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. :)