Generalismo

Someone remarked there was none in a way that indicated there ought to be one. So here it is

My birthday was yesterday and my family threw a surprise party. It was really amazing, and silly me, I didn’t realize it was a surprise party till it was almost over! I thought everyone just heard there was volleyball at the gym :D  We had planned to get together with two families that we know (one we were staying with) and play volleyball at the gym, and a few of their friends who usually play with us came. And then someone showed up to the house that I had been thinking about inviting to play volleyball with us but he lives a few hours away. And another friend showed up who I haven’t seen in two years, a few of his friends showed up for a while to play volleyball with us. Two people made cakes and they all sang happy birthday (which always makes me feel funny, what are you supposed to *do* when they sing? Smiling is always good, I guess.) It ended up being a very fun and lovely 21st birthday party. Couldn’t have asked for better. I think back and it’s been 5 years that I have had birthdays while on the road. Arizona, Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia, and another Kentucky.

I am so blessed. Besides the party, I got to spend the day with friends here in Kentucky (we’re staying with them), a friend sent a gift in the mail, which is a first for me, I think, and I got a phone call and three emails And the facebook stuff- don’t let me get started, because there are so many people on there that took the time to say happy birthday that I couldn’t list them all. I feel funny listing off all these good things that happened, but I’m grateful to God for all the people around me, and I feel like praising Him for the kindness givers. God is great

And it’s time for breakfast, so I better run!

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I’m starting to feel a teensy bit nervous about leaving. I had ideas about leaving my room in a nicely organized state but those plans are definitely not  going to happen now. I keep feeling like I’m forgetting something.

I just remembered one of them - it’s raining and my bike is sitting out there in the rain *groan*. I’m also hoping to get passport applications in before we leave and time is getting shorter and shorter. It’s not that it’s not enought time to run down to the town hall and apply. It’s the fact that I may have done something wrong that I won’t be able to correct in the time I have, and then not be able to apply before we go.

ETA: What do you know, the clerk is out and has been out for several days. So we have to stop at a post office someplace on the road I guess.

Well, Bonnie is not all that together for this leaving for the trip, but sooner or later she’ll level out. Probably while she’s lying in her bunk conjugating verbs, with no distractions except the roar of the bus engine and the chatter of people playing computer games. I fell asleep once while they were playing and all of their cheering and yelling was in my dream - I couldn’t figure out who’s side was the good side because it kept changing.

I am going to miss people I know online. Some trips the internet doesn’t mean a thing to me and I don’t bother to hunt endlessly for wireless, walking around the walmart parking lot twice and climbing big hills to see if there’s a signal from the commercial building nearby. But this trip, I will probably do a good deal of wifi hunting.

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Going on trips always holds unexpected surprises. There are so many variables, and so many things that can happen. Last time on our trip, I finished my Spanish book. This year, I want to get well into my German book

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Last night, I saw the stars. It’s silly to go on and explain anything about them - look up on a clear night and you’ll understand everything “I saw the stars” entails. But I’ll try anyway, and say that it is one of the most amazing experiences to look up and see what God has created, and think of the earth in relation to the stars. It was surreal last night, and I wish I had taken a blanket out and lied on the ground for a while. We don’t have a very big place to view the stars from, since a house is right next to us and there are trees and things around, but what I can see is incredible. It just blows my mind. It makes me want to call out to God and proclaim how amazing He is.

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I am back to “debating” at a forum and at times it’s driving me nuts. I really need to take a break, and have been planning one halfheartedly for a while, but I haven’t brought myself to tear away from the threads I’ve gotten myself entangled in. It is making me do funny things like have an increased heart rate (as far as I can feel) and flex my jaw. Of course, to think that everyone should agree with me would be to say that I’m right - but undoubtedly, I’m wrong and mistaken often enough. But it hurts my head to see some of the things that get said.

Sort of in the same vein (IE “frustrating” and “confusing”, I can’t figure out why people think it’s so gross to discuss things like armpit hair. I guess I spend too much time at the LHC - Long Hair Community where everything gets discussed in the health forum - there’s a 288 reply, 29 page discussion titled “The “I don’t shave” thread!” Of course, some people get in with their opinion on why they do shave, and others shave sometimes or occasionally, etc. But I guess I thought that when I grew up I stopped thinking armpit was a dirty word and that it was OK to see armpit hair without being embarrassed.

It is strange to see a secular community who are not ashamed to not following society’s rules - that say to be a woman you must shave/remove all visible hair other than on your head, you must wear make up, you must do this, etc., and it’s strange to think of other groups of “conservative Christians” trying to follow them and feeling that they are indeed obligated to do so by society and our culture itself. What’s up with that? Am I missing something?

What do you think (I wish I could add a poll) - are we bound to our culture’s ideals as far as they are not sinful?

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First some posting, then some ranting. Check out this cool little site called YearbookYourself.com You upload a picture of yourself and come up with aged looking pictures. Or maybe you already have old looking yearbook pictures

Here are a few from me.

Second off, the ranting. Does anyone know how disheartening it is to get junk email? I have my mail to check every minute and I’m always getting these lovely sounding “dings” from Outlook. Lo and behold, it’s not lovely messages from people, it’s SPAM. It’s a machine posting porn to my website or someone trying to sell me something. It almost makes me want to write a song about it.

Rhett and Link should do a song on that. Here’s one of my faves from them. (Not a song, though.) It’s them trying to eat other people’s food at a Turkish festival.

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I’m going to post these without putting them in order, so you’ll have to be content with captions explaining

Ruthie and Carol in the bus with other people who came with us on the way to the beach after our day of concerts

Shay buried in the sand on the way back from where we swam

Some of us in the water - it was FREEZING!!!

Singing in the tower that had a lovely stone staircase. Huge slabs of stone. It had a lovely echo, too!

Some of us on the drive home

The Fort - super cool place!

Bonnie, Ruthie and Emily

Had to get another in-the-window picture

Last but not least, Amanda and Hannah

This is definitely not a complete collection of pictures - there were so many!

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I just realized that I have been blogging just over 5 years. Crazy, when I think of how much I’ve changed in the past 5 years. It’ll be interesting to me, when I have time, to go through more posts. When I came here in May, I hadn’t realized I had posted at the other one for so long.

Here are a few random things, quotes and observations:

October 29, 2003:
“Please pray for my family and myself, that we will not all have nervous breakdowns!”

I used to spell “upon,” “apon.” (lol!)

October 10, 2003
“Due to this lack of practice, I’m going to try to be online only once a week. ” HAHAHA.

In March of ‘04 I was writing eagerly about getting the motorcycle out to ride and it wasn’t until ‘08 that the bike got repaired and I got to ride it!

I have been declutterizing forever. It will continue for a long time, no doubt

I learned how to unicycle in 2004.

June 2005
“For those of you that might be interested, I’ve been running for over a month and have lost 10 lbs. I’m really not trying to anymore. I gave up dieting after the first few hours and figured if I was meant to be fat, then I was. But running is different. It’s a challenge. It’s something tangible. During the first few weeks I complained to a friend that I couldn’t even run a mile without stopping, and he said “Sure you can. Just make a goal and stick to it.” I ended up running a whole mile the next day.”

I first youtubed in February ‘07

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End of random data.

However, I must say that the further back I go, the more comfortable I am with reading it. I can disconnect myself from it and some of it I even enjoy reading. It’s something like pictures. Most of the time even pictures that I absolutely can’t stand of myself will look OK a year or two later (and I will then claim that undoubtedly my current pictures are the worst).

One more thing.

Quietly I contemplate
So much has changed
I never thought this was to be my fate:
To be so satisfied

The past is gone
Th future is near
The present is now
Eternity was always here

Suddenly I feel peace
Looking at the past
Knowing there’s a tomorrow
And that eternity will last

Quietly I contemplate
Nothing has changed but me
God meant for this to be my fate
And He will always be

August 10th, 2003
B.J. MacDonald

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1. Bonnie, 2. Pizza Porn, 3. New Beginnings, 4. Meeting the pregnant princess of the forest, 5. operated Bogart, 6. WIRED, 7. Winter dusk (Yllas, Lapland, Finland, Nordic countries, Europe - Arctic), 8. Good News Ice Cream!, 9. looking through the mirror glass, 10. I s o l a t e d, 11. indecisive weather, 12. candy lamp in candy shop

I played a fun game that Amanda had up.

Here’s how it works:

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker. Choose 3 columns with 4 rows.

The Questions:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to? (or, What year did you graduate high school?)
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name. (kid version: favorite animal?)

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I’m not drinking it, but I could be wearing it. A friend introduced me through a forum to a perfumery that makes all sorts of strange an eclectic perfumes. They have at least three years’ versions of Egg Nog - it makes an appearance every winter. There are perfumes like Bengal that smell like pepper and cinnamon, Stimulating Sassafrass Strengthener (think root beer), Lear (cedar), Paris (lavender), Ophelia (roses), and Morocco (vanilla and spices). They also have scents of amber, patchouli, and other common notes, but I can’t think of any off the top of my head.

I’m not a big fan of the company itself, but I’ve managed to get my hands on some of their sample vials second hand. It’s a lot cheaper, and somehow I can’t bring myself to buy directly from their company. But, anyhow. I took out my stash this morning after not having worn any almost all summer and whoosh, there I was back in the beginning on June, at the concert that I wore a locket scented with Antique Lace (vanilla, mostly). I’m standing by the side of the bus, waiting to go in and holding the locket up to my nose for another whiff. It is really incredible how smells will take you back. Ahhh.

In general, I’m not a big fan of perfumes but I’ve got to admit these little things are pretty neat if only for the novelty factor.

Egg Nog, anyone?

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Well, it wasn’t all that early. When my alarm went off at 7:30am, I figured I’d just wait a little longer in bed since I don’t have to be downstairs for devotions till 8am. I re-woke at exactly 8am, probably because my watched beeped the hourly chime. So I started for downstairs and then halfway down I realized because we sang last night, I didn’t have to get up till 8:30am (just a bonus sleep in day for singing So I went back to bed with my alarm set for 8:25am. Alarm goes off, I jump out of bed and head downstairs and THIS time, halfway down, I realize that today is Sunday and I can sleep up till 9:30 or so. Needless to say, I didn’t go back to sleep, I just went and got coffee and junk.

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I looked at my archives not too long ago and realized how educational this blog used to be! I mean, hey, every post was about how to do something, or facts about something, or pictures of something I was doing. I have been reading a bit more than usual lately and have come up with a humongous list of vocab words. Here are just a few of the ones that I’ve never heard before to my recollection.

• Pish: used to express disdain or contempt (I guess this is like pshaw)
• Sago: a starch derived from a sago palm, used as a thickening agent
• Hebdomadal: a period of 7 days; weekly
• Palliate: to relieve or lessen without curing; mitigate; alleviate; to try to mitigate or conceal the gravity of (an offense) by excuses, apologies, etc.; extenuate.

And yes, some of these words I had to look up in the very large dictionary in the house. Some dictionaies I just don’t understand - the one I picked up yesterday didn’t have the word “varmint” in it!

Some of the words of my list I only wrote down because although they’re familiar and I can understand them in context, I couldn’t explain what they mean to someone. Also, some of them I don’t know how to pronounce! When you’re reading, it’s very good to have a notebook handy to jot words down that you don’t know.

I don’t bother to look them up while I’m reading - unless I am not understanding the passage without knowing what the word means. When you have to look up as many words as I do, your reading would be significantly delayed by looking each one up right away.

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Here are us at the Darts playing cups

And playing Vball.

We had so much fun with you guys I think we should start some kind of volleyball association and have games for a week long or something

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I went to help Carol move someone’s desk this morning at the secondhand place she works and I realized the old one would be gotten rid of. So I asked for it, and brought it home on a hand truck. Cleaned it up and stuck it on the last bit of wall I had left. It inspired some wall changes as well.

I didn’t like the red on my old bulletin board so I cut a piece of material and tacked it on around the edges.

And the trumpets came back to the wall.

I got some kind of box out of a dumpster. It was a little big for the walmart bags used as trash liners, and the bottom fell out, so I decided to make some alterations.

Electric tape on the rough cut edges. (It’s basically cardboard :P)

I like my trashcan again Before, the bag was always falling down and it just did not work.

Finished!

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