Christmas time is here. :)

It's Christmas Eve, and my mother has decided on several new traditions this year. 1) Open presents Christmas Eve. 2) Eat Omaha Steaks for Christmas Eve dinner. 3) Go to Ten O'Clock Mass. 4)Drink wine while opening presents.

Haha, Merry Christmas Everyone.

It's been way too long.

Recently, I have completely fogotten to blog. School really hasn't been too busy, I guess its just pure forgetfulness mixed with apathy. All I know is that I just cut grass, and it's November 11. And that is just not right.

And it is also veterans day out there, so I just wanted to say a big thank you to anyone who has served for our country, or anyone who is serving. Its remarkable.

Quote of the day: ""An army is a team. It lives, eats, sleeps, fights as a team. This individuality stuff is a bunch of bullshit."  - General George Patton Jr

And may God bless you.

I like my chicken fried.

"You know I like my chicken fried, and a cold beer on a Friday night--a pair of jeans that fit just right, and the radio on. Well I`ve seen the sunrise, and seen the love in my woman's eyes. Felt the touch of a precious child, and known a mother's love." Zac Brown Band

This was another gorgeous, gorgeous Sunday. Went to two church services, felt a bursting for the Lord, made some money, carved pumpkins with my baby, and am able to sit back and watch The History Channel right now. I love life.

That's what I love about Sunday.

"That's what I love about Sunday.

Sing along as the choir sways. Every verse of Amazing Grace, and then we shake the Preacher's hand. Go home, into your blue jeans. Have some chicken and some baked beans. Pick a backyard football team. Not do much of anything.

That's what I love about Sunday."

Sadly, today I can't just do "not much of anything." But I went to church last night and this morning, and I feel like I need to thank the Lord for Sundays, because it's a beautiful day. And I'll go to soccer practice this afternoon, and I'll move on with my life, but today--right now--Sunday is special.

I got a bone to pick with you, Mr. DJ.

It's Monday. And I'm just dead. I really do not know how I dealt with school last year, because I would go to bed at like, midnight. I can barely stay awake until ten thirty. I'm just completely worn out. School is way too early in the morning. Honestly, what's wrong with starting at like 9:00? The little kids start at 9, why can't we? Life is unfair. But that's life, so we'll just suck it up. So suck it up. Just suck it up. Because there are scenes in life like below, and that's where I imagine myself when things suck. Right there--breathing in clean air, soaking in beauty. Stay strong, my friends.

Whisper, "Hello."

Good evening, Internet friends. Today, I found little comfort in my surrounding group of peers, teachers, family, and other miscellaneous persons. Has one ever considered the fact that there is no one person in the world whom you will never argue with? There is not a person in the world that shares the same exact mindset as you. In a way, we really are alone, but more in a emotional level--more in our thoughts and our ideas. There is not a person who will ever understand another fully. Only Jesus could do that, and sadly, he's not on earth at the moment (at least I don't think so). We can relate to people in specifics, but seldom are there times when there are a majority of similiarites between two people. Similarities tend to bring people together. "I play soccer, you play soccer, let's be friends!" But of course, it takes much more than just a shared activity to gain friendship. I believe that it's more about mindset. It is not so much a person's opinons, but how they approach other's opinions. If two people have similar mindsets, say for example open-mindedness or a giving nature, then they are brought together much stronger than if they just played a sport together. Of course, some people just come together, it would seem, on not much in common at all. But one can never know of course, because we will never be able to live their life, or walk in their shoes. Really, though, who am I to say what the laws of friendship is? There are no laws--only observations and patterns, and those are recorded only of a majority. So live, live well, live happily. Grab a pal, and be happy.

Don't fear the Reaper.

Ok, so School starts in...3 days. And it sucks. But whatever, "It'll come when it comes and I'll be there to meet it when it does." Don't mind me quoting the famous Rubeus Hagrid from Harry Potter! Speaking of quotes, a friend of mine posted a thought on Facebook which contained spot-on wisdom the other day.

"Don't take life too seriously. Nobody gets out alive."

This puts so many things into perspective. When people get sick, when accidents happen, it's because...that's life. There is no win in life, except to accept that well, something bad is going to happen to you one day too. And when you can accept that and not wallow in it, but rather be eager to face the Lord in heaven, then you have truly cheated death.

Death still scares me. I can preach the above truth, but even I have not totally accepted that mindset yet. It's difficult, and its not something that just happens in a moment. But fact is fact, and nobody gets out alive. Once again, carpe diem. And praise the Lord.

Life is punny.

Puns really light up my life. It's so hard to describe to someone exactly what a pun is. Its like wordy irony. Or something like that...here's the dictionary.com definition:

pun  [puhn] Show IPA noun, verb, punned, pun·ning.
–noun
1. the humorous use of a word or phrase so as to emphasize or suggest its different meanings or applications, or the use of words that are alike or nearly alike in sound but different in meaning; a play on words.
2. the word or phrase used in this way.
 
Because that is so darn easy to understand, I've provided some examples taken from http://www.punoftheday.com/cgi-bin/disppuns.pl?cat=0&ord=F&page=1?=0 
These make me laugh. :) Enjoy.
 
1. I'm reading a book about anti-gravity. It's impossible to put down.

2. I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me.

3. Did you hear about the guy whose whole left side was cut off? He's all right now.

4. I couldn't quite remember how to throw a boomerang, but eventually it came back to me.

5. There was a sign on the lawn at a drug re-hab center that said 'Keep off the Grass'.

6. It's not that the man did not know how to juggle, he just didn't have the balls to do it.

7. A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it.

8. He drove his expensive car into a tree and found out how the Mercedes bends.

9. I was going to look for my missing watch, but I could never find the time.

10. A rule of grammar: double negatives are a no-no.

You better start living right now.

I'm listening to Days Go By by Keith Urban, and I have to say, I'm feeling very much like the way he describes time in his song. Honestly, time really does fly. Wasn't it just yesterday when I was sitting in the auditorium for my middle school orientation? What happened to that bruise I got from flying off of my bike? Oh wait, I was ten then. Or even, since when did summer go by so fast? Wasn't the last day of school, like, last week? Time flies, even when it seems like molasses. ("Workdays pass just like molasses in wintertime, but it's July.") Really, I'm trying to focus on appreciating each and every day. I'm trying to learn something new each and every day. I'm trying to waste no time saying, "I'm bored." (Which I have said too many times.) I'm going to try new things, make new friends, and stand up for what I believe. It's time for me to be myself, and do things that I want to do if I have the oppurtunity. There will be no more, "It's too far away...My family would wonder where I was...I've got a dentist appointment tomorrow..." Be spontaneous. Just go. Don't think. Just go.

Carpe diem. Because life is beautiful, and there's not enough time.

pictures taken from:
http://www.wg3too.net/Scenic/1280x1024/
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Crepuscular_ray_sunset_from_telstra_tower_edit.jpg
http://www.ski-zermatt.com/mattnet/features/matterhorn_climb/photo11.htm

What happened to being lazy?

I am suddenly busy. And it is extremely uncharacteristic. I have soccer Mon-Fri 6-8:30 and taekwondo 2 days a week at 10:45 until about noon. I just applied to the VA hospital, school schedules came and everyone is flipping out, and school starts in 2 weeks and 6 days (but who's counting?). And when I'm home alone, I find that there is a stack of books waiting for me to be read and at least 3 Ghost Hunters recorded.

All in all, it's not too bad. For the first month and a half of summer, I really enjoyed doing absolutely nothing. And that absolutely nothing lasted just long enough so that now that I'm doing things again, I don't feel crowded or overwhelmed...but we'll see when school starts. My mindset will most likely change completely when Mr. What's-his-face assigns me to read 3 chapters and right a five paragraph essay. We'll talk again then.

Volunteering, Robyn style.

So today, I got an official call from an official volunteering office. I am sincerely bursting with energy. I can't even express it in words. All I can say is that I have to get a tuberculosis screening AND get my thumbprints taken! How wonderful can life get, really? So I'm generously giving my time to a Veteran's Hosptial and I really cannot wait to get started. I feel like it signifies a new chapter of my life...or perhaps I'm just excited that I have something productive and helpful to do. :) Life and all it's grand surprises. I wouldn't have it any other way.

So bring it on volunteering! Expose me to all your hardships and beauty. Fill me with happiness! :)

Seasonal thoughts...

Lately my brain has been pondering the oddity of seasons. Well, it's not odd, but rather...interesting. Really, what makes the weather so drastically change 4 times a year (depending on where you live, possibly less)?  So, if anyone else has had this question rattle their brain, here is the answer.

We now know that Earth orbits the sun elliptically and, at the same time, spins on an axis that is tilted relative to its plane of orbit. This means that different hemispheres are exposed to different amounts of sunlight throughout the year. Because the sun is our source of light, energy and heat, the changing intensity and concentration of its rays give rise to the seasons of winter, spring, summer and fall.
**taken from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3077384/. Article written by Paige Williams.

Funky. Tchau friends.

I discovered Microsoft Photo Editor.

Have you ever picked up something you've owned all your life, but suddenly realized how much use it had? Like perhaps that old stand-up piano in the living room that you've never learned how to play, but oneday decide to test out. Or the food processor that your sister-in-law gave you as a Christmas present, when she knows how much you hate cooking. Or even when you go through the attic and find an old record player and a bicycle? New things are all around us. New things that we've owned for years. So look around you, and I promise that you will find hobbies you never new you had access to.

For example, I discovered Microsoft Photo Editor. I've had it on my computer for all the computer's life, and yet, I have never explored the capabilities it can do to enhance or change or edit pictures.

So really look around at what you own. Appreciate it, and use it. You'll be amazed.

Cedar Point, Roller Coaster Capital of the World.

So we're leaving very soon for Cedar Point.

So I get pretty excited.

I'll be there today and tomorrow.













So I'll see you in Sandusky.



**i do not claim these images as my own.

Another Monday, another General Hospital.

Don't commercials really irk you? Once I was blessed with DVR, commercials seemed that much harder to put up with. I record everything, even if I'll be there to watch it. Like right now, General Hospital is on, and I have perfect capability to watch it, and yet, I won't until at least twenty minutes in so that my brain is not forced to sit through "Now I'm breathing better, with Spiriva!" or "Pristique has helped to improve my depression." With all these medicinal commercials, I'm starting to wonder if ABC thinks that really ill people watch soap operas. Well there's definitely something wrong with them.

http://www.soapoperanetwork.com/soaps/news/821-more-soap-stars-play-ball-for-charity

More Soap Stars Play Ball for Charity
Monday, April 20, 2009 11:47 PM ET

By Scotty Gor(SoapOperaNetwork.com) --
 
More soap stars from "All My Children," "As the World Turns," and "One Life to Live" sign up for this year's Tammy Rubin Rice Charity Softball Game.



Now in its eleventh year, the Tammy Rubin Rice Celebrity Softball Game, whose namesake died of breast cancer, is sponsored by the Shorefront Friends for Hospice. The voluntary organization offers supportive health services for terminally ill patients.


Here is a list of soap stars scheduled to attend this year's game (names in bold are the newest additions). Representing ABC at this year's game are the following cast members from "One Life to Live": Eddie Alderson (Matthew Buchanan), Kristen Alderson (Starr Manning), John Brotherton (Jared Banks), Brandon Buddy (Cole Thornhart), Brett Claywell (Kyle Lewis), Scott Clifton (Schuyler Joplin), Shenell Edmonds (Destiny), Scott Evans (Oliver Fish), Farah Fath (Gigi Morasco), John-Paul Lavoisier (Rex Balsom), Sean Ringgold (Shaun), Jason Tam (Markko Rivera), Brittany Underwood (Langston Wilde Cramer), and Austin Williams (Shane Morasco). Representing CBS will be Alex Cole (Hunter), Mick Hazen (Parker Snyder), Billy Magnussen (Casey Hughes) and Marnie Schulenburg (Alison Stewart) from "As the World Turns," Bonnie Dennison (Daisy Lemay) and Caitlin van Zandt (Ashlee Wolfe) from "Guiding Light," and Daniel Kennedy (Peter/Petey Cortlandt) from "All My Children."


The 11th Annual Tammy Rubin Rice Celebrity Softball Game will be held on Saturday, June 6, 2009 at Midwood High School softball field in Brooklyn, New York, located at Avenue K and East 16th Street. The gates open at 11:00 am et, with the game beginning at 11:30 am et. Tickets cost $25.00 each, and all proceeds go to benefit the charity.


To order tickets, please send a check or money order, along with a self-addressed stamped envelope, to Shorefront Friends for Hospice (C/o Jodi Waxman), at 61 Bay 35th Street Brooklyn, New York 11214. For more information, click here to e-mail the event organizerThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Give Thanks!

It really gives me motivation to go help others when I think about how lucky I am myself. So think about that.

Let's Go Ghosting!

Do you remember a time whenever ghost shows seemed to be on every channel all the time? What happened to all those shows? Discovery Channel used to play marathons of A Haunting every week, but I haven't seen that show on TV for a long time. The only ones I can find now are Ghost Hunters on the Syfy channel every Wednesday and Ghost Adventures on the Travel Channel every Friday. For a obsessive paranormal geek like moi, there's just not enough to keep me occupied. I'm sure that more will pop up around Halloween time. I can't wait for the ghost pandemonium to begin!

http://www.scificool.com/ghost-hunters-renewed-for-7th-season/
Ghost Hunters Renewed for 7th Season
Posted by Nix on June 14, 2010

I’ve been watching the SyFy Channel’s “Ghost Hunters” TV show on and off for the last six years or so, and honestly, I can’t tell you with any certainty if they’ve ever caught evidence of an actual, honest-to-goodness ghost. A lot of stuff seems to happen in almost every episode, but eh, I’ve always considered it more entertainment than actual “reality”.



Anyways, the show continues to be one of the SyFy Channel’s more popular offerings, so it’s a no-brainer that the cable network has renewed the show for a seventh season and a 25 episode order. The show has proven so popular it’s already spun off two other shows — “Ghost Hunters International’ and “Ghost Hunters Academy”.


After six years on the air, “Ghost Hunters” now ranks as the longest-running original series on the SyFy Channel (previous Sci Fi Channel).

 

Victims Stories of Slavery

These are some real trafficking stories taken from the Home Foundation. God, they're sad.

VICTIM’S STORIES



** Asha was only nine when her father sold her to a procurer in a Bombay brothel. She was told she would have new clothes, and that she would be working for a nice family who lived in a big house. But where she was taken was a strange place. “Where’s the pretty house?” Asha asked shyly. There was no pretty house; just a small, damp room with a cold hard floor that Asha was locked in.






A woman unlocked the door and came in to put makeup on Asha’s face. The woman then opened the door and allowed in a man. Asha was told she would have to do sexual favors for him. She didn’t want to, so she fought. Another man came in, beat her with a belt, and continued beating her for several days. They gave her no food. Weakened, Asha decided it was useless to resist. She serviced her first “client” and continued to do so for the next seven years. Until she met a man named Devaraj.






Devaraj was different than the other men she had known. She met him at a small church near Falkland Road. There he taught messages of hope that lifted her spirits. He talked of freedom. She visited there as often as she could.






Deveraj helped Asha leave the brothel that had been her home since she was a young girl and moved her into a “Home of Hope.” Now she is learning how to live. She is learning a new trade. And thanks to people who care, Asha’s life is no longer surrounded by pain and disappointment. It is full of hope and optimism for the future.






** Nagma was dying on the street with her two young daughters, Muskan, 5, and Anam, 2, sitting next to her and begging. Bombay Teen Challenge discovered that Nagma was a Commercial Sex Worker who had been thrown out of the brothel when she contracted AIDS. Her two young daughters were thrown out along with her.






Nagma was a Muslim orphan who had been tricked into marriage and was sold to a brothel. She had given birth to her two daughters while she was in the brothel. She was taken to a hospital and while there, she handed over both her children to Bombay Teen Challenge. Sadly, Nagma died within a few days of being admitted to the hospital.






Although Nagma’s life came to a tragic end, God in his great mercy has spared the lives of her children from following a similar course. Muskan, the older girl, has tuberculosis and Anam is HIV-positive. At present they are being given the necessary medical treatment and are being sent to live at the recently established Jubilee Orphans home.






** Katya, with a two-year-old daughter and a failing marriage in the Czech Republic, followed the advice of a “friend” that she could make good money as a waitress in the Netherlands. A Czech trafficker drove her along with four other young women to Amsterdam where, joined by a Dutch trafficker, Katya was taken to a brothel. After saying “I will not do this,” she was told, “Yes you will if you want your daughter back in the Czech Republic to live.” After years of threats and forced prostitution Katya was rescued by a friendly cab driver. Katya is now working at a hospital and studying for a degree in social work.






** Tanya’s story: “My friend organized for me to get a job in Egypt. We traveled together from Chisinau to Moscow where I got on a plane to Egypt. When I got to the airport in Egypt, I was paired with a man in order to walk through customs and immigration. People were waiting for me and they took me to a five-star hotel. I gave up my passport at the reception of the hotel and never saw it again. They put me in a car and we drove for a really long time. We went to a place where Bedouins are [Egypt's Sinai Peninsula] and those Bedouins took us through the desert. At one point, I heard gunshots and I think a girl was killed. They kill you or beat you if they don’t like your attitude. We had to walk for hours and hours through the desert where there were landmines. They pointed out the mines to us in the sand. We hardly ate and I lost 10 lbs. by the time I got to Israel. When we got out of the desert, we were taken to a town in Israel, where the Bedouins arranged for us to be sold. Many girls were traveling with me, and all the girls going to Israel go through the same route and the same situation.”


© 2009 The Home Foundation. All Rights Res

The phone woke me up, but I was too slow to get it.

I hate trying to sleep when the phone rings. First, it takes a few rings to wake me up, and then I sprint out of my bed and rush toward the sound of ringing. And today, I was much too slow.

Who calls at 9 o'clock anyway? It's much too early. But anyway, now that I'm already awoken, I feel that going back to sleep while the beautiful sun is shining and the birds are happily chirping is just almost wrong. And who cares if I went to bed at 2 AM and I expected to sleep until noon? I have the wonders of the internet at my fingertips.

I found this really great cause through a magazine once.  It's all about raising awareness agains human trafficking, which frankly, I had not given much thought too until I'd seen this website. Natalie Grant, a Christian singer, started this organization which is called the Home Foundation (www.thehomefoundation.net). Slavery really isn't an issue many people give much too. I mean, it was illegalized years ago, but the slavery of children and women especially is still a huge problem. Find out how you can help.

Taking on the world.

The glass is half full. Yes, always.

Sitting there, on the grass, throwing my fist in the air with my thumb outlined brightly against the sky, I thought: I love the sky. I love the sun. I love the rain. Yes.