prayer

i'm going to be needing quite a bit of prayer over the next couple of days. today (wednesday) is my big presentation for strategic management which counts for 40% of my grade and i hate speaking in front of groups. tomorrow (thursday) is my knee surgery.




thanks to samar and sarah for the flowers, balloons, cake, and card. y'all are awesome!

23 years together!!

two of the coolest people i know:

On September 25th, 1984 at 12:34, 12:35, and 12:36, Jack and Kathy Van Cleave became the proud parents of Megan Ann, Amanda Marie, and Phillip Ryan; collectively known as MAP. okay, enough of that crap. Dear Meg and Phil,

HAPPY 23rd BIRTHDAY! I LOVE YOU!

abilene

since megan informed me she was too busy to see me and i have to finish my big presentation today, my five day birthday extravaganza turned into just going to abilene on saturday to see phil and haley.

haley and me before the football game (HSU won, but it wasn't pretty):


phil and i after the game- he looks so professional:

the cake (we had to minus the "m" since megan wasn't there):

this was the conversation before the gift giving:

Phil: "Just so you know, Amanda, you are about to get the greatest gift ever."

Haley: "Phil, you say that every year."

Phil: "That is because every year I out do myself."

so, what did i get?

pure greatness!

by the way, with their 31-24 win today over the chargers, the packers are now 3-0 and Favre has tied Dan Marino for career all-time touchdown passes with 420. GO PACK GO!

AMAZING SONG

this is Garth Brooks' new song, more than a memory. take a listen, you'll love it. promise.
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/garth-brooks-more-than-a-memory/1308237432

happy birthday to me...

megan, phil, and i (that would be MAP) will turn 23 on tuesday. how am i celebrating? by giving a huge class presentation that is worth 40% of my grade in strategic management on wednesday and having knee surgery on thursday. good news is that the surgery is after my presentation and before my insurance runs out on the 30th. God is good!

this is my lucky lakers shirt. it is a shirt from my parents' high school and is probably older than i am. yes, that is a wave with fists. amazing! and i haven't taken a picture of myself in a while, so here i am:

just a reminder that i go to a nerd school...

came home from class tonight to find this posted on my door:


last week it said: 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,89,?
gotta love utd!

thanks for the pic brooke

can you guess which one is my nephew? yup, he is the incredibly HUGE one! which means he should dominate. i'm so proud.

quote of the day:
"they say greatness can't be taught. maybe it just takes the right teachers."

His strength is perfect
When our strength is gone
He'll carry us
When we can't carry on

love these kids!

this is what brock did the ENTIRE time he was at my apartment.
braxton was much more lively.
now that he can crawl he is speed racer and into EVERYTHING.
of course he wanted to go outside.

football is HERE!!

one of the hardest things about football season this year is the fact that it is the first year neither nate, jon, nor phil will be playing. incredibly awkward, since they have been playing football forever. or at least it feels like it. i will miss roadtrips, making t-shirts, guessing what play will be run next, making fun of the stupid people who don't know what they are talking about, and just cheering on/supporting my brothers.

i have loved brett favre for as long as i can remember. yes, i know that means he is incredibly old, but i still love him and i hope he has an amazing season and i will be sad when he retires.
here are two of my favorite quotes about being an athlete that i think most athletes can appreciate:

It's not about getting a scholarship, getting drafted, or making Sports Center. It's a deep need in us that comes from the heart. We need to practice, play, to lift, to hustle, to sweat, to compete. We do it all for our teammates. We don't lift weights with a future Olympic wrestler; we lift with a future doctor. We don't run with a future Wimbledon champion; we run with a future CEO. It's a bigger part of us than our friends and family can understand. Sometimes we compete in front of 200,000 fans, sometimes in front of 25. But we still compete to win. You cheer for us because you know us. You know more than just our names. Like all of you, we are still students first. We don't sign autographs for money. But we do sign graduate school applications, MCAT exams, and student body petitions. When we miss a kick, strike out, jump the gun, or foul a throw, we don't let down an entire state. We only let down our teammates, coaches, and fans. But the hurt in our hearts is the same. We train hard. Lift, throw, run, kick, shoot, dribble, and lift some more, and in the morning we go to class. Still the next day in class we are nothing more than students. It's about pride; in ourselves, in our school. It's about our love and passion for the game. And when it's all over; when we walk off that court, field, or track for the last time, our hearts crumble. Those tears are real. But deep down inside, we are very proud of ourselves. We will forever be what few can claim: COLLEGE ATHLETES

People don't play sports because its fun. Ask any athlete...most of them hate it, but they couldn't imagine their life without it. It's part of them, the Love/Hate relationship. It's what they live for. They live for the practices, parties, cheers, long bus rides, invitationals, countless pairs of different types of shoes, water, Gatorade, & coaches you hate but appreciate. They live for the way it feels when you beat the team next to you by 1 point in overtime, and you know those 2 extra sprints you ran in practice were worth it. They live for the way you become a family with your team. They live for the countless songs you sing in your head when you're running ALL those suicides. They live for the competition. They live for the friends, the practices, the memories, the pain. It's who they are. It's who we are. WE ARE ATHLETES...

cheesies

when i was a kid, my friend, lauren, introduced me to cheesies. they aren't necessarily healthy, but they are a great snack for kids because 1)they're fast/easy 2) they're delicious. to make a cheesie all you do is take a tortilla and spread cheese on the top (shredded works better than sliced). you can put butter on the tortilla before the cheese to make it taste even better or leave it off for a few less calories. then you throw it in the microwave for 30 seconds. take out, roll up, and eat. YYUUMM! they taste great plain or you can customize them by adding salsa, ect.

please pray

just found out today that my grandma has stage III cervical cancer and it is inoperable. they will be doing a combination of radiation and chemotherapy as treatment. please pray.

2 of my favorite things

it hit me yesterday how much i LLOOVVEE my two coffee cups from starbucks. the one on the right is just plain huge, alleviating the need to keep getting up to refill. the pink travel mug (thanks mom) is simply amazing. not only does it keep coffee hot for hours (yes, that is plural--many, many hours) it is leak/spill proof. neither of which was true of the walmart one i had before (sorry phil). my point is: if you are looking for a new coffee cup/mug invest in a starbucks one, it is totally worth it.
and.... tonight starts FLAG FOOTBALL! okay, so that sounds kinda stupid, but it isn't. since we don't have a real football team (yeah, i know it sucks, but we're a nerd school) people get excited/competitive over flag football. my women's team is a lot better (and a lot more serious) than my co-rec team. it will be fun to go out and have some fun but also dominate. i'll try to remember to take pictures.

kinda gross, but cool

meg finally e-mailed me a pic of my leg when it got infected this summer.

Nacogdoches

between school and work i've been kind of stressed out, so this weekend i went to see megan in nacogdoches. i haven't seen her in almost a month, which is wwaayy too l0ng. i love this kid!
a couple pics:


this, my friends, is "the nap couch." as ugly as it might be, it is amazing. believe it or not, when my parents got a new couch there was actually fighting over who got this couch. in the end, megan won because 1) she didn't have a couch and 2) apparently she claimed it first. i was looking forward to seeing megan this weekendend because i miss her, but also because i got to sleep on the couch.

this would be the only picture of us we took this weekend (sad, i know).


megan spends every day in athletic shorts and a t-shirt (or khaki shorts and a polo) so to get to put on jeans is a big deal. plus, she has super cute red high heels. she is so pretty!

friday megan and i just chilled and rented a couple movies. saturday mom came and we went to the football game. stephen f. austin paid tarleton to come play them for their opener. usually when one team pays another to play it is so the paying team (sfa in this case) can get an easy win to start the season (a confidence booster). however, tarleton ended up winning. embarassing, yet kinda funny. that is one check i bet the a.d. is gonna hate writing.