Happy + Sad

Word of the day: go.

I'm feelin' a little happy, a little sad, a little out of it...of course, it is 2:15 am and I just really don't want to go to bed. I'm a mess.

As a hall, we watched three episodes of Boy Meets World and one episode of Glee after the last time I wrote. Last night together. Happy + sad.

Wednesday was a little hard. I spent a good chunk of the day packing. Then Alyssa and I had to say goodbye to Esty and the boys for good (though we left cards and cake behind). Then I had to leave my hall, and I'm not gonna lie, I cried pretty hard coming down that mountain. These girls have been the biggest chunk of my life over the last nine months or so. They brought me through the hard times, and each of them is a beautiful, special, crazy individual lady. Yeah, nobody's dying, but next year will be different. The seniors will all move off campus. Brit's getting married. Molly's moving away. Diana's going to a different hall. The dynamics all change. Every once in a while, I just want to keep time where it is, and this was one of those times. But everyone is going to do awesome things this summer, and Lisa gave me our first hug. Happy + sad.

We're cute.

Rull cute.

When I finally got home, unloading the car was ridiculous. Only sad. Or maybe just tiring.

I got to spend the afternoon with Morgan on Thursday. We watched Dr. Who and New Moon and tried on clothes and did those things we do when we're together. She's my best friend/sister blend. We frustrate the heck outa each other sometimes, but we've been friends so long it doesn't even matter. Her house is my haven. In a few years, she's going to be married and she won't be at that house and we won't be like that anymore. I may be out of the country. I'll at least be out of the city. Even now, I don't really want to leave her for the summer. Sad, some happy. I mean, I do want to see her children one day.

I went shopping with my mom today. We exhausted ourselves scrambling around walmart for bug spray. She's upset that we won't be able to call each other this summer. I took my sister to Starbucks for happy hour and we spent the rest of the afternoon dancing around the pool in our bathing suits. Like, literally--dancing. It's what the Love sisters do. Tomorrow I'm doing her hair for prom. My brother got an awesome summer job--and he's going to be an amazing husband. My dad says I never cease to amaze him with my creativity. Mimi says I make her day when I give her a call. My family--I'm leaving them for the summer. Eventually I'll leave them for longer than that. Mostly sad, but happy when mom asks me to do chores.

I talked to Matt tonight. I miss him a lot. He makes me laugh. I don't know when/if I'll ever see him again (we're talking earthly bodies here). Happy + sad.

I got a haircut today that makes me look like a boy. There's about an inch of hair on my neck, and that's all. This is only....interesting.

I'm leaving the state on Sunday. I'm leaving the country on Monday. Oh my. This will be my last post on this blog before then, so goodbye all. I will be posting on my trip blog only until I get back, and then I'll pick this up again. Happy, because I'll only have one blog to keep up with.

Song of the day: Hot and Cold by Katy Perry

Whoa.

Word of the day: Exams. Let's be honest, exams eat your life. So does cleaning day. So does food, even though you eat it back. I love food. I especially love it when I'm stressed with exams, so here I have a cycle of things eating me and me eating things and it's just vicious.

We have come to the end of the school year and I'm leaving the country in six days. Oh. My. Gawsh.

Feelings now? Um, I'm really tired.

Four out of five exams are over, so I have one left tomorrow that's keeping me from being an official junior. Let's just finish this already. I have no desire to look at any more words for a while. Unfortunately, this summer I will have five books to read and I'll probably be teaching some English. Woohoo words.

The Fritz 2009-2010 is almost over. I'm just numb over this. I don't think I'll fully miss these women til I'm gone, look back, and say "oh no, it's over!" Not that any of them are dying, but Britney's getting married and almost everyone is moving elsewhere. Oh, life. We can never stay in one place for long. We'll be getting ten freshmen next year. That's ten out of sixteen girls. I've decided that I'm writing them a violent list of rules for abiding on the hall. I'll post this list when I come up with it.

Cleaning day was one of the most fantastic days of the week. Lisa and I woke up at 8:30 to go to Krispy Kreme and pick up donuts and coffee for the hall. We danced all the way down and back. Then we spent hours and hours listening to hip hop (well, I kind of forced her to listen to it) and dance/cleaning. This is my version of mopping the floor: spread the soapy stuff around on the floor, slap two wet rags on it, and skate around on the wet rags to the beat of music. It's very effective and you don't get a sore back. That, and you feel a lot sexier doing it. Now the room is all rearranged and it feels weird. Lisa and I have super high beds next to each other and we kind of feel like gurus on a giant Himalayan mountain. When I go to sleep, I feel like the Princess and the Pea. It's high. I don't like it. The walls are bare, too and there is so much dancing room on the floor.

We celebrated the end of cleaning day with some Moe's. Yes, we danced all the way down there too. I pretty much danced the whole day. And, thanks to the video "Peter at the Park", we're all going around saying, "These crusty-crust lips I gawt!" with several variations, like "These kristy kreme donuts I gawt."

Yesterday, I covered myself in Lisa's sparkly temporary tatoos.

The other night, Joel left a cart on our hall. Needless to say, we have a good time on anything that has wheels. Then Laura Main made two hopscotches on the floor with masking tape. We've been getting a lot of exercise lately.

On Sunday night, we played volleyball--on the hall.

I'm obsessed with Chacos.

I get annoyed when girls who don't live here cover our veranda with their barely-clothed bodies. 

My relationship with God has been really great lately. I'm learning a lot about dependency in prayer.

My Ukrainian friend Yana got a facebook today, and we had the most wonderful awkward chat this afternoon.We've been e-mailing over the last couple years and, because we have to send them through computer translators, we have a hard time understanding half of what the other one says.

I have a sticker book with my name on it. Thank you, mom.

I printed out the story today. It is done. 168 pages, dude.

Mr roommate is epic.

Now we are all on the veranda watching Molly paint. And listening to Demetri Martin.

Today is Star Wars day. May the Fourth be with you. It is also my last full day of sophomore year, and my last full day with this hall.

Boo.

Song of the day: Space Cowboy by 'N Sync

Fantastic Fritz

Word of the day: CHOW Paper. I just DOMINATED it. 5 pages, 3 hours, felt like I was swimming through mud the whole time.

My roommate just burst into my room and made me scream something awful. Understand, she does this all the time, which is the reason my voice will be gone by the time I graduate.

Oh no. Alyssa just stuck in Walking Across Egypt. In a moment, there will be way too much Jonathan Taylor Thomas in the atmosphere.

Hey, so remember how Mountain Air was eating my life? Well, it finally stopped doing that around nine on Friday night. We didn't place, but I felt like a rock star. There's me, three over from the left.

So...what involves ten beautiful ladies and a weekend of absolute, wonderful, feminine bliss??

FRITZ WEEKEND!!!

This began immediately after Mountain Air, so we hit the road around 10:30 or so. I was tired out of my mind, but Kait forced me to drink a cup of coffee so that we could have a two hour dance rave with Diana in the back of the car. I think I lost about 50 thousand brain cells from head banging.
 

We got to Lisa's around one in the morning and Becky (Lisa's precious mother) got up just to see us. Then Lisa decided it would be a good idea to walk through the woods barefoot to go for a romp on the golf course under the stars. Yeah, talk about ouch on my feet. But we had a good time out there.

Then we went inside to play guitar hero. Til 2:30 in the morning. EXHAUSTION.

We woke up the next morning to the smell of delicious things in the kitchen. Precious Becky made us breakfast and we all got to eat outside. Then we hit the LAKE in Lisa's boat!!! And yes, I did wear my bikini. And yes, we did have an excellent time.

Yeah, we're great.

And we dance a lot.

My roommate is a precious redneck.

And I can't believe Britney's gonna be married in 2 1/2 months!

Needless to say, we all go sufficiently baked and a few of us almost drowned. See, we decided that it would be fun to jump in the freeeezing cold water. Unfortunately, it was next to impossible to get back up in the boat and a group of girls floated away while the rest of us tried to get back up.

That night, Lisa's daddy, Scott, took us out to dinner at a Hibachi place. We all got dressed up (except Laura Main, who forgot the proper clothes). Our cook was a Hispanic guy named Paco (at a Japanese place...hmmm....) and he pulled some scary trick that scared the bejesus out of me. I screamed and everybody laughed at me. My roommate, who loves making me scream, was particularly thrilled.

We're gorgeous.

And that's frightening Paco.

 

Then we split into two groups and one group went home while the other went to Walmart. Those of us who got back early hopped on the golf cart and whizzed around to the neighborhood of mansions near Lisa's house
for the next hour. Being girls, we drooled.  A lot. Then we went back to Lisa's and played Guitar Hero and had Molly's made-to-order milkshakes.

 

 

Then Alyssa and I played dollhouse for a while. I was the mom and she was the dad and we had a baby mouse whose leg fell off...whoops...and there were a lot of "marriage" scandals....

Then we had some Fritz-love-each-other-and-Jesus-time.

Then Amy and I ate about a gallon of ice cream and giggled like twelve-year-olds at the their first slumber party. And then there was some really great cuddle time up on the guest bed.

Mmmmm....

And then we went back the next morning! Good, sweet, simple times. And we heard the song "Hey, Soul Sister" about twenty times that weekend. 

Then Alyssa and I had a wonderful dinner with Esty. We all went to Chile's and, after dinner, had a delectable chocolate chip lava cake. In the meantime, we chatted it up with Nigel the waiter, swapped boy advice (well, that was more of a one-way street considering the fact that Esty's married), and quoted Demetri Martin. 

Lisa and Alyssa forced me to go for a donut run on Monday night and it turned into a sweet, two hour drive around the mountian. 

Last night, my sweet, sweet 81-year-old Grandaddy drove about two hours to come up here and take me out to dinner. We went to Rembrandt's, walked across the bridge, and talked about all his old cars. I had two emotions before he got here 1) That it would be super awkward because, well, my Gradaddy isn't the most verbal man, and 2) I felt privileged because Grandaddy never even took any of his own daughters out on a date, much less any of his grandaughters. He likes me, I think :) And it was a lot less awkward than I expected it to be.

 

I have some more things due before next Tuesday. That's painful. 

School: less than 2 more weeks. Holy moly. 

Song of the day: Hey Soul Sister.

Funfetti

Word of the day: Mountain Air: a lipsyncing competition I'll be taking part in this Friday. I'm in a group that's doing "Seize the Day" from The Newsies and it's a lot more work than I thought it would be.

I'm sacrificing precious time to blog. I also find it an alternative to doing schoolwork.

Thursday afternoon, I got a last minute request to babysit. I thought "ok, no problem". Well, it was the five child family again. SUPER cute kids, but SUPER crazy kids. It wasn't worth it. It especially wasn't worth it when I got back to school and realized that, for five kids for five hours last minute (yeah, it was almost 1 am when I got back), I was only paid $6 an hour. Cute kids or not, it isn't worth it--that's below minimum wage.

Do you know why Friday was amazing? It was amazing because both of my afternoon classes were cancelled. I had so much time to do things!

Put yourself in this scene: 2:30 am. Just fell asleep. Suddenly there is a terrifying rumble outside in the hallway. In your dream, there was an earthquake. Then there's a pounding on your door and someone shouts "GET UP GET UP GET UP!!!" You jolt up and look at your roommate, who's standing up, staring at the door. She promptly walks over and locks it. You grumble incoherently to yourself and throw your head back down on the pillow, cursing the boys who you know weren't allowed to be on the hall.

The next day, we found out that those boys had also taken a boy from Sutherland, saran wrapped him to a chair in his boxers, spray painted him gold, and left in front of a girl's door.

Needless to say, I was very cranky when I woke up at 7 am for Love Chattanooga service project. However, those of us who went had a pretty good time. I learned how to work a lawn mover and a weed whacker, ruined a pair of pants, and got very sore.

Saturday night, the Fritz went to the drive-in to see How to Train Your Dragon and Bounty Hunter. First: excellent. Alyssa and I cuddled and said "awww" the whole time. Second: not so good. Lisa and I sat on the rood of her car and made fun of it. A lot of snacks and Ke$ha happened that night.

Sunday was interesting. I took Janessa ( a Uganda team member) to church and finally told the women's Sunday school class that I was going to Uganda this summer. Worship was a little hard, as someone I had asked not to come to New City decided to ignore me and come to church with his girlfriend anyway....not good for me, I was shaking while trying to worship God. Let's take a guess at who this was....ANYHOW after that, Janessa and I went to Move for Uganda, a thing in Coolidge park. While we were there, a Ugandan man sat a bunch of us down in the makeshift schoolhouse and explained the history of the war to us. Fascinating stuff.

That night I went to Esty's house for dinner. It was delicious and WONDERFUL. There is nothing better to a college student than getting to go to a home and eat home-cooked food. My alternative was Skettios. Before dinner, Ethan and Graham tried to shoot Esty and me. "Stit em up!!" Esty tried to explain that when someone puts their hands up, you don't shoot them. It didn't work out so well. After dinner, I read Cookie Monster and the Cookie Tree (my favorite children's book) to the boys for my field placement project for Kiddie Lit. We also found hidden pictures in a Cars book.

I don't think I realized how much I missed Leila and Anna until I didn't see them for a week....Monday, we jumped on the trampoline and read outside at piano lessons. Anna and I are really beginning to get along, and it's nice. She only threw one fit on Monday.

Tuesday = assessment day = day off. Actually, it = more busy day than usual. I still had to get up early for practical service, but it was still worth it. After that, Mountain Air began to consume my life.

I hold to the phrase "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned".

This weekend, The Fritz is going to Lisa's house and we're all going to chill on the lake boat on Saturday. I'm breaking out the bikini and it will be FABULOUS!

Remember back in January when I said I was beginning to rewrite a story from ninth grade? No, you don't. That's ok. Here's the problem. I'm at 128 pages (not bad for three months, eh?) and almost finished. But everything is beginning to pile up now. I just want to finish so I can actually pay attention to schoolwork, but that's very, very hard. I just want six hours in a quiet room where I can finish. School decided it didn't want me to do this.

Kiddie Lit decided to make everything due at the end of the year.

OH YEAH. I got shots on Monday. Yellow Fever and Typhoid. Christina Klukow and I got lost several times on the way there and back and I'm so glad I took her. Now understand, normally I freak out at shots--real bad. But these shots barely even hurt on the way in (thank you nurse!) and afterwards Christina and I got huge frosties from Wendy's, turning my negative experience into a positive one. However, my arm wanted to fall off for the next two days.

My cousin Jeremiah sent me a Uganda check today with a post-it note on it. "This is to use on your trip to Uganda. -Jeremiah". I love my man-relatives.

Glee started up again yesterday and my roommate made thirty funfetti cupcakes to celebrate. Speaking of my roommate, it's roommate, it's Roommate Appreciation Day, and I just want to say ROOMMATE I APPRECIATE YOU!!!!

Alyssa just brought back delicious cake from Esty....mmmm.....

Song of the week: Need You Now by Lady Antebellum. Why has this song been stuck in my head lately? Because everything is starting to come full circle. This time last year was when the heartbreak process began...and because I'm in the same place where it happened, I'm going down memory lane all over again. "Oh, that's where I was sitting when he called. That was the ringtone that went off. That was the blanket I used when I tried to lie in the hallway because I was afraid to go to sleep in my bed and dream about it.....etc." However, come July 10th, this process should be over. Everything will have been over a year ago by then and I will have replaced those memories. Maybe. And then maybe I'll stop blogging about it altogether. Now wouldn't that be nice?

No More Snuggles

Word of the day: chacos, like the kind your wear on your feet. I got some on Monday and I've been obsessed ever since. I think I'd sleep in them if I could. However, they hurt my feet a lot right now, so I'm hoping that goes away soon.

Second word of the day: ubiquitous. This means being everywhere at the same time. It has nothing to do with my life, but it's a super cool word. Like, if I were going to make a new country, I would want to give it a name like that. Look out world: it's a country of UBIQUITOUS! Or maybe that would just be a really good name for the king. King UBIQUITOUS.

I'm sitting in the the Imani commons while my roommate cleans it. I'm keeping her from getting lonely.

I found out two very tragic pieces of news today about the beautiful Jacob Snuggs, a.k.a. Snuggie boy, a.k.a. Snuggles. Or that's just what I call him.
1) He's engaged (what?? He's only a sophomore!)
2) He cut his long, majestic, honey-gold locks. Yeah, now he looks like every other typical Founders boy

I'm crushed. But at least it's easier to give him now that he's not pretty anymore.

So, Easter Break was this last weekend. What was my main impression? I think there was a little too much family time. Don't get me wrong, I love my family. But those were the only people I saw the entire time. My sister has reached the age where she complains about everything and everything makes her bored. And she's always been at the age where she pokes me in squishy places and laughs because she's a stick while I'm....well, curvaceous. Not fat, but shapely.So, unlike the normal times when I come home and Audrey and I have a good time together, I spent half the break wanting to put duct tape on her mouth.

Good part of break: we did a lot of nature-y things and dad took a million and one pictures. He got a new camera that's hugemongous and I think he literally took over three hundred pictures a day. We went to Greenbrier (basically my favorite place in the Smokies), Rainforest Adventures (the wild animal zoo where my brother volunteers--we held baby rats and fed emus), Cloudland Canyon, and Sewannee. Yeah, we got lots of pictures out of all that.

Every time I watch New Moon, I fall more in love with Jacob. Or maybe that's just his abs. Oh dear...

Anyway, I rode home with Sarah and then came back up to Chattanooga on Saturday night with the family so that we could all go to New City in the morning for Easter Service. They loved it. Dad was basically dancing the whole time.

Then we went up to Winchester Sunday afternoon -> Monday afternoon. This is where more family drama developed. My uncle brought his ex-wife to the family dinner (yeah, that didn't go over well) and my thirteen year old cousin snuck off with her boyfriend to go make out--several times. Her nine year old sister was with me at the time and I kept repeating "Don't get a boyfriend til you're out of high school. Boys are bad. Leave them alone til you grow up. Don't sneak off with boys...." Why did I do this? Because I like Lorianna. She's a cool kid. Her make-outy sister, however, is gross and called my sister a b**ch over text messages. *rolls eyes*. On the bright side: Grandaddy's dog is really cute and we bought lots of fun toys at Hammers and got to see Jonanne and her girls again.

There are only 28 days left in the school year. This is really, really sad. I'm not ready for the Fritz to be over, and it almost is. That, and it means that there are only 33 days left til I go to AFRICA. AAAHHH!!!

I have been pleasantly surprised in CHOW class lately. Remember the guy who chewed his nails in class and spit them on the floor? Apparently he's smart. I don't understand.

Today, chapel was awesome. Ironically enough, it had nothing to do with the songs or the message. I think it was only great because the people on both sides of me were being VERY silly and because Messner made fun of himself on stage.

You know what I hate about technology? Oftentimes, more things go wrong with it than right. Monday night, Christina, Amy, and a few others filmed a video for Tech for Educators (a chapter from The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe--and I was Susan). Yesterday afternoon, we spent about three hours trying to get it onto a computer, from which we spent about forty-five minutes actually editing it.

Yesterday, one my kindergartners spotted a ring on my right pointer finger and stopped in the middle of his reading to say "Are you married?" Yes, Isaac, I'm married to Jesus :) Then I spent all of recess time holding Brown the horse for Kenzie so that she could play tag. Brown and I had a splendid time yelling at all the children.

Covenant College is a much more pleasant place to be when the sun is shining.

Song of the day: Don't Forget by Demi Lovato

Half-Asleep

Word of the week: emotional.

This week has just been a 'splosion of everyone's emotions, and I don't really understand why that is.

I've dealt with a friend who is dying, a friend who's heart is willingly being broken, a friend that I never meant to leave behind as I have, and then a night full of hall drama--and The Fritz does NOT have hall drama. I really didn't understand.

Implications for Laura? Staying up late every night, making sure that I was listening to those who needed to be listened to as well as working out my own emotions through conversation. Because here's the deal--a lot of the perceived problems all related back to a lack of communication. And I have a fixer mentality (as many do) so that  I don't like it when things just sit, I want to work through them or I do not sleep.

End of the semester pressure is coming on. There are a lot of things to do before Uganda gets here, and only five weeks to do them. I have also been neglecting relationships, which has made them fall into disrepair, and that's all my fault.

Oh, the wonderful world of being human.

On a brighter note:
-hall drama ended in about 24 hours
-Lisa, Alyssa, Kait, and I got lava cakes at Chile's
-babysitting's been great this week
-the sun has been out. a lot
-I've listened to a ton of country music this week, and I used to hate country
-I'm about to be able to sleep for ten hours

And, today I found a last relic of the relationship that has been in the back of a drawer for some time now. It was a small beanie bear with a "D" sown to it. I haven't really been sure what to do with it. I was looking it over today and finally just grabbed a pair of scissors and snipped off the "D". And now I have a small teddy I can enjoy.

This is creativity at work.

Song of the day: Grace Kelly by Mika

Winchester

Word of the day: free, single lady! Wait, I think that was more than one word...oops...

I spent the weekend at Jonanne's house and decided that I wanted to blog about it when I got back.

As soon as I walked in the house, Jenny (age five) announced that she wanted to show me something. I followed her upstairs and she forced me to do jumping jacks for two minutes. It seems to me that whenever five year olds say they want to show you something, it doesn't mean they actually want to, it means that they want your attention, no matter what. Ok. As soon as I was done, Rachel (age nine) burst into the room to show me the clay vase she made. There was constant "I wanna show you, I wanna show, I wanna show you!"

Alright. Then I was dragged downstairs to watch Barbie and the Mermaid Tail. Barbie movies make me lose all hope I have in the future of little girls. Every woman in that movie was teeny-tiny and bikini-clad.  My cookie belly was cringing.

As soon as Josh and Jonanne left for the evening, I suddenly felt like a mother. I prepared an entire dinner for both little girls, who were constantly demanding my attention. They stayed around the kitchen, drawing on the fridge, as I slaved over personal pizzas and played A*teens on the kitchen stereo. So imagine my disappointment when I placed dinner down in front of them, watched them take two bites and then declare that they weren't hungry.

Before I could drown my sorrows in my dinner, Jenny demanded that we play princess with her as queen. Twenty minutes later, we were all in dresses with flowers and jewelry. Enjoy:

Rachel

Jenny (with chocolate milk on the mouth)

The stunner.

We had a procession down the stairway and then had a princess dance party around the kitchen. Probably the best fifteen minutes of my life. The rest of the evening was spent making brownies and watching Enchanted.

Jenny is at the "let me do everything" stage. Soon she will be where Rachel is now, at the "i don't want to do anything" stage.

I spent the night snuggling with Rachel because she REALLY wanted to have a sleepover.

When we finally rose the next morning, I made Jenny a bowl of Lucky Charms and all she did was pick out the marshmallows >.< After helping Jonanne clean house, I went out to the field with the girls for a while where we were princess sisters. We fought off an evil lake monster and witches and made a crazy salad. 

I'm sorry, she's just oober cute.

Off to Hammer's store to see Gandaddy for a while! He is a darling man, but very difficult to converse with unless you know your sports. Lorianna, my other nine year old cousin, joined us. I haven't seen her in over a year....geez. And she had ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY THREE silly bands on her arms!!

 When we got back, we flew kites. Well, tried at least. This kite got stuck in a tree.

Then a million deer came sprinting out of the woods! I only got a picture of the last one. I think he was lost.

Bye Mr. Deer!

Jonanne and I slaved over a Greek dinner that night and made some delicious things. I took a picture because I never want to forget them. Spinach and LOTS of feta.

MMMMMMMMMMM

Oh yeah, and Lorianna came back with us. Then Jonanne's other Laura-niece came over, so there were four little girls having a sleepover there. CRAZY.

That night = exhausted. So waking up for church the next morning was difficult. But Jonanne made cinnamon rolls--real ones--which made it all better. Here at college, we get these fake, rock-hard cinnamon rolls that aren't even worth eating. Just about everything Jonanne makes is very much worth eating. 

They go to a very small church, so I got introduced in front of the congregation, and such on and so forth. It was great. Extra attention is awesome in my book. 

Strangely enough, I also listened to country music all the way back to school, which is weird because I never listen to country music when I'm alone. It reminds me of my former, more redneck days.

End of the weekend. 

So, what's with my words of the day? Well, the original reason I went for the weekend was to escape Spring Formal because 1) it held a lot of memories of last year's Spring Formal, which was the last really good memory I had with Dusty and 2) because going as a single lady or even being at school thinking about it as a single lady would make me feel very....sad, I guess, because I would compare it to last year. I discovered that going to Winchester instead was a good idea. While I was there, I spent a lot of time helping Jonanne around the house and taking care of the girls. That made me realize something: I'm NOT ready to have my own house, my own husband, and my own kids. This period of my life--the young, single time where I can travel wherever I want and take care of only myself is not going to last for very long. If I had a husband, I wouldn't have been able to go and visit them like that, I wouldn't have been able to play games with the girls like I did, and so on. If I had a boyfriend, I wouldn't have even gone, I would've stayed for Spring Formal. 

It's still hard sometimes to tell myself that God's got it. He knows how long my life will be this way and whether or not I'll end up with a house and family. Because I do want one someday. My problem is that I can be a real control freak.  I think I've been husband-hunting since I was five years old, when I made a list of all the boys I knew that I could marry. Well, not hunting. But I've wanted one. Scary thing is, when I actually think about it, I don't want one just yet. I want one later. What I want now is to know who he is....but God doesn't operate that way. For a couple years, I felt very secure because I thought I knew who it was, and even though I'm glad that I was wrong, I now have that insecurity, which is now even worse than it was before I dated anyone. 

I also tend to focus on all the stories I've heard of women who never got a husband, and though I hate to admit it, that scares me to death. I hate even sleeping in a room alone...and I've decided that if I don't get a man, I'm moving to a country where I can run an orphanage and we can all sleep in a hut together. 

I need to shift my focus to now-and-not-then. God knows everything that's gonna happen and nothing I do will change it. Of course, that is easier said than done, especially when I hear about marriage three-and-fifty times a day at Covenant College.

Song of the day: Lollipop by Mika.