"Texan Till I Die" that's a song title

I have too many interests. Mom and I are watching videos of Asleep at the Wheel and Bob Wills': Cherokee Maiden, Boogie Back to Texas, Route 66, San Antonio Rose, Steel Guitar Rag and Hot Rod Lincoln. It reshows me just how much I love this country singing country dancing culture and why would I want to leave? Dang I'm proud to be a Texan. Cowboy hats, ropers and beltbuckles on the streets, horses along the highways, rodeos, dance halls, and popular bars built of wood and rust. we don't snap like new york poets; it's toes tappin and two steppin to guitar pickers, fast fiddlers, skinny bass players and fat banjos twangers. I still think I want to leave for a little while and experience some other places in or out of the US- it's an itch. But I can't imagine not coming back here and I am going to gather every experience I can while I live here this year. Take me to Luchenbach. Take me to Austin. I want to go September 26 to the Austin City Limits Music Festival. Asleep at the Wheel is playing at noon and I'm really think I may get a sub- you can do that guiltlessly t[w][hr]ice a semester. Oh take me to a downtown dive for South Austin Jug Band accompanied by twilight sangria.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=8pZvCnjiAbI

"I am only one, but I am one." -J.R. Miller

I was looking for something specific but found it not. mostly because I got distracted by other ones. Ones about you know what- not the ones I was looking for. Either way, I enjoyed reading through them. It is strange to still be able to see two-year-old tear stains on journal pages and to read through life goals that are still just as blurry as they were then and through sin and temptation struggles that are still just as prevalent. On a lighter note, the same little things still excite me. And I have written the same three disney princess song lyrics at least five times in the last seven years and they still woo me and get stuck in my head just as much as they did when I was 17. I actually wrote some pretty deep stuff when I was in high school. Those journals are usually neat to look at. They alternate Jesus fanatic journal, boy-crazy journal, good research and lots of Bible studies journal, boy-crazy silly-girl journal, prayerful and thoughtful journal, day dreamer girl journal. It's like that merry-go-round in Caldwell city park; a different color on each slice of the ever spinning metal pie. Luckily I don't get nauseated. Almost all of the old ones are quite creative. I decorated the exteriors myself and filled them with colorful sketches and magazine clippings, and bold markers emphasize inspirational quotes or personal thoughts. 11th grade. "I am only one, but I am one." -J.R. Miller. me: I can't do everything, but I can do something; what I can do, I ought to do, and what I ought to do, I will do." I guess now would be a good time to go read The Purpose Driven Life, but I'm not going to. I can apply that thought to how I choose to approach working at camp this summer and, of course, to my teaching next year. I will not be able to do everything for all of my students. But I certainly have my place doing something and I ought to do that with all my might without expecting it of myself to do everything. I tend to expect that and then I end up feeling this guilt and inadequacy that is in every way detrimental to my actions, choices, and inner being related and unrelated to both- that is if you look at the subsequent actions and choices as results of the inner feelings. I can't determine whether the inner ones are conscious or subconscious, and I think they are purely neither but partly both. Certianly, I could do a better job of consciously choosing not to. Anyway. So I feel like a person about to be drawn and quartered between four Quarter horses. No, let's make one of them an Arabian. A white arabian horse with some ugandan name like Tito or Yuwer. Don't get me wrong, I am excited about teaching in Dallas and being here with my family this school year! I feel vonderful about it, but I don't think I want to stay here- do I? Tito pulls me to an unknown and uncomfortable place where I can live like mother Teresa and not care about men and being held by one or attended to emotionally. (honestly though I don't think i was programmed that way and i think that there is a reaso for that) Then there's Stanley, a brown Sorrel (solid colored light brown), he doesn't pull but just stands still and stubborn (more like a fat-butt mule)and holds me here in dallas for years to come and lills me into a semi-longing to find my niche in a little community and drink coffee with the same five people every morning for the next ten years. I fear that. Maybe some day this life will satisfy me- it sounds safe but do I want safe? After watching the movie, Into the Wild today, no, I don't want safe. But I'll feel differently tomorrow and differenter the day after that. If I have learned anything the last three months, it's how different my differently is from the differenter differents. Professor Higgins is half Thoroughbred. Those are tall, slim, English horses mostly used for racing. I want to move to england or scotland and be a tour guide in some city that sparks my creativity and artistry and love of tea and coffee and poetry and literature and Music. I would travel around and practice all those accents and meet people and wear my British caps and layer cardigans in the cold. I'd get lonely sooner than I think I would. Sometimes I crave-long-ache for a companion to make these decisions with. I've been reading Tolstoy's "Family Happiness" Part 1 Chapter 5, "He said to me, 'Now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor -- such is my idea of happiness. And then, on the top of all that, you for a mate, and children perhaps -- what more can the heart of man desire?' 'It should be enough,' I said." Sometimes, I don't mind the idea of being just me and exploring myself a little longer and serving God in a very different and less restrained way like Paul talks about in what, 1 Corinthians 7? I suppose it really doesn't matter what I want because companionship is not the decision of one person but of two and if the second party is not interested then you are alone no matter how cravey your consciously or subconsciously choose to be. My grandfather said the other day, that he doesn't understand love. That it comes up whether you want it to or not with a person that you want it to be there with or not and once you get it , you can't shake it off like nothing. It's like pullin all the fibers off a cotton seed or suckin all the cotton candy residue off your fingers then gettin the rest of it off of the roof of your mouth with your tongue. The first one will make your hands bleed and the second one is a plague of stickiness. I haven't told about the forth horse yet. She's a quarter horse and she tugs west. West. To an American, west doesn't mean just "west" it means frontier, discovery, and the uncomfortable unknown and adventure and probably a bit of a hard time. I KNOW i want adventure. I know that I know that what i am wanting is adventure. what the heck is adventure? well the truth is i am really not sure. i guess that it is something that i feel like i am not having right now. well what is that? certainty? I have been living in uncertainty for so long and I still felt this desire throught that. Is it to be out of Texas? is adventure in Santa Fe or in some Utah national park or ski resort. i see, it must be outdoors. yep. When i think of adventure i think of rock climbing and hiking boots and tank tops and highway 1 and tall trees on tall mountains and the cold pool at the base of a secluded waterfall and my bouldering pad laying on the ground next to my clothes by the water. I want to tent camp on the beach north of Bodega Bay, walk deep into the narrows in Zion Canyon till i'm too tired to walk all the way back but do it anyway, to hike into those hotsprings south of Vegas and try lead climbing on a eagle shaped rock in Yosemite, i want to kayak somewhere anywhere and watch horses canter over slopes where the wind makes the yellow grass look more like water to launch that kayak into, then make pottery in an old tshirt at night when the crickets are churping so loud that you cant hear the one and only car horn in the distance, surrounded by photos of people i love doing crazy things and sketches of odd things that I saw or thought up. I want to watch thunderstorms from someone elses covered porch and listen to stories to tell my students when I am an old teacher.
Can I do it all? I want to live several lives. I doubt I'll be drawn and quartered. Will i stay in this state of limbo for years to come? This year, maybe. Soon, one rope will yank me harder than the others and that is the direction i will go. a few years later, will i look back regretfully? Or will i be glad? Oh does it matter? I will be glad. And you're right, I do have a lot more life to live than I seem to think I do. Just don't strap myself down. I know this is going to sound completely different from what i just wrote and it is going to make it all sound so faithless and silly, but here's some John Wesley. Advice to self perhaps. "I found that the chief purpose of prayer in determining the will of God is to get my will in an unprejudiced state about the issue at hand. Then, when my will is unprejudiced, I find that God suggests reason to my mind concerning the proper course." Strap yourself not to a horse or a mule. Psalm 32:8-9.
please give me a comment on this one.

over the meadow and through the woods, a board game, and red skillet.

Dad and I just went on a 2 hour motorcycle ride. We drove north over the meadow and through the woods and beside the lake and upon the hills at dusk. It was wonderful. We talked about salvation and missions and lifegoals and reasonability of life goals and about men. and about how confusing women must be. Late last night, I sat out on the front porch with a bowl of cereal and rocked in the rocking bench while I watched a spectacular, cloud-muffled thunderstorm to my left. It was lovely; i treasured the time; i felt a little lonely, so i let the dog out to sit with me. I just beat Mom and Carter's tales at Monopoly. Which is more impressive than you think because I am usually horrible at strategy games. I sauteed squash and tomatoes that my grandma brought us from her garden. Yes, I sauteed tomatoes. It was good and I felt creative. Drank red wine while i did it. Rich, Smooth, and Oaky and as relaxing as a hot bath in goats milk surrounded by cinnamon cented candles with sequoia trees shadows and a doe or two outside the quadruple paned window.

I'm in Dallas. Sorting things out ^2. My foot is improving- MRI came back that I didn't tear those ligaments afterall. A pretty-darn-bad sprain and bone bruise. So I am still in the bigblackboot and I can walk around in it almost comfortably but still utilize the crutches for long distances. I'm heading to camp Saturday morning! El Gaupo just assigned me to the Arts and Crafts and Dance class mix, so I won't have to be juking campers or anything. I'm so glad! The thing about beinga chaos coordinator is that you dont get any-on-one time to get to know campers like counselors do, but with this activity class, I will get to be with girls everyday and get to know them a bit! I'm excited about that. So I'll pobably be in the boot for the first week or so and then i can move to the ankle brace which I'll be wearing for about four weeks. good good amen.

For now, though, I am in Dallas sorting. Oh I have a song stuck in my head. The Way I Am by Ingrid Michaelson. Go listen to it. Paige and Dan danced their first dance to it and it has successfully made me think. I am really pretty good at thinking on my own though. I just like songs and poems and quotes and such to prompt it.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=jJOzdLwvTHA

Longing to discover what I'm longing for

I am listening to the Women's Breakaway sermon from 2007 (again- you'd think I'd learn by now) and the speaker, Christy Nockles (sp?) is amazing. She tells me all these things that I know yet do not know about myself as a woman and when I hear it I get excited and cry at the same time. I'll quote her a little bit, "As women, inside of us is this longing- an insatiable need for validation, for adoration, for affirmation, for affection, for devotion. And we are like 'Where is that coming from?!'" So True. Wow. Where is it coming from? Should I seek it out? Where should I seek it? From a man or from God? God put these longings in us. We need to look to Him to meet the God needs. Later, she quotes Stacey Eldridge's discussion about women in relationships, (author of Captivating and wife of John Eldridge, author of Wild at Heart (which I have read actually)), "Women are plagued with the lie that we are too much and not enough all at the same time." Christy elaborates, "We think, I'm too much emotionally. I'm overbearing him. I'm too much AND Oh I'm not enough for him. He must not be satisfied with me. I'm not enough."
Wow is that true or what- oh how insightful. I guess that is why I cling so much to reassuring words and am so thrown by any negative ones, because I live in this fear and taunting of this confidence-killing lie even when I do receive the most encouraging and reassuring of compliments and gestures. I feel like I am not enough- not pretty enough, not funny or creative enough, not smart enough or compitant enough- mostly not pretty enough. Then, when I get upset about a negative word or lack of a supportive one, I feel like I am overbearingly emotional and should not say how I feel because I am incapable of just being normal for once and I should pretend to be fine because if I pretend, then maybe I will be... We need to know that we are "enough" for God and let Him be enough for us. Also, I think, we need to not be so self-centered that being self-satisfied is such a high priority. (not that a loving man should not understand this about women and offer her supportive loving words, because that is what loving men should do, but if a woman depends on those words to evaluate her worth, she will NOT be fullyfulfilled.)
Christy also talked about how In life, we have desires in us that are set there by a holy God- deep deep longings- and we have hopes and dreams for things like having a fulfilled life. Christy says that "Hope diferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life." I am misplacing my longings and putting them in things and persons that will never be able to fulfill them. Christy adds that, "By posturing our hearts to look to God to meet the God needs and acknowledging that He alone can meet them, we've positioned ourself for the next posture: fulfillment." I will never feel fulfilled if I keep chasing the things that I am chasing and longing for the things that I am stretching and reaching for. Psalm 38:9 "Oh Lord, All of my Longing is before you and even my sighing is not hidden from you." God sees every need, every disappointment, every hope deferred that caused us sickness, grief, or pain. We ask, Lord what are you doing with my life? Where am I going? Why have you put all these hopes and dreams in me? How do I quench this longing? I feel like I am stagnant, sitting still, and I don't know what to do with this. All my longing is before You.

Ps 107:9, Ps 145:16, Ps 38:9

If you want to listen to the sermon, make sure you listen to Women's Breakaway '07, not '08. '08 is good too, but pretty different.

I"m employed

I'm teaching US History to 11th graders at in Garland ISD/ NE Dallas.

They are the Naaman Rangers. The mascot looks like a hunter green Sarge!

First Varsity football game is August 29th!


NFHS is built on a 62.13 acre site, which backs up to a natural forest preserve on one side and can be seen through the trees from the George Bush Turnpike on the other side. Opened in 1988; 5A serving 2,521 students; actually named after a Bible character in 2 Kings 5 (An Assyrian general who is healed of leprosy). The principal is a Christian and so is the AP directly over me! He ended our phone conversatoin this morning with "Thanks and God Bless. Welcome to the Naaman family." Cool huh?

I report to work Wednesday, August 13. Not sure yet what day school starts. Whoop.

2 Corinthians 4:18 "So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

Spider House Coffee, Latin, and No Sangria

9:30 AM.I'm wearing that thrift store redbird shirt and the Haworth thrift store oldman plaid authentic british driving cap. Rings, bracelets, tasseled necklace, and dangly fair trade earrings. lipstick. my hair is pinned up inside the cap like Joan of Arc and I like it. I feel like I fit in here in Austin pretty well today. Most of the people here dress and talk artsy, paint and instrumentalize artsily. I like it but the life-style that tends to be the backbone of such liberal outward appearance deters me from wanting to live here. I wouldn't mind living near here and visiting town and the hills. Anyway, I am glad I'm here now- it's an all-day-seclude-Heather-in-a-foreign-coffeeshop Latin Work Day. (I was in town for Paige's wedding) My choice workshop location is the Spider House near downtown. Old death-purple wooden house half-hidden by trees with a three tiered patio and a bounty of sweet eugene-style antiques and ridiculus yard art, those 1970s fat colored christmas lights and chairs and tables of coordinating puke colors. I am settled in booth that must have started in a 1950s diner somewhere on the second patio with my bound foot elevated on an orange puke chair. halfway done with my undercooked cinnamon roll (i like them that way) and sipping an odd but good south american herbal tea late. I'll eat lunch here too. Had I company, I'd try their sangria at twilight. Oh I would love that. What a cool atmosphere. I should make up a new adjective to describe it. any suggestions? The day is heating up, I liked it best when the air was still dewey and brisk. Now for sweaty Latin. have a nice day.

I drew a big flower in my journal. half the petals were attached and half had been pulled off. It seems to me that the "he loves me. he loves me not. he loves me. he loves me not." petal-plucking game that girls play should be a thoughtful dream stage not a semi-annual reality sequence. I would rather heave one giant devoted breath at a dandelion to watch the one and only, first and last explosion of irreversible certainty than play a perpetual, callus-building, real-life, painful petal-plucking game.

Disney princesses: In the Little Mermaid, Ariel plays it before the Under the Sea song scene. In Beauty and the Beast, Belle sings, "I want adventure in the great wide somewhere. I want it more than I can tell..." as she sends a whole patchworth of dandelion seeds flying then twirls around encompassed by them and the wind in the pink twilight. I think it is a pretty scene. I watched it today.



Last summer, I sketched a bulbous dandelion head into one of my england journals. I had been reading poetry about the Lady of Ascolot (aurthurian legend character) who was compared to a "wild rose and meadow flower." I thought, "well, that is lovely and sounds awfully romantic, but i'm not that. I am more like a dandy lion, free spirited, adventurous, and soaring." I feel connected to those.

hey did you know that the word dandelion is actually from old french, Den de lion meaning "teeth of the lion" teeth= den as in dental.

I was flipping through England journals and found this pasted in one

I didn't write this. Nick Thorn did about a year ago and he emailed it to me while i was in englad. I was pleased to come upon it so I thought I'd copy and paste it here because I dont think Nick would mind. Nick, may I quote you?

"I have this weird fascination with windshield wipers. For some reason when driving and cars have their wipers on, it makes me chuckle. While driving back from St. Louis in May, it rained all the way from Texarkana to Dallas. Watching my wipers and those of other cars got me thinking. An ideal relationship would work like a set of windshield wipers on a car. There are two things working together to get one common goal accomplished. As the wipers rise up from the bottom of the windshield, the one on the passenger side moves water to the middle of the windshield, while the drivers side wiper moves water off of the car. When the drivers' side wiper comes down, it takes the water left by the passenger wiper down to the bottom. Each wiper has it's own identity and area to work on, but they work harmoniously together to accomplish the same goal: making sure you can see the road while driving. This analogy made me think of a Venn Diagram in math (you know the one with the circles that overlap in the middle?) Well, Venn Diagrams are like a relationship. You have person A and person B. For the two to relate, they need to have some things in common, but also must maintain their individual personalities. If there is too much in common (friends, co-workers, etc...) than there is no individual traits remaining to distinguish personalities. (Also, you could relate that as one circle overlaps another, there isn't equal control in the relationship thus someone becomes a control freak and dilutes the other's personality.)

I hope these make sense, because they make sense in my head but I needed to get them out and I figured you would appreciate them. Take care and be safe in England. Say "Howdy" to the queen for me :)

God bless,
Nick

I'd rather either blow really hard at the dandelion or put it in a vacuum and not look at it anymore. Pulling individual spores sounds less dramatic than it would be.

apples in pasta- pretty good actually

dinner was curious like normal. I have too many apples so I mixed them into yet another dish of butter and assorted white-cheesified pasta because when you are single, you have to eat from the same packages like 5 times before you run out. good for things that don't expire fast but bad for things like sandwich making stuff (i ate the same sandwich 6 days in a row until things started expiring). Anyway the apples were pretty good in there. I lined the rim of my green Aladdin and Jasmine childhood plate like a flower with the other half of the apple, crispy and cold. pogo hopped into the living room with it, since we don't have a table here, and iced my foot while I ate and finally watched Once. i like it. A very different kind of love story; not really a love story actually; something sort of love-like with a pretty different kind of ending. No, not "A lot like Love" or "Love Actually," neither of which I have seen. "Once," Aptly named.

ligaments and tendons

news is better than bad. Detached two ligaments around my ankle bone but those don't require surgery and should heal quickly- like 2-3 weeks they will be strong enough to walk with a little ankle brace. Tendons look promising, but he is not sure because it is still so inflamed. I had nearly convinced myself that that lump in my mid-leg was a bundle of snapped tendon(s) being that I felt two pops when I fell and it looked very weird, but he guesses that it is high swelling and blood that hasn't fallen down my leg yet because i have had compression on it constantly. So it wont surgery and 6 months to recoup like i feared. Ya'll should see how purple my leg is. the edges are fading into green now, but it truly looks like the aurora borealis on my leg running from toe to heel and heel to mid-leg and even rapping around to my arch oh and my toes are speckled purple and pink and so puffy it looked like a form of elephantitis for a few days. He'll look at it again next monday... for now i am in a snazzy boot that I can push a button on and it airs up like Nike Air Jordan tennis shoes except they don't help my running and jumping. still can't put pressure on it, so I'm on crutches for a while longer. I hitch rides from wesleyites when i'm running late. this boot is too big to keep wearing my prettifying ankle bracelets- I'll have to make one. He said I should be hopeful about being able to work at camp in 3 weeks(where my job description is to run around), but I probably shouldn't be the ultimate frisbee coach. haha. no juking and probably minimal spinning and landing jitt moves with impact on feet or bouldering for that matter (I messed it by falling while bouldering) for a while-alota-quite. So i don't know if my most recent performance was my last or if I can still get in a few in August. ultimately, good news- that and i didn't climb the route the way felix does because his head is below his body at one point and falling on that is oh just a little worse than your foot right?

Hymn 467: Trust and Obey for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey.

John 2:1-12. Jesus was at this wedding in Cana and they ran out of wine. oh no. So Mary, his mom, asked Jesus to take care of it. He initially said, "Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not come." She basically ignored him and told the servants to do whatever Jesus told them to do. He told them to fill several 20-30 gallon jars with water. So "They filled them to the brim." They obeyed unquestioningly. I'd say it is comparable to God telling Noah to build a boat on dry land. Would you not say, "What? We are out of WINE, yet you want us to fill these with water...?" They did not ask such questions, they just did it. Next, Jesus told them, "Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast." So "They took it." It doesn't say that they tested the drink, sniffed or investigated it, they just "took it." I'll elaborate on this later- i want to finish the story. After the servants brought out the wine, the master asked the bridegroom why he had kept the best wine for last, usually the good wine is served first and the poor wine last after everyone has been drinking for a while. haha.
Have the obedience of a servant with unflagging faith in his master. The servants at Cana just did what Jesus said, even though it made no sense and they didn't know why they were doing it. But they didn't care, they were selfless servants made to serve, ("You are not your own. You were bought with a price." 1 Corinth. 6:20.) Then Jesus turned the jars of water into wine! Need he perform miracles for me to believe in Him? When he tells you to do something, don't just do it, fill it to the brim because your faith is so steadfast, not just halfway as if buffering a hazard. As Pine Cove workers would say, "Bump the Lamp." Read James 1 about Faith. I have another example. Acts 8:26-40. Philip was not a literal servant to a master like the jar fillers, but he obeyed the command of the Angel of the Lord like a servant. God told him to "Rise and go to [this road in this desert]" without reason or explanation. The next sentence looks like those written about the servants at Cana and about David in 1 Samuel 23: 2-5 & 9-13 and 2 Samuel 5:19-20 and 23-25. "And he rose and went." Faith. When he was on the road he came upon a chariot. The Angel of the Lord said, "Go over and join this chariot." "So Philip ran to it." He ran. He didn't tiptoe around the chariot and investigate it to see if the guy in it looked shady or unsafe. He ran; that means he went without hesitation. The man in the chariot was reading the book of Isaiah, and asked him to explain the story to him; so Philip explained Isaiah's prophesies, shared the gospel, and baptized the guy. Cool! God used Philip because Philip was willing to make himself an unquestioning servant, obeying God's commands without hesitation or any need for logical explanation; and he did not wait for further preparation. As soon as God said "go," he went. Oswald Chambers writes to us on in the Feb. 20 devo of My Utmost for His Highest, "Dreaming about things to do them properly is right, but dreaming about them when you should be doing is wrong... Always beware of giving over to mere dreaming once God has spoken. Leave Him to be the source of all your joys and dreams and delights, and go out and obey what He has said. If you are in love, you do not sit down and dream about the one you love all the time, you go and do something for her; and that is what Jesus Christ expects us to do. Dreaming after God has spoken is an indication that we do not trust Him." Philip was not his own and he did not presume to live as if he was. This is what it is to live as a servant. We have to be willing to be used in seemingly odd and often times risky ways in order to be really used. Listen, trust, and obey.

Today I had a baseball surgically implanted in my ankle.

not really. So I was attacking this V.2 bouldering route on the rock wall at approx 8:30pm... I had worked my way up about 12 or 13 feet and had just finished a cross over and a practical split to the far left. My arms and legs were spread out like a jumping jack at an upward angle with my hands on an outward sloping lower lip. I reached straight up for the second from the last hold and I touched it but my hand slipped off as I initiated the grab and well, the falling through the air part was pretty fun, but I landed and collapsed onto my left foot. It hit the edged of the mat and slipped off to the floor rolling over quitalotabit. I thought I had broken it, but hey I didn't according the rec clinic dude. I may hit up a doctor tomorrow to be safe. right now, my foot is being iced and elevated on the couch armrest. I'm sleeping here tonight. Oh and I bought some snazzy crutches. I can swing pretty far on them which I guess is pretty cool. getting up early to swing to class. yay.

reading my blog

today i went back and read the things that i wrote about last june. i was excited. haha. particularly june 15. i wrote a little on there about me as a woman dressing up pretty and i cant decide if i am supporting or contradicting myself in what i wrote about that the other day. i think i go through stages. i'll probably write something completely different from both of those next june. i'm wearing makeup again and i think i'll wear a dress tomorrow. i get excited about the idea of wearing a dress. tehe i feel cute right now.

The Five Love Languages. I was thinking about it sitting in Poor Yoriks because thinking happens to me when I'm there

I'm doing good. I'm having fun this summer. Sometimes I run around and just live without thinking. Sometimes when I stop to think or think on accident, I think excitedly and sometimes disappointedly. I'm excited about being where I am right now and doing what I am doing right now and I am excited about whatever it is that is coming next. Wahoo. this is a portion of what I have learned so far: Relationships take careful attention and you can't just do what you want or say what you want or not say what you don't feel like saying. You have to think. Think about what the other person both needs to hear and needs to not hear. As for me, I didn't say enough. I have been thinking about this theory about five love languages. Different people give and receive love in different ways: Quality Time, Acts of Service, Words of Affirmation, Touch, and Gifts. Couples really need to be able to communicate with each other about what they are thinking and feeling and what their opinions and preferences and needs are pretty consistently- as in not for a while and then coasting for a few months. Coasting/ little effort= bad results. You have to understand how the other person receives and shows affection so that you can provide what he/she needs and understand the signals that he/she is giving you. If he receives love through Words of Affirmation, then once you recognize that he is giving affection in whatever way he gives it, then you ought to verbally recognize what he has done for you as a way of giving love to him. Does that make sense or does it just sound overly sappy? I didn't give enough of that. Dana gave me some examples back in May: one of her mom's primary love languages is Words of Aff. but Dana's dad is horrible with words and does not know how to express his feelings with them at all. His love language is mostly Acts of Service. He would love Mrs. Dana's Mom by washing her car for her, fixing things around the house, cooking dinner for her, and taking care of the kids. But she would cry sometimes saying, "He never tells me I'm beautiful. He seldom tells me he loves me. I don't feel loved." But all the while he is loving her so completely and she doesn't realize it. That must be a very weird, deep level of oblivious frustration. Likewise, he potentapossiprobably doesn't feel much of her affection when she gives him affirming words, but might complain that she doesn't take care of him as much as he would like to feel taken care of. Maybe he wants her to make him cookies or something, but she doesn't feel like she is loving him by Serving him in that way even though it is really what he needs to feel loved. People need to observe and communicate to figure these things out about each other and then, once each understands how the other person communicates affection, they can love each other, well, better; And sometimes, that is going to take sacrifices like baking even though that doesn't mean the same thing to the giver as it does to the receiver, and offering Affirming words to lift the other up and make him feel big manly needed and important, also it'll help with problems like not over giving and over giving till your exhausted and feel unappreciated or taken advantage of in an area that doesn't mean to that person what it means to you. That can make you frustrated when really, they just are not receiving the love signal that you are trying so hard to give and you might get burned out. Then again, he or she needs to see that the other is giving instead of letting them feel that way. No matter what you do, when you are receiving love, you cannot let it turn into an expectation. It is hard to keep offering love when your style of giving no longer thrills or blesses the relationship.
Not that those are "words from the wise," but that is what I have been thinking about lately and I think it makes good sense.
There's a Christian book about this called "The Five Love Languages." I have only talked to people who have read it, but I think I'll read and use it later.

wesley, hip-hop, and fake rocks. nothing deep.

It's what we've all been waiting for. They finally started the road construction outside of wesley. You walk out the door and feel like you are in a prison where ever you turn because the tall wire fences surround you. But a happy prison because hey, it's wesley. The wooden pickets on the far end of the parking lot have been bulldozed to create our new asphalt entrance and you have to drive through the catholic parking lot behind the subway to get to University Left.
Hip-hop is so fun. The instructor is a Fade-to-Black guy. I cannot figure out how he moves the way he does. I really want to be able to do something at least somewhat like that. It looks like there is so much freedom within him and he can just totally express himself and whatever he is feeling. But no matter how hard I try, I will just never be black. I got the routine down and it is pretty fun, but I don't think Fade to Black would let me on the team. Haha.
I rock climbed for while-alota-quite today. They set up a 12' boulder out the rec by the pool. It is pretty sweet. No marked routes and quite a few naturals. I topped out on it twice barefooted, but I couldn't do a natural only climb. I bouldered a bit on the other wall before I left and got the guys working it to teach me some new techniques. Then they let me help them close it up, which was interesting but if anybody knows me, they know I can do few things without screwing up some small thing along the way. So, of course, I didn't tie a rope tight enough when we were taking them down and one end feel with the other one caught up top. Oops. They were nice to me about it. They'll have to lead climb to get it in the morning. I'll be up there to meet up with Stephanie again tomorrow. Think I'm taking a lead climbing clinic in a few weeks.
Carter is a sophomore in high school as of today.
I'm very tired. The last few entries have not had the words "I think" in them. I'm tired.

I got chalk on the key board

Baty and I did legs and abs today but then I went rock climbing so I got arms and shoulders in too! I climbed with Stephanie. I like her. I think if now were two years ago and we were both her age, we would be good buds. I climbed two 5.9s and two 5.10s. There were two camo tape routes that I was working on in the cave before finals and I just couldn't get myself over the lip then, but today I got both on my first try! I mantled twice in a row and successfully utilized a heel hook. I was pretty proud of myself and am now oh so excited. I must confess that I did fall once toward the top out. Craggies are heading to the hill country to outdoor climb on Saturday. I'll be spinning in GRW 266 though for "that dirty bird" as Kyle Baily would call it. So my awesomely large trunked jetta wont be toting their bouldering pads.

I have an interview @ 2:00pm Monday with Garland ISD in NE Dallas suburbia.
And I got a job offer today from Spring ISD N Houston, but I don't think I'm going to take it. That might be a regretful move. I wish they would ask me later. But that's just how it goes. Prayer.

I want to go dancing.
My hiphop class was postponed to wednesday. sad me.
I'm going rock climbing with steph tomorrow. I found my gear. glad me.
Still working out daily. Like it alot. Baty is accompanying me tomorrow.
Spent two hours in starbucks today. Conversed with a Muslim and an unreligious guy that knows alot about alot of religions. interesting
I want to listen to a live band the next time I drink coffee. with dim lights. but I doubt I will.
I bought heavy whipping cream to try to replicate British coffee, still cant do it.
Went to wesley last night. max used me being murdered as an example in his sermon. we met in the lounge instead of the sanctuary and it made for a cozy atmosphere. live band there- i can take unbritish coffee with me there.
got an interview with Garland ISD in NE Dallas sometime next week. excited.
first test is tomorrow. ah.

In additoin to the Identity Misplacement entry (second half of a few entries back)

Women do enjoy dressing up. We play dress up when we are little girls then run up to daddy and ask, "do I look beautiful?!" and spin in a circle so that he can watch our skirt twirl. We spend a whole day getting ready for prom and ring dance and take our time to primp before dates. We like to dress up for ourselves and for that special guy and we crave to hear that "Yes, you look gorgeous." What men need to understand about women is that we want to give that- us fixing ourselves up for him- to him as a gift, not as if meeting a requirement. And it's unrealistic to expect it daily unless they want an uptight, stressed out woman. If it becomes a requirement, then we rebel against him, because whenever we comply to the unappreciated expectation, then eventually, we don't feel like we have something else to offer him to show him that we love him AND/OR we don't feel loved so we don't have as much of an inclination to love him by offering that effort to him. The ladder is probably the bigger issue. It doesn't exactly make us happy when we don't feel like what we are on the inside is adequate for us to deserve full love regardless of how we look on the outside. I don't know if all girls are this way, and and I don't imagine that the guy that I would want to be with would want a girl that was so totally concerned about her outer appearance that she doesn't care about how he views her heart, but I want my man to look inside my heart and be amazed (Bethany Dillon song "Beautiful") and for him to truly feel (not just say what he knows that I want to hear) but truly value me for my inner beauty second to nothing. And then, when I take the time to look prettier than he already thinks I look makeupless in a baggy tshirt and sweat pants, he will treasure that time and be glad that I love him to give that to him.

I want to see the movie, Once. I've been listening to the soundtrack and it plays my style of music. http://youtube.com/watch?v=qx8yLvb0gZM. You know how weird coincidences happen sometimes? I was writing the word, "Once," and Sleeping Beauty was playing on my i-Tunes and the prince sang, "I know you, I walked with you ONCE upon a dream..." at the same time that I wrote the word. I got an award at Wesley Formal ONCE for being "the most likely to marry a prince." They wrote it on a cookie cutter Christmas tree piece of construction paper. It's pinned to the top right corner of my big bright cluttered bulletin board.

Today I sat in the trunk of my car (which is big enough to fit two bouldering pads) and stared a bit of Baby's Breath (a little flower that I love- http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/wildseed/19/19.1.html) for a good twenty minutes. If I could climb on the roof, I would have gotten up there, but my car is not as tall as my jeep was and this house's roof is a little steep for my liking. If I can help it, I will never have a house with a roof too steep to lay on so that I can gaze at stars and watch racing clouds or to play a guitar assuming I ever finish learning how to play it. Aside from that, the Baby's Breath was pretty and the thinking was helpful.

So I was cleaning out my ears and I found a sequin in my right one; and identity misplacement

I found a sequin in my right ear today. Anyway, lunch experimentation today was creative. Sandwich: thin slice of honey ham, baby spinach, crisp pair slices, brie cheese on sour dough. I think it would be better on a sweeter bread, but it was pretty good-. the pear was better than just weird. Gala Apple, hard boiled-egg, pineapple orange juice and it filled me up. I signed up for Hip Hop and Latin Dance classes at the rec. exciting. I worked out again today. So I really like it: First the elliptical thingy, then to the mats to stretch every muscle I can think of, do 50 normal crunches, 20 side to sides, and a 20-second leg lift, from there weights followed by a second identical sequence of crunches, walk by the rock wall and talk to Stephanie, locker room, stink in class. I alternate days legs and abs vs. arms and back. Yep. It is funny how when you are treating your body right, it gives you a drive to do it more thoroughly- like getting a water refill instead of grabbing an 80cent Dr. Pepper on class break. working out= eating well. If you do one, then you crave doing the other. Anyway, we will see if this lasts.

Lately, I have been enjoying my cozy clothes wardrobe. Sometimes I'm creative about it, but sometimes I just wear a stinking tshirt and non matching adidas shorts with ballet shoes. It's great. Makeup has been minimal. I feel more confident in myself than I ever have honestly. It is really weird how that works. I could get into a philosphical discussion about it but I have reading today before bed. It's just- since high school, i have put a lot of value, too much value, in how I looked. I don't know if I got it from the media- i didn't read many of those silly girl magazines... or from school friends or what. But my identity was misplaced. Now I feel more secure in how I was made and in what is inside of me instead of my outward appearance. 1 samuel 16:7- "For the Lord doesn't see things the way you see them. People judge by the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." Seeing other people in this way is certainly something I am working on; and accepting that I am worth being viewed that way too is another thing I am working on. I don't ever want to go back and I am going to make a careful point to my future daughters (if I have those) and my students in my classroom that they too are more than an object for other people to enjoy looking at (Galatians 1:10 for the Christians) and that their personality and spirituality and gifts and talents and heart totally trump anything that anyone thinks about their outer shell or choice adornment (1 peter 3- do not let your adorning be external... but let your adornment be the hidden person of your heart) and if anyone tells them otherwise, I will advise them to ignore their comments and to not make close friends with that person because that isn't friendship love. You cant be close to someone that you dont care about their opinion/ respect what they think- so if you have to tune out what they say in order to hang out with them, then I wouldn't call that much of a relationship. Perspectives can change though. I pray for that.

My Aunt Karen and Uncle Roger took me to dinner tonight. The company was great- I'm sure they thought I talked too much. I just had a lot to say. I spend a lot of time alone- too much probably. I don't quite feel lonely yet. I will spend all day with wranglers on Saturday though. Will to Love workshop! Oh I'm excited. I'm not working out to look good- I'm working out because I want to be able to up and go and do anything because I am strong with good endurance.

If you want to see some interesting foreign photography, look at http://loretomonsalvec.blogspot.com/

while i cook

So i am having to figure out timing. last time i made pasta, it was with angel hair noodles and those cooked fast and this time it is penne pasta. That takes longer, of course. So my sauteed shrimp is sitting with a pan that is bigger than the pan that it is in on top of it. yes i just used that many i_ words in a row and you might have had to read it twice. So I am watching the penne boil and watching Shaun Groves music videos online. I would be testing out the food network but the architecture of this house is not so fortunately situated. Oh I am subleasing from a nice girl that I do know and living with her two interesting roommates that I dont know. I will get to know them but they both have tall boyfriends that live in town so I dont expect to get much of their attention. and I can't wear whatever i want around the house bcause they are here a lot. that's fine. ou I burned my pinky finger on the pasta that i was testing. eat.

That was pretty darn good. how exciting! I have left overs. I'm drinking some Awake Tea that I found in the Berkeley house while i was cleaning it out. Yep yep. now I am going to read my thrilling reading textbook. I am taking a class about reading. class: 8am-noon and 2:00-4:00 except fridays when the second on does not meet. It's sort of like a job. Speaking of jobs. I think I'm going to go ahead and apply to about 10 more schools. The economy is crazy and districts are 30to60 days behind in hiring. 13/23 of my Social Studies Teaching class do not have jobs and four more are "complicated." It was a little comforting to hear that I am not an outcast.

year old email cut and pasted

Heatherpaige to hooter10 (wayne)
show details 7/20/07 Reply

Lord, who is this man
who steals my thoughts,
teases my dreams,
and treasures me so?
Is my heart gullable and he just coaxing me? He coaxes me certainly but unless coaxing is wrong, do I mind?
I toss the idea of him around in my head
or rather pretend to toss it-- truly I cannot because my heart is most frustratingly constant.
I try to ignore it,
then I try to fight it,
and I can only do the latter.
now fighting does not mean winning and I wonder,
Who do I want to win it?
Him. I hope he wins.
Heather

"What you think about will be what you long for and what you long for will be what you chase after." Ben Stuart

"Hold every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ" 2 Corinthians 10:5

"Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks." Matthew 12:34

If you spend your time thinking about the Lord in daily Bible study and godly conversation in fellowship, He is what you will long for-for a relationship and for understanding of His scriptures and of Himself and for discernment of His will for your life-and when He is what you LONG for, really long for, you will chase after Him every chance you get!
On the otherhand, if you spend your time thinking on your jealousy, or the next time you can get drunk, or about how good you look, or how people view you/ your own reputation, or selfish ambition, or about sex or porn, these things you will chase after.

Check out Galatians 5:16-26 and then Ephesians 4:17-24. But dont think about it as longing for or chasing morality. Success in this area is not attained by longing to be righteouss, that is a mere side effect of thinking about/longing for/chasing after Him and a result of grace.

Pray "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." Psalm 139:23-4

cliff jumping, anti-drowning body surf practice, and MOTORCYCLING!

Today I hiked in the rain forest again, this time it rained while we were in there so it was more humid and more cool and the colors just seemed so much brighter. I really like it. We went to Waihamia Bay and cliff jumped off of a 30 foot rock into the blueblue ocean. That was pretty much amazing- did it over and over. Then we body surfed on the biggest waves I have ever been in for about an hour. We'd wait for a big wave (which were frequent), run with it and free style swim just as it broke over us and it would sweep us I don't know how dang many yards up the beach, giving sand abrasions along the way, then sucking us all the way back down to where we were swallowed by the next one. I learned that you have to get your feet under you as fast as you can between waves or else you will be sucked underneath the next one and whirled around in the sand and the salt and other bodies. When that happens, it feels like how the Little Mermaid looked when Ursula first gave her her legs deep under the water and she is fumbling trying to find which way is up and how the heck to get there. Happened to me twice- I was lost and upside down then sideways and sand swirls around me like a wet dust storm, actually, to make another disney comparison it is like Pocahontas when she is singing Colors of the Wind and the wind sweeps through her hair and it is everywhere around and above her head and in her face and full of dirt and leaves and small birds. Like that but I can't sing underwater, especially salt water. At one point, the sand went through my nose and I spat it out of my mouth from the back of my throat, my hair was everywhere and sand is sure to be falling out of it for days, then there is the bathing suit situation- it would awkwardly fill with sand and with the tossing of the wave and my uncontrollable rolling, I couldn't straighten it as soon as I would have liked. This was funny to watch happen to other people and then to sympathize with them laughingly afterward.
We= AmandaP Christi Brandon Blake Greg Stacey Laura Derek Emily. We road Harley motorcycles up there! EWWEEE! Honestly, I would have preferred to have been with my daddy, but the view was just beautiful. Driving the same roads int the little Tracker two days before was not even comparable. One moment will stand out in my memory for the rest of my life. Amanda was on Stacey's soft tail and I was on Greg's fatboy; we were on Highway 63 between two tunnels and after yelling and whooping through the tunnel with our arms spread wide like soaring birds we were launched out on the side of a lush green oddly shaped mountain over looking a dozen other ones like it and a deep valley with the blueblue ocean in the distance. The air was cool and misty on our faces and breathing never felt so good. It triggered all my senses but my taste buds. Selah.

Hawaii II

So yesterday was pretty much amazing here in paradise where mongoose run like squirrels. We rented a little 1996 convertible Geo Tracker for cheap and drove the full circumference of the island of Oahu with half a tank of gas. Amanda P, Steve, and Greg and me- we stuck the boys in the back seat for the first half of the trip because the trip was our idea. first, we hiked through a rainforest to a 200 foot waterfall. yea, we did. Thick, green, lush vegetation, bright flowers, exotic birds, a random bamboo forest along the way, and some GIANT vine-covered trees! Amanda and I climbed several trees- one that was not so tall, was a mass mess of multi-branch madnesss and we hopped around in there as if we were little chipmunks in a bush and dangled for some pictures. Another one had some tight thick vines on it so we acted out a video like we were being hunted by a velosiraptor (which Greg did an excellent impression of) and then we took off running and scampered up the tree fast as we could- quite entertaining. The third tree looked like the one in Furn Gully! If you have not seen Furn Gully, then go rent it now, because it is one of my favorite movies and if you love me, you will watch it. Anyway- It was magnificently tall and covered- like really I mean covered in layers of woody vines. So Amanda and I climbed about 60 feet into it and could see far and wide. I think we got a little more than halfway up it, high enough that my mother would have been panicked that I was climbing without a rope. When we got as high as we wanted, we pretended to be the kids in Jurassic Park when the long neck dinosaur sneezes on the girls face in the tree. It reminded me of that scene. And we considered going and getting the tracker and hoisting it parallel with the tree so that Amanda and I could reenact that scene where they run out of the tree and hit the ground just were the jeep doesn't crush them. But we didn't buy insurance on it, so we decided not to. Coming down, I could shimmy down the vines with my back to the trunk so that if I fell, it wouldn't be a deathly plummet. We were pretty proud of ourselves. Um, next, we visited several beaches, one of which had the clearest blue water I have eva seen. And the waves were bigger than the ones by our commercialized hotel zone so I could body surf a little bit by the shore and the waves would pull me back and forth and make me laugh. Ate fish n chips at a holeinthewall restaurant- which was quite good and had a very intellectual conversation there about a story on the wall. Onward to yet another beach- huge waves. Intimidatingly large. Greg and Steve swam out to an island because they're crazy in the head and I did not get into the water there because i am not as confident in my swimming skills as I am in my climbing skills. (I did enjoy snorkeling, but I'd say that I am a more terrestrial person than a water person). Instead, I played with hermit crabs and sea snails and while I did that, my purse was stolen. We spent the next hour trying to track down "a red honda with a fin" and filing a police report. As Amanda said to cheer me up, "we're playing detective, heather. Come on it's fun." It's a bit of a bummer but I am alright. I finally took some pictures, but my camera was in there along with my phone, wallet, blouse, and sunglasses. It was the rainbow colored Nepal bag. I really liked that bag. Fortunately, I did not have quite everything in my wallet and my keys weren't in there. I had to cancel credit cards though and I hope that they let me on the airplane without my DL. Oh well. So after that, we drove along the coast and watched surfers and found a good spot for cliff diving, but decided to go back monday because the rock was infested with jumpers since it was saturday. We stopped at the Dole plantation where I learned about hawaiian coffee and bought some for me and dad to try. That is Dole, like corporate fruit company Dole. We sampled pine apple and looked out how they are grown- very interesting. Also some cinnamon roasted macadamion nuts, heavenly. The largest maze in the world is there. I had deja vu when I looked at it, I'm certain I had a reoccurring dream of me in there with a gorilla once with I was a kid. We vacuumed the sand out of the car, split BIG crab legs and peeled shrimp, then paid as much to park the darn thing after hours as we did to rent it. We walked up and down the night streets and watched the street performers, gold and silver statue people, break dancers, incredible artists- spray painters, marker caricatures, and the charcoals portraitguy, magicians, musicians, my favorite was the steel drums player and band. It was fun. Since my wallet was stolen, I could not tip anybody, but I watched anyway. (there were only $6 in my wallet- I'm sure the thief was sorely disappointed. So glad my journal wasn't in it). We went to Senor Frogs. It was not as crazy as the one in Cancun, which I have not been to, but we had a lot of fun. I taught some people how to salsa and we push danced all night. today, we hiked to the top of an old volcano (but not dormant) and took some daring jitterbug pictures on the edge of the top. LONG walk, I have gotten my workout for the week I'm sure. Then we performed in the street. Tonight is fancy dinner and I am wearing a long pretty rust colored dress and soft ivory shawl with my Renaissance Festival sandals and orange eyeshadow. I'll feel pretty. Unfortunately, I am still biting my nails, so I can't make those look nice today. They got long, but then I did it again. Tomorrow, we are taking motorcycles up to north shore again. Whoop. Nick with Laura, Amanda with Stacey, and Me with Greg. Greg's been motorcycling for a while so I think we'll be alright. Although he is used to flat Texas roads and here we are on windy mountain roads in an unfamiliar place on an unfamiliar bike... Fortunately, I lost my phone so if mom reads this today, then she can't call me to try to convince me not to go.
I miss him but I'm okay.

on the wall in a holeinthewall hawaii cafe

There was an old story on the wall in a small town fish n chips cafe that taught me quite a bit. SO There was this badger that lived a little ways from a river. He owned two buckets which he would fill with water daily and carry back to his house on a stick across his shoulders, one on each side. Well, one of the buckets had a crack in it and leaked. Everyday when he got to his home, he had one full bucket and one half-full bucket to cook with. The perfect bucket was very proud to be so perfect. But the cracked bucket felt ashamed of his flaw. Well, one day, while they were down by the river, the cracked bucket confessed to the badger, "I am so ashamed of my flaw. Everyday, you come home with only a bucket and a half of water instead of two full ones because of me and I cannot do anything about it." The badger looked down at it and said, "Bucket, have you not seen the flowers that grow along your side of the path to my house and not the other? I knew of your crack, so I planted seeds along your side of the path and everyday, you water them for me as I walk. I gather them to decorate my table while I eat. They are beautiful and bring me joy. This that you perceive as an imperfection is wonderful to me."

Like it? I know that I have some imperfections. They are blessings from God and to God. He delights in my so-called "flaws" whether they are character, mental, physical, or emotional-related etc. And I should be confident in them. Some of them I should work on like timeliness and forgetfulness, although honestly I don't know that I will ever fully master either of those. We should all strive to be self-disciplined, but I need to remain secure in who God made me to be and not feel ashamed of any of my traits or wish to be any different from how I was made. I bet that some of my "inadequacies" are beautiful and purposeful in some way that I will never find out. Don't get me wrong, I am happy to be me and am pretty sure that I am more confident and free spirited about myself than some people are. If I were perfect, I would probably be cocky and that would not glorify God in the least bit and it would stand in the way of a lot of wonderful relationships that He has blessed me with. Jeremiah 9:23-25 says [Do not boast in your own abilities,possessions, or accomplishments] 'but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,' declares the LORD.

Hawaii

Look I'm on the internet. We got up at 4am Tuesday morning (after sleeping only 3 hours) to make our flight, which was 8 hours long, and when we got to Hawaii, it was mid afternoon. So we went to bed as soon as the sun went down because we were so tired. Then we woke up at 5am wide awake. So Amanda and I went down and watched the sunrise from the beach. It was lovely and peaceful and nice to make the first foot prints on the shore. Then we went out to Pearl Harbor. I cried there. The museum is really wonderful and we took at boat out to the USS Arizona Memorial. As a future history teacher, it is definitely good for me to have been places like that. I wish I would take pictures. I carried my camera around all day and I never take a darn one. I want to have pictures, it just never crosses my mind to pull it out. Oh we were funny!: we toured this old submarine at the harbor and Amanda, Liz, and I made funny videos inside. The first one I filmed Amanda being the captain onf the phone and were getting fired upon so i made the camera shake terrentially and then liz took off running and dove through one of the metal high doors. I dont how to describe that. it is neat to be in there, but i have absolutely no idea what I am looking at. I think that is okay with me- I doubt there i will ever know much about mechanical anything. I'll let someone else take of those things and I'll keep working on my sewing abilities. Next video: Amanda and I were steering the boyancy wheels and clicking buttons and liz made a loudspeaker noise and said we had a ship on radar. Amanda and I frantically turned the system into the "quiet mode" and and made an engine dying noise in our throats then said "shh, they wont see us. don't make a sound." then liz made a farting noise. We yelled, "oh no! we've been discovered!", scolded liz, and I ran to ready the torpedo launcher. Okay it was funny. I'm the other tourists thought we were pretty wierd. But the little hawaiian employee inside thought we were hilarious. If you're lucky, we'll put it on facebookvideos. anyway, The rest of the day Amanda and I spent collecting shells, investigating coral skeletons, and chasing crabs. There are no seagulls here- just lots of scrawny pigeons and strange mo hawked orange birds that I have taken a liking to. We watched some Hawaiian skim boarders and I really wanted to ask one to let me try- but I didn't. He would run and throw it, and then since the waves are a bit bigger than they are in Galveston, he would ride up on a close breaker and his body would go horizontal before he came back down to his feet. Amanda and I bought some cheap snorkeling equipment yesterday and swam around our beach then almost got hit by two catamarans.
Then today- we went to this amazing bay to snorkel. It is in an old valcano crater of which one side collapsed and filled with water to create a narrow mouthed bay. there is an old hawaiian legend- the way the mountain surrounds it, it looks like a big sleeping lizard from nose and eyes on one point, to a high ridged back, then a narrowing pointed tale to the other point. Apparently a King of old turned himself into the mountain to watch over his daughter who had also turned herself into a mountain to escape a long triangle between her and two renowned warriors. We swam pretty far out into the bay. In some places, the coral was so shallow that you had to suck in your belly to keep from hitting it. In some of those places,there was sea urchin in every crevice and you just had to pray that you didn't scuff one beacuse that would hurt. In other places it was fifty feet deep and the water was the most beautiful blue! I saw so many different kinds of fish I couldn't name them all even if I did know what they were called. purple, orange, yellow, black, blue, with striped and/or pokadotted assortments off varioius shades of all those! I swam up next to three sea turtles!! They were pretty much beautiful.
On land, the vegetation is crazy! Big fat rafiki (sp? lion king) trees covered in twizzler-like ivy. Tomorrow is the free day. Amanda and I are renting a little tracker for "28dolla" and heading to a rainforest to hike. (jurassic park was filimed on this island.) We picked a mountainous area on the map with a high water fall. I'll tell you about it later. She brought a book of hawaiian plants so that we know what we are looking at. We'll drive the full circumferance of Oahu and stop by the north shore where the really big waves come through. The waves are biggest in the winter time but they will still be bigger than Waikiki were we are now. Well, tonight we are roasting a pig on a pike so I need to go get out of this now dry bathing suite and get the salt out of my hair. Smiling.

FFH song "It's a Good Day"

How ever long our feet have walked on this world, we have all lived long enough to know that sometimes life will go our way and other times it wont.
But still I have this joy inside of me. With each new dawn I do believe to say,

"Hey it'a a good day even if things aren't going my way. Jesus is Lord and I am saved so, hey it's a good day."

Circumstance and situations change. You know life can turn on a dime. But there's a constant hope and peace that I have come to find. And it's all because of who God is. And that He is alive and I am His.

So, Hey it's a good day. Even if things aren't going my way. Jesus is Lord and I am saved so hey it's a good day.

We are all as happy as we make ou minds up to be. And I have just decided that nothing's gonna take this joy from me!

Hey- It's a good day.

Life Is Christ. everything else is just living.

I’ve been thinking about what I was thinking about yesterday. I want trials to persevere through. It has been said to me before, “well of course you love Jesus, you have no troubles in your life.” Okay, I believe that I would love Jesus even if He did make me the next Job. I am not requesting pain and suffering, no. But I was pondering Philippians 4:11b-14, “For I have learned in every situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.” Thank you, dear role model Paul. I have never been hungry and not been able to get food. I’ve never scrounged for clothing or not had a safe place to lay my head. I have never been persecuted aside from little discouragements and peer attacks (like no governments and jailers). What proof do I have to proclaim, “Lord, I trust you.”? No, I am not requesting a horrible trial. But I do need to use my current one to show Him what I think of His glory and confirm just how small the problems of the world are compared to Him: getting over my loss of companionship with Wayne and making faithful decisions about what to do next year (because it looks like it is changing) without going into freak out mode.

His sufficiency supersedes my deficiencies... if I let them. (aka: Your Grace is Enough)

I’m struggling with the adjustment. I have to be honest. I have up days and down days and up hours and down hours. Overall (but not quite overwhelmingly), my joy is in the Lord. I am content, more than content, really. Paraphrase 1 Thess. 5 and Phil 4: “Be joyful always and content in all circumstances, in times of plenty and times of lacking.” That is something I have always strived for and now I am just being challenged more than normal. My emotions seem to want to be haywire and I find myself wanting to wallow in my discomfort, whether God could console me fully or not. True: He brings me peace and comfort and I have occasional bursts of gladness in which I smile and dance around because His mercy astounds me and renews me continually. Then there are the times that I cry. and I feel dumb- what % of people in the world are starving and I am distraught because of romance deficiency. It’ll get better in time. Time.

More on what I wrote yesterday

I found another verse about following the straight and narrow path. It's Psalm 32:8. God says, "I will instruct you and teach you in the way that you should go. I will counsel you and watch over you." then he adds, "Do not be like the horse or mule which have no understanding but must be controlled by a bit and bridel or they will not come to you." God has given us free will. He will direct us in the way that we should go if we will look to him and let him guide us. A horse is impatient and would run ahead of his master so a bit has to hold him back. A mule is complacent and would often sit still if its master didn't tug and pull on his face to make him move. God does not want to do either of these. he wants us to choose to follow him. He says, "if you love me, you will follow my commandments. That is how I know that you love me." And not only following his morality commandments,He says also that "Anything that is not done by faith is sin." Romans 14:23. Faithfully follow his path without swerving or getting ahead of Him like a horse or lagging behind him like some old mule.
When we do get selfish though, and choose to love ourselves more than we love Christ (represented by the swerving on my map from the previous post). He gives us comforting scripture like All of Psalm 32 which is about forgiveness and Psalm 51 which is about renewal. And He reminds us, Psalm 103:12, "as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us." (Also a very cool song by Casting Crowns.)

The Gift of Singleness

So I'm single now by the way. As of two days ago, a seven month date is over.
I listened to a Breakaway sermon titled "The Gift of Singleness" while I drove to H-town yesterday and that was exceedingly helpful in steering me in the right direction. As exciting as it half-way sounds, I don't think plunging into the world of casual dating is a very wise or healthy idea and the sermon finalized that for me. Ben talked about how we can serve God as a single person in so many awesome ways that married people just cant. He referred to dating and marriage as a distraction from serving God fully because we have to monitor and cherish that person and can't up and go to Starbucks or Thailand anytime you want when you are married and much less when you have children. The first half of your life, you are intended to serve him as a single person focusing on Him, and the second half, most of us are intended to serve him alongside a spouse. Anyway,
I was sitting on the floor at Barnes and Noble today reading "When God Writes your Love Story" by the Eric and Leslie Ludy and had some nifty thoughts. Thought I'd jot em down here.
Leslie wrote about how it is important to save ourselves not only physically but emotionally for our husbands and how dating multiple guys because we feel like it damages our hearts. I would rather give my heart to Jesus for now and then offer it unblemished to my husband when it comes time for me to give it to him. Leslie quoted this admirable chick, "As for guys pursuing me for temporary relationships, my attitude is 'I'm already taken.' Until God brings my future husband along and I know it's him, I'm not available." p. 118. So I pondered that a bit. And prayed that God would repair me and prepare me between now and then for that time; and based on the damage build-up, I think my heart might need a little more time than my on-and-off-eager, lonesome human self was hoping for. So let me verify that my hope is in the Lord, my comforter and protector, and I do not need to invest in a man in order to attain joy. I don't need a series of unnecessary relationships like our culture tells us we do. Aside from the damage that it causes, it is just not a wise way to spend my time- no God's time- (Ephesians 5:15-16 "Look carefully how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of your time.") because my purpose is to further his kingdom. (Matthew 6:33 "But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.") I will further his kingdom and follow Him with my whole heart as one single person until the time comes (God's timing) that I can serve him better as one with someone else. And I am praying for the same thing for my husband (if he exists).
I heard someone talking once about God's people having different callings and purposes and niches in different stages of our lives. What God called me to do when I was 15 versus what he calls me to do now and what he will call me to when I am 55 are very different. He will prepare us to serve him where he wants to plant us and then he will put in us the new desire and longing to serve there and grow where we are planted each time. I realized as I read today that my calling is to be a guide and mentor for young girls! I bought the book today, not because I want to read it again, but because I want to be able to share it with the girls that I work with next year. Next year I will be teaching high school and possibly coaching too. I want to lead a group of young girls at church in Bible Study or accountability groups and be involved in their lives. I have thought about this for a while, but as I read today about the heart of a woman and about protecting it, I felt this desire to help and guide these young girls just burst within me and I leaped and bounced and danced at the thought of it! THEN I realized, hey I'm working at the 8th and 9th grade camp at Pine Cove this summer! WOW! God really has intricately, purposely and purposefully placed me there this summer and now, after he already set it up for me, I realize a bit about why. I did not go get a camp application and bubble in the jobs that I might be interested in doing. Nope. I called and told them I could come and then they called me with an assigned spot (to learn more about that process, read previous excited blog). So I am stoked. I was thinking also...I am not God and I am not skilled to understand what God has willed and God has planned (Aaron Shust haha), but
even I can see that I will be able to serve these young women so much better as a single woman, not as a married one. And so sets in the fact that I probably wont be meeting Mr. Right at Pine Cove this summer... okay. I am excited about this. This is good. A blessing. In the meantime, I am guarding my heart and letting God prepare it to love and be loved by an amazing man when the next stage of my life starts. I anticipate that it will be a while before I am repaired and prepared to start that second half of my life as a married servant of Christ. So God, help me to be content and joyful and joyfully content in my singleness until I am found by him! I know I will struggle and be lonely and tempted, but Lord help me to 1 Corinthians 10:13 like you promised and to come through strong and beautified!

Another quote from Leslie: "It's time to allow God to mold you into His likeness. As we let God have His way, we will be transformed into a princess of true purity." So I responded, "Yah! Let's Go!"

"A woman's heart should be so hidden in the Lord that a man has to seek God in order find her."

A man's way should be so committed to the Lord that a woman would have to be hidden in God in order to catch his eye.

Newest Member of the Pine Cove Timbers Staff 2008!

I just found out that I am working at Pine Cove again this summer and I am so super exicited! It is a total God thing-
I was looking at my calendar and my summer classes end abut halfway throught the summer. So I prayed that God would put me to use and direct me where to serve him during those extra weeks. And THE NEXT DAY, I woke up and thought, 'hey i think I'll call Pine Cove and tell them I'm here if they need me." I didn't expect much because they have already finished all their hiring, but I knew that sometimes something goes crazy and someone gets a snake bite or gets sick or quits at the last minute So I told SnickerSnoodle that she could throw my name into a hat and put it if they need me to fill in for a week or two. So she said sure and sent out a little email about me to camp directors. Well, THAT HOUR a girl that was supposed to work at the 8th and 9th grade camp called Elgapo and quit- said she couldn't come after all, that she was really sorry and wasn't coming. So Elgapo was about to have to scramble through extra late interviews to find someone to replace her when he recieved the email about me. So he called me immediately and started scoping me out. I was so excited all day yesterday, my legs were shaking and bouncing in class- then he called me and offered me the job this morning. So I am working the whole second summer session on Chaos: kitchen crew, programs and skit staff, and runner at the Timbers Camp! It is so crazy that this was not even in my head 2 days ago and now it is happening. I am super mega excited! God is so good. He's quick. I really need the lift before I go into career mode too.

Don't whoop on New Years in Austin or you might be pushed off a cliff

This rates in the Most Spontaneous Things I've Ever Done List.
Wayne said he was going to Austin for new years. And I missed him too much. So I just decided at about 5:30pm on the 31st to drive to Austin. Packed in 20 minutes and got to downtown Austin by 9:45pm. Stopped once filled up on gas while I emptied my bladder then scholtzkied a drive-thru. We found eachother at 6th and Congress St with Brent, Beau, and Rachel and dilly-dallied back to the car. Next, we hiked up a hill with flashlights, blankets and fruitcake to watch all the lovely fireworks. Don't worry, we whooped quietly so we didn't get pushed off the cliff. Not 10 minutes after the midnight kiss (which was brief because I'm probably contageous), we hightailed it back to Brent's appartment before the drunks left their parties. All my clothes got wet because I let the shower hit the floor- arrg - I slept in Brents room and all the boys slept in the soon-to-be-furnished living room. Got up and scrambled eggs my way then Wayne and I spent the day together in his new sports coat. First, we took pictures around the capital and wondered around downtown in the daytime. Lots of 11-hr-old decorations and streamers still around. All the restaurants were closed for new years AND we couldn't find a bathroom. BUT Guess what we found! We slipped into an AMAZING beautiful Driskel hotel lobby on our bathroom hunt and found a nifty hotel cafe. So we ate soupysoup and pecan pie with the third best gourmet coffee I have ever had. I sipped it and had to close my eyes because it felt so good to have it in my mouth that I could not take in the lovely scene at the sametime for overwhelmtion. After that, we drove to Barton Springs (where people were swimming!) and hiked all around the tributary then back around it again and took pictures there too. Then i went back to dallas and he went back to houston. I'll see him again Friday. Can't wait. Laura K. said we are the greatest thing since sliced bread.






It's grandmother's birthday. Happy Birthday Grandmother.

An agnostic musician's explanation of life

This is how it works
you're young until you're not
you love until you don't
you try until you can't
you laugh until you cry
you cry until you laugh
and everyone must breath until their dying breathe
Note this is how it works
you appear inside yourself
you take the things you like
then try to love the things you took
and then you take that love you made
and stick it into someone else's heart
pumpin someone else's blood
and walkin arm and arm
and hope it don't get hard
and even if it does,
you just do it all again.

What do you think about that?

about evangelism

"The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest." Matthew 9:37 and Luke 10.

Danken Heist Uber Schleiten (To Think Means To Go Beyond)

You know the old saying, you reap what you sow...

This is a cool quote about it. It's a chain reaction:

Sow a thought, reap an action.
sow an action, reap a habit.
sow a habit, reap a character.
sow a character, reap a destiny.
-Samuel Smiles

And I thought, so, Shakespeare's Macbeth actually taught us something. Macbeth let the THOUGHT of killing the King turn into an ACTION, then the act of killing people became a HABIT and he killed lots of people, then he grew a destructive (and self-destructive) CHARACTER which inevitably brought his bloody DESTINY. Of course this is a little extreme but it also applies to other things like drugs, alcoholism, pornography, and smaller things like gossip and laziness.

I worked backwards. 1) My Destiny: I want to have a destiny where God says, "Well done good and faithful servant." Matthew 25. Not "Dang, I wish you had chosen to live a little differently." 2) So in order to have that Destiny, I need to have the Character of a godly woman. 3) In order for me to be a godly woman, I really need to have good Habits. 4) If I want to have good Habits, then obviously, I need to Act accordingly. 5) and in order to control my Actions, I need to keep my mind and my Thoughts on godly things because I am far less likely to Act on something or say something that I have not Thought about. So the goal is to "hold every thought captive." 2 Corinthians 10:5 and Philippians 4:8.
Back to Matthew 25, after He says, "Well done good and faithful servant", he says, "You have been faithful over a few things, now I will put you over many things." One of the "few things" that He first puts us in charge of is our own self-control and if we are faithful with that little thing, then He will put us over greater things like mentorship or mission work or whatever He has planned for each us. If we can not prove faithful with something small and personal like that, then why would He put us over His flock? We have to prove faithful with the little things He gives us now so that He will trust us to give us bigger roles in furthering His kingdom later. It is impossible to be perfect all the time. We are human and He wouldn't give us forgineness if He didn't know that. Still it is good to bare in mind that He has instructed us to be faithful. So we try. Jesus says, "If you love me, you will follow my commandments." So not following Him is straighout saying, I dont love you more than myself and I don't trust you that you can satisfy me fully. When we take our pleasure into our own hands, we must be breaking God's heart. He is a jealous God and that is something to be jealous of. (read 1 John 2)
I want to grow to my full potential for God so that He can use me without the disruption of selfish sin NOW OR LATER/ LATER THEREFORE NOW with the chain reaciton thing.
In order to be who He wants you to be later, you have to choose what you think now. "Hold every thought captive."

Galatians 6:7-9
"Whatever a man sews, that he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap cottuption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eiternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap if we do not give up."

Music Survey

1. What is music? (your personal definition) Music is an enthusiasticizing conglomeration of notes sent as soundwaves from various instruments or vocal chords to our ears to be enjoyed. Sometimes it relaxes, sometime it stirs us to dance, sometimes we make it and offer it as worship to God and sometimes when we are offering it to Him, we dance too.

Happy Thanksgiving. I'm at Grandmother and Grandaddy's in Abilene, TX. It was sleeting outside! Now it snowing outside. Sweet tea and pumpkin pie.
later...5 inches. and a snowman with a baby carrot nose from the fridge and packing peanuts for eyes, hair, and a smile.

sitting in starbucks transposed journal entry

I am sitting at my little starbucks table with a low hanging light over my head. I just got out of my Bible Study Group and now am reviewing for the GRE.
Two history teachers (male) share my bench to the right and discuss lecturing and handling students. I might be a teacher someday. A woman only a few years older than me is sitting with her six month old daughter by the big window to my left. She is infatuated with that baby; she loves her. Look at them play together. Look at how she gazes at her. Look at how much she values this time she is spending with her. I might be a mother some day.
The low hanging light over my head is like God. No matter what is happening with the teaching career or with motherhood on my left and right, I am still sitting immobile under Him.
Both parties left at the same time.
I think I will not throw this GRE study book at the wall and I will continue to refrain from premarital sex.
Discernment.


Not fully related to the post, but I'm sticking this here anyway:

I did a wonderful Bible study right after my accountability group met this morning. I read
1 Peter 2:22
LOVE ONE ANOTHER EARNESTLY with a pure heart
Matt 9:37
PRAY EARNESTLY to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the harvest.
Romans 12:11ish
NEVER BE LACKING IN ZEAL. BE FERVENT in spirit, serving the Lord.

I miss Laura.

I miss my Laura. Too read about Laura Joost's stay in France (she is teaching there for 9 months) go to http://laurasinfrance.blogspot.com/

Little bro

Carter and I worked with horses at Pine Cove together last weekend. What an awesome experience for both of us. I hope we get to do it again. He is coming here next weekend. He says he is craving Aggieland. I said duh. I'm taking him out dancing at Harry's- I'm so excited! I've been wanting him to come see what I do for fun here and to exprerience Texas Honkytonk. And, of course, to dance with me.

Autumn

It is Autumn! I had my first pumpkin spice latte two days ago and hung some fall decor on my front door. The leaves on the trees in my yard are turning red and yellow. Today, I was straightening up my room when my ears heard an abrupt downpour. I opened the blinds all the way and it was so neat to see the rain ripping the straggling leaves out of the trees like snow! That only lasted for a few minutes and I knew it would so I watched intently joyful.

About Planning

James 4:13-16 Semi-Paraphrased
Come now you who [make your own plans], yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring... Instead you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this and that." As it is, you boast in your arrogance and that is evil.

Proverbs 19:21
Many are the plans in the minds of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.

Romans 9:16
So it depends not on human will or exertion but on the Lord who has mercy.

And the Clincher: Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans to prosper you not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.

I'm in Texas

That was a crazy rapid adjustment. My brain and whatever subconscious emotional thing had trouble catching up with my body in the rush into school and country change plus intense amount of dancing with high expectations and the other stuff that's going on all within what 5 days. I'm recovered now though. I just had to sit down and breathe. I'm very happy to be back.