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!)