sometimes i really really dislike my parents.

I still get goosebumps just thinking about it

How incredible was it when Anakin and Padme got married (in Attack of the Clones) and the background music was the Darth Vader march. Ohhhh, if that isn't enough to send shivers down your spine.

Deep Thinking on the Herron Front

I think the highlight of my weekend was when my dad went to Kroger to get some potato salad on Sunday because we were grilling out, and he came home with one of those jell-o rings that you always see in the store, but have never actually seen anyone purchase.

Things I'm going to miss about Michigan

You might have to scroll down because I don't know why there's this huge gap there.

This is my friend Jill. We're pretty tight.	So tight, sometimes it's hard to fit both of us in the picture.
we're usually good at flossing
	sometimes we like to eat cake together.
occasionally it can get a little out of hand, though	(or out of mouth)

a story about a hero

i imagine it to be somewhat of a sunny day that we last walked down that road. it ended right at the river, where the locks were. there was a bridge over them, and to our left that you and i had walked across many times prior to that day. sometimes we would throw our un-popped kernals from our cracker jacks over into the water. you told me once that you swore the fish liked them. i never doubted you for a second. you knew your stuff. i never told you, but it was one of the main reasons i liked to walk with you every day. i always learned something new from you. every single day.do you remember that night that we ran down into the subway just to hear the man play his violin? there was nobody there, and surely, you said, that it was a shame that more people couldn't listen to this glorius music, as it would probably be able to cure many of the problems in the world. and then i fell and skinned my knee, and you had to carry me home.
there are times i remember sitting on that old rusty swing in the park with you. (you know, the one that we swore would break if we didn't take our shoes off first for fear they might be too heavy?) it was always nice sitting there by you. we'd feed the ducks and watch the people walk by. you always knew people. you knew everything about them before they had time to hide their thoughts. we'd sit there, and tell stories, and you'd smile. i always loved it when you smiled, because i knew that it wasn't just you smiling. it was like the whole sky and everything beautiful went into your smile and shone out your eyes and your fingertips, and even your toes. (it's probably a good thing we always took our shoes off, because they'd have probably not been able to hold in your radiance and i'm sure would have shattered into a million pieces under the pressure.)
growing up in forever together was something that i treasured with all my heart. i never really got inside of you, but it was okay because you were completely within myself. so no matter where i was, or where you were, we were always there, and always living. as many other lives as you saved, i knew you loved each one new, and each one more than anyone alive is capable of loving. once, i accidentally got jealous, because you were gone and i had made you your favorite dinner and you missed it. i sat and searched for my comfort, but when you got home you showed me my selfishness and kissed my forehead and calmed my heart. i know that a hero has many important things to do, and i realize that many people are in need of a hero besides myself. you've already made my life perfect. you just complete it by loving me more and more every day.
on occasion we would walk through the park and climb in the trees. you once showed me how to watch out for others. somehow you managed to catch me when i fell, only to smile and hold me right back up. we sat up there for one week and i watched you. i watched you think, and i watched you sleep, and i watched you ache and i watched you give. at the end of the week, you helped me down from the tree and we walked down the road to the river.
you must have known it would happen. you must have, i can not imagine you not knowing. i can not imagine you not knowing that that day we were to walk to the river would, indeed be our last. you must have known, when you told me you had to tell me something, that things were not going to turn out how you wanted them to. i can not imagine you not knowing that i was incorrectly thinking it would be just like any other day with you. shortly to be followed be another one, and another always, til the end of the world. i can't imagine how you must have felt knowing that that car wasn't going to stop. and i can't imagine how you must have fought with God when he told you to let me walk to your left. i can not imagine how much your heart ached to not be able tell me it didn't matter that my shoe was untied, because the river wouldn't mind my informalness.
but alas, i will never be able to walk with you again, as i am laying broken on the pavement. you saved my life, you know. just in time for me to be able to go home. that's why they call you a hero.
every once in a while, when the sun is going down, i watch you walk through the park to the tree we climbed together on so many occasions. i watch you, oh my broken-hearted warrior and i stay there right by your side always. i will always be behind you, carrying the pieces of your heart and holding them so tightly that none will ever be lost. you are complete within me, and i am now completely within you. therefore you are at last, complete within yourself, and although you walk the road to the locks with no one by your side, the path narrows over time, and you'll continue down it forever on and past eternity. that's why they call you a hero.

It's 3 am and your mom is crazy

I guess mid-life crises are hitting earlier and earlier these days. Either that, or I'm going to live to the ripe old age of 44.
Slowly but surely I'm getting things done, and I've had to make an extremely conscious effort (but I believe it will turn into a routine soon, so I'm not complaining) to have Jesus time before I do anything in the morning, and after I do everything before I go to sleep. Because even when I can't seem to give up everything to God to take control of, I can at least remind myself to do it on a daily basis. Sometimes I need to be reminded of things. Hey, what can I say....I'm only me.

And now I'd like to talk about something near and dear to my heart. Syncopation. You heard me, friends. I LOVE syncopation. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, it's when the upbeat gets the accent in a piece of music. Some classic examples are the line "so you can laugh all you want to" in Ben Folds' song Philosophy; that part in the bridge of Green Day's Church on Sunday; the high hat every other drum run in Wilco's I Am Trying to Break Your Heart; the song Jesus Christ Superstar depending on how you tap your foot....there's lots of it out there. Radiohead does it a lot, and so does Coldplay. Let's be honest, it's such a great thing that I'll bet most musicians know the trick. My favorite types of sycoptation aren't just when it occurs, however, but when you're listening to music while you're running and you actually have to do a stagger run because the beat changes. It's so great. I mean, if you're not careful you'll trip and fall, but with practice you can develop the skill to time it out.
Which brings me to my next point....golf.
Golf is a seemingly leisurely activity that slightly out of shape men play obsessively and watch through their eyelids better than any other televised or live activity known to man--including opera. I'm not kidding. My dad will be snoring in a chair with the golf channel on, and the second the channel changes he snorts awake with a muffled "hey! I was watching that!"
Anyway, so on Tuesdays I play on a golf league with a bunch of men and one other woman from my church. It's set up in match play, so you play best score per hole and there's like points for the person with the bigger handicap so it's a pretty fair match.
Now, here's a little background: I played for my highschool's golf team for 4 years, and I kinda floated by, keeping varsity rank but not really trying very hard. I didn't have a real drive (ha! drive!) to compete, and eh...whatever.
Okay, background check over. So, tonight I was playing Mrs. Bennett and I had to give her a stroke on every hole, and 2 on one. Which means if I wanted to beat her and she got a 6 on a hole, I'd have to par it because she gets that one stroke on me (which gives her a 5) and to beat that I have to get a 4. Which stinks, becasue I'm pretty good at bogey golf. So today I realized that I have become the comically ironic "competitive golfer." I smugly congratulated her good shots while in my head I was screaming "miss! miss! miss!" I hit every green (except for like 2 or 3) in regulation, but let's be honest--I'm awful at putting--so I struggled my way through a pretty decent round of 48. Pretty much a great score for me--but I left the course so frustrated because it wasn't good enough. So much for being a leisurely stroll with a stick in my hands and a ball at my feet.
Speaking of 48, my dad's 50th birthday is coming up. Which means my birthday is coming up. Which means Camp Indogan is coming up! I'll leave you all (and by you all I mean Ashley, Jared, Stephen and myself) with some fond memories of Camp Indogan.

Ahh, who could forget when the 'Yota reached her landmark 75000?

Sigh. Tear.

Or when these boys all stuffed pillows down their shirts and danced
to a Weird Al Yankovic song?

Or when this girl came to chapel withe the worse case of bedhead
known to man?

And banquet is the time where everyone puts on their
Sunday Best!

And we eat a good home-cooked meal fit for a camp full of kids!

Oh, Camp Indogan, how we love you!

My Parents Are Funny.

One would think that if something were really important to a person that he would be able to treat it like it was important. In all honesty, I have a hard time taking myself seriously. Be it a side effect of not many other people taking me seriously, or the root of the aforementioned; I can't muster up the will power in myself to do the things I'm supposed to be doing.
I guess if you want to get technical, it's not really up to me to determine what I'm "supposed to be doing," but I guess what I mean is that I can't seem to set and reach reasonable goals.
I can't create the courage in myself to speak assertively to people who take advantage of me. And I can't finish a project any sooner than an hour before it needs to be done, let alone start it much sooner. I don't take responsibility for my shortcomings, but rather try to find the loophole in the process so I can make it look like someone else's fault. Because it always is. I find times where I am sitting on the floor, not looking at anything in particular or even thinking about anything really, and hours will pass by and I will be unmoved. Those hours could have been spent in prayer, in scripture, cleaning, running, practicing my guitar, or any random piece of activity that is anything more productive than sitting on the floor. And yet while I ponder these alternatives to sitting, as I sit, I can't seem to move to do them.
Is this apathy? Is this laziness? Is this some sort of post-graduate slump that is medically recognized so I can have a loophole and not have to blame myself for my lack of..well...anything? I am a very organized person who has the messiest room and office you will ever see. I feel the need to always be on a schedule, and if I'm not than things won't get done. If I don't make a list of things to do and physically cross things off of my list to get them done, I will not do them. Plain and simple. And if I skip over something on my list, the entire list is now null and void and I am just as lost as I would have been had I not made the list in the first place. I can clean very well. However, if things are getting a little messy, I will say "I'm going to clean this on Monday," and those three days until Monday I will not bother to put anything away. What's the use? I'm going to tear it all up to clean it anyway, right? (That's how I clean, by the way. I have to destroy everything first so I can make sure that the organization of the room at the finale of the task has nothing out of order.) I have to rearrange things often, or I won't have an excuse to keep things neat. If I lived in my perfect world, I would have cereal, broccoli, hommus, and yogurt in my refigerator and not have to worry about anything else except the occasional pancake or two. I don't require variety, I require order. My life does not have order, and it leaves me feeling somewhat lost on occasion. Moving to Oklahoma is seemingly a "fly by the seat of my pants" operation, but I'm calculating Plan A, B, C, D, E, F, and G for what will happen if such and such doesn't work out. I took a drawing class in highschool and we had to do a drawing using a technique called pointalism where the entire picture is made up of black dots of various densities to create illusion of darker and lighter shades. I started my picture, which was to be my masterpiece, and much to my dismay I could not make those dots all the same. I couldn't keep my shades of dark consistent throughout and in portions of the picture where there were very few dots to create a white or grey piece of the puzzle I calculated and squinted and measured where I would put those few precious dots so as to not throw off the balance of the hue. Halfway through the picture the two week due date came rolling through and I could not bring myself to finish. I couldn't stand knowing that some of those dots were not where I wanted them to be, and I couldn't stand that my picture was not exactly calculated and perfect. So what did I do? I went home the night before the project and traced a bird and outlined it in dots. I got an A on the project, and it only took me an hour. I hated drawing class. Every single project, no matter what we drew, went the exact same way. I would look around the class at the other students' drawings and I couldn't understand how they could think what they drew looked like the bottle and grapes sitting on the table in front of them. I see no thick outline on the bottle, and there weren't 9 grapes, there were 14. And they weren't that size either. What is the point in trying to draw those objects if they're not going to look EXACTLY like the ones on the table!? I turned in 4, maybe 5 of the projects that we had to do in the class. I turned in the ones that met my expectations. I didn't turn in the ones that didn't. For an elective class, I didn't do very well--that's for sure. Actually, that's pretty much the story of my life. If something goes according to plan, I keep going. If it doesn't, I scrap it as if it had never started. If I start a Bible reading plan and for some reason miss a day (you know, due to sitting on the carpet doing nothing instead), I tend to look at it like I never started in the first place, so what's the point to keep going. I can't catch up. What is this daemon I've created in myself? Why do I know it's there and still not do anything about it? For fear of failure? Perseverance is the key. I've learned that ever since I was little. But perseverance goes hand in hand with stubbornness and that is something that I lack. Initiative. What's that? Obedience I'm pretty good at. Tell me what to do, how to do it, when and where to be...I'm all over that. If you put me in a group and tell me to "problem solve" I'll kick your butt. Or I'll create a plan and take charge of the group. Or better yet, break from the group and do all the work on my own. What am I missing? I'm not stupid. I know that I can't take control of everything. I know that God is in charge. I know that if I would ask him for help than He'd more than gladly give it to me. I know that when I learn his word and am in the Bible daily that things have a way of ironing themselves out--and even when they don't, he still holds my head afloat so long as I seek him and cling to him. I know all this stuff. I've been learning it since I was little. I've been reading about it, hearing about it, sharing it with other people--you name it. Yet my problem lies in the fact that I still find myself sitting on the floor. I don't think I'm prideful, and I'm not afraid to be humbled. I don't think I'm afraid to humble myself. I definitely am always talking to God, and being alone with him. So why am I not making the connection? What can I do to just give it all up? I make my lists upon endless lists, and no matter what order I put things on them, I can't find the proper balance of importance so I can start. Am I crazy? Tell me there are people out there who aren't institutionalized who can relate. Because the people who I meet who say "oh, I'm just like that with the list thing," have NO idea. They actually complete what's on their lists. Their rooms and desks are immaculate. I'm anal, only I'm still inside the colon. It's a mess. Sometimes I think that if I had some major crises that would force me into taking some sort of action that I'd be more successful. That I'd have some sort of motivation. That's why I'm such a procrastinator. The best pieces of writing I've ever handed in were the 20+ page papers written the night before they were due. I look back and read them now and wonder how I even got the knowledge to write them in the first place! That pressure and that stress push me to success. Right now I'm so in Limbo that I have no drive to do anything. What's my carrot? What sort of fire can be lit under my bum? I have all these things to do and I want to plan them out second by second, penny by penny, and there are just too many variables that I am left with either an empty page or twenty different pages of possible outcomes. Yet no plan of action. I would love to get married, but Lord help me if I ever have to plan a wedding.
And so what I want is advice. I need somebody to tell me what to do. And I don't think becoming an Orthodox Jew is my answer--although I'll bet I'd be good at it (aside from the whole Jesus is my Savior part). Yeah, it's nice when people listen and nod and blah blah blah, but seriously, tell me how to fix it and I'll do it! Point me to the Bible verse that will be my revelation and I'll paint it on my eyelids so I can see it in my sleep. Zap me with motivation so I can just do nothing but pray instead of sit. It's not like I'm asking you to do the work for me. Just begging you to tell me what to do! I'm smart enough to know what's reasonable and what's not, so I know better than to take everything at face value, but I don't learn anything when you just listen to me. I learn by listening to others. (Which suddenly makes me understand why I love classes that are lecture and hate ones where I have to do group work).
Ugh.