What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger...

 ...or just really tired.

We slightly changed the words to Kelly Clarkson's song to fit HEART. But that's as far as we got, because we fell asleep after that. :)

Anyway...THIS is the post you have been waiting for!

Honestly, I have dreaded writing this post. Why? Because it was three weeks of constant activity...it wouldn't be a post, it'd be a book.

And honestly, I DON'T want to write all of that. So instead, I'm going to give a brief summary of what we did, why we did it, and I WAS going to show you a couple videos, but I'm giving up on that. I will post them in the future if I am able to. So please enjoy this picture-less, video-less, very, very summarized summary of HEART!

What is HEART?

HEART stands for "Hearts Eager and Ready for Training". It was the summer training program that my church's youth group offered to the girls this summer. The guys had one too, called SWEAT (Student Work Experience and Training). We love acrostics at my church.

The program was open to all students 6th-12th grade. Students had the option of going three weeks, two weeks, or one week. The girls renovated a lifeless house; the guys transformed a barren property. The first week we had 9 girls. We added 8 more the second week and 10 the third week for a grand total of 27 girls.

We had guest speakers throughout the weeks to come talk to us about things such as finances, relationships, dating, cooking, and first aid.

The point of the program was to teach young men and women a good work ethic, diligence, perseverance, and teamwork as well as important life skills, all while learning to live together and provide for each other.

We cooked meals together, cleaned together, tiled floors together, painted together, scraped floors together, ate together, laughed together, learned together, and most of all, we grew closer to God together.

There was a lot of togetherness.

What did we do?

• First, we ripped out the carpet. It was GROSS. Awful. And we couldn't move our bags in until that happened. That's how bad it was.
• We then spent the next three days scraping the brown moss of terror.
• We painted all the walls and ceilings. The people who had previously lived there were smokers and the poor dry wall was suffering from that.
• We cleaned. Because all the surfaces in the house were as gross as the carpet.
• We laid vinyl tile in the laundry room, dining room, and kitchen.
• We meal planned, grocery shopped, and cooked.
• We did dishes.
• We spackled with hot pink spackle that turns white when it dries. Awesome.
• We caulked.
• We did minor landscaping.
• We wrote songs.
• We saw the boys once a week (!).
• We made necklaces, hair flowers, trivets, soaps, bath fizzies, and other things that I don't remember.
• We worshiped Jesus.
• We learned, grew, and endured.
• We made new friends.

And, last but not least,

• We had fun!

Believe it or not, yes, we had fun.

What is "the brown moss of terror?" 

Well, underneath the carpet in the kitchen, dining room and laundry room, was this wonderful little brown carpet pad that was glued to the floor underneath. Literally. It would not come up. And it needed to. We spent three days scraping it. And it looked kind of mossy, so it was dubbed the brown moss of terror.

Songwriting? That sounds fun!

Yes, yes it does. One Friday the boys came over and had written us a song to the tune of "What Makes You Beautiful" by One Direction. So we wrote them a song to the tune of "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen and sang it for them the following week. Unfortunately, I don't have a video of that.

I do, however, have a video of this song that Meredith and I wrote while painting the bathroom...which I was going to post, but now I'm not. So...sorry! haha

We also had a High School Musical dance party. It was epic. I know you're jealous.

What does the house look like now?

Awesome.

Amazing.

Beautiful.

It's practically a castle.

Well, compared to what it DID look like, at least. :)


So, now you know how I spent the last three weeks of my June (after my senior trip). Exciting right? It was a great time, and a great experience, but I'm glad to be home and back at work. About to start college. Oh, I'm a sophomore now, as of yesterday. Cool right? I'm probably the only freshman at UTA who's actually a sophomore. Hehe. I cheated the system.