They Say I Say Essay

The topic and outline for my three to five page narrative essay are due tomorrow.
I've had two weeks to come up with a topic.
Now I have fifteen hours.

It must address something "they" say, explain what "I say" in response, and illustrate my side with three to five narrative, descriptive illustrations.

Example: "they say" fishing is boring. "I say" fishing is awesome. "Last March, I went fly fishing with my grizzly great uncle, and..."

Two weeks, and I haven't got a topic.
Twenty-three years of life experience, and I haven't got a topic.
It's like when someone says, "name a song!" and your mind freezes, and you suddenly can't remember a single title out of the thousands of songs you know.

I am a good writer. I know it. Not an amazing writer, but... I can write just fine. I just re-read some of my poetry and short stories, and they're good. But they are good because I had a sharp image in my mind that I wanted to convey. I can't start writing this essay until I get a good mental image, a direction. Something worth saying.

I have a list of five potential topics, but I don't love any of them. I don't even like most of them. I don't feel like I can write something worth reading unless I believe in it.

I was hoping blogging about it might spark some thoughts somehow. So far, nothing doing.

Another problem, besides for fishing for a topic in the vast sea of my entire life's history, is that I have practically no memory. How can I write three to five very descriptive, "zoomed in," concrete illustrations/stories with such a small memory bank to go on? I asked my sisters to help me brainstorm.
"What's your best memory?" they asked.
"I don't have one."
"That's just SAD."

I mean... I have some good memories. But I can't pick a best one. And I don't know how I'm ever going to remember at least three with enough details to make a good essay of them that addresses whatever it is "they say," whoever they are.

This is not helping.
**update** I wonder if the professor would find it really obnoxious if I wrote about how hard it is for me to write about myself?

Undeserving

I've always thought of myself as a blogger. Probably due to the fact that I've kept a fairly faithful running update of my life since the days of homeschool jumpers and LiveJournal. However, I'm feeling rather undeserving of my self-imposed title.

I really enjoy blogging. It's probably the self focus that is so attractive to me.

"Here is me! Aren't I lovely? This is what I did! Isn't that nifty?"

Then again, it's not all selfishness. Writing is fun! Expressing myself with words is sort of a creative experience. Lately, though, (and who knows how long lately has been) I find myself neglecting my blog. Not because I don't want to write, but more because I don't know what to write about.

"I got up, cooked something, and crocheted a hat" gets old, you know? Doesn't garner many comments either, and we might as well admit it- what's the point of posting if it's something nobody's going to comment on. (Okay, so there are exceptions, but you get me, right?)

That's another thing. People "getting me". I don't think they do sometimes. I want to be more pithy. Write about real stuff, serious thoughts, not just what I did this week. But sometimes I do write something a little more introspective, and once it's out there I feel like nobody "gets it".
Of course, that's not completely true. A lot of my friends understand me perfectly, but sometimes I find myself starting to throw out disclaimers left and right to ensure nobody misconstrues what I'm saying.

Now that I've stopped and re-read what I've written so far, I don't really know where I was going with this. I just thought I needed to update, so I started typing.

And in case you did just happen to be wondering what I cooked recenty, I shall tell you. Absolutely fantastic ricenoodle stir-fry, and some amazing banana bread.

The End. :)

Impromtu Confessional

Drowned in good intentions
Changing is a fight
Ghosts of resolutions
haunt me, mocking in the night

I stop to reevaluate
Who I am and what I’ve done
And realize I’ve begun to hate
The other person I’ve become

I can’t seem to escape from me
Become the one I want to be
It looks like what they say is true
Your own worst enemy is you

The self I want to be drags me deeper
Cause I know I can’t reach that high

Cost of complacency’s getting steeper
Why’s it so hard to do what’s right?

This metamorphosis
Is taking too long
My pride and apathy
Have proved my better self wrong

Perfection’s always out of reach
Eluding my best efforts still
I’ll settle for a better me
But can I conquer my own will?

My feeble inability
Held the answer all along
This battle’s ending on my knees
Bringing me back where I belong

That's a song I wrote this summer. The italics are my favorite part. :)
One day I was feeling very let-down and disappointed in myself, and some thoughts just started swirling around. Decided I'd better write them down before they flew away. So, I did. And I worked on them for about two hours, had the song mostly formed, and then it just stopped. The creativity ran out, and I only had about four phrases I knew needed help. So, I left it alone and forgot about it.

Just the other day I remembered it, pulled up the file, and tweaked those few phrases.
Now I'm happy with it.

It's the song of my summer. As I said, it's been fun. However, if I'm being completely honest, spiritually it's been a drag. Which is MY fault, I know. Mostly I just used God as a crutch for the hard times, and threw a few "thank you, Jesus!"es up to the sky when something made me happy. And while I've been praying for a few people regularly, I haven't kept up the open line of communication prayer is supposed to be.

And here's the terrible part: I know this. It's not like I've blindly slipped into lukewarm Christianity. It starts out as complacency. "I'm doing pretty good at this Christian thing." Always a mistake. As many times as it's been said, when you stop moving forward, you start sliding backward. But I'm not posting a sermon here. lol If I am, it's for me.

The other terrible part is that the song is true, up til the last verse. I haven't got down on my knees and made things right yet. My human nature is being the ugliest it's been in a while. I was singing mindlessly along with the radio the other day. "Empty me of the selfishness inside, every vain ambition and the poison of my pride, and any foolish thing my heart holds to. Lord, empty me of me so I can be filled with You." And all of a sudden I realized I was singing a lie. I don't want to be unselfish. I don't want to surrender. And I don't really even know why, because I do know that when I'm fully surrendered to God, it's the most awesome thing in the world. To just have that openness between yourself and the Creator of the Universe is indescribably beautiful. So why am I rejecting it?!

Hm. I didn't really mean to write a confessional. Then again, maybe I did. Guess I felt like I needed to be completely honest with myself and everybody.
But now you know.
And so do I.
And so does God.

It's time for a change.

70

This post has nothing to do with the number 70, except for the fact that
this is my 70th blog post.
On blogger, anyways.
I'm sure I've hundreds of blog posts in other places. Xanga, for instance.
See, a xanga screenshot from a while back!

So, I want to blog, but I have no set topic, or any particular point of interest. No Etsy ramble to bore you with. I've made a sale or two lately, but nothing exciting is going on over there.

Perhaps an update on my reading habits would be in order. My phraseology and choice of words change as I read. I find it amusing to find myself writing differently depending on how much literature I'm taking in.
The most influential literature in days precedent has been Villette. You will remember my hesitation to begin the narration due to the undoubtedly depressing nature of the story. Begin it I did. Once I was listening, I could barely stand to pause the CD player, and eagerly jumped up for the next disc when the first was over. I do so love Charlotte Bronte's style.

In a way, I was right. It's a sad story. Unrequited love. Alas, alas. But it's so interesting! Such diverse characters, and such interweavings of plotlines! Though sad, it's not nearly so depressing and gloomy as I thought it may be. Granted, it's not a cheerful tale - how could it be? But it is lovely, and most things are enjoyable if well written, and Villette most certainly is that.
I had listened to so much of the story at once on Friday that by Friday evening, I was thinking in the narrator's voice. Now that is a weird experience. I've just finished the first disc of part 2. Perhaps you can guess what I'm going to do when finished with this post.
(That's my CD player/alarm. I asked for it for Christmas a few years ago.)

I began reading The House of the Seven Gables yesterday. I'm hardly past the first chapter, but I'm looking forward to the rest of the story. Beginning a book with a housewarming party, at which the new homeowner is found mysteriously dead in his office is certainly a way to pique curiosity.

You can't get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me.
-C.S. Lewis

The paragraph that used to be here has been written, deleted, re-written, edited, and deleted again. It had been my intention to write something about church today, but that wasn't working out. Though I shall reiterate (for perhaps I haven't made it known through my blog) how glad I am to find myself once again part of a fun, learning choir. It'd been far too long since the olden days of Senior Choir led by Pastor Powell. Yay for singing! I sing more on Sunday than any other day of the week, and singing makes me happy.
That random bit of information over, I think I'm going to find pictures with which to punctuate this post.You poor dears. I'm going to have to do better than this. Perhaps I should have you all interrogate me with unusual questions, so as to have new and interesting blog topics. Yes, yes, do ask me a question, and I shall answer it in a blog post. That sounds like fun. Please?

Well, I shall try to get around to some sensible blogging soon.
Until then, I bid you farewell.
And in case you were wondering, all of the word-pictures were taken from my real-life journal.
:)

Til We Have Faces -a book review

Til We Have Faces was written beautifully. The characters were real, the story believable, passionate, and gripping.

I set about reading this not knowing what to expect, having pulled it off the library shelf without knowing a thing about it. I didn't know it was a retelling of Cupid and Psyche until halfway through, when I read it somewhere. I'm unfamiliar with it, but I like myths.
Strangely enough, though, I felt very unsatisfied when I reached the end of the book. I felt as though it had no definite meaning or resolve. Of course it had a moral. It was full of philosophy and theology, all about the conflicts of emotion and knowledge, the spiritual and physical.
Somehow it just felt to me that after all the conflict, it simply ended with few enlightened, and everyone dead.

Of course, this is coming from a happy-ever-after lover. So, take it with a grain of salt.

Lately

So much has been going on lately!


I've been working at VBS this week.
The first night was crazy and fun. The second night drove me crazy and wasn't really fun. The rest of the week was a blast. And I wore my pirate belt all week! I was glad to have a reason to wear it.
You can see more photos here and here.

I read Til We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis. I wrote a review on GoodReads, and decided to make it into a post on Caitlinesque (so that those of you who don't want to sign up at GoodReads can see it, too.) I would have posted it here, but that would have made this post - which looks like it may be longish- even longer. Of course, you're not under any obligations to read it, but if you would, here's your link.

I've also been reading Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator (Roald Dhal) the past couple of days. Just a snippet here and there. I love some good, light reading. :) It's absolutely hilarious. Reading it makes me think Tim Burton and Johnny Depp did a brilliant job portraying Roald Dhal's characters in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the movie. ... Not to say that duo doesn't still give me the creeps...

I listed more fingerless gloves on Etsy today. It's been a while since I made any.
These are bone colored. I think I like black better.
I also went to Michael's and bought yarn to make more black ones, and some gray ones. The red pair I made for myself has disappeared on me.

In other Etsy news, I got my peppermint lip balm today. Tis lovely.

In other Michael's news, I bought 3 photo albums and a poster frame for all of the prints I've got from the trip to Wisconsin. And everything was on sale. Hoorah!

Y'all, I seriously want a cup of coffee. I'm probably going to have to give in and make a little cup of decaf in about 10 minutes. I've been resisting for the past hour.

So. Guess how late I stayed up last night? ... Actually, you know, I don't think I'm willing to admit to that right now. It was very late ...erm, early. (Get it, Katie?) Laura and I didn't show up at Katey's house for our movie night until around 10 PM. They had watched Mansfield Park before we arrived, but I brought the feature film of the night - North and South. No, not the war one. The romantic one, adapted from Elizabeth Gaskell's novel. Which I have yet to read. (Horrors!) Anyways. This brings me to having watched the whole thing in it's entirety four times. You could say it's a favorite.

Dear, tired Laura went to bed sometime during the second episode, around 12:30, I think. The rest of us not only finished North and South, but we watched Persuasion afterwards as well. Think we like period dramas much? Erm ... and maybe handsome British men with their awesome accents. But I didn't just say that. =D

Katie, Katey, Alicia, and I stayed up talking for a couple more hours. So. Yeah. That was fun. We won't see them again for quite some time, because next Tuesday, Laura and I are going to be out of town for 4 weeks.

Yes, friends! 4 weeks. Going to stay with our dear aunt and uncle and cousins in Florida. That'll be fun. :)

This week, I'm babysitting Gen's kids 5 out of 7 days. I expect to be thoroughly tired out afterwards. But she has 4 very cute boys, and I love little boys. :) Although in this circumstance, a girl would probably be helpful. Which is why Laura is going to come hang out with us some of the time.

Yesterday some survey guy came to our house. I was randomly selected to complete a survey on my travel habits. If I took it, I would receive $50 cash right then. So, I took it. And I got the $50. Which was very cool. Until I had to put $30 of it in the van today.

More random news: I have been dabbling in French. Only dabbling, I assure you, but I would love to honestly learn. I can say a few phrases that do me no good on their own, but it's fun.

And now, away with me. I shall speak with you again some other time.
Have a lovely whatever day it is you're having as you read this.
Sincerely, and most Unusually,
Me

I love candy!

I think I love these "Hard Candy" earrings from Tiffany at evanrhett more than I love the real thing, though.

And, get this! My love for them made them mine!
Tiffany posted a giveaway contest at the Etsy forums. Simple rules: Pick your favorite piece from her shop, and explain why you should win it. She said she'd pick a winner or two the following day.

Here is my entry:

Those Hard Candy earrings are my super-most favorite thing in your shop.

I should win them because I am completely in love with them. Yellow is my favorite color. Sunny and bright. Someone once said it's my favorite color because *I'm* sunny and bright. But that's not why I should win them.
Like I said, it's the whole love at first sight thing. As soon as I saw them, I clicked. The yellow pods had me at first glance. I decided to look through the rest of your shop anyways, feeling as though I was betraying my first love. Though all of your work is beautiful, their vivacious, sparkling yellowness called me back. From whence I have come, to express unto you, their creator, my undying love.

It worked! I won. ^.^ And every word was true.
When she announced the winners, I kinda squealed a clapped a little, and of course I said "yay!"... I think that's my catchprase. But anyways, I'm super excited. I was going to buy them if I hadn't won them. lol.

So, there's my exciting story for the day. Now I think I'm off to photograph another pair of slippers... tata!

CaitiJo