Construction 101 by Cassidy Shay (recommended books to read TXT) 📕

Either Gay or Lets His Girlfriend Dress Him. His clothes matched in a way that, for a guy, is unnatural. Not to mention, he smelled. Amazing. The other brother was The One Who Was Definitely Gay. They both had similar builds, dark hair and dark eyes, and they dressed in similar ways. The One Who Was Definitely Gay, though, had an ear and his lip pierced.

As the night progressed, more and more smoke began to cloud the air. It was a mix of cigarette smoke and smoke from the coals, and the trees overhead held on to the smoke. There was no wind to carry it from the trees' grasp, and The Daughter With Long Hair and Blue Eyes worried that her asthma would start acting up.

While she went to look at the fish pond, The Daughter With Long Hair and Blue Eyes noticed someone walking towards the group. The Dad Who Was in His Forties But Hung Out With People in Their Twenties introduced the woman. The Lady That The Daughter Had Never Seen Before embraced the girl without hesitation. As she pulled away from the hug, she grabbed The Daughter With Long Hair and Blue Eyes' pony tail and moved her hair in front of her shoulder. That was weird.

Right after that, she saw something else. Please tell me that this guy isn't with this group.

But despite The Daughter With Long Hair and Blue Eyes' prayers, The Man in the Missionary Suit Riding a Harley walked right up and joined in with the conversation.

The Daughter With Long Hair and Blue Eyes started to just sit back and observe the clowns while she ate her burger. In her observations, she discovered that The Woman Who Liked Her Huskies More Than Her Boyfriend kept disappearing with a guy. She also discovered that, not once did she disappear with The Boyfriend Who Comes in Second Behind the Dogs.

She noticed that The Lady Who Kept Going Inside To Refill Her Margarita also had a dog. The Dog That Was About to Break had tiny legs, no more than a quarter of an inch in diameter, but they were a foot and a half long. It's body was no longer than six inches, so it had the appearance of a reverse Dachshund. The Chit-lins kept hugging The Dog That Was About to Break, making the chances of a broken dog even more likely.

Being the only teen around, The Daughter With Long Hair and Blue Eyes sat alone in the grass, wishing for the night to end and texting her friend, The Girl With Even Longer Hair But No Blue Eyes. After The Girl With Even Longer Hair But No Blue Eyes suggested it, The Daughter With Long Hair and Blue Eyes decided to write a short story about that Saturday afternoon spent with The Clowns Who Couldn't Cut it in a Real Circus So They Made Their Own.

And here we are.

A Mission

Everyone has a mission in life. For some people, it's to get the most views on YouTube, or to be an NBA player, or to help people, to be a mom, whatever. I could go on and on and on and on about all the missions in the world.

But for some people, a mission is more than just what they want to do for now, in the next couple years. Some people have missions to accomplish something that they can show their kids, that will make the world a better place for everyone. Some people have missions to make a difference in the world, starting in one small place.

Last week, I met a TON of teenagers who have that mission in life. On Monday last week, I got on a bus with 70 other teenagers and we drove for 7 hours to Gallup, New Mexico, where we stayed for a week, making that community a better place. It's the third annual trip, and many of the people are returning from the past two years.

It was a great experience. I got to meet 70 teenagers who love God and want to serve God so much that they took a week out of their summer (and $120 out of their wallets)to go and sweat, and eat bologna sandwiches every day, and be out in the sun doing yardwork, and massaging old lady's feet, and doing laundry by hand, and all this other stuff that, living the way we do, we never would have had to do otherwise.

While I was there, I kept a journal. And I thought I'd put it in here. The point of this book is to show my journey through life, all the things that make me who I am. Well... This definitely is going to make a huge difference in who I am.

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Day One
Monday, June 25, 2012

So, we’re headed to New Mexico now. We left a little after ten in the morning, and it’ll take 7-8 hours to get there.

We started out the day with Mass, just like we will every day this week. Then we had some time to eat a little breakfast, and then we started loading everything onto the buses.

We started with the donation stuff. I’ve never seen so much toilet paper and paper towels in my life. It almost didn’t all fit, because we still had to have room for our bags and sleeping bags.

We’re on a charter bus, so we get comfortable seats. They aren’t comfortable enough to sleep in. But the bus has AC, and lots of windows.

Right now, we’re driving through the middle of the desert. The only thing man-made out here is the road, grey with white and yellow stripes that curve and twist with the desert.

The weather in Gallup is supposed to be really nice. Low 90s. Isn’t that funny? Low 90s is nice weather. Just like $3.57 for a gallon of gas is cheap.

We all have name tags, and we got a water bottle, and this notebook and pen, plus a couple other things.

During mass today, well, before Mass, I guess, I had a nice conversation with God. I just talked about the situation with Alex, and Kelly, and my mom and Ken, and my mom all by herself. It was nice to just sit and talk for a while.

This last weekend wasn’t too great. I was thinking about the whole situation with Alex, and everything that happened between us. And I thought about going to Louie’s this summer, and decided not to go because… well, there’s a lot of reasons.

I was also thinking about my mom and Ken, and how she promised me that she wouldn’t give him another chance because there’s a patters and it’s not going to work out. But she gave him another chance anyway. So I spent most of the weekend just bawling. Really, I shouldn’t have been bawling like I was over those two things. But I was, so… yeah.

But we’re on our way to Gallup now. And I’m leaving my problems in Arizona. No reason to bring them along where people have much worse things to be dealing with than their mom’s boyfriend.

We just said the Rosary, and I’m ready to go now. I’m in the zone.

Too bad I’m stuck on the bus for several more hours. But I’ll take this time to rest, and relax. Because for the next week, I’m gonna be working hard and won’t have much time to relax.

When we prayed the Rosary, I went up and I led one of the decades. I announced the fourth joyful mystery, and then the Our Father, ten Hail Marys, Glory Be, and an Oh My Jesus.

And in the middle of the Hail Marys, I had the feeling that I was saying the wrong words. It was a weird feeling. I’ve known that prayer since before I could remember. And I don’t think I said it wrong. Just… for a second, I felt like I was.

We’re still in the middle of the desert, surrounded by mountains. But the mountains are full of green shrubs and yellow grass, growing wild without limits. I don’t see cacti, instead I see trees and green, green, green. It’s like Banks Lowman Road, and if I could open the windows, I’d smell Idaho smell. Well, maybe not. But it’s nice to think about. Even in a place that I really know nothing about, and that I’ve never been to, I feel like I’m at home.

Every once in a while, on this long, grey road, I see the power lines. Out here in these mountains, they aren’t just telephone poles, made of wood and swaying in the wind.

These cables are held up by silver giants. Legs stretch down from the waste, and small arms extrude from the broad shoulders. These silver giants once seemed out of place, foreign in this green and yellow landscape, where the kills rise and fall as they please, not as man has commanded them.

But they have, over the years, made this their home. If you look at the feet of these metal monsters, you will find wild flowers, back from hibernation in the long winter. The sky is blue, stretching for miles in each direction. This sky, however, doesn’t get to go on for that long undisturbed. White, puffy clouds interrupt the monotony of the blue. This sky, with these perfectly puffy clouds, is lost. It doesn’t belong out here, in this desert, where people expect to see no clouds, nothing that could possibly bring moisture to the area. This sky belongs over a park, on a Saturday afternoon, the sun playing peekaboo through all those flying cotton balls, on their way to heaven.

But the clear, blue sky is also broken by the sharp mountains that jut up from the horizon, blocking the color from continuing. Since the beginning of time, the mountains and sky have been at war, battling for the space. The mountains want to climb high, out of this heat. But the sky is intent on keeping the mountains down.

And in the middle of the centuries-long battle and the unlikely friendships of steel and flower, are two charter buses, carrying over 70 teens to Gallup, New Mexico, where they will serve their Lord and his people.

We stopped in Holbrook, and we’re over halfway there. But we still have several hours left to go.


It’s almost time for lights-out. It’s after 10 and the heat is still unbearable. Almost. It’s not as hot as in Arizona, but it’s all trapped in this tiny room. The window is open, to let in any cool air. We’ll have to remember to shut it in the morning, to keep out