Bella.

I am thinking of her tonight. This darling, energetic, mischevious, beautiful, capable girl........ her smile can light up the world, don't you think?

She's definitely getting me through this paper tonight. :)

I Peter 5:7

This verse is resonating in my heart tonight. What a beautiful truth it is, that there is One with whom filters are not needed!

A list

1) I am in Charlotte NC (more on this later).
2) It's honest-to-goodness AUTUMN here!! :)
3) I am so in love with this city
4) We are here for a conference. It got into full swing today. And hence,
5) I keep forgetting that it's Sunday.

Another look at The Pearl (from space)

Because - hey - if I can't be there, I might as well spend all my time LOOKING at it, right? ;)

Landsat TM imagery (Jan 1986). I'm going to be staring at this area for a long time coming,.....

Some nights we do this.......

There's a little coffee house at the edge of campus that my friends and I love called Common Grounds. They make delicious coffee and they've got this little backyard that is a fun venue for hosting events..... Oftentimes it's music-related. Occasionally it's someone pretty big (we discovered the Civil Wars here). Last night? Mutemath with Civil Twilight and the Quiet Entertainer. 

Lauren, ever the music lover, was soooo excited to go and "dragged" me (not really) along with her. It was an absolutely fabulous concert! The Quiet Entertainer started things off, then the Civil Twilight followed suit with a great set (love new music discoveries!). After an intermission, Mutemath made an explosive entrance, drumming while walking through the audience from the back. They played song after song for two hours, never letting up. What a concert! There were people beside us who had no idea about "concert etiquette" (Laur and I have decided that a book needs to be written on the subject), and there were others nearby who were smoking up all through the concert (ugh), and we left with ears ringing (they were still stopped up this morning). But it was SO. WORTH. IT. :)

My sole regret? Not bringing my camera!! Here are some phone pictures though:

 The Quiet Entertainer, starting things off right.

 Civil Twilight! Really liked their music.... and they have the coolest merch. :)

 The awesome headliners!

 Boom! Lights.

 Playing synth effects standing on a table in the middle of the crowd? That happened.

Crowd surfing on a flashing air mattress? THAT happened.

Ugh. Not bringing my camera was such a bad decision on my part. What a great concert experience, though!! I may not listen to Mutemath's music regularly, but they are a great live band that I would not think twice about seeing in concert. Repeatedly. 

If Mutemath comes through your town, GO. Have fun. Don't forget your camera. And ear plugs. :)

Hello! It's been awhile!

Soooo yep. It has been months since the last time I inhabited this corner of the blogosphere. An entire eventful summer passed by, and a brand-new school semester has started to find me in the geology doctorate program at Baylor. The weather has finally decided to get with the program and cool down (Autumn! Bliss!!). Something weird happened and Blogger ate all my photos..... one big reason why I haven't bothered to blog lately. But by far the main reason Shards has gotten dusty is just that I haven't been around.

Where have I been?

Uganda, Africa! (Hence the shiny-new blog banner, complete with giraffes)

To be totally frank, I never had aspirations to go to Africa.... but God definitely has different ideas. The opportunity presented itself, and what else could I do besides grab it with both hands?? So we went. I got to set feet on a new continent, see a new land, meet a new people. And as is usual when I go to a new land, my heart got stretched in directions I never knew it could go. The Pearl of Africa and her warm, generous people have worked their way into my heart. Now I'm state-side again, but every time I hear mention of Uganda, my ears perk up. I smile so big when I hear Ugandan voices speak and when I hear their music. My heart breaks when I hear about the war the people have survived, and everything they still fight through now. Ugandans are so strong.... Knowing that they lived through what they have, and are still able to smile and hope and live, absolutely amazes me. I made so many new friends, and have come to love this land in a very short time.

Dear Pearl of Africa, it was a pleasure! Thank you for a sweet time.

Mommies and babies

Recently, my family and I spent an afternoon at Homestead Heritage, eating great food, visiting the homestead, and spending time together. I noticed that a few of my photos from that day are of mommies and their babies and thought it was especially appropriate since that was right around mother's day:

 Baby......

........... mommy and baby.

Mommy and babies.

And of course, my favorite of all:

Baby.......

 ....... mommy and baby.

Happy belated Mothers' Day! :)

A problem and a list.

One of my (many) shortfalls as an aspiring shutterbug, is that most of what I shoot gets buried in storage, never processed and never seen by anyone. It's so easy to take a hundred shots...... but processing them? Something else entirely.

Is there a good way to circumvent this constant problem?

I haven't come up with anything brilliant yet (suggestions?).... but in the mean time, I figure a list and a few loose deadlines might help:

- family photos (ASAP! In time for the accompanying card to get to Dad in time for Father's day)
- Costa Rica photos (within the next week.... I need the photos as leverage. Also in all fairness, I shouldn't take off on another overseas trip without closing out the last one, yes?)
- OT Hayward dinner photos (before said overseas trip takes place in July)
- wetland well drilling photos (preferrably also before said overseas trip..... also need these for leverage.)

Hmm that sure is alot of photos to get through before the end of the summer. Let's see what goals can do!

Today I saw.....

... a very clever bumper sticker:

... a book that so very much inspires me to try quilting:

... and a book that I'm not so sure about. Erm, really???

First of the season

The different climate of Texas is still something I'm not quite used to..... While I aDORE Texan winters, the early onset of high temperatures and scorching sun is still unpleasant. If I were still in Canada, I would still be in my winter gear, shuffling through the season's final snows!

Another thing that I am still not used to is how early you can start planting the year's gardens. In Canada, one would still merely be dreaming about what one wants to plant that year. For us, though, Lauren and Laura have been building our garden for months! Laura has had flowers rotating through her little flower patch by her window all winter long, in fact. A little while ago, we dug Lauren some vegetable patches, where she sowed various veggie seeds. We were all pleasantly surprised to see little radish tops poking through the earth earlier this week! We pulled a few..... aren't they such a beautiful colour?

I tried them, and they are SUPER spicy and earthy.... like a mix between what you would normally expect a radish to be, mixed with horseradish. Still..... It is so gratifying to eat something grown from your own yard. I mixed them into a salad and it was delicious! This salad in fact. I made it twice.... you can substitute chicken for tuna, or add no meat at all; both are equally yummy.

Spring break! (and catching up)

Wow it has been an age since I last blogged. Time has just been zipping by!! After going home for Christmas and New Years to spend time with family, I came back to Waco and hit the ground running. Starting a new class load and just keeping up with it (why did I pick these classes to take together?! Someone should've warned me....), finishing writing my masters thesis, defending the thesis (aka, slaying le monstre), editing said thesis, and beginning to plan out the dissertation (which shall be aptly named the hydra) has been far more than enough to keep me busy. I'm becoming well-known by friends as the girl who regularly operates on next to no sleep!! Thank goodness for church, where I get to play music, still. It's the one regular bit of fun I get, and I still find it a pleasure and a thrill. Aside from this, there has been time to do very little else!

I am SO thankful that it is spring break this week! My work-list is no shorter, but the absence of looming deadlines for a week is incredibly liberating. It has already given me the opportunity to actually take some time off from school work this weekend to catch up on the rest of my life! First order of business, oil change and new tires for Zippy Car. Before and after:

As you can see, my tires were in dire need of changing. I don't think I've ever seen such smooth tires before! Eeek.

So grateful for a week of rest (albeit a working break, but I'll take it!). Let's see how it all plays out!

ps: Have I mentioned? I am going to be an aunt come June! Wheeeeee!!!!! I'm already collecting ideas for some great hand-mades for my niece-to-be, which if I get my act together, I will blog about. I can't wait to meet you, Poppy!!