the year in review

so it's that time. the time to reflect on what the year 2004 for did for me. i must say that in many instances it's nothing at all what i dreamed the year would look like. i had never imagined i'd be living at home, STILL looking for a job. but there were amazing things that happened as well. another year of camp, leaving bg, being out of school, the birth of my blog. then there's leaving friends and trying to find out what life is suppose to look like for me. it hasn't been easy at all. in fact, it's been exteremly difficult. but looking back on all that's happened, i know God has me here for a reason, and for that, i'll be thankful. maybe not right now, but hopefully soon i will be able to look back at 2004 as a growing year, a year of learning, a year of insight. but for now, i'm going to post my lists.

best movies
10. super size me
9. mean girls
8. ladder 49
7. eternal sunshine of the spotless mind
6. the terminal
5. raising helen
4. 13 going on 30
3. the passion of the christ
2. the incredibles
1. garden state


worst movies
5. white chicks
4. the stepford wives
3. wimbeldon
2. i heart huckabees
1. open water


best tv shows
5. one tree hill
4. jack & bobby
3. the apprentice (1st season)
2. gilmore girls
1. friends (oh, how i miss it!)


best books i've read
5. disciplines of the beautiful woman- anne ortlund
4. the sacred romance- curtis and eldredge
3. when God writes your life story- eric and leslie ludy
2. don't waste your life- john piper
1. harry potter and the sorcerer's stone- j.k rowling (i know, i'm behind)


best trips
5. downtown seattle with robyn and chad
4. the drive to south carolina listening to the cd shea made
3. seeing vegas from the plane at night
2. trip to atlanta for the "reunion"
1. visiting robyn in the northwest



best cd
garden state soundtrack

best video game
dukes of hazzard

best song you want to hate
toxic-brittney spears

best picture



let me know if i missed one of your picks, or what you think of mine even...

disappointment

okay...so i have to say i'm pretty disappointed right now. tonight was pizza and a movie night at the house. so after we got our big bellies fatter by stuffing them with pizza, we all settled in on the couch. michael was pretty excited about watching open water, i was not. i might piss some people off by saying this...and to be completely honest, i don't care. but this is my blog and i'm going to post what i want. why? because i can.
anyway...back to what i was saying. the movie SUCKED! i know i wasn't going in with big expectations, but geeezzz. and i thought i heart huckabees was definitely going to go at the top of my worst movies of 2004 list. for those of you who haven't seen it, DON'T. don't do it because you've heard good things about it. don't do it because you just have to see it for yourself. seriously...trust me on this one. i'll even give you a list if you need one.
reasons why open water is the worst movie i've seen this year
5. i fell asleep. i never fall asleep during a movie.
4. pointless full frontal nudity
3. there is no point
2. it's based on a true story, but there's no real way to prove what happened...
1. they DIE! both of the main characters are eaten by sharks. i wish one of those sharks had jumped out of the screen and chewed my leg off.
so as the movie ended, i punched the tv and yelled "GLUE YOU, SEATTLE!"

so next on the list. napoleon dynamite. i have to admit this, but i was let down. i think i had heard way too many good things about how "flippin' funny" it was before i saw it. it was good, but not everything i wanted it to be. the dance scene was definitely my favorite part.

so in order to end the night on the right note, i'm going to watch garden state for the 3rd time. i must confess i stayed up til 5:30 am the night i got it because i watched it, then i had to watch it again with the commentary. zach braff is brilliant.

garden state is by far the best movie i've seen in a really long time. it's a slice of brilliance. as i watched it again the other night, i was thinking about what about it made it so amazing. well...all i could come up with was EVERYTHING. but i think i love it most because it relates to me in a way most movies can't. i understand and it in return understands me. i'll never be able to put into words how this movie has touched me.
*disclaimer* on a side note...just because i'm saying how brilliant this movie is, doesn't mean that everyone should see it. it's not a movie for everyone. it's rated r for language, drug use, and a scene of sexuality. i just wanted to throw that out there. i get a lot of crap for watching movies other people don't deem "appropriate." i love watching movies for so many different reasons. they're part of me. they are art. seeing a great movie is like looking at a monet or a renoir or a van gogh or a picasso. it's something that is unexplainable, but it makes you feel something so deep within yourself. it makes your heart pound so fast that it's hard to breathe. you don't want to take your eyes away because you're afraid that you're going to forget what it looks like. you're afraid that years from that moment you're going to forget that you even saw such an amazing piece of work. at least that's how i feel.

the godfather? seriously?

i'm not so sure how i feel about me being the godfather. i wanted to be something cooler. oh well...let me know what you are...

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

and the craziness continues

so my house is still overly crowded. there are still 6 people sharing one bathroom. there are still never any clean dishes because there are so many of us eating all the time. and this madness will continue throughout the weekend. tomorrow, my aunt is coming from colorado, and my cousin, his wife, and their four kids are coming from north carolina. lucky for me, they're staying at my grandma's house. on one hand, i'm ready to be able to sit around in peace and quiet in the middle of the day, early in the morning, or late at night. i'm ready to not have to fight for the bathroom in order to take a shower. i'm ready to eat my breakfast and sip my coffee alone. i'm ready to go back to the way things were. on the other hand, it's really nice to be able to have something to keep me busy. it's nice to have a happy baby in the house. it's nice to play with the precious anica who smells like a cute little baby. it's fun to have someone to play xbox with, or cards with, or games with at any point of the day. it's nice to have someone to talk to. but i will be glad when the new year comes and things go back to normal...whatever that may be.
*************************************************************************************
so i've been working on some lists for the new year. here's what i'm working on...
things i want to do before i die
the best of the best of 2004 which will include top movies, cds, songs etc...
reasons why you should be my friend
feel free to post your comments. the lists will be up soon. stay tuned...

FINALLY!!!

i am now the proud owner of GARDEN STATE on dvd!!!!!
i can't even begin to let you know of my excitement!!!!
so while i'm off to watch it, i'll leave you with some of my favorite images from the greatest film of the year! enjoy!

christmas picture

ahh...the family at christmas. although i'm convinced it looks more like a family mugshot! the funniest thing about this picture is that i'm the shortest by a long shot. we all wouldn't fit, so corey had to halfway squat and he looks shorter than me...when he's really the tallest.

snow bunny

the snow here has been insane. i have no idea why, but for some crazy reason our roads haven't been touched by the city. the whole town is like that. all the subdivisions have roads with compacted snow that has turned into ice in parts. the main roads are all fine and have been salted.

we took baby anica out in the snow today. she seemed to really like it. i got some adorable pictures of her playing in her first snow.

the snow bunny

christmas madness

It's been crazy around here the last few days. roy and mom got home late on the 23rd. there were still lots of things that needed to be done in order to prepare our house for the loads of people that would grace us with their presence here on christmas. the next morning (x-mas eve) roy and i went to the grocery for food and some last minute presents (i'll give him some credit here because he was living 200 miles from the closest store). so we went to wal-mart, target, best buy, and kroger. by the time we got back home, mom's baking had invaded the house along with roy's daughter and her husband and their baby. christmas eve is always crazy anyway because my brothers and i usually spend it at my dad's sisters. but this year, plans changed just a little bit which made it crazier than ever. i'll spare the details and just go with the short version. we went to my aunt's on my dad's side. great times, great food, great to be with the family just hanging out...even if we were just sitting around watching episodes of overhaulin' (which is a much cooler version of pimp my ride!). went to dad's. exchanged gifts. came home...

we stuck with the tradition of opening one present. my fifteen year old brother always seems to pick his worst present to open up christmas eve, so we laughed at that again this year...but what 15 year old doesn't need a pack of tee shirts? :)

christmas day i woke up to the sounds of the baby walker rolling across the hardwood floor right about my bedroom. on my way upstairs i jumped on my brother who was asleep on the basement couch and i headed up the stairs. we opened presents and roy cooked breakfast just like he loves to do on saturday morning. then as soon as breakfast was over, we started cooking lunch. it was crazy chaos in the house from the moment i woke up, but i loved it. by 12:30, family was arriving. at 2 we said the prayer and everyone started digging in. there were people eating everywhere. the dining room table, the living room upstairs, the downstairs den, the couch, the card tables. kids running rampant. it was nuts.

after everyone was done eating and some of the people left, a bunch of us ended up downstairs playing shout about movies. it was so much fun. there were about 10 or 12 of us playing. it was crazy, but it's such a fun game. i just wish there were more on each dvd.

after everyone left, my family sat around playing balderdash and then they busted out poker. ahh...the joys of spending time with family.

top christmas songs

as promised, i've composed a list of my top christmas songs (from this year).
5. the twelve days of christmas
4 carol of the bells
3. christmas shoes- kenny chesney
2. the christmas song (chestnuts roasting)
1. nsync's acapella version of the first noel

christmas time happies

it seems like every christmas tradition i've been a part of since i was a kid has been broken at some point. but for the sake of tradition, i enjoy partaking in these special things that make christmas more than just an overcommercialized holiday and more about spending time with family and friends (yes, i realize christmas is about the birth of christ which is so much bigger). i just wanted to take a few minutes and reflect on some things (either personal traditions, or family traditions) that i love to do as christmas draws near.

*making christmas candy*
every year about a week before christmas, we would make burboun balls, buckeyes, chocolate covered pretzels, graham cookies, and fudge. this used to be something we always did as a family. even after my parents split up, i still continue to make candy with my dad every year.

*decorating the tree*
i know this is a tradition with most people, but with my family it's a little different. we decorate the tree after dec. 2nd. which is my brother nate's birthday. when he was little i think he was overshadowed by christmas stuff, so my mom made the rule to not decorate til after his birthday.

*christmas eve with dad, christmas day with mom*
this is pretty self explanatory.

*visit christmas in the park*
every year our town businesses participate in a festival of lights where they put up their own light display at the local park. you can drive through the park from dusk til midnight everynight from thanksgiving til christmas giving a donation at the end.

*listening to christmas music*
i love christmas music...and as promised, there will be a post about my top christmas songs. something that has lasted year after year after year around my house is something that might come as a surprise. every year, i think my family will outgrow it...and for the most part, i do believe we have. but the one tape that gets played every christmas dates back to around 1984. a cabbage patch christmas. yeah, you heard me right...cabbage patch...as in the cabbage patch kids. you know, xavier roberts name tattooed on their butts. yes. i am now 23 years old. my brothers are 18 and 15. and yes, the other day my brothers and i turned on the tape player and belted out the oh so familiar words to one of our favorite songs.
"cabbage patch kids, hanging up their stockings.
cabbage patch kids see them trimming the tree.
it's the best time of year for the cabbage patch kids
as they celebrate christmas just like you and me."

and even better yet...
"syble sadie's tryin' out her science kit.
otis lee is breakin' in his baseball mitt.
tyler bo is bangin' on his brand new drums.
everybody's eatin' goodies. yum yum yum.
christmas time in the cabagge patch is a happy hoopty doo.
friends and neighbors dropping by to spend the day with you.
christmas day in the cabbage patch, you never see a frown.
you sing and play the day away until the christmas sun goes down
until the sun goes down."

oh the memories. i hope that tradition lives on forever. yeah, we know it's silly and we're way too old, but for some strange, sick reason, it's still fun to us.

massive storm strands mom and roy

mom and roy have been driving home from alaska since saturday morning. i was expecting them to arrive last night, but after traveling all that way they ended up stuck in indiana...150 miles from home. they hadn't stopped since monday night except for food and gas. last night around 6pm, mom called and said they were stuck in indiana on I-64 and they hadn't been moving. they were so ready to just be at home and sleep in their own bed and take showers and eat something other than fast food. then at midnight, roy called to say that they still hadn't moved and they called the highway patrol to see what was up and apparently, there was so much snow, semis, snowplows and other large trucks were overturned because they couldn't stay on the road. he told me they had plenty of gas and some snack food in the car and not to worry. my brother said he had seen on the weather channel that they had closed down I-64, but when i watched, i didn't hear anything about it. i didn't sleep well last night and i didn't even end up going to sleep until about 5:30 this morning. around 1pm, mom called and said they had just started moving. i can not even begin to imagine what that had to have been like. stranded in the same place in your car for 19 hours. ugh. needless to say, they're still not home, but i'm expecting them to arrive at any moment. and i'm excited.
our internet has been down since yesterday and it just came back up. the first thing i saw when the yahoo page came up was an article called "Massive Winter Storm Strands Travelers" here's part of it. if you want to read the rest, click here.

By KIMBERLY HEFLING, Associated Press Writer

EVANSVILLE, Ind. - Frigid temperatures, blasting wind and more snow than some places normally see in a year left parts of the Midwest and South paralyzed Thursday, and transformed a section of highway in southern Indiana into a parking lot.

Southern Indiana barely had time to catch its frosty breath after a snowstorm Wednesday morning when a second, heavier gust pummeled the region, shutting down Interstate 64 eastbound from Evansville to the Illinois State line.


"We're still stuck here. It's been about 13 hours," Ken Sabatini, 52, of Leawood, Kan., said Thursday morning. He, his wife and two children were traveling to Cincinnati for Christmas. "It's cold outside and we're doing our best to stay inside the car."


Temperatures fell to 12 degrees overnight, and Sabatini said some motorists had run out of gas and were sleeping in a stranded Greyhound Bus to stay warm.


"We've got some gas left, so every hour we run it for five minutes to get some warmth in the car," Sabatini said.


The Indiana National Guard was bringing stranded motorists from I-64 to hotels in Evansville or the Red Cross offices.


Gov. Joe Kernan declared a disaster emergency for portions of the state and urged a delay in Christmas travel to allow time for roads to be cleared.


The traffic snarl began when semis had trouble getting up hills and rolled back, blocking traffic, police said. A similar problem tied up traffic on a stretch of Interstate 71 in Kentucky.

reminders of being a grown up kid

every now and then thoughts of being a kid invade me and take over until i give in. on several occasions today i had to force myself to climb back into my 23 years old body and remind myself that i'm suppose to be a grown up.

#1. this morning we ran out of milk. now this isn't a big problem for me, but it is for my two teenage brothers who eat two and sometimes three bowls of cereal for breakfast...or lunch, depending on the time of day they roll out of bed. so i, being the nice, loving sister i am, hop in my car and drive to the grocery for milk. i found myself mesmerized by the quarter machines at the front of the store. fake tatoos! magic eight balls! sticky hands! bouncy balls! stickers! i realized a little girl who was about eight was also admiring the oh-so-desirable-stuff crammed into little eggs. what about these cheap toys makes me want to stick in a quarter to get some silly prize? i know that it's not the surprise...because when i was little i remember hoping for a nice watch or a pretty ring and i'd end up with a crappy prize like an eye patch, or a necklace with a skull on it. still to this day, when i see those machines, salivating like pavlov's dogs, i feel the need to stand in front of them looking to see if there's anything worth my valuable quarter. i've been with friends even recently who have said something about it. it's like it embarasses them. they give me that what-are-you-doing? face. to which i shrug my shoulders and give them my oh-i-was-just-looking-face.

#2. today i was on the phone with brooke. i tend to pace when i'm on the house phone, so i was walking around in the kitchen. not really a lot of room to move about. walk to the sink, turn around, walk to the fridge, and repeat. i'm not sure why, but for some reason i apparently kept feeling the need to look inside the refrigerator every time i ended up in front of it. there wasn't a large selection. no one has been to the grocery lately, and since mom's been gone, we're pretty much down to just the essentials. tea, butter, cheese, condiments, salsa, cool whip, turkey...wait...cool whip? COOL WHIP! so i grabed a giant spoon and ate a huge spoonful. then i laughed at how silly i felt about doing it.

#3. in the middle of a conversation with my youngest brother, i referred to him as a street-rat. to my own ammusement, i then started singing the song from aladdin. riff raff, street rat. i don't buy that. if only they'd look closer, would they see a poor boy, no siree. they'd find out there's so much more to me.

#4. babysitting today probably added to this one, but i'm putting it anyway. hot dogs and macaronni and cheese. that's what i had for lunch, which definitely made me feel like i was 5.

what about growing up says that we have to leave things behind. who says that we have to abandon the things that make us happy, things that are familiar to us, things that have a part in making us who we've become? i can still enjoy looking at the funny prizes that come in a plastic egg. i can still love to eat cool whip by the spoonful. i can still appreciate a good disney movie i watched 9 million times growing up. i can still like to eat mac and cheese for lunch. who says i'm not allowed to because i'm 23? who's going to stop me?

please, volunteer me...

my grandmother finds it necessary to volunteer me for various things people need. in most cases, i wouldn't mind, but she has a bad habit of volunteering me for things i don't want to do. at the beginning of the year, she volunteered me to do a wedding video for my uncle. not necessarily something i would want to do for free. okay, she told them that i would do it...without asking me first. so my uncle and his fiance apparently thought that i was going to do it. not that i had ruled it out entirely, but it wasn't something i really wanted to do. the wedding was quickly approaching and i was hearing specifics about the wedding. talking on the phone one night to my mom i learned that the ceremony was going to take place downtown in the town where they lived. now, i'm not even sure the place is big enough to be called a town. i might as well just say they got married at the local watering hole. but it gets even better. it was a themed wedding. i can't say i've ever been to one in my whole life, and i can't say that i ever care too. i think it just screams "tacky" so loud that the whole world realizes your a little off your rocker. but anyway, back to the point. my uncle was under the impression that i was going to do a wedding video for them. we talked about it last christmas for about 8.9 seconds. the conversation went something like this...

dave: "mom said that you do video stuff."
me: "yeah."
dave: "would you be interested in doing a video of our wedding?"
me: "i've never done a wedding before, but i'm sure i wouldn't have a problem."
dave: "that's cool. the wedding will probably be in april."

seriously, nothing else was ever mentioned. the first week of april came and went. no phone call, no wedding invitation. nothing. then one day after a long day at work, while comfy in my bed taking a nap, the phone rings. anyone who knows me knows that i'm pretty much good for nothing when i first get up. if you call while i'm asleep, i probably don't remember. yeah, even if i talk to you and carry on a seemingly important conversation. i usually don't remember. so the phone rings, i stumble to the kitchen to answer it. it's the fiance. this conversation was short and to be honest, i really don't remember much of it. but what she said to me was such a slap in the face, i woke up quick enough to know what was going on.

"amy, hi. this is the fiance. i was just calling to see if needed anything for saturday."

i think to myself...saturday...what's saturday? oh. the wedding must be saturday. right. i remember mom telling me.

"well...i hadn't heard anything from you, so i was just thinking you didn't need me to do it."

this next part is where i snapped out of my sleepy-stuper and realized what i was actually dealing with.

"WHAT? (in a very upset tone) what do you mean you didn't know about it?"

"i never heard anything from you or dave about it. i didn't even know when it was."

okay, so that line was a half-lie. i did know when it was, i found out from my mom. but if she hadn't told me, i wouldn't have had any idea. my mom and i didn't talk all the time and even if we did, she's kind of forgetful. plus, it wasn't her job to tell me anyway...it was theirs.

"we sent you an invitation. it came back to us because the address was wrong."

and this somehow is now my fault.

"blah blah blah...on campus"

"on campus. i haven't lived on campus for two years"

"well, that's where we sent it. are you telling me that you can't do it?"

"i'm telling you that it's an inconvenience because i had plans for this weekend. i had no idea about your wedding because i hadn't heard anything from you or dave."

what i was thinking was that i was never even properly asked about it once the wedding plans were in effect. in december was i just suppose to mark all weekends in april out? isn't it important to make sure you have securely scheduled people such as a photographer, cake decorator, videographer or anyone else you find vital to the wedding? it seems you would call and make sure they were available before 2 days until the wedding. at this point i'm pretty pissed.

"great! (very hateful) i can't believe this. well, what am i suppose to do now?"

"i don't know, i'm going to have to check some things out and call you back."

with that being said, i hung up the phone. i was livid. i picked the phone back up and called my mom. after ranting and raving to her about it, i decided that it really wasn't fair of them to just expect me to do it. the more i thought about it, the more upset i became. and to make matters worse, she had such a bad attitude about it.

so i called my grandma and told her the story. she blamed herself and said that it was all her fault (which it was). i wasn't trying to put her in the middle at all. i just wanted an opinion that wasn't as biased.

i eventually just called back and asked the fiance if i could speak with my uncle. i explained that when i agreed to do it in december, i was under the impression that i would hear something else about it before a couple days before the wedding. i told him that it was unfair to place blame upon my grandma because she was just trying to help out. i told him that it was incredibly out of place for them to just assume i was going to do it and find out all the information from another family member when i never received a phone call or an invitation. and then i told him i wouldn't be able to do it.

i know that he was a little more than frustrated when i hung up the phone, but so was i. if i'd been treated with a little more respect and if the fiance hadn't gone off on me, it might have had a different ending, but it didn't. if she was going to talk down to me and yell at me on the phone, then i was going to just not have anything to do with it.

i admit now, i could have probably handled the situation better, but i was mad. i was tired of being taken advantage of. and i was tired of being volunteered for things. i thought after this fiasco my grandmother had learned her lesson, but apparently she has relapsed.

monday i got a call from the fiance who is now the wife. the wife and dave are having problems finding a babysitter for her 6 year old daughter. she needs someone to drive to their house, pick her up from the bus stop and stay with her until either her or dave get off work. my grandma apparently had taken on the task last week, but after 2 days told the wife that the kid was too much of a brat to be able to handle. so she ever so graciously offered my services.

i told her that i could do it for the week. i was to pick up the kid from tues-fri. tuesday morning the wife calls and said that i didn't have to do it because she didn't go to work. i was relieved. wednesday, i drove 25 miles out to their house, got the kid from the bus stop and stayed with her. everything was okay...she's not bad, but she's certainly no angel. thursday i went, picked her up from the bus stop, took her home and watched her. that night when my uncle got home, he pulled out his wallet and asked me if i needed money. i responded with a joke about always needing money. he reaches in and pulls out a bill and hands it to me. i look down and see andrew jackson staring right past me with that big huge forehead of his. a measly 20 bucks. i drove over 80 miles in those two days to pick her up, which is barely worth the 20 bones i got paid. did i mention that the kid isn't that easy to babysit. she requires constant attention needs you to spend every second entertaining her. the second you lose interest or think she's fine on her own, all heck breaks loose. she's six, but she acts like a whiney four year old.

i was under the impression that last week was going to be it for me watching the kid. but no, the wife didn't have a sitter lined up for christmas break. are you seeing the pattern here with the lack of preparation and scheduling in this family? because i am. on thursday i told her that i could watch the kid on monday and tuesday if she absolutely needed me to. i was under the impression that she was going to try to find someone else. silly me. what was i thinking. i got a call last night. it was the wife. keep the kid? sure. ugh. all day? what time? 7:30-6 or 7pm. are you kidding? that's almost 12 hrs. wow.

so with only about 3 hrs of sleep last night, i get up and have a big cup of coffee ready to start my day. the kid gets here. we color. we watch the powerpuff girls dvd...almost 5 episodes. we draw. we play playstation. we color some more. my brothers wake up, so we can now go in the family room in the basement. we play xbox. we eat lunch. then, she starts to whine. not just a little whimper, but a full out acting like a baby. it begins to take longer for her to listen to what i'm saying. she whines more. i was thinking it was a good time to put in a movie, but the entire disney collection didn't phase her one bit. she wanted to play xbox again. i wasn't looking too forward to this because she didn't know how to play. she's six. my brothers have blow 'em up shoot 'em up games, racing, and football. nothing a six year old girl would be interested in. so i put in crash bandicoot racing, a game that hasn't gotten any play since the day my mom bought it thinking my brothers would like it. she doesn't understand it. so i'm trying to explain it to her, but she keeps whining about how hard it is. after about 30 minutes of her whining everytime she started going the wrong way or everytime she crashed into something, i'd had enough. so i told her if she whined again i was going to make her sit on the end of the couch. sure enough, she starts whining. so i tell her she has to sit because she's acting like a baby. she starts throwing a tantrum laying on the floor crying. after about the 5th time i told her to get off the floor and sit on the end of the couch i'd just about lost it. i'm usually exteremly patient with kids, but with this kid...i was way past that point. i was about to lose it. i walk over, pick her up off the floor and sit her on the couch where i proceed to explain to her that i'm not going to put up with her acting like a baby. she turns from whimpering and whining into crying. full blown crying with big huge alligator tears. i didn't feel guilty at all. she starts saying things under her breath between gasps of air. stuff that made it really hard for me not to laugh at her. some of my favorites...

"i don't like you anymore"
"i don't want to sit here"
"you can't make me sit here" (as she continues to sit there)
"i don't have to listen to you"
"you're so mean"
"i'm going to tell my momma"
"i hate this house. it's boring here"

after ten minutes of this, i was so sick of listening to her cry. plus i was afraid she was going to make herself throw up because she was in such a frenzy. so i tell her that i'm tired of her acting like a baby and if she's going to act like a baby, then she needed to lay down and take a nap, just like a baby. so she pulled a blanket over her and not even two minutes later she was sleeping, just like a baby.

so yet again, i'm doing something because i feel obligated to do it. please, volunteer me for things you know i don't want to do.

jealousy, pond scum, and other nasty things

it's really easy for me to look at other people's lives and wonder why things work out for them. i love hearing about how my friends lives are being blessed with wonderful things happening to them. new jobs, engagements, promotions, new living situations, money situations that seem to disappear, new opportunities...but in the midst of listening to them tell me about how God has blessed them, this little monster comes out and thoughts invade my mind. "why can't something good happen to me?" or "i've been waiting for a long time...i deserve to have something amazing happen to me!" i know it's satan's way of trying to convince me that i should be constantly comparing myself to others so that when something good happens to me, i'm praising myself instead of my wonderful savior.

why do i have a tendency to do this? why are we always constantly comparing ourselves to others? why are humans so easy to fall into the trap of jealousy with even the people who are closest to us? my best guess is that we're undeserving, we're fallible, we're full of sin.

it makes me think of the following movie quotes...for 500 pts.

"i'm pond scum. well, lower actually. i'm like the fungus that feeds on pond scum."
"lower...the pus that infects the mucus that cruds up the fungus that feeds on the pond scum."

yesterday afternoon i was talking with a good friend on the phone. she's been having all these incredible things happen to her recently and i was so excited to hear about them. then the thoughts started creeping in. slowly, but they were there. "why can't it be me?" i've heard this a million times, and frankly i'm getting tired of hearing it, but it seems everyone wants to offer the advice "hang in there, something great will come along soon. just be patient." it's not worth my time explaining that i've been waiting. did i mention that i've been waiting? for a year! yes...yesterday was december graduation, which means i graduated a year ago. and i still don't even have an inkling of what i'm doing. it's so easy to get frustrated and it seems like the longer i wait, the more frustrated i get.

i know, i know..."oh ye of little faith." i think that sums it all up. so i understand that God is teaching me about patience. i've always thought for the most part i've been pretty patient. but i'm not sure i've ever had to wait this long for anything. a year is nothing in the span of God's timing.

so i'm trying to be patient, look at the positives, and count my blessings. it is the christmas season! so what better thing to do. so, for the sake of counting blessings, here's my tops from the weekend:

1. mom got to alaska safely. late, but safe.
2. i have a family who i love, even when i don't like
3. i got to hang out with dad and make christmas candy
4. i hung out with brooke for the first time in a week.
5. i got to see an old friend for a few minutes
6. it seems like i'll be editing the rich project afterall
7. some new possibilities may have developed with the job search
8. i have an interview on tues.

why only 8? because 8 is great!

goodbye alaska...i'll never get to see you now...

today is friday. on wednesday, roy found out that he got a job in ohio. now this has been in the works for some time now, but so has another place in alaska...california...and who knows where else. but anyway...this one went through and they called wednesday and told him they wanted him now. he was originally suppose to come home on sat. so they traded in his 2 way ticket for a one way ticket so my mom could fly to alaska and then drive home with him. now, i don't know about you, but i think spending 11 hours flying, then getting to alaska in the middle of the night, then getting up early to pack up the tahoe to turn around and drive from alaska to kentucky is crazy! that's love right there.

i thought i wasn't emotional...hmmm

the last couple days have been incredibly hard for me. i've been an absolute emotional wreck. the thing about it is, there's just not really A reason. sure, there's a million reasons that kind of melt together to form one big ball of mess, but there's no way i can pin the blame on only one.

tonight i was able to find little solace in my car, just driving around with tears rolling down my face. i couldn't control myself. no matter how hard i tried, the tears just kept coming. i was begining to get frustrated with myself. i didn't use to be an emotional person at all. in fact, i rarely cried at all. i didn't cry when i saw a sad movie, or at weddings, or at the birth of a baby. sure, i felt things...deep things. but i very rarely got worked up in tears letting my emotions take control. i had tough skin and you had to get into the core of my being to make me cry. it had to be something so real...straight to the heart. i was once told by someone who meant a great deal to me that i was "coldhearted and closed off." he had no idea by saying that he stirred up a great deal of emotion...but that's another entry all together. the point is that i've gone from this person in absolute control of her emotions to some crazy sob story basket case. for the past two days i've been weepy eyed and i cry for no apparent reason. it just comes and like a fountain flowing deep and wide.

now i'm sure these emotions have been ignored for quite some time and all of a sudden i've discovered them only to find that they have reproduced like rabbits. so now i have all these things that are driving me crazy. things that i thought were little things have now grown to the size of the empire state building and there's nowhere for them to escape, except out my eyeballs in the form of tears.

this is just annoying to me. i hate being whiney and upset and in a bad mood. it makes me think of the line from say anything where lloyd (john cusack's character) says to his sister "why can't you be in a good mood? how hard is it to just decide to be in a good mood and be in a good mood?" great question. but i think the answer is a little harder to come by. it's not that easy to just decide to be in a good mood. it's hard. it's incredibly hard. i don't think anyone wants to be in a bad mood, but yes, we do choose it. we choose our attitudes daily (right charleston staff?) and we don't always choose the right mood. but at any point during the day we are able to alter the attitude we've already chosen. too bad for me, i haven't really been able to control cry fest 2004.

i feel stuck
i feel lonely
i feel useless
i feel worthless
i feel friendless
i feel unfulfilled
i feel self-centered
i feel unappreciated
i feel directionless
i feel unproductive
i feel irrational
i feel confused
i feel crushed
i feel bitter


a few nights ago, i was reading micah's blog and i found something that struck my core. it caught me off guard, but in a good way. it's something i related to because he explained in word exactly what i have been feeling. this is what he wrote:

I am a prodigal, eating the slop, longing for home.

I am jumbled up and mixed up - upside down and downside up - backwards-forwards and in between...

I am confused

(there's more to it, so you can check it out on the link if you wish)

but as much as i've been looking for a reason roaming through the night to find my place in this world (thank you, michael w. smith), i want something much deeper. it's not something i'm ever going to find here on earth...but it's a longing for home. a heavenly home. along with all those other crazy emotions i've been feeling, i'm pretty sure this one is up there on the list. and i'm sure for the rest of my life, i'll continue to long for home. i just hope that i'm able to do it with passion and persistence.

a new version of it's a wonderful life

for a little holiday fun, click here!
it made me laugh! : )

up for discussion

i want to know your picks for top holiday songs! what songs get you in the mood for christmas? in the next few days i'll be posting my top 10. YOU, yeah you, leave a comment and let me know what you think!

apt. 507

memories are amazing things that we have the ability to hang on to for the rest of our lives. in the realization that almost all of my closest friends from college are now married, i started to think about all the great times we had...before they were married.

living in apt. 507 was such a great, refreshing time in my life. when i think about that year, i am reminded of true friendship. friends who loved me no matter what. friends who saw me at my best and at my worst. friends who understood me, and if they didn't, they were still there to hold my hand. i remember being so overwhelmed with school that semester. my production classes were in full force (i even had to take a class on saturdays...in nashville), i was taking 18hrs, and i spent a lot of time outside of class working on projects. but those aren't really the things i am reminded of when i think about that time.

i think of all the late night talks between me, jill and sara. me and sara trying to cook up new things in the kitchen. the blue chair that always tipped over a little too far, leaving the person who was attmepting to sit in it on the floor. i think about all of us piling in bed together because we slept better and because we saw joey and ross do it on friends. the boys coming over to play cranium. skipping class to watch little house on the prairie and having lunch with sara. jill falling asleep everytime we watched a movie together. our freshman roommate (yes, we were seniors) who was always on her cell phone and the boy she left alone in our apartment and all the chaos it caused. the time school was cancelled because of snow and ryan and dave came over in their pajamas and we all drank hot chocolate. the many dinners we cooked for ryan, dave, and ben sometimes accompanied by other random boys. sara playing peter cetera over and over and over and over. jill decorating the refrigerator with her "artwork" and sara and i replacing it with articles from a magazine. crystal and me baking cookies in the kitchen. julie and me staying up all night looking up random things on ebay and venturing to the coke machine in the middle of the night because we were thirsty. staying up late, creating characters for the script for apt 507. sara and i deciding we were going to paint a masterpiece. biff, my giant bear and how julie always had to hug him. that crazy week of finals where we never went to bed, but somehow we still passed our finals. "peter the cockapillar" the bug we found in my room and waking jill up so she could kill it, only to watch her grab a can of lysol and spray it before she flushed it...then being afraid it would crawl out of the toilet.

not only am i reminded of those times at apt 507, but also when we were RAs together. cleaning the rooms, working the front desk, making fun of david, jake the dog, happy inn your lobby!, me and sara taking the master key and rearranging jill's room, trying to figure out how to get on the roof, trying to create our own marble slab in sara's room...

i could go on forever. these are my memories and i'm going to hold them as close to my heart as i can because they are some of my favorite times and i never want to forget them.

try again

jill and ben's wedding

i left on friday afternoon to attend the wedding of an old roommate. i'd had so many complications with my bridesmaid dress and other things that were of importance for me to attend this wedding, that when the weekend actually arrived, i was hoping everything would come off without much effort. friday afternoon, i made it into town and got to the church right on time for the rehearsal. everything was going smooth until...bam...they realized the food that was suppose to be catered in hadn't arrived yet and it was way past time. a phone call later, they found out that for some reason the order had never been received...this leaving an absolute irate jill. after 20 minutes of pausing the rehearsal, a few phone calls made by ben, and a very upset jill, the food was on its way free of charge. we convinced them that it was definitely worth waiting for if it was going to save them some money. with the "one big wedding disaster" being over with everything else had to go off just fine. and it did.

during the weekend, there were many things that came up and something popped into my head saying, "you should blog about this." but now that i'm actually sitting down at a computer, i can't remember what exactly those things were.

the wedding was absolutely gorgeous. the church was decorated for christmas with a million pointsettias, christmas decor, trees, and lights. there was such a christmas-y feel to it. very elegant.

everything about the wedding itself was traditional for the most part. the lighting of the unity candle took place as the rascal flatts song 'bless the broken road' was sung. at that point, the bride and groom went to the center for their prayer. after a few moments, the bridesmaids and groomsmen walked up and surrounded them, placed our hands on them and the groomsmen lead prayers over the two of them. it was very amazing to be able to take part in the prayer that will bless the lives of both ben and jill and their unity together as they grow in Christ as a family.

the power of words continue to amaze me. marriage is just that. committing by words to love and support each other. okay, so it's more that just words, but the actual wedding ceremony is the profession of the love that two people share for each other. during the exchanging of the vows, there was something that was so powerful it caught me off guard. the vows were the traditional...

"i, take you to be my (wife/husband),
to have and to hold you from this day forward,
for better or for worse,
for richer, or for poorer,
in sickness and in health.
i further promise to love you and cherish you,
and be faithful to you for as long as we both shall live."

except there was an added sentence of "i will never divorce you." pretty powerful. especially in this day and age where divorce is so common marriage isn't even necessarily a life long promise to each other at all, but merely an i-love-you-right-now-and-want-to-commit-myself-to-you-but-maybe-not-FOREVER-because-forever-is-a-long-time promise. "i will never divorce you." five simple words that are so powerful and completely state in one sentence what being married truly means. a commitment to each other to be with each other forever. almost a slap in the face, but not in a bad way. in a way that makes you look at something in a totally different light than you ever have before.

now i've never been "wedding crazy" or anything and i've never been obsessed with being married. do i want to. yes, of course. i have deep desires to be married and start a family. after dealing with this wedding, i'm definitely realizing how much stress it all can be. but to spend the rest of your life with one person...how amazing. one day, i will be blessed with a Godly man who will sweep me off my feet and carry me into the rest of my life, but until then, i'll just continue with life until i meet him.

rascal flatts- bless the broken road

I set out on a narrow way many years ago
Hoping I would find true love along the broken road
But I got lost a time or two
Wiped my brow and kept pushing through
I couldn't see how every sign pointed straight to you

Every long lost dream led me to where you are
Others who broke my heart they were like northern stars
Pointing me on my way into your loving arms
This much I know is true
That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you

I think about the years I spent just passing through
I'd like to have the time I lost and give it back to you
But you just smile and take my hand
You've been there you understand
It's all part of a grander plan that is coming true

Every long lost dream led me to where you are
Others who broke my heart they were like northern stars
Pointing me on my way into your loving arms
This much I know is true
That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you

Now I'm just rolling home
Into my lover's arms
This much I know is true
That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you

That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you.

jill didn't look in the mirror until after she was all ready. this is a picture of her looking into the midget mirror. we had to get ready in one of the church's preschool classrooms, so everything was tiny.

jill and me waiting for the wedding to start.

the happy couple dancing

the garter toss

the bouquet toss

at the reception, jill found her daddy and went and sat on his lap. i'm pretty sure he was exteremly happy when the tears started forming in his eyes.

square dancing anyone? they had a professional square dance caller to entertain...

me and sara at the reception.

peppy jill's wedding

i was talking to stephen on instant messenger and he said this, which i found exteremly funny.
"peppy jill from the dorm is getting married on Saturday."

the standard

i just saw a little segment of elvis on tv and they were talking about how on the ed sullivan show they weren't allowed to shoot him below the waist because it was considered way too risque. it's a story i'm sure we've all heard. but think about it. on tv now you can show almost anything. seriously...flipping through the channels a few nights ago, i came across a music video which is rare. i was under the impression that mtv (music video television) didn't really show music videos. but anyway...caught part of some exteremly crude music video. not sure who it was, but it involved lots of naked chicks with minimal blurring and lots of water. needless to say that it didn't leave much to the imagination. i thought to myself, wow...they're showing this on cable television. it seems that you can get away with just about anything on television anymore. it was after seeing part of that video that i thought about my own upbringing. i was fairly sheltered as a child. there were a million shows i wasn't allowed to watch growing up. married with children, roseanne, the simpsons, beverly hills 90210...just to name a few. roseanne has become one of the tv classic shows on nick at nite, so nights when i can't sleep i often lay in bed and watch the back to back episodes. now i can't say that it's "good wholesome" tv, but it's definitely not trashy at all compared to shows that are on today. it just crazy to see how far the bar has been lowered in a little more than ten years. what's the standard going to look like in ten years? just crazy to think about...

dukes of hazzard - the return of the general lee

this is what i've been doing...ashley would be so proud!

i'm still here...

i was talking to my friend ryan a couple nights ago. it was refreshing to talk to him because i feel like we're in similar places in life right now. we both graduated, but we're still in this period of our lives that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. he's getting ready to start seminary in january and he recently moved back home. he was talking about how hard it is to move back home after being independent throughout college. i can absolutely identify with how hard that is. it's something i've been struggling with since august. we talked about how our parents just assume that we are the same 18 year old kid that left for college and how in their minds we haven't grown up at all. they think there was no way we functioned without them in our lives for four years. it's unfathomable to them that so much change occurred for us in that time we were away. we went through a time of self discovery. we learned who we were. it's hard for them to see that we've grown up and that we've become independent and it's even harder for them to understand why it's not easy for us to fall back into the role we played five years ago. i love my family. i love being around them. but i don't love living with them again. i guess the conversation with ryan was nice to just have someone understand exactly where i am right now.


it also reminded me of another conversation with ryan that i blogged about. this was taken from an entry from may 17th.

i was talking to ryan today and we're very much in the same situation spiritually from what it seems. but through talking with him, i realized a lot. stuff i had thought about before, but once it came out of my head and was actually presented to another person, it seemed to make more sense to me. we were talking about lack of faith and how easy it is to say "yes, i know God will work it all out." but yet we don't follow through with it. there's no conversation between us and God with us asking him for help. we have to earnestly seek him in prayer and continue to ask him. even if we do go as far as asking him, and seeking his will on a certain subject, we are human, so of course if we aren't instantly gratified, then God hasn't done his job. BUT HE'S GOD! and that's why he's God. he knows what's best for us. he's not going to hang us out to dry and leave us there! and that's where i often lose it. daily, i take things to God and say "here God, this is a problem/concern/issue/struggle in my life right now. i really need you to help me deal with this because i can't do it alone." then i wait. i see no immediate results. so i ask again. it always works with my mom so why not God? because he knows what's best for us. he created us. he sits in heaven and shakes his head at me because i'm so impatient about things. so then i go back to him and i say "hey God, you know all that crap i brought to you the other day? i think i want to carry it around in my backpack because you're not really doing anything with it that i can see. can you load me up please?" because me taking care of it seems a lot more logical?!?! i think not! i have no idea why i do this, but i do. okay, so the conversation isn't exactly like that at all, but it might as well be, because by us thinking that we can take care of our problems, concerns, and stuggles on our own is equal to us carrying around a big backpack full of crap. pretty disgusting, yet at some point in our lives i think we're all guilty of it. so now i realize i'm being dumb and by me doing that i'm not glorifying him at all. i think because i am human, i often think that i can figure it out. it is 2004. the culture teaches that i should be an "independent woman" and that i shouldn't rely on anyone else. but i just need to have some faith and trust that he is so much cooler than me and he will work it out. because ryan told me today, "he is a lot smarter than we are. i'm pretty sure he can handle it" and i responded with "i suppose that's why he's God. i guess as long as we're living for ourselves and our own gratification, well never be truly satisfied."

what i've been up to

i've been staying pretty busy lately. last week was absolutely insane. my uncle hired me to do a freelance project for his store. the finished product was a 4 1/2 minute photo montage and a 3 1/2 minute video. the pay was a lot more than i had envisioned, but it went straight to pay off some bills...oh the joy of having adult responsibilities.

the other big fiasco was dealing with my dress for jill's wedding. to make a long story short...got the dress from jill. WAY too big. call david's bridal to see if i can get a smaller size. they would have to do an exchange and take mine back and they can't guarantee it'll be here before the wedding. so my next task is to look for someone to alter it. call around town. find a lady. she scheduled me for monday which would have been today, but she can't have the dress ready until friday. the rehearsal is friday. i go ahead and tell her okay since i couldn't find anyone else. in the process of telling brooke about it, she realizes it's the same lady that totally screwed her prom dress up and a dress for her mom. at this point i am a little reluctant to have this lady touch this dress. i call around to some other places and finally find this korean lady to do it. i take it to her shop...all looks well. it should be ready thursday. i'm praying that i have a dress for the wedding saturday and that it fits me. with all the stress i've been through dealing with this wedding, i'll be glad when it's over.

i've also spent a lot of time playing xbox. for nate's birthday he got dukes of hazzard the return of the general lee. i think i'm pretty close to being addicted. and after playing the other night for a few hours i found myself actually driving MY car just like i'd been driving the general lee. i had to remind myself that what i was doing was NOT a video game. talk about scary.

brought to you by the letter P

today's little bit of random trivia

christian bale's stepmother is the feminist author gloria steinem.