just because

Ecuador...waiting for the bus

Madrid...not waiting for a bus

Gdansk...waiting for a bus

London...waiting for that stupid public transportation!!

I'm quite fond of these two gingers. :)

microwaves

every night when i warm up my "warm thing" in the microwave... usually the thought that pops into my head is "i wonder how much microwave radiation is getting into my brain while i stand here waiting for 2 minutes and 30 seconds to go faster..."

and then i wonder how much has already gotten into my brain that makes me think about pointless things like that.

and then i think i would sound like a paranoid hippy-type person if i said those things aloud....

and then i blogged it. go figure. at least my toes are warm.

this is the second random video i've seen with this song today...

This complete non-sense...and i loved it.

cutest

by Amiah

THE BIRDS

I like birds about as much as I like squirrels... (i.e. not at all)

This is my back yard:

there are at least 1.7 million Canada Geese on the pond.

I feel like I'm living in a National Geographic special.

AHHHHHHHH!

{click on the panoramic pictures to see them bigger. the horror!!!}

Thanksgiving

As my dad says, right now we're on borrowed time. So Thanksgiving this year was special. My heart was happy to be with my family, grandparents, and the Hamm family. {and yes i did get asked several times "Wait...you're having ham for Thanksgiving and not turkey?" and yes i AM super extra really mad at Bethany for going to "Haiti" instead of being here. I will probably never speak to her again. Probably.}

It may have been the best Thanksgiving I can remember. It was relaxing, we had good food, good families, there was a really good football game on, I read a little Harry Potter, we laughed a lot as always, painted fingernails, snuggled by the fire... it was perfect.

I'm finding its easier to just BE where I'm at right now and in turn really really enjoy where I'm at. I know I'm leaving in about five weeks so that means I slow down and enjoy the moments I have. The take-home lesson here is... continue to live this way when I'm not preparing to move really far away.

Its easy to get busy, for life to be hectic, and that hectic seems normal. FYI, it's not. We start to think--"facebook needs to be checked, this email needs to be read now, this text needs to be replied to, etc." It doesn't. They can wait. Almost nothing is more important than the real live person you're spending time with right now. I think that's something I will always fight for. To be fair, it takes some work...breaking bad habits, disciplining yourself to make new habits {which in the end, include thinking of someone else instead of yourself}. I never regret the times that my phone is away and out of my mind... but I DO regret when I look back and think "why did I feel like I needed to check this-or-that?" I hate wondering if someone has felt de-valued because whatever is on my phone seems more important than they are... probably because I know I feel that way when someone can't have a conversation without responding to every *ding* their phone makes.

"...a doctor named Marcel Tuchman. He was the most compassionate person I have ever met in my life — I mean, full of human kindness. And every time he met somebody, you had the sense that he cared more about them than anything else in the world. So what I learned from him is that when you actually are with somebody, you’ve got to make that person feel like nobody else in the world matters. I think that’s critical. So, for example, I don’t have a mobile phone turned on because I’m talking to you. I don’t want the outside world to impinge on the conversation we’re having... Every moment counts, and that moment is lost if you’re not in that moment 100 percent."

-Tachi Yamada, M.D., president of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Global Health Program.

Somehow my Thanksgiving post turned into a soap box! :) Maybe because I have only 42 more days in Lincoln, NE and each one feels important.

Also. We somehow FORGOT to take pictures!!! So... here's the Clamm Easter picture again... because Thanksgivng looked similar because Beth is not in this picture...except we were at the Clark house... and plus Ray and Wini {and maybe a few embellishments.........}

in case you were wondering...

What's your Patronus?

Your Result: Your Patrnous is a Wolf!

You work best in a close support group and are fiercely loyal to those you love. You are unbeatable in a group and incredibly strong even alone due to your cunning at getting the job done.

But genuine shared laughter is one of the surest ways for human beings to come together and break the stalemates of life. It is essential to genuine community. No wonder, then, that laughter is so good for our health. It is even a symbol of redemption, for there is no greater incongruity in all creation than redemption. When deliverance comes, "we are like those who dream: our mouth filled with laughter, our tongue with shouts of joy" (Psalm 126:1-2)

Abraham fell on the ground laughing when told by God that he, a one-hunded-year-old man, would have a child by nenety-year-old Sarah (Gen. 17:17). Later Sarah herself laughed at the same "joke" (Gen. 18:12-15). God specified to Abraham that the child of promise would be named "Laughter" Isaac means "Laughter". "Your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Laughter, and I will establish my covenant with him" (Gen. 17:19) Was this a penalty imposed upon them because they laughed? Hardly. Rather, it was a perpetual reminder that God breaks through.

-Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy

food

The odds of going to the store for a loaf of bread and coming out with only a loaf of bread are three billion to one.

-Erma Bombeck

tonight.

fireplace

The Divine Conspiracy

Harry Potter mug

Happy Christmas Tree Day

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas here at the Clark's...

a Monday

While my mom was shooting her deer (technically a few days before), I had the kids for the day. It was lovely. A day filled with laundry, Toy Story, playing outside, coffee, walks, and a visit from a friend.

"Aah, watch. Help me fix my bike."

Never mind the fact that he refuses to actually get ON his bike.

And yet he somehow managed to fall off it...

Haircut-Birthday

Celebrated the birth of this little lady on the 17th.

Harry Potter cake and noddles. Good night. :)

aaaaaaand a Rondo jersey

its harry potter day!!!

songs

Florence + the Machine...

...Trey Songz?

Family Force 5... Christmas songs??

Ipod on shuffle? Nope.

Just a normal mix CD from Jayme.

Sisters are the best :)

pants

"I wear an oversized man's T-shirt with some weird logo on it that I've cut into a dress. And no pants — just stockings. Every time I wear stockings I get hit on. Believe it or not, when girls who wear jeans all the time switch it up with stockings they definitely get noticed. Go for no-pants sometimes."

I read this in an article about clothes or something... and it made me laugh. First, because, especially in the winter, I like to wear leggings in lieu of regular pants because it's more comfortable and so much easier with boots! (jeans in boots.... *shudder*... all bunchy... i don't like it ok??). Second, because she says "Go for no-pants sometimes.". Ha! And the whole no-pants thing became kind of a joke with us at the Kessler house. One night this summer Bethany said "I love roommate dates because you don't have to wear pants!"

Mr. Knightly is my favorite

tis the season...

fireplace & harry potter

chicken noodle soup

eucalyptus bubble bath

kleenex

lots of Emergen-C

also tis the season to avoid sugar...

"Eating or drinking 100 grams (8 tbsp.) of sugar, the equivalent of about two cans of soda, can reduce the ability of white blood cells to kill germs by forty percent. The immune-suppressing effect of sugar starts less than thirty minutes after ingestion and may last for five hours."

(Ask Dr. Sears)

thank you Natalie Dee

{...for being very amusing and making these cartoons}

Yesterday was a day to put in my heart and take to Spain with me.

It was a day for sunrise and early morning talk with God

...for little kisses and hugs and piggy back rides

...for long walks and sunshine and funny conversations

...for reading and playing twister in the front yard

and bubble baths and good books and contented sleep.

HAHAHAHA

i {heart} harry potter jokes

Friends.... it never gets old

Joey: "If he doesn't like you, then this is all just a moo point."
Rachel: "Huh. A moo point?"
Joey: "Yeah, it's like a cow's opinion, you know, it just doesn't matter. It's "moo"."

by Oswald Chambers

"Rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings." 1 Peter 4:13
If you are going to be used by God, He will take you through a multitude of experiences that are not meant for you at all, they are meant to make you useful in His hands, and to enable you to understand what transpires in other souls so that you will never be surprised at what you come across... It is only when we are related to Jesus Christ that we can understand what God is after in His dealings with us...

Are we partakers of Christ's sufferings? Are we prepared for God to stamp our personal ambitions right out? Are we prepared for God to destroy by transfiguration our individual determinations? It will not mean that we know exactly why God is taking us that way, that would make us spiritual prigs. We never realize at the time what God is putting us through; we go through it more or less misunderstandingly; then we come to a luminous place, and say - "Why, God has girded me, though I did not know it!"

"All things work together for good to them that love God." Romans 8:28
The circumstances of a saint's life are ordained of God. In the life of a saint there is no such thing as chance. God by His providence brings you into circumstances that you cannot understand at all, but the Spirit of God understands. God is bringing you into places and among people and into conditions in order that the intercession of the Spirit in you may take a particular line. Never put your hand in front of the circumstances and say - I am going to be my own providence here, I must watch this, and guard that. All your circumstances are in the hand of God, therefore never think it strange concerning the circumstances you are in. Your part in intercessory prayer is not to enter into the agony of intercession, but to utilize the common-sense circumstances God puts you in, and the common-sense people He puts you amongst by His providence, to bring them before God's throne and give the Spirit in you a chance to intercede for them.

Am I making the Holy Spirit's work difficult by being indefinite, or by trying to do His work for Him? I must do the human side of intercession, and the human side is the circumstances I am in and the people I am in contact with. I have to keep my conscious life as a shrine of the Holy Ghost, then as I bring the different ones before God, the Holy Spirit makes intercession for them.

"Fellow labourer in the gospel of Christ." 1 Thessalonians 3:2
After sanctification it is difficult to state what your aim in life is, because God has taken you up into His purpose by the Holy Ghost; He is using you now for His purposes throughout the world as He used His Son for the purpose of our salvation. If you seek great things for yourself - God has called me for this and that; you are putting a barrier to God's use of you. As long as you have a personal interest in your own character, or any set ambition, you cannot get through into identification with God's interests. You can only get there by losing forever any idea of yourself and by letting God take you right out into His purpose for the world, and because your goings are of the Lord, you can never understand your ways.

I have to learn that the aim in life is God's, not mine. God is using me from His great personal standpoint, and all He asks of me is that I trust Him, and never say - Lord, this gives me such heart-ache. To talk in that way makes me a clog. When I stop telling God what I want, He can catch me up for what He wants without let or hindrance. He can crumple me up or exalt me, He can do anything He chooses. He simply asks me to have implicit faith in Himself and in His goodness. Self pity is of the devil, if I go off on that line I cannot be used by God for His purpose in the world. I have "a world within the world" in which I live, and God will never be able to get me outside it because I am afraid of being frost-bitten.

"If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." 2 Corinthians 5:17
What idea have you of the salvation of your soul? The experience of salvation means that in your actual life things are really altered, you no longer look at things as you used to; your desires are new, old things have lost their power. One of the touchstones of experience is - Has God altered the thing that matters? If you still hanker after the old things, it is absurd to talk about being born from above, you are juggling with yourself. If you are born again, the Spirit of God makes the alteration manifest in your actual life and reasoning, and when the crisis comes you are the most amazed person on earth at the wonderful difference there is in you. There is no possibility of imagining that you did it. It is this complete and amazing alteration that is the evidence that you are a saved soul.

The salvation that is worked out in me by the Holy Ghost emancipates me entirely, and as long as I walk in the light as God is in the light, He sees nothing to censure because His life is working out in every particular, not to my consciousness, but deeper than my consciousness.

Go Patti's charm?

Hudson and my mom came out {surprise!} on Thursday morning because Hudson asks incessantly--

"Go Patti's charm {farm}? See Orrriver, Mae, Aah dad, my Aah ?"

So, after a morning of running around, playing with the dogs, and helping Bryan in the shop, "Aah dad" suggested we had a bonfire to cook hot dogs for lunch.

It was gorgeous and perfect for a mid-day bonfire...and perfect because the next day it snowed. Ahhhh Nebraska.

gum

"Hi. My name is Ashley. and I love cinnamon gum"

I've always been a gum chewer. It's genetic. My mom started giving me gum when my first teeth came in. When I was in Ecuador, for some reason, I developed an obsession with Cinnamon Trident. What am I going to do in Spain without it?? Pack an entire backpack full of gum....because that's not weird or suspicious....

{sigh}

"So, you spend weeks and weeks and weeks on the mountain, climbing high, sleeping for a day or two, and then coming back down to recover, to sort of kick-start your body into acclimatizing. You grow more red blood cells; pH levels change. All kinds of things that I don’t pretend to understand happen, but I know it takes a lot of time for that to take place. The going up and down really can be discouraging because you think…the time I thought it the most was when we made the last acclimatization trip up to Camp 3 at 24,000 feet and you have killed yourself to get to 24,000 feet. It took me nine hours to climb from Camp 2 to Camp 3 and I thought, ―The last thing I want to do is go back down to the base camp just so I can eat and sleep, only to turn around and come right back to where I’m already sitting. And that was a difficult decision, but you know it’s the right one because you don’t have enough strength left. Your body hasn’t acclimatized enough yet that, if you made a summit push, it would end in disaster.

You want to give up. You’re thinking, ―I just can’t do it. It’s just so hard. And then you stop and go, ―No, no, don’t let that thought enter your mind; just don’t look at the top; it’s too far away; just put your head down and walk to that next snowball or whatever you see fifty feet in front of you, and just little tiny bites, one at a time. And it was challenging, really challenging but it was worth it."

"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit."

-Jesus {John 12:24}

the days i love

fireplace + coffee + a novel

mom + walk + lunch

baking cookies

knitting outside

{gorgeous day}

incredible sunset

blake + sushi + tea and The Divine Conspiracy

shish kabobs

one night last week my dad had a meeting, so my mum and i made shish kabobs and watched a girlie movie. it was so great.

VEGETABLES!! i love vegetables!