Friday, January 25, 2013

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Day Four: Ten Likes and Dislikes


Likes
  1. Coffee
  2. Tea
  3. Chocolate
  4. Accents
  5. Cuddling
  6. Reading
  7. Pizza and wings
  8. Art
  9. Music
  10. Koin (a worship service each Sunday night at my alma mater)
Dislikes
  1. When the internet suddenly goes down
  2. Arguing
  3. Feeling worthless
  4. Anxiety attacks
  5. Wanting to curl up in a ball
  6. Bad hair days
  7. Running late
  8. Crowds
  9. Peanut butter chocolate cake
  10. Stores being closed on Sundays

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Monday, January 21, 2013

30 Day Challenge: Day 1

I've decided to do a 30 day challenge. I'm also doing this over on my tumblr.




Picture taken by Christian Colburn.

  1. My family situation is so complicated that I can't tell you how many siblings I have without qualification. Short answer: between 1 and 8. Long answer: 1 half brother, 1 half sister, 1 brother, 2 stepbrothers I never see, 1 stepsister I've never met, 1 stepbrother and 1 stepsister that aren't legally my stepsiblings. Truest answer: I'm one of 6.
  2. I'm probably addicted to my devices. Especially my iPod. His name is Rory.
  3. I've been drinking coffee since I was 3 days old. These days, I drink it with 4 spoons of sugar and a splash of milk. Preferably a hint of flavoured creamer.
  4. My wardrobe is mostly jeans and t-shirts but I'm working on turning it into a more adult, grown up closet. Classy, sophisticated, but still comfortable.
  5. Though none of my biological siblings have children, I have a "big sister" with a daughter who I consider my niece. I am very proud to be Aunt Victoria.
  6. When I was 16, I was officially diagnosed with severe depression and more severe anxiety. This year is the first time I've been off my anti-depressants since then for more than six months.
  7. I have no idea what I look like with my natural hair color. It's some shade of brown but my whole head hasn't been covered with it since 2006. I enjoy dying my hair and changing it up too much.
  8. After being a student for 19 years, I graduated from a private Christian college with a degree in English (writing emphasis) and minors in Education (which was my major for 5 of my 8 semesters) and Communications (which I may go on to get my masters in).
  9. I was engaged for about three years. It ended November 2011 and though I miss who we were sometimes, I don't miss who he is now. I was obsessed with planning our wedding instead of our marriage.
  10. Most importantly, I am a Christian. Without the strength of Jesus, there are many things in my life that would be so very different. The way I handled my engagement ending, the way I'm surviving this year abroad, the fact that I'm off my anti-depressants. I can turn and point it all back to Him.

Gallifrey and Germany

Hello everybody! Long time no see. I've been knitting a lot lately which is not conducive to writing. And I honestly just haven't felt like it. If it's online and it requires brain power, I probably haven't done it in at least a month. Which includes blogging, checking my e-mails, reading blogs, etc. I haven't been on pinterest either-that giant timesuck-so it's not all bad. I did start using my tumblr (serendipity427.tumblr.com if you're interested). That's also bound to be a big timesuck when I start following more people. Right now my biggest tumblr suck is Gallifrey Burning. It's a Doctor Who (and other geekiness) tumblr (are these things called blogs or what?). She writes some amazing fan-fiction which I've also then been reading. And yes, that is just about the extent of my reading these days. If I'm taking a break from my niece's blanket to read, it has to be something so good I can't put down. Which Gallifrey Burning includes.

Speaking of Gallifrey... For those who don't know Gallifrey is the home planet of the time lords. What's a time lord? The Doctor is. Two hearts. Ability to regenerate into a new body when the old one is damaged. But only 13 times. And we're currently on the Doctor's eleventh regeneration. Which means either 1 or 2 more. Unless they change the rules. And it's Moffat so it's not unlikely. (No, I'm not explaining Moffat. Just glare and shake your fist muttering "Damn you Moffat" with me. Ready... Damn you, Moffat. Thank you.)

So speaking of Gallifrey (a planet with two suns, a bright orange sky, and silver leafed trees), with the money my parental units gave me for Christmas, I (paid my credit card and) bought a I <3 <3 Gallifrey shirt! I absolutely love it. It's so comfortable and so cute. It's long enough to not ride up when I raise my arms and the sleeves are longer than normal girl's T-shirt sleeves are. Which of course makes my tattoo only like half covered but that's fine. (I prefer either all covered or all exposed. With this tattoo it's normally the top rose is covered, the rest exposed because of short sleeves. Or all covered/all exposed. This shirt? Half the words are covered too.)

After we spent our time in Paris, we spent a few days in Prenzlau and then Schwedt. (While there I watched all 8 or 9 movies in the Love Comes Softly series. Yes, they are cheesy. But now I've seen them. Thank you Hallmark for cheese.) After a few crazy days there with nothing to do, three little girls to keep occupied, and not a freaking playground in sight, we were in Schwedt for one night so Daniel could conduct a concert. During the concert, Noemi and Kathrin watched and I stayed in Daniel's dressing room with Nuria and Ellie. I could hear the music, was playing with the girls, and had Tangled playing on my laptop for Ellie to watch. (They also ate a million slices of clemintines!)

Normally, I'm not a huge fan of classical music. I find it rather boring most of the time. If someone else puts it on, I won't complain but I'm not going to put it on myself. I don't typically seek out concerts (though I do enjoy them when I go). So I guess I'm a lazy intellectual. Anyhow, point is, while listening to this symphony, I was so moved I almost cried. I was also super desparate for some nature time and had just gotten a glimpse of the river looking into a national park. (On the other side of that river was forest and beauty and nature and then on the other side of that was Poland. That's how close I was to Poland, how far East. I was all of 3.5 km away from the border.) As I was listening to the music, I had this picture in my head of the river and the trees and just imagining listening to this beautiful symphony while looking out over G-d's beautiful creation moved me to tears. I felt so incredibly blessed at that moment.

Of course, after that we had to hussle to the train station and when we got to Berlin for our train change, we had to race to catch the train to Osna. The family got on and underway while I went to get coffee with Karen, one of the family friends. She lives in Berlin and I was headed to Hamburg. She was so interesting to talk to that I lost track of time... and missed my train. I had to buy a new ticket (which left me broke) but I did get on the train and made it to Hamburg.

And I think this had rambled on for long enough. I'm going to write some more later but it will post throughout the week. Have a great evening!