Pay No Attention to the Number of Days Since I Last Blogged...

(That was totally said in the Wizard of Oz voice.)

Y'all there has been so much that has happened since I last blogged there is absolutely no way I could even BEGIN to write it all out...and what bothers me is that a lot of what has happened has been huge stuff...like life changing stuff. Massive stuff. I just don't know where to start. I think I will just do a bullet point list.

1. I moved back to East Tennessee. Something I swore would NEVER happen. I always said God would have to really shout it out that I'm supposed to be back over here. I just didn't want to do it. I love my life in Franklin and all my friends. I love my church and all my choir peeps. I love all my kids and all my babysitting. I love being able to go out and never know which celebrity you will see. I love my favorite restaurants and cute shops. I just love my life there. All that to say, I'm really missing it now that I'm back over here. There are so many differences that it's going to take another post to be able to share it all. Don't get me wrong, there are some good qualities about being back over here, but I HAVE to focus on them at times.

2. The reason I moved back to East Tennessee is go back to school. I am going to Cleveland State Community College in Cleveland Tn. Right now I'm just doing prep courses for the Nursing Program. I finally, after years and years of wondering, know what I want to do...what I feel like God wants me to do. I am going to school to be a NICU nurse. NICU means, NeoNatal Intensive Care Unit. I want to work with the little babies...the ones that are in there for a long time usually. I originally thought about being a Labor and Delivery Nurse but part of what I love to do the most in the world is build relationships with people. Help them, in some way if at all possible. Unfortunately when a child is in NICU they are there for quite some time. I feel like I will be able to minister to the family of the child as much, if not more, than I would be the child. It's still early in the game and I'm not even in the nursing program yet, but I just really believe that this is where and what God wants me to do. I keep holding on to the promise from Jeremiah 29:11 and the realization that He never said we would like the WAY the plans He has for us come about.

3. Throughout this whole time I've been faced with a lot of time for reflection. Looking at who I am...who people see me as...how I see people around me. It's been good, I think. As I've said before, I'm having to focus on the positive things but in a time of reflection, you often find yourself discovering things about yourself that aren't all that positive. Now I'm faced with the decision of what to do about the things I'm learning. I guess you could say I'm doing a lot of processing. I have told several people that I really believe that this whole journey and season of my life is not so much about me going to school and becoming a nurse. I think it has more to do with my relationship with God and dealing with some things that I have put off dealing with in the past. That said, I'm not exactly jumping up and down about the idea of dealing with my junk. Who is ever really excited about it?! I know it's a good thing and something that needs to be done but I also know it's not going to be easy or fun. My pastor said something when I was there a couple of weeks ago about how we need to decide which is worse, the pain of disappointment or the pain of discipline. There's a lot going on in that statement. Let me say it again...We need to decide which is worse, the pain of disappointment or the pain of discipline. This whole concept is one that I feel deserves it's own post, so I'm going to wait before going on about it. I don't want THIS post to become a encyclopedia.

So there's just a couple of things that have been going on...I mean, this barely skims the surface of all that's happened to me in the last 5 months. I'm hoping to be able to update my blog more and use it as a way to work through some of the stuff that I know is going to HAVE to be worked through.

So let's get going...