Three Billion Pictures from Summer

Three billion is my number of choice right now, apparently. lol. 

How many people are getting married this fall? 

Three billion. (The odds are in your favour.......) 

How many places in this world do I want to travel to? 

Three billion. (The main one being Ireland. lol.)

Anyways.... basically, I just spent way too much time going through some pictures from this summer, and then a ton more time waiting for them to upload. And some of them are practically the same, and you will probably look at them and be all "why did she feel the need to upload both of these pictures?" and i totally can understand why you would feel that way. 

But the thing is..... I love them. lol. 

You don't have to though! =) 

And these are not pictures from a ton of different events. they are just a lot of pictures from a few different things that i did this summer. because i really did not take that many pictures this summer! 

Anyways, here we go.....

Collecting shells on the beach was THE thing to do this year. =)

this is me. lol.

wendy with her pink bucket. I just like whatever it is that her hand is doing there. lol. 

me and renee being so happy together. 

i have no doubt that i am sharing some wonderful bit of wisdom with wendy in this picture. you know how big sisters are. 

the sunshine was superbly bright that evening. it made for some awesome pictures, and some pictures that just did not turn out because it was too bright. 

this is wendy dancing around in the water. so are the next few pictures after this. 

"Hey, Wendy, wanna come hold my hand for a picture? Please? Wendy? Come hold my hand, Wendy. Come on." Lol. Kid didn't want to hold my hand. It took some serious convincing. lol. 

"See? It is not even that bad." lol. 

She makes me laugh. =)

Renee sitting on the awesome big rock. 

This is the face of a child who no longer wants to have pictures taken of her. Also the face of a child who wants to go swimming. Or at least back to the cottage. 

I love the light in this picture. Renee took it at the perfect angle or something. Good job, Renee. =)

This was one side of my head after renee was finished with my hair. I like it. yes, i do. lol. sorry.... it is late at night, and i'm tired, and i have to wake up in like, four hours for work, and so i'm just kind of powering through this, which explains why the things that i am saying are not witty or funny or even particularly interesting. lol. 

wendy on the rock. 

yes, it is yet another flattering angle for photos. cause there is nothing better than looking at a picture and seeing knees and feet before you find the people's faces. lol. 

The cottage is... -oh, how shall we say it- a happy time. =) 

The great thing about kenton is that if you sit there long enough and take many many pictures of him, he will provide you with many different expressions. You just have to be patient. It is worth it in the end. =) 

One of those perfect summer days.... 

ooooh! this was at the beginning of summer! at wonderjam! this is the Leviathon. Funnest rollercoaster ever!!!! Not as scary as the Behemoth!! Like, i think, if you rode this one too much, it would maybe get.... boring??? not like the behemoth, which never fails to scare me. lol. but this was the perfect way to end a day at canada's wonderland. even if i did have to miss out on part of the awesome skillet concert to ride it. seriously... last year, i did not like skillet when i saw them at wonderjam. but this year??? they were completely awesome. and i'm so sad that i had to miss part of their show. but happy that i rode the Leviathon. mixed feelings are going on here... lol. 

this is on the way to york, PA. Not a particularly good picture... I just think kenton and curt are funny there in the back seat. lol. 

again. a bad picture (my face looks crooked?? do i have a crooked face??? i wish someone had told me...), 

but kenton's intense eyes in the back make me laugh every time. lol. 

"Why are you taking a picture of us? What is wrong with you" lol. 

me and kaylin and the vein in my forehead. lol. yup. it's still with me. =) 

me and kayleen and jana. 

jana's moment of brilliance. =) 

me and trish. and phil. lol. the thing that is funny about this picture is that we have a railing in between our heads. lol. 

and... we match!! look at us!!! =) it was just awesome to be with trish again, after weeks and weeks of not seeing her while she was in Mexico.... and we had a ton of fun planning the sunday school lesson that we were supposed to teach. that was just... funny. lol. and we didn't have a bed, or an air mattress, and so we slept on the floor, and it just got a bit harder each night... lol. good memories. =)

me and jana waiting for the  bus. yes. if you see anybody with one of these expressions on their faces, you can pretty much guarantee that they are waiting for a bus. it is the "waiting for a bus" expression. lol. sorry. 

don't know what's wrong inside my head tonight. =)

me and jana getting on the bus. 

me and jana on the bus. lol. 

me and tory!! =) once again... talking instead of participating. this seems to happen at least once every summer. lol. 

me and meg!!!!!! it took a lot of work to get this picture! lol. laying on a bed in our tiny cottage with three billion happy, loud, talking possibly-Italians like right outside our window. so many memories! like thinking that we would go swimming while the sun set on friday night (lol yeah right... the absence of sun= cold. plus, there were so many little fish!!!!!! i hate little fish!!!! i cannot hardly stand to be in the same water as little fish!), and setting off the smoke alarm while cooking, and making good food (like spaghetti! and turnovers. but we didn't make those...we bought them! at wal-mart. which does not sell those air mattress thingers that you use to float on in the water. which is dumb. they do, however, sell noodles. but it's just not the same, you know?), and visiting the lady who owns the cottage that my family goes to, and getting confused on the way home, and listening to the wonderful cd that meg made of all of the songs that have meant something to us at some point in our friendship......... good times. "we don't even have to try, it's always a good time...." lol. 

oh!!! 

and if you want to read some of the best writing in the whole entire world, you should go look at meg's blog, because she happens to be one of the best writers in the whole world!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and someday, she is going to be famous, and when she is, don't you want to be able to say "ha. i read her blog and knew how wonderful and talented she is before the rest of the world did." would that not give you a great sense of satisfaction?? okay... here is the link: http://pensamientospequenos.wordpress.com/. follow it, and be amazed. =)

this was a fun night with megga! we went walking, and the sun was just so pretty!! like, you could almost like, touch it, and feel it in the air or something. so of course it made us a little silly, and we decided to take three billion pictures of our shadows. but i just put one of them on here. and it is not even the best one. i do not know what is wrong with me. lol. 

well................
that is a tiny glimpse of my summer 2012.
it was a good one.
actually, i think it was the best one. =)

His Thoughts

Okay.
So.
I have been suffering from this huge case of writer's block.
Chapter 7 is just the dumbest chapter in the whole world. I simply cannot write it.
And I know exactly what the problem is.... I'm just having trouble fixing it.
The problem is that I don't know what I want to say in it. And writing without a purpose is never ever a good thing. In order to say something to people, you have to have something that you want to say. That may or may not make sense to the rest of you, but at least I know what I mean. =)
And it is not that I haven't had this problem before... it's just that other times when this happened, I would just kind of write until I accidentally stumbled upon the message that I wanted to share.
But chapter 7?
I just kept blindly writing and rewriting, reading over each sentence, anticipating the moment when that tiny, hidden piece of wisdom that I feel every teen girl should know would pop out at me.
Unfortunately, it never did. lol.
So finally, I was like "Okay, Jasmine. Pick a lesson or some kind of theme, and weave it into your chapter."
So that is what I did.
And the theme that I chose was trust.
At the beginning of each chapter, I do like, a page or so of introductory thoughts, in an attempt to draw reader's minds a bit deeper than the actual plot of my story. lol. If something profound is going to be said by me, it will most likely be in the first page of a chapter.
And since I have finally written a beginning for chapter seven that I do not absolutely hate, I have chosen to share it here.
I don't know why.... because it is not even good. Like, you should read the beginning of chapter 2. now that is a chapter beginning that I feel okay about.
But, no, I am going to put the beginning of chapter 7 on here. lol. Seriously, do not expect profoundness, or you will be disappointed.
Also, if I happened to have a conversation with any one of you recently, in which we talked about one of us being arrested AGAIN for certain activities (which may or may not involve closets. lol.), and the other one of us having to pay for their bail AGAIN, then you should know that you totally had something to do with the inspiration of the beginning of chapter seven. =)
Anyways... the beginning of chapter 7:

Let’s play a game, shall we?

I like to call this game “If you found yourself in a jail cell at one in the morning, who would you call to bail you out?”

I know... it’s a lengthy name.  

But don’t be intimidated. Anyone can play!

It doesn’t matter if you are four years old or 99 years old.

Although, to be honest, I can’t really think of any circumstances in which either a four year old or a 99 year old would be arrested.

And as much fun as it would be to continue pondering that, I think it’s time for me to get back to the question that I really want you to think about.

If you had been arrested, and had the right to make one phone call, who would you call?

There are some things to consider here.

You want the person that you choose to have enough money to pay for your bail. That’s important.

But more importantly- perhaps most importantly- you want to know that the person you called would actually be willing to drag themselves out of bed to come get you.  You would want to know that whatever it is that connects the two of you runs a whole lot deeper than the pull of sleep.

Basically, you need to trust the other person.

Trust is kind of a funny thing.

It happens unexpectedly, I think. It begins without you even realizing it. It starts out as something small, and builds up over time- perhaps years and years. And then one day, you are stunned and almost frightened when you discover that you have unknowingly placed your trust in someone else. 

At least, that’s the way it worked for me.

And the person that I trusted was not one of the people that I would have said that I trusted. But when it came down to it, and I needed help, he was the one who came to mind.

He had never been anything but dependable and loyal.

Completely trust-worthy.

Trusting him was easy.

Do you know what is a whole lot harder than the trust that comes without you even realizing it?

Choosing to trust.

Deciding to put your faith in something or someone, even when you are unsure. Even when everything inside you is telling you that it’s not worth the risk. Even when it doesn’t make sense.

For a long time, I chose not to trust in what I could not see. 

The other thing about trust is that it can be destroyed. Very quickly. With no warning at all. 

It doesn't matter how many years it has had to accumulate. 

Once it's gone, it's gone. 

I learned that the hard way. 

Okay. 

Well. 

That is that. lol. 

I think part of the reason that I chose trust as the theme for this chapter is because it is such a big thing in my life right now. 

Just learning to trust, and to believe that God really does have a plan, and that it is better than anything I could ever dream up for myself. 

I started thinking about trust a couple weekends ago, while I was at Girls' Journey. 

And one morning, the session was about God's promises. And Cor (the speaker) talked about how we are sometimes very hard on ourselves. 

I know I am. 

I have just never really realized it until she talked about it. 

I am so used to calling myself names, and feeling disappointed in myself, and beating myself up, and telling myself that I am not even half as good as everyone else that I did not even really consider the fact that I don't have to do that to myself. 

It is just what I have always done. For as long as I can remember. Sitting there, in the chapel, listening, I could not even imagine what it would be like to live life without being dissatisfied with myself. 

And then we were all given rocks, and told to write the names that we call ourselves on the the rock, and throw it in the lake, a symbol of our choice to no longer believe the lies that Satan tells us about ourselves. 

Later that day, I heard girls talking about how they had just "tossed their rock in the lake". 

And I thought "Why was that so easy for them? And why can't it be that easy for me? What is wrong with me?". 

Because, you see, I still had my rock. 

It was given to me on saturday morning, and I still had it on Saturday night. 

My rock...  

Covered with the names that I have called myself for years. 

The names that I chose for myself. 

The names that seem so fitting for me. 

And once I used them once or twice, they stuck. 

There is an odd security in those names. 

I know them. I respond to them. 

They are so easy to believe. 

They are always there, in my mind, whispers that infect all my thoughts, and can cause me to doubt even the very best gifts that God has given to me. 

But I discovered something in my Bible that Saturday afternoon. 

God's thoughts? 

Are different than mine. 

It says so in Isaiah 55:8,9. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Lord. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." 

If God's thoughts are different than mine, and my thoughts about myself are negative... then God's thoughts about me must be.... positive? 

And His thoughts are higher than my thoughts? 

Well, yeah. 

My thoughts hold no significance at all compared to the thoughts of God. 

And time and time again in the Bible, God makes it clear that his people are valuable to Him. That they are loved, and that they belong, and that He has chosen them, and that they are valuable. 

In fact, God believes that we are so valuable that we were worth dying for. 

So you would think that this would be enough to convince me to just throw the dumb rock in the lake already, right? 

But no. 

I am more complicated than that. lol. 

See, the thing about throwing the rock in the lake was this: as soon as I got rid of it, I was saying that I was willing to stop calling myself by all those names. That I WOULD stop calling myself by all those names. 

And I just was not sure if I could do that. 

Like I said, those names are so familiar to me. They are what I am comfortable with, and what I respond to all the time. 

To exchange those names for others seemed almost impossible. 

I couldn't imagine the inside of my head not being filled with insults directed at myself. 

I couldn't imagine responding to "Loved" and "Chosen" and "Beautiful" and "Valuable" instead of "Failure" and "Ugly" and "Worthless" and "Invisible". 

So I kept the rock. 

Until Sunday afternoon, when I was all packed up and ready to leave. That rock had been on my mind ever since it was given to me, and suddenly, I decided that it was time to do what I knew God was asking me to do, even if it seemed like more than I could do on my own. 

So my rock and I walked down to the lake, and I threw it as far away as I could. (Which was not actually very far, because my arm is stupid that way. lol.)

Wow. 

That was a lot of words for a relatively small happening. lol. 

But throwing the rock in the lake was when I realized how necessary trust is. 

Because I still want to call myself by the old names, because for some dumb reason, I still believe that they describe me perfectly. 

But God has said that His thoughts are not my thoughts. His thoughts go waaaaaaaaaaaaay above and beyond mine. 

I just need to believe that. 

Even if I don't understand why or how. 

I need to believe that God views me entirely differently than I view myself. 

So yeah.... trust. 

It's a big thing right now. =) 

               

Playlist for a Rainy Day (proof that my ipod knows me)

I like rainy days.
I do.
It is a good feeling to wake up and hear the rain even before you see it. And then you look out and it is perfectly gray and green and everything looks shiny and clean and some of the things that normally just blend in with the rest of the world stand out a bit more, because they are dark from the dampness and the contrast distinguishes them.
On rainy days, I just feel like writing.
Writing and writing and writing. Writing so fast and so furiously that my semi-colon/colon key falls off my keyboard. oh wait! I already did that. lol. (now it looks kind of like my keyboard is missing a tooth or something. but i like it like this, because it reminds me of that time that i co-oped at the Independent, and had to use a laptop that missing the comma key.)
The problem is that it never rains on days when I have time to write!
Like today... I had to help mom make salsa, which involved a lot of chopping! Too much chopping. Too many onions. lol.
Anyways... even though I couldn't actually write, I was still very much in a wordy sort of mood, so I thought that I would listen to some music while I worked, and focus specifically on the lyrics, and notice which songs actually used words well... like which songs effectively produced emotion. because i am all about learning how to create emotion, thanks to that one year adventure novel course.
So i set my ipod on shuffle, and began listening, and honestly, it was like my ipod knew which songs would suit my mood on a rainy day! It was just one great, kind of sad, wordy song after the other.
So I thought I would share some of them with you. They are not really unknown songs at all.... Just songs that are very fitting for a rainy day!

Great, Kind of Sad, Wordy Songs:
-"Without You" and "Everything Good" by Ashes Remain
-"Not Alone" and "Hymn For The Missing" by Red
-"Winter Air" by Annasay
-"Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol
-Any song by Switchfoot. Lol. But especially "Thrive" and "Where I belong" and "Restless"
-Any acoustic song by Anthem Lights... especially "As Long As You Love Me" and "Can't Get Over You"
-"The Voice" by Celtic Woman
-"I Won't Give Up" by Jason Mraz
-"For the Nights I Can't Remember" by Hedley
-"Come By The Hills" by Celtic Thunder
-"A Thousand Years" by Christina Perri
-"I Am A Stone" by Demon Hunter
-"10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord)" by Matt Redman
-"I Will Always Love You" by Whitney Houston (oh, Luke and Lorelai... I will always love you. and i will always believe that you were meant to be together! You are the whole entire reason that I like this song! lol.)
-"Jesus, Friend of Sinners" by Casting Crowns
-"Changed" by Rascal Flatts
-"White Horse" by Taylor Swift
-Anything by Shinedown
-"MLK" by U2
-Lots of songs by Seabird... like "The Sound of You and I" and "Trust" and "The Good King" and "Rocks Into Rivers".

Okay... well, that ended up being kind of a long list. lol. But I just love them all so much. =)
And I found a really great verse in my Bible about rain! (I bet it's in your Bible too! =))
Isaiah 45:8- "You heavens above, rain down righteousness; let the clouds shower it down. Let the earth open wide, let salvation spring up, let righteousness grow with it; I, the Lord, have created it."
And I was thinking about it... and rain plays quite a prominent role in the Bible!
I mean... Noah's ark... there was a whole lot of rain involved in that! God used it to cleanse the earth of the evil that had become so prominent. I wonder if He is ever tempted to do that again...
And He also uses rain as a blessing... or rather, the lack of rain as a curse. Elijah caused the rain to to um... stop raining for a good long time, because of the sin of the people. I think. lol. In Zechariah, it talks about how the families who did not go to Jerusalem to worship the Lord would not receive rain.
The Bible also mentions (maybe in Job? and some other places? sorry... I did not do enough research before writing this...) that God demonstrates His power by commanding the rain and the snow. Yeah... Job 37:6- "For to the snow He says, "Fall on the earth", and likewise to the downpour, His mighty downpour..."
okay. It's time to end this before I get any more scattered. lol.
......uh... The End. lol. I never know how to end blog posts!!