every thought a thought of You

havent done this in awhile. ive had better things to do. now dont you feel special?

(...just kidding)

ive been busy, but thats never a bad thing. i love being busy, summer break busy, still hard-at-work busy but not nearly as stressful as it was during school busy.

I've been working a lot. getting pretty good at making samiches and now i can do any kind of prep, and i can put the cucumber/bell pepper/ onion slice-y thing together all by myself.
whooo.
its a pretty fun job, though, probably because of the crazy people i work with. everyone has their own story, and they're all pretty different.
Helen just moved here last year from Alabama. she came to subway just a month or two afterward and has been working there ever since, and she still doesnt know anyone here but the people at work.
Kristine is 20 and is married and has a 14 month old. her family went through a whole bunch of religeons while she was growing up so now she's just decided that she believes in God and thats all. she hates religeon.
zach works as a medic at kirtland air force base. subway is his second job and he hates it. today they were playing with fake blood.
...............
zalo, larue, erica, anthony, peggy....
etc etc etc.

they're all crazy. and eccentric. but they keep things interesting and thats the way i like it.


My graduation party was on saturday. it was stressful to plan and set up for, but in the end im thinking it was worth it. Laura's parents showed up, i was kind of suprised. it meant a lot to me that they showed up. also that bryan and leon showed up, i love spending time with those two. They're practically my brothers. We had a lot of fun and they stayed for two hours afterward talking.
i dont know why, but i kinda thought Richard might be there. found out recently that they brought him home so he could see my grandpa once more before he died, and so i guess i thought if they brought him back for that they could bring him back again... foolish i guess. but i was a little disappointed nonetheless.
i miss him. wish i had been there that night they brought him to see my grandpa.

bryan was just here visiting, actually. he said that he might go move to seattle sometime soon, just because he wants to live somewhere where its cool and rainy. i told him he should live in Portland instead. If he moves, im going to visit him for a while. It would be cool if its portland; i want to revisit all the familiar spots.
been missing portland a lot lately.

i think i just want to go on a trip, somewhere, anywhere, if only for the day. can't wait till camp, just to get away for awhile out in the woods, look up at night at all the stars and the milky way looking back at me as if to remind me of how much God loves me, and how He's involved in every little thing and always will be.

Sometimes when im driving the truck or the van, i look at how much gas there is left and i think of how far i could get on that. i think of however many dollars i have in my wallet on the seat next to me, how much gas i could buy with it, how far i could get on that in addition to whats in the tank. and i think of the growing roll of bills in my pig bank at home, how long i could live off that.
Sometimes when im out driving, i just dont want to come back. just wanna drive, and drive, and drive, watch the scenery eventually change, listen to every song i own on the way, thinking about anything and everything, get out at some secluded place and think about how full of God it is, that though not much is seemingly going on there EVERYTHING is going on and God knows everything about it because thats how he is; he cares and thats who he is.
I think about what'll happen if i run out of gas. I'd probably get out and start walking, take what i can carry, what i can live off. After all, if i'd gone that far, why not just keep going?

anyway.
im excited about the future.
im hopeful.
and i dont mean that in an "i wish" sort of way, i mean that in a God sort of way.
:)

*************************************************************************************************************************
Music-

zee avi
bitter heart,
honey bee,
i am me once more,
first of the gang to die,
darlin' it ain't easy,
just you and me

neutral milk hotel
in the aeroplane over the sea,
holland, 1945,
oh, comely,
two headed boy,
king of carrot flowers

mewithoutYou
every thought a Thought of You,
timothy hay
wolf am i,
c-minor,
o, porcupine,
in a sweater poorly knit,
messes of men.

blacking out the friction

my dad left today for austin, texas. i didnt even know he was going anywhere till friday night.
does that mean that im a bad daughter, or that i dont care?
clinton knew two weeks ago. when i found out i tried talking about it, but they were silent as they have been lately. i know they think i havent been spending enough time with them and that im ignorant.
im confused and frustrated about my parents. seems like they've been constantly angry at me for the past three weeks. sometimes when they start to seem to warm up a little, i tell them i have some sort of plans with friends or work and their storm clouds roll over and its silence again. its like a cut that has potential to get better, but once it starts to heal i come along and rub mud in it and it goes right back to the beginning. i dont like it being there, but i also dont like what its going to take to make it heal. so as long as i can stand it being there, i rub mud into it over and over and over again and do my best not to care.
lots of times, i really dont care. i know i should, but i just dont.
other times, i care a whole lot, because though its their fault things are this way between us, its also my fault. i tried making it better, but it didnt work. ive been trying harder, wonder what's gonna happen now?

everything's been going great at work. i learn a lot about the people i work with every time i go in, and let me tell you they are interesting people. some of them are really weird, moody, loud, but i like all of them.
the only thing i dont like about it is all the gossip. everyone seems to get along, but man if youre alone with one of them you hear every story floating around about all the others. it is so hard not to get in there with them repeating the same stories. (wonder what they say about me?) despite all that they seem to be fairly loyal. the gossip is just annoying.

im loving life since school is over. everything is music and letters in the mail and work and making things and writing and expeditions to the library, and bike rides and ice cream runs and renting movies and reading and talking to friends and watching sunsets. Everything is God. more real than ever.

(cant stop listening to neutral milk hotel or mewithoutyou)

just finished reading a stephen king book this morning. It was a little slow at first, but after the first half it was everything i love in a book, where you can pick it up and forget about time and everything else. When i finished it this morning, i read for three hours straight and thought only one hour had gone by. i love that.

this thursday is the last thursday night small group ever. we're having a cereal party- everyone brings cereal and votes on the best one. im really excited, ive always wanted to do something like this. we always have the best ideas :)

tomorrow im gonna start a magazine vase.

oh, comely

mothers day?

im afraid i didnt make it super special for mine. im glad shes not the type of mom thats like, "oh you didnt get me a card, you must not care."
i do appreciate her. she does a lot for me.

it was weird listening to jeremys message on saturday, how he was saying that you should still be pleasant to your parents and respect them, even when they dont respect you.
i have a terrible time respecting people who dont respect me.
my parents dont respect me a lot of the time. why is christianity so hard?
no, im glad its hard. it'll make the reward in the end that much more magnificent.

(why can i never sleep lately?
im so tired, but really i cant decide if i ever want to sleep sometimes. its very strange.)

i had a really amazing weekend. but when do i not, these days?
so the rents went to pick up clinton on friday. i stayed, thank goodness for work excuses. i love being home alone.
actually, i wasn't home practically the entire time, i left as soon as they did. i dont like staying in one place.

went to second saturday for the first time yesterday. we painted joy junction.
i knew hardly anyone there, but it really didnt matter. we came together anyway, ripping apart packaging to paint brushes and sharing buckets, getting each other water and stuff without even being asked. it was an enormous project, but we got it done in only a few hours. we came together for God.
http://sagebrushmissions.wordpress.com/second-saturday/2nd-saturdays/may-2009/
josh took pictures.
my elbow is throbbing to its own beat. ben gibbard could probably make a song out of it. maybe i will call him up and find out.


======================================================================================
music-
oliver james, fleet foxes
on an aeroplane over the sea, neutral milk hotel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TMDLWcHVZc



What a curious life we have found here tonight
there is music that sounds from the street.
There are lights in the clouds,
Anne's ghost all around
hear her voice as it's rolling and ringing through me-
Soft and sweet!
How the notes all bend and reach above the trees.

they all surrounded me

i had no idea what i would do with my time after finishing school, but this week has been really great. very different, and im always ok with that.

found out my grades on monday; i did ok. its amazing how much life has changed since last semester. there was so much going on then, and im so so so glad im past all that because life was terrible.
ive never understood so well what amazing timing God has than i do now.
thank you, Lord.


tuesday morning i went down coors and applied at a million places. about an hour into it, i walked into subway, asked if they had any openings, and what the lady said was, "Heres an application, if it stays this dead i will interveiw you right now." So i sat down and filled it out as fast as i could.
The interveiw lasted about 5 minutes. afterward, Kristine (the manager) said that she would give me a call later that day.
basically, i walked into subway, talked to the manager for 5 minutes, and started work the next day. I got really lucky, actually.
I like it though. they say i caught on fast. i can make every sandwich they have, which is a LOT, and today i learned the register which is really stressful, but i know i can get the hang of it. and i made teriyaki chicken stuff. whooooo.
did you know they spray the bread with water when they take it out of the oven? weird.

ive spent a lot of time wishing my parents were different, or that i could have been born into an entirely different family. but if i were, most likely i could be placed in a part of the world that is poor and diseased, and i would have little chance of a good future. Or, my parents could not be christians, and i would never know God for it.
i would not be the person i am today were it not for my parents, just as they are. so now, i am thanking God for them just the same.

its definitely been a 'praise God' week.

right now, im listening to a bunch of different versions of Just Like We Do. its one of my favorite songs ever. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFWHA2RWgGk&feature=related

tomorrow should be amazing. mah parents are driving down to los cruces to bring clinton home for the summer, so they will be gone pretty much all day. im going to work, and hanging out with special someones afterward, and i will finally get the thread for a special project ive been excited about.
(dont really know how i feel about clinton coming home. come to think of it, it'll be weird. ive lived with him my entire life up until last year, and we've both changed so much in that time. i really dont know how we'll get along. it will just be kinda weird, i guess)

i think im allergic to coffee. my stomach hurts really bad every time i drink a lot of it. im really wishing i would throw up right now and be done with it.


========================================================================================

technicolor girls- death cab for cutie
they all surrounded me- eisley
in an aeroplane over the sea- neutral milk hotel

is it weird to have a poem stuck in your head? ive had The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock stuck in my head all day. i was making sandwiches today and i kept thinking over and over,
Let us go then, you and i
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
and sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
of insidious intent
Oh, do not ask, "what is it?"
let us go and make our visit.

we're not half as bad as God is good

I was looking for a verse, but i couldn't find it.

it was something Josh said last night, that our prayers to God are like a sacrifice with an insanely amazing smell, and God just sits there and smells it, enjoying it, his big eyes rolled up in his head, and that he keeps all our prayers in a goblet because he loves them so much.
i love that my prayers mean so much to God. It makes me want to pray more and more and more, and then again, and then more often- i want to make and feel something that i know will be appreciated, and enjoyed by the One i love.
Because i think i have an idea of what He feels when he's sitting there smelling our prayers and knowing that we love him with our prayers and knowing that he already loved us unconditionally, but just proud that we have accepted his love and chosen to give Him ours.
Though it may be a small one, miniscule even, i think i have an idea.

http://www.theocentric.com/ecclesiology/worship/ooh_that_smell_1.html
If you have time, you might think this is interesting. read it, or just skim it.

Just as our bodies possess their own unique scent, over time our attitudes and actions create a certain unique spiritual scent. The question is: Are we putting off a sweet fragrance or a foul stench? Just as we pay attention to make sure our bodies exude a nice smell through the use of perfumes and deodorants, we should also pay attention to the spiritual smells we exude through our attitudes and actions.

i like that part.
what do i smell like to God? maybe i'll find out when i meet him, or maybe i will never know, maybe i can never know. but i can understand that.

Graduation today. the last graduation was unexpectedly amazing; i wonder what this one will have in store?


a month ago today, about 12 noon, i was sitting in the bed of Josh's The Chariot and he asked me to be his girlfriend.
and, as you know, i said
y
e
s


======================================================================================
music:
c- minor, mewithoutyou
vintage people, eisley
lady blue, as cities burn



I'm water, you're the dry wood
equal parts misguided and misunderstood
but all the neighborhood
watched a fire burn from where they stood
as the smoke said
"we're not half as bad as God is good"

like a cloud

i woke up with the sun.

GED today. the first part, at least.
we walked in a single file line, no talking, put your belongings in the left corner of the room, go to your assigned seat- that sort of thing. English up first; i never worry much about english because it comes naturally to me. The man behind the table told us that statistically, only 55% of people pass the GED. how sad. the lady behind the other desk tried to cover it up with, "But im sure you'll all do great..."
uh-huh.

it was pretty easy though. Also we had to write an essay. It was really weird writing about "my favorite game" after taking english and writing a bunch of essays on much deeper topics this semester. I think God was laughing at me again.
after english came math. we had to watch a video about how to work a calculator, and another one about how to fill in a scantron. Seriously? What a waste of 20 minutes.

we got a peice of scrap paper to work out problems on. The lady said we could do whatever we wanted with it, "write a love note to your 'honey', i dont care."
thought that was funny.
anyway, im not worried about the results.

i just got back from a really long bike ride. its impossible to stay inside on a day like today.
rode to the park and lay in the grass for awhile. there were little kids playing t-ball and baseball in the feild next to me, people throwing frisbees for their dogs, teenagers walking hand in hand, women running on the trail so that they can squeeze into bikinis sometime this summer. i made a ladybug friend. she traveled slowly down my arm onto a blade of grass, climbed to the end of it, up the tip of my finger, spread her wings and drifted away. made me wish i could fly too, or that i was a speck and could fit on her back.
i love the way clouds move in the sky. Theyre so determined to get somewhere, but in no particular hurry.

I got bored so i picked up and went places ive never been on my bike before. there were busy streets and the cars kicked up little peices of cotton that flew up my nose. i think im the only one who notices my tan.
its there. you just gotta look closely.

i love that feeling you get after coming home from a bike ride, where you feel like you could fall over but you just feel really really good.

i know God wants me to be happy.
i am, very.

i dont remember being this happy in a long, long time.



=====================================================================================
music-
shut up and let me go- ting tings
paper wings- rise against
silver bugs- eisley

the face of gratified desire

can you believe i havent written a blog in an entire week? crazy.

its been busy, just studying for the two finals i took today. Physics was a killer, but im thinking it went ok. Although i never know what to expect, since i honestly have no idea what im doing when it comes to physics. i totally BSed my way through that one, no kidding.

For english i had no idea what to expect. We had to write an essay over the test period, and she didnt give us any clues as to what it would be on, other than one of the readings we went over this semester. we went through a lot. actually, that was my favorite class this semester. the professor was hard and gave a lot of homework, but it was fun as well as homework goes.
seriously, a class where you read stories and then discuss them? sign me up, especially before math or science or math disguised as science... coughphysicscough.
(i just realized you should definitely not read this next part if you are in my english class)
anyway, i had just read one of the required readings for the first time last night even though it was assigned like last month sometime. http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~keith/poems/English_B.html
Theme for English B by Langston Hughes. i really loved it and didnt think much of it, but when i sat down for the test and was reading the essay question choices, i noticed that there was one for this poem. it was something like this- why does the speaker question the statement, "and let that page come out of you, then it will be true"? do you think writing requires more than it coming out of you? if so, what?
i'd love to hear your ideas to see how they compare to mine.

after everything was done, i randomly thought, hey- no more physics. ever.
just makes me very happy, thats all.

went to church with josh on saturday. i love spending time with that guy. i see God so much when i do.
i love the fact that every aspect of our relationship comes from God.
went on a bike ride today and met josh at the park. we sat and swang on the swings and i never ever wanted to come home. but here i am.

nother graduation on saturday. we've been busy with that- making a science fair panel board thing with some of my stuff on it, and a scrapbook with so so many memories, and ordering a cheesecake and stuff. i really wanted a peice of that cheesecake today.
im looking forward to this graduation. it'll be a lot smaller and more personal, and there will be so many people that i love there. afterwards i will be whisked away in josh's wing'ed The Chariot.
oh oh i cannot wait to see what my suprise is!
i love suprises.

there will be lots more time for making stuff now :)
overall, i'd say its been a good semester. especially the past month- that has been incredible in a sometimes strange way. i mean, there were good moments and bad moments, but the bad moments were just as incredible as the good ones, only in a different way.
I dont know why it happened now, but im not questioning it. God has the most absolute perfect timing; ive really experienced that this month.

im thinking im the happiest ive been in a long, long time.


gkahle (music in german)-
be kind- eisley http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhrRJXyAwJA&feature=related
brownish spider- mewithoutyou
happiness is a warm gun- the beatles