So Maybe I Am Still A Bit Arachnophobic

I really should be studying, but a slight incident occurred last night that I wanted to share...

While very seriously discussing unethical lawyer solicitation in class last night, I suddenly noticed something huge and brown scurrying across the floor in front of me. When I realized it was a giant spider, I almost gasped out loud, but managed to keep my calm. I seriously considered getting up in front of the class and announcing the presence of the eight-legged horror so I could carry out due diligence and execute it. However, I reconsidered since the teacher is a well-respected, dignified attorney (it’s all about networking, folks). 

Thus, I kept quiet and eyed the eight-legged offender. I’m sure she and my classmates were wondering why I stopped paying attention to that part of the discussion and was staring into the corner. I’m sure they were also wondering why I kept shifting my feet around for the remainder of the class in hopes of discouraging any other horrors from crawling up my legs. 

Needless to say, I have a ten-minute memory lapse from the lecture tonight, but can thoroughly describe to the you path the spider took and how he attempted to climb the wall, failed, and continued to walk along the wall until he disappeared from sight, leaving only the memory of the horror he inflicted and food for my imagination about where his cousins could be hiding.

When I Should Be Studying for My Midterm...

So, as the title suggests, I have a midterm coming up. Tomorrow, actually. Legal ethics. Have I started reviewing for the test? Nope. Is it almost time for bed? Possibly. 

I decided I would make a quick blog post before hitting the books (or going to bed; I can't decide which is more important).

Baby Precious has now been dubbed "The Chunk" by Clari, and all further reference to my precious nephew shall now be as such. Not sure if that made sense grammatically or not...Oh well.
Anyway, he continues to steal our hearts. As does his big sister, The Squish. 

He makes incredible eye contact, but wasn't quite sure what to think of my phone in his face...

:commence melt:

I can't even.

 Squish and I making faces in the mirror. When your two-year-old niece is mimicking your silly faces, I would say mirror selfies are acceptable. Only under such conditions. 

Oh, and then there was the time that Sweet Pea (14) stole my phone.

In short, I am so very blessed with a wonderful family (if a bit crazy at times). 

Life has been super busy with work at school, and I am so tempted to lose sight of the truly important things such as family and focus on the worldly, temporal things such as figuring out my career, keeping my GPA high, and gaining approval in the world's eyes. Oh, for grace to trust Him more!

"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice! Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." ~Philippans 4:4-7

Hold fast to Jesus!

Sonia

Nerding Out Moment #1: Fabulous Words

This quarter in school, I'm taking two paralegal classes. In addition to being fascinated by the materials and information presented, I am totally nerding out over some fabulous words I'm learning. Here are a few of them, as defined by Black's Law Dictionary:

Malfeasance: "A wrongful or unlawful act."

Surplusage: "Redundant words in a statute or legal instrument; language that does not add meaning."

And....My favorite so far: Scintilla: "A spark or trace--'the standard is that there must be more than a scintilla of evidence.'"

That said, I shall continue my studies, hoping to avoid committing a malfeasance, surplusage, and coming to conclusions with only a scintilla of evidence. 

(with limited time and resources, this is best picture I could find to describe my feelings over my increasing vocabulary)

Pain and Joy: God's Blessings

Today marks two months since our grandmother passed away. Honestly, sometimes it feels like forever, and other times, it feels like she passed away just yesterday. I have to keep reminding myself that I can't just hop in my car and visit her for an hour. 

As the days have passed, the grief is not nearly as sharp, and a lot of pain has, as the cliche goes, faded to memory. Not entirely though. Throughout the day, little things trigger sweet memories of her and her love for us. Often, I'll be going about my day and remember a joke she made or something she said. 

When I see all the different shades of green in God's creation, I think of how Grandma used to say how amazed she was that God created so many different shades of green. I pray that she is with Jesus now, delighting in a perfect world, where the colors are beyond our imagination, where there is no more pain or sadness, but only pure, sinless, joy. 

While one life in our family passed on,bringing great sadness, another entered the wold, bringing incredible joy.

Just over two weeks ago, my nephew was born. He was diagnosed with a rare and serious heart condition, but thankfully, his condition is not as sever as we first expected, and after having surgery in September (and possibly another one later on), he should be able to live a fairly normal life. He (we'll call him Precious for now) has completely captured his parents', Nana's, Papa's, and all his aunts'and uncles' hearts. Squish, his big sister, is completely in love with him as well, often asking if she can "gently hold Baby [Precious]." 

So you can appreciate his preciousness, here are some pictures. 

Proud Uncle Gubby!

 Sleeping peacefully <3

 Selfie with my niece and nephew!

Sleepy smiles!

And so, after not posting for two months, there is a choppy, discombobulated snippet of my life.

Hold fast to Jesus!
Sonia

In Loving Memory

On February 18, 2016, my Grandmother passed away. We knew she was weakening and that she was going soon, but the last day and a half spent at the hospital, leading up to her passing, went by so quickly. 

In this time of intense grief, I am so thankful for the memories and the time we had with her. Her sense of humor, perky attitude, and love for us will be missed beyond belief. 

Praise the Lord she went peacefully, with us around her, holding her hand and telling her we loved her, as she breathed her last. I pray that she's with Jesus now, and that we'll see her again someday. 

About 3-4 years ago when Grandma had a stroke, we took turns staying at her house and caring for her. Those were special times. 

 Dear Squish and I visiting (Great-Grandma for her) this last September.

 I am so thankful Squish and she had a wonderful visit, playing with toys together.

 (Great) Grandma's sense of humor was so special. Here, Squish is giggling at Great-Grandma's pretended horror.

Five days before she passed away, watching a home video from 20 years ago, when I was born.

You can see her remembering the day. Her love for us was so special.

"The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away...blessed be the name of the Lord." 

Grandma, I miss you so much! 

Of My Technique on Cleaning a Room and Getting Homework Done (at the Same Time)

After my CPR/First Aid training only went from 8-2:30 instead of 8-5, I got home early and decided I had a great opportunity to get ahead on some homework. After having a snack and finishing one assignment, I could no longer handle the state of my messy bedroom and unmade bed, and so decided I should remedy the problem before tackling any more homework. 

The following describes the past several hours:

1. See that room is horrendously messy, decide to do a quick tidy-up.
2. Decide to tackle the messy bed first. 
3. Proceed to take all blankets, pillows, and sheets off bed.
4. Realize that I would really like to shift my wooden chest and bed 7 inches in order to make my lamp fit in the corner better.
5. Move bed and chest, finish making bed.
6. Remember I printed off an assignment 20 minutes before and forgot to put it on my stack of completed homework. 
7. Rush upstairs, grab homework, also grab a cookie.
8. Start cleaning up clutter in far corner of room, throw something in the trash on other corner of room, see trash is full, proceed to empty trash.
9. After emptying trash, realize I really need to vacuum that corner, and will do so before cleaning and vacuuming other corner.
10. Place snack basket, trash container, chair, and miscellaneous tea boxes on bed to vacuum corner of room.
11. Finish vacuuming 3/4 room, organize shoes on shoe shelf.
12. Remember that I have been meaning to sew up a seam that is coming loose in one of my boots.
13. Spend 12 minutes sewing up boot.
14. decide to clean up one of the drawers in my desk. 
15. Start organizing drawer, trim the sides of hanging file folders to make them fit better.
16. Realize the contents of my file folders haven't been correctly filed. Remedy the problem.
17. See a piece of correspondence from an adviser at my college, notice that the class schedule I had anticipated for next quarter was not feasible. Freak out.
18. Spend 10 minutes on my school email searching for another piece of correspondence regarding one of the classes offered. Don't find it.
19. Start to freak out even more about classes and graduating on time. 
20. Call Munchette (sister) to tell her my great woes. Talk for 15 minutes, have an emotional breakdown, feel better, realize the world isn't falling apart, conclude conversation. Remember I was cleaning my room.
20. Finish organizing drawer and remember I had a question for Strong Ox (older brother) about filing my taxes.
21. Call Strong Ox and get tax question answered.
22. Almost start filing taxes and then remind myself I want to get more homework done.
23. Spend an hour doing homework.
24. Notice my room still isn't clean.
25. But it's dinner time and I'm hungry.
26. Serve myself dinner, watch a short tv show, then get distracted on social media.
27. Look through old pictures.
28. Notice it's getting late and I still need to take a shower and get ready for church in the morning.
29. Take a shower and decide to write a blog post.
30. Realize blog post is written and my room is only 5/6 clean.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I get things (almost) done. Life of a working college student. 

Ahem, a working college student who is now (finally) officially certified in First Aid and CPR.

A Final Farewell to 2015

Yes, it is January of 2016 already. No, I will not let it prevent me from composing one final post intended for 2015...However, rather than calling it a belated post, I'm going to go with "reflection post." 
The last month of 2015 was jam-packed with family, friends, food, and snow. The following are some pictures I felt documented the season well. 

 Sibling selfies; I felt as though they captured each of these dear siblings well. 

Mozzarella (left), Gubby (top), Polly Wog (bottom right)

 Dear Squish socializing with Great-Grandpa and Great-Grandma! Oh, and with her aunts. 

Just because I'm busy doesn't mean I don't take time to put cute little trees in my room. 

Truly, though, Jesus is the real Reason for the season, and I a so thankful that He came! By His grace alone are we able to live and find true peace!

 We saw an elk on our trip up to the snow -- Since it wasn't hunting season, we shot it with our cameras instead of our bows. 

 God's beautiful masterpiece!

 This little guy...Mini-man shall forever have the power to melt my heart. 

 We dug snow tunnels!

This picture describes their relationship well:

 Gubby picks on Mini-man. Mini-man is oblivious until it's too late. Love these two little men so very, very much.

In short, 2015 was a busy year, full of blessings, hard work, lazy afternoons, grief, joy, growth, and, ultimately, God's sovereignty. 

I can't wait to see what He has in store for 2016! Oh, for grace to trust Him more!

Hold fast to Jesus!

Sonia