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I'm now 23 years and 2 days old.

I've been told that this is a great year and that 23 is a wonderful, fun age to be. I don't know much about being 23, so I asked why:

"Because it's a year that will have a lot of change for you."

Well, I'm typically not a big fan of a lot of change. But, I've been told that it's good, so I'm just going to gear up, take a deep breath, put a smile on my face, and say, "bring it."

Thoughts during a much needed break (last night)

Here's a mental ramble for you:

So, I've been reading scripts from about 3pm-9:30pm today. (That's a complete guess - I was looking at pages, not the clock.) And during my entire time doing so I've been listening to the Christmas Music station I created on Pandora. That's a lot of Christmas music. (But it's provided a better background sound than my neighbors' driving bass line to the hip-hop that they were listening to.)

At any rate, this song just came up:
"Hark the Herold Angels Sing" by the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra on their album entitled, "Christmas Choral Classics."

My first thought when I finally noticed hearing it was to skip the song. It's not quite "my style." I love classical music but this is/was a bit - how shall I say it - "heavy" for me.

And yet, as I held my finger poised, lightly scratching the button to skip the song, I made a little mental connection:

A friend of mine and I were talking last night about how this holiday season is a time of Spiritual Warfare. I mean, real spiritual War. The evil one knew that his defeat was imminent. The first Christmas wasn't nice, it wasn't gift wrapped, and somehow I kind of doubt that it was "peaceful" or "quiet" in the sense that we think about. This was no Hallmark image.

Evil raged against Good. Choirs and armies of angels filled the sky. Their appearance was glorious and terrifying.

Bring it back to this song, sung in this manner, by this choir, in this orchestra... "Heavy."



"'Hark!' The Herold Angels sing, 'Glory to the newborn king!'"



The style carries strength. And that's something to consider. The divine combination of absolute strength with absolute vulnerability.
It's beautiful.


It's Christmas.

Thankful

Okay, this is about two weeks belated, but I just wanted to run a quick recap on my Thanksgiving:

The Day of:
~ woke up at 4AM
~ drove to Modesto with my mom - girls' roadie! (drive time = 6hours)
~ sorted and hulled pecans while waiting for Thanksgiving lunch/dinner to be ready
~ recruited cousin to join in the work/fun
~ ate a lot of good food. had a lot of good conversation.
~ observed family
~ went on a walk down the canal for about 4 miles with Grandma and Cousin Christie
~ came back and ate pie
~ finished hulling pecans (helped out Uncle Nick a LOT by getting this chore done for him)
~ recruited cousin and aunts to help out this time
~ listened to Uncle Nick play flamenco guitar while we hulled
~ admired the newest member of "The Miller Clan" little Joshua Crooker
~ spent time with family

The Day after:
~ woke up at 4:25AM to go on a Black Friday Adventure with my Cousin Christie
~ went to Walmart and bought myself a camera - got lost getting there
~ went back to my aunt's house and went back to sleep - got lost getting back
~ woke up and spent more time with family
~ explored new camera
~ went on another walk down the canal with Mom
~ drove back home with Mom - picked persimmons before we left and also got a bag of pecans to shell

And there's a whole lotta love.

*Photos edited by Matt Vargo