I'm back! I am glad I got to go on the retreat - It sure was a nice time of getting to fellowship with people!

A few highlights ...

A late night game of Encore with some other gals in our cabin area ;-D

A walk and time of prayer together with my good friend and former roommie D :)

Learning how to fish ... and even catching a perch :-) (with some help, of course!)

A great game of rainy weather volleyball, in which staff member DC took a heroic dive straight into a massive mud puddle! :o)

I am glad to be here at GFA. As I was sharing with someone the other day, it feels like the Lord has brought me through much in my almost five years here, but I have learned much in my walk with Him, on so many levels! I'm so glad He is always working on me.

Now I have tomorrow off - I hope to get quite a bit done, and the rest will be nice as well, after being gone all weekend and staying up a bit late last night with our Encore game. :-D

We're all going on a staff retreat - yay! :-) Hope the weather is nice. (as it rains outside my second-story cubicle window as I write this ;-D) Well, whether it rains or is sunny, God is good! (and we need the rain just as much as the sun!!!)

I'm riding down there with a good friend from work, and tomorrow night I'm one of the MC's for the talent show! Should be fun.

Ever have one of those weeks in which you feel like you could really use a special touch from the Lord? This week so far seems to be one of those ... a week of hardships in the battle.

But something kind of cool happened today that not only was helpful and encouraging to me, but also helped to take my focus off me and think more instead of how I can minister to and serve others.

And I was listening to some of a Piper sermon that is really good ... I would highly recommend it!

Here's a great quote from it ...

"I have never heard anybody say, “The deepest, rarest, choicest, most satisfying pleasures in life have come to me in extended seasons of ease and earthly comfort.” It’s always the opposite, like Samuel Rutherford who said, “I accept being put into the cellars of suffering, because the great King keeps His wine there.” Or like Charles Spurgeon who said, “Those who dive in the seas of affliction bring up the rarest pearls.” You do not try to maximize your earthly comforts if your life is going to have the deepest, rarest, most lasting pleasures. It's the cellars of suffering for righteousness and walking with God through the dark paths of faithfulness that in the end and often along the way bring the sweetest, deepest discoveries of who He is." - John Piper

Praise God! I think I may have gotten the touch I needed. ;-D

Is it really the weekend already? This week passed kind of quickly, too! Today some of us from my department went to Garcia Bros. (yum!) to share some of what we had learned at the EPA Convention a few weeks ago. :-D

I got some recipe booklets that a co-worker had UFG, and am looking forward to trying out some more new recipes. :o)I had some good time with the Lord yesterday ... how good it is to know Him!

Well, I do think I am going to walk home now (might I add, in this absolutely gorgeous weather) and officially start my weekend. :oD I look forward to it.

Wow, I had such a refreshing weekend!

It was a really nice mixture of rest, relaxation, times with friends, time with Jesus, meeting new friends, and being spiritually nourished through a church service and S.S. class.

On Friday, Steph and Michele and I had our C&B outing ... and I did end up finding a cute outfit that they both liked and even encouraged me to get. :-D (Good thing I had my 20% off coupon :=)

Saturday was a good mix of lots of cooking (chicken "stir fry" and fall harvest chowder), catching up around the apartment, watching a movie and talking to my mom on the phone.

Sunday was great ... good church service and Sunday school, and a good time of going to lunch afterwards at Dickey's Barbeque. It was especially fun because all of the women in our group were handed carnations at the cash register, in honor of Mother's Day.

I love flowers. :-D

Post #519.

Things go great here! I am just kind of in disbelief it's already Friday?! Because the week feels like it's gone by rather quickly.

Tonight I'm going with Steph and Michele to eat at La Madeline and then to one of our favorite shops, Christopher and Banks. :-D I am thoroughly looking forward to this time to catch up and hang out together. And there is supposed to be this big sale at C&B, and I have a 20% off coupon, too ...

I am excited about the weekend. I think tomorrow I will do some of the normal stuff like getting some good exercise, catching up a bunch around the apartment, etc. Who knows, I may even try out a new recipe. :o) I love to cook!

I want to spend some good time with the Lord, too.

This time I'm back for real - back in sunny Texas! Got back late Sunday evening. And things go well. A project came together that I was working on today and much of yesterday, so that was exciting!

Fun time zone story from the weekend ...

So there I was in Colorado on Sunday morning, and I knew we all needed to leave for church around 9:10. Well, it's maybe 8:30 or 8:40, and hardly a creature in the house seems to be stirring. Seeing one of my "roommates" dressed in her Sunday attire, I get up and get ready for church, too.

By the time we get downstairs, it's something like 9:04, and Mrs. H is in the kitchen starting french toast and bacon. Now I love breakfast, and I'm thinking, YUM. But there's one problem ... we have, like, six minutes before we have to leave!

Then I hear Mrs. H say something like, "Yeah, we're doing pretty well. It's 8:00 ..." I burst out laughing, tell her my story and how I was thinking "Mrs. H, that breakfast looks really nice but we have to leave in six minutes," and she bursts out laughing, too. :-D

[I had switched my watch to Colorado time, but not my cell phone, which had my alarm on it! ;-)]

I'm back. Well, not back back. But back to the world of bloggers. :o)))

I am at my friends' in Manitou, and I climbed up Red Mountain today ...

Boy, oh boy, there's nothing like climbing a mountain to make you realize how out of shape you are. Of course, I blame it on the high altitude and thin air, both of which I'm not used to.

But it sure is beautiful out here! If they decided to move our ministry out to gorgeous Colorado, I surely would not complain.:-D Of course, I truly thank God that I can be content ANYWHERE, mountains or not!!! I've been thinking on that subject since I've been out here in this beautiful place, and am so happy that in Jesus I can always be content, anywhere. Praise God.

Gotta go because I think I'm taking a quick walk before we all have supper together. It's been fun chatting with my friends and also a girl that I helped kind of settle in to her room over at the old hotel where the summer conference will be!

Well, see a bunch of you soon, since I'll be back tomorrow! :o)

God is good.