Changes...

So I came home, to Stevens Point, for a couple of days because Kara has fall break, and I just need a break. Unfortunately, Mom is planning to make me do some serious heavy lifting, and emotional laboring, by cleaning out my room, and all my shelves in the basement. Now that might not seem like such a big deal, but I just happen to be one of the most sentimental people I know, and I'm not exaggerating... I actually started to cry because she and Steve got all new glasses for the kitchen, and are throwing out the old ones. Yes, the new ones are nice, but what was wrong with the old ones?!

Besides that, she put up new mini-blinds in my room, AND she replaced my mattress with a new one... which I do not like because it is not the old one. The old one was the original mattress Mom and Dad got for me after Dad finished crafting the bed by hand... I understand that mattresses eventually get worn out, and that mattress is probably about 22 years old, but I LIKED it... it was the perfect balance of fluffy, soft, hard, and supportive... and it was familiar. I do not like change, and I know it sounds rediculous, but I feel a sadness that I was not warned the last time I was home that my mattress would be replaced. I didn't even get to relish my one last sleep on that mattress!

Like my mattress, sometimes things, or people, you think will always be present in your life, are taken from you without any warning. I wish it weren't so, but that's part of living in a sinful world. Sometimes you don't even notice the change, and sometimes it overwhelms you... like when I was 17, and my life-long best friend, Matthew, died.

Matthew was a kindred spirit, if ever there was one. We got in to so much mischief, and so many arguments, but we were always back to being best friends before the play date was over. Even after my family moved away when Matthew and I were seven. Kids make friends fast, and most people would have predicted we grow apart, but we didn't. We both grew up, and yes, we changed, but we remained close. We'd write letters back and forth, even when we were older and it wasn't considered so cool, and talk on the phone for hours on weekends. Though three hours apart, we listened to the same radio station, and every once in awhile, when a song that reminded me of Matthew came on, I'd remember that he might be listening and think it was pretty cool.

Aside from that, we went on an annual bike trip with our mothers (not the ride around the block kind either.) and had a quirky traditional of sending each other birthday cards themed around bodily functions (we were born a week apart.) I've often wondered how I might have acted differently if I knew, that summer between our sophomore and junior years of high school, when we said good-bye to each other at the end of our annual vacation, that the next time I would see him would be at his funeral.

I cannot even begin to explain all the ways Matthew's death has changed my life. Everytime I come to a milestone moment, I cannot help thinking he never got to experience high school graduation, college graduation... Where would he have chosen to go to school? What would he have chosen for a major? Would he be married? You just never expect that the little boy you played with in the sandbox will not always be there, all young and innocent.

I remember getting a call from Matthew's mom, several months after he had past away. She had been cleaning up some things in his room, and found a large envelope in one of his dresser drawers. When she opened it up, it was full of letters and cards that I had sent him over the years. He'd saved them all.

I'm reminded of memories like these whenever my Mom decides it's time for me to weed out some of my sentimental treasures. So many things hold meaning for me that it takes so long to decide which ones are the most important to keep. Most of my Matthew items have been safely stowed away in a box... except for the stuffed cat he bought for me with his own money when we were eight. It cost him $.25 at a rummage sale, but to me it will always be priceless.

I started cleaning out my room again yesterday evening, and found several cards I'd been saving. As I flipped through them, reminiscing, I came across one with a bodily function theme. I opened it, with a lump in my throat, and read the words: "Hope your birthday's a gas! Happy birthday, Kate! -Matt". It put a temporary lull in my cleaning until I showed my find to my mom. She got tears in her eyes when she read it, then turned to me and said softly, with a senitmental smile, "You know, Kate. He's probably have a good laugh over this up in heaven."

I'm sure he was, because that's Matthew. Even after so many things have changed in my life, I know one thing will never change... God's everlasting love and forgiveness. He gave His Son for me, and for Matthew, and because of that I know that, while our life-long friendship may have been interrupted here on earth, it is sure to continue in Heaven.

Boooooo...

Shame on the fair-weathered Brewer "fans" that would boo their own team because of a few embarassing errors, or a losing streak! The players are people too, as in sinful humans who will make mistakes from time to time, just like each and every one of us does every day! How would you like it if your mistakes were made in front of tens of thousands of people, and broadcast on TV, and you had to listen to thousands of people boo you for it, while analysts break apart every aspect of each mistake... imagine the kind of pressure they are under all the time! I couldn't handle it... I know I would crack!

I remember when I was 11 years old and just starting to play the organ in church regularly. I was playing at our small sister church one Sunday and during the hymn "Lift High the Cross" I made an error in repeating a repeat. There were maybe 30 people in church that day, mostly elderly, and they had come to worship God, not criticize the organist. But I was so embarassed, and so upset with myself that I completely stopped playing and started to cry. My mom had to come to the back of the church and calm me down while the congregation sang acapella until I was finally able to compose myself enough to finish the last verse. I felt so horrible and I wasn't even booed!

You expect to boo for the opposing team, or to be booed by the opposing team's fans, but your own fans?! Come on! When I see a player make an error, or strike out, or throw one too many balls, I don't boo them for not being perfect! Heaven knows I'm far from perfect! Instead, I think, 'That's a real bummer. I hope he doesn't let it get in his head and affect his performance for the rest of the game!' And then I think of how relieved I am that God doesn't announce all of my mistakes on a JumboTron. My score card would be a mess!

First Paintball Experience...

So yesterday was the Fifth Annual Fish Paintball Battle, and I was basically forced to participate because, well, I helped plan it. This was my first paintball experience, and is likely to be my last. I've already promised that I will find something to conflict with next year's event. It's not that it was un-fun but it wasn't fun either... I actually found it kind of boring... and painful...

Call me a sissy if you must. (I think making multiple skydiving jumps disqualifies me for the title of "sissy," but whatever...) But my idea of fun is not crawling around in the middle of the woods, in the dirt, being eaten alive by mosquitos, pretending to care about disarming a make-believe nuclear weapon, while shooting and being shot at with marble size balls of sticky paint. Besides that, it seems so many of the players felt the need to aimlessly fire off multiple rounds of paintballs, hoping to hit something, instead of taking the time to actually aim. I didn't come close to using my initial 500 paintballs, yet "killed" 8 people.

While there were some good parts, like seeing some of my family that joined in, and getting to shoot my supervisor in the back, it doesn't make up for the dozens of bug bites I am left to scratch, and the several painful bruises covering my body... It was one of those things you feel the need to try once, just to say you've done it, and then it is out of your system...

On a side note, I will be leaving for a much needed vacation with my family tomorrow. We will be visiting with more family in Grand Rapids, MI... I am looking so forward to forgetting about work for a week and relaxing... I'm not looking as forward to going to the beach with several bruises to accessorize my swimming attire...

I think my dad is going to die...

My younger sister, Kara, recently had her yearly check-up, and the doctor told her she should have her cholesterol checked, now that she is 20. Kara is a super-trim, dancer, runner, toothpick, so we were all shocked to find out that the results showed her cholesterol at 262! That's higher than my step-dad's was before he started on Lipitor! When I had my cholesterol checked, it was 154, and Kara eats much healthier than I do... which means it has to be heredity...

While my maternal grandfather does have high cholesterol, I would peg my dad's side as being the more likely line of transport, seeing as all of my paternal grandfather's brothers died of first-time, massive heart attacks in their late forties! My grandfather lived to be in his late seventies, before passing away due to complications from Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, but he did have angioplasty...

So, considering my dad's unhealthy lifestyle, I approached the subject of cholesterol when he called this past Sunday. I asked him when he last had his cholesterol checked and he laughed that he didn't know because that would require going to a doctor. (He laughed because he is a surgical nurse who works with doctors every day and is even planning a mission trip to Kosovo with several of them at the end of the month.)

Then I told him to be serious because heart disease runs in his family, he doesn't eat regular meals, the meals he does eat are not healthy ones, he doesn't have a regular sleep schedule, works extremely long hours at a stressful job, doesn't floss regularly, and carries all his extra weight in his gut... all things that have been correlated with fatal heart complications... "You're asking for a heart attack!" I told him. "Well, you have to go some how!" he laughed... I told him, "Later is better than sooner..."

I'm not sure if he got the message, and I doubt he will make any lifestyle changes, which I find very disenheartening because there was a long time when I probably wouldn't have been overly upset to lose him because I was so angry with him for destroying our family... Now that we have actually been working on reconciling our relationship, and I am to the point where I actually like him (I've always loved him... liking was a bit more difficult...) I have concerns about him not being around... All this stress is going to give me a heart attack!...

Locks of Love...

For the first time in my 23.5 year life, I have kept a New Year's resolution... After growing my hair out since last June, I finally had enough hair to donate to Locks of Love...

Although my hair was much longer than I prefer (shoulder length-ish is optimal) I had some reservations about chopping my hair so short... some of you may remember the fiasco that was my hair freshman year of high school... I have no desire to be continually mistaken for a boy again... BUT my hair was too the point that it was getting hard to manage and I wasn't going to go through another long, hot, humid summer of blow-drying such long hair, so like ripping off a Band-Aid... I chopped my hair... Well, not me personally... I had it chopped by Kyla at Salon West (I highly recommend her.)

Kara helped straighten my hair and take the photographs for our station website... and gave me constant reassurances, so "Vielen dank, meine besten Schwester!"

I still feel a little like a page boy (where are my knickers and knee socks?) and I feel like my short hair makes me look even younger than I already get mistaken for, but nothing can top the feeling of actually keeping my New Year's resolution and representing the red headed minority!

...It's you're turn next, Alyssa...

Visit: Locks of Love to find out how you can donate... They will actually take hair as short as 6 inches and sell it at fair market value to offset their own wig-making costs...