Thursday

Oh to Grace,
how great a debtor
daily I'm constrained to be.
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Here's the Mount,
I'm fixed upon it.
Mount of Thy unchanging love.

Weekend Highlights

This weekend was incredibly fun and exhausting, but mostly fun. At times it was a big "past meets present" fest, but that just made it more interesting. Friday I went to the university's production of "Our Town." It was really great - take a moment and enjoy life folks. Afterwards, a great game of Apples to Apples with old friends. Side note - I love when I hang out with people for the first time in several months and we are able to just pick right up where we left off.

On Saturday, Dan and I went backpacking around the Buffalo River. The trees were gorgeous. Here are a few highlights from that trip:
-We saw a herd of 15-20 elk on the side of the road, one of the bulls was MASSIVE.
-While driving to Erbie, I saw a dog on the side of the road with something in it's mouth. Upon closer inspection, it was a fresh bloody deer leg. Yum!
-We had a sweet campsite, complete with reclining couch and fire pit.
-I woke up in the middle of the night to a coyote howling about 40 yards away from me.
-Saw an old cemetary, an old farmer's house (with a sweet barn), and awesome views of the river.
-Learned how to off-road in a Honda Civic.
-Random puking incident in Harrison.

And the last, but definitely not the least, highlight of my weekend: pillow talk with Jordan - twice!

Life lessons from the trees

When walking to/from school, I have a few options for my route. Most of the time I just take the main roads, but occasionally I walk through the cemetery. I find myself taking the cemetery route more in the fall because the trees are so beautiful. When I was walking home through the cemetery yesterday I started having all these thoughts of how trees are like a model of how I want my life to be remembered when I'm gone. I don't know if being surrounded by tombstones just brought the subject of death to the forefront of my mind or what, but it was like a flood of thoughts all at once. I started thinking of spring when the trees are flowering and putting on leaves as birth. It's a beautiful event and the new leaves have such a delicate look to them. As the spring/summer progresses, the leaves turn a darker green color and they withstand storms, drought, whatever the world throws their way. I want my adult life to be like that. Then, just before the leaves wither and fall, they put on an awe-inspiring display. I want the end of my life to be like that - the most beautiful and meaningful part of my life. I hope God allows me to shine in the waning moments of my life.

Random thoughts for your Thursday

The trees are actually turning colors - I thought we were gonna jipped this year.
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I've never actually written the word "jipped" before the last sentence, and I have absolutely no idea if it's spelled even remotely correctly.
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Brian's bed is comfortable.
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Girls who use Halloween as an excuse to dress as slutty as humanly possible annoy the crap out of me.
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An upcoming weekend road trip has the potential for greatness.
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I'm loving the cooler weather, but I'm so not ready for winter.
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I wish I had better organizational skills.
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Murder in the dark is a fun game.
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