Now I say goodbye to you

I'm flying out to the Missionary Training Center in England in less than two days.

Am I nervous? No.
Stressed is much more accurate.

It doesn't help that much of today was spent buying last minute items. I realized it's kinda chilly over in England right now, so I had to get some tights. And then, when I went to put some things in my backpack for the flight, I discovered there was mold on it. Thank you, humidity, for killing my backpack. We've been through a lot together. I got it in tenth grade, and it's hauled not only high school binders and college textbooks, but it's helped me across the continent and the Atlantic several times.
Did you know it's really hard to find a decent backpack this time of year? I don't even want to talk about the several stores we had to go to in order to find one.

Guys, I have so much to do. I should not even be blogging. But somehow venting is calming me down. Yes, it is 2:00 AM. But it kinda just hit me how much I have to do TOMORROW.

At least my suitcase is packed.

I had planned to do much more last week, but then a man at church gave me a job for the week helping him organize and clean his home office/man cave.

Where did this month go? I had so many good intentions...

And my Darth Vader flash drive is still MIA. As are some other things. Bad things happen when I thoroughly clean my room.

I better get back to important things. Maybe even sleep. Hopefully some family member of mine will keep this blog up for me while I'm gone. Well, since missionaries are gradually gaining permission to blog and use Facebook, mission by mission, I might be on here sooner than later. Whatever. Until we meet again!

P.S. Here's the song for the title:

Nothing is real

Yesterday the strangest thing happened.
Not only did I go jogging, but my dad came with me. Both of us hate running with a fiery burning passion. We decided, though, last week that we should jog every other day. He's diabetic and so he should exercise, and I just want to lose weight. Like every other girl ever.

You may be thinking that this isn't so strange, BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

As we were getting ready to go, Kelsey, my littlest sister, asks if she can come along. I'm still in shock. She's in sixth grade and has to run a half a mile in PE almost every day. Every day she comes home all gross and sweaty and we ask her if she had to run. And every day she wrinkles up her nose and says yes. And now she wants to go running with us every night. I'm supremely weirded out. I tried to get her to run with me earlier this summer, since I knew she'd be in PE, but she backed out on me. Pansy.

I may be the world's worst at jogging, but I try. And now somehow this idea has caught a hold of the two other people in my family least likely to run. We're all horridly out of shape. Not fat, just not, well, trim. Just imagine the three of us stumbling down the road, gasping for air as if we had just been saved from drowning. If I had been a spectator, I would have just smiled at the pathetic effort.

Today, Kelsey and I were cleaning out the cabinet under the sink in our bathroom. You wouldn't believe the stuff we found down there... I digress. Anyways. She started asking me if we could go running. My mind is blown.
We'll see how long this trend lasts. I'll only be around for another 16 days, after all...

I also think it's ironic that earlier this summer, my headphones were broken and so jogging was even less fun. That was when I asked my sister to go jogging with me. Now that the headphones been replaced (thank goodness for warranties), I have jogging buddies.
That's life for ya.

It's all I can do to keep waiting for you

So ever since my date to report to the MTC was verschoben, I mean postponed, I've had to find stuff to fill my time. You're probably thinking I'm a pro at this by now, seeing as I've blogged about a couple of boring summers and managed to not go completely insane. There is a profound difference in my situation this time. I have no transportation. Ok, I have a bike, but to bike here is to risk being ran over by cars going about 50 mph (80 kph). Nope, we don't do sidewalks or bike paths. Super lame. Not that I'd have anywhere to go. All my friends now live at least 100 miles (160 km) away. Most of them live a couple thousand miles away.

Mondays or Tuesdays I take my dad to work so I can use his truck to buy groceries for the week.
I make dinner for the family several times a week, depending on mom's school schedule.
I help my sister with her math homework.
Once I even swept the garage.

I feel like I'm in Freaky Friday or something. I've turned into a stay-at-home mom without having kids.
I still wonder what stay-at-home moms do all day. I've wondered for years... Let's not get off on that tangent.

When the sister missionaries need me, I go out with them. I've gone finding/tracting, helped with lessons... I even went to a baptism last week. Maybe I'll blog about that later.

I try to prepare for my mission. I'm supposed to read the lessons in the Preach My Gospel missionary manual. It's slow work though, because once you read a section, there are a billion Bible and Book of Mormon verses to read, sometimes even whole chapters. I'm almost done with the first lesson.

I tried to do some genealogy. Those ancestors are trying very hard to stay in their hiding places deep within old record books.

My mom had me borrow dad's truck one day and go job hunting. That was pretty fruitless and frustrating. I almost had an interview at Kroger last week. It was a group interview, and as I was introducing myself to everybody, I mentioned that I would be serving a mission soon. The hiring guy then asked how soon and how long etc. and then said I should just leave. There would be no point in hiring me because by the time they trained me, I'd be gone. I'm just wondering how much training it takes to put groceries in a bag.

Too bad there's nothing more interesting to say. 22 days! AGAIN.