Sunday, August 28, 2011

Hungry

Hungry I come to you
For I know you satisfy
I am empty but I know
your love does not run dry

So I wait for you
So I wait for you

(Chorus 2x)
Im falling on my knees
Offering all of me
Jesus your all this heart is living for

Broken I run to you
For your arms are open wide
I am weary but I know
Your love does not run dry

So I wait for you
So I wait for you

Chorus

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Meet Carter! :)


yes. Carter the Car. ;)
Where have I been? Working 30-40 hours a week so I could get my baby. :) He's a 2004 Saturn Ion. Anyone who's ever had a car knows how much I mean it when I say "I LOVE having my own car!" I got him just in time for school, too. :) Two days before to be exact. You know that feeling when things just feel ight? When God says, "This! Right here!". That's what my week has been like. First with this car, and now with school. Even though it is "just" Community College (like it makes a difference- school is school in my opinion) it just feels like that's where I'm supposed to be. I love my classes, and I actually *want* to do the homework (yikes! I'm turning even more into a nerd!), and my teachers are all awesome. My Psych teacher gives us texting breaks during class. Aweome. :)

Of course it's not all perfect. All of my assignments are online. The program they use requires Adobe, which as we all know isn't supported by Apple, which means I can't use my iPad. So, I'm trying to figure out what to do about that. I love my iPad, but I wish I would've thought things through more carefully before I bought it. Oh well, what's done is done.

In other news, we moved. I don't want to say finally, but it's feels good having that whole nightmare over with. I miss the country so much. I've only been out there twice since we left. Even though it was the "Meth Capital of America" hey, it's home. ;) But here, at least I can run without worrying about being abducted, or running into one of the 15 (or something like that) registerd sex-offenders that lived in my town. And concrete is much easier to run on that gravel. But I miss the space and privacy.

Let's see, what else? Oh, I pre-ordered Scotty McCreery's new album. ;) I'm so excited. I have so much respect for him, it's not even funny. His apparent love for Christ, and not being ashamed of it, or hiding it, or keeping it separate from his career is so incredible, and encouraging. You just don't see that very often anymore. :(

Celtic Thunder. Talk about changes. If anyone else is a Glee fan, then you've probably been watching The Glee Project, which means you probably know by now that CT's Damian McGinty has one a spot in the next season of Glee. Am I happy for him? Sure. It's what he wanted, and winning a spot on the most popular show on TV out of 40,000 people is quite and accomplishment. Unfortunately,  that means he had to leave CT. You can read his blog post about it here.

And on that note, homework is calling my name. I couldn't believe how much homework I had the first week of school. But hey, it's college. College. Geez, I'm old. :p

Monday, June 13, 2011

Growing Up Sucks

Here's a list of why growing up sucks:
~You have to give up once-in-a-lifetime chances to go to Europe because you need to buy a car for school
~You have to go to school
~Your parents decide move (because you're growing up) and therefore are stressed from their 50million things to do which forces you to figure all your college stuff out on your own (i.e. make phone calls, take assement tests, meet with a guidance counselor, and find your way around a huge school full of strangers
~you have to give up swimming, six flags, and road trips because you have to work so you can pay for the car you need to drive to school.
~you're expected to be mature and responsible when, really, all you want to do is curl on in your p.j.'s and watch Disney movies all day.
~you know longer have plain ol' drama. It's now drama times 10 and it could potentially effect the rest of your life.



okay, okay, there's some good things about growing up too...like:
-freedom
-money
-living on your own (eventually)
-not being under your parents authority
-traveling :D
-responsibility (yeah, it's a good thing, too...sometimes)
-voting--ha! yes I'm excited about being able to vote.


That's what I've been thinking about the past month. Along with graduation, parties, letting my best friend leave me all alone for two weeks. The same best friend moving to Texas at the end of July. Looking for a car (or truck...haven't decided. It's that inner conflict between responsibily and wanting to have fun).

oh! Funny story. About a month or so ago, a lady I go to church with asked if I could watch her kids during her neice's bat mitzvah. Well, I didn't know I'd be watching them at the temple. I was so out of place. Yeah, my little blonde-haired, blue-eyed, German self at a temple full of Jewish people. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. AWKWARD! Since no one knew me I was praying they wouldn't be like, "Oh, what's your name? Why are you here?" Melanie Bruns. If I was any more German, I'd have an accent. So anyway long story short, nobody asked, and all in all it wasn't too bad. It was a learning experience, I guess...

Not much else has been going on. My life gets pretty dull in the summer. I work all the time, so I don't ever have time to do anything. Let's see if I can keep up with this now. I missed it. I love yous!
peace&love

Monday, May 2, 2011

*Breaking News*

I'm sure everyone knows by now that Osama Bin Laden has been killed. I hear he had been living in a mansion within a few miles of our Military Base in Pakistan. Ironic. I definitely don't wish death on anyone, however justice has been served here, and I am completely okay with that. My thoughts right now are with the families of the 9/11 victims. This heart-wrenching wound has been reopened, but hopefully they can sleep better knowing that the man behind the attack has finally got what's been coming to him.

Everyone is extremely worried about a terror attack soon out of retaliation. I think that's extremely possible, but I highly doubt it will be within the next few days, just because I think that's too obvious. Would they really be stupid enough to plan an attack when everyone is expecting it? Probably not. But that's just my opinion. What do I know?

I was thinking all day about whether I would say anything about this or not. I just didn't know if I wanted to bring up anything political, or just leave it alone to avoid conflict. But then I figured, so many people try to do that to be "politically correct". How is it PC to not have any opinion at all? We have the God-given right to Freedom of Speech, and we better start exercising it before it gets taken away. Regardless of my own opinions, our President did give a very good speech last night. No, I'm not going to vote for him in 2012, and no I don't agree with many of the choices he's made since he's been in office. However, at this moment in time he is the leader of my country which means he deserves and receives my respect. And it has nothing to do with him personally. Overall, the Obamas are a very likable family. They're your "average American family", if you will. You can tell that President and Mrs. Obama love each other heaps and bunches, and love their daughters and are raising them to the best of their ability. And that makes it hard, because I believe he is trying to be a good president. I can't imagine how overwhelmingly stressful his job is, and I sympathize with that. However, the basis of his beliefs and convictions are at the opposite end of the spectrum from mine, and for that, I cannot, with a clear conscience, support his healthcare bill, or many of his other ideas. Okay, maybe I shouldn't say "complete opposite sides" because I'm not a total Right Wing. I think I lean more towards the right side, but in all truth, I'm kind of in the middle. I agree and disagree with both sides. But like I said, either way he's my president, the leader of *my* country, the greatest country in the world, and it's my obligation to respect and serve him (without breaching my convictions) and he serves our country. The long and short of it is I just don't think he has the experience or knowledge it takes to lead this country in the state it's in right now.

What started nearly ten years ago didn't end last night. It started up more fighting, more threats, and more reasons to stand for what this country was founded on: 'Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'.

Saturday, April 30, 2011

All Mixed Up

Have you ever had those days where it just feels like a different day? Different days have different vibes. Well all day yesterday I thpught it was Saturday...which means that today obviously felt like a Sunday. Fortunately, *today* is Saturday and I still have another day of weekend left. :D

I've actually had a very packed weekend thus far (which is pretty dang exciting 'cause I've been living somewhat like an old lady lately). Friday night I went to a dance party/birthday party for a friend of a friend. I got home sometime between 1 and 2am (That's late for me since legally I can't drive past 1am...oops :p) Then I had to be at work this morning. After that, one of my friends wanted me to drive her out in the country (Livy lives in the suburbs and says she needs wide-open spaces...so I said I'd take her out on some of the back roads around my house). We decided to stop my town to walk around a little. We walked into a little Ice Cream shop 'cause ice cream sounded good, for some reason (generally I think the stuff is NASTY). Well, turns out this place doesn't except credit/debit, and neither of us had any cash. So we were just going to walk out and come back some other time when the lady gave us the cones and said, "Go ahead and take them. You can just come back up here and pay us whenever."
Say what? That is why I love living in a small town. I didn't know those people, and until today I didn't even know the place existed. Yet, they were like, "yeah, sure, no biggy, blah blah blah..." I'm going back up there with cash next week to pay them. It totally made my day. :)

Anyhoo, I had planned on writing a little more, but I'm so tired, it's not even funny. And I have Church in the morning so I don't even get to sleep in. Ah bien...c'est la vie

So, good night all! within the next few days I'm hoping to write up a movie review for "The King's Speech". GREAT movie. And I promise to start taking pictures of my life. I always hate reading blogs that don't have pictures...booooooring!! So I'll try to remember to take my camera with me and actually use it. ;)

peace&love
xo

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Back!....again

Hello world. I'm back again...sorry for the unplanned absence. There has been so much going on in my life right the past few months...it's crazy. Have you ever had those situations that are just crappy all the way around, that somehow manage to turn into something really good? That's what I've been dealing with lately. And to be honest, a big paart of it has been no fun. at all. But what came from all of this is incredible. I'm not going to go into details right now, just cause it's really personal...but life is good now, and I'm hopefully going to be posting regularly...but that's what I always say, and it never quite seems to happen. Third time's the charm, right?

So, I'm graduating in 31 days. WHAT?! :D I can't believe how fast time flies when you get old. I remember two years ago when my sister graduated two years felt like an eternity. In some ways it feels like just that. 2009 seems so long ago. I lived a different life then, always trying to change to please the people I was around...my "friends". Then when I finally realized, hey, if they don't like who I am, they can find someone else to talk to...well, that's just what happened. Two years later, I see these people every week, but it's like I never knew them. And I'm okay with that...now.

41 days is the would-be day of my departure to Europe. I hadn't realized it was so soon. I have mixed feelings about that. Since we all know how I feel about travel, and the face that one of my best friends is going without me, it'll be hard watching them all board the plane sans moi. However...it's obvious that I wasn't supposed to go this year. :\

Apparently dear, old St. Louis has been the talk of several towns lately. Last week, we had a really bad storm go through that greater St. Louis area. A bad tornado came through and destroyed several houses, and did a lot of damage to Lambert. I live about an hour away from downtown STL, and during the whole storm, the sun was shining at my house. It's very rare that this part of the region gets a tornado that bad, and the fact that nobody died or was seriously injured is a miracle.

I'm sitting at Bread Co. (Panera to the rest of the world) "doing homework". I'll be honest, I have a hard time taking classes that won't benefit me somehow in life. Trigonometry is a great example of this. Now, I am by no means a 'good student'. I don't push myself...at all. I never saw the need since school just comes easy to me. my current GPA is 3.9. The only class I didn't have an A in was Chemistry (my grade was an 89). I'm not a over-achiever by any stretch of the imagination. However, I'm a perfectionist. I'm also very OCD. That 3.9 drives me crazy. Anyway, back to Trig. This class isn't hard. I understand that concepts. But because I don't see the point in taking it, I don't push myself to do a good job. I don't care about trig. I found out last week that I'm failing the class.
whoa. hold the phone. I've never failed a class EVER. Typo maybe?
Nope. It's true. My current grade is a 55%. Now, thankfully a big part of the problem is my homework. My teacher grades on completion, and doesn't take off points for late assignments. So, like any red-blooded American student, I'm very lax about turning stuff in. Now, that everything is caught up, my grade shoold go up to a C. The main problem is the quizzes. we don't have tests, so the quizzes are worth more than half of our grade. And they're short, so if you miss one problem, it costs you about 20 points. Normally, I wouldn't care. I mean, I'm NEVER going to use trig, and it's just one class. However, it's going to really drop my GPA. So, I don't know what I can do in two weeks to fix it...

Other than that, there's really not a whole lot going on in my life at the moment. I'm getting ready to apply at Community College. I'll probably do that next week. I'm so excited about college and just being out of homeschooling, I'm ready to not be around the same people with whom I have nothing in common. (yay for grammar nerd not ending a sentence with a preposition ;P) I guess that's all for now. Today is the perfect day to spend in Barnes and Noble with some chai tea from Starbucks :)
peace&love xo

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Exfoliation

Hey all! This is just going to be a quick post on skin care. Specifically--exfoliation. Before about a month ago, I never really thought too much about exfoliation. I figured washing my face twice a day, moisturizing, and using acne treatment was enough. My when my skin wasn't getting any better I started looking for other things I could without having to see a dermatologist. Now, my skin has never really been that bad. But, I'm a perfectionist, and when my skin isn't perfect, it bugs me. Add stress in top of that, and my skin got even worse. So, I thought I'd look into exfoliation to see if that helped at all.

Exfoliation is getting rid of the dead skin on your face. You can either do this by hand with scuba, or by an actual exfoliator. Well, I didn't feel like spending $100+ on something for my face, and I didn't feeling like doing it by hand either, so I found another option. Use a battery-powered toothbrush. I got a Spinbrush for $3 at Walmart, and it works great. It's gentle enough to use every night. It works really well at loosening up my skin, and bring the dirt deep in my skin to the surface. Sounds gross, I know, but it's true. It only takes about five minutes every night. My skin had cleared up within a few days, and it's soo soft! Of course I still use my regular face soap, and acne treatment, but the real improvement came from the exfoliating. I just wanted to put that out there, so no one thinks that they have to spend $100 on like a Neutrosonic or something, when a $3 Spinbrush works just as well.

MY SKIN CARE ROUTINE
-I wash my face twice with homemade tee tree oil soap that we buy for about $7/bar. Yes I use it twice. The first time to get all the dirt and makeup off, and the second time to really deep clean my face.
-then I use Cetaphil cleanser. I put some on my face and some on the brush. I work in one section at a time, really focusing on cleaning that area?
-when I finish with that a use Cetaphil moisturizer. Doing this as soon as I finish exfoliating ensures that my face is really getting moisturized, not just the top layer. After it has time to soak in, I use my acne treatment. Right now I'm using Oil Free Stress Control Cleansing Pads by Neutrogena. They work really fast on my skin, and a $6 container lasts me about two months.

Alright well I think thats all for now. I hope all my fellow Missourians are staying warm in the 'blizzard' ;) peace and love! xo