But Wait! There's More!

A good and dear friend to this honored blog, a personage known throughout the infinite realms of the blogosphere as "Scribbles" has read the past few posts and has issued a request. After having read "Back to School -- whoopee" and "Hey, ho, to the washer I go," Scribbles has expressed her admiration for my small army of backpack dwarfs and wishes to have some to call her own. 

Well, that request has spawned a whole line of personal care magical creatures! Don't forget that these products are available exclusively from Out of the Ashes, Inc. Don't expect to see them in stores! 

Thanks to our new and convenient catalogue, you can get one or more of the following exciting products:

The Original Backpack Dwarf: Between six and ten inches of height, these delightful, yet slightly sullen, little helpers are worth their weight in gold! Simply slip them into the backpack or suitcase of your choice, and they'll go to work with a will! They'll toss the old gum wrappers, straighten your binder, and show you a lot of love in between the heckling. 

The Miniature Backpack Dwarf: Perfect for purses or those stylish evening clutches! But be careful -- their small three inches of height can make them easily lost between your wallet and compact. Despite their size*, they pack quite a punch, and will make sure that you never lose a napkin with some hot guy's number on it again! They make a perfect Christmas or birthday gift for the special girl in your life.

*Senior purchasers beware: The Miniature Backpack Dwarf has a very high voice due to its highly convenient small stature. It is liable to set off your hearing aids. Out of the Ashes, Inc. is not responsible for any damages this might cause.

Dust Gremlins: Let these babies loose in a dusty room and come back in an hour to sparkling clean perfection! These magical beings eat the dust that clogs your sinuses and vents, so they're both productive and good for the environment! Coming in packs of ten, fifteen, and ten thousand for our more wealthy patrons, you're always sure to find the perfect size for you and your family.

Freshly Caught Cornish Pixies: For the Harry Potter lover in your household! Everyone's got one, after all! These tiny masters of mayhem are perfect for the practical joke lover. Let them go in an OCD person's home and watch the chaos ensue as they tip bookcases, roll bedrooms, and light fires! 

Disclaimer: Hermione with magic stunning spell not included. Available for purchase separately.

Ballistic Bathroom Kraken: Not nearly as scary as it sounds! After you've taken your shower or bath in the morning, uncork the bottle and let this fear of the wide blue yonder out to do its worst...with soap scum and mildew! Its powerful limbs are covered with super suckers and sponges that squeegee your bathroom to a whole new definition of clean. No germ is a match for the Ballistic Bathroom Kraken! Be the envy of all your friends with this little beastie, and show the shower head what's what. It'll never make fun of your singing again!

Aerial Ariels: After having been imprisoned in the cloven pine of your choice, these airy sprites are the perfect air fresheners! Let them out of our custom made and attractive shipping logs and let 'em fly! They'll fill any room, no matter how large it is, with a scent that hearkens back to the forest. Pick your favorite scent and prepare to be amazed! Aerial Ariels come in almond, pine, magnolia, and Bradford pear scents. 

Lavender scented Aerial Ariels: coming soon!

Please leave your orders under the comment box, and they will be filled as fast as our alien  handlers can get them boxed. Please indicate after your order whether you would prefer light speed, airplane, or snail back for your preferred shipping method.

Katie, Kati, let's call the whole thing off....

My head is still whirling from last night. 

First off, most of y'all are very aware of the fact that calling me a night person is a gross understatement; it would, in fact, be far more correct to say that the ground is made up of crumbled oreos and the sun is liquid Gatorade. After about eight o'clock, I'm completely useless to the human race as a whole. Like a giant wet noodle named Katie. Or Kati, as my name is apparently used by those who can speak Spanish. Yeah.

So imagine my panic when I walk into my Spanish class and see this middle aged woman talking ninety to nothing in what I assumed to be Spanish (she could have been talking in Swahili for all I knew) and gesturing wildly at us, her bewildered pupils. When Aubrey leaned over and started to translate for me, the teacher suddenly broke out of her Spanish gibberish and squawked like a Catholic nun who's teaching naughty third graders how to multiply fractions. "No translations!" she screeched. Aubrey and I shrugged sheepishly, each grabbed a syllabus, and went to our chairs. I figured out in a brilliantly timely manner that this class must be one of those instant immersion doohickeys. Oy vey. 

For all her faults (such as glaring hideously whenever Aubrey leaned too close to me, suspiciously close, like she might be about to gasp! translate something!), I like Senorita Tina McBee. She lived in Mexico City for five years, so she certainly knows what she's talking about, pun intended. I picked up quite a bit from her in just a few hours, even though a migraine accompanied said learning. It must have been every bit as exhausting for Senorita Tina, to be fair. To stare at completely blank faces for hours on end as you talk a language that seems perfectly easy and simple to you now and have to mime hugely at a chair or at a boy and a girl to demonstrate masculine and feminine forms of words must be excruciating. Like trying to get pizza dough out from between your fingers.

Honestly, I'm totally freaked out by this class. For one, it requires an obscenely expensive textbook. Obscene like the parts of the movie that your mom claps her hand over your eyes so that you can't see. Joy! *sarcasm dripping* For two, while I like Senorita Tina, I think she's expecting a lot out of a night class. We're supposed to learn all the pronunciations of the Spanish alphabet and greetings and times of day and all sorts of stuff in one week. It's a lot to ask of kids (and older folks that are trying to get their degree) that already have full loads. I guess she hasn't experienced the famous Crichton work ethic, or lack thereof, yet. For three, for as much as I like Senorita Tina, she scares the mierda out of me. She's not the kind of chica I see myself crossing and living to sing the ballad. And I'm no softy, mind.

*mob from Monty Python* Get on with it!

Okay, okay, I'll stop whining now. Or I'll try, anyway!  

Anyway, the evening progressed and eventually Senorita Tina started talking in English, so that she could explain the syllabus and stop one older lady's head from exploding. However, it hit about 8:30 and we were all dying to get out of there, even Senorita Tina. We learned that, in true Crichton fashion, she hadn't known she was teaching this class until last Saturday. I have to say that I'm really impressed; she was very well prepared if she'd had that small an amount of preparation time. The caffeine supply was drying up, and the natives were getting restless. So Senorita Tina let us leave once she had heard us having a small conversation with our class partners. Aubrey and I greeted each other, introduced ourselves, explained where we were from, and were gone. 

Funniest moment of the night: when I almost thanked Senorita Tina for a handout by saying, "Danke!" That would have ended really well, for sure. 

Vaya con Dios!

My Archenemy

Yesterday, I was confronted with a demon. Just as the Bible foretells, it portrayed itself as an angel of light, until I had given it my soul. Once it revealed itself, I was able to see it for what it truly was: a Specter of Utmost Evil.

I'm talking about....

....an exercise instructor.

Just not any exercise instructor, mind you. This is an exercise instructor on DVD, which is even more frightening. I swear, this chickie makes not only the hair on the back of your neck stand up, but makes your entire head of hair form itself into a mohawk. Not at all attractive on most females, I must say. 

To explain, my new surrogate big sister, Micah, and I decided that we were going to start doing pilates together every evening. We both have some weight we'd like to finish losing, and we knew that we'd never be motivated to do it by ourselves. She got home from a horrendous day at work (I may have to tell you about it this evening, but we'll see -- I'm afraid it's a little too frightening, even for this blog) and I was experiencing a small case of first-day-of-school blues. So Micah and I went digging through the freezer for food and ultimately made lean pocket pepperoni pizza subs and fried some french fries and opened a bottle of sparkling strawberry juice left over from my birthday. I know, it all sounds so nutritious and conducive to better eating habits! But hey, we won't make a habit of it, and we had a blast. We ate dinner while watching Sixteen Candles, the quintessential eighties teenage movie. If you haven't seen it, I heartily urge you to do so. It's a little, um, raunchy in places, but it's well worth it. The only downer about the movie is knowing that the extremely gorgeous male lead is probably fat and bald by now. Sadness. But 'tis the joy of growing old!

Anyway, after we ate dinner, I was tired and ready to call it an evening, but nope. Micah wasn't going to let me get away with that, even though she, too, was less than enthused about doing pilates at eight in the evening after a meal of greasy french fries. So, with much whining from the both of us, we appeared in the living room and popped in the DVD. 

Onto the screen waltzes this perky little blond Suzanne Summers type of woman. She seems friendly and knowledgeable, so Micah and I prepare ourselves for a workout, congratulating ourselves on our Initiative and Resolve. Along with the Suzanne Summers' type of woman (whose name was Marianne, ironically enough) were six other people dressed in thin purple workout clothes that looked like they'd been thrown off the holodeck of the starship Enterprise just after Worf, Deanna, and Dr. Crusher finished doing that weird martial arts workout they all did together on the show. These purple people were all stunningly beautiful, of course, and seemed to lack the ability to break a sweat or grunt. There was one guy doing the workout with the beautiful dancer purple people, no doubt in an effort to prove that pilates could be just as manly as lifting weights and squatting and spitting and whatever else it is that guys do at the gym. The dude was pretty ripped, so maybe he would have gotten away with it if he hadn't kept pointing his toes so beautifully. 

Marianne started us on our first exercise, and it was hard, but Micah and I were proud of ourselves for completing it and somewhat keeping up with Marianne's fast pace. 

This high and elevated reaction to the exercise didn't last long, sadly. No less than ten minutes later, I began to fear Marianne emotionally. She somehow didn't seem quite as pretty and perky as she had before. Micah started saying, "Are you serious, Marianne?" over and over. She forgot, no doubt, that Marianne was a two dimensional figure on the flickering screen of our TV. And Marianne, unaware of the sheer hatred she was evoking in her less than enthusiastic pupils, kept on saying encouraging things like, "Now this exercise is so powerful that we're only going to do it three times!" 

Translation courtesy of Katie: it's going to hurt like an acupuncture gone terribly wrong, so I'm only going to make you do it a few times so that you don't show up at my house one night in order to beat me to death with the big rubber pilates ball."

That woman/demon had us doing things that I didn't know were possible for anyone outside the dancing or contortionist professions. The upside was that I'm far more flexible than I knew. The downside is that I have absolutely no strength at all. Go empowerment. It was when she had us trying to practically do a handstand that the cursing began. I'm really glad that a pastor doesn't live next door, that's all I got to say. I could hear my mom snickering the next room. I watched in amazement as Marianne spouted horns and a whip appeared in her hand.

Finally, after an hour of torture, we finished the routine. Micah had been able to do a lot more than I had, but then, she's faced Marianne before. I'll get better as time goes on. I spent the last fifteen minutes encouraging Micah to keep going with things like, "Bathing suits! Smaller sizes!" and so on. I think it was encouraging. Micah certainly didn't offer to rearrange my face like she was with Marianne.

Of course, I had trouble walking for the rest of the night. And guess what? I'm going to put myself through the exact same thing tomorrow night. The only reason I'm not doing it tonight is because I'm going to be stuck in a night class until ten. Saved by Spanish! At least that class will be good for something...

Hey, ho, to the washer I go...

Well, the first day of school is officially over. 

I laughed. 

I cried. 

And I'm totally pulling your leg. 

This is the first semester that I haven't had a nine o'clock class, which is really nice. I got up at a reasonable time this morning, and made it to school an hour and a half early, since I knew I needed to finish getting my independent study set up. It was so great to see my friends and professors and my boss again! My school has its issues....a lot of issues....a Mary Poppins-esque carpetbag of issues...but I'm still really happy there most of the time. I know where I'm going, I know what's expected of me, and I have freedom within the form.  The only moment of drama that I had was when the office of academic affairs almost didn't accept my independent study form because they needed a syllabus with it. Thankfully, I put my girlish wiles to work (which means I looked pathetic and confused intentionally) and they unbent a little and let me through the red tape. Good thing, too, I hate the color red when it's not associated with a hair color. 

So I only ended up having one class today, and it was great! On Monday and Wednesday I have Dr. Jenkins' "Authors of Christian Commitment" class, and it's really small. Just me, Shelby, Rachel B., Aubrey, Christina, and one other older lady that I felt sorry for, but she fit in fairly well with us. Poor Dr. Jenkins....he's going to be dealing with a lot of estrogen in this class! Puts me back to my Abnormal Psychology class with Dr. Chaney (fabulous class) and it, too, was made up exclusively of females. He was describing a personality disorder, and said, "...which is abbreviated to PDS....not PMS, ladies..." I just about died laughing. I consider Dr. Chaney to be a surrogate grandfather, and just hearing him say that was hysterical. 

Anyway, I came home, ate lunch, and then started on The Chore. It is the Job that never ends...yes, it goes on and on my friends... some people started washing without knowing what it was, and so on it continued to be done just because...anyway, you get the idea. 

What is this job, you may ask? Well, in case the upper case letters haven't already caught your eye, I'm talking about: LAUNDRY! 

I've become the family's laundry fairy since it's an infinitely lesser evil than doing the dishes, and I actually don't mind doing it. It's a fulfilling job to a degree, except for the fact that it's so circuitous. You get it all done one day and you're feeling absurdly proud of yourself and experiencing a warm fuzzy feeling because you've made life easier for your family, and then the next morning, THERE IT IS AGAIN! It's like a cockroach...it just never dies! I believe there's a myth about a monster that had a lot of heads, and for every head you cut off, another one grew. 

Yeah, laundry's like that. 

It even has a patron saint! Actually, it has several, but my favorite is Saint Veronica. She's the one that wiped Jesus' face when He was on the way to Golgotha. Now, really, if laundry has a patron saint, the job must be fraught with peril! I should have a lot of respect for being Bold enough and having enough Courage of Conviction to continue on with such a thankless, peril-fraught job. Or it could be that I'm trying to elevate myself when in reality I'm just doing a mundane task that everyone else on the planet, besides Jordan, knows how to do. 

I would say more, but the next load is ready to be switched....I still have to put on my armor, grab a dragon, and hide the dwarfs in my backpack so that they won't be eaten. So much to do, so little time!

Back to School -- whoopee.

I'm on a teeter-totter about the whole back to school thing at the moment. One part of me is totally jazzed about it starting back. Why? I actually like having a routine and knowing what I'm going to be doing from one day to the next. I also miss seeing my school friends and professors, and I'm going to be taking good classes this semester, even though my Fantasy Literature class got canceled. (Curse you, administrative scummmm!!!!!) But I think I'm going to do it as an independent study, which means three things:

1.) I get to read what I want to read on my time. This = awesomeness.

2.) I only have to write one massive paper, and I'm done.

3.) No having to sit in class.

Of course, there is the whole itsy, bitsy problem in that I have no self-discipline. However, I think Aubrey might be doing the independent study with me, so that solves that little problem. 

Now that I think about it, I'm mainly pleased about school starting back. It also means the return of having money, which is very nice. 

However, preparing for school to start back can be painful. I'm really going to miss seeing my Union friends this semester. I know we'll still work it out to see each other fairly often, but I miss them.

School starting back can also be arduous. Cleaning out my backpack alone is evidence in support of that assumption. I think I shall write about it in story form, just so you can all get the drama behind this seemingly easy chore.

Ahem.

"With the utmost of trepidation, I approach my closet, and begin to open the door, it creaking loudly and with the greatest of squeaky door sound effects. Hollywood could do no better. There, lying in a seemingly unobtrusive manner, is the Object of My Fear. It is the Bane of the College Student's Existence.

It is....the dirty backpack.

In one way, of course, the dirty backpack is quite deserving of study. It is a time capsule of sorts, a relic of all that what important or unimportant during the last four months of an individual's life. 

If some sort of natural disaster occurred and the backpack was left blanketed under a layer of volcanic dust for a thousand years only to be discovered by an archaeologist in a really stupid outfit, this great explorer could deduce that the average college student (meaning me) existed on an extremely balanced diet of chex mix, Starburst, and flavored water. He would also find that bubble gum was absolutely necessary for productive studying (which it TOTALLY is -- try it sometime, it really helps, especially the watermelon Bubblicious type), and that only a lucky few of the papers make it into the labeled folders, while the rest somehow end up in a crushed mess on the bottom of the bag. This same esteemed archaeologist-Indiana-Jones-wannabe would find that the average college student had extremely dry hands, resulting in the four bottles of lotion. (I wonder if the dry hands are a result of the higher caffeine intake?) He will also discover that movies are far more important than textbooks, as there will be an utter absence of literature and an extraordinary amount of DVDs next to the laptop. And the ipod? Without it, the 18-22 year old would surely die a horrible, painful death.

Oh, and macaroni and cheese deserves its own food group. The cheesier, the better. 

But I digress.

In any case, I managed to heave the backpack off the floor and deposit it on my bed. I undo the zippers, pray for deliverance, and tip it upside down. Out of its canvas depths fall everything from ponytail holders to folders to papers to books to dwarfs that have given up on keeping things neat for me and are therefore sitting in fits of sullen depression in the laptop's padded pocket. 

Finally, sweating as if I've had tea with the Queen in Death Valley, I finish my chore with the backpack. All of the trash is headed down the river, no more chex mix baggies remain, there are new containers of lotion, and carefully labeled folders are in place, along with extra pens. 

The hard part is over. Now, all I have to do is get through the semester. Eeek.

And thus endeth the story. 

Fin."

Running Commentary

When I finally stumbled out of bed this morning at ten o'clock in a haze induced by an absurdly late night and the Coca Cola Company, I went downstairs only find that my mom had the Tournament of Roses parade on. I remember being absurdly bored by those things when I was a kid, but it was vaguely interesting this morning in my less than peppy state. It became even more interesting when I started imagining turning off the boring as sin* commentary and having Alyce and me be the commentators instead of Al Roker and what's-her-name-you-know-the-blond-chickie. 

(*On a side note, where do you think the phrase "boring as sin" came from? I find sin distinctly un-boring in its very essence. Sin involves intrigue and plot and humiliation and melodramatic repentance. Shouldn't the phrase be "boring as sainthood" or something like that? It would even have the same acronym. You've just been given a valuable insight into the way my mind works...run, Bucky. Run like a chill autumn breeze.)

Okay, so picture if you will *Twilight theme plays, the Twilight utterly lacking in hot vampires, of course* a lovely float coming down the road. It is decked in flowers and a girl is sitting on a throne. She is wearing a tiara and a long white dress. Her court is just below her, wearing purple dresses and smaller tiaras.

Katie: Annnnnd here we go with the annual Tournament of Roses Parade, ladies and germs! I'm Katie Johnson!

Alyce: *wicked grin* And I'm Alyce don't-you-wish-you-knew-my-last-name-you-pervs! And we're live in California, sitting in this ridiculous booth thing that makes it look like we're being carted off to marry a Rajah in exchange for twenty camels, a gay elephant, and some diamonds! 

Katie: Too true, my fine friend, but just keep in mind that if our nice Indian rich camel dude gets irritating, we can go all Aristophanes on his hide! But back down to business. Down the road is coming the Queen-mobile, the more well-known Pope-mobile having been rented out for Spain's own parade of roses! Our Parade Queen was chosen this year in the midst of far too much fuss and blather and enough hairspray to dissolve the mythological ozone layer. Look at her smiling down there! They probably smeared Vaseline on her teeth so that she could grin and wave like Parade Barbie all five miles of the route.

Alyce: You know it's true, Katie, this chica clearly needs a better agent. And get a load of that boulder on her head! No, wait, sorry, that's her hair. Tsk, tsk.

Katie: Well, that tiara could probably feed an entire third world country for a year if you hocked it, Alyce. Get a load of her court down there, though!

Alyce: That Queenie had better watch her back when she goes to the powder room, that's all I gotta say. You can definitely tell which one is the runner-up, it's the plastic doll in too much eyeshadow down there fondling a knife that's hidden in a leg sheath, she looks like she's gotten a cramp from running or something...

Katie: *shuffling papers* It says here that I'm supposed to say that they take special classes to learn how to wave. Imagine some sweet little guy that's light in the loafers clapping his hands and saying...

Alyce: *cutting in* Do I have to imagine this? It's scary.

Katie: *glaring* Yes, you have to, now shut it. Ahem, as I was saying, imagine him clapping his hands and saying, "Now, ladiesss, ladiesss, let's pleassse try and pay attention! All right, now, girlsss, wave the hand to the right...on the beat, that'sss right...now to the left. To the right. Keep going....oh, Angie, really! You look like a bus windshield wiper! Let'sss channel ssssome Queen Elizabeth, now, sweetiesss! Make Betty proud, make her bloody proud! To the right...to the left...very good! Don't forget to breathe, girlsss, that'sss very important! In and out...in and out....great lung action, Kelsey! Hawt stuff, ladiesss!"

Alyce: *blinks* I was right. Very scary. 

Katie: I know, right?

Alyce: Oh, and this float contraption doo-hickey was made with some obscene amount of expensive roses that nobody knows the name of. I hope no guys get into trouble this weekend. There won't be a rose available anywhere in the city! Those doghouses are gonna be filled to the brim this weekend...

....After careful consideration, I guess I should say that it's a very good thing we're not parade commentators. Although it would be as fun as all get out.

Alyce: Right on!

2009

As you can tell by the time stamp, I am still awake on this day one of the year 2009. I am still functioning mainly through the overuse of coke (the drink, you silly people!) and great music (everything from Elton John to Alison Krauss to U2 to Richard Marx to Little Big Town to Nickelback...you get the idea.) and a funny fanfiction that's keeping me in stitches. It's not a wild party, but then, wild parties aren't exactly my style. I'm more the stay-in-and-watch-movies-and-listen-to-great-music kind of girl. 

I actually kind of hate this holiday sometimes. It enforces such a sense of nostalgia mixed with a healthy dose of self-evaluation on everyone that isn't merely intent on getting drunk and setting off fireworks that wakes the elderly couple down the road, causing them to call the police who then proceed to rudely throw your butt into jail so that you can join their Bums' Hall of Holiday Fame. I know that I go over the past year endlessly, and I imagine the rest of the world isn't much different. What you did wrong in the past year, what you did right, usually tempered with a vague sense that "this is gonna be YOUR year" like you own the rights to it or something. 

I guess New Years has also always been overshadowed by my birthday, too. New Years has just never been that big a deal to me. It usually meant attempting to stay up until midnight, failing and then shrugging my shoulders and making resolutions that I had every intention of keeping, which succeeded for, at best, a week until I failed and then went right back in to the bad habits that I'd hoped a new year would magically correct.

This is probably been the first time I've ever been actually sad to see a year go. 2008 wasn't perfect, but what year ever is? And I can honestly say that this past year has been one of the happiest of my recollection. There have been mistakes that I've made, and I don't mind admitting it. There have been friendships I wish I'd worked harder on, secrets that I shouldn't have told, stupid crushes that I should have avoided, tests I should have studied harder for, stories I should have written, ect. But I think I've learned the secret--I can't be sorry for those regrets, because I think I've learned from them. How can I ever be sorry for any pain that brought me to the place I am now? That's what I had to learn about my parents' divorce this year. Sure, it was hell. It was hell of a kind that no one should ever have to face, ever. But I wouldn't be who I am today if I hadn't gone through it. I don't think that I would have ever developed any paltry depth to my character that I now possess without having gone through hell and back with no Virgil to guide me. But even that's not completely true. I had God. Virgil was sometimes a rather insensitive bloke, after all. God always knew. He always understood. I don't know how atheists do it, personally.

But in 2008, I found myself again. With the help of my friends and family and, most importantly, God, I felt like I finally stopped stumbling around in a dark room and rediscovered Light in all of its realities. And it's so beautiful. I accept the fact that I'm going to be dealing with the remnants of suffering for the rest of my life. I'm never going to escape it. But that's okay. Jesus has scars, too. I had the greatest moment of catharsis the other day when one of my new, and dearest, friends told me that she couldn't imagine me ever being depressed. I literally started crying. Imagine God healing me that much, that Courtney could see me as I am now and be unable to see me as I was even a year and a half ago! It was blessing and miraculous. I realize that that sounds melodramatic, but it's no less the truth.

Life is so open right now, and so many people are missing it. They're too busy waiting for an ideal to appear, like the perfect mate or job or whatever, and they're hanging everything on that. I refuse to waste my life in longing. Hence come my--duh, duh, duh!--resolutions.

1.) In 2009, I'm going to make myself happy. True happiness, I think, isn't a bright, sparkling joy. You can't experience that constantly. It's too tiring, and it will fade away. Happiness is contentment, feeling at peace with whatever circumstance you find yourself in. As long as I am happy with who I am in Christ, and am listening to God's will, what does the future matter? What does it matter that I'm single or I don't have the perfect job or whatever else the flavor of the month might be? Contentment can be found in doing the best I can in whatever I happen to be doing, and let the rest go hang.

2.) I'm going to get straight A's this year. My record for 2008 was, regrettably, marred by one B. Curse Dr. Carr's Introduction to Business Finance class! I'm so close to graduating summa cum laude, and I'm  vain enough to want it just so I can say that I graduated summa cum laude. Laudable, I know, but I never professed to be a saint. I also know that this is the stepping stone to a good graduate school. I'd like to be able to hand them a transcript with only the three B's I now hold. I may not have graduated from high school with the highest scores, but I want those admission guys to see that I'm capable of running with the big dogs.

3.) I'm going to continue to make myself healthy. I only have twenty more pounds to go until I reach my goal weight (yay the fifty pounds that are gone!) and I really want to get back into dance. I miss dancing. It's joy in one of its purest forms.

4.) I'm going to refocus on my music. I'll be joining the choir at my church at some point in January, and I'm going to make an effort to reawaken whatever piano skill is currently sleeping in my toes. It may take some convincing to get back into my fingers, but that's what happens when you neglect a talent!

5.) I'm going to work on managing my money. God forbid that I should have anything saved, not to mention the fact that in a year and six months, I plan to be writing you all from a pub in Ireland. That aine gonna be cheap, my lads, so it's best that I be savin' me wee arse off. Begorrah, but I can' hardly wait!

These are all resolutions that I can build up to, and quite easily. Nothing has to happen overnight. That's what people try to do far too often with these things, I think. They believe that change comes through osmosis, without realizing that self improvement is a gradual thing. It's like spring. The grass doesn't turn green all at once, does it? Life is in everything, but you don't see signs of it until much later. Then the rewards are shown and everybody ooohs and awws like simpletons. 

Oh, I forgot. My last resolution is to be with you people through this blog as often as I can. It occurred to me the other day that this blog is like a scrapbook of my life. It's a written time capsule. I can't ignore anything as important as that, now, can I? Besides, then my mom will stop looking at me so mournfully. Love you, Mom!

Happy New Years, my friends and family and unknown strangers across the globe. May it be filled with light, promise, and the faith that the renewal of the year always brings. May 2009 be filled with happiness and growth.