Missing Facebook :(

Tonight I don't actually have enough time to write a whole blog post...so I'll just put up some pictures.  I'm really missing Facebook.  I feel like its been months and months since I've been on Facebook.  Its been a WEEK!!!!! Yikes!  If I had access to my Facebook right now, I'd be uploading some pics I found.

"if you ain't..."

Exec 2012

 Everybody at DLC...advisorless

 My sisters are so beautiful!

 Me and my Little!

(check out all of Eta Xi's awards!!!)

 Me and my sissy in our letters!!!!  Are we not just so adorable?!

Sorry this one's so big, I just love it so much :)

My precious diamond family in backwards order.  I've finally learned I'm the shortest so standing at the top is kind of difficult!  We're pretty cute if I must say so myself :)

Today has been absolutely crazy!  I've just been going, going, going.  Now I've got writer's block...from my real work, not my blog.  Only 3 more classes before Spring Break!

Loveeeeeeeeeeee,

Rachel :)

God doesn't show you gold and give you silver...

BAM!  What a reassuring thought.  I owe this one to Lindsay and Kate!  One thing I'm always holding on to is my future.  While I can't ever actually decide my future, I like to think that I can.  I like to plan my life out for years and think MY plans are coming true.  God's really good about keeping me on my toes and reminding me MY way usually isn't HIS way.  For some crazy reason, I think that I can actually have control over my future.  I realize you're like..."WOW! Rachel, you're an idiot!"  Sorry, its just that one thing I have always struggled to give God complete control over.  Before coming to college, I had planned out every class I was going to take, when I would get engaged, when I would get married, the colors at my wedding, etc...and the list goes on.  So today me and Lucia, or should I say Cha Cha and Chi Chi Vladimir, were talking about soul mates and if we believe God has that one person who's destined to be with us.  Lucia and I talked about our worries.  What if everything God has given me already isn't as good as what's to come?  What if God's given me the gold and I'll end up with silver?  What if I have to settle on a life that isn't as good as I want it to be?  Questions like that floated between us for a while.  The hopelessly romantic person I am believes that I have a soul mate out there somewhere.  I like to believe that in perfect timing, he will enter my life and we will live happily ever after!  

Its just like on the very last episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch when Harvey and Sabrina's soul stones match together just perfectly.  I like to think I have a perfect soul mate.  Watch this clip...its kind of blurry and shaky but it makes my heart smile! :)

While the debate between Lucia and Sammy Kaye never reached an ending (it got a little heated) I still think my soul mate is out there.  Even if "soul mates" and "soul stones" aren't real, I know God's looking out for me!   He's already got a plan for me, I don't have to worry or be anxious.  I don't have to question.

So when Lucia told me what Lindsay had passed on to her, and I found out Kate passed on to Lindsay..."God doesn't show you gold and give you silver," it really hit the spot.  I was like "DANGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!! Okay, I get it!"  God has provided me with wonderful people and such amazing experiences.  Why in the world do I think He won't provide me with even more amazing things in the future?

This phrase just kept echoing in my head today and I think it came at the perfect time.  I'm to that point in life (not to sound old) where most of my friends have serious boyfriends and are looking towards proposals and marriages.  And I'm screaming, "SLOW DOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"  I don't even have a significant other, so I'm definitely not thinking about proposals and marriage.  Of course I am thinking about those things because I'm a girl who loves love!  But, I can't let myself keep thinking of that in a realistic sense.  Its not in the plan for right now.  God will bring me Prince Charming (or the closest thing to him) when the timing is right.  Another quote I love is, "Faith in God means faith in His timing."  This is another one of those that just hits me!  BAM!  Its easy to say but to actually keep reminding yourself that MY timing doesn't matter at all, MY timing is nonexistent.  GOD's timing is what matters, GOD's timing is the one that happens!

Needless to say, this conversation really impacted my day.  I love love and talking about love so it made my day that much better.  To top of my awesome day, it was like 70 degrees today!  I got to hang out in my hammock on the front porch of my dorm.

Maggie looking hot finally getting to eat lunch at 4:30 p.m.  

One of my very favorite places to be...in my pink hammock. 

PEEK A BOO! 

My view.  No complaints here.

What a day full of reminders:

1. God is good.

2. God is in control, even when I want to be.

3. God's creation is so beautiful.

Those are just three but my days consist of constant reminders of how amazing God truly is.  I leave you with my final excitement of the day...Girl Scout cookies are in and I'm loving this a little too much!  I'm glad I didn't give up sweets for Lent this year because I would hate to be missing out on these!

Thanks for reading my blog!! Hope you have a wonderful night :)

It turned out to be a beautiful Monday!!!

What started as a cold, rainy Monday morning turned out to be beautiful!  It has definitely been a long long day but I'm glad for it to be winding down...

My day started out when I woke up an HOUR after my alarm went off.  AHHHHHHH, only me!  Monday's are my early days.  I'm supposed to wake up at 5:30 am and leave my dorm by 7:00 am to be at EB Morse Elementary School by 7:30 am.  Its extremely early, but I have to do it once a week and one day in the near(ish) future, I'll be doing this every day.  Well, I woke up late, rushed to get ready, and I was about 10 minutes late to school but good thing I have such a sweet teacher who understands crazy Monday mornings.  I absolutely love my practicum teacher, Mrs. Downs.  She's just so precious and she's had so much experience in so many different types of schools.  Being in the Laurens County school system is interesting to say the least.  Its definitely a wake up call but its also very sad at the same time.  Today I got to work on reviewing contractions with my 1st graders!  A lot of them are very very needy and can't seem to think for themselves, no matter how much I challenge them.  I love to feel needed though, even though that sounds kind of weird.  When the students went to art, Mrs. Downs and I walked around the school to check out the Montessori classrooms.  Of course I've learned about Montessori but I haven't actually seen it in practice in the classroom and Italian Montessori is very different from American Montessori.  As soon as I walked into the 1st-3rd grade classroom, it was like I had a magnet on me.  All eyes on Miss Fogle!!!! Yikes!  This little girl just looked up in awe at me and said, "You're so pretty!" kind of in an exhaled sigh.  It was just so precious!!!  It was such a great reminder of why I love children so so much!  They will always brighten your day.  As I walked around the classroom, the girls flocked to me commenting on my scarf and my looks and I just loved it!  We also checked out the 3s, 4s, and 5s who were absolutely precious.  I forget how big of a difference there is between 4K/Kindergarten and 1st grade.  Somehow in those years, kids go from babies to small people, it amazes me!  My time at EB Morse always passes by pretty fast but when I left it was still yucky outside. 

I rushed back to school (story of my life!) and stayed busy all afternoon between selling t-shirts, having a lunch with my big and twin, and getting some work done in Admissions.  

Another highlight of my day came from my email I sent to my family to increase my views on my blog, which might I add have increased soooooo much today!  Makes me feel so loved, thanks peeps!  Well here's how my email to my family went:

Hey fam,

Go check out my blog I started since I gave up Facebook!

foglerachel.blogspot.com

Loveeeeeee,

Rachel :)

Here were the responses I got:

1. Sarah--my seester best friend...

     "hahaha you're weird"

gee thanks, sis!

2. Mama--

     "Hello!  Well, this is great except...isn't this just trading one vice for another? :)"

I explained to her how my blog is far less addictive that Facebook is.  I can't creep on people for hours on end like I do on Facebook.  The world of blogging is so new to me, I don't know how to spend hours on here...She understood my points.

3. Daddy--gotta save the best for last

     "What's a blog?"

AHHHH!!!! Come on, Daddy.  He just made his way into the Facebook world last fall thanks to his lovely daughters, maybe I'll sell him on the whole blog thing too.

Tonight ended with Chapter and a weekly CA meeting and what I was expecting to be a very uneventful night but leave it up to the girls on my hall to make it interesting! 

I'm so excited to say my grandbaby Jamie is finally an official resident of Belk 1st floor!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I couldn't be more excited.  Now I don't have to climb three flights of stairs when I want to see her.  Well, Jamie wanted cookies so she baked some chocolate chip cookies in my room.  I must say I've always been a fan of the classic Toll House Chocolate Chip cookies but my new favorite is Pillsbury Chocolate Chunk Cookies!!! They're seriously amazing!  Tiff Tiff borrowed my book Best of Me by Nicholas Sparks.  Its his newest book and so wonderful!  It was seriously soooooo good so I convinced Tiffany to read it. She read it in like two days and brought it back to me so we could talk about the book together.  Here's our favorite passage...

"Being together isn't about the honeymoon.  It's about the real you and me.  I want to wake up with you beside me in the mornings, I want to spend the evenings looking at you across the dinner table.  I want to share every mundane detail of my day with you and hear every detail of yours.  I want to laugh with you and fall asleep with you in my arms.  Because you aren't just someone I loved back then.  You were my best friend, my best self, and I can't imagine giving that up again.  You might not understand, but I gave you the best of me, and after you left, nothing was ever the same.  I know you're afraid, and I'm afraid, too.  But if we let this go, if we pretend none of this every happened, then I'm not sure we'll ever get another chance."  

Best of Me, Nicholas Sparks

If your heart didn't just melt, you should check if its still beating...but for serious!  This was was ahhhmazing and I totally recommend it to anyone even if you're not as sappy or hopelessly romantic as myself.  Also if you couldn't tell how much I just love love, you better watch out.  I promise to always be sappy!

During my CA meeting, I realized Tiffany stole the "I" from the ADPi hanging on my wall.  She likes to say ADP instead of ADPi.  Bless her.  Here's the proof...

I ran through Belk sounding like such a crazy person yelling, "WHERE'S MY I????"  Of course Tiffany's best response was, "You have two right there!!!"  She locked me out of my room, I locked her out of her room, and we just had lots of fun looking like crazy people.  I returned to my room and the I magically appeared...hmm wonder how that happened!  I know you were really wondering where the I was.  I know, I know, me too!

After Tiffany left to get some studying done, Tiffany's roommate Taylor came by!  We spent some time just catching up and talking about what God has been teaching us in life these days.  It was good chill time and it was a break from doing school work...I promise it happens around here.  Taylor got the brilliant idea that she wanted cupcakes.  What other CA keeps 3 boxes of cake mix in her kitchen?  None other than me, of course!  So we made funfetti cupcakes with neon blue icing!!!  If you get hungry, you can always find food in here!

Its been such a beautiful day and a great reminder that even if nasty and rainy, dreadful times, God always provides with a beautiful sunshine day.  It happens.  

God is good.

Where did my weekend go?!

Another Sunday night and I'm wondering where my weekend went.  I should be doing homework...but I'm not!  Surprise, surprise! I promise I'm not as slack as I sound...I'm doing other work.  My ADPi and CA work pretty much count as homework.  


This weekend was a very relaxing weekend.  Friday I turned in my CA agreement for Senior Apartments.  How am I about to be a senior?!  AHHHH, this is crazy!  Absolutely crazy!  I can't wait but I'm a little scared...one step closer to the real world.


Abby and I got Dempsey's on Friday and watched Crazy, Stupid, Love and Date Night.  We started to watch Friends with Benefits...but we cut that off like 15 minutes into it.  It was just too much!


Saturday I slept in, got some brunch from GDH, worked out (yay me!), and planned a whole day of cleaning.  Unfortunately my day of cleaning was interrupted by the Elizabeth Smart movie.  I found the movie was on Lifetime and got hooked!  Last night, Abby and I had another movie night.  We thought we could save some money by getting GDH for dinner...but that sucked.  Good thing Lauren and Tiffany were making pizza in my room!  They shared some pizza with us, PTL!  While we were eating pizza, the ice cream man (or should I say middle-aged woman) came by!  I couldn't resist ice cream from the ice cream woman...sounds kinda creepy.  We started our movie night after I made cookies for dessert!  We watched Something Borrowed and it was soooooooo good!!!  Here's my favorite quote...

He makes you the person you want to be,

instead of the person you are, and that, 

the idea of life without him is, 

not only unbearable, it's unimaginable.

- Rachel

Something Borrowed

I know, I know, I'm such a sucker for love!  One day, this is how I'll be able to describe my husband...I just gotta find him!  Anna, Chynna, and Tiffany watched the movie with Abby and I and we had lots of laughs.  Lauren peaced out because she had to study/go to bed early!  I even got my laundry done before going to bed!  What a productive day!


Today's been a pretty good day.  We had our first Recruitment Workshop!  I can't believe we have to start thinking about Recruitment already!  AHHHHH!! More freaking out!


Here's the highlight...


So now, I'm sitting here watching the Lion King with two girls from my hall, Lauren and Tiffany. (We aren't friends, right, Tiff Tiff?)  Tonight I learned Lauren didn't know the difference between lions and tigers.  I never knew a 19-year-old as intelligent as her might struggle with this.  I am literally shocked by this news!  She thought lions were females and tigers were males.  AHHHHH!!!!!! I almost died laughing.  I enlightened Lauren as her CA (not as her friend) that lions and tigers were in fact two different animals altogether.  I taught her about ligers, though.  Here's a picture of a beautiful liger.  Lauren also wondered if tigers had manes.  I'll stop there because I know she'll hate me if I go on.  Gotta love the lessons I teach my Belk babies!

Peace out from my new friend, Belkie the liger.  I hope he makes another appearance soon...hopefully Lauren will learn the difference between lions and tigers in her Biology for Majors class!!!  I'll be sure the emphasize the difference to my future students.

I can't wait to be back in my 1st grade class tomorrow, hopefully I'll have some great stories!!!

Loves ya!!!!!! Thanks for reading about my boring yet relaxing weekend :)

P.S.  Here's my new favorite song followed by a new YouTube fave!

I finally got a blog...

So I've been wanting to start a blog for...like ever and I figured when would be a better time than while I'm supposed to be studying?!  Yeah, great idea, right?!  No worries, I'm done with my studying and figured I'd write my first post before heading to bed for the night.


The main reason why I figured I'd go ahead and start my blog is because I gave up Facebook for Lent.  This is something I've been wanting to do for years but I'm really realizing that Facebook takes up way too much of my time.  I tried giving Facebook up in the fall during the weeks and only checking it on Fridays or the weekends.  However, the rules I made for myself I ended up breaking...whoops.  I look at Lent as a time to learn some self-control and see what God might be putting in my life during that time I've been spending on Facebook.  


Well, its day 2 without Facebook and I miss it sooooooooo much.  I know that makes me sound like a total crazy person who can't go a day without looking at Facebook but its just what I do.  When I'm bored...Facebook, when I'm walking to class...Facebook, when I don't want to make awkward eye contact with someone I'm passing on the sidewalk...Facebook!  So I'm turning to other apps on my phone like Twitter, The Weather Channel, the Bible, and games, of course!  (I'm in the market for new and exciting apps if you know of any!)  Needless to say, it'll be a long journey without Facebook but I really am excited to see how I might grow in the next (less than) 40 days.  Also, I'm not allowing myself to check Facebook on Sunday's.  Okay, its in writing now so I can't back out on that one.


That's all for now!