Houses.

love this house.

Peace.

a little wisdom my roommate shared with me today. we are attempting to finish this semester without complaining and to be truly thankful for the bounty we have been given.

                             truth

                   + thankfulness 

                      peace.

Some nights.

          School has quickly overtaken my life. that's how i feel at least. a couple of nights ago, i realized that i have a fourth research paper due in the next few weeks. sometimes i rock at life. right now is not one of those times. :) anyways, amidst all of that, i am struggling to actually be productive on this lovely fall night. with one of my roommates taking control of the living room with a bunch of nursing students who are all studying for a big exam, me and another roommate are camped out in my room where the candles are lit, only a couple of lamps are on, iron and wine is on in the background and with hot chocolate in our hands, life is too good. i am even enjoying the biography on sitting bull that i have to read for my 19th century american history course. that is saying a lot.

          i registered for classes tonight. there are perks to being an upperclassman. for once, i got into everyone of the classes i needed. thank heaven because i did not even have a plan b. tonight when i was meeting one of the nursing students, she took one look around our living room and told me i was creative. i love being told that. after she said that she realized she hadn't even introduced herself. it went like this. katie, my roommate, said, "this is my roommate, gretchen. she's the one that made all of this." [apparently they had been talking about my stuff before i came into the living room.] i said, "hi!" and she responded, "you're creative, oh, i'm rachael by the way." ha. it's the small things that count.

          some nights i need to do something creative. i couldn't focus earlier as i was trying to read and decided to make something and switch some things around in my room. having done that, i could then focus once again on sitting bull. good thing i have found an outlet! i'm getting impatient for brookie and eric to find a house. all i want to do is paint and decorate and living in a dorm, what i can do is minimal. oh well, i'll find something to change around soon.

          last weekend i went to chicago. a few friends from this area and i took off to spend some much needed time with more friends in illinois. so glad it all worked out. i hadn't realized how much i missed some of my friends and how great it was to finally get to talk to them face to face. friends are such a blessing.

          i started a new book list. ever since college, i hadn't made a new one, so hopefully in the near future i will be able to tackle my list. so far, mere christianity and axiom. when i was in junior high i attempted reading mere christianity. the problem was that it was way over my head and i never have gotten back to it. axiom is a book we read a few chapters out of at camp this past summer. it is written by bill hybels and i really enjoyed it because it offered such wisdom in a few pages. hopefully one day i will have time to read the books i want.

          for diana's final paper, she assigned us to pick an author from the 19th century and analyze what was important in their time from their perspective. in diana's classes we do this sort of assignment quite a bit, but we usually all read the same book. this time around, we choose individually. i chose Hope, Leslie by catharine maria sedgwick. i don't really know much about her except that she had more of a conservative view on women's rights during her lifetime. usually history courses only focus in on progressive women, so it will be interesting to see how she views her position in life. i'm kind of excited for this paper. crazy? most likely.

wow, i didn't realize i had so much to say.

well, goodnight, and i hope your night was just as relaxing and enjoyable as mine was.

Blessings.

every once in a while, i realize how oblivious i can be. 

lately, i looked through some of my old posts and i was reading the one right before i headed off to camp. i had four very specific requests and now that i look back, i can see how God really fulfilled every one of those requests, even when i didn't notice it.

1. even though i was going to michigan in the buick that is waiting to die, i made it safely there and back and had some wonderful conversations that helped me to get to know a few people way better.

2. the new staff was great; never have i felt that the whole staff was able to get along and get that close in just one summer's time. i definitely became much closer with a few people, even some people that i just met this summer and others, that i have known but learned so much more about them this summer. all in all, it was a huge blessing.

3. i think i mentioned this before, but this summer at camp, i had a renewed sense of passion for camp. all of a sudden, the campers and their short encounter with camp, meant a lot to me. comfort didn't seem to matter all that much as long as i was able to affect the way dads and daughters/sons grew together.

4. what i set out to accomplish this summer, i was able to do because of the focus that i, and others, prayed for.

i think i need to write more prayers out so that i can fully realize how big God is and how he never fails us. you should try it too. let me know how that goes.

                 p.s. october is another blessing. it really is the best month of the year!

Sunday and someday.

hello friends. don't you just love sundays? they always seem to be sunny and beautiful. this morning my roommate, carly, and i got up and baked; carly, some banana bread muffins and me, some carmel rolls to have with our morning coffee. we both just wanted to bake, decorate, and clean our little home all day, but no such luck, homework beckons. 

anyways, i thought i would take some time to share this with you and a few thoughts i have been dreaming of. i have been dreaming of cities. that is unusual for me, because i usually am longing for the woods or small little towns; something like where i grew up. within the last few months though, i have thought it would be such an adventure to move to a city and actually live in the city, not like the suburb i live in now. wouldn't it be fun to move to new york for a year or long enough to feel like you know the area like the back of your hand? i do. or seattle, boston...the list continues. i want to see these places and not just visit, i want to really know them without just knowing the tourist hot spots. i guess we'll see what happens. 

hope you enjoy your sunday!

A day for encouragement.

one night this past summer, a friend of mine at camp and i were sitting on top of the climbing tower talking. she played this song for me and i fell in love with it. right at that moment, listening to this song, all was well with the world and i get that feeling each time i listen to it. i hope you enjoy it as much as i have within the last few days and even when life gets stressful and busy, remember that there is a much bigger picture.

it is a perfectly lovely fall day; the air is crisp, the leaves falling, and the green fading away. life is good.

Books: a love, hate relationship.

It has been forever and a day since i last wrote. Camp is over once again and i am back at school, reading my days away. Once again, camp was lovely, one of my most favorite summers in fact. But oddly, i was ready to move onto the next thing. I am not sure what that something was because the sound of school sounded daunting, and had nothing else on the agenda; i was simply in the mindset of that i have come and done what i set out to do. I have been mulling over the idea of going back for one more summer, but alas, i must quit because right now i have a million other things on my mind. I am already far behind in readings for class; i am unsure how i will ever catch up. It's not that i haven't been doing them, it's just that there is so much. Today i read a book titled, The Idea that is America: Keeping Faith with Our Values in a Dangerous World. A very interesting read and i thoroughly enjoyed it. However, i still have a rising stack of books/articles/textbooks that need to be read. Next item up for tonight is Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain. It needs to be completed with a discussion guide by next Friday; the book is 434 pages! I might die. I love books, and long books have never scared me. The problem is i am unsure when i will read all of that in just a week with everything else. I guess, somehow it always gets done, no sense in worrying. 

I love all my classes. I am once again with the famous Diana Magnuson and Gordon William Carlson, my two favorite profs. They sure are work horses, but i still like them...sometimes. :) In G.W.'s class, there were three of us who had had him in his Classics in Western Political Philosophy, so he picked on us immensely and scared the sophomores immensely with his direct questions, which are intimidating. One poor girl completely forgot the Pledge of Allegiance when asked to recite it during class. I felt bad for her, she was so embarrassed. Anyways, i shined in his class when he asked me to tell the class all i knew about the Pledge, which was actually quite a lot since it fascinated me during one of G.W.'s previous lectures. I left feeling pretty confident. 

One funny story and then i should read for class again. So, last year when i was in G.W.'s office and discussing my thoughts on grad school and working in a museum, he somehow got the impression that i was a man hating type of feminist. Not really sure which part of my thought process gave him that idea. Anyways, he continued to tell me a story about when his daughter was at Bethel. A certain young freshman boy was pursuing her and gave her a book to read before he would date her. The main thesis of the book was that females should be completely submissive to male authority in the marriage. G.W. asked me what i thought she had done after reading the book. I responded that she probably gave the book back and said, "no thanks". He laughed and he will forever remember that day in AC211. In class he was telling this story to the entire class and asked me to tell the class how it ended and worked out for the hopeful couple. G.W. likes me. I am much more confident beginning my second class with the famous G.W. than i was last semester. I am thankful for that bit of confidence.