So....

I got a tumblr. It's here. Enjoy.

I'm gonna be trying it out for a couple of weeks. If I don't like it. Check back here. It'll be blogger for me.

Contemplation.....

I am thinking about switching to the blogging platform Tumblr.......

Opinions?

Views?

Objections?

Complaints?

Opposition?

No?

Things that made my day

1. Caramel + Apple Slices = Happy Breakfast

2. A call from a first grader asking if I "liked a snake, a yak, a gorilla or a raccoon best?"

3. A whopper storm

4. A new Flickr account

See it here

Happy Monday to you all!

quick update...

As I type this, I am sitting in the campus Library in an abandoned coffee shop. Waiting for my two friends to come so we can prepare for this tournament that is tomorrow. We are organizing and deciding whose car the two boxes will go in and printing out articles. Fun stuff.

Mom and Dad are in Houston and yours truly is depending on rides from her sisters... as I don't have a car yet. (I know, I'm ashamed of me too.) So anyway, I had to be dropped off an hour early due to said sisters' schedules. But, I am ok with that. It gives me time to write this post.

So, what are you doing over spring break week? I'd love to hear!

On thankfulness, contentment and cultures......

As I sit here in my red sneakers, I am thankful. Yup, thankful. I complain a lot, I really do. About school, chemistry, rain, sunshine (or rather the lack thereof) cool weather, colds etc. But, this earthquake and tsunami in Japan has really put things into perspective for me.

Here I am sitting on the computer "studying" in my nice warm house with nice fuzzy socks under sneakers, jeans and an overlarge sweatshirt with tea in a mug beside me and a mother just across the room who loves me very much and God who loves me so much more. And people, I complain. Do you realize how ungrateful I am? I know, it's ridiculous!

People in Japan don't have decent food, water, or shelter. They are missing members of their families, sleeping on cardboard, standing in line for hours to get rice crackers and clean water and now they have the threat of a radiation cloud hanging over their heads. If anyone has the right to complain, it is they. But, they don't. They wait patiently and are generous with the meager supplies that they have. The Japanese culture is really one of community. They care for one another.

Our culture is a self-focused culture. It is too individualistic. Sure, it's great to "be yourself" and have your own opinions, but when it goes too far (as it has) other people's opinions just don't matter anymore. YOU make your own decisions, It's YOUR life, YOU need to listen to YOUR heart, YOU deserve the best.

Our culture ignores that, in fact, we are flawed, sinful humans. We don't have enough wisdom to make decisions for ourselves. Not wise ones at least. We need the wisdom with which God has gifted others. We need to pray and read his word before we make decisions. We don't deserve the best, we don't even deserve what we have.

I am not saying that the Japanese Culture is perfect, because it's not, but what I am trying to say is that when you have a culture that doesn't basically say "you are God and your decisions matter the most" you get a lot more done.

What would happen, I wonder, if we had a 8.9 earthquake and a tsunami in San Francisco? Do you think people would stand patiently in lines to get 2 Rice cakes a person and one bottle of water? Do you think people would give their rations to those who are sick and need them more? Do you think people would refrain from looting through houses? I don't think so.

It would be more like looting and robbing and murder and chaos and riots. Our culture says "you deserve better than this."

The Japanese say "I am so blessed to be alive!", "My family is safe!", "We get clean water!"

It all comes back to contentment. Thankfulness and a realization that you DON'T deserve better, you deserve much, much worse. All we have are gifts of God's great grace.

Nothin' says "I'm sick" like the carmel I burnt.

That's right ya'lls. I burnt the carmel. I never burn carmel. I never burn ANYTHING! ever.

All that to say: I'm sick. again. I'm chalking it up to the low Vitamin D levels.

Folksies it has been a sick kinda year. To date I have had: Pneumonia, Bronchitis, strep, the one day flu, the week long flu, two sinus infections, a concussion and a variety of colds. And I ain't even kidding. The z-pack and I have been well acquainted this winter.

I need chocolate. Have a great monday peoples.

Prayers for the Unborn

Today, Kay and I had the blessed opportunity to go and pray in front of our local abortion center. We went with 40 days for life.

It was helpful to be reminded of the loss of human life everyday in our country, that is legal. Can you believe that it is legal to murder our children? Murder. I mean that. It's not "terminating a pregnancy" or "protecting women's rights", it. is. murder.

We pray for the women who decide to do this. We pray for their husbands, boyfriends and parents who convince them that it is the right thing to do. We pray for the abortionist and his staff.

Our town's abortionist is a man of hypocrisy. He aborts children in our town Tuesday-Saturday. He aborts children in a neighboring town Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. And on Mondays he delivers babies at the hospital. Talk about irony. This man believes that what he is doing is a mission from the LORD. Literally, he does. We pray for his salvation.

We had signs today that said "Pray for Abortion to End." While we were there, they taped three signs in their window. 1. "Pray to end sidewalk bullying" 2. "Jesus never shamed women" and 3. A picture of the savior. At a place of murder, they posted a picture of Jesus Christ. Yet every day they do atrocities that are direct violations of his holy nature and laws.

Christ knit the children, they are aborting, together. He knew them before they existed, he made them specially, as he did with the mothers, the fathers, the abortionist and his staff.

"I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well." Psalm 139:14

Please pray to end abortion. Pray for the salvation of those involved with it. Pray for churches to come along side single moms and families that have decided not to abort their children. Pray for Organizations that assist unwed mothers. Our God is a God of means. He will use your prayers, and he will use your actions to further his glory.

For HE know the plans he has for you.....

Today one of my best friends, since third grade, emailed me and said that she is moving to Mississippi. Her name is Christina.

We babysat our Youth Pastor's children together.....

She came over for one of the first photo shoots with her baby brother.....

We went on vacation together and played cards.....

I subjected her to the worst kinds of photos. I still laugh about this one. *smile*

She even put up with my bad photography skills on the Youth Retreat.

And pretty much everywhere......

Yup, even when watching America's Funniest Home videos while in Lafayette for a speech tourney.

Not just a friend. A sister.

God will use her for his glory in MS. Thank you Lord, for this sister.

Snakes, and snails and puppy dog tails......

Look at me, two posts in one day. My life as a sporadic blogger seems to be changing for the better.

Anyhoo I just had to share a funny conversation with you.

Background: For three years now I have been teaching piano to make a little extra money. I started with one student, peaked with three and am now down to two, as one moved away. Today I had a very funny conversation with the male half of my students. After admiring my multi colored pen today during his lesson:

Student: If Daddy has one of these, I will take it to school with me.

Me: Yeah, but you would have to ask him first, right?

Student: Yeah. And then I wouldn't have to hide it under my pillow. *smiles*

Me: We don't want to do that. Then you would be stealing. You need to ask your dad first.

Student: Yup. I hide snakes and toads under my pillow too.

Me: Toy Snakes and toads, right?

Student: No.

Me: LIVING snakes and toads?

Student: No, dead ones. (..................moment of silence) But, mama takes them away and puts them out in the yard and it makes me sad. I got most of my toads from the playground at school. We have lots toads at school. They fit good into the little pocket of my backpack.

Boy are so different from girls. Jus' Sayin'. I almost laughed ya'll. It took a lot of strength not to. Believe me.

Note: I also babysit this child. Will I ever go near his pillow? Never again, folks, never again.

Raindrops keep falling........

drip, drip, drip, drip...... and another drip. It has been pouring here for the last 3 days. Now, I am one who loves rain and loves to take her zebra-umbrella-toting-self out on the rainy street but sometimes it just gets to be too much! I need some sunshine! I ain't an eskimo or a blind bat. If I told you how low I am on Vitamin D it might just shock you. It seems as though we have not had a spot of sunshine for about 4 months. I need summer, people. I just can't take it anymore. If only I could go to Florida for spring break...... but, Cincy will have to do this year. :)

Have you ever noticed that rain seems to have a strange effect on cats? My cat has been so cranky today. He woke me up at about 2:00 am by slowly clawing my toes off. And he is so cute most of the time.

Isn't he a dang handsome fellow? You don't think so? Neither did I at 2:00 this morning. :-/

The poor dog has borne the brunt of his wrath today. The poor thing is just harassed by Gideon. Every time we hear a "wimper.... wimper.... roof! whine...." we know the source of her distress. The lovely orange feline is in his devil-cat mode today. Not fun to encounter.......... just ask my mutilated toes.

When I feel crafty.....

I make these!

Yo-yos for your hair!

All it is really is: a circle of vintage fabric with a 5" diameter, three buttons, and some thread.

You take the circle of fabric and sew in big stitches all around the edge. Then pull thread to gather the fabric at the top. Tie thread ends. snip. then sew the three buttons over the ugly gathery part. sew through yo-yo to flatten out. Then take a bobbie pin and stick it through the thread loops in the back and there you have it!

If this is confusing, I can post more pictures or even a video if ya'll are interested. :)

Loveliest of Wednesdays to you dear reader.

SMS

Save My Sanity. Yup. I am stuck at school with no place to go. I am so flippin' bored. My mom has the car and I have nothing to do. Besides assignments of torture homework......... yippee skippy. Nothing exciting to do. I could do my math/stat stuff but it's not urgent.

So default = complaining blogging. Because I don't have any clothespins and no friends with me on which to pin them. See photo below. It's a PorcuBronson!

That's what we do when we are bored. We do a lot of stupid stuff. We've got the legal right after all. :)

Everyone is gone today. Christina is in English, Rachel is in Spanish, Kay is in Honors and Bess is in economics. :(

But hey, I am thankful that I am done with Chemistry for the day. (fireworks, joy, merriment and parades)

Maybe I'll go do my homework......

Have a great Tuesday ya'll.

Yours Truly,

The languishing student.

I called Support

Do you ever have one of those "gag me with a rubber spoon" kind of moments?

You know what I am talking about. Don't deny it. Things seem all hunky dory, sitting in your kitchen doing the regular ol' routine school work and toast (which this week happened to have all-natural maple cream on it. More about that for another day). And life seems to be a fairly jovial thing.

But then, you move on to another subject, you realize that a necessary portion of your curriculum is missing. I mean, seriously people, how is it possible to lose a neon-yellow algebra CD? I betcha they could use the same color for clay pigeons.

So, I just figgered I could move on to something else. Algebra usually shows up like a bad penny, anyway.

But, you know me, when I get distracted, it's hard to get back to the stuff I oughta be doing. Like, homework or cleaning or something within the realm of usefulness. But nope, I just had to be distracted by something shiny. In this case, my typing CD from Jr. High. (I ran across it in my doomed searches for the afore said clay-pigeon-like CD.)

Now, for those of who have luckily escaped personally meeting me, I have to tell you something. I am a brunette with an extremely blond soul. You've been fairly warned.

Anywho, this here brunette (blonde?) happened to have forgotten that not all age old CD's are compatible with both PC's and Macs. The CD in question is apparently only usable on a PC. Might have wanted to check on that before I inserted it into my brand-spankin'-new Macbook.

It. got. stuck. and. would. not. eject. At which point, the phrase "oh crud" became rather attractive. After a grueling 30 mins rebooting and trying all the tricks of the trade that this pea-brained sophomore could muster, I decided to call in the big guns. That's right. I called support.

Apparently, all you have to do is shut down your computer, hold down the mousepad and restart your computer. Who woulda thunk ? not me, that's fo sho.

Maybe someday I will write an ode to Apple Support. Who knows.

So, the bad moment turned out alright. No rubber spoons for me, thanks.

I'm back, in black.....

well, actually I'm wearing green right now, but green doesn't rhyme with back. :)

So, a lot can change in 10 months. I'll list a few.

1. I started debate, which is a barrel of fun, or monkeys depending on which way you're looking at it. My Debate partner is a close friend of mine, who happens to be the sister of my sister's roommate.

2. I have decided on my major. I'll give you a hint.

3. I have a job which begins this summer. :D

And a few other things have changed, but I won't take anymore of your precious brain cells. Until my next post, may the Force be with you.