OCD+ADD=OMG

Oooh, that reminds me. I gotta show the guys the Mortal Kombat in Central Park video :D

Soooo, my package should be coming in tomorrow /bounces in place excitedly. I cannot wait.

It’s weird how everything’s starting up this week o..o I mean – Monday my package comes in and I’ll be wrapped up in that. Tuesday is orientation and then Friday is the lock-in. Then school starts on the 18th….that whooshing sound you hear is freedom, flying away -..-‘

But I got a letter in the mail from the college... Well, I got several letters in the mail. Most of them telling me that my financial aid still wasn’t complete and it was still my fault <..< But! I got a good letter that basically told me everything I need to know about when and where Orientation will be...that is, they told me the name of the place it’d be in...I suppose they could’ve put a picture in there…there are so many other pictures in there. Oh well. I’ll figure it out. I’ve actually never been to a college orientation before o..o I dunno what’s up with the colleges in LA that I went to, but seriously. That would’ve been helpful -..-

But my orientation will be from 12:30 to 4:30… looooong orientation. But there’ll be tons of people there and they’re going to go over the basics of NAK and then explain where all our classrooms are and all that. At least they’re thorough. And at least I’ll be walking into a college classroom knowing “Yup…this is the place I’m supposed to be” as opposed to asking if I’m actually in the right spot :) Can’t complain about that one bit.

I really do wish I knew whether my package was actually IN Little Rock, or if it’s just scheduled to be on its way to Little Rock tomorrow. Because if it’s still in Memphis, then that means it’s about 5 hours away...give or take. But if it’s in Little Rock, it’s only about 2 and a half hours awa y…that’s a huge difference. And I have to sign for it in order to get it, so I’m so gonna be staked out at Mom’s tomorrow. I’m gonna bet that it’s still in Memphis though. Because that’s the last place it was ‘Received’ and it says ‘In Transit’ in the North Little Rock section...either way, it’ll feel like forever while I’m waiting -..-

OK...That’s all I suppose. I’ll type later, Sunshines :)

You See Optimism in Your Future

Five years from now, your life will be improving rapidly. You will be reaching new and exciting challenges. Your life is fine right now, but you're laying the groundwork to make it better. You are paying your dues. Ten years from now, you'll be living an amazing life - one close to the life you've always dreamed of. By staying hopeful and proactive, you will be able to chart your own course.

What Do You Envision For Your Future?

Blogthings: Our Quizzes Weren't Written By Bored 12 Year Olds

 

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So! Yesterday I was a little upset. I woke up around 9ish, and I immediately got up and straightened my hair. I guess I just wanted to get that out of the way so that when I did decide to start my day, I'd be ready to go. Well, I'm laying in bed on Makoto-kun, when I hear a knock at my door. So, I go to see who it is (I figure it's got to be Mom or Dad)....it's Mom...and those people that are supposed to repair my trailer. The first thing I think is that I really wish they would've called ahead, since their main purpose is to replace my front glass door and MY ENTIRE KITCHEN FLOOR...=..= So, I go and get dressed and then head over to Mom's. I have towels to wash anyway, and that should occupy me until they've...fixed everything...at least. That was around 10:30 a.m.

At 2:30 I realized that I could not wait any longer to really get going. I asked Dad to go with me to the store and pick up some of the last minute things we'd need for the cooking that night. We did. The guys had pretty much laid my floor and repaired my door when I'd gotten back...but, we'd mentioned that the doors leak when it rains really hard, so they also put gutters above the doors, and they made sure that my fridge had everything it needed for the ice maker to work (I now has ice).

It was about 3:45 at this point. While they were still working, I hustled to get everything into Sheila (my parents car). I loaded up all the food...and then realized I'd forgotten the movies I was supposed to bring. So I loaded up that...and realized I'd forgotten the bottled water case I was brining. I couldn't think of anything else I'd forgotten, and at this point I had Harvey, my CD case, my purse with Calliope and all the food and drinks I was supposed to take. So, I got in the car and headed to church. Right as I crossed the highway to head to church, I realized I'd forgotten my camera =..= So! I headed for the church and unloaded everything.

Alicia had already been there as evidenced by the enormous football birthday cake for Justin/Buddy. Alicia pulled up not five minutes after I did, but as I know how to hustle, I'd had almost everything unloaded already. So! We made sure everything was as in it's place as it was gonna be until we started cooking...and then we got in Sheila and headed to the boys high school. They had a scrimmage game, which I'd never heard of before in my life (what? is 'practice' really not enough of a term for it?), and they'd asked us to come and watch. We had no problem with it, in fact it's somewhat relaxing to sit with a handful of people in those bleachers and watch the boys practice. There's no competitive edge to a practice, just a big show of approval for good plays :) We got there around 4:15/4:20 and we left an hour later at 5:20 to start cooking. We had our eye on Buddy, Jesse and Julian the entire time, so I made sure to call out to Jesse (the closest) and let him know we had to go and we'd see them later.

So, it takes about 10 to 15 minutes to get from the high school to the church, and the minute we got there, we started cooking. Or, I suppose I should say that Alicia did. She had brought 3 small indoor grills, and she got to work on the hamburger patties. I set out the lettuce, chopped an onion (a very large onion, whose scent still remains on my fingers) and five tomatoes. I made sure the buns, drinks, condiments and utensils were all presented on the counter and then, after Alicia was done with the burgers, I boiled up about 20 wieners.

People started showing up around 5:45ish I guess. Timmy, Takara and Lamarr all showed up, surprisingly enough...with their Bibles (which we awarded them points for :3). Next was Heath, one of the boys friends, who we all enjoy very very much. He's witty and nice, and he sat down and started playing Battleship with Lamarr (effectively keeping him out of our hair, which endears him to us that much more). Next, the pastor and two girls from Berryville showed up, Anna and Kristin I believe are the girls' names. Berryville, AR is about 40 minutes to an hour (depending on traffic and how you drive) away from Harrison, so we really didn't expect them to be early... Billy then showed up followed almost immediately by our own Pastor Sam. Star (Berryville's youth leader) showed up next with her boy Mike. The boys who were at practice(Jesse, Buddy, Julian and a friend who's name is John but they call JBAZ...) showed up right as I was setting the wieners out. We had Pastor Paul pray and then there was much eating. We had plenty of food left over, but that was sorta ok, because we were going to be eating most of this throughout the night.

So, we all ate and talked and enjoyed one another's company (some of this included playing PS3 games -..-) until about 9. Around 9 the pastors left and we started our movies :) I got in the sound booth and started playing a bit of music to signal that movies would be starting soon. The rest of Berryville (Emily, Summer, and a few others that I don't even know really) showed as we were staring the move, and we started out with Open Season. Oddly enough, that was perhaps the best movie of the night...I say that, because it's the only movie that everyone watched and enjoyed together.

After Open Season was Twilight, T's pick. That was when people started to filter downstairs to play games and just talk with each other. As long as one of the 'chaperons' were there, it was ok. Not everyone is a Twilighter like some of us, so we kind of expected some of them not to enjoy the movie. So half the crowd filtered down stairs and the rest either payed attention...or fell asleep.

Billy had brought Evil Dead III which he wanted to be shown with the copy of Army of Darkness that I'd bought for them. Unfortunately, we couldn't find Evil Dead... so, we looked everywhere for it, but it wasn't turning up... so we watching The Dark Knight.... and I really, really don't understand kids these days. I mean, Batman is always awesome, right? These new Batman movies are freakin' epic. And somehow, some of the kids fell asleep during the movie. Now, you may say, "wait a sec, it was after 2 in the morning!" ... That's no excuse! What was really weird is that some of the kids left >..> It was just...weird for me.

The movie ended around... 4:30ish in the morning, and the kids filtered out (them as wasn't sleepin). Alicia and I looked about and kinda figured 'huh...looks like they aren't as enthused about the movies.' So we'd sorta decided to informally shut down. We went down stairs, I had a cup of coffee and we tried to do something to keep our brains going. Around 5, Billy asked if we could watch Army of Darkness. Alicia was tired and soar at this point, and really didn't fee like it, so I told her I'd go ahead and start it up. The boys had ranted and raved about these movies, and I was only a tad bit curious.

...... OK, it stars Bruce Campbell right? And it's a Sam Raimi film...anything with a Raimi name on it (or in it) I'm willing to watch. But holy crap....After watching it all, Billy says, "So, did you like it?" and I replied with, "That has to be the worst movie I've ever seen." and he was like, "Really?!" I went on record saying "Doomsday was better." But...now that I've thought about it.... That was a good movie. Not in the, 'gather the family around, this'll be a treat!' type of good movie. But it's like...slapstick horror. I'm guessing when they said it was a funny movie with zombies and such in it... I was thinking it'd be something like Monty Python or even like Robin Hood: Men in Tights (best movie ever). It was just.... man... they just don't make them like that any more. It was like...there really is nothing that it was like, ok? It's just one of those movies that is funny and scary and terrible and it's funny because it's terrible, with enough plot holes to dismantle a convoy of 18 wheelers....

So! Our tally of movies (in total) comes to ...

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (LI1)
Iron Man (LI1)
Mortal Kombat (LI1)
Mortal Kombat Annihilation (LI1)
Open Season (LI2)
Twilight (LI2)
The Dark Knight (LI2)
Army of Darkness (LI2)

It appears that we can ever only fit in 4 movies in one lock-in <..< hm.

But anyway. So... yeah, then... there was breakfast. Alicia made breakfast casserole...which is biscuit on the bottom of a pan with egg, cheese and sausage on top, put in an oven and baked... Immediately after breakfast, there was cleaning. The kids seemed content to stay in the Youth room and play PS3 games but mostly talk a lot. I remember hearing them discussing the various pokemon and their different levels at one point and thinking, 'Yeah, the kids are fine...' I set Harvey to work in the sanctuary and tried to get everything I could think of that was mine out of the sound booth and down to my car. I ended up forgetting things, like, a million times.... I swear, I went up and down those stairs about 7 times in one hour =..= But, I made sure the sanctuary and sound booth were presentable and left Harvey to do his job. I did help Alicia a bit with putting things in their proper place in the kitchen, at least as much as I could. But I was about dead and ready to drop... so Alicia just told me to leave Harvey and that she'd put him away somewhere in the sound booth for me. I packed up my car and just came home. I totally forgot my camera and texted Alicia telling her to put that in the sound booth for me too.

When I got home, my front door was open, but not my screen door. Mom and Dad were installing a washer and dryer in my utility nook :) Dad had bought Mom a new washer-dryer set, so I got her old one! Which is awesome, because it means I don't have to haul all my stuff elsewhere to get it washed :D I would've been thrilled and very excited...but I was dead on my feat, doing a fabulous impersonation of the zombies on Shaun of the Dead (if I don't say so myself).

After Mom and Dad got the stuff as situated as they were going to get it (Dad needs one more part before it's fully installed), I took a shower and then ate a bit and took half of one of my muscle relaxer pills and then I think it was about... 10:30ish... I dozed until I heard some weird noises... Poked my head out my bedroom door to see Dad and Pastor Sam working on the dryer again. Murmured something and then shut the door and went back to sleep. I slept until around 7:30....I'm not as sore as I was (thank God for muscle relaxers =..=) but I still feel drugged.

I got up though, right around 8 and fixed something to eat. I found Evil Dead III >..> It was in with the books that Alicia had borrowed from me. She returned them to me right about the time Billy handed me the movie. So now we know where the movie disappeared to =..= And, I sorta figured...since I had it and I'd already seen Army of Darkness, why not watch Evil Dead while I ate? So I did :3 I can say, now that I've learned to appreciate the brand of movie, I didn't hate it.

...and now, oddly enough, I've every intention of taking my pills and going to bed =..= I'm still zonked. So, Goodnight, Sunshines.

I got to the church around 4. Alicia had stressed about everything, and thus, showed up mega early to make sure everything was set up. So, I got there and unloaded all the snacks and drinks and such, and then Alicia wen to pick up Takara and Lamarr and their cousin. Well, not too long after she left, the Tyree brothers showed up with their friend Buddy. Billy, Jesse and Julian I knew, but I'd never met Buddy before. He's energetic, and rambunctious, and loud... and after a while, he's really annoying -..- But, they were hanging out and talking and then a few minutes later, Takara and Lamarr show up with their cousin. Their parents had dropped them off o..o' So I texted Alicia to let her know that they were here... and she came back. I should say, Takara's cousin was Timmy, which was confusing because Alicia told me it was a girl named Penny =..= So, essentially, the only girl was Takara.

The boys started playing PS3, and I mean really playing. They played Rock Band first (until the pizza arrived). My parents had shown up then, but I told them they didn't have to stay if they didn't want to, because Dad had only gotten home that morning at 9 and he had been driving for about 2 days =..= So, they left as soon as we were all fed. They reminded me that they were only a phone call away, so that was nice.

The boys hopped back onto the PS3, and Takara jumped on Alicia's computer and played games there. Alicia had brought a game called Dance Dance Dance... which is a Vegie Tales version of Dance Dance Revolution, but it didn't work. The game would run just fine, but the pads that you're supposed to dance on would not. So... that was shot. For a long time, the boys just took turns playing fighting games like Soul Caliber, Call of Duty and...other such games O..o' I lost count of all the games they were playing. At one point, the older boys (the Tyrees and Buddy) got really bored, and they noticed it was raining outside, so they tried to force random members of their own group outside in the rain. I would then stand by the door and say "Oh! He's running around to the other door!" and when they'd race over to the other door to intercept, I'd open the back door and let the guy in -..- guys. After that, they discovered a ping-pong set and used the entire fellowship hall to just smack the ping-pong balls back and forth to each other. Was amusing, if only because they kept trying to keep more than one ball in circulation. ... it wasn't so amusing when they just started throwing the balls at each other -..- again, guys. It's all funny now, but at the time it all just seemed kinda annoying.

Everyone was getting kinda bored with the games. I had forgotten my iPod at my house, so I said I was going to run over and get it. T (Takara) was bored and annoyed with the boys, so I asked her if she wanted to come along for the ride, and she jumped at the chance. She looked around the house, and I showed her the library... and she ended up borrowing Breaking Dawn from me o..o I suppose it's only fair, since I brought that Ultimate Guide to Transformers for Lamarr. So, she got that book and I got Calliope (my iPod) and then we headed back. During our absence, Alicia conducted a small devotional about acceptance (whatevs), and then it was decided that we'd stop playing the games and head upstairs to watch the movies.

We actually put the movies on around 9ish... we struggled with trying to get the sound to work. See, the movies were played in the Sanctuary. We have a projector hooked up to a laptop in there, and so we just put the movies on the laptop and projected them onto the screen.... but the laptop isn't hooked up to the sound booth, so we had to hook speakers onto the laptop and then put a mic between those speakers.... but we couldn't put the mic too close to the speakers, because it would feed back terribly -..- It really didn't help that Buddy would not shut up. He talked almost all the way through Prince Caspian. At one point I told Alicia to just put subtitles up because that would be the only way anyone would be able to know what was being said ... of course, then he started reading the subtitles outloud -..-

After that, there was a 30 minute break in which everyone went to the bathroom and got something to drink (energy drinks) and snacked a bit. We didn't allow them to bring food or drinks into the sanctuary, so of course they had to wait to snack (of course, they probably snuck stuff in >..>). After the break, we started Iron Man which was awesome, as always. I'm fairly certain that T fell asleep during that, and she had borrowed my iPod. She turned it off when she felt herself slipping and just passed out.

We were all pretty tired after that... so, once again, there was about a 30 minute break. Alicia asked me to play some loud music that would wake us all up, and she'd turn the speakers on in the fellowship hall where the food was so that everyone would hear it. So, I played a lot of Thousand Foot Krutch (one of my favorite bands), and that was really energizing. Then Alicia came up and asked if it'd be a good idea to play Mortal Kombat as opposed to The Dark Knight or Hellboy 2, because both of those movies are really long (meaning we'd all probably have a better chance of falling asleep in there) as opposed to MK and MK:A which is maybe an hour and a half at best each. So, we decided on Mortal Kombat, and as a way to signal that we'd soon me starting that movie, I put the Mortal Kombat: Annihilation soundtrack on :D

Jesse and Buddy came running up the stairs and started dancing around, and they were very closely followed by Billy and Julian. It was hilarious to watch them dancing around, because they weren't really trying to dance .... it was more of a ' jump forward while punching straight up in the air' dance.... so it covered a lot of ground and looked very funny.

Anyway, we started the first movie and continued with our '30 minute break in between' routine before starting Mortal Kombat Annihilation. During the break there, I was just sitting in the sanctuary reading... and I hear the floor start to squeak (which means someone has entered the sanctuary) and I look behind me and Jesse and Julian are sneaking around, ducking behind furniture and making their own dramatic spy theme music. There was a part where Julian ran by on all fours and then ducked and rolled behind a pue... I thought I'd die laughing. But the point was that at some point, Jesse had brought up a can of Mountain Dew, and they were trying to sneak it back out... I was so amused by their antics I couldn't be angry at them for breaking the no food/drink rule =..= I'm a bad disciplinarian. But, after that we put the MK:A movie on....I think Alicia had tried to sleep a little, because she had intended to start cooking breakfast around 8, but wanted to sleep some first. She didn't really manage it, so she just decided to go downstairs and cook breakfast right then so that it'd be done whenever the movie was over.

She and I were the only ones that didn't sleep at all.... the older boys were all awake by the end, but they had napped a bit during the movie. And Takara and Lamarr were OUT. Dead to the world and all. So, while I was hooking up my iPod to the sound system to play some stirring music, Buddy ran downstairs, got some of my fingernail polish (I'd brought it for Takara, in case she wanted a manicure or something) ran back upstairs and painted some of Lamarr's toes =..= Was funny when Lamarr woke up, but at the time I just kept wondering why Buddy was running around laughing like a maniac >..>

Alicia cooked breakfast and we all headed down to eat. She had made boy-scout breakfast, which is a pound of potatoes, a dozen eggs, a pound of bacon and a pound of cheese all stirred together in one skillet. She also made biscuits, which I thought were awesome :) The kids settled in the youth's Sunday School room to talk and eat together... but afterwards, when we asked them whether they wanted to watch Hellboy 2 or The Dark Knight, they couldn't make up their minds. So, Alicia and I decided to start the clean up process and we made them stay there and play the quiet game.

I put Harvey on in the Sanctuary upstairs after I made sure that everything was picked up off the floor and then went downstairs to see what needed to be done. I have to say...The kids did stay there and they were fairly quiet (the game was that if anyone made a noise, the entire room could smack them on the rear... that was Alicia's idea =..=), and I washed all the dishes (by hand, because a lot of them really needed it and Alicia still hadn't unloaded the dishwasher) and Alicia swept. She got the kids to help her arrange the tables in the middle of the fellowship hall, and then they all went up to the sanctuary to get their stuff... somewhere along the way, Alicia told them that Harvey was up there cleaning and not to get in his way... so they all got their stuff, but then they just sat there and watched Harvey bump into things o..o it was really funny to see them so enthralled by my vacuum :D I realized that everyone yells at the roomba too, because they kept yelling, "Harvey! Come back here! You missed a spot!"

Anyway, I finished up the dishes and cleared off all the counters, putting trash in the trash can and putting food where it was supposed to go. Then I wiped off the counter tops. After that, I got the old vacuum out off the cabinet and vacuumed the youth room. I went up stairs to watch Harvey, and Alicia made the kids find all the ping-pong balls and put the set back in the youth room where it belonged. After we checked everything, we turned off the lights and air and then locked up and it was all over.

I know I headed home and showered... I do not remember much of it. But I wasn't feeling good at all... so I took my pills along with half of a muscle relaxer and slept for quite a while. Mom called me for supper, but after I'd eaten and talked with them a bit, I ambled back over to my place. I didn't want to sleep because I was afraid it'd mess up my sleep schedule, but I really wasn't awake enough to do much.

Today I am almost just as exhausted as I was yesterday =..= So, like I said, we're gonna be waiting a long long time before we do this again... if only so we can remember why we shouldn't. I do intend to have another movie night some time in August before school starts... but other than that, we really don't have any definitive plans for the youth at this point. We're just happy to have survived this event :)

I guess that's all... My account for the days of the lock-in are finished and I've nothing more to add :) Later, Sunshines.

Your Cell Phone Etiquette is 14% Bad, 86% Good

You are practically a cell phone saint. You never annoy the people around you. Everyone should have phone manners as good as yours. And you sure wish they did!

How's Your Cell Phone Etiquette?

 

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