Oh Goodness

OK, who in the world gets sore from golfing?? Well apparently I do. The whole right side of me is stiff. I've been walking around like a cripple. Here I was laughing at the idea that the school wants to keep their students fit by having golfing as an option of sports.

Go Falcons!

Ha ha. I just wanna apologize to you all about my college and only college writings. I'm just so excited about it! I can't believe I made it to college. I'm only the 2nd person in my extended florida family to go in the last 30 years or so. I'm also just excited to see where it all leads to.
What is at the end of this road?? Who knows. I would of never guessed before coming to bible school that I would go for a whole 3 years, meet life long friends, go to Israel two times, and just basically have my whole life changed! So it's neat to see where the next road is going to lead.
Today was the first day of classes and it went really well. I never got lost and didn't have any nervous breakdowns. The first class ever in my college career...drum roll please....GOLF! Yessss. How exciting, you guys didn't know you knew the next Tiger Woods did you?? We didn't do anything really, he just explained what the class is going to be like and then let us go. Then there was chapel and man! those kids can sing! It was almost moving to hear everyone around me sing Lord lift me onto higher ground. Then I went on to public speaking and they even apply biblical applications to public speaking. He was all like, "In the beginning was the WORD..." so words are important you see? Then onto bible class. The teacher talked about how important the Old Testament is and that we shouldn't ever leave it out. He's really fun and my homework is to read the bible tonight, I think I can handle that. Yeah, and basically I've heard everything that he said before, thanks Mr. M. So that was that. Oddly enough I think the most exciting part of the whole college experience is having my own on campus mail box! What can I say? I'm my father's daughter.
So thankyou everyone for your prayers. It's been so encouraging going to this school, meeting alot of christian people. I'm really impressed with how the school operates all and all, it just like bible school all over again, except 500 more students. Singing and chapel everyday, prayers at the beginning or end of classes and biblical applications being thrown at you all the time.

The new phase of life begins.......

So I hate these comment spammers. Is there anything I can do about it? I feel so overwhelmed right now and classes haven't even started! O'well, I'm sure it's perfectly normal freshman panic syndome or something. Well I didn't make it in the choir, but I'm kinda releived. I think the Lord knew that maybe it would be too much for me right now. At least I tried, and at least I was in the Fairwood Choir for 3 whole years =). Now I can join some other club i've been looking into.
Well I'm excited, I think. Can I tell you all my classes?? Ok so first there is Western Civ of course. Then English 1102, History and Geography: Old Testament (everyone has to have some kind of bible class every weekday). Then there is Biology and the lab with that and Golf I and Public Speaking.
Yesterday was orientation. It started at 8 and went on and on. I got home finally at 4 but then had to go back again for the the teacher ceremony. Devotions started at 9:30 but at that point I couldn't do anymore. I was so tired, I took off my dress shoes and ran a long way to my car in the pouring rain. It was really fun actually and it helped to get rid of some of that building stress.
So just about everyone I met was from some another state. I talked to only 2 Florida people. People were pretty nice but I felt a little out of the loop because everyone there is living on campus except maybe 10%. So everyone is walking around with their new best friend, their roommate. I walked around with a girl from Idaho for a little while. I'm so glad she stepped on my shoes from behind me or we wouldn't of never met. She reminded me of a young Pat M. =) And she was obsessed with Disney. She had a disney shirt on but then later I noticed her disney purse. Oooh my. But I don't know if I'll ever see her again. Then some boy from Georiga started talking to me on and on about how he wants to open a Chic-fil-la some day and how rich he's going to be. "That's just great" I thought, moving on now. I sneaked away as he started talking with another group. Twice we got together in a little group and some "older" students talked about the rules of the school and dressing modestly and all that. Alot of the students didn't take the rules so well. Then we played stupid games like flemigo tag. I won't even explain. I have to go back to school to meet with the group one more time in about 1 hour. Ok enjoy the rest of your summer.

Oh yeah

I was just reading Sara's blog and forgot all about the Andrew Card guy. So that was cool. Andrew Card who works with the president. He was the guy who wispered to the president on 9/11 that something bad had happened as Bush was talking to the elementary school children. He has house just a few houses away from the camp. Everytime we drove buy the security people would always eyeball us and my dad would endlessly mimick what they were probably saying to each other, such as, "Hold your fire, I think they'rel just passing through". One day we sat on the porch spying on them with our binoculars. It was a funny sight. Here the body guard guys were standing on their own boat, arms crossed, watching the family intensely as they raced around the lake tubing, having a wonderful time laughing and talking. I think I saw Andrew Card flip over into the water. How cool is that??

done being a maniac

I was going to put off blogging for a little while, but then just decided i'd better do it now before things get too busy. Maine was great. I had a wonderful little break. Two funerals on one vacation, i'd say that's a record. So let me see, well Saturday I was having a panic attack because I really thought that going on a plane would make my head swell up and I was just bound to die. Thankfully I remembered that God has an endless supply of peace so I grabbed hold of some and I was fine, and I didn't die after all.
It's been a few years since being up at our camp so when I looked at it I asked my parents if they thought the neighbors were embarrassed living next to this little shack. It's pretty awesome really, wish I had a picture. It has a string of lights hanging across the front. Not just any lights, but colored owl lights from the 70's. Also a string of shell lights in the bushes. Then there are the 3 flemigos in the front, about 5 wind chimes, 8 bird feeders. It doesn't lack character, that's for sure. Inside, for those who are Napoleon Dynamite fans, Melissa said that it looks alot like his house, but a miniture version. You know, knit-nacs everywhere, floral brass pictures on the panel walls. Chairs from the 50's. And you feel like your walking up and down some slopes, especially in the kitchen area. The dining room slopes downward quite a bit. In about 5 years that camp will probably slide down into the lake. Oh and it's pretty hard core camping. All plumbing comes from the lake itself, which can make things a little difficult.
I didn't do much of anything. I think the best part was going to Fairwood for a few hours. Also having Melissa and Sara come up and visit me for the day. But other than that I went to my great aunt Ruth's burial service (never met her). We visited my uncle Russel a few times, showed him how to put his anqiue license plates on ebay and went to LLBean. Yippeee. Oh, and of course we swam in the lake a few times. When Sara and Melissa visited, we spent alot of the time collecting clams and talking alot about how we're going to steam them just for the fun of it.
The day the girls were there we were on our way to get some pizza to celebrate my birthday early. On the way there I wanted to stop at a redemption place to get rid of my cans and bottles, I was so excited! So we saw a big sign that said something something redemption here. So I went to my parent's car to ask them what I was suppose to do next and 2 girls come out and asked us if we needed help getting somewhere. I was like, "uh, no but thanks" thinking that was a little strange. I got my bags of cans and walked into the building. The 2 girls on the couch turn their heads and look at me. Oh no I thought, "Is this your house??" "yes" they said. Oops. That was embarrassing. I guess that redemption place went out of business quite a few years ago. But why have that sign still up?? Well they were nice and told me how to get to the real redemption place. And here Melissa and Sara sat in their happy little car laughing at the whole show. So anyway the pizza was really good oh and I almost got a whole $2 from the cans. That was worth it.
It was really sad to leave. I had to say more good-byes after too short of time. Then knowing that I was about to fly back down just to leap into scary college stuff. Sure enough, once we got back home it was time to go to school for the parent/student cookout. We missed the cookout part and just went to the parent orientation.
Today after church I did the scariest thing ever! I tried out for the Florida College Chorus. Oooh my. How dreadful. Actually it really wasn't that bad. I went to the school not knowing at all where to go for tryouts. Thankfully some students were just getting back from church and they pointed out where to go. I walked into the room with 4 people staring at me. I didn't know what to do, I didn't realize there was a sign up sheet on the door. Scrolling down the long list there wasn't an opening until 7pm. Oh goodness, I can't do that. I'm pretty lucky I guess, because no one was really around yet so they decided to squeeze me in. I looked at the paper and saw that I would have to sight read, or sing, or whatever you call it. I was about to walk out right then and there. The first guy came out saying, "Oh man, I never thought I sung so bad." That gave me a little encouragement. The girl came out saying that they would squeeze me in now so in I went in front of the scary music director people. First I had to do the sight singing, ugh. Then sing after the piano, then sing "This is my Father's world" w/o music. At least it was something I knew. I played that song on the guitar 100 times in bible school. Well it was over and I sighed a big sigh of relief as well the directors did too, ha. So i'll see if my name made it on "the list" or not tomorrow. As long as I get involved in something i'll be happy.
You can pray that i'll make it through the week and i'll meet the right friends. Tomorrow orientation, next day orientation, then class along with skating parties, concerts, singing, beach picnics and so just way too much social activity going on if you ask me.

Well i'm still glad it's all over with, but the second I pulished that last blog everything went spiraling down hill from there. So maybe getting your wisdom teeth out isn't the easiest thing in the world. Now I know. It all started when I took some meds for the pain, even though there was no pain. It said on the label all bold "MAY CAUSE DIZZINESS". Well that should be fun I thought. That's when I went on the computer to tell you all how well and dandy everything has been going. Once I clicked publish post the dizziness hit me so fast I could hardly wait for the publishing to be done. I ran to bed and waited for it to pass. Then through out the day I was either in bed, or just feeling sick. When I turned on the tv everything that moved and made a noise make me sick. Once my dad opened the front door and the noise of the crickets pouring in made me sick. There was no end to it. Well right now I feel pretty good, but can't be sure it will last. Hopefully it will last because tomorrow I have an early flight. = /
Oh yeah, I probably won't be writing in my blog for a while because i'm going on vacation. Flying up to Manchester tomorrow, maybe stopping at Fairwood to get some of my stuff and throw a party with the girls. Then on Sunday we're headed up to Maine to stay at the old family camp. Have a good weekend everybody.

yay, it's done!

I'm happy to say that two dreaded things that made my summer look scary are over. The first thing was my algebra class. I had my last class/finals on Tuesday. God really did carry me through, and far better then expected. The next thing was getting my wisdom teeth out. All four of them at once, all impacted. It was the easiest thing ever. Thankyou to those who prayed for me. I went to the surgeon at 7:30am. Went to the room where they straped me down, put in an iv, and put oxygen over my nose. When they did that I was like oh no, quick! have to tell him I won't be around next for the check up. "I'm going on vacation, but i'll call you when I get back", and then I was out. Whew, did it. 20 minutes later they carried me to the recovery room, but I don't remember that at all. 20 minutes later I woke up and they asked if I was ready to go home. I couldn't believe it was already over. They carried me to the car, just like you said Claire, like an old lady. I slept at home and when I woke up I just started bleeding like mad. Blood was everywhere, I was trying to chage the guaze in my mouth but was no good. I had to do it over and over. It just kept gushing. I was panicing because mom went to the store, and I just thought that it would never stop! It was like a horror movie, but I'll say no further on that. I prayed that it would just stop, PLEASE. After a few minutes it did stop and I went back to sleep. So far I haven't experience any pain, but my cheeks are still swelled up like a chipmunk's. The only nusiance I see, other then the bleeding, is that i'm so hungry all the time. Yesterday I could only drink cold drinks and I would of done anything for a big fat steak . At least today I can go beyond the drinks and eat a big tub of KFC's mashed potatoes!

Just call me Miss Fix It

Well since I can't seem to easily go to sleep let me tell you my little adventure with the VCR, getting chills yet? Earlier today I scrammbled online in desperation to see if any fix it man was on. Last night I was watching..well i'm afraid to say it because then you all will think for sure that i'm totally obsessed...uh, just use your imagination. So anyway, I was watching this movie on Saturday and stopped it because we were going to church game night, woo. Oh and may I just add that I was Doctor Bob in mofia, outlaw, or whatever you wanna call it, and the outlaw shot two people and then I picked those same two people right after wards. Make any sense? I don't know but everyone else was impressed. So, back to the story. I was going to watch it later that night and turned on the tv. It just made a strange noise and then the tv just shut off again. It did this everytime I turned the stupid thing on. Well the video was stuck, and this was a video that I rented from the library! So I had these dreaded thoughts of paying $200 worth of bills for late fees, damage fees, getting the video stuck in your tv fees. So then today I remembered that the video was still stuck and it wasn't just going to unstuck it's self (can I use that word?). So that's when I came online and online 2 people were on and one said to e-mail Brad and maybe take the tv apart. The other just plainly said, "Open up the VCR." Oh yeah and there was, "Why are you still living in the stone age?". Take it apart eh? Well it was the only way to steer clear from the $200 dollars that I didn't have for some old 70's movie. So I unplugged the tv, brought it out to the living room and told my mom, "I'm bringing it out here just in case I get electrocruted." She laughs. So I start unscrewing all these screws and pulled it apart. Mom started helpping after a while. Dad finally comes along and says,"What are you silly girls doing?? Let a man do his job!"......oh ...wait, that's not what he said excatly. It was more like, "Well I need to get out and do something, think it's too late to go to the park?" Then he was off. So, hopelessly left alone, we were on the verge of giving up. The tape just wasn't going to come out. Then with one last prayer I yanked some part, I don't know, and wondered if the wires could unsnap or not. They could of course and now we could have better access to the tape. Well finally we got it out! HURRAH! It was victory at last.
I was looking at all the tv parts on the living room floor and asked my mom if we could just throw it in the trash. It was only the backroom tv and it had been seeing better days. Well she encouraged me to put it back together, just to see if I could, she said. Well I did...and it doesn't work. Now that I think about it, don't call me Miss Fix It because I didn't fix anything. All I did was tear apart the tv and get a tape out. Sigh, but that's the best I can do i'm afraid.

Honeymoon Island 

Now this is how the South makes an ice coffee. Hmmm, you want one right now don't you? 

My Adventures with Sara

I just love it when new englanders come to visit me. God has been good to me once again with a wonderful visit from Sara L. I'm so glad it worked out for her to come! I told her soon after graduation, "I'm already feeling it girl (that is, the horrid blothpick feeling) so you better come visit me this summer." Well she got the tickets, even after my threats and my constantly calling and IMing her to see if she got them yet.

Well if you're going to be bored with my list of what we did then stop reading now... OK, so, first off I surprised her (sorta) with tickets to the devil rays vs. red sox game that I just purchased the day before. She pretty much knew that was most likely what the surprise was going to be (thanks alot Kimberly). Well it was that scary game when Clement got hit in the face by the ball. We had no idea what was going on because when you're actually at the game they don't tell you nothin, as i'm sure most of you know. But thankfully he's doing ok now. The game went on and what a good game it was! I didn't even know who to cheer for. I was pulled between my home team, and my other home team (by heart). I just decided to go for the devil rays because they needed my support. There were way more red sox fans then devil ray fans it seemed.

So that was that. My mom had tickets to Busch Gardens so we took advantage and went there the next day. I wanted to ride the new roller coaster Shieka that goes straight 90 degrees down. Well Sara needed to work her way up in the roller coaster world so we started out small and worked our way to the bigger coasters. Poor Andrea got pushed on the scariest one the first thing when I went with her (sorry Andrea). That was the roller coaster we got on last and it was still a big no no for Skieka.

The next day after I got out of class we went to a cool store when they have all name brand clothes but it's all thifth store prices called Plato's closet. Now i can't remember what we did. O'well, Friday we painted the kitchen, most of it. Saturday we went canoeing. I also should say that the whole time here we were gator hunting. Sara wanted to see one in the wild so we were on a mission. But no gators were seen on that day. But we did get lost! How we got lost on a little river I'm not really sure, but we accomplised it. We just passed the place where we were suppose to stop and get out, but we got there eventually (45 minutes later).

Saturday night we went to see a Wizard of Oz play with my Dad, Robbie and Katie. That was pretty fun, the performance was a little sad, but hey, it was their opening night and they were all nervous i'm sure. My uncle wants me to audition for the next play coming up, Charlie Brown the musical! Something very small inside of me wants to audition just for the fun of it, but not a musical. That's just too much.

Then Sunday we went to church and had a bible sword competition. Then you'll have to go to Sara's blog to read her story about our lunch afterwards (Saralee85.blogspot.com) hehehe, poor girl. So it was funny because she always attracted some kind of attention. She was either wearing her red sox shirt or she would just look spanish. Like for example, she was wearing her Damon shirt and some drunk guy just yells out "Yankee" and then he was like, "I thought that would get your attention." Then at the airport some guy waiter said after we sat down,"I can't believe you seated a red sox fan" to the other waiter. Oh brother! Get a life. Then the spanish thing. People would just start speaking spanish to her out of no where. She does look spanish, especially down here with her black curly hair. Then people thought I was spanish too because I was with her. Even on the canoe, when we were soaking up the nature around us some guys shout "HOLA!" to us from the bank.

Monday we went to Rainbow Springs with Lori and Jimmy. It was a pretty nice day, and it never rained, just thundered a little. Sara and I took a walk and she was in awe of the huge spider and I kept trying to catch little bugs to throw in the web. Then we were on our way back and she gasped and grabbed my arm and I was like what is wrong with this girl?? But I looked down and saw a snake next to us on the side walk and I started laughing. Then the sad Tuesday came. We took one last expedition to find some gators at Lettace Lake Park. We were getting on the boardwalk and this time I gasped and wacked Sara (on accident) because I didn't want her to walk right past the snake making his way off the boardwalk. She took a picture and then we kept going. Lo and behold a GATOR! Just a baby one but it was a victorious sighting only a few hours before I had to drive her to the airport. We walked to the tower and saw 2 more gators! It was a happy time. Usually when you look for them you never find them, well we proved that theory wrong. So it was awesome. Thankyou Sara for coming, and I miss you and hope to see you soon!