18 Lessons

It's always been a tradition of mine that every time my brother and sister-in-law find out that they're having a baby, I write a blog to that baby, telling them everything I wish for them to know. It's changed a little bit with each baby, but the main points have mostly stayed the same.
However, it is not my brother and sister-in-law this time who are having a baby. My sister and brother-in-law finally announced to everybody today that they were expecting. So without further ado...

1. This has, and continues to be my #1...YOU are oh so VERY LOVED!!! Even when you think that life's messing up and that you're alone always remember that me, your family, your friends, that God...Loves You!

2. "Inhale grace, Exhale gratitude."- Dr. Scott Johnson (Receive thankfully, and give graciously). I truly believe that we are saved by grace through faith in Christ Jesus, and not by good works, but I also believe that the least we can do for God, is try to be the best that we can be. This can be tied in to #6. :)

3. "We cannot change our past. But we CAN learn to see our past through GOD'S perspective." -Charles R. Swindoll. Remember that nobody is perfect and that God loves you despite your mistakes or your past.

4.You are a Unique Child of God and He loves you very much!   "Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of us."-Rabindranath Tagore

5. "To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the HARDEST battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting."- e.e. cummings. Don't ever change because of somebody else's standards. Change for yourself.

6. "Stop judging people because they sin differently than you." One of the greatest things about the human race is that we are all alike in our sin. We all sin and no sin is greater than another. No matter how a person is treating you, be kind. "Not all scars show, not all wounds heal. Sometimes you can't always see, the pain someone feels." Take a chance on them and get to know them. Show them Christ's love.

7. "Wherever you go, go with all your heart."-Confucius. If you have a passion for something don't ever give up on it. Do whatever it takes to bring that passion to life. And if it's meant to be, God will make it happen.

8. "Raise your words, not your voice. It's rain that grows flowers, not thunder."-rumi. Yes, there will be times in life where you get angry and all you want to do is scream, but all that situation does is give you a chance to open up your heart. It's a chance to share YOUR story, which is GOD'S story. DON'T ever be afraid to share that.

9. Don't push people away. "In the shelter of each other we will live....God has given us each other." - Jars of Clay We all like to be alone sometimes, but don't keep people away forever. It's true that if you are alone nobody else can hurt you, but you can end up hurting yourself.

10. "Jesus, help me to see that I AM someone worth dying for" You are a Unique Child of God and He Loves you very much. Your life matters. It's what has kept me here. We all have experienced doubts. Doubts about whether the people we care about really love us. Whether God really loves us. Whether things will actually get better. Doubts are the devil's way of pulling you away from God. So during those doubts draw closer to God.

11. Take pride in your accomplishments and celebrate every achievement...even the smallest ones.

12. "Know who you are. Accept who you are. Be who you are."-Dietrich Bonhoeffer You have got to do this for yourself before you can expect anybody else to do it.

13. "Being rich in money and things doesn't last. Being rich in the Lord and people last forever."-Grampy Troup

14. God never answers "No"

15. The GREATEST gift you can give a person is your time. So one day when you're all grown up and your mom is grumbling about how she never gets to spend anytime with you because you're always so busy, do her a favor (and yourself) and sit down next to her and tell about your day. Ask her how her day went. Some of the greatest moments you'll have in life are small ones like that.

16. Listen to and obey your parents. They love you and most of the time the advice they give you is pretty legit.

17. "One of the GREATEST adventures you can take is to your own imagination." Read books. Watch the history channel. Go to a museum. Be a part of a play. An opportunity to learn and exercise your imagination is never time spent wasted.

18. Be proud of where you've come from and embrace it.

There you go Baby Benesh. 18 lessons that I hope you learn (but it's okay if you don't learn them all in 18 years. :) I promise it's not a bad thing).

If my siblings keep this up I'm gonna be screwed if/ when I start having kids. But that just means they'll owe me big time. :)

Foxy Lady

Most of you know I'm a huge fan of traditions so a few years ago when my great aunt passed away I dedicated a blog to her, well, early this Easter Sunday morning my Grandma Fox (Booth) went to join her. So here goes nothing.
Some of my fondest memories from my childhood took place with my Grandma Fox. For most of my life she lived far away in Michigan while we were in Illinois. The only times we really got to see her was during the summer time, but what great summers they were! When you would get to Gramma's house the minute you stepped out of the car you were just overcome by this feeling of peace. Gramma lived on a farm so we were pretty much out in the middle of nowhere, but it was the perfect place to star gaze and catch fireflies. I loved how green everything was and how Gramma took such good care of her flowers and her garden. For the longest time Gramma would make sure that I took some of her flowers home with me (I'm not exactly sure how alive they were when we got home :) ).
I loved my Gramma's cookies (it was so sad when she got to be too old to make them). I loved that for most of our trips, when we arrived Gramma had pot roast for us. I loved going and picking strawberries and blueberries with her. I loved her apple trees and pear tree. Though they weren't very good for eating, they were good for throwing at people and holding up your tree house. :) I loved Gramma's love of family. I loved that she shared my passion of reading and always had good books on the shelf and goofy stories to tell.
I think what I loved best about Gramma was that for the longest time when I thought I could be a writer, she encouraged it. She always wanted to know what was going on with (& sometimes it may have come off as nosy :) ) but I've finally realized that it's because she cared so much and wished that she had been able to share that experience with you.
Gramma, I know there were times when we didn't always get along and that I wasn't always the nicest granddaughter, but I love you and I'm so glad I got to see you and hold your hand one last time!

Home Is Where The Heart Is

Hello All,
So I don't really know what to say or where to start. Recently, while preparing to move back home from Indiana, my mind has just been racing and my emotions seem to be on overdrive. Why, you might ask? Well, so far this year I've learned that home really is where the heart is. And right now my heart is conflicted. There's a part of me that is so excited about going home and being with my family and friends again, starting my internship, going back to zumba classes, helping my BFF plan her wedding and hopefully finding a new job. But then there's another part of me that's sad about leaving Indiana. This place has really been my home for the last 4 years while I was away at school. I've established some really good relationships, some better than at home. I could see myself living in either place, but I wonder, in which place would I be the most happy. Which place would be best to start over? This life I have right now is definitely not what I pictured 4 years ago. Back at home I know I have a place to stay and people who care about me (which I have in Indiana too). I have a routine. I'm not constantly being reminded of all the terrible things that happened these last couple of years. I have opportunities.  But when I am at home I'm almost...homesick.  When I'm in Indiana I know that if the need were ever to arise I could go back home, my family would be there. But when I'm home (which is in IL by the way), I often worry, what if I never get to go back there again? Some of you IN folks are probably like, why? There's really nothing great about us.
There are really so many things I could do right now.

-Go home, do my internship and study up for the IL state test again, and hopefully get a job interpreting.
-Go home, don't do the internship and just try to find whatever kind of job you can get.
-Stay in IN where I probably won't find an internship or get any kind of interpreting practice and experience, but could maybe try something different.
The problem right now is that I went from truly loving something and believing that I was truly good at it to failing everything that would confirm I was good at it, making me wonder, is this really what I was meant to do or do I need to find something different? If I do need to find something different what should that something different be?

Tuesday's Tunes

Here's 12/16/14 car shuffle.

1. Supermassive Black Hole-Muse

2. Today Was A Fairytale-Taylor Swift

3. Why Not-Hilary Duff

4. Black or White-Michael Jackson

5. Rolling in the Deep-ADELE

6. By Your Side-Tenth Avenue North

7. Black Widow-Iggy Azalea feat. Rita Ora

8. Do Something-Matthew West

9. Good to Be Alive-Jason Gray

10. Rolling in the Deep-Glee

Tuesday Tunes

So one of the somewhat pleasant things about my somewhat long drive to work everyday is that I get to catch up on my love of music. Anybody who's ever lived with me will tell you that I have the most random taste in music. Some songs you'll be like...Yeah, of course you have that song. Everybody has that song. Some you'll be like...You're seriously listening to that?!?! Or you'll be like...Wha? Never heard this song before or even the artist. If by chance you've never heard one of the songs on my list I encourage you to give them a listen.
The secret behind my kickass play list is that I don't stick to just one genre. If a song has good lyrics that I can understand and are meaningful to me or has a catchy beat it's on my playlist. So see for yourself and have a listen...

December 9, 2014 Work Shuffle

1. Where Do I Go From Here-Pocahontas II

2. Today is the Day-Lincoln Brewster
3. God Gave Me You-Blake Shelton
4. Battleflag-Lo Fidelity Allstars

5. Haven't Met You Yet-Michael Buble

6. Poison & Wine-the Civil Wars

7. Unwritten-Natasha Beddingfield

8. I Got Rhythm (Take the Lead Remix)-Lena Horne & Q-Tip

9. Like a Child-Jars of Clay
10. Someone Worth Dying For-MIKESCHAIR

11. Dream On-Glee Feat. Neil Patrick Harris

12. Jump-Glee

13. Breathe-Michelle Branch

14. Bellas Finals-Pitch Perfect

15. No Good-Kate Voegele

16. Hallelujah-Kate Voegele

17. Born This Way-Glee

18. I Will Learn to Love Again-Kaci Battaglia

Maybe It Doesn't Have to End

Well, hello all,
Surprised to hear from me? I'm sure you are. :) So tonight while watching Blue Bloods on T.V. (more like just using it for background noise) and checking my facebook one last time before bed I started to think about blogging and actually asked myself, why did I stop? To be blunt, I stopped because life was going awesomely (yes, I did say awesomely) and I didn't feel the need to blog anymore. Of course receiving crappy news like I did today will make you feel kinda crabby.
***Oh snap somebody just got shot! Sorry...I got distracted by the T.V. My mom doesn't like that I spend a lot of time watching crime T.V. but hey, I like drama and one of my concentrations in school was Criminal Justice. Although, real life is nothing like T.V...
Annnyyway. Sorry I got off topic.
So yeah while I'm feeling crappy and crabby it really made me want to blog again so I logged on to my account...
***Excuse me someone was stabbed not shot. Sure looked like a shot one to me...that's why I just watch the investigating...sorry, again.
So I logged on to my account and while I'm scrolling through my old posts my memories come back of what was going on while I wrote that blog. Truth is that there are many happy...and not so happy posts. I really shouldn't have stopped. I forgot how therapeutic blogging can be. And I feel like there's so much that I need to catch you guys up on. :)
But right now it's getting late and I should really get to bed. Busy day tomorrow, being a grown up and all. :)

Oh, and since I'm finished with college, I'm considering renaming my blog. Any suggestions?

Be on  the look out for future posts. :)

The end of an era

Well, blog world, it's the end of an era. Though I have this last semester to go before I'm finished with college I have a feeling it's going to go by pretty quickly. Now, I've been in a little bit of a funk when it comes to my blogging life. I just can't seem to think of anything interesting to post on here anymore. Since my blog is called "Confessions of a College Student" I've decided that perhaps it is time to say good-bye to my blog. I know you all will be so terribly heart-broken ;) by this decision, but I haven't been posting much anyway. I'll miss you all!