"What would we do without beautiful men?" --Me

"I have no idea...sink into a deep dark miserable depression?? lol...actually not cuz we'd still have Jesus, but still..." --Michelle

I love the conversations I have with my best friends.

"Wait, what are we supposed to be doing? I was busy pretending to rip his head off." -Scott 

This is what makes night classes endurable.

"Bite the cigar, balls to the walls." --Aubry

"Babies are such a nice way to start people." --Don Herold

"Laurenne. It's pronounced 'Lauren'. Sorry." --Laurenne

"What are you apologizing for?" --Varineau

"My parents." --Laurenne

"Oh, you still having trouble talking to the ladies? You know, we have a woman at our church that's an amazing healer. She mostly does crutch and wheelchair cases, but I bet she'd be willing to take a crack at whatever third world demon is running around inside you." --Mrs. Cooper,  

The Big Bang Theory

"OMG I have to show you the 2 liter of sparkling water that's sitting in my toilet tank! The people before us left it there." --Me

"...I'll bet it's alcohol!" --Kenz

"...is that where YOU store YOUR alcohol?!" --Me

"Oh my gosh I'm tweeting this right now!" --Kenz

"How are you going to narrow that down to 140 characters?!" --Me

I love hanging out with my bestie. It mostly never makes any sense, but it's hysterical.

"Oh, may our longing to kneel always be greater than our longing for healing." --Jennifer Rothschild

"Are you planning on kidnapping a woman?" --Howard

"Sarcasm?" --Sheldon

"Yes, but mixed with genuine concern." --Howard, The Big Bang Theory

We had our piano pulled out from the wall last week because my dad was painting. While it was out, I had my little brother (Jacob) and the 10-year-old girl I nanny (Claire) vacuum it out one day to clean up the dust. I was working on something else, but heard him say, "So, one of Leah's friends is playing for the wedding and she was over here the other day and played some of the stuff and she said it wasn't even good or ready but it was like... so good. She was like, using both hands way high and way low and all over and all these different notes and it was amazing." --Leah Stegman

Who needs a resume when a 10-year-old says this about you? Not me.

"What kind of person deletes their BIBLE?!" --Chrisara, to Matthew

"You can tell where our priorities are. We have 4 cookie sheets, 17 wooden spoons, a stone casserole dish, a bundt pan...and neither of us have beds." --Me and Christina

"For they have come to throw us out of Your land, which You gave us as an inheritance. O our God, won't you stop them? We are powerless against this mighty army that is about to attack us. We do not know what to do, but we are looking to You for help." --2 Chronicles 20:11-12

"With God, all statistics go out the window." --Kenzie

"It may seem like the hardest thing to do, but you have to forget about the guy who forgot about you." --'The Notebook'

"He loved, yet lingered. We are so quick to think that delayed answer to prayer means that the prayer is not going to be answered. Dr. Stuart Holden has said truly: "Many a time we pray and are prone to interpret God's silence as a denial of our petitions; whereas, in truth, He only defers their fulfillment until such time as we ourselves are ready to cooperate to the full in His purposes." Prayer registered in heaven is prayer dealt with, although the vision still tarries.

God's delay in answering the prayer of our longing heart is the most loving thing God can do. He may be waiting for us to come closer to Him, prostrate ourselves at His feet and abide there in trustful submission, that His granting of the longed-for answer may mean infinitely greater blessing than if we received it anywhere else than in the dust at His feet."

--Mrs. Charles E. Cowman, Springs in the Valley

"I hear You say 'My love is over,
it's underneath, it's inside, it's in between
the times you doubt Me, when you can't feel
the times that you've questioned 'Is this for real?'
the times you've broken, the times that you mend
the times you hate Me and the times that you bend
these times you're healing
and when your heart breaks
the times that you feel like you've fallen from grace
the times you're hurting
the times that you heal
the times you go hungry and are tempted to steal
in times of confusion and chaos and pain
  I'm there in your sorrow under the weight of your shame
  I'm there through your heartache
  I'm there in the storm
My love I will keep you by My power alone
  I don't care where you've fallen, where you have been
I'll never forsake you
My love never ends, it never ends.' " 

--Tenth Avenue North, 'Times'

"I need You to carry me when I am weak." --Jenny and Tyler, 'Faint Not'

One of my favorite websites is weheartit.com, and most (if not all) of the pictures I use on here are from there. 'Carpe Diem' means 'Seize the Day'.

I learned three important things in college - to use a library, to memorize quickly and visually, to drop asleep at any time given a horizontal surface and fifteen minutes.  ~Agnes DeMille, Dance to the Piper, 1952

Parents: "Okay, I need a 3 syllable word that means 'sign'." "Oh I know! 'Harbinger'."

Me: "You people--seriously? I can make up words too..."

Welcome to vacation time with my family--this is what we do for FUN.

[holding up the movie 'The Ten Commandments']

"Oh yeah, I thought for years that this movie was really how it happened, and then I read the Bible." --Chrisara

"You're so much sunshine to the square inch!" --Walt Whitman

"If you're lucky enough to be at the lake, you're lucky enough." 

Vacation time, 2011. 

"I hold another creed; which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention; but in which I delight, and to which I cling: for it extends hope to all: it makes Eternity a rest--a mighty home, not a terror and an abyss. Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last: with this creed revenge never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low: I live in calm, looking to the end." --Helen Burns in Jane Eyre

I decided that while on vacation this year, I would attempt a second reading of Jane Eyre. I tried once before, but failed; partially due to the hard-to-decipher copy I was using and the timing of when I tried to read it (on the bus home from 3 exhausting weeks at camp). I got a new copy, and am delighted at the ease at which it is going. The character that says this particular quote is but thirteen, but her spirit is sweet and true, despite her very hard reality. What an inspiration. 

"God loved you before you were born.

His arms were around you before you knew your mother's embrace.

You are in His thoughts a thousand times over. 

He loves you from the heights and from the depths of His being. 

His love covers you today with grace.

You live in the atmosphere of His love 

and inhale it with every breath of your spirit."

--Roy Lessin

"I don't understand your Korean silences!" --Mom

My mom and I love this Korean soap opera called 'Palace'. The characters in this show like to not answer questions and let their eloquent silences answer for them. Seeing as we watch it in Korean and read the subtitles, this quote has and especially funny double-meaning. 

"Those girls who look pretty while crying in the movies--there's a reason they get paid the big bucks. It's because that's called acting, since it's impossible to actually do." --Me

From best of craigslist:

'So my sister gave me this cello a couple years ago. It's a nice cello. Actually, it's a great cello. It's probably the best cello, but I don't really know much about cellos. Also the neck snapped off. Of the cello. So it's really more like 3/4's of a cello, but the other 1/4's still there, it's just not attached. It's kind of like you're getting two cellos, only one of them doesn't have a body and the other doesn't have a neck. But if you stand them up next to each other it's like old times. You could probably fix it with like some music glue or something like that.

She also gave me a cello bag that I can give to you too, now that I won't have a cello. It's a really nice cello bag. You can fit everything in it. Actually, there might even be a bow in the bag, I'm not sure. I don't want you to think that there's 100% a bow in the bag. It's way over there, I can't check right now. But if it's in there it's yours.

If you're like me and you don't know how to play the cello then you could use it as a coin bank. It's hollow and there are two S's on the front that you could drop the coins through. Then when it's filled up you could drop it off of your roof or carry it around like a change purse. Ooh, in the cello bag. It'd be like a cello purse. I'd do it but I'm moving across the country and it won't fit in my car. What else could you do with it. You could saw the front off and use it as a sled. Or give the neck to a baby as like a wizard stick for Christmas. Totally give this cello to someone for Christmas. Or Hanukkah.

Please come get it. I'm in Echo Park. I'd actually go somewhere to meet you if wherever we're going is a cool place. Like the desert or something.

I'm 90% certain the bow's in there.'

My favorite entry from craigslist. Makes me wonder if this person is for real or not.

"I am so not riding that [Cedar Point ride]. I would pee my pants. Literally. People below me would get wet." --Dad

"'Kiosk' is just a fancy term for 'information booth'." --random guy in Kohl's

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." 
--Eleanor Roosevelt

Connor: "Mom, please?"

Kalie: "She said no, Connor--get over it!"

Paul: "Nice to see those counseling classes are paying off."

[arguing about putting dishes away]

Kendall: "You basically abused me when we were little."

Kalie: "Well...you didn't duck when I told you to."

"This is my family. It's little and broken, but still good." 

--Stitch, Lilo and Stitch

It's Friday morning movie time! I'm watching Lilo and Stitch for the first time since it came out, and I found this line (both times I've watched it) the most touching. 

[talking about some of the common wedding ceremony elements] 

"I'm not going to do that--I don't think Velveeta is that cheesy." --Marty

"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."  --Thomas Paine

"My God!  How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!"  --Thomas Jefferson

God bless America--land of the free, because of the brave.

Me: "You know, I am loud enough..."

Dad: "A-men, sister."

Mom: "You'd better not throw many stones...I'm pretty sure she gets it from you."

We don't have power at our church this morning because of storms last night. My parents and I were talking about how the song service won't be a problem because I'm helping to lead, and I have a powerful singing voice. Priceless.

"The last time I talked to her, she said she was hurt. And 'hurt' is girl-speak for 'Call now, bonehead.'" --Will, Beastly

"Hodgins found some 3,000 year old bugs, so he's weepy." --Cam, Bones

Me: [holding up a Ziploc bag partially full of coffee grounds] "I hope this will be enough for a whole pot of coffee."

My aunt: "Good heavens! I should hope so! I'd only use a scoop, maybe a scoop and a half for 12 cups!" 

Me: "Oh...then you'd better not watch."

[I calmly put in 9 scoops of coffee grounds.]

No wonder they don't like my coffee, even when I make it "weak". It's still about 4x as strong as they drink it.

"Is this bowl microwave safe?" --Ariel

"That metal bowl? No, it's not." --Me

"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." --engraved on the Potter's grave, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

"You know what, you girls have no idea what I'm going through here! You can have sex as much as you want and you don't have to worry about getting anyone pregnant!" --Kelso, That 70's Show

"The thing about family disasters is that you never have to wait long before the next one puts the previous one into perspective."  --Robert Brault

"Do you know what the most unreached of the people groups in America is?" --Kendall, during Sunday morning service

"Politicians." --congregation member

I love my church.

"Going to the chapel and we're gonna get married!" --the Dixie Cups

Don't worry--I'm not the one getting married. Not yet, anyway. I'm going to the wedding of a good friend of mine today. I'm so excited--it's basically the social event of the summer for me, if just because it's the first wedding I've been to where some of my closest friends are on the guest list. Basically, the only people I'm gonna know there are 5 or 6 of my best friends in the whole world, and I view that as a major win. No awkward dinner table moments, or any other things people hate when they go to a wedding without a date. I'm not worried about that--I have 4 dates today. =] Plus my best friend and roommate. Such a win.

"At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities."  --Jean Houston

"Okay here's the plan, Fez--you beg for mercy in broken English, Hyde--you insist that this whole thing was a misunderstanding, and I'll curl up in the fetal position and think about pancakes." --Eric Foreman, That 70's Show

"If you love two people at the same time, choose the second one, because if you really loved the first one you wouldnt have fallen for the second." --Johnny Depp

"Is there a station coming up where I can board your giggling train of thought?" --Sheldon, Big Bang Theory

Mom: [lamenting my vegetable intake] "You haven't touched a vegetable all week!"

Me: "Not true. I moved the broccoli in the fridge earlier today."

These are the types of conversations that start occurring when I've been home for long periods of time.

"People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one." 
--Leo J. Burke

"Does she ever wake up? Oh yeah--probably exactly when you want to sleep, huh?" --Me

One of my good friends just had a baby last night, and she is just the most precious thing. But she slept all day today, prompting this observation on my part. This was greeted with wholehearted agreement from the exhausted mother who was up all night with the baby who thought night was the best time to be awake.

"I work with a guy who repairs and restores pianos." --Me

"Cool! Do you think you could fix the Corum piano so it doesn't play excessive Coldplay songs?" --Gerald

"In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play."  --Friedrich Nietzsche

I find this to be especially true on summer days like today when I have to face going to work instead of going outside and playing.

"The trouble with always trying to preserve the health of the body is that it is so difficult to do without destroying the health of the mind."  

--G.K. Chesterton

"Everyone wants happiness, no one wants pain. But you can't make a rainbow without a little rain."

"He's an idiot...but he has good advice." --Kayla

I have escaped back to school for the weekend to hang out with my friends...especially that crazy girl Kayla. It's amazing what kind of priceless quotes start cropping up when it's 2 in the morning and you're talking about boys with your best friend who (along with yourself) is NOT a night person.

A 1917 leaflet from the USDA: "Fruits and vegetables furnish some of the material from which the body is made and keep its many parts working smoothly. They help prevent constipation which gives you headaches and makes you stupid."

"Soon silence will have passed into legend.  Man has turned his back on silence.  Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation...tooting, howling, screeching, booming, crashing, whistling, grinding, and trilling bolster his ego.  His anxiety subsides.  His inhuman void spreads monstrously like a gray vegetation."  --Jean Arp

"Technology... is a queer thing.  It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other."  --C.P. Snow, New York Times

"Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain."  --J.K. Rowling

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity."  --Albert Einstein

It is summertime. This means the leisure of days in the sun, little or few alarm clocks, mornings met with the joy of unfilled days. For me, it also means a time to separate myself from my technology. Generally, as the school year progresses, I use, and become dependent upon, technology more and more until, inevitably, I am completely addicted. And so, I use this break from 'normal life' to detox my system from the dependence upon constant noise and input into my brain. This 'unplugging' is indefinite, and will probably not last as long as I'd hope, but this means that Quote of the Day is also indefinitely postponed. (I'd update from my phone if I could get it to work, but alas, it comes out screwy when I do that.) So thank you to my faithful followers who will miss this--I will spend the summer collecting up a new batch of fresh and fun quotes. :] Have a happy summer.

  

"How neat is that? That's pretty neat!" 

--from the 'Neature Walk' youtube videos

"The sprinkles [in ice cream], as the malt shop owner insightfully pointed out, are mainly there for the happiness factor. You really can't taste them, but they brighten up the whole ice-cream experience and make you smile." --Leslie Ludy (in her book The Lost Art of True Beauty)

"Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all." --Harriet Van Horne

I'm home for the summer, which means the freedom to cook. Tonight I'm making dinner, for the fifth day in a row. I'm in heaven.

"I can't deliver a baby! I'm not properly prepared--I need to take a class, or read a book, or shadow a nurse, or at least have my mom hug me first! Oh God…" --Annie, Community

"Get the cat out of the piano!" --Dad

 

20th century music can be...challenging to listen to. I'm doing a collection of Bartok dances for my audition/senior recital next year, and as I was playing it yesterday, my dad decided that this was what my high art sounded like. 

"Mother love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible."  --Marion C. Garretty, quoted in A Little Spoonful of Chicken Soup for the Mother's Soul

This is a very, very true story. I personally am not a mother, but I happen to have one of the best moms on the planet--one who listens and encourages and is my biggest fan, cheering me on when I think I can't go on. So Happy Mother's Day, Mom--I just hope someday I can be even a fraction of the mom you've been to me to my kids.

"I don't care how poor a man is; if he has family, he's rich."  --M*A*S*H

"I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment." --C.S. Lewis

"Nope, he's from Michigan...most definitely United States-ian........uhm, meaning American." --Me

It's exam week. Today is my hardest and fullest day of exams, and by no choice of my own I only got 2 hours of sleep last night. Need I say more?

"Ah--memory impairment. The free prize at the bottom of every vodka bottle." --Sheldon Cooper, The Big Bang Theory

I've been battling a very stubborn upper respiratory infection for the past few weeks, and this has provided me with a nice little addiction to NyQuil. Actually, I'm stuck on Atvian, which is the sleep medicine they put IN NyQuil. I still have a terrible cough, which is how I justify my use of it, but I really don't need it. However, I figure that finals time isn't the best opportunity for me to try and break an addiction, so I'm not worrying about it until Thursday when my summer officially starts. However, I personally believe that Atvian is nothing more than really strong alcohol, because I sleep like a baby, but in the morning I feel rather hung over for a good portion of the morning. In the most recent episode of Big Bang, Sheldon makes this comment, and I feel as though this applies to me very strongly this morning. =]

"I just want one of those wand thingys so I can be like Harry Potter." 
--Will

Being a music major, we have to take a class called Basic Conducting, and we get to use batons. Within a conversation about said class and batons (and, to his credit, it was well after midnight), Will said this. Awesome. Love my friends. We're such music nerds.

"Dance like the photo's not tagged, love like you've never been unfriended, tweet like nobody's following." --lifeisgood, via twitter

A few months ago, I caved and got a twitter account. For the most part, it is widespread enabled stalking, though I try to use mine mostly for immediate quote updates. (big surprise, right?) But I'm following something called 'life is good', and though this quote reflects the massively technological centrality of today's society, this is a good quote. It's a paraphrase of a quote that was popular five or ten years ago (it's shocking that we need "modern-day" translations for things said five years ago, isn't it?), but for most of us, this new 'translation' resonates.

"Humor is the easiest to achieve; the 'heart' is always the toughest, because you can't tell people to feel a certain way." --John Lasseter, Pixar

"Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. Music is the electrical soil in which the spirit lives, thinks, and invents." 
--Ludwig van Beethoven

"If you want to improve your understanding, drink coffee; it is the intelligent beverage." --Sydney Smith

"Has anyone ever noticed that 'studying' is just 'student' and 'dying' put together?"

It's that time again. The time when everyone walks very quickly around campus--as quickly as they can as they try to balance a vat of coffee atop a towering stack of encyclopedia-size books--while avoiding eye contact with anyone and muttering equations and facts and dates under their breath. That's right--it's finals time. Ten more days and I'll be home free, but in those ten days I have about three months worth of work to do. So here's to the next week and a half--I hope I make it.

"It takes two to go to war but only one to fall in love." --Fiction Family

"She started with anger and ended with ambiguous kindness. You should be thankful."--Matthew Westerholm

Yesterday was just "one of THOSE days"--when I was 'pretend mad' at a lot of people, and it was mostly pretend, but it was a little bit for real. I tried to threaten one of my best friends when he was being obnoxious, but between it being impossible for me to actually be mean, and the fact that I was exhausted, the threat petered out into nothingness before the end of the sentence. That was when Matthew addressed my friend, very seriously, and said this.

"i thank You God for this most amazing

day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,

and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth

day of life and love and wings: and of the gay

great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing

breathing any-lifted from the no

of all nothing-human merely being 

doubt umimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and

now the eyes of my eyes are opened)"

--e.e. cummings

"To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough time." --Leonard Bernstein

"The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small manageable taks, and then starting on the first one." --Mark Twain

"Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today." --Malcolm X

"For the Lord your God is living among you,

He is a mighty Savior.

He will delight in you with gladness.

With His love, He will calm all your fears.

He will rejoice over you with joyful songs."

--Zephaniah 3:17

"Never trust a man who hasn't brought a book." -Lemony Snicket

 I always appreciate the Lemony Snicket quotes I steal from Leah...usually they are about books, and it makes me happy that someone else holds books in the same high esteem I do.

"marty.lamain: I was reading away, just amazed, and then the sand fairy came
marty.lamain: I told her it wasn't open hours, but she stayed anyways
marty.lamain: and made me fall asleep." --Marty, via Skype