breathe on

my day began with church, as oft sundays do, communion sunday, and a sunday with a mass choir as well, which I always enjoy. there is something almost magical and definitely spiritual about voices in unison giving praise.

after church our house was in a mad rush to get ready for our Christmas party, and we finished in time to pray which was awesome. It is so neat and humbling to live in an environment where we can give a party in God's honour and give it over and up to him. : )

numbers tallied, we had about sixty-five people come through, some stayed for a half hour, and some stayed the whole time. we tried to guess who would be the first to show up, and i made a farce guess because i think that deep down i really knew who it would be. he was the first to arrive and the last to leave, about forty-five minutes after everyone else… i am trying not to over-analyze it, although my friends are not helping.

awkward conversation plagues me, although not so much as it once did. free me Father.

i went to 'surrender' tonight, which is our sunday night church service, held in a place we call the landing, a building that was originally built as a theatre and dance hall during the 1940s when our little town was not yet a town and was an army base to train soldiers for war. i love the landing, even though it is not as beautiful as I am sure it once was, it's history enthralls me. how many words of love have been exchanged within it's walls? and now from it we adore and praise our Father. my first week of college the evenings we spent after sessions of orientation in praise and worship, and these shall always be some of my favorite memories. I often think the landing would be a wonderful place to be wed.

after worship i went to a surprise party for my friend cory, and left early though because I am tired and should toddle off to bed. today was a good day, a nice chance to see many friends not often seen and meet new people (friends of roommates) and share times together with people i love. thank you Jesus.

fall on me
ever so gently…
breathe on, breathe on
these dry bones, these dry bones
and break these chains

millions and millions and millions of cookies

i just finished making cookies, from 11:00am to 4:00pm, sugar cookies and gingerbread, as fast as the oven could churn them out. now our front living room is covered in a mass of plates of festive cookies. i did not know baking was such hard work. i cannot imagine what it must be like being a mom and a housewife.

thankfully joanne and kiko are making supper.... mmm.... curry. : )

"i hope these guests are hungry."

space ranger cookies

today, i am very embarassed to say, i bought a jar of mod podge. what is mod podge, you ask? well, mod podge is a kind of glue you use to decoupage, decoupage being smearing an object with glue, covering it with cut outs from magazines or fabric or whatever, and then smearing glue all over the covered object. some examples of decoupage would be the plastic fabric-covered swan on top of the back of your granny's toilet fillet with bobby pins and misscelaneous other granny bathroom stuff, and anything that rosie o'donnell made during the craft part of her ill-fated show.

why did i buy mod podge you ask? well, my desk was in terrible shape, a lovely number gleaned from the student housing furniture co-op at the beginning of september, and i couldn't stand to look at it's sad bashed and battered state any longer. so i got some mod podge, cut up magazines, and covered the fronts of the drawers. i cut out squares and rectangles of solid colour, a mondrian-esque look i suppose... the top drawer is now various shades of green, the second drawer blue, and the bottom one is is now shades of orange and red. the piece of wood above where the chair goes under is shades of beige and tan, and i must say, i quite enjoy that section. the total tackiness of the whole desk may just get to me... i thought perhaps it could pass for funky, but alas, i think i was mistaken. i am considering covering the whole thing in shades of tan and beige because it matches the wood and i think could actually look cool. the only problem is i don't have much time.

there are less than 48 hours until our aforementioned Christmas party... yesterday i made two quadruple batches of chocolate crackles, last week i made two loaves of zucchini bread, yesterday i made some shortbread, and today i made some space ranger cookies (they came out of the better homes and gardens cookbook, they were actually just called ranger cookies but i modified the ingredients so i felt justified in changing the name). kelly made some caramel popcorn today. but other than that, no one has done any cooking or baking for the party. i think that this shall be one very very very busy house tomorrow, not only in the kitchen but also in the rest of the house because we need to clean big time.... this should be interesting. ninety people... in our house.

and, in good news, tomorrow morning, or should i say this morning because it is already well into the a.m., i get to sleep in for the first time all week. whooohoooo. usually i sleep in pretty much every day, but not this week, so is the life of a busy seminary student! ; )

i have no quote for today. i am uninspired.

endless delights

A random and eclectic list of things that bring me delight and for which I am thankful:

- feeling that tingly feeling when I hear a really good song
- Spreading paint across a sheet of paper or on a canvas
- Eating cotton candy
- Colours, especially nice greens
- Completing a layout for yearbook
- Spending time with friends
- Spending time alone
- Reading the Bible
- The sense of freedom that biking gives
- Feeling the wind upon my face and racing through my hair
- Large expanses of prairie and wheatfields
- sunsets and sunrises
- Seeing the Northern Lights illuminate up the expanse of the never-ending sky
- Car rides where it is understood that you don't have to talk, where it is alright just to sit and look out the window and take i all in
- Being loved
- The feeling of satisfaction after watching a really good movie or seeing a really good piece of theatre
- Seeing other people enjoy things, no matter how small or insignificant
- Visiting my Gramma
- Creating little pieces of art out of unexpected things
- Sewing, creating something out of cloth, making something that did not exist before
- Drinking in the richness of good books
- Realizing God's truths
- Laughing
- Listening to those songs that take me back to fond memories of when I first listened to them
- Wool sweaters
- The feeling I get every Christmas Eve
- Picking up with an old friend right where we left off
- Walking or biking in a summer rain
- My cat Blackey
- Spending good times with my three siblings
- Worshipping God
- Reminiscing with old roommates
- Getting dimes in my change
- The scent of laundry dried on the line
- Lying on a blanket in the middle of a field on a sunny summer's day
- Pink fabric
- Knowing what I am doing is what God wants for me to do
- Taking really great photos
- Being complimented, especially when I never expect it
- When guys take the time to make me feel special
- Reading comments left on my blog
- Discovering good things like chai tea and the joy of flip flops in the summer
- Autumn leaves
- Pajama pants that are just a little bit too big
- Cotton button-up shirts
- Pea coats
- Fresh carrots and peas straight from the garden
- Blooming lilies
- The road by our old farm
- Corduroy pants
- Waking up from a dream
- The quilt and pillows on my bed
- friends who take the time to really listen
- Getting a new watercolour paint set
- Not being anxious about the future
- Knowing that God has a perfect plan for me
- The scent of lavender
- Cooking stir frys and pastas and other good things
- Partially realizing the depth of God's love for us, because we never will really understand it
- Walking under a light and lofty blanket of stars
- great conversation
- Seeing that the Big Dipper is wherever I go
- The little surprises of life
- Making collages of poetry and quotes and words
- Writing what I think is a really good poem out of those little word fridge magnets
- Shopping and buying nothing at all
- Trying on prom dresses
- Walking outside on beautiful nights
- Lying in the middle of a really great field of grass and just gazing upwards
- Seeing a harvest moon
- The smell after a rain, the finest over all perfumes
- Cherries
- Fresh raspberries with sugar and cream
- Finding a passage in the Bible that I had forgotten about or did not realize was there
- Making jewelry out of beads from my grandmother's attic
- Visiting with old friends
- Sharing life
- Walking a deserted road
- Meeting people I have never met
- Making postcards to send away
- Getting an email from someone I was just thinking about
- Getting a real letter or package in the mail
- Care cards from my college days
- Road trips with friends
- Shopping alone
- Shopping with another
- My mom picking me up upon my return home
- Having people over for supper
- Dreaming about days to come
- Thinking about all the myriads of possibilities of roads my life could take, knowing that God will lead me down the right one
- Knowing that somewhere, out there, is the one that God has made for me and I for him. May we wait patiently for the delights that are to come.

Our God is a great God...

reckless sense

It is after midnight and my eyes beg me to close them, all the while trying to close themselves. But yet I refuse. Silly me.

Long day, went to Moose Jaw with Rachel and Holly to get baking supplies for our Christmas party this Sunday… which we are beginning to think will be the mother of all Christmas parties, certainly the biggest private non-school sponsored one it town. What were we thinking? The invite list is over 85 people and growing day by day. Certainly not everyone will come, but I think we have ourselves in over our heads. And sure, we can bake a gazillion cookies before Sunday. What, that's only three days away? No problem. Ha ha.

Did not get any homework done today, which is not good since all my assignments for the class I took in the middle of September (Essentials of Youth and Family Ministry) are due December 2. Yes, I will be up all night December 1st.

I have realized too many times this semester that anything I or anyone tell Holly will be repeated to Jodi, and so if we want any personal details of our life, no matter how big or how small, to be repeated and blasted about, hey, we just have to tell Holly. I think this is mostly because Jodi is Holly's only friend at school outside of our household, but still I don't think that she needs to know everything. Jodi was is a friend of mine, but, yeah, I think you know what I mean. Sometimes it is so very very very frustrating. Last night I went with her and a few other people (mixed group of guys/girls) to Subway and I ended up regretting it because it was like hanging with a bunch of teenagers trying to impress each other while I stood like a dork trying to not be annoyed and trying to have a good time but really not being even remotely successful at either endeavor.

I took a girl in the dorm some cookies tonight because she was having a horrible day, and I rode Tamara's bike because I wanted it to be quick. I haven't ridden a bike since before summer… I had forgotten how freeing and invigorating it is. I used to bike all the time in high school, but since college really haven't had the opportunity to much because I've never had a bike here. My freshman year I used to always rent a bike from a friend of mine. Anyways, I ended up going all around town tonight and it was splendid. Saw the Big Dipper (when was the last time I saw it? I don't remember when that was. It has turned a lot since I last did). How can one look at the stars and not believe something Divine has created all this?

I had forgotten that this town has unpaved streets… and very muddy ones at that especially today, I had mud all up the back of my coat and all over my jeans, small sacrifice to pay however for the exhilarating sense of freedom and abandon.

"…let us draw near to God with a sincere heart."
- Hebrews 10:22a

KELLY GOT ENGAGED!

mystery solved

after wondering for some time, i have solved the mystery of where my archives have gone for september and october.... i was doing an msn search for something else...and came across them, tagged onto someone else's blog. they are currently housing themselves at http://pocketlitter.blogspot.com/2002_09_01_mikao_archive.htm and http://pocketlitter.blogspot.com/2002_10_01_mikao_archive.htm.

does anyone know how i can get them back to being attached to my blog???

the lover's in love and the other's run away

last night i watched "indian summer" with joanne, old movie but interesting, and tonight i watched "reality bites" with joanne and rachel and after it was over rachel said "i am sooo glad you get this movie michelle, i watched it with tamara and she didn't get it." and i was like, "geez, what is there not to get?" a commentary on our time.

last night joanne and i put our plastic owl on robert's doorstep as a prank... and tonight we went to get it back, and (insert scary music here)......... it was gone. now i'm going to have to tell him it was us to get it back.

if he hasn't already guessed.

"You say I only hear what I want to
And you say I talk so all the time-so

And I thought what I felt was simple
And I thought that I don't belong
And now that I am leaving
Now I know that I did something wrong cause I missed you
Yeah, I missed you

And you say I only hear what I want to
I don't listen hard
I don't pay attention to the distance that you're running or to
Anyone, anywhere
I don't understand if you really care
I'm only hearing negative, no no no-bad

So I turned the radio on I turned the radio up
And this woman was singing my song
The lover's in love and the other's run away
The lover is crying cause the other won't stay"
- Lisa Loeb, "Stay"

bottle of rain

worked on yearbook this afternoon for four hours, mostly just with melissa (the "co-editor"), but robert was there for a little while too. i'm layout editor, so i basically get to decide how everything is going to look. that's the fun part. i also "get to" format all the pictures, scan them, digitally alter them, sort through lists upon lists of names to figure out who we have pictures of and who we don't, etc. funners! : )

joanne and i went to the high school drama production before... i had never gone in four years of living here, but i always heard it was good. the people beside us left after less than ten minutes... and joanne and i left after a little over half an hour. they were good actors.... but the play was terribly boring. is that bad? : [

yesterday i was reminded of a song i used to really like, and i think i still do a lot, rod stewart's "broken arrow." there are some good lines in that song. i'm not really all too sure exactly what the song is intending to mean, i haven't listed to it since junior high or early high school probably. but i am hoping that someday there will be a wonderful guy out there totally in love with me who shows me his love in unique ways. boys, girls melt over unique stuff. or maybe it's just me. i'm not a dozen red roses kind of gal... be creative, a bouquet of lillies or wild daisies shows that you care enough to be original and not just a cookie cutter mold of who everyone thinks you should be.

"Who else is going to bring you a broken arrow
Who else is going to bring you a bottle of rain
There he goes moving across the water
There he goes turning my whole world around
- Rod Stewart, "Broken Arrow"

testing font colour... is this better?

complacency

long day, and now it's almost 2am. went and worked on yearbook for a little while this morning, and got a note to come and work on it tomorrow with everyone for four hours in the afternoon... we don't need five people to work on one computer. oh the frustration.

after supper i went to seminary games night, it was supposed to be a big activity for sem students to get to know each other better, but there were only seven of us there plus the woman whose house it was at, and the seminary dean and his wife. an odd conglomeration of people, but these sorts of things usually are. i got to know the dean better which was kinda nice i suppose.

afterwards, beth and i went to joe's place, which is a drop-in centre ministry for at risk teens in moose jaw. we were there to observe for our class. sometimes i am totally shocked at my complacency for this type of ministry. why don't i want to deal with this kind of ministry? i feel so uncomfortable there. i want to reach out... but my comfort zone resides in the church and camp settings. perhaps there is a reason for this. or perhaps i am just stubborn.

got some potentially bad news about a friend, if it's true and isn't a rumour. much to sort out for tomorrow, i only heard very second or third or fourth hand, so am not sure how much is true and how much isn't.

must get to bed. goodnight.

"Search me, O God, and know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" Psalm 139:23, 24

new year's in new york, wouldn't that be nice?

i wish, i wish, i wish... : )

great day

it has been a long day, but a great day. : )

i spent last night polishing my Bible study for this morning and typed up the handout. this morning i woke up at 4:23am and really didn't get much sleep after that, so at 6:45 i got up and showered and did some praying and went over my notes. some people from my class picked me up before class, so i didn't have to walk which was really really really swell, our professor's house (where we have class) is on the other side of town.

my Bible study went surprisingly well, i really wasn't all too nervous which was pretty cool, usually i am so nervous i am ready to hurl. yay God! and i got lots of "well done"s afterwards so that was pretty super too. : ) i will post some of my notes tomorrow if i have time and remember.

and seminary chapel was this morning too, it was different this time. all the chairs were set up in a circle around a rough-hewn cross, and on top of it were two halves of bread and little communion cups. the message was about remembrance and remembering what the cross really was about, and the speaker read Isaiah 53. very interesting service. after chapel we always all have lunch together which is pretty neat.

i snuck out early from lunch to visit with my roommates while they were home from lunch, last week kelly and rachel started coming upstairs from their basement suite to eat with me and joanne and this has been continuing this week which is neat, much community formed in our house last week even though holly and tamara were both gone. hopefully this shall continue.

after lunch i went to the yearbook office to see what could be done, and i ended up putting a lot of backgrounds on pages for the next couple of deadlines and setting up the textboxes for the pages, getting things ready for the addition of the photographs. i love yearbook, it's so much fun. robert showed up when i was almost done and we had an interesting chat. i tried to convince him to go to the college Christmas banquet this year (this is his fifth year here and he's never gone)... but i don't think i was too successful. he's leaving at the end of december because he doesn't need any more credits and very likely has a job in nebraska. i will miss that guy, he's so neat. one of the most giving people i know.

worked on my scrapbook some tonight, got two whole pages done, am trying to get as much possible done because this is my summer scrapbook and i would like to start my one for this school year soon. scrapbooks are such a good memory book. i started last summer and made one during my youth ministry internship in illinois, and then i made one for my last year of college too.

watched "gilmore girls" with holly and joanne, they love that show. i... am not enthralled with it. i'm more interesting in the social perspectives portrayed and the reactions that people have to it.

well, i should get to bed. i've been up forever and plan on going to college chapel tomorrow morning. need to be awake in the morning for that! ; ) i'm planning on taking the day off from homework though since i've been doing so much of it lately, will work some more on my scrapbook, visit with people, and do some more yearbook work. have a great day everyone.

"Great Lord," she said.
"I'm just a simple girl. You say
that I will bring Your Son into the world.
How can I understand this thing You're
going to do?"
"It's not your problem," God replied--
"Cause there's a bigger picture.
You don't have to change the world,
just trust in Me.
I am your creator,
I am working out my plan,
through you,
I will show them I am."
- Ginny Owens, "I Am"

i am so loved

beth and i have to interview parents for our class (youth and family ministry practicum), and so tonight we went to visit with a stay at home mother who has one daughter in grade 11 and one daughter in college. the passion that she has for parenting and mothering really struck me as beautiful.

i did not come from a family with strong Christian convictions, so it was awesome to see how God plays out in this woman's parenting and how passionate she is about instilling godly values and convictions into her children. i had never talked to a Christian parent about parenting before, and it was really eye-opening.

i would have to say that for the majority of my life i really didn't see myself as having children. well, i always thought i would grow up, get married, and have two kids, a son and a daughter. but then i started to think about giving birth when i was older into my teens, and i was so grossed out that i decided not to have kids. but i have learned a lot lately, and one of those things is that God has instilled mothering skills in me, and... i actually want to be a mother which is something that for many years i never thought i would say. friends have really been encouraging me in this area, unbeknownst to them i am sure, they do it so naturally that i know it is God's hand working through them.

but here i am, twentyfour years old, not married, and i've never had a boyfriend. when my mother was my age she had been married for two years and was pregnant. my older sister, at my age, was already married for a year. but there is no doubt in my mind that i should be anywhere else but here at this moment in time. i have no doubt that God made me to be single today. but i know He has a bigger plan for me. someday, that will include a husband. and some day it will include children. it's so awesome to know that God has things under control. i don't have to worry about them. God is so cool. i am so loved.

"You're so good to me..."
- Corey Doak, "End of Summer"

bread and jam for frances

God is so cool. i think that i have learned more in the past week than i have in the past year and... that is cool.

i have learned that God is preparing me for something bigger than i ever even remotely expect.

i have learned that God has given me passions that i didn't know i had.

i have learned that God really does have it under control.

i have learned that these past four years were for a reason, but not the reason i thought they were.

i have learned that i don't know everything i think i know.

i have learned that it's okay if i don't have everything figured out.

i have learned to give the control from myself to to God.

i have learned to not give my friends control over my thoughts and opinions.

i have grown up.

and, i have learned to appreciate jam on toast once again. : )

I sit and watch my friends wave goodbye,
You are deeper than the oceans,
higher than the skies.
Greater than great,
more than i realized.
You are bigger than the heavens
sweeter than a kiss
I'm left to bow at Your greatness."
- Corey Doak, "End of Summer"

i sit here at my desk making shadows in the sunlight with my hands and arms on the backdrop of my door. the beauty of the human form never ceases to amaze me. the mastery of the Father's hand.

"I praise you because I am fearfully and
wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well."
- Psalm 139:14

i've never driven alone.

"let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt..."
- Colossians 4:6a

"june comes soon and then it's gone"

friends can be so tiring. lately they have taken it upon themselves to all invite themselves over because we have a house and they can't hang out in mixed groups in the dorm (no girls in guys dorms and vice versa), and we do live in the nicest of the student-inhabited houses... but sometimes we need some alone time too.

had fun with joanne and rachel tonight, while joanne made supper (yam fries, pasta with leftover sauce, broccoli with alfredo sauce), rachel worked on her scrapbook and i made Christmas tree ornaments.

we decided to have a "welcome-to-Advent/Chrristmas-party" next sunday, a come and go as you please kind of deal from 2:30-5:30 or so next week, and so made up a list of everyone we want to come... over 80 people so far. this is going to be one packed house if they all show up! : ) we will be baking all week i'm sure to get ready.

three sleeps left until my Bible study morning on Wednesday. still working on it. still working on my thesis lit review as well, it's due tuesday. my goal is to get it over and done with tomorrow as soon as possible.

was looking at some of rachel's old scrapbooks, makes me want to get my summer one done and start on this school year's as soon as i can so i don't forget things. think i might go with a smaller book for the year. loved her summer books.

and looking at scrapbooks about the summer has made me think more about next summer. i want to have an incredible-life-changing summer... but God has control over that. have been doing much praying about such things lately. the future. it has so much potential... but so does today. may i grab hold of these next few weeks and make them unforgettable. Father help me to love unconditionally. may Your will be done. may i be but a tool in Your grand master plan. show me who You want me to be and what You want me to do and where You want me to be.

"all i wanna do is give this life to You..."
- Ginny Owens, "All I Wanna Do"

reflection

my first year of college was spent far away from home in Alberta in a city in Ontario. i took art at a smaller college, while living with my aunt, uncle, and two cousins (a girl, 16, and a boy, 19), having only met my aunt a couple of times very briefly. I hadn't really been away from home before and so it was quite the adventure. i was so excited to be in college and getting to experience new things.

i loved the opportunity to study art full-time, and exploring new mediums was great (i had previously only worked in watercolour and pencil)… so pottery, fibre art (weaving), sculpture, and printmaking were great fun to learn. I was still young in my faith, despite being nineteen and having become a Christian about six years previously. my faith did not really have a chance to be nurtured before college as i attended a dry church with no emphasis on spiritual growth of any sort and had little motivation.

but, while attending that first year of college, I was blessed to be able to attend an evangelical church for the first time with my relatives. my aunt and younger cousin were strong Christians, and it was great getting to know them and going to church with them.

not living in dorm and being in a house very far from campus, i didn't have a lot of friends that year, just a few people from class. only a very few times outside of classes did we ever hang out. it was a hard year. unfortunately my uncle was very controlling and verbally abusive towards his family, and thus towards me as well. i can remember one time being thrilled that a friend called me on a saturday to go out and do something, and he was pretty mad that i was going out. i had never been out on a weekend before, and this was the second semester. everything that I did was subject to his inspection and opinion.

i have never felt so trapped as i did that year. i wouldn't wish it on anyone. while many aspects of that year were deeply educational for me and i learned much spiritually, sometimes i wish i would have never experienced it. i have an extreme fear of men. i have an extremely hard time in situations dealing with men who are older than me, and often times even with guys my own age. i have problems trusting. but i want to trust. i want to be able to love. i have trouble expressing my emotions. i have trouble telling people personal stuff. but no one knows this, i don't tell people this. none of my friends know. none of my family knows.

but God knows. and by his grace he will set me free.

this grudge has gone on for too long
replaying it over in my head
a tighter grip – I've locked my wrist
and now it's getting harder to let go… this I know

can we let these walls fall down?
and render grace
can we let these walls fall down?
bitterness is a weight
- Canyon Bridge, "Let These Walls Fall Down"

i was just looking at random blogs tonight typing in random blogspot addresses (yes, all in the name of research i get to surf through people's blogs, pretty cool huh? i have "met" some extremely interesting people this way). anyways, i typed in this because it's an old screen name of mine, and up popped this quote:

"... count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting..." James 1:2 -6

which i of course thought, gee, maybe i should be paying attention to this. what version is this? i should check.

and the header title of the page also includes one of my favourite verses, so i thought that was extremely neato as well. : )

charitoo

i sit in my cozy room wrapped in the warmth of a wool sweater watching the wind blow the falling snow off the roof of the house next door. there are a few rust-coloured leaves that stubbornly cling to the birch tree outside my window, holding on to the last remnants of autumn.

winter has come.

it is a lovely afternoon, i am taking a little break from working on my Bible study for wednesday, hopefully i can wrap it up for the most part today and work on the outline handout. have a few more books to peruse and pull a few more points out of as well. I am learning some extremely interesting things.

yesterday we had a new roommate move in. her name is amy, she was a student in the college last year but this year is working in moose jaw. she is just here until Christmas break, her roommate in moose jaw bailed on her but she has a new one in january coming. i did not know her before and hadn't talked to her before yesterday, but she seems like a really lovely girl so it should be fun. joanne is lamenting the loss of our office as it's now amy's bedroom, but i think she'll survive for a month and a half without it. later i told lowana that amy had moved in, and she was like "oh, you mean the prettiest girl at briercrest?" and I was like, yup, the prettiest girl at Briercrest is now my housemate. how cool. there are so many people that you see all the time and never get to hang out with and think are neato, amy is one of those.

last night my friend amanda and her husband mike, who were here for college my second year, came to supper along with a couple of other people who knew them in their briercrest days. i hadn't seen her in almost two years so it was nice to have them here. it is amazing to me how some things never change and how consistent people remain, they are often exactly as you remember them. i am always of the opinion that i am constantly changing, never a finished potter's piece, but there are those aspects of our personality that are so strongly constant. often i wish I could meet myself, as i am today and as i was in the past.

then after amanda and mike left, i had lowana, kaia, leanne, and leanne over from the dorm for a sleepover. we watched a movie together with joanne as well, and then we all bedded down in the tv room downstairs and had a good old sleepover just like you remember from grade six. : ) they had a super time which is cool. i never had any friends who lived in houses when i was in college but i always thought that it would be fun to, and I think they think it's fun, so that is neat. I miss living in the dorm though and being just down the hall from them.

well, today i decided to take a day off from homework, which was fabulous but i am not sure if today was such a great day to do so or not. i slept in and had lunch with joanne and kelly, rachel wasn't up yet. i must say that i find it much more manageable living with just three others as opposed to five others. much more harmony too. i have learned much this week. we aren't exactly sure when tamara gets back from california, but holly comes back from ontario on tuesday.

in the afternoon rachel came up and we talked while i was sewing, then later she got her scrapbook and worked on that. i made some little travel cosmetics bags for my two sisters out of fabric i got from my Gramma's attic when i was there visiting this spring. it's all fabrics from dresses that were either hers or my mom's, aunt's, or great-grandmothers, from the 40s, 50s, and 60s. pretty neat i think. one is all blues, another all pinks, and i made a green one the other day too that i think i'll give to my mom maybe. i love sewing, i wish i could do it more often.

i didn't really know rachel at all last year, and we were laughing today at a dinner we were both at last year with a couple of other people and she didn't remember me being one of the other people there. i am so glad that i am getting to know her this year. she is such a WOG (woman of God) and full of so much wisdom. that's cool. we had a good discussion about swearing as she is hoping to overcome it. i've only sworn twice in my life that i know of... so it is interesting for me to discuss something like that. i think we have such a different perspective on it.

and, i have been getting to know joanne so much more this past week. we were very good friends before, but i find that since living together this year in a house i have gotten to know a much different side of her that i didn't know existed. last year in the dorm, and the year before as well, i used to always go and talk with her every night and discuss all our problems, and this year that has changed. now i see her all the time whether we like it or not. it's neat to know her in a different perspective. a lot of the time i miss the way it used to be, but our friendship has moved to a different level and can't really go back.

tuesday night i had a big midlife crisis... or i'm not sure what you'd call it, the whole "what-am-i-doing-in-school-still-will-i-ever-get-a-real-job-i'm-24-will-i-ever-get-married-why-doesn't-anyone-like-me-my-friends-are-annoying-me-why-do-i-always-fall-for-the-wrong-guys-why-can't-i-just-focus-on-God?" kind of freak-outs.

and, lately, i've been stressing out about the future... next week (ugh... how will i ever lead a Bible study with 9 youth pastors?), next semester (should i come back? do i really need to be here? what am i doing trying to get my masters? will i ever even get a real job? where is God leading me? how will i pay for next semester?), and next summer (should i go back to camp? should i go work in nebraska? should i look for another job?).

but God of course, is confronting me to be patient, to be satisfied with where i am. He knows what He's doing. He knows what i need and when i need it. He will get me through this one step at a time.
"Therefore I tell you, do not worrry about your life...do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6:25a, 34


"You see my imperfections
Still You say I'm a masterpiece
A marvelous reflection
The image of Yourself in me
You paint with strokes of grace..."
- Ginny Owens, "True Story"

i ran from him in all kinds of ways, guess it was his turn this time...

i found this quote in someone else's blog. weird.

"A thousand places I would rather be
So I choke back the tears and try to find the bright side
Though I find it hard to see beyond my suffering
In my heart I know Your plan is so much bigger
But this small part is all that I can see
And I believe You haven't left me here to wander
Still I can't help but ponder
Where you're leading me..."
-Ginny Owens, "This Road"

thank you for your comments and for signing my guestmap. : )

this thing called love is an odd and yet strangely ordinary thing, conceived by God. yet for us, so fleeting and often merely temporary. how can we be created in His image, yet experience love this way? maybe it's not true love i'm speaking of… just false love. How i wish false love did not exist, living would be so much more easier, simpler, less problematic.

like a butterfly, never able to fly a straight and preconceived map. we blow around, billowing, flapping, fluttering in the winds. never sure what will come next. will it be peace or hatred, ecstasy or rage.

joy, happiness, delight, elation, bliss, harmony, serenity, gladness. we want so desperately yet still they remain out of reach.

Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking,
it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts,
always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.
- 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a

oh show me, Father, what love really is.

"there are millions of people out there,
but in the end,
it all comes down to one."















can you hear that?







it's the sound of a heart breaking.

another day in the life of a graduate student

have been working on my thesis literature review... boring schmoooring. have not been out of the house today. the girls (lowana, leanne, leanne, and kaia) are coming over at 5:30 for supper. my plan is to get as much as i can get done until about 4:30 and then will cook up a storm, have supper, obligatory visiting (i am glad that they are coming and it will be fun, i just feel like i have so much to do. i miss eating in the college cafeteria, not the food, but the social aspect more so), then hopefully i can sneak off to the yearbook office and work on that for a few hours or so. i am so glad robert gave me the keys while he's gone, usually i have to go and work on it in the daytime when the offices in the academic building are all unlocked. but this way, i can go in the evening when i don't feel so much like doing homework, and i can do my homework in the afternoon when i feel like it. this is super.

sign my guestmap please.... it's over there -->
: ) i like seeing lots of little people.

and i know you've been here.... leave a message : )

worked in the library all afternoon, got a bit of work done on my Bible study which is good, very good. but i need to do a lot more. the gameplan for tomorrw is to get up earlier and get to the library earlier after doing some typing here at home. i invited lowana, kaia, leanne, and leanne over for supper tomorrow so that should be fun. i like lowana, she's very cool, and i don't get to hang out with her that often. i had cory over tonight, i made linguine and tomato pasta sauce with chicken, very very good, even had a salad. we never have salad in this house, so it was a joyous occasion. joanne and i are eating terribly well this week with holly and tamara gone! funny stuff.

i saw my friend amanda's husband mike in the library today, whom i haven't seen in about three years, and he came over and we chatted for a little while. i was sitting with leanne, my roommate from last year, and she commented to me after he left, "michelle, i think it's weird when i see you talk to people i don't know because i don't think of you as knowing other people or people i don't know." that was sad, and weird.

tonight i went to moose jaw with rachel, who lives in our basement, to pick up some movies and go to tim horton's, one of Canada's best kept secrets. seriously, you americans are missing out on iced cappucino and wonderful donuts. and i'm told their coffee is quite superb too, but i don't like coffee. nothing like an iced cap from timmy's, my record is 6 in less than 48 hours, a feat i accomplished this spring.

anyways, rachel and i had a good chat in the car about marriage and stuff. she was telling me that we shouldn't need a guy to complete us, that we should be complete without a guy. i am wondering exactly how i feel about this. i think it's true, we should be complete by ourselves, but when we find that person that God has made for us, we are complete as well. i added that i met so many people this past summer, in and around my age (early 20s) who were panicking because they wanted to get married, find someone to marry, become complete and whole. but if we aren't whole in ourselves, how can we expect someone else to make us whole? i don't want to marry someone who isn't sure of themselves, who doesn't know who they are apart from me. i want to marry someone who is confident of themself. i think that we should compliment as well as complete. i think that i should know who i am and be sure of that before i get married and bring myself into a relationship where it is essential that i know who i am. i don't know if this makes sense or not. it's a touchy subject. maybe i don't know what i'm talking about. but hasn't God created us as whole beings? or do we need to find this wholeness in others?

i find it completely so interesting that lately i have come across a gazillion blogs discussing these same issues of love and marriage and completeness and wholeness and looking for love and wanting to be loved. is it because of this age group i'm in? did our parents discuss this as much when they were our age? or is it just our generation?

"'Cause what I really want to say
Is what the sun would say to the sky
For giving it a place to come alive..."
-Steven Curtis Chapman, "What I Really Want to Say"

so here i have a whole new fresh week ahead of me, one with lots of potential. how exciting. my plan is, of course, to get lots and lots and lots of work done... i have two big assignments due next week:

1. the lit review for my thesis proposal. i have the books, they are boring, thus i have not started. our library does not really have anything recent on the internet, and i could only find one book on internet ministry. ugh!
2. my Bible study on Mary. this i have been working on a lot, doing a lot of research... but as of yet i have nothing on paper. and next wednesday morning at 8am i am leading a 45-minute Bible study at my professor's house with nine youth pastors. public speaking makes me extremely nervous. like to the point of nausea i mean. i will, however, survive. but i have to say that public speaking is the hardest thing i ever have to do.

this just happens to be the college reading week, so a large majority of the 800 college students are gone for the week or are in modular classes all day... so the library should be relatively empty. no distractions. no boy distractions. crudbuckets.

it's november 4th. officially two years since my last radiation treatment. whoooooohooooo. cool. : )

my friend robert's grandmother died so he is leaving tonight to drive home to wyoming for the funeral.

i never know what to say to grieving people. it's always very ackward for me. my great-grandmother died when i was little, but that is the only death i have been close to... other than cats. and although cats are great, they aren't the same as people.

lately i have been faced with my own selfishness... how often i put myself before others. not a pretty lesson. i don't want to know that i'm selfish, but that in itself is very selfish! why are we such fickle creatures? i want to be the woman that God desires for me to be, but there is such a hard stubborn wall right in the middle of the path that would take me. Father, help me to break it down. guide me, i pray.

"If I give my life,
If I lay it down
can you turn this life around?
Can I be made clean,
by this offering of my soul...
Can I be made whole again?"

the bubble

tonight i had an interesting conversation on msn with my old roomate heather from two years ago. she went here to Bible college for a year and then has been at a secular university since. we were talking about God's timing and stuff like that having to do with relationships. she told me that i shouldn't even like someone here because it's a "Christian environment" and not "the real world" and it's easier for people to be Christians here.

while i understand her opinion, i don't agree with her theory. i think that God places us where we are for a reason. i don't think it is wrong to be attracted to people in this environment. yes, it is very easy to be a Christian here when practically everyone else is. but i would not base a whole relationship on how a person acts in this environment. a whole person exists outside of the Christian bubble as well. and how they act outside of the bubble also affects my opinion of them, which also affects how i am attracted to them.

we were, of course, speaking of a particular person. selflessness and giving to others are important qualities to me, and i think that they are expressed out of a pure heart, a pure heart that is still pure outside of the bubble, outside of the box that we are forced into during our education here.

"i'm learning to breathe, i'm learning to crawl, i'm finding that You and You alone can break my fall..."
- Switchfoot, "Learning to Breathe"

the jaw

today i went on a grand ol' trip to the thriving metropolis of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, also know as "little chicago," although it is far from being any sort of a little chicago. i assume that most of you who read this will have never had the treat of spending time in moose jaw since the majority of you are Americans who've never had the pleasant opportunity to visit Canada. : )

moose jaw is a city of about 35 000 right smack dab in the middle of the country near the bottom, on the wide open prairie. everyone who is not from the prairies always says there isn't much to see, but i love the prairies. endless wheatfields, what could be a better sight? there is a kids book called if you're not from the prairie, i love kids books. moose jaw has a really really big statue of a moose, it's cool.

anyways, back to the story at hand. i went to 'the jaw' with kiko and joanne, we had a lovely time at the town n' country mall, rogers video, wal-mart, and superstore. at the mall joanne and i went to winner's ("brand name items at discount prices" and "you should go" are their slogans). i am not a winner's fan. i never find anything good there, it's always just weird brand names that you've never heard of and would not normally buy at regular prices. anyways, joanne made me put on a glittery one-shouldered velvet dress for fun which was hilarious, too bad we didn't have a camera, but then i was covered with glitter. we got a few movies at rogers and kiko contemplated getting a cellphone (cellphones perplex me. they look cool, but they still aren't necessary. everyone here doesn't have one yet. i don't know anyone at school that does, i had one friend in college this year that did. but where i was working in ontario this summer everyone and their dog had one). anyways, at wal-mart i got some film developed, lots of funny pictures from september that i had forgotten i had taken, and some neat ones that joanne, rachel and i took when we went on an autumn walk a few weeks ago. i also got some new gel... i have decided to try for the curly wet look even though my hair is poker straight. i need to look less fourteen years old and more twenty-four. i also got some fabric lining and zippers to make some cosmetics bags for my two sisters for Christmas. i have some fabric that i got from my Gramma's attic this spring that i am going to make into a cool patchworky sort of outside for the bags. at superstore, joanne and i bought a ton of groceries... yummy fresh broccoli and green peppers and stuff for stirfry, and a lovely mccain rising crust pizza that we are very excited for... tamara won't let us buy pizza but what she doesn't know won't hurt her since she's not here this week. we're going to take pictures, it will be very rebellious of us to be eating pizza. ; ) chuckle chuckle.

it was fun to spend time with kiko because i don't often get to and she's fun and so interesting... this is her ninth year in Canada, her parents sent her to the high school here when she was in grade nine and only spoke Japanese. she's only been back to Japan a few times.

later joanne and i watched "kate & leopold." interesting movie. not very realistic.

“So Jacob served seven years to get Rachel,
but they seemed like only a few days to him
because of his love for her.”
- Genesis 29:20

welcome to november.

"He came for the lost and lonely
He came for the broken hearted
Ready or not He came
He came for the wounded soldier
He came for the cynical son
Ready or not he came
That they might know Him for who He was...
He came for the brusied and battered
He came for those forgotten
Ready or not He came
He came for the troubled family
He came for the hungry little girl"
- "The Only" by Riley Armstrong

i love this song, i think that it so amazingly well illustrates the truth of God... that he sent his son to die for us, no matter who we are or how much we don't accept it or how much we deny it. we all have that God-shaped hole, why do we try to fill it with things that won't fit?

as a youth ministry major, so often i am struck with the hopelessness of adolescence, that paralyzing fear that comes from the search for who we are and trying to find it through faulty means. doing research for my thesis, i have been reading a lot of blogs, which of course reflect our society. there are those that are condemning, those that are searching, those who are simply looking for someone to listen or someone to love, those who are hopeful, and those who have found the answer. the ones who have found the answer are always my favourite, but i should be focusing on those who are still searching. i think that those of us who are Christians have so much responsibility entrusted to us to witness... i pray that somehow we are making an impact.

i have noticed this weird phenomenon lately. boys like to casually punch me. is it just me? well, i have not noticed them doing it to anyone else. just yesterday i got three. and the day before two. and the day before that, three again. just a little punch between the elbow and the shoulder. one in the knee too.

so, i inquire of you of the male gender out there, what exactly does this punch mean?????

i made my international theatrical debut this morning as an extra in the college drama chapel. whooohoooo, i did it, even though i was naseous. no, not just public speaking makes me naseous, but public appearances in general. i am trying to force myself to do it more often.

it was actually pretty fun, i was an astonished parishoner in a church scene when an elder had a heart attack, and a gang-type kid smoking listening to some friends talk about the "big game," and i also was a stage hand... i got to turn the black lights on and off and hide behind a little box (a lot harder than i thought it would be).

tamara just left for california for reading week. how come no one ever asks me to come to california?

my blog is insane! don't you love template problems?

i happen to live in the little town and go to the school that hosts Canada's largest Christian youth conference every year, youth quake. last night was YQ Kickoff, which is a big event in the community, everyone piles into the chapel and there is a big skit put on by some of the college and high school students, and we find out what the theme is, who the guests are, and who the bands are, and then we get snacks to hype us up for this big activity at the end of february.

the theme this year is "can you hear Me?" which i think is pretty cool, i will be interested in seeing what they do with it. there isn't a specific theme verse this year which is different, the poster has a whole bunch of hearing/listening-type verses listed. there also isn't a specific skit theme or backdrop theme from a movie or anything which is different (last year was "Lord of the Rings") which is kind of cool. the poster this year is very cool, it's a square that folds out into a cross shape, and comes with a cd-rom... although the cd-roms are stuck in Canada customs in Calgary and we just got to see a little bit last night on the big screens in the chapel.

yesterday at lunch we had a guest which intentionally told me and joanne and holly who the bands were, which totally sucks, because it takes so much out of kickoff when you know... kind of like a kid who knows everything that they're getting for Christmas. i am totally pumped for switchfoot though, probably as excited as i was for downhere last year (check out downhere if you haven't heard them already, they are awesome! i highly recommend "great are You").

so, yeah, i am looking forward to yq. i think last year was the first year i actually enjoyed yq... which was my third yq. the first time i just took in everything, then the second year i wasn't feeling so hot, and then last year i got involved on the "here 4 u crew" which was totally fun (they do security, clean-up, make sure everything's going smoothly, give directions, etc. etc., the backbone that makes everything hold together). this year for my practicum i have to be in charge of something so am excited to discover what that will be. :)

also for yq a friend of mine from camp is coming out, which is sorta cool and sort of weird. i don't know what to say, um, this is ackward.

"everyone's here, everyone's here, everybodys watching you now. everybody waits for you now. what happens next, what happens next? dare you to move, dare you to move, dare you to lift yourself up off the floor. dare you to move, dare you to move, like today never happened, today never happened..."
- switchfoot

welp, i have my computer working somewhat at what it was before, have reinstalled programs, changed the desktop background (very essential of course!), etc. etc. i am, however, missing all my internet bookmarks which is unfortunate... have lost a lot of research for my thesis because of that, a lot of the links were random and i have no idea how i'd find them again. crudbuckets.

not funny, not funny. my computer, for some reason unknown to me, has decided to revert to it's old desktop, the one it had before i owned it, so i have it's previous owner's preferences all up and the programs i installed are not around anymore that i can find... and i had to reinstall my internet provider stuff, and i am not having fun. i have been able to find most of my word files and stuff like that... but everything is not where it should be. this is not good. it will take me a lot of time to fix it all, time which i don't have to spend on something stupid like this.

remember when you were a kid and playing outside in the snow was the best thing ever and you would get all suited up in your ski pants, winterjacket, scarf, mitts, touque, and toddle outside (barely able to move because you were a kid in a snowsuit non-condusive to movement) to play in the snow for what seemed like forever until you were so numb you couldn't feel your cheeks anymore so then you came inside and then your nose would continue running and running forever and your face and hands and toes felt all weird because all of a suddent they were warm?

now i think that we were insane kids... i hate the feeling when you come inside.

got up early this morning to be in a skit for my friend jodi's world views seminar class. i think out of the bazillion classes i took in Bible college, w.v.s. was my favourite. i avoided taking it until last year, my last year of college, because everyone always said it sucked bigtime and i was a little afraid of the professor because everyone always said he was a hard prof. but i loved that class. we covered some really awesome stuff that i hadn't really thought about before... what community is, what community should be, how we get involved in society, marshall mcluhan's (spelling?) "the medium is the message," etc. etc. i thought a lot in that class, it was challenging to me. so often i get bored in classes.

and, the aforementioned man i am in love with did just happen to sit in the row in front of me one seat over so we got to chat every tuesday and thursday at around 1:15 before class started, and often after class was over. my pathetic life.

i got this quote from jason killingsworth's blog, i like it. i don't know him in real life and just stumbled upon his blog by accident, but he has a gift for writing and so i like to visit his blog often.
"In the end it's necessary for me to take stock of the past because the past began teaching me lessons that I'm still working on today, and will be tomorrow. The only thing I need to 'get over' is myself and I've realized that's an ongoing project, like the biblical concept of taking up one's cross. The past can always be put to use."

these two aforeposted songs are the story of my non-existent love life. well, it exists on my side, but i never see it exist on any other level really. i fall for a guy, and believe me, it takes a lot for me to fall for one... and nothing ever happens. i think really there is only one that i have fallen for really hard. i struggle so much with not pursuing. i don't know what the biblical ideal is. i used to think women weren't supposed to pursue at all, the whole joshua harris thing. it was so 'in vogue' for women to not pursue, and now everyone is saying that joshie had it all wrong. but i still don't think it's proper for me to pursue someone. i'm interested to hear some thoughts on this, what do some of you people out there in internet-land think?

i don't want to be stranded.

Have you ever been haunted the way I've been by you?
And have you ever felt the measure of the days that I've spent waiting, pining for you?
I can't see the sun for the daylight.
I can't feel your breath for the wind.
I don't want to step from these shadows, till you're coming back again
I've dammed the emotions, to keep my lanterns lit
I'm shaken by this longing coursing through my veins.
In my mind I can't make sense of it..."
- "The Edge of Water," Jars of Clay

”You know it only breaks my heart, To see you standing in the dark alone, Waiting there for me to come back

I’m too afraid to show

If it’s coming over you, Like it’s coming over me, I’m crashing like a tidal wave, That drags me out to sea, And I wanna be with you, And you wanna be with me, I’m crashing like a tidal wave, And I don’ t wanna be, stranded, stranded, stranded, stranded

I can only take so much, These tears are turning me to rust, I’m too afraid to show

I miss you, I need you
Without you, I’m stranded
I love you so come back”
-“Stranded,” by plumb

i am tired, i should go to bed. but it's so early!

woke up this morning at 10 (ahhhh... sleeping in can never be over-rated!), to a lovely blanket of fresh snow. i love having a cute backyard with trees to look out onto every morning, as opposed to the parking lot and elementary school that were outside my dorm room window my last three years in dorm.

sorted a bunch of papers this afternoon that were in various piles all over my room, lately i've been a tad bit messy but like to be clean! :) i hate dirt. I want to rearrange my room, i'm getting restless with it and have only lived here less than two months. i was thinking about putting my bed so the longer side was agains the wall (twin bed), so it would be more like a couch, but people are always hanging out in my room and i don't want to encourage them to sit on my bed... i have this phobia of people touching my sheets. and i like then to sit on my bed as little as possible. weird huh? i've been thinking about bringing up the turkey dinner chair from the tv room downstairs into my room. we call it the turkey dinner chair because when the guy from the community furniture lending place on campus helped us bring it over, he told us the arms were big enough to put a whole turkey dinner on! it's a comfy chair, once it must have been burgundy but now it's pretty faded. my only concern is that it might have a slight 'old furniture stinkiness' odour of some sort that we don't notice now because it's downstairs in a room full of other old furniture gleamed from various places that have spent their lives in various places to be doomed to retirement in transience between student houses.

my old roommate ashleigh from three years ago phoned this afternoon, odd to think it has been so long since we lived together. we had so much fun together that year! she's married now and has a married life but is still lots of fun, i hope i stay that way after i'm married.

i was going to tell you about my silver box this post but i think i should get off the internet and do something productive so i will leave that for another time. remind me again sometime if i forget, okay? :) have a great day guys.

i like the raindrops... what do you guys think?

today and yesterday there were thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of birds flying over us here in our little town in the middle of Saskatchewan, a very very cool sight and sound that i love to behold each fall. unfortunately, it also signals the coming of snow and the end of golden trees and autumn winds. but snow itself has it's own beauty. God has a magnificent paintbrush and such creativity, i am so thankful that He has blessed us in this image of Him.

went to the student art show tonight, am sorry i didn't submit anything, but there is always the spring one as well. i think that if i had submitted anything this time it would have been to impress a particular someone, but he ended up impressing me greatly instead.

i got these questions off another blog... thought i'd answer them:

1. If you could only choose 1 cd to ever listen to again, what would it be?
hmm... this is a tough one, because when i get a cd i listen to it over and over and over again for about a month with a couple of one cd breaks in between... and then i don't listen to that cd for a long time again. i think if i could only choose one cd to ever listen to again and it was a ready-made one, it would be jars of clay's self-titled one, but if it was a burned one... gee, what songs would i burn? i'll have to think about this and let you guys know in a later entry.

2. If you could only choose 2 movies to watch ever again, what would they be?
first one would be "a walk to remember"... seen it 9 times, once again last night actually. i'm not sure if i like it because it's a good movie or because a guy told me this summer that i'm just like jamie sullivan (which i think was a compliment! ;) chuckle chuckle).
second one would be i think "wild hearts can't be broken" because it's a classic michelle-movie and i haven't seen it too much, just a few times.

3. If you could only choose 3 books to read ever again, what would they be?
easy one for the first one, the Bible, hello, could any book be more fascinating? second one i think would be a dictionary, because i think that i would never get it read straight-through, and you can always use more words. third one i am not too sure about, should i pick a really really good art book or a novel?

4. If you could only choose 4 things to eat or drink ever again, what would they be?
water (i was always a strange kid, i liked water waaaaaaaay more than juice, and i still do), pizza (not just because it's what everyone else says, but because it tastes good and has all four food groups and is good for you if you make it right), a country chicken deluxe chicken sandwich from a&w (which no longer exists due to the unfortunate return of the chubby chicken... i do not like the chubby chicken! a&w head honchos, if you are reading this perchance, please BRING BACK THE COUNTRY CHICKEN DELUXE! just what you would sell to me would make a small fortune for ya), and one more..... hmmm...... i think lipton chicken noodle soup with crackers mixed in it because it is tasty although a weird shade of toxic yellowy-green (i can remember eating this with my dad when i was 3 or 4 in our first house... good times, good times).

5. If you could only choose 5 people to ever be/talk/associate/whatever with ever again, who would they be?
this is the hardest question, they always put the hardest question last. just like on exams, and of course by the time you get to it then you are pretty much out of time. this question requires a lot of thinking. it has a lot of consequences, well, not real consequences, but if anyone i know in real life (i.e. not internet friends) ever saw this then that would be pretty incriminating. can i refuse to answer this question? i don't see why not, it's my blog! :) chuckle chuckle. (there you go again michelle, running away from commitment).

this morning i got up early and went grocery shopping with cory and this other girl, shelley, that i don't know too well, but she seems pretty fun. i got lots of fun stuff... fun especially when your cupboards were bare... pasta, kraft dinner, pasta sauce, broccoli, carrots, cheese, etc. mmmm.... real food!

went to the bookstore this afternoon to get the newer ginny owens cd... and they didn't have it! :(

did yearbook for about two and a half hours, got the global focus pages pretty much layed out and done perhaps, will probably make some changes later once everyone else has seen them.

"But God's Word is not chained."
2 Timothy 2:9b

last night was lovely, i went for a walk with joanne on pine street which i had never been on before except once a long long time ago, which is weird, because this is a way small town.

i think one of my biggest regrets about college, although something i never had any control over, was the fact that i never had a boyfriend to go on walks with on perfect nights when it was not too cold and the stars or the northern lights were out. sure, you can do this with friends, but it's much more romantic with a boy

spent the whole afternoon in the library today... don't usually do that! worked a bit on my Bible study for class in three weeks, it's on mary. my class is a bunch of youth pastors, and we each take turns leading a study that could be used with youth volunteers, three lessons we can learn from _____. anyone have any good ideas for mary? what can she teach us about being a youth leader?

tonight i practiced with a college group for a class project they are doing, i play a waitress in a skit of theirs and also gave them some tips to make their project better. should be interesting, we do it next monday.

went out with jodi and amanda to the restaurant here today, that was fun. i don't often see amanda so it was nice to have a chat although we really didn't get to get into anything deep. i was thinking yesterday that there are so many awesome women on campus that i used to have good casual friendships with and now i barely if ever see just because we've all moved out of dorm and into houses and so now we don't ever get to spend time together and this i would like to change although there really isn't any arena to change it. i should start inviting random people over for suppers and stuff just to get back into touch with people. if only i had more money to do this nicely.

i am trying to fix this, it keeps only showing the last post...

test post...

"This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world..."
1 John 3, 4a

i added a visitor's map, please sign! ; )

is it antibiblical for a Christian to quit a friendship? i am wondering about this... i have been wondering about it for over a year actually. as you can guess, i have not come to a satisfactory conclusion about the subject, but i don't find i have enough time either to research the dilemma fully either. but i really should make time. i think it is really cruddy when people drop friendships. but sometimes friendships just don't work. could it be that it is better to end them rather than work them out? or is ending them just the easier option? is ending them just giving up on responsibility?

"I will not be condemned, Jesus saves, Jesus came to save me."
-Jennifer Knapp

i am not sure why, but my commenting system has disappeared... hopefully it reappears. this is distressing. one of my favourite things about blogging is getting comments! : )

check out www.nanowrimo.com, i think i might try it, that would be funny. the whole premise is to write a 50 000 word novel in the thirty days of november from scratch. the focus is quantity, not quality, which i don't know if i totally agree with, but i think it would teach you to write instead of always putting it off. 50 000 words, at 250 words a page or so, that's 200 pages, 30 days in november, that's 6.667 pages a day. think i can do it? do i have time? gee, i spend all this time on the internet, i suppose i could spend it still on my computer but not hooked up to the internet. what would i write about? any suggestions?

had a somewhat productive day today... got two spreads done in my scrapbook, i am still working on my summer photos and will be for a long time i think! i finished my first roll of film from the school year the other day, i haven't a clue what is on it anymore! i like scrapbooking, i get to cut out lots of fun stuff. i like using lots of coloured paper and cutting out letters and backgrounds and stuff.

my roommates are annoying me. this is not good. we still have six months left together. they leave the kitchen all disgusting. they never vacuum. they freak out all the time when cooking. they waste a lot of food. they never shut off the lights. they are always clicking the phone when i am on it. they listen to music really loud, weird music, annoying music. they use my computer and take my phone cord without asking (why don't they get their own phone cord if they want one?). they leave their junk all over the place. they never clean up the living room or the family room.

okay, i am done venting. i will learn to live with it. i will quit getting mad. i will more politely suggest they should be cleanlier people. it's best for everyone's health! : )

"Nevertheless, God's solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription: 'The Lord knows those who are his,' and, "'Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness.'"
- 2 Timothy 2:19

joanne and i just returned from what she called our "covert op, " op as in operation... a.k.a. getting toilet paper from the dorm.

yes, we totally ran out of toilet paper. and we live in a little town. with no stores selling toilet paper. and no immediate way to get into moose jaw. what are four toiletpaper-less girls to do? we did the only thing we could, we stole t.p. from our old dorm residence "LA". yes, we stole toilet paper. the hard crunchy kind that you find in the grossest of gas stations all across Canada and the US. but we had no choice.

we went over at about 11:30pm on a saturday night, so we knew that not too many people would be around. we went and visited my old roommate leanne from last year, so we would have a legitimate excuse to be in the dorm. then jodi and kaia came. and so we chatted it up for a bit. then jodi wanted joanne to see her room. so we went upstairs, and talked with jodi and jodi's roommate jenelle for a bit.

then, finally, at about 1:15am, we escaped. i was the lookout while joanne slipped 6 rolls of t.p. into a garbage bag she had brought with her and we made our escape into the darkness. except tonight's a full moon, so really wasn't that dark. but we made it, no one saw us, that we know of at least. and we were very quiet. we lived in "LA" for four years though, paying $525 a month for room and board... i think that somehow we payed for that toilet paper sometime in our college years.

or am i now a felon? i hope that the rcmp won't come and get me. do you think you can go to jail for grand theft t.p.?

Had a long afternoon finishing the first sixteen pages of the yearbook with Melissa and Robert… actually technically the last sixteen pages of the book, funny how these things work out. I am actually not too disappointed with how they work, a few things I would have changed if it had just been me but you always have to compromise when you work on a team.

I would like to phone some friends in Ontario tonight, but it is unfortunately two hours later there than here in Saskatchewan so I think it’s a tad late now. :( I miss my camp friends from the summer, especially Chums. I still think it’s neat how I didn’t think I would be working at camp this summer and yet that is where I ended up and where God wanted me to be. I had such an awesome summer and learned much, it is so cool how God always has the best in mind for us.

Usually I like the fall the best, the weather is usually so nice, but I think that this year I actually preferred the summer. The autumn leaves are nice, but this summer I love the beautiful green-ness of southern Ontario.

I wonder where I will end up come next May or June. My last four summers have been spent in Ontario, Illinois, the Yukon, and Maine, what is next? :) God, what is next? I am excited to see what You have in store for me!

I however also know that this school year is not just a filler in between summer seasons. I am still struggling to find my place and my purpose here, and I look forward to seeing the year unfurl further.

”You’ve got nail prints on Your hands
You’ve got thorn prints on your brow
I don’t know how You do it
But You’re saving me right now

You’re so good to me
You see right through me
You’re so good to me
Like cool, cool water
If this is life, why can’t I live it?
If there’s a perfect love, then why can’t I give it?

I remember the past,
How I thought it would last
But it’s a bubble off in the sunset
I know that the time keeps passing me by
But You ain’t given up on me just yet
You’ve got healing in Your hands
You’ve got mercy in Your eyes
I don’t know how You do it
But You broke through my disguise

June comes soon, but then it’s gone
So I sit on my lawn, reminisce till dawn
Summetime was fine
But it’s cold outside tonight

June comes soon and the season’s dead
So I shake my head at the things I’ve said
The wind is in my sail
Even though I’m turning pale
I sit and watch my friends wave goodbye
You are deeper than the oceans, higher than the skies
Greater than great, more than I realize
You are bigger than the heavens, sweeter than a kiss
I’m left to bow at Your greatness.”
- “End of Summer,” by Corey Doak

In the top of my closet at the back there is a shiny silver box that rarely sees the light of day. At one time I always traveled with it, but for a time I have not because it just seems to take up precious space and never gets used. Inside this box is a glorious array of pigments and hues, alizarin crimson, aquamarine, burnt umber, sienna. I love my watercolours. Why is it that I have not used them for so long? One of my favourite things is to watch a paintbrush swirl across a page, to see the little pigments in ultramarine separate. I think that so much of painting reminds me of my past that I push it away. Maybe it’s time to embrace the things I have tried so hard to forget and embrace them as memories and experiences learned from.

So often we are asked what would we change if we could go back into the past. I so want to say ‘nothing,’ but that is not true. I have learned from my past and indeed it has made me who I am, but can I really say I would have wanted to go through some things if I had had the choice not to? I do not think today that I could rightly and consciously say yes without lying.

Will the day come when I accept my sad memories and am glad for them? I hope so. But today is not that day.

Well I've never been much for the baring of soul
In the presence of any man

I'd rather keep to myself all safe and secure
In the arms of a sinner I am
Could it be that my worth should depend
By the crimson stained grace on a hand
And like a lamp on a hill
Lord I pray in Your will
To reveal all of You that I can

i am not having a very good day and so here i am on the internet doing pretty much nothing but wandering meaninglessly through sites all over this maze of the internet because my email is down and isn't working and no one is on msn that i would want to talk to and holly and joanne are watching star wars and i don't want to and cory and candice left and went to moose jaw and candice just wanted cory to come and i spent all afternoon in the yearbook office and it was frustrating and i don't like the way the dorm pages are looking and there really isn't anything i can do about it now and no one ever phones me and i came to the realization that i don't really have any good chatting friends anymore that i can tell everything to like i used to with joanne because now she lives with me and i see her all the time and it's just not the same anymore and i miss my camp friends and chums especially and i want to do something fun with someone but everyone is busy and i am bored of being with just me and myself and my imaginary friend.

i never actually had an imaginary friend. do people really have those?

it has been awhile since i've posted... i went to my sister's for Thanksgiving, but came back on Sunday for our Thanksgiving dinner when we somehow fit 16 people into our little dining room, i am not sure exactly where all the chairs came from! : )

we had some snow on the drive to Alberta, but today we had some lovely fall weather and rachel, joanne, and i went on a "nature walk" and took some pictures around town, hopefully they'll turn out.

tonight i've a yearbook work night... so at least 4 hours in a little office with a whole lotta people! despite the fact that we work like crazies and get on each other's nerves and usually all stink by the end of it, these truly are some of my favourite nights.

"And even when the trees have just surrendered
To the harvest time
Forfeiting their leaves in late September
And sending us inside
Still I notice You
When change begins
And I am braced for colder winds
I will offer thanks for what has been and what's to come
You are autumn."
- "Every Season," Nichole Nordeman

my mom arrived safely, it is nice to have her here. she wants me to go to my sister's with her though for thanksgiving this monday (Canadian Thanksgiving is different than American).

must get to bed for i have class in a mere 8.5 hours from now and i should spend some of it sleeping, but i do have a question for all you random people in blogland... what are you most thankful for today, right now, this moment? i am interested in your answers. : )

another long day... i am tired and should go to bed. i should have done homework tonight, but i didn't... watched a movie with holly and joanne and went to visit leanne in the library. saw the other leanne and lowana for a bit too in the beano.

my mom is coming tomorrow night after class, staying for the night and then driving on to my older sister's on friday morning. it will be interesting. she's only been here to my school once before, and that was for my college grad this spring. all my friends want to see her but she said she doesn't want to meet anyone because she hasn't gotten her hair permed lately! funny mom!

got turned down today for the millionth job i have applied for with the school, i need a job and i need money. am not sure how i will be paying for next semester at all. i have pretty much been offered every job i've ever applied for before in my life, so this sucks.

"turn your face to the sun and the shadows will fall behind you."
- maori saying

found these quotes on a random blog on blogger... found them kind of interesting. the blog as a whole was quite vulgar and so i won't post the link, but i thought these were interesting tidbits"

(begin quote) "How much do you honestly know about yourself if you haven't been in a fight? How much do you know about society if you've never rebelled against it? And how much do you know about life if you've never had to save it?

since the begining man has questioned what is my purpose? is it our purpose to die? to serve God? if you know one day your going to die then why go to school why get a job why make money bc once your dead that has no meaning.

"To stand here and try and fix her life is just a big waste of time. People don't want their lives fixed. Nobody wants their problems solved. Their dramas. Their distractions. Their stories resolved. Their messes cleaned up. Because what would they have left? Just the big scary unknown."

"This is fish number six hundred and forty-one in a lifetime of goldfish. My parents bought me the first one to teach me about loving and caring for another living breathing creature of God. Six hundred and forty fish later, the only thing I know is everything you love will die. The first time you meet that someone special, you can count on them one day being dead and in the ground."

"We don't have a great war in our generation, or a great depression, but we do, we have a great war of the spirit. We have a great revolution against the culture. The great depression is our lives. We have a spiritual depression."
(end quote)

am having problems with my template... will have to leave them until tomorrow

class today was good... a tad long, but good. we read a really interesting article i thought, for homework last night, thomas a. tweed's "on moving across: translocative religion and the interpreter's position" from the june 2002 journal of the american academy of religion, the title makes it sound way more academic than it actually is. it was all about how we can never, as researchers, exist nowhere or out of nothing having no presuppositions because this just isn't possible. this of course, means that we cannot possibly write without any bias. interesting thought.

i got my introduction back for my research proposal, which i thought i had written quite badly not really knowing what on earth i was doing, but i got a B+ and was quite surprised, a higher mark than anyone in my row. my proposal is going to be on internet ministry... how the Body of Christ and the church (is that the same thing??? i am just wondering now) do not know whether or not to embrace it as a ministry tool because they don't know whether or not it is appropriate... and also whether or not it is appropriate, and to analyze current models of internet ministry for effectiveness.

i am not sure if any of this is making sense, it is late and i have been up since 7am and have been immersed too much in academia today, my brain is frazzled. i need to do something fun. i think i shall put in some good music and drift off to happy dreams. : )

"michelle, you sound so wistfull."
- kaia

i put that in just because i like the word wistfull and i was impressed that kaia used it!

"...'cause this life, that You gave me, i will give it back to You."
- LaRue, in "theory of flight"

i'm in class this week, "research design." it's all about learning how to write a thesis or MMRP (major ministry research paper). we start at 8:30am and go until 5pm... long days for me! i don't know how i ever survived all summer at camp!

tomorrow afternoon we will hopefully get out a little early and i'm going with beth, my homework partner from my youth ministry practicum class, to moose jaw to survey youth about their families. should be interesting.

sometime this week too i need to find time to work on the yearbook. our first deadline is next wednesday (16 pages!) and so far i only have a basic background layout designed so will be doing a lot of late nights next week and possibly some this weekend too. Canadian Thanksgiving is this weekend too so holly, joanne, and i are hoping to have people over for that. not many stay for it though, but we've nowhere to go and are looking forward to cooking our first turkey dinner ourselves! :)

"no, joanne, holly doesn't know what 'manwich' is, she's never lived in a trailer park!"

“…many valuable discoveries are made by accident, or serendipity..”
- Ralph L. Rosnow and Robert Rosenthal

i really liked that movie serendipity, a little cheesy, but so cute. but seven years is so long to wait! i think that's why i liked a walk to remember more.

i have been thinking way too much lately about love and marriage and guys and husbands. it seems everywhere i go though this is what people are talking about. all my friends talk constantly about guys. i went to the dorm and accidentally interupted a conversation about the viability of an undisclosed male as a possible love interest. why do we females do this to ourselves? why is this all we ever talk about?

UGH! i want to focus on becoming the woman God wants me to be. i want to focus on becoming the wife that God means for me to be someday. but how can i do this? it's such a struggle in our broken and complex world.

"God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him."
- 1 John 4:16b, 17

tonight is cool, raining a bit. i like walking in the rain, i hope my husband does too.

"...like walking in the rain, and being so in love."
- The Party

so there is this guy that i liked for a really long time, like a year and a half. and all summer i was like, no, i will not like him anymore. and then finally i was like, no, i do not like him anymore. i like him as a person and i still respect him immensely and i really admire him, but i do not like him. and this is what i told people who knew that i had liked him. and i was pretty sure this was true.

so what was up with tonight then?!?!? how come when i think i have things figured out something weird always happens?

"Welcome to the planet
Welcome to existence
Everyone's here
Everybody's watching you now
Everybody waits for you now
What happens next

I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
I dare you to move
Like today never happened
Today never happened before"
-Switchfoot, "Dare You To Move"

goodnight

holly just got in... she's insane. she went to smitty's with jodi to talk... i think smitty's is gross. a)you stink like cigarette smoke when you spend even 2 minutes there, and b)who wants to eat breakfast at any time of the day? bacon and eggs at midnight, who's idea was that?

a couple of weeks ago the three of us went to regina and we went to chapters and then they wanted to go somewhere to eat and talk and they were like, "hey, let's go to smitty's," and I was like... "uh, let's not." i guess they used to do it their first year two years ago when holly had a boyfriend and they had other friends, but it's not something i ever did. sometimes i think it's weird how our groups of friends change so much year to year. i think i tend to stick pretty much to my constant friends, but they change a bit too because people leave every year which is pretty typical of the college environment i think. i am pretty shy around new people so it takes me awhile to get comfortable and meet new people and make new friends.

it is so interesting to read other people's blogs... i think it's so fascinating this blog phenomenon. we all want to be authors. we all want to share our lives. we all want to be writers. we all want to be noticed. we all want to be the centre of attention. what an interesting people we are.

some people have such depressing lives, and then some people have such cute little perfect lives, i wonder what people think of mine. but then again, i really don't think anyone ever reads this.

which is precisely why i should go to bed... get some sleep, so i can face another day. i like saturdays. a perfect saturday always requires sleeping in. i think i'd like to get married on a friday so i can sleep in on saturday. and i'd like to go to wisconsin for my honeymoon.

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
-Langston Hughes

why is it when we accomplish dreams that we always feel unfulfilled? i think somewhere, deep inside, we always wish for dreams to remain unfulfilled because then they are still dreams and not failed accomplishments, there is still a mystery that enfolds and envelops them.

We know what we are,
but know not we may be.
-William Shakespeare

i am definitely not a shakespeare fan... but i have to admit what william says here does have some truth to it. or then again, does it? do we really know what we are? don't we spend the majority of our lives trying to figure out who we are. adolescence especially, is all about searching for personal identity. we continually try on different hats, searching for who we are, searching to be the person, the manifestation of our self, that others like best. but God knows who we really are, even if we sometimes don't have any idea.

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and
wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well
My frame was not hidden from you
wehn i was made in the secret place.
when I was woven together in teh
depths of the earth,
your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
-Psalm 139:13-16

leave me comments, i like to know that you were here and what you think... and besides, now it's working. :)

had another one of those typical Bible college chats with joanne and tamara about boys... i do not think i would be able to count the number i have had in almost four years of school...i would surely not be able to count that high! chuckle chuckle.

i think the more i think about it though, i am glad that i haven't dated anyone yet. i think back on all the crushes i've had and really none of them were the right guy for me, i don't think that relationships with any of them would have lasted long anyways. i'm thankful that i haven't dated because some day i hope to tell my husband "i waited to date only you," as corny as that sounds. maybe it'll happen, maybe it won't, but i know that God has a perfect plan in all of these. He has saved me much heartache! :)

i am excited to be getting married someday. i look forward to spending the rest of my life someday with just one person. i look forward to meeting him (if i have not yet), and i am excited to see our relationship develop! the waiting is worth it.

I was just thinking about how time flies
And that we're all drfting like clouds in the sky
And You have always been there
And now we have all changed
And it's been one beautiful life

I was just wondering on how to recall
The wonderful memories and how they all fall
Into place, like the smile on your face
Like the kisses and the tears that we've shared
And it's been

It's been one beautiful life
And I know it's tasted its trials
It's been one beautiful life
And I know it's tasted its trials
And it's not over
It's only begun

We've always been different
But never alone
Like one white tulip
That stands on its own
And You will always be here
And we will stay the same
-"One White Tulip" by LaRue

you, dear husband, are worth waiting for.

How I loveYour works,
my God, my King
How I love Your works,
my God, my King

Your name rings on the plains
Like a not so distant train
And love and history are near
In the flowers that You make
The flowers that You make

Because I'll never hold a picture
Of the whole horizon in my view
Because I'll never rip the night in two
It makes me wonder
Who am I, Who am I, who am I
And great are You

How I love Your Word
My God, my King
How I loveYour Word
My God, my King

Your love cuts through
These pages to my heart
As You grieve our sins
Right from the start
And sacrifice and paradise are in
The plans that You made
The plans that You made
- "Great Are You" by downhere

absolutely brilliant northern lights last night ... another perk of living on these beautiful Canadian prairies. show me Your great wonders.