Christmas Special at Youth

So last night we joined the whole church that our youth group belongs to for a Christmas celebration, complete with lots and lots of items (dramas and action songs).

I was in two, we did action songs to Strong Tower by Kutless and One World by tobymac. Q was also in One World.

Some of us didn't really remember Strong Tower, so we were in the back right before our turn, frantically practicing it... it paid off, though, I only missed one line of the song!

One World went awesome, of course; we've practiced that one till we are sick of the song.

After the items was FOOD, which was lovo and wasn't half bad.

Soooooo, I counted and I got only 6 hours of sleep last night. *gasp* ... As opposed to my normal.... *counts* ... 9-10. I'll be drinking coffee today, thankyou.

Design and Dedication

Today I spent several hours updating the design on one of the websites I... uh... webmaster. In today's world, you kind of have to have a new design every few months or you are "outdated," "old-fashioned," or just plain... *gasp* ... "over." If you come up with something good -- a good design, an awesome layout-- well, it will be amazing... for a couple months. Then, it will be finished. And what was incredible and cutting-edge two months ago is now as old-fashioned as last week's spaghetti. I mean... at one point, the blinking marquee was IN.

(for those of you who are not web geeks, the blink and marquee tags are *shudder* very outdated)

Good design isn't enough. Good coding isn't enough. What is necessary is good design... again. A new one. Moving forward. Updating. Trying something new. Fixing the bugs. 

It got me to thinking...

See, week before last I was going through a Beth Moore Bible study. I was quite happy with myself, I had actually stuck with the thing for a few weeks. Something new... something good... moving forward. Good, eh? 

Last week I had a flu. I was struggling just to finish my school work and drop back into bed. So, I skipped the Bible study. And... I haven't gotten back to it. 

The dedication of two weeks ago didn't carry me into this week...  last week's spiritual victory doesn't guarantee that this week will be fine and dandy. As a matter of fact, yesterday's lovely attitude doesn't apply to today. As a MATTER of fact... the good work of the last minute doesn't apply to this minute. The decision to conform to Christ's character has to be a decision made every single minute, in a new way. The last amazing act of kindness I did doesn't earn me brownie points to avoid the next one that will be required of me.

Soooo.... yes, I will set my alarm clock tonight, and do my Bible study tomorrow morning. 

And that's my sermon for today. Just thought I'd share.

-Danielle

Random happenings

Woah... it's been quite a while since I posted a blog! I keep meaning to... and then forgetting to... or deciding not to... or not bothering to... and... well, y'know how it goes. But that doesn't mean my life has been devoid of happenings. Here is some of what has been going on:

1. Last Friday the homeschool group did an action song at youth; we did One World by Tobymac, I think we did pretty well. Malcolm's wife was taking pics, so here y'are, one picture of us doing action song....

2. Last Saturday we had a Thanksgiving get-together over at the Schultzies' place... I think there was over 40 people there. Twas great fun... and afterwards I realized that I had not gotten a single picture. Not one.

3. And this past week mah bro and I have had some kinda flu, so we couldn't go to homeschoolers or youth... although the Sens did come by here after homeschoolers, so Hannah taught me the newest action song... who knows, maybe I can still do it with them next week...

4. Today we put up the Christmas tree, so we are officially ready for Christmas! And Christmas is most certainly in the air as it is getting unbearably hot....

I think that's about all that has happened over the past couple weeks... and now I have finally posted a blog and I can stop feeling guilty about my terrible neglect of my blog!

Afternoon with the Schmelzenbachs and Schultzies

Sooooo, I got my SAT scores back. I got a 1510, which is pretty much what

I was hoping for. Thanks for the prayers, y'all, God really helped me out on that one. 

We were gonna have dinner with the Schultzies ANYWAY, so mum went ahead a decorated a bit, made a chocolate bread pudding, and we called it a party. It was fun.

I uploaded a bunch of photos to my picasa, but the movie refused to cooperate there so I just uploaded it here.

Website!

Well, I spent Saturday glued to the computer screen, staring at pages and pages of coding. I was on a mission. I was going to finish my website! I was unhappy with what I had, so I decided to throw it out and start over, retaining only four files of the original. 

About 15 hours of solid coding and graphic designing later, I had pretty much made what I wanted.... by 9:30 PM on Saturday night, Quinton was getting worried about me... "Aren't you going to go to bed, Sis?" ... but no, once you start on a coding project, it becomes verrrrry difficult to stop. Trust me. It's like stopping halfway through  a Ted Dekker book. Just doesn't happen. 

Anyway, with a few tweaks and final touches on Sunday morning before church and Monday morning before school, the website is up and running! So go take a look at it, at http://antiqueatlantic.com

For those who do not quite get all the gizmos on the home page, allow me to explain:

- My music: an online radio station I found recently, which allows users to tell it what artists they like. It then pulls all the songs from those artists and plays them... and the user can ban songs they don't like, so eventually they get a totally customized playlist. That thingo on the homepage plays my playlist, but there is a link underneath it to make your own... it's free, it's awesome, I fully recommend it. I made a profile for mum, with stuff like Abba, LeAnn Rimes, Kenny G, all that good stuff. 

-My flair: Ok, well, if you have facebook you know what these are. These are awesome buttons which people collect on facebook when they have nothing better to do. You can make your own, or choose from ones others have made. I love them... so I put them also on my home page. As I get more on facebook, I shall add them to my home page.

-my Feeds: well the blog feed is self-explanatory, tells about the lates blogs on this, my blog. The top one, the "friendfeed" might need some explanaition. If you know about twitter or Jaiku, then this is just like them, and now you understand. If you don't know about twitter.... allow me to explain.

This is a lovely way to waste your time and that of your friends. It is a little blog-type thing, only the blogs can only be 140 characters or less. So, the idea, is that every few hours you give this tiny update about what your doing. Now, I can't say that I actually update mine every few hours, but I do update it once in a while. It's kinda like the profile thingo on facebook, only I can't get on facebook from this computer, so this works better for me. It sounds like a mindless time-waster, and it is exactly that... but it's strangely addictive. I mean, you become almost compelled to write "I just ate lunch". ..... Ok, so maybe it's not that bad, but you get the idea. 

Well, now I really must get to school.... so go check out my website, and tell me what you think. Unless you don't like it, then don't tell me what you think. :)

-Danielle

http://antiqueatlantic.com