So, were in Midland and have been since Friday...and already it's been an adventure...I've been staying with Granmom so it's been much more fun than it would've been. The puppies are staying with me since Dad's parents don't like animals and are not very nice to them. My aunt is on her way right now with her husband and son so I'm excited to see them since I haven't seen them in a couple years at least. My granparents are starting to get really old and it's sad cause they can't do anything by themselves and all they do is gripe about this or that. What's kept me going though is my twenty million guitars/mando/violin stuff and my Tinkerbell coloringbook with my 64 piece crayon box...yes im 17 and still coloring in Disney coloringbooks :0) Church was awesome cause i went to GCR (That's Golf Course Road CoC but thats wat the cool kids call it) with gma and it was soooo neat. I loved the praise team and everything was awesome. I'm sure it stirred the pot since granny and gdad go to Fairmount Park instead and we went to the Other CoC but watev i dont care. Oh and gdad sucks his dental plate after every meal its nasty, he makes noises at their poor mistreated dog and is mean to him and then ya...it goes on forever. And we've had to play the hot/cold game some cause they turn the heat up SO HIGH it's nauseating. so we sneak over and turn down the thermostat. Anyways, that's it for now I guess...I got the Twilight soundtrack for Christmas as well as August Rush and then my gma got me On A Whim by Robin Jones Gunn and the 3rd Blue Bloods novel. And Sierra's hair is staticy its hysterical...k toodles ill write more later

Well Merry Christmas everyone! It's been a very good Christmas this year, although it's probably been the toughest financially I've ever experienced. It really opened my eyes this year that Christmas is so much more than just getting random stuff. It's about family and friends and spending time and building relationships with one another. I've learned so much this year. And looking back, it might have been a tough year like I said earlier-but it's been one of the best years of my life. I've never struggled more-although last year would be a close close second, but I've never been closer to God than I am right now. And I'm so thankful for that. I truly trust Him with everything because I now finally get that I can't control everything and that if I'd just let God be in control in the first place things would go smoother in the end! Even now, looking at things meanwhile asking God for guidance as to whether this is what he wants or has planned for you, it puts things in prospective. Whatever happens is happening for a reason and like my former (but always will be) youth minister Rick Odell says, "It's amazing how God can take crap and turn it into ice cream" boy is it true. Anyways tomorrow I'm headed to Midland, Tx wahoooo! It'll be a long drive but well worth it I'm thinking. So, get ready for some crazy stories from my family gathering....

Pretty much I'm loving break!!! It's been amazing to stay up late, watch movies and get up at 10 without feeling guilty!!! Me and mom have been doin all sorts of stuff and I've been fairly busy. Today I don't think I was home for more than an hour. I had church, then lunch with my youth minister who's takin a new youth minister job in Ft. Smith, Arkansas-which I'm excited for him but it's gonna be sad without him there. Then, a friend and I went home talked to her cousin who's a rele neat guy that I like a lot, then we went to a progressive dinner and now I'm home. Whew!! I've got so much to do this week before we leave! And Wednesday is Christmas Eve-seriously?! Already?! I love Christmas but it came so fast this year! Anyways...

Oh and suddenly it feels like everyone I know is getting married!!! I think there's at least 3 different couples that got engaged within the last month and two of them happend this weekend! The one I'm most excited about is this guy named Ray who is literally my brother...long story but he pretty much relpaces my sister's place as my sibling. He finally asked his girlfriend of at least a couple years (ive lost count) to marry him. They were in Rockefeller Center or watever that thing is called and they were getting their pics taken and as the pic was being taken he got down on one knee!!!! OH MY GOSH the pics r soooo romantic and sweet and made me cry. I'm so excited for them and makes me kinda excited for that one day that maybe I'll get to experience that...

Today was my last day of high school finals-forever!!!! I'm so glad to be done with them on break oh my goodness! I'm so excited I'm out till the 5th of January and I'm headed to Midland, Tx to visit family. Me and my folks will leave next Friday!!

Anyways, so I've decided my favorite author of all time is Robin Jones Gunn. She is my hero!! I love her Christy Miller series, Sierra Jensen series, and now her Katie Weldon series. They're great books that display what true relationships should look like with guys. I love how she includes God in every single part of the book. And the sayings she uses in them-brilliant! It makes me want to wait for a really good guy that God has out there for me. It also inspires me to be "hot on God's heels" seeking Him and being as close to Him as possible so that I'll know what he has in store for me and my life. She's also taught me that I am a Peculiar Treasure and that I'm God's and he loves me more than I can even fully understand. With everything going on in my life right now-this most recent series has made a huge difference and has kept me on track. Anyways thats it for now :0)

So, I need to get this off of my chest. What is it with guys? Some of them drive me nuts. If I'm not the one initiating the conversation 24-7 they think I don't care about them and that they're carrying the friendship and it's not worth continuing. It makes me feel horrible, but I mean I can't always stop in the middle of everything and be like, oh I need to text Charlie so he'll be happy. What makes it worse is the guys that do this like me more than a friend and I don't like them back in that way (or at least one of them does). And I feel horrible because I don't want to initiate anything to lead them on. And they always end up blaming me as if everything is my fault and they're done. It's like if I'm not exactly what they want/need I'm not worth keeping around. Seriously?! This is so draining when I just want to help them get through tough times and be a friend but not be pushy. I learned not to be pushy from this girl who really tore me to pieces. Since then, I don't initiate a lot of things. People know I'm here for them if they need me and I go from there. It's worked well except for these couple of guys that just don't get it. It makes me want to reevaluate everything I do to make sure I'm not screwing up, but honestly I can't figure out what else to do. UGH!!!!!

Anyways, aside from that, finals are this week. My last set of finals YAHOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! Tomorrow is Music Theory, Yoga, and Choir. Music Theory is going to be rather unpleasant considering I didn't study and it's supposed to be fairly hard. But I'm dropping the class next semester and I don't think it'll be a big deal if I do poorly. And Yoga and Choir should be a breeze. We get out at noon yay! Tuesday will just be Orchestra, then Wednesday is Spanish II and Drawing-not bad. Then finally Thursday is Government. This week shouldn't be too bad at all at least pertaining to finals.

Besides that, I think I lived at church last week lol. I was there at least 5 nights/days. It's like my second home. I'll be there at least 4 nights/days this week. Gotta love it!!

Wow, I don't think I've been compelled to write this much but here we go! So call me crazy, but I caught myself once again looking at my sister's facebook page pretty much screaming (not literally of course) at her. I mean, I find all these pictures of her out drinking having a great ol' time and she's just a completely different person from when she was my sister-I don't really consider her my sister anymore, I mean she doesn't fit any of the qualities I see in my adopted sisters and brothers. I remember there was one time she used to care about me and even possibly love me, but I know that's not true now. I honestly don't think she would talked to me if I tried to contact her-not that I would. And I know I need to move on...there's just part of me that doesn't wanna let go of her cause deep deep down she's my sister and always will be. She was my role model and my best friend and when she left it tore me apart. As I said I have moved on with support from so many people which they know who they are and I appreciate them more than they will ever realize. I just wish there was some way to recconect with her even though I know it's prolly best we don't. See, I loved being close to her, but with all the positives came some intense negative points. Everyone thought she was sooo much prettier and yada yada. I never heard the end of it, and it was like we couldn't leave the house without a guy checking her out. I remember being used by certain guys to get to her. It really messed my self-image up. For the longest time I was convinced that I was fat and ugly just because I didn't look like her. And she didn't really help. I mean she'd act like she thought I was pretty, but you could tell it wasn't true. When she left, I finally had the chance to stop comparing myself to her and to look at myself and see how far I've come in the past years. The only reason I'd want to get in touch with her would be to tell her that though she broke my heart into tiny little pieces that I love her and she will always be my sister. I hate to say it, but if she ever came back and wanted to be in my life again-I would let her. Well, now that I've got that out of my system...more later.

Ok, this week has been sooooo long. I miss Arkansas like none other...I can't exactly explain it why I miss it so much. I learned a lot there-more than I expected to. Not only that, but I miss all the family. It's like part of me is missing now. They accepted me so quickly and I felt like I belonged there in the chaos. I really fit in the big family setting. I made some friends that I really wish I could see again and I don't know if I'll ever see them again. I pray that I will and that we'll stay close, but I can't exactly say that I know it will happen. I don't know why I'm in such a funk, it's just a bummer that Thanksgiving went by so quickly. But things will be ok-after all, everthing will be ok in the end, if it's not ok, then it's not the end! :0)

On to other things, I had two concerts this week! Wednesday's was my favorite by far. It was at school and I was in orchestra and in concert choir. I happened to have a solo for concert choir for the song "Down to the River to Pray" which is one of my all time favorite songs!!! gotta love o brother where art thou! So I, along with two other people, had to climb up a ladder to get up by the lighting booth to actually sing it. It was pretty slick getting up the night of the performance and as if that wasn't challenging enough the zipper on my dress decided to break so my dress was half unzipped-but don't worry we wore robes when we got onstage! It was awesome but I made mom cry which kinda made me feel bad but oh well that's how parents are supposed to act I guess. The other concert was for violin and i played part of my audition piece which is Bach Partida No. 3 which is actually in the movie August Rush which I think is pretty neat. It was a good time in general.

Now last time I'd just found out I didn't make Belmonnt's music program-which was a major bummer. Suprisingly though, that night was the hardest. It got better from there. I've been doing a lot of talking with God and I know that he has a reason for everything and just cause they said no doesn't mean I'm gonna give up on God's plan for me which right now I feel is music. This week I've been searching trying to figure out what he wants me to do: whether to go to Belmont and study music business, go somewhere in Texas or what! After talking to my youth minister and "grandad" (aka mike myers) It's been made clear that God wants me to be at Lipscomb-now as some of you know that was the LAST place on Earth I wanted to go. But Nashville is where I need to be and want to be, and Lipscomb will let me study music and be apart of music which is more important to me than having the label of going to Belmont. I mean after all, Amy Stroup went to Lipscomb and she's been doing just fine-not necessarily makin number ones on the charts-but she's successful. I mean what exactly does success mean? In my opinion it has NOTHING to do with fame but whether you're honoring God in all you do, staying close to Him, and sharing the word of God with other people so that they might experience the same joy and peace through Him. If I could pay rent that would be good too :0)

So things are finally coming together I think. Christmas is coming yay!!!! I love love love Christmas it's my favorite holiday ever!! Can't wait to see what I'm doing for Christmas Eve service. Last year I sang as Mary "Breath of Heaven" which was soooo cool. And after that I think me and the folks are headed to Texas to visit the fam woot. go flat west texas. well some of it is pretty and im actually pretty excited to see some people i havent seen in years!!!! well more to come later.

Well, I realize that I haven't been on here, I'm so sorry!

Well, I might as well come out and say it before word gets around. I didn't make the music program at Belmont University-I made the university but not the music part. I just found out today when my mom called me. My heart broke into tiny shards. I mean I just started crying at a friends house and couldn't stop. I don't know even how to describe it-like reality hasn't even really set in. I'm so numb. I do know that God has a purpose for this. I don't know why this happened-but God has a plan. That's the only thing that is keeping me going and preventing me from telling myself that I'm a terrible musician and can't do anything right and am a failure. I know that everything will be ok in the end, and it's just not even close to the end yet.

Oh, and guess where I was for Thanksgiving away from my parents...Arkansas!!! Can you believe it? I was with my best friend and we were hangin out at her grandparents house where everyone was runnin around crazy. It's been such an interesting experience. I'm not used to really big families and all these kids around my age cause I mean I have 13 cousins total and none of them are my age! I'm stuck in the very middle between adults and kids. My friend has 32 first cousins just on her mom's side! 32!! And they're all about our age or younger. There were kids everywhere and there was ALWAYS something to do. Someone was always on the 4 wheeler or playing air soft (I got shot about 8 times it hurt!) or watchin movies or even wrestling with my friends older cousin who's this crazy guy named Maverick. All of us girls attacked him since he randomly sits on people (it happened to me a couple times) and squirms. I had so much fun, and I was actually bummed to be back home tonight. Well, that's all for now. I'll do better about writing, promise!

I just got finished watching the movie 27 Dresses, and I gotta say it was pretty good. It really hit home with me because I didn't realize how much I can be like the main character played by Katherine Hiegel. I rarely say no to anyone about anything. Don't get me wrong I do say no occasionally, but to be honest, I don't say it often. Not that I want to be a person that says no. I like being there for people when they need me-even if that means putting them before me. I mean, isn't that kinda what God wants us to do? Put other peoples needs before our own? I don't know it was just a really neat movie that sparked some interesting thoughts.

And right now I'm re-reading the Stephenie Meyer books holy cow I love her writing!! I'm on New Moon and I've already cried for like an hour when I was reading it. Now I'm really not that girly, but I think I get into it a little with either those books or an occasional chick flick-that's enough for me. I'm not one for drama, I've already had enough of that in my life thus far. I can't wait for the movie based on the first book Twilight to come out this December. It's gonna be great. And the guy who plays Edward has a thing for his costar in real life which just makes the entire thing even better! Ya re-reading this kinda scares me because of how girly it sounds lol. O well what can you do.

Anyways, I'm finally out of school which is soooo exciting!!! I feel so free and yet it hasn't really hit me that I'm pretty much officially a senior. It's so mind boggling. I'll be in Tennessee in less than a week...wow...it's gonna be a blast! Well I'll write more later. Toodles

I'm finally reaching the end of my junior year! YES!! Next week is finals and honestly I already feel so burned out. I'm sooooo tired of trying to keep grades up, and it feels like my brain can't take in any more information than it already has. At least I only have one more week. And my grades are good...they're just not exactly straight A's like everyone else around me...but what can you do? And graduation is next week which is sad because all of my senior friends will be gone. I've made so many friendships and suddenly it feels like they're all just gonna leave. POOF! gone in a flash.

And then it will be summer!! YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't even put into words how ready I am. I'll be going to Nashville to look at colledges and hang out in the coolest city ever :) Then when I get back, I'll have voice classes for a week which should be really fun because I LOVE my choir teacher. The next week I'm either babysitting or I'm headed throughout the US looking at colleges with my youth group. Then it will b church camp time which should be amazing!! It's called Soul Quest and it's in York Nebraska. Then I'll come home for three days and go to Germany for two weeks!!!!! I can't wait to go to a different country besides Mexico!!!!! Then I'll come back and either babysitt or do that Jr/Sr trip that I mentioned above. I'll babysitt for the rest of time and take up all sorts of musical instruments...It won't be a restful summer, but it's gonna be great.

So, I'll be marathon training as well and I finally got a scale to monitor my weight and all that so im on the right track! 26.2 miles here I come :)

I just thought of a great quote that I really like and I wanted to share it.

"Those who settle for mediocrity will never be disappointed"-Ms. Parmenter

It really fits where I'm at right now, and I respect my choir teacher very much. When she said that in class one day, it hit me how true it really was. I will fall, barriers will be in my way through this. But it's not about the barriers, it's about what I do with them/about them.

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent"-Elenor Roosevelt

That one also came to mind. It's so true, but I think I forget that when I get caught up in the high school mentality that it matters what everyone thinks and that I don't fit in and such. And it totally doesn't matter because they're not the people that I'm going to be around for the rest of my life. Just a thought

Today I was just thinking about how I really only have three weeks left of school. And it made me think back to this past year. I'm not gonna lie, this year has been tough, tougher than I ever could have expected it to be. It seems like this year has been a year of rejection. Every time I turned around, I got knocked down. Trig and Pre-Calc didn't go how I wanted. I felt stupid because all of my friends were in AP and Honors classes while I was in "regular" classes. I met this girl and tried to help her through her struggles and tough times dealing with pregnancy. Little did I know that she fed me lies about this boy that I was becoming very attatched to. It was as if I was flying I was so happy and optimistic. Then the first bomshel hit me. This boy asked another girl out-I was in shock. This girl had lied to me. The pain was some of the worst I think I have ever felt in my life. I had lost the guy I had hoped to spend more time with AND I had lost a friend. Bomshel #2 my sister flipped out and decided she didn't want to be apart of my life anymore. Little by little, she disconnected herself from me. The one person that I had looked up to from the time I was little just decided that she didn't love me anymore. But I kept my head afloat-God wouldn't give me more than I could handle. Then came the musical tryouts. These were supposed to be pretty easy since I had made it the past two years. Of course what else happened, but that I didn't make it in. I was in shock (and of course I cried). I felt like I was terrible. I was trying to keep it together-I would be in pit orchestra as one of the four violins and I would keep my head up. My friends and famiy supported me and I continued on. I made it with an intense respect for the people in pit because they definitely don't recieve the respect they deserve. Finally, the one audition that my four years had depended on arrived. Singers! I was going to do it. I would get out of this rut. Unfortunately, things did not go the way I planned them...God had something else in mind. After all the summer school and extra courses I had been taking to fit Singers into my schedule-I didn't make it in. Once again, the wave of shock pounded me in the face. My best friend just hugged me and let me cry it out (you can see a theme here). I felt once again that I was a horrible musician and that I had no talent. I wondered what other people thought of me, and I felt close to hopeless. I've been contemplating everything this week, and I've realized that God put all of this in my life for a reason. To be a musician, I've gotta have tough skin, and I need to be able to handle rejection. If I can handle this, then I can handle other rejections. These weren't because I wasn't good enough or that I was terrible. It's because of the choices the other people made. It wasn't my fault. And yes, I did beat myself up about the guy thing. Was I not pretty enough? Was I too fat? What was wrong with me? But it wasn't me. He had someone else in mind, and there's nothing that I could've done to change that. Looking back on this year, I'm thankful God gave me the opportunity to get through all of this to look into the future with hope and a newfound motivation to take up more instruments and enjoy music as much as possible. And I'm even thinking of running a marathon. Ha!