I happened to stumble upon this site: www.you-are-beautiful.com, literally actually, thanks to the 'stumble' button on Firefox, and I found it to be quite interesting. They are a group of people who are trying to make a difference with one phrase: "You are beautiful" and this is their statement:

You Are Beautiful is a simple, powerful statement which is incorporated into the over absorption of mass media and lifestyles that are wrapped in consumer culture. The intention behind this project is to reach beyond ourselves as individuals to make a difference by creating moments of positive self realization. We're just attempting to make the world a little better. Intention is the most important aspect of the You Are Beautiful project in its idea of purity. Nothing is sacred. Everything that has a perceived value becomes commodified. We work extremely hard that this message is received as a simple act of kindness, and nothing more. Advertising elicits a response to buy, where this project elicits a response to do something. The attempt with You Are Beautiful is to create activism instead of consumerism. You Are Beautiful uses the medium of advertising and commercialization to spread a positive message. Projects like these make a difference in the world by catching us in the midst of daily life and creating moments of positive self realization.

I have heard of people doing things like this before, and so I thought I would share this one with you all. I don't know about you but it make me smile every time I that phrase. Many people have sent in pictures of the phrase, either in sticker form, written form, or in some artistic expression. These are just a few of my favourite photo's that people have submitted.

In any way it's put, it speaks the truth to whomever reads those words.

If you send in a letter asking for free stickers they will send you some, all you have to do is send a self addressed envelope with stamp inside of the letter to get the stamps. Make sense? Good. Just send it to this address: You Are Beautiful PO Box # 220175 Chicago, IL 60622 USA

Something's a little nutty here...

So today was very exciting and adrenalin pumping, we had, er have, squirrels that live in the ceiling above the kitchen. Well, one of the panels is really loose, and today when we got home after class the loose panel was laying on the floor of the kitchen.




So Lucy and I concluded that the squirrel was now loose in the house somewhere, about two minutes later Jess Mott comes down stairs exclaiming that she has rodent poop on her bed (she is now roommates with Abby). So Lucy and i get very excited and run upstairs examine the poop and run all around upstairs trying to find where the squirrel could have gone. With no luck we come back down stairs and proceed to Tell Matthew Howard and Mummert about the squirrel now in the house, when suddenly both Lucy and I see the squirrel just chillin' in the middle of the big room. I yelled "there he is!"
We all ran into the room, and shut the glass doors behind us to keep the little red squirrel contained, and opened the door to outside to provide and escape for the little critter. So Lucy and I, each armed with a broom run around trying to scare the little Squirrel, whom I found out to be one of the squirrels that Jess Mott and I had name Alfred.

He looks like this squirrel, but alas, this is not him

My is he quick little fellow! We got him close to the door once with out him going out, instead he ran right in front of the opening and across the other side of the room, farther away from the door. Then finally after managing to scare him closer to the doorway and from out behind the piano then the other fridge to finally the great outdoors. Alfred was so afraid that he jumped from the very top of the stairs down to the ground below, leaving a nice body imprint in the snow, and then bounded up into a nearby tree.

Take off Pad

Another image of the beautiful landing job.

Streams II

Seeing as I haven't posted since last year thought I would fill you in on what has been going on in my life this year. In December I went home for Christmas break, saw family, friends and David. Now it's back to New Hampshire for the second half. Even before I got to New Hampshire God started to teach me and stretch me.

I got to the Vancouver on the 3rd airport around 6:30pm and found out that my plane was delayed two hours due to deicing on the runway, which meant that I had missed my connecting flights due to the delay. I had two options laid out before me by the ticket agent: one I go home and return the next evening and catch the same flights at the same times and arrive a day and a half later, or fly out that night land in Portland and spend the night in a hotel paid for by the airline which included dinner and breakfast vouchers, then leave in the morning and fly to Newark NJ, and then to Boston. I didn't really want to go home and fly out the next night, but I didn't really want to spend the night in Portland -for that was another whole thing to be alone in a hotel. Well my ticket agent ended up deciding for me, he got off the phone and announced that he had decided for me and booked me into the hotel. I was unsure, but God knew, and He had a plan.

I was to call mom when I got through customs to let her it was time to stop worrying for that part of the trip. I ended up getting put into Secondary Inspection at customs, I could tell I was going to be there for awhile after sitting there a good ten minutes with none of the other two people ahead of me getting called in. As I was sitting there I was praying for God's peace and favour to be upon me. A few minutes later I saw my ticket agent looking through the window, once he spotted me he disappeared, and a few minutes later I was called back out in to the main customs area and questioned by another guard, all the while my ticket agent standing there smiling. I made it to all my flights on time, the hotel people were really nice and helped me a lot, it was all going good until I landed in Boston.

Boston view from above, leaving to go home

Two hours was all I had left to travel, then I would be back at the green house in New Hampshire, and my bus was scheduled to leave at 9:30pm, or so I thought. When I looked at the bus schedule I looked at the wrong airport, thinking it was the one I was at, unfortunatly, when I realized that I was at the Logan airport, not the Boston airport, it was too late, my bus had already left at 8:55. That was it for me, I cried, I was tired and worn out from over 24hrs of traveling and I just wanted to be done, and to go to bed. So I called home and my loving daddy answered, it's kinda of hard to say nothing is wrong when your crying, after calming down a bit I managed to tell him that I missed my bus and that it was the last one going to New London NH for the night, the next one left at 7:55 am on the 5th. My dad, being the awesome dad that he is, knew that I had had enough and that it was time for him to step in and take care of me, even though he was so far away. I ended up taking a taxi that night all the way to the girls green house. It was such a relief to be back, to have finally reach my destination, to be able to sleep.

Through my earthly father my heavenly father showed me how much He cares for me and how much He loves me, just through that one experience. God pushed me to new limits, He knew how far I could go, He knew what I could do even though I didn't think I could. He knew when I had reached then end and that I had done all that I could do, which was more than I though. He used my dad to show me that He knows all, to show me that my dad knows me and knows my limits, for he has a father's heart and cares greatly for his children.