The Curious Anomaly of Free Time

Merry Christmas! (A day late, but really, is it that important that the timing be perfect?) I hope you all had a great Christmas with family and/or friends, and hopefully remembered that it's not all about parties, presents, and pork (I don't know about you, but we had ham for lunch), and took time to say thank you and happy birthday to the Savior of the world! And hopefully (I know, lots of hope going on here) you've done better than I have at managing your time!

Every time I get really busy, I think about all the things I wish I had time to do. Things like craft projects, books I want to read, food I want to cook....blog posts I mean to write.... But somehow when I finally get the free time, I never do anything I meant to do! That's the Curious Anomaly of Free Time: when free time finally comes around to a person, they NEVER do what they originally intended to do with it!

A prime example of this is my entire first semester at school. I had most of Tuesday free and all of Thursday free, and each week I planned all the useful things I was going to do during my free time. Then, without fail, every week I would accomplish very little of what I said I would. Now that I've been on break for a full 2 weeks, with nothing to do and no one to see besides my immediate family (that's what happens when your family moves and you go home for Christmas to a city where you don't have any close friends), you'd think I'd have time to turn out all sorts of clever blog posts or amazing projects. But alas, my life has consisted of Pinterest, painting pinecone flowers, and fruitlessly brainstorming business name ideas so I can sell jewelry from my Etsy shop. Meanwhile, my sister is making me feel like a slacker by putting together a fabulous scrapbook, my mother is making me feel lazy by running a bed and breakfast AND keeping up with normal housework, and my brother is making me feel like a neanderthal who knows nothing about technology by somehow apparently knowing everything about everything to do with electronics and the internet.

This is what I get for being satisfied with myself. I spend so much time looking at craft projects and decorating ideas that I know I can replicate and understand that I don't stop to replicate! With all that in mind, I'm going to go to Goodwill and buy stuff to make boots, just because I can. Then I'll come back and make them, and maybe if I'm really ambitious I'll post about making them. And maybe eventually I'll get around to working on my potential jewelry business, finding textbooks for next semester, and cleaning my room.

Happy Monday :)

Vikings, and My Lack of Responsibility

One more day of classes, and then break!!!!! I am so insanely excited to see my family, you have no idea! Initially, I was not going to get to go home for Thanksgiving, but plans have been made (and then re-arranged) so that my sister and I get to go home Tuesday! I've never been away from them for so long (geeze, around 2 months) and I'm doing just fine, but it's not my preference :/ And yes, I do realize it will get longer and longer every time, but that doesn't mean I have to like it!

But nonetheless, college is still fun! I am done with most serious homework till finals, so now I can relax a little. Although today I may have relaxed a little too much, seeing as I slept super late, didn't clean my room, didn't work on my drawing project, didn't start my math, and definitely didn't do laundry. What did I do, you ask? I may have spent an obscene amount of time on Pinterest, if you must know. But hey, now I have even more things to think about trying! That is, when I stop procrastinating......and re-pinning stuff......and trying all the worthless things I find..

However, the day was not a total loss! Tonight I went to Viking Feast hosted by my residence hall (the honors hall, because we're all nerds), and it was quite fun! There was a whole (gigantic!) roast pig that was delicious, fighting demonstrations, a stew competition, door prizes, I think dancing, and some people even dressed up (myself included, because I never say no to wearing a costume)! On the whole, it was a happy event! Except when the frat house across the street launched a water balloon at the fighting.....ring? I guess? Anyway, it hit a girl in the face and our hall's RD went over to talk to them (followed by several angry vikings) and I think the police were called too. But other than that, it was a fun event :)

And to top off this extremely unproductive (but fun) day, I ended by watching the Fellowship of the Ring (extended, of course) with some friends :) So I guess I don't have any reason to put off doing what I need to do, because I don't have any large, pressing homework assignments, I don't need any more sleep (I got 10 hours last night. Yes, be jealous.), I have had my time to relax and catch up on e-mails, fb, and pinterest, I've got in my social time, and I'm not sick (at least not too sick). So I guess this means I'll have to be responsible and do laundry and work on my drawing assignment tomorrow, and start in on math Monday. Cause we all know that's what I want to do between classes Monday :p

I hate thinking of titles.

So, it's been a while! I do believe in my last post I complained about having way too much time. That has passed. Life has sped up quite a bit with homework and cleaning out and packing everything I own into a box or cramming it into my dorm room. Such are the joys of your family moving! But on the whole, life is good, and I am doing well (though a little sick at the moment).

By far my favorite class is Drawing I. I love that I can spend 6 hours of class time a week drawing! And, my teacher says I'm doing really well, and that's always encouraging! Eventually I'll remember to take pictures of some of my drawings and then I'll post them.

Physical Geography is also a lot of fun, mostly because I have a fabulous teacher. Before tests, he has a review session where he answers as many questions as we care to ask, AND he brings us coffee! Last Thursday we went on a field trip around the north west parts of the state and hiked around some mountains, visited the muddy remains of a river, glanced at a windfarm, and toured a cave. Best field trip ever :)

The last few months have flown by, and weirdly enough I'm enrolling for spring already! Because I'm in the honors college, we get to enroll the same time as seniors as freshman! The only people who enroll first are grad students and all non-freshman honor students. Yep, tis nice to be an honors student :) If all goes well, I'll be in 12 hours of art classes, choir, and an honors seminar called Magic Ring Allegories which will cover Tolkien, Wagner, I think Plato, and someone else.  It should be a fun semester :)

In the meantime, if you need to waste time, I would highly recommend Pinterest.

College Life...So Far

Well, since I last posted I've gained a week or so of 'real' college experience going to class and being totally in charge of whatever happens to me. So far it's gone rather well, I've made it to class on time every day and even felt prepared every day! I like all my classes except College Algebra, which is unfortunate because it will take the most time to get right. But I think my Physical Geography class will be interesting enough to make up for it :)

My Drawing I class is interesting, and challenging, because I don't have a very steady hand and I'm not good at copying what I see, which is basically what we're covering. I don't feel intimidated by the other students though, because I'm in a class with mostly graphic design majors, not the people who will go on to major in drawing or painting, so they're not the best at drawing either, which is encouraging!

One really neat aspect of this week was that Wednesday and Friday Dr. Z. Randall Stroope directed the choir I'm in (he's not our usual director), and he's one of the best known choral directors/composers currently, and it was very neat because he is so good! We're learning Carmina Burana to perform in the spring, I'm excited for that!

The weirdest thing so far is that I have a lot of extra time so far. I know it will pick up as the semester continues, but so far I have a lot of extra time. I need a job! I don't have one for the first time in over 2 years, and I'm not sure how to handle all this extra free time! I guess I could spend it writing extra credit papers for Freshman Orientation, but I really don't want to, and I doubt I'll need the extra credit. Oh well, I'll figure something out! Maybe I'll make jewelry or paint or draw something cool. I'll post pictures of it if it's not too bad :)

Welcome Week

Well, I realized it has been quite a while since my last post, so I thought I'd share a little of what's been going on in life :)

Tuesday the 9th I had the opportunity to see an incredible exhibit with my grandparents at the downtown art museum called Passages. It is the private collection of Steve Green, president of Hobby Lobby, containing ancient manuscripts of the Bible starting with the torah and continuing through more recent editions of the Bible. It was absolutely incredible! When you enter the exhibit, they give you an ipod touch and when you put in the number of whichever exhibit case you were looking at, it plays a commentary on the items inside the case telling you all about the history of the pieces and the people related to the pieces. There were so many wonderful pieces: a 1st edition King James Bible, a Tyndale Bible (which I read from through the glass), Esther scrolls, giant hymn books for choirs, even a portion of a dead sea scroll! I especially loved the cases with illuminated manuscripts, they were beautiful! There were so many rooms and cases and Bibles, if you listened to every one and spent some time on every one it might take you all week to get to the end! I could have spent all day and longer in the exhibit, but I only had a few hours. If you get the chance to see this exhibit, go! It really can give you a new perspective on how much was put into the Bible you read today, and how many people gave their entire life to preserve it!

Last week I packed and cleaned out and re-organized my room in the hopes of getting it all packed up by the end of the week.. Didn't exactly get it all done, but I made a dent! Monday morning I moved into the residence hall and my new room! It seems so strange that I am old enough to move out, I don't feel that old. But apparently I am, so here I am. All week there were events and breakout sessions and parties to go to as part of the 'Welcome Week.' I have walked more this week than I have in a long long time! I don't understand how someone could gain the 'freshman 15' when you have so much farther to walk than usual. I do have a bike, though, which makes getting across campus in 10min way easier!

I love my hall, most people are very friendly and everyone wants to make friends and be social, which makes for a happy place to be and get to know new people! We already have 'Stout Hobos,' people who wish they were in Stout so they come just to hang out with us. On the whole, the facilities are so much nicer than most halls, so I'm really glad I made it in!

Thursday morning I went home (and came back Friday), and it was so weird having to pack to come home for the night! But I'm sure I'll get used to it. I just hope I get used to everything pretty quick, like remembering to do laundry and keeping up with a lot of different classes at the same time!

This is a very rough sketch I did of part of our living room :)

100+

This has been the hottest summer I can remember! This summer we have had 40+ days of 100+ degree temperatures! But not gonna lie, I don't really mind too much. I don't like the cold very much, so the heat is just fine with me!

One fun thing you can do when it gets this hot is bake cookies. I know, I know, bake in a hot kitchen when it's practically baking outside?! But actually, you can bake outside..........in your car! Just put the car in full sun and put the cookie sheet in the dash with all doors and windows sealed for about 2 hours, longer if it's not so hot, shorter if it's 109 like it has been here! Just a warning: they won't turn out brown and smooth like oven-baked cookies, so if you wait for them to turn brown you will have hard, dry cookies! They will still look like cookie dough, so just look for them to be mostly dry looking and check them if you're not sure. Just don't let too much heat out!

Thursday was my last day to watch the girls. I've been babysitting them for 2 years now almost every weekday for at least 2 hours, it's going to be strange to not see them! I am happy-sad, I am really going to miss them and all the random crazy things we did, but I am not going to miss trying to get them to practice piano and clean up their lunch dishes! I guess that's how life goes, eventually everything moves on!

I've also had my last day at the jewelry store Wednesday. I went in to teach the next girl how to maintain the books and file the paperwork, which took a long time because there are 2 programs and several steps for each transaction. The hardest part is putting each transaction in a category, such as supplies or utilities, because the list is a mess with extras and strange wording. The files are the same way; it's an adventure trying to figure out where to file something! Hopefully she'll be able to wade through the mess (which I did not create, I just inherited!) without too much trouble.

Now that I'm finished with all my jobs, I've got to find a new one! I've never had to apply for a job, because both the babysitting and the jewelry store jobs were given me by a recommendation, so I'm a little nervous about getting a job. I just hope I can find something that's not in food service or heavy people contact! (I'm not much of a people person)

The rest of the week has proved to be quite crazy! Yesterday, being my birthday and the wedding of my small group leader and the tax-free weekend, was rather hectic. I did get a way fancier party on my birthday than I could have ever had otherwise, lol!

Props if you actually made it to the end of of this post, I tend to ramble when I have a lot on my mind :)

Feeding His Lambs

Ever since church camp a few years ago, I'll periodically think of the story in John 21 where Jesus reinstates Peter. We went over it in my camp small group one day, and before that I didn't really know it very well at all. It struck me as interesting, because I don't know of any other events or stories quite like it in the New Testament. Recently, I have come to understand verse 15 a little more personally, in that I feel convicted to literally do what it says: feed His lambs. The thought of people not getting to eat is awful to me, and I want to do everything I can to get people food. I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to make this happen regularly though.

Recently I got the opportunity to help make food for two 8th grade girls from a Confirmation group I helped lead last semester who both recently had surgery. Now, neither one were in any danger of not eating, but it is a step in the right direction to care for those going through something rough. One of the girls injured her arm over spring break, but due to recent complications had to have the break re-fixed and start the healing process all over again. The other had surgery on her shoulder, and will have a long recovery. I complain every day with regularity, but I've come to realize that I am the most thankful and complaint-free when I work to help those who have something real to complain about! There is real joy in giving your time to God and serving Him through kindness to His children, and if I would spend more time on that and less time on me, then I'd be much happier and healthier!

With that in mind, I have been helping out at VBS this week in the evenings. I have been somewhat grumpy about it, because I didn't exactly have a choice to help or not, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that it is a blessing. So many kids come who don't get regular attention or access to crafts and fun activities, and I get to help them have at least one really fun week this summer!

One very neat project we are doing at VBS is making origami cranes to send to Japan. Each crane represents one prayer, and our church is trying to make and send 1,000 cranes. I was told that many years ago, a church in Japan sent our church 1,000 cranes (and prayers) after some sort of catastrophe or natural disaster, and now we are sending them 1,000 cranes (and prayers) in response to the earthquake. I love that the body of Christ is so connected that we can make something as simple as paper cranes with a group of children from around our city and make a difference halfway across the globe!

'Cause I'm busy! Busy! Terribly busy! You've no idea what I have to do!'

Ugh, so much to do and not enough time to do it! I've been trying not to think too much about everything that has to be done before I move out because if I do, I might just get over-stressed and quit trying. So I made a list of what had to happen, and it looked ok. Then I remembered everything I forgot to write down :P

Currently we are trying to clean out half our house, literally, and have a giant garage sale this weekend. This entails going through all my clothes, books, arts and craft supplies, and closet! The closet and clothes weren't too terrible, actually, but everything else is going to be no fun. I am a pack rat. A crafty pack rat. As such, I do not like to clean out, ever. What if I need something a little ways down the road and then find out it was sold at a garage sale for $0.25?! It is kinda fun, though, to see how many faces I can get my Dad to make by telling him I'm going to keep something ridiculous ;)

Dad did let me go through all the old hardware and screws and such that he was throwing away and I found some pretty cool stuff to use in my jewelry. Hopefully I can make some neat pieces from it!

College is closing in fast, and now I have to try to find a job :/ it's strange, I've worked more hours than most people my age, and yet I've never had to apply for a job, they've all just been given to me on a silver platter! Which means I have no experience with resume's or interviews, so I'm not sure how well this is all gonna go down. I don't even have any workstudy allotted, so it is gonna be decently difficult for me to find a good job.

On a random note, this spring I entered the duck tape Stuck at Prom scholarship contest, which is a contest for the best duck tape prom outfits for a couple. My 'date' and I didn't win, but I did just find out that we got honorable mention for my jewelry! The prize came in the mail today: 23 rolls of duck tape and a plush duck toy!  Now if only I know someone who could come up with what to do with all that tape...

 

Why I don't bike as often as I should

As you might know if you creeped on my profile, I like to bike for exercise. Keep in mind that I bike around my neighborhood. Now, when I go for a ride, there are good things, such as exploring the neighborhood and being outside, and there are bad things, such as gravel and stop signs. But there are 3 things I dislike especially.

1. Cars
Now, one might think to themselves that unless you ride on main roads, cars should be going slow enough and infrequent enough to not cause much trouble. Well one would think wrong. Whenever one attempts to go for a ride, all of a sudden, everyone is coming or going, as if they were waiting for you to start before they went anywhere! In addition, Cars think they own the road, and drive so as to let you know that you are in their way and you need to move your slow-pokey self off the road so they can start speeding again.

2. Hills
I realize that the point of biking is to get exercise, which requires work and sweat and possibly a little pain, all of which a hill will induce. Now, if I go for a ride sans any major hills, I can get good exercise and go for quite some time before I feel like I must head home for fear of collapsing and dehydration. But when I go for a ride and decide to ride up a hill of much consequence, that feeling sets in about halfway up. And by the time I reach the top, I sort of feel like dying a little.

3. Dogs
I am not an animal hater. In fact, I rather enjoy dogs and cats and almost anything else you keep as a pet. But not rabbits, they make me sneeze. However, I do not appreciate riding past a house and getting chased by a loud, furry, angry ball of terror that seems to think it owns the street and can therefore bite your feet off for daring to ride by!

Now, I realize that there are also wonderful things about bike rides, such as sprinklers. There is nothing better than riding through a big spray of water on a hot, dry day. And people watching; I love trying to figure out what they think of that strange, pale-skinned, fluffy-haired girl on the bike two sizes two small for her. Actually, I got a 'new' bike that fits me, so that doesn't really play a role in what they think of me anymore.

I also realize that all of these problems could be fixed if I would bike at a park or on a bike path, but that takes at least an extra 30-40 min to load everything up and drive there and back, and who has time for that?! Not to mention that there is a severe lack of sprinklers on bike paths.