Random & Beautiful

The name of the game:

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd's mosaic maker).

The Questions:

1. What is your first name?: Rachel
2. What is your favorite food?: Chris' Vegan Cooking
3. What high school did you go to?: Bountiful High
4. What is your favorite color?: Pink & Green
5. Who is your celebrity crush?: Roberty Downey Jr.
6. Favorite drink?: Water
7. Dream vacation?: Pamukkale, Turkey
8. Favorite dessert?: Blackberry Cobbler
9. What you want to be when you grow up?: a Believer
10. What do you love most in life?: pure love
11. One Word to describe you.: resilient
12. Your flickr name.: pretty_thing

1. Rachels, Rachels, everywhere, 2. Mmm... Domestic!, 3. 1994 BHS Marquee, 4. ready for the party......???, 5. little corner of my little retreat, 6. Prenent un Bany. Taking a Bath., 7. Pamukkale, Turkey, 8. Blackberry Cobbler, 9. Here we shall know deceit yet shall we keep it in our bosoms along with all our lost hearts........, 10. Goldsboro NC - Pure Love, 11. Resilient, 12. Henný

Complete FEAR!

I would like to throw out a quick THANK YOU JESUS for coffee & other assorted hot beverages. I'm not even kidding right now. I woke up, and you know how when you wake up & no one is either there or in this case awake, so you don't get to test your voice. (That was an intense grammatical mess, but you get my point, correct?) Well, this morning I was cleaning up/killing mobs of ants that had infiltrated the living room thanks to someone leaving a half empty smoothie NEXT to a window while everyone was still sleeping. Aside: I've slept like CRAP since I started this internship, so I was awake & cleaning at 6:30 am, which is just not right. End aside. So no one was up, and then someone did wake up & I started talking and realized I had this not-cute-at-all raspy voice. And the more I talked the worse it got. So I walked across the street to the church where we have internet & coffee. I brewed some Joe, and now I have a not-so-creepy-but-still-not-cute raspy voice. Woohoo! I think my life would be over & I would have to cry if I lost my voice.

Let's take a walk.

There has been so much beautiful change in my life, coupled with the awareness of my own inability to adapt to change without sucking completely.  The weeks of May 11 & May 18 were probably the longest weeks I've experienced in a long time.  M-Th I spent finishing up my last week of this semester with my kids at work.  It SUCKS how much I miss them.  I truly feel completely and utterly blessed to have been a part of lives of 19 toddlers.  The year went by so fast, and we all grew so much.

Anyway, Friday was moving day, and I was ill-prepared.  I remember looking around my apartment on Thursday night wondering how I was going to get it all done.  Oh, and I was sick.  I forgot to mention that.  My summer cold that I don't remember getting this EARLY hit Monday when I woke up.

Saturday I was planning on cleaning my apartment, but a nasty fever & cough & plague-ness prevented that.  Sunday, I reported for my first meeting as an LTP Intern.  Then the next Monday, I was really sick, but HAD to get my apartment cleaned since the moving was done & I had to be out by midnight.  And Tuesday-Sunday were all LTP days filled with awkward orientating & dealing with my own insecurities -- which by the way don't come out in a nice way.  I'm a beast of pride when I'm insecure & it's ridiculous.

Now onto lessons learned:

• I will NEVER pay to have a moving company pack for me again.  I am overwhelmed by the fact that I have no idea where anything is because none of my boxes are labeled.
• When you throw me into a group with people I don't know, I will fluctuate between feeling inferior to and superior than everyone else.  It's a pretty volatile process.
• I have absolutely NO doubt that God absolutely wants me here this summer.
• I am a Lion/Beaver living with a bunch of Otters.
• The more I pursue Jesus, the more I cry.  There's a very strong correlation between how close to God & Jesus I feel and how much I freaking cry.  It's not cool at all.
• I'm grateful I'm not comfortable being an asshole to people anymore.

It's been a great journey.  I'm going to end with a picture of this awesome flower on a tree at Tan-Tar-A during the intern retreat.  It bloomed with me.