Good morning, sunshine! :) How is everybody this fine morning? lol

So the weather here lately has been great. Insane, but great. It's January. Sure. Why not? I'd love sixty degree days. Who wouldn't? (note voice dripping with sarcasm)

Today is Tuesday, one of the most boring days of the week. For me it's between Tuesday and Thursday. But this week, Thursday won't be boring at all. I'll probably spend most of it fearing for my life and seriously considering mysteriously coming down with some kind of illness the day before (drum roll, please) ICE SKATING.

I. Hate. Ice skating. Mostly because I pretty much suck at it. Bad. For me, it's more like Ice Falling. But the youth group is going on Friday, and I'm not about to let them go have fun without me. Especially not with how insane our last group outing was. I'm not going to miss a moment, so I'm just going to have to deal with making a fool out of myself and being all bruised and banged up for a week afterwards.

As if I'm not already sore enough. See, Sunday nights are women's Bible study at church, and Joy and I have been recruited for childcare. We recruited Stephen to help us, because the kids are all boys, and they don't listen to us worth anything. Stephen scares the mess out of those little kids. lol And then Tori showed up of her own volition, and helps out.

Well, it was Stephen's brilliant idea to have a crab-walk race. A crab-walk race. And, wouldn't you know it, I decided to be fun and play along. I fell and hurt my back. And my shoulders have been sore ever since. I feel like such an old person.

All in all, however, it was a crazy insane awesomely fun night. Those little kids got me laughing so hard I cried. And Stephen has a girlfriend. lol her name is Jaidyn. She's thirteen months old. :) That little girl is such an insane flirt, it's adorable. She's a total man-baby. Can't stand being held by women if there's a guy around. And she was squirming to get away from me, Joy, and Tori. So we stuck her at Stephen and said 'Hold this'. :) I think he half-expected her to bite him or something, but she just stared up at him like he was some kind of god. It was adorable.

Weeelll, what do you think, Joy? Should I go ahead and do that '. . . never mind' post? Okay. Fine. lol

Moving day was, as you know, a Sunday. And that, of course, meant there was church that morning. This whole thing happened way before service started, even before the band started practicing. Joy was running late (curse whatever it was that kept her from being with me) and Ms. Diane pulled this freaky freak out moment. I had been sitting on the front row talking to Corinne when Ms. Diane came and sat down next to me. Just sat down next to me. And started talking to me. Or, actually, more like talking at me. Now see, this wouldn't really be so odd if we talked frequently. But I had never carried on an actual conversation with her before that morning.

And then she just stopped talking, but stayed sitting next to me. And it was all up to me to keep the conversation going. Awkward to the max.

Coupling that with the funny looks I get from her husband Mike (It's this really weird 'I know something you don't know' smile, and I'm the only one he does it at), and all of Stephen's weirdness (he refuses to look me in the eye, or really even look at me. Like, he'll be talking to me but looking at Joy. And if, for some reason, I have to pass within like three feet of him, he jumps back like I'm going to bite him.) my end result is . . . what the heck???

I don't know what to do with these crazy people, or what on earth it all means. But it weirds me out quite thoroughly. Ugh. lol :)

Well, folks, I've gotta go. Everybody's ready to get this day started. Hope you have a super-awesome day!! :)

So I was thinking earlier . . .

But I'd ought to go back further. So I was laying in the couch in Grandma's den (they weren't home) watching Beauty and the Beast. See, whenever I want to take a midday nap, I stick in an old Disney movie and snap! I'm out. Funny how these things work.

Unfortunately, today my sister was in the kitchen, the room right beside the den, making cookies (or, more accurately, banging pots and pans together), so I took a little more time than usual getting to sleep. Which means that I actually watched a little bit of the movie.

The part I saw was Belle dancing through the town singing, "There must be more than this provincial life!"

And it started me thinking. When I was little, and I was convinced I knew what she meant, I would sing along with that song at the top of my lungs, and with all of my heart. It meant she wanted more from life, Almost that she knew that, deep down, she really was a princess. And I thought that I agreed.

But nowadays, I tend to look a little deeper. See, that 'provincial life' really couldn't be that bad, as long as you don't marry a meathead like Gaston. Looking around at the townspeople that Belle puts down for doing the same thing every day, you see that they're happy, providing for themselves and their families, secure in their simplistic lives. And that makes sense to me!

And what's more, I read even deeper, to see Disney's constant . . . errmmm . . . well, I can't quite think of the word. But it's definitely that humanistic, materialistic side of Disney that I hate, like that whole 'Follow your heart' theory. Umm, excuse me, but I do believe that the Bible says that the human heart is totally wicked? But I'm ranting.

I don't agree with that song anymore. In fact, it quite got on my nerves. In the future I'll skip that scene.

And then, silly me, I kept on thinking. But what happens after 'happily ever after'? What does Belle do with her life? It's not like Beast has a kingdom to rule, that Belle will have responsibilities and such of her own. What is she going to do?

In that sense, a 'provincial' life appeals to me much more, because you would never lack for something to do.

And now, I think that's all of the ranting I can possibly do about one poor innocent Disney movie that never intended to get on my nerves. And, as long as I don't think, Belle will probably stay my favorite Disney princess. I just have to learn to put the brain on autopilot.

Thanks for listening!!

Ugh (Part 3)

Yaayy!! The final part. Grr. I'm over this.

New years and the lock-in are the only things I have left to cover before I'm vaguely caught up. I am NEVER going that long without blogging again. lol :)

The lock-in is one of those experiences that I doubt I'll ever be able to adequately describe in words . . . using 26 letters . . . yeah, no. Not gonna happen. But I can try.

It started at 9:00 pm, and went on straight until 7:00 am. That's right, no sleep. I'd never done that before. I'm not entirely sure I like it, but I could probably do it again if I had to.

After the first two hours, it all gets a little hazy. First off, we played one of those typical icebreaker games people find it necessary to start such events with. Perhaps you've heard of 'Never have I ever'? It was kind of like that.

Then the guest speaker we'd somehow managed to get gave his message, which rocked by the way. He spoke on Philippians 3. His topic was something like 'where do we look for our peace', and he talked about how everybody and everything but God is going to let us down. He's a Christian comedian, and had obviously done youth events before, because he knew just what topics to touch on to get us laughing.

After he left, we had our first snack break, which consisted of burnt hot dogs, burnt pizza rolls, cookies, and this really good sausage dip stuff. lol :)

After that is where everything starts to get a bit hazy. We played all kinds of crazy games that involved things like: running around in the dark, pretending not to recognize a spoon when we saw one, whacking each other, I mean, a rubber ball around with toilet bowl scrubbers, wrapping ourselves up in floral print sheets and running around cones, and last but not least DODGE BALL!!!!!

Now, dodge ball is not in all caps because it was particularly fun (omg, I HATE dodge ball), but rather because when I think back, it feels like all we did was play dodge ball.

Well, there is a reason that I hate dodge ball. As you already know, I have a paralyzing fear of round flying objects, especially ones that are flying towards me. What you may not know is that I am viciously competitive, especially where boys are involved. More precisely, arrogant boys. So when I have a whole three seconds in the first game before one particular boy smacked me on the leg with a rubber ball . . . hard . . . I kinda got a little . . . miffed. So I played my hardest, trying especially hard to get that little pest out. It didn't work. And he got me about ten times as often as everybody else put together.

So the whole dodge ball thing didn't quite work for me, but it was fun anyway. I found out that I make a better cheerleader than an athlete. My favorite part by far was, while I was out (so, most of the game) cheering everybody else on, clapping and screaming and booing and hissing and such. It was fun.

Somewhere before dawn we took another snack break. Myself, Joy, and our new friend Tori vandalized the front doors of the church with . . . washable window markers that I had brought. About as boring as it gets, but we are good kids. We snuck away during one of the snack breaks (I have no idea which one), grabbed the markers from my bag and passed them around. We wrote crazy things and drew ginormous hearts, all the while giggling and looking over our shoulders and being scared silly somebody would come over and see us. It was a very good idea, actually, to include Tori, and since then I've been very glad we did. We've been trying to get to know her for a while, and something about cahooting and being rebellious together just did the trick. It was awesome.

We played Press Conference, Human Knot, and made up really stupid skits.

Before I move on, I should provide one crucial fact. With all of these competitive games, we had to be broken up into teams. Our youth leader divided the teams. And he split me and Joy up. Whether or not he did it on purpose, I will never know. Actually, he took me away from most of my friends. I didn't get it, but it was actually okay. Not what I would've picked, but I got to know other people a lot better, something that wouldn't've happened if I'd had Joy and Haley by my side the whole time. Anyway, moving on.

Human Foosball provided the opportunity for watching two teenage boys (and sworn enemies, I might add. We found out early on in the evening that one hated Ford trucks and the other was a rabid fan. Why men get so riled up about trucks is beyond me) being forced to hold hands. Hysterical.

Stupid skits provided the opportunity to act like, or rather, watch others act like, complete idiots. We had people running around like mad men and screaming for ice-cream sandwiches; normally completely sane people hurling themselves into walls (I laughed so hard I nearly stopped breathing); people walking around in circles pretending to be blind (and others sitting nearby pretending to be deaf, dumb, etc.); and very dumb blonds commenting that the sky was blue. I was the narrator. Moving on.

Toilet bowl hockey (hockey with toilet bowl scrubbers. I was found to be rather good at it.) provided the opportunity for extracting my revenge on aforementioned arrogant boy by showing him up and coming very very close (accidentally, mind you) to whacking him on the head with a toilet bowl scrubber.

Dodge ball provided . . . well, this is getting ridiculous. I told you there was no describing it, but I've tried my best. How it is that ten hours provided this much to blog about is beyond me, but life is just like that sometimes, I guess.

Eventually the sun came up, and we ate breakfast. Parents came. We all went home. End of story.

It took place overnight on December 30th, so that next day was New Year's Eve. I came home and went straight to bed. When I woke up, my parents had left, gone to work at the old house. They came back. We all went back over to work more. Came home. Got ready. Went to dinner at Red Robin. Stopped at Wal-Mart for sparkling grape juice, ice cream, and a movie. Came home. Watched (or in my case, slept through) movie. I woke up. We 'rang in' the new year (I will never understand that phrase. Ring in? Whatever.)

And then December was (finally) over. And now, I'm (finally) done blogging about it. YAAAAYYY!!

And January is a story for another post, and another day. Right now, I need to go get some school work done. Church tonight. :)

Have a great afternoon!!!!

emergency post

Hey. 'Ugh part 3' is coming soon, but something really important has just come up.

If you have a Facebook, please join the group ChinaHeart. I'll try and get a link up, but until then, it shouldn't be too hard to find.

ChinaHeart is a group that my dear friend Allyssa Tyler has created to help and support orphans in China. She has an incredible heart for these little ones who need our help, and her energy for this project is amazing.

Right now the group is just in the beginning/planning stages, and what she's really looking for is support, and ideas on things that we can do to be of help to these children. Please join. Even something so small as joining will help get ChinaHeart up and running, in that it will be an encouragement to Allyssa.

I am so excited to see what God is going to do through her, and through ChinaHeart. I have full faith that He will accomplish much. It's going to show what God can do through one young person who is obedient to him, and willing to stand up and do whatever they can to help a worthy cause.

I am proud of my friend, and I stand behind this project fully. Join Alyssa and me in taking a stand and doing something for those less fortunate. They need us, and, Lord willing, we can make a difference.

James 1:27 "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

Matthew 25:40 "⁴The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'"

-Scriptures courtesy of www.biblegateway.com, NIV version

Ugh (Part 2)

Okay, now I've got a minute, and I think I can do part 2. I guess part two had better be moving.

I have yet to tell you, however, just where we moved to. We are now living with my grandparents. A very educating experience it is, having three generations living under the same roof. I've gotten to know my grandfather especially a good deal better. He's hilarious.

His grandfather-ness has seemingly increased since we've been here, but that may be due to the fact that we've been spending a great deal more time with him. He is a very quirky person. He can't pass up a bargain, no matter how pointless. He loves to give gifts, even stuff as useless as a pair of (possibly secondhand, not sure) grippy socks. You know, the ones with the rubber stuff on the bottoms? Well, yeah. The other day, he walked into the family room/porch-place where me and my fam have been hanging out for most of the time, and threw this gray pair of grippy socks at me, without an intelligible word. See, I can't tell with him. His voice is kind of like below the register, too low for the human ear to hear, or so I thought. Yesterday, he muttered a string of what I thought to be incomprehensible gibberish, or possibly German, and my mum replied in perfect English, as though what he said had been the most normal thing in the world. Lol, I love my grandparents, they're the greatest, but the past week has been a very educational experience. Moving on!

Moving day itself was vaguely uneventful. Well, plenty happened, and ohhhh, was I completely stressed out, but that was entirely independent of moving. It had nothing to do with moving. It had everything to do with . . . never mind. Not important now.

But the actual process of moving, on that first day, was simple. Until mom packed me up into a truck full of men and shipped me over to the new house. And then, all at once, they did that instinctive thing, they asked the woman for direction. And I, not being my mother, had none. See, I had been sent over to supervise the setting up of the fridge and to load all of the food into it. But then the guys realized that they had forgotten the tools that it would take to put the door back on the fridge (Joy, what is it with moving and refrigerator doors? lol), so my job got put on hold. And I got to deal with man central. See, you know how when guys are alone with guys, they speak little and grunt much? I doubt the English language was really used by anyone but me that whole time. Well, me and my uncle, when he decided to comment to me that, once we got rid of the 'creepy old lady' feel of the house, it would be just fine. And they talked about Chuck Freaking Ray Norris. Eeehhh, a story for another day.

Me and my dad tend to go at it whenever there is a move in the process. He gets all monosyllabic and I get all high-pitched and the end result is chaos. He tends to just be completely DONE with moving and ready to give up on organization, and organization is my favorite part of moving and it just doesn't end well.

On top of that, Anne decided to be little miss attitude-ey teenager (she's nine) and treat me like a child (I'm fifteen. Obvious problem), so we were going at it too.

The boys were . . . well . . . the boys. And on top of that, Ms. Diane was . . . never mind. So pretty much the only person I wasn't aggravated at that day was Mom. Well, I was aggravated at her too, because she was purposefully taking advantage of my frazzled nerves (frazzled over Ms. Diane's . . . never mind) and make me stressed out. She thought it was funny. But that was all in good fun, and I wasn't really mad at her.

And then the second day of moving came around. Everybody's bad attitudes from the previous day had stewed over night, and gotten decidedly worse. I had absolutely no patience left, so I fell to my default of just not speaking. I closed up like a turtle, and became the monosyllabic one. Until Joy came over.

Around three, her parents dropped her off. Poor her, she bore the brunt of my bad attitude for several hours. Not that I treated her bad because of it (at least, I don't think I did), but she just had to deal with me still being in turtle mode.

And then everybody else went to bed. And the turtle came out of her shell. And blabbered Joy's ear off. Sorry, girl, and thanks for being there that day. It was just so nice to have somebody who actually wanted to hear what I had to say, and was willing to listen to me, and wasn't in a rotten mood. And I think she's the one who got me through moving.

So now it's over. We are officially completely through at the old house. It's empty. It's clean. We're done.

Mr. O'Malley had to go to the animal shelter, because there was nothing we could do to keep him where we're at now. Very sad, but I'm trying not to think about it, 'cause there's nothing I can do about it.

We're settled in, or at least settling. I'm not sure when exactly reality set in, but this is life now. And it's okay.

And now I must be going. Stuff calls.

Have a great day!!! :)

Ugh (Part 1)

Wow. I really REALLY need to quit it w/the whole procrastination thing. It's January 6th, first week of a brand new year. Shoot, a brand new decade! Now is not the time for procrastination.

I'm really sorry, folks. I'm just lazy, that's all.

Thing is, the longer I put blogging off, the longer this post was going to have to be (to cover everything that has happened since I last blogged). And the longer I knew this post was going to have to be, the less I wanted to write it, and therefore the longer i put it off. Ugh.

But now, here I am. And I know for a fact that my last post was on December 4th. So that means . . . I have a lot of ground to cover. I don't even remember half the stuff that's happened since December 4th!!! Okay. Here goes.

December was typical insanity, Christmas shopping and the like, plus the irritating fact that no matter where you want to go, it seems like there are ten times as many people as there usually are. I distinctly remember multiple times walking through stores that really shouldn't've been affected by Christmas crowds, and it being so crowded that I found myself whispering to myself, 'I love Christmas. I love Christmas. I love Christmas. I love Christmas.' lol

Well, it wouldn't've been so bad, if it were just Christmas. Just Christmas I can handle, have been for fifteen years? Sixteen? Sixteen. This was my sixteenth Christmas. Wow.

But it wasn't just Christmas. It was moving too. And let me tell you, Christmas and moving DO NOT mix. See, moving is the time for getting rid of useless junk, and Christmas is the time when everybody and their brother decides to load you up on useless junk. Not that the stuff I got was useless by any means, but you know what I mean.

Moving was a pain in the rear this time around, and it usually isn't. Not remotely. Usually I love it. This time I hated it. I don't know if it was the Christmas thing, or the fact that we were decidedly less organized than usual, or what. But it was bad.

Not that I'm complaining. It's over now. I'm good.

Christmas eve was me and Joy's dance. Not sure if I told you about that one, I don't remember. Me and Joy did an interpretive dance (ugh, I hate that word 'interpretive'. Lyrical. Liturgical. Something! 'interpretive' is too easy to make fun of. lol) to the song 'Breath of Heaven, Mary's Song'. That went over well, I think. We've had several people (Stephen's dad especially) tell us that they want to see more of it. I was really encouraged by that, because I was worried about how it would be received. Dance, physical worship, isn't something that this church is used to. It was definitely a God-thing that it went over as well as it did. I felt like an idiot, though. Practiced, experienced dancer that I am, I screwed that one up pretty bad. Not so badly that it was very noticeable to anybody but me, but I definitely noticed, and beat myself up about it too. I was just so distracted, for reasons that I plan on keeping to myself, that I threw myself rather too hard into focusing on the dance, on what I was doing, on the worship side of things, that I totally forgot a major change that we had made toward the end of the preparation process. I recovered quickly, and Joy did an extremely admirable job of acting like nothing had happened, so I doubt anybody noticed that it happened. But I felt rotten.

And then I fell. I absolutely fell. We had been kneeling, and went to stand, and I stepped on the hem of my skirt. Well, right there in that moment I had a decision to make. Either I was going to fall, or the skirt was going to fall. I, obviously, chose falling myself. Better to fall and make an idiot of myself than the SEVERE wardrobe malfunction that was the alternative. lol

But, all that aside, it was an awesome evening. A dear friend of ours, Brandy, sang a solo (Mary Did You Know, you're probably familiar with it), my dad and a young friend of his (twenty-something college kid, I still don't get why my dad connects so well with that age group. lol) sang a random Relient K song, and little boy played the piano and sang Silent Night (it was incredibly sweet. precious!). And there, in a nutshell, is Christmas eve. Afterward, we went to the pastor's house, same as last year, and just hung out for a couple hours.

Christmas day itself was great, except that I had awful stomach cramps the whole day, and was consequently pretty out-of-it. Couldn't even enjoy Mom's traditional finger-food-feast.

The day after was Christmas w/my dad's side of the family. The day after that was moving day.

And there is Christmas.

Seeing as how this post is kind of retardedly long, I'm gonna sign off for now and finish catching up later. At least now I've covered most of December. lol

Have an awesome day!!! :)