Sarah Elliott

2009-12-11T12:10:00.001-06:00

New look! Don't know if it will help me write more. Wedding plans are underway, school is crazy, and family is crazy. :) Everything is normal.

2009-11-19T11:21:00.002-06:00

Life is crazy. I have a white coat now, Saturday is my last day at work until I deal with stress, I started a Mary Kay business, and I need to start studying for finals. And I'm getting married in 6 months. Exciting!! But crazy. I delegate a lot to Timothy nowadays, and I can't decide if I've given him too much to do or it's still a fairly equal split.

In other news, I need a new alarm clock. It got bumped (slightly) and didn't go off this morning. Not too big of a deal, but it's done this before and made me miss class. :( I just don't want to go out and buy one because this is the third alarm clock I've had since college. Seems that the cheap ones aren't working too well.

2009-10-11T23:17:00.001-05:00

Check out the ticker at the bottom of this page! :D

2009-09-07T20:43:00.001-05:00

Can I wear a two-piece swimsuit in the UMKC pool? The website says I need "appropriate swimwear," and I don't know what that means.

2009-09-02T17:30:00.003-05:00

My days:

Sleep
Wake up
Make lunch
Grab breakfast
Drive to class while eating breakfast
Sit through lecture and drink coffee
Try to stay focused on lecture and not split ends in hair
Move to different room when class is over
Work on homework/reading/something I didn't do the night before
Eat
Print things
Go to class again
Inspect fingernails
Look for split ends
Take a few notes
Go home (or sometimes more class, or go to work)
Check emails, Facebook, blogs, return phone calls
Run or bike
Maybe work on things for class tomorrow
Watch TV
Talk to Tim
Think about wedding things
Shower
Go to bed

No joke, I do this almost everyday. There is very little variation so far.

2009-08-26T09:37:00.003-05:00

Classes, wedding planning, Breast Cancer Awareness Month planning, bowling tournament planning, life planning, lots of praying for Tammy, calling home as often as I can handle, and then sleeping and eating. These are not in order of top priority, but these are all of the things that I'm doing right now. I'm hoping to add some exercise to that mix so I don't get sick like I did last year.

And now it's raining. It's a sad day.

2008-12-02T13:40:00.001-06:00

5 more days of classes, including finals. I'm a bit freaked out.

No phone, No phone (Thanks for that one, Cake)

2008-11-07T17:56:00.002-06:00

My phone died an unfortunate death on Monday. It dried out and was resurrected on Tuesday; however, Verizon confirmed it to be a zombie the very same day. I ordered a new phone after calling Verizon three times, which was shipped approximately 2 hours later. The tracking showed that it was delivered and signed for YESTERDAY, and is somewhere in my apartment building. Supposedly. This is incredibly frustrating, but an interesting experience. It's different to be disconnected from people...granted, I can get online and send an email to whomever I want, but emails aren't the same. Skype works well, but not everyone has Skype (aka my family and friends). So, I feel pretty disconnected right now. I've collected all the important people's phone numbers so I can put them back in my phone, but I just don't know when I'm going to get the darn thing!!

2008-10-27T10:17:00.002-05:00

Another round of exams coming up next week, which means I'll be studying all of this week. Unfortunately, there's also quite a few things I have to do in the evenings this week: dog handling class at Wayside Waifs, appointments with counselors, CRU (which I'm still on the fence about), and normal everyday-life things like cooking and a bit of cleaning. Sometimes I wish I were married just so my husband could help me with those last things!

2008-10-03T14:41:00.002-05:00

My mom's house was broken into. Nothing of mine was there anymore, but Kevin still had a lot of his things there. And they stole the washer and dryer and copper plumbing. Even though I haven't lived there in years, it still bothers me.

I'm tired. I've been tired for days now, and I took a nap this morning to help get me through the day. Ideally, I'd like to go to bed right now, but I think I have too much to do to get away with that. Four tests next week, most of which I'm pretty lost on. Woo hoo!

For once in my blogging life, I am out of things to write about.

2008-09-05T09:12:00.002-05:00

AAAHHHH!!! I'm so busy these days, what with classes and planning rush events that the other rush officer doesn't help much with, and then taking care of my apartment and studying...there's always something to do before I study, and so I never get around to doing that very important thing. I have exams coming up, so I guess I'll be putting some things off this weekend and next week.

The elevator is broken in the parking garage at Hospital Hill. I think it's a secret ploy to get all the students there to exercise more, considering we're only allowed to park on the 4th floor and above. Yes, that means we've been walking up and down about 5 flights of stairs at least once a day for the past couple of weeks. If they don't fix it soon, I'm going to have some pretty fabulous legs and gluts.

Sometimes I forget to eat when I'm here by myself. I know that's a bad thing, and I try to keep a good schedule, but I get going on things and don't realize I'm hungry until I'm going to bed, and then I don't want to eat because I'm going to bed and I'm tired. My friend Michelle thinks I've picked up some of her eating patterns: getting really busy, then not having time to sit down and have a good, healthy meal. She says she eats better at my apartment now than she did all summer, so I suppose that's a sign that I eat healthy foods. :)

2008-08-25T09:29:00.002-05:00

I'm 21 now, and the only difference between 20 and 21 is that I can legally buy alcohol now. Not that exciting, but everyone I know who turned 21 recently is itching to take me out for a drink, so I guess that's a good trade-off. Spend time with friends, get a free drink! Not bad.

2008-08-12T22:03:00.002-05:00

I'm back from outer space...actually just from the land of dial-up internet. For about four days I didn't have internet in my apartment on campus (no good), so I was forced to saunter over to Muddy's and buy a smoothie to use their wireless. Not a bad decision, but it could turn into one if I kept doing that. Needless to say, I now have the World Wide Web and all it's atrocities in my apartment again, leaving me free to blog and surf as I please. My email inbox isn't as exciting as it used to be though; with dial-up, I only checked my email every few days and had 20 or so waiting for me, and if I wanted to read one, I had to sit and wait anxiously for the page to load. Now a little bell goes off when I get a single email and I can read it right away. Thus the bell hath tolled for the full inbox.

2008-03-29T15:21:00.002-05:00

I'm glad I'm not a chemistry major...I don't think I could handle writing formal labs. I've heard that we at UMKC have it easy with our Q&A post labs, and now I believe it. This write-up is killing me...I didn't think it would be that bad, but I don't know now. Of course, I put it off until almost the last minute, which doesn't make me feel any better. And I'm dog-tired from the past few days in Indiana. I got more sleep than Tim (I slept in when he went to class), but I still feel worn out.

It was nice to be out in Bloomington with Timothy. It made me miss him even more, but we only have about 6 weeks left in the semester...not too bad. It also made me want to hit the fast-forward button for my life to a few years from now, when I (hopefully) won't have to sit in a Greyhound for four hours to see him.

The second week of the devotions Corrin gave me is coming. I keep saying that, and I even brought them with me to Indiana for Tim and I to do together, but I forget every time. Maybe if I write it here and carry them around for awhile, I'll finally get around to doing the second one.

2008-03-21T15:45:00.000-05:00

I'm going home!! :)

2008-03-08T14:50:00.002-06:00

Seems like more people are finding their way to my blog nowadays. Australia, North Korea, Wales, and a lot of different college networks have found this site. Someone from California stopped by too, but I don't know who that was.

It is gorgeous today! A little chilly, but pretty nice out. Not much news...spring break is in two weeks, and I'm very much looking forward to it. :)

Baby's First Picture

2008-02-29T00:05:00.003-06:00

Timothy is growing things! He sent me a picture today of his first baby, and he's quite the happy papa. I get to be the mama, except none of that naughty stuff goes on.

Oh Mallika!

2008-02-28T23:55:00.002-06:00

I found dear Mallika! And I love her posts. I liked them on xanga, and I like them on Blogger.

On another note, have you ever met someone who seems to enjoy having ALL of his/her senses stimulated at the same time? I have. That person is my roommate. (Think TV, radio, 75 degrees, and food in the room...I'm going crazy.)

2008-02-24T15:12:00.002-06:00

I'm having a hard time loving some people right now. A really hard time. And I know that's what we're called to do...but it's a little difficult to do when you get woken up at 1 am every night.

Gospel Centered Life: Week 1

2008-02-17T20:18:00.004-06:00

Corrin gave me a six-week set of articles that her small group is going through right now, figuring it would be good for me to be reading and thinking about Gospel-oriented things, rather than just science and pharmacy. I think she's right, and I hope I can get some geed things out of these articles, though I'll be the only one thinking about them (unless Corrin wants to give me other people's feedback, or pass on my blog address!).

This week's article is called the Gospel Grid. Whoever wrote the article didn't exactly show where the "grid" comes into play, but I think I get the idea. There are little graphs to go along with the article, and they vaguely remind me of some of the things I see on indexed.blogspot.com. Ideally, after conversion, Christians are supposed to start to realize the extent of their sinfulness and what they really are, and also see who God is and how holy He really is. But sin gets in the way, and we miss one or both of the things we're supposed to see. The Gospel is supposed to play a continuous role in our lives, but instead we see it as the door and only the door.

But the Gospel is "the power of God" (Romans 1:16 -- look that one up, it's a keeper), and it is how He brings lost sheep to His side every day. Instead of looking to it and to Christ to fulfill us, we turn back to our old ways and minimize the cross and God's holiness. Or, we forget how wretched our sin is and try to minimize that. Either way, the Gospel doesn't take the forefront of our lives like it should.

This is very, very applicable to my life right now, even though I'm going to church and praying and even reading these articles. The Gospel seems to get pushed to the back of my mind because that's supposedly not what Christianity is about once you've been converted, when, in reality, it's ALL Christianity is about. That's why we have small groups and go to church every week...not because "'that's what Christians are supposed to do.' Rather, we make this our aim because it is the life God wants for us." Because if we try to do this by ourselves, we won't make it, and the Gospel will be lost. We need other people and teachings to help us see ourselves for who we really are and to push us back to the cross.

At the end of the article is a list of six ways of minimizing sin:

Defending -- avoid confrontation by explaining things away; rarely having difficult conversations
Pretending -- trying to impress; not thinking reflectively about own life
Hiding -- concealing the "bad stuff" in your life for fear of rejection
Blaming -- having a difficult time "owning" sin; fear of rejection if you've been the one to sin
Minimizing -- downplaying sin or circumstances in life as if they're "not that bad"
Exaggerating -- making things (good and bad) bigger than they really are, causing high levels of stress or anxiety

Looking at the list I've made, I think I have elements of all of these (and I have a feeling most people do). The big ones that I think I utilize the most are blaming, minimizing, and exaggerating (the last two don't make much sense together, but I think that's what I do!). I used to hide everything about my life, but most of it has come out in recent years. Corrin and my counselor have encouraged me to think more about my life and how it has affected me, but I still have a hard time recognizing what's affecting me or what I'm doing wrong. I don't have many people around at the moment who can pull me aside and say, "Sarah, you need to think about what you're doing here!" I guess that's not a very good excuse for not owning up to my sins or not rooting them out of my life.

Glitter Love, part deux

2008-02-16T14:29:00.000-06:00

That's Glitter Love

2008-02-16T12:49:00.012-06:00

This is what some might call "Glitter Love" -- the card Timothy made for me was completely covered with glitter. :) Needless to say, there are red, yellow, and silver specks all over my room and in the hallway where I opened my package.

There are more pictures to be put up, so these are just the beginning. One of my cameras ran out of battery life in the middle of taking the photos, so I have to wait for that one to power up before I can get the images off of it. You'll see what Timothy sent me in the other pictures. :)

2008-02-07T12:31:00.000-06:00

I heart Huckabee. Yup, I decided who I liked, but it was too late for me to request an absentee ballot and vote for him in the primaries. And I'd like to buy a T-shirt and wear it around campus since NOBODY here, except for Stephanie and I, likes Huckabee. But I have close to no money, so no T-shirt. :(

This whole political thing is starting to take over most of the conversations I have with my friends and other people I meet around campus. I usually don't let them figure out who I'm for, since that's always met with "He's f****** crazy, you're an idiot to choose him." But everyone's talking about it. Whoever thought that young people were always apathetic about who their leaders were was incredibly wrong. There's a HUGE number of students here who are very passionate about their candidates and outspoken when it comes to discussions.

Corrin is coming to visit me! :D :D :D I'm pretty excited about it. :) It's going to be a good weekend.

2008-02-01T16:31:00.000-06:00

Yaaaay I went to the gym today!

And it's still cold. But getting a smidgen warmer.

Timothy is sick. :( I want to make him feel better, but it's difficult to do from 500 miles away. I helped him rule out meningitis, though.

I see big, black crows outside.

Church!

2008-01-27T13:36:00.000-06:00

I went to church this morning with Sarah M., and it's different, but I think I like it. From what I can tell, their beliefs are consistent with PCA, though I don't think they're part of any governing organization. The congregation is mostly young, college-age people or twenty-somethings, though there are lots of kids and a few older people. It's called Jacob's Well, and I'm happy that Sarah and I have found somewhere that we can worship and fellowship with other Christians. It's been difficult being practically alone in my beliefs, and having nobody to talk to about my struggles and doubts. She and I are hoping to get to know some families in church, or possibly join a small group and find some community there. The website is http://www.jacobswellchurch.org, so go check it out and let me know if you approve.