Day 06 - A picture of a person you'd love to trade places with for a day.

Bringin' me back to high school, baby. Here you can see me and my pal Hannah Wagner sporting some Golden Eagle pride. I still remember the fight song...but I'll spare you that for now.

I would love to trade places with Hannah for a day because the beautiful lady is abroad at Oxford this semester.

Visiting Ireland/England was one of the best experiences of my life, and I am dying to head back to Europe...I won't lie, I envy her chance to be there for so many months at a time!

Have fun traveling, Hannah, seeing the world, take a lot of pictures, eat a lot of authentic Euro food, visit a lot of landmarks, see if you can make it to Stonehenge, and have so much fun!

Day 05 - A picture of your favorite memory.

I've decided to give you a picture that encompasses a collection of my favorite memories.




There are so many reasons why I love this picture. I am going to tell you all of them.

(This is going to work better if you click your mouse to see a bigger version of this picture. Just saying, we are eeny weeny)

First of all, let's take a look at each person in this picture. I'm going from left to right here.

1. I was caught trying to smile, but laughing instead, thus giving me an awkward open-mouth-laugh-smile.
2. Grandma is not looking at the camera, and in fact is not even trying.
3. Aly is being a diva.
4. Well, Jessica looks pretty cute.
5. Amy's face...well just look at it. Funniest face in the whole picture.
6. Grandpa is looking very annoyed and probably just wants to eat his cake and drink his beer at this point.
7. Tyler's face is just a step below Amy's.
8. Let's roll these three into one: Mark is trying to hold two babies, one crying, one pulling on his cool sunglasses strap, if you notice the knee is being integrated to keep from dropping David (looks like he is likely slipping right out of unc's arms), and Auntie's hand is engaged in an effort to help baby out somehow.
9. The inconspicuous arm down in the right corner is video taping all the hilarity.

Okay. I can move on to other reasons I love this picture now.

For one thing, we are celebrating the G-rent's 60th anniversary. How beautiful is that?

There are also four generations represented in this picture (granted, only limbs of the second are visible). This I also find incredibly beautiful.

And lastly, this is the lake. Or "Grandma's Lake," as we always called it when I was little. Every summer I've been alive, I've traveled up to beautiful Washington state to spend a week or so with my family. Uno, rope swings, swimming to the dead head (but only with a life jacket), milkshakes and fries at the Ranchette, paddling around in rubber rafts, eating each meal on the deck, watering Grandma's flowers, taking walks to the end of the road, sleeping three in a row in the back room that is really just a nook, boat rides around the lake, sunset swims, driving "into town," Grandpa's puns and Grandpa's belches and Grandpa's cursing, fires in the old stove on rainy days, drinking hot chocolate every morning, the smell of Grandpa's shop, picking (and eating) raspberries all day, raspberry jam, raspberries on cereal and ice cream and everything, playing with the old toys from the closet, walking so slowly everywhere on the gravel because it's too hard to put your shoes on, sitting in the sun room, setting of fireworks from the dock, watching fireworks shoot off all around the lake and reflect off of the water, not being able to sleep because there are spiders everywhere and/or you have too many mosquito bites, getting to hang out with my cool older cousins (and more recently, with their children)...

And I wish that I could go on forever and ever because each summer spent at the lake, surrounded by my family, have been some of the most precious memories I've created. How blessed I am to have extended relatives that are so close and so special to me.

What an honor it would be to spend every summer at the lake...and not just say it was something I used to do.

Day 04 - A picture of your night.

Tonight I saw The Fantasticks. My fake school puts on a musical each and every spring (well, for the past 8 years or something). Tonight student tickets were four dollars, so you can bet I hopped on that bandwagon. It was really great, made me laugh (the saxophone made me swoon) (played by the conductor WHILE conducting), and made for an overall fantastic night, which was followed by hangout time, Frosties, crossword puzzles, and a late-night study sesh with my school bestie, Mary Hose.

Woohoo!

Day 03 - A picture of the cast from your favorite show.

Psych.



I love Psych. It has all the cheesy goodness that I love, and that weird humor that even makes my dad crack up.



Who wouldn't want to look at this face all day?

Day 02 - A picture of you and the person you have been close with for the longest.

Laurie Carver.

Now, when I use this as "close," I don't mean we are BFFs, or talk every day, or know each other's deep dark secrets. But Laurie is my mom's best friend's daughter, named for my mom in fact, and she and I have been friends since I was born a few months after her. We live in different states, and in fact haven't seen each other in about 4 years. That was when this picture was taken, when us and our moms spend a weekend in Phoenix together in celebration of our 16th birthdays.

She's in Arizona, I'm in California. When she comes to CA I'm not here, when I go to AZ she's not there, when she will go to CO for Spring Break, I will not be there.

But we love each other like crazy, and every time we see each other we get to pick up right where we left off.

Day 01 - A picture of yourself with fifteen (random) facts (I added the word random because my facts are certainly random).

1. I currently have 13 Pandora playlists. They are called: "Piano," "Oh Yeah Eighties," "Hey, Soul Sister Radio" (haven't renamed that one yet), "Classic Christmas," "Christmas," "Worship," "Oldtimers," "Beatles & The Like," "Iron & Wine Radio" (haven't renamed that one either), "Choir/Showtunes," "Jazzy," "Singer-Songwriter," and "Country."

2. I have a problem with Solitaire. The problem is that I play it too much. The other problem is that I refuse to play anything but 3 card draw, so I never win.

3. Sometimes I do really weird things in front of my window (like dance crazy, or pump my fists, or just hold up both my arms and walk around slowly), when the lights are on and the shades are down, just to make a really odd shadow. I always hope that someone is looking at it, even though I know no one is. Yeah, now you'll never know what I was doing!

4. I'm afraid of knocking on closed doors. And I don't mean figurative ones.

5. I will use one pen until it runs out of ink. I get attached to them and sometimes think about not throwing them away. I do. I've seen Hoarders!

6. Sometimes I do ballet alone in my room, because I really miss it.

7. I think about marriage too much.

8. The song that's playing right now is reminding me of 13 Going On 30.

9. The more consistently I pray, journal, and stay in my Bible, the more emotional I am.

10. It's really difficult for me to release things up to God. I like control, I like wanting what I want to want. I like to listen to songs like Let it Go by Tenth Avenue North. Helpful and truthful and pretty. But really, it takes a lot of time and a lot of prayer and a lot of me being stubborn before I am truly able to say, God, take this from me. I'm working on that now. It's hard.

11. Now Sweet Caroline is playing. So good.

12. My family is flying in from Colorado tonight, and my sister is sleeping over. I AM SO FREAKING EXCITED!

13. I drink coffee too much. It's just a fact. But I've been great lately about drinking more water than coffee, and pretty consistently. So go me!

14. Best thing to happen to our cafeteria = grapefruit at breakfast. Makin' my life.

15. Oh my gosh. Sometimes I cannot even believe how much I love 80's power pop. It might be wrong. (Where can I find a woman like that??)

Texting my brother.

Never without a little bit of weird and/or discussion of bodily functions.

"Hey"
"Hey! Um I am so sorry. Left my phone in my room. Whats up??"
"sams party"
"Ooh! Birthday party? Whatcha doin?"
"having a dark room session"
"What's that?"
"its like getting high but u dont high. we just invented it"
"Lol um what? What are you doing? Sitting in a dark room? Not smoking I hope, mister."
"No, no smoking or drugs. just darkness"
"Hahaha that's funny. I'm sitting in a dark room too, but I have a book light on."
"U have to have like 10 friends and then talk about random stuff"
"Oh. Yeah there is no way I have that many friends!"
"Thats wierd cuz ur in college"
"I'm in college?!?!?"
"650 backflips over a cow"
"You can do that? Impressive."
"no but ghandi can"
"Ghandi is a code word for period."
"ur ghandi cuz its the beginning of the month"
"Not yet!"
"oh thats why ur using exclamation marks"
"No way I always text with lots of punctuation! Ghandi or no ghandi."
"with ghandi is mad without ghandi is over happy"
"Oh hahaha. Yeah well you will never understand!"
"unless i riencarnate"
"You better do a lot of good things or you will not be able to come back human! You will have to settle for a dog in heat."
"a dog in heat? what"
"That's what dogs get instead of ghandi."
"oh i didnt know that"

Dorm life: as good as it gets.

This is what I did with my afternoon:



The picture frames are held precariously by Command stickies. I am praying they do not fall!

It's so hard to deal with the huge white walls they give you in college. While I consider myself spoiled to have a double room all to myself (ahhh, extra bed for sleepovers included), the empty walls I've been living with for a month are killing me. I miss my lovely room at home in snuggly, cold CO.

BUT, it will just have to do. Let me show you how spoiled I really am.



(the bed I sleep in)



(the sleepover bed, sporting the quilt my mama made for me)









(the doorway to my "bathroom." really it's just a sink. but there are two full sized closets in there!)



(looks like I need to change my calendar!)


Not as cozy or elegant as I'd like, but considering that many students get stuck sleeping in a closet, I'm pretty happy with it!

Took this just for kicks and giggles:




Here's to the future, which contains a real (cozy, beautiful, wonderful) house!

I'm boring.

My best (only) friend from good 'ole Mountain Vista High School is doing an excellent job of making my life seem so boring. She's studying abroad at Oxford this semester, and is writing a blog that is so like her and so full of COOL THINGS. San Diego was cool for a while; now I want to go to England!

http://adventuresofhwag.blogspot.com

Somehow it's Saturday again...I don't know where my week went. I literally feel like it hasn't been a full week since last Saturday. But I guess it has.

I need to start doing cooler things with my life. Never going to be as cool as HWag across the pond, but I can totes be cooler.

Oh! Here's something cool. I went to my first drive-in movie last night. We saw The Green Hornet. I really enjoyed it, which surprised me. I though it was going to be awful, because I thought Seth Rogan was going to play the typical, tortured, serious superhero, and thus do a really awful job. But he didn't! It was a very Seth-Rogan-esque part, so I liked the Asian guy a lot better.

Well, I'm off to do a lot of un-cool things that are so typical for me...like clean my room, study for an exam, hang up some pictures, Skype my sister, read Lord of the Rings, and stuff like that. Maybe if I finish early I can do something cool tonight! (Probably not).

FOTD

Fails of the day:

1. Didn't get back to my room until 11:15 (right now). Which means I won't be asleep for at least another hour...which means waking up tomorrow will be so hard, and I may very well be messed up for the rest of the week.

2. Tonight instead of working out, I ate a piece of cake.

3. I watched half of two movies but finished neither of them (Big and Julie & Julia, the latter I have already seen, so it's more okay).

4. The cafeteria had no coffee creamers for me to steal. Which means just honey in my coffee tomorrow. Which will be fine, but I would really prefer some cream in there.

Lazy Afternoons

It's the afternoon now. I like afternoons far less than I like mornings. After lunch, it is all downhill. Energy, direction, any semblance of motivation...I just watched When Harry Met Sally, it's 3:06 and now I need to think of something else to do. I should do homework. I have reading for Abnormal. There's a quiz on Friday. He might move it to Monday again. Point is, I really should do my reading now, because I have to be at intramurals tonight to support Marla, and perhaps some other friends.

I also have a theory that it should be either intromurals or extramurals. What is intra? Do any other words use intra?

Here am I, Lord, send me.

Morning is the best time of day. The best thing I do each day is make the tiny journey from my room to the cafeteria, and take in as much of the cool air and chirping birds and dewy grass as I can. Mornings are beautiful.

God is cool, and in just one day He took me from being closed, resistant and stuck to my plans to having the true ability to say, I will go where you send me.

Maybe He will send me overseas, maybe He won't, but the point is that wherever He leads me, I will follow.