Grandma to the Rescue!

It's the morning of December first, two thousand eleven. It was late night, as I drag my butt out of bed, or at least try to. To my dismay, I woke extremely late for a study day of class. In a frenzy to get ready, and off to class, I forget to hit the the gas station. (Stupid girl!) I was almost to Route Twenty and Route Fifty-eight in Oberlin, when alas I ran out of gas! In a panic I reach for my phone, dial Chris and get no answer. Thinking quick I hit speed dial two, Grams. Upon answer I explain to her what happened. Fortunately, she was a life saver. About thirty minutes later Grams pulls up with five gallons of gas for me. Yay! After ten minutes of carefully, and creatively, adding gas to my tank, I'm ready to go. I slide the key in, turn it, and the engines starts with no problem. I start to pull off the side of the road, to find that I am stuck! After a minute of push-pulling the car, three young men come to our rescue! Thank you, Lord! With what seemed to be little effort I was out of the side of the ditch and ready to head to Grandma's. I am indeed grateful for my wonderful Grams and for those three kind men so willing to serve. :-)

Looking at the World in a New Light

As some of you may know I am taking a photography class this semester. I am loving it, completely! My instructor is challenging us to look at our every day world in ways that are creative and new. This is our fifth week of class and our second official project. Our assignment: Light as a Subject.

Many of you are probably thinking "What? Light a subject?" Yes folks this is indeed actually possible. Think about it. How much does light have an effect on a picture? Too much light and the picture can be ruined. Too little light and the same can happen, ruined pictures. However just the right amount of light and the picture can be a perfect captured moment in time. So how do we use light as our subject?

Light. It's an amazing thing. So how can you capture light in a picture? Ever think about shadows? Or icicles glistening in the sun? How about a person looking out a window with the sun shining through? These are all examples of light and how light affects our everyday life. So really, in this project, the subject matter is not the concern, but instead the light that is used to create the image. Take a look around and explore what new different ways you can see light in. After after all a picture, in Greek, translates to "to write with light."

Halloween 2010

I must admit that I love Halloween. And it's not all the scary, gory, creepy stuff either. Rather it is the one day of the year that we can be anything we want to be. Well okay, it's the one day we can dress as anything we want to be and get away with it. In my mind Halloween is what you make it to be. And for me I make it fun and enjoyable like the imagination meant it to be.

For as long as I can remember I have always dressed up for Halloween. Whether it was a purple crayon, an angel, a roman princess, a T-Bird, or this year a Lady Pirate. And with every costume there was trick-or-treating to go with it, even a little bit this year. (I know I'm sneaky, but hey it's candy.) I spent the evening going door to door collecting the "loot". Of course I was not the only one collecting candy. My adopted niece Lyla (who is almost two) was the real Bumblebee behind the operation. All in all it was a good night spent with great people. =)


Miss Bumblebee Lyla


Lady Pirate Cristal

Blessed, Even In Dismay.

So today started like any other Wednesday does. I got up around 11:30, left for the most boring class of my life around 12:30, and got home at about 15:30 (3:30 for those none military peeps). Grams and I got home and thought that Gramps had gone somewhere, although we weren't sure. I was checking my email when I noticed my Mom had emailed me. I opened it to find that she was having truck trouble at 12:30. Grams and I figured Gramps was out helping her, well about thirty minutes later we found that Mom had Gramps' truck and that Gramps had been home when we got back from my class. He told us that he had rescued Mom from her truck troubles and lent her his truck until Thursday night. So it was all good in the neighborhood. Then Mom shows up at the house around 16:30 (4:30). She made few phone calls to get parts needed for her truck and any other help/tools she needed. Finally around 18:30 (6:30) Gramps decides to take us to Sugarcreek for dinner. By then Mom was ready to go get her parts and run some other errands she needed to do. Well, he comes the fun part of our day. Mom calls us at about 19:30 (7:30) to tell us that Gramps truck wasn't starting. (Oh joy here we go again.) So after dinner the three of us go and rescue Mom and Harley at the parts shop. After about thirty minutes of trying to get Grandpa's truck working we finally conclude that his starter motor probably went out. Yay, now we have five people, two of which are stuck in Lorain County for a bit, two trucks that don't work and a load of food to get from Sharon's. The stress leave, by this time, was rising and fast. After a lot of yell and almost talking we decide to get the food from Sharon's. Once the food was loaded, everything else seemed to fall into place. We dropped most of the food at Shannon's and then took Mom and Harley home on our way back to our house. It was a long journey full of stress and dismay, but amidst it all we were very lucky. If it were Tuesday, Mom would have been stuck on 611 for about two or more hours. Grandpa would have been going to class at around 15:30 (3:30) and wouldn't be back until about 22:30 (10:30). So she would have been stranded and out of transportation for about a day or so. And Grandpa's truck could have not started somewhere else, like a busy highway, but luckily it didn't. And thanks to a sweetheart of Sharon, Mom would have had to go all the way to Brunswick to get her food. That would have meant more time and gas money in the long run. So counting our blessing we were very fortunate in our misfortune.

Tagged: For the Fun of It

1. Open the first photo folder on your computer
2. Scroll down to the 10th photo
3. Post this photo and tell the story about it
4. Pass this along to 5 other bloggers

I saw this on Susan's blog and wanted to do it just for the fun of it!

I bought this hat at a little resale shop in Oberlin called Touched By Grace. They had so many different vintage hats there. As soon as I walked in the door I found about three. I started to looked around and I found about twenty-five or so vintage hats. Of course me being who I am had to try on every one I found! I had so much fun with it. Of course I fell in love with almost every hat there. Some looked better than others, while some were just not good at all. Finally I decided to I wanted to take one home with me. And with the help of Grams and Gramps I narrowed it down to two this one and a straw navy blue and white stripped, with a dark blue eye veil. And as you can see this one really caught my eye and was a must buy! I can't wait to go back and maybe even find another hat to bring home. :-)

Five People to Pass This Along To:
1. Grams
2. Heather Cosby
3. Deborah Gay
4. Kate Herzoff
5. Jocelyn Christensen

BGSU OReg Program

"I don't want to go!" That's all you heard out of my mouth Wednesday morning. The stress was built up so intensely inside me, I was going crazy. I wouldn't get out of bed until I had to and then when I did everything seemed wrong and my actions told you everything about my negative attitude. Finally after about an hour of fighting with myself, and others, we were in the car on our way to BGSU's orientation and registration program.

Taking the turnpike cut our travel time in about half compared to other routes. So, in about an hour and fifteen we reached the college. Trying to keep my feelings to "no shows" and Grams' down to bare minimal excitement, we meandered our way to Lot 7. Finally we arrived at Lot 7 and my first greeting of the day was presented. (Phew. So far so good.) Two of the twenty orientation leaders greeted us with smiles and explained the parking process. Little did I know that this was the beginning of a very long, stressful two days.

We went to one program after another that day. Starting with a welcome program and then the students splitting into small groups while the parents were in a meeting. Gosh I really hated that part! New place. New people. Lots of them too. And I couldn't even be a shadow! Grr. I did get through it though. Barely. By the end of the first day I skipped about three meetings in order to keep my sanity and not snap.

I was so glad to get to the dorm hall. They had prepared Offenhauer Towers for us. (Later I would find that I would be in Offenhauer 9west) I was amazed at the niceness of the rooms. I wasn't too sure of being on a different floor than Grams and Gramps, but it turned out okay. My roommate and I spent time downstairs with some of the various activities going on. I was suprised I had fun playing ping-pong with one of the guys who was also in Offenhauer Towers. So my night was pretty okay.

The Next morning we had a few meetings left and were able to explore the grounds a little before heading home. Boy was I glad to be going home! BGSU was nice and all, but very busy and stressful. I wasn't in a hurry for anything to do with BG. In fact I just wanted to forget about it in hopes of it going away. I knew that wouldn't happen though. *haha*

Acceptance To Bowling Green State University (BGSU)

May 11, 2009. Just a normal, ordinary Monday. Just arrived to Music Studio ready to practice my new learned skills of the guitar. Just an ordinary day. I went to check my email, like I sometimes, did in that class, and found a very important message. It was from BGSU. Oh my! The excitement ran through my veins. Had they accepted my application? Or was it just to notify my that they had received it?

I clicked on the subject. It opened, so . I scrolled down, scanning each word, and..."Congratulations! You have just been admitted to Bowling Green State University." My entire face lite up. Jessica asked what was so exciting and I told her I just got accepted to BGSU. She was happy for me. I was thrilled and texted everyone I could, to tell them of the good news.

I never doubted I would get in, I just wasn't sure of it. The whole college thing has been a huge roller coaster of disaster. And headaches. And tears. But overall, a roller coaster of disaster. Still, I got in!