Like, wow

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!

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.

life is just crazy.

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.

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!!

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

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...

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...

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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!!!

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

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

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.

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

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!

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!

late night posting is prohibited

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)

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:

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)

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!

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

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

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!!!!!!!!

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!

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

youth group and life

So I just got home from youth group, and we totally rock.

I

LOVE

MY

YOUTH

GROUP

Yall totally...just rock.

Yeah, now that I'm here I completely forget what I was going to write about. So I'll say it again: I love you guys!

and, now the life part, I got my haircut, mom idid it , I love it, ummmm, the ribbon festival went as well as could be expected, so I"m happy bout that, and if I don't go to bed now I'm going to turn into a frog at midnight. If that doesn't illustrate how tired and out of it I am, I don't know what will. Lotsa love, to my family and extended family (meaning youth gorup) good night!

Lots of Life

Thank y'all for my comments (wow, I don't think I've ever heard or said that before).

Well, the haircut drama is mostly over. I've decided I'll just get some of the length off but have the same style, cuz I like it. I also realized the main reason my hair lacks style is that I have no time to style it! So I'm sticking with "just brush it and go." It's worked so far!

But now, another drama has arisen from the depths. The Piano Drama. It'll probably be even more transient than the haircut drama, and I think I already know the outcome, but it is dramatic nonetheless. Yesterday I got all blah about piano. I didn't want to practice, so I started questioning why on earth I was taking piano in the first place and why I should devote an hour a day to something that I don't absolutely love and don't miss when I don't have it. Yes, it can be very profitable as far as money goes, and sometimes it's very enjoyable, then there's all the other times when it's just not. I also felt/feel frustrated, because it seems like no matter how hard I practice, I can never consistently play something the way I want to. I always make mistakes--which, yeah, I'll always make mistakes, but there have to be some songs you can play more or less perfectly, or what's the point?! I also really like playing for church.

Ok, involved in the piano drama is the dance drama too. I'm not a good dancer, I'm probably a third rate dance who, at my best, will be a second rate dancer--mostly due to my tight hamstrings. But whatever. This has brought up the question in my mind, what is the purpose of pursuing something that you will never excel at? Wouldn't it be more sensible to pursue something that you could be really really good at? And, no, I'm probably not going to quit piano or dance (although, if I do badly at the ribbon festival and Amy puts me in the back again...just kidding, but I really would like to be in the front row, not on the end, and do better than mediocre....ly at the ribbon festival).

So, what do you think? What's the point of pursuing something that you can't excel at, that repeatedly frustrates you, and that you only enjoy a small percent of the time? (First thing applies to both, second applies to dance more than piano, third applies to piano more than dance. Which implies that I enjoy being frustrated. Actually, I enjoy all the times that I'm not being frustrated at dance, so...)

Wow, this is already quite a long post. Let's see...the Celtic ball was really fun, I'll try and post pictures if I ever get a chance. Probably won't. But who knows. Tomorrow I'm just babysitting for a little while in the morning.

Have yall been reading your forty days stuff? It's really short, isn't it? Which is great, cuz it doesn't take too long to read that way. Um. Try and get everyone else to sign up for the retreat! If angie reads this: do you know who all can go so far? I wonder if we could break into the parking meter money, if need be. Like, for people who would have two kids going, for instance. Oh, and we've been talking this week abuot how many people we had going to youth group at the kickoff! We think it would be absolutely hilarious and ironic to boot if we outgrew the youth room before we get a chance to paint it! But seriously, we could grow a lot during 40 days, which would be great. Um. Let's see.

I'm babysitting this afternoon/evening, for the H's, who are really fun for some odd reason. I don't know why. They're really LOUD too, they all talk at once. The youngest has a lisp, so that when you say, "what?" as in "I didn't understand that part," he just talks LOUDER. But we have fun, they always think of fun things to do--like, things that are fun for ME to do too! but I g2g now.

ps--omw this is so long! it didn't take all that long!

Hello people

Updating time has rolled around again--and by that I mean "time free enough to update." Yes, most of my computer time has been dominated by e-mail wars--me against my full inbox. It's probably one of the most enjoyable wars I've ever fought. :-D I'm glad I get to talk to people throughout the week.

Um. What's going on in my life. Oh yeah, tomorrow is the Celtic ball. A bunch of homeschoolers get together and learn these celtic dances that are quite fun, and then get dresssed up in formal dresses and do them. So it's kind of like homecoming except less pointless, because you dance. But I've never been to homecoming, so I can't really say. But it's going to be fun, this morning we tried on our dresses, and mom shortened the straps on mine, and then tonight we're doing facials and nails and stuff. Hannah's going too this year. So. I'll have to post lots of pictures!

Um, what else. OH IF ANY OF YOU ARE IN HIGHSCHOOL, YOU HAVE TO FIND OUT IF YOU CAN GO ON THE RETREAT IN APRIL!!OR ELSE WE'RE GOING TO END UP NOT GOING AND THEN EVERYONE'S GOING TO BE DISAPPOINTED AND WONDER WHY WE DIDN'T GO. SO FIND OUT!

Thank you. Ok. Moving on. I watched Harry Potter 1 some in spanish today, which I don't remember doing recently, and it's quite fun because I can understand what they're saying. Although, I'm thinking at this point I'd better continue doing spanish next year (maybe as a postsecondary?) because I'm not going to get it down pat in 12 weeks.

Yes, that's right, 12 more weeks of school. We're 2/3 of the way done! which is freaky and exciting at the same time. Like, in 12 weeks, I could be considered a Junior!!! Oh my word! Ok, moving on VERY quickly!

Let's see--to what, though...I don't know, tell me a funny story. Like, today I got paint in my hair (and I'm not making that up!) Today in art class the paintbrush just flipped out of my hand and onto my shirt. Except that my hair's so long, none of it got on my shirt. So I almost had pink highlights on the ends.

Oh yeah, and I'm getting a haircut. The question is: Should I just get a trim, because I've waited so long to grow my hair out (two years, I think--almost 3 now) or should I go shorter, like Kara's hair or Hannah's, because all the length is getting really split-endy and a little stringy? There are all the people on these makeover shows that have the long, stringy (or even just long, style-less) hair "style" going on. One false move and that could be me. lol. But I don't know, I still have a lot of thinking to do before I decide--but if I have to untangle too many more knots, it's all coming off! (By that I mean it's going to turn normal. :-D)

Well, I'm hungry, and the best way to get dinner ready faster is to read a good book. No, I'm kidding, I'm gonna go help. ;)

Oh yeah, and notice the new LT countdown, thanks to Meghan! :-D

Sorry guys! It's been TOO LONG!

OH MY WORD I can't believe I haven't posted in all of February! It doesn't seem that long...and yet the trip to Florida seems REALLY long ago, even though we were there a week ago. We were probably playing euchre. I now know how to play euchre, even if I'm terrible at it. :-D

Let's see, we did so many things. For instance, I petted a very fat skunk and a possum, which was surprisingly cute. We saw a million manatees (ok, how bout 20 or so?), and even ran over one. But we don't think it got hurt, and there was no way we could've avoided it--we were barely moving. We think it just got bumped by the propeller guard. So that was exciting--also on that trip in the boat, we saw an alligator. That was sweet. We went on a nature walk and saw lots of weird plants that we just don't have here, and TWO pileated woodpeckers. These things are the size of crows and have a red crest and black and white spots and stripes. That was pretty neat. The Florida landscape is so different--palm trees, swamps, sand and snakes. And geckos and regrets--with a silent R, of course!

We had so much fun--those were the things we saw, this is what we did: I got to drive the golf cart around the neighborhood every night, which was good practice, annnnd, we played bocci and read books and got to relax and be warm! And we got to see our grandparents for a whole week, which was probably the best part. The cooking was amazing too--I have never eaten so much good food in one week! Unless it was a birthday week...but I don't know. The food definitely rocked. And we got to walk every day, which was also great.

And then we came back to Ohio and 30 and below temperatures...my feet feel like chunks of ice.... The first week back at school wasn't too bad, though.

I'm so excited for 40 days of community! And I'm really really hoping that we can go on the retreat in april!!!!! !!! !!!!

Ummm, I think I'll go running now. Sorry this was kind of short, for not having written for so long, but I don't have very many words in my head at the moment! Well, I know SOME of you won't mind...lol *cough* *james*...ok looking back it's not all that short, but I don't feel like I said anything. Oh well. see you all later!

Ramblings of a very sleepy person

Ok, so we're driving down the road on the way home from Columbus, and I get the brilliant idea--yes, that was semisarcastic-- to blog. So my techno geek dad hooks me all up with his pocket pc and keyboard. Major eprops to him, by the way. Oh, and fyi everyone, I read in some book somewhere that that's how dads love: by doing crazy things like driving sixtyfive mph mostly with knees and elbows to get out stuff so that you can blog at ten at night. Eprops to dads everywhere! (the good ones, anyway).

Ok, so I haven't blogged in, like, ever! But there were lots of things that I meant to do this week that didn't get done, unfortunately. Therefore, I think I can officially label this past week as the week of laziness. Not that I got nothing done, I got lots of schoolwork done, in working ahead for our trip to Florida next week. Sorry everyone! But it's not like we just get to go skipping off to Florida. We're paying for it now in doing 3 weeks of work in 2 weeks. This mainly involves lots and lots of reading. If reading wasn't my thing, I'd be sunk deeper than Davy Jones' locker.

Wow, for all this typing, I haven't written much. I'm now using this jump style of typing. It's fairly easy to pick up on--I bet I'd be a whiz at it by now if I weren't so sleepy. As it is, it's making me choose my words with care. And I might regret not sleeping when I had the chance, but too late now! *the verdict is in: she's crazy.*

We went to an old friend's 40th b-day party today, for which I had to miss youth group. But it was for a very good cause, and once I had some time to adjust to the idea of missing youth group, it was fine. You all better appreciate that: 1, something happened to me that took more than 3 seconds for me to adjust to, 2, I like youth group enough that missing it caused an attitude adjustment, and 3, my parents did something that required one! I don't hold it against you. :)

HI PEOPLE YOU HAVEN'T READ MY OTHER POST BUT OH WELL, I'M POSTING ANYWAY!

It wasn't much to read. I'll try to keep this one within a reasonable length.

So, I'm the only one left with a blog, seeing as everyone else has DESERTED ME! lol. just teasing. I was the first one with a blog and the last one, and I'm going to keep it so y'all had better keep checking it! I check everyone's everything everyday. Which is probably unintellegeble. Which is spelled rong. Which is probably rong. :-p

Can y'all tell I'm a little hyper? I'm just really really super extrememly superlatively happy because tomorrow's sunday!!! And I get to see all my friends! I have said it before, and I will say it again, and again, and again, I LOVE SUNDAYS! I have an extremely Katie-ish outfit for tomorrow. I'm sure you'll agree once you see it. I have a feeling even the guys will notice it, because it sort of jumps out at you. I'm sure no one will check this tonight, so I'll tell what it is: bright yellow (like, highlighter yellow) and Bright green (like, neon green) and then a slightly more muted hot pink. And those are the most beauteous colors. Which I think I'll post in. Cuz those are, like, officially my colors, with some red, orange and neon blue thrown in occasionally.

Well, it's been awhile, but once again I'm posting about running. I ran tuesday night after tumbling, cuz it was really easy, and I was like, wait, I've got my exercise clothes on and I'm about to take a shower after supposedly getting a workout, but I'm missing something: The workout. And I had tons of energy, so I took Relient K and a boombox downstairs and ran. It was actually fun. Then today I was thinking I should probably work off all the doughnuts I ate at the discovering Grace Summit class this morning, so I went running again, and dancing and stretching and foozball playing, all of which took up the entire CD of two lefts don't make a right but three do. Even the silly shoe song after Jefferson Aeroplane. So that was fun. And I watched two episodes of Monk, did two brown belt sudokus (29 and 40 mins, approx.), talked to my grandma on the telefone from Florida, where it is 80 degrees (two more weeks!).

AND I ALMOST FORGOT TO MENTION SOMETHING VERY IMPORTANT: IN SIX MONTHS EXACTLY TODAY WE WILL BE LEAVING FOR LT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And there are only 26 more sundays until the one that we'll be there. Yippeee!

Thanks for reading, I'll let you stop now. :-D Post back soon! :-DD

Hay there

Wow, I really posted only four days ago? Weird. I wonder why time goes so fast and yet so slowly? I'm still trying to figure that out. Maybe it's cuz life changes so fast when you're a teenager. I have no clue.

So, in other news, I'm really happy cuz I'm done with school for the week!! Party time! ha...as if...lol. Too bad this isn't one of those blogs where the writer can say "call me up and we'll do something..."

Oh lookee, I gotta stop now. But personally, I like it when people post short posts often. Or, even better, long posts often.

Hello faithful readers

Ok, so, apparently they've decided to take away my rich text formatting options. What did I do to deserve such treatment! No more colors! No more html tweaking! Why? Why??? WHY????

Moving on, my life is terrific. Except *sniff* my formatting options are gone. But that's the biggest of my worries, except for worrying about my friends. In a manner of speaking. I don't ever really worry, so what I really mean is "concerned. But that's not the same thing." Aha! I've figured out how I can still do rich text. Okay. Everything's hunky-dory. Yay! We'll see how this works.

Oh, if you ever want a cool tattoo that'll last approximately 2 days, with careful handling, draw with a ballpoint pen for outlines and with highlighters for color. It's cool. I've had a butterfly picture on my hand for two days now. :-D I bet that'll come as a surprise to some of my family. *cough* *dad* :-D jk.

Well, I guess I'll keep this short, to make formatting easier. I love you guys, I'm praying for you. :-D <3!>

And boom. I go to edit, and it's working. Sweet. I guess I'll just leave it like this.

What is the deal???

Life is back to normal, weekend festivities over, and I'm dropping a quick line before dance because I was going to do it tonight but we have a meeting after dance, so we're going to be gone for about 5 hours straight.

Go here, it's good--it really is last week's even though it says Oct.16. ...ok...? go here ooh lookie, I changed it so now you can't tell where you're going! ha! Curiousity will get the best of you!! I suggest you read it through. No, this isn't the national treatise on the care of cacti, don't worry. I love having a limited amount of HTML knowledge. :-D Well, I gotta go. So much to do and so little time to do it in! lol

cute or funny pix --of people this time

Pictures from the piano recital...
Ok, just for the record, Erin and I did NOT know that this was supposed to be a silly picture!
A picture from Xmas day--Abby and Doreeeee with their new hats

More Xmas day. My face shines like a beacon over the picture. LOL.

Nails

Here we have the double whammy of my nails and my ring! Tada! The pink nailpolish I got on the date with mom too. OPI for 2 bucks rocks! and the top picture's my present nails. You can kind of tell.

My ring

And here we have my gorgeous ring, which you can see in person. I'm having trouble making a habit of wearing it, though, for instance last night I had the perfect outfit to wear it with, to Jeni's shower I mean, and I forgot! I was rather disappointed. There's always next time!

New addition to the family....

Here it is, the newest member of the family! This one is affectionately known as "The Brown One" and is the same basic type of cactus as the white and yellow ones. Which, I discovered, is Mamarillia, or somthing like that. I wrote it down somewhere. But here it is! I'll try and get a pic of all of them together. :-D

Responding to Gloomy Ruminations

Y'all got pretty lucky there, didja know that? I don't often feel like that and even less often do I display feeling gloomy like that. I don't think the actual post is quite as gloomy as I was. If you ever feel like life's going by too fast and there's nothing you can do about it, smother it with a good dose of Ecclesiastes (meaning read the whole book in one sitting, or at least the first 3 chapters) and Matthew 6:20something-to-the-end and Romans 8:28. It's kind of oxymoronic that when you most feel like it's so important to enjoy life, you end up worrying about not enjoying it and that's not at all enjoyable. :-D

I find it interesting that in y'alls comments, James can't wait to be 17 and Caleb dreads turning 15. I'm sure there's some deep psychological meaning to that, but I'm sure I don't know it, unless it's that maybe Caleb really likes being 14, and is happy with how life is going, and James doesn't like being 16 and doesn't like how life's going. But how am I supposed to know!

Ok then, James, Kara and Bea are going to be seniors next year, except KnB don't really count because they're not in highschool anymore.

I think feeling like life's slipping away too fast makes it more important to make sure you're on the right track and you're not wasting time that you're going to have to go back and do over. that doesn't make sense. I guess I mean it's important to learn the lessons you're supposed to learn now and not have to go back and relearn it later.

OK, ENOUGH philosophy for the day or week or month, I will now return to realms of solid life and my normal blogging topics.

Like TOMORROW IS MY FAVORITE DAY OF THE WEEK!!!! SUNDAY, CHA CHA CHA! SUNDAY, CHA CHA CHA! SING WITH ME NOW! Youth group starts back up, I can't wait to see what everyone's up to, James and Gina are probably coming, although who knows what we're doing for Sunday School. I guess if worst comes to worst and Matt didn't get a sub (which I consider highly unlikely) we can just HANG OUT!!!

I should probably get dressed now. Or NOT. Ha!

New Year's Ruminations

So, it's like, 2006, and it's the next to last day of firsts--first Monday, first Tuesday, you get the idea.

I made lots of nifty resolutions, most of which have actually made it through the week. Mostly. I have a checklist I go through at night, whcih might possibly make it through next week. I aim low.

What's really on my mind at the moment, however, is how fast time is going. Which I've told like 3 people already tonight, but it's forming such a definite blah blah balh thing in my mind (yeah, I call that definite!) that I decided to blog about it. Oh! Oh! the word I want is list, it's forming a definite list in my mind of all the ways time is flying.

• It's 2006, for heaven's sakes.
• Sophia is a little girl and not a large baby.
• James and Isaiah are going to be seniors next year.
• Doreeeeeee, Bruce, and Fishy are coming to LT.
• I'm learning to drive in a few months.
• I'm sixteen, for heaven's sakes.
• Tonight we went to Jeni's bridal shower, and I realized that there will be very very few of them in between hers and my friends'. Or mine, even scarier.

But, bridal showers don't happen every day, or even every 6 months, so, I'm overfreaking a little bit. But it's still scary how the days turn into weeks turn into years and it's just gone! Well, there I go overfreaking again, but you know what I mean. Oh, Doreeeee just reminded me that I've already done a post like this. But it's merited.

I think I'm scared, like Bailey, of time, and not having enough of it, even though I'm not going to die anytime soon, Lord willin and the crik don't rise.

And on that slightly depressing note, I will close.

Links

I'd like to draw everyone's attention to the fact that I've updated my links list way down at the bottom of the page (why does it do that?)

I'd also like to point out some games: an LT answer game on Meg's xanga, and a currently tied Mafia game on caleb's. Go to those!

Also, I really am going to post about New Year's resolutions and all that. Really. Really really.

no, really.