A lesson I have learned

This past summer, I worked at Grindstone Lake Bible Camp.  It was a mistake to work there.  Before you make judgments on the camp, hear me out.  GLBC is a great camp and I have enjoyed being a camper there for many years. The reason I did not do well working out there was because when I heard that it was a possibility to work at camp, I didn't listen to what God had to say about this opportunity.  Whenever I prayed about it, I would hear God saying "Don't go."  Well, I really really wanted to go work there this summer, so I just made excuses to myself and pretty much ignored what God was saying to me.  So I worked at camp anyway.  It was a disaster, as is (I have learned) anything that is against God's will.  I got hurt emotionally many times and still deal with the scars.  Sure, a lot of things were fun and I made new friends, but if I look back over my summer, I see that the pain was just not worth it to got against God's will.  I also realize that God was trying to protect me from the pain and the scars I still have today.  I'm not going to go into the details, but I just wanted to share a lesson I have learned in knowing that if I do something against God's will, it's going to fail miserably.

More Growing Up Memories

When I was about eight or nine years old, some of our favorite things to do was play outside for more than twelve hours per long summer day. We only went inside to eat (which we also tried to take outside), get necessary supplies for our games, and go to bed (which we tried so so hard to avoid). Something that we just loved playing with was our tire swing, which my dad tied on the birch tree's branch.  We would spin it around and around (with no rider of course) so fast that my mom couldn't watch for nausea. When it got so spun up that the rope twisted to about 6 inches long. ( : Then Eliza and I would hold the tire swing so it wouldn't unwind and at the same time hoist five year old Nonnie onto the tire.  Then, we let go.  Big mistake.  After that, all we saw was a blur of Nonnie's clothes and her long blond hair swirling around in big circles. She was screaming really loud, and I do mean really.  So the tire swing stopped, and Nonnie teetered off the tire swing, almost falling down, and when we asked how she liked it, she promptly replied that she would love to do it again!  Another thing we did was tease the cattle.  Summer 2009, we had steers and bulls over at our place all fall, winter, and spring.  There was an 800lb steer who was mean. We named him Gordy. (My mother heard this and said "Gordy?! That's no name for a mean steer. It's like 'ooh, fear Gordy.'") He had a gang of sorts, which was a ragamuffin band of mismatched harmless steers.  They would 'kidnap' other steers and literally take them over to the back pen.  So we declared war.  We would dance around the pen and sing, "Gordy is a punkin eater! Gordy is a punkin eater!" Then 'Gordy's Gang', as we called it, would run at us as if they were going to bust through the fence and charge at us.  So, we would scream like girls and run for the other side of the pen and do it again. So the vicious cycle continued.  Another fun thing to do was to sit in our treehouse (it hangs out over the bull pasture) and dump buckets of  water on the unsuspecting bulls. ( :  We also would (this was just a year ago actually) throw snowballs at the 1800lb bulls and watch them get mad and stomp their feet and snort.  We would then, like usual, run and scream like girls.  Man, that was fun.

Breezy is a mama!

Breezy, my wonderful fawn mastiff, is a mama!! She has nine puppies, 6 boys, 3 girls. She is an excellent mama and keeps her pups clean, clean, clean. ( :  All pups are healthy and nursing.

Snow Snow Snow!

I was woken up at 7:13 on a SATURDAY morning yesterday with the cry of  "ERICKA! Wake UP there's SNOW!" I opened my eyes and saw a bevy of ragamuffins with morning breath, bedheads, and very excited grins. I bounced (quite literally) out of bed and saw half an inch of snow (not much but still exiting). I remember when, in fourth grade I tried to sled in half an inch of snow, and was crushed that it didn't work. Anyway, we all ran out to the library where my mother immediately began doling out the mittens, hats, snow pants, boots, etc. We bundled up and went outside in our precious half inch of snow and played for awhile before finally giving up on ever doing anything fun in a half inch of snow. ( :  After patiently waiting,we now officially have 6" of absolutely perfect snowball packing snow. My little brother threw his first ever snowball yesterday, got a lucky shot, and landed it at the base of my neck UNDER my coat. *sigh* I shrieked like a girl ( I am one, after all). We built a snowman with buttons for facial features and cardboard strips for hair. My wonderful father had to move the LP tank with the tractor so he drove around a very very tight circle as not to bump our snowman. ( :  My mother is very contented with this snowy situation, the children (including me) are jubilant, and my father is very frustrated. After all, who likes hunting in the snow?

Ericka's Evil Twin!

Let me introduce myself....I'm Ericka's Evil Twin. Mwahaha. The joy of my life is making Ericka cry ( and don't laugh, because I know some of you also have the same passion I do). So today I decided, why not post some blackmail pictures on her blog? After all, I know the password and who can pass up such a glorious opportunity? Not I, sir, not I. So for those of you looking for blackmail, here you have it.

Sweden and France at war!!!

I was just remembering what weird games my sisters and I have played during our awesome  farming summers over the years. One of my personal favorites is "Swedish fighting the French". It is a game I invented some years back, in sixth grade I think.  The name is a weird one, but so is the game. Explanation: my father is 100% Swedish American, and so the children (that would  be me just in case you were wondering) by nature are very loyal to Sweden.  So this is how the game goes:  we are the Swedish, and our parents are the French. We are at war with each other, Daddy being the King of France and Ericka being the Queen of Sweden ( I did have a name tag that said 'King  Kristina' and yes I know women are not 'kings' but I was a major feminist when I was in the sixth grade). So we would sit in the treehouse that overlooks our cattle yard  and give commands to our 'troops' the steers. One day the 'French' came outside with water balloons. We climbed from our 'fort' and, singing our Swedish battle song ( I wrote it and it had several stanzas. I still have it  memorized, no kidding) , were bombed terribly but not before retreating to a tree. So if you were at my house that day, you would have seen two adults throwing water balloons at  four children in a tree, who were all screaming like girls. ( : Another game we played was that America, France, and England were at war, except this time the CHICKENS were the soldiers, not us. So,  Eliza, Shannah, and I would go into the chicken pen and put all the red chickens ( Americans) in the barn, the black chickens ( British) in one side of the pen and the buff chickens ( French) in the other side of the pen. We guarded them so they wouldn't go out of their 'country'. Then we would yell,  " France and England at war!!!"  and would let the according chickens 'fight'. Of course they didn't fight, they just 'invaded'  the 'opposing territories'. After the allotted time for 'invasion' was up, we counted how many French chickens were in the British territories, and so on and so forth. We really play like a bunch of girls, don't we?

So, out Swedish Battle song went something like this:  (Chorus is yelled with much waving of sticks, stanzas are sung)
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Swedish Fighting The French
WE ARE THE SWEDISH
FIGHTING THE FRENCH!
SO IF YOU'RE FRENCH,
YOU'D BETTER GIVE UP!
CUZ WE'RE MARCHING ON TO VIC'TRY!

When the Captain of the hold
Sees a Swedish, he throws down the ladder,
But when he sees a Frenchman,
He draws his sword!

CHORUS

Bridge: For God, for Country, for Sweden, for Youth! (x10)

CHORUS

All hail King Kristina! All hail King Kristina! (x6)

CHORUS

CHORUS

BRIDGE

CHORUS
(Battle Cry)
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My parents were sooo sick of that song!!!!!
I wonder why!

Crazyness

Today is my baby sister's birthday...she's FOUR already and very excited about that fact. Our family tradition is to pile on my parents' bed before they get up and open presents, but Linnea woke up late so we opened presents in the TV room. Actually, the TV room is more of a family entertainment  room, but that's another story. So Nea has been eating candy and drinking pop ( presents from her siblings, including me) all day, and if she is anything like her big sister (hehehe) she is probably headed towards a majorly scary sugar high. Today I made chocolate cupcakes for her, and not only managed to make 16 cupcakes when I should have been able to make 24, I also smeared mayo ( yes that was in my recipe) , cake batter, and cocoa all over the kitchen counter,  the electric mixer, the cookbook, the floor, the dishtowels, and myself. I also managed to drop the electric mixer (yes the electric part) in the bowl of cake batter and get chocolate soupy stuff all in the vents. ) :  Then I finally got them in the cupcake papers ( now THAT is a story I'm not going to tell you) , and our oven gasket  broke. Now, the broken gasket affects the oven so that it will not heat. Splendid. And all because I was NOT thinking about baking, I was thinking  about the Christmas music I was singing and dancing to (yet another story you will not hear). *sigh*

Welcome to my blog!

Hi! My name is Ericka and I am new to blogging. (I guess it's a good thing I attended the National Bloggers' Conference this weekend or else I might not have known what to write. By the way, for those of you who didn't go, it was extremely helpful in the wonderful world of blogging). Today I have been doing school(I LOVE school), chores, and dishes. Fun, fun, fun. I just finished revising a history paper for school, so I keep looking over this post and thinking, out of habit, "What in this paragraph would my mother have me revise?" That was my blurb of the day. I am Ericka Nelson and I approve this  message.