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Two of my favorite things about Spring:

and

One of My Favorite Things

Just real quick, I thought I'd tell you about one of my favorite things in the world.

It's really not anything that special for most people.

But it makes me really excited.

Some people wouldn't even think about this being a good thing.

They would consider it just another part of life.

But it makes me feel free...

And relieved...

And accomplished...

And like I can do anything I want to.

I did this tonight on my way home.

I usually do it about every other week, sometimes less.

It costs a pretty good amount of money.

But it's totally worth it.

And it's a necessity.

What would you guess that it is?

Getting a full tank of gas.

It's simple and just another part of life.

Nothing really that special.

But, when I look on my dashboard and it tells me that I have 425 miles until empty, 

I feel like I could go anywhere I want to.

425 miles is a long way.

I feel like I have accomplished something.

I can check something off of my list of things to do.

I feel like a burden is lifted off of my shoulders.

I always dread getting gas.

I usually drive a few days with the fuel light on.

Every time I pass a gas station, I think, 

well it's rush hour...

or,  I am in a rush right now...

or, that gas station is dark and sketchy...

or, maybe I'll get bored and come back later...

or, maybe it will warm up and I'll want to get out...

or, I can't ever figure out how to turn that place's gas pump on...

or, that place has diesel so I better not go there to chance getting it mixed up...

I allow my dashboard to tell me that there are only 3 miles until empty.

And then, I finally go get gas.

This process makes the feeling of a full tank of gas even better.

After driving on empty for 3 days, the worry of running out of gas is lifted from my burdens...

And I am free of one of my worries.

I got gas tonight.

My worries are gone!

Next time you get gas, hope you appreciate the full tank too!

Looking Forward to Fall!

We just have 3 more days until Fall 2010!

I have never said that Fall is my favorite time of the year because I hate that it means that Winter is on its way. But, winter signs aside, Fall is my favorite! (At least right now it is. Once it's March, Spring will be my favorite. Winter will never be my favorite, though.)

Anyways, I was just thinking about a few things that I'm looking forward to:

Chocolate chip pumpkin cookies
                  They are super easy, 3 ingredients, stir, and bake!
Apple Cider

Lots of kinds of really good apples

Bon fires

Cardigan sweaters

Falling leaves

Crisp air, crunchy leaves, clear skies

Pumpkin spice lattes

Fall decorations

And lastly, soup!

SBX

Spring Break 2010 brought with it much relaxation. It wasn't the most exciting thing ever, but it was incredible. I got lots of reading done. I loved The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks and can't wait till the movie comes out. There were nine girls there but a few had to go home throughout the week, and best part--my dad came too!

I just added a few pictures to show the break...

Peeling Scabs Off Myself

This is a little excerpt from a story that I wanted to share with you. It was such an amazing little excerpt that I felt so inclined to type out the entire thing, so you can rest assured that it's worth your time reading it. It won't take long and I think you should catch on if you just read into the first full paragraph.

"Well, anyway, I looked up and saw the very last thing I expected: a huge lion coming slowly toward me. And one queer thing was that there was no moon last night, but there was moonlight where the lion was. So it came nearer and nearer. I was terribly afraid of it. You may think that, being a dragon, I could have knocked any lion out easily enough. But it wasn't that kind of fear. I wasn't afraid of it eating me, I was just afraid of it--if you can understand. Well, it came close up to me and looked straight into my eyes. And I shut my eyes tight. But that wasn't any good because it told me to follow it." (This is Eustace speaking.)

"You mean it spoke?" (Edmund)

"I don't know. Now that you mention it, I don't think it did. But it told me all the same. And I knew I'd have to do what it told me, so I got up and followed it. And it led me a long way into the mountains. And there was always this moonlight over and round the lion wherever we went. So at last we cane to the top of a mountain I'd never seen before and on top of the mountain there was a garden--trees and fruit and everything. In the middle of it there was a well.

"I knew it was a well because you could see the water bubbling up from the bottom of it: but it was a lot bigger than most wells--like a very big, round bath with marble steps going down into it. The water was as clear as anything and I thought if I could get in there and bathe, it would ease the pain in my leg. But the lion told me I had to undress first. Mind you, I don't know if he said any words out loud or not.

"I was just going to say that I couldn't undress because I hadn't any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast off their skins. Oh, of course, thought I, that's what the lion means. So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and, instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I was a banana. In a minute or two I just stepped out of it. I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty. It was a most lovely feeling. So I started to go down into the well for my bathe.

"But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as they had been before. Oh, that's alright, said I, it only means I had another smaller suit on underneath the first one, and I'll have to get out of it too. So I scratched and tore again and this underskin peeled off beautifully and out I stepped and left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well for my bathe.

"Well, exactly the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it, but as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.

"Then the lion said--but I don't know if it spoke, 'You will have to let me undress you.' I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

"The very first tear he made so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling off the skin, it hurt worse that anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know--if you've ever picked the scab off a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is fun to see it coming away."

"I know exactly what you mean," said Edmund.

"Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off--just as I thought I'd done myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt--and there it was, lying on the grass, only ever so much thicker and darker and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me--I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on--and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again. You'd think my simply phony if I told you how I felt about my own arms. I know they've no muscle and are pretty mouldy compared with Caspian's, but I was so glad to see them.

"After a bit the lion took me out and dressed me--"

"Dressed you? With his paws?"

"Well, I don't exactly remember that bit. But he did somehow or other, in new clothes--the same I've got on now, as a matter of fact. And then suddenly I was back here. Which is what makes me think it must have been a dream."

"No. It wasn't a dream," said Edmund.

"Why not?"

"Well, there are the clothes, for one thing. And you have been--well, un-dragoned, for another."

"What do you think it was, then?" asked Eustace.

"I think you've seen Aslan," said Edmund.

I couldn't stop thinking about it after I read it. What an awesome visual C.S. Lewis gave us! (It's from Chapter Seven of The Voyage of the Dawn Trader, which I have been reading over Spring Break.)

By the way, I love peeling scabs. But no matter how many times I try peeling them to make them better, it doesn't make them better, it just leaves a scar. But I do it over and over, thinking that this time, even if it usually doesn't help anything, it might help this time, and plus, I will still have the pleasure of peeling it. Weird? I know. I give myself scars that I don't even have to. But that is for another post.

Anyways, this passage showed me that no matter how much I try, I can't take off all of my nasty, thick, dark, knobbly-looking scabs and skin. But if I only let Christ do it, He will. It will be painful for a little while, but I will be set free with the stripping of my sin by Jesus Christ himself. And this is what I want.

Hope you thought the story was worth reading. :)

Blog Paradin'

There's a blog parade over at Abigail's blog. She's a great blogger, a great writer, and you should check her blog out if you have a few spare moments! A bunch of people are linking up to her blog (including me) and you can look at those too... It's very interesting if you're like me and am slightly addicted to blog-reading.

She has a list of questions and I just choose to answer a few

1. What's your favorite time of the day, and why?

Well, I'd have to say that I love nighttime time. I'm a night owl. That's when I'm most alert. And I get the most done... Cleaning, homework, hanging out, phone calls... Whatever else I might need to be doing.

2. If health wasn't an issue, what food could you live off of?

Easy--chocolate ice cream and peanut butter. Mixed. Or separate. With every single meal.

4. What's one thing that you get teased about a lot?

Well, I get made fun of a lot. One semi-not-too-bad-thing was.. well this wasn't always exactly being teased, but in high school, everyone knew that I have this problem with my legs. If someone hits the back of my knees, (like the way people do to make you kind of fall down but not go to the ground) well, that makes me fall all the way to the ground. So in high school, everyone hit the back of my legs to watch me fall down. They thought it was funny. I didn't really think it was that funny, but I laughed to be nice.

5. If you could choose one movie, book, or TV show to spend your life in, which would you pick? What type of character would you be?

Definitely The O.C. I would be.... Well, I wouldn't want to be the characters who are actually my own age. I'd like to be Kirsten Kohen (the mom) in the first season. I'd change the outcome of her life through the seasons. But yeah, I wouldn't mind being her.

6. If you could have one talent that you don't already have, what would it be?

Well, if you've ever read this post, you know that I have no real talents at all. So, really anything would be nice. Singing would be a nice one. Being able to sing, and better yet, being able to know and remember the correct words, that would be my dream talent. Goodness, I'm getting excited thinking about it!

7.If money were no object, where would you go on vacation?

I'd go to Greece, the Greek islands in the Mediterranean Sea.

8. If you were an awesome singer, which genre would you sing?

I think Christian. That may seem like a boring choice. But really, I would LOVE it. Then in church I could actually sing loudly without people around me thinking I'm being disrespectful.

9. If you could have a $10,000 shopping spree to one store, what would it be?

I've had to think this one out. But, I think I'm going to go with Anthropologie because of things like this:

oven mits...

adorable dresses...

rugs...

And much more! That way I could buy some clothes, but also buy stuff for my house. I feel like if I spent it all on clothes, that would be a total mistake. I'm ready for this money to be coming my way. I have all of my stuff picked out!

10. If you could live in any point in time, when would it be?

Right now. I know that sounds like I'm a pris, but I would hate to live without cars because I realllly don't like horses. And then, there's always the era where they wore dresses all the time, and that seems fun, but really I like to wear my black capri sweatpants at least 4 days a week, and that wouldn't have been acceptable. I guess if I had to live in another time, I'd be born in like 1960, about the time my parents were born. But that would still be rough. No internet (for research papers in college, of course)? No cell phones? No free long distance? No laptops? I am thankful for when I was born.

11. If every outfit in your wardrobe had to be one color, what would it be?

Black. Most of my outfits already include black.

12. If you were one of the seven dwarves, which one would you be?
(Doc, Grumpy, Sneezy, Sleepy, Bashful, Happy, or Dopey)

Probably Bashful? No, just kidding. I may be the opposite of bashful. I would hope I'd be Happy. But for the past 3 weeks, I've been Sneezy, needing Doc. So, I'll probably just go with being Dopey. I feel like I am completely out of it lots of the time... Never know my plans or what's going on, forgetting my words or my schedule. So, sadly, Dopey.

13. What's the last album you listened to?

I never know the names of the people I'm listening to, nonetheless the names of the albums I'm listening to.... So good question. The last CD I listened to was the burned one that is in my car though. It has Jason Derulo's new songs on there, Over My Head and Ridin' Solo. I only know his name because I bought the songs yesterday on iTunes.

14. What's something we'd be surprised to know about you?

I'm taking my 4th semester of Portuguese. I'm actually about to leave for class!

Cheap, Easy, and a Whole New Look!

This new year calls for a new look in the P-Pad (yeah, that's the new name that I just thought of to call our apartment--we all have names that start with a P).

As we were sitting bored today, we decided to rearrange our furniture.

I have so enjoyed the new arrangement. It brings a cozier aspect to the room that we didn't really want in the summer, but now it's perfect! Change is always good after a while of living in the same space. My mother is the queen of moving furniture/rooms (thankfully we never really could move houses easily). Every time I go home there is already a new arrangement, or else she'll ask me to help her move. I love it!

I'm pretty sure I've developed that moving gene.

But, in my mind, there is no reason why you shouldn't rearrange. It never hurts anything.

And in case I haven't convinced you, I'll give you the top 3 reasons to get up off the sofa and move it:

1. It doesn't cost anything, and that is always a plus.

2. Well, it doesn't cost anything besides energy, and especially on rainy days like today, that is always needed.

3. You get a whole new room with just a few shoves of the furniture.

So go ahead and change your furniture around! If you don't like it, change it in a couple of days.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Day...

Waking up early.

Laying around.

Opening presents.

Blog reading.

Laughing.

Lots of text messaging.

Scrambling eggs.

Country ham cooking in Coca-Cola.

Drinking Coca-Cola before breakfast.

Eating chocolate before breakfast.

Playing with little cousins.

Orange juicing.

Laughing.

Wearing clothes with tags on it.

Being uncomfortable because of too much tag-wearing.

Setting the table.

Trying out clothes.

Smelling Mom's feast.

Interesting discussions.

Enjoying Padre's fire.

Relishing in oranges.

Chopping.

Feasting.

Reminiscing.

Watching home videos.

Laughing.

Shooting pictures.

Driving tractors.

Sharing stories.

Laughing.

A long list of things we did.

Ultimately, we did nothing. That's what Christmas Day is about.

My Favorite Day of the Year

Thanksgiving day: My favorite day of the year.

And that's pretty big, because I absolutely adore summer days and I love Christmas.

But, I like Thanksgiving because a.) it's not too hyped up b.) my entire family is here including the Nashville cousins c.) foooood d.) our annual Thanksgiving walk to the brow, and lastly e.) the weather always seems to be perfect November weather.

We also always have step-by-step photographs of what we do for this holiday.

Mother Dear cooked in the morning...

Bry and LA came down while Aunt Ang was getting ready to have everyone to her house for lunch. They juiced some oranges that Padre brought back from Florida.

Bry is adorable.

LA is a cutie.

Thanksgiving is usually at my grandmother's but this year it was at Aunt Ang's lovely new house.

Trey and Jack got into it on the kitchen floor. But they looked happy for the picture.

Mars and Lars.

The kids table...

Mal and Lars

We loved having Laurel and Caroline with us this year.

The adults table. We're allowed to go in there after we've eaten.

We can talk... A lot.

Elle got ENGAGED on Thanksgiving Eve so it was our first time to see her. We were so excited!

Elle and me with her ring. She's my "same-age" cousin (we all have a pair in my family)... It's so crazy she's getting MARRIED.

LeeLee and Bry on our "walk" to the brow.

It's Aunt Lori, Bry and Leelee.

Cutie.

Well, we actually failed at the walk this year. Time got away from us and it would have gotten dark by the time we got to the brow. Our solution?

We drove on our "walk."

We still got pictures... Even though we broke the walk tradition.

My cousins except the two oldest and one youngest. And Jack, who was taking the picture for us.

Look at that adorable couple!

Sweet Mego and Bry. She's holding him so he wouldn't run off the side of the mountain.

Loving my cousins.

We left Jack there accidently but we came back to pick him up. He was our photographer for the walk. Nice effect, right?

Anyways, it was a good day as we shared memories, broke a few traditions, and didn't even burn any of the calories that we consumed with a walk.

I am so thankful for this family that I have. We might be a little odd at times, as we pointed out yesterday, but that's okay. They make me laugh. And I have fun with them every single time we're together.

Hope your Thanksgiving was as good as mine!