On Beauty

The sidebar of a site I was on yesterday got me thinking...

Two words:

Who cares?

Two thoughts:

(First thought)

We are all made in the image of God. He designed and fashioned each one of us - we are all beautiful. Beauty isn't the perfect eyebrows or the right earrings or the skinniest waist or the boyfriend by your side. Yes, there is outward beauty, but beauty is also inside. I have a friend who has CP - she can't control her muscle movements and has been in a wheelchair all her life. She is beautiful. I know a little girl who has had leukemia multiple times. She is smaller than all the other girls her age and doesn't have much hair. She is beautiful, both inside and out.

(Second thought)

Where is our society's focus? Why are there even sidebars on webpages comparing one star's outward beauty to another's? In the whole scheme of things, it's not going to matter if Rihanna was more beautiful than Ciara (or vice-versa).

I'm not dissing outward beauty. I don't think it's wrong to want to be beautiful - to have pretty clothes, or wear makeup, or fix your hair just so - those can be good things! But our perception of beauty today is so awry that we shy away from my beautiful friend with CP and scream and yell for Rihanna. It's hard to flourish in a society that puts so much more emphasis on outward beauty rather than inward, and that's frustrating to me. Can't we just be who we are, without worrying about the pressure and the ideals society has put before us?

Okay, I'm done ranting. =) What do you think?

You can watch another relevant and very interesting video here.

City '09

Where I have been? July 19-24 I was in Lincoln attending City on a Hill, a youth leadership conference. While there I learned about hot topics for Christians today such as evolution, homosexuality, abortion, and the death penalty. I have never before been filled with so much information in one week's time. Someday I will write what I think about these topics, but for now I am still processing everything I have learned.

Along with discovering so much information relating to the Christian worldview, I also learned about how the Nebraska Legislature works. We divided up into two groups, and each group was presented with a bill. Then each group divided again, being either for or against the bill. On Wednesday we walked to the Capitol to present the bills and discuss them. Some of us were the senators on the committees, while others were testifiers. Then, the next day, we went to the Warner Chamber where we all debated the two bills. Not only was it delightfuly fun, but we also got to learn hands-on the process a bill goes through in Nebraska. I loved testifying and I also enjoyed being a senator debating my bill.

There is so much more I want to say and write about City, but it takes a lot of time for me to get my thoughts on paper in a presentable way. Hopefully you will be hearing more soon!

summer fun

Thank you for the backyard pool, Mom!

My little sis

Cousin Sophie

(pictures courtesy of Mom)

free rice

I love this site:

Free Rice

There are multitudes of questions in several different categories, and for each question you answer correctly, ten grains of rice are donated through the UN World Food Program to help end world hunger. The categories include Art, Chemistry, English, Geography, Language Learning, and Math. My favorites so far are English, Spanish, and Basic Math.

Under the English category, the words begin relatively easy and then become more challenging. I really enjoy attempting to pick apart a word when I don't know the definition. Example: specular. Specular sounds a bit like spectrum, which has to do with light. One of the options for specular was mirror-like, and mirrors have to do with light, so...I was correct! Specular=pertaining to or having the properties of a mirror. I think I should study Latin...

Identify Countries on a map is hard! My geography is extremely rusty, and Free Rice is a fun way to work on sharpening it up!

And, I have now donated 640 grains of rice to the UN World Food Program!

=)

night shot

Book Bag

Vienna Prelude - Bodie and Brock Thoene

I believe the best way to learn history is to read historical fiction. My mom's homeschool history curriculum? Historical fiction books. I have been reading historical fiction since I could first read - for school, aloud with my family, and just for fun. I think the Zion Covenant series is an exceptional learning source for World War II history, while capturing attention with excellent writing and an intriguing storyline at the same time. Vienna Prelude opens in 1936, with Hitler and the Reich gaining power in Germany. Elisa, who is a musician with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, is a part-Jewish German. Her Jewish identity hidden by her Aryan looks and fake last name, Elisa thinks she is safe - until her father is thrown into Dachau prison on his way to freedom in Austria. While frantically searching for a way to help her father, Elisa watches as the Nazi party begins to sweep across Austria. What can she do to help fight the gruesome power that is slowly overtaking the people and the place she loves?

I am now reading the third book in the Zion Covenent series, Munich Signature. All three books have kept me on my toes, and I am also learning an abundance of World War II history that I never knew before!

Creators: From Chaucer and Durer to Picasso and Disney - Paul Johnson

To my own shame, this is the first I have read of Paul Johson. Browsing his other titles, I am certain it won't be my last. Although I've only read a chapter and a half, I'm hooked. Creators opens by talking about what creation is, while briefly mentioning some well known creators. Then Johnson delves into the lives of thirteen different creators, some of which I am familiar and some which I am not. I can't give much of a review considering I have just begun to read this book, but I am almost certain it will prove to be a worthwhile read.

Soon to be Read/Other Current Reads - Reviews Forthcoming!

Flying

After taking two separate flights out to San Diego and two back, I was sure. I didn't like flying. My head hurt, my ears hurt from listening to the guy next to me (he thought I was some sort of remote exotic just because I was homeschooled), my leg room was the size of a peanut butter jar, and my hand clutched a barf bag. I did not like flying.

Yesterday I changed my mind. Being crammed into a jet like a sardine in a can with two hundred other people is not fun flying. Real flying is being in a little four-passenger plane with your charge nurse at the controls.

Yesterday, Tim took Mom and me flying. In this plane:

Once we were in the air, Tim's voice blared into my headphones: "You'll have to show me where you guys live, because I'm not exactly sure." My first thought was "we don't live in Columbus." But then I realized. Who cares where we live! We're flying 120 miles an hour!

It was fascinating. We flew above Columbus for a bit, while Tim pointed out a few different things. Then we zipped over the Platte River, down to our hometown, and then on to our house out in the country. Mom had called Audrey, so she was outside waving. After circling around our house several times about 500 feet above it, we went on to the little town where Tim and I work.

Approaching our house

Tim even let me fly for a few minutes. That was cool. I followed the Platte and then made big circles over Columbus. It was fun to turn and try to keep the same altitude at the same time.

Thanks Tim!

(all photos taken by my mum)

song thoughts1

We will never know the awesome power
Of the grace of god
Until we let ourselves get swept away
Into this holy flood.

It's true.

I wish I would dive in - sink or swim. Win or lose. Live or die. And yet my stupid self is constantly holding me down. I'm afraid I haven't an inkling of what it must be like to get swept into that holy flood, so I am simply content with barely dipping my toes over the edge. But at the same time, I am not content with being content!

I’m diving in, I’m going deep in over my head,
I want to be
Caught in the rush,
lost in the flow, in over my head,
I want to go

Dive, Steven Curtis Chapman

God please sweep me into your holy flood, because I'm afraid I won't dive in on my own.

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Ephesians 3/16-19

stuffy and cliche...

Posting a picture of rainbow with some stuffy quote seems cliche. I hate cliche, but here I am, making just such a post. It rained on Tuesday. A mammoth sheet of deep blue sailed across the sky from the south, bringing with it fresh drops of rain. And then, as suddenly as it had come, it disappeared, leaving fresh clean air and a double rainbow - the kind where you can start at the bottom and go up & all the way around without ever losing one color. It was full and real all the way up and over the arch.

God is beautiful.

My Favorite Cookies

White Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies

1 cup butter

3/4 cup white sugar

1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 - 6 oz. package sweetened dried cranberries

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

2 cups flour

1 tsp. salt

3 cups rolled oats

1 - 12 oz. package white chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter and sugars together; add eggs and vanilla and beat well. Mix in flour, soda, salt and cinnamon and mix well. Slowly add in oatmeal - mixture will be very thick and somewhat hard to stir. Mix in chips and cranberries. Place by spoonfuls onto baking sheet, about 2 inches apart. Bake for 9-11 minutes, remove from baking sheet and cool on wire rack.