Good Morning, everybody. I just had an interesting few minutes, and
thought I'd enlighten you. See, we've been doing Josh McDowell's daily
devotional as a family. Up until now, it's been good. Not always
totally relevant (like the frequent talk about school and schoolmates
that doesn't apply to us homeschoolers), but good nonetheless. Then
today came around. The scripture was Genesis 2:18-25 (For this reason
a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and
they will become one flesh.). So you can imagine that it was a
little...awkward. The boys started out with their hands over their
ears shouting "Lalalalala I can't hear you!"
Ugh. Well, it wasn't as bad as it could've been. The devotional was
about God being the 'superglue' that holds a marriage together. Then
it went on to talk about the 'fireworks and guitars' kind of thing
that happens when you fall in love, and Dad's all like, "Thank God
that hasn't happened to any of you kids yet."
Well, there's a fifteen-year-old girl sitting right there, fighting to
keep control of her face, thinking, 'Yeah right, Dad. Just keep
telling yourself that.'
I mean duh! Of course I've been all through that kind of thing. Maybe
not to extremes, but I mean come on! I'm fifteen years old. I'm an 
old pro by now.
So I was understandably very glad when devotions were over. In his
closing prayer, Dad said something to the effect of, "I'm not sure why
we went here today. Maybe somebody will understand it later, and if
they do, please help them to say it out loud so we can all get it."
Well, if that does happen, if somebody does have some enlightened
moment wherein it all makes perfect sense, I will let you know. For
now though, I just hope we don't have another devotional like that
anytime soon.
Have a super-awesome day! :)

Today

Howdy, folks. I realized mere moments ago that, for all the blogging I've done today, none of it was about today. So I decided to post again.

Today was just one of those days. You know, the ones where, from beginning to end, you just want to curl up in the fetal position and hide. It started when I woke up at quarter 'til nine this morning. I had had another awful dream, involving being laughed at and looked on disdainfully by someone whose opinion I value very highly. I woke up with that breathless sort of feeling that is a dead giveaway of the fact that I was, again, crying in my sleep. And once I get that feeling, it sticks with me alllll day long. Like right now, I'm sitting here struggling to get a good deep breath. 

And it just kept getting better. I didn't get started at school until noon. Daddy took our dog to the pound today (she's sick, and we can't take care of her anymore.) :( 

Algebra was a bear today. I wound up with help from Dad, which I never deal well with. I don't know why, but I just don't work well with him. At least not in math. He makes me nervous. Idk why. 

The evening has been better though. We ate pizza and watched Lord of the Rings. I'm about to go get one of mom's delicious apple dumplings, then head upstairs to bed. Awesome end to a rough day.

Good night!

P.S. Spring and her family are leaving town tomorrow. Could you pray for traveling mercies? 

The Weekend, An Experiment, The Time Since Then, etc.

Hello, all! I do hope it has been a wonderful day for you all. Lol, sorry, I'm feeling melodramatic.

So like I said in the title, I completed a very interesting experiment recently, but I will get to that in a moment.

Since I last posted, I have entirely and utterly lost my ever-loving mind. Simply because I have been so incredibly busy. It has been a marvelous weekend. Thursday evening was spent at my grandmother's with Spring and her family. She is the eldest of eight children, so it was packed in my grandmother's little house. Anne and I stayed Thursday night with them. Friday night went off without a hitch. A bunch of us went to Judgement House, then to Tropical Smoothie Cafe after. Have you ever taken a group of teenage guys to Tropical Smoothie? Well, me and Joy were the only girls, and there were three guys (and my mom). They seemed out-of-place. It was funny.

Joy stayed Friday night with me (and Saturday night too, for that matter). Saturday we spent watching a movie, taking a (really long) walk, and plotting the abduction of...never mind. Oh, I'm just kidding. Then Saturday night we went to church for this concert-type-thingy, consisting of one really great rock-praise band of kids about our age, and several rap groups. Rap isn't exactly my cup of tea, but it was an enjoyable evening anyway.

Sunday morning went well also, which brings us to my experiment. Okay, so I'm writing this story. In it, a guy gives a girl a love-note signed 'your secret admirer'. And in my story I wanted to be able to talk in particulars about the boy's handwriting. So I needed samples of the handwriting of guys near my own age. So I wrote out the love note exactly the way I want it in my story and gave it to Brandon and Stephen to copy down, not even thinking about the awkward position it would put them in. It was like 'This is exactly what I need, so I'm asking you for it.' 

So it took me a minute to figure out why they were acting so funny. And funny they were acting. Brandon handled it okay. Not great, but okay. Stephen, however, kind of freaked out. When I handed him the notebook, he disappeared to the other side of the church building to complete the assignment. When he came back, he stood as far away from me as possible, extended his arm to me, holding the book like it was going to bite him, and grunted a barely-distinguishable "Hereyago" 

And then it occurs to me, as I'm reading over their work, 'Hey, this is really sappy. I just asked two fifteen-year-old guys to write down about the sappiest, sweetest love note I could come up with. So no wonder it was awkward.

Now the rest of the experiment is before me. I plan on analyzing the handwriting and (possibly) handing the two of them a complete handwriting profile. See, I'm absolutely in love with handwriting analysis. You can tell so much about a person from their handwriting! And I've never had teenage male samples to work with. So this is going to be fun. I'll probably let you know what I come up with. 

Sunday afternoon we went back to Nana's for lunch, then Spring came home with me and Andrew, Anne, and Riley went home with her little siblings. Sunday night Spring and I went to the church with my parents, who had a ministry-leaders-meeting-thingy. We went in hopes of some of my friends being there. They weren't. Blah.

Spring and I had a blast that night, stayed up late listening to music and talking about EVERYTHING. Then Monday morning I'm woken up at like, 9:00 (very late for me) and there are little people in my house. See, Mom had offered to keep some little ones from church, but I'd forgotten. So they were here all morning, then 'round noon Me, Spring, Mom, and Dad took off for Spring's family's beach house. We spent the rest of the day (and a chunk of the night) there doing everything under the sun. Eating insanely good food, playing games, and singing. 

Well, now the past has caught up with the present, and I'm out of time. Have an awesome day!

Hey Howdy Hey, everybody! Sorry, I watched Toy Story 2 today, so for some reason I'm stuck with this idea that if I say 'Hey Howdy Hey' to people, my day will go well. Lol

So this has been an interesting week so far. Monday was pretty much the usual. School then band practice. Blah. Always fun, 'cause I get to spend time with my bff Joy, but I also have to deal with...stuff. My band leader. God love him, but he drives me crazy sometimes. Like take Monday for instance. We're trying to find a new day for practices, 'cause schedules have changed and now neither one of our drummers can make a Monday night practice. And that pretty much means that practice stinks. So Mondays are out. We slowly went through the other days of the week, but conveniently skipped Saturday. It seemed to me like everyone was forgetting that there are seven days in the week, so I brought it up. Well, the first time I said it, nobody heard me. So I raised my hand. And nobody saw me but Joy's big brother. So he says, "Umm, Ella's trying say something."

Well, grateful as I was, it was slightly embarrassing. So I was already a little flustered when I started talking. Then, when my idea was ENTIRELY shot down by afore-mentioned band leader, on the grounds that he would like to have one day to himself, I was just ruined. Deflated. I made Joy promise that the next time I had an idea, she would smack me. Lol, I'm just kidding, and I love him to death, but it was...difficult.

Yesterday was much less eventful. (Less eventful than uneventful? Blah.) School, then running a few errands. 

Then today came around. Lol, the first part of the day was quiet for me. Now Spring? That's another story entirely. Her day started early. Then she got to spend the entire day in the car with her parents, grandfather, and seven younger siblings. Lol, you can imagine the fun she had. But now they are at the beach house where they're staying this week, getting settled. They're spending an entire week here in Virginia. I'm so psyched. I can't wait to get to see her.

But back to my day. School as usual for the first part of the day. Mom took Riley to the hospital for a minor check of some blood-number-thingy. I don't totally understand it myself. 

It wasn't until after lunch that my day got interesting. I read the most FANTASTIC book earlier, but it was waaaaaaay weird. 

Okay, so in order to understand this, I have to tell you something about what happens when I dream. Sometimes I have dreams that I just can't...shake. They just kind of stick with me all day, in the back of my mind, haunting me. Doesn't have to be a bad dream, sometimes it's a really good one! But it just happens sometimes. And also, sometimes when I wake up, I'm really short of breath, and I have a hard time taking a good breath for a few hours. These are the same mornings that when I wake up, my pillow is wet. So I know that when I cry in my sleep, it makes me have a hard time breathing when I wake up.

Well reading this book was like that. It was by Robin McKinley, one of my ALL TIME FAVORITE authors. The title was The Stone Fey. It was the length and size of a children's book. About fifty pages long, with full page color illustrations. But it was NOT a kids book. It was pretty typical of a Robin McKinley YA/fantasy romance. 

So I read the book in under an hour. And looking back, I'm convinced that I didn't breathe once during that hour. When I closed the book and looked up, it was like I'd been asleep for days.

I shook my head, trying to clear it. It didn't work. I was still stuck in the emotional turmoil of the story. My heart was still broken from actually being the main character. Or at least feeling like it. I tried my own emotions on for size. They didn't fit. I hugged the book and stared at the wall for a few minutes, trying to slip back into my own world. It didn't work.

So I went for a walk. Where I live, I can take a walk down the road to the stop sign and not see a soul. Huge empty fields with woods at the far end. I got to the end of the road and turned around. Mom drove by a few minutes later, on her way home, and offered me a ride. So I got in and explained the whole thing to her. No sooner had I gotten it all out than whatever bizarre spell was over me vanished, and I was mostly myself again. 

But my emotions and reality still don't quite fit. It's a little snug in here. Mark of a great writer. 

Bible study tonight was simple. We watched the first half of Left Behind 3: World at War. Great movie. You should see it. 

Afterward, I tried to talk everyone into coming with me and Joy to Judgement House on Friday. What, you've never heard of Judgement House? I'll post a link. Anyway, I've been trying to get a group together to go, and right now it's looking like me, Joy, Brandon, Stephen, Corine, and maybe Isabel and Josh too. I'll let you know.

Tomorrow we're probably all headed out to my grandmother's house to spend the evening with them and Spring and her family. Friday is Judgement House. Saturday night is this big outreach-concert-thingy at my church, that I only just heard about last Sunday. Lol. Sunday is...wellll...this is getting ridiculous. 

I'll talk to ya later. Have a great night!! :)

My Day: An Update

Howdy folks. I just wanted to let you know how the rest of my day turned out. I did finally manage to kick that dream, though it does keep popping up at the back of my mind. The lack of sleep that it caused, however, has stuck with me all day. That, on top of the rainy day we've had, oh my gosh, I'm so sleepy!

The shopping went awesome. I'll post a pic of my costume asap. 

I think that's it for now. Oh no wait, I have an exact date for Spring's visit. They're leaving next Wednesday and staying for a week. 

Okay, that's definitely it. Talk to ya soon!

Last Night's Dream

Oh, wow. I have never been so happy to be awake in all my life. I had a horrible dream last night. Except that it wasn't so much a dream as a vague impression of what was going on. All I got was a picture of her face and indistinct feeling that it was happening again. But I'm getting ahead of myself. You see, a long time ago I had a friend who kind of stabbed me in the back, stole my best friend and the guy I liked at the time, and left. 

And here I am years later totally secure, loving life, and building strong relationships with people who really care about me. I'm happy! Pretty much the worst thing that could happen to me is this girl showing up in my life. See, she's skinny. She's gorgeous. Has about as much personality and sense as a twig. And the one thing she seems to be good at is hurting people. Case and point: after she took my best friend away from me, she used her to get to her brother. Then, after taking the guy I liked (who she knew good and well that I liked), she broke his heart!

So after I'd spent about an hour in the middle of the night last night fretting and trying to tell myself that I was being ridiculous, I realized that, with all the time that's passed, I still hadn't forgiven her. So then I had to spend an hour trying to get to the point that I can forgive her. I think I have. I'm pretty sure. I just can't tell.

Well, I think that God knows what I can and cannot handle in this life. I don't really think that He'd do that to me. And even if she does miraculously show up in my life one day, I know she can't wreak the same kind of havoc that she did way back when. The people I'm surrounded with today would know her for what she really is and wouldn't fall for any of her tricks. So I know I'm safe! But there's still that tiny irrational part of me that wants to be scared.

And now I'm going to be slightly distracted all day long. Which is bad because I have a pretty big day ahead of me. Mom's taking me shopping for my 80's costume. Hope you have a super-awesome day!!

An Experiment

Hey, everybody. I just completed a most educating experiment. So I'm
babysitting Anne and Andrew today while Mom and Dad take Riley to the
hospital. (No worries, he's okay. He was born with heart issues, and
just has to get everything checked over every so often. But it would
be nice if you could keep him in your prayers today.) So anyway, I'm
in the kitchen trying to clean up from breakfast, and both of them
were bugging. See, they wanted to make their lunch, but I wanted to
finish my cleaning. I tried telling them fifteen minutes, but they
were bugging. So I assigned a 'Creative Writing' project. They
complained and yelled at me, but I ignored them. The project was to
write a list, fifteen items long (one for each minute before lunch),
of anything they wanted to.
The 'experiment' part of all this was studying their different
reactions. Anne laughs, says, "I know what to do" and disappears from
the room. Andrew balks, asks me about twenty times what he's supposed
to write. "A list of what?" "But what do you mean?"
So I reply, "Planets! Whatever you want?" My hope in saying planets
was that since, obviously, there's not fifteen planets in our solar
system, he would have to come up with his own idea.
Anne, ever the sweet loving child, was the first to finish her list.
It went as follows:
Jerk
Brat
Butthead
Stupid head
Butt
Dudhead
Moron
Lazybutt
Road kill
Nevada (our smelly dog)
Bug eyes
Buttface
Weirdo
Square
Bone head
Very creative.
Then Andrew hands in his.
Mercury
Venus
Earth
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
Miranda
Ariel
Charon
Ubriel
Titania
Oberon
Nereid
Planets AND moons. Way to take direction.
So now they're watching tv and eating their lunch. They've been
fighting for ten minutes, and after lunch they're both spending five
minutes in time-out in their rooms. Dear Lord, please let my parents
come home soon! Wish me luck!
Have a great rest-of-the-day!

Looking Forward (For Real This Time)

There are so many things I'm looking forward to right now. I kind of hate it when that happens, because it makes me less delighted with the Here and the Now. Forget living in the past, I'm the kind of person who's perpetually living in the future, life in fast-forward. I know, I know, my life is going to go much faster that way, but don't worry; I do take time to slow down and smell the roses. Anyway, 'What are you looking forward to right now?' you ask? Well, I'll tell you

Wednesday night for one thing. I miss my youth group terribly, and cannot wait to see them. Or to wear my special clothes. Lol, I'd best explain. First off, while on vacation, Joy and I bought these really cute almost-matching halloween shirts, and we're both gonna wear them to youth on Wednesday. Secondly, my awesome old-new jeans. I have this pair that had seen better days, were covered with stains, totally un-salvage-able. So now I'm using them as one big autograph book, and I'm gonna get the youth group to sign them on Wednesday. So yay!! After that, OMG SPRING IS COMING!!! Lol, Spring my cousin, not spring the season. Some time in the next three weeks, my beloved cousin and her family are coming for their visit. And if we're lucky enough she'll be here for...THE 80's PARTY!!!!!!!!! I CAN'T WAIT I CAN'T WAIT I CAN'T WAIT!

Phew, sorry about that. I don't know what came over me. Anyway, on October 30th, the youth group is having an 80's party, and I'm totally excited. I have my costume all planned out and everything. And if Spring is in town that week, I'm gonna try to talk her into coming with. 

After that, I have the ENTIRE month of November to be excited about. NaNoWriMo, here I come! I've had my story idea for months, I'm totally in love with my characters, and I can't wait to start. It's going to be marvelous.

After November there's...well...you know what? I probably shouldn't look that far ahead yet. Ha, yeah right. But I won't make you listen, er, read me gushing about Christmas yet. 

Have a great day!

Catching up and Looking Forward

Hey, folks. Sorry it's been so long.  I have no excuses, I have no reasons, I'm just lazy, that's all. Picking up where I left off last time, Joy's parents did decide to let her come with us on our vacation. Yay!!! It was such an amazing trip. My grandparents, two of my cousins, and a family friend stayed there with us the first night, then the rest of the week it was just the seven of us. Swimming, movie- and laundry-watching, troll hunting, rock-climbing, book-writing, school-doing, ping-pong- and kazoo-playing, the list goes on and on. Haha, maybe I'd better give you some more details. When me and my bff are together, there's no telling what we'll do. We spent an hour watching clothes spin around in the washing machine, just for fun. Believe me, it's better than tv. We watched about a million movies, mostly Disney. 

Oh, dear goodness, I'm losing my mind. I cannot take this a 

moment longer. There is utter chaos in my house, I will finish 

this post when I can think again. 

Okay, I'm back. The kids are quietly (or, semi-quietly) playing hide-and-seek, and I can function again. So, where was I? Oh, yeah, vacation. Joy and I are convinced that the resort we were staying at has a resident troll that is in cahoots with everything else around the place and makes things go wrong. See, there was this tunnel thingy that was a run-off for the fishing lake, and it started making funny noises, and we joked that there was a troll in the tunnel. Then when other stuff made funny noises, we blamed the troll. The joke expanded to include anything that went wrong. Popcorn burning, things going missing, etc. Thus the joke, 'Stupid troll!!'.

One thing you never want to be around for is me and Joy playing ping-pong. It is violent. And scary. And oh-so-epic-ly-fun. I'm pretty sure we scared people. 

And speaking of scaring people, we probably did some of that with our kazoos. We played kazoo. A lot. Everywhere. People thought we were crazy. Which is good, 'cause we are.

We (Me, Joy, Mom, and Anne) went on the chair lift. Yeah, one of the perks of going to a ski resort in the off-season. We got to ride up to the top of the mountain and survey the entire valley. You know those aerial pictures of landscape that look like a patchwork quilt? Well, this place was like that. It was utterly breathtaking. Not to mention the wind that seemed bent on tearing you straight off the mountain. I think it almost did.

We had a ton of fun, the last night especially. We officially initiated Joy into our family by playing a card game with her the very last night of our vacation. You haven't lived until you've played a card game with my family. The music is loud, the fighting is louder, and the thing we do the least of is play the game. After that, we kept the music going, turned the fire up, and enjoyed our night. 

So it was an epic vacation, but I'm ever so glad to be home. I missed my church family, and it was wonderful to be able to see everybody yesterday morning. I could tell that we were missed, and that felt good. Man, I love my church! 

Service yesterday was really great. Worship was fun, fellowship was great, and I got to volunteer in the kindergarten-2nd grade class. I always love working with that age group. It's so rewarding. 

As for the today, it was no biggie. School. That's pretty much it. 

And now we've finally get to the looking forward part, but now that we're here, I can't remember what I wanted to look forward to and this post is getting too long anyway. I'll try again in another post. 

G'night!!!!