Journaling Juices. Because it's Alliteration.

Our good friend January is heading to an end, so it's time for another lifeity life update.

Except I blog about silly, meaningless goobledee goop that goes on in my brain. So life will be addressed in a very vague and smallish sort of way.

That's right people. It's another late night post, wherein I'm sleepy but my journaling juices have their eyes wide open.

Currently...

Listening to: House of Heroes. I'm trying to get into them, but have only breached their most recent album, Cold Hard Want. Also, the usual Death Cab for Cutie, T Swift, and such madness as that.

Writing about: Carbon Dioxide! Not much creative writing has been going on lately. Just lab write ups and essays. I'm really curious to see what my teacher though of my latest in timed essay I turned in. I kinda enjoy getting a prompt and being told to wing it. The heated scribbling of the #2 pencil is somewhat invigorating to my young writerly brain.

Taking pictures of: Sunsets. My friends. Also toilet paper.

Reading: ...well, I'm supposed to be done with Mark Twain's Humorous Sketches and Stories and have started Up from Slavery (forgot author's name...sorry) for history. But not so! Alas, reading is still as slow and stuck as ever. It's not that I don't enjoy Mark Twain (or anyone's writing, for that matter)...it's just that there's more interesting things to do in the eyes of someone so easily distracted as I.

Watching: Avatar: The Last Airbender cartoons---for the billionth time again. Cartoons with great plot progression and artistry! Who can ask for more? Recently watched Captain Phillips, as it has become available via RedBox. Tom Hanks is my hero. Have you seen the movie? What did you think?? ((those filmy production people are mad geniusessss!!)) Also a lot of youtube, including Rhett and Link's Good Mythical Morning (yeah baby!) and miscellaneous music videos that make me really wish I were a part of a band.

Drawing: Nothing lately. Except I'm supposed to draw some pictures to go along with my lab report I'm handing in for tomorrow. Although I got to draw illustrations to a group presentation about Carl the Carbon Molecule. It's kind of sad when bio class becomes your only doodling interval.

Composing: Broken guitar songs! My old guitar with only three strings left has been serving me well. I finally decided on some lyrics for a few of my short and sorryish compositions. I can safely assure you that it sounds much better to me than anyone listening. ;) Also, I was listening to some chiptune genre songs yesterday and I suddenly had a peak of music mixing inspiration. Maybe I'll be revisiting my soundcloud account in the near future.

Feeling: Positive but deep. Does that make sense? I'm thinking hard and I'm thinking deep. But I'm thinking positively too. Thinking becomes feeling for me.

Wanting to: Be more productive. I keep imagining the strange fantasy that I'm wasting too much time on pinterest. What an odd idea.

Waiting for: Rain. Sounds so silly, especially to all you who are getting snowed in. But it's really dry and I'd love a day of rain. Each morning I've been looking up at our sparse cloud cover (just enough to trap in the smog) and mentally shaking my first at it. Precipitation doth inspire me so.

Enjoying: Apples and peanut butter. Sleeping in. Friends who tease me. Wifi connection. 


Cheerio dear friends,
K-Minty

Popsicles

The 2014 North American cold wave was an extreme weather event affecting parts of Canada and the United States east of the Rocky Mountains,^[5] extending as far south as Central Florida,^[6] and Northeastern Mexico
 ...
Both the Midwestern United States and most of Canada had temperatures colder than the North Pole, which had a low of −20 °F (−29 °C), and the South Pole, which had a morning low of −6 °F (−21 °C).
 ...
Heavy snowfall or rainfall occurred on the leading edge of the weather pattern, which travelled all the way from the American Plains and Canadian prairie provinces to the East Coast.  
 ...
 New Jersey had over 10 inches (250 mm) of snow, and schools and government offices closed.^[35]
 ...
The extreme cold weather grounded thousands of flights and seriously affected other forms of transport. Many power companies in the affected areas asked their customers to conserve electricity.
 ...
Several Ontario locations along Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence Valley experienced cryoseisms or frost quakes.^[46]
 ...
 Three Amtrak trains were stranded overnight on January 6, approximately 80 miles (130 km) west of Chicago, near Mendota, Illinois, due to ice and snowdrifts on the tracks. The 500 passengers were loaded onto buses the next morning for the rest of the trip to Chicago.
 ^...
 Cold air rushing into the Gulf of Mexico behind the front created a Tehuano wind event, with northerly winds from the Bay of Campeche to the Gulf of Tehuantepec in Mexico reaching 41 kn (76 km/h; 47 mph).^[47] Saltillo, in the North-East of the country, registered freezing drizzle and a minimum of −6 °C (21 °F).^[48]
 ...
  During the cold wave, the strain on the power supply left 1,200 customers in Nashville without power, along with around 7,500 customers in Blount County.^[38][60] The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency declared a state of emergency.^[38]
 ...
 In Ohio, schools across the entire state were closed on January 6 and 7, including the state's largest two school districts, Columbus City Schools and Cleveland Metropolitan School District.^[74] The Ohio State University completely shut down on January 6 and 7, delaying the start of the spring semester by two days for the first closure on two consecutive days in 36 years.^[75]
 ...
In Indiana, more than fifty of the state's ninety-two counties, including virtually everywhere north of Indianapolis, closed all roads to all traffic except emergency vehicles. ^[70] 

 {{from Wikipedia's 2014 North American Cold Wave page}}

 ^{...Gosh guys, it's so freezing cold here that I have to put my sweater on my head so that my face doesn't get sunburned. Brrrr, the horror.} 

^{Not wanting to complain, but I'm feeling a little left out.}

Experiments in Color

Whenever I feel like doodling, I typically pick up a piece of scrap paper and a mechanical pencil. Black and white suits me just fine, and I've found that sometimes color can end up taking away from the finish product instead of adding to it. These examples are my exceptions. 

Left: A watercolor/sharpie doodle that I was working on back in August. All of the pictures in this post were taken this evening with my little Fujifilm camera, not scanned in. Because of this, the white balance is *gasp* terrible, therefore, 99% of what appears to be an off-white yellow in actually just plain old white. That said, I think this particular picture looks better on screen then in real life. I just used one of those cheapy snap-open kindergarten watercolor sets that Crayola sells for 99 cents. With that in mind (and with the help of my handy dandy sharpie shading pen), it's really not a  bad little freehand job. 

I was only just realizing how suspiciously similar this drawing/painting is to the other butterflies-emerging-from-jar sketch that I completed (and is currently hosted on my sidebar --->>). 

Center: 

This is an why I sometimes avoid using much color. -_-

I drew this out two nights ago referencing a picture I had found on pinterest. It was a quick, just for fun piece---the kind I like to do before going to bed or when I have some extra time to chill. The weird (and rather repulsive) orange and green and pink that I chose to use could probably be justified when I tell you that all I had to work with was a handful of randomly selected colored pencils. I'm not a big fan or colored pencils. Mechanical pencils? ---yes. Colored pencils...not entirely so. Probably has to do with the fact that you can't erase properly with them. If that's the case, I'd rather use crayolas or sharpie pens. 

Nevertheless, I figured it was worth posting, even if only as a less-then-proud-of example.

 Right: 

Ooh, I'm rather proud of this one. 

It started out as a dingy freehand sketch of a butterfly with a green gel pen, and then morphed into a pen/watercolor/sharpie word art graphic. This was when I discovered that you can use water to blend really soppy gel pen ink. And that was exciting. Also worked a little more on the spatter and splash effect obtainable with watercolors (again, this was with one of those little fake, eight-color sets).

The words are, of course, borrowed from the Gungor song, Beautiful Things. 

I have a lot to learn when it comes to word art, hand lettering, and typography. I think it would be really cool to get better at that stuff...but it requires so much plotting out before putting pen to page. *cue wail of impatience*

 So waddya think?

But wait---I have one more. This one is a little different. 

Yes indeed, I was crazy enough to draw this particular masterpiece on what was once a roll of packing paper. Like the kind you might wrap up a package for the mail. Or, in my case, the kind this random thrift shop wrapped my new shirt in before bagging it. 

For most people, the crinkles might be a turn off.

And after attempting this, I totally understand that now. 

Nevertheless, I completed my crayola/sharpie masterpiece, and I suppose I can take pride in it's unique texture.

It was all freehand, and I had no references...or ideas about what I wanted the finished result to look like. I just started drawing flowers with a pink crayon, and then...*POOF* ---a fairy hiding from a fingerless gloved hand was born! 

Again, I'm usually squeamish about using so much color (especially such pastel pinks, purples, teals, and greens), but I shrugged down my hesitation and tried to slap as much on as I could stand. And I like it. Each mistake I made merely encouraged me to layer more and more color on it to cover it up. 

Unfortunately, the fairy dewd suffered especially hard in the layering of color phase. :/

---But it's alright, he made it. And with the help of my sharpie pen (again) the whole picture was brought into clearer definition. :)

 

 (Someday maybe I'll get my scanner to bend to my wishes so that I can have high-quality images of my work instead of silly looking photosnaps.)

 The end. 

Cheerio, 

K-Minty

Asleep and Unassuming

Her eyelashes flutter 
As she sleeps, far from restless, in the grass
Alone, but hardly lonely
A lack of color in her face
A lack of pain in the complexion
The picture of peace
The picture of contentment
Asleep, unawares
But still to be woken
Still to be burned
Still to be imperfect, one among many
But for now
In the grass
On her own
She is at rest.

Thumbs Up

Another doodle project. I still needa buy me a stylus and tablet. Right now I'm still doing digital drawings with just a laptop mousepad thingy. Also need to learn how to set up my printer/scanner.
humph.

I wish I could rap. Or just sing really fast without getting all tongue tied. I'm listening to Twenty One Pilots right now and I'm jealous of all the epic talent.
Grr.
Anyone else find it highly amusing that Ed Sheeran got to write a song for the credits of the new Hobbit movie? Heheh. That was sumthin'.
---the song...not the movie. The movie itself was something else altogether that I don't want to dive into yet. Catching Fire was good too. In fact, it was better. I really can't see how anyone who liked the book could dislike the movie. And that's not something I say very much.
As I'm sure you've already heard e explain, I like to watch the movie before reading the book. It helps me visualize and be able to enjoy both. But in the case of Catching Fire, that didn't exactly happen. I was a little nervous because this book became a fast favorite and I knew what I was expecting and wanted to see in the film adaption of it.
And it was BEEEEAAUUUUUTIFULLLLLLLLLL... *skips of into the sunset singing*

I couldn't help by roll my eyes a teensy weensy bit when the (oldish) ladies sitting next to me sighed at the end and whined: "Woww, waita leave it open for a sequel!"

-_-  

wut.

YOU OBVIOUSLY DIDN'T READ THE BOOK(S).
^^was the first thing that entered my head. Which is weird because I'm not usually "that person" who accuses others of not being hardcore enough. But I became that person! And so I was just sitting there listening to Coldplay sing their new song and watching the credits roll by thinking:

I guess I'm officially and publicly hardcore now.
I've also officially and publicly announced the fact that I am a Dark Night Trilogy hardcore-ist.

aaaaaAAAAAaahhHHHhhhHHHHHHHhhhHHhhhh.

Such great story progression! And this isn't a car! And death by exile! And Alfred! And officer Blake! Adsjfdkslsfd!

So yeah guys. Batman. Two thumbs up.

K-Minty

Aimless Oddities

It's January and I've hardly given you a proper hello. I don't know if anything I say tonight will make sense, but I'll give it a shot anyway. New Year's greetings aside, there is plenty to blog down, and a great lackage of will to do so. I am a very wordy person, and I often wonder if I lose my readers in my lopsided direction of thought. When it comes to communication, getting from point "A" to point "B" is hard for a singularly complicated person such as myself. But I like to write to you. Writing is something I doubt I shall ever give up, though I may avoid it to some extension.

There is something very familiar and comforting about the way the keys feel beneath my fingers, and I revel in familiar things.
You see, a lot has happened, and a lot will happen still. Most of which I only care to hint at and do not care to elaborate upon. But I've been doing a bit of reflecting and I've decided that there is an surprising amount of meaningfulness to be found in our lives as well as the lives of others. Over the past month or so I've drawn many half sided and hardly baked connections and realized just how cleaver God is.
Oh God is so good. The real God. The Everlasting God. The God who gives and takes away, never ceases, and overpowers all else. The God who I believe in.

___

I used to write more often. I used to talk about the way things made me feel, but I know that I'm being watched and overhead, so I made up words and coined my own phrases. I guess I still do, but I just pretend like I don't know what I"m doing and since nobody else does, none of them realize. I am clueless. But it's not a bad kind of clueless. Just a funny kind. The way it's funny how some people enjoy being surprised, and others loathe it. I don't know why I think about these kinds of things, but I do. It's...y'know..."the way I are and the you is". So I'll keep thinking this way, especially as I sleepwalk into the land of life as we know it. 
 ___

Joy comes from God. I don't know why exactly, but I have always been an incredibly joyful child. Somehow I find it easy to laugh and I never learned how to lie about the falsity of my smile. My smile is real, and so is the peace I've found in knowing that God knows better than I do. I wish other people could find out how nice it is to know that they are not in control. They'd be a lot happier.

I kind of feel like this is all serious sounding. I didn't mean it to be, but it's okay to be serious. Especially when you need to be. I guess I'm just rambling now though...and tonight that's exactly what I feel like doing.

Tonight our little toy hockey league kicked up again. My friends and I had immeasurable counts of fun by competing our brains out and whacking each other with sticks. This will be an every-Sunday-night-thing for a couple of weeks, and I'm glad for that.
I'm learning more and more what a blessing it is to like being around people, and to be comfortable being around people.
I'm liking my outside classes that I'm taking this year. Not merely because I rock out in essay and skool in bio, but also because I genuinely enjoy chilling with people.
---I mean, please don't take away my "me time" after listening to me say that. But I'm finding a deep sense of value in both time alone and time with others. I think there's a healthy balance, and the older I get (ha.) the more important balancing social stuffs becomes. I still live under a rock, but soon somebody will poke a stick down my hole and I'll be forced to crawl out into the big wide bright sunny world.
But it's all good because I can manage transitions.

Another funny thing I've been observing lately is how dearly I hold fast to fictional characters and made up stories when under stress. I think a lot of people read books in order to escape to a new world, and I think I sailed under that bandwagon ship a long long time ago. I love fiction more and more because I'm finally learning how hearing stories about dragons being bested can inspire us to defeat our own dragons.

Music encourages me too. And it keeps coming back to me how odd it is that a song can become a sort of "life bookmark". There will forever be those songs that will instantly remind you and I of the very first time we latched on to the melody. I find it very nostalgic, and maybe even a little bit dangerous. I don't believe that dwelling on the past makes for a good future,, and yet I like the sad feeling that I get whenever I listen to an old favorite tune. But in the wise words of dear Sally Sparrow:  "Sad is happy for deep people."
Do you think I'm deep? Sometimes I feel like I'm just pretending to be. I'm probably only deep on the internet. Real life is always a completely different matter altogether, and deepness if very much more subjective.

It's getting later and later now. It's strange, but I can't help feeling that tonight is a little different...a little wonky...for some reason I keep thinking that I hear wind rushing out my window. That hardly ever happens at night, but I wish it did so more often.
Oh Wind. You and I are friends. Soulmates, even. 
But more on that some other time.

For tonight, I regret that I must bid adieu to all. Please have a good week, and come back to me with some witty remarkabolism. I sometimes appreciate those.

Kismint

1 Peter 1

1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,

To God’s elect, exiles scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, ² who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood:

Grace and peace be yours in abundance.

Praise to God for a Living Hope

³ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴ and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, ⁵ who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. ⁶ In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. ⁷ These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. ⁸ Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, ⁹ for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
¹⁰ Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, ¹¹ trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. ¹² It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.

Be Holy

¹³ Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. ¹⁴ As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. ¹⁵ But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; ¹⁶ for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”^[a]
17 Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. ¹⁸ For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, ¹⁹ but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. ²⁰ He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. ²¹ Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.
²² Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart.^{[b] 23} For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. ²⁴ For,

“All people are like grass,
    and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall,
²⁵     but the word of the Lord endures forever.”^[c]

And this is the word that was preached to you.

----

the girl in the sandbox, free from her cares

played without worry, the sun in her hair

with twigs and white flowers in braids twisted askew

and eyes sparkling with delight in her life now anew

a young thing, a spirit, now singing in peace

with a voice that spoke gently and by tenderness increased

the goodness and kindness, easily found

in the girl in the sandbox, whose loveliness abounds

a grey-haired queen, fair beyond measure
was the girl in the sandbox who's heart was a treasure
she touched many lives, was endeared by large and small
and even to final breath was most beautiful of all

though grimness and grief might stain a sore spot

in the heart stings of beloved, and to those whom she brought

great happiness and grace, warmness and love

and now these reign down with her smiles from above

----



One last smile to fade from reality
A whisper of love, a shattered tear
A tender voice, a fleeting moment
A saturation


If love were an ocean

Can you tell me why you have been so sad?
Because things we done, things we've had
They're different no

So many things we ought to say
In grief we fade and fall away
And find that

♫...So everybody put your best suit and dress on...♪

There'd be no distance that could hold us back.