Today

One week from today I will be "busting a move" as I have now official termed this transition.

6 days from today, all my stuff will be put in its summer locations, and we will see how well my color coordinated move works.

5 days from today, Madre and Padre will arrive in the 'ham, my stuff must be packed and there will be dreamcakes, a reward for perseverance!

Today I said goodbye to my sunday school class, I have taught at this church for about 2 years. So the kids in my class I've seen for 2 years, I've watched them go from toddlers learning to walk to potty training and speaking in complete -ish sentences. I managed not to cry until I got to my car in the parking deck. The same cannot be said about the rest of this weeks goodbyes. It's hard to believe that I will not be there next week.

2 days ago today, I said goodbye to my precious class. I loved teaching them and seeing how much they learned in our short time together.

Tomorrow, I've got to get my act together and make my "mountain of progress," aka boxes that are packed, grow from a tiny hill into a true mountain... I CAN DO THIS.

I'm avoiding a few goodbyes and can't let myself leave them until 4 days from today, because that day is already going to be hard enough. I cry when I think about 4 days from today.

The moral of this post can best be summed up by Michael Scott, "t-shirt idea, goodbye's stink." I'm excited about the road ahead of me, I'm excited to meet new people, and have new experiences... but man leaving a place you've called home for 6 years isn't fun. I have a family here, a community. Birmingham, I have loved, you. I have learned a lot, and grown a lot. I became a real grown up here. This is the first place I lived on my own. I'm glad I've had the separation from my beloved Samford, or this week would be terribly sad. But I must find a new disney world campus, full of happy memories, and friendly faces. I can do this, I will do this, but I will also shed a few tears as beginnings are often scary. I am reminded of when I was headed to London and I knew no one I was going with. And the emotions I felt as I began that journey and as I look back on that week leading up to my plane ride, I think of my London family and the love we have for each other now and all the good that semester put into my life.

Chaos

My life looks like total chaos, my normal organized, clean self feels like I'm living in a pig pin.

I will be taking one of the biggest risks of my life, I'm moving. I'm leaving a city I know and love with people I know and love and call my family, and a job I love with people I enjoy seeing daily. I going to a place I know no one, have no job, and really no plan. But oh what an adventure it will be! I am so excited for the adventures and new experiences this chapter of my journey will bring me. I have known this move would happen for sometime, I've felt it coming for months, I could feel the change in the air of my life, but now that we are here it doesn't seem real. I don't know how I will leave my community here. I can't bring myself to continue the packing process I started, 1 because its the last week of school and my life is busy, 2 because there are lots of people that I will not see consistently after next week, and 3 because packing makes it real and that's scary, and 4 packing is not very creative and I feel a need to be creative lately.

So here I sit, in my living room, knowing I need to pack and reorganize my life, but I can see my classroom decorations and supplies I've taken out of my room this week. That room is now so sad the walls are bare, where once there were art projects, color and life and I can't stand the thought of living in my apartment like that for a week, so I'm avoiding.

Something I have to keep telling myself every day, every hour is that my adventure doesn't start in a week, not really. Really its already started, and I can't continue living in it until I pack all my junk and drive all the way to the new location of my adventure.

step into your future with a prayer in your heart and a song in your soul - step into your future with faith in the Lord and the abilities He's given you... Step into your future secure in the knowledge that this world needs you and the unique inspiring gifts that only you can give.

I've always had a heart for adoption. If I could I'd adopt hundreds of kids so they'd all have a family and be loved. I usually joke that I want to adopt a kid from every nation and create my own united nations of children, and this is how I will bring about world peace. I've known for a long time that one of my life goals is to adopt, I just can't do that yet. Don't get me wrong, if someone called me today and asked me if I wanted to adopt a kid tomorrow you better believe I'd figure out away to make it happen, even though I in no way feel ready for that. Its just not my timing yet.

As I watch families finally getting their kids that they've been in the process of adopting for years from Haiti today/last night, there is a tug in my heart that some day I will get to bring my kid home from somewhere. I see the emotions in all of their faces as they experience so many firsts so quickly as a family. I can't imagine what those kids have been through in the past week, but I am so thankful they are in the states and with their families.

All week, I see all the devastation in Haiti, and all I can think about are all of the kids who weren't orphans a week ago, but are now. I think of what this past week has been for me and I think of what its been for them and my heart just breaks.

Songs of Home

so my friend Erin did this a few days ago on her blog and if I actually kept up with this I'd know how to link to her there but I don't. I'll figure it out one day.

Ok so the game is name some songs that remind you of home and tell why.

1. Earl had to Die- Dixie Chicks: not only does it have the classic twangs of country music, I vividly remember belting this song at every particular moment one year at Disciple Now. As soon as this song starts or even upon hearing the name, I am instantly taken back to all of us sitting in my living room at that D'now singing this song. I believe this was also the same year we convinced my parents to let us wrestle.

2. Don't take the Girl - Tim McGraw: I realize that most country songs will remind me of home and growing up considering I grew up in small town Texas where we only listened to country music for awhile. But this song was my favorite when I was younger, I'm pretty sure I still remember every word. And I can see myself sitting in the back of my mom's Buick sing it, and then asking my parents to rewind it and start it over. George Strait's "Check Yes or NO" has the same affect on me.

3. Don't run to the TV- I don't know the actual name of this song or any part other than one verse. But this song or I guess these lyrics instantly take me back to sitting in the choir room at FBC Canyon with Dan the Man. The lyrics i remember incase you are wondering are: "don't run to the TV it doesn't love you, it doesn't know you from a hole in the ground. There's a hole in your heart, there's a hurt in your self. You just need Jesus like everyone else." Inspiring right?

4. I saw the Sign- Ace of Base: I can remember many a dances we made up while listening to this song.

5. Lean on Me- in the recent episode of Glee where they sang this song, I totally had a flashback to "SHOW KIDS" and was in the choir room at Oscar Hinger/on the square in those purple shirts singing away.

6. Bye, Bye, Bye - N'sync and Mmmbop - Hanson: totally take me back to junior high. I loved boy bands.

7. Anything Spice Girls, takes me back to "uptown girls" in 5th grade and early Junior high

8. Ironic - Alanis Morrisette: I'm sitting in Mrs. Kuhlman's class. I totally associate most of Alanis with junior high, I remember loving "hand in my pocket" too. And the "Bitch song" as we called it, takes me back to junior high Tennis.

9. New Kids on the Block: I loved them, I had the sleeping back and all. I remember my cousins had this fisher price "band" thing. We would all take our places and most of the time we were singing a New kids song.

10. Caedmon's Call: I can't remember the song but there is one song that is still on my computer and when it comes up in the shuffle I am taken back the the streets of Canyon. With the no trees and lots of dirt and the Braums.

now its your turn...

when everything seems to be going wrong

Right now I live with a family that I babysit for, they are very gracious in allowing me to basically be part of the family. They are going through a season of struggles right now, and its good that I can be here to help but also hard to watch. I mean, I'm 23, I'm just figuring out the struggles of "real life" and how to live a life with out school, and be a responsible member of the adult world.

Today I was reminded while talking with the mom of this family what life is like in a season of struggles. I'm an optimist, so even while I am struggling with a whole lot going on in my life, I still naturally look for all that is good and right in the world and choose to focus on that rather than all the negative around me. So its hard for me to see people struggling with things that life throws at them and have the right understanding to help them through it. Today the best I could come up with this as this mom is just stressing about one thing after the other, was that as soon as you let one little (or huge) thing stress you out and you don't bounce up ready for the next thing, you start to feel like you'll never get up like things will never be right again. Because as you slowly get up from a fall something else can hit you before you ever fully recover, and then something else and something else. So it just feels like you can't win and you begin to feel defeat. However, if you'd just hopped right up the first time, no matter how hard it may seem, you'll be on your feet ready for the next one and it won't feel like it hit as quickly.

Maybe this doesn't even make sense, but I just picture this guy (he's a stick figure) and he is running on a I guess its a track I'm not sure though. Anyways, he's running and he sees a hurtle, but by the time he gets to the hurtle, its taller than he thought it would be and he doesn't make it over. Well instead of getting straight up and continuing on, to find out what is next. He takes his time and kinda crawls a little before getting up and walking and then starting to run again. Only by the time he starts running again, a lot of time has passed but he can't seem to stop thinking about this hurtle that he missed. And then he's not looking where he's going and he falls in a hole. (this is a very dangerous kind of track thing in my head.) So now he's lying in a hole going, what is going on, and again taking his time to crawl out. Well as he gets his hands to the top to get out, a rock falls and knocks him back down. He finally gets out of the hole and he runs into a tree, and so on and so on. And his path just seems to be the only one with all these obstacles on it, I mean he looks at the other people running and he doesn't see them having a problem. He doesn't know that bob 5 lanes over, ran into a tree while he was trying to get out of his hole. He seems to think the world is against him and totally for everyone else. But maybe if he'd just gotten straight up from that first hurtle, and stopped worrying about it he would have seen the hole and then seen the tree. Its worth a shot at least.

can't you see its not a race

Most nights when I get home, I sit down for a few minutes and wonder where my day has gone. When I woke up that morning I thought I was going to have some free time to read, or catch up on tv shows I've missed through out the week, or even do my laundry. I mean I work PT at a photography studio, but that's only been happening this week, and I babysit... but where on earth is the rest of my time going.

I mean I'd like to say I spend it doing something awesome but I really have no idea. I think part of this has to do with my extroverted-ness... If I'm going to do something to fill my time, especially in this state of my life where things are so chaotic, its going to be something where I'm surrounded by people.

Enough of that, lets do a quick recap like update of Tiffany's life...

1. I just got a job at a photography studio, we do preschool and daycare school photos. As well as dance schools and maybe teams... I don't really know about that. I still am not 100% sure what I do, or if I'm even going to like it... but its a job for now.

2. I babysit a whole lot. I can look at my calendar for next week right now and see 1 babysitting job but by the end of next week, I will have babysat at least 5 of the 7 days in the week. I am so Thankful that God provides jobs and I randomly keep surviving. I guess it gives a little reassurance that at least for now, I am doing the right thing. It helps with the whole I quit my full-time job and haven't found a new one maybe I shouldn't have quit thoughts.

3. A kid I love dearly, most likely he's my favorite kid on the planet (for sure top 5), had brain surgery last week. He is doing incredibly well and is the bravest kid I know. This whole brain surgery thing was a little much for me at first considering how much I love this kid... but also because just a month before his surgery another kid I babysit had brain surgery. What are the odds that extremely empathetic Tiffany would have 2 kids going through MAJOR brain surgeries within a month of each other? So this has been a very emotional few weeks, as I try to understand or at least as God what he was trying to teach me with both of these children going through this. Maybe I'm figuring a few things out, we'll still have to see.

4. I live with a family I babysit for, since my bestie had to go off and get married on me. ;) At first I thought I was moving away from b'ham, now I kind of feel like God's not done with me here, but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do next. I am very thankful for the family that is letting me live with them and be a part of their family.

5. Some times living with other people makes your life a little complicated. Like right now, I'm actually staying with another family I babysit for because the original family has some extended family in town for the weekend. Again, so thankful for my network here. Also, its really cold in the 'ham... I did not keep enough warm clothes or shoes... I think I wear my "boots with the fur" almost every day. Hopefully soon, I will see my schedule at least getting enough consistency that I can get an apt or figure out what I'm supposed to be doing next.

6. There might be a new person in my life... we're still figuring out how we feel about him. ;)

I really do wish I updated this more, I just forget and blogging is such an alone act... I mean I barely keep up with all the blogs I follow these days. One day I will get better, I am trying... but no promises. ;)