I'm going to start signing my name with a question mark to add a note of mystery to everyday life.

It's hump day!

Well gurls, I finished school early, and now I have an hour to write this post before I go to Sonic with Mary-Kate. Do you think I can do it? No, neither do I.

Grace: Your post was fascinating. It was like, that line from I Am the Walrus, "I am he as he is me and we are altogether." Which actually makes sense if you think about it. Or if your on LSD...okay so maybe that's a bad example.

Laura:  Your post was great. To quote Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "The little things are infinitely the most important."  Of course, Mr. Doyle was referring to the little clues, in the case of a criminal investigation, but my little white girl heart interprets this quote differently.

Mercy: Your post was actually somewhat similar to what I'm going to talk about today #samebrain.

These last two weeks have been quite exciting in the Backus household. Ben got his license. John got into the Americore program he wanted to get into. Laura has a male suitor. Point being, all of my siblings are adults. Or almost adults anyway. Do you know what that means?

I'm next.

I'm freaking out.

Holy snot, I don't want to grow up.

I'm not going to.

I really want to know the context of the gif.

But it's inevitable.

Holy crap.

I just finished reading Peter Pan. Like the actual book, which I haven't ever done before, which is weird because Peter Pan was my first fangirl obsession. I've been waiting for Peter for years. He's not coming is he? Fath. Fathafathingfathfathfath. I have to be grown up soon, right? Crap. Not cool Robert Frost! Fath.

On the other hand, I've been listening to Bowling For Soup a lot lately. They're really catchy and like only kind of musically talented, but whatever they have clever lyrics. (Actually, now that I think about it, that's a perfect description of virtually every band I listen to). So Bowling For Soup have this song called High School Never Ends. And the moral of this song, in case you haven't guessed, is that high school never ends. The wide world is just as obsessed with stupid drama, and you still don't have the right look and you still have the same friends, nothing ever changes but the names the faces and the trends.

I'm having this weird dilemma where I don't want to grow up, but I want to get the heck out of high school.

Is that weird?

It never ends, does it?

The silliness.

Fath.

Am I making any sense?

Alright Rose is done ranting for today. Hey! I wrote this in like a half an hour!

"Good job Rose."

"Thanks Rose!"

*High fives self multiple times* What do mean that's called clapping? Gurl please.

Grace, I'm sure your post tomorrow will be absolutely fantastic. Also, are we posting next week? Hmm...food for thought.

Gurl please. -Rose?

slightly obsessed......

good evening gurls its Tuesday

i may or may not only use full house gifs in this post... #sorrynotsorry

so currently I'm wearing my onesie and listening to the bae and I'm super tired and i feel fat from all the mini cupcakes I ate, but oh well.

watch this vine I'm obsessed with and explains me in 7 seconds

so gurls, in exactly ONE WEEK i'm gonna be 16

i am in love with this man

and also, in one week, when I'll officially be 16, I'll be at THE LOVELY BACKUS' BEAUTIFUL HOUSE and it will be 17 days till Rosie is 16!!!!!! WOW. thats crazy.

I'm excited.

I honestly can't believe how fast life goes- I mean I feel like it wasn't really that long ago that we played fairies on the Backus' trampoline and Grace (or was it Laura??) was always Terence and I was always Tink.

And when Laura thought that Caleb Lagan looked like Legolas.

Or when we'd have polly pocket pool parties. those were always an adventure. But not as much of an adventure as WEEK 3. we won't go into that though....

or even our two first Foursome weeks together. when Charlie was born. that was 2 years ago!! doesn't feel like it...

wow time does go fast.... like really I'm almost out of computer time.

so i have to go.

Rosie, I'll hear from you tomorrow.

xoxo,
Mercy

I'm an introverted extrovert.

Evening girlies.

missing mom's homemade coffee dearly on this dreary Monday.

    This is an unusual day. It's the first Monday in a month on which I had a full day of classes, despite the snow and icy weather. I was also supposed to be busy. Literally. All day. Because I'm an overachiever. So I was this close to texting Grace and saying "COLLEGE STUDENT SOS GIVE ME AN EXCUSE PLZ" but then my anatomy lab let out an hour early and I got out of tech for our theater show three hours early...so I went to dinner and the gym with my friend Emily and took a shower and did some biochem homework and now I have time that I didn't think I would have, and it's great. God gave me time today to eat and relax and take care of my body, much to my surprise. And I could not thank Him more for that.

    This quote speaks to my secretly introverted side. I am a closet lover of do-nothing days, when my hair's a tumbled mess, my face is devoid of makeup, and I have no obligation to leave my dwelling. I love shuffling around in sweatpants and slippers, drinking coffee and playing my ukulele and watching Jane Austen film adaptions.
    It's the little things in life that make me happy. Like snowflakes swirling down from the night sky and long conversations with my mom when my life is falling apart. I need people, too. I never thought I'd admit it, but I crave human interaction in its simplest forms- When the Foursome gets together and we tackle each other with a million hugs, when Dad lets me snuggle up close to him on the couch, when Joe puts his arm around me after a long, stressful day at school. It's in those little moments that I feel at home, when I am reassured that yes, there is a God, who created friendship and family and all the love that comes along with it.
    I have such a desire in my life to be like Christ, all of the sudden. He is convicting me- I haven't been the nicest, most tolerant human being lately, and I've realized that it's my job, as a follower of the One who made my soul, to love as He loved me. And I'm pretty crappy at that. I get swept up in what other people think, and I become like them, shunning the outcasts and chasing the pretty ones. But...That so is not what Jesus was about. He hung out with the marginalized, the widows, the prostitutes, the lepers. And, if He did it, then so should I.
    Y'all could be praying for me, to live a life of integrity. It's something I haven't been the best at lately, and by the grace of God I hope to be vulnerable and victorious in my struggle.
   
    I loved all of your posts from last week. They made me miss you gurls deeply, and I'm extremely jealous that y'all will be getting together without me soon. But the rumor is, I may get to see you soon, and that is what keeps me going.
    Mercy, I love your almost-sixteen-year-old-face, and I can't wait to hear from it tomorrow.
    Love love love,
    Roy Kim
    Jk.
    --Laura :)

I wanted something clever, but my brain can't handle that.

Hands are weird because one of them can do absolutely everything without a problem and the other one can’t even hold a spoon

Brains…brains are the weird thing. In order to do all of the things your brain needs to do, it can only spend so much space and energy on manual dexterity. So (very) early in your development, it just picks a hand and says “This one…I’m going to train this one to be good and dedicated and powerful. It will get the finest schooling, the best tutors. I will lavish all of my attention upon it. I will communicate with it constantly, ask it how it feels, comfort it when it is hurt, praise it when it does well. It will be my greatest achievement. 

That other hand, though, f**k that hand.”

A conversation that was happening on Tumblr with Hank Green and someone else and since my brain is dead from being up early and working too many hours in a row, I decided to post it because it's cool. And interesting and makes me think about human develoopment (leaving my spelling error in because it made me smile. But crap if I left all the spelling errors in, you wouldn't be able to understand what I'm trying to say..... I'm just so tired.) But yeah, brains are weird. 

Just the fact that brains are split up like this fascinates me. And I don't like to think of myself as "a left brain person" or "a right brain" because I think it's too boxy. But it makes me feel good when I can enjoy myself doing something like algebra and then also have a perfectly fun time writing or drawing. But something like playing piano, which in it's way requires both sides of the brain, satisfies me the most. 

well I have a crap healthy mind 

Anyway, I realize that this is short and silly, but I have things to do. Busy, busy weekend. I hope all of yours are lovely and restful. Or productive. Whichever you need. 

<3 G

I am incapable of coming up with a name for this post.

It's hump day!

Well gurls, Wednesday has come around once more. I write this to as I sit on my couch watching a Mark Ruffallo movie, surrounded by a sea of tissues. I'm sick. I'm sick of being sick. I've spent this entire week sleeping late, not understanding my school work, and wandering around in my pajama's....which now that I think about it is what I do every week...

Moving on.

Grace: Your post was lovely made me more appreciative of snowy New England days.

Laura: My thought on your post put simply:

Mercy: Your post reversed all that Grace's had done, and made me wish for spring time.

Well gurls, you know what's 13 days from today? Mercy's 16th birthday. And you know where I'll be? At your house. Also, do you know what's 30 days from today? My 16th birthday. And you know where you'll be? At my house. THIS LIFE IS LOOKING UP GURLS!

The one downside to all this seeing you is that I don't think Laura will be here or there. Because she's going on a missions trip to Delaware. She won't be home on her only little sisters 16th birthday. I'm not bitter I swear.  Ah, gurls, remember the good old days, when we spent weeks and weeks together creating imaginary friends (read: stalkers) who are obsessed with us? And when we drew pictures for hours and hours even though society told us we were too old to do such. Those were the days.

There's always the summer. And this blog of course. But I can honestly say if the Doctor where to crash into my backyard tomorrow, and ask me to feed him fish fingers and custard, I would command him to take me to the Ege residence, and SHU and abduct you gurls so we could travel through all of time and relative dimension in space together without losing a day of your busy lives.

Am I making sense? Probably not. Ah well.

Anyway I'm going to bounce.

Rice, I'm sure your post will be absolutely spectacular.

I love you all.

Gurl please. -Rose

i HATE THIS TRIP

Good evening, gurls, it's Tuesday!

First, watch the most relatable buzzfeed video ever. 

anyway, HOW ARE YOU ALL?? wait, you can't really answer that... oh well.

Well, I'm freezing. cuz our house is still freezing. cuz it keeps snowing! so much freaking snow. mother father.

me with all the snow right now

also, i have to go to school tomorrow which sucks because I have to do Suzuki which is the worst thing in the whole world.

I am going to die..


anyway, I'm pretty much done with school and I just want it to be summer and I never want to have to wear two pairs of socks again and I want to be able to wear my hair up without the back of my neck freezing and I want to be able to take Millie out without having to put on six extra layers and I want to be able to eat ice cream with getting hypothermia and i want to be able to wear cute summer clothes and i want to be able to take Millie on walks so she can stop being so FREAKING FAT and i want to be able to just be warm and not thinking about trying to stay warm all the freaking time

i'm so done. bye

Rosie, I'll see you tomorrow. ssssssssssssssssssssjgkasdf7i asdhwkhafrjzal;fdraskfafdsadfkjasfkjdgsa

xoxo,
mercy

Another Snow Day.

Hey there.

It's snowing again here at the University of The Literal Heart of Jesus. My fellow students are happy about our fourth snow day in the past week:

    Meanwhile, my overachiever self is feeling slightly inconvenienced and miffed.

    So here I sit, alone in my little nerd corner.

    Actually, I'm at Becca's suite again, doing biochem homework and watching the snow fall outside the common room windows. I haven't gone completely insane yet, but if classes get cancelled again tomorrow I'm going home. I just want to watch Pride & Prejudice with my mom and drink homemade coffee. I'm a simple woman with simple needs.

    Becca's judging me so hardcore right now.

    It's not my fault that her favorite drink is Monster and she watches Shrek is Love, Shrek is Life on repeat when she isn't sleeping at 3 in the morning.

    Do you ever look at someone you're really close to and think, "how in the Sam heck did we become best friends when we're literally night and day?" That's how I feel about Becca. We're such opposing personalities and yet we get each other. I think God puts people together in friendships so He can have a good laugh at their interactions. Becca and I definitely deserve our own sitcom.

    But I digress. Ladies, I greatly enjoyed all of your posts from last week. Many thanks for your congratulations on my acquisition of a male suitor. I'm as surprised as you all were, to be honest. He isn't what I expected but that is perfectly okay. My Freshman Seminar professor once said, "the best way to get a laugh out of God is to tell Him about your plans." 

    Joe is constantly reminding me that he isn't the Mr. Darcy I had planned, but the fact that he is his honest self makes me realize that God has a better plan than me. And whatever He has in store for this relationship is going to be better for me in the long run than anything I've imagined so far.

    Anyway. The snow is picking up and it looks like Narnia outside. I'd hate to be out in the storm, but I definitely love watching the snowflakes swirl outside Becca's Christmas light-lined windows, safe and warm in my sweatshirt and hoodie, listening to Becca and her hilarious suitemates laugh and sing and procrastinate the day away.

    ALSO. LOOK AT THIS HILARIOUS THING MY FRIEND KATIE POSTED ON FACEBOOK:

ain't that the truth.

   Katie is awesome. Seriously. Go follow her on Tumblr. She is a saintly human being.

 OMG. BECCA'S SINGING ALONG TO SHAKE IT OFF AND IT SOUNDS LIKE SHE JUST SANG "I'M JUST GONNA SHANK SHANK SHANK SHANK SHAAANK."

    Lord save me.

    Well, I have procrastinated enough. Time to get back to work! Mercy, I shall hear from you tomorrow.

--Laura :)