My story for my creative writing class.

CLINK! CLINK! CLINK!

She opened the door and turned on the overhead light as she walked over to her seven year old daughter, Gracie. She was curled up and snuggled tightly under her star and moon covers. “Good morning, Angel,” she whispered as she tucked a piece of Gracie’s golden locks behind her ear. “Head downstairs for breakfast before school. I made your favorite, blueberry waffles,” she explained. Gracie’s baby blue eyes grew large and a smile that was missing a tooth, ran across her face. She shut Gracie’s bedroom door and headed downstairs, while Gracie got dressed.

CLINK! CLINK! CLINK!

She walked into the kitchen, where her husband, Danny, was reading today’s newspaper. They had been married for eight happy and blissful years. Danny’s dark brown hair and emerald green eyes had hooked her in several years ago. He stood up and walked over to her. He embraced her from behind; his mouth smelling of pulp from his morning orange juice. “The waffles were incredible. Thank you for a perfect morning. I’ll see you tonight when I get home. I love you,” he said as he kissed her rosy cheek. He let go of her and smiled as he grabbed his briefcase and left for work. Danny had been working at the law firm for five years, and had already become the best lawyer there. She knew it was his charm and dashing good looks that always won the female jurors over.

CLINK! CLINK! CLINK!

Gracie ran downstairs, with the scent of blueberry waffles guiding her nose. Jeans and a white Seaseme Street t-shirt was the outfit choice today. She thought of Gracie covered in grass stains by the end of the day. Gracie climbed up onto the barstool at the island in the middle of the kitchen; it was Gracie’s favorite place to eat in the house. She sliced up a banana and placed the pieces around Gracie’s plate. Gracie was always thrilled when her breakfast was aesthetically pleasing. She opened her stainless steel fridge, and pulled out the non-fat milk for Gracie, and set it on the marble counter-top. Gracie liked to pour her own glass, insisting she was a “woman” who could take care of herself. Bless her heart.

CLINK! CLINK! CLINK!

She got Gracie and her school bag in the Lexus. It was a five minute drive to Gracie’s school. Gracie can walk to school later on down the road when she’s “woman” enough. She parked the car and waited for Gracie to go inside the school building before she drove to work. She blew Gracie a kiss and then headed into town.

CLINK! CLINK! CLINK!

She is the top chef at the Italian Bistro restaurant, and is loved and respected by her peers. Even though she was in what she calls her “cooking scrubs”, she was still a knockout to everyone else. Her long, strawberry blonde hair swayed as she ran inside the restaurant. Her crystal blue eyes gleamed as she greeted her co-workers with her bright smile. Her long, slender legs helped her to seemingly glide across the kitchen floor to begin working on today’s masterpiece of a meal.

CLINK! CLINK! CLINK!

She had it all. She was the perfect wife and mother to her perfect husband and child. She lived in a perfect two-story victorian home, with a perfect golden retriever. She had the perfect job, and cooked perfect meals. Everything was perfect.

CLUNK.

A quarter was dropped into her old coffee can. She had found the tin can last year in a dumpster behind a small cafe. Her icy ivory fingers grasped the can tightly as a gust of freezing wind lashed against her emaciated face. The cold air snapped at her tiny red nose. “Thank you,” she whispered through her cracked, thin lips, as the stranger walked away. She buried her free hand, covered in dirt and grime, into her jacket. The jacket wasn’t much; it was too light for this winter storm, and had too many holes to hold onto any warmth. But it was all she had.

CLINK! CLINK! CLINK!

Don't ya know?

Well, looky what we have here. A blog that I totally forgot about. I remember we started these blogs for our newspaper and yearbook class. Ha, see how well I've kept up with mine?

Well, who knows. Maybe I will keep up with this blog now. I always having something to say (interesting or not), so why not?

I am 13 days away from graduating from CBU and man, it's a great feeling. I'm done with finals; I have two small papers, one story and one presentation to do, and then I'm free. I am free.

I'll be moving out of my apartment on April 30th (Praise the Lord), and heading back home to Oregon. Home. Oregon is my home. I miss everything about it. Portland's city life. The back roads out in the country side. Crater Lake. The Oregon Coast. Mudding and wheeling up in Wagner. Going to Detroit Lake. This summer is going to be perfect.

I do have a few trips planned. Robbie and I will be driving to Arizona to drop off his dog, Grizzly. Robbie had to move, and his new place is too small for Grizzly to enjoy himself and just be a dog. So, we are driving him down to Arizona and giving him to Robbie's Aunt, who has plenty of acres for Griz-man to run around like a dog should.

Another trip to hopefully transpire, is a trip to Idaho with Katie, to visit her Uncle Larry again. He's a kick in the pants, and hope to see him again soon.

Well, it's a Saturday night/ Sunday morning. I'm going to take advantage of the weekend and watch a movie.

I'll catch ya'll on the flipside.

Weird night...

Well, I suppose instead of sleep walking last night, I slept wrote.
I woke up the next morning with a pen in my bed, and a one page story that I have no recollection of writing. So, I thought I'd share what I wrote with ya'll.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? I can still hear my baby cry for help every single wretched night that I have managed to stay alive. They took him from me three weeks ago. I know not if he is alive or dead.
I know my purpose here. I am meant to die with the others. And today is the day.
They have cut my hair and stripped me of my clothes, shoes, dignity; my life. The others keep telling themselves they are apart of an experiment and everything is going to be okay.
I know the truth.
BANG. Another one has unsuccessfully escaped. I dare not look, for I have too many horrific images burned in my memory; my heart.
The others pile in one by one. Their screams are muffled by the door closing them in. Their reality has sunk in too late. The doors are re-opened as the scent of burning flesh dwells in my nostrils, and the screams are no more. The chamber is empty, hungry, ready to devour more.
"I'll always be in your heart", were my sister's last words before she walked into Hell. She is long gone.
My stomach is tossing and turning. There is no use trying to escape the monsters. It is too late. I know my purpose here. I am meant to die. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Banner whaaaat?!

For Banner I have been assigned to do the calendar for this semester.

It's really difficult to do when I have sooooo much homework to do. Projects, finals, tests, and doing the calendar, proved to be challenging.

It was hard to do at first, because the times and dates were in different order than other times where I got the information. So that meant I had to go over the calendar and make sure everything was organized the same way.

There's not much else to say about this, seen as how I only did the calendar. I didn't write any stories. I have been too busy with Angloes. What's a girl to do?!

Blog number one..yay finals!

I have learned that nobody is perfect.
I have learned that stress is only a test of my faith. And boy am I tested a lot.

This semester in Angelos has been such a rollercoaster of emotions. So much stress, yet so much fun. I have learned that communication is a priceless treasure that no one should ever take for granted. Trust me on that one.

Hard work doesn't come easy. It sure does come at 2AM in the Angelos office, working on the deadline pages, trying to remember at which point you lost your mind.

I have also learned that no matter how many times you look at a page, there is always a mistake that needs to be looked at 50 times before someone catches it. I've made many mistakes this semester. I forgot to double check which pages were sent off, and missed three. (oops. Big time).

I also learned that creativity comes at a price. Yes, we had a template to follow. However, creativity does not have a template. Let's just say tying down creativity to our template was probably the hardest thing to do. We had such creative designers, and our template wasn't enough for them. They needed more. Slowly but surely, I have seen tiny details added into the template. Hey, maybe next year we will actually get the hang of this.

Let's see..what else I have learned....
Oh. Pictures. Frustrations beyond belief. I feel there is little to no art left in the photos we use. We just take the pictures that we need and leave. We need to go above and beyond the call of duty. All of us. Even me.

So what will it look like next year?? Only God knows that one...

Fake eye made into...webcam??

Alrighty, check it out.

There is a woman who lives in San Fransisco, who lost one of her eyes in a car accident. She has a fake eye, or prosthetic eye if you will, and wants to install a webcam in it, that will transmit the images to her brain. Think it will work? What your thoughts on this??

Her blog:
http://tanyavlach.wordpress.com/


Her story:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,453990,00.html

Sharing my favorite...

This, my friends, is the portal back to your childhood.
That's right. Chocolate milk.
I love chocolate milk. As a matter of fact, I'm drinking some chocolate milk right now. Why, you ask? Because besides of the fact that it is darn right delectable, it reminds me of my childhood. As many of you may know by now, I am indeed from Oregon, and I am indeed stuck here, smack dab in Riverside, California. I am not complaining, but I would just like to put it on the record, that I miss my family very, very much.
When I was seven years old, I flew to New Jersey during the summer. It was my first time flying, and I was flying alone. I was absolutely terrified. The stewardess recognized the symptoms of a first-time flyer flying solo, and she quickly gave me what I needed. She asked me, "Do you like chocolate milk?". I hesitantly nodded my head, keeping my eyes to the floor. She told me to wait a second, and I did as she left me. Of course I was panicking at this moment. What was going to happen? Was I in trouble? Why did she want to know if I liked chocolate milk? She came back with a bottle of chocolate milk. "I bought this bottle of chocolate milk for the flight. It's my favorite drink in the whole wide world. Here, it's for you," she explained. I questioned her. My parents always told me not to talk to strangers, much less accept anything from them, but here it was, right in front of me; the golden bottle of chocolate milk that ever seven-year old coveted. After some thought, I gave myself the green light, and took the bottle from her hand. "You're a grown up. Why do you like chocolate milk," I asked. "Everyone is allowed to like chocolate milk. I will keep drinking it forever, and you should too. It gives you strong bones," she replied. I've always wanted to have strong bones, and be straight up invincible like all the super heros. I never stopped drinking chocolate milk since, and it's been one of the best decisions of my life. I have had some of the best conversations over a glass of chocolate milk, and some of the best childhood memories with chocolate milk.

Hey, it does a body good.
:)

Escaping the real world

Well, I'm sitting here in front of my ridiculously frustrating laptop, while chewing on a ridiculously addicting piece of red vine licorice trying to think about something to write about. Then it hits me.

Books. I am addicted to books, true story- no lie. I know I may not strike you as someone who likes to read, but let me tell ya...like is an understatement. Books can offer someone so much information, even without reading it. How, you ask? I have a book of poems that were written during the civil war. My grandpa gave it me while we were cleaning out his house one day. The book was so friggin old, the binding was starting to become loose. You can tell just by looking at the book that it has touched many people's lives. Another example would be from this past weekend. I stayed in a hotel room in Thousand Oaks this weekend for my Uncle's birthday party. I happen to have some time to myself, so I pulled out the Bible from the hotel room and started looking through it. I flipped to one page and saw tear stains all over the page. I froze in my place instantly, wondering who this pewrson was and why they were crying. I realized that the page was open to Psalm 23, so I had concluded maybe their tears weren't out of grief, but perhaps praise.

I really enjoy books for more than just the history it presents to you on the outside. Books happen to be very informative. Call me oldschool or whatever, but I still like reading books over searching on the internet for information I need. It is like an adventure flipping through books rather than a simple click of a mouse. The internet may be a convienient source of quick information, however researching through books provides me with an accomplished feeling.

One of my favorite reasons for reading books is this: books have a great ability to take me out of my seat and place me in the picture in which I am reading about. If a book can make me happy, sad or even angry, then the author has done their job. I read such a wide variety of books and I think that's a good thing. It's never a bad thing to diversify what you're learning about, reading, etc. I have read books about so many different things. Some over constant controversies such as religion, and some filled with just plain fantasy taking me away to far away non-existent lands.

I love reading any kind of book. Whenever I am frustrated and just need time to get away and relax, I will pick up a good book and get lost in it. Some of my favorite books are Mere Christianity, My Sister's Keeper, and the ever so famous Twilight. Yes...Some people may argue that Twilight is a teenager's book and should have no place in my personal library, however, Stephenie did a great job of capturing my attention and heart with her characters.

Anyway... Enough blabbing about books. I'm sure this put you all to sleep, but hey- to each his own. :)

Ps. here are some sweet blogs related to my topic...

http://www.themillionsblog.com/
http://usedbooksblog.com/
http://www.blogcatalog.com/directory/arts/books

It's the little things that count...

Apparently, my stress level has been no secret to most of you lately. I usually handle stress pretty well, but I guess I haven't been lately.

I don't know who it was, but someone left me a note that said "It seems like you are really stressed lately. I just wanted to let you know you're doing an awesome job. Thanks."
That totally made my day. It feels good to know someone is willing to even take 2 minutes out of their day to encourage someone else. So, if you're reading this and wrote that note- thank you. It really made me feel better. :)

P.S. My computer is going sooo slow, I'm ready to throw it out the window! grr.

Lord, grant me strength and patience!!

Sad, sad little ducky. :(

I can't even describe how upset I am right now with the Oregon Ducks. We played so bad tonight, it's not even funny. We made too many stupid mistakes that really cost us in the end.

I'm one crushed little ducky right now. :(

Anyway.

I have to write this paper on some guy named Charles Spurgeon. And it sucks, because the book makes him seem like friggin Noah or something. He's the perfect Christian or something, which in itself is an oxymoron, because Christians are not perfect, nor is anyone else.
Frustrating, it really is.

Today is not a good day in the Duck world.

PS. I wish it would rain so my car would look semi- clean. And just because I love the rain.

Stressed

I have not been this busy in a very, very long time.
I guess I have to get used to it.
Pretty sure I will have a full head of gray hair by the end of the semester. Oh well. Such is life.
I guess I need to take the yearbook's theme advice and literally be still. Out of all these projects I have going on, I haven't had time to breathe, much less set any time aside for just me and God. Ugh.
The debate is on tonight, actually in 20 minutes. I'm really nervous for them. This is a really important debate. The world is falling to pieces.
PS. The USC vs. UofO (My Oregon Ducks for you non-sports people) game is this saturday. If I wasn't so FLIPPIN BUSY, I totally could have gone to the game, instead I have to resort to screaming at the tv...Oh man. I'm wearing my lucky ducky shirt on saturday. Let's hope the dirty USC players don't cheat! ;)
Kidding. Sort of.
Also, did anyone else watch the Cubs and Dodgers game last night?? Seriously. How depressing. Dodgers fans suck by the way.

Oh PS.
I HATE my linguistics class. Renfro has a great ability to make us feel completely and totally dumb. That woman's brutal class is 75% cause of my stresses...

Oh fun.

So um, some peeps reprsenting FORD came to our class today... to show us a dumb car and tell us about other ways to be distracted while driving. fancy that.


I still love my element <3

anyway. i'm tired, but i have to do homework, so here goes nothin...

I'm currently tweaking the theme copy right now..it's a doozy that's for sure. I'm loving it though, I like a good challenge.

Psalm 47:10
Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.


I just have to keep this in mind every time I start to panic about this yearbook...
God has my back. <3

Just have to throw this lil tidbit out there-


Go Buckeyes!! Beat the Trojans!!
ps. Booooooo USC. :)

Oh- and Oregon Ducks are kicking Purdue's booty...Oh...watch Trojans...on gameday-you got the Duck Truck coming for you!!

Random thought-

Boys-
please pull up your pants. nobody wants to the loom of your fruit...


haha.
also- I have come to the conclusion that nature is one of the best brain storming offices God could ever offer.

Athletics.

Whatever happened to the notion of integrity and good ol' fashioned sportsman-like conduct during an athletic event?

I am getting so tired of hearing such negativity when it comes to sports. Example- I open up my web browser today, only to be faced with an article informing me that Mark McGuire's 60-some odd home run-record breaker was faked. Really people? Then, I go to my regular sports blog for my daily fix, only to read people enjoying the fact that Tom Brady is seriously injured, and could be out for the season. Really people? Don't get me wrong, I am far from being a Tom Brady fan, but it's just not right to be rejoicing over someone's injury. I understand that the love of the game can be overwhelming at times, but being a fan also comes a responsibility of being a civil, sportsman-like fan as well. Set an example for other fans. I am a big fan of the Oregon Ducks. I was rather embarrassed when our fans booed and threw objects at UCLA's center, Kevin Love in last season's game.

What I am trying to get it at is this- Suck it up. I don't care if you are the player, or the fan. Play by the rules and have fun. Keep it real guys, seriously.

A little public relations...

Help a brotha or a sista out...

Go to www.freerice.com.

Test out your vocabulary knowledge, and feed the world rice as you are doing it.

A little education while ending world hunger. =]

la luna

Ok, seriously-
There is nothing better than driving on the long, winding back-roads in the middle of the night, feeling the wind brush against your skin, and your heartbeat matching the rhythm of tunes streaming out of the speakers, all while the full moon smiles down on you.

Oh yes. Life can be grand at times.

Well... I could sit here and complain about how much I hate drama and how much it totally sucks to be puking my brains out for 3 days now... but...instead...

I am just thankful to be alive. Praise God. =]

A tad bit amusing...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA. OH MY LANTA.
For the past ten mintues.. I have been laughing my tooshy off for this one...


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080502/ap_on_fe_st/odd_check_for_billions


I mean, seriously. What kind of person honestly thinks he can get away with forging a check for 360 BILLION dollars? Who WOULDN'T think that's suspicious? Poor hick. He was even caught with a weapon and some Mary Jane. hahahahaha. Someone seemed to have failed the Common Sense 101 course in hillbilly school... Oh wait..do they even teach that course there?

*For the record, I am in no way intending to offend anyone that happens to be a little dim in the head, wears overalls, milks cows, or chews on hay. If you find this any way offensive, so sorry for the inconvenience (look that up in the dictionary later).

hahaha. I am funny.