The semester from Heck is finally OVER!!!!

Yipee!!! I finally finished. I turned in my last paper yesterday, 11 pages on the evolution of Icelandic Christian skaldic poetry between 1000 and 1300 AD. Yah...it is as interesting as it sounds.

Now I get three wonderful weeks off before I have to start again. I will be spending it relaxing, working, and Jess and I are going to be making gifts for Christmas.

We have a list of different things we are going to be making, from crafts to goodies. I will try to post pictures of our finished master pieces.

In the mean time I wanted to show you some pictures my mom took of Jess on her telephone. The clarity and coloring is pretty off, but they are still cool.

Look at the beautiful sunsets and sunrises and see the majesty of God!!!

Hey all. I realize it has been 21 days since I have even looked at this blog let alone thought about posting something. I have been extremely busy with school and everything else, though I realize that is not that great of an excuse.

Guess what, 26 days till Christmas!!!! I absolutely love this time of the year. I have never been allowed to put up decorations before the day after Thanksgiving....before this year. My mom delivered the wonderful news that I could put them up early at a time when I was so busy with everything. Well, Thanksgiving morning, I decided that I wasn't going to let this opportunity go to wast. So I got up before 7am and waited for it to get light enough for me to see to put them up, and then I spent the next three hours getting everything up. If I do say so myself, and I do, my house looks especially cheerful.

I found an article just a few minutes ago that made me think. And I want to know what all my readers out there in blogging land think about it too. The article posed the question of "is the cross crucial in worship?" The question deals more with the message of the cross being presented in the worship music during Church. But I was thinking about its importance both literally and metaphorically. In other words, how important is it to have physical representations of the cross in Church? And is it just as important, or more or less, to have the message of the cross presented not only in the message, but also in the songs sung in praise of God? I haven't read the article yet, but will this evening. I do look forward to hearing your opinions on this topic, as well.

Now, I have to go to class. I only have a little over a week before finals, so I am not guaranteeing that I will be able to post anytime before that, but I will try. I will get back to you before Christmas though, because I have a couple of ideas for logs before then. Till then, chow!!!

Humor

I thought that we all needed a bit of humor today. That's Jessie, by the way.

So here are a few periodicals that speak to life's situations.

Challenges

I have been reading the psychological thriller by Feodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment. Not of my own free will, mind you. It was a requirement for my Russian Literature class. Yesterday, we had a visiting professor come in to discuss his perceptions of the novel, as well as ways that he taught it to his classes in the past. He brought up an aspect of the novel that we had not yet considered. Many of the characters in the story are presented with a very striking dichotomy in their behaviors. For instance Porfiry Petrovich, a Russian detective, has a very rational mentality, and is given to intense spirituality. The character I chose to discuss was that of Sonya, a young girl who chose prostitution in order to provider for her siblings. Although she is living in such blatant sin, she is a deeply devout Orthodox Christian, who recognizes her sinful state.

Now, after all the technical details, the professor asked us to consider any dichotomies in our own lives. Not something that was easy to do on such short notice. But, I did come up with a list of about 3. Though not on the level of rational/spiritual, or sinner/saint, my dual natures are just as interesting, I think. My deals with speaking. I have no trouble at all speaking in front of people. In fact, I am a very outspoken individual (I know, you don't believe it, but it's true). Put me in front of a group of people, 5 or 500, and I could talk for hours, well...maybe an hour and a half. But, and here's the duality, I cringe at the thought of one-on-one confrontations. It doesn't matter who it is, it could be a stranger, or my best friend, and I still fear confrontation, to the point where I will become physically ill.

I'm not sure if anyone else finds this as intriguing as I do, or not. But I am putting a challenge out to all those in blog land who read corismindlessponderings. What is a dichotomy in your own character, two seemingly incompatible aspects that reside within one shell (uh, that's you). May not seem interesting to you guys, but this is what nerds sit around doing all day. Fun, huh???

Out of fairness, I will respond to the challenge I received a while ago concerning eight things people don't know about me.

1. I love watching cartoons, more so than 'real' movies.

2. I know 95% of the words to 98% of the songs in the Veggie Tales movie catalog.

3. I actually enjoy being able to read things written in dead languages.

4. I really want to have more kids. As much as I can't stand kids, I really do long to have more, and to be able to actually experience and enjoy a pregnancy. Guess I'll be waiting a bit on that.

5. I hate the telephone. Whatever happened to writing a well thought out letter and experiencing the anticipation of waiting for correspondence from a loved one, or claiming that the letter from the bill collector, or the annoying relative, got "lost in the mail."

6. I'm a republican. If you know me, you know that is a profound self-realization.
6b. I hate politics!!!!!

7. I have a shoe fetish, which for someone with a size 11 wide, that is a very difficult indulgence.

8. I see dead people.

Hehehe, ok, not really.
8. I find men in uniform irresistible. That's what I get growing up on a military base surrounded by men in uniform.

Well...now you can fulfill your challenge. And this is probably alot more than you wanted to ever know about me. Oh well.

Godspeed!!!

If you have an open mind, is there a chance your brains might fall out?

You know, I actually feel like that today.

Honestly, I feel like crap today. A stupid head cold or something. I stayed home from school yesterday because I drove to about Hickory Corners when I got so nauseous that I thought I would throw up, so...I turned around, took some drugs and went to bed.

I am having a seriously hard time even forming coherent thoughts today. It is even harder to form a coherent prayer in my head. I wonder if anyone else ever has those kind of days. I know that God hears the thoughts in my heart, but I would kinda like to tell him what's on my mind, as well.

Oh, well. I just wrote all thins really uninteresting stuff so people could say that I am updating more often.

I am contemplating what to dress up like for Halloween. Maybe if the cold keeps up, I could go as a sick person, wouldn't take much prep work. Any ideas?

Later

WAAHHHHOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Well.... I just got some great news that I have to share with the whole three people that read this.

I just received my acceptance letter from Calvin Theological Seminary!!!!

PRAISE GOD!!!!!!!!!

I can't even describe how relieved I feel, like a huge boulder has been lifted off me. I was beginning to wonder if this was where God was calling me, and know I know!!!!!

BTW...It was one week to the day since I received the confirmation letter stating that they received everything and were going to send it to the review board. I have never seen a college work that fast at anything!!!

I am so excited, my hands are shaking.

Well, at least I have posted something. I realize that it has been a while. oh well.

WAAHHHOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Why do people look up when they think?

I am sitting here in Sprau Tower on WMU's campus, in a little cafe thingy, trying to fill the time until my late class at 6:00. I have been doing a lot of people watching while sitting here. It's amazing some of the things that people will wear. I know the big thing in fashion nowadays is to be original, and unique. I strikes me that in all this attempting to be unique and original, that everyone is essentially wearing the same thing. Most everyone is wearing jeans. I know that they have become a staple in most everyone's wardrobes, but really...is that the only type of bottoms that anyone has anymore. I will interject that I am not at the moment wearing jeans, they are an army green corduroy material. 65 percent of the people are wearing a t-shirt, or t-shirt type material top. There is also a lot of layers. I have seen some girls that are wearing three tank top layer willy-nilly on top of each other, most time with bra straps showing. The other thing I am not quite getting is wearing patterns and colors that have no business what-so-ever being in the same room, let alone on the same body at the same time. Again interjecting, I will say that I am also wearing a tasteful green 3/4 sleeve light sweater and a pair of heeled black dress shoes with an open heel that clink when I walk, with a pair of black trouser socks. (I wonder if many people in this generation even know what trouser socks are!?!).

I just got up and cleared my head for a second (I had to take a potty break). I realize that there really was no point to my previous tirade. A lot of school work, and life in general has me desperately seeking times of absent-mindedness for relief. Now I am "Off to read Beowulf, the wonderful Beowulf of old." (pardon my lose paraphrase, see previous sentence for understanding).

Later all!!!

Watch the pretty birdie...

Kinda strange title, but I couldn't think of anything informative, intriguing, or interesting, so I went for the first thing that popped into my head.

I will be talking today about life, and it may seem that I am complaining, this is not the case. I just want to get some things off my chest and vent for a bit, but remember, It's All Good; Beautiful day, Great to be alive; Thank God I'm Alive!!!

I don't think that there has ever been a time in my life that I have been so busy, and seemed so overwhelmed with all the things that I have to do. School is really reading heavy this semester, in fact, I bought 26 books for my four classes. 26!!! Now I like reading, but this is a bit much. I am still working at the Women's Center on Friday's, and Babysitting Tyler on Friday mornings. Teaching Sunday School. Taking Jess to soccer practice on Wednesday evening, then Praise practice, then Faith Weavers. Soccer games on Saturday mornings. The wonderful Worship Taskforce that meets every two weeks on Wednesday evenings, in which I get the pleasure of reading another book!!! I started BSF last week, which is two hours on Tuesday morning... but I realized that I am too busy, and with a lot of prayer, decided to not do BSF for lack of time. On top of all this, I still have to be a mom, packing lunches, making breakfast and dinner, and try to keep my house from reaching the toxic waste dump status.

Honestly, I don't know how people do it all. It really does make me appreciate the 40 min drive to class four days a week. At least I get some time to myself, where I only have to worry about driving, don't have to deal with Jess, and can tune out the world blasting my WAYFM. Thankfully, I have realized the importance of quite time with God, though they are few and far between.

Last Friday, I was helping Jen go through 20 years of collected possessions (for lack of a more polite word than junk or crap), and was exhausted. It was getting dark. Jen was in the house putting Tyler to bed, Jess was in the pole barn with Jen's folks; no one except me was outside. So I sat on the ground. I just sat there looking at the clouds. The wind was blowing cooly, and the clouds were moving rather quickly across the sky, the trees were rustling and it was very peaceful. I couldn't help but slow down, and just not think about anything except God. This time only lasted for maybe ten minutes or so, but it was enough to renew myself and to calm down and appreciate life.

My prayer is that I can have more of these short breather moments more often.

It's been a while...

I realize today that it has been a while since I have pondered mindlessly and talked about it. Well, unfortunately, today will not be a mindless pondering.

Doing my devotional this morning, made me think about things. Well, of course I think about things when I read God's Word, but it was really thought provoking this morning. It was entitled "God's Viewpoint."

"From one ancestor [God] made all nations to inhabit the whole earth."
Acts 17:26

The jist of the article was about a guy who saw a bumper sticker that read "God bless the rest of the world, too." He talked about how you see tons of stickers, and hear almost everyone saying "God bless America." The point was that "God is not the God of one nation or denomination, and Christ came for everyone who believes." It is easy to get caught up in the need for God's love in our own country, because we definitely do. But America is not the only country in the world. God created all people, and He has a "world perspective."
With Deanna and Jamie and Taylor in Africa, where the standard of living is much lower, and the problems are more serious than what outfit I am going to wear to school today, it is enlightening. We, and definitely me included, need to break out of our Ameri-centric mindset, and see that God's love is more than sufficient for the whole world, not just America, and that we need to show that.
I almost wonder if this is not one of the world's lies that we have bought in to. We do need to show God's love right where we are at, but that doesn't mean we need to stop there. It almost is like denying that God is that awesome that He can handle it all. America is not better than the rest, nor do we have a monopoly on God. If anything, we underestimate Him, and take Him for granted. He is not simply the God of White Protestant Conservative Americans, but of the North Koreans working on Nuclear technology, on the members and victims of the Taliban and Al-quiada, of those in the path of Hurricane Franklin, of the Pygmies, and even of all the murderers, thieves, and every other sinner in the world.
I pray that my eyes will be open to see that, and not only pray that God would bless America, but the entire world.
And I thank God that I will never know everything there is to know about Him, but that everyday is a chance to rediscover who He is.

Smurf for thought...

So, I am pretty bored today. And while I was mindlessly pondering, I thought of something interesting (actually it came up on my "Things to Ponder").

If you choke a Smurf, what color would it turn???

hmmmm....




...I wonder...



That was fun. OK, bye now.

Ain't Life Grand???

Well, I don't think that I have much to post today. I was having a pretty -blah- couple of days. The rainy weather, while definitely needed, hasn't helped with my not so enthusiastic mood. I have had a headache for a few days now, and was about ready to throw the bathroom scale out the window (and I would have if it didn't belong to my friend Jen). So needless to say, I was not really excited about much when I was cruisin' the internet today and decided to check my final grades for the Summer II semester. I knew that I earned an A in my African Anthropology class, but was unsure about my Latin class. You see, the professor was not what you would call prepared for this class, we only has 4 people in the class total, me, a freshman, and 2 graduate students, we didn't even know what we would be graded on. It turned out that the grade for the entire class was the final, which was 30 lines of translating a poem by Horace, Ars Poetica, a poem over 1100 lines long that basically bashes any other poetic style other than dactylic hexameter (a type of meter). Needless to say, I was rather stressed, and didn't think that I would do that great. So I checked my grade and I think I am going to have a bruise on my chin from where it hit the table. I GOT AN A!!!!! In 6 semesters of Latin, I have never done that well. Praise God!!! There is no way I could have done that well if He hadn't been there to help me study, and concentrate, and manage it all without going nuts. I am officially on summer vacation now, 2 whole weeks with no school, Yipee!!!

We are now adding a quiz to this part of the blog. The first person, of the many, many who view this blog daily, that can correctly name the character and the movie in which it appeared, will receive a life time supply of -thumbs ups-.....
I know it's a hard one. But this is one of those weird things about me, I have a fascination with Disney movies and get a thrill out of knowing the character's names. Good luck!!!

Why you don't use frozen blueberries when making a smoothie.

So I got up this morning and decided that a blueberry smoothie sounded really tasty. I pulled out my "Magic Bullet"-type blender, a cup of yoplait lite vanilla yogurt, and a bag of frozen blueberries from the freezer. I was rushing around this morning because I had to get stuff around for going down to my uncles lake house in Coldwater to spend the night...long story, maybe another time. So I mixed everything up in the blender and put the storage lid on it so I could take it to Jen's while I watch Tyler. Have you ever had watered down yogurt? Pretty yucky!!! That's what this tasted like. I guess the fact that the blueberries were frozen meant that they had water in them, so when they thawed out, it was pretty yucky. Then I tried freezing it thinking that would help, kinda like frozen yogurt. Ya, even worse.Rest assured though, I remedied the situation. I mixed in some milk, and added some raspberries, and threw back in the blender, and viola...yummy semi-frozen berry smoothie. And quite nutritious, too.


I know that I have a tendency to take on a lot of things at once and to say "sure" and "yes" when people ask me to do things. Well, I was asked by a certain woman to help with the directory, and of course I said sure. So there was a meeting last night to go over the layout and choose the design and everything. Imagine six people in a room, all trying to agree on one design and layout. Needless to say it was rather frustrating, everyone wanted something different, I though one of the guys was going to walk out. Decisions got made, I made "executive" decisions that were agreed upon. The point of this rather lengthy story was no the meeting, but the dream I had last night. I dreamt that we were trying to decide on a cover design. Instead of everyone disagreeing, the all agreed on one design, except me. It was atrocious. It was yellow, with a bunch of flowers, not too bad yet, right? The bad part was that it had a stuffed teddy bear on it, not a picture, but an actual bear attached to the cover. It was horrible, and everyone there thought it was the greatest design they had ever seen. Thank God that is not what the design actually is, I hope!!!

The Little Mermaid, A Psalm, and Some Carrots Walk into a Blog...

Does the Little Mermaid wear an algaebra???



Now, I will admit that it took me a bit to realize what that said, but I think I laughed for a couple of minutes after I got it. An algae bra, hahahaha!!!

I have to share my devotional passage for this morning because it was great. I mean, the entire Bible is great, but this was a good one for this morning, rather uplifting.

Praise the Lord, I tell myself;
with my whole heart, I will praise His holy name.
Praise the Lord, I tell myself,
and never forget the good things He does for me.
He forgives all my sins
and heals all my diseases.
He ransoms me from death
and surrounds me with love and tender mercies.
He fills my life with good things.
My youth is renewed like the eagle's!
The Lord gives righteousness
and justice to all who are treated unfairly.
He revealed His character to Moses
and His deeds to the people of Israel.
The Lord is merciful and gracious;
He is slow to get angry and full of unfailing love.
He will not constantly accuse us,
nor remain angry forever.
He has not punished us for all our sins,
nor does He deal with us as we deserve.
For His unfailing love towards those who fear Him
is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth.

Psalm 103:1-11

In our world full of sinful people, it is so wonderful to know that God is better than all of it. His love is unfailing, and so much better than anything here on earth, even chocolate!!! I know that is hard to believe, but so true. When the world gives you lemons, God can make the best lemonade, all you have to do is give Him the ingredients.

One last mindless thought for the day:
Why is a carrot more orange than an orange???
Chew on that one for a while. hahahaha!!!

Here piggy, piggy, piggy...

So I went to April's draw a pig site. Here's my piggy...


Before you laugh, realize how hard it was to draw a pig using the little mouse ball thingy on my laptop. Oh yah, according to my piggy, I am pessimistic, direct, enjoying playing devil's advocate (this I just don't see, do you?), emotional, stubborn, and a good listener. I don't know what I think about all this, don't really see me as pessimistic, do you ;)

Try it yourself...http://drawapig.desktopcreatures.com/

Here I am...

Well, I am new to this whole blogging thing. So here goes. I guess I'll start with a little bit of background information to let y'all know who I am. I'm a 26 year old single mother with a beautiful 7 1/2 year old daughter. I attend Western Michigan University and have one year before I graduate with a double major in Comparative Religion and Latin (ya, I said Latin, how nerdy, huh?). After that, God willing, I will be attending Calvin Theological Seminary to work on my Master's and hopefully doctorate in Theological Studies, with aspirations of one day becoming a college professor and doing research and writing. My main areas of research interest are the early Christian church from Paul through the twelfth century when Pope Urban officially made the call for the first crusade in 1095, and looking at the progression of the idea of faith over works that Paul proclaimed in the New Testament, to the extreme requirement of works as necessary for salvation that Urban declared in his papal addresses.

Now that all that boring stuff has been covered, let us get on to the more interesting stuff. I enjoy reading, writing, and arithmetic. Well maybe not the last part. I collect books, especially ones older than 90 years, with a special interest in late nineteenth and early twentieth century poetry and philosophical thought, especially the poetry of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the ramblings of Albert Einstein. I also have a rather hefty record collection, at last count numbering somewhere in the 130's.


I also love to crochet, scrapbook, play cards, especially poker and canasta, and I like to cook. I also have a great fascination with an excellent source of reading material. It is published once a week, usually on Sundays, and can be purchased at any local store. I, of course, am referring to the Funny Pages, the comics. Many a bathroom break is spent pouring over these periodicals, with much attention paid to the Garfield segment. Man I love that cat.

I also have a very deep love for our Lord Jesus Christ, and hope to spend my life serving God, and glorifying Him with all my actions, thoughts, and my life. I am a member of a United Methodist Church, a rather conservative one, mind you, and am quite unhappy and disturbed by the path that the UMC is taking down a very liberal road. I have studied the life and intentions of John Wesley rather intently, and much prefer the call to returning to the Scriptures that he implored. Until that day returns to the UMC, I suppose I will just have to prayfully express my concern and at times disgust with some of the practices and developing beliefs of a growing portion of Methodists, as well as Christians in general.

Well, there is me in a nut shell. Looking back, I see that I wrote quite alot. I promise that further blogs will not be as serious and stuffy sounding. But I can't guarantee that they won't be thought provoking and sometimes just plain weird, but that's me.

Later!!!