would be a great idea to get re-routed to Dallas because they had 3 more flights leaving for LA that night so about 2 hours later we were on a plane, in line for take off behind about 6 other planes. Once we got to the front of the line, our pilot got on the intercom and told us that unfortunately we would have to leave the line due to more storms in our path to LA. We had to sit on the plane for about 2 hours. Finally into Dallas around 10 (11 our time) we realized all flights to LA had left. After getting some advice from people who worked at the airport, we got our new boarding passes and headed out of the airport in search of food (all the places inside the airport had closed...) About 2 hours after that, we got back to the airport with our stomachs full and ready to find a place to sleep in the airport until our 6:40 AM flight. Little did we know that the airport closed at 9:45 and nobody was allowed in. Below, you'll find a picture of me... a sad me... sitting on a hard chair in the baggage claim area of the Dallas Fort Worth airport where I had to try to sleep for 5 hours.

I'm not happy! Finally got to LA around 9 the next morning. Found the hotel (45 mins away) and managed to get a few hours of rest before we had to head out in search of food and then find the stadium for work.

After lunch, we found these fighting pandas. WOrthy of a photo? Oh yes.

This is the LA Angels stadium. Those giant baseball caps were pretty sweet, you could walk right up underneath them.


This is the inside of the stadium, from where I was seated printing up the pictures. Well that night we walked around the area our hotel was in and found an outdoor mall that was halfway completed. There, we found PF CHangs aka amazingness. All was well with me and I knew that in 24 hours I would be with my family getting ready for the beach!
Here's some pictures from the beach:

Here's mom and cyrus while we were stopped at a gas station on the way to the beach.
Dad and baby Eisley, finally at the beach!!!
Eric in the ocean! He was so excited in the waves and managed to get all beat up in the water.
Eric and I saw the sun rise on our last morning at the beach. It was pretty awesome. This was right as the sun was coming up. We saw sand crabs too, which was pretty creepy, haha.
Had to put this one in here. This is Dad jumping into the pool. It was awesome!

Ok, in the middle of the week at the beach, I had to go back to Charlotte and then fly to Boston for another Bank of America trip with Peter. Short summary: this time our flights weren't too bad. We met up with Bekah in Boston and she drove us to find some food. The next day, we went to Fenway Park. I got to walk on the field which to some of the clients almost brought tears to their eyes (when they walked on it, not when I did... hehe) I also met Bob Montgomery (I think it was Bob) and Jim Rice. THey were both very friendly and I got to talk to them a bit too. Very cool. Here's some photos:


The "Green Monster"

Back in Charlotte, ANdy and Breena stayed an extra night. We walked around UPtown for a while after getting dinner at Brixx. I showed them around as best as I could, and we took the light rail. Here's Breena and I acting goofy with our tickets waiting for the train.



That's all for now, I'm exhausted!!! Whew!

If you would like to see the rest of the beach pictures, check out these 3 links:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2198766&l=2e042&id=20900033

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2198770&l=f9995&id=20900033

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2198779&l=df80a&id=20900033

I'M COMING HOME!!!

Super excited because I'm going to be sitting on a plane in 7 hours to come home for the weekend!!! I have lots to blog about but no time right now so STAY TUNED because I will be updating with more pictures and fun things to talk about after I get back from Toledo.


YAYYYYYY HOME!!!

I get to see my puppy finally!