HEROES

Sweet show. When I watched it last night I thought that it reminded me of X-Men, even cooler. The pilot was last night, but if you missed it, don't worry, you can watch it tonight! It's on NBC at 8 PM, you should for sure catch it.

"a seemingly random group of individuals has emerged with what can only be described as 'special' abilities. Although unaware of it now, these individuals will not only save the world, but change it forever."

aeroplane

I won't be blogging much between now and monday. My bro's (Paul) taking my laptop with him to texas for the week! It's his first time flying and he is deathly afraid of heights, so I thought I would be nice for a change;)

So if you want to get ahold of me...do it stone age style.

Random Thoughts

These are some random things I've written down over the six months I've been a Christian.

Why do I find it so hard to tell people how much I love God?

Why don't I bring my bible to church? I'm afraid I'll be too busy looking for the verse pastor named, and miss something important he has to say.

I think wearing a cross necklace to church is like wearing a budweiser shirt to the bar. Your presence there it already announcing you like the beer.

I don't like to pray in front of people, or in groups. I know it shouldn't, but it feels personal.

What good is it to put a Jesus Fish on the back of my car?

Other Christians are confusing to me, and for some reason I'm a little scared of them.

This honesty is killing me.

I hate it when my dad tells me how glad he is that I attend the house of the Lord, when he's never once told me how glad he is that I've found God.

I can't stand wondering if my friends will ever find God. There's nothing like hurting for people you love.

I don't like thinking about if I will ever be content with where I am at in life. I feel like whatever point I'll be at, I'll always be wanting something more, feeling like it's just out of my reach, and I think that something is to be with my Father in heaven.

I know that there will always be something there to make me unhappy. I'm not being pessimistic, I'm being realistic, and I'm talking about the lost. According fo Joseph Campell, suffering cannot be denied if life is to be affirmed.

Phobias

Here's a list of some interesting phobias that I found when I was browsing around. I think I have some of these..

Russophobia: fear of Russians

Judeophobia: fear of Jews

Kathisophobia: fear of sitting down

Alliumphobia: Fear of garlic

Anthophobia: Fear of flowers

Arachibutyrophobia: Fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth

Autodysomophobia: Fear of one that has a vile odor

Coprastasophobia: Fear of constipation

Dendrophobia: Fear of trees

Dextrophobia: Fear of objects at the right side of the body

Levophobia: Fear of things to the left side of the body

Dutchphobia: Fear of the Dutch

Francophobia: Fear of France

Geniophobia: Fear of chins

Helminthophobia: Fear of being infested with worms

Japanophobia: Fear of Japanese

Koniophobia: Fear of dust

Lutraphobia: Fear of otters

Metrophobia: Fear or hatred of poetry (I think I have this one)

Octophobia: Fear of the figure 8

Papaphobia: Fear of the Pope

Peladophobia: Fear of bald people

Phronemophobia: Fear of thinking

Porphyrophobia: Fear of the color purple

Pteronophobia: Fear of being tickled by feathers.

Rhabdophobia: Fear of being severely punished or beaten by a rod. Also fear of magic

Theologicophobia: Fear of theology

Walloonphobia: Fear of the Walloons (French speaking people living in Belgium)

Zemmiphobia: fear the great mole rat

The Tile Mile

That's the official name I gave my house today. There isn't a single inch of carpet. Sure it's nice for people to look at, but if you live here then you're guaranteed to have cold feet 24/7. Somebody rescue me, and get me a pair of slippers.



Here are a couple of pictures of things we've changed around..I think the cupboards are almost the same, but they are a different color. Also the new chandalier, that tractor in the background really sets it off.

que?

My dad is always watching the news, always. I like watching it with him, but lately he's been watching the Espaniol version of it. So I asked him why he's watching Spanish news, and he answered with, "because it makes more sense."

My License

As of the 27^th of this month it will be one year since I’ve had a license. Yesterday I had the appointment to get it back at the secretary of state. I had to bring in an evaluation I got earlier this year along with some other papers, and convince someone that I can be a responsible driver.

So I got there, handed the guy my evaluation, and he gave me a written road test. It seems funny now, but when I was filling in the boxes I was shaking so bad that I could hardly do it at all. There were some weird questions, one was like: out of 10,000 Michigan drivers, how many have acquired 12 points within a 2 year period? What kind of a question is that?? So I guessed (multiple answer), 647. I did that, a vision test, and a road test. I passed with a hundred percent on everything, sweet.

When the examiner was done reading my evaluation, he asked me some questions. It mentioned my involvement in church, so he asked. Some evaluations, he said, talk about what people do when they are in remission. One that he got said, when Joe is sad he goes out and hugs his oak tree. I was scared about mentioning church, but I was honest, and I told him that God has helped me. Then he told me something like this, I don’t care if you go out and hug your oak tree when you’re sad, or look out the window at the traffic passing. I’m a Christian too, and I know that having God in your life is right. Shocker! And almost the whole road test he gave me advice about my friends and being a Christian. I was so nervous the whole time I didn’t really take in what he said to me until later. It was so random and great to be able to meet him in that situation.

Too bad I didn’t get my license.

It’s ok though, I need to update my evaluation to a one year remission. I should have it in a week. I will have a one year restriction of no tickets, drugs, or alcohol.

Oh, did I mention that I prayed really hard for it to turn out all good?

Note: It took me hours to write this blog! During it I had four phone calls, a couple friends, my bro (we usually chat for about twenty minutes), and my grandma, who called the house phone instead of my cell, and kicked me off the internet to tell me that there was an hour long Elvis special on the Christian TV station (she knows I like the king). So when I finally get back online there’s a maintenance notice for forty five minutes. I still have forty two left before I can actually post this.

my kitten named sticky

Yesterday my friend came to pick me up, and as we were leaving I looked over the road as we were pulling out and saw a smooshed rabbit. No...that's not a rabbit, that's my cat. Sigh. I got out to look at my poor run-over kitten, and a couple of friends driving by see me and stop, so we all stood around in a circle looking at my smooshed kitty, it was a really weird moment. Then I had to beg my dad to shovel him off the road. It put me in a bad mood.

I also found out yesterday that something terrible happened to someone I love. Double bad mood. So I went along with my day and night being moody and mean to my friends, I mean I was trying to make them angry with me, for some reason I just wanted them to fight with me and feel how I felt. The thing is none of them responded like I thought, no one said anything mean back, they just tolerated it. We hung out all night, and in the morning, when I was in a better mood, my friend told me that I was being heinous last night. We both just laughed about it and shrugged it off. And that's why I love my friends so much.

just whining

Tomorrow is my big day with getting my license...I hope. I'm so nervous! I bet my blood pressure is really high, oh! I'm gonna check it right now, it's like if I don't keep myself busy I go crazy because I think about it. I'm scared.

I can see

I've been waiting since January for this eye doc appt. and I finally had it in August, but I just got my contacts the other day. Finally! I can see..just in time to get my license back..hopefully anyway.

Without it, it's been one crazy, stressful year. I learned a lot in that year too. I think if I hadn't lost my license, things would be so different for me right now. I probably would have never realized that I needed God, I wouldn't have any plans for my future, and I would probably just be getting crunked all the time, and working some crappy job that I hate, barely making my car payments. But now I'm excited for the future. Who knows maybe none of it will work out, maybe I'll be working some crappy job that I hate for the rest of my life, but at least this time I'll have God.

Hey! that's funny, the title of this post has a double meaning..

New York City?

My friend, Darcie and I are planning a trip to New York for new years, and I'm so excited! I've been there before, but we just drove straight through...for seven hours! It was during rush hour, and we drove down times square and everything, but never even got out of the car.

We are looking for a couple of recruits to go with us. With four people we would only need two hundred and fifty a piece to survive. That's only if we don't want any souvenirs though. We'll be there for three or four nights.

So when you're watching it I'll hopefully be there :D

Before and After

I worked three hours on this today! The first one is a picture I took, and was just messin around with. The one below is a drawing of Twink from Rainbow Brite. I scanned it then brightened the colors, it took so long!I fixed it up on the photoshop stuff I got the other day, sweet!

photoshopping

I went to see the covenant with my bro on Friday night. Boo! It was beyond terrible, ever been to a movie where you actually wanted to walk out, but stayed because you paid for the thing, and you are still hoping there might be a just a fraction of something that seems just a little bit decent?? Whew, feels good to get that out. I was a little interesting seeing that it was set in Salem, I was there three years ago, and it was awesome.

So enough about the junky movie. I went to TC today with the parents. We hit up Sam's Club, which is my fav because everything comes in bulk for cheaper. I saw season two of LOST, and then almost broke in to tears wanting it so bad, and not being able of afford it. So what do I do? "daaaad??" like I'm twelve years old. It was only forty bucks! But no luck, he wouldn't go for it. So I was walking down the next isle, looking at software, and what do I find? The Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0 ! Uh oh, it's twice as much as LOST, I'll ask for it anyway. I had to come up with some interesting catch in order to get this one. So I told my mother, ''oh look, I can restore old photos with this."

So I've been working on figuring it out ever since I got home. It's tough, there's a lot to it. I had to transfer all of my photos, tag, and organize them. That took me two hours alone, and the guide book is two hundred pages long. But there's so much that I can do with it, I'm very excited. Definitely worth restoring a lot of old photos for.

finally!

I had this dream last night that was so crazy, and it seemed like it lasted forever! I was being chased by the cops all night, only the cops were celebs like Leslie Nielson, Patrick Stewert, and Brad Pitt. They couldn't catch me, it was like an all-out man hunt for me, and I kept evading them, I remember actually feeling scared when I woke up, it was so weird!

Anyway, I woke up around noon, stumbled around like I always do in the morning, and found a letter from the driver assessment office. I was so excited I was actually shaking when I opened it, or maybe it was the three cups of coffee. The first thing I read was: our records indicated that you may have a medical condition that could effect your ability to operate a motor vehicle safely. WHAT?? I don't have any medical conditions...I don't know what that's all about. Then it went on to say that I have an appointment on the 20th, and I have to take a written, vision, road sign, and road test. Ugh.

I hope they decide that I, uh, don't have a medical condition because I'm signed up for North Central in the winter semester to start my associate of arts :D

TP

I decided to thoroughly clean my closet today, it’s no small closet, and there’s tons of stuff in there I totally forgot I even had! I found high school letters from friends, a diary I started when I was eleven, old school work, and even some old comic books I made when I was about twelve.

You find an old diary and you can’t help but read it. I was in aw over this thing, I talked about roller skating, my crushes, what I did that day, typical stuff. Then I was reading some stuff from when I was older, and I can’t believe some of the stuff I wrote about, a lot of it I don’t even remember doing, I was a bad kid! From my diary I watched myself transform from this great kid to something terrible.

I’m all good now, it took me years to get back where I was, that eleven year old state. I’m not a child anymore, but I’m His child.

I also found a roll of toilet paper. It was a gift I got for my best friend when we were pretty young. Every year we would write something on the roll and give it back to each other for our birthday, or Christmas. It’s barely together anymore, mostly in shreds, but I took it, and pieced it together. We’re not best friends anymore, were not even friends. I changed too much to be her friend. I was getting a kick out of it until I got to the last note, then I cried because I never paid any attention to what she was saying to me. Here’s what I got out of it:

Me: From your best friend, Jennifer

Kelly: Dear best friend Jennifer, who gives me toilet paper EVERY birthday and Christmas, I wrestled this from Jason when we ran out of toilet paper, just to give you. Got to go, Happy fourteenth, your BFF….PS..is this quilted?

Me: Kelly, we really should have gotten thicker toilet paper. I hope you are having a good B-Day! I’m writing in red again, and you should keep writing in green! How long do you think this toilet paper will last, it hasn’t been that long! Happy 15^th! -Jennifer

Kelly: Jen, Merry Christmas 2000! Your Present? My advice in quotes I’ve collected.

Friendship: “Some people come into our lives and quickly go, some people stay for a while and leave footprints on out hearts, and we are never, ever the same.” -Unknown

Dreams: “Some people follow their dreams…others savagely hunt them down and beat them unmercifully into submission” -Unknown

“Twenty years from now you’ll be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the things you didn’t do. So throw of the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream, Discover.” -Mark Twain

Life: “Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change.”
-Confucius

“Do not take life too seriously. You’ll never escape it alive anyway.”
-Elbert Hubbard

“Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality:
-Jules deGaultier

“Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.” -Mencken

“Have the courage to live. Anyone can die.” -Robert Cody

“Always leave them laughing when you say goodbye.” –George M. Cohan

I miss my old friend, but I suppose you’ve changed too much to be her anymore. So, I just want to say good luck and thanks for being the friend I needed when I needed it.
Love Always

After reading that I almost used the TP to blow my nose, she was obviously saying goodbye.

my strength

When I was young, my mother was a Sunday school teacher. She made an analogy that will stay with me forever. She held up a toothpick and a nail, the toothpick, she said, represents us, and she broke it in half. She held up the nail and tried to bend it, no luck. The nail represented God, she got out another toothpick and held it next to the nail, “with God by our side we are strong.”

When I was in school people would always ask me what I wanted to do with my life, I couldn’t just say, “I dunno,” so I threw out answers like a vet, reporter, or doctor. The truth is I never knew what I wanted to do, I always lived in the moment. I had no direction and no desire to have one, that is, until I found God.

When we are lost in the dark our eyes will naturally search out even the smallest amount of light, we will seek, and follow that light, it’s our instinct.

Now I have direction, for the first time in my life, and I pray that I’m doing what He wants.

I kind of stumbled across this verse, and I’ve heard it many times since then, but I just can’t get enough of it,

Psalms 19:14

May the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer