i passed up the 99 and most of the 41 today on my way back to calvin crest. i made a little road trip out it, cruising through the country and taking photos on the way along... it was nice.

i actually took this a few weeks ago in tulare. its looking out from the fairgrounds at some big plant of some sort.


this is a shot right outside of the town i live near...




this is a couple of brick buildings and some power lines behind the parking lot on thrift store row in fresno. i went there on my way home the other day.


heres some sort of building behind a field of dirt...


this is when i was lost. i basicly had no idea where i was for a while.


this is me, still lost... still driving...


this is when i started to have an idea where i was, but i was stuck behind a tractor driving at about 5 miles per hour for a while. so i took a photo of it.


heres a sing letting drivers know that there is a chance of bikers in the road for the next four miles...


and heres the friant dam and some particles of a broken bridge in the river.






after friant, i hit the 41 and drove the rest of they way back to camp. then corey and i made some stick bugs and ate some pizza and went to hang out at michelles house. now im going to bed.

ive sort of been moping around all week. sort of processing, sort of pms'ing, sort of moping and sort of confrontational, sort of physicly tired. as a lack of verbal venting (as a result of extreme introversion) i havnt been able to get much out of my system. my mom tells me im going to get an ulcer some day becuase of that. other people tell me i will blow my stack or colapse into extreme depression. i doubt if it will ever come to anything like that (although i was kicking boxes around the kitchen yesterday and it felt pretty good ). i have tried extroversion. it doesnt seem to work for me, not my cup 'o tea, if you will. i dont open up to peo[ple unless i really want to or unless they *REALLY* prod me to. im not sure why. i think part of me feels like unless someone tries to prod it out of me, i would be bothering them if i were to share whats on my mind and i really dont want to be a bother to anyone. so, i keep it to myself. sometimes i journal it, but as of late, ive been a little paranoid about journaling certain things that i might want to journal... i just have this dark, lurking feeling that someone who isnt suposed to read it, will. ive never had that feeling before, so now im not sure what to do with it. a lot of times (probably not as often as i should) i will let God in on whats going on ( not that he doesnt already know, but i think he probably wants to hear it from me ).

blah. i just realized that this post isnt really going anywhere but making me a little more moody. so i think i will be done now.

the meaning of my name, according to this website is...

April
The fourth calendar month : Latin
Very much the individual you have enormous energy and vision and must find a suitable use for your talents. You have great potential for success in business if you can guard against indecision and worry. Your generous nature means that you are never short of friends and with cooperation your relationships can be very rewarding. Perseverance and firm decision making will ensure you achieve your objectives.

i dont think i have a very generous nature though.

tut tut... looks like rain...

my brother says i'm like Dharma and i should try to find a Greg. i think he may be right...

im glad that i am working today. sometimes i get so overwhelmed my my thoughts that i need something to distract me, or else i would be hoplesly moping around all day mulling over things and becoming semi-depressed.

i watched kitty 2 for a few minutes this morning. i thought about how cats are theraputic to me. i really like cats and i think i need them to be around me to survive. they are crafty, always thinking, independant but lovable at times. she let me give her a few pets before she took off on her way. i noticed that she has a slight limp... im not sure if she has had that all along, but today she does. she was at my window last night. bryan put up a screen so she cant come inside anymore, but she was my window anyway, poking around.

sometimes i get upset with myself. upset that i know certain things. upset that i have this ability to feel things and that i somehow know what questions to ask to the right people to find things out. and somehow i always seem to find things out. sometimes i pretend that i dont have this ability. i try to play dumb and naive and try to forget things that i know and try to forget questions i have, to avoid learning. but it never works for long. in spite of myself, i always seem to find the right peopkle to ask the right questions and i find things out.

it wasnt that cold this morning when i woke up, but its getting cold now, so i put on a sweater.

my sister wrote me an e-mail. its a wonder i recieved it becuase i hardly ever check that account, and i read it all the way through his time as opposed to just scaning through it like i usually do with lenghty e-mails. i hope she doesnt mind me sharing...

" April,

I'm happy your discovering why you are at Calvin Crest. but i don't like being "boxed" as you have done in the last paragraph of your latest blog entery. I am married, yes. I hope to have kids one day, yes. But God made me for somthing different as well. He made us all for somthing different, married or not married. Kids or no kids. I have worked so hard to be where I am at in my life and I know God has me in Nursing school for a reason. Just because I have a husband and am working dilligently in school dosn't mean i'm not supposed to do somthing extra ordinary.

We are all called to somthing different. I am where I am at in my life because God led me there. Not because I chose "the same old road". The way you phrase your last entery was quite condesending to me. I know you didn't mean for it to be, but it was, and I thought I should let you know my take on the situation. It just sounded to me like you were looking down your nose at people who have taken a road that is different from your own.

You are special, and God made you for a wonderfull purpose, we all have wonderfull purposes that a loving God has made us for. We are all in the body of Christ. You couldn't operate verry effeciently without your eyes or legs. And neither could I.

I guess that's it. I'm not mad, just.... bothered by your words. Maybe hurt by them too... I donno.

~Heathyrre~ "

heather, thanks for letting me know what you thought. im glad hat you did, becuase you are right in your thoughts.

i didnt mean to offend anyone in the last paragraph of my last blog entry. i apologize if i did. sometimes my words dont come through writing in the same way i was thinking it in my head. i dont mean to, or want to look down my nose at other peoples paths.

i believe in ministry. most of all, i believe in a "meet them where they are at" ministry. in the same way a child will pay more attention to an adult who will bend down on their knees to look the child in their eyes when they talk to them without loosing sight of the fact that they are the adult, i belive that we as christians should try to reach non-christians in a way that they will understand and respect. and i belive, that for a ministry like that to be sucesful, it takes all kinds.

so, i am made for somethin different. but so are you. and God knew what He was doing when he made us the way that we are, when he put us in the places in life where we are at, when he put my sister in the nursing program at the college and me in a kitchen in the mountains. God has disbursed Hi children all throughout the earth, in all different situations, careers, familes, whatever, for a reason, to tell other people about His love that he has for us. and we all need eachother in that.

so again, i apologize if i offended anyone. and thank you heather, for thinking that one through.

peace be in your hearts...

yesterday...

why did God put me on the kitchen staff at such a crucial time? what was he thinking? how could i have known? what should i be thinking?

well, i have been thinking...

God spoke a word to me last night while in the shower. i like to use my shower time to talk to God. its private and warm in the shower... and quiet, usually (i used to keep a radio in the bathroom and listen, but not anymore) well, he spoke a few things to me, but one thing was ownership. tony asked me why i came back to calvin crest this semester and i told him why i was there, but i forgot one. well, no... i didnt forget it... becuase i didnt realize it was a reason... its been circulating in my thoughts since ive been back, in a cloud in the back of my brain... i think i knew it, but not really...

ownership. i remember on the first day at calvin crest last semester, tony was talking to us all around the table at breakfast. he got there early and cooked up some eggs and hashbrowns, but i ate cereal (im not a big breakfast person). we were all sitting around, sharing our names and goals and things like that and when we were finished, tony talked to us about ownership. i remember him saying somethin about how one of their goals for the semester was to see us, the staff, taking ownership over the campus. to have enouh pride in our work, that we would see something that has to be done and do it... he wanted us to know our job so well, that maybe we wouldnt even have to ask our supervisor if we should go ahead and take that extra step to make things better... well something like that... he wanted us to be proud of our work, of our home, as if it was our own.

i never really grasped that all last semester. i hardly thought of it actually. it may have popped up everyonce in a while, but not really. this time around is different... i can feel it all around me... ownership... maybe becuase i have a authority position in the kitchen... but its mine. its what i do. and i want to do the besyt job at it i can do... as if i were the head of the kitchen, not just the crew chied, 3rd in charge... i want to do my job as if i were the supervisor over the whole kitchen... i want to do it good and i want to do it with love. its my job. its my work. its my crew. its my presentation. its my home. its my kitchen.

its my art.

i was born with leadership skills. ive realized that over the years. i was born also, with the desire to make things beautiful. now, those two are overlapping.

so, what do i want? i want what God wants for me. sound cliche? maybe... but its my heart. im not sure why im here, but im going to do the best i can.

sometimes i think about other people my age. in school, married, enganged, with familes and careers... God told me, God TOLD me, i was made for something different. im made for this... this right now... i was made for something different.

its good to be back... in the mountains, the fresh air, community... stuff.

im on a break right now... pretty much the first break ive had since saturday morning, 6:30 a.m. a little bit of time to process whats been going on. i need this. process time. alone time. time to think. i need it to keep going.

O week has been hard. long days, on my feet. learning about new people and spending time with them is hard on a recluses(sp?) mind. all od the extrovertednes(sp?) is hard on a introvert. but the challenge is good and sweet.

im not sure whats going on yet... im not sure about some things. some shit happened to a friend of mine over the summer and he is not here with me this time around and i think im still a little shaken up about that. i felt a huge heartache when tony talked about friends that we would make for life during our time here, thinking about how my friends were not here with me again. i miss them.

but life goes on. there are other things to focus on. there are other people to grow close too. i supose God knew what was up when circumstances made it so my friend would not be here this time. im sure God has bigger ideas and plans than i can imagine for my time here without my friend.

so, i could focus on the past, the good times and the good times i will miss without him, or i could focus on the future and the things that *might* happen, or i could focus on the now. the things that are taking place right now... the group of my brothers and sisters who are down there somewhere learning how to run the events... my friend amy, taking a nap because she doesnt sleep well at night... my new niece, karri anne, and my brother and sister-in-law... my little sisters poor kitten who has ear mites and the bugs buzzing outside of the window behind me... the hour and a half i have left on this break...

im really not sure what to expect out of this semester. im not sure that i like to look ahead and think of things to expect. i think i might like to just live in the now (waynes world) and try to focus on things that are happeneding around me now, my heart now, the hearts of others now, the thoughts in my head now... what can i do now?