Auburn University: The Guy Everyone Loves to Hate.

   ALRIGHT THAT’S IT!!!!!!! I am SICK of somebody always having to rain on our parade. I really cannot make myself understand why the media majority hates Auburn so much. WHAT have we done? What did we do to personally to everyone who thinks he has the right to hate us, because that’s what this is, HATE. It takes time and effort to hate someone/something, and that sure is what all of these people seem to have a lot of: spare time and effort. And it’s too bad they’re using it this way, because they seem to have a lot of “fire” and “passion” that I’m sure could be positively and usefully directed towards something else. And the really funny thing is that this is almost always brought on my something surrounding FOOTBALL. You know, it's funny because I don't recall going to college to learn more about football; and yet that seems to be what college is about according to the general consensus. Whenever you ask someone from the North or anywhere else more that 100 miles away why they chose Auburn, their answer usually consists of something along the lines of "Well, I heard football was really awesome down here," or "I wanted to experience the football and tailgating atmosphere" etc. I find this sad, mainly because they are paying somewhere upwards of $21,916 (out of state) every 2 semesters to a university whose average acceptance ACT score is a 27 and is renown for more than several of its colleges, all because they wanted to watch a football game; but I don't know, maybe they're extremely good at multitasking and can be dually and equally focused on both their studies and their athletic obsession.

    And as for the allegations that we paid our players, if we did, then I hope we do get punished and take it "like a man" so as to thwart any possibility in the future of us getting ourselves into this situation again because some ignorant redneck with some say-so in Auburn athletics had "a good idea." It's never a good idea, Bubba. If you don't want to get caught doing something, then don't do it. If you don't like the rules, then change them. It shouldn't be that hard if it's obvious no one likes the rule because everyone is breaking it. 

    I'm also "disappointed" in the quality of athletes we supposedly paid to play for us. There they go with those good ideas again: breaking into people's houses, accusing their own school of bribing them to play, which was obviously induced by a bribe itself, because what possible benefit could they receive from doing that unless it was accompanied with a monetary incentive. In one sentence they just discredited themselves, their team, their achievements, and the institution at which they spent several years... for money?... I suppose. And as for the burglaries, I can only hope  that they were high on some kind of drug and were thereby coerced by some figment of their cracked-out imagination into going up to Candy Mountain, breaking into the Unicorn's lair to steal a pot of gold, and flying back down to reality which turned out to be someone's house.

It would have been perfect if there had
been just one more unicorn.

                                                                 

Title Schmitle

I'm overwhelmed by how much time has past since I last wrote, but I have a legitimate "I've been soooo busy" excuse. Because I have. You know how I usually have about 20 free hours/week over the course of 3 work days? Well I haven't had any of that free time, for various reasons ranging from my bosses actually giving me tasks that consume ample amounts of time, to me having to do seemingly never ending class assignments. Also, included in this lapse was Spring Break, for which I was out of town the entire time. It was mostly spent on a church mission trip during which the rare free time I had was spent sleeping, because I was extremely lacking in it. Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed the mission trip, mainly because I get a strange thrill from making things more aesthetically pleasing, especially for people who can't/won't do it themselves, like that precious bundle of love up there in that picture. Meet D.T. (Buddy) Bridges (don't know how"Buddy" came from the D or the T). 

                                           He is 84 and was on the USS Bunker Hill which was bombed by the Japanese, and according to him, 656 people died. Anyway, he had a lot of interesting stories and he reminded me of my Papa, who was also in WWII, but he fixed airplanes and things. He stood guard at the Battle of the Bulge, said it was the coldest and most scared he's ever been, and said his was the second set of troops to storm Normandy... also very scary.

Thereeee he is :) I like the two on the left because he's smiling (which is rare) haha and I'm pretty sure I gave him that coffee mug that says "grandpa" on it.

Annnddddd now I'm overwhelmed because I've lost my train of intensely focused thought that I had earlier this morning... looks like my meds are wearing off extra-quickly today. The main problem with this is that now, out of the millions of things I could write about, I don't have the discipline to discern which is the most pen-worthy. I knew I shouldn't have "taken a break" from this, because this is what happens, and then the "break" loses all of its conceptual worth. I'm going to stop writing now and hope that this fills up enough space until my next literary breakthrough.

                                                        
Side note: I've had at least 10 people tell me I should have my own T.V. show; so if you know anyone who wants to follow me and Clayton (and Katie when she's with me) around and video our lives, let me know. It could mean an investment partnership for you if we got picked up by some desperate T.V. station (MTV). 

Just Call Me the Craft Master.

A thrift shop window that
both Clayton and I worked on.
I won't take all the credit... haha

Ok, so this is an owl/initials
bunting that I made for Katie :)

These two are just some old projects
from high school: Senior ceiling tile
painting and backdrop for
"Sound of Music" play.

More owls. A painting
I did for Katie.

And these are my most recent
baking successes. Red Lobster
Cheese Biscuits and Bread
Pudding! Gotta love it.

And then there's these bracelets. This one is
mine, and kind of simplistic, but the ones
for my friends are cool too. I'll update later.

Another thrift shop window of my own.
A work in progress... old stencil stains
won't come off; I'm trying to paint over them.

Better Late Than Never...?

you can do it shelby.. youve got the title down now just a few more words and then youre done!

These^ are the words I see as I return to my post that, until now, only had a title. My cousin/best-friend/co-author to this blog left me a nice little message of encouragement, that is now an unintended (on her behalf) contribution to this post. The title to which she was referring actually said "I've been thinking a lot;" but I changed it because that's not very enthralling, especially when most people that probably read this are doing so because of an interesting picture or a pertinent word that caught their attention, in which case, access to my accrued, constipated thoughts would be unprovoking, to say the least. My computer just disagreed with me, insisting that "unprovoking" is not a word... twice, now that I've written it two times, and that red dotted underline is getting on my nerves... Nevertheless, I assure you, IT IS a real word.
       See, these inevitable ramblings are why I've resisted (quite easily) writing lately. I don't want readers to be resorted to deciphering a "stream of consciousness," which is about what I would compare this to. I suppose I just haven't had any experiences lately that warranted a post dedicated to them. But I will go on, anyway. After all, you do have the choice of not reading this.
      So, Sunday night, after repeated instigation from my mother, I decided to oblige her and accompany my parents to a particular Sunday night service at our church. This service was "particular" in that it included a guest speaker by the name of David LeCompte. Hopefully, I didn't just ruin his ministry/put his life in danger by failing to assign him an alias. I say this because he is a missionary in Muslim countries such as Iran, Russia, and most recently Afghanistan. I'm pretty sure he's ministered in additional Muslim countries, but I can't remember them, and I don't want to record false information.
      Fast-forward to the middle of his sermon where he is explaining that as descendants of Ishmael, the Arabs are also special to God and that God has His own plan for them along with the Jews (Isaac's descendants). I suppose I've just never thought about this because no one has ever mentioned it to me, probably because most of society pigeonholes all Muslims as jihad-crazy killing machines. But, as recorded in Genesis 16, they are still descendants of Abram (and Hagar) through Ishmael (even though it was illegitimate) and God promised Hagar that her descendants would be "too numerous to count" (ain't that the truth) haha.
     Super-speed fast-forward to Acts 2, and we find the Holy Spirit coming at Pentecost in Jerusalem. He (the Holy Spirit) literally came to rest upon the 12 apostles, enabling them to speak in the native tongue of every believer in the city that day. These believers consisted of Parthians/Medes/Elamites (all Iranians); people of Mesopotamia (Syria), Judea (Israel), Cappadocia/Pontus/Phrygia/Pamphylia (Turkey), Rome, Crete, and Arabia (Saudi Arabia). And for climactic effect, I withheld, until now, that between the mentioning of Turkey and Rome were two other nations: Egypt and Libya. In that order. Maybe it's just me, but I find it especially Divine that these two countries were mentioned in this order considering the recent political events and the fact that as soon as the Egyptians decided to overthrow their dictator, so did the Libyans! I also neglected the mention of Cyrene (a part of Libya), which is where Simon the Cyrene was from; he was the one who carried Jesus' cross for him when he fell. All of this is to say that, even on the day of Pentecost, there were Palestinian believers present and that God loves them as much as anyone.
      Next he started showing pictures in his powerpoint of some of the Arab people he has encountered throughout his years of ministering. One of them was a picture of 4 little Afghan boys that they found in a bombed-out, abandoned building fighting with dogs over a rotten piece of meat. I really wish I had the pictures he used because I can't do it justice, now. Another picture was of a little girl that looked somewhat like this:
    

But with a sadder expression and reallllly beautiful green eyes (no not the famous National Geographic one). And then Mr. LeCompte started crying as he was saying how he wanted little girls like this to grow up knowing that it didn't have to be that way and that God loves them, etc.
Now, at this point I had been holding back tears the whole time, and it was getting annoying because I DON'T cry, especially in front of people; not to mention, I don't particularly enjoy the lump that manifests itself in my throat after trying to hold myself together... But when he started crying, I about lost it.
I'll admit, I let a few tears and the occasional spastic frown or seemingly possessed face-convulsion slip. But, I mean, there were people around and I've got a reputation to maintain. So, I regained my composure on the outside, and sat through the rest of the sermon wishing I could go to Afghanistan right then and save all of them (a product of that superhero complex I have). He displayed some more heart-strings-pulling photographs somewhat like these:

Those are probably some of the most beautiful children I've ever seen.
Another happening he talked about was the overwhelming number of Islamic people these days who are out in middle of the desert minding their own business, sleeping, or doing 1 of there 5 prayers a day, when all of the sudden Jesus himself is appearing to them in dreams or other manifestations and making himself known to them. WHOA!.... I'll say it... I'm jealous. These are legitimate occurrences; seriously, look it up.





Moral of this story... Now I'm probably going to pursue learning Arabic and finding a way to get over there and tell all those people about Jesus.

Friends don't make secrets and secrets don't make friends... Except, apparently they do.

Seriously, I would like to know if when someone looks at my face it is secretly saying "hey whats up? tell me everything you know." I mean don't get me wrong it's awesome that people trust me. However, sometimes I'm pretty sure my head could explode. And I'm not just talking about my friends here. I'm talking about random people who I don't even know. A girl today was telling me something and was all "it's funny that I'm telling you this cause I haven't told anyone else" (no homo).... I just want to be "THEN WHY ARE YOU!?". They better be glad I have a freakin lock on my lips, well and that I have somewhat of a conscience (I have no idea where I get it from).. Maybe I should just be a bartender. Don't they have to listen to people's problems? Probably the only thing I've got going for me anyway.

On a different note, I would like to write a book about my psychotic roommate. She's crazy yall. I just don't know if she could sue me or not (libel/slander?). It would seriously be a great book, comical and what not. I have so many stories about it that I need to get off my chest, so someone let me know about that.

And now onto another completely different note... I would like someone to pick up some dogs for me.. I made a collage of the ones I am dying for..really the list could go on forever but this will do for now..

From left to right: Sheltie, Great Dane, Goldendoodle, Samoyed, Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever (which I would name Nova)

So if you would like to donate some moola for these pups OR BETTER YET, just buy them all for me that would seriously be amazing and I would love you forever. Just a thought. No pressure.