loved

Velvet black night

Pierced with white

Stars waiting quiet

Wide listening sky

Stillest of air

Light hanging there

Out of despair

Rises a prayer

Can we take in Your light so we can shine like You

with all this weariness?

Can we shine like you with this weariness?

So we are loved

We are loved

And it's quite enough that we are loved

We are loved

We are loved

And it's quite enough that we are loved

If the whole world could feel it

If the whole world could feel it

We could love

We could love

'Cause we are loved

Surrounded in white

Oh, purest bride

No lovelier sight

The Church will rise

Take in Your light

To shine like You

Take this weariness so we can shine like You

We could love

We could love

'Cause we are love

We Are Loved by DC*B

I got his new album today.

Weather and possible seasonal affect disorder...heh

It's amazing how the weather and a good night's sleep can affect ones mood. (By "ones" I mean "my" of course.) And yet even though my mood is crazy, and up and down, God's goodness is not affected. God cannot be affected by my mood, by the weather, by classes or anything. The only thing it can be influenced by is the day. God's goodness and mercy are NEW every day. They're not old. They never get old!

This week has been a strange one. I was tired going into it, and recently, I've been realizing that I really wish I could be in a relationship, though I am also realizing that it's not important, because God has ordained when and whether it even happens. Let me tell it this way:

When I get tired I dream very vividly. This semester has been very tiring. I've been getting about seven and a half hours of sleep a night, if that. The only time I get more is on the weekends, and normally it's not much more... I've been sleeping poorly because for some reason, my shoulders and back become very tense in the middle of the night, so while I go to sleep relaxed, I wake up tense and because of that stuffy. This is the reason I normally don't get more then 9 hours of sleep on the weekends, unless I have a headache. Needless to say, I dream very very vividly when I am tired, exhausted. Most of the time I'll remember for about 30 seconds after I wake up, but very occasionally, I'll remember them later, throughout most of the day. The thing is, lately, I've been remembering only the dreams that seem to affect me the most. My consciousness seems to think, Oh, this one will really rattle her, let's remember this one. And because I have recently been wishing that there was a someone who could come along side me and support me and be there for me and love me, someone I could do the same for, well, every time I have a dream that falls into that category, it seems that I remember it.

About the end of last week, I had two dreams, about two days apart. I had one dream in which a young man who is constantly in my life, who plays banjo in my RUF praise team, starred. In this dream I dreamed (what else would I do in a dream, really?) that he was very concerned about the fact that I'd hopped a ride with a friend on his motorcycle, minus a helmet, and didn't I know that I could die? The fact that the dream young man was concerned about my dream self caused a realization between our dream selves that we really liked each other. Naturally, when I woke up I was all in a dither because of this dream. It's a dream, yes, but I've been told by various people through out my life that dreams are great ways to interpret emotion. I decided I needed to not do that with this dream. It's not smart. Then about two days later, I had another dream, this time about another young man who I know less well, and whom I contra-dance with. I know I don't have feelings for this second young man. Dreams are silly, and one should not base feelings off dream feelings.

Then comes this week. I was feeling particularly gloomy, Monday afternoon and evening and felt a bit like I could cry the later half of the day. I didn't feel pretty. Monday night I didn't get great sleep; Tuesday morning was brutal. I actually got out of bed to check and make sure that I couldn't skip my first class that day. I was dreary Tuesday as well. Again, not very pretty. I was tired, and out of sorts, and when I'm tired and out of sorts, I just want a hug, or someone to care for me, someone to take me by the shoulders and shake me a little and say, "GO TO BED. YOU NEED SLEEP." and then to assure me that they'll take care of me, no matter what my mood. What I'm trying to say is that when I'm tired and gloomy, my relationship gap becomes painfully obvious to me, and I can't see two feet in front of me.

I had praise team practice tuesday night, and during a rather lively discussion with one of the members, Josh, about good music, we both discovered that we liked the same band, Shane & Shane. He was asking me what music I have from them and was appalled to find out that I didn't have any, because I don't have money to buy any... Anyway, praise team continued, and I left disgruntled, because I was going to have to walk, first to the music building, and then home, in the dark. I grumbled through both walks because nobody had thought to offer me a ride. By the time I got home, I had completely lost sight of God and any goodness He might have.

When I had walked in the door, and set my stuff down, I looked first to my desk, and there was a letter there from my grandma. In it was 50 much needed dollars. She said she was praying I wouldn't lose my smile. I was shocked. Next, after finding food, I opened my computer and then my email. I found in my email to itunes gifts from Josh. They were both Shane & Shane songs. The first one was "You Said", talking about how if we ask, God will pour out his love and blessings on us. The second "This is the day the Lord has made". Both were songs with messages I needed to hear. God pointed me back to Himself, in the matter of about 5 minutes. He is amazing. He showed me, very simply that He could fill me both physically (the money) and spiritually (the songs). I love and (try to) worship an amazing God. Amazing.

Jack Sparrow Foolish

Note to self:

Blowing on cabinet doors does not shut them. Nor does puffing on a sail in a sail boat move the boat. It just makes you look a lot like Cap'n Jack Sparrow trying to put out a fire.


Looking silly is never a very good thing, but feeling silly, feeling foolish never helps one's countenance. I'm feeling a little bit foolish. I suppose though, that comes from being tired and human. My last post, you know, the one about being nervous? I'm still nervous. But, I keep forgetting that I don't have to do it all on my own. I get most nervous when I think I have to do everything on my own. When I think I have to face each day by myself, I get very very nervous. Everything I do is like blowing on a cabinet door to get it to shut. Thank God that I don't have to blow a cabinet door shut. Thank God that I don't have to blow myself along in a sailboat with just the weakness of my breath. Thank God that He is my strength, that He is the one who scatters the wind on the earth, the one who creates the storm and calms it all at the same time.

I forget to pray that He would calm the storm in my heart, in my stomach. I'm so weak, weary, and utterly vulnerable. I have to believe that He's doing this for a reason, but I so hate being human, especially when it means that I can't take care of the problem myself. One would think that I normally style myself as a god, if suddenly feeling weak and vulnerable, helpless, makes me this uncomfortable.

God, please help me. Give me the strength to worship you with everything I have. I'm so human. But you made me this way, and you made me this way for a reason. Please help me to glorify you with my weaknesses. I love you in my tiny selfish way, I love you because you loved me first, and I don't know how to love you any other way, but please, please, let me radiate, shine, glow with your radiance, with your Glory. I want to be like Moses. I don't know what I'm doing, but I want to be like Moses. Please.

2 Corinthians 4:7-12 "But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. ⁸We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; ⁹persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. ¹⁰We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. ¹¹For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. ¹²So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you."*

May God use me to shine His light on the darkened mountains around me.

Th-th-that's all folks!
~H

*Thank you, Patrick, for the verses that helped me pull myself together.

Love, and Amazingness

What is love? I've come to understand this more and more since my revolutionary discovery in march. I used to think that love was explained well in romance books, in the stories I read. The hero and heroine, in love, the hero doing acts of kindness for the heroine. Maybe the two of them would argue and mock each other through out most of the book, but then the hero does something that changes the way the heroine looks at him... or maybe they just realize that they've been meant for each other all this time.

I read a lot on FictionPress, and a while back, I read a story where this girl went through this really tough time and the guy who she fell in love with had helped her through her tough time. What really got me was the epilogue at the end of the story when it was the same girl about 3 years later dating another guy. The author had put in her note at the end of the story, "I know most of you are probably stunned and a little bit upset about the fact that she didn't stay with So & So, but it just isn't realistic! They were in high school! High school relationships don't last!"

This concept got me thinking. If we head into a relationship with anything don't we want it to last? We like a level of consistency in our lives. We expect friendships to last, and when they drift apart, some times it hurts. We expect our relationship with our car to last as long as the life of the car, and we expect that to be a very long life. We expect our pets to be around for ever. We also expect that these relationships and the love, or like, based around them isn't going to change, except for the better. Why else do we always smile and nod happily when we hear of a husband and wife who've been married for going on 40 years and were high school sweethearts before that?

God, as the author of love is infinite, unchanging and goes on "forever and ever and ever" (to quote DC*B). I feel like dancing and skipping and singing at the top of my lungs; shrieking because of this next amazing thing. Because God is the author of love, real love, true love does go on forever! It's not something that begins and then ends in the span of a week, month or even a year! If you are loving someone with God's love, the love God gave you for them then it's going to keep going! OH MY GOSH! IT'S AMAZING!! This is why we want to be able to have a relationship that lasts! To have a relationship that lasts, we must first have a lasting relationship with the who makes relationships.

As a side note, this is why gay relationships are wrong. The only type of right relationship is the one that God created. He specifically created a female for Adam, not another male. He made it so that females and males would work together to build a family and life better then two males. Besides, if he'd made two males, there would be no other humans. (yes, I know the falacy of this statement... God can do anything...)

As another side note, the thing we feel for each other in high school can turn into love, but most likely it is affection. Real and true love will most likely show itself over several years time. Too, real love is a steady thing, willing to sacrifice its own happiness for the happiness of the people/person it loves. Affection or emotions are a genuine thing that often lead to love, but affection or emotion by itself is a dangerous and often painful thing.

God is absolutely amazing.

On a completely different topic, I've been talking with my mentor, and my mother, and a couple of friends and have the feeling that God has been using at least these last two years of instruction (and for however long He feels like) as an instruction period before something amazing happens. God's going to do something amazing, and I can just feel it. Thank the Lord for his amazing mercies which are new each and every single morning.

That's all for now folks!
~H

How did I get here?

I know I said in my last post that family is such a strange concept, but right now, I'd like to go out on a limb and say that life is a strange concept too.

Everyone seems to have these pre-conceived notions of what life is supposed to be like. Young girls are constantly watching their mommies and thinking, "I'm gonna be just like my mommy when I grow up." For me it was, "I'm going to become a mommy. I'm going to have a passel full of kids. I'm going to have a husband who can be a daddy to my kids." As I grew up, I would look at the girls around me and compare them and where they were in their life to me and where I was in my life "plan." There were other girls, one of them my at-the-time-best-friend, who met guys they really liked and who really liked them back. They would come to me, "Oh Hana! You'll never believe!" I'd sit there and be happy for them, but I'd want the same thing. Like I've said on here before, I was in love with the idea of being in love. Well, maybe I've said that, but it's pretty certain that I've given that impression.

If you had told me when I was 16 that at 21 I would still never have been kissed, would not have a steady boyfriend, would not be engaged, and would have only dated on guy for three months, and had been the one to break it off, I would have laughed at you and then thrown myself at the nearest guy to prove you wrong.

I look at my life and I think that if God had put me in a family that public schooled, I would have been seriously rebelious. I might have even given away my virginity, if not pregnant within the first couple of years at college. It is because God was gracious enough to stick me in a family where my parents are so integral in my life that I am who I am today. Granted, I'm still nasty and ugly inside, but thank God for his graciousness, His mercy.

I never ever expected to go into music education at school, but here I am. I'm moving into my third year of music education at ASU and I'm loving it! It's not everything I'm looking for, but it'll give me a good background on what I need to know to get a small studio going. I never would have thought that I would learn guitar on getting to college ("I'm never going to play something with frets!"). I never thought I would enjoy my crazy family the way I do. I never thought that I would enjoy the frantic hecticness of coordinating two jobs during the summer. I never thought I'd have two jobs during the summer. I never in my life thought I'd be content with being single, and yet, somehow, God has brought me to that very point. Thank God.

However, it is now late, and as I said in the previous paragraph, I have two jobs. I have to coordinate them, and that is going to take someone who is awake and on her feet. I am not really that. I need sleep, so I'll sign off. Just thinking about this, the fact that life hasn't quite turned out like I thought it would, but I'm so glad it didn't. This way has been much better. I'm glad I'm not the author of my own story.

Sleep well to all! and to all a Good Night!

~H

Welcome to the nuthouse!

Family is such a strange concept. Have you ever thought about it? You're born, and do you figure life out on your own? No. Instead God plops you down in this place where people not only care for you, by changing your diaper and teaching you about how to feed yourself and walk, but they also love you, no matter who you are, or how ugly you are, inside or out! These people are sometimes blood related, but other times they're not. No matter what, we'll normally drop everything to protect these people, because we know that no matter how ugly we are towards them, no matter how many times we stab them in the back, they'll still put themselves in harms way to protect us.

Sometimes you hate your family, other times you can't believe that you've had the good fortune to be related to them. Sometimes when you're with your friends, your family totally embarrasses you, but other times you can't believe that you ever thought you were embarrassed by them. I mean, duh, they're exactly like you are!

Thank God for family. Yeah, my family (according to a small plaque in a souvenir shop on the beach) is a lot like fudge: a ton of sweet with lots of nuts. :-D I'm the biggest nut of them all, and I can't wait to head for home.

Two days!

Craziness here I come!

The Formative Years

Lots of psychologists say that the formative years of a child's life is from ages 4 (or so) to about 12 (making a guess here). This is when they start making discoveries about themselves. This is where they discover who they are. This is when the decisions that are going to affect the rest of their life happen (most of the time... I'd like to argue that most of that actually happens in high school and college).

For some reason I think psychologists are wrong. Very wrong. I've seen my Grandpa become sweeter with age, instead of becoming an "old fart" like many people do when they get older. I have changed dramatically since I was 12, and the people who I know best have too. For example, when I was young I had a bad habit of stealing candy from my dad's tin, or reading after mom and dad turned the lights out and specifically told me to go to bed, or lying to them directly. I had heard that a child's nature/character/"who they are" is determined by the time they were 12, and as a 12-year-old, I'd lie in bed thinking, "Please God, don't let this be who I'm supposed to be. The psychologists missed one very important thing. This, I think is the fact that we are all born with one fatal disease. We are all born sinners! We are "who we are" from the moment we enter this world with the sin nature. It is only after we accept Christ that we begin to change. I'm no psychologist, but I have this theory that for Christians, our most "formative years" are the years we spend from when we first accept Christ as our savior, to when we die and have our eyes opened to everything we've ever been missing.

So, to get to my point after a very long opening. There are several years that I believe are some of my most formative. The first of them begins on January 23 of 2006. In January of '06 I was 17, and enduring high school. It had seemed like fun back when I was 14, but now all it was was work and class (online) and the occasional IM jaunt with my best friend, Katie Beth. On the 23rd, however, a person stepped into my life which changed it quite a bit. David Gardner showed up on my blog claiming that the apostle peter had told him that stalking my blog wasn't the right thing to do any more. I was kinda weirded out, but I thought it would be interesting to get to know this dude. Dave later introduced me to his brothers, Daniel and Ben Gardner. All three of them had grown up in Brazil because their parents (God bless them) were/are missionaries to the people of Brazil.

Almost exactly one month later, I joined the forum that Daniel had created, "MK Forums" which stood for "missionary kids Forums", of course. Right behind me came Katie Beth, and she persuaded several of her friends to join as well. Because I was homeschooled, and about 70% of the kids on that forum were as well, I actually felt like I fit in. I made friends right and left, never mind that I'd never met them, that they were "internet buddies". My parents complained that I was always on my computer. I felt like that was the only place I had friends, which didn't help issues. However, in this "virtual world" I grew. I knew that they were all Christians, and would tolerate my growing love for Christ, they would actually help me. There was a serious forum and the (more predominate) silly forum. My expertise for puns developed through a thread that grew out of proportion (thanks Ben!). Daniel introduced me to the world of photo-editing and short videos, and David was generally my goofy buddy. With all three boys, and the various friends I made in MK Forums, I had mostly silly talks, but also out of these friendships came deeper, more serious talks. It was "formative". I learned about myself, about others, and more importantly about God.

The second stage of my "formative" years was coming to college. Coming to college was the hardest and yet, most freeing thing I've ever done in my life. It was a step in the direction of finding out who I was/am in Christ and whether or not my faith was real. When I set foot on App's campus, I was pretty certain it was real. I wanted to be known as the "God-follower". I was naive. That was good. Find a church was the hardest thing I've ever done. It taught me that God is great, and that He'd given me a passion for showing people who He is through song, through worship. I also learned that first year that family really is important. I didn't quite realized what I was taking for granted until I didn't have it close to hand. This year I've learned all about how God is soverign. How He's the one who rescued me from a dragon. :-) Yeah, college is going to continue to be formative.

And I can't wait.

~H

To worship a God...

There's something strange about the word, "crush." Many guys will shy away from a girl who has a "crush" on them, or will even turn away (it seems like it) if a girl says that she has a crush on someone. If one girl tells another girl that she has a crush on someone, the second girl will automatically squeal in a very high-pitched annoying tone that some how all of us manage to do at some point in our lives, and then automatically demand to know everything. Pushy girl. The girl with a crush, if she is 12, will think it's amazing and that she couldn't possibly fall "in love" with anyone else, ever. If the girl is 16 or 17, she will feel silly for having a crush (possibly), and feel like she's in middle school again, discovering the fact that boys really don't have cooties.

As long as I can remember, I've always been told, by my parents, to guard my heart, so that when the right guy comes along, I can give him my whole heart. When I turned 12, I had my first recorded crush. I was certain that he was the one! Since I'd been a little girl, I'd read stories of princesses and their handsome knights in shining armor who worship the ground they walk on. Somewhere in my future there was going to be a fantastic wedding, I would be the one wearing white, and at the end He would be standing there, ready to pull me into His arms, to love me for who I was. Surprisingly enough, the person I had the crush on at age 12 is Him. Every young man who was remotely good looking, or had a good disposition and manners, or even possibly liked me, was considered. I pined, I dreamed, my imagination sometimes pushing me to tears. Why didn't any of them like me?

I was 18 when a young man who had entered my life several years earlier, declared that he really liked me. Unsurprisingly enough, I really liked him back. He was cute, he was funny, that crooked smile of his charming birds out of trees, my heart from its chest, and he, at the time believed in the same God I did, and was willing to ask my dad if he could date me. He had put off telling me that he liked me and wanted to date me for a long time because he knew about my parents dislike with the word "dating" and how they would rather I "courted." Then he did something that no one else ever had: he went to my daddy and asked him for permission to date me. My parents were reluctant, and it took them a whole month to get back to him, but in the end, because of many persuasive arguments that started and ended with, "Because, I just want to date him. Do I need a reason?", they gave in and told him that we could date. It was on my 19th birthday that my daddy called him up and let him know.

I was on cloud nine for three months, during which we went on dates, held hands, went to homeschool prom, but never kissed. I told him I was saving that for the man who married me. He respected that. Towards the beginning of the third month, he called me (we had a long distance relationship) and told me that he'd realized that I was more emotionally involved then he was. He said he didn't want to break up with me because he still liked me, but that he didn't want to break my heart, because he realized that I'd given it to him. He was right. He tried to hand it back on a silver platter, the way I'd handed it to him. At the end of the third month, something wasn't right. He was distant. I knew something was wrong, but he wouldn't say anything. I had to ask him if he still liked me. When he said no, I broke up with him, and told him we could go back to being friends.

My parents were worried about me. My best friend, who had steadfastly warned me against dating him, was relieved. I was glad I hadn't had my heart broken, and proud of the fact that I'd not shed a tear over any of it. I told my mom that I didn't regret any of it, because it was a huge learning experience. I told her the truth.

At the same time, I was left with thoughts running through my head. They were the same thoughts I'd had before I had a boyfriend, but now they were intensified. "Why did he tell me he loved me one month and then not mean it the next? Is something wrong with me? Why doesn't he like me anymore? What's wrong with me?" It took my conscience probing deep, asking some questions that he didn't realize hurt, to make me realize that I was feeling these things.

I swore off boys.

The end.

Ok, not really, but I did for a while decide that the only safe place for me was a nunnery...or rather a home with the nuns. (I can't think of the word right now.) Then I stumbled across a saying, on, of all things, a facebook bumpersticker: A girl's heart should be so lost in God, that a man must seek Him to find her. That completely changed how I looked at relationships.

While I had been told all my life that Prince Charming would come (dude, Cinderella's had come hadn't he?), I had also been told that God should be the center of my life, and that he would write my love story. That's what Eric and Leslie Ludy had said! I had read the books that they had written, and come to the conclusion that if I pursued God, that if I tried to bury my heart in God's, romance would come blooming into my life, instantaneously, like those funny little sponge animals that you could buy in plastic capsuls and then drop them into a cup of water and they'd expand instantly. I was convinced that if I just found the cup of water, my romance would blossom instantly.

I'd missed the mark again. I was still focused on the word "romance." I was ready to drop everything if a guy that loved God came waltzing into my life and declared his love for me. It wasn't until last semester, a mere 3 or 4 months ago, that I realized I had a "crush" on a guy again. I hadn't had a "crush," really, since that disastrous three month relationship. I'd been denying the crush for a while, I'd been fighting, because I had told God that all I really wanted was to know Him better. I wanted to bury myself in God. In todays terms, I wanted God as my boyfriend, as my husband, my lover. Even though, I'd been doing this to subconciously to find romance, God had been faithful, and honored my feeble attempts to draw closer to Him. He wrapped me in arms as large as...well, as He is, and drawn me towards him. When, in about November, I finally admited that I liked this guy, I struggled with it for about a week because I didn't want a crush. It was a hinderence in my trying to bury myself in God. I wanted romance to hit me over the head. Then, at the end of the week, I realized that I didn't have to struggle with my "crush." I could ignore it and continue to pursue God, because, God was the creator of the "crush."

I decided to sit back and go along for the ride.

What a ride it's been. I've sat back and watched as the "crush" on this guy is put on the back burner and God has put Himself front and center in my life. Every time I approach a guy, I approach him now, with prayer, asking God to lead our relationship. It has done wonders to me and my relationship with my champion, my knight in shining armor, my savior who died for me, saving me from the jaws of the dragon.

One last thing before I sign off. In answer to the questions I asked myself before I had a boyfriend and afterwards. "Why don't they like me?" My answer is, "Who cares? If they had shown me that they actually liked me and done something about it, I wouldn't have even considered God. I would have shoved Him on the back burner and forgotten about Him. Instead, God, in His sovereignty, knew exactly what I'd need to pull me towards Him, and gave me the yearning for romance, but made sure that there was no romance in sight. Instead, He stood there, waiting patiently for me, holding in His hands a white dress that is more beautiful then anything that I could ever imagine, dressed as a groom, waiting for me, His bride. Why He would choose me, me who would easily chase after something that doesn't fulfill is beyond me, but He has. It doesn't matter whether or not the guy next to me, or the guy who I am/was "crushing" on likes me. All that matters is that He adores me. He does."

I don't want a man who worships the ground I walk on. I want to worship the God whose ground I walk on.

As I end this post, Phil Wickam is singing in the background,

For You I sing, I dance,
Rejoice in this devine Romance,
Lift my heart and my hands,
To show my love, to show my love.

Amazing Insecurites

It's kinda odd how life works. I think God was confirming that it was okay to be content with my insecurities. Sunday morning, after I wrote that last blog, my pastor talked basically about loving people.

I was all concerned about what people thought of me, and as a girl, I'm concerned, worried about how guys view me. People have said that, in order to be lovable, you need to love. Pastor Berry said something similar, yet more profound on Sunday. His basic point was that my ability to truly love, depends on how dependent I am on God. If I combine both ideas, in order to be lovable, I need to love, and in order to love, I need to be completely dependent on God. I need to constantly remember how Jesus loved me, and that God provides for my every need. If I try to love people, I'm only human. I will fail to love people unless I love with the love that God gives me. God's love is infinite, and as I am filled up with His love, I am filled up to love others. As God pours into me, I can pour into others.

My insecurities are amazingly helpful in this too. The reason is because when I realize that I'm not right, when I'm not perfect, I can realize that He is right and perfect, and that He is the one that I am representing. The fact that God chooses to use broken, insecure people to show His glory among the world, the sinner reaching out to the sinner, saying, "I might be insecure about myself, I might not like myself very much, I might think I'm not great, but God, He's--He's, like, WOW. He's powerful and mighty and He loves me, even if I don't love myself, and He thinks I'm great because His son died for me! DIED for ME! Me who decided before I was born that He wasn't worth my time. Me who killed him through my sin. He died for ME. God's amazing."

Thank God for His mercy and grace, because I don't have much or any of it.

Shocking Revelation

It's probably a good thing that so few people read this, because today I had an amazing revelation. If you're sure you want to read on, please do so, but for those who aren't sure where their hearts lie, it might be a good thing to go back to wherever you came from and not bother your heads about it any more. Now for the revelation.

The truth is, I discovered today, almost for the first time, that I am incredibly insecure.

I'm not so insecure when I look at the way I interact with people on a day to day basis, but when it comes especially to guys, I'm highly insecure. I look at the guys around me and think, they can't possibly look at me that way.

Part of me though, after today, and all the glorious weather (it's amazing what a sunny day can do to a person) and hanging out with friends is ok with this. It doesn't bother me terribly, this realization that I'm really insecure, but it doesn't make me happy either. Sure, I wish guys would be good at telling a girl they like that she's pretty. Sure I wish I had a guy who looked at me like that. Will I ever? Probably not. I can, however, do my best to make others feel special and loved. I guess that's what friends are for.

Four-year-old on the loose

One picture I wish to keep in my mind with me always is the picture of Lily Ava's grubby little four-year-old (today!) hands looking for flowers for Mommy. It was positively precious.

Because today was Lily Ava's birthday, I some how ended up with Lily Ava in the back seat of my car as I drove to the nearest craft store, looking, not only for a little something for Lily Ava, but for a gift for Mary Asta, because I won't be here for her birthday.

Upon getting there, the fake flowers were the first thing both of us saw. I love fake flowers, and if I could, I'd probably have lots of vases of them everywhere during the winter. Lily Ava seemed to have the same thoughts, though of a particular flower, or bunch of flowers.

She immediately trundled up to them and declared, patting them, "I want for Mommy."

Just a little bit touched, I said, "Well, we'll see. Maybe when we come back this way."

She understood.

We skipped (literally) through the rest of the store, looking for things. We ran to the bathroom, because for once, the older sister needed to go, and not the younger one. We trotted back to the kids craft section and sang "We're following the leader" from Disney's Peter Pan.

Lily Ava version: "We'ewe following da leadew, da leadew, da leadew..."

There were many exclamations of, "I wan' buy dis for Asta. (Mary Asta)" and simply, "I wan' dis." She went gung-ho with my idea of a paint-by-number kit that had three paint-by-numbers in it. She would have gone gung-ho if I'd suggested getting Mary Asta a set of Transformer Legos (if they make those).

On our way back to the front of the store, I told her to go find the flowers. She found them, pretty much on her own, and buzzed right through every type of flower, until she'd found the ones she saw when we first came in. She wanted just those, none other.

When I asked her which colors she wanted, she grabbed a handful of the pale blue blossoms, not even thinking that they might be in bunches. I had to help. After seeing the bunches, she was a bit more careful. I held the pale blue, and then a darker blue, and then a pink, and then a mauve color as she reached for bunch after bunch, determined to find the best for Mommy. I finally had to limit it to four different types. Then I pointed out that she had two blue types, and did she want to find a different color, a color other then blue. For a four-year-old, she was sharp. She pulled the pale blue out of my hands and put it back, before reaching for a pale peach bunch. She was certain that she wanted all of those flowers for Mommy.

We went to the cash register. She carried the flowers. She proudly stuck them on the counter and grasped the counter staring at the flowers and the woman checking us out as if to make sure that it was all done properly.

After all was said and done, she carried the flowers (in her own baggy that the lady gave her) out to the car, into the car, on the way home, out of the car, and then finally into the house, where she proudly presented them to Mom.

"We bot dees." She proclaimed, holding them out to Mom, while standing on a bench so she could see Mom's face better.

"How pretty!" My mother exclaimed. "For your birthday?"

"No." Lily Ava was emphatic. "Der for you."

Eventually Mom understood. They now sit proudly in a vase in our downstairs guest bathroom, making it just a little friendlier down there.

Oh to have the determination and simple love of a four-year-old.

Musings #2

Recently, my fall break decided to spring itself upon me. Or rather, fall upon me. Spring break springs upon me. My bad. There was a moment there where I was unsure if it would be a good fall break, but like all breaks, this one was rather nice. Having two little adoring sisters at home helps.

I spent a lot of time driving here and there and everywhere. I spent a teensy bit of time with just about everyone. Except for Grace, that is. Grace I spent the most time with, simply because we were in the car for six hours together, at least. I'm shocked she didn't comment more on my driving. You shouldn't either.

Over fall break, I tried vainly to pick up New Moon, by Stephanie Meyer, for those of you who are constantly stuck in the closet. It's not the first time I've read it. In fact, it's the third. I own all four books, and can pick them up at leisure. I had just finished Twilight for the third time and decided that picking up New Moon (because that's the next book) wouldn't be a bad thing. I read maybe two chapters. All of them during the depressing part of the book. Now, you're going to think that I'm a little crazy, but I, and I think every girl that has had a relationship that didn't work (doesn't have to be with a boyfriend), can relate to Bella during this book. The feelings of inadequacy. Knowing that maybe if you'd been more interesting or beautiful or something maybe it would have worked. Stephanie Meyer makes the ending beautiful, telling the readers that Edward telling Bella that he didn't want her was "the blackest kind of hypocrisy." I love it.

Needless to say, I've been getting increasingly excited over Twilight, the books and the movie. My only hope is that the movie actually does it justice. I've read a lot of interviews where the actors say that they think the movie does do it justice, but I almost doubt that. Eh, call me a sceptic.

Look at that, I've managed to tangent. I didn't think this post was going to be about twilight, or that it wasn't going to be all about fall break. huh. Well, make the best of it. If you will, I will. Good think I waited till the last sentence to think up a title for this post.