beth0329

I have been busy. Nothing unusual there, I guess. My weekend was full. I headed home on Thursday and spent some time with the bestie and with my mom. On Friday I spent the day running some errands and got to have a face-to-face meeting with Marvin. He's a really nice guy. We met at Burger King and then he drove me over to the ministry houses. I'll just say it now...In about 12 days I will be at 512. It's a house on the west side of Modesto. There is a girl's house, 512 and a guy's house, 511. There is already 2 gals living in my house, neither of which are sold out for the urban ministry thing and then there's 2 guys in the other house. Devin is another not sold out person but Kevin is totally into the urban ministry aspect, has a heart for the poor and LOVES the kids in the neighborhood, which is really cool. Marvin also just told me some history about the house. My house actually has a basement that he wants to renovate, so that's really cool. There's a lot of room down there so we could do SO much stuff for the neighborhood. One of my goals in moving in is to begin helping to develop a similar model in Fresno in Modesto. So, it will be liking developing a Pink House in Modesto. I am really excited about it and also a little overwhelmed, but I think it's going to be amazing.

Then my uncle came into town on Saturday afternoon and got to come to my graduation party. It turned out soo great. Lots of folks ended up coming to the party. I just love spending time with people I love so it was soo good. Even Candy and Kim showed up which was really cool and totally unexpected. I will hopefully post pictures sometime in the near future. Then my uncle and I stole away while my mom and a couple friends cleaned up and went and had coffee. It was soo nice just being able to spend time with my uncle, just me and him. It made up for not having my dad there a little bit. Then my mom and I dragged my uncle to another graduation party, it was for Charlie, Rosanna's little sister. She graduation from high school. We had a lot of fun. It's kinda nice when you're not the star of the party and can just sit there and enjoy yourself, instead of getting up and down and talking to everyone. We all enjoyed ourselves. Then that night my uncle just spent the night at my house so we all just sat in the living room telling stories and laughing...a lot. I don't think I laughed so much over the weekend as I did with my uncle. It was so much fun.

On Sunday I ditched church and my uncle and I drove up to the mountains. Really it wasn't to go anywhere, just to be together. We pigged out at Applebee's and laughed a whole lot, got lost and found our way again with his GPS. It was so much fun. He headed back to Oklahoma on Monday morning and that day I met up with Kevin at 512 and got to know him a little better. He also took me to Tapestry, the high school group connected with YFC. And I also spent some time with Candy that night. It was a long day but pretty productive.

Now I'm back in Fresno for my last 2 weeks before moving back to Modesto. Last night was our last official Pink House meeting. Next Tues. will just be a celebration party and then people will begin moving out :(   I am really going to miss this place, this house and these people. I know I am going to be super busy right after moving out so I probably won't mind too much but I know there will be some point in the near future when I will grieve leaving. It may very well be the same day I move out. God did a whole lot in me in the past 10 months being here. But, I will leave that for a later post.

I should get off here and stop myself before I start down memory lane.

Shalom

I am actually pretty excited about this Valentine's Day. Amy and I are going out tonight. We're going to eat, probably Applebees or something and then off to see the Vagina Monologues, which I am super stoked about. I've heard about them for a long time and heard how hilarious they are but this will be the first time actually getting to see it. But, I really don't feel too bad at all that's it's Valentine's Day, maybe it's because I'm not living on campus where you have to watch couples everywhere you go and here at the house I have 1 roommate with a boyfriend here in town but they left this morning and my other roommate is leaving town to see her boyfriend, plus I went out with several people from the house for breakfast this morning so I guess that's padded the day for me and I feel good :)

And then I'll be headed home. I am hoping that I'll get to visit with Candy for a little bit once I get into Modesto. It doesn't seem like we've talked much lately and that's probably my fault. I've just been really busy. I know she commented that she wanted to talk over a week ago and then I never called her, so I hope this isn't the one night that she goes to bed early. And then this will be my first time seeing Rosanna since this whole Jeff-relationship thing, so that should be interesting.

Oh, my friend Josh is in the hospital :( He goes to concerts a lot and I guess he tried breaking up a fight last night and got hit. I don't know if he passed out or not but he was rushed to the hospital and they think he may have a broken jaw :( Please pray for him! I'll be visiting him on Sun. afternoon.

I think that's all for now.

Blessings

I'm feeling strange...not health-wise, just emotionally, I guess. I don't know.

I didn't want to go to work this morning but of course, I did. It was an okay morning. I think she's finally warming up to me. I don't think she really liked me at first but she's sorta talking to me more now and let's me sit down and chat with her a little. She even used me for almost the whole time. I don't know if I've mentioned it but for the first 2 days I worked for her she only used me an hour and a half out of the 3 hours she has me. But yesterday I was there the whole time and then today, I left around 12.30 but I was kinda glad for that. Once I got home Amy was here and I had lunch and we watched the latest episode of The Bachelorette. Ryan ended up texting me on the way home so at least I got some smiles in there. It's good when friends seem to know when you need to just hear from them.

I think that the weekend home was so good that I really want to be back home again. I'd really love to go home for the 4th of July but with money being so tight I don't know if I can. Amanda said that she really wants me to come home because it's Tom's birthday and I'm like another daughter. She seemed like she might help me out even though I hate to ask her for help because they really need the money right now and they don't need to be giving it away. But we'll see.

And Rosie and I made a decision on Sunday night. We've decided we're going to be friends with Chris, despite what his mother thinks about any budding romances. Amanda is a long-time family friend of mine, plus her husband, Tom and 4 kids; Chris, Nathan, Cassie and Tommy. I've known these folks since I was at least 11 and I believe from day one Amanda has had dreams of Chris and I dating, falling in love and getting married but it's just never happened. We've only gone out once and that was for his junior prom and it wasn't that great, definitely no sparks. And sometimes I wonder if he really likes me or if it's just his mom putting all this un-due pressure on the poor guy. But anyways, when I didn't show any prospect Amanda decided to go through all the single women in our church (which isn't many) and see if any of them would date him. She's like the mom who nags her son to get married and tries to set him up with every eligible single girl she knows. Anyways, because he lives out in the boonies (they're farm people) he just doesn't have much of his own life and he's grown up taking care of his brothers and sisters. So, Rosie and I decided that we really want to be-friend him and see him more often than just on Sundays when he's there and comes out to lunch with all of us, his family and our family included. It's not like Rosie and I "go out" a lot but when we head over to Dennys on a Friday we'll call him up. I hope he really tries to come and that Amanda doesn't give him a hard time about it. I love her to death but sometimes she can be a bit stifling.

Okay, I don't think I have anything else to say. Hope y'all are doing great!

Blessings

 It's been a good day. Well...besides waking up at like 7 in the morning super hot! And, of course I couldn't fall back asleep. For some reason I just haven't been sleeping very well lately. At first I thought it was because of my client and me having to call 911, and then I was thinking it was because I had all this stuff on my mind about Mark and my mom but that seems to be wrapping up quite nicely, meaning that at least my mom has told me that I have her okay to leave if God so wills and that she's not completely and utterly against Mark and I. So, I guess I'm either still thinking about it and sub-consciously worried about it or because of my work schedule lately and having to be up early I've just gotten myself into that custom of getting up early and my body doesn't know the difference between the weekends and work days. 

But, anyways the day was good despite that. In the morning I did some cleaning in my room. I'm still trying to simplify my stuff but it's still hard when my mom gives me a hard time about giving anything away and especially when I say stuff like wanting a truck to come in and pick up all my stuff and take it away. But I was still able to get a little bit done. 

Tangent moment: Lately I've really been wanting a new dress..nothing fancy just a fun summer dress. And yesterday when Rosie and I went to the mall I found a really cute one, that was 50% off...but that still left it at almost $30 so I talked myself out of buying it. But I was going through my closet trying to get rid of clothes I never wear and found a jean dress and was trying it out and made mention that I really wanted some cute dress up shoes...

So, my mom and I ended up going to Payless and I got a super cute pair of heels and a pair of tennis shoes. I'm not much of a heels girl, they make me nervous to walk on and I'm already so tall that I don't need them...but I guess you'd call them a "wedge" and I walked around a little bit in them and didn't fall, so that's a plus :)

Then my mom had her shift in my church's firework's booth at 12 so we hung out there with my pastor. It was soo much fun. I love my pastor and he really loves me too. We just make each other crack up. We pretty much spent the whole time just making jokes and then talking about really great topics like the church and God's plan for the church. And then Mark called me while I was there so I got to talk to him for a few minutes. Then my mom and I ended up coming home and having more enchiladas and watching So you think you can dance all night. 

And I got to talk to Mark again so it was just a great day. I think tomorrow will be great too...church, family sunday which means lunch at church after services, hang out with Rosie at the fireworks booth and then mexican food for dinner! YES.

Oh yeah, and I have to jot down this memory because I don't want to forget it. I really want to be able to shake my butt like those crazy hip hop girls can do. So, my mom and I were talking about it when we showed up at the booth and I ended up asking PC (Pastor Chuck) if he could do it and I don't know if he or I started it but the rest of the day we joked about my "booty shake"skills and he confessed to being called "white chocolate" in highschool and I said that made me Almond. You probably had to be there to think it was hilarious but just trust me, it was. Good times

Blessings.