Good Morning...

Good morning, friends.

It's been a while again, hasn't it?
It's spring now, and I am happy.

Right now I'm sitting in the living room, having my morning coffee a little late (it's Saturday!). My little brother is sitting beside me making weird noises and concentrating like a kung fu master on our game of Jenga. Now he's trying to replicate Yzma's evil laugh from The Emperor's New Groove. I can't seem to figure out why I don't play with him more often. :)

In about two hours I'm leaving to go to a wedding. I haven't been to a wedding in such a long time! I'm looking forward to it.

(There went the tower. I win!)

Life continues to bombard me with cruddy stuff I would rather not deal with. But you know what? God is totally using it to teach me about Himself, and myself, and working everything out to bring ultimate glory to Him. So, that's that... It's not fun, but He gives grace which is sufficient and sweet.

The coming week is going to be really busy. Our church's Easter production is Thursday, Friday, and Sunday. The forward part of the week will be spent in dress rehearsals. Which means my voice needs to come all the way back! It's been rather out of commission since sometime Tuesday.

Now, I'm going to play one more round with Benjamin and have another blueberry muffin.

What are you doing with your Saturday?

Find some daffodils to enjoy, and I'll talk to y'all later.
-Caitlin

It's not Thanksgiving any more!

So, my thanksgiving post is late. But just because it's not thanksgiving any more doesn't mean we should stop being thankful. What if we all remembered to be thankful ALL the time?
Counting my blessings takes ages.

A - Awanas. Apple cider - which would be good right now. My throat hurts. Advent -which we're celebrating this year!
B - Boys (and I mean that in a totally innocuous way. Boys of all ages. They're fun!)
C - Church. Coffee. My name. Choir.
D - Daddy.
E - Evening time. Email
F - Friendship, Food, Fun
G - God's Grace
H - Holy Spirit. He has to remind me of so many things so often. Hugs.
I - Intercession. I love knowing that I can help my friends through prayer.
J - Joy.Real joy. Not circumstantial happiness. :)
K - Katey and Alicia. (they just go together like that)
L - Laughter, Love
M - Music. Mama. and my "other mothers," Marmee and Mom.
N - New friends!! I gained a couple of new friends this year. Yay! (Rae, Becca, and church peeps.)
O - Orthodontics. ... I WILL have pretty teef one day.
P - Popcorn. PEACE. Peace comes first, actually.
Q - Quiet.
R - Rain. Relatives. Random rambling. Reading.
S - Singing!! Sunshine, Stars, Siblings.
T - Tall shoes. Teaching.
U - Umbrellas. **I'm siiingin' in the rain, just siiingin' in the rain..."
V - Vincent, my crazy little green bird.
W- Walking. Waiting. Yes, I can be thankful for waiting.
X - X. I'm thankful for the letter X. ... mostly because I can't think of any X words. It's a nifty letter.
Y - Yogurt? I'm thankful for that. ... I can't think of many Y things either.
Z - Zippers. Where would we be without them? Zippers and Zeros.

Be thankful, people. :) I hope you had a great thanksgiving.
I'm looking forward to leftovers tomorrow.
<3

15 Random Things

I read this on somebody's blog. At the end it says "your turn."
I took it literally. You should too.
lol

1. I just ate a large scoop of mayfield chocolate ice cream. Yum.
2. I still want to go to Starbucks. Caramel macchiato, please.
3. Spell check says "macchiato" is wrong. It suggests Machiavelli.
4. I read The Prince by Machiavelli and liked it.
5. I have ten orders to pack tonight, and ship tomorrow.
6. There is an amazing pair of silverware handle earrings making their way to my house.
7. I bought a ginormous salad at O'Charley's last night, and wish I hadn't. It was good, though.
8. Fried green tomatoes are delicous. Especially when you have the added satisfaction of cooking them yourself.
9. My Life Lesson Monday post was kind of lame, I think. I need better life lessons.
10. I don't include enough of God in my blog posts... If he's such a huge part of my life, you'd think He'd be more apparent in my blog. Bad me.
11. Yesterday the youth choir sang for the evening service. I heard we did awesome. Which was great news, because all I heard was me and Sadie singing alto. lol
12. Actually, our choir is "teens and twenties," but that's harder to say. It's a combination of the youth group and the College and Career class. And it's a lot of fun. yay!
13. Regular choir is fun too. I love being in choir.
14. My hair is blonde again. It's more like strawberry blonde, since we didn't take all the red out.
I'm gradually going back to my natural color.
15. Your turn.

Me in my blonder hair and Sparks uniform.

I'll teach you how to bowl...

...the perfect gutterball.
I was offering lessons yesterday.
It was ironic, though - when I went to demonstrate my mind-blowing losing techniques, I got a strike. LOL

But yeah, I went bowling with a group of people from church yesterday. I haven't been since I was about 11, so I knew I wouldn't be any good. I had no idea how terribly bad I would be. A billion gutterballs in a row bad. You know, sometimes I take a certain odd, twisted sense of pride in being the worst at something. At least, when it's something of little to no importance.

It really was hilarious, though. I had a blast. I hope everyone else had as much fun as I did. Talking, laughing, and people-watching are the best of sports anyways, and I excel in those. :D

Plus, I can blame my score of 32 or whatever it was on my skirt, right? It was homecoming Sunday at church, and I decided I just wasn't going bowling afterwards. And so when I decided to at the last minute (when I knew for sure how many fun people were going to be there) I realized that people don't usually go bowling in their church clothes. I really wished for some jeans. But that's okay! Laura and I still had so much fun. Thanks to Amber for the ride there, and Matt for the ride home. And to all the crazy people who let me be my weird little self.
... Yay for my friends!

(To those of you who were at church - did the choir sound good? I felt like we nailed our songs, but... when you're surrounded by altos only, it's hard to tell.)

Um... I have lots to do today. Custom orders to work on, orthodontist apptmt at 2... um... well, nothing else super pressing, but that's enough anyways.

Tomorrow is movie night!! YAY! I get to see my non-church friends! ha - that kind of makes them sound bad. I don't have many friends that aren't "church friends," and it's fun to get to hang out with them. We have the bestest of times. Can't wait!

I can, however, wait for Wednesday. Awana kick-off. Not, not, not looking forward to that. Regular old wednesday night club time, yes. Kick-off, no. And from what I've heard from more experienced leaders, I have good reason to dread. lol ... Personally, I think that club should just start. No crazy shindig stuff. Maybe extra candy or points or something since it's the first day. But then, maybe that's the killjoy in me. **evil laughter** Could just be the dislike of mass confusion and chaos. ... I think that's what it is. I'm not usually known to be a killjoy.

I think this is the first time I've ever used the word "shindig" in my blog. And I've been blogging since... let me check... 2004. A lot of you didn't even know me in 2004. ha! Ah, yes... back in the days of Live Joural and AIM, which have long since been abandoned.

So. Now that you know a little more random stuff about me, I will leave you. Do me a favor and find something to laugh about today. (Even if it's me. lol) You'll live longer. ;-)

Caitlin

I Bid Thee Farewell

...
**solemn silence**
The time has come.
I am to have my wisdom teeth chiseled out of my skull in the morning.
(That's how I worded it for my prayer request in Sunday School. I love making people laugh.)

Actually, maybe they won't have to chisel so much. Hopefully they're not impacted in the bone. I'm thinking it will hurt a lot worse than otherwise if they are. But I'm not sure if they're impacted, or if they just haven't come out yet, so I'll let you know when I'm capable of doing so. In the meantime, just keep praying that it will be over quickly, and that I'll heal quickly.


Great news! I made 2 sales on Etsy recently! Both custom orders, and one a return customer. You know what this means, don't you? People like me!! (Okay, so that might have already been established, but... ) I've had 2 or 3 return customers. That's great! People coming back means they really really like my stuff! And people sticking around to ask for a custom order instead of wandering off to someone else's shop means the same thing, too. Yay!

And I have a cool new yellow background.

Also, Leslie tagged me. So, here goes:



The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 3 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they've been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person know when you've posted your answers...

1. Favorite ethnic
Favorite ethnic?? Ethnic what? Ethnicity? And after repeating that so many times, I can't help but think "ethnic" is an odd word. Anyways. Um... I like [american] Chinese food? But I don't know that I like Chinese culture so much... And I like Mexican food too. But beyond food, I really don't have a grasp of enough different cultures to tell you my favorite... The English seem sort of quaint...

2. something you've always wanted to do.
Ride the biggest, tallest, fastest roller coaster in the world. In the front car.

3. Favorite color
yellow

4. Something you collect
I have to force myself to not buy teddy bears because I already have like 13 and nowhere to put them. Does that count?

5. something you do to relax
self acupuncture.

No, I'm kidding. I usually just close my eyes, breathe deeply, and think "relax, you idiot!"
It doesn't always work.

7. bloggers i am going to tag:
Abby, um... Oh, man. I know it's totally not fair to only tag one person, but I can't think of anyone else. I'm sorry! Oh, wait, um.. how about Tiffany. And... maybe somebody from the Ant Farm over there.

There. It's over with. I always feel bad for tagging people. The same way I feel bad when I call people. Like I'm intruding on their lives or something.

I thought there was something else of interest I was going to say.... Oh! Laura and I spent most of yesterday at Mema's house, just hanging out and swimming and stuff. Pepa let us take out the jet skis for a while. That was fun. We hadn't seen them for a while, so I'm really glad we got to just go over and hang out.

Today we joined the choir. Practice was great. I'm really looking forward to being a choir member.

Aaaand, I'm not supposed to eat or drink tomorrow before I get my teeth out. That means no coffee! I think I may have a cup of decaf while I go pack up those Etsy orders.

And so, dear friends, I leave you now. Whether for a couple days, or an entire week I know not. But I will be back.

:D
Oh! I just remembered I was supposed to post 6 Flags pictures. ... well, I didn't get many good ones, so it can wait.

I'm really leaving now.
Bye!