Bucket List

Maybe this will get me motivated to do some stuff:

•  Watch all the movies in my academy awards book
• Skydive
• Hike Yosemite Half Dome
• Fill my passport by 2015: Top Countries: Ireland, Spain, Italy, Greece, Germany, Canada (again), Japan
• Go to San Francisco in March
• Get my masters
• Move to Cali
• Learn to sew/knit/crochet
• Bake a wedding cake
• Help rebuild my dad's GTO
• Read all the Classics
• Hike the Grand Canyon
• Buy a house
• Study under a real photographer, like Annie Liebovitz. 

Many more to come....but here is a short list to get started.

So not good at this

It's been a month since I posted. Well, almost a month. Anyhow, I got into grad school! So that starts in January. I just posted some of my photography in JoZoara. It will be there until January. I suppose, since I want to accomplish some things I should make a bucket list. I like lists. So that's what I will do for my next post. Just wanted to update everyone really quick. The deepest part of me wants to write a melodramatic blog about all the negative things in life, but a bucket list sounds more uplifting. I need uplifting in my life.

Do this, do that

I have decided to start doing things I have always wanted to do. I am learning lots of new things. In the past year I feel like I have become brainless and started settling into ways in which I am not happy. Thankfully, my personality is not letting that mindset take over. So in the last month, I have learned how to change my oil, drive a stick shift (decently), bake banana bread, and load and fire a pistol. Today, a great friend of mine who I happened to run into a few weeks ago at the perfect time of my life, took me to shoot a gun. I haven't done that in so long, and I never knew what I was doing when I did. Today he taught me how to load the ammo and actually aim at something. I felt awesome. I know something new, even though I won't really need that skill.

 
You can't see it very well, but I hit it right in the middle! So awesome. Apparently I like to hit in the throat and groin, so don't mess with me.

Ben and I go a little ways back, a few years. We dated for a little bit but because of my fear of commitment I ran the heck away. Thankfully, we have been able to reconnect without any hard feelings that I know of. It was the perfect time too. I was at Panera getting soup for Zach because he was sick, and in came Ben and his dad. I couldn't wait to give him a hug. I had been missing my friends so terribly that seeing him just overjoyed me. I swear God plays my life like a game of chess. He's orchestrating every move by bringing in the people I need most at the perfect time. It's such a beautiful thing.

So anyway, I shot a gun today and it was awesome.

They are here

I have received the two things I was waiting for.

My GRE scores: they were average. I mean completely average, dead in the middle. Now I have to wait for a letter from MTSU. That determines on whether I get into grad school. Then I can decide if I want to go.

The financial paperwork came in: who cares? It's not as bad as I thought it would be so there is joy in an easy fix.

 

Finding it

There are so many things I have been thinking about writing. There has been so much going on in my life and in my head for the last year, and trying to figure it out is like one of those mensa puzzles with no solution.

I was going to write about my brother, and how all of a sudden he is having seizures. About how I completely disagree with my parents decisions on said seizures. I was going to talk about how awesome of a kid he is, yet at 21 he has no idea who he is. He makes people smile and lights up a room. He has no inhibitions or qualms with anyone. He is so true to the God he believes in, and I don't even think he realizes it. He loves.

I was going to talk about that, but I also thought about writing about my new journey of finding myself. I was gonna start with the kayaking trip I recently went on. I would've posted pictures. I was going to write about all my great friends and how God has placed each person in my life at just the right time. I was going to elaborate on a new person each day. Maybe I still will. I need something to blog about.

But then tonight happened: The Last Rodeo. Brooks and Dunn had their final concert tonight, and I actually got to attend. It was more than I could have asked for in a concert. There were tears, laughter, screaming, and drinking. It was a true country concert, which I had never attended. I always feel inspired when going to concerts. I am there watching people of all ages living out their dream. They are traveling the globe, getting paid for it, and doing what they love. That's what I want, but I can't sing. So instead of moping about my lack of musical talent, I get inspired by their motivation and their love for what they do. It makes me wonder if I will ever find that. I am trying to be passionate about all that I do, but there is not that ONE thing I have always wanted to do with life. It makes things complicated when people ask me what I want to do. I struggle on a daily basis about this. I am trying to not think about it as much and just do what I want to and love doing it. Too many things in life are getting in the way of my happiness, but it's hard to know what they are when I don't know where my happiness is in the first place. So anyway, seeing Brooks and Dunn or any artist makes me want to seek out those things more and more. The search for happiness has begun. Hey! Maybe someone will make a movie about my journey through blogging. :)

Waiting

I am waiting for:

• a letter that informs me of my GRE scores to give me a decision on grad school
• a package that will determine a huge financial step in my life

And until those two things arrive I am sort of at a stand still with a couple things. I am just waiting for answers, waiting for change. I am a person of motivation and impatience, so it is killing me to have to wait. When people tell me to just do something, I really want to. Life has made me more cautious though, which I think is a horrible reality. For now, I will wait, but in the process I will search for answers to other things. I will find out how to get rid of the cautiousness I have undertaken. I want to be carefree again.  

A leave of absence

I haven't really been on here lately, mostly because I didn't have internet for a while. Now it's back and the blogger world can have the boring details and ideas of my life back. I guess I can just catch anyone who wants to know up on my life.

I have been studying for my GRE over the summer and more intensely the past two weeks. It's exhausting. If I pass my test, I will start school at MTSU in January. I will study for two years to attain my Master's of Education. It will be free for me, which is unbelievable. I've battled with the idea of going back to school for a year or so but didn't know what I wanted to go back for. I am still not 100 percent sure of this; however, I have always been a person of fate and signs. I look at things that happen to me as signs or God's diving workings. I mentioned once to this man that comes into the coffee shop about going back to school for teaching. He just happened to be one of the professors of the grad program I would need. I didn't even know it was available for me to get my masters since my undergrad is photography. There it was, placed in front of me, and it took me all summer to realize that I shouldn't pass this up. Now, in a frantic frenzy I am studying and reading and learning all over again.

Other than the GRE not too much is going on. Work is work, and I really love my job. Zach is amazing. I couldn't have asked for a better man, yet I probably take him for granted to often. I get scared of things sometimes, loving someone so much and feeling like I don't deserve him. I can't imagine my life without him though. It crushes me to think we could ever be apart.


My sister and bro-in law are great. The boys are the most precious things ever. Forrest doesn't let me forget how much he loves his Aunt Gigi. My brother has been having seizures lately which is a new development. I have had my concerns with the way it has been approached, but I won't get into that. He's scared, and I am worried about him. They aren't sure what's causing it. I have some ideas that it might be a dietary thing, but that will get me started on a whole new rant. So, we will leave it at that and ask for prayers for him.

I suppose that's about all that is happening here. Much love to you all.