rejoicing

"But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by His grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life."

Titus 3:4-7

I have SO much to talk about after a busy and hectic weekend at home!

Thursday night, I took the boys out to Stevie B’s, the worst/best pizza buffet out there.  They decided to get creative and make Pizza Jenga:

(obviously...)

Friday I just hung out with the fam and we celebrated Banks’ birthday (sort of...) at the always-delicious La Parilla.  The wait staff sang to him and made him wear a hat and he secretly loved it:

Saturday afternoon was so much fun.  I got to see some precious friends from high school and dye eggs all day long!  I took WAY too many pictures (the rest are on Facebook), so here are just a few:

Saturday night was a blast because we celebrated Banks’ birthday (for real this time!) at Longhorn with the entire Martin clan present:

he was getting really into it...

we love each other

Sunday, of course, was glorious glorious Easter! I love being home for Easter and flowering the cross is one of my favorite traditions.

Then, the Allreds and Koronkowskis came over for brunch in the backyard and it was absolutely beautiful.  I took far too many pictures, so you can see them all on Facebook if you’re just dying to see all 83 of them! 

this is my favorite!

I am so blessed to be surrounded by such a pretty back yard because Easter is such a pretty reminder of renewal and rebirth.  This month I felt like I could really use a few “do overs” and Easter is a great time to remember that Jesus died for our “do overs” and that we are drowning in his love and mercy and I am SO thankful for that!

Happy Easter!!

therapy

"All hard work brings a profit..."

Proverbs  14:23a

My therapy is cleaning.  It kind of always has been, but I cannot function if my "space" (whatever that is...) isn't clean and organized.  Spent a solid 3 hours cleaning out my room this week in Tuscaloosa so that I could bring it home in stages back to Marietta since I'll be here all summer.

After fully stuffing my car, my room looks exactly the same.  How did I remove all of that junk and still have a ton of stuff left in my room?!

My very sweet brothers helped me unload my car tonight and they dumped it all on my bed:

(you probably can't tell from this picture, but the stuff c-o-v-e-r-s the bed...)

How in the WORLD do I have that much stuff?!

Anyways, I'm currently working on getting all of it put away.  Good thing I have 2 more trips back home before summer officially starts.

Speaking of: I only have 8 more classes until summer starts, praise the Lord!

here goes nothing...

I have attempted to write a blog like 928742 times before (and realistically, I mean twice).

I'm hoping that by sharing this with more people I can help keep myself accountable to keep this thing updated and relevant to me and to readers.

I wanted to start restart a blog for a few reasons:

1) I had an English professor tell me this semester that I am very creative and that I am a very good writer but I have trouble combining the two.  So, I'm essentially taking the first step to "creative writing" since I'm an English Education major.

2) I have been struggling lately with self image.  I am not "overweight" and I am not "ugly" but for some reason, it's really been an issue for me in the past month or so.  I have been struggling to find the balance between these two Bible verses:

"I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; 

your works are wonderful, I know that full well."

Psalm 139:14

"Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, Who is in you, 

Whom you have received from God? ... So use every part of your 

body to give glory back to God..."  

1 Corinthians 6:19-20

I need to reach the point where I recognize that God has made me a beautiful woman but because I was made by Him and for Him, I need to respect my body by taking care of it!  My goal is to lose 15 lbs. by August 1st and I am fully confident that I can do it!

3) I really like sharing stories and most of all sharing pictures so I really look forward to expressing myself through writing- it's certainly a new challenge and I'm excited about it!