"Maybe this Christmas will mean something more...maybe this year love will appear deeper than ever before...maybe this Christmas..." - Maybe this Christmas by Ron Sexsmith

So I was sitting at my grandparent's late Christmas night checking my email on my phone when I came across a new blog by Jamie, the founder of To Write Love on Her Arms. Find it here:
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=61976377&blogID=458982023&Mytoken=D3A664F6-4C5C-46D2-AFCBD1E8180136EE282887465
His words took guts. And a quote that stood out to me the most was this one:
"In this life, we get to make a lot of choices. We don't get to choose the things that break or haunt or hurt us, but maybe we get to choose how we respond and what we choose to believe in the face of those things. We get to choose to go alone or to let people in. We choose our response to pain."
How very true. We can either lay down and let life run us over, let self pity seep into our bones and never move or we can take a stand and choose to move. To change. Maybe circumstances can't be changed, but our outlook can be changed. We're all part of a bigger story. You can see yourself as a big nobody in this story, or give yourself away to others and love and grow and be exactly who you were meant to be in this bigger story.
It's probably no big secret that I'm a fan of the band Switchfoot and if I had to pick one person that has inspired me the most and changed my life the most besides Christ, it would be Jon Foreman, the lead singer of Switchfoot. His words have moved me to change. To grow and to love. He said this in a recent blog:
"This is the ironic twist- in caring for others you will become yourself. As you give yourself away you become richer, stronger. My example is the one who gave himself to death so that I might live. Our lives are too short to ignore the pain. It would be a lie to run away."

_______________________________________________________________

On the Just One forefront, I've not made much progress on part 15 as every time I enter the game and go into a certain house it goes incredibly slow. I'll be boosting up my RAM here soon and I'm hoping that will help. I'm not sure what to think about the Sims 3. As much as I'm looking forward to playing it and seeing what changes there are, what a pain to wait for all the custom content and hacks to be developed. Right now there is SO much offered for the Sims 2. I wonder will everyone stop playing the Sims 2 and only make movies with the Sims 3? Are Sims 3 movies going to make Sims 2 movies look like crap? Things to think about, haha!

I also saw today that PamComplex has started a Sim Awards and there are several different categories for sim movies/series out there. The site is here:
http://simawards.wordpress.com/

I have to admit that I don't keep up with a lot of the series and movies out there unless I just happen to come across them on youtube, but I am constantly amazed at the ideas and originality others create through machinima. I applaud Pam for taking the time to set up an award type system to help other directors receive recognition. I know it's appreciated within the community.

Oh, and before I forget, thanks for all the great comments and feedback I received on Part 14! I'm really glad others were touched by it. It made all the time and work totally worth it. I've got most of part 15 planned out, but is there anything anyone wants to see happen? I'm open to suggestions :)