Never Here...

Sorely neglected...

2011-09-18T23:48:00.003-04:00

Dear Never-here blog,
I have sorely neglected you over the past nine months. Sorry about that. If it helps make you feel any better, I haven't had a lot going on in my life. The only notable things have been finding a new fun obsession in Avatar: the Last Airbender and taking up yoga. I can almost touch my toes, I'm like an inch away! YAY!

Don't mock me.

I would like to let you know, that I have not forgotten you, or the Tales of Pharmacie. I'm still working on it... I just can't figure out the climax of the story! I've got a plot hole that looks like it could swallow a Volkswagen.

Other than that... not much going on here. Border's has closed, which makes me sad... but not much else happened/happening.

All for now! Hopefully I'll write soon with some sort of awesome, pithy, insightful post about something epic.

Sincerely yours,
Mona Lisa

P.S. One of these days I will get on here and post something life shatteringly epic. Something like, I just got a date... or traveled somewhere awesome... or started wandering around in space and time in a blue box with a man called the Doctor...

Dream dream dream...

Happy New Year

2011-01-02T16:58:00.002-05:00

2010 is gone and 2011 is here! There has been some debate on whether or not last year, this year, or some other year was/is/will be the end of the decade, but I'm not getting into that. What I will get into is a recap of my last year and predictions for this year.

Last Year:
Started out the year in Brasil, learned the art of making coffee related drinks, worked at a book shop, got a diploma, avoided major catastrophe in my life, got addicted to Doctor Who, learned I could pass for a Seventh Day Adventist... decent year. Except for the Brasil bits, it was kinda dull and went by fairly quickly. Did have a few highlights, like seeing my friends and their child, Brasil, meeting some of the OCD people who work at bookshops, teaching a free ESL class... but nothing OMJ AMAAAAZING! Then again, those sort of things don't happen very often, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised or disappointed by my serious lack of them.

This Year:
Well, I've spent the first two days down with illness likeness. (Don't make comment on my weirdly grammars. Tis my own dialect. ;oP ) New Year's Eve was fun though. Hung out with some of my friends, a person I went to school with, people I hadn't seen in a while. Good times. Also going to a play this week called "Thirty Nine Steps". Not sure what it is about, but worth a go, especially for free.

Other than that, I make this prediction for 2011: I will end it in the same position in life I currently hold. ie: single, living at home, a few pittance in the bank, still not traveled to Europe. I may have a different job by the year's end, but I doubt anything else will much change. Unless my car dies. Then I'll probably get a different one.

I've rambled through my ill fog long enough.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 1523!!! LONG LIVE THE KING!

A Twice Free People

2010-11-24T23:50:00.002-05:00

Very close to four hundred years ago, a group of people gathered round a feast to celebrate a good harvest. They gathered with kin, old friends, and new ones as well. They gathered to give thanks to a most beneficent God who had given them everything they had.

These people, though I seriously doubt they knew what would come of it at the time, were celebrating a brand new holiday to be called Thanksgiving. I doubt these people foresaw a great nation springing from their humble colony. I doubt they thought about the traditions they were setting forth. And I am positive it never crossed their mind that the fourth Friday in November would become the biggest hope for retailers to turn a profit in the fourth quarter. I think they were just thankful they were alive and able to eat.

But what brought these people here? What brought farmers, merchants, laborers, and their families to leave the last traces of civilization across the sea and settle in a wild new world inhabited by a completely unknown (and possibly unfriendly) people? It's actually a pretty simple answer. Freedom.

These were a group of people who were being told how they could and could not worship God and what they should and should not think about Him. They were being persecuted for doing right. Instead of bowing to the oppressors and whining about how rotten they were, they did what they had to do and left.

In the name of God and freedom some pilgrims came to America to worship God as they saw fit and be free from oppression and tyranny. The first year was horribly hard. People died, morale was I am sure quite low, but they endured. They had two choices - live or die trying. By God's grace some lived and more people came over and things were hard, but they relied on God and did what they had to do and in the end thrived.

Now let us fast forward to present day. What state are we in? Every day the world tries telling us what we must think about sin, Creation, and God. Every day the rights and privileges the Pilgrims risked their lives for and our Founding Fathers guaranteed to us are being stripped away. We are being terrorized by our own government. Good men are imprisoned while murderers roam free. We forfeit our freedom for safety and in the end receive neither.

The Pilgrims fled tyranny and oppression so they and all who came after them could be free. They lived and died, abandoned their lives for the cause of Christ and freedom, and here we are giving up every last stitch of our personal freedoms and dignity and integrity for something less substantial than a security blanket. At least you can hold a security blanket. Our Founding Fathers gave up everything and staked their lives for our freedom, and we hand over our freedom over a possible threat of discomfort or danger. Someone whispers a buzz word and our mouths fall silent lest God's truth, once proclaimed proudly from the street corners mind you, offends and we "get in trouble."

The whole of human history has been obsessed with the word "freedom", and we as Christian Americans are the only ones in possession of true freedom. Yet, we give it up at every turn. We yield to the tyranny of sin at the slightest temptation, we silence ourselves for fear of "political correctness", we hand over our constitutional rights in the name of safety. Have we forgotten that this is a fallen world and it is appointed unto a man once to die? Have we forgotten that God does not allow anything outside of His will? Have we forgotten that He moves men and holds the hearts of kings? How then, as the doubly blessed, twice free peoples we are stand idly by and let a tyrannical government take these things away from us? Where is our voice? Where are our prayers? Why are we cow-towing to sinners and slaves of Satan when we are the Children of God?

The Theory of Circles and Strings

2010-08-14T12:25:00.010-04:00

I have this theory I'm working on. I'm going to call it the Theory of Circles and Strings.

People seem to have this ridiculous idea thanks to things like timelines and words like "progress" and "moving forward" that we all move in straight lines. I submit we move in circles.

We start moving in these circles, or spiraling circles if you will, around the age of 5 when we start school. This government mandated circle starts out very large as everyone is required to go to school. As the years drag on however people drop out for various reasons and so the spiraling circles get smaller. After 13 to 19+ years of the Academic Spiral we find we have spent the vast majority of our lives sitting at a desk longing to go outside for recess. We spend our formative years sitting at a desk, listening to someone talk; as our bodies and minds grow, change, and develop. The whole time it's home to school to home to school to home to school. We sleep, wake, go to school, go home, do homework, and repeat.

Once we leave the Academic Spiral we find ourselves on the Career Spiral. Once again it starts out very large as many of those drop outs from school are now amongst the working peoples (and have been for a while). We spend this whole time getting up, going to work, working, coming home from work, going to bed, and doing it all over again the next day. We spend the VAST part of our adult lives going home to work, home to work, home to work, home to work. hardly a variation, unless we switch jobs for some reason. And even at that, it's the same sort of spiraling circle, just in a different location.

Regardless of whether or not we "move up" in the company hardly matters to the Career Spiral. We simply keep going around and around, watching the spiral shrink as people retire, go on disability, die, win the lottery, or whatever. We continue on this spiral until we near the age 65, give or take.

There's usually some point on this spiral where most people stop spinning long enough to look around, which is typically a shocking experience and leads to some form of crisis. We stop, we look around, and we realize that we have become our parents, our children have had children, and there is this grinning little five year old face looking into yours, about to start the Academic Spiral, and it looks ever so familiar and you sadly remember you used to have a face like that. We then run to the nearest mirror and peering in we realize that we are no longer that young, thin, energetic person with hopes and dreams, but rather a lined and wrinkled, not so thin person with no energy, problems, worries, and a mortgage.

After the Career Spiral we enter the Retirement Spiral whose size is constantly influx thanks to athletes and other people who can't figure out whether or not they actually want to retire. The size and duration of the retirement spiral is completely irrelevant because it invariably ends in a pine box at the bottom of a rectangular hole.

Invariably, and with growing frequency as we get older, we ask: What happened? How did we get... old?

Remember as child how we used to spin and spin and spin as fast as we could, and no matter how hard we tried to stay in place we always moved away from the place we started? I think it's like that. We spend our lives spinning, thinking we're not really going anywhere, and the next thing you know we are the grandparents and our lives are almost gone.

Frightening isn't it?

I think there are a few kinds of people on any given spiral - those that who get eaten by it and turn into zombies, those who simply go along with it and generally end up slightly cynical with a dash of regret and bitterness, and those who turn the spiraling circles into a string.

String people are those individuals who seem to utterly escape the spiral. The string is sometimes a straight line, a squiggle, or even occasionally a spiral, but never for long. They are those lucky individuals who never go to work, but go to do what they love every day and get paid for it. These are not the work-a-holics (those are the zombies), but the people that love whatever it is they do. They also seem to be the people that never get old. They die young at 105 years old. And even after they die they live on because the mark they left on the lives of the people they came in contact with cannot be forgotten or erased. They're the people that feel like they're always with you, even years after they're gone.

I envy the string people. I want to be a string person.

But the question is: How do you become a string person?

Being a Book Collector

2010-06-10T11:35:00.004-04:00

Some people collect stamps. Some collect trains. Others collect coins, tin signs, old tools, dust, or stickers. I am one of those people that collects stuff. Namely, books. Books are one of my hobbies. But not just any books mind you, a certain kind of books. And the whole thing started with a quest for books by C. S. Lewis.

Some years ago I found a website that had a very long list of books written by C. S. Lewis. I currently have 23 books by Lewis, with 3 more on the way. Those 3 excluded, I still am shy 32 books of owning the complete works of C. S. Lewis. Sadly, almost all of my Lewis books are paperback. I do have a copy of the rare (ie: $$) "Allegory of Love" which is one of two hardcovers (the other being "Miracles" with "The Screwtape Letters" crammed in the back). Sadly, I could only afford to get the second edition of "Allegory of Love", but it's in great condition! So I'm not complaining. I wouldn't mind getting a first edition, but whatever. I'm hoping one day to find myself the happy possessor of hardcover set of the Chronicles of Narnia. I'm thinking if I finish off my paper back collection and I get bored with some extra cash, I will go about getting all hardcover editions of his books and/or as early an edition as I can get my hands on.

I also seem to have quite the Tolkien collection (which I never set out to acquire...) including a very lovely suede leather with gold foil Lord of the Rings and a leather and foil copy of the Hobbit. I also recently(ish) got a big, beautiful copy of the "Silmarillion". Not to mention two new releases (yes, you read that right) of "The Children of Hurin" (or "Narn I Hin Hurin" for us nerds) and "Sigurd and Gudrun" which is a big poetry book loosely based off of a set of Norse legends. Go figure! Tolkien seems to be the one of whom I get duplicates. You see, I have 2 copies of 4 books. I believe there is only 1 duplicate in my Lewis collection (I managed to get "Screwtape Letters" twice).

Besides my OCD obsession with having to own all the books in a series (regardless of how many my sister has and is willing to let me borrow them whenever), I also seem to be acquiring quite the interesting hodge podge of what I call "reference books". Whatever you're thinking of is dead wrong. These are books like "Lord of the Rings Weapons and Warfare" or "The Languages of Tolkien's Middle-earth" and "Trees", "Names for Baby", "Weapons", "The Complete Tolkien Companion", and who can forget, "Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures". Yes, this would be the nerdy reference collection.

What I am really looking for to add to my little list of "reference" books are: a book on warfare (as in basic principles of ancient war, strategy, etc.), a book on flowers and plants (what sort of climate, soil, etc. they need/location. If it showed regions where these things grew and explained why that would be fantastic!), a detailed book on clothing throughout human history (it's fabric, color, and function with explanations on how it was worn), a book on sword play, a book on archery, and a really hackin' awesome book on topography. If the topography book included how topography effects weather, human development, and mindset that would be great. While I'm at it, let's throw in a good book on weather. And if the weather book can go into how/why it effects humans (achy joints and all that) that would be really fantastic.

To add to it all, I'm also looking to get a mini theology library. I've been told a long list of good resources for this, that, and the other and I figure it wouldn't be a bad thing to keep a few good theology books lying around. I think I've got 7 or 8 I'm seriously looking to get sooner or later...

The biggest problem I face (as most collectors do) is where to put my collection. I don't have very much room right now. My gorgeous, hand made, designed-by-me book shelf is bordering stuffed to the gills status. This oak, cherry, and mahogany book shelf is nearly full with 113 (soon to be 116) books, 6 feet of CD's, and a nice stereo with 2 speakers (because I have no where else to put it). I can still cram a few more books into because it is 1 foot thick and I can double layer books, but even so!

In any event, I am a collector of books. I have read nearly every book I've bought cover to cover (got a few newer ones I haven't been able to get to or finish yet!) and I have read loads of books I haven't bought (high school reading lists... blech!). I'm very picky with the books I buy (because I only buy books I like and I am very persnickety with books I like). I get the book I want with the cover I want for the price I want. ;o) I have almost bought as many books as I've written poems (poems are up by 41)!

The Rumors of Glories to Come

2010-05-08T23:54:00.000-04:00

After five, nearly six days of glorious wonderments and splendors lost were just created, God the supreme ruler, creator, and sustainer of all things, the most powerful and terrible king of all times and worlds created His crown jewel: man. Man was the most magnificent piece of His creation because Man bore His image. No other thing created could make such a boast; not even the angels. Everything else He had created was made with a word. Man was different. He spoke no word, but reached down to the freshly created earth and formed man. This was yet a corpse of dust until God leaned towards the figure. If the angels had known what a kiss was, perhaps they would have thought God had kissed this dust creature, but no; God breathed. God breathed the breath of life into man. No other creature, not even the angels could make that boast.

And so for a short while the man Adam walked upon the earth as the first and only image bearer of God. He was the flawless, glorious even. Truly the marvel of all Creation. Soon, God formed a suitable help-meet for Adam. An equal creature designed for a different role that perfectly complimented Adam’s work. Fit for man in every way. Adam saw this second crown jewel and called it woman, and named her Eve. Together for a short time they walked and played and worked together in perfect harmony as the crown jewels of Creation and image bearers of God Himself.

But this would not last.

One day a serpent came and spoke with Eve. It was assuredly a magnificent looking creature, but it spoke honeyed lies. Oh, much of what it said was truth, but it skewed the truth and caused Eve to doubt her Creator and do the one act forbidden to her. To make darker that blackened hour, Adam – the first and father of all mankind, did the same and from that bleak hour forth, man was a fallen race.

But even in that black hour, hope began to shine.

Hundreds upon Thousands of bloody and dark years passed. Much of mankind forgot its maker and took no thought for the other bearers of His image. Yet threads of hope and light continued to shine, calling out to all who would believe that salvation would come.

One day of no particular significance, an angel who was a messenger from the Sovereign King appeared to a very young lady who was barely more than a child. The messenger told her hope was coming and through her. This girl had found favor with her Maker and so she was chosen to be the conduit of salvation to her race. As the messenger said, so it came to pass. Nine months later a baby was born who would grow up to claim His whole purpose for His birth – to be the Redeemer and Champion for the human race. Upon His thirty-third year this Champion of Men’s souls paid the greatest ransom price to ever be paid in the war for men’s souls. He laid down His perfect self as a sacrifice. He bore a punishment so cruel that humans cannot imagine it and He did so without uttering one complaint.

Out of His great sacrifice of love the killing blow was dealt to the powers of darkness. No longer could the Prince of this World feign to claim victory. He was defeated. Any charge he could levy against any person that trusted in the sacrificial death of the Savior of Men’s souls would be futile. On the third day when the Savior rose from the dead, first and last to ever do so of His own power, death itself was defeated and life received the victory.

Many of those that had known the Champion had hoped He would establish the eternal kingdom prophesied since times ancient, but this was not the hour for that. The Champion therefore returned home to His Father, promising He would send one who would come and be better to have than He.

How could this be? What could be better than having their loving and beloved Champion with them? This they would learn. When the Champion departed, one came who had the capacity to live within them, and be with them always.

What could be more glorious? The Creator, the Champion, and the Comforter are all one, and now the Comforter was with them always. Never to leave. But what does this mean? What does it mean to have the Comforter who is and is one with the Creator and the Champion living inside all those who believe in the Champion and His ransoming work?

Let me ask you a different question: What was Adam’s relationship with God? Adam walked with God, spoke with God, and was laid bare to God in every conceivable way. He enjoyed perfect fellowship with his Creator and Father. Now let me ask you a second question: What is to be our relationship with God if we are saved? We are to walk with God, speak with God, and be laid bare to God in every conceivable way. We are to enjoy perfect fellowship with our Creator and Father.

Look similar? Let’s look a little closer. Adam’s relationship with God was on a physical level what ours is to be a on a spiritual level. Now as far as I can tell, Adam did not have God living inside of Him. We the redeemed do. What does this mean? Adam could talk to God as we would talk to a friend, that is to say, face to face. Now God is omnipresent, but I am convinced there is a difference between having God with you and having God living in you. I cannot prove this from experience, but it’s a hunch I am willing to stick with. If nothing else I think the Christian’s relationship with God is more intimate than Adam’s was, in a way, particularly after the Fall. We have full, unlimited access to our Creator at all times. His name is on our sins, His Spirit lives inside of us, and we do not even understand or begin to tap into the smallest corner of His resources, yet all of them are ours to use. Every last one!

Adam walked with God in the Garden of Eden, then the Fall and man was hopelessly sundered from God. God set up the sacrifice system as a means of atoning for sins and provided priests to “access” God. This was a very hard and often unpleasant system, but it worked. Man was once again able to communicate with God and get back into favor with Him. But then Christ came. The most wretched, gory, horrific murder ever committed was that of Christ’s crucifixion. On that dark day the very people He had come to save mocked Him, tortured Him, nailed Him to a tree and murdered the only innocent person to ever live. And if the fact He was the only innocent person ever isn’t horrific enough, add to it He is the very God that gave them the breath and strength to do it. He knew more things about them than they could know and He loved them more than life itself, and still they killed Him. He is divine, He is God and they killed God for crimes He never committed so He could bear all of our sins Himself and take the holy wrath of the Father for us. But of course God cannot be killed. Man just likes to think he has that power. Three days after the darkest day in the history of the world, the brightest day dawns with Christ as Victor and very much alive. After He returns to His Father and sends His Spirit to live inside of us. This is the best thing that has happened yet to mankind. God inside Man.

Do you start to see the pattern? Adam had paradise, but then it was lost in the Fall. God created the sacrificial system to atone for sin, but it required perfect sacrifices. Still, better that than Hell. Then God sends Christ to die, which is the most perfect sacrifice of all, and those that accept that sacrifice get God. Everything in human history goes from bad to worse. Everything God does goes from good to glorious.

Where we are now is the most amazing position mankind has been in since the Fall. We have once again communication with God that need not be hindered by anything. We have God. What more can we ask for? And yet in Romans 8:23 Paul tells us this is but the first fruits of what is to come! We got the tiniest of glances what our human form shall be like with Christ after the Resurrection, and we have the book of Revelation to give our taste for heaven the smallest whet, and we right now have the Holy Spirit, God inside of us, just itching for us to access everything He wants to give us and this is just the beginning!

Do you understand this? Can you fathom what is being said here? This is not some quaint thing to say “Oh how nice, a-men.” to. This is the sort of thing you fall silent for in fear and humility, then you scream and shout for the overwhelming joy and excitement that it causes, then you fall silent again because you don’t know what else you can do, but you suddenly have the feeling you want to cry.

Just let this whole concept overwhelm you. Let yourself drown in it, let your imagination soar with the possibilities because I promise you, whatever you’re thinking is but the faintest scratch of the glories to come.

If no one else will say it, I will!

2010-02-06T16:54:00.003-05:00

Well, I survived Brasil. In retrospect, it was a very good trip, the food was fabulous, but the heat was just ridiculous.

Moving on! I am now back at NI! studying hard so I can finish this last semester of school and graduate this May! YAY! I'm also desperately trying not to think about what I'm going to do after I graduate because I have a nasty feeling it will involve the words "minimum wage" and "would you like fries with that?". Ugh! It's not beneath me, but I'd really like to fancy it's behind me.

Anyway, this month is February which means Singles Awareness Day is coming up. The only thing I actually like about this day is the discounted chocolate that you can get afterwards. That and it usually means that Ash Wednesday is right around the corner and Ash Wednesday is of course preceded by Fat Tuesday! Whee!!! This means paczki's are for sale at Wal*Mart. Granted, you can't really get a decent one unless you're in Hamtramck, but since I'm very far away from there, I'll settle for the cheap knock-off's. Either that or I'll stuff myself full of a snickers or turtle frap. It's all good!

I finished off my playlist for last year finally and I have already started on this year's. I have three or four songs on it right now and am patiently waiting to see what songs February will lend itself to. Of course Josh Groban's February Song is an obvious pick, but since my February and his aren't exactly the same, I may opt for something else.

Okay, so last night a discussion came up about the whole single thing... again... and the general consensus is (of course) that it's okay if you're single, you can still serve God, be happy, yadda-yadda-yadda. The point was made that all those happily married women can't help but point out that they too thought they were going to be the first Baptist Nun and of course God brought along the man they married. Of course, that story is always accompanied by the words, "don't worry, you're young. I'm sure God has someone very special for you too!"

Do you have any idea how incredibly aggravating this is? Do you have any concept how badly I want to scream when I hear that? I have been single my entire life. No boyfriends, one guy interested and that ended before it began. Telling me that some wonderful man is out there is one of the most infuriating things you can tell me. Yes, I know I am young. I know I am not ugly. I know I have plenty of time. Quit pressuring me about how long I have please!

I do not need reassurance that I may or may not get married. I do not need encouragement about being single. I do not need to hear that God has someone special. I know this true by the sheer volume of its repetition every time someone asks if I'm dating anyone. Regardless of the assumption that Mr. Right is just waiting around somewhere, none of this affects me now. Whether or not God does have some guy waiting for me or if I'll end up as single as the day is long, all of those encouraging words just serve to aggravate me endlessly. It also happens to aggravate most of the single girls I know as well, so please stop telling us every time we say the words "boy, guy, single, or husband!

Telling me someone is out there (in a church full of married people) is unhelpful. Introducing me to your very single, handsome, gentlemanly son, grandson, nephew, brother, brother-in-law, cousin, etc. is helpful. Please, introduce me to your very charming, fun loving male relations! PLEASE!

The point: If my future husband is wandering around out there somewhere, that's great. When God wants us to meet, we will meet. Maybe you will be the one to introduce us. That's fine! Please do! I'm great with that! I have no objections to well thought out blind dates, introductions to single guys (that are not creepers), or whatever. I'm not saying do not set me up. I'm saying quit giving me migraines from repeating: "There's somebody out there for you, you're still young!" over and over and over and over again.

If you want to say something helpful, remind me God has a plan and He opens doors and guides and directs when doors need opening and directions are needed. PLEASE! That is helpful, mostly because I do not know what I am going to do with myself after I graduate, I do not know if I will get married or not, but I do know that God has a plan. I forget that though, so please remind me!

Thank you.

Down in the heat

2010-01-14T10:50:00.002-05:00

Ah, I write again! I´m still down here in the heat of Brasil, but it´s not so bad. The last few days have seen highs in the low 80´s and even in the 70´s (I think) which is downright heavenly in comparison with 110F. I think God was giving me a favor so I don´t die when I get back home.

I have learned that cold, snow, and ice are infathomable concepts even for people who have spent half of their lives in it, when the temperature is hovering around 100. However, under 80, the concept is once again obtainable and imaginable.

So, what have I done since I last posted? Answer - bought souviners! Now I´m not going to tell you what because I want them to be at least a little bit of a surprise, but I will say that I bought a lot of flip-flops... and good luck finding them in anything bigger than a man´s 11.

Since I should be home in five days or so and I don´t think I´ll learn anything too terribly earth shattering over the next five days, let me now share with you some of what I´ve learned about Brasil.

First of all, there are pretty much just two colors down here - red and green. The trees are green, the sugar cane is green, the coffee plant is green, the lemons are green, as are the parrots, coconuts, mangos, oranges, and bananas. Everyone keeps telling me that yellow lemons and orange oranges are dyed, and we´ve all been lied to all these years. I´m fairly certain that just as there are different colors of apples, people, and birds, there are probably different colors of lemons and oranges too. And I´m willing to wager they are suppose to be yellow and orange. Oh, and that silly notion some of us have about dirt being black or brown... yeah, it´s red. And it coats everything.

So, driving down the Brasilian highway the only colors you will see are green because anything living is green, and red. The dirt is red and so are the bricks and shingles made from it. Now, if I had to pick a third color for down here, it would be white... but only because the houses are white... ish...

Okay, so now that you understand what colors I´m looking at and that our thoughts on fruit colors are dead wrong, let me tell you what else you´re dead wrong about. Patterns on clothes. I have learned that stripes and plaid go together as long as the same colors are involved in both patterns. I have also learned that anything brightly colored, no matter how freakishly tacky in cut and pattern, is fashionable... even if you do want to burn it for the betterment of man kind.

Oh, and did you know you are suppose to put a sort of salsa, corn, beans, and peas on your hot dog? Yeah... And hot dogs taste like overgrown Vienna sausages. Oh, and corn goes in basically anything you want. Oh yeah, and chicken is shredded and stuffed in anything breaded. Runners up on being stuffed in anything breaded are ham and cheese.

Okay, so enough about what they think we´re wrong about - here is what we actually are wrong about:
- mangos: any of us living outside of a tropical clime that have never tasted a fresh mango before honestly have no clue about mangos. Eating one is an interesting experience, regardless of what form it is in. Those things are kinda like a fibrous melon in texture. I got more mango sinews stuck in my teeth... anyway! the flavor, well we have but tasted a weak parody of the actual flavor. I can´t say I like the original better than the parody, but just trust me when I say, we don´t have a clue.
- papya: if you have managed to eat one, trust me when I say it is just not the same. Although, Dole ones in a glass jar are pretty good, they still don´t taste like the real thing.
- bananas: Everyone who grew up before the 80´s and complains on how bananas don´t taste like they used to, and they miss the old ones, should come down here and eat bananas. I think I finally understand what you are talking about.
- heat: I do not think even the deepest part of the deep south can get as wretchedly hot as the average temperature on a summer´s day down here. When you firmly believe that 82 is "pretty cool out" you know there is something horribly wrong with the world.
- seasons: December through February is summer, March through May is fall, June through August is winter (with those bone chilling highs of 50 degrees), and September through November is spring. Wrapping my head around the concept of Christmas as winter holiday was very difficult... and thinking of Santa´s suit made me even hotter than I was. Ugggghhhh!!!

As for what I´ve done while I´ve been down here - well, I have taught a lot of beginner English, eaten a lot of food, tried gobs of fruit I may never *sniff* be able to taste again, and become a Guarana addict. If you are wondering what Guarana is, I will tell you: awesomeness in a bottle. Yes, for all of its many, many faults and oddities and general dysfunctionalness, Brasil has managed to bottle awesome. I think Guarana comes from a berry look fruit named guarana (shocker). Its almost the Brasilian Vernors. In fact, for you unfortunate souls that will never taste it, let me vainly try to describe the awesome flavor. Start with Vernors in color, and almost in taste. But before you get to that gingery goodness of Vernors, change it to a sweet, fruit flavor. Not fruity or you´ll drift off into Hawaiin Punch land and that is very far from it. Fruit. Think a mellow fruit, like a cherry or blueberry. Nothing that will hit you with its flavor but a soft flavor that will go down smooth as it tickles your tongue. Marvelous stuff. America needs to import it. Badly.

I´d give you more day by day details, but then I would have no stories left for when I got back home. But, that´s a little bit of it.

Happy 2010!

2010-01-02T07:29:00.002-05:00

Well, 2009 is officially over and 2010 is officially here. I would like to be able to post for you my official 2009 playlist, but that my friends is back in the States and sitting somewhat incomplete because I have not picked out my last song for December. When I get home though I will be quite sure to put it up for you.

I know, you are not terribly anxious for it... but I think it´s fun.

Where I am now compared to where I was last year at this time is about as opposite as it gets. I am south of the equator in Brasil for starters. But more than that, I am spirtually moved on and mentally moved on and much happier for it. As a writer... Well, there is a marked improvement for several years ago that is for sure, but I feel more inspired now than I have since high school! Not that I have the time to work on them as I would like, but oh well. As a poet, I haven´t felt this inspired in years, which makes me very happy! However, I am noticing a very nasty pattern with most of my poetry in that the rhyme scheme and meter are getting too predictable. Thus, I am on the hunt for a book. A big book. A big book of rhyme schemes and meters of English poetry. If it exists, I will find it. Until I find that book however, I go back to what I did in high school - copy the masters until I get it down and then make it my own.

This year was also exciting for my musically. I discovered a number of artists... some older, some new... and my music library just keeps growing. I also discovered the wonderful world of putting movies and TV shows on my iPod! Wheeeee!!!! Regretably though, my iPod is back home. I miss it.

Socially, I have met a few people and made a couple of new friends, which I always find a joy! Now if I can just figure out how to leave my room and hang out with people in the Rec Hall, I may develop a social life... just in time to graduate!

Oh yes, I am to graduate this year... Lord willing. I would be much more excited if a) I believed solidly I am going to graduate on time and b) I wasn´t so tired of fighting tooth and nail to get all my credits in to graduate. I have a feeling I will hit graduation with a sigh of relief and the song for the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy movie running through my head: So long and Thanks for all the Fish. If I laugh during graduation, that is why. And if it is not that song and you see my head bobbing then I promise you it is a Jonas Brothers song. If it proves that an unforseen song pops into my head, I´ll be quite sure to let you know.

I actually rather like that fish song - it´s silly. I like it so much, I am listening to it twice in a row on YouTube! Hehehehe!

Now I´m watching Marvin´s Moments. That reminds me - I didn´t bring a towel to Brasil and the FIRST rule of Hitch Hiker´s Guide... or maybe it was the second... no matter, it was very important! ALWAYS CARRY A TOWEL! I forgot one. I thought about it, and then didn´t bring one. Come to think of it, I seem to forget to bring a towel quite frequently! AACK! Wait, The other very important rule - DON´T PANIC! Alright, so I will simply go home, pick out my towel to travel with ever after and not panic. Right. And the 36 hours of traveling I have coming up in 16 or 17 days will be survived with out one. The first 36 were easy enough... *note sarcasm*

In any event I have rambled quite long enough. Plans for this year include spending quality time with my stories and poetry, reading, figuring out a life, not panicking and carrying a towel.

Happy New Year!

Welcome to Brasil!

2009-12-24T16:36:00.003-05:00

If the capitalization and punctuation is off, forgive me. the shift button on this keyboard is a touch stuck and all the punctuation marks are misplaced thanks to the extra letter on brasilian keyboards.

For those of you that do not know, I left from DTW on Tuesday at 2 pm. from Detroit we, Leah and I flew to Miami where we had a three hour lay over before we flew down to Sao Paulo (which means Saint Paul, should you care to know). What some of you may have heard was that an American Airlines flight (I was on an AA flight) crash landed on a Jamaican beach.

That wasn´t me. We arrived safely in Brasil. To summarize in brief what was a VERY long day... from the airport ~Leah~s parents p icked us up and we took a taxi to the bus station. From there we took a 9 hour bus ride to Londrena where we spent the night. This morning we woke up at drove the last three and a half hours back to the house where I shall be spending the better part of this next month.

As for what Ive seen - city, country, town, country, Brasilian Christmas decorating, another missionary family, banana trees, coconut trees, sugar cane, eggs sold out of the back of a car, fruit sold out of the back of a truck, underwear sold next to the key chains in the bus terminal, brasilian driving, and the effects of 36 hours of travel on my face, eyes, and hair. which is not pretty.

Well, dinner is on and I am hungry!

From Brasil,
-Frank

P.S. cashews down here are fresh and taste better, and cashew juice tastes like non-alcoholic pina colada with a hint of cashew.

The Midnight Blogger which Blogs at Midnight!!!

2009-12-21T00:05:00.002-05:00

So, I so totally shouldn't blog this late at night... especially considering how drunk I am with sleep... but post I on! And I don't know why! Which means I am putting up my official ramble warning.

Continuing on...

I have had a whirlwind time at home... Tuesday, I leave for Brasil. *insert screaming here* I don't think it has sunk in yet. I think I'll go into shock when it does... or I'll realize what happened after I get back and promptly pass out upon returning to NLand. Or Headquarters, as the Boof has put it. Bwahahahaha!

Interesting tid-bit - packing for any trip with Survivor-man for a dad means you will be told you should pack everything from a headlamp to parachute cord and a 1 terabyte sd card for your camera. Personally, I would pack one weeks worth of stuff and just go from there.

As it stands, people apparently require a lot more to survive than clothes. Between the allergy meds, bug spray, suntain lotion, and everything else under the sun, I've got quite the little list going of things I absolutely must remember to pack. And while I was at it, I decided to throw in my T. S. Elliot book of poetry, my journals, my Bible, and some chapstick.

Why not?

One huge perk of leaving before Christmas is that for me at least, Christmas comes early! Whee! I've already opened my Christmas gifts and am now the happy owner of Photoshop Elements 8, Allegory of Love by C. S. Lewis, and an assortment of other happy items (including a hoodie that has headphones in the hood's strings!!!). The other huge perk, is that I'm doing all my Christmas shopping in Brasil... which means no one will get anything from me until mid to late January, and it will be just random little knick-knacks. The real glory of junk you get while traveling is that no matter what it is, people will keep it forever and think it is awesome by simple virtue of the fact it is from another country. :o)

But I probably shouldn't have revealed that little secret. Oh well, too late!

Oh!!! Hugely fun bit of trivia for me! I went to my first Sunday School Christmas Party at the church my parents are now going to. I was sooo tired when I left for it and had no idea what to expect, but by the end of the night I had had one of the best times I have had in ages! It was so much fun! I hadn't realized how many fun people were in my Sunday School class... then again, I hadn't attended Sunday School there more than a handful of times and the same people never seemed to show up twice... However! The people are a lot of fun! Unfortunately, they seem to be scattered around the country for the most part. :o( Ah well.

Well dear blog and all.... 5? 6? readers - This may very well be my last post state side. If I manage to post again before I come back, it will be from Brasil!

Pray we have a safe trip, that I don't get any funky or tropical diseases, and that we have an awesome time!

Waiting for the Parentals

2009-12-17T11:38:00.002-05:00

While waiting for my parents to get here, I find I have few minutes to kill. So, this is my last Northland post for the year! It is also my first opportunity to get reflective and sentimental. I know, you all enjoy these sort of posts so! The whole two of you that pay attention...

Alright, where was I in September? Well, I came back up here wanting nothing more than to turn around and go home. I was struggling with a lot of things, ranging from rules books to being dateless and generally dissatisfied with life.

Circumstantially, absolutely nothing has changed. However, I am no longer quite so hateful of rule books (we are back to distasteful) and I am more than happy to leave to my relationship status on Facebook as single. I know, it sounds so lame and cliche: "I'm satisfied in Christ, I'm content being single" yadda yadda yadda. Whatever. I'm pretty sure it's not that so much as acceptance of circumstances and being "content with my station in life." I'm okay with the fact I have no idea what I want to do after I graduate. I am fine with having no career plan outside of getting a book published.

In short - I have grown.

Don't you love how people always say in short after a long, boring schpiel?

Anyway, I have struggled a lot this semester with whatever craziness and stuff that has gone on. The insanity of class scheduling and trying to graduate on time... ugh! I still shudder when I think about it, but at the same time, I know I SCARE'd and I know it was all God rearranging everything.

Looking back over four years, I am starting to see how God is tying together all these random things that just seemed like an unmitigated pain in the butt, thorn in the flesh, and general bit of obnoxiousness into something greater. I still can't see the picture He is weaving, but I'm starting to see that there is a theme.

Once I again, I find myself haunted by something the student body chaplain said my sophomore year: God is sovereign and it is perfect.

Between that and SCARE (See Christ Arrange Remarkable Events), I think there's a theme going on and I'm starting to pick up on it -- God is sovereign and He arranges remarkable (and unremarkable) events in ways I cannot even begin to understand.

So, to wrap up this school semester (and all of college thus far: God does not have contingency plans. He is not late nor is He early. He acts precisely when He means to; which is seldom how or when I expect.

Merry Christmas!

Yes, you all are cows. Happy?

2009-12-12T17:23:00.003-05:00

After much thought, observation, and having the bejeebers annoyed out of me I think I have finally cracked the female mind in one area: weight.

According to most female minds - she is fat. She could weigh nothing and she would still be fat. A woman is always fat. Always. And no matter how many times another girl tells her she is thin (and I dare say even a guy can tell her as much and she won't care) she is still fat.

Skinny or thin is consistently one to ten pounds less than whatever a girl currently weighs. It doesn't matter whether or not her current weight is perfectly healthy and she looks fabulous - thin is one to ten pounds away. Girls can only manage to be thin for one, maybe two days in a row, and "thin days" have nothing to do with weight, but perceived skinniness.

Her friends are thin. Even if it her friend who is three inches shorter, weighs ten pounds more, wears bigger clothes, and could stand to lose a few - she is thin. Always thin. She always looks just fine just the way she is. Now, if said friend decides to take off five or ten pounds the girl may say something like, "No, I think you look fine just the way you are, but if you are only losing like five or ten pounds, that's not a big deal. Either way, you'll look great!" The only way a girl's friends are fatter than her is if they are substantially overweight, and even then they only need to "lose a few pounds". Unless her friend looks comparable to Violet Beauregard, she is not fat.

The crucial thing to understand here is that everything to do with the "fatness" or "skinniness" of any given girl (within a healthy average weight range) is all in her head. It has almost nothing to do with the scale or the way her clothes fit. It has everything to do with her incredibly skewed misconception of herself.

For those of us in the world that figure if we're a reasonable weight we're fine, the typical female's perception of her fatness is utterly obnoxious and irritating. Unfortunately, there is no way to respond to a girl when she says "I'm FAT!" that will convince her otherwise. Once a woman has determined she is fat, she is hopelessly fat and there is no chance of persuading her otherwise.

So, what is a girl to do when she is stuck in a dorm full of whiny, skinny women whose constant cry is, "I'm SO FAT!!!"? Personally, I'm contemplating one of the following solutions:
1. replying: Yes, you are a cow.
2. rolling my eyes
3. quietly handing them a box of donuts so they really do get fat.
4. Gibb's slapping them.
5. Hand them a girdle.
6. Giving them such dirty looks that they start to cry.
7. Throw carrots at them.
8. Start eating a chocolate bar, just to taunt them.
9. Start gloating about how "skinny" I am and about all the delicious fattening foods I eat. (the hope being that they'll get so mad with me that they'll go away.)
10. Say, "Shut up and do something about it!"
11. Start screaming and don't stop until she goes away.

What do you think? Any suggestions are welcome! :o)

Posting... because I can...

2009-12-10T15:19:00.002-05:00

Well you dear blog, you! You are just over four years old and I totally didn't mark the anniversary! Come next summer, you will have survived college with me.

I will be heading to my thirteenth Artist Series come tomorrow night. To answer your questions - no, I do not have a date. I never have a date because nobody ever asks.

This being said, I will be wearing an awesome outfit tomorrow night. It is... slightly unorthodox in that no shawl, bolero, shrug, wrap, or sweater will be worn with it. *GASP!* If I can get my make up to look how I am hoping it will look, it will be AWESOME! Possibly ground breaking. If nothing else, it should look original.

I plan on wearing a fuller satiny cocktail length black skirt with a red top that has sorta-cap-sleeved (the sleeves on this stick out in a very... sharp way...) with a scalloped hem. I plan on wearing my thick black belt with the top. For earrings, my spirally gold looking ones. For a necklace - the original thin black satin belt converted into a choker. hehehe! Shoes - a pair of killer red platform sling backs with a red satin flower on the open toe and gold on the platform sole and heel. They are amazing! The twist to the outfit is going to be the black long sleeved shirt I'm wearing under the scary stick out cap sleeves. This is going to give the outfit an interesting twist. I'm thinking perhaps just the slightest bit punky, but whatever. It'll be different!

Besides my punky outfit, there is not much new or interesting in my life at the moment. Besides the fact I think I have finally settled on how I want to make my nouns plural. Next I'll work on possessive and then I'll start looking over my verbs.

For the record - iTunes seems to have a knack for finding the most uninteresting 30 second clips of songs to play for preview.

A Very probably-should-have-happened-sooner kind of post

2009-12-09T12:52:00.005-05:00

And that title is way too long but I like it, so deal. Anyway! The Christmas season is officially upon us, with snow threatening to fall as much as eight inches deep (though, I suspect it will be more before long) and all Ni! students campused. To add to my seasonal delight I recently learned that my door won the hall Christmas door decorating contest, which makes a very very happy girl!

I've been mulling this over for... well, since the start of this blog, and I have reached the very shaky decision of starting to post some of my poetry on it. This decision was swayed by another blog called RhymeWritteninRed and Alexandra.

Before I post one rhyme however, let me first explain something about poets (or at least this poet) and poetry: most people are under this delusional impression that poems are just these boring things that rhyme and make you want to say them in a sing-song voice. Some people even seem to equate poetry with rap. This insults me.

Poetry, for me at any rate, is how I express my feelings when something has touched me deeply. Indisputably, anything deserving to be called a poem, is a blend of rhyme, meter, and emotion; crafted in such a way that the reader has no choice to but to be drawn in and held captive in a dream-like world as real or more so than the one in which we live. But this is just the good poetry. Most of the stuff of mine I'll put up I would, by my own definition, be forced to call a rhyme, and naught more. However, for the hang of it, I'll call it poetry... to flatter myself...

My poems are how I view the world or saw something at a given moment. They are an extension of who I am... well, more like me; and I take them quite seriously. So whereas I do not mind you giving a critique of the rhyme scheme or pointing out where the meter had a hiccup - I beg you please do not laugh at the topic (about it, if it is humorous is obviously fine, but no mockery, I beg!) because, "...I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; tread softly because you tread on my dreams." - Yeats.

I'd explain this more, but quite frankly there are not words to describe how insanely personal my poetry is (and sadly you the reader will probably never understand or pick up on the finer, underlying threads that reveal it. This is not to insult your reading comprehension, rather to ironically and idiotically highlight how cryptic I can be.).

Oh, and for the record - any idiot who attempts to rip off my poetry will be hunted down like the dog that he or she is and then will be drawn and quartered and have their entrails taken out and hot coals put in, in their stead. :o)

Without further ado, a poem:

World in Gloam

Falling shadow, mist and shade
Dreams swirl in forgotten glade
Truth and tale mingle sweet
When in twilight's gloam they meet.

In twilight's gloam so dark and fair
Swirl ancient stories in the air
that seem to fade with passing night
But this is just illusions might.

Nothing is at it would seem
As if a dream within a dream.
But if tis so - tis more than if -
Then live we in a world of myth.
(9/4/2008)

So there it is. First poem I decided to put up on my blog for no real particular reason.

And now I am going to hastily publish this post before I change my mind...

And now I am editing this post because I see I have posted one before... Click on the tag to read it!

Another Quick Update

2009-10-19T23:52:00.002-04:00

We are now halfway through the semester. It has FLOWN by! I think I have the best room ever this year because we are all getting along really well. Happy Frank! To my elation and joy, the freshman roomie happens to be a poet! This makes me very excited and happy considering how much I love good poetry and how much I have written! I almost cried (in the screaming/yelling sense) for joy when I learned she was a poet. Do you have any idea how wonderful it is to have another soul to talk poetry with? Compare poetry, critique, discuss... rapturous! Now I just need a short story and book writer and my cup of writers joy shall be full! I have been three years without a writing kindred spirit around and I have forgotten how wonderful it is!

Classes have been insane and intense, but really good. I am enjoying all of them so far... even the ones I'm not so enthusiastic about are still interesting and practical, so I can't make any complaint.

Must run! I shall try to post longer and better about more interesting things soon!

Quickie update: Week 1

2009-09-14T22:02:00.002-04:00

First week done. Scheduling issues arose and have been (I believe) resolved. We are all moved in, the stuff put away, the junk in storage. Life is rolling. The poor freshman stuck with me and my two loony friends is assimilating quite nicely to us and life up here in the Great White North. Well, okay, we're just south of the Great White North, but we're still north and white most of the year, so it works.

Anyway, I experienced outrageous stress levels through most of last week, but they're down now to normal working levels and I'm happy.

Anyway, just a quick update. Nothing spectacular. But at least I'm here and I posted!

First days back...

2009-09-06T15:04:00.002-04:00

Well, I'm back at school! The first days back have been crazy trying to get moved in. I can't say we're settled yet because we can't put our luggage and stuff in storage as yet, but we're getting there. I'm getting settled in to my top bunk. I've figured out a safe way to keep my new alarm clock up here, as well as how to keep my laptop nearby with out worries about it falling and dying.

Other than that... it's all been orientation and stuff. The real grind starts tomorrow.

Quick Note:

2009-09-01T14:11:00.000-04:00

I'm under construction as I switch around to a new format and stuuf. That's why the header is a bit... well...

Because I can!

2009-09-01T13:32:00.004-04:00

Because I can and because I've been on a Josh Groban kick lately... enjoy!

Watch more Josh Groban videos on AOL Video

Oh, and this one!

Watch more Yahoo! Music videos on AOL Video

:o)

Tales from Farmacie - Part 3

2009-08-30T12:59:00.003-04:00

Okay, I've finally gotten back to this epic story! Yay! Go me!

If you missed parts one and two, here they are!
Tales from Farmacie - Part 1
Tales from Farmacie - Part 2

--- --- --- Part 3 --- --- ---

"A pen pal?" echoed the royal twins.

"Yes, a pen pal," repeated the tutor.

The idea was so utterly normal it almost seemed absurd.

"How would we go about finding one?"

"Let me worry about that," the tutor answered.

After that days lessons the tutor immediately drafted a letter and sent a copy of it to each and every person in the kingdom that had a title or an ounce of blue blood in their veins. The letter asked if the respective ruler would be so kind as to allow the royal children to write to their children.

The letters were sent with the fastest horsemen to every corner of the kingdom where a royalty laid their head at night and within a fortnight the answers began coming back. The tutor was dismayed at the replies which generally read something like this:

Dear Tutor Ridalyn,
We are pleased to see that the Royal tutor has thought of our children worthy enough to write to the dear prince and princess. However, we are ashamed and regret to inform you that our child is ____ (illiterate, away on holiday, at their aunt's, at their grandmother's, out of town, out of the country, terminally ill with the plague, recently lost their writing hand, etc.). We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you. Perhaps (the ruler in the next province)'s children are able to write.
Signed,
(Enter rulers name here)

After the first few letters the tutor realized that they were afraid to allow their children to write. As it stood, the general rumor amongst the aristocracy was that whatever curse was upon the royal children was transferable to anyone if they got too close. The tutor did not learn this until several days after the first letters arrived and only after he, in a moment of frustration demanded an answer of the chamber maid. The fact that everyone was so superstitious bothered him greatly, but there was nothing he could do about that. What he could do, however, was reach out to the community where perhaps such wild rumors hadn't spread as yet.

He approached the king with the proposal of letting a commoner write to his children and received a less than favorable response and ended up spending the night in the dungeon. The next morning however, the king saw this as a way to perhaps boost his image to the people and so released the tutor and let him send out the invitation.

To Ridalyn's dismay, the response of the commoners was hardly more enthusiastic than that of the aristocracy. Most of the replies came in the form of a sob story, and the ones that were not were plainly written by mayors and sheriffs who wished a promotion and favor and wrote with their left hand. Ridalyn was determined to find suitable pen pals for the royal children and so, in a moment of desperation, sent out messengers to the outer provinces where mostly farmers lived. Most of the messages had to be read to the farmers who then sadly had to reject the offer, but there were two replies that were written in return and delivered by owl.

Ridalyn was so delighted by the two replies that he immediately wrote back and attached the letter to the leg of the messenger owl and sent them on their way.

"My children, I have found pen pals for the both of you!" Ridalyn announced one day at the start of lessons.

"REally?!"
"Truly?!"

"Really and truly! I have granted them permission and you are to begin writing immediately. Now, I'd like you to write a letter about yourself, introducing yourself to your new penpal. Write the first draft now and the second draft after their first letter arrives."

Just then a messenger owl tapped at the window of the classroom. Ridalyn lept up and opened it and in flew the owl who flew of Morfine and dropped the note in her lap then flew back to the windowsill and sat.

Morfine read through the letter three times and then proceeded to write her first draft. Codine waited patiently for his letter to arrive, and his patience was rewarded when a second owl flew in and dropped the letter in his lap.

Ridalyn smiled as the royal children read their letters and wrote back. This was the happiest they had been since Beneidryll took a holiday.

... to be continued...

Baby Steps

2009-08-26T21:12:00.003-04:00

This is my attempt at trying to blog more regularly. I still don't have a life or much to blog about, but since blogs are often nothing but taken up web space, I blog on.

Oddly enough however, I actually have a number of things I wish to make comment on today!

First - Ted Kennedy's death. I would be glad he has finally, irrevocably been removed from the office of senator were it not for the fact I have very little faith in the liberal peoples of Massachusetts. If I thought it were impossible for them to elect a politician who was worse, I would indeed be... relieved. However, I do not underestimate the power of human stupidity so I shall not breathe that satisfying sigh of relief until they have elected someone better. My only hope at this point is that we won't be subjected to Michael Jackson-esque coverage. On that note, I hope Michael Jackson's coverage will FINALLY end.

Second - Ring hunting. It is difficult to find a ring that you actually like that is actually within your price range, and that is versatile. After several months of searching for a ring I have finally found and purchased a ring that I like. Well, technically it's three rings in one (which really made my day!), but since when do I quibble on technicalities? Don't answer that.

Third - Stupid politicians. I would say more than that, but unfortunately caps lock, point 72 font, bold, italics, and underlining does not convey how fed up, ticked off, and generally irate I am. That, and I don't use that kind of language.

Fourth - Comedy movies. Never in my life have I seen a string of such un-funny trailers for comedy movies! I'm not a fan of movies like "Dodge-ball" or "Meet the Spartans" but at least the trailers will have a few chuckle inducing clips. The trailer for "Funny People" was the most unfunny thing I've ever seen in my life, followed by a close second of the "Taking Woodstock" trailer. As a matter of fact, I thought the "Inglorious Basterds" trailer was much funnier. Watching Hitler say, "Nien! Nien! Nien!" over and over reminded me of that Carol Burnette skit with Tim Conway and the Hitler hand puppet. FUNNY stuff that!

In fact, lemme share the laughs with you:

Summer, Language, Nerdy

2009-08-23T23:11:00.007-04:00

I was going to post more this year but I just keep forgetting to!

Well, another summer is almost gone, and sadly this is the last summer that will mean anything. That is, of course, assuming I never decide to teach. If I do teach, summers will be awesome again.

As is the case with most summers, this one did not last long enough! They almost never do, you know. But in spite of it being short, it's been busy! In the midst of watching BO (that is, Barack Obama) try to trick the American people into a flagrantly socialistic form of health care (and then finding out nobody likes the idea), weddings, work, plotting and planning trips to exotic locations and working on a large stack of books, I have some how managed to find time to do two things I love dearly - graphic art and working on my language.

Yes, you read that right.

I know, I know... I'm a nerd. A word nerd no less with a seemingly insatiable desire to learn/study ficticious and dead languages. Why, ask you? Because they're awesome! Dead languages are usually the grand-daddy's of modern languages, which makes studying the evolution pretty sweet. That, and if you understand the language, it helps you understand the culture and religion of any given society. Since I like studying societies too... well, you see the draw. As for ficticious languages - same rules apply, but only in a more glaringly nerdy way.

As for working on my language - it has a name, but I'm not sure I'm going to keep it. I may end up renaming the whole language and people group to which it goes before it's all said and done... but I digress.

The reason for even embarking on the whole endeavor is strangely similar to the reason I picked my major - writing. I decided that no decent ficticious world would be complete with out at least some sort of scrap of a language to go with it. Thus, when I started creating this little world 7 or so years ago (I don't exactly remember when the chaos started) I drew a map and set about a language. Seven years of language writing has produced a workable calendar complete with names for the months (but no holidays as yet), days of the week, runes for most of the alphabet, a (recently created) set of numbers, along with a few random words and phrases (none of which are set in stone). In addition to all this I have scraps of phonetics and grammar, sentence structure, and the beginnings of conjugations and tenses spread out throughout my ever growing stack of language stuff.

It's a headache and a half sometimes but I am enjoying the journey immensly.

The one notably tricky thing about creating a language from wishful thinking and imagination, is that once you start creating even a basic language, the thing comes alive and starts going crazy instantly. If you don't start out with some sort of structure in mind in the first place, you wind up with a crazy, half wild beast like the one I have. I have lists of words, but once I figure out conjugations and tenses and such, I have to go through my word lists and figure out what I have to fix.

Fortunately though, I do not believe I'll have to create a massive vocabulary for this language. I'm fairly well convinced that for my purposes I will not need to create more than a 'survival' vocabulary. The focus of this endeavor is language structure.

In the mean time, I'm still grappling with the question of - do I want my verbs to be like Spanish and have a basic form which means 'to do something', or do I want to be like English where the unconjugated verbs look like imperatives?

I've spent weeks and will spend many more weeks studying the grammars and sentence structures of various languages before I come to a conclusion.

Irony.

I know, I know! It sounds like I'm so busy on a side note to a greater body of work that I'll never get to actually writing a book, but that's simply not the case. The fact of the matter is, it is much easier to work on a language while being a full time student, than it is to work on a story. A story requires a massive amount of plotting, character development, and coherant ideas - all of which are things that require a lot of time that is not there while taking classes at college. Language writing however... while it does require a lot of thought, time, and etc. most of that can take place in your head and whenever you have a spare second. The hardest part, at least so far, has been coming to a decision on how I want to do something. Actual execution doesn't take very long. Most of my language stuff has been done on scraps of paper and while fighting off sleep during chapel or killing time between classes, or even at work. So once you figure out that you want all your present tense verbs to end in "-le" in the formal you form, you simply throw an -le on the end of the verb and go. See how easy that is? It's getting to that point that's the bear. Once you do though, a quick jot down on a scrap of paper and it's done, needing only transfering to the file where all the language stuff is kept.

Well, now that I've rambled on forever and proved my nerdiness, let me add a layer by saying I lament not being more strict with my 'poem-a-week' goal for this year. Where as I have written several this year, it hardly reflects the number of weeks gone by. Ah well, I believe it is more than I wrote last year, so I shan't complain too much. Though, I am almost certain I've written several poems that haven't been transfered to the computer yet, and are therefore unrecorded... now I just need to find the critters and get them put somewhere a little safer than a random notebook or bullatin back.

Ugh! I've been lacking on my calligraphy too! But that takes an exhorbitant amount of time if you really want to do it right... and even longer if you mean to put it on display or sell it... I've been asked to do a calligraphy piece for the living room, but I haven't found a text I wanted to do or the time in which to do it. I'm afraid by the time I manage to get back to calligraphy again I'll be so long unpractised I'll basically have to start over. Bah!

Oh, did you notice the music player posted at the top of the page? I'm sure you couldn't have missed it. I don't think anyone actually reads this blog, but if anyone does and wants to take a listen, please do! I love music and I love sharing it.

Anyway, now that I have thoroughly bored you, I'll close and try to think of something more interesting to blog about in the nearish future.

... I tried to think of a witty way to end this or find some awesome quote or something, but in the end all I could think of was...

TTFN! Ta-ta for now!

Call Me What You Will...

2009-06-25T00:02:00.002-04:00

... but I just don't care. If you want to label me, fine. I'm a fundamentalist, I'm a Baptist, I'm a three and a half point Calvinist (not quite sold on the whole 'irresistable grace' thing). I'm a teetotaler, I'm a radical right wing conservative. I'm a half nerd, I'm a music junkie. I'm a free thinker *GASP!*.

You can throw labels at me and on me all day long and they may sort of help you figure out who and what I am, or give you clues into what I think, but I've got news: It doesn't work.

So much of life gets caught up in stupid arguments over meaningless terms. Terms and words don't matter. The thoughts and actions behind them do. Look at Obama. He said "change" and we have seen change, but it wasn't what we were thinking, it was what he was thinking and what he has done that has indeed 'changed' us from bad to worse.

Sacred circles are perhaps the worst about these sort of things. Christians divide themselves and bicker and seperate from each other over terms. They say the exact same thing, but the terms are different and so they divide. They do not look at what God said, they simply know what some preacher told them and that's it and they stay hooked to rhetoric of which they know nothing of the source. "I'm an independent fundamental baptist" they say and will disagree and separate from anyone who goes to a "First Church of Somewhere" or "Somewhere Church". The doctrine is the same between the First Baptist Church and the First Church of Somewhere, but one isn't called Baptist and so they divide.

It's sad, it's ridiculous, but there it is.

I'd call for us to just lay aside the terms and look at what people are actually saying. I'd call for people to go back to Scripture. To go back to the thoughts and actions that form the terms and hold to that. But I know I'm only one small voice. I know nobody will listen. So I'm not going to bother. Go on, keep dividing over terms. Keep being violent towards your brothers and sisters over terms and labels.

Go ahead, ask me what I am. I'll give you labels. You'll agree or disagree because I know what terms to use, but in ideology we may be as different as night and day, just using the same words. But hey, do whatever makes you happy.

Keep using your labels and having your arguments over words. Just leave me out of it.

Oh you poor neglected blog...

2009-04-20T17:47:00.002-04:00

Well, I should have changed my header from the snow theme by now, but considering it is still snowing outside, maybe it isn't so out of place.

This sad blog has been badly neglected! I said Merry Christmas and abandoned it. Well, to sum up how this year has gone so far:
1. I played the role of Feste in "Twelfth Night"
2. I turned 21!
3. I watched one friend get engaged and then proceeded to become her maid of honor
4. I watched the other single room-mate all but start dating
5. I have officially written over 150 poems (I broke the 150 mark a couple weeks ago)

All in all, not bad for four months work.

Now, to the point of me even remembering this blog - The Laws of Etiquette and Dating.

I'm well aware that there are laws governing the behaviour of gentlemen and ladies. I am also well aware that most of them are lost on the younger generations. I, being the young whipper-snapper I am, have been raised with to use sense and follow the broader and general guidelines of conduct and etiquette, but I have also grown up in a post-feminazi movement world and therefore my idea of how men ought to treat women they are dating is perhaps a bit skewed.

Please allow me a moment to re-trace my thinking on the subject so you can perhaps understand my conclusion.

It all started in watching countless men on campus carrying pink backpacks, oversized purses, and other bags for their girlfriends. I didn't pay very much attention to it though until one morning I had the rare privelege of watching my friend's fiancee walk half the campus out of his way so he could take his beloved's bag from her. My initial response was that it was utterly ridiculous and absurd that he should inconvenience himself by walking so far out of his way. If he would have waited to where the sidewalks met and taken it that would have been a little better in my mind.

With that, I started pondering the proper protocol for such things. Surely he was being extreme and love struck ridiculous. Surely! After mulling over it a few days I hit the internet and began researching gentleman's etiquette.

I found nothing about whether or not men should carry a lady's backpack, but I did discover Victorian etiquette and then recalled things I had seen in old movies and read in old books.

If memory serves correctly, a gentleman should always help a lady when he sees she is carrying something large and/or heavy. Weighing in what I did find about Victorian etiquette, I believe a man would have volunteered to carry something large and heavy before a woman could attempt to pick it up. If he didn't see her til after she had it in her arms, he would insist on taking it from her. Chivelrous and commendable.

I then compared that to the behaviour of modern men (on campus in particular) and have come to the general conclusion that men who do so are the exception, not the norm. (Unless of course you're carrying a large stack of costumes that look like they're about to fall. Then most of them will offer help.)

This lead me to the question of whether or not I would let my boyfriend (hypothetically speaking, for you see I am single) carry my backpack for me. My current conclusion is this: If he has proven himself a gentlemen towards other ladies and offers to help them with heavy bags, boxes, books, and so forth, then yes. If he walks past girls struggling to stand up-right for how heavy their school bag is and couldn't care less whether or not she can barely hold the enormous box she must carry, then most certainly not!

Why, you ask? Simply put - I like consistency. If he is consistantly a gentleman in that area then I have no problem with it because I know he is simply doing it to be a gentleman and not just out of affection for me. If he is not, then I (being the wary and cynical old maid that I now am) am apt to get very suspicious if he suddenly turns into Mr. Darcy and will just as likely think he's buttering me up as anything. As well, I have a generally held belief (based on observations and general patterns of human behaviour) that a man (or woman) will do all sorts of crazy things while dating to secure affections that he (or she) have no intention of continuing after the wedding. I would hate to get used to being treated like a delicate flower to turn into a pack mule later.

Am I saying my opinion is right/should be adopted by women everywhere? No. I'm considering this a matter of sheer preference and opinion of lowly blogger.

For as decided as I am however, this opinion is only preliminary and not cemented just yet. Therefore any comments, feedback, opposing arguements, etc. are appreciated. (Arguements are welcomed, but I suggest they be good arguements and well backed if you wish for me to take them seriously.)

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-15T23:03:00.002-05:00

Well, I've been pitifully neglectful of this dear blog, but never fear, I am here! ... just long enough to post and run away again. ;o)

Anyway...

This is one of my favorite times of year - the house is cluttered with wrapping paper, lights are... strewn, the mantle and various free spaces are occupied with a wide assortment of mangers, snowmen, and other Christmasy knick-knacks. In my CD player are Christmas CD's, and renditions of Christmas songs ranging from horrible to magnificent are being played by nearly every radio station. Even the mall is festooned in green, red, silver, and gold.

Everyone is busy shopping, kids are ticking off the days til they can tear open the wrapping paper to see what secrets it holds, and in spite of the less than ideal economy there is still Christmas. That is the wonder of this holiday - even though you may not be able to give the big expensive gifts you wanted to, even though you might not get that gift you've been eyeing for months now, it hardly matters. The point of Christmas is to celebrate the birth of a King. Sure, it's fun to get presents, give presents, and spread cheer but it is hardly the point.

Christmas is a global thanksgiving. The pagans and the redeemed alike get together with family and friends and whether they say it or not, they show they are thankful for the people that are around them and the blessings they've received. The redeemed has the added bonus of being thankful for Jesus' birth in that smelly, dirty manger 2,000 years ago.

It is easy, I confess, to get wrapped up (pun intended) in the gift exchanges, killer sales, and shiny objects which catch our eye; but let us not forget this year the reason it's called CHRISTmas.

You asked for it.

2008-11-05T08:47:00.003-05:00

Well, we get our vote for toasters. Apparently the American people have lost their minds. We have voted in Obama, we have voted in a democratic house and senate. But hey, it looks like gay marriage might be banned in a few states.

I'm still trying to make heads and tails of this election, but I can't. It just doesn't add up. I suppose I overestimated the human American intellect.

Well folks, if you voted for this loser (or didn't vote at all) then you've gotten what you deserve. If this country becomes socialistic and we all go to the poor house remember - you're the dolts that asked for it. If your rights and liberties are taken away don't cry to me. You asked for it.

If we're so stupid to vote in Obama (who is only questionably a natural born American citizen, btw) then we've gotten precisely what we deserve.

Glad I'm just an ambassador here, or I'd be getting worried about now!

Obama-Biden 2008! A Vote for Toasters!

2008-09-17T15:09:00.003-04:00

This is part of a transcript I read on rushlimbaugh.com.

RUSH: This next is unreal. Joe Biden was on the Today show talking to the hostette there, Meredith Vieira, who asked him, "What specifically will your tax plan do to boost the economy?"

BIDEN: Our tax plan would take that tax cut of another $130 billion that John wants to give to people making over $250,000 next year, not let it go forward and give it to the middle class, the very people who desperately need it to stay in their homes, to buy food, to take care of the gas to fill up their tank, to be able to go out and buy a toaster, to unemployed people.

RUSH: To go out and buy a toaster! Joe Biden, Obama will give you a toaster! Along with a rice cooker left over from the supply in Cuba that Fidel Castro failed to give away to all of his people. Obama is going to give you a toaster.

Yup! My unemployed dad is in dire need of going out and buying a toaster! Doesn't need health insurance, groceries, or money to pay the bills, but a toaster.

Obama-Biden 2008 - Our Hope For America.

I Will Not Forget

2008-09-11T13:50:00.002-04:00

Seven years ago today the World Trade Towers were hit by two airplanes that had been hijacked by Islamic terrorists. Life in the United States changed that day in ways we have so quickly adjusted to that we have forgotten them.

I don't know about you, but the minute I got home from school I sat down and asked questions til I figured out precisely what happened, and then I watched as the news kept replaying those hours that changed our lives.

Since that fateful day I have been to New York City and I have stared into the gaping whole that was the Trade Towers. After seeing that colossal hole I cannot forget what happened. The mere size of it was amazing! Since that trip I have not been able to get out of my head the pictures and the reality of what happened, of what directly effected tens if not hundreds of thousands of people in a few short minutes.

Since that day I have known soldiers who have headed off to war. I have watched the faces of sons, husbands, daughters, and wives of people near me, flicker across my television. These are people like you and me that will NEVER come home.

I have listened and seen the world turn since that day and I have seen many people forget what happened and ignore it.

Well, I will not forget. I cannot forget. The images are burned into my memory clearly, deeply, vibrantly. My heart still aches when I think of the lives lost, my patriotism swells when I think of the soldiers who are fighting to keep it from happening again.

Heroes were made that day, and many more have been made since. I thank them, each and every one of them. You have my prayers, my thoughts, and my thanks.

I have not forgotten and I will not forget. I WILL REMEMBER.

When God Doesn't Answer

2008-09-09T14:06:00.003-04:00

This was my great summer muse.

Where is God? Why isn’t He doing something about this? Why isn’t He keeping this from happening? ARE YOU THERE GOD? ARE YOU EVEN PAYING ATTENTION? Because it sure doesn’t seem like it…

Most of us have asked some variety of these questions at least once. I know I certainly have. Now I can talk myself back through my theology and remind myself that God is there. He’s always there. However, I had not quite settled on why He just stood by seemingly helpless or disinterested.

Why doesn’t He keep So-and-so from doing that hurtful thing?

Question: Why doesn’t God stop you from doing _______? Why doesn’t He intervene when you try to do _______?

Answer: Because He has given us free will and He loves us so much that He will not force us to do anything. He loves us and wants us to obey Him because we love Him. Not because He made us.

I know this, but I’m not a big mercy shower. I desire justice! Or at least thwarting of plans. It has frustrated me for years that He so seldom seems to interfere. It took me a while, but I suddenly realized one day that God sometimes does something more cruel than interfere or thwart. Sometimes He lets our plans work themselves out. Do you know what happens when our plans work themselves out? We end up in a very sticky, nasty, muddy, knotted tangle. We know very little. Our plans only work in a small, thoroughly controlled by us environment if we’re lucky. By letting our plans work themselves out in the very unpredictable world, God is pretty much just letting us set ourselves up for failure. Our plans end in failure. The end.

Fortunately for us, God is not the sort to look down His nose at us and say, “Ha! You silly people! Serves you right!” and then walks away. Instead, He untangles the mess, pulls the pieces of debris from our hair and clothes, cleans us up, and sets us back where we are to be.

If He does that for you and me, then He is allowing the same to happen to So-and-so who is doing such-and-such. If that gives you vindictive peace of mind, have fun with that thought, but that is missing a lot of points as well as the mark of this whole thing.

I stand before you as one who has hurt and who has been hurt. I write to you as one who is hurting, who is watching people I love and care for being hurt. It breaks my heart! I cannot even describe to you how it breaks my heart. I don’t understand what purpose God has in allowing this to go on. I understand and know very little about most things, but I am very certain on this: God doesn’t always stop people from doing bad things. It pains Him to see His creations hurting each other, but He loves us enough to not stop us, to not usurp our free will. I know in my heart that no matter what bad thing happens, God WILL work it for good. Even if it’s a good we don’t understand or don’t comprehend as yet. We will one day.

I cried til I nearly drowned in my tears, I poured out my heart to God until there was nothing left to pour. I struggled, I wrestled, I ran screaming and sobbing through the swirling mists of my sorrows and questions til I found myself lying in a cold, dreary, empty place… then I awoke and found myself in the warm arms of my Savior. He had heard my cries, he had dried my tears, and told me “Peace child, you do not understand.”

Frustration...

2008-09-06T23:05:00.003-04:00

Every once in a while I get insanely frustrated with something trivial. Today my frustration was diverted and changed course to be focused at a book my roomie is reading for a class. I can't say everything in the book I disagreed with, but I disagreed with the heart behind it. Mainly that there wasn't one. It was a book on relationships, but nothing was mentioned about love. From the parts read to me it seemed like a bush beating laundry list of relational do's and don't's. That's not a relationship.

Relationships are not based on convenience or "what you can do for me". At least, they shouldn't be. God's initial relationship with man was one that was based on love. Tragically, it was marred and we've never fully recovered from it. This book painfully brought that reality back to me. This list of do's and don't's was created, I'm sure, with the best of intentions. I'm sure it was meant to help (the various forms of relationships between men and women) and give pointers and suggestions, but the spirit of love was painfully absent.

When the author penned it he forgot the most important key ingredient in any healthy relationship - love. The book touched on relationships from general to intimate. When it got to the relationship between married couples and tried to explain and define the roles it talked of submission and deference, but I never noticed the word love.

I suppose it could have been assumed to be there, or taken for granted but if this was the case, it is almost more tragic it was omitted. Now I'm not married, but in observing the healthy relationship between my parents I can honestly say that love saturates every part of their married lives. From decisions on trivial things like where we should go out to dinner that Sunday and when we should leave for vacation; to what school they should put us children in and where they should go on their anniversary - each decision is made with the other (or others) in mind with the proper amounts of submission, deference, and love.

This book made it seem like this relationship was something very hard you have to work at. Maybe it is, but judging by the ease my parents seem to have in it, I'm not inclined to think so.

This leaves me thinking something is wrong somewhere and I'm not thinking it's with the twenty some odd years of marriage and three well raised children, but with the book.

The point? Well... there isn't much of one besides disliking the book severely. But, if I had to pick, I'd say that it is this: Any relationship based on rules and regulations has missed the point. It's not even a relationship. God does not come to us saying, "Here are my rules, obey them OR ELSE!" He doesn't force us to obey Him or obey His commandments. Instead, He invites us to love Him back. When we love anyone we try to make them happy by doing things that make them happy. We know what those are because we know them. Obviously none of us are talking or walking with God in a physical sense, so He gave us His book to tell us what he likes and dislikes and helps us know what it takes to please Him.

Of course I'm generalizing a little bit here, but essentially, that is it. He has laid out everything we need to know to love Him and know Him in the way He always meant us to.

Am I saying commandments are merely guidelines or suggestions? No! Good grief no! Am I saying God is primarily concerned with us following those rules? No. Because we can follow the rules and regulations perfectly all day long and it will get us no where if we don't love and desire to please Him first.

-----
P.S. This was not my great summer muse.

Coming Soon...

2008-09-05T14:36:00.002-04:00

Sooner or later I'll post my great muse I started over the summer. It's a bit tricky and needs careful wording so there's not confusion. So, hopefully you all will have something substantial to read on my blog soon.

As well, part 3 of the Tales from Farmacie should appear sooner or later.

Until then, I'll just report that I'm still alive, classes are going reasonably well, and I'm working on honing some skills of mine.

Crazy mad ninja skills.

...or just crazy mad Frank skills....

The Times

2008-08-06T16:32:00.002-04:00

It was the best of times, it was the sick of times. In the middle of my cold sickness which has left me a groggy, drippy nosed, incoherent carbon based unit, I was able to get a new Toshiba! WOOT WOOT! It's an awesome cobalt blue color and soon it shall hopefully have the most wicked awesome customized sticker that says, "Not all those who wander are lost..."

Until then it's just an awesome blue Toshiba with a few new fonts on it. Soon however, maybe even tonight, I'll have lots of awesome music ripped onto it. WHEE!

But that's a maybe. I'm pretty well incoherent right now. Or something.

I'm still debatin on whether or not I'm going to download winamp.

Okay, before I say anything horribly out of place and incoherent, I'm leaving.

Tales from Farmacie - Part 2

2008-07-25T21:49:00.003-04:00

The entirety of the crowd stood in shock, staring at the place where Witch Hazel and her husband had just stood. The first to regain her wits was the good fairy Vyzene who had not yet bestowed a gift.

"Though I cannot undo this spell," she cried, "I can work around it to provide a means of ending it."

"Would you, please?" the King pleaded.

"Certainly, but I must have silence so I can think and word this carefully," Vyzene replied. She walked up to the cradles of Codine and Morfine, and laying her hands on Codine's head first she said, "When a forgotten maid you see/Remember her and then there'll be/ No more cause for her wrath on thee." Then turning to her dear Princess Morfine she put her hands on her and said, "More beautiful and far more fair/ Shall be your face and golden hair/ and when a prince of true love sees/ He'll not sleep til you are freed."

"How shall we know when our prince sees a forgotten maid or our princess sees true love?" Queen Allegra cried.

"I cannot tell you," Vyzene answered. "Nor can they nor will they. In fact, when it happens they shan't even know it. You all shall forget these words of rhyme so that the events may come unlooked for. Otherwise, you meddling and bumbling humans will surely try to interfere, and goodness knows that makes things worse!"

King Adville and Queen Allegra were all in a huff. Meddling and bumbling indeed! They were determined they should not forget the words, but then with a glitter and a puff of blue smoke the fairy disappeared and they found they could not remember quite what she said. This frustrated the two of them greatly, and if they had known it, they would have been quite vexed to know that Vyzene was still in the room. She was as small as a penny and was whispering words of instruction in the ears of the accursed royal children.

She told them that when they turned 16 they would receive a key that would open a box and in that box would be help of some fashion inside. They children never forgot this information and this is what helped them wait out the next 15 years.

--- --- ---
At first, the King and Queen were quite vexed about not being able to hold their own children. Indeed, no one could! Everyone who drew near began to get tired, then drowsy, and if they proceeded to touch them, they would fall asleep on the spot and sleep for four hours straight. This was quite the predicament, because taking care of them was almost impossible. But then one day, a young shoe shine named Beneidryll, who was proclaimed to also have a drowsying effect on people, was able to touch them. Infact, when he did, he grew positively giddy. The King and Queen hired him right away to take care of Codine and Morfine, and this allowed them to not be so anxious about things.

As Prince Codine and Princess Morfine grew, they were told of the dreaded curse put on them by Aunt Witch Hazel, and lamented never being able to see their parents up close or give them a hug. However, as the children grew older, so did the King and Queen. With age comes inability to sleep, and King Adville soon figured out that giving his daughter a hug good-night would set him sleeping soundly til the sun rose. When Queen Allegra found this out, she would draw near them whenever she needed a nap to relieve a head ache.

At first the prince and princess were glad they could be of service to their parents and that they could actually see them up close, but soon enough they began to feel used and longed dearly for the day they could hug their parents with out them falling asleep in their arms.

The years wore on and they remembered the words of Fairy Vyzene and held to the hope of their cure. In the meantime, they were young, they were bored, and they looked for ways to interact with people besides the ever giddy and obnoxious Beneidryll, with out putting them to sleep. They loved each other dearly, and were quite close. But even so, one gets bored with only one other ever and all the time. In vain they tried to think of ways to accomplish this, but nothing came to mind until the tutor shouted from across the large ballroom (for she dared draw no closer) "Have you ever thought of a pen pal?"

... to be continued...

Tales From Farmacie - Part 1

2008-07-07T16:48:00.003-04:00

Now that I know people actually read my blog, I feel obligated to update it more often. However, I am at a pathetic lack of things to talk about. There are, of course, a number of issues one can address at any given point, but which one does one write on?

Since I am not in the mood for anything political, religious, or serious, then let me post frivolously. Now, what bit of frivolity?

Aha! I know! I shall tell you a story!

Once in a land called Farmacie there was a good king named Adville and his good queen named Allegra and they had two beautiful childrin- Prince Codine and Princess Morfine. On their first birthday they were presented before the court and bestowed gifts by various nobility and peoples of importance in the kingdom.

King Adville and Queen Allegra invited everyone in Farmacie, but accidentelly forgot to invite the King's sister, Witch Hazel and her husband Mewsinex. They were both quite put out and Hazel was convinced this was done on purpose, but she and her husband resolved to show up anyway and repay the King for his forgetfulness.

The day of the birthday arrived and King Adville and Queen Allegra greeted everyone including Witch Hazel and Mewsinex with the utmost joy and courtesy. The time came for gifts to be bestowed and towards the end of the gift giving, Witch Hazel stepped forward. She bent low over their cradles and sprinkled a dust over them. Then, she stood upright and said in a loud voice, "Though over looked we both have been/ This shall not be ever again/ For now when near your kids you be/ You shall be drowsy and loopy!"

"That doesn't make any sense!" Cried Queen Allegra.
"Shut up you decongested ninny!" retorted Witch Hazel. "and it doesn't have to anyway! The point is, whenever you get near your children you shall become drowsy and unable to drive or operate heavy machinery!"
"Don't forget unable to drink alcohol," Mewsinex sneered.
"Oh yes, that too!" Witch Hazel said. She then cackled wickedly and her and her husband disappeared with a flash and a bang.

TBC...

Sunburns and Lemonade

2008-06-30T16:06:00.002-04:00

Hey all! How are your respective summers going?

I'm sitting here on this pleasant day with sunburnt shoulders, contemplating a glass of lemonade. Awesome stuff it is!

In case you are wondering, I am indeed back at Wendy's. The people I'm working with this summer are fun so time goes by fast. I don't have as many hours as I'd like, but it's not bad. Helping to compensate for this is house-sitting.

I've been spending my off hours swimming, bike riding, reading, calligraphy...ing..., drawing, and generally enjoying myself. Soon I'll hopefully be starting a sewing project which shall, Lord willing, be finished and make it's grand debut up at NLand once the weather turns cool.

The dark cloud hanging over this summer is of course the possibility of not returning in the fall. Just below and a little to the left is the image of my retarded and dead lappy floating in a ghostly manner.

I wanna Mac! But that doesn't seem like it's going to happen... :o(

Oh, happiness! I got my Intro to Lit summer lude paper back and I got an 80% on it! WHEE! I was sooo happy!

Adios!

A Frank Confession

2008-06-04T00:33:00.002-04:00

So, not 35 minutes ago I was all sulky about the realization that I shall end up at Wendy's once more. It's not that it's a bad job it's just that I really really really don't like working fast food. And for as much as I don't like that I don't like smelling like it even more.

For as much as I think it splendid that my manager holds my job for me, and for as much as I am eternally grateful for it - I dread it. I seriously dread it. I dread the thought of going back, each morning I went in I had to force myself in or turn off emotions so I apathetically went through the motions - I really dreaded the job.

And yet - and yet I find myself looking at my schedule of events for tomorrow and seeing calling Wendy's at the top of the list. I have hunted for other jobs, I have prayed and begged not to go back, I have put off the dreaded phone call as long as possible and still I am finding myself forced to.

I really want to throw myself a pity party. I really want another job. I'd really like to be able to get paid for doing things I actually like to do, but it seems I'm not allowed to just yet. Whether this is a result of a lack of a go-get'em personality or what have you, I don't know. I have a sneaking suspicion this is Divine Sovereignty at work but I cannot say for certain.

For those of you reading thinking that I am sulking and pouting - I agree with you. But mind you I'm telling you where I was... 43 minutes ago. Between then and now a certain poem I've read several times throughout the years came to mind and I fear I now owe Mr. Herbert a thank you.

THE COLLAR.
by George Herbert
I STRUCK the board, and cry’d, No more ;
I will abroad.
What ? shall I ever sigh and pine ?
My lines and life are free ; free as the rode,
Loose as the winde, as large as store.
Shall I be still in suit ?
Have I no harvest but a thorn
To let me bloud, and not restore
What I have lost with cordiall fruit ?
Sure there was wine,
Before my sighs did drie it : there was corn
Before my tears did drown it.
Is the yeare onely lost to me ?
Have I no bayes to crown it ?
No flowers, no garlands gay ? all blasted ?
All wasted ?
Not so, my heart : but there is fruit,
And thou hast hands.
Recover all thy sigh-blown age
On double pleasures : leave thy cold dispute
Of what is fit, and not forsake thy cage,
Thy rope of sands,
Which pettie thoughts have made, and made to thee
Good cable, to enforce and draw,
And be thy law,
While thou didst wink and wouldst not see.
Away ; take heed :
I will abroad.
Call in thy deaths head there : tie up thy fears.
He that forbears
To suit and serve his need,
Deserves his load.
But as I rav’d and grew more fierce and wilde,
At every word,
Methought I heard one calling, Childe :
And I reply’d, My Lord.

My Opinion Movie Review - Prince Caspian

2008-05-19T12:45:00.002-04:00

If you are a die hard, true blue, "Prince Caspian" purist, then you won't like this movie because it strays from the book.

However, if you're like me and thought that the book dragged at the beginning and weren't exactly thrilled with it as a whole, then you'll like it. Even if you like the story as it is, judging by my sister (who claims this book as her favorite) you'll still like it.

Personally, I really liked it. They condensed a lot of the boring blah at the beginning and turned it to a quicker sequence of events with out losing much. Where it did stray from the book early on, they did manage to keep consistent within the story they were telling.

Actually, if you go in treating this movie like it's fanfiction, you will probably walk away very pleased.

I did not think there was nearly the character slaughtering in this movie as there was in the predecessor, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (LWW). I truly did think that movie was a very botched retelling of the magnificent book. Even on it's own merit, I didn't think it that good.
Prince Caspian however, manages to stand on it's own feet and still keep the same spirit of the book. Where as LWW managed to lose a lot of the feel of the book, Prince Caspian captured it and brought it to life in a way that the book never did for me.

Trust me, it pains me to confess that I don't care for the book as well as the movie, particularly when dealing with C. S. Lewis, but - I truly thought the movie was good.

There were things in the book they didn't put in the movie, but it was by and large funny and fluffy things that make Lewis' books so fun. I was sad to see the abscence of the school house and the naughty boys turning into pigs, and even that whole sequence but it would have been oddly placed in the movie. As would have Baccus. I do dearly miss those two scenes being cut, but like I said, it was a good movie.

As far as the acting is concerned, I thought Susan was much better portrayed this go 'round than she was in LWW. Peter, however, still lacked that noble, Arthurian quality that was ever so prevalent in the books. For some reason, Adamson decided to make Peter proud. Peter was never proud! This is a character slaughtering that is irksome, but it made for good drama. Even so, it took away severely from the thought of High King Peter, the Knight. Adamson sorta shows the contrast between Proud Peter and High King Peter towards the end, but it was almost too late in coming and was a bit subtle for my liking.

The Battle sequences in this movie were very good! I was on the edge of my seat! They were very well done and I think a bit more intense than LWW. As well, the weapons, the armor, everything was amazing! I was very impressed by the detail given to the costumes in this movie, particularly where warfare was involved. It was ornate, it was beautiful, and it was very believable.

The ordinary costumes were gorgeous too! They gave the kids a couple sets of clothes this movie, and they were stunning!

As far as the acting itself goes - I really thought the guy who plays Edmund did a fabulous job, once again. Lucy was of course portrayed quite well, having grown up appropriately in character and even taking an air of queenliness. Like I said, Peter the character was slaughtered, but the acting for him was pretty good. As well, I think the actress who played Susan did a better job this go round than she did in the first one. As far as Prince Caspian goes - very well acted. He really brought out the struggle that Caspian of the books had between being virtually a kid still, but yet one destined to be king. Caspian was played very realistically, I feel very true to the book, and I give Ben Barnes a round of applause for a job well done.

Oh, and for the record - Reepicheep's coloring was a little off, but he was amazingly done! As well, I liked Aslan a lot better this time. I really didn't like how he was done in LWW, but he was done much better this go round.

One more note - for those of you who may not know - Adamson decided that since the Telmarine's were pirates, he would make them of Spanish decent. Logical, and well with in the realms of artistic liberty. But - Adamson seems to have an unending problem with getting the right hair color on characters! Lucy is suppose to be a golden blonde, not a brunette. Same with Caspian. But, considering the poetic license he took in making them Spanish, a brunette Caspian works.

But that was just a side note.

Over all, I really liked this movie, I hope I can see it again, and I thought it was a job well done.

My Opinion Movie Review

2008-05-11T22:23:00.004-04:00

If you like super-hero action flicks Iron Man is the movie you want to go see next.

In case you don't know who Iron Man is, then let me give you a brief summary. He started out as a self centered, rich, playboy, weapons design genius, and after being captured by a terrorist group of sorts and sees that his weapons are being used against US troops, he manages to escape and decides to take his life and work in a radically different direction.

Now for the opinions -
I thought the acting was very well done, the special effects were amazing, and the dialogue managed to escape the typical action flick transgressions of cheesy one liners and catch phrases. The one liners were really good! The conversations actually sounded normal, and... amazingly enough, you actually believe that the characters exist. The characters were crafted to be real, deep, and believable. This seems to be a pathetic rarity in most films, but I firmly feel this one managed to achieve it.

True to most of the Marvel superhero movies I have seen, there has been very limited blood and gore with out sacrificing one minute of battle or action. The fight sequences I thoroughly enjoyed, especially since I could see what was going on and not get motion sick. (There are few things I dislike more than battle sequences with odd angles that move around too much! Case and point - Transformers.)

As far as "scenes" and language go - I found myself startled at the outset by a minute or less "scene" and wondering about the rest of the movie, but pleasantly found that was the one and only time I was left coughing and looking down at the floor. I understand why it was put in, but it definitely could have been more tastefully avoided and still gotten the point across. However, I am torn about that because it really did help to contrast things later on. Either way, you'll see it coming early on, so look down then keep watching. Language was very minimal. I honestly expected a lot more than there was, and was pleasantly surprised it was missing. More or less, you'll probably hear more if you walk by some teenagers at Wal*Mart than you will in this movie.
By the end, I found myself totally engulfed and 'lost' in the movie - something which doesn't happen very often.

Good job Iron Man!

What a God I Serve!

2008-04-19T12:58:00.002-04:00

I must be brief for time is of the essence, to put it mildly...

Anyway, I have to take 2 block classes on cultural studies and I found out Thursday night I have a paper due in it come Monday. I found out Friday afternoon that I have to have multiple chapters ready by Monday. I found out this morning that the bookstore nor the library have any available copies.

Great.

So, as I was walking back to my room I was desperately praying God would help me find the book. I tried multiple people but nobody had it that would be able to loan it to me. So, I left on a note on the door of my last hope and turned to the internet.

God is tech-savvy. Did you know that?

I believe I managed to find a complete copy of the book online, and then my last hope came into my room declaring I can borrow hers if I need.

Double blessings!

As for the paper - we have four different topics to pick from, and I am picking un-Levitical holidays. Thus, I am off to write a paper!

Over a Month - Tsk! Tsk!

2008-04-14T22:52:00.003-04:00

Good grief! It has been over a month since my last post. I feel as if I had abandoned my loyal readers... reader... occasional bored person surfing the internet at 3 AM... whatever! In my defense I have tried multiple times to create a post but to no avail.

To be perfectly honest, I haven't had much to say. For those of you that know me, I'm sure you are shocked. I have had a lot to think and mull over, but nothing to say. As deep and profound things go, I still have nothing to say. Nor do I have anything of a silly, funny, or even frivolous nature to say.

So, rather than attempt to be profound or deep, or witty and funny I shall simply be plain and simple and let you in on one of the musings at the back of my mind.

Everything that happens in life that seems disjointed really isn't. I embarked on reading a book I was sent called "At the Back of the North Wind" by George MacDonald. So far, I've only gotten 3 or 4 chapters in and I find that I am failing to see how everything is connected. I always do at the beginning of any MacDonald book. However, true to form he always draws it all together at the close.

It is true to his form and true to life. God may plan various events in our lives to happen that at the time appear disjointed (and may for a time to come) but in the end they are all drawn together to make perfect and beautiful sense. It's like a jigsaw puzzle that you start with out seeing the picture of it finished first. You only can get a glimpse here and there of what the image is, and the further along you go, the more you see. That is how George MacDonald's stories unfold and that is how life often looks from our point of view.

If you'll follow me on my slight detour, I'll elaborate on this a little further.

If George MacDonald's stories are like jigsaw puzzles, then I submit that Tolkien's are like tapestries. His are also very true to life in that everything that happens was caused, influenced, or affected/effected (sometimes both!) by something else. The events that lead to Frodo getting the Ring were no more isolated and random seeming as history itself.

That could be another analogy - MacDonald's writing is like being there and watching it unfold as if you were looking over the shoulder of the main character. You might see slightly more than he does, but not much. In contrast, Tolkien's writings are like reading a history written much after the fact and with full knowledge, comprehension, and understanding of why. Where does all this leave C. S. Lewis? I cannot neglect to mention the first author who took me beyond the world! Oft he writes as one who has interviewed the people that were there, or as a first hand, objective observer, barely involved or not at all involved (typically the latter). His writings are like reading accounts of events as recalled by the best story teller you know.

So where am I going with this? I suppose it is all to point out that through paying attention to how these authors narrate I have broadened my perspective on how to look at life. We live and see events as George MacDonald was inclined to record them, but we are woven in as Tolkien demonstrated, and it is all being told with perfect accuracy and objectiveness while still being the most captivating thing you can imagine.

It amazes me how it takes three men, stacks of books, and more than a century between them all to write as God has planned and orchestrates every second. Everything that happens in our life that seems disjointed has a purpose for happening. It is all being woven into the grand tapestry of time itself and it is all being told by the Master Story Teller and in the most riveting fashion!

Late Night Ramble

2008-03-11T22:55:00.005-04:00

Some nights, a body gets tired, but the mind is too full of thoughts to go to sleep. This is one of those nights. Typically, when I have one of these, I write an email to someone who I don't think would mind reading a late night ramble. However, I couldn't think of anyone in particular tonight, so I decided I would ramble to the world.

Or at least what wanderers happen to come across this rambling.

A mind that has so many thoughts dancing through it is a curious thing. I always find that I want to write a thousand things but when I reach out to grab one to put down onto paper, I grasp nothing. Or, I grasp multiple things at once and then I am truly in a pickle because none of the things are related. I'm almost certain if I were to try to put down my opinions on the song "I Want My Mullet Back" (by Billy Ray Cyrus... should you care), my thoughts on the oddities of human behavior when it comes to relationships, and how George MacDonald is the world's most under-mentioned and overlooked writer of the 19th century; you the reader would have a horrible time trying to follow.

I know that I have done such horribly random posts before, and I am sure I shall again, but tonight is not a night for randomness. If I was going to say tonight was for anything, it is for soft folk ballads on guitars and melancholy/reflective musings. I'd settle for cicadas and musing while under a tree or stars while out in the country or woods.

As it stands, I am left with late night listenings to "The Magicians Nephew" (by Focus on the Family's Radio Theater), typing this, and occasionally petting my soft orange cat (who is affectionately called Lardy but is actually named Muffin).

Well, it may not be guitars or cicadas, or even a short getaway; but Narnia and Muffin isn't bad. Not bad at all.

YAY! I have sufficiently gotten enough thoughts out of my head and am finally tired enough to go to sleep.

Good night, and thanks for reading!

Answered Prayers and Blessings

2008-03-02T23:54:00.002-05:00

I suppose you could call this a double answer to prayer -

I wanted to go home for Spring break. I really did. But I could find no one to ride with. Having no car, no ride, and no hope, I resigned to staying up here with a friend of mine, all the while telling people the only way I would be getting home is if they prayed I found a ride and God answered prayer.

I really didn't expect anything to happen. And that is precisely when, I imagine, God looked at me and said, "Oh ye of little faith!" and set to work.

I told my mother of my rideless plight, and she said that she and Dad could come up and get me. It's a long drive, but if they were willing, who was I to say no? So I rejoiced at getting a ride home. Then, a few days later, I learned a friend of mine had an extra seat in her mini-van and on top of it, she lives but 2 hours from my house! Double blessings! Not only are my parents spared a trip, but I get to ride home with friends and spend all break with family and friends!

Blessings! Blessings! Blessings! To add to it, I may possibly be able to get a ride even closer to home than that from my friend's house. YAY! Which would be even nicer for my parents. Considering Dad is still unemployed- every penny counts!

And then last night, on the way home from church, the van did a complete 180 in the middle of the road. The blessings included not hitting any trees, getting hopelessly stuck in the snow (albeit we had to get pushed out), and that no one hit us and we arrived back safe and sound after a short delay with no more difficulties.

With a Word

2008-02-21T20:05:00.002-05:00

Here is a thought that church brought to mind last night -

With a word God created the world. With a word everything we know in this universe will be destroyed. And yet, it is with a word He comforts us and guides us. More or less- God has the power to create and destroy worlds with just an utterance, but between doing these two things, He has decided to speak to us - created things of dust. And why? Because He loves us and He cares for us.

Happy non-Valentine's Day

2008-02-15T12:23:00.003-05:00

For perhaps the first time in my life, Valentine's Day has come and gone generally uncelebrated for me. In past years I have gone out of my way to wear a little more red and pink than usual, but this year it just didn't happen. For whatever reason I just couldn't bring myself to celebrate the holiday in my usual manner.

I did, however, spend a vast part of the day meditating on the love of God. Quite oddly enough my musings were set off by reading about how the men that killed Ishbosheth ended up getting executed by David's men. Why? Because David had great respect for Sual and his family and as well a degree of love. That is inspite of attempts at murder, dethroning, all that.

For a couple of days my mind has been wandering back to teh song David sang at the funeral of Saul and Jonathan. David loved Jonathan because they were very close friends. He also loved Saul because he was his king. He would suffer no harm or dishonor to fall upon him. That is love. That is love that forgives and does not let the heart grow bitter. I cannot help but suppose David in this case ought to be our example for loving our enemies.

In addition to taht, I have been dwelling on 1 Corinthians 13. Many times we make it through the first 7 verses or so, and trail off around verse 8 with the phrase "love never ends" and jump to verse 13. We overlook a marvelous little bit that almost seems out of place, and for that reason it caught my attention. But, it is definitely there for a purpose.

8. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
9. For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
10. but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
11. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
12. For now e see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully even as I have been fully known.

I am no theologian, but here's how this bit strikes me. When it's all said and done all of this world, the struggles, the gifts, everything will pass away. Right now, we only get partial of everything. We only know bits and pieces of prophesy, knowledge, all that. And so, as when we left childhood and became adults we put away our silly notions and saw things more clearly; we will do so one day with prophesy, knowledge, and even love.

In that day we shall see what our faith has been clinging on to and in what we have placed our hope. One day we shall see Love, we shall see the very One who created love. At last we shall see and understand precisely why verse 13 reads, "So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love."

So perhaps this year I did not celebrate the day of romance, chocolate, and flowers - but I did celebrate love.

And When You Pray...

2008-02-04T16:01:00.000-05:00

Since most of you that read my blog are either on my mailing list or were at Heart Conference, than I shan't copy all my notes here. However, I will park on one of the points the speaker brought up about prayer.

I believe he said a bit about how even though God is sovereign, we still need to pray because our prayers are apart of His sovereign plan. The speaker also mentioned something about how God will sometimes delay in answering our prayers because it is then that we will learn something about Him we wouldn't have learned otherwise.

I'm rather in a funny stage with that though because I am far enough in to see there is a lesson being taught, but what exactly it is, I can't figure out. This is one of those times when God keeps saying, "Wait and see".

Far easier said than done from a human point of view. I have had in my mind 3 different dates by which I figured Dad would have to have a job or- there was no or, if's, and's or but's in my mind about it. It would simply have to be so. Three times now those dates have come and gone and nothing. All along the way God has been providing and in a sense proving Himself and His ability to provide and sustain. I am becoming increasingly more confident in God through this, and almost oddly enough I find myself wanting to praise Him for Dad not having a job. Not that is such a great thing to be unemployed, but God has been so good and so faithful, I almost want to boast about it.

Though things are tight and are a bit stressful back home, particularly when faced with the unwanted and unliked possibility of moving very out of state, I find myself perfectly at peace. I just can't get worked up about it. Yes, I REALLY want my dad to get a job, and preferably near where we are, but God has proven Himself so faithful to me in recent months that I simply can't help but be at peace with whatever God shows to be His will and I rest quite comfortably in the fact that God moves in His good timing and never a moment too late.

Not by Circumstance

2008-01-28T12:14:00.000-05:00

Listening to Works of God testimonies in chapel today reminded me that nothing EVER happens by chance, and nothing would happen if God didn't direct it to.

Just thinking about being back up here at school- I would not be here if it were not for God's provision. How my financial help came about is particularly because of God's leading and direction. Conceivably, one could say it came about by circumstances and would have happened with out God. This I fully reject as silly. I may forget this at times, but I truly believe that God has His sovereign hand in absolutely everything. He guides and directs in what seems, to our perspective, the most subtle and ordinary of ways, and then "on occasion" in a miraculous way to prove to us blind humans that He's really been in this the entire time. It humbles me and reminds me what a great God I serve.

Oft I forget this as well, but God never guides us to go or do anything if He isn't going to provide and enable us to do it. That is the wonderment and amazement about this Christian life.

Last Week Home

2008-01-15T22:27:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm looking at the last few days home. It's always mixed emotions about them. Part of me is sad that I am leaving friends and family again, yet part of me is excited to see the other half of my friends... many of which have become like family. It's always that way.

In more than one way I feel like part of me has already returned to school... partly because I've been busy cutting out and sewing banners for the Valentine's Banquet... partly because I am once again looking forward to Wal*Mart excursions for stuff that I need for school. Roomies- don't panic. I'm not bringing back much from there except for chips and salsa. ;o)

To update you on my life since my last post (I just know y'all are on the edge of your seat! lol.), I have managed to do a bit more writing than I thought I would. I'm quite pleased with how my little story is taking shape. I now have some history to go on and the future (for the characters) is starting to form. Fun times! I've also learned how to cut glass bottles. Whee! Also, I wrote another addition of Ye Olde News. It was about a year or so in coming, but I finally got around to it. It wasn't the best issue yet... largely because I wrote all but one article. For the next one, I am going to recruit writers from UNTA to work on it. Ha! Besides the banners, I have made a lovely little chain for my two thumbdrives. It's beaded. Go me! Other tahn that... not much.

Oh yes, I bought a moose calendar and a "Children of Hurin" calendar. Heeheehee!

I'll throw this out, along with a copy of it- I'm doing well on getting my months of the year wallpapers done. Whee!
I'll say a disclaimer right now that none, or very few, of the pictures or brushes used shall be mine. If the brushes are not stock photoshop brushes then I got them from Miss M. Tis a website. If you want a link, I'll give it to you.

Russian Revelation

2008-01-03T12:01:00.000-05:00

Guess what, our "Global Warming" is a natural trend and we're heading towards a nice cold snap. Read about it here!

(picture's from last year.)

This means when I go out to buy a big truck and some Greenie comes up to me and starts preaching at me about how I'm destroying the environment, I shall simply whip out my print out of the article I linked you to and point to the bright and cheerily highlighted section that reads, "Carbon dioxide is not to blame for global climate change. Solar activity is many times more powerful than the energy produced by the whole of humankind. Man’s influence on nature is a drop in the ocean."

Ha ha ha.

Anyway, since it is a new year, I have been giving a good deal of thought about what resolutions to make, if any. I decided on a few spiritual things like trying to meditate on a verse throughout the day and improving prayer life, but this was rather a goal before the year turned.

As for anything else... I can't decide. I'm thinking of carrying over one from last year which was to reduce salt intake. I was met with some success, and so I can't say it will be a new resolution or anything. Merely a continuation of an old one.

Alright, I believe a few smaller resolutions are in order, if nothing else, for my own discipline. So, two new goals for this year: to write in my journal at least once a week and to spend time on my story every day.

The first one has to start after I get back though... sorta forgot my journal up at school... hehe!

I wouldn't call this a resolution, but I'd like to create a wallpaper for every month of the year. Fun times.

Anyway, HAPPY NEW YEAR! Again.

and a Happy New Year!

2007-12-31T02:34:00.001-05:00

Well, for my last post of the year, I shall take stock as to what all this year held.

-I managed to make good on the resolution to blog more.
-I turned 19
-Managed to write in my journal once a month
-Read more C. S. Lewis
-Started writing a story that I think may actually get somewhere! YAY!
-Worked at Wendy's pretty much all summer
-Dealt with bitterness
-Sold out to God
-Learned substantially about the love of God
-Learned to trust Him more wholly
-Fell into shock for the first time
-Worked costume room
-Was an extra in a play
-Pluto was discriminated against and told it couldn't be a planet anymore
-Went to church in a really sweet car for pretty much a whole semester
-Made a couple new friends
-Reconnected with some old ones
-Learned that I really can't stand tea
-Learned coffee is amazing
-Got 2 new Bibles
-Started learning Sign Language
-Started keeping a spiritual journal
-Sewed a new formal
-Went to 2 weddings for 2 of my roomies from Freshman year
-Started a notebook to keep all my poetry in one place
-Watched every single Strong Bad email on homestarrunner.com
-Joined Facebook (I caved)
-Took a couple of voice lessons
But the one that tickled me most was something left over from last year's dorm prayer group -
-Got to S.C.A.R.E. I got to See Christ Arrange Remarkable Events. And best of all, it was in ways I could have never fathomed and when I least expected it.

So, this year was good. I grew, God worked, and I did things I had never done before. Yes, twas a good year.

Happy New Years everyone! I hope 2007 was a good year for you as well, but whether or not it was, I hope 2008 is even better! God bless! Write you again next year!

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-25T02:40:00.000-05:00

This is a VERY early morning post! It's nearly 3 AM, and I can't go to sleep just yet, so I'm blogging to tell you all MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

I feel that in addition to all the stuff I've already gotten and will get after the sun is up, and even in addition to the birth of Jesus, I have been given much by God. When break started, as I said a post or so ago, things were rough, and still are. However, I can once again see the hand of God in all things. For a little bit there I couldn't, and it was all I could do to cling to God. Then He showed Himself to me in ways I cannot express. To sum it up, I shall borrow a phrase I heard in chapel- God is sovereign and it is perfect.

You would be hard pressed to find something more beautiful in this world than seeing the plans of God unfold.

Reading the Christmas stories as they are scattered throughout the first chapters of the Gospels and seeing how it fulfilled God's promises in such a perfect way in such a perfect time is glorious. But then to turn around and see how God has lead in directed in my own life and how things happen in His exact perfect way and in exactly the perfect moment is amazing. For me, it is as if the ancient days in which God worked so plainly have been revived. The veil that blinds is torn away for a moment in time and I am allowed to see how God is working above, in, through, and under all the distracting madness of this world. And then I see that the ancients saw God's working no clearer or more hid than I.

He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Praise Him for His faithfulness, His sovereignty, and His steadfast love! Praise His name!

Merry Christmas my friends! May the day be a celebration of His birth and a day of thanksgiving.

Miscellaneous

2007-12-21T00:04:00.000-05:00

Well, to catch the world up on the trivial and inane (but fun and fascinating!) ...

Peter Jackson has agreed to work with New Line to make the Hobbit. They are going to break it up into two movies which will be shot simultaneously. They are due to appear in a theatre near you around 2010 and 2011. YIPPIE!!! I'm excited!!! :oD

I have also decided to temporarily remove the words "Never Here..." from the top of my blog. I figure the whole 1 of you that actually goes to my blog and reads the header (verses my two facebook readers who have probably never seen it) probably already know whose blog your reading, where it is, and what it is called, and therefore I can sacrifice it in the name of a holiday header. Go me!

I also decided I was having a hard time reading my own blog and therefore picked a different font and made it larger so I can read it more easily. Again, my this is for the benefit of myself and the whole 1 reader that actually comes here (my Facebook reader(s) aside).

My mom has also purchased a new popcorn popper for us all for Christmas. I am sure my brother and myself shall see the most use of it, but I had great fun trying to figure out how to wrap it. In the end, it was all covered in paper. Apparently gift wrapping strange shaped objects is a talent I do not possess. My poor future children. They shall have badly wrapped gifts. Maybe I'll follow in the footsteps of one of my grandma's and put things in odd boxes... like saltine cracker boxes or Kleenex boxes.

Moving on!

I am reading "Flabbergasted" by Ray Blackston again and laughing just as hard! It really is a wonderful mini-vacation. Particularly for the broke college student.

I have also picked up pen and notebook once again to write. If I am patient and muscle through this dull part, I'll get to the fun stuff. I just haven't had the time or discipline to do so as of late. Been a little busy. Now, however, I have the free time so I'm going for it.

Another side note - National Treasure 2 comes out today and I have every intention of going to see it. If nothing else, I'm hoping to laugh at Riley. He's hysterical.

Oh, here is a quirky little side note on God's provision. For whatever reason, some lady called and asked my mom if she would be willing to be apart of a focus group. She was quite insistent that Mom would be a good fit and finangled around one slight hitch to get Mom in. For two or so hours of her time, my Mom got some nice pocket change, and that's after the first day they wanted to have her come in didn't work out and she would have gotten less that day anyway. To add icing to the cupcake, my two younger siblings can do similar sort of things and get paid. I think I might be able to as well. Haven't looked into it yet.

I shall never cease to marvel at God's provision and timing. He always provides- and usually in the last way you would have ever dreamed.

Ever on

2007-12-18T15:37:00.000-05:00

Well, I may remember this year as one of the most trying ones of my young life. I got home and the mini-van decided to have a seizure or something. It started sounding like an RC car and it wouldn't shift into gear, it would barely move... and it was bad. Thankfully, we figured out that it wasn't just the slick roads making the tires spin before we left the subdivision. My dad is currently trying to figure out what's wrong with it and we're hoping it won't cost us an arm and a leg to fix it. As it stands, we're broke. Or about there. Dad's been unemployed since April and unemployment is run out.

However dismal this may look, it could definitely be worse. In light of how my semester has gone, this is par for the course and I am once again challenged to make sure my dependence, focus, and trust is on God. For as uncertain and shaky as everything seems right now, it really isn't as worrisome as you might think. "I have been young, and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread." Psalm 37:25.

Safe and Sound

2007-12-15T00:36:00.000-05:00

Well, I made it home safe and sound with out hiccup. I think we made pretty good time coming back, and so for the second time I came home in time for dinner. YAY! Nothing beats coming home, talking, and then eating dinner. I even watched Spiderman 3. YAY!!!

Howsomever, I know that there are students traveling that haven't made it home yet and are still driving, some of them through a lovely little snow storm too. My prayers and thoughts are with them. It would be a big bummer if someone ended up stranded or worse.

Anyway...

This is the first thing I've had close to alone time since I've gotten home, so I am now taking it to reflect a little bit on the semester. This reflection shall probably end up quite shallow because it is late and I am tired.

A while back in chapel, the speaker asked if we were the same person now as we were a week ago and if God had grown us at all in that time. Over the span of this semester, I know I have changed. I am not the same girl I was walking into this semester as I am walking out of it. There is a distinct difference between who I was and who I am. I have grown more than I thought possible to grow in one semester and... I'm tired! I am SO glad God put me through everything that He did. I wouldn't trade a second of it. However, I am tired and I am really hoping that God would grant me a day to get away and just be with Him to read, pray, and think. As one friend put it, even Jesus would have to take a break and go get alone with His Father. Yes, I am really hoping I can get such a day and that it would be soon!

Maybe one of these days I will tell the full tale of how God worked, but it is a long tale and it is late. Prayers and pillows are calling...

For Stephen's Sake

2007-12-09T20:36:00.002-05:00

I wasn't particularly planning to post today, but since Stephen has so wished I do so, I am now here rambling about nothing. And I am sorry this ramble came no sooner than it did, for I'm sure he wanted it for his own amusement during his ridiculously long shift.

Well, now that I'm here and writing, I think I best think of a topic... and I got nuttin'. Well, I did have a couple of interesting events with in the last 24 hours, however they do not make good stories. More like pointless rambles.

No comments, please!

Hmmm.... *hunts through my poetry* Not sure if I want to put any of that up. Oooh! Here's one! I wrote this one over the summer.

Oh My Soul, Oh My Soul

Why are you cast down oh my soul, oh my soul?
What burden do you bear oh my soul, oh my soul?
Why is your heart so low?
Why is your face worn with care?
What heavy burdens do you bear, oh my soul?

Have you forgot that He cares oh my soul, oh my soul?
Have you forgot that He hears oh my soul, oh my soul?
He hears your weakest prayer
For you He’s ever there
Have you forgotten that He hears, oh my soul?

July 31, 2007

Alright, I must go study now for finals. Pray I pass all my classes! PLEASE!

It's Christmas Time!

2007-12-01T23:10:00.000-05:00

It is that time of year again! Time to break out the sweaters, the hats, scarfs, gloves, boots, thick socks, leg warmers, leggings, turtle necks... all things that say warm and toasty. Today we had our first snow storm of the year and it is a good one! Last I looked outside we had many inches of snow and it was very windy and VERY cold!

And as the weather has officially changed for the Christmas-y, so is my blog. Starting today I shall start decking the digital halls and having myself a merry little Christmas, indeed!

So, if this thing looks a little... weird... just know it's undergoing Christmas reconstruction.

Until next time,
MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Awkward?

2007-11-20T20:46:00.000-05:00

So, I'm sitting in the on-campus coffee shop with nothing to do, no drink, and no one. Obviously I'm waiting for someone.

Waiting for people is always a curious thing. You can usually tell when someone is waiting, even when they are doing something and seem preoccupied. The person sitting around wholly devoted to study looks pretty well settled, focused, and at ease in one way or another. But they who wait for anyone tend to simply look like they're killing time. Even those preoccupied with books, magazines, or even homework.

Usually, it seems like there is an air of awkward surrounding a waiting person. It is the rare character, I have found, that can wait in perfect ease. They are the ones that either always have a perfectly fine plan B or they know that no matter what, whoever they are waiting for will show up and there are no questions to ask. They know whoever it was didn't forget, has a great reason for running late, is typically late, or the waiting person arrived early and knows it.

So, I'm sitting here, in the coffee shop, waiting for a friend of mine (with nothing to do or drink) so we can buy each other a drink as a way to say thank you for helping each other with our bulletin board projects. It's rather amusing, why we're even meeting; but it just takes on a whole new element when they run fashionably late for the purpose of buying someone else a coffee.

And she has come! YAY!

A bit of rhyme

2007-11-19T12:52:00.000-05:00

While feeling so inclined to post, yet lacking subject matter to post about, I began hunting through my doc files and ran across a poem I wrote in September. I opened it, re-read it, added a stanza, and now think it's something close to presentable. Not being particularly fond of this poem, and not seeing much harm in letting the world see it, I post it here for the whole 6 of you that actually meander to my blog on occasion.

There Were Four

Four there sat and then sat one
'Round a table under sun.
One by one they walked away
And in between the trees did stray.
Now I sit here and do not stir
Unless we lose the things that were
And they are swept away by time
And others come with their own rhyme.
As long as one sits, mem’ry’s there
And one can then the mem'ry share

But if all stand and move away
Then all is lost to yesterday
And things we did and things that done
Shall be lost always under sun.

Four there sat and then sat one
'Round a table under sun
One by one they went away
And have left me behind to stay
But now I too shall up and leave
And in the trees I’ll stray.

written - September 14, 2007 - edited - Nov. 19, 2007

BAd DAy

2007-11-09T12:30:00.000-05:00

I have no idea how all y'all's day is going, but I figured I could tell you about mine and maybe give you a small chuckle.

As most of y'all know, this week is the play week. Well, last night was the night that yearbook came and took pictures. All week I had been getting done with the play around 9:30, which isn't bad at all. Last night I didn't get back to to my room until 10:47 and didn't get done scrubbing off the top 2 layers of make up til around a quarter after 11. Before I got into bed I saw that my friend Erin had left her laptop in my room so I could listen to some stuff for my Spanish homework. I crawled up on my bed and read the sticky note attached and realized I didn't have to do the listening til Saturday. However, I had this fill in the blank thing that needed to be done by today. Now, I knew she had sent it to me,and I knew it wouldn't take me long to do it, so I decided that I would be able to do it in about half an hour in the morning on my laptop, then send it to myself and print it out in the labs around 7:45 and walk into that, my first hour class early.

...the best laid plans of mice and men...

So I woke up on time and went to open it from my email inbox and... she has Word 2007 and I have 2003. In case you don't know, you can open 03 in 07, but you cannot open 07 in 03. Stupid Microsoft!

Seeing I had too little time to deal with it, I cracked open my book and started typing. 7:30. Then I started filling in the blanks (it was fill in the blank in the book) and I got half done... around 7:43. Then, I started to get ready to leave because it was either be late and get my homework done, or be on time and get a zero.

... you can't have your cake... or eat it...

... you don't even get a cupcake. so don't even think about it...

In the process of getting ready, I found myself forced into wearing a skirt that needs washed (it's not bad, it just has a spot on it), a random sweater (which I like and is mercifully comfortable!), white knee socks (only pair I could find easily... luckily they match my white skirt), and slip on black shoes. Gotta love slip on black shoes. But I had trouble finding ... a particularly necessary article of clothing which threatened to hold me in my room until it was found. I found it in the end and was able to fly out the door and arrive 3 minutes late to class with homework half done. It was then I decided I was officially having a bad day.

Can I go back to bed?

I need a turtle frap. Or chocolate. I want both.

... but grace is given me...

So I arrive to class three minutes late, no homework, and my make up is still slightly on from last night. I have on my eyes eye liner of uneven thickness, traces of green eyeshadow, I think there is still black in my eyebrows, and as for my arms and legs... I look quite tanned. Not sure if any lipstick is left... but yes, so I look like a wreck, but luckily I'm not alone in this (some people today look purdy rough!). To top it all off, I put on one sock inside out.

Gotta love the finishing touch.

Anyway! I explained this all to my teacher and as I conclude my narration and she says, "Do you need a hug?"

By then, I had already started to laugh about how ridiculously tragically comic this whole thing was, so I didn't get a hug, but I did get grace to get it done by Monday without penalty.

So, to those of you out there that may be experiencing a not so fun day, just remember, you are not alone.

...Eat chocolate, drink pop, and be MURry happy...

Apple Scrapple and Tuna, Egg Salad Sandwhiches

2007-10-28T15:33:00.000-04:00

Why do people always pick on apples being the fruit from the tree of knowledge and good and evil? They're quite a delicious fruit to be sure, and see nothing sinful about them. Maybe it's because guy's have an Adam's apple. I always thought that was a silly name for them though, because no guy has an Adam's apple as big as an apple. At best, a large cherry. But I digress...

Anyway, as I was trudging up the steps this morning to the third floor of the ladies dorm, where I lay my head at night, I thought how funny it was that I had just made an early morning excursion to the FAC to fetch 2 instruments that I have no idea how to play for a friend who lives off campus and forgot them there. I wasn't bothered by her request for me to bring them to church, but as I was lifting up the edge of my cloak as not to let it drag the ground, and caught a glimpse of my amazing slipper socks (from L. L. Bean) I started musing about how completely random my life is. The last thing I would have thought I'd be doing a frosty Sunday morning is trudging over to the FAC in slipper socks and a cloak to fetch a flue and an oboe... piccalo... or whatever it was.

So then a whole 6 seconds ago I was reminded of how I tend to attract people from all the far flung corners of the personality universe. One of my friends is writing a confessional autobiography about her non-existent dating life, and she asked me to get a few people to read it. So I sent it 3 friends who said they wouldn't mind giving it a look over, and I realized that amongst just those 3 I had a pretty broad range of opinions. This lead to a quick 10 second recollection of my list of friends, which is about as diverse as the human populous itself. The only sort of person I don't have as a friend is... the normal sort. Though I'm pretty sure there's one or two in there somewhere.

Alright, so this is really random, but I had to dig up a friend for one of my roomies out of an obscure picture file, and then I found a half forgotten file of pictures in which was one of the most hilarious pictures I've ever seen of my cousin George and my friend BC. I got quite a chuckle and it reminded me of a lot of fun times and goofy experiences I've had with my nutty friends.

If you didn't know this, you are about to be told that I usually take several hours or a day or two to make a blog post. Not because I have such incredibly profound things to say, duh, or that I have such trouble composing it. It is for the sheer fact I don't always have the ability to sit down and write all at once. This usually works out for the better.

Take tonight, for instance. I go to church via church van on Sunday nights due to choir, but Sunday mornings there and back and coming back on Sunday nights I ride with a friend fondly called Pirate. Usually it's me, Pirate, and one or two others. Well, tonight, one or two others managed to all find other rides. That was the situation at the beginning of church tonight. Afterwards we learned that one girl, let us call her Mary, found out that her ride wouldn't work out. This was after we found another girl, call her Jen, who was willing to ride back with us so it wasn't just Pirate and I (which is against the rules). So we had to tell Jen that Mary was back and she (Jen) could return with her brother. Due to timing of all this, I ended up in Pirate's car by myself eating sandwiches while he went hunting for Mary. After ten or more minutes he gave up the hunt and we both returned into the gym where the church was having a fellowship so we could tell Jen we needed her again. In all of this, Pirate decided he was hungry so he sat down and ate and I found yet another girl who needed a ride, call her Meg, and I went back to have a few more sandwiches. Before it was over, I had had at least 5 or 6 little tuna or egg salad sandwiches, several carrot and celery sticks, and some potatoe chips and a cookie.

At the end, Pirate was mildly frustrated, I was laughing my head off (cuz isn't that just like life?) and telling him he should turn this into a skit. To this he declared that he didn't want his life to be turned into a skit. He said it was an epic drama, but has turned into a tragic comedy. I told him it was straight comedy and he should still turn it into a skit.

If he doesn't, I might. I just might. It was too perfect.

Psalm 27

2007-10-19T12:39:00.000-04:00

I don't really have a "life verse" per say, but if I was going to pick one, this one would be in the top 3 for consideration. Actually, you could probably say this is my life passage, but there are too many good ones for me to pick, and my particular fondness lies in the last 2 verses. But anyway!

I have been meditating on Psalm 27 quite a bit over the last few weeks, and it seems increasingly over the last few days. In this psalm, David is declaring God as his light and salvation, right off the bat, and then instantly asks "of whom shall I be afraid?"

The entire passage he shows how God will save him from enemies, storms... and then he says something that has caused me to muse a bit.

"One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple." I think often times we seek after God, but we don't even think to ask that we may dwell in His house all the days of our lives. As in present tense. I think we usually look at this in a future tense way. If not anyone else, I know I have.

Verses 7-9 I have lived out and wrote about before, so I won't rehash that, but I'll now park on verse 13 for a minute.

"I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living!" A lot of times we sit around wondering why us and asking questions, almost not wanting answers for fear our delicious misery would be ended. But here, David, a man who knew what it was to be a man with a price on his head, is praising God even though people have/are (this non-scholar doesn't know when this psalm was written) just waiting to kill him. He was persuaded that he would see the goodness of God while yet alive, not just in heaven. I think at moments we think we won't see God's goodness until after we're dead (but I think that's more of our despairing moments). Me thinks we fail to see it even when things are going good. We lose sight and focus. Obviously... humans... the whole species is ADD. I'm convinced.

So, I end the way David did.

"Wait for the Lord: be strong, and let your heart take courage: wait for the Lord!"

Epiphany

2007-10-08T21:08:00.000-04:00

I had an epiphany today during devotions. Tis a wonderful time to have them. Anyway, I've been saved for 14 years and I've recently started trying to figure out what things about the Christian life I know and what things I actually understand. There is quite the difference you know.

So today my epiphany was on the Fruits of the Spirit. Particularly joy and peace. I started to wonder whether I actually understood "joy" at all.

Then it dawned on me what joy was. I'm sure I don't have it down pat just yet, but at the moment, if you were to ask me to define joy, I'd have to say at least part of it is an untouchable feeling of 'happiness' and 'peace' combined, that no measure of sorrow can ever penetrate.

Almost at the same time I realized I understood, and have understood what perfect peace is- the unshakable feeling that even though the world around you has crumbled, you're still standing safe and sound in the cleft of the rock.

It almost seems silly to me that it has taken me this long to figure this out, but I suppose this is the result of having doctrine and theology shoved into my head since I could understand speech, with out ever remembering what it was like to not know joy or peace.

With this I also realized that these are not things that I have to really strive for. They are, after all, Fruits of the Spirit. And like any fruit, it grows naturally from the tree. Of course the gardener must tend the tree and what not, but the gardener doesn't force the fruit to grow, the gardener simply makes it easier for it to grow and does what he can to ensure it does. That is my job. By being a Christian, the fruits of the spirit are a natural product of it.

... I think I said that right... :o)

I hope that made sense, because this is how I finally got a grasp on the whole concept of the Fruits of the Spirit. If I'm dead wrong, somebody let me know so I can either explain better or change my thinking...

Our God is so patient with me! Once again, I am humbled.

Scraps of Thoughts

2007-10-03T12:44:00.000-04:00

I've finally gotten a job on campus in the Costume Room! Fun times that is! I get to work with beautiful costumes, fun fabrics, and crazy people. It's great!

So in other news- I'm starting to hold great disdain for my printer. It always manages to run out of ink at the most inconvenient of times. Here I am, trying to print out a picture of C. S. Lewis and it decides that it shall run low on black. I have received no official notice from my printer that it is so, but I would guess from the very light color of the black in the picture that it is indeed running low.

Either that or being obstinate, which is a perfectly reasonable theory with my printer.

Anyway! I have decided that one of my lots in life is to be perpetually number 2. I found out twice in one day that I was 2 different guy's 2nd pick to take to Artist Series. Considering everything, I do not know whether to be indifferent, flattered, or offended. It's a rather strange thing to learn. On one hand flattering that I was considered, on the other hand almost insulting, but not enough to be actually insulted or genuinely offended. I think I'm more flabbergasted than anything else.

Flabbergasted... what a fun word! What a fun book! (By Ray Blackston. I recommend it for a fun mini vacation)

But! I am not saying that simply because of that particular incident. It seems that in most things I tend to run as people's second thought. Which again, isn't bad, but it's a peculiar place to be. I dare say it differs from the whole "Woman is under man" thing. It's easier to be under someone than to realize that should whoever is in front of you be unable to perform his duties that you are next.
"Aww! That was a good try, but no!"

Guess it's like being Vice President, eh?

Wouldn't that be scary: Vice President Frank. MWAHAHAHA! Though, I suppose what would be scarier is whoever was president. That would mean that someone actually picked me to run with them for office. I don't know about you, but that seriously causes me to question the mental state of whoever is running the country at that time. Not to sound like I'm being harsh on myself, but quite honestly, I'm not what you call vice presidential material... I'm entirely too opinionated and stubborn. Maybe that's why whoever will chose me.

The world may never know.

Scrap that. The world will never know.

Nothing and Everything

2007-09-13T16:48:00.000-04:00

Let's start out with a bit of review of this summer and then move on to what God is teaching so far this semester.

This past summer has been one of the hardest summers, if not the hardest summer, I have ever had. Every day was a battle to keep my footing. If you've ever gone wave jumping in the ocean, then you know how easy it is to drift away from the bit of ocean floor you started on. Every day there were waves crashing against me and I had to try to keep my footing. Ground was lost. Ground was gained. I was left reeling with another series of blows to come.

Church should be a sanctuary. A place you can turn to for encouragement when the world is attacking. I could not do that all summer. I had no haven of rest except for the arms of God, and I was having trouble seeing that through the salt spray. My one physical place of escape from the world was painfully jerked from me. In addition to all this were things like Wendy's, Dad being unemployed, and me trying to figure out how in the world I would ever make enough money to get back up here, let alone pay my bill.

In a lot of ways I was walking by faith (cuz I knew that would be all that would get me here!) but in a lot of ways I was doubting if God would actually bother to work in a great and mighty way in my life. He did by orchestrating events in the lives of people around me and events in my personal life and thus it was He got me back up here for this semester.

So, here I am into the second week of classes and I already felt weary from the steady attacks all summer, but God saw fit to keep me in the midst of trials instead of letting me have a break as I so desperately wanted.

For almost two solid weeks now I have been almost tormented by trying to figure out how I am going to pay school bills, what will happen if Dad can't find a job before unemployment runs out, and a slough of other things. With this, God was increasingly making me aware of different areas of sin in my life that I would not admit to, let alone confess and attempt to overcome. Then, last night the climax of it all came.

God showed me His might, His love, His mercy, His patience, and His holiness all it once. At Campus Church a message on sin was given and God showed me so many things that were flat out wrong with me and shouldn't be in my life to the extent that I marveled at how He could love me. To teach me some lessons, He let the weight of my problems, my concerns, my sins, and everything else begin to weigh down on me. There isn't even a chance it was the full weight of things, in fact I am sure it wasn't, but it was enough to make me see that His cross is lighter and His burden easier to bear than the burdens of this life. He showed me how much He does for me and how He carries my cares. It was such a humbling and amazing experience! I shall never forget it.

I walked away renewed, refreshed, and at feeling at least 10 pounds lighter. I also walked away with a greater love, appreciation, and respect for the marvelous God who has seen fit to love such despicable creatures as us and to send His Son to die for us.

I am nothing. He is everything.

What a wonderful God we serve!

We Do Not Know

2007-08-25T14:10:00.000-04:00

Two posts in a day- I know, shocking. But this is just proof that we do not know what a day will hold.

It was 30 minutes after my last post that Mom called me from my bedroom to the back porch where we keep our little freezer. The door was half open and all the food inside spoiled. Among the contents of the freezer were 2 large roasts and pork chops. The pork chops and one of the roasts were spoiled, but the larger of the two roasts was salvageable after Mom took off the top inch or so. Mom had to rush off to go paint at a friend's house, and I was left to clean up the freezer... with bad lighting... and in my own shadow... with out much I could do about it. Which stunk both literally and figuratively.

I can now safely rule out nursing, forensic anything, crime scene clean up, and butchering from the future occupation list. I will details of clean up at that.

I walk away giving a short laugh though. There always seems to be something popping up that you plain couldn't see coming. Though, I am inclined to believe that perhaps a little more so at our house than most peoples.

Spontaneity is the spice of life.

A Measure of Perspective and Madness

2007-08-25T11:32:00.000-04:00

To an extent or degree things like boldness, daring, and insanity are a matter of perspective. When I informed my cousin and our mutual friend that I was making a formal for artist series without a pattern, they looked at me like I was a half crazy and brave soul for attempting it. I don't quite see the brave aspect of it because it's a basic sleeveless shirt on top and an A-line skirt on the bottom. However, because there was no pattern, I didn't get the size quite right nor was it... symmetrical.

Through trial and error I have managed to get it fitting properly, but to get to that point was a matter of insanity. If you've never done it, you can only imagine how hard it is to put on a dress in-side-out, see what's wrong, pin, and then take it off and fix it. It becomes particularly hard when part of the dress is too small and needs taking out.

I ended up enlisting my Mom's help because quite frankly, there is no way a person can sew and then potentially alter a dress all by themselves without a sewing manikin. I do not have a sewing manikin, and I am deeply contemplating asking for one for Christmas! The only things inhibiting me from requesting one is the fact they're expensive and I have no where to put it. But this is beside the point.

Another bit more madness related to the dress is the fact that the dress was mostly sewn before I had a clue what sleeves I wanted, which is a relatively important part of the dress, considering I go to a baptist Bible college. Last night, after reviewing multiple dresses and sleeves from a couple costume sights, I decided to give it a blended medieval/Greek flavor (allowing it to be more flowing and unfitted, but keeping a slight twist of medieval). The dress also has an optional wrap (sort of thing) that will be able to be worn or not depending on my mood.

It is decidedly simpler than the last dress I made which was a fitted, blue jacquard, Arwen looking dress with large white veil sleeves and a glittering white trim with belt and it laces up the back. This dress I am now making is a dark red crushed velvet with shimmery cream/white sleeves and (when I finally get to JoAnn's to get it) the trim will be the same color as the sleeves and simple, but elegant. Where as the blue dress had trim around the neck, sleeves, and then the belt, the red one will only have trim around the neck and a belt.

Well, my hope is to get this dress done completely before I leave Wednesday, and to do so means I must now run off and work on it!

Part way Through August

2007-08-10T22:46:00.000-04:00

Partway through August, I've only got 1 week left of work and Wendy's, and I'm putting up another little update... cuz so much has happened... well... sorta...

I have started plinking around on the piano again, and have since discovered I can play and sing 1 song. YAY! "Lord, Here Am I" is the song I can play and sing. I also have learned that I can easily hit an E, which is quite the accomplishment for me, considering I'm a natural alto.

In addition, I have picked up 6 of my piano books and decided that I need to play through them and memorize at least one song out of each. Aren't I the ambitious one? *cough*

Also on the agenda, but with a deadline, is making 3 long A-line skirts. A houndstooth, a flannel, and a suade darkish khaki color. I'm excited! I also have a formal I want to make, but we'll see how that goes!

I've also done some music finding and graphic art. Amongst the other more serious songs I found, I found two about food. "Solid Potato Salad" by Nat King Cole and "Homegrown Tomatoes" by John Denver. I made a wallpaper about the Homegrown tomatoes one, which I have put up. I want to make one for "Solid Potato Salad" but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

Why don't they make silly songs like that anymore? It's just fun music with silly lyrics that's not trying to push an agenda, idea, or anything else. It's just fun. The world lacks silly fun stuff like that anymore, and I think it's a shame.

Anyway, Working at Wendy's has become slightly interesting. I had to learn how to do stocking and did it for only 3 days, thank goodness! If you've never worked set up for a fast food restaurant, you may not quite understand what all it involves, particularly when you work for a chain that is solidly dedicated to freshness.

The stocking I had to do involved making sure everything in the island in the dining room was full with more to spare under it. Salt packets, pepper packets, forks, spoons, knives, straws, napkins. Then, I had to make sure that there were enough cups, lids, hot sauces, crackers, granola, forks, spoons, knives, cutlery packets, nugget sauces, salt packets, pepper packets, napkins, kids toys, etc. for front counter and T3 (the register where orders are taken and you get your food). Also had to make sure there were enough french fry and nugget cartons too.

The how much, though slightly intimidating, is not quite as bad as the sheer quantity and variety of everything. We have 5 different sizes of cups with 4 or so sizes of lids, 2 sizes of chili cups and lids, between fries and nuggets there were about 5 different sizes of cartons, we have at least 5 different nugget sauces, hot sauce for the chili. For each of the sizes of cup/lid we had to have somewhere between 1 and 3 sleeves of, not to mention whatever was in the rack. And may I say, this was complicated by the fact of multiple half opened sleeves of the same thing that seemed to be a frequent problem...

In addition to stocking there was buns, Frescata bread, chicken drops, and bacon. buns involved untying them, tucking the end under the buns (after setting 2 bags on a tray), and then putting them in the microwave for 30 seconds. I had to do probably over 25 trays of buns. Kid you not. And we used them all! That is how busy we are! I never had to do Frescata, but the gist of it is, you had to put it on a tray, put it in the oven, and then take it out at just the right time. I think I was suppose to do potatoes too... but I never got around to that or Frescata or chicken drops. Bacon I did do, however. That involved taking out these large slabs of bacon, stacked about 5 deep in a pack, peeling the half frozenish layers off of each other, cutting it in half, putting it in the microwave, shaking it (don't ask me why, I still don't know!), and putting it in the sandwhich lines.

All this was to do be done in an hour and a half. How the last girl did it, I may never know. I'm just glad I don't have to anymore! But! I learned, and I am glad for the knowledge.

I have also learned how to cut lemons (which is about the biggest no brainer thing ever. And I am FAST at it too!), how to cut tomatoes evenly at a consistent thick (or thin)ness. I can also do cheese and lunch meat in about 20 minutes. Again, the quantity is what gets ya! I also know how to make Almost all the Wendy's salads. Their secrets are no longer safe! MWAHAHAHA! I also know how to hand food out the window... which is the second biggest no brainer. The hardest part about it is trying to figure out what order you're looking at on the screen. :oD I also think I have figured out how to take orders... I know, it sounds insane that one could work in a fastfood joint and not know how to take orders, but so it is.

So now I'm sitting here with just a week more of work before I'm done for the summer, and I am grateful for having done it. Besides the practical work lessons, I've relearned a few others as well... like "99% of life is just showing up for it." and that people that don't drink are rare and people that don't smoke are a novelty. I also learned that sometimes it's the big biker dudes that are the most gentlemanly. I have one regular (well, I have probably over 100 regulars, but one in particular) that looks like a biker and if you just looked at him, you wouldn't want to mess with him, but he is consistently the nicest and friendliest guy I have in the morning.

I've spent a good deal of the summer learning and sorting through things. It never will cease to amaze me that the things I think I have all figured out are the ones I don't really get at all. The opposite sometimes holds true as well. And again, God has been trying and testing me. First, He showed me that He really does mean it when He says "ye have not because ye ask not" and then He gave me something to try it out on.

My school bill came, I had less than half of it and then by a series of downright God arranged events, the money was there. I had never seen such a thing first hand in my own life before (wasn't much of a chance before), but now I do and I did and I walked away singing His praises.

Something interesting I have observed is that once you learn a lesson, God won't let you forget it by making you practice it. He taught me to take everything one day at a time and now... I'm having to exercise it lest I go mad.

Oh, I beg you all to continue praying, and little more so because Dad does not yet have a job, but there is an interview being set up! PLEASE PRAY! thank you!

Well, this has been my summer thus far. I have a few more weeks left in which I don't forsee anything interesting happening, but then again, I've been wrong before.

My Summer... Thus Far

2007-06-13T19:28:00.000-04:00

Well, I know I have been silent for a good long while, so let me get you up to speed... well, at least partially.

Back track to the end of the school year. Watching all your friends leave for the summer and knowing you are stuck a whole week more not knowing if anyone you even know is staying is hard. I learned that. Watching God introduce you to new people and making summerlude one of the most enjoyable weeks you've had in a long while is amazing. So is finding out that a number of your friends are staying.

What is also amazing is getting ready for a wedding in the front seat of a mini-van in the sweltering heat with your mom sitting behind you curling your hair. I thought that was a feat for the record books. :o)

The end of May came, and I found myself starting back at Wendy's come June. I thought I was going to hate every minute of it, but... I haven't! I've actually learned a bit. For example- I can now make almost any salad on the Wendy's menu! I also finally figured out how to evenly slice tomatoes, I can also slice lemons... but that's not hard...

But I learned some other things that are slightly more important. At first I just had a terrible attitude about it. I was ungrateful that I even had a job. But then, God got a hold of me and showed me that I was being ungrateful and proud and a whole mess of other things. Here's where all those years of AWANA paid off- God brought to my mind a verse one day while I was working. It was that one that goes something like 'in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content'.

I learned to be content in a lot of ways: content with my job, content with my circumstances, content with my station in life, and much more.

And it seemed that 5 minutes after I learned to be content to live without what I want and to trust Him with what I need, He turned around and gave me what I wanted. I'm still waiting for what I need, but I have reached a point where I can just walk by faith.

So, in waiting for what I need, I simply ask that you all pray for my Dad in his hunt for a job and that I'll have enough money for tuition.

Familiar Story

2007-04-18T22:48:00.001-04:00

I grew up knowing the story (or parable or whatever it technically is) of the Prodigal Son. To the point where I can't even remember hearing for the first time. Well, after a life time of church and Sunday School, this story got a little old for me. I had heard the sermons on it more times than I cared to recall. Well, Tuesday in my Acts and Pauline Epistles class, the story suddenly came to life for perhaps the first time. I discovered that I really didn't know it as well as I had thought I did. The teacher talked about the story and brought to light an interesting point which I think is good for us to mull over every once in a while.

When I mention the story of the Prodigal Son, your thoughts probably turned immediately towards the Prodigal Son. Understandably. Your mind probably flitted through the basic outline of the story, reached the bit about the fatted calf and then trailed off. That seems to be what most sermons do. They end with the fatted calf and how God will forgive the rebel (if he will but fall on his knees and repent today! Can I hear an A-men?! *cough* moving on!) and then briefly mention the other son throwing a hissy fit... or get bitter... or both.

The other thing that seems to happen with most sermons is that the preacher goes through, gets to the end, starts a sermonette on bitterness, using the other son as an example, and then closes with an invitation asking if we're like either one of the sons.

Nothing wrong with either of these things. However, when was the last time you heard a sermon, or more than a half-related rabbit trail in a sermon about the father? The father is really quite interesting once you start to look at him. He forgave both sons before they even asked for it with gifts besides. To the prodigal son he gave a feast and a fatted calf and to the other son he reminded him that he has access to all his father has.

It was the last bit with the other son that made me do another double take. (I already looked twice at the father... I'll explain why in a moment.) Honestly, I have a little bit of a hard time identifying with the prodigal son... mostly because I've never squandered all my money after running away from home. But, I do understand how the other son felt. There he was, serving faithfully the entire time, and it didn't seem like he got any recognition, but then the "bad" son comes home and suddenly there's all sorts of hoopla and the "good" son feels neglected. Now, take a look at Luke 11:31-And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. I think this is rather self explanatory. We sometimes forget that we are joint heirs with Jesus and have access to all of everything because of Him and God. We feel jipped... when we aren't. We're blessed because we don't have the scars the prodigal son has. So yeah, he gets a fatted calf and he, like us, has access to unlimited everything, but he has memories and scars and we don't. See the point I'm trying to make?

Now, back to the father. I might be blind and forgetful, but I honestly cannot remember ever hearing a sermon in which the father in the Prodigal son is paralleled to God the Father. It's pretty obvious, is it not? That was my first double take. the father is the Father and He is always waiting to forgive us before we even ask for it and rejoices when we come home to Him.

The parable of the Prodigal Son is really a beautiful example of the brilliance of Jesus as a teacher, story teller, and author. There are lessons to be learned with each character in it, there are multiple layers of symbolism... it is loaded, simply loaded with meanings and lessons. I strongly, strongly encourage you to go read it. It can be found in Luke 15:11-32.

I know it seems like one of the old, faded, worn out tales from Sunday School, but it is anything but that! It is fresh and vibrant!

Down-right Randomniscity

2007-04-12T20:36:00.000-04:00

Is randomniscity a word? *checks on Merriam- Webster.com* Apparently not. I should submit it. It's a good word. Perfectly describes when I post, what I post about, and virtually everything else about me.

Another new word: Predictarandom- Predictable randomness.

Enough with creating words! What is the word for that...? Ah, forget it.

Before I got a word further, I would like to thank you all who prayed for mom's mini-van to be fixed because it was and for much less than originally thought! PRAISE GOD! As a result, they can come up and visit me this weekend for my burfday! WHEEE!!! We shall "eat cookies, drink pop, and be MURry happy." -BC

Anyway! All those who have ever written a story of any sort, or even a poem, can understand how utterly annoying it can be to have a wonderful idea in your head, but when you go to put it on paper have it not translate very well. Such has been the last week. I don't know if it's lack of sleep, too much sleep, or just my poor little mind finally going hay-wire, but my imagination has been all over the place. As a result, I've had some marvelous scenes running through my head that are worthy to be put in a story. However, when I go to write them down something gets lost and the whole thing just dies.

I have been struggling with that all week. That is, until today. I think I might have a breakthrough folks! On paper, it's looking marvelous! I'm hoping this marks the end of my drought of inability to creatively write. It's miserable when you know you can write short and long stories but nothing comes to you. It's nice when you can sit down with a pen and paper and just go and the story just comes. That hasn't happened in a while, so I'm really really hoping it finally is coming back!

I'd love to give you all a small taste of what I'm working on... but I'm going to make you wait. I'm so mean.

Alright, to change gears... I will now take this opportunity to randomly praise God for the awesome great semester He has given me! Missions conference last week was amazing. I now understand why it's so many people's favorite week! I learned a lot about missions, what it is and isn't, that's it not truly a sacrifice... I'm going to park on that last one for a second. As I was giving it thought, I came to the conclusion that serving Christ is not a sacrifice. Nothing given to God is a sacrifice. To give up what you don't need or what is harmful to you isn't a sacrifice. To keep what you don't need or what is harmful to you is foolishness and idiocy.

Let me show you how I worked through this.
It's not a sacrifice to give up drinking pop (carbonated beverage). I don't actually need it, I just like it. Nothing wrong with it, but it's not essential. So no big deal.

It's not a sacrifice to give up smoking (I don't smoke, but I wanted to pick a physically harmful sin/addiction). It's bad for my health and generally harmful. Hard to do because it's addicting, but it can be done and needs to be done.
So...
To let something as silly as "modern conveniences," or the American Dream to keep me from serving God is foolish.

To let some sin in my life (whether it be fear, worry, or unwillingness to serve) keep me from serving God is harmful to my spiritual walk and idiocy.

You all probably saw where I was going with this prior to my little examples, but I always like it when someone introduces a concept and then puts it in the simplest terms possible. Not sure if I did that, but I think I made it a little less foggy.

All for now... Oh, before I scoot off, GO WINGS! and I made that whole Africa wall paper thing. I'm thinking of doing a set of all 6 peopled continents. Might break it down into regions... still undecided. If interest is showed in you peoples actually wanting one of these, let me know and I'll make them in different sizes.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen. (I Corinthians 16:23-24)

-Frank

Not a typical post...

2007-03-29T21:12:00.000-04:00

I don't usually do this, nor do I plan on making this a regular habit, but I am asking you all to pray for me and my family right now. It seems like everything is going wrong. The plumbing in our house probably needs redone, Mom's mini-van needs repairs, Dad is having problems with asthma, and just a lot of things. It's a bit stressful and discouraging, and we all would just REALLY appreciate the prayers!

Thanks!
-Frank

Late One Night

2007-03-22T01:02:00.000-04:00

As I sit here at some unnatural hour of the morning, munching on a piece of lembas (Yes, I know how to make it. No, one small bite does not fill the stomach of a full grown man.) I decided to take a little bit of a different turn with this blog post. I decided to post, what is called in Fanfic jargon, a one shot (more or less a short story that may or not may not have an actual plot).

You'll notice that the naming isn't exactly creative... and I'll just tell you right now it's not entirely accurate... the yard is a blend between my yard, my grandma's, and my own little fictitious world. Alright, with out further ado...

Blankly she stared at the empty page before her, pen in hand. She made one small stroke, scratched it out, and made a curve. She did not like that either, so she scribbled over it. With a grunt of frustration she scrawled out the words, “NO INSPIRATION!” diagonally across the entire page, crumpled it up, and chucked it as hard as she could at the nearest wall, where it bounced off and hit the ground with a crinkle.

Frank stood up from her desk and stood by the sliding glass door that separated her study from the outdoors that she loved so well. “I wish I could go out there,” she muttered to herself. “But I can’t until I at least get a start on this stupid story!” she added loudly.

She walked past the desk she was beginning to hate, and flopped herself down on the cranberry chaise lounge that occupied the area next to her bookshelf. While gazing at the ceiling, she reached over and grabbed her scribble book off of her shelf. Many stories had been born out of random words scrawled out in frustration in that book, and she was hoping that would be the case with this story as well. With the mechanical pencil that she left clipped in it, she began to write out, “frustrated, green, golden sun, forest, water, naiad, peasants … I got nothing!!!” She beheld her work and tried to find the plot line that eluded her. The inspiration she sought was not to be found. She tossed the notebook back onto the shelf.

“Lord, whatever happened to ‘Seek and ye shall find’? I’m seeking and finding not!”

She began to muse over the word “seek” while waving her hands around as if she were conducting music.

“Seek. Seek. Hmm…” she said to herself as she stood up. “Seek the gate.” She blurted out, as if this phrase bore some significance. Her mind was now in a day dream. She wandered out the glass door and into the yard. She lived on a substantial amount of property, and let most of it be wild. That which was tended, however, was fenced in, and a gate led to the wilder part. Her mind was now fixed on that little wooden gate, and she had every intention of going out of it. Barefooted she wandered out into the yard. With each step she took, things changed. Her red tank top and denim shorts disappeared, being replaced with a long gown of leaf green silk with silver embroidery and a belt of silver lace. Her pony tale was taken out and a circlet of silver and diamonds sat upon her brow.

Out of the gate she went, leaving it open behind her. She danced her way into the trees to music from a place unseen. She sang a song that she had written, and once her song was done, she gracefully sat herself down upon withered leaves with her back against a tree. She listened for a while to the breeze, and heard the birds singing. A happy sigh she gave as she closed her eyes and leaned her head back.

She had officially left Michigan and entered her own world, a world with no name. There were very few names in that world, and few things to be named to match. It was her imaginary world, the one she had frequented and lived in all through her childhood, teen years, and college. She had never completed it, despite several attempts, and left it as it was, partially finished. There were some green glades, at least one forest, and a castle somewhere, but what exactly was there no one knew. Which was the problem.

She closed her eyes and let her head fall back onto the tree. “One of these days,” she thought to herself, “One of these days I’ll...” but she didn’t finish her thought because she heard her mother ringing the bell for dinner.

So, that's that. Not my best work... which is one reason it's here... I'm willing to part with it... so to speak. Well, now that I've sufficiently shaken up my unexistant routine, I'm off!

-Frank

Let it Snow!

2007-03-02T08:19:00.000-05:00

Yesterday morning for my devotions, I decided to read about snow. Inspired by the massive amounts of it falling this morning, I went to oneplace.com and did a search for "snow." It was very interesting what I found. Almost half if not more of the references to snow were using snow as an adjective (right?) to describe something. The first several verses were saying leprous people were white as snow, then of course there were a fair number of verses saying something to the effect of, "wash me and I shall be whiter than snow."

But those weren't what was I looking for. I was looking for verses on the fluffy, cold, white stuff. I found them! Job, Psalms, and Proverbs mostly. It was quite interesting too! Such a simple and common thing (at least in northern Wisconsin) was used and referred to in a wide variety of ways; even in reference to the cold stuff.

But of course, it would be slightly ridiculous to meditate solely on the white and fluffy lest I was going to write a poem about it. So I thought about what the verses were saying and in context. It was varied food for thought to say the least. I ended up reading Isaiah 55:10-11. In that passage Isaiah uses rain and snow as a metaphor for God's word and... God said it best so... "For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it."

Other passages I looked at were... Job 38:12-23 and there I was reminded that I know nothing about something so simple and common as snow. Another was Proverbs 26:1. That one triggered thoughts about the foolishness of preaching and all that. I'm still mulling that one over. Another verse I looked at, which was actually the one I wanted to find in the first place, was Proverbs 25:13- "As the cold of snow in the time of harvest, so is a faithful messenger to them that send him: for he refresheth the soul of his masters."

So, I thought on snow... Fresh Snow.

-Frank :o)

The Cold, Cold Wind!

2007-02-22T10:35:00.000-05:00

I've had a song stuck in my head since I've gotten back on campus. There is a very good reason for it... we don't get wind at my house! I live in the woods. The wind doesn't reach us for the most part.

The song is called, "Across the Universe of Time" (Yeah, I know, it's sounds a little weird.). Really, it's the chorus I've had stuck in my head. And only because of the first line of the chorus which is, "And the cold, cold wind, it blows me away." Which, today, is especially true!

The wind is cold and bitter, and it has almost blown me over multiple times today, and it's not even 10 am!

I never fully understood how much trees block the wind until I got up here! It never ceases to amaze me.

---Later Today---
Today was lumberjack day! Whee!!! I had lots of fun with it! Although I couldn't dress up quite how I would have liked, I still could a little bit.

During student body chapel, they had all this stuff set up in the gym for wood cutting, hauling, rope swinging, and pancake eating. Well, being the silly Frank that I am, I went in for the pancake eating contest. There were four of us... I was the only girl. :o)

If I could have breathed through my nose, I think I might have been able to get 5 pancakes down. As it was, I managed to get 3 eaten in 2 minutes. The winner had eaten like 7 or 8. But I didn't care. I was in it for the fun! I had a blast!

Sadly, I don't think anyone took any pictures! Alas and a lack. Moving on!

My musings for the past week or so have been the different facets of the different attributes of God. Have you ever stopped to consider them? I used Valentines Day as an excuse for focusing a little extra on love and the love of God. There are so many facets to the love of God that it is mind boggling to think about.

Just as our Creator's love is so complex, ours is too. The days leading up to Valentine's Day were spent with me contemplating just how I love all the different people I know and how I was going to express that to them.

I know quite clearly how I love them, but I cannot say it clearly! The initial attempts to do so in the form of limericks were... varied. I wrote a limerick per friend, and for some of them it was easier than others. It's cut and dry friendship. The end. A few others, however, have managed to endear themselves to me in a way few if any others have. How do you tell them that? You can't just come out and say it. That scares people!

So, I took all of my poetic ability *cough* and tried as best as I could to say, "I love you dearly, my friend" without actually saying it. I think I might have come close on a few of them.

I found the entire process to be revealing. I had to really think through exactly how I feel towards people and precisely how I wanted to communicate it. It was through this I learned that love is so multi-faceted. It almost seems as if there are degrees or depths of every sort of love. And it almost seems as if some of the degrees fall between two sorts. If that makes any sense.

Another thing that has preoccupied my thoughts is where I have been and where I am. Not geographically, but in life. So much has happened and changed in the last six months that I can barely believe it. I struggled at first, but I've come to accept that things never go back, only forward. And that's just in day to day activities. The changes spiritually that have been made are drastic. Spiritually, I am not the same person I was six weeks ago, let alone six months ago! This is a first. I never had steady growth spiritually growing up. It was often in spurts.

Anyway, I've reached this interesting place where I must balance two worlds- College and Home. The last few days have been a weird mingling of past memories and people with new memories and people. I've never before had to deal with two sets of memories and people at once. I never moved growing up. People often moved away, ne'er to return but for a short visit, so I never had to deal with "old friends back home." It is quite a new experience. I've never had an Old Life before. I never had to leave anything behind. I was the one left behind. I know how to deal with that, but this... I am out of my reckoning with this!

I know that in time I shall adjust, but until then, I have two lives. Can they be made into one?

Lessons In Winter

2007-02-11T13:39:00.000-05:00

Well, I've had an interesting weekend so far. I had the unique opportunity of counseling for the first time during Snow Camp. Through it I learned that if anything good ever comes of people's interactions with me, it is because of God. The end. Nothing else.

Never in my life have I felt so unprepared and in adequate for a task. Before snow camp even started, I was falling on my knees asking God for wisdom throughout the entire weekend. Once camp started, I was falling on my face begging God for wisdom and strength.

At multiple points through out the weekend... okay, for every second of the entire weekend, I was way out of my comfort zone and in previously uncharted territory. By simply signing up to counsel I flew past the end of myself and then actually going into the weekend I soared a few yards off the cliff's edge in a way I never have before. As a result, I was clinging desperately to God in a whole new way.

I had to cling to Him. All that was there for me to cling to was Him. It was scary, I'll admit, and at times I felt I was flying blind. But luckily, I don't have to be able to see.

I've been trying to think of one big lesson I learned through all this, and I can't. I want to say sustaining grace (which I saw both physically and spiritually), but I also want to say how much I have to work on. Then I am tempted to claim that I'm learning about God's timing, which is very true, but I'm not sure it's quite it. I learned/am learning a lot of things because of it all, but I feel like I'm missing the point. As if I'm too busy looking at the details to see the big picture. I've had this feeling all weekend that I'm going to find out what it is later.

That's another thing I've learned as of late; God shows us what we need to know for the time being. Never does He tell something too soon or too late. Nor does He tell us too much or too little when the time comes. I speculate that this is to test my faith in Him.

Oh, that's something else I've been learning, that God doesn't give us tests we can't pass.

So that was one unique opportunity. The second one is quite different. I was able to contrast lives. Before I came back from break, my great Aunt Lois died. At her memorial/funeral, I listened to her children and grandchildren give memories about her. It was one of the more tragic things I've ever heard. I only ever met her once, so I didn't know her hardly at all. But apparently, those who were close to her didn't either.

All the memories that were shared were about her either reading books to them or editing books about local history. To me, that was utterly tragic. To add to the sadness of it all, she wasn't saved. How utterly tragic it was to me, that this woman lived about 80 years and did virtually nothing with it that matters. All there is left of her are a few ashes and a small stack of books with a handful of withering memories about books.

I know she did things that did not involve literature, but at a memorial service for the purpose of celebrating a life, there seemed very little to celebrate. It was sad and tragic to me.

Then, last Thursday night, my great Uncle Donny went home to be with the Lord. Now, he wasn't a super Christian, never pretended to be, but he did things that counted for eternity. I knew him a bit better than I knew Aunt Lois, but I still wasn't very close. Even so, I know a bit of his testimony, I know that he has done things that last. That gives me hope! That brings me some joy and peace to know that his life was not spent in vain.

Both lives inspire me though. Aunt Lois inspires me to save the lost. She was witnessed to, but she would not listen. How many people would listen if they would only be witnessed to? Uncle Donny inspires me to do more for Christ. Again, not that he was an awesomely super and flawless Christian, but I can see what things he did that matter, and what things he did that don't matter. He was saved after he became an adult, and so I have the privilege of being able to see the emptiness of the world contrasted with the fullness of Christ in a life.

More and more I see how short time on this earth is and how vast eternity is. It motivates me to live for Christ. I'm with The Preacher when he proclaims that all is vanity.

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.
-Ecclesiastes 12:13-14

Cringe and Groan

2007-02-06T21:56:00.000-05:00

They're doing this thing called Open Studio up here. Through peer pressure I entered, over Christmas I contemplated withdrawing, upon returning I was thrust back into it full force, and now after a ton of hitches along the way, I have officially auditioned. With schemes to possibly enter another song.

I think I'm crazy.

Especially after today.

To record the song, they take you into the recording studio. After getting you all set up with awesome microphones, headphones, padded music stands and all that jazz, you sing/play and record and that's that. Afterwards, they let you listen to it.

I've never heard myself singing by myself before. Now that I have, I wish I hadn't. Come to find out, I cannot stand the sound of my own voice singing. People tell me they like it. They say I have talent. I listened... heard a few "technical" slips and thought, "Well, for being sick that isn't half bad. But I just do not like my voice!" I decided if I was just a random person and I ran across a CD of me, I wouldn't buy it.

Yet, I contemplate doing another song. *shrugs* I'm weird. I know.

I think part of the motivation behind it is realizing this is an opportunity to get some of my work out. I think the other part is just the fun of recording. The whole process of recording has always interested me, and now that I have a chance to do it, I want to take full advantage of the chance.

Speaking of... I might be counseling at Snow Camp this weekend. Okay, it's just a chance. But I signed up and we'll see what happens. I do want to try my hand at it, and this would be the perfect opportunity to taste it before I commit a summer to it.

Anyway! School work calls and I must answer! Blech.

-Frank

Mass Manipulation for Dummies

2007-01-31T22:05:00.000-05:00

I'm not very manipulative, but I dare say I could pull off mass manipulation better than the drive by media. Take this whole "global warming thing." If you want to create mass pandemonium and chaos, then pay a little attention to the weather and plan propaganda accordingly.

Like in the 70's, the scientists were crying out, "Prepare for the ice age!" during one of the hottest summers anyone had seen in quite a few decades. Then, they cried global warming just as one of the coldest, most bitter winters set in.

Doesn't that sound ridiculously familiar? History does repeat itself, does it not?

I blame Al Gore for this current wave of media panic about global warming. I hadn't heard much of anything since Captain Planet (blech!) until "An Inconvenient Truth" hit theaters.

Their timing was almost good this time around. After all, it did take everyone longer than usual to get to winter this year, but now that it's here... It's hit with full force. As far as temperatures go at any rate. Up here in the frozen north we're looking at highs in the teens and single digits for the next ten days (one day of sub zero temps!). Now, there is not as much snow as other years, so perhaps we should try raising panic over the oceans drying up and using the mere 4-6 inches of snow as our proof of it.

And if you couldn't necessarily predict what the weather did, just wait a few days and claim that your research shows that this is just the start of some terrible and sinister apocalyptic weather pattern to be blamed on the Big Three. That might, just might work better than crying "GLOBAL WARMING!" when it's -3 outside.

It just cracks me up to hear news reports on global warming followed up by a story on frozen citrus fruit in California trailed by headlines of freezing rain in Dallas, Texas.

Another little helpful hint - if you want to pit people against the war in Iraq, don't look so blatantly anxious to pull out of the Middle East just before the general in charge of it all says things should be working out in our favor.

Oh, and this is a freebie to Nancy Pelosi and any future speakers of the house - If the president makes a comment about a war/troops that the majority of the nation agrees with, do not sit there and refuse to clap with a look of disapproval on your face. It makes you look like the bad guy!!!

Once again, this just reminds me that I have so much to do and so little time to do it in. Though, mass manipulation could go hand in hand with running for political offices... Yes, that would coincide with my schemes to run for Governor of Michigan, Supreme Court Judge, Senate, Congress, and President. I don't think it'll help me with my quests to become a world class author, professional singer, actor, scriptwriter, or owner of a large coffee shop chain... but it couldn't hurt!

I've met some folk who say that I'm a dreamer. And there's no doubt there's truth in what they say... but dreams don't last, though dreams be not forgotten. And so I'm back to stern reality...

(From the Isle of Inisfree)

-Frank

When It Rains, It Pours!

2007-01-18T18:18:00.000-05:00

It's either all or nothing. The end. Either every appliance and vehicle is working perfectly, or they all die at once.

Such has been this break. Before I came home, all the cars died. Then the drains in the sink started being weird. As did the water in general. And, here I am, getting ready to leave, and suddenly I'm broadsided with "There's a chance your dad is being laid off in April."

Last time, he was laid off for a year and a half.

I'll be able to finish the spring semester with out much of a problem, but next fall is questionable.

It just leaves me on my knees and praying. I can only do so much, the folks can only do so much, but luckily God can do a whole lot more!

I go forward with prayers and hope.

The weather works this way too. You get all the storms at once, and then nothing. It's either an ice storm or a sunny day. We just got an inch of snow and a beautiful ice storm that coated everything beautifully! As you can see by the picture on the right.

Isn't it funny? The storms are so terrible, and they make the power go out and all sorts of things, and yet, it's soo beautiful! I guess it's the sort of thing where you just gotta find the silver lining.

This time, it was pretty easy. As far as the weather went. We'll see about the trials.

-Frank

White and Nerdy!

2007-01-13T22:14:00.001-05:00


Absolutely Great ! -> www.be-dumb.com I'm not a rap fan by any stretch. Nor am I exactly a huge Weird Al fan, however, I laughed REALLY REALLY hard when I saw this. Enjoy everyone! -Frank

This, that, and other

2007-01-08T22:12:00.000-05:00

A Year in Retrospect
I warned you all at one point that I am a poet. This is where the warning comes to pass. Why? Because I reflected on 2006.

It was quite the year. A bit rough at places, not so fun, but good.

The weeks leading up to high school graduation were... stressful, irritating... we'll leave it at that.

Last year had its fair share of highlights. FOJG, my graduation party's, takin' a trip with Dad to Chicago, Going to the bus Independence Day weekend and watching fireworks over the lake in Cadillac, going to Tori's birthday party, college and all that happened there... yes, there were a few highlights! Lots of firsts last year... tons of blessings.

I should sit down and write them all out. Along with all the first time things. I had quite a few!

Someone once said to me that for every stage in life there is a song. Now, I'm a musically inclined soul, so I tend to think in music. I like to fit songs with what's going on around me. (Just ask my sister or my mother.) It took me some hunting, but I think I found the songs for last year.

If I were to make a mix CD about last year, it would be called "Grace" and look something like this:
-Let Me Fall (Josh Groban)
-Never Let Go (Josh Groban, Closer)
-Machine (Josh Groban, Awake)
-Burning the Past (Kingdom of Heaven soundtrack)
-Ready to Fly (Ronan Tynan, Ronan)
-Only the Beginning of the Adventure (the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe soundtrack)
-Carry Me Home (Ronan Tynan, Ronan)
-Both Sides Now (Hayley Westenra, Odyssey)
-Never Saw Blue (Hayley Westenra, Odyssey)
-I Say Grace (Hayley Westenra, Odyssey)

And just as mixed as the CD would be, such would be my emotions if I were to write them out. Though, the underlying ones would be frustration, sadness, and grief. Last year was, like I said, rough in places. And it will only get worse before it gets better. Things have been coming to a head for a while now, and they must get worse before they get better.

Even up at school and far away from it all, I've been hearing about it, and it has been affecting me. 500 miles away and I still can't get away from it. I suppose that's the price you pay to be deeply involved in church. It all makes me sad. It shouldn't be like this! It was never meant to be like this! Such is living in a fallen world. Nothing is as it was meant to be.

That fact has remained one of my main consolations. Above whatever anyone has said, I have taken great comfort, somehow, in knowing that's not how it was meant to be. It helps me keep from being too hurt or bitter.

Keeping My Sanity
Since I've been home, I've finally found time to sort out everything I heard over last semester. Christian college is a marvelous place for spiritual growth. However, it is also an amazing place to get confused in standards, doctrine, etc. Any place with a few hundred "independent fundamental Baptists" is bound to have as many ideas as people. As a result, I started to get a little disoriented when it came to a few ideas and standards I've held.

A few preconceived notions, ludicrous ideas, and IFB programmings were changed or discarded, which was good, but a few ideas that are perfectly fine I started to doubt.

Now, I'm not one to change any principle, standard, or conviction without being dead certain that the change is for the best. Which is why I thought through a few things at home, talked with Rotu, and re-oriented myself.

It was during this time that I realized a few things. I'm not a very good Baptist, Fundamentalist, Neo-fundamentalist, or five point Calvinist. In a way, I'm a number of them, but none of them at the same time. The older I get, the more I see that there are two sides to every acronym. The strictly scriptural side and the side that most people practice. Well, something like that.

So I've not found the proper title yet. And quite frankly, I'm sick of titles. Overly sick and tired of titles. Unfortunately, we are all bound to them and by them. *sigh* Whatever happened to just believing the Bible and what God said? I am thoroughly convinced that Christianity is simple. The Law was what was so complicated and crazy. Salvation and grace is simplistic. I think, however, that most Christians secretly wish that we still had all the works of the law. That way they'd feel like they were doing something to gain God's favor or get into Heaven. However, the practices of the law aren't really an option anymore.

Enough of that.

Life, Death, and other Inevitables
This break has had it all. Births in our church and God's family, death in the extended family, couples (finally) getting engaged... Such is life. It never ceases to amaze and intrigue me just how life works. Think about it. Everything works together in God's perfect way to create the most intricate and marvelous story! Things thousands of miles apart can happen and lead to something that affects you in your own backyard, and in turn impact someone on the other side of the world. Life, death, marriage, break ups... it all works together to create something wonderful beyond ourselves.

I just love how everything always works out. God is wonderful!

Hehe! Y'all are going to think I'm insane with the way I jump topics. But please realize that I write my posts over a couple of hours, a day or two, etc., so that makes it easier for me to bounce around how I do.

And if you're wondering why I have suddenly had this burst of joy about God working everything out (In light of my rather pessimistic post prior), I'll tell you. Life. The good, the bad, and the normal. All the negative of last year, and all the positive. Everything good and bad that was, is, and shall come.

No, I'm not happy about the gathering storms, but I'm not upset either. The way I figure it, the darker the night, the brighter the day.

Well, it is very late here, so I'm off to bed! Sleep well my friends!
-Frank

A New Year!

2007-01-03T21:43:00.000-05:00

Nothing screams "New year's celebration" like an all day Hee Haw marathon. In case you've never heard of Hee Haw, let me enlighten you as to what it is.

A corny show from the 70's which could loosely be called the early red neck version of SNL. But they have country music singers on their constantly singing their hits. Well, hits back in the 70's. If you can somehow manage to not freak out upon seeing the ridiculously big hair, and can look past the cheesey props, you'll see a corny, but funny show. And I mean corny literally. They have a corn field that they like to pop up in and give one liners. It's a variety show... yup!

But I didn't sit and watch it all night. Just for a few hours after midnight. I couldn't sleep. And that show didn't help.

I just hope that that wasn't an accurate prologue to this year... perhaps a fitting end to last year... but please, not a prologue!

I ended last year with an unexpected crash course in 70's music... "A Pagan's Nightmare" kept making references to disco, Hee Haw is nothing but 70's country, and it just seems I'm coming into contact with an unusual and unwanted amount of music from one of the tackiest decades this country has ever known! I feel like I'm stuck in a 70's timewarp...

This is year is starting out interestingly enough, however! Tomorrow I get to have my top two wisdom teeth removed. Friday I go to a friends house to watch movies and play video games (assuming I can see straight), and Saturday I go off to do things with a few friends. Sunday, I'm helping the choir sing a song they don't know, but I know. After that I'm working on getting clothes, skirts, etc. either mended, taken in, or made. Or bought... I have a few things that need to be pitched and replaced with something that isn't dead or too small.

But this new year isn't just starting off corny, painful, expensive, and time consuming. It's also starting out with a scare. This is a warning for all laughers! Don't eat and laugh! It's dangerous!!! This could happen to you! Though, I'm usually in danger of the opposite, but still! Heed the warning! Don't laugh and eat!

Anyway, that's all my rambling for now.

Until the cows come home,
-Frank

Must read!!!

2006-12-21T23:51:00.000-05:00

I just finished a very good book by one of my favorite authors, Ray Blackston. It is called, "A Pagan's Nightmare." It's about a reverse rapture. The redeemed are left instead! You can read the prologue and chapter one here.

It brings up a few good points. One of which being how Commercialized Christ looks to the unsaved.

And while I'm at it, let me take this opportunity to plug his other three books. In order they are "Flabbergasted", "A Delirious Summer", and "Lost in Rooville."

They are about single guys and gals in the Bible Belt that are church hopping to find "the one." It sounds... weird... but trust me, it is utterly hysterical! I don't think I've every laughed so hard while reading a book in all of my life. But they aren't all about the comedy. They do have good points to them as well.

You will probably be tempted part way through to think he's completely cracked, but do remember, they are narrated first person, and thus from the narrator's perspective. Hang in there, read up to the end, and just go along for the ride. In other words, don't sit there and try to figure out. He's a story teller, let the man tell his tale!

Oh, and don't start reading any of them if you don't have a solid weekend to devote to it. They are incredibly hard to put down!

There are potholes on the road less traveled. Some deep, some not so deep, some you dig yourself. Most are filled with mud. Many contain rocks. Once in a while, however, you’ll be walking along and step in one a bit more accommodating . . . shabby, green, and pulsing with life.

It’ll tickle your feet, like clover.

-from the prologue to "Flabbergasted"

Merry CHRISTmas!
-Frank

Hooray for Holidays! Fruitcakes, Nuts, and All!

2006-12-18T23:43:00.000-05:00

Last year or so, I discovered quite an amazing dessert. Though it is oft ridiculed, I love it just the same. It is, you guessed it, fruitcake.

Now, this isn't any nasssssty, sickening monstrosity that looks like... well... that -->
It's faaar from that! This is NOT the fruitcake that you hear all the jokes about. This would NOT make a good door stop or building material. This fruitcake is not able to survive a nuclear explosion. Nor is it responsible for the death of a hundreds of British soldiers.

This is GOOD fruitcake! The sort that is moist, nut laden, with large chunks of actual fruit in it, along with... uuuuhhhh... a few added special ingredients that give it a "nice" flavor. ;o)

And nothing accompanies this wonderfully marvelous fruitcake quite like a bottle of either Cranberry Canada Dry or, my favorite, Vernors. Since I've gotten home, I've not managed to have either drink, but I have consumed quite a bit of the fruit cake.

So much for keeping my girlish figure... (like I actually care. Ha!)

Speaking of fruitcakes... I'm now home for Christmas break! This means I'm back to sharing a room with only one other person. In some ways, it's less dramatic, but in other ways, it's more... hmm... insane. Yes, I think that's a good word. I don't think I've necessarily lost any insanity from college dorm life to home life, I've merely exchanged what sort. I went from living with three girls, to living with my siblings again. I had forgotten how nutty they were. My sister claims she's "normal nutty" but I fail to see how any of all this is at all normal. Well, I take that back. It might all be normal, but it is certainly not sane.

I've quite given up on trying to find normal, sane people. I've decided that normal is a setting on my washing machine and sane is purely a term used by psychologist to define "normal" behaviour. I've known for nearly all of my life I am not normal or sane, but I was hoping to find such people to perhaps become either one or both. At this point, I'm not either one, nor do I want to be!

I've completely given up on the whole business. Particularly since everyone seems to be in a Scrooge of a mood and unwilling to have a little fun and actually remember to celebrate Christmas. If snow isn't going to fall and people are going to be humbugs about the whole thing, I'm just going to remember that "The best way to spread Christmas cheer/Is singing loud for all to hear!" ;o)

And as usual, the end of the blog entry has very little, if anything, to do with the beginning of it. Hehe!

Merry Christmas!!!
-Frank

Crunch time Craziness

2006-12-02T20:19:00.000-05:00

My head has been working over time lately, so I'm taking this time to do a little Christmas parodying (word?) of a few of my favorite Christmas songs and poems.

TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS
Twas the night before Christmas. In my house, all through
Not a creature was stirring, not even a Schnoo.
The stockings were hung on the chimney with care
But one was flipped up 'cause the air vent was there.
The siblings were sprawled out, all warm in their beds
While visions of sugar plums danced in their heads.
And being quite hungry, Bubs reached up to steal
The sugary treats for a midnight meal.
I lay in my bed and I listened to hear
Nat King Cole croon out Christmas songs dear.
Then all of the sudden, I arose with a jerk
Perhaps my dear Mufflin was up late at work?
Not able to sleep, I crept out of bed
(being careful not to fall upon my sisters head).
I walked out of my room, and what should appear
But my brother wandering... asleep I did fear.
Into the kitchen he shuffling went-
To the cookies his path was quite certainly bent.
I followed him in. Suspicions confirmed.
Where milk and cookies were kept, was very well learned,
But oh-ho-ho! What is this? My father draws nigh!
I hide behind the tree, but keep watchful eye.
He tells sleeping brother to head back to his room
And so he does, but will Dad? I assume...
And I assumed right! A cookie he takes!
With a tall glass of milk... and a sip of my shake!
Being overprotective of my shake of strawberry
I jump out from the tree and say, "That's my shake Daddy!"
He just stands there sipping beside the fridge door
Saying, "What shake?" ere he drinks a bit more.
I give him a glare and then try not to smile
As he gives me an innocent face for a while.
I snatch it and take a few sips then I head
Back to go sleep in my warm, squishy bed.
And just before Dad leaves the Christmas tree's light
He says, "Merry Christmas! Sweet dreams and good night!"

JINGLE BELLS

Jingle Bells
Gollum Smells
Sauron wants his Ring
The ents have taken Isengard
And all the orcs can’t sing

Ooh!
Jingle Bells
Human’s smell
Gollum wants the Ring
The elves are leaving on Grey Ships
And Pippin sure can sing!

Frodo is on a trek
To destroy the one Ring
While smelly Aragorn
Is trying to become King
He’s in a love triangle
With Eowyn and Arwen
And if he’s caught then he shall be
One dead ranger-man

Oooh!
Jingle Bells
Mordor smells
Denethor’s crazy!
Gimli’s getting sea-sick
And Legolas hears the sea

Ooh!
Jingle Bells
Sauron smells
Gimli’s breath is bad
Denethor hates Faramir
And that makes his son sad.

The Witch-king thinks he’s won
But Eowyn’s no man
Sam’s tired of Lembas
Nob is a hired hand
Elrond’s brows are scary
And Haldir is not dead
Galadriel is turning blue
Now watch her spinning head!

----

Hehehe! Aah! Sooo relaxing!

Oooh, as for Jingle Bells: See how many jokes you can find it.

Anyway! I am exchanging one set of deadlines for another. Oddly enough, it's just more of the same things, but less of them. Strange our world.

Catch y'all around!
-Frank

Frank Prayers

2006-11-29T16:51:00.000-05:00

Today was the Day of Prayer. We spent most of the day in the gym praying. I wrote out what could arguably be one prayer, but in three parts. As I wrote it, I found it is really more like a testimony. It is also a preface to the story of my life.

A Frank Prayer:

Lord, what words? I have no words no words that describe what you are unto me. No words have I that can express my gratitude for what you have done. Words are empty and are fled from me, and all I have left are the inarticulate thoughts and feelings that words cannot describe. I would try to articulate these things, but rather than making what I feel and think vague, I shall simply send my feelings and thoughts to you.

My fear is that words would cheapen all that is inside of me. The language of heaven cannot be translated into the tongues of men; only into the hearts of men. Thus, I do not try. Perhaps I were a more skilled or practiced poet I could combine rhyme, meter, and rhythm to convey what I feel, but I am not so great a poet. I am glad, Lord, that you understand clearly what exists so clearly in my mind and heart and so vaguely in words. You understand what I cannot say. You can read what you have written on the tables of my heart. I only partially, somewhat understand what is there. Teach me, please, to understand it clearer. It is your perfect story written there, tell it to me always! Explain it to me always! Teach me the language in which it is written, O Lord!

You have raised me up from the pit in which I was. You have cause me to grow, yet I am still young. Please grow me up until I understand your story and the language in which it was writ. May I never forget that it is you that raised me, and it is you that keeps me lifted up. May I never take any credit for what you do in and through me. I love you, I praise you, I want naught more than to see you face to face. I know I will be home soon, for all times are not far away at all. When I get home, shall I understand all the wonderful things you have done for me? I can only begin to be grateful for what you have done. I do not yet understand how wonderful you are to me. I long for the day I can understand the fullness of your grace and love. I long for home, Lord. I long for home! May I not grow weary on the Road heading home. Keep me walking in the way you would have me walk. May my longing keep me running faithfully. Oh Lord, I love you! I thank you! I praise you! A-men!

That was my prayer at the beginning of everything. At the end of the day, it was a little different. Why? Because I learned a lot today.

Another Frank Prayer:

Lord, you never cease to amaze me! It amazes me how much you can do in a short time. Is that not how you work? Great and mighty wonders and works in a short space. It throws back into perspective how short life is and how fleeting time is and how whatsoever you do, it lasts forever. And that all times with you are present tense. In these few, short hours you have showed me how wretched I am and how wonderful and glorious you are. Your grace and love amaze me! How you could love such a wretched creature as myself is mind boggling. Grace, Lord. You spoke to me today of Grace. And Home. Your grace will bring me home. What a glorious thought! Again Lord, I am at a loss for words. My heart swells with so many different things at the thought of what you have done and how great you are. I think today I have come to understand you a little better, and learned how little of you I know. Lord, the lessons you taught me today are beyond words. I praise you with my heart, for I know not the words with which to praise you. I love you Abba, my dear, beloved and loving Father. A-men!

Counting Blessings and Giving Thanks

2006-11-25T00:28:00.000-05:00

I recently heard a song called, "Count your blessings (instead of sheep)". And the jist of it was that if you can't sleep, count your blessings instead of sheep. (pretty obvious, I know.) Anyway! In light of the holiday, I'm counting off a handful of blessings.

First off, I am VERY thankful for my family! I'm a third generation Christian with awesome grandparents, parents, and siblings. I just love them all more than I can tell.

Second, I am very thankful for my friends. Home, school, wherever; I've got an excellent group of friends. My friends at home have endured me while I was growing up. Hehehe... yes... all sorts of fun times, misadventures, close calls... I am SOO glad none of them had cameras! I owe them... about everything! A few I owe more than others... Boofa, Rach, George, BC... oh yes! I owe them BIG TIME!

Also thankful, in major ways, for my friends at college. They don't have qutie as much black mail on me... nor do I owe them my soul... but I owe them quite a bit. What they've done for me and helped me sort out and get through and whatever else means a lot to me. They will probably never realize just how much it means to me to know that they're there.

Third, I am thankful for the lessons God has taught me since college started. Most of you all have seen or heard some of what I've been taught, but there is soo much more! Oooh! I could go on and on and on about how great and awesome God is and what He's teaching me and everything else, but I have much more fun telling people in person. Hehehe! Be warned!

Fourth, (this sounds just blanketing and chiche or whatever... but so it is!) for everything that I've been given in life. I have been blessed and given FFAAAAARRRRR more than I deserve! Even salvation aside, I have been indredibly blessed. To start listing off the things is to tell the story of my family and my life.

And such is the brief highlight of the tip of all the things I am thankful for.

Thankful? Nay! That word is not deep enough. Is there a word deep enough?

Well, if there is, and until I find it: Hugs to all and... Thank you!

Make-up Act III: One Week Later

2006-11-18T21:48:00.000-05:00

Well, last week at this time I was at the Grind getting a turtle frap and a bagel with cream cheese.

This week, I am sitting in my room in possibly one of the worst outfits I have ever donned, and contemplating all the things God has taught me over the last few weeks.

There are a few things I hinted to in my last entry, but there are so many more things that I learned!

One lesson I'll share was one that came somewhere part way through the Saturday night performance. "There are no small parts, just small people who play them." How often have I heard that (or a variation of that) phrase? Sure, I understood it. Everyone in a play is necessary. But it wasn't until I watched Papa that I realized exactely how true that was. One of the scenes towards the end got me thinking about that. I pondered it for a while, and then I started to wonder if that saying could apply to real life. Sure enough! It could.

After thinking it over, I realized that some of the people that have had the biggest impact on my life are not the ones that I have known my whole life. Often times they are the ones that I only knew for a few short years. From that I thought about how many people's lives I've touched. Then I realized I could have had a big impact on someone's life and not even realized it. Then I wondered whether it was for good or ill.

Once again, I was reminded to walk uprightly. All the world's a stage. That means everyone is always watching. This means whether I'm playing sister, roomie, friend, whatever; someone is watching me. Now, of course God is always watching, but He knows exactely how I am anyway. I mean people. People know you by how you act and what you say. This reminder caused me to review this. *sigh* Room for improvement!

Another lesson I learned is one about God's timing. May I say, it is excellent!

The whole time leading up to last week I kept thinking, "How in the world am I going to work this out?!" Well, God kept telling me He was going to help me, and as the days progressed, I saw Him move tests, quizzes, homework... you name it. Suddenly, I had nothing much happening that week. So that stress was gone.

Another thing I think I learned/relearned/shall always be learning is that the further I get down the path, the further I have to go. This sounds almost discouraging, but when I look back on the road I've traveled down, and see how far I've come, I take heart and go forward.

Again, I am taken back to a couple of summers ago. My family and I went to the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes in Michigan, and when we got there, I decided to climb them all the way to Lake Michigan. I was told roughly how long it should take me to get there, but it meant very little to me, so I went forward. At the top of the second sand dune that I climbed, I saw Lake Michigan and thought, "Woohoo! It's not so far away after all!" and continued on. After 45 minutes of climbing, seeing the Lake draw no nearer, and decending, I began to think about turning back. But no, I had come that far, and surely it was not much further away! So I kept climbing. Half way there, or so, I started singing "I've Got a Mansion Just Over the Hill-top." It was occuring to me that yes, Heaven is just one "hill-top" away, but God never said which hill it was.

Well, after an hour and forty-five minute climb, I at last topped this small little bump of a sand dune, and there it was: Lake Michigan. Exhausted and hot, I ran down to the Lake as fast as I could, splashed in up to my knees, and started drinking. No water has tasted sweeter!

The really odd part about that whole walk was that the Lake never seemed to draw any closer, nor get any farther away. In so many ways, that's how Heaven seems. I never seem to be any closer to reaching it, nor any further away from it. Yet, I can look back and see how far I can come, and know that there is less distance to go. But looking forward doesn't tell you how far away it is. There's always a hill blocking the view. Just like walking the sand dunes.

I learned that again this week. I saw how far I've come in such a short time, but I'm realizing more and more that it's a long road before me. At times it seems to grow longer, but I know it's just an illusion. It's not longer, just new hills are coming into focus.

This (though you may not see it) goes back to the whole comment on God's excellent timing. Before last week I came a long way in a short time, and just in time.

Anyway! I've been rambling and rabbit trailing. In a nutshell- I'm learning a lot, I'm growing quite a bit, and I'm patiently waiting to see where God is going with all this. Right now, I have no idea what God's will is for my life beyond what is happening this very minute.

Exciting stuff!
-Frank

BTW, that is a picture of an actual rabbit trail. Isn't that spiffy?!

Make-up Act II

2006-11-11T16:08:00.000-05:00

God is amazing! The way He worked out this week was amazing. I had almost nothing due, no tests, nothing assigned... it was awesome!

It has been a lot of fun doing the make up. I figured it would be enjoyable, but it has been quite fun indeed!

I've gotten to know the people whom I do make up for, which probably wouldn't have happened if I hadn't done it.

(FYI, I'm not in the picture. It's just a random shot of random people)

This next week, however, it chock full of tests, speeches, and writing assignments. Not to mention a thorough inspection of our rooms come Monday. This means Sunday is spent deep cleaning. Oh joy.

But, I'll get it done by God's grace... I pray...

Friday proved to be a wonderful day! Not only did I only have one class and got to take a wonderful walk around Reflection Lake, but it was also the night we had the cast party. That was fun! The cake was delicious too! Anyway, back to the party! It was such a wonderful time of fellowship! I was able to see everyone just mill around and be themselves with out any nerves about the performance. Everyone was just relaxed and kicking back and having fun. I really really enjoyed it!

By the end of the evening I was laughing so hard that my stomach hurt and I was almost certain I was going to fall over with laughter. Some people just make me laugh! Afterwards I headed over to the Rec Hall to play a couple different card games. (Like Uno)

It snowed here Friday! It was beautiful! This is snapshot from the path around Reflection Lake with a picture of Reflection Lake. I walked it with a friend of mine, and she got really good at stopping for me to snap pics. Then she said her father did the same thing all the time. Anyway, most of theses pics were taken relatively early on in the snow storm, so there were several more inches added afterwards. But by then it was all spoiled. You see, my friend and I were the first ones to walk the path, so I got pics of it with out any footprints. Whee! I was a happy gwumpkin!

And the fact I got to wear my Ulu's out in the snow had nothing to do with it. I swear. Nothing at all. I love my Ulu's! WHEE!

Do forgive this entry if it is disjointed and slightly incoherant. But I am simply exhausted from this week, and God is in the process of showing me or teaching me something, but I don't know what just yet. So, I'm trying to figure out what and follow Him and pray and ... all that...

...My mind is terribly preoccupied...

Oh, I have been in an artistic mood lately, so I've been making various graphics. Well... It'll probably be shrunk down quite considerably, but here are two banners that I made and am particularly pleased with.

Anyway, that's all for now! Later!

The Morning After

2006-11-08T12:30:00.000-05:00

Uuuggh! Please tell me I'm still asleep! *looks at empty bed* Ugh! It's true! I am awake!

Well folks, the Democrats have the house! Nancy Pelosi is second in line for the presidency.

And Jennifer Granholm is governor of Michigan. *screams* You have GOT to be kidding me!!! Are the majority of my fellow Michiganders so blind as to think Granholm did a good enough job to get re-elected? WHAT PART OF RECESSION DO THESE PEOPLE NOT GET!!! The rest of the country is doing well economically, yet, true Blue Michigan is to dense to see that that the liberal Canadian socialist has done nothing for our state except drive it further into an economic slump! The unemployment rate in the state is ridiculous, businesses are moving out, people are moving out... in short, the economy is BAD! Why? Because we elected a democrat who raises taxes and hurts the economy.

When, oh when shall people figure it out? If you want things to go better, you elect a conservative/republican who is going to CUT not raise, but CUT (C-U-T) taxes!!! HELLO! Basic economics here folks! The more money people have in their wallet, the more they spend. The more they spend, the better businesses do. The better that businesses do, the more people they hire and more jobs they create. The more jobs they create, the more people who are working and making more money. The more money they have, the more they spend, and so it goes.

Apparently, there are too few of us that recognize this in the State of Michigan.

Californians get this. New York City gets this. WHY DOESN'T MICHIGAN?!?!?!?!?! The liberal democratic hot beds of the country understand this. Yet... Michigan doesn't.

Either that, or the ones that do realize DON'T VOTE! I'm pretty sure all the liberals at UofM, State, and Detroit went out and voted. But do the conservatives, the ones who actually care, the Christians that don't like the way things are going go out and vote? Sadly, many don't.

On the flip side! I'm not sure exactely who passed what, but as of last night it seemed that a fair chunk of the more conservative proposals were passed! Whee!

Ah well! So we lost the house and Nancy Pulosi is now *shudders* speaker, this just means there is more for me to pay attention to! Though, it may not be so bad that the democrats have the majority. The Republicans that were ousted were more liberal, and the democrats that were elected were more conservative. This could be VERY interesting!

So, here we are. The day after the vote. What happened yesterday may affect this country for good or ill for the rest of her life.

We'll see. We'll see.

As long as certain people --->
don't get it in '08 I'll be fine.

May the games begin!

Here's a question!

2006-11-06T21:05:00.000-05:00

Here is a question for the ages.

Who is the bigger wreck?
A. The pre-teen/teenaged girl who is twitterpated
B. The college senior girl who is twitterpated?

And if you want to know why I came up with this question (I'm just certain you're on pins and needles, dying to find out!) it's because I am having a conversation with a twitterpated pre-teen about a twitterpated pre-teen and then... well... I'm at Northland aren't I?

Wild and Crazy Notion

2006-11-06T16:27:00.000-05:00

I have this wild and crazy notion. And for variety's sake, I think it should be done.

Personally, I get sick of singing the same few songs over and over again. Once, just once, I would LOVE to be in a church where the music director stood up in front of the congregation one day and said, "We're going to sing every song in the hymnal, starting with the first song and ending with the last." and then over the next months sing straight through the hymnal. That would be wonderful!

In the church I grew up in, there were something close to 825 songs in the hymnal. I seriously doubt whether I've sang more than 150 of them. I've been using that hymnal for the last 18 years.

Now, being musically inclined, I could go through and pick out the tune on the piano, but that still leaves the rest of the non-musical, non-motivated congregation in the dark about all sorts of wonderful hymns.

Why do I say this? Because I get sick of singing the same few hymns every week. The Baptist order of service and hymns sung on Sundays is about as predictable as the phases of the moon.

Could we PLEASE shake things up a little every now and again? Would it kill us?

No!

Though, the congregation might fall into shock.

-Frank

Make-up! Act I

2006-10-31T21:59:00.000-05:00

Well, I signed up to do make up for "Papa", thinking that I'd be doing the make up of "Extra #3" and maybe, "guy with three lines." But who did I get? The Narrator, Lyd, and Papa Patz! Yes, I somehow managed to get assigned to do Papa.

This is slightly nerving! I mean, I mess up his make up, and the main character looks bad! And if I have to redo it all... Consequences could be bad! But oh the fun of it!

It's fun to be stage crew only. Hehe!

This is going to take a fair chunk out of my evenings next week, so if I seem a little cranky or frustrated or whatever, it's because I'm having a hard time getting everything done.

Weeelll... that's all for now...

-Frank

Under-representation

2006-10-20T14:49:00.000-04:00

And if that ^ is not a logical or correct word constructiony thing-a-ma-jig, it is now! HA! Take that Sarek!

This post is going to be dedicated to Star Trek because I just think it's so spiffy awesome a show! That, and doing all the research to figure out what I was going to do for today sorta got me going back to my Trekkie roots... so now I'm on a Star Trek jag. If you see me do the whole "Live Long and Prosper" thing, don't be alarmed. I'll be back to "normal" *cough* shortly.

Space. The final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. It's five year mission, to seek out new life and new civilization. To boldly go where no man has gone before!

Anyway, today being the last day of Spirit Day, I was hoping to see a few Trekie's come out of the wood work. Well, apparently they are all bigger George Lucas fans than Gene Rodenbarry fans, because I think I was the only person supporting Star Trek at school today.

For me, before there was Star Wars, there was Star Trek. I grew up watching Captain Kirk fly around with Mr. Spock (I learned quite young that Mr. Spock and Dr. Spock were NOT the same person. These things were made quite clear in our house.)and Bones. Star Wars was introduced later, and I liked it okay, but you can't beat the theatrical, futuristic show (that changed the world!) that is Star Trek. What other show could have diseases like xenopolycythemia, or have episodes with gangsters, another with Apollo, and the first public introduction to the CD and get away with it? None I tell you! Or very very few! But none have had the impact that Star Trek has!

Going back to the characters- Everyone has their favorites. Some like the dramatic ways of James T. Kirk, some prefer the ever logical Spock. Some people go for Scotty, others Chekov, Sulu, O'hura(sp?), or Bones. Personally, I love them all! But it's always the characters made of random props that I like!

Take that one episode where there was that creature that looked like half cooled lava that Spock mind melded with. Or the Trouble with Tribbles episode. Mechanical balls of fluff. Gotta love that! So small, so cute! I wonder if they were allowed to keep them after shooting that episode...

One thing about the show that I never realized til Drama Mama (that'd be my mom!) pointed out was this: The show is very theatrically done. Almost a Shakespearean theatrical quality to it. Though the props and sets were often very basic and simplistic, they always created the right allusion with the help of dramatic lighting, characters, and of course, make up. Often, as I recall, the planets were symbolized by a few props and a solid colored back ground. Nothing fancy, but it definitely conveyed the idea. It was imagination television in a way!

Going back to the make up. Often it was nothing spectacular. Like the Vulcans. A little pancake over the eyebrows, some eye liner, BOOM! THere ya go. The pointy ears are a little more difficult, but the truth of the matter is a person with a little time could do a very true to the show Vulcan costume with out hurting their wallet too badly.

Then of course, the sliding doors, the communicators, the transporters, all the nifty props... a little harder for anyone to just make on the weekend, but they were all really basic.

All this rambling to say, at the end of the show, it was half what you saw, and half what you imagined that made Star Trek so much fun to watch. Which is why I love it so... I have a crazy imagination, and when I was a little kid, I could put a lot into the show, so I could get a lot out. There is something to be said for drama done like this- it sticks with you longer. When all the imagination is gone, and you're spoon fed all the awesome and wonderful stuff, it takes some of the imagination out of it for the viewer. At least for me. That was one reason I didn't like Star Wars. All the stuff looked so real and so believable, which is great, but I didn't have to imagine anything. I could watch it mindlessly. Not as much fun.

But, as is true with many things people go crazy over, the funnest part about it is doing the crazy little picture/caption/spoofs that the fans do. The fandom is what helps make it so much fun.

Anyway, since in light of today, the fact I am dressed like a Vulcan (but being crazy/emotional like a Romulan or Klingon), and because I think you can't have too much Star Trek in the world, I posted a few pics I was sent with captions. Live long and prosper.

Apparently Never Here

2006-10-17T22:17:00.000-04:00

I know my blog is called "Never Here" but that hardly means I'm never here! Why do I say this? Because I have been given demerits twice now for not showing up to places. Devo's and Chapel. I got an email one day a few weeks ago telling me to go pick up a demerit slip. I did so, and lo and behold, there were 15 demerits with my name on them for supposedly ditching devotions. I looked at the date, thought for a minute, then said, "Wait a sec! I haven't missed anything this year!" So I had to get that straightened out.

Well, it has happened again! This time, they said I ditched chapel on Friday. Even though I was not there, that hardly means I was unlawfully skipping it! I was home for the weekend, sitting at Granny's house while everyone else was in chapel. I had a nifty pass and everything. So, now I must track down the guy who is responsible for passes and all that and get him to repeal my demerits. Otherwise, it's off to demerit review for me! No thank you! Hopefully, I'll be able to catch him right after first or second hour. Maybe during third. *sigh* Not that it's a big deal... it's just annoying.

And in other news! I've been feeling blah all week... the whole two days of it... Yesterday the room was spinning and I was feeling almost feverish... in a way. Today, I get slightly chilled, but my throat is sore and gunky from sinus drainage. Gotta love that. No spinning rooms... just potential allergic reactions to medication... that's all.

See, I woke up this morning feeling like my head was being bound to the point of cracking. No fun. So, I took some Ibu profien... but for some reason it was or had an NSAID in it. Which is fine. NSAID's like Naproxen are great pain killers... assuming you're not allergic. Wouldn't you know it, I am! And it doesn't work for me! That was no fun. I ended up spending a good deal of time on the phone with the nurse explaining everything to her and then having to trek over to the nurse's station for benedryl. By God's grace the Benedryl didn't knock me out! It usually does, but it didn't today. And... added blessings! It seems to have prevented me having a reaction. WHEE!!!

I really hate it when I do have a reaction. It stinks. The left side of my upper lip swells and gets red and itchy, then there is a spot on my left shoulder that gets swollen and red and itchy, and a spot on one of my shoulder blades (I can't recall which one at the moment). It lasts for two or three days, which is highly annoying, and on my arm and back it leaves a scar of sorts that looks like a bruise. It's always a fun one trying to explain to people.

"Oh, how did you bruise yourself?"
"It's not a bruise, actually, it's a scar left over from an allergic reaction to medication."
"Huh?"

So then I have to explain it all and it's no short story. Cuz it's usually people that kinda know me, so they want the whole history of it, and then they have questions, so I pull out my medical records... well... not quite. But it feels that way!

Okay, enough complaining.
And as for the Canadian Uncle Sam pic... completely random...

Surprising People

2006-10-14T00:10:00.000-04:00

Today was a very productive day! I went to my high school's home soccer game today. Half of the people that saw me did a double take. It was amazing to see the looks on their faces!

First glance: Oh, Frank.
Look away: Wait a second...
Second glance: Frank's home from college!

That was most of the people at the soccer game. With my cousins, however, it was quite a different story!

My cousins had absolutely no idea I was home... so I had a little fun! I was IMing George (not her real name... but what I call her) and asking her when a good time to call her would be. Once I figured out she would be home all evening, I told her I had some stuff to do, but would call her once I got it done.

I logged off, got in my truck, and drove to her house. Once I got there, I called her from the truck as I carefully got out, and just started chatting like I was yet up at college. As I talked, I walked up to her door, rang the doorbell, and my other cousin (I call her Jimmy Beaureguard) answered the door. She looked at me as if I had returned from the dead. After a few seconds she stepped aside, and I walked into the door. George was standing in the door way that leads to the kitchen, and she stared at me absolutely dumb struck. With jaw agape she looked at me, looked at the phone, and once she realized that I was indeed really standing there, she rushed at me and gave me a bear hug.

It was wonderful being able to talk to them both! I was over there a little over two hours. It was great to have a chance to catch them up on everything.

The only thing that no one is caught up on is what all my college friends look like. All they have are my descriptions, which, are not as good as pictures. So consider this a warning... I shall take your picture in the not so distant future! Mwahahaha!

More shall come later on how my weekend went. And I'm sure verbal accounts shall be given too. But until then, I have a "written" record.

Ooh, note on the picture: That is a picture of part of my side yard. The brown building in the center of the pic is actually the garage. (the little building behind it being our mini-barn) My house is the green building on the left. That actually does look like a house... when you can see all of it. And it was taken last winter. Just so you know.

This and That

2006-10-11T15:53:00.000-04:00

This is going to be completely random. More so than usual. So just bear with please! :o)

If you look away for four seconds, the whole world goes crazy and you think, "Surely the Lord shall be returning soon!"

Just look at a few of these headlines from drudgereport.com-
Young shoppers want to pay with chip in skin
North Korea Threatens War Against U.S.
Small Aircraft Hits Manhatten Building

The last story is developing and is the top story on drudgereport.com.

You look at the headlines and everything is chaotic, negative, frightening, sad, whatever... and then you look at Christ and suddenly all fears pass away. To realize that our Lord has complete control of everything takes away all worries, all doubts, and all cares. What a wonderful Lord we serve!

---Change!---
You know, I've often wondered, and one day I will find out why, someone invented Cheez-wiz. It is just such a random thing to think of! "Oh, I think I'll invent a way to have cheese come out of a can! Yeah!" Same question goes towards Redi-whip.

---Change!---
It never ceases to amaze me how one moment in time can change everything. Days, months, years will set the stage for one defining moment in time that causes the very world itself to change. The set up may take centuries, and the consequences may be felt for centuries, but the event that actually changes everything lasts not very long at all.

Simply look at any major world event and you'll see that often it is an action that took only minutes or seconds to execute is the one that changes the world.

It is almost scary to think about, and yet wonderfully thrilling to realize that your entire life could be changed in a moment. It could take a negative turn (or at least, what seems negative) or it could take a positive turn.

---Change!---
I wonder how much of Revelation is symbolic and how much is actual. I also wonder if God will let us see what's going on down here when we're in Heaven.

---Change!---
My second cousin Tony once told me "Spontenaity is the spice of life!" I'm not sure how true that is, or how far you want to take that idea... but my blog is sure living by it!

Alright, alright. Now that I've been completely random and I've left you all staring at my blog saying, "How much coffee did she drink?!" (none by the way!) I'm going to say fare well for now!

Fare well for now!
-Frank

Plotting and Planning

2006-10-07T13:27:00.000-04:00

Plotting and planning what to do for Spirit Week can be quite the task! Particularly Comic Strip/Video Game Day and Space Day.

I think I've got Space Day down... Assuming I can get a hold of spirit gum or prosthetic ears... I have two ideas for Space Day. The one would be nigh unto impossible unless I could find a LOT of glitter and magically come into the possession of a toga. The other is do-able, especially since I have learned that my dear roomies have a silver shirt! YES! Now I just need a skirt to go along with it... hmm... It's more likely to happen.

Comic strip/Video Game day is presenting all sorts of problems. Princess Toadstool was a notion, but I'm not blond, nor do I have a tiara. Sorta got the dress. Then I thought Lucy from Peanuts, but I don't have a blue dress. Then I thought Peppermint Patty, but I don't have a green shirt, or short enough hair.

The thought of MJ crossed my mind, but I don't know if I could come across a red wig in time.

Alas... I'm no closer to figureing out who I should do. I'm getting a nice long list of stuff I shouldn't do though! Suggestions are welcome!

A word of explanation

2006-09-30T13:15:00.000-04:00

The question will come up sooner or later, so I'm answering it before it does-
Why the names Peggy then Frank?

there was an 8th grade girl that created a comic strip. The comic strip was about a girl, an average girl just living her life and laughing at herself. What was this girl's name? Peggy Marshall. The comic strip was mine, and it was (in a way) about me and what was going on in my head and in my life. Why I named the girl Peggy is the result of watching Batman and Robin then shoping at Marshalls shortly there after.

If you're still missing the Peggy part, let me 'splain. No, too long. Let me sum up. In Batman and Robin the girl that eventually becomes Batgirl sees a picture of a lady on Uncle Alfred's desk (In the movie I guess she was his niece). Come to find out, it was her Aunt Peggy, but Alfred always called her Peg and the story goes on. But, I saw that name and thought, I kinda like that... in an unusual way. So that's that.

Now, what about Frank? That is the most recent addition to my nick-name collection, givin to me by a GA named Jon. Exactely why he called me that, I don't know, but there is some speculation it is due to the fact I am very straightforward and frank.

Why did I change it, ask you? Because someone suggested I do so. I was telling a friend here (Rae) about my blog and what my name was, and she said, "You should change it to Frank." I thought it was a good idea, so I went with it.

So, that's why I'm Frank. I think I'm going to change it a little though so people randomly wandering here realize I'm not a guy. :o)

And in other news

2006-09-28T20:14:00.000-04:00

I decided it would be fun to post some news articles I had found.

When Squirrels Attack!

Interrogating Terrorists

Pray for Voters

In case you are wondering, the pic has absolutely nothing to do with anything. I just like it so I put it up.

I'm feeling a bit random tonight. So, to randomly throw out some more stuff -
God is very gracious. VERY VERY VERY gracious! He just keeps showing me how marvelously wonderful He is while making me realize how much I don't deserve it. Lessons in blessings.

Ever since I've gotten hear, I've seen God do more things in my life than I thought possible. For the first time I'm seeing God at every turn. It's absolutely amazing to me.

I'm starting to feel quite spoiled up here. Quite spoiled indeed! When I got here, I expected things to be less than what they are. I really didn't think I'd meet very many people at all, I really didn't think I'd like so many of my classes, I didn't expect so many of prayers to be answered about college... so many things I can't even begin to remember them all! Yet, I've met a lot of people (at least, many more than I expected), I love all of my classes, and God is answering prayers before I pray them! Well, so it seems.

I am watching myself grow and stretch and change spiritually in ways I didn't even think possible. Not that it's so extreme, but that, every moment He's working on me and so I'm growing quickly, but gently. I know sooner or later He might stretch me a little faster than I like, or in a direction I don't like, but I know I shall be able to bear it.

I'm also learning a lot about the personality of Jesus. Finally, after all these years, the things I was taught about Him in Sunday School are starting to become very real. I was reading in Matthew last night and this morning, and for the first time I was reading about Jesus and seeing Him as a person. With a personality and everything! This might sound rather funny or odd (maybe even sad) but until recently, I could never really see Jesus having a personality. It never really occured to me that He might laugh, smile, etc. I know... it sounds silly. But it didn't!

Learning a lot about His grace and mercy too. Funny thing about that too... The more I see how good God is, the more I see how bad I am. It is incredibly humbling. Inspires action too. The more He does for me, the more I want to do for Him.

I'd love to go on and on about what I'm learning, but the lessons are so "small" and so many that I couldn't if I wanted to! I'm definitly with the song writer here that penned, "moment by moment new mercies I see." Also learning that counting your blessings really will surprise you.

At times, I feel so dumb because I'm learning these really simple lessons just now. I remember being taught many of these things in elementary Sunday School. Also, things I learned once, I'm learning again, but on a deeper level. It's like social studies in elementary school. You learn the same thing year after year, but each time you go over it, you learn something more about it.

Alrighty, all for now!
-Frank

Pardon the dust!

2006-09-24T13:47:00.000-04:00

I've been goofing around with my blog to get it customized so it's just how I want. Wouldn't you know it, I messed it up and I can't figure out how to fix it. :op As a result, I'm picking a new theme and am going to goof around with that.

So, if it doens't look the same twice, that's why.

As of today, Cloudy Headed is under construction!