The day that precedes Game Night.

Yesterday I went on a date with three of my brothers. Well, for the library and Game Stop it was just me and the two little ones, but Josiah joined us for lunch at Pizza Hut.
It’s weird to think that sprinkled donuts started my whole moving to South Carolina decision and how I didn’t even know at the time what a privilege it would be for me to be able to spend so much time with my baby brothers.
Right now I’m reading a book about Christopher Columbus aloud and the boys are drawing pictures to illustrate what I read. Stephen and I picked out a bunch of books about Vikings yesterday, so we’ll start on that next.
We play games a lot (I’m trying to become a person who remembers that sometimes it’s better to stop in the middle of chores and play a game). Tonight we’re having family game night. James and I are voting for Operation- Championship Style (I’ll let you know if the family allows it). Leah and I also found some Family Feud questions so we’ll do that as well.
And we all know family game night wouldn’t be complete without pizza.
Just doing our part to change the future of pizza consumption:

The other day, I was folding a load of laundry when Stephen came into the laundry room and held up this:

He said, “I found this creepy, bone-scraping thing. Do you want it?”
I’ll admit that I wasn’t sure how to respond. Am I a creepy, bone-scraping person? Is that my aura?
Please advise.

In other news, there’s still a big hunk of snow on the side of the road on the way to Camden from my house. I find it very hard to move on when I see this six or eight times per week:

You know what’s not great to hear? “You were pretty close to completely destroying the van.” Unless, of course, it’s followed by “You should be okay now that we’ve added some oil.” I love having relatives who will take care of the vehicles I’m liable to destroy.
Of course, with the oil supply depleted, my own personal Auto Zone in the back hatch is experiencing an inventory shortage. However, we’re still quite stocked up on brake fluid and transmission fluid and power steering fluid and those things you use when your battery dies and somebody who actually knows what they’re called hooks them up to two different cars and all of a sudden your battery has something to live for. So if you’re in need of various fluids that I don’t know how to administer or battery hooky things that I also don’t know how to administer, you know where to find me.
Please bring expertise.

What parents are not good for: Letting you complain without offering advice/rebuke.
What parents are good for: Always encouraging you to be better than you are.

I’m off, now, to play a game with James and Stephen (Stephen says this should be called ‘Game Day’ instead of just ‘Game Night’).

In which I fail. A lot.

I’m a very intelligent person. I’m usually a pretty quick learner. I’m fairly well educated. I know things; I understand things.
In most situations, I take my Uncle Paul’s view: ‘if anyone can do this, I can do this’. In fact, I calm myself down before tests by telling myself that I’m at least as smart as the least smart person who has ever passed this test so there’s no reason I shouldn’t do well on it.
Mostly I don’t stress about my grades because I’m confident in my intelligence and abilities.
I’m not saying this to brag. I’m saying it because the expectation to succeed can make failure (real or imagined) all the more devastating.
I had one homework assignment and one quiz in the first couple of weeks of my Customer Service class. I worked hard; I was confident. I got a C on both of them.
Perhaps you’re wondering why I didn’t mention this before, since I always try to be completely honest on this blog (and in real life).
I didn’t mention it because it makes me feel like a failure. Those assignments did not seem that hard. I don’t understand why I wasn’t able to get good grades on them. I’ve had two tests in Anatomy and Physiology so far and I have excellent grades on them. Customer Service is kicking my butt? What the heck?
My other class this semester is Keyboarding. AKA typing.
Today one of my typing lessons made me cry because I couldn’t make it work. It doesn’t look that hard. My book actually kind of looks like a book I would’ve used in third or fourth grade. But it’s hard for me. Very hard. Like crying hard.

Some things are hard. Some things stretch me uncomfortably (I’m looking at you, insane yoga poses). Some things make me feel like a failure. Like I’m never going to get it. Like I’m stuck.

I started my first job right before I turned sixteen. I’ve spent approximately 3 ½ years unemployed since then. That’s right, I said years. Some of that time I’ve been in school, and I’ve done odd jobs throughout (babysitting, keeping house for my mom, etc.), but that’s a lot of unemployment. That’s a lot of feeling like a failure. That’s a lot of feeling stuck. That’s a lot of discomfort. That’s a lot of hard*.

I ask God why. I swear He’s heard that word from me so many times it’s truly a miracle that He still puts up with me. I ask Him to rearrange the world so my situation is more to my liking. I ask Him to do what I want, to give me what I think I need.

In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul talks about a thorn in his flesh (just a guess: probably not unemployment, but whatever). In verse eight, he says, “Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.”
Paul was diligent in begging God to fix his problem just like I am in begging Him to fix my problem.
In verse nine, we find the answer he got: “But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.’”
It is, incidentally, the same answer I get from God.
Paul doesn’t stop there, though. He goes on, in verse ten: “That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.”

I don’t like to feel like a failure. But I’m glad that I fail.
That’s right. Glad.
(I’ll most likely definitely need to be reminded of this tomorrow.)
I’m glad I fail because when I can’t do anything but fail, I get to see how the Lord doesn’t ever fail.
When I can’t figure out how things are going to work out, I get to see Him do things that can’t be done and make the unbearable things work for my good.
When I’m weak and insufficient, I find Him being strong; I find Him being exactly enough.

In other news, Sarah Beth just called Roselyn “Miss Walky-Head”.

*Please understand that I’m certainly not saying I have a harder life than anyone else. I know lots of people who’ve been unemployed longer than I have, while trying to feed a family. I know there are a lot of things that happen in this world that are way harder than what I’ve faced. I’m just writing what I know from my own experience.

My cartoon alter-ego.

Day twenty-five of Ben Rector songs on repeat.

(Unrelated picture of an upside-down Ramada Limited sign)

• Yesterday was my sister Leah’s nineteenth birthday. Today on the way home from school we stopped at Baskin Robbins with a birthday club coupon and got “the best ice cream in the world” for her and some kind of chocolate brownie stuff for me (Note: in our family we try our hardest to avoid superlatives because superlatives are the absolute worst thing you can possibly add to a conversation). I happened to glance in the rear-view mirror while Leah and I were singing “You can count on me” to each other and saw the chocolate mustache I had so gracefully acquired. So no, I think it’s safe to say that dignity is not my strong suit. But my baby sister is my friend, so all in all I’m feeling a win.
• I got behind on my homework this past week. This hasn’t ever really happened to me, so it took me a long time to recover emotionally. Plus this is only the third week of classes, so the shame of already being behind contributed to my inertia, which contributed to my behindness (not a real word), and you can see the vicious cycle there.
• Thankfully I’m more organized and put together this week, which is so much better for my delicate nerves. And presumably also better for my grades.
• Speaking of homework (I know you’re all on the edge of your seat wondering what homework I’m doing), today my Customer Service teacher told us our homework for Wednesday is to figure out which cartoon character best reflects us and why. That’s right. I said cartoon character. Sadly, since I do not watch cartoons, I was drawing a pretty serious blank. So I asked Leah for advice. Then I asked Sarah and Elijah for advice. They all three came up with grouchy characters (Elijah never actually said the word grouchy because by the time I asked his advice I had already thrown a fit about Sarah saying I’m grouchy and she warned him not to say I’m grouchy)(so instead he went with ‘moody’).
• I don’t know what to do with this information, although it’s pretty clear I need a come to Jesus meeting stat.
• The odd part is that just this very morning my Customer Service teacher was talking about how people perceive us and how we should make sure our “self image” (how you think other people view you) is accurate. Her example was a guy who considers himself ‘fun-loving’ and everybody around him thinks he’s the least fun person ever.
• I, for the record, have never described myself as ‘fun-loving’.
• Although I do love fun.
• I recognize that I’m not really a fun person.
• I don’t know that I would have described myself as ‘grouchy’ either, but whatever.
• Thankfully our other homework assignment for that class is to list goals in three different areas of our lives.
• Lists? Goals? Lists of goals? I sense an A in my future.
• It’s supposed to snow here tomorrow. As you can probably imagine, panic is a little close to the surface. Will school be cancelled?! Will we have enough bread?! Will we have enough milk?! Will we have enough socks?!
• My only problem with snow happening tomorrow (besides the fact that it’s horrible and I hate it) is that Camden is not where I want to be driving in the event of winter weather. I’m not the world’s best driver (not, for the record, the world’s worst driver either), but I have driven on icy roads with moderate success and relatively few wrecks. The same cannot be said of a lot of the drivers around here.
• Now you know how to pray for me/this town more specifically.
• Sometimes I think my voice was created for bluegrass music.
• I started a Five Year Journal this year. It’s kind of a cool concept. You write just one or two sentences per day, but each day is together- like January 1, 2014 is on the same page as January 1, 2018. So you can look back and see what was happening in your life one, two, three, four, and five years ago.
• Anyway. The question for Wednesday is “What makes your house a home?” Which is hard to answer, since Sarah started taking the Christmas tree down yesterday and so far I do not have a flamingo in the backyard.
• I guess I’m going to get off of here for now and do some work in my Anatomy and Physiology coloring book (yes, I said coloring book)(college, amiright?).

I think Hal Ketchum wrote a song about this.

Yesterday I had Roselyn all day. It was fun. I accidentally dressed her in an outfit that matched mine (you know if it had been intentional I would be all over admitting that). She looked cuter than I did, but whatever.
Here she is:

In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll clarify that I was actually wearing a skirt that’s white with flowers that are the same blue as her pants, so it wasn’t an exact match.

Anyway. She was clingy. We spent most of the day like this:

But we managed to bake a cake that was dry as dust and tasted vaguely like unwashed potato skin, which we tried to cover with icing that was the exact consistency of wood glue. I say “tried to cover” because there was not, in fact, enough glue icing for the whole cake. So there were big patches of just cake. Dry, dusty cake.

Then we decided to make biscuits and sausage gravy for supper (you do realize that when I say “we” it’s only because she’s a tiny human and is not yet capable of telling you she had nothing to do with this, right?). I’ve been making biscuits since I was ten or eleven years old, so I figured this was practically fool-proof. But alas, as they say: “nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool”. Our biscuits were beautiful. On the outside. Unlike our cake, the middles of our biscuits were quite gooey because one of us thought substituting butter and sour cream for shortening would turn out fine and one of us was, in fact, wrong.
But we ate them. Mainly because I threw away the can opener so spaghetti was not an option.
Besides, Roselyn sometimes frequently chews on people’s toes, so she’s not super picky.

Tuesday morning James, Stephen, and I decided that instead of doing geography that day we would play Risk (ah, homeschooling). We recruited Dad, Josiah, and Leah to play as well. I hadn’t played Risk in probably ten years, but apparently I’ve turned over a new Risk leaf because I definitely stayed in the game more than three turns. It was like a miracle.

On Monday I have to leave my house at 6:45am to pick Leah up and go to school. You know I love early mornings, but after a month of Christmas break I’m quite accustomed to not leaving the house at 6:45am. Thankfully we don’t have to be at school that early every day (her first class doesn’t start until 8:15am, but we have to go early and buy our books on Monday because at our school we’re too cool to order books before the day classes start)(I have absolutely no problem with this, I’m sure you’ve noticed)(that was a lie; what is the internet even for if not to order books before the first day of classes?!!)(as it is, we’ll be at the bookstore Monday morning, pushing our way through the huge sea of people who also were unable to order their books online)(I fully expect some claustrophobia to manifest itself, but you know I’ve always been an optimist like that).

I guess that’s all I have to say right now. If you love dry cake, gooey biscuits, and girls who don’t brush their hair, come visit.

“Things are never quite as scary when you’ve got a best friend.”

Today is my cousin Brigette’s birthday. In honor of today, here’s a story (from the archival abyss):
Once upon a time, a boy met a girl. It was a beautiful (and, the way I heard it, somewhat confusing) time. He liked her; she liked him. He had a picture of her on his phone and he showed it to his cousin at a wedding. It was the inauspicious beginning of a great friendship. The boy was my cousin David, and the girl was Brigette. The cousin was me.
I don’t remember the first time I met Brigette (which was actually quite a while before David showed me her picture), but apparently I was harried and rude. Oops. Thankfully, she’s forgiven me for that. I was harried, after all.
The first time I remember really starting to know Brigette was a couple of weeks after Elizabeth died. I was hanging out in my pajamas at the house where I lived with Kristina. Brigette was over at the neighbors’ house, watching David and his brothers pour concrete. She asked me to come over and watch with her. I wisely said no (I was going to work the next morning at 4 o’clock). Then I unwisely changed my mind, and I only regretted that lapse in judgment briefly (at 4 o’clock the next morning, to be specific). We sat on the tailgate of a pick-up truck and talked while we watched the boys. She told me “You just lied. Cue the lightning strike” and “Anyone with a dozen cats is crazy”. I told her “I’m disappointed. With a very disappointed disappointment.” Then we cooked dinner for the boys and she told me that if I did whatever it was she was trying to convince me to do she’d be my best friend. I said “Forever and ever?” And she said, “Yep. Even in Heaven we’ll be besties.” So we are. Besties, that is.
We share a love of gossip, drama, and certain TV shows that I won’t name.
Sometimes when we’re talking about people, David calls and we joke about how he always knows if we’re gossiping.
Sometimes when we’re talking on the phone, I laugh so hard I almost fall over.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from Brigette:

• “They don’t call me the queen of hyperbole for nothing”.
• “I can promise you one thing: I will never say the words ‘let’s walk faster’ to you.”
• “Maybe we can use this picture if we crop our boobs out.”
• “Moving to FL is like moving to a different country!…It’s like moving to one of the YANKEE states.”
• “My husband’s calling me. He ALREADY knows! I’ll text you later…if I’m not dead.”
• “Do you think JESUS told her to wear that?! Noooo!”
• “My son is…kind of a psycho.”
• “The spiritual lesson I get from this is ‘obey your elders or DIE!'”
• “…And for future reference, I need to CHILL OUT.”

I love the fact that I can always consult Brigette when I run low on fresh gossip.
I love the fact that Brigette inspires me to research vaccinations for children I don’t have.
I love the fact that a conversation with Brigette is always a judgment-free zone in which to say “that’s an ugly baby”.
I love the fact that Brigette is always willing to traumatize me for life with in-depth discussions of gross topics.
I love the fact that one of my favorite cousins had the good sense to marry a girl who became one of my very best friends.
I love the fact that I don’t have to lie when I tell her how cute her kids are.
I love the fact that she’s older than me and always will be.

An in-depth discussion of my beauty routine. Not really because I’m not entirely sure what that is.

• Yesterday I went to a Mary Kay party.
• Normally I avoid those, because A) I don’t wear make-up any more, B) I had a bad experience one time, and C) I’m allergic to 90% of everything.
• But this party was hosted by the first baby I remember visiting in the hospital, and that fact alone a special occasion makes.
• It was actually pretty fun. Except Laura Kaye definitely leaned my head down so she could exclaim “You have ONE GRAY HAIR!” and I felt weird about it because the consultant had already talked to me about what products she’s sure I’ll “want to add to your beauty routine as you age” and she was definitely talking about age spot reducers and wrinkle cream.
• Beauty routine. Ha.
• And besides, I have three gray hairs.
• Speaking of my hairs, I have a sad situation on my head.
• I switched shampoos last month (switched, in fact, from the $1 bottle to the not $1 bottle because I’m fancy and also my mom had gotten the not $1 bottle for free and I hardly ever say no to free).
• My hairs have suffered.
• At first I thought my body had just decided to hate me, because for the first time since I was a teenager it became quite necessary for me to wash my hair every day. (And also because I’m not so good at figuring out cause and effect, apparently.)
• But then it got to the point that I could wash my hair in the morning and it would look nasty by lunchtime. Which is NOT OKAY.
• So this morning I’m going to try a natural hair cleanse (because baking soda and vinegar is my love language), and then I guess I’ll switch back to my beloved $1 bottle of shampoo (unless the kind LK said I should get turns out to be $1)(I always try to follow hair advice from hair experts except when it costs more than $1 because the $1 bottle got me through the first seven years of adulthood and also it’s only $1).
• I know you were all absolutely dying to know the gory details of my hair troubles.
• You’re welcome.
• I guess that’s all for today because church starts in a little over an hour and I haven’t taken a shower yet and Mom’s crockpot has to be turned down between now and when I get to church and also my hair is all I can really think about right now because I am very not vain.

This good day.

I woke up early this morning to get started on my baking for tomorrow. Somehow I got assigned the chocolate pies like Lovey used to make. Which is awesome (aka: whatever the opposite of awesome is).
It’s not that I don’t love a good seven am baking extravaganza. But I’m the girl who can ruin box brownies. I’ve killed cacti (yes, plural)(this has nothing to do with baking, but I needed to talk about it to someone).
I’m an okay cook (not great, mind you), but baking is absolutely not my strong suit. How I managed to be tasked with baking- and not just any baking, but the baking of pies that are rife with tradition and instructions- remains a mystery to me.
For the record, I made it through the pie preparation with only a few small(-ish) panic attacks. Not bad, for me. But the pies definitely fell. Possibly because of all the times I opened the oven to make sure they weren’t burning (baking is such a pill)(how am I supposed to not burn stuff if I can’t open the oven to check on it?)(baking makes no sense).

In addition to chocolate pies, I’m responsible for the cranberry congealed salads this year. These are slightly harder to ruin than chocolate pies, thank God. I put the topping in a plastic container in the refrigerator, complete with a note threatening the life happiness of anyone who dares to touch it. I’m all about leaving notes on stuff in the refrigerator.

I’ve been wearing Nana’s yellow apron while fulfilling my domestic duties this morning (baking, jello-making, note-writing, refrigerator-cleaning, dish-washing, floor-sweeping, panic-attack-having, etc.). It made me feel very warm and fuzzy inside.
Thanksgiving is such a family holiday. It’s full of memories and familiar dance-like routines that we move through every year because…well, we do this every year. This is how Nana and Lovey did it, so this is how we do it still. There’s always rice because there’s always been rice. And we all know that’s the way it should be.
Tonight some of my very best friends (Perry cousins) are coming to our house. There’s a good possibility that the boys will be sleeping under the dining room table. Just like we always did at Nana’s house. It’s only right.

[some pictures of the family (stolen from the facebook profiles of various relatives), for fun and also because I’m feeling particularly sentimental today:]
   

   

~This good day
it is a gift from You
The world is turning in its place
because You made it to
I lift my voice
to sing a song of praise
on this good day~

Day 31: I see ya, but I definitely wouldn’t want to be ya.

• Today is the last day of my 31 days of lists.
• I think you’re probably almost as relieved about that as I am.
• 31 days of anything is a lot.
• Especially for someone like me, with an attention span that rivals the goldfish.
• The goldfish, for the record, has a nine-second average attention span.
• Mine might actually be slightly longer than that.
• But still, 31 days is a lot.
• Today is also Halloween.
• I know this because A) an orange ribbon mysteriously showed up in my hair today; and B) there’s a guy in a duck costume wandering around the school campus.
• I learned a new ‘fact’ today: the percentage of people who occasionally forget their own birthday is 7%.
• My source didn’t mention what percentage of people not only forget their own birthday but have to literally count the years from their year of birth to the current year in order to figure out how old they are.
• I think that one might just be me.
• Another thing I learned today is that while humans have an average of 2000-8000 taste buds, cats only have 473.
• Just one of the many reasons your cat is more likely to lick your foot than I am.

[To see all of the 31 Days of Lists posts, click here]

Day 30: There is exactly one interesting fact on this list.

• My new little cousin Mallorie was born last night:
• I just discovered that the computer lab in the science building has a green accent wall.
• This morning I “left” my cell phone and chapstick at home.
• I made a huge fuss about it because it was quite tragic.
• Until I realized that my phone and chapstick were in my jacket pocket.
• I’m not telling you this because I’m not embarrassed.
• But I firmly believe in full disclosure.
• Elijah’s pandora station played ‘Jesus Freak’ this morning on the way to school.
• Two of the three people in the car were a wee bit- ahem- excited.
• The third person didn’t know who DC Talk was.
• The other two people felt sad for her.
• Yesterday when James got home he said he had drawn a picture of me.
• I was flattered.
• Until he showed it to me and it turned out to be a robot/monster.
• Thankfully I have understand a thirteen-year-old boy’s sense of humor, so I wasn’t at all insulted.
• I feel led to bring this quote out of the archival abyss:
  “It seems to me that the problem with diaries, and the reason that most of them are so boring, is that every day we vacillate between examining our hang nails and speculating on cosmic order.”
• And on that note (since clearly we’re looking at a hang nail day if there ever was one), I’m done for today.

[To see all of the 31 Days of Lists posts, click here]