Several Random Topics

Topic 1: My blog. I still have one! I don’t know how many of you even noticed, but yesterday I did not have a blog. It was deactivated due to a violation of the terms of service… leaving me somewhat panicky and rather angry and heartbroken. I reread the terms of service and didn’t see anything wrong, but when I read the message that came up when I tried logging in it was talking about advertising. The closest thing I could come up with is all of my cool little buttons on the side of my blog. BUT EVERYBODY HAS THOSE, I protested. I emailed wordpress within minutes of discovering my problem. Their reply wasn’t as quick as it could have been, but the problem was resolved. There’s a website which I shall not name (Due to the fact that even linking to them will shut me down again) who does wordpress themes but they have junk in their codes. I tried using one of their themes and got shut down in consequence. BUT I changed over to a wordpress theme that’s actually here on wordpress, and here I go again! SO happy!

Now for topic #2! I am getting into this habit of posting lyrics to songs that have music I don’t agree with, but I wanted to share this song from Fireproof. It’s written by John Waller. Again, I do not support the type of music that is used with this song, but I wanted to share the lyrics:

I’m waiting
I’m waiting on You, Lord
And I am hopeful
I’m waiting on You, Lord
Though it is painful
But patiently, I will wait

I will move ahead, bold and confident
Taking every step in obedience
While I’m waiting
I will serve You
While I’m waiting
I will worship
While I’m waiting
I will not faint
I’ll be running the race
Even while I wait

That’s just the first verse and chorus, but that’s the best part anyhow, so there you have it! I think that the lines that really mean the most to me are where it says, “I will move ahead…” and “I’ll be running in the race even while I wait” It’s so easy for me to just stop and wait for God to make the next move when I should be pressing on!

Now that I’ve mentioned Fireproof, I’ll move on to my third topic: Courageous. I’m sure you all know about this movie by now, but just in case you don’t, Courageous is the next film that Sherwood Pictures is going to do. I’m really excited to see how it goes. It’s about… I wanna say 4 cops, but I’m not positive about that. Anyhow, it’ll be a “police movie” as Seth would call it. 😀
Now this may make ya’ll think that I’m totally nuts, but I’m not really happy with the way that Sherwood has gone about advertising for their new movie. I realize that the more viewers they have, the better. I just feel like the way they’ve gone about it is SO in tune with the ways of the world. Why aren’t they just stepping aside and trusting God to bring in the necessary viewers and money? Do any of you have thoughts on this? Feel free to call me a jerk… It won’t change anything, but if it makes you feel better, go right ahead!

So there’s my three topics for the day. 🙂 You know, I love blogging, but it’s even more fun when I get comments! So please be sure to let me know you dropped by!

Toodloo!

The Looking Glass

I have had several people from facebook, blogs, and forums ask me about my book, so here is a little bit about it! Today I reached 20,000 words, so that leaves 30,000 words to get in the next… 17 days? Oh, boy! I’d better go write there instead of here!!!

Title: The Looking Glass

Summary: (Subject to change! LOL)”Things are not always as they seem.” Holly and Jared’s grandfather had said to them before his death. Puzzled by his meaning, Holly and Jared go on to discover the secret behind two ordinary-looking mirrors. Finding themselves transported to another world, the pair must fight a force that seeks to destroy an entire universe – and search for a way back home.

Excerpt: ‘He was lost in the woods, and stopped at this cottage to see if anyone could help him. The old woman who opened the door was ancient looking, but beautiful. He asked if she could help him and she said, ‘Come in and have something warm to drink. I’ll see you right.’ So he went into the house. On one wall was a painting of one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. Her hair was blacker than a starless night, and her skin was as fair and white as clean snow. He commented to the old woman about the painting and she replied, ‘Ah, yes. It is a painting of one of my ancestors. Perhaps you are familiar with her story?’ He cleared his throat and said, ‘If you’ll tell me her name, I would be better able to tell you whether or not I’m familiar with her.’ The old woman smiled and said, ‘She was called Snow White. The looking glass on the wall is the one which was once owned by the evil queen.’ He looked at her incredulously. ‘How is that possible?’ he asked. ‘There are many worlds,’ the old woman replied, ‘And the world which I come from is called Aeroth. It is the land where most of your fairy tales come from, because it is the land where every girl finds her prince charming and every lad finds his princess bride. For many, it is the land of happily ever after.’

It’s National Novel Writing Month!

It’s National Novel Writing Month! (Or NaNoWriMo) There are a couple of websites where you can attempt to write a novel in just 30 days… or, seeing that I’m so tardy in telling you about this, in 24 days. I’m going to http://ywp.nanowrimo.org to write my story & you can find my profile and some information on my book by looking up ramblinrose506 on that site. Please drop by if you care to and maybe even give it a go yourself! I have two buddies so far, and I’d love to have more!

Every Promise

This is a song that I first heard at camp and I have been thinking about it a lot. It was written by Keith Getty and Stuart Townend. I don’t agree with their music standards, but many of their lyrics are powerful. Here is Every Promise (also known as From the Breaking of the Dawn):

From the breaking of the dawn

to the setting of the sun

I will stand on every promise of Your word

Words of power, strong to save,

that will never pass away;

I will stand of every promise of Your word

For Your covenant is sure

and on this I am secure

I can stand on every promise of Your word

When I stumble and I sin, condemnation pressing in,

I will stand on every promise of Your word

You are faithful to forgive,

that in freedom I might live

So I stand on every promise of Your word

Guilt to innocence restored;

You remember sins no more

So I’ll stand on every promise of Your word

When I’m faced with anguished choice,

I will listen for Your voice

and I’ll stand on every promise of Your Word

Through this dark and troubled land,

You will guide me with Your hand

as I stand on every promise of Your Word.

And You’ve promised to complete every work begun in me.

So I’ll stand on every promise of Your word

Hope that lifts me from despair; Love that casts out every fear

as I stand on every promise of Your word.

Not forsaken, not alone

for the Comforter has come;

And I stand on every promise of Your word.

Grace sufficient, grace for me;

Grace for all who will believe.

We will stand on every promise of Your word.

Fall Pics

Hey, ya’ll! I’m still blogging! Hurrah! =D We’ll see if I can keep up this good streak, huh? Thanks so much to those of you who have been leaving me comments. I appreciate it so much! I think that comments always make people happy. Here are a couple of questions for you to answer in the event that you don’t have a comment to leave after reading my post:

• What are your plans for this weekend, if any?
• What do you love about fall?

My answers to these questions are: For this weekend I’m hoping to be able to hang out with my good friend Erin. She lives about an hour away from me, but there’s a family who goes to our church that live out near her. So what I’m hoping will work out is this: There’s a youth activity tomorrow night and the M’s are planning on coming. So I’ll ride home with them, spend the weekend with Erin, then get a ride with the M’s back to church on Sunday morning. The only thing that might ruin my beautiful plan is the weather… We’ll see how it goes.

My favorite part of fall is pretty much everything, but especially the weather. And leaves crunching under my feet. I love the colors all around and the crisp air. I love drinking hot tea or apple cider on a fall morning. Fall is just my favorite season! I just now realized that I keep saying ‘fall’ in spite of the fact that I think the word autumn is much nicer… Anyhow, on Monday I posted and mentioned to ya’ll what a gorgeous autumn we’re having. I don’t recall whether or not I actually said this, but it was inspiring weather. The type that makes me want to go outside and write poems or stories. As I hadn’t taken any pictures yet, I determined that I would post later in the week with pictures of our lovely fall. Here is a sample of what procrastination does to such a post:

I had wanted to get some pictures of the trees and snowdrifts in our back yard, but our back door was frozen closed… so I went around to go through the gate, but this is what I saw:

The ice didn’t show up too well in the picture, but the gate is pretty stuck, too.

Not the most flattering picture I’ve taken of myself, but here is yours truly, blogger (on occasion lol) and photographer. =D

What’s still visible of our raspberry bushes. I guess we won’t have fresh raspberries ’til next summer. =(

The next part of my morning was to warm up –

So… Happy Fall, everyone! =D

What did I get done?

Nothing. LOL Okay, I got a lot done, but not really all the stuff I WANTED to get done. I’m not quite finished with Hope Rising, but I did get closer. I did clean my bedroom and bathroom, but it didn’t last long. And I did finish my history book. Memorizing? Let’s not go there for now and nobody will get hurt. LOL I’m kidding, of course. It just didn’t go too well.

I have to head to bed, but I think I’ll do an autumny-type post this week. Today was just gorgeous!

Bye for now!

My goals for this week:

Perhaps no one is really interested, but I thought I’d do a post on my goals for the week. On Saturday I’ll try to do a post on my success!

• Finish my first history book
• Memorize one chapter of 2 Timothy
• Clean my bedroom and bathroom
• Finish reading Hope Rising

It doesn’t look like much, does it? It might be harder than it looks, though.

Anyhow… I hope ya’ll have a great week! See you around!

Confusion with derecha

This year I’m learning Spanish. It went really well for the first 7 weeks, but now I have hit a tough spot. It’s called “right vs. left” or, “derecha vs. izquierda” (I don’t know if I spelled that right…)

I have always been directionally challenged. Even though I’ve reached the ripe old age of 17, I still use my hands to tell directions. How? Quite simple, actually. I have a mole or birthmark or something of that sort on my right hand. All I have to do is look at one of my palms and I know right from left. My right palm has this little mark on it, and my left palm is blank.

Wait, how does this apply to Spanish? Well, I’m to the part where I’m supposed to learn right from left. The problem is, I can’t even do it in ENGLISH… so Spanish has been a bit of a problem. I’m using Rosetta Stone, and as many of you will probably know, they give you a phrase and show four pictures, leaving you to click on the picture that matches the phrase. Pretty easy stuff, really. I mean, if it says “elephant” I’m not going to click on a picture of a woman. But if it says, “The ball is in the woman’s right hand…” AAAAAAAAAAAACK! Here is the problem:

1. I already have right vs. left problems

2. I’m new at this Spanish thing

3. MY right is the PICTURE’S left!!!

So if you’re in my neighborhood and you hear a scream between 10:30 and 11:15, you may just shrug and say, “Ah, Emily is doing her Spanish.” =D

Fourth of July Weekend – Friday

Thursday night I fell asleep on a trundle bed at Mrs. Larson’s house, listening to Jim Brickman’s album Picture This, reading Eldest by Christopher Paolini (book review to come). I woke up in the morning with a pain in my cheek. May I just insert a little advice to ya’ll? I do not presently recommend going to sleep with thick hardcover books in your bed, for if you sleep soundly enough, the corner can stick in your cheek all night and leave a painful indention in the morning. For what it’s worth.

Anyhow…
On Friday morning we went to visit Miss Grace, a dear elderly lady whom we used to give rides to church. She’s in a nursing home now. She was one of the people who prayed very hard that Seth would be a boy. So we decided to get a picture of Grace and Seth together. Well, although some of the pictures that I have posted on here might lead you to believe otherwise, Seth generally does NOT like to have his picture taken. So in the end, Dad and Seth went out to the car, and I was left with only one picture… with Seth obviously not cooperating.

Yeah. Not very flattering.

After our visit, we went out to Johnny B. Good’s for lunch. I ordered the BLT and think I should’ve ordered the turkey sandwich instead. LOL I usually love BLTs, and I used to get one every time we went to JBG’s, but the bacon didn’t even really taste like bacon and was mostly fat… so it wasn’t the best I’d had there. Anyhow… After that we went to Fish Creek Falls.

This tree was taller than anything around it and was up kinda high… so I took a picture, but the picture doesn’t really do it justice at all.

Not the greatest pic… but I guess it’ll have to do.

We went back to Mrs. Larson’s house and helped get supper ready. The Sistos came over (Mrs. Larson is Mrs. Sisto’s mom) and we spent the evening together. It was lots of fun! We played (or started to play) Chinese Checkers, but then we got off on the topic of iPods and Narnia and youtube and converting videos and all that jazz. I’m always afraid that people will get mad if I’m always taking pictures, so I generally don’t even end up with a group picture. Which I always regret, but never fix. So I don’t have any pictures. =( Maybe another time.

Well, that’s all for now, folks!

Soli Deo Gloria!

P.S. If you want to sign a letter to Ben Barnes, Skandar Keynes, Georgie Henley, and Will Poulter…  (Main cast of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader)… go to http://www.narniaweb.com =D

Fourth of July Weekend – Thursday

Hey, everybody! I love blogging so much… I really don’t know why I sometimes just let it go! But here I am to tell ya’ll’s about our trip to Steamboat Springs for the 4th.

We left Thursday morning and had a good trip. We made it into town in time to go to Music on the Green. The Meridian Quartet was playing some “humorous” classical pieces. We hadn’t had time to stop for lunch, and it was rather hot, so we didn’t stay for the whole thing.

We went to Qdoba for lunch – one of our favorite places to eat! Wanna know what was really cool about it, though? There was NO loud, obnoxious music. The service was great – friendly people. And… drumroll, please….
…
…
…
…
Everyone spoke ENGLISH! I only had to give my order ONE time, and they got it! Woohoo! I was instantly ready to move back. hehe

After lunch we went to Mrs. Larson’s house and unloaded the van. Now for those of you who don’t know, our van has storage under the seats. I love it! The back (where Erin and Seth ride) was still a bit crowded, but it totally helped keep the front rows clear. Sweetness. Anyhow… where was I? … Oh, yeah… So after chatting for a bit with Mrs. Larson, we decided to head on out to our old house. It was kinda sad to see all of the new houses that have been built up. It kinda ruins the countrified air of living out in the country. We were getting pretty close to our old house when we saw a rattlesnake in the road. No big deal… we’ve seen dozens of them in the past. I mean, come on! We lived with them in our back yard! BUT I have a little brother who is a city brat. He’s scared of grasshoppers and has little to nothing of the country boy in him. So Dad pulled up near the ole rattler so Seth could have a look-see. Dad spun the wheels a little to try and get the snake to coil up and use the little music-maker on the end of his ugly skinny body.

Suddenly we realized that there was a car coming up behind us, so Dad had to get out of the road. It was some good friends from church that happened to be our closest neighbors. (They lived 1/2 a mile away from us… oh, to live out in the open spaces again!) Now here’s the part that we all laughed about later… They drove over the snake and killed it, thus preventing Seth from being able to hear it rattle. HAHAHA! The snake probably deserved it anyhow. =P

We continued on our way down the road and went around the old, familiar corner. As we came around, there were 4 or 5 gasps as we saw… a barn! And horses! Two things that we all would have liked to have had, but didn’t have the money for.

The yard had also changed somewhat – the willow tree was a lot bigger than it used to be! The driveway had also been changed and there was grass where we used to park.

Yup, folks! That’s where I growed up! Pretty little place, isn’t it? So beautiful and green!

Anyhow… we went and chatted with the Sistos some. (The neighbors who crushed Ole Mr. Znake) After that we went and had supper at Mrs. Larson’s and… went to bed? That doesn’t seem right, but I don’t recall doing anything else. So I’ll just say that we went to bed, and someone can come along and correct me if they wish.

And I think I’ll bring this to a close for now! It’s kinda short, but hopefully the pics will make up for it. More to come!

My beautiful sis taking pictures out near our old house

My wonderful parents at the Botanic Gardens (where Music on the Green is)

Seth ready to go get some lunch