Re-emerging...

It's been nice being off from school for the past couple of weeks. The first quarter was very intense. It was one of those times when it takes all your time and energy just to keep up with the daily agenda. So it's easy in that kind of environment to lose focus and forget about everything else. This is especially true in business school, where the environment is very competitive and it's all about getting a job, making the grade and building your network. It can be pretty high pressure. And, if you aren't very grounded in who you are and very committed to staying true to that, your identity will be redefined for you, very quickly. It's been great over the past few weeks to get back into the spiritual disciplines and re-acquaint myself with the message in the Bible about who God is, who I am, what this life means, what the next is all about, and what truly matters. In a time and place when everybody's worried about the future - what career they'll have, if they'll be successful, how they will come to have meaning in their lives - I've been very comforted by God's promises for this life and the next. They are all that can provide true meaning. All the other stuff is meaningless in comparison.

Holiday Baking!

The pictures say it all. My neighborhood friends and I had a holiday baking party hosted by me at our house this week while Josh was in Boston and New York. We made lots of treats and had a lot of fun! Missed you though, Mandy, as this was our little tradition every year.... Heidi

Rockin' the Stock

I went back to my hometown of Woodstock, IL this weekend with my friend Lisa from high school. We went to the Madrigal dinner at good old Woostock High School, where we were in the Madrigal choir ourselves back in the day. It brought back lots of fun memories and we made some new ones. Before the choral performance and dinner at the school, we drove around and saw our old houses and went shopping at the town square. Very quaint. The trip back to our old stomping grounds was a great success!

Home Pics

Some of you mentioned you wanted to see our living space... So, from the bottom up, the office, living room, kitchen, and another view of the living room/kitchen area. Not bad for city living! Actually we feel like we have plenty of space and are very grateful for our place.

Chi-town Weekend

The weekend is always a welcome time of the week... time for me to catch up on chores and Josh to maybe get a decent night's sleep. He stayed up all night Thursday and didn't get to go to bed until Friday night at midnight. He was getting a stock pitch ready for a recruiting event. The good news is that it went well...

Friday night, I caught up with a friend of mine, Shannon, who was a nurse with me at St. Joseph Hospital in Denver. We went to a German Christmas market and then out to dinner. It was so cold out that we were literally running around the city. We weren't the only ones either. This am, my friend Keyla and I went out for breakfast at Yolk. It is an adorable breakfast joint that was packed with people for good reason. It was delicious.

Then I grabbed 4 bags of groceries from Jewel and it was too cold to wait at a stop for the bus, so I started walking. However, my annual tri-colored popcorn tin was quite a burden to schlep 6 blocks (you know those big ones with puppies on the side of the tin?). Now that it's home though, I can't wait to dig in.

So this was kind of long, but I am trying to make up for the 2 months where we weren't very good at keeping people up to date. Josh may get on here again in a couple weeks, but he's in the home stretch of finishing his first quarter with finals next week.

Heidi

Thanksgiving

So, we had Thanksgiving at the Wheelers in Watervliet, MI... We drove down on Wednesday afternoon and stayed until late on Saturday night. It was so relaxing, we all had a great time hanging out and playing games. I missed my parents and brothers (...especially Mark's comments about what's wrong with the food and my dad's slurring the Thanksgiving trivia questions because he has a reading problem...) but we enjoyed all the craziness of family time at the Wheelers. Pictured are me and my sister-in-law, Jordan. There weren't any good pics of Josh and I because Josh's dad was sick and didn't take the usual obnoxious amount of photos that we have all grown to love and expect...

Craft Night

There are group of women who live in my "neighborhood" (the South Loop)--who have been having a few get togethers and plans for more. We are all "partners" of people who attend the GSB, so we have lots of nights without the guys around to hang out. Our most recent gathering was a Christmas ornament decorating night, complete with lots of glitter and varying amounts of creative abilities. Good times and more to come I'm sure....