The Year In Review

Dear family and friends,

Happy New Year's Eve! As is usually my custom, I find myself in a very reflective mood as one year closes and a new one stretches out before me. Therefore, I decided to share my ramblings and thoughts with all of you, the people that have walked through this last year with me.

As I am sitting here typing this, I am enjoying my last day at home before I head back to Boston tomorrow. It has been a really nice break to be here and enjoy spending time with many of you - people that are a part of my story and who hold a very dear place in my heart, even though I don't see you very often now that I live 1100 miles away. Thank you so much for taking time out of your holiday time to visit with me and let me know how much I am loved. Knowing that people here care and love me and are praying for me really does make it easier to move forward with life in a brand new place. Please keep praying in 2008! :)

So 2007.....what a year it has been....this has been the hardest year of my life and also one of the best years as I have discovered in a lasting and tangible way that God is who He says He is, and He is all that we need. While I would have never chosen to walk through a divorce, as I look back on this past year, I can say with confidence and thankfulness that God has met me where I was, and He has bound up my broken heart. The healing He alone has done in my heart and life this year are indescribable. In early 2007, I never thought I would be where I am at the end of the year - enjoying life and filled with hope about both today and tomorrow. Thanks be to God for that miracle.

2007 also brought a move to a different part of the country, as you all know. Moving to Boston has been one of the best things I have ever done. Getting outside of myself and seeing a different culture and being around different people...all of this has helped move me forward in the grieving and healing process. God's story is bigger than we can comprehend, and the world is a lot bigger than many of us have seen. Having a taste of another part of God's world has shown me that His church is everywhere, I could go anywhere and be fine, and I really am a grown up. :) I have loved meeting new people and living by the ocean and seeing snow and all of the other amazing adventures I have had in these last six months. It's hard to believe I've already been in Boston for six months! But what's really cool is that my life is richer for having shared these last six months with people that I didn't know at the beginning of the summer. And now I can't imagine my life without these people as a part of the fabric of it. I am thankful God pushed me out of my comfort zone to a new place, and I am looking forward to continuing to build relationships with people that I am only just now getting to know.

I'm not gonna lie - I am thankful that 2007 is coming to an end! :) I am ready to put this past year behind me. Despite that fact, it has been a defining year for me, and I know that my life will never be the same because of all that I have gone through, learned, and discovered throughout the circumstances that were encountered. As 2008 looms before me, I have much excitement and anticipation to see what God has in store for me in this next year.

My prayer for 2008 is that God will continue His work in my life and that I will allow Him to continue to refine those areas of my life that need His refinement. I am also praying for a year filled with confident joy. I think I've become a bit more of a realist and cynic in this last year - not a good thing - I didn't need anymore of that! :) Knowing that bad things can and do happen can sometimes cause me to live in expectation of them occurring. Instead, I want to live in expectation of great and exciting things happening, knowing that if not so great things do happen, God will be enough. It's a fine line between those two things, but I hope to live this year with joyful expectation. I am also praying that God will continue to heal my heart in a deeper level, and that I won't be afraid to live and love and dream and hope in whatever circumstances He brings my way.

Thank you so much to all of you for your support, encouragement, love and most of all your prayers. I would not have made it through this last year without my brothers and sisters in Christ. My life is richer for having you in it, and I am thankful God has given me such awesome people to walk through life with.

I pray that as we all walk through 2008, we will live in this moment, enjoying every second that God allows us to have. I pray that we will love others well, and that we will make a deliberate choice to seek out and love "the least of these". And I pray that we will live in light of eternity and not waste the time that God has allotted for us here on this earth, with the end goal being the spread of His name and His renown, for His glory.

Happy New Year! I love you all...
Tiffany

Christmas Pictures

Hello everyone! I hope that you have all had a very Merry Christmas and enjoyed time spent with family and friends. I have very much enjoyed being at home and having the chance to rest and relax and hang out with my family and friends that I have not seen in awhile. It has been a lot of fun. I am also finally getting over my cold, so that is always a plus.

Here are a few pictures of our time so far. Here are the brothers on Christmas morning and Kit (Ellie's BIG sister!)...



I got to see most of my family from my dad's side (this is why I am so short!!!)



My mom and I were playing with the timer on my camera today and taking self-portraits. We laughed a lot and had fun! Here are a few of my favorites...




Finally, here is a picture of my cute Pa as he is painting the front door of the house.


I only have a couple of more days here before heading back to Boston, but I plan to enjoy every minute! More posts to come soon...have a great weekend!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! Horrible cold and all, I made it safely home last night and am enjoying being with the family. You can all pray that I get better quickly so that I can enjoy this time of being home and visiting with folks. Anyway, it's Christmas, and I am so thankful to be able to share this time with my family. I hope that you and yours have a fantastic day and enjoy each moment of this holiday season. I will be posting entries, my promised "deep thoughts" and many pictures in the coming days, so be on the lookout! And until I post some GA Christmas pictures, here's a tree from my neck of the woods in Rockport....love you all!

Winter Wonderland

Hi everyone! It's been a beautiful December so far here in Boston - I think we've had somewhere around 18 inches of snow over the last few weeks. This past Thursday, it snowed all morning long, leaving about 4 inches of gorgeous fluffy snow everywhere. I had a meeting with work at a hotel, and then they gave us the afternoon off. So I got to drive home in the snow, and drive through a true winter wonderland. I wish you all could have been here because words and pictures cannot describe the beauty that I experienced on this day. I have had a lot of great experiences throughout life, and I can honestly say that my drive home gave me some of the most beautiful sights I have seen in my entire life. I actually stopped in two places to take some pictures to try to share a small taste of the beauty with all of you.

I love seeing Christmas decorations with snow on them. When I saw this fence, I had to take a picture!


There is something so peaceful and quiet about snow falling. Every day on my way to work, I drive past a cemetery. Seeing the graves with snow on them was an image that I found to be peaceful as well.


Finally, as I was driving home, the entire world was white. I've never seen anything like it. It looked like the woods had been frozen in time. Again, pictures don't do it justice, but here are a few...




I get to fly home Monday evening to spend a week with my family. I hope to see many of you while I am home. In the meantime, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

A Snow Day

Dear family and friends....I write to you today from a very wintry North Shore. We woke up this morning to blizzard like conditions - the wind was howling, snow was swirling, and visibility was very low. Church was cancelled this morning, which should tell you how bad it was because these people are used to and prepared for weather like this! So today has been a very needed day of rest and relaxation - a true Sabbath for the soul.

I did brave the weather a little while ago to take some pictures, some of which I will share with you in this blog. Even walking in the wind and freezing rain, it's really awesome to see snow on the ocean. Here is a picture of our house with snow all in the yard, and the mailbox across the street so you can see how much snow has fallen in 2 days...



I was trying to find some Christmas decorations and such that were snowy, and these are some of my favorite things I saw...




Finally, the waves were big today AND there was snow on the rocks! I wish you all could have stood down by the water with me because pictures do not do this justice, but here is at least an idea....





The beauty of God's creation in the seasons and various forms of precipitation is breath-taking. I am thankful that I am able to experience His grace in this way for this winter. Hope that you all have a great week!

Nathan's Visit

Our friend Nathan has been visiting us this week, and we had a lot of fun. He had to leave to go home today, but we had time to go into Boston and show him around. It was fun, but it was SO COLD!!!! The high today was about 25, and when the wind was blowing, it felt much colder. We braved the elements though and showed Nathan a couple of sights. He really wanted to see Fenway Park, so we took him there. Here are a couple of pictures from that.



We then took Nathan to the Boston Common area, which is one of my favorite parts of the city. The park was absolutely beautiful with snow everywhere. These pictures most definitely don't do it justice, but it will give you an idea.





So thanks for visiting us Nathan - we hope that you had a fantastic time! Feel free to return whenever you'd like.

And to close this blog, we are expecting more snow/ice/who knows tonight and tomorrow, so that should be pretty cool. I'll keep posting pictures. I will also post a new blog soon that contains thoughts I have been having regarding the Christmas season, life and who knows what else. For now, I will leave you with the picture of my first New England snow angel. The coolest part about getting more than an inch of snow is that when you make a snow angel, you don't scrape all the snow away to reveal the grass. I think this is the coolest snow angel I've ever seen! :) Have a great Sunday!

More Snow Pictures

Hi everyone!

The world up here is so gorgeous! I think most Christmas songs had to get written up north somewhere because there is just something magical about seeing Christmas lights and wreaths and such with snow on them. Anyway, here are a few more pictures of the snow that I was able to take this morning right before work. I'm hoping to get some more of the snow on the rocks and such at some point, but this was a start. Tomorrow we are going to explore Boston with Nathan before he heads home and we brace for round 2 of winter weather. We'll keep you posted! Much love to all....

What A Day....

Hi everyone. Okay, first things first. Here is a picture of my new car....


It's so cute, isn't it? Well, wait until you hear my story from today. We got a nice snowstorm today. It was actually completely awesome - more on that later.... But as I was driving home from work today, everything was going fine, and I was so proud of myself for how well I was driving on the snowy roads.....and then my car suddenly stopped. Everything turned off - there was no power - and I have no idea why. I managed to sort of get myself to the side of the road, where I sat for an hour waiting for a tow truck to come get me. The truck dropped my car off at their towing place, where I have to get the dealership to go get it tomorrow and figure something out. Different car? Something simple to be fixed? Who knows.....but definitely not the way I was hoping the day would go. I'll keep you posted on the car drama. I'm not sure if I can come up with a name for it yet, but any suggestions you have would be welcome.

As far as the snow goes, we have close to a foot of snow here at our apartment and really all over the North Shore. It is so awesome! Watching it fall, driving in it, driving on roads that were covered with snow....it has seriously been one of the coolest experiences ever. I made a snow angel earlier, which was fun. It's so peaceful and such a glorious representation of God's beauty. Here are a couple of pictures I took at work today as the snow was falling...this was fairly early in the storm..



I tried to take a few pictures of the snow around our apartment in the dark....to try to give you some sort of an idea of what it looks like. Hopefully these will turn out okay. More to come soon!

Nathan And A Car And My Brother And Ellie And God

Pardon the title, but I'm sitting in a room with my seminary student brother and Nathan, who came to visit us, and there are deep theological discussions going on. We disagreed about the title of this blog, so I just put everything in that was suggested. Does anyone feel sorry for me yet?? :)

Anyway, I was finally able to pick up my car today! YAY!!! And for those wondering, it's an '08 Chevrolet Cobalt. I actually thought it was an '07 until the insurance company called me today and said it was an '08. It could be because my car salesman had only been selling cars for 2 months....Hmm.... it had 8 miles on it, which is cool. I had fun driving it, although I'm going to have to be careful not to speed because I could drive really fast in it!! Once it is light outside, I will take a picture and post it on my blog. At that point, we will be open for name suggestions.

Nathan is here visiting us, which is really cool. It's always so fun to see people from home and share our home with them. Poor Nathan is having culture shock because he came from GA, where it's almost 80, to here, where it's going to be in the 20's for the high tomorrow. However, we are under a winter storm watch, with the possibility of 4-7 inches of snow tomorrow, so I think he'll be okay if that happens! We are also supposed to get a big storm this weekend. I can't wait!! I promise to take some pictures this time around to share with all of you.

Massive discussion going on about the Catholic church currently.... Anyone have any thoughts on Mary?

I think I'm going to try to go to bed now. Wish me luck! Much love to you all....looking forward to being home in a couple of weeks!

I'm A Big Girl Now!

Greetings all, and happy Monday! I just wanted to share the most fabulous news that as of 5:30pm today, I will be the official owner of a new car! The lease on my fantastic blazer is up, and I have been trying to figure out what to do next, so I went car shopping on Saturday. It was a little intimidating sitting by myself in a dealership, but I held my ground and got a really good deal. I don't actually pick the car up until Tuesday, so I have a little longer to say goodbye to my Casey (yes I name my cars!)...

This new car will have Massachusetts plates, so I will officially become a "Masshole" driver (that's what we call them!) :) I will definitely post pictures in a couple of days when I am able to get some taken, and anyone who has name suggestions, feel free to contribute.

So as life continues moving forward, I am getting the opportunity to make all kinds of big decisions and now have bought my first, totally by myself, car! Hope you guys have a fantastic week! More to come soon....

Fun Friday

So I drove home from work tonight in the pouring down snow. Yes, this southern girl drove home IN THE SNOW!! Who'd have ever thought that I would live somewhere that it snows a lot and get to experience that? I love it! It's so much fun, and I think it's going to be a really fun winter. It's supposed to snow/sleet/precipitate in various forms starting Sunday evening through Wed. I think, so it should be fun and exciting. Since it'll be light tomorrow when I'm out and about, I'll try to get some pictures taken of what's on the ground right now. It's cool because it hasn't really been above freezing since the last snow, so it just all stays around!

Anyway, today at work was "Fun Friday". For the month of December, we are having fun Fridays, where we gather together at 3pm and do something fun together. Our staff has been divided into a few groups, and each group is responsible for one of the days - coming up with a theme and bringing whatever you are going to do. This Friday was my team's turn. We did "A Child's Christmas" and we all decorated Christmas cookies together, listened to Christmas music....AND Santa made a surprise appearance, bringing gifts for everyone!

It was awesome! The VP of our company's name is Dave, and since I started working there, I have called him "jolly Dave" (much to his horror). I've been telling him that I thought he should be Santa at Christmas, and he thought I was insane. Dave somewhat embodies a stereotypical northern in a lot of ways, and the entire office didn't think I would be able to talk him into being Santa. But today, while everyone was eating their cookies, Santa Dave arrived, and it was hilarious. Here is a picture of Santa and his elves (my fun Friday team)....

New York, New York

Happy Monday, dear family and friends! I write to you completely exhausted, so hopefully this blog will make some sense. Why exhausted? Thanks for asking! It all stems from our fabulous trip to the Big Apple. HINT.... Never go to New York City in December! :)

Our New York story is hilarious, so allow me to share. The parents flew in on Friday afternoon. Brother and I met them in downtown Boston around 5:15 or so. We got to South Station, got some food, got on the Amtrak train, and left promptly at 6:30pm. Our train was supposed to arrive in NYC at 10:30pm. Instead, we arrived at 3:15am. Some sort of electrical something broke on the train, and we spent hours stranded in Connecticut. Here are some pictures on the latter end of the train ride, as we were completely exhausted.....(This is not a flattering picture of me and my mom, but I'm trying to convey the level of lunacy...)




When we finally arrived in NYC, we still had to take a cab to our hotel in New Jersey. Our evening came to a hysterical conclusion when our cab driver, upon receiving the address of the hotel, said, "I've never been to New Jersey before." I think we were so tired, we couldn't think enough to get a new driver, so we endured several wrong turns before finally arriving at our hotel. This is the time we walked in our room - yes, AM.


After sleeping for about 4 hours, we woke up, got ready, and hit the city for a day filled with......tons and tons of people. I have never seen anything like it in my life. They actually had que lines for people to look at the store windows if that tells you anything. We walked in a few stores, but most had lines waiting to get in. It was freezing....tons of people (did I mention that already??), and with not much sleep, I'm not sure we were in the best of spirits to maintain a fantastic sense of humor. Here are a few pictures from the day...





On Saturday night before leaving NYC, we went to the Rockefeller Center to see the tree. Here are a few pictures from that madness!




We had an awesome time visiting with my parents, and they even got to see snow!! We had our first real snow that stuck, starting with Sunday and continuing off and on until this morning. It's fun to see white outside and know it's going to be around for awhile! Remind me I said that in March! :) Anyway, I shall leave you with two pictures - I haven't gotten a picture of the snow in daylight, but here is our front porch with snow on it, and Ellie's reaction to her first snow. I can't wait until it really snows to see what she does! Hope you all have a great week! We are looking forward to seeing many of you over Christmas...