My Hope is in You

This will be short...I'm at school.  My students are at Music.  They will be back in about 13 minutes.

I am a mess this morning.  I have been a mess for the past few weeks, to be totally honest.  For many reasons.

1.  I have been sick.  I went to the doctor last Tuesday, got some medicine that reacted badly and caused my throat to swell and make it hard for me to breathe...no big deal, right?  I'm done with the medicine, throat isn't swelling, but I'm not feeling a lot better which is a bummer. 

2.  I'm exhausted!  I do this to myself all the time...I try to do too much, and I know it.  I am LOVING my job.  I am so sad that I only have 3 weeks left teaching.  Trying to balance everything is hard.  Each day is an adventure and I love it.  Even the bad/stressful stuff that I have to do every day.  There's no other job on earth I'd rather do.

3.  I suck at being okay with being 2 1/2 hours away from the love of my life.  Not that I think anyone should be okay with that, but I cried for like 45 minutes straight on Saturday about it.  I cried at church yesterday. I went into another teacher's room this morning and cried about it.  Needless to say, I hate it, and I am having a very hard time with it.  Monday-Friday sucks because I never know when Zach is free, never know when I'll get to talk to him, don't know if I'll be bothering him if I text him, on and on and on...I apologize for dwelling on it, but it's hard.  Zach saw something from one of his friends on facebook who was boo hooing about being away from her bf for like a week, and it was the first time in 6 years that they had been apart for more than 4 days...I want to punch people like that in the face, to be totally honest, because they have no idea.  Please don't be offended by that statement...

Even though I'm a mess, I have made a great friend across the hallway.  Someone that I never in my wildest imagination thought I'd be friends with because we had a terrible falling out when I was in high school.  She has been such a great support system for me this school year.  She made me a CD this weekend and the first song on it was "My Hope Is In You" by Aaron Shust.  And that's all there is to it.  My hope is in God and all that He has planned.  He even knows when the bad days are going to happen, but I know He can bring good out of them because that's just how He rolls.  I'm so thankful He has put people in my life to help me through it.  People that are 2 1/2 hours away, 2 1/2 minutes, and even people on the other side of the world that I know will pray for me and help me in any way they can.  God rocks.

5 weeks down, 4 to go

I can't believe I've been subbing for 5 weeks already...and I only have 4 more weeks to actually teach this year :( I have completely fallen in love with this class and it is going to tear me up to switch to this aid position in 4 weeks.  Not gonna lie.  I'm not looking forward to it.  I do, however, get to be an aid in 3rd grade, so I will still get to see "my" kiddos each day which makes me very happy and helps.  It has been a great learning experience, making me much more anxious and excited to get my own classroom one day.

I am sick...surprise surprise.  Thought it was strep...nope, just a sinus infection.  Thank goodness.  I didn't have a voice at all this morning when I woke up.  I still didn't have it when I got to school.  Had to write notes to my students all morning telling them what we were doing.  They were super quiet, it was great.  I'm thinking about just faking that I don't have a voice every once in a while ;)  Just kidding.  

Zach's sister, Quynn, got married this past weekend.  It was a great weekend.  A little bit stressful, but everything went well and was beautiful and fabulous for the lovely couple!  It of course sparked some wedding talk with me and the bf :)  I love it.  I can't wait to put our plans into place one day!  I miss him.  A lot.  He's very busy with school and it stinks!  It's a lot harder than I anticipated, I will admit that.  But, we both know that it will be worth it one day.  Even though it sucks right now.

Still here!

I am still here.  Sorry, it's been a while. So much craziness has happened the past few weeks, it's all kind of been a blur, but I am loving most of it. 

My first "Big Girl Job" is going wonderfully!  I am learning so much from all of it - there is so much more to teaching than I realized.  It's exhausting.  It's emotionally draining.  It's also one of the most rewarding things I have ever been able to experience in my life.  I love it. 

My birthday was fantastic.  The students I am working with made me feel so loved!  I had a little girl come to me and say, "I forgot to get you something for your birthday...so I got you these." and handed me 2 pencils she had gotten from her box.  How sweet.  It was great.  Zach sent me flowers on my birthday which totally made my day :) 


I had a "party" this weekend for my birthday, to which I asked people to bring bath towels for the orphans in Myanmar.  I got 48 towels and have some more coming in!  I was so excited I wanted to cry!  It gave us (Zach and I) the opportunity to talk to my family a little more about our trips and what Uncharted does there, which was fantastic.  

We went to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory Saturday night - DELICIOUS!!!  And after that...we got tats :)

The last letter hurt...a lot

Getting ready to get mine...

Jer 29:11 in Burmese :)

Holding his hand like he held mine ;)

Rom 5:3-5

It was a great weekend.  I hated to see Zach leave and go back home.  He said it perfectly - 3 days together makes leaving that much harder.  I am very thankful that we're only a few hours apart because it enables us to see each other every few weeks.  It's not every day like we want, but it's better than once a month or something.  Our tattoos mean so much to us because we love love LOVE MM and the orphans and leaders, and we are both so incredibly blessed to be able to go and do God's work there, but those verses apply to every aspect of our lives...and this not so fun distance is one of those.  God knows what He's doing by keeping us a few hours apart for now, and it's going to develop our character and hope for our future together that God has planned :)