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."