snow day!

This morning went something like this:
7:10 am. Wake up and get ready to go! With speed! I had to be to work at 8:30, and my brothers were coming to town with me because they had activities later on. We were in the truck at 7:55 ready to roll, so I back out of the spot where we park, drive about 2 feet down our driveway.... and we all start laughing. We have a circular driveway, and at the front part of it across the way from the mailbox to darn near the tree belt (think maybe 20 feet across) was a lovely drift about 4 feet high. Apparently that forecast for 6" of snow and lots of wind was right on.

So I emailed my boss, and my boss at dance, and our friends that the younger boys swim for, and Noah texted his coach.... cause we aren't going anywhere. (unless our neighbor comes to plow us out. which would be nice... but... he might not.)

It will be a fun snow day! I'll get to catch up on school, maybe do some sewing, play a million games of Dutch Blitz with my brothers, and overall party. oyeah! 

I had the time of my life

(aka the 'random stuff' post)

Three of my favorite songs of late:

"You and Me"

"The Time"

"Please Don't Let Me Go"

Oh! This is exciting. My brothers and I went bowling yesterday - and I've always wanted to bowl a game of 100 - well - I did! ...indirectly. See, we played 2 games, and I got 53 on one and 62 on the other. Add them together - I bowled over 100!!!!! Sad, yes. But, I'm not much of a bowler, so I figure I should be happy with that.

You definitely know you are driving a diesel truck when (...I had to look up how to spell diesel. that was sad) you have to turn the truck off just to talk to the person at the drive through window. Otherwise it's just too loud.

Had the best compliment (....at least, I hope it was a compliment) the other day from a 3rd grade dance student of mine. She gives me a hug and says "Miss India! You are skinny!" ...thanks? hahahaha!

Oh! Last thought. My brother makes the best french toast in the world. Period. :D

how cool is THIS?!

If you don't know who that is, you need to get a life. Just kidding. He's only the best Senator I've ever worked for...! ....not to mention he's the only Senator I've ever worked for?

Anyways. That's Senator John Thune, and I got to meet him last week! He's tall. And if I wasn't wearing 3 inch heels in that photo, he'd be even taller. But it was so neat to meet him! He's really nice, soft-spoken, and he complimented me on my red hair. :) Makes me so happy that I am able to work for him. 

paper plates: muy importante!

You may think I'm crazy for having paper plates in the trunk of my car, but in the story to follow, you might realize that you need paper plates in the trunk of your car as well!!

Friday night - I'm driving 50 miles to babysit for a family. (Yes, it is worth driving that far. The girls I babysit are just great and I get paid well) So after driving on the highway for aways, you turn off onto a county road, then you turn onto another county road, then you turn onto the gravel road that leads to their house. I turn onto the gravel road, and by the time I've already turned, it was too late. The road hadn't been plowed all winter, and I was hopelessly stuck. It didn't help that only my front wheels were stuck (mostly), and my car is front wheel drive. Oh well.

Thank goodness for jeans and sturdy boots! I kicked the snow out from under my wheels, then backed up about 3 inches. Kicked the snow out again. Moved 3 inches. There had to be a better way. Investigating what was in the trunk of my car (hoping for blocks of wood to put under my wheels), I found a stack of paper plates! I shoved those under my wheels, and after several more rounds of backing up 3 inches/moving the paper plates/kicking snow - I finally got out. Halleluyah!

(Oh, in case you don't know what "muy importante" means - I believe it's Spanish for "very important" :D )

So the moral of the story is: if you live in SD, make sure you have wood blocks (or paper plates) and a shovel in your trunk. And as one of the girls I babysat said "well, it would have helped if you wouldn't have turned onto that road!" ....right. thanks. haha!

If there was ever a way to die... this would be it.

A good friend of mine is in the obituary writing business. But she does it for people who are still alive. Seriously. When you think about it though - wouldn't you want to see your obituary before you die? I mean, what did people think about you? What were you known for? What are people going to remember about you once you are gone? So here's my obituary. 
Enjoy!! (....that sounds pretty morbid, doesn't it?  :P ) 


India ****____________________________April 3, 1992- January 18, 2011

India **** was not born in India. Neither was she born to an Indian family. She did not resemble the country of India (although if you looked at her hair at a certain angle on particularly windy days, you *might* find some resemblance in shape). She did not even resemble the people from India (unless there's some dazzlingly pretty white girl with red hair out there in India someplace). Instead, Mrs. **** of ********, South Dakota named her daughter India because she... liked that name. I guess. 

From the moment that India took her first breath of air in this world, she was on a mission. A mission to own at least part of world peace. This purpose was first revealed to India when she was 18 months old, and her mother was feeding her whirled peas. As she eyed the peas, she formed some sort of bond. As she grew older, her bond developed from whirled peas to world peace. Ssslllight difference, but inherently (in this case) the same.

India was an awesome girl who loved to dance and do math... and she ESPECIALLY loved lollipops. What is especially interesting about this is that she would eat eighty-three lollipops every day. But her teeth were naturally very straight. India would often encourage her friends to eat lollipops so they would have straight teeth too... Apparently, her teeth were so straight that she couldn't even count them! They all just meshed in with each other and blended in.
Every day, India would spend much time pondering her mission. She was determined to one day fly throughout the world, and see children she influenced, all holding hands and eating whirled peas. 

Then one day as India sat staring dreamily at her computer screen one day while sucking on a lollipop and attempting to study, it hit her! Then it hit her. Ouch! After instructing her brother to quit playing dogeball in the house, she went back to her realization. If she could just provide lollipops to everyone in the world, world peace would form! India mounted her elephant and hurried on over to the store. There, she discovered... whirled-pea-flavored lollipops! She immediately bought out the store's entire stock and ordered more. As soon as they came in, India began her world-wide World Peace and Whirled Peas mission trip. She calculated that it would take somewhere in the neighborhood of 12.48392847956347 years to deliver her planned number of lollipops. 

January 1, 2011, India set out on her elephant to her first destination, Washington DC, her bags stuffed full of whirled-pea-flavored lollipops. She arrived the city in the evening of January 17th and was heading towards the White House when... An enormous cloud of ticks descended upon India and her elephant. India felt her heart going 'TOCK TOCK TOCK TOCK..” in order to keep pace with the ticks. But to her surprise, the ticks did not hurt her at all, but instead flooded her bags and consumed all her lollipops. The ticks continued this late into the night, and early the next morning, they were almost finished. But then, one tick mistook the elephant's eyeball for a lollipop and bit it. This hurt and frightened the elephant, who suddenly bolted, India clinging to its back. The large beast ran directly to the White House, jumped the tall fence, and crashed through a wall and into the Oval Office which is oval no longer. Rider and animal were killed instantly.

In honor of India ****'s efforts, she was granted an honorary part of World Peace by Alex Reese, owner of world peace, who also requested that all whirled peas manufactured and distributed that year bear her name. 
Thus, her memory shall live on our whirled peas cartons for the rest of the year, and of course, in our hearts forever.


(my last name, and name of town removed for security reasons)
(the asterisks do not resemble one letter. they may be one, two, three, or 1/2 letters each)
(this was written by Essie - a very funny gal who lives in unknown parts as well. thanks, dear!!)

The List

Alrighty - first post of the weekend! More to come. 8-) 

My good friend Hattie and I were talking about taking a trip, and she suggested we make a list of our top 5 places we'd want to go and compare the lists. Figured instead of just emailing it to her, I might as well turn it into a blog post! So here goes. 

5) Slovenia. My Mom has a really good friend that lives there - and from the pictures I've seen - it's absolutely GORGEOUS!!!!! And there are these cute little towns all over, cobblestone streets.... that would be amazing to see.

4) England. Wow - England has sooo many cool things. London (and everything it holds!) - the infamous English countryside - Stonehenge - all the gardens you hear about that are just lovely.... *happy sigh* :) 

3) Rome/Greece. I love architecture. I want to get my picture taken beside the Colosseum. I want to stand beside on of those huge Parthenon columns. Oooh the photographer in me is getting all jittery just thinking about it!

2) India - more specifically - the Taj Mahal. Wouldn't you want to visit the place that inspired your name? That would be awesome! Plus, almost everyone in India is vegetarian..... and that would just be incredible. (right, Hattie? :D ) 

1) My top place to visit would be Israel. Not to mention the fact that I have some good friends that live there - but how amazing would it be to see the places that we can only read about? And it's not just any book we read it in... it's the Bible. AAH!! So yeah, Israel is my top place to visit. 

And I left off so many things... now I just need to keep saving my pennies! 

Just when I thought life could not possibly get any busier... WHOOSH. I can't even begin to tell you how insane things are right now. And I'm not complaining at all... I just wish I had more time to do other things that I love. Like blogging. :(

So that's why I haven't posted in forever. And I have a tiny prayer request - if you happen to have a free second or something - I haven't had a decent nights sleep in a looooong time. I don't know why, but I just haven't been able to sleep well at all. Which makes my busy days harder. Anyways, if you felt like it, maybe just send a message to God, asking Him to give me a good nights sleep. Having that would be so amazing.

So, thanks in advance :) I have so many awesome things I want to blog about...! Hopefully this weekend perhaps. Until then, ciao!

trip down memory lane

Y'all wanna read the very first poem I ever wrote? (this was at age 7, btw) I remember I was riding home with my family, and *snap* - there was the poem in my head. As soon as we got home, I wrote it down, then decided to use it for my daily paper for school. Sadly, the poem in my head didn't fill a whole sheet of paper, so I had to add a few more lines. Those are the ones toward the end that break the rhyming code. :D But the last two lines were part of what was in my head at the beginning. So enjoy!

(oh, might I mention, this is exactly how I wrote it... so excuse the poor spelling and grammar please?)

India's Poem (original, I know :P )

Thanks for sun, rain, wind and snow.
Thanks for the moon with it's shiney glow.
Thanks for apples, they are sweet.
Thanks for flowers, they are a treat.
Thanks for dogs and thanks for cats.
Thanks for frogs and flying bats.
Thanks for trees and thanks for bees.
Thanks for toys and thanks for boys.
Thanks for grass and my bike of brass.
Thanks for cooks and books and brooks.
And thanks for Jesus Christ, God's son,
Who died for me and everyone!

(Wow did I laugh as I typed that up. Wow. :D And Mom says "Well, you know, Helen Steiner Rice had to start somewhere too!" hahaha!)

sound off

Think about it. We hear so many different sounds every single day. Every hour. Every minute. As I type this, I hear the wood crackling in our wood-burning stove. I hear my fingers going clicky-clack on the keyboard. The dishwasher is making scrubby sounds, and there is a florescent light buzzing someplace.

At work, I hear the phone ring, the voices of my boss and co-worker, the fax machine buzz, the sound my blue marker/pen makes as I write a note. When I'm teaching dance, I hear my own voice instructing, the music through our insanely old speakers, feet making sounds on the floor.

"Silence is golden, duck tape is silver." Funny, and true to an extent. But what if we couldn't hear anything? What if all we heard was absolutely nothing? I know some people who are deaf - and I wonder about what they are missing. Sure, life gets really loud sometimes and we long for peace and quiet. But the next time you have one of those moments, remember that some people can't hear anything, and you should be blessed to hear that kid screaming, or that door slamming, or someone playing music too loud. Something to remember.

New Blog Shout Out! 

A couple of awesome guys (I know this because I have met them both in person) started a blog about manliness for young men. (and yes, I'll still be reading the blog even though I'm not a guy... c'mon, I have 3 brothers!) So read it and pass it on -cause Jon and Michael have started a great thing (from what I've seen so far).  http://practicingmanliness.blogspot.com/

saying goodbye

I say goodbye with a wave and a smile
Turning around the tears start to fall
Though it's for the best, I regret to leave
As the times that we had were quite a ball

I can only hope that this won't be the last time
That I have to say goodbye

Life, it goes on, always rushing by
I stop to smell the roses, just once in awhile
Oh how they bring back memories of you
The amazing person you are, with that smile

Oh how I did not want to remember the time
That I had to say goodbye

Peace and hope I continually search for
Only to find it in in my Savior's arms
The tears keep falling but He wipes them away
Promising me a day of no more harm

It's rather amazing to look forward to the day
That we will never say goodbye



*dedicated to my lovely amazing Aunt Terry, who passed away last February - my friend Joni who thought the world didn't want her anymore - and someone else who was very hard to say goodbye to