Summer 2007

Most summers I have too much time on my hands and I usually attempt to see how many consecutive days I can go without human contact and not getting out of my pajamas. However, this summer has been different. It's like this:



The day school was out I packed my bags and left for a week long trip to St. John to see Suzanne. Then I came back and spent every waking minute during the entire week looking for a place to live. Spent a week packing everything I own (which is entirely too much) into boxes to prepare to move. Then a week unpacking boxes in our new apt and moving everything from my classroom to my new school. This week I have spent every day in professional development learning how to teach a Gifted/Talented class. Today is my day off. Next week is full of July 4th activities and a trip to my grandma's house and possibly a trip to Dallas for my grandad's 85th bday party. After that, I have a week full of meetings at my school and Houston Project. Then I leave for the Philippines for 2 weeks. I get back to Houston for a day then leave for VA Beach for a week. 2 days back in Houston and then we start back to school.



So the question is: When am I going to have time for a summer romance? I guess I'll have to wait until summer 2008 for my summer fling. Sad.

I have issues......

So early this morning I woke up with a crazy nightmare. In my dream I was cleaning the fridge and my roommate, Ashley, was there. I was like "I can't get this Parmesan cheese off!" And Ashley was like, "It's not Parmesan cheese; it's feta cheese!" And we continued to argue. Then I woke up. I was really stressed out about the cheese dream. I went to the fridge and the door was open which can only mean one thing......
I must have been sleep-walking!! I haven't done that in a long time. (I don't think.) It's so scary. What if I had gotten in my car and drove somewhere???

Later tonight I was talking to Ashley about it. "We weren't arguing about cleaning the fridge in the middle of last night....were we? Ok, I didn't think so. It must have been just a crazy dream! We don't even have either cheese in the fridge!" And she opened the door and said, "Yes, we do. I bought feta cheese yesterday. Not Parmesan."

There is definitely no Parmesan cheese in the fridge. Only feta. But it's not all over the fridge like in my dream/nightmare.

Shameful

I cheated on my church today. I went to another mega church in Houston. The music was sooo good! The message was pretty good too. I even ran into a coworker. I might have to cheat more often.


Oh, and by the way I am an idiot. I ran into the speaker from last week's Metro. He's my neighbor. So instead of thinking before I spoke, I blurted out. "I heard you speak." He gave me a weird look. So I clarified "At Metro. Last week. I'm Melissa."

Okay, this is what I wanted to say and should have said, "I really enjoyed your message last week at Metro. It was refreshing to hear biblical truth about God's will for our lives. My favorite part was your reference to the game of MASH."

Oh well. I screw everything up.

Airtroductions

This is so bizarre!! So apparently, online dating isn't enough. Now you can "set up" your chance meeting someone on an airplane. Ridiculous.

But yet, why am I tempted to sign up???

Pray, Preach, or Die

We had another meeting last night for our mission trip and there was a comment that stayed with me. Mostly we talked about what we would do when we got there, how much we could pack, and when our flights left, blah blah. But our leader made the comment that we need to be flexible and ready for anything. He said that at any time we should be ready to either pray, preach, or die. How true. We should always be ready to do those 3 things at any moment in our lives. Today I had the opportunity to share what prayer is and explain the holy spirit to someone. I realized when I was doing this, that I tend to explain things like I'm speaking to a little kid. I guess that's just the teacher in me. I need more adult conversations.

So if you are a believer and you are reading this. Remember to always be ready to do those 3 things for the Lord. Pray to Him. Preach about his love. Die for Him.

"but in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you"

1 Peter 3:15

Day 3 Francis Bay/ Annaberg Ruins

These are the Annaberg Sugar Mill Ruins. Annaberg is the remains of one of the 25 sugar factories which were active on St. John. Besides sugar, molasses and rum were also produced by Annaberg. The factory was driven by slave labor until July 1848 when freedom was declared for Danish West Indies Slaves. The name Annaberg means "Anna's Hill" which refers to the infant daughter of William Gottschalk, a plantation owners from St. Thomas. Sugar cane harvesting and processing was backbreaking work.
The soil in the area was very thin and planting was done on hillsides. The hills had to be terraced and the soil fertilized with water, ashes, and dung. The sugar cane had to be then planted and then harvested 12 to 18 months later. Once harvested the cane was brought to the windmill where it was crushed and the juice from it was collected. If there was no wind the cane was crushed on a horse driven mill. After the juice was collected it was then sent to the boiling bench. Roughly three to five hundred gallons of juice could be produced per hour this way
The cane juice was boiled in "coppers" which were heated copper pans. The coppers were heated by fires fueled with dry can stalks. Boiling caused excess water in the juice to evaporate out and impurities could be skimmed off of the top of the pan. The juice was progressively boiled and ladled into smaller and smaller coppers until it was poured off into wooden pans to cool and allow sugar crystals to form. If molasses was desired instead of sugar the juice was removed from the last copper early to prevent sugar crystal formation. The sugar was then placed into barrels called hogsheads which could hold up to 1600 pounds of sugar. Drippings from the wet sugar within the hogsheads were used to produce rum.

Allegedly, they are haunted. I didn't see any ghosts. But I did meet this man who said he was in a Reggae band called "Inner Visions". Then again, maybe he was a ghost.

Francis Bay was nice until it started to rain and the sand fleas came out. Or whatever they were. Apparently, they only come out when it rains.

Day 2 Continued

Went to Cinnamon Bay. So beautiful and peaceful. It was kinda hard to relax at first. I felt like I needed to be doing something at all times. I needed a little detox session before I could relax and enjoy doing nothing. I need to purge all the "bad energy" (i.e. the stress of teaching and entertaining kids.)

Suzanne and Cameron came to play later in the day. I told them how bored I was and they thought I was crazy. They suggested snorkeling. I didn't really understand how sticking your face in the water and looking at the bottom is fun. The water is crystal-clear! You don't need to stick your face in it.
(I was later convinced to try snorkeling, considering my parents bought me brand new snorkeling gear. But that's on Day 4)

"Someone" thought that bringing Shamu to the beach was a super idea and not embarrassing at all. Turns out that filling Shamu with air didn't take as long as emptying Shamu to fit in the car. Hilarity ensued. I had to ride back to the house with "San Diego" in my face. (please refer to Anchorman for that one)

Vacation: Caribbean Style

Day 1

After 14 hours of traveling by planes, automobiles, and boats we finally arrive at our villa. The picture above is of the harbor when we came into St. John that night.

Day 2

We wake up at the crack of dawn which in Houston is 7:15. In St. John dawn is 5:00am. Since everyone was sleeping I decided to take pictures of the villa.

This is the view from the deck of our villa. The white roof is our neighbor.

We had our own pool. This is the view from the deck of the pool. This was the cat that lives at Jasmine. The deck wrapped around the house. I loved it. I could have just stayed at the house the entire week and not even see a beach and been just as happy. But I didn't do that.

The name of our villa was Jasmine. And she was a princess. (Did anyone catch that Disney movie reference?) This is the walkway from the gazebo to the house.

This is the gazebo which overlooks the pool.

This was another walkway from the gazebo to the pool.

To be continued.....