Summer 2018 Highlights: 100 for 100 Challenge

Hey, everyone! I know I haven't been around lately, but I'm hoping that will change and this was just a season of exceptional busyness in my life. Maybe I'll get a chance to recap my summer for you. However, as for today, I'm here to highlight one sliver of it—my writing.

From mid November of 2017 to late May, 2018, my writing had fallen to the wayside. It wasn't that I didn't want to write, or didn't necessarily have the time, it was more that I didn't know what to write and didn't have the drive. None of the stories I was working on at the time were quite matching my mood, so I simply stopped writing. I recognize it seems contradictory to say I missed writing but also didn't feel like it, still, for whatever reason I didn't write for nearly six months.

Then . . . the 100 for 100 Challenge hosted by Go Teen Writers started, and I jumped on the bandwagon, wondering whether I would even survive writing 100 words a day for the first two weeks. Long story short, last Friday was day 100 of the challenge and I made it! The premise of the challenge was to write at least 100 words a day for 100 days to total 10,000 words by August 31. The exceptions: you got one "grace week," and one day off a week if you chose. In all, I had to take off 10 days combined from when I was attending camps. For the other 90 days though, I wrote consistently! This was both a massive battle and blessing for me. Some days my eyes kept drooping closed and I was writing at midnight to squeeze in my 100 words to barely scrape by. At times I just didn't feel like writing but I had to push through anyway. On occasion I couldn't decide where to go with my story, and had to force myself not to quit.

But other times, I woke up eager to write and determined to continue through the challenge. Sometimes I would write 500 words a day or more. Honestly, I had no idea that I had it in me to push through the difficulties and remain steadfast over that length of time. At the start, I wasn't sure how to manage writing when I would be gone so much over the summer, but somehow I managed. And not only did I make 10K, but I ended up with a grand total of 26,543 words! :) Though that's not much to some, it was a huge accomplishment for me. I started and completed a short story For Better or for Worse (22,760 words), and began another to finish the final days.

A hearty thanks to all who urged me on through this challenge, and encouraged me to write every day. It's only because of your consistent prodding that I managed some days. Thank you to those who are eager to read For Better or for Worse—it's encouraging to have people want to read my writing! And thank you bloggers at Go Teen Writers for hosting and providing me an opportunity to test my limits and come through victoriously!

To read the synopsis and an excerpt from For Better or for Worse, click on the story title anywhere it appears in the post. Let me know what you think!

Smell the Flowers

A few months back I was blessed with the opportunity to attend a local high school retreat/campout with one of my youth groups. The youth group was calling it "Pause," signifying the goal of the weekend was to get away from everyone's hectic lives and take a break to breathe and get some time alone with God. It worked.

The time I spent at Pause gave me an opportunity to take a much needed time of relaxation, and reminded me of the importance of taking time to just rest. In today's culture, everyone is always busy. There's a never-ending list of things to do, places to be, and people to catch up with. Sometimes it feels like you're only falling further behind, and never catching back up. It doesn't take long before you're overwhelmed, exhausted, and feeling like you're failing. It's an easy trap to fall into. And a hard one to climb back out of.

I still haven't found the secret to avoiding this pitfall, but I've found a few things that help. One of my biggest is stop procrastinating when I need to do things, and not keep "finding" distractions. But another thing I've found that helps, is allowing yourself some time to stop and rest. Give yourself a break. As one of the other youth groupers put it, take time to smell the flowers.

It's unbelievable how much it helps to take a few minutes, a couple deep breaths, and calm down. Giving yourself permission to rest is key. Don't worry about everything on your to-do list. Just go outside, enjoy God's beautiful creation, read a book, photograph, journal, do whatever is relaxing to you. Forget the stresses of life—allow yourself to rest. And just breathe.

Recently, my "theme song" has been Jonny Diaz's "Breathe." I'd highly recommend it if anything I've said today resonates with you.

Don't wait until school lets out or you get a break from work. Take time right now, this summer, and through the rest of the year to pause, take a breathe, smile, and thank God for your many blessings. Be refreshed and don't regret the moments you spend. Take time to smell the flowers.

Random Updates

Well, I'm sitting here realizing that out of the few posts I've done this year, most of them have had a very serious note to them. So I decided to do something a little more lighthearted to end May. Here's a brief summary of my life lately to keep you updated.

  Life

I've been busy, but who isn't this time of year? A few weeks back I took the SAT. My family just completed making a twenty-five minute film of our highest production quality so far, but it took a tremendous amount of time. I haven't been reading much, but I've been writing a little bit more lately. The event I went to with intentions of evangelizing was quite an experience. It made me more aware of how lost so many people are without Christ. These next couple weeks promise to be filled with lots of school and attendance of multiple graduation events for friends. I'm eagerly looking forward to the beginning of July bringing my first camp of the summer. This is one I'll be counseling at for my third year in a row.

Music

I've been listening to more music these last few months than I usually do, and I've been enjoying multiple Christian artists. The newest songs I've been introduced to is Josh Wilson's "Dream Small" and Riley Clemmon's "Better for It."

 Jokes

One of the things I've been doing lately when I'm feeling down is looking up Christian jokes.
Q1: What kind of man was Boaz before he married Ruth?
Q2: Who was the first tennis player in the Bible?
(answers at the end of the post)

Blog

I've been enjoying writing my "Defending the Faith" series, as it is a topic close to my heart and I'm grateful to have an audience to share it with. As for posts I'm planning, I suppose you'll just have to wait and see!

Pictures

I haven't been taking too many pictures lately, but I thought the image of the flower I used for the title picture came out pretty well.

What sorts of things have you been up to lately? Any good songs or jokes you've heard?

A1: Ruthless.
A2: Joseph, because he served in Pharoah's court.

Summer Has Come . . . and Gone

*crickets*

Well, hello everyone! You may or may not have noticed my extended and unplanned absence from the blogging world. Rest assured that I have not forgotten about all of you, my wonderful followers! I'm dropping by today to recap my summer and attempt to justify my blog hiatus. To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure how much blogging I'll be able to accomplish in the coming seasons, but I truly hope that I'm able to post more frequently. I still plan on posting my blog birthday Q&A which has been mostly written for a month, just not finalized. For now, and without further ado, here is a taste of my summer months:

JUNE

Toward the beginning of the month, I was briefly reunited with my best friend from first and second grade. It was enjoyable to see her and catch up a bit. My grandparents came to visit one day, and we all were blessed to see one another.

I finished my sophomore year of high school midway through the June, and after that my family and I left on vacation to Lone Pine at the base of Mount Whitney, the same location where I attended the movie-making camp last November. I was relieved to finally have some time to relax and unwind after a hectic last month of school. We did a lot of sight-seeing, hiking in 110 degree weather, photographing, fossil hunting, and—of course—reading. :)

Horseshoe Meadows outside of Lone Pine. About 10,000 ft.

A creek near where we stayed while in Lone Pine.

The Alabama Hills where many famous westerns have been filmed.

The following week we spent focusing on cleaning the house, going through papers that have stacked up, etc. Near the end of June I had a marvelous time at my best friend's eighteenth birthday party. (Happy Birthday!!!)

JULY

The first week of July found me counseling at a Christian camp for kids aged 7-13. For five days I had a great cabin of nine and ten year old girls. I came back exhausted with lots of stories from my second time counseling. It was a fabulous week!

From there I had one day at home before I was whisked away with my sister to spend several days visiting my grandparents in Pacific Grove. The weather was lovely, (especially compared to the extreme heat back home) and we were able to participate in several fun activities. Whether playing in the sand, taking selfies, talking with my grandparents, going to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, or on a whale watching boat, I enjoyed my time immensely!

Whale watching. :)

The flag off the back of the boat.

Most of July was jam-packed with many smaller activities, so that looking back now I'm seeing that I was away from the house much more than I was home all summer; this has probably been the first year I've been away from my family this much in a summer. Of course, all the activities were good ones, like finally getting to go to the beach with my best friend and that family. (I had the best time! It was the first real time I'd gone to the beach all summer.)

Panorama of the beach I went to

To cap off my month, my family and I went back to my grandparents' and hiked around Jack's Peak. Then my parents went home and my sister and I spent a few more days there finding treasures at garage sales (I got a really nice tri-pod for a dollar!) and watching fireworks (it was my sister's first time seeing real ones).

The view of Monterey from Jack's Peak

My family and I on the trail

That's me. :) Always with my camera.

This was the first time I tried the fireworks setting on my camera.

AUGUST

Day one of August brought with it a new experience for my sister and me. We rode both our horses down to a neighbor's arena and, as much as I enjoy riding in open areas, the confined space gave us so much freedom. I absolutely loved our time together and with the horses out in the middle of God's beautiful creation!

I'm riding Baylie, my sister is on Dream.

Then . . . my mom made the "dangerous" mistake of leaving to go visit her family in Los Angeles. That left my dad and his crazy awesome ideas alone with my sister and me who pretty much go along with his insane ideas. Thus was born the newest addition to my family's collection of home movies. We planned and filmed a ten-minute western complete with Indiana Jones music, horses, explosions, and chase scenes. It is truly . . . epic. And didn't have to leave our property to create it. Hours upon hours were spent with planning, filming (in trenchcoats and 100 degree weather), and editing. We had it finished by the time my mom got back and surprised her with it. She decided to never leave us home alone again. :) It was such a fun time!

Lights . . . camera . . . action!

The day after my mom returned, my sister and I left again, this time for LIFE Camp! It is always one of the top highlights of my year, and this week at camp was no exception! I was part of the high school group which did additional amazing activities and had fantastic classes that I thrived on. We studied the incarnation of Jesus Christ, in addition to how we can share our own testimonies to bring others to know God. The activities included watching The Nativity, painting Christmas sweaters, and making gingerbread houses. (Guess the theme—Christmas. :P) Non-Christmas related activities were traveling to the beach with the other high schoolers and best of all, just hanging out with my amazing friends. My sister and I recreated the Battle of Wits scene from the Princess Bride for the talent show. I was Westley and she was Vizzini. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you need to watch the movie! :) My cabin became the prank cabin of camp, and that was incredibly fun. I already can't wait for next year!

The Battle of Wits from the Princess Bride

Being in the high school group, I only got about five hours of sleep a night, (part of that was because the latest I got up was 5:30 and we didn't go to bed until around midnight) so I came home utterly exhausted. Two days later I began my junior year of high school. Yes, my junior year. I can't believe I started the second half of my high school years. So far, school has been going well. This semester, I'm taking Physics, PreCalculus with Trigonometry, American Literature, and studying worldviews and world religions. I am truly looking forward to the rest of this semester. I have a feeling it's going to go great!

 ~

And that brings you up to date! Now maybe you'll understand why my blog has fallen to the wayside over the last few months. I truly hope that I'll be able to get some more posted in the coming weeks. Stay tuned, and thank you for sticking with me through my crazy busy life! God bless you all!

Bethany

P.S. I updated my both my written profile as well as my profile picture. Let me know your thoughts!

I just recently made this from a picture my sister took.

I am an aspiring teen writer with enough ideas alone to fill volumes. I enjoy living in the country where I have many scenes to photograph and hardly a car passes all day. I love reading and blogging. Interacting with horses is another hobby. My newest interests include screenwriting, cinematography, and making movies as well as operating my amateur radio. I adore The Princess Bride, and if you don't that's truly INCONCEIVABLE! My imagination is one of my best qualities, and I'm definitely an introvert.

Most importantly, I seek to honor God in everything I do, say, think, and write. Thanks for stopping by and I'd love to have you join my wonderful group of followers! You all mean the world to me!

~

Another note: An idea I've been mulling over in my extended absence is possibly doing some posts regarding defending the Christian faith. It's a subject I've studied and my family is passionate about. The Bible says to be prepared to give a reason for the hope that is within us, and I would love to share some of my knowledge with you. The Bible is true—from Genesis 1:1 to the end of Revelation—and there is evidence. It's not a blind faith. Please let me know your thoughts. I'd enjoy knowing who is interested, and if you have any specific areas that you would like more information on. Thank you!

8 Reasons Why Summer Isn't My Favorite Season

Why eight reasons? you may ask. I'm afraid I have no suitable answer. Just sit back and discover why I'm not your normal student who can't wait for summer.

True, I enjoy the break from my studies and the camps I'm blessed to attend. However, I'd rather that summer was winter. I'm a girl who loves the rain and cold. That being said, you can guess my first reason:

1. Summer is hot! So very hot. Here in central California, temperatures in summer can range from in the 90s to 115 degrees! There's nowhere to escape the perpetual blistering heat. Give me freezing temperatures and a jacket instead.
2. Being so miserably warm, there's not much I can do outside on these days. It's often far too hot to work with the horses or take a walk, and even stepping outside feels like you were hurled into an oven. One of the only outdoor activities of summer is swimming, and many times our small pool is too hot to be refreshing.
3. In the absence of school work, other things still fill up the schedule, allowing for few days of pure relaxing to sit and read a good novel or write.
4. Summer means that I'm far away from winter! I'm happier the closer I am to December with Christmas and my birthday. :)
5. The days are far too long. This means that while it enables me to get more done, it's also many more hours of scorching temperatures to endure.
6. Even though I don't have school, I usually still have to wake up early in order to tend to outdoor chores that should be done before it gets too hot. This includes watering the plants, working with the horses, and attempting to get a breath of cool air before the merciless sun rises too high in the sky.
7. No matter how hard my family works to keep the house cool, my upstairs bedroom lacks a fan, and it gets rather uncomfortable in the afternoon.
8. Living so far away from my friends, I still don't get to see them much more than I do during the school year, except when we go to camp together.

Now you can understand why I'm not a fan of summertime. ;) It's simply too hot to be enjoyable. Still, I can't deny the benefits of not having school, or sitting in the cool morning hours sipping a hot drink with my parents. As with every season, there are both positive and negative sides. I just tend to find more negatives than positives in summer.

Care to share your favorite and least favorite seasons with me in the comments? Does it get hot where you live? Thanks for reading!

April Highlights 2017

I'm back again with yet another monthly highlight post. April slowed down a bit, but not by much! I can't believe we are a third of the way through 2017! Where is it going?

~Summary~

Our "new" suburban.

As some of you are aware, about six months ago our car started to need significant mechanical attention. As bills continued to build up and the main apparent problem still wasn't fixed, we started hunting for a new used car. After multiple disappointments, we finally found and bought a Chevy Suburban that will be great for all my family's trips, etc. I'm looking forward to creating more memories in this car as we did in our previous van. Thank you to everyone who loaned us cars during this time and to all who prayed for us.

The rest of the month went by in a blur of days spent fixing fences, clearing up our property on burn days, and a trip to each of my grandparent's houses in Los Angeles and Pacific Grove.

One of my friends played the Mad Hatter!

I also got to go with my dad and a friend to watch an "Alice in Wonderland" play some friends starred in. (Great job, you guys!) Easter was a good day, starting out by celebrating our risen Savior at our church service, but turned out rather unusual since it rained and we were out fixing a fence in it! :) That was fun. I ended the month by serving at a local community fundraiser.

April was also a rather difficult month, in that there was quite a bit of stress trying to find our new car so we'd have a reliable vehicle, and several of our friends spent the majority of the month in the hospital.

In general, it was a good month even through the difficulties.

~Reading~

This month was a bit of a slower month as far as books goes, but once again, those I did read were very enjoyable! I'm in the middle of two other books that will get added into May's list. For April, my total pages is 1,283.

1. Ranger's Apprentice: The Icebound Land, John Flanagan (266 pages)
2. Red Rock Mysteries: Hidden Riches, Jerry B. Jenkins and Chris Fabry (249 pages)
3. Red Rock Mysteries: Dead End, Jerry B. Jenkins and Chris Fabry (235 pages)
4. The Blades of Acktar: Deliver, Tricia Mingerink (239 pages)
5. Ranger's Apprentice: The Battle for Skandia, John Flanagan (294 pages)

Without a doubt, my favorite book out of that list is Deliver. I wrote a post on its release day that you can read by clicking HERE.

Also, I finally finished reading the Red Rock Mysteries series. I was a little disappointed with the ending of the last book, but overall it was a great series and I spent many pleasant hours reading it.

~Writing~

I participated in Camp NaNo, a virtual writing camp, and had a wonderful time. Even though I didn't begin to approach my goal, I enjoyed getting to know everyone in my wonderful cabin. It was an experience worthwhile, even if I only made 8,600 words. But as a friend reminded me, every word you write is a word you didn't have before. :) In that case, I'm content with my word count for this month. The best part of writing was the friends I made through Camp, and the satisfaction of pushing through some difficult spots in my story.

Also, another thrilling side of writing through April was when I managed to make my current WIP my longest story yet! It's now sitting at around 26K. :) Click HERE to read my post about that, and at the top of my blog I have added a page about the Arkinland Chronicles with stats, the summary, and a few exerts. Check it out!

~Photography~

Rather than post multitudes of pictures here as I've done in the past, I'll only post a few since I already shared most of my good photos for April in a previous post, called Springtime Photos.

At the beach in Pacific Grove.

~Great Quotes~

This month, I've been keeping my eyes out for good quotes to share with you, and I've discovered quite a few that I love!

This has become one of my all-time favorite quotes!

~Blog Posts~

It seems that I've already linked to most of my more popular posts of the month, so if you missed any of those, you can find them above. My personal favorite was the post about Deliver, since I love sharing about my favorite books. (I couldn't call myself a book lover if I didn't!) Besides, I got to do an author interview with Tricia Mingerink, and that doubled the fun!

A great blog post that I read this month was done by Jonathan at Fishing For Ideas. Here's the LINK to his post about putting your faith into your writing.

~

That's all folks! Thanks for reading, and I'd love to hear about your April highlights!

Prayers for Camp

Hi everyone! Sorry I haven't been posting consistently, but since summer vacation (when we visited our relatives), starting school, etc. I have just been too busy. I still have many posts that I wish to do, such as on our first day of school and camp next week, so hopefully I will be able to find some time to do some more posts. I really appreciate comments, they help me feel like someone is still reading my blog even though I don't post consistently so if you have time, they would be greatly appreciated. Thank you to those who do comment!

Here is a short post just asking for your prayers. Next week my sister and I are going to a camp by Lake Lopez that is all week long. It's the same camp that I posted about last year, (see Off to Camp!) called LIFE Camp. The LIFE stands for Living In Faith Effectively. This will be my fourth year at this particular camp but each year they have a different theme. This year it will be the armor of God. I would be ever so grateful for each and every one of your prayers not just for my sister and me but for all the other children as well. Please pray for safety, fun, and for growing closer to God. Specific prayers for me would be that I don't get nervous answering questions or speaking up because of what people may think of me. So if you could pray for me then THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!

God bless you all!

Winter Camp!

Sorry I haven 't posted in a while. I've been super busy. Enjoy this post!

Thanks for reading!

Ice skating with two of my buddies.

Broom Hockey. (I'm in green)

From January 31 to February 2 I went on a trip to a winter camp with my church's youth group. Hume Lake Christian Camps, is located in the southern area of the Sierrra Nevada Range. This was my second time going with the youth group. About 17 middle schoolers went and of those two accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Your prayers would be coveted for all the youth, that they would not stray from the Lord due to their home life, pressure at school, etc.

Among my favorite activities at Hume were ice skating, tubing, broom-hockey, and the “Boxsled Blitz”. The “Boxsled Blitz” is a competition between the churches that go up there. The rules are that you have to make a sled out of ONLY cardboard and duct tape. Then, when the tube run is iced over at about ten at night, two to ten people get in the sled and go down the hill and over a jump directly in front of the judges. This year our youth group made by far the most beautiful sled; it was a red and black locomotive complete with a bell and smokestack. We probably won creativity wise but, being the first sled down the hill, we only hit about eighteen mph and I think that judges were giving out lower scores at first, saving the better scores for if there was a better sled. :( Also, Hume has another tournament called broom-hockey, which is very similar to hockey. That was a lot of fun to participate in although we didn't win. I went ice skating twice and taught two people to ice skate. For not being on the ice in almost a year I feel I did fairly well. :P

The speaker was very funny.

Another of my favorite parts was chapel. There are two chapel sessions every day where there is a live band and speaker. This year the band was “For All Seasons,” formerly “Reveal”. The speaker was very funny. At one point he duct-taped a kid to his back to demonstrate carrying unnecessary burdens. He also told a lot of stories. The theme this year was “bear” fruit. If you're not bearing fruit then maybe you aren't connected to Jesus, the vine. They talked a lot about being grafted into the vine and such.

The band leader, Emily.

Even with all the awesome activities, chapel was my favorite part. I love the worship and the atmosphere where you don't feel ashamed to lift your hands in worship. I can't wait for next year's trip!!!

Off to Camp!

Last week, my sister and I went to a Christian camp, called LIFE Camp, by Lake Lopez. The goal of this camp is to help kids live in faith effectively. The fruits of the spirit was the theme this year and our “challenge passage” (a passage out of the Bible for the kids to try to memorize as well as the daily and theme verses.) was Galatians 5.Our mom and dad dropped us off Monday morning and picked us up Saturday. Although it was a long time to be away from our parents and home, my sister and I had a marvelous time growing closer to God and having fun.

I like everything about Life Camp especially just growing nearer to the Lord. In the morning, the first of our three classes is Missionary where you learn about one missionary all week. This year it was Dr. Carl Becker, missionary/doctor to the people in mid- Africa– especially the Pigmy people. Our second class of the morning, Biography, was taught by the director. We discovered the lives of a different person every day. A few examples are Joni Ericson Tada, Eric Liddel, George Washington Carver, and Jim Elliot. Our last class was Bible where we learned about Ruth, Paul, Joseph, David, and more. In the evening we had chapel with a different speaker every night.

Life Camp offers lots of fun, active activities. After lunch girls go swimming for about an hour to an hour and a half. Directly afterward is field games where we play multiple different games such as: capture the flag, belly bumpers, soccer, dodge ball and that is only scratching the surface of all the games. Soon afterward, everyone enjoys what is probably most people's favorite activity– free time! At this time the campers are allowed to do just about anything. The only hitch is that if you want to go outside the boundaries or into the creek that flows by, you must have a staff person who is willing to accompany you or at least keep you in their sight. During some free times the staff have organized activities for the campers. One day there was a gold hunt in the creek where whoever wanted to go could learn how to pan for gold and the likely places gold would be. Another exciting expedition was when a group of campers hiked a ways up the mountain to search for fossils. Most kids found one– or two– or even more! I was in the category of “even more”. I found two rocks but combined in the two rocks was a total of three clam fossils. I was given two more rocks with fossils, their total– six plus!!! The last activity at the end of the day is “night games”. During “night games” we mostly play “blob tag” which is similar to family tag. The only other game that I can remember playing at night was capture the flag.

My LIFE Camp cabin group.

Everything about Life Camp was a lot of fun- so much fun that is- that I can't choose which thing was the funnest. I was blessed to be in a small cabin with only three other girls and one fantastic counselor. Between night time Devotions and Missions, swimming and free time, snack and dinner, everything was so fabulous. I feel like I grew closer to God and will be able to be better at the fruits of the spirit. Thank you, Jake, for putting on Life Camp so faithfully each year and for being interactive with the campers! Thanks everyone who sent me and my sister letters at Life Camp! It meant a lot!