Comps, oh comps, please let me pass thee

3 days until Comps. I'm very nervous. I about had a breakdown last night (mostly because I was tired and trying to study was difficult), but I think I feel a bit better about it now. I have this morning to study because I decided not to go to internship.

So I probably better get cracking!

Just wanted to say though, that I'm excited about the after-comps celebration that I am going to have. I have a friend I met through one of my internships who opens Regal movie theatres, and she told me that if Jake and I ever want to go, she'll get us tickets for free. I took her up on that offer for this weekend- Jake and I are going to see Toy Story in 3-D. I'm pumped. We're also going to go out to dinner, hopefully with someone. So far we haven't found anyone that is available this weekend. It'll be ok though if it's just Jake and me. Just 3 days, and it will all be over.

Except not. 2 weeks from that I have the NCE exam which is a fairly big deal too. I mean, do I want my counseling license? Then I better pass. Bah.

Seriously. Awesome.

We went to Sam's Club today. We also went yesterday. I received an email prior to the weekend saying that they were giving away samples for "football food," so I decided we should go. We didn't hit all the samples yesterday because we went too early, so we came back today.

Good thing we did.

Today we went before lunch, and I didn't need lunch after that. We got tons of samples! PLUS they had the coolest blender I've ever seen. There was a rep from this company that came to Sam's around Christmastime to sell them this past year, and I was super impressed.

Go to this link to learn about it. I don't think the videos are nearly as impressive as when seeing happen in front of you, but it's still pretty cool.

Definitely be sure to check out the Will It Blend? link about this blender. Seriously impressive. Turns out the money clip can be blended!

I want one. For serious. Jake started a fund requesting help to go to the Cowboys game. We didn't have any takers, but we did find a way to get to go to the game (only 7 days away!). I am now going to start an "Elizabeth really needs this blender because we will both be able to eat WAY more vegetables and it's super easy" fund. Even if no one donates, I am banking on the fact that it will happen at some point. I hope it happens soon.

Sundays

I'm loving Sundays. We have been going to the early service at church which is great because we actually get to bust out the hymnals and the service feels a little more structured to me. Then we come home and watch football, which is fun because it's on all day and I get to pick-and-choose which game I want to watch. On the games I don't care about- I do homework, clean, and get ready for the week. At some point I am able to pull Jake away from the TV and we walk out to the park that's behind our apartments and we play football. Mostly we play catch, but sometimes I ask Jake to teach me plays and we attempt to execute them. I have pretty bad hands, so we practice passing plays a lot so I can get better. I also think I'm better when I have some competition because I stop caring about whether or not it's going to hurt if I catch the ball wrong.

Back to church-related things... I really love the character of God. I mean, I know to most of you that seems pretty obvious. However, what you don't know is that seminary has been a really weird season of my life spiritually so it's a pretty big deal when I talk about how great God is. I especially love Sundays because I am constantly reminded about God's character. I'm starting to get tugs about reading my Bible, and I am convinced that I will be able to do that regularly again soon (without the deep sense of bitterness). God is good. All the time.

So can you see why Sundays are so great?

The dream.

Last night I had a bad dream. Most of it was ok (like me playing softball for my dad and he put me in left field and I gave him a weird look, finding out that my brother was now my softball team's recruiter for that particular college, having my car stolen but I found it).

However, the very end of my dream was not ok. I had been on the phone with a 911 emergency woman talking about the car theft when she asked me a question to which I didn't know the answer. I called for Jake to ask him, but he was driving a car with 3 passengers and only slowed the car a bit before giving up because he couldn't hear me. All of a sudden I saw him speed up a ridiculous amount and I realized he was trying to beat a train that he hadn't noticed before when he was trying to hear my question. As he passed by I immediately started bawling thinking that I had just seen my husband mauled to death.

When I woke up I was crying and I woke Jake up to have him prove that he wasn't dead. I also called my dad to make sure he hadn't really been hijacked since he had been in my dream.

I don't really know what triggered this dream, but it's in dreams like this one that I remember absolutely how much I love my family. The counselor in me also knows that I should pay attention to the emotions I have and the things I think about when I wake up from a dream, because usually that it related or triggered my dream. When I woke up, I had a flashback to Joel and Pam's accident. I want all of Jake's family to know how much I love you guys. You mean more to me than you know!

And Mark and Lisa, happy anniversary! I'm really glad that you fell in love. :)

Hiking

So you may not know, but I sprained my ankle two weeks ago right as Jake and I were about to start a long hike. I felt a heck of a lot better after the initial wave of pain, and was really hoping to keep hiking. Of course I didn't get to though because, well, I sprained my ankle. I also didn't want to push it because I knew we had a softball tournament the next week that I needed to be ok for.

Today we went back to the place where we were going to hike two weeks ago. I can now officially say that there is no way that I would have been able to do that hike with a sprained ankle. I mean, my ankle is still swollen some today but it's way better, and that hike was exhausting- I think we were gone for almost 2.5 hrs and there was lots of steep up and downhill portions. It was fantastic. We saw deer up close, a snake, chipmunks, hummingbirds, and some pretty wicked sweet scenery. Plus, we just got to be outside. Fun stuff!

Germans rule.

On Monday Jake and I volunteered to run the food closet on campus. While we were there, the person who is generally in charge of the food closet told us that someone had donated a couple of huge boxes of Boulder sausage and that anyone could take it that wanted it. The problem was, if you wanted it then you had to take the whole box.

We now have 10-lbs of Boulder sausage. 10 lbs! My gosh. We need friends to give some of it to, because I remember the last time we thought buying 5 lbs of pepperoni would be a good idea. I'm pretty sure we still have 3.5 lbs of pepperoni in our freezer. I don't want to have 10 lbs of sausage for the next 10 months. Although I really do like sausage. Yep, I'm German.