fireflies.

Yes, it's been quite some time. I'm just so busy between sleeping, eating, and catching up on The Office that I don't seem to have the time to write.

Seriously though, I have been keeping myself busy. I've been at home for the last two weeks after helping my sister move into her new place near DC. I've been away from home since this past Christmas, making it the longest time in my life. The amount of time with the extreme different environments I've experienced since then have made it the most drastic 'homecoming' attitude I've had yet.

Realization : I like my hometown. Yes, architects, it's in the suburbs, but I like it. It's old and a little tired, but at least there is character, which is more than a lot of the overwhelming sprawl these days can account for. So what have I learned since being home?

• I'm really good at the Wii shooting game.
• I'm still really bad at Othello.
• 
  The Canfield Fair never fails to disappoint fans of extremely large pumpkins.
• It's refreshing spending time with old friends. After spending many years apart from several friends, getting back together, catching up, recalling old times as well as where we may be headed in the future helps things set in place. "Oh yes, I could see you as an architect," someone commented to me. Thank you! Sometimes I do not see this, so it is good when you do.
• A renewed sense of the importance of prayer. I had a church friend in bad shape in the hospital. A couple churches and many people were praying for him, and I found out that his bleak condition has improved.
• Spirituality is important. For everyone, not just the 'religious folks,' the 'new age folks,' those with no other option, or children. Just as we know physical health and awareness is important, so is being in tune with things going on around you and within you. How superficial our culture has become, to get so easily distracted from this with TV, games, shopping, fake busy-ness, TV, visual stimulus, and other various self-indulgences. This is not an accident by the one opposed to our spiritual health.
• The end of the world may indeed come, as California seems to think. It may not, as Ohians and the East Coast seems to think. While the need to be conscious of environmental concerns is more necessary by our modern society, there somehow needs to be a middle ground where people like me can stand so that we are not in a continual state of despair.
• It is desperately important to consider what you do and what you buy. In life. It's hard to imagine our lack of thinking of where consumer products come from (who makes them, where the materials are extracted, the amount of oil used in transport, the subsidies our government provides to make them afforable) effects other's lives, but it does. I'm not going to refind the article in which I learned this information, but it is incredible the damage and unjust dislocation created around the world for industries such as dams created to power an aluminum producing plant. Do these local people pride themselves on this 'improvement' to their land, do they even directly benefit? And surely, my trash is ending up in a place far, far away from anywhere it could affect people. My soap, shampoo, paint, chemicals, and medicine as well; it isn't going into the sewage and local water, is it?
• I found a cool website today for the socially- and artistically-minded designer: core77
• Also, The Commons Flickr gallery. They recently added photos from the National Archives, so the general public now has much easier access to our country's historic photos, like NASA.
• If you are a Christian or aware that there is a definite Christian-American culture, you should check out the book Stuff Christians Like. Between the 'side hug' and 'losing the will to clap during songs,' author Jonathan Acuff points out common quirks and comically reveals flaws in the modern church.

My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from him.

He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.

Ps. 62. 1-2.