It's July

In case you weren't aware. Or you just slept through the past few days (which doesn't sound like such a bad idea...) I feel like just saying this makes me sound old, but this year is flying by! The new residents started this week so work has been interesting... It actually hasn't been too bad. I think with the new schedule and job description, I haven't been on the front line with the residents as much but this week has definitely been a different pace than the past few!

I feel like I always get sentimental in July. It's my birthday month so I start thinking about getting older and reflecting on the past year and how I've grown and where I want to be moving forward. The year is also halfway over so I've been doing some thinking on 2018 and taking a look back at some resolutions to see how I'm doing with those. I also just now realized that I never did a post about my 2018 New Year's Resolutions. That's the first time in a while. Oops!

So here they are (and how I'm doing with them)

1. Run 365 miles. It's just a mile a day. It doesn't seem that hard, right? Ha! I started the year off pretty strong. I was running fairly regularly and doing alright. Then my schedule changed and it got harder to find time to run. Then summer came and it's already like 90 degrees at 5am and running became even more of a challenge. I'm currently at 112 miles (I technically should be at about 190 right now), but I'm still planning to finish this. I've forced myself to start running again. I tell myself that if I can at least run a few miles right now then it will only get easier as the weather cools down, right? And I signed up for the road race series again so that will help me a lot! As of now, I need to run 42 miles every month to finish it. Here goes nothing!

2. Read through the Bible. I'll be honest. I am failing at this. Miserably! Wow. It's bad. There are still 6 months left. I might be able to redeem it...

3. Weekly date night. Umm, I'll give us a solid B on this one. The rules were that we had date night once a week where we actually get out of the house and do something fun. I'm an introvert and especially after working all day, it's really easy to just hang out in sweats around the house but we wanted to start this early before life gets busy and other things get in the way so we're working on it.

4. Pay off one student loan. I started 2018 with 2 loans left to go and I have officially paid off one of them! My real goal is to have the other one paid off before I get married, but since I don't actually know when that's going to be it makes it hard to budget but that's the ultimate goal. I would really like to go into a new relationship without lingering debt. Also, I'm just so ready to be finished paying this every month!

5. Read 36 books. 3 per month. Totally doable. Right now, I've already read 29 books. This new schedule is definitely helping with the book reading!

6. Pray daily. Seriously?! Another major fail. I don't know why I am so bad at this, but I'm determined to get better!

7.  Build relationship with my sister. Part of my introversion, and just personality in general, is that I am terrible at relationships! I am just not good at keeping in touch with people. And I hate talking on the phone 90% of the time. At the same time, I really want to have a good relationship with my sister and be close to her so I'm trying to do better about making an effort and actually picking up the phone and calling even when I just want to sit in a corner in silence...

8. Girls group. I'm not just talking about friendships. I'm talking about a solid, life-giving, ask the hard questions kind of group. I have experienced groups like this at various seasons of life and they were so. good. And I desire them so much. I've been praying about it and what exactly it looks like and how to go about embarking on it, but also I'm not good at staying connected so it's hard. See above.

9. Journal weekly. I'm not talking about blogging. I mean actually writing where I put all my thought and feelings and so many emotions on to paper. I want to remember all the things- the good and bad. But, nope. Definitely not. Another fail! I'm getting a little better about it though. I think...

How are you doing with your resolutions? Better than me, I'm sure!

Church Swap

Alright so I'm back to searching for a church... I left my last church in search of community and first talked about finding a church back in 2015. It has been an amazing community. My class and small group have provided me with real, life-giving, intentional relationships and, for that, I am thankful. But I also had some issues... Since I wrote that post last April, I did go to the Exploring Membership class. I was able to ask some questions, but overall I don't think I got the answers that I was looking for- or I did get answers that were a confirmation that this was not where I needed to be. When I was last looking for a church, my first priority was community and as long as they were preaching the gospel then I was content, but the longer that I was there, the more I felt like it was straying from that. I felt as if the gospel was getting watered down and there was more emphasis on political correctness than truth. It just got the point where I couldn't ignore it anymore.

I talked to the boy about it. I told him my reasons for feeling like it wasn't the church for me anymore. He listened and agreed with most of my reasons. And I am grateful for that because I felt very strongly about it and had decided to leave whether he was on board or not. But he supported my decision. After that we sat down and talked about what things we are looking for in a church and what our highest priorities are. It was a good conversation about seeing where we aligned and on which points we differed. But after coming up with our list of priorities, we narrowed down a few churches and have been visiting for the past few months. Our goal is to give each church 4-6 weeks to get a good feel for it. It is a little more difficult with my work schedule. There have been a few weeks where I have been able to sneak away for church and then go back to work afterwards and there have been some weeks where I'm super busy and he's had to go alone. Because of that, we definitely want a place where we both feel comfortable and at home. It's a journey, but I'm excited about it. Pray for us!