i feel like a mom...

i run a hot sink full of soapy water and stroll around the house collecting dirty dishes. i second check, leaving only bed rooms un-touched on my hunt for the dishes no one washes. i rinse grime them, dump out leftover coffee and tea and carefully scrub, paying close attnetion to the rims of cups and the bowls of spoons.

i semui-grugingly wash all the dishes i have found, slightyly complaining in my head about the mess and how easy it qwould be for everyone to just wash their own dish when they are finished using it... a simple concept of consideration for others...

but the gruge is slight becuase i remmber not washing my fair of dishes not long ago...

i rinse the last dish and wipe down all the counters as the sink drains. i take out the recycles and the trash, about to overflow, and seem to be aware of all of my motions as i replace the liners and put the clean dishes away.

i pour myself another cup of coffee and wonder, whats happened to me? where is this stuff coming from? i try to tell myself i am just makinf up for all the chores i have brushed off in the past, but somehow i dont think that is true... why havnt i cared like this before? what was stopping me?

sometimes there is no explanation to why i didnt do what i didnt do... there is no excuse and no answer...

tony says he doesnt want this place to be my salvation, but rather a springboard for the rest of my life... i agree with that, it would be impossible for this place to be my salvation anyway, only Christ can be that, but this is a definite springboard...

but it cant just be this place that is a springboard, it has to be Jesus... and not just this time, right now, but everyday no matter where i am... i want today to be a springboard for tomorrow and i want tomorrow to be a springboard for the next day and so on...

i have changed. the only explanation for that change is Jesus activly working in my life, and this being the right timming.

i cant make up for the things i didnt do in the past. i can only move forward and be active in this new life...

a little bit from a letter i was writing...

"sometimes i wonder to myself, "who do you think you are anyway?" i really do sometimes wonder that... that among many other things... for instance, earlier i was sitting on the steps of the barn under an apple tree. i looked down and saw several very lareg apples on the ground wich led to the question "i wonder how bad it would hurt if an apple fell and hit my head right now..." wich led me to move to the ranch house, away from the apple tree so as not to have the disturbing thought of giant size apples falling on me and leaving me with some sort of concusion...

but that isnt the only thing i think about...

here are some of the more frequent questions and thoughts running through my head (in no particular order or priority...)

i wonder if it will rain today?
crap, i didnt get enough sleep last night...
i wonder what my lungs *really* look like...
what time is it in texas right now?
will i get my credit card bill paid on time?
i should call mom...
what kind of bug is that?
do i talk too much?
is the truth relative?
how do i really know what the "the right thing" is?
i should eat more fresh fruit and vegetables...
what does sausage tast like?
am i doing what God wants me to do?
thats a big ant! (there really was a big ant on me...)
i wish my sinusus were clear...
what did the woman at the well do with her life after her encounter with Jesus?
how can i non-chalontly break the rules?
when is Jesus coming back?
will i ever have a nice car?
i wonder when my next day off is...
why does he/she look sad?
whats wrong with me?
i hope everything is running smoothly in the kitchen right now...
what kind of plant is that?
why was i made this way?
i wonder if the porsquach is watching me...
do i take long showers?
whats going on? "

things i accomplised today...

cashing my check...
over heating my car...
a conversation with a guy at napa auto parts about my car...
over heating my car again...
leaving my car at the smog shop at bass lake and aranging a towing for it becuase i have a cracked block...

not so hot of a day after all.

things to acomplish today...

avoid the cops on my way to cash my check...
avoid the cops on my way to yostemite smog...
succesfully smog my van...
avoid cops on my way back home after smogging my van...
some other stuff...

should be a good day.

i like reading james lyons blog... he probably doesnt know i read it, but i do from time to time and i like it...

pms'ing amplifies lifes little tragities into spiraling out of control circumstances and chocolate into god.

part of a letter i was writing on a yellow legal pad...

monday, august ?, 2006...

i just accidently bought somewhere near three hundred of these 48 sheet legal pads at the dollar store... it was an accident becuase i thought they sold them 3 to a package, when in fact they sell them 2 to a package and i mistakingly picked up 3 packages, wich would also explain why i had to pay $3.01 at the register... so i am stuck with 6, 48 page yellow legal pads...

origionally, i didnt even go in there for legal pads. origionally i went in there for a nice, bound, composition book... you know, the books with the black covers and the little white flecks... they were out of those, so i got these legal pads thinking at least they have a little bit of sticky stuff at the top to hold the pages together and i wont have pages of writing flying all over the place...

i probably should have also taken into consideration though, that these legal pads came from the dollar store in oakhurst and the sticky stuff holding these 48 pages together is probably, in fact, the absolute bottom of the line sticky stuff and will not hold together for as long as i would like it too...

i will just have to be gentle with it i supose.

(continuing in cursive writing...)

i am also not sure if i should be writing this letter in my handwriting form (wich is easier for me) or print... some people say they have a hard time reading my handwriting (i cant imagine why) so maybe i should continue in print... the problem with writing in print thiugh is that it really doesnt agree with my carpol tunnel syndrom and my wrist usually begins to ache. the feeling is equivalent to a headache in my wrist and i get headaches in my head nearly everyday (if i eat dairy products) so having a head ache in my wrist when i can easily avoid it seems stupid to me...

i have decited that i will switch back and forth between printing and cursive through out this letter...

will i ever have the guts to send you this letter? maybe... maybe not... maybe it will collect and form some sort of funny book at the end... maybe years from now i will gather all these pages i never sent and have a book. perhaps it will be published... "memoirs of april" and it will be a mixed up composition of thoughts and feelings and qustions of a thoughtful, feeling, questioning california girl. maybe, but only after i die, as that seems to be the way with best sellers (i wonder how many best sellers are written on yellow legal pads?)

this is my way of processing... please understand... i truly belive that if i do not write this stuff down, with the intention of sending it to you, my head would explode, leaving a messy, bloody meal all over this table, coffee cup, ash tray and yellow legal pad for the thousands of anticipating flys buzzing around out here. not to mention a discusting mess for someone to clean up and probably some sort of paper work to be filled out as well concerning the disturbing details and reason behind my death. and what would the coroner even conlude the cause of death would be? how could they ever find out that the reason my head exploded was becuase of my thoughts, feelings and questions? he would have quite a challenge on his hands for sure. and what would happen to my things? i have no will... you are welcome to have my van, although im sure it would be more a burden than a blessing since there is something wrong with it... i also wonder what kind of therapy the un-suspecting witnesses would have to go through after seeing a girls head explode... someone would probably be sure to swipe my new package of cigerettes...

keeping all of this in mind, it is absolutly necissary for me to be writing this down with the intention of sending it to you... "

that was just the bginning... i like writing letters...

destination: georges falls...

so, after proving to myself the other day that i could definatly acomplish it, and as a way to keep myself away from me, i embarked on another 12 (probably more like 15...) mile hike today. i kept along sugar pine road, heading ever so slightly uphill (rather than violently vertical like last time) and ended up at soquel meadows...





im back now. my feet hurt.

for those of you who are currently living vicariously through me (i know your out there) i just thought i would let you know what i did today... my list of beautiful distractions...

wake up around 8:00 (damn breakfast bell)
shower
coffee
sketch a little
post silly pictures on friends myspaces
eat lunch
go for a 12 mile hike (mostly all up-hill covering around 1000 feet...)
come back
eat vegetarian lasanga (so good)
chill out

thats right folks... we went on a 12 mile hike today (somewhere around 6000 feet elevation)... it was 12 miles, but really it felt like fifty five hundred million miles...

heres me half way through the walk, feeling pretty discusted...


and heres some other stuff i saw along the way...

hello most coveted/dreaded day off...

so many people running around back and forth through the ranch house... so many girls dressed up in their best casual... so many people excited to be here... people wondering what to do? am i getting in the way? should i be doing something right now? is this ok? whats going on?

i sort of remember my first time living here in community... sort of. i remember feeling a little akward and strange... wondering what this whole thing would be like...

but that was a long time ago.

but still... how can i help? what can i do? what is this suposed to look like for me?

good morning.