Perfectly Ridiculous (My Perfectly Misunderstood Life Book #3) , livre ebook

Baker Publishing Group - Kristin Billerbeck

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107 pages

English

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Daisy Crispin is at a crossroads. In one direction lies the promised land--life at college, away from her embarrassing and overprotective parents. In the other direction is reality--her strapped bank account, an ailing father, and family priorities. Daisy knows the "perfect" daughter wouldn't have to think twice. But maybe Daisy was never really perfect on any level, because she does not want her life to look the way her parents think it should. She won't let that stop her, though. Now that she has been given an exciting free trip to Argentina before going to college, she's thrilled--until her parents decide to go along with her.Hilarious and all too true to life, Perfectly Ridiculous gives teen girls more of what they want and love to read from Kristin Billerbeck.

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Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	01 juillet 2012
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781441238061
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0173€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

© 2012 by Kristin Billerbeck
Published by Revell
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.revellbooks.com
Ebook edition created 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means for example, electronic, photocopy, recording without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-4412-3806-1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
The internet addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers in this book are accurate at the time of publication. They are provided as a resource. Baker Publishing Group does not endorse them or vouch for their content or permanence.
Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920, www.alivecommunications.com .
To my sixteen-year-old self and anyone resembling her. You are God’s beloved. Make sure any guy you’re interested in treats you well. If he doesn’t, move on before your heart gets too involved . . . so you will never feel “perfectly ridiculous.” It’s not your job to fix someone only God can do that. So if a relationship makes you feel bad most of the time, that’s not God’s will for your life. Enjoy the world around you and your friendships to the full.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9
10 11 12
13 14 15
16 17 18
19
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Books by Kristin Billerbeck
Back Ads
Back Cover
1
June 20
Fun factoid of the day: Abraham Lincoln never graduated from high school. He seemed to do all right for himself.
This was supposed to be my first travel journal. Travel! As in away from home and the rules and the stifling closeness of five people living in such a small house, which is covered with craft supplies and love, as my mom likes to say. This would be my first vacation, really, unless you count the time I went with my parents on that tour of Civil War battlefields and I don’t count that. Somehow I thought I’d feel different after graduation. Fulfilled, maybe? Accomplished? Something! High school was heinous, an insidious evil forced upon society’s youth under the guise of education. (My best friend Claire and I made that up when we had to use insidious as a vocabulary word nice, huh?)
Granted, high school is better if one is acne-free, can afford Forever 21 clothes, and manages to nab a boyfriend. Sadly, I was not one of those girls. I was the one who was good at math, wore homemade clothes, and had to work every day after school, while the wealthy kids at my private high school hung out at their country clubs. My mother claims this was character building, but by my calculations, I should be as big as Mickey Mouse when it comes to character. I was the nerdy girl who cute boys talked to only if they needed tutoring help or a lab partner.
I possessed none of the accessories that improve one’s stock price in high school. At least, not until the bitter end when I managed to get a date for prom sort of. (I was actually there doing community service long story but I did get one dance, and I told myself I could live on that.)
Naturally, no one will remember the bitter end. No, reality says they are going to recall the sum total of my high school experience and be surprised when I show up at our reunion in a store-bought dress. I know it’s wrong to find my worth in what others think of me, or in material goods my mother has told me so since birth, I believe. However, my mother also buys upholstery fabric to make her own dresses. She claims it has more structure and works like a built-in girdle. I think it just makes her look like furniture.
I’ve tried to explain Spanx, but that’s just more consumerism on my part, and she goes right back to looking like a floral sofa (only she’s lost weight, so now she’s more of a love seat). We’re different, my mom and me, and I wouldn’t be surprised at all to find out I was switched at birth.
I want her to know that I’m not defective just because I don’t think exactly like her. Is that too much to ask? We can have different personalities and still both love Jesus. I fail to see how not being able to make a decoratively crafted fabric apple makes me less of a Christian. Doesn’t Jesus need some people who are good with numbers? People who want to be out in the world and live, not just those who want to have a quiet life of crafting? Paul traveled, did he not? Even Jesus traveled!
My mom would say that the gift for numbers is for men that finance is a “man’s job” but see, that’s hard to stomach because I’m tutoring those “men” at school. It’s a gift. God just gave it to me. I think he had to notice I was female. He doesn’t miss details like that. I mean, the guys at school may not have noticed I’m female, but God knit me together in the womb and all that, so he knows!
Travel journal, you know how extremely strict my parents are, and that would have been fine if they had understood that just because I went to a Christian school, it doesn’t mean I was protected from the cruel, harsh world. How much easier my high school life might have been if my parents understood that mean girls are still mean girls, and all the human frailties that still make Lord of the Flies relevant reading go on in every high school across America. Albeit without the pig head. But maybe somewhere in the Midwest where they have access to a pig head, that’s part of the deal too. Who knows?
So while guys weren’t knocking down my door and I wasn’t allowed to date during high school, prom stuck out in my mind as something I had to accomplish. Like a decent SAT score. If I could get to prom, I reasoned that it would make up for my complete lack of a social life during high school. And like I said, through a series of mishaps, I did manage to get there, with Argentine hottie Max Diaz. So I was running the Breathalyzer machine at the front door, but it still counts. Max was a transfer student from Argentina. S í , el es muy caliente . Very hot! But after graduation, he went back to Buenos Aires to live with his mother and somehow seemed to forget I exist.
Now, I highly doubt that after a nearly perfect record of being dateless throughout high school, anyone is going to remember my brief love connection with the Argentine. Or my brief stint in real jeans. So it’s time I wrote off high school altogether and concentrated on my future.
Max wanted to be a preacher, and my parents saw that as the perfect type of husband for me. They allowed a brief “courtship” (emphasis on brief) but then decided I was too young to consider marriage (um, yeah!) and started harping on how difficult a culturally diverse marriage might be. They practically had a parade when he left. In other words, they got scared and decided majoring in finance was better than marrying a foreigner without a real job. Not that he asked for or considered more than a tango at prom, but if that and a full scholarship to Pepperdine make my parents see the benefits of majoring in finance, I’m all for it.
So it’s kind of like my life has totally been erased. Everything that happened before now is over, and I get to create a whole new future as a finance major at Pepperdine University in Malibu. Now I can focus on the future and success and what God has for me without being held back by high school.
No one can blame me for feeling defeated at this juncture. I assumed I’d magically wake up, but now I understand that it didn’t matter what kind of jeans I wore or even if I wore jeans, since my mother tended to make most of my clothing. But there’s a letdown that no one tells you about. You’ve done it. You’ve accomplished your goal and graduated with honors and . . . and . . . oh, did we forget to mention that no one cares?
High school graduation is a goal that’s given to you. You are not given a choice. You either do the work or you practice this saying: “Would you like fries with that?” After all, we’re told, “Go, apply thyself and bring home thy best letter grades so that ye might find a good return in thy labor.”
So as a good Christian girl, I did what was commanded of me. I honored my parents okay, maybe not as well as I could have, but I wore the ugly clothes my mother made. (Look, I know I was lucky to have them and all, but at my wealthy college prep school, homemade clothes are not what you want to stand out for so go ahead, judge me, but walk a mile in my fake Nikes before you do.) I abstained from makeup and most of the “evils of the vain world,” as my mother calls them.
But I did not ever feel that fitting in was evil. God never gave me that mandate. He did, however, tell me to honor my parents. Which I did, but not without a bit of residual effects. I wanted more control. I now see that maybe I could have spent a little of the money I made and done more for myself, but that’s another story.
My current story is much more complicated. College begins in two months. I’m on a full-ride scholarship to Pepperdine University to major in finance because I don’t ever plan to live hand-to-mouth as my parents seem to. I want more say in my life. More control.
My best friend Claire’s father is sending us to Buenos Aires for a graduation trip. That’s Argentina! Are you kidding me? Did I hit the jackpot when I chose a best friend or what? I mean, I think my parents might have sprung for a foreign movie festival at the Cineplex, but this!
Buenos Aires . . . sounds like perfection, right? I might see Max. I might learn more about a different culture. I mi