Living the Questions

i haven't written in awhile. i started a post about how this year has been so full of the unexpected, so full of the spectrum of life, ebbing and flowing from joy to sadness, from fear to peace, and back again. the post was complete with pictures of the happenings of 2011 so far...which has by far been, and will continue to be, a year full of changes i never expected (but have mostly welcomed, nonetheless). i never finished it. it's still sitting in draft mode. instead, i want to write about the many thoughts i'm processing. i am, however, finding it more difficult to express them than i originally considered.  so i guess i'll go with one. about a week ago i started listening to the series andy stanley did at northpoint earlier this year for singles called the new rules for love, sex, and dating (and, by the way, kudos to him for preaching an entire 4 week series focused solely on the single and dating people, rather than a series on marriage and devoting one week to ...

i just had the inexplicable desire for christmas. and i love summer and fall...there's no way i want to skip over them! hmmm......

i discovered a couple weeks ago that i'm a rockstar at meeting the page length requirement for papers.....unless the paper has to be about me. all semester long, i've written book reports and lesson plans and research papers and so on. every single one of them was way beyond the required length. some to the point of spending hours just cutting stuff out while still making the paper sound good. this past thursday i had a paper due -- a personal evaluation of my field experience this semester. it only had to be 3-4 pages long. going into it, i thought it would be a breeze....tha'ts nothing. y'all. it took me forever to write those three pages. i didn't think i would ever finish, or make it to three pages. but then, i had a final due two days later, and i could not for the life of me keep it to the required page length. one page per answer....i averaged one and a half. goodness. i hope i don't have many of those personal papers to write...they might kill me! i...

now that i've watched most of the 20 hours or so of the wedding coverage i taped, i felt the need to do a little (maybe?) blog post about it :) first of all, the watching the crowds was fun....they were so excited! it made me wish i could have been there to feel the electricity and experience the atmosphere in person. people from all over the world coming together to celebrate love, a new beginning, restoring that which was lost. a true community feeling took over on friday. it wasn't just a wedding, but a time to come together as a people. we were part of something. something that wasn't terrible or heartbreaking, but wonderful and joyful. i loved the anticipation surrounding catherine's dress. what will it look like? modern? traditional? who will design it? finally seeing the dress did not disappoint. she looked stunning. the dress was simple and elegant, and both traditional and modern. not over the top, but definitely a dress for a princess. in fact, nothing was o...

we're doing an autobiography project in class. one of the pieces of the project is where the kids talk about their future goals: will they go to college? where? if not, why? what do you want to do? why? etc. they also have to write about their life when they are 30. what will they be doing? will they be married and have kids? what will their job be? they were writing them today, and i thoroughly enjoyed reading them, so i thought i would share some of the things they wrote or said. "i want to be a lawyer. because i like being all up in everyone's business all the time. and i want to be on tv. the show will be called 'judge bs'." (said by a girl whose initials are l. b-s.) "i'm going to be a pro soccer player. but when i'm 30 i'm going to work at McDonald's because my soccer career will be over." kid: what do you go to college for if you want to work at ruby tuesday? me: well, what do you want to do at ruby tuesday? kid: be ...

videi watched this video this afternoon, and it was so wonderful, i wanted to share! this is also the first time i've figured out how to include a video in a post, so i hope it works :) made me teary :) and here's a quote i read the other day. it's from a sermon given by george w. truett in 1920: God does not raise up a nation to go strutting selfishly, forgetful of the high interests of humanity. national selfishness leads to destruction as truly as does individual selfishness. nations can no more live to themselves than can individuals. humanity is bound up together in the big bundle of life. the world is now one big neighborhood. there are no longer any hermit nations. national isolation is no longer possible in the earth. the markets of the world instantly register every commercial change. an earthquake in asia is at once registered in washington city. the people on one side of the world may not dare be indifferent to the people on the other side. every man of...

update: all that's left of this to-do list is taking test #2 and correcting the research paper! as a lover of to-do lists, i thought i might make one for the next two weeks. take internet class test 1 -- done!! write a lesson plan -- done!! write a paper about said lesson plan -- done!! write a research paper -- done!! turn research paper in to an analyzing website -- done!! correct said paper, then turn in to professor read about 200 pages for internet class -- done!! take internet class test 2 do laundry -- done (thanks to my mom, who took all the laundry in the house to the laundromat when the dryer broke)!! finish cleaning -- done!! pack -- done!! travel to new orleans and back -- done!! other things i can't remember b/c i don't know where my calendar is at the moment... not. go. crazy. remember to smile :)