Summer Reading, Had Me a Blast!

I think that there is nothing in this world so wonderful as a library. The bigger the better. I had a morning to do just exactly what I wanted and (being me) I went to the Bellevue Regional Library.

I went armed with my cutest black first-grade-teacher sweater, a giant canvas bag for the books and a desire to do something constructive with my summer. The late-night Lord of the Rings marathon can’t last forever.

I work out with John Locke

Today I bounced out of bed, dead set on going to the gym. I figured that no-one would want to be working out on a national holiday. Boy was I wrong. The place was packed, mostly with men.  Plus, over by the free weights, chatting it up with a very sweaty short guy was John Locke from LOST.

Ok, not really. But he looked EXACTLY like him.

Normally when I’m at the gym it’s me, the body-building moms and a few guys. This is a perfect situation. No-one to impress and not too many bodies cluttering up the paths. Any of you ladies who go to the gym on a regular basis can appreciate my gym pet-peeve; men who sit on their machines for ridiculous amounts of time. Don’t they know about super setting?! When I’m working out I move with great purpose. I’m not buff but I’m determined. However, men seem to think that sitting for long periods is a neccesary part of the process.

Gahh!!

More to come later.

Those before sleep thoughts

So last night as I was drifting off to sleep I was thinking of sedimentary rocks. You know, the rocks that are made when bits of sand and dirt and leaves etc are crushed by enormous pressure until they make rock.

Well, as I was going off to sleep I was thinking that I would hate to be made into sedimentary rock. I don’t like confined spaces and being underground is a little frightening. Being squished is really scary. I saw myself as one of those bits of sand being squashed into rock and for two seconds my heart beat sped up.

So there you are. I do NOT want to be made into sedimentary rock.

The Pain-free life

(Be prepared for a hodge-podge of thoughts…)

“We none of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.”- Persuasion

The subject of pain and hardship is one that I have been thinking much of lately. God once told me that my life would not be easy, but it would be an adventure. When he said that I got really excited. Somehow, in my head, if I admitted that it was going to be hard/was hard, it would suddenly become easy.

Let me try and explain that better. Have you ever been talking to a doctor and had them say “Oh it’s just pneumonia” like that was supposed to help? The ‘diagnosis is not a synonym for cure’ syndrome. That’s how I’ve felt about the hard times in my life. If I admit that it is difficult, it should cease to be so. It’s taken me about five years to clue in that that is not quite how it works.

Even in the relatively sheltered life of a suburban American girl, life presents one with choices. There is the easy road; less profitable and certainly more comfortable than the alternative. The alternative, you see, is a road where one is often alone, where the choices we make cost us something. It rather painful a good chunk of the time. However, along that road is Joy. “Pleasure, as someone once said, “is not Joy, and lust is not Love”. One is easy but fleeting, the other is eternal.

On a slight side note, I am continually shocked at the American capactity to insulate oneself from pain. Comfort at any cost seems to be the new American dream. And it’s not just physical comfort. Heaven forbid that you love someone enough that they can hurt you! What a tragedy it would be to think long and hard about how difficult life is for most of the people on the planet. Did you know there are children dying of starvation? Real children, not pictures on a billboard. Maybe if we could pause long enough to absorb that truth, we might be uncomfortable enough to do something about it. 

That’s not to say that we should seek out people who will hurt us, or jump off of bridges just for the adventure of it. But maybe it does mean turning the other cheek just long enough to get a black eye, or risking personal safety a little when we learn a new skill.

Because, as much as the advertising world would love you to think so, pain isn’t fatal and a broken heart is not terminal. Even hunger won’t actually hurt you. So maybe we can try loving each other a little more or going on that adventure or even not having the four cookies just because they are there.

Comfort isn’t the answer. And Joy can be found in any circumstance.

Isabelle’s Big Adventure

So I have this cat. No, that’s not right. She is a female mammal who certainly looks like a feline. However she lacks most of the traits neccesary to attain to the status of ‘cat’. She doesn’t play. She switches back and forth from affectionate to disdainful with more than usual frequency. Moreover, she is scared of everything.

So imagine my suprise when, as I was sitting in the farthest corner of the yard this afternoon, I saw her running toward me. Now, she never ventures more than five feet from the house. I was thunderstruck. When my mother later informed me that Isabelle had stayed down there all afternoon I could hardly believe it.

Maybe after nine years she’s finally becoming a real cat.

It was actually a lovely day. I went errand-running, sat on the back porch for a couple of hours, slept, made dinner and went on a 90 minute walk. Even better than all of that, I dug out the oils for the first time in three years and painted.  Now I am watching Persuasion and thinking about going to bed.

I hope you all had as nice of a day as I have had.

Life, as it turns out…

…is one endless set up.

And I’m ok with that.

Hi, my name is Meghan Smith and I’ve been an addict for two months. I freely admit that I turn on the TV at random hours of the day in the hopes that Jon and Kate plus eight will be on. In the past 24 hours I’m two for two. It is by far my favorite thing to watch. I like watching the sextuplets. I like the racks and racks of tiny shoes. Jon and Kate crack me up. Yes, I am most definetly an addict.

Ironman: The Review

I like superhero movies. A lot.

I like special effects, plots that are so comic book-ie you can practically smell the ink and heroesthat really make you want to believe. That means that whenever I go into any kind of superhero movie, I am predisposed to like it. It’s my genre.

But even with that, I was pleasantly surprised. Instead of relying on a quick tranformation and long emotional adjustment (ie Spiderman, X-men) this story was more about the man behind the mask than it was about blowing people up. The story was not as predictable as most, excepting the ever-present “I’m in love with a moody vigilanty who doesn’t treat me right” romantic subplot, that is.

Brrrr brrrr brrrr BRRRRRRRR

(That was supposed to be triumphant horn noises like in old Disney movies.)

Since my sister and brother in law have become shockingly negligent in the amount and length of their posts (full time jobs and making a human will do that to you) I am stepping in to fill the void.

How? you ask.

Simple.

I created an entire blog devoted solely to my artistic endeavors. I figure I have enough stuff saved up that I can do one post/day for a month. By that time I should have MORE done. Hopefully. It’s just visual art. I’ll keep the stories and poetry over here at walking in the rain.

So please check out Mist Over the Water and enjoy!

I’m Back!

It’s been a long time since I posted anything of substance, and even longer since I had any real desire to post. But the creative juices have been given the leisure time that they needed so here I am!

I’ve been working for the past six months at Village Theatre and doing very little else. Somehow, having to talk on the phone in a pleasant voice for long periods of time makes me too tired to do anything creative. Talking on the phone combined with paperwork and a stressful atmosphere guarantees that nothing else will get done.

But I quit that job (in rather spectacular fashion) and have spent the last few weeks enjoying the people in my life. Jennifer and Aaron were here for two weeks, which was SO much more fun than a barrel of monkeys. Then my friend Nikki came for four days. I lived with Nikki in New Zealand and she is on a round-the-world trip with God right now. We were incredibly blessed to have her stop in our humble corner of the world.

Bella

Brilliant.

 

Oh God, I want to make movies!