Remembering '09 part 2. You know, maybe it should be called, not remembering '09...

Hello again =)

So right now I am doing an overview of 2009.  I didn't journal during that time, so I really feel like I lost a lot of memories.  In the last post I did January and February, so now I gonna do March,  April and May.

March:  was cold.  Still.  I mean, everything was still pretty much dead.  We came down to GA for a visit, and everything was warm and sunny.  We had just missed Cherry Blossom season, which was a major dissapointment.  Other than that, our visit was lovely.  I stayed up till 2 or 3 am with Rose, we went to Picnic Pals and Chorus and church... and then we went home.  I honestly don't remember hardly anything from March.  It went by in a blur.....

April:  I remember practically nothing about this month.  Other than we moved altogether from the midwest to GA.  I miss y'all!  But I love you too GA hahaahh

May: Again, I remember nothing!  Except May 30, we had a HUGE surprise party for Mama's 37th birthday!  It was waaay fun.  Lol, and she never expected anything!!!!  We have the most awesome friends.  We all just had a really good time hanging out, soaking each other with water guns, eating, and messing around.

Aaaah June: my memory begins to return in a vague haze.  I had a surprise party for my 13th birthday.  Its funny, every year in the past I begged my parents for a surprise party, and they always said I would expect it.  Last year, I didn't even ask for a party, and I got a surprise bash! lol ironic much?  This summer a lot of big things happened, and it was probably one of the best ever!

July:  Hmm, what happened?  I think we went to Grandma's on the 4th, or did we? huh... 

And next up.... Osh Kosh WI in August!!!  But thats a long post in and of its self hahah.....

Remembering 2009 part 1

Hey everybody,

Wow.  I cannot believe 2009 is over.  It seems like last year just flew by, and yet, it went by so slowly.  Do y'all ever feel like that?  Like everday takes 10 years to get through... and then you look back and the year seems to have gone by in a day?  2009 was filled with hello's, goodbye's, new friends, old friends, difficulties and new opportunities, regrets; and those happy memories I will look back on for the rest of my life!  

Some of the highlights of 2009 were:

January:  We moved out of our beloved old farmhouse located in the cornfields of Illinois.  It was bittersweet, my family and I had grown to love that ancient, out-dated, large, out-of-the way, drafty, beautiful house.  The summers there were just gorgeous; the woman before us had tended the garden faithfully, and lily's, baby's breath, little purple flowers, and so many others were blossoming.  We had a little pond in the backyard, one that we could keep fish in, and there were two sheds out back, one of which used to be a smoke house.  I never went into either building, but all of us kids had so much fun playing on the trampoline,  using those buildings as props to pretend we were settlers in the old west, princesses and princess in the Medieval times, orphans during the Depression, or something like that.  I don't know if we could have moved away during the summer; it was really just so breath-taking.  But it was winter, everything was dead, our grill had fallen into the pond, which was completely iced over and had a frozen baby rabbit in it =(  we were all freezing, and just to get from the house to the car was a miserable journey.  That was when our lease ended, and God opened the way for us to move to a new house, one with a heating system that worked!  So we signed a lease and said farewell to cornfields.

February:  We had lived in our new for about a month, when Daddy got an offer to come back to the South and get the position he had been wanting in the first place.  His current job was wearing on him.  He was hardly ever home, and it was tough on the whole family.  And if you have ever lived in MO, you know how it gets.... coooooollllld  in the winter.  My family doesn't like cold at all!  So February was a month of prayer asking to make the right decision.

Later I will try to put up March and April.  I used to do a lot of journaling when I was little, and now I love to look back on what I wrote (or I cringe and think I was really silly) I regret not writing during '08 and '09 because I am missing a huge chunk of memories, from how I was angry at my brother that day, or how beautiful the sunset was, or how it felt to hear a mouse scurry across my bedroom floor, or what it was like to just go outside and marvel at God's creation one summer's eve.  So I want to catch up on some express memories, as well as an overview of last year.  

So I will be back later!

Revelation 18

Hey everyone!

I am not going to go into detail about how I am so incredibly sorry for not having blogged in so long because I just know I will have to make the same speech again...

and again...

and again.

So for the last 6 months you have been receiving posts from me.  Daily posts.  Hourly posts.  Is that to hard to imagine?

I have just gotten involved in a Bible Study and it is very good.  Last night as I was doing my S.O.A.P (the form this particular study uses to break the passage up, etc.) I was getting really confused.  It was Revelation 18, and I just wasn't getting anything!  I asked my sister what she had gotten from it, and she replied that she had only skimmed the passage, and had done her S.O.A.P on another verse they assigned.

If that worked for her, that was fine, but I wanted to know about Revelation!  It is so confusing, and yet very interesting.  Fascinating.  I wanted to know what it meant!!!!!!

So I decided to bring out trusty homiletics.  When I started doing it, I understood it so much more!

Here is my paper:

Revelation 18:

V. 1-2 Powerful Angel from Heaven proclaimed:  Babylon has fallen, it's a place for demons, foul spirits and unclean birds.

3-5 All nations have sinned and become rich with her, but stay away, so you don't sin, because God knows and will punish.

6- 7  Do twice what she did to you.  For all she party's and brags, she will have that much in sorrow.

8.  Her plagues will come strong in one day.

9-18  All earth will mourn when she is destroyed, but only for her stuff!

20  people of God: "Rejoice!  Revenge is sweet :)"

21  Angel throws rock in the same way Babylon will be thrown.

22-24 Nothing can be heard.  Merchants and sorcerers deceived everyone.  Prophets and saints died.

I don't know what Bible Scholars get out of this.  I'm not one.  I am just a 13 year old girl who is trying to get something out of the Bible that will apply to her!

And I got something :)  Please read this:

V.   ^{9And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,}

 ¹⁰Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.

 ¹¹And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more:

 ¹²The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble,

 ¹³And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men.

 ¹⁴And the fruits that thy soul lusted after are departed from thee, and all things which were dainty and goodly are departed from thee, and thou shalt find them no more at all.

 ¹⁵The merchants of these things, which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing,

 ¹⁶And saying, Alas, alas that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls!

 ¹⁷For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,

Sorry this is in the King James version.  I didn't want to type all of this, so I got this portion from an online Bible site.  Really handy!

Read over this.  Babylon's "friends" are mourning for her, right?  Sounds like a nice thing to do, right?  Look closely.  What exactly are they mourning for?  

The loss of her GREATNESS and her STUFF!  Merchants and sailors can't get rich off of her anymore.  No one can buy from them.  That is what they are sad about!!!!

I put it in a parable to explain it to my sister.  It really helped her get it!

                                              The Rich Business Man and his Sorry Doom.

Once upon a time there was a rich business man with lots of friends.  He was very charismatic and won the hearts, souls and body's of everyone he met.  He had so much of everything, lots of gold and silver, precious jewelry, fancy clothes, A huge house made of fantastic and expensive woods and metals, so much cologne,  the best food in the land, and only the finest cars.  He had everything he could ever want, he was the life of a party, and everyone loved him.

Well, not everyone.  Mr. Businessman cheated and murdered people.  He partied to much, and certain people hated him.  

God warned him "Your sins are piling up in Heaven.  You will lose everything in a day, and will have as much sorrow as you have parties to brag about!"

Some people took heed to God, and stayed away from the man.  But most people, including the business man himself, ignored God, and continued to live their lives in sin.

One day, the stock market crashed.  Mr.  Businessman went home to find his house had been robbed, his fancy cars were gone, and there was a foreclosure sign on the door.  In his sorrow, he went to all the homes he had partied in, but they couldn't even recognize him and they shut the door in his face.

He was so distraught he didn't even realize what he was doing, and that night he died.

His friends cried mourned, saying "We will never go into that huge house again, or have a big party that none of us could afford, or ride in his limo, or ferrari or any of his cars!  We can never get rich off his business deals, or eat his food, or be popular with all his friends again!  Woe, fine businessman in your designer clothes and diamonds and pearls!  For in only an hour you have nothing!"

But the people he killed and cheated rejoiced, because God had justly punished her.

My application:  Babylon (Mr. Businessman)  was evil.  She had everything you could want, threw big parties and people became rich off of her.  It seemed like everyone loved her, but when she died, all they did was cry over her stuff!

What so people think of me?  How will they remember me?  Does God genuinely shine through me, or do people only pretend to like me for what I have?

These are all rhetorical questions by the way :-)

I encourage you (yes, YOU) to study this passage on your own, and tell me what you got out of it.  But you will have to comment on my Facebook page, because I cannot get my comments to work!

Thank you for reading this ridiculously long post!

Luckily, my burn from all that sun turned into a tan...I told Chrissy it would!

Hi everyone!

Do y'all know that I have moved??? Across the country??? Yeppers, my new home is several hundred miles away from the original Hundred-Acre-Wood.

I use that for my I'm-sorry-I-have not-blogged-in-forever excuse. Does it work for you?

Now for the news:

We moved March 15 into the home of our friends, the Chrissy-Robbinsons. We live in a 5 bedroom house with one uncle, 5 children, my set of parents and Chrissy's mom, 2 cats and 3 dogs that hate each other. It has been very interesting...luckily we left the 23 surviving fish back home to be taken care of by a fish rescue center. Otherwise known as our local pet store.

However, the excitment is never ending. How many of you live with your best friend????? I am sure that if I could see you, my faithful readers, that I would not see very many hands up!

Chrissy, Piglet and I went camping with our club over the weekend!!! It was AWESOMENESS!!!!!!!!!!! I am a teen this year, so I got to go to the Teen Zone and do the Teen Challenge! MWAHAHA!!!

There was a giant zipline, a drama ministry and the evening and morning worship. Bible bowl and parades, good food and FOOD FAIR! was all so much fun!

I will save details and pictures for a later post... and I WILL get back to blogging! I just got a Facebook, and that's where I've been spending all my time!

Now I have some strawberries to pick!

Excuses, Excuses...

Hi peoples!

I know, I know. I have been really bad about blogging! But you see, I have a huge line of excuses, such as:

I am not even in the same state (then again, I brought my laptop and have Wi Fi)
My time is split in between bunches of people wanting to see me, not to sound braggy (but, I have had plenty of my Facebook and e-mail, time)

Let me think...

And Lissa is icing a birthday cake!

(I threw that one in because my "huge line of excuses" is running out...)

I'll be back, don't worry. I have a lot of things on my mind right now. But I will be back.

Just to throw in another obscure fact, I have stayed up past mid-night every night since Friday of last. Mostly around the 2:30/3:30 central time.

"I can't believe I'm saving you after you tried to kill me!"

Do any of you recongnize this quote?

Yes, it is one from Ella Enchanted, the movie. You really should read the book, though. The movie may be funny, but the book is just plain awesome!

Nighty night night!

Marina

Did y'all ever notice how cute Puss-in Boots is? His voice does not suit him, though. He needs a cute little kitty voice, don't you agree?

Here we are, practicing for the "Iron Man" race. You started outside, swam back-stroke to the black line, breast-stroke to the inside line, free-style to the black line, breast-stroke to the outside line, choose-what-you want to the black line, then you went

under and held your breath to the finish-line.

Our pre Iron-Man picture.

As you can see, Eeyore is holding up bunny ears behind Roo.

The black wall thing-y that you swam under to get outside. SO COOL!

Here is the indoor part of the pool. To get to the outdoor half you swim under that black-wall thingy (or you could just use the door, but who wants to do that?)!

Sorry 'bout the kind of confusing way the pictures are set up. I am still working on learning how to put pictures on the blog.

I am watchin' Shrek the Third. Whatcha doin?

Why I may have a future as a waitress, after all!

Hey y'all!

We had a lot of fun at our trivia night Saturday night. Two triva nights. My church's youth group, G3, or God's Glory Group, had a trivia night, but my Pathfinder club had a trivia night the same evening. So my family split up and my brothers and Daddy went to G3 and my Mama and sister and I went to Pathfinders because we had jobs to do there.

I was a waitress.

Many of you are probably gasping and shaking your heads.

Because most of you have probably heard my Mama's stories about her brief and humiliating stint, as a waitress.

And let me tell you something.

I inherit my Mama's waitress skills... Or, more accurately, lack of.

We were assigned table numbers. I was number 3 and had no one at my table yet. I thought it would all be easy, until people started showing up.

Well, there were only two people at my table. But that was plenty for me, let me tell you.

Me: "Hello, my name is Marina and I will be your server today. Can I get you anything to drink?"

Lady: "Yes I would like something with caffination, carbination, and lots of sugar!"

Man: "Water, please."

Me:"I will be right back with that, then..."

Trip as I go up to the counter. I was very clumsy yesterday. I get up there and look around.

Me: "Excuse me, but we don't seem to have anything with caffeine. Perhaps we have some in the 'fridge?"

Cook (looking at me like I am crazy): "Do you think we want a bunch of hyper teens? Of course we don't have anything with caffeine!"

I walk back to my table.

Me: "I am sorry, but we don't have anything with caffeine. Can I get you something else?"

Lady (with a "your crazy" look) "I will take some Dr. Pop, then."

Man: "Where's my water?"

Me: "Oh! I will be right back with Dr. Pop and some water!!"

Go back to the counter. After grabbing a water, looking around for some Dr. Pop and finding none, I ask Cook if she could get me some from the refridgerator.

Cook: "We don't have anymore."

Me (after I get back to my table): "I'm sorry, but we don't have any more Dr. Pop. Here's your water, sir."

Lady (giving me another "your-crazy" look): "No more Dr. Pop! Well, get me something brown and with lots of sugar."

Me: "Umm, okay!"

Now anybody who knows me knows that I wandered around the pop for what seemed like hours before my pineapple brain realized that sugar + brown makes Root Beer. Thankfully when I brought it back to her, she was pleased.

Pathfinders got to play trivia and serve tables in-between rounds. The first round talked about TV shows and movies and stuff like that. Again, everyone who personally knows me knows I live under a rock and that I won't know any of these particular answers. I was sitting next to a TLT (Teen Leader in Traning) who clearly has cable and watches this type of movie. He answeres a question, looks at me and says:

TLT: "Have you seen that movie?"

Me: "What movie?"

TLT gives me an "are-you-serious?" look.

Me: "Oh THAT movie! Uhh, no."

TLT gives me another "are-you-serious?" look. Through out the night I get several more "are-you-serious?" "and are-you-crazy?" looks, in addition to the four I had already gotten. I forgot to give a water bottle to a customer for three rounds and I re-told the lady we had Dr. Pop, forgeting that we didn't have anymore.

But I did get some compliments, too. From the same TLT I got ten "points" and a high-five for guessing (corectly ;o)) the word laryngitis (he guessed strep throat) and a compliment (of sorts) from him and another girl saying that I was very mature for twelve. And, as I was apologizing for forgeting the man's water for the second (or was it third?) time, he simply smiled and said

"That's OK, you're a lot of fun."

So, I may be a crazy pineapple who deserves all those "are-you-serious" and "you-need-to-think-these-through-more" and "your-excited-your-able-to-open-a-can?" and "you-run-really-funny-and-can't-kick-a-kickball-straight" looks.

But I know the word laryngitis.*

And I (can be) very mature.**

And I'm fun.***

Unique, one-of-a-kind, slightly dorky, very pineapple-y fun.*****



-**-*** I did not write this post to be braggy. No, you can see that from the first part of this post. I wrote it only to try and explain my craziness and the blank looks people give me all the time.



**** And, in case your wondering, I am fresh pineapple-y fun; not canned pineapple-y fun. Huge difference.