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Graduation Gifts

I was doing so good at posting...but I guess I've slipped a little bit!! We've had a busy week.

We were supposed to go camping this week, but the night before we were supposed leave my dad decided to check the weather...It was snowing!! The next morning (at 10:00) it was 73 degrees here, and it was 39 degrees there!! Brrrr...

I'm very excited. I put all my graduation money towards a camera. I ordered it today, and I can't wait until it gets here. I bought a 10.2 megapixel Canon Rebel, that comes with two lenses, a really nice tri-pod, a really nice carrying case, a 2MG memory card and a few other fun gagets. I am soooo excited!

I was also able to finally buy a i-pod! I've been wanting one for a few years now, but I wouldn't let myself buy one with my own money. So I had decided that I would use some of my graduation money to get one. I got a 80GB classical, and I was really worried about filling it up too soon, even though everyone I know who has an i-pod say, "Shyloh, I have a 30GB and I'm not even close to filling it half way up...there's no way you'll ever fill up a 80GB." (My I-pod has more memory than our computor!) None the less, I still worried about space as I was adding songs to it. (I have this weird thing where I can't fill something up all the way. I have a 1GB mp3 player and I will NOT let it get filled up. I have to have at least 1/4th free space left!! Odd...I know.) After I was finished adding 543 songs to it, 5 movies, and fifteen podcasts to it, I've only used 1/12th the space up!!

I'd write more, but I want to go eat dinner. I guess I'll title this blog post "graduation gifts," since thats all I wrote about. I'll try to blog again tomorrow.

Graduated!!!

Yay!! I'm done!!

I graduated on the 15th, and the party was last night.

I included a slide show of pictures from graduation and the party, but I just have to warn you, they are of very poor quality. The lighting inside the gym (where the ceremony was) was horrible, so I didn't even bother to include many pictures that were taken while we were inside. The few pictures that did turn out okay, were still not that great, as we weren't all looking at the same camera or there were people behind us. As for the graduation party, most of the pictures were really smokey (because most of them were taken next to the fire pit). I'm waiting for Anne to give me a CD of the pictures they took that night, hoping that they will have a few more that turned out. When I get more pictures, I will post them, and hopefully they'll have turned out better. **By the time you are done reading and make it to the bottom to see the slide show, it will already be over. Click the 'X' in the corner of the box to play it again.**

I don't like to be in front of people, in fact, I can get myself worked up into such a frenzy just thinking about being in front of people, that I will usually end up feeling sick. But it went very well, and I didn't trip over my robe or pass out while receiving my diploma!

I graduated with two friends, Anne and Chris, so that made the whole thing more fun. I personally didn't even want to do the ceremony, but my mom insisted that I should, and finally said, "You are going to do it, for me. It's not for you...it's all for me."

We had to be to the school where the ceremony was to be held three hours early for practice. The seating was alphabetized, and it was funny how it worked out. We all ended up one row behind the other. Chris went first, then ten people later, it was Anne's turn, and then ten people later it was my turn.

After practicing for two hours, we were given a thirty minute break to eat a snack and get ready. Annie and I got our gowns on and took turns pining each others caps on. Then the three of us spent the next twenty minutes complaining about the hideous gowns and how we'd love to shoot whoever invented them. I personally felt like a blue angel and wanted to sing an angelic song, but the desire to pull a trigger on the head of whoever invented those ugly things out willed my fleeting thoughts of singing. I was able to keep a good attitude, though, telling myself: the next milestone in my life, I'll be wearing white.

After our thirty minute break, it was time to go sit down, as it was due to start soon. We all sat down and the graduation ceremony started. When we filled out the paperwork to graduate, there is a section on the paper where the student writes what he or she plans on doing in their future. I didn't realize that whatever the student writes in this section gets read out loud while they receive their diploma. So I wrote something about "my desire in life is to get married and have lots and lots of babies. But until I meet my Prince Charming, I'm going to study natural health and holistic healing." Well, I couldn't remember what I wrote, and I panicked when they announced that what we wrote would be read out loud. I was mortified and embarrassed, because I was convinced that I wrote something along the lines of: kissing a frog and meeting prince charming. Why I would write anything about kissing frogs, I don't know, but I was convinced I did. I squirmed throughout the ceremony, waiting for my turn, praying that I didn't write anything about kissing frogs. I was very relieved when I found out that I didn't.

I sat by a girl, who during the practice and the ceremony, talked on her phone and texted her friends the WHOLE time. She was talking on the phone as her name was announced!! She hung up as she went to shake hands with our principal!! It was amazing. (And not in a good way.) On the other side of me was a guy who was at least 6' 3''. While we were outside practicing, he was asking me a question about the line up, I was staring up at him while he talked and he paused for a second and then said, "Gee...you are short." Still staring up at him, I said, "Yeah? Maybe you're tall?!" The guy was huge!! I was seriously looking UP at him.

After graduation, all of us graduates were supposed to leave the building until it was cleared (which by the way, hardly any of the students actually obeyed this request). Anne and I waited outside for several minutes for our parents to come out, after ten minutes of them not coming out, we decided to head back in to see them. On the way in, an 80-something year old woman pats my shoulder and says, "Don't do drugs girls." It was very odd.

Anyways, after the ceremony and after we finally found our parents we spent the next thirty minutes posing for pictures and talking. Finally we left.

We went to Uncle Micah and Aunt Lynette's house after we left and celebrated Lynette's mom's birthday. We had cake and ice cream and enjoyed hanging out with her family. (she has a fun family!)

The next morning we all got up around 9-10 and got busy working. We had a lot to do before the party.

At 7 o'clock the party started. We had an open house and nearly 70 or 80 people came. It was a fun party, everyone seemed to enjoy it. We set up six tables, and had 26 chairs set up, not counting the picnic tables and our patio chairs. We also set up the fire pit.

There were people every wear!! All the kids were really well behaved and Poppet and Lolly did a good job fending for themselves. Lolly was loving the table of junk food, which was at the perfect height for her greedy little hands!

Us teenagers had so much fun with the fire pit! My dad had told me earlier in the afternoon, "At 8 o'clock you can ask your boys (as in Hayden, James and Chris) to build a fire in the fire pit. Don't give them anything that sparks or blows up. No gas, no hairspray, no cooking spray, ect. ect."

Every time I have a get together at my house, we use the fire pit. And every time we take the fire pit out, the boys want to light it. Us girls are really starting to scoff at their "skills." We decided that sometime soon we are going to have a fire lighting contest. The boys: Hayden, James and Chris, will get one barrel; and the girls: Anne, Mandy, Esther and I will get the other barrel. Each of the teams will have the same tools to light the fire with and no cheating is permitted. We will see who really knows how to start a fire. (Let me tell you though...they (the boys) sure can make good smoke!)

When they finally got a decent fire going we got the smore stuff out. Some of those little boys, as in a few of my brothers, are going to be constipated for weeks!! There was one little guy, who roasted four marshmallows at a time...like ten times!! I promise he had at least 15-30 marshmallows!

Around 9:45 the party started to dwindle and soon all that were left was: my aunt and uncle, who hanged out with my parents. Christopher, *Hayden, *James, Mandy, Esther, and Anne. They stayed and hung out until 12:00am. It was a lot of fun.
(*Hayden is Annie's brother; *James is Mandy's brother.)

I found a can of Pepsi that I had hid in my room several months ago. We decided that we should blow it up in the fire. The boys had been playing with our marshmallow skewers and found out that if you left them in the fire for a while they would turn red and sizzle. So, Hayden and James heated the skewers up, while Chris set the can on a birdhouse in our garden. After the skewers were red enough, Christopher poked a hole in the side of the can. (Might I add this can had been shook for several minutes prior to this...so it had a lot of built up pressure!) Soda sprayed out from the hole and showered the side of James, who jumped up in complete shock and tried to run, but was blocked in by chairs, the fire, and Meko, the dog. Finally he jumped on Mandy's chair and tried to duck out of the way of the spray. That didn't work out so well, Mandy indignantly shoved him off of her chair and tried to escape the soda spray herself. The soda only sprayed for 15 seconds or so, but they were still very sticky.

This is what happened during the evening:

1. Poor Meko caught on fire twice times. (Everyone claimed that it was her fault, and she shouldn't have been so close to the fire...but still...two times?)

2. I accidentally flicked a piece of flaming popcorn onto Hayden's hand...burning a small crater into the top of his hand. Ooops.

3. Chris caught his pant leg on fire.

4. Hayden sizzled his shoe.

5. James's hat started smoking from a stray spark.

6. The grass almost caught on fire multiple times, and one of us would have to quickly stomp it out.

Whoopsy-daisy.

After a while, we decided to play on the teeter-totter. The guys all decided to try to ballence the tetter-totter with all three of them on it at once. It started out with Chris on one end, Hayden on the other, and James standing on the middle of it. Then they switched sides, Hayden and James on the ends, Chris standing on the middle. I included pictures of this in the slideshow, I'll let you be your own judge...how smart does it look?


It was a very fun evening, with much more I could write. But for now...



I included a single picture, with everyone's names so that when you watch the slide show you will know who is who, as I was running out of room to write names beneath pictures in the slide show.



James, Hayden, Esther, Me, Christopher, Anne & Mandy

Insulting comments

I have a list of insulting comments I've received in a period of two weeks...all from the same person! (Might I add, this is a 10 year old little boy...the word "tact" is not in his vocabulary.)

The first time he saw me wearing my glasses he wouldn't stop staring at me and finally he says, "Wow...Shyloh you should really consider investing in contact lenses."

I recently bleached my hair and got it cut, the first time he saw me after I did it, he says, "What on earth did you do to yourself?? How could you do that to yourself? Why did you do that to yourself?!" I told him I was ready for a change, to which he replied, "Well, if it was a change you wanted, you should have asked me first. I could have given you some advise."

The other day I was running late to work, so I didn't do my hair. I just brushed it and threw a hat on. He says, "You didn't do your hair today, did you?" I said no, and told him how my morning went. He says, "You should start getting up earlier. You really need to do your hair...that looks awful."

A few weeks ago, I was working. I took all the kids outside and we decided to play basketball. All the girls were on a team (Shelbie was with me, so she was the team captain of the girl team) and Bennet (the insulter!) and I were on the other team. We beat them 25-3 and we were big time gloating. Bennet says, "You know why we won, don't you? Because they are just girls. We can beat them at anything. Girls can't win at anything...blah, blah, blah." Finally I said, "Well, if girls can't win at anything, and I just won at something, then what am I?" He stares at me for several long seconds. And finally says, "Well, I mean...you are a girl...but you are different. You are kind of like a boy...but not really...you know what I mean?" He stumbled over his words for a few minutes before finally saying, "Umm...never mind."

Bennet is so funny! You might not believe it from reading the above quotes, but normally he is super, super, super polite! Kids are so funny, they say the funniest things!

Busy times in the Ney house

I still haven't come up with a name for my blog. It's going to end up being "Under Construction" permanently! What a lame name.

We have had such a busy few days!!

On Friday we went to Six Flags Marine World amusement park. That was a lot of fun. I really don't like roller coasters,(in fact, I've only been on two roller coasters in my entire life) but I promised my dad that I would ride one with him on this trip...and pretend to enjoy it. I dreaded it all day long, and was very relieved when I found out that he had a stomach ache. Luckily for me, I got out of it this trip. But he has already started in on our "Next Trip." It was a fun trip.

On Saturday we all got up around 8 o'clock and started our day. We ate breakfast, cleaned the house and went outside to do yard work. We've been doing so much preparing for the graduation party, which is planned for Friday. My mom wants the house to look perfect. We were all up until 11:00 on Saturday.

On Sunday, us girls got up at 6:30 and went to church. We served for 1st service, then went to 2nd service. Then, Shelbie and I rushed home and started to clean and cook for our Mother's Day dinner. Uncle Micah and I planned a bbq for Grammy (who's birthday was on Saturday) and Mama (who's birthday was on Friday) we decided that Mother's day would be a good day to have a combined birthday for them. I made the mistake of forgetting to tell my mom that I had planed a bbq at our house...until Thursday evening. I rushed home, panicking, because I had also forgotten to even plan what I was going to feed everybody! I quickly made a menu, and rushed down to the grocery store to pick up some food. Two hours later I was back in the kitchen. I am happy to say, that amidst the fact that I was absolutely unprepared for anything, a few short hours later, which much help from Shelbie dinner was served.

On Monday we all slept in. I didn't get up until 9:30, when I realized that I had to be to work at 10:00. I quickly got dressed, washed my face and brushed my teeth. I didn't bother to do my hair, but threw a hat on my head and ran out the door. I hadn't worked since the previous Wednesday, and Joslyn was ready for some help. Hudson (her three year old) was so excited to see me, and Joslyn started laughing and said, "I have to tell you something. On Friday Hudson was crying and throwing a fit because he wanted you to come over. I told him that you were going out of town with your family, but he was very upset with me and kept crying for you. Finally he says, 'Mommy...I like Shyloh better than you!'" I started laughing, but felt bad. I was still chuckling as I tried to look sorry while saying, "Oh...I'm sorry."

Today (Tuesday) we got new carpet in the playroom. At 9:00 when the carpet men came, we left to run some errands. We went shopping and got a bunch of stuff for the party on Friday. (On our list of stuff to get, we had to get four boxes of graham crackers, six bags of marshmallows, and eight 6-packs of chocolate! That's a lot of smores!)We ran several errands and got home around 2:00pm. We all 'oohhed' and 'awwwed' over the new carpet, then my mom and I started moving stuff back into the playroom. We moved two huge school shelves that weighed way too much for a pregnant woman and a girl to be moving and also moved her computer desk and the man's chair back. My mom is a very stubborn person who knows her limits, but ignores them--despite people's warnings, and she wouldn't rest until everything was moved back. So...needless to say, both of our backs are aching and we are both very sore.

I worked this evening from 4:30 to 9:30. I had all six Brook Children and we all had a lot of fun. When Addie, (the one year old) was taking her nap, I took the other five children down to their basement. We turned off all the lights and blocked the windows so that no light came into the room. It was pitch black!! We decided to play hide-and-go-seek/tag in the dark. Let's just say it was a really bad idea!! There are three support beams in the middle of the room, and a small table and a chair. I can see nothing in the dark, so for me, running around in a dark room is very foolish...especially a room with three beams, a table and a chair. During the game, I was running full force strait into the wall. I slammed my face into the wall, bounced back and tripped over the chair. I ended up on the ground, laughing uncontrollably, as Will (the 7-year old) tagged me. It was so much fun. We all decided we'd do it again...no matter how foolish it is! After I laid the kids down in bed, I cleaned their kitchen and sat down to watch TV. I flipped back and forth between "The High school Musical" and "Hannah Montana." (Might I add...I've heard so much about that Hannah Montana show, but I've never seen it. It stinks!! She is a horrible actor and has a terrible voice!!) So, anyways, I decided to flip back to "The High school Musical" and ended up falling asleep while watching it.

I'm only going to admit this to a blog (and this is partly because I know none of my friends read this!) but I really like "The High school Musical!" It is totally lame and really stupid, but I really like it! I always said I'd never watch it, but the Brooks talked me into watching it a few weeks ago, and since then I've seen it like 12 times. (Once I watched it a total of three times in one day!) I've got all the songs memorized, as well as most of the movie!

Now, I am at home, trying to blog between helping my mom organize the playroom and carrying around furniture.

I graduate on Thursday! It's so soon. I'm excited, of course. But I really wish I could redo everything. I'd go back and change my dream. I'd want to go to college and actually become something. Sure, marriage and children would be in my mind, and I would want that life, but I'd also be happy to wait for that. I would have done more hard classes in school, more math classes and more English classes, so I could be a perfect straight A student and get into a really good college. Last night I was feeling very discouraged and sad for myself. I was journaling about how I wish I was "normal" with "normal dreams" and how I'd redo everything. I was saying how I'll be 18 in 1 1/2 years and while I know it is possible for me to get married within 1 1/2 years, it is very unlikely. I was writing, "Who gets married before they are 19 in this century? Nobody. That's insane anymore." I was loosing sight of God's promises to me for my life, when my eyes scrolled down to the bottom of the page, and it says, "...With God all things are possible." It was really encouraging to see. It reminded me, I just need to relax and trust him. Earlier in the day, I came across a quote, which said, "Is there something you are hoping for today? Perhaps there is a condition which you must fulfill before the Lord can grant it. He will...if you will." For some reason that quote hasn't left my mind and it really made me think. I felt like God was trying to tell me something, and now I'm just waiting for him to make it clear to me.

Friday is the graduation party. We sent out 70-something invitations with a RSVP date. Out of the 70 people we sent invitations to, only one person called and RSVP'd on time! A lot of people verbally RSVP'd, though, so that is fine also. So far we have 70 to 80-something people coming. That is a lot of people! We hope we have room for everyone! It's a good thing it's an open house!

I'll update soon.

Saturday

It's been a while since I updated this!! Ooops. I'm already not enjoying the whole thought of having people read my lame posts!!

Today we worked outside all day. We are trying to get the backyard cleaned up and looking presentable for my graduation party. What tiring work!! My hands are blistered and splinted from shoveling bark all day. And I'm sunburned!! It's the strangest sun burn, by the way. I'm only burnt on the tops of my shoulders, my chest and a small corner of my back. It's very strange looking.

We let the goats, Ricky and Lucy, out for most of the day today. They were so comical, they had us laughing all day long! They were so excited to be out and they were acting very friskyish. They (the goats) are so cute!! I almost like them more than I like our dogs! They have so much character.

I'm so happy! Last Thursday was my last signlanguage lesson, and this Thursday will be my last guitar/piano lesson!! Yay! I will be so happy to be completely done with all classes. I'm trying to decide what I will do after graduation, and I'm starting to feel very stressed out. I've been working towards an early graduation for so long, but I had always thought that with graduation, the rest of my plans and dreams would be in line...but they aren't. Now that graduation is only a few weeks away, I almost wish that it wasn't so soon. I wish I had more time, to pick a different goal. A different dream. Things could be so much easier with a "normal" life goal. I keep telling myself, though, and all will fall in line in God's perfect timing. I don't know why he's stalling my dreams, I wonder if he's just trying to teach me patience. If that's the case, I'm a very slow learner.

I am off to make my family dinner. Hopefully my next post won't be so far off in the distance!