Grace Writing

To start off - THIS IS OFFICIALLY MY FIFTIETH POST!!! I'm so excited! Thank all of you for supporting me and reading my blogs, and know that I couldn't have gotten this far without every single one of you. I look forward to seeing you and talking to you more and more as I continue to write these posts! And now onto "Why We Won't Be Celebrating Halloween This Year" . . . A lot of Christians don't celebrate Halloween, and I respect their decision, but I, personally, LOVE Halloween. It's one of my absolute favorite holidays (besides Christmas, which obviously comes first because it's just so amazing). I mean, you get free candy and people don't look at you weird for putting on a costume. I could do a whole post about how weird the idea of Halloween is - I mean, all it is is that you aren't technically trespassing on someone's lawn when you go up to their door and bang on it, begging for sweets while dressed like some sort of fict...

I've learned a lot from watching my Mom and Dad's marriage. It's led me to know what I want to look for in a marriage, eventually, when I'm older, if I ever DO get married. Their marriage helps me know what a marriage is really about, and I couldn't thank them more for that. You see, a lot of girls my age dream about marrying the perfect guy. Living in the perfect house. Having a lot of money and clothes and having a happy family and good, stable jobs. I'm not saying that that's a bad thing, but I think it's a bit unrealistic. It's not impossible, I suppose (other than the perfect guy, thing. Nobody's perfect! *Hannah Montana song now stuck in my head forever*), but in order to have all those things, you need to have a few others. So, here's what I want for my future, if I ever get married. Jesus. Not every marriage has Jesus, and a lot of them do okay without Him. But it's a lot harder, I think. Without Jesus, who do you have as...

I have decided, after giving it minimum consideration, that my cat is the best cat ever. I am, of course, biased, but I do not care. You see, my dear cat, Layla, is a drama queen (as seen in the image to the right), but thankfully she's a drama queen in the best possible way. She likes to follow me around the house, wakes me up early in the morning, ordering me to let her out of my room, even though she often insists on coming inside on her own (though not always. Other times, I haul her up the stairs anyway). She's quite patient, especially for a Siamese cat, as she lets my sister and me do pretty much whatever we like to her (i.e. picking her up, petting her, giving her unwanted hugs, etc.), so long as we don't hurt her. Her eyes are the colors of an icicle and I'm sure she can stare into your soul, though that has not been scientifically proven (yet). Her adorable little white-tipped paws are fluffy and amazing, except when her claws dig into your skin as she tri...

Children's books - the foundation of a love for reading. - Magic Tree House, Book One: Dinosaurs Before Dark -    Author: Mary Pope Osborne    Back Cover Description:  Where did the tree house come from?    Before Jack and Annie can find out, the mysterious tree house whisks them to the prehistoric past. Now they have to figure out how to get home. Can they do it before dark…or will they become a dinosaur’s dinner?     I loved these books growing up!! I'm pretty sure everyone in our family read them, and they were some of the best early reads ever! - Frog and Toad, Book One: Frog and Toad are Friends -    Author: Arnold Lobel    Back Cover Description:  From writing letters to going swimming, telling stories to finding lost buttons, Frog and Toad are always there for each other—just as best friends should be.     I learned to read with these books! They're great for early readers, an...

   One of the toughest things I struggle with when writing my blogs (or my books, or anything else, really) is that I don't have a very "tough skin" yet. This means that it hurts me when people don't like a post, or when someone offers critique on one of my stories. It's not that I don't believe what they're saying in those critiques of my stories or posts, it's that it hurts to hear them say it!    At the same time, with my blogs, I struggle when one post doesn't get as many views as another. This mostly hurts me because my posts about MK life/life overseas get tons of views, but when I write about what really is important to me (my stories) they don't get half as many views.    I've had to keep some things in mind when I look back over critiques or look at the amount of views of my posts. 1) I'm not writing to please other people, I'm writing to please me    I don't write my blogs to see how many views they get, I writ...

For those of you who don’t know, I am an MK (missionary kid). People tend to enjoy reading my posts about my life as a missionary, and are confused when I don’t write about that. After all – I’m a missionary! Why shouldn’t I write about my thrilling life living in a tropical climate spreading the word of Jesus? There’s only one answer for that, really: It’s not thrilling. Okay, this is true... Believe it or not, my life is no more exciting than yours. I spend my days doing school and trying not to die of the heat. Don’t believe me? I’ll give you a quick run-down of my day today. 1.      Manage to get out of my bed and go downstairs; hopefully pretend to be awake enough to eat breakfast 2.      Eat cereal and do devotions with family 3.      Do some school 4.      Take a nap 5.      Do more school 6.      Eat lunch 7.      M...

My older sister has returned from the United States! I can’t even tell you how thrilling it is to have her back. I didn't fully realize how much I love her until I didn't have her around to hug anymore.  We’ve done quite a lot since her arrival, and I wouldn’t trade any of the time I have with her for anything. Just yesterday, we went ice skating . . . Well, I say we , but I really mean they . I don’t enjoy ice skating, so I skated with my older sister for the first half-hour, and decided that my ankles were beginning to hurt and that I was done. So, I sat back and spammed my older sister’s phone with photos. She’ll thank me later . . . probably . While I was filling her phone, I looked up to see my younger sister on the ground out on the ice skating rink. I hop up and watch her come over, crying. Now, normally she would not cry. She’s a very strong girl. But, she’d been run over by an out-of-control skater and had fallen, trying to stop herself by using her han ds. Ouc...

Dear Emma, I was going to write you a regular blog post, like I did for Mom on her birthday, but I decided to do something different. So, here we go. We have so many memories together, my dear little sister, and I can hardly believe that you’re turning eleven today. We’ll soon be able to make new memories, and we’ll go on new adventures but, for now, I’m going to remind you of some of my favorites. I can remember so many things about our fantastic adventures (and, when I say fantastic, I mean fantastic). We travelled all over the world in our imaginations, and then we actually did end up travelling across the world . . . that’s a different story, of course. When we were little – you were probably around seven and I was around ten – we played one of the best games ever invented. I’ve no idea what we decided to call it, but I do remember that it was all because of the Monsterology book we have. Our fort, which stood out in our yard with a pole and a slide, was our underwat...

A couple posts ago, we talked about the Ten Greatest Things About Homeschooling . But, let's face it: not everything can be perfect. Today, let's talk about t he Ten Worst Things About Homeschooling. 1. A LOT of family time… 2. Mom always knows who did it… always 3. There’s no “the dog ate my homework” excuse… especially if you don’t have a dog 4. People ask questions like, “Do you have any friends?” 5. When you try to tell people that you do have friends, they ask thing like, “Where do you get your friends?” 6. People ask other questions like, “Do you ever leave the house?” 7. People look at you like, “What is this strange creature in front of me?!” 8. When someone asks you where you go to school you have no idea how to answer it, because you know if you say “I’m homeschooled” the conversation will automatically turn against you 9. Your mom (or at least mine) wakes you up at 8 in the morning anyway, even though you can get all your work done in less t...