10/26
Assigned by: Hilary Kuntz
Poem prompt: Spinach in the Rain
When people think of Autumn
They see gold and rust and brown,
Shades and hints of a richer hue
In scent and sight and sound.
But when the cooler air rolled in
Through my window by my bed
I woke to a morning of a cooler tone,
Bluer, like rain on spinach, instead.
10/25
Assigned by: Hilary Kuntz
Poem prompt: Love is like a refrigerator. Use the word nickel.
Some days we shut the door.
We keep our hearts fresh and cold.
Like the tomato for a nickel at the market.
Somehow we think it will ripen,
Sitting alone on it's shelf.
Or perhaps crammed in between
All those other comfort foods
And left over meal containers
From which once our emotions fed.
But then we grow hungry.
We open the door, and stare.
Wondering what will feed our hunger best.
What sugary, fatty, soupy muck
Will fill the pit in our middle?
Sometimes we pull out that tomato
To cut in half and share.
Sometimes love is like a refrigerator.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Beauty. This is how I behold it.
Go ahead. Date your lovely woman. Marry your handsome man. Fall in love with your physically attractive person. Go ahead. There is nothing wrong with that at all. You deserve to look at your companion and think of yourself as lucky. You're goal is happiness. Beauty is a powerful component of happiness. You should aim for the best. I encourage you to do so.
Just please, PLEASE don't forget this one thing.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I believe it has been said. Not "beauty is in what you're looking at". Beauty is in your OWN eye. So ask yourself, how deep do your eyes see? Are you far sighted? Near sighted? Do you have colored glasses on? Do you wear blinders? Do you look hard, or do you just glance? Do you see or do you just look?
When you decide if someone else is beautiful or not, you are not really accurately defining them. You do not have that power or that authority. When you define the beauty in someone else, you are most assuredly actually measuring yourself.
On your road to happiness, when you look inside and take note of all those things that you measure to determine if you are happy or not, and you locate the section for "beauty", what do you find? Is it a check-mark on a list from 1 to 10? Is it a snap shot of an image, worth a thousand words? Or a fruit on the tree of your happiness whose sweet nectar could never be capture by any amount of words? Is it a pulsing ball of light, that hums and throbs and burns with a tender brilliance like a star capture within your heart, surging through your veins, bursting to break through you?
When you define the beauty in others from the outside in, you are defining yourself from the outside in. If it matters to you more what state their physical rather than internal "attractiveness" is in (by your own opinion or by the opinion of those whom you let sway your opinion), then it will matter more to you what your own state of physical rather than internal attractiveness is in. What matters about the beauty in their heart, depends on the beauty of your heart.
And if you try and measure their heart by their face... you're about to learn a very hard lesson. Because it doesn't matter how attractive you THINK they are on the outside, if they are rotten on the inside. Just like you do for yourself, they are in control of who they are on the inside. No matter what you want to believe. If you can not see that far into a person, how on earth do you know if they are beautiful or not?
__
This goes for people who think that others are more beautiful than themselves as well. I know that sometimes I am harsh. On others. On myself. I hate it when people say things like: "I'm not beautiful and pretense doesn't change that." Because sometimes that feels true. When the world around us seems to hold up a picture of a certain look rather than a mirror when it wants us to look inside and examine ourselves. But those days, when that phrase feels true, are the days I am too lazy to open my eyes. The days I don't want to try hard to be responsible for my own inner beauty, or to look inside others and love them. Idealizing and idolizing "beautiful people" is not loving them. In many ways it really is highly demeaning. While they may truly be beautiful on the inside and physically "ideal" on the outside as well, no one deserves to be thought of as an object. No one deserves to be stripped of their identity and personality and inner worth. Some "beautiful" people feel like no one even knows who they really are but judge them impersonally and objectively.
The simple truth of the matter is: No. I am not outwardly the shell of a model or the lustful dream of a sadly shallow man. And I don't want to be. I want to be beautiful. I want to be happy. And I want to look around me and find that I am surrounded by beauty.
I want you to realize, to HONESTLY open your eyes, and find out how beautiful you are.
I want you to look around and find that you can date a beautiful person. Marry a beautiful person. Be in love with a beautiful person. Be SURROUNDED by beautiful people. Even if others don't see it. Even if you have to act on faith 'til you do see it. And NOT JUST IN THEORY! This isn't a joke. No one said it was easy. But those who have seen it have never been so happy.
I want you to OPEN YOUR EYES AND BEHOLD BEAUTY!
Beauty is important to happiness, no doubt in my mind. But if your measurement of beauty is shallow, then that will be the depth of you happiness as well. Good luck with that.
Some inspiration:
“For the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart“ (1 Sam. 16:7)
"For the Beauty of the Earth." LDS Hymn 92
John Keats:"A Thing of Beauty (Endymion)"
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Maze Runner
Another good series that i've become hooked on. I read this first one about a year ago. I just finally got a hold of the second one. Reminded me of how i enjoyed the first. The last one comes out this fall. Similar to the Hunger Games in genre... but a little less gory and little more mysterious.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Imagine
Working on a book. Well, sorta. I've been working on several books for a long time. This one really has been taking shape though. At any rate, I like to visualize my character well. Tell me what you think. This is the girl, Lorraine, discovering Reylonde for the first time.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Trimmin'
Still thinking about getting my hair cut. I've let the bangs grow out a bit, and they're not so bad anymore, but I'm remembering why long hair on my is a bit frustrating. Having fine hair means I have fairly limp hair. And if it's long and weighs itself down, I have pretty much no volume in my hair, it just drapes off my skull. :P And while I don't see when in the near future I'll go ahead and actually follow through with my hair cutting plans, I have found a few styles I think I'd seriously consider giving a try.
I think that this one is my favorite thus far:
I think that this one is my favorite thus far:
Sunday, January 9, 2011
One Week Whirlwind
Weel, weel, weel. Quite a week. Quite a week.
For starters, I got sick. Quite sick. It started as a horrendous sour throat Monday morning, and woke me up in the middle of that night as a nightmare inducing fever. Tossed and turned all night, half awake, half asleep, terrified and delusional. Spent the next day coughing and sneezing and feeling liked I'd been trampled by a heard of elephants. Took me two days to feel up to going back to work, and I'm still hacking up lung phlegm and carrying around massive wads of Kleenexes in my pockets even yet today. It's funny, because the whole thing totally messed with my vocal chords and my voice register probably dropped down an entire octave. As I sat at home, bored out of my mind and fluffy headed, I experimented with this new found range, and I don't think I've ever been able to go so far down the scale in my entire life. I could feel my chest vibrating deep in side, it was so cool.
The other interesting part of that day, was it was my birthday. Happy Birthday to me. I'm now... 22? Yeah, that sounds about right. I was home alone all day long, so I never saw anyone until about 10 pm when mom and dad came home from closing the store. I didn't have a birthday cake, and I didn't get any wrapped presents (mom and dad handing me a rolled up wad of cash. which I do indeed appreciate). I did get several birthday comments on Facebook (thank you all), but I only got one call. That was from my sister, Jo (and my brother Sam too, since he was with her), early in day. This made me a little sad, but when my mother got home and was annoyed that I supposedly hadn't been answering the phone all day long when she'd tried to call... we picked up the phone and realized that we had no dial tone. The phones were all dead. Had been, most of the day. We later learned that everyone in the area of where we live had lost phone service too. We still don't know why.
Anyway, if you tried to call my on my birthday, and couldn't get through, now you know why.
And now I am thoroughly more mature, and extremely more responsible now that I'm 22. It's like being a whole new person. I have a sense of duty and adult comprehension as I never have before. It's as if I switched prescriptions and I see the world in a totally more clear way now. I can feel my place in the world grow firmer. I can sense a change in the winds of life. I can...
...spout a lot of hogwash.
The days rolled on and stuff happened and then on Thursday afternoon, I got a call from my brother, Tom. You see, sometimes my brother's company will send him on trips to different places around the country to participate in conferences and workshops. This time they wanted to send him to Orlando, Florida. Additional important info: A while ago my brother and sister-in-law had been flying back from a trip and had been delayed by difficulties with their airplane; and so the flight company had given them two flight vouchers. So, when my brother realized he was going to be in Florida, for a week, he and my sister-in-law decided that they wanted to use the vouchers so that my sister-in-law and nephew could go with him and enjoy Florida while my brother was at the conference.
And they had decided that they wanted me to come along too. They would use the second voucher for my plane ticket as my brother's would already be covered by his company. They said they wanted me to come with them and maybe visit Disneyworld one day, and go to the west coast of FL one day and the east another day and...... and they wanted it to be my birthday present. They told me this at about 3pm Thursday. I needed to let them know yes or no by that night, and our flight for FL from the St. Louis airport was leaving Saturday morning. I had about 3 hours to decide if I wanted to go, and one day to prepare.
I of COURSE said yes, and I lived in exhilarated shock...
...until about 8 am the next morning when my brother called to say that the plane company was not accepting the vouchers for our trip. In other words: trip canceled. To be honest, as much as the trip was a shock and I could never quite get my head wrapped around the reality of it all... when the trip fell through I wasn't shocked at all. It had that "too good to be true" shiny glow about it, and it felt too much like a bizarre dream anyhow. So, while I was admittedly disappointed, I guess that it didn't really phase me. All I can really say is, "Oh well. It would have been fun." I dreamed about going anyway, and for a while I believed it too. And so, in my mind, I'd already been to Florida and back. And the trip wasn't too bad either. :D I don't know what the beach really looks like down there... but I like the one I visited in my head.
And then, to top it all off, I helped my dad out in the nursery at church today. This is the third week I've subbed in because no one's been called yet to help him out. Every week has been it's own unique adventure. Today was the most energetic one, that's for sure. One thing's for sure. I love kids. They are sooooooo smart! These kids are only about 2 years old, and yet they are so stinkin' quick on the trigger! They obviously can't comprehend a lot of things yet, but they are so understanding of life already. More than a lot of adults if you get down to it. Like, there's this one girl, who is so funny. She's definitely a tom-boy! When she gets upset she jumps up, set's her feet an even span apart, brings her fists up in a boxing stance, screws up her face and grunts challengingly at her aggressor... the little boy who stole her blocks. They started punching and kicking each other, so we had to pull them apart, but when we explained to them that that was not nice and they needed to apologize and tell each other they were sorry, they did so so kindly and even hugged each other. And then they went on playing again, friends again. How Christ-like is that! How honest and loving! How understanding! Ahh! I just love them!
Well, that's it for this week. It's been a roller coaster. Pretty soon here I'll be heading back in to town for the first YSA Sunday dinner of the year. I'm not sure how many people are back from Christmas break, but it'll be nice see everyone. I'm excited to hear holiday stories.
Cheerio then, maties. Cheerio.
For starters, I got sick. Quite sick. It started as a horrendous sour throat Monday morning, and woke me up in the middle of that night as a nightmare inducing fever. Tossed and turned all night, half awake, half asleep, terrified and delusional. Spent the next day coughing and sneezing and feeling liked I'd been trampled by a heard of elephants. Took me two days to feel up to going back to work, and I'm still hacking up lung phlegm and carrying around massive wads of Kleenexes in my pockets even yet today. It's funny, because the whole thing totally messed with my vocal chords and my voice register probably dropped down an entire octave. As I sat at home, bored out of my mind and fluffy headed, I experimented with this new found range, and I don't think I've ever been able to go so far down the scale in my entire life. I could feel my chest vibrating deep in side, it was so cool.
The other interesting part of that day, was it was my birthday. Happy Birthday to me. I'm now... 22? Yeah, that sounds about right. I was home alone all day long, so I never saw anyone until about 10 pm when mom and dad came home from closing the store. I didn't have a birthday cake, and I didn't get any wrapped presents (mom and dad handing me a rolled up wad of cash. which I do indeed appreciate). I did get several birthday comments on Facebook (thank you all), but I only got one call. That was from my sister, Jo (and my brother Sam too, since he was with her), early in day. This made me a little sad, but when my mother got home and was annoyed that I supposedly hadn't been answering the phone all day long when she'd tried to call... we picked up the phone and realized that we had no dial tone. The phones were all dead. Had been, most of the day. We later learned that everyone in the area of where we live had lost phone service too. We still don't know why.
Anyway, if you tried to call my on my birthday, and couldn't get through, now you know why.
And now I am thoroughly more mature, and extremely more responsible now that I'm 22. It's like being a whole new person. I have a sense of duty and adult comprehension as I never have before. It's as if I switched prescriptions and I see the world in a totally more clear way now. I can feel my place in the world grow firmer. I can sense a change in the winds of life. I can...
...spout a lot of hogwash.
The days rolled on and stuff happened and then on Thursday afternoon, I got a call from my brother, Tom. You see, sometimes my brother's company will send him on trips to different places around the country to participate in conferences and workshops. This time they wanted to send him to Orlando, Florida. Additional important info: A while ago my brother and sister-in-law had been flying back from a trip and had been delayed by difficulties with their airplane; and so the flight company had given them two flight vouchers. So, when my brother realized he was going to be in Florida, for a week, he and my sister-in-law decided that they wanted to use the vouchers so that my sister-in-law and nephew could go with him and enjoy Florida while my brother was at the conference.
And they had decided that they wanted me to come along too. They would use the second voucher for my plane ticket as my brother's would already be covered by his company. They said they wanted me to come with them and maybe visit Disneyworld one day, and go to the west coast of FL one day and the east another day and...... and they wanted it to be my birthday present. They told me this at about 3pm Thursday. I needed to let them know yes or no by that night, and our flight for FL from the St. Louis airport was leaving Saturday morning. I had about 3 hours to decide if I wanted to go, and one day to prepare.
I of COURSE said yes, and I lived in exhilarated shock...
...until about 8 am the next morning when my brother called to say that the plane company was not accepting the vouchers for our trip. In other words: trip canceled. To be honest, as much as the trip was a shock and I could never quite get my head wrapped around the reality of it all... when the trip fell through I wasn't shocked at all. It had that "too good to be true" shiny glow about it, and it felt too much like a bizarre dream anyhow. So, while I was admittedly disappointed, I guess that it didn't really phase me. All I can really say is, "Oh well. It would have been fun." I dreamed about going anyway, and for a while I believed it too. And so, in my mind, I'd already been to Florida and back. And the trip wasn't too bad either. :D I don't know what the beach really looks like down there... but I like the one I visited in my head.
And then, to top it all off, I helped my dad out in the nursery at church today. This is the third week I've subbed in because no one's been called yet to help him out. Every week has been it's own unique adventure. Today was the most energetic one, that's for sure. One thing's for sure. I love kids. They are sooooooo smart! These kids are only about 2 years old, and yet they are so stinkin' quick on the trigger! They obviously can't comprehend a lot of things yet, but they are so understanding of life already. More than a lot of adults if you get down to it. Like, there's this one girl, who is so funny. She's definitely a tom-boy! When she gets upset she jumps up, set's her feet an even span apart, brings her fists up in a boxing stance, screws up her face and grunts challengingly at her aggressor... the little boy who stole her blocks. They started punching and kicking each other, so we had to pull them apart, but when we explained to them that that was not nice and they needed to apologize and tell each other they were sorry, they did so so kindly and even hugged each other. And then they went on playing again, friends again. How Christ-like is that! How honest and loving! How understanding! Ahh! I just love them!
Well, that's it for this week. It's been a roller coaster. Pretty soon here I'll be heading back in to town for the first YSA Sunday dinner of the year. I'm not sure how many people are back from Christmas break, but it'll be nice see everyone. I'm excited to hear holiday stories.
Cheerio then, maties. Cheerio.
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