A Wrinkle In Time

Rumors are like the wild fires happening in California right now; they are uncontrolable, they can’t be contained and they continue to spread with no end insight.  Years ago there was rumor that got started about me that hurt me really bad and it changed the way people thought of me.  People didn’t see it as a rumor they saw it as the truth, but it wasn’t the truth at all it was so far from the truth….I’m not trying to dig up the past, but I still feel like people are judging me this way and maybe writing about it will make me feel better.  I thought I could just sit back and over time this would go away, but I don’t feel like it has.  I want people to judge me for who I am not who I’m not. What really erks me the most is the fact that the people who judge me most of the time don’t even take the time to get to know me and to find out the truth about me. I just don’t understand it and I’m tired of it.  I’m realizing that the solution to my problem is to simply stop letting other people’s thoughts and opinions about me control my life.  I’m just going to be me.  Who else can I be?  People can say what they want about me.  I can’t control what others say, think, or do, but I can control how I react to it and how I allow others to impact my life.  People effect other people’s lives in ways they are unaware of for the good as well as the bad.  I think it’s good to care, but I believe that there are times and situations when it’s ok not to care.  I’m just not going to let this world get me down anymore.  I guess I just need to forgive and forget, well not necessarily forget, but to learn from all of this.  I truely believe that everything in life happens for a reason and something can be learnt from it.  Every thing that happens can be a learning experience if you let it.
  One thing that I have learned from this situation is that I can’t be afraid to give people the benefit of the doubt.  I shouldn’t base my opinions of others based on what other people think of them because then I’m just being judgemental.  There was this new employee at work and I overheard a lot of negative stuff about this person, but once I started working with her I found out that she was really nice, she helped me out with my responsibilites, she was a good worker, and she was just the total opposite of what I heard about her and I’m glad that I didn’t listen to the gossip and judge her.  People are unpredictable and sometimes difficult to interpret and this blog is making no sense at all, but that’s ok.

“The more we let God take us over, the more truly ourselves we become –because he made us.  He invented all the different people that you and I were intended to be…It is when I turn to Christ, when I give up myself to His personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.”
-C.S. Lewis

Tip Of The Day:
Make/find time out of every busy day to do something you enjoy because life’s too short to not be enjoyed.

  Yesterday, I went to work at 6 am like I usually do every Saturday morning, but this Saturday was different.  When I got there one of the nurses pulled me aside and told me that my Grandma had passed away.  We all knew it was coming she had been in the hospital for about a week and we knew she was slowly dying ( I wonder if she knew she was dying) and there was nothing they could really do for her.  Surgery was an option but at the age of 93 her body most likely wouldn’t have been able to pull through it so they brought her back to the nursing home, which is where she died. 
  While my Grandma was in the hospital I did get a chance to go up there and see her for the last time and I’m glad I went.  While I was there she slept most of the time, but there was a time when she did wake up and she saw me there. I’m not sure if she remembered who I was or not, but she motioned for me to come to her and so I did and she hugged me and kissed my head and it was like she was saying goodbye to me.  This meant a lot to me and this is the last memory I have of her.  I knew my Grandma loved me and that makes it all the more difficult to lose her.
  When my Grandma Hooey was in the hospital years ago, Grandma Grace took care of my Dad and uncle and this is how Grace became part of the Hooey family.  We adopted her.  I was blessed to have 3 Grandmas.  Not many people get that privilege.  I’ve known Grandma grace all of my life and I have many good memories of her and I also have some memories that I wish I could go back and change.  Death has a way of bringing about regret.  Looking back now I realize that I should have been more paitent with my Grandma.  Especially during the last few years of her life when she started to forget things/people.  I took it personally when she forgot who I was.  It hurt me, but I should have been more sympathetic and understanding towards her.  It wasn’t her fault that she was getting forgetful.  She couldn’t help it.  I guess I just didn’t know how to handle the situation.  I didn’t understand what she was going through and hopefully I’ll never have to go through that.  I also wish that I would have went and visited her more often.  When she was put into to the nursing home I didn’t go visit her as much anymore, but I’m glad that I got see her just about everyday when I started working at the home.  It’s going to be really different not setting a place for her at the dinner table and seeing here there.  I’m sure going to miss her.  I already do.  I’m glad she was a part of my life.  I will never forget her and all the things that she has taught me.
  Many times I learn life lessons from people after they are gone.  Maybe I learn these things while they are still alive, but I just don’t realize it until later I don’t know.  It’s important for us to be careful how we live out our lives because we just don’t realize what an impact we have on others.  This isn’t my first experience dealing with death.  I’ve also lost my Grandpa Hooey, my auntie Jane, uncle Eddie, and good friends Don and Vera Summers.  It never gets any easier.
  Death is painful.  Death is hard to understand.  Death is all part of the plan.  Death is inevitable.  Death is hard to accept because eternity was set into the hearts of men.  We think that people should last forever and that’s why it’s so hard to understand when someone’s life ends, but it’s not the end.  Death is not the end.  Death is a new beginning. Death brings us freedom from this corrupted world and ultimately death brings us to our Savior.

“Life on earth is just the dress rehearsal before the real production.  You will spend far more time on the other side of death –in eternity– than you will here.  Earth is the staging area, the preschool, the tryout for your life in eternity.  It is the practice workout before the actual game;  the warm-up lap before the race begins.  This life is preparation for the next.”  -Rick Warren

Tip Of The Day:
“Hold on to what you’ve been given lately.  Hold on to what you know you’ve got.  Hold on to what you’ve been given lately.  Hold on ’cause the world will turn if your ready or  not.”  -Hold On By KT Tunstall

  Wow, I haven’t wrote in this thing for a few months and it’s not because I haven’t had anything to share it’s just that I’ve been so busy/stressed that I haven’t had the time.  School is overwhelming and teachers erk me and as far as work goes I really do like my job at the nursing home, but because of school I can only put in so many hours.  I can’t wait for school to be over with forever.  Work is so much less stressful I think.  This year I’ll be graduating with my generals and I’m kind of disappointed with myself for only accomplishing my generals after 3 years of college, but I don’t regret my year at Prov.  I’ve been thinking a lot about my future lately.  After this year is finished I have no idea of what I’m going to do with my life.  I wish God would just tell me and maybe he has I’m just not listening or maybe my fear is getting in the way I don’t know.  I don’t even know why I dwell so much about my future here on earth anymore because I was thinking about how our time on earth is a lot shorter than the time we will spend in heaven/hell.  Our life on earth is like the preface page of an unending text book.  Maybe I should be more focused on my eternal future and think more about storing up treasures in heaven rather than what I’m going to do after college. 
  Anyways, last week Devils Lakes water was tested positive for e coli.  This kind of freaked me out a bit because I usually take a bottle of water from home and then just continually refill it at the school’s water fountains.  Here I was thinking I was being so healthy drinking all this water.  So much for that thought.  Pure drinking water is just one of the many things that we take for granted.  I mean ya we say a prayer for our food before we eat it thanking God for it and asking him to bless it, but do we ever pray over a glass of water?  It’s something to think about I guess.  They did a restest of the water and reported that the findings of e coli was a mistake.  I’m not sure if I believe this.  It sounds too weird to me.  In some parts of the world dealing with contaminated water isn’t an uncommon event.  We should be grateful for the simple things in life.
  Last Saturday my cousins Laura and Scott got married.  It was a beautiful fall wedding.  I enjoyed my time being with family and eating delicious cake.  My cousin Laura had asked me to read this prayer during the ceremony and I agreed to it thinking I would have no problem with speaking in front of my family, I sort of forgot about everyone else that was going to be there.  When I got up there to read I got so nervous my voice was shaking, I was standing on my tip toes in order to reach the mic., and I laughed twice during the whole thing.  The first time I laughed was because I thought I heard one of my relatives laughing at me so I joined them.  Laughter is contagious and once I start I can’t stop.  The second time I started to laugh was after I read the line “…and good health until a ripe old age…”  I even heard Laura laughing at that one.  I will never understand that.  What age is a ripe old age and why wouldn’t you want to wish good health on the couple for the rest of their lives and not just up to the ripe old age?  Goes to show you that the college speech class I took did me no good.

Tip of the day:
“Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.”

  A couple of days ago I was shopping in Grand Forks and I found these awesome, little, healthy, prickly, miniature cactus plants in these tiny ceramic-like pots and I thought they were cute so I bought a few.  My mom helped me plant them in this round clear glass bowl and I decorated it with colorful sand and put some neat looking rocks in it to make a terrarium.  It’s so rad!  You should see it.  In fact you can because I posted a picture of it down at the bottom.  Let me know what you think of it.  For those of you who have a hard time remembering to water plants, cactus’s are easy to take care of because they don’t require a lot of water and they last a long time to.
  As I mentioned before, I had quit my job at Heartland care in June and since then I have filled out 16 applications to various places in D.L. and 1 in Lakota and for awhile there I was about to give up, but then on Friday I got call from the manager of the Dairy Queen in D.L. and she told me to come in for an interview on Monday morning.  So I’m pretty happy about that.  I hope that if I get the job that I don’t take advantage of the employee discounts.  It’s nice being able to stay home and relax and not have to work, but at the same time I miss working and I need the money to pay my bills so I really hope I get the job.
Last night night I watched the movie “Bridge To Terabithia” and for those of you who haven’t seen it yet I’ll spoil the surprise for and tell you all about it.  This movie is about about these two kids, Jess and Leslie, who become good friends and they build this tree fort together in this forest not too far from their houses and in order to get to their fort they must swing from a rope across this creek.  These two kids put their creative minds together to come up with this fantasyland in the forest where they are acted by creepy looking monsters and this huge giant tree that has the face of their enemy, a bully at school.  Most of the movie is about their adventures in the forest with their fantasyland, Terabithia.  Towards the end of the movie Jess gets invited to go to the museum with one of his teachers that he likes and he thinks about inviting Leslie to come with, but he decides not to and while they are gone, Leslie went to the forest by herself and she fell in the creek when the rope that she was swinging from broke.  She drowned and died.  Jess of course feels terrible because if he would have invited her to go with that wouldn’t have happened.  Jess ends up building this bridge across the creek so that he can keep Terabithia alive and I’m sure you know by now that’s how the title of the movie came to be “Bridge To Terabithia.”  Leslie was Jess’s bridge to Terabithia she inspired him to use his imagination and to forget the world around him.  It’s a pretty good movie, you should see it if you haven’t already.
  I guess the reason why I told you about the movie is because I wanted to share with you what I have learned through it.  I was thinking about the bridge and the significance it has in that movie and I thought about how my bridge to God is my faith in him and how important that is in my life.  Even though I can’t see him I still believe that he’s there and that he’s real.  Just like Leslie and Jess couldn’t really see Terabithia without their imaginations.  I guess maybe comparing faith to someone’s imagination isn’t the greatest comparison, but it makes sense to me in a way.  Maybe I should discover my own Terabithia fantasy world in my forest of cactus’s that are in my terrarium…and then again maybe not.

Tip of the day:
Don’t let your curiousity get the best of you!  What you don’t know won’t hurt you. Trust me, because once you find out what you don’t know your going to wish you didn’t know what you shouldn’t have known in the first place.

  Today, I celebrated Canada Day as well as my 21st birthday.  It’s been a great day.  My parents took me out to dinner, I went to a movie, ate some cake, and Cole surprised me and came home to see me on my birthday.  When I talked to Cole earlier during the week, he told me that he wasn’t going to be able to be here today because he had to work and that made me a bit sad but he decided to come after he got off of work and that was great.  It’s good to have him home. 
Another thing that made this day so special (besides having Cole home) was the fact that it is Canada Day.  Canada Day is pretty much just like the American’s 4th of July.  The birth of Canada as a nation took place on July 1st, 1867.  So Canada is now 140 years old and that makes Canada 119 years older than me.  Not that it really matters but anyways.  I’ve always been a fan of Canada for reasons I’m not even aware of.  A couple of years ago I went up to Winnipeg on July 1st to celebrate with the Canadians and to see what it was like.  That was pretty fun.  After I graduated from high school I went to college up in Otterburne, Manitoba for a year and that was a life changing experience.  I have some good memories in Canada and I plan to go back someday because Canada is a great country and I miss it! 
  When I started writing this blog it was still Canada Day, but now it’s after midnight so I guess my birthday is over which means I won’t have to hear people asking me those ridiculous questions about wether or not I’m going to drink on my 21st, milestone birthday.  If any of those people asking those questions really knew me they wouldn’t of even had to ask.  The Bible really isn’t clear on this issue.  It doesn’t say that drinking is totally wrong and it doesn’t say that it is ok either so I’m just going to play it safe and stay away from that stuff.

O Canada (the National Anthem)
O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all they sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

If you want to listen to it, give me a call and I’ll play it on the piano for you and depending on who you are, I might even sing it for you!  Happy Canada Day Everyone!

Tip Of The Day:
Read the book before you watch a movie that is based on a book because more than likely, the movie will be different than the book and I hate it when that happens.

  Every summer brings new beginnings and since the first official day of summer was on June 21st, I thought that this would be a perfect time to begin my new blog.  So far my summer has been pretty enjoyable as well as interesting.Â
  At the beginning of my summer, I went with my Dad and my Grandma to Three Forks, Montana to attend my cousin’s high school graduation.  During this trip I got to see mountains for the first time.  Sure I’ve seen pictures of them on television and in books and what not but there is nothing like seeing them in person.  They are pretty amazing!  I’ve also got a game of golf in with Jackie before she left for Medora.  Golfing with Jackie is always crazy fun and I miss it.  Just the other day I did som fishing with my Dad out on the boat which resulted in a really bad sunburn.  I’ve discovered that sunblock actually works, I burnt in all the places that I didn’t put the sunscreen on; shoulders, face, etc.  I can’t decide if I look more like fat santa clause or bob the tomato….either way I feel like a fat piece of bacon sizzling on the frying pan. 
Other then my sunburn, the only other negative thing that has happened to me this summer is having to quit my job.  I ended up having to quit my job at Heartland Care because I could no longer afford to drive into town for just four hours of work.  I talked to my boss and asked for more hours during the summer, but she wasn’t able to give them to me.  I wish I would have known, even before I started working there, that I wouldn’t have been able to get more hours during the summer months.  I think that this was the hardest job for me to leave because I enjoyed it so much.  Oh well, maybe I can get my evening hours back when school starts again….
  On a happier note, today my friend Emilie, and I went to J-town to visit our friend Emily.  While we were there we stopped at Dominos for pizza and this is when I saw my first real live cross dresser and believe me they are even creepier in person then they are in the movies.  It was a he/she with a beard and go-go boots.  I had a really tough time trying not to laugh at him/her in front of him/her.  We also stopped to tour this Buffalo Museum/History Park.  At this park they had the World’s Largest Buffalo statue and while we were walking around the statue and taking pictures and what not I heard this lady tell her husband to explain to her little girl about the Buffalo’s “anatomy”.  I was so shocked.  Why would anyone teach their children about that subject using the World’s Largest Buffalo statue?  The little girl wasn’t even asking questions, the mother was the one who iniated the conversation.  Maybe I’m just weird, but that just isn’t the way I would go about explaining stuff like that to my kids.  The poor little kid probably won’t be able to look at a buffalo the same way again.  Anyhow I’ve included a link down below for you to view the statue if you want to.  I can’t wait to see what the rest of my summer will be like!
http://www.buffalomuseum.com/frontier.htm

Summer’s Golden Days
Summer spills her golden days
Upon the earth in lust displays.
She softly sways the apple trees
As songbirds sing sweet melodies.
Summer wears a flower flock
Of goldenrod and hollyhock.
She spreads her magic uncontrolled
In blankets colored bright and bold.
Summer sings her lullabies
To buzzing bees and butterflies.
Silver moonbeams light the night;
I see a falling star in flight.
God sends the Summer scenery,
The birds, the bees, the greenery.
His tranquil nights and sun-filled days
He sends in summertime displays.
Poet, Nora M. Bozeman

Tip of The Day:
Do NOT put a chocolate bar in your car and expect it not to melt and then try to get it solid again by placing it in your freezer.  By doing so you will have lost the orginal flavor and have created a chocolate mess!