Sweet Southern Pearl

I can't handle this. How am I supposed to do schoolwork when I live here?!?! It's the most gorgeous day. There's not a cloud in the sky, the leaves are changing, it's a perfect 65ish degrees, and everything just feels so right.  It's Grandma's third birthday in Heaven, and if it's this perfect here, I can't begin to imagine the beauty where she is. I can't celebrate with her anymore, but I can reflect on the fact that I'm so glad I got to know her.  On days like this, HOW can you NOT be happy?! Life is so fabulously wonderful. All of it. The struggles, the triumphs.  I'm so glad I'm here. I'm so grateful to be experiencing this. This place is the past, present, and future. God has blessed me far beyond what I deserve.  I've been blessed to attend two spectacular universities, I've been blessed with the best friends and family I could ask for, the sweetest dog I've ever met, and almost 25 years of l...

"Feeling my way through the darkness, Guided by a beating heart I can't tell where the journey will end, but I know where to start... Life will pass me by if I don't open up my eyes."         I honestly meant to go to bed early. But I'm not tired and I thought about this song and I'm in a writing mood, and I've been meaning to write this post. If I've learned one thing, it's that you should NEVER go to bed when you're in a writing mood. So here it is.     ..............................................   I started going to a group on campus called "New Life." It's a fellowship group.   Last Wednesday at New Life, I heard one of the best messages I've ever heard. I sat and listened, feverishly taking notes on my phone, my fingers flying over the screen as fast as they could.   The speaker asked this question: "Why am I in the wilderness one day and the mountaintop another day?...

  October is upon us! It's the month of leaves changing, pumpkins, hot drinks, leaves, cool air fall candles, pie... all that good stuff.     October always overwhelms me with all of its magic, potential, and glory. October is like the perfect showcase of God's perfect creation .     Today I wore pink pants for breast cancer awareness and my favorite fuzzy orange cardigan because it just screams October. I was excited to see the leaves changing in Boone.   I think it's safe to say that a lot of people share my love of this glorious month, judging by all the Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook posts I saw today, celebrating the day.   Another reason why I love October, too, is because it's my birthday month! (My birthday is the day before Halloween and I'll be 25 this year... that terrrrifies me.)   I'm currently enjoying my new candy corn PJ pants and B&BW pumpkin lotion while working on homework ...

I often find myself worrying about the future - about whether or not I'm doing the right thing right now in order to get to where I'm supposed to be in the future.   Sometimes I worry about things like that til it drives me crazy. It's hard being 20-something! Life is nuts.   But as I was driving Granny to my uncle's house last night for a visit, something seemed to click in my head.   We were on the interstate and SHE was giving me directions on how to get to his house in Greensboro (if you know Granny, you know she doesn't drive outside of High Point and knows nothing about Greensboro).   The song "Y.M.C.A" had come on the radio.   It was a gorgeous fall afternoon.   I was basically driving under the influence because I was in a food coma and thought I was about to fall asleep.   I had planned to do SO many things, but I knew I'd only get a fraction of them done because people are more important than things.   I ...

  Two years ago around this time, one of my worst fears came true.   I had watched Grandma suffer for so long, and I was glad she wasn't suffering anymore, but life without her didn't seem to make sense at all.   From September 18 until September 22nd of that year, life was just a waiting game. She was in a drug-induced coma because apparently that was best and the most peaceful way to go. I don't know.   What I do know is that I've never experienced anything like that. I watched one of my best friends in the world slip from this life to the next. Slowly. Each day that passed we all wondered "will it be today?"   Obviously I couldn't concentrate on school or work or anything. I did what I had to to get by but I spent all my extra time that week at Hospice, sitting with the woman I had admired so much all my life while she slept on and on and on.    I talked to her because they said she could hear me. But it didn't make sense....

    So yesterday was fairly unproductive for me at first. I did however, think back to September 11, 2001 and how scared we all were and how confused the nation was.   When I looked at my Instagram first thing in the morning, I saw the following picture:     Amos 9:11. How utterly awesome is that??? I don't believe in coincidences. God is faithful and God restores. We've come a really long way in the past 12 years.   ........................   I thought about that later in the day as I randomly drove past school, past King Street, and all the way to Tennessee. It was super rainy and dark and hard to drive in Boone, but once I got out of Boone, the sun was shining so brightly (yet still POURING the rain).   Then it just stopped raining and got really sunny. So sunny and so beautiful. God's country. I'd never been that far past Boone before, and it was just so beautiful. (Next time I'll take pictu...

This afternoon I took a break from work and walked to downtown Boone.  I figure I should do that while the weather is still nice enough to do so!   It's so cool to live in a little college town. It's something I've always been fascinated by - little college town life.  Granted, I wouldn't trade anything in the world for my years at HPU, but it's so nice to experience college life in a totally different way.   So walking downtown, I decided to pop into some antique stores. It's like 75 degrees and all the stores downtown have their doors open and it's just so perfect to be in an antique store and feel a breeze coming in through the door and travel back in time for a bit with songs like "Brown Eyed Girl" playing while you peruse through vintage items. ((And is it okay to say that I just LOVE seeing elderly people in Boone?????))     It used to be that when I thought of Appalachian, I thought of my mom going here, which made me th...