You don't have to feel safe to feel unafraid. -Lights

It's weird how somethings just hit you differently sometimes.
Coming back from a week with fifteen girls who don't share my worldview, I was crying on the way home when "I Can Only Imagine" came on.
Driving to a graduation party for one of my best friends, I remembered I was growing up and lamented the passing of innocence when maturation takes its place.
Soon I'll be living my life in a completely different way. I won't have to depend on anyone, but it will be the only thing I want. Now that I'm finally here, that wish my seven-year-old self made for independence as the days keep ticking by so quickly.
It's not that I don't want to grow up; I know that bigger responsibilities result in bigger rewards. I just wish I could visit that place again, the place where there were no standards to live up to, no wrong way to live life except disobeying your parents and throwing apple sauce on your brothers.
I want to live in the present. If I was always little, I would never be able to grasp the bigness of the world and be able to think about it to such an extreme extent. If I consistently desired the future, my life would slip by with my notice. I want to live my days. I want to be remembered for something bigger than my music, my personality...
What do you want people to say at your funeral? What do you want included in your legacy?
Those are such hard questions for me because I know not living as though I believe would make me a liar.

Made apparent by my lack of record in the blog world, the challenge has gotten... well, challenging. I haven't read so many words since I was homeschooled and actually had the time to ingest them. In short, my brain hurt and my reading schedule is lagging.
I heart prayer...

I'm kind of proud of myself. The physical stuff isn't going too bad.
I've missed a couple journal days; that's what His mercy is for.

Dinner went amazing. The breading for the sloppy-joe bake that's usually really bland was way better with steak seasoning and the honey mustard seems to make a positive impact on the sauce. My palette is happy. And so is my grandpa.
I need to find a new bike to ride. For some reason, the gears don't work, so I get to pedal for about five seconds at a time. Oh, well.
Proverbs 5 tonight, lots of work-outs this weekend.

I got the June issue of Susie magazine a few weeks ago suggesting the start of the 30-Day Challenge from my favorite magazine. It's been offered even back when Susie was Brio but up until this year, I have never risen to the challenge. This is my year. I'm finally bucking up and doing something cooler than the status quo. I'm being stretched in every aspect of my life: emotional, financial, spiritual, mental, and physical... physical being the most difficult.
It's not that I'm an inactive person - I'm a two sport athlete enrolled in athletic fitness all year. Even after track practice, I'll play basketball twice a week, and my diet is on the healthy side. I'm not opposed to exercise... my body just avoids it. Very practically, it doesn't work easily into my schedule.
Doing things for free isn't fun either. Free babysitting is a requirement. The only children I have the opportunity to babysit are crazy. And there are eight of them. EIGHT. Every Monday I get a $10 salary for two hours of what feels like slave labor, trying to keep them all from killing each other and the house's framework. (Seriously, we were watching Kung Fu Panda last week and one of the girls kicked the other in the neck... yeah) Not having much of an income anyway, I treasure those dollars; the difficulty it takes to acquire it adds to the sacrifice of giving them up. But really... I don't need an income. All my spending money is for luxury. I have no bills to pay, no rent to keep up. I barely even pay for gas. Life is good. Heck, these people even feed me dinner before. Yes, I would have loved to have that bill in my wallet... but in perspective it seems a rather small thing to give up only once.
Plus, I've always sucked at prioritizing. It's even harder when it's stuff I would rather not do. Twenty-seven Proverbs and twenty-six days to go, seventeen of them without caffeine, seven without computer access. I have ten more notes of encouragement to write, some cookies to bake, a sunset to watch, a charity event to put together, some words to look up, a sermon to hear, and a lot of praying to do.
This is going to take supernatural strength. A lot of it.

I decided I suck at blogging.
Not a conscious decision, just kind of happens without me.

Let's catch up --

Family: Well, my grandma's gone. Worst couple weeks of my life. But much easier than I ever thought it would be. She always told me "Try not to cry too much when I die, okay?" I was always like ahahahaha HECK NO! Like that's even going to be possible. But when I only break down every couple days now, I feel like I'm doing her good. Going through all of her stuff, I'm getting some pretty awesome sauce vintage! Not that I wouldn't leave it all to have her back...

Love: Funny I phrase it that way, because we're contemplated the use of the word. Other than that, we're just chillin', having fun in the mean time. Stupid college couldn't come faster. I have to continually remind myself that I have only a little over a year left to invest in my high school career. *sigh* But, oh, what I would give to just hold his hand on rainy evening walk.

School: Couldn't get any more stressful. FCCLA is kicking my butt! Regionals are coming up so fast and our power point isn't even done, let's not even talk about the speech. First semester: Chemistry with a 97% and full point on my AP Lit final. 95% or something. So I've got the classes part under control if you exclude my monologue not being in my head. Took me so long to pick it. Finally decided on one from Toy Story 3, Chuckles relating Lotso's story to Woody. I like it. Something from Aladdin next time probably.

The Walk: I'm in a weird place. Not sure what my problem is. I don't like it.

Playoffs start on Thursday... Good thing we're last in league. Ugh. Season's over by Saturday - betting money.

Christmas is crazy.
But amazing.

I would like to say that everything is going perfectly.
For the most part, it is.
But I really don't like that I want time to go faster.
As the longing to see the future may be human nature, living in the future is going to end up robbing me of the present. I am so not okay with that.
Mr. Magorium is arguably the most quotable fictional character of all time. Or at least his movie is.
That being said, my second favorite quote from my second favorite movie is entirely applicable here:

I've been sucking at this blog thing. Which is sad because I really want to keep it up.
But then, I haven't written back to my pen pal for a couple days either... Bad at writing altogether? Maybe.
Nothing has been consuming my mind lately. Nothing I need to blog out anyway. Blog out. Sounds weird.
Actually... there is one thing. I really want the pictures from the dance. The sucky job of picking out the music, underscored by the most annoying people in the universe gathered into one room of strapless dresses and shiny ties, was only saved by my curly-haired, dancin' fool, manly man. Add a bouquet of roses in a little "goldfish bowl," a thirty-minute detour in the completely wrong direction, and maybe my head on his shoulder.
What a way to start October. C:

How is it that we [I] find close to nothing to write about when everything is going well? Those are the times I want to remember the most. Like now.
We'll leave it at that lest my adolescent verbage get the best of my writing.