joy dare thirty-six and thirty-seven

Day 36: One gift stitched, one hammered, one woven.

One gift stitched: I was thinking last night about the little bookmark Sophia made me and mailed to me after she moved. Sophia is the daughter of some dear family friends, she's around 7 years younger than I am, and she was the first kid I babysat. She is a bright, beautiful girl, and whenever I see that bookmark it makes me think of teaching her how to knit during homegroup. 

One hammered: We have a tradition in our family- For our sixteenth birthdays, Mom and Dad have given all of us girls hope chests. Then Mom starts shopping for Fiestaware dishes to put into the hope chest, and all that good stuff. Our hope chests are a little different than the original tradition of hope chests, but I think it's a good, special idea. And my Uncle Jeff made my hope chest, which is beautiful. 

One woven: I can't really think of too many (or any) woven things that have special value to me. But the slew of blankets on my bed are all woven- and keep me warm and comfortable. That's a blessing. 

Day 37: Three gifts found outside. 

1. Maple leaves. I don't really need to say more, do I?

2. Daffodils. They're not my favorite flower, but I so miss picking bouquets of them from the woods near the house in West Virginia. They make a room so much brighter. I didn't find any growing around here last year... I'll have to look again this spring, though. 

3. Wind. A breath of fresh air. 

cruises, schooling, friend dates and grandmother. among other things.

So, things have been not too slow around here.
A couple of weeks ago, Mom and Dad went on a cruise in the Caribbean to celebrate their 30th anniversary. They left on a Saturday morning, and Zoe and I stayed by ourselves that day and night. Aunt Gail came down after church on Sunday, and stayed here until Wednesday. We did what we usually do with Aunt Gail- shopped, made good food, etc. I worked and Zoe and I did school. On Wednesday, we went back to Grampa's with her. We saw Malia, we cleaned the church with Grampa, we looked for beds... On the way there, we stopped at Marden's, and Aunt Gail misplaced her keys. After searching through the store for 40 minutes or so, they were found in her purse- where she, Zoe and I had each checked and double-checked. It was actually pretty funny after we found them, but you probably had to be there.
So we came home on the following Sunday. Mom and Dad had arrived back home the night before. They had a great time, and we had a pretty good one, too.

Over the last week or two, I have arranged to finish school in 12 weeks (11.5 now ;)) and signed up for the SATs. I can finish school that early by doing 7 days of school a week instead of 5. I'm not doing school on the weekends, just evenly dividing the assignments for the next seven days into 5. It looks like it's actually going to be pretty easy to keep up with.
I actually have to study for the SATs. That idea will take some getting used to. Just because of the way our typical tests are- not that they're easy, but it's just different when it's only you taking it- I don't normally spend a lot of time studying for tests. And with the achievement tests every year, it's on the material that you already know, and you just take it. There's not really any way to prepare for it. But this is going to be different. I'm not really too worried about it, but of course I'll prepare.

I've been reading this book, Heaven is For Real, by Todd Burpo. His son, Colton, went to heaven. I don't mean he died; I mean he saw heaven. It's intriguing. I'd recommend it.

Last night, I had a Skype date with Megan. That was pretty great. I hadn't talked to her on Skype since we first moved, and it had been a while since our last phone conversation. Encouragement = awesome.

Mom, Zoe and I are going to Portland this afternoon to see Hannah. I haven't seen her since Christmas, and I'm looking forward to it.

I talked to Mawmaw last night. I love her. :) She was much more talkative then she's been the last couple of times I've talked to her, which to me is a sign that things are going back to normal. I'm so glad of that. It was back to the old pattern of me not really being able to tell her all that I wanted to because she was so talkative. Yay!

joy dare thirty-five

Day 35: 3 gifts found when bent down. 

1. I'm constantly dropping things like earrings and losing them for a while- maybe minutes, maybe hours, maybe days. The other day the top drawer came out of my jewelry stand-thingy and I couldn't find one of Grammy's turquoise earrings (I found in in the drawer days later). And today, I dropped one of my favorite earrings. After checking under my bed a couple times, stripping my bed (it needed to be remade anyway), and checking underneath it again, I finally found it. I was pretty glad to have found it. :) 

2. Have you ever watched ants for a few minutes? I'm not big on bugs- they don't terrify me, I just dislike them for the most part- but I don't really mind ants. As long as they're doing their swarming outside, not in. Anyway, I'm not sure why I like them. Probably because of how busy/industrious they are. Always doing something, building something, obtaining something. Ants have goals. The goals may be miniscule in reality, but I like how they're always working towards something.

3. Fairly often- once every couple of years- either Megan and Katelyn or Zoe and I would find a turtle in our back yard. Box turtles, which were kind of hard to see in the grass, were common in our area for some reason. We loved picking them up and keeping them and feeding them and playing with them for a few hours before we took them out of the cardboard boxes and let them go back to their trip. I remember one in particular, Franklin. It was this one turtle and everything seemed to happen to it. We knew it was the same one every year because it had a chip in its shell, probably from Mr. Hodges running over it with a lawn mower. I think Megan accidentally spray-painted it green once, but I don't remember the details of that. Anyway, we enjoyed playing with those turtles- and each other- quite a bit. I'm glad things like that happened. :)

joy dare thirty-four

Day 34: 3 gifts found in writing. 

1. I've mentioned this before, but I love letters. And the ones from Grammy that I still have are my favorite ones. 

2. I love being able to write. Looking back at old journals from time to time is great. And writing out prayers really helps me focus. 

3. Poems. Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, sometimes Walt Whitman, although he usually makes me a little sad. Most of the time, poems by these authors make me happy or reflective or a combination of the two.

joy dare thirty-three

Day 33: 3 things overheard today, all gifts. 

1. The church singing praise songs together. It's great when an entire congregation actually sings. 

2. A group of women and girls cheering as 4 of the guys at church played pingpong. That was fun. 

3. I'm anticipating this one: lots of good, funny, happy conversation during the Superbowl.

joy dare thirty-two]

Day 32: A gift at 11:30am, a gift at 2:30pm, a gift at 6:30pm.

A gift at 11:30am: At 11:30 today, I was finishing up school. It was great to be done so early- and I've started working ahead, so I can finish school a couple months early if I stick with it. 

A gift at 2:30pm: I was at work. Out doing carts, as a matter of fact. It was cold. But it was sunny and good exercise:) 

A gift at 6:30pm: We were eating dinner together- Mom, Dad, Zoe and I. We enjoyed each other's company. 

joy dare thirty and thirty-one

I've not been feeling great the last couple of days, so I haven't been updating. But I'll catch up in a day or so. 

Day 30: Three old things seen new.

1. Monday was the first full day that Mom, Dad, Zoe and I were back home together after our trips. I had to work that afternoon and evening, but it was still good to be back in our normal together-lives. 

2. Old hymns redone. Casting Crowns does a lot of great redoes of old hymns. Or not even necessarily redone hymns, just hymns. Loretta Lynn Gospel, which I am listening to at the moment, has a lot of great hymns on it.

3. Garlic powder. It really can make a difference. 

Day 31: A gift found on paper, in a person, in a picture. 

A gift found on paper: This one was slightly difficult because of all the electronic/paper free-ness lately. But after some thought, sheet music, because it makes music playable (if you have good technique) even if you've never heard the song before, is great. 

A gift found in a person: Doing band practice today, Joe's attitude of "we can figure this out" was a blessing as we went along. We had a really hard time figuring out a hymn that we haven't done before and aren't very familiar with, but eventually we got it. But he was encouraging to me and probably Zoe as we tried to figure out the chords, and also wound up switched the key back and forth multiple times. 

In a picture: My silly, beautiful, funny nieces love each others' company. That's so great!