A Very Happy Birthday Indeed!

Turning 22 is rather odd. It's not a milestone age (I don't think...), and it's not exactly a big number, or a low number or anything. But, man... I still feel OLD!!!

This day has been absolutely amazing!!! I'm serious! I woke up in a fantabulous mood (yes, that's a word), and the day just kept getting better and better. I DROVE to work, which I have decided is my new favorite thing to do. Driving and singing to worship music at full volume... nothing better! So anyway, I get to work, and I've been begging to do personal development projects since my first day back, and guess what? I got approved! That made me very happy indeed :D

Ashton and Marissa had an acting project they were working on, and asked me to be the DP for their little performance, and of course I quite happily agreed. Things didn't go quite as planned however, and that all got rescheduled to Monday, but even that is a good thing, because it means I am already promised another day of PD. :D So I ordered a pizza for myself, and made some reese's brownies as a little birthday cake sort of thing. After my yummy meal, I was called in to be a test dummy with Ashton and Diamond, who were practicing makeup techniques.

Funny story, cuz they are both black, so the makeup they were putting on me and Erin, the other test dummy, was coloring made for dark skinned people. Erin is hispanic, so she obviously fit the profile, but my translucent shade of skin didn't exactly go with their color pallette, so needless to say when they had "finished" with me, I got cleaned up and sat them down for a fun tutorial on "white chick makeup 101". We had a blast, because we got to use one of our guys, Elijah, as our third test dummy. His makeup turned out quite well, and amid much laughter, I was able to show them shading and specific techniques for applying makeup. It was awesome.

The makeup escapade kinda snowballed from there, as Sarah wanted to be done up a little more. So somehow or other we decided we'd make her a vampire, and that turned into some creature all it's own! Ashton and I dug around the attic for a dress and accessories, and dolled Sarah up with hair and everything, and then thought, well, let's do a shoot! We called some of the guys up to haul out the coffin (yes, CCM has a coffin in the attic) to the front drive, and grabbed a few antique candlesticks and roses, and headed out. Turned out pretty cool actually, if you don't mind the now stained red hands from the fake blood we used. Haha, Doug seemed to like it though, which was great!

I had just gotten in to dump the pics onto my laptop when Linda came running in and grabbed me by the arm, telling me I "had no choice" but to come with her. So I did. Brian and Travis were waiting in the car, and we took off for an "unknown location for Round 1", which turned out to be Posado's. Unfortunately, Posado's was really busy, as it was Friday night, so we puttered over to Chili's, which too was busy. That really only left us the chinese place by walmart, which, oddly enough, happens to be my favorite Texas restaraunt! If that's not God, idk what is!

We had an awesome meal, and got a chance to catch up pretty well. All 3 of them are on the ministry team, so they've been uber busy, and I obviously had been gone for the last 4 months. It was so wonderful reminiscing and reconnecting again. I missed them so much... Anyway, after that we were kinda lost for what to do, but Linda had another "surprise" up her sleeve, and made Travis pull in near DQ. We munched on some star shaped popsicles on the long drive into Tyler, where we grabbed some starbucks for Travis. Little known fact among us: none of us like coffee!!! lol

We decided a movie was in order after that, and of all the movies there, the Green Hornet looked to be the funniest, but lemme say this: LAME!!! lol it was soooo dumb. Not worth the money to be sure, but it WAS pretty awesome watching it with those 3, because of all the funny comments. Hehehe, I will never look at a super hero movie the same way again....

The night ended on a lovely note, with us counting down to midnight, the end of the first day of my 22nd year of life. And now I sit here, writing this all out, and smiling, because this truly has been the best day of my life. I will never forget it, and I hope that there are many more days like this to come. It wasn't about the big things, really, it was the fullness and joy of it all, of not only feeling happy and loved, but accomplished and capable. I found a new piece of me today, and a little bit more of my dignity, and honestly, I think THAT has to be the greatest present of all. Haha, with a close second by the monkey from Linda (Thank you Linda!)

Love always, and now 22,
~Char