She's Happy!

Mountain Climbing and Smiling

A Beautiful Lake

Rock Hopping

A New Friend (who's last name is Miller too!)

When did my baby grow up?

Look at this-- it's my daughter's first college essay:

My first college essay.
Basically we had to write a reflection essay. So here ya go.

I was born on March 23, 1990 in a hospital near my hometown of Bowie, Maryland. I lived with my brother, Cory and my parents, along with a plethora of animals. We have always had a dog in the house. Currently, it's our smallest dog ever, an American Eskimo, Suki, who we love to death. My schooling experiences have not been traditional, to say the least. When I first went to preschool, up until about first grade, I didn't enjoy school because I would get homesick and not want to leave my mom. After I settled into the idea of school, I loved learning, until sixth grade came along. I had an awful teacher, so bad that I had to transfer classes. This year began the rapid decline of my public school career. I made it until tenth grade, when my grades were remarkably low, and I never wanted to go to school. It was then that I decided to become homeschooled. This decision changed my life. I learned so much about myself, and became so much happier than I ever was in public school. My life experiences so far have taught me that I am in control of my life, and I don't have to do anything just because it's the "normal way."

I have an interesting story on how I ended up at Montreat. I came to two of the youth conferences here, one in 2004 and one in 2006, with my youth group. The first year, I absolutely hated everything about my experience, and swore to never come back. However, in 2006, I was feeling called to give Montreat a second chance. So I decided to come back, and it was absolutely the right choice. On my second trip here, I truly found God. When I was considering apply to college last year, I felt a strong feeling that God wanted me to come back to Montreat and go here for school. The feeling was so strong that Montreat was actually the only college I applied to.

Outside of the classroom, I am a total theatre person. I love to sing, act, and dance. I've been in over twenty shows in the past six years. Offstage, I love to take road trips, exploring the beautiful world that God has created. I enjoy taking these trips, or hanging out at home, with my friends, who are always fun and know how to have a good time. My mom is my best friend, but both my parents are my heroes. If I had to pick one word to describe myself, it would definitely be "optimistic," and I'm pretty sure my friends would agree. I am always trying to look on the bright side of things, and if people are feeling down, I'll try to cheer them up and show them that things could be worse. I try to not take life too seriously, and I don't enjoy when people are stressed or angry. A philosophy of mine is "why waste precious time being upset when you have so many things to be happy about?"

The thing I am most excited about being at college is the same thing I'm most afraid of, and that would be living in a place so completely different from my hometown, and having to be away from everyone I know. That's probably the hardest part of living in one place your whole life: not knowing what else is out there. That's also my biggest problem in the classroom. I've always had bad experiences with school and learning, so I came already expecting to not have a good time. Little did I know that college is ten times different than what I know, and I am already having a great time with my classes. So my next biggest problem will be not procrastinating and actually taking time to study, which is something I've rarely had to do before. I am motivated by how proud my parents are of me, as neither of them got the chance to go to college; they make me want to succeed.

I think that being educated is not about knowing everything in the world. I think that a truly educated person is someone who is happy and comfortable with themselves. They don't worry about how they are being perceived; they just do what feels right to them. I can only hope to build that kind of confidence in myself over the next few years.

I am pretty positive that I want to major in Bible and Religion, with a focus in Youth Ministry. I have always loved kids, and work well with them. I would love to help middle schoolers and high schoolers find salvation in God and Jesus Christ. I would love to be able to help them find true happiness, just as I have found, because it can be hard at their age. Five years after graduation, I see myself working in a church, taking the youth groups on trips to places like Montreat, but most of all, I see myself happy.

She sure got the proud of her part right. :)

ssshhhhh

It's so quiet in my house. Like the silence is thundering. And unusual. It hasn't been this quiet in my house for years. Yesterday I just kinda wandered around resisting the impulse to turn on loud music or worse, sitcoms with laugh tracks that drive me nuts. It's even stranger because it's really quiet outside too since all the kiddies went back to school... my ears are ringing.

When I started this journey of spirituality, this silence was healing, soothing, a rarity in my life. I grew up in a very noisy household-- tv in every room turned up loud all day, radios, yelling... it took me a long time to get used to and comfortable with silence. When both of my kids were in school at the same time (years and years ago) and I stopped working full time, there was a brief period of time that this was my norm. And I loved it. And I thrived and became me. There's a sense of familiarity about this silence but it's almost like it happened in another life. It certainly has nothing to do with the last couple years of my life.

It feels weird. I'm not sure what to do with it. I did a little planting, a little cleaning, a little organizing, basically going back and forth to my computer to see if she was on and did she get her package??!!! and she was on but she was busy!? and isn't that wonderful but wow, isn't it QUIET around here??? Wonder when Cory gets home from school and work?

I will get used to it. I will thrive and grow and become me again. I need to give myself some time to listen for the stillness and the be-ing. It's right. And will be a wonderful gift. Once I get used to it. I can't wait to see where it takes me.

Sssshhhh....

Hi Ho, Hi Ho... it's off to work....I go...

Feel like a bomb has gone off in my life. And now I'm supposed to just get up and go to work. Like a shell. Cept my work is to be present, to be open to the Universe and hear the messages. So I guess I may have to take the exclamation point out of my head.

I've really had an urge lately to just get a regular 9-5 job with a boss that tells me what to do so I don't have to think. I can just meekly follow instructions and come home and crash in front of the tv with a bottle of wine and some chips. Anything else seems exhausting. (yes, I know the word "meek" and me do not connect-- and a boss that tells me what to do is just silly)

Last night I had a vivid dream. I was back at my old job as the manager of a mortgage company. Only thing is, I had some kind of emergency that I had to take care of so I ended up in the parking lot at work in my present state. So, instead of a business suit, make up and high heels I had on exercise clothes and for some reason I didn't have any shoes. Girl scout cookies were in the dream too??? Whatever, I'm sure it's not relevant. Anyway, I'm standing in the parking lot, frantically searching my car for something suitable to put on-- it's 10:30-- I'm 3 hours late and have a huge meeting and I can't even find any shoes. I think I may have tried to make shoes out of the Girl scout cookie boxes???

I get into the office, smoothing my hair as best I can (and if you've seen my hair....) and right away get called on the carpet to the big boss who is so furious that she won't deal with me and sends the secretary out to give me the warnings and probation and notations on my file, blah, blah, blah. Now, the secretary was not my secretary at this company, it was the secretary at another place I had worked who was/is a real dippsy doodle... this is for real. So, while this dipsy doodle is reading me the riot act in my dream, I start thinking, "what the heck am I thinking? I can't work at a job with rules and bs.... I made this company millions of dollars and this dippsy doodle who can't even spell is gonna put me on probation? I quit!!! I'll start my own business and it will be something real and not with arbitrary rules that have nothing to do with reality......"

And then I woke up.

I'm kinda glad I got that whole thing over with last night so I didn't have to spend the next 6 months blowing up my life only to figure out the same thing that I've already figured out a bazillion times.

Do you think dipsy is spelled with one p or 2?

Thank you so much to those of you offering support and understanding. I am still hoping this will work out. Rhia is sad. But she is trying. This is all very hard, harder than we imagined.

Hopefully, we will start to come out the other end of this soon.

I will blog again when I am coherent-- but in the meantime, thanks for your kind words, they mean the world to me.