21 Days

twenty-one
Originally uploaded by astrocruzan

I don't know if I could handle seeing anyone 21 days straight.
Except my family.
But someday that anyone will be my family.
But how do you know?

Brilliant Day

The plan was to hit the hay at 11:11 tonight. Because that is precisely what time I looked at the clock, looked at my mom, and said "Good night" and turned to walk to my room to plop right in bed. But, as I was walking, mum decided to start one of her big, hour long (which is actually short) God-talk-people-talks. They are always great fun. So my sleepiness quickly departed and my feistyness set in. Now I am in a feisty mood. A picture editing mood. Contemplating our conversation, and thinking about reading the book of Mormon.

Since I am still tired I will just post some pictures for tonight and tell you a few things, list style:

1) Coffee/lunch with Kayla equalled great fun, minus the mayonaisse. Two "n"s in mayo? I don't know.

2) Compiling my writing portfolio makes me want to scrap book and beautify/funkify everything I can get my hands on this summer. Experimentation here I coooome.

3) Kids, car seats, gas stations, Panda Express, 60cent cookies, feeling like a mommy in my volvo.

4) "Why do you take pictures so much?" "Why do you play with R.C. cars all day?" "Touche kid, touche".

5) Car ride conversations: Nat-"Will you give me money?" "Why?" "So I can buy stuff." "What kind of stuff." "Boy stuff." "Do you wish you were a boy." "Yes."

6) Puppy dogs.

7) Fruity Pebble cereal

8) Bed time prayers and tuck-me-ins.

9) Reality.

10) Motivation.

2 days left of high school and I'm loving it. Hasn't hit. Really.

Editing

So, my mom met this lady today who ended up being in the editing field. I guess she'd been doing it for a long time and, after 10 years in the business, finally made a name for herself and started to make a little money. Now, 30 years later, she's finally doing what she's always wanted to do: freelance stuff. It only took her 40 years. She said that, basically, the market for editing in San Diego or even California is in the form of text book, medical, and scientific journals and not too much else. New York is great though.

Well shoot. I'm not moving to New York.

And I can't afford to live off my parents for 10 years, like this gal did. Plus, she majored in communications. And I'm not doing that. I need an english degree and a single subject teaching credencial as a backup. Or...now more of a forerunner. I don't want to edit scientific journal magazines. No thanks.

But lately I have been getting more of an itch to teach. Maybe that's because high school is coming to a close....only three more days of classes...and I realize what an impact it's had on me and I want to be a part of impacting other young folks.

Who knows.

All I know is I realllly don't want to edit scientific journals! She said it was a super boring job. But now she likes it because she works from home. After 30 years.

I'd rather grade kids' gramatically horrendous papers for 50 years than edit scientific journals for 10. Hah! Really though. I am so fond of a red grading pen (: But then again...red is so boring. I'll have to use teal or lime green or something. Find my trademark pen. Yes, I can see it already.

Hmmmm.

Nothing's Exciting Yet

Finals week starts. I haven't study a lot still. I don't know if I will. I kind of just don't feel like it. I downloaded a free 30 day trial of Photoshop Elements 6 today and I want to buy it as soon as I have the money. I miss photoshopping so much. But I also want to not use photoshop to make things look all neat and things. Soooo this summer I still want to experiment with mixed media stuff. I love photoshopping and I wish I had time to do it all the time. I didn't today, but I still did hah. I hope I love the art classes at SDSU and learn so many new exciting techniques and maybe even switch my major.

It still smells like linseed all up in here.

When to Talk

Edited/Deleted.

On the other hand...I don't have much to say today. I don't feel like writing and I didn't feel like cleaning all day long. Today I have been extremely tired. First time I've almost fallen asleep in church in a long long time. I don't recall staying up that late last night and I didn't get up that early this morning.

I have yet to do any substancial amount of studying and I have a 200 question government final on Tuesday. Ugh, almost done with this whole school thing...for a bit at least.

Right now we're just playing the waiting game.

I am incapable of declining a good brownie or...three.

I Fibbed.

I need a mundane outlet as well.


So I guess I will keep posting here.

Today it's been rainy and dreary and the day started at 10:30 when my mother woke me up to go shoe shopping. Ugh, shoe shopping. Shopping in general. One of the most depressing, yet pathetically fulfilling things I let myself (quite regularly) do. It seems I am always in between sizes, be it shoes or dresses or bathing suits (which I hardly even want to think about this season at all!) or pants or what have you. I am generally not one of those people who can simply go out and buy something, if I want it to actually fit right and be, as my mom says, "flattering". Nothing ever fits. I think having a short torso in conjunction with stubby legs doesn't help. So neither shirts nor pants fit well and even dresses generally have the waist in the wrong place--for abnormal, unfortunate chicadees such as myself :P

So, shoe shopping, after having spent hours upon hours looking for a dress, on Wednesday, that I need to wear for graduation, we then had to find the perfect shoes.

I still don't have them. But the ones I got will do enough.

The whole deal put me in a positively wretched mood and I was simply tired to boot. My mom nearly called the doctor twice because she thought the bronchitis was coming back and didn't want me to wait until the long weekend was up to get checked on. I talked her out of it...but now I'm wondering if that was a bad idea.

When I got home I kept coughing and I think I bruised my sternum today. It is so sore from the inside and it hurts to take a deep breath. Ugh, I am so tired of all the weather changes and the sicknesses that result. I finally am set on getting healthy and taking better care of myself but I can't even seem to get well.
Maybe it's because I've had this strange craving for everything sweet lately and nothing nutritional. Yes, I am eating massive amounts of food, but none of it is probably doing a lick for me, health wise (: Way to go me. I wish I could cook.


That is one thing on my list this summer.

Find healthy recipes and cook them. Take over the menu, that has consisted of the same items over and over again for years. I want to experience new things and buy the groceries, which I have the means to do now.
That's one thing.


Another is to sew a heck of a lot more. Sew bags, yes, but bags are getting boring (two more orders today though!).
My friend's mom let me take two of her sergers, a JUKI MO-104N babylock (? We aren't sure on that...it doesn't exactly say baby lock on it anywhere...) and a Singer Merritt Lock differential feed 14 U 244. Both aren't exactly in working order at the moment, but I'm going to take them to the sewing place by my mom's shop and see what it'll take to fix them. I'm hoping this works out because I know a serger will make my life so much easier and I will actually want to make the shirts I used to and try out some dresses and maybe some fancy aprons and such. Ohhhh I can't wait. Summer is coming up!
And if the sewing picks up then I won't have to get a job during the summer and then I can just work at the library at State in the fall. I'll still likely apply to the buck.


Another thing I want to work on this summer is messing around with mixed media on canvas. I have a bunch of old scrap fabric that I can't do much with, except make dolls with Shelbi maybe, and it would look rockin on canvis. Barbi also told me about this fabric printing paper that you can print directly onto fabric....like photos or text in neat fonts. I just want to experiment this summer.


With ceramic tiles too. And woodwork.
You see, I need a trunk for the end of my bed--to store extra fabric in it, since I don't have a sewing room and fabric often times eats my space. My dad said he'd teach me how to use his woodworking machines, which I've always wanted to do. Making things like book shelves and tables and even just frames has always been something I've wanted to do. He mentioned today that he was at a contractor's house in Del Mar or something and saw a piece of slab that the man's daugher had put broken tiles into, making a mosaic design, and he'd thought of me and that I should do that. Random thing was I was just thinking about that today when I was looking at one of my favorite coffee cups. So I mentioned making the trunk and he mentioned the tile, so my big project this summer is to make a trunk with my dad, and then decorate the top with ceramic tiles. I'm really excited (: And even if the whole trunk thing doesn't actually end up working out....I'd love a book shelf too, and we've talked about that already and this summer hopefully that will at least happen, then I will have three extra shelves in my closet organizers for other stuff (:

Other than all the aforementioned...
I have a lot going on. I don't even know how to sort it out...I'm just kind of ignoring the elephant in the room and going with the flow of things. With everything.
I kind of just need to re-learn to let everything go. Let God just take care of it. I try to take hold of things and I just break them. All the time. And I learn for a bit, but then I forget and have to learn all over again.

I hope the cycle stops one of these days.

Probably not though, right?

This whole turning into an adult thing is blowing my mind. I feel like I'm still so young. I am, shoot. But expectations are building. I feel like I should be experiencing more things, dating, going places, doing things. But I just like being by myself. Hahaha. Sometimes just the idea of the feeling, the pain of unrequitted love sounds appealing.

Bye for Now

I'm not writing in here anymore...well, not too regularly.
I'm writing somewhere else.
A private journal, just for me,
with a different provider,
and some different content.

Typing is faster,
and I need to remember these times
even better.
With details that
the whole world shouldn't see yet.
Or maybe ever.

Ta-ta (:
I'll still check in on you folks regularly.

Prom/Mother's Day

Prom was last night and it was fun.





Jesse takes better pictures than me. That's not allowed. :)

I actually danced, good deal (:

Mother's Day met us this morning. Breakfast (Lunch) at Pipe's-amazing. Pictures taken at Moonlight Beach.

Rad. Still sick. Not fun. Buy stock in kleenex company.

Breaking Point

I am sick again. It's a running theme in my life this year.
I have been more sick this year than any other year I can remember.
It's getting me down. I am so discouraged right now. There are so many things I need to do and being sick is hindering them all.
This weekend is prom. I was quite sick for senior banquet and only lasted about an hour at that. I invited 5 guests to prom and I will be so so sooo disappointed if I ruin the night.
I'm angry that I'm sick.
What am I supposed to be getting out of this? Can't I just get it already?!
Today was the hardest day. Our entire year book (~45 pages) is due tomorrow and we just started compiling things this week. No one really knows how to use this new program so it basically looks bad. This morning I got there a half hour early to work on it. I shouldn't have even gone to school.
But I really struggle with this. I never know for sure when I am just coping out and giving up and going home to sleep or when my body is truly saying, "Hey stupid person! I can't keep up with you! So I'm shutting down." I don't feel that stressed (except right now because I am sick again and there's too much to do in the next three weeks for me to spend in bed). I don't feel like I do too much. Other people do lots more school stuff, ministries, and even work. I just go to school, occassionally hit the gym, and do two ministries. That's not a lot. Yet I keep getting sick. I keep shutting down.
Or maybe I'm just coping out.
But today I feel like crap.
Today I have cried more times than I have all year because I'm just so discouraged and in pain and just want to be normal again.
I hate being sick. I hate being a pain, a drag, a downer to be around. I hate getting other people sick and then getting blamed for it. I don't mean to get people sick. I don't. But I can't live in a bubble either. I hate this. And this is my "I hate this" face.

aksdjaksjd;
I need prayer, I need motivation, I need healing, I need rest and to not feel guilty or like I'm a failure for resting.
And yet, I need to not rely on feelings.

Here's to health-
cday

Exercise

I think I might start going to the gym with a friend at 5:30am 5 days a week. She's looking for a workout partner and maybe this is just what I need to get me moving and motivated for the day and devotions and jazz like that (:
I don't know if I can get up that early though. That is intense.
I am no morning person.
But maybe I could be?

Sewing

I sewed today because I had a zillion other things to do and didn't want to do them, or think about them.

Within about an hour of the pictures being posted on the Space I got an offer for this bag...it's still kind of reserved for a gal who wanted a large bag a long time ago. But either way, it's sold now. And I'm almost kind of bummed...I really love that bag and the pattern is great. But I guess I need $25 more.

After this my mom and I spent way too long making an extra big yoga at bag for a family friend's birthday tomorrow. Her mat is almost twice the size as the regular ones so we really had to wing it, size wise, and we still don't know if it fits...but the bag is really rad, I think.

Tomorrow I have to go prom dress shopping. I really loathe this. I don't like myself in dresses and it easily gets me depressed haha. But, it must be done. I found one I actually liked,

but of course, the only color they had in my size to order on line (and even then we may have had to send it back) was magenta. And I just don't do magenta. Soooo, unfortunately, my day tomorrow will be spent shopping. I'm almost hoping for rain (: in which case we'll be stuck inside, oh darn.

That is all.

Sick. Again.

My life is like a teeter totter and I wish it weren't.

I can't swallow much. Here we go again.

I wish I could be optimistic and cheerful and bright all the time. But sometimes I just don't feel strong enough. I can tell myself that, "I can do anything through Christ who strengthens me". But sometimes they are just words and I can't hold onto them or believe them and there is this gap between my heart and mind and they don't always want to agree.

I hope I just have a fever and am delusional.

Future

First, let start out with this: God has been so Good to me lately. So good. And that is love. And I feel it right now...in this second. That revelation that God is good to me and that is love.

Moving on....

I have so much admiration and respect for people who see God calling them places and they just drop everything and work toward that goal.
I need to be more like these people and not over analyse.
I need to have less of a "my plan".
Ugh.
I had this lovely fellow, Nick, pray over me tonight and say many things.

Don't sway.
The Lord is immeasurably proud.
Sunflower blooming...life beginning.
A spiritual sense of smell.
Powerful voice to be raised.
Art....
Artsy fartsy school...scultpure, clay.
Pottery. Bowls--
many different sizes, shapes of spiritual senses.
Cafe. Sheep--people gathering there.
A light switch, the future being clear.

I don't know for certain what all this means
but this fellow didn't know me at all.
And yet he knew my heart completely.


I have a plan and this isn't part of it. Not realistically.
In my heart it is the forerunner. Something I truly used to get excited about before I shot it down and couldn't find a way to do it. I still don't know if I can. I know I can if it is really of His will. And even if it's not...if I later recognize this he can use it for good. But I don't want to be irrational. I don't know where I'm going or what I'm studying.
Kevin said many many months ago that college would be last minute.
Why did God have to be right?
Where am I going with my life?

I Don't Blog Anymore

EDIT: I have a question for all y'all...the little banner thing at the top of the page, how do you change that? I did it once but I can't remember how to do it again......much appreciation oh wise ones.


And it's not because things aren't happening...maybe it's because things are happening.
Today I feel like making a list.

• I get burnt out on sewing and being productive
• I am learning that I don't know what true love is, nor what true love in regards to the Lord means. What does it mean to feel loved? To know I am loved? To be able to accept that love and return it to the best of my ability? I am bad at being loved and loving. This has to come to an end. (A good end, I might add)
• I need to be open about my past and apply it to my future as testimony and ministry. However, in the act of opening the blind for outsiders to see in my little window...I in turn will have to close and lock the door on my past--never to re-enter. I can't go back to it if everyone knows of it. The thrill (which is a horrible word, I just can't find another one right now) will be lost. However, this will be fantastic closure and the world will be at my fingertips.
• I made my first scrapbookish painting/collage thing that I actually enjoy...it's not glued down yet because I lost a green ribbon. I think it got caught up in a pile of laundry and is now tumbling in the drier. I hope it doesn't shrink...it was the perfect length for the page. Shoot.
• My eyes are green and I was told that through them shines a ministry I can't see but others can. That was an encouraging word.
• I need to loosen up and let the laughter flow.
• Yet sorrow is better than laughter...and this confuses me. Eccl. 7 I believe.
• My future. Needs to be more open and I have an inkling, almost a fearful one, that the foundation lies in my past. But I am struggling to be sincere.
• I might take voice lessons, but I am incredibly scared and embarrassed.
• I just sneezed and strained a muscle in my back.
• I need to "ruminate" in (on?) the Word.
• I have a lovely bedroom with wall art now.
• I keep procrastinating at things and this is avoidance and this avoidance is the manifest of mistrust.
• I need to be more like a tree man. Harold Eberle is a wise guy. And he supports the point I've been subconsciously living by for years. Be like trees. Sit, recieve from the heavens--light, rain, dry spells and give to the people shade, a place to rest, and beautiful colors. Amen brother Harold. Amen.
• This is the end of my list for now...

Easter, Yoga Bags

Quick up date, lots of pictures!

Easter was fun...we spent Saturday night filling up water balloons for the kids (Quinn, Nolan, Gavin, Chandler, Cameron, & Connor)--and adults. My fingers are raw and still slightly blistered from tying--between Marion, Chandler, and I--over 600 water balloons!

Sunday we all came home from church, put bathing suits on over our shorts and tank tops and blasted each other with balloons. My arm still hurts from throwing so many. I woke up the next morning with a kink between my right shoulder blade and everything! hah

The water balloons were gone in about 10 minutes between all of us pelting eachother...but it was fun and worth it and a great new tradition.

I only had one week of spring break, unfortunately, because my school is on Grossmont College's schedule. So over this time I was able to perfect my yoga mat bag design and have sold the blue bag.

The red/pink/off white bag still needs an owner!

That's about all for now (: Hope everyone's Easter was fantastic...

The Inspiration Behind the Shirt

1st shirt back view
Originally uploaded by courtneeyday

I sewed my first shirt on, I guess, March 9, because that's the day before I uploaded the photo you can see here. My aunt unknowingly inspired me to sew. When I really started sewing she sent me fabric through the mail.

Aunt
03.13.08

A brown package from Washington,
where you live these days,
full of color on the inside—
All kinds and textures of fabrics
and an old table cloth with painted
red, blue, yellow, green flowers
and brown swirls.
This was my favorite. It made me think
of you.

I wish I knew you more, my mother’s
sister whom her friends don’t think exist.
The elusive, whimsical, fleeting aunt
with crazy curly bleached blonde hair and red
lipstick and white flowing shirts contrasted by weathered
tan skin speckled with freckles.

She would tell me stories of you cutting
Up bed sheets late at night and creating things.
You were cold in the winter, but you had cute clothes.

I wish you hadn’t run away
To Cabo with your boyfriend—
Bob? Mike? Tom? I can’t remember which one
they all blur together now—
Leaving behind your kids,
your family,
eventually me…
your little niece who loved her auntie.

You came over to babysit me and my blonde
pigtails once.
You put Barbie dolls on the ceiling fan
And we watched them fly when you flipped the magic switch.

You were magical.
You could make things disappear, like
Grandma’s silver engraved coasters
when I closed my eyes.
And you could make a quarter come out of your belly button—
If it didn’t get stuck in your bra.

You could fly away and disappear and reappear
and disappear again, too.
You were magic
then.

I grew up and never told you how much
I really liked you and wanted to be like you
And look like you
And act like you
And talk to you and hug you and spend time with you.

When I was three we spent a lot
of time together in the car while my mom,
your sister, drove you to your
A.A. meetings.
You would let me hold your shiny special plastic coins
and I lost the red one, the last one, in the backseat of
the beat up gold Honda accord and we never found it
and we never took you again either.

I didn’t understand then, but I get it now.
You can’t teach me how to sew because most days
you can’t sew a straight line anymore.
So I learned from your sister, my mom,
And I use the fabric you send every once in a while.
But I could use you a lot more, you know.
To teach me magic tricks.

I made myself a shirt out of that old
Table cloth you gave me.
Someone asked me if it was for sale,
but I said no, maybe another one.
It’s imperfect and funky and it makes me
Think of you.

I grew up to be a lot like you,
Even without you.
Finding comfort in things we both love—
painting, sewing, beauty.
Things some people just don’t see or feel
or understand.
You know,
I could have understood you better than
that hard empty glass.

Aunt

1st shirt back view Originally uploaded by courtneeyday I sewed that shirt...my first one, out of an old table cloth my aunt mailed me from Washington years ago. She was kind of the one who unknowingly inspired me to sew. But that's not the point of this post.

Poetry Submission

It's Spring
Originally uploaded by courtneeyday

I'm taking a creative writing class and my pieces have to be workshopped. I was really uncomfortable with this at first but have yet to have a negative experience. Some people have actual constructive things to say while others just say "it was good". All in all I'm really liking this class.
However, the poetry submissions were today and I gave myself very little time to write my poems. I procrastinated...but not purposefully...I just didn't feel overly inspired to write this week. Or play music. Which is just a drag. I'm feeling the passion come back though, it's coming.
Anyway...I was nervous. I managed to crank out a fresh new poem (which I wasn't overly thrilled with nor did I know how it would be received...) and I expanded my song, "Paper Bag", which I retitled "Truth in Lies" for this project. I wasn't confident or comfortable with either, but oh well...it's not a "failing" class. As long as I submit something at all I will get a good grade. Actually the submissions aren't even "graded" per say...It's rad.
So I was sitting in class waiting to hear who was in my group. I was really hoping I didn't get this one guy in my group. He's kind of edgy and I'm intimidated by him. He went to my old high school and he'd always been kind of a "cool" kid who probably had deep thoughts and an intense writing style. He was in my group and I was sweating the whole time.
We all read through eachother's poems and his were the ones that took the most time to read and pick apart and they were good, a little cryptic, and I enjoyed them. And all the while I was thinking, wow, he must think my pieces are junk.
We started discussing them and we went over his pieces first and I unraveled it just how he intended, which was good to know, because it did take me a few minutes to figure out. I don't think anyone else in our group really understood it. I'm not sure he really understood what he wrote haha.
We finally got to my poems and he was the first to speak saying I was a great writer and that he just wanted to keep reading them over and over and I always intimidated him when I spoke up in class when we pick apart poetry because he feels like an idiot for not knowing anything in this class. Hah! I was worried over nothing. He is not who I thought he was and that's awesome. I think I do this a lot with people--previously steriotype them when I have no real need to worry about what they're thinking of me. I like this guy, it turns out. He's a nice fellow and down to earth. Well, of what I saw today.
I wonder what people think of me. Like he thinks I'm some literary genius because I speak up about what I think things mean in class and I point out details in people's writings I like and don't like...but that's just opinion based. I'm not educated in this (yet) so my thoughts on it hold very little. But here I had these preconceived notions about him and he doesn't even speak.
I wish I could get into people's heads sometimes.

Anyway, these are my poems, if you'd like to read them:

I Helped.

We sat on the itchy carpet here,
17 years ago in this same living
room now changed by age.
I helped you learn to breathe
every third stroke so you wouldn’t
hyperventilate.

Blow out, 1, 2
breathe in deep, 3.
Reach farther, pull deeper, pretend
you’re cutting through the water like a champion.

We sit here now, 8:30 at night,
but it’s a different we.
She looks just like you,
so small and fragile and full of
innocent life and she wants to learn
how to tumble and fly so I’m helping
her learn to land safely in my
arms.

I’ll spot you, trust me,
I’ll help you over the back bend.
You can do it.
Relax, have fun, pretend
You’re floating in the air.

You’re in the other room getting ahead,
filling out paper work cast in a shade of blue
from your computer screen.
You’re making calls to other people’s children all
grown up and in their business suits at
home at this hour still.
Maybe their mothers or fathers sat on their living
room carpets and taught them, too.

Reach farther, pull deeper, pretend
you’re cutting your way to the top
you’re cutting your way out of your
little childrens’ lives—the only ones who will ever accept
you just because you’re you.

I wish I would have taught you
how to
fly
instead.


Truth in Lies.

We’re all just a bunch
of wet,
brown,
paper bags,
trying to carry the weight
of the world.

We’re all just a bunch
of bright,
red,
bleeding hearts,
who cry out for sympathy
but “No thank you, we don’t need help”.

We’re all just a bunch
of writers,
cynics,
and criticizers,
who use words to judge and tear down,
using the pieces to build an altar to ourselves.


We’re all just a bunch
of eyes,
ears,
and minds,
that see, hear, believe anything we want them to
finding truth in our own lies.

What kind of life have we
been living?



P.S. I have been slightly obsessed this week with Patty Griffin (particularly Every Little Bit) and Natalie Merchant (particularly Wonder and Carnival). So great (:

P.P.S. Alexia Hunter will be my new apprentice for small group leadership and I am so stoked, God has blessed me with the perfect partner for this! It is going so well already, she's been leading worship for 3 weeks now and ah! it's great. Praise the Lord...she is well worth the wait!

Today was awesome!

It was a gorgeous day, again, and I was in a productive mood. I am really hoping tomorrow is the same! I woke up determined to start shaping and perfecting the new "piece" for my "collection" (bahhhaha): The Yoga Mat DayBag! It was a success, I stinking adore it! I don't usually get so excited about bags, but this one I totally dig...which is strange, because I don't even own a mat...I just use the ones provided at the gym. I will post more pictures of it later...but this is just my first try, so it's pretty rough and I'll probably try to sell this one for only $12 or $15 because it's definitely not the highest quality...but it still took fabric and a lot of time! Anyway, I'm really excited...my neighbor, who is all into business and things like that thinks I should create a webpage, which he could actually do for me, and sell them and my original DayBags through it. I haven't done this before because I don't know what kind of business license, if any, or patent or whatever for the name, etc....all the legal hoops I'd have to jump through...taxes. Yada yada. We'll see. If I actually did make the site and actually did start sewing basically full time again that'd mean I'd actually have to do it again! Which will be tricky....seeing as I am great at procrastinating while being in control of my own work hours. Ah well....it would, again, beat a real job. Perhaps this is my answer to prayer and I'm just not taking it.

Anyway, I got a great babysitting opportunity first thing this morning as well. Tonight I watched 6 crazy kids and two dogs and racked in the dough. I also took all my coins into the coin machine and was pleasantly surprised to recieve $50 in return! I was starting to stress out this week about this month's car payment and in one day it was completely covered! Praise God or what. He's pretty rad like that.

Anyway, I spent about 5 hours with these 6 kids tonight and had a blast. We played hide and go seek, sardines (which was better, because I knew where all of them were the whole time...I could help one kid hide, stuff the rest in the bathroom to wait for us, and then follow the 5 when they went searching for the kid's hiding place and I chuckled at their misdirection since I knew where whoever was it was hiding), we colored for hours, a few kids played guitar hero, I read books to Quinn and Nat, and we did tumbling and took pictures, and ate pizza and it was a great time!

I don't usually enjoy watching kids this much but it was fun tonight. I almost think it's because there was an ecclectic mix...when one of them was annoying me I could go check on the other ones and spend a few minutes with them haha.

Good day over all and hopefully this productive kick won't end tomorrow!

6 (03.07.08) : Water balloons

6 (03.07.08) : Water balloons
Originally uploaded by courtneeyday

Today was a gorgeous day. The sun was shining and the air was just the right amount of crisp and warmth. The clouds painted the sky lightly here and there but other than that it was blue as ever and the flowers were all bloomed and the grass and hills were all lush and green because of the rain we've had recently. But not today. Today was amazing.
We had class outside and I got a bit tan (: which makes me feel happy and healthy, not so washed out by winter. I think I'm ready for summer now. I was loving the rain, but I'm ready for the ocean again.
Today I came home and made myself lunch and sat outside on a curb in the sun and eventually Quinn came out to play. We made it our mission to fill up a water balloon. We made many failed attempts but finally succeeded.
After many many pictures and lots of fun I finally chose the one above for my picture of the day (:
I hope tomorrow is as good as today was.
Though tomorrow I have to think about scholarships and sewing and making money. I don't want to think about money tomorrow. I just want to play with water balloons and walk around the cul-de-sac with no shoes on and Quinner pulling at my hand instructing me to walk this way and that and to do this and that.
But I'm broke and I have bills to pay now. That sounds so dumb. Like I'm trying to make them up. And it stinks because I'm not. And I've run out of money because I've been lazy at my "business". So now I have to pick up the slack and wonder how long it will last this time...if I can just make it until I can get a job at the college library then I should be okay. I just don't want another job. So I guess I have to try to apply myself to the job I've made for myself--the one I can wear my pajamas too and that I can do at all hours of the day or night if I really pleased. It's an open office in this room of mine where I can make magic happen but often times put it off for the tomorrow or next weekend that rolls right into never.
I guess I don't want to grow up after all.
And I'd really rather not pay for college.

I've been thinking it's funny that I'm a pretty content person as I am, living in this house (which is amazing, I think) but as soon as I step foot into a store with nicer things than I have I want them. What a temptation. Usually it doesn't last.
I was at Lowe's the other day looking at sinks with my mom. They have these new (new to me, perhaps not really new...but I haven't seen them before!) ones with an actual bowl...like it could look like one you eat out of but really big--maybe a fancy thick salad or punch powl, placed ontop of a flat counter. So these sink bowls, the outside of them, you can see, so they can be decorated and different looking and actually be a focal point of the bathroom. I thought it was really neat and I really wanted one for my future house someday. Then I looked at the price and the one I liked--just the bowl--not even the counter top or cupboards underneath--was nearly $1,000. So I was thinking, well, I'll just marry a rich guy...or write a best selling novel and go on book tours before I have kids. Psh! I came home later and seriously who really cares about a sink bowl. You wash your dirty hands in it and you spit toothpaste in it when you're done brushing the plaque off your pearly whites. Who cares about a sink bowl.

I'm not sure what that had to do with much of anything and I don't know what kind of sink bowl I will have when I get older, but sometimes I care and sometimes I don't. I have nice things though. I am biased because I am already well off. Oh who knows.
It's late and I don't want to waste sunshine tomorrow.
Goodnight (: