La La Lovely Day

Today was a lovely memorial day! I slept til 1130 which i felt my body really needed and awoke to a gorgeous sunny day. Spent a few hours out weeding and planting in the garden. Then went out to paint in my backyard. Had a barbeque with the family this evening started reading again. It was lovely!

And bryan says he may have found a bike for me!!! Its a fixer upper but I'm soo excited, yay for bike riding... ahh its been soo long. And tomorrow Julie and i will begin our running ... eek i'm a little apprehensive, but excited to run with her! Keeping doing new things... its suppose to keep you young right... although i think i'm a bit ahead of the game as i'm only twenty...haha. so essentially i'll be fifteen soon. oh no, i think my plan is backfiring!

Still loving being light blonde. Decidely have an addiction to boys in bands with dark hair, white tees, suit vests, and fitted jeans (how are there so many?) And still saddened by friends who seem not qutie ready to give up their addictions...:(

Just the smell of the summer can make me fall in love.

These past few days have been absolutely gorgeous! Summer is fast approaching... the sun is out and its warm. Daylight lasts longer and then there is dusk and summer nights which are my favorite!

Have had many a good conversation lately with friends about really living your life. While going to college and preparing for the future is not bad, people seem so consumed with it all. They graduate and have to work to make their payments and move to the next level. But we really believe that while you need to take care of those things you need to live in the now. Enjoy each day be in the present. So with this wonderful season approaching... i took the break between my classes the other day to go to a nearby little beach and walk all the way out on the dock and just be for an hour. It was wonderful! and the scenery uniquely maryland. And yesterday went to the park... to just BE. And it was great.... the hippie in me is awakening in the spring time months. Trying to be and just be in the present more and more these days. just wishing i could go to the beach for a week and do nothing but sit on the beach and live off shrimp and margaritas.

have also decided to wear as many sundresses and skirts as possible this summer... avoid wearing pants or shorts as much as humanly possible.

one foot in front of the next

"Like David, I wanna be a man after God’s own heart. And I’m not there yet, but I’m past the start." - Bradley Hathaway's Manly Man

I'm not there yet, but i'm past the start. I like it. Thank you Mr. Hathaway.

ugh sometimes i just have days when i just dont want to do church anymore. you ever have those days? i mean I'm all about Jesus, but its those crazy people that put me off. I jjust don't know... you know one of those days when you just pray constantly, need a good cry, and want to move to figi or somewhere with no one. ANd then just when you are about to pack all your stuff up there is peace, there comes good company, good laughs, peace from God, something just a bit uplifting happens, and you just know that it will be ok... You feel Him. And He speaks love.

i dunno, maybe i'm crazy but this is me. And all i have to say is the older i get the more i just want real people to surround me, honest and real.

Good night New Hampshire.

So I have to laugh when i think back to my interview with Tom for Via. I said the thing i would most hate is speaking in front of people and here i am a year and a half later, giving announcements at youth conferences and churches. HA! God sure has a sense of humor. And it gets easier as I go. I absolutely love it too... i get my expenses paid to go meet a bunch of people, and hang out for a few weekends when all I have to do is give a little announcement. Its been fun. But definitely stretching, in the best way. You fall down to pick yourself up, you get humiliated to stay human. You realize that its all Him so it takes a the pressure off (ok not all but a load)

And He knows me. I get to meet new people at conferences, I get to be involved in bringing Via and involved in Youth, I get to go to Palestine for free. Its exciting and new and fun. I was so afraid of getting stuck and bored in Maryland, and here He is probably chuckling as I realize I'm not stuck and won't be. I am finding the beauty in the mistakes, discovering new friends, feeling alive! ITs a bit busy now but in a good sense. I get to network my MOST favorite thing to do! I get to meet weird and interesting people (my favorite!) Praise God. He is tooo good to me! I feel like a love struck girl in the first few months of a new love, "HE LOVES ME!" she smiles and sighs.

February 12th is a coming fast...

here's to one more month:

They're gonna clean up your looks
With all the lies in the books
To make a citizen out of you
Because they sleep with a gun
And keep an eye on you son
So they can watch all the things you do

Because the drugs never work
They're gonna give you a smirk
Cause they got methods of keeping you clean
They gonna rip up your heads
Your aspirations to shreds
Another cog in the murder machine

They said all
Teenagers scare the living shit outta me
They could care less as long as someone'll bleed
So darken your clothes
Or strike a violent pose
Maybe they'll leave you alone, but not me
-my chemical romance

oh i should've been and english teacher

So I was just thinking of rhetoric the other day and how important it is. I suppose history teaches this, and fools disagree with it. Any of us who have taken a history class, especially those of the diversity sort (African American, Womens, ect.) know that a change in "rhetoric" towards a people group or ideal, usually ushers in change or is ushered in by change. In any case it is linked to change. For examples, just think of any phrase which is "politically correct" and think of how it is somehow linked to a political or societial change. (although as a disclaimer, i hate that now adays things have to be so politically correct they seem sterile, or lose character.)

But with this in mind I was thinking of how important rhetoric must be in terms of the Churh. And I was probably a little sad after speaking with my highschool sunday school class about church, realizing that most of them think its just a sunday morning duty they have to complete before checking it off there list. I was wishing that there were more people around me that thought "wow, its sunday, i get to go to church," rather than, "it's sunday, i have to go to church." Don't get me wrong I do know some people that feel that way, but they (myself included) usually use the latter phrase. So i'm proposing that if you feel like that you should use the former phrase, "I get to go to church." I don't know maybe i'm just crazy or wrong but i feel like with this change in rhetoric, it may at least get others thinking and bring back some excitement to sharing in corporate worship and fellowship on sundays.

Also, reading Shane Claiborne's "Irresistable Revolution." Its amazing!