round and round she goes

when she stops? nobody knows...

My brother graduated yesterday. It was an amazing, happy day. My mom and I both cried (don't tell him ;) ). The only sad part was that my camera decided it hated me. I would zoom in on him and start to take a picture and it would zoom back out and then shut off (reminded me of a defiant 2 year old). Luckily it was great-uncle to the rescue! He gave me the card from his camera to download his pictures onto my computer. He got some great pictures- probably better than I would have, anyway. Those pictures are to come....

While there, I saw 2 good friends of mine from high school. One is my age, I dated him for a brief time but was friends with him all 4 years. He has a little boy that's almost 2 now. And the other guy I saw actually should have graduated today. He had a baby 2 years ago and dropped out a few months ago. Crazy and sad. Makes me feel better about only being engaged right now.

We had a party today for him. Somewhere in the region of 60-70 people were here. It was crazy but so fun! My parents promised him months ago that if he graduated, they'd get him a keg. They bought him a mini-keg and itty-bitty cups to go with it :) He conned them into regular size cups and I think they got about 16 1/2 cups out of it. Not too bad!

In other news, I ended up taking a job here at a daycare. (yay!) It's a great position and I can't wait to start. I hope I enjoy it as much as I think I will. Brinnie: Thank you so much!! Thank you for thinking of me, and it took a ton of stress off of me. Thanks!

I know it seems weird that I saved this to the end, but my mind is running in a million directions. My grandma fell on thursday night and hit her head on the door frame. She broke her neck and cracked her head. She was in ICU for a day but in a regular room now. She has several hairline fractures in her neck. She's in a traction halo thing and has to be for 4 weeks. In 4-6 weeks they're going to do surgery. She's completely awake and with it, and no paralysis at all. She hates that she really can't eat much, and her room is really boring. It's a dull off-white color with no decorations. Pray for her, that her spirits stay up. She needs lots of that.

I have to get my invites ready to be printed tomorrow, so I'm out for now.

love it

Ok, so I was going to update FINALLY but i realized i have to leave really soon :(

Here's the quick rundown:

I've been offered 3 jobs (including the camp job) without having to fill out any more apps!!! yay!!! God is Good.
I still don't know what I'm going to do yet.

I'm all moved. finally. but nothing is put away, so i live in chaos for the moment. My brother is graduating in 2 days so we're getting ready for the big party.

and now I have to leave... but I hope everyone is doing great!!!

to camp or not to camp

Tony's camp just offered me another job for the summer. This one is more flexible than the last, and they REALLY want me to do it. I don't want to. I'm not excited for it- I'm not excited to live here, not excited to do the job, not excited to not have a gym membership or really anything nearby. Bah. I think that I should, because I have nothing else offered. But I dont want to. We'll see. Any suggestions?

not a fan

Last night I had the headache of all mother headaches. The worst of my life!
I have a really tense, un-aligned neck and I frequently get headaches from it, so it started out as one of those and I figured if we went home and relaxed it would go away, just like always. Ohhh no!
We watched American Idol and throughout the show, it just got worse and worse and worse. I was in tears by the end from how bad it was. He decided we should lay down and get it to go away. Bad idea. I layed down for awhile, tears in a consistent stream. Got up to get kleenex and almost fell right back down. Walked the 5 steps to the bathroom, blew my nose, and then tried to walk back and fell down again on the floor. I couldn't walk, couldn't stand and was SO dizzy. He had no idea what to do and I didn't know what to tell him. So we drove down the road (because we don't get long distance service from the house or cell phone service at all... yes, it is the boonies) and called my parents to see what they suggested. My moms suggestion was that I needed to load up on drugs and see a doctor. I don't have health insurance, so we headed back up the road to the camp nurse.
Basically, the verdict is that I'm stressed to death. The stress tightened my neck which is already a land mime just waiting to go off- my neck made everything else tight- which gave me a headache- and then I drove up to high altitude- and then it just spiraled from there- my body freaked out because it was in so much pain and thus lowered my blood pressure significantly- which made me dizzy.
I didn't think I was stressed~ I'm not even in school right now! But as I've thought about it today, I guess I am. I have a lot going on. Moving, trying to find a summer job, ALL OF the wedding stuff, trying to schedule our engagement session, trying to have enough of Tony to register for gifts (plus he hates shopping) and get that done before we do invites, doing invites, getting our tickets to go to Portland this summer, and getting our honeymoon booked. Not to mention I haven't heard anything from my new school about registering or orientation so I'm afraid I've missed it all. Stupid, I know.
Tickets for Portland and the honeymoon are both Tony's department, but as much as I love that man, he procrastinates way too much. Which is why we don't have a honeymoon booked yet. I'm worried that everything will be booked already (Being the height of tourist season!) and we will end up with a hotel with spiders and crappy town with no beach and not much else either. I'm trying to respect him and not nag, so I guess I just bottle it up as underlying stress.

life or something like it

I find myself without internet or TV at my house. I thought it would be okay, but it's really quiet and kind of boring now. Good thing I still have a radio!
So, I sit at the library. So far in the 10 minutes that I've been here, 2 cell phones have gone off, just in this little computer area.

Last week I said goodbye to my job. It was bittersweet- mostly bitter. I'll miss the kids A LOT and the good majority of my co-workers were wonderful, and I'll miss them too. As I left on friday (after my pizza party and lots of goodbyes), I felt at peace and sad but at peace because I know I'm moving on to the next step of my life. Today, though, it's a little different. I found out that I didn't get the job I thought I was sure to be moving in to. They're already staffed. I'm angry- I think it's their loss! (lol). But mostly my day is just going down hill after that news. What am I going to do now??? I will spend the next few weeks desperately and depressingly applying for random jobs. I HATE APPLYING FOR JOBS. The whole hiring process is based on who you know, and what in you have. When you show up and fill out an app with no previous in- it doesn't matter how qualified you are- you won't get a call back. I've done this process since I was 17. I hate it. I have no idea what I'm going to do. I'm regretting my decision to leave this town. I had a perfectly good full-time job offered to me and I turned it down to move away. Ok, God, what's up your sleeve this time?

Today is a farewell lunch with the 3 wonderful girls in this town and then I will spend the next 3 days with Tony (hopefully not stressing out the whole time), and then it's moving day on Saturday! Yippee!

My Jesus

I'm in love with this song. The lyrics are amazing- so straight forward.

My Jesus- Todd Agnew

Which Jesus do you follow?
Which Jesus do you serve?
If Ephesians says to imitate Christ
Then why do you look so much like the world?

Cause my Jesus bled and died
He spent His time with thieves and liars
He loved the poor and accosted the arrogant
So which one do you want to be?

Blessed are the poor in spirit
Or do we pray to be blessed with the wealth of this land
Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for righteousness
Or do we ache for another taste of this world of shifting sand

Cause my Jesus bled and died for my sins
He spent His time with thieves and sluts and liars
He loved the poor and accosted the rich
So which one do you want to be?
Who is this that you follow
This picture of the American dream
If Jesus was here would you walk right by on the other side or fall down and worship at His holy feet

Pretty blue eyes and curly brown hair and a clear complexion
Is how you see Him as He dies for Your sins
But the Word says He was battered and scarred
Or did you miss that part
Sometimes I doubt we'd recognize Him

Cause my Jesus bled and died
He spent His time with thieves and the least of these
He loved the poor and accosted the comfortable
So which one do you want to be?

Cause my Jesus would never be accepted in my church
The blood and dirt on His feet would stain the carpet
But He reaches for the hurting and despised the proud
I think He'd prefer Beale St. to the stained glass crowd
And I know that He can hear me if I cry out loud

I want to be like my Jesus!
I want to be like my Jesus!
Not a posterchild for American prosperity, but like my Jesus
You see I'm tired of living for success and popularity
I want to be like my Jesus but I'm not sure what that means to be like You Jesus
Cause You said to live like You, love like You but then You died for me
Can I be like You Jesus?
I want to be like my Jesus

GRRR!!

Ok, so this is going to lay it all out in the open that I'm lame and completely addicted to a reality show but here goes: I'm SO ANGRY at what just happened on American Idol. My absolute favorite and most favorite out of all 4 seasons just got voted off. It's down to the bottom 4 and yes he has the most talent and best personality- he's such a wonderful person!- of them all. Everyone was shocked... I have no idea how it happened but it pisses me off! Everyone thought he would win and he's just amazing and made me cry a few times with his voice and he got voted off. Makes me angry. Yes, I'm lame.

engaged fun

I bought Tony's wedding ring today. It was so exciting! He LOVES it. (It's not the one he previously picked out, it's completely different). He's so excited about it, and kept picking it up and putting it on whenever he could. It was so weird to see him in a wedding ring and I can't wait to put it on his finger for life! I love seeing men wearing their wedding rings and it hit me today that pretty soon a man I'M married to will be one of them! It's so weird, and so exciting. It looks great on him and I love how excited he is to wear it. It won't be in for 4 weeks and then I'll get it engraved. (And then it will sit in my dresser drawer until the time comes!)

I'm not sure how much longer I can take this distance thing. It's really starting to wear on me. It's like the suspense builds and then I finally get to see him and it's SO great, but then he leaves the next day. It's starting to break me down and I'm so glad the light at the end of the tunnel is near.

May 7

I had such a wonderful day! Full of things, but good. Yesterday I went to the big city for my friends birthday. I had planned to spend half of saturday and half of sunday with her, spending the night with her. Well, she got sick and I had to leave, so I sporadically made a trip to my in-laws house to spend the night because I was supposed to meet Tony there on Sunday afternoon. Went to church, which was good, bummed around town and then FINALLY met up with Tony, which was SO good. I had a breakdown on sat. night because I've been missing him so much. I felt so alone and just hurt all over from missing him. I know if you've never been in the long-distance situation that that feeling is hard to understand, but it's so real. I've heard it all over the place. I can't wait for the next 3 months to be over so I never have to feel it again! Anyways, so, I spent 2 hours with him and then had to come home. Had a staff meeting. An all YMCA staff meeting- over 150 employees just for our branch! I had no idea. It was a lame meeting though, but at least I got paid for it. The only thing I learned was that our branch was selected as one of 9 out of about 900 for a special program (it's an honor, apparently), and that we see 6500 kids a month, and have over 22,000 members at our branch alone. Isn't that crazy? Afterwards went for ice cream with my 4 friends from work. Those girls are wonderful!! They're what I've been praying for for the past year! God is strange sometimes- brings them just when I'm about to leave! I guess He just wanted to remind me of His faithfulness for when I move on to the next thing. They're such great girls and I'm going to miss them so much!!! We've been making plans to still hang out after I move and we'll have an extra bedroom so they can all (individually) come up and stay with us. I hope that happens.

In other news, today is our year and a half anniversary!!! We're celebrating tomorrow night- I think I'll wear a cute skirt :)

Bleh

I've been so grumpy lately... and I have no idea why