a little bit of my heart: more weekend, please!

I can hardly believe that this weekend is almost over. I have looked forward to sleeping in so much, and have successfully accomplished this task for 2 consecutive mornings. Much has passed in the last day, to include a hike in Garden of the Gods, investigating more potential housing options, making a yummy potato, green onion, zucchini & feta gallette, running, going to church, and gearing up for GroupLink at church tonight.
I've decided to take the plunge and try to get into a small group for the fall, even though it will mean one less weeknight to myself (selfish, selfish, Natasha!). I know that community is truly found in small groups, and I need to just muster my courage and proceed.
On a different note, I've started looking at my debt (yikes! Thank you, grad school.). I'm so close to paying off my car that I can practically taste it! If you have any ideas about how I can earn some extra money, my goal is to get the car paid off by March and then start chipping away on my student loans. I've started to investigate picking up contract work through some different organizations in town that pretty much will let me pick my hours and the number of patients I pick up, which would be great. I would be doing this work on top of my current full-time job. I'm telling myself to just do it for a year and then go from there. One of the things that people fail to tell you is that if you don't have the money for graduate school, it's probably not a good idea to go and have to pay for it with student loans. Not that I could have done much with my degree otherwise, but hindsight is always 20/20.
For those who didn't get the email or have time to view it, here are some pictures from Pikes Peak Challenge last weekend! We pretty much hiked in cool, threatening weather the entire way. The sun peeked out for a couple minutes around treeline, and then it went back into hiding. As we were getting into the van to leave the top, it started snowing! Enjoy, and hopefully I'll have a more coherent update next week! Oh, and please pray about housing possibilities - this is feeling like a marathon!