lemongrass sage

The bath and body works scent lemongrass sage makes me feel clean and reminds me of the calm music I don't know the words to. I love that feeling! I really need to get more of the hand sanitizer lotion that smells like that. I don't even know if they make that scent anymore.

I need to be so much closer to Him!

this weekend

This weekend was a lot of fun. Friday night, we had the away game in...um, oh yeah, Lamar. And that was cool, but the whole band got split up and oh how the clarinets missed the saxophones! It wasn't fair at all, and the brass is way too stuffy. No fun! Anyway, so the next day we (when i say we, I mean the rest of the band and I) had to get up early to get ready for our first competition in Laurnburg. At morning practice I was really unsure if I would be marching at all, but thankful I sat down during practice and got off of my toe, so I made it though the competition. Well, we sat around at the competition for a long long time watching the rest of the bands in 3A and 4A. They were pretty good, I didn't fall in love with any particular show, but it was an alright competition. Oh yeah, they had these Air Gram things that you could send out to the bands that they would announce before they performs. Meredith and I were going to go spend a buck on one to send to some random band and act like we had some inside joke with them. "Clarinets rule, saxs drool! Get those corndogs, 'cause you know they're betta than that cotton candy!!" It was pretty funny. Just sitting around with everyone in general a lot of fun. I spent a lot of time with Andrew and that was nice. I am so tired now though! So we ended up getting 2nd in marching, music, overall effect, and in 2A! It was cool. This weekend has worn me out! I don't know what I'm going to do with our double header next week with two competitions. Well, have a wonderful week!! Mine turned out okay, even though I thought it would be terrible on Monday! Remember that tomorrow is Monday and once you get that out of the way, it's not going to be Monday for a whole other week!

"nothing really matters"

It was all pointless. The time, the effort, just pointless. Or so it seems, maybe i've grown and learned from the whole friendship. Maybe it wasn't so after all, but...
I hope i have. This hurts me, i can't imagine how much it hurts Andrew.
My toe is messed up again. Probably no marching for me tomorrow.

Sunday afternoon

I hate the fact that I have the terrible habit of biting my nails. Sometimes I wish I had pretty nails and I let them grow for a week, see how pretty the white tips are and then I bite them off again.
I'm really tired this Sunday afternoon. I've gotten to where I always take a nap on Sunday afternoon, I used to never take them. I guess school is wearing me out. Well, at least it stops me from biting my nails for a little while.

Faith and Deeds

"What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him "Go I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
But someone will say, "You have faith; I have deeds."
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do." -James 2:14-18

I need to act so much more on my faith. Andrew and I were talking about people like this tonight. Oh how I want everything I do to surround God and His beautiful, righteous self.

Naturalization

You Passed the US Citizenship Test

Congratulations - you got 9 out of 10 correct!

Could You Pass the US Citizenship Test?

Look what I've learned in Coach Alford's class this year! I could have never made a 9 out of 10 before that.
Today was nice. Happy Birthday Shelly.
hahaha! I used spell check on this post and it tried to correct Alford with Alfredo. That's pretty funny. I hope Andrew, Kevin, and Collin will come to early service tomorrow. I think they would really enjoy it.

a hug from God

God has blessed me with some of the most wonderful friends in the world. Really, He has. Someone called and appolgized about how he has been acting toward me, even though lately, it hasn't been as big a deal. If you asked about a week ago, it would have been a different story. It was very nice, and through all the things that have been going on in the world the past few days, it was just like a hug from God to remind me that He's always there. "PRAISE HIM!" Thanks again, I'm glad that you could call me.
I'm honestly so happy right now, that I want to cry.

lost for words

and i've stumbled across a lost for words.

Just pray for that Stanton family. They're all going through so much. I love them.
I am in one of my crying moods. I will probably go listen to some music, pray, read, and cry in just a few minutes. So much is going through my head, but I don't know how to say it all...

and i've stumbled across a lost for words.

S.A.L.T. Retreat

Well, the S.A.L.T. Retreat was pretty fun. It always is. It was mostly just hanging out at the McBrides' cabin and David's house, but it was pretty cool. Our quiet time this morning was wonderful. It was out near the little lake thing and it was just breezy enough to keep us cool. It was such a beautiful blessing from Him. Oh yeah, this was really cool; Mr. T made our S.A.L.T. notebook covers just white so all of the A.D.D. kids could color in our names and the salt shakers. We're not actually A.D.D. (not that I have an issue with people with A.D.D.), but it just gave us something to do while we were talking about stuff.
We played that team building game where you stand in a circle and grab the hands of people who aren't beside you and make a huge knot. Then we had to try to get out of it. Oh my, I've seen more of Collin's butt then I have ever wanted to see in my lifetime. But it was really fun, even though we didn't get out of the knot after an hour of working at it.
Chilling at David's house this afternoon was really fun. We played Mafia about a hundred times and I almost won BS. Mafia is pretty fun, Richard is pretty much obessed with it. Speaking of Richard, unlike me last year there are a whole lot of new people on S.A.L.T. this year. Aly, Hallie (that gets pretty confusing), Collin, Richard, Kayla, and Lynsee are all new. But Aly, Hallie, Collin, and Richard were the only new people that went on the retreat.
So anyway, the past two days were over all really fun, and I pray that everything that this group does this year will glorify God's astounding name.
Oh yeah, my girls on the signing thing are performing tomorrow morning! We're going to be signing How Great is Our God. I really need to go practice, so I'm out for now.

i can't think of one for this post

you know you're a band dork if...
you go to the bandroom just to hang out way after school or band practice hours to talk about music and make up political cartoons about the band.

This week has been nice (and thankfully short).
I've fallen behind in so many things and oh how I need to rely on God so much more. But I can only rely on Him if I really know Him, and right now I haven't had that in order. There's so much I need to do. The S.A.L.T. retreat is tomorrow until Saturday, pray that I will grow with other leaders through this.
I highly recommend the new Audio Adrenaline CD, Until my Heart Caves In. That's good stuff for your spirit.

a year

A year is a long time. That's how long I've had this blog today. That's right a year of my life has been recorded into this small space of the internet. I think, because I'm so bored, I'll go back and read some of it.
I sure wish gas prices weren't so high. They cause far too many arguments.

Football Game

Well, we had the first home football game last night. Here are a few pictures of some of the folks in the band.
This one's of Dorterra, Alex, and Asiah just standing around waiting to play the next song.
<---There's Kevin just standing around while everyone else is playing beccause he got his wisdom teeth taken out Thursday and can't play.
--->There's Majik, our drum major, directing some stand song. I love Majik, he's so great! :-D Wow, time out. I just thought about how all of these past three pictures have been of seniors. Wow, I'm going to miss these crazy characters next year! The class of 2006 is probably my favorite. It's going to be hard to let them leave us. Of course, they could all pull off a John Roberts and stay around for the next four years. No objection here.
Well, Kevin's not real smart. I wonder if his mouth hurt this morning from playing and just having his wisdom teeth cut out. That's him on the far left with the rest of his "Mr. Perfect" first trumpets, David and Collin. Trumpets...
Here's a pretty good picture of Alex and Erica playing their saxophones. They're two of the best we've got. Erica is sooooo slack. She didn't even come up with a Phrase of the Week. That's three weeks in a row and now It's supposedly my turn to come up with one. Yeah, right.
--->In this picture Chloe is trying to show me her cousin, Alex, that had to come to Cheraw from Louisiana because of Katrina. It took me forever to finally spot him. Kate is just being too cool to pay us any attention. And finally there's a bunch of us standing around waiting for Mr. Pruitt to let us know when to play the Warpath to let in the football players. What would the football team do without us? Oh yeah, we won 40-21 (I think) last night! All of these pictures were taken by my dad.

Well, there's not much to do today. And I'm one of few words. I'm tired, but not tired enough to go to sleep. I might go wash the cars...maybe not.