There is so much going on in our youth group. It’s kind of ridiculous. We’ve got one girl pregnant by another young guy in our youth group, who currently has no home. Two more girls want to leave the youth group for a catfight. Another one is going through counseling. Another NEEDS counseling for things we’ve found out recently. Another is depressed. We are all overwhelmed by trying to even emotionally handling these things much less dealing with the students and parents. Our youth pastor is on his last leg. The youth group was/is doing so well and I think we are just getting bombarded from Satan. This week is our big yearly lock-in. I hope this can provide a new start for a lot of the students and maybe an energizer for the other leaders. Emma and Lexi will be staying with my mom so we can go. I won’t be going to the go-cart/video game place with them from midnight to 6am but we will be hanging out with them until then. So let’s hope it turns out good!
Collarbone update
Scott is getting better. He even went half a day yesterday without taking his pain pills. It only seems to hurt when he moves it by accident unlike at the beginning where he could not find a place to sit, stand or lay that did not hurt. He has learned to dress himself if he has to and even got the kids ready for school on Wednesday. He also watched them by himself on Friday and got Lexi down for her nap. The only thing he has not done is drive yet. But that’s mainly because of the medication. We go to an orthopedic this afternoon to see what he says. We had a good x-ray technician friend look at his x-rays last night and she said she agreed with the 2nd dr that either he broke 2 different bones or has a chip floating in there. So we’ll see.
I must be insane
As part of our bible study, the book gave us a challenge to get rid of all media for 30 days that has any sexual messages. I told the girls I would participate but I practically swore I wouldn’t give up Grey’s Anatomy. Now it seems since it is such a struggle, it is the only right thing to give up. So I am. One of the older girls (who is as addicted as I am) is not going to watch it for 30 days either. We may be insane, but I’m hoping it jumpstarts some of the girls into getting rid of some stuff that they don’t really need to begin with and then they won’t miss when it’s gone. I don’t see it so much of an issue with the sexual content, but that I sent the message that I wouldn’t let it go because I was holding so tight to it. Too much of anything is bad and I want to practically send that message to them. I don’t think I’d be much of a leader if I didn’t. So here we go, 4 episodes to go.
8 months and counting
So we have a “situation” with one of the girls in bible study. This is not the same girl as I have talked about in the past. This one has gotten herself pregnant with a one-time thing with another guy in youth group. This girl I would already consider high-risk. She lives with only her mom and brother who aren’t very supportive of her anyway. I don’t know how she will deal with bringing a child into the situation. The father originally wanted nothing to do with the baby. The girl has a lot of tough decisions ahead of her. I feel so heartbroken for her.
The “other” girl looks like we will be setting up some counseling sessions for with a local dr counselor person. Hopefully that will turn out well. That girl has a rough family life to but I can see a lot of potential for her. Smart, independent girl who really wants to do that right thing.
I had no idea I would be getting into all this by taking on a small bible study with a few teenage girls.
LoA
Ladies of Axis (LoA) is the new name to our youth girls bible study. I went yesterday to the t-shirt printers and they should be ready by next Thursday when the youth group is having a huge lock-in. I had a graphic artist friend do the logo and used the same printing place that the youth group t-shirts were printed at. I have to admit it was kind of weird to get t-shirts printed for some reason. But I’m excited that they were excited. It was all their idea to get them done and I’m just hoping when the next one rolls around we’ll have even more participation.
Reunion – Part 2
So Saturday…I picked up the cake and bought some decorating stuff that morning. We met at the Legion at 1 to decorate. Had a panic moment when the lady said we couldn’t decorate because we hadn’t paid all of our money. Which I knew we owed money and I was supposed to bring the checkbook to pay the rest but she insisted I had to pay cash on the spot. I luckily had money for the cash box and paid her. Crisis averted.
So decorating was pretty uneventful. I did come up with the idea of putting the tables is a 96 shape. I think everyone was skeptical at first but then when it got done, it was pretty cool because it didn’t matter which end of the room you were on, it still read 96. And we did one set of tables in blue and one in yellow. We had mums on all the tables with a bouquet of blue and yellow balloons attached to each. We also had a memory table with yearbooks and such. We spent 2 hours decorating and most of the was moving tables and chairs around so we were all pretty efficient. I think several people were hurting pretty bad from the late night before so they were ready to get done.
So reunion time rolled around. I wore the same outfit I wore to the American Idol concert. I can’t believe I didn’t buy something new for my reunion but anyway. It was a brown satin corset with jeans and brown sequins-y heels. N and I worked the sign in table for the first hour or so. Which was nice because it gave me something to do instead of trying to mingle. There was only 1 or 2 people I flat out didn’t recognize. Thankfully N has a very vibrant personality and covered whatever ignorance we had. So once most people got in, we had the DJ announce dinner and everyone ate. Most people had seen each other the night before, so to me it was a little anti-climatic but it was a nice dinner. So the Prez and VP of our class got up and did a little speech about thanking everyone and remembering the two classmates that had passed on. It was a nice ending to the speech. So the DJ started after that. People were slow moving to start moving around and dancing. I think we had the most people dancing (around 20 maybe) to the electric slide. Did I mention our class NEVER won spirit week and had the least school spirit ever? I was not surprised at all at the lack of participation. Needless to say, most people moved into the adjoining bar and socialized there. People, including me, danced on and off to the music but our DJ was HORRIBLE. He had nothing new to play, no Sexy Back, no Buttons, nothing good to dance with. So we were stuck with 80-90s music and that just got old. But there was this one guy who when drunk tended to dance a lot and he was hilarious (he was voted most school spirit from our class). He was the only guy really that danced. And he was lovin dancing with all the girls. We also had a little photo-op place set up and a few people got their pictures taken. We also had a prof photographer taking pictures. We had her pictures and our senior video playing on a screen throughout the night. I think I’m painting a really bad picture of what happened. It WAS a lot of fun. It seemed like everyone was mixing well. People who probably never talked in school were talking to each other and I think the people who were there were sincerely happy to see one another. No big surprise like makeover girl from Friday night. One guy that showed up was a lot different. He must have hit his growth spurt after school because he had grown much taller and bigger and supposedly he graduated at the top of his class at the Citadel where he never really excelled in high school. I found out a couple girls are pregnant. In fact, several people were pregnant or had just had babies recently. So overall, the night was a huge success. We had 10-15 people show up at the door we were counting on so the coordinators ended up not having to pay any extra money. In fact, we had $150 left over. Of course, the year before had $3000 left over, but I’m not complaining so I ended up getting money back. Overall, I’m happy that I helped out and everyone considers it a success so maybe the 20th will be easier to plan and we’ll do something a little more extravagant and have more people. Who knows. I’m just glad I have one more thing off of my plate!!
Collarbone update
So this past week has been pretty tough. It definitely has gotten better since my last post though. Scott’s pain has subsided some and all he needs help with for himself is getting dressed and sometimes getting off the couch. He even did a little Wal-Mart shopping on his own yesterday. But he is unable to help out much with the kids. He can’t really pick them up and can’t change Lexi’s diaper. So although is presence is appreciated, I’m the one up every morning with them and providing most of their care. Usually when Scott was off at work, I usually got one morning where I could sleep instead of getting up and doing the breakfast thing. So it kind of stinks. But I know he really hates being in the situation he’s in so I’m not irritated at him in any way. Saturday I had to take him back to the dr because he was out of pain medication and they wouldn’t give him any more pills until he was seen again. That dr told him he was concerned there was a chip and he may have to have surgery to get it out. He didn’t refer him to anyone, but left it to the dr he was supposed to see yesterday. So I took him back again yesterday (and did I mention he can’t drive so I have to take everyone everywhere) and he got a referral to an orthopedic. But he did give him some new medicine that actually helped with the pain and didn’t make Scott drowsy, so that’s really good. And my understanding it is 4-6 weeks, not 6-8 weeks. So one down and hopefully 3 to go.
Reunion Part 1
I still want to post about the reunion, so let me just get done what I can for now. Friday night. Only 6 of us showed up for the tailgating at the football game. I didn’t even recognize one of the guys. He looked really good and his wife was really cute. We made fun of ourselves for being such dorks with only 6 people standing under a tent with a big sign but oh well. We went and got seats up in the stands together and we ended up having probably 20 graduates or so and spouses show up. I was pretty pleased. Around 3rd quarter, we were losing the football game and some of us decided to go ahead to the restaurant/bar. So we head over there and there are already several people there. I decide to just go for it and speak to everyone I saw. Everyone was being so nice to each other at the game. It was quite weird. Most people sat with their friends from school but everyone seemed, like, so mature and like good old friends that really missed seeing each other. It was quite odd. Anyway, so I go up to this guy at the bar who was and is really cute. He seemed a little drunk already but I gave him a big smile and moved to hug him and he smiled and made some really nice comment about how great I looked. He seemed genuinely shocked. Ok, so it was a drunk statement, but I’ll take it. I talked to everyone I could that night. Seems like everyone talked to everyone. It was really cool. There was one girl that showed up with her fake boobs hanging out. She was editor of the newspaper in school and well, homely/shy I guess you could say. She said she got braces, got rid of her contacts and then got “accessories”. Oh and let me not forget, that “she got laid and laid loosened up.” She seemed very intent on letting everyone know what a dork she thought she was in school and how much she had improved. Ok, so maybe that’s what I think of myself too but I really hope I didn’t come across the same as her. Anyway, we left around midnight. The girls spent the night with my mom. It was actually Lexi’s first night overnight somewhere. She slept upstairs with Emma on a palet (how do you spell that word??). So maybe she can start doing sleepovers too. OH, and a little more reunion gossipy stuff, that cute guy ended up making out with a single girl at the bar and my friend M apparently has pictures of it. I still have yet to see them. OK, maybe I’ll do Saturday tomorrow. I think I’m going to bed.