fill your bucket

Midterms have hit my schedule. It was inevitable, but that still doesn't mean I'm happy about it. As important as school is, the Lord has just given me such a peace about doing the best I can and just leaving it at that. Yes, studying is important, but so is enjoying His creation and investing in relationships that have much more of an eternal value than one single test ever will.

There is a lovely little didactic children's book about "filling your bucket" which explains the effects of praise and criticism. We all have an invisible bucket over our heads filled with water; do something good, your bucket is filled a little bit more; do something not so good, some water is spilled. I like to view life the same way. Sometimes I just need to fill my own bucket, whether that's merely opening my window to let the breeze in (or blowing some bubbles in my chocolate milk) or something bigger, like encouraging a fellow believer to remain planted in the middle of God's will.

My goal is not only to end my days with a full bucket, but also to fill someone else's bucket, too.

Singles Awareness Day

I've been saving this recipe for quite some time! Good ole Martha has done it again. Hill has declared that these are her favorite cookies so far. (But that's not saying much because I messed up some chocolate chocolate chip cookies earlier and the peanut butter nutella ones were less than desirable.)

I Don't Want to Grow Up

I begrudgingly turned 20 years old yesterday.

As much as I didn’t want to face being two decades old, it was a pretty delightful day. I woke up to my favorite breakfast in the entire world— chocolate glazed Krispy Kreme doughnuts and chocolate milk.

Then, I was supposed to meet sweet Cierra for a long overdue lunch at Taziki’s, but was instead greeted there with a surprise birthday lunch with not only with her, but Becky, Mary Beth, and Meagan! How precious to spend time with all of them together! Such a rare and beautiful occasion! (I wish we had thought to take picture together!)

I came home and played with my new sewing machine (thanks Mom and Dad!), fished out all of the sewing tutorials I’ve been bookmarking for ages, and finished up some homework (not most people’s idea of a happy birthday, but I relished the chance for uninterrupted time to catch up on work).

Daddy and I went to Twenty-Six for dinner before another birthday present— tickets to see Bill Cosby’s stand-up comedy show. (Sewing machine, Bill Cosby tickets… I need to multiply my age by at least 4.)

After that, I came home and crawled in the bed to watch Murder, She Wrote and fell fast asleep.

20, maybe you won’t be so bad after all.