Shenanikids

So this summer has been crazy. I have been nannying/ babysitting for six different families with a total of thirteen different kids. It has been enlightening, if anything, although stressful as well. Since there are so many different families I get to see a lot of different parenting styles (or lack there of).

The greatest thing about nannying is getting to be a part of so many kids lives and being a positive influence on them.

The hardest part is disciplining them, a few of the families have very poor discipline standards set in their houses. In one of them whenever I do try to discipline I am constantly undermined by the mother so there is no consequence for inappropriate actions. Parents often forget that consistency is SUPER important.

The most frustrating thing is the kids not listening to me, or having to repeat myself which goes hand in hand with the discipline thing.

My favorite moment was arriving at the house that I was to babysit at that day and having the little girl squeal with delight as I walked in the door. One week at least one kid from each family cried when I had to leave, I call that a job well done.

Some weeks I feel so worn out, like I'm so ready to be done. Working fifty hours in a week will do that to you! Bit then I get to rest up and see some of my favorite kids (yes, parents aren't allowed to have favorites, but I feel like that rule shouldn't apply to me) and I am ready to go on to the next week.

Being a little more than half way done seems crazy to me! Although there are definitely tough moments there are also fantastic ones and I'm so grateful that God has blessed me with the opportunity to be a part of so many lives and vice versus!

Me: would you want to live forever?
Elaina: no, I barely want to live now!

Earlier in the year when I began to think about what I wanted to do this summer, I wasn't exactly sure what I should do. I prayed a lot about it and still it seemed unclear to me what God wanted me to do. Then, things started to fall in place so that I could stay in Spring Arbor over the summer. I ended up getting a part time nannying job, along with four or so other random fill in jobs.

I didn't even think about the possibility of learning a lot through working this summer which is a naive thought.  I have only been working for two weeks, but I have been learning so much, about kids, and teaching, parenting, and just life in general. Some of the struggles that the family is going through is showing me a lot. I can only hope to learn so much more than I already have this summer.

"It is a risk to love.

What if it doesn't work out?
Ah, but what if it does."

-Peter McWilliams

Feels good to be home

Another wonderful night with my sister.

Why do I even bother.

The box of hidden treasures

I was talking to a friend earlier this week and they were speaking about someone who was saying they were a Christian but they had never read the Bible. She brought up an interesting idea; how can we truly be Christians if we haven't read the Bible or try to follow it especially the New Testament. Now, I can say that I have read a good chunk of the Bible, but I certainly have not read it all the way through, or even the New Testament all the way through . So I was thinking that I am going to try to do that, this summer, or at least try to pave quite a bit of the way through it. I am excited to start. Reading the Bible is such a learning experience, I have never come away from reading it and not taken away something valuable.

The beginning of the sunrise

So I have been running.

That's right, you read it right, I said running.
I have ran four days in a row, and I am so proud of myself. Seriously!
Four days may not seem like much to anyone, but it's huge to me.
I hope I can keep it up.

In other news, I have a house! Weird to call it "my house", but it is. Right now it is pretty dirty. Over the course of the past year there have been at least seven different guys that have been in and out of the house, causing it to be one of the dirtiest houses I have ever stepped foot in. But I am not worried, because in a week the last of the guys will be gone and my roommate and I will be able to clean up the house and make it look awesome.

I am staying in Spring Arbor this summer nannying various children. So far the kids have been great, and it has proven to be a pretty great job. Also, there are quite a few people that are living here this summer that I will be able to chill with. This week has been one of the longest weeks of my life! In a good way of course. I have been super busy and doing stuff constantly which has been good, there has been no time to be bored.

Hopefully it will stay like this.

My latest insecurities

I often wonder about how I am ranked in a persons mind; ranked in friendship.

There are people to me that are my friends, but not close friends, in their minds we are best friends.

So how do I rank to those closest to me? It's actually a scary thing to think about...

Why should it matter though? It shouldn't, but it does. Jealousy, the fear of being replaced, I guess.

I know what I do, but I do not know what what I do does

There are so many beautiful thoughts, or words, or ideas I've seen and heard and I just want to remember them all constantly and be able to draw it out of my mind and share it with someone at any given moment. Sometimes I just miss those words and ideas and want to see them.

It's weird I can't explain it any better.

Undone

I have done this one too many times
Over and over
The same words repeated

You say I don't love you

I say you don't love me
Not the way I love you
Not the way I do

My heart beats for you
I was made to be yours
And you, mine

You
Were supposed to be
The sun that lights the day
The flower among the sharp thorns

Now there is no sun
There are no flowers
Frigid cavalcade

You left me
Heart
Soul
Mind

You left me
Fragmentary

And you expected me to be okay
Without a word
No apology

When we are together
You are not there

You resolved to be by my side
With your body
But not mind

There is no intentionality

Our time has been squandered
And there is no remorse in your eyes
Arctic warfare

cracked not shattered

To love someone who doesn't love you back is the most heartbreaking thing of it all.

JB is the bomb

On Wednesday the kindergartners and I got in a tussle about Justin Bieber after one of them told me it was his birthday today. This is how it went:
Ava: Ewww Justin Bieber, we don't like him in my house
Me: why not?
Ava: I don't know we just don't!
Me: but you don't know him how can you not like him if you don't know him, that isn't very nice
Emma: I like Justin Bieber!
Me: *high fives her*

Happy Birthday JB.

almost

"We're almost the same person, but not completely."

That is what someone just said about her and her significant other.

Be separate don't be the same person this is weird.

I'm done.

Trusting God and being dismissive

I dismiss my worries often and I never communicate them to other people. I haven't had a meaningful conversation with someone in a long time.

I wonder about my major and settling.

I wonder if I am trusting God, and what trusting him looks like. Is it not trusting him if I look up missions for Spring Break? Or to trust Him do I need to just sit back and wait? I'm not sure what is right. Is being proactive not trusting is thinking logically not trusting?

Together we will overcome the world.

I am always so awkward at introductions. Speaking of awkward one of my roommates was telling me about when she was in Guat she was trying to explain to some Guatemalans the meaning of awkward.

I was with a bunch of people, about to leave the school dining commons, and I had this feeling of loneliness rush over me. I'm not sure if it was the fact that I hadn't really talked at all at dinner. It may have been the fact that I noticed that a bunch of people who I hung out with last year are now gone. It could have been caused by seeing that everyone seems to be pairing up and running around gleefully together. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I have no interest in doing what everyone that I am associated with wants to do. Because of this I tend to seclude myself. I tell them I don't want to go, which has never been a lie, but then I sit alone in my room. I don't have a problem with this except when I do. I just want to be in the company of someone else without having to work at it. Over the past two years I have poured myself into my relationships with the people that are most important to me, but it feels like nearly all of them have gone out of my life, partly, if not entirely. So now, I am left with the people whom I have shallow relationships with, who haven't left, but also don't really know me (there are a few exceptions). I thought my roommates knew me, knew my heart, until a few recent events that has lead me to believe otherwise.

While having a "roommate sleepover", we're girls, it's weird, whatever, somehow we decided to say one good thing about each other and one thing that annoys us about the same person. One of them said something to me that really hurt me and showed me that she doesn't really know my heart like I thought she did. At a completely different time before that I asked another one of my roommates if she would fill out a reference sheet for a missions trip that I wanted to go on. She looked at me and said, "do you really want me to do this, because I am honest on these things". What was that supposed to mean? I don't know what she said about me on it, but I do know that I didn't get into the trip. 

Anyway I feel lonely; because I exclude myself, and because I'm tired of pouring myself into relationships that end. The only person I blame is myself. That is not sarcasm. Seriously.