Lifey Update

Hello, Everyone!

I'm going to just jump in with all my cool and groovy news!

Cool and groovy news 1.) Lill' ol' me finally owns a firearm! *Squeeee* This is a big, exciting thing. It goes bang and I love it.
I've been interested in owning a gun for a long time. At least five years. I'm sort of  a slow mover when it comes to doing stuff. But here I am, the proud owner of a sleek, black gun.
In October/November-ish, I'm hoping to take a 4 day handgun class from the same place I took hand to hand combat and knife fighting last year. Which is part of the reason I finally bought the thing. I want to train with my own weapon. :)
I still need to name my gun. But I haven't settled on a worthy name yet. Ideas are welcomed.

Cool and groovy news 2.) This timid potato signed up for a year of boxing classes! 
Honestly, it's both way fun and way terrifying. It was one of my new year resolutions (See? Slow mover!) and I was like, "It's now or never!"
One of my sisters signed up with me, (Because this timid little potato couldn't do it alone) and we've had...4? or Maybe 5 classes so far.
Picture this: 7-10 young, athletic fellows... All of whom know what they're doing... Some of them training for real fights. And two small girls who have very little idea of what they're doing and somehow manage to look dainty even with boxing gloves on.
Class starts: *Teacher* "Time to jump rope for 10 minutes"
*Me* "Okay..." Jump jump jump....
I0 minutes later...*me dying a little* (Oh, and thank you, giant wall mirror. I now know that I look like a rabbit when I jump rope.)
*Teacher* "Let's shadow box!"
*Me* "Yes lets. I can do this!"
*Teacher* "Time for some sweet boxing combinations!"
*Me* "Yay! I totally love this!"
Sweating and lots of heavy breathing....
*Teacher* "Let's do 150 crunches!"
*Me* "WHAT?!" *Writhes on the floor. Dies...*
*5 minutes later*
*Teacher* "Awesome, hour's up! See you next week"
*Me* "Oh yes, for sure!*

But actually, the Teacher is very nice, as are the rest of the students, and they're all very polite and encouraging to us two, nervous girls.


Thus ends my cool and groovy news...

Otherwise, Summer has been pretty nice this year. The weather's been lovely and I've snuck in more days at the lake this year than I managed last year. I've also managed to burn almost every time I've gone out. *Sigh* The price I pay for forgetting sunscreen.

There was one particularly awesome day a couple weeks ago when we spent the day at the beach. We swam for ages, built a really loppsy sandcastle, had snacks and chatted about our favorite old Disney Movies. (Moonspinners! Such the best!)

Erm...It looked cooler in real life. Just saying...

I finally took my sister's suggestion and read The Virginian. (Well...I'm almost finish reading it.) It is so delightfully Wild West! I love cowboys and that part of American history, but it's tricky finding good books in that time frame.

The Virginian nails it. NAILS IT.

I settled down on my day off to just binge-read it, and after the first couple chapters, I went to get my cowboy hat out of the closet. :) 

So, you know, if you want to read something really good, go find The Virginian. IT'S GOOD!

Also, I'd like to say that I was sort of trying to be really 'on it' with recording a song for my channel this month. I recorded two songs. And I filmed video for two songs. 

And I hate both of them. They just didn't mesh. They refused to work. They're loathsome. 

So I'm not going to post either of them. *Broods*

It just hasn't been my month with music. It makes me feel angry. Like, I should be getting better at making videos with all the practice I've been having. But I sort of feel like these last two attempts were some of the worst quality things I've done. 

It took a great amount of self control not to drop-kick my laptop out the door after the last one. 

So...Fingers crossed for next month, eh?

Lately I've been having so much inspiration for writing music, arranging music, and an idea for a musical that I'd like to write (HAHAHA!) but finding myself without the know how to make it happen. Why don't I have any musician friends to do all the hard parts for me? You know how awesome that would be? Like, here I have a melody and some lyrics. Could you please come up with a piano, drum and possibly guitar part for it? Thanks. Oh yes, and if you could please put it down in musical annotation that would be the best!

So, since I failed epically with recording a song for this month, I'm going to just leave you with a song that I heard for the first time a couple days ago. Because this is kinda epic.

I must go now. I need to prep for dinner and maybe have a snack.

God Bless!
Amy

They say, He's here this night.

They say, there shines a star above tonight.

Here's the post where I basically unload all my pictures on you guys. I didn't want it to be like this! I wanted to do little Christmas-y/Advent-y posts throughout the last week or two, but work has been rather annoyingly busy and I've been working more (a lot more) than I was originally scheduled.

Yeah.

It was one of those weeks. *Sigh*

But it's Christmas Eve and it's been lovely. With lots of baking, and cooking and music. What with the pine and all that food being prepared, the house smelled like Christmas.

Anyway, pictures!

I wrapped presents on Saturday. All my presents.

And I made lots of pine garland. :) Pine garland is the best!

And a couple of arrangements for home and for friends and for Church tomorrow.

I've got to say, I've done a lot of arranging over the last few weeks. It's been fun.

Baby Jesus's crib. 

Pine, pine, and more pine.

The Church arrangements are my favorite.

And the poinsettias are lovely.

A bit ago, we painted the windows.

And we all rallied round and learned a new Mass for Christmas.

How many girls does it take to hang garland? 

It takes teamwork! And Skills!

 And our pretty creche.

They say to follow the light

They say it's gonna be bright 

tonight

Source

He lays in a manger tight

They say His birth will make things right 

tonight

That's all I've got. Except;

Merry Christmas!

God Bless!

Amy

The Reunion.

So...the great silence on the internet. I apologize about that. I meant to slip on and post a couple time last week, but honestly, I was having way too much fun!

We had the most epic family reunion ever!

Most of us...watching a movie.

A couple years ago, all of us kids decided that for our parents 35th anniversary we were going to through a surprise family reunion for them.

Boy were they surprised! *Grin*

Two of my sisters are married and settled out in the Midwest, so we only see them every two to three years. And we haven't all been together at home as one big family since Laura's wedding eight years ago.

So, this reunion was the reunion of AWESOMENESS!

There were so many honest-to-goodness perfect moments, which are pretty rare as you all know, and there were those moments where you just lean back and think, "wow...God has blessed us so much...."
And there were loads of "I have the cutest nieces and nephews ever" moments. *grin* I'm a bit prejudice.

We spent most of the visit just...visiting, really. :) It's so fun to just hang out, talk, tease, play with little kids, have drinks and snacks and talk and talk and talk!

We did some hiking, we spent a day at the beach, we BBQ'd as much as possible, and we even squeezed in a formal family picture session. I can not wait to get those pictures! 

The Hike was pretty cool. We invaded the trail and took over. :) 

My cool brother-in-laws. 

Quite honestly, you couldn't ask for better in-laws. 

(That guy is 6'8"...That's tall...aren't they adorable?)

That's how he looks at a normal counter. :)

And more adorableness.

I hope you aren't getting bored with all these pictures of people you don't know! lol. I promise I've really narrowed down pictures. We took so many...and they're all good. But I have restraint! *Ahem*...Just a few more, shall I?

What's a vacation without a s'more night?

Thank you to all of you patient people that actually scrolled through this whole post. You're awesome. :) It was such a wonderful week. My Mom said it felt like a miracle. *Happy Sigh* It's sad when such perfect things come to an end. But thank God for how perfect it was!

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad!

This song just seems perfect for this post. :) Plus we did a little dancing to it. Ahh...memories.

                               

Anyhow. I have some blogging to catch up on, not to mention the blogs that I haven't kept up with for almost two weeks. *Cringe* Sorry, People!

But I'm back! Hurray for that.

God Bless

Amy