Hey y'all! I'm taking a little break from all of my homework and lesson plan writing to write a quick post. I have a bunch of idea running thru my head, but I decided to go with something simple. So here is a quick little tour of my apartment for this school year.

At the end of August I moved into my new apartment for this school year. I am in a different apartment complex on another side of campus than I was last year. The complex is called University Place. There are five buildings that each have twelve four person apartments in them. I am in the first building on the second floor. Combining the furniture and decorations of four people can be challenging, but I think we managed to pull it off fairly well.

When you first walk in our door and look left you see this table and chairs with a cute little giraffe(?) printed lamp and candle warmer, as well as my book shelf, all 400+ of my books, a lamp and a couple little decorations.

Once you close the door and look to the right there is this adorable key and purse holder that one of my roommates brought.

If you walk in a little bit and look back at the door this is the view you get. You can see our coat rack, as well as the table again and the little picture that is hanging up.

And the table and bookshelf again...

Come in and look into the living room and you see the t.v., DVD stand, the game and art shelf, the large mirror that a different roommate painted, IMAGINE painting (painted by the same roommate who did the mirror), and our fancy little chair.

Walk into the living room and you see the love seat, couch, coffee table, and the entrance to our deck.

 

And here is the love seat over on the left of the photo above. You can also see the little coffee table with the flowers on it.

Take a step out onto our balcony and you can see our chairs and table, as well as these cute purple rope lights that I got at Walmart.

If you go back through the living room you will see the kitchen. It's not huge but it is a decent size for a college apartment. Our cabinets were pretty cluttered and were driving me crazy, so I picked up the little blue 4-drawer shelf. It was on sale for $22 at Kmart and it had the cubes in it!! Score! I had looked at many other shelves but they were more than $20 and the cubes were sold separately and individually for roughly $6 a piece. I'm not about that life.

So that is a quick view through the main rooms of the apartment. Sorry about the overload of pictures. Also, I apologize for the quality of some of them. I took them in a hurry after I cleaned today before my roommates got back and I risked the cleanliness being disturbed! Lol just kidding! :)

I will post pictures of our office and bedroom as soon as things are sort of clean and presentable later this week. I have some awesome posts planned and I look forward to sharing them with you!

Have a great night!

God Bless!

Que Sera, Sera

If you know any college kid, or just a school aged kid in general, then you know what the next couple of weeks are.

It is the much awaited Christmas Break.

For some of us college kids this is the end of the first week of break and for others it is only the beginning of break.

For me this is the end of the first week of Christmas Break.

I boarded the train last Saturday and arrived home at about 2am Sunday morning.

So I have been home just short of a week.

However, this has been the longest week.

I feel like I should be heading back to school next week, yet I have like two more weeks to go.

I just am not all that thrilled to be home and wish I could have stayed in Illinois.

I know my mom and sisters wanted me here, but other than that I have nothing here.

My home is in Illinois now and I want to be there so badly.

I hate that I feel so discontent being here, but at the same time I cannot pretend that I want to be here when in reality it is the last place that I want to be at this point in time.

My life is in Illinois despite the fact that I grew up here in Nebraska.

According to most people I should be excited to come back home and see friends and have fun with them, go to my home church and visit with everyone, go around town and see everyone I know, and in general just make my presence known to everyone in this small town in south central Nebraska.

Little do they know that that is not at all what I had planned.

I do not have friends in town to see and hang out with, go out to eat, crash at someone's house and watch movies and stay up late catching up with everything that has happened over the semester.

I have not had much in the way of friends in this town in years.

I do not even want to talk about church.

I dread the idea of even walking in the door and having to see everyone faking the smiles and the overly sweet sentiments from people who could not care less that I was back.

These people make a spectacle of saying hello and asking how things are going at school, but I can see right through their facade.

They never make an effort to talk to me otherwise.

They do not send me messages on Facebook, shoot me a text, call me up, or send me any letters.

They just throw on the smiles and the overly sweet words just because they have to keep up their image.

I mean nothing to the people in the church I spent 13 years of my life as a member of.

I knew they were not really huge fans of mine when I was there but I am not even a blip on their radar now.

I think it is better that way for me in the long run.

And in regards to the general public, I do not have much connections with people here. 

The only people who care that I am back are my babysitting families.

My kids have been waiting for me to get back for weeks and they are excited to see me.

If it were not for my kids I would not have anything happy to look forward to whatsoever.

I guess it is these times when I have come home that have really made it clear that going out of state for school was the best thing that I could have done for myself.

I would not have been happy had I stayed.

I am sure God would have worked things out, but it would not have been the same.

Coming here is hard for me to do anymore.

The anxiety that I was dealing with the night before, even the week before, leaving was ridiculous.

Coming here is such a strain on me physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

It is not at all that I do not like the town and the area, but rather that I do not like the people here.

All of their drama and all of the craziness that comes along with them.

I am about ready to just clear out my Facebook and leave only a couple of really close family friends on their from the area.

I do not have a reason to keep connected with all these people.

They could not care less about what happens to me and really I am done dealing with the drama.

I have also realized since being home that I really need to tell my mom that I switched my major. 

I just do not know how she is going to take it.

I know I need to before I leave for St. Louis next week because my grandparents know and will probably say something.

I just feel like she has been pulling a guilt trip on me and she does not even know it.

She is constantly talking about Graduate school and internships and jobs.

All of these things that she has gotten herself attached to.

I feel like if I tell her she is going to freak out and then I am going to feel like I let her down.

I just do not feel like following that major was a good fit for me.

I did not like the classes related to it and therefore was not doing well.

But I did take a class related to my new major and I really enjoyed it.

(Which is surprising because it was all about the History and Philosophy of Education. Sounds like lots of fun, I know.)

I am really excited for my classes regarding my major that I am taking this coming semester.

Applied Arts for Teachers, Educational & Developmental Psychology, First Aid & Emergency Care, etc.

There is even a piano class in there!!!
I am so looking forward to this semester, but my mom does not know that I am taking them.

I just know she is going to pull the whole "Do you know how much I've put into this? Too much for you to be changing your major now!! What do you think this is? We can't afford you switching now! And what the heck even brought this idea into your think skull? I can't believe you would do this!! Everything was planned out and I'm working my butt off to get you through school and you go and do this?" ...etc., etc., etc. 

The whole thing will turn into a yelling match and will revolve around her and what she has done for my schooling.

It will have nothing to do with what I feel like I should do and what I feel God is leading me to.

None of that will matter at all when I tell her.

It's so stinking frustrating.

ARGH.

I just do not know what to do. :( 

But like Sly and The Family Stone say...

Que Sera, Sera....Whatever Will Be, Will Be