Life, the Universe, and Everything Crazy

2008-05-29T09:16:00.008-06:00

I'm a horrible blogger. I know.

That said, look at this: an update!

College. Something I've waited all my life for. Something that I began last year. Something I'm now a quarter through. Something that's been amazing. Something that has given me freedom. Something that has tied me down. Something that's forced me to stand on my own. Something that's given me many people to support me. Something that has caused me to live near some of my best friends for the first time in my life.

There's no way to sum up my school year. It was everything I hoped it would be.

I was nervous to leave home. Who wouldn't be? Suddenly I was in charge of my own schedule, food, and just life in general. I didn't have to tell anyone where I was going if I felt like a walk. I could go to Walmart at midnight and no one would care. The boys took advantage of the 24-hour Walmart more than I did, but I still had the option. And most nights I chose to go to sleep at a reasonable hour, but not always. I went to get a bank account without my mom at my side (Ethan substituted, but still). I could have gotten a credit card. I suddenly had a lot of freedom.

However, I was also tied down to classes. No longer homeschooled, my workload was chosen by a group of people known as Professors. I never got behind, but sometimes I found myself indignant on behalf of other people. Why does it matter *when* you take a quiz, as long as you know the material in the end? Isn't learning what this is all about? Homeschooling was hard to leave behind. In the end, I proved that homeschooling through gradeschool can work out excellently. I did just fine in the "real world."

And then there were the people. At first I had Ethan and Jacob. I was glad I knew someone already. It would have been overwhelming otherwise. Lorna and I also became quick friends since we already partially knew each other through MH. Katrina and Sarah quickly joined me and Ethan. They fit us so well, and yet forced us to expand too. They're amazing. Aaron joined us second semester, which was wonderful for me personally. And I made other friends. So many. It astounds me. I love Bethany. Besides HT conferences, I've never been around so many great people in one place.

We did so many fun things together. We saw many plays, we ran in the rain, we walked for miles just to run around in the woods and roll down hills, we talked, we laughed, we watched movies, we did each other's hair (well, the boys weren't involved in that :P ), we dressed up, we went out to eat, we danced, we trick-or-treated, we played sports, we played music... It was amazing to have good friends right there. Before, my best friends always lived at least half an hour away. You can't be as spontaneous then.

A highlight of the year was having MH friends visit. The Rachels, Rae, Elizabeth, Paul, and Harris all came. Unfortunately, RachelD didn't win the scholarship and won't be coming to Bethany with us. I hear Paul might though!

I travelled to both coasts within the past six months as well. I love travelling. In January I went to visit Aaron's family out in Pennsylvania. They took me to DC, Gettysburg, and Philadelphia, so I got caught up on American history. I had a great time getting to know them. Pennsylvania was also nice and warm in January compared to Minnesota. My other trip was band tour out to Seattle. Sarah was my travelling buddy for that trip, which was lots of fun. We explored a lot, and shopped, and bought food and stuff. We could have spent forever in the Experience Music Project. They had a room full of instruments to play...

Bethany is so small I even got to know some of the seniors this year. Graduation was sad, knowing they're not coming back in the fall.

I've been home two weeks now. It feels like a lifetime, though because of choir tour Sarah and Katrina only just got home and probably feel differently. I'm enjoying being home a lot. However, I'm leaving tomorrow. I'm working at Camp in Wisconsin for the summer, so I won't see my family much. It'll be fun though.

2007-10-21T20:47:00.000-06:00

I was tagged by Anna.

The rules of this are:

1. Link the person who has tagged you.

2. Tell seven true things about yourself.

3. Tag seven new people.

4. Leave a message with the person you have tagged so they know about it.

Hmmm, seven truths about me?

1. I'm not really competitive. I'd much rather play a sport, etc., for fun than count points. I honestly don't care about the points as long as everyone is having fun. And I get annoyed at overly competitive people.

2. In general, I have been extremely happy since coming to college. College stress? That's nothing compared to not-knowing-if-you're-even-going-to-go-to-college-until-a-week-before-it-starts stress.

3. I think people are not ready to date until they're ready to not-date. Most people around our age don't fall under this category. They still want *a* boyfriend/girlfriend instead of a certain person, and don't know how to be happy without one.

4. I love, love, LOVE Elfwood. There are some amazing artists on there, and it makes me feel inspired to draw and write.

5. I'm in college to learn, and so that I can get a good job someday. However, my real life's goal is to have a family eventually, and homeschool my kids.

6. I play the piano better than normal when I'm sad. That and writing both are my outlets.

7. I love helping the people I care about. I love being a listening ear or shoulder or hug-giver. If I can help you in any way, it makes my day.

I tag Aaron, Lorna, Katrina, Rosanna, Elyce, Jacob, and Ethan because he hasn't responded to his other tag.

2007-08-31T10:45:00.000-06:00

I've been here over a week now. I'm starting to get into my schedule, and have everything organized.

I was here a couple days earlier than most people because there was a camp for the Music Theory students. That was a lot of fun, and a good way to get to know some people. There were only about 20 of us. The whole freshman class is over 200.

We did music drills and stuff, but most of our time was put toward composing. We each came up with a short melody, and then the professor split us into groups whose melodies he thought went together well. We then went off and came up with harmonies and used our different instruments. It was a lot of fun, and we were extremely proud of ourselves when we were done. I have a video of it, but it doesn't want to upload to my computer for some reason. I can only watch it off the card when the card is attached to the computer.

There were about four groups that made up songs, and then some of the other people performed an opera for us. They called it High School Musical Three. It was awesome.

On Saturday everyone else moved in. My roommates came. It was kind of awkward at first, but we're getting used to each other and I really like them. Moving in was a little harder for them because they didn't have Christina, Lorna, and Ethan, or the music camp to help them get to know other people.

I'm really enjoying having friends around. A lot. And my social ring is expanding all the time as people introduce me to their friends or I meet people in class.

I'm also pretty excited about all my classes. In the music ones we're learning to sight sing, which is a great skill to have. This week was a lot of intro stuff, but in the classes I have more often we've actually done some work. I have one more music class later today, and then I'll have survived my first week at college!

2007-08-06T09:21:00.001-06:00

I didn't cry.

I think that's because I still had Ethan with me; it wasn't all quite *over* at the same time. I compromised by saying "Awwwwwwwww" at random intervals for the hour after we left Ridgecrest. By the time we dropped Ethan off at his house the next morning, I was too tired to really think about it.

It was a great week, as expected.

We left out house with Lucas and Alex on Saturday, picked up Ethan five hours later, and made it to Chicago. We took a few days to get to NC, but I'm not going to write about those now.

Me- "I smell iced tea."
Ethan- "I was going to say dead skunk..."

Lucas- "I hate horses."
Ethan- "Cows are a better food source."
L- "I like draft horses."
E- "They're basically cows."
L- "That's why I like them."

T- "I don't think they're alphabetical; they're just all in order."

We didn't make it to Ridgecrest for divine service the first day. We found all our friends by that evening though. It's always wonderful to see them. We talked. A lot. And saw Rae's car. Someone told us there was square dancing, but by the time we went to check out the entertainment, no one was dancing.

Sectionals I attended that day:
The Antichrist - That was a very full one. We were told reasons that the Pope is the Antichrist, but to my disappointment "What does this mean?" wasn't really answered..

At that time I was also reveling in being around my friends. Seth passed a pack of gum down the row. That's a normal friend thing that I don't get to enjoy with those people very often.

I also missed the first sectional because we were moving our stuff in.

STUFF THAT WENT ON ALL WEEK

Choir: I love HT choir. We sang wonderful songs. It was also awesome to have Seth and Kezia singing in my ears. Most of the girls were soprano instead of alto like me.

Plenaries: Pr. Kuhlman and Pr. Cwirla both did a great job.

In-Depth: Most of us went to Pr. Borghardt's "Christology in the movies", and no one regretted it.

Person in Talladaga Nights -"Ah like my Jesus in a two piece suit wearin' angel wings singin' lead at a Lynrd Skynrd concert."

Pr. B- "What is important about this clip?"

Random Person- "It shows people praying together as a family."

Pr. B- "That's one of them."

Pr. Borghardt is always entertaining, but even better he does a wonderful job of proclaiming the Gospel.

Wednesday most of us switched to the Red Group because a few were scheduled to play laser tag. We also climbed up the mountain to use our mini golf tickets. The boys played really fast, so it's a good thing we girls were ahead to slow them down. ;)

Sectionals:
The Holy Spirit FOR YOU: The Third Article - Pr. Schultz did a very good job on that one. I knew he would, that's why I went to it. :D

Most of the week, I had a cold. I was going to go to the "Lutheran or Lutheran?" one for my other choice. I was even sitting down waiting for it to start. But then I realized that I would feel a lot less miserable if I went to take a nap instead, so that's what I did. I had other people taking notes for me at that one, at least.

Thursday my alarm didn't go off. I ended up getting to breakfast just as everyone else was leaving. I ate with Seth's mom though, which was nice. We spent our mid-day free time signing each other's shirts and books. Rae drew smileys.

Rachel- "Why does Ethan's guy have a full set of teeth and mine only has buck teeth?"

It was our last day there, so we stayed up later that night. Even though Seth abandoned us for some "hot chicks". ;) And then when he finally came back he and Ethan had a very revealing conversation that I don't think I'm allowed to repeat here. :P

Sectionals:

So You Think You have Free Will, Huh? - The pastor summed up a book of Luther's on Free Will for us. He basically explained that we do have a *will*, we just don't have a completely free will. We are still in bondage to sin, and that takes away our freedom.

Paul Gerhardt: A Hymn Writer FOR YOU - (Yes, I actually made it to both sectionals that day!) I didn't know anything about Paul Gerhardt, so I learned a bunch. Unfortunately, my voice chose that moment to completely stop working so I wasn't able to sing when they sang some of the hymns.

Friday came all too soon.

Sectionals:
You Might be a Pietist If... - Rachel said her dad was nervous, but everyone liked his sectional. I'm sure everyone was made to realize a pietist part of them.

Rachel's dad - "Here is Melvin Methobapticostal, and this is Lila Lutheran."

An Apology for the Apology - He gave us a history of sorts; for the reason we need to be able to defend our faith. Pr. Mallie is another one of the great HT speakers. What more can I say?

We had a great time at lunch. I think food helps people relax or something, because I think our mealtimes at conferences are the best. And especially the last one, after we've been together all week. There isn't much better than fellowship with my best friends.

Divine Service closed the conference, of course. Standing in line for communion, singing and surrounded by 1000 people singing At the Lamb's High Feast is wonderful. That's what HT is about: Christ, given for us. I got shivers.

And then it was over. Everyone met outside the chapel for final pictures and goodbyes. I got a bunch of hugs. I love hugs. I love my friends too. I was sad to leave, but very glad I got to see them.

2007-07-23T06:37:00.000-06:00

I've been enjoying work a lot, even though I don't like the late evenings. I've worked drive through a couple times now. That's a bit different than the front counter. The first time it was just me and another one of the new girls. I felt sorry for our manager trying to keep everything sane. Of course the drive though got more busy as soon as the more experienced girl left. We managed though, and Ben said we did better than he thought we'd do.

This time last year the Feast was over. That's kind of sad, but on Saturday I'm leaving for For You! And those going to the MN For You will be there tomorrow. My godparents are coming to visit, so I won't be able to go down and see everyone at the conference. Sorry guys, I wish I could. As for anyone going to NC, see you in a week!

2007-07-05T08:48:00.000-06:00

My grad party is going to be on Sunday. Lots of family and friends will be there. It should be great fun.

But so many times I'm going to be asked where I'm going to school.. I'm dreading that. I hate that question now. It just depresses me and disappoints the person asking, because it's the same answer they heard before.. This is almost a month since I last posted about that, and nothing has changed.

2007-07-03T08:19:00.000-06:00

Well, my trip to Saskatchewan was nice. We arrived in the early evening, so T and I went for a walk and waved at a few people who drove by. We didn't get to talk to anybody that night though.

The next morning my siblings went to visit people on our old block. It was sad to see the For Sale sign in front of our house. The church is trying to sell it. Our neighbour girls came running out of their house and Megan cried and hugged me for a long time. Over the week Tarja and I went to visit all the kids that we babysat most. We miss our kids. It was terribly cute when Adam nodded his head to his mom's "Do you remember them?" question. He's one of the few kids that I've gotten to watch grow up from the time he was a baby, and a big contender for "cutest kid ever".

We went to church in one of the other towns. Leah had come to SK with her family too, so we hung out with her, Cody, Elisabeth, and Evan. It was great. There was a big meal afterwards and we were given little wedding bubble things because they were church-shaped. We had fun with the bubbles.

We had to visit so many people in different towns in that short week. Our church held a supper for us one evening, which helped a lot. Dad showed pictures of our new house and Aaron. Aaron was news to the people in SK because my family was in the midst of moving when we got together.

After the supper T and I went to our soccer team's last game of the season and cheered them on. I wanted to play so badly. It was raining the entire time so I had a river running down my back before the game ended despite my fedora's best efforts. There was a windup party at Steph's, which gave T and I more opportunity to talk to everyone. It was lots of fun. We stayed with Elisabeth's family the next day.

It's so nice to be around people who have known you for years.

I really do love it here in MN too though, and am looking forward to knowing these people for years.

Our youth group went out to Lutheran Island Camp this past weekend for a mission/retreat. We had an awesome time out there, and even did some work too. ;) I was happy to get to spend a weekend at camp, even if it wasn't MY camp. No, I didn't get to visit my camp when we were in SK. Lutheran Island Camp looks promising though. The director there is friends with my dad, and asked for my e-mail address so he could send me information about counseling there. Unlike my old camp, college students can afford to work at Lutheran Island Camp for the summer. The weekly pay is the same, but LIC runs all summer. I would love to work at camp.

I am enjoying DQ too though, and am now working the register. If I could get more hours, it would be really good. But it's *really* hard to beat camp. :D

Sorry this post isn't very coherent. I tried to talk about too many different things in it.

2007-06-08T14:55:00.000-06:00

People keep asking me if I've chosen a college. It's June, and I still have no idea when that stuff will be done... *sighs*

Now (or tomorrow morning) I'm heading to Saskatchewan for a week. Bye!

2007-06-04T19:55:00.001-06:00

It's not ice cream, it's dairy queen. <_<>_> <_< It sure looks like ice cream to me. Hehe. But apparently it has a lot less air in it than ice cream, and is kept at a warmer temperature so that you can taste it more.

Yes, I started work training today. ;)

It was pretty fun. One of the managers, Ben, gave me a tour, had me watch a couple training videos, and then started on... cup sizes. Because there are a lot of them, and they're confusing. Blizzard sizes are all a full size smaller than everything else. I learned how many ounces each holds, and how many balls of ice cream goes in a specific size. Then one of the other managers took over my training and taught me how to make blizzards. 3-5-7-10, 1-2-3-3-, 12-16-21-32, 16-24.... I'm going to wake up in the middle of the night with numbers running through my head. Ben told one of the other managers that I'm a fast learner though, which was fun.

One of the girls working there gave me a blueberry shake that was a "mistake." Workers get to eat the mistakes. It didn't look like the other mistakes though, so I think she may have just made it for me. In any case it was nice of her to give it to me!

So yes, I had a good experience today. They don't even have a problem with me asking two weeks off for my vacations!

2007-06-02T19:07:00.000-06:00

Hey look, I still have a blog! ;) (Not that anybody will check it anymore since I never write.)

Road trips with MHers are AWESOME!
I'll either be going to Lake Forest or Bethany.

I went on my first (and second and fifth) roller coaster!

I got turned down for some office jobs I really wanted.

Yesterday I was given a job at Dairy Queen.

I went to the wedding of the greatest former-vicar ever!

I graduated!

Why yes, it has been a busy few months. Whatever made you think so? :P

2007-04-05T11:41:00.000-06:00

Saturday started at 4:00 when I had to get up so that we could leave the house at 5. I made my parents drive since I would have to have an interview and write another essay later. ;) I tried to sleep on the drive, but only half-slept for the first hour and was wide awake after that. I was too energetic to sleep.

We decided to stop at McDonalds on the way down. It was 7 by then, and I was a bit nervous about the stop, knowing we had a good hour's drive ahead of us and registration was from 8-8:30. Not realizing how tight our schedule was, my parents almost had us stay in the restaurant to eat until I pointed out that we really needed to drive. Dad drove after that, which was really the only reason we made it on time. *cough*

The opening speeches were in the fine arts building. It was 8:27, so I headed straight to the desk to get my registration stuff. T later informed me that I walked right by Ethan without noticing, and Ethan said that he poked T but left me alone because I looked like I was on a mission. Hehe. Anyway, as soon as I got my packet of stuff, I turned around and went to talk to Ethan and his dad before we all headed into the theater to sit down.

Ethan, T, and I sat in the very front. There were speeches about things that would be going on that day and what we were supposed to do, then we all headed over to the gym. There, Ethan and I had to register for classes. I enjoyed talking to the other girl at my table, who turned out to be homeschooled too. The professor helped fix her schedule first, so mom and I looked at the listings of classes available for the fall semester. Bethany teaches Norwegian. I thought that was cool, because it's not a language usually found at colleges. But then, "MN is the Norwegian center of the world." -Ethan ;) Ethan had an advisor all to himself, and finished his schedule before I even got started. The professor finally turned to me, and we started figuring out a schedule. That was pretty fun. If I go to Bethany next fall, I'm taking a full 18 credits. The classes looked pretty easy though.

I was one of three students left in the room by the time I was finished. When I got to look at Ethan's schedule, I saw that we had no classes in common, but his freshman seminar was during an hour that I had free (and in the middle of the day instead of at 8:00 in the morning like mine) so I am planning to try and switch mine if possible, and if I go to Bethany. (Yes, Ethan, I decided there's no reason for you to change yours too ;) ).

Ethan's dad had disappeared sometime in there, so my family stole Ethan and went to eat brunch. I teased Ethan about drinking Irish Creme cappuccino when English Toffee and French Vanilla are so much better, and teased him even more when I found out he'd never even tried the other ones. It was fairly late by the time we finished, and Ethan and I left my family so we could go find where we were supposed to write our essays. It was so much more fun going through everything that day with someone instead of by myself.

Prof: *says something about essay style*
Ethan: Free verse.
Me: Haiku.

I also talked to the girl who sat in the seat on the other side of me. I talked to quite a few random strangers that day. It was fun.

Ethan and I had both opted to write our essays using a computer, so we were led to a computer lab. We had a full hour to write an essay about whether or not opposition is beneficial. An hour turned out to be enough for me when I'm writing a speed-essay. And better than that half hour we get on the ACT or SAT. It was enough time that I felt done before our time was up and was fairly happy with the results. As people finished, they printed their essays, gave them to the professor, and departed. Ethan and I finished at almost the same time.

My family had gone on a campus tour during that time, and we didn't know where they were, so we headed through the tunnel to the chapel, which was next on the schedule. We saw the rest of Ethan's family sitting inside the chapel, but for some reason decided to just spy on them through the glass and stay in the main area talking instead. So much fun. Ethan's admissions counselor also stopped by and we talked about which good books we should read. She recommended Brave New World, and I could happily tell her that it was on my shelf waiting for me to finish The Jungle.

The chapel service was pretty good, and the choir sounded great. Afterwards, we stood around talking to Christina. I found out that Bethany *does* have people who go swing dancing! Yay!

I decided that I wanted to walk down a loooooooong stairway on a hill to see some of the other dorms. For some reason Ethan and T came with me. ;) It turns out the apartment is only half the way down the hill, but the stairs go *all the way* down to the street. And that is a LONG hill. Seriously. It's awesome, like the neverending staircase. So we reached the apartment and saw it, but I felt the pull of adventure challenging me to go all the way down the stairs. It was fun. :D And then we climbed back up. Ethan and T are never going to follow me anywhere ever again. ;)

No, really, it wasn't that bad, though we were all breathing a little harder than normal when we made it back to the top.

I had to go for my interview then. By myself, I went back through the tunnel to the science building. Ethan and I had looked earlier for the room we were supposed to go, so knew where to go. We happened to be interviewed by the same group of people. The interview went fine, and the people were extremely nice, but it wasn't spectacular.

After that, I went over to the gym, because I knew my family would be there. They were listening to the drumline, and I was in time to catch the end of it. That Was AWESOME! It called to the percussionist in me. They not only played awesome rhythms (by memory), they choreographed too. When it was over, a dude pointed out two other guys to talk to if anyone was interested in joining next year. I went to talk to them. The guy I talked to was nice, and said that they have all levels of talent.

We found Ethan's family in the lounge. They were on their way to tour a dorm, so T and I tagged along. We learned about the laundry and student life and stuff. When that was over and we still had time before the banquet, I decided that I wanted to see The Lab (the coffeehouse). So I dragged T and Ethan along with me again. Sadly, it was closed when we got there, though T had gotten to see it earlier. So we walked around in the main building for awhile, and stopped to look at the board about Study Abroad. And had entertaining conversations that I don't remember now.

The banquet room (normal dining hall, so I'm not sure where the college students ate) was mostly full when our families arrived, so we split up: Ethan's family + me and T, and what remained of my family. Another girl and her mom sat at our table. Her mom likes the Despereaux book, so that was cool. Apparently I ate my salad too slowly for the rest of them, so when they were told they could go through the buffet, they left me. It was really funny when I got up a few minutes later to find that Ethan's mom was still the end of the line, so I went through at the same time as them. Ethan thought that was completely unfair, as I'd eaten slower than them all.

After the meal, the day's activities were over. Ethan, T, and I tried to hide from our parents. As we were hiding in plain sight, it didn't work very well, and they told us we had to leave. The dads went to get the vans, and Ethan tried again to convince me that my brother looks like Aaron. Then we had to say goodbye.

2007-03-27T12:14:00.000-06:00

Yes, I'm alive. The last months of winter are hard, aren't they? Everyone suddenly realizes that certain deadlines (wether it's college applications or meeting your goal of going skiing once) are coming up fast. And somehow amidst that, you're fighting that feeling of "My schedule has been the same all winter; I really need a change." Welcome to March. ;)

Actually, things have been really good lately. Aaron's visit helped February pass better than normal; I got to visit with Ethan for a day at the beginning of this month and I'll see him again on Saturday at BLC; youth group has been good; I love band; college stuff pops up when my schedule gets too monotonous; and now our snow is melting! It was twenty-fiv--oops, I'm speaking Celsius-- 75 degrees yesterday! In the mornings, it's foggy because of the snow still remaining. I love it. :D On Sunday the youth group was picking up garbage in the park, and I was outside without a coat for the first time all winter, in the fog, and it was great. I really like having that park nearby.

Another interesting thing is that I've given blood twice in the past few months. I'd never done that before. The first time was kind of funny because the people were treating me extra-special since it was my first time. I got lots of attention. ;) Normally I don't really enjoy little conversations with strangers, but I was feeling more extroverted that day than usual. Mom, dad, and and I went again yesterday (they held another in our area as soon as everyone from the first one was allowed to give blood again; eight weeks). This time I got a bit of bruising from the needle, but it's not too bad. And of course I asked questions, being naturally curious about the procedures of these people who want to stick needles in my arm. After the first time I got stuff in the mail too, and so now I know what blood type I am. I was curious about that too, so it's fun to know.

College things are... progressing... if slowly. Financial aid stuff is now in process, so I feel a bit better about that than I was. I've been accepted to CUW, Bethany, Beloit, St. Olaf, and Lake Forest. I've been turned down by Carleton (which was fine), and still have to hear from Hillsdale again. I like different things about each college, so I'm having a tough time trying to narrow it down right now, but I made a comparison chart that's helping. I wasn't terribly excited about St. Olaf at first, but it's looking better lately. It has a lot of good things about it. Most of the final decision will be made by financial aid though.

2007-02-25T20:06:00.000-06:00

I've got some thoughts on my youth group that I want to write down...

First of all, I really enjoy the "youth group" aspect and fun stuff we do, but -and I'm sure most of you who read my blog have had to deal with this sort of thing at one time or another- not so much where they're connected to church. If it were *just* a "youth group", it would be great, but this is a "*church* youth group". It's nice to have a group of people to do stuff with: go bowling, caroling, playing flashlight tag, holding a Sweethearts' Dinner. The youth group is also paying for those of us going to For You NC next summer. They're fun people, and I'm getting to know them well enough that we tease each other and stuff. I *have* been here 5 months after all.

However, then there are the "church" aspects of them. They're buying T-shirts. CCT T-shirts. CCT is like CCM except with "T-shirt" replacing "music."

From a distance, the people wearing these t-shirts look like LOST and C.O.P.S. fans and drinkers. I'm sure you've all seen the originals of these: they *were* exactly what they seemed. These ones aren't. It's like that moment when you're listening to bad rock music and realize that those people are singing a love song to Jesus instead of their girlfriend. If you want to proclaim your Christianity on your T-shirt shouldn't it at least *look* Christian instead of copying well-known secular T-shirts? If you want to go around wearing a T-shirt about COPS, fine, but don't mix that with a lot of Law.

So anyways, my youth group is choosing one of this sort of shirt out of a magazine for the youth group kids this year. They also advertise CCM. The youth group is planning to go to a basketball game/CCM concert. The leaders aren't completely pro-CCM, but they do go along with these things when the opportunity arises. I'm slowly working on that. Despite this stuff, I really do like my youth leaders.

2007-02-02T13:32:00.000-06:00

Two down, six to go.

CUW accepted me a month ago with a nice presidential scholarship.

Today I got a letter from Hillsdale saying "we are unable to offer you admission at this time." I've been deferred to regular admission. I'm trying to decide whether that's a good thing or not. Like Aaron told me, I think I'd just prefer to have a straight yes or no.

In a month or two, I'll hear from the rest of them and Hillsdale again.

Maybe I need to get to Hillsdale for an interview... I think interviews are generally good things.

2007-01-02T09:34:00.000-06:00

And now it's 2007. Happy new year, everyone!

Overall, 2006 was wonderful. Of course there were my trips south to Oklahoma and Illinois, and the Feast in CO, but even being home was great. It was another year full of change, and yet very different from the changes of 2005. Those changes were more about me. This year the changes were more visible - I no longer live in the town I grew up in, and after a lot of prayer and thought, I have a boyfriend.

I started 2006 planning. People quickly realize that I love planning and trying to organize things so that they work out for everybody. (Edit: what's really funny is that I'd written that already in the draft and a few days later Aaron commented on how I like planning.) Plans at that point were for my family's trip to Oklahoma and St. Louis, and with a little extra planning on my part, across the Illinois border to visit Ben's family. I really had a great time on that trip, whether I was in St. Louis, Illinois, or Oklahoma. 16 days is certainly a long time though. That was the longest I'd ever been away from home at one time. Generally my family tries to keep our vacations to just one Sunday away.

Right after Easter, we started tearing our house apart. That lasted months and was exhausting. We stayed at Daryl's house for awhile and when we first moved back into our house, there was no shower or bath. Our neighbours were kind enough to let us use theirs, but I really learned to appreciate having a shower in my own home.

From May to June I played soccer for what ended up being the last season with my team. Somewhere in there, my dad received the call to MN... which you know he later accepted.

I got to work at camp though. I'd wanted to work at camp forever before that. At the time, it was a bit overshadowed by the call and the Feast, but I had a great time at camp. I got to do things I love outside with kids who loved the attention they got. It was hard, and stressful (a little girl with a compulsive lying problem?), and sometimes I wanted to get away from the kids and just talk to the other counselors (missing real conversation), but I LOVED IT!!! Hugs from kids who love you, getting up at six in the morning for a chat with Sara, running around outside in the sun, canoeing, making up plays with the kids, swimming to your heart's content, being able to see the stars (even getting to sleep under them a few times), making crafts, watching a spectacular northern lights show. I love camp. It's a good thing Elisabeth, Evan, and Tarja were there to distract me when I had to leave or I would have cried the whole drive home.

I missed a week of camp for the Feast. That's how much I wanted to see my HT friends. ;) :-) And it was worth it. It's absolutely wonderful to hang out with great, fun, confessional Lutherans.

After I left camp, I had a month and a half left in SK. I packed. And packed. And in the middle of packing, Aaron became my boyfriend. :-)

One day we finished packing, and left SK. And then we spent another couple of months *un*packing.

You could say the past few months haven't been anything out of the ordinary. I do my schoolwork, I talk to my friends, I take walks with my sister, I play with my pets. But you could also say that *everything* about the past few months has been an adventure. I'm still getting used to everything here. After living someplace for more than 12 years, that kind of change makes you think about the things around you differently. I live on a lake! There are young people at my church! There's a state park two blocks from my house! There are people my age in town I've never met! I see my grandparents every few weeks! I'm getting to know my cousins again!

It's not perfect here, but it's still good. :-)

2006-12-30T15:25:00.000-06:00

The Feast - Friday

(Sorry, Seth. This is the last one)

Friday morning none of us at our table felt very hungry at breakfast. Aaron wrote postcards and gave me two to give to Kennedy and Ethan, but we ended up seeing them before Aaron had to leave.

The day was filled with goodbyes. It started with Aaron before choir, and RachelD at catechesis.

It was during lunch that day that Ethan and I decided we should start a MH monastary.

Ethan- "There is a sad lack of poking here."

So we poked each other and cut down everyone at the table with our lightsabers, but it was only half-hearted.

Paul and Nat ran away, I just said bye to Ethan and Andrew then. Tarja and I shopped in the bookstore until it was time for the closing service. we got to say bye to RachelE one more time there.

The closing service was absolutely beautiful. Wow.

After the service I went outside and said bye to the MHers I found there. Then it was over. Tarja and I went to find out group. (Dad had already gone ahead to pick up our van in Wyoming.) Then I started crying. Cody laughed at me and Pr. S asked if I was ok. I was fine, just sad to be leaving. We went to the dorms and grabbed our stuff. As we finished packing the van, Paul and Ethan yelled bye to Tarja and me one more time, which did a lot to cheer us up.

Our group stopped at Wal-Mart on the way out of town and I bought a lightsaber so I wouldn't have to use my brother's anymore. Grey bought one too so I even had someone to duel.

We spent three hours in Denver looking for a place to eat and ended up leaving without supper. Crazy...

The next evening I arrived home.

2006-12-30T08:34:00.000-06:00

New pets! Aren't they cute? We stopped in Duluth on the way down from Thunder Bay to buy them. We'd been planning to get more rats ever since moving, because at that time we had to leave the degus in Canada. They're all young rats. It would have been a lot of fun to have baby rats, but they don't sell them that young, and only had male rats at the store. We wanted females because they fight a bit less, but decided males were good enough. They don't fight all *that* much. In the picture on the left are Dimitri and Dorian. Dimitri is a bit smaller than the other two; he was probably the runt of the litter. On the right is Despereaux (say: DES-per-O)(Yes, it's French). We named him after a mouse in a book. Despereaux is the most courageous of the three, though they're all friendlier than our degus ever were. Dorian and Dimitri like hiding under the flap of cardboard on the left side of the left picture. I love the names we picked out for them. ^_^

2006-12-25T21:14:00.000-06:00

Merry Christmas, all!

I'll be headed to Thunder Bay for a few days, but talk to you when I get back! Hopefully I'm done abandoning my blog. ;)

2006-12-16T15:00:00.000-06:00

The Feast - Thursday

Thursday was a bit sad, knowing the conference was ALREADY half over. I switched from Pr. Preus's in-depth to Pr. Mallie's because Pr. Preus's was being taped by the camera crew and my dad ordered the DVD. Though I'm not sure what's up with the DVD anymore... Anyway, Pr. Mallie's was about talking about the Bible with atheists, and was very good. Also very crowded. Aaron, Nathan, Tarja, and I sat on the floor just inside the door.

Pr. Mallie's example of what divine inspiration is NOT (complete with dude voice):

Late.
Must sleep.
Can't fight.
Night night.

You *must* have the dude voice with that. ;)

Eating lunch with MHers is awesome! Enough said.

Rev. Wilken's flight had been canceled due to a tornado, so Aaron and I went to a breakaway about volunteering for HT instead. We were the youngest people there, and learned that sometime in the future HT hopes to have a conference in Canada. Probably in Winnepeg.

That day for free time we went up Pike's Peak. This time Rae joined our group as well. The drive up there was awesome, even though I wasn't in the van. Tarja, Cody, Grey, and I were in the car with my dad. It's pretty exciting to drive next to thousand-foot drops without a guardrail. :D RachelD had recommended the doughnuts they sold at the top, so we MHers got in line after running through the gift shop. We were having a lot of fun with the high altitude. Aaron and I bought a round of doughnuts, but dad confiscated mine after I got out of the line, so Rae bought some for us. They were goooooood. When dad came inside to find us awhile later, we found out that everyone else was ready to go and we hadn't even been outside yet. It was cold and rainy. However, Aaron, Ethan, and I were determined to take pictures, and ran to the lookout point.

On the way back down the mountain, we lost radio contact with the van. Cody was very concerned, but we found them around a couple more corners. Cody, our walkie-talkie man, then couldn't get ahold of the other car behind us. Dad told him to say, "I miss you, Kira." Instead Cody said into the walkie-talkie, "I love you, Kira, ok? Will you answer?" Hehe. Cody is fun. After a few minutes the car caught up to us and we could again talk to them.

Cody- "I was having an emotional breakdown."
Kira- "Aww, thanks, Cody. I love you."

Our car filled with laughter. Kira hadn't even heard what Cody said before!

This is a picture of the van about to drive off the edge of the mountain (I was more worried for them on the way down than the way up)-->

At the bottom of the mountain, we decided to stop for supper. Somehow, the two cars got separated from the van. I spent a very anxious hour knowing the people driving the van wanted to go to a restaurant where they wouldn't be able to make it back before the next in-depth, and that the MHers with them most definitely did.

However, though Rae didn't, Aaron and Ethan beat me to the in-depth.

Pr. B- "You are not free to be a hitman or a gangster."
Aaron- "Drat."
Pr. B- "You are free to do anything except sin."
Everyone else- "Yay!"

Pr. B showed us the means of grace, complete with a little lightsaber dude. "You know, I have an actual visual aid!"

After the in-depth, we all signed each other's books and got Pr. B to sign them too. Then we took a picture of all the MHers who were there at the moment.

After the evening service I wanted to run back to the dorm so I asked Aaron where everyone would be.

Aaron- "You still have to teach me how to juggle."
Me- "Do you want to come with me?"
Aaron- "Ok."

We sat in the common room of my dorm block and talked and I taught Aaron how to juggle.

Nathan enters.
"We didn't know where you guys were!"
Apparently everyone else had thought we were coming back. Oops.
Nathan exits.

Time passes.

Nathan and MHers enter.
A random girl asked to have a picture of the lightsaber people. That was funny. Then we started another big lightsaber battle.

Compline once again ended the day.

2006-12-16T11:06:00.000-06:00

The Feast - Wednesday
(because I'm too stubborn to say I'll finish writing all these posts about it and then not)

(also, there has been some slight adding to the Tuesday post)

I was faced with a dilemma at breakfast as I realized that I had to choose between sitting with Aaron and sitting with Katie. I headed toward Katie's table, sending mind waves at Aaron telling him to come too. Apparently he heard that, because he followed shortly after I sat down.

During morning announcements in the gym, I found out that I won one of the awesome HT shirts they had at their booth! The previous day I had entered by writing about why I love HT. When I went to choose the shirt, I got the bright blue one that said "HT: Just read it". The green one with "HT: This is most certainly cool" was as cool as it says, but I wanted blue.

At catechism, I thought I spotted "Maria". I lost sight of her when everyone got up to leave the building, but then she appeared in front of me, asking if I was "Heidi from MH." I then received greetings from Seth and "Karissa" through her. It turned out we were both going to Pr. Preus's in-depth on vocation, so I sat with her. I think Ethan and Paul were there too, but at that point I was too shy to sit with them, since I didn't really know either of them that well before the Feast.

The only time I had no friends to sit with (because they all abandoned me) (alone) (to suffer) (I wonder if they feel guilty yet) ;) :D was during Pr. Dreyer's sectional on exorcism. Seth had recommended him to me, and I was interested to learn the Lutheran viewpoint on demons. The sectional wasn't as deep as I would have liked, but originally it had been planned as one of the in-depths. Since that didn't work out, Pr. Dreyer was a little short for time. You can find his basic notes for the presentation here if you want.

I found a spot waiting for me between Aaron and Tarja when I got to Pr. Borghardt's session. That day he doused us with gospel... and answers from an Arby's fortune-teller mitt.

Pr. B- "Could this young man make a living as a plumber?"
Mitt- "Yes."
Pr. B- "Could this young man find a wife as a plumber?"
Mitt- "No..."

When free time arrived, Tarja and I learned that our group was planning to visit Garden of the Gods (they planned all this stuff without us because we basically lost track of them after leaving for choir every morning). I ran up to my dorm room to put on shoes (despite both my feet and brain protesting to the idea), then went back outside. Aaron, Ethan, and Nathan were standing a little ways down the sidewalk. They asked if they could come with us. Happily, there was enough room in the van. Why I like being driven crazy, the world may never know. ;)

We had a lot of fun at Garden of the Gods. First we checked out the gift shop/information center, and tasted the foods there were testers for, like rock chocolate. (Yay, food testers!) On the observation deck, our group bombarded some other random Feasters (recognizeable by their Feast t-shirts) and forced them to take pictures of us.

On the way back to the van, Ethan and Aaron started poking each other. Somehow I got involved, and then we poked each other a lot, as well as fighting with lightsabers.

We drove closer to those towering red rocks in the distance. Up close, they looked like they were begging me to climb them. I was very sad when our group leaders decided not to hike because of the lightning. I did discover the joys of running downhill at high altitude though. Happily, at the second stop we were allowed to climb a few rocks and take pictures. When the rock-that-looked-like-it-was-going-to-fall-over was free, Aaron and Nathan helped me climb up. Ethan came too, and Tarja took the pictures.

Somehow my car ended up leading on the way out. Cody doubted my navigation skills, but he was wrong. (haHA! I *do* know how to read a map! ;) ) We easily found the Flying W Ranch. After taking over a couple tables in the gigantic eating hall, a bunch of us started playing Slaps while we waited. The most memorable part of that was Aaron trying to slap the cards with his forehead. Eventually our group (we were just about the last ones) got to go eat. We were given tin plates and hustled through the food line, where we were served a cowboy meal. A band started playing when supper was done, and a bunch of us milled around just outside (though its hard to say "outside" when the dining hall was never meant to be completely weather-proof anyways.) We hit each other with lightsabers a bit, and Rae and I had fun dancing a simple version of the polka. After wandering around for a while, some other girls and I found ourselves leaning against the fence. It felt flexible, but quite sturdy. "It's going to break," someone cautioned. It turned out they were right, but the warning came too late because a nail came out of one end of the board, and we all fell backwards.

Back on campus I ran to grab my cape before heading to the scheduled lightsaber battle. Aaron decided to use my cape to win duels against me, probably because he knew he would lose otherwise. ;) Kennedy, lacking a lightsaber, stole mine and used it against me. The rest of the time I spent "executing" innocent bystanders like Maggie and Anna while Kennedy and Aaron insisted I was a Sith, or convincing Ethan to stay Jedi.

Rachel appeared and invited us to a birthday party. I'm not sure where everyone else went, but a few minutes later, Tarja, Aaron, Ethan, Nathan, and I trekked across campus to join the party. Ethan ad I came up with theories of cannibal Rachels on the way. Hehe. But once we got there... Sweet-N-Low shots all around! And icing. :D We sang happy birthday to everyone who had a birthday in the next week "Happy birthday, EllenAaronRachelRachellllll" (go here if you want to see the video and I haven't already sent it to you.) and hung out for a bit. My and Ethan's fears of being eaten came to naught. ;) We made it back across campus in time for compline, and then I can't speak for the others, but I went to sleep.

2006-12-12T07:05:00.000-06:00

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Literate Good Citizen You read to inform or entertain yourself, but you're not nerdy about it. You've read most major classics (in school) and you have a favorite genre or two.
Dedicated Reader
Book Snob
Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm
Fad Reader
Non-Reader
What Kind of Reader Are You? Create Your Own Quiz

2006-11-24T06:58:00.000-06:00

Happy Day-After-Thanksgiving!

This year I again got to be in the States for American Thanksgiving, but that's not really surprising seeing as I live here, eh? ;) I was here this time last year, never guessing that I might live here. And this year *we* got to host the Thanksgiving dinner. :-)

Some things I thank God for:

I'm thankful for my family. I'm thankful for the fact that I'm getting to know my cousins again, and being reminded that they're my family -meaning they're stuck with me! ;)

I'm thankful for my wonderful friends and boyfriend, who aren't stuck with me but put up with me anyways! Sometimes it amazes me. Thank you, guys. You're such a blessing.

I'm thankful for my beautiful new house. I'm thankful that I know the people I left behind in SK, and that I'm getting to know more people here. I'm thankful that this move has gone so well. And I'm thankful that God is taking care of us no matter what.

I'm thankful for the gift of music. Lately that has been my life besides school. I'm thankful for band, guitar lessons, singing, and piano. I'm thankful for the new LSB, playable harmonies, and for the workshops put on so that people can learn about it.

I'm thankful for HT, which nurtures my faith and has let me get to know so many great people. I don't remember life before that. I'm thankful for all the Lutheranness I'm surrounded by. I'm thankful that I have a way to get to the NC For You next summer.

I'm thankful for all the food we have, and that I've never *really* been hungry. I'm thankful for church members who share what they have with us. I'm thankful for cranberry sauce. (I love cranberry sauce :D )

I'm thankful that I don't need to worry about the future, because Christ died for my sins, of which I have many. Someday I'll live with him in heaven! I'm thankful that I have the assurance that Pappa is already there, and that the people I love will all be there with me someday.

I'm so blessed and can never be thankful enough. Thank God that I'm forgiven even when I forget to be thankful.

2006-11-04T18:30:00.000-06:00

The month of NaNo has come. This month I will be either writing my story, or procrastinating from writing. This moment would be one of the procrastination ones. ;)
I'm starting to wonder if I should have chosen one of my less serious story ideas for this. Then I could have thrown in random events. The AOB story would have been really fun to try and work on this month, but sadly Aaron and I were not allowed to work together if we were going to enter NaNo.
I am having fun though. My plot is starting to fall into place. As long as I don't forget to look at those notes of things to happen in the story, I think I'll be ok. Whether I reach 50,000 is another matter, but it's not the end of the world if I don't. I've actually written 5000 words, and that is a lot better than what I've done the past few months. Yay!
So now I have two - no, three - partially started stories. Somebody poke me in a few months when I've declared enmity with writing again. ;)

Nobody tell Aaron or Ethan that I'm posting on my blog. ;) According to Aaron, I have to write 40,000 words before Wednesday. And Ethan has threatened to incinerate anything that distracts people from writing. I don't think all the other bloggers around the world would appreciate that. ;)

2006-10-12T12:33:00.000-06:00

Yesterday it was just hail pretending to be snow. Today we actually have snow. Not even enough for snowballs, but it's definitely there. I wasn't the first MHer to report snow this year. That's just fine with me. ;) I may not even be the furthest north anymore (I'm not sure where Stephen's family lives). I have a nice new quilt to keep me warm though. :D The quilting group from church decided to give everyone in my family a quilt.

I've been asked to join the choir, but I'm a bit uncertain about that... The songs I've heard these past two Sundays were law-filled and didn't sound like something that should be in church even if they had good lyrics. I made sure to excitedly talk about the new hymnal in the presence of choir people though. Hopefully we can do something about that.

I got my hands on a copy of the LSB! I borrowed it from dad's office at church after opening his mail (with his permission, of course). :D I love how it looks. The triangles next to verses about the Trinity are a nice touch. I sat at the piano and played a bunch of the hymns. I'm so glad the harmonies are better than LW! Too bad they don't have the four-part harmony for *every* hymn in this hymnal... Also, they have a different tune for "Now My Tongue the Mystery Telling", and I liked the old one a lot after singing it at the Feast. My family is going to one of the workshops on LSB at the end of the month. Yay!

2006-10-02T19:09:00.000-06:00

Hello! I am indeed alive. ..I think. *pinches self* Ouch! Yep, I think I'm alive. Or awake, in any case. ;)

My next Feast post (I'm planning to finish those before For You comes around) is pending. I've written most of it, but I decided I better post something now.

Yes.

It's true.

I no longer live in Canada.

*runs away sobbing*

*comes back*

Thankfully, I'm loving MN so far, despite the sadness of leaving the place I know as home. :-) We got into town last Tuesday night and slept at a member's house. Wednesday morning we got to see the house. It's BEAUTIFUL! I love it. It has gigantic windows, and I don't even find myself missing my basement dungeon. Anyway, if I miss the darkness, I can just go hide in my walk-in closet. ;) We've spent the rest of our time here unpacking. The people I've met from church, especially the men who helped us move down, are great. I think we'll be ok here. :-)

Now I just have to find a way to meet more people my age around here...

2006-08-18T20:19:00.000-06:00

Part 2: At the Feast

Ok ok, so Tuesday didn't *start* at the Feast. It started at the hotel, where Cody had altitude sickness. He recovered enough to leave though, making us all glad. We went to run a few errands at houses near the CC area first, then attempted to reach CC. The navigator (um... that's me... ;) ) didn't look at the directions in the Feast e-mails so we were trying to get to the wrong part of the college. However, a missed turn (no, that one wasn't my fault :D ) made us drive down the "wrong" street. And then... BOOM! We saw a sign saying "Welcome to the Feast"!

Girl-in-the-passenger-seat: Ahhh! Stop! Turn here!

Yeah, that was me too...

We were there! We found a parking spot and dad went to register us. Unfortunately they didn't want *everyone* going to registration, so Cody, Tarja, and I hung out in the parking lot. No, contrary to the false information you may have been given, I did NOT have a heart attack at that moment. We sat on the curb and watched all the people walking past, hoping to see somebody I knew. So if you saw a girl not able to sit still on the curb for more than two seconds, that was DEFINITELY me. I had wayyy too much energy. :D

Dad came back, so we got to see our Feast t-shirts and our lanyards. And then... we drove to our dorm! At that moment I actually forgot to keep watching for people. Yes, yes I know. How horrible of me. ;) I was focused on unpacking the car so that I could be free to walk around campus and find people that way. So I was carrying a couple suitcases and heading to the dorm, which was pretty easy to find. Then Tarja grabbed my arm and whispered, "Heidi, there's Aaron!" I looked where she was pointing and saw... a purple toga! ...Oh, and Aaron too. ;) As RachelE said, "It's amazing the rush you get when you see a person for the first time who you've only known online and in text." Well, I'd also talked to Aaron on the phone, but still. His brother was with him and we did introductions all around before going back to moving everything from the car to the dorm rooms.

Then Tarja and I ran off to Worner Center with Aaron and Nathan to eat lunch. My stomach told me it wanted no lunch, but I ate anyways. :P Ethan, Paul, and Andrew came to talk to us, then Kennedy arrived and I introduced myself to him. He decided I'm a weak Sith with an identity crisis. He knows not; I'm Jedi. ;) :D

After a bit those of us in choir headed to Shove Chapel. I stopped on the way to greet Katie, who, sadly, was not in choir. She did great playing trumpet though! Choir practice was amazing! We sounded beautiful. During practice, I looked around the room, recognizing various people. When it finished, I said hi to a bunch of people. Wow, I was still basking in the awesomeness of just *seeing* them! I sat with RachelD when we moved up to the choir loft and got to talk to her before the service started. Divine service was great, even though the way we choir people had to take communion was a little bit confusing at first.

Somehow I managed to find my group in the rush of 1200+ people leaving the chapel after the service. We went to the gym to listen to Pr. Bender's first Catchism Session. Did I mention I love Higher Things? :D

Afterwards Rae found me, and yes, I did get used to being called Dee in real life. But I still converted most people to calling me Heidi. :ph34r: ;)
This was the first meal where we got to use our college cards. I think it's wonderful having a pre-paid meal plan. ;) Aaron showed us around the food court. While eating, we suddenly realize we still had to choose which breakaway session to go to! (This became a normal meal-time discussion.) Rae and I decided to go to one about the gnostic gospels. Anna, where did you disappear to?

MHers prove very easy to find. :D Upon the ending of the first breakaway session, a bunch of us headed back to the gym for Pr. Mosemann's Plenary Session. I was starting to realize that conferences involve a lot of running from one activity to another.

Aaron: "These are all the Borghardt quotes I posted on the forums while you were at camp."

At supper, some of the MHers sat together. Aaron decided to start poking me with his lightsaber then. I had my lightsaber in my bag but hadn't brought it out yet. I waited awhile, then when he wasn't looking, pulled it out and cut his head off. You should have seen the surprised look on his face. "I didn't know you had that with you!" :D

Next was Pr. Borghardt's in-depth. Upon arriving there, we found out that half the other MHers had also decided to go to that one, so we took over a section of the seating for ourselves. Then came the part where we were pounded down with law. Yes, Pr. Borghardt is GREAT at handing out law. :-) He didn't expect anyone to come back the next day. ;)

Then there was evening prayer, and after that a bunch of us met in Worner Center.

Me: "Let's play cards!"

Somebody else (sorry, don't remember who): "You have to bribe us with chocolate!"

Me: "Stay here; I'll be right back."

*Heidi goes to dorm with Katie to get Canadian chocolate*
*notices Nathan following*

Me: "Hi, Nathan. What are you doing?"

Nathan: "Aaron told me to follow you inconspicuously. What's inconspicuous?"

I got the chocolate and card game supplies and we went back to Worner. I then proceeded to confuse a lot of people with the card game while they ate chocolate. Aaron tried to eat a whole bag himself. ;) After too many people left, we switched games.

Aaron: Do you know how to play Egyptian War?

Me: No.

Tarja: Do you know how to play Slaps?

Me: Yeah, let's play Slaps!

Aaron: How do you play?

*Heidi explains*

Aaron: That's Egyptian War!

Oh yeah, I forgot Katie always called it Egyptian Rat Trap... Hehe. :D

Kennedy : It's time for compline.

Aaron: Where is it?

Ethan: I don't know.

Me: Let's go to this one even if it's not ours.

Everyone else: Ok!

End Tuesday :-)

Note: This post edited with the help of Aaron, whose memory isn't perfect either. What a surprise! ;)

2006-08-17T18:04:00.000-06:00

It occurs to me that the people who talk to me very regularly don't really have a reason to read my blog because they already know the stuff that happens in my life. For whoever has talked to me recently, some of the following thoughts will be repeats.

I went through the last weeks of camp knowing that I won't be there next year, since I'm moving. And I had a great time. I'm *so* glad I got to work out there this summer. I think it was one of the best jobs I could possibly have. Yes, I'm worn out and it was stressful at times, but isn't that life? It was great. I LOVE camp. It was terribly sad to leave, but I'm glad I went.

Another thing of this summer, with camp and the Feast, I had a couple Bible studies almost every day for a month. That was *very* good for me. At the Feast, the speakers were fantastic! First they beat me down with Law *coughPrBorghardtcough* ;) then they proclaim the Gospel. Yes, I'm a terrible sinner, dead in my sins. But -and yes this is the ultimate 'but'- God sent his only Son to Earth to die for me, and FOR YOU! At camp, they weren't always so good, but they still helped me keep my focus in the right place. Aaron's "HT Driven Life" sounds pretty good to me. ;)

Slowly we're packing up our house. The task has stopped looking so daunting, because we've accomplished a lot in this short time. It's my (and my sister's) job to go through the dolls, dress-up clothes, and Barbies. We've gotten rid of some stuff and packed the rest away. We don't use the dolls and Barbies anymore but can't let mom get rid of them. Someday she'll need them for her grandkids. And the dress-up clothes are just so much fun! :D At least... when they're not crowding me out of my room. ;) That's where they all are at the moment, waiting for me to finish putting them in boxes.

2006-08-15T20:26:00.000-06:00

Part 1: Travel

Hmm, nobody did a very detailed post on the Feast. I'm still waiting for Aaron to finish writing about the rest of the days. ;)

Ok so here's the first of my Feast posts, which is as much for myself and my memories as for anyone else who reads it. :-)

Like all good trips, it started at WalMart. We picked up Cody and did some shopping for necessities, such as food. Ice cream sandwiches were the main course of the day. We bought some beef for REAL sandwiches, but ended up losing that at the border since we hadn't eaten it... Apparently they're afraid of something called "mad cow." ;)

One piece of advice: Don't buy more ice cream sandwiches than you can eat before they melt.
Cody bought a box of 24. Let's just say by the time we got to ND, we were sick of melted ice cream sandwiches.

We spent the night in a... dare I say "town"? I thought SK was the middle of nowhere, but I was wrong. ND definitely is. This town had two business: the grain elevator, and the drug-dealing bar.
<-- You can see both of them in this picture. Cody, my sister, and I had investigated the whole town within 10 minutes. It was lots of fun. :D

In the morning we met the kids we would travel with at church. After church, we used window-writers on the vehicles. By the end of that, our vehicles were moving advertisements for HT!

Eventually the third group arrived, and we all headed south. I loved driving through the SE corner of Montana. It's a beautiful place to visit. We made it to a town in Wyoming that day, where we slept in a church.

<-- a sign I saw along the way. :D In the morning, dad woke my sister and I up, telling us to quickly come outside. We followed, wondering why since everyone else was still asleep. Outside we found that the back window of our van had been smashed, and the contents of whatever bags we'd left in the van the night before were strewn over the grass. Thankfully, nothing was stolen. It was a hit-and-run sort of vandalism act. Deciding what to do about the van put us behind schedule a few hours. In the end, we left the van at a dealership to be fixed and rented a car. Trying to cram all the stuff that had previously been in the van into the car was a fun time, I tell you. :D We managed though, and kept driving south. The big disappointment of the day came in the evening when I realized we weren't going to get to Colorado Springs in time for me to see any of the MHers. We ate supper in Denver, then left the people we'd been driving with there and headed on to CO Springs on our own, but still too late. A slightly depressed Heidi watched the lightning as we reached the city. It was crazy, knowing everyone was so close and yet not being able to see them. We stayed in a hotel, where the four of us swam outdoors. I didn't let myself stay depressed and managed to have fun. All of us noticed that swimming was harder in the higher altitude. :D

Did you know it's hard to sleep when you're terribly excited? ;)

2006-08-05T21:25:00.000-06:00

Yes, I know I haven't posted in over a month. I've only been home short weekends, and during that time I check up on my friends and try to reorganize my life. I've started a longer post, which I'll finish next week when camp is ended. Wow, I have so much to write about.

And yes, for any people who read my blog and have not yet heard, I am moving to MN!

Take care, y'all! I'll be back next Friday!

2006-07-03T21:56:00.000-06:00

You know I'm crazy when

shoe care resembles washing a dog.

:P :D

2006-07-01T15:27:00.000-06:00

Happy Canada Day! Just look at that flag. You've gotta love it; it's so red.. and maple leaf-y! ;) :D
I'm feeling nostalgic today though. A year ago I was celebrating at an awesome family reunion. I have my cool shirt from that to wear today. Two years ago there wasn't much to tell, but three years ago I was in Ottawa, celebrating at the capitol. How much cooler can you get? Ottawa is a gorgeous city, and, being the capitol, it has great Canada Day festivities! My exchange group and I walked around on Capitol Hill, seeing as much as possible, but not possibly able to see everything. We got red and white braided into our hair, bought souveniers at the Byward Market, watched performers, and just had an amazing time. After it got dark there were fireworks that we watched from the river.

Today Canada Day seems quiet. I'm sure it's much quieter than what most of you are used to for the 4th of July. You'd have to visit SK to understand it. :-) There are things going on at the sports grounds though, and tonight there will be fireworks. They'll be at about 10 or 11 since it gets dark so late in the evening now. I had lots of fun with Elisabeth and her family yesterday and don't really feel like seeing what's going on in town at the moment.

2006-06-24T07:57:00.000-06:00

How do you feel about Minnesota?

To me, Minnesota means my grandparents and Katie. Minnesota is actually a lot like here in land features. Minnesota seems to like moose too --^
;)

But what would it be like if I lived there? I travel there a couple times a year. Minnesota is a place I visit, not home.

But it might be in a few months. My dad has a call to Minnesota.

Some of you know that I've wanted a call for almost a year now. Yes, I've wanted this call. No, I can't imagine moving. This is my home. I've lived here more than 12 years. I honestly can't imagine not living here. And yet, I think living in MN could be great. I don't want to leave Elisabeth and her family; I'd miss them terribly, but I wouldn't mind leaving almost everyone else. Yes, it would be sad. Yes, I would cry saying goodbye to everyone and everything that has been home almost as long as I can remember, but it would be an adventure, and I'm up for the challenge. I can adapt to change. Maybe we'd move and nobody there would like me, but would that be so bad? The friends that matter would still be there for me. Maybe we'd move and I would have stuff in common with some people there. In that case, great! But I'll be ok if they don't. I can survive whatever would happen because my best friends wouldn't change.

The call process is torture at my house. Dad changes his opinion every day. I don't think he likes that I haven't changed my thoughts on the topic. Really, I do understand that I have to think about the churches and everything too. Even after that, I think this call is a good thing. I think dad does too, but he's more afraid of leaving than staying. And I guess I can understand that. It's "safe" here. We have our place. People have their ideas of who we are. And that is part of the problem. Things are starting to be too consistent, and it's hard to grow when the people around you always seem to stay the same.

For me personally, it sounds amazing. My one *good* friend in town is graduating tomorrow. My outlook on the next year is that I'll be turning down a lot of party invitations, and constantly looking forward to the year after. If we move, I could go to college where I want to and still come home during breaks. If we move, I could make it to NC next summer, and MI in November. If we move, I'd live an hour away from my grandparents and maybe my cousins and I could get to know each other again. If we move, I'd live an hour away from Katie, but have to leave Elisabeth, Evan, and Cody. Neither option is perfect. I'll be sad and glad whether we go or stay. Always bittersweet. Thank God that he will take care of us whatever happens! Please pray for us as we consider this call.

2006-06-12T06:37:00.000-06:00

Soooo, to everybody who has wanted to see a picture of me with my glasses, here it is...

Did I ever mention what the glasses case they gave me looks like? Hehe. It's pink with a black bow. It's more my sister's style than mine, but it makes me laugh to think that I own something that looks like it so it's ok. :D

I've been so busy with soccer lately... When I'm not playing soccer I'm catching up with the other things I'm supposed to do. Or avoiding those things by writing a blog post. ;)

Last night I went to a talent show in a nearby town. I played the piano and juggled. Unfortunately I'm not talented enough to do both those things at the same time, but still. :P All my siblings played the piano too. My dad played two of the songs he wrote. Like I've said before, sometimes dad is my hero. ^_^

Cody came too. He didn't perform, but after the potluck he, his brother, my siblings, and I went to the park and played Grounders, went on the swings, and then attempted to climb a difficult tree. It had rained earlier so the tree was slippery on top of having too few good branches. Cody managed to pull a George of the Jungle move on his way down by swinging straight into the tree. He was fine, so it was funny. :D I wish I had a movie of it.

2006-06-03T20:29:00.000-06:00

I have officially pulled an all-nighter now. Friday night. :D 24 hours... staying awake on adrenaline for the last 8 or so. Fun stuff! Three or four-hundred people were there. During the night, a few people at a time from each team were supposed to walk around the track. Luminaries were lit all the way around, bought by people for cancer patients. There was entertainment and food and lots of fun stuff. We were there for 12 hours! First my sister and I found a couple friends who were setting up luminaries, and helped them. After that, we... hung around, walked, watched the entertainment, etc. We sat in my friends' tent for awhile, which was my favourite part of the night. Sarina had her guitar out. I started singing "Wish You Were Here". Steph joined me in that and then asked if I know how to play it on the guitar. Yes, yes I do. :D I borrowed Sarina's guitar and quietly played and sang while other people kept talking. It was just a really fun night. When good songs played from the entertainment tent, Niki and I danced. I learned how to polka and a bit of Ukranian dancing. Yay! Some of my friends from another town came too! I didn't know they were coming, so it was pretty cool when I saw them. The sky started getting light about 3:30, bringing Niki and I lots of energy. Niki is my energetic friend besides Lance. Anyway, when the sky started getting light, Niki and I jumped rope with ropes made out of strings of glow sticks, most of which we borrowed from Lance. Then we skipped around the track. Then we ran around the track. Then we did cartwheels on the grass. It was lots of fun. :D After getting home about 6:30 in the morning, I slept until 10, and lived on those short hours of sleep for the rest of the day. But I was too adrenalized to be tired!

I never did get over-tired from that, which makes me happy.

Tonight we had our first soccer game, FINALLY! After two weeks without practice... We didn't do too well, but I had a lot of fun. It poured in the middle of the game, turning the field to mud. We had problems running, because we ended up slipping a lot, but slipping and playing in the rain and getting mud all over our jerseys was fun. :D Steph and I had an awesome time.

But now a lot of people seem to be in the nearly-but-not-quite-done-school blahs. I wasn't. Sometimes it's hard to be happy all by yourself though, when your friends don't seem to understand...
Let me know if you want to join me in refusing to feel blah.

2006-05-29T17:28:00.000-06:00

Last week I only had three days of school, and yet I had hardly any free time whatsoever. Monday my family drove out to the snake pit. Garter snakes stay there during the winter and around now is the time that they start coming out of the underground caves to roam for the summer. Shortly after arriving, my brother decided to jump off some rocks backwards. I didn't even see what happened, but he fell on his hand. It turns out that he broke his wrist.

WARNING: IF YOU DISLIKE SNAKES, SKIP THE NEXT PARAGRAPH

He told my sister to catch him the biggest snake she could (which she did, but it wasn't very big because the small ones are less scary to catch :D ) and then she caught the very smallest snake I've ever seen. It was cute. Plus, it didn't leave snake-smell on people's hands when they held it. There were snakes EVERYWHERE. Mom and I sat down quietly so that the snakes wouldn't be scared, and they slithered around us and over my sandaled feet.

END WARNING HERE ;)

After getting home, mom took Martti to the doctor. The doctor put a temporary cast on Martti and told us we had to take him to Regina the next day, because it might not heal properly. So the next day we took a trip to Regina. It was a very long day. Martti was in the hospital for at least 5 hours, mostly waiting until the doctor had time for him. We weren't all allowed to be with him, so my sister and I went shopping. Sometimes I wonder what I would do if I didn't have a sister around all the time. I've never ever shopped by myself. I also wore out the batteries on my Palm that day, listening to music while doing schoolwork in the waiting rooms at the hospital.

Wednesday was relatively quiet. Yay!

Thursdays are always busy, but this was busier than most because I went to a dance at the high school with some of my friends. Usually I know everybody at the dances, but this time I didn't because there was a group of exchange kids from the East coast. I had a fun time dancing. One of the exchange guys walked up to me during the middle of the dance and randomly hugged me. I didn't even know his name (though now I've found out that his name is/was Josh). Then he went back to the group of guys he had been with and they laughed, so I'm pretty sure they told him to hug me.

Friday I was in the city getting my glasses! I'm relieved to find out that the me of two weeks ago didn't have *too* bad taste when she decided on this particular pair of glasses. I like them, though it's still strange to look in the mirror while I'm wearing them. That night I was babysitting a couple little girls. They decided we should do makeovers, so I let them dress me up and put eyeshadow on my cheeks. I may not wear too much makeup, but I'm pretty sure cheeks aren't supposed to be coloured blue and brown. ;) Maybe *that*'s why I didn't recognize myself when I looked in the mirror. The fake nose ring (it was a sticker) that the girls put on me probably didn't help either. :P No, it wasn't completely the glasses' fault that I didn't look like me. :D

On Saturday, Tarja, Cody, and I sold hamburgers to help pay for the Feast. It was cold and windy, but we had fun! (Oh, Aaron, we almost found an orange hide-a-bed couch for you, except somebody else bought it first.) From being chilled all morning, and not getting enough sleep the past few days, I'm now sick, but it was worth it. :D

This week promises to be crazier than usual too, but maybe I should stop thinking that's unusual, eh? ;)

2006-05-21T22:09:00.000-06:00

AH! They caught me on photograph! ;) Hehe. This is what happens when I have too much fun being girly. I found the link (http://elouai.com/doll-makers/new-dollmaker.php) on Kelly's blog (http://qaz1.bannerland.org/kelly/). Supposedly that doll is me. That would be me on a Sunday or something when I'm dressed up.

This is the other one. I couldn't decide between the two. I do wear my hair this way sometimes too.

Ok, I'm not going to make you suffer from my girliness anymore. :P

In other news, the AOB has a blog! http://antiolive.blogspot.com/ It's possible that people read my blog who have no idea what the AOB is... All they have to know is that we have a lot of fun. And the blog just means more fun!

I had a good weekend. It was pretty quiet. I read and went for a walk and worked on the lawn and played the piano and such. Nice. I love long weekends. :D I don't even have school tomorrow! A few of my friends from down south are ending school this week though. Summer... I have about a month and a half left of school. And 10 days until I find out my SAT scores. 10 days! Usually (though I may be dramatic and pretend differently) it's not that hard for me to wait for things because there's so much to do at the moment, but I'm having a hard time waiting to find out my SAT scores.

My cousin has a different last name!!!

Dad will be home from Ontario tomorrow. He called (well, more than once :D ) and said that he knows now how Kishi felt when she was separated from us. Hehe. It's funny though, because he's been gone for conferences and such and never mentioned it before.

2006-05-18T19:47:00.000-06:00

I'm proud. :D And happy. :D The kids team I've been coaching won their first game!!! W00t! *celebration* *cartwheels* *cheering* Yaaaaayyyyy! I feel so proud. We were all afraid that the game would have no score, because the whole first half went by without any shots at all! And the first half was even longer than the second half! Jordan was reffing and didn't get there until late. The coaches were considering letting me ref for my own team by the time Jordan arrived. But he reffed, which made me happy because I haven't actually looked at the rules for about two years.
35 minutes into the game, I was wondering when half time would be. So I asked Jordan.

Jordan: "Oh, heh, I thought you were keeping time."

Me? I'm a coach; that's the ref's job.

Jordan had a watch just as good as mine, but he was seriously flustered, so I took over time-keeping for him. During the second half (which was at least 15 minutes shorter than the first half. hehe) my team scored three times and the other team scored twice! I felt kind of bad when I had to tell Jordan time was up while my team was ahead, but that's what I had to do.

I made sure my team cheered well for the other team when they were supposed to. :D

I had a lot of fun watching that game; I cheered, and yelled encouragements (surprising myself when Jordan actually heard me yelling), and just generally had a great time! I love soccer games! And I'm so happy for the kids!

My team hasn't had a game yet; just a lot of great practices.

And my dad left today because he's flying to Ontario! On Saturday is the long-awaited wedding of my cousin, and dad gets to go. I'd like to go, but I can't this time. I'm really excited though. :D Wow, my cousin is getting married! I feel so old!

Happy though. :-) Happy is a good thing.

2006-05-16T21:12:00.000-06:00

Obviously I am not Heidi. Heidi doesn't own glasses. Heidi doesn't talk about herself in third person. And Heidi has better logic than me. ;)

Or maybe not.

As of today, Heidi *does* own glasses, talk about herself in third person, and argue with faulty logic.

But it's the glasses part that we're worried about here.

I knew my eyes were getting worse. That's *why* I went to the optometrist now, half a year before I was supposed to. My eyes aren't too bad, but I notice that it's tougher to drive, and I've found myself looking at the ground nearer me a lot more often than in the distance. And that's not something I normally do.

The optometrist said it would help me to have a pair of glasses, but that I can choose when to wear them. I don't have to wear them, but they will be there if I want to. I know I'll want to sometimes.

Anyway, I think glasses look cute on people. :D

The picture here isn't exactly like the pair I picked out, but it's a general idea. Mine (mine?!? really?!?) are brownish-plum on the outside and peacock blue on the inside part facing me (nobody else really sees that when I'm wearing them). They're cool. :D
I'm still in shock though.

Maybe I'll post a picture of me wearing them after I get them. They won't be done until sometime next week. Or else I'll still be too shocked and shy of my new look to let anybody see. :-)

Am I making too big a deal out of this?

2006-05-12T19:08:00.000-06:00

Today was gorgeous so I sat on a picnic blanket and did my schoolwork in the backyard! I had to bring a few mosquitoes to premature deaths, but it was really nice. ...I'm only a teensy bit sunburnt. :D
Yesterday while I playing soccer the mosquitoes were terrible. Suddenly they've all come out from hiding to plague my warm weather. I fought off their waves of attack though, and they left many dead on the battlefront. Then on another attack, I ran away. Everyone else thought I was running after the soccer ball, especially since I saved it from the other team, but really I was running away from the mosquitoes. ;) Soccer practice was awesome. Everybody is back from their exchange, so we had a normal practice with an actual scrimmage game and everything. It was lots of fun. I got home and collapsed and threatened to die from exhaustion. But at least I would have died happy. :D

Some of you know that I've been trying to get people to work at my camp this summer. Most people have said they can't, but one or two are interested.... Which reminds me I have an e-mail to send. It's a little bit hard figuring out how to get friends from the States working here with minimal trouble from the government, but my dad is working on that. It would make me very happy if someone could come, so I hope it works out!

2006-05-05T14:49:00.000-06:00

#1. I did the SAT yesterday!

Friday night I set aside everything that I would need to take. After that I tried to relax and NOT think about the SAT. After I took a bath, mom French-braided my hair in pigtails for me while I played the piano. That was nice. For some strange reason I like it when other people do my hair. Then, I hung out in my room listening to good music until deciding to go to sleep. I didn't sleep as well as normal, but I expected that.
Saturday I got up early because we (my dad and I) had to drive an hour away in time for the test at 8. Hehe, I was still the first person there... Only three other people were taking the SAT as well. The other girl turned out to know a friend of mine from another town so we talked a bit.
After starting the test though, we couldn't talk at all. Even during the breaks, people were not supposed to talk to each other.
I was there about five hours. It didn't really seem that long though: I focused. I think I did well. I feel pretty good about it. I guess we'll see when the scores come out around the end of the month.
On the way home dad and I talked about colleges (I type "colleges" instead of "universities" for you Americans ;) Aaron knows). Suddenly my dad has become very enthusiastic about Hillsdale, but more about that later.

#2. We are getting a new vicar for this year!

It was getting pretty late so dad had been starting to prepare himself for taking care of the whole parish without any help for the next year. However, now we've gotten the official news that we are getting a vicar! *excitedness* *celebration* *misses Jon*
Did you know that it's a lot of fun to have a vicar? In my family, the vicars become one of us (except the married ones; they have a family of their own to worry about). It's a lot of fun because in real life I don't have an older brother, but we temporarily adopt the vicars. This vicar is an American going to the seminary in Ontario (I leave out names in case other people find my blog. I think most of you can figure out what I'm talking about without names) who actually wanted to be placed in New York... so they are sending him all the way to Saskatchewan. I hope he's not upset about that. Anyway, he'll come sometime this summer.
Now to get on with my talk on Hillsdale: Dad has to go to the seminary for a vicar conference. Being so enthusiastic about Hillsdale at the moment, he has begun to wonder if I could go with him so that we could rent a car and drive to Hillsdale from the seminary for a day or two. I have to say that touring the college would be great! I would be a bit apprehensive to go to a school I've never seen before. I don't know yet if this plan is realistic or not, but dad spent a couple hours yesterday checking out flights.

#3. Soccer!

Yes, soccer officially started this week. Half the people are away on an exchange on the other side of the country at the moment, but 5-6 people made it to each practice. Small groups are actually nice at the beginning because it's easier to feel like a team when you only have to think about a few people. In smaller groups, it's easier to talk to people you wouldn't normally talk to, and I did exactly that. It was fun. I had to work hard, but I feel great about it!

2006-04-26T14:20:00.000-06:00

I'm in the mood for poems right now, probably because I'm slightly sad that I don't have anyone to talk to right now, when I really feel like talking. And I like sad poems very much. Bittersweet (yeah, Seth ;) ). Sure I love happiness; there are many great adjectives that can describe happiness, but then there's bittersweet. And I think bittersweet is beautiful. Like the bitterness of knowing Jesus suffered hell and died on that cross, and the sweetness of knowing that by doing so he took away our sins and gave us eternal life. A sacrifice was needed for our sins to be taken away. That is what bittersweet means to me. So here's a poem that fits my bittersweet-loving mood:

Sometimes it doesn't matter,
Sometimes things don't change,
Sometimes what you want is just that far away.

Rain falls from a sunny sky,
Blue beyond the clouds.
I struggle upward, trying to see,
But only slipping down.

Sometimes it doesn't matter,
Sometimes things don't change,
Sometimes what you want is just that far away.

Where is what I fought for then?
Why do you not care?
How was it stolen away?
Or was it even there?

Sometimes it doesn't matter,
Sometimes things don't change,
Sometimes what you want is just that far away.

I fight to make it different
Than what it is right now,
Pushing onward day by day
And never knowing how.

Sometimes it doesn't matter,
Sometimes things don't change,
Sometimes what you want is just that far away.

It's not as far beyond me
As I thought before
The curtains that I have pulled down
Hid a brighter star.

Sometimes everything matters
And nothing can stop change
Sometimes even what you want is only a step away.

2006-04-25T21:08:00.000-06:00

Last week, dad promised us that he would work us so hard that we'd be happy to go back to school. He was right! It was MADNESS! My house was hit by a hurricane. Yes, I use that in figurative terms. :P But the WHOLE MAIN FLOOR was crazy. And on top of that, I got the flu, and stayed at Daryl's house for a day so that I wasn't in the way of my family. Daryl moved in with his mom for a while and let us live in his house. That was very nice of him. Today we moved out and did a major cleaning of his house. (Bachelors don't seem to be the greatest house-cleaners ;) ) (Don't come see my house when I live by myself, because I make no claims as to how clean it will be ;)

Now my living-room has been wallpapered, and our fan (which I picked out) looks very nice. The pictures aren't back on the walls yet, so it still looks bare, but that will be remedied eventually. Have to find a place to put that big map of the US that I convinced mom to buy... Not that it took much convincing. Mom, knowing many people in the States, already wanted a big map so that she could put pins or something where people live. If we're going to do that, we have to figure out something to mount the map on so we don't poke holes in the wall. :D

The bathroom, on the other hand, looks like a prison. Absolutely everything except the toilet has been removed from it, even the walls! The plumber was supposed to come put a new tub in yesterday but has not come yet. Dad is out of town for a few days, so when he gets back we'll put the bathroom back together, as long as the tub has come by then. We still have to go buy flooring and such... I like the part of re-decorating that includes picking out wall-paper and fans and flooring. :D No, I'm not going to go into home decorating though.

Ok, now that you're all nice and bored of hearing about my house, I will move on to other things. Though my house basically occupied my life last week.

Soccer practice starts in a week!!! YAAAAAYYYYY!!!!!! (I don't actually say 'yay' in real life, btw). I can't wait!!! Soccer season!!! Mine and my sister's teams weren't supposed to be together, but we ended up not having enough people to be separate. I expected that, and wonder why they even tried to have the teams separate in the first place. I mean, I'm optimistic, but I still know when something is very unlikely to happen. :P And having enough people for two teams was very unlikely to happen. But that's ok. My sister and I are the official phone-call-makers for the team, so sometime this week I have to call everyone and tell them when practice is. That's fun. :D I surprise myself by saying that, because I used to have phone-phobia, but I got over that a couple years ago. Now I actually *gasp* make phone calls of my own choice! Hehe. :D
(I still use AIM way more though.)

Y'all better remember these useless trivia facts about me because there's going to be a test in a couple months. ;) :P

That was sarcasm, by the way. :D

*looks at post* Who knew I could say so much about so little??

2006-04-17T21:39:00.000-06:00

Hey everyone, happy Easter Monday! He is risen!!!

Just to let you know, I'm not going to be around much the next few days... Today we tore my house apart. We got a ton of stuff accomplished (mostly electrical [I know nothing about electrical work, but I can use a hammer well :D ]) (And it's Rae's fault I'm using brackets in quotes ;) ) But yeah, if you don't hear from me or see me on the computer, I'm doing something like putting new wallpaper in the living room or shopping for ceiling fans or tearing the sink out of the bathroom. And during the midst of this, my uncle is doing some business in a nearby town this week and is coming to take us out for breakfast tomorrow ^_^

Please go comment on my previous post; I'd really like to know everyone's thoughts about it. (Seth, I'm counting on you. I know you read it.)

Oh, and it turns out the "Judger" has absolutely nothing to do with judging anything! I don't know why they called it that, but it seems that it means I don't like leaving things undecided. It says more stuff on www.myersbriggs.org

2006-04-14T12:46:00.000-06:00

I may not like our car much, but I REALLY like the new stereo dad put in it. The rest of my family went in the van, but I drove the car with dad after the Maundy Thursday service, and he was showing off the stereo. He plugged the laptop into it and played music off the computer. Nice stereo. It was good father-daughter time too. Now imagine me and dad singing "If I Had a Million Dollars" and various other songs for a whole hour. I made dad listen to some of my other music but he didn't like it. :( He likes some of the music I listen to, but not the hard rock. As we drove into town, I found out something funny. My dad likes listening to Hilary Duff. Hilary Duff, but not Def Leppard. I don't think I've taught him very well...

Today we decorated Easter eggs! That's always fun -or at least I really like it as long as it's once a year. I would probably get tired of it if it wasn't so seldom. :D But, the fact is, I do like it as it is, and am always enthusiastic about it every time Easter comes around. Today my sister was sick so she didn't join us while we dipped eggs in dye and coloured them with crayons. The best one was the clear crayon, though I think white works too. Then you colour over a dyed part with the crayon and it ends up like a Ukranian Easter egg. ^_^ I made real Ukranian Easter eggs one year. I think they all exploded though. (yes, I'm serious!) But you can't eat Ukranian Easter eggs, which is sad. I like boiled eggs. :-)

Ok, I'm going to be serious now:

If you feel hurt by something someone said, and it wasn't really that important of a thing, yet you still felt hurt by it, should you talk to the person about it? I mean, if it *really* was not a big deal, and you know it. And then you wonder why you felt hurt if it really wasn't a big deal. If you talk to the person, they might not even understand why you felt hurt because of what they did/said, and that's completely reasonable because you don't even know.

Yeah... I talked to the person. The person was very nice about it, too. But I still feel like I should have let it go.

I think I know why I felt hurt, but I don't know if it's a good enough reason or not. I wish I hadn't said anything. Anyway, I've been reading this book that a friend lent to me. It's called "The Five Love Languages". In short, it says that there are five basic ways to express love: Quality Time, Gifts, Words of Affirmation, Physical Touch, and Acts of Service. These are things that make people feel loved (not necessarily romantically, just loved in general, by family, friends, etc.), and everyone has one or two that affect them the most.
That all makes sense, right? Ok, so if the person doesn't receive the one that they are most affected by, it really bothers them. Which did help a few things make sense...

I'm not going to tell you what my main one is, because then I feel selfish, but I'm going to ask you a question. If you know *why* you are bothered by something, does it still matter? I'm not sure it does. If someone else asked me that question about themselves though, I would probably say, yes it does matter, because they felt hurt. For myself, however, it's not so easy. You know, on that personality test, the "Judger" that I scored (I'm INFJ http://typelogic.com/infj.html ) is all focused at myself. I can sympathize/empathize with other people; I don't do that for myself.

Yeah, so if you listen to this book, the reason I felt hurt was because what the person did was opposite of one of the things that makes me feel loved, and made me feel hurt instead. It definitely makes sense, but does that mean it's ok? Or is that just my sinful nature. Is it a part of sinful nature that we can do something about?

Ok, so it makes us *feel* unloved, even if we still *know* we are loved. Is that good enough? What do you think? I'm very serious about this; I'd like to know.

Whoa. That's familiar. I was wondering where those kinds of thoughts had disappeared to, because I used to think about this stuff a lot. That's a big part of why I got a blog. But after I got my blog, they pretty much disappeared. It was weird. Normal day in the Life of Heidi.

2006-04-12T15:39:00.000-06:00

<--- My feet. And my sandals. :D

These are from Oklahoma, where Kristen taught Tarja and I how to make sandals like this. Tarja's has different yarn than mine. Fun stuff. ^_^

Yeah, so those are my funky sandals. I've been wearing them a lot lately because they're my newest ones. My other favourite pair are more nice-looking. ^_^

2006-04-12T07:12:00.000-06:00

Cappuccino... Yessss. I think I should buy mom cappuccino for her birthday more often. ;) Well, being the good parent that she is, she made a whole batch of it and shared some with the rest of us. It was the best cappuccino I ever tasted! Unfortunately I'm not addicted to caffeine so I don't really have a reason to go buy more except to spend money. And I'm trying to save my money for important things like road trips... ;)

Last night my dad rented King Kong and I watched that. It started off really well, but got worse the moment Kong actually entered the movie. That's the point when all plot stopped. But I enjoyed it. Don't go buy it, but you could rent it. Go and pity Jack when Ann tells him to let her go so that she can help Kong. ;) And yes, sad movies do make me sad while I'm watching them... :D

I registered for the soccer team this week! I've really enjoyed how relaxing the past few weeks have been since most of my winter extra-cirriculars ended, but I'll be very happy to start soccer. As soon as those last piles of snow melt. Do you know how funny it is to walk outside in sandals when there's still piles of snow melting in the shade? ^_^ Speaking of which, I should post a picture of my flip flops. They're fun. :D Remind me if I don't post one later. I would do it now, except dad has an annoying tendency to hide the camera.

I love wearing sandals. ^_^

Ohh, and I edited one of my HT articles enough that I'm happy with it! It probably needs more Gospel though... And before submitting it to HT I have to think of at least three Bible study questions for it! Help! Anyone want to read over my article and give me pointers? I wonder if I could post it on here and still submit it to HT...

That's it for now. Comments, please! And thanks to Aaron for commenting regularly.

2006-04-09T19:54:00.000-06:00

Twas my mom's birthday. It was... fun when she opened her presents, but exhausting otherwise. Dad invited the whole congregation over. No, that doesn't mean everyone *came* ( :D ), but quite a few did. Good thing I didn't have anything else I planned to do. Really it was a good day. My sister and I found the perfect present too. That made me happy. I find it hard to shop for other people (except my sister). ^_^

Lately some people haven't been understanding my jokes... And I don't know why. Ideas, anyone? Have you noticed me say something that you just thought was weird and not funny? Because I don't think I changed anything and wonder if some people are taking me too seriously. Let me know if I've been acting different lately, ok?

Ohh, MH! MH is alive! YAAAAAYYYY!!!!!! People are actually having conversations *collective gasp from the audience* Yes, real conversations! And I actually sent a bunch of messages today! *another gasp* Yeah... as some people have realized, I'm more talkative if I'm talking one-on-one than in a group. Unless it's a group of people I know well. And around quiet people, I talk more. Like at winkles. Winkles are awesome. :D Even if I am used as a sermon illustration by Pr. M, who likes to tease. It's fun. ^_^

Pr. M: You got off easy; now if I'd needed an example of original sin... *points to Lizzie and grins*

2006-04-06T20:55:00.000-06:00

Don't wish me luck, because I don't believe in it, but tomorrow I'm going to compete in the music festival. :-)

Other than that, the week has been very restful. I actually read a book today. And believe me, reading a non-school book is a rare occurance lately. Though I did enjoy reading The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. It's very well-written, even though I don't agree with it's basic ideas of Objectivism. But it was still for school. Next week I'm going to write an essay about it.

Short post. All my good article ideas go to HT instead of to my blog... ;)

2006-04-04T20:11:00.000-06:00

As Aaron said, it is definitely spring. The water seeping into my room also says so. We had to take the area rug off the floor. There's a lake in my backyard. All the snow has been melting fast! I love it. I decided that I like snow when it's this warm outside. :D I don't enjoy having to mop up water from my floor though.

Yeah, last weekend they let the skating and curling rinks melt. I played in the windup curling bonspiel last Wed.-Fri. My team won 3rd place! And I had a lot of fun. The people I played with were kind of old, but it was ok. We teased each other and stuff, so it was good. All the games we played were very close; usually depending completely upon the last rock thrown. The sportsgirl in me liked that. And I played against Jordan, Nathan, and James. They beat me. But in the end, my team did better than theirs. haHA! Ok, so I'm evil sometimes. :-)

The end-of-year skating program was an experience. I've never been in charge of something like that before. Coaching skating all by myself this year was very... interesting. At the beginning of the year, I definitely didn't want to coach another year, but now I might. I learned a lot about how to be a coach. We'll see what happens next fall. I was proud of the kids when they did their skating routines.

Aaand... let's see... That's pretty much it. I'm enjoying the prospect of having not too much happening this week. Though on Friday I have to go into the city to play in the Music Festival. I've been playing the same songs on piano for a couple months now in preparation, so I'll be glad when that's done and I can learn something new. ^_^ Plus, I like performing.

2006-04-01T15:06:00.000-06:00

I was tagged for this one twice. First by RachelE and then by Seth. The funny thing is, Seth is one of the people I was going to tag, but I finished writing about my vacation before posting this so he tagged me first. :P RachelD tagged all three of the people I was going to tag. Now I have to think of new people. :D

And I've read quite a few different people's answers to this (meaning nearly all the HT blogs) so something I say is likely to resemble something that somebody else said, but I'll do my best not to plagiarize. :D

Profile:
1.Name- Heidi... I don't post my full name on the internet. Except sometimes...
2.Age- Anybody who reads my blog should know already. If you don't, post a comment and ask me personally. :D
3.Height- 5'8 1/2"
4.Shoe size- 8 1/2
5.Ring size- I think 6... Are you going to steal my identity now?
6.Unusual habits- Why would you think I have any of those? ;)
7.Eye color- Blue-grey
8.Length of left big toe- *suspicious look* Why do you want to know?
9.Length of right pinky toe- A lot shorter than my other toes, besides the left pinky toe.
10.Number in your graduating (or present) class- 3! Me, myself, and I. :P
11.Graduation year (high school)- 2007!!! *looks at number* *realizes that that's only next year and dies*
12.Graduation year (college)- 2011
13.Graduation year (seminary)- Uh, I'm a confessional Lutheran.
14.Major (planned) in college- English? History? Not definite yet.
15.Address- My name followed by my box number followed by my town and province followed by my postal code followed by my country. Yep.
16.Social security number- I plead ignorance as my reason for not posting it. :D
17.Zip code- Ha! I don't have one! I'm Canadian!

Favorites and two Least Favorites
33.Favorite Movie- LotR or The Great Escape. But I know a lot of other good ones too.
19.Favorite TV show- I don't watch many TV shows... Enterprise! (my old standby for this question ;) )
20.Favorite Cd- Def Leppard's X.
21.Favorite Tape- All my good music is on CD... I won't tell you what music I listened to before my CD era. ;) :P
22.Favorite Band- Def Leppard!
23.Favorite Superhero- The dude in Sky High. :D
24.Favorite Book- *sobs* I lost my list of awesome books. Now I have to rely on my memory. Hmm... LotR. Which was written as one book so I don't have to choose a favourite part. :D Also Dune.
25.Favorite poster- My Empire Strikes Back poster! It's really old and I found it at a market! It's awesome.
26.Favorite Brady child- No...
27.Favorite American idol- I don't watch that regularly...
28.Favorite x-man- Storm.
29.Favorite Member of Nsync- I pride myself on having no knowledge of what their names are. :P
30.Favorite Sport- SOCCER! Soccer season is starting at the end of the month!!!
31.Favorite Weapon- Deadly Lutheran Wrath. ;) My (brother's) lightsaber. Other than lightsabers, swords are cool.
32.Favorite Store- Barnes & Noble
18.Favorite Clothing Brand- The cheap one!
34.Favorite Higherthings Blog- People should update their blogs more often... :-)
35.Favorite Restaurant- Cafe-type places.
36.Favorite Food- Anything with lots of sugar. Or dairy products. ;D
37.Favorite Type of Restaurant- Ones without mice or cockroaches. ;)
38.Favorite Type of Food- Sweet. :D
39.Favorite Color- Blue
40.Favorite Period of History- Everything pre-new-world fascinates me. More recent history doesn't. It made my day a few weeks ago when I visited a library with thousand-year-old Chinese paintings.
41.Favorite Muppet- Kermit
42.Favorite Alcoholic Beverage- The only alcohol I actually want to drink would be communion wine.
43.Favorite Musical Instrument- I love how cellos sound. I wish I could play one.
44.Favorite Candle Scent- Those mocha candles I bought my mom!
45.Favorite Operating System- Windows. I haven't used anything else...
46.Favorite Smiley Face- :-) and :D
47.Least Favorite Book- I stop reading books in the middle if they don't interest me and nobody has recommended them, so I'm not sure. There's too many good books to read to spend time on the bad ones.
48.Least Favorite Candle Scent- Evergreen.

Have you Ever?
49.Have you ever gone toga-ing? No... Sounds like they had fun though! Maybe at The Feast.
50.Have you ever blown up, set on fire, or mutilated an action figure? Can't say I have. I'm pretty nice to action figures. :P
51.Have you ever tried to eat a fake decorative fruit? (Like a plastic apple) I'm smarter than that. ;)
52.Have you ever gone trick-or-treating since your childhood? I wasn't aware that my childhood was in the past...
53.Have you ever killed a seagull? Mop and Patty had fun creating this survey, didn't they. :P
54.Have you ever eaten a dog biscuit? No...
55.Have you ever fired a high powered rifle? *sigh* Nope. *eyes dad's cool new rifle sitting in the corner*
56.Have you ever worn a dress? Of course. I have a few very nice dresses, even if I do wear skirts more often.
57.Have you ever tried hitting a piece of technology to make it work? Ohhhh yes.
58.Have you ever head banged through the entire guitar solo in Bohemian Rhapsody? Yeah! *still laughs and imagines people hitting their head against a wall when she sees 'head banged'*
59.Have you ever deep-fat fried a random food item and eaten it? No... My mom makes the best french fries ever though!!!
60.Have you ever been in a blog war? Blog, no. Forum, yes. :D

Miscellaneous
61.How many HT conferences have you been to? As of this moment in time, zero, but I'm registered for The Feast.
62.Do you know how to play any musical instruments? If you can, which kinds? I play the piano. I somewhat play the guitar.
63.Did anyone notice that I switched numbers 33 and 18? Yeah, but I've read a bunch of other people's answers to this survey.
64.Did anyone notice the other numbering errors? Yeah.
65.Did anyone actually look for other numbering errors? After reading that there were more, yeah.
66.If you had to dress up as one Star Trek character, which one would it be? Hoshi. We almost named my dog after her.
67.Do you have any odd hobbies? Odd according to whom? Do dancing all by myself, occasionally writing a poem, or having fun no matter what I'm doing count?
68.What's the most random gift you've ever given or received? I haven't gotten or given any terribly random gifts.
69.Sith or Jedi? JEDI! Somebody has to stop those dictators. *coughsethandaaroncough*
70.How do you like your steak cooked? Well done.
71.If someone paid you $5, would you drink Dr. Pepper out of the navel of a hairy Scottsman? Ewwww. Lol, I'm not usually squeamish but that is a nasty thought!
72.Did you enjoy filling out this tag form? For sure.
73.Will you be prepared at The Feast to party every night with The Mop and Patty? If my friends are there, yeah! Sounds like fun!
74.Do you vow never to tag, as well as never respond to tags, ever again? No, I think Mop and Patty are failing their mission to stop tags in the HT world.
75.Which three people do you choose to tag? Aaron and Rae still have to reply to RachelD's tag. :D Since I don't have to tag those two and Seth anymore I choose...
1. Sarah, if you read my blog.
2. Kezia, who I'm also not sure if reads my blog.
3. Aaaand Elisabeth if you have time to write in your blog!

2006-03-30T12:14:00.000-06:00

Part 3: Oklahoma

Oklahoma looks a lot like Saskatchewan. Prairie! I loved the hills in Missouri though. And I enjoyed driving through the Ozarks, though I wouldn't want to live in the middle of them where I couldn't see very far. Hey, hills, let me see past you!

Eric is not so humourless as I thought. I didn't have much trouble making him laugh. We stayed in Oklahoma an entire week, so I had plenty of time. And after spending a whole week with people, you get pretty comfortable around them.

During our stay, one of the things we did was tour Marland Mansion. At one time Marland was governor of Oklahoma. He had an extremely nice house. Carved wood around all doors, and parts of the ceiling were gold. And that gold was PAINTED to make it look like a mosaic. Crazy dude. Nice house though. ^_^ Too bad the nuns filled in the swimming pool...

One day my sister and brother and I went with Eric to youth group. My church doesn't have a youth group, so that was interesting. That day they were actually cleaning (MAJOR cleaning!) the youth house, so we helped out with that. I found my way onto the kitchen crew, and believe me, that kitchen was ever so much cleaner when we were through with it. I had fun, too! And after eating pizza, the whole youth group came back to Eric's house to swim in his pool. He and his dad (who's an engineer) put an addition on the back of their garage recently, which became their family's rec-room, fully equipped with a swimming pool. Yeah, we swam a lot that week. :D

We also went on a few hikes. One was out at a buffalo place, which was even more flat and treeless than where I live. This was also more ranchland than farmland. I do like my trees. :-) The other hike was along a river.

Ohh, and on Wednesday before the service, I got to LEARN HOW TO PLAY HAND-BELLS!!! YAAAAY!!!! Funny how I can play many notes at once in piano, and yet it can be so hard to play one with a bell when you're not used to it... :D My sister and I were completely lost during the first song, but we caught on during the second song and had a lot of fun. Musical challenge. ^_^

Aaaaand my brothers' favourite part of the week (yeah, ok, I had a great time too :D ), playing laser tag. My brothers have never had the fun of shooting people with non-harmful lasers before. And I only played it once before, over 2 1/2 years ago. I'm going to blame the bad score I got during the first game on that. ;) It probably didn't help that the first thing I did was shoot Kristen. When she was on my team. Hehe. Oops! :D I improved a LOT on the second game though, and managed to not only restrain myself from shooting the people on my team, but also to be the top gun. That's not as impressive as it could be, considering the people I was playing with (who don't play laser tag very often either), but it was still cool and we all had a lot of fun! I won a free game then, but gave it to Kristen since my family was leaving town the next day.

By then, I was getting worn out. I was still having tons of fun and didn't want to go home, but it was probably good for me to go home. It would have stopped being so much fun if I'd gotten too worn out. So, here I am! Been home for over a week now. Not ready to leave again quite yet. :-)

2006-03-26T21:44:00.000-06:00

Part 2: "The boy that Heidi met over the internet"

That's not how dad thinks of Ben, but that's how he's been joking about Ben to people he tells about our vacation. So far, it's been ok, except for once. Lisa hid her surprise pretty well at finding out I have some friends I've never met, but I could tell she was shocked at the thought. I don't fit her idea of someone who would do that. At least my good friends understand though. You don't have to see someone in real life to get to know them.

However, I was a bit nervous as we drove to his house. I knew Ben wouldn't be exactly like I thought. And we both knew each other well and were (still are!) good friends, but I was afraid my personality would seem different in real life.

We pulled into the driveway and I saw faces looking out the back door. I'll admit, at that moment I wanted to hide, but I got out of the van instead. Ben's family came to greet us. I didn't see Ben, though. His mom hugged me, and when I turned around, there was Ben. He hadn't come out the back door with his family. He had been sitting up in a tree waiting for us to arrive. :-)

I know both of us were nervous as we introduced our families to each other. But my brothers are anything but shy and asked about the Legos. So we all sat on the floor in Ben and his brother's room and built stuff with Lego. Ben's brother and I announced a "Who can build the biggest gun?" contest, which started a fun competition. :D During all the shooting of various substances (why would we shoot something as normal as bullets? Kool-aid, marshmallows, lasers, and molten sugar for us!) I started to relax. We're friends, why am I worried? And after that, I wasn't anymore.

"A lightsaber!" They have a lot of lightsabers in their household. :D Since my brother had brought his, we had enough for everyone under the age of 20! We all had an awesome lightsaber battle outside on the lawn. On Saturday we had another battle, and then Ben and I climbed a tree in his yard. His sister and my brother also came up and we all hung out there for a long time. It seems we were a good show, because our parents were watching us out the window for a while. I love climbing trees. ^_^

We did lots of other fun stuff at Ben's house that weekend. Our families got along great. I even heard Ben's mom say that she was sorry they didn't get to know each other while our dads were at school together! It was all completely awesome.

Saturday night there was a tornado five miles north of us! My sister, Ben's sister, and I all stayed up late that night watching lightning out the window. Ben's parents didn't get much sleep that night, since they were listening to the storm warnings. The tornado didn't come close enough that we had to hide in the basement though.

Sunday we went to Bible study and church like normal. Ben's dad's sermon was good. ^_^ Definitely the best I heard during vacation. After church we had to pose for pictures.

Ben: "Ahh! You shot me!"

We hurried to start a game of "Pirates of the Spanish Main" after that. We tried to delay the hour of departure as long as possible, but eventually my dad called everyone into the living room to say goodbye. After many hugs, my family got out the door and into our van. Ben's parents invited us to stay longer, but unfortunately we had to leave. There were people in Oklahoma waiting for us.

Basically, that weekend went as well as I could have ever hoped. Ben and I got to be friends in real life, and our families had a great time too!

2006-03-25T16:09:00.000-06:00

Part 1: St. Louis

Ok, so everybody who reads this probably knows that I've been back for awhile. And now that my life is organized, I can tell you about my incredibly awesome trip. ^_^

It started with a 27-hour drive from my house to St. Louis. With 7 people in a minivan, it was craziness. 27 hours can be a long time. But parts of it were actually very fun. I was stuck in the back seat next to my brother for a while, and he was very entertaining. We also ate at a cool Mexican restaurant, where I got deep-fried ice cream for dessert. Yum! (No, that's not something I had tried before.)

And so, eventually, we reached St. Louis. Needless to say, we were all very happy to arrive. At the shoe store (the first place we stopped in the city) the cashier teased me and dad because the rest of our family was wearing winter boots. "Where are your boots?" she teased.

Once we were all properly attired in runners, we headed to the Arch like the good tourists that we were. :D That over to the left is the very first picture I took on vacation. I have to say that I thought the Arch would look more impressive from a distance than it did, but from right underneath or at the top of it, it was very cool.

Wow, I've already written a lot so I'm going to start speeding up the narrative.

Mom and dad showed us the places they used to live and work. I found it very hard to imagine my parents there, but that's ok. I believe them anyway. ;) Even though we got seriously lost TWICE, trying to find Ted Drewes. (And this after my dad claims that he loves Ted Drewes more than any other place in St. Louis.) :D But getting lost was fun.

We went to my dad's godparents' church for Lenten services on Wednesday. It's a refurbished Target building. It felt more like a hospital or something than a church... The part that really bothered me was that you had to walk through the middle of a gym to get to the sanctuary. And they made us watch a segment of "kid-oriented Bible video" that, from the segment we watched, told us to worship golden calves. Yep. I was not impressed.

Thursday was very cool. We first went to the zoo. I have to say that St. Louis has a very good zoo, and best of all, it's FREE! We wore our feet off walking around for hours there. I played tour guide. Hehe, when I was forced to cross a section of path we'd already been on my dad started calling out "[My sister's name] for leader!"

We DID manage to find Ted Drewes after that. It was good.

And then the seminary! That was cool. I bought a couple good Lutheran books like "Spirituality of the Cross" and "The Fire and the Staff". I haven't finished either one yet. Right now I'm reading "The Fountainhead" for an essay. Anyway, the seminary was beautiful.

Friday ended my stay in St. Louis, meaning it also ends this post. In the morning we went to Union Station. I have a cool picture that I took of my family there, but I don't want to post a picture of my whole family where anybody on the internet can see it. My favourite part of Union Station was The Fudgery. :D Mmmm, fudge. My family was standing nearby, when the dude slapping fudge on a marble table with a long wooden stick decided to start a show for us. ^_^ Fun stuff. He told us the history of the fudge, and made us talk back to him, at the risk of not getting a sample. It was very entertaining. :D And then my family bought a ton of fudge. After realizing how much we had really bought, we decided to give it as gifts to the people we were going to visit! It was goooooood fudge.

Yep, then I left St. Louis, heading to Illinois.

2006-03-05T14:37:00.000-06:00

Last post for a couple weeks! I'm agoin' on a trip! This week will be spend in St. Louis & area, and next week will be in Oklahoma, for those of you who don't already know that. I don't really have anything to write about but I figured I should since I won't for so long. :D This will be the coolest vacation I've had in years! Normal vacations are spent visiting my extended family. And, while I love that, it's awesome to be going someplace I've never been before. I'm excited. *grins like crazy*

And I have other AMAZINGLY AWESOME NEWS! If you have not yet heard, click here ---> http://www.higherthings.org/?article=1251 HA! I will very likely be going to another HT conference next year. *waves hand at Lutheran friends in Jedi fashion* You will go to the one in Minnesota. Seriously. I will be there. How could I not go when I'm in the area once or twice a year anyway? GO TO MINNESOTA. I'm going to start advertising now. ;)

*whispers* Minnesota.

<_<

>_>

<_<

MINNEAPOLIS!

Ok, bye, everyone! If I don't talk to you tonight, I'll talk to you in a couple weeks. :-)

2006-03-02T15:49:00.000-06:00

I don't think I should be allowed to drive in snow. I enjoy it too much, especially when it's late and I should really be sleeping but am driving instead. It was way too much fun destroying all those finger drifts of snow. Seriously. And I'm grinning right now. I need sleep. :D *drives over snow drifts as if she's a tank going through enemy lines* What? I'm not dangerous! Really! ;) ^_^

It's Cody's fault. :P Not the bad driving conditions' fault at all. <--- obvious sarcasm.

Yeah, I was driving because I went to an Ash Wednesday service in a town about an hour away. Got to see Cody there, so that was fun. Cody's the one who's going to the Feast with me, my sis, and dad. I hadn't seen him in.... *thinks* about six months. And church potlucks are good too. :D Hehe, poor Cody. He was lighting the candles on the altar, and they kept going out. I think the candles were brand new. Cody is cool though, he just grinned instead of getting embarrassed when people laughed. ^_^

2006-02-26T17:55:00.000-06:00

My sister and I started packing today. :D Hehe, I get very excited about packing for vacations. I love packing. Yes, I may be weird. :P But I like it. At the moment, my floor is covered in clothes, most of which will be going in my suitcase tomorrow... or the day after... ^_^ Tarja and I have fun. I'm very dramatic sometimes. I was being very dramatic tonight. Hehe, my favourite moment of the evening:

*Tarja opens a drawer and quickly slams it shut* "You can't look in there."
*she opens the next drawer* "You can see in this one. It's only full, not stuffed."

And those are the drawers she dumped all over the floor last week in an attempt to throw some of her "stuff" away. And she did, some. Just not enough. :D

Another quote:

"Hey, you can't wear that shirt! I'm bringing mine like it!"

At church on Sunday, I was standing by the stairs. Some of the women (all in their 80's) came to stand by me. Effie looked at me and shook her finger, grinning. "Don't you push me down the stairs." *I look innocent* "Why would I do that?"

It's all good. I love the people at my church. ^_^ We went to have ice cream cake at someone's house the other day for his 92nd birthday. He's in pretty good shape for being 92. And ice cream cake is goooooood. :D

2006-02-24T14:52:00.000-06:00

<--- This is my front yard as it looks at this very moment... er... A moment about 10 minutes ago, anyway. :D See? We have plenty of snow. And I have the coolest front lawn in town, due to the awesome forts my brothers built. But those forts are not much protection against my snowball wrath. :P Too cold outside for snowballs though. I think the last time I threw a snowball was in December. BUT! Pretty soon it will warm up, and then I will throw many snowballs. Hmm, I think my enthusiasm about other news is flowing over into all aspects of my life at the moment. But that can only be a good thing!

Last week we were very worried about Daryl. I don't think I mentioned that to anyone at the time, but it's true. He was in the hospital because he was acting VERY strangely. However, after he was taken into Saskatoon, the doctors took him off all the drugs they were giving him, and he improved immediately. Now he's well enough to be back here! Not even in the hospital! You don't know how much of a relief that is. Thanks to everyone who's been praying for him. It also sounds like the chemotherapy is going really well. I'm so glad.

And, I know I did tell some people this news: my cousin is getting married!!! I've been practically dancing around the house from excitement! My first cousin to get married... And she's marrying a seminarian from St. Catherine's! I can't go to the wedding because of the other major vacations we're taking in the near future (Oklahoma & The Feast). It's down in southern Ontario, in the spring, so that would be quite a trip. That's a bit disappointing, but I'm too happy for her to care much! I'll write her a long letter of congratulations or something. :D

2006-02-23T16:11:00.000-06:00

Hmm, I got my first call from a university yesterday afternoon. That was interesting... I've gotten mail from universities that I talked to before, but not a phone call.

FreshmanGirl: HiisHeidithere?

I managed to understand my name and figure out she wanted to talk to me. She was calling for Concordia University Michigan. Hehe, a couple times during our conversation, I had to ask her to repeat things because she talked FAST. She must have been nervous or something. Anyway, it was pretty interesting. I asked questions about the university, and she answered them. She said one of her psychology teachers is really good. I don't know if I'm going to take psychology or not, but it is something I am interested in. I'll probably take English. The girl said they're doing a cool autobiographical project in English right now. Dad told me if I went to CUAA, I would probably go to Father Fenton's church. Any of you guys heard of him? Anyway, CUAA is still on my university list. I should probably start researching universities again... My list is still terribly long.

Yesterday I was walking to work (and hadn't gotten very far yet, being still right next to my house) when suddenly I was no longer standing up. I don't even remember falling, I was just walking, and then my feet were no longer underneath me. There is some seriously slippery ice next to my driveway. My new sign --> BEWARE OF ICE. Today my hand and knee are bruised purple. I'll be fine, I just wanted to talk about that. :D

2006-02-19T12:58:00.000-06:00

The bonspiel is over now. It was fun! Saturday night we went to the closing banquet. We got there kind of late and had a hard time finding seats (meaning I was forced to sit with my family instead of my friends) but it was ok. Especially when everybody got prizes for curling. ;) It was choose-a-prize and my family was 12th out of 16 (meaning the very best prizes were gone) but I still got some lantern thingys. Dad helped me hang them in my room yesterday. They're cool. B) They glow. I love my room. If you looked at it, it would tell you a lot about who I am.

No conference countdown today... Suddenly I found out that a bunch of the people I wanted to see are only on the waiting list. Seeing you guys was the main point of the conference for me. I'll have to keep reminding myself that I'll still get to hang out with Katie and Rae. Two out of 8 is... actually, it's sad. I will have fun with them, but the thought of not seeing everyone is still terribly sad.

My friend's dad died today. I don't even know what to say to her. How can you go through that so young? Parents aren't supposed to die. I haven't gotten to talk to her personally yet, but I will soon. I hurt for her. I don't even want to imagine my dad dying. Her dad fell and hit his head when no one else was home. He's been in a coma for a week and died today. Wow, that must be hard for Brooke...

I want to end on a happier note. It's two weeks until I leave on my vacation. I am excited about that, anyway. It will be fun.

Those sentences are missing exclamation points...

!
!
!

:-)

Two weeks until vacation...

2006-02-15T21:19:00.000-06:00

Yes, it's time for another blog post. *various noises of celebration* Really, it hasn't been a week since I last updated. Not at all. ;)

This week, there was technically no school. However, my slave driver told me that I had to do school, because I'm going to be gone for 2 1/2 weeks next month. How sad. Oh well, it's over now. Only TWO MORE SCHOOL WEEKS until I leave!!! I'm excited. Normally my family only goes to visit relatives on vacation, which is always the same trip. This trip will be to new places!!! I'm going to eat Ted Drew's in St. Louis. Dad would never let us miss it.

Also this week, my family entered a curling bonspiel (read: tournament). That has been especially fun, since my normal activities were cancelled for the week. It started last Sunday with us losing a game by about 15-2. We went on to lose the next game on Wednesday by 13-4. And then, we again doubled our score and managed to win 8-5 last night. The most recent two games were a lot of fun. I love the people in that town ( if you think my town is small, go there!). No, the bonspiel was not in my town. It was about 25 minutes away. The game we won last night was against some of the teens who go to the Lutheran church in that town. It was fun. ^_^ Mom was relieved that we won that game because if we'd lost we would have had to play at 10-12 tonight. Personally, I think that would have been fun (yes, I do like staying up if I'm not just hanging around the house). :D But instead, we are again playing at 6-8, which is fine too. I hope we play against another fun team.
Hehe, you should have seen me. The curling rink in that town is natural ice. I'm used to playing on artificial. There is a HUMUNGOUS DIFFERENCE! At first I had problems getting the rocks down to the other end, but I've adjusted now. My sister was having serious problems, but she has gotten better as well. Just have to learn to throw harder. :D

And of course the week that I'm playing on natural (meaning FROZEN BY NATURE) ice, it would get cold outside. By cold, I mean Winter Has Finally Arrived. The past few days it has been around -30 C (-24 F). I have avoided going outside. And my room is cold, except when the furnace is running because it blows all the warm air right onto my bed. That's nice. If I don't talk to any of you within a week, you know I turned into a human icicle.

I picked that curling picture up there because it has a Canadian flag. :D

151 Days until the Feast!

2006-02-10T07:56:00.000-06:00

158 Days until the Feast!!! Had to bring back my countdown, doncha know. ;) And registration is FULL! AHH! NOOOO! Most of the people I want to see have registered, but there are a handful who HAVEN'T!!! :( Do you have any idea how LONG it will be until I see two of those people if they don't come to the conference? About another YEAR AND 158 DAYS. *Heidi's brain melts just thinking about that length of time* ;) But I'm still hoping they will be able to go. :-)

And there is absolutely no way I'm trying out for Canadian Idol this year. I was seriously considering it. If Elisabeth or Stephanie went with me it would be a lot of fun, whether or not I got through! Road trip and auditions! Fun! But... auditions in Regina are March 4-5. Right before I leave for St. Louis. We might even be leaving on the 5th. Soooo, next year! Sounds like they've changed the audition process anyway, so this way I'll get to find out what that's about before having to go through it myself! Being realistic, I'm not good enough to get through auditions, but I want to try anyway because it would be fun!!! I can handle being told my voice isn't good enough, and there's the chance that I could be on TV! You know, that chance is higher up here than down in the States. Fewer people. ;)

2006-02-08T13:54:00.000-06:00

I am now a one-girl advertising company. :D
Some musicals I like, some I don't. I am not the biggest fan of the movie "Annie". However, when the junior drama group decided to put on a production, I bought tickets. My sister and two of my brothers came with me.
Real-life plays are so much cooler than movies. Even if half the acting is bad, it's more fun seeing something in real life. (In my opinion, anyway ;). I loved it! There's something about seeing 11-14 year olds, half of whom you know, do a decent job of putting on a play. I really did enjoy myself!
I didn't know the girl playing the part of Annie, but she did well. Her singing was very quiet in the upper ranges, but otherwise I was happy. The unguessed talent of the night came out in Laura. Laura and I are friendly acquaintances. Wow, did she ever do a great job as Miss Hannigan!!! She was awesome! I would never have known she could sing so well.
And some people couldn't carry a tune at all, but they only had minor parts.
Something I noticed that doesn't really have anything to do with the play was that the rich kids were the ones who played the parts of rich people. I thought that was funny. Their parts were not necessarily the most prestigious ones, just the ones where they had to dress up nicely and act well-mannered. James did well as Oliver Warbucks, but I should have known he would because Beckie (his sister, a friend of mine) has an awesome voice.

2006-02-05T09:21:00.000-06:00

Wow, do I ever hate not knowing about things until a month later. It's not really the person's fault, because there wasn't necessarily anything to tell, but it turns out that it was something to tell. Just, there was no way of knowing that until a certain amount of time had passed, so there is no way she could have known.
Anyway, I used to have a dog. We had her for a year, and then gave her to some friends who live on a farm because she tied us down too much. We couldn't be away from home for too long, because she would need to be let out of the house, and she was a very energetic dog, and stubborn. :D Kishi (pronounced KEE-shee) has enjoyed living on the farm for almost two years now. She loves it out there. She's always glad to see us when we go to visit her because we are still her people too, but she doesn't try to come home with us anymore.
But Kishi has been missing for a month. Sandi says one night there was a lot of barking, and the next morning Kishi was nowhere to be seen. Of course, she could have just wandered away for a while, so they waited. However, now it's been a month. And the other dog, who stayed by Kishi constantly, is not looking for her. Most likely scenario: Kishi was eaten by wolves.
Ouch.
That's my puppy we're talking about.

:'(

2006-02-02T17:17:00.000-06:00

Sudden fascination with knives in my world... ;)
A dude tried to make me buy a box of kitchen knives today.

Dude: Wait! Don't close that door!
*dude pushes two boxes into my arms*
Me: Uhh, nice boxes
Dude: You can keep them for only $50!
Me: Heh, howabout not?
Dude: You can help me get to Regina! Have them for $20!
Me: I really don't need any more knives.
*tries to push boxes back at dude*
Dude: Have one free!
*Dude thinks: maybe she will buy one if I smile brilliantly*
Me: No thanks.
Dude: Sorry for bothering you, miss.
Me: Have a nice day!
Dude: I always do!
*dude runs off to bug next person trying to enter their car*

I laughed as I drove home. :D

2006-01-30T16:29:00.000-06:00

I found the COOLEST GUITAR SITE EVER! It is here --> http://www.actoguitar.com/ I was unhappy with the way mom's book was teaching me so I searched for on-line lessons, and this was one of the better ones I found. From what I've seen, it's pretty cool. They teach me one-note-at-a-time before chords, but I'll start from the beginning. They're probably right. And they work with rhythm. The reason I was unhappy with mom's books was because they didn't do much where rhythm was concerned. I experimented a bit, but I'll be happy to have some guidance. Songs need rhythm! Not just 1 2 3 4.

1 2 3& 4

See? Isn't that more fun? ^_^
And I realized something. I love music more in the evenings. Music is great all the time, but in the evenings anything I listen to means more. And it feels like the soundtrack of my life, whether or not I can identify with it. I also play music better in the evenings. I don't know... It may sound weird, but it's true.

Ha! Know what Seth did? Not even he knows what he did yet. I shall enlighten you. On his blog, Seth mentioned carrying a knife. He inspired my sister to start carrying her knife around with her. She told me this while we walked downtown today. My sister: armed and dangerous. Seth, what have you done? :-) But she also said "I wouldn't really be able to hurt anyone with this" and shuddered "The thought of it going into flesh..." Ok, I have to change previous thought: My sister: armed, but far from dangerous.
But she's the baby sister, she doesn't need to be dangerous.

169 Days Until the Feast!

2006-01-28T19:39:00.000-06:00

I ended up not having to do a presentation. But I gave the papers I'd brought to Elisabeth's dad so he could tell the kids at his church about HT. That was... a bit disappointing. *Elisabeth enters scened* "No it wasn't! You were happy!"
Me: "Oh... I kind of was. I would have had fun advertising HT though."
Elisabeth: "Then why were you hoping you didn't have to do it?"
Me: "Uh... I..." *brilliant smile* "I like being difficult sometimes."

So I didn't give my presentation, but my efforts will be put to good use anyway.
Headline of news in 6 months: Canadians Take Over HT Youth Conference. ;)

Thursday night I substituted for someone I know in a curling game. That was great, because as things stand with the school, I don't actually have a TEAM to play with! Because I'm the only girl interested in curling this year. We need at least *two* girls for a mixed team. Alice! Come back from Taiwan! I need you to curl with me! Anyway, I DID get to play in this game, which was completely separate from the school. S called me and asked if I would sub for her. I didn't know the people on her team, so I went to the rink, waited until the two old men near me were done talking, and asked if they knew who was on S's team. One of them happened to be, so that turned out great! He was a very nice, grandfatherly person. Jordan was on the team I had to curl against. He goes to my church. [cut rant about Jordan] The people on my team were nice. I'm sore from sweeping now (don't have to sweep when I practice by myself ;) ). I had fun though. I hope I get to play more this year! :D

171 Days Until The Feast!

2006-01-26T13:14:00.000-06:00

I'm back! :D

You know, I don't think I'm going to become a composer... ;) Music has never really brought out my artisticness. I'm sure I'll write down more song lyrics sometimes: once in a while they just pop into my head, but I don't feel inspired right now. Maybe I should go visit my cousin again... :D My dad has written some fun songs though. He sat at the piano and played a bunch of them today. Sometimes dad is my hero. ^_^ Unfortunately, in the 20+ years since he's written the songs, he has never taken the time to write them down. This means that only he can play them. Maybe I should tape record him next time he starts playing.

I have to get a project ready for tomorrow. Not a school project, but a project nonetheless. Tomorrow there's a winkle at Elisabeth's church. Her dad asked me and my dad to do some sort of presentation about HT. Since HT is my terrain, dad decided I get to do this by myself. In this case, I don't mind. I think it will be fun! Talking about something that matters to me in front of a bunch of people I know can't be bad, right? :D So after I finish posting this I'm going to storm the HT website and find stuff to talk about. When did I become a public speaking person? Hehe, probably since I have something fun to talk about. Lizzie's dad wants me to give this presentation because they have a group that might possibly come. We'll see, I guess. It's a little late to start planning now. According to the HT website, the rate that registrations are coming in has picked up a LOT. *pokes friends who haven't registered* ;)

Ok, I'm going to go prepare a presentation now. Talk to you all later! 173 days until The Feast

2006-01-22T20:24:00.000-06:00

Anybody seen The Brothers Grimm? I did today. I give it 7 out of 10 stars. It was, well, a bit like Shrek how they tied a bunch of fairy tales into it. (Shrek is 10 stars, btw :D ) It was pretty good though. In a weird way. My sister and I exchanged glances during the whole thing 'That was weird.' But at some parts it got really good, so if you can get past the weird... :D

Our nice warm weather is GONE. I can't really complain, it's been way warmer than normal winter weather the last few weeks, so I guess I can stand a little bit of winter. I'll have to dress my room up as a tropical island though. :D I'll pretend it's my AOB mansion in the Bahamas. ;)

Ok, today I decided that I'm going to stay away from the computer for a couple days. I decided that because I realized that my life is becoming very routine. And more of that routine than I would like is spent at the computer. I don't know what I want to accomplish by this, because I talk to most of my friends through the computer, and my friends make me happy, but I'm going to do it anyway. I'll come back Wednesday night or Thursday morning. If an emergency happens, e-mail me. Well, you can e-mail me even if it's not an emergency :D You'll just have to wait for me to reply until I come back. Or phone me. The phone is preferrable. That is, if you know my phone number. :)

Right now, I'm attempting to write a song. I've written songs before, but none of them were any good (worse than my poems), and I knew the melody, but not the chords. So I am using my guitar and trying to write a song. We'll see how that goes. :D I love my guitar. Right now my favourite song to play is Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here". That really isn't amazing, since it's the only good song I can play, but still! I think I'll search out more songs soon.

And last but definitely not least(!): I stopped talking about the conference for a few weeks, but I told a few people that I was going to start a countdown, and that's what I'm going to do. :D Hey, it's less than six months away! :P Less than two months until my next vacation! Oh how I love vacations.

177 days until The Feast!

2006-01-18T07:12:00.000-06:00

We got at least half a foot of snow a few days ago. For us, that's a lot! It's hard to drive in that much snow. Hehe. I drove over to Daryl's house to pick up something for him. I got stuck trying to back out of the driveway. Buuut Daryl's son had just driven his snowmobile up and came to push the van out of that spot of snow. That has got to be the most painless vehicle-stuck-in-snow experience I have ever had. ^_^ I think there should always be a twenty-something-year-old dude there to push the vehicle for me. ;) I'm kidding, but it was nice to not even have to get out of the van. :D

Curling, curling... I almost stopped going. The school frustrates me by changing schedules with regularity and never telling me about it. But now I have found out the schedule and hopefully they will not change it soon. So I went yesterday with my siblings. Of my group, only James was there. I challenged him to a game and we had fun. He beat me.

<_<

>_>

<_<

But he wasn't sure of his victory UNTIL THE VERY END! :D It was a good game.

I'm feeling... weird. Not crazy-weird. More like different-weird. I think it's a combination of being tired and listening to too many sad songs. *plays more sad songs*

Q: Is Heidi going to start being philosophical?
A: Yes, I do think she is.

Q: Do I have to read about it?
A: Ha! Nobody is forcing you, you know. :D

How many people know me? Nearly everybody I told about my blog does. I told people that I have lots in common with. But do you know how many people I haven't told about my blog? I'm a social person. I know a lot of people. I count a lot of people as friends. But that doesn't mean they all know me. Is it very rare to show people every side of your personality? A person can't be the same all the time, can they? I know I'm not.

Another thing, isn't it sad how people are afraid to trust each other? One day you're friends and then somebody gets insecure and distances themself for protection. The other person sees that and gets insecure as well. Unless somebody is brave enough to step forward and be vulnerable, they just get farther apart. No, I'm not talking about anybody in particular. These are just thoughts I have every so often that need to be written down. Anyway, I try to be honest, even if that does mean being vulnerable sometimes. Usually everything turns out well. Do you have any idea how much I value honesty? I do. Very much.
If I ever distance myself from any of you, it's definitely for protection, because I don't give up on my friends, so just hit me over the head and tell me to stop being stupid. :D
If you read that, I'm proud of you. And if you understand, I'm even more so. Now comment, please. :-)

2006-01-15T14:08:00.000-06:00

Don't cry for me, Argentina.
The truth is, I never left you.
All through my wild days,
My mad existence,
I kept my promise.
Don't keep your distance.

Evita was an interesting movie. I'm still trying to decide whether I liked it or not. Parts of it were great, but it was hard to understand at times. There were probably only 20 spoken words in the whole movie. It was good. And yet, it would have been better if a few parts had been clearer. Also, it ended sadly. But with this movie I don't mind, because the movie itself was... not exactly happy, but bright. Yeah yeah, I'm weird. ^_^ Aaaand the decision is: I liked the movie. I just don't want to watch it too often. :D

The painting is of the REAL Eva Perron, by the way. Not Madonna. :D

What did I do this past week? No, I'm serious: what did I do? Because I don't know. The week FLEW by and I'm not sure why. I haven't posted in a week! AHH!

:D

Hmm, update on Daryl: He's doing great. Right now he's taking chemo; they're trying to kill off his bone marrow so they can do a stem cell transplant. He's not in nearly so much pain as before. He doesn't remember what happened while he was in the hospital. But it's good! He's basically back to his life, though he's living with one of his sons right now. But he's again coming to our house for coffee and helping dad work on the car and stuff. ^_^
He's kind of depressed, but we're working on that.

2006-01-09T14:56:00.000-06:00

I'm feeling talkative tonight. And of course, I always have to figure out why I feel how I do. Today it's because of my exciting news of the week. Maybe even of the month! :D

My family has been "planning" to go down to Oklahoma for months now to visit some friends. The plans were nothing more than a general in-the-future thing until yesterday. Yesterday mom and dad sat down (well, mom walked around) and starting making definite plans. Of course, I had to get in on this, and neglected my schoolwork for the rest of the morning. ;) (I worked extra hard today). My parents decided we had a week to spend traveling before actually getting to Oklahoma. I suggested going to St. Louis, because it's (kind of) on the way, and there's a friend near there I want to visit. And my parents decided that it was a good idea! So not only am I going to Oklahoma (where the guy my parents aspire for me to marry [why do parents feel the need to set their children up?] is), I am also going to visit Ben! :D YAY!

I'll make a fuss about going to Oklahoma, because of all the jokes I will have to endure, but that half of the trip will be fun as well. :D The dude there isn't really that bad. I've only met him a few times and the last time was actually fun. I only don't like my parents trying to set me up with a guy who I have yet to find out if he has a sense of humor! I'm not sure he does. Really. I spent four days with him in 2004 and he barely ever laughed. We managed to have fun, but I think I need to discover if he's really without a sense of humor. Being without a sense of humor is just... unnatural. 0_0
And trust me, if you're going to be around my brothers for a week, you NEED a sense of humor. :P

Finally made it to soccer again last Friday. They don't have soccer during school breaks since they use the school's gym. The most noteworthy point of the evening was that the-man-old-enough-to-be-my-father-that-talks-to-me was there. As his name indicates, he talks to me (just in case you didn't figure that out ;) ). Ok, normally I like talking to people, but I don't like it when he talks to me. It just... makes me uncomfortable. It's not that he says or does anything that would make me have reason to be uncomfortable, it's just because he talks to me like he's only 19. He's got to be as old as my dad. People as old as my dad should treat me like they're as old as my dad. They can say hi and politely ask how I am, but there should be an obvious gap, unless I know them well. I don't know this person well. And I don't like being talked to by old strangers as if they know me. Weirdly enough, I don't mind it so much if they talk about *themselves*. It's the attention from a 40-something man that bothers me, even though he does NOTHING that's improper. Just to make that point clear. I just think it's weird.

I'm going to St. Louis! :D

2006-01-04T08:41:00.000-06:00

War of the World is not as good as I would hope. It was a fairly predictable story of a divorced guy having problems connecting with his kids. The action started early in the movie with the aliens arriving, and didn't end for about an hour. Then they focused more on the horror aspect. There were two particularly good (to me anyways) horror moments. Except I don't really like horror movies. This movie also didn't end on a good enough note for me. If movies are going to keep me on edge the whole time, they should end happily. If they're alright during the whole movie, they can end bitter-sweet (don't laugh, Seth :P ). They need to have some sort of balance. I found this ending disappointing. That's what I can say without giving away spoilers. :D

Ha! I can play my guitar again! Oh guitar, how I missed you. I was finally in the city and able to buy new strings. I saw an electric guitar and amp there for less than $200 dollars and was extremely tempted to buy it, and then I realized that I don't carry $200 dollars around in my purse and such a purchase would have to be thought about. So we still have to see if I keep up with my guitar practice. If I finish the whole book and am still interested, then I will seriously consider it. You can play fun stuff on electric guitars! Hehe, I laugh at my mental image of myself. Me: sometimes quiet, poetic, PK, electric-guitar loving, rock music, music in general, dramatic... :D I'd like to see someone try to label me.

Yes, I've received my second item of *real* mail in under a month. I decided I really like getting REAL mail. This one was also from a friend who's a boy, but surprisingly my parents didn't say much. They must have gotten used to the idea of me getting mail already. That didn't take as long as I expected. Actually, I'm not sure mom even mentioned it to dad, so he might not be aware of it. She was content to not ask more questions after I read her the guy's family Christmas newsletter.

2006-01-03T08:59:00.000-06:00

I went to visit Elisabeth yesterday. It was great to see her! The last time I saw her was on my birthday. Whoa, my birthday is a while ago now.

On the way home, I was driving. It was quite foggy so I was a little bit nervous, especially whenever I came to a curve in the road. It turns out the fog wasn't what I should have been worried about. It went away after 45 minutes or so. Then it started raining slightly. Dad was worried about slippery roads and had me try out the brakes. They were fine, so we drove on. Once I had to stop at a stop sign and that time the tires spun a bit. A kilometer or two down the road, mom pointed out some deer and told me to slow down.
I did. Suddenly I was headed for the right ditch. I spun the steering wheel and managed to make us face the other ditch. And one more time. It took five seconds at the most. I reacted purely on instinct. We ended up on the right side of the road.
Everybody was fine. We didn't roll. In fact, we were barely off the road. But still stuck in the snow. Dad said I handled it well.
I love my family. Even after living with them my whole life, they never fail to surprise me. Dad calmly called a tow truck, and we settled down to wait. My brothers got out of the van to walk around.
Dog in the distance: "Yip, yip, yip!"
My brother ran back to the car, "AHH! Is that a wolf!"
My brother is silly.
Dad: "Let's tell ghost stories."
Someone else: "You start."
My sister: "Tell the Purple Gorilla story."
Dad: "You've heard that before."
Mom: "But Joel doesn't even remember it."

The Purple Gorilla Story is one dad made up for us years ago.

I think it was rather nice of me to skid into the ditch and warn passing cars to slow down. ;)
One dude did stop and ask us if we needed help. Thanks, dude! We didn't need help, but it was nice anyway. His voice was like Ewan McGregor's. :D
After about half an hour the tow truck arrived. We all piled out of the van and waited while it pulled the van out of the ditch. The tow truck even slid a bit while it was trying to stop. After we were back on the road, everything was good. Thank you, tow truck dude!

Obviously sliding on those corners a few weeks ago didn't teach me my lesson. Heidi, slow down!

But not so fast that you slide.

My story of the day.

2006-01-01T12:37:00.000-06:00

Yay! 2006! Whoa! How did that happen?

Well, I had a fun last-day-of-2005. My family hosted an Open House, so we had company from 1:00 onward. After cooking and cleaning house all week, it was really nice to relax. I even had fun! Nobody my age came, but I talked to the people from our church. My sister and I were serving food as well, and for a while we hung out in the kitchen being very hyper. Uhh... It might have been mostly me being hyper. ;) But I had fun. And I wished some of my friends were there with me because I was having a great time. I wish you guys were with me even when I'm NOT having a great time, but I'd rather you see me happy. ;)

After a while I got tired of socializing and played Candy Land and Guess Who with my little neighbour three times each. We even got one of the seniors to play.

Oh, and the FOOD! Honestly, I don't want to eat anything remotely sweet for at least a week. :D We had way too much good stuff out on the table, and it took a lot of self-control to not eat more than I did. Right now milk and cereal sounds good. If anybody visits me soon they can eat all of our left over good food. :D Trust me, it's good! Just don't eat too much of it. ;) I blame my hyperness of last night on the sugar. Hehe.

Most people left around 9, but two people stayed to celebrate the new year with us. I drank champagne for the first time in my life. Yes, I can now say that I have drunk champagne. It's not all it's made out to be. It has a lot of alcoholic taste. :D I'm not big on alcohol. I drank lots of Egg Nog though.

And yes, I did dance as well. :D

I just read Seth's post about his 2005. Ok! I slacked on my 2005 post!

Yes, I joined the Anti-Olive Brigade with Seth and Kennedy in September. We have yet to vanquish Lark (Rae) but she's too cool to vanquish anyway and we have tons of fun fighting her. :D Good times. I'm really glad I got know you guys.

Seth said really nice stuff http://sethanizethis.blogspot.com/2005/12/year-just-whizzed-by-did-you-see-it-i.html

I know I didn't mention friends by name in my last post. I was too worried about leaving someone out. But I can't not put something now. :-)

I have to say: Seth has been one of the people who has really made the last few months great. Also among that group are Rachel E, Kennedy, Ben, and Aaron. And can't forget the people I've known for years! Elisabeth, Katie, and Stephanie K, you guys all make my life better. Other people have too, but I can't name everybody! Really sorry! Know that if I told you about my blog, you're one of the unnamed people who are great as well. :)

2005-12-31T10:02:00.000-06:00

New Year's Eve...
A time to reflect on the year past and look forward to the year to come...

;P

No, I'm not going to continue in that tone of voice. :D Do you have any idea how crazy this year was? You don't? Well, I'll give you the version I didn't write in the family newsletter.

The year started out with me being very involved with two different curling teams. That was a good time, when the teams played against each other and I was on both of them... ;) J/K They were in different categories.

For two days in February, I pretended to be a normal student at the local high school. It was for a CPR course. It was lots of fun feeling like I fit in with the people in town for a few days, but I love being homeschooled.

Early in March, I joined MH. That was probably one of the best decisions I ever made. I'm serious! I've changed because of the people I met. I'm not saying I'm unrecognizable from who I was before, but I am different. In a good way. :D

At the end of March I was very happy. Until Easter Monday. My family drove to my grandparents', which was good, but Pappa suddenly died that day. We only found out his problem was serious an hour before he died, so it was a big shock. No one I really cared about ever died before that. Thank God I know Pappa is in Heaven. It would be so much worse if I didn't have that promise.
A good thing that came of the funeral: my whole family was together. There are a lot of people on that side of my family and us all being in one place at the same time is something that never happened in my lifetime before.

I took up badminton at that time. A friend and I played in girls' doubles. We lost EVERY game but had a ton of fun and definitely improved. :D I'm looking forward to next badminton season! Maybe I'll actually win a game? ;)

When badminton ended, soccer began. Besides summer vacation, soccer season is my absolutely favourite time of year. Especially that time it was raining and every kept slipping. That was fun. :D I LOVE soccer season. And being undefeated didn't hurt. ;)

About that time of year...
I'm embarassed to mention it here, but if you want the full recap of my year, it has to be said. It was important to me at the time, and still is, in a way. But a different way from then.
About that time of year, I learned that a guy I really cared about was not who I had thought he was. Yeah, that hurt.

Who can dislike summer? Ah, summer, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways... Thou art warm and fun-filled and hold many of the best times of my life. Even soccer season is second to you. :D And this summer was one of the better ones. We had a family reunion on my dad's side. I again got to see many of the people who had been at Pappa's funeral and I had a great time. I spent July 4th in the States this year. It was a very fun day, not only because of the activities and fireworks, but because of the people I spent it with. That was the best vacation I ever had.

A quote I heard: Sometimes living takes more courage than dying.
My addition: But sometimes life is so sweet you couldn't give it up for anything.

[blushes] My poetic side is trying to escape. Please excuse me a moment while I make sure it won't embarass me. ;)

Next up: camp. Camp has been the most important part of summer for 8 years. Summer would not be summer without camp. This was my last year there as a camper, which makes me sad, but I'll be a counselor there this year, meaning it will take up even more of my summer. Paid to go to camp? You just can't beat that! :D I'll miss one week there to go to the conference. That's how important going to this conference is to me. ^_^
Quote of the week: "We play a lot of hand-holding games; this is a friend-making camp." Very true, Kirk. :P

The rest of summer passed in a blur of VBS and my sister's exchange.

In September I finally realized I was changing. I don't fit in with the majority of the people in town, and I stopped wanting to. I started focusing more on the people I do have things in common with. It was that month that I got more involved with the forums and really started getting to know some of you people. You don't know how happy I am that I did! :-)

My sport for a few months there was swimming. Lol, not only can I milestone my year by holidays, I also can by which sport I'm playing at the moment! :D

We're getting into recent history now. Of course, there was my Thanksgiving vacation. Then I took up the guitar.

And now I'm back to curling season. A whole year has gone by. Sometimes it seems like it went by in a flash and sometimes it's so slow. In any case, it's been an amazing year. I may not have written much about the last few months, but they've been awesome. Awesome in a real-life way, not a vacation way!
A huge thank-you to all my friends, old and new. You guys make my life great.

Happy New Year!

Ok, there's still an hour and 45 minutes to go, but still. :D

[goes back to dancing] ;)

2005-12-28T18:34:00.000-06:00

Yes, vacations are good. I've been relaxing, and doing a lot of things I don't normally have much time for, such as attack that pile of books sitting on my bed. :D We'll see how clean I can get my bed before the end of vacation. I have a tendency to keep a lot of stuff on it: books, notebooks, my PDA, a bag full of pencils, paper for drawing on, and some stuffed animals (yes, they have yet to find somewhere else to stay :P ). That doesn't even include at least five blankets and two pillows.

What? My bed is for sleeping in and not a place to store my most important belongings?

Well, I shall have more space to sleep if I finish a few books. :D I'm enjoying my vacation.

Aaaand I got to go barefoot in the house the last few days. Normally in winter I have to wear socks you know or else I freeze. But we washed the living room carpet. That means we HAVE to go barefoot or else get our socks wet. Since we have to go barefoot, mom cranked the central heating up so it's not too cold. I think we should keep it this way all winter. ^_^

Something else I found out: registration for the conference is only 25% full. This means I don't have to fear that my friends won't be able to come. Don't take that as reason to procrastinate :P but it does make me happy to know. Because even though my registration is sent off, it wouldn't be much good if somebody I want to see registered too late. Then I would be forced to go on a road trip...
Not that that sounds like a bad idea. :D

2005-12-26T10:42:00.000-06:00

For many people, Christmas is now over. But not for my family! I love celebrating the twelve days of Christmas. Yesterday was rather uneventful. Since all our family lives so far away and Daryl is in the hospital we celebrated by ourselves. Well, first we celebrated with the half-as-many-people-as-on-Christmas-Eve at church, then we went home and celebrated by ourselves. I love cranberry sauce. :D
I ended up spending most of the day drawing. That's something I haven't done a lot of for months so it was nice. I also put together the model Mini Cooper that my dad gave me. He said he couldn't afford a REAL MC so he got me a mini Mini Cooper. I have no need of a car until university anyway. Until then I can just steal my parents'. :D
One good thing about Christmas Day being past is that my radio station has gone back to playing music that I actually want to listen to. YAY!!! It's still Christmas, and yet I don't have to suffer through any more of "On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me: a beer". Ok, that was one of the better songs. It was at least funny. That Madonna one about "Santa, Baby" was horrible. But that's all in the past now. I can go back to listening to rock that has no mention of Santa. What a relief that is. ^_^
And now New Year's is coming up. Whoa, 2006. I'm looking forward to it! I'll try to find somebody to come over; it's not much fun staying up waiting for midnight with only my sister. But if all else fails I'll turn on some good music and dance by myself for a couple hours. Anybody want to join me?

2005-12-24T11:50:00.000-06:00

It's Christmas Eve! It doesn't seem like it. We haven't even put any presents under our tree yet. I better get wrapping. Why do I not feel happy? Seriously, I'm the one who gets so excited about things like this. In a way I've been too busy to enjoy it. Reminder to self: do not get too scheduled in next week. I plan to rest and relax. I don't think I even know the meaning of the word 'relax' anymore. The thing is: I love being busy, but I need "me time". That's what happens when you're slightly on the introverted side of the scale. I've been doing a lot of extroverting lately, and it's wearing me out. It's fun, but it wears me out anyway.

AHH! SOCIETY! NEVER RELAX!

OK, I feel better now. Even typing things like that is good for stress. :D

[takes break to go read something funny]

Hehe. I have some good quotes. And some of them were from some of you. And I know myself way too well, just go read my quotes and I feel a lot happier than I did before. At least it works! :D

Daryl is coming home for Christmas. It's a happy thing. :-)

Ok, now that I'm un-stressed, I even feel excited about Christmas again! Yay! Candle-light service tonight that I only have to play one song for... :D The candle-light service is one of my favourites.

Well, I don't even know which of you people are going to be around for Christmas, and I'm not planning to post tomorrow (though I might be on the computer at some point) sooooo Merry Christmas!

2005-12-22T21:24:00.000-06:00

YAY!

That wasn't good enough.

YAAAAAAAYY!!!!!!!!!!!
:D
My registration for the conference is in the mail! Finally! It's on its journey to save me a spot at the conference. This could be an epic story you know. The letter fought it's way through the Christmastime mail masses, only to be deterred at the border. Upon arriving at its destination, it tried to make itself understood to those Americans that a Canadian wanted to go to the conference. The end of the story is yet to be known... :P :D

Also today, I DID go skiing. It was fun. I drove out to the ski hill ALL BY MYSELF. There I met some of my friends and skiied. Well, I skiied, they snowboarded. I have yet to attempt snowboarding. When skiing is such a rare occurance it seems a waste to spend the time I could be skiing learning how to snowboard. One of my friends was just learning how to snowboard though, so we fell off the T-bar when we tried to go up together. It was fun. :D You should all come visit me and I'll teach you how to ski if you don't know how.

2005-12-21T16:46:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I did something new. I worked at a charity supper. Yes, that's new. And I have a whole analysis to do of it.
To clarify: I'm not someone who lives to help the poor or anything like that. Maybe I'd like to be, sometimes, but I'm not. My mom volunteered herself, my sister, and me.
My reaction was "Oh, ok."
So we went. I could be all mellow-dramatic and tell you my views towards the poor (so far as I know there are not any homeless people in town) were drastically changed and my heart ached for them. But I would be lying if I did. Sure, I was glad to help them, but there were no warm fuzzy feelings.
I had fun. I stood next to a friendly acquaintance and doled out Japanese salad with a smile and maybe a few words to whoever wanted it. The people I gave food to were very polite. Some loud, some quiet, and I knew about half of them by sight. I didn't know what my salad was called so it changed names every few people. "It's Mushroom Noodle Salad". To the next person "It's Almond Salad." Yes, I was having fun. :D
My poor salad was un-loved. The person doling out lettuce salad and I laughed when she had to get her bowl refilled for the third time while I was still on the first bowl.
That was what I did yesterday.

Helping strangers doesn't really make me feel good. Ok, I feel good because I did something helpful, not because helping people particularly makes me feel good. I feel good because I did something that doesn't make me feel good.
Somehow I think I just contradicted myself.
Helping people I care about makes me feel more good.

You can all go ahead and be judgemental now. I'm going to stop trying to analyze myself. :-)

2005-12-19T19:19:00.000-06:00

Today I have to talk about parents. Specifically: overprotective parents. Do you know how frustrating it is to have overprotective parents? You probably do. I do.
Normally, my parents are pretty good. Except when it comes to boys. Today I got a letter from a friend. A friend who is a boy. A letter isn't a big deal, right? But it is something my parents would normally tease me about. Teasing is not a problem. Teasing is good.
Mom brought up the letter at supper. "Heidi got a letter from a boy today." My mom is fine with it.
I expected dad to tease me, like he normally does for the slightest reason. Instead, he looked serious "Who from?".
I told him.
Dad: "I'm not surprised. You've been talking to him a lot."
Me: Uh oh.
He looked very serious. And not in a "this is fact" way. It was in a "I'm not happy, but not mad either" way. He thinks something is going on. It's NOT. Arrgh! Parents! Can't I have friends?!
My parents (particularly my dad) are so suspicious it's not even funny. They would trust me to go to a drinking party (which I have NOT gone to, btw), but they don't trust me to be friends with boys. That doesn't make any sense.
To sum up, I don't mind the suspicion. That's not a problem. They'll get used to it eventually. I just worry that somehow my parents will hurt my friendships. I won't let them, and as long as the people I'm friends with won't either, it's all good. :-)
To everybody who reads this: You guys are awesome. Thank you. :-)

2005-12-18T14:40:00.000-06:00

One week til Christmas! Yes, we decorated our tree yesterday. I hope the picture worked. Is my tree not beautiful? :D Oh, yeah, I'm in the pic too... ^_^ I love the new blue lights on our tree. Blue. Yes, that's my favourite colour. :D

Yesterday the roads were very slippery. That's not to say they aren't today, but I was driving more carefully today. Heh heh. Yesterday... Yesterday I skidded twice. It's a bit scary when you turn the steering wheel one way but the car is determined to go the other. ;)
I now have more pity for the dude who almost ran me over. He was skidding too. I was all set to pull an action movie move and roll onto the car as it hit me or something, but then he dashed my action hero plans by gaining control of the car. What a disappointment that was. ;)

Ha! I FOUND OUT something! SCHOOL ends on WEDNESDAY, not FRIDAY like I thought. Haha! I'm hoping to go skiing. The ski hill opens on Thursday! One of my friends is determined to be the first customer. I'm excited. I love skiing. The snowmobilers are also out now as well, because we had quite a snowfall a few days ago. Now we have a decent amount of snow. Not as much as some people (it's fairly dry here) but a decent amount. :D

2005-12-16T14:06:00.000-06:00

Ahh! Revenge of the math compass!
I'm telling you, that compass has it in for me. It thinks I'm Sleeping Beauty. Just poke me and I'll fall asleep for a hundred years. It's stabbed me twice this week. You would think once... *yawns* is enough... *falls asleep*
;)

The Christmas season is crazy. When I'm not going to church for things, I'm doing something else Christmas-related or babysitting for somebody who has their own Christmas parties to go to. And today I was forced to send a politically correct card to my piano teacher. It had snow on it and said "Happy Holidays". I wanted to mutilate it. :D Instead, I fixed it. I made sure there was a mention of Christmas in the note. Ha! One card down, fifty-million to go. Aren't holidays wonderful? Yes, yes they are. I love holidays, crazy as they get. My year is separated in terms of holidays: New Years, Valentine's Day (I'm sure the only reason there is that holiday is because somebody noticed a gap in the Chain of Holidays), Easter, Soccer (ok, so it's not a holiday. I can't think of one at that time of year :P ), summer vacation, Canada Day, America Day ( :P I know), my birthday, Thanksgiving, Halloween, the other Thanksgiving :D , and then Christmas.
And that gets me through another 365 days. :D

We put up the Christmas tree a few days ago and I put our beautiful new blue LED lights on it, but we have yet to decorate it. When we do, I will post a picture. I love how Rachel always puts pictures on her blog. (How do you find so many pictures, Rachel?) :D

2005-12-15T07:48:00.000-06:00

Because I thought this looked like fun when everybody else was putting it on their blogs... :D

TEN YEARS AGO:
Ha! As if I remember anything from that long ago. Ok, I was in grade 1, public schooled. I learned to read, which probably affected my life for the better. ;P

FIVE YEARS AGO:
Five years ago, I was still adjusting to being homeschooled. I still missed not seeing my friends every day. Had a good time at camp that year... Hehe, I remember practically nothing of life before my journals.

ONE YEAR AGO:
Hmm, I'm sure I'll go through the what's-happened-this-year when 2006 comes around so I'll keep this short: Last year I was taking driver's ed and met Alice. Last year I didn't know half of you guys. That automatically makes last year not as good as this year, even though it was a pretty good year. :D

YESTERDAY:
I had piano lessons yesterday. I'm so glad my exam is done, now I can start thinking about songs to play for the festival. Haydn, Chopin, and an undecided third song. I also taught skating lessons. Those are done for the year now. Yay!

5 SNACKS I ENJOY:
Chocolate, milkshakes, hehe pretty much anything with lots of sugar, fruit, umm Cheese. :D

5 PLACES I WOULD RUN AWAY TO:
Hehe. Fun stuff. Only five? Five... St. Cloud, MN; Wisconsin; Michigan; Texas; and, not because I know anybody there but because I want to go, the Caribbean. :D

5 THINGS I WOULD NEVER WEAR:
Anything that shows too much skin, an outfit entirely one colour, lol puke green ;) , those plaid pants my sister has (don't tell her ;) , OK, I'm done with that part and the last thing will be something I WILL wear: My Cape. :D

5 FAVOURITE TV SHOWS:
Enterprise :D, LOST, umm Canadian or American Idol, ... obviously I don't spend as much time in front of the TV as whoever made this survey thought... :-)

Now you know more about me. :-)

2005-12-14T08:00:00.000-06:00

This will have to be a fast post . :-)

My brothers are back. It's amazing how much I accomplished the last two days without them here to distract me. :D Miss them? Miss them?! NO! They're just my family, after all. They'll always come back.

Suddenly I feel very cold-hearted. Oh well, I'll just have to learn to live with that. ;)

Hehe, know what I did yesterday? I practically skated all the way downtown. You guys should see the roads here, they're PURE ICE. VERY bad for driving conditions, but I have to say it made my walk more fun... :D Ok ok, so I looked a lot like a big kid having fun sliding on the ice. Is there a problem with that? :D It was very slippery. It would have been more fun if I'd had somebody to walk/skate with, but my sister and brother abandoned me to go curling with their group. And then they got home and informed me that my group had been curling too. I'm never informed about anything on time because these things are always announced at the school and I'm not there to hear them. Such comes from being homeschooled. I'm used to it. :rolleyes:

I wish I had HT smileys on here... :D

2005-12-12T07:12:00.000-06:00

Today and tomorrow are going to be very quiet. Dad is taking my two youngest brothers on a trip to Regina AND Saskatoon. The house always seems quiet when somebody is missing, and in this case it's the two noisiest kids gone. I'm planning to enjoy it to it's full extent. ;D

I found a group of jokes the other day. Since we've been noticing Canadian/American things, I think you'll enjoy them. They're about American thoughts on Canada. Hopefully you don't have to be Canadian to find them funny. :-)

Fact: 80 percent of Canada's population is located near the border of the United States.
Opinion: Canada may invade the United States at any given moment.

Fact: Some Canadians speak French.
Opinion: Canadians speak French so that Americans can't understand them.
And funnily enough, that's something how I felt when I went on an exchange to Ottawa. I don't speak much French. :D

Fact: Canada is the second largest country in the world (after Russia).
Opinion: Canada feels the need to become the largest country in the world (and in fact was probably behind the split up of Russia).

Fact: Canada has maritime boundary disputes with the U.S.
Opinion: Canada will try anything to increase its size.

Fact: Canada's population growth rate is higher than that of the U.S.
Opinion: Canadians are trying to overpopulate the world.

Fact: Canadians have a longer life-expectancy rate than Americans. (Canadians have a public health care system.)
Opinion: Canadians may not be human.

Fact: The popular FOX-TV show The X-files is filmed in Canada.
Opinion: Canadians are actually alien invaders from another galaxy.

Hehe, I don't know whether this is supposed to make me paranoid or you. :D
I was informed yesterday that I'm too cheerful to be paranoid anyway. But really, THEY'RE OUT TO GET ME!!! ;) :P

2005-12-11T10:16:00.000-06:00

Yeah, I went to see the Goblet of Fire. I'm shocked because it was significantly better than the other three HP movies. I'd given up hope. :-) Moody was NOT like he was supposed to be (not to mention a lot of other things to change), but I enjoyed the movie anyway.

Got to do some Christmas shopping yesterday. The stores were crazy. I'm so spoiled; I normally get to go shopping on weekdays when there's hardly anybody out. 0:-) It's good to be homeschooled.
Only two weeks until Christmas. Isn't that insane? Sure, I knew Christmas was coming. Oh, so that's what all the pretty lights on houses are for... ;P But suddenly it's HERE. Well, at least I'm done shopping. Now I can sit back and wait for all the post-Christmas sales. ;D

The reason I was in the city and able to shop was because I took a music theory exam yesterday. I think I did well. I know one part was a trick question: I recognized it for what it was. Unfortunately, I don't know what the trick was trying to convince me of. :rolleyes: There was evidence in favour of both answers. Oh well. :D

Now I'm going to church. Haha! You all thought I was sitting here skipping church, didn't you. Didn't you. ;) We're decorating the tree today. Yay!

2005-12-10T07:22:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was crazy. I had some errands to run in the morning, which put me behind on schoolwork. Running errands made me happy though, because it was warm outside. By "warm" I mean "above freezing". Above freezing in December? Everything was melting; it made me very happy. And then I hear that they only got their first snowfall in St. Louis a few days ago. Ahh, to live farther south.

Also yesterday we had to play in a piano recital at the nursing home. Heh, the piano was very low (heightwise) so I struggled with that. Oh no, I never practiced trying to play down by my feet. ;) It went well though. And the quartet (yes, I said quartet. A piano quartet) that my brothers and sister and I played was pretty cool. Even if I'm not a fan of Christmas carols.

And then there was soccer. There's not much to say about soccer. It was... soccery. :D I had a good time. I played pretty well. It was fun. I'm glad I'm able to go again. Missed it for a month because of school breaks and vacation.

Oh, Daryl is in Saskatoon now, starting therapy. He has multiple myeloma, which is a blood cancer. They've taken him off the morphine, which is good. He was hallucinating. Those mice, spiders, and mosquitoes weren't real. I'm glad I didn't see him when he was really drugged up, I probably would have started crying. Well, I probably wouldn't have, but I would have wanted to. Anyway, the treatment is supposed to make him start feeling better right away, which is very good. He was in sooo much pain. I don't only hurt for him, I hurt for his mother and sister and brothers who are all suffering because of this too. That family means so much to my family.

And so that I can leave you on a happy note, I'm going to see the Goblet of Fire tonight. I'm not expecting to think much of the movie, but it will be fun. :-)

2005-12-08T15:42:00.000-06:00

Haha! I have a blog; do you have a blog?
>_>
<_<
Well, a lot of you do, but that's not the point. :D
I could go on like this for a while... Don't worry; I just decided not to. ^_^

That Julius Caesar was a pretty cool dude. I had to do a report on him for history this week. He was definitely a politician; if all the politics in his life didn't convince you of that fact, here's another one: he was very bad at finances. Are you convinced? You should be. Unless things are different for all you Americans reading my blog... which they might be, I suppose.

But I doubt it.

Those Roman politicians led dangerous lives. If someone didn't agree with them, they were in very real danger of being murdered. Murdered like Caesar was. I have to say: being stabbed in the Senate was a very dramatic end. There was also poison to worry about. At least one Roman emperor died because his wife poisoned him. HIS WIFE!!! Obviously they had marital problems. A lot of marriages back then were for political gain, so that could explain it. She murdered him so her son (from her first marriage) could be emperor. That was not a smart move, because her son turned out to be one of the worst rulers in history!

There, am I educational or what? ^_^

I love Roman history.

2005-12-07T15:32:00.000-06:00

I know I told Seth I wasn't planning on getting a blog (and I wasn't!), but I just had to.

Hehe, at this point in time, no one even knows I have a blog. I will change that soon. :D Riiiight after I finish posting. This could get addicting, you know. :P

Something that's been bothering me: There were politics going on at the MH chat on Monday. A lurker brought up a problem (youth director giving Communion to the youth group without a pastor) that supposedly happened at his church a year ago. If it had happened last week, I would say he has every reason to be upset. But, it was a year ago. Regardless of this fact, certain other people became very upset and started blaming the pastor for this. It was getting nasty. Upon closer questioning, we found out that the person supposedly giving communion has left that church. I ask you: where is the problem then? It happened a year ago and the person left the church. Obviously, it's too late to change anything. Some people wouldn't listen to that, though. The dude is going to talk to his pastor about it, which is fine, as long as they don't blame him for anything without proof.

What really bothers me is that it got so nasty. We're MH. My perfect image of it was just shattered. In my idealism, I had hoped the HT world was above most of that. I was wrong. It's a sinful world...