I'm a pretty crafty person.

Actually I'm not. See, I'm not creative or artistic whatsoever. You could probably pick any 5 year old off the street and they could draw a dog better than I could. But!!! All day Saturday we did crafts in our dorm. It was me, Briana, and my friend Megan. We got all of our ideas off of pinterest.com(best site ever) and crafted from about 6-1 in the morning. It was amazing. And I learned that I'm really not as bad as I thought I was. So I'm gonna show you what we made.

 Briana made this one. It's just a medium size canvas painted pink. Then, she wrote out a "B" by dipping the eraser of a pencil in yellow paint. Super cute!!

 Briana made this one too. She taped off the edges of 2 small canvases and painted them yellow so when the tape dried, she peeled it off and there was a border. Then in puffy paint she wrote "sic em". They are held together by ribbon and a button on each end. 

 I made this one! Its a canvas painted blue and then has the verse in white puffy paint. I love this one because 1. it's my favorite verse and 2. it's very simply but very cute. 

 This one is one of my favorite! I made this one and the rest of them on here. This is a canvas painted pink then I used different color/size buttons to create an E. I just hot glued the buttons on there and there ya go!

 This one was the first one I made. I didn't mean for it to be a star, but I can't really do anything random so it looks like a star. I just taped parts of the canvas and painted over it. Then once it was dry, I peeled off the paint and it made a star!

This one is interesting so I'll have to explain exactly what I did. This was actually our second try. The first one turned out horribly. Okay first we taped crayons to the top of a canvas. Then, you just melt them with a blow dryer. Sounds easy right? IT'S NOT!!  The first one looked like this:

pretty awful right?

Well we learned that you cannot buy the cheap off brand crayons like us poor college kids did. You have to buy the legit Crayola crayons because the off brand is just too oily. It's also a lot easier to use a smaller surface. Then, you have to tape the crayons down a lot. We had a strip of masking tape across all of them, duct tape on top of that, then we had to close pin them to the board. If you don't secure them very well, then as they melt, they fall off. I'm gonna show you the other picture again so you don't have to look at that awful thing. 

Much better.

After the melted crayons dry, you have to untape the crayons and it leaves an awkward space at the top where they were. So as you can see, we painted it. We went and bought the chalkboard paint so now we have an awesome looking chalkboard! By the way, I suggest doing this outside because as it's melting, the crayon goes everywhere. It's also a good lesson in patience if you're doing this with little ones because it does take a few minutes for the crayons to start melting. 

My friend Megan also made a painting that has "His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He loves me" with a picture of a little bird. It was so cute!! So we made all these into decorations for our dorm room! 

Yall have a good week!!

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You have reached the blog of Erin Michelle Albin. She is currently in mourning because the Rangers didn't win the World Series.Hopefully this mourning will only last a few days, but don't be surprised if it lasts longer than that. 

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Day 13-My goals

Alright I'm just putting on my big girl panties and doing this one. But keep in mind, I don't wanna. I came to the library to study and do my homework before the Rangers win the World Series tonight, but I ended up here. So I suppose I will do my goals. I think I hate writing down goals so much because the whole time I was in tennis (6th-10th grade) our coach would make write down short term, mid term, and long term goals about our life and with tennis. Every single year, my goals were the same. Mainly just because I didn't particularly like this guy, so I just did this to please him and get him to stop bothering me about them. But, I suppose these goals are different. I'll actually put thought into these and not just write them to get past this post ;)

Goal Numero Uno

My goal in life is to help people. Growing up, I've always known that I wanted to help people but I felt like I  was being called during high school to take that to another level and add my faith into it. Like I said before, I have no clue what I want to do, but I know I want to serve Christ. And I want to live my best for Him. Now, I don't want you to think that I'm just saying this because it's the "Christian" thing to say. It really is my passion to live for Christ and to serve Him through my career. I whole heartedly don't want people to think that I'm saying or doing something just because it's the "Christian" thing to do. So goal number one: Serve Christ through my career and my life.

Goal Numero Dos

I sat here for a few minutes trying to think of another goal. Think about it, if my first goal is to serve Christ, doesn't everything else kinda fall within that? Anywho, I guess my other goal would be to make my family and those who love me proud. And I know that if I live for Christ then they'll be proud no matter what. Hopefully. 

Okay I just went back and read this and it is much better than my tennis goals throughout the years. But I really don't see how it couldve been worse. Like I said before, I don't want people to think that within this blog, I'm only writing the "Christian" things that I think. I try to be super honest on this blog. I probably open up more on this blog then I do to most of the people I'm super close to. I'm just a normal person. I doubt, I fear, and I definitely have my faults. So keep that in mind. :)

I find it necessary to end each blog with something funny because humor is a big part of my personality. And I get most of these off of pinterest so sorry if I post a picture that I've already put on here. I guess that means I think it's extra funny.

In case you haven't noticed, I also really like cats...

Hmph

The next day on my blog challenge is to write my goals. I HATE writing goals with everything in my soul. Hate it. I know, if I don't have goals then I have nothing to work towards right? I have inward goals but I don't see it necessary to write those down. But I will. eventually. As for now, the Rangers are playing, I'm doing homework, and I'm on pinterest. So maybe tomorrow I will force myself to write about my goals. 

I'm quite excited about it as you can tell :/

So instead of reading about my goals, you can look at this hilarious picture.

Day 12- What I believe

If you know me at all, you know for the most part what I believe. I'm very forward about my beliefs and I try to show what I believe more than voice it. Although when the opportunity arises, of course I'll talk about it. But I think a major part of living out my faith is my actually living it and doing everything I do for Christ. Okay so lets get down to the nitty gritty. 

I believe Jesus Christ died for me. And I believe that Christ is the one person I can count no matter what. As much as I want to believe that people won't let me down, they do. But Christ is the one that is always there and will never let me down. No matter what. When I first accepted Christ when I was 7, it seemed really simple. But as I've grown up and matured, I've come to realize that Christianity is not an easy life. Is it worth it? Of course. But it can be really hard to give up everything in your life to Christ. Every single thing. But I've realized that it's the only thing to do in order to get through life in one piece. 

Now don't get me wrong, as hard as it sometimes to surrender everything, living life for Christ is amazing. Think about it. Not only do you have your biological family, but you have your family of God. A second family that is always there for you and will be there to pray with you, rejoice with you, and cry with you. This is one of my favorite hymns. I LOVE the lyrics because it's so incredibly true. My church family has helped shape me into who I am today. I think a lot of people don't think about lyrics until they actually see them written down so here ya go.

I'm so glad I'm a part of the Family of God,

I've been washed in the fountain, cleansed by His blood!

Joint heirs with Jesus as we travel this sod,

For I'm part of the family,

The Family of God.

You will notice we say "brother and sister" 'round here,

It's because we're a family and these are so near;

When one has a heartache, we all share the tears,

And rejoice in each victory in this family so dear.

I'm so glad I'm a part of the Family of God,

I've been washed in the fountain, cleansed by His blood!

Joint heirs with Jesus as we travel this sod,

For I'm part of the family,

The Family of God.

From the door of an orphanage to the house of the King,

No longer an outcast, a new song I sing;

From rags unto riches, from the weak to the strong,

I'm not worthy to be here, but praise God I belong!

I'm so glad I'm a part of the Family of God,

I've been washed in the fountain, cleansed by His Blood!

Joint heirs with Jesus as we travel this sod,

For I'm part of the family,

The Family of God

I LOVE it!! Anywho, Christ is my savior and always will be. I can't imagine my life without my faith. I just want to shake all those that don't believe in Christ and tell them how awesome it is. How rewarding it is. And how much it will change your life.

My grandpa always told us this and it has stuck with me throughout the yeras. If we're wrong about our faith, what do we have to lose? But if non believers are wrong about Christ, think about all they have to lose. 

Day 11-TV Shows

Okay guys, this one is gonna be a long one. I have a lot of tv shows that I have to watch. We even have our schedule taped to our wall. So get ready for a long post. Theses aren't in order by the way.

 Glee! I'm slowly starting to distance myself from Glee. The first two seasons were really good and now they're just kinda ehh. But I think they're getting better! In case you're not a Gleek (Glee geek), Glee is about a group of kids in a high school that are in the glee club. It was kinda started to give the outcasts a group to get into, but it's super funny.  Fox, Tuesdays at 7

 New Girl is possibly the funniest new show ever. It's about a girl that breaks up with her boyfriend and ends up with 3 room mates that she's never met. The room mates are all guys and shes super awkward about everything. But she's hilarious. It's a must see. Fox, Tuesdays at 8

 Raising Hope is about a baby that is being raised by her young father. They live with the grandparents of the baby and then the great grandma of the baby. The mother of the baby was actually executed right after she was. The family is really out there and kinda white trash. It's sounds really weird and lame, but I promise it's funny. Fox, Tuesdays at 9

 The Middle is hilarious. It's a clean family friendly comedy. The family is a normal, middle class family with 3 kids. The oldest son is a jock, the daughter is a total dork, and the youngest is a nerd. It's so funny to see how they live with each other. ABC, Wednesdays at 7

 Modern Family is literally one of the funniest shows I've seen. Its the dad and his young wife with her son (far left), the daughter of the dad and her family(middle), and then the son of the dad who is gay and has a little oriental baby with his partner. It shows how they interact within their family and then with the extended family. This show has been laughing sooo hard every week. ABC, Wednesdays at 8

 Greys Anatomy is a typical medical show. Of course, there's medical problems within it, but theres also all the drama that comes with the doctors. I stopped watching this show last season but I've started watching it again. ABC Thursdays at 8

Bones is another murder mystery show. Bones(left) and Booth(right) are the 2 main characters. Booth works for the FBI and Bones is a forensic anthropologist who is kinda socially awkward. They've always had a little love interest thing going on but it's never quite gone anywhere till this last season. Definitely watch it! Fox, Thursdays at 8. 

 Friends is one of my top 3 favorite shows of all times. I have every season on DVD. Briana had never really watched it so we have that on before bed and times when we have nothing else to do. It's about a group of 6 friends and their lives in New York city. Hilarious show. They show it randomly on TBS throughout the day

Criminal Minds. I LOVE this show. It's a murder mystery but on a whole new level. They deal with murders that no one else can deal with. Highly recommend this show. It's on tv pretty much all the time on A&E.

Plans

In case you didn't know, I'm all about plans. I love plans, lists, and all that go along with them. I like to know exactly what I'm gonna be doing and when I'm gonna be doing it. Now, if something comes up, I'm totally fine with changing that plan. But I like to have a foundation. This characteristic of mine is kind of annoying when it comes to college. Of course, I keep my planner so everything is written down, and I can plan out my schedule for next semester, but I can only plan out so much. I can't plan out the rest of my life because I have no clue what's going to happen. Life is going to happen and everything will change.

What I'm getting at is that I have no clue what I want to do with my life and that drives me totally crazy. I'm so jealous of those that know exactly what they want to do and are working towards that goal. Since I'm such a planner, it bothers me so much that I don't have a plan for after college. I'm not gonna say it worries me. I try to steer clear of the word "worry" because it shows a lack of faith. But in actuality, that's what it is. Keep in mind, I want this blog to be totally real. So as important as my faith is to me, it's gonna have its weaknesses. My future is one of those weaknesses. It drives me absolutely crazy that I have no clue what I'm gonna do. And yes, that is a lack of faith in God. I'll admit that. But I'll also say that I'm working on it. And I'll be working on it until God shows me what He wants me to do with his life. 

Right now, I'm majoring in Child and Family Studies and planning on minoring in Religion. But what am I gonna do with that? NO CLUE. I'm leaning towards 2 things right now:

-Adoption

   My ultimate goal would be to make adoption a less expensive project. Not quite sure how I would do that yet, but I think it'd be amazing if I could. If one family is willing to give up their baby in the hopes of a better life for it and one family is willing to take in the baby and care for them and love them, then it really shouldn't be as expensive as it is. It baffles me.

-Family Ministries

  Growing up, I was always in church. Being in church all the time gave me a foundation to stand on once I got old enough to make my own decisions with my faith. My faith has gotten me through everything and I think it'd be amazing to show God's love to families and their children. 

Like I said before, I have no clue what I want to do. But I do that I want to help people. And I want to show people the love of Christ. Mix those 2 together and it'd be perfect. So that should get me through right?

Guys, I saw a monkey

Title got your attention right? I'm gonna tell you this story and trust me, I realize how crazy it sounds. But just to let you know, I was not on any drugs, I did not have a mental breakdown, and my blood sugar was not low. I promise this happened. So you're gonna read it and then tell me what you think.  I have yet to find one person that believes me. 

Okay, on Saturday I was in Corpus with Briana. She was driving and I was in the passenger seat. We are sitting at a light and I look over and see a white Honda Pilot. No big deal right? EXCEPT THERE WAS A MONKEY IN IT!!!! The window was rolled down in the backseat and there was a monkey looking out of the window. I made eye contact!! It was just chillin in the back seat lookin around. I start freaking out telling Briana to look at the monkey but by this point, they went straight and we turned. I realize it's close to Halloween and you could easily say it was a mask. Or a really funny lookin little kid. But it's arm was resting on the window and it was definitely a monkey arm!! Every person I tell this to thinks I've totally lost my mind. But I promise it happened. That image will probably be in my mind forever. It looked exactly like this:

except it wasn't driving. It was in the backseat.

And don't tell me you believe me just to make me feel better. I realize how completely insane it sounds, but it happened!

Other than the whole monkey incident, I had a very relaxing fall break in good ol Rockport. I got to catch up with some people I've been missing and it was much needed!  Probably won't be home till Thanksgiving now!

And I'll get back to the blog challenge eventually. I finally had something interesting happen and I had to let yall know!!

yay!

I'M HOME!!!!!!!!

that is all. 

Day 10

Something I'm afraid of

We all have fears right? Whether it be spiders, heights, clowns, or even Zemmiphobia which is a fear of the great mole rat. Growing up, I had a lot of fears. I'm not gonna lie, I was a little wimp. But those were little kid fears. Now, I have big kid fears. Fear is a lack of faith, so it kinda bothers me that I have fears, but I'm working on it. I'll just talk about 2 of them and they kind of go hand in hand.

I have a fear of failure. Not just failing a test or class, but failing any task. This fear doesn't necessarily keep me from doing things, but it makes me work harder to make sure I don't fail at them. It's also not just in the short term outlook on life, but on my whole life. I fear that I won't live up to who God has called me to be. It's a struggle I've had, but like I said, I'm working on it. I know that if I live for Christ, how could I fail at it right?

My second fear is that I'm going to disappoint the ones that love me and care about. Mainly, disappointing my family and church family. Pretty much every decision I make, I think about how it will effect others and what others would think about it. Not in a bad way. I'm definitely not saying that other's opinions on something will make me do or not do something. For example, at one point I wanted a tattoo. It would've been a scripture but that's beside the point. It was my rebellious nature coming out, because ask my mom, I'm the most well behaved rebellious college age kid you will ever meet. Anywho, I know that if I got a tattoo, it would really upset some people that love me. Of course, they would still love me, but it would really disappoint them. So I'm not gonna get one. I REPEAT, I WILL NEVER GET A TATTOO. I couldn't live with myself if I disappoint those that love me, so I put them above my wants. This only goes to a certain extent though. If I feel like I'm really being called to do something, I'm gonna do it because I know God has my back. But I'm fairly positive He's not calling me to get a tattoo :)

In case you didn't make the connection, these two fears definitely go hand in hand. If I fail at something, I would be letting down the people that love me. And I don't wanna do that. ever.

I also have a fear of this creepy picture. But who wouldn't be creeped about by that?! It just stares at you. Is it a human? A deer? who knows. 

Day 9

A picture of my friends.

Okay So I've looked through a lot of my pictures and I can't find one photo with all of my friends in it. Mainly just because I have a wide array of friends. So this is gonna be broken into multiple photos. Plus, a previous post was all about my friends.
WARNING!!! I counldn't choose only like 5 pictures because I wanted to include a lot of people. So sorry, but I had to add like a million pictures!

Day 8 and a half??

Okay now I'm gonna use this blog for what I originally planned. Outside of my 30 day blog challenge, believe it or not, life is actually happening. One of my goals for this is to get stuff out of my head, but it's also to show people God's love. In my opinion, one of the best way's to show God's love is to love the world around you and to love the life He's given you. So I hope with this blog, you understand that with everything I do, I'm trying my hardest to show God's love to the people of the world.

On that note, I'm getting into my actual point of this blog. In case you didn't know this already, life is hard. And just by my nature, I try to fix it myself. I don't know if you knew this about me, but I kinda have control issues. I like to be in control of everything because I know that if I do it, I'll do like I want. If others do it, there's a chance it won't be done right. So with my faith, it's been a struggle with me to give everything up and out of my control. Last week, I was super overwhelmed. On Tuesday, I was ready to breakdown. I had tons of school work, tests, papers, projects, it was all piling up. So then, one of my good friends knocked some sense of me. I learned that I can't do this alone. I can't do anything alone for that matter. For the longest time, I didn't want to give anything up because I thought no one else could do it like I could. But HELLO!!! It's God for crying out loud. Who else is better for the job?!  So finally, I let go of my pride and now everythings soooo much easier. Now, don't think the point of this is to show off anything of mine cause that's definitely not how I want it to come across. My point is, that whenever you're feeling overwhelmed with your hectic life, take a step back and tell yourself that you can't do it. If you try to do it yourself, you're gonna fail miserably. Just being straight up. You have to give it up to God or you're gonna sink. Not trying to be harsh, because once you get to that point it's amazing. You feel so incredibly free. So I'm pleading with you, just drop everything and cling to Christ. Give it a try some time. :)

Cute Picture of the Day

Isn't this the cutest dog ever?!

Have a good night!

Day 8-A Place I've Traveled

Honduras

Hands down, Honduras was the best trip I've ever taken. Mainly because it was an awesome, God-filled trip. But the land and things I saw were just amazing.

Isn't it beautiful?!

I remember walking off the plane and looking around and just being in awe. It was land like I had never seen before. It was totally amazing. The week we were in Honduras was one of the most important weeks in my life. Like any mission trip, it made me realize how much I am blessed. But on top of that, it made me realize that as a Christian, I need to live life with an urgency to spread God's word. The people and especially the children that we met that week were amazing. The children were so happy. Not just like a temporary happy, but they were joyful constantly. And when you look at what they live in and what they have, your first thought is "how can they be happy?" But then you realize that they don't base happiness on material things.  How awesome is that? These kids would seriously give you anything they had. They even tried to give us money. Us! It completely floored me.The first day of VBS, I really struggled because I wanted to give these kids everything I possibly could. But I couldn't. By the end of the week, I realized that I can't give them everything, but God can. And He will. I'll never forget the last day of VBS. We were all giving the kids hugs as normal and they would ask us if they would see us the next day. The past 2 days, I said yes of course. But that day, I couldn't. It was so hard to try to explain to them that we weren't gonna be back the next day but we were praying for them. None of us wanted to leave those kids and I know we're all still praying for them and thinking about them. I also went with pretty much the best group of people ever. God definitely moved our hearts that week and we grew some much closer as a group. If you ever get a chance to go on a mission trip, I highly recommend it. It will totally mess up your world. 

That is my friend Nicole. She's pretty awesome and I'd do anything to get to go back and give her one more hug.

Also, if you're looking for some new music, listen to Gungor. They're amazing. It's just raw Jesus music!

Day 7

Favorite movies. This is going to be hard. I don't really have a favorite movie, but I have like 20 top movies. But I'm afraid if I put all 20, people would probably just stop reading my blog all together. So I'm going to narrow it down to 5. 

The Descent

As you can tell, this is a scary movie. I LOVE scary movies and this is probably the scariest I've seen. However, I'm watching Silence of the Lambs this weekend for the first time so that might change. This movie is about a group of girls that go cave diving and end up explore underground. Well, they don't bring a map and can't find the way out. On top of that, they find out there are creatures in this cave that pretty much want to eat them. It's really stinkin scary. 

*Disclaimer* It has awful language and its obviously really gory.

A Cinderella Story

I'm also a sucker for preteen girl movies. This is possibly my favorite movie ever. I could watch it everyday and not get tired of it. It's the cliche Cinderella story with a modern twist. Her dad was her best friend, he dies and she's stuck with an evil step mom and 2 step sisters. She talks to a guy on a chat room that is from her school and they decide to meet at the dance. Midnight strikes and she has to leave before he gets her name or sees her face. Typical Cinderella but it's sooo good!! I'm a hopeless romantic and this movie is just amazing. 

Parent Trap

Ask my parents, anytime this movie is on, I'm watching it. And I could probably recite the movie word for word. Once again, it's a preteen girl movie. But I love it!! Surely you know the story of the Parent Trap right? In case you don't, then I don't think we can be friends anymore. Just kidding. I guess I'll explain. Two girls meet at a summer camp and hate each other. Then, they find out that they're twins. So they switch lives in order to get to know their parents and to try to rekindle their love. Watch it. It's amazing.

Forest Gump

This movie is classic. I mean seriously, who doesn't like Forest Gump? And not only are you getting some darn good entertainment, you're getting a history lesson. Tom Hanks was really at those historic events right? I think so.  I don't really know what else to say about Forest Gump except go watch it if you haven't seen it.

Elf

Okay seriously, if you haven't seen this movie, I can't be your friend. This is one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. It's about a guy named Buddy that snuck into Santas bag one year and was raised as an elf. He decides he doesn't fit in at the North Pole so he goes to New York City to find his real father. But he goes as an elf and continues to believe that he is an elf. For reals. Go watch this movie. We watch this all year long, it doesn't have to be Christmas. You haven't truly lived until you see this movie.

I hope you don't think I'm weird for my choice of movies haha