Dentures

I was just thinking about my garage. Why I was thinking about my garage as I was in the middle of writing my religion would take along and complicated explanation, but anyway, I was thinking about my garage. Our garage is an ordinary two car garage that is filled with way too much garbage to fit one car, let alone two. Our garage is ordinary. Except for one thing. There is a pair of dentures attached to our garage. I have no idea why they are there, but the are right on the garage door, painted white and easily mistaken for a hook on the door. After close examination, however, you will see that there is, a pair of dentures stationed on my garage door.

multa amore,
grace

i bought a new life for a dollar twenty-five, some sunglasses, too.
*backseat goodbye

A Short Post with Easy Reading Specifically for Ariel and Ausrine

my foot hurts.
i stepped on something on saturday.
it's not the ball of my foot, it's next to it.
it's not my foot with bursitis either.
i don't know what's wrong with it.
hopefully i won't die from it.
the end.

love,
grace

Brian Andreas

I started thinking about a quote today when I was bike riding. I didn't know who the author was, but I liked the quote. I googled it (google solves all) and the author was Brian Andreas who is an American artist and short story teller.

She said she usually cried at least once each day

not because she was sad,

but because the world was so beautiful and life was so short.

Here are some more quotes by Brian Andreas:

Everything changed

the day he figured out

there was exactly enough time

for the important things in his life.

The most important thing

you leave behind is the stuff that turns into treasures

when children find it.

Anyone can slay a dragon, he told me,

but try waking up every morning and loving the world all over again.

That's what takes a real hero.

I just thought this was all very beautiful.

Have a wonderful Sunday,

gracie

Some Random Thoughts...

I've been thinking a lot about how if you've grown up with someone always there, or something always at your disposal, it takes a long time to realize how much you rely on them.

Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World."
I've heard that song since I was little but it wasn't until Thursday when my voice teacher, Lucy, gave me the song to sing that I really saw how beautiful it was. I'd grown up with that song, but I'd never really listened to it until Thursday. Listen to it again. It is beautiful. What a wonderful world.

I enjoy using commas and starting sentences with "But" even though I was always told that was incorrect. Once I got out of grammar school and saw that people do start sentences with "But" I took advantage of that. Now I use it wayy too much =]

Carrie Underwood's "Jesus Take the Wheel."

Jesus take the wheel/Take it from my hands/Cause I can't do this on my own/I'm letting go/So give me one more chance/Save me from this road I'm on/Jesus take the wheel

My Favorite Song ever (Not counting the Beatles and "Across the Universe")... "I Love it When You Call" by The Feeling. I love the way it starts out. It makes me happy.

I have really, really good friends who are there for me when I need it. I am so lucky.

When I did my research for my paper on Marie Antoinette last fall, Elena Maria Vidal was a big help. She's written a book about Marie Antoinette and her blog has sooo many articles on the French Queen. =] I looooove Marie Antoinette.

Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's. That's the film that she's most known for. Did you know that she said that was the hardest role she ever played?

I really like salsa dancing. It is so much fun.

I haven't done anything for school yet. And classes start on Thursday =[

I went to the state fair this weekend. It was fun. We saw the Neverly Brothers =]

Ben Folds' song "Brick" is so sad. It's about when his girlfriend got an abortion and afterwards who they just drifted apart because they were both in so much pain because of of it.

Right now, I'm reading The Friday Night Knitting Club. It's kind of random. I like it.

This was a really weird post.

Have a great day, everyone!

xoxograce

Getting Back

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not."

-- Dr. Seuss

This is it. I'm going to write about my service trip. Right now, in this blog, before the magic is all forgotten.

Let's just put this out in the open right now: I went on this service trip because I felt like I had to.

170 kids out of my class of 350something were going on service trips. I didn't want to be one of the minority who didn't. But I also didn't want to go to some random town with a bunch of random people I didn't know. I used to be really open and bubbly in grammar school, but after high school I got the tiniest more reserved. I got really, really awkward. There are some people I can talk to easily, some I can't. And the chances were pretty slim that I would be friends with people on my trip. But I went. Out of obligation, but I suppose also out of some silent hope that I would actually get a good experience, like everyone said.

We were going to Harlan, Kentucky to work with an Organization known as C.O.A.P. (Christian Outreach with the Appalachian People.) I'm not really going to talk about my group in this. We did kind of form a community, but one problem with the program we were on was that, unlike the other trips that had gone from our school, we didn't do service in small groups every day. We served as one large group of twenty two. Because of this, none of the barriers of the different cliques and social classes were really broken. We pretty much just stayed with the same group we had rode the bus with. We cooked and cleaned together, always begged for seconds together (we were living on $3 a day, so we were still hungry after each meal), shared one bathroom and one cabin, and some people did form community, but it wasn't a very welcoming community, I felt. But then again, I'm awkward, and for some strange reason my mind was kind of on a retreat that week, so I know I'm partly to blame for not really being connected. That week in Harlan was a week I spent with God and myself, more than anyone else, even though I was with 21 other people. It was wonderful though. I was away from all the distractions-- my phone, the computer-- and I was more or less on my own out there, with no one who knew too much about me, who could make me remember what was going on back home ore remind me of the past. It was God and I. It was lovely.

We were working on a house for a family in the town next to Harlan. We were putting up roofing and siding. Our carpenter was the best part of the trip. For the sake of privacy, I won't use his real name. He'll be Bobby as far as this blog is concerned. The lady who runs C.O.A.P., Ms. Jessica, told us to guess what Bobby's age was. We all made guesses and Matt wrote them on his pants. We were all guessing that Bobby was in his twenties. We were wrong. Bobby is seventeen. Just like all of us. And he works fourteen hours a day.

The first few days Bobby didn't say anything to us. We couldn't get him to talk. Around Wednesday, he finally started laughing at some of the things we said. He started to like us. It was so cool.

It was weird, though. Bobby is seventeen, but he seems so much older than all of us, like he knows something about life that all of us are missing. Bobby knows what hard work is, that's for sure, but I don't think that's all we don't know. I think there is something else. Something in that relaxed southern way of life, where 8 o'clock can range anywhere from 8-9 and if you don't get something done because you are talking to someone and getting to know them, it doesn't matter because you were doing something special with your time. Everyone knew that Bobby was more mature than any of us. The adults even treated him like their equal. Because he is. Bobby is in every way the equal of an adult, and that is so weird for me to think, being his age and still being under the control of my parents and teachers.

Bobby works fourteen hours a day. Bobby doesn't go to school. It kind of seemed to us that Bobby is missing out on being a kid. Legally, he is a kid. But really, I think Bobby kind of skipped from being four to forty.

Around Tuesday of that week I realized what I wanted to do with my life, at least for a few years after college. I want to teach. Not just anywhere. I want to teach English at Harlan High School. Harlan is a mining town, and if you are not a miner, there are no jobs unless you're educated. And most of the people in Harlan aren't. I want to go there and teach. I want to make a difference. I know I sound like I'm trying to be a savior, but that's not what I want at all. I want to teach kids, to share my love of reading and writing, to pass on what I know. But most of all, I want to learn the big secret that everyone in Harlan, Kentucky seemed to know. I want to learn how to appreciate life. I want to learn from the citizens of Harlan. I want to let them teach me, and if I'm lucky, I want to convince at least one student to stay in school. That's all I want-- to make a difference in the life of one person. I want to touch people's lives, and I want to meet people who touch mine. I want to know people everywhere, I want to be someone special in the lives of the people I come in contact with. I want to be needed.

That's what I learned on this trip to Harlan, Kentucky-- how good it feels to be needed. I need to be needed. This was one of the most amazing experiences of my life, not because I landed a good group or good chaperones, but ecause the simlicity of every day helped me discover who I am and what I want. It helped me learn about myself and others, and these are things I will never for get.

xoxograce

100 Summer Memories

"In the summer, the song sings itself."

-William Carlos Williams

My most sensational summer memories:

1. the first Sox game of the summer and the romantic time watching the fireworks ;)
2. walking through the city after dark
3. salmonella pancakes and handwashed glasses
4. NOT being at the restaurant
5. my tea party
6. the Taste
7. Bob
8. our cupcake baking party
9. watching our 8th grade class video
10. the 3rd and 4th of July
11. finding myself
12. learning to legitimately love my curves instead of just pretending
13. finally making a decision about cross country
14. finding God
15. still fulfilling some of my hippie desires, although no one knows it =]
16. not making a list of things to do this summer so that things could happen as they were supposed to
17. my service trip and Billy
18. dropping ice cream
19. not eating chocolate
20. finding the bush that I used to pick berries from when I was little... the berries are still delicious... mmm
21. serving others and Lou Mitchell's
22. making my own music
23. voice lessons =]
24. putting covers on non-take-home glasses
25. Batman
26. describing Pineapple Express as "highly inappropriate"
27. spending the week with my mom
28. Chinese food
29. the Olympics =]
30. swimming haha and swim meets with Ann
31. going out to lunch with out clothes over our bathing suits
32. on the way to the beach... "Grace... do you see that there is no sun outside?"
33. Gino's East and creeper's at Water Tower
34. Mike's cookies
35. not hiding from the rain
36. getting caught in the thunderstorm with Clare
37. Definitely, Maybe =]
38. white sox games... haha elvis nights
39. Genevieve and Bethel =]
40. fireworks
41. reconnecting with grammar school friends
42. learning there are some people you can't trust
43. but that doesn't mean that there aren't people you can trust. because there are.
44. the Rosary
45. St. James and my grotto
46. forgetting
47. remembering
48. Mamma Mia with Aunt Karen and Mom
49. Jersey Boys... I guess that's your birthday present...
50. Veronica... I'm on my blog...
51. guitar hero
52. Palmer's Place, Borders, and Coldstone
53. researching
54. uncomfortable trips to Noodles
55. Six Flags with the Toms
56. knowing that I'm worth it
57. being a natural blonde
58. letting my hair dry naturally
59. not going to Polish class
60. dressing up as Audrey Hepburn
61. Much Ado About Nothing closing
62. running down Michigan with my dress falling down while Andrea sits in the car laughing
63. standing on a roof
64. line dancing... hahahaha
65. the lazy river
66. not talking about Hubert
67. cutting onions
68. s'mores and bonfires
69. walking in the city after dark
70. not watching Kiss Me, Kate
71. actually being optimistic about this year =D
72. smiling
73. black eyed susans, green trees, and daylilies
74. Jim Sturgess
75. Bob. Again.
76. people visiting me at work
77. American Apparel and sweatbands
78. Broadway in Chicago night at the Taste
79. wearing comfortable clothes.
80. Jorgie
81. laughing about things that happened two years ago
82. the sky being so blue and the clouds being so beautiful that it looks fake
83. dancing
84. making invitations for my tea party
85. actually liking my schedule
86. having enough to eat after coming home from Kentucky
87. praying
88. not remembering my half birthday
89. "I'm going to sell these on Ebay!"
90. not having to listen to the trumpet playing
91. dragonfly lamps
92. Cherry Coke
93. concert at the park with Ariel
94. not wearing jewelery, makeup, or rainbows
95. not getting tan... again
96. babysitting
97. catching fireflies
98. walking for no reason
99. getting closer to my dog
100. realizing there are still 7 days left

FYI my original list got deleted, so this is what I came up with the second time. I think that this has been my favorite summer in a long time. It's been a good one.

xoxograce