.turkey.

Unlike a majority of the American population, my family did not have ham for Easter. We aren't really ham-sort of people, so we had turkey. We got back from church and my sister walked in the door claiming that our house smelled "like Great Grandma's house at Thanksgiving". I'm not going to deny it...it really did smell like that, which brings me to the point of this post. Thanksgiving is a day when we thank the Creator for everything that He has blessed us with (sorry to end the sentence with a prepositional phrase...). Other than at Thanksgiving this year, I feel that this Easter I have been especially thankful/reflective of what He has done for me. For the first time in my life, my main occupation (sorry to explode some OT lingo onto the blog) is school; at times this semester, it has completely fallen apart. School has been hard before and I've taken some hard blows with relationships, but during those times I've always had a "back up" occupation to pull me through whatever I'm going through. Not this semester. Grad school leaves little time for outside activities, so when it falls down the tubes, there goes me/my motivation/everything. I've had to cling hard to my faith this semester because at times, it's been the only thing holding me together. There have been a TON of mornings where the only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning is knowing that He is going to get me through the day/the week/the test, etc. It's not the most fun place to be, but I have grown a LOT this semester when all I have left to hold onto is my faith. Knowing that 2000+ years ago, He gave the ultimate sacrifice makes me SO SO thankful that I even have a reason to hold onto something intangible. Without that sacrifice, I don't know how I would be making it through each and every day.

This weekend was awesome. I promised myself to do no homework while I was home, so I left the book bag in Indiana. I thought I just compile a short list of the blessings I experienced this weekend; I suppose this would be an overly obvious example of "making praise a habit", but bear with me. :) Being with home friends and family gives me something tangible to cling to and being away from the books was exactly what I needed. So here we go:
decorating butter cookies with my second family, playing games with my family, playing corn hole, cuddling with my dog, cooking, eating buckeye ice cream with out of town visitors :), seeing the sand sculpture, visiting friends at church, and eating (of course)

I included a picture from the 2010 On Common Ground sand sculpture at the fairgrounds. It was featured on K-Love and I was basically screaming when I heard the little blurb about it :) I fully give any readers of this blog permission (and suggestion) to stalk my latest album of Facebook pictures to see the whole sculpture. It was AMAZING and a beautiful, beautiful depiction of the ultimate and wonderful sacrifice.