how i am similar to a tur-duck-en

Matthew 10:29-31

"Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows."

I have spent my life pretending to be an extrovert. 

How does one pretend to be an extrovert, you ask? 

Quite simply. You act like you aren't afraid to be who you are. Which in my case, is just a tad bit ironic, because in acting like I wasn't afraid to be who I was, I have been hiding who I am. (Personality-ception...)

I sometimes find myself behaving like the life of the party - not that I actually go to parties, I meant that completely metaphorically ('aint nobody got time for that) - but at the same time being utterly unsure if my behavior is the right thing to do. If I'm being good enough for them (the royal them) to like me. To respect me. It's an unsettling realization. 

In a class I took about the constructed self, we talked a lot about how there are theories that see the world as a stage, and ourselves as all of the players. I could really see that applying to my life. Not in that I see the world as a type of stage, but that I see my actions as staged - as if I'm following a set of instructions someone wrote on how to be a stereotypical funny, attractive, interesting, intelligent person. Someone who is good enough. 

I have been spending a lot of my time creating a facade to cover up my insecurities, which date back to when my age was in the single digits. I had a head-start in the insecurity department, let me tell you. Not only was I a rather chubby child, but I was also pretty nerdy, which doesn't earn you many points in an elementary school classroom. From the time I was really young I learned that the things that made me different weren't things to flaunt, so I covered those things with what I thought people would like, and I continued like that for a long time. 

I never crossed any lines that I thought I shouldn't - like I never did drugs or got involved with anything truly harmful to myself, but I definitely put myself in situations that I shouldn't have and those aren't situations that I'm proud of. And the worst part? Those situations were all a product of me trying to make people like me. Because behind the loud, funny, outspoken person that I showed people, was a soft interior. Kind of like a tootsie pop, or a perfectly baked brownie (can you guess what I'm craving? It starts with a "c" and ends in "hocolate"...) I was fragile enough on the inside that I thought I needed to make a shell to protect myself. I stuck my introverted-ness inside an extrovert, kind of like a tur-duck-en is a chicken in a duck in a turkey. If you don't look closely enough, you might think that thing was a regular hunk of poultry, but you would be wrong in that assumption. Completely wrong. I have never had a tur-duck-en, but I can guess that they are nothing at all like your run-of-the-mill bird on the dinner table. 

So in short, I am not a regular piece of poultry. I am a complicated one, especially since I don't quite know how to take the duck and chicken out of the turkey without cutting into it first. And that sounds pretty complicated in itself. But on the other hand, so is continuing the way I'm going right now. See, the biggest problem with being an introvert hiding in an extrovert, is that when I find people who understand where I am coming from with my feelings and my thoughts, then I latch on like a leech and I gush all of the feels - to the point that I think I am probably a little scary at times. My fiance was one of those people, and I often-times wonder how I managed to avoid driving him off when I first met him. I was quite the little over-sharer, because he understood. I could relate to him, and him to me. That's why we worked so well on a larger scale, and that's why we're here now. 

Because of my fiance, and the wonderful people who I am surrounded by, I am slowly learning that God made me the way He did for a reason, and that the reason may be something I figure out someday, or it may not be. But that's okay too. Because I have somewhat separated myself from scenarios where I feel the need to hide my true colors in a box - I can take more steps back and have been learning how to be who I am effectively, without over-sharing, and being unendingly awkward. 

I can only hope that someday, somehow, I will be able to separate the inside from the outside so that people can see who I really am. That nerdy, chubby 9 year old, who's favorite food was macaroni and cheese... (some things never change...)

Me, in all of my nerdiness. :) 

limitations

"I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength."

Philippians 4:13

*For the sake of anonymity for those who I'm going to talk about here, I'm not going to name any names, and I'm not going to give any relationships that aren't necessary to the main point of the story, because that could potentially be hurtful and being hurtful isn't the point.*

A few days ago on a family trip I was talking to someone with whom I am not terribly well acquainted. This person did though, know about my disability, because everyone does. I have NO problem talking about it in an informative and open way, because it's a big part of me and I understand that. Anyway - we were sitting and talking, and this person asked me what I plan on doing after I graduate. There are many things that I could have said. I could have told them that I was going to go to grad school and get my masters, or my doctorate, or go directly into research before pursuing a graduate degree. I could have told them about how I intend to go into teaching, because I have been most profoundly influenced by my professors and I want to be able to influence young people in that same way. Buuuuuuuut that's not what I said. I said the one thing that I DO know for CERTAIN - when I graduate, I want to be a mom. I want to have kids. I have wanted that since I was about 7 years of age, back when I couldn't tell people those things because they would have thought that I was crazy. 7 year olds want to be astronauts and super models, not moms. So I told this person that I wanted to be a mom, because that has been my dream. 

Normally when I tell people this they awkwardly embrace my surprising response. 

Not this person. 

This person said, "Are you sure that's a good idea?" 

And I said, "Excuse me?" 

And with quite the attitude they said, "Your disease - it's hereditary, isn't it?" 

I was shocked. I responded with, "Well there is a 50/50 chance that it will be passed on." And that was the end of that. (BOY do I feel better putting this in writing...)

It also happened to be pretty much the last time that I voluntarily spoke with this person, because anyone who could be that presumptuous was not someone I wanted to speak with freely. 

When I was a child, my mom told me that if I couldn't say something nice, I shouldn't say anything at all. I'm sure a lot of people have been told that at one point in time by a parent or guardian or just an adult. If I was speaking with someone I had barely just met, I would never dare to make the judgements that were made that day, and I would certainly have never stated them the way that the person I was talking to did. They were blunt beyond belief - but one can be blunt without being rude. There is a difference. 

What I really learned from this experience is that the easiest way to bother me is to remind me that I'm disabled. It's not like I forget. Honestly. I'm constantly reminded that I'm different, without people telling me. So the easiest way to get to me, and really fire me up, is to act as if you know what is going on in my life. To act like you know what is best for me. I'm the one in this body, with the limitations that I have been given, and therefore I am the one with the job of sharing what those limitations are. If I don't tell you, you don't know. 

It's the same way with the issue of walking. My mom and I now have this unmentioned understanding (Well... I guess it's mentioned now...) that she doesn't ask me how I'm feeling. She will ask me if I want to do a particular activity, and depending upon my response, she knows how I'm doing. If she asks if I want to go hiking, she lets me pick the trail. I pick whether we walk one mile, or two, or five. She doesn't just PICK the shortest trail because I sometimes don't walk so well. That's the magic of my mom - she lets me make my own limits, and she lets me make those choices and own my disability, as opposed to making it own me instead. 

The moral of this story is this - do not limit other individuals because you think you are doing what is best for them. You have the best intentions, I know. But everyone has insecurities, and it's a shame when those insecurities are used to hold people back against their will. This is especially true (in my opinion) when it comes to people who are similar to myself. So next time, before you try to be sensitive to someone's situation, consider whether you are helping or hurting with that attention that you are paying them. Are you limiting their choices, or are you empowering them to show you what they need - to learn things about themselves that they didn't know? To take ownership of their situation? 

I know that when I am a mother, because someday I will be, if my children inherit my condition there will be a point probably shortly before they are the age that I am now, when I will have to let them learn for themselves what they can and cannot handle. When they learn that, and learn to effectively communicate it to others, I will know that I have been successful. 

Me, Justin, and my sister Megan starting the Hope Furnace trail at Lake Hope State Park. It's a 3.8 Mile trail, and I walked it with them and my mother that day.  Just sayin'.

just a little learning

You want to know what I used to hate? I used to hate when people would tell me that parts of their college experience grew them as a person. 

I didn't really know why I disliked it - it was more like the simple fact that a lot of the people who told me those things I knew for a fact spent a good deal of their time in college partying, and I didn't want to accept that their behaviors may, or may not have actually grown them as a person. 

Well anyway, I just had this really weird moment where I realized, I've grown a lot as a person. I don't know whether that is something that people regularly actively think about, but I've been working on a project with Justin that I will soon be sharing here, and it's definitely taught me a lot about my own nature.

I like to control things. That's something I have to work to not let get in my way, and every one else's. Sometimes, the most beautiful things happen when you let go of that control and just let stuff happen. 

The interaction that I got all of this from is a lot less profound than the explanation I just gave, but it's true. Sometimes you just have to let things go, and see what happens. Maybe you'll be surprised. I was. 

paranoia

At midnight I was on my way home from work in the middle of a huge thunder storm, and I was basically halfway home, and suddenly I had the worst feeling. You know that feeling you get when someone is watching you, or when something bad is about to happen? That semi-premonition-like feeling, that feels like something icky is crawling on the back of your neck? Yeah. That feeling. 

So I called my sister to check and make sure that she was okay, and that the basement wasn't flooding, and that the dogs were all okay, and she basically told me to shut up and calm down. Then she decided to "help" by telling me that someone was totally following me/watching me and I got even more freaked out. Yay. So then I called my mom, who didn't answer because she is out of town, which doesn't make me feel any better about the pre-disaster feeling I have. Then I called my boyfriend, who was sleeping, and I left a message on his phone. I will probably be paranoid about that one until he calls me. 

So then I decided that maybe the trash in my room and bathroom was bothering me, so I went and threw everything away and cleaned some things, and that wasn't it either. 

So THEN I decided that maybe I could distract myself with the internet until I fell asleep, but that didn't work either, so I re-did my whole blog, thinking that might do something, but I'm still sitting here not sleeping, typing frantically. I have no clue what is causing this feeling, but it's going to drive me insane. I'm so glad that I don't have to go to work as early as I thought that I did, because if I had to be there at 7:15 in the morning I wouldn't be able to do anything all day. 

So I can't figure out what is going on, and I have no clue how I'm supposed to go to sleep if I feel this way. I'll just lay there in bed and toss and turn imagining terrible things. Aren't there anxiety medications for these things? 

connecticut

Sometimes I question that there is a reason for everything - this past Friday was one of those times. 

I truly, truly believe that everything happens for a reason, but there are some things that I just can't fathom there being a reason for. I mean, goodness gracious, they were children. And I keep reading everywhere out here on the internets about how this man was mentally ill, and I read about gun control legislation, and I read about things that could, or could not have prevented this tragedy, and all of it makes me want to cry. 

Know why? 

Because as Americans, instead of stepping back and taking a collective mental moment of silence for all of those innocent lives that were lost to the hands of a single man, we talk about mental illness. And gun control. And then when President Obama speaks about this tragedy we accuse him of pushing policy. As Americans, in our little busy bubble, we generally don't know how to slow down, and think about things. 

I'm just as guilty as everyone else, unfortunately. When I heard about what happened my mind automatically filled with thoughts about the restrictions the government could have set that would have prevented this event from happening, whether those things would have worked or whether they wouldn't have - the thing is, there needn't be an argument about what could have prevented this. It can no longer be prevented, and unless the discussions about "what could have prevented it" include inventing a time machine, I believe that they need to stop. I'm not trying to be offensive when I say this, but the fact is, it doesn't matter what could have prevented this. It matters what WILL prevent these things in the future. It matters what changes will be made to prevent what happened to all of those children from happening again, to other innocent kids. 

It matters what changes will be made to more parents from losing their children. 
It matters what changes will be made to make students feel safe in their schools. 
It matters what changes will be made to make parents feel safe sending their kids there in the first place. 

We need to remember this event, and we need to remember those who were lost, but we CANNOT focus our attention on what COULD have prevented this. We need to focus on moving forward, on what WILL prevent these things in the future. 

And these are, of course, just the random musings of a girl who knows very little about gun control policy, or conceal carry licensing, or regulations about guns in schools, but there is an elementary school just down the street from my house. I went there; it's so close that I walked. Every afternoon when I'm on my way home from my high school, I pass those kids getting on their busses. This little mob of 6 year olds trail up the steps and onto this big yellow machine, and they're all smiling carrying backpacks with spongebob and hello kitty on them. Each of those kids is going home to parents, or grandparents, who would be devastated if something like this were to happen to their children. They would be devastated, their family would have a rift in it. 

Every day since Friday, every time I see a kid with their mom, or walking home from school, or getting off the bus, I pray. I say a prayer for every family who lost a child that day, every family who KNEW one of the children who died that day, every family who knew a family who lost someone. Because I know that if it were my family, I wouldn't care about gun control. I wouldn't care about mental illness. I would care about Grace McDonnell. And Jesse Lewis. I would care about my CHILD. 

So I think everyone needs to take a step back. They need to take a moment, and not think about guns. They need to think about those children, and how to make sure that this doesn't happen to other children, to other families. 

Brie

refusing to conform to social norms, and other things I shouldn't do

Hello internet.

Have I explained my biggest dilemma to you yet? Probably not... I've been having this problem. You see, it's about time for me to go to college, and become a real person. You know, the kind who lives on their own, and makes their own decisions, and does stuff like a real person does. And here I am, seventeen, thinking I know everything in the world... Well, not really that last part. That's whats so scary about it all.

I know exactly what I want to do. It's so painfully simple. I want to get meet someone amazing, fall in love with them, get married, have tiny people, raise them, cook dinners, clean the kitchen, end up with rowdy grandkids who drive me crazy, and die. That's it. I have no further aspirations. I mean, sure, it would be great to go to the moon, or publish a book, or record a record, or make some huge difference in the lives of other people, but the thing is, I don't really want to do those things. They're extras. The core of what I want out of life is to have a family, love them, for them to love me, teach them, be a parent, and then watch them live their lives and be successful at what they want to be successful at. If that's being a housewife, then that's what it is.

The problem here is the fact that nobody I explain this to understands. And not only do they not understand, they don't care. And you know what? That's not it either, because even if they DO care, they think I'm crazy! They look at me, and instead of seeing a person with feelings and aspirations of the life that they want to have, they see someone with what they all call "potential". They look at this walking pile of "potential" and say "Woah! We should send that potential to Harvard, or Stanford, Or Berkley, or Georgetown!" That's where all that potential belongs... Well, I think they're wrong. It drives me crazy.

I'm not potential.

And you know what? I didn't ASK to have all this "potential" now, did I? I mean goodness gracious... before I was born, I didn't sit down with God and have some conversation where I told Him "Hey. I'd really like to have an intellect so huge that the average person can see all the extra leaking out my ears when I walk down the street. I want my intelligence to be so darn obvious that no matter which way you look at me you see it, and you can't ignore it! I want to be able to do everything and anything! ...Oh, what's that? If you're going to be that smart you can't have legs that work? Oh well. That's fine. I'll take intellect over athletic ability." I didn't do that. (Nor did I intend to be that snarky a second ago... Oh well.)

My point is, I didn't ask for these cards, they're just the ones that I got. And while half of the people that I have ever talked to sit and tell me about how much potential I have and what a waste it would be for me to go into a field where I don't use it, or what a tragedy it would be for me to not use my skills for the benefit of the general population, or what a shame it will be if I don't grow up to be a neurosurgeon, or a nuclear-physicist, I'm sitting here telling the internet what a shame I feel it is for me to be forced to choose a career path and then be unhappy with my choice for the rest of my life. And by that I don't mean unhappy with what I picked, I mean unhappy that I chose to have a career in the first place. 

I don't want to ruin my own future. That's not what I'm trying to do, no matter what it looks like to you. I just want to make it what I want it to be.

Is that so hard to understand?

Is it really that difficult to grasp that some people have a different definition for success than the commonly accepted social standard? It shouldn't be. It shouldn't be hard at all, but apparently it is. It's asking people to step out of their own heads for a moment, and put themselves in my shoes. Asking them to try to understand what it means to be me. What it means to be someone with goals that are just a little different than everyone elses. Just a little smaller. Just a little... humbler. Modest. 

My goals are the goals that I've had since I was a kid... I was always afraid to tell anyone. And now that I've told everyone close to me, and gotten a negative response from (almost) all of them... well now I'm going to effectively tell the world. 

Not that anyone actually reads my little musings, this is mostly to make me feel better about myself. 

But anyway, I guess maybe I'm just hoping that someone with the same feelings reads this somewhere and goes, "Hey. Maybe I'm not alone." I dunno... Maybe that's unrealistic of me. Oh well. 

I tried. 

thankful for having... stuff

Hello internet! 

I think I'm going to start posting on here more regularly now, it's good for me. 

Anyway, it's Turkey Day! Happy Turkey Day! I feel funny saying that now, since I'll be having black bean burritos and salsa for my Thanksgiving feast. 

That's what my mom decided we were going to do. Ever since her mom passed, we really haven't had much to do on the holidays, so we've kind of been making up our own traditions. Like last year for Christmas, we went out of town and stayed in Hocking Hills for the week, and it was wonderful. 

I don't remember what we did for Thanksgiving, but I'm pretty sure it didn't involve turkey. 

And this year, I wouldn't eat turkey if it were prepared anyway. Vegetarians are picky that way... ;) 

I can't decide if this year will be better or worse than years passed though... I mean, I remember one year, I was so sick on Thanksgiving that I had to lay on the couch while everyone else was at the table and I ate homemade mac and cheese out of a cup. I was still too young to really understand why everyone was eating at the big table (we never ate at the big table) and I barely liked any of the food they had anyway, so it was no real loss to me. I remember wondering why everyone had their heads bowed before they ate, and I think I asked someone at one point, but I don't remember how they explained praying to me. At the time I had never really been around it, and now it just seems like second nature to me, you know? 

There was a time when I remember getting upset when people prayed before they ate. I think I disliked it because I found it uncomfortable, and I didn't understand. It's just not something that you really know what to think about when you don't grow up with it, you know? It's like families who hunt. If you were suddenly plopped in a family who hunted, you'd be like, "Woah, you shoot it and then cook it? And you do it all yourself??" but if you grow up with it, it's just something that you do all of the time. 

Maybe that was a bad analogy, 

Yeah. Bad analogy. 

But you get my point. Thanksgiving was the only time that my family ever got around a table and ate together. And even at that I'm pretty sure all of the men were so anxious to get back to whatever was on TV that they only spent fifteen minutes with everyone else and then they went to go eat the rest in the livingroom. I never understood that either. 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that no matter how I've gotten here, I'm thankful that I am where I am. I'm thankful that I have the people in my life that I do, I'm thankful that I'm the person I've become, I'm thankful that I have people behind me, supporting me, making sure I do the right things, keeping me in line, reminding me to be patient, and loving, and kind. I have so many things to be thankful for, we all do, and what do we do about it? Huh? We give all of those things one day in November, and then we ignore them and take them for granted the rest of the year. 

And just like everyone else, I'll go right back to that logic tomorrow. (BLACK FRIDAY SHOPPING WOOT.) 

I just looked back at that post and realized how corny some of it sounds... but it's all true. So it's true and corny, which is better than fake and corny. So there. 

To take away from the corny part, I took these pics when I was bored one day, and I just edited some of them. :D

So there you go. :D You get some really sappy family stuff, and some cool pictures of leaves in the fall. 

I think that's a pretty productive post. 

figured i'd catch y'all up...

Well internet, I got really bored today.

I have about a million things to catch you up on, since my last post which I'm pretty sure was months ago but I didn't have a chance to check before I just went ahead and started typing this run on sentence.
So anyway. I'll just make a bullet list.

• I started ignoring my physical therapist. 
• I started running. 
• I'm falling behind in school a bit.
• Speech and Debate has become pretty darn stressful if I do say so myself... 
• I've taken up charcoal drawing. 

Well.... Let's start at the top and just go through them? Yeah? Cool. 

I started ignoring my physical therapist. I kind of pretty much decided that the exercises that she gave me were terrible and they weren't helping at all, so I gave up on that. I stopped them, and started doing real normal human being exercises. You know, the kind that actually help build muscle and improve your metabolism and make you all pretty and such. And honestly, so far so good. I mean, I've been feeling better, I have more energy, I have less dislocations and more time. I really like all of the changes I've been making... Oh! Did I mention in my little bullet list that I'm a vegetarian? Forgot that one. Yeah. I'm a vegetarian. It's pretty great. I feel better, have more energy... It's that and all the exercises that I love doing, really. Smoothies are wonderful. Just sayin'. 

I started running - That's a big one. I really loved to run before I was diagnosed with EDS. Running was one of those things that I did when I was stressed or when I felt bored, or when I felt anything really. I was a runner. Runners run. But obviously, knowing the nature of EDS I wasn't able to run anymore when the PT told me what I needed to be doing and what I needed to NOT be doing, and then when I started ignoring my PT I started ignoring all of those rules, and a runner was born. Or re-born... However you want to look at it. Now I do at least 2 miles at a time, almost every day. 

I've started getting bad headaches and that's what's been keeping me behind in school. I don't know why they started really, and I kind of miss them when they creep up, so by the time they're full blown nuclear wars inside my skull I'm in the middle of a Stats test and I can't really do anything about it. In short, it sucks. One time, I got a really bad one, and I went to bed at 6:00 in the evening and didn't wake up until 6:00 the next morning. I'm pretty sure that's the most sleep I'd gotten all in a row for months... 

Speech and Debate... Oh goodness. I don't even know where to start with that one... It's driving me crazy. Plus competitions are on the Sabbath, and that's not helping because I should be at church on the Sabbath... Ugh. Can you tell I'm getting flustered? I am. Lots. Lots flustered. Flustered enough that I'm leaving that obvious grammatical error in the last sentence. Anyway. I actually got 8th of 106 in my category of competition at the Glennbrooks speech and debate tournament, which is kind of a big deal for those of you who don't know much about high school speech and debate in the National Forensics League. (So technically I'm a member of the NFL... ) 

Well, the last thing that I have right now is the fact that I have taken up charcoal drawing. I thought that I needed another outlet, something to do with some of my pent-up creative STUFF, so I decided to draw. Most of them are actually with my art teacher at school right now, because I cut the matts for them on... Yesterday. On yesterday. It's been a long day, if you couldn't tell... 

She's okay - Not my favorite. I kind of imagine that she's listening to something on the other side of that doorway. 

She looked really surprised until I fixed her eyes. 

This was the first one I ever did. I like it. It's also pretty big, like three feet by 4 and a half. 

This pic is terrible, sorry about that. It was taken by my ipod, and it wasn't taken this close up either... Oh well. 

This one looked a whole lot like me until I messed up the eyes. 

These last two are my favorite - I actually did this one yesterday. Just a day... This pic isn't great either, but you get the idea. 

She's my favorite. I have no idea who she is. That's what I like so much. 

Let's see.... There has to be something that I'm missing when it comes to catching you up... But in the meantime, how bout y'all watch this. It's the best thing ever in the history of everything. No really. 

                           

Brie

everything...

Well today started off great, and then I pissed off everyone important to me. I have had a habit of doing that lately... I say the wrong things, and I say them even wrong-er than they are... I end up in a big mess. Like right now. I'm in a big mess. Which I hate. A lot.


My mom has this habit of treating my sister and I completely differently, and she even admits to it, because there are kind of extenuating circumstances surrounding each of us that require different methods of problem solving, but every once and a while it just strikes a chord somewhere inside my head wrong and I snap. I can't stand it sometimes, for various reasons, one of which being the fact that I want to be like everyone else but I can't. I can't be like everyone else and I never will be.


You know how I think that I have POTS? Well today when I got into my moms car after class at Miami I was suddenly overcome by a wave of faint-ness and slight nausea, accompanied by a kind of clammy hot sweat. The car was SCOLDING hot and she didn't have the AC on. I urned it on. She turned it off and snapped at me, I told her that changing temperatures drastically can trigger POTS and she told me to roll the window down. After that, even after getting home, I felt TERRIBLE for almost an hour and a half. She didn't understand at all when I needed her too.


And thats just the stuff that went wrong related to my medical problems. Don't get me started on the rest. >:(


Ugh.

Even playing with pictures couldn't fix this one, and everyone is still mad at me. I hate EDS. It's made everything so complicated and I can't do things that I used to be able to do and nobody close to me understands what I'm going through... Nobody.


caesura

pictures of life

Just so that everyone knows, there was NOT a storm here last night, it totally missed my town, which meant that I got very little sleep. Aside from that, I felt the need to redeem myself after that not-so-flattering picture I posted last night, so here are some pictures of me/my life/my family that are much more post-worthy.

My sister rides horses, and this is a mini-horse's nose! :) Its name is Piper. 

This is my mom and one of her dogs, Harper. He's my buddy. The other dogs don't like me much. 

This is my sister wearing a cup on her head... I don't know why. I just like the picture because she is very smiley. 

This is the sidewalk outside of my house. I like this picture too for some reason... 

A slightly more flattering picture of me... I painted that. :)

This is the picture that my sister and I call "close encounters of the third kind" because it looks like aliens are trying to pull my mom into their space ship.

When I try to take pictures of Andrew, he makes this face at me. It means "I swear if you point that camera at me one more time I will take it and throw it into the creek" in this specific scenario... we were hiking. Well, he was hiking and I was holding onto my walking stick for dear life. 

This is one of the other doggies, Baxter. He's the oldest. They're all Welsh Corgis, if anyone knows what that is. They're adorable doggies... 

I used to jump off of things. My friend Jane and I liked to go to the park by my house and take pictures of us jumping off of the picnic table. Never again... 

This is cave graffiti! I love graffiti. There were so many people who left their mark there... al the way back to the 1800s and before. Even indians made markings on the walls of ash cave. Its incredible. 

This is one of the water falls at Old Man's Cave in Hocking Hills State Park. I took this picture on the last tip we took there. I was exhausted by the end of our hike... Its probably one of the last times I'll ever hike there because its got basically 600 stairs no matter which way you tie the trails together. I'm going to miss it. I used to love hiking. 

Well, there it is. A bunch of random pictures from my random life. :) Enjoy!!

caesura

"wittle disabwed!"

Me: "My friends are getting me a cane."
Mom: "We should get you one too!"
Little Sister: "A wooden one that you could whittle on!!"
Mom: "Yeah! Because you're only a 'wittle disabwed' !!!!"


This was the dinner conversation in the Boltz/Brown household a few nights ago... I though it was kind of great. :)


Everybody has such a great attitude about my problems - It helps me to cope.