Christmas Blessings

+JMJ+

I'm in the final pool of applicants for my dream internship with a market research firm. I interviewed back in October and they've kind of been stringing me along ever since, which has been very frustrating. I'll know by January 14th if I get the position, so hopefully my patience and prayers pay off.

My best friend since kindergarten got engaged to her boyfriend of 5 years last night!!

My favorite baby nun!

I spent time with Alexa while she was home from the convent. I was worried I wouldn't get to spend quality time with her because she wasn't home for long and so many people wanted to see her. I met her at Mass several mornings, prayed the Liturgy of the Hours (and giggled through a good chunk of it per usual haha), and went ice skating with our "nun club" friends and two seminarians who've spent time at St. Joan/St. Patrick. Last Christmas we all went ice skating and this year is likely the last time we'll all be together. Alexa won't be able to come home next Christmas, Ashley will also be in the convent God willing, and Deacon JB will be be a priest by then, so this was kind of our last hurrah. Like I mentioned in this post, I had a really hard time adjusting when Alexa left for the convent. Seeing her again was like she never left and we just picked up where we left off in August. It was weird. We drilled her with all sorts of questions about her life in the convent and the joys and struggles. I was particularly interested in the struggles because I've only seen and heard about the joys of religious life. I can tell she is truly happy and at peace. I am thankful because now I think I'll be able to detach myself more from her and accept how our relationship has changed knowing that this is God's will for her. She'll be home again in May (I'll still be abroad) and then summer of 2012. 

Like father, like son

I spent all of Christmas day relaxing with my family. It seems that these days we hardly see each other. By the time my dad gets home from work Joe and I are usually out for the night with our friends and then once I get up in the morning everyone is already at work/school. Dad & Joe got matching Nerf guns for Christmas. When we were kids our house was the designated Nerf warzone. All the neighbor kids would come over, Joe would dole out guns and bullets, turn off all the lights and hide, and have an all-out Nerf war. Dad & Joe spent most of Christmas day chasing each other around the house and screaming like little girls :)

Tomorrow my IU Catholic friends that live in the Indy area are meeting up for the day. I hardly spent any time at St. Paul this semester because all my free time was spent searching for internships, networking, and polishing my resume and interview skills :( I really missed that fellowship and support. After we ice skate we are going to Mass and then having dinner. I'm so excited! My bff from IU/St. Paul is driving up from southern Indiana so she is coming back to my house after that to spend the night. Shout out to Munchie - I'm so thankful we were neighbors freshman year & that we are able to growth in our faith together! :)

I know this post is totally mundane, but I've just been such a happy girl and the blessings keep rolling in. I have a lot to look forward to over the rest of my winter break and in the next 8 months. Praised be Jesus Christ...now and forever!!

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Mary Christmas!

+JMJ+

Santa brought me a round trip ticket to Budapest! I leave January 30th and return June 1st. I'm flying from Indy to Chicago to Frankfurt to Budapest. I'm meeting another IU student that is going to Budapest in Chicago and then we are flying the rest of the way together, thank goodness!

My friend Deacon JB reminded me yesterday how important the Blessed Mother is during the Christmas season. Because of Mary's fiat (her YES to the Lord -"Be it done unto me according to Thy word"), God used her to deliver our Savior! We should strive to be more like Mary and obediently abandon ourselves to God's will. More reflections on Mary when I finish St. Louis de Montfort's Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary on January 1st.

Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices! O night divine, the night when Christ was born; O night, O Holy Night, O night divine!

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Stuck between a casket and a hard place

I had a bit of a run-in with a casket today, oops. Last year I accidentally crashed a funeral Mass in Bloomington. I walked over to the church to pray in the middle of the day and Mass was going on. I was thinking "oh sweet! I didn't know there was Mass on Thursday at 3pm!" Yeah, that's because there isn't! It took me a few minutes to notice everyone was wearing black and that there was a casket up by the altar. Haha. Anyway, this afternoon I was at St. Joan to decorate the church for Christmas. There was a funeral going on in the sanctuary so I was setting up a tree in the lobby. Right as I finished and turned around the casket was being wheeled towards me. I was stuck between the lobby and casket. Cue deer in headlights moment. SUPER AWKWARD. I tried as nonchalantly as possible to sneak back into the hallway while the family and the priest took the pall off the casket and then hid in the hallway until they left.

Alexa will be home for Christmas from the convent tomorrow morning!! I haven't seen her since September 5th. I'm going to tackle her when I see her and then smother her with hugs and kisses. The sisters are dropping her off in Kokomo and her family invited her friends over for a surprise breakfast. Next Christmas Ashley will be in the convent too. Sometimes it seems like all my friends are joining the convent/seminary/religious life and I'll be the only one left behind. I am blessed to have holy friends who are praying for me and my vocation!

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Icore survivor + NyQuil mishap

Team 137 - "Fresh to death"

I survived icore relatively unscathed and have the shirt to prove it! My team was fantastic. We had one extra person, everyone pulled their own weight, there was no bickering, and we finished more than 24 hours early. The groups were randomly generated and I was very concerned about having a bad group after hearing legendary icore horror stories (there are plenty!). As my friend Dominic wisely suggested, when you don't get to choose it's God's way of telling you to chill out because He's got it covered. True story! And it might have helped that I asked Mary's intercession every day for a month for a good group. Mary's got my back once again :)

We wrote 100 pages...about salsa.

After spending 10 days, 700 collective work hours, $111 dollars to print, and a solid 20 hours editing this baby, I'll be happy if I never see the words "Rosa" or "salsa" again. However, if you would like to know the demographics related to the Colorado salsa market, the ideal distribution channels for specialty salsa, or the beta of the risk, let me know and I'll hook you up ;)

Now on to my NyQuil mishap. I managed to make it the whole semester without getting sick. The stress and fatigue of the semester finally caught up with me and I have a nasty head cold. I got home from work at 7pm and decided to take some NyQuil. Mistake #1: I just dumped an indiscriminate amount of medicine into the little cup without measuring it. I probably took 2 or 3 times the recommended dose. Oops. Mistake #2: instead of going to bed immediately I decided to bake myself some fish sticks (fish sticks on a Tuesday?). Thirty minutes later I was woozy and felt like I was drunk. Mistake #3: I decided to take an open box of cheeze-its upstairs to my bedroom. In my drug-induced state I managed to dump the entire box of cheeze-its on my carpeted floor. I then proceeded to eat the salvaged cheeze-its in my bed until I passed out and woke up 12 hours later. 

Moral of the story: don't drink large amounts of NyQuil and stay awake. Stupidity WILL ensue. Also, Alexa will be home from the convent in 8 days for Christmas :)

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Mary's got my back!

+M

I spent the last 10 days working on a huge business case that is the cornerstone of my curriculum and experience in the Kelley School of Business. And when I say huge I mean huuuge; we spent $111 to print our 100 page case analysis and spent a combined 700+ hours working on it. Kelley likes to make things unnecessarily complicated. Besides printing one full report of the case and four smaller function-specific booklets we had to submit our finance spreadsheets and a text-only version of our report online by 2am today. We also have to submit our peer evaluations in envelopes (signed on the seal) that are placed in a larger manila envelope. Seriously, my brain is so scrambled right now I can't handle following 20 stupid steps about how to turn in peer evaluations the "Kelley way." The past 10 days have been smooth sailing for my team...it was too easy compared to the horror stories we've heard about icore. I kept expecting something to go wrong.

At 1:30am I re-read the directions for turning everything in when I noticed in bold red font it said the finance and text only version had to be submitted by the same person, or else! Cue panic mode. Isaac submitted finance and Gabby submitted the other file. Of course the finance spreadsheet wasn't on Google docs, only the other file was, so I couldn't just re-submit both myself. This meant calling Isaac at 1:30am and praying that he'd hear his phone vibrate was my only hope. I called Isaac and it went to voicemail and then I send a mass text to my group hoping someone would text back. A few minutes later Isaac called back, got the file we needed off of Google docs, and submitted it with the finance spreadsheet online 15 minutes before the deadline.

Mary's got my back! Thank you Jesus and thank you Mary! Good thing I prayed extra hard today at Mass for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception :) Now that my heart has stopped palpitating I can go to bed...I have to be at the business school at 9am to hand in our hard copies of the analysis. Conquer icore and get the "I survived icore" shirt to prove it...check!

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Small opportunities for santification

I am already in bed for the evening (was working on my business case in the library from 10am-7pm) and my roommate just called me. I was hesitant to answer because I had a feeling she needed something...and I am already in my cozy bed with the lights off. She needs me to iron her business suit for tomorrow morning.

The last thing I want to do right now is get out of bed, set up the ironing board, and iron her suit. I even contemplated just texting her back and telling her I am already in bed...shame on me.

I'm going to do it anyway because Jesus is offering me the grace to die to myself and my desires in this small way. I'm going to iron every last wrinkle out of K's suit and do it with love :)

"In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love." -Blessed Mother Teresa

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