Emily's married! I can't believe it, she's my first real friend to get married and it's weird to wrap my mind around the fact that she's married now. Last night was also the first wedding I've ever been to, SO FUN! I love that there are people like Emily who pay so much attention to detail, it makes me happy because I do too. The ribbons around the bottom of the vases in the bathroom was my favorite. So Emily, no one else would think of that.

I'm looking forward to this week, last week was so crazy and I'm worn out. I had to sub for a group lesson instructor at the pool this morning and it didn't go great. I'm so used to teaching private lessons and it's been 2 months since I stopped teaching group lessons. I quickly remembered the importance of class control. I had several kids sitting out for various things. Then with 5 minutes left in one of the classes this one kid kicked me so hard right on my knee cap and I screamed so loud. It felt like my incisions had been ripped open. My knee was already really sore from last night, and this so did not help. I ended that lesson early and taught the next one on the side with lots of ice. Oh the pool....

so you think you can dance

I have gotten totally in to the summer show "so you think you can dance". It's the dance version of american idol. And in the interest of showing you all how much of a loser I truly am, every week on Thursday when people are voted off I cry for a good half hour. I'm not a huge fan of the ballroom stuff that they do, but the contemporary, hip hop, Broadway, and jazz stuff they do is incredible. None of you knew me when this was my life, when I wanted to be on Broadway and I lived for singing and dancing. My acting was ok, but that wasn't what I loved. I loved to dance and I loved to sing and I was good at them. I realize that I can't really sing anymore. A few serious bouts of mono and bad life choices killed that. And I was always heavy and the wrong body type for ballet but I still loved it and since I didn't want to be a serious ballet dancer it was ok. I loved the hip hop class I took in high school. We did an awesome routine junior year called Monkey Gumbo that I will never forget. Anyways, I miss my former life on stage. For hours a day I got to pretend to be someone else, got to sing until nothing else mattered, and dance every emotion in my body. The rush of being on stage with those lights blinding you is unreal. The make up, the costumes, the late night rehearsals when we just slept in the theater at school instead of going home for a few hours to sleep before class in the morning. I get to take an intro ballet class to graduate this fall and I'm excited. It should be pretty easy since it's the intro class, but good since it's been 2 yrs since I danced. I really want to keep dancing, I miss it so much. There are a few places in town with adult ballet classes and I'm hoping to be able to take one. We'll see, I did end up chatting with my physical therapist about how I have at least 3 "jobs" besides school and soon to be 4. (in case you were wondering, YWCA, crisis center, babysitting, and probably soon to be helping out in the church office). I think I forget that I'm still a student, or maybe I just have senioritis. Graduation is only 149 days away and then I get to be a big girl!

Lifegroup icebreaker

Our icebreaker tonight at lifegroup was "what is something you need help with". My response was that I need help asking for help. I'm incredibly stubborn and had be self sufficient really young and found all kinds of pride and identity in the fact that I don't need help. That really isn't true, I do need help, I need lots of help. There are lots of things I can't do on my own and I have to learn that it's ok to sometimes say that I need help. On my deep soul searching 10 minute drive home I realized that I have never once asked someone to pray for me, I'm completely terrified of it and I kind of feel like that if I am still not able to pray out loud for someone then I have no right asking someone to pray for me. It's stupid, I know, but that's just how things are right now. I just need to chat it out and then grow up.

On a slightly happier note, I got to watch Lillie and Raya this afternoon and we made the hand prints after all. I found a recipe online that's just 1 cup of water, 1 cup of salt, and 2 cups of flour. You can add food coloring if you want, I choose not to, and you roll it up and cut whatever shape you want, press in the hand print, and bake at 200 for 2 hours. It was so funny trying to explain to Lillie how it was mom's birthday and when we can show people we love them by giving them a birthday present. Apparently when you're 2 that means that mom should have a birthday party that you can go to, and no you don't get a present on someone else's birthday. Both girls however were very convinced that we were making cookies. All in all, a lot of fun and pretty successful, although I didn't take them off the parchment paper while they were warm so it kind of melted on to the back. Oops!

Why I'm not an English Lit major

Random side note: the rest of the who I am in Christ stuff will continue next week, I don't have time this week for the extra reading.

Here's why I'm not an English lit person. We discuss the problems of all the characters and the authors of the stories we read, and all I can think about is their childhood. What was their attachment style as an infant, their temperament as a toddler, who was their primary care giver and what was their style, how did they transition through adolescence, what important relationships did they have as adults, that kind of stuff. I am totally a youth, adult, and family services person through and through. My YAFS professors would be proud. But English people don't care about that, they want to look at symbolism and motifs. Boring.

Today I'm not feeling so great about kids. Just one of those days where I babysat for a few hours this afternoon and it was rough. Fussy babies who only sleep when they're nursed are not easy when they're tired and you certainly can't nurse them and mom won't be home for 3 hours. Crackers and a sippy cup are just not the same. And the only swim lesson I had today kept kicking my knee and wouldn't do anything I asked. We spent lots of time sitting on the stairs talking about why we have to obey teachers. My fix for a rough afternoon of kids was to get coffee ice cream and hot fudge at Payless and sit in our parking lot with Amy laughing about funny kid stuff. One of the kids in her preschool class today grabbed her chest and said that she must drink a lot of milk to get boobs like that. Kids are just funny. Tomorrow will be a redeeming kid day, I get to watch Lillie and Raya for the afternoon, and have one of my favorite swim lessons after that. Time to crash in bed and get up early since I was too tired tonight to do my homework.

Why?

I don't understand a lot right now. I'm feeling really angry at the world and the bad things that happen. A friend of the family died Friday in a car accident. His mother in law died 3 months ago in a car wreck, and his wife and 2 daughters were at her house closing things up, and he left work Friday night to make the 8 hour drive. He made it to the town at 3am, and had a car accident on the same road that his mother in law just had an accident and died on. He was killed, as well as both of the passengers in the other car. It's not right, those girls grandma just died, and now their dad too. His poor wife just lost her mom and husband. It's wrong, that kind of thing shouldn't happen.

I also realized in the past 2 months that it's taken our life group to go through lifetimony's that I have some pretty intense feelings about life situations. I just get so angry hearing about miscarriages, abuse, and abandonment. I'm becoming consumed with being sad and angry about the bad things that happen to people. But I really don't know how to deal with it. I am really grateful that I have the gift of compassion and that I have deep feelings for the situations that people are in. But what do you do when it's too much? I can't listen to people's life stories and cry uncontrollably because I'm so overwhelmed with sadness and anger that this happened to them. No one ever showed me what to do with this and I can't figure it out. Is it ok to be angry about it? I just really don't know.

Belated Day 6

Day 6: I Have Been Bought With a Price, I Belong To God

"Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body." 1 Cor 6:19-20 (see also 1 Cor 7:23)

Man do I struggle with this. My biggest struggles stem from not honoring God with my body. And today I'm feeling really frustrated with my body. I dream of having a day where I am not in pain, but it never comes, and today's a really hard day. It's hard to be 22 and have some problems that you usually don't see in anyone who can't collect social security. And it mostly comes back to decisions I made a long time ago to not honor my body.

One of my favorite parts of this chapter was about how as one who belongs to God we have freedom in three ways: freedom from the law, from the past, and from sins. I don't really have any particular thoughts, I just like it.

Physical therapy is no fun

I'm no longer in couch prison! It's more like on couch parole. My stitches are out, the incisions look great, the infection that I had been fighting is completely gone and my white blood cell count is back to where it should be. I saw the surgeon again and he said that once he was inside my knee it was blatantly obvious that I had a medial plica and that's what was causing the problem. It's gone, with a 70% chance of complete recovery. He said the rest of my knee looks fantastic, so that's good news. I started physical therapy too. Last time it was more fun, not really painful. Yesterday I was in tears most of the hour and screamed once. Right now all we're working on is range of motion, because I'm around 30% on my own, and 60% if I use a towel to force it. They made me lay down, put my foot up on this block, then pressed down on my knee to force it straight, which was when I screamed. But you have to do it. My home exercises I have to do twice a day, and it takes like 40 minutes each times. It's basically making my knee straight, and using a towel to force it to bend back. It's gonna be a tough road. Now I know why my pain meds had 2 refills on them, I'm gonna need it all. And tomorrow I can head to the pool and start swimming some laps for exercise. Since I still have a lot of swelling I need to ice 6x's a day and try to have my knee above my heart for at least 2 hours during the day. That's why I'm on couch parole. But it's a whole lot better. And I'm in much better spirits now. Friday night I watched Raya for a few hours and had so much fun, we colored and played in her kiddie pool and had fun taking a bath with those letters that stick on the side of the tub. And she went to bed so easy which wasn't really expected. Tony and Sarah got home at like 10:30, and Sarah and I sat on the couch talking and laughing till midnight when I realized I had to be at work at 7:30 this morning. It was such a great night. I hadn't laughed in like 2 weeks, and I got plenty of it last night.

Oh, and here's the link to my recipezaar page, my goal is to add one recipe a week.
http://www.recipezaar.com/member/533101 I just
made a light version of peanut butter blossoms that I am going to put up today. They are super yummy. And Ann, don't worry, my devotion comments will return tonight, I kind of misplaced my book and it took a few days to find.