Joie de vivre

Apparently my dad has named his car General Lee.

 

 

My dad just shaved off his beard. He looks so young now! I think the only reason he grows one is for the shock value when, after a year, he emerges from the bathroom with a naked face. *waggles eyebrows*

(Reason number 3897342 why I'm glad not to be a guy: no need to shave my face every morning.)

(Also, because it's more socially acceptable to be totally and utterly unable to drive a stick shift.)

Audience participation time:

Girls, why are you glad to be a female?
And guys, what about you? Why are you glad to be a male?

My daddy just stopped by the library on his way through town, for no reason other than to say hello.

He doesn't say often that he's proud of me, but I see it in his eyes.

3/12
My dad just said something sweet enough to make me feel like crying. Yeah, we don't agree on everything. And yeah, he could be a heck of a lot more emotionally open. ; ) But all the same, I'm really glad my mom picked that handsome cowboy to marry.....even if he IS old. (61)

I'm still planning on going to live in Goshen, Indiana to do a year or two...or three... of Voluntary Service work with the Gosple Echos prison ministry. It's the absolute perfect thing for me: my mom was a big part of the singing group that started Gospel Echos when she was my age, so I've grown up knowing the "head man" and the other long-time workers there. Not only that, but a whole slew of my mom's family live there, including dear cousin David (who will, I'm sure, take me to the Electric Brew frequently. =D) AND my very long-time friend Sarah the Monkey. And, uh...I guess it's kind of closer to Idaho then I am now. The main drawback is that it's WAY farther away from Tennesee! =\

Back to my orginal point. I'd told dad that even if I felt ready to go now, emotionally or whatever, that I really didn't feel like it'd be fair for me to leave here right now. With the grandparents next door and all, I do an awful lot to keep things going. But dad told me that, "When you feel ready, and you'll know, then don't worry about how we'll manage. Don't put off your life for us."

Awww, that's so nice. I'm not ready now, though. Being able to handle the responsibilites and the separation isn't the same as being ready for them. When I do go, the hardest thing is...ok, ONE of the hardest things is going to be being separated from my stuff. **sniff** I know there's no way I can take all my books with me. Or my gourmet magazines. **gasp** Oh my! I'll probably hardly be able to COOK there?! Oh no! WhatamIgonnado? Go cook at David's, I guess. ; )

Still, it's frightening...HOW am I going to "know"? Gar. And I admit that I'm a little worried that I'll go and find the perfect guy and get married and never come home. I want to get married. But not yet!

Enough worrying about the future. It'll happen when it happens.

3/14 Because I like statistics....
I finally finished the cataloging of all my books. Which means that now I can do spiffy stuff with my database like calculate percentages and so on. Heh heh. Here goes:

TOTAL BOOKS: 180 (although rapidly growing)
They are:
71% Fiction
17.7% Non-fiction
And apparently 11.9% undecided...can't quite figure out how *that* happened.

In smaller catagories,the most interesting are:

21.6% are children's books

1.1% were published at the Oxford University Press. Lol.

Tolkien and Victoria Holt are tied for second place in "most books by the same author." Uh, wow. Sort of an odd pairing, whot?

6.6% are biographies

50.5% are hardback, and 49.4% paperback. I have no clue where the other 1% is.

I've bought 21% of my books in the last three months. Ooo, that's scary...

6.6% of the titles began with the word "A", but 34.5% began with "The".

2/16 Just have a few minutes before I go to choir practice...

Had an interesting time this morning convincing my newly-turned five year old Sunday school charge Heidi that paper money is still good even if it gets a little torn...she was having histerics because she'd accidentally ripped her offering dollar. ; ) Cute child. She's even cute crying.

Leah finally had those twins--Brook and Blake, both right around 6 pounds. Mom and I are going to take over supper Wednesday night for them. Hopefully that'll give me an opportunity to stop in at the library and post this, we'll see.

Um, what else. Oh. Friday I bought my first Andrea Bocelli CD. I've hungered after one for a looong time but I'm reticent about treating myself to such non-essential stuff. =) But I saw it at a place a bit cheaper then I'd seen it elsewhere...ah well, haven't made a real impulse purchace in a while. It was Romanza that I got, mostly because I really, really, really like Il Mare Calmo Della Sera. I'm listening to it now. =D (I'm afraid it would have been better if they hadn't bothered to translate the lyrics into English, though--they sound MUCH BETTER in Italian.)

Haha, I just realized that the last CD I bought was Italian too. It's Red Wine's Italian Cats--Italian bluegrass. (Don't laugh. It's really good.) They're from Genoa, they have wonderful accents, and the guitar player is one of the most drop-dead gorgeous people I've ever met. ....Yes, I said met. I even got all their autographs. ;) And he bowed marvelously in my direction each time I clapped especially for his guitar breaks.

I just remembered that The Emperor's New Groove is on TV tonight. SOMEday I'm going to be able to quote from that movie as well as _haydee_ and savetheolives. (Sorry, I haven't figured out how to link these kinds of things. =P)

3/17
It's a BEAUTIFUL morning. (It's also a BIG morning in history, methinks. Hurray.) ...Ooo, it's also an Irish morning. Oops.

For the first time this year I slept with my windows open. That made it a very happy waking-up. Then I got dressed in clothes I like, took the time to apply more then the average makeup, making me feel marginally more beautiful, and picked several vases full of sunny daffodils.

One random thing I feel like saying: I'm suddenly terribly glad that I'm 18 and I have laugh lines. Bwaha.

I'm very sad about the Dixie Chicks, and if you don't know what I'm talking about, I'm not gonna tell you. Suffice it to say, I liked their music a lot (if not their fashion sense!) and I'm sad that they've acted this way and I'm afraid that their career may have now reached it's peak and will be going downhill. This can be tolerated by pop divas and rock stars (ie, Bono), but country people are just not supposed to act this way, and I don't believe the majority of their fans will stand for it. I was faintly thinking of getting their new CD, but I dooon't believe I shall now.

3/19
It rained last night and "outside the open window/The morning air is all awash with angels."

I don't think I've had weather effect me more then it has last year. I am mostly very, very happy now that it is spring-like. I even saw two trees across the road that have a fine mist of green hovering around their brown branches.

God just worked out something I was worried about. I'm so thankful. It does mean I still have to go on the choir trip (love the singing, rather dislike the people), but when I have HANNAH to look forward to seeing when I get home! **cracks knuckles** I can handle anything. ; ) Thank God for His faithfulness in arranging my life. =D