Yesterday, I...

• Stood barefoot in a puddle.
• Harvested fresh lettuce (and gave some away!)
• Mixed up some fresh minty lemonade.
• Made a roomie-cleaning schedule!
• Read a little Sherlock Holmes
• Talked to my mom on the phone and in person.
• Put food in my new freezer. Ahhh, the things that excite me. :)
• Exclaimed happily over gorgeous graduation portraits!
• Made some Cajun chicken... mhmmm yum!
• Hung out with The Butterfly Girl---watching our "new" favorite show!
• Listened to the sound of the rain.
• Discussed a favorite author.
• Found a church for a friend to visit on vacation.
• Chatted with The Curly Girl (in Nebraska!)
• Started to write a new song...
• Scheduled to second-shoot my first wedding!! :) (not me getting married, silly! Someone else! I just take the pictures!)
• Philosophized on relationships, the Word and life in general.

Variety is the spice of life. Or so they say...

"Yesterday, I watched the waves crash over me
Was swept away, and left me stranded in the sea
But today, I want to give You everything
All of me...
I want to invite You into my life
Take all that is within me
I want to invite You into my life
You are my one and only
Anchor in the storm..."

The lyrics of a song written by one of my oldest friends. I used to listen to this song over and over. It reminds me of the stunning majesty of the ocean, the feeling of insignificance when I stand before the sea, the requirement of Lordship in my daily life as a Christian, and how I must worship the Master---with my life.

And yesterday is the theme of this blog entry.

Not-so-great Things of Yesterday:

• Gritted my teeth all night long and woke up with a headache (this is what happens when I am thinking too hard or I'm cold or both).
• Spent ALOT of money on car repairs.
• Got a parking ticket.
• Cold. Like 1 degree cold. Wretched Old Man Winter.

Great Things about Yesterday:

• My parents gave me a gift (a BOOK! Yes!)
• Lemon poppyseed muffins
• Funny old YFN videos. "OCHO!!!", arm-wrestling, face paint, cafeteria tours, & interviews.
• Thinking about how much I love my favorite chair. My "devotions" chair. :)

At risk of seeming self-absorbed, I’m gonna do my version of the Internet tagging phenomenon, “Four Things.”

Four things I did (yesterday)…
1- Had a surprise visit from The Sparkly Girl at my workplace. She laughed, showed me her Christmas presents, looked at the cool fish and sometimes runaway crab and then I took her home.
2- Danced in the kitchen with one adorable niece while singing Jingle Bells. What joy on her face!!
3- Decorated for Christmas! Kind of. Sort of. I’m not done yet. But I do feel very festive!
4 – Emailed my parents, who are currently vacationing in Jamaica. :)

Four blogs I have enjoyed recently...
Yeah, I read blogs. But I have this cool gadget called ‘Google Reader,’ which saves time by consolidating all blog feeds into one place.
1. http://atypicalpastorswife.blogspot.com/. The blog of my friend and pastor’s wife. I love the recent posts on “The Consistent Christian.”
2. http://ourkitchensink.wordpress.com/. A food blog that I actually make recipes from. Like corn chowder, and peanut butter-swirled brownies, and quiche, and chocolate cheesecake. Nice.
3. http://www.evtales.com/. Sometimes hilarious stories about street-preaching the Gospel around LA.
4. http://www.sovereigngraceministries.org/Blog/post/The-Sluggard.aspx. CJ Mahaney’s blog. This post about Laziness was really convicting!

Four things on my to-do list…
Make shopping list for youth cookie baking night (tonight!). Work on a Christmas gift. Vacuum my bedroom. Find my thank-you cards!

Four random facts about me…
1- I’m a genetic mutation. Honestly. Every dentist or oral surgeon has told me that. Well, not in those exact words. They usually say, “do you know that you’re missing some adult teeth?” To which, I shrug and reply, “I’m a mutant. It’s my parents’ fault!”
2- If I don’t rest on Sunday, my week starts out very bad. It’s funny how the Bible always proves itself right. You just need a rest day once a week.
3- I wear a ring on the ring finger of my left hand. I’m not married though. It’s a purity/promise/chastity/abstinence ring. Little known fact: I actually wear my sister’s old promise ring. She’s married to a Godly man now… And well, if it worked for her… LOL
4- My earliest memory is being in church. :)

Four Scriptures that encouraged me recently...
2 Peter 1:3
“Seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.”

Psalm 42:11
“Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God.”

Psalm 3:5
“I lay down and slept; I awoke, for the LORD sustains me."

1 Peter 1:13
“Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

Summer has officially come to an end. Orion has reappeared on the southeast horizon. And school started, too. But that doesn't make any difference to me.

I heard a coyote howling last night. Scared me half to death, because it sounded so close-like right underneath my window!

My "new" chair rocks. Literally. Cause it's a rocking chair. *falls over laughing *.... Oh geez. It's so interesting-looking (read: semi-ugly). Well, until I put it in my living room and it matched perfectly. And the other grand thing about this chair is the comfortability factor. The first time I sat in it, I wanted to take a nap. The first time The Dad sat in it, he told a very long, very lame joke about a farmer. The punch line was "Comfortable/Come-for-da-bull." LOL Oh geez.

The Sis is on vacation. Away from civilization. Out of cell phone range. Why, why, WHY?!! I need to discuss things with her...

Like paint colors. I'm finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel on design themes. Six girls on my apartment floor on Sunday night with design magazines spread all over the place did help. :) I have the ideas that I like, and the color families, not specific colors. There's like a billion paint colors. And I have almost that many paint chips laying around the house.... And I have a tendency to be influenced by the descriptive paint color names, like "Cut Ruby." Doesn't that sound beautiful?

"God will promote those who promote Christ." I heard this on a sermon tape early Sunday morning and it immediately came back to me when I heard about the spiritual 'promotion' of a friend. Congratulations to you!

Pride & humility are the themes that God is speaking to our Body right now. At this moment, I'm listening again to The Pastor's most-recent sermon. Yeah, technology is great. Best quote of the sermon: "I would rather give my kids wine today, than feed them pride." -The Pastor. And if you don't know, we're all very anti-drinking-alcohol. So that was huge. Pride is deadly and destructive. God is truly showing us the gravity of this sin.

And that's enough of my rambling for now.

Recent Pet Peeves:

1. Use of the word "holy" for anything besides reverent reference to God or His attributes. I.e. "holy smokes" or "holy cow." Umm, they're not holy! Maybe I'm old-fashioned... but even the word itself seems to be 'set apart.'

2. “Irregardless.” Probably the stupidest word in existence. The real word is "regardless". Think it, use it, embrace it!

3. Whispering. My co-workers like to have long conversations in whispers. All I hear is "sss-susus-sssssss." Not very nice. And it makes my ears feel funny. They're sensitive like that. Haha.

4. Text messaging while hanging out with a group... You made a decision to be social with people, so be social with them--not your text buddies. Text messaging while hanging out is not multi-tasking. It doesn't make you look popular or important. It is rude. It shows a selfish inconsideration for others. And don't even get me started on private text conversations happening with two people in the same group.

5. The smell of cigarette smoke. If you see me walking around with my shirt collar around my nose like an air filter, I'm just trying to protect my health. Even a tinge of cigarette smoke makes me sick.

6. Repeating what I say. Maybe it’s a family thing. I’ll say to The Sis or The Little Bro, “Are you listening?” And instead of just giving a simple ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ response, they repeat the last two sentences that I said! Weirdos.

Okay, just so we don't end this blog post on a negative note. Here are some things that made me happy and positive recently.
1. Unexpected encouragement from my sisters in the Lord.
2. RAIN. The dry land was thirsty and my car was dusty, so this rain is an answer to prayer!
3. Goldenrod. It's like the daisies of autumn. :)
4. Learning a bar chord on the guitar. The concept is finally gettin' through!
5. The return of my mom after her mini-trip to "God's Country" with the church kids.
6. Checking things off the house closing to-do list. :)

Strawberries are my favorite fruit. Last night, The Sis and I spent 2 1/2 hours picking strawberries and having intense conversations. So intense that we didn't even hear The Bro drive up in his work truck (which is so loud that it sounds like a tank or a broken tractor) and didn't see him walk up and didn't notice him 'til he was 2 feet away and actually talked to us. We were discussing hypocrisy and marriage and adoption and modesty and vacation and preaching and rest and many other deep life issues that require concentration.




The problem is that I have a tendency to get loud in public when I'm passionate about something... Like at the bake sale on Saturday. I was ranting about the lack of holiness and discernment in media choices in Christians nowadays. After a few minutes of discussing this, I realized that I should quiet down--I was probably scaring the customers away! It's kinda like discussing hell in public (which I do sometimes). All people hear is "hummmm... low conversation... humm....HELL!" It just scares 'em. :)





Anyway, back to strawberry picking. I discovered that petting people's dogs makes them happy. Which in turn, makes them nice. Which in turn, causes them to tell you the best patch to find the biggest/nicest/most yummy strawberries! Rock'n awesome!




I came home and grilled pork chops for supper. And I didn't burn them! Third time is the charm! We ate supper at 9:00 p.m. Summer trend = eating supper at insane hours. Like after everybody is done working.





And then The Mom and I proceeded to cut up the afore-mentioned strawberries. For hours and hours. Or that's what it felt like. I kept getting distracted by other jobs-printing out directions for The Little Bro, writing down phone numbers, uploading pics, writing youth-camp lists, cutting up more strawberries, finding the phone, emailing youth announcements, etc. So I went to bed waaaaaaaaay too late for a week-night.





But hey, there are some beautiful strawberries at home waiting to become strawberry shortcake. :) It was worth the pain.

I'm now the proud owner of a rock from a castle in England. It doesn't look like an English rock. It just looks like a piece of gravel. But I like it. Thanks, Mr. Darcy!

700 is the magic number. 700 books cataloged in my personal library. Don't you just wanna cry from happiness?

TWICE in 3 days, my hair got stuck in a car window. I guess it's getting longer... I can't keep track of it anymore!

The key to telling a joke over and over is to telling it to a new audience each time. Currently I'm using the "cactus" joke. It's been fun! (and I'm still amused by it, which helps).

Remember that little pinkie finger I jammed while playing basketball last weekend? I guess my forceful keyboard playing makes it hurt alot. And so I taped it up. Yes, literally taped with Scotch tape to make it through the worship service. Which worked surprisingly well.

Just when I thought we were done cancelling youth events because of weather, 'cause it's JUNE!, we had to postpone our amusement park trip on Saturday. The weatherman was forecasting doom and gloom. Three words: Thunderstorms. Hail. Tornado. Ugh!

What did I do on Saturday instead of amusement-park-ing? Work! The Bible says, "SIX days you shall labor." Technically, Saturday is a work-day. I know, that just squashes our lazy American tendencies. You can rest on Sunday though!... Anyway, I weeded gardens, planted more flowers & herbs, cataloged books, cleaned house, sanded bookshelves, stained bookshelves, and helped assemble a spiral staircase.

The return of my childhood catchphrase. This weekend, my mom actually said to me, "(insert my name here), Put down the book and help!" Ah, yes, sweet childhood memories. :)

Yeah, I know it's Friday. For me, the week isn't over on Friday. Weekends are the hardest and busiest time of the week. Which explains why I crash on Sunday afternoons and take a much-needed nap. Speaking of sleep, I was so sad this morning. I woke up at 5:00 am (normal occurence), and thought briefly that it was Saturday and I could sleep some more. My smile turned upside down, when I realized that I was deluded and it was Friday morning---and I had to go to work. Then again, I can't complain... Because I don't have wonderfully adorable little children that get up very early every morning (including Saturdays) like The Sis does, so that means I can sleep in once a month or so. :) Wooohooo for sleeep!!! This is the exhaustion talking...

Monday - Can't remember much about that day. Worked. Felt miserable. Was sick. Listened to the Word on CD.
Tuesday - Still sick. Still worked. Parents signed over "my" car to me. Didn't have Tuesday night meetings (thank you, Jesus). Got home and had a flat tire. Prayed. Studied.
Wednesday - Better day. Body is back to normal. Youth group details take over my brain. Preached on modesty. Bought new tire. Vacuumed house.
Thursday - Payroll day at work. Ugh. Return stuffed lamb to niece. Bought plants at greenhouse. Dinner at The Sis' house. Home. Youth group stuff. Clean more. Fit formal dress. Record music.
Friday--has only just begun....

The DLF is not a happy camper right now(see post http://jewelsoftruth.blogspot.com/2008/01/vortex.html), because my To-Do list is increasingly unfulfilled. Trying to keep perspective on this whole life of craziness. Determining what is important. Trying to practice only what is important. Leaning on grace.

Lovely is defined as 1. charmingly or exquisitely beautiful. 2. having a beauty that appeals to the heart or mind as well as to the eye, as a person or a face. 3. delightful; highly pleasing: to have a lovely time. 4. of a great moral or spiritual beauty: a lovely character. –noun 5. Informal. a beautiful woman 6. any person or thing that is pleasing, highly satisfying, or the like: Every car in the new line is a lovely. –adverb 7. Nonstandard. very well; splendidly.

Throughout the day, things were just lovely. I heard a glorious testimony about God's work among my friends' church in Virginia, which made me smile outrageously. It is the same Lord that is working here in Pennsylvania, and it just makes me "happy, happy, happy!"

I heard "yes" from the five remaining youth about going to youth camp, which made me so excited that I could hardly stand it! I faxed in our registration and it's set in stone now, which took a monumental load off my shoulders. Of course, that's just me. I don't like things to be "up in the air." So, we're going to youth camp in Dallas, TX!! It's gonna be a wonderful road trip (20+ hours of driving one-way) with a stop at the house of my oldest friends--cuz they're takin' in us strangers for the night--and then onward to the paradise of freakishly hot Texas. But I can't go on about this too much-we still have 3 months to wait!

After work, I went running. I was joking with friends last night that my goal is to "run 'til I throw up." Sorry, if that disgusts you. It's my way of saying that I want to run through the pain. No, I did not throw up. But I definitely was in pain, and I definitely ran alot. Still not anything impressive. But eventually this training will pay off and I'll stop being a running "poser." :) (Flashback to the youth group days! "Poser" is the ultimate insult. LOL)

Onward to dinner with some of my friends that I rarely get to see. We had dinner at my new favorite restaurant. It is my favorite as of last night! It's a great little Italian restaurant, which is undoubtedly the best-kept secret of central PA. Sure, it's fancy and a teeny bit expensive. But its decor is charmingly Old World. The service is unhurried, and the ambience wonderful. High-backed booths that make conversation easier (I dislike tables in the middle of restaurants). And the food was classic, delectable Italian.. my favorite! Altogether, perfect for a "special" meal. I sound like a restaurant reviewer. Pay me for this & I just found a new career!

The night is still young--for normal people. I stopped at the grocery store to get supplies for my baking extravaganza tonight. It's always heartening when someone's face just lights up when they see you! The Lovely Friend happened to be working (I knew that-so I went shopping there-haha), and so after she was done, we chatted for awhile. Great talking, because I haven't seen her in forever!! Then, on the way home, I chatted with another friend for a few minutes.... hmm, I think "friends" are the common theme of this blog post.

Except the last part. It was a dark & stormy night (really!). As I started to drive up the mountain, a deer stepped out into my path. It was larger-than-life. The first split-second, I thought it was a horse! :) Of course, I slammed on the brakes and the deer slammed into me. By the time I stopped, I figured my car was totalled--negative, I know. But--PRAISE THE LORD!!!-the only damage was the total disappearance of my driver's side rear-view mirror. Strangely enough, the deer left hair all the way down the driver's side of my car and a large tuft of hair in the windshield wiper! Umm, okay. God is good and kept me (and my car) safe!

The End.

It's official. I have my "concealed carry" permit. Though I think it's weird that I have to get a permit to carry a gun in the first place. Didn't the Second Amendment already give me the right to bear arms? Yeah, exactly. They ask the strangest questions on the permit application. Seriously, what criminal in their right mind would answer truthfully to, "Are you a fugitive from justice?"

On my lunch break today, I went to a government office. To deal with some government red tape. I stepped into a microscopic waiting room and there was a very bored-looking security guard at his desk. He asks, "Are you carrying any guns? weapons?" and half-laughs. Remember, I'm in professional office attire-looking all chic and everything, and I guess he just couldn't connect that picture with a gun. I wanted to say "Yes" SO BAD!!! But I kept it truthful and just shook my head and smiled. :) So now, I need a handgun.

I hate ice. I hate it with a hatred normally reserved for fish eyes, horror movies and the teachings of Calvinism. Black ice, grey ice, clear ice-it doesn't matter. I hate it all!! Yesterday I chipped ice off of the windshield of my car, thinking, "this is annoying." And then I started on my merry way in my journey to work. Most of you know that I drive to work in the early morning hours, when it's still pitch black outside. Reality set in quickly.... this was not gonna be a fun drive. Inching ever-so-slowly, I made my way down the mountain. I stopped several times to consider walking back up the mountain and getting The Little Bro to help, but I didn't think he could do anything and even stepping out of the car was treacherous. The road was solid ice. I drove hugging the right side, praying fervently for God's protection. As I came to the steepest and most dangerous part of the road, my neighbor walked up the beside my car. Just to clue you in on the intensity of this drive, she was crying and shaking. There wasn't anything she could do to help, as the chains from her SUV wouldn't fit on my car. But she did walk beside the car as I drove down the remainder of the mountain. It is true-God is "a very present help in time of trouble." The drive that usually takes 5 minutes had taken 35 minutes. But I was alive! Praise the Lord!

When I came home last night, The Little Bro was waiting at the bottom of the mountain to escort me on the 4-wheeler. In the driving rain. That was SCARY. (mostly because he was driving and I couldn't see the road in the rain, so I had to trust him completely!) But at least, he brought me coveralls so I wasn't too soaked by the time I got home. Woohoo!

I know, I know---now I have completely ruined any chance of my friends coming to visit Hidden Haven in the wintertime. But really, it's usually not the bad! Even the snow is lovely and nice for driving (most of the time). But the ice. Wow, I hate ice.


PS-Many thanks to my friends who offered me a place to stay last night and called to make sure I got home okay. I really, really appreciate your love & concern!!!

Last Thursday, I read an article about the Quadrantid meteor shower. If you're interested in particulars, you can see it here http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22488764/. I might consider myself an amateur star-gazer. Even "amateur" might be a stretch. Though I'm fascinated with a starry sky, I can only recognize three constellations and the moon!

On Thursday night, I determined that there was no way I was getting up in the middle of the night to look for shooting stars. Sleep is precious to me-what can I say? The thoughts must've got into my brain, because I had a rather violent dream about watching the meteor shower. It was so violent that in the morning (it's still dark when I get up), it took 5 minutes to convince myself that it was safe to leave the house. :) Haha, dreams are straaaaange!

Anyway, since it was an hour after moonrise and towards the end of the meteor shower, I really wasn't expecting much of a show. Imagine my surprise when the total shooting stars I observed were 7 in 10 minutes!! Rockin' awesome!

Now don't you wish you lived on a mountaintop? :)