Hello.

My name is Christina. 

There's so much to know. 

Life is beautiful.
I love the days when I feel like I'm living life the fullest that I can. 

I'm weird. 

I really do do this to avoid cleaning my room. 

I take pictures of myself instead of cleaning my room. 

It's much more enjoyable. 

I love learning about pregnancy. 

and birth. 

I love learning about child development. 

I'm a people person. 

Or an extrovert. 

My hobby is to take pictures,

and to learn about my camera/photography. 

I love it. 

My camera. Definitely a canon girl. 

My camera goes almost everywhere that I go. 

So does my water bottle. 

Sunshine is my favorite. 

Hence, summer is my favorite season. 

I only have a few friends, but they are good ones. 

My biggest fear? Being alone. 

Although, at the moment, God has me quite isolated. 

I'm slowly learning to trust Him. 

My family lives in a third world country. 

I live in a first world country. 

Our lives are quite opposite. 

I have a large family. 

2 parents.

4 brothers.

3 sisters.

1 brother in law.

1 nephew. 

I am quite fond of them all. 

Believe it or not.

Meet my best friend/ boyfriend... best boyfriend? Yes, that works ;) 

Something I would like to be really good at? Loving. 

"the greatest of these is love."

1 Corinthians 13 

I love to talk. 

A doctor once told me I dislocated my jaw because I talked too much. 

I don't think that that's why my jaw dislocated. 

Just sayin'.

I love being busy. 

I L.O.V.E. ice cream. 

I was born in Ecuador.

Ecuador will always have a special place in my heart. 

Especially the kids there.
I love staying up late.
And sleeping in.
If only this society worked that way...
instead of everything starting so early every morning. 

That's just a little bit that you may or may not know about me.
I haven't done a personal post in a long while. My apologies.

Happy Monday, ya'll

A Beautiful Life

There are so many different things running through my mind. Another change is coming, and I can feel it.

I've been thinking a lot about this past year.... er, 9 months, to be exact. On Tuesday it will be exactly nine months since my family left me, and so much has happened.

I've always been a very dependent person, and although I believe I still am, I do know how to live on my own, and get things done without depending on someone.

There have been many tears, but even more laughs over the year. I've had my good times and I've had my bad times.

I've mourned the death of a good friend, but I've also welcomed many new lives into this beautiful world.

I've lost a few friends, but I have built better and stronger friendships with the ones who still remain, and I've also made new friends.

I've learned that God really wants the best for me, and I've learned that he has a plan. God has a plan just for Christina Shedd... isn't that amazing? isn't that humbling?

I've worked on discovering who I am, and I have come to many different conclusions.

I've discovered new skills that I have, and I have also discovered that I cannot do EVERYTHING.

I will say though, I think my job has taught me the most. Not only is it a great job to have because I can use what my teachers are teaching me, but there are other things that I have learned outside of what my teachers have taught me such as patience, kindness, love, and grace. I have learned that not everyone is perfect. I know I'm not.
When people find out that I am entering Early Childhood Education, and I am hoping to work with kids, it is quite common to hear them say, "Wow! You must be really patient." I know I've heard it more than once. That's not the truth though. Every single day when I go into work, it's something that I struggle with. I've been unfair, and unjust with the boys because I have become impatient. If I don't plan enough time to get out the door to go to the park, or to even just pick up Caden from school, then we're late, and I become frustrated.
Just from this, I have learned so much. I have to remind myself constantly that it takes longer for a child to get his jacket and shoes on than it would take me. They have just learned how to do all this.
Furthermore, there has been more than a few days when I have gone to work while I was not feeling well, while I have been extremely exhausted, or even if I am just having a grumpy day. Therefore, I tend to overreact to even the smallest things.
So, what I have learned through all of this is to just take time. Don't rush. If I can't get everything done that I wanted to, then so be it. Also, I've started practicing loving more, and trying to forget about my frustrations. Instead of becoming frustrated with the little things, I remind myself that they are young, and they still have much to learn. So I kiss them, hug them, or just spend quality time with them. I will snuggle with them, read a book to them, or have a conversation with them.
I say all this, because I don't want you to think I live in a perfect world while I am at work, because I don't. I know I post pictures of happy faces, but that doesn't mean there aren't tears before or after that.
I'm not perfect, but I am learning. I really look up to mothers. Any kind of mother. Any woman who has had children, and has raised, or begun to raise thier child, is someone I look up to. There's a lot of work needed to be done when a child comes into the world, and unlike myself, they don't get to have a break. At the end of the day, they are the ones who will really be caring for thier children, while I get to go home and sleep through the entire night.

I know, I'm ranting. To sum it up, my job has been such a blessing to me. I have learned so much, and I have been able to love even more. AND... I'm not perfect.

Another thing that I have been thankful for this year is my 365 photography project that I am doing. It gets me to not only learn a new skill, but I am able to capture all of these memories. It also reminds me that there is ALWAYS something to smile about. I cannot remember a time that taking my camera out did not make me feel good. Every time I take my camera out I look through the pictures, and see something beautiful.

It's pushed me to see life in a different way. It's pushed me to see life as so incredibly beautiful. And this happens every day. God has definitely given me a beautiful life.

So, here's another personal post about my life. I've slacked a little due to my photography project, but I have been reminded that this too is something that I enjoy.

I hope that YOU have enjoyed this little personal post.

Happy Friday, everyone!

A Little Personal

I've not maintained this blog as a personal blog very well. I mean, I let you know about my day to day life... which can actually be quite boring, but it's rare that I go into depth about much.

I was just thinking today about how I don't think I ever announced the fact that my parents are returning to Ecuador in October.

 I haven't talked much about how I need to find a summer job.

I don't think many people know how much I hate spiders.

No one knows what's going on with my major change.

I guess there are lots of things that I don't really take the time to tell. Although I don't see it as that important to actually blog these things, especially because I feel like this is all more for my benefit than anyone else's. Although I do prefer blogging more than journaling, and it's probably because it covers a few things. It lets my friends and family know about things that I don't usually call them for, and I am also able to go back and see how things have changed, or how things used to be. I also am encouraged by many lovely comments that I get from my wonderful readers (AKA my family ;) ) to continue this.

Blogging is a wonderful thing. Especially when you are living very far from your family. I love reading my sister's blogs... especially when they are about thier personal life! Sometimes I feel it is the only way that we communicate. I love seeing pictures of my rapidly growing nephew on my oldest sister's blog, and I love hearing about life in Ecuador on my both of my younger sister's blog.

My Family is Returning to Ecuador
Although my family obviously knows this, I don't know if I have said much to anyone else about it. A few months ago my parents were asked by the head of the mission if they wanted to return to Ecuador. A couple days before that, the people who bought our old house asked my parents if they would want to rent the upstairs of the house. My parents, who were very surprised, told them that they were still planning on returning to Colorado in May. Once they found out that they had a choice to stay in Ecuador or not, they had a big decision to make... or at least they thought they did. Obviously, they have a hard time leaving 3 of thier children, AND thier grandson in the U.S., but as I saw it, they were all doing much better in Ecuador. They were happier. They were healthier. They were having an adventure of a life time. Furthermore, for those of you who might see this all as crazy, we still see Ecuador as home. We are so comfortable there, and although there is not much of a country there (economically and politically), it is so beautiful to us. We love the people. We love the geography, the weather, and the experiences. So, after much conversation, they decided to return to Ecuador. They will still be coming back to Colorado on May 24th, but they will be returning to Ecuador sometime in October for at least three years. The crazy thing is that they will be living in our old house... which is the one that my mom designed and had built during our life there and we ended up living there 10 years (I believe) before we moved to Colorado.

What will I be doing?
You may be wondering what I will do once they leave again, but it's going to be very similar to this year. As of a couple days ago we found out that there is a family who is moving to Colorado to work at HCJB (the same mission where my dad works)(at least I think they are with HCJB)in June. When they arrive in June, they will live in the basement (where I currently live), and my entire family will live upstairs. Around the time that my parents leave, we will do a swap and I will move to the basement, and said family will move upstairs. This family has two little kids, 2 and under. So, it may be a little different having two kids above me, but I'm sure that they are very nice... and maybe they will use me as a babysitter :)

As of right now, I don't really have a roommate. I just haven't felt peace about anyone. I've also not had anyone say that they REALLY want to commit to being my roommate, but I have until October or November to find someone :)

Three years seems almost less overwhelming than nine months did. Although this time I have an advantage: I know what it will be like. I know I will be lonely, and I know that there are days when I will be very sad. I know I will go through hardship. I will have those bad days, but I know I will have wonderful days. I just hope I can keep moving on. I hope I can keep growing closer to God. I hope I can stay busy. I know I will learn a lot about myself and about the world. I will continue to use this time to mature. I will go on many adventures on my own, and I hope I can see it all in that light. I want to be happy about this. I want to be excited. I want to see the upside of all this.

Hey, maybe I will actually become capable of fixing things.... but I doubt it ;)

Over this year I have learned that I do best when I am busy. I do best when I don't actually have the time to think about my family being gone. The first semester that they were gone was a hard one in so many different ways. A big part of it was that my best friend and I were growing apart. Something that I have found out that I need is having someone I KNOW I can confide in. I need someone that is always there. I didn't have that my first semester, and that was hard. I was also learning how to adjust to life without my family around.
I'm a people person, so I do BEST when I am surrounded by people. Even if that just means sitting down and doing homework in silence together. So, here's to hoping that the next few years are better, or as good as this past semester has been :)

My Summer Job
I don't know how much I have said about this, so I'm sorry if I repeat myself. The lady I nanny for doesn't need me more than a couple hours a week over the summer, so I'm repeating last year and looking for a job (although, this time it's just for the summer:)). I've posted several ads on Craigslist, and I've gotten a few responses, but not really any with potential. I also have a director of a Montessori Preschool who may need me, but she needs to find out how many children are going to be attending over the summer. So once again I am doing a lot of waiting. It's okay though, because God has a plan. We'll just see what happens :)

Spiders
Spiders make me cringe. I just don't like them. I'm not really afraid of them, I just think they're gross... especially when they are crawling around my house.

My Major Change
I still have yet to decide. Nutrition seems interesting, but do I really want to take all of those Science classes? The nice thing about it is that when I went and talked to an advisor about it, I found out that almost all of my credits would transfer to help out somewhere in that degree. That's about the furthest I have gotten. aha.

I believe that is all that I really have to say, but if you have questions, just let me know :)

I hope you enjoyed this little update... one without a picture. Gasp! ;)