Photoshop and Other Difficult Things

     I know I'm not very good at drawing and painting and such; writing and photography are more my speed. I downloaded a 30-day free trial of Photoshop the other day to try and add a little something to one of my drawings. After spending several hours toying around, being confused, watching tutorials, and so on, I FINALLY managed to accomplish what I was going for. It wound up looking terrible, but it was my first ever venture in Photoshop, so I didn't let it discourage me.
     Turns out Photoshop is fantastic for manipulating photos (go figure, right?). I've been manipulating a lot of my pictures and I've gotten some great results out of it. But when I try to be artistic with some of them, I'm completely stymied. Bringing out some colors but not touching the rest of the picture and creating effects in one spot but not others are the 2 things that vex me most so far. I should probably go finish watching the tutorials for beginners, but I just need a break from all things Photoshop for a while, haha. So I'm blogging.

     Aside from my Photoshop woes, I'm trying to develop the discipline of writing on command and actually completing what I start. One of my friends randomly gave me a writing prompt (told me to write something fun about the child version of a TV character), and I actually enjoyed writing something that hadn't come from some random, adventurous scene my mind created. So, I'm asking you my readers for prompts! What should I write about?
     That's actually a pretty good question to ask for other things, too. Prompts for photo and drawing subjects  would be appreciated, too. (I draw in abstract, though; actual people and objects don't turn out well.)

     As far as music goes, I'm still going through a bunch of music on my flash drive. It's tiring, going through all that music. (First world pains, I know.) But hopefully once I have everything in my library, I can buckle down and make new playlists. Preferably before my strength training class actually starts working out - it's much more enjoyable if I have music. The teacher's nice, but he talks a lot, and it's usually not important. (I've taken the class before. I'm taking it again because one of my roommates is taking it and it's a good way to tone up.)

Breaking News

We're not moving! Yes, folks, you heard that right, my family and I do NOT have to ever move out of this house if we don't want to. My grandfather has bought the house. Yeah. I definitely intend to ask him how much the monthly mortgage is, so I know what I'll be contributing to when I start earning an income. And as for my own questions about why he would take out a mortgage this late in life, this move just proves to me that he really does believe he won't die - my granddad believes that Jesus will return for his followers before it's his time to die. And honestly, given both his bloodlines, he could easily live until 101 so long as his cancer stays in remission. He's a healthy, active man and the family lines on both his parents' sides have had long lives. There are still thousands of unreached peoples, but if the church gets mobilized, who knows? It might actually happen! Jesus might come back before my granddad dies. Then a mortgage won't really matter, haha.

For right now, this is pretty exciting for me and my mom. We've held off on doing major changes to this house for the past several years because we thought that one day it wouldn't be ours anymore - we were just renters. But now that we're owners... well, suffice it to say that there is already a list, haha. My sister and I both want to start a garden in our backyard, so that'll be something to do over spring break, maybe. And I want to rearrange all the furniture in my room, get rid of a bunch of stuff (we're still doing the über spring cleaning), and paint my walls a different color (they've been the same lavender color since we moved in in '04; it's nice, but I'm ready for a change). And my mom is kind of an intuitive interior designer, so she's brainstorming for other rooms. All in all, this news has relieved a lot of stress and energized us.

In other news, I'm having the hardest time staying up in the mornings. I don't really have anything to do, like class, so there's not much incentive to stay awake. But I don't want to sleep until 1:30 everyday, either! Any suggestions for ways to stay up until I wake up? Other than caffeine, please. :)

And Now A Word From Our Sponsors

The whole are-we-moving-or-not thing is still in the air; we should know for sure by Sunday night. So in the mean time, we're still going through everything and picking out things we want to sell/donate/throw away. At least then if it turns out we are moving, all we have to do is pack, because all the junk will be out of the way. Turns out I have a lot of junk, too, haha. Not a ton, but enough that I might be able to consolidate two bookshelves. Which is pretty big for me, given the amount of books, binders, and notebooks I have. There'll be even MORE room when I can finally get rid of my philosophy books.


...I forgot what my purpose in writing this was. (Go figure.)


Oh! I remember now. And it's tied into some other really exciting news for me. Excellent.


So I went to the Bible study group closest to my house on Wednesday, and it was amazing. The people are great, the leader is awesome (he's also the pastor of my church), and I had a blast diving into the Word and hearing other people's input and responses. It's definitely the one I want to stick with. :) Unfortunately, I think I left my Bible and my journal at their house! :( I realized they were missing the next day when I was going to do my quiet time; I couldn't find them anywhere in the house and they weren't in the car. It's day 2 without my Bible and journal, and it turns out I'm actually kind of having withdrawals from that daily routine, even though it's only been "daily" for a month, haha.


Thankfully - and I do thank God for this - my missing Bible and journal has not hindered me from continuing to spend time with Him daily. In fact, He used one of the books I bought a while back (Dream Language) to speak into my heart and give me a massive breakthrough in my spiritual walk. I've always been one for the rules, someone who wants to know what the expectations are so at least I'll know when I'm not doing things right. That mindset has had some deep and long-lasting ramifications, but one of them, which God showed me yesterday, is a spirit of slavery to my own efforts. I was reading about one of the authors' dreams about spiritual warfare and read these words: "You don't go head-to-head with the enemy. You recognize that you are nobody and then you simply exalt Jesus."


My mind was totally blown. I was speechless. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe how I'd missed that. God used those words to tell me that I don't have to anything. I don't have to fight all these battles with myself and other forces around me! It doesn't have to be me!! Indeed, it can't be me; I'm sure I'll know this on a deeper level later on in life, but I know that we are powerless to do anything the Spirit does not enable us to do and give us the power to do.


The feeling of freedom was so incredible! I was weeping for joy and speaking aloud praises to my King. For the first time ever, I wanted to run down the streets proclaiming the good news of freedom. Then I thought, what would I say as I ran down the street, hollering with joy and looking like a loony? I sat down to write down the words in my heart; I had no journal, so I wrote on pads of paper, ripping them off as I flew through them. When my mom saw the stack later, she thought they were Bible verses I'd written down. Indeed, the language of praise used in the Bible has long since seeped into my own. Here is part of what I wrote, filled with joy and praise:


"Glory to God in the highest, the Lord Almighty, who, being perfectly holy and righteous and just, sent His one and only Son to die in our place so that we can enter His throne room and give glory to God! His love for us is immeasurable; He grafts us into the covenant of His chosen people and adopts us as His own! He shows no partiality; He honors the ones who honor Him. He uses the poor, the weak, the unwanted, the nobodies of this world to bring about His will so that no one can boast except in Him! He prepares the soil of our hearts, if we will let Him. And in His perfect timing, He will cause them to bloom with beauty we never could have imagined. Even in silence You listen and love! You are always in control, even when all seems silent.


My father - my King - I don't have enough words or even enough brain cells to adequately praise your name and glorify you for all the wonders and miracles you have done in my life and across time! What's not to love about you? Heaven and earth adore you! And I join them. My Creator, you are amazing beyond compare, beyond description! What can I do but worship you!! ..."


Enthralled and excited by the freedom I felt, I wanted to look up verses that spoke of our freedom in Christ. Lacking my Bible's concordance, I turned to the internet (thank you, God, for the internet!) and ran a keyword search. I found some beautiful verses. One of them I sent out in a mass text: "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery!" (Gal. 5:1, exclamation mark mine). Two others I wrote down for myself. One is 2 Corinthians 3:17 - "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." The other is Galatians 3:14 - "He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit."


On Google+, I posted a segment of the above praises and, after some deliberation and prayer, made the post available to the public. None of my friends commented, but one stranger did; he said it was creepy and nonsense. Not gonna lie, it's disheartening when the only reply is a diss. It didn't hurt me personally, but the fact that this man was spitting on the love and glory of God hurt me. Remembering what I'd learned earlier, that I just need to stand aside and exalt Jesus, I decided that the best response would be Scripture. How appropriate that his question ("Where in the heck did you come up with that nonsense?") could be directly answered with a passage that included, "For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God"! The rest of the passage contained his answer (1 Cor. 1:18-21, 25-20), but I was pleased that I could include that perspective on what the world considers wisdom. :) After that encounter, I was reminded again of the Sermon on the Mount: "Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me." (Matt. 5:10-11)


So yeah. I'm still in awe, and still have a strong memory of what it felt like to be on Cloud 9 for most of yesterday. :) Still missing my Bible and journal, but hopefully I'll get those back on Sunday. Until then, the internet is providing me with the Scripture. Good thing I remember where all I was!! :D

(Brief sidenote: It might sound like I believe that I can do anything so long as I keep my eyes and heart on Jesus. 1) I don't think someone can actually hold that belief if they're actually focusing on Jesus. 2) That's not at all what I'm about. I believe that keeping my life fixated on my Savior and King will allow everything else to fall into place, because I will be out of the way of the Spirit's work. I understand that I will still be held responsible for my words and actions, but I now realize that I have the freedom to allow Jesus to speak through my mouth and move my hands - I don't have to carry the burden of living a righteous life, only the load of allowing Jesus to live in me and shine through me.)

STOP THE PRESSES!!

This just in! We might NOT be moving. My granddad is processing through the logistics of BUYING this house for us, so we don't have to move.

Yeah.

Negotiations for this will likely go very well. What I'm concerned about is my granddad's financial situation and whether or not he can actually pull this off.

My granddad is spectacular with juggling all the money math. No really, I mean ALL the money math. He does the lion's share of payments and pretty much all the calculations for purchases and anything money-related. And he's great at it; because of him, I'll have my student loans paid off before they even start accruing interest. Same for my sister. So, if he crunches the numbers and says it will work, then I'll believe him. (And, of course, once I start bringing in steady money, I'll be helping to pay the mortgage on the house. Same for if we were to move, of course.) But I just don't know how he's planning to pull this off.

Frankly, I think the door is wide open for us to move. The timing of all this just seems too coincidental for me to believe it's coincidence.

What it boils down to is this: The move is on hold and the whole family needs your prayers for clarity and wisdom.

Big Wheel Keep on Turnin'

So, we're moving in the next couple weeks. Found out yesterday, haha. Well, we've known we might be moving for a couple months, but that wheel just kicked it into third gear yesterday.

We've known the owner of this house was planning to sell sometime "soon," so my mom has been looking at apartments and such while I and my sister have been away at school. There's one place that's still in our part of town and has townhouses that are comparable in size to our house, so it won't be too much of a downsize. My mom loves it and she's made that known to the office folk there.

Something to know about townhouses: They go FAST. And they don't go on the market often - when people get a townhouse, they keep it indefinitely. So you have to be watching diligently and have a bit of luck on your side.

Which apparently we do! Because a 3-bedroom townhouse, exactly what we were hoping for, opened up in this community my mom loves. It's going to be ready for show in 7-10 days, at which point we can go through the formality of seeing it and claiming it. In the mean time, we are packing, packing, packing! My mom is kind of stressed about it; change is never easy, and packing up an entire house (plus attic) is pretty daunting. But we've got some boxes to start us off, and we're just going to take it a room at a time. We'll probably have both locations - the townhouse and this house - at the same time for a brief period, so that takes a little bit of the pressure off. (We can hold off on moving beds and other large furniture.)

Personally, I'm excited. I like organizing and this is gonna be like a MASSIVE spring cleaning, because we're going through everything. :D With enough boxes, I think I could pack up my entire room in 2-3 days. (Of course, I still have stuff at Samford. But I'm used to packing those things.) Plus, I have a ton of stuff I want to either sell or give away. I kind of wish I had an e-reader, though; it would make the choice on which books to store and which to keep out much easier. *shrug* Oh well. I'll deal.

But yeah! That's what's up. If anyone's got any boxes, I'd sure like to get my hands on 'em. :) And bubble wrap. We're also after bubble wrap.

Withdrawals and Socializing

So I deactivated my Facebook account yesterday. It was a big decision for me. I've known for a long time that I was addicted to it and that I spent waaaaay too much time being totally unproductive on it. Every time the topic of idolatry came up in church or wherever, I could instantly point to at least one idol in my life: Facebook. Oddly, this never really bothered me. Probably because my biggest idol is still myself, and if I want to keep something, then obviously I should be the decider on that. (Not so, but that's the mindset.) But now, I see Facebook for part of what it is to me: an obstacle to growing closer to God. And I desperately want to draw closer to Him - I want Him to change my heart so that it beats only for Him. Part of pursuing that goal is to remove idols in my life. I can't remove myself (yet), but Facebook is something I can do something about.

And I miss it so much. :( I keep looking for the pinned tab with the Facebook logo, keep looking for any access to my friends there, the events I've registered for, the photos I've uploaded, that new timeline feature, and, of course, my app games. Never played Farmville, but I'm just as addicted to a couple other games as people were to that. (Thank goodness the fad seems to have passed.) It's not that I don't have things I can be doing with my time. I most definitely do! Some of them I should probably be working on more vigilantly than I am (like making an awesome resume and applying to summer internships/jobs). I just miss that massive time dump. Apparently I find it therapeutic to do absolutely nothing! I mean literally nothing. Not sitting by a pool or even watching grass grow. Just clicking. And clicking. And scrolling. And clicking. :/

I do miss chatting with a couple people, though. All Bujinkan people, actually, if I'm not mistaken. I mean, sometimes I see school friends online and I'll chat with them, but I'm on Skype with most of them, so I'm not really missing them. But my good buyu (budo friends) pretty much exclusively use Facebook. Or at least that's the only social media site they frequent; some of them also have a G+ page and just never (ever) visit it.

I miss my peeps! I know I hardly ever talked to them directly, but even my poke wars were meaningful! But I made the alternative means of contacting me pretty clear and gave 24 hours notice. For everyone I know that I might actually communicate with, that's plenty of notice. *sigh* It's not like I've completely lost touch with them. I just have to get a little bit more creative.

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This post title has "socializing" in it, too. That's because I'm finally trying to get involved in my church here in Huntsville! I've been a member for I think 2 years and people still ask me if I'm new when they see me while I'm home for a break or vacation. Haha. It's kind of sad, actually... But I'm hoping to fix that! I'll be graduating in May, and it's entirely possible that I will stay in Huntsville for a while as I work on finding a job and raising money to eventually get my own place. God knows how long that will take, but I definitely don't! So I will be investing in my church for as long as I am there. :)

We have these things called Journey Groups - there's a big emphasis at my church on journeying together in growing closer to God and serving Him, hence the name. They're basically Bible study groups, and they're led by different people all across the city. I picked up the flyer that lists all of them and who to contact for information and all that jazz, so I'll be visiting those this month before I go back for my final semester. Hopefully I'll have one chosen by the time I come back for the summer (just in time for them to go on break for the summer months, lol; ironic, I know). Journey groups are kind of the lifeblood of the church; without them, none of us are really connected. So getting plugged into one of those should help me finally get integrated in the church. They also do community activities sometimes, so that'll be a great way to get involved, too.

I'm also trying to get over my aversion (it's not really a fear) of talking to strangers. They're my church family, and if I can't communicate with them, then there are going to be issues and I'm going to continue feeling isolated. Moreover, how am I going to shine brightly with the light of my King if I won't talk to anyone?


So yeah. Feeling the withdrawals from Facebook and missing a couple people I like talking to. And also trying to get plugged into the real world (anyone else get a Matrix vibe from that statement?). Those are the semi-major things going on right now. Oh, and happy 2012. If you make it to the end of the year without catastrophe striking, you get a cookie. (Seriously. You can log that away and show it to me at the end of this year. I will give you a cookie.)

Go in peace.
Kaitlin