Procrastination

I leave for camp in like less than five hours, and I can't fall asleep. I packed a little bit on Friday, and a little bit today, but I was lazy and pushed most of it off until tonight. I finally got it all done, but now I can't fall asleep. I have to leave my house at 4:30 tomorrow morning to get to church around 5:15. (And hopefully stop for coffee somewhere along the way! My addiction is slowly coming back...). We will leave from church and drive all the way down to Shell Knob, Missouri. We are going to a christian camp called Point 11. It is on Table Rock Lake. I am really excited. I went last year, and I had a blast. There will be a new guy teaching the word this year. I have never heard him teach, so I am excited for that as well. I am a little nervous about my shoulder. I went to the chiropractor on Friday to get it looked at, and it is worse than we thought. It turns out that the shoulder injury may have been created when I got in my ATV wreck a few years ago. In theory, if the force of my body on the the handle bars as I was going down the dam was enough to buckle fracture my left radius, then it was probably enough to do some damage on my shoulder. It hurts really bad, and I have to ice it twice or three times a day. We do a lot of hard core physical activities at camp, and I really hope that my injury doesn't prevent me from doing these. Anyway, I am super excited to spend an entire week with fellow believers learning more about the wonderful God that we serve! I hope this week brings me closer to Him!

I used to think...

This was one of our journal prompts that the amazing Mrs. Helzer had us do my freshman year in English class. I was thinking about this prompt this week for some reason. It popped in my head on the way home from Girls of Grace Camp on Tuesday, and I have been thinking about it ever since.

I used to think that "democrat" was a bad word.
I used to think that I would never ever argue with my parents as a teenager.
I used to think that Rudy was adopted because he was always so much more tan than I was.
I used to think that I was going to be a professional ballet dancer.
I used to think that cheerleaders were perhaps the most amazing people on the planet.
I used to think that FFA stood for Fat Farmers Association.
I used to think that I was going to be a Nun. (This was when I went to the Lutheran Church. Let's just say that I received some strange looks from my Sunday School teachers when I announced that to the class.)
I used to think that I was going to play in the WNBA.
I used to think that girls were not allowed to drive tractors.
I used to think that boys had cooties. (Who am I kidding? Boys do have cooties. Stay. Away.)
I used to think that getting straight A's was easy.
I used to think that my Momma was serious when she told people that she was a drug dealer.
I used to think that Santa Clause came through our wood-burning stove since we don't have a fire place.
I used to think that if I fell asleep long enough in our pasture that I would wake up in an episode of Little House on the Prairie.
I used to think that I would have the same "best friend" my entire life.
I used to think that landing on the moon was all a hoax.
I used to think that if I would laugh while Momma and Daddy spanked me, that they would stop. (Nope... flawed logic. I would get an extra one for laughing.)
I used to think that a mule was created when a cow and a horse had a baby.
I used to think that I wanted to be Cross Country/Track Long Distance runner.
I used to think that I never wanted kids. (Now I want 4-6 kids, maybe more. It depends on how many the Lord will bless me with.)
I used to think that I would always be taller than my siblings because I am the oldest. (Now I am only taller than one of them... Elle. Not for long though. It's sad that being 5'10" is considered short in my family.)
I used to think that it was a sin to get comfortable in my bed before I prayed at night.

Taming the Tongue



Bathroom Picture.... Third Grader Style :)

 I have spent the past four days at Girls of Grace Camp at Camp Comeca outside of Cozad, NE. I was brought along as an extra Junior Leader because my girls were not old enough to go to camp this year. (Next year they will be!! So excited!). The Junior Leaders have many responsibilities at camp, but the main responsibility is to be a big sister/momma/teacher/best friend/roll model to all of the little girls. There were eight third graders in my cabin. They are all adorable, and they have such tender hearts. I was joined by two adult leaders (both mothers of  third graders) and Lauren (another Junior Leader... this was actually "her class" I was an extra). The theme of our room was Rainbows. We paired the girls up and gave the pairs a color. So we had 4 different color groups: pink, blue, purple, and green. In this picture, the girls are all wearing their assigned color. All of us leaders wore tie dye shirts, representing rainbow.

Here is a rough description of my four days at Girls of Grace Camp...



Before we realized how insane
3rd graders are...

 Saturday: We had to be at church in Lincoln at 11:30. Elle and I where running late, as usual, so we had to eat our lunch on the road. I never realized how hard it is to eat Mac-and-Cheese while driving! It is quite challenging! I gave up on trying to eat it on the gravel roads and highways, so when we got into Lincoln, I ate it at all of the stop lights on 84th Street. (And if you have ever driven down 84th, you know that there are a butt-ton of stoplights.) So we were stopped at the intersection of 84th and Van Dorn, and I was stuffing food into my face. Elle starts giggling. I look back at her, "What's your problem?" "Spaz! Look out your window I think that those boys in that truck next to you think that you are cute!" Like the idiot I am, I looked over. Sure enough they were staring. I rolled my eyes, "Yes because I am so adorable, wearing a tie dye shirt and a bandanna with my name on it while stuffing my face with Mac-and-Cheese." She thought this was funny, and just then the light turned green. When we got to church, Elle and I unloaded our stuff from the car and loaded it into the trailer. Soon after, we loaded the vans. There were four 15 passenger vans packed full of Girls of Grace girls. The third graders were in the "Sweet Pea" van. I hustled to the van before anyone else and claimed my window seat. The girls were crazy all the way to Cozad. I was so relieved when we finally arrived. We quickly unloaded the trailer, and started unpacking in our cabins. It is the responsibility of the Junior Leaders to decorate the cabin, so Lauren and I went rainbow cray-cray in our cabin. We had rainbow duck tape, rainbow streamers, clouds with verses on them, awesome colored bed-signs, and a pretty awesome door sign. Lauren and I both shared our testimonies that night. It's kind of cool because Lauren and I were saved on the same day, but it happened in two completely different ways. I tried to share it in a way that would be applicable to the little third graders, and I hope I accomplished that. I was really nervous. I was shaking really bad, and I was moving around all over the place. (It kind of reminded me of the good ol' days in Mrs. Diaz's speech class. One day she had to tape my feet to the floor while I gave my speech, she also taped my note card to my hand so that I wouldn't mess with it while I gave my speech.) That night after supper, we went swimming, and then raced for the showers. There were 6 showers for about 50 people. It was insane, and the hot water was out by like the 4th round of people. We each had to take less than 5 minute showers, which made me angry. As most of you know, I take looonnnnggg hot showers, this is my relaxing time. Shower time is happy time, but not when I have grumpy elementary students telling me to hurry up while cold water comes out from a spout that is 5 inches shorter than I am. After that we got into our PJ's and then went to the cafeteria for snack. I accidentally grabbed my Momma's "Omaha Fire and Rescue" shirt instead  of mine out of the laundry, so my pajama shirt was too big for me. It completely covered my shorts, which was kind of funny. My little girls slept pretty well except for Riley. She tapped on my shoulder at like 4 in the morning, and I unknowingly hit her hand away in my sleep, which made her cry. I sat up quickly, knocking my head on the bed above me. I reached for the crying child. She kept saying, "Pillow!" "What are you talking about sweetie?" "Annnaaataaayyyshhha! I can't find my pillow!" So I rummaged through my suitcase in the dark searching for my flashlight. I finally found it, and shined it on top of her bed. Her pillow was on her bed the entire time. She hugged me, and then climbed up her ladder.



My Little Ava-Bug... :)



Sunday: I woke up again to Lauren tickling my feet, "Annastazia, I'm going to start getting ready in the bath house, are you coming?" I looked at my phone. 5:45. Two hours and fifteen minutes until we had to be at breakfast. "Lauren, you are such a girl. Wake me up at 7:45, it will take me ten minutes to throw my mop in a pony tail, get dressed, and swipe some deodorant on. It's camp, and that's as good as my appearance is going to get." She laughed, "I am not as girly as you think." she said as she walked out of the cabin carrying a pink bag full of all kinds of products, soaps, and make-up, as well as two pink towels. Girl if I ever saw one. Later that day we went canoing. It was so much fun! Expect for the fact that I had to pee really, REALLY bad. I looked back at the male leader in my canoe, "Stan, could we go back to shore, I have to use the restroom, and this lake water isn't helping my cause." He laughed and we started head back to shore. I looked around. No bathrooms. I would have just peed in the lake, but we were instructed not to get in the lake unless our canoe tipped. There were tons of bushes and trees around, but I had a feeling that peeing outside wasn't a very "Girls of Grace-ish" thing to do, so I made the exhausting trek up death hill back to camp to use the bathroom. That was the most painful half hour of my life. That night, we had an extended Cabin Study time and extended sermon time, which was really cool. I learned so much. It was crazy, I was a leader, and yet I still learned just like the little girls. Our theme this year was "Taming the Tongue". I guess I didn't really realize how much that I sin with my mouth. I was really convicted. It's something that I really need to work on. That night after everyone in the cabin had fallen asleep, I woke up around 10 to a little girl standing next to my bunk crying. It was my little Ava-bug. (I don't know where the nickname came from... her real name is Ava. She is so adorable.) She was sobbing, "Annastazia I'm just so tired, but I just can't fall asleep, and every one's beds are creaking, and it's just keeping me awake, and I'm just scared of the thunder." I grabbed her and pulled her onto the bed, setting her on my lap. I rocked her back and forth while running my fingers through her hair, "I know sweetie, do you want to sleep with me for awhile?" She curled up in my lap while I was still sitting up. I rocked her, hummed to her, and stroked her hair until she finally fell asleep half an hour later. I was just about to take her to her own bed when my phone lit up, I looked at it. It was text from Byron. I set her down carefully and frantically tried to figure out how to get my phone to shut-up and stop buzzing. The vibrate on my phone is REALLY loud and I was worried that it was going to wake up Ava. Too late. My phone was still buzzing, and little Ava sat up quickly and started crying again. I chucked my phone at my pillow and calmed the crying child. She settled down in under five minutes and was sleeping again. I was so happy, although, despite being super tired, I couldn't sleep. I think I fell asleep sometime around midnight.



Serious Mustache Faces. Every body's doing it!

 Monday: Pure craziness! It was the last full day of camp, so there were a ton of fun activities for the girls to do, including Leader Hide-and-Seek, all of the leaders hide, and the girls seek. The girls get points based on their captured Leaders' level of authority. (We did this when I was in Girls of Grace, except back then, we did it in the dark...). Anyway, Anna and I decided to hide together. We were walking around looking for a hiding place when I said, "I have a sudden urge to climb a tree. Want to hide in a tree?" She laughed and said, "Why not!? I'm not as young as I used to be though." We found a pretty good climbing tree, although this tree had one flaw, the distance from the first branch to the second was a good five feet. I managed to swing my leg up there and pull myself up by a smaller branch, it wasn't pretty, and it hurt really bad. We climbed pretty high, but the wind picked up and was swaying the tree, so we decided to stay put. I wrapped my arm around the tree like I was hugging it, and much to my displeasure, there was a large sappy spot. My arms were covered in sap. It turns out that trees aren't very good huggers, and I was starting to get a rash. Let's just say, my tree climbing/sitting skills have grown weaker and weaker these past couple of years. Anna and I made a few tree-hugger jokes, and then we heard the whistle that mean the girls were coming. We were found 10 minutes later. I looked down at the ground below me and suddenly wondered how the heck I was going to get down. I tried going the same way that I came up, but it just wasn't working out. I ended up sliding down the trunk practically doing the splits. There were scratches all over my legs, but mostly on the backs of my legs. It hurt so bad! That bark was REALLY sharp and pointy! Much to my displeasure, Kelly was at the base of the tree taking pictures of my tree dismounting troubles. It was bad. That night we had the talent show. Our cabin talent is kind of hard to explain, but the third graders were lip syncing a song upside down with faces drawn on their chins. We drew mustaches on them, so to make them feel more comfortable, Lauren and I gave ourselves mustaches as well. The girls did wonderful, and the crowd loved them! After the talent show, we lathered them in bug spray and went to the fire pit for a campfire! It was a wonderful time, and I think I am slowly getting over my fear of fire. I'm not sure if that is a bad thing or a good thing. That night I had 3 crying girls in my bed, and one of them stayed there all night.

Tuesday: We packed up and loaded the trailer in the morning, and then after lunch, we left for Lincoln! On the way home, one of my girls yelled, "Annastazia! Annastazia! Look! Look at that flock of cows over there!". According to Airiana, cows gather in "flocks". She is adorable. Soon after we had passed Kearney, Hailey fell asleep on my shoulder, and of course it was my bad shoulder. It hurt so bad, and I felt bad for her, my bony, pointy shoulder was digging into her head. I don't mind when people lay on my shoulders, I just feel bad for them and their soon to be aching heads. We arrived in Lincoln around 5, and then unloaded the trailer. Elle and I finally got home around 6:15. The house was a mess. I didn't expect anything less. My house tends to crumble when I'm not around. The only clean room was my bedroom. (One of my pet peeves is coming home from a trip to a messy bedroom, so I made sure it was clean before I left.) I started cleaning right away, and after about 2 hours the place was starting to look good again. I have no idea how my family is going to survive when I go off to college. I will probably always come home to a messy house, it's just the way my family is. I have promised myself that my house will never look like that when I am older and have children.

Pre-Camp Craziness

One of the responsibilities of a Girls of Grace Junior Leader is to be a Junior Leader at Camp as well. My little 1st graders (now technically 2nd graders) aren't old enough to go to camp, so I am going along as an extra Junior Leader. I was put into the upcoming 3rd grade cabin. I am really excited to spend some time with these girls and get to know them better, but I am a little nervous. Camp is such a different experience than the actual Girls of Grace class. At camp, we (the leaders) are with the girls for 96 consecutive hours. Before, we only were with them for an hour and a half once a week. I have not been to Girls of Grace camp since my last year of Girls of Grace, which was the summer before sixth grade. We leave for Camp Comeca in Cozad tomorrow from Lincoln, and we get back Tuesday afternoon.

Another Junior Leader responsibility is to make the girls' bandannas with their names on them. Each grade has a different color of bandanna. Our grade's bandannas are black with white polka dots, and I used neon colored puff paint to write their names with. I am neither crafty nor creative, so this is the best I could do. Plus, my handwriting is pretty bad. My hands were shaking so bad when I made these things. You may notice that mine is missing, this is because I haven't quite figured out how to make my name fit on there with out it wrapping completely around my head. The name part has to stay on the forehead. This is a little difficult with names such as mine that are super long. I thought about putting: Stazia, Stofer, Nasty, or Staiz. (My sister suggested Sassy or Spaz. My older cousin Eric always calls me Spaz, and Izzy and Elle used to call me Sassy. Mainly because I was/still am an extremely sassy child, and partly because they couldn't say "Annastazia".) I really don't like nicknames. People have given me different nicknames my entire life, but I actually prefer Annastazia. I really like my name, and it never gets old because I am hardly ever called by it. Except for when I'm in trouble. If it's my mom yelling then it's "Annastazia Caroline Gregory Stofer!" If it's my daddy yelling then it's "Annastazia Shanna" or Annastazia Ray John", usually followed by a few curse words... it just depends on the severity of whatever I did to cause them to yell.

Anyway, back on topic...The adult leaders asked me to prepare my testimony so that I can share it with all of the little 3rd graders the first night of camp. I have never shared my testimony with girls so young. In fact, I don't think I have shared my testimony to more than 2 or 3 people at a time. I'm a little nervous about this. I mean, I know my testimony upside down, backwards, in Spanish, and in my sleep, but I am nervous about making it understandable and applicable to these 3rd graders. Sometimes I just don't feel like I am "qualified" to be teaching these girls and leading them. What if I slip up or stumble in my walk with the Lord? What if they see that and assume that it's right? What if I'm not a godly enough girl for them? Don't they deserve someone better? I have been praying about this for a long time. I'm just worried that I might, unknowingly, do something to hinder their walk with the Lord or even their salvation for that matter.

The Stupid Rocks

Better late than never....

My alarm was set for 4:30. Momma said we were going to leave at 5:00 in the morning. I should have guessed that this wouldn't happen. It's my family. We can't be on time for anything. It's in our blood. I was woken up by my lovely mother pounding on my door and yelling, "Annastazia Caroline Stofer! Get your lazy butt out of bed, and clean your room before we leave! It is 6 o'clock! Let's go!" I rolled off of my bed and a solid thud bounced off of my wood floors. I got up and walked out into the hallway where the grumpy woman was standing. She kissed my forehead and says, "You look like crap and you smell like sweat." I rolled my eyes and said, "I love you too!" as I walked down stairs. My parents aren't very fond of the fact that I only wear a sports bra and spandex shorts to bed, so naturally as I walked by my also grumpy father he said, "Still haven't listened to me about putting on more clothes I see." (One morning last week, my Daddy came in my room around 4:30 to kiss me goodbye before he left for work, and he said, "You know, for someone who always complains about being cold all the time, you sure don't wear a lot to bed. You need to put some more clothes on." I tried explaining the "lesser amounts of clothing" theory that I have been so avidly pursuing since like January, but I stopped in mid sentence, he wouldn't understand.) We all got dressed, ready, and packed. We left around 7:00.

We specifically told my grandparents not to start laying sod until we were there to help them, yet as we pulled into their driveway, both of them where on their hands and knees pounding sod into the sandy, lifeless ground. We immediately took over, sending Grandma into the house to prepare for lunch and Grandpa across the lake to go get more sod. It was my job to crawl along the rows and lift edges of sod and fold them inward so that they looked seamless. It was a pretty easy job except that I had an allergic reaction to the grass because my knees got all nasty. Nothing that an allergy pill couldn't fix, and this time of the year, we keep a good stock of those. After lunch, Momma, Robin (she is my Momma's cousin, she lives in Westminster, CO, she is a pretty awesome lady), and I went into town. When it started sprinkling, we headed home again to make sure that they didn't need to get the sod down before the rain came. As we pulled up to the corner, we noticed that the roads were really wet. As we pulled into the yard, no one was out there laying sod. The tractor-lifty-thingy with the load of sod was parked only partially in the garage, and there was mud and hail all over the cement. Needless to say, they thought they could finish it in the rain, but chickened out when the hail came. Soon after that, my lovely, amazing friend Sydni came! We spent the afternoon hanging out, and we were about to leave for Grant when a huge storm blew in. Daddy didn't want us to leave, so Syd and I sat in the basement and watched the beautiful storm from the big windows down there. Eventually it cleared up and Daddy let us go. Robin, Momma, Syd, and I went to go visit my friend Allison. After that we went home and got ready for bed. I painted my nails, and Syd and I just talked. It was awesome to have some girl talk time. Finally we decided to go to sleep, but that lasted a mere two minutes before both of us were flapping our jaws again. Around 3 in the morning, I woke up huddled in a small section of the bed with no blankets or sheets, and Syd's foot was in my back. This is funny because the exact opposite happened when she stayed with me after All-State in November.

Sunday morning, I woke up entirely too early. The whole time zone change really messed with my daily routine. As I hazily climbed the stairs, I heard something that made me want to cry and leap for joy at the same time. Rain. It was working wonders on the sod that we slaved over, but it would make my hair freak the freak out. I checked the weather. It was supposed to rain all day. Wonderful. "Hey Blondie, if you are going to flat iron your hair you had better get started." Grandma said so cheerfully from the kitchen. I walked into the kitchen smelling the delicious smell of her homemade egg casserole. "I think I'll just wear it curly today, if I straighten it the rain will just ruin it." She laughed, "That's my girl, now go get in the shower, you have terrible bed-head."

It was still pouring down rain when Rudy and I left the house for Sunday School. I managed to step in a huge puddle with my non-weather-resistant gladiator sandals. It was great to be in my old Sunday School class. I got to see my wonderful friends, Carlie and Sadie. About half way through the sermon, the power went out. Drew continued to preach, but I could not see my bible to follow along, and I couldn't see what I was writing in my notebook, and I am very avid about the way I take sermon notes. It stayed out for a couple of minutes, and then quickly came back on. Rounds of "Let there be light!" and "And all God's people said: Amen!" rang through the congregation, it was quite funny. After church, we went back to Grandma's house where Syd had been for about an hour and a couple minutes later, Celie, Jenny, and Byron showed up. In my family we have this unwritten rule that you don't start eating until everyone invited has either showed up, said they were not coming, or gave you consent to start eating. We were still waiting on Elijah, Evan, and Micah, so we didn't eat. It was funny because I kept getting the evil eye from my sister. She even whispered in my ear, "Do you think Grandma would notice if I ate my food under the table where no one can see me?" I laughed and told her to go entertain her friend. After about an hour, we just decided to start eating. Soon after we all finished dessert, Elijah showed up, so it was starting to feel like the entire group. Byron was relieved because he was no longer the only guy. Time seemed to fly by so fast. Mom and Elle left to go back home. Rather than having me drive back by myself on Monday, Dad and Rudy stayed back with me. After everyone left, I cried.  Especially since I won't see them until mid-July. Goodbyes are always hard for me. Eventually I cried myself to sleep, only to wake  up two hours later. I watched a couple of Indian Jones movies with my Grandma, and then I went to bed again. (The best part about the Indian Jones movies was that I recognized most of the music from our "John Williams Trilogy" song in band this year.)

Monday morning, I had to be in Ogallala at 7:30 for an orthodontist appointment. The first thing that I was asked was, "How is your Pre-Finisher wearing going?" I giggled and sarcastically said, "Way better than wearing that stupid headgear." They thought that was funny, but I was being completely serious. They took impressions of my teeth so that they can make a retainer. And much to Momma's displeasure, we have to go to the office in Kearney in four weeks to have a "retainer check". I called Momma after the appointment and she said, "They are crazy if they think that I am driving all the way out to Kearney just for them to take one look at your expensive mouth and tell you that you are doing it right." "Hey, it's better than driving all the way to Ogallala", I said plainly. She hung up. Back at Grandma's, while Rudy and Daddy where loading up the trailer with another load of farm equipment, Grandma and I stripped all of the beds, and washed all of the bedding and towels. I love my Grandma so much. Her and I are so much alike. Everything from our stubbornness to our officious hospitality traits. From our Illg laugh (which I am glad that none of you had to hear this weekend) to our Restless Leg Syndrome. From our breathing problems after eating chocolate ice cream to our love of sewing. (Despite my six years of sewing in Girls of Grace, I still think that I learned how to sew most from Grandma.) When I was little my family called me Baby-Brenda or Baby-Illg. (Illg is Grandma's maiden name.) Grandma and I could sit and talk for hours and never run out of things to talk about. I really miss her. She is the hardest to say goodbye to every time.

As I loaded all of my stuff into the pick-up, tears were already swelling. Swelling led to streaming and soon I was bawling. I cried all the way past the Paxton exit where I finally fell asleep. I woke up to my brother saying, "Wake up or starve." I looked at my phone. Lunch time. After lunch as we were walking back to the pick-up, Daddy went to tighten one of the straps on the trailer. He mumbled, "These stupid rocks." I lost it. I started laughing uncontrollably. Okay, flashback.... about 7ish years ago, Dad was down on the bottom ground (the alfalfa field), and he found a bunch of large rocks. He brought one up to the house strapped to the loader of the tractor for Momma to see. She immediately fell in love, and made him bring up as many of them as he could. She went on a landscaping craze. Which is why our yard has clumps of large rocks in it now. Anyway, when we moved out to Ogallala, Mom and Dad had a big fight about whether or not the rocks were coming with us or not. Mom won that argument, but Dad only let her choose 4. So naturally, she chose the 4 biggest rocks. In Ogallala these rocks sat untouched at the south end of our property. When we sold our house, we only sold the lot that the house was on, so we still own the other 10 acre lot. So when moving day came, we just moved everything over to our side of the property line. This included farm equipment, a pick-up, and the rocks. So now, Mom wants the rocks back here, so Dad had to go through the daunting task of moving these stupid things again... end flashback. I don't understand why Dad seems to think that he needs all of his farm equipment, the land that we used to own here isn't ours anymore. But he seems to think that he needs everything here. (Supposedly he is going to teach me how to drive a tractor this summer. It can't be that difficult. The rabbit means fast and the turtle means slow. Simple as that, right?)

As we got back on the interstate, I fell asleep and I didn't wake up until I heard my Dad yell, "Spanka!  ("Spanka" is a shortened version of "Spanka-Wanka". My Dad and my Uncle called me this a lot when I was younger because I was a naughty child and received a lot of spankings.) Wake up and get your stuff out of here! You need to drive the grey car home." I looked out the window, we were sitting at a car-fixer place in Lincoln, and in front of the building sat the grey car. After I got in the car I realized that I had no idea where I was. I tried following Dad, but he sped, and never used his blinkers. Eventually I found my way home. Lincoln isn't that hard to navigate. It's was easier than Omaha. I was happy to be home.

One Year Ago

366 days ago: I had to say goodbye to some of the most amazing people I have ever met, teachers, peers, friends, and family. I remember that day distinctly. My room was completely packed up, except for one suit case of stuff that I would need for that week. My house looked empty, and sound seemed to bounce off the walls and pierce my very soul.  That morning, despite my hatred for horizontal stripes, I wore a dress with horizontal stripes across the top, just because my friends knew that I hated horizontal stripes. I cried all the way through school. After school was over, a bunch of us went into Helzer's office and opened the trap door that led to the tunnel thing under the school. I have to say, I was not very excited about crawling down there in a dress, but I did it anyway. As I bent down to climb the ladder, change fell out of my bra. You see Evan, Byron, Micah, and Elijah found it entertaining to throw change down my shirt. They had been doing it the entire year. I had bruises on my chest. They called it basketball, and since I was leaving, they felt the need to play as much basketball as possible. I started crying, emotions were flooding me. Byron asked me if I was okay, and I couldn't even answer him, I tried to, but it just came out as a whine-ish-yell-sob. I think I scared the poor kid. On our way back through the underground tunnel to Helzer's office, the skirt of my dress flew up, I could hear either Elijah, Micah, or Byron laughing behind me. I tried to fix it, but I couldn't reach the bottom of my skirt because of the stupid walls, and I was not about to ask whoever was behind me to fix it for me. Thankfully, I was wearing volleyball shorts, but still. I yelled back at them, "I swear if you are looking right now I am going to kick your butt once we get out of this stupid tunnel." I didn't hear another word, and no one spoke of it. After that, Sydni, Celie, Byron, Micah, and Elijah all came to my house to help us pack up the trailer. It was more than them helping us move, it was the last goodbye. That was a pretty special afternoon. Mom let me back up the beast for the first time. I almost ran over Elijah who was doing the back-up-wavy-thing behind me. I think I saw my grandma shed a tear, that woman will never admit it, but I swear I saw it. When Momma said that it was time for everyone to head out, I started crying more, and I hugged them all at least 3 times. After Momma and I dropped off Celie and Elijah, I started hysterically crying. My Momma and I talked the whole way back about how God has a plan, and it may not be what we want it to be and such.

365 days ago: We loaded up the last of the stuff into our trailer. As we finished cleaning the house, Mom and Dad went into town to sign the papers that official gave the Linds our house. We left town around noon. That was it. I cried all the way to North Platte. I cried the hardest after we drove through Roscoe, I turned my head to slowly see my best friend's house dissipate.

So today I cried. I cried for the 6 months of anguish that my very strong Daddy went through leading up to what no one would expect. I cried for the friends I had to leave behind. I cried for the brand new house that we had to leave behind. I cried for my grandparents that we had to leave behind. I cried for the amazing church congregation that we had to leave behind. I cried for the wonderful teachers, who were so influential in my life that we had to leave behind. Most importantly I cried in pure awe. I cried because I serve an amazing God who has my life planned out. He knew everything about me before I was even born. He is sovereign over all, and I strive to worship and serve him everyday. God's got a plan. It may not be what I have planned, but He is sovereign.

Lies

Recently, I have been thinking about the people that I lie to the most. Right now it is a tie between my orthodontist and my dermatologist.

• "Yes, I wear my headgear for the full 12 hours everyday."
• "I never ate popcorn or drank soda when I had my braces on." 
• "I wear my Pre-Finisher for more than the required amount of time."
• "I always wear my elastics, except for when I eat of course."
• "Yes, I promise I will wear my new retainer everyday."
• "Yes, I'll have Mom call to make an appointment."

Or...

• "I promise I put sunscreen on everytime I go outside."
• "No, I do not scratch at my scabs."
• "This peeling skin on my forehead is from dry skin, it's not a sunburn."
• "I promise that I check all of the spots on my skin every day."
• "I promise I take the nasty pill twice daily, as prescribed."
• "I use the nasty smelling cream everyday, as also prescribed."
• "I always wear a hat/visor when I go outside."
• "Yes, I use shaving cream everytime I shave." 

All lies. I am a terrible person.

Music! It's Everywhere!

Monday: Music Awards Night! Along with lettering in choir, I received the Outstanding Sophomore Award for Choir. Every year one student is selected from each class in both band and choir to receive this award. My amazing friend, John, received the Outstanding Sophomore Award for Band. Coincidence? I think not. As she announced the awards, she didn't say the names right away, she gave a speech that hinted to who the person was. The speech for my award made me cry. She talked about my obsessive music nerdiness, she talked about the major let down of not making All-State, and she talked about my aggression towards practicing! Also, at the awards banquet they announced the new co-president of the music boosters... My Momma! The other president is my friend Ally's Mom. My mother was not really aware of this whole thing, it kind of took her by surprise, which I found very funny! Her response to it was, "I might as well be co-president, I have a family full of musicians, one right after the other!" Ms. Poe found that funny. Our band president read my speech. What really frustrated me is that she didn't even pronounce some of the words right. I mean, I know I use big words sometimes, but she could have at least read it over. Ms. Poe was smiling at me the whole time, she knew that I wrote it.

Tuesday: Choir Concert! Thankfully, I was able to zip my Encore dress this time! I must have really stretched it out at District Music Contest. I actually remembered my shoes this time... no ugly band shoes for me! My hair had to be curled for Encore, so I had my lovely friend Ally curl my hair. It was harder than we expected. We had to straighten it, and then curl it with a curling wand, not a curling iron, because that didn't work. For Encore, we sang 4 songs, our three contest songs, and then Lucky by Jason Mraz. Rather than dancing, Ms. Poe just wanted us to act like we loved each other and make it so cheesy that the audience laughs. She put us into three clumps. In our clumps there were "couples" sitting, standing, or kneeling together. Much to my displeasure, I had to stand next to Britton. I swear Britton and I were the only ones making it cheesy. Everyone else looked straight at Poe and had solemn looks on their faces. It was so incredibly awkward. We were having fun with it, and everyone else looked like they were marching to their graves or something. Choir was amazing! Festival Sanctus went wonderful, and Sure On This Shining Night made me cry again. I love that song so incredibly much. It is so pretty. Baba Yetu was drop-dead amazing, except for the Sopranos messing up in the middle part. (Video at the bottom...). Matt, who sings the second solo-ish part is amazing! He is actually the one who posted this video on YouTube. Is it possible to fall in love with some one's voice? I think I may have. This adorable little freshieman is amazing! I call him my "Freshman Voice Crush", and I jokingly tell people that I will marry that kid someday. I purposefully stand next to the Tenors in Encore rehearsal so that I can hear him. (By the way, I bet you can't find me... kidding, you probably can. Hint: Right side, in the land of the Altos, standing next to Britton!) The Awakening didn't go as well as I thought it would. I mean, I LOVE LOVE LOVE the song, but there just weren't as many emotions flowing through me as there were when I sang at my last concert in Ogallala. (I was a wreck that night.)

Wednesday: Girls Choir Pre-Performance Rehearsal! With our new auditorium, it is set up so that when you are up on stage, the only way you can really hear any of the instruments or other vocals is through a little radio that you clip on your waist and headphones. My sisters and I forgot our headphones, so we had to make a headphone run to Walmart before rehearsal. 3 more pairs of headphones are now added to the Stofer-Headphone-Stash. During rehearsal, we practiced it exactly how we were going to perform it. We got to sing in the new choir loft-ish looking thing! The bad thing about the headphones is that it is hard to blend with the people around you, and I could barely hear myself sing. While we were singing What a Savior, a sound booth person came up to my director, and kept pointing at me. After that song was over, they explained that all they could hear was me, and that I needed to be moved as far away from the microphones as possible. I looked at him and said, "Do I need to sing softer?" He said, "Absolutely not, don't change a thing, we just need the choir to match you." Then the entire choir got the "She is one person, she should not be out singing all 43 of you. You need to sing louder." speech. After rehearsal, I went to my Mansion Builders Bible Study. I gave Kara a ride to bible study, and it was a good thing that I had her with me. As I was trying to park the beast on the stupid residential streets, I didn't see a mail box until Kara yelled "Mailbox!". And thanks to my cat-like reflexes, I missed it by about 6 inches. As I told Celie, I just need to hire myself a chauffeur, this whole driving thing isn't working... I brake things too easily. We finished the book of 1 Peter, we have been studying it every week since the beginning of the school year.

Saturday: Graduation! Ms. Poe told me that she wanted me to play flute rather than oboe. So we were all set up in the gym, and I look up to see one of the 8th graders carrying an oboe. I freaked out on that poor child. Apparently Poe let him choose between oboe and tenor sax. Not fair. I would have chosen oboe over flute. I stole this kid's music, and looked at it. The oboe part for Pomp and Circumstance was awesome! I was so angry! After we played Pomp and Circumstance, Encore had to sing "You'll Be in My Heart" by Phil Collins with some of the Seniors. It was terrible. It was so quiet. Then we returned to our seats, and we played Jubilance as they walked out of the gym. As I was putting my Flute away, I turned around to see my brother glaring at me. I laughed and said, "Cheer up, Frank, you only have four more years of this." He rolled his eyes. He doesn't enjoy band that much. In fact, he hid his schedule from me so that I wouldn't see that he actually signed up to do band. My little brother isn't so little anymore. What happened to the adorable little boy who would escape from Momma's grasp during bath time to ride his little John Deere pedal tractor naked? What happened to the naive little boy whom I forced to eat dirt? What happened to the little boy who wouldn't even hug me because he thought girls were icky? This little boy that I have grown up is becoming a godly young man. He has a great roll model. I see more and more of my Daddy in Rudy everyday.

Sunday: Girls Choir Performance! We had to be at church at 7:55 in the morning. I even managed to leave my house a little early so that could find descent parking spot! (For future reference, filling a car up with gas on a windy day wearing a skirt is not a good idea.) Everyone was very crabby. Most of the girls were not singing out. Some of the girls' radios were not working, so the sound booth people were on edge. We lined up in the south library, and as Teresa left to go get more batteries, I clapped my hands and said, "Can I have every one's attention? I would like to say something. When we are up on stage and we are singing lower notes, try to use your chest voice as much as possible, so that the sound is louder." They all looked at me with confused faces. "Do you ladies know what your chest voice is?" Silence. "Well this is awkward. This is your chest voice." I sang a note in my chest voice. Then one of the Seniors said, "Annastazia that is a horrible idea. Chest voice is for guys." I pretended to ignore her and continued with my "You'll do amazing! Sing out! Glorify the Lord!" speech. Later I found out that the Senior girl started bashing me... to my sister. Wonderful Senior leadership. Soon after, Peggy came in and started yelling at us saying that we needed to be back stage. We walked through the narrow, long hallway behind the stage. We passed by the baptism changing rooms, the orchestra room, the various doors that lead to the stage until we finally got to our door. As we were waiting, one of the little 4th graders looked at me, her face was really pale. I kneeled next to her and asked, "Sweetie, are you feeling okay?" She shook her head, "I can't breathe." I knew that she was just nervous so I said, "That's too bad, you know if you stop breathing I am going to have to do mouth-to-mouth CPR on you. And let me be the first to say that my breath tastes like coffee." She instantly perked up and started breathing normal again. She giggled at me. I rubbed her back and said smiling at her, "See you're just fine." The performance was wonderful! After church, I went home and celebrated Maternal Unit Appreciation Day with my family. My Grandparents and my great aunt and uncle were there! I was trying to scare my sister by almost kicking her in the face, but I forgot that I was wearing a skirt, and it ripped. Right up the middle of my butt. It was soooo embarrassing! I decided that I am not going to buy a new skirt, I am going to bring-out my sewing machine and fix it myself! My sewing machine hasn't seen daylight since we moved to Ogallala in 2010, so we'll see how this goes. It's still packed away down in the basement with the rest of the stuff from my room in a box.

Today: We decided on a marching show for next year! Bond, James Bond! My favorite of the songs is Skyfall. It is soooo cool, and it has a perfect place for our chair step! I am also currently helping our new director, Mr. Parde, with some possible new cadence ideas! And thanks to the guidance from Micah, we may be doing a spin! Although, if I am going to show my band how to do it, I should probably learn how to do it correctly. I am sad that Ms. Poe will no longer be directing band, but I am excited to see what Mr. Parde has to teach us. Plus, I will still have Poe for choir and Encore, and I am TA-ing for her next year during 8th period.

I can't wait to see all of my amazing friends this weekend! I miss you guys so much!
Below is the video of Baba Yetu. The camera cuts off about a third of the choir, so our choir is larger than it looks on the screen.
By the way, guess who did the splits this weekend... this girl! :)



Music in the Parks Contest

Yesterday, my choir participated in the "Music in the Park" Contest in Missouri/Kansas. (I'm not quite sure what state it is actually in. That bus ride was a daze.) Saturday morning, I had to be to school at 7 to load the bus. I went into the school to get my robe and stoll, and then searched all 3 buses until I found Ally and Britton. They were sitting across from each other. Ally didn't want to share a seat, and I surely was not going to risk falling asleep next to Britton, so I sat behind Ally. Ms. Poe counted heads on each bus, and then returned to the school to lock the doors. For performances, girls have to wear black dress shoes. I looked down at my yellow and teal Nike's, and suddenly an image popped into my head. My black flats, sitting on the end of my bed along with my bottle of sunscreen. My stomach flipped upside down. I sprinted into the school to find Ms. Poe locking one of the doors. "Poe! I forgot my shoes!" She rolled her eyes and tossed her keys at me. "Band shoes. Run. Key #23 for the hallway, and #7 for the uniform closet." I was running so fast through the band room that the motion sensitive lights didn't come on until I had already unlocked the uniform closet. I retrieved my ugly band shoes, and got back on the bus.

I was not excited for the bus ride down to Kansas City/Kearney. Much to my displeasure, in the seat next to me sat a junior couple who could not keep their hands (and mouths!) off of each other. I wanted to barf! I fell asleep on the way there, and my friends took embarrassing pictures of me. I am not a pretty sleeper. I see pictures of girls all the time who look absolutely adorable when someone takes a picture of them sleeping on a bus. Not I. Some how I talked Ally out of putting the in the picture on Facebook, but I'm pretty sure Britton still has a picture on his iPod. When we arrived in Kearney, Poe told us that we needed to change before we got off of the bus, I looked down at my band shoes and frowned. The bad thing about our robes is that as the robe numbers go up, the robes don't get much longer, they get fatter. Mine is supper fat. During warm ups, as we were singing Sure On This Shining Night, we had just gotten to the supper quiet part at the end, and I had to sneeze so bad. I looked around the room. No tissues. So as the choir was holding out "night... excuse me, naauuuuggghhhhhht", I let out a huge sneeze, I tried to control it, but I just couldn't. It was quite embarrassing. The performance was okay. It definitely wasn't our best performance. We didn't fit on the risers, so we had to form 4 rows instead of 3, and the first row had to stand on the floor. It was just interesting to stand by new people. Despite us not performing to the best of our ability, I still cried. We ended up getting first place in our Division as well as Best Choir Overall. I was quite impressed. The rest of the day was spent riding roller coasters at Worlds of Fun! It was really cold, but we still had a great time. I also discovered that I look completely awkward on roller coaster pictures. All of the pictures were quite sketchy. There were a lot of couples at Worlds of Fun, and I kept thinking about how crazy they are. If I had a boyfriend, I wouldn't want to go to an amusement park with him. He would probably dump me after the first roller coaster. I pointed this out to Mikayla and she laughed and said that she had thought about that as well.

On the way home, we stopped to eat. Just as I was about to order my food, I looked at the girl's name tag, and it said "Anastasia". So before I ordered my food I said, "First of all, your name is amazing because it's my name as well, but you spelled yours wrong." She laughed and then I ordered my food. As we were walking to our table, Ally looked at me and said, "You are so weird. You probably scared that poor girl." I thought it was funny. The rest of the ride home was interesting, at best. My seat was taken, so I looked at Ally, and she right away said, "You are NOT sitting with me." I looked around again, the only other empty seat was with Britton, so I sat with him. It was actually kind of fun. I went through his iPod and picked the highest songs and made him sing them in my octave. It was quite entertaining, especially since he has a beautiful voice. His voice cracked during one of the songs and he said, "Alright, no more falsetto songs." I rolled my eyes, "Aww, come on, that's the best part." So after that we just talked. It turns out the poor guy is dealing with a lot right now. I kind of felt bad for him. I think this is one of the first times I have talked to him with out him insulting me or me insulting him. And despite common objective opinion, I actually gave some pretty good advice, whether he will admit it or not. When we arrived in Syracuse, everyone was grumpy and ready to get home, this made putting away robes exceptionally difficult. 94 people all trying to shove robes into one small isle/closet-looking thing/shelf. Chaos. The girl who usually organizes robes was gone, so I took over that job. Holly crap... some people need to learn how to count. That's all I'll say about that.

Literally Speechless

Last night before the band concert, as we were all half way dressed, Poe yelled, "Everyone stop what you are doing right now and listen to me." The room fell silent. "Do any of you seniors have anything to say before the concert tonight?". No one said anything. Finally Morgan, our elected band president said, "I am speechless." My friend Courtney and I instantly started laughing. Morgan really is speechless. She is having me write her band president speech. Every year at the music banquet, the choir president and band president each give an end of the year speech. Morgan was complaining about writing her speech, so I jokingly said "Just have someone do it for you." A week later, she asked me to write it for her. I honestly couldn't say no. So now it is up to me to come up with a brilliant band president speech. I only have a paragraph of it done so far, and the banquet is Monday night. We'll see how this goes. I'm not going to stress over this. It can be practice just in case I get voted band or choir president one of these years. By the way, my interview for drum major is tomorrow/Friday. I am really excited. I know I won't be drum major this year, but I am excited to learn about what the interview process is like.