balm for the soul

who would've thunk that more than twelve hours with friends would end, not with us killing each other, but unhappy that we had to leave? (well, actually, i would've, but...*shrugs* oh, never mind.)

CEII has stopped affecting me on Christmas eve...instead, it affects me before stuff like this. *shakes head at self* i woke up half an hour before my alarm went off at six. then once my carpooling friends arrived, we went to the mithrandirs, who had graciously permitted us to take over their living room while we watched all three Lord of the Rings movies. extended editions...the movies were about four hours long apiece. we started watching about 9 in the morning, and finished at about 9 that night (between 9 and 9:30, anyway). in there, we managed to eat three meals, do a gift exchange, kill renwen (jk), and a photo shoot (renwen wanted some pictures of herself, so asked mr. mithrandir to take some - he's an amateur photographer), which somehow culminated with all five of us in front of the camera. *shrugs* i got copies of the files, and did some work to some of the group pictures.





yes, i do like funky ratios. *shrugs cheerfully* i couldn't find a standard ratio from the original pictures that would let all five of us stay harmoniously within the same picture. (i used window's photo gallery...if that tells you anything about my software :P) anyway, i'm still high on that. probably will be for quite some time. :D

anyway, renwen spent the night, and we only got five hours of sleep...stayed up until 2:30 talking, and then i woke her up at 7:30. :D but i have to work tomorrow, so i won't be staying up until 12 AM central time...i'll stay up until 12 AM atlantic time. ;) :P

anyway, i'm gonna go. i'll talk to you all in 2009!

-enna

another monday

spent my day cleaning my room and working on our Christmas newsletter. nothing overly exciting.

this is going to be a very short post, as i am headed off to bed before an all-day Lord of the Rings movie marathon tomorrow, and renwen spending the night afterwards. :D so i won't be posting tomorrow.

g'nite!

-enna

miscellaneous

h3h. i'm not overly organized, which can't help any. but it fits what i did today fairly well....

church this morning, like every other sunday. i was lectoring, and there was a big huge mess with that...i was supposed to be subbing for one person who'd said he was on at 9:30, but on the schedule it said 11:30; and the 9:30 lector, who is one of the most reliable ones we have, never showed. *grabs head* so i lectored 9:30 and just told them to find a sub if no one else showed. :P i even forgot about it until i got there, so i ran over the readings in the usher's room...only to get to the lectern and realize that the book in the back had been open to the wrong readings, so i REALLY winged it. :P i could have done worse than i did, though...that's always a consolation. *mutters at self* i always realize what stupid things i did, but no one else does...that's good, right? *rolls eyes at self* oh well.

came home and had lunch. *shrugs* nothing out of the ordinary there. we did make fresh noodles for our spaghetti.

after lunch and cleanup, we worked on a project for Christmas, and then i fiddled around doing random bits and pieces...i worked on The Battle of Zephanaia for a little bit; i reorganized my documents on my computer; little piddly stuff like that, then randomly decided to look on www.finalemusic.com and just look at some of their music and showcase some of my own pieces and arrangements. for those who don't know, finale is a music notation program. (i use the free version, finale notepad. finale costs $600 - yikes!) and i ended up finding lots of really cool music. i found some nice intermediate guitar pieces to work on - i haven't been doing much lately for two reasons: 1) lack of time and 2) i can play everything i've got backwards and in my sleep. i need new material. while looking for those guitar pieces, i found some other really cool ones. that and chatting to a friend took up most of my afternoon.

then we ate supper and watched a couple episodes of the waltons, an old show my dad grew up watching. we just received seasons one and two. (we do the twelve days of Christmas...each of the twelve days, starting on Christmas day, my sisters and i receive a gift from my parents to all of us. this was for day 4.)

lots of random little stuff. sundays were made for things like this... :D

-enna

saturday...

i went to work early today, and went over to my grandma's house after. did i mention that aunt B's (from VA) dog is huge? anyway, didn't do much today...just work and visiting with family.

*looks over post* oh wow. that was SHORT. so, i shall give you something i meant to do a month ago...a movie review! facing the giants was made by the same people as fireproof, and it's another really good story. it's projects like these - movies that tug your heart and touch your soul - that i want to be part of. i have found my calling in life...now all that remains is to carry it out.

a quote from the captain of the axiom in WALL-E: "i don't want to survive; i want to live!"

-enna

quick update (or not so quick)

well, hey, when you've had three days as busy as mine have been, the update isn't going to be very short. those videos were five minutes to relax before i ran again. :D :P

so...we shall start with december 23. chronological order is always logical. ;) (hmm, maybe because it has the word "logical" within it. but i may be wrong.) we spent the day cleaning. and finishing baking. we still had two kinds of cookies to finish that morning, and after that we cleaned. "oh sure, no biggie. it's just not fun. you'll be done in a couple of hours." right? well, that's if your house is small. like, maybe 2,000 square feet, tops. mine isn't. we've got a 4,000 sq. ft. house. and a couple of little stinkers who like to make a mess. we finished the cookies about 10, and then spent the rest of the day cleaning. with an hour for lunch at 12, we finally finished at about 6. once i finished that, i was exhausted. (i am not out of shape...it takes lots of mental configurations to keep the house clean once you get it that way.) and of course, after we finished CLEANING, we then had to make our table seat 24 people. yes, you heard me right...24 people at one table. well, let's just say that it went the entire length of our dining room, plus about 6 feet into the library (office). and get tableclothes for the table. and get enough chairs out of the pit (also known as our basement). and i spent an hour and a half making placecards for the table. i was a bit frazzled. (monotonous work tends to do that to me, for some reason.)

on to december 24! i was a lazy bum, actually, and slept late. (hey, 7 is late for me!) but then when i got out of bed an hour later, i was running. 17 people were going to be here at 1, and we had to iron the tableclothes, iron the napkins, set the table with our china, do and redo the seating arrangement, keep the little munchkins under control, make the food (most of the food had to be made then served...it couldn't be prepared ahead of time)...oh, and try to clear a path through the inch-thick ice so that our family and friends wouldn't break their necks trying to reach our front door.

it was all worth it, a hundred times over. i love Christmas eve. we spend the week before rushing around to get ready. nerves are frayed. tempers run high. but we sit down to that dinner as a family, and suddenly, none of that matters. all of that tension, all of that discord is washed away in the presence of good food and good people to share it with. and the feeling stays. THIS brings Christmas truly close to a person. for me, it helps bring the spirit of Christmas truly near. that, and Christmas morning Mass. but hey...who wants to drool over the list of what we ate? h3h. here's the menu:
Ante past: shrimp cocktail (ante past (AHNteh PAHST) is italian for appetizers)
Pasta: red clam sauce, aglio and oglio (pronounced EYE-yuh-all, don't know why, just is)
Fish: fried haddock, fried scallops, fried smelts (ick...my dad is the only one who eats them), calamari in red sauce (yum!), buccala (cod salad)
Greens: escarole (a spinach-like green with olives)
Dessert: Christmas cookies and mini cheesecakes (plain, chocolate-drizzled, and chocolate dunked...i'm so glad my aunt went to culinary school! :D)
eight different kinds of fish total.
1. shrimp (shrimp cocktail)
2. clam (clam sauce)
3. (and you're not gonna like this one) anchovies (aglio and oglio, and i think maybe the escarole)
4. haddock (fried haddock)
5. scallops (fried scallops)
6. smelts (a little fish that you eat whole) (fried smelts)
7. squid (calamari in red sauce)
8. cod (buccala)
this dinner...*swoons in ectasy* i usually eat a little of everything, except the escarole. since i play hostess, i usually eat just one smelt, to encourage the others to try them...i didn't mess with it this year. i was sitting in an island of my dad's siblings, none of whom like the smelts either. :D and yes, i eat the aglio and oglio. it's good. rather oily, but good.

anyway, this meal feels so short, but takes so long...we didn't finish until 2:45. it was laid-back and relaxed. i wonder if that is why i eat so much at it...usually, i take all of ten minutes to eat my dinner. bolt it down, then run to whatever i must do next. or just bolt it down because it's habit. but when you're eating all this good, artery-clogging, saturated fat-rich food, you can't eat it quickly. you must savor it. (i think that the total calorie count is...without the calamari and cheesecake, in the vicinity of 6,000 calories. whoo yah, baby! :D) and you can't savor by bolting your food.

ah, yes. but anyway, after everyone left, we cleaned up and just laid back, we were so bloated. ;) no, i'm just kidding. we dismantled our table (seven people do not need a table long enough for 24), shook out all 9 tableclothes needed on said table, washed all the dishes, dried them, put them away, and started getting ready for Christmas day. this took us to 7. after which time, i took a break and made some nice, funny videos to relax. i was dying of laughter. :D they weren't, though...i must change my location before they can kill me. (or maybe i can bribe them with chocolate.) h3h. we watched the first hour and a half of It's A Wonderful Life, then, starting about 8. then we (we being me and my parents) shooed all those under the age of 16 upstairs (aka all four of my sisters), and came down to prepare for santa's arrival. you see, we are santa's elves. he has us help him eat all those cookies, because he can't eat all the cookies that are left for him in one night. i, however, was tired, and went upstairs before we got to the stockings. i went to bed, happy in the knowledge that my sisters weren't going to wake me up at an insane hour...

AND THEN THEY DID ANYWAY!!! they came in and woke me up at 6:30! i was still very tired, and hadn't slept well (actually, not from CEII [Christmas Eve Induced Insomnia], but just very restless sleep). i had told them that they would regret it if they woke me up...and i couldn't do anything to them, because my parents had told them to wake me up. :P *sigh* oh well.

anyway, after we got done with the squealing that usually results from my little sister opening her stocking, we ate breakfast, got dressed, and went to Christmas day Mass at 9:30. yes, it's an inconvenience. yes, we didn't get to finish opening gifts. yes, we could have gone the night before to "get it out of the way". but there is something special about going to Mass in the morning. it helps bring to mind the reason for the season. we went to Jesus' birthday Party, and were greatly rewarded, as we are every time we go to His Party. sure, it takes a two and a half hour chunk out of our morning...who cares? JESUS is the reason for the season! there is no Christmas if you take Christ out, but there isn't much of a Christmas if you take the Mass out, either.

so we got home, opened another present, then made homemade ravioli and italilennes. (not sure i spelled that right.) with our Christmas sauce, pork hocks (ankles), homemade meatballs, and Italian sausage, and broccoli salad...*dies* ah, yes, most of my favorite foods packed into two days. Christmas...i could give or take the presents. if you keep those, but take away the food and Mass...it's not Christmas anymore to me. but you could take the presents out of the day, and it's still Christmas. i guess that shows how your perspective begins to change as you get older.

after we finished cleaning up and opening the rest of our gifts, we finished It's a Wonderful Life, and watched Wall-E, which my aunt and uncle (WY and VA) had given us for Christmas. finished up the evening with some humor from Reepicheep (R received Prince Caspian) and some nice action scenes from The Dark Knight. awesome movie, by the way. love hans zimmer.

anyway, that brings me up-to-date for the most part. i might post later...not sure yet.

laterz, all!

-enna

santa chills after a hard night's work

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Luke 2:1-20

In those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria. So all went to be enrolled, each to his own town.

And Joseph too went up from Galilee from the town of Nazareth to Judea, to the city of David that is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.

While they were there, the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

Now there were shepherds in that region living in the fields and keeping the night watch over their sheep. The angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were struck with great fear.

The angel said to them,

“Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that shall be for all the people. For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Messiah and Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.”

And suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying:

“Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

When the angels went away from them to heaven, the shepherds said to one another,

“Let us go, then, to Bethlehem to see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.”

So they went in haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known the message that had been told them about this child.

All who heard it were amazed by what had been told them by the shepherds. And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.

Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, just as it had been told to them.

A BLESSED AND MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL OF YOU!!!

-enna

a couple of fellow bloggers making fools of themselves

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permit me to direct you to their blogs: random musings of the elf and renwen's rants in my blog list.

Mary's Christmas dream

I had a dream, Joseph. I don't understand it, really, but I think it was about a birthday celebration for our Son. I think that was what it was all about.

The people had been preparing for it for about six weeks. They decorated the house and bought new clothes. They'd all gone shopping many times and bought elaborate gifts. It was peculiar, though, because the presents weren't for our Son.

They wrapped them in beautiful paper and tied them lovely bows and stacked them under a tree.

Yes, a tree, Joseph, right in their house. They decorated the tree also. The branches were full of glowing balls and sparkling ornaments. There was a figure on top of the tree. It looked like an angel might look. Oh, it was beautiful. Everyone was laughing and happy. They were all excited about the gifts.

They gave gifts to each other, Joseph, not to our Son.

I don't thing they even knew Him. They never mentioned His name. Doesn't it seem odd for people to go to all that trouble to celebrate someone's birthday if they don't even know Him.

I had the strangest feeling that if our Son had gone to this celebration He would have been intruding. It was so beautiful, Joseph, and everyone was so happy, it made me want to cry. How sad for Jesus - not to be wanted at His own birthday party.

I'm glad it was only a dream. How terrible, Joseph, if it had been real.

what would Mary, or Jesus, think of your Christmas celebration?

remember...Jesus is the reason for the season!

-enna

happy holidays? yah right...MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

ok, i am going to be rather busy...and have been rather busy for the past couple of days. so, until after Christmas, i will be posting odds and ends i have concerning the Christmas season. then i shall give you something else that *I* actually did, and that isn't just some poem or something else.

A Stolen Christmas
Twas the month before Christmas
When all through our land,
Not a Christian was praying
Nor taking a stand.
See the PC Police had taken away,
The reason for Christmas - no one could say.
The children were told by their schools not to sing,
About Shepherds and Wise Men and Angels and things.
It might hurt people's feelings, the teachers would say
December 25th is just a ' Holiday '.
Yet the shoppers were ready with cash, checks and credit
Pushing folks down to the floor just to get it!
CDs from Madonna, an X BOX, an I-pod
Something was changing, something quite odd!
Retailers promoted Ramadan and Kwanzaa
In hopes to sell books by Franken & Fonda.
As Targets were hanging their trees upside down
At Lowe's the word Christmas was nowhere to be found.
At K-Mart and Staples and Penny's and Sears
You won't hear the word Christmas; it won't touch your ears.
Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-si-ty
Are words that were used to intimidate me.
Now Daschle, Now Darden, Now Sharpton, Wolf Blitzen
On Boxer, on Rather, on Kerry, on Clinton!
At the top of the Senate, there arose such a clatter
To eliminate Jesus, in all public matter.
And we spoke not a word, as they took away our faith
Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace
The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and discarded
The reason for the season, stopped before it started.
So as you celebrate 'Winter Break' under your 'Dream Tree'
Sipping your Starbucks, listen to me.
Choose your words carefully, choose what you say
Shout "MERRY CHRISTMAS!", not "Happy Holiday!"

Please, all Christians join together and
wish everyone you meet
MERRY CHRISTMAS
Christ is The Reason for the Christ-mas Season!

-enna

*humming random Christmas songs*

we finished decorating today. and cookies are almost done...and work was really cold. :P i froze today for an hour. it would be nice if i had a long sleeved swimsuit...

really not much today. now i shall go work some more on Christmas presents.

-enna

the promised list

hey, i've worked on Christmas presents all day...i needed a break.

hmmm…what is my definition of a perfect guy?

-he’s catholic. that’s a biggy. i won’t even consider courting someone who isn’t at least going through RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults). with all the other trials in marriage, who wants to add an issue as big as religion into the mix? my faith is the defining factor in my life…how can i share my life with someone who does not share my faith? that's just a recipe for marital difficulties...i've met people who have married outside their religion, and the arrangement is just awkward.

-he’s got to accept me for myself. every ounce of scatterbrained me. if he can’t do that for even two or three hours, he certainly wouldn’t be able to do it for the rest of our lives.

-he’s a gentleman, performing the gentleman’s role. willingness to open doors and carry things is only a small part of this…it is also willingness to talk to my parents about his intentions. cause i’m an old-fashioned girl…i’m gonna send any guy through fire and brimstone…he’s gotta talk to my dad before he’s ever gonna get ME on a date with him.

-he treats me like a queen…i mean, face it guys…do you really think that you’ll convince a girl to marry you if you treat her like a pile of trash?

-he takes the role of leader. i’m no feminist…men were made to be the head of the household, and i respect that. it’s part of who they are as men. he is willing to lead a family in spiritual and corporal matters.

-this one is a killer…he is willing to follow the words of St. Paul. “Men, love your wives as Christ loved the Church.” i will do my part and be submissive to my husband, but it is so much easier if he will love me with the kind of sacrificial love that Christ had for the Church…for every one of us.

-he needs to have a good relationship with his family. without the support of family, society would be falling…falling…falling…(hmm, i wonder what it’s doing now…:P)

-with the same token, he needs to be good with kids. i’m from a big family; i love the big family dynamics and hope to have one myself one day, God willing.


i think that’s it in a nutshell. at least, that’s all that’s come to mind at the moment. like i said, i’m not looking right now.

notice that good looks are nowhere on the list. they would be a plus, but for all i know, my perfect guy is as ugly as a baboon’s backside. and i honestly don’t care. because, if he has all these qualities, and has a strong faith in God, then the beauty of his soul will overpower the physical shortcomings. we’ve all met people like this in our lives…a light seems to shine from within that makes them truly beautiful.

ok, now that i have had my break, i shall return to my Christmas presents. only three left now...

-enna

ahh....now THAT was relaxing!

just got home a little while ago from my grandmother's house. it was a very relaxing afternoon spent with my uncle, aunt, grandmother, and aunt's dog. she has a great dane. and i thought zinn was big...this dog just has to move her nose about two inches and she can lick my face. while standing up. (granted, i am only 5'3", but still...) she's a horse! and she likes to get in your face...which isn't all that hard for her to do, considering her size. she's taller than my two littlest sisters!

it was interesting watching my aunt...she's a chef (used to work at sea world, but retired and is now going to have a bakery in VA in conjunction with a relative's restaurant - i think he's a cousin or something) and she made an airplane cake for my other uncle who came in from kansas today with his wife and three kids. i found the chef for my wedding...;-) now all i need is a) about 3 more years, and b) the perfect guy, and i'm good. ;) :P actually, i need a lot more than that, but top on the list is at least 3 more years. i'm not even looking yet. what do i need with a boyfriend at 17? i'm not ready to get married yet! far from it! and you look at the divorce rate for teenage dating, and it's scary high. anyway, hmm...maybe sometime i'll make a list of what my definition of the "perfect" guy is, and post it. gives me something to post when life gets boring...;) :P

-enna

ah, yes, the weekend...wait, what? WHERE'D MY WEEKEND GO??

isn't the weekend supposed to be RELAXING?? i don't know about you, but i don't think that traipsing through ice and snow to find a Christmas tree is very relaxing...actually, it's more of an exercise in balance than anything else. although we got done in record time...it was less than half an hour from the time we arrived at the tree farm to the time we got the tree in the van and left.

from whence i had to go to work. i got some odd looks as i walked into the YMCA bundled like an eskimo (hey, it's cold!), but i got out of all my layers and into my swimsuit and shorts in record time (well, it's hot on the pool deck!)...just in time for the regulars to get there and start getting me wet. :P for those who don't quite understand why lifeguards dislike getting wet unless absolutely necessary, allow me to shed some light upon the subject...we dislike getting wet because when you get wet, you get cold. you know how you feel when you get out of a pool and are shivering? well, imagine sitting in wet clothes for several hours. yah. that's why we don't like getting wet. (don't say anything about swim meets...at least the clothes are dry when we put them on, we being the swimmers, not lifeguards.)

ah yes. and revisions continue apace...oh well. at least tomorrow will be more relaxing. we are going to my grandmother's house to visit with her, my aunt from virginia and uncle from wyoming. i'm glad...when they came over on thursday and when we went over on sunday, i only got to spend time with them for a couple of hours before i had to go do something else with school or work.

GAH! i'm still not ready for Christmas! i still have 3 presents that have to be done by Christmas day to finish (one of which i haven't even started) and one by december 30th! *bangs self on head* why, oh WHY did i put this off so long?? *muttershouldhavestartedearliermutter* *mutterneedmoretimemutter* *muttermuttermumblemuttermutter* *muttershouldnthaveprocrastinatedmutter* *muttermuttermumblemutter*

-enna

ah, yes...ice :P

*mutters at ice* at least it wasn't as bad as the ice storm two years ago...but i swear, i could go ice skating in my backyard. it might help if i had some ice skates, but...;) although, something happened earlier that i had not thought possible...i did the splits. :P it's the ice's fault! i placed my right foot into the breeze (our third car; we call it as such to distinguish it from my dad's car), and my left foot went WHOOSH! and backwards, slamming my right foot into the floor and forcing my legs apart. i distinctly heard a snicker from behind me, where some of the kids that had swum earlier were climbing into their car. *mutterimnotthatflexiblemutter*ah well. it could have been worse...i could have slipped walking across the parking lot and broken something other than my pride. instead, i'll just be a little sore tomorrow. much better in my book.

i spent the afternoon (before i went to work) in the kitchen. i made gingersnaps after lunch, and cinnamon roasted almonds when i got home. yum...i think i've had my share of sugar for the day. ;) i really enjoy putsying around in the kitchen, and i haven't had time lately, so this was really fun. desserts are my favorite thing to make. spaghetti sauce is a close second, but i just enjoy cooking in general. and (surprisingly) i haven't made something that didn't get eaten very quickly. (well, except the gingersnaps, but one batch makes six dozen cookies, and i'm the only one who likes gingersnaps at all, regardless of who made them, so that makes sense.) actually, there aren't usually leftovers from whatever i make unless i intentionally make enough for leftovers (and sometimes not even then!). i didn't even make any bricks when i was learning how to make angel food cake from scratch...my mother tells stories about some of her first ones that were harder than bricks. not quite sure what that means, but i did consider becoming a chef at one point...

-enna

happy birthday kathryn! and some conundrums for you...

today was kathryn's birthday. she turned seven. she was sort of disappointed when we didn't go get our tree, but it was made up a hundred times over when my grandmother, aunt from virginia (formerly of florida) and uncle from wyoming came for lunch. (pepperoni and sausage pizza...yum!) i missed cake and singing, though, because of my latin class. :-( but they saved me some cake. :-D

two interesting little conundrums from today...

#1: every single time i went outside today, i ended up on my side on ice. :-P my side is going to be one massive bruise tomorrow...the interesting part is that i've been ice skating at the DCC about two times a year on average, and i've only fallen maybe three times. in the past five years. ice skating, if you don't remember, involves balancing oneself on thin blades (approximately three millimeters thick) and propelling oneself across the ice. i can do so; actually, i can do so with some semblence of grace and speed. (granted, i do stop myself by running into the wall, but that isn't falling...it's controlled ;-).) yet when i am on my feet in my shoes (approximately four inches thick), i slip and fall every time i go outside! what is with that??

#2: not quite sure what is going on with adena...i never really paid her much attention, and have been pretty well avoiding her since last thursday (her and any other dog i happen across). yet tonight, as we were watching a movie, she came up to me and laid her head on my lap. usually, she only does this when she needs something, but she'd already eaten and had been outside. she didn't want anything. she just looked up at me with huge adoring eyes, as though she thought i'm the best person in the world. and this isn't the first time that she's been like this. granted, it's the first time she's done this actual action, but it's not the first time she's looked at me like that. WHY?? it's like she thinks i need a doggish friend...

-enna

a tribute

concert and the storm within

just got back from my band concert. i only really liked one song that we did. it's called Etowah, and it's WICKED AWESOME! :-D i love the french horn part...i got to wail away on bits, and i had the melody, and i got to explore different tonal qualities of it, which was quite fun. here's a link to the piece: http://www.fjhmusic.com/band/b1366.htm i don't have a recording, but this song is lots of fun, and rather different than what we usually play...an enjoyable challenge. :-D

and now...for the main part of this post...the storm within. this is something i just sat down and wrote. normally, i’m not one to write poetry. i usually prefer to read someone else’s work (and maybe perform it). but, occasionally, i will step out of my boat onto the raging sea and have a go. like i randomly decided to do today. i’m a lazy bum when it comes to poetry though...i usually say “heck with it” and write free-verse...no rhyming, no certain number of syllables, no nothin’. just what i want to write the way i want to write it. (i think i’ve willingly written all of three poems that were not free-verse.)

so, here goes. i have a book idea that has been banging insistently upon my brain, and this may go into it...not sure.

The Storm Within
The storm raging
Outside my window is
Nothing
To the storm within me
I hear the wind howl
The house shakes with the wind’s fury
My dog cowers at my feet as though
I
Am his safe harbor
His stronghold
The calming factor for the elements without

But within is something far worse
I must live with the knowledge that
I
Cannot go to my friend

She lies
Comatose
In a hospital
Not far away
But far enough that I cannot go to her
My parents will not permit me
To drive in the ice and snow
So I must wait

I must wait as she lies
Neither dead nor alive
Recognizing no one
Not experiencing the storm without

I remember the call
About half an hour earlier
It was her mother
“A terrible accident,” she said
I stand
Paralyzed
As she tells me what happened four hours
Before her call

Emily was driving to work
No different than any other Saturday
She was not
Talking on her cell phone
Speeding
Driving recklessly in any way
While she was crossing an intersection
A drunk driver
Slammed
Into the driver’s side door
Shoving her car across four lanes of traffic
Into the cars on the other side
Of the intersection

She survived – thank You, God – but
Is in the ICU
Unconscious
Unable to experience the winter’s rage
Unable to feel her friends’ worry
Unable to hear our prayers for her recovery
And I am
STUCK
With my thoughts
And my worries

What will happen now
Will she recover
Will she ever be the same
They say she suffered no brain damage
That
Except for the bruises
She looks the same
But another call
Ten minutes later
Changes everything

“We have to amputate,” her mother says
“The X-rays have come back”
“Her left leg below the knee is shattered”
“Splinters of bone everywhere”
I sit down
Numb with shock
Emily
Because of someone’s stupid decision
Will never run again

Don’t think you are immune
To the effects of alcohol
If you drink and drive
Lives are at stake
If you drink and drive
Someone will get hurt
This could be you
Your best friend could be Emily
She did nothing wrong
Was doing everything right
Be careful of your actions
Or on judgment day
The storm without
Will easily overpower
The storm within

-enna

i want to make something clear....

i’ve been informed by one of my friends that i have been acting rather depressed for the past two months. *goes back and reads blog posts since the beginning of november* i really don’t understand what she means...i’ve been a bit more stressed than i normally am, sure, but i’ve had a lot more on my plate. this semester, as compared to the second semester of my sophomore year, is MUCH different. that year, all i had was school, band, and coop. that’s it. i had lots of extra time for crafts, hanging out with friends, reading, being a lazy bum...you get the picture. time for me. then over the summer, i got one job. then i got another job. so...i had two jobs over the summer. still not all that bad. but then you get to this semester...i had school, and band, and coop still, but i also am working eighteen hours a week; i took a college level chemistry class four days a week; and i added swim team back into my schedule. oh, and i almost forgot...i also took the PSAT, and i will be taking the SAT, ACT, and NLE (national latin exam) this spring. i’ve been researching colleges, so that i know where i’m applying next fall and what requirements are...and also working really hard on keeping my grades up, because i’ve got to face the facts – if i don’t get scholarship money (and lots of it), even if i go to a state school, i will not be able to afford college. there’s only so many loans i can take out...if i get married and have kids, i’m not going to be working; and if i’m not working, i’m not making the money necessary to pay off loans. (ok, that was a bit of a tangent...) so...goodbye, free time. :P i’ve been trying really hard to keep my evenings free so that i have a little time to just chill and have some time to do whatever (chat with friends online, read a book, watch a movie, etc...) but i’ve been pushing my sanity very close to the line on a basis that’s been so regular, it’s truly frightening. i knew that something was wrong when i scared the (excuse my language) bloody crud out of my friends about halfway through september during a particularly busy week; since then, i’ve been keeping the stress of my hectic schedule hidden. they’re in high school too – they don’t need my stress in addition to what they already deal with.

so i act a little more down than i normally do. has it never occurred to you that my slightly crazy personality might be calming down some as i get closer to adulthood? or that i’m finally shedding a little bit of that skin so that people can see more of my serious side? i’m not depressed; i’m not suicidal (something else that she said :P). so what if i’m a complete klutz? so what if i trip over my own feet? so what if i have lousy balance? SO WHAT?? i’m perfectly capable of keeping myself from major harm. because, as strange as they may find it, i’m actually pretty careful. i’m pretty dang healthy; i’ve got a healthy body weight (probably much more healthy than many supermodels); i have a pretty balanced diet; i have never broken any bones; i have never had to go to the hospital (for me...i’ve visited family members and taken my mother there); the worst thing that’s happened to me is that i had a 102.4 degree F fever one time when i had strep throat. i do not need to be wrapped in bubble wrap and hung from the ceiling. or wrapped in bubble wrap and chained in front of a television. (and if they really wanted to keep me from harm, then that would be a bad idea; my brain would fry after about two days and i’d be raving mad by day three.) i appreciate the concern; but this takes it a little far. i’ve been trying to be a good sport about the whole thing; but this has been going on for almost a month, and it’s starting to grate.

i’m sorry if i seemed a little harsh, unfeeling, annoyed, (excuse me) bloody well ticked off, or whatever else...i really don’t know another way to put it. i am ME, and that is the end of it.

-enna

ow...

crud, now i hurt. i hadn't moved much when i posted last, but now...ow. my shoulders are a mess....methinks it is from competing in the 50 freestyle. no, i KNOW that it's from competing in the 50 free. i'd thought, "oh wow, i can swim 300 consecutive yds of free in practice now; i'll be able to compete in the 50 free easily." yah, it was easy...at the time. and now my shoulders are rather sore. i can't raise them far any direction without the muscles spasming. it makes me rather happy we didn't get in the water at the staff meeting today...

-enna

Quick update

i just realized that i have been neglecting this blog scandalously. my apologies to all my loyal readers. i am currently (once again) in the middle of a revision to The Battle of Zephanaia, due out on June 1, 2009. this is a rather big one...so far, i've added more than 50 pages to the original story and quite a few more elements; you get to see Ilena berserk, Azuan loose his temper, Fred nearly get married, the devil of this world...there's a LOT more in it now. and i still have to finish it. *starts singing to the tune of "where has my little dog gone" or whatever it's called* where, oh where shall this storyline go? oh where, oh where shall it be? ;-) well, i know when you will all find out...in six months. h3h. actually, i am debating having a special early release on lulu.com, that will be eight weeks early. only debating.

-enna

not sure if i'll post later

i've got a rather busy day ahead of me (again) today. after church (for which we have to leave in approximately 40 minutes) we are going to my grandmother's house an hour away. *i* have to leave a little bit before 3 so that i can be at the Y by 4 for staff meeting/Christmas potluck thing. WHY do they have to do them on sundays??? oh well....once again, busy enough to keep me from thinking overmuch. :P

-enna

wow, i just realized something...

i can't keep this name for my blog. well, i can...for about 3 years. :P then i won't be a teenager anymore. omigosh...that's three years from now. AAAAAAAA!!!!!! it's only three years away!!! bloody crud...where'd the time go?? do you ever feel ready for the rest of life? or do you always just feel like your knees have turned to jelly when you start something new (examples that pop to mind: classes at local community college, applying for jobs, job interviews)? or is this just me, and i'm some strange person. (well, i am, but that's besides the point right now. :P)

ok, i'm done with my panic attack. :P

-enna

fun fun

sorry that i didn't post yesterday. i only had about an hour from the time i got home from work to the time i went to bed before the swim meet, and in that time i had to finish packing for said meet, fold a basket of clean laundry, and finish my powerade so that i could sleep. not a normal thing necessary for sleep, i know, but my legs were cramping rather badly. my electrolyte balance was way off...all i'd had before that was a piece of cheese pizza and some chai tea, and the vending machine didn't have gatorade.

yesterday was...hectic, and lots of fun. it kept me from thinking too much. :P after band, we went to huor's house for all of 25 minutes or so, then left again once finwe got there to go to the carsons' house. once we got there, we spent the next 4 hours or so playing nerts until our brains were oozing out our ears. (almost literally...i am rather loud ;).) i then loaded up everyone except the host and one other person into our 12 passenger van (affectionately called THE BUS) and took the KOs to the YMCA, huor and his two brothers to their house, and my sister, finwe, and myself back to my house. from there, i grabbed my stuff for work and took finwe back home on my way to work. came home from work, finished swigging my powerade, folded my laundry, packed my final things, and was asleep by 10:30....

then woke up at 5:30 this morning. WHAT IS WITH THAT??? i have a difficult time getting decent sleep before anything important, including but not limited to: chemistry finals, swim meets, tests in general, and anything that needs my brain to be at least 50% functional. :P so i stretched for 45 minutes, grabbed my bags, and left the house by 7:30 to be at warmups by 7:55. *sigh* all told, i dropped about 3.5 seconds...here's the breakdown:
50 yd freestyle (front crawl) - dropped 2.5 seconds
100 yd backstroke (back crawl) - dropped 1 second (i think...)
100 yd breaststroke (looks like a frog) - stagnated :P didn't drop time or gain time
final breakdown shall come after practice on tuesday when we get ribbons (which have our times on them). finwe showed up about 9 (i think....i was in the middle of a game of nerts at the time...wasn't payin' too much attention to the time...nerts does that to you ;), so we ended up playing munchkin for most of the swim meet.

a video tribute shall come soon...as soon as i find the recording i'm looking for. :P

-enna

*is rather bored at the moment*

i'm currently stuck sitting in my bathroom. i'm trying to get the bleaching agent out of my hair (aka chlorine). so this treatment that i'm currently trying is a gel that has to sit in my hair for 20 minutes. grrrrrr.

and have you ever had the feeling that you are like Job from the Bible? for almost the past 2 months i've had one thing after another thrown into my face for me to deal with. either a) God's got a really good reason for all this or b) i needed a lot more practice at offering up sufferings. *sigh* but i don't think i've gotten more than 3 nights of good sleep in a row since the beginning of november. i'll sleep, sure, but i wake up tired, sometimes almost more tired than i was before i went to sleep.

and i'm going to have a vanful...8 other people besides myself in our 12 passenger van. all of whom are over the age of 11. and most of whom are bigger, taller, etc. than me. and i get to be in one of the only 2 bucket seats...:-D it should be interesting....

-enna

The Christmas Pageant

i was sent this by a friend in my latin class. enjoy something a little more cheerful than my posts have been of late!

-enna


THE CHRISTMAS PAGEANT
My husband and I had been happily married (most of the time) for five years but hadn't been blessed with a baby.
I decided to do some serious praying and promised God that if he would give us a child, I would be a perfect mother, love it with all my heart, and raise it with His word as my guide.
God answered my prayers and blessed us with a son.
The next year God blessed us with another son.
The following year, He blessed us with yet another son.
The year after that we were blessed with a daughter.
My husband thought we'd been blessed right into poverty. We now had four children,
and the oldest was only four years old.
I learned never to ask God for anything unless I meant it. As a minister once told me, "If you pray for rain, make sure you carry an umbrella."
I began reading a few verses of the Bible to the children each day as they lay in their cribs.
I was off to a good start. God had entrusted me with four children and I didn't want to disappoint Him.
I tried to be patient the day the children smashed two dozen eggs on the kitchen floor searching
for baby chicks.
I tried to be understanding...when they started a hotel for homeless frogs in the spare bedroom, although it took me nearly two hours to catch all twenty-three frogs.
When my daughter poured ketchup all over herself and rolled up in a blanket to see how it felt to be a hot dog, I tried to see the humor rather than the mess.
In spite of changing over twenty-five thousand diapers, never eating a hot meal and never sleeping for more than thirty minutes at a time, I still thank God daily for my children.
While I couldn't keep my promise to be a perfect mother - I didn't even come close - I did keep my promise to raise them in the Word of God.
I knew I was missing the mark just a little when I told my daughter we were going to church to worship God, and she wanted to bring a bar of soap along to "wash up" Jesus, too.
Something was lost in the translation when I explained that God gave us everlasting life, and my son thought it was generous of God to give us his "last wife."
My proudest moment came during the children's Christmas pageant.
My daughter was playing Mary, two of my sons were shepherds and my youngest son was a wise man. This was their moment to shine.
My five-year-old shepherd had practiced his line, "We found the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes."
But he was nervous and said, "The baby was wrapped in wrinkled clothes."
My four-year-old "Mary" said, "That's not 'wrinkled clothes,' silly. That's dirty, rotten clothes."
A wrestling match broke out between Mary and the shepherd and was stopped by an angel, who bent her halo and lost her left wing.
I slouched a little lower in my seat when Mary dropped the doll representing Baby Jesus, and it bounced down the aisle crying, "Mama-mama."
Mary grabbed the doll, wrapped it back up and held it tightly as the wise men arrived.
My other son stepped forward wearing a bathrobe and a paper crown, knelt at the manger and announced, "We are the three wise men, and we are bringing gifts of gold, common sense and fur."
The congregation dissolved into laughter, and the pageant got a standing ovation.
"I've never enjoyed a Christmas program as much as this one," laughed the pastor, wiping tears from his eyes.
"For the rest of my life, I'll never hear the Christmas story without thinking of gold, common sense and fur."
"My children are my pride and my joy and my greatest blessing," I said as I dug through my purse for an aspirin.

Jesus had no servants, yet they called Him Master.
Had no degree, yet they called Him Teacher.
Had no medicines, yet they called Him Healer.
Had no army, yet kings feared Him.
He won no military battles, yet He conquered the world.
He committed no crime, yet they crucified Him.
He was buried in a tomb, yet He lives today!

*mutter*

well, i am done with chemistry. and then i worked out all afternoon, in a desperate attempt to keep myself from thinking. i walked from 11:30 to 12:30, ate lunch, then walked around the pool until 3:30. then i got in the pool and worked in there until 6:30. it worked fine until about 5. *sigh* but it has been postponed...dad is taking zinn to the clinic tomorrow. he's gonna do it there. :'(

-enna

this was supposed to be a good week. hectic, yes, but still good...

life is horrible. :-P i was supposed to have a GOOD week! i finish chemistry tomorrow; that's happy! i go to a friend's house for several hours on friday; that's happy! i have a swim meet on saturday; that's happy! (well, happyish...warmups are at 7:55 AM...ickiful.) i have a work potluck on sunday; that's happy! but it's all been pretty well ruined by this stuff with zinn. *sigh*

-enna

i want my baby!!

i don't want to, but i have to...we will be putting zinn down sometime this week. probably either tomorrow or wednesday. I DON'T WANT TO!!!! i'm the one that has to say when...everyone else has already accepted that which i am having so much trouble with. talk about ruining my day...

so much for happy mondays.

-enna

movies and music

the music review is rather overdue, considering that i've had the cd since monday, but it's slipped my mind to post about it. :P spoken, by spoken, is a good cd. i didn't quite like this one as much as the previous one that i reviewed (last chance to breathe), but it was still a good cd. i especially liked You're The One, Brought To Life, and The Meaning Of... all around, it's a very good cd.

and we watched wall-e tonight. it's a sweet little movie, very cute. but...not much more than that.

i saw prince caspian now. it's....eh, it's not so bad that you can't sit through it. but that's about all that i can say for it. reepicheep was the best part of that entire movie. and does hollywood really think that the audience wants romance so badly that they have to go and ruin a perfectly good story by adding it in? i mean, come on people! susan and caspian? it pretty well ruins it even more! the animation wasn't all that great in places; you have the whole susan/caspian thing going; they butcher the story; reepicheep and a few good battle sequences are the only things worth watching in the entire movie.

-enna

yes, i know...don't eat me

yes, i know i did not post yesterday. mainly because i had to wade through 37 emails. 9 people + 1 failed prank + a lot of other stuff in common = lots of emails. oh, and did i mention that i got all 37 of said emails between 2 and 9 in the afternoon yesterday? *sigh* oh well...i can't say that i really mind. ;)

and i have made an educated decision. work is much nicer when it is boring, as opposed to when it is interesting. i have had a few interesting days at work before; none of them compared to this. :-P i swear, if i had to yell "WALK, DON'T RUN!" one more time, my head was going to explode. no, someone did not crack their head open on the pool deck. (thankfully.) no, what happened had a lot more of the "ew" factor...poo in the pool. *shudders in disgust* EWW!! the other guard on duty was very gentlemanly and switched pools with me (so i didn't have to help clean it up), because i was in the IT pool. it was GROSS!! so...i think i like boring days much better than interesting ones. boring means that everything is going smoothly. :-D interesting means something went wrong (in some cases, disgustingly wrong). :-P

so, now that i've grossed you all out (hehehe!), i shall make my goodbyes and depart.

-enna

this was supposed to WORK!

in my latin teleconference today, we were supposed to be playing a practical joke on my teacher. we were going to act like another class when he came in (discussing the Iliad) and then tell him at the end of class. but it backfired. phil got a tip-off from the head of the teleconference division that something was up. *sighs* now we need a different joke to play...i have an idea, and i think it will work. (i hope) but the planning was fun. it's kind of interesting...i used to think, when i was in public schools, that if i couldn't see my friends five days a week (or more), then the friendship would disappear. then my parents started homeschooling us. NOW only one of my friends lives closer than 10 minutes away. two live ten minutes away; one an hour, and then the rest are all a nice long drive...like, out of state. (well, except for bill - but i haven't been to galesburg in three years.) it makes you appreciate email and other technologies like the internet that much more, because we can stay in closer (and cheaper!) contact with each other.

yah, and then i walked my feet off. i usually only walk for about an hour to an hour and a half at work. but today, it was really boring. to keep myself alert, i walked for 3 hours. either barefoot or in flip-flops. on tile. ow. ah, the joys of lifeguarding...but truly, i like my job. i dare you to name five other jobs (other as in not lifeguarding) in illinois where you can wear shorts, flip-flops, a shirt (as long as it doesn't get too hot) and a swimsuit in sub-freezing temperatures and still get hot. :-D a good job for someone who gets cold as easily as i do. *nods head sagely*

-enna

why me?

it's snowing again. :-P it wouldn't be so bad if i didn't have to drive in it...

and while i was teaching today, the kids were all insanely hyper. the preschoolers, when they felt off-balance, would just grab a hold of me. i wouldn't mind so much if they would just stick to the arms or neck...then during free time, a few of them decided that my ponytail looked like it would be fun to use to pull me down...down as in under water. sure, i could take on one of them at a time, or even two, but three? i'm outnumbered, and i've got three little kids weighing probably about 50 pounds each going at me. i only weigh 120, and i don't have very good balance either. so i got dunked. and they wouldn't let me up. they were laughing...until i got up. then they scattered. i'm sorry, i don't care how cute you are, but when i'm running out of air and you're holding me underwater by my hair, i'm not going to be very happy. then in my other lesson, my single student "forgot" how to swim backstroke, and freestyle, and also every other safety rule that we've gone over in class. (don't dive unless i'm around, and he dives in when i'm half the pool away; walk, don't run, and he runs anyway...you get the picture.) something today has every kid wound tighter than a wind-up toy.

but i got good news! i took the PSAT in october, and i got my score back today. the highest possible score is 240. i got.....*drum roll* 201. i could have done better...i find out whether i'm in the 55,000 students who go to the next level of the national merit scholarship program in september. but hey...i got a better cumulative score than 96% of other high school juniors who took it, 98% of the critical reading section (72 of 80), 90% in math (65 of 80), and 93% in writing skills (64 of 80). :-D and the SAT prompt they give for practice is one of the ones we already did an essay on. :-D

-enna

i thought this was impossible...

i met a four-year-old today who had MORE energy than my littlest sister, and that's saying quite a lot. she at least will sit down in one place for a couple of minutes at a time...this li'l guy wouldn't even sit still for two seconds! he was always moving, always into trouble. in the first 15 minutes i was there, he got into trouble *thinks* i don't even know how many times. i was babysitting for several kids for a couple of hours this afternoon with my next eldest sister (13). i was chasing martin, she pretty well had everyone else. but hey, $40 for two hours isn't bad at all... :-D

and either a) country club road is one of those places that you have to know really well to get around easily, or b) i'm just horrible with directions; but i managed to get lost getting to that babysitting job. which, of course, was off country club road. *sighs*

oh well. i've got a dog snoring at my feet, another one laying upside-down with his insanely happy grin, a cat waiting upstairs to warm my feet when i go to bed...i can forget the cares and worries of the day in the realm of animal love. *sighs in blissful contentment*

-enna

ah, monday...

you know, some people don't like mondays. i really can't understand why, because today was pretty good. actually, mondays in general tend to be happy.

well, it didn't start out all that happy. i scared the (pardon my language) bloody crud out of myself when i went to stop and found out that i was on black ice! i slid into the highway and very nearly turned a donut. i am still thanking God that there wasn't a car there. not to mention that this was my first time driving on icy, snowy, icky roads. i'd driven when there was snow on the ground before, but the snow didn't affect the roads. (i just backed our twelve-passenger van into a five-foot drift, but i try to forget that.) so the 30 minute drive to band became a very stressful 40 minute drive. i could have done without that...

but then chemistry got happy. :-D we have finals next week, and so we aren't learning much new material. we took our final exam and quiz during the two weeks prior to this one, so now it's just tying up a few ends, a 2 hour final next week, and i am DONE with chemistry! :-D very happy. although, i have actually enjoyed it.

after work tonight, i got together with finwe and huor and we played games for about 3 hours. we played power grid, a game that sounds really complicated when you try to explain it, but is actually not as bad as it sounds. second place. :-D we also played settlers of catan with the fish and the river. tied for second...hey, not bad, considering who i was playing. then we cracked a new video game that finwe had gotten. it was rather annoying when the game kept dropping me in different locations after i died. it would drop me in the same place enough times for me to figure out how to get to the flag, and just as i would be nice and happy in my knowledge, it would start dropping me somewhere else! other than that, it wasn't that bad. actually, if it weren't for that single annoying fact, i liked it quite a lot. and if you took away that single annoying fact, i probably would have died just as much. i'm not all that great at video games. ;-) i've gotten used to it...so i just enjoy trying to do it and ending up dying. i think i died 100 times in the 35 minutes or so we were playing. h3h...how do i explain how much fun i have dying constantly while playing video games? it sounds rather odd, i know, but it's the truth! maybe it's the fact that i've accepted that i'll never be even average (or maybe the fact that the last time i'd touched a video game controller was three months ago, and that i have no hand-eye coordination to speak of).

and for those who would like an update on how the newest member of the family is doing, adena seems to be settling in fairly well. it's odd though...if i'm around and mom isn't, she follows ME around, and she is constantly licking my hand and looking up at me with those big puppy-dog brown eyes. she and zinn are rather comical...she's barely half his size, and seeing them together is like watching a dog and a puppy. with zinn acting like the puppy. (zinn is a newfoundland that weighs somewhere around 100 lbs. he stands as high as my hip.) i think she's beginning to work her way into my heart...

anyway, it doesn't seem like much of a day, but it was a good day.

g'nite, all.

-enna