Good Idea, Bad Idea

I might make this a weekly thing.

GOOD IDEA:

Zee Avi.

She's a Malaysian singer-songwriter-ukulele player (ukuleleist?) who recorded awesome songs such as Bitter Heart, Monte, Just You and Me, and Kantoi. Her music is difficult to classify, so I'll look it up...*goes to Wikipedia*...ah! Her music falls under three genres: World, acoustic, and folk-pop.

So yeah.

BAD IDEA:

Book By You's latest release, First Bite.

If you haven't heard of Book By You, they're a company that sells personalized books. Basically, they make it so that you're the star of the story, your significant other is the love interest, etc.

First Bite is basically Twilight with your name in it. I gathered that much from the free personalized preview - which was *hilarious* by the way. ^.^

Well, I'm off to watch Braveheart with Dale. Bye for now!

- Maddi

Weird Dream

Right now I'm listening to "Monte" by Zee Avi. Great song. It's funny, I have a character named Monte, but I haven't written about him much.

He's supposed to be a main character in my novel.

Shows you how much progress I've made. >.>

Anywho, last night I had a weird dream. Me and Dale were in some flying machine (I think it was a flying car) and we were traveling the world to get the money to rent - yes, rent - a dead body from a morgue. I don't know why we needed this body, or whose body it was, but it was important for some reason and we couldn't afford the two dollars needed to pay for it. (That's pretty accurate.)

Our flying car hovered over a flooded mountainous region. I guess in my dream God had changed His mind about not ever flooding the earth again, because the water almost touched the summits of the mountains.

While we were flying, Dale was being a jerk and kept pointing out the window shouting "SNAKE!!" and I was *not* happy with him. Eventually, though, we found the money, (I don't remember how. I think it fell into my lap or something.) and we headed toward the morgue.

The morgue, oddly enough, was in a mall and looked more like an arcade than anything. There were even video games and everything. I didn't find this odd, but simply put the two dollars (already in pennies) into the change machine. Instead of returning money, the change machine produced weird plastic tokens and junk. Not knowing what else to do, Dale and I took the tokens to the front desk.

I recognized the coroner. He was Dr. Crowson, a professor at my school and the leader of a Wednesday night devotional. He wore a white shirt and a blue apron, and although he was a coroner he was as friendly and jolly as ever.

I asked him for the random corpse that we'd come to rent, and then I woke up.

...

Yeah.

Oddly enough, yesterday I'd been remembering the weird dreams I used to have and wishing that I had them more often. Too bad this dream made me late to chapel. >.>

It was worth it, though. ^.^

Sincerely,

Maddi

Haiti

So my school has put together this program to help send tents and tarps to Haitian families, and we may or may not be (due to the inclement weather) doing a tent-out this Friday to raise awareness. Whether we do the tent out or not, I'd like you to consider donating to this cause

Click on the link below to donate.

https://haitirelief.kimbia.com/intents?kimbiaAdvocateId=VWX4HIQSO32TQVEBO32T

Thanks!

Maddi

Ohmehgawsh, more snow??

Heeeey, whoever's reading this.

So, here in the burning wilderness that is Arkansas, we managed to have two snowy days. I grew up here, and only remember one snow. We got, maybe, three inches, and everything shut down. I made a wimpy, foot-tall snowman, made snow angels, and sledded downhill on a trash can lid. Obviously, this day is one of my favorite childhood memories.

That doesn't compare to recent happenings, however. We got about three inches a few days ago, and school shut down. And no sooner than the last patch melted did we get about *six* more inches. The entire campus rejoiced, constructing snowmen and partaking in the most glorious, most epic snowball fight I had ever witnessed. I wouldn't be surprised if there were more than a thousand people on the front lawn throwing snow at each other.

Unfortunately, angst and frustration at myself kept me from enjoying this second snowfall. I don't think I'll delve too deep into why I'm frustrated, because that would keep me up longer than I want to be right now. I'll just say this much - I'm seriously evaluating my relationship with God and am also suffering from writer's block. I haven't touched my novel in months, and the short story I began more than a week ago is also at a standstill.

So yeah. Prayers would be wonderful.

On the bright side, I my boyfriend and I have almost finished watching "Avatar: The Last Airbender". Yeah, I know that show ended years ago, but I'm a little slow on the uptake. And I don't care that it's a Nickelodeon show. It's awesome.

I'm a bit sad that we're almost done with the series. What are we going to do once we've watched the last episode? D:

No me gusta...>.>

Oh, and I saw the trailer for "The Last Airbender". Um, yeah. I wasn't impressed. But I like M. Night Shaylaman, so maybe it'll be all right.

And with that, I bid you good night.

- Maddi

It's Mah Birfday!

Wooooot, I'm 19!! It's my birthday! Yaaaaaaay!

Okay, so really it's not that exciting. But whatever. :P

Best. Snowmen. Ever.

My siblings and I were bored.

There was snow.

We are nerds.

This is the result.

Gimli

Legolas

Gandalf The Gray

Samwise Gamgee

Boromir

Frodo Baggins

We made others, but they weren't as good.

This doesn't happen often, but...

When I was reading my Bible earlier, something just jumped out at me. That doesn't happen often, but I was reading the first chapter of John and came across this verse:

14 And z the Word a became flesh and b dwelt among us, c and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of d grace and e truth.

"The Word became flesh and dwelt among us..."

Think about that.

The first chapter of John used to really confuse me, because it kept talking about The Word. What was that supposed to mean? How was God the Word?

Well, now that I'm older and have studied the Bible more, when I read this chapter I am reminded of the Old Testament. With a word, God brought the entire universe into being. The patriarchs and other followers of God were guided by His mighty word. When God showed Himself to Elijah, it was not through fire, earthquake, or wind, but through a still, small voice.

That voice - that Word - became flesh and dwelt among us. The same Word that spoke the first humans into being stepped down to His creation to offer Himself as a sacrifice.

Not to go all weird preacher's kid on you, but that just kinda blew me away a little. I've read this verse a million times, but it's like I'm reading it for the first time.

Gotta love when that happens.

Gotta love my Savior. <3

Sincerely,

Maddi