i've always been a dog person

Well.. so much for posting every day! It's been 4 days, already I'm a slacker and it's only my second post! Oh well.

So what's new? Honestly, pretty much nothing since the last post. Garrett and I fixed dinner for his family on monday night. We made bratwurst, cream cheese corn and we grilled fruit drizzled in honey for dessert. Yummy! Monday during the day Garrett and I hung out with Lisa (his mom). It's been a while since we've spent time with her and it was a lot of fun. Yesterday I read the book My Sister's Keeper. it was great, but so sad! I want to see the movie now, but I heard the movie is a lot different from the book. I suppose that's pretty normal though. I love reading, but books never last me long. I wish I could space them out, but when I start reading a book and I love it I usually end up reading it in a day or two! I suppose I am a book worm. Yesterday on the way to the grocery store I saw an emaciated (starving) little puppy walking along the side of the road. Of course you all know I have a very strong heart for mistreated animals, so I pulled over. I tried for 5 minutes to coax him to come to me, but he was very skiddish. He must've been on his own for a while, because when dogs are recently put on the street they are very human friendly, but this dog was really scared. He kept backing up until finally he ran into the woods. I felt bad for the poor guy, I would've taken him but he wouldn't come to me. I checked on my way home to see if he was still lurking around but he was gone. Hopefully someone else will find him and take care of him. I love to look at craigslist.com at the pet section and see all the cute puppies that people are giving away. I can't wait until I'll be able to afford a dog. Mom, you should look at craigslist, I saw just this morning someone posting in my area giving away free pureblood german shepherd puppies. They were cute as can be. I'm sure it's the same in Chicago. Most people are either giving them away free or charge a small rehoming fee like $50. it's like petfinder.com on steroids.

Well, I'm about to jump in the shower. Not sure what my plans are for tonight, or the rest of the week for that matter. I think on Saturday we might be going on a day trip to the Biltmore with Lisa's family to do some horseback riding around the grounds and visit the vineyards and gardens and stuff. it'll be fun! Hope all is well with you guys, remember you can leave me comments on my posts and tell me how you're doing!

xox anne marie

blogging?

well, I suppose that as I type these words I am officially becoming a "blogger". what is a blogger? according to dictionary.com that makes me "a person who keeps a Web log (blog) or publish an online diary". I think in other words that makes me "a person with a bunch of random thoughts and facts that she'd like to post on the internet". or maybe even better, "a person who doesn't always do the best job of keeping in touch with family and friends so she is going to start keeping a public journal that others can use to keep in touch with her life". that sounds most accurate. so what does that mean for me? well, I'm hoping to be a diligent blogger and post often.. (I'm hoping every day but I can't make any promises). what will be really neat is that I have my new iphone now, and apparently there are all sorts of applications that let me blog from my iphone, even photo blog! (as in, take a picture from my phone and upload it right then onto my blog, pretty neat huh?). so what does that mean for you? well, hopefully, that means you guys can come here and read all about my life and what I'm doing!

I suppose this is the point where I update you all on my life! well, the other day I went to meet with a family that I will be nannying for come september! it will be approximately 3-4 days per week and the girls are just adorable. they are 3 and 7, and their names are Madison and MacKenzie (or maybe McKenzie? not sure of the spelling). as I mentioned earlier, Garrett and I just switched to AT&T and got iphones. mine was an early birthday present. it is quite possibly the coolest piece of technology available at the moment. I am pretty confident that it will completely take over the cell phone market soon. it was only $99 for my iphone, and it has endless possibilities. I can't believe something so neat was so cheap. I have an application called Shazam, and what it does is whenever I hear a song that I like but I don't know what it's called or who it is by, I just open this program, let it listen to the song for about 15 seconds, and it will analyze the song and tell me the Artist and Title. isn't that insane? the iphone can do all sorts of other crazy things like that, like there is another application that lets you take a picture of a barcode on absolutely any product, and it will find that product and give you all of the information on that product and the prices and where it's sold and all. isn't that absolutely insane? it is one of the most sophisticated and advanced pieces of technology on the market right now, for sure. I would recommend it to anyone. anyway, what else? Garrett and I went to a goodbye party last night for our friend Brenda. she is moving to Brazil to teach for two years! how neat! I am really excited for her, but we'll miss her! it's only three weeks till I come home! can't wait to see everyone! I am so excited that Lisa (Garrett's mom) will be coming for the wedding. I can't wait for her to see Northfield and Chicago and where I grew up! and I can't wait for everyone to meet her.. mom, Ally, Evan and Alek are the only ones who have met her. well I guess that's pretty much the news that I have for now. I am excited to be doing this blog and I hope you all will enjoy reading it! I'm not the most exciting person, but hey, I try! =]

I've been falling short on a few things lately. most of all, being on my knees. prayer. I know I don't do it enough. I don't spend that all important time with God every day. I pray before every meal and I pray before I sleep but it should be way more than that. it's become a chore to me, instead of the amazing gift and privelege that it is, being able to have a personal relationship with my God. what a blessing! that I can sit down and talk directly to God. and it's only through Jesus Christ that I am able to do that, the High Priest. he is the bridge between God and I and I should be absolutely grateful and joyful and excited that I get to come before God on me knees and speak directly to Him. so that is something I really need to work on. because it is the most powerful tool that God has ever given us, the ability to pray. people so often underestimate the power of prayer.

speaking of prayer, I will have a separate post coming dedicated to my Boston missions trip. there is too much to say about it to have it as a small feature in this post, it deserves its own. I have pictures and all! all I will say about it right now is that it was one of the most incredible weeks of my life. I know that God is calling me to Boston, and I learned on the trip (most of which consisted of long long times of prayer) that what is most important is having the humility to leave everything behind, get on your knees, and cry out to God. we know from that Bible (1 John), that if we ask anything according to God's will, He will hear us. pretty amazing stuff.

what's coming in the next few weeks for me? not too much. excited to start my job in september. depending on how much I end up working per week, I am considering looking for another part time job. we'll just see how it goes. I am about to start doing a discipleship with my pastor's wife Liz, and I am super excited about that. to put it in plain terms, it's basically like a one on one bible study.. sort of.

well I think this post has been sufficiently long! I hope that you guys will enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. and hopefully this will turn out to be as neat as I've imagined it to be, and a really good way for you all to keep in touch with my life here in Charlotte!

xoxo,

Anne Marie