Look!!!

Picture one: The progress so far on my new room. Pictures two and three: the unprogress of my current room. I love it! I haven't cleaned since Friday. And, so here you are, Sarah. Hope you believe me now. :) Lucky for you all, I covered up the pair of underwear that was lying on the floor with a sweatshirt. Yeah, that was weird...

Hello Monday!

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Hello Monday! I took this picture and thought it was fun, therefore I posted it. These are my slippers. :) I love them. I have always wanted a pair of slipper with the "head" of a character on it, and finally, at the age of 17, I got them. Yeah, silly, I'm sure. *Sings* "C is for cookie....Oh, cookie, cookie, cookie starts with c". Ha ha! The good old Sesame Street days. Wait! I'm too old to say "good old days".

This weekend, we have been working on a room in the basement for yours truly. I don't remember if I informed you all of that. I am SO excited! I have always wanted my own room. My Dad and I got a lot done-all the framing and drywall is done. The "only" things left are mudding, texturing, painting, and shelves in the closet. Hmm, sounds like more than only. But, that is okay. I am being patient. I have also decided that since I am going to be moving my room anyway, I am not going to clean up my current room anymore. Seriously. I haven't put anything away since Friday. Now for a person who was just called type a only two hours ago, that is weird. I must admit it is rather fun though. I will post pictures at some point. :)

Earlier, I got my earlobes pierced again. I have wanted to for a while now. It was a blast. Okay, so it wasn't. :) Now I have 7 holes in my ear. Why do people do such silly things? Hmmm...

Have a great Monday!

Hola all! Some of you asked about the quilt. Oh, and I noticed everyone who commented on the quilt post was a girl. :) Anyway, the pattern is "Drunk Love 2-Tone". Yeah, kinda funny. And the pattern was found in this lady's book. She has a lot of cool quilt patterns in it actually. My Mom made one from it also.

My sister is going shopping for her birthday today. I am not usually one for shopping, but it should be fun. One of my friends is coming also. Well, I better say adios. Have a good weekend!

A Quilt!!

I have undertaken a massive project: making a quilt for my bed. And it isn't like anything I have usually done. Rather than boring squares, I am doing a sort of crazy quilt. :) In my opinion, it looks a little baroque.

Anyway, you can see the blocks I have finished at the top. So, with what I have finished so far, I am about an eighth of the way done. Long way to go...

I decided to do this quilt, because I want to have it ready for when I get my new room or possibly dorm room. Whatever God brings, I will have a new quilt for my bed. That sounded so cheesy! :)

I found a bunch of cool quilts of this same design here and they make me wonder if I should make another just to get some more cool colors. :)

Hooray!

Hooray!!! I don't know if I told you guys, but I was accepted into the student journalism "group" of a local newspaper-the Daily Record. I was really excited about it, but when I submitted my first articles, the lady looking at them didn't get back to me for several weeks. Therefore, I thought that my work wasn't good. That was something I could live with, although I was bummed out. However, just this morning, she sent the articles back to me with things I could revise, and they will be going into the paper. Woo hoo! I will be a "published writer". Kinda weird. Anyway, when it comes out, I'll give you all the link to the newspaper, so you can check it out.

Today, my Dad and I are going to work more on the addition he is making to the porch. When he is done with that and I have made my decision about college, he is going to start a room in the basement for me. My very own room! Wow! :) I know that might seem silly, but I have never had my own room-except for before Emily was born, but I vote that doesn't count.

Have a great one!

Check it out!

Or I guess you don't have to check it out if you don't want. ;)

Since I have to get up early tommorrow in order to rehearse our presentation of "Medea" for literature class, I am blogging for tommorrow. Just pretend it is Tuesday. Even though it is Monday....Anyway, I created one of these "Word Cloud" things. It is kind of fun. It scans your blog or website, picks up commonly used words, and makes a "cloud" out of them. I think it looks like more of a blob, but that is okay. :)

You can do it here.

Happy Birthday to my Blog!!

Hooray! It has been one year to the day that I have been blogging! Happy day Polka Dotted Pickles. :) Cool. Now I have two birthdays....

It seems like everyone has dropped off the face of the planet for President's Day. :) I haven't heard from anyone over the weekend. I, however, still have school today. No winter break for me. Too bad!

I had a nice weekend! I went to a friend's house on Friday night. We just hung out. Checked out their basement and the friend's brother tried to scare us by turning the lights off. Well, it obviously scared some people due to all the screaming I heard. I think my eardrums are a bit off now. Saturday, I just hung out. Sunday we went to lunch with some friends. Not really exciting, but a good weekend. Sort of makes me ready to get back into the week. Sort of.

Well, I am back. We arrived home safely which is slightly lucky since it was snowy, foggy, and, not to mention, 9 degrees on Friday. :) Which is pretty comical taking into consideration the fact that my Dad and I both somehow neglected to bring jackets of any sort and part of our day consisted of being outside on a tour. However, I improvised by wearing my pajama pants under my jeans which certainly helped.

Anyway, I absolutely loved the campus! The people, professors, programs, clubs, and resources were all really great. I would go, but I believe I have a different plan. I got a scholarship from Colorado State University in Pueblo that pays for all my tuition, so what I am going to do-I believe-is get my master's degree in biology from Pueblo which should take like 3 three more years. Then I want to apply for veterinary school in Fort Collins. If I went to Fort Collins, in the financial situation I have now (which may change once the CSU scholarship results come in) I would end up graduating with a bachelor's degree and loans to pay off. I don't think so since I still have four years to go after that! So, yeah, I believe that is my plan. I am really excited to start getting into the stuff I really want to be learning about. I am really tired of all the general ed stuff! I want to get really deep in all the biology and animal stuff.

Have a great weekend!

Seeing as I only have 10 minutes until I have to leave for school and I still have stuff to do, I have no time to blog. I am blogging however. :) I am leaving to visit CSU in Fort Collins tonight which should be fun. Therefore, I will not blog until I get back on Friday or Saturday. Chao!

College

Hola, all! Well, I am getting closer and closer on my road to "official college". Official as in I am 18, and no longer working on general ed courses. Hooray! No more sociology, anthropology, geography-which can be interesting in and of themselves, but my teachers were...not my favorite. Anyway, I have finished all my applications, filed my FAFSA, and am visiting different colleges and applying for dozens of scholarships. All I can say is I better get one. I have applied for so many! And I'm not even close to being finished. According to the government, I do not qualify for any financial aid. They don't know that my parents aren't paying for my tuition. Although, I guess it might be a bragging point to say that I don't receive any redistributed wealth...Although I don't really know anyone who would see this as positive. Anyway, to a different topic. Or at least to get off the topic of the government.



I visited Colorado State University last Thursday. It is a branch of the regular CSU, but it located only 30 minutes from where I live, so I am certainly considering it. I am also considering the main branch of CSU. However, it is more as far as tuition goes, and they have basically the same program, so I have more going for me in Pueblo. Plus, I can get a master's degree in only one year extra in Pueblo. Awesome program! The only thing that is stopping me is my jaded mind. I have it stuck in my head that after all my work throughout high-school, I should be going to a really good, expensive college. But my parents keep telling me that it isn't really the school that matters. I just need to keep going forward in my goal. I know that is true, but when all my friends are applying to expensive, private colleges, it makes me think. I guess I just need to keep praying. Regardless of what I do, I am very excited!!

Have an excellent day, all!

Allrighty then!

Hola! Hope y'all's weekend is going well. Y'all...I love it.

I had a way hard day on Friday. I had to put my dog to sleep. As you guys know, we found out he had cancer about four months ago. He did great, but in the last week, he was obviously pretty bad. Therefore, the inevitable. I won't go all into it, just because I feel like it is one, too depressing, and, two, I dunno, weird. I guess I just realize how much I enjoyed having him around. :) I didn't knowI could get so attached to a dog. I keep looking out on the porch or in the laundry room where he always is, and it just seems so boring and empty. The last few days have been hard, but I know things will get easier. I will definantly miss him!

Stuff About My Dog:
1. For some odd reason, he loved snow beanies. He would actually tackle people to get it off their heads. It was pretty hilarious! Luckily, it generally didn't happen to me, because I was too tall.

2. Once he stole a whole pork roast off the counter. Wow, my Mom was really mad!

3. As we were walking him out of the humane society after getting him, two ladies walked up to us and said they were just going in to get him. He was their neighbor's dog and they liked him so much they were going to adopt him. We were just in time!

Okay, I am seriously finished now. I wanted to give you guys some books to read if you feel led to learn more. Thanks to everyone for the discussion and questions!

My personal favorite because it is so practical and it is cool to see a couple who actually did court. Plus, it is humorous at times. : "When God Writes Your Love Story"-Eric and Leslie Ludy

A good book although I felt like it advocated courtship but left too many questions as to how it was to be done: "I Kissed Dating Good-Bye"-Joshua Harris

This book was written after many wrote Joshua saying they wanted to know what to do in place of dating-written after he got married-"Boy Meets Girl"-Joshua Harris

Oh, and if you guys want, check out my sidebar. I added some cool new stuff a while ago.

Wrapping It Up

I suppose this is the last of it. The last on courting. I hope you guys haven't been too ultimately bored.

So, after we decide that we may like to pursue a closer relationship, me and "the guy" would start courting which I have already described. I would like, once we decide that we might be a good match for each other, for him to talk to my Dad about getting married. You know, just "ask permission" I guess. And then, I suppose he would ask me and I would obviously say yes. I am not exactly sure how that last part will work out, but I know that all the waiting will be worth it. So what if my weekends are with friends rather than boyfriends, and I don't get flowers on Valentine's but cute cards from my little brothers and sisters. I'm happy with where I am at!

My Alternative

Thanks to everyone for the discussion that has been given. I have never gotten so many....large comments. :) I realize that everyone has differing opinions and convictions. I would like to restate once again that the things I am saying are my convictions, and obviously may not be yours. I appreciate the way everyone has been polite in their opinions. It makes things so much better. So, please keep commenting and telling me what you guys think!

As I was talking about last time, I have decided not to date. Rather, I have decided to "court". I guess in thinking about it, it is a little hard to define, but I will certainly do my best. First, I really think it would be great for me and my "future guy" to be friends first. I just want to get to know the person without any guy/girl stuff that gets in the way of this process. Eventually, if we both feel like we might be the right people for each other, we would start courting. I would like the guy to approach my Dad and ask for permission-yeah, I know it sounds old fashioned and I have heard many say this is very intimidating for a guy. I am just glad I am not the guy. :)

Anyway, during this period of courting, we get to know each other even more through things like spending time with each other's families and service projects. Rather than being together exclusively all the time, I think it would be better to get to know each other while with each other's families. This has two benefits. One, my family is an "outside perspective" that can help me see if this is the right guy or not. Second, this will reduce the chances of any situations that can come up when a guy and a girl are alone together often. If you know what I mean. :) Another way I think it is great to spend time with the person is through service type projects-teaching a Sunday School or teenagers' class together, for example. A third reason these ways to spend time together can be good is that it offers a dose of reality. Rather than isolating ourselves in some "romantic world", I think we should get used to doing things together that we would be doing together normally. Also, these types of things-being around people and families helps to show a person's true character.

More later!

To Continue...

All right, to continue. As I was saying, I feel like dating is 1) not a wise way to spend my time 2) a committment I am not ready to make, and 3) laying a foundation for failure later. Okay, I talked about the first two, so now I will talk about the third one. I feel like dating-in the way it is traditionally done-is a way to train for failure. Whenever a guy and a girl feel like things are not working out or they are not getting along, they just break up. Maybe they do not like personality, maybe there was a big fight, or maybe they just don't like each other's hair. Whatever it is, the two people generally are not working things out. I believe this is exactly the opposite of what should be done. To get ready for marriage, two people need to practice working things out. Even though things are hard, the couple should try to get through it together and come out stronger. If one does not learn how to do this, divorce seems to a lot "easier"-or a solution the two might come to sooner.
So, if I have concluded all this about dating, what the heck am I doing instead? No, I am most certainly not at home doing nothing. You might think I sit at home on Valentine's Day and pig out on chocolate and watch stupid romance movies. Uh-uh. I have decided on something else.

Tell God you are ready to be offered, and God will prove himself to be all you ever dream He would be. Oswald Chambers

I delight to do Thy will, O my God. Psalm 40:8

To be continued...
Sounds ominous, huh?