Lifeline.

"He gives strength to the weary and increases power to the weak...those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." Isaiah 40: 29, 31

This was my lifeline today.
Because.
Today, I got sick. Really sick. 
As in, blood-sugar-crashing-shaking-so-hard-I-can't-write-I'm-going-to-pass-out sick. It was bad. 
It's only happened to me a few times before, and never this awfully. It was frightening. 

Now. 

Remember my 'Crabby' post? And how we all need that 'Schroeder' person to kick our butts? When we're in moods, we need that one Bible verse to kick our butts back. And that verse was my strengthening. Not really a kick in the butt, but more like a, 'let me take your hand and pull you back up again', verse. 

And it was wonderful.

And I survived.

So from now on, I'm not going to run on 2 hours of sleep and 12 hours of no food (because I didn't have a big dinner, was up late, and didn't have breakfast this morning. Because I'm smart) and that was bad.

You don't do it either, okay?

Okay. 

Everything's gonna be okay.

Oh yeah, and working on a new short story. I'll post it up here soon, k? :-)

Wordz

"You may have nerves of steel, but you do not know the breadth of this world."
~President Bradley, FullMetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Episode 2

This would be truth.
Lots of people are brave on the outside. They can show off and flaunt and brag. But no matter what they say or do... they will never know the 'breadth of this world'. They never know what's going to happen next. No one does. The breadth of this world is unmeasurable. No one knows it excepting God. And I think we all have to deal with that.

This is from one of my favourite books ever, The Book Thief by Markus Zuzak. A shocking, brilliantly written novel about the Holocaust told from the perspective of what we fear most and what is most prominent in those dark days: Death himself.  'Such gallantry' can get us into all sorts of fixes. It's the old, "Pride comes before the fall," situation that shows itself in such tangible ways.

Anyhoo.

All done here. :D

Night y'all!!

Stiff upper lip and all that, wot?

When I was younger, I would read. Well, that's kind of all I do anyway, but practically the only books that I would read were the Redwall series by the now deceased Brian Jaques. I've read (and own) practically every book in the series.
Because that's what I do.
Read like insanity.
I think there are nigh on twenty books published, and I still take them out from time to time to read. They're fun and nostalgic and enjoyable. They make me smile when I'm feeling down, and bring back all sorts of memories. I can pick up Rakkety Tam and still sing all the songs from the audiobook. I can remember the nightmares Loamhedge gave me the first time, then the happiness the end brought. Those books are the echoes of a childhood well loved, like a book well read and worn through, the cracked glue binding, dog-eared pages, the smell of must and childhood and ink on paper.

When I read these books, I was anywhere from third to seventh grade. My homeschooling years, and the first few years at the school I currently attend. I read those books for the reason why most people (and I say most people, not all), pick up books to read.
To lose themselves in another fantasy.
But I did that too much, too often, and when real life smacked me in the face, it hurt more, because I had put my heart and soul into that little abbey in Mossflower, the talking mice and otters and moles and hares, fearlessly fighting ferocious terrors like ferrets and weasels and rats and foxes.


You see? I was finding happiness in the wrong place. I was setting it on something unreliable, something temporary. And when your happiness relies on something unreliable for so long and it crumbles, and it isn't there... well, frankly, you're screwed. Your heart will break, there will be pain, there will be tears and suddenly your life is a living hell.
No one wants that.
That's why there's only one thing that is reliable.
My God and Saviour. And there's no way I'm letting him go.

Dog.

This is for you.
This is Baylee.
W00T

She's my dog. We got her last year in September, and she's just about a year old now. She's awesome.

Late nights and Funnies

"GR. lsdjfoaiwhefnldfgj"

"Oh, I use that word all the time!!"

"Yeah, ikr?! So great."

"Mhm. But seriously, what?"


I swear. I have some of the best friends ever.

We travel together, we make memories together. I kind of wish some of those times would come back to relive them.

These are from our dance last December. It kind of sucked. But the memories I took away from it were awesome.

The group I went with. Like, all of my friends.

We decided to link arms instead of hold hands. Because there were guys and it would be totes awk to hold hands. Obvi.

So yeah. I've had some great late night chats with some people, especially lately. (You know who you are. If you do, you're awesome. You people frequent this blog.)

One of which (not really 'late night') was the convo above. (Yeah you. You're awesome.) They go from anywhere from deep deep to me falling off the chair I'm laughing so hard.  

So yeah. You guys rock. All of you.

<3

Arrival.

As you (hopefully) know, I was in San Francisco this last week, Thursday through yesterday evening. 

It was fun! Really fun :D

So here's some pics.

SKYLINE. I love skylines. And San Francisco has a gorgeous one! That's the bay bridge on the right and I think Alcatraz is in there somewhere but... hm... I don't think so. Yeah. Not in there. This picture was taken from Sausalito. Which I thought was an island, because you take a ferry there, but apparently not. It's off of a peninsula. 

Awk.

ANYHOO.

Me and my friend. We got these legit sunglasses. Be jelly.

The hotel we stayed at. It doesn't look like much, eh? But it is so much more! It was hipster-y and art-deco-y and like. Epic. Yup. And they have awesome fire escapes so. #winning

A sunset. Right behind us was Ghirardelli Square. We didn't actually go to the square, but whatever. We were waiting for a cable car to take us back to the hotel. 

It was fun, but I'm glad to be home. I like being home. Being gone is fun, but honestly, there's nothing nicer than getting home. And I'm glad I'm back.

When I fly on planes, which is ridiculously often, my favourite part is the arrival, landing, especially if it's a nighttime flight or a flight at dusk, because the sunsets are SO PRETTY :D 

That one's from Texas, not an aeroplane. But it's just as pretty. 

Anyhoo. Sorry for the lag. See y'all later!!

Roadwork and Lazy

So I've been lazy.
More like busy, but yeah. I've been lazy. I haven't posted in like. A week. I'm really sorry. And I'm too lazy to post something legit like a word for the day here but instead I'll just post a thought.

I went to Seattle yesterday on a field trip to the zoo. Would you believe the amount of roadwork going on?! It's ridiculous. 

There's an old joke that there are four seasons in western Washington. Almost rainy, rainy, still rainy, and road construction. Though there is always road construction going on in Washington. Roads torn up, traffic, traffic, traffic.

If you think about it, we're kind of like roads. We go somewhere. We start somewhere and end somewhere. And we're always under construction. God is always working on us. He puts up the 'Road Work Ahead' sign, and we see it coming. It's inevitable. We can't stop it. And we struggle through the rough pavement, pieces of us being torn up and torn out and replaced.
We don't like it. Gosh, it hurts like hell. (Pardon the expression). But when it's all over, you look back on the nice smooth pavement, the wide roadway, and you know that it was worth it somehow. And you survived. Surviving is nice.




I'm off to San Francisco on Thursday. Wish me luck!!