Seasons of Life

It's "that" season of life. 
Every female should know the one.  The one you dreamed of when you were young...

The season of  your wedding, or in my case, my friends' weddings... 

If any of you were anything like I was when I was young you can relate.  My friends and I used to dream of when we were older.  We would imagine our wedding day and try to picture every detail.  We were pretty good at it too!  It was all in our heads, except the most important part...the actual image of our prince charming!  We imagined elaborate weddings.  Long flowing wedding dresses.  Huge bridal parties.  Bridges and confetti.  Waterfalls and guests by the hundreds.  We always told each other "you'll be my maid of honor/bridesmaid."  We were so excited we couldn't wait for the day when we'd finally be planning our own weddings! 

Well, years have gone by since I was that age dreaming about my wedding with my friends.  In those years though, the unimaginable took place.  My close friends have slowly all drifted away. 

I remember being so young and naive - There was absolutely no way my friends and I would ever drift apart.  Even though I moved away from some of them when I was 12, we kept in touch, and they were always considered my closest friends. 

But, eventually the replies stopped coming, and I slowly stopped sending such frequent letters.  I tried to still keep in touch, but it seemed as though life for my friends had moved on.  All the things my friends and I imagined over the years slowly faded from my memory... until this past week when I found out one of my best friends from when I was younger is engaged!  In that moment I realized the sad reality that life offers. 

My once upon a time best friend is engaged, and I have no clue who she was dating and is now engaged to.  I didn't find out from her, but from someone else on facebook.  And now the dreams we dreamed together about being in each others weddings have crashed to the ground when I realized there's most likely no way I'll even be considered to be invited to the wedding, let alone be in it! 

People always told me that your best friends you have when you are young will not usually be your best friends when you get older.  I didn't believe them, but guess what...they were right!  My childhood friends still mean allot to me, but we are not as close as we once were! 

And now we're in that season of life where weddings are beginning to occur. (There's been around 10 weddings involving people I know this summer, and now with my friend's engagement, that just adds one more to the list!!)

I'm happy for everyone I know who's recently got married, or who recently's been engaged...yet it's bittersweet as well...everyone's getting engaged/married and I'm no where near it. :(

Oh well, this is not a pity party for me...it's remembering where life was, and where it's going!  It's remembering the seasons I've been through and the seasons that are coming. 

And for those of you like me still waiting for your prince charming to either come along or stop hiding in the shadows...our time is on it's way.  It's closer than we think...or so I like to say :) 

Decisions, Decisions...

Life is full of many decisions.  One of the first major decisions we're faced with is the answer to the question "What do you want to be when you grow up?" 

We hear it over and over again in our pre-teen-teen years.  When we hit grade 10-12 we're expected to somehow know the exact course of action we are going to take for the next 10-15 years!  It's huge! 

I don't know about you, but I've always struggled with that.  I mean, when I was 16 there was no way I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life.  I was just trying to get through high school and still be on the honor roll with distinction!

Once I finished high school, I decided to go to the Intense Discipleship school my dad was about to start at our church.  I did that for two years, but once that was over I knew I had to go to university. 

University was something I didn't ever want to do.  I guess it's because I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life and there was no way I wanted to spend thousands of dollars on something I wasn't sure I wanted to do. 

After ID, I applied into the Bachelor of Tourism Management (BTM) at TRU.  I did that for a year, but found it wasn't what I expected to be, and quite frankly I didn't enjoy it.  When the move came up, I thought I'd just try to transfer what I took last year in the BTM and put it towards a International Business degree at the university here.  International Business seemed like a better option than Tourism, as I figured I could use it towards a sponsorship project I hope to do one day.

BUT, I hit delay after delay.  I applied once the move was official, so sometime in mid May.  I found out that my high school transcripts that I had sent all over Canada in grade 12 (which I thought were kept at each university for 5 years... It turns out UofR only keeps them for 1...) needed to be resent.  So, I sent it in the middle of June.  Well, something happened there, and once again I faced a major delay.  My transcripts didn't get here until the very end of July!  I called the university a few times, and each time I was told they hadn't even begun to look at my application.  It was frustrating to say the least, but little did I know that it would take me on a whole new journey...

On the trip here I had hours and hours to think.  I began to wonder what I'd do if I wasn't accepted.  At the time I had no clue.  The longer I had to wait, the harder I thought.  At first I just planned on working this fall, and going into something in January. 

But, then I was hit with other difficulties, such as limited January intakes, and education fund issues.  So, as much as I began to realize that I was no longer interested in taking International Business, it was looking more and more like I would have to. 

I didn't know what to do.  So, I prayed and asked God if I should go into International Business if I was accepted, or if I was to do something else...

It turned out I did get accepted, (I found out the day before school started!  Talk about leaving it to the last minute!!) but as I was looking through the courses and preparing to register my mom suggested I see if there were any openings in a new area I was now leaning towards...Science and Nursing! 

That led me to make my final decision... I would not be going into International Business... I would be taking my first year in the Bachelor of Science program through Athabasca University with a major of Human Science! 

I have made decision that I would like to be a NICU nurse and work with premature babies!  Never in my wildest dreams would I ever had considered anything to do with nursing, but now that I look back on the past 3 years of my life I see how God has been gently leading me in that area, through the many, many blogs I've read about preemies in the NICU. 

I've always loved babies and children, yet I don't want to be a teacher or work in a daycare.  The more I thought about working in the NICU the more intrigued I became.  As much as it will be a tough job, it will be very rewarding!  It will be neat to be able to watch the babies who are so tiny and helpless grow bigger and stronger every day!  I am also so excited to be in a place where I will witness God working miracles in the lives of little ones who doctors say can't be helped!  It's happened many times before, and I can't wait to be able to experience that all firsthand and give all glory and honor to Jesus!  I just think that as tough as the job will be, the rewards will be much greater!   

So, I'm taking sciences this year, with the hope that I'll make it into the Nursing program back home next fall!  I am so excited about this new direction my life is taking!  It feels good to finally have a path to go on and not walk blindly in the dark!  It may have taken me a few extra years to figure this out, but I'm glad it's now and not never! 

If I learned one thing from the past few months of ups and downs when it came to schooling, it's this:

God uses different things in our lives to prepare us for the future.  Sometimes it seems like we are hit with so many delays and distractions that it can be discouraging, but if we open up our lives to hear what He has to say, not what we want Him to say, He will be faithful.  And, like the old saying says, when God closes a door, He opens a window! 

Wow, that was a long description of my new schooling endeavors!  If you read through it all, I'm very impressed!  I hope I didn't ramble too much, and if I did I'm not sorry at all...I'm just really excited! :)

Serious Craving

I have a serious craving.  It's not a craving that comes and goes.  It's not a craving that's blah or "I suppose so."  It's a craving that sad to say has an emotional attachment.  (Okay, I'm not such a great poem writer, or descriptive writer, but hey, I tried!) 

I have a craving for the delicious prune-plums from my tree back home.  And as my desire for them turned into a huge want, I have found myself missing Kamloops more and more :( 

I've been doing pretty good here.  I'm slowly getting settled in, which has it's good and hard moments.  I've made a few friends with some of the staff at the church here, which I am so grateful for.  But, I still have a longing to go back right now!

One of my sister's is going back next weekend for a pageant, and I got a brilliant idea that she can stop by our house there, pick some plums, and bring them back for us!  Who knows if she'll actually do it, but thinking about it makes me want them even more! 

And in my desiring the plums state of mind, I realized I haven't posted the last pictures I took in the "Watching Them Grow" series of posts I did on the fruit in my backyard, so I'll post them now! 

Enjoy! 

 

You Know You're In Saskatchewan When...

...you go to Tim Horton's just to have a Roughrider's donut.

...+14-15 degrees Celsius is considered a "nice summer day."

...half the church worship team is wearing Roughrider jerseys.

...a small dip in the road is considered a valley.

...the local lookout point is built on a man made hill and from where you can see the city's one and only "Pleasant Hill" which was made from a pile of garbage.

...locals refer to a "bunny hug" when talking about a hoodie.

...every second house has some sort of Roughrider paraphernalia on the property.

...you go into a Canadian Tire to find Roughrider lawn chairs, Roughrider lawn gnomes, Roughrider jerseys, Roughrider everything!

...the words mosquito, bat, or mouse are a part of everyday language.

...you look all around you and all you see is a big blue open sky and crops of wheat blowing in the wind.

Oh, did I mention Saskatchewan's Roughrider obsession?!?  I guess I did once or twice ;)