journal

support.

2012-08-02T01:51:04Z

As of 9 p.m. tonight, Ryan's support is DONE. :-) his deadline was midnight and he needed three percent when we got home from Muncie earlier. The Lord has such perfect timing even when Ryan wasn't sure where it was going to come from. :-) so thankful for him to be done because it means we can hang out before he leaves!

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luminate @ 2012-07-28T23:46:00

2012-07-29T03:46:57Z

The tears are already starting for Ryan's departure in August. I cried all the way home from Ben and Chrissy's apartment tonight. I am not sure I am going to take this distance well this year.

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luminate @ 2012-01-04T06:58:00

2012-01-04T11:58:18Z

Yesterday was our first day back with students. We didn't get a lot of time during our "work day" on Monday to actually work. We spent three hours talking about this new evaluation system the state is looking to implement next year. A lot of teachers were really frustrated because we could have used that time in our classrooms.

Being with the kids yesterday wasn't too bad. A lot of my classes brought me new students so that will take some getting used to, but it should be okay. :) I am still adjusting to my new schedule but I should end up liking it. I have prep 3rd period and then I am done after 6th period now (instead of after 5th).

I feel very stressed getting these classes started just because I am not quite sure what I want to begin with, but after this week should be better for the two classes I had last semester.

I just don't want to bring anything home this week since Ryan is still in town, so I didn't. :) I just hung out with him, fell asleep for a half hour after dinner and watched the Sugar Bowl game with him since Michigan was playing last night.

I was freezing when I went to bed (ie teeth chattering) and he brought his new Packers blanket in for me to put over me under the covers to keep warm. :) that was sweet. I got warm quickly and woke up all snuggly in my bed.

But today I am tired and would like to stay home and sleep. I keep getting tempted to request Friday off. But I am trying to withhold to use the day when I could really use a mental health day later this semester.

Hope you are all having great weeks so far! :)

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luminate @ 2011-11-23T07:05:00

2011-11-23T12:05:25Z

This new LJApp won't let me comment and that is frustrating! Sometimes I don't have time to get online on my laptop but have a few minutes somewhere to read your entries. Hopefully they will figure out the mistake and fix it soon.

Today is my last day of school for the week and I am thankful for that! It should be a pretty easy day, which I am also thankful for.

Ryan got home yesterday afternoon while I was at work and it was so awesome to see him here when I got back. It was weird too, after not seeing him for so long but nothing a big hug didn't cure ;) last night Ryan, our friend Brittany and her brother Ryan (one of my Ryan's best friends) and their friend Dennis went to dinner in Muncie last night at Applebee's. It was good and we had a lot of fun. Ryan and I came home and just hung out watching television.

Tonight he is going to the ball state basketball game and I haven't decided what I am going to do. He will leave at 5 tonight and the game starts at 7. I might have a me night - haven't had time to just do nothing and that sounds awesome. :)

Hope you guys have an amazing weekend with family. :)

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luminate @ 2011-11-09T19:52:00

2011-11-10T00:52:40Z

Tonight I am just having one of those nights where I feel completely overwhelmed. I don't even know why. Just having doubts about myself as a teacher, I suppose.

It is frustrating that I probably feel this way once a week. I think it's mostly when I start working on plans for the upcoming week. I just want to do more with my students who are reading a novel but I don't know what else to do with the daily reading than have them answer questions.

I have some assignments in between and I am trying to incorporate more vocabulary into it but I just feel like all my ideas suck haha.

I am also going to start helping with remediation for the ECA test starting next week. It will be extra money but I also realize that I will have to stay after during the week Ryan will be home if I help.

I think I am just tired and moody and need a break. Looking forward to the end of next week! This weekend will be good too. I am making no plans outside of taking my exam saturday. I might try to get lunch with a friend while I am in town for the test but then I am going to relax and try to get ahead on plans.

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luminate @ 2011-09-04T09:40:00

2011-09-04T13:40:14Z

Another week of school is down, and I am starting to feel a lot better about things in my classroom and my lesson planning. I am starting to really enjoy my academic classes, and I am ready for us to start working on yearbook stuff. I feel like a slacker teacher when it comes to that but our first deadline isn't until April, so I feel like we have plenty of time to get everything done. Plus I am learning along the way, too.

This weekend we celebrated Ryan's birthday. He turned 24 on Friday, and we celebrated with cake and ice cream at his parents' house. His grandparents came over and it was fun. He opened his presents afterward and he got a lot of good stuff. :)

I had gotten him a pair of shorts from Kohls in August, and I told him then that it was part of his birthday present. I also got a game that he asked for.

I took him down to Indianapolis yesterday, and we didn't do anything too fancy like go downtown because we both knew it would be a madhouse with traffic. Our alma mater was playing Indiana University last night at Lucas Oil Stadium, plus the last minor league game of the year was last night. They also had a huge concert at Rib Fest in Indy last night, so we just stayed in the northern part.

We went to Castleton Square Mall first. We had originally went there to look at a guitar for Ryan, but then we ended up spending a lot of time at the mall. We saw a Borders and it said that there were only 7 more days they'd be open since they are all going out of business. I wish we would have gotten there weeks earlier, but we both got some good stuff.

I got 10 books and a DVD for Ryan that will be a Christmas present for $70. I didn't think that was too bad for bookstore books. I probably won't have time to read them right now, but since I won't be working in the summertime I will have plenty of reading material.

Afterward, we went to have dinner at Applebees. Neither one of us could finish our food, but it was so good. It started raining hard while we were in there, but thankfully that was it.

After dinner, we drove back to Fishers and went to Ben and Ari's, which is an awesome arcade, bowling and mini golf place. Ryan and I have a Groupon we are going to use with his sister and brother in law sometime, but I thought it'd be fun for us. Plus it was only $5 for a game each.

Ryan won, but we had a pretty good time. We accidentally took the wrong way in the course, so we went from hole 6 to hole 10 and didn't notice until we were done with hole 12. :) but we redid it and sometimes we did better when we redid it.

After mini golf, we went to Coldstone for ice cream. Neither one of us had ever been there, so that was fun. I got a scoop of cotton candy and a scoop of cake batter. It was really good but I was still full from dinner. Ryan got a smoothie that he really loved that mixed strawberry, banana and orange juice together. I tried t but there was too much strawberry in it for me.

We drove home and got back around 10:30. Ryan and I ended up having a pretty emotional night, but we are learning how to be better communicators, give space when necessary, and try to be more understanding. It's hard to learn those things when you only see each other for a couple of days once a month, so living at his parents' house together right now is good for us. We are learning a lot.

Last night I said that I think it would help if we thought of the other person as Christ because I don't think we would say or do some of the stupid things we did if we realized that Christ lives in Ryan and me. He agreed and that is what we are focusing on now. He said he wants to stop picking on areas of me that he knows hurts me. Last night the issue started because he just kept making fun of my snoring.

I finally just finally him to tell me something that he was self conscious about so I could do the same to him. He had some pretty harsh words, while sharing what it is that he is self conscious about. We apologized a few minutes later after having some space, realizing how stupid that was. It's just stupid stuff that get us like that and we should be treating each other better than we treat anyone else in our lives.

We are also going to pray more. Neither one of us does it enough, so praying after disagreements or arguments is vital. I still love him, and probably more every time we resolve these conflicts.

Anyway. Everything will be fine. I also started my period which might have to do with all this extra sensitivity. I am also going home today and Ryan may or may not come with me. I am not sure. He was supposed to make a decision for today. I plan to leave after we get done eating lunch after church. I am going to see some friends today and then my mom tomorrow since she is working today.

Hope you all have splendid weekends. :)

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luminate @ 2011-08-29T22:14:00

2011-08-30T02:14:17Z

Just an overall good day after school. I feel very refreshed, which is an amazing feeling. I left school at the end of my prep period today. Since I am not a full contract, my last period is free for me to leave.

I have been getting into the habit of teaching all day and then being completely exhausted when it comes to my prep at the end of the day. So I go home at 2:20 and come back later to work on lesson plans. Benefit to living so close to school.

Tonight I came home and hung out with Ryan until supper then packed up some stuff to go back to school. We had been talking earlier about how we used to go do certain things together. I told him we could go do more fun things together and how I was always the planner. He said it is because I am more creative than him.

I told him when he takes initiative to plan something it makes me feel like he was thinking of me.

I went into school and worked on some stuff. He texted me and asks if I already had a drink from the gas station, as I always do when I am working at school. He asked about a slushy flavor, and he brought me a slushy to have while I worked. I like having him around my classroom but he is a good distraction ;)

I eventually had to send him home because I had to work on plans and I wasnt getting much accomplished. But then when I got home I asked if he wanted to go for a walk, so we went for about a mile walk around town after the sun went down. It was so fun and I just enjoyed that quiet time with him.

I am so thankful to be close now. Although I miss being able to miss him, being able to see him every day trumps that a million times. I miss him while I am at school and can't wait to get home to see him.

This is such a beautiful thing. I am so blessed in so many ways. God is gracious when I am so undeserving.

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luminate @ 2011-08-29T13:54:00

2011-08-29T17:54:13Z

In one of my classes we are reading a book of poems that a fictional character named Lonnie wrote. He's given me a chance to get to know the students through their responses to the literature, and this one girl critiqued a poem called "God Poem."

She wrote:
"I am not too excited about the 'God Poem.' I do not believe in God. God is never going to show himself because he is not real. I know a lot of people who believe in God and we are still friends but God is not for me."

Breaks my heart. I am committed to praying for her, along with my other students.

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luminate @ 2011-08-13T09:05:00

2011-08-13T13:05:39Z

Ryan is so adorable. :) last night before bed, I laid down and he came back into my room and tucked in the sides of the comforter. Then he was going to leave and I said, "well aren't you going to read me a bedtime story?" So he started telling me the story of God, Adam and Eve. He went all the way through to Jesus, and I was dozing in and it. All I knew was when he was done, I jut thought he is an amazing man.

He dealt with my crazy last night too. I don't know what issues I was having but I was really pessimistic and just didn't want to be touched. Part of that as because my stomach was hurting really badly and I didn't feel that he was being sympathetic. But he apologized, saying he didn't realize how bad it was and he wants to cure all my problems some day. It was cute. But I told him I had no idea what was going on with me and he just needed to learn to deal with my crazy haha.

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luminate @ 2011-06-10T23:58:00

2011-06-11T03:58:30Z

Hi friends! I made it to Myrtle Beach safely on Tuesday and things are going great so far! I love the students who God brought here and I am glad he has decided to use me to help teach them and train them for their future careers as teachers.

I did lead my first person to Christ yesterday when we went out on the beach to evangelize. It was a 15 year old girl. I truly hope she understands the commitment and relationship she entered into yesterday. She was awfully quiet and didn't ask many questions. But she said she wanted to have Christ as the center of the life so she prayed with me to receive Christ. :) it was humbling that although we are sinners, God still chooses to use us to spread the gospel. There was another girl who said she wanted to move from a life of living for herself and live for Christ, so she said she'd go back to her room and pray on her own. Just a very encouraging time of evangelism and I felt so happy coming in from the beach. Praise God.

We begin preparing for the high school student conference tomorrow and then the busyness begins. Be praying for us for preparation and the students we will be discipling this week

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luminate @ 2011-04-16T23:54:00

2011-04-17T03:54:39Z

I was productive with my time today. I got up at nine, got online for a while, and around ten I decided it was time for me to get clothes on and head to Starbucks to get some work done. I found a third job I wanted to apply for last night, so I had three job applications/job packets to work on today. I went to Starbucks, had coffee, and did not really get started on anything until noon. I wrote my cover letter and tweaked my resume for a Christian academy who is looking for an English teacher. I'm pretty excited about this opportunity!

The second application I filled out is for a school looking for a learning lab director. I think this would be a great opportunity as well, and it would definitely go along with the areas of interest and licensure that I have. However, the problem is that my friend Jincy works there as an instructional assistant right now. She applied for a different job closer to where she lives, so it might not be an issue at all. But I just would not feel comfortable being the director of a lab that she works in.

The perk to that job is that the assistant principal at the high school was my English teacher junior year of high school. She was working on her administration license whenever I was in high school, and I actually wrote a story for the school newspaper about it. She also helped me get a tutoring job and chose me over all the other kids in the class. I think this is a really great advantage, and her name was listed as the contact person for the position. Jincy said she interacts with her every day (I asked her about the woman whenever I saw it) and she is the one that fought for her to keep her job while she was in patient therapy this year.

Anyway - fun and exciting stuff! :) My friend is reading over my cover letter for the teaching position, and hopefully I'll be able to email that on Monday so all my stuff is submitted. I have another job that I'm looking at for a student life counselor, which I think would be pretty perfect, too. I'd be a live-in counselor for gifted and talented juniors and seniors. It'd pay for my room and board, I'd get paid a salary, and I'd have insurance, benefits and retirement. I'm not sure what the salary compensation is, but it said it was competitive. I am working on getting my reference letters together for that right now, and we'll see what comes of that.

I'm really excited about the prospects of whatever God has for me. I'll laugh if they all work out and I have to decide - it'd be really hard! But I'm trusting God for my future and just living in the peace he's giving me each day.

Otherwise - Ryan is gone this weekend to Intern Kickoff Weekend. He has been accepted to INTERN next year with Campus Crusade for Christ at Northern Illinois University and I'm so proud of him! :) This is an answer to prayer! He called me today and gave me the phone spiel that they ask them all to do before they leave the conference so we're going to "talk" about Crusade stuff when we hang out next. I've already decided how much I'm going to give to him monthly, and it's going to be a huge faith step. I really want to trust God with my finances in a huge way this year, and this is the first step!

I also had some good time with God today, and "Fireproof" came in the mail from Netflix today ... which I watched after I hung out with Kalee at her house after I left Starbucks. Quite the tearjerker, but it is so good! :)

Hope you all had a great weekend! :)

luminate @ 2010-02-23T22:06:00

2010-02-24T03:06:45Z

I had a great weekend.

I finished my application for interning with Student Venture next year. I sent it out yesterday, so they should be getting it tomorrow or Thursday. I did it, so now it's up to God what happens. I assume I'll get an email or a phone call relatively soon about it.

I sent out letters to people who I thought might support me for my trip to Panama City Beach for spring break. I'm trying to go Big Break through Campus Crusade, so I'd spend my break sharing the Gospel with people on the beach. It'd be a great experience, but I'm waiting to hear back from those I sent letters to. I would like to see all the money come in by March 3 to make sure I have it all, but I finished up registration today. No backing out now. My parents sent me a $75 check today, and I'm going to guess my grandparents will send me something as well.

Friday afternoon I came home from work and jumped in the shower to get ready for date night with Ryan. He ended up coming over around 4, and he came with pink and red tulips and milk chocolate pretzels. It was super cute. :-)

Luckily I had a vase full of fake flowers already, so I was able to throw those into a vase before we went to dinner. We both got changed and got ready for dinner. He gave me stipulations, though: I had to keep my eyes closed the entire way to the restaurant so I wouldn't know where we were going until we got there. He was trying to be creative, and it was really cute. But I kinda figured we'd be going to Outback since we had went to Applebee's the week before, and I was right. It was still adorable because he was driving all sorts of ways to try to throw me off the path.

He ended up ordering some peanut butter pie, and I had a couple bites but I mostly let him have it. He was paying for dinner, and I was thankful for that. He told me that he wanted to bring "Stranger than Fiction" to commemorate our first date, but he had forgotten at home. I just loved how thoughtful he was. Although it wasn't something big and elaborate, it was heartfelt and so thoughtful and meaningful to me. :-)

He ended up leaving early because he had promised his friend Ryan that he'd take him to Carter's Hot Dogs (guy with a hot dog stand who comes out about midnight every night in our village at school) because he'd never been there. I ended up going to the Heorot (a bar downtown) with some friends. It was the first time I'd ever been in a bar, and I'm not sure it's somewhere that's exactly my scene, haha. But it was cool. I had a woodchuck with raspberry schnapps or something like that. It was okay for being liquor. :-) Not a huge fan, but it was definitely drinkable for me.

Saturday night was the night I got to plan. I had made him a book, and since we took a bunch of funny photos on Friday night, I put those on the last page and tied it all together. You can check it out here if you're interested: http://annolder.iweb.bsu.edu/anniversary.pdf

But he came over around 5:30, and I had him go through the book and look at everything. I left him when he got to the last page, which was a letter to him. He ran in the bathroom and just hugged me. I guess he liked it ;-) But I was glad that I could do something fun for him. I also surprised him with dinner and dessert at Ivanhoe's: http://www.ivanhoes.info

It's this wonderful little place in Upland, IN. Nothing else is there except Taylor University and Ivanhoe's. Their food is terrific and they have 100 flavors of shakes and 100 flavors of sundaes. Plus all sorts of other ice cream. So tasty.

But we got halfway there and he realized where we were going, but I had him going for a while! We had a lot of fun traveling together, listening to music and I was able to treat him to dinner, which was nice. We came back to my house, and we popped in "Accepted" and I kinda dozed off a little while we were watching it ... but it was nice just cuddling with him and being together. I had missed those extended date nights a lot. Wonderful way to celebrate our anniversary.

Yesterday when he came over, I ended up letting him take my stuffed cow home with him. He gave me a teddy bear for Valentine's day with some chocolates, so I have him to snuggle with now. But the cow was the thing he was supposed to take with him to Chicago, and we both kinda forgot when he left my apartment last year. But he told me last night that it'll remind him even more of me since he'll be in his room all the time.

Here's to another beautiful year together. :-) I'm ready to tackle it together!

luminate @ 2010-01-04T11:24:00

2010-01-04T16:24:40Z

Ryan and I have been struggling with feeling as though God might be pulling us in two different directions. If you guys could be praying that God can just be reaffirming in our minds that we're meant to be together right now, I'd love that. :) It's just really hard after the conference when it was confirmed for both of us that we want to do at least of ministry after graduation (2010-2011 for me, 2011-2012 for him) and it's stressful for us because we do love each other very much but this calling is putting a bridge between us. This is terrible because God should be bringing us closer together, and I have a sneaky suspicion that Satan is under attack right now against the two of us at the same Achilles heel - our relationship.

We're going to get together and talk when he gets back from Chicago. He said he was very scared last night that we're being called in two different directions, and I told him that I rather talk about this whenever he gets home from his trip instead of over texting. Things are going to be fine and I know that we can get through this trial because we do love each other. I also think it's so sweet and reaffirming to me that we care about each other so much because we're scared of the potential of what could happen - that's reaffirming that we want this to work out. :) God will provide!

I'm back at my house at school, so it's going to be a fun week of just chilling and getting ready for this upcoming semester.

Daily Tweets

2008-11-24T18:30:46Z

15:36 Going to work a four-hour workshop on how to use RapidWeaver. #
19:48 @raustill you could quit, you know ;) #
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