Happification

I have a new webcam.  It is shiny.  I am happified.

I (sort of) have a (sort of) new car.  It is also shiny.  I am happified.

I have discovered TtVs, whatever those are.  Basically it means I take these awesome shots and layer them over my pictures.  And they create awesomeness.  I am happified.

AMZi x x x x x

I'm Back!

After two weeks in Manitou Springs, Colorado, a day in the Black Forest, and a day on the road.  Plus a day of recovery yesterday.  I appear to be on Warp Time Zone--where I sleep on CO time, eat on Hawaii time, and lose track of all time regardless of what's going on.  Forget Kansas time!

So...the Report.  Y'all should check out the website, summit.org.  The Summit, student conference in CO, I can stand as witness to.  It roxx.  Epically.

No seriously.  It's hard to describe :: all of the awesomeness is still swimming around in my head...or maybe that's the change in elevation...  At any rate, it's a shock to come back, like I've got torn up by my roots.  Which is strange.  I wasn't homesick for home while AT the Summit (too busy making friends, learning new things, doing all sorts of stuff, etc.) but now that I am home, I'm homesick for the Summit!

I've always been looking for a place where I fit.  I remember distinctly trying to find it in churches we've been to. Waiting to fit in, to become like the other girls (and I wanted so badly to be like them).  It never clicked.  The church we attend now is very nice and I like it there.  When asked, I would tell my friends, "It's as close to a home as a person like me is ever going to find."

Well, I was wrong.  I found it.  Summit is a place where there are people like me.  Let me explain that, because it's not quite enough yet.  I have various "groups" or "classifications" of friends :: my writing friends, my music friends, my doctrine/theology friends, my friends who think, my friends who laugh.  I hope I can say that for every area of interest, every passion of mine, I have at least one friend I can share that with.

But at Summit, I can be ALL of me.  That means a lot to an introvert like me :: it takes so much work to bring myself into the outside world that it can be tempting to just drag out one element of my character--the entertainer, or the nerd, or the writer, or the musician.  Whichever aspect is most convenient.  It takes about three solid hours of interaction to get past whatever element I pulled out, and then you get closer to the real me.  At Summit, I don't need to be one element.  I can be ALL of me, every aspect, and people know it and they don't care.  They can see me, varying from hour to hour like every other human being.  See the music, see the thinking and arguing, see the joking and laughing, see the need for solitude and peace, see the joy or the pain or the anger.  It's a place where I don't have to review everything I say to check for politically-correct-ness.  THAT aspect alone is worth the price of the conference!

Not to say that we're all alike there.  Not by a long shot!  The difference is, you can disagree without getting stomped on.  You can sit down over dinner and have a nice logical conversation with someone who is vastly different.  People all around you are hearing new things, thinking new things, following their beliefs to their conclusions and seeing where they're headed.  And everybody knows it.

It is nice not to be such a minority anymore.  To have at least five people I can count on to back me up and help me out.  It changes my outlook from argument-weary to argument-worthy.

And this post has turned out super long, so I'll leave you with that.  Tomoz I think I'll give the report of what I did in between all of this home-niche-place-where-I-belong finding. :)
AMZi x x x x x

I've No Complaints

There!  Finals behind us, a long summer ahead.  Deep breath, in...and...out!  Okay, let's go!

I know I've pretty much abandoned you, little blog, for the past couple days.  All the writing, and classes, and work, and yada yada yada.  I'm making up for it today, I promise!  As soon as I arrived home from violin, I grabbed my camera and set out to eke a few more pictures out of the dead batteries.  Okay, a lot more pictures.  Check these out!

Coming downstairs this morning, I was greeted by a large vase of irises.  Apparently they had all bloomed without informing me!  The nerve of it!  Anyhow, I managed to capture a few still attached to their stalks.   :)

Don't you just love pictures of tiny details you'd never notice otherwise?  So exciting!

And while I was taking these, there was this tiny sweat bee buzzing around them.  He'd just flown off before this picture.

I used to know what these were called... they're big tropical-looking bushes with waxy leaves and these popcorn balls of pink.  Quite lovely, actually.

Popcorn ball again.  Top view.  The lighting out here is magnificent today!!

Can't remember what these are called either.  Low-growing shrub, leggy.  Lots of little reddish-orange flowers.  Tropical looking again.  Love the contrast in this pic.

Love the leafy green trees!  Sitting outside, it sounds just like the ocean, the way the wind rolls through them.  The whole tropical-sea theme is very fitting for my mood for writing. :)

Yes, quite content, I'd say.  You really can't beat this.  Aaaahhhh.

“I’m Nora,” I said, arranging the blankets.  “Don’t move.  You’ve got a lot of stitches in your back.”

                “I feel like a pincushion,” he croaked, his voice hoarse and quiet.  “Only for knives.”

                I smiled.  “At least they haven’t amputated your sense of humor.”

AMZi x x x x x

I Wasn't, But I Am

Posting, that is.  I am far too busy to spend time creating a post on here, however short it may turn out.  So talk me out of it immediately.

Nahh.  I just saw some pictures in a Harry & David catalogue (whoever they are!) we got in the mail, and they are so refreshing!!

Ahhhh...

A hamper with daffs!

*wishful whimper*

AND had to showcase my completed embroidery project.  Signal flags, precious, on a handkerchief!  I am muchly enjoying the colors all together like that.  :)

And I AM madly busy, and I'm NOT going to hang around and say more, and I AM going to go drink hot tea without delay.  Good day.
AMZi x x x x x

Methinks I See a Trend

On my mind this past few weeks?  Life and the future.  The intricacies and amazing complexities of growing up, growing older, growing, period.  The worries, questions, promises, chances, paths, choices, dangers, surprises of moving forward.  I'm not a forward-moving person naturally, and generally the Future has to come in and drag me out by my hair rather than the other way round....

But the way everything approaches and then blossoms and then moves on by....  First you meet one concept, one new situation, and it hits you in the face.  The moment you pull through it, thinking "Okay, I can do this," suddenly it is so much bigger and harder than you thought.  Sometimes I know, I can take this.  One step at a time.  Keep going. Other times, I find myself saying, "It's not FAIR...it's too HARD, what's the POINT?"

Keep your eyes open.  Look around you and realize everything you're living for.  What are you looking forward?  You're not alone, and obviously many people before you survived this point, and many people will go after you.  Leave them a legacy, try to help them through it.  Why else do we experience trials or processes?  Why else do we experience at all??  To grow, yes, to mature, to achieve great things, and so that we can relate to those who come behind and try to help them.  I will always be grateful to and for my older friends who look out for me, who teach me to learn from their mistakes, who encourage me.  Sometimes it's so comforting just to know someone else understands, yes?

Oh, how do you write this down?  I tell you, every day, every minute, my heart is singing.  I'm ready to take it all on.  I don't know the gameplan :: I don't know what's coming :: I don't know how I'll feel when I get there :: the Point Is To Go.  I'm ready to Believe.

And in the middle of all of these Grown-Up thoughts, let's take a moment to notice the tiny details that are still so thrilling.  The white "red"-bud tree is finally in full bloom!  Time for the update on the status of that little branch!

AMZi x x x x x

It Feel's Like I'm Falling...

...And that's what it's like to Believe...



The future's looking so much brighter....  Do away with Dread, start walking by faith.  The sovereignty of God is such a comfort, you know?  No matter what happens, I know this :: He's got me Exactly Where He Wants Me.  I know I wobble from time to time, and get bogged down in worry about what I'm supposed to be doing, or that I've "missed the boat" in one way or another.  That I'm behind, I lost a chance, I closed a door.

But none of that is true.  If I closed a door, it was meant to be closed.  I'm not behind because there is no behind.  I didn't lose a chance that wasn't mine to take.  Yes, we go through the agony and stress and hair-tearing wondering as we make our decisions, or choose our paths, or wait for an outcome.  That's because we're finite little human beings, and we can't see the end result or the big picture.  The point is He Can.

And we should not have to bear the agony and stress, because we know who's in control.  And thank God it ain't me!  We should approach our choices and decisions from a platform of prayer, and logic.  I do believe quietly and composedly sitting down and logically assessing the options is used as a tool of God.

But I'm the first to admit that that's not always possible.  Like I said, I'm not above stressing out and panicking and wanting to quit every darn thing that confronts me!  At least I know this, no matter what happens, There Is No Regret.

I will Never Regret taking one chance, or NOT taking another one.  Looking back, I can always say, "Yes, that was the Right Decision."  I believe God's will is immutable and inevitable.  Ergo, all of the world's "Missed callings," "Should Have's,"  "Could Have Been's," and "If Only's" are lies.

Everything rests in His Hands.  We are free to move Forward.  No Regret.  No Fear.  Stand Fast.
AMZi x x x x x

PS My current fave song ::

Dread

I've mentioned how much joy I get out of Anticipation.  About three quarters of any enjoyment I get out of any activity/event/occurrence/whatever is all experienced beforehand.  I'm a daydreamer :: always have been, always will, and somehow the minutes (okay, hours) spent dreaming and thinking and Anticipating never seem like wasted time to me.

For that reason, and because of a healthy dose of OCD, I'm a meticulous planner.  Scheduler.  I have my days planned out to the nth millisecond (okay, at least in my dreams).  I'm not saying I can't be spontaneous.  What else can you call it when during an intermission at a play, you suddenly grab your friends and take them off to ride the escalators up and down?  Spontaneity is nice, fun, cheerful, all that jazz, but there is a difference between spontaneous fun and a chaotic lifestyle.  I hate last minute plan-changes.  Touch my schedule and you die.  Perhaps we should say, I can be spontaneous, but any spontaneity by other people which infringes on me.... Ahem.  But really, you know, it all depends on the circumstance, the timing.  I hear they call it Life. :P

Anyway, so my days are spent in the present, as I am easily entertained and take delight in the tiniest details of the Now.  My days are also spent in the past, as I am one of those people who like to take our their memories very very often, waltz them across the floor, and delight in them once again.  And my days are spent in the future, as I plan and prepare and appreciate.

And often, act out.  It must be the storyteller instinct.  I plan my life like I plan a book.  I shape my character (and sometimes the character of people I know) as I would shape a protagonist's character.  It's amazing how much easier everything is to analyze when you think of it this way.  Not that things often turn out as planned/acted out/anticipated, but the point is the process itself.

You might say this lifestyle, this method of looking at things, is a lot of fun.  Yes indeed.  But what you don't know is It Has A Dark Side.

The reverse of Anticipation.  Dread.  Crippling Dread.  I suffer from this fairly often, a direct side effect.  And oddly, the opposite is true of what I prefer for Dread.  Spontaneity, hit me with your worst!  Thrust upon me without warning the most mundane or unpleasant or boring task, without so much as a warning!  Anything is better than a Scheduled Horror.

This is why I have to be careful as I make my plans, as I analyze my dreams and aspirations.  The Worst Possible Thing for me would be to be locked into a job I couldn't enjoy.  I would be paralyzed.  Nothing knocks me down like thinking, "Oh.  No.  I have to do ______ (random bad thing) at the end of the day."  There goes my enjoyment of the entire day.

Not healthy.  I know it.  The trick is finding a way to have the joy of Anticipation without the flip side of Dread.  Sometimes I can manage it.  Sometimes it hits me in the face, knocks me to the ground, and kneels on my ribcage.  Highly unpleasant, let me tell you.

In which cases I usually have an emotional breakdown and have to work through it myself, have a good cleansing agony for awhile, and then I shape up again.  I never want help.  I never want to be cheered up.  But at the same time, I want to know that people would like to help, to cheer me up.  So to all my friends and family, if you've ever caught me on a Dread Wobble, and tried to help, and I've kicked you off like a cow with a broken horn, don't take it personally!  I do most things alone, and that includes working out of my Wobbles.  But thank you for being there and showing me you care.  :)

And the intermittent photos scattered through this post are to lighten the mood.  A home-made caramel frappuccino helps, too. :)

AMZi x x x x x

Christ is Risen!

He is Risen Indeed!

There are not words for such glory.  Happy Easter to you all!

Awwesooooome!

Something that makes me say "Awwesoooooome" today was the discovery of a Cath Kidston theme for Google Chrome.  If you don't have Chrome yet, and you're still in the dark ages banging your rocks together and against Internet Explorer, click here to get it.  And if you don't already know, as in my Yank friends, Cath Kidston is a UK-based designer who makes prettyful things.  I can't say as I can quite go for all of it, as I'm not HUGELY floral, and some patterns remind me too much of my mother's old duvet....  But in general it's lovely.  So the theme made my day.


Wicking of Speech, something that just makes me happy (seriously, I said that out loud, and el hermano said "Wow.") are these amazing dotty ceramics from said Cath Kidston.  I remember telling la hermana that I would have a polka-dotted pitcher when I was old and suchlike, and she couldn't believe such a thing existed.  Howzat, girlie?  That's just how I am. I make plans, and while most of my plans involve how to really save lots and lots of money when I'm older, and how to be efficient, and how to be scheduled, I do have some ingrained frivolous bits.  Because (you guessed it) they make me happy.

Another Awwwesoooooome thing is that I still adore seeing this blanket spread out over my bed every morning.  Even though it's now too hot to have it on the bed at night, it still belongs there all the rest of the time!

Another thing that was "Awwesoooooome" was discovering that I can make my Plastic BagBags on a knitting loom!  I've made a bag in the past, out of "yarn" I made from plastic grocery sacks, and it's gotten a lot of use and even more attention since then.  I gave it to my mother, who is now known by every employee of our local Whole Foods as The Bag Lady.  Pardon me while I die laughing.

There, I've recovered.

Anyhow, so I racked up all these plastic Hy-Vee bags and they've been sitting all wadded up in my closet.  Aaand then I proceeded to procrastinate (must be good, because it's all "pro-" right?) because I did NOT enjoy knitting up this scratchy plastic yarn on giant blue size 16 knitting needles.  So I thought, Heeeeeeeeey, how about THIS?  These looms were very popular with soccer-moms-turned-crafty-moms a few years ago and I have a set.

And I did!  And it worked!  And I'm happy!  And I've made massive amounts of progress!  And there will be a tutorial appearing here when it's finished, as well!  Awwwesssssssooooooooooommmmmmmeeee!!!

And something else that was Awwwwesooooooome yesterday was the fact that Geometric series are actually applicable in Physics!  Well, I thought it was awesome!  ;)

AMZi x to the fifth power

These Small Hours

Scroll waaaaay down and find the song "Little Wonders" by Rob Thomas and listen to it.  Explanation concluded.

Quickie Note ::

The hearts have been made into a garland, which has in turn parked itself over the door to the room de las hermanas.  The lighting in the hall is perfectly abysmal, so sorry for bad picture.  Just to give you the idea.

The pattern/tutorial is available under "Seasonal Stuff to Make" up on the tabs bar.

The weather is INSANELY good these days.  My teachers are cool about this, opening windows, conducting Spanish classes outdoors on miniature playgrounds, etc.  But when I'm at home, I cannot make myself buckle down!  Very inconvenient, yes.  I should be watching a guest lecturer ramble on about his family history, but I'm not.  I've been outside, and I'm going back out just as soon as I finish this post.

I took some pictures when I was out earlier...

*GASP!*

*swoon* 

Ooh!  Aaahhh! 

* conniptions* 

*squeals* 

Usually I tweak the contrast in the outdoor pictures I take, to make the colors come out more like real life.  But I swear, I did NOTHING to these pictures.  The. Most. Gorgeous. Flower.  Himmel, I love those pics.

Aaaaaaand today on a whim I cut all my hair off.  No, not QUITE the way that sounded...  Actually the whim started a few days ago, and today I had a PROFESSIONAL cut all my hair off.  Well, lots of it anyhow.  And I'm very happy with it.  Even though you can't see the difference in this picture because I'm perfectly in-adept at photographing myself while sitting on swings....


Look who I found creeping along my windowsill?

 And then he decided to come in.

And we became friends.

His name is Huey, del hermano, and Himmel I sound like a baby.  Get this :: I don't blooming care.  I've been dying for these sunny days to arrive and I'm dashed if I'm going to sit inside and be studious during them.

Over and Out!
AMZi x x x x x