The Mushroom Forest

DTS, day 46!

2012-02-26T05:04:00.000-08:00

I'm so sorry I haven't had the chance to post more in the last couple of weeks.
Life here has been crazy :-)

Mark Parker's week finished out intensely with a 12 hour tabernacle day on Friday. We went to the class room at 9 am and finished at 10pm, with about an hours break for meals in the middle. It was such a great day, but very emotionally (and physically) exhausting. We did SO much worship, and a lot of other stuff. It was a very family building day for the DTS. 

This last week's lectures were on Biblical Worldview and the 8 Spheres of Society, taught by Leah Broomfield. It was really good - very calm after last weeks teaching. We went through each sphere individually, and looked through the Bible (mostly the Torah) and looked at what God's perspective/view of that sphere is... I don't know if that makes sense how I wrote it, but it was really cool. 

On Friday night for local outreach, we went to Brighton with sidewalk chalk! We drew a huge square on the sidewalk under a street lamp, and wrote "Prayer Floor" in big letters across the top. As people walked past, we asked them to draw or write their prayers or dreams, and we would pray for them. It was so much fun! Brighton is a very good place for it as well, because I can imagine it would be hard to get many people to join in in a less... free... city. I love Brighton. 

We had our first outreach team meetings last week! It was so fun. We have a really crazy team - I think this outreach is going to be awesome. There are 13 or 14 of us. Eeh! So excited. 

I've been sick for about a week now, and It just keeps fluctuating between okay and awful. Ah well, life is still good. 

Oh yes! The weather here has been AMAZING for the past few days!! It has been perfect spring weather. Sun, but not too much - and the birds are singing, and the grass is green... we have been eating outside and climbing trees. They have the most perfect climbing tree here - it is fantastically wonderful. 

This week the September DTS arrived back from their outreaches in Morocco, Moldova, Bermuda and India. This coming week will be their debrief week, and then they graduate next Friday. It's weird having loads of people in the house. Some of the India girls brought back henna with them, and were sweet enough to try it out on us :-) Love. 

Wow, we are leaving for outreach in 5 weeks now. I can't believe how quickly it's coming! 

Still praying for outreach fees as well, but God will provide, so I'm not particularly worried :-) 

How is everyone? I haven't heard from anyone in a long time! You still alive? 

DTS day 34.

2012-02-14T07:11:00.000-08:00

    This week we are studying Relationships and Identity. Our teacher, Mark Parker, is very surprising :-) just sitting and chatting with him he seems fairly quiet and reserved, but when he stands up to start teaching... WOW. He's got some lungs on him. He likes to hop around the stage and shout and sing, and do all kinds of crazy things :-) At first I thought I would get frustrated with his crazy style, but as the day went on yesterday I learned to really like his teaching style. He is just so real and enthusiastic about his topic. The teaching is really good, but it's pretty overwhelming. He says SO much in every lecture, you don't have time to soak any of it up. I feel like I won't really get this week all the way until next week when I get a chance to read back all of my notes. There is just SO much content.

    Sometime in the next couple of days we will be finding out our outreach teams and locations!! Ahh, so nervous! We are all sitting on the edge of our seat, waiting for the moment to come...

    Yesterday evening we were informed that all the girls had to come down to reception at 6:50 in the morning. I have to admit, there was quite a bit of grumbling amongst us, even though we knew whatever the reason was, it would be good. It's just that none of us are morning people.
Anyhow, we came down this morning (some still in our pajamas :-) ) and found that the boys had all gotten up even earlier, and made us a lovely breakfast. They were so sweet, walking around the tables serving tea and pancakes :-) They even performed their own beautiful version of You Raise Me Up for us. Some of the girls said it was their best Valentine's ever :-) Sooo sweet. Our DTS boys (and staff. and guest speaker.) are awesome.

Oh my, oh my. How the time passes.

DTS Day 31.

2012-02-11T06:46:00.000-08:00

    Hola! It's been a while. My updates on here may become a little more spread out, because my computer is having issues, so I am having to borrow other people computers to get online.

    This week has gone by really fast. Our topic for the week's lectures was Spiritual Warfare. The whole week was a bit off though, because the base was hosting a huge conference for the International DTS Centre, so there were LOTS of people. Our lecturer was also here for the conference, so we had to have an inverted schedule, and do lectures in the evenings. It would have been fine, but we were all sooo tired in the evenings, even though the teaching was really good, sometimes they were hard to stay awake through.
The lecturer, Leo, was from Uganda, and had some really crazy stories about spiritual warfare at work.

    ALSO this week, we were given the different locations for outreach, and given an amount of time to decide which team we want to be on (well, more like which team God wants us to be on). So intense!

    I can't even believe how fast time is going. We are already 4 weeks in! That means we are a third of the way through lecture phase, and a sixth of the way through the whole school! We leave for outreach in about 7 weeks! Mah! What the heck!! Too crazy.

How goes life outside of Holmsted?

Abbey

DTS, Day 25; Our crazy Saturday.

2012-02-05T06:52:00.000-08:00

Wow. Yesterday was so fun.

We went to Brighton to go shopping all day (well, more of window shopping). I hate shopping when I have to get something in particular, but when I have no plan and nothing that I need, It's fun :-) We spent all morning going to H&M, Urban Outfitters, Primark, etc. Very girly. It was really fun to just go out with no agenda and hang out :-)

THEN, in the evening, we went to meet some of the other group, and when we finally got to where they were, OH MY GOSH. It was so wonderful. I was home. It was like, these little side streets packed full of independant shops. There were Bohemian shops, and vintage shops, even a Bonsai tree shop!!! IT WAS SO AMAZING. I want to live there. It was like the little (well, not so little) sub-culture part of Brighton, and it was perfect. There was even a Cyber-dog! So crazy. I HAVE to go back there sometime when it isn't evening, and when I haven't already been shopping all day.

So then we split off into groups to go eat dinner, and ended up at McDonalds. Not particularly classy or gourmet, but it was fun.
When we went back outside, it was snowing!!
Eventually, we ended up at an Italian restaurant where we shared some desserts, and had some really bizzarre and random conversations.

It was about 8pm, and we didn't particulary want to go straight home since we barely ever actually get off base, so we decided to walk to the beach a few blocks away. It was so much fun, running across Brighton beach in the dark, in the February cold while it was snowing.

So we headed home, hoping we wouldn't get stuck in Haywords Heath, since British people don't really drive in the snow. On the train ride home we kept getting more and more excited as we passed through the different train stations, and saw that the snow was getting deeper and deeper. We did in fact make it all the way home, although we did pass a couple of car accidents on the drive back. The little back roads here are so fast and twisty - not good when it's icy.

By the time we got there, there was already about an inch of snow, and being who we are, we couldn't resist having a middle of the night snow-ball fight before everyone else got to it the next morning :-) I've never had a real snow-ball fight, because we never have enough snow! It was sooo much fun! Everytime we tried to go in it started all over again. I think it ended up lasting for about an hour and a half. I couldn't feel my fingers or my toes by the end, and my eyes were burning from getting hit in the face - it was great. We looked so funny going in all covered in snow, with make-up all over our faces and our hair soaking wet. I think everything I own is damp now.

We decided to finish the night by watching a film with tea and hot water bottles. So nice, although I repeatedly drifted off through the whole movie, because the day had been so amazingly tiring. Going to bed in the end was so wonderful, after such a great day.

Waking up today and looking out the window at the snow covered trees and fields was wonderful. A bunch of the team is having a big snow-ball fight in about 15 minutes, but I don't think my muscles will let me join in. I am so unbelievably unfit and I think last night's craziness wore my legs out for the next week :-P

How have everyone's weekends been? Miss you all! xx

DTS Day..... 23?

2012-02-03T09:50:00.000-08:00

Mah! This has been a good week.
Last weekend we went to London for Chinese New Year! It was crazy. We got the whole tourists-in-London experience - Trafalger Square, Big Ben, cheesy phone booth pictures, Westminster Abbey, getting completely lost and seperated from our group without any of their phone numbers... all of it.

It was... exciting. I got a little paper Chinese dragon, and it made everything worthwhile.

This week's topic was Destiny by Design, taught by Joylynn Landshut, who is from Washington State, but lives in South Africa. Oh gosh, it was soooo good. It was all about our dreams, our gifts, our identities, and our destinies. It was so awesome, because at the beginning of the week a lot of us thought we didn't have any dreams, and she just helped us recognise that we DO have dreams, and that God put them in our hearts. Eeeeh! I am so excited for the future.

One of my favourite things from this week was an excercise we did yesterday afternoon. We all wrote on pieces of paper the negative things about our identities that we or other people had believed and/or spoken out about ourselves. Then, we stood in a circle around a bin, and took turns speaking out the lies that we had been believing about ourselves, and each time someone said one you had been living under, we would rip off a piece of our paper and throw it in the bin, and then declare the truth!
Did that make sense? Because I don't really feel like it did. If your confused, just comment.

Anyhow, it was soooo great! I really can't believe how many lies I have been believing about myself for a really long time now. It was really freeing. I know that throwing pieces of paper in a bin doesn't really sound like it would help anything, but it was a physical action to concrete what was happening in the spiritual.

We are going to Brighton to hang out tomorrow, I am excited :-)

Oh my, we are also going to Brighton TONIGHT to do street evangelism (give me strength). I'm nervous. It is going to be so very very cold.

OH and I found out my parents are going to Macedonia tomorrow?? What the heck?! I am sooooooo jealous. But I'll deal.

What has everyone been up to? Missing you all!

I guess this is DTS day 17...

2012-01-28T08:50:00.000-08:00

Wow, I can't believe that. It seems like two things, like I have been here foreeever and this is just where I have always been, AND contrastingly, like I just got here, and that that much time couldn't possibly have passed yet.

I cannot believe that the first week of lectures is over! What the heck!
This week's teaching was called Jesus and the Cross, and Giving up Rights. Our guest speaker was Pete Thompson from England,who lives in S. Africa. For the first few days a lot of us had a hard time catching what he was trying to get across to us, because he had a very African way of teaching, that didn't really make sense to us. The 3rd and 4th days though, were a lot more structured, so I think a lot of us got a lot more out of it. Along with the main subject, he talked on forgiveness and hearing God's voice. The talk on forgiveness in particular was really good. He outlined what forgiveness is, and what it isn't. I've never heard anyone teach it like that, and it was really helpful.

This week it has been three different people on the teams birthdays! So funny. We are having a party tonight, for everyone whose birthday is in January. Should be exciting. Tomorrow, we are going to Londonnn! Whoo! We are going to celebrate Chinese New Year in China Town! We also decided that since we will already be in London on a Sunday we might as well go to a service at Hillsong.

You know what? You don't realize how freeing it is to have your own kitchen until you no longer have one. I have been DYING to bake alll week, but alas, I cannot. I want to make cupcakes. Muchly.

Anyhow, how is life where you are? Missing you all!

Abbey

DTS day 9

2012-01-22T04:24:00.000-08:00

So I have been here now for 9 days... Wow.

    Lectures officially start tomorrow! Eeh! So excited. Our guest speaker is already here =D
This whole last week has been an orientation week, so we have had some teaching, but not loads. We had teachings on sort of the basics of YWAM's beliefs if you will - Worship, Intercession, Hearing the Voice of God, etc. The lectures have been so good, even if they weren't nearly long enough :-)

    On Thursday we watched a lecture that Loren Cunningham gave in 1977. It was really awesome to see how a teaching from over 30 years ago can still be so relevant and mind-altering. It was on giving up rights, but to an intense extent. It was about relingquishing everything to God - our families and loved ones, our freedom, physical health, marriage, even our lives. It was really cool.

    My work duty is cleaning nearly the whole basement floor. It's funny, because in the past I have never been into cleaning - I admit it, I can be pretty lazy. But somehow, I look forward to my work duties almost everyday. I can't wait to get downstairs and start sweeping ans scrubbing sinks. Very strange. For one thing, I feel like it is really good training for taking care of my own home someday, and I love that. It is also over two hours everyday that I get to spend alone with God. I'm not saying I have perfected that aspect yet - I usually end up praying for one a few minutes and then getting distracted with my own thoughts the rest of the time - but I am hoping to get stronger, and teach myself to focus on God in that time, and get less distracted :-)

    Yesterday was a team building day, where we split into teams and completed a load of games and tasks together. The games were surprisingly fun, seeing as I'm normally not into group games like that.
    Ooh, last night I got to talk to my mom and dad for the first time since coming :-) it was fun. We talked for about two hours. Love you guys!

Anyhow, how is everything where you all are? Missing everyone! xx

-Abbey

Umm.... I'm cold!!

2012-01-18T11:12:00.000-08:00

This place is SO beautiful, but since it's an old building, it is FLIPPING FREEZING!

     We have all started taking our hot water bottles with us to class, and refilling them between every session. I literally wear three layers of clothing all day, everyday. I am used to it being frigid outside, but not THIS cold inside! Ahhh, so cold.

    I suppose though, that I shouldn't complain - we have it pretty good. - One of the staff told us the other day, about how when she did her DTS here in the 70's they would only turn the heat on for two hours every day, and twice a week they were given a jug of hot water to wash their hairs with. She also said that they had to set a rota in the girls room, of who would get up 9in the middle of the night to flush the toilet, so that when they got up in the morning it wasn't frozen solid... Okay yeah, we have it pretty good.
     But nonetheless, I wouldn't mind being able to feel my fingers some of the time!

The weather has actually been getting better these last few says though, and I am so looking forward to a sunny spring!

;A

DTS Day 3!

2012-01-16T10:50:00.000-08:00

I still can't believe I'm here.

Today we had our first lecture-ey things, got our work duties and got our final student! Yay!
I am so excited for the lectures to officially start.

I have been having so much fun getting to know my school and the base here. Both the people and the building seem amazing.

Yesterday afternoon we all got to take a long walk on the walking paths, through woods and fields. It was soo beautiful. I will never cease to be amazed by the beauty of the vivacious green Earth.
         Then, last night we all gathered in the beautiful, antiquated Leather Room to sit around the fire and share the stories of how we were each individually led to this DTS. It was so lovely to hear everyones stories!
Tonight and tomorrow night we get to do almost the same again, only this time sharing our testimonies of how we came to know God. I am so nervous, I hate speaking to groups of people! I always panic, start babbling and completely forget what I was going to say. Oh well. I'll try anyway :-)

So yes, I am getting very comfortable here, and I am so excited for everything to get going!
Of course I still really appreciate everyones prayers for the school, the outreach, fees, etc.

God bless!
   ;Abbey

First day at Holmsted!!

2012-01-14T08:47:00.000-08:00

I'm here!! What the heck, how did this even happen?!
God is so crazy. =)
Most of the students are here now, all aside from 2 I believe. There are 23 of us in total, 18 girls and 5 boys. Wow. Intense. Especially since there are mostly male staff. This should be exciting :-)

The rooms have triple bunk beds, how cool is that? I got the middle, thankfully.
We have our first meeting tonight!! Wow, I can't believe this is genuinely happening!!
There are a lot of Americans on this school.

The Manor is SO stunning!! I can't even believe how gorgeous some of the rooms are. It's fantastic.

And the grounds are beauuutiful. So green!! So many trees!! I haven't had much of a chance to explore outside yet, but I am quite sure I will be spending a lot of my free time out there.

Oh My Goodness!

2012-01-12T14:33:00.000-08:00

WOW. I'm leaving tomorrow!!! I can't even believe this!! It really hasn't sunk in yet! I am leaving for Holmsted tomorrow. OH WOW.

Big Announcement!! Read me!

2012-01-11T07:46:00.000-08:00

Ummmmmm, so this is kind of really big news. I will post another blog later telling more detail, etc...

Guess what?!

I'm doing DTS. Ummmmmm............. On Saturday. OH MY GOODNESS. I can't believe how fast this is all happening!! I haven't been keeping this from everyone or anything, I only decided/found out about two days ago. Oh my goodness!
What do you think?

I would really appreciate everyone's prayers for the DTS itself, and for my fund raising this week =) Talk to you all soon!

Abbegail

Happy New Year!!

2012-01-01T05:02:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year everyone!!! Wow, 2012 is finally here. I can't believe it's January... The beginning of a new year. This year will be full of beauty and love. Bring it on!

An Overload of Pictures from 2011

2011-12-31T09:57:00.000-08:00

This year I turned 18, started college, FINALLY made it to Paris, got closer to God, and spent a lot of time with wonderful people. There is too much to say about this year, I can't even begin to start. It was a wonderful year, and I look forward to many more amazing years

This Year I've been in:

Spain

Portugal

France

Romania

And of Course, England

Here are some fantastic memories from 2011 =)

(WARNING, there are a LOT of pictures here, and they aren't all in order... sorry.)


Good Times on Spain!

I've been in love with this statue for years. So excited to have finally see her with my own eyes!

Notre Dame is too beautiful.


Nomnom.

Blue hair! I love to experiment with colour. Life is art and you are the canvas.

Meeting awesome people in Romania =)

Casual basket of ducklings

I loved being in Romania with Elize SO much.

William came to live at the Lodge! Hoorah!

Baking apples, because we're that cool.

Royal Wedding! Eeh!

Mushrooms make my life worthwhile.

Liverpool

The Lyon's puppies =)

Model shoot

Seeing Josh Groban live! Aaaah!

Seeing the York DTS again before they left for home was wonderful.

York Cathedral

We Will Rock You

Too many fun times with everyone =D

Skyping with my lovely sisters on Christmas day.

I hope everyone has had a perfect Christmas, and will have a fantastic New Year! It has been a crazy year, and I can't wait for the adventures 2012 will bring. Lets just hope the world doesn't end like everyone seems to think it's going to.

I'm Such a Teenage Girl Sometimes.

2011-12-29T09:46:00.000-08:00

There are just so many hair colors I want to try...

The End of Christmastime!

2011-12-28T04:04:00.000-08:00

Earl's Court was fantastic.
We stayed in a crypt. I really love London. I think i could live there for a while, but I'm not sure. I'm not really much of a city person.
The ministry that we did was really fun, and I think we made some kind of impact.I had so much fun worshiping and praying while we were there. It was wonderful.

Christmas at home with my family was great, although I did greatly miss the DTS team we had left in London. I got a mortar and pestle =D You don't even know how happy that makes me.

In other news, I got a fringe last night! :

I can't believe the year is almost over!! It went soo fast! I don't like how quickly time passes.
Oh dear.

;Abbey

Christmas Time!

2011-12-16T10:14:00.000-08:00

Yayyy! I am so happy that it's Christmas time!!
It's such a wonderful season. Some of my favourite things about this season are:

1. Christmas music
2. Making presents for people I love
3. Making ornaments for on and around the tree :-)
4. Drinking hot chocolate and mulled wine
5. Sitting around the fire with friends
6. Listening to Billy Gilman's Christmas album, which I would most definitely hate if I hadn't listened to it about 40 times every year since I was 11 :-)

Christmas Family Photo From Last Year :-)

On Monday I get to go with the DTS to volunteer at the Earl's Court Project, which is a homeless ministry in London that runs for the week before Christmas every year. I'm soo excited!!! :-D

What do you love about Christmas time?

I found this on another blog...

2011-12-14T08:09:00.000-08:00

far too adorable.

Midwinter Murders

2011-11-28T06:30:00.000-08:00

As a fundraiser for the Kings Lodge Building Project, Keith

Moore wrote and directed a 50's style murder mystery, using

only base staff and families :-) The making of this film was

so fun, and I have very high expectations for the final work

:-D The film will be show on the 2nd and 3rd of December at

The King's Lodge.

You know you wanna come :-)

Eeeeh, I am so excited because the cast gets to watch it

tonight! I seriously can't wait. It's going to be so much

fun.

Whats new, world?

;A

Life.

2011-11-17T13:32:00.000-08:00

Oh my. Life.
Everything has been happening quickly lately, without many breaks.

I feel like I live at school.

We did the performance of We Will Rock You last week - it went pretty well.

I'm tired.

My Birthday Present!

2011-11-09T03:03:00.000-08:00

Last night Alex and I finally went to the Within Temptation concert! It was sooo wonderful! I knew every song they played! It was beautiful.

Now I can't stop listening to them :-) before this week I had forgotten how much I love them! I swear, Sharon's voice is genuinely angelic.

Favourite Etsy Finds, Part 1, November.

2011-11-07T06:51:00.000-08:00

This gorgeous and whimsical hair piece:


http://www.etsy.com/listing/71437451/winged-daze-forest-green

TwistedWhimsey

These amazing, edible, succulent-plant cake decorations:


http://www.etsy.com/listing/76949938/edible-sugar-flower-succulents-cake

ModernLuxeEvents

This fantastic lip balm (I have some, and I would recommend it to everyone!):


http://www.etsy.com/listing/63896105/pine-cone-lip-embellishment-in-eco

ForStrangeWomen

This adorable handmade treble cleft nose stud:


http://www.etsy.com/listing/77752392/treble-clef-nose-ring

melissawoods

This hilarious safeguard:


http://www.etsy.com/listing/78247299/in-case-of-revolution-break-glass-v-for

LibertyFawkes

This gorgeous journal:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/80969907/nature-lovers-journal-a6

marysza

These adorable buttons:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/54342778/knitting-and-anarchy-are-not-mutually

buttonempire

This charming vintage cardigan:


http://www.etsy.com/listing/81041800/vintage-70s-mushroom-sweater-button-up

GravelGhostVintage

Remember, remember...

2011-11-05T16:47:00.000-07:00

...the fifth of November, the gunpowder treason and plot. I know of no reason the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.

I love Guy Fawkes day.
Every year on the fifth of November, we go to the bonfire in Higham on the Hill, and then come home and watch V for Vendetta.
V has one of my favourite movie speeches of all time. I practically look forward to it all year :-) That's an overstatement. This is a very brilliant piece of script :-) ;

V: "But on this most auspicious of nights, permit me then, in lieu of the more commonplace sobriquet, to suggest the character of this dramatis persona.
Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition.
[carves "V" into poster on wall]
The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous.
[giggles]
Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V. "

I love films about revolutions. I wonder why that is... I also adore Stephen fry, so that makes this film even better :-)

Happy Guy Fox Day everyone!

Blogs!

2011-11-05T10:49:00.000-07:00

I thought I should share some of my favourite blogs with you :-)

My all time favourite blog:

The Dainty Squid: She is so adorable! And from Washington :-D She obsesses over mushrooms, constantly colours her hair and sews. <3

#2. :-)

A Beautiful Mess: I absolutely LOVE this blog :-D Elsie is SO creative and amazing. It has some of the most fantastic DIY projects, and so many other fantastic things!

#3.

Little Chief Honeybee: I love all of Kaelah's fashion posts. She's so creative, and has an adorable portable boutique in an old camper! <3 <3

Eeeeeeeh!

2011-11-02T08:25:00.000-07:00

I got home from college really early today!!

I was soo blissful that I ran into my room and put on a bright teal dress! Oh the glee!

Yaaaaay! Stress Over!

2011-10-31T15:45:00.001-07:00

Yaaaaay, I am now a permanent resident of the United Kingdom! This means I never have to buy another visa for the UK as long as I don't spend more than 2 years out of the country. Yippeee! It was a very very stressful process, but we got there in the end!!

;A

Confessions: #2

2011-10-31T12:29:00.000-07:00

Confession: I have a weakness for excessively cute pictures of animals... I may have inherited it from my mother. But Awww, they're sooo adorable!

Oh my word! Does it get any cuter?

Baby hippo! Oh my goodness.

Awwww, really, who doesn't want a micro pig?


Platypuses! Aww, they're so ugly that they're cute!

Is this a repeat? ;

2011-10-30T12:42:00.000-07:00

I can't remember whether or not I have posted this in the past. If I have - Oh well. I love it. This is the author's preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray, which is one of my favourite classical novels. This introduction is almost a work of it's own :-) I know that it's long, but you should really read it. <3 

  The artist is the creator of beautiful things.  To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim.  The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.

   
    The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming.  This is a fault.

  
   Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated.  For these there is hope.  They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.
 

   
   There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.  Books are well written, or badly written.  That is all.

   
   The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass. 

The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass. 
  
   The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium.  No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved. 
   
   No artist has ethical sympathies.  An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.  No artist is ever morbid.  The artist can express everything. 
   
    Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.  Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art.  From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician.  From the point of view of feeling, the actor's craft is the type. 
   
   All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.  Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.  It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
   
   Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.  When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself. 
  
   We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it.  The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.

                        All art is quite useless.

                            OSCAR WILDE

Did you know that "hebdomadal" means weekly? Huh.

2011-10-29T09:43:00.000-07:00

Today,
I went to Costco. It feels like home in there. I love how they sell Kirkland water, imported from Kirkland, Washington :-)

The DTS left this morning for a tour around the UK. :-( I will miss them a lot for the next two weeks.

This week I have:
Watched a lot of Lost [I finally finished the 3rd season]

Worked on Christmas presents [delightfully satisfying]

Gone to the forest and adventured with my friends [I wish I could live in the forest]

Gone to a meeting where Connie Taylor spoke! [I love her so very, very much]

Gone in to school two days in a row only to find that no one else had come... both days... [annoying]

Taught a friend to knit [eeeh :-) I love spreading the madness]

I didn't do a whole lot this week, but overall it was fairly satisfying.

What did you do this week?

Confessions: #1

2011-10-28T06:19:00.000-07:00

Confession: I have a secret weakness for runway-esque fashion and make-up...

Oh my October!

2011-10-25T09:39:00.000-07:00

AHH! Why have I done this??? It has been over a month since I blogged last! What an atrocity.

Since it's been so long I'll quickly go over what has been happening for the last month, and then maybe go into it more some other time.

About the beginning of last month I started the Musical Theatre program at North Warwickshire and Hinckley College. In England, college is sort of like the last two years of high school, only you can do it at any age. It's been really exciting so far, learning about acting, singing and dancing. We're working on a production of the Queen musical, We Will Rock You that we'll be performing the first week of November, but I'll post about that another time :-)

Shot of the cast of "We Will Rock You" in Costume

We're also working on a devising project, using 9/11 as the stimulus, which seems to be coming along really well, and will be performed later in November.

    My days this last month have basically been filled with college, and my evenings with hanging out with good friends from the Lodge :-) Last weekend we had an event at our church, cleverly called "The Event". It was a get together of Christian teenagers from the local area, where we got to worship together, intercede and get some amazing teaching from some amazing people. It was a really awesome time to reconnect with God and friends.

       That's the basic overview of my last month, I will expand on some of it in future posts, but that's all for now :-) Have a lovely day! -Abigail

I'm Way Too Excited About My Books!!

2011-08-27T08:33:00.000-07:00

TODAY, I went to my favourite used book store. It was fantastic. They had a sale on.
It was bliss.
This store is called The Book Farm, and they have beautiful books. Outside, there's this building called The Book Barn, where everything is 50p. The sale was that, but twice as big. There were hundreds and hundreds of alluring books. Oh so fantastic!
I went, of course planning to buy 4 or 5 books... which didn't happen. I left the premises with 13 charming books, and I want to show them to you!

This gorgeous copy of Macbeth was printed in 1896. There are notes on most of the pages, from the original owner, in beautiful cursive that speaks of a time more than a few decades ago.

This adorable French school book was printed in 1915.

This copy of Huckleberry Finn once belonged to Cowplain County Secondary Boys' School.

This copy of The Works of Tennyson (who happens to be my favourite poet) was printed in 1884, and has pressed flowers in it, from who knows how long ago.

This fantastic copy of Shakespeare's Commentaries was printed in 1877. Oh my, it is too beautiful for words.

Guy Mannering, by Sir Walter Scott, and
The Prisoner of Zenda, by Anthony Hope.

This adorable "Sewing in Colour", printed in 1969.

The Apocrypha, with an inscription in the front from 1941.

And finally, A Century of Sea Stories, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,
which was printed in 1972.

Overall, I am very happy with today's finds. Very.

Sometime soon I would like to post about my favourite books on my shelves, but we'll see about that another day.

Have you found any exciting books recently? I would love to hear about them!

Romania!

2011-08-21T10:51:00.000-07:00

At last, a post about the Romania trip.

        So the first question everyone asks when I return from a trip is always "How was______?" How broad of a question is that?? My answer is always the same. "Romania was great!" "China was great!" "Egypt was great!" but really, how can you seriously answer a question that broad in three sentences or less? Most of the time it's just a polite question anyways, what would they do, I wonder, if my reply to their question was "Romania was horrible, I never want to go back." Well there's a conversation killer right there.

              Thankfully, Romania was not horrible, and I do want to go back.
Romania was great. There! I said it! And I do actually mean it. It was a fantastic trip - of course it had it's ups and downs, but overall, it was wonderful.
We had the most amazing team ever! We all got along really well, and by the end of the two weeks we felt like a big family.
I miss them.
A lot.

                                Anyhow.
          The first few days were fairly laid back; we got to sleep a bit and explore the macigal forest behind the base (eeh!), and then we started into ministry.

Most of our ministry during the trip was in various gypsy communities, where we got to play with the kids and show them God's love. The children were one of my biggest highlights. They were just so beautiful! They shone with the most stunning joy through their intensely difficult circumstances. The smiles on their faces were at the same time beautiful and painfully convicting.
How often do we complain about our already frivolous lives, while they in the little that they have are beaming with genuine joy? It just made all of us realise how incredibly selfish we are in our daily lives.

One night we got to make dinner for a big group of gypsies that lived down the road from us, and it was so wonderful. We were able to serve them and spend time with them, but more than that we all got to learn from the families themselves. Their hospitality and openness was really inspirational for all of us cold climate people. The gypsy culture is so rich and colourful, it is a really beautiful culture to observe, and I think there is a lot to be learned from them.

Aside from the ministry, we also had some awesome times just exploring the country and meeting crazy people. Everyday in Romania was an adventure, and a worthwhile one.

So many things happened on this outreach, I could never put it all into a blog post. If you want to hear more, tell me and we can find a time to have a cup of tea and a chat! I would love to tell you all about it sometime.

P.S. I feel the need to add this photo, since this is one of the cutest things I have ever seen. We found this adorable box of ducklings in the market on the first day in Medias. Awww.

All photos taken by Elisa Leage ( http://elisaleage.blogspot.com/ )Thank you so much for being our wonderful team photographer!

You Know What? I'm Excited.

2011-08-18T14:13:00.000-07:00

There are three things in particular that I am very excited for in the near future.

The first one is coming up; on the 5th of September, my family and I are going to Stratford to see The Merchant of Venice, by the RSC starring Patrick Stewart. Seriously freaking out with glee :-D

Next, on the 8th of November, my brother and I are going to see my favourite symphonic metal band, Within Temptation! I've been wanting to see these guys for SO long, I am SOO excited!!! (Thanks again Alex!!)

and THEN,

to make my life even more blissful than I ever thought musically possible, on the Twelfth of October (yes, I know that October is before November), my mother and I get the sublime pleasure of seeing the sensational Josh Groban in concert. (EEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!)

I am seriously looking forward to the next few months :-) Oh the exciting times.

I know that I also still need to post a more in depth blog about Romania, but I keep forgetting. SOON, I promise :-)

But for now, Adieu!

What I'm Feeling Right Now

2011-08-14T11:20:00.000-07:00

These are some songs that have been running through my head for the past few weeks. <3 

Transylvania Baby!

2011-08-10T05:42:00.000-07:00

It is SO surreal to be in Transylvania.

I've been biting my friends like crazy.

This country is a hundred thousand times more beautiful than I had ever imagined. The landscape is too fantastic for words, and the houses look like they came out of a fairytale. The people are very sweet, and the culture is phenomenal. It is a very inspiring country in general!
Everything I see makes me wish I could paint it, and I can't stop collecting pieces of nature to create with when I get home. I love it so very much. Just behind our house there is a fantastically magical forest, that just sings of Gods beauty. It is one of the most gorgeous forests I've found in a very, very long time. In the late afternoon it feels a little bit like Lothlorien, when the sun is filtering through the trees, and the trees are waving in breeze, timidly welcoming you into their home.

Everytime I go in there, my soul is enriched just a little bit more.

I will post again soon, about the ministry that we've been doing, but for now, It's time to go gaze at the stars for a few minutes before bed :-) Adieu ;Abigail

Romania Time.

2011-07-26T12:11:00.000-07:00

Wow! So I'm leaving for Romania at 4 tomorrow morning! How very exciting!
I've been at this camp here at the Lodge all week, getting ready for the outreach and getting to know the team that's coming. There are fourteen of us - 13 girls and 1 boy. haha, I feel bad for Anthony, but at the same time, it'll be awesome anyway.
We'll be in Romania for about 2 weeks - until the tenth of August.
I've been packing like mad all day, and I still have more things to do tonight before I go to bed. So, I should probably get going now so I don't end up having too late a night. I'll give a longer and (hopefully) more interesting update in about 2 weeks when I get back from the ania of Rom. See you all later!! x-Abbey

My Greatest Weakness...

2011-07-08T07:02:00.000-07:00

A quick look at my newest mushrooms :-) Oh the excitement.

I generally dislike these little mobile phone charms, they're kinda tacky and they just get in the way. But I saw this one in Accessorize today, 50% off... What was I supposed to do?? It's an adorable little mushroom for goodness sakes!! I have no self control when it comes to toadstools. Ah me.

I LOVE this felt mushroom ornament, that I got from my beautiful, adorable fantastic sister Kaeli for Christmas :-). It makes me very, very happy.

My parents got me these beautiful hand carved mushrooms for my birthday last week! How well they know me. I definitely squealed a lot when I unwrapped them!

Ah! So cute!!

So here's the thing...

2011-07-04T04:44:00.000-07:00

There has been a slight change to my appearance :-)

10 More Hours of Seventeen!

2011-07-01T04:22:00.000-07:00

ONE MORE DAY OF BEING 17. Wow, this has been a mad year! I can't believe its almost over! This year I've been in England, Egypt, America, Spain, and Portugal. Crazy times! Also this year, I've made some of the best friends ever. It's been one of the craziest years of my life so far. Here is some photographic evidence of my seventeenth year! :-)

About a month after my seventeenth birfday, I got to go to Egypt with a team from the Lodge here. It was sooo amazing!

I've made a lot of lifelong friends this year. I love them to bits!

Getting to go home last summer was so wonderful. It was beautiful to see my town, family and friends.

Being with my siblings is the best!

I got to see my very best friend in the world during my 17th year - so It's been perfect!

We had crazy fun together!!

One of the very best things about this year has been getting to know my lovelies here at the Lodge! They are beyond fantastically amazing.

Earlier this year we had the best time ever in Spain :-) They had yummy cake there.

Hello!

The tea has been in abundance this year... it has been a year FULL of Jasmine and Earl Grey. Good times :-)

I've had a lot of fun getting to know myself this year... it's been... colourful :-)

I've had so very much fun with my family this year :-)

17 has been an emotional but vital year in my life. It's a crazy, spirited, expressive, tough, fantastic year. Wow. Over.

creativity makes my life worthwhile. Well, that and other things :-) Like God. Just sayin'.

this year has been.. colourful :-)

The final few hours of being 17 years old... surreal. To the max.

I am very excited for 18, and I'm sure it will be an amazing year as well. Thank you all for being the best friends ever for me this year! Wow, only 10 more hours... Madness!

Derisible Fervency

2011-06-29T07:42:00.000-07:00

Where is my mind?

Life. Stern? Somber? Uproarious? Colourful?

2011-06-27T07:58:00.000-07:00

I have a theory. Everyone is taking life too seriously. Okay, not life necessarily, but the situations we are in. Like, the Kings Lodge. (don't be offended pleease, especially if you live at the Lodge - I am just making suggestions about life, the universe and everything - these are only my opinions, so If you think what I am saying is wrong, please don't decided to hate me, dislike me, detest me, loathe me, hang me, stab me or kill me in any way shape or fashion. Ok, so what I'm saying is not THAT controversial, I just feel the need to be ever over-dramatic) But here's the thing.

Let's mix it up a bit. Colour, design, beauty, creativity. That's what I'm talking about. And not being afraid of those things. I have a feeling that to anyone else, nothing I have said so far will make any sense. Let me see if I can separate my thoughts a little bit better... So we live in a big building all together (TKL is only an example, so I don't necessarily mean all of this about TKL in particular). This building is an old school house, and is now a YWAM base and training school. It IS a school, I do understand, and thus a somewhat public area, but. does it need to be stiff? Do we HAVE to have monotone colours and muted carpets? Does all the art on the walls have to be very serious, unobtrusive, not invading of your eye space in any way? Can't we add more... life? Like... colour! It's a very simple thing, but it makes SO much difference. Nice colours... bright colours. It can add so much to a building, and to life.

Katherine Kaeli

2011-06-18T07:17:00.001-07:00

I am fairly certain that my sister Kaeli is one of the cutest things on the planet!

She is way too adorable!

I Have The Most Normal Family on the Planet

2011-06-18T06:41:00.000-07:00

My siblings and I are really very normal. You can tell from looking through these pictures of us, that we don't appreciate silliness, and much prefer people to stick to the serious way life should actually be.

very few of these pictures were posed....

I love my siblings to bits :-D We have way too much fun together!

The Spindle Song

2011-06-07T01:37:00.000-07:00

I am soo in love with this poem right now :-) I came across it in a beautiful old copy of Scott's poetry that I found at a used book shop here... It's called The Spindle Song.

Twist ye, twine ye! even so
Mingle shades of joy and woe,
Hope and fear, and peace, and strife,
In the thread of human life.

While the mystic twist is spinning,
And the infant's life beginning,
Dimly seem though twilight bending,
Lo, what varied shapes attending!

Passions wild, and follies vain,
Pleasures soon exchanged for pain;
Doubt, and jealousy, and fear,
In the magic dance appear.

Now they wax, and now they dwindle,
Whirling with the whirling spindle.
Twist ye, twine ye! even so
Mingle human bliss and woe.

-Sir Walter Scott

My Beautiful Week

2011-06-02T05:37:00.000-07:00

Bonjour!

This week has been epically fantastic, if not tremendously exhausting.
I went to a Wildfire (part of Kings Kids) weekend up in Cornwall with my parents and some of my friends from the Lodge. There were about 70 of us there, the girls sleeping inside and the boys outside in tents.
It's always fun having only one shower for 70 people.

I actually can't even believe how amazingly stunning Cornwall is. The rolling hills and endless forests constantly took my breath away. In a town we went to several times, Looe, there is this little confined walking path, that is like a little splinter of heaven. The walls of it were earth, covered in every kind of green and living thing native to England. There were masses of ferns and ivy; mosses and little flowers were creeping up it in their search to find the sun... The sky was hidden by the boughs of trees that protected it from unwanted eyes.
In short, I was thunderstruck by the sheer beauty of the land that surrounded me.
The midlands where I live, are practically planes. The ground is so utterly horizontal that from our flat you can see the town a mile away.
I've been feeling so deprived of any sort of natural elevation, I've been longing for just a glimpse of a cloud reaching-peak or a grassy hillside... And, as I have said, my wishes were fulfilled this weekend :-)

But yes, the camp. It was a really good time to come together with youth from around the UK, make new friends, worship God and do some outreach in the local area. I definitely needed some time to get away from the routine here at the lodge to re-connect with God and get closer to my friends.
I've recently found out that I actually can't function right unless I have close friends, that I know won't leave me anytime soon. I was starting to fall apart at the seams when all of my friends were on DTS, and left we within two months of becoming my friend. I actually cannot handle losing people I love so often.
I need to write a full blog about my friends here, and bit of a transition I am going through in my mind right now, that will seriously effect my thoughts on my entire life.
But at the moment I need to do other things... So adieu :-) Have the loveliest day you have ever had in your entire life.

Abigail

Hello, how are you?

2011-05-09T13:51:00.000-07:00

So, this could be interesting. I am in the mood to type a lot, really fast, but at the moment I have fake nails on, making typing extremely difficult. Well, here goes.

Hello my lovelies! How goes it where you are?

I feel like a lot has been happening around here, but now that I look back on it, that's not necessarily true... For the last few months I have been spending a whole lot of time in the Lodge, hanging out with my beautiful friends every afternoon and night. It has been amazing to finally have really close friends that I can share my life with :-D I've missed that sooo much for the past few years.

Sadly though, about two weeks ago one of my best friends, Nathan, had to go back to California. That has really sucked, and I miss him to bits.
I have been pretty stressed lately about some personal things that I'm working out with God, and have consequently been becoming my old hermit self again - Ah! This is not good. So I'm trying to get past that as well. Really just working through a whole lot lately,...
So yeah. What has you month been like so far? I want to catch up with everyone, so please write me :-) Adieu for now m'dears. Another time...

Abbey

Once Upon a Lonely Hour

2011-04-20T05:15:00.000-07:00

I wrote this poem a few months back when I was really lonely. I don't feel like this anymore, but I figured I might as well post it on here anyhow. So here it issss;

I walk the night all by myself. Alone, the night I walk behind. I sing the stars out of the sky. I walk alone, all by myself. I'll leave the world to find my way.
Alone at night I'll slay the sky. I wander alone, in the forests I'll go, around the silv'r moon I'll roam. In the shadows of the trees, unspoken sorrows at your feet.
The wind decries the scattered tears, the icy mountains here below. I filled my heart up to the brim with melancholic scenes.
Corin, Corin, times are grim, sell the water, sell the gin. The mutterings of a twisted mind, the hart carved shadings intertwined. I have no meaning, I have no soul, some have spoken I'm not real at all. I hear the whisperings of the Earth, my guardian angel, in the dirt.
The trees have spoken, muddy tears, a wind unbroken through the years. I walk alone, all on my own, no spears will guard my golden home, no sparrows sing of lonesome roads. The sword unsheathed my bitter hopes,
but all I need is black with coal. Here in the ground, I found her lay, atop the roots, in the leaves you say. The darkened branches all lined with gray, have somehow got their hold on me. All alone I am tonight, with my mother - the whole world bright. The path is chosen; written in stone, for together we are all alone, on dark paths wander, through branches green we stream, through cold glistening raptures, I only can sing All alone, all alone, by myself I'll wander out life.

MY Nature. I claim it.

2011-04-20T05:04:00.000-07:00

The snow chilled raindrops caress my sun-forsaken face, the feathery grass bows under my feet as subjects to a king. The frigid sun-rays sing to my spirit in the sonorous tones of autumn. Tree bows smother me with my adoration as I lay beneath them in my victorious freedom. Here in my aloneness, I am surrounded by my loves. The red-gold earth, seen only when looked for through her veil of green, the branches of a willow; a Celtic knot of deepest tones on an easel of cerulean sky. My Nature rules the earth in unadulterated glory, unchanging and unrelenting.

First Etsy Post!

2011-04-03T09:18:00.000-07:00

Lookkkk! I just posted a pair of handwarmers on Etsy.com I am very happy that I finally did it, as I've been trying to get around to listing something for about 1 year now :-) Yay! Take a look and tell me what you think :-D

http://www.etsy.com/listing/71382539/long-upcycled-plum-marbled-armwarmers

Hello

2011-03-21T02:06:00.000-07:00

Hey there, blog. So, I haven't written in a while. Sorry about that. I guess I've just been going through a bit of a crazy time personally, and haven't really felt like writing on here, so yeah. How's life? I swear I will post something longer than this and a lot more interesting soon... Have a lovely day and a beautiful life :-) And a less emotional month than I've been having. Adieu, xx.
Abbey

Spainnn

2011-02-25T03:50:00.000-08:00

Sooooo here I am! Sorry I haven't been keeping up very well on here. Spain is loverly. It has suddenl;y warmed up to a ridiculous extend. I am boiling over. we have been having a pretty intense outreach, especially spiritually. Yesterday we spent the day praying and worshipping etc. in Alburquerque, about an hour and 15 minutes from Caceres, where we are staying. We found out after getting there that every year the have a Rennaissance fair, at which they make sacrifices to Satan... The last one was just last August. Wow. Heavy. Me and a few others on the team really felt the spirits of the area intensly. I was grumpy and frustrated with everything, even though the topwn was sooo beautiful, even though my team is great and I am blessed beyond my imagination. Seriously, I am in Spain, in the beautiful sun, with people that I adore, hanging out in castle ruins that overlook several miles of the gorgeous Spanish countryside. What right do I have to be grumpy or frustrated? So on the way home in the evening I prayed for a team mate and I, that the spirits of Alburquerque would leave us, and stay behind because they have no rights to us. We are protected by the creator of the earth, and the devil and his spirits have no hold whatsoever on us. It was a quick prayer, but suddenly the crushing headache that I had had all afternoon was just gone, and my friend who had previously been really upset and frustrated suddenly felt happy. I LOVE JESUS. Seriously, being a Christian is the best. It is soooo wonderful. My God is soo faithful to all of his children. If only we could recognize this more often... I wish that I was better at seeing Him in my every day life. I am definitely going to be working on that. *sigh* God is soo good. Seriously, if anyone wants to ask me about my beliefs or whatever, I would love to chat. Time to go I am afraid. Later :-)

Abibi

In Spain!

2011-02-10T09:19:00.000-08:00

I am in Spain! Yeah! It's beautiful, and warm. Well, right now it is. Yesterday morning was FREEZING. I almost died. I am at the cafe right now :-) I like very much. What I don't like, is my mind right now. It won't stop working, and it's really annoying. I am seriously confused about some stuff at the moment, and I just can't stop thinking about them! I need to make some decisions about stuff and I just can't do it. My mind isn't working the right way, it's working, just not well. RAH! I don't know what to do with myself. I wish I just understood everything perfectly. That would be wonderful. I would like that a lot. So yeah, much confusion happening and stuff. Oh life. I love it and can't stand it at the same time. But God will help me :-) He's cool like that. Yeah. Time to go. See ya! Have a good life without me! Or with me, depending on where you live. Yeah. -Abbey

Exuberant Euphoria

2011-01-19T10:27:00.000-08:00

My friend Nathan found THE MOST amazing gummy candy ON The planet. They are shaped like mushrooms! You can imagine my feverish excitement when he handed them over, and I realised what they were. I freaked out. And I haven't really stopped. Seriously??? Mushroom shaped sweets??? Who thought of this?! I love them. Whoever they are. I am seriously overjoyed that ASDA makes them. These are some pictures of my rapturous joy.

AND, in other news, I made a very colorful pair of earrings today! How exciting. I know, I'll bet you are keeling over in your fit of glee. I'm pretty happy with them though :-) Next time!

Impulse buy!

2011-01-15T07:36:00.001-08:00

Does it really count as an "impulse buy" if it cost less than 5 pounds? Anyhow, I absolutely fell in love with these socks at Accessorize, and couldn't stop myself! if fact, I kinda want to go back and buy ten more pairs and wear them every day.

Lovelovelove.

Book Review! Sort of...

2011-01-05T10:46:00.000-08:00

Hello blog! So, as you will know if you have ever talked to me, I am an obsessive, intrinsic reader. Books are my adoration. They are half the reason to be alive. Okay, maybe that's a little over dramatic. But nearly true :-)

A few years back, on the Facebook app Visual Bookshelf they were advertising this book that you could read online, City of Bones, by Cassandra Clare. I looked at it a bunch of times, but it didn't really look that interesting. One day, however, I, being very bored, was browsing Visual Bookshelf once again, when the ad came up. I thought, "what the heck, I'm super bored and I can always stop reading if it's lame." BUT, to my great surprise, it turned out to be one of the most fantastic books I had read in a very long time. After City of Bones are City of Ashes and City of Glass, but unfortunately those were not online. I slowly forgot about them (since I had no money to buy them, and our libraries here are fairly intolerable), until this summer. When I was home I found them at my home library, and was overjoyed! Unfortunate

ly I only made it halfway through the second book by the time I had to come back here, and so returned them

to their rightful owner. But, this time I got back, and DID have a bit of money. So I finally bought them! I am so very excited. I finished up the second book very fast, and am now about halfway through the third. I could have finished it long since, but I'm trying to drag it out as long as I possibly can, since the next book in the series doesn't come out until April.

Anyhow, all those details were probably fairly unneeded! All you really needed to know is, hey! I found a great book series! Onto the books themselves.

16 year old Clary Fray of New York finds out that she is by birth the daughter of the most fiendish and powerful villain of the unseen world of the Nephilim. She is thrown into the deep end of a world she never knew existed right in her own city, when her mother is suddenly abducted by her malicious father, Valentine. Clary is stunned and disoriented as she's thrust into the world that should have been her home.

Since, of course, there is always some mysterious and gorgeous boy involved, Jace Wayland is a (deservedly) overconfident, multi-talented and yes, breathtaking 17 year old Shadowhunter (the more common word for Nephilim. They are demon hunters by trade). With crazy surprises, mad twists and amazingly 3D characters, I find this series very hard to put down. I would highly recommend the Mortal Instruments series. It is definitely written for young adults, but I think that some older crowds would enjoy them as well.

(*By the way, these books are not at all biblically accurate in the way of the Nephilim and Angels, etc, so in order to read them you have to make sure to step back and look at it as strictly fiction, not any kind of commentary on Angels or whatever. It is pedantically entertainment)

SO yes! Sorry if this was a boring blog post, I, at least, had fun writing it :-) Hope you are having an amazing New Year!! Adieu, adieu adieu.

2010. MMX. deux-mille dix. Adieu! (Part 2)

2011-01-04T08:25:00.000-08:00

Part 2 : highlights of 2010
(part one is down below↴)

Crashing a wedding in a cave church ;

Seeing Morte d'Arthur by the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford;

Going to Egypt! Highlight for 2010? Really?... ehh... YEAH! ;

Halleckts's 20th birthday party - Catan theme ;

Seeing good friends I met in England, and haven't seen for years!;

Dying my hair blond. And taking crazy pictures while it was still setting. ;

And being in Spain with these amazing people! ;

Wow, 2010 really was a crazy year. In 2010 alone, I was in Spain, Portugal, Belgium, England, Egypt, the USA, and Canada. That's madness! I seriously don't even know how that all happened in one year! Overall, it has been a wonderful year. This last year I have made some of the best friends ever, learned more than ever about myself, visited home and seen people I only dream of visiting the rest of the year, four-wheeled across an Egyptian desert, stood in the middle of the Grand Place of Brussels watching the pale snow settling on the lacy shells of the breathtaking buildings, witnessed an awe-inspiring Portuguese sunset, swam in the Red Sea, climbed a pyramid, ridden a camel, and had the time of my life. My biggest regret for the year is that I couldn't have more of the people that I love around me through it all. I still thoroughly miss all of my extra family at home, and wish they could all be here with me. Every experience is multiplied a thousand-fold when shared with someone you love. That isn't to say that I didn't have ANYONE I loved with me, I did have plenty of loved ones with me all year. I just wish I could be selfish and keep all of my loves with me. Ah me, words for the last year;

Exciting

Scary

Wonderful

Dramatic

Liberating

Tempestuous

Artistic

Entertaining

Adventurous

Sorrowful

Marvelous

Literary

Transforming

2010. MMX. deux-mille dix. Adieu! (Part 1)

2011-01-04T07:52:00.000-08:00

Fairwell my beloved two-thousand-ten! I can't even see you anymore. and I didn't even get to hug you goodbye. You were a wonderful friend. We had so many good times together... *sniff* I'll miss you old friend!
Good times were very much had. Here are some of my highlights -

Visiting my beautiful, beautiful home, I love you Washington!! ;

Salmon! And so much of it for weeks... Mmmmm, ;

FINALLY getting to go to Mars Hill Church in Seattle! ;
Going to the Hartshill Hayes with people I love;

Our very realistic fire drill (by the way, everyone would have been dead. shoot.);

Discovering my favourite European city so far, Brussels! ;

Going to York Cathedral;

To be continued... Look up ↑↑↑

Happy New Year!

2011-01-01T08:27:00.000-08:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR WORLD!! I can't believe it's already 2011!!! That is madness! Humm. Later on I will post some of my highlights from 2010. Wow, the end all ready! 2010 was sooo short! Or maybe it just seemed that way? No. I think it was ACTUALLY shorter than other years. Seriously.

10 Things To Brighten Up You're Day

2010-12-18T13:44:00.000-08:00

Huge playmobile men,

Connecting with art :-)

A mushroom tree!

Goose glamour shots,

An Eiffel tower of suitcases,

Cheetah Print hair in Starbucks,

Drain pipes that look like friends :-)

Funny British signs,

Settlers of Catan Cake,
And,

Raccoon band shots!

Have a splendid day!

Long time since I saw you, eh?

2010-11-20T15:19:00.000-08:00

Oh my, I need to learn to be much much more faithful with my blog. Chh. SO I am very much back in England now, and have been for several months. Wow, so much has been going on inside me - I really wish I had been better at keeping up on here for the past few months :-{ Now I can't put any of it into words! So frustrating. Right now, as I'm trying to think of what to say, situations, ideas, conversations, plans, dreams, are coming to mind. But they are swishing and swimming around my head like a bucket-load of demented worms. Not so helpful for clear thinking. I don't know what I think. I don't know what I feel.
Right now, I feel emotion. I am not sure what it is. It's in my stomach... deep. Pushing and pulling my heart around in circles. I'm not sure what it means, or where it's trying to lead me. But it's there, indescribable and unexplainable. Even to myself. It feels like a deep longing... for... something.
Off-track! Anyhow, that is one thing that is making my thoughts gallop around my head. This is just so frustrating to me, because there are so MANY things that I want to say, to verbalize, but they are all running away screaming from my head - like they don't want me to tell you about them. Lets just take a step back. Sometimes if I just start typing, what I want to say will eventually come out.
Hello, I'm Abbey! I'm 17 years old. Is that strange? I can't tell. It seems fairly average at the moment. I wish I was 16, and I wish I was 18. 17 is also good. I am liking it. But I am scared of it - I can't believe I am 17. It seems like I should be 7! or 28! Do I make sense to anyone but myself? I think not. I mean... time is going too fast. It seems like I should still be 8, because that's sort of how I feel... like I was 8 yesterday. and with how fast time is going, I'm almost expecting to wake up one morning and find myself 50 years old, half (or more) of my life gone! Oh dear, I hope that doesn't happen anytime soon. I hope I wake up 17 tomorrow.
Is it just me, or do these seem like the insane ramblings of a mad-woman?

Oh dear (deer). I wish I made sense.

*sigh* doesn't seem to be working. So life, right at the moment, is fairly average. I need to find more ways to make it spectacular, but I am beginning to run out of ideas. (suggestions, anyone?)

Oh my. My head feels so flummoxed right now. So twisty. Unfocused. Confused? Maybe. Ironic? Yes. Satisfied? No. Spirally and serpentine. Gone.

Hum. Methinks that is all I will be able to cull from my head for the time being. I will honestly try to keep up on here more though, so see ya! Have a wonderful Valentines day next year! Much love, peace and prosperity on all of you. Liberty, equality, fraternity! ..................

Here I am.

2010-08-19T18:54:00.001-07:00

so here i am. in america. i freaking love this country. i feel soo much more at home here than anywhere else i've ever been. cereal. i want to die here. not now, but here. i LOVE this country. and this town. well, parts of it. i love the trees, and the people, and the mountains, and the food, and the styles, and the freaking space needle. i have missed this place SO much more than anyone will ever know. honestly, i would kill to go back in time. i miss my house more than everything else in the world combined. i want to be 5 again. i want to be little and living in 931 k street. with my family, my two dogs and three cats. i want the most dangerous thing i've ever done to be balancing on the back fence while my parents weren't looking. i want to get in trouble for leaving the yard without an adult. i want to hide under our canoe in the back yard on a hot summer day. i want to lie in the front lawn in the middle of the night and stare at the stars, wondering what the rest of the world looks like. i want to go eat strawberries in the back yard, knowing they were the only strawberries that would grow back there until next year. i want to walk, barefoot, to the candy store and spend a whole 25 cents on penny candy. i want to go on the awesome, exciting once a week trip to costco, and go try all the samples. i want to read old books about england, and picture it without knowing what it looks like. i want to sit in my bedroom all alone, wide-eyed reallly late at night - at least 8:30, wondering where kaeli and anna are and wondering what might be in the closet that could possibly eat me. i want to wonder what canadians are like, and what canada looks like. i want to be curious about europe and wonder which language they speak in holland. i want to run outside in the pouring rain and play with the earthworms that came sliding out of the cracks to avoid drowning. i want to pretend that i believe in ghosts with kayleen, and create my own fake ghost friend named 3. i want to think that walking around the block once is 'going on a walk'. i want to be super excited to get an e-mail account for the first time. i want the the worst film i have ever seen to be PG13. i want to think that the matrix is evil. i want to not know how to swear in foreign languages. i want to think that drinking a sip of mom's wine is exciting and rare. i want to think coffee consists only of black drip. i want the coolest music i listen to to be jump 5, aurora, stacie orrico and plus one. i want the most exciting food ever to mcdonalds and very rarely burgerville. i want seattle to be a really cool far off place that i get to go to every couple months.
i want to be satisfied with my life. i want to be super excited to go back to england. i want to be overjoyed to be in ywam. i want to be ready to make more new friends again. i want to be unemotional. i want to love happy things not deep melancholia. i want to want out of america. i want to want to travel a ton right now. i want to absolutely love my life in every respect. i want to be so excited about what i'm doing. lalalalalalalalalalalala.
happy birthday world. why am i always hungry? interesting question. alright, enough depressing wistfulness for one night. farewell internet. see ya. -me

On my own...

2010-07-07T03:39:00.000-07:00

Here I am, in England. Soon it will be only me. What then? Thankfully in my aloneness I am not alone. There are still 25 or 30 other people on base. Just not mon famille. And, as it has been everytime I am left somewhat alone for periods of time, I haven't really noticed... not that I don't miss my family - I do, It's just that It almost feels... normal. Somehow living in a separate country from my family, living with friends, going about my life on my own (ish) feels... normal. Why the heck is that?? Well, YWAM has twisted my mind I guess. I have on the other hand, found myself singing On My Own much more often, but I think that may have more to do with my obsession with making life a musical than loneliness. Plus, it's one of my favourite songs. Oh how I love musicals.

I finally went to the doctor yesterday! So, it turns out that the reason I can see and feel my heartbeat in my stomach so well is... I'm skinny. Yeah, big surprise. I still have to get a stupid, evil, vampiric, blood test done though, just to make sure I don't have an overactive thyroid. Mah. I thoroughly despise having smiling, pain-loving women who know they are making the world a better place stab my veins with their cleverly designed blood stealers. I want to keep all of my blood, thank you very much. Is that strange? Hum.

Soo, I have watched SO much filmness since I got here. It's like this flat has a filmy aura-around it... You walk in and you just want to watch films... okay, so that is way over-exaggerated. But fun so say. I got up this morning and found my flat-mates/in loco parentises watching a show online :-) I love it.

Okay, so what is this all about - my parents are gone for what... 5 days, and my brother already has an injury! Apparently he fell out of the back of a pick-up truck... don't ask me how, none of my family will reply to anything we have written to them about it. So, he is supposedly okay, but you know Alex. He would say he was okay if he had just fallen off the side of the empire state building and landed in a truck full of steak knives. Ouch.

So, speaking of school, I should do some. I miss you world! Have a good life!

-Sincerely, Oxxana

May

2010-05-07T06:43:00.000-07:00

Tis Maytime! Yay! Wow, so much going on right now. Or maybe not. I'm on reception at the moment. So exciting. And I am alternating between waaaay too cold and waaaay to hot. Oh, yyeah. Ok. Enough. This is one of the most useless things I have ever written. Tata.

-mushroom obsessive

Musicality

2010-04-29T06:19:00.001-07:00

Yay! Last week I ordered music from Amazon, and it finally came! I got Paramore's Brand New Eyes, and Taylor Swift's album. Yippee, I feel like an idiot. But oh well, I'm really not ashamed to listen to country. At least I balance it out with metal. And Glee. I am suddenly slightly obsessed with Glee. Even though a lot of the music is fairly annoying, and it seems to be increasingly turning into a high school soap opera, I love it. I am thoroughly addicted. At the moment, my favourite character is Jesse. He has the best voice as well. Oh course he is playing Rachel, and he is obviously a spy for Vocal Adrenaline. But He's awesome anyway. Oh dear, I sound so horrible. It really is a good show! haha. Oh my. Well, enough. I must stop talking before I say something truly incriminating. Adieu, farewell. -Ahhh

It's the end of the month as we know it.

2010-04-28T07:17:00.000-07:00

Wow! It's almost the end of April! It IS the end of April! where has the beginning of this year gone?? So crazy! 2010 is going soo fast! And I'm on reception again! How interesting. Did you know, I have two main fears, and they are ridiculous.

#1. Large things under water, such as whales and giant squid.

and

#2. Bees. I am freaking terrified of bees.

Neither of these fears make any sense. I have never been involved in a traumatizing event involving bees or whales. I am an irrational being. Just though I'd mention that. Flippin 'eck, what is NOT scary about an octopus? Okay, so that's a drawing, but whatever.

-the owner of irrational fears.

BooksBooksBooksBooks. Oh Literature, I Adore Thee.

2010-04-27T13:48:00.000-07:00

Here is a list of 100 great books! Stolen from a friend's blog :-) I have read the bold ones, and I am in the process of reading the ones with an X next to them.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien X
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling X
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare X
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy X
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky X
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll X
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (wait a sec, what about #33?)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo X

Dang, only 17 read. But another 7 in the process... I guess I haven't really been reading many classics lately.

For the past few years my brother has been obsessing over Robert Jordan's (RIP) Wheel Of Time series. For one reason or another I haven't taken the chance to read them, being distracted with Twilight, etc. SO, last week, I finally got up the guts to start the (soon to be) 14 strong book series. *whew*, trying not to think about how long this could take me... ANYWAYS, I started book number one, The Eye of the World. And it is sooooo good. At the moment I am only about halfway through it. It's going a bit slower than usual, because I've been fairly busy lately. For a few day I only got about 1 chapter finished a day. But yeah, the book so far is fantastical. I love it. It is brilliantly written, and so imaginative. Even though some points do remind me of Lord of The Rings, it has really been super original so far, especially for fantasy. So the cover is... hilarious. The picture shows the main characters, all COMPLETELY wrong. Serious, Lan looks like a freaking giant, and Moiraine and her horse both look like midgets... And otherwise, none of the character look like or are wearing anything close to what is in the book. I find it very funny, especially since Robert Jordan used the same artist for the covers of all 11 of the Wheel of Time books he published before he passed away. Not exactly sure why. Anyhow, I must bee off - my sister is patiently lying on the floor waiting to use the computer. Adieu! -The tempestuous mushroom obsessive.

More Wallowing?

2010-04-25T08:23:00.000-07:00

Oh today. It is an interesting day, yes it is. Church this morning was AMAZing. The Purefire team was there, and Paul Hopkins taught. It was seriously awesome. Had some awesome conversation with God. And then we got home, and I had a sudden lonely depression moment. So fun. I had to leave lunch to freak out for a few minutes. I don't really understand myself. At all. Stupid emotions. Wow, I have a headache this afternoon, and I don't know why. Well, I guess I have guess as to why I had sudden freak out times today. It's just a compilation of random events all suddenly stacked up together. on top of me. Everyone leaving, etc. The last two schools to leave have been painful for me. And then, today I really, really miss someone. He used to be like a brother to me, but now he's gone, and I probably won't see him again. Maybe ever. I've know this for like, half a year, but for some reason it's really hitting me today. I mean, it sort of makes sense - last night I had a dream he came back. But I've had at least twenty of those dreams since he left, but it never did this to me. Ugh. Oh life. Why does it have to be this way sometimes? I hate it. So much. Not life, just these situations. *siiiigh*. Mah. I wish I could go back a few years. Life was much more simple then. Wow, that is such a stereotypical teenage thing to say. Oh well. Alright, I must leave. Time to stop wallowing. Ta ta! -A

Mutterings of a self torchuring mind.

2010-04-22T02:59:00.000-07:00

Ahh. Oh no. I feel it. I will not fall apart, I can't. They're gone though. Already. It is just now starting to sink in. I managed not to freak out when my beautiful last DTS left for good, because this football DTS was here... but... now they're gone... they just left this morning... there goes all my social interaction... I am exhausted of this... I can't handle it again... people say you get used to it, and get numb to the leaving of others, but I don't. I just get so freaking attached to people so flipping easy. Ugh. My stomach hurts. Why do I do this to myself? Grrr. I just don't want to have to go through the lonely months again. I can't handle that anymore. And I know I actually don't HAVE to this time. I have another very close friend. He never leaves me alone, and I don't want him to. God promised me to stay around even when they all left. He will keep me company through the lonely months, and the desperate moments. But it's hard,... to get that.... because I can't see him, physically... in the room... he I S here... but I can't technically 'hang out' with him. But I can. I can. And he's here. We chat, I can hear him sometimes... but It's not easy. I just need to get used to it still. Not feeling lonely when I don't need to. Which is all the time. He's always here. He's with me right now. Now. I can feel his presence in the room if I think about it. And he loves me so ridiculously too much. I don't deserve it, darnit. Aright, I need to go befriend the people inside now. Fare thee well. -Abbey

Hello Bright World!

2010-03-31T10:18:00.001-07:00

Guess what! I knit a mushroom. I'm fairly happy about that, actually. This is my loverly purple and pink mushroom >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I have only just a few weeks ago discovered the bright and wonderful world of Ravelry! Oh my, what a place. It's like knitting and crochet heaven. I am loving it. Hey, did you know that I have a random obsession with mushrooms? Well, I do. They are at the top of my favorites list, along with moss, trees, ivy and oil pastels. WOW, I feel like I have done nothing in the last few weeks. Except knit, of course. Lalalalala. And I've been, strangely enough, listening to a lot of Taylor Swift. And doing school. Yeah! Life is monotonous at times, but awesome. Just thought I should say that. Sick. See y'all later. -A

Back in the Land of Eng.

2010-03-19T05:13:00.000-07:00

Hola, Bonjour, Friendly World Wide Web! I am, and have been for about two weeks, back from my mad adventures in Spain and Belgium. Sooo, last week in debrief we had to think about how we could tell someone about our whole time in 2 minutes, so I'm going to try to write that here... NOW!

So, you know the Youth With A Mission base I live on? We run this school called the Discipleship Training School, that's got about 3 months of lectures, and then 2 months of practical outreach in another country somewhere in the world. My dad was staffing the one that started in September last year, so when outreach came, I decided, hey! I want to go with them! So about two weeks before we left I started collecting pennies, and somehow God provided me with all the money I needed for 2 months of outreach in Europe :-). So first we went to Spain, which was reallly super amazing. We got to help with the opening of the base in Caceres, and see some of the local churches unite. In Spain a lot of our ministry was prayer, and I believe we made a huge difference in the spiritual atmosphere of Spain.

Then, after about 6 weeks, we left for Brussels! The base there was much different, because they were already very well established. Brussels is definitely one of the most beautiful cities I've ever been to, the architecture is breathtaking. In Belgium we did a lot of moving around, apart from Brussels we also spent some time in Kortrijk and Genk, in the Flanders half of the country. In our time there we got to prayer walk, work in a school for a week, do some street evangelism, help with a food distribution group and lots of other stuff. After 4 weeks in Belgium, we finally few back to England! This was the best outreach I've ever been on in my life. The team was really, really amazing, and let me fit right into the group even though I wasn't a student. They all mean soo much to me now, and I will value their friendships, hopefully for the rest of my life.

Last week was debrief from outreach, and then on Friday night was commissioning them all off into the real world. Most of them left the next day, and I miss them all like crazy :-( . Yepp! That was my outreach this year!

Oh my, that may have gone over two minutes... Oh well. So yeah, then this week I've just been really ill, sitting at home, doing nothing, feeling like I'm in solitary confinement. So much fun. I guess that's all for now, I should go get dressed, just in case on the off chance something actually happens today. Talk to you later, blog! See ya! Have a lovely day!

-Abbbbbey

Blog.

2010-02-28T13:14:00.000-08:00

Blogblogblogblogblogblogblog. Still in Brussels at the moment, but leaving for England on the Eurostar on the 5th.

Ah! I am so unfaithful!

2010-02-21T04:52:00.000-08:00

Ah! I can't believe that I haven't posted anything on here since the 10th of December! Mah! I am in Brussels, Belgium at the moment. We left for Spain at the end of December, stayed for about 2ish months, and then came over here about 2 weeks ago! Brussels is soooooo amazing. Unfortunately, I have no time right at the moment. I must go do some preparation for an art workshop I'm helping the lovely Catherine Evans with next week. I will be back though, to describe the ancient poetic city. Au revoir!

-Abrussels

Two Extra Hours of Reception;

2009-12-10T08:00:00.000-08:00

So now what...? I've been on reception since two, and I was supposed to be off half an hour ago, but then I found out that the other person who was going to take over actually isn't around today... so I guess I have to stay here for an extra two hours... yippee. I have a headache and some Ibuprofen, but no water... shoot. What should I do?

I read Les Miserables for the first hour and a half, but I don't really feel like doing that anymore. Humm. This is a list of random names that I like.

1. Tempest; is my favourite. Love it.

2. Forest; is beautiful.

3. Revelin;

4. Marius; makes me happy.

5. Tanzania; Tanzie

6. Emmerson; beautifully classic, yet not very used.

7. Emery; not like the band.

8. Cayenne; like the pepper.

I am drinking very stale water; yum.

9. Declan;

10. Maeve; very Irish.

11. Horizon; who cares if it's cheesy?

12. Jasper; very underused.

13. Africa; as in the continent.

14. Isabella; not because of Twilight.

15. Ankara; as in the capital of Turkey

Enough nameness for the time being.

Now what? I still have an hour to go. Shoot, I feel like I've typed this exact same thing before... Don't get me wrong, I love doing reception, it's just that it starts to draaaaag a little after two or three hours...

SO, weird, I'm leaving for Spain in like, two and a half (ish) weeks! Bizzarro,...,...,... ...

I still haven't gotten my head around that. T'will be my first time out of an airport in mainland Europe! Yay! I have been on the ground in Europe, but only inside of airport grounds. So it doesn't really count. I've been to the airports in

The Netherlands four times

Germany once

and Denmark once

But YAY I get to leave the airport! In Spain AND Belgium! Yippee! I'm slightly excited. I'm also very excited because I get to go with some of my favourite people ever :-) Our team at the moment consists of 9 DTSers (Cheryl, Kati, Ashleigh, Stephanie, Catherine, Hester, Rach(a?)el, Sam and Josh), three staff members (Taryn, Matt and my dad) and Me. And, hopefully my mom and brother will be visiting sometime for a few weeks at least. Maybe the whole second half. Sweet.

You know what, I really love that tree right in the middle of the hedgeness. It's really beautiful. Especially without any leaves on it.

Wow, if I keep on typing on here for the next hour until I'm done with reception, this post is going to get reaalllly long.

Yay! I finished almost all of my Christmas shopping. I adore amazon. Amazon is officially my second best friend.

I am getting increasingly more tired.

We're having a Christmas party tonight! Yay! Going to hang out in reception, listen to Christmas music, eat cookies, drink hot chocolate, hang out and decorate the Christmas tree. Yippee! I'm very excited. And we have a fire place with fire in it, which makes the whole world a better place :-D

Did you know that Stephen Fry is my absolute hero? He's probably actually one of my favourite people on the planet. Other than the people that I actually know. He is an absolute legend in every possible way. Hey, there's only 40 minutes of reception left! Yay!

Maybe I willl read another chapter of Les Mis. So should you. In fact, everyone should. Here-

http://www.arcamax.com/fiction/b-1565

There you go; happy birthday.

Yay! Alex is going to refill my now cold hot water bottle for me. I love you dearest brother!

Except when he came back with it he tried to keep it. But he did eventually give it back, so I still love him.

Finished the eleventh chapter of Les Miserables. Only 15 minutes more. I think I will finish this now, so I don't end up counting down to the second I can go. Awesome well, have a lovely life my dear fellow human beings. The end. Fin. Au Revoir...

Bye.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2isSedp8UK0

2009-12-05T10:20:00.000-08:00

So, a few months ago my sister and brother and I went to see As You Like It by the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford on Avon, and one of the actors in particular was very convincing and just amazing at his part. So Annie and I looked him up on Youtube and all that to see if he had anything up, and found a few 1 minute clips but not much else.
SO, last night I went with my brother to a friends house to chillax, eat chocolate and watch a film. It was a close draw between There Will Be Blood and Defiance (since those were actually the only choices), but in the end we decided to go with Defiance. I was already excited about it, since one of the main actors is Jamie Bell, and he is a simply amazing actor.
As the film goes on tons of new people are introduced to the story. At one point, one of the newer characters comes on and introduces his fiancé to someone, and as he come on the screen, I suddenly realised who it was! It was Jonjo O'neill from the RSC, who played Orlando in As You Like It! So crazy. That was a very surreal moment for me. Especially seeing as we almost ran him over in our car after the play... oops.
Anyhow, It was an interesting moment for me, and I just thought I would put it up here. By the way, Defiance is a really awesome film - totally worth watching.

Heliotrope!

2009-12-03T05:58:00.000-08:00

Heliotrope is the newest edition to my family. I love Heliotrope. Unfortunately, Heliotrope and Sharwood don't get along very well. They both think I love the other more, where I actually love them both the same. Oh well.

Sharwood Galbraith.

2009-12-02T15:12:00.000-08:00

THIS is Sharwood. He is a very good friend of mine, and has been his whole life. I've know him ever since day one. Ever since I created him about 3 weeks ago. I love Sharwood. He makes my life sunnier. When I'm with him, all I can think of is rainbows and bubble gum and unicorns. We get along really well.

Reception.

2009-12-02T07:43:00.000-08:00

#1. Racecar spelled backwards is STILL racecar. That makes my life.

#2. Yellow is a very happy colour, and so is orange. And red is the colour of blood.

#3. The silly Americans (myself not included) spell colour color.

#4. The silly British spell jail gaol.

#5. Good Earth tea is spectacularly amazing.

#6. Victor Hugo was French.

#7. Some ribbons are blue, and some are pink.

#8. Blu-tac is safe and dry, never dries out and has 1000s of uses.

#9. Hot water bottles are incredibly useful.

#10. Vaseline is very moisturizing.

#11. in the last 20 minutes, more than 3 people have come up behind me and said "The Life of Abbey Joyce"

#12. Black seems to be a very good surname.

#13. Philip Pulman is an author.

#14. A flock of crows is called a murder.

#15. If you add syrup to snow, it tastes really good.

#16. Igpay atilay ishay ahay ealray anguagelay.

#17. I've never been to Belarus.

#18. There is a dryad living in every tree.

#19. Frankenstein is the namer of the creator, not the monster itself.

#20. My jaw really hurts.

#21. Babies are generally fairly cute.

#22. Mushrooms are natural art.

#23. I'm on reception for another hour. Joy.

#24. I wish I knew how to dance.

#25. I really need some tea, and to refill my hot water bottle.

#26. Cheryl Cole has cute dimples.

#27. I want to good downpour right now.

#28. Alan Rickman is probably one of the best actors ever.

#29. My hair is NOT naturally blue.

#30. I really wish I knew what I was going to wear tonight since I WILL only have 15 minutes to get ready...

#31. I need sleep.

#32. I can't stop biting the inside of my mouth. Grr.

#33. The UK iTunes store is considerably more expensive than the US iTunes store.

#34. I'm on reception for another 40 minutes.

#35. My retainer got stolen in China.

#36. Happy Birthday!

#37. I can't stand bratty children.

#38. I am witnessing one RIGHT now.

#39. Ugh.

#40. I know three Canadian guys named Josh.

#41. Have you ever seen a penguin dancing?

#42. I look really stupid in high heels.

#43. Theoretically, spiders are cool. (but only theoretically)

#44. I think I'll tryyy defyyyying graaviity.

#45. Only 25 minutes of reception left.

#46. Sirius?

#47. I am getting increasingly tireder.

#48. I have never been to Saskatchewan.

#49. Bilcob Jedward Charlise Swullen-Black.

#50. 13 minutes of reception left...

#51. I am looking at facebook photos... professional facebook stalker, I am.

#52. The highway man went riding, riding, up to the old inn door...

#53. I can't pop my back right now. Ugh.

#54. 9 more minutes...

#55. I just lost the game.

#56. Number Lock.

#57. 3 more minutes!!!

#58. I'm going now!!

#59. Bye!!!

#60. Okay, bye.

Creativity Unleashed...

2009-12-01T10:21:00.000-08:00

This is what happens when I leash my creativity, and then suddenly let it out... not always the best idea when there are markers near...

DTS

2009-10-16T10:06:00.000-07:00

Halla blog, how are you? Tired of being stuck in a dusty old box in the attic? Sorry I don't take you out much any more. Shoot, is talking to a blog a sign of insanity? Oh well. Not sure why I'm writing on here, I guess it's just faster and easier than journalling in an actual journal. So, DTS. This DTS is really awesome. Dang. Cool. Awesome. Sucky. I can't make up my mind about how I should feel about DTSes anymore. All the people on this DTS seem really really amazing. And, I really want to get to know them more... but... Ahh! I can't stand this. So, I feel like I've gotten to know this DTS faster than I pretty much ever have. Which is... good I suppose. Or maybe bad. Because, it just means that I will probably get to know them better by the end than any other DTS so far... Which is awesome, but it also sucks. Because the closer I get to them, the more amazing they are, the more I love them, the harder it is to let go of them. And that I will have to let go of them is, obviously, inevitable. I want to talk to them, get to know them, hear their stories, their loves, their hates... but I just know that every talk, every conversation, every memory will just stab me all the more once they're gone. And honestly, 5 months is not that long. Soon I will be all alone again. Again. Ugh. And I almost just really don't want to think about this yet, 5 months in advance... but I also know I sort of need to... I think. 'Cause, maybe, just maybe if I try to get over it now, it won't hurt so bad then. Or maybe it will hurt every single bit as much, and more. But hey, whatever, right? I'm apparently a 'strong person'. So a little masochism shouldn't hurt too much. Riiiight. Uh-huh.

I just don't know what to do... I mean, I would kill [not literally] to go on outreach with them, but will that just make it worse? or would it give me more amazing memories to dwell on when I'm 99? I just can't stand the fact that again, for about the 116th time in the past 3 years, I'm getting close to another group of people, and really starting to love them, when I know that in less than 6 months they will just run off and rip my freaking heart out again, like very other school ever. Grrrrr..... I mean, I don't want to blame them for it... It's not like they need to stick around and waste their lives just to make me happy. I just wish they would stay, or at least come back... but they almost never do. No matter how many times I've been promised "It's okay, I'll come and visit!" or "I'm sure I'll be back to staff in a few years", it never happens. They all move on. They don't need me as much as I need them I guess. Probably because most normal people have friends that stay in one spot. But not me. Oh well. Now, stop whining Abbey! That's a direct order. Sheez, who knew I had all this teenage angst stored up in me? I didn't. Weird. [I have just noticed, the word "Weird" completely defies the rules. You know, I before E except after C. I see no C. Hmm.] Farewell cyberspace! I shall talk to you soon. Au Revoir!

My not very crazy life!

2009-03-20T03:03:00.001-07:00

Gah! I need to write here more!!! I will soon! -A

Tagged forever ago

2009-01-18T03:17:00.000-08:00

Okay, well, I have decided to fill this out, because I was tagged by the beautiful Victoria forever and a day ago, but never ended up doing it for some reason! So, here it is-

Once you have been tagged, you have to write a blog with 10 weird, random things, thoughts, facts, habits, or goals about yourself. At the end, choose 10 people to be tagged, listing their names and why you chose them. Dont forget to leave them a comment "tag, you're it" and to read your blog. You can't tag the person back that tagged you. Since you can't tag me back, let me know when you post your blog so I can read it. Now have fun...

1. I would kill a very large animal to go to France (and that's saying a lot for me).

2. I get to travel all around the world and have fun in Asia, Europe etc, and yet there is almost nothing I wouldn't give to just be able to settle down in Lewis County, got to high school and be normal.

3. I love singing more than anything on Earth (nearly).

4. I adore interesting names like Tempest, Tree, Macadrian, Revelin, Tanzania, Evergreen, Marius, Demetrius, Zephyra and Jessamine.

5. I have none of the normal talents whatsoever- I can't play any sports for the life of me, I can't dance, I can't sing well, I can't act, I don't draw or paint very well, I can't write, but I get by just fine :)

6. I am alright not wearing make-up sometimes, (although mascara makes me feel more confidant) but I adore putting on tons of make-up just for fun - It's like art :D

7. I love being pale so much! I don't ever tan, but I don't mind because I've never really wanted to.

8. I am somewhere in between being and Introvert and an Extrovert...I love to be alone, but I can't stand not having friends. I am so freaking shy half the time, (especially around people I don't know) but once the ice is broken even a tiny bit, I am freaking loud and a bit too outgoing. Haha, maybe I'm bipolar...

9. I love the rain soo much!

10. Especially during the 5-6 months of the year where I have no friends whatsoever I adore to lose myself in fiction, books are some of my best friends. Once I lose myself in a book, it becomes me and I become it until either I finish it, or I stop thinking about it. I can kind a little bit overly obsessive about books sometimes, especially when there is great character development-when I can pretend the characters are my friends.

Happy Beautiful 2009!!!

2009-01-01T01:17:00.000-08:00

Happy New Years Everyone on this beautiful Earth!!! I Hope you all have an awesome year in 2009, and I hope to see all of you this year! Wow, I can't believe it's January! And for all of you that are still in 2008, I just want to say, the future is brilliant.
I miss all of you Washingtonians and former YWAMers!!! Love you all!! I wish you much joy, peace, love, dancing, happiness, bliss and tavuk in this beautiful new year! Happy New Years!

-Abbey

Life is like...an orange...

2008-12-27T15:31:00.000-08:00

Hello! Hmmm......I find it very interesting that I have so much fun posting notes online, when no one in the world will probably read it...so I pretty much just enjoy publicly posting notes to myself I guess...hmm...haha. But you know, I guess that's okay, because I do still like talking to myself online...I guess...If that makes any sense at all. So Romeo and Juliet at the Royal Shakespearean Company was basically incredible...Wow, it was soo insanely amazing. I really wish that I could go and see it again everyday until they stop playing it. Wow...I think it was probably the best production I have ever been to in my life...not to mention the best story (but I guess I already knew that before I went). Twilight was fun also, although not quite so grand or well done. The weirdest thing ever, the other day on Christmas eve we decided to watch The Nativity Story, (it was really, really good by the way) and at the end, the credits come up, and say it was directed by Catherine Hardwicke (the director of Twilight)! It was soo bizarre! Anyhow, I need to go to bed now...so, if anyone in cyberspace happens to be reading this, have a good night and a happy new year.
-Abbey

This weeks drama :D

2008-12-19T08:49:00.000-08:00

Ahhh!!! I am soooooo freaking excited right nowww!!!! Aaaah!! YeaaaaH! So, for one thing I am about to go see Twilight tonight with my dad and Megan, which is pretty much freaking exciting!!! And, my parents just gave Anna and I our Christmas present early, and guess what!! We are going to see Romeo and Juliet at at the Royal Shakespearean Theatre in Stratford tomorrow!!!!! Yayyy! I am soooo excited!!! Ahhh! Yeah! This is so amazing, because Twilight is my favorite book, and Romeo and Juliet is my favorite Shakespeare play :) Wow...this is a great week for me dramatically :) Miss you!!

-Abbey

Ladeedaaaaaah...and Musicals

2008-12-12T08:57:00.007-08:00

Ladeeedaaaadeeedaaaaahh...It's been a while since I've written anything on here....unfortunately I don't really have anything interesting to write at the moment...I freaking adore musicals. Right now I really want to see Evita, Phantom of the Opera, Jekyll and Hyde, Peter Pan, Les Miserables, Mary Poppins, Hairspray, Mamma Mia, Wicked, Fiddler on the Roof, Sound of Music, Annie, West Side Story, Rigoletto, Kondukondain Kondukondain, Newsies, Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Snow White, Anastasia, Aladdin, The Lion King, and every other musical ever written for stage...*sighs*. If Only I had a little money, I live right near London. Oh well. Someday :P So, I think that you should probably go watch a musical or twelve right now. Miss you!!

Thanksgivingggg....

2008-11-27T05:39:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving World! What are you doing for Thanksgiving?
Things I am thankful for this thanksgiving:

Life, Friends, Airplanes, Trees, Food, Clothes, Mushrooms, Paint, Computers, Myspace, Family, Sisters, Brothers, Adopted Brothers, Books, Authors, Movies, Hands, Treehuggers, Washington, Centralia, Houses, The Kings Lodge, Knitting, Arm Warmers, Olives, The Space Needle, Music, Singing, Acting, Plays, Facebook, Nightwish, Within Temptation, Earth...Everything...

Life for now...

2008-11-26T03:24:00.000-08:00

Soo...life. As you probably know, I am at the moment living in England at a Youth With A Mission base, called the Kings Lodge. Most of the year I have just been homeschooling etc.. My dad has been staffing the DTS here, while my mom mostly stays around the house, helps us with school etc. My sisters have finally come over also! Yayfulness. Kaeli is here doing the SBS, while Anna is staffing the DTS with dad. Since Liam and Paul joined the family, we are finally complete! We always knew we were missing someone...although we are pretty confused as to how Liam grew up in Centralia with a British accent...hmm...Well, at the moment I must go do history...blub. More later!

Blooooog...

2008-11-24T11:54:00.000-08:00

Soo...I just opened this blog! How exciting, and probably utterly uninteresting to everyone but myself. Sooo...yeah. I must go for the moment, but I will write on here ASAP, and as often as I can...So, yeah! I miss all of you Washingtonians and past Kings Lodge YWAMers! I hope to talk to you soon! This I must warn you, will probably end up being a very random blog, on whatever I happen to think of. I will most likely post my thoughts on books, movies, anything that I have recently knitted...and other completely unimportant things that don't have anything to do with anything. haha, Miss you!