Finally!!!

I am finally at camp and I am already loving it. I have been here for a grand total of an hour and a half and there is so much more peace here than I have ever known in Omaha. I can tell that it is going to be a great summer. I am really looking forward to the fellowship that this summer will bring and the fact that I am away from problems in Omaha. I can't wait until I get the chance to run through the forest and go where I want to go. It is going to be GREAT!! Actually right now I'm going to go move all my stuff into my room that I will be in this week. This post was gonna be longer, but it will have to wait til later!!

These are the Longest Days...

... of my life... so far. In a few different ways. Let me explain.
I'm leaving on May 16,and it can't get here fast enough. I want to get out of Omaha for the summer, but sadly I still have to get through 3 essays and 2 finals. After that I am free to focus on finishing packing and hanging out with friends before I leave for the summer. On that note, before May 16 I have to figure out how to spend time with 5 different friends, pack, have a double date and clean my room so that when my windows get replaced the week I leave my dad can't find anything to tip him off that I'm going to Concordia in the Spring whether he likes it or not.
After getting to May 16 I will be looking forward to the whole summer at camp. When August comes around I will actually, strangely be looking forward to the crazy fall semester I have put myself in... Once I start that semester I will be getting a new job, I will be getting a new car (hopefully)and, possibly the most exciting, I will only be one semester away from Concordia!
Ok, now, after writing that it seems that I am only looking forward to the future and that I could care less about the "now". That's really not true. As for the "now" I am still living in the "now" and really enjoy it, except for the fact that I am living at my dad's which is part of the reason I am looking forward to camp and Concordia so much...
Ok, now that I have randomly rambled for a little bit, I think I will go work on cleaning my room to get ready for camp! Farewell for now!

Everything is a Little Backwards...

Recently my life has seemed a little backwards, in many aspects. I have found extra motivation from who-knows-where, which over all, is a good thing, but it's still strange. I am normally a person that can't cry, even if I really want to, but recently I have been crying a lot, many times for reasons that I can't even explain to myself, let alone somebody else. My days and nights seemed to have been turned upside down because I can't seem to fall asleep before midnight, if I'm lucky, normally closer to 1 a.m. and I take multiple naps throughout the day (I haven't decided if this is a good or bad thing...).
The main thing that I have found is backwards from normal is that I am now the single friend from my group of friends in high school. This is a very strange phenomenon because of the 4 years I was in high school I was single for about 7 months. Yes, only 7 months out of 4 years... I know that I am supposed to be single right now, that is what God is telling me, but it is very strange and now I have so much to say about relationships to my friends who are currently in them but they probably won't listen to me because of all I have done in my relationships. I really wish that I could get past this stigma in my brain saying that they won't listen and tell them what I think without worrying about what they will say/think. But right now, I don't think it's worth the breath or the time. So, I will stay silent, for now, until I can't bear it anymore.
One thing that isn't backwards isn't my dad's attitude... I wish it were to flip upside. That would be very helpful, but alas, that won't happen in this lifetime. I am still stuck in the house with lectures about laundry to do (when they always have laundry in the washer/dryer) and wondering where I am always going and complaining that I am at church too much (what parent does that???) and where I am getting all the money for gas and food (one of which I wouldn't have to worry about if they would buy food that I liked in the first place).

My personal dare

So, I have recently realized that I spend way too much time doing things that don't matter and not enough time on things that do matter. Obviously not being able to go "cold-turkey" on these time-wasters I have created a dare, that I have already shared with a friend. What is this dare??? Well, I will explain using an example. I spend way too much time on Facebook. Let's use an hour of my time on Facebook for this example.
~ Ok, the hour that I usually spend on Facebook is now split into sections of other things.
~ 25% of the time, 15 minutes, will be spent with God.
~ another 25%, another 15 minutes, will be spent on homework.
~ the other 50%, 30 minutes, will be spent on Facebook.
My hope is that slowly the time with God and homework time will grow greater while the time on Facebook decreases. I realize that Facebook won't ever be completely out of my life, but it will be for the best if I start decreasing the time now, for when it really matters and I have more important things to tend to...

No Words To Describe It

I am both speechless and don't want to stop talking about this weekend. How does that work? Well, there are no words to describe the conference itself, but there are a plethora of words to explain how it impacted me. Let me explain...
This past weekend I went to a youth conference in Lincoln called Dare 2 Share. This was my fifth year going, the first year that I went as a chaperone, the first year I went on my own will (not being invited by someone else), and this is the year that it completely sunk in. In past years, I was there and I listened and I said that I would live out my faith, but this year is the year that I WILL live it out. It is too soon to tell if this will actually work or not, but this year it completely hit me in a different way. To attempt to explain the weekend, here are some quotes from the conference:
"I am trying to stay cool, but I have magma in my veins"
"How much do you have to hate someone to know about Jesus and eternal life and not to share it with them?"
"Ok, I got my letter from Hell. Where is my letter from heaven?""You, you are the letter from heaven for other people."
"THE Cause isn't new, it is 2,000 years old!"
"Pardon me while my heart bursts into flames. I try to control it but I can't. There's magma in my veins."
"If I'm not grounded, I'll fly into this odyssey, get caught up in what the darkness tries to offer me. so pardon me, while my heart bursts into flames, im trying to stay cool, but ive got magma in my veins"
"From electrons to galaxies and everything in between, only you were created in His image."
Ok, to explain some of those: the ones with "magma in my veins" are from Propaganda, who did some rap throughout the weekend. "How much do you have to hate someone to know about Jesus and eternal life and not to share it with them?" is from Penn, from Penn & Teller, who is a very well known atheist and is talking about someone that evangelized to him. Great video. The letter from Hell is from the drama, that was 2 parts this year instead of one... THE Cause = The Great Commission. And the last one, Greg Steir said during one of the teachings.
That is my attempt to explain the weekend itself in words without taking forever. The thing that impacted me the most was the drama. Oh my gosh, I have some friends who would/and sadly could send me a letter from Hell. It is my job/obligation/duty to fix this!

That Certain Lack of Motivation

Everyone has those days. Where you want to do absolutely nothing, possibly with the exception of curling of up with a good book and reading all day mixed with some sleep. These days are becoming exceptionally more abundant in my life recently. Can't seem to find the motivation for things that need to get done. I know that I have homework to do, a room to clean, and food to eat, but I just don't feel like it.
I never get to homework until the night before it is due, even though I have had the assignment for at least a week. My room is so cluttered and a disaster area that it has begun to bug me, and that is saying something. I have come to the conclusion that 90% of the time that I eat is simply because I know that I should, not because I am honestly hungry.
I constantly plan nights for "me" in order to catch up on thing but I end up finding something else to do, hang out with friends or sleep or go shopping or something that is counterproductive to getting things accomplished.
I'm not sure why this is but it is getting annoying because I am getting tired of pulling all-nighters in order to get homework done at the last minute.
So, in conclusion I am adding something to my resolutions from my previous post. I will no longer wait until the last minute to do things, I will work on them gradually throughout the time span that I have the assignment.

Time for the New Year

I know it is a little late to be making a resolution, but I don't care. I am going to make one anyway, but first I will explain...
When the New Year came around, I wasn't in the best of moods, with the exception of just having gone to a youth conference in K.C., so I didn't want to make any resolutions. I didn't want to pick my "word" for the year. I wanted to live in the past and make everything go back to the way it was.
Now that I am done with "living in the past" and finally seem ready for the New Year (now that it is almost Valentines Day) I will make my resolutions and pick my word for the year.
I am just going to make a list of resolutions, rather than try to make coherent sentences. (oh, and by the way, if you are reading this, you are signing up as the committee to hold me to these. THANKS!)
+ Grow in my relationship with my Savior, Jesus Christ
+ look at things from the positive side
+ take better care of myself
+ dress nicer
+ eat healthier
+ exercise
+ help others, but keep time for myself
+read for fun more often (I have a huge reading list for this year, consisting of about 15 or so books. Can I get it done?)
+ meet new people!
Ok, I think that is it for goals for the year, excluding school stuff. I WILL stick to this. As for my word for this year... hmm... I haven't really given much thought to this one... hmm... umm... I have to say "growth". Growth in many ways. Probably ways I don't even know of yet.
I am, as of right now, looking forward to this year, 2010. Bring it on!

One of Those Days

Ok, so I'm sure everyone has had one of those days before... And for those of you who have had those days you know what I'm talking about. But if not, I will explain. One of those days is a day where from the time you get up until after you lay down at night absolutely NOTHING goes right.

Today, I am having one of those days. Let me explain a little bit. When I woke up this morning, after about 3 hours of sleep , there was a feeling that it was going to be a crappy day. Boy, was I right!!! So, I took my first step into the day by putting on a Tweety shirt, because Tweety was my grandma's favorite character. After that I decided to go out and tackle the day, even though it feels like it tackled me instead.

My 8 a.m. class pretty much kicked my butt and I was ready for a nap by 9 but, alas, I had homework to do. Well, theoretically anyway, it didn't end up happening. I went to my 11 a.m. class and once again had my butt handed to me as I got up to leave. At this point I wanted to go home and sleep the rest of the day away and it was only noon.

I begin my way to a friends house in order to purposely make the day worse (not that I wanted to but we were going to do something that was really difficult to pull off, in turn making my day worse). After that was accomplished I got a text from my mom and immediately started crying. There was no stopping the tears, even though I had thought that I was previously out of tears. Turns out I had plenty of tears to cry. My grandma passed away this morning, and because of the family/court stuff going on right now (and has been going on for the past year and a half) I will not be able to attend the memorial service on Saturday. I also hadn't seen my grandma for about a year and a half to two years prior to this. I was gonna stop by and say hi a couple months ago, but because of the court stuff again, I was unable to do so. Now I feel terrible 'cause I haven't seen her and won't be able to go to the memorial and there is very little that a college kid in the state system can do in this situation. GAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Anyway, there is light at the end of this dark day, and I came across it after church. I was telling one of the parents at church about all of this along with the fact that tuition is due in less than a month and I'm stressed, which in turn, makes me not eat, and she decided to help a little bit, financially and spiritually. She gave me a check for $50, but more so, she said she would be praying for me.

Well, anyway, my paster prayed for me and asked God to turn my brain off at 11pm tonight so if I want to get any homework done, this better be the end of this blog.

The Important Things

Many people say that the "important" things in life are money, love, God, family, and friends; not necessarily in that order. I would have to agree, saying that family is the second most important of those important things, directly behind God. And right now, the most important member in my family is my grandpa. Recently finding out that he only has a couple months to live, many other family members have come into town to visit him while they can. This began to make me feel bad because they come into town from Denver or Kansas City and I live about 6 miles away and rarely see him but I am working on changing that.

Some people apparently disagree with those things being the most important. I invited my sister to go with me to visit him tomorrow. She originally agreed to go with me, but then all of a sudden decided that shopping for a new car, that I don't think they either need nor can they afford, is more important than seeing Grandpa. This basically broke my heart, and I can't even imagine what Grandpa would say if he found this piece of information out.

While talking to an aunt shortly after learning my sister wasn't going, she said that it's not my job to control the world even though sometimes I try to control it. I realized that that is basically what I am trying to do. I am trying to control what my sister does by what I believe she should do, and I can't do that, no matter how much I would love to.

On a brighter note about Grandpa, for Christmas he gave money to all of his kids (all 11 of his kids) and told them to split it with their kids (totaling 33ish grandkids). I ended up getting about $600 to spend on something that is NOT necessary for life to go on, no school, no car, no food, no gas, basically leaving me with clothing and jewelry. What I did with money was supposed to be something that I would alway remember Grandpa by. I found a black and white diamond set consisting of a ring and a necklace for just under $600. I will have it by February 6th, when we are celebrating his 87th birthday, which I think he will love to see what I got. Pictures to come soon.

Well, now that I have The Important Things figured out in life I should get back to the most pressing issue in my life... school, more particularly, homework...

First Post

Ok, so, I'm going to see if I can "regularly" post on this site, unlike my other one that kinda failed, even though I meant well... So, take 2. I'm basically just going to use this as a place to put my thoughts when they run around in my head too fast to catch them one at a time. I will let them run through my fingers to the keys. I have a feeling a lot of them will be random, about college, or about church; seeing as how that explains my life right now. I wish you happy reading and good luck on getting some insight into my mind.