Mobile Workspace

Update; I am actually getting a lot accomplished from my mobile workspace!!! Woo-hoo!
We are packed to the ceiling with luggage! 4 girls on the trip, what would anyone expect?
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Oops I did it again!

There are so many social networks out there that I can spend @ 1 hour just checking in each morning to post the latest and find out the latest in the lives of my loved ones and I gotta tell you, it is a bit much sometimes. Not only do I check in but, I respond and be sure all of the info for the youth myspace is current and yadda yadda yadda...... 

One big upside to the social networks is that in this year alone I have reconnected with 7 family members that I have not seen or heard from in over 10 years. That part of social networking is great! It has turned out to be a blessing in disguise just yesterday I reconnected with my cousin who I used to really look up to. In my eyes she was the most beautiful person (inside and out) I knew and from what I gather so far she is still faithfully being "herself"!

I do have a twitter acct which I love! You can follow my twitter by reading the right side of this page! I have an XYC myspace and my blog.... I recently deleted my facebook.... I decided that I am really not that interesting of a person so up keep on it was lagging :) And to my dismay, I don't have any friends ;) hehe.

What brings me to all of this revelation is that I have really been praying about budgeting my time (as I have mentioned on here a million times) It is a constant struggle I have in my life because there are many things that HAVE and many things that I WANT to do! 

Anyways all of this came to a horrible-screeching hault when I realized I sent a b-day card and called someone who's b-day I had on my calendar (whom I rarely see or talk to) and neglected to do the same for my nephew who recently had a b-day! Oh man..... I could kick myself, especially since my nieces and nephews mean the world to me!!!!!!  I was so disappointed in myself because from the outside it looks as though my priorities are all messed up.

Anyways, after sulking and feeling like the scum of the earth, I decided to compose myself and I took it to the Lord........ I need help! God, I really need help!!! And "yes Lord, Its me again and I am having the same issue"! God's grace is amazing, and again I realize....I need to step back again and budget my time according to what He is calling me to do and be. And guess what world. THIS IS IT! This was the turning point for me... this was the low point. This was the straw .... well, you know the saying! I can not keep repenting and getting kicked in the buttocks by the same thing besides, true repentance means change! I never want to be found misusing God's grace.

We leave tomorrow for a conference with our teenagers in Kansas City and I am going to spend the 11 hours in the car getting a head start on Sunday lessons, b-day cards, looking over my personal calendar and moving some things around so that I do not do this again.

By Gods mercy and grace I will have victory in this area! Im going to focus in on finding things in my life that are time wasters and I am going to eliminate them. Then I am going to pray about what to do with the new found time (work out is top on my list). I am also going to schedule regular time for family..... make sure that somehow I see/talk to family each week. I know that sounds silly but, for me it is a constant struggle! And I'm proud of myself for keeping myself accountable in my weak areas! (not to toot my own horn) That's what we should do right? In fact that is in one of my favorite scriptures (acts 20:28). I must at all times keep watch over myself, take my weaknesses to the Lord and ask for his grace and his mercy and receive from him both, correction and direction. Then I must walk it out! Day by day.

All that to say, family and friends: If I forgotten your b-day, anniversary, not called when your sick, neglected a special event or just flat out let you down, forgive me. I love you and I pray for you all the time I just need to get better a picking up the phone or planning a dinner. Whatever it is, it will come to me as I recollect my thoughts, prioritize and restructure my schedule - family and friends you are always in my heart and I have un-intentionally put you on the back burner long enough.... 

Time wasters...... I will be thinking and praying about this the next few days so please pray for me as I review my calendar for the rest of the year.... yes, it is semi-filled through Jan 2010.

BTW, my blog is one of the social sites I will not give up so dont worry. It keeps me connected to family!

I love you all,

Melissa

Here are some of the latest songs I have been soaking in:

Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchases with His own blood. Act 20:28 (NLT) one translation even ends with this.....

God's people they are—to guard and protect them. God himself thought they were worth dying for!

Wow, how powerful are those 8 last words!

Family First Weekend

We just came off a family first weekend and man, I LOVE and LIVE for these weekends!

Family First weekend is a weekend dedicated to immediate family.... of course we are a church family and we all have extended family but, Family First is a time to just rest and enjoy immediate family. We have one weekend each month that we schedule in no events... we guard this weekend for families to enjoy! 

Family is so overlooked now days with such busy schedules- and lets be honest here, we can not expect people to have healthy family lives if we do not give them time to do just that! 

Our first ministry is FAMILY and sometimes that is the ministry we tend to overlook so, each month on my calendar there is a highlighted spot that I look forward to and guard with my life!

This weekend we decided we will take it a step further and not only learn to say "no" to non-emergency events but, we would take it even further than that and turn our phones off. 

thats right people, I said it.... we turned the phones off! After figuring out HOW to turn the phone off (that speaks volumes huh) we left it off for 2 days..... of course we checked in for emergencies but during our down time and while the phones were off some crazy things  happened;

The world continued to turn!!!

AND

we rested!!!

We had an amazing weekend. We slept in... ate a home cooked breakfast. Read. Napped. Went for a walk to get ice cream and then we went to the domain for dinner at California Pizza (we love that place) and visited the Mac store so we could dream... then we had coffee and thumbed through books at Borders on Saturday night.

I also took up a new hobby.... more on that later! 

Anyways, I hope that your weekend was restful and wonderful and that your priorities and Gods priority matched up by you putting Family First everyday!

We will actually be celebrating our 8th anniversary  next month and since we will be on a youth trip during that time we will be celebrating it with a trip for our next family first weekend (Aug)... Im excited!

Here is one of the songs I had on repeat this weekend:

Have a great day everyone!

-Melissa

Spongebob dreams of Italy?

So things are back to normal. Yay! - I think!

I am sleeping better at night and actually getting over 6 hours of sleep right now. That means the return of me remembering my dreams. Usually when I lack sleep I can not remember them but, I am remembering them right now... I have spongebob dreams.

What I mean by that is this: one day JoJo and I were watching Spongebob and I said, (after 30 minutes of it) "What is this about? What's the point"? And here is what JoJo said: "It doesn't have a point Tia - your just suppose to watch it, it's funny". He said it in a tone that had an underlying "duh, you old lady". 

You see, I love to remember my dreams. I have such funny and random dreams. They always include loved ones; current friends, friends from the past as well and my nieces and nephews (they are regulars in my dreams, usually those are dreams of swimming with dolphins and traveling to other planets). I dream of the trips we will take when we have kids and hey, Rocky has even appeared in a few of them! My dreams almost always involve travel, I love my dreams- they are very comical.

Most of them are like watching cartoons- however, just like Sponge Bob they are very random and make no sense what so ever -but definitely entertaining.

Well, last night I had the dream of all dreams....It involves my favorite place to go in my dreams..... ITALY!!!!

I visit Italy often in my dreams..... doesnt everyone?

I'm telling you, this dream had me believing we had actually moved there, in fact... I woke up and before I opened my eyes this morning I thought, I need to find out where the post office is here (italy) so I can get the change of address forms (so my mail can get forwarded from Round Rock to where I was in florence, Italy) ha ha! 

In my dream we moved into a small guest house perched up on a beautiful hilltop surrounded by a vineyard. In fact, I think it was the guest house of the house we stayed in when we went several years ago. I believe it was the same location except the real house we stayed in had no guest house! I like to call that the Spongebob effect, mixing of reality with fiction again, making no sense. 

Anyways, we had moved to Italy, we lived in a small guest house. I was so involved in this dream that I know all the particulars of the house, the floorplan, the color of the walls, the wood cabinets. More importantly, the view was amazing......... Scott and I were sitting on the porch reading a book with a cup of coffee when I woke up from the dream because of the alarm.

After the alarm went off and Scott said good morning to me I realized I do not need to get change of address forms. I was still in Round Rock! So, I said good morning to Scott and told him "I had the BEST dream ever"! 

This dream made my day! I woke up with hope and motivation.......... someday we will go back!I have always dreamed we would. Not to live (I would never make it away from the nieces and nephews) but, for a visit... a long visit.

Could it be all the travels shows I watch in fascination or the actual dream I have in my heart to return to Italy someday. Just Scott and I to stroll the streets, enjoy the laid-back pace of life while taking pictures and eating gelato till we pop!

Whatever it is that fueled it, I hope when I go to bed tonight I pick up where it left off.... in rocking chairs on the porch of some villa with my best friend, Scottie-my-hottie. Sipping coffee, reading, surrounded by God's beautiful creation and talking about God's goodness and faithfulness in our lives.

Sweet dreams everyone!

-missa

It was touch and go

Since last Friday so much has happened but yet at the same time, not much at all!

We (scott and I) killed ourselves to get everything moved in and in order at the new place. You see he was going to be off on Friday and we had SAturday free too (very very rare) so we were determined to finish everything so that we could relax and re-cooperate. The last month has been a non-stop whirl wind.

We laid down at 3:30 am on thursday (friday morning) and then on Friday when I woke up I knew something was not quite right! I was feeling really ill and then on Saturday I was running a fever.... so our perfect weekend (friday and saturday) was quickly ruined. I was wheezing when I breathed and coughing like an 80 yr old chronic smoker. On sunday I could no longer take it and while Scott went on to go teach class at church I went to the Dr. 

The Dr gave me meds and told me to rest and drink fluids- duh! I was not real impressed with this guy but, my regular Dr was not open on Sunday and I needed relief! I took the pills on Sunday, Monday and as of Tuesday I was running fever again and felt like my ribs were going to break from the coughing and I was no longer sleeping at night due to the coughing and the wheezing!

I have NEVER been so sick in my life. I thought I would break a rib while coughing up my guts! I seriously thought I might die.

So back to the doctor I went... back to my Dr. (she is so good) she loaded me up on antibiotics, cough syrups and a breathing treatment and so I went on my way to sleep and recover. 

I have not been to work or church all week. Well, I did go into the office briefly to try to get some work done and ended up having to come home I couldn't do it anymore.

The funny thing is that the whole time I have been stuck at home I have not had any form of entertainment... No cable- no tv reception period! No internet! Nothing! I just watched the same 10 movies we own over and over. Anyone who knows me- knows I am not a movie persons so... thank goodness for the cable guy who came today to give me the hook-up. If I have to watch Shrek, Charlie and the chocolate Factory or Ice Age (yes all we have are kids movies thanks to my nephews and niece) if I have to watch these movies one more time I will scream... haha

I think I may be a social network junkie so, I am glad to have my internet back! 

Anyways, thanks for praying for me as I am recovering/ It was touch and go there for a while - I hope by Monday I will be back to normal... I will even settle for semi-normal! 

Talk to you soon!

-Missa

guilty pleasures

Scottie just discovered a new love in his life.

This guilty pleasure can be found just a short walk away from where we live and Scott has fallen hard-core.

Last night he went out for a paper and came back with one of these and said "Maybe it will make you feel better" Ha! Who does he think he is fooling.... He is so darn cute though.

All I can say is thank goodness we have a gym near our loft :) Im sure we will be frequenting it so that we can frequent the other..... hehe.

If you have never had one you should, I am sure that angels must mix the dough.

Have a great day. Thanks for your prayers as I recover, I had another trip to the Dr today.

-Missa

When will I ever learn

So last week we decided we were going to do whatever it took to get moved- meaning, staying up late each night and each day going to work with only 3-4 hours sleep.

The reason we had determined to do this is that Scott and I were both off Friday and Saturday... there was nothing on the schedule for either day so it was truly down time and I was dead-set on enjoying  every second of it after 3 weeks of non-stop activity.

HA! When will I ever learn...... no sleep. Not healthy! What usually comes to most people in the form of common sense comes to me in a "life lesson". What I mean by that is that I usually learn by doing and realizing "hey, that didn't work to well now did it".  

Anyways, the friday and saturday that we were suppose to have free, I ended up sick. I was running a fever friday and saturday and coughing like crazy. I feel like I could break a rib I've been coughing so hard - ouch!

Though it was not the dream weekend I had planned- Scott ended up getting to take some naps and just relax as well! So that was really good- he needed and deserved the rest as much as anyone. 

He takes such good care of me! Not only when Im sick, I am blessed with such a great husband and I thank God for him! He is my world....... as I've said before and I'll say again, I adore my hubby!

Now for all of you who are wondering, we are COMPLETELY moved in, everything is in its place and we are now "at home". Anywhere where Scottie-my-hottie is is my home... I figured that out when the Lord called us to help church plant and leave everything to come to Austin.

Though we were not able to go anywhere for fireworks- we were able to watch about 5 different firework displays from our balcony/balconette window.

And we have actually discovered that we have a really pretty view of the sunset going down each evening. 

I'll check in again soon!

-Missa

Taylor Update: New Place

                   

So we are officially moved into our new place as of this morning (3 am) our unpacking is complete. 

We do not have wireless in our apt. until this thursday so I thought I would stop by the lounge (wi-fi & coffee anytime-that's my kinda place) and get online to check in with everyone and pay some bills etc. etc. 

When we picked this place to live in - We had our hearts set on being here and it did not look like it was going to happen there for a moment but, we prayed-believed and here we are! I love how the Lord cares about even the smallest of things that we care about -> I was even able to bring my potted plants with me for the balcony (woo-hoo), that really meant a lot to me.

As stated before we are finished unpacking and beginning to feel at home- just a few things left to do is drop a few boxes off at the storage, pick up our bikes at the storage and then come home and hang some towels, sweep and vacuum. After that we will be able to just sit back and enjoy this weekend. Scott and I are both off today and Saturday with nothing on the calendar so, this move could not have worked out better.

Thank you everyone for your prayers as we had our home on the market, transitioned to our new place and everything else in between that all of you help me pray about.

*Thanks also to everyone who helped with our move: you guys will never know how much it meant to me!

Enjoy your 4th, talk to you soon!

-Missa