Spaghetti: Inside the mind of women

I sit down in the big read thrown centered in the living room. My eyes climb up to the top of the fireplace mantel. On one side is a plastic tree with white flowers and grapes sticking out of it...

Grapes. Oh my goodness aren't there grapes in Veggie Tales? Oh yeah cuz of The Grapes Of Math. Or was it Wrath...? Dad gave me that book about the dude who made veggie tales. uh... oh! "Me, Myself, and Bob." That is a humorous title i think. Hmmm... books... writing.. crap my journal. I have to finish it before school starts. 100 pages. UGH!! poo. I so don't feel like writing that much. Aww Jo's letter for my birthday was so sweet. I still haven't met her brother Nathan. He has a deep voice over the phone - not that I've talked to him, but Jo was in his room when she called me that time when I was walking around my stoner neighborhood with Becca. I was trying to be a photographer that day... Brett's photography is really good. I love that picture of my baby cousin Caleb. He's got his little puppy.... so sweet. I think if I had a baby I would name him Noah. Cuz of Noah from The Notebook and Noah from the Bible. I think my son should wear flannel shirts. OH MY GOSH! There was that guy at Chick-fil-A who wasn't even wearing a flannel shirt but Dani and I knew he needed one. To go with that beard. In the new Harry Potter movie they say Harry grew stubble. I saw nothing of the sort.

There is a book called "The Truth About Guys" by Chad Eastham. An amazing book I must say. It talks about how women's minds are like spaghetti and guys minds are like waffles. Women's thoughts all run together and connect to a thousand other things. Guys thoughts are supposed to be very boxy... or something like that... Will someone please explain to me, because I didn't find the book very clear on that side.

Navy Blue Heavens

We stir up the skies
Watch the stars bustle round
I ask for my own
And one plummets down

Lights hung above
In a string all aglow
This time is stood still
No push and no go

Beneath is the river
A mirror to the Blue
I smile quite slightly
And can only think of you

You know how I laugh
You know how I smile
You’d do anything for me
Seeing you is worthwhile

The stars my eyes
The green grass at my feet
The Navy Blue Heavens
Make everything sweet

Poetry

Happy Comatose

The birthday clock
Ticking ever nearer
Joy shoots down my spine
And the anticipation is clearer.

Another year
My life with take
Another sunrise
Another cake

With friends and family
Near and close
A smile is stuck
In a happy comatose

Wisdom and knowledge
Love and learning
I accept these things
A desire burning

To grow and become stronger
A woman respected
I want to change the world
And be a woman affected

Soundtrack of my Life

I had some inspiration to make a soundtrack of my life. Its a little bit of upbeat, slow, chill, and stuff that just makes me want to walk around in the sunshine.

Ubuntu: We are connected

Tonight as I sat in front of the computer, the lights and pages flashing by my eyes, I watched YouTube video's for the Love146 organization. The entire time, my heart was crying out for the little girls on the other side of the world, that I so desperately wanted to comfort and hold. Love146 is an organization to end child sex slavery and exploitation. There is a group called the Brothel that sells and buys woman, in this case young girls often under the age or 12 years into sex slavery- Child Sex Trafficking.

I was watching a video with Rob Morris, the co-founder and president, talking about how we don't get involved in something unless it affects us personally. We don't get involved with cancer support until a family member is diagnosed. We don't get involved in AIDS until a friend has it.

So how do we personally engage with the problem of child trafficking and exploitation? There is an African word called "Ubuntu." It means that we as the human race are all connected. What happens to one happens to all. When one suffers, we all suffer. In the book of Hebrews, God tells us to engage by imagining if we were the ones suffering.

Rob Morris personally engaged when he went under cover with investigators into the Brothel. He stood behind a glass window and saw all of the little girls being sold. Human beings... being sold. He says that while he was there he thought, "This could be my daughter," and then thought, "This is someones daughter."

So I encourage you now to personally engage. Imagine if you were sold every day to "clients," you were stripped of your name and replaced with a number, and you had no were to run tonight. Go to Love146.com and get involved. Donate, watch videos, and promote the abolition of Child Sex Slavery.

Here are the links to the videos and site:

http://www.love146.org/pages/page.asp?page_id=21460
http://www.love146.org/pages/page.asp?page_id=35962
http://www.youtube.com/user/Justice4Children#play/uploads/6/eqUjzO1R2oM
http://www.youtube.com/user/Justice4Children#play/uploads/0/d_MyUKFEgMc

I Knooow A Seeecret

Have you ever heard of Rebekah in the bible? Well, Rebekah knew all the answers of attraction over 4,000 years ago. Today I was reading an article in Susie Magazine called "How Do I Attract A Good Christian Guy?" Well to be honest, this secret it is the most simple answer that we complex women never thought to think of. To find a Godly guy, we have to be a Godly girl. Duh. I mean, why didn't I think of that sooner?

Rebekah was said to have the most rare beauty ever. As in super model beautiful and just plain drop dead gorgeous. But she didn't worry about if her make up was just right and if he outfit looked cute enough when she went to town. In fact, she really didn't worry about that stuff at all. Rebekah consumed herself in God's love, His Word, and serving the hurt and lost. She focused on building her inner beauty rather than her outer beauty.

So here are some of the thoughts from the author of "How Do I Attract A Good Christian Guy," Daniel Darling, that Rebekah seemed to know so well.

-Don't try to be noticed. Rebekah wasn't asking for attention. She didn't go out of her way to get noticed, she just did her job.
-Make every day count. Rebekah made a point to look nice every day. She brought her best personality, attitude and appearance with her wherever she went.
-Guard your purity. You could sense Rebekah's purity. It encompassed who she was as a young woman. That purity made her more attractive to the man God would bring into her life. (Isaac)
-Put others first. Don't be so concerned with edging up to the front of the line to talk to a Godly guy. Instead, let your service do the talking.

The Travel Bug

My friend Dani and I were watching the Travel Channel this morning, and my favorite show, Samantha Brown: Passport to Europe, was on. The episode was about Cork, Ireland. Dani has the special skill of finding four leaf clovers everywhere she goes, so she was like, "I should go to Ireland because I could find so many four leaf clovers!" "That would be the reason you would travel all the way to Ireland." So that sparked the idea to write a list of places we wanted to travel and the random reasons why. Here is my list of places that I would like to travel to and reasons why. (keep in mind most of these will happen after I'm 21)

1. Ireland - to find a four leaf clover.

2. Tuscany, Italy - to try Limoncello (via "Under the Tuscan Sun") and save a lost kitten.

3. Edinburgh, Scotland - go to a Scottish pub and visit my ancestors, The McDonald Clan

4. Australia - to venture into the unknown and see if there happens to be a Christian version of Hugh Jackman there.

5. African wilderness - ride an Elephant and go on a safari

6. Paris, France - to practice my french and get sincerely laughed at, stand on the Eiffel Tower in the morning to watch to sunrise, go to the Louvre Museum.

7. Washington DC, USA - Go to the Library of Congress, the largest Library in the world

8. Copenhagen, Denmark - go see The Little Mermaid statue (lille havfrue in Danish)

9. Guatemala - Go on a missions trip and watch a volcano erupt.

10. Uganda - meet my sponsored child, Jovita.

to be continued....

Holding Out For My Hero

[SPOILER ALERT FOR CHRISTY MILLER]
I just recently finished reading the last book in the Katie Weldon Series, Coming Attractions. This book had the biggest impact on me out of the entire collection of Christy Miller, Seirra Jensen, The College Years, and the other two Katie books. (Yes, it is a very long series.) God pretty much pulled the rug out from under me more than once while reading this. But, it was also really cool that I noticed when he was talking to me.

In the book Katie and friend/almost more than a friend Eli Lorenzo drive up to the mountains really early in the morning to watch the sunrise as something spontaneous to do before they graduate from college. On the way they are discussing "successful" relationships, and Eli tells Katie, "A good relationship rolls out naturally and unforced. Like waves. Love comes on its own schedule." That was really amazing to read because just that morning I was at Starbucks with my friend Mackenna, and she was telling me that love just happens, usually when you're not looking. So obviously I was listening to God after that.

Throughout the rest of the book, it was as if it wasn't Katie, but me in every scenario. In the last pages of the book, her best friends, Christy and Todd, tell Katie that she loves Eli, and she hasn't been admitting it to herself. So once she comes to terms at 1:00 in the morning, a dilemma is realized. You see, Eli grew up as a missionary kid in Africa and came to the States to go to college. Well, now that they have graduated, Eli is leaving, and Katie hasn't spoken to him after she yelled at him a few days before. So Katie is convinced that it's all over, she's missed the boat.

That is until Todd comes up with the most spontaneous, on a whim idea Katie would ever face - Get on the six o'clock plain to Nairobi with Eli, and see what God has waiting for them on the other side of the world. And as insane as it seemed, it also seemed completely sane and fixed by God. Katie didn't have any family to stay with, she had inheritance money for the plane ticket, all of her belongings could fit in the back seat of her car, she had been immunized for yellow fever and malaria when she thought she wanted to go to Africa on vacation, and she loved Eli.

So at six o'clock in the morning, Katie is waiting for Eli at the Security check in the Airport. When he saw her, in all that fictional climatic amazingness, I was in tears. Tears of joy, for this fictional person that I had grown up with since the seventh grade, and joy knowing that God had a plan for me. I am a girl, and as a girl, dreaming of my fairy tale is embedded in my genetics. But as Katie and Eli boarded the plain together, I saw that God could top any fairy tale I came up with in my head. The story he is writing for me is more quirkier, wild, funny, awkward, and creative than I can fathom, and I'm looking forward to it.

Throughout the 30-book collection of Christy Miller and friends, Christy and Katie always say that they are holding out for a hero, the man that God is molding for them. I hold purity near and dear to my heart, and I love that saying - holding out for a hero. So if you are a girl reading this right now, never settle for less than God's best for you life. He's got a Hero out there for you.

A Fiasco, A Victory, A Green Scarf

I stood in the H&M dressing room, desperately trying to hold back the ginormas rock in my throat. A beautiful, slim black dress fell down me, but I wanted to cry anyways. Today was supposed to have been my lucky day. I only feel like shopping about 5-6 days out of the year, and today was one of them. I wildly grabbed every cute article of clothing my eyes caught, the pile in my arms, my dad's arms, and my mom's arms quickly increasing. I'm guessing there had to be at least 35 to 45 things to try on. And just my luck... nothing fit.

Now you would think that the sensible thing to do would be to simply get the next size up, but oh no, it wasn't that simple. I asked the dressing room lady to get the next size up in a blouse, and it wouldn't fit. Again, another size up, and it didn't fit, because now the straps were falling off of my shoulders or the waist looked too frumpy. Out of the 40 or so things I tried on, not one single thing I liked.

Those mannequins are quite deceiving. They're tall and friendly, with a magical assortment upon them. You just HAVE to try on what they're wearing because it's the most amazing thing you have ever seen. And then you are discouraged by the truthful fact that this gorgeously made top looks fat on you. (I secretly think that fashion designers have lived in their own world for far too long. Not every woman is 5 ft 9 inch. I happen to be 9 inches shorter than that.)

I walked out of the store, ready to just go home and cry myself to sleep because I must have the most awkward body in the world. My dad held my hand trying to comfort me with things like, "Not everything works. We'll just keep looking." We were almost out the Mall doors when my mom saw a lovely black and purple blouse. "That would look great on you!" she exclaimed. "No, It would just make me look fat," I remarked in an exhausted voice. Ignoring my words, she pulled me into Express Women's.

A kind woman working there made small talk with me and complimented my figure. She gave me the cute blouse in the window display in an XS. Though it was nice of her to think me so small, I knew she was wrong. When she left I grabbed a medium. I dragged my legs to the sale rack and found and adorable pair of khaki shorts, size 2. I was not a size 2 by a long shot, but they strangely looked like they would fit. What did I have to loose? I walked towards the fitting room, and a perky girl named Allie introduced herself to me and said to ask her if I needed any help. "Thanks," I mumbled. And to my astonishment.... it fit! .... And I looked good.

"Oh my gosh you look adorable!" Allie squealed. I explained to her my tear-jerking fiasco at H&M and she nearly burst into tears right their. "I'm just so happy that you're happy," she said with a bright smile. I liked her. So in the end I bought the pants, the blouse, and a black vest. I scanned the store one last time, and then I saw it - a green scarf. Immediately the image of Ilsa Fisher lying to Hugh Dancy to get money so she could by the green scarf popped into my head. (If you haven't seen it, Confessions of a Shopaholic is the best chic flick ever.) And what luck, my green scarf was on sale for $15, and 40% off that! It seemed like a cheesy version of a Christmas miracle. But then it hit me like a Frisbee. This Green Scarf was the perfect illustration of God's second chances and unexpected ways. I was expecting to go into H&M and come out with bags full of clothing I bought all by myself, but that didn't happen. I was discouraged when things didn't go my way, and then God blessed me with a confidence booster. Things may not go as we plan, but it's usually because God has something better for us down the road.

Things Unexpected

"I just remember you being so sad," Mom remembered as we talked this morning. I was realizing that God had done so many things to change me in less than three years. In sixth grade I was always so sad and angry. "I just told you that we were praying for friends every day," Mom said. And then a year later two amazing best friends were brought into my life - Becca and Dani. They mentored me into a woman of God at Eagle Pointe Church, and showed me that friendship wasn't so hard to find. I grew out of my sadness and anger, and embraced laughter and joy. I discovered Mr. Darcy, chocolate, Starbucks, God's love for me, and patience. And as things changed, I changed as well. I matured and heard that God wanted me to move. So in May of this year I jumped into Freedom Church with both feet - Oh so much not like me. I made and am making friends and maturing. "Mom, If God has changed me so much in only three years, image ten years from now! I just cannot fathom what he has in store for me. But... I'm excited to find out." In the past two weeks I truly have learned to embrace my life. Yesterday I was at Six Flags and our group from Freedom was waiting in line for the Goliath. I had my heart set against not riding this death trap. In my head I was thinking, I'll ride this before I get married. You know, do something wild and crazy in my last days of singleness. But at the end of the day I had ridden every roller coaster at Six Flags except for this one. I was going to do it. And after I did it, I was SO proud of myself. This week I had run my first full mile, ridden every roller coaster, and had an epiphany. All things I wasn't expecting. Who knows what else is in store...

Miles To Go - Dave Barnes [Chorus]

Lift up your eyes and don't stand still
People of the world
And people of the will
Move on and on and on down this road.

Don't give up and don't give in
Someday you will be strong again
But there's still miles to go.