*thud*

So last night I suddenly woke up to this really loud noise, and wasn't sure where it came from.  After sitting up and making sure that I hadn't been shot (hey, you never know in my neighborhood), I wondered if the noise was just in my dream.  I heard Heidi get up and open her door so I figured she heard it too.  We looked out my window to see if maybe a branch broke off and fell on our roof.  I saw this huge lump and really long, creepy tail. Then is started scurrying around.  There was an opossum on our porch roof.  It was so big, and eww, I just hate opossums!  (Heidi thought it was a rat.  I said that I didn't want to live in this world any longer if rats could be that large)  They just don't look cuddly and their tails remind me of a shaved, scaly cat.  It was running from edge to edge, trying to figure how he was going to get out of this nasty predicament.  We  went to Heidi's room and looked out her blinds and there was another one, right up against her window!  I guess that made sense though, I thought.  Maybe they were siblings having a branch hanging contest.  Or maybe they were married (b/c in my mind, they need the same rules as Christian humans) and just cuddling there all peaceful, and all of a sudden their branch broke.  I don't know... either way, I'm sure they were both pretty annoyed (I remember thinking that these kinds of situations are where movie scripts must originate).  After that I couldn't sleep.  I kept imagining what could happen.  They were right outside my window, what if they swat their tail at my window and busted in to get me?  What if I went to leave for work in the morning and they soared down and attacked me from above (you know, like the flying squirrel type of dive).  It was 2:30 in the morning, in my mind, anything was possible.  Eventually I fell back asleep and woke up fully expecting to find them hanging by their tails off the edge of our gutters or splattered on the sidewalk.  I found neither.  I guess they are pretty resilient.  I just hope they don't hold grudges.

South Korea

Some things just happen so fast.  Heidi mentioned on Sunday that she had been thinking about going to South Korea to visit some friends of ours who are teaching over there.  She mentioned that I should come too because she was worried about all the hassles that can come along with international travel, seeing as how she's never been out of the country. I thought about it, deemed her serious and this trip, one that has the most potential of actually happening.  We both have the money, the motivation to visit friends, passion to explore new places... just both a little tight on vacation days.  But when it came to that last one, it's not like I could use that to discredit all the other things we had going for us.  Plus, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity (AND I missed out on my international travels last year and spent that time with family and friends...) and you're always going to have to say 'no' to some things in life, so I may just have to say 'no' to a few other things I want to take days off for in the upcoming year.  But that's alright, I'm going to visit Brittani (Bird) and Kristen next month!!  I'm going to Changwon, South Korea!  Wow.  It will be so fun.  The girls don't work all day every day so there won't be many times that Heidi and I will be by ourselves; and when we are, we still have each other to explore with. It will be fun!  We fly in and out of Seoul, so hopefully we'll get to explore there a little bit too!  Why is it so tempting for me to quit my job and spend all my time traveling?

The Darker the Chocolate...

Dennis accompanied me last night to see Hairspray preformed by Liberty University's Theater group.  It was incredible.  I don't think the smile was wiped off my face the entire evening.  There's just something that overcomes me, that is really hard to explain, when great music, great acting, and great singing all come together so seamlessly.  It was fun =)

ugly

So I had this thought the other morning on my drive to work.

What would it be like to live in another world where our thoughts and other horrible 'inward actions' made up our outer appearance. I mean seriously... how ugly would we be?

our God is in control

something I 'borrowed' from another blog today and thought it was just a great reminder no matter if life is easy or difficult.  

this is not how it should be, this is not how it could be, but this is how it is, and our God is in control. this is not how it will be, when we finally will see, we’ll see with our own eyes, he was always in control. and we’ll sing holy, holy, holy is our God. and we will finally really understand what it means so we’ll sing holy, holy, holy is our God while we’re waiting for that day. this is not where we planned to be when we started this journey, but this is where we are and our God is in control. though this first taste is bitter, there will be sweetness forever. when we finally taste and see that our God is in control.

picture my sister took in europe this spring. love.