re-discovering a hobby

Oh sweet bananas it's been too long since I've read a good book. I happened to be in the Library with Mom this afternoon, just hanging out with her after dance practice. A trio of colorful books caught my eye, and the next thing I know I'm knee deep in a wonderful, Christian, (dare I say it?), romance novel.

It's been - oh - 3 years maybe? since I last read a romance novel. (for many reasons, actually) And it's been, since before college at least, that I've picked up a fun, truly good, non-school book. I soaked in the author's humor, her thirteen thousand movie references, and the witty characters who lived on coffee and chocolate. Even better though, was the fact that the topic of God's Sovereignty was woven throughout the book, with the characters wrestling with different aspects of that. It was great to 'be a part of'. For the past four hours, it seemed like I was in heaven, then sadly I came to the last page. Thankfully, there are two more books in the series, and a stand-alone novel by the same author (Erynn Mangum, fyi).

Maybe it's a good thing that I don't have ten jobs at the moment.... now I can have more time to get back into a hobby I forgot that I had: reading truly good books for fun. And not only fun, but books that I don't have to write an 8 page essay on afterwards. 

waving good-bye to friendliness?

My brother had cross-country practice at 6am this morning, and since he can't drive by himself (yet), Mom took him there. She said she was going to go running while he practiced, and wondered if I would want to come along. In all my craziness, I said yes.

To make a long story not-so-long, we ran on a road that was a mile long (so, down and back, and to our car - ended up being about 2.5 miles). While we ran  - wait, correction, I rollerbladed - we passed, maybe, 20 or so cars. I smiled and waved at all of them, and only one person smiled and waved back.

That's right, one person out of 20.

Sad, isn't it? Are we saying good-bye to people being friendly in small-town-usa? I can understand in the bigger cities if someone wouldn't smile and wave back. Although, no, living in a big city shouldn't be an excuse for being nice. Everyone should be nice! It's about loving your neighbor, right? Mom says I live in a 'sunshine, lollipops and rainbows' world. Where I just think everyone is nice and everyone is happy. Maybe I'm wrong... but I really think that everyone has cause to be happy - after all - they are alive and living in this beautiful world that God made. Yes, there is chaos and destruction, but doesn't every cloud have a silver lining? I don't know - I just sometimes wish people could be nicer and friendlier to one another (including myself - I do have crabby days too, promise).

midnight (ish) ramblings

hey folks! it appears that work has finally slowed (I know some of you will be happy to read that.. haha) and so! I have some 'life goals' - aka things that I want to accomplish over the next few weeks. I thought about writing them down, hoping that that will help me to actually do them. what better place to write them, than here?! so here goes:

-make soap (yep, this is still on my 2011 bucket list)
-sew an adventure bag for my brother (it's been how long since he asked me to do that? ouch)
-sew a messenger bag for mom
-sew a messenger bag for me
-go through my old college books (give, sell, keep, organize, etc)
-read several books that have been suggested to me (including but not limited to authors like Francis Chan, Gabe Lyons, and Rob Bell)

I would love to add 'paint my bedroom, buy a new computer, and buy a car' - but those aren't near as realistic as the ones above. I know mom has some other 'jobs' she wants me to do... so yay I'm going to stay busy! I love being busy. life is so boring otherwise, ya know? plus, the Sabbath is for being boring (well, not so much boring as restful), and the other 6 days are for keeping busy. God really planned things out well :)

so yeah, that's what my crazy mind thinks at 12:30am

cheerio, all :)

soooo beautiful

people, check this song out! it's beautiful, amazing, gorgeous, wonderful..... I'm going to run out of adjectives. who would have thought to put a Taylor Swift song with a Coldplay song?! (plus, those are two of my favorite artists) these guys are insane, and I could seriously listen to this song over and over and over. oh wait - I'm already doing that :D

here: YouTube... it's so cool to watch them play
or here: Grooveshark... if you so choose

How Great is Our God

Alright people, God is awesome. Period. He just is!!! And I have a super cool story (well, it's super cool to me anyways) to go with that.

As some of you know, I have a job with CollegePlus! making educational videos. The past couple weeks have been really hard, because I'm working with a subject that I'm not very good at, or familiar with. Just a little more info that will be pertinent later on - when you are editing the videos and you want to insert an image onto the video, the little icon to click on to do that is a tree. (promise, that will be relevant later :) )

Rewind to about 2 1/2 years ago, when I very first started CollegePlus!. I was happily working away on my CLEPS day to day, when one night, I had the craziest dream ever. I told my Mom about it -- "Mom, guess what, I just had the most crazy dream. I dreamed that I was making videos for CollegePlus!! When would they ever need videos for anything, and why would I be working for them?! Isn't that crazy?!" Mom nodded and shrugged and I said "Oh yeah, and in the dream there was this tree. It was so random, but there it was, me making CollegePlus! videos with a tree just - being there." 

Yesterday as I was editing a video, all that came flooding back. Wham. I kinda felt like Sarah for a moment... laughing and not believing that something that sounded crazy to me could actually happen. Then I was overcome with a wave of peace. It was so reassuring to remember that dream - it just really felt in that moment that God had this under control, and making these videos what I was supposed to be doing. It was so great to know that right then, because of the fact that these videos are HARD to do, and I had been second guessing whether I should have even taken the job or not.

The good lessons I learned -- be perseverant. It may be hard, you may hate every minute of what you are doing, but like Paul says, we're still supposed to do everything to the glory of God. And - God has a plan!! Praise Him for that. :) 

check it out

This, my friends, is a great article. Read it!

http://goinswriter.com/get-rejected/

I find myself doing that all too often, and like he said, I want it to seem casual and take the pressure off. I think I'm going to start making a conscious effort to 'stop asking and start inviting'. It will be different... but it's worth a try.

Thoughts?

:blush: I don't usually do this, but here goes a tiiiiny bit of self-promotion.

If you live in the Dakotas (and even if you don't) you can go and check out my photos on CaptureDakota.com. See, there is this photo contest where anyone can submit their best photos taken in North or South Dakota. Users get to vote on photos, and at the end of the contest, 200+ photos will be selected to be published in a book. It'd be so cool to get my photos published!! If they're any good, that is. And even if they don't get published, that's okay, it's been really fun to be a part of!

Anyways, you can check them out if you want to -- and maybe you've seen a photo I've taken that you think should be on there, maybe you have some critique for my photos - let me know! (via comments or email) Gracias :)