Something was in the pizza!

This weekend I was in Duluth at a youth conference. Saturday night we got back late and decided to get a pizza. We ate our pizza and talked for a bit, then went to bed. That night I had a dream, more of a nightmare actually. In the dream, one of the leaders went crazy and started trying to kill me. She got a hold of a knife and chased after me with this crazed, demented look on her face. I was backing away trying to reason with her, but nothing was working. She dropped the knife and I picked it up, holding it in front of me still trying to calm her down. But she just kept coming. Then suddenly I not only had the sharp knife but also one of those long bread knives (it was one of those silly dream things where stuff just appears). Her husband was there too and the look on his face! It was unbearable. He was filled with remorse and breaking inside because he knew as well as I did that I would have to kill her..otherwise she would never stop. So I started stabbing her, hoping it would knock her down, give us some more time to reason with her. But it only mad her crazier. She began mocking me saying stuff like "that's all you got" "nice try but I'm still here" her voice was so cynical and her mocking laugh.. I knew the only way to stop her was stab her in the heart, but I tried everything else. I couldn't kill her. Once it got to the point where no one would make it if I didn't kill the heart, I threw the knife at her and she crumpled to the ground.
The next part of my dream was the next day and we were beginning funeral plans. Her husband and I were almost dead ourselves. We didn't say anything, simply because we knew there wasn't anything to say. We knew what happened had to be done, but it was still a lot to go through.
Finally I woke up and my youth pastor (the one who tried to kill me in the dream) walks out of the bathroom and I started blurting out the dream to her. I didn't really realize this was the first thing I said to her until later, but let me just say I wasn't let down for it the rest of the day. Apparently the pizza had something to do with it but that was one of the saddest dreams I've ever had. It's ranked up there with the mad Indian woman (who was also their leader) coming after me. I guess I was her long lost daughter and she was going through all the towns killing everyone until she found me..it was a gruesome dream, but that's another story...

A new 4/20

April 20th is known to some people as a holiday. Sadly it's not a holiday we should be proud of, and is quite disappointing that some people even take this "holiday" seriously. But 4/20 is, national pot day. I don't know much about it but people go out and get crazy high, which typically means canceling any plans for the next day.
This year 4/20 landed on a Monday, the night I have small group. We were talking about this "holiday" and decided to make our own 4/20. We were hoping to make something good out of the situation. We started going through the Bible and looking at all the 4:20s until we found one that started sticking out to us. After a bit of narrowing down we settled on Matthew.

At once they left their nets
and followed him.
-Matt. 4:20

A small and simple verse with so much power behind it. The first two words are convicting. "At once" There was no hesitance in the brothers decision to follow Jesus. They got right up and left. They dropped their nets. The complete source of income. They jumped into following this almost stranger, leaving everything they had to survive. But there wasn't even a second of thought "hey you know I don't really know this guy, maybe I should wait awhile and see what he's really like before I leave everything" No way! They had enough faith in Jesus to leave at once. Could you do that?

Sigh...

I think my brother knows the Easter Bunny isn't real..Okay so I kind of understand this one because he even said the idea of a giant bunny hopping around throwing eggs everywhere, kinda doesn't make sense. But this lead to Santa.. Along with the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy, he was brought up today. Someone said something bringing up the fact he isn't real while my brother was sitting there. Out of the corner of my eye I could see him just laughing it off and I just couldn't tell if he was trying to be all tough and cool acting like he knew he wasn't real, even though he still did up to that point, or if he actually knew before that. It made me a little said, I know he's in fourth grade and probably knows by now, but I was still holding onto the fact that maybe he didn't yet.. It's just one of those childhood things that I wish lasted forever. I remember when I finally had to admit Santa wasn't real.. I had been resisting the truth about it for quite awhile. Deep down I knew the truth, but i wanted to hold onto it as long as possible. But one year my mom or sister said "you know that Santa isn't real, right?" And that was it. Of course I said yes, but I felt a part of me tear a little. It actually had to be true now..A sigh shook through my body, I couldn't pretend anymore. I guess it has to happen sometimes and now it's over for my brother too, although I suppose it probably has been for a while. He came up with a plan a few years ago to test Santa and see if he was real. He insisted not to tell my mom in case she was the real Santa. A very clever boy he is. I'm not sure if it ever worked, I suppose I may never know. Sigh.. It's always bound to happen sometime, my mom did warn me if Logan didn't know this past year would probably be his last. But I suppose I can always pretend in my mind.. :)

New beginnings

Some of the people on my dad's side came over for Easter today, two of which included my aunt and uncle. Their son, my cousin, and his wife just had a adorable baby girl named Hannah. My aunt and uncle went to visit them recently so they brought pictures for us to look at today. Little Hannah is SO adorable, but what really stuck out to me was the way my aunt talked about the new family member. They had only been there a few days and she already knew so many of those little details that take years to learn. And how proudly she talked about the new family. And being a grandparent doesn't bother my aunt at all, she says it's the best feeling in the world. You can tell she truly believes that. Throughout the whole day you can just see that Hannah was in her mind all the time. It was wonderful seeing my aunt and uncle (yes, he was like this too, just not quite so verbally) so happy. Ecstatic.

Improvements

My family has been working on finishing our basement for some time now. All the walls are painted and the carpet's in. We're just finishing the fireplace, which I must say is pretty cool. It's lined with rock strips, but instead of them going horizontal, we put them vertical. Just to be different. At first I was kind of skeptical about what it would look like, but I figured my mom knew what she was talking about. And now that it's almost done, I really like it. It's exactly what we planned it to be, different. Once the fire place is done we can put the tile in and finish up the bar. The tile is actually made of cement, but I swear you can't even tell. It's a new company that does this kind of flooring. And it's way cheaper to do the floors then regular tile. Plus you can make it as personalized as you want. You just have to pick a pattern, and they'll come lay it out for you. To get the color they just stamp it on, and they have you there when they do it so you can make it the exact way you want it. It's a really neat concept. So, hopefully our basement will be done soon and we can FINALLY get all this dust out of our house..

Club Penguin

Next to the computer sits a tin..can? well no..it's a can but in the shape of a square. On the tin is a little red penguin with a Barney-like smile stamped across it's face. Inside the tin is what really matters. There are trading cards, like Pokemon, but not nearly as awesome. It took weeks to find these cards my brother wanted so desperately for his birthday. We went through tons of stores looking for them. Toys-R-Us, Walmart, and even Best Buy. No luck. Finally we found them. My brother was so ecstatic, it was adorable. He seems to be enjoying them too. I guess you can type passwords that are on the cards into the computer and get stuff for your Penguin. I don't really understand what they do, but my brother seems to be happy.