It's a girl!

There's going to be another girl in the family! Symphony found out today. Pray for dad with all of us girls to contend with:)

Remembering

For Good Friday this year my friends and I watched the Passion of the Christ and then spent some time together talking, reading scripture and singing. I had seen the movie before but never really taken the time after watching it to think about what I'd just seen. Something that stood out to me while watching was how Jesus was silent for the most part while the people persecuted him. He didn't defend himself or show them their own faults, He simply let them do what He knew had to be done in order for all of us to be forgiven. I kept hoping He would say some cutting remark (trust me, there were a thousand going through my head), to hurt those hurting Him. But that would have completely defeated the purpose of His sacrifice. There was also the scene with Judas running down the hill with all of those little demonic children chasing after him and harassing him on all sides. I've definitely 'felt' like that before, when there's too many conflicting thoughts coming at me from all sides trying to break me down and I let them get to me.

After the movie we sat around thinking, reading scripture, and singing. Just generally worshiping God. It was something I haven't done in a long time. When it comes to worship that is sung I often find it hard to do in church. It's not that the worship is bad (all of the time) or anything like that. It is mainly because worship became more about me hearing my own voice than worshiping God. Then there's the issue of analyzing the songs that you're singing to see if they are praiseworthy enough to sing for the glory of God. Oh and don't forget about the music being so loud that you're too irritated to actually sing, let alone worship. I think that one of the most amazing things to hear is the sound of hundreds of people singing out to praise the God that we are all congregated together for. Worship for me in the past couple of years has been more of a time spent with Him in His creation along with prayers of thanksgiving and praise. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it felt good to sing again and glorify God.

worship-The reverent love and devotion accorded a deity

Alas no kayaking

While I don't like to admit that I'm a fair weather kayaker, I'll admit that I did not go kayaking today partly because of the rain. The other part of me not kayaking was because I wanted to spend some much needed time with my family. I was able to spend some time with my two sisters whom I love and hardly ever get to see, so it was a pleasure to see them both today. They are both so much fun when we're all getting along.

Glorious Spring!

I went for my first bike ride of spring yesterday and it was absolutely wonderful. I'm looking forward to the next! Hopefully it doesn't rain tomorrow and some kayaking can be done too.

Best of Show!

Ok, so I know it's been almost a month since this event actually happened but just in case you were wondering how it went............


First, here are some pictures from the Wild and Wacky Cardboard Sled Derby:

Showing up with the whale and boat on our trailer to Whitetail Ski Resort was probably the most fun out of the entire event. Watching everyone's facial expressions as we unloaded the beast was great fun! The actual race itself was very short-lived. The sled went of it's own accord for probably about 3 seconds. One moment of those 3 seconds ended up in the local paper though. The photographer for the Herald Mail caught an image of me running in front of the whale as if I was being chased by it (this was actually the moment right before I jumped into the mouth of the whale, definitely something I'll never forget). It was great fun!

We ended up winning Best of Show and 2nd place for funds raised. While yes it is a very strange and bizarre thing for people to make cardboard sleds and race them it is definitely for a good cause. Not only does it encourage community by bringing people together, but it also benefits Cedar Ridge Boys Ministry.

No children were hurt in the sledding of the beast!

Slor Fest 2007

So what have I been up to lately? Well other than being completely weird because of medications from my wisdom teeth removal surgery (yea I guess I did act a little weird, but I just thought it was my everyday normal kind of weird, apparently it was a bit more than that from the accounts I hear from my friends), and sleeping a lot because they made me sleepy, I've been working with my friends on a sled! Not just any sled though. You see this sled is a giant whale sled with a mini boat to go with it. We are making this sled to enter in the Cedar Ridge Wild and Wacky Card Board Sled Derby.

Here are a few photos of our work in progress.

All of the helpers include: Karla, Matt, Dustin, Joel, Amy, Katie, and then there's me.

You have to be careful with this whale because it has teeth and likes to eat people that say "glorious day" all the time. Joel was it's first victim. His memorial service will be held this Sunday at 2pm at Whitetail ski resort where we will also be holding the sled race at the same time. Once we've finished racing we're going to be cutting the whale open to retrieve his remains. I know it will be a sad day but it should also be a day to celebrate the going home of our dear friend.

Hope to see you there (whoever you are)!

Favorites

This a a few of my favorite pictures that I have found of flickr recently. There are a lot of amazingly talented people on there! Click on picture for a larger view.

Winter Wonderland

This winter has been a strange one indeed. It started out with record highs and now we're down to record lows. They even had a two hour delay for local schools the other day because it was too cold (with wind chills of -17 degrees!). Anyways I came home today to work on my car before Bible study and to my astonishment the creek was covered in ice.


This being my parents first winter at the Creekhouse, we'd never experienced anything like this. Last year around this time I was taking my friends kayaking down the creek. I must say that although it is cold it is still beautiful to behold. I am thankful for the winter weather and have enjoyed seeing snow around here lately (even though it doesn't last for very long). Now all we need is a really good snow to go sledding with.

Here are a few other pictures of the creek that we have come to call home.


It's really quite fun when the fog is out in full force here (that is if you're not driving around in it of course).

Wedding bells are ringing!

This is my baby sister. I can remember holding her and feeding her as a baby as well as changing her diapers. Then when she began to crawl she would climb up onto anything and everything, including the couch to look out the window. We couldn't leave any of the animal food out where she could get to it because she'd eat their food instead of her own. As she got a bit older we would play school togehter and I would help her learn to read and write. We were play pals growing up and I can remember sometimes tickling her and trying to make her laugh so hard the she'd begin to cry (sorry about that). Okay so I wasn't exactly the greatest older sister but I just wanted to make her smile. My favorite memory of when we were younger was when all three of us would sneak out into the hallway in the middle of the night and huddling together in front of the heater. We would sprawl out on the floor and just fall asleep there all together 'til morning when mom or dad found us all lying there.




Well now she's growing up so fast I can't believe it. She's married! I can't quite come to grips with it all yet because I still want to protect my sister from all the bad things out there in the world. I want to keep her close to me and not let her get hurt by anyone or anything. Now that she's married it's going to be a bit more difficult to come over early in the morning and jump on her bed to wake her up so we can talk. Or have that time with her late at night while everyone's sleeping to goof around. She's got someone else to do these things with her now.

My new brother, Caleb, is someone that I am looking forward to getting to know through the coming years. I know that he will take good care of my sister (because if he doesn't he has two very protective sisters to deal with:) and love her. These two youngin's have so much yet in life to learn and they are blessed to have eachother, along with two very loving supportive families, to help them out along the way. I hope and pray that God will bless them both in this new life together and that they will always put Him first in their relationship.

It's been a while

I know I haven't written on here in a long time but I didn't realize until today that it had been almost two months! Well, I'll post a little bit on what's happened in my life in the past two months as well as what's going currently too (for whoever it is that may be reading this blog of mine). I'm just really slow at getting into this on-line journal thing but I really want to be able to keep up with this so bear with me.



Thanks for your patience!

Sculptural Art?

This past week I had to do a sculptural installation for my senior seminar at school. Being an "artist" who has no background in sculpture whatsoever I decided to make things that could be used and display them in a sculptural way. I don't like to make things that won't or can't be used for anything. It always feels like I'm wasting my time and energy on something that is going to go to waste and end up in a landfill someday.

As you can see in the picture I have a bed in the middle of the gallery here at school and on top of it and around it are various objects that I have made all out of recycled materials. The quilt on the bed you may have seen before in a few of my first posts. Then there are two other blankets. The green one is an old army blanket that my Granny left behind when she died that I added a little color to and the other blanket an afghan that I made out of recycled sweater yarn and some yarn that I had on hand. Then there are two rugs. One a braided rug that I used up a bunch of my mother's fabric on that had been sitting in a box for years and the other one made out of yoyos from bits of fabric that would have gone to waste otherwise. All of these items have been made over the course of the past year and a half.

My love for working with fabric is a gift from my Grandmother. She taught me how to sew when I was 12 and I haven't been able to stop since. I've made quilts, clothes, costumes, banners, and recently flags. There's so many things that I haven't tried yet though and I continue to enjoy the process.

I love to make things for people that I love. I always have and I always will. I know that not everyone appreciates the handmade gift (a certain sister of mine), but that's okay one of these days you'll really want me to make something for you:). And when you do I'll be ready.

Raku Firing!

Just in case you were wondering what I've been up too................


I've been working in the ceramics studio an awful lot lately working on various projects. Mostly just playing around with clay. This semester I took on an internship working with my ceramics Professor and learning the different aspects of a ceramic studio. One of the things that I've been working on is firing pieces in our small kilns here (pictured above). This is the initial firing for all of the pottery made here. It's called a bisque firing. After this firing we glaze the pieces and fire them a second time in a much larger kiln where they're fired at a higher temperature. After that firing the pieces are complete.

One of the new firing techniques I've been taught is Raku firing. This technique is where you have a bisqued piece of pottery with a special glaze on it specifically for Raku and we then fire it in a different kiln outside for about 45 minutes at very high temperatures as you can see below.


Now I don't know all of the technicalities of it all but the basics are that we take the pottery out of the kiln while it's still orange and put in inside a garbage can filled with sawdust.


After placing the pottery in the garbage can we throw a few fistfuls of sawdust on top of the red hot pieces and cover them up so they can burn some more (you can see me in the picture below getting ready to throw the sawdust on top of the pieces once placed in the garbage can).


After letting the smoke and fire die down for about 10-15 minutes in the garbage can we take them out and dunk them in water.


This type of firing is very unpredictable but so much fun and has some amazing effects when finished. There's lots of different glazes and the two cups below are Copper Penny. Very glossy and iridescent in some places.



The cylinder below was glazed with Gun Metal Black. Very cool! I think I'm going to try this on a few of my pieces. It's not very practical or functional but it's so much fun to do and the outcomes are quite stunning (most of the time).


For now though I have quite a bit of glazing to do for the regular glaze kiln. A lot of these pieces are going to be Christmas gifts and contributions to a Craft Sale that I'm helping to coordinate at school.


Back to glazing!

Rain and sunshine!

The other day I was able to spend some time with some of my favorite people in the world. Most of which are 12yrs old and under! We did our lesson on Thanksgiving and went around the room sharing what everyone was thankful for. I have to admit that being thankful is something that hasn't been on my mind a lot lately. Life has thrown a lot of stuff my way in the past few weeks and I've been keeping myself too busy to be thankful. Well, that has to change or I'm going to begin to fester and rot. Here's a list of things that I am thankful for:

- the rain, so that the plants can live
- getting drenched walking in the rain
- that feeling of coming in after a good walk in the rain, changing into dry clothes, and cuddling up under a warm blanket (next to a warm fire if possible)!
- can you tell it's been raining here lately?
- the peole who love me so much in my life even though I feel completely unworthy at times
- classes that feel more like I'm playing than working (most of the time)
- thrift shops
- sleeping in (on occasion)
- sisters who never leave life dull for me (and don't either of you try to deny it)
- parents who are so full of grace and patience
- sledding (not quite time for that yet, but soon)
- friends who are completely wonderful (most of the time:)
- Most importantly though a God who created everything perfectly to fit His plan.

One of the challenges given to the kids that I work with was to write down at least one thing every night that you're thankful for before you go to bed. I think that this is something that everyone should consider doing at some point to kind of put into perspective all that God has given us. We take so much for granted and don't even consider giving thanks to God when it's due.

Well I hope that you had a Wonderful Thanksgiving with much to be thankful for!

The mysteries of life

50 years!

My Grandparents celebrated 50 years of marriage this past weekend and all of the family got together to celebrate. I love both of them so much. They are two of my greatest role models with their love of Christ, of their family, and of each other. I've been truly blessed to be raised in the family that I have with so many talented musicians. My Grandparents played a duet of a very 1950's song that was lively and fun. They claimed that their old fingers couldn't play like they used to but it was still beautiful none the less.

Here's our giant family portrait of their children and grandchildren. We make a big group of people when we're all together, which isn't as often as we'd like. Hopefully we'l have everyone back here for Christmas though.

It's the in-laws pretending to be out-laws.

It was so good to see some of my family that I haven't seen in a while. We're kind of spread apart here with some family in Michigan, New Jersey, Maryland and then I'm in Pennsylvania.
At one point I was in a caravan behind everyone to meet at the church we were headed to and everyone in our caravan had a license plate to a different plate. It was pretty bizarre.

My beautiful parents.

"Lizard" taking a sewing lesson while we eat. She's a quick learner!


I give them the camera for a minute and this is what I get back.

Here's to another 50 years!
What!?!

William Waite

This is going to be a short post today as homework is keeping me extremely busy.

At my school we have a Gallery where the Art Department features a new artist every month or so. This month the artist happens to be an artist by the name of William Waite. His content is religiously based, but it's not always obviously so. His choice of medium is highly varied and he's constantly experimenting with new materials. It has been interesting to see his work and borrow some of his techniques (which I absolutely plan on doing as soon as I have time!).

Here are just a few examples of his work:





I'm particularly fond of his canvas within a canvas paintings. They are simply stunning!

For my dear sister

This blog is for my lovely sister. maybe some one will finally post something instead of her, though I love her very much. I can't believe it is almost November. I have missed my favorite season. The colors are beautiful. Christmas is right around the corner. Family is about to come to town. It's been a very hectic season to say the least. And to top it all off our house that the whole family is fixing up, needs to be done in less than two weeks! It is very stressful.

However, above all these problems and complaints, I have a request of whom ever reads this. I have a dear friend who is not very fond of blogs and wishes not to be named but I wanted to share this. He got injured and was sent to the ER on Saturday night. It's nothing extremely major but it did scare me. I am asking that you remember him in your prayers. It would be very appreciated.

And right now I have to eat my dinner and head out the door for class. I leave with this "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." - Romans 12:21

Wishful thinking....

How I wish that I could be back here enjoying the quietness of it all. So many decisions are here for me to choose my path and I keep going back and forth about it all. I wish I had the clarity of thought, mind, and soul that I had at that moment.

Lord help the decisions I make to be guided by you and not my own selfish desires.

Shooting Stars......

Well we made it back from Kentucky alright this morning at around 4am if I remember correctly. While yes, it was a short trip it was so much fun and I don't regret it a bit. I'm grateful for the time to see friends I hadn't seen in a while as well as enjoy the car ride with two friends I see pretty often. However, my favorite part of the whole trip was the moments I was on my own, one on one with God. I've spent more time talking to Him this past weekend then I probably have in the past 2 weeks all together.

On the second night of camping out Keri and I were walking back from the "facilities" when we looked up and saw the most beautiful sky full of stars that I had ever seen in person. We even saw a shooting star and when we told everyone back at the campsite what we had seen one of them they asked me what I wished for. I couldn't help but think that I am constantly wishing and hoping for things all the time and that if I were God I'd be kind of sick of all of it. Then we got into the debate about who it was that you made your wish to and if it was to something other than God than maybe you shouldn't be making wishes after all. In the end I didn't make a wish but I did say a small prayer:

Lord you know the desires of my heart.
Please help me to understand yours,
and do your will in all I do.

Last week at Bible study we were going through Romans 5. And in Romans 5 there is a verse about how "hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us." I've been learning more and more this past year about how to put my hopes more in Christ than in my own personal abilities, wants and desires. Don't get me wrong I still want things really bad some times but I know that if that is what God wants for me it will happen in His time and His way.



Here are a couple of my favorite pictures from Kentucky

Kind of a creepy horror film picture of Keri standing at the edge of a cliff.


This was our tent the first night held up by some yarn attached to the car and cooler.


An amazing picture inside Mammoth Caverns of Andrews head (taken by Dustin).

Dustin was really bored in the back seat.

Kentucky here I come!

Today I leave for the beautiful state of Kentucky with two friends of mine to meet up with two other friends that we helped move to Missouri this past summer. I'm really looking forward to the chance to see them both again as I miss their company very much. I miss having the friendship of the girl whom I helped move because good girl friends are so rare for me. I usually find myself befriended to boys instead of girls. Although I've tried to understand why this is I still haven't come to any clear conclusions but I do know and appreciate how dear it is when you can find a friend your own gender that you can talk to meaningful things about and not just small talk. I can count on my hand the number of true girl friends that I've had in my life.

So anyways that all just to say that I'm really looking forward to this weekend's trip. We're going to be camping out in Kentucky, and driving around to several waterfalls, hiking, and visiting the nation's largest caverns. I've wanted to go to Mammoth Caverns national park since I was in elementary school. My science teachers sparked a great interest in rocks and geology at an early age so my mother would take us to local caverns whenever she could. I even took a Geology course in college just for fun, and the teacher was a friend's mom and I really enjoyed her a lot. Ask me what I learned and you'd be disappointed (well I am anyways at how little I remember).

I do love the colors and lines that nature creates in rocks and have always picked up pretty stones and brought them home with me whenever I go out. I have a beautiful stack of flat river stones that I picked up while kayaking. I would take a stone home with me every time I went kayaking but after a dozen or so I began to wonder what on earth I was going to do with all of the rocks that I was accumulating. So for now they sit on my mantle in a tower of beauty.

So as to appeal to the viewers visual interest as well I leave you with this picture of my roommate flying away with her superhero cape. It's the same blanket that I had in my first post. It's such a fun picture and I hope she doesn't mind me posting it here but this is me flying away to Kentucky!

Trusting in God