Readers, We Need to Catch Up.

There has been so much going on lately that I haven't even had time to breathe. That trial that I mentioned we were having? I didn't end up just sitting at counsel table and helping plan strategy . . . I was doing a direct examination of a witness after having been sworn in on Monday and getting my bar number/ official bar license on Wednesday. I have spent the last two weeks preparing everything for this trial with the help of my boss and our paralegal. It was fun, but I still have a lot to learn and a lot to work on. We don't know the results yet, but we will know something next week. I did my questioning, and I made some objections to opposing counsel (which got overruled, but at least I made them). This is me getting sworn in to the State Bar of Georgia:

Even after getting sworn in, I STILL wasn't officially an attorney until Wednesday when I got my bar number, but now, I am a full-fledged attorney and fully licensed to practice law in Georgia. Finally! I resigned from being a "law clerk" forever . . . and I can't hide behind that title anymore. Telling someone you're a law clerk, or having an email signature that says that's what you are, kind of alerts the world that you are young and inexperienced, perhaps even still a student. But when your email signature says you're an associate attorney, there's no way for anyone else to tell whether you've been practicing law for 40 years or 2 days. So it's a little scary, and I know that I'm going to be expected to start making a lot more of my own decisions about at least smaller matters on cases now that I can practice without supervision. And I can sign documents to be filed with the court with MY bar number on them!

So needless to say, work has been crazy busy lately, and my first thoughts upon waking have been about things like whether we need to get domestic relations financial affidavits updated or how to get in a certain kind of evidence over a hearsay objection. I'm starting to learn what it feels like to be a real attorney and to have a hard time leaving work at work--I've been thinking about my cases and checking my work email all the time lately, even plotting out trial strategy in the shower. 

But this morning I woke up and realized that at the moment, I'm not stressed out about a single thing, and I can't tell you how good it feels! This is the first weekend I've officially been a member of the bar, and I'm no longer stressing about when I'll finally get sworn in or when I'll get a bar number or whether something else will hold up me getting my license. I tackled the rest of the case issues that were blowing up all of last week by the end of the day yesterday, so I'm going to be starting pretty fresh on Monday with new things. And I LOVE being a real attorney. I just love it. Also, lately I've been connecting with other people at work that I hadn't really talked with much since I got started in August, and I'm feeling so much more like an integral part of the team and am being myself around people. I absolutely love how these days, I don't just come in and head straight to my office in the morning; now there's almost always a few minutes of laughing with people in the break room before I get going each day. 

So today, it feels wonderful not to have any big stuff hanging over my head. It feels great to still be in my pajamas at 12:48 pm on this freezing November day after spending the morning sleeping, listening to music, updating LinkedIn, etc. Last night I went to Barnes and Noble and pretty much spent my paycheck there (well, not quite, but I went a little wild buying books). Can't wait to read all of these:

I don't read very much at all these days except articles online and magazines, and I really want to get back into books. It feels more relaxing at the end of a long day to just watch TV, but I know I've grown up loving reading and don't want to lose that as I get older. So, I want to read all 6 of these books before the end of the year for sure, and then I'm probably going to go back and buy more. I know I can always go to the library, but I've been specifically wanting to add to my own book collection also, so that's what I'm trying to do right now. There's something deeply satisfying and inviting about having shelves full of great books, isn't there?

Let's see, what else do we need to catch up on? For one, I adopted a cat! His name is Max, and he is so precious and I've totally fallen in love with him:

Isn't he completely adorable? He has already brightened my life so much--I love coming home to him every night and cuddling on my couch and listening to him purr. 

And let's see, here's a picture from my sister's visit a couple weeks ago after a coffee date with our friend: 

And a couple city-at-night pictures I took recently:

As soon as I finish doing my "Saturday chores" and cleaning my apartment this afternoon (much needed, haha), I will try to post some pictures of my new apartment and how I've decorated it. I've been meaning to do that for awhile and just haven't had the chance. More to come soon!

It's OK to Be Afraid

This post has been a long time coming. What I'm about to write about is something I have been thinking about this entire year, and on Tuesday last week, I was sitting at Panera eating my lunch when the words finally just came to mind, cohesively, and I started typing them out in a note on my phone as fast as I could. So here you have it.

I think we as Christians tend to believe that we should never be afraid and that we need to step it up in the faith department if we find ourselves feeling afraid. After all, the Bible does say not to worry, not to be anxious, and not to fear, and it says it a LOT. And I'm not here to advocate for giving in to brooding anxieties or constant worry about our lives, or for succumbing to the misguided belief that God will not pull us through whatever situation we find ourselves in, because that's clearly not what God wants us to do. But.

Isn't it true that being afraid forces us to embrace raw dependence on God? On Tuesday I was having a conversation with God (at Panera over a bowl of autumn squash soup) about how I so often feel afraid, underqualified, and overwhelmed at my new job. Not because the people aren't wonderful and the work isn't what I want to do--it's not that at all. It's that more often than not, I have no idea what I'm doing. 9 times out of 10 when I'm given an assignment to do, it is something I have never done before and I have to find a way to figure it out. I'm getting sworn in (yay!) a week from tomorrow, but that also means I will be licensed to practice law just in time for a major trial we have on November 13th--which means I will be not only attending the trial, but sitting at counsel table beside my boss and helping him plan strategy and figure out our next move. Kind of intimidating. I'm in a whole new world now, and I don't usually have a clue what I am doing, although I am starting, bit by bit, to learn. I'm having to get familiar with a whole different crowd of very experienced family law attorneys, and am often asked to go to events "on behalf of" my bosses or my firm. (You guys do know I have like 10 weeks of experience compared to your 20+ years, right??) Back in the summer, at one point I wrote in my journal something to the effect of: "Everything significant I have left to do this year scares me so much. Taking the bar exam, starting my job, getting licensed to practice law, moving, finding a new place to live, making new friends, etc. Everything." And sometimes, I do wonder if I can make the cut here, if I can be good enough as an attorney, and if I can overcome my inexperience and the fact that I'm younger than the next youngest attorney in my firm by 5 years. So just being honest, I feel afraid and "not cut out for this" a lot. I can't claim that I am diving into this with all confidence, because that's just not true.

But in that moment, telling God all these fears, I just felt Him saying in my spirit, "Lauren, you're acting like you came here to be comfortable. You didn't move here and take this job to be comfortable. You came here to make yourself and your life better, to be challenged and to grow, to develop new skills, and to stretch yourself to accomplish things you didn't believe you could accomplish. It's ok to be afraid sometimes. It's ok to have that adrenaline rush of looking at your life and realizing you have no clue what to do next and no clue whether you are even capable of doing that next thing. I want to induce in you a raw and constant grasping dependence on my Spirit and relentless straining for my presence, and this is how you get there. This. Not having a clue, not knowing what to do next, not sure you can make it through the next challenge without making a fool of yourself. This is where you're supposed to be AND it's how your're supposed to feel! This was never supposed to be easy, and you never signed up for something easy. Doing something significant is scary, and that is ok. You wouldn't have to be afraid if you were just sitting on your butt doing nothing or suppressing your potential, but that's not what I want for your life. If you were never afraid, you'd start convincing yourself that you don't need me. And you DO need me. Every day, every hour, every minute."

Well. After that little pep talk, I don't think I need to complain to God about being afraid anymore. Sometimes our deepest trust in our Savior is born of our greatest fears. And maybe, just maybe, if you feel like you aren't qualified and don't even know what your next move should be, you are exactly where God wants you to be for Him to show you--and the world through you--how strong and capable He is. Remember, He displays his greatest power in our greatest weakness. Pushing yourself to do things you don't believe you can do, but that you know you are called to do, puts you in a position to see God's power on display in your life.

I am not always capable, but I serve a God who IS always capable. I am not always enough, but He is enough, I can't always do it, be He can. I fail, but He doesn't. When I am afraid, He's got it covered. If my fear creates in me that moment-to-moment dependence on the power, guidance, and wisdom of God, then bring it on.

Big News

So, I know you all probably want to know, so I'll just go ahead and tell you that I PASSED THE BAR EXAM!!! Of course, Friday was October 24th, the day that has loomed large in my mind for months, the day that was going to basically determine what a lot of my future is going to look like. This whole time, October 24th has been my stopping point. I could tell you what I'd probably be doing until then, but I couldn't tell you about after or plan for the days after. And now, I can! I get to live here indefinitely. I get to work at this law firm indefinitely. Indefinitely. There could not be a better word than that right now, since everything I have done in my adult life so far has been all about the end--college and law school have a predetermined end point and you know that no matter how much you're enjoying it, you will have to leave before long. I am absolutely thrilled that it is perfectly conceivable that I will be living in this city and working at this job ten years from now, or fifteen, or more. I get to STAY here indefinitely. And everything has changed as a result. I feel comfortable joining activities and truly making friends and committing to volunteer work and buying some furniture and things I need, and so forth, because I get to stay here. It's not temporary anymore, and literally everything else I have done since I was 18 years old has been all too temporary.

But before I go off any further on that tangent, let me tell you how it all actually happened. I will never forget where I was and who I was with when I found out. My sister Meagan flew in on Thursday night and was here till Monday morning. We had been planning for a long time that she was going to be here the weekend results came out. I had heard lots of different advice on how to handle checking bar results--should you do it with someone else or by yourself, where should you plan to check, etc. This may sound silly to some of you if you're thinking it's just like checking your grade on any old test, but it's not like that at all, because the very best case scenario is that if your name is not on that pass list, you will be spending a couple thousand dollars to take the test and a prep course again, and spending hundreds of hours to prepare for it. So checking those results is a very big nerve-wracking deal and you need to plan ahead for how you're going to find out. I had been thinking the whole time that I was going to leave my phone off all day Friday (to avoid getting texts from people about results), leave work a little early, and go check results at home with my sister. Then on Thursday afternoon D. asked me to go to this deposition with him the next day and told me it could last all day. (He was like, "What do you have going on tomorrow, besides this whole bar thing?" Um . . . not much!) So he told me that I could just excuse myself whenever I needed to so that I could go check results.

So at 10am on Friday I was sitting in opposing counsel's office and we were doing this deposition. At basically the last minute on Friday morning, I changed my mind and told Meagan to text me right away if I passed. I had been so hesitant to do that because I didn't want to be assuming the worst if I didn't hear anything from her--but I also by all means did not want to find out bad news in public. So we took a couple breaks during the deposition and each time I checked my phone for messages. At 11:50, I checked my phone again. Still nothing. At that point I got very nervous because I had had a gut feeling all along that the results were going to be released around noon, even though they weren't guaranteed to be posted before 4:30. At about 12:10, we finished the deposition and D. went into another room to meet with the opposing counsel while I stayed in the conference room with the client. I pulled out my phone again and saw that I had a picture message from Meagan, and I immediately knew what it was because I had told her to send me a screenshot of the pass list, not just to tell me "You passed!" It was in fact a screenshot of the list and my name was on it, and I just was like, "I passed the bar exam, I passed the bar exam!!" and the client and I hugged and D. and I hugged and I just kept saying, "I just don't even know what to say right now." I was just so, so relieved, and surprised, and happy, and it felt like the weight of the WORLD had just fallen off my shoulders. And then there was drinks with the coworkers, and a fancy dinner with my sister, and shopping, and cupcakes, and champagne, and you get the idea! We had a great weekend. And now, I still have to get sworn in to the State Bar of Georgia, but once I do that in two weeks or so, I will be a licensed attorney!

Going Beyond the Comfort Zone

Yesterday and today were pretty writing-heavy days at the office, which makes me really happy because I've realized I would be totally satisfied with my career if I could just sit and draft documents and write briefs for clients all day, every day. I enjoy being in court and preparing for hearings too, but I really think the writing is what I like more.

I'm excited because I've been asked to assist on a really big case where we're working to handle some very complex financial issues that have come up in one of our divorce cases. I've been asked to write the settlement agreement, complete with a ton of details about how the retirement accounts and pension plans will be split up, how child support and alimony will be handled, how real estate will be divided, etc. Never mind that I have never written one of these before, I want my finished product to look like I have been doing these for years. I'm learning not to say, "I don't really know how to do X" because if I don't know how to do it, well, I need to just learn/ teach myself/ ask someone to show me how to do it. If I've never done something before, that's all the more reason for me to be doing it now because then I have something else under my belt. So for the past two days I've pretty much just sat down and figured it out bit by bit. I've put in the merger clauses and tax indemnification provisions and all the details about dividing pension plans via qualified domestic relations orders. It's turned into a 25-page document and might get longer yet. I'm basically done for now, but I need to have a major conference with one of our tax lawyers on Monday to make sure I wrote in the tax provisions correctly before I pass it onto my boss. I'm hoping he can let me know if I made any serious mistakes before I embarrass myself in front of the partners with it.

I'm getting to the point, though, where I am okay with feeling dumb sometimes. Part of me would rather always know exactly what I'm doing and feel totally on top of things, but there is something to be said for being stretched WAY out of your comfort zone at work and challenged to develop new skills and push yourself to do things you've never done before. I was in a bad mood on Wednesday night because everything all day had just made me feel stupid (no one at the office has ever made me feel that way because they're all very patient, but I was just feeling that way in general after a day of not being able to figure out how to do anything people were asking me to do). And I was feeling very out of my league at this job and wondering if I was in over my head and if I would ever just get it. And I've been feeling very drained lately too, because I really love all the new things that have begun in my life in the past couple months, but adjusting to a new job/ new city/ new apartment/ new friends all at one time is pretty challenging, and I've had to learn and adapt to a huge number of things in a very short time. But then I realized that feeling clueless and overwhelmed sometimes means I'm pushing myself, and being challenged, and dealing with the discomfort that so often accompanies professional and personal growth. It's boring if you always know exactly what you're doing and are totally comfortable with your work. And I know that even if I feel dumb sometimes (some days more than others), I've still developed a lot of new skills just in the past few weeks in this job, and the more I keep working at it, the more natural it will probably feel.

My boss is going on vacation and she left this morning and won't get back till a week from Monday, after bar results come out a week from today. So before she left, she said, "Lauren, next time I see you, you're going to be a lawyer!" I'm thinking, boy I hope you're right! But I feel good/ relaxed/ at peace about the whole thing right now, no matter what happens. And she was like, "Text me as soon as you find out!" I hope I'll be getting to tell her that our firm officially has another attorney . . . very, very soon.

Well y'all, I need to go to bed because tomorrow is service project day at the refugee mission north of the city, and I have to be there at 8am. Enjoy your weekend!

Therefore I Have Hope

The Lord has been speaking to me lately about how incredibly often I hope and trust in the wrong things. We all do, really. We trust in our paychecks, our job security, our relationships, our own abilities and skills, and our own efforts to find favor with others and to get them to like us and approve of us. And I place my hope in the wrong things too, so much of the time. There's a difference, I think, between hoping for something and hoping in something. It is fine to hope for a better job, a spouse, or children, or to hope for seeing your name on the pass list when bar exam results are posted. The problem comes when we start placing our hope and confidence IN those things, believing that everything will be okay if we can only have them, and that the world will come crashing down if we can't. If we start believing that our lives and our joy hinge on a certain thing happening, then it's a good bet that we're hoping not just for that thing but in that thing, instead of hoping in the Lord.

I place too much trust in having some savings in a bank account and having my ducks in a row. I place too much trust in my own plans for my life and not enough in God's better plans. But the hope we have in the Lord is the hope of "even if." Even if the worst happens, even if our nightmare comes true, even if our loved one dies, even if the layoffs at our company leave us without a job, even if we get bad news about our health . . . even if, even then, we can still have hope in the mercies of the Lord.

The writer of Lamentations stood in the middle of a ruined city when he wrote these words: "Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, 'The Lord is my portion. Therefore I will wait for Him.' The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him."

There is so much solid gold in this passage, but first, one thing I've noticed just recently about it is that these verses make it so abundantly clear that we have total control over 1) what we call to our minds, and 2) what we say to ourselves. That may sound simple, but think of how often we believe we don't really have control over these things! We think we can't really control what is on our mind or the worry that might be plaguing us or what we convince ourselves is true. But we can. Calling something to mind implies an active effort, a conscious decision to think on these things. I will call to mind the unfailing love of the Lord. When fear of the future assaults my soul, I will call to mind all of the faithfulness of the Lord over my lifetime (blog post just about this, coming soon). I will call to mind that Jesus Christ is enough, and He's always been enough, and He will always be enough. I will call to mind the simple truth that everything I cannot do or be, He can and is. And I will say to myself and speak over my soul only truth, that the Lord is my portion. He is what I've been given, and that's all I need, and He is my delightful inheritance. Don't let anyone tell you that you can't control what you say to yourself and bring to your mind, or that you have to let the winds of anxiety and popular opinion and negativity and dread and despair steer your soul. It's not true. Choose another anchor for your soul.

And this passage also tells me that we cannot be consumed or destroyed, ever, no matter what, because of the love of the Lord. Even if we stand in the middle of a ruined city, literally or hypothetically. This is the sort of passage that, in our modern times and modern equivalents, I imagine coming out of the mouths of survivors standing in Hiroshima after the atomic bomb was dropped, or from refugees fleeing Syria after their homes have been destroyed and their families have been killed. Even then, all is not lost. We cannot lose everything. Because his mercies never fail. They are not yesterday's mercies, because they are new every morning. We don't have to try to "store up" the mercies of God out of fear that we're not getting fresh ones tomorrow, because we are. His mercy is never leftover or old or stale or something we've experienced before--it is brand-new. The Lord has enough new mercies for all the days of all the lives of every person on this planet. Celebrate the way the Lord showed you mercy yesterday, but understand all the while that you need to keep your eyes open for the way He's going to show you profound compassion today. Don't miss out because you're refusing to pay attention or are too consumed with the future or the past.

Lean in to the Lord this week, and place all of your hope and confidence in Him alone.

And finally, I just really want to encourage all of you to check out Hillsongs' Glorious Ruins album if you haven't done so already. I listened to it a few times last year but it just wasn't really speaking to me at that point in my life, but in the last two weeks I've been listening to it again, and it has been such a deep encouragement, especially this song called You Never Fail. These truths have just been washing over me in a really fresh way, and I think you all should listen to the album if you haven't yet!

Happy Fall, Y'all!

First of all, I hope you like the new blog layout! I don't think I'm going to keep it necessarily, but I was ready for a change, and I'm probably going to experiment with more styles in the next few weeks.

I think this may just be officially my favorite time of the year. I love how the weather turns crisper and the leaves start changing colors and you can stock up on pumpkin everything, from candles to lattes. I am planning to go to Bath and Body Works tomorrow for the big autumn shopping trip to get fall candles, fragrances, and soaps. It's time to get this apartment festive for the season!

This week has been really good for a number of different reasons. For one, I've just in the past few days been feeling like I have several good friends here and that lots of community is being birthed in a lot of different ways, and it feels so good. My social life is still slower than it was in law school, but I've also only been here for a couple of months, and it takes time. I'm helping to head up a Christian female attorneys' small group and am meeting several people through that, and I've been getting really involved in my community group at church and meeting a lot of good people that way too. I've also reconnected lately with someone from law school who lives here now, and we've become pretty close even though we never really hung out much when we were actually in school together. I've also been really connecting with a couple of the attorneys I keep seeing at seminars and events, and I am planning to reach out to those women more in the next few weeks to get to know them better, professionally and also personally. One of those attorneys asked me to head up a campaign among my colleagues to raise money for legal services for indigent clients in our community, so I've been jumping into that lately too. And I go to bar events all the time, so that's some prime friend-making opportunities there too. But this week was the first time since moving up here that I felt really comfortable and happy with the state of my friendships up here, and that makes a big difference.

For another thing, I was able to get some much-needed clarity on what, exactly, would happen with my employment in the event--however unlikely it may be--that my bar results are not good. To my great relief, I was told that we can work something out to allow me to keep working there and take the bar again in February--I would not be immediately done with my job if I fail the bar, and that's the biggest relief ever. But I think they like having me around at the office, and I'm pretty much at the point where I am totally comfortable with everybody. My paralegal was on the phone with someone the other day, and I overheard her saying, "Our new associate [me] actually comes in to the office on Mondays AND Fridays! And she actually works while she's here! It is so great, and we love her!" I almost burst out laughing right then because I guess not every associate she's worked with in the past has found it necessary to do those things? Haha. But really, just being professional and doing your job goes a long, long way.

My next week is booked up already with events pretty much every night--church event on Monday, family law banquet on Tuesday, small group ladies' dinner on Wednesday, and a wine tasting with the volunteer lawyers' group on Thursday, not to mention hearings and meetings and stuff like that during work hours. But that's all good, because staying busy will make this time of waiting that much easier.

Today I went to what I will probably hereafter be calling "the rich people Goodwill." It was this really swanky Goodwill in the wealthy part of town (who can afford to give away a like-new Ann Taylor top? Apparently, people who donate to this Goodwill! Thanks guys!) I made out like a bandit, seriously. Here is the haul of cute clothes I got for the whopping price tag of $22:

Above, the necklace is one I already had, but that's just an example of how I would style it. 

The lighting is a little weird in that photo, but you get the idea. I'm really excited about the fact that all of these tops are 1) work-appropriate if worn with a blazer, and 2) cute just on their own with a pair of jeans for the weekend. I need clothes that do double duty like that because it's not practical to have to basically have two wardrobes, one for work and one for the rest of the time. 

And I am really liking my jewelry and accessories rack in the bathroom! It's so easy for me to pick out what I need for each day. 

Well, that's about it for tonight! Have a great weekend!

Learning How to Be a Lawyer

I realized today that my bosses are probably ready for some ALONE TIME and are probably kind of tired of having an incredibly eager and inquisitive fake associate (not real till I'm licensed) follow them around and ask them tons of questions and ask permission to sit in on all their meetings and go to all their events with them. I don't have a ton of work to do yet and I certainly don't have my own cases yet (I probably won't have those till January or so), so I'm always looking for ways to just jump in and find work for myself. I know that sometimes D. and E. probably don't have time at the moment to walk me through how to do whatever project needs doing, so there's definitely some down time, some days more than others. But I've decided to set myself apart by taking a ton of initiative and just finding ways to bring value to the team (yep, in case you're wondering, that is a soft skill I'm working on). 

I've made it my habit to look at their Outlook calendars every morning, see what meetings they have going on (typically with clients, but sometimes with opposing counsel too), and then ask if I can sit in on those meetings. Then, during the meetings, I am taking lots of notes and listening the whole time to see if there is follow-up work to do (because there almost always is). Today, for example, I got myself work for the whole day by using this technique. I sat in on a meeting this morning with a client, and E. was saying that our next step would be to draft a parenting plan. So, naturally, after the meeting I'm like, "I'll go ahead and draft the parenting plan for [Client], so we can get the ball rolling on that." Then she asked me to also do the client's child support worksheet, and I told her I didn't really know how to do those (100% true) but that I would try. So I did most of the parenting plan and then realized I had to just tackle this whole child support worksheet thing. I didn't really know where to begin, so I just started looking at some examples from other cases, and then started picking through the entire file to get all the financial information I needed. (One thing I love about being a lawyer is how much you get to snoop into stuff that, but for your job, would be none of your business!) So, one way or another, I finished the child support worksheet, so we'll see. Virtually all the drafting I've done so far has been something I have never written before, because these cases tend to be much more complex than the cases I worked on at previous jobs. Many of them have lots of assets and business valuation and appraisals and amortization schedules and qualified domestic relations orders and refinancing and second mortgages and a whole lot of other stuff going on. (I feel like I'm doing great right now just based on the fact that I know what all those things mean. One step at a time.) 

Here are my work-related goals for the moment: 1) Get more involved in strategic case planning and decision-making, as opposed to carrying out just black-and-white tasks with a yes or no answer, like simple research questions. I recently dove into some of this strategic planning and research for a case with major jurisdictional issues, and it felt really good to be giving my input to some of the actual lawyering--the thought process, the decisions, the assessment of case strategy. 2) Make friends with family law attorneys in other firms to start making a name for myself in the broader legal community here--basically, just putting myself out there and letting people know I'm a brand new addition to the family law scene and am planning to practice here for as long as I can. 3) Start providing valuable information to my colleagues--in the form of the latest relevant articles, the latest cases, new legislation we need to be looking into, etc. I'm going to all these family law seminars for a reason, and I need to be passing on what I learn to others. There is so, so much I still don't know, but I want to be someone who's sharing what I learn with others.

Well, I've been reading all those articles and books about careers for years now and I am having so much fun finally putting some of that into practice. And now it is time for bed because I'm now incapable of staying up past 11pm. Have a good night!

7 of the Best Things About Life After Law School

For the most part I enjoyed law school, but I've realized that life after law school is sooo much better than being in school, and here are just a few reasons why:

1) Having a normal schedule. Sure, in law school it was nice to not have to get going till 11am some days, but the trade-off was all those nights staying up until 3, 4, and 5am, lots of evening classes, and tons of weekend work. Here, I don't mind starting my day between 7:30 and 8:30 if it means I don't have to be awake at 2am and generally don't have to work on the weekends. I mean, I worked 11 hours today, but now I am done for the day and don't have late-night work to do.

2) No more studying! I actually don't mind studying all that much if I'm learning something interesting, but it is so nice not to have to cram for exams and strain to memorize/ understand huge amounts of material in short periods of time. Now, my version of "studying" is looking up things I need to know in the family law books I have, reading the sections I need, and moving on with my day.

3) Being able to only interact with people who are ADULTS. I don't mean never being around kids; I'm talking about not having to be around people who are my age but incredibly immature. Law school is brimming with immaturity and drama, and it is so wonderful to be leaving that behind and to have no one in my life right now who is toxic, narcissistic, backstabbing, etc. I made great friends in law school, but I will also readily say (and I think anyone who's been there would agree with me) that I met the most difficult people I've ever met in my life in law school. I saw one of those people this morning in court. I wasn't sure why she was there, but it was probably for a case her firm is handling. I saw this girl, quickly thought back to how incredibly mean she was in law school, and did not say hello. And it felt so good! (And on a related note--the way you treat people doesn't just go away down the road, even though some people seem to think that. There are people that I will always trust and respect because of the way they treated others in law school, even 30 years down the road. And there are also two people (this girl was one of them) who I will never respect or recommend in any way whatsoever, for the rest of our careers, because of the way they treated people in law school. It doesn't go away. If you asked me my opinion of them in 30 years, it would not matter one bit to me what they had done in the intervening time--my opinion of them simply isn't going to change.)

4) Paychecks, Like, real ones, not student loan payouts. Enough said.

5) Weekends. Weekends when you're working are 100 times better than school weekends, because not only do I typically not have to work on weekends, I also appreciate them so much more because they're pretty much the only times in the week when I have free time to do whatever I want. I love the weekends these days: time off, sleeping in, lounging in my pajamas watching TV, going for a long run, going shopping, and whatever else I want to do.

6) Working on real cases that affect real people! This is awesome. In law school we slaved over appellate briefs and memos about "hypothetical" cases. Now, they're real, the people are real, and the issues are real.

7) Having someone try to network with you instead of the other way around! For example, the other day a law student asked ME for my card, and I realized that I had pretty much succeeded in life (kidding). But I remember very well how hard it can be to get a job these days, especially since many people are not able, or sometimes not willing, to help students fresh out of school to find employment. So I promised myself a long time ago that as soon as I was in a position to help students get jobs or at least get them connected with potential employers, that I would do everything I possibly could to help them out. As for the student who asked me for my card? We're getting together for lunch soon.

Current Obsessions

It's been a LONG time since I've done one of these posts--so bear with me, this list might be long. Here are some products, activities, food, etc. that I am really into right now:

• Anything with a Chevron print. Especially if it's pink and white. Like my new mousepad!

• And I am loving these iPhone cases from Zazzle.com (Christmas list item?) I mean, my name's not Alexia, but how cute is this? 

• The globe I just got for my apartment! Really affordable (Target--cheaper than I've found these anywhere else) and it completely rounds out the international/ urban/ vintage travel-y look I have going on in the living room:

• Any monogrammed things. For some reason I've been really into these lately . . . as the mousepad example above shows. 
• J Crew floral skirt. So cute, and I think I'm going to pair it with a navy oxford shirt, a navy bag, and nude flats or heels for the office:

• This running shirt. And along with it, the Nike running app:

• Indian street food from this amazing restaurant nearby:

• This:

• My office! I've done some decorating and here's what it looks like now:

Lots of books:

• Spotify premium. Now that I finally have a real smartphone, it is so nice and convenient to be able to play music anywhere (especially in my car) without having to own the songs, for a small fee of $9.99 a month. I will never buy CDs again because there's no need for it. And smartphones, in my opinion, also make iPods completely obsolete. It's so great to have pretty much any song there is at my fingertips for such a low price, because these days a single CD with 10 songs on it costs $20, and you may not even like all the songs.
• Coinstar!! For anyone who's not familiar, at a Coinstar machine (usually in grocery stores and places like that), you can dump in all your unused change and it will count it for you and then convert it into cash or gift cards. No one spends piles of dimes or nickels, right? So this money would otherwise pretty much go unused. I had a big pile of change (no quarters though, because I use all of those to do laundry at my apartment), and it had been sitting in my car for weeks. So I took it to Coinstar and just like that . . . $20 Starbucks gift card. 
• Lazy Sunday mornings. Since starting work and going to my church up here, Sunday has become my favorite day of the week, which is saying something, because for years Sunday has been one of my least favorite days of the week (and no worries, it has nothing to do with church per se). I  was just never really a huge fan of Sunday in college and law school because that was the day that all my most frustrating errands/ hardest homework/ cleaning that I put off invariably got assigned to. Also, it was always just hard to get up early enough on Sundays for church when I had been getting up early all week and when Saturday nights often involved being out late. Now though, my church up here has realized that lots of people don't necessarily want to give up one of the two mornings a week they have to sleep in, and they offer services throughout the day. I go to the 5pm service, so it's the best of both worlds--I can go to a church I really like AND spend all morning on Sundays in my pajamas, or going to brunch, or whatever else I want to do. (I still feel a little weird about sending emails or texts or running to Target or whatnot on Sunday mornings--I do go to church, I promise). And as for the other problem, well, I generally don't take work home with me, and I try to get my errands more or less done on Saturdays, so that I don't have to race around stressed out all day on Sunday. Because that's a really bad way to start the week. 
• Every season of Criminal Minds is now on Netflix streaming. Need I say more? And since I gave up the DVD plan to save money, more instant streaming options get me really excited. 
• Coming up with creative clothing options for work! Basically, the rule I've come up with for myself for professional attire is that you should never go cheap on the base of your outfit--in my career, that usually means a suit (I prefer simple skirt/ blazer suit sets). I will never buy suits at Goodwill/ Target/ etc. no matter how much I love cheap finds! Because it will just look cheap and probably won't really fit right and may be sewn oddly or what have you. Ann Taylor is my go-to for suits, and I see these as investments because you want to be able to wear them for years. But, once you have the basic suit, you can pair it with a LOT of different kinds of tops, shoes, jewelry, and accessories and it will still look great. Don't spend a lot of money on these other pieces--or at least, you don't have to. And the accessories are your chance to show your personality a little. I can't wear a leopard print dress to work, but how about a leopard print belt? You also can play with patterns and colors a lot when it comes to shirts and blouses that you wear with the suit. For these other pieces, you can go all out at Target, thrift stores, Kmart, H&M, etc., and no one will ever know. For example, here's some pieces I've added to my wardrobe:

These were all very affordable but pretty high-quality. One of my secrets to stretching my clothing budget for work is right here:

This is technically nothing more than a V-neck T-shirt. It was on sale for $7. But, when you pair it with a nice higher-end black suit, black heels, and pearls, it looks great and very professional, and no one will ever know how little you paid for it. Also, for more clothing ideas from someone who's far more of an expert than me, check out my cousin's fashion blog: High Class, Low Cash. 

Well that's about it for now! Enjoy your Sunday!

Finding a Good Place

I don't have much time to blog these days, and it has been at least 6 weeks since I wrote in a journal, which is something really important for my own emotional health and well-being, so tonight I'm having a chai tea latte & writing party at Starbucks and it's going to be great. It's time for writing for my blog, writing in my journal, and reading my Bible, which I'm sorry to say has been really neglected in recent days. The Bible app on my phone is just not the same as my real Bible with all of its stains and ripped pages and underlining, and I'm ready to get back to the real thing. My thoughts are all over the place right now and there's a lot of different things on my mind that I want to share with you, but this is a start.

So, I work with pretty much the best people in the world, and I am so blessed to be where I am. I'm finding my place here. We have a lot of fun together and are always laughing about something. I don't feel quite comfortable enough yet to really show people my sense of humor because so far I've been pretty much all business in the office, but I feel like in the next few weeks I will get to that point and really join in to some of these conversations. Yesterday I was totally absorbed in a parenting plan I was working on, and didn't really notice that pretty much everyone else in the office had already left (most people stay till 6 or so, but not on Fridays--usually we're gone by 5:30 or so on Fridays). Then E. came back by my office at about 5:45 and was like, "It's Friday night! Leave!" I said, "But I'm not done yet!" She said, "It's ok, you can finish your project on Monday!" Then she started asking me whether I was getting acclimated and whether I was making friends and feeling comfortable here and things like that, and it made me really emotional because I'm still getting used to how wonderful it is to work in a place where people care about me. People don't ask you questions like that unless they really care about you, and it feels so, so good to work with people who are kind and who actually care. I haven't always had that privilege (read: former job where the boss yelled at people all the time for anything and everything). For my first couple weeks of working here, I was so scared to make any mistakes on my work because I was afraid of getting yelled at because that's what I'm used to, but I've realized by now that that's simply not going to happen, and it's like breathing a huge sigh of relief as I've realized: This is not my old job. God has given me something better. And I don't know how to tell you how good it feels to go to work in a place like this, a place where laughing is the norm instead of yelling, a place where it's not cutthroat competitive and we all get along, a place where I don't have to be scared to make mistakes because I know D. and E. will simply calmly show me how to fix my mistakes instead of getting mad. And a place where my boss pretty much kicks me out of the office because it's Friday night and time for the weekend. :) All I really wanted going into this job was to be treated with a baseline level of respect and professionalism, and I've been given so much more than that. I've been given people who are kind and funny and generous, and it is such a blessing to work with them. I'm happy and excited when I wake up in the morning to go to work, and that in and of itself is a great feeling. Life is too short to wake up 5 days a week dreading your job, or to be in a bad mood every Sunday night because the weekend is over.

I've been extra emotional this week about everything, and I've not really been able to pinpoint exactly why. I've been emotional about realizing that I'm in a good place now, and I don't need to be stressed out about anything here, because I have people here who care about me and who are going to help me out. I've been emotional about the ongoing stressful state of career and life limbo that is waiting for bar results. Sometimes I can "forget" about it for a short time, but then I remember and usually end up feeling just kind of mad because having your whole life up in the air for 3 straight months is not so much fun, especially when you desperately want to keep what you've been given because you love it, but it all depends on what happens in October. I'm doing my best to trust, to believe that God is FOR me no matter what happens. He is for me. I've been emotional today because this day marks exactly four years since one of my close friends in college died from cancer. I know that there will always be a heaviness of heart when I revisit that experience and that time in my life. I don't think about it very much and I talk about it even less, but no matter how far removed you are from it, you never completely stop missing someone you've lost. I've been emotional, in a good way, about how God keeps allowing me to cross paths with people who are looking for community in this city as badly as I am. I ran into someone I knew in law school at church last Sunday, and I wouldn't have even called her a "friend" exactly just because we barely knew each other. But we're both new in town and we were so excited to see each other just because it's so good to run into a familiar face. And we talked and have been texting all week about starting up a Christian female attorneys' small group here, and I'm so excited about it! I think it will be great both for spiritual support and networking (two of my favorite things!) I still love networking. Networking is how I got this job, and now one of my job responsibilities is to make contacts with others and build relationships in the community to help promote "client development" and meet people who may need our legal services. We had our first client development meeting this week, and I was told that I didn't need to produce a list of potential referrals because I had only been working here for 3 weeks and wasn't expected to have met anyone yet. But I had been out and about meeting people at my church small group and other events the entire previous week, so I made a list anyway of my potential contacts from those meetings. The founder of the firm had this to say about my list: "Lauren, I can't wait to see what you'll be able to do when you've worked at this law firm for more than three weeks!" (Soft skills/ networking for the win!) I mean, it's just socializing with a purpose, and we all know I love to socialize because I love to talk . . .

Well, I have a big week ahead of court, depositions, community group, meeting to brainstorm the attorneys' small group, brunch with Jenny, some DIY projects I want to do in the apartment, and I'm sure some other stuff that will come up last minute. I have some fashion and decorating blog posts hopefully coming soon, so stay tuned for those!