Sunday, January 28, 2007
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
storylines...
I wrote this awhile ago but it feels like it belongs in this week...
:: :: ::
I've been thinking about life stories. How they are written... who writes them... Are the journeys of our lives predetermined for us? Or do our choices have more control over our destinies? What about the the things that happen to us that don't make any sense?
Have you ever done one of those creative writing games, where you each take turns adding one line to the story, then you pass it to the next person, so they can only see the one line written before? One person might start off writing a fairytale, and the next turns it into a mystery, and the next into a suspense novel... And the cleverest of all can take a story almost at a dead ending and with a few words bring it back to a whole new beginning again.
Maybe our life stories go something like that. Maybe there are a certain number of lines already written for us, from the beginning of time... Then there are a certain number of lines that we write ourselves... and a certain number of lines written by the people we choose to add to our lives... but there are also a certain amount of lines allowed to be written by other people that we don't necessarily have any control over.
Maybe it's the order of those lines that God can see, and rearrange, and supersede. And maybe, although he doesn't erase and doesn't delete the lines that have already been laid, if we only let him, he can write in between the lines, changing the meaning entirely.
Maybe things like the choice of where I live next is one of the lines I write myself. Maybe the man I will marry is one of the lines already written that hasn't been added to the story yet. And maybe what's amazing is that no matter what enters into my story, I can always trust God to bring me to the perfect ending.
Maybe it's more than maybe.
:: "We will not know unless we begin." –Peter Nivio Zarlenga
:: :: ::
I've been thinking about life stories. How they are written... who writes them... Are the journeys of our lives predetermined for us? Or do our choices have more control over our destinies? What about the the things that happen to us that don't make any sense?
Have you ever done one of those creative writing games, where you each take turns adding one line to the story, then you pass it to the next person, so they can only see the one line written before? One person might start off writing a fairytale, and the next turns it into a mystery, and the next into a suspense novel... And the cleverest of all can take a story almost at a dead ending and with a few words bring it back to a whole new beginning again.
Maybe our life stories go something like that. Maybe there are a certain number of lines already written for us, from the beginning of time... Then there are a certain number of lines that we write ourselves... and a certain number of lines written by the people we choose to add to our lives... but there are also a certain amount of lines allowed to be written by other people that we don't necessarily have any control over.
Maybe it's the order of those lines that God can see, and rearrange, and supersede. And maybe, although he doesn't erase and doesn't delete the lines that have already been laid, if we only let him, he can write in between the lines, changing the meaning entirely.
Maybe things like the choice of where I live next is one of the lines I write myself. Maybe the man I will marry is one of the lines already written that hasn't been added to the story yet. And maybe what's amazing is that no matter what enters into my story, I can always trust God to bring me to the perfect ending.
Maybe it's more than maybe.
:: "We will not know unless we begin." –Peter Nivio Zarlenga
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
adventures of design man...
I really was planning on a more inspiring blog entry this week, but then I saw this... and couldn't help myself.
One of my personal missions in life is to eradicate the world of Comic Sans. No, it is not okay to use for professional documents. EVER. Not on your resumé, not on your letterhead, and please, please -- NEVER on your organizational chart.
Fonts matter.
:: “Excellence is in the details.” – Perry Paxton
One of my personal missions in life is to eradicate the world of Comic Sans. No, it is not okay to use for professional documents. EVER. Not on your resumé, not on your letterhead, and please, please -- NEVER on your organizational chart.
Fonts matter.
:: “Excellence is in the details.” – Perry Paxton
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
minus 3 degrees...
(that would be -18° celcius...)
Yesterday was a good day for freelancing... one of the perks being I can work in my bathrobe without leaving the house. :) Speaking of bathrobes, I have to say a publicly huge thank you to my friend Melinda for having the foresight to give me the world's most luxurious bathrobe (personally endorsed by me and Oprah) as a homecoming gift. It's like wearing a full-body hug...
There are also certain perks to being a girl in my family... I have to admit to feeling a tiny bit guilty in the mornings, listening to the sound of my dad snowblowing the driveway while I'm still under the covers, or sitting at my computer in the afore-mentioned bathrobe with a steaming cup of coffee while my brother trudges out to warm up his car for a half hour before driving to his outdoor construction job.
I did leave the house twice yesterday, actually... once for snowblower lessons, (yes, in -3 degrees), so I'm at least prepared if all the men in our family are somehow simultaneously incapacitated. The other outing was to see Charlotte's Web with my niece and nephews, which I loved for bringing a warmly loved story of my childhood to life and was worth braving the frozen air for.
I seriously don't know how my brothers can pound nails in below-freezing temperatures, or how they can be at all productive digging their projects out from under snowdrifts every other day. My dad says it'll give them good stories to tell their grandchildren... This is my dad who took off yesterday (solo) in his single-engine airplane (in the same -3 degree temps) for a 3-hour flight over water and mountains with about as many hours of daylight to do it in...
Somebody asked me not long ago what I'm looking for in a man... I guess being able to run a snowblower, pound nails in winter and fly across wilderness would be a starting point... Or I might settle for two out of the three.
You think I'm kidding...
:: "A healthy man, indeed, is the complement of the seasons, and in winter, summer is in his heart." – Henry David Thoreau
Yesterday was a good day for freelancing... one of the perks being I can work in my bathrobe without leaving the house. :) Speaking of bathrobes, I have to say a publicly huge thank you to my friend Melinda for having the foresight to give me the world's most luxurious bathrobe (personally endorsed by me and Oprah) as a homecoming gift. It's like wearing a full-body hug...
There are also certain perks to being a girl in my family... I have to admit to feeling a tiny bit guilty in the mornings, listening to the sound of my dad snowblowing the driveway while I'm still under the covers, or sitting at my computer in the afore-mentioned bathrobe with a steaming cup of coffee while my brother trudges out to warm up his car for a half hour before driving to his outdoor construction job.
I did leave the house twice yesterday, actually... once for snowblower lessons, (yes, in -3 degrees), so I'm at least prepared if all the men in our family are somehow simultaneously incapacitated. The other outing was to see Charlotte's Web with my niece and nephews, which I loved for bringing a warmly loved story of my childhood to life and was worth braving the frozen air for.
I seriously don't know how my brothers can pound nails in below-freezing temperatures, or how they can be at all productive digging their projects out from under snowdrifts every other day. My dad says it'll give them good stories to tell their grandchildren... This is my dad who took off yesterday (solo) in his single-engine airplane (in the same -3 degree temps) for a 3-hour flight over water and mountains with about as many hours of daylight to do it in...
Somebody asked me not long ago what I'm looking for in a man... I guess being able to run a snowblower, pound nails in winter and fly across wilderness would be a starting point... Or I might settle for two out of the three.
You think I'm kidding...
:: "A healthy man, indeed, is the complement of the seasons, and in winter, summer is in his heart." – Henry David Thoreau