The Grand 3rd/4th Year Blogiversary Q&A Post!!!

Hello again! How are you all? It's so good to get back to blogging again!

So, guys... Guess what day it is?

It's my blog's 4th birthday!!! And that means of course, much excitement abounds!!!

However... it also means that it's been a whole year now since I first asked for questions for that special 3rd year blogiversary Q&A I was going to do. And, as you can clearly see, I never did actually post that Q&A last year (or by July 31st like I said I was going to in another more recent post... D:).

So, of course, I have been quite disappointed with myself over this. I feel bad for being lazy and not sticking with the plan and working harder to keep my word in posting this for my 3rd blogiversary last year like I said I was going to. So, I wanted to apologize to you all. I will try much harder in the future to post what I say I'm going to post in a much more timely fashion. I truly am sorry, guys.

But, I suppose...... the phrase "better late than never" could be applied quite well in this situation, right? At least I finally AM posting it, even if it is quite late.

Also, before I start with the questions, I wanted to give more of an actual reason of why it's taken me so long to answer these questions, besides using the excuse of just plain laziness...
So, one thing that actually held me up on this Q&A were honestly the questions about what the future of this blog was to be, or what I wanted it to be. And the thing is... I wasn't exactly sure (and I'm STILL not exactly sure at this very moment) what all I want to happen with this blog in the future or where I see it going (but I definitely do have ideas, some in which I will tell about in my answers). So, I guess since I didn't feel like I had a very good answer for those questions, I kind of just skipped over them, answering the rest first. And then, when I came back around to those more thoughtful questions about the future, it seemed like I was never able to put down a satisfactory answer to them. But... NO MORE. Even if I don't know everything, I shall answer these questions as best I can. :)

Thank you SO MUCH to Brooklyne, Faith, and Olivia for all the questions you all asked me last year for this special Q&A! And now... to FINALLY get to answering them!

Welcome to The Grand 3rd/4th Year Blogiversary Q&A, everyone!! Let's gooooo!!!

Brooklyne's questions:

What has been the biggest thing you have learned from your blogging experience? 
I think one of the biggest things I've learned is to not be so concerned with how many or few followers I have. To think more about quality than quantity. And another big thing I've been learning through blogging, too, is to not second guess myself so much by worrying about my writing not being good enough to share with others.

Where do you see your blog in the next three years? 

Okay. So. Here we go... XD

One main dream and goal that I've always had is to write books. So, as I write those books and get them published, I see myself using this blog as one way to help share some of those stories with you guys. In the next three years, I see it as more of a place where I'm sharing more of my stories and testimonies, a place where people continue to be encouraged and reminded of who they are in Christ and how to use their own gifts and talents for the glory of God especially, and a place where I can provide more helps in those areas through my writing, as well as through videos/vlogs, and maybe even graphic design. Also, creating and selling Christian t-shirts is also an idea that my brother and I are thinking and working on right now, so that might become a thing I do here as well.

So yeah, I'm still just figuring it all out. But that's kind of a general idea of the direction I'd like to head.

If you were to give a friend wanting to start a blog a tip about blog design, what would it be?

Hmm, well, one tip I'd give is to not have too many clashing patterns or colors. If you have a header like my current one with a picture with more patterns and things going on in it, you usually don't want to have a really patterny background. I have a basic white, shimmering lights-looking background on mine right now that doesn't clash much with the look of the header but instead (hopefully) compliments it.

What has been the hardest part about blogging? 

Keeping up with it mainly, and posting regularly... as you could probably tell by now! :P Real life has tended to get in the way of this blog many times (which I suppose isn't always a bad thing necessarily as it is more important to focus on our "real life" more than our internet/social media life overall).

What has been the best thing about blogging?

One of the best things has been getting to meet and know so many other Christian bloggers here in the "blogosphere"! :) I had no idea before I started blogging just how many other Christian bloggers were out there writing great, God-honoring things! It's really encouraging to see so many people of this generation out there spreading the good news through the internet.

What made you want to start a blog?

Reading other blogs, my love for writing, and my mom's encouragement were the main reason I started a blog. I had secretly wanted to start one for some time before I actually did, but I hadn't really said anything to my parents about it since I was so busy (and a little behind) with school and other things at the time. So, because of that, I thought they might not think it would be the best idea for me to spend so much time keeping up with a silly little blog. But then one day, my mom and I were talking about blogs and she mentioned to me that I should start one and could put my writing and photography and other things like that on there. So, I gladly told her that I'd very much like that, and got right on it! :)

Dogs or cats? 

Cats. :) (We have kittens right now and THEY ARE ADORABLE!)

(Behold the cuteness! XD)

Sweet or savory? 

Hmmm... It really just depends on what I'm in the mood for at the time. Sometimes I'm just in a mood for sweet things, and then other times I really crave something savory. But if I HAD to choose? Ohhhh..... I guess I'd probably pick sweet... No, savory. Well, again, it just really depends. xD

Winter or summer? 

Can I say both? No? Well, alright. I'll pick summer because of the longer daylight and not having to take time to bundle up before going outside. I enjoy being outside a lot, so summer is a nice time of year. (But I really enjoy winter as well because snow, and Christmas, and sledding, and hot chocolate, and fireplaces, and crisp cool air, etc. xD There's just something great about every season I think. :) ) 

Hot chocolate or coffee...or ice cream?

Oooohhhh. Well, I'm not a coffee person, but I really enjoy hot chocolate and ice cream. Hmm... I'll choose ice cream!

Audio book or paperback?

Paperback. I actually haven't listened to a whole lot of audio books, to be honest... I feel like if I did listen to an audio book though, I'd want to be reading along in the book as I'm listening... which I guess kind of defeats the purpose of an audio book? xD I should probably take time to listen to more audio books though so I can actually have a better opinion of them. :P

Favorite music?

I like lots of different kinds of music! I mainly listen to either Christian or instrumental music. But as for what genre of music... it just really depends on what I'm in the mood for. During Christmas time, it's Christmas music, of course! (And it's almost that time of year again! HOW??) On occasion I like old-timey sounding music (like from the 40s and 50s), especially with Christmas songs. 

I usually enjoy variety in music and not listening to the same sounding songs all the time. But there's always kind of those "phases" that I sometimes go through with listening to certain songs and/or a certain genre/sound (if that made any sense what I just said. xD). Anyway, so a few favorite artists of mine are Carman, Jamie Grace, The Lads, and Steven Curtis Chapman. And a few favorite songs of mine right now are Glorious Unfolding by Steven Curtis Chapman, Five Sparrows by God Rocks, and So Will I by Hillsong.

Please do yourself a favor and watch and listen to this amazingly beautiful lyric video and song all the way through.  <3

Favorite movie (or TV show)?

I have many favorite movies! Once again... it just really just depends on what I'm in the mood for. (Can you tell yet that I sometimes have trouble picking favorites? :P) But okay okay... one favorite of mine is Beyond the Mask.

And as for a TV show, a have quite a few favorites of those as well. But, as of right now, I think my favorite would either be Wanted: Dead or Alive or Daniel Boone. A lot of times older shows tend to have better moral value to them than many shows nowadays, which causes me to generally lean toward liking older shows better. (Not that I don't like some newer ones, too, but older shows will always hold a special place in my heart. <3)

Favorite holiday? 

Christmas has always been one of my favorites!

Favorite color? 

Pink! (Of course, I enjoy many other colors as well, but ever since I was little, pink just continues to be at the top of the list for some reason. xD)

Favorite book? 

Well, my favorite book would definitely be the Bible. :) But I'm assuming you're meaning a favorite fictional one, so... that's a bit of a tougher choice. Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher and By the Great Horn Spoon by Sid Fleischman have been a couple favorites recently.

Favorite author? 

I don't think I really have a favorite author. I have favorite books... but, hmm... Maybe Sid Fleischman? I especially enjoy his different writing styles and characters in the books that I've read by him so far.

Favorite fall/winter activity?

I always like doing things outside (unless it's super cold). One thing I've always really enjoyed doing is sledding and/or playing out in the snow with my siblings. As we've gotten older, we haven't done that as much of course, but I really enjoy it when we do have time to all go and have fun out in the snow together. :)

Favorite hobby?

Writing and coming up with stories has always been a favorite hobby of mine (that I really hope to turn into more than a hobby someday!).

If you could plan a perfect vacation, what would it look like? 

Alright. SO. I would make a basic schedule, especially if I was vacationing somewhere where there are a lot of historic sights and/or places to go see. I would write it down, which thing to see which day, and try to follow it as best I could. On the first day, I might sleep in more, but most the rest of the days, I would try hard to get up earlier in the morning so that I could get out and do as many things as possible and stay on schedule. Now, I wouldn't have a super strict schedule; there would still be some leg room in there to do random stuff and such that comes up, so yeah. It would still be super fun and we would get to see and do lots of fun things!! ;)

So, that's for the basic schedule... but maybe you were meaning more of the kind of vacation place that I think would be "perfect." :P Well, since flying out to Colorado for the first time last summer and staying in a nice cabin out there with my family, I think something like that would be a great vacation! :) Staying in a nicely furnished cabin/house like the one we stayed in with all the lovely pine and aspen trees surrounding it was great fun! The only things that could have been enhanced to make it more "perfect" I suppose would be if it had more of a view of the mountains from the cabin, didn't have other houses so close to it, and had a pool and/or hot tub. I think that would be just about perfect! ;D

(From our trip! It was so purty out there!)

But, you know, there's also a lot more details and such and other locations (like the Swiss Alps, for example) that I'd like to go to as well, but I won't get into all that right now as it would probably take me much too long. :P

If you suddenly received your dream car, what would it be?

I honestly don't really have a "dream car" that I've always wanted. My mom has a Mercury that's quite nice that I drive sometimes. I like how easy it is to handle and the spaciousness of it. I think I would like a car that's similar to that one in a white, light blue, or burgundy red. 

What is one of your goals for this coming year, 2019?

One of my goals that I made at the beginning of this year was to finish and publish one of my stories. *Glances back at how that's coming along* Soooo, yeah... most of this year hasn't seen much progress with that. But I still have like, two more months right? I set myself a sort of unofficial NaNoWriMo goal to get my "Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe" story at least halfway finished by the end of the month. So, hopefully I can get at least the first draft of that story done by the end of the year... We'll see how that goes though. :P

But now, as for THIS coming year, 2020, I have the same goal again as I had this year: To actually finish and publish one of my stories. (Especially since, at this point in the year now, I don't think that getting a full-length story actually all edited and published by the end of this year is going to be a very realistic goal for me with school, church, work, and everything else going on in my life right now.)

What does a typical day look like for you?

Well, it really kind of varies. But most days, I get up and read my Bible and/or pray some in the morning (Though, sometimes I don't always honestly do the best on that and need to work on doing that better...); eat breakfast; do school; do church work (working on our church's website, sending out church calendars/letters, making event graphics, etc.); do some chores and work around the house; usually help with making supper; hang out with my family in the evening (sometimes playing a game on the computer with my younger brother, or watching a movie/show with my family); and, at the end of the day when I go to bed, I've gotten in the habit of writing something good that happened that day or something I'm thankful for down in my journal. :)

Of course though, there are usually always other extra things that get thrown in different days along with these main things; like sometimes I go to an event or a friend's house, or do other work around the house like mowing or gardening, etc. And sometimes, like today, I even find time to actually write or blog! XD

Do you have any siblings?

Yes, I have three great brothers. :)

Do you live in the city or county? 

In the country, and I wouldn't want it any other way! We don't live on a farm (YET... we've been looking around), but we currently live around a few farms.

(View from our backyard last winter! *heart eyes*)

Faith's questions:

What inspired you to start a blog?

*Points up to Brooklyne's sixth question* XD

What's your favorite thing about blogging?

I kind of already answered this with Brooklyne's question as well, but again, my favorite thing I think is just being able to meet other Christian bloggers through it!

Do you have a vision/projection for this blog one year from now? 

Well, now being a year since this question was originally asked, I certainly didn't envision this blog to be at pretty much the same place as it was last year... which is basically what has happened.

*re-evaluating my blogging life*

But anyway. What's done is done. As for a year from NOW though... here it is:

So, not too long ago, I got more of a vision for this blog that I was really excited about at the time. Part of that vision was for it to become more of a place to help encourage and equip others to use their gifts, the things that they "like", for the glory of God. (Because it's called "I Like That"... get it? Well, maybe it sounded more clever at the time I first thought of it... xD ) But then, a little bit went by, and I didn't do much about this new idea, and then later I was second guessing it and everything... But now, as I'm thinking about it again, I believe that's still part of the direction I'd like to head with this blog, along with sharing more of my stories here, like I said in Brooklyne's question up there.

So yeah, I haven't really taken a lot of time to actually just sit down and lay out a solid plan, but that's a little bit of insight into what I think will be part of my plan for this blog within this next year. In short, my main goal and vision for this blog is simply this: To continue to glorify God and bring others closer to Him. <3

Are you a homeschool grad?

Yes, I am! I feel so blessed that my mom took so much of her precious time to homeschool my siblings and me; it was a wonderful experience. <3

Favorite candy?

Kit-Kats and Twix! Actually, it's funny, I was just talking to one of my cousins not too long ago about favorite candies and he agreed that Kit-Kats and Twix are one of the best, and I was all like...

But I definitely won't turn down other kinds of candy though, especially if they're chocolate-related. ;)

Olivia's Questions:

Have you watched any "newer" musicals, like Phantom of the Opera or Les Miserables or anything like that?

No, I haven't watched those, but I have seen Mary Poppins Returns and The Greatest Showman, which I suppose are kind of more "newer" musicals. :)

What is your favorite thing about each season?

AHHHH, there are so many things I enjoy about the different seasons! But I'll try to actually answer the question right and just say ONE favorite thing I like about each:

-In the Winter, I enjoy the snow, and the colder weather, and the coziness of being inside a warm house in front of a fire, and sweaters and fuzzy blankets and warm drinks (hot chocolate especially) and...... (Alright, I'm sorry, I'm already breaking the rules and saying more than one thing... :P)

-In the Spring, I enjoy the freshness in the air, and the newness about everything as things begin to grow and the weather becomes warmer.

-In the Summer, I like being able to go out without having to bundle up warm first, and the longer days, and fireflies, and summer evenings, and picnics, and.... (Oops, sorry there I go again...)

-In the Fall, I like how the weather becomes cooler, the smell and sound of crispy fallen leaves, and the nostalgic feeling of how it's soon going to be Thanksgiving and Christmas once again. :)

Do you ever dream about what your wedding (especially your wedding dress) might look like? ;)

Yes! I mean really, what girl doesn't? ;) (Well, maybe there actually are some girls out there who don't dream about stuff like that, but... well, the majority of girls I think do. xD) Anyway. YES. I do dream about that many times.

I've gone back and forth between whether I'd want pink to be the main wedding color. Pink, as I said before, is one of my favorite colors. ;) I think light pink bridesmaid dresses would be lovely, but I personally wouldn't prefer the groom and groomsmen to have pink ties or bows.... so.... (yeah, I maybe have thought about this some. :P)

And as for wedding dresses... these are some styles that I like a lot:

ALL THE BEAUTIFUL LACE.

But, of course, as I've gotten older I've realized that as much as I want a perfectly lovely wedding and beautiful wedding dress, the true, bigger importance and desire of mine would be to just get to be with the man I love and who God's called me to be with, even if the wedding wasn't everything I initially dreamed it to be. :)

Do you like Disney movies?

I'm not a die-hard fan of them by any means, but I do enjoy some. It just really depends on the movie. Cinderella and Christopher Robin are a couple newer-ish Disney movies that I liked a lot.

~~~~~~~~~~~

YES! I did it! I FINALLY finished and posted this Q & A!!!

Thank you so much, ladies for all these lovely questions!! Again, I apologize for how extremely long it's taken me to get to actually doing and posting this. But, I FINALLY got it done...YAY!! And if you took the time to actually read through all of it... CONGRATS! You win a virtual plate of chocolate chip cookies! *Gives out special blogiversary chocolate chip cookies* xD So, thanks so much for reading, guys! I hope you all enjoyed it. :)

Well, I do hope you all have a wonderful rest of your week! Write to ya later, and God bless!

~Faith

Another Update of Sorts + The #AwesomeBloggerAward!

*Suddenly noticing my blog and how neglected it's been lately*

Oh... well, hello again!

I greatly apologize for my absence lately. Again. Yes, I've been busy with school and church and life and everything else...... But I don't want this just to be another update post on why I'm not posting regularly (especially since it's basically for the same reasons as I said last time), so I'll just provide you with some quick updates, and then get into a fun award that I was recently tagged for -- how about that? :)

Firstly, not too long ago I completed an online college course that had tight deadlines. These deadlines, while they were sometimes quite inconvenient and annoying, were actually very helpful for me, especially since I haven't in the past always been the best with time management. So anyway, this got me to thinking about my 3rd year blogiversary Q&A post that I was supposed to do *cough*abouteightmonthsago*cough*. (I know, this sounds like I'm totally going off topic, but just stay with me...) So, I put these two things together in my mind and realized that in order to truly get this Q&A post finished and posted, I probably need to make some sort of deadline for myself in order to truly get this accomplished.

So... That's why I'm letting you guys know that I will be posting my answers to y'all's Q&A questions that you asked me back at my 3rd year blogiversary by July 31st! (I guess it's now more like my 3rd and a half year blogiversary... but it will still be fun. :) )

"But, Faith, why not post it just next week??"

Well, that's the another thing I was going to tell you guys about...

You see, there's something very exciting happening this coming week! No, it's not as exciting of a thing as someone getting married or having a baby or something like that. Definitely not. But in the blogosphere world, it's quite a fun thing... to anyone who likes westerns anyway. XD

Okay okay, I'll stop beating around the bush...

I'm going to be participating in a fun blog party, the Legends of Western Cinema Week!

My good blogging friend, Olivia over at her blog, Meanwhile in Rivendell shall be hosting it along with Heidi of Along the Brandywine and Hamlette of Hamlette's Soliliquy. I participated in this blog party a couple years ago, writing one post for it, so I'm excited to be able to be apart of it again! I'm rather looking forward to this, I must say. xD (And if you'd like to participate as well, I'm sure you can! Just let one of the hostesses know you'll be posting something for the blog party!)

Alrighty! Now, I think that's all the updates I have for the moment. Let's get on with the tag! :)

Kaitlyn over at her blog, Twin Thoughts tagged me for the #Awesome Blogger Award! Thank you so much for tagging me, Kaitlyn!

Here are the officially official rules for this awesome tag:

-Tag your post with #awesome blogger award

-Answer all the questions given to you

-Nominate at least 5 bloggers and inform them of their nomination

-Give them 10 new questions to answer

Sounds reasonable enough. Alright, let's get started! :D

1. What is one thing that make you sparkle? (Something that you get excited about)

There are a lot of things. XD One thing I always get excited about is hearing people's testimonies of either how they came to know Christ or how He has healed or helped them in some way, etc. I get so excited on the inside when I hear testimonies like that, especially someone's journey of how they found Jesus!

2. What is your favorite musical instrument?

The piano's probably my favorite (since it's the one I can play best), but I really enjoy hearing people play the violin and guitar, and would really like to learn how to play them someday.

3. If you could visit any place in the world, where would you go?

AHH, there are so many places I'd like to visit! I'd especially enjoy visiting some place in Europe, like maybe Switzerland, and see the Alps!

4. What is your 'theme song'? (This could be an all-time favorite, or a song that describes your situation)

Hmmmm... Sunday School Rock by Carman has always been a favorite of mine. I grew up with the song, and it's always kinda been my jam. ;)

But, as for more of a "theme song", like one that describes my situation or one that's really touched me... I'd have to say Good Good Father by Chris Tomlin. I had heard this song for a while, but then, one Sunday a while back at church when we were singing it, one of the lines just really struck a chord in me. Now whenever I hear that song it just really resonates with me. God's such a good GOOD Father!!

5. What's your favorite thing about blogging?

One of my favorite things has been being able to get to know other Christian bloggers through my blog!

6. Of all of your hobbies, what is your favorite and how did you get started on it?

Writing and coming up with stories has always been a favorite hobby of mine (that hopefully I can turn into more than a hobby someday!) I'm not sure how exactly I got started with writing stories as I've been doing it for as long as I can remember. Some of the earliest stories I wrote were written on several folded pieces of paper stapled together, made to look like a book. And, when I was younger, I'd like going out in our yard and come up with pretend scenarios for movies or tv shows that I would then act out to myself. :P

7. Who is your favorite author, and which of their books is your favorite?

I honestly don't know who my favorite author is... there are so many good ones! One of my favorite books right now though is Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher. I enjoyed her writing style  a lot in this one, and hope to look into some of her other books.

8. Which is your favorite book of the Bible, and why?

I'd probably pick John right now. (But again, like authors, there are so many good ones!) I love reading about Jesus and what He did and taught while He was here on the earth. I want to learn to follow Jesus as best as I can, and one of the best ways to do that I think is to read and learn about Him, Who He is, and what He did while on the earth in the Gospels. :)

9. Which of the four seasons best describes your personality?

Ooh, hmm... Maybe Spring? I get excited and happy over little things, want to make others happy and feel appreciated (I hope I do that), I always like to laugh, always enjoy a happy ending, and like brighter and pastel colors. You will rarely see me wear black unless I'm wearing it with another color. 

I guess though I don't always show my excitement or "springyness" like that ^^ xD on the outside as much as I want to sometimes. If I'm really happy about something, it seems like I tend to hide my full excitement on the inside because I'm concerned about what other people will think of me. But that's one thing that God's been dealing with me about lately -- to not care so much about what others think, and just encourage people and say what the Holy Spirit is leading me to say or do without concerning myself with what others will think.

10. What is one thing that God has taught you recently?

Well, I suppose what I said up there for one thing, hehe. But along with that, another thing that God's taught me recently is that He lives inside me. I know it sounds simple, and I've known all of my life that when I accepted Him as my Lord and Savior that His Spirit came and now lives on the inside of me. But recently, God has just been making that more real to me. I've been learning to not put faith in just my own faith or what I can do, but put faith in God, and focus on Him, because He is going to do the work He wants done through me, not me. I just have to obey and trust. That's it. I don't have to do what God wants me to do all on my own. I just need to listen and do what He's telling me to do, and let HIM do the healing, the restoring, and the transforming!
(Hmm, that was maybe more than one thing, but oh well. xD)

That was fun! I tag.......

Christina @ Light Unto My Path

Olivia @ Meanwhile in Rivendell

Emma @ A Bookworm's Majestic Adventures

Faith @ Stories by Firefly!
Abby @ Novels, Dragons, and Wardrobe Doors

And here are your questions, ladies!
1. What is one thing that makes you sparkle? (Something that you get excited about)
2. What is your favorite color to wear?
3. What is your favorite song right now?
4. What is a favorite Bible verse of yours at the moment, and why does it resonate with you right now? 
5. What is a book (besides the Bible) that you would always recommend to someone?
6. What is a movie and/or book that you've wanted to watch/read for a long time, but haven't gotten around to it yet?
7. What is one thing that not a lot of people know about you?
8. How did you come up with your blog name? 
9. Which of the four seasons best describes your personality?
10. What is one thing that God has taught you recently?

I look forward to reading all you awesome bloggers' answers to these questions! (Of course, though if you'd rather not do this tag, that's completely fine, too!)

Okay, well I think that about wraps it up for today! It's so great to finally be back to blogging again after my rather long, unexpected hiatus I took there. I hope you enjoyed this post, and hope you're having a wonderful day!

Write to ya later, and God bless!

~Faith

Happy New Year + Happy Valentine's Day + An update of sorts

Happy New Year! Happy Valentine's Day!

Hello hello.

How has y'all's New Year been going so far? How was your Valentine's Day? I hope all of you wonderful people have been doing well! :)

So... I've been rather absent here since Christmas, haven't I? Except for that last Super Bowl/sports post thing, I haven't done any real blogging since last year...

So, what's been going on? Where have I been? What have I been up to? Am I ever going to start blogging consistently? .(..And whatever happened to that Q&A post I was supposed to be doing for my 3rd year blogiversary back in November?? Heh heh...)

Well, friends, let me tell ya.

First off, yes, I WANT to start blogging more consistently. But then the answers to these other questions above have been kind of keeping me from being able to do that. Where have I been? What have I been up to? What's been going on?

Well, mainly right now for me it's been... College. Yes, indeed, college.

I've been mainly studying for CLEP exams, which has been going pretty good! (What are CLEP exams, you ask? In a nutshell they're basically exams you can take to get out of taking a regular one semester college class, and by passing the exam, you earn the same college credit you would in that class. They can save you a lot of time and money! I would definitely recommend looking into them, fellow college friends! Make sure to check out the official CLEP website to find out more about it. It's definitely worth looking into!)

So anywho, yeah, that's what I've been doing a lot of recently. But besides that, a few other random things I've been doing with my year so far has been... keeping the score book at my brother's basketball games, winning a free Dominoes pizza (two different times) from a halftime 3-point shot competition thing at two of said basketball games, seeing and hanging out with friends at basketball games... yeah, a lot of basketball games. xD Especially last month anyway. But besides that, there's been church, Bible studies, sending out church letters and calendars, taking care of adorable, yet mischievous kitties, tidying up around the house, trying to ACTUALLY write and work on my stories, finally getting my driver's license, celebrating my birthday.... and now trying to get back into blogging!

Alright. But what about that other question... the Q&A? Whatever happened to that???

Okay.

So.

This Q&A WILL happen.

Eventually.

IT WILL.

Just be patient with me, guys. :P

So, as I'm trying to get back into blogging more, one other thing that I thought would be fun, and hopefully motivating for me, would be to blog about my college adventures I'm now up to! I've been on the college road since September of last year, but it seems like I'm just now really picking up on it, and I'd like to share some of the things I'm doing for college, helpful programs/websites/etc. I've found, and just share my learning experience with you all so that maybe you can learn something about how to do college better, too! And I also would like to share more of my story writing projects that I've been working on some as well. So... we'll see how that goes! ;)

Anywho, that's all for now. I just wanted to come say "hi" again, and give you all an update of sorts. I really do hope to be able to do more with this blog this year!

I hope you're having a lovely evening, and I'll write to ya later! God bless! :D
~Faith

3rd Blogiversary!!! // Q & A?!

On this day, three years ago... I started this blog!!!!!!

It's just amazing. How did it get to be three years already?!? I was just doing a post for my 2nd blogiversary, wasn't I?

Getting to meet and talk with so many of you lovely people has been one of the biggest blessings of blogging. Thank you all SO MUCH for reading and following this here blog of mine! You all are awesome, you really are. :) I want you to know how much I love and appreciate each and every one of you guys! And more importantly, never forget how much God loves and appreciates you, too!! It's been such a fun journey so far, and I look forward to what God has in store for me and this blog in the next year!

So. I think that's all I wanted to say...

...........

........

I think....

Alright, well................

So, I have been trying to figure out something special to do for this here blogiversary. I mean, it's a special one; three is an important number! I wanted to post SOMETHING on my actual blogiversary day though, so... this is what I finally came up with.

I've thought and thought and thought about doing this, and so....... I just decided this very moment I'm typing this right now that.... why not just go for it??

*Cue epic drumroll*

I'm going to do a what bloggery people call... a Q & A!

In a special post I shall answer any questions you guys may have about me and/or my blog here! (Well, except for really personal questions like my full name or what street I live on or something equally creepy... :P). So, if you have any questions you would like to ask me, ask them in the comments below of THIS POST, and sometime (hopefully) this month I'll get to answering them! 

(And no, of course I didn't steal this Q&A idea from anywhere.... especially not from Olivia or anything......... Where would you get such a thought.......?? :P) Thanks so much, Olivia for inspiring me with this idea. ^_^

Well, I believe that's all I have to say for now. I hope all of you have an absolutely wonderful week, and I'll write to ya later! God bless you guys!! :)
~Faith

P.S.
Soooooo.... I was checking back to make sure that the day I actually started my blog was indeed today, November 5th. Well, it turns out that last year I posted on November 5th, but somewhere on my blog thing it says I joined November 6th....... so. I'm honestly not exactly sure. Maybe I messed up last year with the date. Oh well. It's somewhere around November 5th, so we're just going to go with it. ;P

**The picture used in the graphic at the beginning of the post is my own**

Shout-outs and the like

I've been meaning to do this for a long time, and I'm FINALLY getting around to it! I wanted to give some family and friends' blogs and YouTube channels a shout-out because they're all such awesome people and have some great content! So, without further delay, here they are!

• First of all, my dear friends, Christina and Olivia! Christina started a blog a while back called, Light Unto My Path, which is a very encouraging, fun blog that you should definitely go read! And Olivia's blog, Meanwhile in Rivendell..., and her more recent second blog, Towards Indecisive and Palpitating Stars are wonderful as well! She does movie/book reviews, posts about life, and all sorts of great things over there! Get yourself on over there and give them a read!

• Now nextly, (I don't think that's actually a word, but... *looks up "nextly"* Oh. Okay, so that actually is a real word... Anywho, moving on...) I must mention the lovely Faith over at Chosen Vessels and Stories by Firefly! Last November, Faith was so kind as to invite me for a "Sisters in Christ chat" over at her blog (which I failed to mention anything about before unfortunately... *facepalm*) It was a lot of fun, and I just want to say thank you to her again for having me! You can read that conversation we had by clicking the picture below!

• Next, a little while back, I helped my lovely mother start her own blog! It's called So Good. She's still just getting started with it and doesn't have a lot up yet, but please go check it out and give her a follow! :)

And now, the bros!

• My oldest brother, Nathanael has a YouTube channel called ChickenTractorGuy, which --especially if you're into farming/chickens -- you should definitely go check out! (I actually helped him film/edit a couple of his videos, which was fun!)

• My other brother, Caleb also has a YouTube channel, It's The Real Deal! He makes encouraging videos focusing on the truth and integrity of God's Word! They're really good! He also has a blog that he puts his videos on as well that you can check out here.

• And last, but definitely not least -- my younger brother's channel, Zippy Productions! He does videos mostly on gaming and sometimes instruction-type videos. In his latest video he gave a shout-out to my blog here, so I thought I should return the favor! He does a lot of videos on the game Roblox, which I also play occasionally, so he took some clips of my game character (gloriousglittergirl9) and her misadventures and put them in this video of his down here. :P Hope you enjoy! ;)

So, I think that's all for now... I hope I got everyone I was thinking of. All these people are so awesome and I would totally recommend that you go and check out their blogs/channels and follow/subscribe to them!!

There are of course many more blogs and channels that I could mention as well, and I apologize to all the people around here who's blogs I haven't been catching up with and commenting on recently. I'm trying to do better on catching back up.

~~~~~

I've also had the idea in my head for a while now to maybe start my own YouTube channel sometime...... Especially seeing as how my brothers have their own channels now, of course I don't want to be left out! ;) Life's pretty busy right now though, and I don't think I could exactly work doing YouTube videos into my schedule yet, but it's something to think about for the future anyway. It would probably be a little bit of everything I'd guess, but maybe mostly vlogs?... Or skits maybe, who knows!? I'm not sure right now, but we'll see what happens. :)

I hope all of you are having a fabulous weekend! God bless!
~Faith

A much belated Bible Study Blog Party wrap-up post

Hello once again, friends!

So... WHERE HAVE I BEEN???

Well, first off, I was a very unmotivated person a month or so ago. (Not that that's an acceptable excuse for my lack of blogging) But this honestly is most of the reason why I didn't do a Bible Study Blog Party wrap-up post before when I was supposed to. (A sad reason, I know..... I'm really sorry about that, you guys... D: Please forgive me.)

Whenever I thought I was going to sit down and write that post, I'd get restless, and just couldn't seem to come up with anything to write. I felt unmotivated and just... blah...

I kind of knew what I wanted to write, but I just didn't seem to have the attention span to think hard and long enough about how to write what I wanted to write. I realize now that it wasn't so much of a writer's block problem as a focusing problem. It was hard to just focus on writing. And it turned out to not only be with writing, but in other areas of my life as well, especially in spending time with God and reading my Bible. It was so hard to just be still and focus on Him.

One big reason I believe I got so unfocused was because I started filling up my life with other things. I let myself get distracted with earthly things that my flesh was pulling so hard on me to focus on. I was filling up my schedule and brain power with things that weren't necessarily bad, but just... temporal. I wasn't "fixing my eyes on eternal things" like Paul says in 2 Corinthians.

So that's what basically happened with the Bible Study Blog Party -- I didn't take the time to get myself to really focus on it after writing that first post for it. I'd just groan within myself, hiding under a shell of irresponsibility, declaring that I would get to it some other time when I actually felt like writing it. But that time when I actually felt like writing that blog post never seemed to come. So I just keep putting it off and off.... and off...... Yeah. Not a good life motto.


The part of Romans 8 that I really wanted to talk about during the blog party was in verses 9-12. And basically, these were the exact verses that I needed during that time of unfocused blahness. But instead of truly focusing and letting God speak to me through them and taking the time to write a post about them, I gave into my flesh and didn't really let these words sink in. Recently though, they've been making their way back into my heart.

Here's what these verses say:

"But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors—not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh." ~Romans 8:9-12

That last part there has really stuck with me recently. We're not debtors to our flesh. We don't owe our flesh -- ourselves and our feelings -- anything. Sometimes we say things like, "Well, I owe it to myself" or "I just can't help doing that", and we use this as an excuse for not doing the right thing or putting things off. The thing is though, if we have Christ living in us, we don't "owe it to ourselves" -- we owe ourselves to Christ. You CAN help doing certain things. How? THROUGH CHRIST living in you! You CAN do all things THROUGH CHRIST who strengthens you! (Phil. 4:13) This is what the Lord has really been working to get across to me recently. I have the Spirit of Christ dwelling on the inside of me. So now with Christ living in me, I can overcome my flesh and what it wants to do. With Christ in me, I can overcome my feelings and emotions. Feelings and emotions are very real, but the reality of them can't ever supersede the reality of what God says about our situations. He says that we are more than conquerors through Him! (Romans 8:37)

So that's just one of the things that the Lord has been teaching me in that passage recently. There is of course a whole lot more to get out of all of those verses. Hopefully I'll get into more of it in another post sometime soon. :)

But for now, let me FINALLY get to wrapping up this Bible Study Blog Party!

Thanks SO MUCH to all of you who read and participated in this -- you all are wonderful!! Be sure to go over and read Brooklyn's post and Emma's post that they did for the Bible Study Blog Party! They did such a great job, and it's so exciting to read what God put on their hearts to write! If you wrote a post for this that I missed, please link back to it in the comments! I would love to read it!

Again I greatly apologize for my laziness and extreme lateness with finishing up this wonderful study. I will probably end up doing another Bible Study Blog Party again sometime in the near future (and do a much better job at keeping up with it ;) ).

I hope all of you have a wonderful week! God bless!
~Faith

P.S.
It is true that most of the reason for my absence in the blogosphere here has been because of my lack of motivation... but for the past two weeks the main reason has been because I was away on vacation with my family. It was a grand twelve day Colorado adventure, in fact! I will most definitely elaborate on my adventures there in another post very soon, so be on the lookout for that! :D

Bible Study Blog Party Introduction

I've had this idea for a little while now, but I thought that it was about time that I should just go ahead and strike out on it. So, here it is...

A Bible Study Blog Party!

"Now what in the world would a Bible Study Blog Party be?" you may ask.

Well, it would basically be a sort of combination of a Bible study and blog party -- hence the name. It's like a blog party in that there's a theme, and then those who want to participate write posts on their blog(s) centering around that theme. Well, with this, those who want to participate would all read through the same chapter/passage (say John 1 for example) and then post on their blogs and/or comment on other participating blogs sharing their thoughts and what they learned in John 1, kind of like in a Bible study. You can do various types of posts for this as well, even sharing a song or story, as long as it's centered around the highlighted chapter or verse for that Bible Study Blog Party.

I thought this might be a good and fun way to study the Word of God together, and to see a same passage of scripture from different angles and perspectives.

I said at the beginning that I've had this idea for a while now. But I've honestly been sort of hesitant about doing it for some reason or another. Well, so, this past weekend my family and I were at a Christian conference, and the speakers' messages connected really well with each other and they taught from a lot of the sames scriptures without even really planning to do so. While saying something about this, the host of the conference said that maybe they ought to have a conference where all the speakers just preach on one verse or passage, and and teach it from different angles. When he said that, immediately the idea I had had for the Bible study blog party came to my mind. "Hey," I thought. "that's basically just what I was trying to do with the blog bible study thing!" So, turning this idea over in my mind again with fresh motivation, I decided to just go ahead and do this -- so here we are! :)

I'll be hosting this first Bible Study Blog Party from May 28th-June 9th! The chapter we will be reading and studying is Romans 8! I believe God is going to teach us all some great things through this chapter, guys! I'm so excited!! :D

How to participate in the Bible Study Blog Party:

1. Before reading or writing or anything, ask God to help you to understand what you read and to teach you through His Word and in other participants posts you read as well.
2. Read the assigned chapter(s)/verse(s).
3. While reading, remember to not just read the chapter/passage looking for things you can blog about. Look for what you yourself can learn from this, whether you end up writing a blog post about it or not. And don't try and rush through reading it. Take your time, listen to the Holy Spirit, and dig in. If one particular verse just sticks out at you, stick with it! Take your time -- we need to not just read to read, we should be reading to learn from God! (That's something I really didn't want to do with this... I didn't want us all to just rush through reading the chapter and write up something just because we have to for the Bible study. I definitely want to encourage everyone, including myself, to take time to read in order to learn more from and about our Heavenly Father!)
4. On your blog or through comments on other participants blogs, share your thoughts on the chapter/passage, what stuck out to you, favorite verses, etc., and like I said before, you could share a song or story or something like that centered around the highlighted passage as well. It's a wonderful thing to encourage and share what God's teaching us with each other! 
5. Make sure to link the post(s) you do on your blog for the Bible Study Blog Party down below in the comments on this post so others participating can read what you wrote and also so I can easily be able to find them all to list in my closing post at the end of the study party. (Hehe, 'study party'... you never thought you'd see those two words together, did you? xD)
6. And of course... Have fun! :D

So, does all of that make sense? If not, let me know and I'll try to clarify as best as I can. Any suggestions on what chapter/book/verse might be good to read, study, and discuss together in future "study parties"?

I'm SO excited, you guys!! Please spread the word around the blogosphere about this and let others know if they'd also like to participate! But whether a bunch of you all join in on this or just a couple, I believe we're still going to have a great time in God's Word either way!

Here's also a couple of buttons you can use to spread the word around about the party! :D

Hope everyone is having a wonderful week! Write to you later!
~Faith

6 Distractions Bloggers Can Probably Relate To

Ah, blogging. What a fun life we bloggers lead. I mean, it's so easy to come up with and write posts and put them up regularly and all that, you know? Such a breeze. AM I RIGHT OR WHAT??

Okay... so no, not really (as I'm sure you could tell by the plethora of blogging I've gotten done this year... heh :P) It seems hard to not get distracted whilst trying to craft the perfect blog post and trying to keep up with your blog. So here's a list of six things I've found to be pretty big distractions for the average teen/early 20s blogger person.

1. Pinterest
Pinterest is amazing, don't get me wrong. And it's a wonderful tool, especially for bloggers. But -- as we all know -- there is SO MUCH to find on this site that it can be a two-edged sword at times. You might just be getting on to find one nice sunset picture to go along with some blog post you're writing, and then suddenly find yourself looking at a pin of how to do your hair up to make it look like a bow.

^ Basically what browsing through Pinterest is like.

2. Social Media
Other social media platforms can be just as distracting as Pinterest, maybe even more at times. Or maybe not. Or maybe so. Who knows. All I know is that it's quite a big distraction.

3. Food
Sometimes food can be a motivator, but then other times it seems like it's just an excuse to take a break and slack off. When you're mind goes blank with what to write, you might say to yourself, "Well... maybe I can get those creative juices flowing by just taking a little break... in the kitchen..."

This might just be one of the cutest gifs I've ever seen... =D

4. Other People
People are wonderful, they're absolutely wonderful! But when you're trying to focus on writing or doing something with you're blog, and someone interrupts you to ask you about something... or they need to get on the computer you're on...

5. GIFs
So maybe not every blogger gets distracted with trying to find the perfect gifs for their posts... but...... I probably know of at least one who does..... heh.

6. Real Life
Of course, we bloggers always have high hopes of posting regularly, maybe on a certain day each week or something like that. But then it suddenly hits us that we actually have real lives in the real world and things don't always go as smoothly in real life as we plan them to. And we can't usually be working on or writing something for our blog at a certain time each day right when we want to and have this meticulously perfect plan of how we keep up our blog (unless blogging is your actual job and it's the main thing you do in life).

~~~~~~~~~~

So, our real lives often get in the way of our blogging lives. But you know what... that's actually not really a bad thing. I think a lot of times we put social media/blogging/computer things higher on our priority list than just living life and spending valuable time we won't get back with family and friends in the real world without really meaning to. (I've caught myself doing this too many times unfortunately...)

We've been given this amazing life, the chance to make a real difference in this world. I keep needing to remind myself not to waste it all on earthly things that won't last. It's of course not bad to spend time on social media and the like occasionally, but I realize that I need to watch myself that I don't let it dominate my life and I start becoming obsessed with it.

In fact, I've discovered one easy way to tell if you're addicted or obsessed with something: If you're constantly or regularly thinking about that thing. 

I found this out one night a while back. My younger brother had gotten the game Minecraft. Well, so I decided one day that I would try it out and play a little bit. Needless to say, I got a little too into it. But for a little while I didn't even really realize how engrossed I had become in the game. One night, however, I finally came to reason. As I was lying in bed getting ready to go to sleep, I suddenly caught myself thinking hard about how I should construct some part of the house I was building in the game and anticipating waking up the next day to work on it. A jerking thought came to me: MineCraft is one of the only and biggest things that has been on my mind these past few days...

And so that's when I realized -- I had become addicted with this game. Once I realized that, I tried hard to stay away from it for a while and focus more on truly important things. It wasn't easy of course, but I asked God to help me with this obsession, and He did. And now, I actually hardly ever play MineCraft at all.

So basically what I'm trying to say in all this is that we all really need to take a good look at our lives and where our priorities lie. I'm definitely not trying to say that Minecraft or any other games, or even blogging for that matter are bad, but the problem begins when we start obsessing over them, or any other temporary natural thing. If we find that our priorities aren't where they should be, then we need to step back, and fix and reassess them. That's much easier said than done of course, but we CAN do it -- not alone, but with our Heavenly Father working in us and helping us along the way. Nothing is impossible with God! And if we just pray and ask Him to help us with keeping our priorities straight and put Him FIRST in everything, He WILL help us!

So guys, let's do our best to put God first in everything we do and make Him our very top priority -- even above blogging -- praying and asking Him for His help in doing so.

"Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak." ~Mark 14:38

Well, that's all for today! I hope this could be of some encouragement to all you fellow bloggers out there. :)

Have a fabulous rest of the week, everyone! Happy blogging!
~Faith


P.S. Are there any other distractions that you as a blogger face that I missed? How do you keep from getting distracted whilst blogging? Any tips for us fellow bloggers who get distracted easily?