Random Monday Pictures (and maybe some thoughts too. I haven't decided yet.)

Well, to quote some of my favourite people in the world, today I am in a "tadly random mude". =) 

That is why I have decided to do a blog post of random pictures! lol. 

And I will possibly share some random thoughts that I have had in the past week too.... 

Who knows? Maybe I will officially declare every Monday as my day to do a random blog post. We'll have to see how that works. 

Mondays generally are pretty random days for me... and I love them! 

One thing that I love about them is that there is generally time on Monday afternoons for me to spend a long time doing devotions, which, right now, includes reading Eric and Leslie Ludy's book "Wrestling Prayer", and ahem- catching up on Bible readings. lol. 

So anyways... it's time for random pictures! And some of them may be kind of related to eachother, and therefore not totally random, because I kind of pulled them all from the same general folders. (That sentence may cause you to wonder exactly how I organize my pictures, after you have seen these ones. lol.) 

This is my fish!!!! His name is Oscar. Oscar Fish. Oscar Fish is very fun to say if you say it out loud, and as one word. Oscarfish. It sounds a bit Russian or something. lol. Fish Oscar is also fun to say. Fishoscar. You should try it! It's fun. I promise. Oscar is a wonderful fish. The best fish a girl could ask for, really. There is not one single thing I would want to change about him. Well, except for the fact that he apparently has violent tendencies (due to the fact that he is a betta fish), and so I cannot buy a friend for him. I mean, I could, but I would have to keep them in separate bowls, or else they would fight to the death. Which I actually think would be fascinating to see. I mean, how do fish even fight? lol. But.... I like Oscar, and he is all the fish I need, and so it doesn't really matter that there is only one of him. And for the most part, he seems to be a very gentle fish. Well, except for the time that he ate a fly that was not even totally dead yet. But he generally just swims around his bowl, and watches me while I do my devotions or email or write. I have not yet figured out if he ever sleeps. I do, however, know that he is the best fish in the world. and the prettiest. 

This is photo editing at its classiest. =) Well... maybe not. lol. But I forgot about this puppy! A couple Christmases ago, we had puppies, and all of them were sold, except for this one, and so we used to go out and play with it, so that it wouldn't get too lonely. lol. And since it was close to Christmas, I apparently felt the need to add snow and Christmas lights to this picture. It really adds something, huh? =) 

Me and Megga at Leisure World. What good times we have there. =) 

This picture was taken several summers ago.... and we were all smiling nicely for it. I promise. We really were. And then just as I snapped the picture, the sun came out reallyreallyreally brightly, and this is what we ended up with. =) 

Oh Wendy... your face is just... intense. lol. 

Me and Ben and Jamie!!!! a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time ago. lol.

Me and Joy. Being happy on a bench. =) 

Seriously... if you could have seen what was going on on the other side of the room, you would have made the very same expression, okay? lol. actually, the only thing that was happening was that the "feliz cumpleanos" poster that I had made for meg's birthday decided to fall down at that very moment. My face may have over-reacted a bit. It does that sometimes. lol. none of that explains why we are wearing blue hats.  there isn't really a wonderful explanation for that. We just... are. lol. 

And... random thoughts (yes, i have decided to share some of them. lol.): 

• So, Joy and I are reading through the Bible in four months. And it is intense. lol. But reallyreally good! I started out with a word document open so that I could take notes while I was reading... but that got kind of annoying, so now I have just started writing things in my Bible. I am being reminded of how much I love the Old Testament. Some things that I have read recently that I thought were interesting.... 
• Numbers 25: 10,11- "The Lord said to Moses, 'Phinehas, son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites for he was as zealous as I am for my honor among them.'" Wouldn't that be awesome?? To have God Himself say that YOU were as zealous about maintaining honor and purity as He is????? 
• Leviticus 10:10- "You must distinguish between the holy, and the common, between the clean and the unclean." notice how it does not say that we are to distinguish between the "holy" and the "unholy", but the "holy" and the "common"? God knows that humans get distracted. And that sometimes, it is way easier to be distracted by things that aren't really wrong. Like, we know what things are BAD. so we avoid them. But then we just throw ourselves into the common things. the things that aren't bad, but they're not the best. We need to be able to tell the difference between what is holy, and what is just... common. Because common things... are not what God has in mind for us. He has better things for us! After I read this in the Old Testament, I moved on the day's reading in the New Testament, and couldn't help but notice that the disciples lived this out. It was the part where Jesus is calling them to be His disciples, and He's going around and collecting them. They were just doing what they would have normally done on an ordinary day... they were working and stuff. But then Jesus calls them, and without hesitating, they just leave their jobs behind, and follow Him? Why? Because they distinguished between the holy and the common. They were willing to exchange the common for the holy. I kind of wonder if the common things seem incredibly lame when they are in the presence of holiness. I think they must. Sometimes I can feel it... how insignificant so many of the things that I put my time and energy into really are. And other times, I am too distracted to think about it. But I should never lose perspective like that. I place way too much value on my possessions and activities. 
• Chicken McBites are here! in Canada! (when i said "random", i meant it. lol.). Seriously, it is about time that McDonalds brought something like this to us. Ever since they took away McMinis. That was a tragic day. I am still dealing with the after-effects of that. I will probably never recover. But it will be better now that there is actually something kind of snack-sized to take the place of Mcminis. No more of this buying happy meals for snacks. who even wants to eat yogurt when they are at mcdonalds anyways? lol. 
• I bought a new coat!!! I love it, and want to be with it forever. 
• I made my bed twice in the past week. Which has to be some kind of record for me. 
• Kenton's birthday is on November 20th, and he is turning 16! What should I buy him???? =) I remember 16... it really doesn't feel like long ago at all. 
• I am excited about Christmas. Very excited about Christmas. The whole Christmas thing. like, the time before and after it. 
• Gingerbread bazaars.... do not actually involve that much gingerbread. I was disappointed, to be honest. Popcorn just does not take the place of gingerbread. mostly because i like gingerbread, but don't like popcorn.

... And I think that is about it. =)