Holli Rausch

Currently reading: Angels and Demons by Dan Brown, The Book of Isaiah

I am back in Madison. And I am tired. Look at that picture. I didn’t want to draw letters or anything and cut them out and staple them for my bulletin board. I thought it would be more fun to paint on it. I had some paints left over from an Art class my first year. That was my plan.

I was at Miles’ until about 2:00. I came back to my floor and realized that girls move back to the dorms in 9 hours and my only time to do my bulletin board before they came was the present. I mixed some paint up and went at it. I wrote, “Whale come back, 3rd Floor”. I live on 2nd floor. One of my residents pointed it out to me as I sat at the front desk. I couldn’t handle it being such a stupid mistake, so I ran upstairs and covered it with some yellow paper and painted “2nd”. I had to remix the red paint, and you never can get the same color twice. I regretted not cutting out letters. The fix would have been a lot more simple.

It reminds me of the graduation invitations I made the other night when I was up until 5:00. I put 2005 as the graduation year, instead of 2006. Pretty much the same thing. Only not as easily fixable, and I was only up until 4:00. I’m feeling it though!

Exciting things coming up this week: Daktronics orientation Monday 8:00-4:00, hang out with Miles and his poppa Tuesday night, classes start (kind of exciting) Wednesday, one month anniversary Saturday.

Currently reading: The Book of Isaiah

I haven’t fallen asleep yet. It is 4:30 AM. I lost my sleeping mask.

Coincidence? I woke up at 4:30 AM two days ago and couldn’t fall back asleep.

I visited my High School last week and showed my portfolio to some of my old teachers. One of them has a daughter who is a senior, Jenna Noble. Good friend of mine. I created some graduation invitations last year for someone and have them in my portfolio.

Now that you have the background, here’s what went down. Mrs. Noble is looking through my portfolio. She reaches the graduation invitations. She says, “Wow. Whoa, Jenna’s got to see these.” So Jenna comes to see them. She says something along the lines of, “You’re right.” Mrs. Noble says, “You should do Jenna’s invitations.” I say, “I can do that if you want.” Mrs. Noble gives me the oh, too familiar look that says, “I’m serious.” I give it right back. I can hold my own.

The next day rolls around and Noble messages me on MSN. She asks me if I’d be able to do the invites for her. I said of course I could. I told Jenna I’d get price quotes from a couple printing places. I did it and she gave me pictures and details. When she did this, I was G2G (good to go).

I couldn’t sleep tonight. That’s why I cranked out four, yes count them, four invitations. You may be thinking, “But Holli, where are all the details for her party?” Well, she isn’t having one. She just wants to make sure everyone knows she is graduating.

Ha, fooled you! Even at almost 5:00 AM, I’m as sharp as the teeth on my smelly dog. *sigh, idiots* She’s going to have the party details on the back of the design she chooses. She’ll choose from what you see in this post. Maybe a couple more if I can.

This post is pretty much useless. I’m only writing as much as I am to make sure all the invitations show up. And I didn’t feel like resizing any of them. Sorry that you’re going through this and thinking you’ll find something interesting to read. If you really need to, and haven’t already, I have a whole archive. Of a month. Read some of those.

Hmm, what am I doing this weekend? Well, I’ll head back to Madison in about six hours. I want to stop and see one of my residents, Carrie, working at Barnes and Noble in Sioux Falls if I can. Just to say hey. I work at KJAM tonight and I will finally see Miles, too. We are going to watch all three Lord of the Rings this weekend. “Why?” you ask. Because we can. Not just any old DVD set either. The extended version. That’s right folks. And I’ve never seen them. None of them. Saturday, the Emry RA’s and RD are going to Sioux Falls to buy things and eat supper and terrorize little children. Lord of the Rings. Sunday, I will go to church and man the front desk of Emry for an hour. Lord of the Rings. Monday, I will do the same as Sunday. Except I won’t be going to church or watching Lord of the Rings. And Miles will leave sometime that afternoon to head back to Pierre and play with his dad. Just like the old days, I suppose. I think this has left ample room for my invites. Enjoy!

OK, bye bye!

Currently reading: Captivating, by John and Stasi Eldredge; The Book of Isaiah

1 Peter 3:3-4 “Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.”

I received Captivating as a Christmas present from my potential future roommates Sara, Danielle, and Kensi. It is the book for women, that Wild at Heart was for men. It repeats the question John and Stasi claim to be the question all little girls want answered, “Am I lovely?” To me, this question brings about many others. Am I desired? Am I interesting? Am I captivating? Am I beautiful?

Ahh, beauty. So many women and girls have a distorted view of what this word means, myself included. I’ve known this word to both destroy and uplift women, that’s how powerful this word can be. A friend of mine said that she doesn’t feel put together or confident unless she is dressed up. I know lots of people who feel this way. I don’t find this weak at all, I like to be dressed up sometimes as well. I find those women beautiful in all aspects; but she is downplaying the true beauty of her inner-self. I don’t know the whole story, of course. Maybe something was said to her while she was not “put together” and that’s wounded her, forcing her to choose not to be vulnerable again. Perhaps she just wants to look her best. We all do.

I know other girls who find beauty through how men see them. She will bounce from man to man, never truly feeling beautiful because what is beauty? She will not be secure with the woman she is, as lovely as she is, and will look for someone to desire her…until she becomes so insecure that she fears he’ll one day stop desiring her and decides not to wait for that day to come. She moves on to the next man. She doesn’t wait until she knows who she is or where her beauty lies, so that she can share her beauty with someone in a relationship…she hopes to find that through a relationship.

Beauty is how woman was created. Eve was created in beauty. Woman isn’t intended to wear layer upon layer of makeup to receive a false sense of beauty. Nor is she intended to spend day after day trying to fit into a size 4 dress to maybe be told she looks beautiful, for one night. No. Beauty has been misshapen over the years. Today, a woman believes beauty to be having the perfect hair, the perfect teeth, the perfect skin, the perfect body. This image of beauty is confirmed when one sees perfect women, not themselves, attracting men. The truth is, we all are wounded. Some horribly worse than others and we can’t seem to believe the kind of things some men and women go through.

Many women feel that, by the way. We can’t put words to it, but down deep we fear there is something terribly wrong with us. If we were the princess, then our prince would have come. If we were the daughter of a king, he would have fought for us. We can’t help but believe that if we were different, if we were better, then we would have been loved as we so longed to be. (Captivating, Stasi Elderedge)

Beauty isn’t something one can define. Even if it were able to be, I wouldn’t attempt it. Each woman creates her own beauty from her own experiences. Her beauty shines every day, not because of how many layers of lipstick she’s put on, but because she was created in that glory. God intends women to be beautiful.

Am I lovely? Of course, I am. You are too. Be the person God created you to be. Be beautiful.

No, I’m not talking about the Dominican, former Cubs’ right-fielder. Sammy Sosa, my friends, is a beagle, our family dog. We bought him from a veterinarian who breeds his beagles, when I was in 3rd grade. He was just a little puppy, probably not even 2 months old. He was adorable, and my parents chose him because he came up to my dad and untied his shoes. On the drive home, we thought of names, and since my family’s baseball team is the Cubs, it was decided on Sammy Sosa. We call him Sam.

Sam was a good puppy. He loved us, we loved him, he was scared of his reflection in the dishwasher, he climbed on my mom’s shoulder like a bird would. He was fun to take care of. Our first sign of trouble was probably within a year or two of having him. Sam was a hunting beagle (we don’t hunt) so he is very large for any beagles most of you have seen, and he has an instinct to kill. ( ! ) Adam let Sam out to do his business, and when I saw Adam next, he was the saddest I had ever seen him. Apparently when Sam was let out, he caught sight of some baby rabbits running away and took off after them. And committed homocide. That was about 8 years ago. Ever since that incident, we’ve always been careful when we let him outside so that something like that wouldn’t happen again. He’d chase the occasional bird, but nothing as horrific occurred. He eventually kept getting fatter and smellier. Sometimes so smelly that I can’t stand to be in the same room with him. I often tell him how smelly he is. And he sheds, so his hair is everywhere.

Jump ahead with me to Spring of 2005. I receive an email from my parents that said Sam had been hit by a car. Turns out, Sam was let outside to do his business and found something to chase. He followed it across the road and didn’t check both ways. Left, right, left. Walk. BAM! Cop car. Sam broke his leg, and didn’t get his prey. He had to walk with a cast on for what seemed like forever. I made fun of him in my head, because he smells. But it was a sad sight. He still has a problem with walking on that leg.

Jump ahead with me to January of 2006. I had just returned from a nice vacation with friends in Florida. I planned to sleep in until 10:00. I hear Mom’s voice at 7:12. She’s outside my window yelling, “Sam! SAAAMM!” Knock it off. “SAAAMMMM! Get over here, right now!” Stop it, please. “SAM!” Eventually I hear the jingle of his collar and he’s inside the house. I also hear muffled voices that sound similar to, “Bad dog! You’re a bad dog.” Smells too. I couldn’t sleep past 8:30. Now, the same day mind you, I’m in bed near 11:00 PM. I can’t sleep because I had a lot on my mind and couldn’t shut it off. Near midnight, I must have been starting to doze off because I wake up to the sound of Adam’s voice outside my window. “GET OVER HERE!” Not again. “SAM! *clap clap*” Is he applauding Sam? Can’t be. “Sam! Get over here, right NOW! …*clap*” I just want to fall asleep. “*jingle jingle jingle* Here I am, Adam. I thought we were playing hide and go seek and you were just trying to make me give up! Sorry about the confusion.” Finally, sleep. I’m not talking to Sam this morning, he gets the cold shoulder from me.

On the up side, I will be gone from Sam until Saturday. I leave this afternoon to visit Miles in Madison. It will be great to see him again, and I’m sure we’ll have a fun time. We will visit Holly and Bob sometime tonight. I will be at Miles’ until tomorrow morning, where I will head to Brookings for an interview with the Daktronics’ Sports Marketing department. Then from there, I will be going to Spirit Lake for a camp staff reunion. It should be a great weekend. I’m sure I’ll have some things to blog about when I return.

OK, bye bye!

Saturday
We left the house at 5:45 AM to make our way to a river off the Gulf of Mexico and swim with sea manatees. When we arrived, it seemed we might not be able to do it because we didn’t have a reservation made in advance, but two groups cancelled and so that freed up space on a boat for the six of us. We had 5 minutes to get our gear and put on our wet suits. That was an adventure in itself! The girls decided not to squeeze in the bathroom and put them on, but just quickly do it in the main entrance. We all were given mediums. Well…our bottoms and our tops aren’t necessarily the same size. We were squeezed in pretty good. I think they just wanted to see us struggling to pull the things on ourselves. Anyway, we make it on the boat along with boy scouts from Tennessee and head to a little bay area off Crystal River.

We lower ourselves into the water with our scuba masks and flippers and start swimming to the area where manatees lounge. It took a while for us to see our first manatee. I have to admit, I was a little nervous to see my first one right next to me…but not as nervous as I thought I would be. We petted them and looked at them. They aren’t the most gorgeous creatures in the world. But our captain described them as dogs wrapped in a giant baked potato. They were much friendlier than most dogs I’ve run across. We saw close to 20 different sea cows, along with some other varieties of animals. I wish we would have run across some colorful fish, but we weren’t in the colorful fish area, I guess. We were in the hour for an hour and a half and then headed back to the boat. It was a great experience and we took pictures with an underwater disposable camera. I considered opting out, but thanks to Miles’ convincing, I did it. I thought they’d be bringing us to deep waters in the ocean. Shows how stupid I am.

We relaxed all afternoon and evening. We had a Cinderellabration, just like in Disney World. Ours was better. Heather, Jackie, and Bryan slept almost up until the ball dropped in New York. I worked on pictures we had taken to make them look prettier and such. I called Miles when it hit midnight in Orlando and he called me when it hit midnight in the Midwest. I was already sleeping at that point. Then we got some sleep for our last day in Orlando.

Sunday
We headed to Universal Studios’ Islands of Adventure for some fun in the sun. We got there before the park opened, so we beat the crowd. Apparently New Year’s Day morning is the least busy time, so we rode 7 rides before noon rolled around. Rides ridden today include: Dueling Dragons roller coaster(twice), Hulk roller coaster, Spiderman, Flyin’ Unicorns (by accident), Jurassic Park River, Dr. Doom’s Fearfall, and watched the stunt show The 8th Voyage of Sinbad. Dueling Dragons and Hulk were favorites, while Jurassic Park scared the crap out of us, and Dr. Doom was a huge disappointment. A good day, all in all. We shopped for a little bit and ate a snack at the “#1 Theme Park Restaurant in the World.” Then the boys decided it would be a good idea to watch King Kong in the cinema at Universal Studios. The girls weren’t all that interested in seeing the movie in theaters mainly because it was 3 hours long, but decided to humor them and tag along. I was asleep by the end of the previews and for the first hour of the movie. I must be getting sick because I never get so tired so fast, nor do I sleep during movies. I woke up at the first appearance of King Kong and apparently didn’t miss out on any of the plot line. The last two hours of the movie were pretty decent. But I could have been just fine if it were cut down to being not so long. Some things were a bit ridiculous, but also humorous at times as well with Kong’s jealousy and what have you. Turns out, all three boys had seen the movie already; this irritated me, but am still glad to have seen it. We returned to the house and are cooking, packing, and putting Heather’s pictures on my computer. We’ll probably consume the last episode of The Office as well. We fly out tomorrow morning and brace ourselves for the weather. See you all soon!

OK, bye bye!