To make a long story short, I’m switching over to Blogger. Yes, it was a hard decision and I think that WordPress and blogger both have their pros and cons, but I had a beautiful design made for me by my dear friend Abigail and no one to convert it to CSS and I didn’t want to pay the yearly fee, so that really tipped the scales in favor of blogger.

I’m working currently to import my previous content to blogger, but I’m running into some glitches so we’ll wait and see what happens. So head over (and change your subscription if you subscribe to this blog) to www.nobody416.blogspot.com. Also, what do you think in the Blogger vrs WordPress debate? What are your preferences?

I apologize for the inconvenience that this may have cause some of my subscribers. I hope you enjoy the new blog and continue to read my posts.

I have a love for old buildings and architectural features.

This is the strange Presbyterian church with nude statues… it’s sort of weird, but a beautiful building non the less.

This is the book store of my dreams!!!! They had books stacked from floor to ceiling… I want this store as my own personal library someday… yes, I want a library just like Belle from Beauty and the Beast. :)

And it’s very photogenic and a photographer’s dream.

But beyond just the good points, Minneapolis is a city in need of the gospel. They have a lot of gangs, prostitutes, homeless, troubled, human trafficking, and crime. They also have the rich and well to do who give no thought to the other group of people. It’s a diverse city in many ways and truly needs to see the power of Christ’s blood transform it. But I suppose that’s another reason I love it.

Zach Hunter is releasing his third book, Lose Your Cool, today which is on the topic of finding what you are passionate about, finding those things that change not only the world, but yourself as well. Most of you know what I am passionate about, those two things that grip me and I am utterly in love with, the gospel and fighting sexual trafficking. Some of you know how it’s my dream to work as a counselor for victims of trafficking and prostitution, working to help transform them with the power of the gospel. I am so very thankful that God has used Zach to introduce me to this passion and burden for ending modern day slavery and bringing justice to the oppressed.

Lose Your Cool can be found here as well as head over to invertbooks.com to get some cool free stuff. You can follow Zach on Twitter and tweeting about the book enters you to win some really sweet prizes. I can’t wait to get my hands on the book and see what Zach has to say, and… I hear that the story of Amy Carmichael is included in the book, so it must be good. ;)

Lately every time I sit down to write something I either have a strong bout of writers block come over me or I start writing then realize that what I’m saying is not what I wanted to say and that it’s not coming out right. Of course, I’ll probably think that with this post as well… who knows if it will even actually be posted. ;)

The truth is that I have a LOT of unfinished drafts going right now, both for this blog and for Imperishable Beauty (but I’m better at writing for the second one). For some strange reason, writing has been just plain hard for me. I see all those people writing posts four times a week and they are amazing posts… and… then there is me: spastic blogger that when I do write something, I’m not happy with the quality of work displayed.

Maybe this is God’s way of telling me that I need to rely on HIM for all my abilities or maybe this is just a result of me being lazy. Maybe it’s a sign that writing just “isn’t my thing” like I thought it was or maybe it’s just a way to humble me. Or… maybe it’s something else. Maybe I’m just being over critical of my writing…

Though it seems that this has occurred to many bloggers that I’ve known in the past, at least the inconsistency with blogging. That makes me wonder if there could be some psychology behind this… some sort of reason behind struggling with writing and blogging… do you guys have any ideas? Any guesses at why my blogging (and many others in the blogosphere) is just almost starting to cease? How could I have many ideas on what to write about, lots of inspirations… but just can’t seem to capture much of anything on the page?

And maybe it’s all summed up already for me by a great writer of the past:

“The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean” ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

I am very excited to announce that Cross-eyed Blog and Webzine has an e-book out in honor on their first anniversary and it includes an article written by yours truly. My article is entitled “What is You Motivation” formerly titled on my blog Imperishable Beauty as “Modesty and Pride”. So go over and check out the new e-book packed with some good articles on modesty and practical tips.

http://crosseyedblog.com/?p=1229

I’m enjoying reading the sometimes confusing and always deep thoughts in the Institutes and it’s given me much to think of, I’ve also enjoyed reading a semi fictional account of John Wycliffe’s life this last month, I look forward to reading biographies of Calvin, Luther, Lady Jane Grey, and many others… but I’m am REALLY excited about this weekend and going to Desiring God.

Not only will it be an amazing time of great preaching on the life of John Calvin and it’s importance, but it will give our family a very welcome opportunity to see my brother again! Sam is going to college in the Minneapolis area and since we registered for 3 people and one of my parents need to be watching the little kids… Sam will be coming with us so we are very excited about that! It’s been a month since I’ve seen him and that’s the longest time going without seeing him in my entire life…  so I can’t wait to see him again (and Friday is his birthday so I’m happy we’ll be with him for that).

In addition to all that goodness… our family has a very good pastor friend from Kenya, Luke Tamu (whose books can be found here). He will be coming to the conference then coming back to our house to spend a week or two with us. In the time that he is here with us I’ll have to tell you more about him like I’ve felt I should do many times before. Also my dear, dear friend Hope will also be coming to the conference and we are excited (like always) to hang out and spend the weekend learning, worshipping, and praying together.

Speaking of praying together… that brings me to another going on of this weekend. September 25-27 is the International Weekend for Prayer and Fasting for Victims of Sex Trafficking. Since I’m going to be at a conference with probably not much sleep, long days, and the need of not having hunger distract me from the speakers I decided against doing a “real” fast and instead giving up coffee and sweets. The coffee part will be difficult, but it’ll be a good reminder to pray for these precious girls and women who have had their innocence, freedom, and hope taken away when all I am lacking is coffee and sweet food. Hope is going to be joining me in this and I’m very excited about that as well. I really encourage you all to take a look at the website linked to above and consider being a part of it. If not, just pray as you remember it this weekend.

So all in all, I am pumped for this weekend and I can’t wait to share with y’all about it next week!

{Notice: in a determination to just start posting more in general… there may be some more posts about life, events, ect then I normally post in the near future.}

But that shall stop and I really hope to try to write more, write better, and just plain write. Hopefully I’ll get writing into my daily routine and that’ll give you a few posts a week (or even one would be good…). Anyhoo… onto some other stuff…

32 Quirks!

This post is partly in honor of Abigail, my sweet friend with so many lovely quirks… including the obsession with the number 32. :D So when I decided I wanted to post some of my own quirks and wanted a number… none seemed more perfect the 32. Now brace yourself…

1. I don’t usually do lists like these but really enjoy reading everybody else’s lists like these…
2. I am pretty much addicted to tea and coffee and at times I’ll have 4 cups a day between the two and my teeth are becoming stained from it.
3. I never stop taking pictures and I am addicted to that as well… my friends will tell you that I go into withdrawal without my camera (or my dad’s camera) when I’m at some event or such.
4. I love to sleep but sleep does not love me. Therefore I don’t sleep much and therefore I am addicted to coffee.
5. I love books more than I love reading… bizarre? Yeah.
6. My heart got removed from me and was placed in the Red Light districts of India…
7. I pace/skip around my room when I am excited and talk out loud to myself as well as squeel.
8. I am both a night owl and an early bird, I work best before 10am or after 10pm.
9. I love art but can’t draw at all. I totally stink at it. So therefore I pick different forms of art like photography, poetry, music, acting, collages, and other things as well.
10. My fashion style is a strange mix between bohemian hippie, classy classic (Audrey Hepburn is a major fashion icon for me), edgy (bordering on punk at times), and comfy (I love jeans, sweats, and hoodies… *happy sigh*). And sometimes I go for all the looks in one outfit.
11. I have a strong desire and tendency to call everyone “hun” but it gets awkward when I want to call like a teen guy “hun”… so I reserve it for when I’m with kiddos.
12. I give everyone nick names. I get that from my mom. My little bros have about a dozen or more nicknames each from me.
13. I am currently obsessed with the song Jai Ho… it’s just amazing! I’m learning the dance to it too. :)
14. I think that Jane Austen is the queen of all romantic fiction, Tolkien the king of fantasy, and C.S. Lewis the king of Christian fiction. I doubt anyone will ever be able to top them.
15. I have an obsession with comfy blankets and knee high socks. That’s what happens when you live in a place where winter is 5 months long and you have about a month or more of mostly below zero temps.
16. I am incredibly klutzy, some of the things I’ve walked into have included the small part on bathroom stall doors, a TV hutch thingy, and I’ve always walked right into steps… just forgot to step up at all and fell on my face.
17. My favorite word in Hindi is “Delhi” cause it sounds like “deelee” and is really fun to say repetedly.
18. I will watch movies that aren’t that great… but when it comes to movies I say I love or are my favorites, I’m super picky. The writing, acting, cinematography, score, and humor all have to be superb. Therefore you will never hear my say that Facing the Giants or Fireproof are my favorite movies… or any movies involving hormonal teenage girls.
19. I will stay up into 3am reading a good fiction book and I have plenty of times, the first time being right before 4th grade reading the second Elsie Dinsmore books… I cried so hard!
20. I have a habit of reading books that aren’t meant for my age range. From reading Authentic Beauty at twelve, to reading Calvin’s Institutes currently at fourteen… I don’t follow the suggested reading ages.
21. I am a total psychology/sociology geek and I love to figure out why people are the way they are, what it is in the brain or what chemicals make us that way, and the why of how cultures and social structures work. I also love a good social experiment.
22. I am a generally messy person, but I am OCD about some things… like tags sticking out on shirts, my bedroom door being open, and people writing “alot” instead of “a lot” (which I used to do myself…).
23. I can’t stand my violin or guitar being out of tune. It will drive me CRAZY until I tune it. *shivers from the thought of an out of tune instrument*
24. I love the words of many hymns but sometimes their melodies just are really bad so I have recently started making my own arrangements and melodies for hymns with good words and bad music.
25. Speaking of writing music… when I am working on writing a song I go into this crazy songwriter mood where I sing so loud and bang on the piano until I get a headache. And I love having my swivel chair so I can go back and forth between the piano and computer.
26. I’ve always loved journals but have been pretty bad about writing faithfully in one.
27. I have vowed to never buy a pair of jeans over $25. The one time I bought a $30 pair of jeans, four months later they had holes in the back pockets. I will NEVER do that again! Goodwill, Target, Arizona (on sale), and thrift store jeans baby! Then even if they do fall apart I still got my money’s worth.
28. I love thrift stores… LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!!!
29. I don’t fit into the typical home school kid stereo type at all! I love pants, I listen to rock music, I like to dance, I am not anti social, I have public school friends, my mother doesn’t have hair down to her hips, and I have a cell phone.
30. My mom and I break out into random singing and dancing sometimes. Keeps the kiddos entertained!
31. I start lots of things that I don’t finish… from blog posts to books to other projects.
32. Abigail has got me thinking of thirty-two way too often and thirty-two anything makes me think of her. :)

Love you girly!

{Serious posting will continue shortly… I just had to mix things up and give y’all a fun random post.)

So my dear friend Abigail (oh you’ve all heard about her a million times!) has started a new fabulous feature called “Short Answers” asking little children (your own children, siblings, or whatever young kids you can find…) random questions and writing down their answers to share with the world! This first instalment just happened to fall on Hudson’s third birthday. I know I’ve talked very little about my little sweet chivalrous man, but hopefully you’ll get to know him better in the future. (I really need to get a post about the boys…) Corina, my younger sister is 12 but has severe learning disabilities and she always keeps us laughing with her mix ups and things she says. We adopted her from Romania when she was 4 and her language skills still aren’t very great.

This is going to be so fun and you’ll see the craziness of the little siblings I love so much! (Note: Most of Hudson’s answers will make no sense. He just turned three today!)

What year were you born?

Nina: For me? I was born in 1999… I don’t know what born in! I don’t know what I born in Olivia!

Hudson: Like umm, mommy’s house.

Why do people wear deodorant?

Corina: Because to smell.

Hudson: Because an no no a chair (there was a lot of gibberish between the because and chair.)

What would you buy if you had a million dollars?

Nina: I’de buy a car or a electric scooter, electric scooter and I would want to buy a phone and… is a computer a million dollars? I’d buy a computer. And my own kid. And don’t you dare laugh about that.

Hudson: something something Truck.

Would you buy Olivia a yellow bug car?

Hudson: Yeah… you use my car!

What is a president?

Nina: A President is like you preach.

You think so? (Corina shakes head) So what do you think it is?

Corina: I don’t know, what is it? (Mind you… she learned all about this last year for school)

Hudson: Like umm a president and umm yeah.

Where would you like to take your family on vacation someday?

Nina: I would take my family on vacation on Hawaii or Florida or Disney World or Canada.

Hudson: I don’t know.

What place do you like?

Hudson: Car cake and *crazy giberish that I couldn’t make out*.

While prostitution and sexual perversion may be permissible by society, the effects of it are deadly. Nothing good will ever come of prostitution no matter what the media and world tells us.

Whenever God’s plan for sex is abused, there are serious consequences. When sex is outside of marriage in any form, the outcome isn’t pretty. Sin never results in a good ending, and it’s no different with prostitution.

Prostitution destroys families, marriages, relationships, and lives. It gives a shallow and distorted view of sex that can just be bought, not earned or as a gift for marriage. The results of prostitution are STDs, unwanted pregnancies and abortions, fatherless children, broken marriages and families, addictions, and most importantly, another nail into the hands of Christ.

Is there any hope? With an issue so huge with it’s branches reaching out to so many spheres of life and society, is it just a hopeless case? I don’t think so, and I’ll show you why in the next post.