Life, Love, and Faith

1. God, of course. I love that I'm drawing closer to him and to this wonderful church I've been so blessed with the last few weeks. Along with that...

2. The Vineyard! How amazing to wake up each Sunday excited to go to church. They've also asked me to join the worship team, so I'm really excited about my first practice on Friday, although the leader is under the impression that I can play the jembe. We'll see...

3. My new North Carolina friends. The husband and I have met a lot of great people at the Vineyard, and I've also started to get to know the women I work with, and they're all kind, funny, and interesting stylists. I'm already learning TONS from them!

4. My "old" friends that have made the effort to keep in touch. It's been hard sometimes living so far away from all my friends, but fortunately I've got the kind of friends that stay true no matter the distance. From my NY-BF calling for help on the funniest, most ridiculous song he's written to date to my Kara, who's just about ready to deliver little Noelle, to El texting me pictures of the 60+ inches of snow in Baltimore, to Andrea keeping me caught up on Chicago, to Jessi becoming an aunt 7 times over, to Katherine and Michael keeping me abreast of their Colorado adventures, they've all kept me a part of their lives. I've also heard from work friends and Empire friends over the last few weeks, and it's been nice to be kept in the loop on everything!

5. My family. It's hard being away from them as well, but they've also been planning trips to come out here! My dad came and had dinner with Ryan and I and my mom will be here in two weeks for a few days. My mom even sent me a huge box of books to read, yay! And my Dad introduced me to the book The Shack, which if you haven't yet read, please follow the link on the left of my blog to check it out. I've also been talking more with my sister, who's almost 21! I can't believe that, it seems like she should always be 16 to me. :)

6. Last, and not least of course, it my amazing husband and our new life here. He planned the perfect Valentine's Day for me, including dinner and dark chocolate, AND he put up our curtains! I've been wanting the curtains up since we moved into this bedroom, as the walls are white and the bed is white, so it's all kind of devoid of color. The curtains are the ones from our basement, so they're orange and purple, and in the afternoon light (like I'm in right now) they make the whole room this gorgeous orange/rose color. It's awesome.

There are many other people, places and things I'm grateful for and love, but time for me has run out to list them. Onto the mundane tasks of laundry and cleaning...which is totally fine by me, I'm happy to have the time to do these things rather than working and schooling full time.

Love!

Jesi

PS - I also love you, dear reader! Thank you for reading this and sending your love my way!