This is the post I would put here if I were to switch over for good.

Maybe I should’ve learned my lesson the first time but I’m an equal opportunity blogger and so its only fair that I give wordpress an honest, unbiased, chance and who knows we may all switch over very soon (I doubt it though). On the other hand it may only be a very short amount of time before I give up and decide to switch back to blogger. Its a chance I’m willing to take and hopefully its a chance you’ll take with me. But, I’m not a complete idiot and I did learn somethings from my past freewebs experience.

First of all, Freewebs sucked. I should’ve seen it coming, but I was blinded by their artistic layout opportunities, and was convinced it would be a good choice. But I like to think I’ve gotten smarter this time around and I’ve made sure that this particular blogging venue is not as complicated as the last one was. There are some things you should be aware of though. The comment link is above the post instead of below it. Yeah, I’m not really crazy about that either but its essentially not that big of a deal because the incredibly useful snapshot links make up for the inconvenience. Seriously, try the links. If you put the cursor over one of them a little box appears showing you what the site looks like. Not sure why thats such a great thing? Well, you can pretty much see if someone has updated without even going to their blog. Seems like something for lazy people at first, but really its just a great time saver. Those are half the reason I switched to wordpress, because when I tried adding them to my blog it kept shutting down the internet. The other thing is that I can’t put a song on here. But thats not really a big deal either. I was thinking about getting rid of it on my old blog anyway.

In any event, adding a picture to my header is about a million times easier on here as is changing my template and adding images to my posts. Oh and also there’s a search box over on the top of the sidebar so if for whatever reason you wish to recall a particular intelligent or clever remark that I may have made at some point then you can just type it in there and it should direct you to the appropriate post. So really the only thing left is for you guys to change your links to the new address (be nice please) and then we’ll be on our way. I’m excited about it and I’m sure that you guys couldn’t care less you’re just a little irritated you have to go to *all* the trouble of changing my link. But if you like me at all then I’m sure it won’t be too big of a deal.

Did you miss me? Yeah you did. Admit it, you missed me. Actually, I was really only gone a few days and probably nobody even knew it. I feel a little like Charlie Brown on Valentines Day. I went to Weaverville for the weekend to see Krystal. She lifeguards up there during the summer and then lives with her grandparents, who by the way, are the kindest people God has ever placed upon His vast green Earth…. besides my great aunt Marian that is, she’s phenomenal. It was a pretty fun weekend full of chick flick marathons and lots of chatting and a little sight seeing thrown in. Not that there’s much sight seeing that can really be done in good ole’ Weaverville, but I did manage to drag Krystal into a few art galleries and we also walked down to the park and looked at all the different vendors set up for fourth of July reasons. Let me tell you what, never have I seen so many tie-dye shirts for sale in one location. Don’t worry, I didn’t buy any. In any event, it was a good time and I think she really enjoyed the company because from what she tells me, she gets incredibly bored over there. I believe it though. I mean I was only there a few days and already wondering how I was going to stay occupied. On Saturday night we stopped at Millers drive-in (whatever that is) and just as we were getting ready to leave I spotted what appeared to be a homeless man sitting at a picnic bench, journaling and sipping his beer. I told her to wait a second, that I was going to buy him a hamburger or a soft serve or maybe a licorice rope, I wasn’t really set on an item, but as I was getting out of the car she tells me that buying him food is a really bad idea, that I need to just get back in the car because he’s perfectly content drinking his beer and also there was a really long line (Millers is obviously a jammin’ place). I wasn’t convinced, but I also wasn’t driving, she was. So, in the end, I got in the car and we drove away. The reason I bring it up is because I’m still feeling really bad about leaving but also because I don’t understand this fear people have of homeless people. Like not having a permanent place to sleep makes a person all the more dangerous. I mean whats the worst that could’ve happened? He pulls out a gun and shoots me as I’m walking over. Alright fine. So I die. If I could pick a way to die, that one wouldn’t be too far down the list. I say all that to say, if you have a fear of the homeless population in your community, get over it. Theres no excuse for it, because in reality, theres no such thing as safe now is there. There, I said it. In case you were wondering though, neither of us had the smarts to bring a camera so no there are no pictures of the wild weekend but her grandparents did have this really awesome retro looking dresser that I wanted to take a picture of. It had dark wood with chrome handles that were circles. Paint the wall behind it orange and you’ve got yourself a themed room! Nothing incredibly exciting happened though so theres really not much else to write about.

Hey, how would you guys feel about me moving my blog over to here and blog from there instead of here? I only ask because of the way the freewebs fiasco turned out and I wouldn’t want to put everyone through something like that again, but if nobody minds, I really like the wordpress blog better. I don’t know, maybe I’m giving myself too much credit thinking you actually care. But check it out, the links are really cool and changing the template is way easier for me. I’m not completely set on switching but I am thinking about it. I just hate staying in one place for too long.

Couldn’t you guys just picture me riding around town on one of those? I don’t know, it just looks so charming. I think if I were to purchase one of those it would only be right for me to also purchase a light yellow sun dress and wear my hair in braids. Fantastic! If anyone knows of anything or anyone who could in fact hook me up with such an incredible bicycle as the one pictured above, then let me know. I actually had one that looked very similar to that one only it didn’t have the basket. But the one I had wasn’t really mine. I sort of stole it from the Mexican neighbor boy a few years ago. No, I know it was wrong, but I had every intention of giving him the 10 bucks he asked for it. It was just never really convenient and after a few years the tires ran out of air and the brakes stopped working (it was an old bike) so I just ended up throwing it away. He hasn’t said anything about it in a while though, so I think I’m alright. Not to mention he graduated high school two years ago so its not like he even needs it anymore. He has a car now. You are not going to make me feel guilty about this!

I was eating a banana this morning which is strange for me because I’m not really a big fan of bananas unless they’re still green on top, and this one was not still green on top, far from it, but I was eating it anyway and somewhere between eating it and scanning the kitchen for my coffee cup, which was located behind the dishwasher detergent which was also bright yellow, I realized how amazing it is that God created us in color. I don’t know where the epiphany really came from but I realized that at any one time I’m taking in a myriad of colors of all shades and it really didn’t have to be that way. I mean, a lesser god would have perhaps just created stick figures that live in black and white, or maybe just black, I don’t really know. The point is that if He had created us as black stick figures then we would, being sticks, have absolutely no way of processing the idea of color. Literally, no way it could be done. So once I realized that my brain isn’t actually as existential as I think it is (you guys as disappointed as I was?) I realized that, and this is the important part, the reason I get so confused with the idea of things like the trinity and the initial existence of God isn’t because those things aren’t real or accurate, its because I’m just not designed to be able to understand those things. I’m not even expected to. Its amazing! Whats even more amazing is that all of that psychoanalysis came from eating an overly ripe banana.

Yeah, that would really suck.

Anyone else think of these Postal Service lyrics?

“I am thinking it’s a sign that the freckles
In our eyes are mirror images and when
We kiss they’re perfectly aligned
And I have to speculate that God himself
Did make us into corresponding shapes like
Puzzle pieces from the clay
True, it may seem like a stretch, but
Its thoughts like this that catch my troubled Head”

I found this new site the other day. I can’t remember how I found it because it was late but I sort of just glanced at it and bookmarked with the intention of coming back to it later to check it our some more. Anyway, its called gotquestion.org and its basically a site thats all about answering questions you have about the bible. I checked it out a little bit and it seems pretty credible. Obviously I haven’t read everything so for all I know I could be sending you to some Satan worshiper’s website but I’m pretty sure its safe. And those of you that are even going to check it out are smart enough to know when you’re being lied to. All that to say, it could prove to be a very useful resource in the future. Thought I’d let you in on it. I also added it to my sites to look at list.
In other news, I went to Six Flags on Friday with a bunch of my cousins. It was a pretty fun day and I even rode my first roller coaster! I know, I know, I’m sixteen years old and I hadn’t ridden a roller coaster until last Friday, pretty lame. Well actually I have ridden a roller coaster before if you count the one I rode at Disneyland when I was like 7 and got really sick and scared on, which pretty much ruined me on the idea of ever riding a roller coaster again. But this time younger cousin who is 13 was going to do it and no way was I going to be shown up by him. So I went, and it wasn’t so bad. I mean, I wouldn’t want to do it every day but… once was good. I also, have an incredible fear of heights, so you can imagine what could’ve happened when I put the two together. Fortunately though, I lived. Hey, I’m no wuss.
Lastly, I ended up getting my wall art situation figured out. Charity came over and she assures me that the picture hanging on the wall directly above my pillow will not fall down for any reason in the middle of the night and crack my head open. I say, that when she gets the call that I’m in the hospital with a severe concussion and loss of memory, well, I’m going to give her two tries to guess how it happened. Something tells me she’ll only need one though. But I guess I have to trust her as I don’t really have a better plan and that wall looked awfully blank without it. Feels good to have it settled though.

Pretty gnarly huh? I took those pictures the other night, well, actually it was in the evening. I was sitting under the arbor in the front yard and it just looked too good to pass up. Thats how I know there’s a God… that and a whole bunch of other reasons. But anyone who says God isn’t an artist, clearly has never seen a sunset. In fact, I always thought it was pretty awesome that the first thing we learn about God in scripture is that he is an artist. I’m glad though. Lets not talk about my photography skills though. Alicia might be reading this and then I’d just be embarrassed : )

In other news, the puppy’s name is no longer Jack. No, he’s back to being Charlie, but this time its for good. Maybe my dog will die a heroic watery death like his namesake did. Actually, that would be sort of depressing. I don’t know how many heroic watery deaths I can take in one lifetime. Probably only one, but we’ll see. I guess it depends on the reason for death and who’s doing the dying.

Moving right along here. In the spirit of cleaning out my closet (see last post) I decided to also dust off every surface in my bedroom. Which, like the closet cleaning, is a much bigger deal than it sounds. You see, I have a ridiculously unnecessary amount of shelves and pictures hanging of my walls. Most of which have thick black frames, a.k.a. dust collectors. But, in the event of *not* sounding like a middle-aged housewife, I’ll give the dust-cursing a rest. Instead I’ll let this picture speak for itself. And no, I am not proud of this. I’ve really let things go.

The picture isn’t the clearest, I know, but still, that is disgusting on like eight different levels. Its a wonder I don’t wake up in the middle of the night coughing and choking as those shelves are directly above my bed. But I cleaned them all and while I was dusting one of them, I slipped and fell off my bed and somehow managed to pull said shelf off of the wall. I then had to pull my bed away from the wall to find the second screw, and its one of those kinds with drawers, so this was no easy task. Long story short, take a look at these.

Yep, clean as a whistle. Oh and this is just in case you forgot how cool it was…

…but I’m sure you didn’t.

In any event, I felt like I got quite a lot accomplished and I even managed to hang three pictures… then I decided that I liked the old ones better and took them all down and put all the old ones back up. Took about 45 minutes. But hey, now I know, I’m just not ready for a change yet. I did leave one picture up. I hung a picture up over my bed on the other wall, but its making me really nervous because if that thing were ever to fall down in the middle of the night, it would most definitely crack open my skull. I think that one will be coming down as well. Who needs change anyway?

We ended up naming the puppy Jack. I like it. Its a good strong name. Actually his whole name is Captain Jack and not because we really like the Pirate’s movies but because he quite literally walks like a drunken pirate. It was originally going to be Keith Richards. I’m afraid the poor thing (the puppy not Keith Richards) is going to get a concussion from all the stuff he’s run into. Seriously, he was following me around the yard the other day and I walked *through* the sliding glass door (not like a superhero or anything, you know what I mean), the puppy walks *into* it. Funny at first, yes, but I’m starting to get a little concerned.

In other news, I was cleaning out my closet the other day, which is a much bigger deal than it sounds and I found some pretty interesting stuff that I forgot I even had. Among the treasures were a gaggle of snow globes, a fiber optic lamp (I went through a slightly psychedelic stage when I was younger, not sure what happened to my lava lamps though) lots of old birthday cards and old notes that had been passed during church from years ago. I even found one from Zachary that said, and I quote “you’re an idiot” written on it, to me. On the other side he was threatening to buy a laser pointer to go with the new projection screen. Brenda you’re a lucky gal! I also found some old stuffed animals and lots of shoes. I have a freakishly large amount of shoes for some reason. Oh and the coolest thing I found was my classic “Lambchop” dinner tray. Does anyone else remember the Lambchop show? I don’t. But I know I loved watching it. I do remember that song they played at the end. So all in all it was a fun day of unearthing my childhood. Never mind the fact that I threw most of that stuff away and now have a nice clean closet void of any weird lamps and snow globes. I kept the Lambchop tray though.

You know who I miss being on the blogs? Jeremy and Kristi. Yep, they’ve only been gone for a little while but without Jeremy’s sarcastic sense of humor I have nothing to laugh at when I check my comments. Zachary’s comment about the puppy was pretty funny though. Good job Zachary. Without you and Jeremy it would just be sensible suggestions and kind encouragement… which is also nice… alright, I’m kidding. You’re all great, not that my opinion really matters.
Isn’t Jayden’s birthday close by or something?

This is Charlie.

Alright, so his name isn’t really Charlie, but thats what I call him. Justin doesn’t like that name though and even more than he doesn’t like that name, he doesn’t like Lost so we still haven’t decided on a name for the little nipper. He sure is cute though eh?

I went to that concert last night. The one I mentioned earlier, where Kelly’s friend Wes opened for Sleeping At Last. There was also another guy that opened for Wes and he was really good, but he never said what his name was and he said that all he brought was an envelope full of slips of paper that had his myspace url on them. Anyway, Wes was really good too and Sleeping At Last was pretty much awesome. Oh yeah, and something I forgot to mention on my last post was the incredibly awkward, misunderstood exchange of words that Wes and I had at Relay for Life. And the only way that I could properly describe the occurrence is by using a script like dialogue list. So here it is.

Me: (just come in from finishing my two hour shift of walking in the hot sun and to no one in particular said…) Man, its hot.
Wes: what?
Me: Its hot.
Wes: (awkward laugh) thank you.
Me: …???

So you see, he clearly misunderstood what it was that I actually said. I was making a simple, asexual comment about the weather and evidently he heard something else. And so for the rest of the day he watched me with odd suspicion, probably taking me for some kind of psycho. But at that point I couldn’t correct him for fear of expanding the awkwardity of the situation, so I just left it. What’ya gonna do?

But despite all that, the concert was, like I said, very enjoyable. Kale went with me, and don’t ask how I ended up going with him because I really don’t know. Probably because his girlfriend is out of town. Ha, that sounded really scandalous. Don’t worry though, it isn’t. I would go ahead and say its easily one of the best concerts I’ve been to. Not aesthetically or anything because then U2′s vertigo would take the cake on that one, but I guess Sleeping At Last just sounded really good live. Anyway, thats how it went and keeping with tradition, heres some songs.

Say
Sleeping At Last

Currents
Sleeping At Last

Annabelle
Wesley Jensen

I spent the better part of my day yesterday at Relay for Life (a 24 hour long cancer fundraising and awareness event where teams take turns walking for the entire 24 hours) I was on the team “Kelly’s Krew” with the moravecs and some of Kelly’s friends. I had never done relay for life before and originally I was scheduled to be walking with Tim from 4-6am on Sunday morning (this morning) but then some stuff came up and I had to switch my time to 10-12am on Saturday morning. Thats not really important though, the really cool thing was all the people that were there that had in some way been affected by cancer. The other really cool thing was being on the team with a lot of people that I didn’t even know but we were all there because we had known Kelly. It was pretty amazing and then it was very humbling because a lady that had her site set up next to ours had lost her daughter to cancer and then a girl that was on our team, Samantha, had lost her little brother to cancer. I did get to know some people though including the guy that actually leads the worship team at my church who had also been a really good friend of Kelly’s and he is actually playing a show here in Redding on Tuesday opening for the band Sleeping At Last. So I thought that was pretty cool, you can listen to him here if you’re interested. Anyway, its been pretty crazy here last week what with the graduation and having a gaggle of family members and friends coming over. But thats all settled down now and I’m left wondering what I’m going to do with all this time that I have.

Have you guys heard about the latest Nessy sighting over in Scotland? Well, apparantly the ol’ Loch Ness Monster is out and about again and some scientist caught footage of the friendly beast on tape. Except that I watched the footage and can I just say, its highly dissapointing. I mean, there is definitely evidence of something very large swimming in the water but it could just be like an eel or a very long fish. I wanted to see like maybe a fin, maybe the head come out of the water. But this whole thing brings back some pretty terrifying memories for me. I remember, several years ago, I was probably like nine years old and my parents had gone out of town for the weekend and so I was at home with my brothers. And there was this program about the Loch Ness Monster on the Discovery Channel, and I decided that I wanted to watch it (I’ve always been a Nessy fan) and my brothers were at the other end of the house playing video games in their bedroom. So, picture me, essentialy sitting alone, at night, watching a very eerie documentary about a mysterious monster that lives in the ocean. And it wasn’t just a normal documentary, it was one of those kinds that has the weird guy with the freaky voice and unconventional facial hair, stirring up mystery and there’s frightening music playing in the background, needless to say, I probably should not have been watching it. But I did, or at least most of it. I made it through the first hour and a half of the two hour program before I couldn’t take it anymore. So, I did what any nine year girl would do, having been sufficiently scared, I cried. Nevermind the fact that I was safe in my house on the clear other side of the world. I just cried. And then I spent the rest of the night with my brothers curled up in a ball rocking back and forth and whimpering. Alright that last part was a lie but I would have been justified. So you can see why this whole thing brings back some pretty painful memories. But hey, I don’t doubt that the Loch Ness Monster exists, it just probably doesn’t look like we think it does. I picture her being light purple with green polka dots, maybe even wearing a small hat with a daisy tucked in it. Who knows? I’m sure she is notoriuos for throwing the most magnificent garden parties. Whatever.

This whole leaving high school thing is still a bit strange for me. I’m excited, but now that its all almost over I feel as though I wasted it. Not that I didn’t do anything useful with the time because I’m sure I did, but now it feels like I could have been even more useful. But it wasn’t a complete waste. I mean I did learn some things. Mostly I learned that you should never underestimate the effect you have on people, whether it be good or bad. Yes, that concept has been reiterated quite a bit over the last three years but even more so in the last eight months. I guess its a good lesson to learn, so now I’m transfering my new found information over to you guys. Enjoy it. I watched the movie “About a Boy” over the weekend. I had forgotten how much I really enjoyed that one. Its just a good movie. And I like it because it doea a really great job of illustrating just how much we really need other people. It also has a pretty good soundtrack. But I always thought it was interesting how in Genesis when Moses is describing Adam in the garden of Eden which is this perfect place and Adam and God are friends and everything is just wonderful except and then it says Adam was lonely. So I guess that would mean that we really do need the company of other people. Because I’m sure that all those animals were just incredibly fun to hang out with but Adam could never actually carry on a conversation with any of them. At least not an intelligent one. Well, maybe if he had a parrot or a very intelligent monkey. Anyway, I love that movie and I highly reccomend it. I hadn’t actually watched it in years so it was very enjoyable.

Alright, this has gone on quite long enough so I’m ending it.

December 11th. Do you know what happens on December 11th? Well, despite being only one day away from my birthday, season three of Lost comes out on DVD on Decmeber 11th. So, if anyone was unsure of what to get me, I’m letting you know early. You’re welcome.

I was listening to this interview with a representative from IJM (well not really *with* her, I know thats misleading), the international justice mission, which by the way, is a really incredible organization and I thought what was really interesting was that she pointed out that while slavery is very much illegal in every country, there are over 27 million slaves in the world today. I had read another statistic a few months ago that said slavery today is actually worse than it was back when it was legal. Thats really crazy. Its also really sad.

I can’t believe that its almost June. In fact, by the time most of you read this, it will be June. Thats awesome. Has anyone seen the movie “Love Actually”? I bought the movie “About a Boy” last night because I really like that movie, its easily one of my favorites, but that movie came with three other movies that I’ve never actually seen, one of them, the only one that really looked interesting was “Love Actually”. I’m sure its a girl movie, but hey, I’m a girl and I like those. You’ve Got Mail anyone?