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