The Proverbs Challenge

A Proverb a day keeps foolishness away. My Mom and I have started something new together. Reading one chapter of Proverbs a day. There are 31 chapters in Proverbs so we are reading one chapter everyday, and we will continue this every month. It amazes me that I can read through a chapter multiple times and still find something that I didn't know or understand before. I have been doing this for about 9 days now, and have not missed a day. I consider this a random mid-June resolution. I was to lazy to start a resolution in January, so I am starting it now. Mom is falling behind on her reading, and though I remind her everyday, she always finds an excuse not to do it. I hope that she continues reading, Proverbs is a great book of the bible to read through, no matter how many times you have read it, you can still learn more and more. I challenge you to do the Proverbs Challenge. It will help you in the long run.

Driving

Today was my first driving session for Driver's Ed. It went okay-ish. I was busted for speeding many times. and my only excuse is that I am my mother's daughter. I didn't crash, and the instructor never had to grab the wheel, so that is a good sign. The instructor was making fun of the fact that I talk to myself and everything around me when I drive. For example, we were stopped at a railroad crossing for a train, and as I glanced in my rearview (what a peculiar word) mirror, I saw a huge cement truck coming up behind me really fast. So, I said, "Don't run over me big truck. I'm just a little car!" Mr. Wusk thought this was just absolutely histerical. It's a habbit, I don't know why I do it, it just comes naturally. Looking back at some of the things that I said, I can see how he thought it was funny. Three more days of driving until I am finished with Drivers Ed! Unfortunatley, I can't go get my permit, because my parents lost my birth certificate. So I will be driving illegally for a little while longer... story of my life.

Camp!

This past week, I have spent all of my time at a bible camp outside of a little town in Missouri off of Table Rock Lake. It was beautiful there! Here is a rough description of my week and how it went.

Monday the 11th: I had to be at church at six in the morning to help pack the trailer of suitcases, sleeping bags, pillows, etc. My Dad brought me into Lincoln that day. We pulled into the church parking lot and pulled up to where the vans and trailers were being loaded. I had my large lime green suitcase and two trashbags labeled "Stofer" that had all of my beding in them. Dad made me carry my own suitcase out of the truck and to the trailer. I reluctantly rolled that insanely heavy suitcase to the trailer. I said goodbye to Daddy, and then loaded up in one of the five 15-passenger vans that we were taking to camp. I ended up in the very back seat that seated four people, forgeting all about my obscure car sickness. I was back there with my friends Megan A, Nathan S, and Micah P. We were about 2 hours into the trip when we stopped for breakfast. I was starting to get a major headache and my stomach hurt. At first I thought I was just hungery, but to my dismay, I still felt sick after I ate. So, I moved to a different van that wasn't very crowded. This still didn't help, so I moved to another van at our next stop. One of the leaders suggested that I sit closer to the front (I was in the second row), but all of the popular girls in the front row didn't want to switch spot with me, so I toughed it out. All of the leaders told us at our last stop that we were about 90 minutes from camp, and that the last hour of the trip had the most curvy and hilly roads. We loaded up and after about 20 minutes I just completely lost it. My head was throbbing with pain. I started crying, and I felt just horrible. The rest of the van ride was like this. Finally we arrived at camp! We were given a half hour to unpack and get our swinsuits on until we had to be at the pool to take a swim test. I passed, and after a while, we all went to bed, it was an eleven hour trip in all.

Tuesday the 12th: I woke up early and went on a beautiful three mile run, it was amazing! Then that morning, we had free time, so I went and kicked some butt at volleyball and basketball with my friend Megan B. against 2 other boys in our class, Tyler H. and Calvin B. After lunch, I was walking back to my cabin when Nathan M. yelled my name and told me it was time to practice for the special music song that I was singing a duet in. We practiced. And Practiced. And practiced. It took forever! We would be singing it that night after the other worship songs that the praise band was playing. That night, I walked up on stage confident, we had practiced that song so many times I could sing it backwards, in Spanish, and standing on my head all in my sleep. (A little bit of an exaggeration....) I grabbed the microphone that I was instructed to use during practice. The piano (played by Micah P) started, and soon came my que, a subtle eight-note run, I started singing. I had a solo on the first two verses and the chorus. I thought it was going pretty good until, after my long solo, one of the sound booth guys came and took my mic and handed me a new one. I didn't let it phase me. Megan B sang the next two verses and the chorus with my subtle harmony in the background. Next came the bridge....time to 'peel paint'. I blasted that harmony and rocked those perfect thirds, fifths, and sixths. The last chorus was my solo (again) I sang it with confidence and ended the song. Afterwards, Nathan M (he was playing synth) came up to me and apologized for the sound problems. I asked him what he meant, and he told me that durring my whole first solo, my mic was off.... oh well.

Wednesday the 13th: In the morning, I had some free time and messed around with my friends. After lunch, my friends and I were signed up to do the "Barn Swing". Basically, you climb these sketchy stairs up to a platform up really high (in a harness) and then, once you are hooked up properly, you jump off of the platform. It was amazing! After that, I went tubing with my friends Lauren H, LeeAnn H, and Cassie S. It was decided that my parter, Carl N, and I would go on the tube first. Carl was reluctant to go with me, but there were no other partners. As we got on the tube, Carl kept saying that he would hold on longer than me and that I would be the first to fall off. That was soon proven wrong, when he fell off first. Our turn was almost up, and I hadn't fallen off yet, so I plugged my nose, and jumped off. The other people went on the tube, and then we went back to camp. The night ended somewhat normally and everyone went to bed.

Thursday the 14th: Hiking Day! Our church group took a day trip to Arkansas and went hiking! At the end of the trail, there was a river, so we all went swimming! It was an amazing day! We all returned to camp in time for supper, but before supper I had praise band practice. After supper, we had our performance, and then we all played a huge round of "Ultimate Capture the Flag". We were divided up into three teams, and were allowed to use the whole camp, it was really fun!

Friday the 15th: A very busy day! I got up to go for a run, and then after breakfast, it was my team's day to complete the "Challenge Coarse". It was a huge obstacle course that involved a lot of strong tall people, unfortunatley, my team had very few of those. I learned from three things from this: a) I am not as athletic as I thought b) Sometimes being bossy is a good thing c) I really need to learn when to SHUT-UP! (I put that in there for you Micah!) After the challenge course I had just enough time to go change and head to lunch. Right after lunch, my friends and I went tubing again and I attempted to go surfing on a tube. One word. FAIL. It was terrible! After tubing, I was signed up to do the ropes course with my friend Cassie S. They hooked us up in seat and chest harnesses, and we were instructed to climb this long slanted log up to the course that was 50 feet in the air. There were many parts of the course where I had to walk across a thin wire, and was only allowed to hold on to my partner. It was really hard! It took Cassie and I about 2 hours to finish it, and that was one of the fastest times of the day. It got really hot up there too; when we got to the bottom, we had both sweated all the way through our shirts and shorts. That night, after supper, worship, and bible study, we had a big bon fire. It was amazing. This is also when I aquired a new nickname: Scandinavian Booger. This was given to me by the old guy who is the praise band leader. Here are some of the other nicknames: Yidish Loogie- Tim (praise band leader) Samari Snot- John (One of the group leaders) Irish Nosebleed- Lauren (one of my friends) and Talabanian Upchuck- Nick (one of the group leaders). No one really knows how all of these names were devised, it just happened. After the bon fire, we had to return to our cabins and start packing and cleaning.

Saturday the 16th: We woke up and finished packing. The girls were instructed to carry their suitcases untill they reached the group of guys, and the guys took it from there to the trailer. All of the guys, except for one, walked away when they saw me coming with my huge, heavy lime green suitcase. The one guy who stayed was my tubing partner Carl! What a freshman... After breakfast, we loaded up the vans and headed back to Lincoln. We were only an hour into the trip when someone in my van completely threw up all over the backseat. The stench quickly filled the van, but we had to wait a half hour before we could stop to clean it up. Worst half hour of my life. The rest of the van ride went fairly smoothly, and I was very happy to be home.

Friendly Competition

Last night, at the basketball summer leauge games, my team (Syracuse JV2) was schedualed to play against Sterling. Sterling (Nebraska) is where I went to school for K-3rd grade. As we were warming up for that game, I was searching the other team for people I knew. Much to my dismay, I knew almost all of them. Coach had chosen me to do the jump ball (mainly because I was the tallest on the team). I ran off of that bench almost a little cocky, as I walked into the middle circle on the court, I looked up and there, jumping for Sterling, was one of my friends, Becky. I wanted to hug her, I hadn't seen her in over 5 years, but we settled for a hand shake and a subtle good luck. The ref tossed the ball and naturally both of us jumped up for it and collided. I won the jump, I had tipped it back to the point gaurd to my left. Becky and I are about the same size, so we ended up gaurding each other throughout the entire game. I would knock her on the floor, and I would help her up. But, more often than not, I found myself the one being knocked on the floor multiple times. As one of my former teammates, Shelby, always said, "Dude! You ate floor!". I did eat floor, all. game. long. A couple of minutes before half time, there was a foul called on my team, and Sterling was shooting free throws. Becky was subbed out, and another girl was put in for her. This girl lined up next to me for the free throws, and then it hit me. This girl standing next to me used to be my best friend. Her name was Erika, and we rode the same bus when I went to Sterling. As I am standing there about to knock her to the floor so I could get the rebound, I asking myself many questions. Does she recognize me? Will she forgive me for knocking her out in like 3 seconds? Will she talk to me? Does she even remember that we used to be best friends? As all of these questions were going through my mind, I spaced out and completely forgot my job, to get the rebound. Erika knocked me on the floor, and she got the rebound and scored. I was shocked, coach made me sit the bench the rest of the half. We lost that game, 10-12. After the game, our teams lined up to give high fives. I went through the line like normal, but after that I practically tackled my friends with hugs. I didn't care how sweaty and gross I was, I hadn't seen some of these girls since the last day of my 3rd grade year. It is times like this that really make me appreciate the time I do have with my friends. I really don't want this to happen to my friends in Ogallala, me not seeing them for 7-8 years. I want to try and keep in close contact with these people, all of them. They know how much they mean  to me.

Are we done yet?

The answer is no. We are not done; we are no where near being done. Today my mom asked me to go out a get a shelving unit from the trailer. As I opened those hug trailer doors with the complicated latch, I was expecting to see a nearly empty trailer. I was wrong. The trailer is still over half full (or half empty). As I pushed through all kinds of boxes and totes, I finally found the shelve thing that my mom was looking for. My smile fell as I realized that I had to find a way back out of the trailer.

The house is starting to come together quite nicely. It is starting to feel more like home, but there is one thing that isn't quite finished. MY ROOM! For the past week and a half, I have not put any of my stuff away. It is all still in boxes. My room has a bed, and just a bed, no other furniture. (Boxes do not count as furniture.) Dad went to Lincoln today to pick up the custom closet storage thing-a-ma whatever, and once that is installed, I should be able to unpack all of my clothes at least.

If this house sells, we will have to move again. I really want to move so we can be closer to school and church, but I really don't want to have to go through this whole moving process again. Ugh.

Mixed Feelings

Today was the first day of summer conditioning and weight training. Because I am in both basketball and fall softball, I had to be to school for workouts at 7 and stay until 11! It was insane! At 7 I had to be in the gym and make 100 shots for basketball. It was really making me mad. I honestly had not picked up a basketball since the end of the season. After I got my 100 shots in, I had to go outside for softball conditioning. It was amazing! Running hills, doing speed drills, core exercises, and just plain running. I loved every second of it! After that was completed, I had to go back into the gym to make 25 free-throws. I only had one left, and I was just about to shoot it when I hear an annoyingly familiar voice shout across the gym, "Annnnastaaayyysshhhaaaaa!" The ball shanked off of the rim as I recognized the voice, it was my 6th grade teacher. He is also the volleyball coach for our school. He is 75% of the reason I quit volleyball. I wanted to go die in a hole! This man has been bothering me since the fourth grade about playing volleyball in high school because of my heigth. He won't leave me alone. "My, you are still growing!" were the first words out of his midget mouth. "How tall is your brother now?" I replied with "Just a little taller than me." This man was not going to leave me alone! I finished my last free-throw and then headed to the weight room. I was bench pressing and he came over and started talking to me again! I wanted to throw the freaking bench at him! Weights ended very good, I am lifting more than most of the other girls. (Which did not surprise anyone.) At nine, basketball practice started. After warm up we spilt in to our respective teams. And much to my displeasure, my team (JV2) got a  new coach, my sixth grade creeper teacher! I was so angery! We were working on our defense, and my team is the "demo defense" team. As I am gaurding a girl at least a foot shorter than me, I can hear some of the girls standing on the side lines talking about me. "Who does she think she is?" "She leaves for a year and a half and then she suddenly gets good at basketball?" "If she gets a starting spot, I'm going to be mad!" Usually comments like this would have made me somewhat upset, but it didn't bother me at all. They can say whatever they want. Surprisingly, Ogallala basketball is a little more intense and aggressive than Syracuse basketball, so I have a little bit of an advantage. Practice ended on a good note because I made a killer baseline post move right before coach blew the wistle. I left school around 11:30. I was so tired and very sore, but it felt amazing. I cannot wait until tomorrow!

Nervous Wreck

Have you ever been so nervous about something that you worry yourself sick? This has been happening to me for a about 6 months now. I am constantly worried or nervous about something that is going on in my life. Except, most of the time I don't even know what I am nervous about. It comes in spurts and splashes. I will be fine one minute, but then the next minute, I am worrying about 20 billion different things all at once. Most of the time this results in me crying, yelling, singing, and or punching some one/thing. My family says I am just going psychotic... I don't blame them for saying that. Ever since the "removal of the position of Fire Cheif" I have been going psycho. Especially in those last couple of weeks. It seemed like I was always in either a pissy mood, or a depressed mood. I was never content, never satsified. I honestly don't think I will ever be 100% content with this situation. I hated moving away from Ogallala. I loved it there. I had about 8 people who were my absolute best friends that I didn't want to leave. Five of these eight came to my house the night before I moved away to help us pack the trailer. It was more than helping, it was our final goodbyes... These people mean the world to me! Who knows when I will be able to see them again, which really makes me sad.

You should always appreciate what you have, and the people in your life. You never know when you will be forced to move away...