Courage and Grass Clippings

Hello my David!

I don't know why you wrote that you "barely" completed the challenge. You crossed the bridge and back WITH your bike (bonus points!). I have the bravest boyfriend in the world. Were you terrified? Well, yes. I knew you feared heights; that's why I thought this would be a good challenge. But courage is not doing something in the absence of fear; courage is doing something in spite of great fear. You impressed me so much yesterday, and you should take some pride in what you accomplished. If you can cross a broken-down bridge 40 feet above a river, you can do anything. You can climb Monadnock, or take down a polar bear, or fight a dragon. You are my knight in shining armor.

My day was kinda cool, I guess. Productive at least. I woke up early to babysit, and afterwards went to my aunt and uncle's house for a visit, but they weren't there. I went to the library to bide my time reading until I visited another supporter who was more supportive than I had even hoped, and I felt so encouraged. I came home, did some more work stuff, then mowed OUR lawn, with a PUSH mower, and it's BIGGER than yours. So...yeah, I'm kinda awesome. Now I'm headed off to a visit with our dear friend Cameron. I've gotta run! Maybe I will kidnap you afterward. :-D

Love you! I will read you tomorrow.
~The Princess~

Oscar WILDE ABOUT YOU

What a day what a day Molly!

We did a whole bunch of stuff today. Let's recap:

-Listened to Tim Keller sermon, excellent, excellent.
-Went biking, and completed my challenge. Barely, but it's done.
-Went to little red riding hoods and got a delicious fruit smoothie.
-Cooked 82 pizza bites and ate most of em
-Watched Dorian Gray, which wasn't half bad!

Am I missing anything? Probably. Did I use that as a way to fill up space? Definitely. Not a whole lot to talk about. Say a prayer for me that my loan gets approved so I can take that mythology course.

What's tomorrow gonna look like...so far it's mowing the lawn, chores, and that's about it. Maybe we can spend the afternoon hanging out? Who knows! We'll have to wait and see. And now I'm off to bed, because my typing is getting progressively slower and less intelligible. Alright, break!

Love you Gummy Bahre, I'll talk to you tomorrow.

-The Mouse

A day in the life...

Good evening, David!

I need to post quickly, because I'll be off to meet our dear friend JJ very soon, but I just wanted to post your challenge before heading out.

You must make a vlog of a day in your life. The stipulations are as follows:
1.) It must be a work day, meaning a day you work at Bosco's, and you must get footage from where you work. Footage from the INSIDE, not just driving past.
2.) You must have clips from at least three different general places (your house, Bosco's, and...?). By "general places" I mean you can't cheat by counting two rooms in your house as different places, and outside your house is still at your house. Bosco's inside the store and Bosco's out in the plant nursery also count as the same place.
3.) It must be in the style of a vlogbrothers "Thoughts from Places" video. You'll have to look this up and watch some examples to see what I mean.
4.) It must be at least three minutes long, but no more than six.
5.) It must include the word "paraphernalia." Why paraphernalia? Because I am packing my stuff into boxes to have a tag sale in a few weeks, and I have a lot of random odds and ends.
6.) It must be posted by next Friday.

Good luck. And have fun!
~The Princess~

Hmmm...from crappy to...eh, alright

Molly Molly Molly,

Today started out on a very very bad note. I'm not going to go into too much detail here, as I'll be telling you all about it later, but it had to do with work, and naw, I'm not fired, but close. Isn't that a great way to start off a blog post? The suspense and tension is cranked up to 11.

Let me know when you've decided upon a suitable challenge. I'm not about to give you the satisfaction of hearing me rant about how completely unfair it is, I mean I was hanging out with John all day and then we went to get ice cream so at what point would I possibly have been able to- NOPE. Don't read that, no ranting. Just waiting.

So, I got home after a really long, boring and all around cruddy day at work and talked with my mom for a bit, and then we went out to Friendly's summer house for dinner. Score! I got a cheeseburger (of course) and curly fries. My mom got clam strips, which I didn't realize this, but taste a whole lot different from the belly of the clam. Who knew! After that I hopped onto my laptop and finally decided upon the class I'm going to take over the remainder of the summer to fill up those two remaining credits that I'm missing; Classic Mythologies! I thought that since I'm just doing it for the credits, it might as well be something I'm interested in. Also, there weren't any networking introductory classes available, so this is the next best thing...for me, not my network administrative degree.

ANYWAYS, my day got a heck of a lot better. Hope you had a pleasant and productive day. I'm sure I'll hear about it soon enough (soon meaning tonight over AIM perhaps...?)

Love you my dear, I'll read you tomorrow

-The Mouse

How sweet it is

Hello Mouseboy,

Do you smell that? It smells like...like...like victory. And tears. Specifically, yours. That's right, my love: you forgot to post yesterday.

I bet it was those delicious, challenge-fulfilling cookies I made for you. They completely disoriented your sense of time. That was my plan all along! Mwahaha! I will be coming up with a challenge for you in the next couple days, and will post my decision on Friday. I think I'm gonna seek advice from some of our friends, see what they think a good challenge would be. Remember that Monday we're going biking and bridge-crossing. This next challenge will be something completely different.

Fundraising has been going well. There are ups and downs, but God is good, and I have made it this far. Today went well. I slept in and then checked off paying my credit card bill, showering, and figuring the amount of and how to pay back, my student loans, which should be GONE in the next few days. Oh how amazing that will feel. When my mom got home, we went to JC Penny to pick up my new glasses. Now I have THREE PAIRS OF GLASSES which I plan to put to good use in upcoming vlogs. Then I had a visit, then dinner, and now I'm posting to you, and soon we're gonna watch Diary of a Mad Black Woman, finally! I hope you're as excited as I am.

I will read you tomorrow...if you've learned your lesson, that is. :-)
~The Princess~

Waahhhh, I don't wanna post tonight!

I'm TIRED. I don't feel like posting right now. But alas, I have made a commitment, so I will stick to it. I'm not like SOME people who treat a pact to regularly correspond with casual disregard *cough cough CHRIS cough cough*. So yeah, I'm just going to make a quick post, then go to bed. I have to be up at 4 am. I've got a babysitting job to go to, you know!

I'm a little disappointed with your most recent post; you didn't publicly react to my challenge. Where's the fear? Where's the trepidation? Where's the stubborn insistence on rising to the challenge? Where's the courage? WHERE'S THE DRAMA? That's what our [four people other than myself who subscribe to this blog and may or may not be] readers want to hear about! And you let them down. You let all of us down. Way to be. I hope you choke on a cookie.

(just kidding)

(wuv you)

Exhaustion is setting in. I must away! I will talk to you tomorrow, my love!

Love,
~The Princess~

If only I could stop the leafing of trees

Hey Moll Doll,

Ugh, what a day. Well, the way I typed that made it sound like something happened that tough or strenuous, which it didn't and it wasn't. BUT STILL, sitting around Bosco's doing nothing for 8 and a half hours straight is not what I'd call a good time. It was dead today at work. Deader than Jerry Garcia (who passed away in 1995 and was guitarist in the Grateful Dead....Huh, was that in bad taste?). I was condemned to weeding, which lasted hours and hours, but thank goodness, shawn piped in every once in a blue moon and asked me to check the inventory of our birdseed or whatever down in the warehouse, WHICH I ACCEPTED WITH A SMILE. What  I dislike most about weeding is that there really isn't any end in sight; there is always more that could be weeded and plucked. There are only so many things that can be inventoried or watered though.

After work I came home, airbrushed a little and broke a water trap/pressure adjuster and cried for about 2 hours. After I mopped up the tears I decided I'd eat dinner (burgers...again) and then...well, just kinda lounged about. What'd you do tonight?

Welp, I'm gonna go to bed, I think. Or maybe watch an episode of Parks and Rec on the ol' netflix.

I'll read you tomorrow my dear

-The Mouse

See no evil, fear no evil, fall through no bridges

Dearest David,

Cookies, eh? Well, this opens up a whole new realm of challenges: doing things for the other person. I'll make you those cookies, and you're gonna enjoy them. One thing you won't enjoy, however, is YOUR challenge. Thank you for going easy on me this time. When you're through with this feat, I think we'll be pretty much even.

I fear feet. You, my David, fear heights. Today I went biking into Massachusetts. The trails in Southwick are all nice and paved, but when you hit Westfield, they become dirt and stone. And then, and then, you come to an old bridge, where the railroad used to cross the river. This piece of the trail still has the old railroad ties and crosspieces on it, and has yet to be renovated, much like the East Granby bridge before they trails committee completely re-did it and paved it and put fences up and stuff. To get over the bridge, you have to walk along the wooden tracks, and guide your bike over every thick crosspiece. Yes, there are a couple places where the wooden crosspieces are missing, but stepping over them is no difficult matter, and it's simple to guide your bike along the smooth iron ties along the edges of the bridge. After the bridge, the trail is gravel, but I haven't gotten to ride that part yet. I hear it becomes paved further on. I'd like to explore that far someday.

One day in the next two weeks (I'm thinking two Mondays from now) you have to come with me to either Phelps or further into Southwick where we will park and bike the trails into Westfield. The meat of your challenge is to cross the bridge. And I will be videotaping your great achievement for posterity, because I anticipate that this will be a big victory for you. I would like to get our bikes across and continue exploring down the trail, but if crossing the bridge is too harrowing a challenge in itself, I will refrain from requiring fulfillment of the full extent of this challenge, and crossing the bridge bikeless will have to suffice.

Although you do, of course, have the option to refuse a challenge and back down like a pansy, let me warn you that in the case of your rejection of this challenge, I still retain the right to challenge you. And you can rest assured that I will find a challenge that, although different in its nature, will definitely be more difficult than the bridge challenge.

All my love,
~The Princess~

CHOBAHM! Cookie time.

Moshi Moshi Molly, (Yeah, I know it's not exactly grammatically correct)

So, since we already got out of the way that this challenge is going to be doubly lame, I'm just gonna lay it on ya, no kid gloves. 

Your challenge is to bake ME a plate of cookies. The requirements for the cookies are only that they must include raspberries. Oh, and they can't have anything gross in em, or stuff that I wouldn't like (but there isn't a whole lot you can put in cookies that I would dislike, aside from lettuce and cat food). These cookies must be delivered by next Wednesday at the latest. Also yes, I will reimburse you in full, but YOU have to be the one that bakes them. You can't just head on down to Big Y and pick up a cheapy dozen of sugar cookies topped with a faux raspberry filling. I can tell the difference, I can taste the lack of love.

I'll read you tomorrow; sorry bout such a short post, not a whole bunch of time left.

Goodnight,

The Mouse

Number 50 is MINE!!!

Greetings David!

This is our FIFTIETH POST! Can you believe it? That's a lot of posts. How exciting for me to be able to make the 50th post on our blog. However, it occurs to me that YOU would've had the 50th post HAD YOU POSTED YESTERDAY. Mwahaha, finally it is my turn to challenge YOU! I have a few half-cooked ideas a-brewing, but I am going to post a final decision on Thursday, after you have posted my challenge tomorrow. I have been just waiting for revenge...I mean, payback...I mean, to thank you...for those tedious and awkward challenges you gave me. Prepare yourself, it's gonna be good.

Speaking of challenges, how about that Famed Evan Molony and his recent victory in the Wings Challenge? Pretty darn amazing. And speaking of videos, I still want to make that support video for the internship, if you're still up for helping me out. It shouldn't take too long to shoot.

I have a dentist appointment Thursday at 10 am, and my mom asked me to take her van in for an oil change at 10:30, which poses an interesting dilemma. But, ever-resourceful, I came up with a solution. I'm going to load my bike in the van, drop the vehicle off at R&N Tire around 9:30, then bike the 0.9 miles to Salmon Brook dentistry, and after my appointment I will bike back. This way I will get some exercise as well as helping my mom and getting my teeth cleaned. And that night I have the missions and outreach meeting at the church. What a productive day it will be!

I will read you tomorrow!
Love,
~The Princess~

Knock Knock. Who's there? It's Google. Again.

Dear David,

I don't know what you're talking about. I think it was a masterpiece. It was inspiring. It was ART. You of all people should appreciate the genius behind it--the subtle use of metaphor representing rural entropy, the liberal application of chaos to effect mixed feelings of apprehension and boldness in the viewer, the use of condiments to symbolize tolerance in a sea of animosity. And all you have to say is that it was terrifying. How could you have so completely missed the magnitude of meanings behind the mustard? I feel like I don't even know you anymore.

In other news, Google is taking over the world. Months ago, I had to link my youtube account with a gmail address. Currently, I have three blogs, each with a different associated gmail address, and two youtube channels linked to two of those addresses. And Google will only allow me to log into one at a time. This means, for example, that I can't make an entry on this blog and upload a video to youtube at the same time. Every time I want to make an entry in a different blog or upload a youtube video, I have to re-sign in. This is not a huge inconvenience, but it is rather annoying and seems to me unnecessary. I'll have to talk to Chris about this. He could do something about it. Google likes him.

I just got in from an afternoon of yard work. While my mom mowed, I weed whacked and picked up sticks and hauled brush. I'm all sweaty and pitchy now, but boy does our yard look nice! My mom and I are going to go out to dinner, and then walk around the Enfield mall a bit, so I may not see you tonight, or at least not until later on...which I suppose is usually when I see you. I still have to make that RUF video. Maybe I will work on that tomorrow, before poker. And on Sunday, I make an announcement at church! So I will have to prepare for that tomorrow as well. Oh boy! Too much excitement. I think I'm gonna be sick.

Love,
~The Princess~

Hope for you yet!

Dear...um...Molly,

So that was kind of terrifying. It was good, but really....how should I say....I wouldn't show it to my parents. Or list it on your Cause Facebook page. Or anybody outside of the blog.

ANYWAYS I'm trying really hard to think of a good challenge for you this time. I don't know if I should make it vlog oriented or something completely different. I promise by tomorrow I will have an answer for you; a couple ideas involve cooking, and I KNOW how much you love doing that, so maybe that's the route I'll take.

Tonight was fun! I was surprised by a couple of things: First, that you actually enjoyed building the models, and second the dexterity you exhibited. I'm looking at the pieces of the upper arms right now, and they're pretty darn clean. Good Jorb, Morly.

Tomorrow I have work until five, so I'll probably drop your camera off after that. Tomorrow will be a little bit cooler, high five, so I'm looking forward to that. I'll give you a call during my lunch hour!

Love you,

-The Mouse

Beatboxing at last, and hopefully never again

My dear David.

The beatboxing video is finally FINISHED! I just made a track, and then put pictures to it, to distract you from how bad the beatboxing is.

Today I'm going to the Bible study at the church at 10:30, then biking with my mom at 12:45 for a couple hours and having an early dinner. I'm hoping maybe we could hang out for a bit after you get out of work and finish dinner? Posting this early means I can't accidentally miss the deadline again.

I am all for you learning about cars, especially the practical stuff like how to change oil and all that. I'd like to learn too, but maybe you'll be able to show me how in the future.

I asked John to tell me if he decided to try to eat the entire gummy bear in one sitting, but he said he didn't think an entire village could devour that gummy bear in one sitting. My plans for that video are now dashed.

Well, I have to run off to Bible study. I will talk to you later, and hopefully see you tonight!

Love,

~The Princess~

Tuesdays with John

Today was a fun day. It took about 2 and a half hours to get to John's house because of traffic, but it didn't seem that long. I gave John his present and I think he really liked it! He showed me his 3D tv which is AMAZING. It has connectivity to youtube and facebook and netflix and and and....TECHNOLOGY. After that we headed over to Best Buy and picked up an HDMI cable so we could play ps3 games in 3D!

Which we did, and it was excellent. We went out to this little eatery which I THINK was called Garden Catering. It's not nearly refined as it sounds, which is a good thing. They had awesome deep fried chicken nuggets, french fries, and these things called "cones", which are  scoops of mashed potatoes formed into *drumroll* cones! He said that place was pretty much the DP dough of his highschool.

When we got back, we watched an episode of Top Gear, which is a hilarious british show about cars. Not like a sitcom about cars, but reviewing them and pretty much bashing their construction and stuff. A show I could definitely get into; I've always wanted to learn more about cars but always felt like it was too late in the game to start doing any research.

After that, we played some more ps3 games, and then it was about time for me to head on out. We hugged it out, and then I went to my meeting with Lisa. I think I drove about 7 hours in total today, which isn't that much in comparison to your recent excursions, but it's left my gluts pretty sore.


I have yet to think of a proper punishme- ......Challenge...but I should have one for you by tomorrow after work. I'll TRY to make it a little easier for you, but I feel like I've been pretty lenient as it is... :D

I'll HOPEFULLY read you tomorrow, we'll see

-The Mouse

No fair!

I know I was supposed to post yesterday, but I am pre-empting your post today with this post. I was with YOU all day! I feel tricked. I bet you KNEW that I needed to post, and purposefully kept me distracted, didn’t you? And now you’re all excited that you get to challenge me again so soon. Well fine, whatever, bravo to you. But will you please give me a challenge that won’t eat up hours and hours of my time? I worked on this beat-boxing track for over four hours! And that foot song you challenged me with last time took far, far longer! I have things to do! I mean, such time-consuming challenges are certainly good incentive to stay on top of posting, which I usually do. But please, cut me a break, I’m begging you.

Love,

~The Princess~

PS: This message was written in exasperation, not anger. :-D

Today was pretty oatmeal.

Hey Gummy Bahre,

So word on the street is that you're on the road, and are hopefully getting to Rachel's by midnight, just in time to read this day's entry! Perfect timing.

So today was alright; I had work until one, and after that, I just kinda putted around the house. We have a new employee at Bosco's named Syrena (sp?), who is very nice but just seems a little...off to me. She's very very slow in her talking, not like she's choosing her words very carefully, but talks pretty slow, which I'm guessing you're used to now, given how everyone down sawth speaks a bit more slowly than us rushed nawtherners.

I decided to grab some five guys on the way home since I wasn't able to hang out with John today, and took a nap on the porch. I REALLY wish I could've headed down and seen him; I'm curious to see his reaction to his birthday present. Let's see, after that I watched Zach play some video games for *looks at the clock* 5 hours and some change straight. Now he's getting some ice cream, and I think I'll join him. Only saturday and sunday separate us! It's just around the corner, peeking and giggling!!! Sorry this blog post wasn't very eventful, hopefully tuesday's will be better!

Sweet dreams and safe travels my Molly, I'll read you tomorrow.

- The Mouse

I am oriented!

Hello David!

I just got out of my last session for RUF intern orientation, which means...

I AM NOW FULLY ORIENTED!

I'm like a confident sailor, like a full-fledged eagle scout, like a master star-reader, like...the proud owner of a compass. I know what's UP.

You know what I'm not DOWN with? This beat-boxing challenge. It will be difficult, and I accept the parameters of your request, but I don't expect it to be "fun". I mean, expect to be blown away, but right now, I'm just gonna sulk a bit.

I'll probably be going out tonight with my fellow interns to fellowship it up, this being our last night together until training at the end of July. I'm finally getting to know people, and now we're leaving. Ah well, at least everyone will be connected on Facebook. Tomorrow morning I will be heading north, stopping in Columbia to get me a Marcia-mellow and then heading to JMU to crash at Rachel's for the night before making the long second half of the drive back to Granby. At least I will have company. I mean, don't get me wrong, Yi-yon is an excellent navigator. I mean, he got me this far. He's just not the greatest conversationalist, so the car ride can get a little boring. Please don't tell him I said that though; I wouldn't want his feelings to be hurt.

I should be back in Granby by Saturday night, Sunday I will spend sending out support letters, and Monday I get to spend with YOU!

FOUR MORE DAYS!

I can't wait to see you!
Love,
~The Princess~

Lemme hear those funky beats

Dear Bonehead,

Twice?! You're dropping the ball. This time I'm going to be a little lenient and give you something FUN. Next time I won't provide any such concession.

Your challenge if you choose to accept it, is to make a beatboxing video. Requirements are that it has to be at least a minute and a half in length, and you have to use the word mustard in it. Why mustard? Because I had kielbasa for dinner tonight. I recommend that you make the video using a number of different video clips, having one clip be one sound, like you making the the noise of a highhat, and layering that (or following it) with a bass thump. Just a suggestion. Actually, you know what? I'm gonna make that mandatory. My challenge, my rules. If you have any questions, let me know. It's due next wednesday, I expect it to be this summer's smash hit.

Eagerly awaiting your jam,

-The Mouse