Conversations with My Girls. :]

If you've read this blog for any length of time at all, I'm sure you've heard me mention my two favorite girls--they are these two adorable little girls who go to my church, sisters, who will both be five (Laney) and four (Kylee) in late December this year. They're basically my primary source of amusement. :)

So today I got to hang out with them between church services and such... so I figured I would share some of their adorable hilarity with you! :)

[Laney and I were looking at this family Bible with a bunch of pictures in it that illustrated some of the stories...]

Me: Look, Laney! It's Noah's Ark!
Laney: Yeah!!!! Those are all the animals!
Me: Yeah, and look at Noah's family!!!!
Laney: (looks at me drolly) That's not Noah's family!
Me: Then who is it?!
Laney: (matter-of-factly) Those are PEOPLE!
(And may I ask, if Noah's family aren't PEOPLE, then what in the world are they?! lol)

[I was holding Kylee as I was waiting for her grandmother to be ready to leave, and we were walking around, and lately Kylee always wants to know what everyone's name is...]

Kylee: Who's that?
Me: That's my daddy. His name is John.
Kylee: John?
Me: Yep, but I can't call him that. But I call him Daddy. He would get mad at me if I called him John.
Kylee: (a bit of fear and worry in her eyes) His name is John? And you call him Daddy?
Me: Yep.
Kylee: And if you call him John he would be very very angry at you?
Me: Not REALLY angry... but I'm supposed to call him Daddy. Because that's what I'm supposed to call him. Just like you call your daddy "Daddy".
Kylee: So his name is John, but you call him Daddy? Because if you called him John he would be VERY VERY VERY mad at you?
Me: No... he would just be like, "No... I'm your daddy, so you call me Daddy." And that's that.
Kylee: Ohhhh...

And there were a bunch of others, but I definitely don't remember them. haha.

Till next time,
Ash the (Amused) Dreamer

Happy Day. :]

Good Morning! :)

Happy Sabbath! :) I know most of you don't celebrate Sabbath the way I do, but Happy Saturday to you! I hope you have a utterly lovely day! :)

I forgot that I heard this song before, until I heard it on the radio just a few seconds ago, and I think I adore this song! So I figured I would share it with you. :) Because that's just the sorta girl I am. haha.



:)

Oh, the song's called "Get Back Up", and it's by TobyMAC. :)

I guess it just gives me hope, thinking one day I'll be able to beat depression and OCD for good... :) And to know that Jesus is with me for always. :)

Anyway, I have to go to church now, so I'll talk to you all later! :)

Till next time,
Ash the (Reassured) Dreamer

Dreams.

I have a love-hate relationship with my dreams for my future.

On one hand, I LOVE that I love my dreams SO much, and I love that they're so awesome, and that I will probably have a lot of them come true one day. :)

On the other hand, I HATE that I have to wait so long for them to come true!!!! :*(



Isn't this little kid positively adorable?! His name is Jonas. Isn't his NAME positively adorable?!

I just looked at his picture today, and he has a GREAT family, with a loving mommy and daddy, and a little brother on the way. So I know he's not going to be a part of the dream I have to adopt about five kids. (Yes, I seriously plan to adopt at least four kids. Hopefully five. I want five kids, and I'm pretty sure I want to adopt them all. haha.) But when I saw him, in all his adorableness, and when his daddy was describing him... Gah, it made me SO anxious for the day when I can adopt my first child. I always wanted a ton of girls, but now I'm so in love with having a little boy, too, and I just want to be able to be a mommy now! :/

I know it's not time, and I know I'll wait... but orphans shouldn't have to wait for me to finish college and get a dependable job. They shouldn't have to wait for anything. They should have a mommy and a daddy.

:*(

Till next time,
Ash the (Frustrated) Dreamer

in ten years.

Jen from It's a Jen's Life gave me my second blog award a bit over a week ago... It's called the "You're Going Places, Baby!" award. :) And the rules are just to share where I see myself being in 10 years.

And Jen, I REALLY don't know why you gave this to me, because I'm pretty sure this post will go on FOREVER.

hahaha.

But here we go. :)

I want to be a mommy. And I really hope I have at least three children by ten years from now. I'll be thirty-three by then... one would think I could adopt 3 children by then. :) Hopefully two girls and a boy (named Isabelle, Arianne, and Daniel/Caleb? Please? I would love to have a Bella, an Ari, and a Danny/Caleb!), but I'm up to whatever Jesus decides. :) (Of course, after this, I still want two more kids, so I'd have two boys and three girls total, haha.)

I want to have started a knitting ministry. I don't know if it will include more than me or not, but I want to knit lots of scarves and hats and possibly gloves and blankets, and send them all over the world to those that need them, particularly homeless shelters here in America and orphanages in Europe and China (South America and Africa, too, I suppose, but I still can't picture people in Quito, Ecuador, needing scarves, mittens, and hats to keep them warm).

I want to have started some ministry helping orphans. I don't yet know what it is, but I want to stand up for orphans, somehow, and bring more awareness to their needs, and to help them find homes... I'm not sure how to do that, though. haha.

I want to have started traveling across the country with Christian musicians/bands, preaching the Gospel of Jesus. Is it a crazy dream? Of course it is. But that's part of the appeal. haha.

I hopefully will have already spent a year or two in Europe, as a missionary. In an orphanage, teaching English, ministering through a church, preaching, I don't care. I just really want to be able to go.

I want to be a foster mom. Yeah, I know. I already have plans to have five children that are either adopted or my own children. But yes, I most definitely do want to have several foster kids on top of that. Am I crazy? You could say that.

haha.

And hopefully, I will have already gotten AT LEAST two of my novels published.

Also, I want to be pretty involved in the Cradle Roll class at my church (for newborns to 4-year-olds), I want to be the most amazing aunt in the world to my brother and sisters' future children, I want to visit my mom and dad every week, I want to sponsor my own Compassion International child (hopefully a very little girlie), continue to give money to help really great causes (Compassion International and Mocha Club and the WordFM are my three favorites!), help out with VBS every summer, be happily married to a very awesome man (I would love it if his name was Daniel, Charles, Micah, Josiah, Joseph, Jack, or Noah... and David would be okay, too... but now I'm just being picky! lol).

I want to be involved in the youth ministry at my church... I want to preach at my church on occasion. I want to be able to still be in contact with some very dear friends of mine right now, and to be able to mentor their future (and current) children in the way of the Lord, I want to be depression free, OCD-free, the best novelist I can be, and ALWAYS dreaming of helping someone else.

Okay... I guess I can see why Jen nominated me for this award. haha. Maybe I dream TOO much. hahahaha.

And I don't even know if I want to be doing all that, but there is SO much I want to do to help the world, and I want the world to know Jesus, and I want to stand up for Him... and I want to rescue lots of hurting people.

PLEASEEEEE let it be so!!!

Okay, I'm supposed to nominate ten people now... but since I don't really follow 10 blogs, even, I don't think... so I'll just nominate a few people. :)

Paige at bp blog;
Amelie at Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amelie
Ashley at .:Curiously Strong:.

And I think that's it.

If you were brave enough to read all that, I applaud you.

haha.

Have a good weekend, everybody! :)

Ash the (Nostalgic) Dreamer

oh, please... :*(

oh, please, please pray for my nana.

maybe, when i'm not so insanely tired, i'll tell you about her.

but here's the gist of it now: two evenings ago, she fell on the way to walking to supper (she lives with my cousin, his wife, and their two girls), and she fell and broke her hip. when they were doing surgery to fix her broken hip yesterday, they discovered her cancer metastasized from her lungs (where it was nearly two years ago) to somewhere in her leg/pancreas (no one can really give me all the details yet). suffice it to say, if she would have flatlined on the operating table, my dad and his sister signed a do not resuscitate form for her.

:*((((((

i knew this was coming, but i didn't expect it to scare me so much.

please pray for my nana, and my family!

thanks, dears!
i'll talk to you later!

till next time,
ash the (heartbroken) dreamer

Taco Bell and Changing the World...

I spent much of today trying to convince the patrons of the Taco Bell/Long John Silvers' in my county to donate a dollar to help teenagers graduate from high school.

I wonder why the other register people don't get as fired up about it as me.

At first, I didn't care about it terribly much--I mean, it didn't seem nearly as important as the whole "feeding the children" drive we have between October and December... when people all look down at me condescendingly and say, "Oh, no, dear, I can't give today..." or "No, I positively would NOT like to help feed hungry children in Africa..." it makes my blood boil.

Am I the ONLY one?

Most of the others don't even ask, really, anymore. I guess they're tired of getting no all the time, and they're in a hurry. If I wasn't so completely passionate about helping and saving the world, I guess I could understand. But these are PEOPLE. They NEED help. I realize I can't give all the help to every person that will ever need it.

But is it wrong to want 100% of the customers that come into my place of work to say, "Sure, I'll donate a dollar to help an inner-city kid to graduate from high school, be rescued from the influence of gangs, and go on to live a fulfilled and productive life in the future"?

I realize that the program won't even work for every teenager that they try and help. But they're TRYING. Doesn't that mean ANYTHING to middle class America?

Can I just say that middle class America makes my blood boil?

I guess I'm a part of it, even... we all have our little gadgets and our cars and our homes, and we think we have it all together, but we're losing it enough that we can claim an excuse as to why we can't help this cause or that cause. We come from a history of helpfulness and goodness and God and knowing what's right just enough that we know we SHOULD, but we always have a reason why we DON'T. And most of all, "Later" is our favorite word. I can do it later...

I think "later" should be a word that doesn't even exist.

I think later is the worst idea in the whole entire universe.

I think later will ruin us.

I know I can't change everyone, but if every single one of us who CAN do something would actually DO it, then we wouldn't NEED to worry about putting something off any longer--because all the problems would be solved!

And sometimes, I think that middle-class Judeo-Christian America is even worse than middle-class America. "I already donate through my church..."

Every time someone says that to me, I feel like reaching across the counter, slapping them in the face, and saying, "Thank you for that. I'm glad that your church is doing something to help others. But your church isn't helping THIS child stay alive. Your church isn't tutoring THIS teenager to give them a future. So if you can spare a dollar--which I know you can, I can see it RIGHT THERE IN YOUR HAND... Can you PLEASE just give up your selfish little motives and feed a child instead of have another cup of coffee?!"

Ooooh, I HATE Middle-Class America.

So can you do me a favor?

If your local fast food restaurant is helping some cause--even if it isn't backed by your personal theology or religious persuasions--can you PLEASE do me a favor and donate your dollar to help children have a future, or to rescue children from poverty, or to feed a dying child, or whatever other plan this organization is doing to save the world? Thanks.

On the upside, I'm pretty sure I got over $30 in donations to help the teenagers of America. How awesome is that? And that was just me. If I could do that EVERY time I work on register, and if this drive lasts for a month, I could raise about $500 or so. (I don't work a ton, haha.)

It's not hard to change the world.

We just need to try.

So why don't we try?! :*(

Till next time,
Ash the (Sad) Dreamer