Daddy Day

My dad used to have long hair. He'd come home from work with dirty jeans, callused hands, and filthy socks inside filthier boots. He smelled like a construction site.

Once, he left me for a long time to go to Idaho and see if he could find us a place to live and when he came back I gave him the biggest hug ever and then I promptly handed him the silent treatment as punishment for leaving me behind. I was two.

He had back surgery right around the time I was born, so he stayed at home with me while mom went to work. He changed my diapers, fed me, loved on me extra good. He would put me on his chest and I used to scratch the top of my head on his stubble. I wish I could show you a picture, but we don't have a digital copy and I'm not even on my own computer.

Dad would take me horse back riding on vacation to satisfy my incessant whining about wanting my own horse. I've ridden horses in the woods, on the beach, and in different states. And I loved it. And him, of course. :)

My oh my though, does he ever love to tease. He loves to tease and tease and tease until you are so mad you could spit, and the madder you get the more sick pleasure he pulls from the whole ordeal. My grandma says he got it from his dad, who loved to make my aunt scream when she was little.

I got my fine dirty blonde hair from my dad, I have blue eyes like his, I have a smile like his. TheKeeper and I look loads like our father. You can definitely tell we are related. And God only knows that I totally love to tease just. like. my. father.

"You are just like your father!" I hear from my mother, my grandmother, other family members and Prince Charming.

And I totally wouldn't have it any other way.

Love you dad. :)

Coming To You Live From The Boonies

Bloggies! I've missed you! Terribly, terribly missed you! I was so worried that big exciting things had happened in blogworld since I've been missing, but I'm glad to say that I only have about a hundred and eight posts to catch up on!

But Bloggies, the internet here is. so. slow. Really, it's practically painful and I can just feel myself cringing from one loading sign to the next!

However, the weather today is BEAUTIFUL which is mostly awesome because the past three days have sucked more than a new filter on a Hoover vacuum. Just who's idea was it anyway to let mother nature wreak havoc in my little corner of the world? I just keep waiting for summer to actually to start and instead I'm get April all over again!

Since the sun is choosing to shine for me baby today, I brought my camera down from Staff Housing and have decided that today is the day for capturing the Beauty that is Twinlow so I can just show it to you the next time I bring my laptop with me to dinner. (Which hasn't actually ever happened before.)

Anyway, I'm just chomping at the bit to get outside and go from spooky ghosty to normal people color, if ya know what I mean?

And Prince and I need all the relaxation we can get because we are going from having 12 chilllens to ponder about to 30 screaming, name calling, I'm going to shove you in the lake, rugrats that will need our undivided attention from 7 in the morning until 6 in the evening.

That folks, is what I like to call a long day.

I love me some rugrats, I really do. But not even real life teachers are stuck with a classroom full of kids that long. It's almost painful, really. Good thing I'm young, vivacious and mostly insane. :) Right?

Someone Pass Me The H2O Before I Die of Exhaustion

It's Thursday morning, I lazily woke up around 10:30 because not having a job and staying up until 1 in the morning will do that to you. I knew it was my last day of freedom. I knew it was going to be busy. But I'm a professional procrastinator. A lackadaisical lazy-face. Why rush in the mornings, anyway? I mean, I'm barely awake, groggy, and still warm under the covers. There's no reason to change that sooner rather than later. I loves me some sleeps, you know. I'm a college kid, so of course I catch the Zs like a pro, but don't you? 

Anyways, I finally dragged my unwilling to start the day butt out of bed and lounged around the house talking with my mother in the kitchen while we tried desperately to figure out what we should eat since both of our stomachs believed that our respective throats were, in fact, cut. 

I had leftover chicken tacos and she had leftover Spanish rice and some home-made hamburger helper dish that looked positively revolting, but I'm biased towards anything that even remotely resembles hamburger helper. To each her own. 

Then around 12:30 I hopped online to check in the boyo who I seemingly am attached to at the hip, since we are often everywhere together. Our family and friends have even combined our names together, not unlike how we refer to Brad and Angelina, you know? Matalie, they call us. But you know, they're just jealous that they aren't entirely as awesome as we are, it's true. 

At 3 o'clock Prince and I drove out for a mutual friend's graduation party. What a life to be explored after the graduation of high school! And we talked and talked and talked with friends that I haven't seen all school year who are near and dear to my tired little heart. I was sad to leave them when time came, but I'll see them either tomorrow or Saturday because they too are camp staff and can't escape me whether they wanted to or not. They don't. :) 

Six thirty rolled around and we met my parental units at the new Texas Roadhouse for barbecued supper of sorts. Absolutely delicious food. Absolutely. Prince-y had a chicken fried steak, I had BBQ pulled pork, my mom and dad both got ribs with pulled pork and BBQ chicken respectively. It was really good food. They play country music, the waiters and waitresses line dance for you, they serve peanuts to snack on so nutshells cover the floor, and I got to play with crayons while filling in all the activities on the sheet of paper they bring to the table for small children. 

I'm super duper awesome, I know. 

It's really loud in the restaurant too, which isn't always a bad thing, but it sure makes it hard to hear. And I don't know what it was about today, but everybody and their brother was having a birthday it seemed. So of course the servers would yell and sing and dance for every birthday and it seems they couldn't go more than a couple of minutes without going through birthday withdraws and therefore belting out in song and dance about someone or another's wonderful birthday. It was nice at first, but got pretty old pretty fast. 

I'd go back on a day when there weren't so many birthdays. 

After thanking Dad and Mom for paying for dinner and saying goodbye in the parking lot, Prince and I waddled to my car and headed to Jack's house. I laid on Prince's chest while he played with my hair and he watched Jack and his girlfriend play Little Big Planet while I pretended to fall asleep.

 (Was that sentence long enough for you? I'm tired, can you tell?) 

At 10:00 we bid them farewell since tomorrow we are supposed to awake bright and early for work. I drove Prince-y home so he could finish packing for camp and then I arrived home to do the same thing. 

My jungle bedroom was filled with unnecessary tote piles and cardboard boxes that are simply ubiquitous in meaning. I opened up our storage compartment underneath our landing. My room is in the basement of our split level entry house if that clears anything up for you. Ahem. And then I went to town. 

I pulled out all the stuff I wanted to take to camp with me and put it outside my room on the floor of the family room. Then I pulled out boxes from under the landing, put away suitcases that had been out since I moved home for Moscow, and replaced certain boxes before I combine elements from different boxes, emptied another box and placed all the full ones back in the storage compartment. 

I'm just tired reading that sentence. 

By the time the whole ordeal was over, I'd repacked the box I'd earlier emptied with necessary items for camp life, packed my duffel bag with clothing items, removed the unnecessary road blockage from my jungle room (who knew my carpet was blue?), and chatted with Prince online before he retired to checking his eyelids for cracks. 

I should be sleeping, too, but I wanted to just pop in and bid you farewell for a few days, since I don't know when I'll be back here. Trust me when I tell you that I'm not disappearing for the entire summer, but my activity level will be way down. Poop. I know right? 

Seven o'clock will come super fast and my eyelids are in need of toothpicks to stay open. My poor body is tired, tired, tired, but on the bright side I will be starting work, and we all know what work means. 

Money. 

And we could all use more of that. AmIright? Right! 

I've Been A Bit Of A Night Owl Lately

I seem to be super busy these days, and I haven't even started working yet! I just always am doing something, and I love it that way! Today I made a rhubarb pie all by myself. Mom supervised and helped when I needed her to, but mostly I did all the work.

I've spent a lot of time out of the house wreaking havoc, causing chaos, and being generally disruptive in a superbly teenage fashion. My computer time usually starts around midnight or so, after all of my running around is officially finished and I'm still unwinding from my aforementioned errands. 

Then, I get on Blogger and I peruse through the blogs I follow, check to see what the Blog of Note is today, Facebook to my hearts content and ponder writing a blog post about the days events while I stare at the blank box I'm suppose to type my blog post in. Eventually I give up trying to be creative and I leave the posting for another day when I potentially will have something more interesting to share.

Today, I still have nothing.

Sorry.

I think I should have a lot to say on the subject of summer since I've been here and there and everywhere, but it's all mundane ubiquitous events that no one and their mother would enjoy reading about, so I just don't write anything. And then I feel guilty about not saying anything about my day, but I really have no idea what to tell you!

And it's not even like I can blame it on the weather because as far as I'm concerned summer hasn't even arrived yet! I don't know about the state that you live in (denial, perhaps?) but here in Idaho it's been downright dreary. Rainy, windy, maybe partially cloudy if you're lucky, but mostly overcast and cold. Since I've been home from school I've worn shorts once.

Once.

What is wrong with mother nature? Is she sick?

Anyway, tomorrow I'm watching Avatar with Prince Charming on Blu-ray. He's never seen it before, but I watched it in IMAX 3D so now nothing will compare and I will always be disappointed. Oh well. I still enjoy the movie, even if the story is predictable. Whatever.

Friday I move off to camp. Prince Charming got promoted to being Day Camp Director so now instead of my co-worker he will be my boss. It'll be good for him. It'll mature him. I'm excited for him. I just hope the weather gets nicer sooner rather than later so I can feel like maybe it could potentially be summertime in the Pacific Northwest.

Oh how I miss me some good sunshine. I need a tan. My legs are the Pillsbury Dough Boy!

Fix It Friday Anyone?

It's been a long time since I've done one of these. A couple months at least. It seems just that my Fridays have been taken over by adventurous travels! But now, as I lay in my bed with the last half hour of Thursday night to go, I present to you my Fix it Friday edits for this weeks super sweet baby feet photo! :)

(original photo)

(number one edit)

(edit two: sepia tone!)

(third edit: something I hadn't tried before, but ended up loving)

Head on over to IHeartFaces by clicking the button below to enjoy some more edits, or to enter your own edits for this cute foot photo.

Once Was Lost, But Now I'm Found

**this is a Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop Post**

I have grown up in church. I don't remember a time in my life when we were not expected to attend church on a Sunday morning if we were in town and healthy. I went to Sunday School, Kids Quest, Youth Group. I went through the Missionette's program when I was in elementary school and I have a huge trophy to prove I graduated.

Middle school youth group had always been fun. I had a good group of friends and I love, love, loved the youth pastor. I felt like he was a really good role model, a good person to look up to, and really, if you can't look up to your youth pastor then just who can you look up to, right?

He would talk about having God time before bed and reading his Bible. Both he and his wife were committed to the youth and to the Lord. It was really a great environment to grow up in - especially during those identity crisis filled 6th through 8th grade years.

I went on missions trips, built relationships, learned more about God and felt like I was really in a good place in my life.

And then the unthinkable happened. Our youth pastor left. But it gets so much worse.

Not only did he just up and leave our youth group community, but he took another youth leader with him - and she wasn't his wife. They just up and split - they didn't even stay in the same state.

My trust was shattered. My hope was crushed. Someone that I looked up to on a weekly basis to be my pastor, to be my mentor had just abandoned me. And not only me - he'd forgotten about every other student in attendance.

I didn't want to go back. I didn't want to have anything more to do with youth group, so I didn't return. We eventually left the church, and I was a junior in high school before I even remotely agreed to contemplate returning to youth group. I didn't know if my youth pastor would leave me again. I was scared to trust someone in a leader's position to walk with me in my journey with Christ.

I showed up to a group of high schoolers congregating outside the foyer in the hot summer evening. I didn't know a soul, so I kind of just wandered around aimlessly until I found a comfortable spot leaning against a pillar and watching the action.

It had been a few minutes before I was approached by a man who I assumed to be in his thirties. He introduced himself and asked me some questions. He could tell I was new and asked if he could introduce me to some kids he thought were "really cool." I agreed because if I knew myself, I would never make friends on my own.

He took me over to a group of kids and introduced me to two girls who were best friends. I was scared to be the third wheel and I didn't know if they were really going to include me and show me around or if they would ditch me the first chance they got.

I have to pause and say that I am continually amazed by God's awesomeness.

These girls not only palled around with me all night, but invited me to their small group where I connected with more teenage girls, all my age too, and two awesome small group leaders. Not only was I plugged in to a great group of Godly girls, but I got to know the youth pastor, too. I decided he wasn't anything like my old youth pastor who had left me to fend for myself, and that in fact he was much, much better.

Not only was my faith restored in Jesus, but it was also restored in people. My experience with that high school youth group was so very amazing that I wouldn't change it for anything. My faith developed just as well as my relationships. I went on a missions trip to DC with that group of girls that I was so hesitant to meet.

Unfortunately we're not as close as we were. A few of us has moved on to different colleges and thank the Lord for Facebook so we can all keep in touch - even if it's just every once in a while.

And that is the story of how I lost heart and gained it back at least five times over. The only thing I'm sorry about was that it took me until Junior year to decide that I really wanted to be involved again.

On Being Little

When I was little I didn't have a favorite color. My favorite color changed all the time. Some days it was purple. Some days it was green. One day I got a yellow towel because that's what I thought was my favorite was. When people would ask me what my favorite color was I would either tell them that I didn't know, or I would make up a color that sounded good and really convincing.

But I didn't have a favorite color. It was devastating. Life-threatening. I must've been the only kid without a favorite color, I thought!

It's funny how little kid minds work. Obviously I wasn't the only kid to not know what her favorite color was, but I sure felt like it.

And when I was six we were selling my mom's car because our little family had outgrown its spacious five seats. We would run errands around town with a black and orange For Sale sign in the back window. I was absolutely petrified that someone was going to come and buy our car while we were out and we would be forced to walk home.

I remember going on vacation to a resort where we got to stay in a cabin with my father's parents and his sister and her family. My cousin and I were sharing a room, and it was really hot in our room. She insisted that the window be open to let in some cooler air, and I insisted that the window stay closed lest a bear pop up out of nowhere and gobble us up! I think I was about nine or so.

Also, I played a lot of pretend when I was little. Other kids have memories of all these movies they watched and all these video games they played and I have memories of pretending to be a little Indian girl. I pretended to be Fern from Charlotte's Web and bring my momma a basket of 'eggs.' I would periodically ask her "Where's Poppa goin' with that ax?"

Some days I was Laura Ingalls Wilder living in a cabin in the woods. I would run around outside barefoot doing all sorts of things that I thought Laura would have done. I pretended my bike was a horse. I even gave her name and rode her around everywhere.

I absolutely loved to pretend I lived on a ranch. I would run around the backyard completing invisible chores like feeding horses, mucking stalls, collecting eggs, herding cattle. Life on my ranch was so busy! I had dogs and cats to take care of and chickens to feed!

My old neighborhood was filled with children around my age and TheKeeper's age. We would do all sorts of outrageous things. We fantasized about starting a neighborhood newspaper until my mother called that one to a screeching halt by asking who was going to pay for all the paper and the ink we used? Thwarted, we moved on to bigger and better things. Like starting our own band.

And by band, we meant 'singing group' because none of us could play an instrument besides faking the keyboard like the good elementary schoolers that we were. We even got in a fight about it and formed two 'rival' bands. We were going to put on concerts the same day and whoever got more people to show up to their concert won bragging rights.

We were going to hit it big for sure.

We climbed tress and hay bales from the farm that lived at the end of our street. We used to feed their cows grass too. But now the farmland is all houses and subdivisions, no little kids riding bikes on the old dirt road and wreaking havoc and running amok.

And by the way, my favorite color is blue.