His Eye is on the Sparrow

When people ask me what I want to do with the rest of my life, I tell them that animal assisted therapy is the dream job.
I found this photo story and started crying and laughing instantaneously. I experienced joy greater than I have felt in a long time.

What a beautiful reminder from God as I'm entering finals that he has a plan for me and He is watching out for me.

Check it out. Tears of joy are acceptable and welcome.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/slideshow/dogs-provide-comfort-suffering-boston-18992346

Pretty Things for Your Eyes

I have this thing about saving photos. When I see something I like on the Internet, I drag the photo into this little file on my desktop. Every few days I dump all of those photos into iPhoto and when I'm really bored or avoiding my work, I organize them.
All that being said, a lot of these photos are missing their source. I intended to be really vigilant about that when this blog started but life happens. If one of these photos is your intellectual property, kindly tell me to take it down or credit you. I just see lots of things I like and save them with reckless abandon.

So here it is, pretty photos edition 1: Flowers

Emily has really gorgeous photos of flowers in this post.

Does anyone know the name of those last flowers? They look like they have thick, sculpted petals. 

What The World

SO many little things have happened in the last couple of days. I tried to take photos along the way. Also, lots of things have been going on in the world.

The bombing in Boston.
An explosion in Waco, TX.
An earthquake on the border of Pakistan and Iran that reached 7.7 on the Richter scale.
And lots of other things that I didn't catch on the wires.

Also, here's a little reminder to keep your priorities in order that I took a screen shot of from the CNN website.

At IWU, lots of things have been happening too.
Lightning struck the sidewalk near a dorm.
A car started on fire in the parking lot outside of my dorm.
*I have way better photos of it. I should submit them or something.

You can see the flames!

Everyone who was crowded in the 3rd floor study room to watch it all was feeling bad for the girl who owned the car. She was okay. I also think she didn't appreciate us watching, but not a ton of stuff happens like this on our campus.

As you can tell, there was rain on the windows in these photos. There has been a lot of rain in the last 72 hours. Due to that rain, there was a lot of puddles and people were running around, screaming, and belly flopping in to them. Sorry, grounds crew. 

Last night, we lost power and then the generators kicked on. Then, the power flickered two different times with the generators, and then we lost all power at like 12:30. 

It was really freaky. 

This progression speaks for itself. 

The lights in our hallway are still on because they are emergency lighting, but we employed little battery tea lights and glow stick necklaces. It came back on a lot faster than they anticipated. This morning however, there was no hot water and my shower was very cold. I would have skipped it, but I really needed it. Dirty hair, do care. Now my hair is clean but I am freezing. It's no longer raining, Hallelujah, just very chilly. 

So yeah, that's life recently. Here's a few other, less stressful snapshots of life.

Super fancy and also I was major creeping

College life real talk

All of these things are "strawberry"

Super great blanket I got at Walmart for $3.50!

This is in our C-Store. You can order stuff in bulk to spend your points.

Sitting at the table for this group project we see one member's phone and one member's iPad. Yeah. 

It has been that packaging for a long time and they changed it! And I realized how easily I get nostalgic over stupid things.

Look at that huge crow. Very Poe. 

*None of the rest of these photos are mine. 

MMM I found this on the Internet and it looks delicious. 

Pretty packaging in Starbucks coffee

Stanley Cup made out of pretzel bread

I like this but I don't know if I would ever wear it. 

Again, these are really cool but I don't know if I would ever wear them. 

Hahaha. Ross. Also, Friends fans, did you hear this?

Super cute and cuddly!

This made me laugh for a long time. 

Dad identified these for me as petunias. We had them along our front walk when I was growing up. That sounds like something I would say if I was old.

I might do a post of just pretty photos of flowers that I like. 

Yeah, I'm going to do that. 

8:00AM, You're My Best Friend

I get up at 8 pretty frequently. When I have to get up not at that time, it's weird.

Allow me to give you a run down of the past few days:
Friday- sat at the table in the mallway for this dang research project trying to get people to do their posttests.
Saturday- sat in the lab until it closed and then the library until it closed and then at a group member's kitchen table trying to work on this project.
Sunday- Worked on the project in that group member's kitchen. I can't even think of what else I did. Ridiculous.
Monday- Had a dream that I missed the 8:15AM meeting with my prof. Actually had an 8:15AM meeting with my research professor about this dang project. Went to my classes that are not yet canceled (at the end of the semester, a lot of profs cancel class to give you time to work on stuff), made graphs for the project, tried (and failed) to attach them in an email (Microsoft outlook won't let me attach things, like I click choose file and it does nothing), ended up talking to the behavioral sciences office administrative assistant (aka office fairy) and she printed them for me. Then worked on the poster for the project in that girl's kitchen, turned it in, and printed our final papers. Then sat in a study lounge for four hours and got a great start on summarizing slides that I eventually realized were not the ones assigned to me. ugh.
Tuesday- Woke up at 8:10, got dressed in 5 minutes, ate breakfast (Poptart city) on the way to the behavioral sciences office to drop off our final papers, then grabbed coffee on my way to a presentation that started at 8:40. And I was early. Booyah. Listened to 3 presentations (two of which were on the elderly - holla!) and came to the library to get work done. And here I sit, blogging.

I can't remember if I told you or not, but all of last weekend, I was gathering participants for this study. I don't know how many collective hours I sat at that table in the mallway, but it was a lot. Bottom line, this project is making me nuts. We are meeting one more time, tomorrow night, to lay out our presentation of the project for our final.

Also on Monday, I finished reading Genesis (it's been a long time coming, oops) and decided it could be cool to have a son named Zebulun. He's one of the few brothers who isn't cursed (Genesis 49) and that's a good legacy.

I found out about the Boston bombing at like 3:20 on Monday and promptly freaked out. I thank God for giving the right words to my mom. I watched the news for a while in our media building and then had to meet people for this project. I felt stuck because I wanted to be sad and sit in the feeling for a while but I couldn't because I had things to get done. I cried while I talked to my mom. Not really out of fear for me, but out of imagining what the bystanders experienced, thinking of the chaos that was happening 900 miles away, being so grateful for people who react well and get organized in emergencies, for every act of good that came out of the situation and will continue to.
It's still weighing really heavily on my mind. I spent a lot of time talking to God about it last night. Everyone experiences these events from their own perspective and mine is rooted in deep empathy. It hurts my heart that I can't focus on it and that I can't directly help.

So that's where I am on a Tuesday morning. Very close to the end of the semester, very tired, distracted, and sad but also feeling empowered. I am not in this alone and that underlying peace is a foundation that will not be shaken. It cannot be emphasized enough and God is faithfully reminding me that He is in control.

Beauty School Drop Out

I've never been to cosmetology school, but I would imagine there's not a ton of group projects- that's it's all about you and what you are capable of doing.

At the college I do attend and it feels like particularly in my major, there are a lot of group projects. 

One particular group project has got me down in the dumps. I hate it. Really. I want it to be over and it nearly is. Come Tuesday (or Wednesday?) it will all be finished. Until then, I'm reminding myself of that fact over and over. 

This group project has been going on the whole semester and is for the class Research Methods. Have I mentioned I have no desire to be a clinical researcher? I never want to do that job. The part of psychology and counseling that I like is talking to people. In clinical research, people are participants and you observe their behavior and have a script when you do talk to them. I don't like it at all. 

That project won't really wrap up until the final until Tuesday 4-14 at 10:00AM when we present our projects in class. This thing is like a bad cold you can't kick. UGH. 

Other classes are not so bad at this point. I have another test and then the final for Gen Psych, which hopefully doesn't kick my butt too badly.

In Developmental Psych, we are watching a movie in class and answering questions and then turning in the extra credit we are allowed to do and the take home test from earlier in the week. We have to turn it in on time because our prof is going to Hawaii with her husband the day the semester ends.

For my honors research tutorial, we are each going through 63 pages of summaries of slides and marking what is important or possibly useful for his book. Then we are each going through 168 slides and doing our own mini summaries. I'm a little farther behind than I'd like to be, but no worries. Also we have to turn in a final timeline of events and I want mine to be fantastic and it's not yet. That's all due by Monday 4-13. At that time, my class of 9 plus my prof is going out to lunch. So great. I'm really excited about that.

We have one more session of group counseling and then a final for which he already gave us a list of questions to prepare answers and he will choose a few on the test.

Bottom line, I'm not done or done or done. But I am ready to be done.
If you know exactly what that means then I applaud you.
Talking to my grandma today really helped. She's so great.
One more week! and a half. and then a break and then another month and then a break and then THE BEST SUMMER JOB EVER!

Easter Weekend

One of the (many) great things about going to a Christian college is getting Good Friday off and the Monday after Easter off.
On Thursday, I left campus with Kelly and Keaton and the drive was gorgeous. A perfect day.
On Friday, Mom and I drove to La Crosse to see the fam. We had reservations at Boot Hill and here was the menu board:

Have any of you eaten Totchos? Let me know how that went for you. Also, this sign was in the bathroom:

Boot Hill used to be a rubber mill where my great grandma worked, but now it's kind of a multipurpose building. My grandparent's neighbor paints amazing murals on the walls of the building but I didn't take any photos! Dang it. 

Friday night I watched a movie with my aunt and uncle. Have you ever heard of Take Me Home? It was pretty good! I think it's on Netflix.

On Saturday, Grandma made an amazing lunch. So delicious.

Also, those bunny napkin holders- she made those! She's a rockstar. We definitely missed Kayla, Ben, and Dad. 

After lunch settled, we went to the roller rink. I'm more of an inline skates or roller blades kinda gal, but Julie, James, and Joe opted for roller skates. Let me tell you, roller rinks have not changed one bit. They are filled with 8th graders wearing DC shoes t-shirts who are "in love" with their girlfriends who wear too much eyeliner. Also, the carpeting has not changed. 

Saturday night I got to hang out with my friend Andrew. We went to Root Note which is a very cool spot. It had a really sweet vibe. Then we drove past the house he is moving into this very month, and then we went to Riverside park and walked around. It was a lot of fun, and I can't wait to work with Andrew again this summer. Here's a photo of us last summer with Jasmine:

Sunday morning we went to church and I wore these shoes which I talked about here. 

Turns out, I can't really walk in them. I'm working on it.

When we were back home, I did errands with Dad on Monday morning. I don't like doing errands alone usually, and I do like spending time with my dad. So along I went. There are strange things at Jewel these days. 

What the heck are these things? CRAZY.

This plays the Blackhawks goal signal and lights up and I WANT IT. 

Unnecessary.

This mini-coop had stickers that said "Twilight," "I drive like a Cullen," and "Sexy Mini Cooper." 

Finally, I got this delicious Raspberry Romance smoothie for the road and it was back to campus.