Satan is attacking hard

I just wanted to ask you all that read to lift JT and I up in prayer! Satan is attacking us both individually as well as a couple. It is bring us down and making things very difficult for us both. We are fighting but could really use some help. Thank you all in advance.

To-do list

This weekend while I was making my to-do list and crossing things off I realized something. I realized how much I do not like making a list of things to do because once you do them a week later you have to do them again. Just like making you bed. I'll admit something to you all. I never make my bed in the morning. I've tried before and I'll admit when I do I feel better about the way my room looks but why do it? You just mess it up again that night. Laundry...same thing! As soon as you have ALL the dirty clothes washed and folded you go to bed that night and you already have a pile of clothes to be washed again. Dishes....again...same thing. You get all your dishes washed and put away and you have more dishes to be washed by an hour later. URGH! OH this one REALLY drives me crazy. Sweeping and mopping the floor!!! Our entry way and hall into the living room and the kitchen are all tile. I will sweep and mop and not EVEN 30 minutes later there are shoe prints all over the floor! Drives me insane!!! It makes me not want to clean it at all. Does anyone else feel this way or is it just me?

What's happened to me?!?!?

Well when I first started this blog I stated in my first blog that there will be times where you will get to see the 'raw' Dana. The concerns and struggles I am having. Well here is one of those times...and it's a long one. I'm not really sure how to start it so I'm just going to type, okay? Okay.

For quite some time now, probably about two years, I have been developing a hardened heart! My heart is so hardened that I don't even recognize myself! Those of you who have known me for a long time wouldn't believe that it's me and those of you who I have just meet in the last couple of years wouldn't have believed who I use to be. While I was standing at church during the praise and worship part I couldn't bring myself to sing. This isn’t like me! I use to LOVE the worship part of church. I loved singing those songs. But now every time I open my mouth to sing tears start to fill my eyes and I have to stop. I don't even know why I tear up but I do EVERY time! When I was younger I was so outgoing and befriended as many people as I could. I was always involved in everything. Now, NO THANK YOU! The fact that I am even going to church is a good step. One that was hard for me to do. Not, that it's because I'm living this life full of sin and doing things I shouldn't but just because I would rather sit at home by myself or with JT, not having to face people who could hurt me or judge me I guess. But also not having to face God in his own house. Now I realize these are two different issues or maybe there not but the reasoning behind my feeling for these two things are different. I'll start with the people part first because I know the answer to that one.

When I go to church or anywhere for that matter I walk in usually with my head slightly down and very closed off. When I am greeted I smile a small grin and say a very quite hello. If I am not greeted, even better. I can keep walking and not be faced with meeting someone else in this world. Now as of lately I've forced myself to get involved with different activities such as the Enlisted spouses club or going to weight watchers or to a yoga class but with those I sit there awkwardly and hardly talk to anyone unless I already know them well. For those of you who really know me, this isn't like me, is it??? And to be honest it drives me crazy that I can't be like I use to and just walk in to a place cheerful and happy and talk to anyone and make a new friend. I just CAN'T do it. I've tried. My heart is so shut off that I can't warm it back up again. Now every once in awhile I am able to but it's usually with people who are quieter then I am. Now you may be asking, why are you like this Dana, what happened?? Well, I've been asking myself that same question and I can only come up with a few answers. Now whether everything has to do with it or if it's just part of it I don't know but I know it has affected me.

When I first moved here to Lakenheath AB and started working at the CDC I was struggling more than ever before with just plain happiness. I had met a lot of people that I never knew grown women could act like they did. A lot of just plain mean women and rude women and I had never had as much trouble making friends as I did there. At least friends that were worth being a friend to. I guess growing up in the kind of home I did and the kind of culture I did protected me from flat out evil people and I just couldn't wrap my head around it and it made me very depressed and really angry. I shut down in every way possible. Not just because I couldn't make friends here in England but also because the friendships I held close to my heart weren't as strong as I thought they should be and it hurt in so many ways that I don't even know how to express it. Now, what I am about to write I pray doesn't hurt anyone or that no one will take it personal. Why I am doing this is not to make anyone feel bad but to maybe help myself forgive whole heartily and to hopefully find my way back to who God made me to be.

To be honest, I don't even know where to begin on this part of my story. All I know is that it hurt a great amount and honestly is what pushed me over the edge and made me shut down or shell I say go into a shall. There is too much to really explain everything. Going back to living in S. Korea. Well, probably farther than that but that is just when I remember it starting to hurt as bad as it did to where it started to affect me. All I will say is that I felt alone. I began to question myself and how I was as a friend, as a sister, as a daughter and even as a wife. When I would think about who truly cared about me as a friend I felt like there was no one and it hurt. I even questioned if some of my family truly cared. Now, please understand that I'm not blaming anyone and again I'm not trying to make anyone feel bad. Now, yes can we all do better at showing our love for others? YES!!! Including myself but I whole heartily believe that Satan was and IS behind this. The pain was so great that I was looking for someone or something to help ease it so I started going to a councilor here on base. Can I say she truly helped me, no. First, she wasn't a Christian so she wasn't directing me in the way I SHOULD (and knew) I should be going. But she did explain something about me that I now see as SO true. She showed me that I hold GREAT expectations of everyone and every situation and when those expectations don't go the way I think or hoped they would it greatly disappointments me to where sometimes I can become depressed. WOW! I didn't realize I was doing that! I am setting myself up for a world of hurt! Okay, so now that I know this about myself, what do I do to stop it? How can I change it? And that is where I'm stuck.

I truly enjoy making people feel good about themselves. I love giving to people and I love being the best friend I can be. Am I always that way? No, like you, I am human and I get caught up in other things or I forget or whatever the case may be but I do try very hard. At least I use to. But I so desperately want to get back to the person I use to be BUT without the expectations in return. I know we are suppose to love others with no expectation for it being returned and when we do expect it people have said (or at least I remember this from somewhere) that we didn't truly love them in the first place! I would have to disagree because I ALWAYS loved! TRUELY loved! I guess I just wanted or needed to be loved in the same way I loved others.

I am struggling to find myself again. I am struggling to love whole heartily again in fear of being disappointed (because of myself). But I am fighting to find myself again and I fighting to love whole heartily again withOUT the expectations and the set up for disappointment. I do value my family and my friends! And I try to put my whole heart into everything I do for each one of them. I am sorry for expecting anything in return from anyone of you! And I am sorry for letting any of you down. I will find myself again and your real friend/sister/daughter/and wife will be back. I just pray it's soon.

Now, back to that second part of this whole thing. I've been sitting here for awhile now wondering why I am I so afraid/angry/scared of God. Or what is it that has built that wall between him and me? And why can't I bring it down? To be honest, I don't have ONE answer. I can name bits and pieces as to what have been a part of why but not just one thing. THIS is it! Or THIS is why. So I'm just going to say this, please pray for me to find my way back to him! Or no, better yet to ALLOW him back into my life. To bring down that wall I have up. To feel loved by him again! Please don't get me wrong here and please don't judge me. (I've had enough of that in my past). I do love God and I do try to be Christ like every day. I go to church and I pray to God. I don't want to be preached at or told the same things I've been told my WHOLE life. I just need to be encouraged and lifted up in prayer. Does that make sense?

I pray that this blog makes sense and I can start finding myself again. If I rambled on please forgive me. I just really needed this to be said. Let the real me be known. Now since I am finishing this blog on Thanksgiving Day I want to say a little something about being Thankful! I want each one of you to know just how thankful I am for you! I am grateful for the friends I do have and the family I have! I miss those of you that I don't get to see every often more then you will ever know and I am grateful for the ones of you that I have in my every day to day life. Each one of you has helped me along my crazy life journey in more ways then you know and I couldn't have made it without you! I love you all and pray you have are having a very blessed Thanksgiving with family and if not family then wonderful friends!!! Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

London Fog

London fog has a whole new meaning. This afternonn at 4:30 while driving to where I was babysitting the fog was so thick I could hardly see in front of my car. I was driving slow in fear I wouldn't see the turn in front of me and drive off the road or hit another car. The British cars were honking their horns at me ( not really but I thought they might) and driving around me as if I was an old lady driving so slow and there was no reason to. I was really freaked out. I thought to myself NOW I understand what they meant by saying London fog! I wished I could take a picture to share with everyone. I promise, unless you have been to Egland and experienced it your self, you have never seen anything like it. Maybe one day I'll get a picture to share with you all. Oh I also found it fun that they had delayed starts for fog. Now I get that as well. :)

New Job

Today I started at my new job. I am now a special education aide at Lakenheath Elementary. I get to work with about 9 or so kids that are so sweet and smart. I won't lie to you. I was pretty nervous about this job. I guess just because I haven't ever worked with Special Ed kids before and I didn't know what to expect. The kids I work with are very mild cased kids who really just need some extra help with their work and understanding. I got a bunch of great kids I think and I am excited to see what I can do to help them. I came home feeling like I haven't slept in days. I forgot how tiring it is to work with kids all day. And I'm not talking like my other job where I worked with babies but working with school aged kids makes your mind go numb. If you all could keep me in your prayers while I get started with this new job. Pray that I will have the confidence I need in myself and my abilities to help these precious children who are striving to be something special in life.

I don't know if many of you know that I too was once where these little guys were. When I was in 1st grade I was held back. When I moved to Colorado in the middle of my second grade year the CO schools began to pull my out and test me. I became what is known as a Special Ed student. I remember just like it was yesterday the kids making fun of me and calling me stupid. You could watch my self esteem slip farther and farther away each year as I became older. Those early years still affect me to this day in just about everything I do. I want so badly to help these kids have a different turn out then I did. I want to make them feel like they are just as smart as the kid next to them and there isn't one thing they aren't able to do. I want to make them believe in themselves! I hope I can be that person to them that I didn't have! (Besides my mom! J Thank you momma!)

Do Americans have too much or does the rest of the world not have enough?

Well I think I can say that Friday was the first day I hated living in England! Now in Korea I could say that probably 4 to 5 times a week but here I haven't really felt those frustrations until then I think.

 JT and I bought a full size mattress for our guess bedroom because next weekend his friend is coming to visit for the weekend and my parents are coming to visit us for Christmas. It was delivered to our house on Wednesday and has been sitting in our living room until Friday. Why you might ask! Well I will tell you. It has been sitting down in our living room because we had no space to put it in the guestroom. You see, we have a 3 bedroom and 2 and a half bath. It is also only a few years old. We are the second people to live in it. You would think that is great and we have a pretty nice house which we do. It is a very nice house BUT the only think I hate about it is that there are NO closets at all. Nothing! So we have to buy these wardrobe things so that we can hang up our cloths and we had to buy these selves to put our bathroom things on and somewhere to put our towels. This sucks too because the rooms are already REALLY small and now we have to take up even more space with these large wardrobes. All this to say, we have EVRYTHING that doesn't have a place in the two extra rooms (which is a lot of stuff).

So Friday I had to put ALL the stuff in the guest bedroom into the office/laundry/closet room. Let me just say that room is now an even bigger mess and you can't even get in the room (that's my next project). Anyway in the middle of moving the bed up the stairs (by myself) and it getting stuck for a short while I broke down and began to cry. I was just so frustrated. I pulled myself together and put that frustration to use and got the bed up the stairs and in the room. I then began to cry again. JT came home for lunch and got to see this frustration in full force. He asked what is wrong and I began to tell him how I hated this house. I would love to meet the British person who thought it was a great idea to build a house not only with hardly any parking space outside and so close to you neighbor to can hear them pee but why not build them with NO closets AND make the rooms SO small you can hardly turn around in them. REALLY?!?!? That was brilliant! So back to my title...is it that Americans just have too much stuff (which I do think Americans do have WAY more then we need and JT and I have gotten rid of a lot of things) or is it the rest of the world that is crazy and just don't know how to build houses? My vote they are crazy! :) Pictures of our house will soon come...once I've got it all set up.

European Roadtrip

 This last week, October 17th through October 24th, JT and I were given a wonderful opportunity to take a road trip to Italy so JT could play in the Armed Forces soccer Tournament at Aviano Air Force Base. Italy was a beautiful place and we loved every minute of being there but we sure did have some rough times and most defiantly interesting times along the way.

Our trip started out on the wrong foot. We were set to leave at 7:00AM on Sunday. As we went to leave JT went to plug the GPS in and the plug/lighter outlet wasn't working! REALLY?!? Now is the time it wants to stop working? So he spent an hour and a half trying to fix and learned that the fuse had blown. So we headed out without it working and prayed that the GPS would hold until we could stop somewhere and fix it. We were able to fix it in Dover, England right before we loaded onto the ferry to cross over to France. Thank you God!

Once we got across the water we drove through France to Lyon. As we drove I looked out the window to the small towns we passed and thought to myself, I am driving through FRANCE! The small cluster of homes that formed a town was so beautiful and looked just like the movies. But that was about all that was beautiful in France. JT and I both did not really care for France at all. In Lyon, the streets smell of pee and every building we saw looked run down and dirty. Honestly we felt as though everywhere we went we were in the ghetto. Lyon is known as the second largest city in France, next to Paris. So we drove around the city before we headed out on Monday morning. We drove to the football stadium that JT was so excited to see, got gas and headed out of town. Oh and I forgot to tell you, France really likes Toll roads! Before we even got to Italy all the Euro's we had for the trip there was gone because of the tolls. 150 Euros in JUST tolls. :( Not such a good thing. We didn't plan for this and this little set back put a big damper on our trip money wise and raised the stress level really high. We only ate the snacks I had bought before we left for two and half days. We had are arguments and some tears but really learned how to work together under such high stress and keep our faith that God would help us through (which he did).

 Monday night we stayed in Venice, Italy. Oh my goodness, did this place take my breath away. It is BEAUTIFUL! It was so nice to relax in such a romantic city and let a little bit of the stress melt away and just enjoy each other’s company. On Tuesday we walked around Venice and take lots of pictures.

I had never seen anything like it and I had such a blast taking it all in with such an amazing man. It couldn't have been a better day then that day. The sun was shining bright with crystal blue skies and about low 70's as the temp. I was in heaven and I believe so was JT. After we walked around and took several pictures, we left Venice and headed on into Aviano AB. The view on the way in was breath taking. Especially for JT who had never really seen those kinds of mountains. As we got closer the mountains got bigger. There was snow just on the top with the blue skies behind it and you just saw in awe of what God created.

The rest of our trip in Aviano went wonderful. We were able to relax a bit and just enjoy each other. We went to see a movie and had a picnic outside. The weather was beautiful the whole week, until the end. The Lakenheath Eagles did such a great job at the tournament too. There were 13 teams including Lakenheath and we got 2nd place. JT loves playing football and really has a blast out there with his teammates and friends. I also enjoy watching him play but find it funny how protective I am over him. It's going to be interesting when we have kids and THEY are out there playing. They better watch out for Mrs. Atarama!!! ;)

Our trip home went a lot smoother then our trip there. We only got lost on our way out of Aviano and landed somewhere in the mountains where an old scary Italian man tried to talk to us in Italian. Half his teeth were missing and the others were rotted out. He kept pointing to me and would go off in Italian. I was ready to get out of there and get somewhere safer. Which we did and we now laugh about it all.

I would tell anyone that Italy should be on their top list of countries to visit. I think it is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen (so far) and the food is so delicious! JT and I really enjoyed our time in Italy and look forward to going to other places there in the future. There are more pictures of our trip on Facebook if you would like to check them all out.

The start of something new

So I've read a few of my friend’s blogs and find it very encouraging and inspiring so I thought I should do one myself. I'm not a good writer like my friends Katie, Laurie, and Emily but I have a lot of thoughts, feelings, struggles, excitements, stories, and need for encouragement. You will probably find a lot of misspelled words and my grammar incorrect. And yes I am a teacher but we all have strengths and writing is not one of mine. :)

As some of you know I am a newlywed as of June 11, 2010. I married the most amazing man who is in the Air Force and stationed in England. We are planning our wedding ceremony in Oklahoma City, OK on June 10, 2011. Along with all the stress and business of planning our wedding I also have a new way of life I am trying to familiarize myself with. Not only learning how to be a wife to my husband but also learning to be a wife to a man who is in the military. My life as I knew it a year ago has changed 100%. I have a whole new life that I don't know anything about and with that I have many, many struggles that seem to overtake who I am. Please don't take this as I am not happy because I am very happy and feel very blessed with JT in my life and all the opportunities I am given.  I have just been faced with a big challenge that sometimes I feel I cannot successed and admitting I am in great need of encouraging words and prayers to carry me through.

I plan to write often. At least as often as my time will allow me to. But I ask that you, those who will take the time out of their busy days, will write and encourage me to press on. I have many areas in my life that I need advice and help figuring out. I will write to you all about being a wife, being a military wife, weight loss, my job (or the lack of), my faith, church, friends (or the lack of as well), eating healthy and cooking meals, family and all the in between. Send me links, articles and encouraging words for I am at a lost most of the time. Thank you all for taking your time to read what I write. Until next time, Goodnight!

Dana