Campouts, babies, racquet ball and pizza...

Yes. That would be my day.

First of all our AC upstairs wasn't working so I had to camp out downstairs for two days. It was kind of fun, but Mom and Dad get up really early and make alot of noise. But the workers weren't too bad... they're not using big machines right now. I'll be so glad when they are finished with the house surronding ours! Because it gets so hot in the afternoon, they start between 5:30-6 am, take the afternoon off, and come back in the evening when its cooler. So its pretty much noisy all the time.

Brooklyn was so cute today! She just turned three months old and is still so tiny. Her parents are really awesome too- They want me 2-3 times a week and they're paying me $10 an hour! I've NEVER made that much!! Well actually I have, but I wont go into that...I haven't made that much in a long time. Plus! It's just a little baby... I'd do it for half of that. But today she was awake and cute the whole time and drank two bottles. Shes a hungry little thing!

Oh oh oh...I beat Matthew three times in racquet ball today. It was very sweet because he had beaten me the past two times. At the end of the third game we both stood on opposite ends of the court and hit the ball as hard as we could to each other. It was really fun because we kept trying to dodge it and stuff...We did that for like 10-15 mins and then I didn't dodge one and got smacked right on the shoulder. It really hurt so we stopped. But it was fun! I think it made him feel better though! Haha..

Welp, one week to go until Colorado and about 11 hrs to go until my wisdom teeth surgery. I officially can't eat or drink anything now..probably for awhile! Of course that makes me hungry and thirsty even if I wouldn't normally be. Oh crazy life!

Saturday Morning Reflections

I've had this idea bouncing around in my head for awhile now and finally decided to go ahead and get it written. Plus I had a writing assignment due, so it all works. Now, my teacher is happy with a lot less than Mr Smith, so I feel she's not pushing me to my full potential. So I'm not entirely happy with and plan to go back and revise it. But I'll go ahead and publish it for now and see what happens.

This was when we were thinking we were going to move to Columbi, MO, and Dad was trying to get our house fixed up for selling. And I really wanted to move. We did move, but not that far...

"Saturday Morning Reflections"


For a June morning, the air was surprisingly cool. My dad, ever the project-man, decided it would be a fantastic day to paint the shed. A forty-by-forty structure in the back of the house, had been awaiting a fresh coat of paint for a long time, and because the weather was so spring-like, we decided to tackle the job. My dad also knew that I loved to paint, and had asked to help with several painting jobs around the house a couple of times before.
After he had asked for my help, I changed quickly in old clothes and stepped outside. Like an artist before his canvas, I surveyed my surroundings. June in Alabama is a notoriously a hot month, but that morning the temperature could not have been above sixty-five degrees. Our yard, covered in pine trees, housed many birds and even they were chirping away in the cool breezes. The crisp air filled my lungs and I felt ready to tackle the world. My dad, also decked out in old work clothes, arrived carrying a ladder, a tin of paint and a couple of different paintbrushes. I helped him set the ladder straight, poured the pale blue paint into a pan and secured several rags in case I made some mistakes. For a few minutes, he showed me like a professional how to balance on the ladder, keep the paint from spilling, and how to take long even strokes without leaving any bubbles.
“I’ll check back with you in an hour or so,” he asserted after making sure I would not kill myself, or anyone else. I had not been known to do this, but Dad said we could never be too careful. The shed had about forty boards going horizontally and only two of its sides would receive a fresh coat. Each board was about ten feet long and after painting two or three, I realized that this would be an all day job. About a half hour later, when I was nowhere near being done, my older brother strolled by and joked, “You missed a spot.” “Oh, ha, ha, ha,” I replied, and he left still laughing to himself.
The day began to heat up as the sun rose, but it was always bearable. Breezes always wisped past my face relieving any unwanted heat. However, the work soon became tedious and my arm began to hurt with the constant back and forth motion. The birds faded away and the energy was sucked from my surrounding like soap going down the sink. My brush drooped and a few bubbles began to appear. “Darn it,” I thought, quickly correcting them, “I hope Dad doesn’t see.”
A fault of mine is to look ahead when doing a job and see if I can skim over or rush through any of the steps. My eyes flashed over the rest of the dirty blue boards. Could I skip any of them? The clean pale blue boards answered back a resounding no! Everywhere I did not paint was going to be conspicuous. Boards 1-40 stood tall and unmoving and their silence bellowed loudly, demanding to be painted.
I resigned myself begrudgingly to my fate; I had to paint all the boards. Any idea otherwise would just be foolish. Why would I only paint some of the shed? The whole thing would suffer if I did. Thus, I pressed on, going back and forth with the thick brush. Sticky paint clung to my hands and my muscles cramped.
Continuing with the paint in my hands and the smell of sweat on my neck, I began to think about other things in life that I could not skip. As a high school student, I felt stuck and that I was just waiting around for life to begin. I so desperately wanted to skip ahead, and to graduate, go to college, get married and have kids. I felt life could not really start until all of that happened and life now was just “wasted”.
As I looked at the shed, I realized that every single board was important to the whole appearance. What would it look like if I skipped three boards in a row? The gap that would leave would not be pretty. It would be ugly and detrimental.
What would happen if I skipped a couple of years of my life? Would that, too, leave a hole? I realized that everyone has to go through these years as preparation before becoming independent. No one gets to skip ahead and even if that were possible, the result would not be beautiful, like the half-finished shed.
A couple of hours, a few gallons of paint, two tired arms and one aching back later, I was done. Any artisan takes pleasure in seeing the finished product, and I was no different. The fresh coat of paint transformed the thirteen-year-old shed and made it look sparkling new. Each board, 1-40, stood proud, and because there were no gaps, it truly gave a picture of completeness.
Because of what the shed, and my own laziness taught me I approached life with different meaning. Instead of being stuck and bored, I could think of my life as on board number seventeen. This year is also just as important to the portrait of my life as the boards in the future will be, and I can enjoy the way life is unfolding right now.

"If your wildest dream came true, would I be in it?"

Ah yes... Finally a night at home by myself...with cable TV. Surprisingly this is the first time it's happened since we've moved. It was a good night full of shows I hadn't seen in ages: Dharma and Greg, Seinfeld, Friends, Home Improvement, Andy Griffith, Full House and Whose Line is it Anyway. Now, I wouldn't like to make that a lifestyle... but it was so nice just to chill out and relax for awhile and have complete control of the remote. When Mom has it she watches Mash and Matthew watches Paintball or some cartoon or Comedy Central, and Jen likes TLC shows, like What Not to Wear and some fashion thing or other. Dad watches sports or the History Channel. I'm pretty laid back, but a few months of all of that can get kind of wearing. Usually I only get to watch TV on the weekends and no regular shows are on and I get stuck with, "Mrs World Pageant," and "Little People: Big World," and "Drake and Josh." Nothing I can get excited about.

But I promise to get myself back to the written word. I finished Much Ado about Nothing and I'm currently reading, Artemis Fowl, David Copperfield, and True at first light by Ernest Hemingway. I like EH- his style at least. The Old Man by the Sea was too depressing but I like the tone of the book that I'm reading right now. Its so real and the way he describes things make me go, "Oh yeah! Thats exactly how I feel." So its good. And I think sincerity of how the world really is, is what alot of Christian authors are lacking. Dickens is really good about that too.

I also watched To Kill a Mockingbird with Gregory Peck and it was REALLY good! So I don't feel too bad about watching some TV this summer. I am still getting a lot of good things done. Oh, oh, and I cleaned the kitchen, made dinner, did the ironing and put together two bookshelves while watching TV, so my hands were busy. Why am I still trying to justify myself?

I know that you're with me...through the storm....

Have you seen that Sony commerical? The little girl dressed as an aardvarrk is rather cute, but the song gets stuck in your head for forever!

Anyway, that title has a double meaning as well. I took the SAT today at Huntsville High School, and I had to find it all by myself and stuff and I was pretty worried about it. But on the radio the verse, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus," came on and I was like "aww!" Ok...everything went fine with absolutely no credit to my self-reliance. I was in the wrong turn lane to turn onto Bob Wallace, my room number wasn't marked until like 15 mins after I got there, and my cell phone had run out of battery- which prevented me from loosing my answer sheet prematurely. And I'm still alive and I have no pride in my efforts.

Getting up at 5:30 am though is just draining. Matthew and I played raquetball too, which doesnt help too much with the exhaustion. It's funny- he beat me the first game 21-19 and so we decided to play another one. Well, we got to like 15-17 or something and the lights in the court go out. We were like "hey!" So I went to the front desk and the lady is like, "Oops, I forgot you guys were in there!" But it was closing time anyway, so we still had to leave. And I am not giving the game credit to Matthew! I can still beat him. He's getting good though; I beat him like three times in a row, then yesterday he beat me 25-23 in overtime. We stay pretty close through the whole game. He just hits the ball so hard and it goes everywhere! It's hard to predict where it's going to land. I'm just grateful if it hits the back wall first, and I don't worry too much about the other three.

Mmm...I just want to sleep for a very long time. And I've got David Copperfield to read.

I can't wait for next Saturday when I can finally be done with school for awhile! Then I get to be a senior. How cool is that?

Obi Wan Kanobi in a flowing brown robi...

Haha. Good one Colin. You make me laugh.

Ah...summer. With no real babysitting jobs lined up what am I to do? Well, technically I'm not done with school until June 10th, when I take the ACT and finish up my worldview paper. Then I'm having my wisdom teeth out on June 13th and flying to Colorado for two weeks on the 19th. Plus, Mom signed me up for a little mini-writing class for the month of June. It's REALLY no big deal; I'm in a class with a bunch of 13 year olds. Oh well. The teacher is nice though and I think I can learn from her if I really apply myself...but it is not going to be as life changing as Mr Smith's class was. How does he always sneek into my blogs? Haha, I guess it's not his fault, its just my fascination with him thats the problem. Maybe those aren't even the right words. How about admiration? Yeah, thats what I meant. And he moved this week. Darn it.

I do however, have rather lofty goals for the summer. First, take and do extremely well on the standarized college entrance exams. I think I have a fairly good shot at the ACT, but the SAT is just a bummer. Jana said she didn't even take it and she's going to Auburn next year, so I think my ACT score will be enough. Second, visit colleges and DECIDE where I'm going to go next year. Yeah, not much chance of that happening even if I do make some visits. Third, babysit as much as possible, although preferably not in Decatur except if it's the McMahans or the Mulligans because they live close to the interstate. Third, read as many classic books as possible. I have to read "Much Ado about Nothing," and "David Copperfield," for the book club, but I also want to read a ton more, particularly CS Lewis' science fiction trilogy( recommend by Mr S.) Oops! There he is again. Then there's just a bunch of random goals...go to the gym four times a week, beat Matthew in raquetball as much as possible, read books with Jen, make Dad's China and South Korea scrapbook, organize and keep the house clean, have surgery, fly trans-state and hopefully enjoy a break from school somewhere in the midst of all of that.

Yeah; not much chance of the relaxation thing huh? Well...thats what my two weeks in Colorado are for.

On a happy note the truck and the camper have potential buyers! This is very good news because that means we'll be able to get a Toyota Forerunner that will actually fit in our garage and NO more BIG truck!! God is good; God is good... and I am not Gnostic. :-)