I just love the elegance in this pic. So pretty!

I've always wanted a 1940's hat with netting. When I was little, My Mom would take me to consignment stores

and I would try on dress-up dresses and hats with netting... total girlie girl.

Secretly, I really wish my friends would want to do an all-out Vintage Party!

And that people wouldn't cop-out on it. But that we could have lovely 1940-ish party!

And I love the make-up in this picture... i am totally loving the eyeliner! The eyebrows are a bit much for me though :P

And I've always been told that I should stick with berry lip-stick--but i've always hated that.

But I actually like this shade on her.

Just some random thoughts...

Shout Out: To all the Seniors who have worked so hard on their theses, way to be!

I remember how hard that was, and I am so very very proud!

I remember thinking if all that work was for nothing, but I've found that it really shaped the direction I was headed--although considering a lot of other things, i'm pretty much on the exact time line i wrote in there, believe it or not.

So anyway, I am very proud of all of you!

I'm excited to see you grow into all that the Lord has for you as you finish CCA

and I'm uber excited to see you all launched into the next phase!

Loves!

i feel like this right now...

i just really like this :)

Do you ever find yourself trying to turn an adjective, which came from a noun, back into a noun by adding a suffix but finding you've made a colossal mess of the English language in the process? Or is that just me?

Most recently, while working on a paper addressing ambiguity in Wordsworth's "Strange Fits of Passion I have Known," Now, I have trouble pronouncing "ambiguity" and "ambiguous" because the stressed part of the word changes! But as I'm writing, I keep wanting to add a suffix onto "ambiguous" to make it something like "ambiguousness" or "ambiguousity." But then when my mind says it, I have to laugh at myself, yet again! I've done this so many times while tripping through this 8 page paper--which only had to be 5, but once you get me going, its hard for me to pull back. So, without a max, 8 it is! haha...

Do you have any words that you do that to? Or seem to always mispronounce?

just saw Leap Year this weekend and i just had to say how refreshingly clean it was. No, it wasn't absolutely original. It was just cute and funny and beautiful! But most importantly it was clean! I so appreciate that... after all of the junk i've been wading through for my English class it was so pleasurable to sit down and think, "see, entertainment doesn't have to be dirty!" haha... there i said it! :)

Places I REALLY want to go:

London

Paris

French country-side

New Zealand

Ireland

Scotland

Florence

Switzerland

Germany

Samara, Russia

Japan

Boston

New York

Bath

English countryside

English lake-country

Austria

Israel

Sydney

bunches of other places!!!

oh, i do hope "someday" comes soon! :)

my prayer for America...

"And now, here's what I'm going to do:
I'm going to start all over again.
I'm taking her back out into the wilderness
where we had our first date, and I'll court her.
I'll give her bouquets of roses.
I'll turn Heartbreak Valley into Acres of Hope...

And then I'll marry you for good—forever!
I'll marry you true and proper, in love and tenderness.
Yes, I'll marry you and neither leave you nor let you go.
You'll know me, God, for who I really am."

-Hosea 2:14-15, 19-20

less than one page in to my last Jane Austen conquest--Mansfield Park--before I had to stop for this reflective quote:

"There are certainly not so many men of large fortune in the world, as there are pretty women who deserve them..."

hehe... i love it! She never ceases to amaze me!

more to come later... =)

hope

Hope is more than just a word, it’s a state of being.

It’s a firm belief that even if you don’t know how, even if you don’t know when,

God will come through and better days are up ahead.

Life sends rain… Hope dances in the puddles until the sun comes out again…

- Holley Gerth

update

I'm LOVING college!

This is kind of new for me! There have been moments of excitement, but not like this. Now i'm really loving it!

I'm taking French 102 and it's real fun because nearly the entire class period is in French.

I'm also taking English 197 and 202. These classes are linked. So, what that means, is that in 202 the professor lectures on how to approach literature and in 197 a different teacher gives us writing exercises and helps us with papers regarding the reading homework for 202. This basically means I have less homework and less "in class" time. Which is fine with me! So far, we've read the "Lucy Poems" and "Tintern Abbey" by Wordsworth, an article by T.S. Eliot, and a selection of Shakespeare's Sonnets. We're going to be reading a lot more poetry and articles but we also are reading Things Fall Apart by Achebe, Heart of Darkness by Conrad, and, one of my favorites, Merchant of Venice by Shakespeare. My teachers are great too. My English professor said the other day, "Literature is the art of words arraigned a certain way." Hehe! So excited!

I've been able to engage so much more this quarter and step more fully into my intended major(s).

But it hasn't been easy. I've also really been wrestling with a lot of the philosophy that is being blasted our direction. We have had several "New Historicists" vs. "New Critics" debates--and i've had to just stand back and say, "I don't agree with either!"

I have noticed how easy it is for my mind to be over-stimulated by all this amazing information i'm hearing and discovering. But it is so empty!

It's amazing and all to learn and to understand. But, I'm learning how much I don't want that to be my goal or my focus.

It truly is all about His glory. I'm beginning to see how dissatisfying everything else is--especially intellectualism. I don't want book-knowledge... I want His wisdom.

I know this probably sounds pathetically religious; but i'm seeing how He is my treasure. He excites and satisfies me more!

Kim Walker has a new song out called "I Need You More" and it has been the soundtrack to my life this last week. The words are SO simple! And yet, they wreck me!

I need you more

More than yesterday

I need you more

More than words can say

I need you more

Than ever before

I need you Lord

I need you Lord

More than the air I breathe

More than the song I sing

More than the next heart beat

More than anything!

And Lord as time goes by

I’ll be by your side

Cuz I never want to go back

To my old life!

I need you more

More than yesterday

I need you more

More than words can say

I need you more

Than ever before

I need you Lord

I need you Lord

We give you the Highest Praise!!!