Crazily Content

This week has just been absolutely crazy. I was looking forward to having time to relax and do nothing over break, but it has been the exact opposite! I love my family, but they are all so exhausting to deal with. Wednesday night, my Grandma and Grandpa Dreessen (from Ogallala) came to stay with us. It was so awesome to see them. I miss them so much, and as much as we annoy them sometimes, they miss us a lot as well. As I was cleaning the house Wednesday morning I was thinking about how awesome it was to have them live just down the road from us, to be able to see their house from our house. During the summer, I would make a batch of cookies, and I would use that as an excuse to go see Grandma. I would pack four cookies up in a container, and drive over to Grandma's. Grandpa would be at work, so Grandma and I would sit in her living room and talk for hours. One time I forgot to tell Mom that I was going to Grandma's, and she freaked out when she couldn't find me. Then she looked out the window and saw the truck over at Grandma's and figured it out. She said she was about ready to call the cops. Oh, I love my family.

Then on Thursday, my Aunt Betsy and Uncle Darren (aka: Uncle Fuzzy) came here with their adorable 6 year old twin daughters Elizabeth (Libby) and Olivia (Livvy). They came all the way from Moorhead, Minnesota. The twins are absolutely obsessed with Rudy, except they have a heavy northern accent so it sounds more like "Wooody" when they say his name. It is absolutely adorable.

On Friday night, the whole Dreessen family was at our house. My grandparents, us, Darren and Betsy's family, and Gerred and Amanda's family. It was great to have the whole family together. Gerred and Amanda have 4 kids: Sarrah (3rd grade), Matthew (4), William (2), and the newest addition to the family, Ellijah (6 months). Being the oldest grand child, it was my responsibility to keep the peace all night while the parents and grandparents talked. Rudy and Izzy did a very good job managing the older kids while I handled Ellijah and William. Poor little Ellijah was sick. I was pooped on, peed on, vomited on, slobbered on, and sneezed on all night. My clothes were disgusting, and I smelled terrible that night. After 3 hours of holding that baby, he finally fell asleep. The trick is to sing softly to him, with his head cradled near your neck. I started doing that 2 and a half hours into it. I don't know why I didn't think about that at first. There is nothing that melts your heart more than hold a sweet, sleeping baby. It brought  tears to my eyes. He was so cute!

Saturday we had the official Dreessen family Christmas at Gerred and Amanda's house in Omaha. It was absolutely wonderful, and I got to be the baby watcher again. Distance is a great burden on my family, but we always enjoy our time together.

Darren and Betsy continued to stay with us until this afternoon. They went to church with us this morning, and the twins looked absolutely adorable in their little Sunday dresses. During the worship part of the service, Libby pushed her way past Rudy and Livvy and came to stand by me while we sang. Soon after, so grabbed my leg and just stood their like that for the rest of worship, it was so cute. After that she motioned for me to bring my head closer to her so she could tell me something. She whispered in my ear, "Annatayyshha, I like it when you and Wooody sing. Y'all sound pretty." It was so cute.

They left this afternoon, and soon after they left I went into "I'll get this house cleaned if it's the death of me" mode. The house is clean. Mom and Rudy are arguing about some football game on TV (it's purple vs. green... that's all I know.) Izzy and Elle are cleaning their rooms, and Gregory is stoking up the wood stove and bringing in more firewood. I am working on letters and writing this while sipping some coffee! (Rather than helping me with my coffee addiction, my family fed into it by buying me some new pretty coffee cups for Christmas...) It's a typical Sunday afternoon. I am content.

Letters

On the day before I moved, I promised 5 amazing people that I would write them all letters before the end of the summer. I did, but then lost them in the abyss I call my bedroom. I rewrote them, and intended on giving the letters to them at homecoming, but I forgot them in the trunk of the Jetta. About 2 months ago, Dad wrecked the Jetta, so the letters were demolished in the pile of 'German Engineering' that ended up being totalled. So now I am re-rewriting them! I have Micah's done, and part of Syd's done. My plan was to finish Syd's and start on Elijah's tonight, but it is taking me longer than expected to write hers. I have found that the more I write, the more emotional I get. I have apologize in advance to all of you for the tear stains on the paper, I just can't hold it in. My goal is to have all 5 of them completed and edited before the end of Christmas Break. Who knows if that will actually happen or not, it will take a lot of motivation and encouragement on my part. I am just debating whether I should type them, or leave them hand written in my "oh-so-distinct" handwriting....

Tenor Emotion! :)

Last night was our annual Girls Choir Caroling night. We did things a little different this year. Instead of driving all around Lincoln, we just caroled at St. Elizabeth Hospital. (For those of you who don't know, St. Elizabeth is a huge hospital here in Lincoln. It's also the hospital I went to when I broke my arm in that four wheeler wreck.) There were 35 Girls Choir members there (so about 3/4 of our choir). Before we started, my director, Teresa, told me that most of the alto parts were boring and easy and that I could sight read tenor if I wanted to. My face lit up, and then she said, "I know you'll be our only 'tenor', but we all know you can out-sing this entire choir." All 35 of us sang in the entry way/lobby of the hospital as many people walked by and smiled at us.

We sang for roughly an hour, and then a lady who goes to our church came up to our director and told us that there were two members of our congregation in the hospital and that they would love to be sang to. So, Teresa chose 6 girls (me being one of them) and we went up to sing to these people. We sang on our way up there, and we started out with Silent Night. I love the harmonies to this song: the sopranos with the melody, the altos a third away from them, and the 'tenor' a sixth away from them. It was beautiful. Between the six of us, we had 3 sopranos, 2 altos, and a 'tenor'. As we walked down the hallway, I saw a fairly young woman in a wheelchair, she looked very ill and sickly. Snug in her arms was a newborn baby. As we sang Silent Night, this woman was crying, the subtle tears dripping onto the pink baby blanket. I started to choke up, and then the warm relentless tears were streaming down my face as well. Next, we saw an old woman, she was limping into a hospital room where an old man, it must have been her husband, was sleeping, she was crying as well. She grabbed his hand, and bent her head over it as if she was praying. He opened his eyes at the touch of her hand, and started crying as well. This made me tear up even more, there is something about a man crying that gets me every time.

Finally we came to the room we were looking for. This girl is a freshman, and she had just had back surgery. We sang her a couple of songs, and kindly thanked her and her mother. Next, we went to the room of an elderly lady. This lady had a granddaughter who is in our choir, but was not there that night. We sang to her, and then headed back down to the lobby, hoping that the rest of the choir had gotten along with out us. We came down to good news, my best friend Kara came running up to me pointing at her ring finger and smiling. I knew instantly what had happened. Her older sister's boyfriend had finally proposed. Nicole, Kara's older sister, was our nanny for a couple of years (she always tells embarrassing stories about how naughty we were). Soon after, I heard my Daddy pull up, there is no mistaking the ferocious roar of the diesel engine. Kara's momma pulled up at roughly the same time. Kara's momma is like my second momma. I call her mommy, and I tell her that I love her and such. (Same with Kara towards my momma.) I walked up to their van, she rolled down the window and I said, "Hello Mommy!" She replied with, "Well hello dear!" Then as Kara got into the passenger seat I said, "Are you excited to be a mother-in-law?" She looked at me like I was the most crazy person in the world and kept repeatedly saying "What?". Kara looked over and said, "Mom... you don't know?? Nicole got engaged!" Holy awkward. She looked at both of us and then said, "No, when did that happen??" She was freaking out, and frankly, so was my Daddy, so I had to go. I told them I loved them and then climbed into our annoyingly over-sized pick-up.

I have no idea why Nicole didn't tell her mother about being engaged, apparently Zach had called Kara's dad to "ask permission", but Clark did not pass on the information to his wife. I told Daddy what happened, and that led into a 45 minute long rant about how "Any boy that wants to date my daughter will ask permission properly. And he will surely not be able to just propose to my daughter with out a proper 'talking to'." I love my Daddy. I replied with, "You're version of 'a proper talking to' is scaring the crap out of the poor guy. You're pretty intimidating Dad." He said, "Of course I am, that's my job. No jack wagon is going to take my daughters away from me." (He didn't say jack wagon, he said another word that I don't wish to repeat.) And then I got another long speech about acceptable dating age and such. Sometimes I think my parents think I am on some crazed man-hunt... Newsflash: I'm not. They over-protect because they love, or so I keep telling myself.

Snow Day!

As you probably know already, I am not a big fan of snow. I think it is quite annoying actually, but since today was a snow day, I decided to think of some things that I like about snow. 

Tired. 10:45 p.m. Need to sleep; school in the morning. Land line rings; the call we were all waiting for. Rudy comes running up the stairs turning on every single light screaming, “No school JackWagons! Snow day tomorrow!” Somehow my sisters slept through that. I immediately throw my comforter off of me. I grab my glasses, fuzzy blanket, and my slippers and head down stairs. I made myself a cup of peppermint coffee, and settled into Gregory’s recliner. I buried myself in five blankets and enjoyed the heat from the wood-burning stove from our basement. Somewhere in between NCIS reruns and new episodes of Chicago Fire, I drifted off into a peaceful doze. I forgot to put my stupid BreatheRight strip on my nose, so I was snoring like a freaking chain saw.

I was awoken around 4 a.m. when Daddy was leaving for work. I felt him brush my frizzy hair off of my forehead and tell me that he loves me. I replied with a simple, “If you turn that light on again I’m going to kill your family. Love you too.” He laughed and said, “You are my family. Behave yourself today, or you will get your oboe taken away.” (I love the fact that they can’t take away my All-State music anymore.) I said, “Yes Daddy.” Then he left closing the door quietly and locking it behind him.

Then at 6 a.m. Izzy came down and got in the shower. About half hour later, she came out dressed and with her hair and make-up done. I looked at her and laughed. She gave me a look like I was crazy and said, “Stazia, if you don’t get in the shower now, you’re not going to have any time to do your hair.” I laughed again and said, “We don’t have school today you silly jackwagon.”  She rolled her eyes, and then went back to bed.

Around 8 a.m. Momma came down and made breakfast. It was delicious: homemade apple cinnamon oatmeal. Since I don’t appear to have inherited my mother’s height, I hope I inherit her cooking abilities; otherwise I will have a very unhappy family. The girls went out to play in the snow while Rudy carried wood in for the stove and Momma and I cleaned the house.

Now I am enjoying my lazy day. I can’t wait until this weekend when we can go redneck sledding with Daddy. It is so fun! All you need is a four-wheeler, an old car hood, and an old fire hose (a tow-rope works best, but a fire hose and some hay-bail twine work well enough). You lay flat on your stomach on top of the hood, and you basically have nothing to hold on to. Our land is really awesome to do this on, especially the alfalfa field (aka: “the bottom ground”)The corn field is fun as well, but then you have pieces of corn stalks flying up in your face. The pond hasn’t completely frozen yet, so we can go redneck sledding on that.

The best part of redneck sledding is when you get to push your siblings off of the hood as we are going really fast around a corner. All is fair in love and war. Although, my siblings know not to push me off because they are aware that I know all of the good “dumping places” where you could find yourself dumped in a drift over a badger hole.

Redneck sledding has been a tradition in our family for a long time. It is one of those traditions that I hope to keep going forever.

The Adorable Old Couple

My family sits in the same spot every Sunday morning in church. It's funny when new people sit in our spots, my parents get all grumpy. We haven't done this "same spot every week" thing for a while. In fact, it started when we moved to Ogallala, because of Dad's job, he was on call 24/7. He had to go to every call, whether it was a structure fire or taking an old man to the hospital. Dad hated it when his pager interrupted the entire service, so we always sat in the back corner, and Daddy sat on the end. Therefore, if his pager went off it would only be distraction for a couple of seconds. Sitting in the same spot kind of stuck with our family when we moved back, and now that I notice it, almost everyone else in our church does it too.

There is a very cute elderly couple that sit in front of us every week. They are so adorable; their names are Bob and Amelia Nover. They hold hands the whole service. They walk in holding hands, sit down holding hands, sing holding hands, and even listen to the sermon while taking notes holding hands. It is the most adorable thing ever. Bob always sits on the left side of Amelia. Bob is left-handed and Amelia is right-handed, so they can both take notes and hold hands at the same time. The only time they let go of each other's hands is when they have to turn the pages in their bibles. I see them at various church events, always holding hands. I remember that they celebrated their 60 year anniversary a couple years ago, it was a big deal. It's amazing that two people can stay together for that long, 50% of couples in this day and age divorce. That's an insane amount of people. I almost cry every time I see these two people. I wonder if they even know how much of an influence they are on the younger generation in our church. I wonder if they even know how many people admire their ability to stay together and to push through the hard times. Surely there is still hope for this world. I think that everyone should desire a relationship like Bob and Amelia's. I know I do.

The Van Ministry

In our church we have a very important out-reach program that we call the Van Ministry. For every church service/bible study/class/whatever is going on at the church, the church sends out about eight 15-passenger vans to go pick up kids who live in Lincoln. Most of the kids that they pick up come from a predominately Nygerian community; these kids are so precious. Most of the kids come from pretty sketchy home life situations, which makes me even more sad. All lot of these kids were raised in homes where discipline was not present at all, so they don't really know how to act in public, which creates problems in classrooms.

Tonight was the PreK-6th grade concert at church. The concert was from 6:00 pm-6:45 pm, and then during the sermon (6:45-7:30) were the Girls of Grace Christmas parties. I had been at church since 5 setting up for my little 1st graders' party. First they were going to have a tea party, then do a "JOY" craft, and then play this Christmas Carol game that I made. After the concert, I went down to the rehearsal room and picked up all of my little 1st graders and we headed back to the room. We started the tea party, and I was passing out food like a mad woman. After going through 3 packages of gummy worms, one whole bag of cookies, and two whole bags of tiny sandwhiches, my little girls were still hungery. I jokingly said, "Don't your parents feed you?" One of the little Nygerian girls, Warga, looked up to me and said, "No". I started crying. I just couldn't hold it in.I excused myself to teh restroom, leaving the girls with the two adult Girls of Grace leaders, and tried to put myself together. I cried in the bathroom for a couple of minutes, but then decided that I needed to be in the classroom doing my job. My red puffy eyes were very noticable, and four laidies stopped me on the way back to the classroom to ask me if I was okay.

When I got back to the room, Jen and Heather (the adult leaders) asked me to take all of the girls to the bathroom so they could relieve themselves. (This is one of the responsibilities of Junior Leaders.) In the bathroom, Warga and Nyalengk, the two Nygerian girls in my class of 1st graders, were arguing, but it wasn't usual first grader arguing. They were arguing about who's "waste product" smelled worse. "Nya, your crap stinked so bad right now girl. Mine crap smells waaay better than yours." "Warga, that ain't fair! I eated a burrito for lunch!" This made me laugh, although I hid my laughter.

After that, we made "JOY" ornaments that all of the girls got to take home to put on their trees. As we were cleaning up the mess and preparing for the caroling game, Warga came up to be with her ornament. "Annnaataaayyshhha! My paper falled off my ornament." It would be an easy fix, but Jen had already taken the craft supplies back down to the craft library. So I said, "Warga sweetie, I don't have the glue with me right now, but I'll show you how to glue it, so you can do it at home with your mom." Her reply absolutely shattered my heart, "She don't love me. She ain't gonna help me. All she loves is her needle shots and her smoking." I lost it. I picked the little girl up and hugged her. I bawled like a baby. When Jen returned I told her that I needed to leave for a while to put myself together. I looked her in the eye and told her I would explain later. I ran down that hallway with tears streaming down my face. I sat on that bathroom floor and cried and cried and cried. When I regained my composure, I went back in the class and I started the game with the girls. It involved a lot of singing, which lifted my attitude a little bit. Then parents started showing up, so I had to take Warga and Nyalengk down to the over-hang where the vans were being loaded. Our church is pretty big, so it took us a while to get all the way down there. As I was helping the girls into the vans, Warga looked at me and said, "I love you, Annataayyshha! I'll come every week so I can see you and we can make crafts." This broke my heart again. I cried all the way back up to the room, and almost all the way home.

These girls are so precious; all of the children are. Maybe I'm just a big softy, but I would adopt every single one of those kids if I could. I'll probably end up being the OCD single 50-year-old who has 21 different adopted kids all under the age of 10. I hope not, but who knows... God's got a plan.

Fingers (with a side of basketball)!

Friday night my sister, Izzy, had basketball practice. Since my parents are taking full advantage of my school permit, they made me take her and wait until she was done. At the school, I am sitting with all of the Moms who were watching their daughters at practice. My friend Courtney was there because she had to take her sister as well. She was telling me about her most recent dating drama, and I was listening yet not fully caring. Then the coach yelled at both of us to come out on the court and play defense against the girls because they were learning their offense.  Ironically enough, the coach was our coach from 4th-6th grade. Assist. Coach Carlson, Assist. Coach Mead, and Head Coach Stofer. (I wasn't allowed to call her "Momma" on the court.) We had a really good team, and as I stepped out on the court to help these girls I was reminded of how much I used to enjoy basketball. Back when I played because I wanted to play, and it wasn't very serious. I also thought about how it changed as I got into my 7th grade year. It got way more intense, and the only reason I played was because Momma was a basketball all-star in high school, and she wanted me to be like her. We soon found out that I was not going to be like her at all. It just didn't make sense to me.

The only reason I played basketball my freshman year was to please my mother. I loved our freshman/JV team.Looking back I realize and understand why I never got a lot of playing time... I was terrible. They only put me in when they needed to foul someone, or if we were winning by a lot. One of our first games was in Imperial, it was a JV game. There was 5 minutes left in the game and we were loosing by a lot, so they put me in. Their team stole the ball during our press and threw it all the way down the court to a girl that was ready to go in for a lay-up. I was the only Ogallala girl back there, so, naturally, it was my job to stop her. I stopped her just a little too hard. This poor girl was at least a foot shorter than me, so despite my not-so-fast running, my long strides helped me catch up to her. I jumped to grab the ball, but missed and grabbed her. We both landed on the court she landed on her face, I landed on my back with my ankles, knees, and hips all going every which direction. I was unaware of what just happened. I looked up to see two refs blowing their whistles and making the "Intentional Technical Foul" signs with their hands. My first thought was "Oh crap, coach is going to kill me." Two people helped me up. (I'm not sure who.) As I looked up into the crowd, all of the Imperial fans were shouting "That's intentional" "Get her out of here!" "She tackled her like a football player!" Despite my sturdy ankle braces, I managed to roll my bad ankle so I was gimping a bit. I gimped all the way back to the bench and coach never said a word to me. Teeyl, coach's daughter, was sitting there, so I asked her, "Did I get kicked out of the game?". She said no and that he only took me out because I was hurt. Thirty seconds later, he put me back in. That was the worst four minutes of my life. Basketball is a contact sport, so naturally, you're going to get knocked around, but these girls were being vicious. They had a good reason to be, I tackled one of their Varsity players like we were playing football. It was after this game that I realized that the only things I gained from basketball were injuries. This was also evident Friday night. As we were playing defense the girls, a ball shanked off of the rim and hit me right on top of my head. That hurt. Then, my expert rebounding skills (not!) got me a jammed finger. That stupid finger swelled up so bad. I couldn't even grip the steering wheel as I was driving home. This morning it looked even worse, I showed it to Dr. Stofer and she freaked out because she thought it was broken. But, we had it looked at, it's not broken, just jammed. The bad news it may have caused tissue damage, which means that my finger may look fat and ugly for the rest of my life. Wonderful. I see all of these women with dainty little hands, and I just have to wonder if they have ever done anything with their hands at all. How can someones fingers look that skinny and straight and perfect? I now have two fingers with tissue damage, so I will choose to embrace my man hands.

P.S. My fat and ugly fingers kind of reminded me of the story Mrs. Helzer told our English class last year about her thumbs! :)
P.S.S. I came home today to find the pleasant aroma of our wood-burning stove! Unfortunatley this means that it will be my job to bring in the fire wood to heat our home. Oh well, I'd rather carry in firewood than use a heater like normal families do. :)

Sarcastic Politics

Everyday in World Cultures we use the first 10 minutes of class to journal. We get a newspaper, paraphrase an article and then state our opinions on the subject. I strongly detest this kind of journaling. We are basically required to not be creative at all, so I developed a way that I can write my journals creatively, but still maintain the boring World Cultures journal status that my teacher requires. I read the article and paraphrase it like I am supposed to, but when it comes to the opinion paragraph, I make up something to portray. (Such as a democrat), And then I write the paragraph through the eyes of a democrat. I change this personality everyday, so if you were to read my journals, you would think I am either crazy or a major hypocrite. It is so fun to do this! You should see the look on Mr. Krecklow's face when he does my journal checks. It is absolutely hilarious. That poor guy probably thinks I am crazy (maybe I am), but this is the only creative way to do these stupid journals.

Krecklow is one of those strange teachers that you have to wonder about. He hated me until one day in class when I mentioned something about my brother and he said, "Wait, Rudy is your brother????". I replied, "Usually I don''t lay claim to him, but yes he is my little (not so little) brother." His entire face lit up and he said, "He is an amazing football player! He is on the team that I coach. I can't believe I didn't make the connection. There are so many Stofers' in this town." (The funny part is that we are the ONLY Stofers' in this town...) Ever since this day, I have never had to worry about my grade in that class, as pathetic as it is. I have IT1 6th period, and World Cultures 7th period. On Thursday, I had to bring cookies to my IT class, and I had one cookie left over at the end of the period. I walked into Krecklow's classroom at the beginning of 7th period and said, "Kreck! I have an extra cookie, would you like it?" He immediately told me yes, and I handed him a cookie. Soon after, almost all of the kids in my class were complaining that they didn't get a cookie, so I simply stated, "We have a World Cultures Semester final test coming up, otherwise I wouldn't have given it to him." Kreck heard this and immediately said, "Annastazia, you did the right thing, I will definitely take this into consideration when I grade your final. Oh, and I will accept bribery from anyone up until Friday." This made my whole class laugh. No one knows if he was being serious or not, but it was still funny. I guess we'll find out when I get my final test back!

I have to admit, as much as I detest teachers like this, I enjoy going to his class everyday just to correct his grammar/spelling/pronunciation.

That One Guy

That one guy who:
Is always there for you
Knows everything about you
Takes care of you
Leads you to live a Christ centered life
Is always there when you need a hug
Supports the decisions you make
Treats you like a Princess
Comes in your room every morning, bright and early, before he leaves to say  "I love you"
Expects a lot out of you
Listens when you just need to vent
Deals with all of your pointless drama
Protects you always
Takes you for tractor rides while the summer wind is blowing your blonde hair away from your sunburnt shoulders
Sits by you in church and you hear his low voice rolling through the hymns
Welcomes your friends and treats them like family
Comes to every choir concert, band concert, track meet, and softball game that he can make it to
Makes you laugh at the simple things he does and says
Trusts you with making his food
Constantly checks to make sure you have been reading your bible
Annoys you with his weird flaws that you somehow over-look
Takes you to the fabric store to get the necessary supplies for a project that you are not even talented enough to finish
Shaves his mustache and gets a hair cut when you tell him to
Trusts you to drive his vehicles
Always has good biblical advice to give
Buys you tampons when you are out
Takes you shopping even though he hates it
Spoils you every once and a while
Scares the crap out of your Homecoming "Date"
Loves you like crazy and thinks you are amazing
Always tells you that you look nice even if you are wearing sweatpants and no make-up
Respects you and expects the same from anyone else to you
Always is there making sure you are safe and being treated properly
That one guy is my Daddy...

A Wonderful Evening!

Every part about tonight was just absolutely wonderful and amazing in every way. After school, I went to my friend Ally's house and she started curling my hair. (Which, much to my surprise, only took 45 minutes to do.) We had to be at school at 6 to practice our mass choir (7th-12th grade) song. That went fairly smoothly. After that, it was absolutely crazy! I had to practically RUN from the choir room to the band room uniform closet to get my Encore dress. This dress has really been stressing me out for the past two weeks. We got these dresses fitted during softball season, and, not thinking at all, I realized that I had gained a lot of weight since softball season got over because I have done little to no exercise.Then dress was already tight on me when it was fitted. Thankfully, I slipped the dress on with little struggle. For the next hour, all of the Encore girls were running around like crazy doing hair, doing make-up, retrieving candy-cane props, and getting yelled at. Fifteen minutes before the concert started, Ms. Poe had an "Emergency Encore Practice". Holy cow, I had never seen that woman so nervous/anxious. While the 7th and 8th graders each sang their songs, we were all in the choir room waiting for what seemed like forever. Poe told us that we literally had two seconds to get in our choir robes after Encore was done performing, so I put mine where I could easily find it in the sea of 92 choir members.

Finally-- it was time for Encore to perform. As we were walking out of the choir room into the gym (we don't have a nice stage or performing arts place), one of the creepy bass guys said to me, "Your chest looks really flat in that dress." Really? Really? I smiled and said, "Thank you!" and then walked away rolling my eyes. What a stupid idiot! Why would you say something like that? In the gym I looked up to see that every single bleacher was crowded with people; it was almost over-whelming.

Our first song went very well, an a Capella jazz version of "Christmas Time is Here". Our second song also went very well, it was called "All for a Baby". It sounded so sweet and beautiful. Our third song went amazing! It was the song that we danced to! It was titled "Sparklejolleytwinkejingly". Much to my surprise, my counts were never off, and I did all of the dance moves somewhat correctly. The only problem was that a tenor ran into me when we were moving into our kick line, but that was more funny than harmful. The song ended on a very good note! (Pun intended!)

We practically ran back into the choir room to get our robes. I opened the door to see a 92 person sea of green.  I dropped my candy-cane prop in the pile, and turned around to get my robe. It was then that I completely tripped over my feet and landed flat on my face, flashing my brand new Adidas spandex to the entire choir. That was embarrassing. I quickly got into my robe and then proceeded to the gym. All three of the choir songs went absolutely amazing, despite the fact that the four people around me could not hold a tune in a bucket. The mass choir song was beautiful. 200+ kids all singing and spreading the joys of the season to a crowd of people!

When I got home I received a very wonderful surprise! I walked in the kitchen to see a package addressed to me from my Aunt Robin and Uncle Mike (they're actually my second cousins, but they are as old as my parents, so it's easier to call them Aunt and Uncle.) I opened the package to find an University of Wyoming sweatshirt, and a note that said, "We were in Laramie and thought of you. Love, Robin and Mike". I love them so much! They both are on some Alumni/Recruiting Board thing at the University and have been preaching to me for the past couple of years about how I need to go there and that they will be my supporters while I am there. It seems too early to be thinking about college. It seems like just yesterday that I was walking into Kindergarten in Sterling (mind you, Sterling, NE)... :)

Why be nervous?

I struggle with being nervous. I get nervous about silly things as well: things I shouldn't even worry about at all. When I get really nervous it starts affecting my health. I get huge headaches, my stomach aches like no other, and my breathing gets all weird. I hate it when I get this nervous.

In the bible it says that we have nothing to be nervous about, and that God has everything under control. I believe with my whole heart that this is 100%, but I still struggle with turning all of my worries and selfish ambitions over to the Lord. I'm not really sure why I struggle with this so much. At church, I have talked to a couple of really Godly women about this and they all said that they have struggled with it too, and that you just have to give all your worries to the Lord.

So my goal is to not worry at all. When I catch myself worrying, I'll pray about it. This issue has to be fixed. How can I say that I love and serve an almighty God yet I still worry? Today in the sermon, our pastor made an excellent point. He said, "Think about how truly amazing it is that God is sovereign over all. Think about how messed up this world would be if He wasn't sovereign. Shouldn't we be thanking God everyday because He is sovereign?" He hit the head on the nail. I concur.

What is breathlessness?

One can assume breathlessness could be either benign or malign.

Benign:
A simple touch on the hand. The sweet sound of music. A gracious smile. A sigh of relief. A smile in accomplishment. A friendly hug. A reassuring glance. Is this really happening? A dance in the rain, muck boots and all. A flawless idea, nonrestrictive. A trusted secret. The joys of a harmony. A kind word of encouragement. A subtle phrase of irony. A joyful song, sung over and over again, emitting joyfulness to everyone it reaches. The joys of being together. A simple pleasure. A firm understanding. The wonderful feeling of being breathless; tears of joy breaking through.

Malign:
A feeling of regret. A dark secret burning inside of you. The anger wrapped up in hurtful words. A painful nuance of change. An indescribable pain. A feeling of being ignored. A sentence full of flaws. The fear of rejection. A feeling of inadequacy. Am I good enough? The disturbing feeling of guilt, burning inside you, that you cannot extradite. How could I be so ignorant? The fear of bitterness; the fear of not knowing. The pain of being apart. A world of hurt. The confusion of ignorance. The pain of being breathless; excruciating tears breaking through.

Christmas Time is Here!

This is the sight you would see if you walked through the front door of the Stofer house. The fact that we have these decorations out means a lot to my family, especially since this Christmas is not going to be normal at all.



This year we are in the midst of selling our house and trying to find a new one. I figured this would happen, so I never really unpacked my stuff. (I still have stuff in boxes that I packed up when we moved out to Ogallala that I haven't opened since December of 2010.) As of right now, the closing date on our house is December 27th, so mom was hesitant to get out all of our Christmas decorations. But since we have yet to find a house that we want to buy, Mom allowed us to get all of the decorations out. The tradition in our family is to get out the Christmas decorations on the Saturday that is closest to my brother's birthday. The whole house is all Christmasified.

Two years ago, we didn't get any Christmas decorations out at all because during that December, Dad was living in Ogallala by himself, and we were preparing to move out there. It's actually something we now laugh at. We moved out there on December 22nd. (Which is also my sister's birthday.) On December 23rd, we spent the entire day unloading the trailer, and unpacking masses of boxes. We also managed to go register for school that day. On December 24th, we made a random trip to North Platte and bought our selves a tree. We also could not find the boxes with all of our tree ornaments, so we bought all new ones in North Platte as well. We had the most awkward looking tree ever. We thought it looked stupid at first, but then it became a joke. "Never wait until the day before Christmas to buy a tree..."

Christmas has nothing to do with all of the decorations, it's about celebrating the birth of our Savior. The decorations are just simple traditions that bring my family together. When I have a family of my own someday, I hope to instill these family traditions to them as well.

P.S. The tree is sitting in our brand new foyer/entry-way area, which looks pretty fancy for our lovely farm house built in 1928.
P.S.Again. The title is in reference to that Charlie Brown song that we happen to be singing for Encore. :)

Happy Birthday, Rudy!

Today is Rudy's birthday! I love my brother so much! We fight and argue constantly, but he is my favorite (and only) brother. Recently, I have been driving Rudy home from his basketball practice. This is our brother/sister bonding time. He talks to me about everything (including stuff that I would rather not know about). Maybe it's because he is worn out from practice, or maybe it's because he is forced to trust me because I am taking his life into my hands while driving, but whatever this insignificant sense of trust is, it really makes me happy. We also have our fair share of laughter on these long drives home. We both purposefully botch harmonies on songs just because we don't like whoever sings it, and we laugh at various things that happened at home or at school. Rudy denies it presently, but when we were younger, he would always ask me if we were twins. I would tell him no and he would argue with me. Then, I would ask mom if Rudy was adopted because his skin was so much more tan than mine that I thought he was Mexican or something. These were some of the more fond moments of our childhood together. Let's not forget about the time when I threw a bottle and baby Rudy while he was sleeping. (He claims that this situation started all of the fighting.) Or the time when Rudy and I tried to play hide and seek in the corn field, or the time when we thought it would be funny to put a cat in a cooler over night. (That ended terribly.) Or the time that I made him eat dirt, or the time when Rudy escaped while Momma was giving him a bath and ran outside naked to ride his tractor. The list goes on and on. My brother and I have been there for each other through everything. I love him so much!

My sister and I made these today. These are supposed to be reindeer. All of them have two chocolate chips for eyes except for this special one. This one is the non-conformist out of the group. I decided that they couldn't all be the same, so  I made this one. This one does not care what other people think of him; he is going against the status quo. He is special and unique in every way. So, naturally, we named him Rudolph. :)



Sisters Know

I had the wonderful opportunity to spend the entire weekend with my friend Kara last Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Kara is special. We have been best friends since our first grade year when my parents started attending Indian Hills (my church!). We know everything about each other. Especially what makes the other go absolutely crazy. For instance, Kara absolutely hates it when I fart when I am sitting on her bed, so I do it just to make her mad. This usually results in a shrill yell, "Annastazia Caroline Rudolph Gregory! What the crap are you doing? You know that pisses me off!" After she yells that, her younger sister comes in and congratulates me. Jessie and I are very good at making Kara mad. On the other hand, Kara knows that I absolutely HATE Febreeze, so she will spray my entire room with it. One time we were at Kara's house, and we had been outside getting all muddy and yucky (you know... girls being rebels by acting like boys and getting all dirty on the farm). I was in the shower. Kara picked the lock, and then sprayed almost a whole bottle of Febreeze, and then locked me in the tiny bathroom. I had a freak out attack. Once properly clothed, I went out in her living room to find her whole family staring at me and laughing. Kara and I are so close that we usually greet each other with insults. For instance:

Me: "Good morning! Would you bother to brush your teeth every once and a while? Good Lord child, get out of here!"
Kara: "Would you mind brushing out your hair? Holy cow, where did you get that hideous shirt?"
 

 You can expect this out of us all the time. When I moved she called me at least every other day, if not every day. We wrote letters back and forth, and we visited each other often. Anyway, this weekend we had a chick-flick movie marathon including just about every chick movie that would make us cry or laugh at the cheesiness and terrible acting. While we were watching Fireproof (and bawling our eyes out), I looked up at Kara. She gave me a weird look and then our conversation proceeded like this.

Me: I want a black baby when I'm older.
Kara: Okay? Well, you better marry someone who's black.
Me: No! I want a legit 100% black baby. Not a half black baby.
Kara: Well, you are going to have some issues with that considering you are the white-est white person I know.
Me: No! I am not white! I am an albino black person!
Kara: Oh boy...
-Then both of us started laughing so hard, and we couldn't tell if we were crying because of the movie or about the words that just came out of our mouths.
 

That night ended with Kara cutting my hair while I was looking up cheesy Christian pick-up lines. We found some pretty good ones. I just hope that none of them every get used on me in a serious manor. Oh boy...

P.S. You all should be celebrating! It's the last day of No-Shave November!

A Renewed Motivation

If you know me, you know that I am very systematic. When something needs to be done, it has to be done in a certain way in which it is organized and has rhyme and rhythm. I cannot stand it when tasks are done out of order or hap-hazardly. As I figured, my bible reading became like this. Systematic. I do my devotional purity book on the odd numbered days, and read from my bible on even numbered days. What I realized is that it became to systematic. It became something I thought I had to do, and it became less and less intimate with the Lord. I tried breaking my 'system', and tried to make it more about my devotion to Lord, but that made me even less motivated to read at all. I went an entire week without picking up my bible or devotion book. I broke down, and I absolutely lost it. I prayed to God and begged for forgiveness. How could I have been so selfish and so self-absorbed? I asked God to renew my motivation. A couple of days after that, I acquired a new accountability partner. I still did my reading and devotion, but the emotion was gone. Two weeks ago, at my Mansion Builders Bible Study, the lesson was out of 1 Peter 2. One of the topics was how devoted we were to the Lord. I was practically falling off of the edge of the couch listen to Mike teach. All of my confusions about my feelings and emotions where cleared up. I feel like I have a renewed sense of motivation. It is an amazing feeling to have a hunger for the word of God. I have never had this feeling before. In the lesson, Mike explained that it takes time for a Christian to develop a true hunger for the word. After about a year and a half of being a true Christian, I believe I have found that hunger. (I was raised Lutheran, my parents became Christians in 2003, and I have been raised in a true Christian environment since then. I acted like a Christian, I prayed the prayer, but it was all "Fire Insurance" as we like to call it. I became a true Christian in the summer before my freshman year.) Make a habit of reading your bible, even if you don't have that hunger yet.

Currently I am studying the book of Job. Job fascinates me. He went through so many trials and temptations, yet he still praised the Lord through it all. I strive for that attribute.

By the way, I am terrible at this whole accountability partner thing, they all seem to bail out on me. Hopefully this one is different!

A Great Day

Today was one of those days that started out fairly typical, but then ended great. Days like this brighten up my week.

This morning I actually woke up on time! My alarm only went off for 20 minutes (which is less painful than it's usual 45 minutes). My usual thought process for choosing my what I am going to wear correlates with a quote by the infamous Celie Knudsen, "The person I am trying to impress isn't at school today, so I am putting no effort what-so-ever in my appearance." This is usually my mentality, but I decided to go against that today. I actually put an effort forth in my appearance. (Mainly because I woke up in time to do so.) At school, I walked into the band room to find my friend John sitting in my seat, typical John. Even after threatening to stab him with an oboe reed, he still didn't get up, so I just walked away. When I came back 3 minutes later, he was finally out of my seat and back in the stuck-up Trumpet section where he belonged. This made me laugh. John is always in a "let's push Annastazia's limits to see how long it takes her to blow up" mood, so this was not out of the ordinary.

The rest of the morning proceed very normally, my classes were somewhat boring, and my teachers were somewhat monotone. Typical day at Syracuse. At lunch, the principal was walking around with her list of kids that have after school detention. She walked up to me and said, "Annastazia, I have you on my list for after school detention." Tears swelled up in my eyes, I had never had detention before. In fact, I cried like a baby when Havenridge took my phone during class. (By the way, thank you to the brave soul that walked me down to the office that day while I was having an insane emotional breakdown.) Anyway... I looked at her with tears streaming down my face and said, "Dr. Stilmock, there must be some mistake." She looked over her list for a minute and then smiled and said, "Annastazia, I'm sorry, I highlighted the wrong name, you don't have detention." As soon as she walked away I wiped my tears and then looked up to see Ally and John laughing at my pathetic emotional scene. Eventually, I joined them in laughing as well. During 6th period study hall, we had Encore rehearsal (haha spelled it right!). This was our first rehearsal in the gym. "Grab your giant candy canes and let's get started from the top." Practice was pretty normal, I was the only alto you could hear, and your eyes shot directly towards me because I was the only girl completely botching the dance moves. Story of my life...oh well! :)

This afternoon, I had to take my sister into Syracuse for basketball practice, and then I had to go and pick her (and Rudy) up later. Usually, I hate the long drives back and forth to Syracuse, but tonight I was loving them. I was in one of those "Let's sing to every song, but make it sound terrible moods." So with my cruise set at 50, I was driving down the Burr Spur botching the high note on "WeeeEEE are never ever ever getting back together", messing up the words to G6 "Now now I'm feeling so fly like a CHEESESTICK", messing up the harmonies on "that's cool but if my friends ask where you are I'm going to say....", enjoying singing in the same octave as Justin Bieber, and so many more. It was absolutely wonderful. The Baldman would have had a heart attack! On the way home I needed to stop for gas and this was the first time I had ever filled my car up with gas by myself. I pulled up to the sketchy looking CO-OP in the thriving metropolis of Burr, NE. (Population 57... that's a record!) It was freezing cold outside, so to warm myself up with the gas was pumping, I started dancing and singing, completely unaware of the old man across the street staring at me like I was possessed or something. He quickly waddled away when I made eye contact with him, it was great. So today ended with a sense of laughter and accomplishment. Like I said, I love days like this.

Lock. Your. Vehicles.

Friday night I stayed over night with my friend Kara. We had been Black Friday Shopping all day, and I was just too exhausted to go home. Part of me is glad I stayed, but part of me wishes I could have been with my family that night. Something very important happened while I was away. I wasn't there, but this is how my Momma explained it to me.

Around 3A.M., Dad woke up instantly to the sound of our Ford Excursion starting up, the diesel engine is far too recognizable. His first thought was "Where is Shanna going?", but then looked next to him to see her there sleeping. His next thought was "What are the kids doing?", but when the Excursion started pulling away, he grabbed the "Family and Farm Protection Weapon" (aka: Dad's big gun) that was sitting next to his bed, and, forgetting pants, ran outside. He screamed at Momma to call 911. The Excursion had just gotten out of our drive way and was heading down the section when it stopped, turned around and came back. It was a very drunk guy driving it. The cops were on the way, so Dad brought the 23-year-old guy into our kitchen. Mom was sitting in the family room and said that she could smell the alcohol on him from that far away. Apparently the kid was at a party in Nebraska City (about 45 minutes from my house), and was on his way home (he lived in Syracuse), but got a little lost. He had crashed his car, and didn't have a cell phone with him, so he started walking. Apparently he had been walking for 3 hours before he got to our acreage. He couldn't stand the cold any longer, so he stopped at our farm and started checking to see if the vehicles were unlocked. Mine was locked, as well as Dad's car and the Dodge, so his last resort was the Excursion. Of course, it was unlocked and the keys were in the ignition. (My parents have this carefree attitude when it comes to locking vehicles; they think that stuff like this doesn't happen on farms in the middle of no-where.) He said that he sat there for a while, but then decided to take off. He quickly changed his mind when he saw my officious Daddy running after him with a large gun and a lack of pants. (You would think that after almost 30 years of being a Firefighter that Daddy would learn how to quickly put on pants, but apparently not...). In our kitchen Daddy had a long talk with this kid, since the cops were in Syracuse (20 miles away) when Momma called them. Daddy shared the gospel with this kid, and told him that if he kept doing the things he was doing, that his life was going to get worse and worse. Daddy told him that everyone is born into sin, and that we all need a Savior, and that Jesus is that Savior. He died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins, so that we may be in the presence of God.

It is scary to think about what could have happened. That kid could have had a weapon, he could have broken into our house, he could have wrecked our Excursion. But none of that happened, and my Daddy got to share the gospel with that kid. He may absolutely ignore my Dad's little speech, or he may take it to heart. I pray that he takes it to heart.

P.S. This was one of those. "Haha! Annastazia was right!" moments. I always lock my car and bring the keys in the house, and I have been telling my parents for a fairly long time that they should do this as well. Maybe this is the attention-getter they needed.

P.S.S. Ugh. We're moving again.

Simple Joyful Moments

Today I had a bunch of time on my hands (mainly during the multiple car rides back and forth to Lincoln), so I thought a lot about the simple things in my life that make me smile. These are things that I sometimes take for granted.

• Silly things my parents say... This morning, Dad came into my room to let me know that my alarm clock had been going off for the past 45 minutes and that I wasn't going to have time to get ready for church if I didn't get my lazy butt out of bed. (A wonderful wake up call.) Then he asked me why I had a golf club in my room. I giggled and then saw it laying on the floor. He had a bit of a concerned look on his face. So I said, "Dad, I needed to practice for my Encore song. We don't have any giant candy canes around here, so I had to improvise." He then gave me one of those 'ugh, you're such a loser' looks and then walked out. For some reason this was just absolutely hilarious to me. I laughed for the next couple of minutes and then proceeded to my closet to endure the daunting task of choosing what I was going to wear that would hide my No-Shave-November legs.
• Awkward things my Girls of Grace girls say... Tonight when I was taking my class of eight 1st graders to music, one of the fairly rude girls, Lauren, (the one that burped in my face a couple of weeks ago) came up to me and said, "ANNATAYYSHHA! Johanna farted on me!" Trying not to laugh, I said, "Lauren, now you know how I felt when you burped and then blew it in my face." She then responded with, "But Annnaaatayyysha that was different! That came out of my mouth! Johanna's fart came out of her butt!" I let out a high-pitched giggle and then turned away so I could laugh. These girls bring so much joy to my life, even when they emit their bodily functions all over people.
• The ghetto-ness of my school... Recently one of the busses at school has had issues with the emergency windows. Every time the bus would go over a big bump, the window would pop open and an alarm would sound. Instead of getting it fixed, they just duct taped it to the side of the bus. So, if there were to be a bus fire, the people on the bus would have to claw at like 7 layers of duct tape before they could escape through the emergency windows. A+ for ghetto-ness.
• The laziness of my family... Last week I was sitting on my bed reading my book, it was roughly 10 p.m. My siblings were all in bed, my Dad was in the family room watching the news, and Mom was watching some drama medical show in her room. My phone started buzzing, so I looked down and it said that Momma was calling me. I answered and heard Momma say, "Stazia, please come turn off my lights, I'm too tired to get up." So I walked across the hall into her room to find that she was laying in bed, 6 feet from the light switch. I turned off the lights and then plopped down next to her. We both immediately started laughing at the fact that she was too lazy to turn the lights off, and too lazy to yell my name, so she called me. We laughed for a couple of minutes until we were both in tears. If that isn't mother-daughter bonding, I don't know what is.
• Silly little things that make me think of my friends... On the way home from church tonight, the song Some Nights came on. We all started singing to it, and half way through it I started crying and laughing. Mom yelled, "Annastazia Rudolph! What is your problem???" I replied with, "It's just not the same to sing this song without Elijah and Byron!" And then my entire family laughed at my pathetic emotions. It was great.
• One-uping people who think they are amazing... During music time for Girls of Grace, there is a college aged girl who sings while Mr. Boehr leads the little kids. This lady very judgemently, she thinks she is God's gift to everyone. She is one of the biggest hypocrytes I have ever met. She has a good voice, but is very nasily. She sounds like she is singing with a clothes pin on her nose. During music time, she sings on stage with a microphone, and the first graders sit in the front row. So, just to be annoying, I sing as loud as I can to try to shelter my girls from the epitimy of nasal terribleness. She gets super annoyed with me singing loudly, so she sings even louder, and then she will get the stink eye from Mr. Boehr because she is singing too loud. This just makes me so happy. I am in no position to dictate when people deserve certain things, but it sure is nice to see people getting put in their place every once and a while.

A very wise coach told me in softball practice one day that "Little things matter!", so naturally I took that way out of context and made my own definition for that phrase.

• Coachs' definition: Don't screw up the little things or you will be benched.
• My definition: Don't take advantage of the small things in your life that bring you little bits of joy.

I concur.

Friendship is a Blessing

Friday night I had the wonderful pleasure of going to the All State concert and watching my wonderful friends sing their little hearts out on stage. I met up with Syd and Celie, and saw many of my friends' parents before the concert. I love all of my friends' families! They are all so kind and welcoming! The concert was ah-mazing! As I had predicted, I cried. I held it in until the part in Fare Thee Well Love when the entire choir sang "Oh come ye back love, Oh come ye back love, the sun and moon refuse to shine since you have gone away." This part was sang at a forte and it sounded beautiful. The feeling of the whole concert in general was tear-jerking. Every single one of those kids on stage had to fight to be up there. I can't imagine what my emotions would have been like if I was up there singing.

With tears in my eyes, I stood up and had the instant urge to hug and cry on every single one of my friends after the concert. Crying, I told Momma that I need to go find them. She suggested that I calm down a little bit, and said, "You don't want them to see you like this, do you?" It didn't matter to me; all of my friends have seen me crying, it's not a big deal. But following her wishes, I waited until I calmed down. As Mom and I walked down the stairs (in desperate search of a certain Baldman), we saw Byron's parents. His mom hugged me and gave me some words of encouragement. This meant a lot to me. She shouldn't have been thinking about me, her son was up there singing his heart out, but she was and it meant so much to me. Outside I met up with Syd and Celie, and we all practically ran to go find our very talented friends. After about 5 minutes of looking and multiple unanswered phone calls, we found them. I hugged them all (despite Elijah's fail of an escape attempt) and almost started crying again. Thanks to chaos and confusion, I was able to spend more time than expected with all of them, which made me very happy. We were all standing outside, I didn't realize how cold I was until I started walking. I moved my foot to walk and almost fell over. (Typical Annastazia.) I decided that maybe wearing a skirt wasn't a very good idea.

We all walked up to the Mosts' vehicle to get Syd and Celie's stuff, and then walked with the Nelsons' for a little while until heading back down to the street to where the car was parked. ("The" is to be said with a little sarcasm. Whenever I call it "my car", Dad practically has a fit, yet when it is time to wash it, clean it out, or fill it up with gas, it instantly becomes "Annastazia's Car". They bought this car one day after my 15th birthday. Coincidence??? I think not.)

The four of us girls went out to eat at Village Idiot ;), and had a wonderful time. We even got pie. :) On the way home, Momma and I were trying to explain to the lost, Lincoln foreigners where we were going, but they were so turned around. It was hopeless. Finally, we arrived at my house! I gave them "The Grand-ish Not-So-Grand Tour". We went up to my room and just talked. and talked. and talked. It was great to catch up with both of them. After two hours of talking, we realized that all three of us weren't going to fit on my twin size bed that is almost to short for me. The hard-wood floors weren't looking to comfortable either, so we grabbed "the guest bedroom" (that's what Momma calls our air mattress) out of the linen closet and set it up in the middle of the family room. Celie slept on the couch and Syd and I took the bed. Despite my warnings about being a very restless sleeper, Syd still agreed to sleep in the same bed with me. I was woken up by my Momma standing over me saying, "Annastazia Gregory! Move over so your friend can have some of the bed!" I hazily looked over to find Syd only half way on the mattress while I was taking up the rest of the room. Oops... When it was finally a decent hour, we got up and ate a delicious breakfast, and then left to go to Kearney to meet Syd's Mom. We stopped along the way at this candle shop that mom goes to once a year to stock up on candles. It was really sad to see them go, we had such a good time. (Despite them learning so many of my embarrassing habits...). It's so awesome to know that I have friends that care about me so much. All of them do, I feel like I have known them forever, but has only been a little under 2 years. Next year there will be a post-All-State party at the Stofer house, so no one make any plans!

An Exciting Week

This week have had 2 potential buyers come look at our house, and there is another one coming tomorrow. After two months of no one looking at our house, it is encouraging to remember that it is, in fact, still on the market. We really need this house to sell. Right now we are exactly 20 minutes from school (if and only if you push the speed limit). I used to enjoy driving to school, it gave me time to think, but now it's just annoying. Because I am not a very good parker, my parents make me go to school a half hour early on days that I drive, which means that I have to get up even earlier.

On Wednesday, I went to the orthodontist, and rather than driving all the way out to Ogallala, mom made an appointment with the same doctor, but at his office in Kearney. At the appointment, we found out that I have been wearing the elastic rubber bands on the wrong side of my mouth, and now my over bite is worse. He said that if this hadn't have happened, I could have gotten my braces off in 8 weeks, but now I have to wait at least 16 weeks. They put even more rubber bands in my mouth, and bent my head gear a little bit. So now, at night, I have to wear 4 bands, and two of them cross at the front part of my mouth, as well as wear my head gear. This guy is crazy if he thinks that I am actually going to comply with all of this. We'll start slow, adding one rubber band whenever I feel like it, and then we'll talk about the stupid head gear in about a month.

Tomorrow is the All-State concert! I am so excited to hear the beautiful voices of all of my very talented friends! I have a feeling that this concert will be a bit of a tear-jerker for me. Choir music does that to me. Also, I haven't cried once about not making All-State, and I have a feeling that during the concert is when I will feel the most sadness. I am happy for my wonderful friends who did make it. They deserve it, (even though one of them practically had a melt down the week before, and then did amazing at his audition.) I know a couple of people from Lincoln as well as Syracuse who made it, so it will be fun to see them perform as well. Mostly, I just want to see (and hug!) my awesome friends that I never get to see: Syd, Micah, Byron, Celie, Elijah, and Balie! Hopefully next year we will all make it! (Except for Balie since she is a senoir and stuff...).

P.S. Day 15 of No-Shave Novemeber-- I'm about ready to crack... that razor is looking really tempting.

Sovereignty

One small tear drop fell as she remembered:
She remembered the hurtful words, fighting back tears.
She remembered running just to get away, just to scream.
She remembered the face of the rude extrovert, who still is to close for comfort.
She remembered the pain and her stupid intrepid hopes.
She remembered her ambitions, how childish.
She remembered the apathy of her friends.
She remembered how perfect everything seemed before.
But as two small tear drops fell she remembered that there is a God in Heaven whose sovereign will will be done.

Ripped to Shreds

Today was a bit of a haze for me, I had to be to school early for choir. We had a Veteran's day concert that we had to sing in during first period. I felt very sick this morning, and almost considered staying home, but I couldn't. It's already hard enough to hear the Altos in Encore and Choir, I couldn't abandon them like that. So, against my mother's wishes, I went to school and toughed it out. My throat was on fire, my head was pounding, I could barely breathe (despite taking my inhaler), and snot was dripping out of my nose like water.

Encore was up first, we sang our jazz version of the National Anthem. It went okay-ish, other then the fact that I had to croak out the E that I usually sing with no trouble at all. We had two rows of ten, and we were standing right in front of the section of seats reserved for Veterans. As Ms. Poe gave us our starting note, a cell phone went off. We all looked around, and it happened to belong to one of the Veterans. This inflicted a little joy into our expressionless group.

Choir was even worse. Ms. Poe said she could barely hear us; I could barely hear us. THERE ARE 90 OF US! WHY ARE WE NOT MAKING A HUGE SOUND!!?? I'm pretty sure my choir of 22 last year sounded larger than my choir of 90 this year. This really annoys me. We are singing songs that require a large choir to sound good, and it "ain't happenin'" (excuse my Gregory language). I walked in the door at home and the first thing Rudy said to me was, "Dude you guys sucked today!". I couldn't help but laugh because it was true.

Our next performance was at the parade of Veterans during 6th period (I got out of my IT class!!!). Encore and the Brass Ensemble took a bus down to the fair center, and sang and played for the Veterans. This is where my day got even more sketchy. When I got on the bus, I found an empty seat and sat down. Seats filled up quickly and soon people where yelling to double up. Much to my displeasure one of the creepy weirdo druggie guys sat down next to me. I. Freaked. Out. I was about to ask him nicely if I could find another seat when, all of a sudden, Mount St. NoseOnMyFace blew snot chunks all over this guy. It was really embarrassing, but at least it got him to leave. I felt terrible, I can honestly say he is the first person I have ever, legitimately blew snot chunks all over. Oh well, emabarrassment, story of my life.

By the end of the day, my voice was absolutely torn to shreds. My throat felt like I had just swallowed nails. None of the medicine my Momma gave me seems to be working, so I'll have to tough this one out. She has been giving me allergy medicine that makes me drousy, so it has been messing with my sleeping schedual. For instance, it's 12:01 AM and I am not tired at all. If only I can make it to Friday. Friday. Ugh, it's Monday.

An Unexpected,Yet Welcomed Phone Call

Friday, after I got home from school, my sisters and I had just finished our afternoon chores. They were upstairs annoying the crap out of everyone by practicing thier trumpets, and I was down stairs watching one of my favorite new shows that I have recorded. (Chicago Fire... It scares me so much, but I am so addicted to it.) My phone started viberating, so I paused the TV. I didn't recognize the number, but I answered anyway. After I said hello, I heard a somewhat familiar childish voice say, "Hi Stazia! I miss you so much! Come babysit me again!" It was little Jordyn. I babysat her and her little brother Marshall when I lived in Ogallala. (This was one of the state trooper families I babysat for.) Then I heard the familiar voice of little Marshall say, "Hi Sawah!" (He can't say Stazia, so he calls me Sarah.) This almost brought tears to my eyes. I love these kids so much, and the fact that they miss me as much as I missed them was almost too much to handle. The phone must have been on speaker phone because I could hear their Dad, Aaron, talking in the background. He informed me that they were selling their house in Ogallala and have already moved to Grand Island. The kids told me all about their new church and the new verses they had memorized. They asked me about my softball season and about how school was going. Aaron informed me that they would make a trip to Lincoln to see us sometime. It made me so happy to hear that they were adjusting easily to their new house. As we said our goodbyes, Jordyn said, "Please come see me soon Stazia. I miss you." This little four-year-old is breaking my heart, just absolutely melting it. The kids don't know this yet, but on Wednesday, my Mom and I have to make a trip to Kearney for my orthodontist appointment (I know... no more excuses to make random trips to Ogallala :(....). Mom said on the way home from Kearney we would stop and see them in Grand Island! I can't wait to see these guys!

Speaking of Social Graces...

My Mom and I were in car driving home from bible study Wednesday night and I had mentioned something about Girls of Grace. Mom looked at me and said, "Speaking of social graces, you have none!" I tried telling her that I was somewhat socially graceful, but she couldn't be convinced. "Annastazia, you can barely walk with out falling over flat surfaces, your glasses make you look like some alien bug-eye monster, you can't talk with out correcting yourself, you're blonde, you can't dance to save your life (eek....Encore....), and you walk like your dad! You are a living breathing Gregory, everything from the way you walk to your frizzy strawberry blonde hair to having to wear the Breathe-Right strips to breath at night! You have Stofer written all over you!" At this point both of us were laughing so hard we could hardly breathe because we both knew it was true. (She over exaggerated a little.) There was something about the way that my mother playfully insulted me that was just absolutey hilarious. She was laughing at me and I was laughing at her laughing at me. It's moments like these when I really appreciate the open relationship I have with my mom. What started out as a "pick on Annastazia rant" turned out to be an awesome conversation with her. We talked about everything: my friends, my frustrations, my bible reading, my grades (eek...it's just barely a 4.0), my various choirs, and just anything that was on my mind. Our lives are so busy that sometimes my mom and I get caught up in what we need to be doing every second of everyday and forget about talking personally with each other. It was my mom who comforted me through the move, and she is always there for me. When we pulled in the yard, Momma told me to help her unload the groceries. She stopped the car, and when I was about to get out she said, "You really are your father's daughter." Trying to decide whether that was an insult or a compliment, I grabbed like 7 bags of groceries and headed inside. I decided it was a compliment.

Just why

Monday I attended the Capitol Confrence Choral Clinic, otherwise known as CCCC. We learned the music in advance, and then when we showed up, we were given a half hour with the director to work on our choir's feature song, and then we had a whole afternoon of rehursals. My voice was completely ripped to shreds; I honestly felt like I had just swallowed needles. After a whole day of yelling, singing, more singing. and singing really loud, I was surprised that I had enough of a voice to sing in the concert that night.

It was durring the last rehursal session that I realized why I would never be able to be any sort of music teacher. Despite my passion for it, I get so impatient with people who don't have the same intensified passion. As I watched other choirs do their feature songs, I could almost see the dissappointment on some of the directors' faces as they tried all they could to get their choir to find that passion.

During the mass choir rehursal session, I decided to surround myself with people that weren't from my school, so that I could branch out a little bit. (If you were to watch the video you would see clumps of green, red, black, and blue, but you would also see a little green dot in the middle of a blue/red clump... that dot was me. As the rehursal continued I found myself wanting to scream at the people around me. Why wouldn't you fix the note you have messed up 5 consecutive times? Why wouldn't you want to make good facial expressions? Why wouldn't you listen to the director intently? Why wouldn't you show some sort of stage pressence? Why wouldn't you give 110% to this? It annoys me so much when people slack off on things like this. This is why I could never teach music, for fear that I might hate my job because my students don't care. For fear that I might not be able to get my students interested in the music. For fear that I might be ruining the musical expirience for some of my students. I honestly would not be able to wake up every morning and go to a job that I fear. I have been fortunate enough  to not have a music teacher who hates his/her job. All of my music teachers have been passionately involved in it, and I appreciate them.

SYDNI!

Have you seen this girl? She is my absolute best friend! Today was her birthday, and she is sixteen! We have been through just about every sticky-friend situation you could think of. We were brought together in 8th grade and then separated at the end of our freshmen year when I moved back here. Except, we are never really "separated", we have a very deep friendship. It has to be deep, there is no way anyone would put up with me if they didn't care! We have had our fights, our silly arguments, our embarrassing moments, and more importantly fond memories. I can remember the day when Syd found out that I played softball. We were sitting in band and she asked me what sports I played, I listed them, and when I said softball, her face lit up. We have been best friends ever since. We were an unstopable pair in softball, she was the catcher and I was the first-base woman. We struggled through freshman year; with all of our classes together, we were annoyed with each other sometimes. You could say that we bring out the worst in each other, but we also bring out the best in each other. As much as we complained about having every class together, I would gladly have everry class together than to live five hours away. We both cried when my Dad was "laid-off"; the Stevens even offered to let me live with them durring the summer so I could play softball in Ogallala. Sydni is my best friend, and we finish each others' sentences like sisters.

Syd, you are the shampoo to my conditioner; the soft to my ball; the "ne" to my "rd"; the flute to my piccolo; the oboe to my dying duck; I can't imagine what it would have been like with out you! Happy Birthday!

(I can't believe all of my friends are turning 16! I feel so young compared to all of ya'll!)

Awake

Last night, after a long day of being sick and then Dad's wreck, I was thinking about quite a few things. As usual, I was thinking about music, and my thoughts brought me back to my last choir concert in Ogallala. (My thoughts tend to bring me to a lot of places, events, people, and things. Sometimes I think my mind has a mind of it's own.) Our Mass Choir song still brings tears to my eyes.

Awake! Awake my soul and sing the time for praise has come. The silence of the night has passed a new day has begun. Let music never die in me, forever let my spirit sing.

That night there was so much emotion, it was the last concert with the seniors, it was the last concert with the Baldman, but it was also my last concert with all of the wonderful people who encouraged me and comforted me. It was taking every ounce of strength in my body not to cry while I was singing. During the last song, The Lord Bless You and Keep You, I completely lost it. Holding hands with two of my best friends helped ease my sadness, but there was nothing I could do to keep those tears in. I was even told, "It's going to be okay. We'll all be just fine. I'm not going to cry." as said person let a couple of tears break free. Emotions were flowing like crazy that night. After that, I would ask myself, what did I do to deserve such amazing people in my life? We are all truely blessed. God has put one or more person in each of our lives to be there for us, to encourage us, and most importantly, to whip us into shape everyonce and awhile. (No, that is not concerning my present state of not doing anything physical at all. Although, I really should be doing at least something.) Thank those people often; don't take anything for granted.

Family Gathering

Today we had a "family gathering". It was to celebrate my cousin graduating from this job college thing and to celebrate my great-aunt's birthday. By the way, this is my Daddy's side of the family. I love my family dearly, but there are some qualities about them that make me want to pull my hair out...

1. They always get my sister and I mixed up. Today I walked into my grandma's house and everyone said. "Hey Izzy, you're getting so tall!" I simply responded with, "Just wait until you see the real Izzy!" Then Izzy walked in and they all expressed how much we look alike. Her wearing my clothes didn't help our cause either. Sooner or later, I'm going to be getting her "hand-me-downs".
2. They always ask me if I have a boyfriend! It drives me crazy! I am a sophomore! Why do they assume I'm on a man-hunt? As we were eating, my uncle asked me if there were any cute boys in Syracuse. I responded with, "Only Rudy!" They all thought that was funny.
3. Despite being fairly aware of my asthma and reactive airway issues, they seem to think it is okay to just smoke whenever and wherever they want, which really makes me mad. This didn't even cross my mind at home, so naturally, I didn't bring my inhaler along. Fortunetly, they were kind enough to go outside to smoke, but when they came back in, I still had coughing fits because of the smoke that remained on their clothes.
4. There is so much food! I end up eating so much that I almost feel sick! How can I turn away Aunt Shyrlls's chocolate bars, or Grandma's Cinnomon Rolls, or Aunt Laurie's Chili, or Aunt Ruth's Jello-Salad. Holy food! I really should be working out or something now that softball is over... sigh.
5. They all make fun of me for having to call the fire department when I was babysitting Drake adn Brea! Would they rather have had the house catch fire??? Holy annoying, it drives me crazy!

Well, as much as they drive me crazy I love them all! Some of the fondest memories are made during the times that they drive me crazy the most! It's just  strange because when we go to these gatherings, my parents, my siblings, and I are the ones that look the most normal, which is odd because, well, we are odd!

Journal

Last year during our English 9 class, our wonderful teacher gave us the opportunity to write in our journals everyday. She always gave us a prompt, but we were allowed to write what we wanted to. She was the only other person that was able to read the journal, which gave us a sense of privacy as well as a sense of security. I absolutely loved journaling. I told myself that I would keep a journal over the summer, but failed to do so. We journal everyday in World Cultures, but that is different, we are forced to write about an article in the newspaper. Do you know how difficult it is to put a creative spin on a paraphrased article about the presidential debate, tax raises, or the recent Lincoln scam/scandal? VERY DIFFICULT! My teacher even told me that my journals were too opinionated. THAT IS THE PURPOSE OF A JOURNAL! (end rant... anyway, back on planet earth)

Recently I reread my English journal; I laughed and cried along as the journal told the story of my freshman year all over again. I cried over the entries that described recent arguments/tensions between me and my friends; as much as I wanted to punch them in the face sometimes, I would gladly take their annoying/insulting comments and actions over being separated from them. I cried over the entries about moving; I laughed at the entries that described funny situations that happened. I laughed about one of my pathetic poems that I only showed Syd. (She knows exactly which one I am talking about...). Most of all, I saw change over the year, I went from being a dumb, dramatic, immature blonde freshman to a... oh wait... never mind nothing changed.

I have decided to start journaling again, I will do it before I go to bed, so I can describe the events of the day in utmost detail. I won't give myself any sort of prompt; I will just describe what is on my mind. Knowing me and my lack of attention to things like this, it probably won't get done every night, but I will try hard to make sure it happens.

Melva Carolina Dreessen

A couple days ago, as we were eating supper, Momma brought up a topic that none of us have dared to bring up in a long time. Our great-grandma Dreessen. She passed away almost 3 years ago; she was one month shy of 100 years old. She died peacefully, and surrounded by her family.

It was a Wednesday night, basically my whole extended family was at Grandma's house. (If you know anything about the size my family, you know that there is A LOT of people.) Great-Grandma had her own separate wing of the house all to herself. We were all sitting around the room, her two sons (my grandpa and my great-uncle) and her daughter (my great-aunt) were sitting right next to her. They could see that she was struggling. She knew it was time, but she was waiting for the perfect moment. My grandpa looked up at her and said, "Mom, it's okay. You can let go. We're all here." And with that she passed moments later peacefully. I ran out of the room crying; my mom followed me and told me to take my siblings and all of my younger cousin down to the basement. I did. I have no idea what went on while we were down there, but soon enough Momma came down to tell us to load up in the truck. We had driven two separate vehicles, so Rudy rode with Dad  in the Vibe and the girls and I got in the truck with Momma. We were only 5 miles outside of Elkhorn when Momma looked at me and told me that Grandma and Grandpa wanted me to sing at the funeral. She said that Great-Grandma loved the sound of my voice and would give anything to hear it again. Momma said I could choose any arrangement of Amazing Grace that I wanted, so I chose "Amazing Grace: My Chains are Gone". After practicing a couple of times, I realized that I wasn't going to be able to do it by myself, so I asked my siblings to sing it with me. The funeral was held a week later in Pipestone Minnesota. After sitting through multiple speeches, including one spoken by Momma, it was our turn to sing. The piano started, but when my entrance came up, I was frozen. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Izzy started singing my solo and after catching my breath I was able to join her. The song sounded absolutely terrible: it's not easy to cry and sing at the same time. After the song I looked up to see that everyone in the congregation was crying. There was not a dry eye in the entire church. We took our seats and remained quiet through the rest of the service. As we were walking out, my grandpa came up to me, hugged me and said, "She heard you, Annastazia Caroline, I know she did. She loved the sound of children's voices." I lost it, I completely let go and started bawling like a baby. Neglecting all of my proper Girls of Grace training, I cried hysterically, revealing my emotions to everyone.

That was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. I don't regret doing it; I know it meant the world to my suffering family. I got so down on my self, thinking I was the most selfish brat in the world for feeling sorry for myself during that entire situation.

To clarify, my middle name was supposed to be the same as Great-Grandma's middle name, but when I was born, she was terribly confused and told my mother that her middle name was Caroline rather than what it really was, Carolina. Momma has wanted to change my middle name to Carolina for a long time, but I don't want her to. As much as I would love to carry the middle name of Carolina like my great-grandma, but there is something special about my family messing up my name. I want to remember that and keep it like that. When I have a daughter, I will probably incorporate Carolina somehow into her name, so that Melva's legacy will live on.

"The Apothecary's Daughter"

I am currently reading an amazing book, "The Apothecary's Daughter". My mom bought it for me a LONG time ago, and I thought it was just the most awesome thing ever because I actually am an 'apothecary's daughter'. (Apothecary is an old-fashion term for pharmacist.) I read the book at least 3 times in 5th grade, but because of my limited vocabulary at that age, I did not understand the book very well. As we prepared to move back here, I found it in my box full of books. I gave it to Syd to read and now I have decided to reread it myself. I am so captivated by this book, and not just because of it's close resemblance.

The main character in the book, Lillian Haswell, goes off to study in London, leaving her small town life for big city glamour. She is there only 18 months and then is summoned back to her small town because of reasons out of her control. Sound familiar?

There is something else that is quite strange about this book. Before every chapter there is a quote the foreshadows what will happen in the proceeding chapter. I came across a peculiar quote today as I was reading:

I will not dwell upon ragouts or roasts, albeit all human history attests that happiness for man--the hungry sinner-- since Eve ate apples, much depends on the dinner.

--Lord Byron

 

I thought the name was strangely familiar... :) I have no idea what the quote is referring to, obviously it is in reference to Eve eating the fruit of the tree that was forbidden, but I'm not sure what "Lord Byron" meant about much depending on dinner.

This book also talks about how Lillian (I absolutely LOVE that name) is in training to become a proper young Christian lady. Being raised almost motherless, Lillian is learning from her aunt how to become such a lady. It is almost surreal how different our present day culture is different from theirs. For example, in the book, Christian women were not allowed to run, at all, and they were to never be seen with their hair down. Christian ladies were also always expected to be escorted (like the old fashion arm-link escort) by a man. Can you imagine not walking with out having to have a man treat you like a glass china doll? Chivalry doesn't bother me at all, it is encouraged in the bible, but I think it is so peculiar how much our "Christian Culture" has changed from what it used to be.



Enduring Promises

By definition, a promise is a declaration that something will or will not be done, given, achieved, etc. by one. What would be considered the common era definition of a promise? Empty words and sayings, an easy way out, a lie, a false statement... More and more frequently people are over using and abusing promises. In the Bible, it is made evident, that a promise is a promise and it should be kept. God kept all of his promises to us, so why can't we keep our promises to Him and amungst each other?

(Just another one of those thoughts that randomly popped in my head as I was driving to school....)

Simple Hallelujah

This week I have had a lot on my mind. Especially how I praise the Lord. Does the way I act and talk reflect in a positive way? Is every word that comes out of my mouth glorifying to Him? For example, in the van on the way to All-State Auditions, a few of the girls were gossiping about a girl that I particularly did not care for very much. I was in mid-gossip story before I realized what I was doing. I was being very disrespectful. I quickly finished the sentence with "but she has very pretty hair.", and then kept my mouth shut the rest of the way.

Maybe this has everything to do with the people I surround myself with. Obviously, no one is perfectly perfect, but shouldn't I strive for that? I would hope that my friends would strive for that too. In Girls of Grace, we are teaching my little 1st graders to glorify God in all that they do and say. This concept is a little surreal for a little 1st grader, but it makes sense to me. One of the reasons I love being a Girls of Grace junior leader is the fact that I get to relearn all of this stuff along with the girls. Sure, it's a little simplistic, but simplicity should be embraced, not shunned. There are so many of the adult leaders in Girls of Grace that make it look so easy. They are loved by everyone, care enough to comfort yet discipline, they have sooo many verses memorized, they have a true passion and love for the Lord, they fake perfection at it's finest, they display a positive attitude even when there are seven crying children tugging on them, they display all of the qualities of the "perfect wife/mother", and I can't help but notice that they are wholly devoted to what they do and the purpose they serve. What must one do to achieve such perfection?

All I can do is offer my simple hallelujah; although, it is not as simple as it seems.

"I will serve the Lord with all of my heart, soul, mind, body, and strength."
 

This verse is commonly quoted and memorized, but it is far more complex. Every ounce of me must be completely devoted to Lord. I  have know this for a VERY long time, but it is just now sinking in. I have a lot of work to do if I am to strive for perfection (although it is unattainable) and be like all of the wonderful ladies that influence me.

A Scary Night

Saturday, before the Lincoln High Marching Competition, my (bare with me here) Dad's cousin's daughter-in-law and son called me and asked if I wanted to babysit their two adorable kids Drake (4 years old) and Brea (4 months old). I happily agreed and told them that I would be over at their house as soon as I was done with the Links Marching Competition. (The competition went terrible, by the way, we got a 2.)

It started out like a normal babysitting job, I fed Drake his supper, and then bottle fed the warm, BLONDE, ball of sunshine. Brea is a very happy baby during the day, but at night she cries constantly because she tries to fight off sleep for some reason.

It was about 10:30. Drake had fallen asleep watching Open Season in his room, and the baby was sleeping soundly in her portable crib set up in the dinning room. I was sitting against the wall right next to the crib and slowly drifted off to sleep. I was awoken by the shrill sounds of  baby Brea needed her diaper changed. I lifted her out of her crib and changed the poop-infested diaper. I was about to put Brea back in her crib when a wave of smoke hit me. It was dark in the room, so I couldn't see the smoke, but  I could smell it. I hastily put the screaming baby back in her crib and rushed all around the house looking for the one thing that scares me the most. Fire. I searched the house, but could not find any evidence of a fire. I went back to the dinning room only to discover that the sent had gotten worse. I grabbed the kids and ran out the door. It never crossed my mind to call the fire department, I called the one person who I trust the most when a situation involves smoke and fire, my Dad. He told me that I needed to call 911 immediately. I did.

 

"Gage County 911 dispatch center, what is your emergency?"

Shaking, I answered the man, "Hello, my name is Annastazia Stofer, and I have no idea where I am at, and I think the house is on fire."

"Ma'am, is everyone out of the house? Are you a safe distance from the house?"

 

 

He had many more questions and I answered them all to the best of my ability. I was crying, and so where both of the kids. Then he asked me if I had the kids bundled up. I looked down at the two screaming kids. Drake was in my right arm, with his arm tightly around my neck, and in my left arm was Baby Brea. It then hit me, it was 35 degrees out side and those kids were out there wearing only their pajamas, and none of us had shoes on. I quickly took off my Syracuse Softball sweatshirt and put it on Drake trying the best I could to wrap him up. Then, I took off my sweatpants and wrapped baby Brea up in them to try to keep her warm. Now I was standing out there wearing only a tee-shirt and shorts. My whole body was shaking, I couldn't tell if I was just cold or having some sort of nervous breakdown. I noticed that I could barely breathe, I frantically reached for my inhaler in the pocket of my sweatshirt that was wrapped around Drake.

 

Finally I could hear sirens, the dispatcher hung up, and a police officer pulled up and was yelling at me to get the kids into the back of his car where it was warm. Soon after the kids where placed safely in the car, a firetruck came racing up the hill. Six firemen, suited up in full gear, ran into the house. I started crying harder when I thought of my Dad and how disappointed he would be with my inability to handle this situation calmly. The police officer asked me several questions, many of which I didn't have answers for.

 

After 20 minutes, the six firemen, protruded from the house. By this time I was calm, but still shaking. They explained to me that there was a layer of dust somewhere on/in the heat pump that burned, and that was why the smell intensified as it got colder outside. They said that they had taken care of everything and that it was okay to go back into the house. I grabbed the bundled kids and walked back into the house, still shaking.

 

I carefully laid Drake in his bed and he fell asleep right away. I grabbed an extra baby blanket and paced around the family room carefully rocking Brea to sleep. I placed her in her crib after she fell asleep, and then called Dad. As I suspected, he was disappointed in my inability to keep calm. I learned a few things from this experience. (More like I got yelled at by an angry over protective father about these things.

1. Call 911 immediately, don't call Dad first.
2. Make sure I have shoes and adequate clothing for me and all people under my care.
3. Know the address of where I am at.
4. Keep calm.
5. Always tell the firefighters/police officers that my Dad is a firefighter.

As a firefighter's daughter, anyone would expect me to handle this situation more calmly, but I'm not sure what happened. I knew that I should have done all of those things on that list with out even thinking about it, but I didn't. I hesitated, and someone could have gotten hurt. This incident has been giving me nightmeres ever since it happened, and last night I even woke up screaming. It's really hard to forget about.