Hello, adulthood! (...I think?)

Photo Credit: Unknown

Listening to: "Rainy Zurich" by The Fray
Finally got around to getting their Scars & Stories album (which is currently $5 on Amazon, by the way).  I like it a lot. Favorite tracks so far: "Heartbeat", "48 to Go", "Rainy Zurich", and "Be Still".

List of crazy things that have happened/are happening in my life lately.

1. I got an A in golf. Actually, the fact that I passed golf is crazy. The fact that I got an A is just hilarious. I stopped going to class completely after February 22 (and skipped a few classes before then. I might have had a slight case of senioritis...). For that reason, it deserves to be first on my list.

2. I GRADUATED COLLEGE! How the past four years of my life went by so fast, I will never know. I will also never know how I managed to pack so many wonderful (and, let's be real, horrible) things into such a short amount of time. On that note, I'm moving on to my next thing on the list. (I know--I'm normally so nostalgic, right? This time around, I'm avoiding all my memories like the plague. College was wonderful and thinking about it being over makes me incredibly sad.)

Wonderful friends since day one. Love them so much.

So, so, so, so thankful for him. I love him a lot.

Family!

3. I got accepted into grad school. This fall, I'll be starting on my master's degree in Holistic Child Development. It's a program that's actually sponsored by Compassion International (which I LOVE). Basically, I'm getting a counseling degree (but not licensure, which is lame) that prepares me to work with children through non-profit service and advocacy organizations, both domestically and internationally. I'll be taking classes like…

• Community Interventions
• Social & Cultural Diversity
• Non-Profit Design & Evaluation
• Counseling Children & Adolescents
• Play Therapy
• Family Studies

…among others. It's a program that targets exactly what I want to do, and I am so excited about it!

4. I got an apartment. Finally not living on campus (as much as I have loved it. Really). Kristi and I found a place that's in a perfect location (so close to everything!), a good size, plus we finally get our own rooms. I'm excited. Now, just to get things organized...

Related: if anyone has any furniture that they don't want, particularly a couch or a dresser, let me know. We need it. Big time.

5. I got a job. This happened a little over a month ago, but I haven't exactly had a chance to update you all on my life, so…yeah. But get a job I did. I'm working as a secretary-type-thing for my Taekwondo instructor. Kind of random, but hey, it's a job, and I really do like it. It gets a little boring at times, but I love being around all the kids. They're hilarious. One of my favorite quotable moments:

5-year-old boy excitedly to his mom (and being 100% serious): "I finally know what I want to do!! When I get big, I want to be bald and fight bad guys! Then I won't have to go to school anymore!"

Sounds like a plan, buddy. School (and hair) is overrated anyway. Which is why I signed up for (at least) another year of it.

6. Weddings, weddings, weddings! (Not mine, of course.) Sooo many of my friends are getting married, it seems! Two good friends are getting married this weekend, then my wonderful roommate of all 4 years of college is getting married in two weeks. So exciting, and SO WEIRD.

So, that's my life lately. I am so, so, so relieved to be done with the semester and have a laid-back summer kind of life for a couple of months. So. Incredibly. Needed. I'm doing my best to line up a few posts so things aren't so dead around here anymore, but until then…!

Springtime and thunderstorms

Credit: Unknown

Listening to: "He Said" by Group 1 Crew
(Not usually a huge fan of theirs, but I seriously love this song. It's been stuck in my head for days. It's so catchy!)

(Quick sidenote: I wrote this post awhile back and am just now getting around to publishing it. I'll try to update you guys on what's been going on with me lately ASAP!)

I read something the other day that really stood out to me.

"Spring is for tornadoes and rainstorms as much as it’s for brilliant afternoons and bulbs poking fresh petals through damp dirt."*

Remember back in October when I wrote about autumn and the interesting balance of beauty and pain and how you can't have one without the other? At the time, the point I was trying to make was that pain always brings about a special kind of beauty that can be found nowhere else. Now, I'm beginning to see the other side of it as well.

When I think of spring, I tend to think of the happy, sunny side of things. It's when everything is coming back to life, when I can go outside and throw Frisbee and lay in hammocks, when it's warm and green and just beautiful. Everyone always talks about "waiting for spring" in a metaphorical sense, referring to life, waiting to come out of a painful situation and experience the good, happy side of life again.

We forget that even spring isn't all about the sunshine.

Spring is all about new growth and change and coming to life. And that happens to require a few thundershowers along the way. Yes, the most most difficult part--the dying that comes with autumn and winter--has passed. Still, spring has its own kind of pain, the kind that can only come with coming back to life after a long winter.

I'm finding that every season of life has its own kind of pain--or at least it should. Some runs deeper than the rest, but still: it is all pain. Pain, to me, is a sign of growth. If I am changing, growing, becoming, then pain is going to be an inevitable part of that.

Learning to truly love someone is hard.
Learning to accept grace and His blessings after realizing how much I don't deserve them is hard.
Learning to not stop seeking Him first, amidst the busyness of all He's given is hard. It shouldn't be, but it is.

They're good things, all of them. But they are not easy.

Spring isn't always easy. But the beauty of it is always worth it.

So here's to accepting spring for what it is: rain showers, sunshine, flowers, and a little bit of dirt. It's all necessary for the incredible growth that it continues to bring.

*From Sarah Markley's "The Brilliant Beckoning" at (in)courage

Redesign!

Quick update: As I'm sure you can see, I did a little redesigning of the blog. Considering I'm graduating college in about 2.5 weeks, the last header I had wasn't exactly going to be relevant for much longer...

Random thoughts? Still just as relevant as ever. Probably more so.
College student, though? Not for much longer. CRAZY.

Besides, it needed a facelift anyway. I've been taking a class in Graphic Design this semester and have learned a little about how to use Adobe Illustrator, so I put my new-found skills to good use and made a new header. I really like how it turned out, especially since I ended up free tracing the letters myself! Simple + nature-y. Just my style. I hope you guys like it, too!