YOU SATISFY MY SOUL by Laura Hackett

At the onething '12, I discovered a new favorite Christian artist, Laura Hackett.  Some of you may know her already from IHOP and stuff.  I think that Laura is a great role model for those who love Christ.  And of course, her voice is beautiful. 

My favorite Laura Hackett song would have to be "You Satisfy My Soul".  I was at the onething conference when I first heard her sing it live during worship.  At the time, I didn't think it was anything special.  But then I listened to it again on Spotify after I came back from onething, and I realized that it had a deep meaning to it. 

When the lyrics go "You satisfy my soul with Your love", it just clicked in my head.  Nothing else could satisfy the deep yearning in our hearts except for God.  We could go around doing immoral things that make us feel good, but really, only God's love will satisfy our souls.

Here's the recorded version, which can also be found on my Playlists page.

  

 And here's the live video from onething '12... 

TIGER LILY by Jodi Lynn Anderson

In my last post, I made a huge mistake of saying that Tiger Lily was the narrator of Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson.  Not so!  I was thinking about it a couple of days ago and realized that the actual narrator is the one and only Tinkerbell.  Sorry.  :)

Anyways, since we're on the topic of Tiger Lily, here is a book review!  I don't really know what to put in a book review, so I'll just try my best to make it professional.  Ish.

Summary (no spoilers)
The adventurous, tomboyish Tiger Lily lives on the island of Neverland.  Neverland is not completely fictional, but it is a very hard place to find, if you are looking for it.  In her village, Tiger Lily has no parents to speak of, except for her caretaker, Tik Tok the medicine man.  Unlike most of the village, he is very kind to her and they make an extraordinary father-daughter pair.  
One day, she meets Peter Pan.  He is a mysterious, handsome boy of about fifteen or sixteen.  Tiger Lily soon falls in love with his flightiness, quirks, and most importantly, him.  Even, so she is betrothed to a man that she hates, and that complicates things.  
While Tiger Lily is gone uncomplicating those things, a new creature named Wendy arrives at Peter Pan and the Lost Boys' tree house.  This causes a lot of conflicts, because it seems that Peter is now in love with the sweet and loyal Wendy.

Some of my thoughts...
This book was a very, very interesting interpretation of the story of Peter Pan.  I for one have always, always been a fan of Peter Pan's charm and magic.  However, Tiger Lily opened my eyes and I was able to see new sides of him.  He was an unpredictable boy, perpetually stuck in his teenage years.  Also, this isn't your typical, happy retelling of a fairy tale.  It's so emotional, and I found myself wanting to cry when Tiger Lily was being mistreated.  Lastly, there's Wendy.  Wendy has always been my favorite character because she is so loving and kind.  But in this book, I was also able to see a new side of her, since I saw it through Tink's eyes.  I actually kind of started to hate her and her positivity.  Anyways, this book is an excellent read that will make your mind wonder and think about what's going on with the "other" side.  *There is no way that this book is only for girls, even though the main character and the narrator are female.*

My Rating for this book....  An eight out of ten!  

SciFi Party *SPOILERS*

Recently, I've been reading a lot more than usual.  One of my favorite genres of books is science fiction.  I think that the obsession started when I picked up The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins in junior high.  Ever since I read that book (and the other two in the trilogy), I've been hooked onto sci-fi stuff.  And Peeta Mellark, of course.   

The sad thing is, I haven't been able to actually read books (that I want to read, not all the school assigned stuff) for fun since who knows when.  So, right after finishing my finals, I went to the library, headed to the new books section and checked out a bunch of the good stuff.  It turned out that I was actually right in time for the wave of new books from my favorite authors!  You know, how a really good book comes out and you have to wait until the next year or two for the second book to get published?  Yeah, that's what happened to me. 

I came out of the library, gleefully holding the new copies of Insurgent by Veronica Roth (Divergent Trilogy), Ashen Winter by Mike Mullin (Ashfall Trilogy), and The Doomsday Code by Alex Scarrow (Time Riders Series).  Of course I also had some other not sci-fi stuff: Princess Academy: Palace of Stone by Shannon Hale (quite feminist, in my opinion), Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson (a very interesting novel on the whole Peter Pan adventure from surprise, surprise, Tiger Lily's point of view!), and some other books I can't remember now. 

*HERE IS WHERE THE SPOILERS ARE INVOLVED.  I ADVISE YOU NOT TO READ ON UNLESS YOU HAVE READ THE BOOKS MENTIONED ABOVE.  UNLESS YOU TRULY WANT TO, OF COURSE*

As I read these books, some things struck my mind:

1)  Almost all of my most favorite sci-fi books are TRILOGIES.  Gah.  Drives me crazy.   
-The Hunger Games Trilogy
-Divergent Trilogy 
-Ashfall Trilogy
-Across the Universe Trilogy by Beth Revis
-Exodus Trilogy by Julie Bertagna 
-Birthmarked Trilogy by Caragh M. O'Brien
I wish that the author wrote a bit more for some of the trilogies, but others seem just right with three books.  But doesn't it bother you that so many of these sci-fi stories are trilogies??

2)  The main character basically goes insane.  Kind of.  In two trilogies at least.  

-In the third Hunger Games book, we see Katniss Everdeen basically lose it.  She can hardly think for herself since she's been through so much trauma.  Her first Games, the Quarter Quell, her sister dying, her friends dying, Peeta being captured, Gale being his usual introverted and selfish self, her own insecurities, and being controlled/used by a totalitarian government.  At the end of the book Katniss has to take morphling (morphine) to numb her emotions.  So there you have it, your average drug addict, crazy, war-like main character.  

-And now, to Tris Prior from the Divergent Trilogy.  The third book has yet to come out, but in Insurgent (the second book), we can see the beginnings of Tris becoming crazy.  Driven by guilt from killing her friend, Tris feels like she can't connect with anyone around her.  She doesn't want to admit to anyone that she killed her friend, so she harbors all these feelings inside her and becomes distant with Tobias/Four.  He becomes so bothered by her secretive nature that he threatens to break apart from their relationship.  Sad... 

3)  THE LOVE TRIANGLE.  The dreaded love triangle that makes the books have that final icing on top.  Let's see who's entangled...

-The Hunger Games: Katniss, Peeta, and Gale.  Just to make it clear, I'm Team Peeta all the way.  Gale is just such a loser!  He's too dark and stormy for someone who was already dark and stormy.  I was so glad when Katniss ended up with Peeta.   (Sorry to anyone who is a fan of Gale's...)

-Ashfall Trilogy:  Again, I have only read the first two of the trilogy because the third is still in the making.  But...  Alex, Darla, and Alyssa!  I feel like even though Alex and Darla are pretty much set in stone, Alyssa will come back and try something in the third book.  

-Birthmarked Trilogy:  Gaia, some guy, and another guy.  Sorry, I can't remember their names right this moment because I read the first and second books so long ago!  I'm aiming to catch my memory up soon; I'm holding the third book in the library!

Yeah, so these are my thoughts on sci-fi books right now.  I hope you were able to sit through this whole thing without having endings of books spoiled.  Actually, I realize now that this whole post is kind of pointless, since not a lot of people have read the same books as me.  Oh well.  Then I hope you found some new books to read from this post!  Thanks for reading.  

Winter Manicures: Gradient Nails! (A cutepolish Design)

Time for a new nail polish design!  I was browsing cutepolish's YouTube channel when I came across this elegant but easy design.  I knew I had to try it out even though the video was called "Prom Nails".  I've also added the video on this post, so my advice to you is: 
1) Watch the video.  
2) Read my steps. 
3) Try the design by mixing the cutepolish's and my advice/steps together.
4) Like the video.
5) Share my post.  :)

Enough of the ramble...  Here it is!

A different lighting, taken at night.

I USED... 

*All of these polishes can be changed/altered to your liking.  Obviously.*

~Sally Hansen, Advanced Hard as Nails: Strengthening Top Coat

~Revlon, Multi Care Base + Top Coat (965)

~A light purple polish.  I don't really know what brand it is, because it's all written in Japanese.  I can't read that...  Anyways, any color will do for this design.  Except for very dark ones. 

~claire's cosmetics, sparkly nail polish, tinted rose-ish

STEPS I TOOK AFTER WATCHING THE VIDEO

1.  Apply your base coat!  You might want to do it several times.

2.  Take the color that you want to use (mine was the light purple) for this design and wipe as much paint as you can off on the side of the bottle.  Your brush should NOT be laden with paint.

3.  Apply whatever is left on the brush about three quarters of the way down your nail.  Everything besides the bottom portion of your nail should look like a terrible nail job.  It's your choice if you want to leave the bottom quarter uncolored.  I chose to dab a little bit of paint all the way down because I have shorter nails.  LET EVERYTHING DRY.

4.  Do step 2 again, but this time, leave a little bit more paint on the brush.  

5.  Apply the paint halfway down your nail this time.  LET EVERYTHING DRY.

6.  Gather a regular amount of nail polish on your brush and apply it to the very tip, or the top fourth of your nail.  LET EVERYTHING DRY.  

7.  Sparkle time!  Apply the sparkly nail polish (any will do, as long as it has larger sparkly pieces and the glitter isn't multicolored) on all of your gradiented nails.  This sparkle layer will kind of distort the chunky layers of color underneath and make them all blend together!

8.  And as always, a top coat will seal the deal.   

*Warnings/Tips* 

-does not work well with dark colors unless you're very, very experienced/ambidextrous.  Ugh.  I had to find out the hard way.
-work on all your nails on the same step.  In other words... do one step on all of your fingers and let it dry completely.  Starting and finishing one hand and then going on to the next makes the layers uneven (again, unless you are ambidextrous).   
-I feel like this would look really good during the winter in an eggshell blue.  Just a thought.  :D

I really really really liked doing this design.  It was beautiful and very easy.  Thank you, cutepolish!   Remember to check out cutepolish's YouTube channel for more original designs.  Thank you all so much for reading and have fun!