Non-Spoilery Excitement

WOW. JUST... WOW.

That book was SO GOOD!

I got up at 8:50 this morning, got dressed, headed over to Barnes and Noble, and then proceeded to spend the ENTIRE DAY reading Mockingjay. And it was SO GOOD.

When I only had about 100 pages left, I decided I wanted to get out of my room and get some fresh air, so Vicki (who was about 30 pages behind me) and I drove up to Mars Hill and sat in my car with the windows down to finish reading. I was ahead of her for almost the whole book, but she caught up to be about 20 pages out and ended up finishing 10 pages before me. And she didn't even get her copy until like 12:30. So, yeah, I'm a slower reader. I like to spend as much time with a book as possible, though, so I'm okay with that.

Anyway. Yeah. WOW. That was such an awesome book. And, I'm not going to spoil anything, but I was SO HAPPY with the ending. It was excellent.

I can't really say anything else because the book is all that's on my mind and MOST of you probably haven't finished it yet. When you do finish, though, we can discuss it privately so as to not spoil others.

Until tomorrow, may the odds be ever in your favor!


Days until school: 6 (yikes... that is SOON!)
BEDA posts: 24
Sewing projects completed: 9

A Poem

More often than not I tend to be
Overzealous about
Cool books.
Koala.
I couldn't think of anything to do with the "k". ANYWAY,
Nine hours from now I will be (hopefully)
Getting up and getting ready to
Jump in the car, drive to the store, purchase my book,
And return to my room where I will FINALLY
Yield my mind over to the thrilling conclusion of The Hunger Games series.

(I AM EXCITED.)


Days until school: 7
BEDA posts: 23
Sewing projects completed: 9 (but I am working on one right now that should be done in a few days... AFTER I read my book)

Charity Never Faileth

...


...

Oh! I didn't see you there, blog. Sorry, I know I haven't posted on you yet today. It's just.. THIS BOOK IS SO GOOD. I can't stop reading it. I'm sorry! But I'm here now, and I actually have a topic I'd like to talk about.

I want to talk a bit about charity. I don't mean charity in the sense of donating-old-clothes-and-nonperishable-foods, necessarily. Yes, that is part of it, but I want to talk about charity in the broader sense.
Now, I just want to preface this by saying that I'm going to get a little religious here. It's okay if you're of a different faith or if you don't believe in any higher power, though, because you can apply this to your own set of beliefs pretty easily. I AM religious, though, so I'm going to talk about it in the way that makes the most sense to me.

So, charity. Some of you might be familiar with the verses in 1 Corinthians 13 that people often have on plaques or posters that say, "Love suffereth long and is kind; love envieth not;" and so on. In the King James Version of the Bible, which was translated to English in the 1600s (and therefore sounds more like Shakespeare's English than ours), the verse actually reads, "Charity suffereth long and is kind; charity envieth not;" etc. In my church we often talk about charity as "the pure love of Christ." So what I'm getting at here is that charity is much more than giving things to people who have less than you. Charity, in its essence, is LOVE.

We could all stand to get a little more love. I know I often feel like the people around me just don't understand me or my circumstances and I wish they would just cut me some slack. And then other times I feel sad or lonely or upset and I just want somebody to notice me, to take care of me, to acknowledge that I'm feeling bad. Here's the secret, though, and I want you all to really think about this before you roll your eyes or dismiss it: WE have to be the ones who spread the love. Everybody needs love, and everybody has those times when things are looking REALLY DOWN. So it's our job to lift them up. It's our job to love them.

And here's the real kicker. When YOU are feeling sad or frustrated or lonely, you know what actually helps the most? Helping others. Sometimes it's just a smile in the hallway. Sometimes it's cooking dinner for a friend who has a lot going on. Sometimes it's organizing a huge event to raise money or awareness for a particular disease. And sometimes it's just loving that person who is driving you absolutely insane. The point is, when you have charity in your heart, you not only share love and joy with others, but you get caught up in it, too. Your family troubles suddenly seem a little less horrible. Your class load seems a little easier to bear. And your heart feels so much lighter that it's hard to remember why you ever felt depressed in the first place. All because you did something for someone else.
The way I see it, selfishness is the stupidest thing in the world. Of course I have my moments when I'm completely selfish; nobody here is perfect. But this system we have where everyone looks out for themselves is inherently flawed. If you only look out for yourself, and everyone else does the same, then each person only had one person looking out for them and nobody gets that benefit of losing themselves in serving others. BUT. If everybody would just look out for EACH OTHER, the world would be a glorious place. When you think of others first, you are able to understand the outcomes of your actions much better. You can see that doing THIS will negatively affect X number of people, and so you choose to do something else. Also, when everybody is looking out for everybody else, there are a LOT of people looking out for you. To me, that sounds a lot better than just ME looking out for me.

The other thing is, if we all just took a minute to consider others before we said something or did something, then the whole atmosphere of our world would change. Cruelty and hate would all but vanish. Sure, people would still disagree on things like politics and religion, but they would do it in a way that would not include slander or bigotry. In short, everyone would be so much happier.

Of course, the whole world isn't going to change overnight. And we can never force others to change the way they think or act. But we CAN change our own thoughts. We CAN change our own actions. We CAN choose to think and act charitably towards others. And, more often than not, when we choose to be charitable, people notice. They notice what we do and they notice the change it makes in us. And maybe, just maybe, when they see how charity makes us happy, they will catch on and try to become more charitable themselves.

I'm not saying it's easy. I still have my days when I want to ignore everyone else on the planet and wallow in self-pity. BUT. If we each take this idea to heart, if we each decide now to make a real effort at thinking and acting more charitably, then we are already making the change. And with that change we can bring a little more love into the world.

Because we all know that love is the only thing that there's just too little of.

Until tomorrow, best wishes.




Days until school: 8
BEDA posts: 22
Sewing projects completed: 9

I'm HUNGRY for HUNGER GAMES

I finished The Hunger Games last night. WOW. I mean, I knew that I loved those books, but DANG! I forgot how much I LOVED THOSE BOOKS! It was JUST SO GOOD. I know I've said this approx. a gagillion times, but dudes. READ. THEM. NOW.


Today I took a bit of a rest from reading* and got some other things done. I watched Bones, I went to work where I caught up on Twitter, and I finished my secret project for my mom. Since my mom reads this blog, here's a non-spoilery picture:

Mysterious Envelope of Awesome

This is the mysterious envelope of awesome that I will be mailing to my mom. That's right, it fits in an envelope. :)

I'll tell you guys all about it when she gets it, but for now that's one more sewing project completed! :D And don't worry, telling you it's a sewing project gives away NOTHING. (Muahahahaha!)

Anyway, I think I might keep it short and sweet tonight. I still need to begin consuming Catching Fire tonight.

OM NOM NOM

(Hmm, looks like I already started...)

Tomorrow I'm having a Yay-Training-Is-Over Dinner for my new staffmates, so I'll fill you in on all the yummy details. Maybe I'll share some pictures of my delicious homemade peach cobbler. We shall see!

So until then, best wishes!


*Sometimes I need a break after reading one book before moving onto the next. Even if they're in the same series. Vicki thinks I'm crazy, but I think I'll be able to better appreciate Catching Fire now that my brain has had some time to simmer.

Days until school: 9
BEDA posts:21
Sewing projects complete: 9 (yay!)

I Don't Want To Marry Neville Longbottom

Don't get me wrong; I LOVE Neville. Really. He's just not quite my type. He's very sweet, which is something I want in a guy, but he's too unsure of himself. Of course, in the last book he grows up a lot and seems to find his purpose, but I digress. I bring up Neville because I want to tell you who I DO want to marry. This boy is sweet, too, but he has an edge that Neville lacks...


He is a baker.

Okay, no, that's still not why I love him, but it would be a DEFINITE perk to have a husband who is a BAKER.
I'm talking about Peeta, of course.

Let me just say right now that I won't let this post have any real spoilers, but if you haven't read The Hunger Games yet, you need to. RIGHT NOW.

Or, fine, after you finish reading my blog.

Peeta is the world's sweetest guy. And he has some kind of quality to him that goes beyond the sweetness. Protective, I suppose. Not just physically, though. He's emotionally protective. And that is something that REALLY appeals to me. But he's also really big and strong. I would feel safe walking down a street at night if he were there with me. And there's something about his presence that just seems calming. Which would probably be good for me, too. Plus the fact that I LOVE HIM!

Oh yeah, and the bread thing. I would be so happy to marry a guy who makes bread for a living. Seriously. I can't tell you how perfect that would be.

Nothing against Neville, though.



Days until school: 10
BEDA posts: 20
Sewing projects complete: 8

About How Phantom Is So Awesome

(Thanks to my best friend, Vicki, who has the best ideas for what to blog about.)

Phantom is SO awesome. Like, seriously. I'm not a music major or anything but even I can detect beauty and genius that is Phantom of the Opera. I love how the music has themes/motifs/whatever that go throughout the whole show and tie everything together and... and... it's just AWESOME. I desperately want to go see it live. Or, even better, ON BROADWAY. That would be like my dream come true. Seriously.

So Vicki and I have this thing. See, there's a hill in Flagstaff called Mars Hill. It has a beautiful view of the city, especially at night, and you can see the stars really well up there. Of course, being a secluded spot, it inevitably attracts couples who want to, erm, park. It's actually kinda funny. So we go up there to just hang out and see the pretty stars/city and the whole time there are other cars around with people inside them doing who-knows-what. One day we went with like five people and we brought a tarp and laid it on the ground and sang songs at the tops of our lungs while star gazing. I don't know if it was ACTUALLY our fault, but by the end of the night we were the only people left. We potentially drove away like four or five cars. Lol.

Anyway, we went to Mars Hill after dinner tonight and we listened to Phantom at top volume and sang along. This time we stayed in the car, though, so I don't think we actually disturbed anyone. It was super fun, though. And in between musical numbers we discussed the upcoming release of MOCKINGJAY!!! We are both SUPER excited. I bought Hunger Games and Catching Fire today because I want to re-read them before the new one comes out in ONE FREAKING WEEK... and when I read them the first time I borrowed them from Vicki, so I've been wanting to get my own copies anyway. This way my brother SIMON will have NO EXCUSE next time I tell him he should read them because I OWN THEM. *meaningful glare*

Oh, and about Hunger Games? I am SO Team Peeta. <3

Until tomorrow, best wishes!

Days until school:13
BEDA posts: 17
Sewing projects completed: 8