Fun times with nieces and nephews :]

   Life has calmed down a bit since all the graduation festivities are now over. I'm almost done writing thank you's and my graduation money is safe in a savings account :] I don't plan on spending it for quite some time. 

   I was going to start working 4 days a week (32 hrs) at Larsens but decided I'd better stick with 3 till I'm not so busy. I like my job more and more the longer I'm there. Every day there is something different to do, it's quite hard to get bored. I really like and get along with all my coworkers, which definitely helps! I'm a bit nervous though because construction starts on main street next Monday. All the stores on main street will have to have back door entrances. Everything's going to be really torn up and will be for the next 4 plus months. Business is going to be very slow, therefore work will most likely not be quite as exciting :]

   I still don't have any definite plans for the fall. I'm thinking I might not do any college classes online the first semester. This year has just been way too crazy and stressful already, I don't want to finish school than 2 months later jump into more stress & harder classes. It would be heavenly to take a break from it all. :)  Some days, the thought of sticking around this town any longer sits fine with me, other days, I make myself absolutely miserable thinking about it. It just seems like when you're young, this town is so restricting. It's hard to explain, but I guess it's probably just a small town thing, especially when you've lived in it for 12 years. I don't know how long I'll last before I hop on a train to destinations unknown. haha, right :] I would absolutely love to fly over to some foreign country and work with missions, or orphans, or anything of that sort. I wish I could travel somewhere, anywhere. Or go some place different and be a nanny. I've always wanted to do that! :] I just so badly want something different, something new and exciting, stretching and scary. something!

   

Did I really just have an open house for my high school GRADUATION..?!?

       Well, the title says it all. The whole thing was pretty surreal, yet nothing has really hit me yet. It'll probably take till I'm completely finished will all my classes for me to truly feel done.

    

       Last night was Courtney's (one of my best friends) graduation ceremony. She goes to Johnson Corners Christian Academy. They had a nice ceremony, although only 3 graduates! 

       Here's a picture of Violet and me at the ceremony. I had to put it on here because I look so ridiculously young. You wouldn't think that in less than 24 hours I would be having my own graduation party :]

       After the ceremony and reception was over we headed up to Williston to go to Applebees. A celebration dinner you could say :] It's a tradition of ours to go to Applebees with Pastor Sheldon. It all started because one time, at Fine Arts Festival, we wanted to go, but they wouldn't let us 3 girls go alone. We grabbed Sheldon and he became our chaperone. We did this a few more times over the years, therefore it became a tradition :] We told him we had to do it once more before fall and figured this was a good time. You know you're a different kind of teen when you actually CHOOSE to hang out with your pastor :] on graduation night of all days! 

       Here's some pictures from our open house. It was very successful and fun. Lots and lots of people and good food :] My outgoing personality came out and I was having quite the time visiting with everybody. haha

 

       Us girls were quite excited to have our faces on cakes. haha

       We had 2 huge tables to decorate, each taking a half. Here's mine. It was really fun to decorate, and yes, those are panda's on it :]

       The four of us: Me, Missy, Cora, and Erin

        Erin is a close friend of mine who moved here in April of '07. Cora is also a close friend who I met last fall. She became a christian and we all got to be very close. Her dad tragically died in a freak farm accident in December. Her family moved right away to Michigan (to be with family) but she was able to come back and graduate with the high school. She's an incredible strong girl and I was very happy she was able to be a part of it all. 

     Here's Missy and myself at the reception. I was very blessed to be able to celebrate such a monumental thing with my very best friend.

A bit of a revelation

       Tonight as I was doing devotions & journaling, I think God finally revealed to me a key piece of information about this whole 'future' deal. I wouldn't normally do this, but my journal entry explains it best so I'm going to type out a portion of it on here.

     "...I think my amazing experience at North Central was more about how close I felt to You, how amazing worship was. It was about realizing for the first time that I have hope and a future. Not that my hope and future was North Central itself but that You do, in fact, have amazing plans for me. Whatever that plan includes I do not know. I trust You, God. You showed Yourself to be so completely amazing and involved in my life in those few days. They changed my life, no doubt about that. That doesn't mean I will or will not go to North Central, it means so much was revealed, confirmed and established in (and to) me by You in my time there, and that's the important part. It may be that North Central was needed to catch my attention. and You know what, it worked."

      Okay so the ending was a bit cheesy but you get the point. I don't really know what to do with this newfound revelation but I'm feeling a lot better about things. I was trying to control everything, convincing myself I KNEW what God wanted. I really thought I did, but then again, He has some funny ways of working. North Central, like the journal entry said, really showed me that I have a hope and a future. It wasn't the college itself. It's not like God was like "Your future is going here and taking English 101 from Mr Edwards" you know what I mean? It was showing me I could do things for Him, that He wants me. He actually wants me. He has plans beyond my imagination. I've heard it a million times from tons of different people. Jeremiah 29:11 was engraved in my mind. Yet I never believed it. As dumb as it may sound, I felt worthless to Him. Confidence has never ever been a strong point of mine, not in some ways at least. The first half of the year was basically miserable for me. I knew all my friends were going to leave, they had their futures, and I was going to be stuck in a dumb little town with nothing at all. Coming back from North Central, I felt completely different. I think that's why I was so set on North Central. I felt so close to God there, I figured it was sure the answer. But maybe God was teaching me something. Teaching me that I don't need college to have that feeling of being so utterly close to Him. College isn't the bad thing, but to me, after a while, it became' I  NEED to go to North Central, to live in THIS dorm,and take THESE classes, to be close to God, which is utterly ridiculous.

     (I have rambling problems)

     I'm not ruling out North Central completely, I really did love the school and the city. As for this fall semester though, I think it's out. Every possible thing has went wrong while trying to get my transcripts to North Central (tests took months to get graded. books literally fell out of mail packages while in the process of getting to us, my last and hardest algebra test got lost, I have to retake it. My guess is it was God's way of waiting for me to put all the pieces together)

The only way I would go this fall semester is if things really came together quickly, and if I ended up getting a lot of grants/scholarships/financial aid. But since that most likely won't happen I plan on taking a few classes online from Williston.

    

    I'm finding a lot of comfort in this all. I'm definitely NOT meant to be a busy busy kind of person. I'm made to kick back and relax. In the midst of this all I was working too much and cramming school. I drove myself absolutely crazy. I haven't practiced guitar in forever, and as dumb as it sounds, I've been craving to do a puzzle for months, yet have not had any time. It's exciting to think I won't be so incredibly rushed the rest of this year. I could do 10 whole puzzles if I felt like it :] and hey, just think, I might finally have the time to travel. Wouldn't that be nice :]

Time's flying

    I can't believe it's been almost 3 weeks since I last wrote! Time is going insanely fast lately. I've been working and doing school like crazy. I also had to be the women of the house for 2 weeks while mom was gone. I was sure happy for her to get home. I liked cooking alot, got a little too fancy with the things I would make, but cleaning up after dad and David all the time, not so much. Overall it went pretty well. 

    This week I work 3 days in a row then have the rest of the week left to prepare for my open house, which is Saturday. I'm pretty excited for it, although it's going to be alot of work. The whole process has been pretty fun. It's been exciting to get cards in the mail. It feels incredibly surreal to be opening a graduation card addressed to ME.

    One thing I'm not looking forward to about the open house is I know the 'Question of the Day' is going to be, "So what are your plans for next year?" It's going to be hard to muster up an answer when I'm constantly asking myself the same question. I have absolutely no idea what I should do, and more importantly, what God wants me to do. The control freak in me is coming out and making myself sick over not knowing what to do, not being able to decide. I was so certain about North Central, so sure. I still cannot shake the feeling I felt when I was there. God did so much in me those 2 days. Yet at the same time I'm second guessing everything. I know mom and dad are against it, which makes everything a lot harder. It's like, staying home and going to Minneapolis are the 2 extremes of the situation. I don't know if I'm ready to be 10 hours from home, let alone when I'm barely 17. Yet the thought of staying here another year - with all my friends gone - would push me over the edge. I watched up close the effect it had on a couple friend's of mine who stayed in Watford after graduating. They were miserable. Something about staying in this town when your young and doing nothing but working just messes with a person, at least that's my conclusion :] There's nothing I want more then to go different places, experience different things. There are so many possibilities it would be so hard to tie myself down to one thing. I'm just at a complete loss of what to do. It's times like these when I can't help but wish God was more vocal, more like "Hey, do this" instead of His crazy, mysterious, 'make you wonder' ways.Oh well, He knows what He's going, right? :]

      Anyways, that basically sums up my life (thought life at least) of the last 3+ months. Any suggestions or advice would be most helpful :] and prayers are always good!