a few of my favorite things

last night i was thinking about some of the things that i really love right now and decided to compile this little list. i find it so funny how we go through these patterns of liking certain things for a while and then moving on to something else... just the seasons of life i suppose. so here are a few of my current favorite things:


my cath kidston slippers. i tried searching for a picture of these online and came up with nothing. and trust me, you don't want a picture of mine because they are so worn out! i discovered cath kidston when i was in england last summer. my friends and i took a train to southern england to a super cute beach town called brighton. we explored a bunch of shops and it was there that i found cath kidston. it's kind of like the vera bradley of the UK if that makes any sense. everything is in these soft blues and pinks with really shabby chic floral prints. just lovely! while i was there i picked up a pair of slippers and they are the most amazing thing ever! unfortunately i have worn them out so much and there are holes and tears all over the bottom. i don't know if i'll be able to find a replacement pair. looks like i'll just have to go back to england.


the dr. quinn series. seriously, i cannot get enough of this show. i think i'm already on the 3rd season. i literally watch at least 1 episode almost every night before i go to bed. i don't think i appreciated joe lando as 'sully' nearly as much as i do now at 27. haha! i mean seriously? who doesn't love a man who appears out of nowhere with a tomahawk and a wolf by his side? haha! but seriously, that show was just honest-to-goodness family entertainment that's so hard to come by anymore. i'm so glad this was released to dvd and that i got it for over 50% off on amazon! like a gift from heaven, i tell ya. and ps- it's still on sale.



words with friends. if you have an iphone and aren't playing this then you are totally missing out. it's glorified scrabble that you can play with friends over a few hours, days, even weeks. just play a word when you have time and when it's your turn a handy-dandy little notification lets you know. you can play multiple games at once. i currently have 12 going. haha! it's another one of those things i do at night while i'm watching dr. quinn. man, i love that time of the day!




wege of hanover broken hard sourdough pretzels. i'm pretty sure this is a PA thing cause the pretzels are made in a small town somewhere nearby. oh man i am so obsessed with these though! it's basically thick sourdough pretzels broken into a bunch of pieces. i love anything crunchy and salty so these hit the spot for me! pair it with a coke zero and i am so satisfied. :)


so those are a few of my favorite things right now! let me know what you just can't get enough of right now. maybe you'll get me hooked. haha! :)

message in a cookie

last weekend my family went out to pf changs for dinner in honor of kesh's birthday. at the end of the night we got a pile of fortune cookies and i grabbed one. when i read the little fortune inside i was shocked. you can see by the picture that it says: "you will move to a wonderful new home within the year." when i proceeded to tell my family they all thought that i was joking. then i showed them.

i mentioned later that i should take a photo and put it on my blog and my sister agreed, but then she said i should share the backstory of it. so here it is.

i'm 27 and i live with my parents. while that should be reason enough for that fortune cookie to make me smile, there's more. don't get me wrong, i love my parents and i have saved a lot of money by being there which i appreciate very much, but over the last year i have gotten the 'itch.' i realized that it was time to start looking and venturing out on my own. one of the main reasons it hasn't happened sooner was because i was traveling so much and it didn't make sense to put all that responsibility on myself when i wasn't even around to enjoy it. i've now realized that there are ways to make it work so that's no longer one of my excuses.

my requirement for a house is 1) it must be cheap... haha... i am a missionary afterall. no lavish townhome for me. 2) it must be in the city limits of coatesville. for the last 2 years i have worked in this city and grown to love it, especially the people. for most of you this is no big deal, but around here it's not typically a place people aspire to live. it's a tough place filled with violence, drugs, gangs... everything a city has to offer. but it's also a place where i believe hope resides and it's a place God is calling me to so out of obedience i say- bring it on!

last fall my friend found out about this sheriff sale taking place at a rowhome across the street from her. we went over one night with flashlights (the door was open!) and took a peek. it had the most beautiful original thick molding and hardwood floors under that nasty old carpet. it had potential! the more i looked into sheriff sales though the more worried i got. i realized i didn't have everything together yet to pursue it so i dropped it and said if it was meant to be mine it would show up on the market again. well lo and behold in early december it did! turns out a bank reposessed it and had it listed for $34,000. ummmm can we say cheap? i almost peed my pants when i found out. seriously.

so the next day my parents and my realtor went and did an official (legal) walkthrough. haha! we made an offer and then found out that someone had gotten in before us. so i prayed and prayed and kept on praying for almost 5 days while i waited for news. turns out the bank accepted the other offer before they even saw mine. yeah, devastation doesn't even begin to cut it. i mourned that house for a couple weeks. i mourned what i thought was the death of a dream. i felt like God had failed me and i was angry.

at church fellowship the next week i cried and told everyone how disappointed i was and admitted my anger at God for not giving me what i wanted. i had somehow led myself to believe that God would give me this house as a way to show me how much He loved me. so when it fell through i questioned his love for me. yeah, i know. real mature. anyways, after confessing all those thoughts and feelings and literally weeping over what could have been, i released it. i gave it back to the Lord. i let myself lavish in the love that He has for me (house or no house). i allowed myself to trust Him once again with my dreams and the desires of my heart.

so when i opened that fortune cookie and saw that little message i couldn't help but smile. sure, it could have been chance. but it also could have been a little reassurance from my heavenly father that His timing is perfect and that 2010 is going to be a great year. :)

happy birthday kesh!

today i want to celebrate and honor a very special person in my life. technically i have to call her my sister-in-law but i've come to despise that terminology. the 'in-law' part has a bit of a bad connotation to it, which we can probably all attest to. often we switch it out and say sister-in-love which is nice, but kesh is oh so much more. i literally feel like i have gained a sister by having her in my life. i had no idea when she came into my life just over 10 years ago the impact she would have on me, the encouragement she would give me and the confidant she would become.

she is such an incredible wife, mother, sister and friend and i can't imagine my life without her. she has taught me so much about life and love and walks in humility daily, knowing that she is nothing if her heart is not first bent towards the lord. i value our relationship so much and can't imagine life without her!

so kesh, i hope you enjoy your last year of being a 20-something... haha. don't worry, i'm not too far behind you. i love you so much!

not-me-monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

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it hasn't been since july that i've done a not-me-monday post. i keep up with my blogging so well.

i did not purchase the entire series of dr. quinn medicine woman and then get so giddy when my package from amazon arrived that i sliced my finger opening the box. i did not then proceed to suck on my bleeding finger while i snapped a photo on my iphone and uploaded it to facebook. i am not that ridiculous and my priorities are not that out of wack.

i did not go to the movies twice this weekend, both times consuming a coke zero and a medium popcorn. i didn't also add raisinets to the equation one of those times. nope, not me!

i didn't get all school-girlish during the end of one of those movies (leap year) and start squeezing my bff's leg just cause i was so happy with the ending. how lame that would have been.

i didn't beg my sister to stop at sonic for lunch while we were in lancaster on saturday cause i wanted a cherry limeade. i did not enjoy watching her try it for the first time and then rejoice inside that she liked it. i did not then down said cherry limeade in record time. not me!

i didn't fall down the stairs last night right onto my back causing me to be in excrutiating pain all day. i didn't stay in bed all day cause of that pain and watch half of season 1 of dr. quinn. my day was much more productive than that. :(

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so what have you not been doing this week?

new year, new eyes

i'm in a good mood today so i figured that's an excuse to blog. i'll admit i've been seriously lacking on the blog-writing front. i think i'm suffering from a blog-identity crisis. is this a place where i write about my daily happenings? a place to document my random thoughts? a place where i share about my worldly adventures? yes, yes and yes. it is all of the above and probably more and i think that's ok. this blog is my little corner of the world to share what i want and it doesn't have to flow perfectly together, because let's face it- my life doesn't always flow like a calm little stream. it's more like a raging river with lots of rocks and waterfalls, but that's so much more exciting.

i feel like the last few months has been such an emotionally intense time for me. i've been going through so much growth as a person and coming to grips with true realities of life and also the false ones i've allowed myself to believe for so long. there's been ups and downs and lots of tears shed, but i'm growing and learning so much about who i am and why i am the way i am. it's amazing to me as i learn more about why i respond certain ways and what my triggers are that send me over the edge. processing through all of that has been difficult, but so healing as well. and once again the lord has me in another season of digging deeper within myself to uncover those things that i've tried to keep hidden and exposing myself to those around me, because it's only in that exposing that i become free.

on christmas day my family visited my 87 year old grandmother (my mom's mom) because she's pretty much house-ridden. her mind is slowly going and she doesn't remember as much. i'll admit, the relationship with my nannie has always been an interesting one. she never showed a lot of interest in what we were doing and isn't exactly a 'nuturer' by nature so there hasn't been much of an emotional connection. but it meant a lot to my mom for us to go so we went. there was this framed picture on top of her armoire and she said it was a picture of her as a little girl in her parent's apartment. my nannie was an only child, a critical piece of information that i somehow at 27 just learned about her, which i feel explains a lot about the way she interacted (or didn't) with her kids & grandkids. she somehow managed to have 7 children and basically support them herself as she was married to an abusive alcoholic. for some reason when i looked at that picture of my nannie it made her seem more human to me. i know that sounds strange, but seeing her as a child and seeing her now as this 87-year old frail woman, who is slowly reverting back to childish ways, it just did something to me. there are reasons why my nannie was never able to shower us with the love and affection we so desperately wanted from her, but yet she did in her own way. as kids she always remembered our birthdays and the money she faithfully put inside. she would stop at our house on her saturday drives to lancaster just to check in, even if it was just for a few minutes. i see now that was her way of caring.

there are reasons why all of us act the way we do, most of which revert back to early childhood experiences. the more i learn about this the more i'm able to see people in a different light and not be so easily offended. we've all been hurt and wounded by other people in one way or another and it affects the way we interact with others, especially those we are close to. i feel like my eyes have been opened and i'm seeing people for the first time. i guess it's a bit how God feels when He looks at us, because He sees it all and knows it all and chooses to shower His love and compassion on us. it's so humbling and makes me so very grateful.

so all that to say, my heart is looking forward to the days ahead. i don't know what's in store, but i know the One who does and i'm resting in that today.

contact me

if you're trying to get in touch with me, here are a couple simple ways:

email
thelifeofsusan@gmail.com

snail mail
Susan Witmer
c/o: HBB
PO Box 993
Coatesville, PA 19320