I'm Scared to Death that I'll Never be Afraid

It was just another cold, December day in Canada when my cousins and I were heading out to our family gathering. My attention turned to an odd light outside my window, and suddenly, I gasped.

Do my eyes deceive me?! I screeched. That rainbow...it is forming some sort of absurd ring around the sun!

"That's a Sun Dog," said my sister-but-cousin Ashley.

"No," I denied. "That ain't right."

After staring at it for several minutes and finally deciding to take a picture to provide some evidence (They'll never believe this down South, I thought to myself), my aunt clarified that the snowy crystals floating in the air cause the light to deflect around the sun and create a rainbow. A Sun Dog, as some might recognize. Why a dog, I will never know.

After experiencing this strange phenomenon, I began to think of all the other strange things I have experienced in the land of the Frost Giants that those down South would never experience, or perhaps even believe!

Like, how boogers actually freeze when it gets ridiculously cold. And let me tell you Texans, there is no weirder feeling than to have frozen things stuck up your nose, and feeling it all happen right below your very eyes.

And how there are mitten warmer thingies that look like tiny bean-bags, and you shake them around like a madman and somehow they get hot, and then you just stick 'em in your gloves and vuela, your hands are nice and comf in the deathly cold weather!

Also, it's true what the Canadians have told me. Once you hit -20'C (or -4'F), any temperature colder than that really doesn't feel any colder. You just feel cold. Cold nose, cold fingers, cold ears, cold toes. It's all just a big honking joy of cold.

AND, the sun goes down at 5. Do you know what time that is? The middle of the day. Why the sun decides to sleep in the middle of the day, I don't know, but if you wanna have a day--make it a good, short one.

You see, these are some of the things I have contemplated that are very strange and actually could make one terribly afraid--for those of you who are horrified of change. But, I find change to be exhilarating.
Why chase the rainbow into the neighborhood for a pot of gold, when you can chase after the ring around the sun for a pot of gold that will never end?
Boogers freezing? Well that's just cool. No pun intended.
Mitten warmer thingies? I know they are much better to have than to turn everything I touch into ice. A positive change, nonetheless.
Ridiculously cold weather? Sometimes it's better than ridiculously hot weather. It also comes with a side of snow for fun and ice for skating.
The sun going down at 5? Helps you live those few hours of daylight to the fullest!

And there you have it. Through all these drastic changes, I find myself unafraid. As the snow piles onto my car in feet and covers my Texan license plate, I am not afraid. In fact, I'm scared to death that I'll never be afraid. And to never be afraid of change surely must be a fine, fine life for anyone.

Fuzzy Blue Lights

It's Christmas. The snow is falling (in mass). The pine trees are lit with fuzzy blue lights and everything nice. And our Christmas tree has nicely wrapped gifts underneath it, one each waiting for my roomie and I.

But yet, I can't shake the feeling of how it doesn't feel like Christmas. I suppose everyone is used to a White Christmas--yes, one I've been dreaming of for years!--and sledding down snow hills on Christmas Day. But me? I'm used to a Yellow Grass Christmas. There's not much to look at in Texas on Christmas. In fact, nothing at all. But I am used to it. I'm also used to spending Christmas with my immediate family.

I must admit it to everyone who is wondering, this Christmas season here in Canada is giving me my first overwhelming pang of homesickness. I miss my mom. I miss my dad. I miss my older brother and his wife and their two kids, whom I've hardly spent a Christmas with so far.

I was a little down today after having a Christmas party with my School of Ministers class. I had realized that there's only six days left till Christmas and I still didn't feel like it was Christmas. So, in the evening I decided to get my mind off it by trying to find a movie I've been wanting to buy for a long time, but I never found it. As I walked out of the store, an elderly lady had stopped me in the parking lot by her car.

"Excuse me," she said kindly. "Could you do me a favor? Are you in a hurry?"

"Not at all!" I reassured, "What can I help you with?"

She pushed her cart towards me and asked me to take it back into it's proper place inside because it was too cold for her and she needed to start her car. With a smile on my face, I took her cart back, received the coin from the cart, and trotted back to her. As I was doing this, I thought of a few things:

She trusts me to bring back her coin, even though it's just a coin, and, this is a perfect time to practice what I learned in School of Ministers, the Discipline of Service. I'm ministering by setting an example of positive and honest servitude. By taking her cart and bringing back her coin with a smile on my face. And so I did.

"Thank you so much, dear!" The elderly lady beamed with gratefulness. "Have a merry Christmas!"

Walking back to my car, another thought struck me: That was the first time a stranger had told me Merry Christmas this Christmas season. And somehow, it comforted me that though I may be away from immediate family, I have joy in this winter wonderland. I have cousins I've never spent a Christmas with that I can now be with, a boyfriend I've never had but now cherishingly have to share it with, endless snow to sled in and ice to skate on...

Even though it's hard to spend Christmas away from my mom and dad, if I try hard enough to find it, it's still gunna be a fine life this Christmas.

And That's Just the Tip of the Iceberg

I know it's not an iceberg. It's a tree. But I haven't seen any icebergs yet since I started living in the Land of the Frost Giants.
This land of which the frost giants reside is better yet known as Canada. The story of how I ended up here is a long one, so I'll save it for a later date. Right now, I want to explain what it's like to live in the Land of the Frost Giants, going on 3 months.

As a species of frosty nature, the giants of the northern places tend to receive numerous amounts of falling white fluff in large quantities. This fluff is quite cold, and smothers my vehicle with many inches, in which I must equip a weapon frost giants call "a Snow Brush" to be-rid of such fluff cumbering my car of which I must use at specific times of the days.

(...Almost every morning, there's a lot of snow on my car and it takes me a long time to get it off when I'm trying to be places on time...)

Well, being as it may, I woke up at about six this morning to get ready for my school day starting at seven. As I traveled over sub-zero tundras and braved glaciers and frozen lakes as I stepped out of the comforting warmth of my own home, I had come to find a nice, consistent layer of snow hugging every inch of my car. But this was normal already, you see, and I was already be-ridding the fluff off my windshield when all of a sudden...I heard a voice.
I turned around, and emerging from the depths of the darkness came a big, intimidating man wearing a black ski-mask, holding a leaf blower and looking straight at me.

"What?" Is all I said, because I normally have no sense of urgency. And the leaf blower killed it.

"Do you need help with that?" He said kindly, "I can get that snow off for you if you'd like."

I stood still for a few long seconds and quickly contemplated my situation. I have snow on my car. I must get to school on time. I am holding a snow brush like an American holding a hockey stick, trying to brush snow off my car without getting it on my clothes so I don't freeze later when I warm up. And that the kind, scary-looking man could see my Texas License Plate.

"Can you do that for me?" I asked again, and of course he said yes. I stood back and watched him blow all the snow off my car in like fifty seconds, whereas my feeble attempt would have taken me fifty years.
I thanked him and trotted inside, and the first thought that came to mind was this: I just woke up 30 minutes ago, and my day has already been made.

Those tiny acts of kindness people do for others really helps me write a blog called The Fine Life. Because it really is a fine, fine life. You just gotta find it.

Love is on the Side of the Highway

 My name's Allison Charmaine, and this is who I am: I am a unique individual with an original personality, a confident influential, a spiritual supporter, quite often a silly person with a sense of clean humor, an extremist and optimist, a guitarist, an illustrator and painter, an author, a Canadian and a Texan at the same time, often a feminist, a pro-life and pro-Israel republican, a bible school student, an ATV junkie and of course, most importantly, a Christian.

I write blogs to testify what God has done for me in my life and share what I've learned for other people who care to read them, and there has been a lot of things I've learned since. I graduated in Texas and moved across 5 states into a country inhabited by frost giants, trusting God that attending a small, infamous bible school in Manitoba, Canada is where He wanted me to be. Well, I decided after all of this, it's high time to open a new chapter in my life and create a new blog to welcome all my new stories.

The Fine Life. Of course, not everything is fine and it won't always be, but if there's anything I've learned through this whole extreme transition in my now-independent life, is that if I look for it, I will always find that I have a fine, fine life.

I'm sure even if Jesus had a flat tire and was stranded on the side of the highway, he would still be grinning and telling Himself, "Every day I find it's a fine, fine life." Why should I doubt I can think just like this? Just the fact that Jesus lives inside of me, God Himself inside of me, is proof enough as is, that I really do have a fine, fine life!

And so, as I start to write new blogs, I'll show you why I have a fine, fine life--and so do you!