September Synopsis

I can't believe September is almost over!! I'm going to be like this for the rest of my life, aren't I? Always wondering where the time has gone...

September has been a great month. It's so nice to get back into a routine after a crazy-albeit, awesome-summer. I've been working at the Severson's twice a week now, and we have homeschool co-op on Tuesdays. Joseph is now in classes at co-op, so we're all there. (Well, except for Dad and Stephen at JJC and Josiah at Columbia.) I help out in the Simple Machines, Presidents, and Creative Writing classes. Today was our third week, and it's been a lot of fun so far! And today we had Little Caesar's for lunch, so I'm not complaining there...

Another great thing about this month is the CUBS!!!! They're all doing so awesome! We won 12-2 last night with a grand slam, and we're winning again tonight. I bought yarn back in March to make a Cubs sweater. Four colors, Cubs inspired. A Cubby-ish blue for home wins, white for home losses, a darker bright pink for away wins, and a light gray for away losses. I knit a row for every game, the color depending on where the game was and the outcome. So I've been keeping track of wins and losses since April, but I didn't start the sweater until late August. #procrastination I'm still in August on the sweater...but I've been catching up!

The last bit of news is, I got my own, very first cell phone!!!! And not just any phone, a smartphone. I'm the first person in my family to get a smartphone. It came in the mail on Saturday morning, and I'm sure that the younger kids will tell you that I've been glued to it ever since... Though I can list several times I wasn't on it. Playing volleyball at Kylee's birthday party, sleeping, church, mealtimes, work, co-op classes...to name a few.

This is my first blog post written up on my phone! It's a celebration...

To Mary Ann

Today we celebrate twelve years of Mary Ann's life. Twelve beautiful years that I have been super blessed and happy to experience with her. I'm so, so thankful that God chose to spare her life and give her to us. She is such a joy to be around, always bursting with energy! She is very generous and giving, and makes awesome donuts! :) I love how much she reads too. She doesn't really read books; she devours them. My kind of girl.

Happy 12th Birthday Mary Ann!!!

I love you so much!!!!

Thoughts on Love

Somewhat Unrelated Introduction: There's this website called Future Me where you can type up a letter/email and choose a day in the future to send it to. I've done it a few times, sending my future self birthday notes and other random stuff. So the other day I decided to send one three years into the future and just describe what was going on in my life. I thought my future self would probably think it was fun. At the end, I was talking about love and I thought it might be cool to post some of it on here.

According to every romance fiction book I've ever read, I've been in love before. But I wouldn't call it that. I have a pretty high standard for what "being in love" means. Being in love means you'd do anything for someone. I realized the other day that I believe being in love means choosing to love someone, no matter what. And that's encouraging to me. The way I see "true love", if I'm ever in that type of relationship, I already know that love is a choice. I don't have to freak out (as much :) ) about having serious feelings for someone or worry about "falling out of love". Love, in its truest form, is sacrifice. Giving of yourself for others. Jesus said, "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13 ~ ESV) Giving your life to God and then others as he leads you, dying to yourself; that's what love really is.