Coffee & Antique Saturday

I have to say that today was quite an exquisite day. Nothing terribly special. But I have a feeling I'm going to remember this day very well. Today was the first Saturday in probably two or three months when there wasn't something going on, so my mom and I seized the day and decided to do some fun stuff. Our first stop was the florist, because my dad and I are going to a Father Daughter Dinner at our church tomorrow night, and I have to have flowers. They're super pretty. Pink & white roses. Doesn't exactly match my blue dress, but they were nearly out of flowers, so it was all I could get. After getting the flowers, we returned home to eat a quick lunch, and then we scurried out in some drizzly weather to go to a furniture store downtown. It was quite a nice little place, and rather frigid cold, might I add. But my mom is redoing a lot of our living room & library, so she wants some new chairs and such. After going there, we went to a quaint and almost eccentric local coffee shop. They have just recently redone a lot of it, and I was so excited. The place is rather large now, with lots of couches and little deviant chairs in the nice nooks and crannies that little local coffee shops seem to have. My mom and I got some coffee and went off to a nice couch in about the middle of the coffee shop, where it was convenient for me to observe some of the people who were in the coffeehouse. I had a marvelous time picking out people and deciding what kind of life they lived, or what kind of personality they have. The thing I love about this cafe is it has the truly beatnik people there. Starbucks, okay, it has some beatnik people from time to time. But local coffeehouses have that particular type of person that is just so interesting to watch. You know the kind. The guy in the corner with skinny jeans and a goatee and glasses. Or the girl with a cute beret reading a book of free verse poetry. For some reason I love to watch those kinds of people and guess about their lives. They're so different, and have a free personality, of sorts. Today I got to observe a young man, probably 25-ish, reading a book while listening to probably some alternative music, sitting in a nook, wearing a rather beatnik hat. And a girl who I believe works at Starbucks came in wearing something like a beret. And then there was a college student, who my mom and I both believed to be a medical student. Oh. And the guy in the corner playing his banjo the whole time. It was... to put it plain and simple - awesome.
After we went to the coffeehouse, we went off to a cute little antique mall. I haven't been to an antique mall in a while, so I was very excited to be able to go. My mom and I quietly walked through all the hallways filled with... well... mostly junk. But every now and then I found a cool little treasure. There was even an exquisitely elegant wedding dress with a full train in there. It was gorgeous... but unfortunately, I have no need for one yet, so I had to pass it by. ~wink~ There were also several beautiful paintings in there, and chairs that could be reupholstered, and little nick-nacks and such. But none were such to my taste that I actually bought anything. But they were excellent picture material, which unfortunately, I didn't realize until about 15 minutes before we left (I'm still training my photographer eye, you see). But in the time that I did take pictures, I got some neat ones, which are the ones you see scattered throughout this post. Anyway, my mom ended up buying a couple of chairs that she had been looking at for about a week now. They are in desperate need of reupholstering, but they're rather cute chairs. I may do a post of them being reupholstered, so we'll see.
Anyway, that is a summary of my delightful day spent with my mom on this dreary, drizzly, but most fantastic Saturday.

So I hope all of you have a blessed Sunday. Love to all

~Madison

Springtime & Nostalgia

Springtime. Oh the wondrous time of year when beautiful flowers bloom and everyone starts sneezing and schnorting (yes, schnorting is a word. Go look it up in the Madison dictionary) But honestly, I couldn't be more delighted that spring is here. Shorts and t-shirts are my kinda clothes. Slip on some flip flops and it's time to roll. Not to mention springtime seems to be a very romantic-ish time of year. Not "romantic" like weddings and love and all that mushy stuff, but romantic as in "Anne of Green Gables romantic." Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. I love the quietness and beauty of spring... David describes in well in Psalm 19, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork." The universe declares God's glory. Every single flower declares God's glory, every new leaf declares God's glory... His creation is truly amazing. I love the way Charles Dickens describes spring: "It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade." Spring is really one of the most beautiful times of the year - it's filled with new life. (including the lives of roaches and spiders and stinging insects, which quite honestly, I could do without) As it says (rather poetically, of course) in Song of Solomon chapter 2, "For behold, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree ripens it's figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance." I believe winter is really over... spring is coming.

Feel the sun on your skin, growing strong and warm again. Watch the ground: there's something moving, something is breaking through, new life is breaking through

Spring is coming
~Steven Curtis Chapman, Spring is Coming

"If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome."
~Anne Bradstreet

We all have a little nostalgia from time to time. But I think I tend to have it worse than some people sometimes. For instance.... I'm already feeling nostalgic about high school. And I'm not even out of my sophomore year. Pretty pitiful, I have to admit. Who feels nostalgic about the future? ~raises hand pitifully~
But really, high school is going by so fast. It feels like just yesterday I was the dorky freshman who was trying to be cool, but failed miserably by having dorky glasses, greasy hair, and braces. And now I'm nearly at the end of my sophomore year, and soon I'll be an upperclassman. Scary, much! The quicker life goes by, the tighter I seem to hold on to where I am now. I know that high school will be some of the best times of my life, and I don't want to let them go. I know that God has some awesome things planned for me in the future (I mean, they have to be great, right? If someone plans your life at the beginning of the world... well, you know it's pretty well planned out). I don't know what they are. They could be really tough things, they could be exciting things... they could be both. Which is what scares me. Which is why, of course, I love my high school years thus far. They've been fantastic. My high school years have definitely been the best years of my life so far, despite the wandering bits of drama that strike terror into the hearts of all high schoolers. But you know, even with that, and maybe some through that, I have made the best friends I've ever had, and had the best times of my life. There is always someone there to pray for me, to encourage me, be crazy with me, laugh with me, listen to me - really, high school has been amazing.
But God has amazing plans for me. I know He does. And even though they scare me sometimes, I know I have no reason to fear, because as Paul says in Ephesians 1, God has "... a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth." God has an awesome plan for my life. Like I said, I don't know what He has planned for me - if it's difficult or easy or lots of both. But whatever it is, I know it's a plan that He'll carry me through. No matter what, He has promised me, "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire, you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you." And He goes on to say, continuing what He said in Isaiah 43, "Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you."
God loves us. He has a plan for us. I know He has a plan for me. And I'm looking forward to seeing what His plan for my life is.

" 'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.' "
~Jeremiah 29:11

God's Ability & My Inability

You know, I really like God's sense of humor. And I just happened to experience it this morning. As I was praying this morning, I was praying for my patience. You see, I'm not exactly the most self-controlled person in the world... someone can annoy me once and
BOOM
You'll hear my anger from three and a half miles away. I know that I need more self-control and patience with others, but it isn't exactly my strong point. But like I was saying, I was praying for self-control today, and I actually prayed that I would be given a chance today to have self-control. Of course, as I was praying I was picturing a perfect moment to show my own self-control. Mhmm. I was gonna see it coming. I was going to know it was coming. And then, like a little angel with a shiny halo, I would smile sweetly and be nice and kind.
Wow.
I apparently haven't learned enough about myself yet.
So just a few hours after this, I was at my piano lesson. I have a couple of piano competitions in about two weeks. Well, right before competitions and recitals, my teacher gets really super nit-picky. Which sometimes bothers me, and sometimes doesn't. Well this morning, it was bothering me. A lot. You see, me, I'm a perfectionist. So not only was I mad at myself for continually messing up, but I was getting unbelievably annoyed with my teacher for being so nit-picky. I was losing it. Obviously, with my piano teacher, I can't be bluntly rude, but I could tell my tone of voice was picking up a lot of frustrated sounds. Kind of a sarcastic tone. And as my lesson went on, my patience got more and more tried. And then, it hit me like a bullet, and I nearly started laughing. This was my opportunity to lose my cool or stay alert and honor God. Through my frustration I was just sitting there smiling. I was laughing at myself for thinking this morning that I could be self-controlled by myself.
This really taught me a lesson - this morning, even though I was sitting there praying, I was sure that I would be able to do it all myself. Well, I can't. I can't be patient through my own power. The frustration I felt at my lesson showed me only God can give me the patience and self-control I need to honor Him. I like how God continues to show me just how incapable I am to do good without Him.

Starbucks & Other Doings

So. I've been thinking about so many things lately. Thoughts just floating around in my mind. Too many things really. I feel like my mind is about to bust with all the things I have been considering and turning over in my mind as of late.

Such as
Starbucks.
Yes, Starbucks is too big a part of my life. My mom and I go to a particular Starbucks every single Sunday afternoon/evening and talk for a good hour or two. It's just a habit of ours, and a very delightful one at that. But I have discovered we've been going there far too often. There is a nice young guy up there who almost always works Sunday afternoons/evenings, and so we see him all the time. A few weeks ago he commented, "I seem to see y'all a lot up here." We just chuckled and agreed. And tonight, I had the pleasure and yet almost horror of discovering he knows my name. You know, they always ask for your name so they can write it on the cup, and after I ordered, he looked at me holding his Sharpie and said, "Madison?" I just grinned and nodded. I find it somewhat disturbing that this guy who I know nothing about and who I've never had a proper introduction to or conversation with; this guy knows my name? Somewhat odd.
But that is the consequence of going to Starbucks too much, I suppose.

Other doings.
Well, we all know what tomorrow is.
Valentine's Day.
The big day.
That is, the day that MOST people freak out because they don't have a "Valentine." Well, I already had two nice guys be my "Valentine" this year. ;-) Hehe! Ahhh the joys of being loved. First of all, my wonderful Daddy, who always gets me something, got me a huge box of Russell Stover chocolate and a card. =) I definitely have to say, my Dad has got to be the best in the whole world. Ever. The picture of what he got is over there. <----------
And then.... there was my boyfriend. :] He got me a super cute mug from Starbucks (if you've been to Starbucks recently, I'm sure you know one of the ones I'm talking about ;) and then some snack stuff from Starbucks. It made me sooopperr happy (yeah, I have to spell super wrong to make an emphasis. Sorry) SO. that is my Valentine's Day. Tomorrow, the actual day, will probably be relatively boring and I'll do school all day. Yipee. But at least I had some good stuff beforehand. ^_^

Now of course I've been turning over other things in my mind. Such as deep topics of interest that people don't typically talk about. I suppose part of the reason I've been thinking so much is because at church, my parents Sunday School class has been doing The Truth Project (if you've never heard of it, go look it up. It's a great, wonderful, awesome "tour", as they call it). But with such a name, you can expect deep topics.
Such as
Where does evil come from?
Who is man?
What is truth?
Those get your mind working, let me tell you.
And the more I think about these things, it makes me consider what I usually think about.
Do those things really matter in the grand scheme of things?
Nope.
But do those things? Can these questions and the answers to these questions change someone's life?
Yep.
So what is more important to ponder and spend our time thinking about?
--
And really it interests me, because watching The Truth Project, you get to see videos of people from different world views talking about what they believe. Things such as - man is basically good, there is no free will, there is nothing but the cosmos and nothing outside of the cosmos, there is no evil in man, etc. And seeing these different world views, I have to wonder how people can possibly believe them. It's so difficult to see people fall for such awful lies.
But for now my mind is going dead. Next time I'll try to expound on one of these

And, as for more 'other doings'.....
Nail polish. Mock trial. Prince of Persia. Reading. Thinking some more. Piano. Friends. Bourne Identity. Laundry. My favorite socks. Pumps or flats? Sleep. Naps. Sleep deprivation. Music. School. Notes to self. Frizzy hair. Children. School vs. chilling out. Chilling out vs. naps. 1 hour long naps vs. 3 hour long naps.

Sleep is on my mind at the moment. Right now all I'm running on is the white chocolate mocha I drank earlier. Brain dead. Deprived of sleep. I'm becoming incoherent.
I think I'll go for now. And next time I shall try to expound on my deep thoughts.

Mock Trial

Wow. I am pitifully behind in my blogging. I haven't blogged in nearly a month... this is quite pitiful. BUT. I do have a legitimate excuse. And that is - mock trial.
I think I have mentioned mock trial before, but I've never really gone into what it is. So in case you don't know, a very very brief explanation is it is a bunch of high schoolers doing a fake trial. In each state we have one "case" and everyone participating in mock trial in that particular state studies the case for about 3 months. Intensive work here. Each team has six attorneys (three for plaintiff and three for defense) and six witnesses (again, three for each side) plus two time keepers. So over the course of three months you study the case, and then in February you go to a regional competition. There are several regions in our state, but I think ours is one of the hardest regions. And I have reason to think this. Reason being, we go against a team every year who has won for 12 years in a row. 12 years. That's a long time. Every year they have gone to state. It's very intensive to go against them.But before I go on to the competition, let me explain what part I have on the team, and what all we do. So, I am a witness, and given, one of the lesser witnesses. But I have a fantastically fun part. I get to be a political activist. In a major way. In fact, I get to rap... which in my opinion is pretty awesome ^_^ On my team I have a couple of my friends, Hayley and Aaron, who are also witnesses. Aaron is another relatively important witness, and Hayley is the main witness. And then for attorneys we have my brother, Spencer, another one of my friends, Courtney, and my boyfriend, Daniel. Spencer is the lead attorney (I'm so stinkin proud of him =). He does the direct of Aaron, the cross of the lead witness on the defense side, and he does the closing. Courtney does the opening, and Daniel & Courtney both have crosses and directs.And so on to the competition. So this year, on the 5th, we had our competition. Our team ran on adrenaline all day. We had to get up there at 7:45, and our first round started about 9. Well. We went against the team that I have told you about in the first round... which really isn't a good thing for us or for them. But we went against them anyway. Our team felt very good about that round, and we pretty much knew for a fact at that point that we were going to go to the final round. The next round wasn't quite as good. In my opinion... well.... let's just say I didn't like the team that much.After the first two rounds, we had some suggestions from our attorney coach, Pete, and Spencer (my bro) gave us a speech like in the beginning of Patton, except a homeschooler friendly version. ;) Yeah, my brother is awesome like that. Anyway, after these two rounds, we go into this big room where all the teams get together, and we have an awards ceremony. In each round there is an outstanding witness award and an outstanding attorney award. I'm proud to say that two of our witnesses got one, Courtney got one, and another one of our attorneys, Steven, got two.
But then came the big deal. Who goes to the final round? You see, the final round is a huge, nerve wracking deal. It's when the two best teams out of the whole competition go against each other, and it is decided who goes to state. Well... it came time to say which teams were to go to the final round. And the coordinator for our region announced us and the team who has won for 12 years. Both teams were so excited... and we were ready.The final round, quite honestly, was when I was most nervous, and understandably too. What I did could have an effect on whether we won or not. My hands were clammy. I sat on the bench trying not to fidget. Finally, it came time to do the final round. And let me tell you, during the last round, we had some serious praying going on. I know many of the parents were praying, I was praying, and I heard several of our team members say they were praying. Not so much that we would win, but more that the evaluators and judge would be fair, that we would perform at our best, etc. I was the first witness and I went up on the stand, my hands still relatively clammy. I did my direct, which went pretty well. But even while I was talking, I was praying in my mind. I had my cross, and then I was done. I was down from the witness stand. And anything that I could do to help the team was done. It was a pretty big relief. The rest of the round went very well; better than I expected it to, actually. And finally, the closings were done, and the round was over. The evaluators went back to do the scoring, and then they came back about 15 or 20 minutes later to give comments. I listened closely for any signs that we won. We were all still nervous. We all wanted to know who won.
Then it finally came. Time for us to learn who had won. Our defense side came over into our court room, and we sat down. First the outstanding witness and attorney awards were given out. Now usually you can tell who won by which team gets the most awards. Well, you couldn't even tell from that. We had it split right down the middle - each team got one outstanding witness and one outstanding attorney award. Then it was time. We were about to hear who had won. The coordinator pulled out the piece of paper with the winning team name on it, and he said, "And the winner of this regional mock trial competition is...." The first word out of his mouth was the first word of our homeschool organization. And with the first word of his mouth, everyone out in the crowd who had come to watch us, probably consisting of at least 50 people (parents, friends, extra team members, coaches, etc.), simultaneously jumped in the air and started screaming and hugging each other. I was sitting in my seat screaming and nearly crying. One of our coach's daughters, Molly, was sitting next to me, and she was crying by the first word. I have never felt that exhilarated in my life. After the first initial screams, we went over to the other team and told them good job. I honestly felt bad for them, because it was the first time in 12 years they had lost, and I know it was disappointing. It kinda hurt to see them so disappointed. But after they all left the room, we were once again hugging and screaming and crying and going completely crazy. I know it sounds kind of overdone, but unless you are our team, you can't even begin to understand the excitement that was felt. I'm not kidding when I say that we put literally hundreds of hours into practicing for this competition. There is nothing to describe how excited we were to win.After we finally left the court house, we went over to one of our team member's house, and we threw a victory party. All of us were still so excited. I have never seen so much excitement and so much joy all in one place. It was absolutely amazing. I'm still amazed.

SO.
Now you know why I haven't been blogging lately. With three regular meetings a week going for at least 3 hours, and usually at least two extra meetings at people's houses, usually about 2-3 hours each, you know why I didn't have time. But I'm hoping to get a little more blogging in before the state competition, which is about a month and a half away.
Anyway, that is my very long explanation.
I'll try to write about something besides mock trial next time....
And so for now I'm signing off

~Madison

Little Kiddies

Okay... so maybe I'm super obsessed with little kids. I work every couple of weeks in the nursery at the church I go to, and I also get to see a bunch of little kids... primarily some of my best friends' younger sisters. So I get quite a lot of experience with kids (not as much as I'd like, but hey, I'll take whatever I can get).
Anyway, there are lots of things I've learned about kids, and some experiences I've had that I can't help but share. And since I was scratching and scraping for an idea for a post, this is something I thought most people would appreciate. Some of these will be things I've learned, and some of them just random stories that I find amusing . . .

• One thing I've learned is half of the time, you can tell what kind of person a little kid is going to be when they grow up. There's one girl in the nursery, and she's definitely going to be a cheerleader. She's all Miss Popular, she wants everyone to know everything about her, she has bleach blond hair, she talks a lot.... and then there's another little kid who is in my mom's class (which I've worked in a few times) in the nursery at church, and you can tell right off the bat this guy is gonna be a jock. Popular guy. I just love observing teen characteristics in little kids. It's so amusing just to see human nature in every age.
• Ah. Little kids. They truly listen to everything we say, eh? For good or for bad, they pick up stuff we say, and they WILL follow what we say, because they look up to us. For instance, a couple of weeks ago I was working in my mom's nursery class with some three or four year olds. I was playing with this little boy named Ransom (adorable name, right?), and he had a lion and I had a tiger. He was trying to defeat my tiger and be the most powerful creature ever (so typical of men, hmm? lol). So anyway, there was a little girl in there named Calah, and she was playing with a little bunny. She piped up while Ransom and I were "roaring" at each other, and she said, "My bunny isn't afraid of the tiger or the lion, because God is watching over her." I just smiled. See... they are listening.
• And also, little kids are very random. They're imaginations run wild when they're little... and sometimes it's quite interesting. The little girl Calah that I mentioned above... so she was once again just playing joyfully with her little bunny, and out of the blue she says, "Bunnies have cheeks like blueberries." Ah. Children. So innocently hilarious. Or the time a few weeks ago I was playing with this little boy named Anthony and I had built him a little garage for his little car. Well.... he was trying to smash the garage with his car, and so I made the garage start flying. And so for about 10 or 15 minutes, he was completely satisfied with chasing my flying garage around with his flying car. ~_^ As I said before.... ah, children.
• Another thing I've learned about children - they want attention, but they also want to be told what they can or cannot do. So they're usually not gonna say, "Is it right or wrong to do such-and-such?" But a lot of times they will push the limit to see how far they can go. And from what I've observed, most women (moms, babysitters, etc.) don't make any boundaries. Well. Fact is, the kids don't like that. And even worse, they're going to keep getting worse. I've discovered a firm, "No" is all they need to hear about 90% of the time. It's a marvelous word. And it works.

And just some things I like about children.... <3

• How freakishly adorable they are
• How they just want attention
• The fact they always want to hold your hand
• How they always want to be picked up
• Giggles & laughs
• Their innocence & trust
• Their little hands and big, trusting hearts <3

So, I've thoroughly informed you about my opinion on children.
And I'm gonna go now. Have a marvelous Sunday afternoon/evening!

New Year & Weird Resolutions

So. It's a new year. You're probably over all the excitement of the new year... yea... it's 2011.
And as it's a new year, most everyone has made new year's resolutions which will probably last a week, at best. Well, I too, have made some new year's resolutions. But they're not quite as normal as most people's resolutions are. I actually only started making a list last night, and the weird thing about these resolutions is for one thing, I'll be adding to them all year, and for another thing, they're not even really resolutions. They're more like a list of things I want to do this year.
So without further adieu, here are some of the things on my list, which I will continue adding on to over the rest of the year:

• Read 50 books
• Take a photography class
• Read the whole Bible
• Buy two new pairs of boots
• Get an outstanding witness award [in mock trial]
• Run a 5k
• See a shooting star
• Learn the definitions of 50 obscure words
• Apply for and win a scholarship
• Meet a famous person
• Watch 50 movies

And that is part of my list. ^_^ Strange, yes, but I'm more likely to do those things than to exercise regularly, 3 times a week, without fail. And besides. I'd rather have fun this year than work my tail off trying to stay in shape.

I guess in this new year, there are two things I'm striving for:
1. Honor God and grow closer to Him
2. Have a super exciting year

I feel like I really need to spend more time with God this year. I'm not terribly disciplined in a regular quiet time. And not just that, but I want to grow closer to Him. And that isn't accomplished by just reading my Bible. I know I need to start trusting more, start praying more, start letting Him live through me more. And that is what I'm striving for more than anything this year. I know it's what I need to do.
And the second thing I'm striving for? Well... I can explain that. Excitement. It's what I want. Last year was not only one of the worse years I've ever had, but it was quite boring. I want to do something really cool and exciting. Like go to Scotland over summer vacation. Okay, that's not happening, but I want to venture out some. Do something totally different for once. I guess I'm becoming one of.... those .... teenagers who wants to venture out and do something crazy and different.

And THAT. Is what I'm looking at doing over the next year.
We'll see how it goes ^_^

Happy New Year to all

~Madison