A couple of other blogs

I know, I know. I think I am a blog traitor.

Here's the story:

I fell in love with a couple of blogs on wordpress, like this one, and then got curious myself, so I started playing around with creating my own template, font, posts, etc and grew to love it. However, I could not bring myself to abandon this sweet little blog of mine that no one reads. It's like moving on to a new journal, something I love and loathe. It's being unwilling to embrace change on the most micro of all scales.

So, anyway, HERE is what I dubbed "Words of Art."

I like wordplay, okay? So read there, read here. I'll be around.

I also started a blog specifically for my Montpellier trip (also, Wordpress *cowers in shame*) that begins, oh, I don't know, NEXT WEDNESDAY?!?!?!

Not. Real.

...But until then, Happy Holidays from my family to yours!

Christmas Morning in the Bible Belt

I avoid writing when life gets busy, messy, stressful, too much, too little, over-the-top, and a host of other reasons that never seem to matter when I flip through blogs and journals and several months of my life go unrecorded. It's sporadic and irksome, but I usually just let future me deal with those emotions. Future me has a lot to deal with, let me tell you.

Does anyone else do this? Let future them remember to buy scotch tape? Or future them can go for that jog you put off?

Maybe it's just me.

Anyway, this is my way of excusing myself for a large jump from October to 5am Christmas morning. This is a tradition I involuntarily partake in every year. Somehow my internal clock, or maybe the six year old still inside who enjoys Barbie sagas and sassy comebacks, tells me in all caps THAT IT IS CHRISTMAS AND I NEED TO WAKE UP BECAUSE PRESENTS AND SANTA AND STOCKINGS AND CHRISTMAS!!

Quite a wake-up call.

I should have expected this tradition to follow me, even all the way to Houston, Texas. Though, the upside is it has all of the factors for a Madeline writing environment: quiet house, ungodly hour, and I can listen to Fleetwood Mac all I want. Merry Christmas!

Here are some things that are currently real, but I refuse to acknowledge the reality:
-I am going to France. FRANCE. Montpellier, France. To study abroad for 5 months.
-I still don't have my Visa, and neither does Ben.
-My family lives in Texas now?
-Second year senior lap is looking pretty probable
-My best friend is getting married 15 days after I come back from France
-I found my niche, my spot, my love, my passion, myself in Lincoln freaking Nebraska.

I've been submerged in the sub-culture that is Christianity. At times I felt like I was drowning in it, breathing someone else's air, learning someone else's rules.

The best way I can equate all of this to myself is that it's been a quest for God, the real God. The one who loves, who has grace for me, who knocks me down from my very, very high horse. The one who cares for me, not for all of the great stuff I do and all of the bad stuff I abstain from to make the good stuff I do even better.

This wack-job system was not created by God.
God didn't create a system, but he crafted his son, an infant.

We went to a "children's mass" (on accident, really) and it was full of laughing kids, crying babies, squirmy toddlers, breathless parents, and five very giggly Smiths. It was less than focused, but I loved it. If you know me, you know I'm much more apt to spend the afternoon with the elderly than children, I like kids, but I don't melt at the sight of a classroom full of sticky youths. Whoops.

But this Christmas Eve Mass grabbed ahold of my heart and refused to let go. Children dressed up in their Holiday-gear: mini blazers, micro-sized sweaters, petite dresses. I about died. And of course, there was the moment when the priest had the kids sing Happy Birthday to Jesus, which was followed by asking who was born in a house? a hospital? (I got to raise my hand for this one), how about a barn? No one.

Then, suddenly, a squeak from the front yelled out, "JESUS!"

The congregation erupted in laughter, and I couldn't help but feel this is what Jesus would have wanted his birthday party to look like. Yes, I understand that culturally we decided to assign meaning to a day of the year that has nothing to do with a middle eastern man having a birthday cake. I GET IT. I took literary theory, trust me, I know.

But Jesus meets us where we are, and I am here in Texas, and we threw him a birthday party with everything I know He loves: His people, His church, His creation.

I am thankful to be here, I am thankful for this apartment I share with four people who love me no matter how ugly I get, and I think Jesus would have wanted that at his birthday party, too.

Choosing Joy

Thursday Gifts:

Jean Skirts

Nat King Cole

Rocking out to Beyonce with Ben

A full pot of coffee to myself

The promise of a long weekend

Fellowship

Winter clothes brought into the cool air

Letters that aren't really letters

Completed papers

Late night laundry

Facebook threads that are too hilarious to hate

Parodies

The Staves

Scrambled eggs with red pepper flakes

Pea-coats

Decorative lanterns

Homemade sandwiches

Those Places

You know those places? The ones that swallow you up and make you feel snug?

I think you do.

And if you're like me, they are rarely expected and hardly appreciated while you're there.

Turns out no matter how many imaginary homes you decorate with plum bedspreads, personal libraries, trendy shelves, antique lighting, and kitchens stocked with exceptional cookware, it still cannot define where you feel at home.

I struggle with this, with home.

The places my soul finds rest, where it can truly be - that is home to me.

However.

However, I have a lot of ideas, terrible ones in fact, of where I belong. Where I will thrive. Where I will find peace, rest, life, understanding, God.

Okay, okay my ideas are not all terrible, but the thing is, I spend so much energy focusing on what it should look like that I refuse to admit when I fit into a place I did not hand pick myself.

You'd think for the amount of time I spend with myself, talking to myself, thinking to myself, writing about myself, deciding things for myself that I'd know myself a little bit better than I do.

Le Sigh.

I am just thankful that there is a God that is patient with me, and gives me people to show me that patience. I am thankful for a small Nebraska farmplace that has held me as I let go of my previous notions of home, and a man that sees me with more clarity than I see myself.

“It is always the simple things that change our lives. And these things never happen when you are looking for them to happen. Life will reveal answers at the pace life wishes to do so. You feel like running, but life is on a stroll. This is how God does things.” 
― Donald Miller

A-freakin'-men.

Checklists and too many to-do lists

I have spent the past few weeks prepping, browsing, panicking, wondering, writing, meeting, and plain 'ol stressing. Yes, yes I realize studying abroad in another country takes work, coroporation, and a whole lot of beurocracy. It's a lot, and I'll admit it, I'm tangled in the never ending web of paperwork, checklists, applications, and essays describing myself in a way that always induces my gag-reflex.

It's been quite the process, but we've made it.

Both Ben and I received our acceptance from the University of Minnesota this week: commence the madness!!

Fun linguistic side note: Commencer = to begin - in French.

Okay, well, it's fun for the English/French majors and the like. But really, I love catching phrases we've borrowed from those mustache-twirling, cigarette-smoking Frenchies.

Anyway, it's been a busy week, and I need to slow down and make a more life-giving list. One that does not require paperwork, signatures, or signing away every penny I have.

My Bible study is reading One Thousand Gifts, and though the writing is fairly cheesy and difficult to take seriously at times, the notion that we get to choose joy is a wonderful one. I love the idea of an on-going list of things I would not normally consider "gifts" because they become so embedded in my day-to-day.

Here goes.

October gifts:

When all of the documents at work open up on the first try
Phone calls from my favorite person
Walking to the bus stop as leaves fall to the ground
3-D movies with friends
Free popcorn
J. Crew emails
Parallel parking with David's assistance
Morning coffee
Laughing with my coworkers
Unexpected chats with Sunny at the dinner table
Reconnecting with old friends via text
Group messages
Jonagold apples
Mindless TV with the roomies
Red pepper flakes
Long weekend plans
All of my amateur photos of sun spilling into my favorite versions of home:

Fall Playlist: Part Two

Since my first fall playlist post continues to get hits a year after I posted it for reasons past my understanding, I thought I'd post a 2013 version.

Okay, the truth of it is I have this feeling the reason the 2012 post was popular is not because of my stellar writing, nor my brilliant music choices, but because I borrowed several "fall" images from an impromptu google search, which, in turn, directs people to my post when they click on the image....

Eh. Take what you can get.

No matter, I will make another one anyway because compiling playlists is alway more fun than whatever I am supposed to be doing - in this case, it's editing four creative writing pieces for my fiction class. Can you say, "Score?!"

If you can, lovely. I, however, cannot.

So here we are. Songs that annotate the time of year everyone claims as their own. Every filtered picture of an apple tree is a unique creation, every status about changing leaves has never been posted before, every pair of brown, knee-high boots is inspired.

I could go on, but my words might come out more bitter than my dark roast coffee.

Anyway, here goes!

Easy to Love - Ivan & Alyosha
Quiet Houses - Fleet Foxes
Eavesdrop - The Civil Wars
Autumn Leaves - Nat King Cole
Nice Fox - The Rosebuds
The Call (Live London Version) - Regina Spektor
My My Love - Joshua Radin
Reflecting Light - Sam Phillips
Big Bird in a Small Cage - Patrick Watson
Bleecker Street - Simon & Garfukel
Mary - Noah and the Whale
Curs in the Weeds - Horse Feathers
Dead Sea - The Lumineers
Ant Farm - Eels

Aide-toi et le ciel t'aidera (Heaven helps those who help themselves)

She adores the soft vowels and pursing lips. The sweet pastries that flake from buttery baking sheets to the paper they hand it to you in. The melodious way “cwass-ahnt” sounds tumbling out of her mouth. She adores the people: the snobbish ones, the childish ones, the glaring-on-the-metro ones, the fashionable ones, the ones who have no time for anyone, the ones with the sing-song-y southern accents, the smiley ones, the patisserie ones.

She loves the music with wacko lyrics that shout about thumbs and crack and the way their love looks at them across a room full of squares. Their movies are imaginative, and though they also have “comedie romantique” they also have a myriad of films that merge reality with absurd. Shots with a hint of independent film, but then matched with the dialogue of a Blockbuster hit.

Is “Blockbuster” even a term anymore?
Will the new term be a “Netflix hit?”

Their verbs are ridiculous and conjugating verbs in over 8 different variations is the most tedious exercise, but embracing this, to her, denotes true love. Because despite the absurdities posed avec le passé composé, and the attitude “etre” brings with it wherever it goes, she wouldn’t have it any other way. The pretention of the French and their constant disregard for the some rules while staunchly clinging to others is what makes them French. Yes, it’s the nude beaches, the berets, the baguettes, the wine, and, of course, the cheese. Yes, it’s the Eiffel tower, the rich history, the needy street vendors, the cafés, the accordions. 

Yes, it’s the little French maid outfits and garcon aprons. It’s Julia Child and escargot. It’s bike messengers and French kissing. It’s “Merde!” It’s Notre Dame. It’s Musee D’orsay. It’s Monet’s gardens and his Japanese bridges. It’s Marie Antoinette and “Let them eat cake!” It’s fabulous shopping and racy Vogue photo shoots. It’s the Sun King and lavish gardens that starve a nation. It’s an entire valley dedicated to castles. It’s the macaroons, the chausson au pomme and pain au chocolate. 


It’s cwass-ahnt. It’s the Charles de Gaulle, the Gare du Nord, Le Metro. It’s the floral countryside and legendary literature. It’s the cigarettes, the fur, the city lights. It’s the small towns, the neighborhood markets, the fresh produce. It’s the impeccable culinary dishes. It’s the soup with onion, the coq au vin, le crepe. It’s simplicity, it’s glamour. It’s exploration and pop stars that marry the president. It’s the geometric bushes and petite bulldogs. It’s Bastille day, it’s ballet shoes, it’s “vive la France!”

But amidst the stereotypes and love for sweets that melt on the tongue, is grammar and sweaty palms. The trembling the moment it’s your turn to utter “je suis…” It’s boldly speaking with vowels that don’t exist in your own alphabet. There are accents to scribble with an uncertain pen and lots of silent consonants. Hours spent agonizing over “miex” vs “Meilleur” vs “MERDE!”

Intonation, rhythm, understanding, comprehension, analyzation, writing, articulating, linguistic-ing, listening, trying, failing.

Next to a bucket list of adventures including sites to see, countries to live in, memories to be made, sits the lofty goal to master another language. To have the vocabulary and the stamina to relate to an entirely different variety of people who know a thing or two about nasally vowels.  This requires confidence, it requires failure. It requires a willingness to hear your own voice seduce another alphabet, write words never encountered before, Google countries you never thought you’d need to discover.

It's a cloudy Monday, people

“Writers don't make any money at all. We make about a dollar. It is terrible. But then again we don't work either. We sit around in our underwear until noon then go downstairs and make coffee, fry some eggs, read the paper, read part of a book, smell the book, wonder if perhaps we ourselves should work on our book, smell the book again, throw the book across the room because we are quite jealous that any other person wrote a book, feel terribly guilty about throwing the schmuck's book across the room because we secretly wonder if God in heaven noticed our evil jealousy, or worse, our laziness. We then lie across the couch facedown and mumble to God to forgive us because we are secretly afraid He is going to dry up all our words because we envied another man's stupid words. And for this, as I said, we are paid a dollar. We are worth so much more.”
-Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz





- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

My Pinterest Complex

I have an addiction to checking Facebook (not posting on Facebook, thank goodness) but I also have many blogs/websites I like to keep up with, but I think for now, good ‘ol cliché pinterest takes the interweb cake.

I can’t help it; they make it so easy. You start to believe you could sew together a string of autumn leaves using nothing but monogrammed needles and twine you found on your weekly Michael’s trips, since, of course, you are competent enough to search for sales each week.

I start thinking I should keep a journal for all of my future children’s wedding days, or I should wrap everything in burlap, and, come on, it can’t be that hard to chalk paint every piece of furniture in my house.  My brain begins to warp its way around the fact that I cannot sew, knit, crochet, or even tie my shoes quickly, so the fine motor skills (or any skills for that matter) it requires to throw a shindig that looks like this, is way out of my price/ability/(p)interest range.

I still visit this site daily, out of habit now. Well, and out of a lustful desire for a more sophisticated wardrobe, meal planning that would kick Donna Reed to the domestic curb, and a few peeks at blue kitchen cabinets. I just can’t seem to pass up the canvas art with travel quotes on them written in perfect cursive, nor can I ignore old window frames put to good use. How hard are those to find? I just need to make more mental notes, I need more awareness of everyday items that, with a little effort, could be transformed. That broken microwave could totally be made into a dolls house with a few doilies, 12 flower stems, and maybe some bleach..

It's absolutely manic. 

I can't help but blame disney a little bit. Many girls I know add their Beauty & the Beast complex to their already problematic Pinterest issues.

We all want a library that looks like THIS

And Pinterest provides personalized version of this. It's sick because it seems realistic enough to attain, so girls everywhere continue to swoon over a life that could look like this, this, and this.

"I'm just looking, I know I don't can't have it now" We say confidently while simultaneously clicking on the profile of the girl who posted it. Just to be certain she categorized our dream library on her "want-to-have" board and not "in-progress" board. 

If it is the latter, there may be virtual blood spilled.

Domesticity means floral aprons and a trendy belt around your Anthropologie dress, right?

Thanks Pinterest. I can’t afford anything Anthropologie aside from their mugs (still $9), and I’m pretty sure they have a drool charge, and I’m already over drool stipend for the month thanks to J. Crew and Barnes & Noble.

But hey, even if I can't afford anything besides the same Target dress every other college-aged woman buys, I can virtually shop for clothes. I'm

just gathering ideas for future sale hunts (and imagining a wardrobe post-lottery winnings). Maybe I do gaze at hand-painted Toms and those skirts knitted together by Etsy-savy people. The ones who have their virtual life together: a blog they consistently keep up with, a life list they keep track of and record, and a mason jar for every occasion. These are a special breed of fictional people I love to loathe.

Okay, and yes, I believe the “Pinterest Wedding” is a farce. Yes, I am fairly certain staring at clothes I cannot afford (if you go to my Pinterest boards, you’ll see what I did there) is probably unhealthy if done too often and will lead to the eventual demise of a materialistic soul blah blah. I know I cannot personalize every cupcake I ever make (as if I ever make anything anyway) and probably won't get around to gathering twigs in the forest to hot glue together to make a fall vase.

Note: this would be difficult since the nearest "forest" is about 35 minutes from my house and I do not own a hot glue gun.

I GET IT.

I get it, I really do. Idolizing any amount of “things” is unhealthy, not exactly what God has in mind for us. It’s silly and distracts us from what really matters like smiling at people or eating a good breakfast. I am not blind to this. I am not justifying it, nor am I saying all websites are evil and we have to abandon our virtual homes.

I am saying I love chalk and stacking old books as much as the next girl, but I also love fresh air. I love eating a sleeve of fig newtons while watching terrible TV. I love walking next to my closest friends knowing that we are procrastinating our "should-be-doing" tasks to spend time with each other. I know I love the buzzing sound my window air-conditioner makes. I love sweaty bike rides. I love my t-shirts I've had since high school. I love real life, and I constantly need to be reminded pinterest life and real life do not always jive, and they are not always supposed to.

A passing thought

Happy busy Thursday, people.

"We write because we must, I think, because we need to put down on paper all these feelings and emotions and sorrows in order to understand ourselves better. At least for me, it makes my life real to see it in black and white."

- Maria Murad, the only reason I consider writing an ability, a passion, a force I cannot ignore.

Prayer for Isra

Hello friends, I am asking for your thoughts and prayers for a friend of mine named Isra.

Isra was struck by a car while riding his bike on Monday and is in severely injured - I'll post the official article here.

Isra is currently unconscious. They are keeping his body at a lower than normal temperature to help keep his brain from swelling. He also has chemicals in his body to keep him numb. The major area of concern is swelling in his brain. They will keep him cool for at least 24-36 hours, more likely 72. They won’t know if he needs brain surgery or not until then.

Isra is a friend of mine from Navs and is such a joyful, unique, and obedient follower of the Lord. He spent an entire evening this summer teaching Ben and I how to swing dance and is always willing to do whatever he can for his friends.

There are hundreds of people praying for him all over the globe (there is a facebook group with updates on his condition and the state of his parents who are flying in from Thailand), but he can use all of the prayer he can get!

Thank you.

Everybody

“Everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons.”

― Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts: Light, God, and Beauty on the Open Road

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Snow Patrol also told me to Just Say Yes

As far as 20 year old wisdom goes, most of mine revolves around my the best time of day to people watch at Starbucks, how many pretzels and peanut butter is too much (no such thing), and how to organize a bookshelf so it looks organized, but not like you tried too hard.

My wisdom has not quite cultivated it's two most essential nutrients: time, and plain old life.

I have, however, been taught by a God that does not require my false wisdom to be given his unfathomable truth. His wisdom. His understanding.

All I know is to say “yes.”

To say yes even when I don't realize I'm doing so.

To say yes to the inconvenient, the taxing, the uncertain.

To say yes to the sloppy, the time-consuming, the ordinary.

I think of all of the moments spent drenched in God's grace, the intimate moments, the ones where your heart hurts because it dawns on you there is, in fact, a God, and He takes you very seriously.

All of those moments, for me, were followed by a "yes" of some kind.

Each yes to God led me to something greater, and each nod of my reluctant head brought me into plans even the most efficient advisor/travel memoir/Jane Austen quote, or whatever else I turn to for advice, could offer.

I so desperately wish I could sit with you at my kitchen table, mugs of coffee steaming in front of us (or tea, whatever you prefer I suppose), and trace where I am now back to where I said "yes" to the holiest of holies, years ago, days ago. Honestly, even a resounding "no" lead to a "yes" eventually. No matter  each of them always leads me back to Him. 

Believing in God is as much like falling in love as it is making a decision. Love is both something that happens to you and something you decide upon. 

 ― Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on ChristianSpirituality

 I love this because this God, this savior of mine, He entered to my life and a series of apprehensive and curious "yes's" beginning at the sassy age of three asking my mom while sitting in church, "what is this place?!?" And the thing is, this place is His, and He shares Himself with me every day, even when I'm to selfish to acknowledge it.

Whole30 Challenge

Hello friends!



I am beginning a 30 day look at what I eat, how I approach food, and how to become a healthier version of myself! I am keeping a separate blog to keep myself accountable and hopefully provide some inspiration for myself to keep going when I begin to wonder what the heck I was thinking.

You can follow my Whole30 experience right hrrr.

Should be a hoot!

Meaning I'm terrified, but don't worry, I already extensively listed every emotion I've ever felt about it in my first post. If there's one thing I'm good at, it's neurotically rambling about things that could be summed up into a sentence or two. But hey, we've all got our talents!

Just wanted to note that summer 2013 has been a memorable one. I don't want to glorify it with perfectly punctuated sentences about how these are the glory days of college livin'. There's still a lot to be learned, a lot of messes to overanalyze, and a lot of sweet corn to ingest. It's been a memorable one.