Books On My Bed

Being the bookworm that I am, I read a lot of books.

Start a lot of books...

Never finish a lot of books...

Generally I have at least half a dozen I'm reading at a time. New stuff, old stuff, stuff somebody gave me, stuff I found at random. Yeah.

Today I noticed that I have an absurd amount of books on my bed. Not counting school books, notebooks, planners, and my Bible, I found seven novels making themselves at home between my sheets. And what were these discoveries? Well, I suppose I'll tell you.

Book numero uno

"Black" - Ted Dekker

For those of you who don't know me, I am quite admittedly a Dekkie. I own almost all of his books. I'm constantly going through shelves at Ollie's to find a Dekker book I don't already own, or a hardcover copy of one I do.

Black I am re-reading. This may possibly be the third time I'm going through it. I'm not quite sure. It's a beautifully written fantasy/adventure/thriller that makes you wonder if this world is real. Elements of Biblical stories are blended into Dekker's original ideas to create a new world of ostensible ( heh, vocab word :) good and evil. But it's like Lay's - you can't read just one.

Libro dos

"Alfred Hitchcock's Solve-It-Yourself Mysteries"

Yeah, so, um, small admission here...

I haven't actually read it.

Any of it.

A trip to the library that displayed a very unorganized young adult's section and a very interesting children's corner resulted in me checking out this book. It looks delicious, but I've yet to take a bite.

Three (Spanish is overrated)

"Alice's Adventures In Wonderland" - Lewis Carroll

Well, of course I would sleep next to my favorite book! I can't tell you how many times I've read it. Possibly thirty. Maybe more. It has everything - old book feel and smell, perfectly antediluvian illustrations, written for a child... I love it :)

Cuatro (Just kidding)

"Saxe's Complete Poems"

When I was little, my dad would have me read a poem from this book every night. Can't say I totally loved it then, but it's grown on me. Some works are so full of eloquent truth, you can't resist it. Maybe next time, I'll tell you some of my favorite poems and stories from John Saxe.

On a side note, there's a message written on the first page to whoever this book was gifted to. It's dated 1927.

5 (SO much easier)

"Ghostly Tales and Eerie Poems of Edgar Allan Poe"

I love Poe, and, once again, I've yet to read even the first page. I plan on it tonight though. It looks eerie. O.O

6

"Come Away My Beloved" - Frances J. Roberts

Oh, if I only I could describe the wonderful truths in this little book, but I can't even begin to! I HIGHLY recommend it! If anyone could ever come close to capturing God's voice in such a beautiful way, Frances Roberts has done it.

Last one

"99 Questions Jesus Asked" - Jason Ostrander

I heard Jason speak at Creation Fest this past summer (he was also the MC for the Main Stage), and it was an expatiation of three or four of the questions in this books. I haven't finished it, and I kind of wish he would go into more detail in some, but if you want something short to ignite a study of your own - or with friends - I'd recommend this. It's geared towards teens, so... yeah.

And that's all! I hope I may have directed you towards some amazing books. I know they're amazing. Hopefully you will think the same :)

What Are You Waiting For?

     Last night, after, like, months of reading it, I finally finished The Priest's Graveyard! Everyone I talked to kept saying how boring and unexciting it was.

   I can honestly say I liked it. It wasn't a normal Dekker novel. It wasn't laced with adrenaline-filled pages, there weren't any supernatural occurrences. But I liked it. Can't say I loved it, but there was something unique in this novel. It was written in a different way, and I liked it. It was someone telling a story, their story. They told it from their perspective, not with any fancy words, just with their own. It was a simple story of the judges, the guilty, and those in-between.

   I did figure out the "Dekker twist" three-quarters of the way through the book, a good thirty pages before it was revealed (my first time ever discovering the twist to a Dekker book), but I'm so clever you have to expect those moments ;) HA. Just kidding. :P

   Anyway, I was so excited to finish it and start Immanuel's Veins (what some say is Dekker's best novel to date) that I almost couldn't go to sleep. But I managed and awoke to a fresh, unread book, written by Ted Dekker, and it put a brightness into my day that only true Dekkies can understand.

   So I've started it, and it's been pretty good. So far. It's set way back in like the 1300's, so that's something new. Not that I haven't read books set that far back, just not a Dekker book.

   I started up on The Office again. And ya know what? Now that Will Ferrel is gone, the show's actually pretty good! I mean, I've always been an Office fan, but the last few seasons before Steve Carell's departure were a bit dry. But this new season has been pretty good. Mr. Robert California is adding a nice little addition. I loved the episode where they brought a whole bunch of awesome actors in to play the manager candidates - Ray Romano, Jim Carrey, Catherine Tate, Will Arnett, Ricky Gervais - good stuff.

   I'm also glad Andy's getting more camera time. And I will like some more fresh, comical, classic Dwight and Jim feuds are coming into the picture.

   To this day, my favorite prank Jim ever pulled on Dwight was when he was in the other branch and sent Dwight this fax:

Dwight,

At 8 AM today, someone poisons the coffee. 

Do NOT drink the coffee.

More instructions will follow.

Cordially,

Future Dwight

   What follows after reading this, is Dwight sees Stanley about to drink out of his coffee mug. Dwight runs to Stanley, scream "NOOO!!", and slaps the coffee out of Stanley's hands.

   Hehehe...

   I have my state recital tomorrow in Elizabethtown, so I'll be leaving around 11 AM for that. Hopefully I stay relatively calm... :P

   I think I'm spend my night with some popcorn, chocolate, and The Office - for the win.

Cheers♥

Excitement & Quiche

Reading: The Priest's Graveyard by Ted Dekker

Obsessed with: My new phone ;)

   

I am very happy to say that I have now gotten over 1,000 views on my blog! *insert random dance of awesomeness here* Maybe 1,000 views isn't such a huge milestone, but it got me excited!

   So it's been raining here. A lot. Flooding everywhere, roads washed out, streams traveling down the sides of roads in such abundance, that you could go canoeing down them.

 via

   With all this flooding, CLEAR (my youth group) has been helping out a lot of flood victims for the past few weeks. And last night we did so again, helping two families get their houses cleaned up. I spent the time pulling nails out of trim, hauling buckets of sheet rock and little wooden boards out to the dumpster, and pulling nails out of walls and ceilings. Some of my friends were cutting and placing insulation in the walls. Other kids were knocking out walls and tossing the debris outside. There was plenty of dust floating through the air and it was even worse when it was swept up.

   But it was so worth it! One lady who owned one of the houses starting crying relating what happened from the flood to my youth leader. She was just so grateful to have some help getting things put back together.

   Of course we were rewarded with some pizza and soda - no better reward than tears and food!

   Today was the first day in the past week that it hadn't poured buckets of rain down on us. The sun shone through the clouds a few times, brightening the already vivid leaves that have begun their fall back to the earth.

   I made dinner tonight. This dinner was quiche. Bacon-cheddar quiche to be precise. This quiche was a pain in the neck to make, but after an hour and a half of cooking, cutting, more cooking, cracking, and whisking, I put my two dished of quiche into the oven and then stepped outside to take some pictures of the lovely sun setting. And a few of the chickens too since they were just standing there like lawn gnomes, staring at me. My quiche was actually really good! I think it was worth waiting two hours for. My dad even had seconds - which means it was most definitely delicious :)

Cheers♥

No lie, I will call that number.

Random Mid-day thoughts

Reading: "The Bride Collector" (again), by Ted Dekker

Obsessing over: Anthem Lights, specifically "Can't Get Over You"

   So whilst doing some Twittering... tweeting... I was on Twitter. I came across a very awesome nail tutorial, via SUSIE Mag's Twitter, and I MUST share it. And if my nails ever get past the 1/4 inch mark, I may just try it out myself ;)

CLICKY ME

   Today was a bittersweet day. My phone if acting all goofball-ish, so I'm ordering a new one, which I happened to find with a free 4GB micro SD card (yay!). But this means I have to dish out $30 (no!) for it. And in reality, it's not that much, but it seems the more money I come across, the more I don't want to spend it (a blessing and a curse). Therefore today has been bittersweet.

 Ignore Maddy's Chinese eyes and my creepy grin...

   Last night was CLEAR (youth group). My youth leader decided to be crazy and drive around our town and beyond in search of flood victims who may need assistance in the manual labor department. Unfortunately, not too many people were out working, so we had to drive a good 20 minutes away, back in the corner of a lone street, to find some working people. It was a sweet older couple who lived pretty close to the river. They said their whole basement had been filled, plus about 4 1/2 feet on their first floor. Although everything was pretty good now (it's been a week and a half since the flood), they had some outdoor work that needed to be done, and since it was only the two of them (besides someone I think was their daughter power-washing the house), they could use the help. So we hauled rocks in a wheelbarrow with a flat tire, dug up dirt, raked, planted, picked, et cetera, and made their house look quite a bit cleaner. It wasn't a lot of work, but with only the two of them working, it probably would've been a fair amount of work. So we were able to help. The man was really sweet when one of the boys from my youth group was taking orders from the lady and said, "You better get used to it. Once you're married, you'll be taking orders all the time." I just found it sweet that after all these years, he's obviously not tired of it :)

   Tuesday night was fun because I got to babysit. And for some reason, I absolutely love watching and playing with little kids! I haven't babysat them all in a while because of softball, so it was a lot of fun! And I felt like a boss getting all five of them to sit on the couch and watch a movie, without ANY persuasion! Sometimes it's a bit harder watching 5 kids under 5 (one 4, two 3, and two 2 year olds), because they all require some sort of attention, but it's fun being challenged. And it's even better now that they can all walk and talk! The whole crawling and un-communicative stage was a bit difficult when you had 3 other ones running around, talking your ear off :P

   I also watched Soul Surfer this week. I was going to write a post on it right after I finished it, but my thoughts were in overdrive, so I decided to give it a few days.

   I'll have to say that I liked the movie. I was entertained, didn't really feel the need to get up and do something else. It was inspiring. I was encouraged by how quickly Bethany got over her arm, and was able to get out of the water again.

   But I was pretty disappointed in the amount of immodesty in the film. I feel, to some degree and in my personal opinion, it's partially due to where they live. In Hawaii, where everybody's out of the water, all-day, year-round, it's probably normal to be in nothing but a swim suit all day. But that doesn't make wearing a bikini right. Not all girls are aware of the problem with immodesty these days, or even if they are, they choose to ignore the problem and make up excuses for their ignorance. Either way, I would've been less bothered if the girls had been wearing bikinis only in the surfing scenes, and not in every single second of the movie like they did. It also bothered me when Bethany threw a cover-up on when she went to church. I mean, yay for the cover-up, but if I went to church in a bikini with nothing more than an almost see-through piece of cloth on me, I'd probably be disowned by my parents (not really, but the outcome wouldn't be very good). And in contrast to this, there weren't very many shirtless guys throughout the movie (dang it! I mean... thank goodness!). Most of the time they had a rash guard or tee on. So this, along with some low-cut dresses on most females in the movie, left me somewhat distracted. But if you can somehow block all that out of your mind, it was a pretty good movie, with a good message. I was inspired by how open Bethany is about her faith in God. She's not shy about and speaks about Him with an open heart - kudos to her!

 mmmhmm, delishhh ;)

   And almost completely off topic, ya know the kid who plays Alana Blanchard's brother? Well the whole movie I was like, "I totally recognize him! Oh my gosh it's Jeremy Sumpter!" I was totally right. Eight years since I had the biggest crush on him from Peter Pan, and I still totally knew who he was. I am awesome (and maybe a bit of a creeper...).

   And on a final note... I'm going to the mall tomorrow! This is exciting for two reasons.

1. I don't live super close to the mall, so any mall-time is always appreciated.
2. The mall I'm going to is in Philadelphia, about 3 hours away, and it is HUGE. GINORMOUS malls are always VERY appreciated.

 via

   The only downside to this is that I'm going with my family, plus 3 little boys (little, meaning under the age of 12). So a total of 6 hours in the car with them won't be so nice, but at least I can leave them once we get there... if only there were one more seat in our van, I'd bring a buddy along... *sigh* You can only have so much...

Cheers♥

Faith & Desire

   So this week (and the previous) have been L-A-Z-Y weeks. How have they been so? I have gotten NOTHING accomplished. Zilch. Nada. NUTTIN'.

   School's been a pain. Physics is killing me. Government is looking up though, because it's impossible to get any more boring than what it currently is. Tomorrow I will officially be a week behind in school. I think I'm gonna plan to finish last Friday's school day, minus Physics, and then spend this weekend studying my Physics material, problems, equations, facts and what not and then take my test. I still have bunches of laundry to do, an essay to write on stuff I have no opinion on... UGH.

   This is the time of year when I get extremely sick of life. Usually I can last a bit longer than September, but apparently this year isn't looking so bright. And looking ahead, there's only more to frazzle my nerves.

   But a few good things did come out of this week.

1. Thankfully, for the annual music festival I participate in, I am doing the same level theory test as last year, and I remember most of the material, so there is very little I have to study for that. And I hopefully will be free of memory glitches when playing my two pieces.
2. Over 10% of my school year is DONE. THAT, my friends, is a VERY huge reason for celebrating.
3. Wednesday, my youth group had an AHHHMAAZING opportunity to be used by God to help a family from our church. In case I didn't previously mention it, there was extreme, record-breaking, never before seen flooding in my town. There was water where no one could ever imagine water being. Houses smashing against bridges. Houses ruined that were no where near the river. This family, husband and wife, have an apartment near the semi-near the river. The water was several feet high in their first floor and ruined all flooring and several feet of wall, along with leaving a disastrous mess in their basement. My youth group, along with some guys from our college group, came and helped clean up. I was down in the basement and it was terrible. Several inches of mud on the floor, tons of ruined stuff, and we had to clean it all out. I was dressed to get dirty, but by the time we finished, head to foot, I was COVERED in mud. RIVER mud. River mud containing more than just water and dirt. My hands still smell like gas. But we got an amazing amount of work done. Practically nothing had been done before we got there, and when we were through, the basement was virtually item/junk-free, siding, insulation, and roofing from the apartment behind them was all picked up and put in the dumpster, and all walls that needed tear-down were gone. And when we left there were still guys there working. And today over 100 volunteers from a local Bible college were there helping. It was incredible. So honored and blessed to help!
4. I. Finished. The Books. Of History. Chronicles. A.K.A., I have read Black, Red, White, Green, Showdown, Saint, Sinner, Chosen, Infidel, Renegade, Chaos, Lunatic, and Elyon. I was literally running around my house screaming my "Dekker scream" (yes, I have a scream specifically used when I finish one of his books), and almost exploding from happiness. It's been over the course of several years that I have accomplished this, and not because I'm a slow reader. I had to wait for new books to be released, had to wait for my library to get the books or buy them at Ollie's, and (sometimes) I was distracted and took slightly longer than normal to finish a book. BUT now that I am through with them, after I finish the rest of Ted Dekker's books he's written, I will start ALL OVER again and read through all 12 books so I can get the full effect of The Circle (it's hard to get it when you read all 12 books over a 3-4 year period). While I'm at it, I may just re-read all of Ted's books.
5. I may actually be going to a corn maze this year! Granted, it is with my homeschool group (this consists of extreme homeschoolers, no one my age, and... well, "extreme homeschoolers" says enough), but maybe I can get a friend or two to tag along.

   Today was an extremely dreary day, but after it stopped raining I went outside. You could practically feel autumn hanging in the air. It was cold, windy, overcast, leaves are starting to drop and I LOVED it! I'm one of those weird people that live for those cold, dreary days (I personally only like cold when it's NOT raining), and seeing and feeling this, everything I love about fall flashed before my eyes. I am STOKED for fall! My jeans, hoodies, and Habbits have been waiting! BRING IT ON.

Cheers♥

Thinking About You...

   So yesterday was spent doing school and babysitting two sweet girls with my sister. Not too difficult since they are 9 and 5 years old (although they kept on taking Capri Sun when I SPECIFICALLY TOLD THEM to NOT... stay calm, Emily...). Unfortunately, it rained all day, but that didn't stop us from taking a walk (actually, everyone but me decided on this. I was at the time hiding, as we were playing hide and seek, and nobody found me. So they just decided to give up and leave me by myself. 15 minutes later, I decided that watching the children might be smarter than winning a game of hide and seek...). We watched "Rio", which was actually a really good movie. And then...

My bracelet. BROKE.

   And this is not just any bracelet. This bracelet was given to me by my friend, a gift from her trip to Africa when she was 9. She's now in Germany until Christmas and I sort of vowed to wear it until her return.

It. BROKE.

   So it is now in a plastic baggy on my dresser. I'm still deciding on what to do with the beads...

   That brings us to today. Some school, though not as much as I should've done (a result of my not being able to wake up before 8am lately). A nice adjustment at the chiropractor, and...

An extreme haircut.

   Now most of you have never really seen my hair. Let me show you what my hair was previously like:

Please ignore the fact that this picture was taken in front of my sister's messy side of the room, and with me still in my PJs, without makeup, etc.,etc... but on the bright side, my hair looks fantastic for just waking up ;)

   Well, every other year or so, after my hair has gotten pretty long, I cut it off and donate it to Locks of Love (because in all honesty, what do I really need my hair for? It's honestly just a huge inconvenience... and sometimes a source of vanity... *cough*). Well this was my year. And since the babysitting job mentioned above was for my hair stylist's girls, in payment she offered a free hair cut. So I went today to get it cut.

   My plan was to cut off the required 10 inches and go from there. I had to it cut in her kitchen, without a mirror, so I didn't actually know what it looked like until she was done. So after her and my mom deciding where to cut my hair off at, she snipped it all off. I tried to give her some idea of what I wanted, even though I couldn't see what she was doing. But my mom was inspired after the main part was cut off. All of a sudden she was like "Oh! You should make it look like Rapunzel [from Tangled] after she cuts her hair off!" Well, I had to just trust her and my hair stylist to make me look not hideous. And after tons of snips, cuts, a few suggestions from me, more from my mom, and some styling... I was done. And in all honesty, it did look a LOT like Rapunzel's at the end of the movie. It really wasn't anything I had thought of, and the volume of my hair freaked me out at first. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture right after it was done, and it was raining when we left (we'll get to more on that momentarily), so my hair got slightly un-styled. Which I like better than the original, but you can't see the total Rapunzel effect.

   So yea. That's it. I keep on changing my opinion on my bangs. Sometimes I would've liked them short. And other times, I like them longer. But whatever. I'm excited about trying new things out with my hair.

   The only bag thing about my hair, is that I JUST had a softball practice scheduled for this Saturday... and my hair isn't long enough to put in a ponytail... which isn't a completely horrible thing. There's ways to get around it. I just don't like the non-ponytail look for sports. I guess I'll have to make do.

   So. The rain. It's been raining for 3 days straight with few stops in between. It just keeps going. It's supposed to be like this till the end of the week too. There are flood warning, flood watches, and other flood related warnings for our county, plus we are apparently in a state of emergency (I found this out via Facebook. Which is a bit sad). So no school for my town tomorrow (except for us darn homeschoolers... dang...). The flooding is already ridiculous. But 3 more days of this? We will all be living on boats and kayaks by then. Even me (and I'm not even in any danger of flooding).

Yea. That's gonna be us.

   Okay. So I finished reading "Lunatic" today. It was

AHH-MAAZING.

   I stopped at the library today and got "Elyon" and I. Am. Stoked. I cannot wait read it! Then I'll only have 2 1/2 more Ted Dekker books to read and then I will have read them all! MUAHAHAHA.

   Yea. So after finishing "Lunatic", I decided to reminisce on past Circle times. I grabbed my Circle Series graphic novel off the shelf (yes, I am so obsessed with him that I buy the graphic novels), opened it up, and started reading. I didn't get very far before a statement from Michal got me thinking:

   Thomas is talking to Michal about Rachelle's choosing him (this is obviously right after he first arrives in middle)...

Michal: Staying with Rachelle's family will help you remember.

Thomas: Rachelle? The woman who chose me?

Michal: Yes, it's all part of the Great Romance.

Thomas: Wait a minute, I don't even know her...

Michal: Follow your instincts until your memory returns. If you have to, pretend. Surely you can pretend to be in love.

Thomas: What if I don't want to be in love?

Michal: Of course you want to be in love. You're human.

   Now apart from this having the obvious romantic meaning, something else hit me when I read that.

   "Of course you want to be in love. You're human." For Michal, it's kind of a "duh" moment. Well, of course Thomas would want to be in love. He's human!

   Isn't this the desire at the core of every human being? Not just the romantic love with all the candy and hearts and roses. There's a desire at the very core of our being that desires love. To be in love. To be in love with Someone extraordinary. And perfect. Elyon. God.

   When we were created, God put that desire in our heart and soul. A desire only He could fill. And though we don't always realize it, I think we spend almost every waking moment trying to fill that desire. But we don't always know how. We fill it up with a temporary relationship, material things, all the things that can't fill us. We were made for a love relationship. A romance so great and wonderful, there's only one person who could completely fill you and give you the most out of it. God.

   Sorry if I'm not coming off completely coherent. As I started writing this, I realized that I had no idea how to put my thoughts into words (as usual). But I hope you can somewhat see my point. We are meant to be love. It's in our being, in our design. There's something so much bigger out there for us. Something more than just a boyfriend that will last a few weeks. Something more than just kisses and hugs. Something so deep, personal, magnificent. There's a love relationship just waiting for us. Waiting! For us! As we're running around trying to figure out how to fill that hole by shoving useless things in the void, the filling is just sitting there right in front of us! Waiting. Begging us to come and see what He has to offer. Wanting to show of the fulfillment and joy in Him. The healing and peace.

   So yea. Hope that made sense. My brain isn't completely functioning today (well, it's never COMPLETELY functioning, but you understand), but hopefully a few things came across in an understandable way.

   So happy Wednesday, and have a blessed and un-rainy week!

Cheers♥