Our Thoughts Are Stars : We're baaaaaack!

Greetings!
IT'S MONDAYYY AND ITS LAURA'S DAY TO POST AGAIN AREN'T Y'ALL EXCITED?? (Even though I secretly suspect no one reads my posts completely, and if they do they don't totally understand them). I missed Our Thoughts Are Stars. I missed reading Mercy, Rose, and Grace's posts, and laughing and commiserating and getting that funny warm feeling of friendship in my stomach whenever one of the girls wrote something especially profound, something that put into words the things I have been thinking for the longest time. I miss getting texts from Grace or Mercy saying "I posted! I almost didn't, but I did! Go read it :)". I miss nagging Rose to write on Wednesdays, and her vice-versa-ing me on Mondays. I miss all the GIFs and pictures- which reminds me, here is your Weekly Dose of Jared Padalecki:

Practically perfect in every way :)

But I did not spend my winter break pining after OTAS- gurl please. I am much more of a neurotically productive person than that.
I did a lot of texting. I (finally!) got my acceptance letter from Elms College. I reread The Fault in Our Stars and saw different parts of the book in a new way and became even more stoked for the movie in June. I spent time with a few good friends. I watched Bride & Prejudice twice- Grace and Mercy, if you haven't seen B&P then you need to on Saturday. We can have a cuddly movie day on my couch and eat my mom's wonderful food.
I also acquired a pair of fleece-lined sweatpants. They fit like leggings -but y'all can't make fun of me for wearing Leggings As Pants since they are sweatPANTS- and they are soso warm and soft and, unlike leggings, they do not emphasize every imperfection in my pelvic girdle region. I'm somewhat fangirling over their cloudy softness at the moment. Don't judge me. You must allow me to tell my fleece-lined sweats how ardently I admire and love them. And never want to take them off. ;)

But in between the movie-watching and sleepovers, the shopping and present-opening, I put down TFiOS and picked up this book I borrowed from Sally back in July (you know Sally? She's slightly tall and has a distinct voice and giggles at everything?). It's called Do Hard Things and was written by Alex and Brett Harris, 19-year-old twin brothers from the Pacific Northwest. The tagline of the book is "A teenage rebellion against low expectations," and the boys write about just that- how people are expecting less and less out of teenagers, how we are basically adults treated like children who believe the lie that we cannot do anything extraordinary in our youth except navigate the Internet, sleep around, and watch Netflix 24/7. Perusing this book has led me to two conclusions about myself:
1) I am moderately more productive than your stereotypical 12th grader, in the sense that I usually respect my parents, have no STDs, a GPA of 3.9, have been on multiple mission trips, am a blood, tissue, and organ donor, occasionally give to WorldVision, and put extra change in the "Help The Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan" box at Panda Express, and
2) I waste a lot of my time doing meaningless things when I could be glorifying God in all my actions if I would just listen to where He wants me to be. Also, I don't spend enough time outside of my comfort zone.
Part of me wishes I had read this book when I was a young teenager (I recommend you girls read DHT as soon as you can) but I am also glad I didn't, because I think it would have greatly changed my past three years of high school, and I kind of really like the person I have become because of those memories and experiences. But right now, exactly three weeks before my eighteenth birthday, I think I am ready to Do some more Hard Things. Things outside of my comfort zone and the cultural norm. Anyway, that is one of my New Year's resolutions- do you, the other three-quarters of the Foursome as well as our lovely readers, have any goals for 2014? I dearly want to hear about them. Tell us in the comments or shoot us an email- as for my fave girls, I expect you to tell me in your next blog posts.
That's right. I'm Raising the Expectations for Modern Day Teens, right here, right now. And if you have any ideas as to what sort of Hard Things I could accomplish in the upcoming year, by all means let me know. :)
I wanted to close this post out with a couple of wonderful songs I have recently found on the Tumblr and the YouTube, both of which I intend to listen to as the old year turns into the new: