Drinking and driving ~Star Ryan Dunn dead at 34~

I never got the chance to know my Uncle Steve, he was left in a vegetative state after drinking and driving. My 3rd grade teacher was left with daily agonizing pain after a drunk driver came into her lane and crushed her legs.
That same year, a 2nd grader was left with a crippled arm after a drunk driver hit his car on the way home.
Every single person has been affected by drinking and driving some how. Today it has claimed 2 more lives. Jackass star Ryan Dunn and his unidentified passenger.
It always saddens me to hear of some one dying in a needless death. It angers me to hear a death was totally preventable. I hope this may remind people not to drink and drive.
Have fun with your friends, but call a cab!
Here is a powerful poem I found
Take the Keys
By Angela Rouse
As you walk from the party,
Think you're O.K.
Get in the car and drive away.

Go to switch lanes,
Have to swerve to the right,
Can barely see.
It's the middle of the night.

Hit the sidewalk,
Don't know what you did.
Get out of the car,
Realize you hit a kid.

You go to check,
Make sure he's alive.
God, he must have only been 5.

Cops show up,
Cuff your hands.
Take you to prison,
Ruin all your plans.

You were gonna go to college,
Start a career.
Now you're locked up
For at least 20 years.

You realize you made
The biggest mistake of your life.
Decide one day,
To end it with a knife.

Now you're dead,
And so is he.
This all could have been prevented,
If a friend would have taken the keys!

Commander Kellie and memory lane

JP was over at our house the other day. My brother thought it would be funny to put in an "entertaining" video for him. Nick dug through our video cabinet and pulled out the VHS, "Commander Kellie and the Superkids".
I was amazed Josh had never heard of it; being he is only a year younger than me, and grew up around the same crowd.
A futuristic 90's video, it was all about a group of kids using faith to get out of situations. Watching the video effects, we laughed at how our modern technology for video effects has made anything over 5yrs old look hilarious.
Nick could only handle a few minutes of it, before he put in Nemo. Babysitting little Kendall back when she was three, she was obsessed with Nemo. She'd watch it every time she was at our house.
Both movies sent me down memory lane. It made me giggle to think of how little kids obsess over their favorite movies.
I was seven years old the first time I ever heard of Commander Kellie. I only ever got to see tiny clips of it, but it was all my friends ever talked about. Out on the playground, they would all get together and act out the movie.
I can recall, Holly(blondie) always played the character of Missy because she was blonde. Katie played Valerie because she had the same brown hair. I remember one time the two getting into a tear filled argument because one was upset that the other always got to play that character just because their hair color.
I never knew the whole story, so I would jump into the game and start making things up. Every one would shoo me away because I was doing it all wrong.
It turned into almost a joke for me, because EVERY SINGLE TIME it would be put on to watch, something would come up, causing me to have to leave. I would see the movie on the screen and would laugh, "Oh, must be almost time for me to go, Commander Kellie is on." And without fail, the teacher, pastor, aunt, or mom would always show up and say I had to go because of this or that.
It became a mission of mine to see the entire movie. I tried so hard for so long. Along the way.....the story teller I am.... I would spend my bedtime hours laying there imagining what happened in the next scene that I didn't get to see. My theories got very elaborate and very exciting.
I talked about it constantly to all the adults in my life, hoping maybe one of them could help get me to see it.
Sadly, it took until my 12th bday for my aunt to buy the video, so that I could FINALLY watch the entire thing. I was very disappointed because it was not at all like I imagined, but I was thrilled that I had finally accomplished my goal after all that time. Even worse, I got to school and wanted to finally be included in the conversations about it, and there were none to be found. Every one found it strange that I wanted to talk about a little kids movie. NOOOOO! Ha, ha.
I was rather mad about it at the time, but seeing it again recently, made me laugh to think of all the times I tried and tried and tried to see it. Nothing ever worked!
Come to think of it, that happens a lot to me.I missed my chance for a full ride scholarship to the university of my dreams, because my SAT's were off by 10 points. The day I was sick, the news people talked to my class about the new building. My first time buying a scratch it, the person in line behind me won $100.
All my childhood I was madly in love with Michael W. Smith. I dreamed of getting to meet him; he was all I ever talked about. Once when my dad was in the hospital, he was only allowed to leave for an hour. Dad went with us to a meet and greet with Michael. We were standing in line for so long, but we had just reached the point where I could see Michael off in the distance. I was so squealing excited, when Mom announced Dad's hour was up and we had to leave!

Me and my luck lol! Well let's hope if I do ever get to meet Michael, it will be different than the experience of getting to see the Commander Kellie movie. Hopefully it will be as cool as I hoped when I was little, and hopefully people will agree with me that it was cool.
Moral of this story....If I ever tell you I got to meet Michael W. Smith, squeal and jump and be very excited for me, no matter how you really feel about it! LOL




Here's one of the clips I found that kinda made me giggle.




Oh, p.s. THANKS FOR THE VIDEO AUNT TERI! You made a dream come true =D Love you

My unique disability

I was just an iddy biddy girl when I first knew something was different about me. It finally clicked on a day our family made a trip from Portland to Molalla.
Driving down the highway I saw a dead skunk in the road. I had always thought if something looked gross, you said it stunk. It's guts and gore made me go, "Oh man that stinks, uh that's terrible!" *grabs nose*
That's when my older brother, Nick, said, "It doesn't stink, it's just gross."
He and I got in a big argument over weather it stunk or not. I pointed out all it's nasty details, and said that it was the worst smell ever. I was near furious when mom agreed it didn't stink.
I can remember thinking, "What is wrong with these people? How can they stand the look of it?"
Nick said the way something looks does not make it smell. Then he mentioned smell being the taste in your nose. I thought he was crazy for saying that my nose could taste. Several arguments and a doctor appointment later, I found out I have no sense of smell.
Think of your younger years, waking up to the smell of you mother making pancakes. Coming home from school, you walk through the door greeted by the smell of cookies baking. When you finish mowing the lawn you look around at your accomplishment and sniff in the smell of victory. When you got your first new car, the excitement of it is even better when you were surrounded by the new car smell. Going to the ocean and breathing in the refreshing air. All these things, I have never experienced. This is because I was born with Anosmia(the inability to smell but still able to taste).

A good side to not being able to smell is that boundaries are broken with me working with people. Whe doing humanitarian work in other countries, some places tend to have such a bad odor, other workers have to leave because they cannot bare it. I can sit and talk with a person for an hour who has not showered in a month.



Often I am told to clean the toilet, pick up the dogs poop, and to clean the trailer bathroom when we go camping, all because I cannot smell. I am always told to do the dirty jobs because I cannot smell. Let me tell you, dirty jobs are still dirty when you cannot smell. Hygiene is the biggest problem for me. I never know when I need to take an extra shower because how hard I worked that day, brush my teeth because the lunch I ate, or if the perfume I am wearing is bad or not.


Many times when I tell some one I can't smell, they call me a liar. Once they believe me, they usually start listing all the things I cannot do. Um, HELLO! If some one told you they were blind, would you do that to them? Wtf?
One time in 7th grade, I was talking to the new girl. It got brought up that I couldn't smell, and she was shocked. She was holding a container of lotion. She shoved it to my face too quickly, and accidentally smashed it into my face, covering me with lotion and asked, "You mean you can't smell this?!"

The saddest part is that I do not qualify for any scholarships for students with disabilities. Trust me, I have tried =(