Baking!

Hi all!

Three muses got together the other day, (one was out of town) and "experimented". Now most of the muses are wonderful bakers. One, on the other hand, can ruin brownies out of a box. That'd be me. So when I went to this experimentation, I mostly photographed. This meant that we could all eat the food safely. :)

Clio has some biscuits that she makes called volcanoes. (Dun-dun-duun.) This is the documentary of our tweaking them, and making a mess in the process.

See, we did clean up!

We made one peach, but didn't end up eating it.

So, that's about all! Except they were delish, and I couldn't even finish three of them!!
Erato

Interview - Andrew Joyce

Today we have an interview with a very special guest!! I have known Andrew for quite a few years, and would love for all of you to get to know him and what he does. Andrew is a web designer/entrepreneur, a rebelutionary, and is the founder and administrator of Into the Book. Into the Book is Andrew's first and longest-running project, and has always been full of solid content. I would encourage you all to check out Into the Book and take advantage of its resources! I'll let Andrew explain what Into the Book is, and hopefully you'll also get to know Andrew and his heart through this interview! :) 

10 Things You Should Never Say To....

It's been a while now, but Blimey Cow recently posted two videos that complemented each other. They were titled, "10 ThingsYou Sould Never Say To a Girl" and "10 Things You Should Never Say To a Guy", respectively. The one about things guys shouldn't say to us, in a healthy fear for their lives ;) was released first. Soon the Blimey Cow community was beggining for the natural sequel, the other way around.

The first one I watched, laughed, and appreciated the fact that maybe they'd help some poor male floundering in confusion. Some of these were common courtesy, and should go both ways. :)

Then was the one that I felt was more applicable to me, Ten Things That You Should Never Say to a Guy. This one actually impacted me quite a bit. As I've been posting, I like being in charge, and doing things. Well, that also means I'm often guilty of saying, (to both genders) "Here, just let me do it." I've never realized how that really could/does make someone feel. So, I've been trying stop doing that since I've seen this video.

Hopefully, you can see something in one of these videos that you do/say that you could stop. I know I actually have several, but I can only work on one at a time. :)
Erato

The Waiting Room

I was sitting in the waiting room of the orthodontist’s office after my appointment, now waiting for my mom’s appointment to finish.  I pulled out my smartphone to check my emails, facebook, pinterest, my calendar, text a few people.... and then start the whole process all over again.  There must be something new on facebook since the last time I checked it 10 minutes ago, right? ;)   As I’m doing all of this, a family walked in and sat in the same area as I did.  I noticed right away the unusual family structure - a punk-ish looking teenage boy, and what looked like to be his grandparents.  I don’t know their ethnicity, but my first thought was Jamaican, which could be totally wrong.   Anyway, as their grandson walked to check in and went to his appointment, the grandparents had a very interesting conversation.  At first they joked in a reminiscent way about their grandson being old enough to handle his own appointments. Then, as I was checking my social media sites,  I caught snippets of conversation about receiving custody, a girl who was apparently bipolar, and even not having control over what girl their grandson would end up with.  They talked in a kind of wistful way; they were joking about some things, but you could tell that this conversation was rooted in deep concern.   

Side note:  I have to tell you that they were the cutest older couple I think I’ve ever seen.  The man was wearing as suit, large glasses, and a fedora.  The woman was dressed in a similar old-fashioned classy style.  And they seemed super sweet.  I totally would have loved to have had them as my grandparents. :)  

Anyway. ;)  As I was eavesdropping on their conversation (unintentionally, of course. :P) a thought struck me.  They really didn’t have control over their grandson or their various predicaments.  Now, I of course don’t know whether they were Christians or not.  If I see them in heaven, I’ll definitely have to tell them this story. :)  But....I had the feeling that they needed someone to trust these situations to.  They needed Him to trust their situations to.  

And I wanted to tell them.  I wanted to tell them about the One I know who has sustained me through hard times and the One to whom I have been able to trust my loved ones to.   But I didn’t know where to start.  

My mom’s appointment took long enough.  Almost 45 minutes after mine ended, actually.   When the grandson returned, the man made a joke about “Now he needs me. Now that he needs to pay for the appointment.” and winked to his wife, who sat chuckling.  

I had time.  I had the desire.  

But I didn’t know where to start.

How many opportunities am I missing?  I have the desire. I even know what to say. But I don’t know where to start, or how to approach them.  And as I sat behind my smartphone screen, I felt appalled.  Yes, I’m introverted.  Yes, I was finding a way to use up my time.  But I was also wasting time.  Precious time.  Time that could eternally impact others.  Life isn’t a waiting room, for me to just use up time until the next exciting thing happens.  

I need to be equipped.  Conversation starters - yes, I need to look some of those up from the multiple books on evangelism that I know are out there.  And yes, I need to conquer my fear of walking up to a stranger, much less talking to one.  ;)  

But more than all of that - I need to stop wasting time. I need to stop treating life as a waiting room.

Story

Hi all!

So, this is a scheduled post, and we'll see how it works out. I'm kinda skeptical.

This is just a small post, and I feel obligated to make one because Clio has been camping, Thalia has been at camp, and Calliope just has a lot on her plate. Then there's little ol'e me, just slacking off.

This is my white-water rafting story.

We get to Convention on Sunday, and there are sign-up sheets everywhere, for everything. Our youth pastor wants our whole group to go white water rafting! YAY. Joy abounding. Totally my cup of tea. NOT. Anyway, I sign up, and pay, you know, the works. Well, I get to "look forward" to it all week, 'cause our group signed up for Friday!

I stay pretty distracted most of the week, because Convention is always jam-packed. Friday finally rolls around, and I'm kinda regretting it. The whole time I run the 5k in the morning, I'm freaking out about white water rafting later. I have barely any time in between 5k, session, lunch, and then rafting, so that kinda helps, yet doesn't. See, I stress about everything under the sun. EVERYTHING. So, the speed of my day assisted to form less stress, but then I'm stressing because I don't have time to make sure everything is perfect. *sigh*

As were getting life jackets, paddles, and helmets, our lead guide is reading us the riot act. He goes over what to do if you fall out, if someone else falls out, the EXTREME danger involved, and various other encouraging scenarios. Which actually didn't encourage me. Shock. Well, we basically all get told that we're going to die. And at this point, I'm really wishing that I could back out. (I'm glad I didn't) But we all happily pile on the bus for a half-hour, winding trip to where we enter the river. I start getting nauseous about half-way. Probably a lovely combination of nerves, bus-sickness, and my brilliant decision to do the 5k. So far, I'm NOT enjoying this.

We get out, get our guide (who was awesome), and drag the raft down to the river. Smart remarks are just filling the air, 'cause we are all a little nervous, and some of us are on an adrenaline high. Then we pile in and start the journey to our deaths. (Kidding) We go shooting through the first rapid, and I'm thinking that yeah, I definitely should have bailed out earlier. Then our guide explains that that was only a class two rapid. Out of five. o.O After that horrifying experience we're told that you can swim through the next one. Yay! I decided to risk it. Go big or go home right? I did so, lived, and got back on the raft to mentally prepare for the rest of the rapids, because we're supposed to be out there for a couple hours.

There were a couple times when I screamed for fun, then there were I couple times when I wasn't screaming for fun. Only one girl on our whole tour fell out, but she was pulled right back in. So, to sum it all up; I was freaked out about going, but I LOVED it. I think I'd do it again if I got the chance. There is a lesson to all of this, by the way. I didn't just regale you with my epic to bore you. ;) At one point in the river the guide stopped  and did a small devo, she shared her testimony, and then asked if we had anything to share. I told my boat what I'm about to share with you. I'm really big on having control of a situation, and the people in it. (Just ask my youth group) Sometimes this means that I start being really bossy, try to do everything on my own, and in general dislike people because I can't pre-program them. Funny thing is that I couldn't control white water rafting, but I lived through it! Not by anything that I did, but following my guide's instructions. I was really challenged to apply this to my spiritual life. To give God control over everything, and trust that He actually is God over every situation, big or small. As long as I'm following His "directions", He'll be in control. In fact, even when I mess-up, and try to do it on my own, He's still in complete control. Which means that I not only don't have to worry, but I shouldn't worry.

Maybe that's something you struggle with too, but if not, save that lesson, because at some point in your life you'll be tempted to worry, I guarantee it.
Erato

Steppin' Up in the World

Well, we as the muses have a pretty exciting announcement to make....

We have reached more than 1,000 pageviews!!! :D  *throws confetti* A huge thank you to our few but faithful followers, and also to the bloggers who have inspired us!  We’ll just try to forget about all of the random spam websites that we apparently get pageviews from. ;)  

I just wanted to pop in here to let you know that although we have kind of gone AWOL (well besides Erato, of course) we still have very good intentions to continue with this blog!  I have some different ideas spinning around, and we’re also hoping to do some posts about our activities as a group... So stay tuned! ;)  

So one quick prayer request?  Yes, I think that’s in order. :)   I’m planning on taking a College Composition CLEP test sometime this week, and I have been kind of consumed with it recently.  Actually, I’m mostly just worrying about it. :P  So yes, please pray for me!!  

I am also leaving in about 6 weeks to move almost 700 miles away, so preparing for that has been kind of scary.  BUT I will have so many amazing opportunities while I’m there, and I plan to come back home to visit my muses very often.  

So yes!  Quick update, prayer request, celebration of our pageviews... and I think that’s all I’ve got!  Happy Monday all!! :)

~Calliope

Vacation!

Hi all!

Well, my summer is almost half over. Which is really sad, and really shocking to me. I feel like I just got out of school and finally had some free time. But, I've put it all to good use! I'm getting some schoolwork done ahead for next year, went to the IFCA Youth Convention, got to spend some fun time with my muses, and tomorrow I'm going camping with my family!

So, summer hasn't been the greatest for me blogging wise. But I'm going to write out what photo-a-day thingys I had left and hopefully finish them up this week. :/ Hopefully. And, I kinda want to do Blimey Cow's photo-a-day challenge, 'cause Kelli came up with it, but ya'll saw how sucessful mine went. :p

I'm closing this nice short post with a huge lesson that I (re)learned at Convention. Prayer.
You can never have too much real prayer, I mean, God gave us 24/7 access to His throne room!! So many of us don't even use it! For example, in our youth group we have many different personalitys. (I know, shocker there.) Even in a nine person group we have SO many personality clashes. We had nine people involved in a worship leading MTA (Ministry Training Area) and we were really struggling during our practices. We'd get distracted, or all be talking at once, or.... you know how it goes. Finally our second to last practice we all just stopped and decided that we needed to pray. After that, I'd like to say that it was smooth sailing. Sadly, that would be lying. But it did go much better, and we had our focus in the right place. On actually worshiping God, not "performing".

Praying always,
Erato

Hey!

So, this is just a quick thing before I hit the hay, but I thought I'd give you an excuse for not posting. (Excuses, excuses, we hear them everyday...) My fellow muses and I were at a convention last week. The IFCA National Youth Convention to be exact. Check it out if you have the time!

Anyway, I'm gonna' be posting different things that I learned, and the like for a while and this is the first thing that I've been majorly implementing.

The convention was at Appalacian Bible College in WV, which means very rocky, hilly, and all-around unusual (to me) terrain. I got more excersize last week than I have in a long time. Walking up and down mountains, walking around campus, and running back to my dorm when I'd forgotten something. I also branched out and tried several new activites. The one I'm here to tell you about today, is running, *cough* walking *cough* the 5K. So, I may have done more walking than running... But Hey! I finished! And with a very respectable time for a couch potato, I may add, 42:57.

Today I ran two miles! I'm trying to keep it up, because I had so much more energy than I've had in a looong time since I came back.

Just one of many stories to come!
Erato