QOTW / Leadership Trip Story

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I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine's day! :)

This past weekend, my youth group held a leadership trip for one day and night. It was amazing! We are all leaders because we lead ourselves and leading ourselves is the basic, yet hardest form of leadership. They taught about overcoming fears and insecurities as well.

Lots of people are more afraid of speaking in front of people than death. (Which would be me, because I DO NOT like being in the spotlight, unless other people are with me...) So, guess what our youth pastor had us do? He made all of us memorize a verse that we liked, then called us up in the front and say that verse to everyone. He had us do it several times and made us start over if we didn't speak loud enough or said "um" or stumbled through. He wanted us to get over our fear.

Then, he had us do it again, but this time say why we liked our verse. Thankfully I wasn't first so I could think about it. Well, I did know why I liked it, I just had to put it in words, if you know what I mean. xD (Oh, and my most recent favorite verse is "Who knows whether you have not been called to the kingdom for such a time as this?" - Esther 4:14)

I thought we were done after that, and I felt so relieved, but nope. He had us all stand in a line at the front and he called one of us at a time to step forward and say the same things again, but this time he and some other teachers asked about our verse and what some things mean. It was so scary because we didn't know what we we would be questioned. I love preparing and knowing what was gonna happen, but this time I didn't... My heart was thumping so hard and, ugh, I wanted to relax about it, but I couldn't. .-.

The funniest thing about this trip was that the boys seemed to talk more than the girls. Like, we talked and all, but the guys, man...

So, we had to be in our cabins by 12 at night (oh, and the guys area was right next to the girls area, it was just separated by a wall.) and the girls were ready and in bed trying to sleep at 12:30.

The guys, on the other hand, were playing cards as far as I could tell/hear. The walls were not soundproof at all. I could here them shuffling the cards and that's not very loud...The guys talked about random things, including my brother telling the story about how he got his braces caught on the carpet (that was hilarious) and another guy talking about how he hardly had any arm and leg hair...that was very...weird...(and he was embarrassed when we told him we heard that xD)

The guys talked and played games till around 2:00am and I did not get to sleep before they were quiet...which wasn't very quiet because someone had the loudest snore ever. I woke up at different times during the night, but oh well. It was annoying at that time, but now it's funny. :P

Overall, the trip was super fun with great teaching. :)

Btw, this christian song is sooo catchy: Into Your Arms - Capital Kings Just had to put that out there. xD

Childhood Story - My "Fuzzy" Friend

Hey guys!

I meant to publish a post sooner...better late than never, aye?

Here's a memory of when I was a tot.

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    I remember sitting on our patio next to my brothers. Just sitting and listening to them chatter. I saw a small, fuzzy-looking flying bug land near me. Picking it up with a cupped hand, I petted it with my finger. It was fuzzy and so cute! The fuzz was black and yellow and the wings were so small! I giggled as it walked around my hand.

    I showed the little guy to my brothers and they gasped. "That's a bee, Joy!" I shook my hand and started crying. I had heard what a bee was, but didn't know this was one. My brothers rushed inside, I followed, pushing against them, trying to get in before getting stung.

    My mom was there and she asked what was wrong. I was still crying and tried to talk through my tears. "I had a bee in my hand!"

    "Did it sting you?"

    "No, but it almost did!" 

The bee looked similar to this. Pic via

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That is all I could remember, but yes, I usually wasn't afraid of bugs that young. I would (and still do) pick up frogs and lizards, caterpillars and roly polies, butterflies- oh talking about butterflies and bees...

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    One day, when I was young, my brothers and I were at a friend's pool. I was out of the pool because there butterflies flying around. One landed on the edge of a doggy pool and I was quick enough to catch it. The yellow and black butterfly walked on my fingers, it's little curly-tongue-thing licking me. 

   Fear washed over me and I shook my hand to get it off. The body looked too similar to a bee and it's tongue...was it gonna hurt me? 

    The butterfly had landed in the doggy pool. I was scared for the poor butterflies life, but I was also scared for my life...I didn't exactly want to pick it out. Thankfully, our friend was there and she saved it's life.

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Haha, ah, the weird fears of me as a young child...No I'm not scared of yellow and black butterflies anymore. Actually I keep trying to catch them, but unfortunately, since I can't just grab them, they are too fast.

I hope you enjoyed these two stories! Do you have any similar bug stories?

My Battle Scar

Okay, so I didn't really get a "battle scar," but I'll tell you what happened to me...

Yesterday evening, I was baking some bean burgers and had just pulled some out of the oven. I set them down on the stove and turned away to let them cool, but heard a clicking sound, as if the stove gas was on. I ran back and, without thinking, went to grab the pan, to check underneath.

For a millisecond, I didn't feel anything. It turned freezing cold, then I felt searing hot pain. Letting go, I jumped back, yelling in pain, and scaring my cat. I glanced at my shaking hand, noticing the blisters forming on my finger. My thumb also was burned, but not as bad. I held back my tears, while blowing on the burn. 

I can't even describe the pain I felt, it was horrible! And, I kid you not, it lasted for around an hour. Yet even after the searing pain was gone, it came back in small bursts.

Today, the pain is gone, though one of the blisters opened a little and that hurt, but only for a minute.

Being as curious as I am, I googled burns and I'm pretty confident that this was/is a second degree burn...yikes!

This was a picture from today. It looks terrible, but it doesn't hurt anymore!

The only other time I burned myself was when I was baking cookies a year or two ago. I grabbed the pan out of the oven with one hand, but the pan started wobbling, so instinctively, I grabbed the pan with my other hand, which didn't have a mit on...Yeah, I dropped that sucker and cookies smashed and flew, while I cried out in pain. I didn't get blisters, though I was scared to handle a pan for a while after that.

Childhood Memory - Tick Or Spider?

When I was young, maybe 6 or 7, I was sleeping in my brother's room on the floor (I think it was thunderstorming and I was scared). I snuggled into my sleeping bag, my hands resting on top. Right before I drifted off, my fingers brushed over something. I touched the thing and it felt small and circular. 

I darted upright, no longer tired. I've heard stories of ticks and how nasty they were. I went out of the room and called Dad. He walked me back and checked my sleeping back. Guess what he found curled up? A spider. I had killed it when I touched it. Ew. I was afraid to sleep on the floor for several months, thinking a spider would come. (I did have to sleep there other times, even though I protested.)

Well, there's a childhood story for you. Haha! I actually did have several ticks on me, the worst time being two on my head, but that's a different story. 

Bleh.

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The Color White - Random Facts

When I was younger, I was told that if you mix all the colors it would make white.  Well, a curious child as I was, I wanted to test that theory. I took out my box of crayons and started drawing. To my disappointment though, the color turned out brown.  I assumed it was because I didn't have all the colors in the world.

Well, today I decided to google it and this is something that I found:

White light is composed of perfect measures of all the colors of the spectrum.

If you mix paint, crayons, or anything like that, you get a muddy brown color.

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Now, I'm no scientist, so I don't exactly know why and all, but this kinda fascinated me. If you know anything about this, feel free to tell me! I love learning random facts like this! :D

Here's another random fact:

White and black are technically not colors at all!

Well, actually this is debatable, but I found this neat website that explains it well!

Click here to see it!

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This was really fun to write and I may do more of these interesting fact posts!

Hope you all enjoyed it!

The Day I Ate Chalk...

In 2nd grade (I was in public school then), there was a blue plastic treasure chest in our classroom that had cheap little things in it. Kids got to pick a toy out when they behaved or did well in school.

One day I got to pick something out! I dug through the chest trying to find something cool. The only thing that caught my eye was a pink, blue. and yellow flower wrapped in plastic. I snatched it up thinking it was a cookie. I didn't know how wrong I was.

When I got home, I took the "cookie" and showed my mom.  She thought it was chalk, but I told her otherwise. While I unwrapped it, a few broken pieces fell out, which for me, were crumbs. 

Then, I did it.

I took a bite.

It didn't taste like anything and it made my mouth dry.  After playing with it in my mouth, I spit it out, thinking back on what Mom had said. I took the one-less-flower-petal "cookie" and drew on our chalkboard. 

I knew, then, that it was chalk.

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Lesson from the story: Don't eat flower looking cookies from school. 

(Just kidding)

Has anything that weird/funny ever happened to you?

Surprise Weekend Trip

Hello to all you lovely people!

A few weeks ago, my parents spilled the news that we were going somewhere the weekend before Thanksgiving, but they wouldn't tell us where we were going.  It felt like forever for the weekend to come until it was upon us!

My younger brother guessed that it would be The Great Wolf Lodge. I didn't think we would actually go there, but I was proven wrong! We were so excited!  We've been there before, but it had been awhile!
When we arrived, we found our friends there!  Apparently, our parents had been planning this for a month!

The first thing we did at the water park was go under the huge bucket of water!  It was freezing cold, but our brothers didn't mind.  (I'm in the blue swimsuit)

We went on a lot of water slides.  There were a bunch there! The one in the picture had lots of turns and went fast.  It's definitely one of my favorites!  (I'm the one waving, but you can only see my arm. xD )

 There was another water slide that went straight down for a couple of seconds and then had a big opening where your tube went far up the sides and back down.  I didn't like that one the last time I went, but I wanted to try it again.  I went on it 3 times, though!  It wasn't that bad.

One of the times I did it, I was with my friend and my brother.  My brother wanted to go backwards down it, so we sat accordingly.  (I didn't want to go backwards!)  The guy who was managing the slide, though, twisted the tube, so I was going backwards!  He pushed us in, but the tube got stuck before it went down.  I was pleading, "No, no, no no!!"  Then, the guy kicked the tube down! I closed my eyes once we got to the steep slope and screamed as the tube tipped over the edge.  Surprisingly, going down backwards was actually easier than going down facing towards it! Haha!

 Have you been to the Great Wolf Lodge?  What was you favorite thing there?
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One day till Thanksgiving! Have fun cooking! :)

Random Story from Today

Here is a little drama from my life today. :P

I was going to put some mixing bowls away in a cabinet, but when I  started opening it, stuff started falling towards me.  

I thought to myself, Ugh, someone didn't put stuff away right.  

I, first, put my knees together to try and catch stuff (The cabinet is on the floor), then, I started pushing the heavy bowls back in their spot (the bowls were stacked on top of each other) so I would have hands to catch stuff.  

All of a sudden, the whole shelf collapsed and the bowls, sprinkles, and other miscellaneous stuff slid out.  The heaviest bowl, which was the bottom one, broke when it touched the wood floor, but thankfully, the others were plastic!  

Somehow, I jumped out of the bowls way.  I'm sooo grateful to say that none of the sprinkle's lids popped open.

 You know that feeling you get when you break something (which actually wasn't my fault) on accident?  Yeah.... But my dad wasn't mad at me and helped clean up the mess! :)  (My mom is out at the moment so she doesn't know yet. :P )

Well, that's it! That was the most dramatic part of today for me besides going to the orthodontist... *shivers*

You have till 4 pm (EST) tomorrow to enter my writing contest! Click HERE to see! :D

*~Joy~*