Prayer Request

Hello all,

This will be a super quick blog. If any of you who read this could be praying for my mom it would be great! She was admitted to the hospital wednesday for a Crohn's flare up. Surgery doesn't sound like an option right now so thats good, but they are keeping her to see if she can handle a diet of solids, right now she is on a clear liquid diet. She sounds upbeat and seems to be doing alright.

Specifically pray for:
Healing from this horrible disease
less pain and the ability to eat solids
good doctors who know their stuff
a positive attitude for both her and me


Thanks :)

Quiet

Quiet - the word that describes me as of late. However, nothing about my life right now is quiet. I am busy, beyond busy with school and work. Yet, I sit here and write, because its a wanted distraction from writing papers about nothing in particular.

I've been quiet for other reasons to. I find myself with little to say, which if you know me is unlike me. I have been in a rut for some time now. I would like to say its been a short sort of rut, but I think I have been in it for a little longer than would qualify for the description of short. I have been intensely lonely lately. This is due to a couple of reasons, none of which bare mentioning on a public blog. Mainly, I miss my best friends. I have some really great friendships with some really great women who all (except one) happen to live, at minimum, 2 hours away. Two of which live in completely different states. I miss having people who "get" me. These friends understand my sarcasm, get my impatience, and don't seem to mind when I say "flippin" or "frickin a" when I get frustrated or excited. They get that when Im busy I get stressed out, flustered, and sometimes need a shoulder to cry on. These women know me deeply, they know my past, they have been with me through tough times, and they understand why I am who I am. Even now, I sit here, staring at the blinking line that begs me to keep typing and I don't know what to type. I just miss them. I miss being free enough to spend time with the ones that are close and call the ones that aren't. I miss being as happy as I used to be. That what ruts seem to do to you, deplete you of your joy.

God created us to be in relationship with one another and the past year has been really tough in that area for me. You can read through my blog and see why, no need to rehash it all now. However, I am so thankful for those friends who get me. Cassie, Meggan, Julie, and Sarah K, I don't know where Id be without you. If you read this, thanks for being great friends who love me and accept me as I am.

Note: This blog is not to say that I don't have other good friends or to say that people have been bad to me in any way. Just a rut. PS my husband has been such a trooper during this rut, he is such a great support.

Hopefully as the summer sun begins to shine and I begin to regain some control over how I spend my time, the rut will lessen and I won't be so down.

Summer get here soon :)

Tall People, Small Cars, Big Hearts

Hello blogosphere, it's been awhile.

I've been debating about what to write about my trip since my flight back and I've decided to just start writing and see where it flows. Over spring break I took one of the biggest risks of my life thus far, I went out of the country without my husband and stayed in Holland with a family I did not know. I am so glad I took this risk. I learned a lot, but most importantly I saw the world through a different perspective. There were many a political discussion, but overall just a great time meeting new people and seeing the world in a whole new way.

I was also able to see the educational system in a new way. In Holland they have special schools for children with disabilities or behavioral problems. At first I was against this, thinking that children need to be integrated with the "normal" kids. However, they made a good point. Is it better to be normal in a special school, or special in a normal school? Seeing the kids in these schools it was clear that they were happy where they were. The teachers were qualified and loved what they did. Doesn't that make all the difference?

As for the title of my post, it was just some of my observations while I was there. 1. The people were all very tall, I mean they are descendants of the vikings. 2. They all had small cars. There were no hummers or suburbans. Even the Semi-trucks seemed smaller. 3. Big hearts is a reference to how kind they were. Imagine your parents waving you off to your first day of school. Now make that an everyday occurrence.

I will post with pictures later, but I am still in the process of editing all 500 of them. That's really all I can muster right now. More later. Homework now.

Foggy Photography

Today it was so foggy that my school was not just delayed, but cancelled. This means that I actually had a chance to go take some photos of the fog. Here they are!

Yoga Fitness Fusion

Here is one of the best workout videos. It looks easy, but its actually pretty hard and gives you a really good workout. Just thought I would share it!

http://www.exercisetv.tv/workout-videos/cardio/yoga-fitness-fusion-9684

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I don't often think of myself as a writer, just someone who likes to write. Maybe write isn't the right word, more like journal. I often see this blog as a place where I can write down my thoughts and feelings. Sometimes I like to make it personal, others influential, and still more pictorial. I tend to write like I think, mixing coherency with confusion. I see it as an outlet for my creativity, which has been lacking lately. Each semester I lose myself in school and with that comes the loss of some of my creativity. I haven't done serious photography in over a month and I feel like I'm losing my eye. When I do photography on a consistent basis I begin to see everything in the form of a picture. I see different angles and perspectives. I see different coloring and saturation. I see what I want my end result to be. Today I had my eye but not my camera. Those moments are the most frustrating. As we drove to Monticello for school we noticed the trees covered in frost. Not just any frost, apparently its called Hoarfrost.

Hoarfrost, as defined by the National Snow and Ice Data Center is "Hoarfrost A deposit of interlocking ice crystals (hoar crystals) formed by direct sublimation on objects, usually those of small diameter freely exposed to the air, such as tree branches, plant stems and leaf edges, wires, poles, etc., which surface is sufficiently cooled, mostly by nocturnal radiation, to cause the direct sublimation of the water vapor contained in the ambient air."

It was amazingly beautiful, and yet so disappointing. I saw so many amazing photographs and thought about how rare this scene may be. Google it (one word or you may get some photos you don't want) and you will see how pretty it really is. When I see scenes that I want to capture its hard to enjoy them for what they are. I want to capture them and keep them them locked away behind a frame on my wall. I want to be able to enjoy them again and again, not just once. Today, I took a mental picture. It will be locked away in my mind for only me to see.

Nature, to me, is God's painting, His art realized. Photography is my way of capturing the strokes of his brush, all of the delicate intricacies he has hidden within the big picture. I have always been amazed by God's creation. Today, He found a new way to amaze me, as He does everyday. I am so thankful that God has given me eyes to see the beauty in His work, and the ability to capture pieces of it.

Pictures

I realize that I haven't uploaded any pictures lately. This has been because I really haven't taken any. This past weekend Greg surprised me with a mini trip to indy for the night. Other than the scary drive there and the fact that I was sick, it was nice to just get away. These are some pictures I snapped of the snow.