Kudos

I got on Facebook the other morning and in my inbox was unexpected surprise- a former coworker had included Note to Self in her "Most Inspirational" blog round of awards! 

Didn't even know there was such a thing! The award is given in the spirit of honoring friends and keeping the blogosphere a pleasant place to be.

I'm honored, Racheal!

In the spirit of passing the award on, here are a few blogs I enjoy following or gain inspiration from:

High Heels and High Notes- Lael Ewing

Hush Fashion- Emily Canavesio

Liz Marie blog

Something Simple- Hilary Garza

24

No, this post is not about Jack Bauer.

Today is my birthday and in honor of turning 24, here are 24 factoids about me ;-)

My mom's water broke the evening of April 1st, but she didn't have me until later in the day on the 2nd. I could have been an April's Fool baby, but I wasn't. Thanks Mom!

I am 1/4 Japanese, dad's side.

I've never colored my hair (only gotten highlights once).

I like making lists.

Actually, I love making lists.

I have vandalized school property. Intentionally. In a minor fashion, but it was therapeutic.

I have become more introverted the older I've gotten. I talked a lot when I was little. Like, a lot.

When I was 4, I founded "The Prissy Club." Only Virginia Taylor and myself were members.

I am published! Two of my devotions appear in the book "Big Dreams from Small Spaces," published by Group Publishing. My ultimate goal is publish a devo book for little kids.

Drowning/suffocating and snakes are my biggest fears.

And thanks to this last winter, I now loathe driving on ice.

#teamsweettea all the way. And no, unsweet tea with "sweetener" is NOT the same thing.

In the last year, I rediscovered my love of reading.

I was homeschooled. 

If you don't know me well, you read that and thought "Wow! But she's...normal!"

Or maybe you didn't. That's okay too.

I have a weakness for cosmetic bags and office supplies. Both obsessions started young.

Grammar Nazi. 

I met my husband on a blind date...a mutual friend set us up...after she had dreamed (repeatedly) we were married. We were engaged in 8 months. When you know, you know!

Psalms, Hebrews and Romans are my favorite books of the Bible.

Anchors are my life symbol. Hebrews 6:19

I love checking the mail.

When I lived with my parents, one of my main household chores was to do the dishes. I was nicknamed "The Dish Fairy." I can't wait to have a kid who can be my dish fairy. Haha!

Speaking of nicknames, I didn't really have nicknames growing up. I was just Samantha. That's still my preference. A select few get to call me Sam or Sammi ;) And they know who they are.

Love,
Samantha

A Year in Photos

Our first year of marriage in photos!

Year 1, Lesson 5

Lesson #5: It takes more effort to stay mad, than to actually resolve the issue. 

This one is easier said than done because sometimes you feel like you have a such darn good tootin' reason to be fired up. Maybe so, but it takes a lot of effort to be offended and  to stay offended. With everything else life has to offer, I'm learning that maybe I don't want to waste time on being offended. That mindset doesn't help anyone and it sure doesn't benefit you.

It is a choice, but make the choice to not stay angry and offended. Life's too short for that.

Love,

The Hannis

Year 1, Lesson 4

Lesson #4: Don't speak ill of your spouse, especially in front of other people. 

This was one of the most surprising things I discovered in our first year of marriage. It saddens me to see spouses bash each other in front of their friends. Not only is it more common than I would've thought, it is accepted...no almost expected to bash the "stupid" husbands or demean the "ball-and-chain" wives.

Frankly, that is dumb.
Maybe I'm still a starry-eyed newlywed, but that's not a healthy pattern, nor is it biblical. If you keep complaining about your spouse, that makes you part of the problem. C'mon peeps! Words have consequences and we know the Bible spares no expense on instructing us on the power of our words...
One of Clark Whitten's podcasts I heard even before we got engaged talked about the danger of "uncovering" your spouse in public, that is tearing them down in front of other people.

Choose to not do that. Choose to paint a different picture of marriage to a painfully confused society.

Linking this back to yesterday's lesson, maybe better words about your spouse have to start with better thoughts about your spouse.

A Noteworthy Year: Twenty Twelve

A blinking cursor.

A big white square. That's what's facing me right now as I grasp for words to outline the past 12 months.

But blankness is certainly not what lies behind:

Lunch at Vast

Among many other things...
College graduation.
Best friend's engagement.
My engagement.
Best friend's wedding.
First devotions published
My wedding.
Also throw in a honeymoon, church change, new house, and new part-time job at TriCorps.

Fullness. Newness. Growth. Dreams reaching maturity and blossoming in my hands.

Numerous words have already been spoken on each of these amazing milestones; I am only left with a humble and grateful heart.

I am married to the most incredible man (for his end of the year blog post, click here) and blessed beyond belief to be his wife. My jobs right now are awesome, fulfilling and challenging- and very different from each other!

I have a beautiful home I get to decorate and fix up with my husband.

We both have excellent families that we get to live life with. I could go on...

Tear off that calendar page

What now? What is God speaking to me to focus on for 2013?

The words that keeps resonating in my spirit are: hungry, learn, grow.

Hungry for more of God.
Thirsty to learn.
Eager to grow.

I've been filled to the brim and even overflowing this year, but in an odd way, that makes me realize I do need God more and more every day so I can constantly learn, I can constantly grow, and I constantly bless and influence those around me. That gives me an appetite for God he promises to satisfy. (Matt. 5:6)

What words are echoing in your soul as you close your eyes on 2012 and open them to 2013?

"For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things." Psalm 107:9

Happy New Year!

It Was the Last of Times, It Was the First of Times

Hello readers,

This is Samantha Hanni, the writer formerly known as Samantha Maloy. I would've blogged sooner, but it's later...so whatever. In case you hadn't heard...

I am now a wife!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have a husband!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wedding photography featured in this post by Valerie Sebestyen.
Check out my or her FB page for the complete album.

And I couldn't be more thrilled, contented, or excited.

Where do I begin? The week leading up to the wedding proceeded smoothly, all things considered. But nearly everyday brought the poignant thought of "This is the last time that..."

The week that never was close, never seemed like it was going to happen was right here: happening, rushing over and past me in a wave that I couldn't control.

However, I did my best to soak in the water from the wedding wave (or hurricane. or tsunami. K never mind that's being dramatic.) and I loved and felt that week more deeply than I thought was possible.

As you can see, the long awaited day started for me bright and early! After that, I don't remember much... except that we got hitched!

No, for real...the day appeared, existed, then vanished.

The day went incredibly smooth though (at least it seemed like that...if there are conflicting stories, please keep those to yourself! Haha.) Many many thanks for all who helped it run so smoothly. Your thank you card will be arriving soon in the mail. I promise!!

Then we were on our own. Finally. Just ourselves, headed to relax in the Florida Keys for a whole week.

Pigeon Key

Reppin' Shimmers in the Atlantic Ocean! 

I don't even know...

Marker 88 Restaurant

Outside our resort

Shark Valley- Everglades

Photographing a cute little lizard 

Self-explanatory

Random signs I found amusing

.together.

By the end of the week, we were both ready to be back in our lovely Oklahoma and start living life again, but living it together. Just two weeks before had been a week of lasts. Now it was a week of firsts. First time to go to the grocery store, first time to plan and cook meals -all by myself!- first time for Kurtis to come home to me, first time to make our bed, first time to come home together after a Thunder game, first first first!

Everything we have planned, prayed and dreamed about, we are living out now, with more and more to come. I can already say it is a beautiful, restoring, challenging journey.

We aren't perfect, but I can say this without a doubt: Kurtis was created to be a husband and I was created to be a wife.  It is an energizing, powerful thing to be living out the role you were created for. Glory to our Creator, and the One who holds our lives and marriage in His hands.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Hanni

Are You Happy With Now?

What if you were completely satisfied with this moment right now?

I started thinking last night how much of our time and energy is spent in anticipation of:

the weekend
next month
November 3 (Oh wait, I think that's just me...)
a different season
freshman year
senior year
another year
another time
another place.

There is nothing inherently wrong with this kind of thinking; anticipation can be good. Planning is necessary.

But are you able to set all that aside as needed and be genuinely satisfied with the present?

If yes, great. You don't have to finish reading this post.
If not, let's chat a bit more.

Truthfully, I'm preaching to myself right now. Truthfully, I am living in GREAT anticipation for that November 3 date when my fiance and I will finally be man and wife, and there is nothing wrong with that. Truthfully, I did not expect it to be so hard to be satisfied with my here and now, and that struggle is refining me.

So I go back to God's Word. Psalm 118:24 says, "THIS is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it."

I cannot dismiss the utter gift that right now is, because it will never happen again. There is much to do, much to say, much to listen to, much to be each day. Jim Elliot once said, "Wherever you are, be all there." Be all here. In this day. THIS day. Not 2 weeks from now. Not next month. Not 2 months from now. Not 5 years from now.


 I encourage you all, as I am firmly encouraging myself, to finish drinking all now has to offer before moving on to...

...whatever's next.

"Let not our longing slay our appetite for living."

--- Jim Elliot



7-19-11

One year ago today, I asked God for something rather specific.

This request is written on a piece of wood and is from a sermon that our church does every year. It represents "staking your claim" in God's promises and is a visual representation of what you have asked God for in faith. (Another story behind this...ask me some other time!)

So here I was. I was getting ready to start my senior year. I was going back to teaching. I was in a very good place in my relationship with the Lord. I was really happy with where I was in life. But I wanted to ask God this one thing...

There was no one I was interested in at the time and I was looking at finishing school in just nine short months. In my mind, it was a reasonable request that I at least meet the man who I would marry and begin to build a friendship that would eventually turn into something more. If that still wasn't in God's timing for this year, then ok. At least I'd asked. And of course I had been praying about who I would marry for years, thinking about qualities that I desired, and actually praying FOR whoever that man would be.

But this time, it just felt different.

Anyway, back to 7-19-11....

About two weeks from that day, my friend Claire Myers told me about "this guy" from her church. (Also another crazy story in and of itself!)

Then on 8-18-11, I met Kurtis Hanni for the first time at the Starbucks by dance.

Then one month from that first meeting, we were dating.

Then nine months later, we got engaged.

So here I am a year later, planning a wedding and preparing to become a wife to the most loving, intelligent, God-fearing, funny, handsome man I have EVER met.  

I am thrilled beyond words.

Yet I managed to find a few for this post :)

I share this because I am always encouraged when I hear or read about God answering prayers and working in the lives of fellow believers. My story...our story!... isn't a formula or a blueprint, but yet another piece of unique evidence of a faithful God.

And He is so very faithful...goodness...I can hardly articulate it.

"...no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him."

1 Cor. 2:9

A Prayer

This is a prayer I jotted down in my journal 3-4 years ago. I posted it on my blog last April, but never posted a link to it. I felt like I wanted to share it again on this fine Saturday.

Blessings to you all! Have a wonderful day :)

I have learned much, lost much, and gained much. And I by no means feel that I have reached a plateau. I cannot afford that luxury. Such is the ebb and flow of life.

Oh Father, I am so humbled by you. You have made us in your image; yet we are eternally-bound beings in mortally-bound bodies. You have called us to share the Good News, but there is not a more leaky bunch of jars to carry that Water of Life than us.

Yet you so patiently hold us, patch us, reshape us, and pour us out and fill us up at the right time, your time.

Your love permeates every cell of my body. It wraps around me, soothes me, whispers in my ear as I lay exhausted in my bed and directs me as I hurry to class.

I look for you everywhere, God. I find you in so many places throughout the day. You gift me with breath in my lungs, the dawn, and unending mercies every day. A second chance. I see your glory in the skies.

I see and rejoice in your unfailing beauty in the flowers- in the trees.

I listen for you in other peoples’ voices. I earnestly seek for evidence of you in their lives to see if I have found a brother or sister.

I rejoice in your safety. Who knows how many times you have shielded me from harm, the unsavory eye, my own self?

God, I feel your love when I am with those who I love. What sweet fellowship!

I savor, I store up, I rejoice in those quiet moments with you when your peace steals over my soul. Peace I don’t deserve. Peace that I should not be having- but it’s there.

I am further humbled when, though I am your child, you reveal areas in my life that have previously hid from your light. Areas I would have said were fine. Areas I jealously guard. Let it all come under your jurisdiction.

One thing I ask of-this is what I seek: to do for others, to live beyond myself. I do not wish to be an ending place, but a starting point for you to reach peoples’ lives. This world needs you God.

Hear my heart, know my thoughts. Keep me in the shadow of your wings.

This is my second post.

So my first post was my last editorial of the summer. And this post contains my very first one. It ran in The Vista the second week of June under the headline of "Redefining the Bad Day." Where it mentions summer school, just think "fall semester," and it has the same effect. 

After much mental denial, yes, the summer semester of 2011 is finally here in all its glory.

Ah, summer school.

Maybe you’re jazzed about it…or not. From snippets of students’ conversations, tweets or Facebook statuses, the dreaded biology class or some other such helpless course get bad reps.  In fact, a surprising portion of casual banter and social media fodder is…complaining.

But consider with me, if you will, for a moment.

It could be so much worse.

Since the May 24 tornadoes, I can’t help but think how absurdly lucky and utterly blessed so many of us are and we don’t even take stock of it all.

I dare complain about a little 8-week class, when there are fellow Oklahomans who now have nothing?

When that alarm clock goes off summoning us to our day’s work, do we curse the clock, or choose to be grateful that we still have a bed in house that hasn’t been swept away by Mother Nature’s latest EF-5 special?

It could be worse.

I think about the parents in Piedmont who in one day lost two kids, their home and their way of life until now.

I think about the high school graduate in Joplin, who at the dawn of his next chapter life, never got the chance to turn the page.

That my friends, is truly a bad day.

I propose that we cannot afford the exorbitant price of complaining.

At the risk of sounding flaky or cliché, remember as you drag yourself out of bed for that 8:00 class or toss your books into your 450-degree car at the end of the day, that it could be worse. Before you take a breath to complain about the science class, take another breath and realize that it could always be worse. In fact, take another breath and be glad you could.