The Rambling Musings of a Human Katydid

Johnsburg Girl Eats, Eats, and....Eats

2011-12-13T21:10:00.004-06:00

Move on over to Johnsburg Girl Eats :) It's my new blog. And way better ;)

Excuses, Decisions, Changes.....

2011-05-04T13:50:00.001-05:00

And all in 5 months. My excuse for not posting? I have had nothing to post. My decision? I will post when it seems right to do so (although, I seem to be following that decision quite well.) Changes? Gosh, where to begin....

Let's start first with my personal walk with God. A few months ago, I was making very poor decisions. Sinful decisions that were preventing me from wanting to have a relationship with Him. Not only did my willingness to continue in my walk change, my attitude, personality, and character changed as well. Don't think I'm going to go into detail as to what was going on exactly; that's in the past, God has forgiven me, and now I'm moving on to what His greater plan for my life is. I haven't made a routine habit yet of reading my Bible, but the habit is forming. I read before I start school, I have a huge problem with doing my classes properly. So this week, I started flipping to a new book everyday and just randomly choosing a chapter to read. I read the chapter, think and pray about it for a little while, and then start on my classes. It's helped a bit. I'm still struggling a little bit, but, being I only have 2 classes left for the year, I really can't have an excuse for not completing large quantities of pages (8-10 pages sounds awful, doesn't it? ;) ) Anyway, out of anything in my walk with God, my prayer life has improved by far, the most I can remember. I can't go five minutes without just saying "Hi." Seriously, I'm the crazy woman talking to "herself" in the car at the red light. ;) But I don't care. It's all apart of my walk with God, and I look forward to the odd looks from the cars next to me.
"I will be glad and rejoice in You; I will sing praise to Your name, O Most High." Psalm 9:2

"My lips shall greatly rejoice when I sing to You, And my soul, which You have redeemed." Psalm 71:23

"See that no one renders evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good both for yourselves and for all. Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit." 1 Thessalonians 5:15-19

What else? I've moved up in the work world. =) On Monday, I finally get a key, and my mailbox has been lowered one level. Now all I will have to do is stand on a stool instead of my coworkers desk! Totally serious right there too. I have been praying about my job for quite sometime now. Some of you know that a year ago, I was bouncing back and forth the idea of quitting and going to another job that offers more hours and a larger salary. My mom told me to pray about it and wait. So I prayed, and waited, and prayed some more. And that July, I got a $.25 raise. I know, big deal right? Actually, it was a huge deal. My paycheck was $.25 more then it used to be. I was content, plus it was cool to see the raise. Summer is usually my busy time, so I knew I was going to have a struggle more towards the fall and winter of 2010. I was throwing around the idea of just working 2 jobs instead of the one since I love the library so much and the people in it. But I didn't have a green light on that. Every time I would think about getting an application somewhere, something would prevent me. The main prevention, was that I didn't have my license. I didn't feel right having my mom drive me to work every single time. So, I just continued to work and pray. In November, one of our employees was moving to Tennessee with her husband who is in the Army. She said she would not be moving back for who knows how long. So my boss said that in November my hours will definitely go up (she said this in October). So I waited. Around the end of September, another coworker gave her two weeks notice. She was hired for a winter job, and then a part-time job somewhere else. They both paid better, and she said she felt it was time to move on. So, my boss pulled me aside and asked if I would be willing to take some of her hours too. See where I'm going with this? "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks, finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened." Matthew 7:7-8 I asked, God gave. Not on my time, but His. And I truly to believe that if He had given on my time, it would not have been the right time. And the time that He gave me, ended up giving Him more glory than I had realized until a few days ago. God does answer prayers. Sometimes it's a "no" other times it's a "yes" sometimes, He doesn't answer for days, months, years. Keep praying, keep seeking, keep knocking. Keep walking with Him. It's the only thing that can get you through the day. When you're walk falters, He is right there to pick you up. You just have to let Him.

I will be starting my senior year in June! Hallelujah! I'm almost done! From what Mom figured out, my graduation should be the week before Thanksgiving. =) Kind of an odd time to have a graduation, but, I'm fine with it. I'm going to be done soon. And when I say "done" I mean done. I don't feel God is leading me to go to college. There are little interests of mine that must have a college degree. In fact, I'm looking into being more self-sufficient. I'm getting really into herbs. Anything that has to do with herbs and being healthier, I'm learning about. I think I have just about every book on the topics out from work! ;) Now don't think I'm one of those healthy people who says everything is poison. No no no. I am actually not very healthy. I mean, I'm getting better. But I still love my ice cream, chocolate, coffee, cookies, brownies, salty products, ect. I'm just learning how to eat it all in moderation and getting more nutrition on my body. It sure is difficult though! After Easter, we had tiramisu cheesecake left over. For the next three days, I had tiramisu after lunch. I will never do that again. I felt so sick by Friday, it was awful. But then, we went to Janesville, WI on Sunday, and stopped at Fuddruckers for lunch/dinner. Okay, 1) The burgers there? They live up to their name "World's Best Burgers." I thought they were incredible. 2) I had a 1/3 lb burger, the smallest on the list, and I still couldn't finish the thing. 3) They had a separate area for dessert......Mom and I split a Strawberry Caramel Sundae. YUM!
Yesterday, Dad announces at dinner that we're going to Riverside. The most amazing chocolate factory in town. =) Their one scoop is DQ's 3 scoop. It's wonderful. Oreo ice cream is now on my list of favorite flavors. So you see? I am not all that healthy. Especially when it comes to sweets - I'm the worst when it comes to ice cream. But, I still find eating healthy, exercising, and replacing over-the-counter drugs with God given "medications" extremely interesting, and a wonderful topic to know.
So far, my favorite herbs/oils are:

Lavender
Peppermint
Tea tree
Evening prim rose
Jojoba Oil
Aloe Vera

Last night, for the fun of it, I mixed 3 drops of peppermint oil with 3 drops of lavender oil and rub it together in my hands. I then ran it through my wet hair. My hair still smells like cool peppermint with just a hint of lavender. It's also extremely soft, which I know both peppermint and lavender are good for your hair. =) Totally recommend this one, ladies.

For a face scrub, I normally mix a cup of Epsom salts with Aloe Vera, Vitamin E oil, and Evening prim rose oil, with 4 drops of Tea Tree oil, and 5 drops of lavender oil. But I used the last of my Epsom salts on Monday, so last night, I tried something different.

Mix 1 1/2 cups of sugar with about....umm (I don't measure. ;))...2 tablespoons (or however much you would like) of Aloe Vera, and 1 teaspoon of Vitamin E oil and Evening prim rose. I then added 4 drops of peppermint and 3 drops of lavender.

This scrub was amazing. My face is so soft and smooth looking. This morning I used it again as part of my routine. My foundation went on so easily and it still looks the way it did this morning. =) I love when things turn out, doesn't it just make you feel so good? =)

This year, I'm looking forward to these blooming:

I will then mix them with carnations and have beautiful bouquets. =)

Have a blessed day everyone!

♥Caitie

The One True Gift

2010-12-19T19:40:00.004-06:00

If you must put up a tree, put up a cross in remembrance of His holy Name.

If you must give a gift, tell someone of the Gift from our Father.

If you must sing a carol -sing a hymn.

If you must glorify something - glorify His Name. Not some made up character that brings presents on Christmas Eve.

Don't idolize this season because of the tradition.

Celebrate it because of Jesus. Celebrate it because of the Gift He is handing you.

Celebrate it because one day, you will go Home too.

All you have to do is accept this Gift. And say thank you until you are Home.

Christmas has been turned into a holiday that revolves around gifts and celebrating. But we seem to forget the One true Gift that has been given to us. God sent his ONLY Son to die for us! Sinners. Humans. Wretched beings. These are the same humans that spit at His feet, pierced him with a spear, placed a crown of thorns on His head, and hung him on a tree to die. And yet, He died for us. That death was for you and me. Even though He was falsely accused, He still died for us. We don't even deserve a single glance from Him! Our sins—transgressions against a holy God—make us deserve eternal punishment, specifically in Hell - a bottomless pit of fire and misery. BUT, He has offered us an alternative. He has offered us a Gift. This Gift is His very own Son, Christ Jesus. Christ has suffered everything that we deserve, so that we will not be punished for our sins. Rather, we can spend eternity with Him -the One true God that loves us with the greatest love possible. You do not know love until you know God's love. The love of a parent, spouse, sibling, etc. is only a small taste of what love is. He LOVES us: Me. You. He loves us so much that I could repeat what He has done for us a million times. He sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, to die a horrible, awful, humiliating death on a tree. Why? So that you can spend the rest of eternity with Him.

This place, this earth, is only a temporary home. Home is Heaven, where God awaits us. Home is where I know I'm going after I die. Home is where I long to be. I want to be away from the evil of this world. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of the lies, the sin, the denying of God, the blasphemy. It sickens me.

So you see, Christmas—this holiday, this season— is nothing, unless it is of God. I celebrate CHRIST year round. Not just on December 25^th -this date that tradition has assigned. I have celebrated CHRIST since the moment I accepted the Gift God offered me. And it wasn't on December 25th. No, I accepted that gift on April 12, 2007.

"Rejoice in the LORD; your righteousness, and give thanks at the remembrance of His holy Name." (Psalm 97:12)

"Rejoice in the LORD always! And again I say rejoice!" (Philippians 4:4)

"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth... And of His fullness we have all received and for grace:" (John 1:13, 16)

With much love in His Holy, Almighty Name,

Caitie

Oddness

2010-11-05T11:03:00.000-05:00

Quick post.

Comments went from frequent to nill. So, I'm just going to remind you. I really like comments. Let's me know that people aren't just creeping. Haha. If you don't know where the comment box is, it's at the top underneath the post title. As of late it's said "0 Little Musings".

♥Cait

Look for another post later tonight! =)

Furious Fours

2010-11-04T20:07:00.003-05:00

Actually, they're not that bad. We've been blessed. ;) I talk CONSTANTLY about Sarah, so I'm going to post some old posts from my adoption blog. This should be interesting. =)

Announcement Post

How My Life Changed Forever
February 26, 2007

"Ever since I realized that I would be living with my two brothers for the rest of my life, I've wanted a little sister. Every birthday I would blow out my candles wishing for a sister. Every Christmas when we had to write a letter Santa during school (even though I didn't believe in him)I would still ask for a little sister, and a dog or a cat. Now don't get me wrong there are many advantages to having two brothers. But being the only girl AND stuck in the middle, the disadvantages can really show sometimes. I love my brothers very much, but they can be a pain. I'm 13 years old and my family is adopting a little girl from China! We made this wonderful decision on October 3, 2005. On October 10, 2005, October 14, 2005, and October 23, 2005 we told the rest of the family about it. They were so happy!! Time went by and papers and applications were filled out and an apointment for meeting our social worker was made. We waited for our Dossier and our I171-H to come and then be mailed out. Getting anxious every second, everyday, every month. Still getting anxious. Everything has been mailed out and we're just waiting, waiting, and waiting. It's been about 3 years now. A whole 3 years!!! We're all so anxious and want it to happen right now. Mom say's that hopefully Sarah's (my little sister) referral will come by October of this year and then we'll be going to China in December. That seems far away but I know it will go fast. Hopefully."

Chosen from the Special Needs list. (Possibly the hardest thing we did. Choosing one out of 5. *sigh*)

Sarah Grace
June 18, 2007

"I would very much like to introduce Miss Sarah Grace!!!!!! Mom says I can't post her picture until we get the confirmation from China, which we hope will be very soon. We got the call at 7:30 this morning from Bethanne!! She said that right when she got our email saying we're interested in Baby, she immediately called the other families and told them that she was taken. She said that she didn't like the whole thing with sending like 8 different families LOIs to the CCAA so she contacts the first family and says that they can proceed with the adoption and that the baby is no longer available. If you think about it, it's pretty funny, we were the last ones to get the information and we're the first ones to call in and say we're interested and want that baby girl!! It really doesn't seem real right now. We've been waiting for so long that it doesn't really feel that different because we're just going to be waiting some more. I really can't wait to post her referral pictures!!!!"

Referral Picture released (I melt every time I look at this picture ;) )
Here She Is!!!!!
July 19, 2007

14 Days and counting till take off to China =)

14 DYAS!!!!!!!

December 19, 2007

"See how excited I am? I spelled probably one of the easiest words wrong! 14 DAYS!!! That's better! But I'll be more specific! 14 days, what? You may be asking yourself. 14 DAYS UNTIL MOM AND DAD LEAVE FOR CHINA!!!! =D Which makes it only 16 or 17 days until I get to see our sweet girls face!!! We're bouncing off the walls and everything is just nuts here!! Mom is everywhere! Packing, packing, packing, shopping for Sarah, packing, and (you guessed it) more packing. So far though, she's only packed all of Sarah's stuff. She's waiting to pack her's and Dad's until, I think, the day before, because they're still using the stuff they need to pack! My room looks so crowded! Her suitcase and carryon bag are right where her crib is going to go.

Speaking of crib! That's coming on Friday! Some friends of ours had two cribs and said that we could have one! I can't wait until that goes up!

We also finally got Sarah's carseat! Turns out she's going to have to be rear facing because of her weight! She's going to be so tiny! I'll post a pic of that when I post one of the crib!=D

Only 6 or 7 days till Christmas!

MERRY EXTRA-EARLY CHRISTMAS!"

These posts are making me all giddy inside. I forgot all about the excitement that we went through. Crazy stuff. Totally worth it. =)

Just a little excited

Freaking Out Now!!

December 28, 2007

"I am freaking out now! 2 days until Mom and Dad leave! I forgot to add in most of the posts something. Mom and Dad are going home with my Grandpa on Tuesday and then leaving on Wednesday! Anyway, I can't believe it's only 2 days until I don't see my parents again for 2 WHOLE WEEKS!! And the next time Sarah will be with them!! I can't belive it's only 2 days until my life changes forever!! Wow!"

Oh boy!

Itinerary!

January 2, 2008

"So I probably should have posted this earlier, before Travel, but I could never find it. So here's the Itinerary for our Journey To Sarah Grace Anderson! =D

IN-CHINA ITINERARY FOR THE ANDERSONS, JANUARY 2008

3- arrive in Beijing

4- tour in Beijing

5- tour in Beijing

6- fly to Lanzhou , placement in the hotel at about 16:30 (Mom forgot to add that this is also Gotcha Day!)

7- registration in the morning, and then notary

8- bonding day

9- tour in Lanzhou or visit museum

10- tour in Lanzhou

11- get passport and notary papers

12- fly to Guangzhou

13- visa paperwork, visa picture

14- medical exam, tour in Guangzhou

15- Consulate appointment

16- oath taking ceremony

17- go home via HK"

The Big Day!

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

January 5, 2008

"TODAY'S GOTCHA DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I CAN'T WAIT TO MEET MY SWEET LITTLE SARAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Mom and Dad leave for Gansu at 8:30 AM!!!!=D"

The BEST moment EVER! =)

My Mei Mei!!!!!

Jaunary 6, 2008

"I apologize for the wait of arrival for pictures!!!!!!! I've just been in awww since I saw her!!! She is the sweetest most perfect little girl you could ever dream of! I love her sooooooo much!! Her smile is just so contagious and the way I heard her baby talking to Dad? So cute!!!!! An email Mom sent me this morning is below. And then pictures!!!!!!

Hello Everyone!!!

It is 11:30 p.m. here (9:30 a.m. your time). We tried to call you but you are not online. We will try again later. Our flight was quick and painless. Lanzhou is really amazing.

However, I know you do not want to hear about Lanzhou!!!

Sarah is just wonderful!!!! She smiled for me (Mom) right away and follows me with her eyes where ever I go! Poor baby had to drive 8 hours to get here on a terrible mountain road. She was very tired. On top of that, she is sick. She went to the clinic yesterday and we have prescriptions for her. Problem is, she will not eat for us and the meds need to go into the bottle. She has a congested cough and you can hear the rattle in her chest. She had a 101 temp. about an hour after we got her. She is such a good baby. She just loves her toys. Especially the teething ring and stacking cups. She will not let go of the teething ring. In fact the only time she cried was when Bill had to take the teething ring from her for our family photo. He felt terrible! She did cry later in the room when we gave her her first bottle. I think she didn't like not having her nanny. They told us to just lay her on the bed and she will feed herself. We tried that as a last result on the third bottle. She still won't drink. Right now she is singing to Dad!!!! It is so adorable. She fights her sleep just like Christopher. She kicks her foot and startles herself awake!!! Finally she couldn't do it anymore and fell asleep at 8 p.m. our time. She woke us up at 11 p.m. wanting to play. That is why we are up right now. Dad is playing with her and I hear her giggling. She has just started to imitate us a bit. She waved back at Dad! It is so cute how she will not let go of those two toys. Even in sleep she kept her hand on the teething ring. We really miss you guys and can't wait to have you meet Sarah!!! We will try back again later.

Much love and kisses,

Mom, Dad, and Sarah

Lisa, Joe and Sarah"

The days drag on.

Two posts! One by Mom and one by Dad!

January 11, 2008

"Here are two posts that from Mom and Dad's blog! The first one is from Mom.

Hello Everyone!

Sorry we missed a day. Yesterday our precious one was a little crabby cake! She hadn't gone to the bathroom for a couple of days and was letting everyone know she wasn't happy about it. We pushed bananas and carrots (which she loves) throughout the day and finally had success later in the evening. But, Sarah slept and whined all day which made it difficult for us to do anything. Even Bill was surprised by her disposition. She was back to her giggly, sweet self after her plumbing was working properly again.

We did manage to get out and see the Yellow River. Well, we got in and out of the car quite a bit because it was too cold to walk along it. Sarah wasn't happy about that. She's not too thrilled with her snowsuit. Our girl doesn't like to be bound up and the snowsuit keeps her from sucking on her index finger. A definite no-no in her book and she told anyone who would listen!

She has already stolen Bill's heart. She throws him kisses all the time. He came into our room last night and was talking to Joe with his back to Sarah. Sarah started yelling "hey!" (okay, the equivalent baby sound to hey.) When he turned around she blew him a kiss. He had to come over and high-five her! It was adorable. If she is close to him she will put her hand out until he holds it. Too cute. She's not too sure about our driver, Steed. She just watches him very carefully while hanging onto us. So I know there's something special about Bill.

This morning she was way to adorable. I can't wait for all of you to meet her. Her personality is just incredible. Her laugh is real husky. Joe calls it her diabolical laugh! Her smile lights up the room. She has started to roll around on the bed and crawl a bit. It cracks her up going from one place to another on her own. She stops and laughs about it in the middle of the journey. We brought a baby picture book of the kids and gram and papa for Sarah to look at. We wanted her to at least be familiar with their faces before coming home. She loves the book. She flips through until she comes to Christopher's picture and then slaps it! We have been encouraging her in this. HAHA Christopher says that is how they show love in China. He's a good sport!

This morning for breakfast she ate pumpkin patties, watermelon, strawberry yogurt, scrambled eggs, grape bread (my favorite), and some kind of bran muffin which wasn't a big hit but she ate it anyway. This child is like the energizer bunny when it comes to food!!! She just keeps eating until we leave the restaurant. She also waves to other tables and tries to get them to give her their food! I spoon fed her some tea which she really enjoyed. With her clefts it is difficult to give her a bottle out of the room. She needs to be lying down and the liquid just flows all over the place. She needs a change of clothes after her bottle feedings. What a mess! I will introduce her to a sippy cup when we get home. Now that she has been having solids, she will only take her bottle when she wakes up and before bed. So that helps. But I have to be diligent about getting fluids into her throughout the day now.

Oh, last night after dinner we gave her a bit of strawberry ice cream. As you know she loves it. So Joe wonders what she would do with chocolate ice cream. He gives her a bit of his and Sarah just stops. Stops moving, stops blinking, just stops. She sits like that for a moment, then her eyes get real big (which is quite a feat since they are so big already) and she smacks her lips together and starts dancing in her chair, bobbing her head and giggling. I think chocolate beat strawberry!

We are doing well - Sarah is such a joy for us. Missing home and our family a lot. It feels like we've been gone for months now. Jonah told us this morning we will be coming home in a week. I was thrilled to hear it. Tomorrow we will fly to Guangzhou. It will be a day of traveling, leaving at 1 p.m. and arriving there around 8 p.m. I'm not looking forward to the 5 hour flight but am glad we are onto the next half of our journey. Lord willing, we will be home soon!

Thank you all for your comments and prayers. Joe will post more I'm sure.
Much love to all of you, Lisa

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Dad posting:

I feel bad that there wasn't a post yesterday. Actually had a touch of the blues (Mom's birthday. How ecstatic she would've been over all this.) A weather system moved through which made the outdoors real gray, and the indoors kinda achy. (And as Lisa said, Sarah had some "issues".) Tonight's the last night in Lanzhou. Click this link http://www.theodora.com/maps/china.gif to see some cool maps of China. (For home-schoolers this counts as geography class.) Tomorrow we'll fly from Lanzhou (LON-JO) to Xi'an (SHE-ON)(just a little southeast of Lanzhou) for a stop and then on to Guangzhou (GWON JO), which is on the southeast coast by Hong Kong. That's where the only American Consulate is in China that handles adoptions. That's where we'll handle all the legal aspects on the American side. We'll be busy. But it's tropical so we're really looking forward to it. Tonight we're having dinner with Bill and Steed and another guide at the same restaurant we went to on Wednesday. We have a private room reserved. More lamb with garlic for sure. Got some video there last time of the manager "briefing" the staff prior to the dinner rush. The employees stood at attention in lines that any drill sergeant would be proud of and then she yelled at them for five minutes. She makes the Sicilians look warm and fuzzy. When she was done I had to restrain myself to keep from jumping up and getting to work. All this took place right next to our table. Can't wait to share this video stuff with everyone when we get back. We're starting to get a little homesick.
Patty and the Winter boys you guy's are so kind to stop by the house on Thursday. Everyone was so glad you came!!
Carol, Dad is going to pick us up at the airport Thursday. We'll post our flight info and would you see to it that he has it? Our car is at Sam and Geri's house. He's taking us there and we'll drive home from there. But thanks for the offer. And especially thanks for the spiritual encouragement you (and everyone else) have contributed.
The Lord Jesus continues to work on our hearts, growing us up, maturing, strengthening us. We are so thankful to Him for what He is doing in our lives. Of course, saving us from our sins would be enough, but the great care He takes to daily abide with us as we sojourn here is just so amazing to me. What a privilege He has granted us to serve Him in this way, to provide a home for Sarah where the good news of salvation and the desire to serve Him are paramount.
Speaking of strength, what a difference ten years makes. That's how long it's been since Jonah was carried around. It's nice how the Creator makes it so that baby is born small and the parents can gradually build up the physical strength as baby grows. Not so with Sarah. I guess she's only 20 lbs. or so but whoa, those muscles thought they were set up for early retirement. They ain't likin' being forced back into service. Also the eyes are sorta shot too. I was the official toe and fingernail clipper man on our first batch. (I'll let Lisa tell you why.) I thought my lovely Lisa might want the job this time but such was not the case. I went to trim Sarah's nails the other day and couldn't see them! I was squinting and straining until I was seeing double. Eventually I just sorta guessed at where they were. No blood, all's well.
Okay if I gush a little? Cupcake wakes up smiling! (except for yesterday) We laugh and play non-stop. I'm not a pessimist, but I was pretty sure this was going to be traumatic for her. I was expecting a really difficult start, but it's been wall to wall enjoyment. She's already looking at the lovely one when I say, "where's Mommy?" She's communicating with us. She reaches for us when she wants to be held and that's like always. She waves at people. It's adorable! Elbow at 90 degrees hand pointing straight up and then rotations showing the back of the hand and then the front. Definitely a princess!
REALLY looking forward to Guanzhou!
May the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with all of you.
Daddy (again)"

And she's finally home! =)

Sarah Grace Anderson

January 18, 2008

"Sarah's taking a nap right now so I thought I would take the opportunity to post! =D

Mom, Dad, and Sarah arrived home at around 6-6:30 pm. Sarah had slept the whole ride home, so she was in a pretty playful mood. =D We all went into mine and Sarah's room, and changed her (well Mom changed her. We just talked and listened to Mom talk). After that Mom picked her up and Sarah looked at all of us and then started blowing kisses to Papa! =D The way she blows kisses is adorable! She licks her hand and then blows!! =D Then she turned to Grandma and blew her some kisses. Then Christopher and then Papa again. Then she made Jonah give her a high five. She just stared at me and smiled. =D We then moved into the family room and sat Sarah down on the couch. Christopher sat down next to her and Dad handed her two Chinese rattles (which she loves!). She then handed one of them to Christopher and gave him this huge smile!! She started hitting her rattle against his and then started laughing. Well growling. Her laugh is this really deep husky laugh that is so adorable and contagious!! I'll try and post a video of that soon. Then Dad handed out all the souvenirs (that'll be another post) and Sarah watched. =D After a little while Mom picked her up and sat her on her lap. About five minutes later Sarah reached for me!! She wanted me to hold her! =D After she ate dinner I changed her (which wasn't all that fun because she cried and lets just say she did not like it that I was changing her). After that Gram and Papa left and Mom fed Sarah her bottle and then put her down for the night. At around 1AM this morning she woke up crying, needing to be changed. Mom had asked me to get her if Sarah woke up in the middle of the night, so I got up and went upstairs to Mom and Dad's room. I woke Mom up and we went back down to my room. Right when Mom picked Sarah up she stopped crying and smiled. I was going to stay up, but "forced" myself back to sleep because I didn't want her to think it was playtime. Mom said that she went to sleep at 2AM. Sarah woke up again at 5:45 AM. I woke up and stumbled to my door to get Mom. Now when I went to sleep at 1 the door was open, now it was closed. So I ended up walking right into the door. :D After that, Dad came in and she was up completely. Time to play. No more sleep for Jie Jie. :D So I've been up since 5:45 and am only a little bit tired. Welcome to baby land.

Although now I'd really like her to wake, so we can play again. ;D

Pictues will come soon. We've just been having so much fun, we didn't really take any pictures. :D"

Oh sweet girl, how much I love you! You are such a huge blessing to me! I can't believe the little girl who came home 2 years ago (almost 3!) is already 4. You've grown up too fast! Keep on going with learning to read. You're doing great! =)

♥Cait

Cookies That Eat Us

2010-11-03T21:27:00.002-05:00

You know those moments when you look back and watch your family? And you just watch everyone laugh and talk and be together all happy and stuff? Like those movies? Yeah. I just had that moment. And the love that overcame me shocked me. I know I love my family. I just never realized how much I love them.

So for the next few days, I'm going to write a little bit about each of my family members.

My little brother has a thing for making cookies bigger than my face. But they are soooooo good, I forgive him for the extra calories. =D Sometimes I can't believe that he's going to be 16 next year. It just blows me away. He's the most amazing brother you can get. Hands down. The BEST LITTLE BROTHER EVER! You can argue all you want, but you won't win. I love how ambitious he is to help out, and be there when you really need him. I love how he already has his eyes focused on what he really wants to do in his life. Even though I honestly can't see my silly, playful, little brother in the Coast Guard. But then, I can. 2 years. I have 2 years to fill of us enjoying each other's company. And it's going to be the fastest 2 years ever. I'm seriously going to miss him. When he's gone for just one night at a friends house, I miss him. So him being gone 4 years....that's gonna be rough. And it's not like he's going to be a few hours away. No. It's New London, Connecticut. Gosh. It's so far away. I've even "joked" around about following him there. But, that didn't go over well. ;) He's determined to get away from his attached big sister. Not that I can blame him. I'm going to fully appreciate the latest technology when he leaves.

Love you, Jonah! Thanks for always being there for me!

♥Cait

In Christ Alone

2010-10-26T19:56:00.001-05:00

In Christ alone, my hope is found 

He is my light, my strength, my song 

This cornerstone, this solid ground 

Firm through the fiercest drought and storm 

What heights of love, what depths of peace 

When fears are stilled, when strivings cease 

My comforter, my all-in-all 

Here in the love of Christ I stand

There in the ground His body lay 

Light of the world by darkness slain 

Then bursting forth in glorious day 

Up from the grave He rose again!

And as He stands in victory 

Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me

For I am His and He is mine 

Bought with the precious blood of Christ
No guilt in life, no fear in death

This is the power of Christ in me 

From life’s first cry to final breath 

Jesus commands my destiny 

No power of hell, no scheme of man

Can ever pluck me from His hand

Till He returns or calls me home 

Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand

I Need One of These

2010-10-21T18:55:00.000-05:00

I guess there is no denying it...

2010-10-19T21:09:00.000-05:00

Fall is here!

And that is not a problem. I love fall. It has to be the most beautiful season ever! So far, this year has been especially beautiful. The weather is crisp, but not cold. I still have to wear a sweater, which I'm totally fine with.

In honor of my favorite season, I'm going to post the things I love about it. The things I can do, wear, eat, drink, etc. =) Might as well make this post worth-while and long.

I love sweaters, sweatshirts, jeans, sneakers, long sleeved shirts.Those cozy pajamas that you can snuggle into. I even like it being too cold in my room to actually get out of bed and then falling back to sleep. I've never been a huge knit-hat fan, but I find some of the cutest sets at Target.

Drinking coffee. Yes, I drink coffee in the summer, but that's different. A lot of times it's too hot for coffee. In the fall/winter, I can drink it to warm me up. Which I have been doing often! ----> Caramel Mocchiato's are the best, though. =)

Pumpkin seeds! I'm so excited to try a hand at pumpkin seeds again this year. This time, I'm going to follow an actual recipe though. Hahaha.

Who doesn't like Thanksgiving? "It's the only holiday where it's okay to be glutenous." - Mom.

Thanksgiving is probably my second favorite holiday. Just because of all the food. We have left-overs for a week! It's pretty awesome

The changing leaves are gorgeous this year!! I love all the colors. And how sunny it is. And its just so pretty.

(the following were taken by me)

(credit to Google Images)

This place is incredible in the fall. I want to get over there for some photoshoots before all the leaves fall and the weather gets nasty.

As you can tell, there are some amazing things to fall. Except that it turns into winter. But even winter is beautiful. But I won't get into that until it's here. Hehe.

Have a wonderful week!

And I apologize for taking forever to post! Had some writer's block.

♥Cait

PS- Someone finally got her driver's license ;)

Sarah's Birthday and the Beach (August 22nd and 23rd)

2010-09-25T22:36:00.000-05:00

Life Happens....and so does death

2010-07-30T21:57:00.001-05:00

At 1:12 AM, on Thursday, July 29th, I wake up to Jonah whispering my name. He had his hunting knife in one hand, and his light thing on his head. "Somethings in the chicken run." So, we both fly downstairs and out the door. To the chicken coop. Search the run. Nothing. Jonah thought it was some psycho trying to get in my room. Which is upstairs....haha. Anyway, nothing was in the chicken run, and so we opened up the coop to check on the chickens. To find Chloe, my pretty, ruby-red bird underneath the feeder. Her neck was in a very strange position. But she was still alive and breathing. And sleeping. So, Jonah picks her up, and I grab a bin. We put her in the bin and bring her inside to the kitchen. Then we go and wake up Mom. So now we're all in the living room looking up "chickens with broken necks" "what does a chicken look like with a broken neck" "how does a chicken act with a broken neck" "chickens with weird necks" "injured chickens" and nothing was coming up. Suddenly, the box starts moving because Chloe is flipping around inside of it. The straw goes all over the kitchen (ew) and she's just banging around in there going insane. So Jonah runs over and brings the box outside. Manages to soothe her, and then comes back in. We go back to our searching. 8 minutes later, she does it again. But manages to get out of the box and is now flopping around on the deck. Jonah runs out there. And is out there for a good 10 minutes. He finally comes back in. "She's dead. Gone. Dead. She. Is. Dead." Mom and I: "Awww" run over to the sliding door and look out at the deck. Only to find Chloe, on her back, legs sticking up in there. The house is dead silent. We all look at each other. And burst out laughing. Seriously, as heartless as it sounds, the image looked like a failed Hollywood movie. :D I even took a picture. Which I will send to you when I can get batteries in my camera. :D
So, at 2:15AM, Chloe, officially died from falling out of bed and breaking her neck.

Attack of the Infectors and Blog Background Removers

2010-07-25T14:26:00.000-05:00

So, yeah, it's me.

You're probably mad.

I mean, one can only ditch a blog for so long.

Especially when the Blogger was posting daily.

But I'm back now! So.....can you fake a smile and make me feel better?

Now, there are two topics mentioned in my blog post title. Attack of the Infectors pertains to my coworker who intentionally got me sick.

And Blog Background Removers pertains to the fact that I can no longer see my blog background! Since we're on the topic, let me rant in what will be a bad run-on sentence.

I'm very upset that TCBOTB has delted this blog background from Photobucket being it was my absolute favorite and it was really pretty. Actually, that was pretty pathetic, but....ah-well.

Now onto The Attack of the Infectors. She didn't intentionally get me sick, but she did come back to work when she was still sick..if that counts. Anyway, I've had a sinus infection since Wednesday, and I finally have a clear mind to write this post and work on my current novel idea. It was actually so bad, that I took Nyquil. Which I've never done before....I'm usually never sick enough to take it. And might I just say this: Um...wow! I hate that stuff! Yesterday, I slept until 2 (that was probably also because Mom and I stayed up until 1AM watchin movies. :D) I didn't feel any better. I actually felt worse. I think I took about 3 or 4 naps between 3 and 7. Sure they were "power" naps, but it was MORE sleeping. Ugh. I hate sleeping. Haha. I'm not the type of person to take naps. I will keep myself awake until nighttime. Sleeping when there is sunlight just isn't nice. Oh, but today, I'm feeling much better! :) I'm still congested, and I still have a really awful and persistant cough, but I'm not as weak and "uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh" as I have been.

We had yet another tornado. No, it didn't land by us, thank God, but there was one. I don't know where. Mom and I think that it blew right over us since the flowers were leaning over from the wind strength. Also, there was a point in the middle of the night where the wind and rain were extremely loud. I know that Freeport and Rockford flooded very badly. And my grandparents basement flooded, too. So, it was a bad storm. Hopefully, we're done now for a little while. I love thunderstorms. Just hate tornadoes. If there is anything I freak out about, it's tornadoes. Haha. :D

I'm still on the hunt for a new background, so bare with me if I change it continually.

Have a great Sunday! :)

♥Cait

PS- Today is one amazing guy's birthday. :) I love you Dad! :)

♥ Wordless Wednesday ♥

2010-07-14T12:53:00.001-05:00

♥Cait

Quotes of this Morning and Some Prayer

2010-07-12T07:34:00.000-05:00

If you all could pray for my mom today, that would be really, very helpful. She's having surgery (no more explanation than that), and is a bit nervous. *Mom, I'm pretty sure that's because you read every single article that pertains to this surgery. Or more like describes everything the entire procedure. In grave detail. :D*

And for the quotes of the morning.

Sarah: "This is really, really good coffee, Caitie." (warm milk and honey, mind you :D)

Me: "Good. I'm glad." *Still waking up even after 2 cups*

Sarah: "When Mommy and Daddy have to go somewhere, can you make this coffee again? Because it's really really good, and you make it the best."

~

Sarah: "Do we have anymore donuts to go with my coffee? Maybe we should make some. Then I could have a donut with my coffee. Or we can walk to Stades and you can buy some. That could be my breakfast."

~

Lexi, your comment on yesterday's post made my morning. :D

"I can do all things accross the street from me!"

And now for some more writing. :)

♥Cait

Oh, and here's a picture to make your morning special. :D From me, to you. in light of these quotes.

No we did not eat any of this. But this is exactly what she wants. She picked out this picture, you know. :D

Trying To Get Rid Of IT

2010-07-11T12:53:00.000-05:00

There is thing that just comes naturally to me: I LOVE chocolate. Like insanely so. More than coffee. Anything that is chocolate, I usually like -if it has coconut, I'm out. My absolute favorite chocolate? Well, I have 3. Yes 3 favorites. Don't make me choose one.

The ever popular:

Snickers, Whatchamacallit, and 100 Grand Bar. Mm, mm, good! :D If I had a dollar on me every time I went to the story, I would probably buy one or two -probably 3, of each. BUT, I'm back on my savings routine -which was cause by getting an letter from the bank telling me I'm doing too many transactions. HA! God is so good! I've been struggling with getting back into saving for a car. I've been spending like crazy, and it's been driving me insane! But God gave me a solution. :) Only 3 transactions are allowed in a month - actually, you can do up to six, but the bank recommends only 3. So! I'm back to saving. :) No more bank transfers until I'm back up to a certain goal. I have a certain amount of money in my checking acount just-in-case, but for the next month, I'm going to make sure I don't touch it. By December, I WILL be back on a routine of saving my money for important things, rather than material, useless, un-important things.

Can I do it? Most certainly! I mean, God doesn't say "I can do all things through Christ, which strenghtens me." (Philippians 4:13) for nothing! :)

Have an awesome Sunday, guys!

♥Cait

PS- If I can get a hold of my spending, think I can get a hold of my intake of sugar too? :D

I'd Say Some Congratulations are In Order

2010-07-09T09:44:00.000-05:00

Lexi, I would just very much like to say CONGRATS! :) 5 more hours, girl!!!!!!! :) God is soo amazing! That's all I can think of to say! This little one is immensly blessed to be placed in your family. :) I'm praying for you guys! :) Have an awesome "Gotcha Day"! ;)

♥Cait :)

Is She Cute Or What?

2010-07-08T11:56:00.002-05:00

It's hard to believe she 8...she still looks like a puppy :D

♥Cait

20 Second Drop In

2010-07-07T13:17:00.000-05:00

Guess where Sarah and I are going in 20 minutes. :) I'll give you a hint:

♥Cait

Knights, Lights, and A Chocaholics Adventure

2010-07-04T22:40:00.000-05:00

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo..........Mom and I went to see Knight and Day this afternoon! :) Aside from the popcorn being stale, the girl not putting enough butter on it, and us figuring out that, no, strawberry Twizzlers are in no such way better than the original. (Please Twizzler company! Send us back those originals!) It was great!! I can't wait for it to come out on DVD. It was a bit far-fetched and they did leave a lot unsaid, but on the whole, I really enjoyed it. Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise had great chemistry and Cameron was hilarious. :D

As you all know, how could you not with all the firworks going off! :D, it's July 4th. Also known as, Independence Day! :) God has really blessed us, don't you agree? I was just thinking about how spoiled we American are. We have so much, and take it all for granted! One day -I wouldn't be at all surprised with the way our government is falling apart- we're not going to have everything handed to us on a silver platter. Anyway, no more depression on what's supposed to be a celebration :) Happy Independence Day America! :) I'm thankful that God blessed me with the opportunities I have and freedom to claim Him Lord of lords and King of kings. :)

As for my adventure? Well, I have yet to start it. Haha. I wanted to write this post before I did. I'm going to make myself hot chocolate. Yes, its 80 degrees outside - it's a bit chilly in here because the air is on - but we have no chocolate in the house! :( Ah well! :) I'm off to make some homemade hot chocolate, way better than any store bought stuff. :)

Hope everyone had a great 4th! :)

Remember that you are incredibly blessed! :)

♥Cait

"I look great today!"

2010-07-03T20:50:00.002-05:00

Says the girl who stares in the mirror after spending hours doing this.

and this

Who needs a puppy when you have golden brown locks?

Happy Independence Day America and bloggy friends! :)

♥Cait

Today Is My Day....

2010-06-30T12:24:00.000-05:00

....of doing absolutely nothing. To prove it, I will point out that I woke up 58 minutes ago (and it's 11:00, you do the math). I never wake up at a 11, 10, 9, and rarely 8. I'm usually up between 6:30 and 7:30, ready to roll....because...that is just my personality. I hate waking up late. I feel like I won't accomplish anything during the day because I couldn't drag my lazy butt out of bed.

But today.....today is another story. You see, for the past 2 months I have worked every single day, 5-9 hours each day. To those of you who are adults and work every. Single. Day. Might roll their eyes and scoff and think "I wish I could have that!", but you see, I, Cait, am use to working 4.5 hours, one day a week, and then being bored the rest of the days. So my "complaining" really isn't complaining. It's just stating the strange obvious that my summer vacations are never "boring". They are usually filled with everything but.

So as I've said, today I will gladly welcome boredom. I'm making such a big deal out of this, because yesterday, I literally worked all day long. I started work at the library at 3. Went home at 6. Shoved a burger in my mouth. And then ran out the door at 6:30 to babysit. Till 11:15 at night. And then I was up until 2:30 texting. Which I have to say, as much as I love talking to this person, I'm never going to stay up until 2:30 AM texting again. Unless its a really, really important discussion, like teleportation. :P

What am I going to do today, you ask? Well, I'm going to sit outside, pop in my headphones (from the new iPod nano I bought on Thursday! :D Soooo happy about that! :D), read a book, and tan. I look like a ghost compared to my brother. We can blame it on the Irish skin, instead of my lack of being outside.

Concerning my 2 "little musers"! I must say graci to you! :) And Beckyelsie, your blog is really cool! :)

Well, I'm off to lather on some tanning oil and listen to Josh Turner's awesome voice. :)

♥Cait

Little Musings

2010-06-28T20:56:00.001-05:00

Hey All!

So I just want to point out, that my comment thing is title "Little Musings" and it's under the post titles.

Just throwin' it out there, I LOVE comments :)

♥Cait

"So This Is Love"

2010-06-26T19:02:00.000-05:00

Sorry about the bad quality. It was taken on my mom's phone. But this is the best pic we have together :)

Sunset and Sweetheart :)

2010-06-23T20:20:00.000-05:00

Sometimes things Just

2010-06-23T19:21:00.001-05:00

Snap! Or......get struck by lightening.

As you can probably tell --actually, most of you I talk to frequently so you know what the weather is like here---it's been thunderstorming since....what was it, Thursday? Anyway, we all woke up this morning to one of the base branches on one of the trees in the front yard struck down. We first thought it was from the winds, but as we took a closer look, we could see the ash and blackend wood at the snapped part. It's sad, because that was my favorite branch. Funny, I know, but it was the only one that could boost me up when I decided to climb the tree. It was also perfect for taking pictures on. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of the branch. :( I had work today, and when I got home, I just wanted to relax. So! You'll just have to settle for the pictures I take later of the branch in pieces. :D But, there is no way I'm going out there now, since it's pouring like crazy. And deathly humid. Also, we have, guess what! Yet another....tornado warning. YIPPEE! For another reason, I can say, I hate Illinois. But then again, it's better than earthquakes, forest fires, and hurricanes....I guess. Naw, no weather disaster is better than another.

*Checks weather status once again* Still the same. Oh, and my uncle just drove through a tornado. At least we know that the weather people weren't overreacting. :D

Tonight, dinner was very entertaining. Here are two of my favorite conversations that went on.

Mom: "If you don't eat that hot dog, you can't have a smoothie later."
Sarah turning to Dad: "Can you eat it?"

After me telling Dad that him eating canned fish everyday cannot, in any way, be healthy since it's all packed with salt to keep it "fresh".

Dad: ""I'm not going to McDonalds or Taco Bell anymore. I'm making better choices."
Jonah: "Like Burger King and Wendy's." :D

Well, going to go clean the bathroom!

♥Cait

PS: To all of you who have been able to enjoy sunshine most of your summer? You are very lucky. I am jealous.

The Stillness before the Storm

2010-06-21T21:07:00.000-05:00

Best Romantic Comedy #19

2010-06-21T17:01:00.000-05:00

Sooo, remember my post way back in April? Yes, that one. I FINALLY remembered the title of #19! :)

19) Return to Me

Speaking of movies, I think it's time I get off this computer and head down to the basement with Sarah. We're supposed to finish The Princess and the Frog :) Cute movie, isn't it?

Adios!

♥Cait

Blog Change and YouTube

2010-06-18T22:30:00.000-05:00

Hey!

Yeah, it's me again. For a brief while, at least.... :D
The Cutest Blog On the Block has changed their website, and I do have to say, it looks mighty fine! I LOVE this website. The blog backgrounds are awesome and so simple to use! If you have a blog, and would like to change the background and don't know how, I totally recommend them.

Okay. Marketing moment over, now. :) I created a YouTube account since Blogger has stopped allowing videos to be uploaded through a Blogger App (huh? Haha) So! I'm going to see if this works. A very intense storm is over us right now, and I was able to catch a few videos of it coming towards us before the rain started. It's really cool, since it's just thunder and lightning! :D If it doesn't work on here, I'll post a link to my YouTube page, and you can check it out there. -Please work, please work! :D-

Today, the weather seem to not be able decide what it wanted to do, so it did all it could in the warm weather. We had early morning drizzle, and then around 8:00 the sun came out full blast, along with humidity and 80 degrees. No clouds in the sky and barely a breeze. At 3:00PM, though, the storm came on full blast with 60 MPH winds, rain, and hail. The wind was so strong, that leaves were spinning in circles in the air, along with the rain, and two huge branches fell off our neighbor's tree and right in front of the chicken run! They worked great for "heerding" the chickens back into the coop when the second storm came. :D

After that storm -it lasted about 3 hours- the sun came out again! Except now it was so humid, that my bedroom windows fogged up - the AC doesn't circulate upstairs very well, so I need like five fans (even though I only have one) to stay cool. At around 9:00 PM, the second storm (the one I videoed), watered my garden again. :D Tomorrow, I am going to take a few pictures of my lovely flowers, and post them on here. I'm sooo pumped for this garden! ALL of my favorite flowers (or at least the ones that survive our weather) are growing! :) I hope it turns out good. I noticed I messed up on the spacing of the plants, so things might be a bit squished, or not growing properly :( But hey, we learn from our mistakes, right? :)

At this moment, Dad is trying to put the dishwasher back together.....:D It's been out for 2 months (!!! :( :( I never noticed how much I took it for granted), and he decided to try and fix it this very night. It's pretty entertaining, since Dad has a great sense of humor, and makes jokes about a lot of things. But then he gets frustrated- which is why he's trying to put it back together now. I hope it works! But if it doesn't, I've become very used to washing dishes by hand---------> more like using paper plates every time I eat something :D <------------------

Mom isn't having a great week this week :( She's not feeling so great. ---Prayers would be excellent right now! ---- So I made breakfast tonight. Haha. :) Breakfast has always been Mom and I's favorite dinner. :) You don't want dessert afterwards, since you basically had it for dinner! I made pancakes, Mexican eggs, and smoked bacon. It was amazing!!! I was so worried that the pancakes wouldn't taste good, because I ran out of flour, and the batter was very liquidy. But they were really really good! I actually like them thin! :D The Mexican eggs were spontaneous, since we had 2 dozen eggs (that I wanted to get rid of so very badly), a red pepper that was about to go bad, and onions that needed to be used. It turned out great! The only thing I needed to do was add Tabasco, but forgot. Dad just put some on his directly, but Mom and I took a pass. I prefer it too be cooked out a bit. Then it's not so hot. :D

Tomorrow are two of my best friends' graduation party! :) :) :) I'm so happy/proud of them!!! :) I'm probably going to write all about it on Sunday.

Father's Day is Sunday! Holy Shmokes! :O I can't believe how fast that came! Dad and I are celebrating next Sunday. I'm taking him to Walker Brother's Pancake House ---it's like his favorite breakfast place ever! :) It's going to be SUPER crowded on Sunday, so we're waiting the extra weekend. :)

At this moment, the video is still uploading onto YouTube (and I still have a few more! :(

Have a good night everyone!

♥Cait

Time and Time Again

2010-06-16T22:52:00.000-05:00

Things have been completely hectic and crazy around here. I've been working constantly (YAY!) and making plans for the next school year (combining junior and senior year together) so I can graduate in June 2011. (YAY!) After that, I'm going to get another job (thinking Border's cafe or Locker's Flowers). After that.....bup-ba-da-da! I get a car :D On September 28, 2011, I am going to get my license. on September 29, 2011, I am going to get a car. :D I'm saving the car FOR my birthday. My birthday present to me. :D

Anywho. On the most side, I've been working. My calander on my phone and my actual calander are completely filled up with work, grad parties, hanging out, and whatever more. I have only had.........3 days free. But...it's awesome. Since I'm always the one at home, doing nothing (since I have nothing to do), and wishing I had something to do. I haven't been able to write much lately since I'm busy - and being lazy and chatting with friends all day. But hey, I'm making this an okay thing, since I'm supposed to be on summer vacation. (YIPPEE!) Speaking of which, does anybody know where the time went? I think it's gone missing or something. There seems to be NO TIME left! It's hardly profitable to be already done with June already (Department of Redundancy Department). I can't believe July is only a few weeks from now! Ah well, not like I can stop it.

How is everyone doing?

Heading to bed now!

♥Cait :)

So...

2010-05-23T20:14:00.000-05:00

here we are. Almost a month since my last post. You all must forgive me, for I have been insanely busy, sick, and currently sunburned.

I was sick all last week with some strange virus that came out of nowhere. Officially down for 4 days straight. And fortunately for the rest of the family, lost my voice for two of those days. :D Woke up Wednesday morning, and was 98% better. :D YAY!

I was then contacted by a woman who homeschools asking me if I can babysit her 8 year old daughter for the summer. Then on Thursday a different woman emailed me and asked me if I could babysit her 2 boys -ages 5 and 8. I now have those two babysitting jobs and the library. My savings for a car is going back up! :)

On Friday I watch the 8 year old girl. And let me tell ya, she is so stinken adorable! And what a little character! :) We started off the evening by making a 3D lion (which we have yet to complete), she then got bored with that, so we went out and played catch for an hour. We went inside and she was very excited when she came up with the idea to paint nails. And very thrilled when I told her to have at it with mine. :D I'll tell ya, I had some crazy looking colors on my nails. But it was very cute. I then did her fingernails and toenails in stripes of all different colors. She really enjoyed that. :D The entire night though, she was saying things like, "You are such a genius!" "You're brilliant!" and best of all -before her parents left- "Mama, she...is....a....GENIUS!" :D It was so cute because she just put out her hand like a primaddona and did a "tsk" before she said it.

On Saturday, I worked from noon-5. That was a long day. A long, boring, incredibly slow day. From noon-1 I sat at the desk and stared out into space. Okay, not that long, but you can now tell how slow it was. And how I had nothing to do. From 2-2:30 I shelved. Which was very awesome since I came up with a book I am now writing. :) Mom is really enjoying it so far, so maybe there is a chance for this one!
From 3-4 I went back to the desk, but thankfully a rush of people came. :) That was nice, especially since a lot of them were really sweet. From 4-5 I shelved the rest of the books. At 5:00 exactly, the doors were locked. But about 8 people had yet to leave. That was annoying, since they were told 20 minutes beforehand that we were closing soon, and they should print what needed to be printed. I decided to just leave, since I was just standing there.

Today, I planted my entire garden! :) I'm so excited for when everything blooms and expands. :D I planted giant carnations, which I am most anxious for. I'm not sure if they will bloom like they should since we usually have a problem with slugs. :( But, we'll see. And learn what to do. I'm going to look up some ways to prevent slugs without harming the flowers. Unfortunately, my shoulders and neck are terribly sunburned. I was hoping it wasn't that bad, but I'm starting to feel the burn on my neck. At least it wasn't my face or arms.

Tomorrow is the last day of Me Too. :( I'm so sad! I'm going to miss the little ones! I'm going into work early to rummage through the basement and get some things to hand out. I'm hoping I find stuff that are baby friendly, since there were a lot of infants this time around. It starts up again in September, which I am really looking forward to. :)

School ends on Friday!!!!!! :D I'm soooo excited! This is my first summer vacation since we started homeschooling. And I'm very glad Mom persuaded me not to work through the summer this time. :) I'm just going to graduate when I should. Unless I do end up just finishing everything next year. I don't know....

That's about it for now! I can't think of much else to say. So I'm going to leave you with this pic. Enjoy!

The cake I made for Grandpa's surprise party. :)

Blessings!

♥Cait

Hilarious pictures

2010-04-28T16:49:00.000-05:00

This one is mine

Guess where this was taken.... :P

Things I Do...

2010-04-28T15:48:00.000-05:00

to humor myself when bored.

Disclaimer: This is a very psychotic post. But a funny one too, when you remember who wrote it.

Okay, so I'm sitting at the kitchen table right now immensely bored, so I decided to look up funny text messages, quotes, sayings, and stuff. And here is what I found.

•This cat, is cat, a cat, good cat, way cat, to cat, keep cat, a cat, idiot cat, busy cat, for cat, 20 cat, seconds cat! Now read it all without the word cat!

•I wanted to send u something nice that would make u smile but the postman told me to get out of the mailbox!

If Barbie is so popular....then why do you have to buy all her friends?

In case of fire read this message.....................................I SAID IN CASE OF FIRE!!!! (I just laughed at this one. I don't know why.)

And I just thought of this one:

You know how people say "You scared me half-to death" what happens if it happens twice in one day?

One of God's greatest blessings: Friends that last forever :)

2010-04-25T21:56:00.001-05:00

Today was a great day!!!! I love the last Sunday of every month! It's the only day I can count on seeing my two bestest friends! Well, naw, make that three, because their brother is pretty awesome too.

Anyway, it's my favorite day. Their family, our family, and another family we've all known since birth (our births. Not the adults :D) all get togther for Dinunch (my version of lunch and dinner, instead of breakfast and lunch) and a Bible study!

In the beginning of our fellowship, the guys went mushroom hunting. Yes. Mushroom hunting. Through the rain and mud and chilly air. Us girls stayed inside, and suffered from the wonderful smell of the dinner Mom made. :/ That was torture. The guys said they would only be gone a mere half-hour. They were gone for 1 hour. Next time, I'm having a bigger breakfast. We FINALLY ate at around 2:45. And then, Mrs. S brought out one INCREDIBLE dessert. I'm just gonna call it Death By Chocolate, since it was ALL chocolate and nearly killed me by its yummy goodness.

Seriously, itt was yummmyyyy! I wish I had a picture of it to post on here.

Us kids then went outside and hung out. More like I "annoyed" everyone by taking pictures. Unfortunately, I had to delete a lot of them because they were blurry. But, I snapped some favorites to hang on my wall. :)

We then ended the day with a Bible study focusing on 1st John 1. And a little through the beginning of 1st John 2.

It was a super great day! I'm in such a good mood, I know I'm going to bed with a smile on my face.

What did you do today?

♥Cait

Best Romantic Comedies/Chick Flicks

2010-04-24T15:44:00.000-05:00

Am I on a roll or what? :D

Okay, so here is a list of the best romantic comedies and chick flicks. :D Thought I might as well do another movie list of something I like.

Leap Year
Everything You Want
Love Comes Softly series
Straight From the Heart
Win a Date With Tad Hamilton
Sweet Home Alabama
Fireproof
Two Weeks Notice
The Lake House
No Reservations
When In Rome
The Inheritance
Pride and Prejudice
While You Were Sleeping
27 Dresses
13 Going on 30
Did You Hear About the Morgans
Just Like Heaven

There is one more, but I just can't think of the name. :( It'll come to me.

♥Cait

WARNING! A LOOK INSIDE MY LIFE! READ WITH CAUTION

2010-04-24T15:02:00.003-05:00

So Dad and Jonah have a list of movies and TV shows that basically describe their relationship and exactly who they are. Seriously. This list will tell you EVERYTHING. :D

D and J Movies

Surf's Up
Elf
Myth Busters
The Office
Saturday Night Live
Dirty Jobs
Nacho Libre
Shrek

Okay, so you're probably wondering where I'm going with this one too. Yes, today, I am writing very strange posts. You can blame it on the 2 cups of coffee. :D

Surf's Up is basically how they work together. You know the scene where they're making the surf board? Yeah. That's Dad and Jonah :D Very funny. Elf...Jonah is Buddy to a T. :D I'm going to get a video recording of that sooner or later. :D All the others, they just quote them so much, it's hilarious. :D

The guys in my life are complete wackos. :D But, enjoyable wackos. :D

Take a peak. :D

Jonah Anderson:

Buddy: I'm a cotton-headed ninny-muggins.

What Jonah (speaking to Dad) turned that quote into:

Jimmy, you're a cotton-headed ninny-muggin named Jimmy.

Dad's name is Joe.

Buddy: [Whispering to fake Santa] You stink. You smell like beef and cheese! You don't smell like Santa.

Jonah (climbing into Dad's lap): You stink. You smell like beef and cheese! You don't smell like Jimmy! Jimmy smells like dirt and flowers! (Pets dad's head)

Okay, so the second one is pretty stupid. But you have to see a 14 year old doing this. :D That's what makes it hilarious. :D And Dad's reactions......

Dad:

"Hey. Leggo my blouse." In response to #2 of Jonah.

Okay, here is a funny conversation.

Jonah to me: "I can pick you up. Let me lift you." Picks me up.
Dad: "What about me?"
Jonah in Nacho's voice from Nacho Libre: "I don't think I can lift you. You're too fat."

Considering that was from Nacho Libre, Dad cracked up so hard, his back went out. :D Seriously.

Welcome to my world. :D
♥Cait

How Many Days..

2010-04-24T13:08:00.001-05:00

does it take to decide what your favorite color is?

In truth...it has taken me 16 (almost 17) years to figure it out.

And I still don't even know.

Yeah, now you're really wondering what the heck I'm talking about. But, hey, give me a break. I am completely brain dead on what to post about, so just roll with me, okay?

I have three choices right now.

Turquoise
Lime Green
Bright yellow

Hard selection.....

So, which do YOU like best?

And should I:

Make up flash cards?

Eeny-Meenie-Minee-Mo?

or

Get a life?

But hey, at least I narrowed it down to 3 colors. Last year I had a selection of 58....no lie. I bought a 64 pack of crayons and sat there trying to find which I liked the best.

I'm gonna go with the "get a life" choice. :D

♥Cait

NIght Out

2010-04-15T23:54:00.001-05:00

Pepper In a Toilet

2010-04-15T21:47:00.002-05:00

Check THIS out! :D

Driving Around :)

2010-04-15T19:26:00.000-05:00

What Happens When...

2010-04-15T13:33:00.001-05:00

....a Starbucks addict finally takes the hint that it is impossible for her to have a Starbucks without getting sick?

Deep Depression.

Yes. That's right. I'm am seriously thinking about cutting Starbucks out of my diet. At least the coffee. They have some pretty good ice tea and lemonade.....anyway. Yeah. It seems that I am unable to have the best thing in the world without my stomach acting up. Mom dropped me off at Starbucks, I got my frapp, and no sooner did I walk out the door and head to Kohls did I start to feel sick. Now I am at home, depressed and mournful over my thoughts. Oh, my dear friends, this is a day in history that should be marked on the calander.......I think I might just do that.....

On the side note. Is there something wrong with me if I find it strange that a volcano has erupted in Iceland? I mean...a volcano is really hot and Iceland has the word ICE in it.....shouldn't that mean it's cold there? (even though I know Iceland is greener than Greenland....which is icier than Iceland....) As my dad just told me, "It's sort of like the inverse of 'hell freezing over'." :D

You know....with all the earthquakes and now this volcano eruption....do you think the end of the world is going to happen before 2012?

Actually, my mom and I were just talking about that movie and The Day After Tomorrow (I watched it a few nights ago). They aren't accurate at all. Both times the earth is destroyed by water. You know those rainbows? The symbol of God's promise to NEVER destroy the earth by water again? Yeah. Apparently these movie directors don't remember that. If the human race must believe that the world is going to end in such a drastic measure like that (although, they're forgetting that The Rapture is going to happen before any destruction of the earth), then they should stick with what The Knowing portrayed. The world was destroyed by fire.

Oh, and since I've mentioned these three highly special effected movies. The Knowing was the best. Just sayin, people.

And this IS what happens when someone is on a caffiene high. One minute she's talking about Starbucks and deep depression. The next....The End of the World. :D

But then again....my world IS ending as I know it.

♥Cait

The Save Nate Campaign

2010-04-14T15:27:00.001-05:00

http://thenatecampaign.wordpress.com/

If you don't know Hayden-which you probably do since most of the people who comment on my blog know him the way I do- Nate is his younger brother. He is unfortunately suffering from a bad case of the flu right now. So, in a fun, totally random way, Hayden has set up this awesome blog to "Save Nate" from the flu.

Spread the word! :)

♥Cait

Some Hard Things on My Mind

2010-04-12T21:13:00.000-05:00

Today at work was a very interesting day. But the most intersting was the three flyers and a picture cube on the circulation desk. I actually didn't notice any of it until after I clocked in and went by everyone to see what they were talking about. Elyssa was holding the picture cube and talking very quietly, it was then when I noticed the pictures and the little Memorial Note scattered around it.

Remember the guy I talked about back in March? My coworker? It was all for him.

I picked up one of the flyers and saw that it was a "walkathon" notice to stop bullying. His mom is putting together a "walkathon" here in Johnsburg, to, obviously, walk to stop bullying. I think it's pretty cool....I mean, why not? I know it won't stop bullying. Bullying is apart of the sin in this world, but it could bring more awareness to familys to pay more attention to their kids and homeschool them. Johnsburg is a pretty crappy town. Yes, crappy. The teachers really could care less. I've had experience in this first hand.

The second flyer was memorial note that his family had written. Unfortunately, on the bottom of the page, was his suicide note. I highly disagree with putting what he wrote on that paper. It's nobody's business but theirs. I think that that is something that should be kept silent.

Anyway, he's been on my mind all day long and I just had to write about it to get my thoughts together. I can't imagine what his family is going through.

Sorry for the depressing post.

♥Cait

Beginning.....

2010-04-11T12:24:00.000-05:00

to rethink my name. Could I have chosen a creepier looking bug?

It's pink. The current-color-of-my-toenails-pink.

A brief, informative piece on Katydids

"Katydid, any of several species of long-horned grasshoppers that are found in the western hemisphere. The name katydid is meant to represent the characteristic sound made by the male when it rubs its wings together to attract females. Katydids are tree-living insects that are most commonly heard at night during summer and early fall. They are generally about 6.5 cm (about 2.2 in) long and green in color, with long antennae (the "horns"). Their broad wings mimic leaves in appearance and serve as camouflage. The best-known species is found throughout the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. Other species, found in the eastern United States, have long, narrow wings and more slender bodies. Southern and western katydids resemble these species."

And a piece of randomness that I am so happy to share! :)

As of this morning, Mom is completely 100% BETTER! :) :) :) Thank You, Lord!

♥Cait

There Is a God

2010-04-10T22:46:00.001-05:00

I heard this song on the way home from getting ice cream with the family. I love it! It's the first real song I want to learn to play on the guitar. (If you don't read the lyrics, be sure to scroll down more. There is more to the post :) )

There Is a God

By: Lee Ann Womack

Try and put your arms around

the 100 year old tree
Climb up on a horse
and let it run full speed
Take a look down at the world from 30,000 feet
on your next flight

Watch a flock of birds

against the morning sun
Close your eyes and listen
to the river run
Catch a firefly in your hand
or a raindrop on your tongue
That's right

Chorus:
There is a God

There is a God

There is a God
How much proof do you need?

Plant a seed and see
what comes out of the ground
Find the heartbeat on your baby's ultrasound

In a few years hear it laughing,
and don't it sound like a song?

Stop and think about
what you don't understand

Things like life and love

and how the world began

Hear the doctor say he can't explain it,
but the cancer is gone

Chorus:
There is a God
There is a God
There is a God
How much proof do you need?

Bridge:
Science says it's all just circumstance
Like this whole worlds just an accident
But if you want to shoot that theory down,

Look around

Just look around

There is a God
There is a God
There is a God,
How much proof do you need?

Oh there is a God
There is a God
There is a God
How much proof do you need?

How many times have you just looked outside, saw a beautiful sunset or scenery and went, "Wow. How could there NOT be a God? What kind of atomic explosion could create something like that?" Okay, maybe not exactly that thought -even though that's usually what I think- but do you guys get my meaning? God's "fingerprints" are all over the place and nobody really pays attention. And come on, who here is slightly insulted by the supposed "fact" that we have evolved from monkey's??

I'm sooo excited! Dad is setting up the lamps and such to grow our seeds! Even though we're 4 months late....but, the flowers that I'm going to grow, should germinated, at the lastest, 10 -20 days. Not too bad. If that doesn't pan out right, I'm just going to head to Dad's work, and buy the flowers already blooming. On top of all that, I'm hoping to set up a berry patch. The idea of making homemade jams and pies and chocolate covered berries just makes me giddy! If you haven't had chocolate covered blueberries, I totally recommend them! Just make sure that the blueberries are real. I accidentally bought a container that was artificial flavoring. And boy was that nasty.

What is your favorite berry, flower, and/or pie?

♥Cait :)

Haircut :)

2010-04-07T19:50:00.000-05:00

♥Cait

Cakes and Such

2010-04-03T14:22:00.000-05:00

So I have exactly 27 days to master three cakes.

Now most people would say, "That's great!"

But see, I'm a perfectinoist when it comes to baking. Such a perfectionist, that I sometimes end up ruining my
cakes because I'm trying so hard to make them perfect. The three cakes, as I may have mentioned before in a seperate post....I'm not sure though, are for my granpa's suprise 75th birthday party. And then I've been asked to make 2 smaller ones for two of my uncles. Here is one of my selections for the large cake....I'm still deciding....

Except, instead of white ganache, I'm going to do homemade chocolate frosting and drizzle some homemade raspberry sauce insteade of chocolate syrup - or should I stick with the chocolate syrup? And the middle strawberry would be chocolate coverded. :D

The other cake is in a recipe book I have. It's really pretty. I don't have my camera with me at the moment, but I'll snap a picture soon.

For the smaller cakes, I'm thinking the first one is going to be a toffee, caramel, chocolate cake and the second one will be a lemon raspberry cheesecake. :) I'm so excited to start making these. I start whipping them together this Tuesday. :D

Drizzle some chocolate syrup on it or raspberry sauce...mmmmm. :) Not exactly like this one, but similar. I need to find really sweet raspberries.....

Have a Happy Easter everyone!

(currently looking for a verse to post for tomorrow. So I don't have anything to follow this post with. :(

Maybe later )

♥Cait

Attempting...

2010-03-30T22:08:00.001-05:00

curls....not sure how I like them though. My family (like everybody) prefers straight hair on me. lol. Straight hair IS faster :D

Hope everyone is having a good week!

♥Cait

A Recipe For..

2010-03-25T11:10:00.000-05:00

The most amazing burgers I have ever made. :)

At the end of this post, you will find a recipe for the burgers I made on Tuesday. But first, I have a little to write about.

A week ago Friday my mom had a canker sore on her lip. Yes a canker sore, not a cold sore. On Saturday, it was bothering her so much, she decided to put some theives on it, at 3am that night (or Sunday morning), she woke up with a 101.4 fever. We thought it was just the flu, so she took Motron, and went back to bed. Come Monday this week, all her joints were swollen, she was in pain all over, and could barely move. Her left leg lost it's strength. To get out of bed, she had to lift that leg with her hands to be able to stand up. As the days are going by, she seems to be in more pain then before. So we all finally persuaded her to go to the doctor on Tuesday. Dr. S took some blood and the results should come back today. (We're anxiously waiting to hear what's wrong with her.)

Here is my list of possiblities:

Strep throat
Virus
Bacterial infection
Fifths Disease

At the moment, I'm really pointing at Fifths Disease. When I looked it up, the symptoms matched Mom's, except for the rash. Unfortunately there is not atiboitic for FD, and the joint pain and swelling could last up to a few months. :(

I've taken over most of the housework for her and have been taking care of Sarah as best I can. But of course, the little darling always wants Mom. *sigh*

So on Monday, I made spaghetti, Tuesday I made cheeseburgers :), Monday was mac-n-cheese since Jonah and Dad went to Bible Study, and tonight is chicken tacos. I'm pretty happy with the way these meals are turning out. My dad has gone nuts over the two that I've made, and he's a hard man to please. :)

Cait's Awesome Cheeseburgers (makes 11-12 patties)
2lbs ground beef
1-2 package(s) of burger buns (depending on amount of people)
1 package of Lipton onion mix'
Pepper -to taste
Salt -to taste
1-2 eggs
Parsley-to taste
A1 steak sauce-to taste
BBQ sauce (I used Jack Daniel's Original) -to taste
2 slices of your/everybody's favorite cheese

In a bowl, add all ingredients (except for buns and cheese). Using your hands, knead together in the bowl as though it was bread dough. When you feel everything is mixed together, make medium size patties with your hands. The patties shrink, so make sure they're not too small, but small enough to fit on the buns. Once the grill is lit and the charcoal is ready, place patties on it and baste one side with BBQ sauce. After the first side is cooked and you flip them, baste the cooked side with BBQ sauce. Flip them two more times and add BBQ sauce each time.
To grill the onions, chop 1-2 onions and put them on foil. Add 3-5 tbs butter and A1 sauce to taste. Wrap foil around the onions so no butter or sauce can get out. Place foil on the grill as the cheese melts on the burger patties and buns are toasting. Add your favorite condiments, and ENJOY!!

♥Cait

Best Siblings Ever

2010-03-19T15:21:00.000-05:00

So just a few hours ago I wrote about Jonah and I going outside to take pictures. Here are the results of our "adventure". :D In my humble opinion....these are really great! :D

I know it's blurry, but I think the one above is really neat. :) (she DOES have a shirt on. The sepia just took it away. lol)

:):)

This took about ten tries in the past two days :D

♥Cait

Pictures

2010-03-19T13:50:00.001-05:00

I'm really coming to enjoy photography! I never realized how much fun it was until I bought this camera. :D Here's some pics from yesterday. :)

A beautiful sunset outside my bedroom window. :)

The sunset was even better about two hours later. :D Just the beginning. I LOVE summer sunsets!

Sarah. Super excited to go get baby chicks! We bought 2 more to add to our flock of 4. :) We will definitely have 2 1/2 dozen eggs a week now. :D

Now I must go, because Jonah agreed to take some pictures of me for Facebook and Buzz profile pics. :)

♥Cait

It's A Keeper!

2010-03-17T20:14:00.001-05:00

So today I tried a hand at making apple pie! :D Yes, for someone who is a baker addict, and has never made a pie.....very odd. But, hey. My mom is The Ultimate Pie Maker, so I always just left the deed to her. But Mom is not very well right now - has some bug that keeps her up at night with a fever and her bones aching all day. Well, it being St. Patrick's Day, she was going to make an apple pie in place of Green River Floats, which are absolutely nasty. So she was standing at the counter staring at the apples, obviously pondering something. Then she turns to me and goes, "I can't peel these. Even with our peeler thing. I can't do it. We're just going to have to wait until I'm better to have pie."

As you can tell, I made the pie.

And I'm very pleased to say....it was a hit!!!! :)
I think I could have cooked it a bit longer, the bottom crust was a bit undercooked, but everybody told me it was incredible. So, I guess I'm The Second Ultimate Pie Maker. Ha! :D
I'm going to try mixed berry pie next. And then strawberry-ruhbarb after that. (Yuck, but it's my Gram's favorite, so I'm going to make it when she's over.) I think I'm going to make mixed berry jam on Friday, though. Homemade jam is so much fun to make and it tastes amazing. So we'll see. :D

It' scary how serious I am about this whole baking thing. I'm actually dreaming up desserts now! Last night I had a dream about a berry pound cake. I'm going to see if I can make it. :D

Have a good night!
♥Cait

Oh, and by the way, Happy St. Patrick's Day! :)

60 Degrees and Beautiful!

2010-03-16T15:47:00.000-05:00

Today is beautiful. Sunny and 60 degrees. I almost wore my flip-flops today, but I couldn't find any. And then realized that I tossed them all because they were all falling apart. So I have a shopping trip in the near future. Which is fine, since I need summer clothes too. :D Anyway, the picture above is my new favorite carnation. Orange with pink "trim". I never knew this kind existed. I found them at Jewel for $.79, and almost didn't get them. I had found a perfect bouquet of multi-color pink and white (which I bought along with the orange and pink.) A perfect bouquet to decorate my white room. :)

Speaking of white rooms. I'm thinking of painting the wall above my closet turquoise. This room could really use some color! Sure we've added polka-dots to Sarah's side, but it still looks a little too bland in here. As Mom would say, "It looks like a hospital room with bright comforters." :D

Who has plans for the summer?

♥Cait

A Trampoline and Bike Ride Adventure

2010-03-14T15:54:00.001-05:00

Sunny Sunday

2010-03-14T13:43:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, I took the jump and bought myself my own camera. And I have to say, that was one of the best jumps I have ever taken. I bought a Nikon (which I'm told is a really good camera). And for the reasons I'm using this camera (see the Sweetie above), It was a GREAT buy. Totally recommend it. The clarity of the pictures is incredible. :) You wouldn't think that its cold today from the way the sun is shining on her...haha. :) Springs a-commin!

♥Cait

Pictures of Love

2010-03-12T00:20:00.002-06:00

I've been reading plenty of adoption blogs for....5 years now. And have never once noted our ____ Year Gotcha Day! So, here we go. January 6, 2010 was our 2 Year Gotcha Anniversary for Sarah Grace Anderson! So in honor of Sarah being home for 2 years now, I'm going to post a picture gallery of the greatest blessing in my life. From beginning to current, here is the cutest 3 year old ever (almost 4). :D

GOTCHA DAY

Home for 3 months+!

The sweetest thing on earth is this little girl. Thank you Lord for such a wonderful blessing! It amazes me how fast she's growing up! Look how tiny she was on Gotcha Day! And now look at her. Almost 4, and a spunky as ever. :)

DISCLAIMER: these pictures aren't exactly in order from when they were taken. But the ones with the cleft are from the time range between January 6, 2008-August 1, 2008. The ones without are between September 2009-December 2009.

The White Dog and the Black Dog.

2010-03-10T23:27:00.003-06:00

Who is winning the battle?

The White Dog (Spirit) or the Black Dog (flesh)?

"For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another,so that you do not do things that you wish." Galatians 5:17

♥Cait

Disaster Status

2010-03-08T22:05:00.000-06:00

So for the past week (last week) Johnsburg has had nothing but disasters. Now nothing like Haiti or Chilie, but it's hasn't been a nice beginning of March for Jburg. So far there have been three fires and a heart-wretching death.

The first fire was the state park. They were doing the "controlled burning" but lost control of the fire. It burned for 6 hours before they finally got it under control. Our deck was covered in ash. You'd think it had snowed if it weren't for the cloudless blue sky and 40 degree weather.

The second was 32.6 acres of hay that had caught fire. All of it burned in less than 3 hours, so I've heard.

The third, I don't have any idea what happened. At the moment. All I know is that this morning while I was at work (the library is right across from the fire station), the whole station emptied out. Firetrucks, ambulances, and then I heard the squad cars leave their station.

On Thursday, March 4th, one of our employees committed suicide. He was 18 and one of the sweetest guys you would ever meet. He was known for the Cubs hat that he never took off. He always had a smile, even when he trudged through a foot of snow after school on the way to work. He was funny, and I never had a day without laughing when he was around.

"2 Better to go to the house of mourning. Than to go to the house of feasting, for that is the end of all men; And the living will take it to heart. 3 Sorrow is better than laughter, For by a sad countenance the heart is made better. 4 The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, But the heart of fools is in the house of mirth." Ecclesiastes 7:2-4

Titles

2010-03-02T22:17:00.000-06:00

I'm thinking of changing my title. Here are my current ideas.

1) (original) The Rambling Musings of a Human Katydid

2) Caitie-Did Ramblings

3) Chocolate Excuses

4) Rambling For HIM

I have a feeling which one is going to be voted for. But hey, comment your vote please :)

♥Cait

Newness

2010-03-02T21:52:00.000-06:00

Again I changed my blog template! :D I love these!

Christ's Love

2010-03-02T08:08:00.000-06:00

How can you show Christ's love to complete strangers if you can barely show it to the people in your life He has blessed you with?

Just a thought that has been running through my head for a while now....

♥Cait

Pringles are Evil

2010-02-24T23:44:00.001-06:00

Super evil. They're foolers, I'll give you that. They are exactly what a girl needs when she's craving something salty and crunchy. Especially at 10:00 PM at a gas station. So, of course, I pay for a big container of sour cream and onion and munch the rest of the way home. And then further into the night. I took about a half hour break, and then begin eating again. And now, I'm seriously paying the price of eating salty, unhealthy, probably one of the worst junk foods possible. I swear I'm gonna die.

This teen Bible study I've been going to for about 3 years now was tonight. Currently we're studying Galatians and we just started chapter 5. Galatians 5:1 basically sums up 1-4! We are saved by grace and not by law. (We're studying the difference between law and grace.)

"Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage." Galatians 5:1

Go back to the end of chapter 4 and Paul talks about not being bound like a bondwoman but being free.

28 Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise. 29 But, as he who was born according to the flesh then persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, even so it is now. 30 Nevertheless what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.” 31 So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman but of the free.

My absolute favorite verse from tonight is Galatians 5:13. For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. Talk about words to live by. :D

On the way to study, there was this guy behind us that was driving like a fool! He was tailgating Dad and just driving insainly. Dad had a feeling that the guy was going to want to get out and fight. It was funny though, because the car was dead silent and all of a sudden Dad goes, "If I have to get out of the car and fight this guy, make sure you lock the doors behind me." The silence continued. :D

And now I'm going to go take a shower, and then crawl into my cozy bed, and go to sleep. Cause I'm tired.

But before I go. Is it possible to have a stomach transplant?

♥Cait

When life throws you lemons....

2010-02-24T16:29:00.000-06:00

make sure you have enough sugar to make lemonade. 'Cause who likes sour lemonade?

Now I have no idea why I just wrote that, but I just can't seem to think of anything to start my blog posts with. So, that was my random tip of the day.

Anyway! I have totally awesome news! Any of you who have talked to me frequently will know why this is just such a happy moment for me. I have been working like crazy for the past 3 weeks! I hate saying this, but I'm going to anyway, I love it when the other employees get sick. But it's even better when they go on vacation. (Cause then we're all happy.)

And on top of that, in the next two weeks I am going to be past my $1500 mark for my car! YAY! I'm so excited! Buying the car is being pushed back to September this year. I really want it by the time I'm 17, but hey, God's timing, right? I'm still bouncing back and forth on getting my lisence. If I do get it, it's going to be in May or June....but I'm just thinking of getting it with the car. Seems simpler that way. I don't really have any idea on the kind of car I want. At the moment, any car that will get me from A to B and back to A will do. :D

Earlier this afternoon I spent 2 hours on the phone with the bank. Why? Because my banking online wasn't working. Why? Because they had to go and change the website. Why? Because I guess appearance is better than how the thing works. Apparently they've been having many problems with it...why do companies feel the need to upgrade so frequently? Would it kill them to just leave things alone for a while? *sigh*

See? Not much to write about.

Have a good night everyone!
♥Caitie

Happy Vday!

2010-02-14T17:15:00.001-06:00

Soooo.....

It's Valentine's Day.

And that's it. Just Valentine's Day.

Which I have really decided is a stupid holiday! What? You can only show your significant other how much you love him/her once a year? No, I think the spontanity of, say, getting flowers is a lot better than getting them on a national holiday. Unless of course, you are like me and find that a sale on carnations on Valentine's Day is awesome. Which I did! We were in Home Depot (I hate that store.) and I saw that a bouquet of carnations was $9 and went all happy and giddy and super excited. They were perfect carnations. Beautiful! Different colors! The white ones with the pink tips are so pretty! And they're not dyed either. I attempted to grow some last summer and so many of those came up. This year, I'm just have to plant them in more sunlight. So, I whip out my wallet fully expecting $10 to be in there, and what do I find? Only $2.. :( I was very depressed. I would have had them if I had put my $7 in my wallet on Friday. So now I'm on the hunt for what I did with that. Maybe all the carnations will be on sale tomorrow....day after Valentine's Day and all...

If you haven't noticed, I absolutely love carnations. They are my favorite flowers! Along with white and yellow daisies. Roses are great and all, but carnations are just so...different. It's a shame they smell so terrible after they're dead. It's so gagging. Haha.

So Feb. 18 is my best friends birthday. And I'm stumped on what to get her. She's turning 15 and I was thinking a T-shirt....but....not sure. Any ideas?

Our basement is slowly coming together. Very slowly. It's still pretty messy down there - thus the reason no pics have been posted. BUT it's realllly cozy. We've been down there every night since it was set up. :D The couch is awesome! Since I'm so tiny, I can stretch out and barely take up any room! If I'm in the corner, my feet barely reach half the couch. :D It's awesome. And quite funny.

I made my first attempt at buckwheat pancakes this morning! And only one word fits the description to my favorite pancake.

ACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The recipe I used was not right at all! They were terrible! They tasted like dirt fermented in yeast! Awful! Terrible! I downed six glasses of water, brushed my teeth five times, used mouthwash, chewed some gum, and the flavor STILL wouldn't leave. I can't even call it flavor! The.....nastiness! I'm going to try some other recipes and see what happens. If nothing works, I'm going to stick with Walker Brothers. They have some pretty good ones.

So I finally got a phone! And have seriously been taking advantage of the unlimited texting. :D I apologize to those of you whom I have been texting non-stop. :)

I've had this idea brewing in my head for the past week and just a few days ago told my parents about it. Most of you know that I'm very much looking to open a bakery in the future. Well now my idea has turned to a chocolate shop. Since I'm obsessed with chocolate and all. :D Both of these seem like really great possiblities to me. I'm really excited!

Mom, Jonah, and I watched this really cute movie Wednesday night! It's called, Everything You Want and was reallly good! I totally recommened it to anybody who likes chick flicks. And this one is a true romantic comedy. Notice the emphasis on comedy. :D

I had my first Starbucks today in 2 months. :) It was wonderful. And now I'm off for another 2 months. I started getting tired of the consistency, so I haven't been having too much coffee. I'm very pleased with myself. :D

Well! I'm going to go now. Have some cleaning to do in my bedroom. :D

Happy Valentine's Day! (just seems to fit the ending of this post. :D)

♥Cait

IT IS HERE!

2010-02-07T17:38:00.000-06:00

It's here! Yay! It's here! The Big Comfy Couch has claimed its corner in our basement. And it looks lovely. ;) It's just as comfy as the model at IKEA and matches the basement perfectly. Once the place is cleaned up and organized, I'll post some pics, but right now it still looks horrendous down there.

The most amazing thing happend to me today!!! I scored a 96% on my geometry test! I have never scored a 96% on a geometry test! I'm sooooooo happy! And completely in shock. I told Mom that I don't think it can ever happen again since then I might actually start to enjoy the class. Here's how I am, if I can pass the tests with a great score (meaning 90%+), I like the class. I will actually try harder in the class. But when I start getting like 83% -, I just start to give up. A fault I hope to one day overcome. Because I will get nowhere in life if I continue down that path. My GPA has gone up to a solid B! Which means when I get my license my insurance is going to be lower! YAY!

I have a funny video of Pepper, but I can't figure out how to post it in this post. Anybody know how to post videos? I can't find the link anymore. :(

I must finish folding my bathroom towles now.

Later!
♥Cait

Pre-Valentine's Day

2010-02-04T23:01:00.001-06:00

Did you notice how all the stores decided that Valentines Day was really December 26th? It started off with a little bit of pink. And then they added some white on top of the pink. Soon the ceilings had pink and white hearts hanging from them. Then solid red hearts hang from the pink and white ones. I looked into this one store-front a little while ago, and the whole ceiling was covered with hearts and streamers, the windows had those little window sticky things that are different pictures like hearts, cute puppies holding hearts, a puppy and a kitten touching noses, etc. Now, don't get me wrong, I think Valentine's Day is a cute holiday. But then I just realized that February 15th is acutally soooo much better than February 14th! Know why?

You can guess that since I now always have at least 3 dollars in my wallet, I'm going chocolate shopping this year. Sure, I'm probably not going to get a dozen red roses (even though I prefer carnations over any flower) or a heart shaped box from "someone special" - which isn't such a bad thing since I'm only 16..... But I get chocolate for half price! Which means a bag of Reeces at the dollar store is probably going to be like, $.75. Maybe... :D I'm sooo pumped for HPC Day! :)

Onto more exciting news!

I bought a lamp! :) Yay! I know! It's so exciting. For $21 I scored a great deal at Target. Check this out. The lighting in my room is so great now. I love how it has three different settings. The first click only two of the lights work, second click the top three work, third click all five work! It breaks up the white walls of my room -I went a bit hospital room like with this bedroom. But it's fun adding all the color with accessories. I can at least change it all whenever I want now. No primer needed! :)

Up next for decorating: These or these. I'm still trying to decide which ones. I like the first one because the blue is just so bright and happy. But the other ones have better coverage on the windows...

I could have sworn there was something else I wanted to write about......I can't remember now....darn. Oh well, it will come to me.

So far, The Big Comfy Couch has yet to show it's cushy cushions around this house. Dad and Jonah are painting the wall in the basement at this very moment. :) Dad was very excited because he got a deal on this paint. It's basically the same blue the other walls are. Just a tad darker. He's so excited because it's the primer/color all in one. One less task he has to do! Go Dad! Not to mention it's silk? paint. I guess that's good? Anyway, he bought it for only $5 because someone just returned it claiming it was the wrong color. :D

Sarah and I made cupcakes Monday night. Chocolate of course. :D I creamed them on Tuesday. The turned out pretty good if I do say so myself! I'll post a picture later. There is no camera in sight from where I'm at, and I don't want to go searching for one. Lazy, I know.

I am in need of another haircut. Not desperate need like my last one, but I could use another one. I'm Italian, so you can guess that I have thick, dark hair, that grows quickly. The length is no problem for me. I'm so happy my hair is finally past my collarbone! It has taken over a year from July 2008 - Feb. 2010, for my hair to grow back. I was in the mood for a change, so I decided to chop it all off (I had hair that was down to my lower-mid back) way up to my jaw. I hated it the second I looked in the mirror. No more changes for me. Unless of course I keep the length, and just style it differently. I was thinking bangs, but then I manuvered my hair to look like bangs.....so glad I didn't go through with that. :D

I spent all day cramming my brain with a information that I might never need again, so I am off to bed. Very tired, and I have another long day of cramming to do. Sounds super-de-dooper, doesn't it?

Goodnight! :)
♥Cait

Cute!

2010-01-31T19:14:00.000-06:00

When in Rome was super cute! I am so going to add it to my shelf, along with Leap Year. Basically, if you've seen the trailer, you've seen the movie. But, I really recommened it because there are some things in between that the trailer doesn't show. Both hero and heroine had great "chemistry" and their characters were well played. Oh, and Nick's best friend is hilarious.

Not much has happened since Friday night. Dad is pretty much finished with the wall we're putting into the basement. All he has to do is tape, mud, sand, and paint it. The couch should be here by the end of this week maybe the beginning of next week.

I still only have one lamp and I'm not sure when I'm going to get another one.

Last night I attempted to naturally highlight my hair. Please take note: Don't Try Cinnamon. The only benefit from using it is that my hair smells incredible. Last night I fell asleep feeling like I was wrapped in a Cinnabon. But, my neck- and everywhere else that the cinnamon had landed on- was burning like crazy. That only lasted a little while, though. Oh, and no, no highlights resulted from this experience. Unfortunately. But I still smell like a Cinnabon!

So, while you're waiting for another wonderful, insightful post from me. Feast your eyes on this wonderful thing.

YUM!

♥Cait

When In Theaters!

2010-01-28T16:18:00.000-06:00

I'm suuuuuuper excited for this weekend and tonight and tomorrow! Even though what I'm truly excited for won't actually be happening until this weekend. Even though it is released tomorrow! ANYWAY! Drum-roll pleeaaaaaase!

bum-da-bum-da-baaaaaaaaaaa!

When In Rome is released tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, all this commotion for a movie. But it looks so good and cute and funny!

Plugged In posts their review tonight, so you can be sure that I'm going to stay up until it is posted. My trusted review sight never fails to clearly tell me if I want/can see a movie or not. I'm pretty certain I can see this one, though!

I've been waiting for this movie to come out since November. I've watched the trailer about 3 billion times. I've watched so many interviews with the cast. You could almost say I'm like an obessed Twilight fan. Except I hate Twilight and I'm not obsessed....so that was actually pointless to say.

Anyway! I haven't been this excited for a movie since I was 10 and Princess Diaries 2 came out. Haha.

What movies have you seen recently that you loved?

What movies are you looking forward to seeing?

♥Cait

IKEA. Oh Mamma-Mia!

2010-01-26T22:53:00.001-06:00

Remember when I said Walmart was a whole other world? Shyeah, well, go to IKEA and you'll REALLY know what a whole other world looks like. 3 floors of nothing but furniture. Now, you can either say it's awesome. Or you can say it's insanly exhausting. I prefer to say it's both. Buuuut, that's just me. The awesome part is, of course, the all glass elevators. Are those things cool or what?! The escalators are fun too! If I wasn't so, tired, hungry, and intent on trying to find a couch, chair, and lamp, I would have played on them. Nonetheless, I had things I needed to do. Woe-is-me.

Speaking of couches and chairs. We bought this awesome sectional couch with a matching chair! Us girls and Jonah agreed that a good couch is like a big hug. You have to sink into it for it to be comfortable. Dad needs a hard couch because of his back. So we bought him a wooden chair with some cushions. ;) He picked it our, mind you. It's actually really comfortable. The cushions are squishy and the chair bounces...I'm posting pictures of the basement after it's completely finished. The chair matches the couch.

I never found a lamp. Pepper broke the one on my dresser this morning. Knocked it right off. Amazing that the lightbulb didn't shatter. But the lampshade snapped right off. (three metal prongs held it to the stand.) I found an awesome ceiling light though! Check it out!

Cool, huh? The only problem is, the flowers are paper. Can you say "fire hazard"? Sure it's connected by metal sticks, but I would just get too worried about it falling. So I passed it up and decided Target was my favorite place for light.

By the time we left, we were all cranky, tired, and hungry. Not to mention slightly disappointed that we have to wait 2 weeks for THE BIG COMFY COUCH - isn't that a NickJR show? After we had Culvers, though, we were all very happy, full, and filled with preservatives. Which makes us even more happy. I bought dessert. And we were on our way home. We get home, Dad and Jonah put together THE BIG COMFY CHAIRS and then we head upstairs and sit in the living room. Dad on the computer playing some Facebook game and Mom, Jonah, and I watch NCIS. Which is officially my favorite show ever. Is Ziva awesome or what?

Now, I'm leaving to snuggle deeper under my covers and watch the rest of Robin Hood: Prince of Theives. Definitely not like the Disney one. No foxes or bears in this one. But its good! After two days of all romances, I'm in the mood for some action. Never thought you'd hear me say that, now did ya?

♥Cait♥

Creeper In Training

2010-01-22T18:47:00.002-06:00

So for the past two hours I have been attempting to scare Jonah. And I have yet to have the results that would please me greatly. Meaning - Jonah screaming and falling to the ground.

Attempt 1 (this took about 30 minutes): Jonah goes outside while I was cleaning up from dinner to put the chickens away. So, I followed him out there and hid in the dark corner of the deck. He knew I was hiding. So it was mainly the suspense that was "killing" him. Not the fact that I'm scary. So, he tells Mom (who he is talking to through the window over the sink) that he is going to stay in the chicken run until I come inside. While he's saying this, I hiccup (because I had been lauging really hard before I left). So I have to go back inside and laugh. I then go back outside. He comes running towards the house. I jump out of my dark corner with a "BOO!" He jumped a little, but nothing else.

Attempt 2 (45 minutes later): I begin by complaining to Mom that nothing is working. So she takes me aside and whispers, "Go hide behind the garbage can outside. He needs to take the garbage out." So, I sneek out the back door and go around (slipping multiple times on the ice that currently covers our patio). I hide behind the little, pine tree. Jonah comes out. Talking on his phone. Stupid phone. So, after he throws the garbage in the bin, I jump out with another "BOO!". He jumps just a little, but nothing.

In truth I have a very pathetic "BOO!"

I shall try again tomorrow.

♥Caitie♥

My Hits. Is It Me or You?

2010-01-22T12:40:00.002-06:00

So I noticed something the first time I put that hit counter up. It counts the number of times that I view my blog. Huh? Even when I'm signed in, it counts my visits and views. So I did a little test. On Tuesday, after my post, I had 389 hits -which I am absolutly thrilled about, even if the first 300 was me ;). Well, I then skipped posting on Wednesday and Thursday. I refrained from checking my blog to see the counter. I have now come to the conclusion that I in fact have not made most of the hits. I check and see, 438 as my hit! I'm glad to see that this thing is actually getting read and I'm not just writing to myself about myself. Haha.
Thanks everyone for taking the time to read about my life. No matter how uneventful it is. :D

Missions Trip

2010-01-18T20:18:00.004-06:00

This is so exciting! Dad and I are going on a missions trip! And it's only 5 minutes away! :D

I run a toddler program at work and there is an elderly woman, I'll just call her Hannah, who volunteers for me. Her husband passed away about 4 years ago and since then one problem after another has accumulated. Last summer I planted geraniums in some pots for her to brighten up her garden - at her request. I was able to see how bad things were. The whole side of her house was/is over-run by mint. And then the mint has traveled to the other side of her yard. So after some thought, I went to Dad (he's a landscaper) and told him all about her yard. This was in July. Now, 6 months later, Dad and I are on our way downtown and Dad brings it up! We're going to re-do her whole yard this summer! I'm so excited so show God's love to her!

Well tomorrow, we're going over to her house so Dad can talk to her about the yard and make some plans. And I get to put my cooking to the test. I'm making a whole chicken with a lemon and herb breading, green beans with garlic and lemon, biscuits (or dinner rolls, still deciding), and wild rice.

She's such a sweet woman. I'm really praying that she see's God's love and recognizes that He is King and can give her peace.

Pride

2010-01-16T00:22:00.002-06:00

My uncle posted something on facebook this evening on pride.

He claims that, "pride is a good thing if it drives you to do your best, to realize your God-given potential. After all, humility isn't actually humility unless your good enough at something to be humble."

To which I have responded.

Proverbs 16:18 "Pride goes before destruction. And a haughty spirit before a fall" It seems as though Solomon is saying that a proud person cannot see his own faults and easily stumbles into temptation. Psalm 10:10-11 says, "he crouches, he lies low, that the helpless may fall by his strength. He has said in his heart, 'God has forgotten; He hides His face; He will never see.'" To get the full meaning you would have to read all of Psalm 10, but it's clear that David is hiding from God and in his arrogance (pride) turning away, claiming that "God has forgotten". It seems as though God and pride are incompatible. How can pride be a good thing if it is incompatible with God?

♥Caitie♥

Hello World!

2010-01-12T22:18:00.005-06:00

At the moment I am sitting very comfortably on my bed with my heater blowing directly on me. Which now explains why I'm in a tank-top and thinking about throwing on shorts....

Never mind, I don't have any. Shopping looks to be in my near future. Again.

Dad and I went Downtown on Tuesday, and it was sweet! :) We visited (well, looked at the building) Kendall College - they have an excellent culinary program. It's the best in IL!

And not at all like I imagined. '

Directly next to a cement factory, diagonal from the Chicago Tribune, and has a "lovely" view of the hideous Chicago River. Talk about ick with that river. Makes Fox Lake look somewhat....accessable. Fox Lake is pretty gross. You look at it and go: "Is that water or fish decay?" or "I'm so going to get cholera tubing here." I'm pretty sure the fish think the same thing since we have never been able to catch anything fishing.
Anyway, back to Kendall. They have a "dorm" like connection to the Presidential Towers. These 4 buildings, business/apartment complexes. They're pretty interesting looking on the outside. We didn't really go inside any place, except for the Water Tower Mall. This mall is awesome! HUGE! There are 7 or 8 floors, glass elevators -my dad had a strangely attatched to those. I was like, "Yeah, awesome! I can see people walking! OH LOOK! A store with pretty colors and cute shoes, lets go in!" And then he decided that it would be awesome for me to look over the of the 7th floor. Note to other people: When you look down, you can see all the way to the 1st floor. Meaning you can easily get woozy and develope a headache. I can barely look over the upstairs "stair wall" at home, let alone the 7th floor of a mall. I get that strange feeling that I'm going to fall over the edge. Or the floor is going to collapse underneath me.

Yet I enjoyed Six Flags very much.....

So next stop is Le Cordon Bleu, which I'm scheduling a visit for in the spring. I'm hoping to get something scheduled around mid June. I'm actually not too interested in Le Cordon Bleu after I have read all the things that Kendall has to offer. I have the price of total tuition for the year along with rent. On the other hand, I am thinking more along the lines of just taking a semester long business course at MCC. I can also just take a high school business class through the school that I get my curriculum from. If I do just the business class from either schools, I can quickly start working on opening Dolce Dough (currently the name of my bakery). There is a little cottage for sale on the corner of Johnsburg Rd that I'm interested in. It's on what looks like one acre, has a parking lot, and is absolutely perfect for what I'm planning. Of course I would have to add on a kitchen.
I've started a little notebook of all my plans for DD. I usually carry it with me everywhere, but I haven't for since Monday. I'm so excited to see where this leads. But I'm getting a strong feeling that this is what God has planned for me. But, I still would rather get married than have a career and own a bakery. This is just "Plan B".

What else? Tons.

I'm going to be in The Report (Johnsburg's little newspaper)! For work of course. I'm the "model" this month for the Winter Reading Program. I still think that I should get one of the cute coffee mugs with the hot chocolate, pencil, bookmark, and something else inside. I mean, I did take time out of my "busy" work day to pose, right? But everyone just laughed and thought I was joking. I wasn't. I was very serious.

But maybe its a good thing that they thought I was joking. Last Thursday I woke up and found out that I was allergic to sugar and chocolate. Thank God (trust me, I really am) I'm okay with coffee. I actually have been off of coffee for a while, so it's not too bad. But you know how when you know you can't have something you suddenly want it every time you breathe? That's how I'm suffering at the moment. But I really did put it all to the test. Yesterday I went crazy with the sweets. (I was having trouble with Chemistry and decided to indulge myself with the forbidden to make it work. It did. I was extremely happy and had a wonderful time figuring out that "Eating chocolate makes you happy because it contains phenylephylamine - the same hormone the brain triggers when you fall in love." And I did fall in love. Again. With chocolate. Dark chocolate M&Ms to be exact. THOSE THINGS ARE ADDICTING! And totally amazing! And the only thing I'm not allergic too! So you can guess that I've been indulging in them immensely. I had half the bag of the peanut ones yesterday. The only reason I learned truly that I am allergic, is because I also had, a small piece Cheesecake Factory's 30th Anniversary Chocolate Cheesecake AND my left over Oreo Cheesecake, half a cookie, hot chocolate, and some M&Ms. LOTS of sugar. Did not hold back yesterday. And I suffered dearly. But I suffered with a smile because it was so very yummy. Not that I'm planning on doing it again any time soon. Nope. I'm off of it until Sunday. When I'm pretty sure my mom is making dessert for a Bible study. And she has promised it to be chocolate filled and good. But there will also be strawberries, which are my favorite fruit....so maybe I'll be able to behave and not have cake....

As you can tell, this is really killing me. Like they say sugar will kill you. Well NOT having sugar kills me. I'm getting a sweet tooth just thinking about it...and I know have a secret stash of Butterfingers stashed in my dresser...will it was a secret....

Mom and I went to go see Did You Hear About The Morgans? last Saturday. It was really good. It was one of those cute, funny romantic comedies. We're going to see Leap Year next weekend and then When In Rome probably the week after it comes out. And we watched The Most Wonderful Time of the Year this afternoon. It was really good! So cute. Totally recommend it if you like romantic comedies.
Movie dates with Mom are the best ever. You can easily tell when it's been a while since it's been just the two of us alone together. Usually we're laughing hysterically or talking really seriously about something that will soon turn into a joke. 'Cause Mom and I just can't stay too serious for too long. Something is wrong when that happens. We always need to break the ice. Like I managed to annoy/cheer her up Monday night by forcing her to look at wedding dresses with me. I used to look at them to dream. Now I look at them and pick out the most hideous ones and make fun of them. And let me just say Mom is WAY better at it than me.

Sarah is there! She's potty-trained! And very excited to be a "Big Girl". We go shopping for underwear on Monday. She is certain that they have to have cows and giraffes on them. We'll see Sweetheart...

There is so much I have to write about, but I have been on this computer since 3pm and am getting a headache. The smell of Chicken Capri is also teasing my nose and taste buds, so I must depart and head downstairs to learn when I can eat. I'm starving. popcorn chicken only fills you up for a few hours, you know.

♥Caitie♥

Random, Useless, Slightely Humorous Information

2009-11-10T16:24:00.003-06:00

I'm bored at the moment, so I thought I would write a post. Which, judging by the title, is useless and random. But slightely humorous.

Chocolate was used as medicine in the 18th century. It was believed that chocolate could cure a stomach ache

Consuming chocolate was once believed to be a sin during the 16th and 17th century

the fear of long words is, ironically, called hippopotamonstrosesquipedaliophobia

The number forty is the only number that, in the English language, has all of its letters in alphabetical order

There are more chickens than people in the world

On the Canadian two dollar bill, the flag flying over the Parliment Building is an American flag

An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain

"Stewardesses" is the longest word typed with only the left hand

Kermit the Frog is left-handed

The King of Hearts is the only king without a moustache

Elephants are the only mammals that can't jump

Kansas state law requires pedestrians crossing the highway at night to wear tail lights

The original name of Bank of America was Bank of Italy

A snail can sleep for 3 years

Walt Disney was afraid of mice

You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television

1 in every 200 people is a psychopath, and they look just like everyone else

A Sarah Song

2009-11-08T19:43:00.002-06:00

Wal-Mart Is a Different World & Crummy Trick-or-Treaters

2009-10-31T17:28:00.004-05:00

So yesterday Mom, Sarah, and I went on an excursion to Wal-Mart so I could get some hairspray, gel, and a new blow-dryer. Well, the weather wasn't as wonderful as it could have been. Actually, it was pretty crummy out. The rain was that misty-shower-like rain that was freezing cold and the cold air went straight to the bones (oh, boy, I'm sounding like my grandma again). Anyway, so Mom and I are sitting in the car behind a long line of cars when we see this man with an umbrella come out of the store. And how sweet he was, he helped an elderly lady (in what? her 90s?) inside and out of the rain! Mom and I were all, "Awww. That was so sweet of him!"

So now we're driving around the parking lot trying to find a spot, and this older man is walking toward the store. And then we see a woman running after him with an umbrella. So when she comes up next to him she's holding the umbrella as high as her short arms can reach over this her apparently husbands head. Now this guy was tall. And to add to this, the guy was yackin' away on his phone, and walking like his rear was on fire.

I like the first story better. :)

~*Caitie*~ (post for yesterday)

Now for today's post!

So as we all know today is Halloween. And as we all know, trick-or-treaters come by the...dozens? Well, not for us, but our area does get overflowed. The trick-or-treaters here in Johnsburg are totally lazy. They don't want to walk up our huge, steep, long driveway. Which is fine, because then every year we always have leftover Snickers :D

Well this year I was getting sick of answering the door. So I put the bowl outside with a sign saying, "PLEASE TAKE ONE! I WANT SOME TOO! :)" Well, every year we normally put the bowl out with the PLEASE TAKE ONE! part and usually the whole bowl is still there. Well this year...grrr....some stupid teeanagers (probably knew the guys) took ALL the candy. One second there was a whole bowl. And the next, NO MORE! :( Ya know, I even SAW the guys taking the candy. Just didn't actually SEE them take the candy. Know what I mean? I wish I had jumped out the door and bust them so badly they went home crying because I scared them. Maybe I'll do that next year.......

BUT THEY TOOK ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL THE SNICKERS! :( At least I now won the bet that I wouldn't eat any snickers..... :D

~*Caitie*~

Early Morning Wakeup Call

2009-10-28T22:43:00.003-05:00

Annoying beeping/screaming sounds are SO not fun to wake up to at 4:30 in the morning. I remember flying out of bed, and then actually spinning in circles trying to find where the noise is coming from. Turns out its from my brothers super annoying Ipod touch (and I thought this thing was awesome). Darn you Apple Inc.!

Goodnight

Monday Night Photo-Night

2009-10-26T21:23:00.009-05:00

Every Monday night Mom and Dad go on a date and I babysit Sarah. :) For an hour we tried to get a really good picture. (Sarah even said a few times, "I look icky in that one.") One of our conversations went like this.
Me: "We're going to first clean up the kitchen from our dinner."
Sarah: "Okaaaaay."
Me: "Then we're going to clean up our bedroom. It's icky."
Sarah: "Yeah, it's icky."
Me: chuckling "Then we're going to exercise."
Sarah: "Yeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaah.....I likey exercise. With Caitie."
Me: laughing "I like exercising with you too. :D Then you'll take a hot bath."
Sarah: "Oooo! I likey hot baths."
Me: by now I was grinning so hard my cheeks hurt. "Haha. And then I'll read you a book." Sarah: "Yeaaaaaaah."
Me: "And THEN we'll go to bed. "
Sarah: look of disgust falls on her face "No. I don't think so."

:D
~*Caitie*~

My girl knows how to warm a persons heart. :) She has the best smile. ♥

What happened to my groove?

2009-10-26T17:39:00.002-05:00

No I am not talking about dancing. That seems to still be somewhat normal. I'm talking about the flow of blog posts. Sure I posted something yesterday, but yeah..today I'm pretty empty. So this is going to be a totally random post filled with all my favorite things. (order of randomness. not favoritism) :D

God
Chocolate
Coffee
Caramel (shhhhh! don't tell Dad!)
Shopping
Reading
Country music
Driving
Babies
My family
My friends
Facebook (yes, I'm addicted.)
Chick flicks
Starbucks
My cat
My dog
Lip gloss
Dove body spray (nectarine and white ginger)
The beach
Flip-flops
My laptop
Food
Mocha/strawberry shakes from Steak-n-Shake
Target
Walgreen's
Pullover sweatshirts
Sweat jackets
Yoga pants (soooo comfy)
Those fuzzy flip-flop slippers
Hoop earrings

I think that's enough. Haha.

Oh, and I seriously want to try Starbucks ice cream! :)

Nippersink River

2009-10-25T16:20:00.016-05:00

Mom, Dad, and Sarah went to the Nippersink River while I finished up some homework. Dad caught some great snapshots! :D Enjoy! ~*Caitie*~

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Panic!!!

2009-10-25T15:52:00.003-05:00

Earlier, about a half hour ago, I had a HUGE panic attack. Ready for this?

I couldn't find the coffee.

Yes, you read that right. The coffee was gone. Disappeared. Not in it's usual spot. The spot I specifically memorized so that I would not have panic attacks like this. And then my mother decided to use the container we've had for about 10 years. The container we NEVER use! The same container I was planning on throwing out since we were never using it. The container that just collects dust. The container....okay....yeah, I'm breathing. So in my panic, I call Dad, who hands the phone to Mom.

Mom: "What's up?"
Me: "Where. Is. The. Coffee???? Ican'tfinditareweout?"
Mom: chuckles "It's in the container on the counter. You know, flour, sugar, coffee, tea?"
Me: sighs with relief. "Oh. I was having a panic attack."
Mom: laughs hard. "Yeah, we have some."
Me: "Okay, thanks. Bye."
Mom: "Bye." I can hear her laughing as she hangs up.

So that's what my afternoon was like. I must have looked like some sort of phsyco; running around the kitchen like a maniac trying to find the coffee. Opening every single cabinet.

And in case anybody is wondering how my coffee turned out. INCREDBILE! :)

2009-10-24T16:28:00.013-05:00

I am officially welcoming Fall back. This year we are actually having a very beautiful one. Yay! The trees are absolutely gorgeous and the weather is pretty sweet too. That crisp, fall, air is definitely around. And at least once or twice a week we've been catching a few rays of sun. Along with some pretty decent temperatures. I'm actually beginning to contemplating ranking Fall my #1 again. Today is absolutely beautiful out! The sun is shining and not a cloud in sight. Its a tad chilly, but nonetheless beautiful.
The best thing about Fall in Johnsburg is Stades Farm. They have been around since before we moved here 10 years ago. Every fall they have Shades of Autumn on the weekends. Last Sunday, I asked, there were over 10,000 people attending. EVERYBODY had at least one pumpkin. There's a petting zoo, corn maze, those jumping-blow-up things kids can go inside, the dairy farm where you can see the calfs, live Christian bands, roasted corn (YUMM!), and the list goes one. They just recently expanded into raising honey bees, too. We have yet to try the honey, but I want to soon. Inside their market is also a small bakery-like section. They make the most incredible apple-cider donuts. Unfortunately they are only served on the weekends.

Last night I was bored so I went on Amazon.com to check out some music. Somehow I managed to bring up Christmas music and jam to that. Christmas music? In October?????? Me??? Seriously? Thankfully you can only listen to a 30 second sample of the songs and then you have to buy them. Considering the PayPal account is empty, I couldn't give into that type of temptation. I can't wait until the radio stations begin to play Christmas music full time after Thanksgiving. Sooo much fun. I'm can't wait for snow, Christmas decorating, and diving into baking. Wintertime is the best time to bake since it's so cold and there has to be at the least a foot of snow falling. I love the fires and the hot chocolate, the coffee.

Somehow I have once again managed to sleep well into the day (no I did not just wake up). Now anybody who REALLY knows me, knows that I don't like sleeping until 11:30. The day just goes by too quickly then, and I feel as though I have just wasted a good half day of my life. Which in fact, I have. But today -this afternoon- I was pretty happy that I slept so late. For one reason, I didn't fall asleep until about 2AM -blah. And the second reason, I felt super refreshed and almost...dare I say it? Happy. Cause we all know I'm never happy, right?Haha. But have you ever then felt totally drained by dinnertime when you've slept the whole day? My eyes a so heavy at the moment, but I know I can't sleep. Also from the fact that my stomach is growling so loud I'm actually thinking it might really possibly be these guys.

Pumpkins! ♥

2009-10-23T21:21:00.002-05:00

Here's some pics of Sarah gutting the pumpkin for carving. :) She loved it! Not a single "Ewww! Icky!" escaped her.

Check out my other blog!

2009-10-23T21:20:00.001-05:00

Even though it's been a year since I last posted (except for this afternoon) it gives you a pretty detailed description of how our journey to Sarah began! :D

http://journeytomymeimei.blogspot.com/

Sooo...

2009-10-23T21:05:00.001-05:00

Is it too hard to read? Don't hold back, it's so much fun changing the fonts :D

Upgrade? Or Just Lazy?

2009-10-23T14:40:00.003-05:00

Show of ...er...comments to those on Facebook!

ME!

And it seems to have become a tad bit....confusing. They changed it during the summer. People joined groups of "I HATE THE NEW FACEBOOK! BRING BACK THE OLD ONE!". Well, I thought the new way was pretty cool. But apparently FB wasn't finished. In the 7 hours I have been away from my beloved FB, I have missed out on some interesting stuff. It's pretty weird. I can now view just from my home page when a friend has befriended another friend. It's like we don't even have to "go through the trouble" of looking at that friends profile anymore! Can you spell L-A-Z-Y? And how many of us actually care who is friends with who? Half the people - well, more than half- I don't even know!
And a friend JUST told me that there is now a Facebook Lite http://lite.facebook.com/ . I mean COME ON. What happend to phone calls? Don't get me wrong, I love Facebook (and actually hate talking on the phone), but now this is getting a little say, ridiculous?

Whew!

2009-10-22T22:08:00.002-05:00

Caleb: This blog is somewhat alive

We bought a treadmill 6 days ago. And I have ran 2 miles every night since. Yay me! But when do you come to the point where you think you're going to overdo it? Yes, think. I have yet to overdue it. And I have yet to be in agonizing pain that makes me just want to die. (Which this in fact is very strange. It's not like I'm in shape or anything.) So far I have managed to only gain exhaustion. What happended to becoming more energetic when you exercise? And my food intake is still...the same. Ha. Nothing has changed in that way either. I remember when I was exercising nightly last year. I was eating like my older brother did in puberty. ANYWHO....so when do you realize that an obsession is in the making? Or could it just be habit? Last night I was super exhausted from working a double shift. So I decided to forget the treadmill for the night and just sleep. But instead of sleeping, I tossed and turned. Covers on, covers off. Stared at the ceiling. Counted sheep. Tried EVERYTHING. And yet. No sleep. So at about 11:30 I decided to run. 12:30 rolls around. I'm showered, exhausted, and somewhat sore. Hop into bed. And slept until 9 this morning. Thank YOU Mom. :D

Speaking of treadmill, I should probably head down now.

Countdown begins....

2009-06-22T21:18:00.003-05:00

....well, is it really a countdown when there are only 2 days left?

My baby sister, yes the adorable one in the picture below, has another surgery on Wednesday. It's not as major as her lip surgery, but it's still a sugery....she needs tubes put in her ears.

I guess I should probably explain about her lip (you can't tell that she even had sugery though! That's how amazing her surgeon was!) When we first adopted Sarah, she had a cleft lip/palate. If you don't know what that is, it's when the lip doesn't completely form together and there is a separation. It's easily fixed. The palate is the same thing, except it's inside the mouth and you have to be a lot more careful on what you give the child. You know how when you have brain freeze? Well...imagine having REAL brain freeze. Without a palate....the burn is even worse because the coldness is closer to the brain. That didn't stop Sarah from eating ice cream though. In fact I don't think she ever had brain freeze. And if she did, she never let us know about it. :D

I will update everyone at the hospital on Wednesday. We have to get up at 4 AM to get to Chicago!!! :O :D

Have a nice evening!

Thank You

2009-06-20T16:04:00.005-05:00

Since my posts have revolved around being grateful these past few days. I'm going to post some lyrics so a song that I have come to like.

Thank You
33 Miles

What if in the morning when I wake up/
Even before I fill my coffee cup/
I said Thank You/
Thank You/
Thank You/
What if I looked at the day and the hours ahead/
And before I moved forward I bowed my head/
And said Thank You/
OhI said Thank You/
Thank You/
What if I looked at my life in a different way/
Took a little more time to stop and pray/
I know it would change all the momentsin between/
So here I go/
Thank You for everything/
Thank You for loving me/
It don’t even matter what tomorrow brings/
I will sing my Thank You/
For sun and rain/
For what You give and take away/
For all Your goodness I will always say/
Thank You/
I say Thank You/
What if I lost everything that I have/
I could smile and somehow still be glad/
And say Thank You/
Thank You/
Thank You/
Cause life is joy, life is pain/
But the prayer of my heart will never change/
I say Thank You/
Oh I you/
I say Thank You/
What if I looked at my lifein a different way/
Took a little moretime to stop and pray/
I know it wouldchange all the moments in between/
Sohere I go/
Chorus x2

The Caramel Lid is Stuck....and so am I, Lord!

2009-06-15T20:50:00.004-05:00

First off, I really wish I had muscles to opent the carmel lid. But, I don't, so I'm going to have to live without ice cream or caramel for another night. *SOBS*

I don't really have much to say on the second part of my title. But I might come up with something, so be ready! :D

This verse usually sticks in my head (tonight appatently, it completely left me.) But I have it back now, and I think it's a good thing to think about when you're "stuck"

1 Peter 5:7 "Cast all your anxiety on Him, for He cares for you." NIV

The Best Things Of All

2009-06-15T20:16:00.005-05:00

I have a list of my top 10 favorite sounds. Here it goes :)

A baby's giggle
The sound of the person in Starbucks making my caramel frapp. ;)
Laughter (there is a complete difference in the sound of a baby's giggle and laughter)
Complete silence
Country music
The sound of bacon sizzling in the pan
Lawn mowers (Yeah, I know. That's weird)
People getting a long and having a good time
The ocean (although I've never been, I love the sound)
Have you ever gone to a state park and there is complete silence, but noise all around? That's what I love :D

Top 5 Favorite Scenery's

Ocean view
Mountain view (never been. but love pics)
Italy (never been. Love pics)
my backyard (it's best when the chickens are running around and it's really sunny)
Glacial Park

"Our God, is an Awesome God! HE reigns, from Heaven above, with Wisdom, Power, and Love! Our God is an Awesome God! Our God is an Awesome God!"

New Layout

2009-06-11T23:01:00.001-05:00

Alright, I changed the look. What do you all think of it?

Gifts

2009-06-11T19:33:00.003-05:00

"Everyday is a gift, that's why they call it the present"

I don't know who said this, the website didn't say, but I do know that it makes complete sense. Whenever I'm in Chicago, it saddens me to see so many homeless people. Could you imagine waking up every morning in a park or on a bench? I think that around the times I go to Chicago, it's really God showing me that my life is pretty good. Around the time when I'm taking hot showers and warm dinners for granted I get one of those FW emails that has a picture of a starving child in Africa. It really makes me think, God has blessed me incredibly with a family, roof over my head, food, water, showers, clothes. And not to mention the miscellaneous things I get to buy. Makeup, Starbucks, chocolate, fun activities. And in one second, it can all go away. Due to fire. Or even just from the way the economy is and my dad loses his job.
Next time you're walking around a store and see an iPod Touch that you want, think for a second.

"Is this a necessity? Or a want?"

That is something my mom taught me a while back. Sure, I don't always think it straight out. But you know that little voice in the back of your head that people call you conscience? It's really your Mother.

Butterfly Kisses

2009-06-11T11:35:00.002-05:00

About two weekends ago I took a little trip down memory lane. Everyone in our family was sick so we were all in the living room chatting. I turned to my dad and said, "Hey, Dad, remember our song? Butterfly Kisses? What are the lyrics?" And then my brilliant father starts singing. :D

Here's the thing about this song. Ever since I was 5 (the first time I heard it) it has made me cry. And here, 10 years later, it still makes me cry. It's such a beautiful song, though, that I can't help but listen to it. :D Here's the link to listen to it -- if you tear up, let me know so I don't feel like the only one. HAHA! :D

http://www.amazon.com/Butterfly-Kisses/dp/B0013831QS/ref=sr_f2_1?ie=UTF8&s=dmusic&qid=1244738874&sr=102-1

It only plays a small part of the song. You can also check out CMT.com if you want to watch the video and listen to it the whole way.

I have sincerely decided that when I get married - if I get married - that will be the father/daughter dance song. :D

Love you Dad!

My Family

2009-06-10T16:37:00.007-05:00

Here's some of my favorite old/present pics of my siblings and I. :)

Christopher and II'M GOT IT!
Did it go in?

That would be me at age 2. I beat my older brother in a boxing match :D

She doesn't like snow

So much for teaching her NOT to eat the snow. Sarah's first snowfall

Sarah Grace Anderson (cutest little girl ever!!)

Best friends! (Me and little bro)

Again, Jonah and I

God's Fingerprints

2009-06-10T14:57:00.007-05:00

Currently, I am sitting on my deck relaxing and writing this post. FINALLY, we have some sun. For the past few days we've had an overdose of rain. But, looking around, the grass is a lush, green.

Have you ever heard that country song that George Strait sings, I Saw God Today? If not, I recommend listening to it. When you look around you at the trees, flowers, grass, sky, clouds (you get the picture), most people just take it all for granted. I know I do. And then I think of an orchid (or something exotic that He has created). An orchid is beatiful. Not my favorite flower, but it's beautiful, exotic, and totally different from what is normal. Next time you see an Orchid, take some time to study it. Maybe even buy it. You will really be amazed at the detail that you wouldn't see if you hadn't taken the time.

Anyway, I Saw God Today reminds me of paintings. You never really see the detail in real life. But what really draws us to paintings? Detail. All the little swirls, twirls, lines, cirlces, and BESt of all, the colors. When I see a painting of a landscape, I am in awe at the details the artist has caught. The shape of the leaves, the exactness to a flowers petals. Now just take some time to, instead of going to a painting for details, go to a state park, or even your own backyard. If you have little kids around, bring them with. Have them find something with lots of colors or a unique shape sit down in the grass and ask them what they see. A single blade of grass can have so much detail. God is in Everything we see. Everything shows His creative side, loving side, and you know what? I really do believe God has a sense of humor. God's fingerprints are everywhere :)

Tarsier

Alpaca (top)

Star-Nosed Mole

Orchids

Birthdays, graduation, holidays.....

2009-05-15T22:32:00.005-05:00

and here I thought that now I had TWO jobs I would have more money. But noooooo, right when I get another job, the rest of the year becomes full of holidays, birthdays, and a graduation. I'm the plan-a-header in the family. Mom is the organizer. Dad is the garbage picker/landscaper. Jonah (little brother) is the musician, imaginative, and athletic one. Christopher (the graduating senior) is the musician and quiet one. And Sarah (baby sister) is the silly, adorable, has-everyone-wrapped-around-her-finger one. But me, I'm that plan-a-header who plans so far ahead, I get disappointed when something spontaneous messes up my plans. Not to say I'm not spontaneous, I just don't like it when my plans are changed so much, they are the complete opposite. Like the topic I began: two jobs, and no money. You see, I am in love (NOT LITERALLY) with my aunt's car. Hyundia Santa Fe...white, cute, total girl car, not too big, not too small
....

I need to continually remind myself that God's timing is pretty much ALWAYS not my timing. But when I really think about it, it's pretty exciting. Think about it, you never know when He might "throw something" at you. It could be much farther in life. Or it could be next week, tomorrow. Maybe in about three hours when you're sound asleep and not even thinking about it. It's a continual mystery. That is worth waiting for. :)

"For I know the plans I have for you", declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future."
Jeremiah 29:11

Create and Forget

2009-05-15T21:04:00.000-05:00

Whoops! I begin a blog and forget. How sad.

So far I've spent every waking moment of my life 'expanding' my so called 'social life' (not really). At ten I started a blog. Which I rarely kept up with. At thirteen, I started another blog. Fourteen, guess what? Another blog. FINALLY, at fifteen, I upgraded myself to Facebook! And now, here I am, again, starting ANOTHER blog. There must be some sort of first time attachment. Surprisingly, I keep up with my FB a little TOO well. Mom would probably prefer it if I slacked of a bit more on it. Which, makes sense. You can only be obsessed with something so much.

So, so far, I have kept up very well with my blog title. You may be wondering where I got this title. I don't really remember, all that I do remember is that my Dad (maybe it was my Mom) mentioned something about a katydid, which made me think of my name. Which made me think of making up a new blog. Weird connections. But that's me. Anyway, Mom thought of the name. I was having such trouble. And rambling on and on about how much trouble I was having. Mom said, "If you would stop talking, I could think of something." in that motherly tone of hers. And then, I see the little light bulb. And VOILA , The Rambling Musings of a Human Katydid was born. And from my past with blogs, may never be seen by my eyes again.

Let's start a little bit more about myself. I'm a home schooled high school, freshman -practically/technically a sophomore. I continually have big plans of what I want to do with my life. For 8 or 9 months, though, I have continually stuck with considering being a social worker. And then, just last Monday, I was working on World History and thought "It would be really cool to be someone who made a living by going around the world collecting and observing history." So right now, I'm trying to find out if that is an actual occupation. If nothing else works, I'll just stay at home and become an author of history books that bore kids to death (not really, but it's a funny thought.) I would become an author - excuse me, PUBLISHED author- but not of history books. I'm more interested in Christian Romance.

Besides writing, I like to bead, cook (and mess up practically every recipe), paint, draw, read....the list goes on and on. I will try anything once, except for roller coasters, bungee-jumping, eating a whole tablespoon of Cinnamon...pretty much anything that will get me in trouble or in a life/death situation. I LOVE fruit. Veggies....not as much. Carrots are good - when drenched in ranch. Broccoli is good - when drowning in cheese. Radishes are tasty.

I'm a night owl trying to get on a schedule. I'm a junk food eater trying to eat healthy. I'm a skinny girl who can't get an exercise routine down. I am a chocoholic. Coffee drinker. Starbucks lover.

But more importantly, I'm a princess of The King of kings. Daughter of the Father. God-lover, who believes that everything that happens to me is a God-thing.

"Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is before us." Hebrews 12:1