Friday, June 20

In Which I Connect With Nature

I went outside last night, guys.

It was awful.

I think our part of Florida is quite possibly the most humidity-prone area of the entire world (except for like maybe the Amazon rainforest or Mars or something). So that combined with temperatures that rival the torrid surface of the Sun can cause slight discomfort to the brave few who choose to venture outdoors in summer.

AND I AM VERY BRAVE.

So there I was, walking around downtown Pensacola, outside in the summer.

I've never tried swimming in a giant bowl of steaming hot clam chowder before, but I imagine it feels about like walking around downtown Pensacola, outside in the summer.

So there I was, walking and walking and walking and walking and walking, and sweating even more than I was walking, when suddenly my whole evening was brightened by a factor of twelve.

I made a friend.


Everyone, this is Shellton. He's kind of quiet and very shy, but I'm sure he's doing his best to say hello to you all.

In the short time I spent with Shellton last night, I feel like we got to know each other pretty well. He's obviously adorable and sensitive. He was a great listener, too.

In fact, come to think of it, he didn't say a word all night....

And that's the one thing about Shellton that's not so great.

He's dead. And he kind of stinks. A lot.

But true friendship knows no bounds. I was just a girl looking to connect with nature, and he was just...well, a dead crab. We were a perfect match, and I enjoyed a wonderful time with my new - albeit odoriferous - friend.

Sadly, I ended up having to ditch him in the grass because I really think he was kinda into me and as a general rule I don't date crustaceans, so that was the end of my short friendship with Shellton the Dead Crab, and also probably the last time I try to connect with nature.

Nature smells bad, so while I am happy to enjoy it in moderation, you'll not find me living off the land. Give me my iced coffee, puh-leeezz.

The moral of this story is: Every night can be an adventure when you go barefoot and make friends with dead crabs, but don't feel bad if you end up deciding that you're better suited for living off an iced latte than living off the land.

And that's what happens when Meredith goes outside.

Friday, June 13

On Sincerity

"If you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything at all." 

A common enough aphorism, I'm sure. I know I've heard this one more times than I can say I always appreciated.

But as usual, it took me a long time to realize the full measure of wisdom in this saying (and chances are I still haven't got it all). Not only did it take a long time, it actually took some divine intervention.

As stated in previous posts, I am a girl. And as I am well aware, girls are very odd and often irrational creatures. And I'm about to tell you one of our greatest secrets.

We all hate each other.

Oh, sure, you may be my best friend, but you have nicer hair than me. You may be my sister, but WHY do you have such gorgeous eyes? 

We can't stand not having all the beauty, talent, intelligence, humor, charm, and wit when obviously every other girl does.

We hate you.

Nevertheless, we will rain down compliments on you like nobody's business at every possible opportunity.

Because we hate you.

"Ohhhhh my gooooodnessss girlll!!!! I loooooveee your hairrr!!!"

"DEM EYES DOE"

"Can you just not? Please? Like...just no. Stop. Ugh."

*shudder*

Sadly, I think I'm guilty of all of those examples and more.

Now don't get me wrong - girls can compliment sincerely. But in general, we don't think through what we're saying enough to even be completely sure that we mean it.

I've been thinking a lot about sincerity lately and trying to be more careful about not paying compliments that I don't honestly mean.

So this brings me back to the original thought. Compliments are always good, yes? So what's the harm in paying a few not-entirely-sincere compliments?

I was reading through Psalms earlier (because I really think it would be very hard to read too many Psalms - they're good for my heart and mind) and I came across these verses:

Help, LORD; for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men. They speak vanity every one with his neighbour: with flattering lips and with a double heart do they speak. The LORD shall cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things. (Ps. 12)

See that line that I put in bold? Does that sound familiar at all?

Well, I don't know about you, but it sounds an awful lot like those insincere compliments I told you about. And it doesn't sound like God deals very kindly with people who do that.

Don't be insincere with your words.

Not only does that passage in Psalms tell us what we should not do, it gives us something to aim for (I love when the Bible is this clear).

The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.

This is the standard that we should hold ourselves to. So perhaps it's time we rephrase those wise words from earlier now that the Bible has shed some light on the situation.

"If you don't have anything good, true, and sincere to say, don't say anything at all."

Sunday, June 8

On Housekeeping

The family reunion is over for another year!

We traveled without event and vacationed very much with event. Which is good. I know that none of you thought about anything other than me for the last week, so I am happy to announce that you can rest easy that my vacation was a success.

Just a leetle housekeeping today. (It always used to confuse me when people would say "just a few housekeeping things" because I was like, "Wait. Are we cleaning stuff today?")

Meredith's annoying housekeeping items supplemented with Sherlock GIFs because they help the medicine go down:

1. For those of you who noticed that I changed the appearance of my blog yet again:

2. For those of you who like the changes:

3. For those of you who don't:

4. I'm finding it a little difficult to blog because my Pandora is going constantly and whenever I have a stroke of blogging genius, HERE COMES MY JAAAAAMMMMMM and I'm like
And then I forget whatever it was and I'm like
And naturally that makes blogging a little difficult.

That's all the housekeeping stuff.

Finally, I just want to communicate that I'm very proud of myself for not going like eight months without blogging. Keep in mind that this will be me every time I see this post, this post that I posted less than twenty-four hours after getting home from an exhausting vacation that normally would have hindered me from posting posty posts like this post.

And I'm really going to try to think deep, bloggy thoughts so I'll have stuff to talk to you about over the summer months without having to use Sherlock again.

And with that, I leave you with these summer wishes: May your tan never fade, may your ice cubes never melt, and may your shorts never ride up in the middle.