When it rains, it pours

I don't know if you've ever noticed it before, but I have a tendency to blog in sudden bursts. I may go through one long dry spell of no posting at all, but occasionally, when I get the urge to blog, I may be overflowing with ideas. So now you are forewarned that for me (sometimes), when it rains, it pours. So be ready for whenever my spontaneous creativity may suddenly spout forth, and be prepared to take it in big gulps--because the four latest posts might have been written on the same day, so you should read all of them.:)

But anyway, at Clyde's bibleschool graduation weekend my whole family was together for the first time in over a year, so of course we had to take full advantage of the unusual occasion by getting some family pictures taken. Not professionally of course, but if you have someone willing and wonderful like Diane, what more do you need? I've actually been wanting to post this for awhile, but certain complications have prevented me, but now I'm finally here to present to you the NRS family in all their glory! Oddly enough, the first picture that Diane took on the digital camera was taken when she didn't really know it, but it turned out to be my favorite.

Aren't we the cutest family in all the world?
(after yours of course--she says to curry as much favor as possible:)

p.s. If you're wondering, Chad is really the tallest and Clyde is really the shortest (by a very little bit), but the ground slope put them in reverse order of height.:)

Could mortification be shaped like an octagon?

I had a mortifying experience today. My driving instructor had to use The Brake on me. How terrible is that? In all of my driving experience so far he has never once had to touch The Brake (at least not that I'm aware of), which of course has pleased me to no end to think that maybe he doesn't actually need it for me. For there are, let me assure you, people in my class who have needed it when I've been in the car. One poor girl just didn't seem to be able to manage time and space enough so that twice she tried to turn at an intersection when there wasn't time for her to turn. Lucky for us, Mr. K. had The Brake. So of course it was only natural that I obtained a certain measure of pride with my unblemished record of not needing The Brake.

"Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall."

Yes, I am convicted.

What sullied this stainless reputation of mine? Why one of the most elusive driving traps of all time: the stop sign.

We were in the Target parking lot. I was going at an appropriate slow speed, keeping an eye out for pedestrians. We came to the entrance of Target at the crosswalk and I looked all around. No pedestrians in sight. Okay, I'm good to go. But as I continued to slowly coast forward, an unexpected force stopped me. Surprised, I turned to my instructor, who pointed way way up and a little behind us.

"What color is that sign up there?"

Craning my neck, I answered ruefully, "Red."

"What shape is it?"

"Octagon."

"What do we do at it?"

"Stop," came my meek reply.

Um, yeah. I ran through my first stop sign. I admit it, confessing it for the whole world to know and ridicule! Now I'm prone to wonder: could mortification be shaped like an octagon?

The major problem is, I just simply didn't see it. "Duh," you're saying, (which you probably aren't since I know how mature all my readers are), "how could you miss a big red sign? It's not that hard to see." Yes, I must say I don't really have a good excuse. But let me remind you that we were in front of Target, and what color is everywhere outside a Target store? Red, red, red--red balls, red lines, red targets, so how am I supposed to notice a red sign, especially when it's at an unusually tall height and hung from a peculiar red arch? Who ever heard of decorating a stop sign post anyway? It's just not normal, so of course I wasn't going to respond as one normally would. Which, speaking of normal, as we sat there talking about the sign a car came sailing right by us on the left as if the stop sign didn't exist. Huh, so how many people notice these strange red octagonal signs in the real world? Probably not many. But as Mr. K. would say, we're not getting ready for just the real world. It's the DMV world a driving student is most concerned about. And that's what I can't afford to fail.

(sound of trembling)

Look before you leap!

Why does one do things that don't make sense? You'd think that as human creatures, we would have learned a long time ago to look before we leap, but why is it that we don't think to look until we're landing no where but in empty space? Aha, yes, that is indeed the time when it occurs to everyone that maybe they should have looked first, as they gaze with a hypnotized stare into the abyss below them. "So that's where that expression comes from," they say, as light dawns on granite head.

And now that I've eased you into a philosophical mood, I now am going to talk about bugs. Yes, bugs. Especially when they're in excess. They're these little annoying things just begging to be victimized, but how is one to go about it? Is it by letting them nonchalantly fly into your mouth, like I did during our softball game a last week?(believe me though, I didn't let the little monster in, he just insisted on entering, heedless of his potentially soggy demise) Do you let them dart onto your eyelid, where you squash them when they have no where to turn? Or go around hoping that they'll wander into your ear and meet up with some toxic earwax? However if you do this there's always the chance that they won't be smothered by your earwax, as the recent story of a guy who discovered he had a spider or two living on his eardrum testifies. Thankfully none of us are that stupid though, to go wandering around cupping our ears in hopes that we'll trap a straying fly inside and kill him humanely. That's probably why mosquitoes have such an annoying whine, because otherwise we might let them make their homes in there.

So, I see a fly (never mind what kind, suffice to know that it was a flying bug) in our mini van, and I have no tools to use with which to swat it with. What would you do? Use the blessed tools that God has given you of course, since there are few swatters more effective than the old-fashioned hand. So, I reach across the car and over Andrew's head (did I mention this was during class trip?) and "SMASH!" Victory is mine. Or is it? Too late, I gaze into the abyss to see the dead creature fixed firmly onto our lovely car ceiling. Nice.

What were you thinking? Clyde basically says to me. "That's like something Andrew would do."

I'm not sure that's a compliment.

So then you suggest that I try to squeeze the bug instead. Well this doesn't always work, since the last time I tried that I successfully snatched the bug out of the air, but after giving a proper hard squeeze I let go and there the fiend just flew away. Grr.

So then the other day a mosquito came whining it's way along and plopped itself on my Norway journal which I was reading. Perfect. This time I was going to play it smart. I didn't want mosquito guts pasted on my journal pages for posterity, so I decided that I would use my hands, and this time I was going to use both of them. Who cares if I get mosquito guts on my hands anyway? People aren't going to be scanning my hands a hundred years from now to find out what I was like (or I hope they're not going to), so it's much better to protect my sacred journal. So, surreptitiously I moved my hands in, palms downward for the kill. Squash goes the dratted little mosque-eat-toe between the sides of my hands.

Whoosh!

Splat!

Squirt!

Splash!

What I'd failed to realize is that this mosquito wasn't searching for a meal. He was simply digesting it.

Ew, gross!

Instead of the squashed black mosquito remains I had so wisely feared upon the precious page of my journal, there lay a big bright red drop of blood (probably mine), not to mention what was on my hands. So now I got both the mosquito and his meal conquered in one fell swoop. Luckily I was able to dab my journal page with a tissue to get the worst of the drop soaked up, but still remains the blood stain to this day and for eternity. So if some day down the road when I'm dead you're reading my journal entry for Monday, May 30, 2005. . . "So we got in the long line to wait. It wasn't very long though, and soon we were going through security, which thankfully didn't have*splat* a long line." You'll know that the *splat* is my famed mosquito kill. I've now preserved the story behind that strange bloodstain for posterity. People will now be relieved to know that I didn't get stabbed in the Oslo airport.

And thus my amazing story ends.

Happy things from Driver's Ed.

Happy things from driver's ed:

~When asked the question as to the Blood Alcohol Concentration you're legally intoxicated at, a classmate guessed 50%. Um, thankfully the law doesn't let people drive with a BAC of 49%, because most likely they'd be dead by then. The legal limit for those over 21, by the way, is 0.08%.

~Hearing about the motorcyclist who got run over by a turkey.

~A class mate is freaked out about changing from glasses to contacts because he's convinced that somehow he'll get them stuck around and up in his eyes and won't be able to get them out. "Just give yourself a good whack on the back of the head," my teacher tells him. "Yep, works every time for me," I chime in.

~Laughing at the AAA movies when the people talking keep popping out from behind signs.

~Asking a dumb question in a rhetorical fashion to make a joke in the car and the guy sitting next to me answering it. "Um, thanks. . . that was a rhetorical question." "Oh."

~Being honked at when the light had just turned green and Victor (my teacher) comforting me by saying that the Q-tip (his disrespectful term for the elderly) in the car behind us was doing nothing but staring at the light (which is a sign of a new driver).

~Exploring a new lake on a beautiful day and driving on top of a dam that neither me nor my teacher had been to.

~Classmate: "I have never finished a book. I got from A-Z and that was enough for me. . . I can't stand to sit in a chair." (don't ask me how he drives) Instead he'd rather stand in the middle of the room watching the Antique Road Show!

~Successfully parallel parking.

~Learning from Victor of vast knowledge that NH has more motorcycles than any state in the Union and Rte. 137 is one of their favorite roads.

~Being told that I should try the type of car racing in Europe that's done on curvy country roads; supposedly I may be able to handle it.

~Learning that Victor has been to Norway (who goes to Norway but cool people anyway? Not that anyone reading this isn't already cool, but only cool people travel to a place like that:)

~When our teacher said that NH is the only state in the Union to not have a law enforcing seat belt wearing, a classmate ("Earl") piped up with appropriate joyful defiance, "Live free or die."

~So why do some people not want a seat belt law in NH? "They're uncomfortable," an often distracted classmate answers. Victor replies, "So you'd rather be comfortable and dead instead of uncomfortable and alive?"

~"Why get angry?" Victor says in the car. "You probably lose six months of your life every time you get mad." Classmate: "My mom is going to die real soon."

~"And we saw this woman police officer arresting this man and taking him to her vehicle. What I was concerned about was how he was supposed to wear his seat belt with his hands behind his back," my teacher says in class. "Well you see they have these little cubby holes for your hands. . . " a classmate informs him. Awed, Victor asked him how he knew that, but he smiled and wouldn't say! Hmm. . .

~Hearing classmate's road rage stories--both serious and amusing

~The unforgettable quote: "I don't try to keep a nursing home schedule." :) (see earlier post)

~Lots of laughs and new things learned in general.

Where have I been?

I don't know if you've been checking my blog regularly enough to notice it or not, but in case you didn't, I haven't posted for quite some time. This isn't because I've been detesting my blog of late or even because my life as been as boring as hay (I'm not sure if hay is really that boring, but that was the first common thing that popped into my head so you'll just have to deal with it), but simply because I've been too busy to bother with it! Now I've come to realize that many people who blog do so because it's really important to them or because they really have nothing else better to do. I was going to say that all you blog writers blog just because you have nothing better to do, but I decided that that's a little too harsh and I know that none of you come close to being lazy, so I shouldn't even imply such a thing, right? But that's the way I almost feel--blogging is only something you do if you have time to do it, and frankly, I don't feel like I've been having that. However, the Sabbath is a wonderful solution, and hence I am here. All that long paragraph to say that I've just been too busy to write. . . . .

"But what, Kayla," you say, "could you have possibly been busy doing to make your life so full? You don't work full time like me or have to stay up until five in the morning doing school, so what's the matter with you? You must not be all that busy; you surely could have found time to write sometime." That could be true, but I'm not here to argue upon that point.

So what have I been busy doing? Was it my wonderful sixteenth birthday that took up so much time? Naturally that was fairly busy, and I was lucky enough to have the last snowfall of the year four days before to melt and give me some gorgeous spring weather, and Andrew's adoption party went well, as well as having my family home for a ping-pong and pool party. In that party I got properly creamed in ping-pong by Mom, Chad, and Craig, but I managed to pull off a win with Clyde even though he claimed he didn't start spinning the ball until half way through the game; I also won a game of pool with my Dad. No, my birthday wasn't the only thing.

Was it fast day, perchance? Maybe.

Was it class trip? That could have been it. We were gone for three days in RI, and that was a lot of fun, going to Boston and Newport and such delightful places. In fact if it had happened more recently and I could remember more about it I would write about it maybe, but not this time.

Was it all those hours of classes you had to watch to make up for being gone on class trip? Well, five forty-five minute classes plus assignments and a quiz and a test were a little much for a day, but that wasn't terrible.

Perhaps it was your violin lessons and your recital? Could be.

Or was it the May Feast when you spent two days going to meetings? Part of it.

Could it have been your school, midweek meetings, sports, the end of the year party, and Clyde's bibleschool graduation? (Yes, Clyde has now joined the ranks of bibleschool alumni!:) Sort of.

And now that you have gotten thoroughly bored of trying to read or guess as to why my life has been so full, you probably stopped reading this awhile ago. Now I know how to weed out the die-hards to find out who really wants to know what I've been up to. Well, I've told you part of it, but there's a little more. . . . .

What's one of the first questions a sixteen-year-old is often asked? Yep, "So have you started driving?" And finally, after months of neglect and lack of practice, my answer would have to be YES!

"Aha!" you say. "I am starting to understand."

No, I don't already have my driver's license.

But let me go back and tell you about our amazing answer to prayer. A few months ago we heard about a driving school in Peterborough that isn't connected with any of the public schools. Jayne R. was going to (and has) take it, and we started to plan on signing me up for it. Jayne said her class was pretty small so I should be able to get in pretty easily, so we weren't too worried until the day last month when my mom called up to have my name put down and found that they were booked!!!

So what now?

Another option would be to do driving under ConVal in July and August in the dead middle of the summer, or to wait until fall. Neither sounded very appealing. So what do we do when we don't know what to do? Pray. And so on my birthday, we prayed. On fast day, we prayed. When my mom called up the morning of the first day of classes, she was informed that there still wasn't space and to call the next day to find out if someone didn't show up.

"Keep your fingers crossed," he told my mom.

"Well I'm going to pray, that's a lot better than keeping my fingers crossed," my mom told him with a laugh.

So what did we do when she got off the phone? We prayed some more. It was funny, because somehow I really felt at peace, like somehow I knew that God was going to get me into the class. And even if He didn't, it would be easy to know that that's not what He wanted because if I didn't make it in it would simply mean that He didn't want me to be there. But somehow that really didn't seem like a possibility. Well, the guy called back an hour or so later, leaving a message for mom to call him, and when she did he asked her if she was still praying. She told him that we had prayed together about it, and he told her that she could stop (at least I think that's what she said he said). Then he asked her if we knew Jayne R. When told that actually yes, she comes to our church, he replied quickly,

"Well because of that, you're in. I hope she's as good a student as Jayne is."

Wow.

I guess that's the wonderful thing about being good friends with the top student of his last class. Not only that but it blesses me to think that because of Jayne's diligence and good testimony I was able to get in. So now I have to be a good student.

And what more need I say? I've already had four classes and a couple driving sessions, and it feels like all my free evening time is taken up with studying for driver's ed or trying to get my driving time in with my parents. I already had a quiz that I was pretty nervous about, but it went quite well for me, even though due to stress and a lack of sleep last weekend I got a headache and had to miss volleyball and go to bed early. I basically love my instructor and my fifteen person class, and I'm so "cooled out" that DCA's pastor's daughter who came to Character Camp a few years ago is in the class with me.

Actually, our class was originally fourteen people, but during the second class, Victor (my driving instructor) made a proposition for us. He told us that there was a homeschooled girl who signed up and didn't know she was supposed to be sixteen before the end of the class. The class was due to end the 22nd of June, and her birthday is on the 24th. All the other driver's ed courses in the area are booked for the summer. So he asked us if we were willing to have the final test on the 25th instead of the 22nd so she could be part of the class, and the class voted and almost everyone agreed to let her come! How nice is that? It will probably mean that I'll miss the first night of girls' week, but at least I was able to do my part to make somebody's day.

And now I'm going to close with a quote from one of my classmates. I think I'm supposed to be careful in what I tell other people about my classmates, but if I take the step to preserve the knowledge of their identity, I think sometimes this will be took good to miss. So anyway, I was sitting in the back seat of the driver's ed car yesterday afternoon observing as a guy we had just picked up from Conval drove through Peterborough toward Dublin, and Victor, my instructor, was suddenly remembering that he had forgotten to order pizza for his Friday night dinner. Victor always eats pizza on Friday nights, he explained. So turning to our fine student driver, who we'll call Earl, he asked,

"So Earl, do you have anything you usually eat on Friday nights?"

"No, not really. I don't try to keep a nursing home schedule." Victor, who must be in his fifties, laughed heartily at this, acknowledging the insult he had just received. Then looking at Earl's plaid pants and fifties plaid hat (he always seems to be wearing plaid), he said to him a few minutes later,

"Well at least I don't look like I'm dressed like someone in a nursing home."