mmm yes.

little backstory: (i just realized that is probably my favorite way to start a post... because i do it a lot i feel like. anyways...) my sophomore year of college, the pastor of the church i grew up in did a series on annointing. one example that he used of someone that is annointed at worship was a video of kim walker singing "how he loves". it really is a wonderful song (this was about a year before the song was everywhere, so it was the first time i had heard it), and she really is annointed. but, as anyone who has spent more than .5 seconds with her knows, my mom is a weirdo. and she saw this video right around the time that she got a laptop. and everytime i would come home (and when i wasn't there), literally for like 4 months, she would carry the laptop around with her playing that video over and over and over. if i brought friends home with me, she would make them watch it, then proceed to talk about it. she would even watch the really sweet video of john mark mcmillan (who wrote it) telling the story about it, then she would switch over to the kim walker version for the actual song. needless to say, it was out of control.
well back in november there was a worship conference that kim walker was at. it was really good, but she didn't sing "how he loves." then tonight, she was at rez! so i went with my parents and bryan, and it was also great. seriously, i can't say enough good stuff about kimmy kim. well, when "how he loves" started, my mom obviously got really excited. at the end of the night, my pastor got up and told kim about how he had showed that video a few years back, at which point my mom proceeded to turn to me and ask, very concerned, "did i ever show you that video??"
um... really mom? nope, don't seem to recall that one. what was it again? oh my.
reason number 8,496,704 that i love my mom.

thank you and you're welcome.

little background: so... my roommate kellie is probably the best person ever to go to if you want some good music. she is like me in that she likes it all, really, except country. and she is better than me in that she is constantly looking for and discovering new music, and actually getting it. (this is important because, although i love finding new music, i will usually hear it, like it, look it up, and go nowhere with it. it's really a shame...) every few months or so, i like to get kellie to make me a cd. i did this a few days ago, and, of course, she did not disappoint (although this time there were more songs than usual that i already had... HA! got you good, ms. dick) anyways... there's this band that kellie discovered quite some time ago, and, although i have listened to it with her and liked it, i never fully appreciated it until the songs of theirs that were on this cd. especially one very specific one, that i have been listening to on repeat.

i dare you to listen to this song and not pump your fist, or, at the very least, bob your head (in my case, it is a mixture of fist-pumping, head banging, and bouncing. while driving.)

so without further ado... here it is:

let us love

by needtobreathe

i should also probably add that all their music is good. really good.

click on their name to go to their website and go to the music tab. you can listen to the whole album there... wonderful!

not really sure what to call this...

so anyone who knows me well knows that i watch WAAAAAY too much tv. and since i don't have tv at my house now, i watch shows online. well, the fact that everything and its mom is available online nowadays is no good for me. because this means that i spend even more time just watching things that i really have no interest in. but then i start watching them, and then i want to keep up. and i can, so i do.
one show that i started watching purely out of boredom was the secret life of the american teenager. now, i don't know if anyone has ever seen this show, but it is out of control. for those who don't know, the basic premise of the show is this: this girl (amy) gets pregnant at band camp by the school manwhore (ricky). she then starts dating a kinda nerdy kid (ben), and they decide to get married, but then they decide they should just date since they're only 16. there is also another couple (grace and jack) who are members of the chastity club, but then they have sex, and grace's dad dies. there is also a girl named adrienne, who is dating ricky, and they have a lot of sex, but they also cheat on each other a lot. also in the mix are amy's two stupid friends, ben's friends who are dating each other, amy's sister and her gay friend, and everyone's ridiculously disfunctional parents. oh yea, and ben's new girlfriend from italy, who i want to punch every time she talks.
basically, the show is ridiculous. i'm pretty sure that the purpose in making the show was to teach kids about what high school is "really" like, and to show them the consequences of sex. but really, it is the least like real life of any show that i have ever seen. if i was a parent, i would never let my children watch it (until they were older than any of the characters). not because it is explicit or raunchy, but because it is literally all about how every high school student is having sex, or wants to have sex, or won't date you unless you have sex with them. i will admit, in high school i did not hang out with the most...bad?...kids. my friends were all pretty similar to me in that they never felt the need to "rebel." but i also know that there would never in a million years be a campaign called "just say me" spreading around the school to promote "taking care of yourself" instead of having sex (that is what this week's episode was about... haha it was ridiculous). and i know that not every single student was dying to have sex or would never date someone unless they were doing it with them (i'm not saying there weren't douchers like that, but not every single person was one.)
anyways... this probably seems like an angry post. but i promise it's not. the show is just out of control... it's incredibly entertaining in its ridiculousness. you should just watch an episode... or even 5 minutes of one. then you will know what i'm talking about. just warning you, though:
a-the acting is really bad.
b- i think the writers don't know what pronouns are. seriously... every single conversation will have the same word like 60 times.

ramblings

nothing really has happened to me for the last few days.
mostly because i have been sick... which sucks. seriously... the most sick i've been in a few years. i think i got food poisoning at golden corral... stupid breakfast buffet! but it was a good time to watch lots of tudors and be lazy and realize how much i appreciate being able to go out and do things.
and now i am all better, and it is great.
i finally got some groceries yesterday. i went to sunflower market, which is my favorite ever. so good... and so cheap! and i cleaned my room and flipped my mattress, which i never knew you were supposed to do until my roommate told me. i can't really tell a difference, but whatever.
today in chapel one of the best professors at ccu, sid buzzell, who is the dean of theology, spoke. i had him for my new testament class my sophomore year, and he is one of my favorite professors i've ever had.
anyway, today he talked about Proverbs 27:21 that says,

"the crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and a man is tested by his praise." (esv)

he talked about how praise can be translated as the praise a man gives, or the praise he receives (which a lot of translations say), but either way praise changes your whole life. one of the things he said was "look for the lovely, not the lousy." normally i don't really like little phrases like that, but i think that is just a really good way of simplifying the idea of living your life in a state of praise. that is something that i've been trying to do lately, which i think is why i appreciated his message so much. it's so easy to go through life being a cynic and only seeing the negative, but if you can just look for the good and the things to be thankful for, it truly does make life so much better.

and that is my soapbox for the day :)

randomness...

my grandma died last night. thank you to everyone who was praying for her and my family. seriously... you have no idea how much it means to me. it is very sad, but she died peacefully and she is no longer suffering. that is good.
it's funny how much i've learned about my family and myself this week. i've realized just why i am the way i am when it comes to dealing with tragedy. honestly, it's funny. i never really thought about it, but i am completely a product of my family, especially when it comes to this.
it really hasn't been as hard for me as it seems like it should. yes, it has been hard and frustrating and it's raised a lot of questions, but i don't feel as affected as i feel like i should. i do love my grandma... i really do. and i really will miss her, and i'm not at all happy about her being gone. but i think it's because i know where she is. i know that she is exactly where she has wanted to be since she found out about her als, and that makes me happy for her. she's no longer in pain, and she no longer has to worry about all of her family taking care of her.
i don't know how i would ever get through anything if i didn't have God. seriously... how do people do it? i just get all my comfort and my joy from Him. i just can't imagine any other way to truly get comfort in a situation like this. it is because i know that He is good and that He is in control and that she is with Him that i can be so okay with this.
the funeral, which is actually a memorial service because she donated her body to science (sweet, right?) is not until february. 2 days after my birthday. i think that's weird, but it's because that's when my out-of-town relatives can come. but i'm going to try to learn a song on the piano before then. i think she would like that :) so in the meantime, we're going to golden corral to get my grandma's favorite... breakfast. haha!

on a completely unrelated note... i'm slightly obsessed with the tudors. i think it's so good! anyways, in the show they always send messages and they seal them with wax. i think that is awesome... so i bought sealing wax. and a seal. and then i decided i need some sweet paper because it seems wrong to seal boring old lined paper with sealing wax, so i'm getting that when i get back to school. and then i will send letters galore. so for those of you who might be expecting a letter already and haven't gotten it yet... that is why. i've been getting my supplies.
i feel cooler than usual.

He still is...

this is another post about how good God is. because... well... He is. recently i've been doing this thing where i remember God in the little things. i praise Him for the simplest blessings in life, and i praise Him for the things He does even in the hard times. i've found that it really does make it so much easier to have joy!
today was a little weird.
first i realized that i lost a check that i got for babysitting last night. it was really out of my own foolishness and just not paying attention. last night on my way home from the people's house, my car was acting weird so i pulled over into a gas station. i called my dad, and he told me to buy some stuff for the engine. well, while i was on the phone with him worrying about getting home, i must have knocked the check out of my purse when i got my wallet. really, i can live without the money (not that it doesn't come in handy, but i never really had it to begin with, so i didn't really miss it.). i just didn't want to have to tell the people whose children i am supposed to take care of that i did something so irresponsible. well, i called the gas station tonight knowing it was a long shot, but they have my check! the guy there last night found it after i left and kept it there! seriously... praise God for that. it could have been found by someone who would try to cash it, or it could have just been lost. but instead, a very nice man happened to find it and keep it for me. so good!
and on a more sober note... today i found out that my grandma is not doing well. she was diagnosed with ALS a while ago, which is pretty crappy. really crappy, actually. and today she really took a turn for the worst. my mom told me that she might not make it through the week. it is the weirdest thing ever knowing that. and it's scary. and it's sad. i don't really want to write it all down here... mainly because i don't really know what to say. but all i can say is that, even though this is hard and sucks, i have hope because i know that God has everything in His hands. and she loves Him, and she will be with Him, and He will be glorified somehow in all of this.
but please, if you think about it, keep her and my family in your prayers.
and remember who God is...

my junk

i have been listening to the spring awakening soundtrack literally every single day (multiple times a day) since christmas, and i'm still not sick of it. not only am i not sick of it, but i still get excited every time one of the songs comes on. seriously... i don't know why. i just love it so much. i don't know if it's because of the excitement and significance of seeing it, or if it's just that good. i would say a little of both...

PASSED!

i passed i passed i passed! i am talking about my math clep test... i took it today, and i didn't think i was going to pass. you know how sometimes you'll be worried about something, but then once you start it you realize it isn't so bad? that is not what happened with this test. literally the whole time i was thinking that i was going to fail. i was only confident on maybe 10 of my answers. so needless to say, i was very excited when i passed :)
praise God! seriously... praise Him. He's the reason. and He's good.

math... boo!

i'm taking the test to clep out of math on friday, and i just started studying today. i wish i would have taken the test my freshman year... i used to know all this stuff but now it's just hard! hopefully my mad test taking skills will come in handy...
i don't know what's wrong with me, but i can never think about what i'm supposed to be thinking about. like right now i'm supposed to be thinking about math, but instead i'm thinking of the chronicles of narnia (specifically, they voyage of the dawn treader). it's a great book... definitely my favorite of the series.
i remember one time i was talking to a friend of mine and i asked him what his favorite cs lewis book is (i don't even remember why... that's kinda a nerdy thing to ask. and i've only ever read like 2 cs lewis books outside the narnia series, so i'm not sure where i was going with that question. whatever.) anyways... he said the voyage of the dawn treader. i remember being taken aback by his answer because a)he's very smart, so i expected him to say one of the more "smart" options and b)that's my favorite (at least in the series) and i had literally just read it. but then something happened, and i don't think i ever told him that's my favorite too. it is. and here is why:
dawn treader is where we meet cousin eustace, who is the bratty little toolbag cousin of the main narnia kids. he's seriously the biggest butthead. and there's this one part in the book where he goes off and gets turned into a dragon. and he lives as a dragon for a few weeks, and he's miserable and cries a lot, but he's really sorry for the way he's acted toward everyone, so he helps them out the best he can as a dragon. well, then one night Aslan comes to him and tells eustace to follow him up to the top of this hill where there is a well. and then he tells him to undress, so eustace tries 3 times to scratch off his skin, and just when he thinks it's off and he'll get to jump in the water, he sees that his dragon skin is still there. but Aslan takes his lion claws and digs deeper than eustace ever could, and he completely removes all of the dragon skin, then he picks him up and throws him into the water. the whole process is painful and hard and eustace doesn't like it at first, but he then realizes how much of a relief it is and how much better he feels.

i just love this story so much. i think it's such an awesome example of grace and the way that God loves us and wants to change us. even though it's hard and it hurts and it's scary, it is so refreshing to allow Him to work through all our junk. and i love that the story is more than just about grace--it's about the importance of remembering that grace. it goes on to talk about the way that eustace was changed after that. he was kinder and better and sometimes he messed up and went back to his old ways, but he was constantly working on being a better person because of the way that Aslan worked in his life.
and that is what i'm thinking about right now...

top 10

here are the 10 things i am most looking forward to for 2010:

10-new movies coming out. i'm a big loser for that one... i know.

9-summer in my house :)

8-my birthday (let's be real... that's every year)

7-meeting new people

6-taking piano lessons!

5-figuring out how to travel on my limited (meaning nonexistent) means

4-not knowing anything, but doing life one day at a time

3-figuring out what i'm going to do when i'm done with school... probably it's teaching overseas, but who knows really...

2-graduating!

1-seeing what plans God decides to change, and which ones actually happen :)

antsy pants

i just got my first lesson for my tefl certification today. i've started it... it's not too hard. but there's a problem:
i'm antsy. i don't feel like sitting still right now. i just want to do something... something awesome. i don't even know what.
i've felt like this for the last few days. i haven't even been able to sleep in, which, for anyone who knows me, is a huge deal.
i feel like i have so much on my mind, but really i don't. it's weird.
i just wrote a lot of stuff then changed my mind about putting it up here.
i'm going for a walk.

best new year's ever

hanging out with my parents and dwen... drinking champagne (from the classy ice bucket), watching dad dominate trivial pursuit, and missing the ball drop because we were playing bananagrams (or, as david so graciously changed the name to tonight... vaginagrams.)

it's true.

ps: i have a new favorite beer. not that i had an old favorite... more like now i have a beer that i actually like.

mmmm.... la folie. so tasty.

and yes... that is right: i took this picture for the sole purpose of putting it on here. whateva... i do what i want.

happy new year :)