Just so you know...

Just so you know... (a collection of random thoughts for this moment in time)

*It is an absolutely beautiful day.  I had girls night last night with a few of my favorite people.  Went to bed happy.  Woke up happy.  Listened to some great music by my friend Derek to start off my day.  The weahter, the mood, everything just seems right for this small moment in time.

*I hung out with a {quite sassy} four year old all weekend.  Though it provided some challenges it also made my heart ache for the time when I will get to be a mommy.

*I got my nails done last night {what can I say I am weak against peer pressure and it was a girls night thing}.  While I love that they are sparkly I think they are a little too long.  I do wish I could grow my own strong healthy nails.  *Oh and on a side note when I have acrylic nails I tap them together all the time and I am absolutely assured that it drives people crazy...but I just can't help it!*

*I am looking forward to next week a ton because I will get to see my friend!  Yay!

*I really REALLY want hot chocolate.

*No one showed up for Sunday School today and I'm sad because I really wanted to do the activity I planned...but now I have to wait until next week. 

*I have this friend who I haven't talked to in a really long time and all week I have thought about this person.  Missing people can be such a horrible feeling.  I don't know how to convince my heart to let go and move forward.

*I spend so much time drawing plans and "shopping" for my dream house and my dream church and my dream classroom that I think I should have been an architect or a designer. 

Have a great Sunday!

What I'm Reading Lately

I love reading.  There is a book I read to my students where the kid spends the night in the library and he says "Surrounded by books I feel happy and rich."  I get that.  I love being able to escape into a book.  To find a world other than mine.  It inspires me to think, create and write.  It makes me feel relieved to be able to get lost in a book.  One of my goals on my list for 2012 is to read 50 books.  I originally was going to start with my standby old favorite To Kill a Mockingbird.  However it seems to have been misplaced since the move.  I had to revise the plan.  Here are my thoughts on the first three books I have read this year. 

 Image from Google

Book One:: The Christian Atheist by Craig Groeschel

Most of the books I read are fiction and in no way change or shape my thinking.  They are merely an escape or something to exercise my mind.  This one however is different.  This book was suggested to me by my pastor friend.  He could not have been more right when he said he thought I would find it helpful.  This books puts a lot of things into words that I think a lot of people already feel anyways.  A lot of the questions that he poses affect most of the people I know.  There was a chapter about when you believe in God, but don't believe that you can change or that God can help you change.  This chapter was intense for me.  I find myself falling into that pattern of thinking so much.  Saying well this is just the way I am.  It was challenging and made me think.  I am going to be processing this for a long time.

Book Two:: The Hunger Games and Book Three:: Catching Fire

I loved both of these books and highly recommend them.  I can't wait to read the third and last book.  They also made me think but in a totally different not life altering way.  :)  I find that almost everything can come down to the basic battle between good and evil.  These books (in case you haven't heard) are set in a futuristic society where life is controlled by The Capitol.  It is pretty much totally unfathomable to me to think that our world could ever be like that.  Both of these books are packed with action and unexpected things.  They leave you needing to read the next chapter and then when the book is over they leave you needing to read the next book.  As soon as my roomate gets done with Mocking Jay I will be reading it and adding it to my list. 

So, three books down.  47 more to go.  I will keep you updated and informed as I go.  Hope you can read some of these books too and then I will have someone to talk to about them!

To Begin Again

Clearly I'm not so great at this blogging thing.  I think of tons of things to write about but then I find reasons not to do it.  I guess one could say it's good because I'm keeping busy.  But it's a new year.  I have new goals.  I have several friends who think there is nothing special about the new year.  They see no reason to mark it as an occasion and find the celebrations simply ridiculous.  To some it is merely a passage of time.  I, however, find it important to mark that passage of time.  I like to remember where I have been and where I am headed.  I am thankful for the things I have learned and I anticipate the future.  Reflections come easy at this time of year.

I do much better with goals than with resolutions.  And they are not even huge goals.  It is actually just a list of things I want to accomplish or do in 2012.  Right now there are 8 things on my list...which is totally attainable.  I figure it's a good place to start.  Basically my list is about finding simplicity.  Continuing to extinguish my hoarder tendencies and squelch the desire to be lazy and complacent.  I have mentioned before that I want to learn to do things.  My mother sometimes says I was born in the wrong era because I want to bake bread and cook with cast iron and be "OLD FASHIONED".  Really I just want to have the knowledge and skill that will allow me to build the kind of life I want to have.  A life I can be happy in and can be proud of.  So here is my list...

1. Fit into my favorite jeans.  They are currently exactly two sizes too small.  It is a small goal compared to some health goals I have heard the past few days...but it is one that I am confident will be a great starting point.

2. Complete a Pinterest project.  I have pinned so many things and thought of so many ideas...but I have not done any of them.  So lame.  So on my list is to complete a project from Pinterest.  After completing one maybe I will be motivated to do more!!

3. Memorize 24 scriptures.  That equals an average of 2 a month.  I tried to do this once before and became too absorbed in the required time frame of it to allow myself freedom and flexibility.  So I am trying again.  And I already picked out my first scripture.  It's actually the one I taught in Sunday School yesterday...2 Corinthians 5:17.

4. Finish a 5k.  Walking it is my goal for now.  Who knows...maybe someday I will run part of it.  I mean, I have been training for this since September...so it's only right it should be on my list.  It may take me hours to complete but I will finish!!

5. Make a t-shirt quilt.  This goes along with learning skills...I don't know how to use a sewing machine.  My Junior High and High School Home Economics teachers would be so disappointed to see that.  I just never really put forth the effort to learn that skill in a way that I would remember it and be good at it.  So I have watched one tutorial already and have found some more.  And Lord knows I have enough t-shirt to make a couple quilts!!

6. Bake bread.  From scratch.  Enough said.

7. Plant a garden.  If my landlord agrees I will do this in the yard of the new house I moved into a month or so ago.  (By the way for those who didn't know I moved!)  If not I will plant a garden at my parents' farm and just drive there to check on it every day!

8. Read 50 books.  That seems like a lot.  This is the goal I am not quite so sure about.  I think I can do it since I read a lot, but I have never stopped to think about how many books I have read in a year.  I am starting with a book I have read before which may be kind of cheating...but the other 49 will be new to me books.  On my list are the books of The Hunger Games series, The City of Embers series and Soul Cravings.  Maybe my friend Kate can teach me how to put a tracker thing on here so I can keep track with you the number of books I've read!  :)

So that's it.  My list so far.  I am sure I will add more things as I go.  But they will be carefully thought out things.  Things that didn't make "the list" but that I am also hoping for are blogging more, sending more mail to people "just because", cleaning out my storage building, having a garage sale, organizing my pictures and starting a scrapbook, doing something great for my parents' 40th anniversary, leading a Bible study, going back to Joplin and visiting more state capitals.

Today I will enjoy my last day of vacation.  My awesome parents are coming over for lunch.  I am reading.  I am watching a movie.  Tonight I will hang out with my great roomate.  And tomorrow I will go back to work keeping my goals in mind.  I will keep moving forward because going back is not an option.

Thirty Days of Thankfulness

So it's November.  Where does the time go?  I often find myself pondering over how quickly time goes by.  I recently heard someone say "Don't spend your whole life waiting for your whole life to start." and oh how true that is!  So, last fall I did this challenge called Thirty Days of Thankfulness.  The point is to think about something you are thankful for each day of November.  I really enjoy doing this challenge because it reminds me of all that God has given me.  He has blessed my life so much.  I have decided this year I would also like to allow myself time to reflect on what each of those things I'm thankful for says about my Savior!!  I will not blog every single day due to practicality, but I will try to on some days at least.  It gives me a reason to blog I guess.  So here is what it says on my Facebook as my thankful statment for today...

Tracy Leigh Huffman

‎30 Days of Thankfulness-Day 1::Today I am thankful for my girls. In conversations with my mom we often refer to them as "the bridesmaids" because if I ever get married they will be the girls who deal with my crazy side!! Thanks for being the best friends I could ever imagine...I would be lost without you all and that's for sure! Mandy Harris Alisa Van Zante Charline Copenhaver Jamie Kropf and Leslie Ricketts (@Philip Ricketts).

I love them! Jamie and Leslie are not in this picture because it's impossible to get us all in the same place at the same time.  This picture was taken in the summer and it was hot outside and we are not loving the way we look in this picture...but we were having fun.  Actually I believe at the moment we were laughing at Mandy and her inability to take a normal looking picture. 

My friends amaze me.  But here's the God part...guess what...IT'S NOT ABOUT ME!!  It's so hard to remember that things are not about me sometimes.  You would think in friendships it's easy to think of the other person.  But that's not always true.  When someone asks why these ladies are my best friends I would rattle off a list of reasons about how they are always there for me and how they listen to my problems.  I want to be the kind of person who thinks about what I can do for my friends, not what they can do for me.  I also want them to know without question or hesitation that I love Jesus and Jesus loves them (and me)!  And even that is not about me.  It's not really about them either.  It's about Jesus.  He allows us to have friendships with people to strengthen and bless us.  He desires for us to do life together.  He desires us to work together to find a way to bring glory to His name.  How lovely it is when you find friendships that do just that. 

I am forever thankful for the gift that God has given me in the blessing of my friends.  Women who love me and love the Lord and will bring me back to reality when I need it.  Women who encourage me to strive for excellence because our God is not a God of mediocrity.  How beautiful the gift of friendship.  I truly am thankful for them. 

Two Month Vacation

Wow.  Time away from a computer is a strange thing.  So after my computer crashed this summer I could have gone to the library and posted things.  Or made more of an effort to post things from my parents' house.  (Which is where I actually currently am located.)  But truthfully I kind of enjoyed the silence from technology.  It gave me time to think and read and plan.  I worked a lot on plans for a Halloween party and a Christmas Tea.  I got both of those fully planned out and I am happy to tell you that I am now a successful party planner.  It was strange to plan a party for someone else...and actually get paid for it.  It was fun though.  Really fun.  I tell you what...planning a Halloween celebration like that one made my plans for the evening seem really boring though!  So anyways, now that I have decided to write again I hope to do so more regularly.  We'll see how that goes!

Some big news in my life is that I am training for a 5K.  That will not come as a surprise to some of you since I posted it on Facebook.  But, it's going fairly well.  People keep asking me how I am feeling.  I am thankful that they want to know but I also want to scream "my body feels like it's screaming and my shins are on fire"!!!  I have never been athletic in my life.  Ever.  I played soccer when I was a younger child but it was for fun and I was not really good at it.  I don't run.  I don't really exercise.  I just don't.  So this is hard.  It's really hard.  My shins really do feel like they're on fire.  I have to ice them like every day.  But I also feel good about it.  I feel like I am  making progress.  I may finish last in the particular 5K I am training for, but I will finish because I am determined.  Have you ever run a 5K?  Have you ever felt like you were going to die but knew that something was good for you?  I must push through!!!

Ok...so I guess that's all I have for now.  I am going to a friend's for dinner with her and her family tonight.  A friend who is immensely encouraging.  A friend who I am enjoying learning from.  I am looking forward to it.   Do you have people like that?  I hope so!

Making Pepper Jelly

A few days ago I spent the afternoon with my friend Marie.  She is a lady that I absolutely adore!  Her children range in age from like 8-18 (four boys) and are some of the most well mannered kids I have ever met.  Marie makes homemade pepper jelly every summer with the peppers she grows in her garden.  In case you didn't know this already I am a big fan of pepper jelly.  I sometimes buy the Harry & David kind but not often since I'm poor.  Well...Marie invited me to come spend the afternoon at her house and learn to make pepper jelly.  All she asked me to bring was some jars and some sugar.  She grew all the peppers herself.  And she had the vinegar and pectin.  I came home with ten jars of pepper jelly.  I had so much fun.  I had intended to post pictures but I got so caught up in actually making jelly I forgot to take pictues of us making jelly. 

While we were waiting for the jelly to cool a little Marie told me about how to make other kinds of jelly.  She said if you can make one (and I did in fact make a batch of the pepper jelly) that you can make any kind.  I am excited to try and make some strawberry jam.  I am excited to have a skill that I have always wanted.  I feel like I can make something and give it to people as a gift and they will think I am so cool for knowing how to make this! Ha!  I am such a dork.

So this has me thinking about other things I want to learn to make.  So I am making a list of the things I want to learn to make.  I already have a list of things I want to learn to do.   I will probably post these at a later date.  I am excited that I am learning how to make things from scratch.  Oh, this is a random side note but my grandma gave me a bunch of vegetables from her garden so I am cooking lots of FRESH things this week and that makes me happy too! 

I guess this post was kind of random...but it's all I've got for now!

The Chronicles of Narnia

In March I started reading the Chronicles of Narnia series.  This was the first time I had read these books.  I remember in college I went with a group of friends to see The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.  It was actually a midnight showing and was used as an outreach event to tell people about Jesus.  When the movie was over I said to one of my friends who was with me "That would have been a really cool book."  He looked at me like I was crazy and said "It is a book."  I think I probably said hmm.  I don't know why, but not only had I never read these books, I had never even heard of these books.  So, I decided I would read them.  Then you know how that goes, that plan got put on hold...then I kind of forgot about it.  Then awhile back the whole boxed series showed up in a book order I was sending home with my students.  I decided I would buy the series for myself and finally read them.  I originally thought I could read them all in March.  I probably could have if I had been able to stay focused.  And if I had not decided that was also a good time to read the House of Night series.  So, I just finished the last one on Tuesday night.  Here are my thoughts...

I chose to read the books in the order that they were in when I got them.  I did some research before I started reading because I know there is some dispute as to what order the books should be read in.  Here is how I got them (it was labeled 'Author's Order'):

The Magician's Nephew

The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe

The Horse and His Boy

Prince Caspian

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

The Silver Chair

The Last Battle

I was not really sure about reading The Magician's Nephew first since it was not the first movie.  My only exposure to this series had been the first movie.  I am so glad I started with this book and I am so glad I followed this order in reading the books.  My favorite part about this first book was reading about the founding of Narnia.  It could have been so easy to get lost in the other stuff.  The strange dialect.  The characters who seemed not fully developed in a literary sense.  But then it gets to the part where it talks about the Lion's Song.  About how Aslan himself called Narnia into being.  About everything springing up and being brand new and being like things they had never seen before.  I was in awe.  It was beautiful and inspring and tear jerking.  I wondered a lot about how this compared to the creation of the world. 

The next book-The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe-was all I had expected it to be since I had seen the movie.  However, as it usually is, the book was better.  I usually like to read books first because the amount of detail that is in them that it is just impossible to include in the movie.  I enjoyed reading about all the things I had enjoyed watching.  The shapes that came to life and danced in the fire while Mr. Tumnus first played his song for Lucy, the emotion when he realized what a horrible thing he had done, the despair Edmund felt when he realized he was wrong about the Whtie Witch, the way Aslan spoke and roared and commanded his followers.  It was beautiful.

The Horse and His Boy was an interesting read.  For those of you who are not familiar it is simply a story about an adventure that happens while the children are in Narnia.  It is in the years between when they defeat the White Witch and when they go back through the wardrobe to find that though it had been many years in Narnia (almost a lifetime) it had been only fractions of a second in their own world.  Nothing happened that left me in awe, but this book was a quick and easy read.

Prince Caspian is maybe my favorite of these books.  I loved it so much I have decided I want to name a kid after Prince Caspian.  Caspian is brave and valiant and a gentleman.  He leads his people with ease yet gives respect to Peter the High King.  My favorite part of this book is the description of the battle.  I could literally see this happening like a movie in my head.  Few books pull me in the way this one did.  I love how when Aslan asks Caspian if he is prepared to be the King, Caspian says no and Aslan knows that is exactly what will make him a great King.  Peter and Susan so bravely and willingly walk away from Narnia in this book.  Some may not see it this way, but to me it was about sacrifice.  Peter would have loved to stay in Narnia forever and ever.  But he was willing to leave because he knew that was what Aslan wished. 

After reading Voyage of the Dawn Treader I watched the movie and was so disappointed in the movie.  I could so identify with Eustace.  It is so easy to think that I have it all together.  I love how he talks about being scratched out of the dragon.  He says that it hurt but it was worth it.  I love Reepicheep.  He is so ready to take on any adventure for Aslan.  How many times could we benefit from that example?  To be ready and willing to go into the unknown in pursuit of our God.  This books surprised me in it's descriptions of places.  I enjoyed the adjective rich text.  My favorite part of this story was when Aslan told Lucy she would have to come to know Him by another name in her world.  How profound.

The Silver Chair was one of the hardest for me to read.  It was slow going.  I had a really hard time getting into the book, but once I did I read the last half pretty quickly.  It was a good story about the rescue of Prince Rilian.  It just seemed somehow disconnected from the other books.  And I guess I don't have much more to say about it.

The Last Battle.  Oh how I enjoyed this book.  I was not expecting it to end the way it did.  If you are reading this blog, you MUST read the book.  And when you do I want to hear all about your thoughts.  I don't want to give everything away, but I guess I assume that most people have read this.  The fact that the author refers to the world as "Shadowland" is perfect.  I like that it's talked about how when they go into "Aslan's Country" it is like Narnia and also like their world but somehow better and brighter as if they has been only looking at a reflection.  And as beautiful and awe inspiring as it was to read about the founding of Narnia, it was just as tragic to read about the end of it.  Not at all what I expected, but satisfying. 

So, that said I am now done reading The Chronicles of Narnia.  I am going to start reading the True Blood series next.  Don't think I can pick anything much different from Chronicles of Narnia than that.  I now anxiously await the rest of the movies to come out.  I will be interested to see what movies they make and what movies they don't make and how they do them.  And that is all my thoughts on that!