302/365

302/365, originally uploaded by britrosewhite.

Why am I posting this picture today? Well...


It's a little bit clearer than this one.


And this one.

And...










...these ones.

I love my mother. But when I hand her a camera, say, "It doesn't have to be good," and she says, "You're setting me up to fail," I think I need to re-evaluate.

Okay but I seriously LOVE my mother. And I love her pictures, too. Thanks for taking these, mom!!

Tonight I continued my path of trying to figure out what just happened these last three months. I was asked to speak at FUSE, the youth group at our church. Before Africa, I had to write everything down when I had to speak in front of people. I'd plan a million things to say and be finished in 10 minutes. But tonight I could have talked for two hours with much less psycho-planning. It was really fun to talk to a room full of kids, teens, and some adults about the story of my life so far. Missions is a lot about what you do when you're there. That's obvious. But it is just as much about the story and the testimony. I feel the (happy) burden to share it and I am so thankful for the opportunities. I haven't sought them out, either. Which is really cool to me. The RU4 Children blog, and tonight - I'm getting to share with people that I've never met before. That don't know the first thing about me.

I told the crowd tonight that I'm 25 years and 302 days old and I know that because I keep a blog chronicling my life every day. As soon as I said it out loud I SO wished it were a joke. I think the kids did, too.

It is really cool that I have a story to tell, though. I always prayed and asked God for a good story. I was a pretty dumb kid - that was before I knew that all good stories MUST have some sort of conflict. A story without conflict is boring. I have to remind myself that the hero normally wins, though. So, assuming my story is not a tragedy (it's not), the conflict will resolve. Just sayin'.

Thanks FUSE and Chris and Amber for letting me be a vessel tonight. It was awesome.

301/365

301/365, originally uploaded by britrosewhite.

I like knitting again. I learned in college and I taught a lot of girls in college. We were sort of crazy at first, knitting ugly scarves for Christmas presents and naming our balls of yarn "Nathan". One day, I finally learned to pearl which has, up until now, been enough for me.

But I figure it's time to step it up so I don't get bored. I started looking for knitting patterns and found this one that is rated "Easy +" (mmmk) on the Lion Brand website. Which features a TON of free patterns, by the way.

I did pretty great at first. And then you can see where I stopped paying so much attention to the knitting and more attention to whatever else was in front of me. This isn't the sort of thing you can just do while you zone out in front of the TV or get lost in some wild day-dream. That's why I like knitting - you can do something productive while your totally relaxing. It makes relaxing more appealing to me.

But in order to make something really cool, you have to pay attention to what stitch you're on, and then you have to remember how to do it. Normally I'm a perfectionist about this kind of stuff, but it drives me a little crazy when beginners start all over when it comes to knitting. The only way to learn is to push through, see your mistakes, and know the difference between the right and wrong stitches.

I figure this time around every mistake will just remind me of a funny joke, or a wondering thought, or a suspenseful moment.

Right?

Or...maybe I'll just look at it and see the entire thing only for it's mistakes. And it will drive me crazy and I'll constantly and absentmindedly mess with the wrong stitches.

I just wrote an entire post on the intricacies of my knitting practices. Wow. I'm sorry.

Here's something different! During my time at the RU4 Children offices I've started gathering my thoughts and writing about my trip. I'm getting to share my stories with a lot of people who might be thinking about travelling themselves. If you'd like to read my first short, entertaining, really awesome post (!!) then by all means, CLICK HERE! And check out all the cool stuff RU4 is doing for orphans around the world while you're at it.

300/365

300/365, originally uploaded by britrosewhite.

Today I went to Hancock Fabrics, Michael's, Hobby Lobby and JoAnn Fabrics (twice). It was awesome! I love all of those stores. What's even better is we were shopping for RU4 Children's store/child sponsorship launch coming up in a few weeks. I haven't mentioned this before so you might have no idea what I'm talking about, but it's good. Kids around the world getting sponsored. Me getting to be creative. It's so good! And buttons are also so good!

October Favorite

October was a good, good month. I normally don't vote, but if I did, this one would stump me.

Favorite October Photoonline surveys

299/365

299/365, originally uploaded by britrosewhite.

Bread is good. Pretty bread is better!

298/365

298/365, originally uploaded by britrosewhite.

Next week me, Rachel, mom and dad are going to see the next Harry Potter movie. Yeah, we are fans. All of us. And Lauren is almost there.

We decided to completely dork it up and watch the six movies leading up (because, yes, I own them). To kick things off I finally made Butterbeer! I've been wanting to make it for so long. Every time I read it in the books it's like I can taste it. In my imagination it was hot and very similar to my grandmother's hot buttered lemonade. This recipe is apparently the one they use at the theme park and it's cold. And it's RICH. None of us could drink an entire glass - and that's with 2 tablespoons less butter and diet cream soda. Because I'm a "healthy cook". Psshhhhh.

It's like butterscotch in a glass. It's really good. You should try it.

Today was a great Saturday, by the way. I finished my house/dog sitting duties and went to Target, JoAnn Fabrics (knitting season), Panera for coffee, and back to Target with my mom. She's, like, the best. She made these hot sandwiches for dinner with whole grain Panera bread, chicken, pesto, and provolone. Yesterday Rachel and I made homemade whole wheat blackberry pop tarts and today I used the rest of the dough to make some with cinnamon chocolate filing, chocolate almond butter filling, and good 'ole brown sugar filling. That recipe is here in case you're curious.

I am totally making up for lost time food-wise.

Cheers!

297/365

297/365, originally uploaded by britrosewhite.

I think the message that I'm trying to send with this picture is:

"I'd like to travel the world as a cappuccino taste-tester."