I’ve Been Tagged

So I’ve been tagged I guess thanks to Adam so I suppose I’ll give this a try, I’m not very good at these kind of things. You know those games that they make you play the first day of classes, yeah, those aren’t all that fun for me, especially the two truths and a lie one. Moving on . . .

1. I like to sing but I won’t sing by myself or if there are other people around, choir is a little different though I still don’t sing very loud. When I was in high school I used to sing on our praise team and stuff like that but never alone. If you hear me sing alone you’re very special, I think there may be two people that I’ve done that with. When I’m in the car by myself I will sing, one of the reason I love car trips by myself, but if there is someone else in the car I won’t sing. Why? Honestly, I have no idea, the other people in the car can be singing but I won’t join in.

2. Most of you already know this but I’m half Canadian. My mom is originally from Canada and she moved down here when she married my dad, who is from Indiana. That whole story is kinda interesting so if you really want to know ask me about it sometime. I would spend a lot of time as a kid up in Canada at my grandparents and cousins houses. I don’t get to go up as often anymore which is kinda sad.

3. I love traveling and there are so many places I would love to go and some that I’ve been to that I really want to go back to. Some of my favorite places are those with mountains. Some of my trips have been pretty adventurous, especially the one out to West Virginia. There I went white wter rafting, climbing and rappelling, and spelunking. I also love taking pictures where ever I go, mountains and sunsets probably topping my list. Here are a couple pictures from a few trips.

     

 

 

4. It seems that I hardly ever sleep. I stay up late and get up pretty early most days. Like Wednesday night for example, I was up past 1:00 am and got up around 5:30 then I tried to go to bed early but ended up writing this and reading well past 1:00 am once again. Reading tends to distract me from things. Last spring break I went to New Orleans and I stayed up several nights in a row until 3 am talking, I got up around 7:00 and was just fine for the rest of the day. Same now, the lack of sleep doesn’t seem to bother me any.

5. I’m the kind of person that pretty much always has to be doing something. I love days off work but and everything but I still need something to do, often times I’d rather be at work than have nothing to do. A lot of times I’ll start cleaning and organizing things if I can’t think of something to do (no Adam, I’m not going to clean your apartment ) I also fidget with things a lot, like if I’m talking I’ll have something in my hands I’m messing with too. I remember before I got my job down here a couple summers ago and I had just moved into the Promise Place I started cleaning out the garage and the basement, I was going crazy with nothing to do. Often times too it seems that I can’t be doing just one thing at a time, I must like to multitask. I’ll be watching a movie on my computer while working on something else on there too and still be able to keep track of things. It’s the same with reading, I always have more than one book going, I’ll read one at night, have one in my bag I read between classes, and sometimes another one going that I’ll read randomly. I can keep them all seperate and even when I put it down for a long time I can pick it back up and remember what was going on with no problem.

Now that I wrote that I actually thought of a couple other things that I could have posted about, like my dislike of condiments, left handed tendencies, and bad judgment of color, I’m kinda surprised.

Hmm, now who to tag . . .

Jason (just because he never updates, probably still won’t but it’s worth a try)
Matt
Becca and Jared

I totally used to work at this bank, it’s not something I ever really thought about when I was working there.  The girl that the robber came up was there when I was there too, she’s only a few years older than me. Something like this happened at another branch that I worked at too but instead of asking for the money the woman scammed the girl into giving it to her. It’s all kinda crazy.

Bank Robbed In Syracuse
Daniel Riordan
Times-Union Staff WriterSYRACUSE – A Syracuse bank was robbed Wednesday afternoon, and the suspect is still at large.The Farmers State Bank Syracuse branch, 411 S. Huntington St., was robbed around 1:51 p.m. Wednesday. According to a Syracuse Police Department report, a white male entered the bank and handed the teller a bag and told the teller to put the money in the bag.

After the teller handed the suspect the bag back with money, the suspect fled the bank on foot. No weapons were displayed during the robbery and the amount the suspect stole is undetermined.

The suspect is described as a white male, approximately 5 foot, 9 inches and 180 pounds. He was wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt, blue jeans and white tennis shows with colored gloves.

He also was wearing a white ball cap with an oval logo on the front and a red bandanna under the cap, with a long white costume beard and dark sunglasses.

Witnesses currently are being interviewed.

The Syracuse Police Department was assisted by the Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Department and the Milford and Winona Lake police departments.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Syracuse Police Department at 574-457-3366 or Crime Stoppers at 800-288-STOP.

Storms

So there were some storms in the area last night, I really didn’t even know about them until everything had passed.
I guess back home it got pretty nasty as well, it even made national news. The winds were 160+ mph and the tornado touched down about 12 miles from where I live. There were a lot of housing additions damaged and a several parts of the 3 RV plants were really damaged. My little brother was home alone since my parents are out of town for their 25th anniversary, he went to my grandparents house for a while after work though, he said on his way home there was a lot of horizontal rain, good thing he didn’t drive his motorcycle that day. When they went back to our house to check for any damage they saw a house just down the road was crushed by a tree, besides that there really wasn’t too much damage to our area. I guess we have a few little trees down and quite a few branches of all sizes but that’s normal for a big storm. They didn’t have power for a good 7 hours that evening either.
This isn’t the first time tornados have been this close. About 4 years ago we had a nasty one come through, it hit right behind my aunt and uncles addition, about 5 miles from my house, went over the highway and my house and hit a business/factory at the end of the road, just a hair over a mile away. My dad, brother, and I stayed outside for most of it, he made us go inside for a few minutes but he stayed out. It’s pretty obvious where I get my love of thunderstorms from, he sat at his picture window when he was a kid and watched a tornado drop the roof of a barn in the field across from his house. We left for Canada the day after and you could just see the trail of damage from that storm all the way up through Indiana, it was crazy.

Here are a couple pictures

 

 

 

Things I Miss

I went home last weekend and it has probably been since sometime at the beginning of summer since I’ve been able to do that. It seems I go back less and less each year, I just start to get busy with so much stuff now. I don’t know why I’ve waited so long to get involved in things here. I’m still involved on the leadership team for the college group. This year I’m doing choir at church, I’m not really the type of person to get up and sing in front of people, I really haven’t since sometime in high school when I’d help with the youth group worship team, I still don’t sing by myself (when other people are around) and very rarely if someone else is in the car with me. I’ve also started to learn swing dancing this year, I’ve always said that I don’t dance and never want to lear. That changed last year when I got dragged to a swing dancing thing at the union, after that I wanted to learn. This week we start lindy hop, a much faster type of swing dancing with more steps . . . this could be interesting. I’ve really been stepping out of my comfort zone recently, I’m still very introverted but I’m trying.

Anyway, here’s the main point of my post. There is a lot of stuff I miss about living out in the country, being stuck in the middle of West Lafayette really isn’t one of my favorite things, I really enjoy being able to get out every once in a while. One thing that I really miss is the beautiful scenery, Indiana even with the lack of hills and mountains really is pretty. I love Indiana sunsets, one of my favories is the header pictures of my blog for now. It’s fall and the leaves are changing color again, or at least some of them are this year. No one was home when I was visiting until sometime in teh evenings so that left me time to do whatever I wanted, I spent a lot of time outside, taking walks (especially in the woods), things like that. Another thing I miss is just how quite it is, as I’m typing this there are trucks and motorcycles driving past my window and they feel the need to reve their engings all the time. Then there are those people who have the bass and volume up so much in the car that the whole house shakes and my windows rattle, I miss having hardly any cars going past the house. And the last thing that I can think of at the moment is being able to see the stars. Sunday night when I got home I turned off the back porch light and just laid on the picnic table, of course my dog joined me, and I just looked up at the stars, they still amaze me. One of the first things I remember htinking my freshmen year here is that I couldn’t see the stars, or at least not very many of them. Get out simetime away from the lights and you’ll be amazed just how much you see, seeing them all the time was something I think I took for granted.
 I’m reminded of a song that I think has a lot to do with taking things for granted, the song just happens to be called Indiana and it’s by Jon McLaughlin, it’s the first verse mainly. 
I’m glad I never lived next to the water, so I could never get used to the beach,
I’m glad I never grew up on a mountain, to figure out how I the world could reach
I love the miles between me and the city, where I quietly imagine every street
And I’m glad I’m only picturing the moment, I’m glad she never fell in love with me
I’m sure if I grew up along the ocean I wouldn’t think it is as beautiful as I do now, the same for the mountains, I’ve always wanted to move somewhere where there are mountains.

Fire

When I first started writing this it was only a little after 4 am, Jenny and I were standing in the hallway for a while watching some more.

It’s only 4am and I’ve already had a crazy morning.

Around 3:20 I hear Jenny yell my name, I hurry out of bed and open my door, look down the hallway and see bright orange. Mindy is at the window in our hallway and says there is a fire at the house next door, it ends up it was their garage. The one guys car was parked really close to the garage and the flames were coming out the side and touching it. We’re pretty sure his car isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Our cars are parked really close so we hurry out and move them up into our yard so one, the garage doesn’t fall near them and two, so there’s more room for the fire department. Our garage is about a cars length away so we were worried for a while that it could spread, and Jenny’s car was parked in there. The power lines from their garage were on fire too and they are attached to ours. We stayed out there for a good half hour until the fire was out.

So here it is now almost 5 am and I’m pretty much wide awake and running on 2 and a half hours of sleep.

 

Thinking Again

Jesus, I am Resting

Jesus, I am resting, resting,
In the joy of what Thou art;
I am finding out the greatness
Of Thy loving heart.
Thou hast bid me gaze upon Thee,
And Thy beauty fills my soul,
For by Thy transforming power,
Thou hast made me whole.

Jesus, I am resting, resting,
In the joy of what Thou art;
I am finding out the greatness
Of Thy loving heart.

O, how great Thy loving kindness,
Vaster, broader than the sea!
O, how marvelous Thy goodness,
Lavished all on me!
Yes, I rest in Thee, Belovèd,
Know what wealth of grace is Thine,
Know Thy certainty of promise,
And have made it mine.

Jesus, I am resting, resting,
In the joy of what Thou art;
I am finding out the greatness
Of Thy loving heart.

Simply trusting Thee, Lord Jesus,
I behold Thee as Thou art,
And Thy love, so pure, so changeless,
Satisfies my heart;
Satisfies its deepest longings,
Meets, supplies its every need,
Compasseth me round with blessings:
Thine is love indeed!

Jesus, I am resting, resting,
In the joy of what Thou art;
I am finding out the greatness
Of Thy loving heart.

Ever lift Thy face upon me
As I work and wait for Thee;
Resting ’neath Thy smile, Lord Jesus,
Earth’s dark shadows flee.
Brightness of my Father’s glory,
Sunshine of my Father’s face,
Keep me ever trusting, resting,
Fill me with Thy grace.

Jesus, I am resting, resting,
In the joy of what Thou art;
I am finding out the greatness
Of Thy loving heart.

 

We sang this song in church today and it’s been stuck in my head for pretty much the whole day so I’ve just been thinking about the words. There is just so much to reflect on in each verse. Just by simply trusting in Jesus we are satisfied and our needs are met. His love is so pure and changeless and in the second verse the hymn describes how immeasurable God’s loving kindness is. I really think this is now one of my favorite hymns.

It’s about time . . .

So I’ve had this wordpress for about 6 months and I’ve done absolutely nothing with it until now. It’s sad that the only reason stuff like this gets done is because I don’t feel like doing homework, oh well, I guess it’s better than nothing.