Future?

Before I start my ramblings... Here's a little Photoshop project that I did to educate myself on the program I need to be better at for work. I'm trying really hard to broaden my skills and be able to use this program to my advantage in the long run. The only way I can do that is with practice!  I learned how to use many tools I didn't even know existed - so I guess mission accomplished! and I walk away with some nice photo's of Memphis!

Now time for me to ramble on....
         So in the midst of my counseling, I was told I need to plan for the future. Plan to live. When I was asked "Where do you see yourself in five years" I had a blank stare on my face. Completely dumbfounded I responded "I have no idea".
I don't dwell on it. I've been so focused on my mountain; on overcoming my panic attacks; on facing fears. I have been living one day at a time for such a long time now that I've stopped looking forward to things. I've stopped dreaming. And that, my friends, is a very dangerous place to be...

So last week I started looking at all of the different kennels in my area. I (filled with anxiety) click through website after website, did new searches, and looked at employment options. That was my first step of even thinking of making steps into my future. The mind games have been endless since then. "You can't even decide what to do with your life, what makes you think you can succeed at switching jobs" "you won't be able to make it financially if you try to switch jobs now" "you will fail."
Insecurity and self-doubt has been running rampant through the streets of my mind since I even attempted to look ahead to any form of future that I may have. I may be taking a few steps back here, but I decided to start a little slower at dreaming of a future. I'm still battling trusting God with my future. So if I can't imagine a future through the eyes of my Creator, (who can push me to see far beyond my own abilities) how can I even imagine a good future through my own sight?
Lets take baby steps here (So thankful that God is patient with my learning process). Lets start with one area of my life and dream of what the future may look like for that. I chose my marriage. Even that was hard. But last night Sean and I talked through a list of questions that I had found online. The questions were to help get the ball rolling with discussing goals you had for your marriage, where you're at now, and what you see that you need to work on. We only got through half, but I feel like I was able to be hopeful and look forward to something in the future for the first time in who knows how long. Needless to say, we have a lot to work on.
But instead of the daunting "5 year plan" I decided to focus on one thing first. My new family. There has been so much change in the last 6 months and I feel like I've barely caught my breath. Where will we be in 5 years? Who the heck knows! Truth is, only God knows where he will have us in five years. But as far as thinking/dreaming that far into the future, I'll get there at some point. I'll be able to dream for a great future at some point (I have a feeling it will be soon. Thank the Lord for steps forward in the battle with Fear).

  For now, I want to plant seeds now that will produce great fruit in my marriage later. I can say in 5 years, I want to have a strong relationship with my husband. So now I want to work on getting to know my husband better and REALLY enjoying the time we have with each other before we have kids of our own.

With that, I want to say to my Husband:

"Darling, lets be adventurers"

Memphis

If you've known me for a long time (at least since High school) you'd know that I used to work at a private dog kennel. That was by far my favorite out of all of the random places that I've worked. If I could make enough money doing that again I would quit my current job in a heartbeat. (don't tell my boss that!)

I had a lot of responsibilities at the dog kennel, but my favorite by far was teaching and training the dogs to do new things. Especially the new litters of puppies. I had to teach them how to walk properly on the leads, agility, and how to behave while being groomed. (Little exciting fact: One of the very last dogs I had the joy of working with before my boss moved out to California, "Sky", just recently won "Best in Show" at the 2012 National Dog Show. It's so awesome to see her success! She is a beautiful one of a kind dog and the people that have worked with her for the past few years have helped her grow into one of the very best show dogs I've ever seen! So a huge congrats to everyone that has been involved in that!)

The best thing was that part of my job was to encourage the dogs in their personalities. In other words I got to play with them. Each dog has a different personality and needs to be encouraged in good behavior and corrected in the bad. (hopefully when I have children someday I won't use the same signals to correct them as I've learned to do with dogs. haha)

I bring all of this up because even though I haven't worked at the kennel for about 3 years or so but I am putting the skills learned there to work now. A lot of people (when they find out what my old job was) ask for my advice on dog health and training. Usually it's just "should I take my dog to the vet?" or "my dog won't stop doing this. What should I do?" Well over the last couple years I've gotten a bit rusty. After I dropped out of my Vet Tech courses (Can't be a vet assistant with shaky hands and with me having a tremor that runs in my family, I couldn't continue on with the courses) I had no need to continue learning about animal behavior and health. As with any education, if you aren't putting what you learn into practice, the knowledge on the topic will begin to fade until you start using it again. So recently I started to brush up on animal behavior and the puppy training process because.....


We have a new family member!

Everyone meet Memphis!

Memphis is a mix of Blue Heeler and Red Heeler. That is why he has the kind of markings that he has. This Sunday he'll be 10 weeks old. We started potty training the second we brought him home from northern WI. He now (just about every time) runs to the back patio doors to let us know he has to go potty. Unfortunately if we don't see him at the door right away he pees right on our doormat. Seems like he's still got the toddler mentality of not realizing he has to pee until he can barely hold it any longer lol. But he has made huge steps forward very quickly when it comes to any training that we do. While Sean and I are still trying to get in the groove with our schedules we have started slow with any training. We are starting with only 5-10 minute training sessions. Mostly when he is in the middle of playing. We want him to understand that learning new tricks is very fun. By doing so, we've noticed an eagerness to learn new things! I LOVE the curiosity of a young puppy and the humor in watching him explore new things. I'm playing with the idea of training him myself to be a "helping" dog. It's something that's been on my mind since my time at the kennel and I want to see how difficult it is. I plan on sharing our experience and definitely sharing the fun things that we teach him. So here's the first of hopefully many videos! (If I keep myself in gear with actually documenting all of this, ha!)

I had Sean record this literally 3 minutes after I showed him how to "touch". After this video I started using other objects as well and asked him to touch it. He's got it down! I am so excited with how quickly he learned this trick and it makes me look forward to the more complicated things I want to teach him down the road. 

A little note: Heelers are an independent breed. They are not typical dogs to submit. They are definitely known to be dominant. So keeping that in mind we have to be very careful with how we start training him and especially with how we correct him when it comes to bad behavior. If we are not careful and consistent with showing him who is in charge and correcting him, he will later on become unruly. These dogs are also very smart and are originally bred to be cattle dogs. He WILL try to start herding people or other animals and nip at their feet if we don't teach him otherwise.  Again we have to be very consistent! 

Worn

So recently I've realized even more how "blogging" is always about a journey. The journey of organizing your home, becoming a mom, being a wife, decorating on a budget....there's so many reasons to write and share your journey. So whats mine? I'm not quite sure yet....I did just recently get married, (and yes I promise to write about that awesome day once I have some pictures to share) I did recently get a puppy, (again, expect to see the little man soon) and I've been working on going through just about everything I own to get my "life" organized.
Well I think I may just do a little bit of everything. I've always been a bit ADD anyway!


You want to know what I've been lately?

 WORN

 I've talked a little bit about my anxiety and panic attacks. Well, they are still very present in my life. So I made the choice to start counseling for it. I'm glad I started after getting married and I'm so very thankful that I have a husband that walks through each moment with me; even the very bad days. He just seems to know how to bring joy to life. I have felt blessed by who God set me up with. HE knew that I needed to spend my life with someone that will point me towards God in every moment. Someone that will talk through my fears and let me be emotional when I really need to let it out. At one point I caught myself apologizing to Sean. I told him how sorry I was that he married someone that is so broken right from the get-go. He then took my tear-drenched face in his hands and said "I wouldn't want it any other way". I said "even if I have a panic attack every day for the rest of my life?", he said "of course. I'm in this with you. I'm not going to leave you alone in this even if it means everyday for the rest of our lives". 

                 Are you starting to see why I've felt so blessed? I'm beginning to understand love at a much deeper level....

As to what I mean by feeling worn... its exhausting to battle a mental issue all day everyday. You can easily slip in and out of depression and you can very quickly become numb to everything else. Another thing I'm grateful to have my husband in my life is because he knows me well. He knows from the way I even say hello if I'm having a rough day or not. He calls me out when I'm slipping into depression. If I didn't have that I'm sure there would be many days that I would just not get out of bed....

I have hit that point where everyday I'm completely honest with God about where I'm at. I can't count the amount of times I've said "Daddy, I'm worn. I can't do today without you. I desperately need you."

I have a feeling though that that's exactly where He wants me right now.... If me being worn out by the struggle is what is finally getting me to admit I can't do this in my own strength at all, then so be it. I look forward to what God might bring out of this. It seems like it's been so dark for me, but that just means that with God on my side, the light at the end will be all the more brighter.

I'll leave you with the chorus from a new Tenth Avenue North song that put to words how I've been feeling for the last five months...

Let me see redemption win
Let me know the struggle ends
That you can mend a heart
That’s frail and torn
I wanna know a song can rise
From the ashes of a broken life
And all that’s dead inside can be reborn
Cause I’m worn

The Appointment

6:00 am.... The alarm starts buzzing. I've been laying here wide awake for a few moments. I have a feeling God wakes me up these days.... I've never been a morning person. I was always one to groan and push snooze fifteen times until the last possible moment; Get dressed, throw my hair up and run out the door for work. But not lately.

No, lately my eyes shoot open as if I was never asleep in the first place. I have an appointment. An appointment that I can't be late for...

The last thing I wrote about was my anxiety. Oh man, my anxiety. A couple days after I posted that, it got the best of me. Anxiety overcame me, and I was devastated. I did feel discouraged. I did believe the lies Satan was whispering in my ear....
                        "You'll never have a day without fear."
              "He won't come through for you"
                                                     "Grace doesn't cover you, it's not that easy"
                                                                                "Do you REALLY know the truth about God?"
                                "You can't get past this, it's going to be hard for you for the rest of your life"

Here's the thing, I may not be torn down by my other struggles. But Satan knows that the one area in my life... the one thing that will make me question everything, is fear. And so fear he gives me. Because he wants me to be weak, insecure, and timid. And Fear did just that too; it made me question everything I've known. Flipping through the Bible gave me no peace. I had a filter of fear and timidity over my eyes. I had to stop everything I was trying to process and be still. Be quiet. Crying to God, asking Him for peace, (and of course not receiving it instantly like we all wish would happen) he whispered "lets work through this". And so we are... slowly. Sometimes painfully slow. But still yet moving forward. I have been reading all different books, listening to worship music (sometimes even having it playing while I'm sleeping) to fill my mind with truth about God. What have I been learning so far? God has shown me that I still don't trust Him fully... and so since I have not learned to trust him, I need to re-learn what his character is. Who he is. Who I am in HIM. He says "you know my word, but do you KNOW my word? and do you KNOW me?" and to that I answer... I guess not Lord. Because if I really knew the Lord, I'd be free from fear. Because perfect love casts out all fear! and the Lord does not give me a spirit of FEAR but of POWER, LOVE, and a STRONG MIND! God says "you tried to convince yourself before that you trusted me until you forgot to even pursue me wholeheartedly...now we're going to go the long way around so you CAN'T go back."
Well let me tell you, the long way around is not fun. it's not glamorous in any way. it's humbling on a whole new level. it's needed.

...So what's that appointment that I have? I have an appointment with the King...  That appointment gives me strength and endurance. In all my life I have not been able to say that I was consistent in my time with God. Now I can. And with no pride in that statement at all. Because I am nothing without it. I can't make it through a day without talking with my God. Without reading His Word. Without being in his presence. I find myself searching for truth with everything that I am. I want to soak in as much of him as I can... I want to trust him with everything.
I know through HIM, I can be FEARLESS. When he says I'm ready, He'll give me the ability to overcome....I just know it. 

Oh the Fun Fun Times...

With how much I actually enjoy blogging, I don't seem to have the time to write. If you haven't heard, since the last time I wrote Sean and I got engaged! (let the middle school girl squealing begin)

That was back in June and we have had one crazy summer since then. It seems that we are continuing with the season of engagements, weddings, and now babies. It's official that all of my girlfriends (that I've been friends with since at least 6th grade) have kids now. We have had two new additions to our group, one in May and the second just a bout two weeks ago. Let me just say that I am one proud "Auntie Aimee". Each one of these kids are absolutely beautiful and I find myself infatuated with them. ALMOST as much as my very own niece and nephew.
Now of course they all have asked me how soon Sean and I will start having kids to add to the bunch. NOT ANYTIME SOON! haha I am in love with loving on their kids and giving them back. Sean and I have discussed no kids for a couple years and if God decides to bless us with one earlier then we'll obviously be thankful. But for now, we are soaking in this season.

How exciting it is to be getting married! As most people think, wedding planning is the most stressful thing ever. But apparently not for us. We have had very minimal stress since day one. We have greatly enjoyed every moment. Even the difficult ones. When something doesn't go as we'd hoped, we take a step back, re-adjust and try a different option. It has been so wonderful getting to learn how to discuss big life decisions with my future husband. And one thing that I think is the best of all... Sean is very much involved in the planning process! I know SO many couples that the wife says her husband was little to no help at all with planning their wedding. Pretty much the girl runs around like a panicked-everything needs to be perfect-bride and the guy just shows up at the church ready to go.
                   Well, not Sean. We discuss everything. Just about every decision is made by both of us.
                                    Man, am I blessed!

The biggest topic to figure out has been where to live. We have gone through the different options OVER and OVER again. This is the one thing that has brought stress. Do we live in my city or his? Who quits their job?
This is also a topic that some family members don't agree with. We have made our decision of where to live and trusting God with the Job situation and Finances. God has opened a door for us at the apartment complex that we had been impressed with. Right in the midst of one of our rough discussions on where to live, God opened an opportunity. Now I don't know why we had been stressing so much about this. As if we thought God wouldn't lead us in any direction. What little faith we have.

So now, in the midst of our wedding planning excitement, I am packing up to move into our first place!
          Lets just say if you know me at all, you'd know how excited I am about moving into a new space. I LOVE decorating and organizing. I'm so eager to make our space a home before Sean moves here! I just need to make sure I don't get so carried away with organizing that I get behind on wedding responsibilities! hehe

I can almost grantee you that I will post pictures of the new space as I put my flair on it!

For Things to Come...

About two months ago I was sitting at BWW with Sean. He had told me earlier in the week that he had some important things to discuss with me but wanted to wait until I was in town and we could talk face to face. Now, if you know me, you know I started to stress and worry. Like most girls, I wasn't worrying that he was going to "break up" with me. I was more worried that I would be asked to move out to Chicago sooner than I had planned or that we would have to put off "moving forward" with our relationship another year like we've had to do in the past. Never did I think that our serious conversation could be a positive one. If there's one thing I've learned from my many past relationships, it's that sitting down for a "serious" talk usually screams BAND NEWS BEARS! But what was I thinking? This relationship has NEVER been like any of the others.... This one is different indeed.

As we sat down for dinner I couldn't wait any longer. I blurted out "So tell me!" and he laughed cause he knows how impatient I am with things like this. He then started telling me of his band meeting he had earlier that week. This was a big meeting for them because they were discussing their future as a worship band and if they were "all in". He was the only one that couldn't say yes...because of me. When he told me that, I couldn't help but feel happy and sad at the same time. I never want to hold him back from his calling and what he's passionate about and yet I was happy that he was as committed to this relationship as I am. He continued on, explaining to me why he couldn't say he was all in yet. He spoke with his band mates about the difficulties and frustrations with being in a long distance relationship. How hard it's been to balance spending quality time with me, with his friends, with my friends, with his family, with my family, and adding band practices and events on top of that. He's also trying to finish his last two classes for school and trying to figure out his job situation. It's quite exhausting. My heart and prayers have gone out for him. I know its hard for him to balance so much at once. With his conversation at the band meeting and then confirmation with talking with his accountability partner, he decided he was going to move here. Wait what?!? Move out by me?! Did I hear that right?

I tried not to show my excitement too quickly and you know how you always wish that you could think of all of the questions and concerns you have in the moment? This was one time that I could actually set my feelings aside and discuss concerns right then and there. We talked about his commuting for band practices and events. We talked about what that would mean our relationship would look like for the next 8 months. We talked about finances and where we feel God is leading our relationship. I'm sure at this point our waitress was way more than ready for us to stop occupying a large booth on a Friday night. But at the end of all of this we looked at each other with excitement of things to come. Did God really look past my forced prayers of trying to be ok with moving away and trying to be patient with his timing? He knows me far better than that and he knows the desires of my heart. How could I ever think I could convince him that I was ok with what I thought was his plan, when I really wasn't.
I looked at Sean in the eyes and said "I support you 100%". Even though it may mean that I don't get to see him as often as I'd like for the next 6 months. Even though it may mean that I am the main bread winner for the first couple years of our marriage. I don't dare stand in the way of God's great plans for him and for his worship band. The Lord is opening up numerous doors for them and it only looks brighter for them in the future. I feel privileged to stand by and support them. Sean sent a Voxer (a program that turns your phone into a walkie talkie)  message to his band mates saying that we're "All in" and we couldn't help but laugh at the cheers and congrats on the other end. 

And so marks this next season of life. The season where I take a few steps back from ministry to work and to prayerfully support other ministries. The season of "future planning" which may or may not include a wedding in the near future ;). The season of drawing even closer to my God and trusting him to provide in ways that only He could. And just overall the season of exciting events...

I'll be sure to post updates along the way! Oh and boy did I feel foolish for worrying about that conversation... Why don't I ever learn to stop underestimating my God and that he wants to bless me, not harm me?

The Shakes

There's this thing....
It's been a part of me since the day I was born.
It runs in my family except I'm the only living Woman that has it....

It's called a Tremor.
It progresses as I get older and it seems as if lately this is a new discovery for people that I've known for years... so here's some answers to the most common questions I get

Yes, I shake ALL THE TIME.
No I am not on drugs (yes I've been accused of that)
No I do not have Parkinson's
Yes I am fine, I am not having a nervous breakdown
Yes I've had it my whole life - I rarely notice it anymore
No, I'm not cold (haha)
It is worse when - I am going on very little sleep - I've had too much caffeine - I'm stressed out - I work out - I eat unhealthy - I try to hold still


I play it off in most situations that it's not big deal to me at all. When, in fact, some days its the most frustrating thing. When I'm the only one available and someone asks me to take a picture for them....that's the worse. I can't help but be embarrassed when I stand there trying so hard to hold the camera still. I used to love photography. I literally have thousands upon thousands of old photos on my computer. Everyone knew I always had my camera with me; documenting the wonderful blessings of everyday life. My camera can't handle my shaky hands anymore. I need to start doing some research and saving money for a good camera with a GREAT stabilizer. (if anyone has suggestions for a camera, I welcome them with open arms!)

You'd never know that I had to give up my dream job because of this stupid thing. You can't really be a Veterinarian when your hands never stop moving.... So here I sit. At my desk job. I am blessed by where God has placed me. He's providing for me and constantly providing ways for me to pay off old debt. But my passion is not here....This is not the type of job that I want to do the rest of my life. I don't wake up looking forward to what I do. I don't feel as if my gifts are being utilized. We'll see where God leads me...he knows my ideal job. He also knows the path I need to take to get that job and appreciate every minute of it.

Despite my moments of frustration and/ embarrassment, I've learned this is a part of me. God created me this way for a reason. Maybe he knew I would need constant reminders to take care of myself and slow down. Maybe he knew I'd need constant reminders to rely on him for patience. My God's smart like that :) So because I know him, and I know his love for me, and I know he is for me. I choose to accept and embrace my tremor.

So there's my open, honest moment about something that I have no control over. Please people, stop looking at me freaked out when you see/feel my hands shaking. Please stop asking me if I have a problem or disease. God chose this in my deck of cards. He sees it fit that I have it. And it's a part of me. So lets breathe and move forward. I have, now it's time for you!