If you remember, I sewed a cape over spring break for a friend of mine who turned ten. Bee, my little friend, has many siblings--one of them is her older brother, whose Star Wars interests go beyond all bounds. (He owns six lightsabers.) Now, some months ago--I think it was over Christmas break, maybe--I had promised this little boy a homemade Jedi cloak someday. I knew it would be easy, but I wasn't about to spend Christmas break sewing something like that, for no good reason. So I told him he would have to wait quite awhile. When I gave Bee her blueberry cape, her older brother was jealous, of course. After all, I'd promised him a Jedi cloak long before I'd decided to sew a cape for Bee, and first things should come first! Right? So, his birthday was this month, and I fulfilled my promise as soon as ever I got unpacked from moving back home after my sophomore year at college. I dyed the fabric Tuesday; cut it out Wednesday; sewed it yesterday; and delivered the gif

My parents work today, my brother is volunteering, and my sis went off to volunteer too after she returned from classes.... I've been nearly alone since about noon. I was never so grateful for Pandora radio!

Oh my goodness! My brother just found sheet music for the Moosebutter song "Star Wars" !!! This is incredibly amazing, and I am going to coax my singer-friends at college (a few male ones, anyway) to do this!! I hope they're nerdy enough....

I heard the end of a radio broadcast today about the life and work of Paul Harvey , whose radio show "The Rest of the Story" I used to listen to almost every day. Focus on the Family had a two part radio broadcast, which you can access from their podcast feed, here and here . And if you're quick enough, there appear to be several other Web features on the main portion of the radio website. Fascinating. My best memory of Paul Harvey was actually his book, not his radio program... "More of Paul Harvey's The Rest of the Story." I must have read it at least three times, and I don't even know where it is anymore. But I remember many of the stories in it. Several dealt with historical events... one was about an event ten years before Pearl Harbor, during which a U.S. navy something-or-other (I wanna say colonol or corporal, but I don't think that's right) demonstrated the exact weakness of Pearl Harbor that was noticed by the Japanese and explo

So the other college-blog is up. Let me know if you want the link. I'd rather not post it as an open link, just to keep my identity at least a little under wraps.

So, I'm finally into finals week (no pun intended) and will be heading home the day after tomorrow. I'll really miss my friends here, but I also miss home, so it's a fair trade. Thing is, I won't see a good many of my friends until January, since I'll be studying abroad. Thank goodness that I'll see a lot of them at a wedding next month. Choir party was today. Our choir director, Mrs. C, is quite a character. She's a grandmother, but she's one of those spry ones that you'd never guess an age for except for the grey hair. Her personality is quirky, her enthusiasm and energy are boundless, and she's full of fascinating trivia (including a full description of the local music festival this summer). She'll come out with the most hilarious statements, and often surprises me (still!) with the jokes she cracks. She's basically the kind of grandmother that acts like she's still in her twenties (complete with intrepid daring and imagina

My roommate is now dating someone... a good guy, and her co-lead in the school musical. Also, one of my other girl-friends has just started dating her SI leader (the guy who leads a weekly study group for her history class). It's gotta be something in the air... like allergies. I'm immune, apparently.

You know those essay questions that you get for various job or scholarship or internship applications? The ones that ask you where you see yourself in five, ten, twenty years? I hate those. This is why. I have come to see that I am always wrong about what I’ll be doing “five years from now.” Maybe once upon a time I thought there was something I knew for sure I was going to do "when I grew up." Something in particular--I was going to live in my old hometown, or I was going to work at a newspaper every summer, or whatever. How silly that is, when the world itself goes on without consulting your every whim. What makes us think we could know enough of future circumstances to be able to plan for them? Only God knows our plans. Us here on earth--we can hardly tell what will happen next month, let alone in five years. When I was just a little girl I asked my mother, what will I be Will I be pretty, will I be rich Here's what she said to me. Que Sera, Sera, Whatever will b

This is my bike. Its serial number is LJ574526. Which, according to this chart , means it was built in November of 1973. I get lots of comments on it... and one professor's wife insists she will buy it off of me if I ever want to sell it, because she had one just like it when she was little. Just today somebody asked how old it was, and said it was cool. This picture is not my own, by the way. It was taken by someone photographing my college's campus beautification day. Mine was not the only bike around... but it showed up in *two* of the photos. I guess the photographer just liked it. In neither picture do you see the fullness of its beauty, but oh well.

And that title may be interpreted two ways: 1. One way says I am reporting something fun, which is indeed true. I will have an article published this Friday about the musical my roommate starred in, and I enjoyed writing that article very much. I got to see one and a half performances to write the thing, and gleaned several quotes from my friends in the musical. (I knew almost the entire cast.) 2. The other way says something about reporting itself is fun, which is also (obviously) true. And this is the way I originally meant the title to read. I found out that I will get to be a beat reporter next spring for the arts on campus--the drama department, the music department, and various concerts that Student Government sponsors. I may not get paid, but I'll have a lot of fun writing that stuff! I've done a lot of that this semester already, and next year's managing editor said I did a "bang-up" job of getting my articles done and turned in by deadline. (Much

Wow. Just saw a little news article on the Social Security Administration's new top-names list. For once my name isn't in the top ten! (Hasn't been since 2002, as I just found out.) Even my sister's name beats mine. How very odd. And Isabella? Who knew that it would be the second most popular girl's name this past year.... The guys' names are all pretty predictable, though. I am quite glad that Alexander and Anthony got on! I like those names. ( Curious where yours falls? )

Millennial/collegiate terms 1.Sweet --Freakin' sweet --Friggin' sweet 2.Oh snap 3.Crap --What the crap --Holy crap 4.Heck --What the heck 5.Dang 6.Darn 7.What the flip 8.OMG (collegiate variant of Gosh) 9.Oh my lanta 10.Fo sho 11.Fur real 12.Dude 13.Awesome 14.Yay 15.Wicked (with awesome or sweet) 16.Totally 17.Hi Generally common 18.Geez --Gee --Possible oldies variant: Gee whiz 19.Gosh --Oh my gosh --Millenial/collegiate variant: OMG 20.Wow 21.Arrgh 22.Yikes 23.Holy cow 24.Oops 25.Uh-oh 26.Hey 27.Oh boy 28.What in the world 29.Whoopdedoo 30.Cool 31.Nice 32.Yuck Uniquely mine 33.Sheesh 34.Phooey 35.Oh my 36.My goodness 37.Yahoo Extreme oddities 38.Blast 39.Great Caesar's Ghost 40.Fragonard 41.Curses 42.By the beard of Zeus 43.By the hammer of Thor 44.Holy colon cancer Oldies 45.Sweet Jesus 46.Crickey 47.Gee whiz (possible variant of Geez) 48.Rats 49.Geeminee 50.My word 51.Fiddle-de-dee This is the halfway-done draft of a paper I'm writing for grammar class... all about

I'm going to be starting a student blog for my college soon. I need to come up with a name. Got any ideas I would like? Or a germ of an idea on which I may build a name? And no, I'm definitely not quitting this blog... not by a long shot. Hopefully you'll notice no change in the frequency of updates here (though my sister is not so optimistic).

So, apparently the students on staff at Cedarville University's student newspaper won't stand for the PR department looking over their shoulder . "...the PR department’s excessive attempt to censor Cedars necessarily violates our operating model, and the Cedars staff has thus decided to cease publication," the students write. "Review by the public relations department undermines our ability to think critically and engage culture. We grieve the loss of free expression and healthy discourse once found in your newspaper, traits that ought to characterize all vibrant institutions of higher learning." ( More over at World Blog. ) Sure, it's a private institution, and sure, it's a bunch of students who are still learning the ropes. But this is much farther than most (if not all) colleges take their privilege of reviewing the student newspaper. Especially since it's the PR department that's doing this. It smacks a lot of prior restraint (which i

That song ( available on Youtube, as always ) has been my Facebook status a lot this week. Today, it looked like it might not rain. Well, it might, but it might not--that's what I was thinking--but when I had to go back to my room between working on a project and lunch, I figured I may as well take my bike back to the cafeteria, since I had to run around to a bunch of buildings after lunch too. So I did. Went from lunch to print something on the special expensive one-of-a-kind-on-campus color photo printer. No rain. So far, so good. After class, went back to the special-color-printer office to pay for some old printing they'd finally found the tally for. No rain on the way there, thank goodness. But when I emerged from the office there, after a minute and a half, it was downpouring (EDIT: pouring down rain.... Happy now?). It was like *snap* and it had begun raining. Fortunately my next stop was in the same building, so I felt sorry for my bike (can one feel sorry for a