Making a Difference Monday #16

I started Making a Difference Mondays as a way for me to use my once miniscule blogging voice to try and change the world one kind deed at a time. Each Monday, I'll post about something I've done to make someone's day a little bit better, and I invite you all to play along by doing the following:

1. Make your own Making a Difference Monday post, explaining to your readers these rules, and sharing the story of some small act of kindness you've performed in the past week. It could be anything...holding a door, helping a little old lady cross the street, or even just stopping at a red light when there's no one around to know the difference.
2. Enter a link to your post in the Mcklinky box below.
3. Link back to my post in yours so that your readers can find the full list of participants.

It is with one person and one action at a time that we change to world. Why not try to change it for the better?

For this Making a Difference Monday, my good deed required a little assistance.  I wanted to do something special for a professor of mine, so Jon and I went Christmas shopping for him.  We split the cost of a gift card to the place where he buys his coffee, and bought him a package of his favorite Hostess cakes.  It sounds silly, but the Hostess cakes are a sort of inside joke in our class.  He teaches "The Biology of Aging," and to show that he practices what he preaches, he's attempting to cut himself off from his favorite sweet for the betterment of his health.  We decided that calories shouldn't count on Christmas.  =)

Have you guys been up to anything kind this week?  If so, drop your link in the box below so we can visit.

Patchwork Post:

I have completely checked out of blog-land for the past few days, and below is the reason why.

[All images via my tumblr: just because.]

I gave up my tumblr a while back, but I've fallen in love with it again.

It's so much fun, and such a great way to share beautiful things with a huge audience.

Do any of you guys tumbl?

If so, add me here and I'll return the favor.  :)

Also, I must announce:

I am going on a sort-of-kind-of leave of absense.

I leave for Germany in 13 days,

(eeeeeeeeeeeeeekkk!)

I have finals all this week,

and I have a very busy cookie-baking schedule coming up.

(We poor college kids have to home-make our Christmas gifts. =] )

I'm not saying I won't be popping in,

I'm just saying that I won't be able to give this blog the attention it deserves.

So, I'll be frequenting my tumblr.

And I'll do my best to keep you guys updated here,

but

pretty

pretty

pretty

pweeeease

forgive me if I can't make my usual rounds.  :(

It's a very hectic,

and extremely merry,

Holiday Season around these parts.

;)

To keep you occupied until I'm back,
check out my Resolutions guest post over at Novelista Barista!
(Thank you so much, Jennifer!)

Happy Monday, everyone.  =)

Nineteen Days

Nineteen days!  I'm not imagining it am I?  You guys can see that number on the countdown, too, right?  I don't know where the days went, but I'm glad they've left the calendar.  I don't think I have ever been this excited for anything.  Not even the last time he came home.  This time is...different.

I mean, I was ecstatic to see him last time, but I was also a little afraid. So much time had passed, and though we did our best to communicate through letters and a phone call each week, it was difficult.  I was terrified that we'd have changed...  But I was worried for nothing, as usual.  We did change, but we did it together somehow.  We managed to stay in perfect balance, maturing and growing together even though we were apart.  This experience has been every bit as much as journey for me as it has been for him...

Anyway, now I have none of those fears.  Now I am completely consumed by excitement and anticipation.  I am not nervous or apprehensive in the least, and in only nineteen short days I will be in the place that is the closest to heaven I have ever known.  And what with the stress of finals and my first ever time on a plane and the fact that Christmas break means a solid month without pay for student workers...  It can't come fast enough.  I need a break from Kentucky problems right about now.

And a little bit closer to home, I've finally caught Christmas fever.  :)  The tree is up, the first presents are underneath, and I'm breaking out the Christmas candy recipes.  It even snowed for the first time a couple days ago.  It was beautiful, and I hope it keeps on coming.  It might be nineteen days until heaven, but it's only sixteen until Christmas, so in honor of both looming dates can we get a holiday themed happy dance over here?  Yes?  Why thank you!

HAPPY DANCE!!! 

PS.  Also, don't forget about my Blogging Birthday Bash on the sixteenth!  There's still time to sign up if you want to be entered for a chance in my giveaway!  :)

Making a Difference Monday #15(Yep. Late again.)

I started Making a Difference Mondays as a way for me to use my once miniscule blogging voice to try and change the world one kind deed at a time. Each Monday, I'll post about something I've done to make someone's day a little bit better, and I invite you all to play along by doing the following:

1. Make your own Making a Difference Monday post, explaining to your readers these rules, and sharing the story of some small act of kindness you've performed in the past week. It could be anything...holding a door, helping a little old lady cross the street, or even just stopping at a red light when there's no one around to know the difference.
2. Enter a link to your post in the Mcklinky box below
3. Link back to my post in yours so that your readers can find the full list of participants.

It is with one person and one action at a time that we change to world. Why not try to change it for the better?

My opportunity to make a difference smacked me in the face this past week.  On Thursday, Courtney, Ryan, Jon Fore and I went to bingo on campus.  (The incentive was high:  hundred dollar gift cards to Walmart, a Play Station 3, baskets full of housewares...)  However, we arrived very early.  Like, a whole hour early.  When we walked through the door there was only one other girl in the room. 

She was setting up tables completely by herself.  Apparently her help was late.

But, I mean, we were early...

So of course we pitched in to help the poor dear.  :)

What have you guys been up to this week?  Leave links to any good deeds you've performed in the Mcklinky if you please, and I'll love you forever if you overlook my lateness.  Again.  As usual.  ;) 

The Blogging Intrigue

I have been doing a lot of thinking about this blog lately, and about what it is that makes me love it so much.  And you know what?  It's so many things.

It's the complete and total freedom.  Here, I am entirely myself, with no mask to cover how I really feel.  When I am sad, I express that.  When I am afraid, I admit it.  When I am happy, I smile, and you all smile with me.  I don't have to worry about seeming strong or mature or prepared.  I can be honest here when I cannot be anywhere else.  It's such a relief sometimes.  There are days when all I want to do is lock myself in my room and just scream at the top of my lungs because of the strain from all the pretending.  Those are the days when I come here with an open heart and let however I'm feeling pour into this little composition box.  When I am worried or terrified or overwhelmed I can tell you, and you don't look at me like I'm weak or judge me because I have a complaint.  I don't have to look at the pity in your eyes, because it isn't there.  Instead I find acceptance and comfort in your words, and that is an exquisit thing for which I cannot thank you enough.

It's about the connections, too.  I have found so many people here, people I couldn't have met otherwise.  People who write beautifully and eloquently.  People who have been through the same kind of separations.  People who have taught me to try and live in the present rather than spend so much time looking ahead.  People who have given me more comfort than my friends ever could, because they can understand exactly how I feel.  People with whom I have so much in common.  People that could have been my best friends had we grown up nearer to one another.  Here, the world doesn't seem so very large.  It is amazing to have bridged such gaps with technology.

There is also a sense of total control here that I love.  So much of my life is dictated by school and work and the Army. So much of it is out of my hands, taken only on faith and hope.  It is quite the comfort to have this one place where I get to call the shots.  I decide what I want to talk about.  I decide that this blog is an honest place.  I decide that I want to do something worthwhile to me, and I act on my decision.  I can't tell you how sweet a satisfaction that is on days when I'm feeling stuck.  Sometimes trying to balance my life and Kyle's makes me feel like I'm involved in an elaborate circus act:  juggling the different and opposing rules by which we live.  Here though, I lay those fears and problems bare, and instead of my issues being up in the air they're spread out on a table before me where I can work them out at my leisure...and usually with some good advice from my readers.

However, this blog is also the one thing I have that is truly mine.  It serves as the place I go to talk about things that have absolutely nothing to do with my impending marriage and move.  Here is where you get to know me.  Here is where I can discuss things like recipes and books and my friends and my opinions and reactions to things happening around me.  Here is where I take my stand against what I consider the problems of the world.  Here is where I talk about the things I want, but know I may never have, or at least have to wait to get...the sacrifices I make for what is more important.  It helps to talk about those things.  Here is where my voice is heard not only as a daughter, sister, friend, fiancee, or student, but as a person:  a human being in my own right.  Sure, it is evident that parts of me belong to those I love, but I like to think that you can also find the sacred parts of me that belong only to myself.

Here I find love and compassion on a monumental scale.  This blog, all of you people, you restore my hope when it is failing.  In a world like ours it is easy to lose faith, but here I can remember that having faith is a part of who I am.  I do believe in the essential inner goodness of mankind.  I do believe that every piece of life has its purpose.  On certain dark days I owe my continued inner-optimism not only to my friends, family, and Kyle.  Sometimes I owe it entirely to you readers.

So thank you.  Thank you for opening your arms and taking me in when I needed a shelter.  Thank you for building me up and teaching me that it is okay to use my voice.  Thank you for simply being yourselves.  You guys will never really know how much you mean to me.  I wish more than anything that there was a way for me to meet you all face to face and give you the hug that you deserve so very much, especially those of you that have been with me since the beginning.

To get to the heart of things, I think that the true intrigue of the blog world is that it can be the polar opposite of networking sites like MySpace or facebook.  There is no need to photoshop your photos to make yourself look more attractive.  You don't have the pressure to spruce up your hobbies or interests lists to be "cool."  You're not trying to fit a mold.  Instead, here you can just let your real self shine, and eventually people with truly similar hearts stumble along and find you.  "Friend requests" here aren't just a button click away.  They're carefully generated bonds that began as just a few random comments.  And the way we are all brought together, the way we help each other...

That is absolutely beautiful.