Wednesday, August 4, 2010

MIA

Thanks to Heather Mackey Brown, I've been inspired to write another post.

While I understand it's been a while, I have my excuses....

So at the end of May, I met this guy....yeah he's pretty swell. This may potentially be the cheesiest post I have/or ever will write, but I'm okay with that. You see this guy just so happens to bring out the best in me and challenges me daily. I'm more than blessed to have him in my life..not to mention my parents love the boy too.

He comes from a GREAT family and loves Jesus, sports, & traveling just as much as I do. What's not to love?

So here he is...William Langston Ivy. If you're my friend and haven't met him yet, you will. Excited more than ever about the journey the Lord is taking us on!

Love you all. Back to work, just wanted to share :)

This is Will!

This was in his hometown, New Albany MS where I got to meet his sister and her sweet husband and kids. What a fun day at the pool! She was a Chi O too :) Loves it.








Tuesday, May 25, 2010

24.

So it's been a couple of days but it's all settling in that I am 24. So weird! I was a fresh 22 when I moved to Nashville, and A LOT has happened in these last two years. I grow to love this city more and more every day and definitely call this place home.

When I look back on the last year specifically, it's scary to think how fast the time flies! I'm at a point now though where I truly love my job and the friends that the Lord has blessed me with. I'm excited to see what is in store for this upcoming year and cannot wait for the Lord to reveal where He wants to use me in the upcoming months.

It's been a year of unexpected challenges and growth and I'm grateful for where the Lord has me now. A year ago, I may have told you I would be moving, but it's always neat to see that His plan is bigger than mine. No matter how many times I try to plan out my life, I will always fail. He knows what is best, if only we always had the faith to entrust our entire life with Him. But it's a constant struggle and praise Him all the more for His grace and mercies each morning.

To sum it up, I am blessed beyond measure and have lived a wonderful life so far. I'm excited to see what He does next and to Him be the glory! And thanks to everyone who made my birthday so special :) I love y'all more than you know!

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Devastation.

As I'm sure you've all heard, Nashville was hit was the 10th biggest flood in American history. It's hard to believe that we were just enjoying out trip to downtown on Saturday night, eating at a restaurant that is now underwater.

Catastrophic damage has been done to our beloved city-it's really hard to wrap my mind around it. People's homes are destroyed, some have lost their businesses, pets are missing. Not one person in Nashville can say that haven't been directly affected by this tragedy. Whether or not it affected their home directly, everyone knows someone who has lost everything.

Here's a couple of pictures that I took when heading to downtown Nashville yesterday to see the damage. Water was rising up around my feet while I was taking the pictures and is still continuing to do damage downtown. So please pray for this area and the lives of those who have been affected. It truly is a sad situation but at least we know the Lord is in control and has a master plan behind all of the tragedy. He is good.








Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Coffee Shops

I'm sitting in Frothy Monkey, your typical Nashville coffee shop. You have your eccentric crowd, the Vandy crowd, the professional crowd, your "I do nothing with my life" crowd, and a few other randoms. It's interesting if you sit in here long enough the amount of different people you'll actually see.

And here's me...sitting here pretending I work out of an office, all dressed up. Really though I could potentially be in sweats and it wouldn't make a difference. But I have an image I'm trying to uphold, or so I think...how dumb is that? I bet you a million bucks these musicians probably don't want to be in black skinny jeans right now considering the weather, but they probably do it to maintain their image and their look. Our society is so image driven and we're so conscious of everyone around us and their perception of us.

I know I'm guilty of it along with a million other people, but I am just sitting here and watching all the people around me. Funny thing is, all of these people are doing the exact same thing. We're all judging and inquiring in our minds where in fact these people came from, their backgrounds, how they got where they are now. It's comforting to know that the Lord looks at our hearts and not our outside image! I'm so quick to judge someone's appearance, and my mind has been trained to do so, hence why I wrote this post.

May this post remind me that I need to focus on what really matters, a person's heart, instead of writing a whole post about the different crowds I see in a coffee shop.

Friday, April 23, 2010

Friends and FNL.

So this guy named Katlin Miller randomly walked into my life about a year and half ago. It was one of those things where one our mutual friends (the one and only Sara Beth Turner) was like "Hey Katlin's moving to Nashville y'all should be friends." You meet the person, always nod politely and agree...never assuming you'll actually hang out....

Well, fast forward to today and I couldn't tell you another guy (including his room mate of course) that I'm better friends with in Nashville. Who knew!? Him and his rooms Jason moved here in October '08 and thankfully we all became fast friends. I have always had guy friends over the years, but I can't tell you how thankful I am that they are in my life! They have truly been such consistent friends and challenge me spiritually, give me advice, and model how a Godly guy should act!

Our favorite thing to do is to watch Friday Night Lights. If you haven't seen this show, you need to jump on that train immediately, no seriously. We started with Season 1, and actually just finished Season 4 tonight! Season 5 aires in the fall, so there's still time to get caught up, you won't regret it I promise. I've definitely gotten a lot of people hooked, it's worth your time!

Anyway, all of that to say I have so much fun with them whether we're watching TV shows, making dinner, having pool time-you name it and they're game. Oh and did I mention they're both actors? So yeah occasionally you'll see them in a random commercial, TV show, or music video :) Just to give them a shout out, they've been in Gilmore Girls, The Island, and The O.C., just to name a few.

So the bottom line is, don't rule out any of the "randos" you meet, you never know when a wonderful friendship will truly blossom. I'll leave you with a picture of the 3 of us watching FNL tonight.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

I caved...I'm a blogger now.

So I never thought I'd start a blog, in fact I was very against it. However, I've learned over time that it's imperative for me to get my thoughts out there and since I'm on the computer 24/7 for my job...it seemed like the perfect time to take that leap. I know I'm too lazy to handwrite all my thoughts down, so it only seemed appropriate to start up yet another social media outlet-so here I go....

The last time I shared my thoughts on the world wide web was through an old friend called Xanga, haha. That was the cool thing to do my freshman year of college. So I would stay up with my roommate Bethany and plays Sims on the computer, then follow it up with a little Xanga post. Unfortunately, I can't remember my password but would love to go back and look at how trivial my problems were back in the day, though I'm sure I thought they were monumental at the time.

So I'll be 24 one month from today...hard to believe that June 2nd will mark my 2 years spent in Nashville so far. When I think back to the good ole days at Samford, I often get nostalgic considering all of my best friends (minus a few) stayed in Birmingham. I left everything there to go and explore a new city, make new friends, have new experiences. All of which I've been blessed to accomplish...but there are definitely those times when I miss the people that know me better than anyone and unfortunately they're now a phone call away instead 5 minutes away.

All of that to say, I'm still thankful to be in this wonderful city and have learned a lot in my "post grad" life. I've developed a new love for music, which has been great. I always enjoyed music-but I now have the opportunity to go to concerts a lot, seeing that I do live in Music City. I've also learned to enjoy NFL and NHL, which I thought would never happen. I've had great spiritual discussions with people that have different world views than me, which was rare and hard to come by before due to the fact that I went to a Christian school from Kindergarden to my senior year of college. Obviously not everyone I went to school with was a Christian, but I was immersed in a culture where it was understood that everyone knew about Jesus. Another lesson I have learned is that you really have to be assertive and make the extra effort to make new friends that are like minded and truly seek out the people you want to invest your time in. Really, I could go on and on about what I've learned...but the truth is I'm still learning every day.

It's just a strange phase of life because all of my friends are in different stages, we're not all on the same page anymore. Some are married, some have children, some are engaged, and some are also single like me. But when I look back and think that I could've been married by now and I'm not, it just further solidifies the fact that I'm not in control of my life even though sometimes I want to be. The Lord knows His plan for me even though I always try to have my own agenda. He knows what is best and is teaching me patience to wait on Him and believe in His promises. It's also comforting to know that other people are going through these "quarter life happenings" with me, no matter what phase of life they're in. So that's why I gave my blog this title. I am a simple, Christ seeking, almost 24 year old girl going on a journey of unknown excitement, and I'm thrilled to see the Lord's plan revealed for my life.

In the words of John Mayer, I am not going through a "quarter life crisis", but instead I'm embarking on my mid 20's with zeal and trust that the Lord has me right where He wants me, for now.