A life surrendered

2009-04-08T20:22:00.000-04:00

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Status Updates

2007-12-06T20:33:00.000-05:00

Katie is happy.

Katie is looking forward to tomorrow.

Katie is hoping that she gets a good grade on her Spanish test from Monday.

Katie is loves Phantom of the Opera sing-alongs in French!

Katie is procrastinating.

Katie is a little more than useless.

Katie is trying again.

Katie is trying, again.

Katie is hoping for lots of comments etc. tomorrow. Best present ever?

Katie is needs to clean her room

study for finals

write Christmas letter

copy stuff into thanksgiving book

call one of her favorite people

eat brownies and ice cream. Oh yeah.

I feel like, I would like
To be somewhere else doing something that matters
And I'll admit here, while I sit here
My mind wastes away and my doubts start to gather
Whats the purpose? It feels worthless
So unwanted like I've lost all my value
I can't find it, not in the least bit
and I'm just scared, so scared that I'll fail you

And sometimes I think that I'm not any good at all
And sometimes I wonder why, why I'm even here at all

But then you assure me
I'm a little more than useless
And when I think that I can't do this
You promise me that I'll get through this
And do something right
Do something right for once

So I say if I can't, do something significant
I'll opt to leave most opportunities wasted
And nothing trival, that life could give me will
Measure up to what might have replaced it
Too late look, my date book
Is packed full of days that were empty and now gone
And I bet, that regret
Will prove to get me to improve in the long run

And sometimes I think that I'm not any good at all
And sometimes I wonder why, why I'm even here at all

But then you assure me
I'm a little more than useless
And when I think that I can't do this
You promise me that I'll get through this
And do something right
Do something right for once
I'm a little more than useless
And I never knew I knew this
Was gonna the day, gonna be the day
That I would do something right
Do something right for once

I notice, I know this
Week is a symbol of how I use my time
Resent it, I spent it
Convincing myself the world's doing just fine
Without me
Doing anything of any consequence
Without me
Showing any sign of ever making sense
Of my time , it's my life
And my right, to use it like I should
Like he would, for the good
Of everything that I would ever know

I'm a little more than useless
When I think that I can't do this
You promise me that I'll get through this
And do something right
Do something right for once
I'm a little more than useless
And I never knew I knew this
Was gonna the day, gonna be the day
That I would do something right
Do something right for once

:-)

This seems to be en train de become my dumping ground for inspiring material.

2007-12-05T19:14:00.000-05:00

I came across this quote in this month's Reader's Digest, in an interview with Denzell Washington.

They asked him what his life motto was, and he said, "Do what you got to do so that you can do what you want to do. And fail big."

I like it, but I think I'd like to change the last adjective to "trying."

Do what you gotta do so that you can do what you want to do. And fail trying.

die trying?

haha. I hope ...not? so? I hope not to die, but when I do, to die trying.

Failing big is just as bad (worse/better is debatable and a moot point) than failing small...but just giving up is the worst of all. (:-) If I'm going to make mistakes (*sigh*) I'd rather make them while trying, doing my best, than by giving up.

that is all.

2007-11-07T19:24:00.000-05:00

by Lena Lathrop

(from “I Kissed Dating Goodbye”)

Do you know you have asked for the costliest thing
Ever made by the Hand above?
A woman’s heart, and a woman’s life--
And a woman’s wonderful love.

Do you know you have asked for this priceless thing
As a child might ask for a toy?
Demanding what other have died to win,
With the reckless dash of a boy.

You have written my lesson of duty out,
Manlike, you have questioned me.
Now stand at the bars of my woman’s soul
Until I shall question thee.
You require your mutton shall always be hot,
Your socks and your shirt be whole;
I require your heart be true as God’s stars
And as pure as His heaven your soul.

You require a cook for your mutton and beef,
I require a far greater thing;
A seamstress you’re wanting for socks and shirts--
I look for a man and king.

A king for the beautiful realm called Home,
And a man that his Maker, God,
Shall look upon as He did on his first
And say, “It is very good.”

I am fair and young, but the rose may fade
From this soft young cheek one day;
Will you love me then ‘mid the falling leaves,
As you did ‘mong the blossoms of May?

Is your heart an ocean so strong and true,
I may launch my all on its tide?
A loving woman finds heaven or hell
On the day she is made a bride.

I require all things that are grand and true,
All things that a man should be;
If you give this all, I would stake my life
To be all you demand of me.

If you cannot be this, a laundress and cook
You can hire and little to pay;
But a woman’s heart and a woman’s life
Are not to be won that way.

“To girls...I pray this poem serves as a reminder to keep your standards high. Require all things that are ‘grand and true’. As you consider the possiblity of marraige, don’t lower your standards for a moment; any guy who asks you to do so isn’t worth your time. And to the guys: we have our work cut out for us, don't we? My hope is that you would truly grasp the costliness, the pricelessness, of a woman’s love. It is no small thing, no game, to invite a girl to accompany you through life. May we earn the right to make such a request by striving to be men of integrity - men whose hearts are oceans 'strong and true.' Then, and only then, should you stand at the bars of a woman’s soul and ask to gain entrance.”

~I Kissed Dating Goodbye, Joshua Harris

I HIGHLY recommend this book, whether you plan on kissing dating goodbye or not it has some good advice about how TO date too. How to go about it. Etc.

Sorry that my first post in awhile has to be a moralizing one (at least it's not DEmoralizing) (haha, sorry, that was baaaaad), but I must needs keep moving! :-)

this past week

2007-10-06T17:42:00.000-04:00

One week ago, we were in the middle of girls' night/an extended starbucks adventure. That was some really good just fun girls time. (see pix on facebook.)

then, the crazy week began. It has basically been a whirlwind. First I was totally tired from staying up late for girls night, and then I realized I had two tests and a scholarship essay due on Friday. So, Wed I came home from classes and started studying spanish, studying geography, and working on the essay...

...and I stopped doing that Thursday night at about 9.

Needless to say, my work at home didn't get done, so I did all that yesterday and today.

I know. Not only do I have school after dinner, but also on weekends! The horror!

However, I didn't stress about things too much, I just did what I needed to do and I really hope the grades show it...please...lol.

And Hamlet is actually interesting and not too hard to understand, and my physics test wasn't too bad at all.

NOW, I would REALLY like to get together with some people. 2 hours of facebook were great to make sure I don't feel like I'm cut off from humans, but actual humans would be nice...

ah well. We have church and youth group tomorrow and I get to teach the preschoolers! :-D

And, no tests on the menu next week...that's one nice thing about having a bunch at the same time.

Leave some comments please! It will make me very happy!

I can't believe it's been a month since I last posted.

2007-09-26T19:50:00.000-04:00

Needless to say, I have been busy.

school

school

more school

dance

piano

friendssssssss :-)

overall, life's going pretty well. As long as I don't think too hard about how life's going. :-D

but I have some people to contact and some jazz to get ready for, so I must needs keep this short.

much thanks to everyone who still cares enough to check this old thing.
:-)

2007-08-22T19:14:00.000-04:00

I can't decide if I'm amazingly happy or ridiculously depressed.

But my favorite piano songs are the ones that carry that tension.

this is a Gina-type short, mysterious post, but don't worry, I'll do a post-summer review...soon...

:-)

:-(

:-)

Life...

2007-07-17T14:33:00.000-04:00

LT is in 78 hours. (well, 77 1/2 by the time I'm actuallly posting...)

When I get back, I'm planning on getting together with

Marisa, Brittani, Caitlin, Stephanie, Kay, Michaela, and all the girls from church (girl's night anyone?) (not that Marisa and Brittani aren't from church...haha...)

I'm all set to take Spanish grammar and intro to geography in the fall, postsecondary. I'm pretty excited about it--I'm not freaking out, yet. :-) It'll be different, but I think I'm ready for something different. Can anyone say, "famous last words?" haha!

Babysitting is still wonderful. As long as Riley's bloodsugar is at a reasonable level, that is...haha. We've been playing Monopoly like crazy. He's extremely competitive--Ella and I would never dare to buy Boardwalk or Park Place. But it's fun. He just didn't have breakfast this morning, and was a bit irritable all day as a result. And Ella kept getting injured. Overall, however, things are good.

Volunteering is good too. It's not boring, as I have figured out many things to do. Tomorrow is going to be interesting--we may be...umm...graced by the presence of an alligator? At least a few snakes and lizards and a small, furry-type animal. IE, a chinchilla.

I'm in the goofy condo for LT--we've got Rachel and Elysia. Well. And Hannah and Bea and Stacy. Tee hee hee! It's going to be AMAZING. :-DDDDD!!!! As Stacy said, "We communicate well in gibberish..."

I rearranged the furniture in my room last week. It took the whole week. I really like it, however, the only slight function problem is that I kind of don't have a decent place to put on makeup (once it gets too cold to have the window open, that is...) We'll see how that works.

Well, I think I'm going to be done now. I don't have much more to say. Farewell, all, leave me lots of comments. There has beeen a depressing dearth of commenture. (which one is the real word? lol)

one last thing: HP!!! :-D

buhbye. :-)

the deterioration of the english language is ridiculous

2007-06-29T16:32:00.000-04:00

So i just got too email's, they were from colledges that I'm considering going to. There were a problem with each of them, this problem was having to do with simple inglish rules. it was desgusting.

lol.

oh me oh me oh my

2007-06-24T15:47:00.000-04:00

Hello all my faithful readers...haha. I have a feeling you all might be more faithful readers if I were a more faithful writer. haha! I am posting on my dad's sweet laptop. So that means that I'm actually writing, not typing. Let's see, I have lots to write about: babysitting, Akron orientation Relay for life, all kinds of crazy stuff.

Okey dokey. Babysitting has been going really well. I really enjoy it, Ella and Riley are really good, and the dogs aren't bad. haha. Plus they're super flexible about how crazy life is, as shall be demonstrated below. Not to mention the pay's not bad... : - )

Let's see then... yeah, last week was just pretty crazy. Instead of babysitting on Mon, Tues, Thurs, and Fri, I babysat long days on Tues, Wed, and Thurs, because on Fri I had orientation for postsecondary classes. Also Relay. Yeah. So, I really didn't have very much free time--to prove that, I shall demonstrate: I just put away my clean laundry, um, an hour ago, and Mom washed it on Thursday. Usually I put it away on Friday, at least!

But Friday, I had postsecondary orientation ALL DAY. 8-5. It was crazy. Lots of seminar thingies that I can't even remember what all I've learned--hopefully I remembered the important stuff. Or hopefully it'll come to mind when I need it.

The worst part was, in those nine hours, I couldn't get my classes scheduled! In the morning, they gave you this little card with checks by the placement tests you needed to take. I had no checks, because I did well enough on the SAT. However, there was a spot for a language placement test. Dad told the lady who was filling out my card that I wanted to take a Spanish class, and she said that I should tell that to my group leader. However, she didn't actually check "Language placement test." So when we got around to placement testing, the group leader was splitting up the people with and without checks. I asked her, "I want to take a Spanish class, so, I need to take a placement test for that?" She asked, "Do you have a check on your card?" I was like, "No..." And she said, ok, go with the people who have no checks. So we got our ID cards and stuff, and I asked her more about it while we were doing that. She said I should talk to my advisor about it. I'm like, ok. I considered calling Dad then, to ask what he thought, because he was in a different seminar and we were just sitting around waiting for people to finish testing. But I didn't.

So, after lunch, we went to meet with my advisor. It quickly became clear that there was no way he could schedule me for a Spanish class when we had no clue what level I was supposed to be at. So the time that was supposed to be spent scheduling classes was spent rushing off to and taking this spanish placement test. That all was a bit confusing, because on the way to the testing center he's telling me, "Make sure you meet back up after your group after this or you'll have to go through this whole orientation process again and pay the fee and everything. I'll be advising the rest of the afternoon so you'll have to come back to me at 4:15." I was like, Ok. All right. Ok.

Then the Spanish test was kind of fun. I didn't realize that I missed Spanish, but I did. It was quite entertaining and a bit challenging--but it wasn't extremely difficult, as demonstrated by the results: I tested out of 2 years of college level Spanish. That was pretty sweet--definitely the best part of a boring/confusing/hurry-up-and-wait day. So, if I pass my spanish class, I can buy the credit hours for $5 instead of $350 and up. $70 instead of at least $4900. If I have that math right, I can't quite remember. whatever.

But on my little paper with the results, there's a number for the modern languages lady. So Dad called her while we were waiting for the next session to start (back hooked up with my group). She told him some information about classes and said that there was a grammar class that was full, but the prof said he would accept a few more. So we sit through that last session about myspace/facebook safety and all the technological perks this university offers, meet up with Mom, and go see my advisor again.

And for the next 45 minutes we try to schedule two classes: a spanish class, and a social studies class that kind of has to revolve around spanish, meaning we're trying to find one Mon/Wed in the morning. That took almost 45 minutes--we're sitting there trying to find stuff listening to people saying, "Ok, have a good weekend!" "Bye!" thinking "we need to finish we need to finish we need to finish..." My advisor signed me up for an Intro to geography class and the spanish grammar class that was full. He had to override that, which he was kind of nervous about that because he wasn't supposed to...but we were glad he did. But we get down to the registrar to make everything official, and it's already closed. bummer, eh? Not to mention we didn't get the papers for the funding figured out...so we're going back tomorrow. This is where a flexible babysitting job comes in--they're fine with my sisters or mom coming over. :) but me oh my, it was complicated.

Then we went home, ate dinner, finished packing (Hannah had to pack for me during the day while I was gone) and we were off to relay, which was an adventure in itself. Lots of walking, not much sleeping...I managed to get 3 1/2 hours of sleep after staying up for something like 22 straight...yeah. So I'm tired, but Hannah and Abby stayed up ALL NIGHT, so in comparison to them I feel fine! It's great!

Lots and lots going on...it's so weird how things just keep cycling through my mind: getting together with Kay, Amy's off dance team (which is terrible) Relay, college, kid's fun day next week, getting together with friends, youth group, lack thereof, LT, dessert :-D, the friends themselves, piano (or lack thereof) ljfsowr jwoiesalklk ewajoewi.

Et cetera.

And, I'm getting a headache from staring at the screen--and perhaps from all this other stuff too? Maybe? Lack of sleep could also be a factor...hmm...at any rate, I'm going to wrap it up. good luck with reading all this. You should just read a paragraph a day and then it'll seem like I post more...haha. (or it'll last you untill she posts again~Abby)

alrighty, thank you faithful readers, press on, read some sermon notes (if you missed them, pick any one of the Phillipians ones--they're a good way to kill time without having to watch tv and if you like playing video games, you can always listen to them while you play...personally, I'm a tetris/sermon fan when I miss them. haha.)

no really. I'm done now. :-)

hellloooo all...

2007-06-07T15:20:00.000-04:00

School is officially over with!!

The dance recital went off without a hitch--it was great!

I'm having a lovely week of doing whatever I want.

On Monday, I drove myself to the library and got all orientated for volunteering there! Met a couple people, and I think it'll be good.

On Tuesday, I had piano lesson and babysat O&Em. (the two cutest most adorable girls in the world, FYI.) Piano was OK...I wasn't quite as prepared as I would've been usually because I slacked off the last week of school. Hence, the piano goals below.

On Wednesday, I spent the day convinced it was Thursday and ran in the morning. I went to bed super early last night, too. I think I was asleep before ten. It was nice. It was lovely weather to run. My hips hurt a bit, so I think I need new shoes. ? At any rate, it was all very nice. lol

Last night, I realized I'm coming down with a cold, but I'm fighting it off as best as I know how.

On Thursday, I've pretty much been moseying around doing nothing too exciting. All the exciting things are coming to me: We're having carpet installed in the basement (one last day of people banging things down there forever! ok, till our next party), and Grandma Theresa is flying up for the week, starting today. yippee!

Hannah and Abby got (super-cute) haircuts this morning, so I'm thinking about some kind of brushes-the-shoulders-layery haircut. It'll take awhile to think about! haha. I'd like a hair change because I've had this hairstyle for...2 years now I think. It's definitely time for something different!

I'm also trying to figure out how to rearrange my bedroom. There are only so many ways I can put things. It's time for that to change too!

I have a week off babysitting at the beginning of July, so we may try to go on vacation then...that would be nice.

Relay for Life is coming up! I'm looking forward to it. We need to raise money for it, however (donations, anyone?). lol. Anything from pocket change to a million bucks is welcome! :-) It's going to be fun! That's going to be a busy weekend--orientation (scary!), relay, and then all kinds of grad parties! Aahh!

As if all the weekends aren't busy.

Well, I'm beginning to ramble now, so I'll leave off. leave some comments please! you all rock, press on!

ps: LT is in 43 days.

!!!

25 THINGS TO DO THIS SUMMER, PART B

2007-06-06T13:29:00.001-04:00

14. Visit Bowling Green. And probably OSU and Kent too. ?
15. Get my senior pictures done.
16. Finish this list. (cop out, I know, but it's not lookin too good!) Changed to: Memorize some Bible verses. (another cop out?)
17. Survive something scary/daring/aaaah!! (ie, orientation? lol)
18. Make fudge.
19. Make frozen fruit stuff all by my onesie.
20. Cook dinner all by my onesie without burning anything.
21. Learn how to make at least 5 meals.
22. Write someone a letter.
23. Clean out under my bed and the top shelf of my closet... :-(
24. Do something majorly silly/goofy/crazy/fun. Changed to: Memorize 3 poems, one of which must be If, by Rudyard Kipling. One of the others will probably be The Road Not Taken (Robert Frost).
25. Re-read Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility.

Hurray! Here goes!

25 THINGS TO DO THIS SUMMER

2007-06-05T09:10:00.000-04:00

1. Read an average of a book a week and do the summer reading program at the library (for which I am now a volunteer. :-) Four of those books must be the Newbery Award/Honors for this year, and two must be Improving your Serve and Who You Are When No One's Looking.
2. Cinderella. I'm not sure what this means but it's what I wrote down when I was writing notes to help me remember these. They helped a lot, no?! So if I remember it I'll fill it in.(6 hours later) I remember now!!!: Frame and hang up my Cinderella's Carriage picture that I made the last week of art. :-D
3. Learn 3 of the Pride&Prejudice songs--one of which must be "Liz on Top of the World."
4. Accomplish 3 piano goals a day--however long it takes is however long I'll practice.
5. Have at least 3 girls' nights.
6. Raise $75 for Relay for Life.
7. Get lots of exercise--try to exercise every day (except weekends. When I say every day I usually mean every day except one of the weekend days.) Run sometimes.
8. Make friends when I volunteer at the library.
9. Get together with Caitlin 3 times.
10. Finish Harry Potter y el Caliz de Fuego. I think I can do it. :-P
11. Go for a walk in the rain in a swimsuit? :-)
12. Rearrange the furniture in my bedroom.
13. Try a Storytime at the Park or two.

That's all for now, but I'll fill in the rest tomorrow. It's a good start. :-)

this is the part where I ramble

2007-05-10T19:24:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone, how are you? So, A, I think the US needs a new political party, and B, Bach's 20th fugue has it in for me.

B first. So, I've already learned a prelude and fugue set, I think the sixth(?), and I love the 20th prelude. The fugue is giving me trouble. First of all, it's just plain HARD. I don't know if having Mom look at it and say, "Whoa, I haven't looked at your music in awhile--this is really complicated!" somehow psyched me out or what. I really didn't try exTREMEly hard to learn it the first couple weeks--I think I was still working on other songs and it looked just a little bit scary. For some time, also, I had no idea that the piece wasn't 2 pages long. It's SIX. I think when I figured that out, the small shreds of valor that I still had were smashed.

Finally I realized I just needed some motivation. Everyone knows that the thing Katie likes best is food. Right? Right. And everyone knows that Katie reeeeallly reeeeeeeeaaalllly likes blizzards. So I thought to myself, when I've learned this whole piece, I'm taking myself out for a medium blizzard. Just remembering that raises my morale. And, so that I won't get discouraged along the way, I decided to buy myself something else nice when I've learned 3 pages--ie, a candy bar, some sourpatch kids, nail polish, earrings, or cool wet-erase markers for my to-do list. :-)

However, this afternoon, when I was trying to get a start on page 2 (I've had this piece for almost 4 weeks now, remember) the end of page three seemed a loooooooonng way off. To further complicate matters, our piano teacher suggested at my last lesson that I learn a page a week. This sounds logical--although it's taking me so long to learn this, I really should be capable of tackling this kind of piece more rapidly. However, in reality, this comes out to a line of music a day. I practice for an hour, and only about 35-40 minutes of that is devoted to this song. I could probably learn a lot more if I put my mind to it, like, a lot, but I'm having difficulties with that at the moment. Somehow it's a lot easier to learn a page a week when you know that by next week, you'll be done with the piece! Come to think of it, my other 2pg fugue took at least 4 weeks to learn. It was one of those pieces that I despised having to learn--then when the hard part (aka, getting it into my fingers) was over, I fell in love with it. I can think of at least two other songs that worked that way. If the pattern continues, I'll like this piece so much I won't be able to tear myself away from the piano.

I know, I'll have to learn it one way or another, it might as well be the easy way. The way where I actually try my best so I have no excuses when I've only learned 1 page in 2 weeks. If that. I probably can't honestly say that I've tried my best this week, at the moment. But I tried my best for at least the first three days...but now I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place...I'll work it out.

That was probably completely unintelligible, but it was probably also more for my benefit than yours. *oh brother.* haha.

A. America needs a new political party. Like, one that stands by the Constitution, not their party's agenda. One that doesn't want the government to take control of things and will mandate that the people it elects read the Federalist papers, the Constitution, and a biography of a different framer of the Constitution regularly.

I have no idea if such a party is even feasible, it's just what I was thinking when I was reading my history books today.
_______________________________

Oh yeah, I remember now. This is what happens when I stay up half an hour later than usual too many nights in a row--I get disgusted with life and all self-commiserating. (Hence, the mysterious lack of smileys and exclamation points to which you are accustomed.) I think I better go snap out of it. Hope you all aren't disgusted with life/me now too, talk to you later!

PS--I just read over this and now I'm inwardly laughing at myself. So I guess it really did make me feel better. *crazy kid.*

Oh, and this wouldn't be a truly melancholy post if I failed to mention that my favorite song on the new RK CD has switched from "Faking my own Suicide" to "Deathbed." Just kidding, I like a bunch of the other songs too, don't worry about me! I just had to put that so that I'd be outwardly laughing at myself too. *twisted teen.*

:-D How that made me all better, I don't know. But I'm definitely in a better mood now. Did I mention that this post was going to be a rambler? You get major KT points if you made it through the whole thing--I'll even help you pay for the therapy sessions you'll probably need. :-D luv you guys.

French2

2007-05-07T14:00:00.000-04:00

Isn't it ironic how when they're teaching you how to ask someone to repeat something more slowly, you can read the thing they said fast along with them, but not the bit about "I'm sorry, I'm learning French. Could you repeat that more slowly please?"

French

2007-05-07T13:43:00.000-04:00

Isn't it ironic that when they're teaching you how to ask someone to repeat something more slowly, they speak so fast that you can't read along?

2007-05-02T17:48:00.000-04:00

We have tulips growing out of our compost heap.

:-)

And I got done with school before 5 three days in a row now.

:-)

life is good.

:-D

haha I love this song. It's even better when it's a country song on a rock CD.

2007-04-25T17:53:00.000-04:00

So, I've made up my mind
I will pretend to leave this world behind
And in the end, you'll know I've lied
To get your attention
I'm faking my own suicide

I'm faking my own suicide
Because I know you love me
You just haven't realized
I'm faking my own suicide
They'll hold a double funeral
Because a part of you will die
Along with me

I wish you thought that I was dead
So rather than me
you'd be depressed instead
And before arriving at my grave
You'd come to the conclusion
You'd loved me all your days
But it's too late
Too late for you to say

Because I'm faking my own suicide
Because I know you love me
You just haven't realized
Oh, I'm faking my own suicide
They'll hold a double funeral
Because a part of you will die
Along with me

I'll write you a letter that you'll keep
Reminding you your love for me is more than six feet deep
You say aloud that you would have been my wife
Right about that time
Is when I come back to life
And let you know
I'd let you know

All along I was
Faking my own suicide
Because I know you love me
You just never realized
I was faking my own suicide
I'll walk in that room and see your eyes opened so wide
Opened so wide
Because you know
Because you know you will never leave my side
Until the day that I die for the first time
And we'll laugh, yeah we'll laugh
And we will cry
So overjoyed with our love that's so alive
Our love is so alive

hey everyone

2007-04-19T19:19:00.000-04:00

Life is so huge! haha.

that pretty much sums things up.

college--I'm going to my first college visit day ever at Akron on Saturday.

youth group--I want to get together with you people more often!

school--has been taking way too long. I haven't finished before 5 at all this week. I know, I know--I start at 9, finish at 5, what's the big deal? Well, yesterday I started at 8:45 and finished at 6:20...and that's all I did. School. With probably a 45-min lunch break. All. Day. I think I DO need more social interaction...ah well...who wants to come over? or call me? or comment me? or myspace me? or e-mail me? lots of options...:-)

SAT--yeah. studying away. I think I need to do a lot of studying if I'm going to score higher. Because I lost some skills...oh well.

Running--I ran Tuesday! hurrah for perfect running weather! I'm still sore from it, but oh well. I'm also sore from pitchfalls at dance yesterday.

Dance--is going well. :-)

LT--fundraisers? Leaders? 92 days? oh yes.

Babysitting...couple days coming up and alll summer long. :-D

driving--I need to do more of it. I just don't go anywhere. :-P

the new RK CD--is really cool.

like I said, life is huge.

and good. most of the time--well, all of the time, I just don't notice some of the time. :-P

I love the thrift store

2007-03-31T16:43:00.000-04:00

2 shirts

1 skirt

1 purse (which, by the way, is extremely similar to one featured in Lucky Magazine for $45)

for $8.50.

now that's what I'm talking about.

Ok, so Abby and I ARE splitting the cost and use of one of the shirts.

All the same, that's only $1.

:-D

TIME FOR A POST! QUIOPQWERUIOP QWERUIOP

2007-03-30T18:36:00.000-04:00

I'll just use short phrases and then expound on things if I feel like it. :-D

trip to grandparents: mucho fun, mucho food!

home again: gorgeous weather! I'm so ready for summer clothes!

We got Easter outfits and I was reminded of how terribly hot summer clothes are.

lots to do! Not sure what, but there sure is a lot of it!

I got my driver's license! I know you all know that but I just thought I should mention it for posterity because I don't remember putting it on here. I haven't driven more than .5 miles on my own, though.

I have lots of applications: LT and [the college where I'll probably be taking postsecondary's] soon?

SAT again or no SAT again?

LT fundraisers...yup yup.

*SATURDAY*: I drifted away from the post so that's all I did. If you'd like me to expound on one of the topics, comment and I'll (probably) oblige.

press on! :-)

no more miss nice girl :-P

2007-03-10T12:09:00.000-05:00

"I guess I'd rather take the risk of disappointing people by not being good enough than disappoint God by not being brave enough." ~Lynne Hybels, Nice Girls Don't Change the World (but dangerous women do).

~~FEAR~~

guess what?

2007-03-10T11:37:00.000-05:00

I'm going to get my ears double pierced.

:-D

Maybe not today, but I AM going to get a haircut today. :0)

Just thought you'd all like to know.

ACT

2007-03-07T17:11:00.000-05:00

This is my 276th post. Just thought you'd all like to know.

My ACT scores came Monday. They were almost exactly parallel to my SAT scores, which is really funny. Also, it was exactly the same as the practice test I took. I probably won't take that one again, but Dad still thinks I should take the SAT again, because he thinks I can do better on the math and essay. I probably can. And like he said, it wouldn't take much studying since I'm still taking the math everyday. We shall see...I don't have to sign up till sometime in April. :-)

I was going to blog about something else but now I can't remember. Oh well...I'll talk to you all later. Maybe it was how I've been finishing school super early this week......that's been nice. They're working on our basement--it's starting to look how it's supposed to (I haven't seen it yet, but that's what they tell me.)

Tonight we're having Pulled Pork sandwiches for dinner and I'm happy about that.

adios amigos!

things that happened today

2007-03-01T18:45:00.000-05:00

I went out for breakfast with Kay, which was nice+fun+good.

I finished the SAT math section that I started yesterday (I have no other math at the moment so that's just what we're using) and I got all 20 problems right, which was exciting+encouraging+cool.

I ate a peanut butter cookie with water and a Greta snuggling on the side while I watched HP2 and earned $5000 dollars in word auction on the spanish dictionary for Spanish, which was cozy+happifying+nice.

We found out that the finishing of the basement will commence Monday, which was crazy+good+the reason I have to stop now. Still more cleaning to be done!

ha!

2007-02-28T21:55:00.000-05:00

I

Posted

Three

Times

In

February.

you're all in for it

2007-02-15T17:34:00.000-05:00

You know why? Because I feel like I just drank a lot of root beer. Yeah, the kind with CAFFEINE!!! I'm a little crazy right now. So you get to hear all about my life recently.

Where to start? How bout last Saturday? I took the ACT in the morning. I really hope I'm done with those. More on that later. While I was taking it, Mom and Dad met with Owens-Corning and bought a finished basement. Pretty much spur-of-the-moment, yeah. So I got home and went, Oh. Ok. Cool. The thing was, we had 3 days to change our minds, so they were kind of trying to decide if we actually wanted to do it or not. Sure enough, by Monday night, not only had they decided that it would be good, but that they wanted to finish more of it than previously planned. That means that we need to clean it out big time. Before and afters on the way? I think so.

Mom, Hannah and I also went dress shopping for the Celtic Ball. Which is in two weeks. For which I have no dress. All I can say is that's all I'm doing this Saturday.

What next? Oh--Tuesday was pretty awesome. You know, the day that it started snowing and never stopped. Why was it so awesome? Not only did we get the night off from DANCE, PIANO, and SMALL GROUP, I got to take off a little bit of school to babysit Ella and Riley (and the two new canine additions to the family, Buck and Trix. :-) So Tuesday was amazing because I woke up thinking, "I'm not sure I can stand too much more of this," and then we pretty much got the whole day off.

Wednesday: Second verse, same as the first, a little bit louder and a whole lot worse. Valentine's Day! More snow! And then--more snow!! And then--more time off school! Mom was making sugar cookies because Dad specially requested them (and how could she say no on Valentine's Day??) and I had to do French and then I would be done with school. But I REALLY wanted to make cookies and I thought that Mom wouldn't mind the help, so I asked if I could skip it and she said yes! So I got to get off school early to make cookies. (I mean the rest of the world got the entire day off! Even homeschoolers can skive off occasionally, right? :-) Then the evening was fun cuz I called Meg and we watched Psych (which is pretty much my new favorite show, the more episodes I see the more I like it) and we got to eat a bunch of awesome food (homemade heart-shaped pizza [death by flavor] and the cookies we made and some ice cream. [death by happiness]) (fyi: I pretty much dressed in all these colors yesterday. :-D)

Then there's today. This is the "More on that later part." Today was--still is--the day when the SAT scores were posted online. I got a really good score--and was disappointed because it was about 50 points shy of what I was hoping for. So now I'm torn between saying goodbye to the stupid thing forever, and taking it again just to satisfy my own high expectations. Do I decide that the time I could spend preparing for it (again) could be better spent on other things, or do I give in to the part of me that's always calling me to do better and reach for the stars? I do not know. I was happy with my Critical reading score, and my writing score wasn't bad, but I really think I could improve my essay and math scores. We shall see. At least I did score high enough to get my ears double pierced, and to have cookie-dough brownies and Subway tonight. I love special things like valentine's day, football, and test results--and about 75% of that enjoyment is because of the food. What can I say--I'm addicted. :-P

Let's see. Anything else? You can now apply for LT. We're making a stupid video to show there. It's Thursday and I LOVE THURSDAYS!!!!! Like, just about as much as Fridays. :-P The numbers 2-9-07 are the same as the color combo red, yellow and green. 1-5-6 or 7 is more pastel purple and blue and white. Don't ask me why, I really just don't know. Similarly, girls seem even and boys seem odd. (*...*) Blue's odd and red's even. Winter is white, summer is yellow, autumn is red, and spring is pink. October is blue. August is copper. I better stop before the psychologists get too excited about my craziness and decide that they need to take me in for questioning. Or before you all decide you don't want to be friends with someone so obviously out of their minds.

you betcha I'm out of my mind.

Love you all, call or e-mail or myspace if you need anything or just want to talk. :-D

Katie*** * * * * * * * *~* * ** * <3

hey everyone

2007-02-01T19:08:00.001-05:00

Well, I was going to write a kind of gloomy, pointless post (you never know, this could still turn into one) and then I read Gina's xanga (from like, the past month) and that got me into a decent mood. Decent enough to post something coherent.

Let's see. What has happened since January 18th. Wow, I only posted 2ce in January. I shall add that to my February resolutions list: post THREE times in February. Am I just a little over the top with finding reasons to make resolutions?

I survived the SAT. Now if I can only survive the two weeks until the scores are posted online, and if only I can survive looking at them...yeah. I hope I either did badly or really well so that there won't be any "well, that was pretty good, but it's not as good as I was hoping...but it's still a good score...so should I keep it or not?"

Oh, and don't forget, it would be nice to survive the ACT. Yup pretty much. I have less time to prepare for that. *gulp*

I suppose it would be pretty pointless and gloomy to rant about how I wish I had more time to talk to all my buddies on the weekdays when I have an entire hour of free time before me...so I'll restrain myself. lucky you. :-P

somebody leave a nice comment to cheer me up? :-)

luv you guys.

tee hee hee

2007-01-18T18:06:00.000-05:00

So I'm pretty much totally hyper right now. No idea where that came from. :-)

Ok. Life in the past...um...13 days.

Youth group: Rocks. As usual. I love you guys!! :-D We need to a. have tiedown soon and b. have a big random party.

School: Finally has a decent, workable system that makes me very happy and usually has me finishing before 5. :-D EVEN THOUGH I'm doing like, an hour of SAT prep a day. (hermione?) I better score high enough to get my ears double pierced. tee hee hee. If I score within a hundred points of the equivalent of my PSAT score I can get them double pierced. (I a. was going to talk them into letting me pierce them eventually and b. wanted to score that high anyway, so it's all good.)

Excuse me while I consume my evening meal.

(and then go make cookies, and then watch Beethoven lives upstairs, and then go to bed. Perhaps I will post later. If not, love to all, and to all a good night.)

Wrapping up Christmas break (along with the first week back)

2007-01-05T19:06:00.000-05:00

I will now proceed to review the list of 10 things I wanted to do on Christmas break.

1. Redecorate my bulletin board. This is still a work in progress. It's about halfway done...haha. When you come over to my house next you need to see it. :-)
2. Talk on the phone for 3 hours (not straight, not with one person, just total. :-) This I did accomplish, even after I changed it to 5 after talking to meghan for 2 hours (straight.) I think some was with Gina and some was with Cayley and the other 45 minutes was my grandma I think...we've been talking every day since we got the new phone. Yay!
3. Get all the rest of my Christmas presents. Cutting it close, aren't I? Definitely check.
4. Read 2 books. At least. And also, finish The Children of Willesden Lane. I don't think I actually did this. But I did finish the CoWL.
5. Load all our crazy pictures onto i. the computer. ii. myspace. Abby helped with this.
6. Not pig out on more than 3 of the days: Christmas Eve, Christmas, and New Year's Eve. :-) I'm pretty sure I managed that. Although there was that one day when we played 3 games of clue and ate chocolate covered pretzels and chocolate covered caramel corn and almonds...but I didn't totally pig out on the three exception days, so I'm going to count this one as an accomplishment.
7. Practice piano for 15 mins every day. (At least. :-) Hmm. I think I forgot about this one. But my lesson's not going to bad, so...I'm not sure I really "failed"
8. Watch 2 movies. (Ha. That'll get done without ME trying.) Oh, more specific: Watch the live version of How the Grinch stole Christmas and It's a Wonderful Life. We did watch it's a wonderful life, but not the grinch. Does 5-episodes-of-What-not-to-wear-in-a-row count?
9. Make fudge. *sniff* I meant to do this early in the break, so that we could eat it throughout, but alas...
10. Do something extra-Christmasily-nice for someone. Hmm...I did unload the diswasher for a family I babysat...does that count? haha.

Well, let's see. I think I did 6 of them if you count 1, 4, 6 and 10 as halves. :-) Oh well, it sure was fun anyway.

Now it's back to school. Not too bad. A new year is a new start. I've been doing some things differently so I have more energy (and hence, it takes a ridiculous amount of time for me to fall asleep. However, we had dance till 9:30 last night and didn't get home till 10 so I got to bed a little late. That means I should get to sleep faster tonight. :-) The only thing I still want to do differently is to get in touch with you all more often. So, if I just randomly call you and say, hey, what's up, that means you can either tell me it's a bad time and you'll call me back or tell me all about your day and ask me how mine was. :-D Ok? Ok.

adios

hi again

2006-12-30T18:38:00.000-05:00

Un-contrary to my usual blogging tendencies, I am giving you a double whammy. :-D

Today, *fanfare please* *ooh and a drumroll too* I ran my first 5k. :-D I was only planning on running a mile, and then we're getting to the end of the mile and Dad's like, "Settle in so that you can keep going." And I'm like, "water break?" And he's like, "you don't need it." I think I was half thinking, well, if I do need it I can always say I told you so, plus I didn't want to "chicken out," so to speak. I was kind of sick of giving up on things I guess. Not that it wasn't semi-torture. Ha. We did stop for a water break after the second time, cuz I was half-planning on stopping, but I pretty much didn't have enough breath to argue with him so I went again. I liked the last half of the third mile the best I think--I didn't look most of the time. I had my eyes half closed. Oooh and going down this huge hill, the wind blowing so hard, the sun in my eyes...that's the best way to run. I really enjoyed that bit of it. And then the flat stretch after it where I usually end up in pain (mostly all in my head) I just kept my eyes half-closed the way they were when the sun was in my eyes so I wasn't agonizing about how much there was left--plus I got into a good breathing rhythm on the hill when I wasn't thinking about breathing. :-) So I survived. Then my head hurt a lot when I stopped. And my legs are actually sore, so that's nice. Wow, I'm out of breath just thinking about it again. :-D

So, I ran my first 5k, and got in an hour of driving, and then drove around my first accident too. We had to off-road it. :-) It didn't look like a really bad one--or maybe since I was driving I just didn't notice, but the cars didn't look too badly scratched up to me. *shrug* idk.
Ok, while I'm on the subject of driving, WHY is there such a huge disparity between the way you're supposed to drive and the way everyone drives. Issue numero uno: everyone drives at least 5 miles over the speed limit most of the time. It's called the LIMIT--L-I-M-I-T. Issue numero dos: you're supposed to stop twice at stopsigns and, say, stoplights where you're turning right. Once to stop behind the white line/stopsign/sidewalk, and once to pull up to check to see if it's ok to go. If you actually do this, the people around you will freak out because you stopped once, so they think you're just going to pull out when there are cars coming. ??? That seems like a rule that would be pretty easy to change--it's semi-pointless. People don't die from not following that. Speeding, however...

Oh, and if all goes well, J, G, and Z are coming to church tomorrow. In case you didn't know, that's slang for JAson, AnGIE, and baby Zach. I took about ten videos of him when we visited them today--if you can't get through the crowd to get a good look at him tomorrow, I'll show them to you. :-)

Ok. I'm finally going to go use the new Razr. Here I come, Meg! :-} Don't forget, you can call us anytime on the weekend. :-D contact me some other way for the number. :-D

hi everyone!

2006-12-29T16:37:00.000-05:00

1. I miss you. The only people I don't miss are a. people I don't know and b. my family because we've spent the last 5 days in nice quality time. :-)
2. We should get together. Oh, wait, christmas break is almost over.
3. Christmas break ROCKED!!
4. We got 2 big presents this year: a little video camera and a RAZR. We were expecting the video camera, like, as far as a big gift goes it's not surprising to get one, but the cell phone--we didn't even scream, we were so shocked. So, we can talk all we want on the weekends and after 9 and maybe if Dad's work schedule ever calms down he'll have some minutes left over for us to use. :-D
5. I slept in until 10:45 on Tuesday and I think I played clue most of the rest of the day (yes, I got clue for Christmas!!! :-D)
6. I can't remember what my Christmas Break goals were. I should check and look at them.
7. Ooh, somebody's calling us! (not on the Razr)
8. Work on my bulletin board is just about complete. *Ahem* I still have to put everything on it, but at least I have it all designed on the computer--like, all the words are formatted nicely. :-D

I don't know what else to say except to urge you with the utmost oomph to call us and schedule a time to get together!!!!!! Or just call and talk about nice deep, meaningful subjects. Please!!!??? also, I'd also encourage you to leave a nice comment or two about how your Christmas was. Ok? Ok. I'll thank you after you comply. :-D

Sincerely,
KATIE!!!!!!

Survivor!

2006-12-18T15:03:00.000-05:00

Watch out guys, I'm getting philosophical!! Stay back 10 feet! :-P

Ok, I guess I have to admit now that I really do watch Survivor, since I actually cared about what happened last night. Haha. Yul probably deserved the money more in terms of how he played the game, but Ozzy deserved it so that he could go to school. I think Yul should give him a couple thousand bucks to get started. :-) I thought it was interesting also that they both wanted to use it to make the world a better place--and they actually seemed fairly sincere. Not to mention, none of the final four had outright betrayed anyone. I thought it was very cool that they stuck together through the end.

And someone made the comment--Sundra, perhaps--that the final four didn't stick together because they were all minorities or something like that, they were loyal to each other simply on the basis of who they were. Hey, there's always gonna be prejudice in the world, but at least there will always be people who realize the insides count more than the outsides. I think that splitting them up by race in the beginning pretty much proved that. I also think it's funny that people, even people who aren't prejudiced, made a fuss about splitting them up by race. If you really think that all races will perform equally, why does it matter if they get pitted against each other? No one would care if they put all the redheads, blondes, brunettes and ...um...people-with-black-hair into different groups, because no one thinks that redheads will do better than brunettes. It's just an easy way to split them up. It's just interesting...:-)

And, has anyone else noticed that these kinds of reality tv shows survive (no pun intended) because everyone loves it at the end when they say stuff like, "It made me realize I could do anything" "I never knew how strong I was" "It's made me a lot more confident" ?? Everyone wants that kind of experience, but it's not easy, so most shy away from it. Let me just say I am NOT the next Survivor!!! If I could get through living out in the wilderness and eating things that were alive 2 minutes ago and are raw and get into a good alliance and everything, I could never get through a tribal council without saying something stupid and having everyone hate me! Or, Jeff would put me on the spot and I'd totally mangle whatever I was trying to say. You are not looking at a Survivor. :-D

Ok, I'll stop being philosophical for at least ten minutes. :-)

the first official day of break, and:

2006-12-18T11:50:00.000-05:00

~~4(b). Finish The Children of Willesden Lane.~~

I finished it this morning after breakfast. I was reading it during breakfast, then I was like, hey, I should just finish it since I'm not on a schedule. Yay! and then, of course, since it's about a girl who plays the piano through WW2, I practiced piano for about half an hour. I have my lesson tomorrow! Yay! Also, today I'm going to work on my bulletin board.

Oh, and from the 50 list:

~~22. Make someone's day.~~

Cuz I'm pretty sure that singing at the Marco's pizza place on Saturday night made their day. :-) We were singing at Game Trader, next door, and when we were done we went over to Marco's and sang for them. They clapped after every song and paid attention while we sang, so we weren't just background music. And then they ended up giving us our pizza half off. So that was sweet.

Onward ho then! :-) Call me and I'll talk! Oh, and I can't decide whether this counts or not: Meghan and I talked on the phone for 2 hours yesterday. But we would've done that even if it wasn't Christmas break. So I'm thinking I'll half count it and half not by changing it to:

2. Talk on the phone for FIVE hours (not straight, not with one person, just total. :-)

Alright, anyway, talk to you later!

k. \L/ a. \U/ t. \V/ i. \U/ e.

i think

2006-12-15T23:03:00.000-05:00

that mood rings wouldn't really help girls (or guys) that much, because they'd either be changing so quickly that they'd be muddy, or they'd be tie-dyed. :-) :-P

whew, it's only the first day and I can already cross one off!

2006-12-15T16:09:00.000-05:00

~~5. Load all our crazy pictures onto i. the computer. ii. myspace.~~

So go check them out! :-) the link is in my link list and the link to the pictures (in case you're unfamilar with myspace) is right under the picture of us. abby actually loaded them onto the computer, but what can I say, it got done! adios amigos! luv you all!

10 THINGS TO DO ON CHRISTMAS BREAK

2006-12-14T17:21:00.000-05:00

1. Redecorate my bulletin board.
2. Talk on the phone for 3 hours (not straight, not with one person, just total. :-)
3. Get all the rest of my Christmas presents. Cutting it close, aren't I?
4. Read 2 books. At least. And also, finish The Children of Willesden Lane.
5. Load all our crazy pictures onto i. the computer. ii. myspace.
6. Not pig out on more than 3 of the days: Christmas Eve, Christmas, and New Year's Eve. :-)
7. Practice piano for 15 mins every day. (At least. :-)
8. Watch 2 movies. (Ha. That'll get done without ME trying.) Oh, more specific: Watch the live version of How the Grinch stole Christmas and It's a Wonderful Life.
9. Make fudge.
10. Do something extra-Christmasily-nice for someone.

How's that sound? Any other suggestions? <<<- Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Feliz Navidad, and Joyeux Noel!

hey guys, it's been awhile!

2006-12-09T16:36:00.000-05:00

What's up:

I am now seventeen. :O)

I held Zachary Jay today. :-D

I drove around when we were doing errands today.

We had an awesome party last week--despite which fact I miss all the girls again.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I had no free time.

Friday our PSAT scores came. We were about to go to bed, and I was like, "...have we checked the mail today?"
"...noooo...."
So I went out there in the FREEZING cold and got the mail and there were two big envelopes and I brought them inside. And then when we could open them, I sort of didn't. Just to let the suspense build nicely. Then, we opened them. Hannah looked at hers right away, and she did really well. Especially since she's going to take it 2 more times!! It's a very good base to build on. And then everyone was like, look at it!! And I was like, noooo!!! and then they were like, let us look at it!!! And I was like, nooo!!!--fine I'll look. Then I sort of started laughing and crying and hyperventilating, cuz I was really happy. I did way better on the math than I ever thought I could, (Math is NOT my strong point. at all.) so thanks for all your prayers. :-)

~~12. Score over 70 on two sections of the PSAT. (two guesses which two...)13. And since this is just for fun: Score over 65 on the remaining section. (This one comes under the "attempt" category.)~~ *check*

And now I'll be babysitting for Kayla, Daniel and Tyler tonight, so I should keep moving. Seems like that's all we ever do. :-P

*deeep breaths* haha

call me, cuz I miss you guys...oh wait, we'll hang out all day tomorrow. and Gretchen, I'm totally getting around to e-mailing you one of these days. :-)

adios

I'm happy...(Je suis contente)

2006-11-27T14:42:00.000-05:00

Today in French I learned how to say stuff like I am hungry (j'ai faim) and WE are tired (nous somme fatigues), instead of the girl is hungry, the men are tired, etc. I was very happy. :-P Those are the kind of things that make learning a new language interesting. (That and listening to James mangle it. haha. No, not "mange" it, languages aren't edible. :-)

onward ho then -->

arg!

2006-11-26T18:40:00.000-05:00

No one's on! Quiero hablar! I want to talk to someone! :-( :-) (now brit's on:-)

We went to the Nutcracker today and saw our studly Jeremiah perform. yay Miah yay!

I realize every Sunday how much I miss those guys. And I don't just mean the guys, though they're a three ring circus in and of themselves. I miss everyone! But I got to teach Sunday School, which was about the only thing that could've cheered me up without making me cry first. :-) Being tired always makes me grouchy. Those kids are so sweet! I actually had a crowd today--4 preschoolers. :-P They're so cute.

Well, now that I actually have time to sit around and post, I can't think of that much to say. Figures. :-)

Luv you guys! press on! Have a good week! Talk to me so I won't miss everyone so much during the week! lol :-P

:-D

<3

quick post (they're all I ever seem to do)

2006-11-24T14:53:00.000-05:00

I have five minutes to post while I wait for the water to warm up for my post-running shower. Hannah and Abby ran too, and we only have 2 showers. I'm sure you all really wanted to know that.

We had a terrific Thanskgiving--we hung out at home, slept in, watched the Macy's Parade and the dog show right afterwards, decorated for Christmas, and ate so much good food! And then last night we watched Phantom of the Opera, which was amazing! (The night before, we watched Cheaper by the Dozen 2, and a year and a night before, we watched HP4 for the first time as a surprise!) Today we're going to see Pirates 2, which is why this has to be a quick post because we don't want to be late! :-D

~~27. Do a really complicated Chem problem without messing up any significant figures.~~
On my last chem test, I only got one wrong and it was because I messed up the scientific notation in one of the conversions. So, I think I can cross that one off my list. :-D Yay!

Alright, I should get going, I hope to talk to each of you soon. And just to make sure, call me or e-mail me and that way it's guaranteed I'll talk to you soon. Or comment on our myspace. :-D

¡adios queridas!

sigh

2006-11-14T20:20:00.000-05:00

I just finished reading The Sherwood Ring... *sigh* *mrs. darcy...* I officially love that book.

*mrs. darcy...*

*mrs. bingley...*

*mrs. ferrars...*

*mrs. brandon...*

*sigh*

*m r s . s h e r w o o d . . .*

really really quick post

2006-11-09T20:32:00.000-05:00

~~50. Ooh! I know. Go to a Brown's game. :-D~~

We did that two Sundays ago...I think...haha...but we won!!! And it was really fun!!! And I understand football now!! At least the basics.

Life has been crazy. Let's see. Mom's birthday was last weekend. We didn't get her any presents (yet). :-( Dad's been really busy (really busy!) at work, hence no time to go shopping...and I can't drive yet. But we made her cards still. And Jason and Angie drove us to youth group, which was really nice.

And, my grandparents and Gretchen came over to celebrate. That was fun. :-D Pops spoiled us rotten and Meme did too--she made some AMAZING cake. Wow. We're still eating it. :-D And Pops took us ice skating to work it off--not before doing his part by getting Brownie Obsession at Fridays. I love food. :-D And it was really fun to have Gretchen over--we see her house every time we go to Meme and Pops' house, but she hadn't seen ours. :-D She's one of my "invisible" blog readers who reads it all the time but doesn't comment. :O)

So, life's pretty much been nutso. I'm learning a lot, but it's been nutso. (I shot peanut butter into that vein...crunchy peanut butter...it drove me nuts!--I love Ken Davis...borrow him from the church library. !!! after we're done with him. :-)

School. Dance. Youth group. Sleep.

I'm going to copy off of meg...meghannnnn...haha!!

desperate for changing
starving for truth
closer to where I started
chasing after you

I'm falling even more in love with you
letting go of all I've held onto
I'm standing here until you make me move
I'm hanging by a moment here with you

forgetting all I'm lacking
completely incomplete
I'll take your invitation
you take all of me now

I'm living for the only thing I know
I'm running and not quite sure where to go
and I don't know what I'm diving into
just hanging by a moment here with you

there's nothing else to lose
there's nothing else to find
there's nothing in the world
that could change my mind
there is nothing else
there is nothing else
there is nothing else

desperate for changing
starving for truth
closer to where I started
chasing after you

I'm falling even more in love with you
letting go of all I've held onto
I'm standing here until you make me move
I'm hanging by a moment here with you

this is pretty much all my life consists of at the moment. This post sums it up.

check out the new myspace: myspace.com/crazy_GEMs

new music video

2006-10-21T16:31:00.001-04:00

What do you guys think? The only reason I put it on here is that it has some of THE most aMAZing scene changes ever. Watch it once, comment, and then when pretty much everyone has seen it I'll take it off again. :-P

the PSAT

2006-10-21T14:37:00.000-04:00

It's what we've all been waiting for. I've prepared for it for 2 weeks. I took an at-home practice one last year. I took a not-counting PSAT last year. I took another at-home practice one 2 weeks ago. I did a full SAT section by section for the last week and a half. I cut Geometry, Current Events and Creative Expression to prepare for it. All leading up to this morning at 8:00.

How did it go?

HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW??? I WON'T GET MY SCORES FOR 2 MONTHS!!! ARRRGGG!!!

Ok, from what I do know, it went well. Thank you thank you to everyone who prayed for it! :-) Math was easier than I thought it would be, and critical reading was harder than I thought it'd be, and writing skills was fine. That's good, because I thought math was going to be horrible, critical reading was going to be EASY, and writing skills would be fine. So it all evened out in the end. I was getting tired by the time we got to writing skills; I actually changed two of my answers because I looked back over them and thought WHAT WAS I THINKING??

I can't believe the math was so easy. I think it must've been cuz I was taking a full SAT to prepare for it, which could be a little harder. I don't know. In case you all weren't aware of this, MATH IS NOT MY STRONG POINT. I'm much better with words. (hense I'm one of the only teenagers lfet in the world that pay lots of attenshun to grammer also spelling ;-)

It was fun to have Hannah with me to hash over things when we got home. "Did you answer ___ on that one about ___?" "Yeah, I got so confused on that one!!" "Oh that one was easy, I did this that and the other thing." "Good, that means I guessed right!" We're not Ron: "Hermione!! We decided we won't go over tests afterwards! It's bad enough to take it once..."

So, overall, I'm happy with the way things turned out. Unless I made some amazingly stupid errors on the math, when I thought I was being all smart, I did better on the math section than I've ever done. I just wish I would've known what "moratorium" and "excoriate" meant, because I know I got two critical reading questions wrong because of them. (Apparently a moratorium isn't something put into place during an interim, and excoriate isn't the opposite of explicit.) But if that's all I got wrong, #12 on my life list could be in the bag...we shall see.

All I can say is, December can't come soon enough...

...except for the fact that life is speeding by fast enough as it is.

2006-10-19T17:06:00.000-04:00

so my friends just pretty much rock...

2006-10-19T16:56:00.000-04:00

Stop right there.
That's exactly where I lost it.
See that line.
Well I never should have crossed it.
Stop right there.
Well I never should have said that
it's the very moment that
I wish that I could take back.

I'm sorry for the person I became.
I'm sorry that it took so long for me to change.
I'm ready to try and never become that way again
'cause who I am hates who I've been.
Who I am hates who I've been.

I couldn't face my life tomorrow
Without Your hope in my heart I know
I can't live a day without You
Lord, there's no night and there's no morning
Without Your loving arms to hold me
You're the heartbeat of all I do
I can't live a day without You

No I'm not who I was
When I took my first step
And I'm clinging to the promise
you're not through with me yet
So if all of these trials
Bring me closer to you
Then I will go through the fire
If you want me to

It may not be the way I would have chosen
When you lead me through a world
That's not my home
But you never said it would be easy
You only said I'll never go alone

triple post

2006-10-18T18:04:00.000-04:00

hello this is abby impersonating katie don't be fooled by my lack of capital letters and misspellings and run on sentences.

and this is Katie, telling her how to spell this right and supervising her every keystroke. :-P

Y'all are so....weird...Tchyah...can't you guess who this is???lol. Tchyah...

we should really do something productive, guys.

like GET A MYSPACE we need to ask dad and then all three of us might share it and stuff

just so that we could get into all of YOUR myspaces.

We want to see how ...weird...you are... goofy goofy ppl... haha...

plus, apparently everyone spills their guts on their myspaces, so you can find out useful information like the fact that KEVIN is dating, which I just found out on Sunday and apparently it's been like, 2 months. :-P

Katie is sitting on my legs and needs to moooooooooooove OH NO THE EVIL COW HAS TAKEN OVER

help!!!!

Haha....FOOD IS ON THE WAY...aka muffins....

what are you talking about WE'RE THE FOOD THE EVIL COWS WILL DEVOUR US AND TURN US INTO LIFE MILK...

2006-10-17T19:21:00.000-04:00

sEize thE Day

c u z t o m o R R o w i T ' l l b e g o n E

Youth group last night

2006-10-16T16:48:00.000-04:00

~~#49. Do something crazy.~~

I think I've got that one covered.

Last night we played kick the can, always an amazing event. I was running away from IT. I can't even remember who IT was. I ran into the women's bathroom (because IT was a boy). Or tried to. The door got stuck (did I even turn the handle?) and I went crashing through it. Let's just say it's a good thing the fall work day is coming up. They're going to have to repair the doorframe. :-D I thought I was going to have a giant bruise on my face, cuz I kind of ran into the door with my cheek, but nothing yet! It looked all red so I fell asleep with ice on it, but today it's just a little sore. No fireworks yet.

That was #49a, do something crazy accidentally. This is #49b, I also climbed through the Impact room window. The guys put a chair down and a bunch of us girls climbed in. It was fun.

Now all I have to do is

52. Do something just plain weird, on purpose, in public. (besides scatting halfway around the neighborhood last week with Dad and Hannah.)

I could tell you more stories. And I will, someday, but right now I have some catching up to do with Meg. She hasn't heard all this. :-D

2006-10-15T20:57:00.000-04:00

that was pretty much the most amazing youth group event ever...

I love you guys.

Good night.

:-D

FIFTY...twenty-five THINGS TO DO...attempt to do BEFORE I DIE

2006-10-13T19:46:00.000-04:00

Yeah, I have high goals. *sarcasm* Or, maybe I have such high goals that I can't assume I'll be able to do them. YOU KNOW WHAT this is just for fun who cares if they all get done HERE I GO AGAIN being all afraid of being wrong. WELL I'M JUST GONNA SHUT UP and write my list now. And you might think all these CAPS mean I'm MAD or something but I'm not I'm just sick of the usual ways of expressing ENTHUSIASM.

1. Figure out how to actually perform one of my songs. That would require, like, knowing chords, which is the trick.
2. Run a 5k in under 30 mins.
3. Get married to the man of my dreams.
4. Have lots of sweet, terrifying adventures with said man of dreams.
(THIS IS FUN. :-)
5. Have lots of sweet, terrifying munchkins with said man of dreams.
(LOL!)
6. Visit/live in a Spanish-speaking country.
7. Visit/live in a French-speaking country.
8. Lead someone to Christ.
9. Lead someone to Christ in Spanish.
10. Lead someone to Christ in French.
11. Have a job dealing with kids.
12. Score over 70 on two sections of the PSAT. (two guesses which two...)
13. And since this is just for fun: Score over 65 on the remaining section. (This one comes under the "attempt" category.)
14. Speak at a conference (in the FAR future :-)
15. Invite someone from dance to a youth group event.
16. Play a piano piece exactly as it should be played with no mistakes. (And, if a miracle occurs, it'll be during a recital).
17. Lead someone to Christ who's under the age of 13.
18. Make dinner.
19. Pass my driver's test.
20. Watch the sun come up with someone I love, for instance, said man of dreams. :-)
21. Stay up all night.
22. Make someone's day.
23. Have a big answer to prayer.
24. Take voice lessons.
25. Kiss said man of dreams for the first time on our wedding day. I dare you to say it's impossible.
26. I think I'll copy off of Gina and buy someone flowers. :-)
27. Do a really complicated Chem problem without messing up any significant figures.
28. Successfully graft two cacti.
29. Be a leader to LT.
30. Be a leader to the MSR.
31. Be a missionary's wife.
32. Listen to a song over and over for 30 mins straight.
33. Go to a RK (or switchfoot, or Matthew west) concert.
34. Make a difference in someone's life besides leading someone to Christ.
35. Keep this blog for 5 years.
36. Speak fluent Spanish without an accent.
37. Speak fluent French. (I'll always have an accent. lol)
38. Mentor someone.
39. Be mentored by someone.
40. Graduate from Danceworks.
41. Do a backwalkover.
42. Do a split. Ha. I think this goes under the "attempt" category too. :-P
43. Write a story. And finish it. Even if it's very short.
44. Get scholarships for college.
45. Eat ten cookies in one day.
46. Watch all three LOTR movies in one weekend (the same way I read the books! :-).
47. Predict something very significant about Harry Potter that comes true. Like, besides the fact that __________ comes back to life and _________ has one of the horcruxes. :-D
48. Look forward to something without any reservations or fears that I'll be disappointed. Besides LT.
49. Do something crazy. Like, not stupid crazy, like, "wait, did she just do that??" crazy.
50. Ooh! I know. Go to a Brown's game. :-D
And, since I thought of something else,
51. Learn the words to Be thou my vision.
:-D
What do you think? Do you have any AMAZING insights into my character? Are you SURPRISED by anything I wrote? It's all on the table now! :-)

I love you guys. yes, you. and you. and I'm glad you're reading this. And I thank you for reading this. And I hope you have a wonderful life, 50 things done or not. :-)

new profile description

2006-10-04T17:09:00.000-04:00

How do you like my new profile thingy? :-) Here's the whole thing, apparently you can only do 1200 characters.

I'm a part of the fellowship of the unashamed. The die has been cast. I have stepped over the line. The decision has been made. I'm a disciple of His and I won't look back, let up, slow down, back away, or be still.
My past is redeemed. My present makes sense. My future is secure. I'm done and finished with low living, sight walking, small planning, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tamed visions, mundane talking, cheap living, and dwarfed goals.
I no longer need preeminence, prosperity, position, promotions, plaudits, or popularity. I don't have to be right, or first, or tops, or recognized, or praised, or rewarded. I live by faith, lean on His presence, walk by patience, lift by prayer, and labor by Holy Spirit power.
My face is set. My gait is fast. My goal is heaven. My road may be narrow, my way rough, my companions few, but my guide is reliable and my mission is clear.
I will not be bought, compromised, detoured, lured away, turned back, deluded or delayed.
I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice or hesitate in the presence of the adversary. I will not negotiate at the table of the enemy, ponder at the pool of popularity, or meander in the maze of mediocrity.
I won't give up, shut up, or let up until I have stayed up, stored up, prayed up, paid up, and preached up for the cause of Christ.
I am a disciple of Jesus. I must give until I drop, preach until all know, and work until He comes. And when He does come for His own, He'll have no problems recognizing me. My colors will be clear!
~Martyred African Pastor.

2006-10-01T16:49:00.001-04:00

awww, seven comments, you guys are too sweet...I feel loved. :-)

So, life is good, cuz it's the weekend, and we have TIEDOWN and Gina's going to call me and we'll have our own mini TIEDOWN and oh yes. Yes yes. I'm just in a good mood I guess. ;-)

That is, until I actually start thinking about my life in detail. So I won't. :-P One day at a time....!

So, I think I should lengthen this tiny post with some good song lyrics...hmmm...

The pathway is broken
And the signs are unclear
And I don't know the reason
Why you brought me here
But just because you love me
The way that you do
I'm gonna walk through the valley
If you want me to.

'Cause I'm not who I was
When I took my first step
And I'm clinging to the promise
you're not through with me yet
So if all of these trials
Bring me closer to you
Then I will go through the fire
If you want me to

It may not be the way
I would have chosen
When you lead me through a world
That's not my home
But you never said it would be easy
You only said I'll never go alone

So when the whole world turns against me
And I'm all by myself
And I can't hear you answer
My cries for help
I'll remember the suffering
Your love put you through
And I will go through the valley
If you want me to

2006-10-01T16:49:00.000-04:00

sigh

2006-09-28T20:21:00.000-04:00

Judging by the fact that
1. No one has posted on their xangas (except Gina-- yay Gina yay)
2. No one commented on my last post
I conclude that
3. No one's going to read this or comment on it.

Which is ok, cuz I don't have time to post anyway.

Therefore:
*sigh*
+
*grrrrr*
=
the state of Katie at the moment.

quick post

2006-09-23T18:28:00.001-04:00

It's gonna be quick again cuz Hannah wants to get on.

Today, I:

Cleaned downstairs
Cleaned my room
Dusted and webstered the basement (it really needs to be swept...next week!)
Ran around the neighborhood once, 13 mins and under 20 seconds (my system is very precise, is it not?)
Babysat Bethany, Logan and Mandy.

And now, I'm sitting and talking to Gina. Life is good. God is good. And it's as simple as that. I guess that's what you call irony. :-) With a life this complicated, you wouldn't expect anything to be simple.

short post

2006-09-19T20:15:00.000-04:00

Tuesdays as usual
but different now

I ran
12 mins
just over a mile
School done
for today
Why do geometry proofs have to take so long??
If I went back to my school schedule from last year that would be great
All done except electives before lunch
Hannah has more reading
and less math
than me
so I guess that's something.

No new messages
in my inbox
I guess I'll add some
To yours.

Call me if you want to
Or I just might call you.
Miracles do happen.

press on
Be brave
be strong
in all His energy.

The Post

2006-09-09T20:52:00.000-04:00

It's been a barbaric day.
This morning I cleaned my room for the first time after deep-cleaning it--I'm going to figure out a system for keeping it cleaner. Kind of like practice for having a whole house to take care of. If you can't tell by my brusque...ish tone, I'm sleepy! It's been a tiring day too.
Then, when everyone was ready, we got to go tour Timken! It was pretty cool--a neat experience. We got to see what Dad's talking about when he says "the computer room" "bottom pour" "the rolling mills." Oh! We saw his trailer and his desk. :-P The mill was LOUD and HOT but very interesting. :-D Then, we all sat around and vegged as a family for half an hour or so(at home.) And then Meg and I broke records and talked for 2 hours. And I'm still thinking of things I need to tell her!! How does that work?

Oh, and just for the record, we decided boys are snakes in the grass. I'll let her say the analogy thing (if she wants to) cuz I'll mess it up, but, boys are snakes in the grass. :-P

Abby made me get off the phone with Meg so we could skate/run again. This time, it was harder, I think cuz it was a little hotter, but we still went a little over half a mile after the usual around-the-neighborhood route. So I. Am. Tired. I think I'll go to bed after I finish this so I'll be all ready for the fall schedule to start tomorrow at church. Sunday School!

The post-Post

2006-09-09T20:09:00.000-04:00

Hey, it was either that or the other one could be the prepost. Which makes even less sense, if that's possible.

Hungry I come
To you for I know
You satisfy
________________

Can I be close to you, yeah
Can I just touch you, Lord
___________________

Turn
Your eyes
Upon Jesus
Look full
In his wonderful face
And the things
Of earth
Will grow strange
ly dim
In the light
Of his glory
And grace.
____________________

I lay my life before you
And I'm not getting up
Father how I adore you
Those words are not enough
______________________

Never under
Estimate my Jesus
When the world around you crumbles
He will be strong he will be strong.
____________________________

You
Are the Lord
The Famous One
Famous One
Great
Is your name in all the earth.
______________________

Knowing you
Jesus
Knowing you
There is
no greater thing

You're my all
You're the best
You're my joy
My righteousness
And I love you
Lord

I love you, oh Lord, my strength.

LT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2006-09-07T17:18:00.000-04:00

Yeah, I know I just got done talking about this year, but
next year
LT
July 21-28
Myrtle Beach
I'll be there.

At least, I'm 99.999999999999999999999999999% [plus a lot more nines] sure I will be.

And if we go on a mission's trip, I'll totally do that too.
:-D

I haven't posted about running for awhile...

2006-09-06T20:05:00.000-04:00

I just ran around the neighborhood with Abby. In 12 minutes. And I'm not dead. Do I feel lazy or what? Like, thinking about the fact that I'm CAPABLE of running faster than I do. Abby was even on skates and I managed to keep up with her! The thing about skates versus running is, she has more of an advantage going downhill and a bigger disadvantage going uphill.

School has begun! And my routine is looking good. Yesterday I was a little worried that I was going to get tired of structure before I really got used to it--just because it feels like there was no summer. At least as far as schoolyear habit familiarity goes. Usually I have a little trouble remembering what I write at the tops of papers, but none of that this year. Today, however, I've thought of several more interesting variations on my theme of routine--that's all it takes to keep me happy.

I'm reading a really good book in school: Shadow of the Almighty. It's about Jim Elliot and it's very good. I highly recommend it if you want some hardcore, encouraging, challenging reading material.

I think that's all for now--oh, my cactus grafting is not going well. The rubberband was too tight, so it bruised the scion, then I took it off and it's pretty much withering up because I bet the merismatic tissues got unaligned with all the rain we've been having. (Grafting is basically getting the merismatic tissue of two kinds of a plant to grow together. From my limited knowledge of merismatic tissue and stem cells, I think they're very similar--they can both grow into virtually any kind of cell.)

That's really all for now! Thanks for reading, keep fighting the only fight worth fighting! If that makes any sense.

thank you all for an awesome party...

2006-09-04T19:13:00.000-04:00

Because it was, completely, awesome. You all make me laugh and I loved spending time with you. The girls stayed up till 2 in the morning, so I'm a little bit out of it. A lot out of it. But it was terrific to stay up and play woman in the middle and watch that crazy movie. :-P I love you guys! And girls! :-P

I cleaned up from the party until...probably 12 or 1, but I don't think I got dressed till about 1:30. And then I forget what we did--at any rate, I ended up getting to watch Pride and Prejudice, which is practically the best movie ever, and yes. Now I'm all sigh-y. :-P Mrs. Darcy... At any rate (again) it's dinner time! :-D

Cactus Carnage

2006-09-01T17:09:00.000-04:00

Well, all of my cacti have some kind of bugs--mealy bugs or scale bugs. The brown one died some time ago--I think either after LT or after Meme and Pops'. Then the red one pretty much "got" the same thing and started rotting away too. The interesting thing about the red one is it's actually two cacti grafted to make one. That made me think: it's dying. It's practically dead. But only the center of the red part. All the little "sprout" bulbs around the edges aren't dying yet. So, I decided, it's dying anyway, why not graft? Again. I hope it works. Pictures:

Yeah, just to be nifty I grafted the green part onto the green part..we'll see if this works! I guess it'll be a miracle! haha! :-( and :-) I really should've taken a before picture of it. It was pretty disgusting. Let's just say, the paper towel is not wet because the table was, it was because the cactus was seeping. Eww.

hey, long time no post

2006-08-27T15:38:00.000-04:00

I love Sundays. No work. Brilliant.

"Grandma camp" was terrific and fun and...fabulous and fun and...oh yes, the food was everything I imagined and more. Wow. Yes. And it was a looooong time ago. :-P :-)

Right now, I'm looking forward to school starting. I heard that: "WHAT???" I am! I'm looking forward to not having to leave the house in the morning for babysitting. I still enjoy babysitting, but I'm really not enjoying getting up and leaving and going. I'm looking forward to a more stable routine. HA. As if our routine could ever be called stable--new craziness happens every day. For instance, I emergency babysat Friday afternoon for a lady who got a bad hair coloring job and needed to get it fixed. The girls were both napping, though, so it was really no big deal. :-)

I'm also looking forward to knowing when dance is going to be. That'll determine a lot of our schedule.

Oh! And I've been going to driving school. This coming week and last week, Mon-Fri, 6-9. It's really not as boring as everyone says it is. Sure, some of the videos are pretty corny. For instance, we had to sit through The Cat in the Hat--Child Restraint Version. That was pretty bad. But I don't know how you could drink and drive after watching a video about a crash that happened because of it. That was sad. Also, I'm still trying to figure out how to balance "not speeding" with "not getting run over."

I drove to Kara and Bea's party yesterday!...never mind the fact that it took us 15 minutes longer than it usually takes Dad. And the fact that Dad pretty much had to chant, "Keep left. Keep right. Keep going. ... Keep right. ... You're slowing down again. ... Keep right." :-P

KnB's party was super fun. How could it not be? Don't forget, if you haven't told me (or hannah, or abby) if you can come to our party next week, please do! It's next Sunday! You can come anywhere from 2-3 (or later if need be), we'll have dinner around 5:30 or 6, and then we'll kick out the guys at some point later and have the girls sleep over until Monday. We're trying to think of fun game ideas that we haven't done a million times before (don't worry, that doesn't mean mafia and ultimate are out the window, we're just trying to think of something to spice it up) so if you have any ideas, do tell!

Like I said, it's fun to have a whole day to NOT work. For instance, right at this moment, I'm very pointedly NOT cleaning my room. It really really needs it--it's at the point where I've taken everything apart, but I still need to sort things out and put it back together. :-P

Alright, I'll let you go, thanks for reading, feel free to comment, and I'll talk to you later! Luv you guys! ;-)

Buhbye...!

2006-08-13T21:18:00.000-04:00

I don't think it's totally sunk in that I'm leaving tomorrow and I won't get back for a week. No. Definitely not sunk in. Is life too busy when you don't have time to look forward to things?

Yes, it's a week of grandma camp--good food, fun activities, everyone's favorite grandma and grandpa, and yes, I might even get to sleep in a little bit and maybe check my e-mail once or twice! So I'm not even getting completely cut off from the rest of the world like LT.

I have no idea if I'm packed enough. Usually, the night before I leave I'm freaking out about getting things ready for the morning. But, this is the 5th time I've packed this year, and the paranoia has worn off. Yes, 5th. Florida, DC, Family reunion/TN&GA, LT, and "Grandma camp." Whew! And I'm not even a world traveler yet!

I think it's bedtime. Maybe. Oh, here are some SWEET lyrics that totally have to go on here.

Post LT:

I think we're going somewhere.
We're on to something good here.
Out of mind, out of state.
Trying to keep my head on straight.
I think we're going somewhere.
We're on to something good here.
There's only one thing left to do.
Drop all I have and go with You.
[Chorus:]
Somewhere back there I left my worries all behind.
My problems fell out of the back of my mind.
We're going and I'm never knowing (never knowing) where we're
going.
To go back to where I was would just be wrong.
I'm pressing on.
Pressing on, all my distress is going, going, gone. (pressing
on, pressing on)
And I won't sit back, and take this anymore.
'Cause I'm done with that, I've got one foot out the door.
And to go back where I was would just be wrong
I'm pressing on.
I think we're going somewhere.
We're on to something good here.
Out of mind, out of state.
Trying to keep my head on straight.
I think we're going somewhere.
We're on to something good here.
Adversity, we get around it.
Searched for joy, in You I found it.
You look down on me, but you don't look down on me at all.
You smile and laugh, and I feel the love you have for me.
I think we're going somewhere.
We're on to something good here, and we're gonna make it after
all.

Wow, they're like, already spaced and everything. Sweet. And, song #2, I know, I never read lyrics anyone posts either (and two songs???) but these are really good and they pretty much sum up LT and post-LT. At least read the stuff in bold and italics, ok? :-)

LT:
Feelings, inside my head
I don't know, but I'm thinking about you
Understand cuz it's so hard to tell you,
cause you already know
You already know
When it's twice as hard to realize
That I'm still trying twice as hard to satisfy
myself on my own
And I'm still waiting for things to change
Chorus:
I lay my life before you, and I'm not getting up
Father, how I adore you
Those words are not enough
Feelings, inside my head
I don't know, but I'm thinking about you
Understand cuz it's so hard to tell you, cuz you already know
Father, know I love you, and know I am wrong
Lord, please take my life
Make me your son
Make me your son
Chourus:
I lay my life before you, and I'm not getting up
Father, how I adore you
Those words are not enough
When it's twice as hard to realize
That I'm still trying twice as hard to satisfy myself on my own
And I'm still waiting for things to change
Chorus:
I lay my life before you, and I'm not getting up
Father, how I adore you
Those words are not enough

Ok, Katie has to go get ready for bed or she won't be able to run tomorrow, and she really, really, needs to.

{Isn't it cute how she refers to herself in third person?!}

I love you guys, I'll miss you, call me anyway and my mom can give you my grandparents' number cuz I don't know it off the top of my head.

Lotsa love! I'm praying for you, stay strong, remember: we're on the frontline!

The People make the Party

2006-08-12T20:40:00.000-04:00

Cuz that was seriously fun! I should seriously take a shower and seriously run tomorrow and yeah, I'm not even thinking about how bad my next piano lesson is going to be, because it'll be the only bad one before school starts. *fingers crossed* but ya, I should be taking my shower, so I'll stop now, but I just wanted to say you all rock and I can't wait to see you again tomorrow. Wow.

*jesus*
*rocks on*

This is me, trying to stay surrendered...

2006-08-10T20:16:00.000-04:00

No, this is me, pretending to get things done but not doing them because I really don't feel like doing them and they're the kinds of things that you shouldn't have to do if you don't feel like it...although that could be up for debate. I'm just dead tired and I get all *ugh* when I'm this tired. Nothing else makes me this...out of sorts. I should really just go to bed. At 8:15?

I guess if I'm really going to post I'd better not just ramble. I babysat the S's today. It was the most stressful and the most fun all in the same day...not at the same time, however. Playing Roller Coaster Tycoon with Mike and Sarah was the fun part. Trying to figure out what I'm doing and what's ok and what the kids are doing and what the kids should be doing was the stressful part. It doesn't help when they all have different versions of what's going on (and what's ok/allowed).

And now comes the tired part, being out of sorts and trying to get more of them or get into them or something like that. Didn't the phrase "out of sorts" come from all those little letters that they used for printing way back when, and they'd get out of their cases or whatever and end up being a big jumbled mess? Yeah, that fits, I'm out of sorts. :-P :-)

Everything's better in the morning...I get to get up 10 mins later. No, I'll round and say 15 mins later. Is this making any sense? Maybe I'd better stop now and do something on my to do list. I guess eventually my to-do list gets so long and hairy that I can't stand to look at it.

I'll be quiet now...press on. :-)

Hi everyone!

2006-08-07T14:44:00.000-04:00

Oh yay! go here, it's our LT church service! Wow, I'm so proud of us guys! Wow!! Ok, I'm so hyped up right now!!! I love you guys!

Like, wow

2006-07-31T14:54:00.000-04:00

God does not disappoint--Lt was AMAZING. :-) I could probably write a post that would take you an hour to read about every little detail, but I'll try to stick to the highlights.

Just to get me warmed up, I'll write about Anonymous. Almost every night, someone banged on our door. They didn't knock. BANG BANG BANG. We were like, what in the world? We discovered that somebody was leaving us gifts. There was always a note in the same capital handwriting, and it said something like, "Candles for you" or "Sorry, we thought they were journals. Enjoy!" The note was always signed -ANONYMOUS. We got planners which they thought were journals, two boxes of candles, brownie mix and an egg, cinnamon rolls in the tubes that you can get from Pillsbury (cinnabun GRANDS), and chocolates. DOVE chocolates--my favorites. We were completely stumped. We knew it had to be guys, because guys would be much more likely to buy planners without flipping through them and realizing they were journals, and it wasn't our guys. They're good liars when they have to be, but they're not THAT good! We also knew it couldn't be the Rock girls because Kara and Bea, who were staying with them, knew nothing about them and anyway we didn't think it was girls. Finally, at the end of the last night, there was an announcement: "Would the Grace Summit girls please go to the back: Anonymous has a gift for you." There were Jacob, Joey, and Alec with pink carnations for all of us!! That was so much fun, so sweet, and so inspiring. :-) I must admit, the Grace Point guys are good liars too. We were so confused. We didn't have a clue who it was. :-P

I had such a great time getting to know everyone better. It was truly a life changing week. I've said it a few times and I'm sure I'll say it a few times more, you wake up on your birthday and think, "I feel exactly the same as I did yesterday." You don't feel a year older. But I think we all feel a little older now--I can see the change in everyone. Wow.

I'm so excited to talk to the church next Sunday--to hear what everyone else has to say, too. And to do worship with everyone. I'm also really excited to see how God works through everybody and in everybody in the coming months. I think this LT is going to make a lasting difference. It's really exciting.

LT:
awesome worship
crazy boys
Kevin jumping on Caleb
crying our eyes out
using half a box of tissues
inspiring teachings
goofy announcements
BANANA MAN
we <3>
twins/triplets/quadruplets...octuplets!
Angie
Cayley
Hannah
Elysia
Rachel
Kara
Bea
Meg
Liz
Jen
Lori
Mr. Dad/H-Unit/Mr. H
Tony
Tom
Jeremiah
Caleb/C2
James
Kevin

I love you guys! You all rock and I can't wait to see you saturday!! (Or e-mail you in the coming days, or see you soon, or whatever.)

=0) :-P

Sin has lost its power
Death has lost its sting
From the grave you've risen
Victoriously!

Here I am waiting
Abide in me I pray
Here I am longing
For You.
Hide me in Your love
Bring me to my knees
May I know Jesus more and more.

Come live in me
All my life take over
Come breathe in me
And I will rise on eagle's wings.

And they're off!

2006-07-21T14:40:00.000-04:00

I'm going to post really quickly in the lull before going to Wal-Mart-- You can't go on vacation without a last trip to the store! We're leaving in less than 6 hours to go to church to drive to Columbus to get on a bus for Myrtle Beach. Oh yessss. <):-D I'm so excited I"m not even letting myself think about it or I might explode. Here comes the best week of the summer. Yeah. I don't even have anything more to say. Or I might get so excited that I'll explode. :) I'm almost all packed--everything is in the general vicinity of the bags, if not in them.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ok, if you don't know what all the excitement is about, HSLT!!! High school Leadership Training. Our entire youth group and several others from our association of churches are going to Myrtle Beach to learn about leadership etc. I CAN'T EVEN WAIT. So I'll stop thinking about it and go to Wal-Mart.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'll miss you all, when I have time to think about you!! :'(
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Adios, amigos!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh, here's the LT website, if you want to check it out!
http://hslt.tv

i have way too much to do to be posting. so I won't.

2006-07-13T18:04:00.000-04:00

life is just crazy.

2006-07-09T16:29:00.000-04:00

Well, we just got back from our week long vacation, check out Doreeeee's blog for more details. All I have to say is: Clue is seriously more fun than I ever knew before! I'm addicted. Also, food rocks. But we knew that already. And, the mosquitoes are biting me again. Right now I have a total of 7 bites, 2 of which have a tendency to swell. Not bad bad, but I haven't gotten more than 1 at a time in the last 5 years.

I seem to forget vacation completely when I get home because the "rushing around life mentality" gets shoved back on immediately. Not that that's bad, I don't really mind, I'm just submerged in life again. I think it's going to take a lot of discipline to do everything I want to accomplish, but discipline brings peace. That's just a fact. I can prove it if you challenge it. :-D

4 days of babysitting this week, ok never mind I"m not going to think about how much is going on this week. One day at a time. :-)

It's so good to be home. Vacation was seriously fun and I wouldn't exchange it for anything (except LT) but it's still so good to be home. I can't imagine leaving for more than a week.

Oh and Ted if you read this, I am endeavoring to work in piano somewhere. It's getting worked in so far! :-D Also, my aunt, whom we visited, is a piano teacher, and she said we have a really good teacher. And HER teacher said we have a really good teacher. Well, we knew that! Our family is sweet because everoyne's so musical, there's always a recital somewhere in there. There was also a "jam session" when my uncle was playing the bass, Evan was playing the drums, Anthony on electric guitar, Dad and, um...the pope's grandma? on the piano, and Aunt Lou on the keyboard. Can you say wow?

Anyway, off to praise and worhip/ice cream social night. Does it get any better than this? I don't think so.

Spontaneity is a fun word.

2006-06-25T14:48:00.000-04:00

I wouldn't be posting if I wasn't feeling spontaneous. Wait, say spontaneity. You don't say spon-ta-nay-it-ee, you say spont-nnn-a-it-ee. Wow. That's really really funny.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Anyway. This has been a pretty crazy week. I'm going to do a little research from last year about this time. Ok, August 22. I made a list of babysitting statistics. Check it out. All I have to say this time is: I babysat 3 families in 4 days for 29 hours. And did VBS in the evenings. I don't remember too much of it, actually. haha. I was still pretty tired from RELAY. See guys, I got 5 hours of sleep because I knew I would be recovering from it for a week anyway, even though I didn't stay up all night! Read Fishy's or Gina's or Dory's Xanga if you want relay details.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Today Meghan's coming over!!!! For a whole week!!! Well, probably not a whole week, because we're going to be in Atlanta this time next week. haha. Yup that's right, we're doing a TN/GA trip this year for our family trip. It should be fun. Scratch that, it WILL be fun.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ok, books everyone needs to read.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Anybodies/The Nobodies.
The Barbarian way.
There's a boy in the girl's bathroom. Sounds immature, I know, and it was written for kids who are younger than I am, but I still really liked it.
Small Steps. Decent book. you don't have to read this one. if you don't want to. The rest are all mandatory if you want to be my friend. Haha, just kidding. :O)
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm wearing a new outfit. Or did. To church this morning. And, I'm wearing a new outfit to YOUTH GROUP tonight. I'm adding more blue and green into my wardrobe. I love the thrift store. You'd think we spend thousands of dollars on clothes, if you look at how many new things we get, but when every item costs about 3 bucks.... and when your mother trash picks--I mean recycle bin picks--I mean recycle bin peeks-- for coupons...like I said, I love the thrift store.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And. I don't know what else to say. So the spontnnnneity wore off. Byez!

Hi, guess who...me again!!

2006-06-12T17:22:00.000-04:00

I guess I don't really have to post if I have nothing to say...oh yeah, I ran around the neighborhood twice this morning--13 mins and 16 mins. Let's just say I was pretty tired the second time. I felt awesome the first time, I could've run really fast if my lungs had just cooperated. They weren't so awesome.

Youth group last night was spectacular, we did a scavenger hunt--mostly scavenging in Jason and Angie's house, but that worked out alright because we could return things. =0) Well, my team (and my half of my team) mostly looked for common things in their house. It was quite fun to just hang out, but yall were right, I do think too much!! Haha! I drove there and back; it was nice to have somewhere to go that wasn't just driving around aimlessly. It'll be a happy day when I can turn smoothly, though!

And today we went shopping for dad, but we all got something for us (of course!!) I got a pair of socks with monkeys and bananas that say "Go Bananas" on them. ILOVEUM. And I got foundation that I can actually use. =0)

I think I'll keep this shortish, one cuz I can't think of anything else to say and two because I still need to practice piano and send several e-mails--both of which I fully intend to do today!!

eh...alrighty then...send me an e-mail, leave me a comment, IM me, give me a call, y'know. =0) Y'all rock! Luv ya!

Oh, and comment on Hannah's xanga. You all forgot about her. Dudes. http://www.xanga.com/theultimatelove or http://doryack.blogspot.com Either is fine, they say the same thing. =-D But you have to have a xanga account to comment on xanga. *=0)

quick checking in...:-D

2006-06-06T20:17:00.000-04:00

Today I did a lot of cleaning. Cleaning the K's house (she paid us A RIDICULOUS amount of money, but we're grateful :-) and cleaning out closets for the garage sale. Oh, and my piano lesson today went quite well, surprisingly...I don't know why I was expecting it to be so bad...haha. AND Dad told my piano teacher my blog address, so welcome Ted! haha! I like having new people read my blog. :-D Maybe if I have Gina AND Ted reading I can talk about piano more, since it might interest some of the audience. haha. Not Gina Ted's wife, Gina...um...James' girlfriend. :-D But somehow I wouldn't be surprised if they knew each other. It would be surprising, but it's a small world.

Anyway, I'm kicking off babysitting tomorrow in a grand fashion--9ish hours. Lovely. But it'll be fun. And the garage sale is this weekend, most of which I'm missing, because once again, I'll be babysitting. :) And right now, Katie has to check out her SAT course. One of the balls to juggle, you know. You guys rock! *mwah*

Dudes and dudettes awaken...

2006-06-05T18:57:00.000-04:00

So I guess I'm joining the circus this summer. Where else would you juggle a million and two balls while trying to keep everything balanced (on a high wire)?

Oh yeah, my life. *:0p

The title mostly refers to the fact that NO ONE (except my sister, of course) has commented, despite the fact that you were all clamoring for me to post...haha

In other news, tomorrow I'm going to have the worst piano lesson of my high school career, and there really isn't anything I can do about it. Yeah, that is as depressing as it sounds. Like, seriously, Hannah's more ready for her lesson and she just had one. So. Yeah. This whole summer, no-school thing has me really wrong footed, hence less practicing. What happened to my routine?? What happened to my predictability?? I guess you could say my boat just got rocked and it'll simply take awhile for it to stop and for me to get my balance. At least, I hope so. And I hope I do nothing to further rock the boat. We shall see...luv you guys!!!! *hugs and kisses* (e-hugs, not air hugs! haha, Kay! :-D) *mwah*

Oh and let's not forget that we still get Harry Potter and Ice cream at night--some things never change--at least, not along with everything else.;-)

Ok, really truly now...

2006-06-03T12:12:00.000-04:00

Right, I don't know why this week has been SO crazy, but it has. Well, just a lot of things that mean I"m not on the computer, like a rummage sale, which took 6 or 7 hours, the dance rehearsal, which took 3 or 4 (or 5 or 6--haha, jk) hours, and baking for the rummage/bake sale, which took 1 or 2 hours, haha I'll stop now. Oh, and a PAR-TAY, which took 3 or 8 hours, depending on when you left. *:0) Maybe I'll just post about all of those.

The party was so awesome! If you couldn't come, don't worry, we're definitely going to try to do that again (at least I am, haha), and if you could come, thanks for making it SO MUCH FUN. We basically played 4 hours of Mafia, an hour or so of Ultimate Frisbee (which ROCKED) and ate and talked and ate some more. And then later we played Apples to Apples. Muy divertido. Oh, and I think it should probably be recorded on my blog that I won my first ever (and probably only) game of Mafia where I was the Mafia!! I had to totally lie to Hannah's face, but that's the only time I'll lie (or kill, haha), so it's ok! I finally had enough practice being a townsperson to know what I'm like when I'm a townsperson. That way I could act like it without looking suspiciously different than usual.

Let's see, the dance rehearsal--I wouldn't call it "fun," but it was enjoyable. I love seeing everyone's dances, you all looked awesome! lylas! Everyone looks a lot more grown-up than last year. I still don't feel like I'm completely ready, but I think we'll do ok. I wasn't as nervous as I've been at past dance rehearsals, I think I'm not taking it as seriously. It'll be serious for the recital, though! Like, I guess what I mean is I don't feel like it's the end of the world if I mess up, just really disappointing.

Bake/Rummage sale: It went really well, we made an amazing amount of money, considering that I think the biggest amount any one customer spent was about $9. I think it was because business was slow but steady all day; I think there was a customer there the entire time except for the beginning and ending hours. I think too much. Hopefully things are going as well (or better) today, on day 2.
I baked banana chocolate chip muffins on Thursday for the bake sale, and you probably won't believe this, considering that I make them all the time, but it was the first time I've ever made them without Mom helping! haha! She usually puts them in the oven and/or washes dishes, you see. And then I made some oatmeal chocolate chip cookie batter (Abby helped :0) )and she helped us bake them after she got back from shopping. :-D

I can't believe school's over! Well, it's not truly over until Mom quizzes me on history questions and MY REPORT IS DONE. And then I'll start SAT/ACT courses and stuff, so I guess school's never really over, but, all the same...I'm still half-considered a junior now! I won't think about that for now...too weird! Oh, and since Copley doesn't get out for a few more days, James, Gina, Cayley and I can all be considered juniors at once! haha!

SUMMERTIME!!! wow............... ........................ IT'S GONNA SO TOTALLY ROCK, DUDE! I'm super super superrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!! looking forward to LT! I can't wait to get to know Bruce and Fishy better and meet all of Meg's friends (again) and have Angie going along (why have we always known more about LT than our leaders?? lol) and I really hope the guys can find a leader! I know they will in the end. :-) We should totally have a pre-LT lock-in/sleepover thing, maybe just for the girls!!!!!!!! I'm glad Gina can come too!!!!! yippeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm super super excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Like, super super!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(this is abby just standing by and she uses lots and i mean lots of exclamation points!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) WELL YEAH! IT'S LT! :-D I don't know how I'm going to make it another, um, 48 ish days!!! YIPPEEEEE!!

Ok, I should probably reply to allayall's e-mails now!LYLAS! *:0)

fake post, made ya look.

2006-05-29T21:55:00.000-04:00

I'll post soon! Like, guaranteed before Thursday and probably sooner, but I can't guarantee sooner. =-> I've just been partying all weekend and I haven't been up here on the computer much because it's been so hot upstairs, especially in the computer room because it generates so much heat. But I'll get on the ball tomorrow or Wednesday, answer my e-mails, get back on track.

I must say though, (so maybe this isn't such a fake post,) I've had so much fun partying this weekend! Sunday was awesome, I haven't gotten to just hang out and have fun like that for tooooo long! So thank you thank you everyone who could come, and everyone who couldn't, call me/e-mail me/talk to me and we'll get together! :-D Then today was second verse, same as the first, but this time with family and shopping. :-D And a little less mafia--ok, no mafia. But sunday definitely made up for it. =->

Enough of a post for you? I gotta go to bed, so I hope so!

LAUGH.

2006-05-12T21:17:00.000-04:00

http://www.whiteboydj.com/babygotbook.html

go here, it's so funny...if you like rap, I guess. The funny thing is my Bible's pretty small. But it's getting "worn and torn."

The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly I

2006-05-08T20:47:00.000-04:00

The Good

We went to DC for 4 days! I'll try not to include every little morbid detail, but I am going to include quite a lot of them, so bear with me, because this is going to be a LONG series of posts.

Thursday: We drove in, which was really pretty boring and I have nothing to say about it except three things. 1. We listened to Magician’s Nephew on CD—very interesting, what with all the allegory. 2. I did about 3 Sudokus. 3. A vacation is not a vacation without coke icees!! They rock!

Thursday evening we drove into DC and went to a bunch of memorials: The Washington Monument, which is HUGE. I mean, HUGE. When you get up close to it and look up, you pretty much can’t see anything else. I really liked how you could see it from everywhere.
Then we made our way to the WW2 memorial, which was really cool: lots of fountains and running water, and pillars with all of the states’ names on them. I liked how they had famous quotes from that time all over it too. There were Middle schoolers (probably 8th graders) EVERYWHERE.
We hiked up to the Korean war memorial, which has statues of men in gear with really expressive looks on their faces. There was also a sort of fountain, a flat fountain I guess, with “Freedom is not free” above it.
Next on the route was dear old Abe. The Lincoln memorial is really huge! Ginormous! Again, there were tons of school kids, and so many flashing cameras you would’ve thought Lincoln was a celebrity on the red carpet! Hannah and I acted out the scene from National Treasure that’s on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and just as we were both saying, “Not SHOULDN’T, be done, it CAN’T, be done,” a gaggle of girls walked up and asked if they could get a picture with us. “Uh, sure…?” Our best guess is either that they were doing a scavenger hunt (not likely) or that they wanted a picture with the crazy girls re-enacting National Treasure (not very likely either).
Then we went to the Vietnam Memorial, with the looooooooong wall. It was ridiculously long. With an incomprehensible number of names, it was just too much to even take in, much less to imagine all the men and all the families.
That was pretty much Thursday.

Comment at will. :-D

The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly II

2006-05-08T20:46:00.000-04:00

Friday

We rode the metro in to DC. It wasn’t a smooth ride, but at first I couldn’t tell when we went up or down or turned corners, just because it was so wobbly the rest of the time too. I also got very good at riding escalators in and out of the metro stations. Some of you may not know this, but I used to be afraid of riding escalators, especially down. Once when I was little I stepped on with one foot and not the other and almost fell down the steps, so I haven’t liked them too much since.
We started out the day at the American History Museum. It was a lot more interesting, since we had just read all about most of this stuff. We saw a copy of the Declaration, one of the original 30 or something. It was very interesting, because it was a lot clearer than the real one and you could examine it at your leisure. We also saw videos about the presidents, very interesting, especially one that interviewed the last few presidents about the presidency—Ford, Bush Sr., Reagan, Clinton, etc. I think I forgot one. Anyway, we started making our way to the Capitol after eating at Subway, but we made quite a few detours on the way. We stopped at the National Archives and saw the real Declaration and the Constitution, etc. They were amazingly faded, I mean, I know they’re 250 years old and all, but having just seen a copy I didn’t expect them to be so weathered. We walked through a bit of the National Gallery of Art, which was really exciting—we saw so many of the pictures we’ve seen in books. Like, Renoir’s A Girl with a Watering Can, and one of a dancer; two of Monet’s Rouen Cathedral Series, a Japanese bridge, and a sunset. There was also a whole exhibit of Cezanne that had a mile long line the next day—we just buzzed through and didn’t think it was all that impressive. What was the other exciting one? Hmm, can’t remember. Oh, Renoir's Oarsmen at Chateu or something like that, names don't mean much to me! We did see Cassat’s painting of the two chubby toddlers playing in the sand on the beach, that one was cool.
Anyway, we walked past the white house too. It would be SO. WEIRD. to live there.
I think those are all of our detours. When we finally made it to the Capitol, we just sat on the wall in front of it and looked at it and ate our snacks and relaxed awhile. I quite liked that part of the day.

We took the metro back to the hotel and ate a small dinner at Applebee’s. Nothing too extraordinary.

Keep going! I suggest you read these one a day, or you're going to get bored. haha. I don't expect any extraordinary commments, but I would like to know who all read this! You get extra Katie points if you do!

The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly III

2006-05-08T20:45:00.000-04:00

Saturday:
Second verse, same as the first, a little bit longer and…about the same. :-D This time we started at the Air and Space Museum, saw the Spirit of St. Louis and some cool exhibits on the Planets. Then we started wandering around DC again, usually with a purpose. I can’t really remember what order we did these in, but we went back to the Art museum to see Georgia O’Keeffe paintings. We just finished studying her. We also saw Leonardo da Vinci’s Ginevra de Benci, which I’ve also examined in a book. It’s a portrait of a bored looking girl, the only Leonardo portrait in America. It was pretty cool—it didn’t look like a painting, but neither like a photograph. Georgia O’Keeffe’s were SO COOL. They were the Jack-in-the-Pulpits, 2-6. They were HUGE. I really like her style of painting. If I painted, which I don’t intend to, my style would be like hers a bit or a lot.

We visited the Botanical Gardens, mostly because we ended up there. That was pretty cool, to see all those different plants in one place, and all different places too—a jungle in one room, and a desert in the next. Needless to say, I loved seeing all the sweet cacti in the desert room. The flowers were GORGEOUS, definitely worth the stop.

We went to the Natural History museum and saw a million animals. I don’t know how God thought of all of them! That was pretty sweet, and then we went to the gems and stones section and saw the Hope diamond, which was spectacular for a diamond but nothing compared to all the sparkling crystals in the next exhibit! Those were seriously magnificent, I don’t care if they’re pretty common, they were huge and sparkly. Some were just giant jewel-type-things, some were plain looking rocks that had a portion cut away to show the crystals coating the inside (never judge a rock by its cover). Some looked like mini sculptures, like something you’d see on the streets of DC (they have these random, abstract sculptures every few blocks). One looked like a painting of a tree, surprisingly enough. I really really liked that section.

After the Natural History museum, we were about done in, so we went back to the American History museum to sit outside and rest like we did at the capitol on Friday. That was quite nice too; we bought an ornament at the last second from the gift shop so that we’ll have something to remember our trip by every year. We stopped at Arlington Cemetery on the way home, it’s a stop on the metro so it was right on our way. It was about to close, so we only stayed 15 minutes and didn’t get very far in at all, but the amount of headstones and crosses was still astounding. Especially when you imagined a man standing in place of each one, that is a multitude of people.

Sunday:
We had only a couple more things we wanted to see: The FDR memorial, and the Thomas Jefferson memorial. Like so many other things on this trip, we stumbled across the George Mason memorial as well. He drafted the Articles of Confederation, which was the pre-government of America that didn’t work out so well. The FDR memorial was quite nice, quotes and waterfalls everywhere. I think he probably would’ve rolled over in his grave if he knew how much it cost, I think it was something like $42 million. I could have that completely wrong, but I think it sounds right.
That was our awesome amazing superlative trip to DC. The weather was wonderful the whole time!! Everything worked perfectly, without even having any major disasters!

The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly IV

2006-05-08T20:43:00.000-04:00

The Bad

Our feet hurt so badly by the end of each day! Hence the sitting around at the Capitol and History Museum. My back also started to hurt on Saturday, just a little bit. By Sunday we were quite ready to sit in the car for the long trip home, listening to The Magician’s Nephew and the beginning of the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. And eating more Icees. But that was the only bad (and also unavoidable) thing in our trip.

The Ugly

I haven’t run or driven in almost two weeks! I was going to run tonight, but when we went for a walk and my legs and back started to hurt again, I decided to write this novel instead. So the next time I run it’ll be Wednesday, and I won’t be driving till after that.

I also need a haircut—nothing major, just a trim! You won’t even be able to tell! Well, Bea will, haha!

So, my life's going well, trying to get back on track and catch up with everyone. I've heard about youth group and church from several people, but I'll ask again, how did they go? If you've already answered once, you don't have to answer again. Love you guys, talk to you later! Call me or e-mail!
(If you read all this, you win the Katie Prize of the Week. :-D There’s no reward, just my gratitude. :-D)

Driving and Running, Driving and Running

2006-04-20T16:31:00.000-04:00

Last night we ended up driving. It was fun, but I never think it's fun until afterwards because during I'm so tense! But it went pretty well, I didn't hit any mailboxes or cars or cats or pedestrians. =0D AND at the end I went on the expressway(as seen below)! Just for like, a mile and a half, but it was still kind of freaky. lol.

And then this morning I went for a run, just around the neighborhood once with no cul-de-sacs. 13 mins. Not bad, considering I haven't run in almost a week, but not good, considering when I did run a week ago it only took 12 mins. Well, last week I ran by myself thursday (that was the 12 minute route) and then on Friday Dad, Hannah and I ran around twice. That one was closer to a mile route, which was about 10 and 14 mins, I think.

Anyway, I have to keep moving but I felt like posting a short little something. =0D

CHRIS WAS IN THE BOTTOM 3!!!

2006-04-19T21:43:00.000-04:00

WHO NEEDS A BOYFRIEND

TO HAVE INTENSE

EMOTIONAL INVOLVEMENT

PROBLEMS WHEN YOU

DRIVE ON THE

EXPRESSWAY

FOR THE FIRST TIME AND

WATCH AMERICAN IDOL'S

RESULTS SHOW ALL IN

THE SAME NIGHT???

HEY PEOPLES

2006-04-19T17:22:00.000-04:00

Guess what?????

Huh? I don't know.

2 exciting things:

1. Angie and Jason are having a baby!!!!
2. I had SO MUCH FUN last night! We had a 40 Days small group party, and Elysia, Hailee and Erin, plus their cousin Emily, plus me and my sisters, played APPLES TO APPLES. It was rocking awesome. I was in a really weird mood though...I think I was just high on life from actually getting to have fun with my buddies. Which would explain the raucous singing of Home on the Range...

GET YOUR HSLT APPLICATION NOW! It takes longer than 10 mins to fill out, unless of course you have a photocopy of what you sent in last year, in which case just white out the age and send it in again...I don't, but it's not a bad idea. www.hslt.tv. do it now.

Oh and this is the post that all the people who read my blog but don't comment have to comment. If you read this, take 30 seconds and comment. You click on "__ comments" at the bottom, and then you have two choices: you can either be anonymous, but sign your name, or you can be "other." I don't care what you comment (I recommend a sweet smiley face o algo en espanol) just say something! :-D

If you can't tell I'm a little boisterous at the moment...well, let me just tell you, you wouldn't be able to see it by looking at me! I look like a bump on a ...desk chair, with really fast moving fingers.

Dance tonight. There are actually few enough weeks left that you could count down pretty easily. Speaking of which

UNDER 100 DAYS TILL LT! SO GET YOUR FORMS IN! AND GET READY TO WORK HARD AND EARN SOME MONEY!

So I should probably go outside and run or something. It's too hot to run! I should run today, but I don't see when I'll have time, because we're eating soon and then I'll have dance. Maybe possibly afterwards, if I don't drive. Driving or running...possibly neither...because AI's on. We still haven't watched the last 3 people. *sigh* somebody good's going to get kicked off...unless it's Ace...in which case I won't shed I tear. I told you I'm not your average girl! lol.

I'll stop rambling and let you resume your average, normal, uncrazified lives now. Oh wait, "average"="crazified." Hmm.

Don't forget to comment! =0D

2006-04-12T17:15:00.000-04:00

So what I'm not your average girl
I don't meet the standards of this world
Chasing after boys is not my thing
See I'm waiting for a wedding ring

No more dating
I'm just waiting
Like Sleeping Beauty
My prince will come for me
No more dating
I'm just waiting
'Cause God is writing my love story

Boys are bad; that's certainly not true
'Cause God's preparing one for you
If you get tired waiting till he comes
God's arms are the perfect place to run

Sleep - that's the only thing for me
'Cause when I sleep God's preparing one for me

All the Prince Charmings go after enchanted princesses. Who ever heard of a Prince Charming who didn't go hunt down a princess who was locked up in a tower or in an enchanted sleep? He wouldn't have to hunt her down, if she wasn't locked up in a tower, and that would take all the fun out of it. And the drama out of the story. :-D So stay in the tower, ladies. :)

Warning, drama ahead. It comes with the dragon.

If that didn't make any sense, I'll revise it...lol. Just think about the analogy between a fairy tale and nowaday's "romance."

Leme explain...no, there is too much to 'splain. Leme sum up.

2006-04-06T21:01:00.000-04:00

Try running with a limited supply of oxygen, small and infrequent sips of water, and a small meals at weird times that leave you hungry. That's what the past 4 days have been like. QT's (oxygen) have been rushed because I've been sleeping in to make up for not getting enough sleep (small meals). And then I haven't talked to my friends for a decent amount of time all week--lots of water is recommended. If that doesn't make sense, read it over again slowly, and that's just proof of what I'm trying to say.

So somehow there were two Tuesdays this week, and I'm hoping Thursday gets skipped because they're not usually all that great anyway. Today was the equivalent of a Wednesday, if that makes any sense. Wednesday was the second Tuesday, because we were in the Falls all day, from 10 mins after I finished school to bedtime. Past bedtime. So I'm way behind on sleep. And I've had a cold. Not a bad one, but that doesn't matter, I've still only been about 80% of my normal self. If that. Seems like I've been so worried about all the little details I've forgotten about the essentials! Well, I haven't forgotten, I just haven't stayed totally focused and so I run out of time. But hopefully things will go back to normal, Friday will be Friday and not Thursday....

Oh, here's what Wednesday looked like--I don't have time to edit it, so I hope it makes sufficient sense. This is what my away message was, before Dad turned off the computer, at any rate.

We're going to a friend's grandma's calling hours tonight at five for a little bit, dropping dad off at a country-music-station music-survey at 6, and getting dinner somewhere. Then Hannah, Mom and I occupy ourselves for half an hour (ended up being Goodwill, I got a purse and a belt, $3 total!) before my dance class at 7, Hannah's piano lesson at 7:30, I get picked up at 8 and Hannah at 8:30, but our piano teacher'll run late. Then we pick up dad. Sometime, no one knows quite when. Hopefully before Hannah so that we won't have to wait around some more. So that's what I'm doing, and yes it is as crazy as it sounds!

Night all. :-D

2006-04-01T19:16:00.001-05:00

So I found shoes. No, the choir didn't sing a celestial chord, nor did the spotlight shine down from heaven. A better picture of the experience would be, "Survivor, Shoe Edition." I haven't shopped for tennishoes for probably 5 years. My current shoes are perfect, besides being old and scruffy and having absolutely no support whatsoever. And wouldn't you know it, they were given to us by a neighbor. That's about as close to the choir/spotlight experience as it gets. I think these ones will be good, especially after I break them in.

I really am going to run tonight! Really really! But I have to digest my dinner first, or I'll get a killer sidestitch again. Unfortunately, it's getting too dark to run outside. Oh well. If I run on the treadmill I can test out the new shoes without fear of finding better ones somewhere else and not being able to return these. Life gets so much more complicated when no sale is final. That's why I love the thrift store so much. Ok, that's not the ONLY reason.

Our grandparents were over, as most of you know, and boy were we indulged. And indulged. And indulged. We went out to lunch twice (Brownie obsession and oreo madness are THE BEST). We bought easter outifts. They brought all kinds of baked goods and treats you can imagine, courtesy of Amish Door. Pops got us Harry Potter y el caliz de fuego. I think. The 4th HP in Spanish, at any rate. Pops got Hannah set up with all the drawing stuff she needs to start a business. Doing what, I don't know.

Easter Shopping: I, of course, had to be the problem child. :) Hannah and Abby picked out, tried on, and decided on outfits in about half an hour. I tried on each outfit at least twice and agonized over every single one. We also discovered I'm an optimist in just about everything except trying things on. Especially when I'm not in the mood for it, and I kind of wasn't. It helps if I look forward to it for a few days, I suppose, and we just decided that morning. Also, my logic is, when you're trying stuff on it's immediately eliminated if you find something wrong with it, and it just causes more heartache to let things go if you've picked out all the wonderful things about the outfit. But, true, that's still no reason to decide that shoes will give you blisters when you only have one on and haven't walked around in them yet. I'm going to try to add a little more bright blue and green to my wardrobe, too. There's nothing wrong with them, I just filled up on pink, yellow and orange before I remembered them. In the end, I got a cute outfit which you'll see on Easter. :-)

Well, I guess I'll leave myself some time to check blogs and xangas before I run. ttfn!

2006-04-01T19:16:00.000-05:00

late night posting is prohibited

2006-03-29T22:07:00.000-05:00

but I really feel like the day's not over yet. I don't know why. I had my DELICIOUS treat. Well, I'll probably just keep getting more and more melancholy the longer I stay up. One needs one's sleep when one runs around the neighborhood twice. Yeah, I did. Yeah, it hurt. Well, the first time I went with Hannah and it was pretty easy for me and she was in pain, then the second time I went with Abby and it was easy for her and I was in pain. Well, she was on skates, and it was my second time.

Tomorrow is another day. I love how the slate gets wiped clean every night.

Every day is a second chance
The start of a divine romance
Take a breath and jump
Right in...

Gotta love ZOEgirl. :-D

No more philosophy! :0)

2006-03-27T15:24:00.000-05:00

SPRING BREAK!!! Today I have done absolutely nothing. Well, that's not technically correct. I helped Mom with the project we were planning on doing, which I--ooh, I should move my cacti into the sun. Brb. Okay. I was looking at a picture of them last night from April, last April. It's in my first batch of pictures. They looked so squashed! They've definitely stretched out over the summer and winter--the summer probably made them taller, and the winter definitely made them pointier. But about the project, we got it all done today and it looks awesome! If you forget what I said we'd be doing on spring break, e-mail me. The secrecy is for the benefit of my grnadma, just in case she reads it. My grandparents are coming over Wednesday and we want it to be a surprise.

THINGS TO DO ON SPRING BREAK (at least, after you get bored of mindless video games. Wait, that's impossible. Ok.)
REVISION:
THINGS TO DO ON SPRING BREAK SO THAT YOU WON'T PLAY TOO MANY MINDLESS VIDEO GAMES:

Go outside and read a book, exercise, or admire your gorgeous cacti.
Catch up on your 40 Days reading (0r better yet, read the Bible. Try Esther, it's hilarious). In case you actually did fall behind, today is day 30. 3/4 of the way through!
Help someone with something (after all, this week is on serving).
Read a good book. Ask me if you don't know what's good.
Think of more things to add to this list, because I forgot the rest.

I also forgot what else I was going to write about. lol. Why does that always happen???

Well, thank you, youth group, for being amazing! You all rock so much! :-D Talk to you soon!

A little more running:

2006-03-26T22:34:00.000-05:00

So just for the fun of it I was looking over some April 05 posts, and I apparently started running about the same time as I started my blog--which is weird, because it doesn't seem like it's been that long. But I've cut 10 minutes off my time for a mile! in a year...

Growing Into Large Shoes (and running)

2006-03-26T21:53:00.000-05:00

So apparently I can run a mile in less than 13 mins, because I did it twice this week. Even if it was something like 12:58 and 12:50...lol. Dad says our miles are weird, anyway--like they're a little longer than a real mile. "Our miles" being, the one on the treadmill and running once around the neighborhood. But I guess that's good. Maybe I'll be surprised when I run a real mile. lol. Oh and James, if you have some kind of running plan (the one I"m loosely pursuing at the moment would probably work) that works with running twice a week, that would work for me. :-D

Alright, now to the bulk of the post. :-D
I've been having an e-mail conversation with Bea about the concept of growing into your own shoes. I'll try to make this make sense even though I'm half asleep.

Everyone has two of themselves--who they are and who they want to be (or are supposed to be). You're always measuring them against each other, even if it's mostly sub-consciously. Maybe not every second of every day, but there are times when you evaluate them.

I'm going to use the example of who you're supposed to be first, because it applies directly to me at this point in my life. It'll be more like, who I could be or who I will be soon. It can mostly be summed up in these words: a normal teenager. One who drives, goes places with her friends without adults or parents, one who has a job. I don't feel old enough for any of that! But I am, and the knowledge that I am old enough gives me a little nudge to become that "normal teenager." Because I'm supposed to do any or all of those things, I'll step into the shoes of the "normal teenager," and then I'll grow into them. When the little, younger voice inside me says, "You're not old enough to drive, you're not old enough to be independent," I'll say back to it, "That doesn't matter, that's who I am now." And even though the shoes don't fit, I'll force myself to grow into them, because they're my new shoes and the old ones are gone.

The same thing applies to spiritual growth. We learned at the first LT that we've become new people, that God sees us as the new creation we've become through him. When we do something contrary to this new person, (which is bound to happen) we're not acting like the new selves we've become. We're acting like our old selves, we're trying to fit back into the shoes we've outgrown. So when the little voice of the old person says to us, "You get angry when s/he does that for the third time in one week, so that's how you need to react," we can say back, "No, that's not who I am anymore. I'm a new person, I react with patience and forgiveness." You step into the new shoes. And eventually, they'll fit. It's the same for any trait you want to develop, you simply tell yourself that you have it, act like you have it even though it feels unnatural, and pretty soon it'll become natural. I hope that makes sense, because it's an amazing concept. :-)

And I'm about to fall asleep. So I guess it's time to go to bed, because I can't type straight anymore. Sarah stayed and had ice cream with us, which was good, but now it's late. But we get to sleep in tomorrow. :-D

Driving!

2006-03-25T16:50:00.000-05:00

I got my temps today! The questions were pretty easy, and the sweet part is if you skip questions and then get 30 right before you get to them, you don't have to do them, which was nice. Dad let me drive through the neighborhood on the way home. It was...interesting to say the least. Let's just say I can drive legally, but not literally. I did alright with getting up to the speed limit and staying mostly straight...even if I was sort of in the middle of the road. Well, hugging the center line. If there had been one. But the turns were definitely interesting, I recommend you discover where the turn signal is before you're instructed to use it. Dad did the left turn signal for me the first time, and then when I came to a right turn I did the same thing on the right. The windshield wipers went on. lol. But I made it home without running into anything. Let's see if I make it to the house I'm babysitting at tonight. Oh dear. I better get ready to go. :-D Pray hard, lol!

Part One--Thoughts sprouted from the Scopes trial

2006-03-23T10:21:00.000-05:00

In school, we just read about the Scopes trial and this morning I read the history notes about it and it got my brain working. I apologize profusely, but you're about to get the results. :-D

How should Evolution be taught in schools? It's not fair NOT to teach it, and it's not fair to teach it more than other theories of the way the world was started. But there's so much of it, that it would be extremely difficult to give an equal amount of time to Creation--not to mention every other religion and culture's ideas and stories of how the world began. However, it's also not fair to teach it as truth. It's still just a theory, and a flawed one, as many theories are. Evolutionists should be willing to teach the evidence for and against evolution. And then of course it would be nice if they taught evidence for and against Christianity. I don't mind putting "and against" in italics for Christianity because I've heard the evidence for the Bible's truth and I've heard some evidence against it; I think it can hold its own.

I know it's impossible to have a totally fair teacher--everyone has their own opinions, and those will sway the way you teach and think and write. But couldn't it be possible to have some Christian and Evolutionist scientists write a textbook that would be fair?

People shouldn't be taught blindly, "This is what you should think, anything else is wrong." That doesn't happen often--or as far as I've seen (and I'll tell you right now, my view of the world is probably a little warped from only seeing a tiny bit of it. At least, my view of what all those people out there think and do.) But I get the idea that what does happen is you aren't given alternative views to evaluate and choose for yourself. The ideal utopian school would teach all the views possible and have all the evidence in the light--even evidence against or for other certain pieces of evidence. That would never happen, human nature doesn't take being wrong kindly, and I can imagine that people presenting their side of the story could get nasty in defense--or offense, as happened at the Scopes trial. Embarrassing questions will always be asked in a debate.

Individual people are much more likely to discover the truth if they look for it thoroughly, instead of just having everything handed to them on a silver platter for them to sort through. The trick is then looking for it thoroughly, and making sure that all the evidence stays out there. As long as all sides of the story are open to anyone willing to look for them, and people are encouraged to find out the truth for themselves--that's democratic enough for me. It doesn't solve how evolution should be taught in a classroom, but I'm no rocket scientist!

Part Two--Thoughts sprouted from the Scopes trial

2006-03-23T10:19:00.000-05:00

Ok, one more thing before I get back to school--haha, "back to," this is kind of what homeschooling's all about.
This is a copy of a copy of a quote, so a few things may get lost in translation, but: From Darwin's Descent of Man, "With savages the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly inurious the the race of man."

Sound a little like Hitler to you?? In a country that provides the right for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all, of course we protect the rights of the weak! The question is whether the goal is to have amazing people who are strong and resistent to disease, or to have amazing people who are strong in mind. Theodore Roosevelt was a weak and sickly kid--but he read about a book a day for his entire life, started working out, and grew up into a big, strong, good president. Fortunately in America, that's the way it works for those who are willing to work hard and improve themselves. In America, everyone has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of satisfaction in life--my definition of happiness. :-D

POST NUMBER 200!!!!!!!!

2006-03-16T17:47:00.000-05:00

Confetti, party, horn thingies, balloons, whoohoo! Ok, so I admit the main reason that I have 200 posts is that I used to post pictures separately, but still!

Some other interesting computer communication facts:

In the past 5 years, since 11/14/2001, I have received 2064 e-mails, and the number goes up by about 100 every week. This is also augmented by all my blog comments, and the fact that Kara and Bea send me at least 4 at least every other day. However, that doesn't include junk mail. Ha!

In the past month, since 2/15, I've SENT 214 messages. Add about 90 every week. :-D

Well, Abby's breathing down my neck, I guess I'll go read the driver's ed booklet thingy. However, I would like to warn you all that Hannah's haircut is way more noticeable than mine. And you have no idea that she got her hair cut, ok? it's a complete surprise. Mine's mostly just cleaned up, it was getting...yeah, you know how it was getting.

And again, happy 200th post everyone!

I've been tagged!

2006-03-16T16:44:00.000-05:00

Seven things to do before I die:
1. Learn how to do a backwalkover, drive, and cook. :-D
2. Visit and/or live in a Spanish speaking country
3. Get married to Prince Charming--no, not the one from Shrek 2. Never. 4. And have kids too.
5. Go to college
6. Work with kids
7. Point someone/lead someone to Christ

Seven things I cannot do:
1. A backwalkover, cook, and drive :0)
2. Run a mile in less than 13 minutes
3. Sing the melody when the harmony's in my range
4. Forget to check my e-mail on a weekday
5. Write a book (I could edit one though)
6. Eat dessert quickly
7. Go a day without chocolate

Seven things that attract me to a guy:
1. Loves God with all his heart soul mind strength etc.
2. Loves people just about that much
3. Servant
4. Totally commited to God and people
5. Treats girls respectfully, especially girls in his family
6. Treats everyone else respectfully for that matter, especially his parents
7. I can't think of another thing which is weird cuz I had 7 last night cuz I knew I'd be doing it today and I've thought of new ones too...lol

Seven things I say:
1. how are you?
2. oh my goodness
3. oh my word
4. what in the world...?
5. ¿...Qué in el mundo...?
6. that´s weird...
7. wweeeeeeiirrrdd.

Seven books I love:
1. The Bible
2. Peter Pan
3. Ella enchanted
4. Any Harry Potter
5. Any by Andrew Clements
6. Hope was Here
7. The View from Saturday
8. Anything by Kate DiCamillo

Seven movies I like pretty well:
1. Princess Bride
2. Pirates of the Carribean
3. Finding Neverland
4. Jonah, a veggie tales movie
5. Cinderella Story
6.Because of Winn Dixie
7. Court Jester

Seven people I tag to do the same:
1. Hannah
2. Bruce
3. Caleb
4. Gina
5. Hailee
6. Erin
7. Ian...although I doubt he´ll do it...

Ok caleb, you´ve been tagged twice now...:-D