It's been a while...

So my last blog was dated back in June. I'd say it's time to blog again. I have a feeling it might be a long one though. Too much time has past to have a short blog, but I'll try to keep it a short as I can.

So I survived this summer living in Missouri. Definitely miss home though. I tried to go home quite a bit this summer. Right now I think it's been the longest since I've been home (since mid July). Yikes!

The lady who I was filling in for at work this summer as a temp decided not to come back. She was provided with an opportunity where she wouldn't have to put her brand new son in daycare and her and her husband can stay home with him. They decided in the office that they wanted to keep me so I am now officially the Financial Aid Counselor of Graduate and Professional Studies. It's pretty awesome! I have my own business cards, name on the door, name on my desk, and name tag (which I only where during times when lots of students are around). I have almost survived my first cycle of financial registration weeks. Today is the last day of that. Then next week will be extremely busy adding money to all the students' accounts. I'm enjoying it though (minus the few rude people I've had to deal with).

After going to North Point Church here all summer, I finally decided it was time to get involved. I knew for a while I wanted to help out, but wasn't sure where or how I wanted to. Luckily at the end of July at church, a guy asked me after service if I'd be at all interested in helping out with the student ministries. He gave me all this info about it. So after a couple of days I decided to contact him to let him know I was interested. So he got me started by having me come to one of the middle school services to see how they run things. It was great! Definitely fell in love with it. So now I am going to be leading the 6th grade girls at the 11:30 Sunday morning service (which now means I have to figure out what main service I am going to go to since I normally came for the 11:30 main service). These girls are absolutely amazing and I cannot wait to be a part of their lives! All the other leaders are really great too. It's nice to finally know some of the people I go to church with.

Apartment living is going great. We do have new wall neighbors who are noisy though. The other night I thought someone was in our kitchen so I creeped out of the bedroom to check it out. Nobody there, just banging noises coming from the apartment next door. Aimee and I get along really well though. We are so similar yet so different. It works. We both keep our bedroom clean and know the importance of keeping the kitchen and livingroom clean. Our third roommate however has a tendency to not put her dirty dishes in the dishwasher (we even have a sign that says clean or dirty to try to help her remember to put them in the dishwasher). If she does happen to put her dishes there, she doesn't rinse them off so then we have knifes with dried on peanut butter. She is going to be moving out come December, so I only have a few more months I have to be patient with her.

Grad classes started up last week. All my peers in my program have 4 classes (9 credit hours) they are taking. I didn't have to take Research 1 this semester since I took Research 3 as an undergrad so that's one less class. Also, I took Helping Skills as a grad class back in the spring, and this year they decided to offer it in the fall instead. That too is one less class I have to take. This means I'm taking only 2 classes this semester (4 credits). It's kind of nice to have an easy load since it is the first time I'm working 40 hours a week and doing classes. Plus, I'm now helping out at church which has taken up a bit more of my free time.

Basically I'm keeping busy. I'm beginning to feel more like an adult now (although there are lots of times where I don't feel like it). I have more responsibility, and I'm living out on my own. My parents still are supporting me in some areas (car, car insurance, cell phone), but I am paying my own rent, food, electric, washer/dryer (we are renting), books, gas... My parents also helped pay for half my grad school, and I was excited I was able to pay the other half myself. I still have a lot more growing up to do and take on more independence from my parents, but I feel like my life is a lot different than it was just last year.

Hopefully it doesn't take me a couple months to blog again. Sorry if I bored you with an update on my life. I'll try to make my next blog a bit more interesting.