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.

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."

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.

On Updates, Ramblings, and Dinosaurs

I just wanted to give you guys a quick (please emphasize this word in your brains because I mean it) update on what's about to happen...

If you've been following my blog for a while, as most of you have (and by the way, thank you and I love you for still being here even though I'm clearly a terrible and neglectful blogger), you'll probably remember my mini-series last year where I told you all about my family reunion, complete with pictures and all.

Well, that's happening again.

The reunion, not the mini-series. We'll see about any reunion-related material when I get back. Currently I don't technically have a camera so I would have to just write the whole thing and come on, guys - I'm not that entertaining.

So yeah, anyways. I'll be indisposed for the next few days because I'll be gallivanting around the forest and the mountains and having a wonderful time.

Consequently, I will not be writing, and consequently, I will not be posting here.

Which is nothing new.

But now I have an excuse.

So yeah! In case you think of little old me at all over the next week, just know that I really do miss writing stuff here, but I don't want to write all kinds of junk that you don't want to read (*cough* like this post *cough*) so I'm waiting to find my muse. Hopefully it will come at some point soon.

I hope that maybe you'll have some sort of thrilling adventure this week like I expect to! As always, thoughts and prayers are appreciated, especially for safety since even though climbing out to the very edge of a very steep and dangerous mountain precipice is probably not a very good idea, I'm probably going to do it anyway because I am very dumb. And then I will probably do it a few more times for good measure.

And also we have to drive a long way.

Anyways. This got long and rambling.

I hope to be back at the end of my vacation refreshed and renewed and ready to stop letting you guys down all the time, and in the meantime I hope things are lovely and ducky in your corner of the world.

Get it? It's funny because the world is round.

NOT BREAKING NEWS

I realized something a while ago.

To my understanding, you read my blog because, for some reason unbeknownst to me, you are interested in me/my life/my thoughts and opinions.

But while I've been very busy not keeping you all up to date on my life, things have been merrily chugging along in Meredithworld.

That should really be a theme park... Or maybe we can just go with this:

But I digress.

Anyway. Since you guys are interested in my life (and if you really aren't, please remember that ignorance is bliss and don't inform me otherwise) I decided to get you caught up on some of the majorer things that I've done or been up to, supplemented of course with tons of pictures and GIFs because hellurrrrr I just really like them and they suit my motives.

1. I finished school and passed another semester of college with my dignity mostly intact.

2. I turned in my final English assignment, a big research paper that pretty much killed my brain. When I turned it in I was all like

and when I got it back the teacher was all like "ONE HUNDRED AND THREE" so I was pretty happy.

3. I got a cute little coffeemaker and now I can make hot tea in my room whenever I want to.

4. I apparently signed up to work in our church nursery with Mom over the summer. I'll be a regular old Mary Poppins, I just know it.

 

5. I went to my first opera. And had a blast. And went to the second showing. And fangirled a leetle.

6. I wore heels to the aforementioned opera, unwillingly.

7. I signed up for music camp in the summer. And another music camp. And I found out that apparently my summer is going to busy. Yay.

8. I went to a lot of lectures and concerts and such and felt very classy and cosmopolitan and sophisticated.

9. Mom and I watched two seasons of Call the Midwife. It's a totally cute show, but I don't recommend it for...anyone, really.

10. I entered a few things in the homeschool art show and won a few prizes. And I also painted and did other various artsy things.

Like a boss.

11. I went to the beach with mi familia. The water is finally getting warm and swimmy.

12. I got rid of my textbooks from this past semester and emptied out my school bag for the last time.

13. I took the SAT again. And had a terrifying proctor. Again. I think they should just do this at the beginning of the test

because really. Let's talk real to each other like grown-ups, shall we?

14. After vegging out a little to reward myself for surviving a pretty brutal semester, I realized that I'm officially a high school senior now. Which means the next year is going to be full of college stuff, GPA's, transcripts, senior photos, graduation gowns, stress, and did I mention stress?

So yeah. There's a brief summary-ish of the past month or so. Now for the future, to sum up my feelings going into this summer...

Let's hope I get one.