Getting Ready!

I'm taking a breather this weekend to finish getting ready for our party, which starts Monday! :D Can you believe it's almost here already?!

T is for...

Tiny kitty...

Taking his first bath!

This is our new kitty, Pebbles :D Isn't he the cutest thing?

Military Brat's Lament

As a military child, I get to see the world.

But when it's moving time again, I feel like I could hurl.

I've been to England, France, Japan - I love to travel around.

But I wish that I could do it without living there year-round.

It's well and good to see the sights, taste the language and the food.

But after several weeks or so, I wish the trip would conclude.

I want a normal life, you see: A house my family owns -

In a town I'll have grown up in, where I won't feel so alone.

Movie Review: 180

180: Award-winning Documentary
33 minutes that will rock your world!

Watch it FREE here.



Click the photo to buy

Some of you may have noticed or wondered about the banner at the top of my blog - you know, the big red and black movie ad.  As all of you know, I'm a teenager (a minor - 18 and 19 year olds are not teenagers in my mind)  As many of you know, I don't sell advertising space on this blog, ever.  I share my honest opinions of products and services, and if I really like something I'll promote it.  The movie advertised in the banner is called 180, and it is a 33-minute award-winning documentary about the Holocaust, abortion, and Jesus.

In this film from Ray Comfort and Living Waters, the street evangelist speaks for a few minutes to several different people.  He surveys Americans, mostly around college age, on their knowledge of Hitler and the Holocaust.  After asking what they'd do in various situations - whether they'd kill Jews if their life were at stake, whether they'd kill Hitler's pregnant mother, etc. - he then asks their stance on abortion.  They share their views and when they feel it's okay to kill the baby.  After more questions and discussion, all seven of the highlighted individuals have changed their pro-abortion stance to pro-life.

Using an adapted street survey method similar to his and Kirk Cameron's evangelism show, The Way of the Master, Ray reveals the correlation between the German Holocaust of the past and the American Holocaust of the present.  This film has been heavily criticized for putting too little significance on the German Holocaust, but as a Jewish Christian who has researched and written books on the subject, Ray does quite the opposite.  He has also been charged with putting too much emphasis on abortion and abusing the memory of the Holocaust.  When the number of children killed today is ten times the number of Jews killed then, I wonder how they can even think such things.

The DVD also has two trailers for the film, a short abortion facts video, a video message from Ray, two CD-style audio messages, and the option of English subtitles.  This was a tasteful but truthful movie dealing with horrific topics that are all too often forgotten or ignored because of the tragedy behind them.  I recommend it to everyone, with a warning that there are some graphic/disturbing images of the Holocaust and it comes with a public advisory warning.

Upon request, I received a copy of this DVD to review from Living Waters.  All opinions expressed are entirely my own.

30 Day Challenge: Day Eleven - A Photo of You At Least Five Years Ago

Oh my. Exactly five years ago would place me... in a very cold and snowy rural area called Rome, New York.  I was... let's see... almost eleven.  Oh, that was the year Dad was in Korea.  He had just left sometime in October, and we did a present a day for twelve days before Christmas with Mom that year.  She read little explanations of the Biblical meaning behind each gift in the song.  Then on Christmas Day when we opened the rest of our gifts, we tried to include Daddy via webcam but it didn't quite work out, if I remember correctly.  Those were the days of innocence and bliss, where the Internet was wholly unknown to me and the perfect summer consisted of climbing trees and making an Olympic track out of the swingset.  Before Okinawa and teenagers and Facebook.... wow, it was a different life on a different planet.  Literally.  (Almost.)

I don't have any photos - none - from before Oki, so I'll go Google Dad's name and see if I can find his photo website.  (The website has photos from every place we've lived and chronicles practically our entire lives in pictures.)

Whatdyaknow?  It's the second result.  This is kinda cool.

Of course.  It only has photos from every *overseas* place we've been, plus a few vacations.  Arg.  Well, it did say the photo had to be at least five years old, so I guess my around-preschool-age self in Germany would count.  Let's see what we've got...

Wow.  Quite a few.  Although some of them are more focused on the landmarks and buildings in the background, so of course only my family knows who the tiny people are...

Man, this is fun!

Okay, I'm sure you're all bored to death and just want to see the photos already.  I've found several, so I figured I'd share more than one.  Here goes!

Nevermind.  Due to the large number of photos I've found (and how am I supposed to pick just one?!) I'll go make a Kizoa slideshow instead.  Just a sec.

NOW we're ready:

Very Young Me In Europe - make slideshow

I always thought looking at your own baby photos was boring.  Who would've known how fun preschool photos could be?

Friendlight Friday

Bailey from Big House in the Little Woods



 I had friends -- I couldn't help myself -- but they weren't good enough. They all had some fault...

I don't quite know how it happened, but a few years later I have several close friends who look nothing like me at all. Not a single one of my best friends is the same denomination as I or likes my same books or shares my same convictions or agrees with me in every single way. In that sense, we're not likeminded -- not in the sense I was searching for.

Then again, I found girls who looked just like me -- homeschooled, skirt-wearing, homemakers-in-training types who had nothing in common with me. We weren't likeminded, in that sense, at all. I could not spill my heart in front of them like I could my other, different friends.

I wondered at that for a long time. Really, it isn't a mystery at all. I had stumbled upon the profound truth that most "Biblical" Christians have sometimes swept under the rug: the unity in Christ isn't in skirt length, family size, educational choice, profession, income, fringe-line beliefs or anything but the solid rock of Jesus Christ Himself. Even if I felt nothing in common with different Christians, I had everything in common with them. Isn't Christ enough?


Read the rest of this post here...

Meet Bailey here...

NaNo Summary/Wrap-Up

Well everyone, I have crawled out from under my NaNoWriMo/Thanksgiving Break/Grandparents' Visit rock and back into the light of everyday life. NaNo's over, we're back to school, and my grandparents went home. We saw The Muppets (it was cute, but not my thing) and I ate just enough turkey (yum!). But I'm sure you're all dying to know how my NaNo went... okay, so a few of you are and the rest are bored to death. I'll tell you anyway.

I failed - but I won.

Let me explain. I failed (miserably) at making my word goal. The adult NaNo goal is 50,000 words. My goal was 20,000 words. I didn't even make 10,000 words. And part of me feels like a pathetic wimp for it.

But I learned how to contain my Inner Editor; I learned how undisciplined I really have become, and what needs to be done to fix this problem; and I broke the horrible Fiction Writer's Block that has been plaguing me since mid-summer. So I'd say my first NaNo, however small my word count, was a huge success.

How did your NaNos go? Any [official] winners here? Any UNofficial winners who would like to share what they learned or accomplished?