Goin' on a Picnik

Picnik.com is very fascinating. I'm thinking about asking for a premium subscription for my birthday. Hmmm...

I've made cute photo edits, like this one:

Or this one:

You can also make crazy stuff...like this!


If anyone wants to buy me a subscription for Picnik premium...my birthday is in less than 3 weeks. :)

What to post...what to post...

Since my blog is called "Thoughts & Moments," I am going to post a thought and a moment. That will be simple enough, and should satisfy my desire to let out some of the stuff going on in my mind. You know, a person can talk as much as they want, but once their listener stops listening...it isn't the same. So, in hopes that someone isn't completely exasperated with what I have to say...I will share it with other people, via my blog.

Thought:

Do you ever get frustrated by people who are always wishing the future to hurry up and come? I must say that, yes, I do this from time to time, but I have made a habit of making myself notice when I do it. Whenever I find myself unhappy with the present, I remind myself of all the positive sides of it. Sometimes I get so sick of school...of eating in the cafeteria...of walking to class every single day, rain or shine...of not being taken seriously and not having a real job...of living in a dorm. But then I stop and think, "You know, I will be able to find something to complain about during every stage of life. Is this one really any worse than what the future's going to be like?" In our lives, we will always have difficulties. The types of difficulties we face may differ from year to year, but we will face hardships no matter what stage of life we are in. When I start to complain about eating macaroni and cheese from a box, I think about the future- someday I'm going to have a family, and I will most likely be the one responsible for cooking. Right now I just have me to worry about- and although I can be a little grumbly about my cooking skills (or limitations, rather)...I really am thankful I don't have to worry about other people's complaints, like "Why are we having that for supper? I don't like that." or "I don't want that." Right now, I only have to worry about me. And that's not so hard.


Moment:

On Friday night, I decorated mini pumpkins!
It was really fun. :)

Caitlin and I went shopping and bought the pumpkins, some glitter, glue, and jewel embellishments. We sat and watched movies while painting our pumpkins. They turned out so cute! Mine look like:

A silly one:

A scary one:

A girly one:

Fall is here, October is coming, and so is my birthday, Homecoming, fall break, and Halloween! SO exciting.

Give Me Your Eyes

Brandon Heath Lyrics – Give Me Your Eyes


Looked down from a broken sky
Traced out by the city lights
My world from a mile high
Best seat in the house tonight
Touched down on the cold black tile
Hold on for the sudden stop
Breath in the familiar shock
Of confusion and chaos
All those people going somewhere
Why have I never cared?

Give me your eyes for just one second
Give me your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me your love for humanity
Give me your arms for the broken hearted
The ones that are far beyond my reach
Give me your heart for the ones forgotten
Give me your eyes so I can see
yeah .. yeah .. yeah .. yeah

Step out on a busy street
See a girl and our eyes meet
Does her best to smile at me
To hide what's underneath
There’s a man just to her right
Black suit and a bright red tie
Too ashamed to tell his wife
He’s out of work
He’s buying time
All those people going somewhere
Why have I never cared?

Give me your eyes for just one second
Give me your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me your love for humanity
Give me your arms for the broken hearted
The ones that are far beyond my reach
Give me your heart for the ones forgotten
Give me your eyes so I can see
yeah .. yeah .. yeah .. yeah
I’ve been there a million times
A couple of million eyes
Just moving past me by
I swear I never thought that I was wrong
Well I want a second glance
So give me a second chance
To see the way you see the people all alone

Give me your eyes for just one second
Give me your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me your love for humanity
Give me your arms for the broken hearted
The ones that are far beyond my reach
Give me your heart for the ones forgotten
Give me your eyes so I can see
yeah .. yeah .. yeah .. yeah

**********************************************************************************

This is a song I can listen to over and over. In fact, I am listening to it for the 5th time right now as I am writing this. It is so powerful! The message is simple: Why don't I see all the people around me for who they really are, not just how I perceive them to be? Why am I so quick to judge people, when I don't even know the whole story? Oh, if I could just have the eyes of God for even one second, what a difference it could make- what a difference I could make! As human beings, we are so quick to assume, to judge, or put people in categories. Why do we choose only to see the problems, when all around us are people who are hurting? We can get so caught up in judgement that we quickly forget Jesus...what he did, how he loved, and how he would treat the people we so easily dislike. We are truly no different than them. The difference is Jesus- He has rescued us, and we have found him. Without Jesus, who knows where we would be? I shudder to think about what my life would be like if I didn't know God. And if I could see people through his eyes, I know that my prideful view would be gone and I could love freely...this song is a simple prayer, and it is mine: that I would cast away my selfish nature and see the world through the eyes of God...only then can I begin to love like he does.

8 years ago...

8 years ago, on this day, I was 11 years and 11 months old. September 11th is exactly one month before my birthday. As an eleven-almost twelve- year old, I didn't really understand what was going on in our country when I first heard about it. Unlike many schools who turned on the televisions in every classroom, my school did not tell us that anything was happening. I found out after school, when my mom came to pick me up. The first words out of her mouth were "President Bush may be coming to Omaha."

I smiled and said, "Really? That's so cool!"

She quickly corrected me, saying, "No, it isn't."

She tried to explain things as we were driving home, and that whole evening we sat in the living room, never moving from in front of the TV. My sister didn't go to soccer practice. All of us just sat there the whole night, trying to make sense of what we were seeing on the screen before us. It took me a while to realize that this was real- I'd heard all the stories of Pearl Harbor and all the wars that took place decades before, but I never fathomed that something like that would happen in my lifetime. Just like it was to every U.S. citizen, and to people all around the world, the 9/11 attacks were unreal to me.

We will never forget that day.

This is the life...

I love college.

And no, I don't love drinking. Or women. (Like the song...)

But I do love the crazy things that we college students do. Last night, Caitlin and I were watching 18 Kids and Counting, and on the show, the kids were eating cupcakes. We both decided we really wanted some cupcakes, so off to Wal-Mart we went. We bought some awesome blue frosted chocolate Batman cupcakes! They were sooo good (and sooo bad for us...). The only thing is that, like anything with that much artificial coloring, they stained our lips, teeth, tongue, and whole mouths blue. And then we had a floor meeting, so we showed up with traces of blue left on our faces and fingers. :)

After the meeting, we still had extra cupcakes, and so when Kady came by she got one, too. And then we started a game of UNO Stacko- like Jenga and UNO mixed.

It was fun, but I failed. Frustrating...but funny. :)

 

Somehow our conversation turned to this one kid with a rat tail. We see him all the time, and I know all of us have to suppress giggles each time we do. His rat tail looks a lot like this picture, but his is always braided. We've decided we are going to dress up as him for Halloween...hopefully he doesn't see us. 

I don't know what it is with rat tails, but shouldn't they have gone out with the 80s? If not, then at least the 90s? This doesn't seem the case. You will still see people who decide to hold on to the tradition (it's either that, or they're total Star Wars freaks). Don't get me wrong, I am not condemning these people in any way...I simply don't see the allure in this type of hairstyle. I just don't get it. I feel the same way about mullets...but I suppose that will have to wait for a blog post in the future. :)

Just some quotes

It seems a common thing for people to put quotes in their blog posts. I really haven't done that yet. And because I can't think of anything profound to say, I decided I would dedicate an entire post (don't worry, it won't be overly long) to quotes. Here are some interesting ones:

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.

~Unknown

Rule number one is, don’t sweat the small stuff. Rule number two is, it’s all small stuff.

~Robert Eliot

Miracles start to happen when you give as much energy to your dreams as you do to your fears.

~Richard Wilkins 

Nobody really cares if you're miserable, so you might as well be happy. ~Cynthia Nelms

A daydream is a meal at which images are eaten. Some of us are gourmets, some gourmands, and a good many take their images precooked out of a can and swallow them down whole, absent-mindedly and with little relish. ~ W.H. Auden

They say that nobody is perfect. Then they tell you practice makes perfect. I wish they'd make up their minds. ~Wilt Chamberlain

We could learn a lot from crayons; some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, while others bright, some have weird names, but they all have learned to live together in the same box. ~Robert Fulghum

There ya go. :)




Oh yeah...not sure why I added a picture of my cat. But she is cute!

The Stairways of My Mind

Sometimes, it is really hard for me to focus in my classes.

And no, I don't have ADD. :)

You see, I like to think. And by thinking, I mean dreaming, planning, organizing, imagining. Like today in Economics. Originally, I thought I was going to have to pay extra attention in that class because Economics went right over my head in high school. But it turns out that I have a really great professor (he goes by "Tommy") who explains things very, very well. And now I understand! Understanding supply and demand is great, but it causes a problem. Since I think I get everything now, I allow my mind to wander. And where does it go? EVERYWHERE.

Today I was thinking about stairs.

I've never had stairs. Never, ever. My house was originally a gas station, built in 1933. We don't have an upstairs or a downstairs. So I've always wanted stairs, ever since I was a little girl. I found a collection of papers from when I was in 4th grade, and one paper was titled "Me in the Future." I described my life- I was married with 4 kids, I had a dog and a cat, and I described my house: a farmhouse out in the country WITH STAIRS. I was laughing so hard; I couldn't believe I actually wrote that. But it's true! My desires haven't changed, even though it's been a decade since I wrote that. I still want to get married and have 4 kids (anywhere from 2-5, actually), and I want some pets (as long as they're outside!) and I would love, love, love to live in the country. In a farmhouse. With stairs!

So today I was thinking about stairs, specifically what I would do with them. What kind of rug would go on the stairs? I would definitely wrap garland around the railing at Christmas time! Maybe even strings of popcorn or something fun like that. I could see my kids (and even maybe me!) sliding down the stairs on our rear ends. :)

When I sat down to write a new blog post, I had no idea that I was going to elaborate so much on something as simple as stairs. I am actually laughing now. Oh man.

But it's true. It's just a little sampling of what goes on in my mind, along with supply and demand curves and the like. Maybe next time I'll talk about all the planning/organizing I do in my brain. Hmm...that would take some time to write out. Watch out! Be prepared for a long post. :)