It's so much better to be rested, than to be tired. I got up between 40-60 minutes earlier every day this week, and my mental clarity was effected. Which is why this post is a bit later than normal. I went to Potbelly to pick up lunch and none of my technology worked, so I had to wait to post until I got back to Grand Rapids. So. Here they are:

If you were to start at sea level and head in your relative up, outer space is only sixty miles away. That is crazy. This earth, and all the problems we create, is slightly longer than a trip up and back the Chicago Red Line from the sun.
Once in 'outer space', the sun is 93 million miles away, and it takes light somewhere between 8-11 minutes to reach earth from the sun.
Light travels at the speed of light, obviously, which is very, very fast. Like 93 million miles in 8-11 minutes fast.
Which means that we wouldn't know about the sun blowing up until 8 minutes after it happened.
My point with this is that space is really, really big; and light travels really, really fast. I've thought about this a lot this week. I stumbled across a 'space for dummies' type of book, though it wasn't actually called Space for Dummies. It was this little hand-held book that broke down our solar system in fairly kid-friendly language. Which helped me a ton. Obviously I cannot conceptualize space that big, or sizes that large, or what 93 million miles looks like, nor can I fathom that the sun is over a million times bigger than the earth, but that there are things a billion times bigger than the sun. When you really start to look at it all, it's the most awesome kind of amazing. On our one little beautiful earth, perfectly situated from an orb like the sun, water can function in three separate phases, solid, liquid, and gas.
I mention those things because sometimes I get kind of stuck in my own head, and think about something so small and stupid; even when I'm thinking that way, I still think how stupid and small the thing is, but I can't stop. Moving my attention to the grandness of the universe sometimes helps the other things go away.
Other fun fact: when we look at the sky and think it as permanent, we're really looking at a snapshot as the universe was at some point in the future.
These types of things, and many, many more, come up on the Duncan Trussle Family Hour Podcast. It usually makes me think.
Breaks are so important. Vacations are so important. I do not trust people that refuse to take a break.
Receiving is a gift. Many people have a hard time accepting things that are free. But you should. Being on the receiving end of kindness and generosity needs nothing more than a thank you.
Snow in April is crazy.