Busy Life she Led

"She was a swimmer, says the swimsuit
hung to dry on every available doorknob;
a dedicated one too, says the medals and ribbons
displayed on her bulletin board and a Christian girl,
says the opened Bible by her bedside
and a cross round her neck;
but not a fashion guru says the numerous sweatshirts
lined throughout the closet with her comfy jeans.

She lived with her parents says the house
kept clean aside from her unkempt room
constantly a disaster area, and she had a brother,
says the baseball themed room down the hall.
Friends were important, says the pictures in the frames
and her phone constantly in reach just in case the needed her.
And a creative girl says the craft supplies in her room.
A caring one says anybody who knows her well.

She loves listening to her music, says her iPod
and radio constantly playing. A busy life she led
says the dusty TV and lost remote in her room
no time to just sit down and watch the screen.
And the ones she loves? Supporting her 100 percent.
She wants her memories to last forever
says the photo albums and scrapbooks lining her shelves.
She was unique and confident, they say."

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

At camp this past summer after devo one night we had a one-on-one type convo thing with another girl in our cabin. Considering there was only 6 girls and 2 counselors in our cabin, we all got really really close. The girl I had my devo with had a total "life story" as I would call it, and I kinda listened in shock as she told me what all she was going through. It really put my life into perspective.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to see how she was doing, like really doing. Not like the "hey, how are you" "i'm good, how are you" "i'm good" kinda conversations. I facebook messaged her tellin' her I was praying for her and asking how everything was going. This was like 2 weeks ago. I never got a reply back until today. I was sitting at JV Districts timing and my phone decided to go c-r-a-z-y. Well I get my facebook messages forwarded to my phone, and so when she replied it came through in like 10 different texts that had to be pieced together. I wasn't able to do it right then because I was trying to time and do the time-board and time-sheet and going through piecing together text messages wasn't going to happen.

When I got home today I immediately went to read her message, and was once again in total shock. She was going through a lot, but at one point she said something similar to 'as much as I don't like him, God calls us to love everybody, including our enemies' and she had put part of the "love is patient, love is kind" verse in her message. I was in disbelief, she was going through so much but she was still able to see what God wanted her to do.

Next time I want to get mad at somebody, or yell, or do whatever I feel like to somebody I don't like or don't get along with, I'm going to remember what my friend from camp said, and that God calls us to love everybody. Not just our friends, but everybody.

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." --1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Sweet and Sour

How can one day be so "sweet" and "sour" at the same time?

SWEET: Swimming is going okay, taper means super easy practices and getting out early. We get extra long time to take a shower and get ready in the morning, which is always something to be happy about. The cat-fight Halie and I had this morning was fun; hair dryers, loud music, Kidz-Bop, yelling and screaming were all included and made this morning's locker room entertainment semi-interesting while it lasted. There is only 5 more morning practices till districts, also a "sweet" thing. Bible Study was amazing last night with the dog-pile at the end. I'm even starting to understand the comparisons between Star Wars and Christianity. Oh, and to finish off the "sweets" I got my braces off yesterday!

SOUR: Which happens to lead to the "sours". They were off for a total of maybe 3 minutes, and then I got them put BACK on. And now my mouth hurts and I'm really hungry but it hurts to eat. Been living on apple juice it seems. Took 15 minutes to eat a single pop-tart this morning.. SOO frustrating! Let's see, school is killing me; pre-cal makes no sense whatsoever. Well, it makes sense I guess, but makes no sense in comparison to life. What the focuses of a ellipse are.. yeah, I'm PRETTY sure I'm going to use that everyday for the rest of my life. And physics is just dumb. And we're writing this English essay, um yeah, not workin' out too well. Homework is piling up, which means the hours of sleep are dwindling down.

Now, for the ultimate "sour" of today. Somebody put "sweet and sour" sauce all over the back-end of my truck today! They even put it in piles under my tires so that I had to drive through it to get out of the parking lot. When you're already havin' a rotten day, that is just exactly what you wanna see when you get to your truck. It's all cleaned out now though, but still, who would do that? SOO frustrating!!

Now off to do homework then go to swim practice then come home and do some more homework. Then sleep! Hopefully today gets "sweeter" instead of "sourer"

ClayClay

"The angels are always near to those who are grieving, to whisper to them that their loved ones are safe in the hand of God."

It's been 3 months Clay, but you will never leave our hearts. We miss you buddy.

Here's a video I made full of pictures other people had forwarded me.

"The more boys I meet, the more I love my dog" --Carrie Underwood

There's a line in the Carrie Underwood song The More Boys I Meet that goes like this, " and the more boys I meet the more I love my dog". And it's SOOO true! I love my amazing puppy :)

It was a gorgeous sunshine-y day outside this afternoon so after driving home loving the radio turned up and the windows rolled down, I took my puppy outside for some Kylie-KJ time. It was SO awesome! We ran and rolled in the grass and I took pictures.






Hope ya'll can get out and enjoy the warm, sunshine-filled, God given, beautiful day today! OH, and the sunset's have been GORGEOUS lately too :)

Is it really 4:15 and I'm done with my homework??

I don't believe this. The clock on my computer says 4:16. And my homework is done?? I didn't even get home early, I stayed and talked with Denise for a little while after school. And I enjoyed the drive home from school with the wind blowing through my hair and KSBJ blaring (not too too loud though.. :)).I didn't rush through my homework either. I've ate a snack, messed around on facebook, twiddled with a blog thing. But, I'm d-o-n-e with my homework! It's miraculous.

Typically I get done with my homework around like 10:30 or 11 once I get home with swimming. Never, ever before. I guess it helps when I'm ahead in apush, didn't have pre-cal because we had a test on Friday, and did physics in class. But still, I'm d-o-n-e!!

Going to help Daddy with dinner or just chill, then go to swim practice (first night of taper = excitement!!!). Probably re-painting my nails after practice tonight then going to bed early and taking advantage of this no-homework business!!

Hmm... I just realized I have to have 1/2 a page of "doodling" done for art tomorrow. Oh well, that's mindless homework. I'll take that anyday! (And can totally do that while listening to the radio tonight while lying in bed!, not bad at all :))

Swimmin for that little girl

I'm going on my 14th year competitively swimming. It's been my whole life for quite some time. I've always loved it, how else could I have put up with it for over 4/5 of my life? Things have started changing though, and I'm not loving it like I used to. I've really been debating whether or not I'll even swim for Cy-Falls next year.

I hate that I don't love the sport like I used to. I remember when I'd rather be at swim practice than with friends, when I'd be upset if I missed a practice, when all I wanted to do was swim. I honestly loved it.

I love the silence as the starter says "take your mark", and how the second the beep goes off, it erupts with noise again. I love the calmness of a flip turn compared to the mad rush the second you break the surface. I love how you spend so much time with your team, that you honestly become a family. I love the way you can dislike your coach so much for the 2 hours and 15 minutes you are in the water, but love them to death the second you finish warm down. I love the feeling after you take off your goggles and cap and dunk your head, and realizing you are done. I love the way you feel after you finished a really hard practice, and know that you did it. But I don't love to swim like I used to.

This season has been a long one, and a not so pleasant one either. High school swimming has kinda burned me out, which is a real bummer. That's why I'm debating what my plans are for next year. I'll definitely swim Team YES, I don't know how I couldn't, but as for high school swimming, it's up in the air.

Districts are just around the corner, literally. 12 more days, I think. The planning has already begun: pasta dinner, breakfast the morning of, decorations for the pool, food for the meet excreta excreta. We're so close to being done.

So as much as I wanna say to myself "it's just one day then you're done. The day doesn't really matter anyway. Just don't care about it, and it'll all be over", I just can't. I don't quit something I start. I've put in too much time and dealt with too much since practice started in September. I'm not giving up now. I'm going to go to districts, swim my heart out and do my best. Giving it 110%, and not swimming halfheartedly (I thought about saying what Coach Denny would say here, but figured it's not too appropriate, HA!).

There's this quote I found a long time ago. There are two versions I like:

"I swim for that little 5 year old girl who jumped in the water on her first day of practice and forgot to bring her heart back out with her after-wards"

"Somewhere behind the hours of practice, the coaches who've pushed you, and the swimmer you've become, there is the little girl who fell in love with the sport and never looked back. . . Swim for HER!!"

So that's what I'm doing. Swimming for that little girl that fell in love with the sport when she was only three.

I feel so smart!!

So last night Mom was like "go look at this website, it has SUCH cool things for blogs that I really like, but you really don't need to worry about trying to figure it out, it's not that big of a deal. But they are REALLY cute!" I think she said that knowing how stubborn I am that I would figure out how to make them. The website is called The Cutest Blog on the Block, and for good reason. My mom was right, it had some pretty dang cute stuff on it! It was like 8:3o though, and I was getting ready to bail out to Renee's for a sleepover before the little kid's swim-meet this morning, so I put the website out of my head and moved on. I wasn't going to worry about it.

I got home this afternoon and tried to fiddle with it for a little while. I was trying to find a background and banner/header that I liked, but nothing seemed "me" enough. It was all WAY to girly for me. I attempted to alter some of the pre-made ones, but it wasn't working out too well. The html code and all the little details was way too much for me. I decided I wasn't going to mess up my blog again (long story.. some how I ended up saving my blog as a template so I could no longer edit it. Luckily, my stubborness paid off and I fixed it :D) so I decided a nap would be more appropriate. (It's been a long week, averaged 5 hours of sleep a night, yikes!). Well Dad woke me up whenever Mom and him left to go out with Mike and Dawn, and so I got up and watched TV for a little while while doing my APUSH maps. I was enjoying the peace and quiet of having the house to myself. Well, and KJ :)

I honestly wasn't planning on twiddling with the layouts anymore. But, the stubborness got to me, and I really wanted to mess with it a little bit more. Well... instead of just altering one of the pre-made layouts I decided I'd try to make my very own.

And... TA-DA! I custom made the background and the header/banner. I'm working on adding a few more little things to it, like a signature since the one I had before doesn't match anymore. I'm loving it!

Maybe stubborness isn't always a bad thing? Haha :)

Lemme know what you think of it!

3 hours later...

and I get pre-cal!!! It's like midnight but I'm bouncing up and down because after being frustrated since Day 1 of this semester, I understand pre-cal. Not like "yah I'm going to get a 100 on this test" understand, but more of a "wow. I kinda get what we've been doing. I don't think I'm going to fail this test tomorrow" understand. Which I know for me isn't a good attitude, but considering how much of pre-cal I understood this morning, this is major improvement.

Now I'm off to work through a few more of the pre-cal problems and look over English vocab-words. Then off to bed only so that I can be up at Cy-Falls by 5:45 for swim practice. But I think Kolache Factory opens at 5:30, so I'm thinkin kolaches for breakfast sounds like a plan.

I gotta feeling that it's going to be a good day.

Bummer

At Cho-Yeh they have a weekend event called Midwinter Madness. It's like a brief glimpse of camp in February. I have never been before, but was going to go since this would be the last time I could go as a camper. I was really looking forward to it as it would be a much needed break from school, swimming and everything else.

Cho-Yeh just called. Since I'm already hired to work there this summer I'm not allowed to go as a camper anymore so I can't go.

What a bummer!!

The Best Gift

"The best gift you can give is a hug...one size fits all and no one ever minds if you return it"

The quote that summed up my day. Or the past hour I guess. It hasn't been too good of a week, I've been pretty stressed out, I think anybody who has been around me the past few days has most definitely been able to see that. We have an English III AP essay that's been kicking my butt, a physics project where we have to build a roller coaster, apush tests and quizzes and readings out the wazoo. And we've had pre-cal. I'm not good at pre-cal what-so-ever, and I'm pretty sure for some reason the class is out to get me. I don't know what I ever did to pre-cal!! But whatever. Point being, I've been stressed.

And then there's swimming trying to get ready for districts in two and a half weeks. Putting the time in in the pool has been hard, but not an option, this past week, and so that's been taking time away from school. So then I stay up late doing homework, wake up early for swimming, go to practice, then school, then home to do more homework, then practice, then homework. And the vicious cycle is never ending!!

Even though pre-cal started to make sense today, finally considering we have a test tomorrow, as the 2:30 bell rang I was still stressing out.

One of my camp counselors from Cho-Yeh is now student teaching at Cy-Falls. So everyday after school I go by her room and we talk for a little bit before coming home. Probably the highlight of my day right there, I love talking with her! Well today when we were talking she just gave me the biggest hug and it meant so much. It made my day, truly did.

Now to start on pre-cal, English, physics, and apush homework. Kole has a basketball game this afternoon at 4:30, so I'll probably try to make the first part of that before heading to swim practice tonight.

Swim practice tomorrow morning, school, then a high school swim meet against Cy-Ridge tomorrow night. Then it's the weekend!! HOOOORAAYYYY :)

So here's to my friends...

"So here’s to my friends. The ones that saw past all the people that spread lies about me, the ones that got me through the days when I didn’t wanna smile, the ones that told me I was too good for him, but most importantly the ones that stayed true in this complicated world."

Anybody who knows me, knows I LOVE quotes. So after a frusterating and stressful day like today, I come home and resort to quotes to make me feel better. Some people resort to exercise, some to chocolate, some to sleeping... me, to quotes.

This one really stuck out to me when I was going through mine (yes, I do have a 14 page Word document just of quotes). It seemed to sum up this past week. It's been drama-central it seems for the past few days, but my friends have stuck through with me. Through the rumors, through the day's (like today) when I really don't wanna be smiling, through the guys that can turn your world upsidedown in a matter of hours. Because trust me, in high school, it happens.

So here's to my friends, ya'll are truly the best there is. I couldn't ask for or imagine anybody who is more true, honest, and caring than ya'll. You're the ones who get me through my worst days, and are always there no matter what. I love ya'll :)

My head is going to explode

As I sit in an NHS meeting I think about the million of things I need to do this afternoon. I blew the apush essay today, need to study for that test tomorrow. The English essay is killing me, I can't find enough info for eight pages about that topic. There's a precal test that I really need to do well on if I wanna do well there. I can't miss anymore swim practice for the next three weeks, which means even on killer homework nights like tonight I can't skip. Greaaaaat.

Oh and breakfast with Keeble tomorrow morning. On my one nonswimpractice morning.

Ahhhhh!!!! I gotta go now. Hopefully this meeting will end soon so I can go home and do some homework so I won't have too too much to do tonight.

The weekend is only three days away. Thanks goodness

Woooaaaahhh

Blogging from my iPod?? Ohhh goodness, this just takes blogging to a whole new level!!

I guess this doesn't give me an excuse to forget to blog since I can virtually blog anywhere (I think), but we'll see haha.

But yes, I am typing this from my iPod. I feel oh so smart :))

Heart of Worship

Is it weird/abnormal that I figured out what to blog about while picking up dog-poop? I was going to blog about swimming and how it's taken away my social life, but then remembered I was having a positive attitude about that for the next month. And then Daddy told me to go pick up dog poop and it all came to me.. WALLAH! Exactly what to blog about :)

So yesterday was Sunday, right, yeah, okay. Glad we got that established :), and so I woke up as normal to go to Sunday School and Church. I actually had to get there a little bit early and sell tickets for the "Sooper Boll" (did you know NFL sues people for saying a "Super Bowl" party since they have a copyright on it?? I didn't) party that my youth group puts on as a fundraiser. Then I went upstairs to Sunday School and blah blah blah. I wasn't going to stay for 11:00 church, I kinda wanted to go home and chill, but I decided to stay. And boy, am I glad I did.

First of all, they played like 3 of my favorite songs! I was like "oh my goodness I love this one too"! And the sermon was about over-coming upsetting circumstances. Which I'm pretty sure anybody and everybody coulda related too. Our youth-row (second row on the left!) really seemed to get into it, and it was really amazing. I don't think there was anything exceptionally different about that Sunday morning, but it was really cool regardless.

God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day. (Psalm 46:5)

And then when I went to drive home the song "Heart of Worship" was playing on KSBJ. Totally fit.

I'm coming back to the heart of worship
And it's all about You
All about You, Jesus

That night at MYF we had an "Olympic" theme. It consisted of relay races, and team-effort games. Renee, Cody and I were on a team (called the 'territories of the purple cool kids') along with some junior high kids. One of the girls in our group was kinda different (not sure exactly what she has), so it was kind of challenging to work with her and make sure she felt included. But at the end of the night when she was smiling because our group won the silver medal (aka a red ribbon with a silver wrapped piece of chocolate), it made all the patience it took and re-explaining worth it. I left feeling really good about myself (except for the part of me that was worried about Alexei who got hurt).

Senior Recognition Swim Meet [January 12, 2010]

Nearing the end of every high-school swim season there is always a Senior Recognition Meet in which the graduating seniors from both teams are recognized, and the meet is considered (by the swimmers) a "fun" one. Instead of 50's, 100's, 200's, and 500's the longest event is 100 and the shortest event is a 25. There are only two relays, the 100 Medley and the 200 Free where 8 people each swim a 25. Well... the way Cy-Falls does this relay is a little out of the ordinary. ;) (Look at the video at the bottom of this post for a glimpse at what this meet was REALLY like...)

In the middle of the meet they have a time to recognize all the graduating seniors. The 5 seniors that graduated from Cy-Falls included Tori Middleton, Chelsea Wisniske, Taylor Satterwhite, Travis Satterwhite, and James Ross.

The swim season isn't quite over yet. This upcoming Friday we have a dual meet vs. Cy-Ridge. Varsity districts is on February 5th. The top 6 per event will move onto regionals the following weekend. If anybody makes it outta regions, then they'll go onto state near the end of the month.

We're so close to being done though! Only 10 more high school morning practices! WAHOO!!!

Barefeet

As I was swimming last night, this came to me. I was thinking about how I hadn't blogged in a while, and was kinda just thinkin' (to keep my thoughts from how I thought my arms were going to fall off, thanks Coach Denny). I thought about the name of my blog since somebody had mentioned it to me earlier, and I was thinkin' back on how I thought of it. (Other than the fact that it related to my favorite poem "Footprints in the Sand")

It kinda relates back to freshman year-ish. I was just a baby-fish trying to find out how everything worked and where I fit in in the big world called High School. The first times to go out with friends, the first taste of drama, the first fights with people who you had never fought with before.

The first time you hear a rumor started about you, it hurts so bad. The first time your best friend and you fight, it hurts. You think it's the end of the world, and every little thing seems to kill you. It's like walking on gravel without shoes. It's like a newborn's super soft feet walking on cement. It hurts.

But after a-while, the importance of the drama lessens. You learn to let drama and lies roll off your back. You know who to listen to, and who to kinda tune out. Some things still hurt, like losing a friend, but you seem to be more resilient, and learn to bounce back. You make the best friends ever that you know would never hurt you, and you learn that it's okay to lose some people. Sometimes what seems like a good things gotta change, so a better thing can be let in. It's like walking on gravel without shoes; after a while, your feet toughen up and each individual rock doesn't hurt nearly as much.

That's kinda how I am; experiencing everything barefoot in life. No shoes needed. Everything hurts the first time, just like the gravel out at Grandma and Grandpa Zieman's when I refuse to wear shoes. But after running around barefoot, the gravel isn't so bad. Just like life is.

Who knew you could actually learn something valuable... from rock climbing?

Who knew that after spending 5 hours Rock Climbing with my youth group (which just happened to include Megan and Renee) that you could actually learn something? I mean, more than the "wow, I never knew I had these muscles in my arms!!", "woah, you can't snap after rock climbing 3 hours", and "I didn't know tires made good mats for falling off a wall!". Because, yes, there was in fact plenty of that :-)

But you can also learn valuable lessons from rock-climbing. Not saying that the other ones weren't valuable or anything. Lessons like trust, and believing in yourself.

Typically, I am one who l-o-v-e-s anything involving rope-courses, zip-lines, or rock-climbing. So when the opportunity comes around to go with the youth group, I was in, no if's ands or buts about it. I wasn't hesitant at all about harnessing up (although there wasn't any "reds" like at camp so I couldn't say the camp saying "red means dead" sad face. lol) and was the first to volunteer to climb during the "Climb Safe" class so that we could all be certified to belay each other. It was the first time I had ever had anybody that wasn't an adult that was at the end of that rope. It has always been a sponsor at church, or a camp counselor, or one of those automatic-belay-systems. Never somebody my age.

So once I got up about 10 feet and knew that falling wouldn't feel all too pretty, I freaked out. What if the person below me didn't take away the slack in the rope? What if they didn't watch and I fell? I asked to come down. Luckily, we were all in training for belaying so we didn't have to climb far and we were let down.

All of a sudden though, I realized that I have known most of these people my entire life. They know more about me than a lot of people do. 2 of the girls here are my best friends. How can I not trust them? They are trusting me to be at the end of their rope. I can trust them too.

When you are at the top of that wall, the only thing that is stopping you from falling is the person at the bottom. When you kick off that wall, it's all them supporting you. Most of the time, I took comfort in knowing it was either Megan or Renee at the bottom. You can trust somebody with your secrets, it's totally different trusting them with your life. But, I know I can trust my friends with mine.

Believing in yourself is another thing that can be taught through rock climbing. Standing at the bottom of that wall looking up. Hooking into the carribeaner, and just saying "OK, I'm going to do this", and then doing it. Yes, you have the help of the belayer telling you where to go if you get stuck (or the help from those betting against you, or telling you "don't look down"), but a lot of it is you. You have to trust that your arms will hold you when you take your foot off to boost yourself up. Nobody else can take that first step but you. You gotta believe in yourself. In life.

When we were getting ready to leave and closing in prayer, Charles said that while we were climbing he could see all of the 'power' and 'grace' that God had given each of us to climb up that wall. I'm not sure if those were the best words to describe my experiences. I'm pretty sure "clutzy", "ditzy", and "scary" would be more appropriate, but regardless the fact that God had given us the ability and the talents to master our fears (heights, trust, whatever they mighta been) to get up that wall. It's unbelievable. Our God is awesome :)

<3 always, Kylie Jene

Lifesong

Happy New Years! This year instead of making countless New Years Resolutions that I know won't last more than a month (such as not eating as much chocolate, going to practice more, playing ball with KJ every afternoon, etc etc) I have decided that I'm going to have one goal this year, not even a "resolution" because this should always be my goal, but in twenty-ten I'm trying harder than ever to accomplish. To live my life for God one hundred and ten percent.

Because ultimately, how fast I can swim my 100 back, or how little chocolate I can eat (that one doesn't ever seem to work out to well for a choco-haulic like myself) doesn't matter. It really doesn't.

The Christian radio station I listen to is 89.3 KSBJ, and every January they do this thing called a Thirty-day Challenge. To listen to their music and only their music for all of January. I'm doing it this year (although my ipod will have to be an exception because it is a necessity in the locker room, and I can't get KSBJ to play), so when I woke up to their station this morning (I always have music playing through the night) I was thoroughly excited and ready to give this "resolution" my best shot. I wasn't ready to drag myself outta bed this morning (not a morning person by any stretch of the imagination) so I just laid there listening to the songs, and thinking about the lyrics. One song that came on was called "Lifesong" by Casting Crowns. Now I've heard this song many times, my youth groups choir even sang it as a part of their musical two years ago. And I've always like the song, but this morning, I fell in love with it. It is like my "New Years Resolution" in song format. Here are the lyrics:

Empty hands held high
Such small sacrifice
If not joined with my life
I sing in vain tonight

May the words I say
And the things I do
Make my lifesong sing
Bring a smile to You

Let my lifesong sing to You
Let my lifesong sing to You
I want to sign Your name to the end of this day
Knowing that my heart was true
Let my lifesong sing to You

Lord I give my life
A living sacrifice
To reach a world in need
To be Your hands and feet

So may the words I say
And the things I do
Make my lifesong sing
Bring a smile to You

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Let my lifesong sing to You

Those lyrics are so so amazing. Our life only has one purpose, and that is to live, breathe, and love... for God.

So that's my New Years Resolution. To live my life completley and fully for God. To give up what I want, or what I think is right and follow God's plan for my life. Who knows what that may bring or include, but that all doesn't matter really. So God, "I give my life, a living sacrafice"... and "let my lifesong sing to You"

Happy New Years everybody, I hope twenty-ten is a blessed one for you, and I hope you will join with me in this New Years Resolution.

<3, Kylie Jene