The Importance of Living Selflessly

  I am entering a contest at Tessa Emily Hall's blog and one of the entries said 'write a blog post on the importance of selfless living', so I figured that would be a great post to get back here with. :)

  Now you might think of living selflessly as becoming a superhero or something. But it doesn't have to be painful or even be your career. 

1. Where you can be selfless
  Anywhere! It is so simple and so rewarding to be selfless if you can just get past that first doubt that nibbles at your mind. You can be selfless at home with your parents and siblings. At the grocery store you can help that little old person who trying to get the coin they dropped by themselves. At school that kid who always sits at that table by themselves. And even when people aren't around, say at an empty park and you see a McDonalds cup roll by, pick it up and throw it away!

2. Why should you be selfless
  It really makes a difference. You know that day when everything is going wrong and you can't do anything right and some stranger helps you in some way. It feels like you've just been handed $100 free. Then when your in their shoes and you see that little girl smile at you 'cause you liked her pink shoes, your heart just melts at how you made some stranger happy with just a couple words. 

3. What exactly is selflessness
  Selflessness is when you stop thinking about how yourself and give just a bit of your time to help someone else. It's not thinking, 'Oh God's really going to be pleased with this one. Wonder how He'll reward me.' or 'Wow I am such a nice person, no wonder everyone loves me.' It should be because you want to make that person happy.

4. Who are some great role models 
  Jesus: He died on the cross so that we might live eternally in Heaven. 

  Florence Nightingale: She stayed up a lot without sleep for days so she could care for men who were sick and dying. She would take their last words and send them home to their families with the news that their son, father, and husband was dead. 

  Amy Carmichael and David Livingstone and other missionaries who served in foreign countries giving their lives to helping spread the word of Jesus Christ.

  George Washington: He didn't want to be president you know. He wanted to go home and live a quiet life after the war. And he definitely didn't want to be king. But he became the 1st president of the USA because we wanted him. Because we knew that he would do his job faithfully and to the best of his abilities.   

  There and lots and lots of people out there who serve just like these people did, but they are often drowned out by the selfish people of this world. The people who only care about themselves. But by being selfless we will spread seeds and the light will grow. 

  Have you ever heard of Passing It On? Well most of the time if you do something nice for someone that someone will want to do someone nice for someone else and it just keeps going. 

I hope you are inspired to do something out of your way today. :) If you have any thoughts leave them in the comments!

Brookie

My 'Then and Now' Speech for the Rodeo

  So I've been trying to memorize my speech for Friday. So I figured I would kill two birds with one stone and write it out mostly by memory for you guys. :) I don't know how interesting it will be for you, seeing as it's about my town. But for history lovers out there here you go.

  "My family and I moved to Douglas County just over two years ago from Fort Morgan. Douglas County is named after Stephen A. Douglas, a senator from Illinois. Douglas County was one of the original counties in the Colorado territory created by the Colorado territorial legislature.

  Today I live in Larkspur with my family. Most people know it for the Renaissance Festival, but there is much more history to our little town than that.

  Larkspur was named after the purple flower of the same name that grows abundantly in the area. Larkspur was first settled by people heading west in 1858 for the Pike's Peak or Bust Gold Rush. They were then followed by farmers, ranchers, and business people. The town was originally called Huntsville after Alexander Cameron Hunt a territorial governor. Huntsville was technically two miles north of present day Larkspur. Which was an ideal location because it was half way between Denver City and Colorado City.  It had lush native grasses, fertile soil, streams, it was protected by the Hunt Butte, and was surrounded by tick forests.
  Huntsville was the first town in Douglas County to have a post office.
  During the Indian Uprisings in the 1860s they built a stockade known as Fort Lincoln to protect nearby ranchers and their families from attack. In fact thirty families took refuge for six months in 1864.

  In 1871 railroad tracks from the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad had reached Larkspur. It then became a major hub on the railway due to the abundant gypsum, clay, lumber, and creamery products.

  Since it's inception there have been two major floods to this region. The first on May 7, 1864 and the second June of 1865 taking with it any remains of the original Huntsville.

  Today Larkspur has it's own fire department. There are no Indian uprisings. 95 families call it home. And yes we hold the annual Renaissance Festival that is attended by 225,000 people each year.

Pike's Peak. :) My beautiful neighbor.

  I consider myself to be truly blessed to live in such a beautiful area. To live in the state with the most sunshine days, where we are the only state in the union were our water only flows out and not in from another state. To live in the shadow of Pike's Peak and 52 other mountains that tower over 14thousand feet. Lastly where Katherine Lee Bates was inspired to pen the words for 'America the Beautiful'.

  "Of beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple mountains majesty, above the fruited plains. America! America! God shed His grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea."

So whoever just finished that. Many thanks. :) And I hope you enjoyed it. Does anyone have an insight. I would gladly take any critique. Or would love to talk to you about anything in here. :)

What I'm doing this week

So! My birthday is over, my birthday party is over, back to life. But... I've got a cold. Yep, so that means lots of hand washing, vitamin C sucking, disinfecting, and medicine taking.

Also, Shilo our Golden Retriever has an infection in her neck. Poor girl had to go to the vet's the other day and they drained a lot of the puss, but she's still big. So she gets a piece of cheese every day with her medicine.

Then this weekend is the Rodeo Princess contest. For those of you who don't know what that is: the Rodeo Princess represents her county. She, the Queen, and the Princess attendant go to most of the rodeos in her state and, well, represents her county.
My little sister and I are trying out. (If I'm feeling better by then)

What have you all been up to?

Brookie

Why I Believe in Christianity #1

Here is a great video with more info that I as a teenager can't explain very well. :)

And here is what I have to say:
The Bombardier Beetle is one of my favorite bugs, just because he shoots he shoots hot stuff out his bum. Ahem... anyways.

But first here is Wikipedia's introduction to this tiny little ball of fire. (Please when I refer to things this way don't get all technical on about how, it's not really a 'ball of fire'. I'm just goofing around)



Bombardier beetles are ground beetles (Carabidae) in the tribes Brachinini, Paussini, Ozaenini, or Metriini—more than 500 species altogether—which are most notable for the defense mechanism that gives them their name: when disturbed, they eject a hot noxious chemical spray from the tip of their abdomen, with a popping sound.
The spray is produced by a reaction between two chemical compounds, hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide, stored in separate reservoirs in the beetle's abdomen and mixed when needed in a third chamber with water and catalytic enzymes. Heat from the reaction brings the mixture to near the boiling point of water and produces gas that drives the ejection. The damage caused can be fatal to attacking insects and small creatures and is painful to human skin. Some bombardier beetles can direct the spray over a wide range of directions.

How can this little guy evolve? If a beetle started getting these chemicals, the first time he tried to use it, he would blow himself up. Pop! (Sorry, it's the teen in me) Evolution takes a long, long time. If he only gets part of these things at once, it won't work correctly. He wouldn't have the right compartments, and he wouldn't have the chemical mixture all set up. Even Wiki admits that Evolutionists admit that they haven't figured out how it could work. They do say they might, maybe, have a lead, but that's ONLY a lead. If they find something I'm game for reading about it. But they don't have anything.

Now if he was created at once by a Creator, it would make sense. He'd be all intact. This little guy at the moment points fully at a Divine Creator.

This isn't the only thing. I'll have more coming. :)

Dear Atheists reading this. Please don't get all offensive.  I don't wish to get into arguments, and I don't want to offend anyone. I'm just presenting my beliefs the same way you present yours. :)

Brookie

100 Hard Things Challenge

So... I've actually been doing it this time. Yea! ;)

Here is what I've done:

Day one: I hate talking on the phone. Even with family. But I called the eye doctor's office! I did it and I didn't mess up or freak out. :D

Day two: I've been helping out more with dinner.

Day three: I've decided to try out for our county rodeo princess!

So I won't be able to do a hard thing every day and post about it. Sometimes I do something not very big, then forget what it was by the end of the day...
But thanks for your support guys! :)

Brookie

Responsibility

So my mom is at the beach with my aunts and nana. My dad is at work. And I have been slacking.

I love to work when I get started, but if I don't have that motivation to get rolling I slack off. Which would be: searching for hours for a picture of one of my characters,(I don't know how I haven't even found one close) writing, (Which isn't bad, it's just doing that instead of helping) blogging ;P, and things like that.

Sooo, I've gotten my motivation today. Piano lessons. ;) And I'm back on track.

But do you guys struggle with this too? I used my future in writing as an excuse. Do you have an excuse that sounds pretty good to you?

We can fall behind in our duties, but laziness is of the Devil. Even being lazy when there isn't much to do is wrong. We should always be investing time to grow, mentally, physically, and emotionally. 

So that's why I'm going to try this again. But this time I won't forget about it the very next day. I'm doing the 100 Hard Things Challenge.

Here is the link to get more info on it: Hard Things Challenge at The Rebelution. You'll have to go to the 'About' page, and then to the challenge. :)

I'm asking you to keep me responsible. At least twice a week I'll update my progress. :)

Thanks for your help!

Brookie

Frozen / Things we can learn from the characters / Elsa

Oh my gosh I have wanted to do a post on Frozen forever. I am finally doing it!!

Elsa: At the beginning Elsa tried to hide her powers. Then she let them slip and ran away. Then she used them excessively, not caring about anything anymore. She was as the song goes, 'Letting it go'. Then she accidentally hurt Anna. Anna eventually ended up saving her, and she sat back down, and got to work. 

What we can learn: 1) She was never happy hiding her powers. God gives us gifts to use for His glory, not to hide away.  2) When she finally let her powers loose, she let go of the reins and let the horse run wild. It's okay to let a horse run, but she let go of the reins. She not only didn't listen to the bad things people where saying about her, which was good, but she forgot all responsibility of being queen, older sister, and creature of God 3) Because of her lack of responsibility she hurt Anna when Anna was trying to help Elsa and Arendelle 4) Anna was the one who ended up saving Elsa from Prince Hans. When Elsa realized what true love was, and how to restore summer, she finally did the right thing 5) Elsa took back the reins and got her kingdom under control.

I'll be doing more with Anna, Hans, Christophe, and Olaf, and maybe Sven.

Hope you liked it. I'd really like some feed-back on how I can improve these posts, I don't feel like this was the best, but don't know how to make it better.

Brookie