I am back in sunny Dallas after my trip to the Coast for the holidays. It's good to be back. I also had a wonderful trip back home, visiting with friends, family and supporters. Good times!

Just a few highlights of my time there ...

Catching up with a couple of long-time friends as we traveled an hour away to "window shop" (at least mostly that for me, with the exception of two great thrift store finds - see below :)) and eat at Cracker Barrel (kids' meal chicken 'n dumplings ... yum! :O))

Finding, at two different thrift stores, a pretty black sweater with embroidered blue flowers for 89 cents and a light blue casual "jacket" for just over two bucks!

Attending, along with my parents, our church's Christmas Eve service and enjoying the fellowship afterwards

Getting a paper shredder from my cousin that I'm already immensely enjoying using to go through papers in my apartment :)

Enjoying some Christmas movies with my parents ... and another movie with popcorn :)

Getting out for a while with my mom and enjoying ice cream cones at Chick-fila

Catching up with my good friend Stace at the mall and Chick-fila, and running into some more people I knew there, too!

Getting to ride over the Biloxi-Ocean Springs bridge. [Okay, this may not seem like a big deal, but to us Gulf Coast people or even those of us who have ever lived there, like me, it's a VERY big deal. :) See, it was just recently rebuilt and reopened after being largely destroyed in Hurricane Katrina.]

All in all, I am doing well and grateful for the things God is teaching me and how He has been encouraging me thus far in this New Year. Thinking of 2008, I like to think of this Scripture passage:

"Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland."
-Isaiah 43:18,19