Building Community

Choosing to spend  my four years of college at Asbury was certainly one of the best decisions I've ever made. Asbury really seeks to build and encourage community among students and faculty, both on and off campus. I have greatly benefited from it and have an amazing group of friends that I'm going to miss tremendously.

This past weekend, and the previous weekend, were both full of events. Here are some snapshots in both still and moving picture form.

Junior Senior with Cassie

I have enjoyed living with Cassie for the past three years. She has been a very kind, caring, and loving roommate. I'm sure she won't miss me talking in my sleep or tendency to lose everything, but I'll certainly miss her.

This past week were the Legacy Games, which are a campus wide competition between classes. Although my class failed to leave our legacy this year, we came in second. Here's a clip from Wednesday when we played Korean War.

The cap  event of the week was The Finale. It was a dance to celebrate the end of the week of events and was a ton of fun. It was superhero themed and some of us really got into it. In the beginning of the video you can see Zach on the left who created an iPad app with the Green Lantern symbol. Some of my friends are nerds.

Like I said, the community I've been a part of at Asbury has been a great blessing. The past two years I've been praying for a community that I could be a part of once I graduate. With only three weeks (that's right, only three) that prayer has been answered.

Tyler and I are both involved in a Missional Community in downtown Lexington. It's been challenging, encouraging, and exactly what I was praying for. Yesterday, we cooked out and played wiffle ball in Woodland Park.

If you're in the Lexington area, we'd love to have you join us. Click HERE for more info.

I have found community to be vitally important. I am so thankful for the community I've been part of for the past four years and am excited to see what my new community will become.

Staying Organized

I like to think of myself as organized. Some might say that I'm pretty type A when it comes to organization. I just wish everyone could understand the value in organization just as I do. While it seems confusing at first, it certainly makes life much much easier.

Here are my favorite apps that help me stay organized so that I'm on top of school work, work work, and finances.

I'm often told I have a great memory. What people don't realize is that I write everything down and when I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING. This is the beauty of Evernote.

Evernote is both an app and a computer program (for both Mac and PC users). You can create different notebooks to write notes, insert pictures, website links, and more. I track finances, my exercise routines, church, and work notes. It's beautiful and organized!

Another favorite app of mine is Mint.com. You can link your bank accounts to this app so all your purchases are tracked and categorized. You can see how much money you're spending on different items every month and keep a budget.

Before I started using Mint.com, I was terrible at keeping a monthly budget. I do great with colors and numbers that help me categorize. Needless to say, it has helped me tremendously.

This app won't be helpful to you unless you're in school, but Grades 2 is great for keeping track of the grades in all of your classes.

You can enter in each assignment, the percentage of each assignment, and it calculates your grades for you! My favorite feature is that I can put in my target grade and it will tell me what I need to get on each assignment in order to reach that target. Brilliant right?

Now that I'm having to do my own grocery shopping, I've learned the value and strategy of making a shopping list. ShopShop is a simple, yet very helpful app that allows you to create different shopping lists so you can categorize your items and move them around within the list. Once the item is in the cart, you check it off your list and it disappears. I love it.

My roommate might not agree that I'm organized when it come to my chest of drawers, jewelry, or desk, but my iPhone is and that's what's important, right?

It's Baseball Season

Now that basketball season is officially over, we can all really focus on the great American game ... baseball.

Don't get me wrong, I love basketball. I live in the middle of the Big Blue Nation and was a cheerleader for 9 years. I've been to a basketball game, or two, or a thousand. When spring rolls around and finally decides to make its appearance, no one wants to be inside. It's much more enjoyable running out outside or sitting in the warm sunshine cheering out your favorite team at a baseball game.

Last Wednesday was the Cincinnati Reds's Opening Night. Being the great girlfriend that I am, I bought killer seats for this eventful evening for Tyler.

Although I've been a Reds fan for sometime, my level of commitment increased significantly when I realized that I would no longer be able to relate to Tyler well without being a more serious fan.  So I invested in a Joey Votto jersey (my favorite Reds player).

We got to the park a bit later than we wanted to, but still made it in time for the first pitch thrown by Turtle Man, enjoyed sunflower seeds, and the Cincy favorite Skyline Chili.

It was absolutely freezing, but the Reds won in the bottom of the 9th thanks to a great hit by Votto that gained him a RBI.

I can't wait to go again this Monday to see the Reds take on the Phillies with my friends from New Jersey who are Phillies fans. I'm so glad spring is here!