The Joy Dare

Three things a day, choosing to see God’s blessings in the everyday and the routine of life. A dare to choose joy, to go on a scavenger hunt in search for God’s gifts. That’s what I’m doing. That’s what this is. (Let’s see if I can actually do a daily post on here again!)

May 1: 3 Gifts Tasted

The little orange tablets sit in a little container, being displayed triumphantly from the excited scramble to pick up as many as I could gather the night before; all scattered on the ground after a fun youth game. I ignored the white ones, and the green ones, and the red ones. They were probably minty, or spicy. All I cared about were the orange ones. Tic Tacs; they were one of my favorite things to eat when I was little. Every time I go to the store, I’ll stare longingly at the containers of tic tacks, wishing they weren’t so expensive. Honestly, I had started to resign myself to the fact that I may not get to eat another tic tack… ever. Not as long as I was too stingy to spend the money on something as temporary as candy. But there they are, a small handful of bright orange Tic Tacs. The orange makes me happy. I set the container in a place where I’ll see it often, to brighten up the grey, rainy day outside. Already, one has been taped into my journal to be kept forever (or until it disintegrates!) I have a problem with hanging onto things, I know. Still, as I pop one into my mouth and suck on it slow, I debate whether to save the last few and put them on display on my desk with the container of pink and purple Nerds, or to eat them all, of course, sharing some with Little Sister.

Later, Mom and I are scrambling to get into the car. It’s 4:30 and I’m eating a quickly made PB & J sandwich while we drive to a collage campus forty minutes away, to take a moped course I signed up for (yes, I bought a moped!!). The bread is perfect, full of a variety of seeds, and not dense. Dense breads kill sandwiches. The taste of PB & J’s never gets old, especially when it’s made by my parents. Little Sister and I haven’t been able to recreate the perfect flavor that our parents are able to achieve for some reason. Also, it’s always fun to eat in the car; it makes the food seem more interesting and like you’re on an adventure!

The first thing I do when I slide back into the darkened car after the four and a half hour course is grab with shaky hands for the fruit bar in my purse. It tastes heavenly. Still, my hands are quivering. Mom goes to a McDonald’s drive through; buys a chocolate shake for herself and gets a fudge sunday with fries for me. This is the second time I’ve had a fudge sunday at 10:00 p.m. at night. I can think of nothing better to have at 10:00 pm at night than a McDonald’s fudge Sunday. In the darkness of the car, driving home, the sweetness of the ice cream with fudge and the occasional lukewarm salty fry is a perfect combination. It’s amazing how delicious food tastes when you’ve become so hungry that you’re dizzy and shaky. But as I scrape out the last of the fudge from the plastic container, I wonder if this is going to affect my ability to fall asleep when I get home.

From My Notebook: The Past

The corpses of butterflies long dead circle in endless whirlwinds, piling into corners of the abandoned school yard.

The swing set creaks to life, rusty from years unused. Invisible legs pump empty seats, back and forth. Back and forth. A lazy time kept to the rhythm of the lifeless skies.

Silence paces up and down the cracked sidewalks; and loneliness walks beside, holding hands. The grey moss underfoot swallows up all echoes of footsteps in its thick, sleepy carpet.

Memories here do not let go.

From My Sketchbook: Portrait #5

Wow, this one took a long time to finish! (I know, I'm sounding like a broken record, right?) Seriously, though, I'm afraid I let my perfectionist take control of the pencil for this portrait. Although the results are good, Little-Miss-Perfectionist gets hung up way too much on tiny details and that results in large amounts of time to get just one portrait done.

Slam Dunk

I feel as if this blog has been going through an identity crises, if only in my own view of it. About every day I get a different idea of the theme and topic of posts that should go on here. A geeky blog about T.V. shows, movies, and video games that I like? An inspirational blog about what I learn through my walk with God? Reading other great blogs, such as Ann Voskamp’s, tempts me to want to make one just like theirs, ‘cause theirs are soo good! Hence the constant circling of ideas in my head of where I could go with this blog, which means not a single post actually gets made. But I believe I’ve finally made up my mind. I’m taking this blog back to where it was originally; a place for me to write about my life.

And now I put my fingers, rusty from staying away too long, back to the keyboard; welcome to my blog about my life.

The ball pounds the ground. Feet blur as players run hard for the opposite end of the court. The crowd cheers; holds its breath; watches, completely absorbed. Some call out encouragements, others argue with referees about a call. A solitary player leaps high, back arching, ball grasped firmly. For a moment, the whole place goes silent. Then the sound of the orange rim vibrating can be heard. The whole place erupts with cheers. Slam dunk. Even the players go wild with excitement.

Sports. Although I grew up with boys, sports were one of the few things that I refused to be interested in, even if I secretly was. I had always prided myself on my stubbornness to be disinterested in it… until now. The other day, when I checked out a book from the library titled “Rules of the Game,” I felt like I was betraying a part of myself. But something happened about a year ago that changed my views on at least one sport. 

Basketball happened. 

Our team had made it to state, and the upcoming game was talked about by everyone. It just so happened that my little sister and I, along with Mom, were heading up to the cities that same day as the game. It had originally been my suggestion to go to it as long as we were up there. A couple of my friends were on the team and I was curious about it. I’ve long held that I’m a collector of memories and experiences; always eager to try something new or go somewhere different for the sake of the experience so that I can have a wider range of subjects to write about. So a high school tournament basketball game sounded interesting, if only for curiosity’s sake.

I went to the game with the usual survival gear that I bring to any sporting event; mainly a notebook and pen. But by the end of the game, I realized I hadn’t even thought about using them. I had found basketball to be surprisingly exciting and fast paced, and even though I had little understanding of what was going on, it was fun to watch the energy of the players.

So that’s how I ended up in the library, checking out a book about sports rules, in the middle of this year’s basketball season. After going to a couple more games, I was tired of not really understanding why fouls were called or any of the other more in depth rules. All I understood was that the one team tries to get the ball to the hoop to score while keeping the other team from doing the same. There were only four pages in the book about basketball, but I studied them - if not intently - with considerably more interest than I’ve given other sports in the past.

To summon up the scattered thoughts of a rambling mind, basketball has held my interest longer than any other sport has. I suspect that this is mainly because it’s my friends that I get to go watch and cheer on; it’s not necessarily the actual game itself. But I am glad that at least for a season I have been able to step past my prejudices against sports and be able to experience what it’s like to have a team to support, and actually look forward to watching another game.

From My Notebook: The Disappearing Act

This is a short story I wrote that’s inspired by the Biblical story in Luke 2:41-50.

They were having that age old argument that all couples have at least once in their life. “I thought he was with you!” The pointing of fingers, the worry making the defenses sharp; “how was I supposed to know he wasn’t with you? You were off with the rest of the men these last couple of days!” We’ve all heard something like this before, the anger caused by fear when it’s discovered that a child is missing. After the initial shock of finding that he wasn’t with the other, the two parents, trying to calm the flood of anxiety, began rationalizing with themselves. “He’s probably with Jacob’s family, they’re always doing something together, or maybe he’s with his Aunt Rebecca.” At that, they split up to cover more ground; asking all of us, more and more anxiously, if we’d seen their son. With every shake of the head, every “no, I haven’t seen him since we left” his parents grew more and more desperate. Whispers started to go around of roadside robbers, deciding that a young boy would sell good on the slave market. There was no denying that the boy was strong, having worked with his father in carpentry from the day he could walk. It didn’t take a trained eye to see that he could work hard. “That’s it. We’re going back!” The boy’s mother, tears beginning to fall, almost hysterically sobbed. It was a final act of desperation, to turn back; but the city was the last place any of us had seen him. A few of us volunteered to take the couple day’s journey back with them; but the rest of us had homes to get to, and children that were tired of being on the road, and we continued on without them. News reached us a few days later that they were successful in finding him. He had stayed behind in the city, doing the last thing anyone would expect a twelve year old to do when free of his parents; he was in the temple, talking with the teachers of the law! His parents had searched for him three days throughout the entire bustling city, and it’s said that when they found him, the only thing he had to say for himself was “didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”

From My Sketchbook: Chibis

Here are some Chibi versions of movie and T.V. show characters that I drew a while ago. Chibi style is related to the Japanese art style of Manga and Anime and literally means "short person." Its characteristics are very simplistic and drawn quickly, with exaggerated features to make the character look cuter. Technically, Chibis don't get this detailed, but I decided do it my own way.

Most of the characters are from the T.V. show Lost. Flynn Rider and Rapunzel, from the movie Tangled, were my first two attempts at this style. I had planned on doing a TON of other characters, but I haven't sat down to do any more for about a year now. Someday I want to draw more; it’s a really easy and relaxing art style to do and only took me about an hour to complete one character.

Here's a picture of "true" Chibi style (not done by me.)

Wikipedia

In an attempt to save money (in other words, being creatively cheap) I printed out scanned versions of the characters to tape onto the back of my ipod for some custom covers. This one of Charlie has been on the back of it for a long time, I've been too lazy to change it (plus, it's perfect for my ipod because of the guitar!)

List Sundays: Reasons Why I Quit Making New Year's Resolutions

• Everyone else is doing them. Where's the fun in copying others? I like to be an original.

• I found a better tradition for the New Year. Instead of goals, I pick one word that I want to strive to be like for the whole year. This year my word is NOW; meaning letting go of worrying about the future and dwelling on the past and instead simply enjoying life in the present moment (a little more about this new way of resolutions if your interested; MyOneWord.org.)

• No one ever actually meets their goals anyway, myself including. Why keep doing it when it only makes you frustrated with yourself?

• Life isn't about trying to be better for a set amount of time. It's about constantly growing and learning from mistakes every single moment of our lives.

• I don't need to wait for the beginning of the year to start having good habits. Every day I wake up I can decide to be the person I want to be, or sometimes I can just put life on hold and take a personal day off to be an emotional poet wandering around asking deep sounding questions.

Bill Watterson