Godlight

This past weekend I went on a women's mini retreat. The retreat was scheduled for six hours on Saturday, however, my book club decided that since we were the ones hosting the retreat we would do our own mini sleepover the night before at the retreat center. Both events were fantastic and I was so glad to spend so much time with my girlfriends! We laughed, cried, learned, grew closer to God and to each other, and barely slept. =) The weather was just gorgeous and the retreat center we were at is right on the water so it provided for some spectacular views of Friday evening's sunset! It was some seriously awesome Godlight! The ladies were making fun of me because I was so excited about taking pictures of the prettiness!

The theme for our retreat weekend was HOPE. It's so encouraging to know that because I am a child of God that I have hope in every circumstance. My hope rests in Christ, the solid rock on which I stand. Jeremiah 29:11 states that God knows the plans He has for my life, and those plans are GREAT. So I can place my hope in Him because I know that whatever may come, it will be great and used for God's glory!! It's my hope that I can share and spread the hope that comes from God with everyone that I meet!

Cindy

(Semi) Wordless Wednesday

3 years ago today I married my best friend. It hasn't been the easiest three years but it has been the BEST three years. We've had so much fun and I just keep falling more and more in love every day! Thank you Collin for being such a wonderful husband!
And like you said, if people get a chuckle out of our old married couple squabbles now, we'll definitely be touring comedy clubs when we ARE an old married couple. :) I look forward to the journey that will get us there. Because with you by my side it's going to be a fabulous journey!

Love, Cindy

Little Glimpse of Spring

Just wanted to pop in today to share this photo I took outside of work last week. These flowers are so fluffy and pink. It's been absolutely great seeing them everyday for a week or so! I love how spring is so beautiful!

I must say though, my allergies do not like how spring is so beautiful! The past few days I've been feeling the effects of the pollen for sure. It's not as bad as some, but with the tree pollen levels as high as they are, just about everyone is affected some how or another!

I hope that if pollen has over taken your area you aren't suffering from allergies too bad! But if you are, remember, at least it's really beautiful out. ;)

Cindy

5 Fact Friday

Happy Friday! We've officially had our new apartment for one week today! Though we didn't have our first night in our new apartment until Saturday, we signed the lease and began moving stuff in on Friday. =) And then of course this week has been super busy because of it. But not just because of moving. Our play at church is tonight and tomorrow! So Monday night and last night we had rehearsals. And of course we had the normal praise team rehearsal on Tuesday night. All of our spare time so far has been spent unpacking. But it hasn't been too bad! We got a good bit done so far. I love it!

1. Since we lived in a one bed/one bath apartment before, we have things we need that we didn't before, so tomorrow during the day we'll be purchasing things for our new place! I love it!

2. When I get stressed my stomach acts weird. It's very unfortunate that I had two big events back to back like this (moving and the play) because my stomach has been a mess! I've been taking acid reducer medicine for about two weeks now to help calm my stomach.

3. The sky is my favorite thing to photograph, that's nothing new to my followers. This sunset last Friday was breathtaking.

4. I unfortunately did not get out my "big girl" camera at all this spring. Or at least not so far. And to be honest, I've failed pretty miserably at taking pictures in general. But I've been so busy that I just haven't had time. That's not to say though that I've failed to notice the beauty. Because that would be so wrong. I have enjoyed and appreciated the GORGEOUS spring we've had every day. It's been incredible! I did take a few pictures with my iPhone though.

5. With all this talk of Google Reader disappearing, I want to make you guys aware that I do indeed have Bloglovin. If you'd like you can follow me over there to keep up to date on all my posts!

Happy weekend, friends! I hope you have a wonderful and delightful time. I am really looking forward to the play, though I will be a bit relieved when it's over because hopefully my stomach will get back to normal, and I will have free time again!

Cindy

(Semi) Wordless Wednesday

It's interesting how moving affects not just us people but it also really affects our pets. Our kitties began acting out as soon as we started packing. They knew something was up and I do believe that pets, especially cats, dislike change more than we do.

Once we moved them into the new apartment, Stank began freaking out. The person who lived there before us very obviously had a cat; you could smell it. I hate that! But I suppose that's the price you pay for living in apartments; you have to deal with issues from the prior tenants. Anyway, Stank was NOT happy about the move at first. He was very, very nervous and he wouldn't stop sniffing around (which is normal) but I know he smelled the previous cat. And since there wasn't that cat to show his dominance to, he began to hiss and growl at Seabass! And poor little Seabass didn't know what was going on. He and Stank have become buddies so I'm sure it was upsetting to him that his big brother was being mean again. =(

Fortunately Stank has calmed down and I think our smells are beginning to permeate and dominate the smells from the other cat and prior tenant. Thank goodness! We were really concerned about Stank there for a little while! I knew it would be normal for the cats to want to sniff around and that it would take a day or two for them to be comfortable enough to be themselves in the new place, but we didn't expect behavior like that from Stank!

Seabass taking advantage of the extra space that packing boxes provides. He also loved jumping into the empty boxes!

Stank on moving day. He didn't want to get out of bed because he knew something was going on.

If you have pets, how do they react when you move? Do they freak out like my cats did?

Cindy Also, I've had Bloglovin' for a while, but in case you didn't know, you can follow me either by clicking on this link or by clicking on my button in my sidebar!

If You Have To Move...

...it's nice to have a weekend like we did! Moving is never fun. Packing boxes and then moving them, scouring up help to move the big furniture, borrowing a truck/trailer to put the stuff in (thank goodness for our dads and friend, Butch!), and finding places for the boxes in the new place so you can "live around them" is just frustrating. But, it's all not so bad when the weekend is as beautiful as it was for us!

It was in the mid 60's and sunny both Saturday and Sunday! We did a bit of moving on Friday too, when it was off and on rainy and in the 70's. Still not bad but not quite as nice and Saturday and Sunday when we did a good chunk of the stuff!

We are so excited that we are finally in our much larger two bedroom!! I LOVE it. It may only be about 210 extra square feet but it's huge to us! It feels so much more roomy and we have a hallway!! We've never really had a hallway in any of our places so far. It may seem trivial, but it's big enough we have a hallway! I think another reason it seems larger is because in addition to the extra space, we have less furniture stuff in our living area. Since we have a second bedroom the bookshelves are all in there and we got rid of a bookshelf that was falling apart.

We can't wait to continue unpacking and make this place our cozy new home. It's already pretty cozy, I just know it will get even better when it's decorated, all the boxes are gone, and we've bought the few things we need that weren't needed in our old place! I'm so glad we stayed in our same community though because we've absolutely loved living there for the past year. It was a great bonus when we were looking to upgrade that they had a two bedroom that was very much so within our price range!

It is definitely a relief though that the move is over with. We were both pretty stressed about it, but it went fairly smooth! A big HUGE shout out to our family and the few friends that helped us. Without them it would have been much, much more stressful!

Cindy

(Semi) Wordless Wednesday

This is the main drag into our neighborhood right now. It's so, so gorgeous. I especially love it at night because the lights behind the trees illuminate them just so they look like they are snow covered! It's just unfortunate that those trees stink to high heaven. =(

Cindy

5 Fact Friday

I love Fridays. Absolutely love them. Most of the time anyway. =) I love them even more when it's my Friday off. Unfortunately this is not that one. Actually, I don't really blog on my Friday off. I'm too busy enjoying my free time! This week actually kind of flew by, which is a very good thing!

1. We are moving a week from tomorrow into a 2-bedroom apartment. We have nothing packed yet. And we've only acquired 3 boxes so far. Good thing we have people putting boxes aside for us...

2. Last weekend I read a really great book called invisible by Ginny Yttrup. I highly recommend it. Actually I'm posting a review of it later today!

3. Last weekend it was really nice outside so we spent Saturday afternoon playing frisbee golf for the first time this year, and then we got Rita's!

4. I think I found a solution to our problem with the cats waking us up. I started giving them half of their normal food amount in the evening and giving them the other half just before bedtime. So far they've not woken us up and it's been 3 mornings now!

5. Our play is coming along pretty nicely. We have performances April 19 and 20 at our church and it's been a pretty fun experience so far!

Have a wonderful weekend, dear ones! I'll see you next week!

Cindy

Book Review: Invisible

Last week I read the book Invisible by Ginny Yttrup. I was emailed by Handlebar Publishing asking if I was interested to read this book. It seemed interesting enough to me so I agreed! Let me just start off by saying that I did not want to put this book down. Every opportunity I had to read I was doing so. I finished it in just four days and the days were filled pretty tightly with Easter activities. It was also a pretty easy read though it was a fairly long novel.

Invisible is the story of three women who each feel that either they are invisible or they want to be invisible. It's a story about God's love and redemption. A story of finding your true self as created in the Image of God. The book tells the story of Ellyn, a gourmet chef and restaurant owner who has struggled as long as she can remember with her physical appearance. She believes herself to be too fat and ugly to be loved. It also tells the story of Twila, a young lady in her mid-twenties who works at the local health food store and wants to help others feel healthy. She struggles with an eating disorder which stems from abandonment issues from her past. It also tells the story of Sabina, a practicing counselor who has come to this tiny town for about a year. She is really there to escape from her issues and hopefully overcome her depression.

Throughout the novel the three ladies become unlikely friends who each have a very big part in helping the recovery of the others. They help each other discover the healing that only God can provide for them. But most importantly, they help each other realize that they are truly made in the Image of God.

This novel was not necessarily just a light-hearted read. It contained some pretty heavy topics and was very emotional. But it was oh so very good. It kept me riveted and I loved how it told the story from the perspectives of the different characters. I felt like I really got to know each of the women intimately because I was "listening" to them all. After you read this book, I challenge you to not be changed by it. I love when a fiction novel teaches and reminds me of extremely valuable lessons.

Cindy

(Semi) Wordless Wednesday

Today is one of those days where I both love my cats very much and am very aggravated with them at the same time. It's not that they really did anything wrong, it's just that they're annoying! We feed our kitties twice a day, once in the morning and again after getting home from work. If we fed them anymore, they would get so, so fat. Anyway, we sleep with our door closed at night and every morning at about 5-5:30 they start meowing and scratching at the door. We still want to sleep until 6. But it's pretty much impossible. Most mornings we eventually have to get up and put Seabass in his cage temporarily because he's going to destroy the carpet clawing at it.

We tried to use a timed feeder, but Seabass figured out how to get into it. If we were to use an auto feeder, I have no doubt that they would eat all the food by the end of the day and would get really, really fat. Anyway, it's just really frustrating. I'm tired of losing sleep because the cats want food. Shouldn't they have learned by now that their obnoxious behavior doesn't get us to feed them any sooner? Ha. I wish.

At least they're so beautiful and lovey, most of the time.

Anyway, any suggestions on how we can get a full night's sleep without the cats driving us crazy?

Cindy