2 0 f a c t s

- I'm getting baptized tomorrow and I am panicking. 
- Sometimes I feel like I've already lived a lifetime. Sometimes I feel like I have lived a thousand lives. Then, sometimes I feel like a child in a foreign universe, and I hardly understand a thing. 
- I think a lot. About everything. I don't even know what I think about sometimes. 
- I have an extremely intimate relationship with books. Lately I've gone through an insanely dry spot though. I keep up with what books I've read. And I checked back the other day and I haven't read a book for fun SINCE OCTOBER. I've read lots of Greek, Mesopotamian, even Egyptian works for literature, but, yeah, I know. Absolutely no excuses.
- My style is casual comfort. flannel, sweatpants, gray, and sweaters are my go-to's everyday. I'm not sure if you've noticed but my robe is also a staple piece.
- I sleep with a Winnie the Pooh stuffed animal from Disney every night. #confessiontime
- I've realized that I really don't like winter. Ew.
- I love big windows with sprawling views. And I never, ever want the blinds shut during the day. Ever. Gross.
- Cloudy days are good for my soul, but I feel my spirits lifted when I open the blinds to see the light of sun playing with the shadows of the trees in the morning.
- I really love bread, and bagels, and most breakfast foods.
- I'm a listener, which most of the time I like.
- I love sweeping.
- I hate washing gross dishes, especially when they're a day old.
- I love organizing little spaces, and buying small things for organization.
- Speaking of which, I could live in Target. Especially with a Chickfila across the street.
- However, even better would be to live in Barnes & Noble. Books, coffee, soothing music in the background. What a paradise.
- I'm allergic to cats. *grumpy cat face*
- I drink hot tea a lot more than coffee.
- I want to be doing so much more with my life than I'm doing right now. I want to be taking advantage of every little opportunity. I want to be outside more. I want to be living a natural, balanced lifestyle, filled with good books and music and sketches, long walks and spontaneous...spontaneousness. Whatever. 
- But most of all I want to love and serve Christ and others so much infinitely more. Thank God for grace.

snow ft. open blinds

5 ways to win my heart

yet another writing prompt stolen from the marvelous world of pinterest! clearly, this is not all I have to say on the subject. For one, I need someone who can make me laugh. Definitely that. But, at least, this was an opportunity to think some of these things through. And, why not write a blog post on a whim? That's what blogs are for!

► have a passion for Christ that exceeds your passion for me. let him always be the priority.

► be a hard, hard worker. is there really anyone who does *not* find this attractive?

► treat other women right. especially those closest to you: your mom, sisters, etc. if you're not treating the women closest in your life well, then I can be pretty confident that you're not going to treat me with the respect and love that I'm looking for. <ephesians 5:25>

► challenge and encourage me in the same breath. I need someone who will challenge me and bring me closer to Christ. But someone who does so in love, building up in admonition, not tearing down in scornful reproof.

► forgive. I need a forgiving person, because I'm a sinner. And, yes, I'm going to need a lot of forgiveness and A LOT of grace along the way. 

snowy saturday

can I just lay in the gray

of my pillow 

my sheets 

lay in the gray of my robe

lay in the gray of my blankets

and bed 

and rest in the gray of my soul

pretend /

writing prompt 351 / pretend

Childhood. Playing orphans in the woods on Pawpaw's Mountain. Bread, cheese, and apples in basket with a dishcloth. Shooting pieces of wood, bringing them back, a rabbit or deer for dinner. Building up a fire of twigs surrounded by rocks. Eating nuts. Collecting random greens and dandelions, creating a salad. Running from the police trying to take us back to our orphanage. And finally returning to the big white house to find a mom willing to take us in.

Galloping up and down our road, whipping our horses with foxtails. For hours. Stirring red berries and leaves and flowers and monkey grass into our soup of water. Laying in bed late at night, while stuffed animals delivered sermons on our knees. Playing animals with Graham on the trampoline and on the back porch in summer.

Spraying each other with the hose on the trampoline. Shielding ourselves from the rain of arrows, as the water came shooting down from the hand of Garrett at the hose. Risking our lives to save the other from the fatal blow of a water balloon. Giddy at the pleasure of saving another's life.

Endless games of Barbies. Dressing for a ball. Gossiping at a church picnic. Going to the ball. Playing intense games of soccer. Being chosen by the only guy at the ball. The excitement of friends bringing their own plethora of Barbies over. Again, the ball scene. Except this time with two guys. Donna, Emily, Frank, Pam. Sporty girl.

Switching identities with Abby for a night. Wearing each other's way too big Southeast shirts. Coloring in the laundry room floor, calling each other by our own names. Rotating through my stuffed animals every night, not wanting them to feel offended or unloved.

Attempting time after time to jump into those ridiculously appealing Barbie sticker books. So. Many. Times. So confident that, this time, it will work. Praying that it would work. Cleaning up our room with my purple wand. Getting in trouble because we were taking so long trying to clean up with the wand. Snapping at the messes in our rooms like Mary Poppins.

Sneaking away from everyone, going to the back of our art cabinet, or pushing through the coats in our coat closet. Believing, knowing that this time it will take me to Narnia. Leaning out the open window in the school room upstairs. It's spring and the breeze is gentle, stirring the tops of budding trees. I'm stuck inside doing school, but looking out the window imagining myself as an eagle, free and swooping over the trees and up into the blue sky on a perfect day like today. 

Running down the dirt trail in summer, feet hard, tanned and brown. Knowing every slight bump, every protruding root, light on my feet as a deer.

It was a dream. It was perfect. It was a childhood unblemished. It was pretend.

artjournalist.com/one-word-art-journal-prompts/

etc etc etc

Since my posts are so random lately, here's a briefing on life, if anything just to help me think of what's been going on lately. I feel the need to organize my life.

So, I got my braces off!!!!! I would post a picture, but I'm kind of embarrassed to post a picture of myself on here. You might ask why..? I might have no idea why, so let's just move on.

I'm absolutely pining away at the thought of being at the beach in the warmth and the sand and the sun. And hopefully I'll be driving down to Florida for several days over spring break in March to visit some friends!!!!!! AH, I'm so excited. I just want to be tan and... yeah, you know, tan. And I want my natural highlights back. I barely had 3 days at the beach last year. Not good enough. Also I want to feel the freedom and lifted weight of being out of school for a week and with friends and away from life and so much carefree-ness.

Seriously, I'm only 15 I need to calm down about this idea of THE HEAVY BURDEN LIFTED FROM MY WEARY SHOULDERS. I'm in tenth grade. Chill.

Also, I'm planning on chopping off my hair pretty soon. Like to my shoulders at least. YAY. Really yay. I can't wait to get rid of it. My hair looks better short anyway, I think. Leading off of that thought, here's a picture where you get my hair (after I just woke up) and my braces-free teeth without my whole face so it's not a selfie. Which is good. Also there's coffee.

There we go. So, yeah, not actually that much going on. I mean a lot but it's all pretty insignifi- OH. Wow I'm an idiot. I forgot--

I'm getting baptized super soon. I met with the pastors and everything and it was really scary but so encouraging once I got in there. I'm excited. But really nervous. I don't feel like I'm as nervous as I should be. But once we set a date and it's looming over me. Lord, have mercy, in all sincerity.

My devotional life has been a little bit out of sorts recently. Same with prayer life. Ugh, it's so hard to keep as the priority sometimes. All it takes is to get back in routine though. Easier said than done though.

I've started running/working out a little bit........... so yeah.... [cringe] Also I might be playing volleyball this next year, start going to clinics and stuff. I've hardly touched a volleyball though, soo we'll see how that goes.

Well, I've gotten out everything I can think of. I might do like a 20 facts about you thing soon. I just remembered that I was gonna do that. That's what I meant to do for this post. Nice.

Anyone who's reading this, sorry for all the negativity. Is there a lot of negativity in my blog? Or is it just my dry sense of humor? I don't know, I probably can't even tell the difference anymore. 

Anyway I'm gonna go submerge myself in Euripides. So much Greek literature right now.

procrastination 101

Here I am again: too much to do, so let's just not do any of it.

I really don't have that much to do, guys, don't worry.

Just wanted to let you guys know how to procrastinate if you were interested. I came up with a great way to procrastinate tonight. Ready for confession time?

I got on Webkinz. 

SO, apparently you don't have to buy a Webkinz to get on there, you can just play for free. I know, news flash of the century. So I chose a dog. And I named him Puddleglum. And wow, he was really just really precious. I'm sorry, but you guys would understand if you saw him. I guess I'll just have to post a picture. 

Okay, so, anyway, I'm really, really planning on no one seeing this right now. Because here are some quotes of mine that Abby recorded while I was in my room on the computer [note: I was totally unaware of this]. Nothing unusual, you know. Just talking to myself. This is normal, right? 

"His heart is so low. He needs food."

"Oh my word the W shop is taking so long!!!"

"They have coupons now!?"

"Obviously I want to tell him he's the best pet ever."

"'You're the best friend ever'. That's what he said."

"I love my dog so much........... Desperate for love. That's fine."

"I know you like chocolate milk."

HAHA I'm sorry I'm just crying tears born of laughter and pain. And I know only very very select people will understand this but I want to be able to come back to this whenever oh my word. crying. laughing. hahahhaha oh wow.

K, here is. Puddleglum. #bae

K, now I'm done.

Way past done.

Oh, and I bought him bagels and a sweatshirt.

Bye.

open letter to Julia

I was gonna not post this....... but then I decided to. Just gives you a glance into how fantastically and sporadically my life is lived these days. I started this one night when I had too much to do and was watching her play the DS. Some pretty deep stuff here, guys..... Well, I thought the picture was pretty cute anyway. here we go: open letter to five year old Julia.

"hey Julie.

You're sitting beside me right now playing Henry's DS. you're so adorable. 

okay, it's time to eat, so it looks like I'm not going to be writing a letter to you now. Priorities. Maybe later tonight. I love you."

Oh, and, yeah. You guessed right. I never finished it. 

hooked on a feeling

Guys, I really want to read. I want to write. I want to draw and sketch and paint with watercolors. And then I want to go play in the woods and get my feet and hands dirty. I want summer. I want to run barefoot, suntanned, sweaty- and not care. I want the beach. I want salt water and wind from the coast and sand covering my legs, driving on the golf cart to the ocean. I want to feel the cooling relief of that gel stuff on my burning shoulders. I want relief from school. I want the summer to come [my last summer without a job hopefully] but I don't want it to go away either. Also, I want to chop my hair off.

Basically I'm discontent and already done with winter. I've made it to second semester anyway. And my books are looking so heartbreaking-ly beautiful, sitting gathering dust on my shelves. So neglected it hurts.

We're getting into ancient Greece and stuff in history and literature. So, that's pretty cool. I've also started trying to alternate running and working out every other day [emphasis on *trying*]. It's been going for a week now and I've already missed a couple of the workout days...... yeah. I love the feeling of waking up and going for a morning run and then taking a shower and getting my day started. Also- yoga. How. Do I Yoga. 

Back to what I was talking about up there^^. I really want to enjoy and treasure this time in my life though. Because it really is a good time. I don't have a job yet. I don't have that many responsibilities, really. I'm really [how many times have I used the word "really" in the last paragraph? really?] wanting to tighten up my school schedule, so I can work really hard at it and then just be done with it for a couple hours at night or something. Maybe get outside with the kids/cousins, write, organize, whatever! And then I really want to set a bedtime of 10:30 then read until 11 and sleep. Like, that would just be great. I waste a lot of time. All the little things build up and I don't want that. 

Oh, yeah. Also I'm obsessed with the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack. It kind of refuses to get out of my mind... ever these days. [okay as in the last 24 hours. but it seems way longer].

Speaking of using my time well, this is probably not the best use of my time right now- as in, this is a bad use of my time right now. I'm working on my testimony and a biology test and a literary analysis and I just get overwhelmed way too easily. Maybe I need this time to rant to no one sometimes though. 

Well, this post has been all over the place. But that's okay. Cause lately I'm all over the place. And, yeah, that's okay too.

....... right?