Television and the Lessons It Teaches

It's that time again. The Bachelor is back! Trashy television- heck yes. Good entertainment- definitely. And if there is one thing that the seasons can teach you is that sharing personal stories or even saying positive statements wins you the prize of kisses. I think that is THE only thing you can learn from the show besides the fact that you probably won't find love on the show. Well, that is with the exception of Trista and Ryan, but they were from the Bachelorette and I don't think that counts. With the Bachelor back on air there is all sorts of activity at my house. We watch it as a group with great mockery of the entire premise and read recaps like this one. I recommend jumping on the bandwagon and enjoying the ridiculousness of the show.

Later Days,

Blendy

The Jesus You Can't Ignore

The Jesus You Can’t Ignore by John MacArthur addresses people’s perception of Jesus Christ. MacArthur makes a valid point that someone’s view of God affects his or her outlook on everything. Unfortunately this point is made over and over, before the book even begins. The book has such a lengthy prologue and introduction that it felt like I had read a couple of chapters before I even got to the first one. Frankly, I got bored of rereading the same basic points reworded every four paragraphs. When I started into the first chapter, I had hopes that this would get better, and it did to an extent. However, I still could not get into the book and gave up. I have tried off and on to restart it for the past six months to no avail. While I think this book could be very good and probably is, I do not have the patience to get into it. From what I did read, it is a very well thought-out book, although a bit wordy. It is great for anyone who needs to reread passages to understand them because MacArthur took the work out of that and says the same basic thing repeatedly.

Oh to write a scholarhsip essay

Scholarship essays are things that will give any form of teenager sheer dread. What on earth are you supposed to say for those things? No matter what you put down, you always sound like you A) don't care or B) are a major suck up. When I finally buckle down and write something truly sincere it almost always sounds cheesy to me when I reread it. Although to family and friends it may sound truly accurate, I always feel like the random strangers who will read it to decide the fate of my financial package will get the totally wrong impression me. This state of sad frustration is where you will find me today. Today I am filling out my county's scholarship forms...or at least starting them. Okay...I'm just writing my essays. My real dilemma today is trying to explain why I am continuing my education. It's hard because...I...changed my major. I want to be a writer and so I am now going to be an English major. I've wanted to write for a while, but I had been thinking I would be a teacher...and then I really thought about what that would mean and changed my mind. How do you explain that you need money to write? How do you give your professional goals and how you are going to achieve them? "Well scholarship committee, I am going to become a writer by studying English in college and then writing...all the time....because practice makes perfect. So, you know...I need some money to pay for college....please?" I just feel like that won't go over well.

Later Days,
Blendy

The light at the end of the tunnel

I can see it now, I wake up one morning, totally refreshed, ready for the day. I shower, get dressed, make breakfast, and sit down to a nice cup of hot cocoa and read a book. I dabble in cleaning my room, bake some cookies, call a friend, and enjoy the general splendor of the snowy wonderland outside my house. It is a glorious day- and one that has not yet materialized. I still have a week of school left. One horrid, sickeningly, annoying week of school. And as usual, a class that I am in has a little more work than I realized. Being the procrastinator that I am, I have also put this class off. Not enough to seriously damage my grade, hurt my scholarships, or even miss the deadline. Just enough to make me get little sleep and become rather annoyed. *(I should note at this point that my procrastination has been lessening in degree since last spring...just ask Becky. It was rather ugly.)

This next Thursday is the last day of my enslavement to a class that is both daunting and obnoxious in one fell swoop. Friday, is the day of my freedom...and for work...but the morning is the beginning of the sweet bliss that is Christmas Vacation. May Friday come swiftly for me.

You've Got Mail

Last night I decorated for Christmas with my older sister and one of my good friends. After trimming the tree we decided to watch a movie. We chose You've Got Mail. In the movie, Meg Ryan sends emails to Tom Hanks; in one of the emails she writes almost like people do in blogs...she didn't want an answer to the question that she posed in the specific email she just wanted to "send it out into the void." This struck me as super blog like. And GENIUS that I am, I was like "Oh yeah, I have a blog...I should go write something on it."

I know what you're thinking, why does she have a blog if she never writes on it. Well, ladies and gents, I have one because I want to be the person who writes blogs. I want to write in general and a blog is a fabulous place to do that. I just don't have reliable computes/ Internet at my house. Therefore, I must use my sisters Internet, and frankly, I forget to write stuff on my blog because the tools are not at hand when inspiration strikes. Those of you who know me also know that I am not particularly neat and would lose any scraps of paper that I would write my unparalleled insights upon. Tonight I am staying at my sisters, which is why I am actually writing a post.

However, the fact that I just looked at the clock and see that it is past midnight, I should sign off and go to bed. Big day at Church tomorrow. Double rehearsal for the Singing Christmas Tree (our Christmas pageant, complete with full choir).

Later Days,
Blendy

The Epic Wonderment of Audra and Blendy Gracing Grace with their Energetic Presence

So my wonderful friend Audra went with me on a college visit to see Grace University. So far we have met with counselors, marveled at the awesomeness of the parking spot they reserved for me, chased squirrels with Janelle, and played sand volleyball. (Well I didn't play volleyball...but Jolly and I cheered for her).

Friday, Dad went with us to a meeting and then dropped us off at the dorms. We saw Jolly and Rainbolt, who gave us a lovely tour. Then we saw Becca. After getting settled in, we went to supper. There was hardly anyone there. And a massive clock. Honestly, I thought it made the room look short because they placed it on a very small section of wall in between two windows. It was much too big a clock to be in such a small space. I bet it felt cramped. After supper we went to wal(star)mart and got a redbox, water, ice cream, and twizzlers (all the appropriate makings for a partay. Really, it was a wonderful night.

We went to bed around 4 a.m. and awoke at about 11 a.m. We ate lunch at panera bread and gave Kiel his birthday present...and wandered around Petco...it's where the pets go. Now we have come back to campus and will begin working on homework....or just chat. We may even cook dinner...

Well that's all for now. Mom, here are a couple pictures. The battery died so I couldn't take any more.

Later Days,

Blendy

the unplanned day

day 3

Today we had zero plans. Today we did whatever we felt like. Today we drove through a really sketchy downtown.We started our day by heading to Lake Erie. We found this local lighthouse and went to check it out. It was probably the funniest thing ever. It was like someone looked at it and said, "Hey, let's try to make money by charging people a ridiculous fee." It cost $7 to tour the lighthouse, but you couldn't wear flip flops or sandals. This was something they forgot to mention on the website. You could walk around the grounds for free, but Becks and I felt weird cause there were workers watching us. On the upside, leaving the lighthouse right away led us to an adorable little park with a path down the the shore. It was not a tourist attraction, but it was very nice for a local place to hang out, as many locals did.
We then started our drive back to our town. We had a gorgeous drive along the lake and we stopped for lunch at a cute little town that had a coffee shop/cafe. After filling out bellies, we continued on our way.

In the town we are currently staying in there is a chocolate shop that Becky found online. However, there was road construction and we couldn't find it. This is a fact that I can happily live with because that downtown was totally scary. It was kinda run down and shabby looking. Needless to say, we headed back to the hotel. We then found a dollar theater and saw Killers. * note: I do NOT recommend this movie. I had been curious about it, and genuinely wanted to see it. However, it was a little confusing and had a stupid end.

Tonight we will plan our tomorrow which includes leaving PA and heading back to Ohio.

Mams, here's my shout out to you. Love ya!

later days,
blendy

same song second verse

day 2 part 2

We finally left our hotel around 11 after Becky had quite the ordeal of booking a room. We decided to forget about going to Canada (we have been into part of it before) and we just moved on to PA and NY. We're staying in PA but close to the boarder so it won't be hard to go somewhere in NY, because who doesn't want to go to NY?

It was a day of driving for Becky today. I pretty much slept and talked to her. So our reactions on getting to our destination were quite different.I did get some cool pictures as we drove through Cleveland.

Once we reached out hotel we just relaxed...which was AMAZING. The best part is that we are staying up later because we don't have to travel really far tomorrow.

For the mams, here are the promised pictures.

And I'm sleepy so I'm gonna go now.

later days,
blendy

What time is it? 9 o'clock. Who's not up yet? Becky

day 2

Isn't it nice to be able to count days of a road trip? I think so. Anyway, as previously specified by my sister, I awoke at 8 this morning so that I could shower and wake her up so that we could hopefully leave the hotel 2 hours later. I was out of the shower by 8:30, which was pretty good considering that I was groggy enough to try to put face wash into my hair.

I didn't post very much last night because the computer started glitching on me. After I uploaded the photos, I couldn't get my cursor back. Moral of the story: write all that you want to say, THEN go back and upload the photos into their appropriate places.

Our drive yesterday really went well. We had no troubles until 40 miles from our designated resting place. Becky's low tire light came on, but upon investigation it appears to have been a glitch. We tested all of the tires with Becky's handy green tire gauge and found them all to be within the levels of pressure which dad told us was acceptable. So we'll check today before we leave (at 10???) but I am confident that it will be fine. The only other time we had trouble was when we got lost trying to find the hotel. However, Becky's amazing abilities to picture the layout of towns in her head (this truly is quite spectacular) saved us by magically finding the hotel in about 10 to 15 minutes.

Great news! Becky just got up! I now have hopes for a 10:30 departure. Which means that I must stop blogging and start getting ready/repacking my stuff.

If there is wireless Internet tonight, I'll tell you about our day once again.

Later Days,
blendy

ROAD TRIP!!!!!

Today is the first official day of my road trip with Becky. We are headed to a wedding at the end of the week and decided to turn it into an excuse for a full-fledged vacation. Today went rather well, we only got lost once and for about 7 minutes. We had a really late lunch in order to visit a chick-fil-a. And we called mom at least 10 times so that she was privy to our whereabouts. Speaking of mom, here are some pictures of our hotel room that Becky snagged super cheap from Priceline:

Sweltering Heat

Sweltering: suffering oppressive heat, characterized by oppressive heat; sultry.

Never before in my life have I thought that I could write the word sweltering. I don't think I ever fully understood the word until today. Sure, I've read it in books, thought it was a marvelous word for certain situations, even thought about praising whoever came up with it in the first place. However, today has put all of that in the past- except the thinking it is a marvelous word- for I, blendy, painted a room in a building without air conditioning and poor air circulation. Sweltering is probably the best word I could come up with for the day. I came home and proclaimed to my mother that I was officially the grossest person on the planet...I had the total and unshakable feeling of 'ick.' But have no fear, I have showered and now feel awesome! May you all feel as un-icky as I.

Later Days,
Blendy

trying to figure out...life

Life has a funny way of sneakin up on you...those words are courtesy of Alanis Morissette and her song Ironic. That makes me think of a video that made fun of her song. But that's beside the point. Right now I am trying to decide what I am going to do next year. I could either transfer to a Bible college, racking up a rather large amount of debt, or I could take a year off and work for a year. Both options are valid. Both have pros and cons. However, the second option may have the most pros. I just don't know. My parents and I are trying to figure out the best path for me.

I am just having a hard time giving up my dream. In church this Sunday the pastor talked about Faith. He said that living by faith is a challenge and that giving up your dreams to trust that God is faithful to take you where you need to be is difficult. Living by faith isn't easy...but I think that it's worth it. His example was Abraham, who had to exercise faith all of the time. I was really encouraged and challenged by this. I think that I need to be willing to give up my dream of going straight to another college and maybe work to that I don't have so much debt. It's not going to be easy, but if that's what my parents and I decide is best, I'll do it.

Those are my weightier thoughts of late.

Later Days,
Blendy

Welcome Surprises

Surprises... aren't they just great? Today I had two lovely ones. When I was walking to my car after work I heard the bird that has a whistle that sounds like its saying "Bob White." That made me smile. I instantly flashed back to playing outside with my siblings and my grandmother's house and my mom telling us about the bird that was singing a man's name.

The other pleasant surprise was the new templates on Blogger! HURRAY! I'm going to be honest, they were boring when I first signed up for a blog...and I think they have been new for a while, but... I haven't checked in. Tee hee. My bad.

Anyway, I can't write very much because my sister and mom are WAY too loud. The NBA Finals are on and they are each rooting for an opposing team.

Later Days,
Blendy

Frustration Station

Let me just say that I like technology when it works. Let me stress that- WHEN it works. Right now I am taking a break from a simple class project to vent. We were supposed to make a photo story (a slide show ). Easy. I found the pictures I wanted, put in the text that I found fitting, even added transitions. Then the program decided that it would not take the songs that I had expertly picked for background music. I tried downloading a new song, changing the song to an mp3 (which is what photo story said it required) and finally gave up in frustration. I shall now wait for my instructor to come and see if she can figure it out. ugh. This stinks.

On a happier note, I received a package from one of my dear friends attending another college. It totally made my day as a whole AMAZING!

Later Days,
Blendy

Drizzle

Today is a dreary day. I woke up later than usual because my room was so dark. The clouds are sharing their gloom with the world today. Do not misunderstand me, I enjoy days like these- they make great reading days. The gloom is good for any sad story or melancholy spirit. It was misting the whole way to school and I listened to Michael Buble croon out "Cry Me a River" on my way. It was splendid. The only unhappy part about today is that it is my long day at school. This means that I cannot go home and drink hot cocoa and read or write as I so wish to be doing. So I will take a tiny break to write here, in a an unusually still computer lab. I love how days like these tend to calm people down, at least for a little while. An riotous room can be hushed by band of rain clouds. That is the magic of a dreary day.

Anyway, I should get back to work.

Later Days,
Blendy

Take that Louisa!

So my dear sister, I have read your blog and am slightly offended. You say that I have finally updated my blog (which is true) but you make it sound like I never write on it (which may also be true). Anyway, I am updating again...in the same week! So there.

I just finished a PowerPoint presentation for one of my classes and am now looking for a break. Since I am still stuck at my school, there is a pressure on my brain that I just want to slough off and run away from. I am tired of school. I truly am. I want to be finished, free, and blissfully ignorant of all things academic. (Except for reading...I am really looking forward to reading numerous books this summer. I've already started a list. First up, finish Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens- that book is a beast!) Anyway, be prepared for ramblings. To begin:

• How on earth do they pick the color of the text when you hyper-link to something? How do you change it?
• Don't you love staying up late? I was up until almost 2 last night and it was marvelous. My favorite part is when I am walking up to my house that late. It is so still and quite and just plain gorgeous.
• I have been debating about using people's real first names. Honestly, I can't remember the fruit names that I gave people and I don't really want to look back. But I kinda feel like I could be giving away their identities...so we'll see. I kinda like calling my oldest sister Louisa though. It is rather amusing to me. We'll see what I feel like.
• I am saddened and dismayed that KU is not going all the way. I know they lost a while ago, but I am still sad. I think my cousin jinxed it when he put Kansas State to win it all...not even right.

Okay, I need to read a book for one of my classes. So I will leave this place of writing bliss to go back to the deep despair of annoying school work. Farewell, creativity! I must leave you for monotony.

Later Days,

Blendy

p.s. Yes, I stole Louisa's format of bulleting on purpose.

a Sunday with my sis

So last night my old high school had a fundraiser. My older sister, whom I shall refer to as Louisa for the sheer pleasure of it, had to help. We had planned to watch a movie after it was over, but she had to work at it until almost 11 p.m. Therefore, I packed my things and enjoyed a sleep-over at my sister's. The movie was sick. Never ever ever ever ever watch I Hate Valentine's Day. It is a disgrace to movies everywhere. We didn't even make it the whole way through...I think like half an hour. I was truly sad that Nia Vardalos would make such a horrible movie. I actually liked her from My Big Fat Greek Wedding. She just smiled WAY too much in the Valentine's Day movie and was just too weird...and stupid. Her character was the classic hero(ine) that is supposed to be lovable, yet operates under a fallacy that, in the end, will be dispelled so that he or she may ride off into the sunset of Hollywood bliss. Sometimes, if the movie is done correctly, this plot is okay. This time, it was definitely not.

Anyway, back to me and Louisa. After we decided to ditch the DVD, we just flipped around on TV until Louisa went to bed. I stayed up about two hours later. I found Overboard, a older but cute movie and 10 Things I Hate About You (the television show). It was rather fun, but I was a little tired today for church, so probably not the best plan to stay up late. But church was packed! The children were performing today for Palm Sunday and they only did their program in the second service. After church we went to Walmart and bought some stuff, whether needed or not. We came back, cleaned her apartment, took a walk and enjoyed a delicious supper...which I made. French dip sandwiches and fries- yummy. Then she introduced me to Firefly, an odd but interesting show. And now I am writing while my mom (who showed up recently) and Louisa watch Nebraska basketball game. I am not that into sports so needless to say, I have been on the computer. I watched a House and made a new station on Pandora. Boy, you have to love computers and the internet.

What we have learned today, is that
1. I apparently have a fascination with hyper-linking
2. I will ramble about anything
3. Louisa is a fun name to say even if the person you apply it to does not have that name

The Birthday Bachelor Bash

Yesterday was a most glorious day. Yesterday was my birthday. :) I got up much earlier than usual because I didn't want to waste my birthday. I even dressed up for the occasion because, let's face it, who doesn't want to look fabulous on their own day of celebration and jubilation? I tried a new hip hop video that I had been wanting to, ate a marvelous breakfast burrito for breakfast and showered all by my usual wake up time. Then I made myself rather fetching and got ready for school. School wasn't all that wonderful but it did have the courteously to end quicker then expected. Mom made one of my favorite meals for supper and a few of my friends joined us for the meal. Then the awesomeness began...we ate cake and watched the Bachelor: Women tell all. It was truly a wonderful celebration. Ridiculous drama that makes for good entertainment, family and friends, and cake. Who could ask for more? So there you have it - a perfect 19th birthday. It definitely started my week off great!

Later Days,
Blendy

Old friends, new contemplations

So on this lovely end of the week a few friends ( two, more specifically) and I went to a college to visit an old high school friend's college and to consider that college as a future place of residence. It was really fun to meet the people that I had heard so much about and to see the campus and try to place all of the stories that I have heard. So now to the new contemplations. I had previously been interested in this college, but I had decided against it. On this trip, however, I decided to give it another try. Enter the indecision. At some points of the trip I was just thinking 'never....ever.' But then later I was all like 'maybe?' Who knows. I think that my parents and I need to have a good old fashioned pow-wow. At meeting of the minds, if you will. I halfway want to just take a year off and go to Oregon and become a baker or Batista by day and a writer by night. It could be a year of adventure....but one that I'm 99% sure that my parents would NEVER go for. Maybe I could try it for a summer? Or I could just visit for like a week or two. Please? K. I know better. I should just stay home, work, and maybe take an on-line class. Continue my education and hope that I can figure out what I want to do. Oh well...anyway back to the visit. It has been absolutely marvelous to see my old chum :) The campus was okay and Campus Crusade was ...interesting. I like some of it and wasn't a big fan of the other. It was nothing against the people; I just wasn't a big fan and I'm not sure why. Except for the ending song. That was amazing. We sang "Sanctuary" a capella and it was just beautiful and heartfelt. Parts-good parts=AMAZING!
Anyway, I should get ready for a movie we are going to watch and go to bed so that I can get up tomorrow so we can leave.

Later Days,
Blendy

lazy sunday

Well today I had a lazy Sunday with my sister. She has a cold so I went over to her house and spent the day with her. Tomorrow I am going to make us a nice dinner. I have no school in honor of Presidents Day and I am so excited! I usually have to drive a half hour one way to school and I am looking forward to not going anywhere. It shall be marvelous. Truly stupendous. I am going to sleep in and start my homework later in the day. I will just be perfectly happy tomorrow. I hope everyone else can look forward with as much excitement as I.

Later days,

Blendy

p.s. 8 days till my birthday!