July 29, 2005 Yeah, so yesterday I felt like crap. I think I had a slight case of the flu, regardless I felt so yucky. But I had soo much to do. So even though all I wanted to do was sleep I still cut the grass, did grocery shopping and did some clean up as well. Dropped a card of for Denise, I hope she's feeling better. I gave her a get well card and some awesome smelling bath salts. I wish I could have done more but I wasn't feeling so well myself. And when I was there I had ice cream and milk and frozen food in my car so I really needed to take them home. So I had a good nights sleep and this morning at like 8:00 I hear somebody walking down my stairs. (freaked me out of my mind!!!) It was Grant. (he knows where the key is hidden) But my mind was going nuts b/c I could not think of who would be coming in my house at that time in the morning, I was kinda thinking that it sounded like my dad but I knew he wasn't due back yet, so then I was like, oh no, did something happen to make them come back early. But it was Grant. You see garbage days are on Wednesday for me. Now Tuesday night I was so on top of it, I emptied the garbages from the house already to take out on Wednesday. I FORGOT!!! And mom was like, make sure you take the garbage out b/c it will get maggots if you don't. And I was upset b/c I'd forgotten. So my awesome boyfriend, comes over to my house at 8:00 am (I was still in bed sleeping) and takes my garbage and recycling that I forgot and drops them off for me. Isn't he sweet. It was also funny b/c he came down and talked to me in my room. (which is a disaster right now :p) And I was thinking wow, I'm not wearing appropriate pj's right now, good think I'm covered by this blanket. Oh man, that could have been intresting. Anyways so then I went back to sleep and got up around 9ish cuz I was having Andrew come over at 9:30 to look at my pictures from England. He wants to apply to go there. So I got up, did the dishes. Showed him my pictures, it was fun. It also worked well b/c then I didn't spend any more money and didn't waste any gas and didn't have to drive my car which is about to die on me, I can tell. And I still have time to do more stuff before work today. I'm nice and wide awake now. Yeah, I'm feeling alot better. Yesterday I was in my "I want to run away" mood. But I couldn't obiviously. But I left my phone off. This morning I checked and I had 5 messages. Wow. But I feel better all around now. Praying always helps. And hey a good nights sleep does wonders as well. Okay well I'm outie. Laters! July 27. 2005 Okay, so for all of you who are worried about me b/c of the last entry, don't be. Yeah I kinda cracked last night, but I'm fine. A good night sleep and a day of work helped. I just came to a point where I wanted to cry but it was more funny then sad. I still do think it's kinda funny lol. Shane was like "I'm worried about you". Oh man, I think there must be always somebody worried about me at some point lol. I guess b/c I just don't think/notice/see things. Like when I was in Cleveland Grant was sooo worried that something bad was going to happen to me, I wasn't worried at all. I felt perfectly safe, espically when that neighbourhood looked better then the one that I grew up in. I don't know, I just don't see things. I don't see fights, I don't see homeless people. I guess I just always look at the nice things in life. Like I'm serious, I just plain don't see them. It's weird, it's like my eyes only see the happy bright things. I want to see it so I can help but I don't know. Grant seems to think it will crush me, I think I'm stronger then that. Who knows. But after this trip I want to spend more time doing God's work then just hanging around doing nothing. I know quite a few people from my team want to as well so I think we might all go volunteer somewhere. I'm really excited about that. I need to do more stuff like that. *holds hands as far away from face as possible* "yuck". You see I tie dyed my slip today into this awesome sweet dark blue skirt. It looks awesome, too bad my hands are now blue too. So I used bleach water to clean them, and it got a lot off but now they stink and my hands are still blue. But I've got a cool new summer skirt!!! I mean it's sweet!! It's sooo totally me! Well anyways I need to get ready for bed. Night all! July 26, 2005 *shouts in loud voice"One month till I'm done work"* Okay I'm done with that lol. So my car needs a new alternator. Yeah the part costs $360. I also need a new cell phone b/c I drove over mine on Saturday. Yes, I know, I drove my car over my cell phone. It still works, you just can't read the screen at all! So I can't set my alarm, can't see who's calling, can't get text messages and I can't tell when the battery is low, I can tell when it shuts off lol. Oi vey! It's been quite the week and a bit. So I had the meeting tonight, oh man do I miss hanging out with my team. They were soo funny. It was sooo good to have Andrew and Jordan making me laugh again. I miss laughing. I don't laugh or sing half as much as I did on the trip. I think b/c I really don't like my job. I find it hard to be joyful. But hanging out with the team today I laughed so much! It was awesome. But seriously, so much stuff has been happening that it's getting funny. I'm seriously laughing. I mean what good will crying do? I might as well laugh. It's sooo funny that I have so much to do, and no time. *starts laughing* It's soo funny that all the money I saved up I have to spend on my car, which I just put a butload into recently. And I DROVE over my own cell phone. *starts laughing harder* I have no time to excerise so I get up at 6:00 in the morning, and I hate getting up. *more laughter* I have to book 3 to 4 things in one day to fit it all in, and it's still not enough time. I need another day a week. *bwhahahahahahaha* Oh man it's just so darn funny. July 23, 2005 This week has been so unusual for me. Ever feel like you started a tiny snowball down a big cliff like a while ago and then when you see it coming towards you a huge snowball it just kinda makes you laugh? Cuz honestly that's the way my social life is. I had no friends growing up and was excited if I got to do something once a week!! Now if I do someting once a day it almost seems unusual b/c I do so much each day lol! This was my eating out schedule this week. Tuesday I went to Kelsey's with Charlene, Wednesday I went to Bostin Pizza with Shane, Thursday I went to McDonalds with Kelly, Friday I went out to lunch with Jen and I went to Lina Lingui's with Grant. I actually wanted to read this week and it took me soo long to read the latest Harry Potter book b/c I didn't have any spare time!! I almost wanted to stay at home and read and people kept calling me up and I was like "Noooooooo". lol. I felt like such a snot b/c with two different people I'm like "I'm sorry, my week is booked, can we schedule for next week?" I try so hard to be avaliable all the time to everybody and turning people down sucks. Some of the kids from the Cleveland trip invited me to go out with them to the movies tonight, it was soo sweet and I really wanted to go, but I was babysitting. (babysitting kinda gets priority over most things b/c I need the money lol!) So yeah, I had a great week, it was just funny b/c I was almost like "I want to be home reading" and everybody else was like "let's hang out". So 4 months was yesterday for Grant and I. I think we had our best date yet. We went to Shakesphere in the Vineyard to see "As You Like It". It was soooo funny!! I was laughing soo much!! I love going to plays, I love dressing up and doing things like that. Then we went out to Lina Lingui's. Mmm, good food. We just had great conversations. I had such a blast. It's been my favourite date so far. I feel so lucky to be with him. So on this Wednesday I'm tie dying a skirt!! I'm oober excited!! Kelly is going to show me how to. It's an old slip of mine and I'm gonna tie dye it so I can wear it everywhere, b/c it makes a great summer skirt. And it's so long. And the new girl at work Valerie is going to cut my hair, probably on Monday night after work. For free and I'm so excited! Then on Tuesday I have a meeting with the Cleveland people a touching base, home, refresher thing. Not totally sure of the details. Plus mommy and daddy won't be home all next week so I've got a few things to do at home. Stupid grass, why must it grow? But not everything is sunshine and rainbows. On Wednesday a guy who comes into work all the time, George Werener. He was this neat guy, well he died in a car crash in Niagara. Then on Thursday I was at Kelly's house and found out that she was in a car accident on Monday, she and the car are fine. But the other lady is being such a hassle. They don't know what's going on and it's so frustrating for them. And I totally feel for them. And then the whole thing with Cody. That girl has bad luck with her body recently. So yeah, that's about it. I come home from a missions trip and I meet a new girl at work and we totally hit it off and I think it could be a new relatioship building, my friends need me, my car is making funny noises again, somebody dies. I'm sooo glad that God encouraged me b/c I needed it. He knew how I was feeling before this trip and I think He saw all the things coming, and yeah, God is wise. I love how He looks out for me. It's so amazing. Well that's all for now. ps. Saturday night radio SUCKS!!! July 21, 2005 So tommorrow is Grant and mine's 4 month. Were going to see Shakesphere in the Vineyard. The play is "As You Like It", which I've never seen. I get to wear my new sandles that I bought a little bit ago. Lol (for those of you who know what I'm talking about rotflmao!!!) I'm defaintly looking forward to tomorrow. I even got off work early for it. Can you belive it's been 4 months? Crazy, sometimes I feel like Grant has always been around. (and not in the bad way) I just feel so much like myself around him, I love drawing on his strength. One of the things I missed while I was in Cleveland was his strength. It's hard for me to be that strong for so long. It's very draining to me. But it was a good stretching time for me, to prove to myself even that I could do it. I didn't mention this in my last entry and I don't know why. But one of the best things that happened on my trip was that I got to lead a little girl to Christ. It was awesome. I even gave her my bible b/c she didn't have one. There were 9 kids in total who made commitments to Christ during VBS. The trip was good, very good. I mean it's rejuvinated me to carry on at work until school starts. I'm off! Tootles!! July 19, 2005 So I'm home. I had a really good trip. We did orientation for 3 days in Erie PA, then we went to Cleveland. We did things like VBS in the mornings. There were the cutest kids in the world!! Like adorable!! I helped one of the students do music. There were 33 of us! I know, 25 students. 14 females in one room. Wow, it was intense sometimes lol. But anyways back to the trip. In the afternoon we did work projects. My team we painted the outside of a house in 2 days. We helped somebody move. (it was soo hot that day that our whole team sweated so much that we look like we had been sprayed with a hose) We handed out flyers we did all kinds of neat stuff. I really got along well with my team. I really appricate them. (and yes I do miss some of them :() Espically my guimmauve. I think I mostly miss him b/c I don't know if I'll see him soon or not. He doesn't have e-mail and he goes to a different church. I would probably feel the same way about Jordan, Andrew and Sandra if they didn't go to Harbour. On Tuesday we did a 3 on 3 basketball tournament, that went really well. On Thursday we did a carnival and that was soo much fun. I did nail painting with another leader. I must have done soo many little girls nails. And the coolest part it that in VBS there was some grade 5&6 girls who weren't really into VBS. But they all got their nails painted and it was a good bonding/reaching experience. I also painted 3 guys from the team's nails. 2 bright pink and 1 orange. On Friday that had a surprise for us, we got to go to a Cleveland Indians game. Joy, rapture. Actually the game was soo boring but I got to sit with Jesse and he had me laughing non-stop. Oh one of the highlights of the trip, doing laundry. It was actually so much fun. Great team bonding time. This is when I discovered how funny Andrew and Jesse were. Actually the 3 of us hung out on Saturday when we all went to the mall. We rode the escalator about 6 times in a row and we all went to a 50's diner for supper. Oh and I bought a Zippo!! It's soo sweet!! I have my pictures developed and hopefully they will be scaned soon and up so you can have a look at them. Bascially what I learned on this trip is that when I get over my fear of not being liked and just open up people really respond to that. The past few weeks leading up to the trip I was kinda feeling discouraged and down but this trip totally lifted me up and encouraged me. The kids all kept saying about how I was such a good singer and I was soo thankful for that. B/C now don't get me wrong, I love being in the worship band but sometimes it's discouraging b/c I keep going flat or I don't know the songs and I guess I was just slightly discouraged about my voice and what not. And the one day during team time we had a circle of affirmation and I didn't want to go in but hearing the things the kids said about me totally encouraged me soo much! God was totally looking out for me on this trip and I'm soo grateful for that!! So if you want more stories or picutes call me up!! July 6, 2005 Well I suppose this is a kinda "see ya later" entry b/c tomorrow I leave for Cleveland and I will be gone for 10 days so I won't be writing anything during that time. It's finally really hitting me. I'm leaving tomorrow at 1:00 pm. I still have a bunch of stuff left to do, like go to the doctors, buy some shorts, finish packing and exchange my money into American. But I've got all morning. And yes, I am getting up early on my day off. I plan at being at the doctors at 8:30. (I want to get in and out as soon as possible) I guess I haven't really told you guys what I'm gonna be doing down there eh? Well were doing a VBS in the morning, and in the afternoon we'll be doing some serivice projects with our teams. Doing some homeless work as well. We'll be in the inner city. I haven't been on a missions trip in a while so I'm ready for God to change my life. B/C trust me, when you go on a missions trip, it's you who changes the most. I am just really excited about the whole thing!!! So I got an e-mail from Grant, they made it safely to Thunder Bay, minus Rod getting a speeding ticket. The funeral is Thursday and Grant is a pall-bearer. Please continue to pray for that family. So I'm teaching Shane how to drive so that he can get his G2 before his beginners expires. So last night Shane and I drove for 1 1/2 hours. He's really improving. I think he will pass. So after driving with Shane, I hung out with Charlene. We went to Perkins, we had a great talk. We've been having quite a few good ones recently. I've come to appriciate her even more recently. She is a good friend. Anyways *yawn* I'm tired. G'night! July 5, 2005 So it all started a couple of weeks ago when Jimmy hit Rod getting out of the driveway. It proceeded the next or a few days later that Jimmy got rear ended on his way to work. That same night Denise's car got broken into and some stuff was stolen. Then on Sunday Rod got into an accident. Then we found out that Grant's great Grandmother passed away. The next day Mikey was in a bad accident and flipped his car. Everybody involved with an accident is okay and fine. It's just crazy, so much happening at once. I want to support the Barron's but I had to babysit on the Monday and Grant, Rod and Denise left for Thunderbay this morning. They won't be back until Saturday and I leave Thursday afternoon for Cleveland. I did get to see Grant Monday at lunch, and give him his birthday present. (Happy Birthday on Sunday baby) Unfortunatly it was too small for him. (I got him a sterling silver chain I'm gonna return it today and drop off a new one for him for when he gets back.) I just wish I could do more for the family and for him. I want to help but I'm not gonna see him for 2 weeks and what can I do if I'm not here besides praying? So any of you reading this please pray for the Barrons, they really need it right now. So I accomplised one of my summer goals. On Sunday we were all hanging out at the Barron's and were swimming and Rod is kinda teaching Joanne to dive and what not. Now I used to be able to dive but it scares me. I get this feeling in my stomach, the same feeling when I cliff jump. But I saw Rod teaching Joanne and I stated that my summer goal would be to learn how to dive. Like 10 minutes later I asked Rod if he would teach me and he suggested right then so I said yes. Within like 20 minutes I could dive. Lol, I accomplised my goal. Now I need to make a new goal. And on that same day Mr. Shennan impressed me and kinda upset me at the same time. Let me explain. For those of you who know me know I've been kinda upset lately b/c I wasn't sure that Grant's family was overly fond of me, espically Rod. I had told Shane this, and I am aware that it is most likely my imagnation. I mean I can't see how people feel about me at all. I just don't notice it. I mean I had a hard time seeing that my dad cared about me. (lol, when I told Grant that before he was shocked, and he's like "your dad ADORES you!!") I just don't see it. So anyways Shane goes up to Rod and asked if Rod would talk more positive to me. I was just impressed that Shane stood up to Rod like that. I mean he was doing it b/c he loves me and I appricate it. I just didn't want to make a scene or make Rod feel like he wasn't being caring b/c it's not him, it's me. But Rod came up to me later and was like "Your friend Shane loves you very much" and I'm like "yes, and I love him very much." (kinda confused at this point) and then he told me what Shane said to him and I kinda did a "Shane, that was in the vault!!" I was kinda embarassed. But it's okay now. I just give Shane full points on his courage. He said he wasn't gonna let things slip by like he did with Darle last year and not say anything. He's becoming a lot stronger and I can totally see it in him. He's becoming a man, I know that sounds cheesy but Shane you know what I mean. I'm impressed. July 2, 2005 So I had a really fun Canada Day. I started off by going to the Mandrian for free!! (sweet eh!) Well my work takes all the females out for lunch on Canada Day and all the guys out golfing. It was really funny b/c all the girls were looking to me on what was in the sushi and how to use the chopsticks! Lol, priceless! Then I picked Shane up and went over to Grant's and we went swimming for a while. Then me, Shane and the Barron boys went to East Side Mario's for supper. It was werid for me b/c it was me, and 4 guys and it was soo much like stories I'd written about crushes in high school. It was even funnier b/c I'd actually written a story where one of the scenes takes place at East Side Marios. Creepy! Then Grant and I hung out for a bit. Then we met Kelly and Siegi at the Horny Toad. I had such a great day!! It was awesome! Today I went to work and then I babysat. Not too much to report on that. I got a headache.., that's about it. So I'm also teaching Shane how to drive. He booked his test for August so we've got like 2 months to teach him good! I really want him to pass his test. Then when I join the worship band and have to be there at 8:00 in the morning Shane can drive himself to church. That makes me happy. So I'm also really excited b/c I'm leaving soon. This Thursday, for 10 days. I'm excited, it's gonna be stretching and what not but I really need to do this. Sorry this is short but I'm house sitting and I'm tired and I think the dish washer (which is what I was waiting for) is finished and I want to go to bed!! Night!