Haven't really written anything in awhile, so in an attempt to keep my blog hoppin', I give you...(insert drumroll here)... my thoughts.
11:41 pm:
I'm really, really craving some Fresh and Easy dill pickles right now. Those things crunch like cucumbers and I could eat a whole jar right now.
11:43pm:
How does one come up with a storyline like Harry Potter? I mean, seriously. I think there was a little acciendo creativity going on over there.
11:44pm:
The highlight of my night was going to be watching How I Met Your Mother for the first time at its regularly scheduled time since I finally finished the DVDs and got caught up. But there was a stupid college basketball game on tonight instead.
11:51pm:
I really need to clean my desk.
11:58pm:
Why are boys and computers so slow?
12:06pm:
Why am I so hungry? I think it's bedtime.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Thought of the Day
So here's what I'm thinking today:
It started in Romans 5:3. I was looking up some Bible verses that deal with being anxious and this one popped up, one that I've heard before:
"But that's not all. We also brag when we are suffering. We know that suffering creates endurance, endurance creates character, and character creates confidence."
And I was thinking, why is Paul bragging about suffering? The answer I came up with is that the kind of suffering that produces endurance and character, etc., is the kind that totally sucks when it's happening, but is ultimately happening to make something else happen further on down the road, something we don't see now, but we'll have needed to go through this stuff in order to get there.
And then I caught this verse, which I think is my favorite verse for now (these things are so subject to change):
"I consider our present sufferings insignificant compared to the glory that will soon be revealed to us." (Romans 8:18)
Wowzer! And so what I immediately think of here is the suffering that comes to us by Satan's hand. Last night at small group we were talking about how Satan doesn't try to knock us down in one fell swoop; no, he does it all sneaky like and chips away at us little by little, either by distracting us or discouraging us. Anything to keep us from what we are supposed to be doing for the Lord.
So I think to myself, what if all this anxiousness, this discouragement, these distractions aren't really about me right now at all? What if they're about the me I'm supposed to be, what if I'm destined for something amazing, and these attacks are Satan's way of dragging me away from that path, slow and steady so I don't see it coming?
What a sneak that little guy is!
It started in Romans 5:3. I was looking up some Bible verses that deal with being anxious and this one popped up, one that I've heard before:
"But that's not all. We also brag when we are suffering. We know that suffering creates endurance, endurance creates character, and character creates confidence."
And I was thinking, why is Paul bragging about suffering? The answer I came up with is that the kind of suffering that produces endurance and character, etc., is the kind that totally sucks when it's happening, but is ultimately happening to make something else happen further on down the road, something we don't see now, but we'll have needed to go through this stuff in order to get there.
And then I caught this verse, which I think is my favorite verse for now (these things are so subject to change):
"I consider our present sufferings insignificant compared to the glory that will soon be revealed to us." (Romans 8:18)
Wowzer! And so what I immediately think of here is the suffering that comes to us by Satan's hand. Last night at small group we were talking about how Satan doesn't try to knock us down in one fell swoop; no, he does it all sneaky like and chips away at us little by little, either by distracting us or discouraging us. Anything to keep us from what we are supposed to be doing for the Lord.
So I think to myself, what if all this anxiousness, this discouragement, these distractions aren't really about me right now at all? What if they're about the me I'm supposed to be, what if I'm destined for something amazing, and these attacks are Satan's way of dragging me away from that path, slow and steady so I don't see it coming?
What a sneak that little guy is!
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
So here's why I love
the youth venture kids: they have got so much stinkin' personality it's not even funny. Except that it is funny. It's actually ridiculously funny. Last night went from singing lullabies to a girl who was trying to sleep on the couch, to figuring out what names we looked like besides our actual given ones, to getting my car washed out back, to "Do you want to hear a riddle? Okay, I'm going to a picnic and I'm bringing a black balloon. What are you bringing? ... Nope, you can't bring that. Nope, not that either."
Remember those riddles? I remember going through that phase around fourteen. It's fun watching these kids go through all the phases we did when we were younger. Like magic tricks. We were in love with magic tricks for like a month in junior high. It must have hit the current eighth grade a few weeks ago, because every kid at youth venture suddenly had a deck in their back pocket at all times and "Pick a card, any card," became the most overused phrase.
Remember those riddles? I remember going through that phase around fourteen. It's fun watching these kids go through all the phases we did when we were younger. Like magic tricks. We were in love with magic tricks for like a month in junior high. It must have hit the current eighth grade a few weeks ago, because every kid at youth venture suddenly had a deck in their back pocket at all times and "Pick a card, any card," became the most overused phrase.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Guess what I got?
Photoshop Elements 6.0, baby!
I had to dip into the tax money prematurely, but so far it's so totally worth it. Pictures will never be the same again. And I've been reading up on the Photoshop Friday tutorials on Jessica Sprague's blog and created this scrapbook page after a good hour of "Huh?" (Apparently bringing elements onto a page in PSE is much different than Digital Image Suite and can completely change the course of directions.)
E-mailing to you, Jess.
Currently watching: Gilmore Girls Season 7
Currently eating: Fresh & Easy Frozen Berries (on steroids, these berries look like pinecones)
I had to dip into the tax money prematurely, but so far it's so totally worth it. Pictures will never be the same again. And I've been reading up on the Photoshop Friday tutorials on Jessica Sprague's blog and created this scrapbook page after a good hour of "Huh?" (Apparently bringing elements onto a page in PSE is much different than Digital Image Suite and can completely change the course of directions.)
E-mailing to you, Jess.
Currently watching: Gilmore Girls Season 7
Currently eating: Fresh & Easy Frozen Berries (on steroids, these berries look like pinecones)
Friday, March 28, 2008
Monday, March 24, 2008
Today I was thinking...
I love quotes.
And while I was thinking about how much I love them, and how I should start collecting them somehow, either here on my blog or just saving them as they come to my computer, one of my all-time favorite passages from a book came to my mind. It's not really a topical quote, just a quote from a book, so it won't make much sense unless you've read the book (and few people have, and so many more need to), but let me tell you, when you've read through the whole Anne of Green Gables series and get to these few paragraphs on one of the last pages of the final book, you can't help but just start crying because they are so beautiful!
So, from book seven of the Anne of Green Gables series, Rilla of Ingleside:
One spring day, when the daffodils were blowing on the Ingleside lawn, and the banks of the brook in Rainbow Valley were sweet with white and purple violets, the little, lazy afternoon accommodation train pulled into the Glen station. It was very seldom that passengers for the Glen came by that train, so nobody was there to meet it except the new station agent and a small black-and-yellow dog, who for four and a half years had met every train that had steamed into Glen St. Mary. Thousands of trains had Dog Monday met and never had the boy he waited and watched for returned. Yet still Dog Monday watched on with eyes that never quite lost hope. Perhaps his dog-heart failed him at times; he was growing old and rheumatic; when he walked back to his kennel after each train had gone his gait was very sober now--he never trotted but went slowly with a drooping head and a depressed tail that had quite lost its old saucy uplift.
One passenger stepped off the train--a tall fellow in a faded lieutenant's uniform, who walked with a barely perceptible limp. He had a bronzed face and there were some grey hairs in the ruddy curls that clustered around his forehead. The new station agent looked at him anxiously. He was used to seeing the khaki-clad figures come off the train, some met by a tumultuous crowd, others, who had sent no word of their coming, stepping off quietly like this one. But there was a certain distinction of bearing and features in this soldier that caught his attention and made him wonder a little more interestedly who he was.
A black-and-yellow streak shot past the station agent. Dog Monday stiff? Dog Monday rheumatic? Dog Monday old? Never believe it. Dog Monday was a young pup, gone clean mad with rejuvenating joy.
He flung himself against the tall soldier, with a bark that choked in his throat from sheer rapture. He flung himself on the ground and writhed in a frenzy of welcome. He tried to climb the soldier's khaki legs and slipped down and groveled in an ecstasy that seemed as if it must tear his little body in pieces. He licked his boots and when the lieutenant had, with laughter on his lips and tears in his eyes, succeeded in gathering the little creature up in his arms Dog Monday laid his head on the khaki shoulder and licked the sunburned neck, making queer sounds between barks and sobs.
The station agent had heard the story of Dog Monday. He knew now who the returned soldier was. Dog Monday's long vigil was ended. Jem Blythe had come home.
Tears, tears, tears. Every time. And that is why Lucy M. Montgomery is one of my heroes. When you can get someone to cry over five paragraphs no matter how many times they've read them, you've got the stuff.
If you have never read the whole series, DO IT. You can skip Anne of Windy Poplars. (It's pretty boring and closely resembles the movie version of Anne of Ingleside (which in no way tells the real book story of Anne of Ingleside, FYI) without the little love story between Anne and the one guy. That's completely made up for the movie, so don't believe the lies.)
And while I was thinking about how much I love them, and how I should start collecting them somehow, either here on my blog or just saving them as they come to my computer, one of my all-time favorite passages from a book came to my mind. It's not really a topical quote, just a quote from a book, so it won't make much sense unless you've read the book (and few people have, and so many more need to), but let me tell you, when you've read through the whole Anne of Green Gables series and get to these few paragraphs on one of the last pages of the final book, you can't help but just start crying because they are so beautiful!
So, from book seven of the Anne of Green Gables series, Rilla of Ingleside:
One spring day, when the daffodils were blowing on the Ingleside lawn, and the banks of the brook in Rainbow Valley were sweet with white and purple violets, the little, lazy afternoon accommodation train pulled into the Glen station. It was very seldom that passengers for the Glen came by that train, so nobody was there to meet it except the new station agent and a small black-and-yellow dog, who for four and a half years had met every train that had steamed into Glen St. Mary. Thousands of trains had Dog Monday met and never had the boy he waited and watched for returned. Yet still Dog Monday watched on with eyes that never quite lost hope. Perhaps his dog-heart failed him at times; he was growing old and rheumatic; when he walked back to his kennel after each train had gone his gait was very sober now--he never trotted but went slowly with a drooping head and a depressed tail that had quite lost its old saucy uplift.
One passenger stepped off the train--a tall fellow in a faded lieutenant's uniform, who walked with a barely perceptible limp. He had a bronzed face and there were some grey hairs in the ruddy curls that clustered around his forehead. The new station agent looked at him anxiously. He was used to seeing the khaki-clad figures come off the train, some met by a tumultuous crowd, others, who had sent no word of their coming, stepping off quietly like this one. But there was a certain distinction of bearing and features in this soldier that caught his attention and made him wonder a little more interestedly who he was.
A black-and-yellow streak shot past the station agent. Dog Monday stiff? Dog Monday rheumatic? Dog Monday old? Never believe it. Dog Monday was a young pup, gone clean mad with rejuvenating joy.
He flung himself against the tall soldier, with a bark that choked in his throat from sheer rapture. He flung himself on the ground and writhed in a frenzy of welcome. He tried to climb the soldier's khaki legs and slipped down and groveled in an ecstasy that seemed as if it must tear his little body in pieces. He licked his boots and when the lieutenant had, with laughter on his lips and tears in his eyes, succeeded in gathering the little creature up in his arms Dog Monday laid his head on the khaki shoulder and licked the sunburned neck, making queer sounds between barks and sobs.
The station agent had heard the story of Dog Monday. He knew now who the returned soldier was. Dog Monday's long vigil was ended. Jem Blythe had come home.
Tears, tears, tears. Every time. And that is why Lucy M. Montgomery is one of my heroes. When you can get someone to cry over five paragraphs no matter how many times they've read them, you've got the stuff.
If you have never read the whole series, DO IT. You can skip Anne of Windy Poplars. (It's pretty boring and closely resembles the movie version of Anne of Ingleside (which in no way tells the real book story of Anne of Ingleside, FYI) without the little love story between Anne and the one guy. That's completely made up for the movie, so don't believe the lies.)
Friday, March 21, 2008
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