My thoughts exactly, Grace.

I want my soul wide awake.

I want to sail

Into the sunrise

Right to the edge of the new

Way beyond me, out ‘cross the sea

Into a beautiful truth

A journey awaits

Incredible stories

I’ll live to tell you the tales

I want to know.

I want to go.

I want to sail.

Right through waves of my fear

Out where the waters run clear

I want to sail.



Tell me, what spell must I break?

I want my soul wide awake.

of green beans and pioneers.

This year I've been teaching piano, working in awana, and babysitting on a regular basis, which means I've gotten a lot of awesome kid quotes. Here are some of my favorites from this week...

Me: If you have three notes altogether, it's a 3rd. What do you think it is when you have 2 notes together?

K: Um...a twoth?

......

Me: Who knows what a hymnal is?

B: It's a book they sang out of in like, the pioneer days.

......

Ruby: I'm a baby goose. You're the momma goose.

Me: Ruby, can you stand up?

Ruby: No say baby goose.

Me: Stand up, baby goose!

>obligingly stands up<

......

Me: Hey guys, if you eat your green beans, it will make me really, really happy.

>Ruby immediately eats like 5 beans<

Ruby: Did I make you happy?

Normal is wonderful.

People ask me what my favorite season is, and usually I tell them summer.

This is partially false because a Seattlite's definition of summer is similar to that of late spring in Washington DC.

Everyone I meet seems to favour the season in which they were born, and I've always felt slightly odd for not liking fall...seeing as that is when my birthday falls.

But fall in Seattle, you see, is typically nothing but freezing cold temperatures with endless rain and cloudy skies.

You can't crunch through leaves because they're soggy, the air is not as crisp because of the overcast cloudy-ness, and it's just generally not as pleasant. Being one who dislikes the cumbersome nature of umbrellas, I typically get rather wet during this season, as well as end up with my glasses all spotted with water. >.<

But this year, I am discovering how much I really do love the fall. You see, we've been having a decent fall. A normal fall. The sun has been out, the leaves are crunchy, the air is crisp.

I don't have to wear a 20-pound coat and line my feet with socks. I can dance through the leaves with my sweater. I can take deep, full breaths of beautiful fall air.

I can run through the park with my dog, and sit in the sunshine to soak it all in.

I love fall.

If we could analyze the influences that build up a godly character to maturity, we might well find that the agencies which we call natural vastly outweigh the supernatural. The book of Proverbs reassures us that this, if it is true, is no reflection on the efficacy of God's grace, for the hard facts of life, which knock some of the nonsense out of us, are God's facts and His appointed school of character; they are not alternatives to his grace, but means of it; for everything is of grace, from the power to know to the power to obey. -Derek Kidner

On that note of procrastinating - how often do I procrastinate or make excuses by saying I'm busy with something else? (read that post. It's good.)

Oh, what could I be missing because tell my little brother that I'm "too busy?"

My brother is a genius.

Tomorrow I'll stop procrastinating.

When I was little, I used to try to have "perfect" days. I would try to be good for the entire day.

It never worked. =P

So, at the end of the day, I always said to myself, "I'll try again tomorrow. I'll really do it this time."

And as I got older, I somehow kept that mentality. The idea that one day, it would suddenly happen - BOOM - I'd have life figured out.

Lately I've been frustrated with the fact that...I'm no different than I was 10 years ago. I still say "tomorrow I'll be different. Tomorrow I'll actually not check my email and I'll actually practice piano instead."

::snort::

I have a feeling I'd be a much better pianist if I'd ever actually put that idea into practice. (haaa see that clever use of a pun there? I actually didn't intend that.)

But really - I would say to myself as I went to bed "ugh! I failed again. But I won't fail tomorrow."

Isn't "tomorrow I'll stop procrastinating" an oxymoron?

As your stereotypical homeschooler saturated by the message of the Rebelution, I've had the idea that if I didn't do great things as a teenager, I've somehow wasted my entire life. I frowned upon my 18th birthday and felt as if my opportunities had all been taken away now that the number associated with my years of living is one higher than it was a month ago.

But the reality is - I will never have more time than I do right now.

I'm only going to be 18 once. Just for 365 days. Why ruin it by wishing it was something else?



Maybe tomorrow I'll start over
Maybe tomorrow I will finally change my ways
Said the same things yesterday
Don't know why I'm so afraid
To let you in
To let you win
To let you have all of me

Can't spend my whole life wastin'
Everything I know I've been given
'Cause you've made for so much more than
Sittin' on the side lines
I don't wanna look back and wonder
If good enough could've been better
Everyday's a day to start over
So, why am I waiting for tomorrow?

I don't want to look back and wonder if my "good enough" could have been better. I want to live life to the fullest, and not waste my time worrying about wasting my life. I'm going to get out there, do something, and live! And I'm going to do it today.