Goals and Dreams

I'm not a huge fan of making New Years resolutions.  I end up making ones I never can keep.  I want to do the impossible.  However, I have come to realize that I need to make resolutions throughout the year because my circumstances are always changing.  For example, I might not be able to run everyday because I have to wake up early or go to bed early.  I might not be able to blog everyday because I need to focus on my schoolwork.  And, most importantly, I just might not be able to pray every day at a certain time.  This is one that I struggle with the most.  I want to make religion into a scheduled, timed, balanced act.  I am an organized person most of the time.  I like things to be in place.  I am beginning to realize that my faith in God cannot always be like that.  Praying in my room alone doesn't always have to be the place I pray.  Reading my Bible a certain way in a certain place doesn't always have to be the way I read it.

That being said, what are some goals I can have that I know can be accomplished, no matter what my circumstances happen to be?  You see, my family is adopting, and because of this, we do not know what the next few months are going to look like.  My parents could be travelling to Ethiopia in just a few short months - we don't know.  Yet, I am still trusting God.  I am still trusting that He will shape me and mold me into the young woman He wants me to be. 

MY GOALS AND DREAMS FOR 2011

Work on my photography skills.  I want to learn how to shoot all manually, and I also want to purchase another lens.  I am planning to ask some families to allow me to do a shoot with them for free so I can practice.

Write more.  Enough said.  I have been so busy with school papers, that I haven't had time to write on my own.  I will most likely be participating in NaNoWriMo this year as well. 

I am going to expand upon my hobbies!  Christmas break, I was bored because I didn't know what to do.  I'm homeschooleed, but I do a lot of school.  A lot!  Even though I love my co-op, when I'm not doing school that is related to it, I don't know what to do with myself.  So, I am going to find a hobby.  And when I do, I am going to share it with you!

Simply put, I am going to slow down.  I want to remember the small things my siblings and I do.  The small memories we make together.  If that means I do it with my camera, then so be it. 

I want to blog, but I want to have meaningful posts.  I don't want to write boring posts or posts that only benefit me.  I want you to enjoy reading it and benefit from it. 

There are so many more.  There are so many things I want to do in my life, so many goals I want to accomplish.  What we all, what I must realize is that my life has limits, boundaries.  We are not going to know what our circumstance will be everyday of the year.  Life happens.  There is a lot that can happen in 365 days.  Make your goals, go for them.  But please remember that all you really need to accomplish is God's plan for your life.  He knows what you will do, what you will accomplish.  Let's try to keep Him in our focus this year.

Happy New Year - New Design

So, do you like the new header?  There is a bit of a new look to the rest of the blog, but not a very big change.  I am hoping to learn more about blog designing this coming year.  Then, maybe, this blog will get a new look!  As for now, I will just stick to making headers.  Let me know what you think about it!  Don't forget to enter my giveaway.  You can find a link to it right at the top of this page!

Work in Progress

I am working on a new blog design for 2011.  With that in mind, please be patient with me.  I am doing it slowly, and I am doing it gradually.  So, there might be some small changes every once in a while.  They might stay, and they might not!  Sorry for any inconvenience!

There's Been an Addition to the Family

This Christmas, my sisters received kittens.  You might think that was a rather drastic thing to do, and I would have to agree.  However, when your sister puts "Kitten." and "Surprises." on both her birthday and Christmas list, what else would you get her?  So, we now have two little rapscallions running through the house.  Let me introduce them to you...

This is Socks.  He has amazing eyes. 



And this is Tuffy.  He likes to claw everything!



 These little guys are absolutely adorable.  Even my dad likes them, and he jokingly said that his favorite kind of cat is a dead one.  Well, my sisters finally convinced him!  I think my sister's "My favorite kind of lawyer is a dead lawyer" had something to do with it!  (My dad's a lawyer.  We like to say this kind of stuff to each other.  I really don't know why.)

What I love the most about these kittens is that I can take cute pictures of them.  When I love even better is that I don't have to clean up after them!  You will see much more of them in the future.  They are good little sujects for photos.  I think they fit right in!

Peaceful

I hear sighs of contentment, shouts of joy, and yells of "Come see this.  It's really cool."  My siblings are happy.  Yes, they are happy most of the time, but today, they are even more so.  They are young.  They have the right to enjoy the toys they receive.  We all do.  However, those of us who know, who truly know, know that Christmas is more than just receiving gifts and having parties, have the ability to enjoy these gifts, but enjoy something else as well.  We know that Jesus Christ was born to die on the cross for our sins.  We know that he was born to save us.  Because we know this, we can enjoy our gifts even more.  For me, these gifts represent the ultimate gift I have received.

Christmas, for our family, is a time of relaxing, of peace, and of joy.  We can all be together without the stress of work or school.  We get to celebrate my mom's birthday - the day after Christmas.  We get to be together to establish and build upon traditions. 

To see the faces of the people you love open the gift you gave them is wonderful.  For me, it was enjoyable, but hard.  I watched some of my extended family open gifts, and all the while I was praying that they would someday open the gift that Jesus Christ has given us. 

This season just reminds me how good God is.  He blesses us and provides.  He blesses us with family, gifts, and, most importantly, His Son.  He provides so that we can give to others, and bless them in return. 

My youngest brother just told the family, "It should be Christmas every day."  And my other brother replied, "We would have to have our tree up everyday."  To this I say, "Yes.  It should be Christmas everyday."  At our church's Christmas Eve service, we watched a video that showed that some things we might believe about the nativity might not be true.  However, it ended by saying that something in the nativity never changes.  The Babe - Jesus.  The baby boy who was laid in a manger and wrapped in swaddling clothes.  May you never lose Him this year.  Merry Christmas!

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas

Yes, I am dreaming of a white Christmas. Actually, there is already snow on the ground here, but, I can still say that, right? 

Tonight, we have a fire going in our new fire place that actually works.  (We have lived in our house for three years now, and the fire place just got fixed, and is working.)

 My siblings and I are camping out downstairs in the same room as our tree.  It's a big thing around here! 

Tomorrow, we go bowling with my dad, so my mom can do some things.  Ahem. Ahem. 

 And then we will go to church, come home, and watch The Nativity Story.  Then all the kids go to bed.  And try to fall asleep, but stay up way too late!

Then we will get up in the morning, and the rest is history!  This will be my last post for a while.  I hope you have a wonderful Christmas season! 

Precious Moments

Moments I would not trade for the world...

I have six siblings.  To some people, that's a lot, but for me it's a good number.  Because we have always (for the most part) been homeschooled, we are very close.  Very close.  Sometimes in a good way...and sometimes in a bad way.  But no matter what, there are so many precious moments I would not trade anything for...

1.  Attempting to eat an ice cream cone while your eighteen month old sister dips her french fries in it.  Then, continuing to eat it even after she double, triple, and quadruple dips.

2.  Driving on the highway with just me and my mom.  In my family, life moves so fast, it can be hard to just slow down and talk about life.  My mom and I have the best conversations when we are driving on the highway!

3.  Sharing a room.  I personally love sharing a room with my sisters.  We get to talk at night, scare each other in the dark, act like crazy people, etc. etc.  We are constantly begging my mom for my baby sister to move into our room.  Girls, try it for one night if you have a sister.  Talk about things.  Ask her questions.  It will be one of the best things you could ever do for her.  I promise.  Now, my sisters cannot fall asleep until I'm in the room.  I get mad when they say that, but really I am glad that they miss me and love me that much.

4.  All seven children wrestling and tackling my dad.  Enough said.

5.  Spelling tests.  This is one of the subjects where all of us help each other.  Do not come to our house around eleven in the morning on Friday.  We go crazy.  My brother says the words in an English accent and makes up sentences that crack me up.  For example:  "Prejudice.  (In English accent) Pride comes before prejudice."  My sister accuse each other of not saying the word correctly.  "You said 'cookie' not 'cookies'.  You messed me up."  Spelling tests.  They're pretty fun around here.

I'll do one more that has to do with Christmas.

6.  Promising my sisters that I will wake them up on Christmas morning before I go down.  I always promise, but I never do what they want me to do.  You see, I have this tradition where I wake up very early.  I always wake up - I don't even turn my alarm on.  (My mom wishes I did that on school days!)  Then, I walk down the stairs with my eyes closed and then look at the tree.  I sit there for a few minutes and take it all in.  THEN I go and wake up the siblings.  I'm a bad older sister.  I know.

What are some of your "precious moments"?

p.s.  Did you enjoy the "Thursday Devotional"?

Thursday Devotion

Every Thursday I am going to post a devotional that I have written.  Eventually, I want to have something where anyone can link up and post one of their own devotionals.  For now, I won't do that, but I will in the next few weeks!
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I came across this verse this week...

"...but no being can tame the tongue.  It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.  With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God."  James 3: 8-9

This is a verse I actually have not read very often before.  However, I thought that it was a beautiful, and very true, verse  I especially like it because, being in highschool, this can happen a lot.  Especially with girls.  A Christian girl, who loves God with all her heart, can look at a girl at school and say to her friends "I hate her!"  Come on, you know you have done it before!  I don't care if you go to a "real" school with kids other than your siblings or not!  (I'm homeschooled.  I can say that!) 

I just love this verse when it says "we bless our Lord and Father", but with our tongue we also "curse people who are made in the likeness of God."

We can sing beautiful songs in church, we can write and speak great speeches, we can compose pages upon pages of a story, and we can pray to God.  But, we can also tell a person we hate them, mock a person's actions, physically abuse a person.  We can do that to people - people who are made in a holy God's image.  I'm not saying that people are holy, because we aren't even close.  But God does say "Whatever you do to the lease of these, you do unto me."

That means the girl who was your best friend in second grade who ditched you for another girl.  That can also mean anyone, anyone who has hurt you in some way.  I think that is something people really struggle with.  We as humans are so selfish that we automatically act as if we have hate the person who might have hurt us.  We think only ourselves, when really, we don't even know if they hurt us on purpose. 

If we could only learn to go immediately to that person or people, and talk the conflict out, things would be so much easier.  If we treat the person we are saying bad things about or gossipping about, as if they were Jesus, would we say the things we say about them?  Would we say "I hate her" or "Look at her clothes" or "What is her problem"?

I struggle with this a lot, and I bet you do too.  I know there are people I need to talk to, and I know there are people I have hurt before.  A daily challenge can be to say kind words to our siblings.  We can't yell at them to go away so we can do our devotions!  I know this is really hard for all of us with siblings!

This week, try to bless the Lord with your beautiful voice or daily prayers while blessing people with your words at the same time.  I also encourage you to read all of John 3, and see what it says about the tongue and our words.  Have a great week!

Words For Snow Contest

Olivia from Horsefeathers is having a contest, and because my blog got deleted, I no longer have an entry.  So, here is my entry!  Sorry if you have already read it!  This is my last post that I need to catch up on!

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On the Adoption of Her Siblings - A Poem

A few months ago, I wrote a poem for school.  My family is adopting from Ethiopia next year.  That's what this poem is about.  It's called "On the Adoption of Her Siblings".  The pictures here are not my siblings, just pictures from my trip to Ethiopia.  (It may sound a little weird.  I had to write it in old English!)
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Thou who has no proof at all

Your slanderings make you seem so small.

How canst thou hold his tiny hand,

Yet never see nor understand?

He was not born of your fine race,
But still you say without any grace
“Why, O why, is this child here?
Why have they taken him with no fear?”

He comes from a place where they are poor,

But this family, for him, has opened the door.
So, please, thou skeptic, turn away,
Or thank God for your every day.
For the time may come when you are lost
And someone might step in to carry your cross

Sealed For Redemption

I have a new blog!  Yes, I know that was really fast, but I have been thinking of doing this for a very long time!  It's called "Sealed for Redemption."  Here is the address:  http://www.sealedforredemption.blogspot.com/
I would love it if you could go and check it out!  I have written there what it is going to be about.  Go check it out!

When I reach ten followers, there is going to be a giveaway!  So, if you spread the word, we will get there even faster.  The prize is going to be really good!

Photography

I LOVE photography!  It is something I see myself doing as a career, and if not as a career, than as a hobby.  I bought a Nikon D3000 this summer, and hardly a day goes by when I do not take pictures.  Here are some examples of my photography...

So, what do you think?  I will do posts about photography often!  I am also going to do tutorials, as well as some other special things! 

I'M SO SORRY!

Well guys.  I think I have officially learned my lesson.  I am never going to play with things on the computer that I don't know about.  If you are reading this, you've probably noticed that all my posts are gone.  Well, you are correct.  My blog somehow deleted itself while I was trying to set up a Gmail account for this blog.  So, I will be trying to catch up on posts in the next few days.  I woudl LOVE it if you followed me again!  :)  I am so sorry!  *Please* don't hate me!  Next week, I promise there will be a giveaway for all of you!