random update

So it's been fun being home. Not exactly a vacation, I'll readily admit. More like I have been working 11 hour days to try and have enough money for Christmas gifts! Hopefully everyone is happy with what they get from me. I still have work to do today but I am post-poning it for a little while ( Christmas HOLIDAYS, anyone).

It seems my family is as busy as ever, Klay is in Hockey school in Clive, Cody... well he just turned eighteen. The days here have both flown and crawled. The days when I have been home all alone trying to make bag upon bag of caramel popcorn ( oh yes, it will haunt my dreams for years, bags of caramel corn chasing me and trying to eat me) all by myself. The only thing that tried to trick my brain was a few Christmas CD's drawling Christmas Carols loudly throughout the house. Those only make you feel less lonely for a little while, and then you feel more lonely because no one is yelling at you to turn it down.

It's nice to have a bit of a break for absolute lack of privacy. Once again, no one ever comes in my room without knocking. That is a rule that most of the girls at bible school must have never been taught, what were their mothers thinking?

We leave for Vulcan the morning of the 24th. So my first real morning in Vulcan will be Christmas, which is a little bit scary. I'm trying not to let the tears come every time I realize I won't be home for Christmas. I'm a big girl I can handle it, right? I'm still really scared that Travis's family won't like me, even though he reassures me all the time that they will love me. I guess only time will make me feel better about this. I'm really looking forward to meeting his mom and sister, and I really hope that we hit it off. I have prayed for a long time that I would have a special commeradrie with them.

Still thinking about winter camp... I am seriously considering going home that week. Like SERIOUSLY. I think I will. I am just ALWAYS cold, and always sick, and that sounds like a recipe for disaster in my life. We'll see I guess but I doubt I will go. They probably won't even put me with Travis if I do go.

I CAN DRIVE A STANDARD NOW! Travis gave me my first lesson a while ago and now I can do it by myself! I wouldn't be confident in a big town but I can drive in the little ones just fine and that makes me pretty darn happy!

birthday...

Soooo tired.
It's 12:29 am and I am wondering why I am still on here. I got lots done today... I am trying hard to make some money for Christmas gifts! Today I thourally cleaned parts of the house, tidied the rest, made a big roast beef supper for a bunch of people and cleaned it up, did laundry, and did books. I guess it doesn't sound like much but I'm decently happy with it. Then I made mom her birthday letter. She loves those and I am generally the only one who makes them for her. I get to go buy her something for her birthday tommorro! Horray!

Good night all............. and no more bad dreams

Bad Dreams

Break!
At last, today I embark on break! That is, if everyone can figure out how to get me home! Eek! I might have to be a street person for the night! That wouldn't be much fun now would it?

So last night I had a dream that really frightened me. I dreamed that someone I really care about died. It was horrible! I have never dreamt that someone died before. The thing is it was just so real! I kept thinking in the dream " This has gotta just be a dream!" But then as soon as I thought that someone in the dream would show me that it was true. There were even medical facts and medical people involved. Then I was trying to find Travis and I couldn't, I was running aroung the school. Everyone kept following me telling me that it didn't really matter, it was God's will, and I was stupid to be so upset. I started running away from them as fast as I could just trying to find a place to be alone.

When I woke up Elli told me that I had been crying in my sleep. What could possibly have disturbed me enough that I would dream something like that? What is wrong with me?

Christmas feeling is missing...

ahhh the joys of Christmas.

We had the banquet today. I got to wear my red dress for the first time, and I felt pretty. I love the days when I feel pretty. They don't come around all that often.

Everyone is playing Christmas carols and getting all excited. I'm finding it a little hard to get into it this year, and I'm not really sure why. We even actually have snow for once! Maybe I just need a bit of a rest and a dose of family. Maybe I'll get that "Christmas" feeling when I go home and see the tree. Maybe it won't come till I have some money and buy some Christmas gifts.

Death

Death.

Auntie Gwen died.

We are having her funeral.

Dead. She's gone. You'll never see her again.

She was ninety six, and everyone said she was ready to go.

What did they know? Did they ask her, or did they assume she felt her age?

I feel like something was taken from her, and yet it wasn't, not really. Really, she was given life... right? Everlasting life.

We invest so much in our lives on earth, and I am left wondering about why. Is there a point?

There must be.

Maybe the point becomes clear after you die, and that's why there are so many confused people left behind...

The ones who were closest to figuring out the mystery are gone now.

friendship/intimacy

So we are doing a relationships class in school right now. I like it for the most part I just feel like it is kind of awkward because we are the only couple there at the moment. I feel like people are watching us... but they aren't really. I just worry too much.

I've been thinking a lot lately about intimacy... friendship... I guess all of the stuff that relationship class brings to the surface. I think that in order to have a really amazing relationship that is definately headed towards marraige you need to have both. I feel like Travis is my best friend, but I also share that intimate love with him that can only be known between lovers.

We were talking about how friendship has an outward focus, and intimacy has an inward focus. I think that you need both. We are trying to find that balance right now... the balance between spending time with other people, and spending " just couple" time to build intimacy. I think that the fact that we have started beginning each day with prayer together will be a good spiritual intimacy builder. We had been kind of avoiding that because when we first talked to pastor Harold he talked about how praying together causes really strong bonds and may not be wise at first. I guess we forgot to reassess when our relationship became a lot more serious!

Anyways, I gotta tootle, Love you guys lots!

Hockey!

Mmmm still tired. I slept more today than should be legal. But I realized that I didn't write about the marvellous game that I got to watch!!!

Travis had Adam come down for a while which was great, and I had Heather and Jody and Rose!

AND WE WATCHED HOCKEY!

I missed hockey so much! It made me sad because I barely recognized half of the team, and we didn't get much time with Matty. But it was so much fun! I can't wait to be a hockey mom!

surreal parents

A lazy sunday is today...
I feel like I have nothing to do. Travis is at work, I have no homework... we don't even have gas in his truck until friday, so i can't even really take off anywheres.

Yesterday I painted. I'm not very good at painting. I think that sometimes art is anything that speaks to us... not just when we look at it but also when we create it. Yesterday I made a painting of a house burning up at sunset. I wrote the word restless across the bottom in red. Anyone else might think that I was disturbed when I wrote it. I told Travis about it in front of his friend Adam and Adam was like " run Travis, run." Hopefully he was only joking about that. I think Travis knew what I meant though.

Sometimes I feel like even though this school is a wonderful place to learn about God, and I am so glad that he brought me here, and I am so glad that I met Travis... it feels surreal.

The lock ups at 11-1 feel weird. Last night I felt like I was in a jail and everyone around me thought it was a great place to be. Midnight came, and least we all turned into pumpkins, we were sent off into our girl's dorms. It's bothered me before but maybe when I really stopped to think about it, that's when it really hit me. Sometimes I feel like I am running away from swarms of parents who don't really know how to do their job. My own parents would never tell me " you have to be in your room at midnight!" They believe in freedom... and they realize that I am nineteen.

Not that I hate it here, I don't. I am thankful to be here and I am thankful for everything that I'm learning.

musings about time

Sometimes life seems to go so fast. . .

and yet so slow;

at the same time.

I'm not really sure how this is possible, but it seems to be. Perhaps, time isn't as constant as we thought is was.

I'll admit, it's a novel thought.

I once heard someone say that " time is the only constant we can count on. It stays the same, and it always keeps on going."

Perhaps science would prove that true... but then again science cannot actually prove anything. It can just help us to see the way things are a little more clearly.

Eternity.

Now there is a word that throws concepts about time for a loop all the way around the moon and back. Eternity.

Time without end, time that doesn't matter.

Does time even exist, or is it a figment of our imagination that helps us to understand what goes on in the earth we live in a little better?

Why does time go fast some days, slow other days, and some days it seems to stand still?

Why do some of us feel like we are old by the time we are twenty and others don't act like they should have outgrown diapers yet?

Why do so many people feel like they just turned nineteen when they are ninety, on their death bed?

Maybe time was part of the fall, part of the curse on mankind, and that is why we seem to constantly rebel against it. On earth, we have such a limited amount of time. In heaven, we cannot comprehend how boundless time will be.

So while we feel that time may consume us, press us, confine us, and restrict us... as long as we believe, it is the passing from this time into the time to come.... that will forever set us free.

break is coming...

YAY!
I'm so ready for a weekend! As much as I love it here, sometimes I feel like everything can be overspiritualized and overdiscussed. It drives me crazy on occasion. This week was Godly financial principles, next week is relationships class...

AND THEN COMES CHRISTMAS BREAK!!!!

3 weeks to make money and enjoy people without taking a single test. That is actually pretty exciting!

I'm starting the holiday at home to make some money and be with my family, from the fifteenth to the twenty third. I'm not sure if I am going home with Travis for Christmas itself or not yet. If I don't he will come get me boxing day and I will spend the rest of Christmas break in Vulcan, which is pretty exciting!

SO BRING ON CHRISTMAS BABY! YEAH!

money

So we've been busy talking about finances.

In class.

In real life.

It's making my head hurt.

I'm not sure if that's because I take it too seriously; or because it really is a serious subject? I'll assume the latter. It's something that I suppose I haven't been all that good at in the past... but that was probably because there was no reason to be.

I've discovered about myself that I am determined when I need to be. My passionate and stubborn personality funnel sheer determination into whatever matters most to me.

I'm hoping this is a good thing.

If it's not I am still stuck with it... and so is Travis.

I suppose we shall see.

big plans

Sorry guys I guess I have kind of been neglecting my duties as your wonderful blog maker... ha ha ha yeah right hey?

So Travis and I talked to Pastor Harold again today... he wanted to talk to us about where we were in our relationship. I really just wanted to talk to someone about the hypocrisy that I have found here and my frusterations with gossip etc.

All in all it actually went quite well. He didn't yell at us, and I didn't rip his head off and bash it into the register. Travis, of course, kept his cool.

I know what I'm getting for Christmas from my Travis! Yep, I even picked it out! But don't tell anyone... ssshhhhh we haven't said anything yet lol.

All of this relationship stuff has got us both thinking... what does the perfect little future look like. Yes, I will admit it sounds idealistic and maybe even crazy but we thought about it.

We would want a big dog, like a great dane lab cross, and a stock dog, which Travis would learn how to train. Travis is going to take his Police training so he will be a cop. We will have a little self sufficient farm with beef cattle ( commercial not pure bred), horses, some pigs and sheep and chickens, a garden, and a milk cow. We will have enough crops to feed the cattle if we can. We want to have a little bugalow log house, and six kids. He will have his dually, and I will drive a truck until the family gets too big and then I get a jeep commander. LOL.

Not that it'll happen like that but I think it's cool that we have the same ideas.

Oh I forgot the cats. He likes cats. I want one or two outside, and I specified that I want them orange if we can; I don't want them inside.

He laughed and said we'll get whichever one I fall in love with and it'll be in the house one day when he gets home from work, sitting like it was supposed to be there... all because I'll feel sory for it and invite it in.

He knows me far too well.

Ahhh love

Oh yes I know that I am mushy. I'm just so happy, what can I do about it? We have been talking about everything lately. It's amazing to me how serious we got and how fast... but I think that when you know, you know... and we do. So now I am just waiting for God's timing on everything. I am happier than I ever have been.

I think one of the most amazing parts of this is that God really did fulfil all of his promises to me. That makes my faith SO much bigger! He gave me a man that I can love, cherish, and look up to, forever and ever. That is truly amazing.