1. Evernote. Yes, I had to pay $5, but my recipes are now 100% organized by meal, contents, categories, etc. It’s brilliant. I’m also using it to catalogue other projects I want to do and books I want to read. I’m generally pretty organized, but this is the only thing I’ve found that allows me to have so many different things organized in one place.

2. Oreo-stuffed chocolate chip cookies. I made these several times over this last semester, and they never lasted longer than about ten minutes after coming out of the oven. They’re a commitment, for sure, because they’re the equivalent of at least four normal cookies, but it’s so worth it. And I’m going to make them tomorrow.

3. Pushing Daisies. Alex and I are watching through this, and while we think Chuck is kind of obnoxious, I like the show in general a lot.

4. This lady:

So what if this picture is five years old? You’re not the boss of me.

5. The Avett Brothers- The Gleam. Speaking of five years ago, I like hearing what they sounded like then. It’s pretty great.

That’s all! Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

1. Find at least one job. These prospects are actually looking really good at the moment, but so as not to jinx anything, I may or may not explain later.

2. Summer classes. Yay, more gen eds! Doing the equivalents of philosophy and critical reading & writing online this summer so I’ll have more room in my schedule next year for electives.

3. Cook twice a week (ideally using both recipes I already know and ones I don’t).

4. Make a recipe book.

5. Find furniture for our suite next year. This is so that my dear roommate Amy and I can have a coffee table, and maybe something to put the TV in.

6. Read my Bible every. Single. Day.

7. Blog twice a week.

8. Finish one craft project per week.

9. Switch to using as many homemade products as possible. Baking soda shampoo has worked well enough that I’d like to see what some other alternatives are like.

10. Rearrange my room. I don’t have any floor space.

11. Summer student ministry. I won’t lie, I don’t know what that’s going to be yet.

12. Learn to make bread.

13. Learn to use my dad’s camera.

14. Read. (This one is a given.)

15. Make an apron.

16. Fill up a notebook. Doesn’t matter with what.

17. Learn how to budget. I’m really bad at money, and I’d like to change that.

18. Don’t eat sweets unless I made them (or I guess they can be homemade by someone else). To clarify, this isn’t to change my eating habits at all. It’s to get me to bake more.

So that’s it! Wish me luck getting all these things done. I have high hopes so far.

“I suppose you feel kind of sorry,” said Aunt Jamesina. “The teens are such a nice part of life. I’m glad I’ve never gone out of them myself.”

Anne laughed. “You never will, Aunty. You’ll be eighteen when you should be a hundred. Yes, I’m sorry, and a little dissatisfied as well. Miss Stacy told me long ago that by the time I was twenty my character would be formed, for good or evil. I don’t feel that it’s what it should be. It’s full of flaws.”

“So’s everybody’s,” said Aunt Jamesina cheerfully. “Mine’s cracked in a hundred places. Your Miss Stacy likely meant that when you are twenty your character would have got its permanent bent in one direction or ‘tother, and would go on developing in that line. Don’t worry over it, Anne. Do your duty by God and your neighbor and yourself, and have a good time. That’s my philosophy and it’s always worked pretty well.”

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened wih power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith– that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever.”

-Ephesians 3:14-21

1. Make good friends before making drastic life decisions. It’s important to have people in your life who know you well enough to tell you when you’re being an idiot. Never underestimate the value of a friend’s well-founded opinion.

2. Take the hard classes. Seriously, don’t bother with the easy ones. They aren’t worth your time, because you won’t learn anything, and at the end you’ll just wonder why you wasted the opportunity truly to learn something. And there’s nothing like the sense of accomplishment you’ll have when you’ve finished something challenging. Trust me, most of the time, your social life and mental health can take the extra strain. Take a chance and find out what you’re capable of. You’ll probably be surprised.

3. When you find yourself disliking someone, befriend them. I realized recently that most of my friendships have come about because I disliked the person when first meeting him or her, and decided to combat that by being nice. I think it’s because I only instantly resent a person if I feel like I could be jealous of them, and I hate that feeling, so I make friends with them in order to prevent the jealousy from ever taking root (because I don’t typically have that problem with people I know well). So maybe this one is just me, but personally I think it’s an awesome strategy. They usually turn out to be the best friendships, and you don’t have to deal with a bunch of people you don’t like. Love as many people as you can, as well as you can.

4. Trust God and work hard. I don’t think much explanation is needed here. Do everything in your power to succeed, but when things are out of your control, that’s okay. You were never really in charge anyway.

Congratulations, class of 2010!

1.

Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, edited by John Piper and Wayne Grudem

I picked this up at Mars Hill last week and I think I’ve probably read about two thirds of it so far. So, so interesting. Over this last year, I’ve had so many conversations with so many people about what women are and aren’t allowed to do, what biblical womanhood really looks like, and why we have such a hard time accepting our roles. What I’ve learned, from those conversations and from this book, is that none of the guidelines set out in Scripture are arbitrary rules designed to keep us from being ourselves or living up to our potential– just the opposite, actually. I’m still learning what that means, but this has definitely helped.

2.

The Toughest Indian in the World, by Sherman Alexie

We have a lot of Sherman Alexie in our bookshelves, and I’d never read any of it. And I think I picked the wrong one to start with. It was…interesting. Not bad. Definitely not bad. But also definitely not my taste.

3. 

Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison

This is going to be one of the harder ones to get through, I’m sure. I can tell because I’ve only read the first thirty or so pages and I’ve fallen asleep multiple times. We’ll see how this goes.

4.

Four Great Plays, by Anton Chekhov

I know how especially pretentious this one sounds, but I hear/see Chekhov quoted all the time, and  I wanted to read some myself.

5.

The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck

I have read almost all, I think, of John Steinbeck’s books, many of them multiple times, but never this one. It’s weird, because it’s almost certainly the most famous (I think East of Eden and Of Mice and Men are the only ones that could potentially also take that title, but even so, I think this one would win), but I’ve just never gotten around to it. I’m excited to read it.

6.

The Four Loves, by C.S. Lewis

Bible college=C.S. Lewis. The end.

7.

Everything Is Illuminated, by Jonathan Safran Foer

Just one of those ones that’s been on my shelf for a long time but I’ve never read.

8.

What is the What, by Dave Eggers

This is kind of like Grapes of Wrath, in that I’ve read pretty much everything else this author has written but this. So now I’m going to.

9.

One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I have no reason for this one. I just wanted to read it. Also, I’m clearly losing interest in writing blurbs for each of these.

10.

Jude the Obscure, by Thomas Hardy

Both of these (the last one and this one…and in fact the next one as well) are just things I’m reading because I’ve been curious about the authors for a while. An uninteresting reason, I know, but it’s all I’ve got.

11.

Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri

See above.

12.

Practicing Hospitality, by Pat Ennis and Lisa Tatlock

I’m writing something about this one in spite of the fact that I can’t type “hospitality” without first typing “hospitalivy.” Anyway, I’m going to read this because last year my dear friend Olivia (I don’t know if she reads this or not…) talked about how, before coming to school, she felt like God was laying the idea of hospitality on her heart. And she had no idea what that would look like when all you have to work with is a dorm room. Then she ended up in a suite, and her room became where we all hung out, and she was always having to deal with people and their stuff in her space. So it quickly became very practical. Now, since I have a suite next year, I get to try it out for myself.

13.

Crazy Love, by Francis Chan

So, the first thing I thought I’d say about this book was that everyone I know who’s read it is crazy about it, and then I realized that would sound like a pun. And the second thing I thought I’d say was that everyone I know who’s read this book loved it, but then, um…you see where this is going. Basically, people I like like this book. So I’m reading it.

14.

Follow Me to Freedom, by Shane Claiborne and John Perkins

Shane Claiborne makes me think. I don’t always agree with him, but he is definitely challenging. I’m looking forward to this one.

When I first made this list, I thought it was a little ambitious, considering that I’m also getting ahead on my reading for school next year (which is to say, reading the Old Testament minus the first five books). But it’s been a week and I’ve already read two and two halves (there was one book that got dropped from the list after I read the first half), so I feel like I might be okay.

This post is too long. I hope everyone enjoys their extra weekend day!

Honestly, though, I’m not even sure what to say. My first thought was to do this in a “good things/bad things” format, but I don’t think the bad things would appreciate being called out. So we’ll avoid that. I also toyed around with the idea of a picture post, but a) it wouldn’t be that interesting, and b) I’ve barely taken any pictures all year, so they’d all be from Facebook and therefore redundant. Repetitive AND boring! You’d all be thrilled, I know.

I’m currently sitting in the room Brittany and I have been sharing for the last 259 days, surrounded by boxes and bags and piles of crap. We’ve added a significant amount to the free pile over the last few days, because for some reason we have a lot of stuff here that we don’t want. I just finished my last final today, and I feel pretty good about my grades. I’ve learned more than I ever expected I would or could.

As excited as I am for next year, this one ending is sad. I’ve had the best possible dorm section, and we’re having a rough time saying goodbye to our wonderful neighbs. My beloved RA is graduating (although she’ll be around next semester), and I’m going to miss her a ton. On top of that, since Brittany isn’t coming back next year, everyone has periodic sad moments whenever they think about it. I miss some of my classes already, and I just want to give this entire campus a hug.

I’ve spent pretty much the entire day outside with friends, because it’s unbelievably beautiful. The joke has been that these last couple days of the year are the only time the school looks like the brochures– everyone outside, laughing, looking like they’re having the most fun of their lives. It’s good times.

I’m going to try to sum up this year, and I’m probably going to fail, but here goes.

There were a lot of times when, academically or emotionally, I genuinely thought I wasn’t going to make it. God taught me that He knows that. He knows what I can’t do, and our weaknesses are His strengths. He knows what He’s doing. I could list off dozens of things I KNOW I couldn’t have done on my own, but here they are, accomplished, and I don’t know how it happened.

I got a lot better at knowing where my heart is…and where it isn’t. I started out this year planning to study English, because that’s what I’ve always done, and because I thought I could do it without being forced much outside of my comfort zone. And now I’m studying a dead language instead of a living one, with no reason other than that I inexplicably fell in love with it.

Oh, and I made some friends. Some really, really great friends. When I left home to come here, I was heartbroken at having to leave the people I loved back at home. And every time I go home, I’m amazed at how many people I love, because there are so many there and so many here. I knew keeping up friendships at a distance wouldn’t be easy, and it hasn’t been, but it’s been incredible nonetheless. People are great.

(This is my six-pack…which refers to the fact that there are six of us, not beer or abs– thank you to those who questioned last time I mentioned it.)

I can’t even explain how much I’ve loved this past year. There are things I don’t like about Multnomah, like the food and the student ministries program, or certain classes last semester, but as for the whole experience, I’ve loved every minute of it. I’ve loved it even when I hated it. And I can’t wait to see what happens next.

The LORD is my light and my salvation;
whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life;
of whom shall I be afraid?
-Psalm 27:1

Last night it struck me that I’m really glad I’ve had terrible things happen to me. I’ve known sorrow, loss, joy and grace, and I am still here.

I am unbreakable. I am unbreakable through no achievement of my own, but because the backbone of my life is Christ, the One who was broken for me. Sin no longer has power to condemn me to hell. Man no longer has power to starve me of love. With the prospect of heaven always in front of me, how bad can things be? My God loves me, and nothing can take that away. No power of hell, no scheme of man.

There are those who can be broken. I was once one of them. On my own I am still one of them: fragile, frightened and friendless. Christ broke His body and my soul was saved, and what was once impossible is now daily occurrence.

My God is wonderful, powerful, merciful and gracious. Today we celebrate the fact that we can live because He died. Have a blessed Good Friday, everyone.

“Women who are stunningly beautiful are women who have had their hearts enlarged by suffering, by saying “Yes” when the world says “No,” by paying the high price of loving truly and honestly without demanding that they be loved in return, and by refusing to numb their pain in the myriad of ways available. They have come to know that when everyone and everything has left them, God is there. They have learned, along with David, that those who go through the desolate valley will find it a place of springs.”
-Captivating