Uh… Posting… Yeah…

So, I don’t even know how many times I’ve thought to myself: “I’m going to write a new post today ” It’s been floating on the top of my to do list. However, if you are following my blog, you know how that’s turned out, and I’m sorry. I should probably get a bunch of sticky notes like the one below and paste them up on the walls. I’m not sure that everyone else would appreciate it, though.

Taken from sxc.hu. Credit goes to jaylopez

As a general update, we’re still at my Grandmother’s house, but our new home is getting pretty close to done, and I SHOULD be living there by the end of August. Yeah, I think I’ve told myself that at the end of every month since this adventure started. But this time I’m pretty sure. We have to move in someday, right?

Also, Camp! For those who don’t know, I am going to camp this month. Last year, camp was the best week of my life. I can’t wait to go this year, and if it’s anything like last  year I hope to be amazingly seeped in the Word, with good, Christian people around me. Last year I came back so happy, and so much more knowledgable, and I pray I grow as much this year as then.

So anyway, that’s life. I’ve kept myself busy reading, and editing, and asking my mom what she thinks of my latest novel rough (way way way rough) draft, and finding new recipes, and trying to keep my cat safe inside, and helping around the land on the weekends, and recently I’ve just gotten over a rather long cold.

(That paragraph sums a lot of my interests rather well… minus the cold, of course)

More important than all that stuff, however, is my spiritual life. Honestly, I’ve had a bit of a struggle the last few months. I know God needs to be the center of my life, and I know I don’t bring Him into my daily life as I should. I’m trying to grow my relationship with Him (Always a constant struggle, isn’t it?) There’s so much distraction in my life right now, with TV and a loud two-year old cousin and internet, that I keep forgetting to make time for more important things. That’s no excuse, it just shows I need to learn patience and a little more self-control and perhaps get myself on a schedule of some sort. So anyway, prayer’s appreciated.

The above paragraph sums up Holy Aspirations a bit, in that I’m not here to really teach. Yes, occasionally I have an idea that I think is positively brilliant and want to share with the world in hopes of it helping someone, but a lot of it is just me recording my thoughts, thoughts I hope others understand and can use to help themselves grow. I hope I get more of these thoughts and remember to actually post them in the future!

So, there’s life. Thank you all for your patience, (or I suppose you might have lost patience, and are not here anymore, and I’m talking to no one… but oh well. ) I’ll try to do more in the future, though if August goes as I hope, half of it I might not have computer access for… so we’ll see

Victoria

General Notice of Updates

Here’s what’s up readers of mine:

1. You have probably noticed I have again changed my theme.  WordPress is always coming out with really cool new ones, and this is one that caught my eye and I had to try.  I do that occasionally, you know.  It’s almost like a need for a change of scene, except in cyberspace pixels.  Hope you like it.

2. Moving date is right around the corner next week, and my life (and therefore posting abilities) will be somewhat chaotic.  I’m very much desiring to continue posting here during that time, but if something happens, never fear!  WordPress gives me the ability to set a timer on my posts, and I have already set up several posts that will come to you in what I think will be the most hectic of times.  They’ll probably be a little different than the usual posts, some being school papers or what not, but they should still be good.  I’m still hoping to interspersed it with things I write in real time, but that will give me a sort of safety net. (This itself is one of those updates, because I wrote this on the 20th and like to not post more than one post at a time… don’t ask me why, because I couldn’t give you a logical answer.)

3. Lastly, you’ll notice a new “page” or tab on top titled Off Topic.  Once upon a time I said I was going to try to incorporate humerus posts into my blog, but I have later decided that it would break up the flow of the posts and since the humor posts would be (and since I have none, have obviously already been) rather random and few and far between, it would be, in my mind, wrong.  So whenever I get the very rare inclination to write a humorous post, it will go under the new tab.

So that’s what’s up, and hopefully I’ll be able to keep you all updated on the move

Victoria

Don’t Blink

Life is very busy.  I think I can say that for pretty much everyone.   I’d like to say mine has been recently, but when I think about how much time I waste I realize that my life actually moves at a rather slow pace.  I therefore have no excuse for not posting.  I even missed my annual New Years post.  I didn’t post once in January.  I’ve thought about posting, but I’m afraid this is one time where the thought doesn’t count.

The truth is, a lot of my time is mismanaged, I have a major tendency to be lazy and procrastinate, my priorities are twisted up, and I’d rather mess around on the computer than clean the house, write important essays I told myself I wanted to write, edit the book I had planned to already have edited by now but which I have just finished writing and a whole mess of other things.  It’s something I have decided to work on.  (That was a few days ago.  Hopefully I can set some habits that override the rut I have created for myself over the past few months)

All this laziness is sad and maddening.  I hate my actions afterwords, but during I never seem to be able to say “Victoria, straighten up and get to work!  You don’t need to check your email again right now!”

There is so much potential in each one of our lives.  So much to be done, so much to change, so much to fix and start and say and do and read and write and take joy in.  I recently read a book on William Wilberforce.  (An amazing book which I plan to post a review about very very soon)  It and a paper I wrote on him reminded me that my life right now is moving God’s kingdom nowhere.  He did so much for God, and here I get lazy and don’t even want to write a blog post.  What a reality check I got.

One of the songs I’ve grown to love is Blink by Revive.  The lyrics to the first verse and chorus go something like this:

“Teach me to number my days,
And count every moment,
Before they slip away,
Take in all the colors,
Before they turn to grey,
I don’t want to miss,
Even just a second more of this,
It happens in a blink,
It happens in a flash,
It happens in the time it took to look back,
I try to hold on tight,
But there’s no stopping time,
What is it I’ve done with my life,
It happens in a blink, it happens in a blink”

When I’m older, and have a chance to look back on my life, what will I see?  Will I be full of regrets for the things I didn’t feel like doing at the time and wish I had done?  Or will I point back and say: “Look.  Look at where God used me because I was willing.  I used my time faithfully because I realized my time was not actually mine, it was God’s.  I didn’t let it slip away, I used it correctly because I knew it would be gone in a blink.”?

It’s something that’s been on my heart recently.  I know I’ve wasted so much time.  All I can hope for is that I learn from it now and not be filled with more regret later on.  So I’m off to do some constructive house cleaning, helping around the house to lighten the load on my mother an d to make Dad feel more comfortable when he gets home.  Then I think I’ll work on writing an essay that’s been in my mind recently about Separation of Church and State.  And when I finally feel like I’ve earned a break, THEN I’ll take one.  (Pre-emptive breaks don’t get you very far, I’ve learned)

With all my priority rearranging, Holy Aspirations had bobbed back up near the top.  So I plan not to skimp on posts anymore.

Until (a hopefully very soon) next time,

Victoria

It’s That Time of Year Again!

Yes it is.  For those of you who don’t know, around this time of year a group of people – myself included – take their Christmas breaks and spend them reading through the Bible.  Your initial thought there probably was “The entire Bible?!?!”  and yes, quite a few of us have (though this year a lot of people are swamped with school, and it looks like a group will be doing only the New Testament)

There are one or two points to this.  One, it puts the holiday focus where it needs to be.  On God.  I understand that quite a bit of family stuff goes on over Christmas break, and we don’t blame anyone who can’t join us… or who joins and doesn’t end up finishing.  Which brings us to point two: to dig into the Word and read more than we would normally have read.  Even if you read just a few chapters more than you would have otherwise and flop after that we don’t consider it a failure.  We think it great that you spent even that much more time in the word.

So if you are interested in joining in on all this, hop over to our blog: Christmas Bible Reading

Laughter

You know, being serious is a good thing. But to be serious all the time, well, I’m not quite sure that is. “For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under the heavens” if I remember rightly.

I love to laugh. I love to go crazy and goof off and almost suffocate because I can’t catch my breath when I’m laughing. And as the Bible says in Proverbs 17:22 “A merry heart does good, like medicine, But a broken spirit dries the bones.” Have you ever felt that lifting of sorrow, when someone you know lifts you from depression or frustration because they make you smile and giggle? Doesn’t it feel so good?

Anyway, I thought of this because of my blog name. I thought it would be kinda cool if when I mention Holy Aspirations, if I abbreviated it like some places do. Then I realized this would be HA. Hmm. And I think “What a strange double meaning”… but then I also think “Why is this blog always so serious.” Certainly it’s because I started it for that fact. But even on this blog, is always serious always a good thing? I mean, I know I had the April Fools post, but that was so out of the ordinary it was rather strange.
So I’m thinking perhaps writing some not so serious posts occasionally from now on. But, while doing so, I’ll still keep it semi on topic with Holy Aspirations (For posts like Kitchen Mafia, you’ll still have to go to my pretty much inactive other blog )

So, hopefully it turns out good We’ll just have to wait and see…

Missing Pictures :-/

taken from sxc.hu Creadit goes to ba1969

Oi.  Looking over past blog posts, I realize  I have some issues.  Pictures are disappearing.  Oi.

 

See, I got most of them off Google.  Then the people who originally put them on google took them off, and when they did that, they also removed the link that my pictures were from, therefore getting me the little box with the red x in them.  No pictures.

 

But I’m going to start fixing the problem.  Any more pictures simply pulled off a search engine will have to be saved to my computer and then put on here.  A little more time-consuming, but it should halt the growing number of missing pictures.

 

So there’s my update on behind the scenes of blog making for you (or should it be, behind the screens? )

Edit:  I forgot to add, I’ll go back and replace the missing pictures… eventually =P  When I have a little free time on my hands.

The Degeneration of America

We were sitting at the table quite a while ago, calmly eating our dinner.  We talked of various things, and during one of these conversations, it hit me like a sack of bricks falling off a skyscraper.  Ok, maybe not that hard, but it did shock me.  How had America come to this?  How had we let this happen?  Here it was, right in front of me, at the very tips of my fingers.  How had we come to this place?  How had we given up the glorious past to settle for what we have now?  It’s impossible.  Simply impossible!  But we have.

 

It’s time we stop letting everything go downhill!  It’s time we took matters into our own hands!  The speed and convenience that has ruined it all needs to be put aside!  We need to be willing to work for what’s worth it!  And as I sat there at dinner, I realized it was more than worth it, it was imperative.

 

What had caused this great force of patriotism in me?  I had, for the first time in ages, taken a bite of a char-broiled cheeseburger.  That incredible, juicy, cooked to perfection piece of beef, sandwiched between two sesame seed coated buns, was wonderful.  And here I had settled for propane grilled ones all this time.

 

You are now aware that I can prattle on about nothing for a very long time.  You are also aware that you now crave a cheeseburger   Happy April Fools Day everyone!

 

 

 

  

Haha! Hungry now?

New: Reviews

Hey everyone!  I have decided to try something new here at HA.  I am going to start writing reviews about movies, books etc.  There are so many things out there to read and watch, and it can be hard to figure out before hand what is worth spending time on.  Hopefully this can help with that a little.  I’m reading and watching movies all the time, so this will help me to not only make that time a little more useful, but also to help me analyze what I am letting into my mind.  (Even if you are not planning on having someone else read it, writing reviews really makes you step back and look at the book/movie/music, etc. and decide if you really should be reading/watching/listening to stuff like that, or even if you should be suggesting it to others.  Try it sometime.)

I don’t know how in-depth I will be going, but hopefully there will be enough to help you make decisions.

Victoria

New Look

So I decided to change the look of the blog since it’s been over a year since I had the old look.  What do you think?  I like the change.  It’s shiny.  It looks new and organized.  The other one was needing a break.  Maybe someday I’ll go back to that theme, since I like the typewriter look, but for a while, I think I shall keep this new one.

Reading the Bible Over Christmas Break

Hey everyone!  I have mentioned the reading the Bible over Christmas break a few times here at Holy Aspirations.  Well, those of us doing it have decided to start a blog for it. christmasbiblereading.wordpress.com  Check it out.  It’s still in the starting process, but we’re getting it sorted out