A Week In History

It's hard to believe that a week has already past since graduation. Wow. It's been a week full of excitement, adventure, chaos, and happiness. The bedroom furniture for my room finally came in, and my house is slowly starting to look like a home. My routine for the summer has started, and I love it. I get to do all the things that I love without the stress. In the mornings, I work at the library from 9-12, then I babysit for a little boy named Nathaniel from 12-5. I couldn't have asked for a better way to spend a summer.
I know it's been a while since my last post. I'm sure that people are dying to know how the mystery of the stolen car finally ended, so I am dedicating the last paragraph in this post to telling the story. Oh, and for a great synopsis, go to my friend Marie's blog: www.mariedw.blogspot.com :-)

Sunday, two long days after my car was reported stolen, Michael and I were at Walmart getting things to bake cookies for my homegroup. After making our purchases, we headed out the front entrance to walk back to the car and realized upon walking outside that we had gone out the wrong entrance. Great. We had covered about half of the long distance to Michael's car when I noticed something in the corner of my eye. It had a red bumper, a Newspring sticker, an AC parking decal... it was my car! And it was right there in front of me, less than two feet away. Right then, I called the cops and told them to come out there "immediately!" because I had found my stolen car. They assured me that they were on their way, so I hung up the phone and began to walk around to the front of the car. There, in the passenger's seat, was a person looking straight at me. He was an African-American male, heavy-set, about 5'11" and he was sitting in my car. The nerve of him! Now I don't know what possessed me to do this, maybe I was high on adrenaline, maybe I just didn't know what else to do, or maybe I'm just crazy. When I saw this man sitting in MY car, I opened the door and started yelling "what are you doing in my car?!? why did you steal my car?! why?!!" He could have killed me right then and there, but I guess he realized that there would be about 50 witnesses in the parking lot plus video surveillance so he just played it safe.
"Whoh, maam, I didn't steal your car."
"Then what are you doing sitting inside it?"
"This guy offered me a ride to the store, and I didn't know it was stolen"
"Ok. Fine. What does this guy look like?"
At this point the man started walking away from the car. I followed.
"Where are you going?"
"Maam, I just got out of jail two weeks ago, and I haven't seen my little girl in a long time, and I don't want to get in trouble again. I don't want nothing to do with a stolen car."
yea right
"But you have to stay! The police are coming, and you have to identify the other guy who was driving."
"Ok. He's wearing a black sweatshirt, a visor, about 5'6", African-American male, and he's in Walmart right now."
"Great! So stay right here, and tell the cops what you told me"
At this point he starts walking a little faster.
"Sorry maam, I'm leaving."
"What's your name?"
"Bill"
I got tired of chasing Bill, so I gave it up and headed back to the car. The police finally showed up about five minutes later, and I told them that the guy they were looking for was in Walmart. "He's wearing a black sweatshirt, visor, about 5'6", African-American male." "And how do you know this?" "Ummm. Someone told me." blank stare "Okay, the person who was sitting in the passenger's seat of the car told me." exasperated groan that sounded something like "stupid white girl" "so the person's in Walmart now, and you need to go get him, and and and"
Now, I was extremely frustrated at this point. I wanted the cops to charge right inside Walmart and arrest the guy, but they weren't doing anything! And they didn't even seem to be paying attention to me. I mean, come on, I was the one who found the car in the first place, right? Two more policemen come on the scene, and I told them the same thing that I told the first policeman. Just around the time when I was about to give up all hope of finding the people who had stolen my car, one of the policemen started to run towards the Walmart entranceway. There was an African American guy wearing a black sweatshirt, a visor, about 5'6", running from the Walmart parking lot. The other two policemen got in their cars, turned on the blue lights, and raced towards the fugitive. The guy jumped a fence and then stabbed himself. I think he must have been on drugs or something. Sheesh. WHY would anyone stab himself? To sum it up, the police finally caught the guy who then ratted out his friend in the car. His friend "Bill" was the one who had actually stolen the vehicle, but the other guy was driving because Bill didn't have a driver's license. They had been using my car as a runaway vehicle for shoplifting items in various department stores and college dormrooms. My trunk was filled with stolen goods (none of it was mine :-/) I was happy to get my car back, even though it smelled like drugs and smoke and had been completely vandalized and covered in filth. Michael helped me vacuum it out later that afternoon, and then Marie let me use her super duper car vacuum thingamajigger to vacuum it out a second time, so it's slowly starting to look like normal.
So there's the story. Well... part of the story anyway. There's a lot more detail in the real version but there's no way that my blog could hold that much information. :-P

Sleepless Night

It's been another long, sleepless night. It's just past 4:00 in the morning, and here I am, physically exhausted but unable to get any sleep. Yesterday was one of those days that will go down in the record books as a day that I'll never forget. It began horribly, continued at a rough pace, and finished with an emotional crash.
First off, my car was stolen at 5:15 am. It was parked in Stringer C parking lot, and the whole thing was caught on the campus safety video tapes. Michael was supposed to spend the morning with me, eating breakfast at the Bagel Shop and then helping me finish packing, but we ended up spending most of the morning talking to the police instead. There was also a burglary that happened on campus around the time my car was stolen, so they think there's a connection. Even though it really stinks having no car for the summer, I'm glad that nothing worse happened. I have so many other things to be grateful for,and I'm not going to let something like a stolen car make me depressed.

The rest of the day went okay. Michael and I stopped by Marie's to say hello, and it felt really good to see her. She gave me an indoor/outdoor grill that I can use for my house, and it's the perfect size for me. It's so cute! I can't wait to use it. After visiting Marie, I had graduation practice and then spent the next several hours moving furniture into my house. My dad came to Anderson with this big U-haul full of things that I could use (including a lawn mower :-D), and Michael, Tony, Rebecca, my dad, and I worked all afternoon unloading everything. I thought we would never get it all unloaded. There were several things that happened during my big "move into the house" afternoon that were upsetting, but it went by fast, and before I knew it, the sun had already set.

Now comes the longest and toughest part of the entire day. Because graduation is in the morning, I told my mom that she could spend the night in my dormroom so that she wouldn't have to get up so early to drive all the way from Columbia to come to the ceremony. She got to Anderson around 9:00, and so from 9:00 until sometime after midnight, I got to spend time with my mom on an emotional roller coaster. It was hard. Really hard. Occasionally, I felt the need to throw-up but held it in. I just don't understand my mom. I love her, I forgive her, and I'll always be thankful for everything she did for me, but I can't have the same kind of relationship with her that we had before.

God, please help me be the kind of daughter you've called me to be. Help me be a woman after your own heart, and give me the strength I need to survive what this next day will bring.

Excitement over Graduation

My body is going into a crazy, excited, let's do something wild mode, and I can't sleep! I didn't sleep more than two hours last night. After spending the evening hanging out with Kristy at my new house, I came back to the dorm to get some sleep and spent the next four hours tossing and turning in my bed. At around 2:30, I finally gave up and started reading my Bible. I went through the whole book of Ruth, some of Esther, some in Joshua, then I finished up my reading in the New Testament. By then, the clock read 3:45, so I turned off the light and tried yet again to fall asleep. I think I drifted off at 4, but then I woke up before my alarm went off and now I'm sitting here typing in my blog. Michael is coming to Anderson today, and we're eating breakfast at the Bagel Shop. I'm so excited about seeing him. Then my dad is coming later with a big moving van filled with furniture for my house. Graduation practice is at 11:00, and, goodness, I'm so excited!! I know I'm not going to get any more sleep tonight. *sigh* Well, I'm going to get in the shower now. Maybe if I have time before Michael gets here, I'll paint my toenails. :-)