• Finish Mom's Quilt
• Learn to Crochet
• Finish knitting the Shawl and my socks!
• Take Pictures. Learn more about Photography and how to use my Camera!
• Finish BPP. Write a lot.
• Submit things I write for publication (small things, and small scale publication)
• Keep a reading journal regularly.
• Keep a blog updated regularly.
• Learn FRENCH!!!
• Do some kind of Art...learn something Artistic...
• Exercise regularly!!!!
• Send Birthday Cards, write letters,keep in touch with Friends better! (Including Showing up!)
• Be very engaged with school and Church.
• Get outside more...(I usually don't actually WANT to do this..this may be a should...so perhaps it needs nixing...)

• The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate: Jaqueline Kelly
• Turtle in Paradise: Jennifer L. Holmes
• Moon over Manifest: Claire Vanderpool
• Transforming Our Days: Richard Gaillardetz
• Awakening Youth Discipleship (Christian Resistance in a Consumer Culture): Mahan, Warren and White
• The Wind Singer: William Nicholson
• Slaves of the Mastery: William Nicholson
• Firesong: William Nicholson
• A Wizard of Earthsea: Ursula K. Le Guin
• The Tombs of Atuan: Ursula K. Le Guin
• The Farthest Shore: Ursula K. Le Guin
• The Hunger Games: Suzanne Collins
• The Bean Trees: Barbara Kingsolver
• The Lightening Thief: Rick Riordan
• Mockingbird: Kathryn Erskine
• To Kill a Mockingbird: Harper Lee
• A Great and Terrible Beauty: Libba Bray

• Roosevelt Really becoming a Center---Afterschool programs, mentoring programs, basketball, step, jumprope teams, outdoor education, movies, year-round academy things for children and adults.
• "Peaches and Greens" type healthy snacks provider. Strong programs to deliver local food to needy families and EDUCATING families on growing their own food and taking pride in what they eat.
• Youth Shelter/Safe-Space program!! Crisis Hot lines/Counseling for youth.
• Strong Block-Captains program, LOTS of neighbors trained in anti-bullying and conflict-mediation.
• Enviro/Outdoor Ed in EVERY elementary school! A naturalist for every school! A garden for every school!
• Community based child-abuse/neglect prevention, LOTS of child-abuse education in our neighborhoods, churches etc. ACTIVE co...

• Squashed: Joan Bauer
• Ida B ...and Her Plans to Maximize Fun, Avoid Disaster, and (possibly) Save the World: Katherine Hannigan
• Hattie Big Sky: Kirby Larson
• Joyful Noise, Poems for Two Voices: Paul Fleischsman
• The Great Gilly Hopkins: Katherine Patterson
• The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie: Alan Bradley
• When You Reach Me: Rebecca Stead
• A Year Down Yonder: Richard Peck
• The Same Stuff as Stars: Katherine Patterson
• DAWS: The Biography of Dawson Trotman: Betty Lee Skinner
• Christy: Catherine Marshall
• Olive's Ocean: Kevin Henkes
• The Underneath: Kathi Appelt
• So B. It: Sarah Weeks

"Proactive people show you what they love, what they want, what they purpose, and what they stand for. These people are very different from those who are known by what they hate, what they don't like, what they stand against & what they will not do." -Cloud and Townsend.

What I Purpose to be About:

• Connectedness and Community
• Seeking Redemption in Everything.
• Transformational Relationships
• Family...Adoption in every sense.
  • The Church as a Family
  • The Global Family
• Getting to know my neighbors
  • Helping my neighbors, and playing with the kids in my neighborhood Just Because I Can.
• Environmental Justice in the Inner City

• Children's Literature and (good!) YA Lit.
• Imagination
• Chocolate-Chip Pancakes
• Macaroni and Cheese
• The Steps Down to the Lake at Camp
• Caramel Latte's (especially when accompanied by meaningful conversation and an extra shot of caramel...)
• Jaqueline Du Pre and music played with passion.
• Cedar Waxwings & Woodpeckers
• The Prophets in the Old Testament reminding me that the world CAN be changed and God is still speaking.
• Adventures in Odyssey
• Familiar & Beautiful Hymns.
• Campers: Their smiles. 8 year olds who love me more than my Mom.
  • Praying with Campers

• Camp Director/Programming Director*
• Child Welfare Social Worker
• Children/YA Author*
• Music Teacher at an Inner City School
• Pastor of a church in a Low-Income Neighborhood
• Foster Parent*
• Conservation Biologist-Focused on Amphibians (Frogs!)
• ✔ Environmental Educator/Director of Environmental Education at a Camp*
• Professor of Theology/Old Testament, or Natural History, or English Writing.
• Paramedic
• Missionary Teacher to the Deaf (in Africa or the Middle East)

(*)-things I plan on!

• True (...sort of) by Katherine Hannigan
• The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
• The Autobiography of St. Therese de Liseaux
• The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis
• Breath for the Bones (Art, Imagination & Spirit) by Luci Shaw

Feminist Theology:

• Sexism and God-Talk: Rosemary Radford Reuther
• Our Bodies, Ourselves!
• Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (Kristof, Wudunn)
• The Feminine Mystique: Betty Friedan
• The Vagina Monologues: Eve Ensler
• The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women: Naomi Wolf
• Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics-bell hooks
• Cunt: A Declaration of Independence-Inga Muscio
• Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman's Guide to Why Feminism Matters-Jessica Valenti
• A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, A Vindication of the Rights of Men-Mary Wollstonecraft, Janet M. Todd

Oct. 2010-

• Gender
• Sexuality
• Freedom
• Finding a (my!) strong, impassioned voice.
• Being beautiful (just as I am)
• Grace
• Development/Developing Spirituality
• Children (Children and Church)
• Being a neighbor, friend, roommate, student.
• Loving, accepting and affirming myself as an adult woman.
• Music: Detox and Reintegration (what good things ought I carry with me into the now...?)
• Identity and Music.
• Identity in general.
• Devotions/prayer/spiritual practices (do they have to look like they do at camp?)

• Bake most of my bread myself.
• Live in a small, just-enough house with a big fireplace and land enough to raise chickens, grow my own veggies and raspberries, and have a swing and hammock.
• Make my own butter, spin my own yarn from local wool (and dye it), make my own candles and soap.
• Eat locally, live sustainably, know my neighbors and my not-quite neighbors.
• Adopt foster kids
• Host community potlucks, and music/open mic nights regularly.
• Have a garden (permaculture design?) and at least a few apple trees!
• Have a room, or a corner or nook to write in and decorate...space to be creative, and to reflect.
• Take many beautiful pictures. Attempt Art.
• Read out loud with my Children and Natali...

I Own:

• Salvi Sinfonietta Pedal Harp (47 string). "Elisabeth"
• Mountain Dulcimer (T.K. O'Brian), "Opal"
• Ovation Legend Acoustic Guitar, "Emmerich"
• My Violin (7/8 size for my small hands...). "Johanna"
• Harmonica. "Emmet"

I Want to Own Someday:

• Celtic Harp (Portable...but not a lap harp. 30 ish strings ideally)
• ✔ Mountain Dulcimer
• Cello
• Tin Whistle
• Irish/Gaelic Flute
• Baby Grand Piano

• "To be free, you have to have strong roots. To have roots, you must be free."
• "God often comes to us disguised as our lives."
• "I do not pray for Success, I pray for Faithfulness"-Mother Theresa
• "Patience is a hard discipline. It is not just waiting until something happens, over which we have no control: the arrival of the bus, the end of the rain, the return of a friend, the resolution of a conflict. Patience is not a waiting passively until someone else does something. Patience asks us to live the moment to the fullest, to taste the here and now, to be where we are. When we are impatient we try to get away from where we are. We behave as if the real thing will happen tomorrow, later or somewhere else. Let's be patient & trust that the treasure we look for in hidden in the ground on which we stand....

• The Camp Ray Bird, South Bend, IN
  • The Steps down to the Lake
  • The Oak Tree in the Trading Post
  • The Fire Place at the Titus House
  • The Programming Office
  • The Waterslide Dock
  • The Stairs in the Office
  • The Indian Trail
  • The Tire Swings
• The Treehouse behind 6426 Hubbard Avenue (i.e. Blackwater Castle) and eveything else in that Backyard.
• The Stonefield Neighborhood Woods.
• Jerico Island, Georgia (my grandparents old, creaky and perfect house: Blue Heron).
• The Bladel's Beach House, Sawyer, MI.
• 1320 Prairie Street: Jubilee House!
• 401 West Wolf Street, Elkhart, IN

• Started 2012 by Preaching about Inclusion of Gay and Lesbian people at Prairie Street. Was told repeatedly I had courage. Was grateful to start the year by speaking out for something I believe in with courage and conviction.
• TOOK A BREAK! Decided to put my mental and physical health first and not take an Interterm Class. Spent 1 week in Elkhart with Natalie and 3 weeks in Cleveland with her.

How to Build Community:

• Turn off your TV
• Leave your house
• Know your neighbors
• Look up when you are walking
• Greet people
• Sit on your stoop
• Plant flowers
• Use your library
• Play together
• Buy from local merchants
• Share what you have
• Help a lost dog
• Take children to the park
• Garden together
• Support neighborhood schools
• Fix it even if you didn't break it
• Have pot lucks
• Honor elders

• It was be awesome to start a blog that presented feminist critiques to popular, best-selling and emerging Children's/YA literature! For parents, librarians, teachers etc. to locate positive resources to Girl's empowerment, and know how to talk with their children about the things they are reading.
• Write an entry for the Being blog on Jubilee!
• Write an essay for "This I Believe" on Margarine.
• I'd love to contribute to Vision before I graduate, and Conspire and Mennonite Weekly Review and The Mennonite. Good to get my name out there with my writing... (oh, and of course I'd like to finish and publish a novel before I graduate....naturally!)
• ✔ Check out Pink Menno and Young Anabaptist Radicals, think about how to be involved...

• Jesus For President: Shane Claiborn
• The Wounded Heart (Hope for Adult Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse): Dan B. Allender
• ✔ Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: Barbara Kingsolver
• Life Together: Bonhoffer
• The Screwtape Letters: C.S. Lewis
• The Politics of Jesus: Yoder
• Soul Feast: Marjorie Thompson
• The Prophets: Abraham Joshua Heschel
• Letters to a Young Poet: Rainer Maria Rilke
• The Poisonwood Bible: Barbara Kingsolver
• Anything by Mary Oliver
• ✔ Unexpected News: Reading the Bible with Third World Eyes, Brown
• Curse of the Good Girl: Rachel Simmons
• Are Women Human?: Dorothy L. Sayers
• Long Walk to Freedom: Nelson Mandela
• The Earthsea Trilogy (actually, all 6 in ...

• Handmade Prayer Shawls
• Verse Memory Cards (On a card ring with a nice front cover)
• Knit Mittens, Socks and Scarves
• Handmade Greeting Card Sets/Envelopes, Stamps Included (a great way to encourage people to hand-write more letters and cards!)
• Homemade Cookie Mixes/Hot-Cocoa Kits
• "Devo Time" kits: A shoe-box with some candles and lighters, a hand-decorated journal, notecards with favorite scripture verses and quotes, colored pencils or highlighters, tea bags and a bible or devotional book.
• A homemade photo-book, journal or small scrapbook chronicling an important time you and the gift receiver shared together.
• A handmade quilt/baby quilt.
• Handmade pillows and stuffed animals.
• A teapot from a thrift store/garage sale,...

I went through a phase last year where, with great consistency, I asked God all-too-often to reveal to me exactly what I should be when I grow up. Yet, he revealed, with great consistency, who I should be.

WHO---

• Joyful
• A Storyteller
• Nurturing...
• All About Transformational Relationships
• A Reader and a Thinker
• Always full of Meaningful Conversation
• Fantastic Communicator (in many languages!)
• Deep Lover/Studier of the Word...Knowledgeable about Theology and Ministry
• Pastoral
• Play music (Folk and Classical) with and for others to bring Joy.
• Active Appreciator of Diversity
• Be involved with Camping Ministry

• ✔ abjure
• ✔ abrogate
• ✔ abstemious
• ✔ acumen
• ✔ antebellum
• ✔ auspicious
• ✔ belie
• ✔ bellicose
• ✔ bowdlerize
• ✔ chicanery
• ✔ chromosome
• ✔ churlish
• ✔ circumlocution
• ✔ circumnavigate
• ✔ deciduous
• ✔ deleterious
• ✔ diffident
• ✔ enervate
• ✔ enfranchise
• ✔ epiphany
• ✔ equinox

• Learn to cook new things.
• Write/work on the First Draft of "A Bluish-Purple Peace".
• Go for a Run.
• Listen to Adventures in Odyssey
• Write Letters (real letters!) to Camp Friends...and others!
• Practice Drawing and Creating other Wonderful Art: Nature Journals, Mixed-Media Art Journals, Collages...
• Go for a walk (maybe in Snowshoes!) in the Stonefield woods!
• Work on learning Midwest Bird Calls.
• Learn a new String Trick.
• Read about and Learn the names of Cloud Formations.
• Knit, or learn to Crochet.
• Write in my Journal.
• Read YA Novels, Read Shakespeare, Read Poetry, Read...Anything!