I've had a busy day

Today was a very eventful day for me, considering that Saturdays are usually quiet. First, my neighbor was having a yard sale and was selling two chifferobes that belonged to the woman who owned the house while I was growing up. Miss Rhoda was her name and she was a missionary/teacher in Japan and Germany for many of my childhood years. When she was put in a nursing home her family had an estate sale and I really wanted those two pieces, but there was no way I could afford the price they had on them, and then they ended up being sold with the house. But today, they are mine!!! Well, one is mine and the other is my sister's. We decided to share. Somebody decided to put a smiley face on one of them with some kind of glue or something, and even if we take it off, the finish will come off with it so we still have a smiley face. So here are some pictures of them for your viewing pleasure.
sorry about the flash on this first one

here's the smiley face~


Next, at about 2 my sister decided that we were going swimming at the creek. So here we go, me, my sister, her husband, and his sister and her husband. The creek is really high right now because of all the rain, and I knew there was nowhere to go without getting into the current, but we found a place that had some good raipds and a shallow part to recover in. We started going down the rapids sans inner-tube and we were having so much fun. We were there for 2 1/2 hours and had gone several times, and my butt was feeling the pain of every rock I hit. Anyway, I decided to go once more, and everything waws cool until my leg turned under itself and my foot hit a rock. I felt it snap and then excruciating pain, and all I could think was I broke my stupid foot. My brother-in-law was standing downstream to catch me and as soon as I got to him I was screaming "I broke my ankle!" but we were still fighting the current so we both had to swim to the bank with me trying to stay conscious and when we finally made it to the bank, I just stood there braced against a rock saying "Oh God" not as a cuss word ya know just crying out to him to help me. So finally my sister and brother-in-law helped me out of the water and up the bank (which was not easy because there are lots of rocks)and then I crawled, yes crawled, over the roots that were between me and the grass, and then I got carried to the car piggy-back style. I desperately wanted to go to the hospital but got talked out of it, and now it's the tiniest smidgeon better, but I still can't walk or put any weight on it, and it just constantly aches, but I will definately go tomorrow if it's still swollen bad. So here's a loverly picture of how I reduced swelling.



yes, that would be broccoli florets on my ankle.

And I got a sunburn. My day is complete.

random picture of the day

Dollywood iced tea~~yummy

yes I know it's been a while. So with some prodding from a certain person who shall remain nameless, I bring you....the updated blog. Please, hold your applause while I get my thoughts together. Well, Here are the only two photos I took of the 127 yard sale, the first one is the exit we took and waited so long on to get to Jamestown (which we never got to)

and then this one I just thought was funny



I had another one with a big pink monkey sitting on a motorcycle, but somehow it got deleted.

I just finished the newest Harry Potter book last night, and it was good. I knew what was going to happen at the end because I was told, and I figured out how it was going to happen, so what should have been shocking was well, not. What was more interesting to me was what was revealed in the last chapter, but I can't say because I can't spoil it. Even though everyone who reads this has probably already read the book or doesn't care about Harry. You should. He's so all alone now.

Sorry about the randomness, but really there's not much going on. I'm going to be busy the next 2 weekends doing concessions for the next play at the theater. "Sleuth" starring...well does it really matter? It only has 2 men in the cast, so that gives me a break until Christmas when I'll be on stage once again to play Sister Robert Anne in "Nuncrackers" which I can hardly wait for. Also I guess I'll be doing lights for a revival of "Lying In State" in Crossville for two shows only...and getting paid for it. *little happy Snoopy dance*

OK, well I think I'll just dance myself over to Flikr (or however you spell it) and start a photo blog. Details later.

racin' around

Well it's been a while since I updated so here's what's going on. Well, the phone just rang in the middle of my thought process and it was the owner of the daycare where I used to work. It seems I'll be making an appearance there tomorrow morning because all of her help is either sick or out of state. Grrr...I was gonna sleep tomorrow but hey I can't turn down money, and I'm just such a nice person that she knew she could count on me.

So...Saturday was the Amazing Race at church with my youth group, and yes it was a knock off of the TV show. We had to figure out the clues though instead of just saying here go to this place, but it was so exciting. I always get nervous in competitions because I'm afraid I'll mess up horribly and be embarrassed and my team members will blame me for losing. But as it turns out, I was the driver of the winning team! I think I scared the two kids that were with me because I went a tad over the speed limit through town and around curves. Now you have to remember that I live in a two red light town where the biggest excitement is when something catches on fire and the juiciest gossip is who got arrested for making meth this week. That's really sad now that I see it written down, but that's another post entirely. Anyway, I was speeding through town and there were cops at every food place we passed, and I thought we were in second place the whole time, but we were ten minutes ahead of everybody. Yeah baby!

Also this weekend was the 127 yard sale, which is the longest yard sale each year, and it just happens to pass through Crossville which is only a 30 minute drive from my house. So off we went to the insanity that turned out to be the yard sale. We decided to go to Rockwood and up the interstate since we knew that we would never get anywhere going up the mountain. When we got to our exit, it was so backed up that we sat there for like 20 minutes. We finally got on the actual road and ended up going to only one place where there was a whole bunch of tents set up together. I bought a little brass bell with stained glass cherries on top for a whole dollar, and then we decided it was too hot so we got back in the car and headed back through the massive traffic jam until we got to some people who were selling jellies and jams, and then my sister and mother bought two jars each. Personally, I think they shoud schedule it for the fall when the weather is cooler and not so humid, but I'm not in charge of that operation, thankfully. So now I'm off to sleep since I have to be at the daycare at 7 freakin' 30. I'm such a pushover, I can never say no.

Last night I dreamed that Usher (yes the musician) was my very good friend and he was giving me directions to his new house, and my grandmother who is long passed was driving the car to get to his house but she got on some train tracks and I was trying to get her off of them onto a road to the right of us by steering from the back seat, but it didn't work and I never got to his house. Then I was in an airport with my preacher's wife and other people and kids from our church and we were trying to get the kids boarded onto the plane. Everyone got on but me and the ticket lady would not process my ticket so the plane took off without me. I was very upset; crying and kicking the posts along the line of people, and the lady just walked away to go on break. I went to find a phone and somehow ended up in the laundry room of my house. It was storming outside and the roof had holes in it and the rain was coming through but I just stood there looking at the clothes. There was dirt or cat food or something all over the floor of the kitchen, which connects to the laundry room and I started to sweep it up but it wouldn't go away and there's more I think but I don't remember it.

Now I'm sure there's a meaning in that dream somewhere so if anyone reads this and has a clue, feel free to fill me in. I think dreams are important and we need to pay attention to them. A friend I totally trust once told me that God speaks to me through my dreams, and ever since then I try to pay attention more. Granted sometimes they are just nonsense (like Usher would ever speak to me), but sometimes I think there is a lesson in them if we just know how to look for it. I try to remember my dreams and I would like to say I write them all down in my dream journal but that would be a falsehood, and I encourage people to remember theirs. I know that other people's dreams are boring to most people and I know that when I start rattling off my dreams to my friends I can see their eyes glaze over and their attention swings over to something else, but I don't care, vocalizing sometimes helps me figure it out.

Now that I have officially announced my dork status, I'll just stop talking.

my sister and me deep in character

thread the needle

I didn't like the photos I posted before of the show so I got some different ones. These are more...er...better.

So, remember a while back when I talked about the director of the play fainting, and I said I had never fainted before? Look here. Well, I can no longer say that. Last night, ok, early this morning, at like 2 AM, I got up to turn on the air and get a drink of water. I went into the kitchen and was standing at the sink drinking my water, and the next thing I remember is waking up and looking at the underside of a kitchen chair. Somehow I landed between the stove and the table without hitting anything, but I must have hit on my hiney first because my tailbone hurts very badly. This whole day all I've felt like doing was sleep, and I just feel generally lousy but hey I got out of work early. I came home and went to the mexican restaurant with my sister, and then sat in the blazing hot sun for 20 minutes while we gave her husbands uniloader thing a jump because the battery was dead. So today I've worked a total of two hours, eaten mexican food twice (I also had it for supper) and now I'm ready for bed, never never to get up again. At least until tomorrow.

"Quilters" Lizzie and Rose scene

"Quilters" Freedom quilt scene

hee hee

Your Hidden Talent

You have the natural talent of rocking the boat, thwarting the system. And while this may not seem big, it can be. It's people like you who serve as the catalysts to major cultural changes. You're just a bit behind the scenes, so no one really notices.

What's Your Hidden Talent?

I saw Charlie tonight!

Actually, he was in the Chocolate Factory, and I really went to see Johnny Depp, but the whole movie turned out to be really good. Except for the end, which I thought was kinda like they were trying too hard to be politically correct, but overall it was worth my time and money. I'll more than likely buy it when it comes out on DVD just for the oompa loompa songs. The only thing that bothered me was the way Johnny portrayed Willy Wonka. He played it a little on the psychotic side but maybe I'm just used to Gene Wilder who was excentric but still not so insane that you want to run far far away from him. With Johnny, I kinda got that. But hey, that's my opinion, and I know it doesn't count for anything so neener neener. I don't want to give anything away, so I won't, but it was a lot funnier than I thought it was going to be.

Oh, and here's the blonde moment of the day. My friend Alison came to visit me at work today to bring me some pictures of "Quilters" and her money for the shots the professional guy had taken. (which are not that good, btw). She handed me a 20 and I stuck it in my pocket. About two minutes later, my co-worker walks in with lunch and I put my hand in my pocket to get the dollar bill I thought was in there to go get a drink, and I pull out the twenty and look at it and go "Where did this twenty dollars come from?" I honestly could not remember why that was in my pocket or how it got there. Alison just looked at me and said, "honey, I just handed that to you for the pictures," and so that was the "DER" moment of the day when my true roots showed through.

Thank you, thank you very much.

Rainy Tuesday

Yep, it's been raining off and on for a while now, and all because of the hurricanes further south. It rained so hard today that I had to drive through high water across the road. But, all the rain means that the creek is full and when it calms down a bit I'm gonna get my innertube out and watch out baby! I'm goin' tubin'! woohoooooooo!

Also, tonight the church choir went to the nursing home to sing, well I should say 3 choir members and 3 non-choir members showed up since everyone else is on vacation, but anyway, we sang old hymns and those little old ladies were singing at the top of their lungs. They really like it when we sing the old songs. Mama's aunt was recently put in there, and I asked them to bring her down so she could hear, and she protested the whole time. When we were finished singing, I took her back to her room and she doesn't remember things that good so this was the conversation going down the hall.

her-Do you know where I'm going?
me- No, Alta Mae, I sure don't so we'll just cruise up and down the halls until we find your room.
her (after we find the right hall)- i know this road, I used to go down this way all the time. Have you ever been down this road?
me-no, I haven't.
her-well, that's good, I hope you never have to go down this road.
me(in my mind)-I hope I never have to go down this road either, honey.

Oh my goodness! Talk about holding back the tears. This woman who used to work her fingers to the bone on the mountain where she was born and raised has been reduced to a wheelchair, and a bed in a home where her son put her just to get her land and everything on it. It just makes you wonder how people could care so little for the person that gave you life. I'm glad I love my mommy and I'm glad she loves me.
What else is there to say?

This is Monday.

Ok, remember the thing that I was going to tell you about today? Well here it is. I put a bid on a house that the court has for sale today. It's not very big and there's not much yard, but it's cute and needs some work, and I really really want it, because that means I can finally be independant and fix it up and decorate it the way I want to! mwaaahahahahahaaaaaaaa!!! I won't know anything until August so now I just have to be patient and wait.

Also today I went to Sonic for lunch and got the new cookie dough blast which wasn't taht great but anyway, I got to work with my food, got out of the car, and thought I was gonna be smart and lock the door with the styrofoam cup because my hands were full. How wrong I was! Dummy me poked a hole in the bottom of the cup and so I had to walk through the hospital dripping ice cream down the hall. That was my true blonde moment for the day. Can we all say DER in unison?

Oh, and then I get a text message from my friend Matthew(oh yeah he's the one I was going out with, but we just decided to be friends, since we can't go two seconds without arguing) with disturbing news which I won't share since it's not my story to tell, but yeah, woo!

Then when I got the mail today there was an offer for a free picture phone if I renew my Verizon account for 2 years. I might just do that, but I don't really want to go another 2 years with a plan because I may decide to cancel it altogether and then I would have to pay. GRRRRRR decisions!

other than that my day was pretty good.

A day at Dollywood

So today my sister, my mother and I went to Dollywood with the full intention to ride every ride there. We got there, looked in a few shops, and didn't ride the first ride. It was so humid, and there were so many people there, we just decided to wait until the fall when it's cooler and there's less people. And since we have season passes, it's no big deal. So instead we went to Old Navy and the scrapbook store, where we spent way too much on nothing. I tell ya, You can lose your shirt in that store!

We did eat lunch at the Backstage restaurant, (see below photos), and can I just tell you one little incedent that happened? We were sitting there eating, ya know, and the hostess brought this guy through with his family, and he asked her if they could sit over by the window, which is not an unheard of request. She proceeds to tell him there's not a waitress working that area, so he says (very rudely) well we want to sit there so let me talk to the manager because I don't think that's too much to ask, and I don't think it's too much for a waitress to walk over there. And they did. I've never worked in the food industry, but I know that restaurants have waitresses for certain areas and I just think that it's very rude and wrong to demand that they open up an area just because you want to sit by the window. I'm sure he's used to getting exactly what he wants with no argument or backlash, and that just burns my boogers.
*SIGH*
whew...now I feel better, I'm glad I got that off my chest.
I've got more news but I'm going to wait until Monday to post on that!

my sister at the Backstage Restaurant. I took out some of the color from these two of us, I just think it looks cooler that way. I like the way the waiter walking by is blurred but the two in the background are just standing there.

me at the Backstage restaurant at Dollywood.

I think this is an awesome shot, but what do I know, right? The truck just happened to go by at the right time. You can see the towers in the background right by the sun.

The towers along the interstate in Kingston, I wanted to get them both in view, with the smaller ones seperated, but I was thinking slower than my mother was driving.

Leia Speia Cha Cha Cha

hey

geez, I just can't think of a thing to say and right now all I can think about is my *new* guy. Yes folks, this chick has found someone special. Woo hoo. I am very happy and that scares me a little. I feel guilty because all my life I've been told that I should let God be my everything, and when I do, He will give me what I ask. And that I should be excited that I have Jesus in my life, as excited as when you find a person you could fall in love with, and I never do. I try so hard to be everything God wants but I fail him miserably every time. I feel guilty because I'm excited about my guy, and want to spend every waking minute with him, but I can't even pick up my Bible and read for 20 every day for God. It breaks my heart to see how shallow I am, and I don't want to be like that, I want to do what I was called by God to do, so that people can look at me and say yep, she belongs to God, no question about it.

Wow, this is not the direction I was going in, but hey, it was good to let that out. so I guess that's all for now.

we are dorks

nice hair

Anessa thinks she's gonna drive the boat

Matt's ready for the lake

the group assemble for the cast party on the lake!

hey hey

Nothing to say, just checking in. I was outside last night watching my neighbors kids play and the mosquitos were horrible. I got my bug spray and doused everyone, including myself, but apparently I forgot my feet. So now, I have numerous bites on my right inside ankle, and on the top of my left foot. They itch like crazy, and cortizone cream only works for so long.

Hey, so I want to say a little bit about where I live which I meant to do when I started this blog, but never got around to. I have lived in East Tennessee my whole life, in a little two red light town named Spring City. It's an hour south-ish of Knoxville, and an hour north-ish of Chattanooga. I can make it to the Smokey Mountains in about 2 and a half hours, and I like to visit there a lot. If I want to see a movie or go anywhere fun I have to drive an hour, ooo but I forgot they just opened an new movie theater in Crossville and that's only 30 minutes away! They're on central time though, so that's kinda hard to adjust to. Um, they're putting a four lane through town, and we have a McDonald's now (big woo), and well, that's about it.

Just getting ready for the next weekend of performances, hopefully it will go as well as the first week. We'll see.

what a difference...

...a day makes! To quote my sister, I think we were abducted by aliens and then replaced with actors. Tonight was opening night, and we did like 200 percent better than last night. So, yippee I'm relieved, happy, thankful, um...and other happy words. I just hope we can keep it up for the rest of the shows. I'm gonna keep praying though.

I don't know........

Two important things happened tonight. First,we performed the dress rehearsal to an audience of about thirty. The first act went relatively smoothly, no major problems except the songs were so slow I swear I thought I saw someone slipping into a coma, and I'm thinking alright we're gonna be done in less than 4 hours. Then the second act happened. You would think that a director who is also in the play would know what she's doing. Especially one who made professional theater her career. Can I just say that if I was doing this show with her for the first time, I would never do theater again in my life. She got on stage and we were up there right where we were supposed to be, we finished our pretty dandelion song and then everything went to hell. Seriously. She skipped like three scenes and went straight to the end of the show, and we were standing there with nowhere to go because for the scene she was doing, we're not on stage. So we stood there going what are we supposed to do and, geez I don't even know what happened, but we were on stage looking like total idiots. I left the stage when it was over and went straight to the dressing room, changed my clothes, and sat there because I literally felt sick to my stomach. I think I won't even go to work tomorrow. hehe.
While everyone was changing she came in and started saying "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it'll be fixed tomorrow" and then, and this is the best part, she fainted . Yes folks, the woman fainted. I just stood there. I didn't even try to help her up. I knew she was faking it. My sister knew she was faking it. Because if she had really fainted she would have hit her head on the chair that was sitting there, but she caught herself before she hit, and she recovered right away. Now, I've never fainted nor seen anyone faint, but I figure if you did, then it would take you a while to recover from it since your body has to readjust to the shock of whatever made you faint in the first place. So that happened first.

Second, and sorry I know this is probably longer than you care to read, but I have to tell this.

I get in my car where my phone is and I have a message waiting for me. Hmmm, who could be calling since my sister is at the theater with me? It would be the guy that broke my heart, calling to say that he was "looking through some of his things" and "remembering old times" and was sorry he dropped me like he did but he doesn't want to apologized to my voice mail so he would call later. And then he said "pancakes" which is an inside joke. What do I do now? Should I just try to go back and be friends again or should I say sorry you had your chance. We were so close and shared so much, and then he just vanished, and now this. I want to believe that he did it because of the remorse just eating at his insides, but I have a gnawing feeling that his mother had something to do with it. See, I had called her to ask if she would make cookies for the play, and said "you know he doesn't talk to me anymore" and she made the excuse of well he's in love and you don't think much about your friends when your in love. That is the biggest bunch of dookie I've heard in a while. But anyway, I think she's said something to him, and that makes me kinda angry that it takes her prompting him for me to get an apology out of him. He really kinda got me with the whole pancakes line because it was like yeah say a joke and then everything will be alright, but it's not. waaahhaaaa I don't know what to do!
*sniff*

two days and counting

So tonight we went through light cues which we should have done Monday, or last Friday, but anyway, and let me just say that we suck a big fat one. I think if we had a different director and a few different people that it would be a good show, but right now, two days before we open, people still don't know their lines and ya know there's only so much I can memorize before my brain starts losing important information stored in there. Kinda like Kelly on married with children when she went on some game show and they quizzed her with all kinds of info but she got to a point where one fact would go in and then she would lose one... not that I watch that show...because I don't...

But I digress. We have people coming to see the dress rehearsal tomorrow and well, I'll be praying a lot from now until the show's over. I want to say that it's gonna be ok but I just feel very unprepared, even though I know I've done everything I can to be prepared, and don't want people to come up and say oh, you were in that play that lasted 4 hours and was really baaaad.

*sigh*

the group in rehearsal 

Monday, Monday

...the second day in the week before we open. Yes folks, we suck. Practice started at 7, we didn't get started until like 7:30 and it took us until after 9 to do the first act. The first act. This is supposed to be a 2 hour show, maybe a little bit longer, and the people are going to go into comas waiting for it to be over. The elderly folks might as well just bring their living will and DNR papers with them to save the ambulance people the trouble. Seriously though, the director yells at us for taking so long to do the first act but she was the one who made us do the same scene like 6 times before moving on. So don't be yellin' at us for something you did sister!

In more pleasant news, Sunday I went to the Daily Bread, our local thrift store, for a basket to use in the show. What I found was these awesome vintage baby clothes someone had donated. I went a little insane and grabbed practically all of them, figuring that at .50 and a dollar a piece that it wouldn't be too much. Maybe $20 ya know. Well, not exactly. Try $44. Yikes! I totally feel guilty about it now, since one I have no children, and two, I could have used that to take my poor little Kitty to the vet. As soon as I can get them in the house unnoticed, I'll post some pictures of them. Right now they're still in my trunk. hehe. And maybe I can do something cool with them.

So here's the cool site of my day http://www.kao-ani.com/ which I've known about and visited for a while now to get some cool wallpapers and other cute thingies, but I kinda lost the link when I got a new computer but now I found it again and I'm so happy! Go...see...be happy

countdown to showtime

First, thank you to Jenn and anonymous (although I know who you are) for sympathizing with me and making me feel better about the best friend who dumped me to get married. But you know what the weird thing is, I cried on the way home from work that day for about 10 minutes and now I'm over it. I don't feel the least amount of sorry for myself now. God is so amazing, he stepped in and filled up my heart with so much love, who needs this other guy?

Second, I have been in rehearsal for "Quilters" for weeks now, and opening night is only days away. The 17th to be exact. Yes, I know that's a little more than a week, but we are so far from being ready I just want to sit down and cry. We haven't even learned the last song, what the heck, we're still having trouble with the first song, and we keep changing the blocking and some of the women are having trouble memorizing lines. I know that the closer we get to opening night the uglier it's gonna get, because tempers are gonna flare and words are gonna be flung. Big words, ugly words.

I'll let ya know what they are.

very interesting site

Oh yeah, I was browsing blogs today and came across this one called Postsecret that is awesome and definately worth taking a moment to look at.

are you gonna eat those?

Today there was a bake sale at work and so yesterday afternoon I got all set up to make some cupcakes. I followed the directions exactly like it said on the box. The batter was really runny, not thick at all, so I added like two table spoons of flour to the batter. When I took them out of the oven they looked well, not like cupcakes, more like biscuits but I let them cool and decided to taste one. It was horrible! blech nasty pukey and other choice words. When my sister came over she tried one and confirmed this statement. My mother on the other hand said we were over-reacting and didn't know what good food was.

Well, I had to use them because I didn't have time to go get anything else, so I thought maybe when I put the icing on them it would be ok. I had seen and episode of 30 minute meals on the food network where Rachael Ray was having a block party and made these fantastic cupcakes with fluffy icing made from powdered sugar. So I thought yeah I can do that, and I searched that website up and down but didn't find a thing about that episode but I did find a recipe on the sugar box so I used it, but my icing was not fluffy, it was runny, again, and not pretty at all. I used it anyway cause it was all I had.

I took them to work but told them not to sell them unless they were absolutely desperate. And they didn't. So now I have a cake pan full of toxic cupcakes that nobody wants.
So the moral of this long drawn out story is...well, nothing really, but I needed to share.

my heart part two

So, after I've had time to reflect, I know that there's nothing I can do about this situation. He's obviously decided (long ago) that his new love/fiance/obsession is more important than friends, so what can I do but move on. I don't need the heartache, and besides, God has so much better for me that he doesn't even compare.

I think I just needed to vent a little and actually put my feelings in writing to see how utterly useless it is to stress over some self-absorbed guy that has no cncern for my feelings. I'll just insert a "Right On!" here because I know when my sister reads this that's what she's gonna say.
I think this seems all jumbled up when I look back at what I wrote and probably doesn't make sense, but it's the best I can manage right now.

I'll be happier tomorrow.

here's your heart on a rusty stake...

So today I find out that the one guy I had so much in common with but haven't seen since September is getting married. Honestly, I got all swimmy headed and thought I was gonna pass out. I don't understand how you can spend 4 years with someone sharing more than is safe to mention intimate information and then totally drop them without so much as a "it was nice being your friend but I have new friends now". I feel like my heart has been ripped out with a rusty spiked spear and then paraded around on front street all over again. We had the discussion of "you don't have to call me anymore because I know you don't have time for me" a while back and I thought I had put the whole ugly thing behind me but now it's flooded back into my life with an overwhelming wave and all I want to do is wallow in self pity.

I do realize that I'm not the only one that has gone through this, and I won't be the last, but when it actually happens and it's your first real heartbreak, you feel like you are the only person on earth that could be feeling this crappy. Cue the violins with the sad melodramatic music. Cue the center spotlight with me alone sitting in a black chair on an empty stage. Or...I'll make it a red chair and that will be the hint that it won't be this way forever. I hope.

To Be Continued...

I went to Gatlinburg!

...or is it spelled Gatlinberg? I never know. Anyways, I went with the youth girls in my church for a 3 day retreat way high up in the Smoky Mountains. Waaaay up there! I drove in first gear thw whole way up to the chalet, but it was totally worth it. It was a time of well deserved rest and renewal, especially since school has just let out. The weather was great, the view was awesome, and the chalet was so much more than I ever expected or dreamed. It had 8 bedrooms, every one with a different theme, (mine had a moose theme), a jacuzzi, a sauna, and 4 levels. I wasn't able to be there for the first night (Tuesday), but I joined them Wednesday night and one of the first things I spotted was the plate of orange peels on the floor one of the girls had left earlier, so I had to be artistic and get a shot of it.
The bond that I see between these girls is so strong, and I am so happy to be able to be there to see them grow, struggle, love, cry, fight, make up, and be the young women God wants them to be. I'm glad I was able to go, not just as a chaperone, but as a friend, and hopefully the girls will remember some of the things they learned and apply it to their lives so that other people can see Jesus through them.

On another note, how awesome was the season finale of Lost? I finally got some answers and woo, Sayid is just Mr. Hottie Hot Pants when he came back with Claire's baby. Hurley was so funny and waah, I have to wait until next fall to find out what's in the hatch! I guess somehow I'll survive *sniff*.

So here are some pictures of the retreat, enjoy and I'm going to sleep now!

this is what I saw while I was sitting at Sonic waiting to meet up with my group

unintentional abandonment of your orange peel makes for interesting photography

another view taken on Friday morning

the view from our porch on top of the mountain

the group in Gatlinburg

Iris in my front yard

Allergies are fabulous, aren't they?

Don't you just love this time of year? The pollen count is off the charts, your eyes are full of glorious tears because of it, and your nose, well, your nose just itches with anticipation for the big flower to open and spurt its sneeze inducing insides into the air so that you can breathe in that wonderful scent of Kleenex and Blistek. WOO! GO Spring! Fill the air with your wonders! (that was for you Mark Ware)
Now, what I really feel like is poo and the tissue I have stuffed in my nose is so very attractive to all who see it. But the good news is I got to leave work early today! It's like attack of the sneeze monster and I'm next in line for total annihilation. I don't think I spelled that right...oh well. Hey I did, alright! I underestimate myself a lot.
ok that's all I want to say today.

fun at the theater and other stuff

Yahooo! I'm so excited, I got my first comment from somebody other that my sister! I've been reading Jenn's blog and visiting her website here lately, and tonight, I get on here and see she's found my tiny little blog! Yay, I'm happy.

So, as you can see, we had fun at the theater tonight. I love my digital camera!
We started blocking the first song in our new play, "Quilters", and let me tell ya, people who are not used to being on the stage have problems with keeping rhythm with others. My feet hurt very bad, tomorrow I'm wearing sneakers. I'm going to miss the fair for the Strawberry Festival which we here in Rhea County are famous for, because of rehearsal, and that sucks, because we go every year. We never ride any of the rides, but it's tradition to walk around the fair grounds and make fun of the people you used to go to school with, see who's dating who, and look at all the Mexicans who have come in to pick strawberries and other garden-ey things. Oh, don't look at me like that, I'm not prejudice, it's just what we do at the fair okay? So lay off! :)

On the homefront, another baby bird decided he liked the inside of the house better than his nest, as you can see in the photo, so while I held the couch on it's back legs me mother tried to find the little critter while unbeknownst to us he had flopped his way into the closet. So after cornering him, I put him outside under a bush, hopefully away from the cats. For about 30 minutes afterwards my dog stood at the door and whined because she knew where it was and wanted it baaaad.

Tired, going to bed, one...more...day.

Don't ask.

Alison, Anessa(my sister), and me (Leia) goofing off at the theater tonight

umm..it was hot

me on the way to the lake (my sister in the background)

Keela on our way to the lake on Mother's Day

This is what the fireplace looked like after I took it aprt to get the bird out

I came home from work yesterday to find this in my fireplace, and tonight the mama bird shoved another out of the nest into my stove pipe, and so I proceeded to move the furniture all over the living room to try and catch it, all while the dog and cats are licking their lips and whining for a bite! SO now it's outside and not in the house.

How much do we love her?

We love our mama so much that we took her to Wendy's drive through for Mother's Day, and then we went to Target and bought her (and me) a new purse, and then my sister and I went to Starbucks for some much needed refreshment. I told my sister that I think they put some kind of drug in their drinks because it's like every time we go to Knoxville now we have to go there even though we know how high their prices are and we never have any extra money to be spending. OR they have subliminal messages in their order screen that says "you must come back for more, you neeeeeed Starbucks coffee, oooooo" heh. Oh, but the Friday before I had a tiny snafu with a coworker who decided that seh hates the color purple and the screen on my computer was ugly and she was gonna tell our boss that I need to change it back, because she uses it soooo much more than I do (one day a week). How petty can you be. I was so upset because it's like she thinks everything is there for her convenience and if it's not, then it better be changed to suit her or waah she's gonna leave you a note and then woo look out your in trouble. Now though, it's laughable at best because even though she changed the computer to all the default settings over the weekend, I just changed 'em right back to the way I had it, and it's just giving her ulcers to worry about it. Monday was the day we discovered we have a dead animal in the house, more specifically around or in the fireplace, but we can't find it, so our neighbor tells Mama to get some lime and pour it in the chimney and that will dry out whatever it is. Do you know the smallest bag they sell is 50 pounds? So we now own 50 pounds of lime and have no use for it other than to pour it down the chimney, woo.

Book Fair!

We had a book fair today at work and I got some really nice handmade notecards and a paper craft book with all sorts of neat-o keen-o things to make! Not that I'm going to actually make any of them, but it's a nice thing to have, you know, just in case. :)

Today was also the release of Phantom of the Opera on DVD, so I had to haul myself over to Wally World and get me a copy, since I got a lovely DVD player for Christmas from my seester. Woo hoo! She had to get her own copy, even though her husband tried to get her to share with me, but we all know that you gotta have your own copy of a great movie, right? I think it is one of the best movies I have seen on the big screen in a long time, but then again, I don't go to the movies very often. I also got a new pair of pajama pants. They're light green with white daisies on them and yellow rick-rack around the legs, very cute! So, this was a good day all around, I got lots of cool shtuff, the weather was nice, and Jesus loves me!

the paper craft book, hee hee heeee

2 of the notecards, not very good, I didn't use a flash because when I did, it was all washed out, but these are a tad dark.

next 2 cards

last card

Title? what title?

yeah, cause I couldn't think of a good title for this entry, ok? Anyway, yesterday I had the surprising priviledge of being part of the Rhea Arts Council music awards ceremony...thing...I'm not sure what it's really called, but I was there. They have it every year leading up to the Strawberry Festival, and I always intend on entering the photography part of the contest, but I always seem to miss the deadline, hrmm. So,I went with the theater to read some scenes from the next play "Quilters", and in between the kiddies playing their music selections, we "entertained" the parents that showed up, becuase that's really the only audience there was. I was a tad nervous because I've only read the script once, not out loud, and so when I got up to read the parts I was told to read, I could barely move I was shaking so bad! There's one scene where this girl talksabout making a Sunbonnet Sue quilt, only it's the demise of Sunbonnet Sue and it's like all the ways she could think of to kill her, and she puts it on her sister's bed, and when her sister sees it she screams, so guess who got to scream? Yep, li'l ol'me. It was the most nerve-wracking thing I've done in a while. It upset me so much my stomach hurt for the rest of the day! I guess because I had to put so much emotion behind it to make it come out real, it was very strange. It was like it came from the bottom of my stomach and out my throat like I was throwing up or something. It was a strange afternoon.

I also went to a Mothers and Others dinner at church with my mommy and sister, and had some great food and listened to a wonderful speaker who strangely enough, we knew, but that's not the strange part. Her sister and my sister were friends in school, but we always percieved them to be snotty rich kids who got everything they wanted. You know the kind I mean, like when you say their name it's always with a sneer and a fake posh accent. But now, she's a missionary and has such a heart for God it makes me ashamed of the way we used to talk about, well her, at least. Her message was so simple, all the things you need to know to follow God. Wow, I never thought of it the way she explained it, but now I have a better understanding of how to go about doing things for God. so thank you Chrissy, for putting back on the right track.

wooo this is both creepy and cool at the same time

I love the way the light is filtering through in this photo

The Eagle has landed! on my plate that is. Isn't this groovy? I almost put this up for auction on ebay. Almost.

here's the guys from Africa that we saw at Dollywood

more from my backyard

my back yard recently

fun fun fun

This was my Saturday: wake up at 9-ish, go to the flea market at 10, look at the cute little puppies for sale at the Sweetwater flea market because there's really nothing else to look at (it's kinda gone down hill lately), oooo but I got the Avon trio of Today, Tomorrow, Always perfume for $12 which in the book it's $20 or free with your purchase of a $30 big bottle of the stuff, go to Taco ba-hell for lunch (BIG mistake), get home by 12:30 so I can turn right around and go to to theater at 1 for auditions, get to the theater and the director swears there's black smoke coming from a vent that doesn't blow air out, it sucks air in (you know what I mean), called 911 and listened to the people on the other end of the phone go "the theater's got black smoke in it, hey the theater, yeah the theater down there's got smoke in it (real country hick accent here)", swooned over the first two guys that showed up and then watched as every volunteer fireman in Spring City came into the theater and tromped all over the place, lead a coupla cute fire men up to the light booth where they proceeded to crawl into the hole in the wall that leads to who knows where, then finally at 2 when everyone left got started with auditions, but had to leave at 2:30 to meet Zelly in Rockwood by 3, went to Oak Ridge to see a 4:00 movie but was 30 minutes early so we went to Starbucks (yum) and then back to the movies to see Sahara which was much better than I expected it to be, and Matthew McCaughnehey is hot ( I know I didn't spell his name right), rushed like a madman to get back to Spring City before 7 because the show started at 7:30 and who's doing lights *MOI*, get to the theater with 15 minutes to spare and find out we have 95 people for dinner including Bo Watson who is the governor (I think) and his family, and some other politician and his family, so we're movin' tables around and shovin' people in corners to try and make enough room for everybody, and I'm just thankful that it was Saturday which meant that I did not have to do concessions or clean up the kitchen afterwards. it was 11 when I got home, but today was the last day of the show so it's all over now and I can just relaaaax, and breathe!

time slips away...

when you actually have a life! I've been running lights for our theater's production of "Lying In State" and haven't even thought about my poor blog! Well, I'm taking the time now to catch up, and honestly there's not much to tell! We had a special show Tuesday night for the play, where people that had never been to the theater could come and see the show for free, so we had about 130 people there which is awesome because ususally 50 people is a crowd! I was so frazzled because I was running concessions, lights, and hosting! Plus I was nervous because a certain person was supposed to be there, and I was having issues with being able to cope with seeing him, and then he never showed up so I was freaking for no reason. whew! Dollywood was a little bit disappointing because we only got to see one show, the guys from Africa doing vocal percussion, but I'll be back so it's okay. Meanwhile my mother has been twice in one week and is going back again tomorrow, and she doesn't exactly like to go that much. Strange!

ho hum

Yep, that's just about how I feel right now. My job is wearing me a little thin and I'm fixin' to start two weeks of lights and concessions for our local theater's production of "Lying In State", plus hang rehearsal shots(that I took) in the theater. But, la la laaaaaaaa I won't be there for opening night because I'll be in Dollywood! Yes ma'am Friday I will be watching Chinese acrobats and Russian dancers in the wonderful Smoky Mountains. I'm really psyched about it, I've been waiting all winter for the Festival of Nations!
And hey, I'm such a liar! I didn't go to the previously mentioned basketball game, so no photos there, and I never figured out how to change the layout, even though I really do have the template. I dont' understand it, I followed every step just like I was supposed to, but it just won't let me be creative, so waaahh!! I have been looking at other peoples blogs and realize that I have nothing important to talk about, and theyare so much more creative than me, plus why does it seem like other peoples lives are always more interesting than your own.

guess what I did this weekend

Well, my carport decided that it was too old and rusty to be of any use to us, so it took a slight nosedive into the ground. Ok, Sessa knows I'm exaggerating a weensy bit here, but still, it screwed up my whole weekend. I didn't get to have my yardsale like I planned, I didn't get to go to Dollywood to see the Festival of Nations (which is awesome btw), nooo-ho-ho, I got to sit on the backporch and watch my brother-in-law dig up rusty metal posts and then replace them with brand-spankin-new wood ones. He only got three finished, so yeeha...next Saturday I get to sit and watch some more post diggin. But that was only a slight darkspot in an otherwise good weekend. I went to Our Daily Bread (a local thrift shop), and got an awesome new purse for a buck, and also a nightie cover up with pink lace over blue satiny material and some ga-roovy britches*you heard me* that are black with very bright flowers all over them. Then Sunday after church me mother and I went to Oak Ridge to Mr. K's used books to trade some books that we have read for some ones that we haven't. Pretty neat how that works, eh? We got like $35 in trade credit and used $37 or something, but we had some credit from before, so we didn't have to pay for our books. Woo

ok, well I seem to have lost my first post so we'll try it again. I don't know what kind of flowers these are, but they sure are purty! I don't like the way I have to post every photo seperately. So grrrrrrrrrrrr

see what's in my yard! I love tulips! I planted about 70 in the fall and guess how many came up? 8! I loathe moles!

my dream part 2

On further investigation of this ebay auction that I previously mentioned, it seems that there is a website for the person that makes these portraits. Oddly enough the web address happens to be hauntedportraits.com. Der, could it be any simpler? This is a freakin' awesome site, and Mr. Lanier is very talented, eh that sounds cheesy but hey, he is, so there. I have found a new fun place to visit during work hours. hee hee

my dream

Last night I dreamed that my neighbors were having a party in the back yard at night. You have to understand that they are both veeeerrrry old, like 95 and 93, but anyways, my church youth director Kelly was with me and someone told us that Condon (95 year old nighbor) had gone inside and could we please go in and get him. So we went in his house, up the stairs, and he was laying in bed. I went over to him and I was yelling "wake up we need you downstairs" and he was mumbling something and he grabbed Kelly and said something like I need you to leave me alone or stay with me but at first his voice was weak and then it got really deep and his eyes started glowing and he whipped around and his teeth were sharp and it was really scary. But I woke up so I don't know what happened. I think my dream had something to do with this ebay auction I visited yesterday, but I could be wrong.

my dog hates Bootsie (the neighbor's cat)...but Boots loves to sit and tell us all about his problems at home. BTW, we were planting flowers yesterday, cause it was like 70, and today it's...ahem....significantly colder.

I was showing my neighbor's little girl Taylor how to use my camera so we decided to take a self portrait.