Friday, April 27, 2012

analytics.

Sip, Sip, Sigh.
The day unwinds before me, draining from my mind into my glass.
Tension drips away,
I am content.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

after the rain.

"The rain began again. It fell heavily, easily, with no meaning or intention but the fulfillment of its own nature, which was to fall and fall. "
- Helen Garner

the remedy.


As soon as I typed that, Jason Mraz began running through my head. Being a sucker for fast, rhythmic lyrics and a pretty voice, my love for j-mraz began with that song back in middle school. But anyways, my remedy for the day is going to be this roasted green tea and honey. It tastes kind of like what I would imagine barley to taste like...hence, the honey. Apparently it's really good for when you're sick. I work today so I'm hoping it goes by really fast. :)

"I won't worry my life away..."

-Jason Mraz; "The Remedy"

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

calm!


After two days, some quality time listening to j-mraz, and filling numerous bags with stuff to sell, donate and throw away...my room is actually CLEAN! It's a wonderful feeling.

Highlights include:
-Finding old journals and photos
-Finding my Chick-Fil-A calendar (filled with free food coupons!)
-Going through old notes from school friends (questionable abbreviations may have been used...as well as "z" at the end of words...)
-Throwing useless crap away...very liberating

My new best friends are storage tubs, both big and small. Love them. 


And I also got to snap a pic of my adorable nephew. Who will probably be walking in no time :)

Hope you all are enjoying your Wednesday!

Monday, April 23, 2012

chaos.


This picture of my room might as well be a page from a "Where's Waldo?" book. See if you can find a gray bandanna, a camera strap, and a tennis shoe! But seriously, this is a problem. Which is why, since I don't work until 4 today, I will be tackling this. I've been sort of working on it off and on...but once it's done, I know I will feel a lot better. If you don't hear from me for a few days...you might want to send someone in. Wish me luck!

Friday, April 20, 2012

bingo.



Two of my happy triggers: leaves blooming, and dinner rolls from Costco. I will address each of these in order. First, I just love watching everything come to life again. I always feel more alive in spring and the beginning of summer. Late summer I kind of feel lethargic and sick of heat, and then I come alive again in fall. The seasons of transition, spring and fall, are my favorite...and I know I'm probably not alone in that.

Now, the rolls. When I was younger, my parents would buy the big bag of 30 or so dinner rolls from the Costco bakery. Anyone? Anyone? These became like crack to my friends and I...tear them in half, spread on some butter, microwave ten seconds, and we were in heaven. Then repeat. Now over time, the memory of these rolls drifted away...until today. I went into Costco with my mom and sister for the first time in 8 or so years. I probably shouldn't have been as excited as I was, but it was quite the trip down memory lane. We meandered past all of the samples (taking each one of course) and we were talking about what my parents used to buy at Costco for us kids when we were younger. As soon as I remembered "DINNER ROLLS!", I had to go take a look and grab a bag. Although they aren't quite the same, I can still say they are delicious when buttered and microwaved (what isn't, really?). And they make me happy.


An exciting thing that happened this week: I won bingo twice in a row! Every Wednesday, Fridays does a bingo night at the bar. Yes, this is what my life in Thornton consists of. Haha. But it's actually a lot of fun with the group we have going! And, being that I hardly ever win things, and that I'm a dork, I had to document the winning cards. I won the "X" bingo and the blackout, which was pretty sweet. Prizes were a free appetizer, $5 gift card and $25 cash. Score. It was a good night.

Overall, it's the little things. :)


Tuesday, April 17, 2012

bloom.

Life is weird a lot. I haven't been on in a week, and I haven't posted in longer than that. Sometimes, I just have nothing to say. And that's alright. I don't miss Facebook yet, and that's been great.

Living back at home, it's been hard to remember that there is anything outside of my daily routine of work and home. That there is anything outside of this small suburban radius of Thornton. So occasionally I'll be snapped out of my reverie by friends in other places, and I'll think to myself "I should probably keep in contact with them better", and it doesn't happen. I get sucked back into this strange loop of my life, asking the same questions and usually not listening to the answers.

Though, I will say that despite that, I am growing. I am learning, I am trying not to analyze for once, and I am growing. It's not always an up-and-up process, but more like an up-and-down process. I can be ok with that. And I am learning to be ok being alone...or more specifically, seeking God when I am alone. And it makes all the difference.

As far as the photo challenge, I guess right now I'd rather take pictures of what I want, when I want. Haha. These are pictures from my trip to Fort Collins to see my good friend Katie...


Mini Almond Joy and Toasted Coconut cupcakes...SO good.


This is probably the only pink picture you will get from me right now. Haha.



I hope you all are well :)

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Listen, love.

Saw these three bands on Saturday: Good Old War, The Belle Brigade, and Family of the Year. All great. I've been jamming out to The Belle Brigade in my car recently, and I love these songs:

"Where Not To Look For Freedom"

"Losers"

"Punch Line"


As far as the photo challenge...it will resume soon :)

Friday, April 6, 2012

mellow yellow



Alright. I realize that the color yellow was technically supposed to end on Tuesday, but it is ending today with this picture. And I am having a hard time choosing a color to move on to! Green and orange were suggested to me, but I'm leaning towards pink. I'm working all day tomorrow so unless I get up in the morning to do this, my picture might not be until after Easter. We'll see.

Anyways, I love this mug. It's bright and cheerful and usually has one of my favorite beverages inside of it. It's also the perfect size for holding while I'm tucked into one of our outdoor chairs on the back patio, enjoying the morning. Life is good with this mug.

I still don't know if I can put into words all that I've been taking in this past week. Maybe it's not meant to be put into words and shared on a public blog. Though I will say that not being on facebook has been wonderful. No one knows where I'm going, who I'm hanging out with, or where I'm at in life...and I don't know where everyone else is. And I don't care that I don't know! Although there is something great about being tagged in pictures and statuses and letting people know that your life is progressing, I was becoming too attached to that. I've been learning boundaries...we'll leave it at that. Changes are on the horizon...

 

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Just a little something...

I have a book called "Bittersweet" by Shauna Niequist. And it's a bunch of short essays on life by this author compiled into one awesome book. This one, "twenty-five", is by far my favorite. I got this from http://www.iamaxis.org/twenty-five/. I hope you can take something away from it :)


“TWENTY-FIVE” BY SHAUNA NIEQUIST

Here are a few thoughts on being twenty-five-ish, some that I knew, because smart older people gave me good advice, and some that I really wish I had known, that those smart older people probably did tell me, and that I lost track of along the way.
I know that age is, of course, one of the most arbitrary ways of measuring a person. I have friends in their sixties who continually teach me about discovery and possibility, and friends in their young twenties who are as crotchety and set in their ways as Archie Bunker. Age, like numbers on a scale and letters on a report card, tells us very little of who we are. You decide every year exactly how young and how old you want to be.
When you’re twenty-five-ish, you’re old enough to know what kind of music you love, regardless of what your last boyfriend or roommate always used to play. You know how to walk in heels, how to tie a necktie, how to give a good toast at a wedding, and how to make something for dinner. You don’t have to think much about skin care, home ownership, or your retirement plan.
Your life can look a lot of different ways when you’re twenty-five: single, dating, engaged, married. You are working in dream jobs, pay-the-bills jobs, and downright horrible jobs. You are young enough to believe that anything is possible, and you are old enough to make that belief a reality.
Now is the time to figure out what kind of work you love to do. What are you good at? What makes you feel alive? What do you dream about? You can go back to school now, switch directions entirely. You can work for almost nothing, or live in another country, or volunteer long hours for something that moves you. There will be a time when finances and schedules make this a little trickier, so do it now. Try it, apply for it, get up and do it.
When I was twenty-five, I was in my third job in as many years—all in the same area at a church, but the responsibilities were different each time. I was frustrated at the end of the third year, because I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do next. I didn’t feel like I’d found my place yet. I met with my boss, who was in his fifties. I told him how anxious I was about finding the one perfect job for me, and quick. He asked me how old I was, and when I told him I was twenty-five, he told me that I couldn’t complain to him about finding the right job until I was thirty-two. In his opinion, it takes about ten years after college to find the right fit, and anyone who finds it earlier than that is just plain lucky.
So use every bit of your ten years: try things, take classes, start over. One of my oldest friends, Jenny, got a degree in child psychology from Harvard, and has worked for years at a bunch of fancy companies as a client account manager. A few years ago, she finally realized that what she’s always loved is helping to heal people through massage. Now after work and on weekends, she’s the world’s best-educated massage therapist, building up her clientele with every passing month, and happier than she’s ever been.
My dear friend Rachel has been a makeup artist since she was eighteen, and after ten years, she decided that what she really wants to be is a therapist. So she’s doing it now, getting her bachelor’s degree, making plans for her master’s, doing makeup all the while to pay for school. That’s what this time is for, to figure those things out.
Now is also the time to get serious about relationships. And “serious” might mean walking away from the ones that don’t give you everything you need. Some of the most life-shaping decisions you make in this season will be about walking away from good-enough, in search of can’t-live-without. One of the only truly devastating mistakes you can make in this season is staying with the wrong person even though you know he or she is the wrong person. It’s not fair to that person, and it’s not fair to you.
My friend Chrissie and her boyfriend were together for ten years, since college. He’s a great guy, but throughout their relationship, several people had told Chrissie that they observed a fundamental mismatch. They didn’t fit together like puzzle pieces. They didn’t fit together at all. But she stayed, out of love and hope and commitment, and then he proposed. And they just couldn’t get the wedding planned. They couldn’t agree on where or when or how many people, so they stopped planning for a while. In the meantime, she went to South Africa with a group from our church to work with AIDS orphans, and while she was there, she felt alive and full of purpose for the first time in years. When she returned, her fiancé wasn’t all that interested in hearing about it.
All the things her friends had been saying for years clicked into place, and a few weeks later, she gave back the ring. She’s literally like a new person these days, full of bright energy, hope, clarity. And those things are worth a whole lot more than a diamond from the wrong man, even if he’s a really good man, like this one was.
Twenty-five is also a great time to start counseling, if you haven’t already, and it might be a good round two of counseling if it’s been awhile. You might have just enough space from your parents to start digging around your childhood a little bit. Unravel the knots that keep you from living a healthy whole life, and do it now, before any more time passes.
Twenty-five is the perfect time to get involved in a church that you love, no matter how different it is from the one you were a part of growing up. Be patient and prayerful, and decide that you’re going to be a person who grows, who seeks your own faith, who lives with intention. Set your alarm on Sunday mornings, no matter how late you were out on Saturday night. It will be dreadful at first, and then after a few weeks, you’ll find that you like it, that the pattern of it fills up something inside you.
Try different kinds of communities, different sizes and denominations and traditions. My friend Monica grew up in a community church in Northern California, and now she’s an elder at a Lutheran church in Reno because she appreciates the history and structure of this new context. Our friends Kelly and Amy grew up in nondenominational churches, and now have spent a number of years as passionate volunteers at the Presbyterian church in their neighborhood.
I know that most people need a season of space, a time to take a step back and evaluate the spiritual context of their youth. I didn’t go to church for a long season in college, and that space and freedom was so important for me. It gave me the perspective I needed to find my own faith. But it’s very easy for a season of space to turn into several years without any kind of spiritual groundedness. It’s easy to wake up several years from now and find yourself unable to locate that precious, faith-filled part of your heart and history, because it slowly disintegrated over months and years. Don’t do that. Do whatever you have to do to connect with God in a way that feels authentic and truthful to you. Do it now, so that you don’t regret the person you become, little by little, over time, without it.
This is the thing: when you start to hit twenty-eight or thirty, everything starts to divide, and you can see very clearly two kinds of people: on one side, people who have used their twenties to learn and grow, to find God and themselves and their deep dreams, people who know what works and what doesn’t, who have pushed through to become real live adults.
And then there’s the other kind, who are hanging on to college, or high school even, with all their might. They’ve stayed in jobs they hate because they’re too scared to get another one. They’ve stayed with men or women who are good but not great because they don’t want to be lonely. They mean to find a church, they mean to develop honest, intimate friendships, they mean to stop drinking like life is one big frat party. But they don’t do those things, so they live in kind of an extended adolescence, no closer to adulthood than they were when they graduated college.
Don’t be like that. Don’t get stuck. Move, travel, take a class, take a risk. Walk away, try something new. There is a season for wildness and a season for settledness, and this is neither. This season is about becoming. Don’t lose yourself at happy hour, but don’t lose yourself on the corporate ladder either.
Stop every once in a while and go out to coffee or climb in bed with your journal. Ask yourself some good questions like, Am I proud of the life I’m living? What have I tried this month? What have I learned about God this year? What parts of my childhood faith am I leaving behind, and what parts am I choosing to keep with me for this leg of the journey? Do the people I’m spending time with give me life, or make me feel small? Is there any brokenness in my life that’s keeping me from moving forward?
These years will pass much more quickly than you think they will. You will go to lots of weddings, and my advice, of course, is to dance your pants off at every single one. I hope you go to very few funerals. You’ll watch TV and run on the treadmill and go on dates, some of them great and some of them terrible. Time will pass, and all of a sudden, things will begin to feel a little more serious. You won’t be old, of course. But you will want to have some things figured out, and the most important things only get figured out if you dive into them now.
For a while in my early twenties I felt like I woke up a different person every day, and was constantly confused about which one, if any, was the real me. I feel more and more like myself with each passing year, for better and for worse, and you’ll find that, too. Every year, you will trade a little of your perfect skin and your ability to look great without exercising for wisdom and peace and groundedness, and every year the trade will be worth it. I promise.
Now is your time. Become, believe, try. Walk closely with people you love, and with other people who believe that God is very good and life is a grand adventure. Don’t spend time with people who make you feel like less than you are. Don’t get stuck in the past, and don’t try to fast-forward yourself into a future you haven’t yet earned. Give today all the love and intensity and courage you can, and keep traveling honestly along life’s path.
Taken from Bittersweet by Shauna Niequist Copyright © 2010. Used by permission.  shaunaniequist.com

Monday, April 2, 2012

hiatus: the sequel

Gone from facebook again. Taking a breather from the world of distraction and comparison. How does my life compare to other people's lives? Do they have a job? Are they married? Do they have a social life? Talents? All of this is advertised on facebook, and although it can be entertaining and convenient and informative, it can also be toxic. It is also very self-centered for me. How many people care about my life? How many of them can I get to care about my life? We fine-tune our profiles to put our best face forward. Our statuses range from play-by-plays on our most mediocre of life activities ("just ate a delicious sandwich") to glimpses of our deepest feelings ("don't know how much longer I can do this"). The amount of 'likes' or comments determine the success of the status, and therefore implies the importance of your life and your feelings. Sometimes I spend way too much time thinking about what status I should use. I've learned not to use facebook status-writing as therapy.

I have to do these breaks to gain perspective. I'm probably going back to facebook eventually, because there is value in keeping in touch with people I don't stay in contact with otherwise, but it won't consume my thoughts and my time.

I'm also learning about my place in this life. But more to come on that another time.