Category Archives: Life

Life

A scattered update (with too many parentheses?)

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Greetings, hobbits, elves, dwarves, Ents, and various peoples of Middle Earth!

(A more or less decent giant of my acquaintance recently objected to being called a hobbit in my posts, so I’m trying to be more inclusive.)

(If aforementioned giant is offended that I called him “more or less decent,” I’m sorry. He probably missed the reference and needs to read The Hobbit again.)

First of all, Happy Hobbit Day!! (I give credit where credit is due, so thank you, PRVZ, for reminding me!) I had wanted to bake a cake or something today, but I didn’t end up having time.

I might be busier right now than I ever have been, because second, I started college. (Say what?! I know.)

My imaginary friend and I on campus

It’s been crazy and informative and stressful and fun and all that jazz. I have a lot less time now, but that’s made me reevaluate what’s really important, which is good.

I think I’m learning a lot about myself.

I’m glad I made the decision to go to college (at least, I am most of the time), and I’m glad I decided to stay in Omaha. I love this city so much!

Let’s make the world a little bit better this week.

With hugs,

-Hanna

Life, My Writing

A Realm Makers 2019 Not-Recap

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You may or may not know that I recently got home from the Realm Makers 2019 writers’ conference. I learned a lot of things, unlearned some assumptions, and got to meet so many lovely people. It was a blast. I’m so grateful to everyone who helped my trip come together. I’ve wanted to go to Realm Makers for the last two or three years, and it’s still surreal to remember being there.

After every Realm Makers, a lot of the bloggers I follow do a recap post, summarizing every day at the conference. (Tracey already has her 2019 recap up, here!) I might get my act together and do one of these–there’s a lot I want to tell you guys! But for now, I’m saying this instead.

This post is for the people who wanted to go to Realm Makers, but couldn’t.

For the last several years, that was me. (It might be me next year, since Realm Makers decided to run away to the east coast. 😉 ) I think this conference is a one-of-its-kind, and I know how it feels to be the one who can’t go.

My advice for you guys is this:

Read the recap posts. Look at all the pictures. Research the conference. Keep wanting to go.

Because the wanting hurts, but it will get you out of your chair and into the world you want to live in.

I waited for several years until I saw a way for me to go. Then I fought for it. My parents asked me what I wanted for Christmas, and my answer was money for Realm Makers. I pushed other opportunities to the sidelines to be able to go.

After I got home, a friend asked me if Realm Makers was “everything I hoped.” I said yes, without any reservations. I 100% recommend going.

Keep dreaming. Keep fighting. Keep creating.

Your journey is unique, and you will have amazing opportunities to shape it. Don’t lose heart.

Love you, hobbits.

Faith, Life

Spring

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This post is just a reminder. A reminder to stop and pay attention to what’s happening to the world right now.

Spring is coming.

After a cold February in Omaha with record-breaking snow, this week has been warm and sunny.

I spent some time outside today, and it reminded me what spring feels like. There are still dead leaves piled around our yard; the grass is brown, and there are rotting acorns squished into the mud; there are twigs and stumps of dry bushes everywhere, and all the trees are bare: there are dead things all over.

But everywhere, everywhere there are subtle whispers of life.

Cliche though it may be, spring reminds me of what Salvation means. Waking up. Coming to life.

Stop and listen!

Don’t you feel it?

Life

Hey

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Hey, hobbits.

I know I’ve been gone a lot.  ACT prep stole my time.  (I’m still looking for a place to lodge a complaint.)

I think the original idea was for me to take the ACT once.  Something happened to that, ’cause I just took it for the third time.  The third time.  Opening my fancy scientific calculator again was a weird feeling.  It was a little bit like a reunion with an old friend, and a little bit like running into your arch enemy when you thought he fell off a cliff in the last episode.

The Seventh Short Story also kinda’ fell off the bus.  Did you miss him?  We’ll see if he comes back.

Anyway, I turned eighteen last week.  Eighteen.

I keep looking in the mirror and saying, “You’re eighteen,” but I still don’t buy it.  I don’t look or feel like an adult.

“They told us that time flies, didn’t know what it means
Now I feel like we’re just running around trying to catch it and hoping to cut up its wings”

-“Lost in the Moment” by NF

Sometimes I think I was smarter when I was younger.  Like I’m growing backwards, and getting dumber.

Maybe that’s true.  But my heart’s in a better place now.  I’m not as selfish as I was when I was little, and I’m better at loving people, and at loving Jesus.

At the end of the day, that stuff’s more important.

So I guess I’m excited to grow up.  I’m excited to see where this year takes me.  I want to keep sharing my weird brain with you all, even when my life gets busy, so I’ll keep trying to do that too.

Thanks for reading.

Family, Life

Climax

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I came to the airport to say good-bye.

It was the climax after so many months of waiting around. . .  Waiting around while the only clear thing was the feeling of something precious slipping through my fingers.

Goodbye was our arms wrapped too tightly around each other, and it was forced smiles at each other, while the silence covered for all the things that should have been said.

I didn’t expect missing her to be so lonely.  But at the same time I’m glad that others get to have her too.

If letting her go has taught me one thing, it’s this: that she is one of the strongest and one of the most beautiful women anyone could ever know.

~*~

*My sweet sister’s safety is very important to me.  Please follow my lead, and don’t share any specific places or names in the comments.  Thank you.

Life, Literature

Little Women

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I’ve always been a re-reader.  But this summer especially has seemed to be one of old favorites.

Today I finished re-reading Little Women by Louisa May Alcott for the umpteenth time, and it still made me cry.  I can’t tell you how many times I read this book when I was little, and I distinctly remember crying over you-know-what part the first two times I read it.  But this was my first visit to Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy since I’ve actually experienced death, in “real” life.

I swear that books–that the power of stories and the comfort of the written word–are what got me through “the valley of shadow” in one piece.  The first thing I did after my grandpa died was shut myself in my bedroom and read The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien.

This is a huge reason why I believe in reading fiction.

“Made up” characters can sympathize sometimes when “real” ones can’t; and living some things through a novel (or a movie) is better experience than most people seem to give it credit for.

I remember standing in the bathroom washing my hands, right after I finished reading Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, looking at myself in the mirror, and bursting into giggles from sheer contentedness.  I reasoned that from a strictly bookworm-ish point of view, I had just gotten engaged, and could therefore give myself grace to be a bit giddy.

The characters in my favorite books are family, and I can’t see them as anything else.  They have taught me more than almost any nonfiction, and they make me a stronger, braver, kinder person.  And that is why I believe in reading fiction.

That is why I will not stop talking about books.

Life

Right Now I’m Thankful For. . .

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~rain~

~big trees~

~spiders~

~poetry~

~the kind of smoke that smells like adventure~

~old books~

~good movies~

~people who never judge you unless you keep secrets from them~

~a God who loves me and wrote me a book~

~brown eyes~

~chocolate~

~wind in my hair~

(I missed the Seventh Short Story this month but we shall pick up in September.)

Faith, Life

“Good Friday”

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“This is my blood.  Drink it in remembrance of me.”

Good Friday.  It’s the day we celebrate someone being tortured to death.  It’s an odd holiday, and it’s unfortunately over-looked.

In the Old Testament, God told the Israelites not to eat blood, not to touch death, that anyone hung on a tree was cursed.  That everything the cross was, was ugly–but that’s where God found redemption, in the ugliness.  Our redemption–and that’s why we celebrate.

I’ve always tried to find beauty in everything; from illness and thunder storms, to traffic noise and trash.  I’ve tried to find redemption everywhere.  I never quite understood why I did it, until I really thought about where Jesus found my redemption.

The cross was ugly, but it had to be, because human beings are ugly too.  God redeemed them both.  And that’s why we celebrate a night of blood and sweat, and pain and tears, and death.  We celebrate God’s redemption, that is there through nights like that.

Life, Literature, Stories

The Liebster Award

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Good morning, hobbits!  Micaiah has tagged me for the Liebster Award!

Rules:

Thank the person who nominated you.
Answer the 11 questions they gave you.
Name 11 facts about yourself.
Nominate 11 bloggers to do this tag, and let them know.
Give them 11 questions to answer.

Thanks, Micaiah!  And thanks, Jaidyn, for letting me steal your questions as well!  So I’ll be answering 22 questions. #rebel

This’ll be a good chance to get to know some random facts about yours truly! 🙂

Continue reading The Liebster Award →

Faith, Life, Literature, My Writing

A Writer and the Word

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Since I attended a girls’ conference when I was little more than a decade old and committed to read my Bible every day, I’ve known it was important for me to read the Bible as a Christian.

While I did not honor my original commitment very well at that stage, it was the beginning of my journey towards making the habit of picking up my Bible every day.  It’s a been a roller coast to say the least, but I stuck with it fairly well.

Then I started reading “My Utmost for His Highest” by Oswald Chambers, and he posed the question: am I worshiping God while I form good habits, or have I started worshiping the habit itself?  And I began to wonder if I was worshiping the habit.  Was I reading my Bible to “be a good Christian” or to learn more about God?  In the circles I move in, reading your Bible every day is “cool”.  Was I persisting just so I could smile and answer affirmative if the topic of daily reading ever came up?

So I started to let myself take breaks.  I took the pressure off.  If I didn’t find time for the Bible, I would assure myself I was doing important things and God didn’t want me to spend all my time reading (like that argument would have carried a fleck of weight if we’d been discussing reading The Lord of the Rings instead *cough*).  And maybe if I remembered I would run through a psalm I had memorized before I fell asleep.

It’s not like you would have found my Bible a month later, in the back of a cupboard, covered in dust; I probably still read it most days.  But it certainly wasn’t a priority.  Even when I came to the conclusion it probably was beneficial to read it every day, it was still not top of the list.

But then I noticed a difference.  When I didn’t read the Bible, I was different–and I didn’t like the different me.  Reading God’s Word changed me.  And THAT was the beginning of another journey, towards prioritizing my Bible reading. . . again.

So I read the Bible every day; not because someone tells me I should, not as a safety net in case I’m asked, not even really because I want to know what’s in it.  I read the Bible every day because it makes me feel closer to God, and that’s where I want to be.

But what I didn’t anticipate was the how darn inspirational this reading plan was going to be–while I knew it was going to affect me spiritually, I didn’t expect it to affect my imagination.  My writer-brain gets on fire when I’ve been consistent in reading God’s Word.  I don’t why it took me seventeen years to understand it’s important to read the Bible as a storyteller.  It’s gotten to the point where I can hardly read my Bible anymore, if I’ve been consistent for days, because the story ideas come so fast while I read.

I mean, tell me this isn’t Middle Earth or Narnia-esque:

“But you, O God, are my king from of old;
you bring salvation upon the earth.
It was you who split open the sea by your power;
you broke the heads of the monster in the waters.
It was you who crushed the heads of Leviathan
and gave him as food to the creatures of the desert.”
-Psalm 74:12-14

And is this not just begging for a novelization?

“I also saw under the sun this example of wisdom that greatly impressed me: There was once a small city with only a few people in it.  And a powerful king came against it, surrounded it and built huge siegeworks against it.  Now there lived in that city a man poor but wise, and he saved the city by his wisdom.  But nobody remembered that poor man.”
-Ecclesiastes 9:13-15

And that’s only two of many I’ve run across (Job, for instance, always just sets my imagination on fire!!).  I’m sure I’ll find more.