Those bygone Days

Even though my classes are keeping me busy, and the days slip through my hands almost before I realize it, I still feel stuck.  I am suspended in time, watching the rest of the world whirl around, speeding toward an end.  Only I stay, because Autumn is the time of year when memories batter their way into my mind. Some of them are memories that I wish would go away forever, but the other memories are the ones that I want to come back year after year until I am in heaven where they will all make sense.
 The changing leaves are my favorite part of Autumn, and luckily, we take quite a few pictures of those. This is just as they were beginning to change last year.  I'm still waiting for the ones this year.  There was a time when my sister and two brothers would make a huge pile of leaves at the base of a tree and jump into it over and over again until we were tired, then we would make " houses" by raking lines on the ground.  Four walls, and you had a room, then you just kept building.  Our poor parents were then dragged on tours of each house, tediously weaving through their own yard ( You never entered a house without knocking, and no one stepped over walls. Ever).

Winter will be coming soon, and while the cold is not fun, the snow and coziness of the season are worth it.  And Hot Chocolate.  It is definitely worth Hot chocolate :)  My family always makes a ginger bread house, and the rule is that everything must be edible, though some questionable items have been put on it before. ( my brother argued that pine needles were edible. Chewed one up to prove it, too ). Before we moved, we would hike up to the cabin after snowfall to start a fire in the woodstove, then sled and skate all day.   By the end I couldn't feel my fingers, or my toes, but we were all laughing together, so I wouldn't give that day up for anything.

 

The most dismal thing that comes to mind right now is the fact that Summer is over and my days probably won't look like this for long.

But it is okay because snow is so beautiful, and winter must come before Spring. 

Well, nothing quite like reminiscing to prepare me for Chemistry homework. . .  now that is one awful thing that I wish I did remember from high school. 

 

Since I haven't posted in a very long time, I decided that the day before College starts would be an excellent time to do it.  My Summer job was finished a couple weeks ago, so it was nice to have some time to order books and organize some stuff. 

The highlight of the month?  I GOT CATS!  Or kittens, rather.  They are adorable, and I love them to the point of being ridiculous. :)

This is Sasha.  She is completely black, but her eyes are the most brilliant gold.  She thinks she's beautiful and acts like she owns the place already.  Juniper is "my" kitten. . . officially.  Everyone else in my family calls her Juju, because Juniper sounds too grown up for the little Dustbunny.  And look! She went exploring.

Her Mamma was so proud . . . until she had to remove the evidence of her expedition. [you can see part of my finger too, because me and our camera don't get along very well]
It will be sad for the first few days at college because I won't get to play with her as much.  Luckily, I am attending a university that is less than 10 minutes from my house.  God knew what he was doing when he had us move here.

For your weather update, the sunrises have been beautiful. . .not that yours truly actually saw them.  She was exhausted and slept in until 7.  But her amazingly motivated sister was up and armed with a camera.  Here are the results.

Perhaps I'll see it tomorrow.  Maybe.

I Thought it was the Greatest Thing

You know what I think is amazing about the state I live in?  The sun shines in the middle of thunderstorms.  Silly? Yes, but I had never seen it before.  The thunderstorms here are very. . . energetic ( for lack of a better word).  Then in the middle of the crashing and earth shaking thunder, the sun will come out.   I even attempted (let's just admit that photography is probably not my future career) to get a picture  of it because I was so amazed. It is one of the most beautiful things, though I have begun to get used to it. :)

Sometimes I laugh at the simple things that leave me so astonished.  :)

Farm Style Fairytale

I live on a farm.  And that little fact defines a lot about me.  "Fairytale" means dresses, princesses, and prince charming to a lot of people.  To me, it means sunshine, a cool breeze, and herb gardens.  It means not wearing shoes, picking flowers, and smelling like the sage you just hung up to dry.  That is my kind of fairy tale.
  

 It is no secret that farming can be less than thrilling at times, but today I'm pretty sure God designed the weather to remind me how much I really love it.  Work doesn't always seem like work, does it?  There are those days when all I see is the dirt that won't come out from under my finger nails, or the mosquito bites, but then I'm reminded of the stunning earth I am privileged to live on.  It is amazing when you think of the miracle that turns our front yard into a garden every Spring.  So laugh if you want, but today seemed like a chapter from a farmer's fairytale.

Songs That My Heart Sings

A song was played at church this Sunday that really caught my attention.  My own dependence on Jesus has been becoming increasingly clear in the last few months.  This song was like my heart crying out.  As soon as the worship leader started singing my mind cried, " This is it!  This is what I was trying to say all along!"  Anyway, here's the song.

There you have it. A song that is now hopelessly stuck in my head as well as my heart. There is an even more beautiful version by Sandra McCracken, but Blogger was being troublesome and wouldn't let me post it.

Time for Eternity

Life seems to be all about time these days.  How much time can be used for study, how much for work, etc.  The biggest question is, " How early can I get myself out of bed to get quiet time?"
Now, I don't want you to have misconceptions.  I am not actually awake when I get out of bed in the morning.  It usually takes a cup of coffee and a brisk walk to the barn to get me to a reasonable state of mind.  A good rule is to not talk to me until 8:00 am. 
     You can imagine how hard it is to sit down and read while my mind starts warming up and remembering all of the things I didn't finish the day before.  Then I feel like I need to rush around and finish those things before I can properly "start my day".  Recently I realized how negative this mentality can be.  I can't sit down for half of an hour to spend time with my creator and savior because I didn't finish cleaning my room yesterday?  That is a ridiculous excuse.  God gives us every second of our days.  It is part of my free will to use it wisely and intentionally. I don't know if I can do that if I don't spend some of this time doing the one thing that will last forever.  You probably know this already, but my room will be a disaster zone by tomorrow.  The dining room floor won't stay swept, my papers will get lost, and the kitchen sink will need to be scrubbed again.  But that is just a side effect of living in a fallen world.  My time is so much better spent doing something with eternal value.  Now that I think about it, maybe getting out of bed earlier is the order of the day.  Somehow, half an hour doesn't seem like enough anymore.

Of College, and dreams, and crazy new jobs

     So this week was absolutely crazy.  I started a new job at my local college, attended Orientation at the college I plan to attend, and am so buried in information that I'm pretty sure I should have drowned by now.  But I haven't!  So that's. . . nice.
     Orientation was two days of college faculty throwing information and pamphlets in your face. Papers and notebooks and useless information abound.  It was cool anyway, because I got to see the Nursing building, and it was absolutely amazing. 
     My new job is keeping me super busy as well.  Nobody told me that I could work up to 28 hours ( I probably won't, though).  Ahhh!  Here I was thinking that I'd be working three, maybe four hours a week.  I'll laugh about this someday. Maybe.