the last 3 years.

so i have the flu. AWESOME. - and NO it is not the swine flu, TYVM. so when i'm sick of sleeping, i'm forced to spend countless hours online doing dumb crap. but lucky for you, illness cannot take away my quick wit and bitter sarcasm.

in my 3rd or 4th hour online today, i was gazing through my "just rachel" section on facebook and was enjoying some of my old facebook statuses. and i thought, as much as people hate facebook statuses, they are good storytellers. soooooo...using my 'snipping tool', i decided to document the last 3 years of my life via facebook status via my blog. DOUBLE VIA - bam. here we goooo....






so there ya have it. true life: i'm awesome.

twitter!

it's official: i am on twitter.

as an aspiring pop culture wizard, i thought i should see what this buzz is all about.

but really, i just want to use my account as leverage to somehow meet guster on thursday.

as i was uploading a pic i was astonished to see that i already had 1 follower! (and considering it's taken me 11 months to get 9 followers on here...that's pretty good..). turns out it was celebvidsxxx. i feel special.

i'm not officially hooked, but i can understand the appeal.

who am i following?

• guster
• oprah
• joe mauer
• cake wrecks
• b-rock
• stripchurch

that's it for now, i'm off to tweet.

5.

5 days ago, nathan took his first steps.

i got 5 hours of sleep last night.

5 minutes until 1:20am.

5 hours until my alarm clock goes off [i forgot to prepare my small group B.S. (<--- bible study, that is.]

5 days until guster.

5 days + 5 hours i'll return to MPLS and head up to LAKE BEAUTY!

5 weeks until i leave for staff training in madison.

5 weeks + 5 days until i leave for ALASKA. (oh yeah, they asked if i would go there instead of mississippi, and i said yes.)

5 years until i'm done with school + sem. [hypothetically...].

5 decades until i'm 69.

5 good friends i had at the beginning of the year that i don't really talk to anymore. [which i'm choosing not to be bitter about --> ecclesiastes 3.]

5 cans of mountain dew i've had between yesterday and today. (don't tell laura..)

5 home twins games this week. it's my goal to make it to at least one.

"high 5!" (i don't care what you say, or how you feel about the swimsuit - borat is a funny movie)

i've had chipotle 5 times in april (aka, not enough).

the sweatshirt i'm wearing cost $5 at a thrift store. one of my better purchases.

5 years ago, i was 14. 14 is such a stupid age - who wants to be 14? better yet, who wants to be 19?

5 minutes: the amount of time it takes me to get from my bed to the 5th chair in my row in my 8:30am class on tuesdays/thursdays.

5 finals until summer.

foreshadow.

if the economy continues to digress, mcdonalds will get a monopoly on FOOD. and that's when we'll be paying $165 for mcmuffins.

Today...FML.

Today, I went to a Twins game. We were down 3-8 and my stepmom was hungry. She insisted that we leave at the top of the 8th because she wanted to get to "Holy Land" (ethnic cuisine) before it closed. We left. In the bottom of the 8th, Jason Kubel hit a grand slam - which, in addition to his single, double, and triple makes him the 7th player in the history of Major League baseball to complete a cycle with a grand slam. And oh yeah, the grand slam ball landed in the section next to us. The Twins won in one of the greatest comebacks in history. I figured out through a text message in the car on the way home.

FML.

because it's thursday

i tripped over a speed bump last night in front of my entire youth group - awesome

guster in 14 days

i was supposed to get braces 4 years ago this month. which means they would be coming off this month. i'm wondering what my life for the past 4 years would've been like with braces

dwight nelson is a GANGSTA

it is almost the weekend - i'm going to a birthday party on saturday, for two 20-something little boys

i'm picking up luci from the airport on monday!!!! 8 months is a long time

tax season is over .. finally

i bought my ticket to the keane concert yesterday at the box office @ myth - suck on that ticketmaster, you'll have to get your $8 convenience charge from someone else

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyxpXgS5deU - is she for real?!

justin timberlake is hosting SNL on 5/9 - yessssssss

twins - what the hell? PICK IT UP. gomez = .107????

those are my thoughts on this day, april 16th, 2009.

BYE!

what a day

what a day. my awakening was picture perfect this morning. the sun shining through my window after a good night's rest. an ordinary day ahead, i sat and pondered life over some yogurt and granola for breakfast. then i had this thought: i might have a midterm today. checked my email which did indeed confirm that i had a midterm that i had not studied an ounce for. i went to my first class and checked my planner to see if my next two were skippable. upon looking i realize that i have an INTERVIEW @ 10:15. i'm still in my pajamas practically and don't have time to run back to my room. the 'view went okay, and i spent the next 3 hours studying for this midterm that i needed a B on. racing into the classroom, i learn that the test was moved to thursday. FML.

all of that aside, it is a beautiful day outside. chastity courtyard was flooded with new freshman couples, pretend-studiers, and picnickers this afternoon. delightful. i'm pumped to spend the entire night in an office calling prospective students that don't want to talk to me.

i'm having random thoughts today.

1. why is it that no matter what kind of car it is, it ALWAYS looks like junk when the hubcaps are missing?
2. the movie adventureland is surprisingly NOT a comedy - thanks for the heads up kels. i'm still trying to figure out if i liked it or not.
3. my project over the next few months will be to streamline my ipod with ear candy. which means, i need to go through and delete every song that i don't like. which could potentially be thousands. all with the goal of having an enjoyable shuffle.
4. i haven't been to a concert since last summer. in the next month i'll be seeing keane, mat kearney, and guster. talk about a sweet month.
5. i always have my headphones in when walking through the hallways. it perhaps seems as if i'm antisocial, but the music just makes me feel cooler. as if i'm in a movie or something.
6. why do people write blogs about their stressful lives? everyone's lives are stressful. [in kevin's 'didn't-choose-the-ipod' tone: ohhhh shoot...]

BYE.

i've been doing a lot of reflecting lately. [i preface this blog with that so you can stop reading if you want :)]

though we're a week or two past the date, we're still pretty close to my one-year anniversary of becoming a christian.

i can imagine that statement provokes a "what?" for a few different reasons.

for those of you that knew me in high school, the 'what' is more specifically - you weren't a christian in high school? what about FCA, youth group, vespers?

for those of you that have gotten to know me in this past year the 'what' is probably more of a 'you call yourself a christian?!'

let me quick clarify my definition of christianity is not, because this is a fine line. the way i was raised was to believe in God, say you follow Jesus, and that way you can go to heaven. just like that. so yes, in high school i believed in God, tried to follow the commandments, and mentally (or verbally) judged those that did not do the same. all in hopes of not going to hell.

here was the problem: i didn't have any reason for what i believed in, except for the fact that i didn't want to burn for the rest of my life. i didn't really care about heaven - i'd be fine rotting in a box until the end of time if i didn't have to burn. and this was super unfulfilling. i felt like every day was a roll of the dice...if i don't say that Jesus is God or if i lie to someone or if i swear on the soccer field, i better not die today because i might not go to heaven! christianity sucked, but there was really no other way...

november of '07 a friend of mine lent me the book 'the gutter' by craig gross. she said the book would be unlike anything i'd ever read before. being a non-reader, i let it sit on the shelf for a few months. finally over spring break of my freshman year, i decided to read it. it was late at night - probably midnight, and let's just say i read it from cover to cover and finished around 4am. i couldn't put it down.

here's why:

it talked about this Jesus who loved people - loved all people, and wanted us to do the same. it talked about people in the church being sinners too (which at the time was a foreign concept to me..). the 360some laws in the OT were kinda old news. or at least no longer something to beat over someone elses' head. jesus said love comes in first place now.

hmm, that sounds kinda cool. i want that. so i started to think differently. i don't look at people for the sin they commit (well, i try not to..). to be honest, i'm more guilty of judging christians than anyone else. [which i'm secretly proud of, even though i shouldn't be..].

----------------------------------------------------------

that was a year ago. this past year has been far from perfection for me. if i thought long enough about it, i could probably say i 'sinned the most' this year. i've been dishonest, unjust, drunk, disloyal, angry, untrusting, lustful, judgmental, jealous, and hypocritical. not quite the fruits of the spirit, eh? but i feel a difference. and i can't really pinpoint what that is. there seems to be this security in not having all the answers. and let me clarify: i do not have all the answers. does this justify what i've done to those i've hurt? absolutely not. i can't tell you the sleep i've lost over every one of the things on that list. but the Bible does not say that we will not make mistakes. it doesn't say that we won't sin against God. it doesn't say we won't sin against those we care about. it does say that we as Christ-followers are humble people, admitting when we have done wrong. and i think i'm at that point. i hope.

so i'm proud to say that i (a sinner) no longer 'believe, say, and go to heaven' but i 'love, admit, and experience eternal life right now.'

happy easter.

do the dew.

i have a best friend. his name is mountain dew. this is true.

dew and i have a long history together.

and TODAY you get to see how my best friend has played a role in every year of my life.

in timeline form.

HERE WE GO!

age 4: first sip. my life was forever changed. nanc wasn't too keen on 'underage drinking', so i had to keep my dew consumpution on the DL.

age 7: [laura will appreciate this..] that summer, my dad used to get home from work around 7pm and force laura and i to work in his garden at the heat peak of the day, with a bajillion mosquitoes. once the 'harvest' came, he would wake us up at the crack of dawn every saturday morning to go sell our veggies at the farmer's market. how did he get us there? for breakfast we got to have a 20oz (this amount was UNHEARD OF for us back then..) bottle of any pop we wanted and a donut from Pete and Joy's bakery. i couldn't wait for saturdays.

age 8: surge came out. i abandoned dew for the allure of a more caffeinated substance.

age 9: dew stuck by me no matter what and was waiting for me as soon as they pulled surge off of the shelves.

age 10: dew consumption increases. i remember one time out in montana my aunt bought a 24-pack for us kids one weekend and i drank 4 cans during a movie. to date, this was the most i had consumed in one sitting.

age 11: dew consumption increases

age 12: march: rachel feels sick. all the time. she can't eat anything without wanting to throw it up. she lays awake at night with pains in her stomach. rachel goes to the doctor. doctor asks: how much pop do you drink? rachel lies. doctor knows. doctor says no mountain dew for 6 months. rachel dies.

age 13: i lost 15 pounds due to no dew consumption. once the 6 months was up, i started up again. [nanc didn't know..]

age 14: dew consumption plateaus.

age 15: enter high school. hello 'sugar shack'. daily dew consumption.

age 16: quit for 7 months between katie's engagement and wedding. lost 10 pounds.

age 17: two words: dew run. me and a couple friends formed an 'addicted' club - complete with t-shirts and an oath. our pre-calc teacher even joined! that year bill clinton decided to suck and get all non-diet pop removed from schools. we retaliated. april of that year, lukas and i were caught by the school cop for sneaking out of the high school to get dew from the hockey rink. first law violation caused by dew: detention.

age 18: ohh the best year of my life. continue 5th period dew runs. may 17th, 2007 - the day the shiz hit the fan: the infamous dew-athlon. long story short, jason brill and i insighted a riot in the cafeteria and spent our last three high school lunches in detention. talk about validation on my LIFE.



age 19: quit for a summer at lake beauty. figured out i didn't have cancer. i've been drinking the jesus juice ever since.

that's about it. i'm drinking a dew right now. and i don't foresee myself ever quitting for good.