Overmashed Potatoes, friends who become strangers and mosquitoes the size of texas

Wow, how time is flying! I just spent the past couple days at my grandparents'...again. Wed night, all my relatives had to go to the hospital for my aunt, so I ate at my aunt's house with three of my cousins. It was one of the most awkward dinners I've ever experienced. My two boy cousins are 16 and 18. Neither one said a word, typical of teenage boys I guess. For dinner we had meatloaf, mashed potatoes and green beans. The meatloaf was burnt on the outside and mushy on the inside and the mashed potatoes were overmashed. It was funny, cuz earlier I watched an episode of Gilmore Girls where rory was making dinner and her mom, Lorelai, wanted to help. Rory warned her not to mash the potatoes too much cuz then they would be overmashed and more like potato soup. So when I was eating dinner that was all I could think of, overmashed potatoes. But earlier today, I thought to myself, ya know, I really shouldn't complain about having to eat disgusting food cuz I'm sure starving ethopian children would have no problem eating it. My aunt came home from the hospital today! She has two lumps on her liver but they're both benign, meaning they're not cancerous. But the docs still want to keep an eye on them cuz they could become malignant. She needs a lot of rest but she's doing much better than she was. God is AMAZING!! Tonight, when I came home, one of our neighbors was here and she has a granddaughter the same age as my younger sister, Krystal, 18. Steph used to come to our house ALL the time when we were younger and I considered her one of my best friends. Tonight was the first time I had seen her in a super long time, like over a year. We have grown apart so much, we had almost nothing to talk about. Steph, earlier in the year, had been at a party and gotten drunk and then she was fighting with a police officer, that's how different we are. It's kind of sad but I was watching Joel Osteen last night and he was talking about how we let some people become crutches and then when it's time for them to leave our lives, we try to hold on to them, when in reality, we need to let them go so they don't continue hindering us from reaching our full potential. Maybe that's why we've grown apart, who knows? Anyway, I hate bugs, especially huge ones, like the ones that show up at night around our front porch. My dad just pointed out this huge mosquito, like the body was an inch long, and the wings half an inch long. Ugh! creepy! But even though I hate bugs, I just can never bring myself to kill them. I don't know why, I just can't. Oh!! Guess what guys??!! I've been reading my Bible again!! Actually, I've only read it for the past two days but I'm excited and when I start reading it, I have a hard time stopping. I'm halfway through Genesis and I read James. Idk why, I'm just super excited about reading the Bible!! Oh wait, it's cuz God is AWESOME :) I start my official summer job on June 7th and I'm kinda excited and kinda not. I'm not excited cuz almost all my summer will be devoted to camp. Hardly any free time at all. Oh well. So my mom was raised Roman Catholic and she sort of let it go throughout the years, but lately, it makes me happy to see her putting her faith in God again, she says her "rosary" every day, I think that's their way of keeping track of their prayers. I'm thinking about giving her The Shack and For Women Only to read. I've also been thinking about maybe finding a local Church and having just the two of us go one Sunday. I'm just really nervous about it, cuz I know she has a very opinionated view on Christians, but lately she's been trying really hard to understand it better. Which makes me happy, on the other hand, my dad wants nothing to do with it :( So I shall continue praying for them both. Enough rambling I guess, I know you guys probably get sick of it ;-) Adios amigos!

A Fun Memorial Weekend

I'm not sure how to start this post so I'm just gonna jump right in. I went to work Sat night and stayed till 10 am on Sun morning. My sister picked me up and we went to Dunkin Donuts to get a drink. We ended up in line for awhile because the lady in front of us ordered five different beverages, and like two dozen donuts. I ordered a med strawberry coolata and since they were out of med cups, I got a large for the price of a med, which made me happy :) Then we went to Walmart to get bottled water for my parents and then we were on our way. We got to the campground after turning around three different times cuz we were going the wrong way. Reasons? My sister wrote down the directions quickly so they were very confusing to read. At one point we turned around because I didn't read the directions off right. Oops. But we finally arrived at Kayuta Lake Campgrounds around noon. When we got there, my dad and two of my siblings were in a ladder golf tournamnet which I am not going to explain, if you don't know what is, there's a wonderful online search engine called Google :) There was a kid who wanted to play but he didn't have a partner, so I decided to jump in and play, we lost 19-21, the score only goes up to 21. My little sister had entered a bean bag toss tournament the day before and won. She won a Kayuta Lake Campground t-shirt.


We proceeded to go back to our campsite and ate lunch. What'd we do after that? Oh yeah, my sisters and I went to the "Arcade" and watched my brother in an air hockey tournament, he lost early on in the game. So we decided to play a couple games of pool, I lost one and won one. Me and my little sister's friend, Delaini, found out that it is fun to poke my brother with poolsticks that have black chalk on the ends. I can't remember exactly what else we did, I know me and my sister, Krystal, went down to the beach for a little while but we didn't go swimming. Around dinnertime, my mom decided to order pizza and wings from a nearby restaurant so that's what we had for dinner. Then we just kind of hung out until 7, we went to listen to a live band called The Fulton Chain Gang. They sang country/southern rock, so I was pretty familiar with it. It was the perfect picture of rednecks. There were a lot of people, over 100 and probably 3/4 of them were drinking. There was a lot room for dancing but most people waited until they had a few drinks in them before showing off their dancing skills. I couldn't stop thinking how when you're a little kid, it doesn't matter if you can dance or not, you're cute. But when you get older, if you're a bad dancer, you're seen much differently. Wouldn't it be nice if we all had that innocence and freedom to just be ourselves without worrying about making a fool of yourself? Eventually, my older sister, Mindy, Krystal, me and my mom all went up there and were dancing, trust me, seeing me dance is not a pretty sight but it was dark, and most people were too drunk to care about anything except not tripping over their own feet. It was cool because I got to see a side of my mom that I've never really seen before. The four of us started square dancing. It was a lot of fun!! All night, we tried to get my dad to go dance with my mom but he kept refusing. Finally, we got to a slow song and they danced together, and it was nice to just sit there and watch them. I love my parents so much <3 So after awhile, we went to bed and woke up at 8ish this morning to come back so my mom could go to the hospital to see my aunt, who is doing somewhat better but she's all loopy from the morphine. Likee she told my mom she had nice rabbits in her pockets and she said "Look at that coffeepot sitting right on the dash of my car!" And just other stuff like that that shouldn't be funny but is. We got back home and my mom went right to the hospital while the rest of us stayed and helped my dad unpack our camper. And on our back from the campground my sister didn't have to turn around once! Cuz we were following our dad, haha. I went to work at one and was done at 6:30. Most of the time spent there I read A Walk to Remember to June (the lady I take care of), I must say, this is one of the few times where I liked the movie better than the book. And now here I sit, writing this blog. I'll have pics up soon from this past weekend. And the past few weeks. And the past few months :)

I was gonna title it "Keeping Busy" but i didn't want to copy Ms Hopson :)

Last night was interesting, I stayed at June's, the lady I am taking care of. It was kind of funny, she asked Shannon, one of the other caretakers for potato chips. She said, "Can I have a few potato chips? I haven't had them in so long I forgot what they taste like." Shannon answered with "What're you talkin about? You just had chips at lunch!" I felt kind of bad for her but it was kinda funny at the same time. This morning I fed her breakfast which consisted of 3 fried eggs and two pieces of toast and coffee. While I was there, I started thinking about how much it would suck if I ever became a burden to my family. That's what she is, sad as it is to say. It would suck to have to sit in a wheelchair all day, not able to read any books or only being able to listen to the tv. Honestly, I'd rather die than go through that, but perhaps that's because i'm just selfish, as we all are at times. But it also makes me that much more grateful for everything I have and everything I am capable of doing. Andy Himes and I had an online Bible study through AIM today. It went really well and I liked it alot, mainly because it was just two of us rather than seven or eight people in one big group. We did the study based on 1 Samuel 1. What did I learn from it? Lots. I learned God is faithful and answers prayers, well I guess I kinda already knew that one. I also learned that if we pray with enough faith to believe God hears us, He will answer our prayers and bless us. Also, prayer should not be about I want this, I want that. It should be more like If this, then I will do that. It should be a give and take relationship, not just take, take, take. We need to be willing to give something in return. What else? Oh, we should not cast our problems to the world, we shouldn't complain to other people about them (which I admit I am guilty of doing), it should stay between yourself and God. And if you have prayed with enough faith, chances are, you will feel much better about it because it's been placed in God's hands and He knows exactly what to do with whatever burden you have entrusted Him with. I have no idea if this makes sense to anyone, but it makes sense to me :) Oh! Funny story, kind of, I was at my grandparents' and I did the ice/salt thing to my hand and everyone thought I was crazy, guess they just odn't understand our awesomeness! I was telling my grandpa about my grades and he was like "Well, maybe if you hadn't spent so much time at Church...blah blah blah" It annoyed me because I'm not gonna to my math teacher's house on a Sunday to get help on math hmwk!! It is my fault I failed math but it had nothing to do with Church or BASIC and I wish people would just understand that, ya know? My aunt is in ICU at the hospital and she needs very frequent doses of morphine cuz she's in so much pain. The doctors found two masses on her liver, one benign and they had to biopsy the other one cuz they're not sure if it's malignant or benign and they won't know for sure until Tue/Wed....so please pray for her guys. I miss my mom's cooking. Since it's just me and my older sister at home, it's a fend for yourselves deal. I just had grilled ham and cheese and some potato chips for dinner, yummy. I'm so excited to go camping tomorrow!! It'll be nice to go somewhere completely different for a change, somewhere that isn't home, Oswego or my grandparent's house, don't get me wrong I love going to all three but sometimes, it's nice to have just a complete change in scenery. Geez, I feel like all I do is ramble on and on about nothing, but hey, I'm not forcing anyone to read about my jumbled and random thoughts :)

P.S. Jesus rocks yo!!!!! <3

Boredom has sunk in

I am home alone, at first Iwas excited but now I am extremely bored. Now I can see how some people go crazy from living alone. Or why old ladies resort to talking to their cats. As I have already said, my parents went camping but I had to stay at home for my job. But I will get to go on Sunday :) Andy suggested I read my Bible, great idea, but I have no motivation, so he came up with the idea to have an internet Bible Study type of deal. We're going to be reading Samuel, and then discussing it through AIM. I started reading Samuel a few months ago but I got bored with it so I stopped...and I'm glad we're gonig to be reading it together because then I can have him explain things to me. I started watching "Religulous" earlier through a website, but I got bored of it. Honestly, I didn't like it very much. Even Facebook gets boring. Not that I do anything on it anyway, haha. I have to go to work soon, I'll be staying at the lady's house overnight tonight, should be easy. My mom just called, my aunt has been in the operating room for the past 2 and a half hrs, they untwisted her intestines, and she has something wrong with her liver, they're going to try and fix it. Ya know what else? I am sick of eating and food. Seriously, if I didn't have to, I wouldn't eat, I'm just tired of eating food, anything and everything. It's weird, I get hungry, but I don't feel like eating anything. I think I want to change my blog layout again. I took a Facebook quiz and it said the thing that interests me most dueing lectures is my pen, which I guess is kind of true because if Iget bored, I doodle in my notebooks and write prayers, sort of like a prayer journal, I write poems when the mood strikes. If it weren't for pens, I'd die of boredom in lectures. Which reminds me! Grades are in! I got a 2.0 gpa this semester (oops) and an overall gpa of 2.5 (eh). Two B's, one B-, one E (can you guess which class? you guessed it!! math) Grrr, oh well, I knew it was coming, definitely need to try harder next semester in that class. Ok, enough random, pointless thoughts for one post. G'day mates!!

La-di-da-di-da

I wish everything was la-di-da-di-da. But at the moment, it's not. Fear has been a big factor in my life recently, ok so maybe it's always been a factor, now that I think about it. This time, there's also a lot of doubts running through my mind. I've been asking myself, why should I keep believing in God and trying to live for Him? No matter how much I want to, I just can't make myself believe in Him fully, there's always a nagging doubt. I feel like prayer is useless, it's become something I do out of habit, not because I want Him to do things in my life, I mean I do but, ugh, i don't know. I guess I feel like my faith only runs surface deep. I hear about all these miracles and amazing things happening in peoples' lives and I tell myself I believe they happened but deep down, I don't, it's one of those "see it to believe it" things maybe? My major is childhood education with a concentration in English, but now I've decided to change it to just English. I don't feel like teaching is the way to go, but I also don't have anything else in mind, except I've been entertaining the thought of possibly opening a bookstore or library, preferrably a bookstore cuz they make money ;-) But I also like the idea of a library so people, especially little kids can come in and just pick a book and be able to read it without paying any money. Maybe I'll do both!! Anyway, I haven't read my Bible in who knows how long and lately I've been forgetting to pray. It frustrates me and yet, I don't have the motivation or will to change any of it. I think I just need a revelation of some sort or something, because right now, I'm in a rut and I think I'm gonna be here for awhile.

<3 Dee

I'm not very creative with titles...

The past few days have been crazy. I just spent Tue and Wed nights at my grandparents' house. Wednesday we planted six rows of potatoes, about 25 potatoes in each row. It was so tiring. And then we did some easier work and planted tomato plants and green pepper plants. Today I woke up and my muscles were sore since I'm not used to manual labor. We went ahead and planted zucchini and squash seeds. Yesterday, I was standing by the garden and all of a sudden, I looked on my shoulder and I saw a bird sitting on it!! It made me jump and sadly, it flew away. But, ya know I'm not used to birds just coming and resting on my shoulder. Maybe I should become a pirate so the next time it happens, I won't be startled. Anyway, everyone has all these new blog layouts and it makes me feel boring and technically challenged, which I guess I am, but I will find out how to change it. So my mom was watching Cops the other night and there was this guy who was a drug addict and when they opened the trunk of his car, there was a Bible inside it! I found it kinda funny. Um, what was I gonna talk about next? Hmmmm, camping maybe? So my fam is going camping this weekend, they leave tomorrow so it'll just be me and my older sister here at home, party at my house!!!! :) But we'll be going on Sunday and staying overnight till Monday. What else? My aunt just arrived at the hospital, she has chest and stomach pain. So please pray for her guys, thanks! Ummm, I feel like there was so much I was gonna talk about and yet I've talked about absolutely nothing. Guess what??!! Nick sent me a Facebook message saying he missed me and it made me super happy to know that at least one person from Oz misses me, I'm not sayin the rest of you don't but I dunno, it's just different when it comes from him, I think maybe because I don't expect it? I don't know why but I feel like God is going to do alot of work in me this summer and alot of big changes, all good, are going to come next semester, I'm so excited for summer to really get under way. `

Hmmmmm.....

I am home for the summer, it's official. It's so nice to be home and see everyone but I know within a few weeks I'll be missing Oz, nothing against my family. I love them all so much, probably more than I let on. At the end of June, I start my summer job as a dishwasher at an FFA camp. For all you cityfolk, FFA stands for Future Farmers of America. Until then, starting tomorrow, I'll be taking care of an older lady who is blind and confined to a wheelchair. I'll have to do some laundry, cook her dinner, feed her, visit with her, read her books, I've been told she loves to be read to, and I lvoe to read so it works out :) I'm kind of excited about this job, I don't know why, maybe because I'm hoping it'll make time go by a little faster, but I'm also kinda nervous, what if she's grumpy or worse, what if she has a heart attack or keels over and dies while I'm at her house?? She can't use the toilet, and she hardly goes to the bathroom anyway, so one plus is I won't have to clean her up if she does, cuz that would just be too awkward for me. Shannan and Kelly are graduating in 35 minutes!! It's crazy how fast time flies. I'm going to miss you both so much and I'll be praying for you always, stay strong.
My mom texts now guys!! It's so weird but kinda cool at the same time. She used to be so against it and all of a sudden, I check my phone and see she's sent me two messages. It makes me excited, my dad also texts, but he absolutely hates it so he doesn't do it as often as my mom.
These are all just random thoughts. There's no rhyme or reason to them. So my roommate was watching me and Nick interact one night and she mentioned to me how I act standoffish around him and sort of disinterested in what he has to say, hearing her tell me that made me feel horrible because here he is, at least somewhat trying and I completely ignore it. For example, he was playing piano and my roomie and I were listening and when he looked back at me, I was texting on my phone which she informed me is kind of rude, and I see her point. And just other things like that. So I guess I have a lot to work on in the future. It was funny, he was playing "It Is You" and he was singing to it, but very softly, and my roomie didn't know the song so all she kept hearing was "It is you I adore." She told me later that she felt liek she was interrupting something personal. So I told her the rest of the lyrics and explained how it was a Christian worship song, which made her feel better.
Coming home has made me realize how many inside jokes we have as a group. I can say something and my siblings are like, "What??" They get confused and don't understand, like we were in my sister's car and listening to the radio. "Don't Trust a Ho" came on and all I could think of was that night at latenight and changing Helen Keller to Kelly Hopson and I wanted to sing it that way so bad but I knew they wouldn't understand. Ugh, I had to get up at 6:30 AM!!! We went to my grandparents' house to split and stack wood, we had to be there by 8. But we were done by 9:30, and now I am in my room, getting ready to unpack some things, and watch Shan and Kelly on a live webcast of their gradumatation. Congratulations ladies, love you!!
Peace out girlscouts. Oh, also, it has been one year since I've been saved and let me tell you, it has been quite a year, wow, I feel like I've been on a rollercoaster ride and the best part? The ride isn't over yet and I'm excited to see where it takes me.

<3 Dee

Sorry

Oh, how I am so sorry to anyone I may have hurt through my previous post, which I have deleted out of shame and respect. I am ashamed of the way I dealt with recent situations, I realize now how wrong it was of me to not confront the person/people I was most upset with. I am so so so so sorry for everything. I am sorry for being gossipy, another thing I need to work on. However, I still feel we need to work on being unified as a body of Christ, which will not happen until we all work together, including myself. How I am so sorry for the way I have acted. Please forgive me, and if you didn't read my last post, it wasn't pretty, that's all I'm gonna say, I wrote it out of anger and didn't take the time to think. I love you all.

<3 Dee

Last Weekend in Oz this semester

So another weekend has come and gone, sadly the last one for this semester. However, I look forward to next semester and making so many more fun memories. Friday night I went to work cuz I took a sub shift for Andy. My roommate and I had lots of fun picking on Nick and just getting into trouble. I went to the CCM barbecue afterwards and then we all went down to the lake for a bonfire and smores and worship. It was cool sitting there, singing and watching the lightening over the lake. This was followed by watching Stranger Than Fiction or for most of us, naptime. Of course we couldn't watch the movie til we got our chinese food, about 45 min after we ordered it and while waiting, getting yelled at through the window by ome drunk guys which Pete took care of nicely and then Luis scared for his life because of them. Most of us ended up sleeping during the movie. Who can blame us with all our schoolwork and our jobs and classes, it gets tiring ya know? I ended up going to bed at like 3 am and I was up at 10 am and wasn't tired. It's weird how I get 7 hrs of sleep a night on weekdays and I'm exhausted but 7 hrs or less on weekends and I can be wide awake. Anywhoodles, I went to brunch and ended up spilling chocolate milk in my lap, which Bongoman happened to see. I went back to my room and started packing some things, which made me kinda sad. Saturday night a few of us went to help set up for the BASIC picnic which was fun but we could've done without the wind and rain. When we left, we took a little detour to Price Chopper and Shannan bought stuff to make spaghetti and Nick ended up buying caviar and crackers. We ventured back to Scales, while Shannan showed us her amazing driving skills by steering the wheel while in the passenger seat. Shannan, Ryan, Nick and myself were having a nice quiet spaghetti dinner, until we were rudely interrupted by beggars named Kelly and Kdee! Jk guys, love ya :) For dessert we dined on caviar, which I found disgusting and will never try again. The movie of he evening turned out to be I Am Legend and I thought it was pretty good, I honestly didn't think I'd like it. It was sad when Sam died though, but it was all part of God's plan. I wish I knew what His plan for my life was. Ok, so after the movie, I went back to my room and got on my puter for a few before going to bed, around 2 am. Next thing I know, my phone is ringing. I answer it and find it's Shannan asking me where I am, I realize I slept in and I'm given two min to get ready. I looked at the time, 9:58, oops. Sorry bout that guys. I was sooooo happy when I got to Church and saw Bridgette!! I just had to hug her, boy I've missed her. Unfortunately, she couldn't stay on campus long cuz her daddy was making a Mother's day meal at home. But was nice to see her and her less yellow skin. After Church, we went to brunch and then there was a family meeting at 2. I liked it, but I think there were still things left unsaid and we didn't get to the heart of the problem, but these unsaid things have nothing to do with me, so there was no sense in me bringing them up. I agree with Heather though, we all talk about thing we could do or should do, but do we ever act on them? Most of the time, no, and I include myself in that, of course. I thought Shannan's idea was cool, to write down things we were gonig to pray for people for and things I wanted people to pray for me about. And yeah, so here I am sitting in the computer lab going to dinner in a half hour. I was bored so I decided to write a blog about my last weekend in Oz until next semester, yikes! Oh, and it's Mother's Day everyone!! I called my mommy and wished her a Happy Mother's day and I wrote a letter telling her how much I love and appreciate her. Wow, how do my blogs end up being so long? I have no idea. Ok, I'm done, peace out girlscout!!

Dee