Photo Edits 11/27/13

Click to view larger. All editing done at PicMonkey.com

"Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough."

-Ernest Hemingway

Photo taken by my lovely sister Terese.

Houghton Falls, Washburn, WI. Photo taken by my grandmother.

Orvietto, Italy. Photo taken by Dawn V. 

Oh she could've been mine

but we ran out of summertime.

Out of Summertime - Scotty McCreary

The perfect words

never crossed my mind

'cause there was nothing in there

but you

Signal Fire - Snow Patrol

Photo taken by my sister Meg

when you were naive

you were so invincible

Soldier - Goo Goo Dolls

your skin

oh yeah

your skin and bones

turn in 

to something beautiful

Yellow - Coldplay

Photo taken by Terese

among my frivolous thoughts

i believe 

there are beautiful things

seen by the astronauts

Angels - Owl City

Photo taken by Meg

Early Birdie

As miraculous as it may seem, I had never heard this Owl City song before this evening.

-

I'd ask but we don't know
How far these interstates go
Or how deep the city routes go down
In chilly subdepth railways
The weathered concrete stairways
Provide me with the means of getting home
If I ever leave.



_

When Can I See You Again?

As a girl with very few, very wonderful friends who all live way too far away...

When can I see you again?

(I love being able to schedule posts...I'm lining them up for the WHOLE weekend :D)

Guardian Angels

Today is the Feast of the Holy Guardian Angels!

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We tend to get very romantic notions about Guardian Angels. We imagine them being glorious, beautiful beings with wings. We portray them as ravishing, protective women and muscular, heroic men. We imagine them as being small enough to sit on your shoulder. We imagine them as having feelings and thoughts the way we do. Most of all, we imagine angels are higher than human beings, because they are in Heaven with God. 

Angels have no gender. Angels have no bodies of any kind. Angels are not subject to emotion like we are.

If Angels could be jealous of men, they would be so for one reason: Holy Communion- St. Maximilian Kolbe

We are superior to the Angels because we have bodies. We are body AND spirit. Animals are only body, Angels are only spirit. We are both; we are God's masterpiece, and we can physically receive Jesus' body and blood. The Angels cannot do that. 

That being said: Can you even fathom how unbelievably COOL angels are!?

They serve God directly upon His throne, and are more complex in their being than we humans can ever fully understand in the material world. 

Our Guardian Angels are horrifically under-appreciated. They protect us every moment, and chose, for all eternity, to serve God by watching over us. 

Happy Feast Day, Guardian Angels! Thank you for protecting us and helping us as we strive to love and serve our Lord. 

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Silhouette

The fire I  began is burning me alive

but I know better than to leave and let it die

Yes. This is beautiful! Go Owl City!

Things people say...

Today, I was sitting at my computer, and said, "Oh! Hey, Adam Young's new album is out today. I didn't realize that!"

(I think I should say that some of my faith in Adam Young has been restored...I'm in love with 2 of the songs on his album I heard yesterday. His tumblr is also becoming more like his old blog used to be, which is very exciting! I'm not buying the whole Midsummer Station album, but I'm excited for several of the songs!)

And I was pointing out that Owl City fan-fiction was featured on http://figment.com/, and my younger brother said,

"Just three years ago, Adam young was like a hobo. With a synthesizer."

Then, on my Figment wall, one of my friends on there said this:

Oh... Your from England! Oh my gosh I just realized that. Oh I'm just shocked.

Hey, me too! I had to go back and see what I'd said to her to figure out why she believed I was from England. I had explained how I'm planning to apply for mission work and I specified that it would be in the U. S.

I have to admit I laughed really hard. It totally made my day.

All in all, I think this proves why people are just so great.

New Music

Today, I decided I wanted to add a song that is very special to me to my blog. Just the instrumental (maybe it's playing right now) to the song Vanilla Twilight, by Owl City.

Alas, I had only a vague idea of how to do this. But I turned to my good friend Google, and asked:

How do I add music to my blogspot?

If you, too, were wondering how this works, here's the link I found that made everything clear:


http://support.google.com/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=80259

It was really easy; all I had to do was choose from a list of sites where one can create a playlist (I admit that I was a sucker and picked Hypster simply because it had the coolest name), make the playlist I wanted (which consists, as you can see, of one whole song!), and embed it on my blog.

http://www.hypster.com/

Hypster is pretty fun, but I'm busy enough online as it is, so I doubt I'll be playing around with it much. I only wanted this song because it is breathtakingly beautiful.

But it did occur to me that this might cause a problem, in that I do occasionally post a Youtube video (usually a song) on here. Fortunately, the lovely Vanilla Twilight instrumental can be paused at ANY time during your visit to my blog, so feel free to do so if it's getting on your nerves.

It's possible that in a few weeks I'll delete it from my blog and never add music to this thing again. But for now, please enjoy this song that has a lot of positive association for me, and feel free to listen to the full song with the gorgeous lyrics.

Have a lovely day!

Hot Air Balloon Harp Cover

The harp is so magnificent....

This is still my favorite song ever, and she makes it sound beautiful!

Have a Peppermint Winter!

We're still in Advent, but once we get to the joyful week, I feel like its time for some quality Christmas music. I hope you're having a blessed season reflecting on the true meaning of Christmas, and preparing your heart for Him to enter into it in a new, wonderful way!

Dental Care

About 12 adult teeth from my mouth are missing, apparently.

They're lost.

Where did they go!?

Well, its a tricky theory about genetic 'missing teeth' I got from my mother. But they're gone, nevertheless.

I got a tooth pulled for the first time today. And I suppose you're wondering why they took a tooth from a mouth already missing like, a dozen of them.

I wondered that, myself.

Apparently, this is one of the few, CHOSEN teeth that has an adult under it, and therefore (?) it had to go. So the big one can come in and join its brethren (even though most of it's 'brethren' are still baby teeth. Huh.).

I was actually not allowed to refer to it as having a tooth 'pulled'. It was 'gently removed'. Apparently they thought I was a very weak-willed female, and if I hadn't told them my age they probably would have guessed I was like, ten. Maybe twelve.

But let me tell you this; if you have to give me like 2 shots of Novocain (I think it was two...that needle came around twice!), my head MOVES while you're yanking on my mouth, and it sounds like you're cracking my tooth apart and gouging it out bit by bit, I am very doubtful of exactly how 'gentle' you're being.

I have no idea what all they did in my mouth. There was of course the creepy 'I know you're sticking a needle in my gum I just can't SEE it' thing, and the whole 'my mouth has never been dryer...MY KINGDOM FOR SOME CHAP STICK!!' thing. I'll admit that if I was a lesser girl, I would have cried. It was a truly terrifying experience, and all the while my poor, book-less mother was out in the waiting room trying not to resort to People Magazine and suffering through Good Housekeeping.

I also somehow ended up listening to very zealous Gospel music rather than Christian rock/pop, which only heightened the ambiance.

It was a dreadful experience, overall, if we're being melodramatic.

If we're not: It's over. I lived. I didn't even rate a smoothie or milkshake and was assured I could eat right away. Bummer.

Adam Young knows how I feel.