Parentless

September 16th

Church. Yippee! Except for the fact that Jette Davis's cancer came back. :( Poor guy. I don't even know him. Apparently he is breathing out of 1/2 of one lung, his tumor doubled in size overnight, and he is only 12 or something like that. And a kid at my school got diagnosed with Leukemia.. gah. Cancer. :( I don't know anyone personally with cancer, besides my grandpa... and so I don't really know what cancer is like.. it's kind of a fuzzy gray area for me, because I don't really understand it. I understand how it happens and what goes on scientifically, but I've never seen it. So I can't sympathize as much as I feel I should because I can't relate to that type of heartache. I mean I've seen my mom almost die, but she's back to normal now..
Other than that my day was pretty good. Sunday School is continuing to get better, I suppose. Some things still irritate me, but I'm trying to be happy about it.. but it's hard trying to be the better person with things like that. No one knows their limits. :P And then YW was great. We tested the theory that thinking negative thoughts physically makes you weaker as opposed to being physically stronger while thinking positively. Trippy!! She had us hold out our arms straight and told us to resist naturally as she would push our arms down. Cool, normal body stuff. And then she went and told us to think of a bad song, or something bad that we've seen/heard.. so we did, and she pushed down our arms again.. but it was harder to resist. Our arms couldn't push back as easily even though she pushed with the same force and we were naturally holding out arms up like the first time.. and then she did positive thinking, and we were able to resist it much quicker. Weirdest thing ever. But that just goes to show that we should all be thinking positively to be spiritually, mentally AND now physically stronger.
The parents left on their cruise earlier this morning, and they'll be back on Saturday night.. it's gonna be a long week.

September 17th

Grandma Glasgow came over last night and she's gonna stay with us until Thursday.
Today I did a whole lot of driving kids around, made dinner, and had no time for myself. Being a mother is going to be suuuper fun. :P Just kidding, I'm excited and this is good practice.

September 18th

I didn't have to work today because their kids are sick. So sad. :(
So I had Stake Softball tonight for Mutual, and I was sooo excited! Because I love softball. Even though I quit, I'm still pretty good and felt at home again for the first time in a while. I secretly love the smell of old leather gloves... ahhh.. I found myself just kicking around the dirt and smelling my dad's glove. Call me a freak, I don't care. It's home and memories of five years. It brought back a lot. I quite after my dad died, partially because we didn't have the time to go to games all the time anymore with just one parent, but also because my dad wasn't there anymore, and I did it mostly for him. We would spend hours and hours playing catch and practicing my hitting and pitching, he was always at my games... Actually, I stopped the season after he died, so I played for one last time on a team.. and that was tough. Especially one game, I looked over at the backstop... and there he was. Just for a half of a split second. Barely. He was wearing a dark olive green long sleeve, with khaki shorts and his DC shoes and high rise socks.. one leg crossed over the other with both his hands above his head holding the chain linked fence while chewing on something... just like he always was. That's why I quit. Not because it scared me or made me feel weird.. I stopped because he was there and wasn't supposed to be there.. it was so real. This was our thing, and I felt like I was betraying him (not that harsh, but lack of a better word)... I dunno..
I feel weird whenever I step onto the field, almost like its a spiritual thing... I spent so many hours of my youth on those fields, almost like it's welcoming a long lost kid home and all is still. I know I'm making it sound more glorified than it might be, but for me it's a big deal. I hadn't picked up a bat in about three years, and the first two games you could tell... I was swinging waaay too fast for the slowpitch ball.. not what I was used to, so it took me a while to adjust. But I took my usual spot at first base, paced it evenly and slowly, breathed in the dusty red dirt... felt the dips in the ground beneath my feet and soaked all the memories in..
We lost our first game, but won our second one.. me and Sister Burns were the only experienced players in the ward, so we carried the team on our backs, and technically she wasn't supposed to be playing, but she loves it a lot, and she looks like one of the girls, so she just quietly slipped right in. :)
I didn't get any hits, but I made a couple of awesome plays at first base.. I never sat in the dugout.. just switched between team pitcher, first base, and batter.
Afterwards the 8 girls who showed up got YJ. I got Pistachio... <3

September 19th

I worked today. Softball. Drove everyone everywhere. Made dindins.. typical day of a stand in mom. :P
But softball was great! The first half. We won our first game by a TON! It was so great! We were on a roll... the first few minutes were terrible, but we totally made up for it. It was awesome!!
The second game, however, was not so hot. We were in the lead for a while, but then Sister Burns decided that she wasn't going to play anymore... and then we started losing BIG time. :( We didn't have a break inbetween so the girls were getting tired and were losing focus.. and I was the only one who knew what they were doing, and I was getting a little irritated with our team. I was trying to be happy and optimistic, but softball used to be my thing and I was just frustrated that they weren't cooperating.. I know it's just church ball, but still! I was taking it somewhat seriously. I did get a HOMERUN however and a few more good hits, so I still got it. ;)

September 20th

I worked again today, and it was great! Kaleah was telling me all her life stories, which was making me cry, but we had a nice heart to heart chat with each other.. so that was nice. And the kids are great! :) Love them! I'm glad that they like me, too. Grandma left this morning, and already the house was messy and chaotic.. and I'm tired of running around and being the mom for everyone.. I definitely appreciate all that she does... it's no easy task! All I'm saying is that she owes me BIG time. I had NO time for myself this week, didn't get to do any of my homework or anything. If I wasn't at home cooking or cleaning, I was driving some kid somewhere, etc. And no thanks to Porter who was being stubborn the whole week and downright refused to help me out... only Kami could get him to do stuff, and even then it took twenty minutes of practically pushing him out of the door to pick up the kids he forgot at Mutual.. that kid!! :P

September 21st

This morning we had a Senior Breakfast! They do stuff like this to encourage us to bond and make other friends... but Lauren is pretty much my only friend at school who I am really close with enough to go to a breakfast with. Anyways, she's been having a rough time still. :( I really don't know what else to do/say to her to make her feel better... but I am going to go to a violin concert with her tomorrow and possibly go shopping because we need to have more "normal teenage girl" activities like shopping... with violin concerts.. haha we're slowly working our way up the social ladder. ;) But Sam asked another girl to homecoming... and oh boy is this going to get nasty real quick. Sam asked this girl who his arch nemesis Kade was going to ask, and by now Kade has been rejected thrice... so Lauren is wanting to go with Kade to shove it in Sam's face because she knows it'll make Sam upset... gaaah why can't we all just be nice and lovely towards one another? Oh yeah, because it's high school and little things like homecoming mean the world to people. :P I guess I'll never understand these trifle things. And I'm okay with that.
Anyways, so I got my first paycheck today! ;) haha I want to buy clothes.. but I need money for college and whatnot.. :P grrrrr.
I'm going babysitting tonight! Yay! Gonna be the mom for yet ANOTHER family. ;P Good thing I love them. ;)
Oh yeah, my parents got off their cruise this morning!! Now they're in HARRY POTTER WORLD. Why the cruel injustice? Why? :( I even wore my Dharma tshirt today in hopes that my Lostie English teacher would have a geeky conversation with me about Lost and hopefully give me extra credit... no such luck. :P
I talked to my mom for the first time since Sunday... and truth is, I haven't even thought about them because I've been THAT busy doing stuff. No one should be too busy to not think about their momma.. that's not southern hospitality.

September 22nd

I was out until about 10 babysitting last night, and had to wake up at 5 this morning to do baptisms... and I am exhausted! This whole entire week has been overwhelmingly BUSY. And it's almost coming to an end because me momma is coming home TONIGHT.
But in the meantime, I woke up and went to baptisms and it was just lovely! Only four of the 15 Laurels we had showed up.. and of course, I am always one of them. But that's cool. I love the Temple!! Whoooo! :D I had no breakfast, and we got done around 8:30. Haha Tim is shorter than me, so the actual baptism part was kinda funny because I didn't go all the way under the first time.. :) He's really funny!! All these Kasper boys.. goodness! ;) just kidding, just kidding. Afterwards, we went and got Krispy Kreme doughnuts!! It's been YEARS since I've had those! I got a blueberry cake doughnut (DELICIOUS) and my all time favorite custard filled chocolate glazed.... oh man... those are AH-MAZING. I got kinda sick afterwards like I usually do because I first off didn't have anything to eat beforehand, and it was soooo sweet... I usually don't eat sugar all that much.
I went home and did some stuff for a while.. until it was about 3... then went over to Lauren's house, and then drove to the high school for this violin concert that Lauren was wanting me to go to.. I was thinking it was going to be kinda weird, just a solo violinist.. she was telling me that he was super awesome and attractive, but I just wasn't buying it, but I was going for her because I knew she really wanted to, and before I talked myself into it and actually ended up getting pretty excited about it! :)
I rightfully did so.
Holy crap.
It was amazing.
This really cute, curly haired, 20 something year old with red pants and TOMS walked out.. and I was like... OHHH SNAP. ;) haha and then he started to talk and smile, and even more so I was like, OHHH SNAP! Man was this guy quite attractive.. plus he's a super awesome violin prodigy.. first I was like, oh time to go learn the violin! And then I was like, I'll never get that good at anything! Time to go crawl under a rock... then he started singing Baby by Justin Bieber... and I just DIED. So did about 10 other teenage girls in the room who were undoubtedly feeling the same thing I did. But seriously... this guy, Taylor Morris, was mindblowingly awesome at the violin.. his looks/humor/singing was just a bonus. ;)
He played: (his concert was titled From Biber to Bieber)
"The Separation" by Charles de Beriot [suuuuuper pretty classical piece about a breakup or something.. it was beautiful!!]
Tullochgorum/Paresis/Green Mountain by Scottish fiddle geniuses [my personal favorites... Scottish fiddle music was written for me, I swear]
Quail Hollow by Nick Kendall [entirely plucking the strings, no bow, and he learned this BY EAR.]
Danish Dessert by Mads Tolling [used this really cool bow variation by going up and down rather than left and right, it was really cool modern with a classic twist]
Appalachia Waltz by Mark O'Connor [probably my least favorite one.. wasn't super impressive like the other ones he played]
Sweet Child o' Mine by Guns and Roses [this was just sheer awesome simply because it was a rock song turned violin, but I wasn't really familiar with the song, so I couldn't follow all that well]
Applemania by Aleksey Igudesman [mysterious/gypsie like piece, was played with a different note division count, so it was really unique! not sure why it's about apples, though..]
Passacaglia by Heinrich Ignaz Biber [this was really really long, and I don't really remember much of it.. oops..]
Baby by Justin Bieber (his own arrangement) [he starts playing, and then he starts SINGING!! we all thought he was just kidding at first.. but he wasn't!! He sang the entire song, AND rapped in the middle, too! Oh my goodness.. he was adorable]

And he would take questions from the audience and stand there casually plucking random, difficult chords while answering questions.. and it was just ADORABLE.
Off to becoming a violin prodigy!! ;)

My parents came home!! WHOOOOOO! :D