My not-so-triumphant return

After many a long week without posts, here I am once more. I have been urged by many to post again on here (well, maybe not that many), so here it is. 

Uhhhhhhh. Well, let's go over recent happenings.

Youth Group started last week. I didn't go so I could hang with Aidan and Annie at home, but I'm going this week. I'm really excited to get back to it, especially since it's my senior year. I've always wanted to be a senior staff member so as to be trusted with a lot of responsibilities, so I'm happy my year has finally come. 

Moving forward, tonight my Godparents came over for dinner. They live in Iowa, but are up here visiting for a few days. It was really great to see them since I haven't in a while and I respect them a great deal. It's always great having people around with so much wisdom from experience, I'm glad we keep in contact with them. 

Moving forward still, the rest of this week looks quite good. I don't go back to work at Wegmans till Friday and I've got the next two days open to finally set myself into school mode. I've been feeling pretty off for the last week and a half, whether do to illness or work or whatever, so I really haven't been thinking about school too much. That should change though over the next few days, as I'll be free to really get to work. That said, I'd like to be able to get up earlier tomorrow without being tired, so goodnight.

Glass

We went to the Corning Museum of glass yesterday morning. It was a lot of fun! Not too many hands on things, but the glass was beautiful and we got to watch the demonstration of how they make it. I took the photo  below there and thought it came out really nicely. We also went down to Stoneybrooke park, but I didn't take any pictures because. I had brought my camera, but left it in the car to make sure it didn't get wet, which was for the best, I think. Anyway, here's the picture.

Goodness Gracious

It's about time I updated! I think that going through everything since my last update would be just too tedious for you (and myself), so I'll stick with recent events. 

This past Tuesday night/Wednesday morning I went to the midnight showing of Harry Potter 5. Worry not, I have no intentions of spoiling it for anyone who hasn't seen it. It thought it was okay, but not great. Oh well, if I want greatness I'll just read the book, right?

Thursday I went in for a follow up interview at Wegmans, where I found out they were might be interested in hiring me for cashier work.  The interview went fine and was, thankfully, rather uneventful. A few hours later they called me back to offer me the job, which I accepted. I'm not sure when I actually start, hopefully I'll find that out when I go in to do some paperwork on Wednesday. 

Tomorrow we're planning on going to the Corning museum of Glass, followed by Stonybrooke park. I think it will be a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to going. We haven't been on a all day trip like this since we went to a friend's house out in the country earlier this summer, and we haven't gone a trip to a park of this nature (haha, genius) since Letchworth a few years ago. At least, I can't remember anything else. 

Hope everyone has a good weekend!

In other news

Went driving today for the first time, along with Annie. It was fun, though it will take some getting used to. We just went around a parking lot for about ten minutes each, nothing too dramatic thankfully, but a good chance to get used to the car. Today was a pretty good day in general, though not too much happened. Tomorrow I'm going to a friend's house, then straight to a grad party after that. Saturday I'm going to the parade, then home, then to another grad party, before coming home for the fireworks. I'm sure after those two days, one as come as today will be nice. I'm excited though that I 'll have things to do.

Stuff

So my birthday went great. I had a lot of fun and got a lot of great gifts. Now we just have Aidan's birthday tomorrow and then we'll be done with all three June birthdays. 

Today I started working towards getting my working papers. I went to the high school with Mom and got the papers, I just need to get the one back from the Doctor's saying I'm fit to work. I'm not sure where I'll apply yet, but it's nice to have things moving along. Now if I could just get that GED...

MY. BIRTHDAY. IS. ONE. DAY. AWAY. GAHHHHHHHHHHH.

I'm seriously excited for my birthday. I can't wait!

Hello everyone

My, isn't it hot outside. I've heard the number 90 thrown around a few times, though I'm not sure if it really is or not. I know a lot of you don't like this hot, sticky weather, but if it makes you feel better, I love it. I'd love it more if the pool was open (I think a lot of people would), but even without it, it's still nice. The next week is supposed to be in the lower 70s which should be nice.

So life's been good recently. We had our last CrossRoads meeting on Sunday, and it went great. Everyone had a good time it seemed (even the three totally new people) and things went pretty smoothly once the meeting got rolling. The set-up beforehand was stressful, but we managed to get almost everything ready that we needed to. I can't wait for our Summer stuff to start up, it should all be great.

Speaking of weather

In an attempt to spice things up on my blog, I thought I'd update. Also because Annie said she was sick of looking at my post about the weather. So I thought I'd write a different post about the weather. In a word:

FANTASTIC.

I can't believe how nice it has been. Apparently it's supposed to be nice up to Wednesday night, so the next few days should be great. Now if only we could get out of the low 70s we seem stuck in...

Weather update

This weekend is going to be the best ever. It's supposed to be sunny and in the 60s and maybe even 70s. I can't wait. Weathermen, I hope you're right.

A poem in three parts.

Rain Rain go away
come again not in late May
Again will your depressing finger lay
hopefully on not one more day

I'm sick of you, that's easy to see
For you get water all over me
Flowers need you to grow, I'm aware
but life without them, I think I could bear.

So, Rain, it's time you got outta here
so my penciled in plans, you'll no longer smear.
I will not miss you, of that I am sure,
at least while I sit here, inside, bored.

Thank you.

A check-in

Starting on Sunday- Teen Cantor Choir went well. My solo during the gospel acclamation wasn't too bad at all, though I was a little nervous. I hope I'll get to do something like it again soon. After that was just Sunday until CrossRoads, at which we played an interesting game of frisbee dodgeball. Thankfully no one got hurt, but there were a lot of real close shaves. I got to lead the game with my brother later in the meeting, which was interesting to say the least. The game we played (which is called 'Streets and Alleys') is real hard to organize, even with Nora (our youth minister) leading, so me and Alfie had our hands full. It turned out pretty well I think, everyone at least seemed to be having fun. The rest of CR was pretty normal; we started running behind schedule, had a few problems and had to cut out some stuff, but that always happens. ^_^

Monday- wasn't anything extraordinary per say, Dad and Tim had the day off which was fun. I went with the Haehls to help them out with the Jr. High youth Group C.Y.R.C.L.E. (Calling Young Roman Catholics to Live Eucharist), which, much like CR, was interesting. not interesting enough to write about though.

Tuesday- We had a ton of people over. We had Kieran and Issabella like normal on Tuesdays, but then Nora came over, then our friends the Foleys, then another friend, then Nora's daughter Monica.

GAHHHHH. It was pretty crazy, but everything turned out fine. Then last night (still Tuesday) I got to go to the Chrism mass at Sacred Heart Cathedral. At the mass the Bishop blesses all the oils (for the sick, for confirmation, and for anointing) that all the churches in the diocese will use this year. I've never been to the Cathedral before, so the whole thing was really cool. Afterwards we went to the reception where we said hi to a LOT of people (including the Bishop himself) and got a chance to look around the church. Nora (whom we went with because Mom and Dad had taken Lucie to dance) told us about the history of the cathedral and the renovations that had been made to it a few years ago. All in all, the whole evening was very enjoyable. Which brings us to...

the future- nothing too special today, but tomorrow is holy (or Maundy) Thursday, which means another mass. Then there is Good Friday which means another mass. Then there is Holy Saturday which means decorating the church for Easter and, you guessed it, another mass. Then there is Easter itself which will of course include another mass. That means, starting on Monday and going till this coming Sunday, I will attend Five masses, spending about 7 hours in church services. And I couldn't be more excited about it, no sarcasm there.

Easter, here I come!

Howdy Howdy Howdy

Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing good. Things have been going well recently, which has been nice. A few of us have been sick with various colds, but people are starting to get better now. The addition to the living room is coming along great, I'm actually typing this out here on the emac now. It's really nice having this extra space and I think it's much, much more efficient than the way we were using it to store things before. I'm really excited to see it all come together with the removal of the radiator, sometime soon I hope.
This week looks to be pretty normal. We'll have Kieran and Izzy tomorrow (Tuesday) and Thursday, then on Friday we have another Teen Cantor choir practice. Which reminds me, this Sunday I'm going to cantor the Gospel Acclamation. It's the first time I've cantored by myself at our church St. Paul's, I'm really excited to try it. Next week will be really busy I'm sure, what with all the extra masses for Holy Week. I'm still excited though, I can't wait for Easter! Well, I hope you're all having a good day, enjoying the warm weather and whatnot.

-Ian

Happy Spring

I'm glad it's going to start warming up again this week. It was so cold taday and I"m sick of this snow. I can't wait for it to be nice enough outside so that I can start doing things out there again.

Hello everyone

I'm sorry it's been so long since my last post. We've been a little busy this week, though that provides all the more to update with.
Monday- I hung out with a friend for the evening. We talked about what was going on with us, how things were going, overall well being and whatnot. It was quite nice, I wish more people wanted to do that. Most of the time I hang out with friends it's always "what do you want to do now", but we never just talk. This time we did though and I really enjoyed it.
Tuesday- was my Dad's birthday. Unfortunately, the two kids we babysit on Tuesdays wound up staying for most of the day (which they usually don't on Tuesdays), but even that wasn't too bad. Once Dad got home the festivities began and everyone seemed to have fun. We went out for dinner after Dad opened his presents and had a really good evening.
Wednesday- was interesting. We went to a potluck supper at our church which was preceded by a mass we also attended. The soup eating part was fun, but the service beforehand was almost unbearable. I found the service in general fine, even enjoyable to some extent, like a normal mass. But, there was a guest speaker who gave the homily/sermon. And she talked FOREVER. Or for over half an hour at least. I was low enough on energy so that it seemed to never end, I almost went crazy. Once she was done though, the rest of the night went well.
Today (Thursday)- was another babysitting day, along with Dad's day off. It's been a good day for the most part. I woke up a lot later than I wanted to, but still managed to get some stuff done. Dad and I cleaned up the yard a bit after playing some frisbee and I got to just kind of hang out all day, which was fun.
Tomorrow- I want to all the stuff I didn't do today. I want to do some music theory, along with some math and GED studying. I also want to play some actual music, along with doing some writing. Should be a pretty good day, especially if I don't stay up too late. That said, goodnight.

DST

I know that we'll lose and hour of sleep, but I'm still pumped for daylight savings time. Just think, the sun won't set before 7 o'clock or so for months! Months! That's just so great. =D

More GED stuff

I got out a GED preparation test today from the library. It's a couple of inches thick and I wouldn't count on me making it all the way through, but we'll just have to see. To answer your questions Sarah (and for anyone else curious), the GED is a high school equivalency test. It stands for "General Education Development" test, though it's usually just referred to as the GED. Almost all employers and colleges consider it of equal value to a high school diploma. So if I pass it, I will be an "official" high school graduate, meaning I'd "skip" my Senior year of high school. If you have any other questions anyone, feel free to ask and I'll see if I can answer them.

Back again

Sorry for the long wait between posts. I'll try to avoid it in the future, though that's what I said last time too. =P

As far as new things with me go, there are a few things that come to mind. I've decided I'm going to shoot for taking my GED in July. It's just about the earliest I can take and if I pass it, I'll have graduated a year early. I'm excited about this because I think I can do it, and it would be really nice to graduate so early. I'll have to do a lot of studying, but I think I'm up for it. I've been working hard recently to try to do more, things like getting up earlier and spending my time better in general, so some extra studying hopefully won't be too bad.
Things in general have been going good recently. Mom is making good progress on expanding the living room and things have just been enjoyable recently. I'd thought I'd end this post (my 50th actually) with a picture of the sunset. I took it on the 21st of February, rather quickly as I tried (and succeeded) to get the birds flying over the sun in the shot. Enjoy!

Tired

The lock-in went very well. We had a good group of people and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. We slept in the basement of the church, though not very much. I looked at my watch at 3:30 AM and no one except one of the adults was asleep in the boy's room. The earliest we could have gone to bed was around 2:30 or so, the latest wass when I did along with some other people, getting to sleep around 4. We were woken up at 9 (thoughI had been awake since 8:40) so needless to say it's been a tiring day. A very good one though.

Now that I've finished shoveling

I thought I'd post on what's going on today with me. As my title mentioned, I had to shovel today. I was kinda hoping, though not expecting, it would stay warm, but I guess not. I was kind of surprised this morning when I saw how much snow there was. A couple days ago they were saying just a few inches. I heard that we might gt quite a bit last night, but this still seemed like a lot.
On a different topic, tonight I get to go to a staff training lock-in. At CrossRoads we have staff members, people who have been around for a while and can handle responsibility. Twice a year, once in the Fall and once in mid to late Winter we have "lock-ins" to train new staff members. Basically, we stay up late talking about what it means to be staff and letting the new staffees practice being small group leaders. My first lock-in was the second one of the 05-06 year, when I was a sophomore. That makes this my third lock-in, the second I've gone on this year. They're usually a ton of fun, so I'm hoping this one will be too.
Well, that's all for now. Have a good day everyone.

Real Quick Short Post

It was so nice today. I hope it doesn't get too cold again, I really like it being warm again. It's still February though, so it probably will get cold again. We'll have to see.

Hello

Hey everybody, how's it going? I'm doing pretty good. Today marks the first day of sprind vacation for most, February 19th. It's funny, with all the snow days people have been having, or really the short weeks they've caused, it's seems like everyone just had off to me. I hope everyone has a great vacation, full of exciting things. I'm not sure what I'll wind up doing, today Dad's home so we might go to the planetarium, I'm not sure if I want to go or not. As for the rest of the week, the only thing I have planned is a CrossRoads staff trainging lock-in this Friday, which should be tons of fun. I'll just have to wing the rest of the week and hope it turns out fun, I'm pretty sure it will. Again, I hope you all have a great vacation, I'll post again when something interesting happens.

Snow

A bunch of us just went outside to see how deep the snow was and it was crazy. There is just so much snow out there, especially in places where people haven't gone since it started really coming down a month ago. I took pictures, but haven't downloaded them yet, I'll put them in a post later.

Sorry Lucie

I'm going to re-post what I already wrote on my xanga tonight because I like it and I think if I were to write a post on here, it would just wind up a rewrite of that same post anyway. Sorry Lucie if you already read my xanga (or anyone really), I'll post a BRAND NEW post on blogger tomorrow. Here's what I wrote for my xanga....

"Change of Heart"
Despite the trouble this snow will cause, the delays in will enforce, the work involved in clearing it, I don't resent it. I would have in past years. I would have seen this snow fall and groaned, complaining about how hard it was going to be to shovel, hoping to earn enough pity to weasel out a few dollars for the job of removing it. But not this year. Looking around tonight while pushing the three new inches that have fallen in mere hours, it was beautiful. The way the light from different houses shone off the snow as it fell. The way it just subdued everything. I have thought of Winter as a deathlike season before, and I've known others who agreed. The leaves fall, colors are removed and replaced with some shade of gray, grass is covered over, we ourselves hide from the season's elements under layers of clothing. It can be a brutal season. Yet, as I stood there leaning on our push-broom, none of those thoughts entered my head. The snow didn't appear to be crushing, but instead almost protecting, like a blanket. The cold air wasn't alienating, but instead refreshing. It showed me that while Winter CAN be seen as a long, frustrating season, it can also be seen as a uniquely beautiful one. So let's see this 8-16 inches of snow, I'm not worried. Heck, I'm downright looking forward to it.

Hi

CrossRoads went well. Nora planned the meeting sometime yesterday before CR, so we were just about all set when everyone got there. The actual meeting went pretty smoothly, with a few noticeable bumps along the way. Those bumps are to be expected every week though, so it wasn't anything we couldn't handle. The night's topic was" love" in honor of Valentine's day this week. The night moved along at a nice pace, announcements not taking too long, moving right into the game which went well. I'd explain what we played, but it would take longer than I care to spend on it. Small group discussion was pretty good, though we had some trouble keeping our focus. Prayer went well and clean up was good. I think the highlight of the night for me though was having one of the adults say that she thought I was a good leader. I've been working at being more helpful at CR and it's nice to know I'm getting somewhere.

Later.

Wonderful Sunday

Hello again. As you can see (unless you have your eyes closed), I've managed to continue my streak of blogger postings. This one probably won't be too long though, because there isn't too much to say. Got up today at 9:30, went to church for an 11 o'clock mass. I helped out afterwards facilitating he signing of a petition for poverty in the city (it's public policy weekend), which went fine. Now I'm just waiting to go to CrossRoads, eager to see what we wind up doing. I'm not sure if Nora (our youth minister) has got a plan yet or not, it wouldn't be the first time we had to plan right before the meeting. Everything always turns out fine when we do (have to plan quickly), so I'm not worried at all. Hopefully it'll be a good night, I'll write about it later.
The picture I'm gonna put on this post I made some time last year or the year before. I took the picture, then brought it into photoshop to accent the tree, but the sky was always white. Hope you like it.

Hi everybody

Hello again! Here I am, actually posting for the second day in a row as I said I would! Miraculous! Now, what to post about?

Hmmmmmmmmmm........

Hmmmmmmmmmm............

I got it! No, no I lost it..... Hmmmmmmmmm.....

I guess I'll just post what's going on with me. Don't get your hopes up, it's not much. Today was pretty uneventful, the highlight of exciting being taking a shower. It wasn't a bad day in any way, just an uneventful one. So, let's look to the future. Tomorrow is Sunday, which means church and CrossRoads, along with general chilling in the house. This week doesn't hold anything too exciting either. We have Kieran and Isabella on Tuesday and Thursday, and the pastoral associate from our church is planning on joining us for dinner that same Thursday. This means that the house will most likely be cleaned, with a possible furniture re-arrangement also in the cards. As far as school-ish things go, I need to spend a lot of time reading this week. My Godparents gave me a book for Christmas which I still haven't read (or sent a thank you card for), and I also have the book it's based upon and another two books by the same author as the book that the book I got a present is based on.

GAH. We'll see how far I get.

Well, that's all for now. Until later, I leave you with this sunset photo. I took it at the end of January from the field.

The big 40.

Ah, my fortieth post and my first in quite some time. Sorry I haven't updated in so long, I'm still getting used to blog juggling I guess. But no more! I will be posting consistently again from now on!

At least, I hope so. =)

Seriously though, I am going to try to post more often again, so keep checking! I'll post tomorrow on what's going on with me, so for now I'll leave you with a picture I "made" last week. Enjoy!