Friday, June 28, 2013

I Love My God!

There is a beautiful story behind this picture. I was strolling around school, looking for interesting pictures I could take for an art project, and I noticed some bees flying around a lantana bush near the cafeteria. I thought, "Well, I'll see if I can get some pictures of these bees," and promptly attempted to do so. They all flew away quickly before I got within two feet of the bush. Annoyed, I tried to sneak up on one, but he saw me coming and buzzed off immediately. I moved to some different bushes, determined to get a bee picture. I had no luck, even after about 15 minutes of attempts. I REALLY wanted a bee picture, for some reason, but no matter how many times I tried to get one of the little guys to stay put so I could take a picture, they kept flying off. Frustrated, I finally exclaimed, "God, can I PLEASE just have a bee?"
       Less than five seconds later, a bee plopped down on the flower that was at my eye-level. He did not fly away even though I was about six inches from him. It took me a moment to get my camera ready, and even when I lifted it up quite close to him, he paid not attention and went happily about his business.
       I got six pictures of him, and only when I had one I liked, did he then fly off. This is now one of my favorite pictures, as it reminds me that I am loved by the Creator of all things, great and small, and that He who gave His life for me is alive and present in my world -- and that He is always listening ... even to my most ridiculous requests

Thursday, June 27, 2013

300 Down, Less than 100 to Go

I have just completed my 300th page on Book Two. This excites me :D I'm probably 3/4 of the way finished, and I'm really looking forward to last 100 pages or so; they're going to be awesome!! In case I haven't mentioned this before, while YF was pretty much entirely from Elysia's P.O.V., Book Two is probably only half of her perspective .... maybe even less. I hate having a book entirely from one person's point of view, so if you hate that too, no worries—I've gotcha covered. Pretty much every character you meet in this book gets at least a paragraph or two from his/her point of view, even the ones who aren't all that important. Why, you ask? Just for the sake of keeping things interesting and letting you see things from both the elves' and the humans' perspectives :) Because who doesn't love getting inside the villains' heads too?? 
      Anyway, in celebration here is a small but fun snippet for you :)

From the Chapter 'Rescue'
       I tripped over something unseen in the darkness and landed on my back in the grass. The breath whooshed from my body and I lay stunned for a moment, my body reacting in pain. Once the throbbing had subsided some, I started to turn over to get up, but froze as I realized that there was the dark shape of a person a few feet away, silent and still, watching me. My heartbeat accelerated wildly, and I gave a small gasp of reaction. 
With a swift movement that was hard to follow in the dark, the person was suddenly next to me, and the cold blade of a knife was pressed to my throat, bringing back terrible memories of the river and the last time I had had a knife at my neck. I tried to lay still so that the blade would not cut my skin, but with my heart beating so hard and blood roaring in my ears, it was hard. 
“Well, look what I have here,” the person said softly, and my breath caught. “A fallen rose. How … convenient.”
It was Roman. 
He jerked me to my feet, being none too gentle, and pushed me back against the rock I had just been standing at a moment earlier. His knife was still at my throat, and now that we were closer to the firelight, I could see his face. He looked so like Lliam that it made me almost want to cry from seeing such a blatant reminder of the man who had saved my life so many times, and who was probably nearby right now. But Lliam could not save me now, I knew that; I was on my own in facing Roman. I could only hope that Roman was in a merciful mood.
But from the look on his face, he was not. 
        I could scarcely breathe, I was so terrified of what was coming next. There was a wild look in Roman’s eyes that, coupled with the light of the flames, made him look slightly demonic, and I was uncomfortably reminded of my dream of the black rider. My chest heaving as I fought to breathe, I waited for Roman to do something. 

Saturday, June 22, 2013

Hello from Virginia

Well, I'm in Virginia in my brother's house, and I''ve been here since ... Wednesday, I think? Yes, Wednesday. We had two extremely LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG days in the car driving through Arkansas and Tennessee (though the mountain drives were pretty) and so far, the stay here has been fun and relaxing. Sort of. There are a lot of people in this small house. And two dogs. And a turtle. A turtle, you say? Yes, a turtle. I'll talk about him later. 

So on Thursday, I got to take a tour of Liberty University, which is where my brother goes and where I will probably go to college. That was a lot of fun, and I learned quite a bit about the school. Liberty is BIIIG, but I think that'll be okay. We also went running on some of Liberty's mountain trails, along with Apollo, one of my brother's dogs. That was very fun as well, but very tiring, as it was basically an uphill hike.Yesterday, we went out to the trails again, and this time we went a different way. We came out at a lake, and my brother goes, "Hey, look, a baby turtle!"So I of course hopped in and caught the little guy. He didn't like me very much. But I found a plastic grocery bag on the trail, filled it with water (surprisingly it didn't have any holes), and put the turtle in it to take him home. Now apparently this turtle dislikes me so much he felt the need to commit 
suicide to get away from me, because in the car, I took him out of his bag so I could move the rock at the bottom and he leaped under the seat within a matter of seconds. No, he did not fall. He leaped. And thus ensued the twenty minutes of searching under the seat. He's pretty small, so it took my brother a while to find him. And when he did, the turtle was eating a Twizzler that had fallen under the seat. *facepalm* We took him home, put him in a temporary Tupperware container, and left to eat. We went to Petsmart on the way back and bought him a slightly bigger little container, some food, and a rock. When we got back, he was gone. Now, he was in a Tupperware container with the lid mostly on. Sitting on the kitchen table. What. So we took flashlights and started looking under all the appliances and nooks and crannies. We found him under the dog's play box. He had somehow gotten out of a mostly closed
Tupperware container, jumped off the kitchen table, survived, walked alllllll the way out of the kitchen, gone down two steps, and walked behind the dogs' play box. Upon finding him, I told him he was the worst turtle ever. He just glared at me. Needless to say, he is now safely contained in his new box, with no chance whatsoever of making another suicide attempt ;) Oh! And his name -- we found him near one of my brother's ROTC navigation points, which was called Bravo Mike. So this turtle is named Bravo Mike. He is an army turtle, through and through.
     We're here today and then we leave tomorrow. Another two days of long, unending torture as we drive back. UGH. But I wrote 10 pages on Book Two coming here, and finished editing some of PG13's book, so that was good :D Hopefully I'll get some more done on the way back.  So yes, that's been my Virginia trip in a nutshell. Or a turtle shell. Which ever you prefer.      Hope you're all having a great summer!!    

Monday, June 10, 2013

Road Trip

So on Wednesday, my mom, my sister-in-law's mom, and I are beginning a two-day road trip to Virginia, where my brother and his wife live. Whilst there, we will help them move into their new house, and I will tour Liberty University's campus (which is probably where I'm going to end up going to college). I really liked Virginia last time we went, and I'm excited to go (thought NOT excited for the uber-long drive), mostly because we've literally taken ONE family trip ever, and that was the trip to Virginia >.< So yeah, I will update you on what goes on in Virginia and the progress I make on Book Two while there. Because seriously, what else am I going to do in the car for 10 hours? Anyway, the next time I update, I either won't be in Texas, or I'll be in Virginia! :D
      Hope you all are having a great summer!

Friday, June 07, 2013

An Update on Book Two

Since summer began, I have written 21 pages on Book Two :D You have no idea how happy this make me!! Not only am I happy to be working on Sons and Daughters again, but the stuff I've written is good, and I am SO excited for y'all to read it!! :D (It's so much better than Young Falcon it's not even funny) Anyway, summer has been fantastic so far, and I look forward to keeping you updated on all my Book Two adventures (and probably giving you some snippets)!
     Hope you are all having a wonderful week!!

Tuesday, June 04, 2013

4 on the 4th

My second day of summer went very well :D I was able to hammer out 4 more pages on Book Two!! I'm so glad to be working on this story again, and please pray that my creativity keeps on coming! :)

Monday, June 03, 2013

Summer's Here!

Today is my first day of summer! Wheee!! So far, it's been great. I went for a run this morning and realized just how much I've missed running. Aaaand, good news! I have managed to pick up my creative pen once again and have written almost two pages on Book Two so far! :D Not great compared to my usual, but I haven't written on Book Two in FAR too long, so that's a good start :) So please pray that the creativity stays with me, and that I can keep loving writing on my favourite series of all time! I'm over halfway finished with rewriting Book Two, and at the moment there are 441 pages. I'm not sure how long Book Two will be compared to Young Falcon, but I'm thinking it'll probably be a bit longer. Aaaand then there's Book Three >.< That one is long :) Book Four only has 95 pages at the moment, but it'll probably shape up to be quite long as well. You might as well just accept that they're going to get longer as they go :D Anyway, I'm excited to finish Book Two this summer! Wish me luck!
     Have a GREAT and safe first week of summer!

Saturday, June 01, 2013

I Am Now (Officially) a Senior

    I promised you a giant graduation post, so here it is :)
    Graduation for the class of 2013 was last night, and with their graduation to the next stage of life, this makes me now a senior. Is this a frightening thought to me? Mm, yes and no. I am super excited to get a bigger dose of independence this year (I'm finally learning to drive this summer) and sometimes I wish I could just skip senior year and go straight to college. But I'm also relieved I have senior year to prepare myself for the huge dose of independence that will come with college. 
PG13 and me. Best friends!!
  But enough about me. Some of my best friends graduated last night, most notably PG13, who has been at my school for 6 years now and is definitely one of my closest friends. God has blessed me so much by bringing her to BCS, and I am so grateful I got to have 6 wonderful years with her. I have also been hugely blessed by her family, the G's, who have taken me in like one of their own and become my second family. We've had so many amazing adventures at the lake, at track meets, at birthday parties, and at school. I know I can always count on them, and I love them all so much!! 

J.L. and me


Some of my other great friends are J.L. and C.A., whom I haven't known as long as PG13 but am glad I got to be friends with. J.L. and I became friends through a mutual friend of ours, A.S., and we survived AP Bio together. She's an amazing softball player, and she never fails to make me laugh and feel better when I'm sad. And she came all the way from Vietnam to be with us!! Tôi yêu bạn, Phương Lê!
     
C.A. and me
C.A. and I have known each other for a while, but I think we've only become good friends this year, since we've had study hall together every other day. C.A. is one of the sweetest girls I know; she's always kind and compassionate and ready to give advice and a smile. She loves God dearly, and it shows in everything she does. I will miss her so much, and I hope to be able to visit her when she's at Belmont and I'm at Liberty in a few years!! :) Both these girls are super amazing, and I can't wait to see what God has in store for their beautiful lives. And please don't forget to come back and visit me if you're ever in town, guys!! I love you both!!


N.M. and me
N.M. is one of my favourite seniors. Though I don't know her as well as I would like, I am so glad I got to know her a little bit better this year. She's quirky, fun, and adorable, and you won't meet a single person at BCS that doesn't have something great to say about her. She's a great actress (she won Best Actress at TCSIT and got several other awards) and an even better friend. She lights up the room with her bubbly personality, and I know she will have no problem amassing a host of friends at college. 


A.M. and me
My lab partner! This guy is great, and I'm so glad I got to be his friend this year. I only had one class with him, so he's another I didn't get to know very well, but he was one of the leaders of our school's Spiritual Life Committee and was involved in pretty much everything, so I still saw him quite a bit. If anyone at BCS has a heart for God, it's A.M. I think he was probably one of the few seniors that really tried to live his life for the glory of God, and it was so good to see that somebody was making that effort. I learned a lot from him this year, and I'm very glad we got to be lab partners :)


Me, D.R., and G.C.
I literally became friends with D.R. because we stood outside the building in the mornings, waiting for the doors to open. Strange way to acquire a friend, but apparently effective. Haha! D.R.'s great, and I'm so glad we became friends. He has a great sense of humor, and he's just fun to be around. He also has a heart for God, and I think he has a great future ahead of him. 


Me, Ms. McB, and G.C.
And even though she's not a high school graduate, my AP English III teacher is leaving BCS after a very fun year, and we're all going to miss her. She was SO much fun, and she made English one of the best classes this year (and I usually hate English class). She's very quirky and is an amazing seamstress and costumer, and I wish her all the best as she leaves to pursue a design degree. She has promised to come back and visit us, so I'm hoping she'll be good on that promise! :) 


And there's not much I can say to the seniors that they haven't already heard. All that 'follow your dreams,' 'be strong,' 'dare to be different' stuff, they've heard a thousand times by now. I don't really know what to say, except that I love them all, and they have each blessed my life in amazing ways. I hope God always sends them the people they need, blesses their lives, and showers them with grace and love. Congratulations, class of 2013.