oh, christmas.

here's a year to remember. phew.
start from the top, shall we?

JANUARY:
new year's 07 - my sister had a pretty good party, as it was murder at the casino. kind of a "who-done-it" type of thing. very entertaining. i got to "flirt" with matt while he "flirted" back. matt, i doubt could flirt his way out of a paper bag. although, i'm sure that in that case, flirting wouldn't be all that helpful, so maybe all in all he has the upper hand. moving on.
driving home from my sister's, i thought it'd be a good idea to start off the year getting pulled over. good work, me. luckily it was just a warning. i was also feeling pretty yucky that night, too.
there was some sort of large blizzard.. i remember being snowed in for like two days, and having drifts on the edge of the road be much taller than my sister's SUV. but that's a dumb snow storm for you. or perhaps that's just dumb iowa. it could go either way.
i also got promoted at the gap from seasonal to regular staff. the start on my favorite workplace with my favorite coworkers.
at the end of january was when i had a night full of many diasters, including but not limited to:
getting a speeding ticket, having to pull over to go to the bathroom (not pee.), and ultimately being sick for the rest of the night.

FEBRUARY:
february.. uh... was .. good?
not a whole lot to mention.
i started making friends at work.. we went out twice, but never a third. we had mixed up schedules. valentine's day was the best it's ever been as i went to work to find a rose (the only flower i've ever gotten.) waiting for me with a card that said "robots like flowers, too." which thus started the progression of me and maika. he was such a sweet boy. i got home to get a box full of fun things like, the best card i've ever received in my entire life, lindt dark truffles *yumm*, and a new copy of pride and prejudice seeing as my two copies prior didn't work at all. i believe that was it, but it was one of the.. no, the sweetest thing anyone's ever done for me. maika was the best boyfriend i've ever had. moving on.
february was also when i started painting my room from that awful country blue to a simple mossy green. it was also when i planned our (alex and i's) trip to europe for a month. the trip, that ultimately failed.

MARCH:
march.. er.. i might have better luck reading old blogs to recall specifics, but i think march was okay. at the end of the month, maika flew out from portland, oregon to come see me for a week, to really test if we had enough of a connection to start something up. it was a great week. we did nothing special, but i enjoyed waking up to him drinking tea with my mom in the kitchen. the day he left was a super great day, and one of my favorite memories. the airport, the security, the lighter, and driving home in a complete swoon was perfect. we decided to start a relationship, although neither of us knew how it was going to work out.

APRIL:
yeah. i don't remember april. it was my dad's birthday on the fifth, and my sister's on the twenty-first.
that's all i got.
oh, but april was the start of google always telling me that i had mono. or that i was preggers. i think i can get google on sexual harassment charges.
april was also when i discovered the international house of prayer and fell in love with God's presence again. it's such an amazing place.

MAY:
may brough about some odd things.
i ended things with maika because i felt we were in a lot of different places. it wasn't that i didn't want to be with him, it was that i couldn't. plus, he was there, i was here... who were we kidding? we weren't going anywhere. we were saved for that place between sleeping and awake. the place where you still remember dreaming.
i got to see my brother which always excited me, but he left with my car.. and then on the twenty-third.. his birthday.. he wrecked my car. some guy in a jag ran a red and mashed my poor carry. (that's car-E. not carrie.) but it was a devastating and hard loss. i loved that car. so beautiful. so perfect. soo... smelling like french fries and old men.
it also was when i had an emotional breakdown for three days. there are a few reasons as to why, but i cried for three days straight. i remedied it by hanging out with mom and she took me to my favorite antique store as we browsed the '74 catalogue of penthouse. nothing cheers you up more than looking at nasty seventies porn with your mom.
oh, and yes. i also got my first credit card. WOOT!

JUNE:
june was when i solidified my move to ames, and living with emma. i needed a change of life, of scenery, of pace, of everything. and ames held the promise and the hope of something better than what i had. it was a good time to leave, seeing as my cousin and her three children moved in with my parents, and there wasn't a lot of room for anyone, or for sanity.
i thought and re-thought about ames a million times with a million tears. but then watched dead poet's society and had one line burn in my chest: "and not when i came to die, find that i had not lived."
so i chose to live. and risk. i jumped.
my sister's dog, jade also had puppies. seven.. but one died. there were luna, piven, cusack (Q), turbo, squeakers, and lasty who was renamed calibur. i was going to get Q who was my favorite as soon as he popped out, but it didn't work out.

JULY:
i think july was when paige came to see me, and i put our weekend on a dvd. it's kind of lame, but i'm glad we have something to look back on.
i told work that my last day would be the twenty-fifth, but ultimately took it off, seeing as it was my birthday, and i'm not working on my birthday.
midway through the month, i got a jolt of terror again seeing as moving was only two weeks off. i made it through, but not without second guesses.
my birthday was perfect. i basically hung out with my sister for a few days. it was nice. we did nothing.

AUGUST:
august i moved to ames and it went well. i quit the job i had before i even started my first day. they weren't professional, and i didn't feel like it was a good fit. i went through a handfuls of interviews and never landed anything for august. it was weird being on my own without a job. paige and todd got married which was the best wedding i've ever been to or been in. it was beautiful and amazing, and i'm so glad i could be a part of it. august was also when i got to see adam and gretchen again, and found out they're having a baby in december... which means, they most likely are parents by now. HOORAY! i love them dearly.
august also held some hard words from a friend. it was then i decided to live my life without fear. full of adventure and courage. it was a great night and definitely a turning point.

SEPTEMBER:
i got another job with a telemarketing service, but didn't even show up for the first day. partially because the boss kept staring at my chest for the interview and mostly because they were frauds. it was a frustrating month seeing as my job transfer to gap had just kicked in, but they were already confusing me with hiring me and not scheduling me, then scheduling me when i was supposed to be off, and ultimately i ended it. i couldn't do it and i deserved better.

OCTOBER:
october was a hard month. i was still trying to figure out how to live on my own but had at least landed my current job by now. i was stressed out from it, but was on my way to figuring it all out. the second to last week, joe came to see me. he had been my best friend for a number of years, and we had a great friendship. the third day we discovered we had some feelings for each other. it was odd, but it was great. a train wreck. a disaster from the start. it was like starting a building on fire and holding hands as we raced to get out. it was exciting and nothing like i'd ever done before.

NOVEMBER:
we started dating in november, but i was hesistant. i had already been in one long distance relationship before, and was wary of the "i'll move there"'s. i was thinking it would be better if we would have waited until he got here to officially start something, but what's the difference in a title? we were practically together anyway.
it was a month where i lost alex and was angry and frustrated. i told him that if something like that ever happened again, i wouldn't wait around for him. hopefully we both learned our lessons. work was as stressful as ever and i was wondering if i still fit or if i ever fit. time tends to work these things out.

and so ladies and gents, this brings us to
DECEMBER:
december started out okay, but at the end of the first week joe decided our time together had to end. it was a rough few days after that, but God has a silly way of doing things for my best interest. it was a disastrous relationship with a disaster for a future and it lead to a disastrous end. so we didn't make it out of the burning building, but the adrenaline rush made it worth it. things were said that we didn't mean, and there were a handful of things that were said that meant the most. ultimately, we parted ways permanently and i'm a little bummed to lose someone who meant so much, as a friend, to me. but not bummed enough for it to matter. God has my back and he did what was right for me. it allowed me to re-focus my eyes back on God and if for nothing else, it was worth it.
i bought the royal tenenbaums and watched it 4 times in 3 days. it's an amazing movie, and i found out things about myself while watching it so many times.

so recently i just took off a few days to see my sister, do the holiday thing and it went well. i had the most fun i think i've had at my aunt's house for christmas, things with my sister are always super fun, and i had a good time with my prodigal uncle, if you will. driving back yesterday the roads were pretty bad, and on the back roads we ran into a little trouble.
we drove up to a T intersection and drove straight off the 15 foot cliff. it was terrifying but exciting all at once. i've been in more accidents than i can count in every imaginable way, so they don't scare me that much any more. pain or not. the worst case scenario would be i died, which would obviously be the best case scenario. to live is Christ; to die is gain, right?
anyway, we sailed off the end, down the ditch, somehow avoiding rolling seeing as it was a 75 degree slope. we hit the bottom and bret, knowing how to handle things of this nature, kept driving across the field so we didn't get stuck. my sister was traumatized by it all, but if anything learned once again that we serve a mighty God. we hit a pole and a large crunch happened when we landed but miraculously, the car, and us, were unscathed. bret then drove through the field and up out of it onto the road again. we drove past the spot and bret and i wanted to see what exactly we had hit, so he drove up to the edge when, once again, we started sliding off in the exact same fashion we had before. he hit it into reverse, almost as in the movies when a car is teetering off the edge, and luckily we scooted back enough that we just decided to go home.
it was in fact a christmas miracle. the fact that we weren't hurt worse, or that the car wasn't damaged at all... really. was a miracle.

i'm not much for saying something's a miracle because it always comes off cheesy or something, but i mean it. and even if it wasn't who cares. it was a great reminder that our lives are always in the hands of our Creator.
we arrived -slowly- and safely home where we just relaxed and kind of destressed. it was good.


so all in all, there's my year.
here's to the next.
what does God have in store, i wonder?