Things that are real

Last night during gospel I was sitting in the midst of a horde of children (for real.  There were anywhere from 27-30 out--we never could get an accurate count) and they were dutifully taking notes (you remember something, you get a cookie or two--they have great incentive to take notes for the sake of remembering!) and Mr. Speaker mentioned that "the judgement of God is real."  He didn't say much about it, honestly, but the kids like sound bites that are easy to write down, so I noticed several kids dutifully writing down that "the judgement of God is real."

I literally almost never get choked up about things (for instance, weddings.  Never have I ever cried at one of those) but looking at the few kids sitting next to me, putting pen to paper and writing, "the judgement of God is real," make me emotional.  Because while I am confident that some of those children are truly the Lord's, I am equally confident that some of them are not.  For whatever reason, some keep putting it off.  And I think my heart broke a little bit last night, just thinking of the solemnity of it all.  Because even if they don't understand the severity of it, the truth of it remains, "the judgement of God is real."

This is why we spend and be spent for the Lord's work.  Because last night 27-30 children got to sit under the sound of the Word and they know, for sure, because they've heard, time and time again, about the love of God.  And they know, for sure, because they've heard it time and time again, that accepting the love of God is the best possible way to avoid the judgement of God.

3, 2, 1

(The numbers 3, 2, and 1 have no significance upon this post.  I'm just avoiding cleaning out our van, and writing numbers apparently makes me feel better about the avoidance issue.  Allow me to move on to a post with no real significance to anything.  I just... was thinking about bridesmaid-ing today.  And here we are now.)

I was in a wedding last summer.  Right around the time I stopped posting, in fact.  The wedding didn't make me stop blogging, of course, but it did usher in one of the busiest months ever.  I think I went to nine states and five provinces in the course of two weeks.  The nine states might sound more impressive, but trust me, trekking to five Canadian provinces takes some serious doing.

Anyhow, the wedding was fun.  Super fun.  Super super fun.  There were seven bridesmaids, and we were all crazy and had a ridiculous amount of fun.

I bring this up now because this summer I'm going to/have already started going to a bajillion weddings.  Honestly, you'd think everyone I knew was getting married this year.  Anyhow, in light of that, a bunch of us girls have done a lot of wedding talk, and those of us who were bridesmaids in last summer's wedding have decided that there's almost no way to top the hilarity that was last summer's wedding, so...  basically we've hit the plateau.  No wedding will be as fun as that one was.

We're all hoping to be pleasantly surprised, by the way.  One of the bridesmaids from last summer is going to be in three weddings this summer, and another one in two weddings.  Another is getting married this summer, and the rest of us...  are taking a break from being in weddings.  =)

But seriously, doesn't this look like the most fun ever?

It was.

So, I made a cake...

We had a wedding shower recently, and I was voted Most Likely To Have Time to Make a Cake, as you can see evidenced in this photo.  I'd never had to do cake decoration before, and, well, as you can tell, my idea of decorating a cake is melting chocolate chips and using a sandwich bag as a icing squirter.  Anyhow, it tasted okay, I s'pose.  Can't go wrong with those boxed cakes!

I'm back!

Tired, but back. I had an amazing two weeks, and now I just want to nap for two weeks. Alas, not so fast, thanks to work and life.

Anyhow, it was a whirlwind of awesome, truth be told. I'll outline the trip later, but essentially I flew out after work on the 30th, was in Italy for a week, and then was in Romania from the 6th up until the 13th, after which point I flew home to a wedding on Saturday, and made it home in time for work yesterday morning!

Like I said: nap needed. At work today I actually spent some time napping on the floor of one of the offices. It was refreshing.

Like they always say, though, there's no place like home!

Now I can die happy

I found it. The library I want to get married in. It's always been sort of a family joke that I'll end up getting married in a library (in addition to making the happy husband sign an agreement about living close to a library, haha), but seriously, it could happen. It's not really big enough for a wedding of my family's caliber, but I can work something out I'm sure.

It's near to where I work (I mentioned it one day and everyone else at the office was stunned that there was a library around here) and it's attached to the park, which means the grounds are really nice. It's RIGHT on a lake, and there are big glass windows that face the lake, and it's just gorgeous. It's winter now, so they have a fireplace burning every time I go in there, and it's just remarkable.

I was telling my friends of this discovery, and everyone was encouraging me to find the man so it can all happen until my cousin remembered that I've decided to become a nun! So, we worked it out and decided that I could take my vows of nunhood at the library. I don't know what vows of nunhood are, or whether or not I could take them not in a church or convent, but if it's kosher, I'd so take them at that library.

Ahh, pipe dreams.

All for the sake of posterity

Some people keep journals as a record of their life for the sake of posterity. Others, like me, keep a journal to keep from exploding from the excessive amounts of words inside of them. Honestly, I like my way better, because it seems more interesting, plus, I can write or not write whenever the Spirit so moves me without worrying that a grand-niece of mine might one day wonder what I did on that illusive missing Tuesday. Even better, once I burn my journals, they'll never be the wiser as to the fact that my Tuesday was missing in the first place.

But... should the Lord wait a while before rapturing us, will posterity actually want something through which they might be able to understand what sort of person I was? Not that I think I'm that interesting (because trust me, I don't), but because history is so deeply ingrained into us humans that I feel like somebody should would want to have a part of my life just because it was a life that was lived. For instance, I love to look at pieces of my grandparents' and parents' lives. Mind you, I've certainly never been allowed to look at journals of any of my relatives (maybe they've burned them?) but I like other parts of their lives, like a pair of my dad's baby shoes, a childhood book of my grandma's, my mom's old school projects. I love to look at things like that!

But those things are collected as we live. By virtue of the fact that I was a baby, I have baby shoes (actually, I'm pretty sure we don't have any more of my baby shoes, but since I've never liked shoes I've never worried about whether or not that particular item was preserved in any capacity), and because I did school, I'll have old school papers. The fact that I come from a hugely readerly family indicates that I'll have plenty of my childhood books for my descendants to have. But sometimes I like to write random things that I think would be fun to look back on, should someone care.

But what I wonder, while doing things like this: will anyone really care? Because things about me aren't that interesting, neither do they really have a historical factor. For instance, I have a love/hate relationship with carrots. But such jumbled feelings regarding carrots isn't really something I would care to know about my great-grandpa Harry (I have no idea how he felt about carrots, just so you know). Or is it? My great-grandmother used to love licorice and she would give one piece a night to her kids while their dad (aforementioned Great-Grandpa Harry) was away Bibleing around. I think that's fun to know. But carrots aren't quite as interesting.

For at least 20 years of my life I managed to never break a bone or get stitches--though I'm a klutz, and expect this to change momentarily. But... that's not really interesting. I just wish I had more things from my own past (AKA, more information about my great-grandparents and such), and wish I could somehow create something that would be a part of life right now, in 2009, to show what they (which is to say, posterity) missed by having the misfortune of being born later on in life. I mean, I was around when we had nine planets! I remember the day Pluto got plutoed! Is there a way to portray that, and still be able to burn my journals?

I guess this is what scrapbooking is for. And stories. Maybe the Lord will tarry and I'll grow up and have some younger relative who loves to collect and file away family stories. Or maybe I should collect and file away family stories. I've got enough memorized already--This is the pond where we got our fish, Freddy. This is the pond where mom almost died. This is the silo dad used to climb around on when he babysat grain during harvest. This is the tree under which mom and dad got married. This is garage where dad backed up with the car door open and removed the car door. This is the old couch we used to have in the dining room where all of us kids used to sit on, half-asleep, while we waited for breakfast. This is the typing program we all used to learn to type. You get the idea.

But I feel like those are things that would be insanely boring to collect and preserve. Especially the typing thing. Yet... when my nieces and nephews grow up, will they even know about typing on computers? We laugh to think of things beyond computers as we know them, but my parents used typwriters in school (not that I view that as too crazy--my dad still uses a typwriter at his office, no joke), and I think it's interesting to hear them talk about "erasing" stuff on typewriters and such.

Clearly I go on too many bunny trails to be able to accomplish such things as these. I'd be discussing my parents' wedding tree, and then I'd ramble about how it was so early in the morning... but they got crapes for breakfast, so it was OK... and how one of the groomsmen was so tired he forgot to wear a vest like the rest of the guys... and my dad forgot to wear actual nice shoes, so he just wore his ugly ol' everyday shoes to the wedding... and how the dresses were lovely for that day, but frightfully unattractive to my eyes at current. Which says nothing about the tree under which my parents got married. Which is mostly acceptable, I guess, since the tree just sits around at the park and gets more and more bug-eaten year by year.

I'm not sure why I wanted to write about that tree, after all. It's nearly dead these days. Which doesn't seem nicely symbolic, like I first thought it would. Oops.