When I woke up this morning, I was informed by my mother that I needed to clean out my room, put everything in boxes, and be pretty much ready to move out. It sounds like they are trying to get rid of me a little too soon considering I don't leave until June 21, and then I'll be back and leave for good in mid-August. And then I asked her about looking for a small car with good gas mileage for me, because both of my brothers got a better car when they graduated so that they could drive back and forth from college. Well...my mother is a little dramatic at times and I must have caught her at a bad time, but she pretty much said that she thinks that I can share a car with my brother next year in Lubbock. So I laughed and left the room....then I realized that she might not be joking so I went back in the room...turned out to not be so much of a joke. I'm sure that I will get a car for next year, I just probably shouldn't bring it up too much. If I look on my own, find a good deal, and then confront my parents I will have much better luck.

I have such amazing friends. We had our Band Banquet tonight. (Don't laugh, we aren't as big of dorks as you think) It was really cool to hang out with the people that I have spent the past four years with (some of them 7 years) for one last time. It's really sad in a way, because those people will never be together in the same room again.

I've never really understood the meaning of bitter-sweet until these past few weeks.

Diet Dr. Pepper does NOT taste more like regular Dr. Pepper...Disgusting

May of Senior Year!!!!!!!! So much stuff to do, I wish it would all just go away. I can't wait for summer.

I'm really going to miss Tuesday nights with the mid-schoolers. 7th grade guys...ya'll are all so awesome and God will use you in amazing ways in your futures...I KNOW it!

Did you see the Mavericks game????? Oh my gosh. That is what I'm talking about.

I have a question. Why didn't Bradley play tonight? I missed the last little bit of the 4th game in the series...did something happen to him. I used to think that he was just a 7ft 6 in. waste of space, but he has been able to do some damage recently and I was wondering why he didn't play tonight. We could have used him against the Chinese giant, Yoa Ming. I doubt that anyone else cares...I'm a dork.

There are few people that I respect as much as some of the guys in my junior and senior guys Bible study. "Iron sharpening iron", as we grow together in Christ. When there is an issue, we will call eachother on it and most of the time our hearts are softened by God and we mature further in our walks. I don't know how I will even begin to say good-bye to some of my brothers in Christ as I leave Flower Mound to start a new phase of my life, and as some of them also leave and others stay... Each year, the seniors at my church get a few minutes to give a senior speech. I don't know how I will address these guys in my speech....I don't know if I can... But if any of you are reading this...Thanks for being studs. Keep God #1 and go serve him as I know that each of you will have amazing impacts on the Kingdom...and I can't wait to see the fruits of you labors...whether it is in Flower Mound during your senior year next year for you juniors, or if it is somewhere else for those of us graduating.

I know that I said I wouldn't have many serious blogs anymore...it was just really brought to my attention.
Enjoy the people that God has put in your life NOW!

Let's see if the Mavs can pull it off again today at 4:30. Dirk's gotta make his shots.......

Do you ever have one of those days where every small thing that could possibly go wrong does? That's how today was for me. I wake up with a headache, stub my toe getting out of bed. OUCH!!! I head to Starbucks and the same girl who makes my drink everyday made it again today, but for some reason she messed it up. No big deal, i didn't say anything because coffee is coffee and it was good anyway. I get to school and my first period teacher asks if I will run to Chick-fil-a for him. So I agree because he said that I could get something for myself with his money. So I get to Chick-fil-a and head inside to order. I get his four-piece chicken minis, his large Diet coke with extra ice, a Dr. pepper for my friend Jack, and a chicken biscuit for myself. I start to walk back to my car, reach into my pocket for my keys.....and.....and.....CRAP! They are in my ignition with my car running and my doors locked. Which is twice as bad when you are nearly out of gas and your gas gauge doesn't work. So now I have to guess how much gas was eaten up while I was waiting to get back into my car. I have to call my mom with some guys cell phone at Chick-fil-a, because I don't have one, and ask her to bring the spare set of keys to me at the restaurant. As I'm sitting and waiting for my keys, I unwrap my chicken biscuit only to find that there is no chicken in my biscuit...there is sausage. I wasn't even going to try and ask them to fix it...so I put on a smile and ate my sausage biscuit. Nothing major....nothing went drastically wrong. Just about a hundred tiny things adding up to one crappy morning. It happens........

As most of you probably know, I go to Starbucks on average..4 out of 5 school days, at least once each weekend, and about 2 times each week during weekday evenings. But I have noticed that I rarely go in there without seeing someone that I know. Apparently it isn't just me who lives at Starbucks. People actually come up to my parents and start a conversation with, "Hey, I saw Craig at Starbucks yesterday..."

If you have ever seen me at Starbucks, enjoying God's wonderful, smooth, rich creation of coffee, leave a comment. This could get interesting if the right people read my blog....

I've been having so much fun preparing my lesson over Romans 15 that I'll be teaching this wednesday while Brent is out. As I start to pull all of my notes and stuff into an actual, applicable lesson..pray that I would be sensitive to where God is leading the lesson. It is one thing to have a cool Bible study where everyone learns some cool facts. But it is something completely different for someone in the room to walk out looking a little more like Christ at the end of the night. God's word is able to change our lives for the better every time that we open it and my prayer is that God uses me as a tool to do exactly that. It may just be a small high school Bible study...but it is the Word of God and I won't take this responsibility lightly. Just keep me in your thoughts.



Is it possible to have a case of the Monday's on a Tuesday????

Now that prom is over, high school is coming to an end very quickly. As it ends I am realizing all of the great things that I will be leaving behind. Why are they coming to me so late in my high school career that I am almost out of time to enjoy them? Some things I have just taken for granted for four years. Others I am just now seeing...missed opportunities hurt.

Now it is almost bitter for me to tell you that I got my letter of acceptance into the Honors College today at Texas Tech. Now I will be learning with the smart people. I wonder how long it will take them to realize that I'm not one of them.

Amazing. Everything about it....AMAZING!

And that is a lot coming from me.

You won't believe this...

So if you read my blog, you know about the fish, the rock, and the smashed head...(see yesterday's blog). Well today a shocking similar experience happened to me. I was at school helping the set up of the after prom party that the school hosts. I get service hours in doing this. One of the ladies that was in charge asked if I would help her move a couch from a classroom into the cafeteria. Two other guys and myself went into this room, picked up this couch, and watched as four mice ran out from under the couch. The lady screamed...us guys smiled really big. One of the guys picked up a yardstick and started swinging. I, however, knew that it was unlikely to hit a small mouse with a yardstick so I picked up a 2004 yearbook off of a nearby shelf. After picking up said yearbook, I watched as one mouse that hadn't already gone back under the couch continued running....then SLAM. The mouse's screeching stoped... and there was blood on the yearbook....mission accomplished. Now usually things like this don't happen to me. It has been an eventful week.

I am doing a stock market project in Economics class and I have stock in a few companies. But the one that is hurting me the worst is Starbucks. It has been going down for days. So...I need everyone's help. TODAY, go to Starbucks at least once. You will be helping me to get an A.

....I wish it were that easy to make stock go up, I'd be a millionaire.

Someone is either walking in the flesh or they are walking by the Spirit. When you(when I say you, I mean I) let trivial, meaningless things catch your attention, you are no longer walking by the spirit. However, "healthy" these trivial pursuits might be, if they are causing you to put them ahead of God...it's sin. Whether it is school, relationships, money, or whatever you may be dwelling in or on...it isn't glorifying to God. Notice that school, relationships, and money are all good things when put into perspective. It doesn't take things like selfishness, anger, or self-pitty to be walking in the flesh...however those don't help.

I don't write about serious, real life stuff, like this, much anymore because I have noticed that whenever I'm being honest and sincere no one comments. But here it is...I'll try to hold off on the next un-mindless blogging for a while.

The beauty of TAKS week continues. The past two morning I have gone fishing at Grapevine lake with some friends. Jack put one of his fish in a plastic bag and then left it in his car the rest of the day yesterday. And then today, he decided to keep another fish, put it in a plastic bag (without water), and the fish was pretty much without the ability to breathe for TWO hours. When we took it out of the car it was still alive. So we had to do the only humane thing...put it out of it's misery. I took a large rock the size of my head or so and dropped it on the fish's head. STILL ALIVE. This fish was a fighter. So I slammed the rock onto the fish's head again. It was over...

This week is going to be awesome. First of all Seniors get to arrive late at school everyday at 11:30. And then on Saturday we have prom...which I'm not stressed out about this year, because in the words of some unknown person, "I'm not in control of the situation." So I am going to show up and have a great time.

OK. For the first time it is really feeling like late April. It's not the weather, it's not the advertisements for season finales of TV shows, but it's school. I go to school everyday and hear teachers talk about "end of school" stuff like caps and gowns for graduation, or our senior T-shirts. It will be May in like 11 days.

We had our first Mexico mission trip meeting today. I can't even begin to explain how excited I am. This is my favorite trip in the world.....SO EXCITED!

My mom is making good pie for dessert today...mmmm....(trust me, it needed to be said)

Sometimes things are so different that they are refreshing...