warning: disturbing post ahead.

for real. this one is kinda depressing. read at your own risk.

i am feeling really weird right now...
japanese student swept over horseshoe falls
we got home a few days ago from that great niagara falls vacation, and i saw on the news today that on sunday a girl fell into the river & went over the falls. :( it's doubly strange because i was just there.  she was on the canadian side, climbed onto the railing to pose for a picture or something, and just...woosh. i will never understand why people take unnecessary risks like that, as if standing 3 inches further away from something is going to lessen the wonder of the experience. even more disturbing, i think, is the news that while searching unsuccessfully for her at the bottom, they found another body. :(
it seems weird to wish a terrible accident like that on somebody, but i hope that's what it was. and that brings me to the related topic of suicide. i have to admit that more than once while i was taking in the beauty and power of the falls, my thoughts turned to jumpers. i was really hoping that no one decided that was going to be their last day on earth while my daughter was watching.
suicide has always been a very troubling subject to me, i was introduced to it at the unthinkably young age of almost 2. of course i don't remember the actual events or immediate aftermath, but it was always there in the background of my childhood. losing a family member to suicide is tragic, and the shock of it fades, but never completely goes away. as a child, you ask questions and, in the case of my family, you get lies for answers because they figure that is better than the truth. which only confuses you more, and makes you wonder..if he was sick, as they say, and couldn't help himself...why is it so shameful? i get that the whole idea of taking your life is murder, and some say that you are "playing God." but..i don't think i agree when i hear people say that suicide is the only unforgivable sin because you don't have the opportunity to repent. this has always been a touchy subject. i've managed to avoid outright arguments about it, because i think people are entitled to make their own decisions about how they feel about it. and i, myself, have vacillated numerous times in my own opinion. when i was in high school, it was a subject my youth pastor refused to even touch. and when asked why he wouldn't go there, the man of a million words would shut his mouth and say no more.
anyway, i don't really know where i was going with this. just using cyberspace as an outlet for my unsettling thoughts, i suppose.

this is what gives me pause:
the crazy, awesome, beautiful, unforgiving power of nature/the frailty of human life.

“Family quarrels have a total bitterness unmatched by others. Yet it sometimes happens that they also have a kind of tang, a pleasantness beneath the unpleasantness, based on the tacit understanding that this is not for keeps; that any limb you climb out on will still be there later for you to climb back.”~ Mignon McLaughlin

aaaaahhh togetherness. ;)  i love my family. we are a bunch of strange individuals, who appear to be pretty normal on the surface. i love spending time with us all together. really. i do.  i often wish that my sisters lived much closer to me... that being said, i can't wait to get home. HAH. 


my nieces are soo adorable. they are also polar opposites, so having them together has been very entertaining. one is quiet, the other loud; one pretty sedentary, the other always on the move; one is pale and blonde, the other is tan and darker haired; one speaks clearly, the other clearly speaks gibberish...the list goes on. they found a common ground with puppies and kitties-every child i have ever known has had a fondness for puppies and kitties. :)


what a whirlwind of a few days! traveling...lots of driving, with more coming up tomorrow for the trip home. i am getting pretty tired of the inside of my car! the first leg of the journey was an awful, long, boring drive. we were starting to go a little batty the last hour or so. warren, the town my sister lives in, is so cute. i always tell her that i wish we could just lift up the whole town and move it a little further south and it would be an awesome place to live. i am all about living in the middle of nowhere, but when you have to drive through nowhere for 2 solid hours to get to the middle of nowhere...i think that is a little far out, even for me! i also don't like the idea of winter lasting from mid october until mid april, i like my seasons a little more equally distributed. but i do really love the town, it's full of quaint old houses and interesting buildings, huge trees, and brick lined streets. a.dorable. 


the drive up to niagara was really beautiful, rolling farmland interspersed with mountains and lakes..a nice drive. the falls were amazing. it's crazy how you can stand there and feel the power of the water. truly a wonder. i'd like to go back again some time when i can stay a little longer and explore some of the things some of my family weren't interested in. the house we stayed in was really nice..the wild acres were beautiful pastures and some woods, which hannah and i got to explore a little. unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate a whole lot of the time. the babbling brook was sweet, and had lots of songbirds and bunnies hanging around. the "fire pit" left a bit to be desired, but we made it work. all in all, a very enjoyable stay. 


we drove through jamestown, ny on our way back to jenny's..they are having huge celebrations there to commemorate what would have been lucille ball's 100th birth year. 
tomorrow we head back home..hopefully it won't take us as long to get there as it did to get here. this is one drive that i never look forward to. but hopefully it won't be bad tomorrow. 


this is what makes me smile:
being touristy.

i am ridiculously, crazily excited right now. i have one wild little niece under the same roof, and will see the other one tomorrow. :D  my family has never really been one to take "family vacations." one summer we went to Chincoteague, Va for a long weekend, but other than that, the extent of our "vacations" were trips to visit my grandma. not that that wasn't fun...but it's just different when you go somewhere you don't normally visit. so i guess this will be our second "real" family vacation, and i can't wait! in the morning my parents, hannah, my sister,  brother-in-law, niece, two dogs and myself will pile into 2 vehicles and travel north, to a quaint little town called Warren, Pa. this is where my other sister, brother-in-law, and niece live. it is in the northwest corner of the state...just about as far as we could possibly be from each other and still both live in Pa. we will be staying there over night and then all 10 of us humans will caravan to the great Niagara Falls. awe.some. we're staying in a farmhouse that is supposedly on a large island in the middle of the Niagara river. cooooool. :) i should have read more about the property, but after i saw "babbling brook," "21 wild acres," and "fire pit," i stopped reading because i was drooling and my head started to spin.

this is what makes me smile:
the moon through the trees..

amos and andy

knock, knock.

who's there?

amos...

amos who?

amosquito bit me!


knock, knock.

who's there?

andy...

andy who?

andy bit me again!


this is what makes me smile:
beeeein' cheesy.
(makes me think of my grandpa..that's him...being a little cheesy)

i really have nothing interesting to write about.

sometimes i feel so small, like a speck in the grand scheme, and my tedious day to day activities and thoughts seem so inconsequential. it is much easier to pretend that i can't see past my own existence, to the bigger issues plaguing this world, than it is to try and make sense of all the awful things going on.

so i had a ho hum day. i did manage to pass a portion of my practical final this evening, which was awesome. now on to the next 4 sections, which i fear will not go quite as smoothly. i also got to hang out on an organic farm, instead of being cooped up in the dank little room we normally have class in. that was pretty cool. they have free range chickens and sheep, and grow all kinds of greens and vegetables. the house and land are just beautiful, i could spend a lot of time there just wandering around. 

but even within my little sphere, there is chaos and heartbreak. several of my classmates are going through some really tough things, some major issues that i can empathize with, but don't really know how to help them except to just be there. 

this is what makes me laugh:

clay aiken's biggest fan

"We dance around in a ring and suppose, the secret sits in the middle and knows." ~ Robert Frost

secrets. we all have them. some are very old and have never been told. some haven't been in hiding for long.  some have not been kept at all. some are good, fun, and lighthearted. some are full of love and wonder. some are dark and painful..reminders of things we'd rather forget. 

^{Hebrews 4:13} Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

when i was younger that verse gave me an immense amount of fear, because of secrets that i was holding on to. eventually, i came to a place where that same verse gave me, instead of fear, immeasurable comfort. i had and have the same reaction to Psalm 139. i wish, when i was a child, that i had known that God is full of love and compassion, grace and mercy; instead of thinking He was always on the lookout for something to eternally punish me for.

this is what makes me smile:
making sure kids know that GOD LOVES THEM.

it is a wonderful feeling you get when you know you have helped someone who has been in pain, to feel better. it is also kind of an ego boost when a fellow MT, who has a history of being "picky," asks you to be her therapist. :) i needed that confidence lift. 

i decided to take a drive around the hills on my way home, having a little quiet time to myself was nice. even in the rain, the scenery is so beautiful. somehow i ended up on a road that took me by the stone quarry..this kind of creeped me out because those things are DEEP. i couldn't see the bottom from the road, and that also creeped me out a little. ha i guess i am easily creeped out these days.

on my little drive, i saw a red tailed hawk swoop down and pick up what i think was a field mouse for lunch. there was a bright yellow oriole sitting on the top of a fence post that would have made a lovely photo, but unfortunately there was no where for me to pull over. i also saw what i think was a killdeer. birds are pretty cool. 

i've been forcing my mom to walk with me in the evenings lately...she always pretends that she is going to refuse to go, but ends up grumpily putting her shoes one and trudging out the door when i tell her to get up and stop the whining. it reminds me of when i was younger and didn't want to wear tights to church. (i HATE those things! they are soooo itchy!!) this is a very strange role reversal...it always makes me a little uncomfortable when my mom acts like i should be in charge of something that she's involved in, but it's nice to have company other than an ipod on my walks. every day, when we get back to our driveway she says, "remind me again why we bought a house at the top of a hill?" 

this is what makes me smile:

old red barns.

there was a magnificent sunset this evening. while i was sitting by the tree, staring at the lovely sky, i felt a tickle on my arm. i ignored it, telling myself it was just the breeze. a minute or so later, i felt the same tickle on my neck. this time, i swiped at the area and, yep you guessed it, found a spider on my finger as i pulled my hand away. so much for a peaceful sunset, heheh. i'm kind of surprised no one called to see if there was some kind of horrific accident, but i suppose the neighbors are used to my blood curdling "spider screeches" by now. bleehhhh.

this is what makes me smile:

roots.

just exploring blogger/google+/etc. trying to check out some different features and whatnot.
this is a load of pictures i took at my aunt's house..she has a very green thumb. i'm a little jealous. :) seriously, she can get anything to grow & grow well.


not a terribly interesting day today. hung around the house and did some laundry. walked down to the lake with hannah and my mom...tossed some rocks, walked back. hhehehh.. i did have to attend a webinar for my business class. of course i forgot about it until 5 minutes before it started, and of course for some reason java decided it needed to update at that moment. it was pretty interesting, i guess, for a talk about the advantages of incorporating verses sole proprietorship, the importance of separating personal and business finances, etc., etc.. yaaaawn. ;)

this is what makes me smile:
barefeet.

Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby. ~Langston Hughes

ahhhh rain. :) after being so dry for so long, with only occasional thundershowers to slightly cool us off, it has been a beautiful, grey, soggy, dreary day. i don't think i really managed to "squeeze the life out of every minute" of it, but it was a fun day none the less. 


i have been having some insomnia lately, so i wasn't sure i'd even wake up early enough to visit the preschool, but i did, and it went very much as i had expected it would. i can't believe how much taller all of those little rascals are! it was fun to visit and hear all of the chatter about their vacations, new toys, lost teeth, and other bits of very important information. 


right before summer started and i took my "leave" the center was sold to a private owner. there have been a lot of good changes to the building, some new supplies that were desperately needed, updates and so forth. but what made me kind of sad was that all of the teachers except one, who only works summers, looked so exhausted and fed up. most were glad to see me, though one or two could have done without my visit i think. 
i was asked many, many times by kids and teachers, "when are you coming back?!" ...yeah...i don't know about that one. 


one terrible, awful thing did happen to me today...when i went to the farm stand to get some corn for supper, there was a sign that said, "NO CORN TODAY. not ripe for picking!"
 i object!!


this is what makes me smile:
fancy french orange lemonade.

today flew by so fast, i almost feel like it's still yesterday. do you ever have those days where you feel like you didn't do a single thing? i feel like i need to squeeze the life out of every minute of tomorrow, just to make up for it. 
and speaking of tomorrow, i am kind of excited because i'm going to visit the kiddos who were in my class last year. i can't believe how much i miss some of them! it's going to be great because they don't know i'm coming, and i always love hearing their surprised reactions when i walk in the door. :) it does a heart good to have someone genuinely happy to see you...and for some reason, it is even sweeter when it's a child. 


this is what makes me smile:
encouragement.


and also:
grumpy cats.

it's funny how sometimes you feel like nobody likes you, and you're all "woe is meeee" because you never get invited to do anything (not that you would go anyway, because then you might actually have to leave the house and have a conversation with someone while trying to not be too awkward...which is probably why they don't ask in the first place), and nobody ever calls or texts, or blah blah blah. it makes you sad and crappy feeling, and is just no fun. and then, all of a sudden, people want to hang out with you right and left. people are calling, texting, emailing...everybody wants some of your time. it can be very overwhelming, and there's that whole "i'm feeling weird" issue to deal with. why can't i ever seem to find a happy medium?

it's ridiculous how i always seem to feel left out...even when i am in the middle of a lot of "action." i just want a deeper connection, you know?...not so much flighty do this, go here, yak, yak, yak...i suppose this is the difference between friends and acquaintances-or friends and close friends. i do soo need just a few close friends, but at the same time, i am often afraid to make that connection...baaaaah.

it is also ridiculous how i always seem to think other people need to make me feel...any feeling. that is really up to me, to choose how i feel, but i so often try to push it off on someone else. lame. sometimes i think my body has continued to age, but my emotions have stayed in 7th grade.

okay enough of the crud...time to get thankful, amy.
i am pleased that i do have one close friend, who i am super-de-duper grateful for. unfortunately, she lives far from me, and communications are often somewhat spotty, but i'm glad for the time i do get to spend with her. i am also very thankful for my sisters, and ever grateful for their friendship in addition to their sisterly love. :)
i'll throw in a hearty "thanks" also, for good friends i may not know, or know well now, but will...eventually.

in other news, i had a somewhat heated discussion with a fellow classmate today over the correct way to spell breathe...as in inhaling & exhaling. i can normally overlook colloquial, grammatical and spelling errors (because, let's face it, i'm no English major...well...i was, but i'm not anymore! :P ), but this girl was going on and on about how she cannot STAND it when people spell breathe with an e on the end. "that is sooo stupid! there is no e on the end of breathe!" haha, actually, there is. i had to look it up to prove it to her. she ended up kind of embarrassed, and i felt bad about that. it wasn't my intention to make her look dumb, but rather, to help her to stop making herself look that way. :/

in other, other news, it sometimes slightly rankles me when i do something (make something, get 100% on a test, etc.) and people exclaim  mightily about how well i did, as though they are amazed.
i know, man. a lot of my ugly is showing tonight. sheesh.

this is what makes me smile:
growing up in rural PA...
what else can you really say?

it seems i always run to the psalms for comfort and reassurance.

Psalm 139
For the director of music. Of David. A psalm. 

 ¹ You have searched me, LORD,
   and you know me.
² You know when I sit and when I rise;
   you perceive my thoughts from afar.
³ You discern my going out and my lying down;
   you are familiar with all my ways.
⁴ Before a word is on my tongue
   you, LORD, know it completely.
⁵ You hem me in behind and before,
   and you lay your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
   too lofty for me to attain.
 ⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?
   Where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
   if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
   if I settle on the far side of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
   your right hand will hold me fast.
¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
   and the light become night around me,”
¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you;
   the night will shine like the day,
   for darkness is as light to you.
 ¹³ For you created my inmost being;
   you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
   your works are wonderful,
   I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
   when I was made in the secret place,
   when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body;
   all the days ordained for me were written in your book
   before one of them came to be.
¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts,^[a] God!
   How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸ Were I to count them,
   they would outnumber the grains of sand—
   when I awake, I am still with you.
 ¹⁹ If only you, God, would slay the wicked!
   Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
²⁰ They speak of you with evil intent;
   your adversaries misuse your name.
²¹ Do I not hate those who hate you, LORD,
   and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
²² I have nothing but hatred for them;
   I count them my enemies.
²³ Search me, God, and know my heart;
   test me and know my anxious thoughts.
²⁴ See if there is any offensive way in me,
   and lead me in the way everlasting.

this is what makes me thankful:
knowing that i can pray any time, anywhere.
and knowing that my God is always listening, even before i speak. 

"There seems to be a mistake. I believe I ordered the *large* cappuccino stromboli. *Hello!* Look at the size of this thing."

it's been kind of a weird day today.

i've had a lot of things running through my mind the past few days. tons of homework to catch up on, plus a kid who is not used to being imprisoned inside has also added some stress to the atmosphere. thank goodness it cooled off a little bit today..to celebrate we took a stroll through the yard to see what's changed in the last few weeks.

some photos from our walk:

we were greeted by a shiny green beetle.

"pssst! put me back! and don't tell anyone you saw me!"

okaaay...

queen anne's lace seems to be the only thing that will grow at the moment

"hey, sister...did you see a little green guy hanging around?"

even the trees look hot.

random lamb's ear growing in the middle of the yard.

oooooh pretty..on the shady side of the house.

mmm a tasty looking apple!

most of them look more like this one.

finally talked dad into chopping away the nasty forsythia & leaving the mulberry trees! yay!

not my friend.

lots of brown, crispy stuff around.

not sure what this is, but the seed pods looked kinda cool.

this is what makes me smile:

being able to go outside, while the sun was still out, and not melting within 3 minutes.

sometimes you just have to let it out.

AAAAAaaaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


i feel better now.

when i was about 5, my most prized possession was a perfect, black konch shell that my dad and i found on the beach after a storm. i loved that shell, took it everywhere with me as a sort of security "blanket." i probably spent hours tracing the spiral with my finger and listening to it's roar.
one day, i took it with me to a special evening church service. being 5, i fell asleep, and when we left my shell got left behind. i was very upset..i think i actually mourned for that shell (kinda sad). then a little while later (could have been weeks..could have been months, i don't remember-i was 5! 10 minutes can feel like a year when you are that age.) my mom and i were cleaning up some things at the church and upon entering the laundry room-there it was! my beautiful shell. :) i was sooo happy. my mom got it down from on top of the shelf where it was resting, i remember crying-i was that happy to have found my shell. i hugged it, held it to my ear to listen to it's roar, and slowly traced it's spiral. when it was time to go, i placed the shell under a table in the laundry room, and left it there...i didn't want to steal from church.

sometimes i wonder what other things/people/opportunities i've left behind, or not picked up because i was needlessly afraid of taking something that wasn't mine.

this is what makes me smile:
free squash. ..."that's right neighborly of ya...neighbor."

Monna Innominata [I dream of you, to wake]  by Christina Rossetti 
I dream of you, to wake: would that I might 
Dream of you and not wake but slumber on; 
Nor find with dreams the dear companion gone, 
As, Summer ended, Summer birds take flight. 
In happy dreams I hold you full in night. 
I blush again who waking look so wan; 
Brighter than sunniest day that ever shone, 
In happy dreams your smile makes day of night. 
Thus only in a dream we are at one, 
Thus only in a dream we give and take 
The faith that maketh rich who take or give; 
If thus to sleep is sweeter than to wake, 
To die were surely sweeter than to live, 
Though there be nothing new beneath the sun.


If you were coming in the fall,
I'd brush the summer by
With half a smile and half a spum,
As housewives do a fly.

If I could see you in a year,
I'd wind the months in balls,
And put them each in separate drawers,
Until their time befalls.

If only centuries delayed,
I'd count them on my hand,
Subtracting till my fingers dropped
Into Van Diemen's land.

If certain, when this life was out,
That yours and mine should be,
I'd toss it yonder like a rind,
And taste eternity.

But now, all ignorant of the length
Of time's uncertain wing,
It goads me, like the goblin bee,
That will not state its sting.

~Emily Dickinson

i am feeling a little victorian poet-y today.

this is what makes me smile:
building stuff.

goo brain make me wonder at the glory of creation. there, now you don't have to read this post at all! :)

my brain feels like goo...which, i guess, is not that far from reality.

i was not meant to be a web programmer, that is for sure and for certain. once this assignment is over (i have to build a website for class...even with a template, i am having a hard time), i will be rejoicing.

did you know that there are 26 bones in the human foot? and that the skin on the sole of our feet is more than 4x thicker than anywhere else on the body (the palms of our hands have thick skin, too...but not as thick as our feet). our bodies were designed soo intricately, and yet with so much common sense. i just don't understand how people can believe in "the big bang" and evolution not involving a creative designer. we are too complex! the world itself is too complex...it boggles my mind.

i watched a show about fractals awhile back, and one thing that stuck in my mind is how fractals are everywhere in nature...for example, in a forest. the ratio of small trees/medium trees/large trees in an area is mirrored by the ratio of the small branches/medium branches/large branches on the individual trees in the area.   it's amazing. such care and calculation went into all of creation.. ahhhh the ridiculous intricacy and beauty!

i am thankful for the gift to see the marvelous in the mundane.

this is what makes me smile:
fresh from the farm 2 miles away & complete with a warning sticker...
WATERMELON.

envy.
something i don't like to admit that i struggle with.
it's not that i begrudge others their happiness..i am actually truly happy for them, i just wish i could join them in their happiness.
maybe envy is not the right word...it's not really covetousness either...or jealousy. i am not upset because the people are happy, and i don't wish their happiness would evaporate.
i guess a better way to put it is that i am just filled with longing for things, not necessarily physical objects, though i would love a home of my own some day..not that that is my deepest longing. and it's not causing me to be bitter, or angry, just dissatisfied..desirous..yearning...
bah.

i have a free place to live. i am thankful, and i like it here, so that is a major plus. i am not lacking any need. so is longing for more..greedy of me? most of what i long for has nothing to do with possessions.

*later...
discontent. that's it. i am discontented. and the more i think about it, the more i am unconvinced that it is an entirely bad thing. if no one was ever discontent, or dissatisfied, etc. nothing would ever improve or change. maybe this discontentment is a kind of swift kick in the hind end.  ..maybe.

this is what makes me smile:
intense yahtzee concentration.

a long drive. OR: pardon me, miss, your negativity is showing.

a long drive certainly gives you a LOT of time to think. sometimes this is good...sometimes not so good.

i have come to the conclusion that i am supremely dissatisfied with the direction my life is going. BUT i am sort of looking forward to things beginning to change for the better...eventually. that sentence is wrong. i am a definitely looking forward to things changing for the better. i am just not sure when that will actually happen. or what those changes will be, other than the hoped for change of "career."
i came up with many, many negatives on my list of things about my life in general, and managed to find some positives, as well. even though it may seem so, i am not Eeyore...i feel like i come across as an incredibly negative, doom and gloom-ish person sometimes. that is not really who i am...at least it's not who i want to be, or who try to be. one of the things i thought about on my long drive is that "negativity" does come out sometimes, more often than i would like. :/ so i also decided to make a point to try and focus more on positives than on negatives. duh. the fact that i have been "trying" to do that for a while now (i.e., the thankfulness boosting "this is what makes me smile" photos/sentiments) does not escape me. more focus-more focus!!
positive, positive, positive. yep. one positive point i "listed" is that i did "find my way into" school last fall, and will soon be able to have a more fulfilling j-o-b. hopefully. prayerfully. i don't actually know what i will be doing within the scope of my "abilities" once i graduate..i'm leaving that up to the Big Guy, Who has been steering this little adventure thus far, and doing a rip-roaring job of it, too.
wow i am sure using a lot of "quotations" in this post. i wonder if that "signifies" anything?

another note about long drives...
they make you very tired, and also leave "parts" of your body aching.

enough of me. i am past the point of tiredness where you just fall asleep...i've moved on to the "i could jabber all night long if someone would listen to me....or even just pretend to listen" stage. i usually end up regretting that later on, loose lips sink ships, you know.

this is what makes me smile:
beautiful, invasive weeds. (gaillardia at the beach)

sitting here on the porch at the cottage, seeing people walk by...i keep wondering if these middle aged people with kids and bald spots are the same rowdy 20-somethings who used to tear down the beach road, piled into the backs of pick up trucks which, of course, had horns that played 'dixie.' is that lady in the tropical print mumu one of those girls who used to line up at the go-cart track to watch the guys race? did i see that elderly couple, who is now strolling down the path hand-in-hand, walking on the beach 20 years ago?
i guess people watching is not one of my favorite activities, but one that kinda just comes with the territory when you spend a lot of time on the front porch in the summer.

this is what makes me smile:
beach heritage.

(me & my sisters...circa 1987, in front of "the old cottage" Nags Head, NC)

Stephens: The Face of Pakistan's Courage - WSJ.com

Stephens: The Face of Pakistan's Courage - WSJ.com

this is what makes me thankful to live in the u.s. even with all the worst cases of religious intolerance and hatred there is here, we are still free to believe as we choose, and to speak out about our faith without fear of imprisonment or death. i know there are still hate crimes and even mass catastrophes that happen here because of differences in religious beliefs, but not at the hands of the government.
prayers are going up for all the followers of Christ who are being persecuted all over the world.

of course

i kept thinking of things to write about today. i'd be going about my daily activities and an idea would pop into my head..."yeah," i'd think, "i can talk about that in my blog post tonight!" i probably had at least 3 or 4 good prompts, and then i sat down to write....and don't you know i can't remember a single, stinking one of them? hahaa oh well.


i'm reading this book called The Help by Kathryn Stockett. i'm not sure how i feel about it. the book takes place in jackson, missippi in the 1960s. it's about an upper class white girl nick-named skeeter, and her distaste for the way african american workers (domestic workers in particular) were treated, and in a broader sense, racial inequality in general. the other two narrators of the book are maids who skeeter interviews for a book she's trying to write. 
i'm about half-way through. normally, i would have consumed a book of this length in a couple of days, but so far it's been a week. it's not a bad story, kind of depressing just because of the subject matter, but there are some light-hearted moments too, so it's not a continuous sob fest.
the narrators take turns, and when either of the maids is "speaking", the story is written in a heavy southern, poor, "black" dialect. not that it's something i particularly mind, except that, when the "speaker" is white, there is no dialect..even when the character has been said to "sound like she from so deep in the country she got corn growin in her shoes."
that kind of stereo type is rampant and hints of racism that goes deeper than that in the book. not that i'm necessarily calling the author racist...maybe just uneducated on not sounding like she is. or something.


soo, it's got me thinking that i'm thankful to have not been alive during the periods of slavery and racial segregation in this country. i'm not naive enough to think that there aren't still problems with this, we have definitely come a long way, though probably not far enough. i am sure that the majority of decent folk out there feel bad about our country's racially lopsided tendencies, and believe that if they had been alive during those times they would have done "the right thing." i like to believe that i would not have tolerated slavery...i got blasted in 11th grade AP US History, by my teacher, who said, "OF COURSE you would say that!" the rest of the embarrassing verbal spanking went something like this..who wants to admit that they would have just gone with the flow of what everyone was doing at the time? it's not acceptable now, but you would have believed differently 100 years ago. otherwise there wouldn't have been such widespread acceptance and practice slavery. my meek-ish reply was to tell him that i doubted Jesus would have approved of slavery in any time period, and since it is my goal to be like Him, i am sure i would not have either. AND ....if everyone just went with the flow, we would still have widespread slavery.  (then i think i went to the bathroom and cried, heheh.)


why is it that people are so unaccepting  of others who are different than "the majority"? i think about the settlers who came to this continent and took it over, disrespecting and mistreating the native peoples who were here long before "we" were...(and even THOSE peoples likely over took others who were here before THEY were), then how the irish immigrants were treated, and the swedes, and jewish people, and italians, and chinese, japanese, etc., etc., etc. and now with people flocking here from mexico being treated much the same way (only with less physical violence), low wages, lack of respect, hatred. :/  it just seems like a terrible cycle that repeats, and repeats, and only gets slightly less abhorrent each time it recurs.

Zechariah 7:9-10⁹ “This is what the LORD Almighty said: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. ¹⁰ Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other.’

 Leviticus (19:33-4):"And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself." 

well...this got a little deeper than i intended.

too much to say blah blah blahblahblaaaaaah

i think the reason i haven't been blogging the past few days is because i may have too much to say. 
i just don't know how to sort it all out so that it would make sense to someone reading it. i'm not always very good at explaining things, especially when it comes to myself and things i am thinking about or feeling.
or it could be that i just don't think anyone really wants to read it. 


i have been staying with my youngest sister for 2 weeks. the trip was originally supposed to be a 5 nighter. (which sounded long at the beginning!) last week, i decided to stay a few more days so that i could help her out a little and so that i could meet my bestest friend's brand spanking new little cutie wootie baby boy. we took a few days and visited the beach. i always love going there...always. then we drove back over here & when it was time to go home on sunday, i decided to stay another week. might as well. :) ...though i am missing out on the start of sweet corn season at home. and that was almost enough to convince me to go ahead and leave. PA corn is no joke. deeeeelicious. 


i stayed for selfish reasons,though at first they might not seem like selfish reasons. i wanted to help out, sure, but i don't often get to feel like i am being helpful, and i really like that feeling.  i wanted to be able to hug my sweet little niece some more, and hadn't quite gotten her to be able to say "amy"...so we still needed to work on that. also, how in the world is meeting an adorable newborn not selfish? like the baby cares if some lady he will probably only see a couple of times a year (if that!) comes to see him and say how stinking precious he is? he doesn't care that i held him for over an hour.. marveling at his full head of hair, his crazy cute elvish ears, how much he looks like his daddy. and trying to remember when my baby girl was that teeeeeny tiny. (she never was, on the outside!) she was such a cute little booger...her birth & that general time period in my life were in some ways the best experience of my life, and in others-the worst.

déjà vu... and to switch subjects before i get lost on my trip down memory lane, and forget i am even blogging..i get it a lot. most recently-when i highlighted & deleted "of being useful" after the word feeling in a sentence up there in the preceding paragraph. it's really weird. sometimes it is a fleeting feeling of familiarity, and sometimes it lasts a really long time...like hours. or more like briefer minutes long "sessions" continuously "happening" over a period of hours. some think it is a form of epilepsy. others link it to schizophrenia and other neurological disorders. i read somewhere that some researchers think it happens when one eye sends signals to the brain a fraction of a second slower than the other.  the "source" to beat all sources, wikipedia says,

The most likely explanation of déjà vu is that it is an anomaly of memory, giving the false impression that an experience is "being recalled," this may result from an overlap between the neurological systems responsible for short-term memory and those responsible for long-term memory (events which are perceived as being in the past). The events would be stored into memory before the conscious part of the brain even receives the information and processes it.

 i don't know why or how it happens, just that it is weird. but also sort of cool, in a freaky mcfreakerson kind of way.


ahh..i feel so productive now. i have managed to blog (have i ever mentioned that i really kind of hate using blog as a verb? i henceforth render it to only being used as a noun, at least as far as this blog is concerned.)...i have managed to write a blog entry about pretty much nothing. and i used a lot of words to do it. 


this is what makes me smile:
rememberies. ♥ 

even with the glare, it's still one of my favorites ever. :)

i don't really feel like blogging, and that irritates me. so, i am blogging. sort of. following you will find a number of my favorite quotes. mostly from c.s. lewis, with a sprinkling of others thrown in for a bit of variety.

• You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body. ~C. S. Lewis
• You can't get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me. ~C. S. Lewis
• Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. ~Dalai Lama
• Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil. ~C. S. Lewis
• Humor is mankind's greatest blessing. ~Mark Twain
• To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. ~ C. S. Lewis
• The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That's the deal.  ~ C. S. Lewis
• God, who foresaw your tribulation, has specially armed you to go through it, not without pain but without stain.~ C. S. Lewis
• Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm. ~Abraham Lincoln
• Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?  ~A. A. Milne
• I can't go back to yesterday - because I was a different person then. ~Lewis Carroll
• Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. ~ C. S. Lewis
• He that but looketh on a plate of ham and eggs to lust after it hath already committed breakfast with it in his heart. ~C. S. Lewis

 
this is what makes me smile:
everything about this photo.