Look what I got!!

This is apparently the week of WONDERFUL surprises for me! After getting a whole new bathroom and having my kitchen finished earlier this week, this came in the mail for me yesterday:


I GOT A Wii!!!! AND, this was with it:


A Wii FIT TOO???

I am still in so much shock!! My aunt, uncle and cousin decided to bless me with this amazing gift!! I'm not much into video games at all, but have always enjoyed playing Wii at my friends' houses. I have wanted one for a while but knew I would probably never buy one for myself.
I still can't believe they bought one for me!! THIS IS SO AMAZING!!!

I have already hooked up the Wii and played some of the sports (for some reason I really like the tennis). I will try and Wii fit next week when I have more time to learn how to use everything. I'm kind of nervous about it, haha. Seriously, the last video game system I ever owned was a Sega Genesis. I have a lot to learn...

First, though, I need to get over the shock. I can't believe my family bought me a Wii!!!!!

Its Finished!!!

YAY!! The construction is completed, and I have a finished bathroom AND kitchen!!! I can't shower in my bathroom until tomorrow because the tub was also refinished and it needs to dry, but I think I can handle that. :) Now I just need my mom to come and visit and pick out paint colors for me, and I will paint everything!!!

Okay, so here is the finished kitchen ceiling:

So much more work was done smoothing out the walls and getting the kitchen ready to paint. It will be really exciting once that is finished too!!

And now the bathroom! Its so small, haha.


The shower curtain is hanging over the vanity until the tub dries. :) There are supposed to be 3 light bulbs in the vanity, but we can't seem to find the right ones yet...

The most exciting part:

an outlet!! Can you believe there wasn't a single outlet in the bathroom??


Here is the new sink WITH storage space underneath (that also hides the pipes!!)

The tub is the same, but its been refinished to make it all white and shiny! (It used to look like I never cleaned it. I promise I did!). Notice the pink tile is all gone! Woohoo!!

The new tile floor! No more cracked and discolored tiles!!


And finally, my favorite part:

HA! A spider walked across the tub while it was still wet and got stuck! I think M said we can just scrub him out after the tub dries. I hope we can, haha. Its funny to me now, but I don't think I want a fossilized spider permanently a part of my tub.

So, there you go!! Now I have an incredible amount of cleaning to do as my entire house is covered in a thin layer of dust. I don't mind at all though, cleaning is something I can actually do!

Thank you SO MUCH Frank and M!!!!!

Work in Progress (Tons of pics!)

I was going to wait until the work was all finished to share this, but I'm too excited!! For the last 5 days there has been some pretty serious work being done on my house, and its almost finished!! By the end of today (or tomorrow at the latest) my kitchen will be FINISHED (2 years after it was started!) and I will have a brand new bathroom!!! I'M SO EXCITED!!

I have wanted this all to be done for a long time. The kitchen would have been finished a while ago, except that the bathroom leaked into the kitchen whenever someone showered, so finishing the kitchen didn't make sense until the bathroom could be completely redone. I honestly wasn't sure if that would ever happen, but it finally is!! And it really came out of nowhere...

There is a guy, M, that Frank Hinson has been working with for several months on addiction recovery. He is VERY talented with construction and last Wednesday Frank asked me if I would be interested in hiring him to do some work at my house. He and Frank came over on Thursday, looked at everything I needed to have done and then gave me an estimate. It was VERY fair (and now that I see just how good he is, I realize that it was more than fair!), so I jumped on it. I will be struggling financially a bit to make up for spending this money when I didn't expect it, but I don't care! Having all of this work finished relieves so much stress that tightening my budget doesn't seem like a big deal at all! (I will need to reread that statement over the coming months, haha).

One of the best parts, for me, is that I am paying someone to do the work. I don't feel like a charity case and I'm not taking Frank away from his family for hours and days. I can see God's hand in this, taking care of me once again in a way I didn't expect, (but that's how He works!) and I feel SO blessed.

At the same time M has been working on my kitchen and bathroom, I have been hard at work on the basement. So, my house is getting a mini overhaul!! Like I said, things are still in progress, but here is where we are so far!!

The biggest project has been the bathroom. (Yes, I realize that it is a very small bathroom! Everything about my house is pretty small, which works great for only 2 people. I still don't know how we did it with 7!)

It's still in progress, so stay tuned for the final pictures later tonight, or tomorrow!

Here is the before picture. Please note the pink tile (yuck!), the lack of mirror or electrical outlet, and the open area under the sink where I could store...nothing. Also, you can't see in this picture, but the "tile" floor was all cracked and being discolored by the leaking toilet.

A closer look at the tub:

The disgusting drop ceiling:

So, everything but the tub (because its cast iron!) has been ripped out and slowly replaced. Its not finished yet, but here is what it looks like right now!


No, the toilet will not stay in the tub, haha. But, that's where it is for now!


The kitchen is getting there too. I don't have a ton of pics because most of the kitchen work is small cosmetic stuff. One problem that suddenly arose, however, was that my sink broke for no apparent reason.

Thankfully, Frank heard about it and quickly fixed it for me! (No pic of the fixed sink..but it really is fixed!)

The main kitchen project was the ceiling. Here is what it did look like (for 2 years!):

Here is the new ceiling!!! There is still some finishing work to do, which you can't see in this picture. But, this is what the ceiling will look like!!
M is doing such an awesome job!

I haven't really done any construction, but I've still be working hard on the basement! :) I have literally ignored the basement for months, only going down to throw junk somewhere. Here is what it looked like:

The view from the other side. All junk (except Gizmo and the treadmill)...

The girls room was full of remnants from moving them upstairs:

My only storage closet, full of Frankie's stuff:

Once everything was bagged up...there were a lot of bags! :)


It took a lot of time to get all that stuff together and out of the house. It looks much different now though!!

The treadmill will move to the other side once I get the chance to scrub the floors and clean it up more, but this is the basement clean without all the trash and junk in in!!

The girls old room is now a whatever room with bunk beds, haha. I still have a lot of cleaning and scrubbing of the carpet (thanks to the kittens!) to do, but it at least looks clean!

The few things that were mine in the basement are now neatly stored away:

And finally, I actually have a little bot of storage space, that will be filled soon as I spring clean my house in the coming weeks:

YAY!! I am so excited, and feel so blessed by all of this work!! My house has the ability to stress me out like you wouldn't believe, so all of this is absolutley amazing!!

The work should be finished today, though some things might not be dry until tomorrow. I CAN'T WAIT!! (Actually, I have to admit I'm most excited about being able to use my own shower and toilet soon, haha).

I will post final pictures as soon as its all finished! Stay tuned!!

I'm Tired of Taking Care of Myself

See, I told you I would be back soon! :) Actually, I'm just procrastinating cleaning the basement; something I have become VERY good at in the last few days.

Okay, onto this post. The title is "I'm Tired of Taking Care of Myself", but I don't mean what you probably think I mean (if you even have any idea what I'm talking about right now, haha). I DO NOT mean that I want someone to come and take care of me. (Okay, sometimes I mean that...but I'm realizing that deep in my heart I don't really mean that...). What I really mean is, I'm tired of NOT letting God take care of me.

Let's see if I can get this to make sense...

For a long time now I have been frustrated. Its actually been annoying me that I have been so frustrated, because honestly this has been a pretty good year for me. Certainly ups and downs, but especially in light of all the the things I have been seeing God do in me, things I never thought possible, I couldn't believe that I was getting frustrated. But alas, I have been.

I've said it a million times, and its one of the biggest "Duh!" statements I will ever make, but ministry is hard. Flawed people being used by God to share His grace, love and mercy with other flawed people...it's not usually a very pretty sight. Amazing and God-glorifying, yes. Redeemed by Him to become beautiful, absolutely. But, in and of itself, ministry is ugly. And I get tired and frustrated with the ugly, sad to say, pretty easily. So, basically, that's where I have been. Frustrated with the ugliness of ministry...especially when it comes from the ugliness in me.

That frustration has led to a lot of temptation. I don't want to overstate this, but I also don't want to sugar coat it; I have been extremely tempted by the world. In the last year almost every single one of my close friends in Philly had gotten married, engaged or had a child. If they haven't done that, then they have embarked on something new and exciting in their career. Me, I've just been here. Jennifer's statement keeps ringing in my ears: "Everybody is getting married and starting a family...and look at Trish, still just here". Its no secret that marriage and family have always been a desire of my heart, but its never been the overwhelming struggle that it has recently become. And I can't remember ever being faced with the temptations that I have faced...or at least I can't ever remember them actually being tempting to me, especially not THIS tempting.

So, I went to the beach with my family in a place of being very discontent with my life, and wondering what, if anything, I should do about it. See, when I start to feel discontent, I usually assume that means that I need to change something. You can see that in my life over the last several months. I started eating better, exercising more, taking better care of my house, reorganizing my finances, etc. All of those things are good and have been a huge blessing to me, but they were not where the problem lies. So, despite those changes, and the wonderful things that came along with them, I have still been feeling discontent.

During my week at the beach with my parents, I read A LOT. In fact, I finished 6 books (all fiction, so they were fast reads) and started re-reading "Desiring God" by John Piper (easily one of my top 5 favorite books of all time). I also listened to several sermons (mostly from John Piper, I think he is an incredible preacher), and spent a lot of time just trying to listen to the Lord. Each chapter in "Desiring God" has enough for me to chew on for a month, so I haven't gotten very far, but one line stopped me dead in my tracks. He says; "Saving faith is the heartfelt conviction not only that Christ is reliable, but also that He is desirable".

That's is. That is my problem. I have never questioned whether or not God would take care of me. I questioned whether or not I would enjoy, and even be satisfied with how He takes care of me. He continues to blow me away with how much He loves and cares for me, but He rarely, if ever, does things the way I expect, or think I want Him to. That is the heart of my discontent.

This realization was a crushing blow. I'm still struggling with this. I am actually questioning in my mind, and my heart, if God is really what I desire. There is a lot of guilt that comes with that question. I guess in marriages people come to a place, at some point, where they question whether or not their spouse is really the one they desire. I am hoping that there is no problem with asking the question, as long as you reach an answer, and that answer is "Yes! You are the one I desire ABOVE ALL".

Once I realized that I have been wondering if I truly do desire Christ above all things, so many other struggles became so much clearer. If I don't desire Him, then the things He provides me will never be enough. I will always want more, and thus always be discontent. My ministry will suffer incredibly as I try and find my own solutions to problems. I will not be overflowing with the love of Christ, I will be seeking something else to fill the void. And if I'm not overflowing, they I can't pour into anyone else. During the sermon at Frank and Elizabeth's church on Sunday, the pastor made this statement: "Serving should be fueled from an existing SATISFACTION in the love of God that longs to be shared". I love that statement and I believe its true. However, that has not been my heart, it hasn't been my heart for a while now...

Before I go any further, I have to make it clear that I am in the middle of this struggle (or maybe even still at the beginning, I'm not sure). I have not come out on the other side (although I can honestly say that I have full confidence that I will and that my relationship with the Lord will be stronger because of it. I do believe, without a doubt, that He is reliable). So, there will be no nice clean ending to this post. This part of the story is still being written...

I did have a fleeting moment of panic when all of this came to light. If I have known God for 13 years; seen Him do incredible things, heard Him speak, felt His presence, experienced His love and mercy...and I still ask myself if He is desirable...what does that mean?? For a fleeting second I started to wonder if I was even saved. Thankfully, that thought left as quickly as it came (I can only assume that was the Lord casting out the lies of Satan), but I was still left with no answers.

Then I heard J preach a sermon a few weeks ago and he made this statement: "You can't define God by your own life experience. You HAVE to define Him by how He reveals Himself to you, in the scripture".

I have forgotten who God really is. Based on my own perceptions and life experiences I have made God into something He isn't. I have made Him undesirable.

This realization was another crushing blow to my heart, one that sent me to my knees and asking for forgiveness. And that's pretty much where I stand now. I need to know who He truly is, not who I have created Him to be. I'm not starting from scratch here, but I'm going back to the basics, and straight to the Word.

When I started my spinning class, I committed to a month. I did the same with running, and my finances. I'm now several months into all of those commitments, and they are all going GREAT! I have fallen in love with spinning, am starting to love running, and my finances are SLOWLY becoming less stressful. So, I'm going to continue with this theme, and spend the next month asking: Who Is He?

That's all I have for now. One big question, with endless answers. Interestingly, I'm usually all about the final destination. I start a project to see the results, I don't usually enjoy the process. I read a book because I want to know the end, the story is secondary to me (usually). I've said this before, but I believe this is the heart of why life is hard for me sometimes. I don't like the journey NEARLY as much as I enjoy getting to the destination. However, in life there is a time for everything. I believe at this point in my life, the journey is the destination.

(And I will now pat myself on the back for having just written the cheesiest line of any blog update so far in my life. Thank you, thank you).

This is Just the Beginning of the Updates...

I'm starting with the easiest to write, the day to day stuff, and then going deeper in another post soon. Really, I am!!

Wow, the last week has completely flown by!! I have thought a million times about sitting down and blogging the days happenings and my thoughts, but I could never seem to get everything together in my mind in a way that would even remotely make sense, so I just avoided the blog. I will try and catch you up a bit...

Again, this post will probably focus more on the "this is what happened" part of things, and soon (really!) I will have a post on the "this is what God is doing in the midst of all of those things". For now, here is the quick update.

On Sunday May 17th, Bonita turned 13. That's right, the baby is now a teenager!!!! I still haven't adjusted to it yet. She will be coming to God Squad and Teen Club, will be a leader with me at Kids Club. Its just crazy!!! She spent the day with her family, which was great for me because I wanted to sleep, haha. We celebrated her birthday this past weekend. More on that in a minute.

Most of last week was spent catching up on work and working extra hours for AIM to make up for the week I spent at the beach. Not very exciting to write about, but it felt good to get into the groove of things, at least a little. Things are getting pretty hectic at AIM and Cornerstone as we prepare for the summer, and I am trying to not get too overwhelmed. Some days are better than others, haha.

So, I didn't really do much on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday other than work, unpack, do laundry, etc.

On Thursday, several of us decided to clean out our friend's car. I used to think my car was disgusting, but I was wrong. I had never seen anything like it (let me reiterate, this is NOT my van)...



And it took us a while to decide where to start, so we just kinda started at the mess for a while...


In the end, though, we had a lot of fun, laughed a lot, and her car is clean!!

On Saturday we finally had Bonita's birthday celebration. I told the kids a while ago that I would do something big for each of their 13th birthdays, and they got to decide what it would be. Last year I almost went broke with Pedro and Kiara's 13th birthdays being within 2 weeks of one another, haha. This year, I also almost went broke, but that's because Bonita (kind of at my suggestion) decided she wanted to go to Hershey Park for the day. Thankfully, I found some REALLY discounted tickets, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been, haha. And, thankfully, Miguel is the only one left to turn 13 and I still have a year and a half to save for his party!

I will have to post pictures later because I don't have any. I let Bonita use my camera for the day and my friend Kirsten took the good group photos (Bonita's pictures are all the girls posing like models in different parts of the park, haha). As soon as I get some from Kirsten, I will post them!!

Bonita invited 5 of her friends (Linda, Linda's boyfriend Luis, 2 girls from school and one from church) and we all drove in one van. My friends Lindsay, Melissa, Kirsten and Andy also came along in a separate van so I would have something to do (I let Bonita and her friends do their own thing). We arrived at 11 a.m. and stayed until the park closed. It was a lot of fun, but exhausting!!! We did pack lunch and dinner, and tons of water. Bonita and her friends definitely had a lot of fun. Only one of them (other than Bonita and Linda) had ever been before, so they had a blast. They all completely crashed in the car on the way home, which was fine with me!

Thankfully, everyone that was with me (Kirsten, Melissa, Lindsay and Andy) really loved roller coasters, so we had a blast together as well. Of course, we were all ready to pack up and leave at like 7; apparently we're getting old. But, we pushed through til the end and definitely got our money's worth. There were 2 big rides that we didn't get to go on (one had a REALLY long line, and the other was closed for the day), so we want to try and go back sometime this summer. One ride, the Lightening Racer, was so much fun we rode it 8 times!! I guess we're not THAT old, haha.

Sunday was a pretty fun day too, although I was completely exhausted. My friends Frank and Elizabeth were dedicating their baby, Selah, at their church that morning and I really wanted to go. I thought I could easily make it to Cornerstone in time as well (their service started at 10, ours starts at 11), but of course they waited until the very end of the service to do the baby dedication. I'm REALLY glad I was there though; the sermon was exactly what I needed to hear, and Selah looked SO cute in her dress! I raced out of their church and got to Cornerstone literally at the exact moment that pastor Bill was announcing, "If you have your Kids Day permission slip, you can turn it in to Trish. I haven't seen Trish...oh, there she is, in the back." It was perfect, and awesome!!

I was extremely tired after church, so while I had grand plans to clean the basement that afternoon, that didn't exactly happen. Well, at least not right away. First, came a really long nap. :) I DID begin the process that night, though, and got A LOT done. In fact, there is all kinds of exciting stuff happening at my house, that you will just have to wait to hear more about. Trust me, though, it'll be worth the wait! :)

Hmm...so I guess now we're up to yesterday. I started my day by participating in a 3 hour long spinning class!!! It is, in fact, as crazy as it sounds. I have NEVER sweated (is that a word?) that much in my entire life. But, I DID IT!! I am being constantly blown away by the things that I am doing, things I never thought I would EVER be able to do. I KNOW that I couldn't do any of them without God's grace, and I am so thankful for that. I am just in awe of Him...

I was pretty worthless in terms of accomplishing things for several hours after the spinning class (it kinda felt like the Broad St. run all over again! We biked approximately 50-60 miles!!). Plus, my bathroom is out of commission right now (more hints to the exciting things happening at my house!), so I couldn't shower!! I was gross! I really didn't care, though, I didn't see anyone so I could just lay around the house and be gross. I did finally put the air conditioner in the window in my bedroom so I was able to stay cool for the day, even if I was disgusting.

After a lot of rest, I went to see the movie "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" with Lindsay to celebrate her birthday (she turned 17 yesterday!!! AHHHH!!). The movie was not very good at all, but I always enjoy hanging out with Lindsay, so at least that part was nice. I came home to a basement full of 12 large trash bags that needed to go outside before the trash pick up in the morning. They were NOT easy to carry, so I got a second workout, haha. I did manage to clean out ALL of the junk in my basement though! (75% of it belonged to Frankie, so left a bunch of stuff when he moved out over 2 years ago, 15% belonged to the girls; stuff I have been trying to get them to sort through for 2 years, and about 10% was mine, mostly left over construction stuff from when my kitchen was being worked on...again, about 2 years ago). I tossed or gave away ALL OF IT, and now my basement is free to be cleaned and organized (we are turning it into a little exercise area now that the kids are too old to need a playroom, which is what it was before) and there is even storage space for the things I actually do need to keep. The cleaning and organizing will happen later this week...

So, that's about it!! Like I said, God is really doing a lot in this time, and I promise to write about it soon. I also, as mentioned, have some exciting stuff going on with my house that I will share later this week!! And I will post pictures of Bonita's party and the basement (I have been working really hard on it!!) soon!! I mean it, I will be back soon!!

Not Much To Report...

I know I haven't blogged in forever, but I honestly don't have much to report. I'll give you a run down of the last few weeks though.

My travels started with a trip to my Aunt's house in Richmond, VA where I had the privileged of sharing with her ladies' bible study (of over 50 women!). It was an amazing and very humbling experience, and I REALLY enjoyed it! They were so welcoming and encouraging!! It was also really great to spend some time with my Aunt and Uncle (my mom was there too, but I see her a little more often than I see my aunt and uncle).

We stayed in Richmond until Thursday morning, and then my mom and I drove to NC to get ready for our beach vacation. I still had my AIM stuff to do, so I stayed pretty busy at my parents' house.

On Saturday morning we loaded up the car and drove to the beach!! It was only a 2 hour drive, which was SO nice!! Tuesday was a 4 hour train ride for me, then Thursday was a 3 hour drive and finally another 2 hours on Saturday. It was nice to get there and stay for a while!!

My brother and his fiance had some car trouble on their way down and my dad ended up having to drive about and hour and a half to pick them up. Their car was fixed during the week and provided some stress, but not too bad. Its as good as new now!!

The week itself was wonderful, and extremely boring to write about. Since there were no kids, there wasn't a lot of excitement, haha. Each day consisted of relaxing, reading, sitting on the beach, taking walks, watching TV and sleeping. We did go to the North Carolina Aquarium one afternoon, which was pretty cool (although not as good at the NJ aquarium). My dad's camera has most of the pictures, but here is a fun one of my brother:

That's about it! So exciting, huh? It was REALLY nice to have a week away, although my mind was going a mile a minute the whole time, but I will have to write more about that stuff later.

Anyway, on Saturday I came back to Philly. My parents dropped me off at the airport at 6 a.m. (after getting up at 4:30!) and I flew from NC to Atlanta, then boarded a plane in Atlanta and got back to Philly a little after noon.

On a quick side note, Delta has to be the worst airline ever. Despite me booking my flight over a month ago, they never let me choose seats. In fact, they didn't assign me a seat until I got to the gate in Atlanta and I ended up with a middle seat for the 2 hour flight from Atlanta. Then, I had to wait over an hour to get my bag and when I did get it, it was broken! One of the wheels had come off and the handle was broken. Every bad experience I have had with flights has come from Delta. Just wanted to get that out.

So, after FINALLY getting home, I had just enough time to shower, get dressed, pick Bonita up and then head to a wedding. I honestly wasn't too excited about the wedding, but it turned out to be a lot of fun! It was a couple that has been through a lot to get down the aisle, so it was really neat to be a part of their day.




(This is my favorite pic from the wedding. I couldn't get Lindsay to smile though!)

I came home from the wedding exhausted! My house and car were a mess (I left the car a mess, Gizmo made the house a mess), but I was way too tired to do anything about it, so I just went to bed, haha.

Yesterday started my return to normal. I went to church, lunch with friends, then came home and started the cleaning process. My car is FINALLY clean, my house is at least bearable and I plan on taking care of my room tonight.

And this morning, I went to my spinning class. :) Now, onto my day...

I guess I'm home.