Isn't it ironic?

Life can be so ironic sometimes. It really can, and sometimes I find a great deal of amusement to watch the irony unfold. I taught English a couple of years ago. During that time, I had several students give me a difficult time. Teaching was very stressful, and unpleasant. But I stuck it out, and stuck to my guns, even when it meant dropping them from the class when they were caught cheating. There are a handful of students that have held a grudge against me. And now because they chose to do nothing with their lives, because they did not see the value in getting an education, now they are working at fast food resturants...serving me. I see the looks of dread creep across their faces as I enter the restaurant, and walk up to the counter to place an order. I watch them "casually" try to walk away from the cash register and pretend to be preoccupied with some meaningless task, only for their manager to ask without looking up from their shipping lists and say, "Can you get them?" They slump back to their post at the cash register, look me in the eye, and say, "Can I help you?" They have to speak to me. Now that is ironic. My mom told me that what goes around, comes around. Your actions will always come back to you, whether good or bad. Those wrongs that a person committed against you, will come back to them, some how, some way, some day. They will get what they deserve. Those people will always reap what they sow, and I can rest assured knowing that God always has my back.

Our dog has issues...

We have a border collie named Brody. (You guys probably already knew that) Border collies are supposed to be one of the most intelligent breeds, and incredibly agile, and from what I've seen, I think that's true. But then there's Brody. And sometimes we wonder about him. He has his intelligent moments...and then he has his moments of "lesser intelligence"....or maybe stupidity. Brody is also larger than the average border collie. At the moment, he's around 50 pounds. Most border collies grow to about 40 pounds. Brody is only about 7 months old. He's definitely going to be a big dog....you should have seen his paws when we first got him! I think his coordination and his limbs have not had time to catch up with each other. Last week Joel and Brody were walking into the living room when Brody fell flat on the floor, spread eagle. He just fell, he didn't trip on anything. A couple of weeks ago I was talking to some teenagers on our front porch, when the dog turned around and walked straight into the grill. I was so surprised, I didn't know what to say. But I laughed hysterically. So far Brody has been very clumsy.

But the incident last night tops them all. Although Brody is a clumsy dog, he has recently gained enough courage to jump into the bed of our Dodge Ram 250 truck. (Same truck I've had since college, for those of you who remember). Sometimes Brody gets a little too excited and jumps before we have time to pull the tailgate down...and he smacks his head against the tailgate as its coming down. It's happened more than once. Last night Joel and I decided to drive downtown, take the dog, and go for a walk. When Brody realized he was going to get to come with us, he became very excited. Joel walked to the back of the truck, and started to unlock the tailgate, but then he heard a great thud and looked up to see the dog hanging from the side of the truck. Seriously. Brody got so excited, he jumped up to driver's side of the truck's bed, next to the wheel well, and tried to jump in. But it didn't work...he only got his front half over the top...his front legs were dangling over the top. But then gravity took it's toll, and Brody slowly slide down the outside of the truck, his nails scratching the side of the truck as he slid down. Joel laughed, and started to pull down the tailgate again, but once again Brody did not wait long enough for the tailgate to come down, and smacked his head on the tailgate. This did not deter him, and finally after the third try, Brody was able to successfully jump into the bed of the truck, happy as can be.

And now the side of our truck has scratch marks from the dog's claws. Thank you, Brody.

I went to the grocery store

Today I got a Kubaton. It's pretty cool. It's a self-defense weapon to keep on your keys. Because of the way it's designed, it's almost impossible to rip it out of your hands. If you hold onto it, you can use it to hit your attacker with your keys, or if you hit your attacker with the baton, it sends painful vibrations into the limb you hit, or you can use the pointy end on their pressure points. Pretty cool. I like it.

Yesterday I went grocery shopping, and as I was driving on the interstate, I was having a difficulty with feelings of paranoia. Seriously. I kept hoping that I wouldn't come across some dreadful car accident, that I would make me have to stop and help the victims. (because I would, even if I didn't want to, or afraid) I don't want to see any more bloody victims. The good news is that the man in the motorcycle accident lived. I'm SOOO happy about that. Yesterday he was getting fitted for a prosthetic leg.

So anyway, back to my grocery shopping exerience. I went to Walmart. I want to know something. Why in the world do they have like 20 lanes for check out, but only like 5 of them are open? I mean, seriously! I don't get it. I stand in checkout lines FOREVER, when they could open a couple more checkout lines, intead of making us stand in lines for like 10 minutes. (I suppose that I have issues with being impatient sometimes...but mostly when it comes to lines...it's obvious I'm originally from a big city).

Then later, as I was walking out the store, there were a couple of men sitting outside Walmart, collecting donations for a Christian organization of some sort...I think, but I didn't look too closely. One of them called me over. "Young lady" (I'm glad he thinks I'm young, but how young does he think I am?) And I have to admit, I pretended like I didn't hear him, and I quickened my pace a little. lol. I did. I'm so terrible. Then he shouts a little louder, "Young Lady!" I kept going. I jumped onto my cart and let it glide down the slope to the car. I think he shouted again one more time. I'll be honest here. I JUST wanted to go home at that point. I was tired. And I had no cash. I think that charities are very important. I really do. And I have a couple that I support. But at that moment, I just wanted to go home! Some would say I'm terrible for doing that. Oh well.

Ok. Then on my way home, I was on the interstate again, and this guy driving a semi-truck honks at me as I pass him on the left. It wasn't the kind of honk that said, "Get out of my way!" it was more like a "hey, what's up?" kind of honk. So I looked back to see if I knew him, and he leaned down and waved excitedly. I was seriously confused. Who IS this guy? But I continue driving. A couple of minutes later, as I slow down to take my exit, he passes me on the left, leans over and gives me an excited wave again...like he knows me. And then he drives off. Weird. I have no idea who he was...he looked a little familiar, but I don't think I knew him. Maybe he had me confused with someone else? My friend, Curt, drives a semi. He would just tell me that the man thought I was cute. Whatever. That's kind of a weird thought.

I've been thinking...

I've been spending a lot of time on my music, writing it, practicing, and such. I'm actually working on it right now...well, kind of...I'm taking a quick break to write a blog. I'm so proud of myself for working so diligently on my music. I feel so musical. Ha, ha. That's amusing.

The motorcycle accident that happened in front of our house over the weekend has really been on my mind the last couple of days. To be honest with you, I'm a little traumatized from the whole thing. I definitely think that God gave me emotional strength and wisdom to deal with the whole thing. I'm glad that I was able to help, but I don't think the pictures I have inside of my head from the accident will ever go away...the man with his missing leg, the exposed bone, the bike on its side, the truck, the body fluids and pieces on the road...they almost haunt me. But I'm still glad that I was able to help, so I guess in the end, it was worth it.

This has REALLY been a stressful summer, but the good news is that I AM SURVIVING!! I'm honestly surprised that I've been doing as well as I have been doing. There are two things that I give credit to my self-preservation:
1. spending time with God, reading his word, and prayer. He has truly been my strength.
2. exercise! believe it or not. I've found that exercising is a great way to keep your mind off stressful issues...plus exercising releases endorphins (sp?), which make you feel good, and I have to admit, they make me feel good too! speaking of which, I started doing a Pilates workout, along with swimming (on alternate days). And I've decided I like Pilates better than aerobics. Just so you know.

This was awful

Today I witnessed the most awful situation in my whole entire life. And I'm not joking either. Joel and I live off of a small, two lane highway. Our house overlooks a sharp curve in the road. This afternoon Joel and I were in our house when we heard a sound like a car door slamming outside. We checked to see if someone had pulled up to our house. Nobody was there. Then we realized that the noise that we had just heard was a car accident that had just taken place on the curve of the highway near our house. From our house, we could see a truck stopped in the middle of the road. Something was wrong. So Joel and I quickly got into our car and drove out to the scene. As we pulled up, I noticed a single tennis shoe, for the left foot, on the edge of the south-bound lane. The green truck was stopped between the north and south-bound lanes. The the front of the driver's side was bashed in. The front driver's side tire was laying almost parallel to the ground. As I ran out of the car, I quickly prayed and asked the Lord for wisdom, strength, and clarity of thought to help me assist the people. (I know CPR, but tend to forget what to do in an emergency). I ran to the other side of the road (the north-bound side) and saw a black motorcycle laying on its side. It was still running, softly sputtering. And then I saw the man. He was laying on his right side. He was moaning. There was blood coming from his mouth. And then I looked at his legs....and realized he was missing part of his left leg. It was gone. His leg was no longer there below his thigh. His femur bone was exposed. I looked around for the bottom half of his leg, but it was....just gone. It was nowhere around. Joel ran back home for a minute to grab a couple of items (like towels) to use for first aid. But for some reason, his leg was not gushing blood like it should be. The driver of the truck paced back in forth and kept crying out in shock, "Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. I can't believe this happened." I kneeled down in front of the man laying on the ground, and began to talk to him. I asked him his name, his age, where he lived, etc. He answered my questions in between his anguished moans. He seemed aggravated at the fact that I was asking him questions about himself. I talked calmly to him, and told him that he was going to be ok. Then he began to cry out to God asking for help. I realized that I need to pray for this man. So I asked him if he would like me to pray for him. He said yes. So I began to pray out loud. When I finished, I was relieved to hear an ambulance nearby. I told him that the paramedics were almost here. I continued to talk calmly to him. The ambulance pulled up next to us, and the two paramedics jumped out. One of them swore to himself softly when he saw the man laying on the road. They quickly pulled out a board to load the injured man onto. At that point, I turned my back to the injured man and asked the driver of the truck what had happened. "We just clipped each other, " He answered in a state of shock. After the policeman dismissed me, I ran back to the other side of the road, where our car was parked. As I was crossing the road, I noticed long, stretched out splatter marks on the road, that lasted about 100 feet. It was the man's guts...blood, skin, and other carnage. It was then that I realized what had happened....the truck and the motorcycle were coming towards each other on the curve. They clipped each other. The motorcycle, along with the rider was dragged underneath the front of the truck, until they flew out, off to the side of the road. The reason I could not find the other half of the man's leg, was because it was ground down to his thigh before he finally flew out from underneath the truck...which was why there was little bleeding.

Please pray for both of these men. My heart goes out to both the driver of the truck, and the man who was riding the motorcycle. The driver of the truck was completely devastated over the situation. The man on the motorcycle lost his leg. If he survived the accident, he has a long road of both physical, and emotional recovery ahead of him. I do not even know if he survived...I think he did, but I have no idea what kind of internal injuries he had.

I've been asked if this was traumatizing for me to see something like this...and I'm not sure what to say...Yes, but in a lot of ways no. I feel like the Lord really helped me (as well as used me) in this situation. I feel like he gave me the strength I needed to do what little help and ministry that I did. I think I'm ok. To be honest, my thoughts are more focused on these two men involved in this situation.

We have a motorcycle. Joel and I ride it from time to time. We haven't ridden it in about 10 months. I am well aware of the fact that motorcycles can be extremely dangerous. I know that hospitals call motorcycles "donor-cycles", like as in the people that die from injuries from riding motorcycles become organ donors. I am well aware of the fact that they can be dangerous, and have been aware of that for years. I think about the dangers each time I climb on the the back of the bike, behind Joel. Each time we go for a ride, I ask God to protect us, and keep us safe. I know the dangers. I really do...but now the dangers are a little bit more cemented in my mind.

I've decided to put off Suzanne Cox and her aerobics workout for a while. Although I was getting a really good workout, the workouts themselves have become increasingly difficult on my joints...which will eventually lead to an injury. (no thank you) So instead I've taken up swimming. Joel and I have a membership to a private lake behind our house, so I've decided to begin swimming there. But I have a confession...I'm not a great swimmer...and I'm not a strong one either. I have coordination issues when it comes to swimming...I understand the mechanics behind swimming, but have never really taken the time to work out my lack of coordination. Ha ha. It's funny. But now I am. And I'm getting better. I have this swimming workout schedule in one of my exercise books. It works on developing endurance while swimming. The first session starts off with being able to swim for 15 minutes straight...which I'm definitely not strong enough to do...so my goal is to work UP to swimming for 15 minutes so that way I can actually start working on the swimming routine!! That's pretty bad. I want to be a strong enough swimmer so that way when Joel and I go on our cruise in September, I'll be able to do something like SNUBA without getting tired...which happened the last time Joel and I did Snuba. What kind of activities do you guys do to stay in shape?

I saw Cristina Coria, from Survivor - Cook Islands, on Tuesday when Joel and I were in Albuquerque at a sushi place called Japengo. I wanted to go and ask her if she was Cristina from Survivor (just to make sure), but decided against it. I decided that even if it was her (which I'm sure it was) I didn't have a really good response like, "Oh my gosh! You were my favorite person!" Or something like that....my response would have been something more like, "Oh, ok. Cool." Lol. But I did take a picture of her with Joel's cell phone while Joel and I were sitting at the sushi bar, and her and her companions were sitting at a table eating. Ha ha. I was trying not to be too obvious....and therefore the picture didn't come out very well. Oh well.

One more thing to share with you guys. I've decided to enter a contest. In this contest you submit a worship song that you've written. It will be judged by a panel, and if you win, you get airtime on the radio for your song, it gets recorded professionally, and you get to be interviewed on the radio! Very exciting. I don't have much time...less than 20 days to get my submission in. I have a lot of work to do.

The coolest thing I've ever done.

So last weekend Joel, my brother, and I were shopping at a mall. My brother, Justin, and Joel were upstairs sitting in the food court. After scoring a couple of tank tops from a terrific sale at the Express, I purchased a container of pretzel bites, and joined Joel and Justin. As I sat down at the table, I carefully placed my purse and my shopping bag, containing my newly purchased tank tops, at my feet - to avoid someone from walking by and grabbing them while I wasn't paying attention (people do that, you know). So we sat there, watched people go by, participated in a casual conversation about nothing in particular, and finished our food. As we stood up, I put my purse on my shoulder, grabbed my trash with my left hand, and my shopping bag with my right hand. While walking to the trash, I made a mental note, "Make sure you throw away the trash, not the shopping bag." But then I quickly changed my train of thought and began focus on the next stores I had in mind to check out. When I reached the trash can, I threw away the trash, walked about 5 feet...and then I looked down. I suddenly realized that I was wearing my purse, and holding a tray of trash and no shopping bag!! What in the world??? How did I manage that? So I began scanning the trash cans I was standing next to, to see if I had accidentally thrown away my shopping bag (the cans were nearly full, so it was easy to look inside without having to dig)...and then I realized that I couldn't even remember which trash can I had used. OH-EM-GEE!!! What is wrong with me!?!? We unsuccessfully scanned the trash cans near us. My brother walked back to the table to check and see if I had left it there, but found nothing. I stood there baffled. I couldn't figure out what I did with that shopping bag. But then, as my brother was walking back to us, he stopped....and started laughing hysterically. He then walked over to a trashcan that we had overlooked, pulled out my red shopping bag, walked over to me, and handed it to me. As he handed me the bag, I too, began laughing hysterically. Sometimes I completely amaze myself with my absent-minded capabilities. And sometimes I tell Joel, "I'm so funny, I make myself laugh!" And that's the truth.

I have had an amazingly (is that a word?) stressful summer. I've had a continuous tension headache right above my eyebrows for about a month and a half now. It's a good day when I DON'T have to take an Ibuprofen to alleviate my headache. But at the moment, things are looking a little better. And that is a good thing. I have plenty of blogs stirring inside my head at the moment, just waiting to be typed...and I've started to write them several times, but end up deleting them because I didn't have the patience to sit at the computer and give them the time they deserve. But soon. Very soon.

Tonight Joel and I came to the realization that our dog, Brody, is NOT house trained like we thought he was. He's like 6 to 7 months now. This is a bad thing, and it may be too late. It's nice that we realized this NOW instead of earlier....NO.

Get your groove on...or not

A couple of months ago I found a dance aerobic DVD by Suzanne Cox at Walmart. It was in those $1 bins near the cash register. Since it was only a dollar, I purchased it. I've been working on the aerobic section for about a month or so, but recently I have grown tired of aerobics routine, and decided to move onto the dance aerobics section. During the intro she introduces her dance aerobics section as similar to the type of dancing you do in clubs. So I tried the dance aerobics and, I've got to be honest here, it was the stupidest dance routine I've ever seen. When I first observed the silly "dance" routine, I shouted to Suzanne Cox as she was dancing on my TV, "Are you kidding? You have got to be joking!! You look ridiculous!" And all of her back up dancers are jumping around, putting their moves on, like this "dance" aerobics is the coolest thing since sliced bread. There is no way I would dance like that anywhere. Remember the famous Napoleon Dynamite dance routine? Of course you do. Everybody does. Learning that stupid "dance" aerobics routine made me feel like I was I was Napoleon Dynamite learning that stupid dance from that video he found at the thrift store....except there was no way I was going to use those moves in public, much less a high school class election (despite the fact that I've been out of high school for almost 10 years now). Ok. I think that Suzanne Cox and the woman on Napoleon's dance tape must have been friends, because their dancing was equally stupid. Today when Joel came home from lunch I did my special dance routine that I learned from Suzanne Cox this morning during my workout. He laughed. Hysterically. I don't blame him either. However, despite the stupidity of the dance routine, I've found it mildly entertaining. So I've decided to continue working with Suzanne Cox and her Napoleon-Dynamite-dance-aerobics, that is when I'm not venting my frustrations with the work out to her through the TV. Just don't expect me to these terrific moves for an audience.

A couple of side notes:

Our dog, Brody is seriously afraid of thunder, and thunderstorms have been consistent over the past couple of weeks. The problem is that even though he's trained to stay within his boundary areas (we don't have fences out here), as soon as he hears the thunder, he goes into a panic mode and takes off outside of his boundary (despite the fact that he's wearing an electronic collar), and will stay hidden until we find him. AAAHHH!! Sometimes it takes us hours to find him!! Does anyone have any suggestions to break this behavior??

This morning I found a horned toad. I brought it inside briefly to show Joel and then put it back where I found him...far away from Brody. I also learned that when you pick up a horned toad, they puff themselves up and their skin becomes very sharp and pokey, which is why they are probably called horned toads. Wow. I know, I know...I amaze you with my profound knowledge.

Joel and I have been going through some serious stuff lately. It's been hard for both of us. I've posted some pretty sad blogs too. I've been pretty down...actually we both have. Just know that as you read my sad blogs, I'm (we're) working through it. Writing has always been a means of expression for me. So when you read a sad-natured blog of mine, don't worry, I'm working through it. And most of the time after I've written about it, I'm doing much better. In the meantime, you can keep us in prayer.