Afternoon, folks. Hope you've had a good day.

I'm not snowed in anymore!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yay!!! Of course, that meant that there was no escaping the dentist appointment this morning. I hate the dentist.

After that was dollar tree and walmart, both a welcome change, in that it was contact with other human beings. Which is nice sometimes.

Andrew's birthday has come and gone, and he is now eleven.

Mine is coming up faster than even I'd care for. I mean, sixteen. Big step, right? Right? Man, I hoped you knew. Nobody else seems to, but it feels . . . big. Like, I don't know, some kind of threshold or something.

Birthday coming means birthday party coming. YAAAAYYY!!!!!!!!! I'm so excited, I can't wait. It's going to be so much fun. And yet . . . I don't know. I'm a bit apprehensive. See, you haven't met my friends, but if you know (or are) teenagers, and teenage guys more precisely, you know that they aren't particularly known for being joiners. My party this year is very interactive, a murder mystery, and I'm concerned that it isn't going to actually . . . work. But, here's hoping!

Ohh, this month is going to be insane. Very insane. Church events galore (one for the parents, one for me, one for Andrew, and three for all of us), three birthdays in one month, which means friend parties, family parties, and home party thingies (really just, you pick the meals and get your presents from mum and dad). So . . . insanity.

And the worst part of it all? Right now, my brain is trying to go all M.I.A. on me. Missing in action. On strike. And I don't know why. Focusing is just . . . difficult. Not sure what that's about, and it's really really really bugging me. Hopefully, though, it's not going to last long. Maybe tonight's a full moon.

Well, I'd best be going. It's been grand, but I should probably find some schoolwork to do. Or maybe handwriting analysis. Mom and dad consider that schoolwork. Who know. lol :) ttfn!!

Hiya

Good morning, Sunshine!! And how are we this fine morning.

I, myself, personally, have been better. I made a complete and utter fool of myself yesterday, by falling and hurting my knee pretty good on a semi-concealed piece of concrete. Today it's a bit better, but walking, sitting down and (worst of all) climbing stairs are a pain.

I hope that you have had a happy January. It would appear that I'm pretty bad at this whole blogging thing. I swore I'd never go a month without blogging again, to save myself the irritation of having to catch up. Well, I did it again. But I'm not going to really catch up, seeing as how nothing showstopping happened in January.

Oh, well there was that meeting with the Pastor and Youth Pastor, but we needn't go there. I'd really rather not. Joy and I had some concerns about the youth group, and we met with the two pastors. Yeah. Fun. Not. But, like I said, I'd rather not go there. It wouldn't be good for my cheery disposition.

I have been snowed in my house for a full 48 hrs, and it's not looking like I'll be leaving anytime soon. Locked under one roof with Mum, Dad, Andrew, Anne, Riley, Grandma, and Papa. a;nvoeinv;aiowenvo;aiwuer039jvanoern. Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. There has been an incredible number of movies watched, which is always a good thing; and also a good deal of Agatha Christie read. I am utterly addicted to Agatha Christie. :)

Church Wednesday can't come fast enough. I feel cut off from humanity. Part of my reason for breaking my one-month silence here on the blog. Human contact!!!!! Or, kind of. Maybe. Not really. I have spent more time on Facebook in the last 48 hrs than most people would consider normal. Of course, it was quite necessary to keep myself from forgetting that there is a world outside this Winter Wonderland of a prison cell.

Today, being February 1st, is Bubble Gum Day. Chew a piece of bubble gum for me. I don't know if there's any in the house.

Tomorrow is dear Andrew's birthday. Friday is his family party. Saturday will see a number of his annoying little friends in my house to celebrate. Fun.

After that, who knows? Oh, before I forget, Winterjam has been postponed. See, we had fully planned on going to the show last night, but the snow, of course, prevented us. I was near heartbroken that I wouldn't be able to go, until I got word that it had been postponed to March Third. A Wednesday, which will cause problems, but nothing that can't be worked around. I'm so happy!!!!!! :)

Well, folks, I'd best be going. Dad's watching over my shoulder, no doubt wondering why I'm not doing school. Ugh. Ttfn!!!!

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!!! :)

Bonjour Mon Ami

Good morning to all. A very merry December to you!! I'm so glad it's finally here . . . the holiday season is something I wait for and wait for and wait for all year long. It's my absolute favorite. I just can't wait 'til Christmas!!

I WON NANOWRIMO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I officially wrote a 50,000 word novel in thirty days . . . and I ACTUALLY finished it!! Like, I ended the story at the same time I ended the word count. 

And now my brayne is broket. lol just kidding. But it kind of does tend to leave you a little bit . . . lost. It's like, now I don't know what to do with myself. Or at least, I wouldn't if I weren't so darn busy.

Take today for example. Besides schoolwork ( :P stupid schoolwork), I have to finish cleaning my room, because it is atrocious and Joy is staying the night on Saturday. 

I need to work on this family-project-thingy that we're doing. See, one of my dad's clients is a building/development company, that just so happens to have a new housing development going up nearby, and they have these brochure-folder-thingies that need to be stuffed with fliers. So to save the company the trouble of finding somebody to do it, and to make a little extra holiday money, my family has taken over the project. It's passably entertaining, and extra money is going to be a good thing. 

Especially considering that I haven't bought the first Christmas present, or even the stuff to make the first Christmas present, as I am planning on hand-making most of my presents this year. And that takes a whole lot of time and effort, which is something I don't have right now, so I'm kind of stressing a little bit. Blah.

And then I have to pack.

'Pack? Why?' you say? Well, because we're moving, that's why. Grr. We're not going far, and it hopefully won't be for very long, so I think that everything will be okay. We're moving between Christmas and New Year's, which means that the big party that I wanted to have is O-U-T out. So I'm kind of bummed, but this too shall pass. 

And now I've gotta go, because the fam is ready for devotions, and after that this crazy day is actually gonna START!! 

Have an awesome day!! God bless! :)

Monday Again?

Good evening, everybody. Happy Monday. Blah.

Today was relatively okay. The early morning was rough. I woke up to my cat knocking all the stuff off of my bookcase again. There are earrings all over the floor in my room. It was 6:30. I was mad. I scooped him up, carried him downstairs, and locked him in the kitchen before heading back to bed. Well, I decided to...erm...powder my nose first. And then I go to wash my hands, flip the faucet, and nothing happens. Absolutely nothing. No water. My brain shut off. I woke my mom up to tell her about the dilemma, then put my butt back in bed to make the world go away. I went back to sleep, and was launched immediately into a nightmare that had something vaguely to do with being physically ill for psychological reasons, and not being able to figure out why.

And then I woke up. And heard Christmas carols drifting into my bedroom from the kitchen downstairs. When your day officially starts with an instrumental Silver Bells, how can you not have a great day? So I go downstairs and find Mom washing dishes by boiling water on the stove and listening to really loud Christmas music. And I eat breakfast (a bowl of rice krispies), and help with the dishes, and I'm happy.

Then Mom dropped me off at Grandma's to do some laundry (as, obviously, there was no washing clothes at home), and heads off to the church for meetings and stuff.

I was there through lunch time, and therefore made do with a box of raisons, an oatmeal creme pie, and a pack of those pringles stix things.

There was nobody there, so the house was utterly silent, and there was no wireless internet to distract, so I plopped down in a recliner with my laptop and turned out something close to three thousand words.

Then Mom came and got me, and let me drive part of the way home, and everything was okay.

This evening was all right. Me and Anne have kind of been butting heads, but everything's still okay. Because God is good, and He knows just how to get me through anything.

Take yesterday for example. I have no clue how any of us survived yesterday, except that God had an extra reserve of strength and grace lying around that He dumped out on us VERY generously. Because boy oh boy did The Enemy want to mess with us yesterday. Okay, so our worship leader and his family was out of town. Back up worship leader's baby daughter was sick. So my dad is leading worship. My dad has a cold. I'm unsure of how everything happened, but somehow it was decided for Stephen's mom to help out with worship. She plays the guitar, and has a gorgeous voice.
So we get to church, and start practice. Joy's brother is, of course, running late. And then Mom comes walking into the sanctuary, looking frantic. She motions for me to come down off the stage. She told me that Andrew was sick, like horrible stomach cramps, running fever sick. She was going to take him home. She told me to tell my dad, and to let him know that he has Anne and Riley.
So I get back up on the stage and finish the song. It ends, and I was about to get around to talking to Dad, when someone walked up to the stage and told us that she had talked to my mom in the parking lot, and that she was taking Andrew to the hospital.
Well, my dad sort of freaked out, and I was dead certain that we were dealing with spiritual warfare of some sort. Ms. Diane, Stephen's mom, suggests that we stop and pray right then and there. So we did, then dad went out to call mom. He wasn't off the stage a minute when Stephen's dad, Mike, tells Ms. Diane that if my dad leaves (like to go be with mom and Andy), it would be up to her to lead worship. So now she's freaking out too, but we start practicing again. She did awesome, but I could tell that she was elated when my dad walked back onto the stage. He had no intention of leaving. So we finish practice, or almost finish, and then Pastor Jon comes up, tapping his watch. We were running late. So we head to the Pastor's office for our usual prayer time. We got through that, and through worship, okay. Then me and Joy split up to help with different Sunday school classes (I wound up assisting Ms. Diane, who was filling in for the usual 1st-and-2nd grade teacher that day.)
It felt like maybe five minutes before Mr. Mike poked his head in the door and told us that we needed to head back to the sanctuary for the closing song, the altar call.
And if things hadn't been crazy enough already, they definitely were then. It was wild. Hearts were changed, and the Holy Spirit was moving. We look over, and Haley is crying. After the song ends, we grabbed her, spirited her away to a back closet, and pray. She's just going through some junk right now, and that was exactly what she needed.
Then dad and Riley left to do some church work somewhere else, and Anne left with a friend to go to a birthday party. The six of us were split in four different directions. Ugh, I hate it when that happens. I stayed at church all afternoon.
After church, Joy and I babysat a handful of kids while their parents were doing the new member's class. Compared to the morning, that was uneventful.
And then it's over. And I'm absolutely drained. Whether it was the babysitting, or the spiritual warfare, or the fact that I was doing all of that on just a couple hours of sleep, I was utterly beat. We got home, and I collapsed on the couch.
I drove a good bit of the way home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I did the same thing today. I adore driving, and I can't wait 'til I'm completely mobile, like on my own. Just nine months!! :)
Well, folks, sorry for the super-long post. Have a great day! Talk to ya soon!

Howdy, folks. Again, I'm am way sorry for not getting to my blog in so incredibly long. Have you ever attempted NaNoWriMo? And I mean attempted. I am, as we speak, procrastinating horribly, and am two-and-a-half days behind. Also, please forgive me if this post is needlessly wordy (i.e. too many adjectives, not enough contractions), as it has become almost-second-nature to squeeze as many words as possible out of everything I have to say. But it's working. My current word count is 18,364 words. I'm consoling myself for the fact that I'm behind by telling myself that I'm a couple hundred ahead of Chris Baty, the founder of NaNoWriMo. Cold comfort, but it's all I've got.
I still have a lot to do. So this won't be a long post. Once I get caught up, or rather, slightly closer to caught up than I am now, I will be cleaning my room and bathroom in preparation for Joy coming tomorrow. She'll be spending the day here tomorrow, so we can get everything done that we need to get done. We have to talk about the youth group Christmas party secret santa, which we will be taking control of. We are comparing notes on next year's Bible Bee, which we are getting an early start on. We will be practising for our Christmas dance. What? Did I hear someone ask 'What Christmas dance?'. Well, I'm very glad you did, because now I get to tell you! :) My bff in the whole world Joy and I are doing a dance together at the church Christmas Eve service. See, I've been doing worship dance for as long as I can remember, or possibly longer, but when we started coming to AHBC, I kind of just stopped. We didn't have a dance group, and I just haven't been comfortable with the idea of doing a solo dance. Well, I finally decided that I was, and decided to approach the pastor about doing one around Christmas time. I made this decision right around the time another lady in the church started talking about starting a dance group. So me and Joy did a lot of talking about dance. She hasn't done any dancing in a long time, and was unsure about joining the group. Together (I actually don't remember whose idea it was to start with), we decided to give it a shot together before the group actually started. So now we're working on a dance to 'Breath of Heaven' for Christmas Eve! I'm so excited!!!!!
Okay, so, where was I? Oh, yeah, tomorrow. Umm, other than that, we have to work on ideas for Sunday afternoon. We've been asked to watch/entertain kids during the 'Discovering Abundant Hope' class for new members. So we need to work out what we're actually going to do.
Ugh. I don't think I'm ever going to get this song out of my head. I have a new favorite in the whole entire world. So I Thought by Flyleaf. I'm not usually into that kind of music. Still not, actually. It's a funny story. See, my NaNoWriMo project is kind of a serious...somber...sad...something-er-other kind of thing. Not happy, really. But the only music on my iPod was happy-hyper stuff. It wasn't working for me. So I asked Andrew, who is into that kind of music, "What do you have that's loud, obnoxious, and dark." and gave him free reign of my iPod. I now have Flyleaf, Fireflight, and Skillet. Ugh. But some of the Flyleaf stuff isn't so bad, and maybe after this month is over, I'll be able to sit at a Skillet concert without being in obvious pain. Maybe. Which would be good, since I'm pretty much the only one in youth group who isn't an avid Skillet fan.
Okey-dokey, everybody. I need to be off. I have to update my other blog, I have several thousand more words to write for my novel, and then there's all those stupid chores. Talk to you soon!

Wow. It's been a while, huh? I apologize for my extended silence. Life's been a little hectic. NaNoWriMo's here. That's pretty much all I get done these days. But I'll fill you in on what's happened since my last post.

Friday was EIGHTIES NIGHT!!! We had a ton of fun. The costumes were awesome, I'll post a pic. We played eighties trivia and pictionary, ate food, and hung out. It was a great time. Other than the fact that Josh had a chip on his shoulder. I don't know what's up with him. He's just kind of had an attitude here lately.

Halloween itself was interesting. Fun. Awesome. Of course, Halloween around here is usually a little anticlimactic. There's nowhere to trick-or-treat. Not that I'd be doing much of that. 15+trick-or-treating=bad idea. And slightly creepy. But I'd love to take the kids around. They've kind of gotten jipped. I lived in the city for the first part of my life and did my fair share of it, but now we're out in the country, and none of the kids have gotten their turn. But this year was the best one in a while. Both Andrew and Riley had birthday parties to go to early in the day. Then Anne's best friend came over, and we all went to the Harvest Party at a nearby church. There we met up with Joy and her family, along with a whole bunch of other folks from our church, and from my old church. It was kind of odd. Over two-thousand people there, and it seemed like I knew every other one in some way or another.
Afterward, Joy came home with us and stayed the night, and Anne's little friend stayed over too. We watched Monster House together, and consumed ridiculous amounts of candy. And we had the most EPIC candy fight. We were sitting on the couch, the four of us. The kids had spread all their candy-winnings from the evening out on the couch, so we were sitting on candy. And we just randomly started throwing it at each other. It was awesome.
The next day was insane. First we had church, duh. Then all of us, including Joy, went to my Nana's house for my little cousin's birthday. That was an awesome time. Afterward, Mom dropped me and Joy off at the home of a friend from church, where we got started on our NANOWRIMO PROJECTS!!!! Lol, it's so crazy. I can't believe it's November already. Just to let you know, I'm probably not going to be blogging much this month.
Since the weekend, I haven't done much besides write. Until today, I was about a day and a half ahead. Then I decided to take today off. So tomorrow I have to get back ahead.
OH MY GOSH I TOTALLY FORGOT!!! I GOT MY LEARNER'S PERMIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How crazy is that? I myself can't believe it. I swear, the folks at the DMV must have been trained not to smile. They're so darn grumpy. There I am, this little teenager getting her learner's permit, excited and nervous as can be. And when I get nervous, it's my instinctive reaction to smile. So there I am smiling at everybody like an idiot, bouncing up and down just a little bit. And not one of them smiles at me back. I mean, forgive me, but I thought that it was common decency to return someone's smile. Whatever. At least I got it.
I feel kinda bad though. So last night was youth group, right? Well, I got my permit yesterday. And it was definitely a God-thing. I couldn't have done it alone. So I felt obliged to make a praise report about it in youth group. Well, wouldn't you know it, before I could open my mouth, Stephen says, "I passed driver's ed with a 95!"
Well, he still doesn't have his permit. I probably should've given it up, but I went ahead and asked Joy what she thought. Would it be ick to still give my praise?
She said it wouldn't, so I went ahead and made my report. I felt really bad, though. Almost like I was one-up-ing him. And guys hate that. Oh well. Today I got my H1N1 vaccine. Ugh. For one thing, I hate needles. Absolutely detest them. And it hit me. I'm in the middle of my greatest nightmare. See, I am absolutely and completely petrified of epidemic/pandemic illness. It is my biggest fear. And here we are dealing with a GLOBAL PANDEMIC!! I'm still not sure that I can deal with that. I'm working on it. Ugh.
Tomorrow I'm baking all day. We need cookies and brownies for Saturday. Saturday is the Fall Fest at church, which we're all really really really really excited about. I get to paint faces with Joy again. Some of the other youth kids are gonna help to. It's gonna be fantastic.
Well, that's about it. I'll probably be back on soon. Good night!

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!!!! 

Facebook and Other Things

Hey, everybody. First off, an apology. I have begun to think in the form of a Facebook status update. You know, 'is doing nothing', 'wishes to go somewhere'? So if any of my sentences begin with verbs, forgive me. It just might be involuntary.

And speaking of facebook, I'm a little creeped out at the moment. You see, there's this stupid application called 'Friend Quiz' where you answer random questions about your friends. Well, this morning I got a notification that somebody had answered a question about me. I jumped through the hoops to see who it was, and lo and behold, there's my old friend Jonathon. The question was 'Would Ella make a good spouse?'. He said yes. Eeeww! Now see, you have to understand that Jonathon and I have some, how you say?, history. He had a major crush on me when we were kids, then he moved far far away. So I never have to see him anymore, but it's still creepy. Moving on!

The next couple of weeks are going to be wild. But I suppose I'd best start in the past before moving on to the future. Saturday night Joy and Haley spent the night. We had a grand old time. We played Apples to Apples, ate popcorn, watched Meet the Robinsons, and stayed up 'til 2:30 in the morning. Sunday morning we got up at like seven o'clock to go to church. Worship was great, no thanks to...well, never mind. We could've used more practice, that's all. Sunday afternoon was quiet. 

Yesterday was my first full day of school, with all of my school books. I had been working steadily long before that, but yesterday was the first time with all of my curriculum. So needless to say, it was a long day. I spent the whole day looking forward to band practice, and then they cancelled it. If I wasn't used to it by now, I would've been mad. I made up for it though. Last night Andrew randomly asked me to watch a movie with him. So we watched Lion King. Then we played Battleship. We had chinese food for dinner, then finished the day with Mom reading to us kids. So it was a nice evening anyway. I love my family!

Yay!! Now the past has caught up with the future! My daddy's leaving early Thursday morning for Ohio. His grandmother passed away last Thursday, and he needs to get up there for the funeral. Spring and I keep on saying how much we both wish that I could go with him, but it just isn't going to work. 

Dad will get home some time Friday, then Saturday morning we're taking off for the mountains. We're headed out for a week-long family do-nothing vacation. And guess what? What's that? You don't know? Okay, I'll tell you. Mom and Dad let me invite Joy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so so so so excited. Of course, we're still waiting on an answer from her parents, but it's looking hopeful if I do say so myself. Yaaaaay!!! Oh my gosh, it would be so much fun! And we would even have a whole apartment in the condo to ourselves! Wow. So you can imagine how much I'm waiting to hear from her. 

I think that's pretty much everything that's going on. You guys have a great day!

Good Morning!

Happy Saturday to you all!! I'm sitting here in my favorite pajamas, drinking my coffee and blogging. Does it get any better than this?

Actually, it does, and it's about to. After I get through today (cleaning galore) I get to have Joy and Haley over tonight!!! I'm so excited, spending time with my besties. I don't think we have much of a plan, except for popcorn. Popcorn has gotten to be a midnight-snack-tradition for me and Joy. That and sitting on the roof. Yeah, we're random sometimes. And speaking of random, I suppose I could let you in on our epic search for kazoos. See, the last night of VBS, Joy and I found these two kazoos among the leftover prize stuff. We were so insane that night, it had been absolutely chaos, and we celebrated the fact that it was over by blowing psychoticly on our kazoos. Now ever since then, these two kazoos will reappear from our pockets at the most random moments, and we'll start playing something. We even practice new songs. It's fun. But now, whenever we do it around our friends, they all want in on the fun! So we decided to start our own kazoochestra (not my word, but I forget where I got it), but no matter how hard we try, we can't find kazoos! Nobody has them! So we're gonna have to wind up ordering them online. Oh well, it'll be worth it.

Well, guys, I have chores to do, and I'd best get on with my day. Enjoy your Saturday!!

Updates

Just some quick bits of news.

First off, Spring's visit has been delayed to mid-October. :( But at least she's still coming!!! Can't wait!!!!!!!!!!! 

Second, I didn't make Bible Bee nationals. Oh well. Next year? Joy's gonna do it with me, and we're gonna try to get our whole church into it. Next year will most definitely go better. :)

K, I think that's it. Bye!

Tonight

Hey, everybody!! I just got home from youth group. We had our 'Is-love-a-spiritual-gift' debate tonight. You might've noticed the poll on my blog. The final consensus was that it is, which was what I thought all along. You'd think that I'd be happy. I'm not really. I never really cared. It was just the fun of debating. Well, it wasn't all that fun. It was kind of...anticlimactic. Dull. Whatever.

Aside of that, it was a wonderful evening. We had fifteen people tonight, all crammed into Mr. John's tiny office (that has been doubling as a youth room). After most people left, me, Joy, Brandon, Corine, and Isabel played our favorite game (The Dice Game, I'll write more about it later). We had a grand time. 

Today was a little insane. We finally started school, kind of. Today we went out to the second-hand homeschool curriculum store, and the music store, and the christian bookstore. Lots of running around. 

NaNoWriMo is coming up fast! I hope everyone has their ideas ready. Hey, do me a favor? Let me know if you're doing NaNoWriMo? Feel free to leave a comment. :)

I'm totally psyched about it. It's going to be so much fun. I have my story all planned out. I'll tell you about it, but it's too late tonight. Sometime soon.

Well, that's pretty much it. Have a great night!

Blah again

I hate naming these things. Anyway...hey everybody! Hope you've all had a marvelous day. 

I think I have. I'm not sure. I have a cold, so I can't really tell. Who knows? I might be asleep right now. Moving on!

It's been an eventful few days. I think my last post was last Wednesday. That stupid virus went all through the family. Everybody got it but me. I got a cold, which I'm still stuck with now. So outside of everybody being...sick, the second half of last week was quiet.

Sunday was insane. After church the youth group had an outing. We started out the beach, and all of us brought lunches and had a nice little picnic. After hanging out there for a while, we went mini-golfing. It was great, kind of depressingly dull, but fun anyway 'cause I was with my friends.

After mini-golf we went to dinner at a little sub/pizza place. 

 I got stuck riding home with the guys, 'cause we were short one seat in the girls car, and Joy and I decided to take turns. It actually wasn't horrible. They were pretty typical guys, talking about eating disgusting amounts of food, scars, and hurting people. They attempted to freeze me to death, but I managed. They attempted to blow me away with loud music. I managed. It was fun. 

Well, folks, that's all for now! Bye!

The Past Few Days

Hey, everybody! It's been a hectic few days. I think my last post was Saturday morning before the Bee. It feels like it's been forever since then, but I guess that's just because so much has happened since. 

Saturday went well...I think. I know that I did not totally fail. I felt okay about it. But I don't think I made nationals. I'll know Friday. I don't know at this point if I'd be thrilled or horrified. If I made it, that's a chance at 100,000 dollars. But it also means that the next two months of my life are entirely devoted to studying. I'm kind of happy to have my life back, but I don't know if I like the idea of not being good enough for nationals. So I'll let you know how I feel when I let you know how I did. I guess for now it's all in God's hands. 

Sunday was fabulous. Church went well...as usual. Nothing majorly out of the ordinary. Sunday afternoon was a little rushed. Me and Mom spent the whole afternoon in the kitchen making food for Sunday night. Sunday night was (cue drumroll) The Dedication Service!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was so beyond incredible. There must've been like 300-some people there. The atmosphere was amazing. It was like a holiday or a celebration. Our mother church was there, along with another church from the area (the one who's building we met in for about four years). The band did great. Worship was wonderful. It felt more like a concert than church, and I had a great vantage point from the stage. Watching that many people...it was amazing. Our special music songs (Revelation Song, In the Air Tonight, and Where the Streets Have No Name) went well to. I was glad for the musicians, because I know that alot of them were nervous. They did wonderfully. Afterward there was food. Kind of like a potluck meal. A bunch of people from our church brought food, and everybody made a plate and went to the gymatorium to eat. The line for food was HUGE!! Me, Haley, Joy, Brandon, and Stephen's little sis Corine (temporary name. I'll find a better one.) were all hanging out together, waiting in line. We were very hyper, giddy almost. It was fun. I don't really know what came over us, but it was fun.

Afterwards we had some fun drama. Somebody sent somebody to send somebody to tell Corine that he likes her. She (being a good bit younger than me) reminded me a good bit of myself at her age in the whole thing. She freaked out. She was walking around in circles, acting like she was going to puke, sliding down the wall, half-crying on my shoulder. It was great. Me and Joy just kept on telling her, "It's gonna be okay." It was funny. After she had started feeling a bit better about the whole thing, she got really, REALLY, hyper. Her brother definitely noticed, and (not knowing about the whole 'that-person-likes-you-situation') blamed it on the fact that she needed sleep. I laughed and said, "Oh yeah, that's it." He was in for a rude awakening. 

Anyway, Sunday was a success from beginning to end. Monday morning, I flew out of bed, packed a bag, got ready (kind of) and was out the door by 10:00. We spent Monday and Tuesday in Colonial Williamsburg, came back Tuesday evening. It was a marvelous time, and I feel like I learned alot. Very interesting place, you should visit it if you ever get the chance. 

Then today was fairly uneventful. I spent this morning far, far away from reality. I've been so busy lately, I forgot how delightful it is to escape your world and stop thinking by reading a book. I didn't have a self-related thought for hours. Then I cleaned my room, worked a little on my Nanowrimo story, and planned on getting ready for Bible study. But then Mom informed me that I was staying home to watch Andrew (who has a stomach bug). I was really bummed, 'cause in youth tonight we were supposed to resume a really fun debate that I've been preparing for since May. They actually wound up canceling Bible study altogether, 'cause there's a lot of sick families in the church and we wanted to prevent it from spreading further. 

Well, that just about catches the past up with the present. Right now I'm just hanging out at home. 

Have a great night!

Yikes!

Well, folks, in just a few hours, it'll all be over. I'll be back to my old blogging self. I should explain. The Bible bee is today. So everything I've been working towards, all my studying, the reason I haven't been on any of my blogs, will be over by, eh, four o'clock this afternoon.

Wish me luck!!!

Have a good day. :)

asdf (translation: I didn't feel like labeling this)

Howdy, folks! Hope everybody's had a wonderful week. Mine was good. Interesting. uneventful. Ordinary. Whatever. 

Yesterday was interesting. We babysat all day. Three kids, two different families. Very unusual. I'd give you details, but I can't for the life of me remember.

Today was pretty good. I cleaned out the car, cleaned the bathroom and cut the grass this morning. This afternoon was a big youth rally that a bunch of area churches put together at the local middle school. It was fantastic. There was a terrific dance group, a couple of great singing groups, and an amazing worship band. We had a blast. It was me, Joy, Haley, and a few others. Just us girls, except for my dad and Pastor Jon. They were our 'chaperones' for the evening, along with Ms. Carol. Mr. John had to work.

Then after we finished there (around 7:45) we headed straight to the church for band practice.

So it's been one long day. I need to turn in.

Good night, all!

Quick Note

Hey, guys!! Just a quick note to say hi. Today is pretty uneventful, except for the obvious, studying for Bible Bee. We're watching one of Anne's friends and her little sister today. 

I also wanted to suggest that you check out www.nanowrimo.org. I can't really explain it, so you'll have to check out the website. 

Have a great day!

Today (Updated)

Hey!! I hope you all had a wonderful day. I know I sure did. 

I wound up with not only two boys, but two girls as well. A five-year-old and a three-year-old. We had a fantastic time. They were all great, and the baby is absolutely precious. 

But, boy, am I tired! Four children all day long can really take their toll on you. 

So I'm going to go ahead and close. I still have to figure out what I'm wearing tomorrow.

Goodnight!!

Today

Hey, guys. Just a quick note to let you know what I'm doing today. I've got a babysitting gig. The mom should be here in about an hour to pick me up. I think it goes 'til about four o'clock. I'm watching two little boys, one's three and the other's almost one. It should be interesting, to say the least. Wish me luck!

A blog to check out

Hey, folks!! Yes, I know, fourth post in one day. I'm really on a roll. I have another blog y'all need to check out. Check out http://cerinthe-confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com/

It's a blog all about homeschooling and homeschoolers. Ohhh, I suppose I'd better be perfectly honest and tell you that It's another of my blogs, created under a fake name on another Google account. I'm Cerinthe. But that doesn't make a difference. Check it out and let me know what you think!!!

Explanation

Hey, guys. I should probably explain the two very odd pictures at the bottom of the page. They're both in memory of our Apples to Apples game Wednesday night. If you've ever played that game, you know that random conversations are bound to happen. The waffles are pretty self-explanatory. The green card was 'Special', somebody laid 'Waffles', and we all tried to decide whether or not waffles are special. From thence came the quote, "They're all waffle-ey and stuff". 

The feather thing came when it was my turn to judge. The green card was 'Crooked', somebody laid 'Feathers'. I thought it was a good one, others disagreed. It became a debate. 

Since then, Joy and I have decided that the term "Crooked Feathers" means a meaningless or stupid argument. 

So I decided to post those pics. Sorry. I'm random. 

Updates

Hey!! Just a couple of quick updates, and a little bit of news. 

1) I finally picked a murder mystery for my sweet 16. "A Dead Man's Chest" is the name of it. Check out http://www.freeformgames.com/pdf/intro_files/game_admc_intro.pdf for a taste of what we'll be doing. :)

2) We're going on Vacation!! (Imagine that in a sing-song-ey, I'm excited kind of tone.) Not much of one, but September 13-15 we're going to Williamsburg for some fun. Mom looked back on our summer the other day and realized that we hadn't had any fun this summer. So when everybody else is starting school, we're headed away to enjoy ourselves.

3) Bible Bee is less than a month away!! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!! (panic and terror). I have upwards of 1,000 verses to memorize, six pages of trivia to learn, and six books of the Bible to know inside and out. Wish me luck!! 

4) Spring is coming for a visit!! In September, her and her family are coming down. I can't wait!!!

Okay, I think that's everything. Thanks for listening!

Have a great day!

I'm back!!!!!!!!!

Well, everybody, I'm back!!! I'm sorry about that. I was going through something, and I kind of couldn't blog without talking about it. It's far from over, but I think I can handle it now.

I can't hope to fill you in on everything that's happened since I've been gone, but I can try.

Voice of Truth, the worship band from my old church, have gotten back together. My dad was lead guitarist. The band has been getting together every Thursday night back at the barn at my neighbor's. That's been enjoyable. Joy went with me night before last. We had a really good time. 

Wednesday night, most of the youth group came over to my house for food and games. We played some Catch-phrase and some Apples to Apples. We had a grand old time. Lots of silliness and fun. Joy actually practically moved in this week. She stayed Wednesday night and Thursday night. We had a blast. We always have fun when we're together.

Today I'm babysitting while Mom and Dad go grocery shopping. 

Something I caught myself saying today: "Okay, Thing 1, Thing 2, and Thing 3. I'm going to the bathroom. If the living room isn't spotless when I come out, all three of you are staying in your rooms until Mom and Dad get home."

Sounds harsh? Not really. I'd been trying for ten minutes to get them to clean up their mess, and then I turn around and the boys are on Riley's bed wrestling and Anne is walking around aimlessly singing, "He could be the one, he could be the one, he could be the o-o-o-o-one." 

No, she's not in love. We'd just finished watching that episode of Hannah Montana, and we all have that stupid song in our head. What's really weird is hearing your seven-year-old brother walk through the house singing, "He could be the one." over and over again. I begged him to please please change the lyrics. Sing, "She could be the one" if you have to sing Hannah Montana at all. Then Anne started singing it that way. I just can't win for loosing. 

Well, Mom and Dad should be home pretty soon. After that we might go to the church this afternoon. Other than that I don't know. 

Y'all have a good day!!

Bizarre Moment

The pastor's boys are at my house. Carie's future husband is marrying
my cat. Don't ask me why. Boys are so weird.

Hey, guys. I think it's time for me to take a Blogger break. I might be gone a week or two. I'll let you know. Sorry, I just need some time off. 

Blessings!

~Ella

Well, I suppose I'd best stop being lazy and tell you guys something about VBS and how it's going. Me, Joy, and Micah had sixteen last night, nineteen anticipated for tonight. We've been told that our group is the largest, and the best behaved, out of all of them. I'm so proud of my little kids. Last night we had seven girls and nine boys. They're awesome. Absolutely awesome.

It's been a really fun week so far. I think that all of us volunteers are having about as much fun as the kids. Everybody's been doing a fantastic job.

I think me and Joy have been having the best time out of anybody. We've been corresponding during the day to coordinate our outfits for the night. Sunday night we wore yellow, Monday was blue, last night was red, and tonight is orange. It's so much fun. 

So, even though she and I usually keep up a steady stream of chatter while we're together, there's always a lull in the conversation just in time for us to hear the weirdest comments. We'll both tune in to somebody else's conversation at the worst moment, and not having any idea what they're talking about, we just have to laugh. Like last night, we'd been talking, and then we both got quiet for a minute just in time to year our youth pastor say to pastor Jon, "I knew it was you all along, honey." 

Yeah, like I said, weird. So last night we decided to just never stop talking again, and then we'd be the ones having the weird conversations that other people would have to listen to. 

The very first of which happened last night while our kids were at games. You see, all of the volunteers have matching baseball caps, but not everybody wears them on their head. A few people wear them clipped to their belt-loop. Stephen happens to be one of those people. He told me that it's because he just can't wear that kind of hat, his head is too oddly shaped. 

Last night I was trying to wear my hat kind of sideways, just to be silly, but it kept on straightening by itself. I complained about this to Joy, and commented, "Maybe my head is oddly shaped too." Weird-comment-that-wouldn't-make-sense-to-anyone-else number 1.

Well, we both laughed at that, and she said, "Great, let's find all the similarities between you and Stephen."

So I said, "Oh, no, let's not go there. You see, my mom has always said that if she finds a guy who blows his nose as loudly as I do, it's meant to be. The very first time she heard him blow his nose, she was convinced." Weird comment number 2.

Then began the portion of the conversation that I'm glad nobody heard, especially considering the fact that Stephen's mom was standing very nearby. 

I told Joy that my little sister Anne thought that he and I were meant to be too, so everybody's just against me. Then she says, "Don't worry about it. Everybody's been through that. The you're-supposed-to-be-with-Stephen phase. Even before he was in the youth group, everybody wanted him to get a girl." Now that would've been an awkward comment for anybody to overhear.

Shortly after this, one of our kids started having really bad stomach pain. Which means that every single one of our kids is going to be sick by the end of the week. Not looking forward to that. Wish me luck.

Well, dears, I had better be going. Everybody's bugging me to get off the computer, and my precious O'Malley needs a bath. Oh, wait, I didn't tell you about him, did I? We got a kitty!!! A precious little black and white kitten, whom we've dubbed O'Malley. I'll post a pic. 

Aaaaanyway, have a great day! 

A Change

Hey. If you noticed, which you probably didn't, I recently went through and changed all 'Dan' to 'Stephen'. You've probably guessed by now that I don't use people's real names, and Stephen suits my friend better than Dan. Dan was something I thought up spur-of-the-moment, and I just decided that I don't like it. I may change others, we'll just have to see. Thanks for your patience!

Hi! I hope you're having a wonderful Saturday. I know I am! I spent the e-n-t-i-r-e day at the church decorating for Camp Edge, a.k.a VBS. The church looks absolutely fantastic. There are tents and camping stuff, a waterfall, mountains, animals, forests, and all kinds of stuff. It's going to be the most amazing week. We had a blast today. Me, Joy, Brandon, Stephen, and Josh were all working together hanging posters and decorating. Hey, funny little story for ya. You know what a carabiner is, right? No? Look to your right, I posted a pic of one. Well, I had a whole bunch of them, all different sizes and colors. I walked up to one of the several campsite scenes (all complete with real tent) where Stephen and Josh were standing. I asked them what I should do with them. The tent had this little hookie-thingy on the door. Stephen looks at it, looks at the carabiners in my hand, and starts giggling. Like, insanely. He takes the carabiners from my hand, still giggling, takes the biggest one off the plastic thing that was holding them, and hooks it to the hook on the door of the tent. Then he stopped giggling, handed me the rest of the carabiners, and said, "Here ya go.", like nothing had happened. It was hi-larious.

Me and Joy tortured Brandon. We had these posters to hang in the hallway, three of them, and middle one had to be perfectly centered. We made him hold the poster on the wall, about a foot above his head, while we counted steps from him to the posters on either side. He was a trooper though. And the posters still aren't perfect. Oh well. 

It's going to be quite a week. I'm going to have so much fun. I'll try and post some pics. 

Have a nice evening!

Hello, all. Ten thousand apologies, I know it's been waaaay too long since I sat down and blogged. Things have been kinda nutty. I hope everyone had a wonderful Independence Day, I know I did.

If you think about it too hard, though, it's kind of melancholy. It feels like there isn't much to celebrate anymore......or maybe it's just me. I don't know.

My pastor's two oldest sons stayed the night with my little brother Wednesday night. Fortunately, Anne was also staying the night away, with Brandon's little sister. If she had been home, things would've been considerably more chaotic. Let's just say that she doesn't get along with the pastor's boys very well. (Not yet anyway. I'm convinced that one of them is my future brother-in-law. Don't tell Anne I said that.) Aaaanyway, they stayed the night Wednesday night, which means that I got about six hours of sleep that night, since they stayed up super-late and got up super-early. Put those boys with my brothers, and nobody gets a moment's peace and quiet. On Thursday my friend and neighbor Marie hung out all day (which severely interrupted the work I needed to be doing, but it was fun). It was quite a day, especially seeing as how Marie is on about the same maturity level as the boys. It was fun. 

Then last night we had dinner over at a friend's house. They're a great family. Brandice and Jay, and their two little ones, Nathaniel (who's six) and Bri (who's almost one). Precious. The food was great, the fellowship was better. It was an awesome night.

Unfortunately, playing all day yesterday means I have work to do today. Which means making popsicle stick boxes. Lots and lots of popsicle stick boxes. They're for vacation Bible school, I have about 53 to do, and Joy has the other half. It's been quite a project already, and I'm not anywhere near done. So wish me luck. 

Looking to the future a little bit, Tomorrow I'll be at the church all day, helping decorate for VBS, which is next week. It's going to an awesome week. Me, Joy, and a guy named Micah are working together as 'camp counselors' for the first- and second-graders. It's going to be amazing.

Well, I had best be going. Too much to do, too little time. Blessings!