2006/2012

I hope this finds you all having a great start to 2012!  So many of you are learning to live life with little ones, expecting, getting married, changing jobs, losing jobs, moving, losing loved ones, falling in love, falling out of love, making life changes, working for no money, building homes, questioning everything, discovering peace, starting your own business, going back to school, or even walking through a season I can't even imagine.  Wherever you are, I hope it's great, hard, challenging, and wonderful.  Yes, I'm about to go deep to start my 2012 blogs off in a Lauren fashion.  I hope you remember to take care of yourself and others at any chance. We are all just trying to pave (or plow) our paths.  Whatever it is you are doing/paving/plowing/reaping/sowing/yearning, bring Him with you. Pray daily.  Pray hard.  Pray when you don't even know what to say.  It's the only thing I know that will never be out of our reach and will never change.

So, goodness the year has begun.  I've been waiting on this year.  2012 is the year that little ole lauren will finally finish school and journey back out into society.  It is so odd to do this again.  It feels exactly the same and totally different all at the same time.  Four years of college felt like a joyride; four years of grad school felt like four years.  I mean that in the most humorous and I'm-growing-up sort of way.  In January 2006, I decided to finish my undergrad degree and look for a job rather than go to medical school.  I can't believe that was SIX years ago.  But I believe that even that hard year taught me so many things...and I'm forever thankful.  During that year, I spent equal times in two very separate phases of life: college and the real world.  I'm about to repeat that :).  If you had told me that back then, I would not have believed you.  Fast forwarding to now....it's a new playing field.  But it's still loaded with many of the same decisions. It all should be a simple process.  God didn't promise us simple, but even simple on paper is good for me, as I tend to think to much.  

Here's what simple looks like:

1. Take some exit exams in may and graduate on 5/18/12.

2. Wait for the higher powers to give me the go ahead to take my licensing board exams.

3. Pass all of the above.

4. Find a job and start working.

I am excited about all of the above.  I am also welcoming any guidance and tips you have to offer.  I will return the favor with lifelong free answers to your random drug questions.  That's a good swap, right?

I needed to write this post to get my blogging mind back and running.  But mostly, I needed to write down my thoughts to remember this time in my life.  I will be working and living a new life in a few short blinks and I can't wait to look back and see this.