happy hell week

I'm in the middle of what is dubbed 'hell week', where I have assignments and papers and readings and finals and work and packing and a sinus infection and family arriving. But rather than complaining, which I have been doing way too much of lately, I wanted to highlight a few things that I'm really grateful for. This helps me keep hell week in perspective.
-I'm grateful for the opportunity to get further education. I love being on campus and I enjoy my professors and my classmates. I love learning and I like being held accountable to learn new things.
-I'm grateful for wonderful friends. I sometimes feel like I'm not a very good friend because I'm so busy all of the time. But my friends are so understanding of that and are great to me anyways. Seriously this week I've had a friend bring me dinner and another offer to bring me lunch. I've had numerous texts to see how I'm hanging in there.
-I have the best counselors and advisors. At my church I am in charge of all the girls 12-18 and I have counselors and advisors to oversee and help with the girls. These leaders are incredible. I'm so inspired by their greatness. All within the same hour the other day I got an email from my first counselor saying she had everything covered for our Tuesday night youth group, an email from my second counselor giving me updates on the ash cloud and reassuring me about our trip, and an email from my secretary that took care of three things on our to-do list. I divy out a lot of responsibilities to these leaders and advisors and I have never, not once, been let down. They go above and beyond in all they do. Its an honor to work with them.
- I have the best cat. She seems to always know when I'm stressed out. I took nyquil a few nights ago and while it helped with coughing, I was so grogy when I woke up that I was having a hard time getting out of bed. Knowing just when I get up, my cat came over to the side of the bed and put her face about an inch from mine and meowed in increasing volume till I got up.
- I'm grateful for my job. I work at a training company and I really actually believe in our training. I feel like we make a positive impact in the world and I like being a part of that. I also really like the people I work with, and not everyone can claim that.
- I'm grateful for my family. I don't get to see them or talk to them much but they are good people and really kind and very funny.
I grateful for my life. I am so blessed. This week is rough but it would be so much harder if I didn't have all these amazing things in my life to make it better. So thanks to all of you great people who help make my life so wonderful!
We've got one week till we leave for Europe so perhaps we should listen to one or two European artists.
Its raining outside so first up is a moody piece.
Damien Rice, representing the UK:



Switching gears here is Bireli Lagrene, representing France:



I'll post more about the trip in a few days!