AAAAHHHH!!!!!

Remember this post? Guess what??? BREAD comes in purple too!!!!

I was at the Chinese mall the other day, doing some shopping with my mom. And we passed the bakery. And as we were looking at cakes for my dad, this glint of purple caught my eye. So of course I had to run over to see what it was.

and LO and BEHOLD, it was purple bread!! Made my day. So I showed it to mom, who explained what made it purple (yams, I think. There's also this yummy stuff called taro in it) and proceeded to get it for me. (*squee!*)

I brought it home, gave it a parade around the house to show my family my find, took a few pictures for the purposes of sharing this new delight with my blog readers, and tasted it!

It is... (wait for it)

DELICIOUS! I absolutley loved it. It's sweet-ish, but not like cinnamon sweet or anything. I really could eat it almost all the time. It tastes good plain or toasted. It especially tastes good toasted just slightly brown with lots of butter.

Did you know that toasting purple bread makes it brown? You would hope that such a phenomenal occurrence would turn...blue or something when you toast it. :P But no, it turns brown. Which is to be expected, because it IS just bread, after all.

Still, it's unusual bread, and it's PURPLE, which is just fantabulous. And I get to use my purpleness tag. :P

Sadly, I was unable to get a fabulous, prize-winning, stunning photo...but here is a picture, nevertheless, and just look at that glorious purple...

Aslan's Country Survey!

Most of you know about Aslan's Country, the Narnia forum I co-adminstrate. My fellow admin has written up a lovely survey for the New Year - and if you complete the survey, join the forum, and send him a Private Message, YOU could be eligible to win a FREE Aslan's Country t-shirt! :P

I'd love to hear your responses to the survey, but please don't take it if you haven't browsed the site first... ;) (so please, browse the site!)

Aslan's Country
Survey

Christmas things...

One of my favorite things about Christmas is church. I especially am beginning to love advent - the candle lighting, stories, and all. Our family has been reading "Jotham's Journey", which is an advent story, and I LOVE it. It's so well written and sometimes we purposely skip a day so we can read two the next day because we can't stand the cliffhangers! =P

Last week we sang "Zither Carol" at church. I LOVE this song. I think the congregation really enjoyed it too.

This week our handbell choir played background music. I absolutely LOVE handbell choir. It's so much fun!!

I love this picture. These are the biggest bells, which Raymond and Jared got to play. The smallest ones are about half the size of your hand. [whereas these are about what, twice the size of your head?? =P]

Our little flute trio! I absolutely love our flute group. It makes me happy. =)

Katy and I just learned 4-in-hand about 2 weeks ago. 4-in-hand is where you have two bells in each hand [as opposed to one] and it's really tricky at first, but once you get the hang of it, you feel reeeally smart. :P We had a lot of fun playing and learning together as you can probably see....

Geneva Hall was decorated beautifully - all the trains everywhere and trees and decorations. I loved it.
The train tree

For at least this year, my favorite part about Christmas is definitely church. All the special music, decorations, candles, advent...I love it. =)

Titles are for those with creative minds...

Today has been a long day. And it's not half over. And the rest of the week is going to be long.

I spent this morning playing flute for a Hanukkah party with the Union Gospel Mission. I think I played for a total of 1.5 hours...which is a long time just to be playing background music...in dress shoes and with no food. But I loved it, and the seniors did too. I really love to play my music for people like that...because they love it, and I love to bless others in that way.

One of the seniors is friends with my sister [who's coming home TOMORROW!!] and she was talking to her on the phone during the event - and came up and held the phone up so that she could hear me playing. It was quite funny. (My sister usually plays for this event but wasn't home in time this year)

Tomorrow....is going to be a really long day. And I'm exhausted already. So please pray that everything will go smoothly and I'll have lots of energy. =) I will have lots of pictures and will tell you all about it afterwards!

Love, Hannah

Here come the long string of Christmas posts!

Over the past few weeks I have been very busy with Christmassy things, parties, things ending, gifts, singing for church, performances, and such. And of course I've been thinking about all these great things to blog about. And while I was going to compile it into one huge post....I figured I'd probably lose half my readers who don't like long posts. :P

So here's a nice short Christmas post - the first of many! Oh, don't you love Christmas?

Bracie, who authors the blog the Locket, shared a new Christmas song by Taylor Swift - which I really really like. Not only because it's coming from Taylor Swift, but because I really do like the words.

Awhile ago, I was kind of ::cough:: obsessed with Taylor Swift, but I got over that quickly, and hardly listen to her anymore. But I love this song - and she's talking about Jesus Birth the WHOLE time [no sob/breakup/crush content] - and she says Jesus Christ in the end!!! Which I think is amazing coming from such a popular artist such as herself. And a great message to a world who needs to hear it so desperately. I'll have more on Christmas and Jesus and stuff, but for now, enjoy the song!! =)

I'm bored. And *slightly* hyper.

So! I'm going to make a random post. Because I'm bored and feeling random. And childish and immature. And I will probably look back at this post and be all like, "wow, was I dumb", because I'm not really thinking properly about how my sentences are worded....[see? that didn't even sound right..]

Heeheehee...oh, the joys of being random and hyper. But, there is some cause for my joys, as you shall soon see in the sentences that follow....[boy that sounded lame...]

1) My big sister is coming home for Christmas! In 8 days!! And just in case you're thinking "what in the world?? Hannah doesn't have a big sister", it's true, I do. But she adopted me, and we're not biological sisters. But we're sisters. =)

2)We started a flute group at church. I'm loving it. Immensely. I haven't played with a group of people just for fun in a long time and it felt really good. Plus I got to sing for the first time with the choir, and that was loads of fun.

3) Christmas time is always happy....

4) Did I mention my big sister is coming home for Christmas?

5) It's sunny out. I'm quite happy. And as cold as it is, I really like it. And I think so long as it stays sunny, I shall be positive about the lack of snow. However, if it decides to rain and stay this cold, I might have reason to complain. But So Far, it's sunny, so I'm happy.

6) I had hot chocolate this morning. and it was warm. Oh, and there was a gigantic vanilla bean marshmallow that I had with it. It was lovely.

7) I forgot to tell you that my sister is coming home for Christmas! =P

Love,
Hannah

PS if you're wondering why this post is tagged "purpleness" it's because I really wanted to use the tag, and because this post is random, I saw it a useful place to use it. :P

PPS please tell me if I made a really embarrassing typo and didn't notice it. [I tend to not notice things when I'm hyper] And please comment, because I love comments. =P

What to do??

I am in desperate need of a Christmas background for my blog. I want something green and red and without the reindeer/Santa stuff. And without anything that blocks the text. Yeah. I'm picky. If anyone finds one, or is talented enough to make one [unlike me] it would make my day. =)

As it is...I may have to end up with reindeer. Or Blueish snowmen-y things. But I really don't want something cold looking. It's already far too cold outside. =P

Excerpts from my devotional....

I've been reading "My Utmost for His Highest" as my devotional this year, and it's been really, really good, so I thought I'd share a few quotes from today's reading. Actually, if you're one of those people who likes to look things up, it's really November 10th's reading, I'm a bit behind. :P

If you seek great things for yourself, thinking, "God has called me for this and for that," you barricade God from using you. As long as you maintain your own personal interests and ambitions, you cannot be completely aligned or identified with God's interests. This can only be accomplished by giving up all of your personal plans once and for all, and by allowing God to take you directly into His purpose for the world. You understanding of your ways must also be surrendered, because they are now the ways of the Lord.

...I should never say, "Lord, this causes me such heartache." To talk that way makes me a stumbling block. When I stop telling God what I want, He can freely work Hims will in me without any hindrance. He can crush me, exalt me, or do anything else He chooses. He simply asks me to have absolute faith in Him and His goodness. Self-pity is of the devil, and if I wallow in it I cannot be used by God for His purpose in the world

~Oswald Chambers

"Let's Say Thanks"

I thought this was a neat idea, so I did it, and I thought I'd share it with you so you could too!

It's a program that sends out cards to our troops to tell them thank you, and I like it because it doesn't take a whole ton of time, but you can still personalize the note to show that you care.

http://www.letssaythanks.com/Home1280.html

I put a widget thingy on my sidebar - although it's rather big, sorry about that. It still links to the site though. =D

Tournament Pictures!

Last Saturday I had my first speech tournament! I was very excited, and I had a lot of fun. =D Here are a few picture from between rounds.

I love Sophia's face as she's trying to get bunny ears on Grace but didn't quite make it... :P And Rebeka, don't kill me for posting this picture, please. :P

I should also note that Grace and Sophia did an amazing job on their duo. =)

Three of us novice speech-ers...so much fun!!

I didn't place, but I had a lot of fun, and wasn't nervous, and enjoyed it immensely. =) When I get to uploading the video of my speech, I might think about possibly letting you see it....maybe. =P

God is so good!

My computer is fixed!! I have a brand new operating system (Windows 7!) =D but have lost all my emails =( So, if there's an email you sent me and I never replied...well that's why. :-/ It's so awesome how God has continually blessed me with a working computer, even with the number of times it has broken down!

I also remember that I've promised y'all pictures of the Book 1 Recital - and I'm sorry it's taken so long, but hold on a little bit longer! I have not forgotten! Some of our friends took the pictures, so they are currently in their possesion and I have yet to get a copy from them. :)

Meanwhile, I wanted to share my excitement for my friend Tara, who was recently engaged!! It has been such a blessing to me, as a teenager, to see their [Tara and Stephen's] godly example during their courtsrhip.

Here are some pictures that she posted on her blog. :)

To explain the lack of posts recently...

My computer has crashed. :( So I have limited computer time on the computers of all my family members. Hopefully it will be up and running again soon! Please pray that we figure out what happened to it, because we're really not quite sure. :-/

Love always,
Hannah

Who would've thunk??

Cauliflower comes in PURPLE!! I was elated!!! [my new word] Mom made some for dinner last night. And while it wasn't the best thing I've ever tasted, I certainly liked it more normal white cauliflower.



PS - for those of you who didn't get my facebook message, I'm taking a week off facebook and gmail - but not my blog and email, so you can always contact me there. :)
PPS - isn't that purple cauliflower just too amazing for words?????? I love it. =P

Little Joys in life...

...are causes of much happiness. :) [did that make sense...?]

Yesterday, I had half a donut in piano class....didn't think it'd do that much, [just a half, right??] but I was insanely hyper...then I discovered that my favorite movie company of all time, Sherwood Pictures, is making another movie!!! ::squeal::

View the "trailer" here =D ::dances::

THEN, today is Halloween. We don't celebrate halloween, but Spirit 105.3, the local Christian radio station, is playing Christmas music all day for their "halloween costume" which is just...way cool. I think Matthew rubbed all this Christmas excitement off on me, because now I'm psyched about Christmas...and it's only October!!!!

You can listen to the amazing Christmas music here =D

And...ooh, did I mention I had a brownie last night? Wait, maybe it was 2....And I'm just all around happy right now, which is odd...and weird...but, it's a nice feeling. and I love Christmas. I'm thinking about changing my blog background for Christmas early. =P

Plus I've been having the most amazing time with some of the most amazing people getting ready for the recital mentioned in the post before.

Book One Recital, here we come!

So, over the past few weeks/months, we've been working on a big recital/play - here's a sneak preview, and after the recital I'll have more pictures and a story! :)

Tuesdays

Tuesday has to be my least favorite day out of the whole week. It used to be Monday, but I believe Monday is just because of the getting-up-at-6-am-bit that I don't like. Tuesdays are always stressful because I seem to end up with 2 math assignments and 2 hours of piano to complete in 3 hours. And because I know I'll never get it done, I don't do it for the first 2 hours and then freak out in the last hour.

I think something's wrong with my brain. I've been doing this since school started, and still haven't learned.

But every week, God has always given me grace. Like, merciful piano teachers and time to finish my math. And a clear, somewhat focused mind.

It simply amazes me that God continually gives us all this grace when we keep failing at the exact same thing. And not only that but we keep telling God we'll change tomorrow and we don't. It's just...amazing how God could love me. Really, really amazing.

Love

One afternoon during Omnibus [history/literature/theology class], when I was in 7th grade at DMCA, Mr. Purcell asked us what the opposite of love was.

Of course, we all answered "hate" – which, much to the surprise of our 7th grade minds, was incorrect.

Pride. The answer is pride. This took awhile for me to reason through, at first. But I understood it more as I thought about it, and as God has been teaching me through 1 Corinthians 13, and other passages, I understand it even more.

Pride is not just stuck up people. Pride is wanting the glory for yourself. And by "glory", I don't mean "worship", or "regal honor" like some people see the word glory.

We see these huge contrasts in Christian movies, books, and devotional stories. There’s the obvious “sinner” who says, word-for-word “I want to WIN. I want to be in the center of attention!” And so we think “That’s what I’m not supposed to be like. Okay, easy. I don’t do that. No pride? check.”

And, we basically write ourselves off as pretty good Christians who do the right things.

But there are so many little things. Pride is anything that puts you before something else. It’s what satisfies your wants and desires. If you are putting anything that makes you feel comfortable, happy, and satisfied when there are things you could be doing for others and for God, that’s pride.

No, I don’t mean things like eating, sleeping, taking medicine to make pain go away, etc. I mean things like, reading a book instead of doing homework. Doing things you want to do instead of what you should do. That’s pride. Because you’re putting your wants first.

Love, on the other hand, is selfless. It thinks only of God and of others. It reaches beyond any emotion, or even the selfless love of friends for each other. It is selfless to everything.

1 Corinthians is screaming that in every verse.

Verses 1-3: No matter what kind of possession, ability, or anything that we have – if we’re not selflessly using it for God, if we’re using it to satisfy ourselves, to make us feel good – we’re Nothing. [and what makes us do it for ourselves? Pride.]

Verses 4-7: If you look at each one of these words [suffering long, kindness, not envying, etc], each of them requires you to put someone besides yourself first. ANY need/want/desire that you have…it doesn’t come first. You have to forget that.

Verses 8-13: If you have your focus on anything else, you will fail - because those things will pass away. But Love Never Fails.

I know if I write out each verse and talk about it, you'll quit reading, as this post is already rather long. But I encourage you to go read 1 Corinthians 13, and see what God teaches you. It's amazing.

PS - if I what I'm saying isn't right or something, please tell me. =)

I think I rather like October...

Letting the cold nip at your nose...because it's a sweet, wintry cold - not a biting, bitter cold.

Smelling someone's bonfire as you walk down the sidewalk... [a smell I absolutely love]

The occasional random raindrop - but not raining, nor even drizzling...

Clomping along outside in my amazing blue polka-dot boots [even though the ground is quite dry]...

Mild excitement of turning 16 in less than a week...

Smells of people's dinner being cooked as you take a walk - an especially nice smell when your neighborhood is filled with cooking-obsessed Asians, like mine is. =P

Trumping through leaves with my half-crazed dog as he chases a soccer ball...laughing as he nearly crashes into a tree.

Finding tons of books to read that are actually decent and staying up till 11 reading them.

Somehow finding an thrill in practicing my tediously difficult Chopin cadenza.

Jesus, bring the rain

My eyes have never been so dry from crying all the moisture out. Plus one eye is considerably worse than the other, or else has something wrong with it, resulting in a very skewed view of the computer screen.

It's 11:00. Normally that wouldn't feel that late, unless you got up at 6:00am, spent all day at an awana conference that wore you down emotionally, convicted you spiritually, and tired you out physically...not to mention eating sawdust cookies and sitting through classes about New Age something you have no idea about.

But I did go to this one very encouraging workshop today, called, ironically "being an encourager in a discouraging world" The thing that stuck out to me was this song they shared by MercyMe called "bring the rain"



When...when everyone else isn't there, when everyone you need to see, need to talk to, need a hug from isn't there...God is there. With this quiet, still voice He reminds you that He is the only friend you'll really ever need. God doesn't go off to college or can't be friends with you for awhile. He doesn't go to a different church, or have other friends He needs to talk to when you need it. When you're alone, lost, and in tears...God really, really does have this gigantic, huge, amazing plan for you life. He's using everything in some miraculous way so that you will be closer to Him...and that He will be glorified.

WHY is it so hard to remember that sometimes? Why do we always seem to fail at setting our minds on things above, not on things on the earth?

For we died, and our life is hidden with Christ in God! (Colossians 3:1-3)

We have this need for something we can feel, that we can touch, people we can relate to and sense with our 5 senses. God is so much more fulfilling...when will I learn that? Can we get to a place where we really understand that?

Life is so complicated. I'm so glad I'm not in charge of it. I really don't understand why so many people think power is such a great thing. But then again, maybe they have life a little more figured out than I do. =P

Going to be gone...

So, I'm going to be off the computer for a week.

The reason is...God's been teaching me a lot lately, one of them is that I keep telling Him I'm going to spend more time with Him, do my schoolwork, not get on the computer, etc, and I don't.

And I've been doing that for like...2 years? It's pretty bad. And God's sort of convicted me that it needs to stop. Because I've been "stopping" for 2 years. :-/

Last night we watched Flywheel - by the same people who made Facing the Giants and Fireproof. As cheesy as some of it was - the quality wasn't all that great - it was sort of convicting. And I realized that if I was going to change anything at all in my life it wasn't going to to happen by getting up in the morning and saying "okay, God, I'm gonna be different today!" It's taking steps forward to literally change things. And God keeps telling me to change the time I spend on the computer - even though I really, really, really don't want to. =P

So...I'm locking my computer up for a week. I would really appreciate prayer right now, that I'll get my priorities straight and not give into the temptation I know Satan is going to put out there.

See you all in a week! :)

~Hannah

Awana!

Oh, I love awana.

So at Christ's Church, which is where we go for awana now, I discovered [or rather, remembered :P] that the Holders go there as well! The Hansons [well Morgan at least] do too! And so do the Lows! So I was quite pleased to see them. Plus a few other people that I recognized. [I met all of them at DMCA, where I used to go to school]

So today was when I saw Jessie for the first time. [at awana] Jessie was one of the girls who decided to cling to me at school. [It was like a "thing" for all the 2nd grade and younger girls to have a 7th grade girl to cling onto... :P ] So she was sort of my little sister there. And she was quite excited to see me.

Then afterwards, she nearly mauled me over in a hug when I went to pick up Colette. I can't tell you how good it felt to hear someone scream "HANNAH!" and nearly knock you over in their excitement to see you. No one's done that to me in a long time.

So I stood there for a few minutes talking to these 3 sweet T&T girls...felt really good for some reason.

Then Jessie's brother Eric is in my group that I LIT. [Leaders In Training] He's a phsycho kid, but he recognized me so I forgave him. Then there's Liam, who was obsessed with his "boys only" army book and refused to work on his book after passing his one required section by his mom. Adie is Mrs. Hall's daughter [Mrs. Hall is the official leader] and she's a sweetheart. So is Juliette, who has those chunky adorable black glasses and blonde hair. Our group somehow ended up with 4 LIT's. It's quite funny. :P

I think I'm going to be okay at Christ's Church. If I just think about the fact that I'm having a good time there and not think about Trinity or Boulevard Park...I do okay, I think.

So. I'm quite happy at the moment. Awana makes me happy.

You know you're an awana freak when you get awana highs instead of sugar highs.... :P

More things God is teaching me

Listen to these two songs. They are amazing. I've been listening to them on repeat all week....

[sorry the player doesn't fit - it still works :) ]

ohmygoodnessgracious!!!!!!

So that interview we posted?? Aslan's Country?? The Examiner found out about it and wrote an article on it!!!!!!!! I'm in complete shock and excitement!!!!!!!!

Click here!!!! I can't believe it. I'm soooo excited!!!

I want to play piano like this.

Kat, one of my dear moderators on Aslan's Country, is an amazing pianist. She has this great ear for picking out all sorts of songs on the piano, and this is one of my favorites that she's done. [Beloved, by Tenth Avenue North] I would really, really love to develop that kind of skill to be able to do that.

Check out more of her videos here.

Aslan's Country Interview!

I have been co-administrating a Narnia Fans forum called Aslan's Country. Last summer, I was at the Kindling's Fest on Orcas Island and met Dr. Michael Ward, a C.S. Lewis scholar. Dr. Ward made a discovery on the Chronicles of Narnia, and then wrote a book about it.

On the spot, I decided to ask him for an interview to post on Aslan's Country. He agreed - and Raymond filmed me asking him all sorts of questions. Later, in mid-August, we also filmed an introduction to go with it.

Now, we have posted the interview [beautifully cut, edited, and put together by my friend and fellow admin, Matthew] which you can view here. We've also got a discussion opened up on the forum where you can ask Dr. Ward questions.

It'd be awesome to see you there! :)

New Title

My blog has a new title now - and it will probably change again when I come up with something better. But for now, this is it.

Xi-le means "joy" in Chinese [in case you didn't pick up on that] and it's one of the things God has been teaching me over the past few months - to delight and joy in Him, even when things are really, really rough.

I have a blog!

So, I finally buckled down and just made the thing. No more fretting over name/domain. Here it is. :)

I suppose I'd better start out by explaining to you exactly what the story is behind the domain and title.

My domain [subject to change, as my blog is still fairly new] is Xian-Na, which is my Chinese name. It is pronounced roughly like "sheean?-na!" The question-like accent is very short.

The title is a song by the group Point of Grace. I came across it while complaining to Brenna that I couldn't think of anything for my title, and she told me to look in song lyrics. So I spent a good half-hour in bed browsing through my ipod and came across this. These are the lyrics:

If a picture's worth a thousand words
What are they?
And since You're spirit intercedes for me
What do you hear when I pray?
'Cause I'm finding it hard to find the word
to let you know how my heart can hurt
so I'll sing the tune
and let you fill in the words
(Chorus)
La La La
La La La
La La La...

etc ;) As with the domain, it's subject to change, just like me. =P I'll find one thing and stick with it, but for now, just so you know.... ;)