A Rambling Post Of Everyday Things

Hi, everyone!

I hope that you had a great weekend, and I am excited for this great week. Today I started learning chemistry, and I’m very excited about it. I’m also beginning to work on some craft projects, and I want to start sewing more. On top of that, I’m working on memorizing more verses this summer, which is a pretty big goal. As you can see, I’m pretty busy right now, but I wanted to make sure to get this post out, because I think that it’s very important, and I wanted to prioritize it.

I love the beginning of summer. As things get warmer, everything just becomes so pleasant. I can’t wait for the hot summer afternoons! I hope that you’re all as excited about summer as I am, because I CANNOT WAIT!!! Anyway, as the school year winds down, I’m going to get to release more articles about summer recommendations, which will be very exciting. I love sharing recommendations (like you didn’t already know that).

Ooh, speaking of recommendations, I’d love to share a book I recently read. I borrowed it from the library, and it’s called The Stone Wall by Beverly Lewis. This was a very interesting Amish novel. I rated it 3.5/5 stars. It was very clean, and although I thought some of the plot was kind of slow, I still really enjoyed it, and I would recommend it to any fans of Amish books. I think that Beverly Lewis is my favorite Amish author, although I don’t have much to compare to.

I also want to share about my writing, because I’m working on a new action-adventure project, but I don’t really have much to share on it until I’ve figured the details out better. Either way, I’m definitely enjoying getting a chance to do some serious writing, especially since I just finished a short story about a month ago. Anyway, yes, I’m excited to keep writing.

And a note to my fellow tea-drinkers: it’s time to start making iced tea. If you’re like me, then you want tea all the time. I know, I know, it’s silly, but I really love iced tea, so I just sort of want it every day. When taking my morning walk, I really enjoy drinking tea, so I try to make sure I have some on hand. In fact, I’m going to go and brew a cup so I can stick it in the fridge right now, and drink it tomorrow morning. Be right back.

Never fear, I’m back. I know that this post was sort of me just rambling, but I wanted to share some everyday thoughts with you, and let you know what I’m doing right now. I’d love to hear what’s going on with you right now. I hope you have a blessed day, and a blessed week, for that matter! God bless you,

Movies, Diamond Painting, and Other Saturday Things

Wow!

I’ve been pretty busy today. I finished my diamond painting. Diamond painting is super cool, and if you haven’t looked into it, you should, because it’s really relaxing and a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon. Or any afternoon, really. I put a picture of mine below, because I think it’s pretty. It says ‘love you to the moon and back’, and it’s got a really cool color scheme. I definitely like this one, and recommend it. Very nice diamond painting.

Also, I am now typing all my posts on a Bluetooth keyboard, as my laptop’s decided to stop responding when I press my keys. Well, not all of them, but definitely some. But, maybe it’ll prove to be really helpful, and I’ll learn to be more gentle of my keyboard. I have definitely been told (repeatedly) how hard and fast I pound my keys. What can I say? I get the hard from playing my guitar, and the fast from trying to write books around a busy schedule of everyday things. Hehe! 😆

We also watched Paddington 2, which is really a great movie. Whether you know the cute and cuddly Paddington Bear from the books or not, you can definitely enjoy this movie, including a winner all-star cast of Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Julie Walters, Brendan Gleeson, Jim Broadbent, Ben Whishaw, and Hugh Grant. It’s a really great one, and it gets my whole family laughing. Definitely get to this one.

I’ve also been working on my latest book, which I’ll have to tell you more about in another post, but that’s about all for right now. Have a great weekend, and I hope to hear from you soon in the comments below. Bye!

God bless you!

Daylight Savings and Fog

Wow! Daylight savings!

I always grumble when we lose an hour in spring, but it’s heavenly when we get an hour in the autumn. Wow, is it good! It’s certainly a foggy day today. It’s as if a thick blanket of fog wrapped it’s embrace around our house, concealing us in a pocket far from the rest of the world, like a winter wonerland of splendor. Oooh, that almost sounded poetic! 😉

Right now, I’m definitely ready for Christmas. I hope that everyone else is as excited about it as I am. Today, I’m making some snickerdoodles, even though I already covered them in the Cookie Challenge. What can I say? They’re so good! Click on the image below to go to the orginial post and find out how to make them!

I was reading a little in Matthew last night, and it was really nice! Matthew’s great (it’s my dad’s favorite book of the Bible). I always forget how great the entire book is. I certainly enjoy reading the gospels!

Well, I hope you all have a great weekend. I’ll be praying for all of you. In fact, I’m thinking of setting up a prayer board on the site where everyone can post prayer requests. Do you think that’s a good idea? Tell me in the comments below!

God bless you!

Starting a Weekend

Good morning!

I’m just waking up and looking ahead at my wonderful weekend. Somehow everything seems better when you’re listening to Michael W. Smith sing Amazing Grace, which is what I’m doing. I hope that everyone enjoyed a fun Friday night, and you’re feeling energized about the weekend ahead of you. I know that I am.

I had a very productive week. I finished everyone’s Christmas gifts, and now I’m just ready to start making plans for Christmastime itself. I’m also working on a new product for my Etsy shop, but I’ll tell you all about that when I finish. I want to hold you in suspense, apparently! I’m just kidding.

Last night, we had some leftover brown rice that we were going to throw out, so I tossed it into a saucepan and added some milk, raisins, sugar, and other rice pudding ingredients. Once it thickened, it was wonderful creamy rice pudding which everyone enjoyed. I encourage you to try making some rice pudding next time you ahve xtra rice, because it’s so good!

Since I read the Green Ember series last weekend, I think I’m reading some Narnia this weekend. This isn’t like a ‘reading through the entire series’ sort of thing, but more just like a littl bit of Narnia to brighten up my day, because can anything do that better than Narnia? If so, I have yet to find it. I love reading C.S. Lewis’ wonderful books, and they’re just amazingly perfect. I’ve been slowly making my way through a chapter of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe every night before I fall asleep.

I’m also working on this pretty crazy challenge I decided to start. A few weeks ago, with eighteen weeks left in the year, I decided to read through the entire Bible before the new year. It’s been a lot, but I”m doing well. I just finished Psalms last night, and I’m starting through Proverbs, so, yay! 🎊

A beautiful Saturday is dawning, and I’m happy to share it with you. I hope you have a great day, and thanks for reading this rambling post of my thoughts. God bless you,

Happy Friday!

Fridays always hold their own special excitement for me.

(Happy Friday, everyone! I’m really excited. I just launched my new Etsy shop, AllToTheGloryOfGod, to try and earn money for college. Please, please, please, buy something that will brighten up your day and help start gathering funds for my Christian college education. You can read more about it here, or just visit my store here.)

We believe that Saturday is the Lord’s Day, so Friday has always led right up to Sabbath, which means that we just sort of clean up and get ready for the weekend. It’s just so nice and relaxing. With homeschooling, we usually have light Fridays, and so we don’t even worry about crunching in a ton of school. Our family has always tried to make Fridays special, and we’ve done this in many ways.

When we were young, we used to have homemade granola bars for breakfast, yogurt (with leftover granola bars, of course) for lunch, and homemade pizza for dinner. I was thinking about this tradition, and in honor of it I whipped up a batch of my granola bars which we’re having for breakfast. They are so good!

I’m still working like mad to keep making Christmas presents for everyone, because when you do a handmade Christmas, you need to start early! I encourage all of you to begin thinking about what you are going to give your loved ones for Christmas, because it creeps up on you faster than we know it!

Well, this isn’t a long post today, but I just wanted to share a little bit with you guys, along with this wonderful Psalm I love, which my Bible credits as A Psalm or Song for the sabbath day. This is Psaln 92, and I would definitely check that out if I were you. It’s just a wonderful chapter: only fifteen verses but glorifying God with every word and giving us a positive beam of hope for the coming day.

God bless you,

That’s Not Really How It Is

Our world is extremely advanced and mature.

In a word: realistic.

In the innocent days of childhood, there are planted the seeds of great and fantastic dreams. Young girls can become princesses who live in castle, little boys can grow to be cowboys swaggering in the Old West style, heroes can save the day and those they love, and there’s a happily ever after waiting on the other side of every dark day. The night is only necessary because the other side brings beautiful moments o a wondrous sunrise.

While these dreams are encouraged as children grow in imagination, when they near the ‘adult world’ (hate to break it to everyone out there, but children live in the ‘adult world’, too, they just may not face it to the same extent), their dreams are quickly cut off with the truth constantly reaffirmed that says “that’s not really how it is”.

But that’s untrue.

True, not every young girl will grow to be a princess, and cowboys seem to be in short supply, but that doesn’t mean that we should stop dreaming for them. True, those fantasies usually give way to more realistic goals, but that doesn’t mean that you should stop believing in them. If being a medieval princess in your heart inspires you to live in love and joy, sharing God’s kindness with others, then it’s important to keep believing that you may. If being a cowboy brings courage to yourself and others then that’s important.

For every devote dreamer out there, you can find ten dreamers who have stuffed down that feeling of inspiration, setting it aside to force yourselves to be realistic. Despite the fact thatyou may feel as if the world is telling you to stop dreaming, the world doesn’t matter. What matters is what drives you to be inspired and to share your inspiration with others.

So, be a princess. Be a cowboy. Be a detective, or a chef, or anything that you once dreamed of and that inspires you. There are perfect meadows with rose-covered swings (check the picture at the top of this post!). There will be troubles in life, but there are also wonderful moments of perfection. Sure, that’s not really how it is. But that’s how it can be.

If we all try.

God bless you,

Looking Forward

We all have dreams, hopes, and aspirations.

Some more wild than others, perhaps, but nevertheless, all of them are the creation of a thought driven by a feeling or urge we get when we feel like something is right. Everyone has dreams; everyone hopes their’s will come true. Some of our dreams are probably unrealistic, and sometimes we realize that. But, whether your dream is having a good day or becoming a superstar, every dream is important to the dreamer.

On the whole, I am a decided dreamer. I have crazy dreams, and I think about them constantly. Most people are like that, I think (if not all), but they don’t all realize it. Sometimes we don’t realize that we’re dreaming of something until it arrives, and then we realize that it really did work out alright, and that the dream was worth chasing.

I would be lying if I said that some of my dreams, when properly examined, had been driven by the wrong hopes and goals, and weren’t truly what I wanted. The dreams that have stuck with me are the God-driven dreams that are worth pursuing because they are inspired by what is right. I encourage you to access your dreams, and examine why you particularly want to chase that dream. But if your dream is in the right place and for the right reasons, I strongly encourage you to chase it. If something is Godly and feels right, then it’s worth fighting for, and it’s worth pursuing.

Once you’ve decided that a dream is worthwhile, however, you must realize that the dreams aren’t going to wait. Everything that you want to be tomorrow has to start today. If you want to live a life, then start living it right now. You don’t have to wait till tomorrow, because it’s starting today. Don’t miss out on your dreams because you wait for someone else to tell you that you should do something. If something’s right, then do it. Today!

Today, look at a dream of your’s, and decide that you’re going to chase it. Maybe it’ll be a failure. Or maybe it will be a tremendous success. One of my dreams was starting a blog, which I’m happy to say I accomplished. Since then, I’ve connected with dozens of wonderful Christians, and I believe that I may have helped them in some way. I hope so, anyway. Another of my dreams is to start dual enrollment courses at a Christian college. In order to do this, I needed to start an Etsy shop, which I’m happy to say I did.

What do I sell at my Etsy shop? Calligraphy prints. Calligraphy is one of those dreams that I constantly hoped to chase one day, but never had the time to start. I started watching calligraphy videos one day, and I enjoyed it, so I kept pursuing it. Now, I have a chance to make another dream come true through it. (I’d really appreciate it if you’d support this dream by checking out my Etsy shop. You can find it here.)

The point is, if it feels right, then your dream is worth chasing. So, this Monday, just start chasing your dreams. Right now! It may feel a little daunting, but it’s worth it to do something that you want to do. Take your God-inspired dreams, and build something beautiful with them. And don’t wait until tomorrow, because you can start…

Today.

God bless you,

August and Yearly Goals

August.

It’s just that month. Nothing wrong with it, and goodness knows I enjoy it, but it also makes me think. We always get a few days of cool mornings with cold breezes that dance around and remind us that autumn is coming, and after that, winter. It reminds me that this year isn’t truly endless, as it sometimes feels, and that before I know it, I’ll be looking back wistfully and wishing that I would have accomplished more of my goals.

One of my goals this year was to work on praying more and reading more in the Bible. (In case you were curious, I haven’t exactly excelled.) Another of my goals was to send off a query letter to an agent, and start trying to publish one of my books. (I’ve done even worse on this one.) I also wanted to practice more on my guitar (really, really, bad at that one), bullet journal consistently (I’m sorry, define consistent), read a lot (I…. actually, I did okay with that one thus far). The point, however, is that I’m not exactly doing great.

But, I still have five months left to correct these mistakes. And, if you want to hear my (sorta) earth-shattering mathematics, I’ve figured this out: if I put in a mere hour every day, at the end of the month, I will have spent a day and a quarter working on it. And, at the end of 2021, I will have spent six and a quarter complete days working on it.

So, my goal for my guitar-playing is to spend an hour or so on it everyday. As for my query letter, I will begin to write it out, and I will finish my final draft of my book. I’m thinking I’ll probably get that out sometime in November. For my bullet journal, I’ve decided that I just need to simplify it, because when I do something extravagant, it always seems as if I fall behind.

In fact, I’ll be honest. I have a lot of passion, and I can work really hard on something, but if you ask me to do something over a long time, I’m gonna fail. It’s where I need to work, because I really want to be more consistent, but… you know. It’s tough. I envy the people who can just return and work on something for a little bit every day.

I will of course continue to read, and I’m starting to do an intensive American History study (with a ton of books to read, yay), and I’m also going to read the Ken Ham New Answers books for Apologetics. I’m also thinking of revisiting some Austen soon. But, the most important of all my goals is the one about praying more and reading more in the Bible.

I’ve decided that I’m going to try and read through the Bible in the remaining months. I’m told that I read pretty fast, and I’m already in Leviticus (I do have trouble focusing on this book, I’ll admit), and I hope that I’ll be able to get through it. I’m also going to set up more prayer times throughout the day, and that’ll help me with my praying.

Well, I guess that’s about the end of this post. I think I will post about my goals every month, to keep you up on how I’m doing. I hope that your goals are making more progress than mine, and if they’re not, then just remember that it’s never too late to turn it around.

-A Christian Girl

Just for the record, I haven’t done this badly on all my goals. I’ve been spending more time outside, I’ve been taking better care of Rosalind, my rabbit, I’ve been writing more, and I’ve finished both Algebra 1 and Geometry. My movie watch list is also doing well (more about that in another post).

Limited Device Fast

Dear Reader,

Today I’d like to tell you about my latest goal. I have made many for this summer (i.e., I’m working on the guitar, the piano, my never-ending reading list, and I’m starting my calligraphy), but this goal is a little different. First, let me go back and tell you about this book that I was reading about (I think I mentioned it before), The Lifegiving Home by Sally and Sarah Clarkson.

Anyway, Sarah Clarkson was discussing the time that she went on a Facebook fast, and went without Facebook for a while. She talked about all the positive effects it had on her life, and how she really spent more time doing things that she would rather do. Well, I think it sounds great. I don’t use Facebook, mind you. The closest I get to any social media platform is the Pinterest account I use for my craft projects.

The important thing, though, is that I will be running with a limited digital experience this summer. I won’t be aimlessly surfing the Internet, nor will I be reading many new blog posts. I won’t be spending much time on my laptop, at all, giving it a good time to relax without being bombarded with my incessant virtual curiosity. 😉

For those of you who regularly follow my blog, I’d like you to know that I will still be releasing posts. I feel that this blog is extremely important, and one of the best ways I can share God’s love with others, so I will definitely still be making time to share little stories from my life with you. As for your comments, they will be sent to my email inbox, so I’ll be happy to answer and respond.

I filled my bookmark bar with all of the things I’m going to be allowing myself to do, and I unsubscribed to my Pinterest suggestions for this summer. I created a Google Drive folder of the things and documents I can use this summer. This is going well. I’ll let you guys know as I start going. I’m really very curious about what I will spend my time doing.

One of the main highlights to this great idea is the fact that it will give me plenty of time to work on my latest book, and to catch up on my reading. I’ll also be spending time doing some of the things I talked about in my blog post What To Do This Summer. Check that out if you need some ideas for your own summer activities.

I’ll let you guys know how my limited device time turns out, and I’d be happy to hear how it goes for you if you decide to try it. I can’t wait to start this, and it starts on my exciting staycation at home with my family. I can’t wait!

God bless you,

-A Christian Girl