Emily Rachelle Writes

In high school, I used a lot of time watching shows like Doctor Who  on Netflix. I enjoyed crafts, even though I wasn't good at many of them. My senior year, I became active on Pinterest. And there was one phrase that really, really irritated me: "wasting time." My brother playing video games was "wasting his time." I, binging Netflix for three hours, was "wasting my time." My dad, sitting in his armchair and watching PBS after work, was "wasting time." It took me a few years to realize exactly why that bothered me so much, but I've finally figured it out.

The series is finally back, with a few more letters before I graduate. I know it's been a while, so you can go back and read the beginning of the series if you'd like. # 3 4/11/18 Dear Freshman, There are a lot of sayings out there about time. Trust me, I'm as sick of them as you are, so let's skip the mottos and platitudes and get straight to the point. In college, your most hoarded resource, possibly even more than money, will be time. So if you know how to budget it from the start, life will be a whole lot easier as you go. Everyone in college talks about time management, but what does that really look like? Honestly, an effective system is different for every person. There is no one-size-fits-all. But there are a few common factors to successful time management and fitting your needs and your wants into a realistic schedule.

A group of my friends on Facebook were once discussing "bad first date/first meetup stories," and I had a fun one to share. My comment turned out so massively long I decided to turn it into a blog post. Hopefully someone will find it as comedic and entertaining as I do now in hindsight. Once upon a time, I met a guy on Tinder. Call him Adam. My friends think this story is hilarious because he was a skinny bald plumber, but I swear he was really cool. Listened to cool music and made me laugh. I wasn't even sure if I had feelings for him, I just thought he was a cool friend.

#2 10/4/17 Dear Freshman, When you come to college, you'll have a lot of ideas about friendship. I came to school with expectations. I would make friends with my orientation class. I would bond with the people in my dorm. Ten years from now, my roommate and I would still be talking every month. Life never meets expectations.

Once upon a time, there lived a little Christian girl in a little Christian family who led a good homeschooled Christian life alongside her youth group Christian friends. Saturday mornings were reserved for evangelism. Modesty was the most important part of her wardrobe. Her greatest dream was to get married and have eight kids. ponytails have just never been my look Once upon a time, that girl was me. I thought feminism was wrong and God's plan for me was to be a homemaker. I thought I couldn't be a functioning adult woman until I knew how to sew my own clothes and bake from scratch. I was convinced that four boys and four girls was the ideal family size. Nope.

Last year at this time, a favorite blogger of mine - Melanie from Only a Breath - shared something she'd discovered: OneWord365 .  The idea is that, instead of making lists of things you want to change or creating resolutions that never go anywhere, you choose one word which you then live out through the year. For 2012, Melanie chose "give."  I've watched as she and the online community she influences were blessed by everything that one word led to. I did some research and discovered just what a huge movement this one-word idea has grown into.  Actually, there are communities/individuals who do this with no affiliation with/knowledge of the OneWord365 site.  I've decided to try it myself.  Maybe I'll make it a lifetime tradition. My word for 2013 is...

people my age have trouble figuring out what to do with their lives. There are three kinds of women in America. There are those who are raised to be homemakers, who can cook and clean and organize and know exactly what to do when faced with scraped knees or algebra homework. There are those who are not raised to be homemakers, and have to learn the hard way - after marriage, when Easy Mac and ignoring the clutter are no longer enough. Then there's those who are in between.  That'd be me, lovely readers.

This week is the second to last of the challenge, and today I'm supposed to share my "hopes, dreams, and plans for the next 365 days."  That's a lot of days to talk about, so I'll try to be brief. :) {via}

What will be on your gravestone - what will others inscribe? What defines you? Are you an athlete?  Writer?  Student?  Christian?  Parent?  Dentist?  Teenager?  Mormon?  Blogger? You may be many of the above (obviously, you can't be all of the above; if you are, see a therapist and clear up your schedule before you have a heart attack at eighteen).  You may only be one or two.  You may be nothing I've listed.  But what defines you?

I was just re-reading several posts on this blog, and I decided to see what I'd labeled "Inspired by Bailey."   I know that many more posts were affected by her influence than are tagged, but I only tag the posts that are directly inspired by her, and I wanted to see which ones those were.  As I was reading, I found myself for the millionth time wondering what was so amazing about her to me.  Some days I look up to her and other days I know (at least in theory) that she's no 'better' than me or any other girl out there - and she'd be the first to say so.  But still, we all have people we look up to, admire, aspire to be like.  Why?

What is your favorite season? The weather of fall is beautiful, Glorious and bright but Chilling and crisp.

I think, in being forced to accept and live with that which we most hate, we eventually come to either embrace it for ourselves or shrivel up inside to avoid it.   Take, for example, a well-known story skeleton: a person is forced to work, live, or otherwise interact with someone they don't like, don't get along with, or downright hate.  Maybe a school student is assigned their arch nemesis as a lab partner.  Maybe a businesswoman is given a career-making or -breaking assignment that requires her to work with her least favorite person in the world.  Whatever the case, the story almost always goes along the lines of them hating each other, then learning more about the other and realizing they're actual people and humans too, then actually enjoying each other's company (or at least appreciating the other person.)

So, I know I said I wasn't sticking to my old schedule, but I love doing this 30 Day Challenge so that's one thing I've decided to keep doing. :) It's still a Saturday-only thing, though. This week's challenge is a song I want played at my wedding.  Now I know most girls would share their "first dance" song or some love song they adore, but my music tastes change on a regular basis, and I have no idea what my "first dance" song will be.  In fact, there's only one song I know for sure I want played at my wedding - the father/bride dance song.  I almost cried the first several times this played on KLove, and every time I thought, I just have to play this at my wedding.

Lately my life is intact while my inner deterioration is gaining speed.  I hardly feel anything but stressed anymore.  I used to have (sometimes random, sometimes caused) moments of excitement or peace or pure happiness, and some emotions that I don't think even have a name yet.  Now I feel like I've stretched myself into a shell with no meaning left inside.  I've been reevaluating my time, and calendar, and priorities, and... well, everything.  My life.  And I've decided that blogging no longer means what it once did to me.  This used to be a creative outlet, but now it's a place to ramble and show off my life. I'm stressed out, wasting time, scheduling every jot and tittle of my life, and no longer enjoying any of it.  So, this is me, saying thank you and sorry.  The party was fantastic, and this past year of blogging wasn't a loss.  I learned a lot about myself, met lots of wonderful new people, and improved my writing....

Today AnnaKate is back to share her thoughts on her favorite book - one I purchased last summer and intend to read soon. “How dreadfully old I am getting!  Sixteen!” So writes Katherine Mortimer in her brand new journal that will chronicle the journey of her life, her spiritual struggles and joys, her loves and hopes and dreams. Stepping Heavenward is a wonderful story by Elizabeth Prentiss, taken from her own life and journals.  My mom initially introduced me to it on the way home from a vacation when I was ten years old, and I devoured it over the five-hour journey.  A good portion of it must have gone over my head; it’s written in a style mimicking the classics and I was accustomed to Beverly Cleary and just venturing into the world of Newberry Awards.  But something in the story latched on to me—maybe the insight that came later, the fact that I am very much like Kate Mortimer!  Her struggles are my struggles; the battle over self-will, the never-endi...

Today Marcia visits us with a beautiful little piece about time and the New Year, approaching in only two days.  {via weheartit} Can you believe it is almost 2012? The words 2012 seem so strange, how the year 2011 has flown by. I remember New Year's Eve last year, I was in a cabin, in the loft, reminiscing. Wondering what the year would hold...little did I know what joys, and sorrows the days would bring. The memories are still shining brightly in my mind, all the laughter, the tears, the smiles, the worry, and the fun. "God gave us memories, so that we might have roses in December" -J.M. Barrie But time passes so quickly... we are here, but a whispering moment. How much do we really do in our short lives? I mean, how much of our life is actually worth something? {via weheartit} "Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you....

Since we don't have any special guests or fun activities for today, I thought I'd share a little story I wrote a few years back.  In fact, I wrote this for school a year or so after we moved to Okinawa, Japan.  It was a "book report" for a book about how to write short stories.  Originally titled "Snow," it was a fictionalized account of what I imagined to be our first trip back to New York.  Since then, I've edited and renamed the story, but the central idea is still the same.  Enjoy! Three Years Later I climbed into the rental car, snapped my buckle, and stared out the window at the snow. We never had snow in Taiwan - not where my family had lived, anyway. My family was driving to Sunday morning services at Fellowship Baptist Church for the first time in three years. We had found a church in Taiwan, but every church was different. Take, for example, the size. Fellowship had more members than Charity Baptist Church. Fellowship also had a l...