today I am thankful...

1. For good books

2. For friends that don't require conversation, but just their being next to you makes life better

3. For a having a sister that I can have a whole conversation with via eye contact.

4. For kids that make me laugh

5. For a 17-year-old boy that is brave enough to take swimming lessons, and even swim in the deep end for the first time ever

6. For mangoes

7. For parents who not only love each other, but who are also really like each other

8. For breezy summer evenings with perfect sunsets :)

"Summer is the time when one sheds one's tensions with one's clothes, and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit. A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all's right with the world."

-Ada Louise Huxtable-

anticipation.

Sometimes I think I enjoy looking forward to things just as much as I do actually experiencing them. Here are some people and places I'm excited about:

1. Tyler, Texas

I get to see my favorite boy this weekend, which is always fun :)

2. Wichita, Kansas

Wedding #3 for the Summer: Erin and Graham!

3. Pine Bluff, AR

I started scheduling swimming lessons for this summer. I already have about 4 planned and I can't wait to get started.

4. Chicago

Today I bought tickets for a music festival in Chicago during July... I'll be hearing Dave Matthews Band, Amos Lee, Ray LaMontagne, Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, and Blind Pilot, just to name a few :)

(confession.... I'm maybe more excited about this than anything else happening this Summer)

5. Hot Springs, Arkansas

The lake! (Hopefully) lots of weekends of tubing, swimming, and playing.

I. Can't. Wait.

:)

unexpectedly expectant.

Through a series of unexpected events, I have found myself living at home with my parents.

My plan is for this to be a temporary thing, to move out and find a teaching job in the fall, but you know how plans are.

Not that I dislike being at home, or don't love living with my family, it just wasn't at all what I was expecting or mentally preparing for this summer. I just don't want to be that person; the college graduate that moves home "just for a little while" but ends up living with my parents indefinitely. Also, I basically have no friends at all that are my age in Pine Bluff.

At first, I was disappointed, and felt like this would be a waste of a summer. But the more I thought about the things that could potentially await me, the more excited I became about the potential of the freedom of living in my parents house.

No paying rent.

No buying groceries.

A summer job waiting for me (teaching swimming lessons, which I LOVE).

It was starting to sound not so bad. I made this to do list for the summer, and I'm starting to get excited about it :)

Write Letters

Cook

Create

Organize

Purge

Exercise

Reflect

Play

Scrapbook

Simplify

Travel

Downsize

Serve

I want to look for opportunities to serve my family, the people I most often overlook when it comes to serving. I want to get re-involved in the church I grew up in. I want to play and travel and make the most of this short season of my life when I am practically free of responsibilities.

So, although I definitely didn't see this coming, the Lord is opening my eyes to the adventures that await me.

I'm excited :)