Humph.

Well, I had something I was going to write about. And I can't remember what it was, and I asked Sarah (because she was there when I decided to write about whatever it was) and she said that she can't remember either, but whatever it was, it was boring. *pouts*

Ah! I just thought of something to rant about. First, look at this link (Warning: creepy and gross): Link... Have you looked? Don't read on until you looked and really studied the picture. And read the description. That's important too. If you're still reading and you thought you could get away without looking at the article, you were wrong!

Okay, everyone read it now? And looked at the picture? Good.

Oh, MY, GOSH!!!! That has GOT to be the WORST book to ever be written! Quick, enjoy the last month and a half before publication, when life as we know it will suddenly become 10 times worse! AHHHHH!!!!! It's sacrilege! It's indescribably awful! How can you combine ZOMBIES, of all the most childish, stupid, horrific and idiotic fantastical creatures, with something as classic, genteel, well-written and beyond amazing as Pride and Prejudice? It's malicious! Ooooh. *shudders*

I'm so disgusted.

~Lizzie

Healthy??

Manfred Muller, a homeopathic nutritionalist, visited our Radical Wednesday group tonight. This is the second time he's visited, and it's always very interesting. This time, he mentioned quite a bit about how cell phone, microwaves, nuclear plants and mercury are so hard to avoid and so harmful. I always thought we were pretty healthy. As I was sitting here eating my extra-large helping of dessert (that didn't get served at the meeting because it went too late) I was thinking how it's entirely organic. It has lots of sugar, but it's organic, evaporated cane juice. We use healthy toothpaste, shampoo, lotion and gum. But we can't avoid the mercury and all the other toxins in the air. And, on top of that, Mr. Muller reminded us that even organic foods can get pesticides and other harmful things from run-off, and mercury in the rain.

It seems that it's completely impossible to avoid harmful things. Sometimes it makes me want to give up entirely and just eat whatever I want. I like soft drinks (with carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup and "natural flavoring" -- which is supposedly MSG), and tons of other things that are so laden with toxic substance that you just kinda want to NEVER eat any food again. But if I'm constantly breathing mercury and many other horrible things, why shouldn't I just go into denial, eat what I want and have a pleasant short life, instead of a long, paranoid and yucky-tasting one?

What really bothers me is that if I really want to be healthy, the first thing I should probably do is stop saturating myself with chlorine for 2 - 2 1/2 hours 3 times a week. That can't be good. But I love swimming, and it's such a nice way to keep in shape.

*sigh* I was happy eating organic foods... wasn't it good enough that we hardly ever went out to eat? Now we'll probably never eat out again. I don't know if I'd even want to. The thought makes me sick. But I recovered quickly enough from the last health-oriented Wednesday meeting. Much more quickly than I should have...

~Lizzie

Broadway is losing it!!

What do you think of when someone mentions Broadway? I think of "Wicked" and "West Side Story." "The Little Mermaid" and "The Lion King" (even though I'm kinda undecided about the respectability of those two). And, my ultimate, all-time favorite, "Phantom of the Opera." "Shrek the Musical"?? NO!! No, no, no, no, no!!!! The stupidest children's movie ever! How about "Monsters Inc" or "Toy Story"? Both of which would be bad enough on Broadway! Intelligent people do NOT pay $85 - $135 (just a guesstimate) for a CHILD'S show! Are you going to take little Johnny and Emily up to NYC and pay more than $500 to let them see something they won't even appreciate? Are YOU going to want to see a "baby" Broadway show?

Jessica told me about Shrek going on Broadway at swimming (was it last week?) and we were disgusted enough then. Jessica, you need to look at the Broadway listings. Decent shows (like Phantom) are the MINORITY. Guess what else I found is on Broadway? "You're Welcome America. A Final Night With George W. Bush" starring Will Ferrel. Are you KIDDING me?!?!?

The final blow: Phantom is going OFF Broadway.

Broadway, you have officially lost ALL my respect and the respect of every decent American who still knows what a good show is. You have crumbled under the pressure to dumb down and become nothing better than extremely expensive mind-congealing TV muck on a stage. And by the way, what in the WORLD were you thinking with Ariel's costume for "The Little Mermaid"?

Well, I was going to post a picture so those of you who may not have The Little Mermaid videos on YouTube could understand what I was talking about. But I guess I'll have to post a video. *huge sigh* Like those instruction manuals that warn that toasters are hot, I feel compelled to mention that her top consists of two, um... shells.



And now after watching that video, I have another rant. First of all, I can't believe that they twisted the story so that SHE is the one who saves the day and that the actress says it's important in our day and age. I would say that our day and age makes it MUCH MORE important that the MAN still be the hero. And secondly, I always have and always will hate the line in that song, "maybe on land, they understand, that they don't reprimand their daughters... bright young women, sick of swimming, ready to stand..." She is not bright; she's disobedient and... and I don't remember the story very well, but she deserves a lot more than a reprimand. So there.

~Lizzie

First Attempt at Flower Arranging

Mom brought me some flowers home from Costco today, because she knows I've been dying to try my hand at arranging flowers, and unfortunately, there's nothing of the flower variety to be found outside around our house yet.

I've never really tried to arrange flowers before because I had no idea how to go about it. All the arrangements I tried as a child (with dandelions and buttercups) never turned out like I wanted. All in all, I'm pretty pleased with my first official attempt.


I wish the greenery didn't stick out quite so much, but that's the way it grew, and there was nothing I could do about it.


I waited until it was getting dark out to take the pictures, and the "Available Light" setting my camera kinda makes it look black and white...


But it's kind of blurry without flash. And the flash looked bad.


I love roses!

I really enjoyed arranging these flowers, so I'm going to try to do it more often, and maybe get some more ideas (I got some ideas from Trina's blog), definitely collect some more vases (from Goodwill and yard sales) and hopefully start my own flower garden this year.

~Lizzie

In Honor of Valentine's Day: My Take on Love

I love a lot of people: God, my family, my friends, my brothers and sisters in Christ, and all the people in the world. And someday, I hope to love one special someone that God has planned for me.

So anyway, I've been thinking about WHY I love people. I came up with several side reasons, which I will share for your benefit.

I love God because He loved me enough to send His son to die for me (and also, being three-in-one), died for me, and now lives inside me.

I love my family because when you're stuck with people long enough, you eventually decide love is easiest form of coping. (Just kidding! I love you guys because of all your special traits, and because you tolerate me better than anyone else! :P Okay, I'm incapable of being serious... let's leave it at, I love you guys because I do. Don't worry, I'm getting to a point.)

I love my friends because they're my friends. (Yeah, I'm going with simplicity. Don't be offended. I command you.)

I love my brothers and sisters in Christ, not only because the Bible commands us to love one another, but because we share a common bond in our love for God.

I love the people in the world because I believe "neighbor" ("love your neighbor as yourself") means anyone living on this earth.

And it hit me, that I chose to love all those people. True, I have my reasons. I have reasons that I love my family better than the random person on the street. But it isn't an uncontrollable emotion like a puffy pink cloud that can dissipate or turn into a rain cloud. And that's the difference between the love of a Christian (who has Christ's capacity for love "He first loved us" and "while we were yet sinners, He died for us") and the love of someone who "falls" in and out of love, and might not know any kind of love except love of self and romantic "love" (if it could even be called such).

This is a new idea for me, and I'm sorry if my thoughts are confusing. I'm trying.

I think on most levels, choosing to love isn't too difficult for most Christians to accept. God commanded us to love everyone, to love our brothers and sisters in the Lord, to love and respect our parents. And you choose to love them by your actions, even when you may not feel a mushy love feeling (which is how you CAN love people all the time. Everyone knows you can't force the warm and fluffy feeling).

But, for some reason, I lose people when I talk about one day choosing to love my husband. You see, I'm not waiting to fall in love with a guy; I'm waiting until God shows me a man that is a God-fearing Christian of maturing character, that I can respect and honor, and who will love me as Christ loves the church. I don't have to fall in love with him, because once God says he's the one, I will choose to love him. I suppose this sounds very cold and unromantic to some people, but I've realized that on some level, you choose who you "fall in love" with, even if you don't realize it. Personally, I think it's more romantic to deliberately choose to love someone for the rest of your life, instead of just uncontrollably "falling" in love with someone. Love that is fallen into is shallow and easy to lose. Intentional love is serious and true, and models the love that God has for us.

Love is patient (telling your brother for the fourth time in a perfectly calm voice that his shoes are actually where they're supposed to be, which is why he can't find them under the couch)

Love is kind (doing the dishes, even though it's not your turn, because everyone else is busy)

It does not envy (even though your little sister has loads of talent in all areas and you don't)

It does not boast (even though you might have actually accomplished something noteworthy!)

It is not proud (unless you're proud of someone else. ;) )

It is not rude (even though that lady ahead of you is in the express checkout with WAY more than 10 items, and you just need to buy this container of ice cream that is freezing your hands off)

It is not self-seeking (which means that you know your friend would really like an ice cream sandwich, so you give her the last one, even though you'd been dreaming about it for the past 2 hours)

It is not easily angered (whether or not you just overheard someone tell a blatant lie about you)

It keeps no record of wrong (which means that you forgive the person who told that lie about you, and then get over it)

Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth (Okay, this is the end of the examples...)

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

(And for the record, all of my examples were fictional. Don't get any saintly or unsaintly ideas about me from them...)

By the way, I actually don't like Valentine's Day. I think (and if you haven't gotten this point yet, you need to reread my post) that you should show your love all the time, and Valentine's Day is just another day for Hallmark, candy stores, flower shops and jewelry salesmen to make more money.

Here's to real love, every day, all the time. Especially when you don't feel it.

~Lizzie

Yay for spring-like weather in February!

If this is global warming, bring it on! Who cares if the polar ice caps are melting? (Okay, just kidding...)

This lovely weather was just what I needed to boost my spirits. I'm definitely a spring person. I like a little snow because it's pretty, but cold and shivering for too long drives me crazy. I love being outside with warm air and cool breezes.

Oh, and I was so excited! We had sparkling bubbles in the pool yesterday! They're usually just boring bubbles, but yesterday they were all sparkly and kinda rainbow colored. It was so cool! Alex was saying she wished we had underwater cameras so we could take a picture of it, but that it probably wouldn't look the same in the picture. And that made me realize something kind obvious that I'd never really thought about before... pictures are never the same as being there because you don't feel the same as when you took the picture. It probably has something to do with cameras not being as awesome as the eyes God gave us, but I think it's also because you just aren't there. For example, even if I could show you a picture, you probably wouldn't understand why we were excited about sparkly bubbles. But if you were swimming in a somewhat dark pool (because half the lights are off for some odd reason) and you're in the middle of a monotonous set of backstroke and you're kind of bored, and kind of tired and you roll to do your flip turn and see sparkly bubbles, suddenly you're just happy. Or maybe you're not. If you're a guy you might not care about sparkly bubbles at all. But it made Alex and me happy...

What does it sound like to you if a swim coach asks if you want to play a game called "Go Down 4 Times, Come Up 3"? (Don't answer if you heard this yesterday...)

~Lizzie

It has been requested...

and now will be fulfilled... however unsatisfactorily. A new blog post...

Last week, I did school. This week, I'm doing school.

The end.

Just kidding.

Unfortunately, my life has been somewhat uneventful, and there isn't much bloggy fuel. We've had so many basketball games that they all run together in my head, and I can't say more than that Middleschool lost today, and JV and Varsity won. I don't remember how the games Saturday went. That's how bad my memory is. Swimming has been normal. My water polo team won both our games Wednesday. School is school, and I hardly have time to get it done. Voice is getting harder, I have a song that's pretty high for me, and I can't get up high enough on command, so I'm working on that. Dance is fun. Theatre is cool. We don't have the play cast yet.

I've been feeling kind of subdued recently, which could be why I haven't come up with anything to write about (yeah, my life is usually uneventful, just the same things over and over. Which is nice, sometimes). I have my posts where I'm in the "depths of despair" and all I do is whine. And then I have posts where I'm feeling happy and somewhat hyper and I just talk.

Subdued is a new feeling for me. I'm not depressed, sad or angry, but I'm not exactly happy either. I'm just listless.

I made bicuits to go with soup for supper yesterday, and they turned out better than I've ever had biscuits do (biscuits are so awful for me. Sarah's usually turn out lovely, and I just have no natural cooking skill) and I was pleased that they turned well, so I tried them again tonight. And they weren't as good at all. But they have progressed well enough that my brothers still complained that I didn't make enough. That's always comforting.

I've also gotten it into my head that I would like to make a quilt. I have never made a quilt before in my life, but all of a sudden I just want to try one. But I've decided to put it off until I get a collection of material from other, smaller projects. I hardly have time for homey projects though, with all the time we spend running all over the place.

And it's also starting to get to me that I'm going to be 18 in early June. Every since I was 10 or so, I looked forward to 18 as the age where I would probably have everything together, have become the person I wanted to be and be at the beginning of the next stage of my life. But here I am, with only 3 and a half months to go, and nothing is together, I'm nowhere near the person I want to be, and I don't see my life changing any time soon. I'm very much afraid that 18 is going to be just as disappointing as every new age always was. I always hoped that "13 will FEEL different! There's just something about 13..." Now I know that mental change happens slowly, and doesn't have that much to do with age.

I think I've exhausted everything I could think to write about. I'm sorry, Abigail, this was pretty dreary, and probably not what you had in mind... :)

~Lizzie

Memory skillz

I used to be able to recall almost any interesting circumstance in the past 2 years or so with certainty. Someone could mention something that someone said at such and such a day, and I could say, "Oh yeah, so and so said..." and proceed to relate the entire conversation, who was there and what we doing. And then my friends would look at me as if I'd just played back a hologram video like R2-D2 does in Star Wars.

It's not that I cared that I was being compared to a droid from an unrealistic space movie. I didn't try to stop remembering so well. But somehow I did, and my memory is reduced to recalling adults first names (despite always calling them "Mr. ____" and "Mrs. ____" and only hearing their first names once or twice) and random telephone numbers.

Someday I'll probably be a parent asking MY child "What's so-and-so's mom's name?" and asking for someone's telephone number. Hopefully by then I will have forgotten my own former memory skills or else it will be very frustrating for me.

Actually, it's already frustrating. What WERE we doing when that person had an opportunity to say whatever it was that they said? And what was it that they said, and why was it so funny???

*sigh*
~Lizzie

Superbowl XLIII

I'm not a huge football fan (this was the first game I watched this year), but I do enjoy the superbowl. It's always nice to have a good excuse to eat tons of junk food, drink soft drinks, go crazy and shriek like a maniac. And I always enjoy watching commercials that are apparently worth millions of dollars. This year, the minimum was 3 million for 30 seconds.

However, this year I was actually cheering for a team. Just a combination of liking Kurt Warner, and somehow acquiring a dislike for the Steelers (despite never watching games... need to reconsider that one). I'm not going to describe my feelings during the game because I don't know any of the terms (I know touchdown! hehe... he. Heh. Never mind) so I'll just say, if you don't know, the Cardinals lost, and I am sad.

The commercials were also sadly disappointing. For at least a third of them we had to take regular breaks to check the weather (oooh, the temperature is steadily dropping AFTER NIGHTFALL and the doppler is totally clear. Amazing) and the acceptable ones were generally boring.




The career builder one was my favorite. I was seriously laughing. Sadly though, it doesn't seem that funny now.

This is Jessica and David waving cell phones during the halftime show... like all the people in the stadium were.

It was a lot of fun. Even if the Cardinals did lose. I guess I really don't have a right to care since I didn't follow the games all season.

Happy February!

~Lizzie