Photo of the Day February 14th, 2013

February 14th, 2013

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Photo of the Day February 13th, 2013

Hello all! I will be doing a picture of the day until I go to Italy so I can get familiar with the Nikon D90 I'll be bringing. I will post my top photos of the day (my favorite will be starred). None of the photos will be edited, all pictures will be shot with a 50mm lens and I will include my settings. Please feel free to comment and critique!! Thanks!

**February 13th, 2013**

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February 13th, 2013

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Italy Trip Update

Hey everyone!

Here is the first of a few updates I will be sending out about the trip. I am super exited that we leave in just over a month from today! 

First, thank you all so much for your support. I am fully supported financially for the trip which is so awesome. Please continue to pray for us as we continue to prepare for the trip.

This past preparation meeting, we talked about trip expectations. One of the common themes was that we expect God to use us while there in Italy. We know the Lord will use us but we are all praying that He would make that really clear to us.

In the next preparation meeting, we will be separated into the groups for the English Clubs. There are three different tiers: Beginner, Intermediate and English on the Edge. During this meeting we will be working within smaller groups to create lesson plans. 

I will probably send the next update right before we head on the trip so you can keep an eye out!

Thank you so much, again!

Sincerely,

Kristin

Oh I Crack Myself Up....

It was the first of the snow fall that cold winter’s day
When Kristin decided to head out to play

The sun shone so brightly; ground covered in glitter
She shared her excitement with her friends via twitter

Soon she was ready for home, a place to thaw out
But the door wouldn’t seal right she noticed with a pout

All the frigid cold wind that should be out there
Was freezing her apartment and the man-made warm air

                       She debated and thought but just for a minute                      
“Call Young America? No I’ve got enough wit.”

So off to her room she ran with no delay
For her tools and a jacket; she’ll be handy today

Upon further investigation she discovered the problem
The small metal strip that lay there, on the bottom

But she needed a screw to make the strip stay
In place when the wind came to blow another day

She remembered an extra, right in her stash
Excitedly she tried it and it was a match!

“I’m done!” She exclaimed, proud to conquer her foes
But when she went to shut the door, now it wouldn’t close

“How can this be? I just fixed the darn thing!”
Lurked a piece in the track that required quick thinking

“Ah Ha!” She realized, “I know just what to do.”
So she grabbed a kitchen knife the one called Ginsu 

She sawed and hammered and chipped it away
That darn little piece that was so in the way

Now her door seals quite nicely if you give it a shove
When you ask her about it she’ll say it was a labor of love

She fixes all sorts of things after fixing the door
“Take that, Young America! I will call you no more!”

And it took me 20 minutes to cleverly tell you about 20 minutes of my life today.  

Enjoy!

New Life Plan?

I'm not going to say it. I'm not going to say it. You can't make me.

Okay fine. I haven't posted in so long.... lol

Anyway.

Plans are stressful. I am thinking about starting this new thing where I don't make plans. I don't really know how that will work out, especially with school or with people who want to make plans but not having a plan seems to be a pretty cool thing to do. No commitments, just doing whatever. I don't know if that's selfish or what. I'd like to think it's not but who knows.

It seems that the more I make plans, the more I want to break them and drop them and run off to somewhere. Anywhere I can get away from my schedule and with things I have to organize and do.

Man I wish I could actually blog about anything worth reading. But I guess it's just those snippets into my life that I enjoy looking back at. I really should just journal...

Discouraged

Man.

I really am just plain discouraged. I can't do anything but think about all the things I could be doing right now with my life and just how apparently ignorant I am to opportunities I have. I just did some EXTREME facebook stalking (that's besides the point) and got to see what people are doing for their summers. At least half of the people I knew in high school are living in another country for the summer.

WHAT!? One of the people I knew even has an internship in Tanzania. She's getting paiddddddddd. I have been trying to figure out how to visit my sponsor kids (in Tanzania) the cheapest way possible for a while now...

How did I not know about these things? I know I'm supposed to be here for the summer but it's just frustrating to not know about these options till now. Then again maybe that's for a reason because otherwise I probably wouldn't have been here for the summer. I probably wouldn't be gaining the knowledge I am gaining in order to do crazy things without needing a travel group. I probably wouldn't have the support of my parents. I probably would need a ton of money that I don't have in order make this happen.

It's good I'm not gone this summer. It's good that this stuff is all I can think about. Thinking is good; maybe it will take me somewhere.

My summer's mantra: God is in control.

Thinking

I feel like I haven't been able to have this many thoughts in a while. I have so many that I don't know where to begin. I feel like I need to make an outline first before I forget something important. It's kind of weird because last summer when I was doing something crazy and thought I would have all of these crazy insights to life, I didn't have very many. I just learned a lot which I guess are insights but I could barely think of things to blog about during that summer. Maybe there was just too much to talk about.

Now I sit here and my mind is running, no racing and I can't make it stop. I can't stop researching, learning, understanding and especially reflecting. That was something I wanted to grow in and I don't seem to want to do anything else. It's really easy for me this summer to say I don't want to hang out with people or to sit at home and do absolutely nothing. Bizarre. I guess it's some well needed rest from always running, always serving and always trying to think of others. Now I have to figure out what it all means, why I do what I do, and where I go from here with that passion.

Intense stuff, huh?

I guess the first thing I want to talk about is about how amazingly beautiful it is in Glenview this summer. It has rained a ton in this lowly little town and I honestly don't know if I have ever seen it this green. I went on a run two days ago and the contrast of the light bright blue sky and the various shades of green brought by the leaves of the trees and flowers with the scattering of color here and there with a flower bed made me stop and realize how much I take this place for granted sometimes. I do want to see the world, I do want to experience other ways of living and I want to see the natural untouched beauty God has provided us to see but sometimes I forget the beauty of the ivy climbing up a brick house where little children run around in the vibrant grass breathing in the hot, sticky summer air that beckons them to a game of water gun tag. Sometimes I forget about the yellow and black gigantic bumble bee that scares me so much on a back drop of pink and periwinkle flowers and just how colorful God made this place. The blue blue sky and the white white clouds with the sun so bright you can't even look at it. Dark, medium and light greens showing signs of life. Bird calls all around me and a warm breeze that isn't refreshing and makes you sweat just enough to feel like your getting a good tan. How beautiful has God made creation? I look around knowing that God made this place for us. If this is what a broken world looks like, I cannot wait to see a whole one. What an incredible thought and how exciting!

That's the beauty I feel right now. Those are the thoughts in my head and I'm only through bulletpoints 1 of 5 that I wanted to write about.

Next, my finger which I think I posted about yesterday. It looks really gross. Like really gross. I took a picture of it on my phone and I want to post it but I don't think you all can handle it. I tried to take off the bandaid today and it ripped off the outer layer that had sort of formed so it bled again for a while. Now I'm letting it air out and hoping that a scab will form soon. Through this experience though, I've learned how quickly your body can adapt to change. The most specific example is typing. I skinned my left index finger which is a pretty important typing finger but instead of typing one key at a time now or being really slow, the rest of my fingers on my left hand have picked up the slack quite nicely. I'm back to typing almost at regular speed.

That being said, there are a few things that I can't cut corners on which will be difficult to accept for the next few weeks as it heals. Piano and especially guitar. I am trying to not only self teach both but also to write a bunch. I guess for now I can just play chords really awkwardly on the piano. Who knows, maybe I will become an incredible lyricist because I can't focus on the music. Or a slam poet (is that even a term? I know a poetry slam is real...). Who knows.

The other thought that I have been having and that seems to be thrown in my face recently is how I am going to live my life after college and how I can get around the world in the absolute cheapest way possible to meet the most people I can. I have been doing research for the past few days on this and have been praying about it and almost feel like it should be something I seriously pursue for a while. I found an awesome website that allows you to connect with organic farmers throughout the world. You work for them for free and they give you food and shelter. I was specifically looking for farms in Israel. I could be making cheese next summer! haha. I also found that book that I posted about yesterday. It's quite good and I'm excited to finish reading it and then my mom told me to watch this movie called Into the Wild. She said I would like it. It's about a guy who graduates from Emory and drops everything he has and becomes a vagabond. His ultimate goal was to get to Alaska and I think he made it (the movie kinda hopped around every where) but he died after eating a poisonous plant. What I didn't like about the movie was the fact that Chris never contacted his parents even in a round about way. He just disappeared one day and they found him dead in a bus he had been living in for a while and they found all of his journals and diaries. That's crazy but it got me thinking.

It can be so easy to fall into the oblivion of life. To sit here and all of a sudden realize that once upon a time you had dreams and then wake up to the reality that you have been doing your desk job for 10 years planning to get out instead of getting out. I think that is the problem with our society at this point. Too much planning. I used to be a planner. I would make weekly, monthly, yearly and beyond goals ALL THE TIME. Thankfully after a long but much needed lesson about how God is in control I am much more able to live in the present and let the worries of tomorrow wait for tomorrow. I'm not saying don't plan I'm just saying that we live our lives in a way where we are always looking forward to the next thing.

It's a boyfriend, then marriage, then kids will make you happy. Then grandkids, retirement and moving to a little house on the beach. And then you realize at the end of your life that you were too busy working towards nothing that you forgot to look around and experience life and truly living.

If you got to here, I'm impressed...

Feel free to remark, observe, vent, ask questions, judge all that good stuff by commenting :)

Added Bonus: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PzoxTgfRO0