chai's aren't cheap.

It's been quite some time since I have had a Wednesday night free to myself. It's been quite some time since I've updated this blog. After not being able to do things for yourself in a period of time, it's interesting the things you fall back into routine with and the things you leave by the wayside.

-yoga class, check.
-radinas music night, iffy, but check.
-midnight mimosa, check (soon to be).
-catching up on cutey fashion blogs, check.
-not saying a word to anyone...super check.

My freshman year, I was obsessed with Brandi Carlile's song 'The Story' . Listening to it then had an entirely different meaning. I don't really know what it was though...just excitement with school I suppose. The old wearing off and the new setting in as a fact. I discovered this song around this time of year when the leaves were just starting to fall and the summer heat was just starting to cool. I started listening to this song when I was trying to figure out my life (because as a freshman, I thought that's what the cool kids did; drink coffee and think about life with music softly singing in the background).

Now, sitting here listening to a cover of this song trying to still figure out my life, it has an entirely different meaning. I don't really know what this meaning is either-except plain ol' nostalgia. I remember trying to dance to this song studying for finals in the study room down the hall in my dorm. I remember the boy who I thought would be the love of my life. I remember the chai latte sitting on my desk. I remember missing home but loving college. I remember looking out of the dorms onto the Strong complex wondering what college was like for my grandparents who met inside of those limestone walls. I wondered what college would be like from here on out. I remember thinking something along the lines of 'this is so cool'.

Oh geez...life is still pretty cliche and corny. Not much as changed (but that's kind of a lie because a lot has changed).
Life is still busy. Life is still changing. Life is still crazy. Life is still abundant. And life is still a place of excitement and bewilderment; constantly searching, constantly waiting. The thing is, the song is still the same. Just a little different because of the artist. I'm sitting here looking back on the last four and a half/five years or so thinking about everything that's happened...because a lot has happened...but the thing is...it's already happened. I spent so much time looking forward to the future that I missed a lot. Thank goodness for memories so that I can look back now and see them. However, now I spend an awful lot of time looking at the past. 1-I don't really have that spark of excitement for the future because life is moving so fast I miss the little things that I care for so much and 2-I am just a nostalgic person... A lot has changed, but that's life. It will change. I feel I'm much less naive about things now...like instead of paying full price for a chai latte, just order the tea and pour your own skim, honey and sugar into it at the counter. A little different, but still the same.

I feel like such an old woman right now. An old crazy soul I suppose. I'm looking forward to this year a little more now that I've had this night to recharge and listen to some covers and go back to the places I once did 'year's' ago. I am a little more excited and a little less focused on the here and there. I am a little more centered and slowly inching towards being present. Maybe I'll see my future in the bottom of this to go cup...? eh?

this.old.house.

still love this band.


...i don't like this video.

L'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle.

You know, I used to think that having a life narrated by Keri Bradshaw would be the epitath of my life. Then for a while after my teenage years, I decided that if Anthony Bourdaine were to narrate my life as a whole how much more exicitng it would be. Now, after finding a balance between the two crazy worlds of adventure and teenage heartbreak, I would much rather have Julia Roberts narrate my life. She's just so good at it. I know you're shaking your heads saying 'No way, at least have Dame Maggie Smith or Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine or even the man who is taking over the commercial voiceover world Patrick Dempsey narrate your life'. HOWEVER, If you have not seen Eat Pray Love yet...please, please, please go see it. Then you will understand my choice. I admit, I have never traveled farther than Colorado except for one brief hot trip to Mexico-so-things in terms of the travels might seem a bit cliche. More so, I am also a female so I feel that it is my 'God given' right to envy, lust and yearn with every fiber of my being to reach for something that of the heroine in a 'chick flick'. So, in a nut shell of this long overdue and fairly slim to nothing post-go see Eat Pray Love. (Or read the book :-) )


"You were given life; it is your duty (and also your entitlement as a human being) to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight."
— Elizabeth Gilbert




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"Look for God. Look for God like a man with his head on fire looks for water."
— Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia)








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"L'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle.
The love that moves the sun and the other stars."
— Elizabeth Gilbert

The Urge...

I want this...

...but it won't happen.
I am strong.
I will not cut my hair.
...but I want to so bad at the same time.
Ugggh.

a dandelions dream

Home. I know that this topic is written about a lot on this blog...but we write what we know...we write what we feel is meaningful...we write what is abundant to us...we write what we feel is a gift to be shared...right?

When driving home today with rain pounding into my little broken down toyota, I thought about how often I talk about 'foundation', 'homebase', 'the process' and so many other things that relate to that. Then I thought...how cliche. How seriously cliche. From about Topeka to Lawrence all that was running through my head was how silly I felt for always talking about these things when I'm constantly struggling with them myself. Then at about the Lawrence exit just when I started to really feel like the past few years have been a broken record-it dawned on me.

These topics are what I know. They are what I feel to be meaningful. They are abundant in my life. They are things that have been shared with me as gifts and I feel that to talk about them and the blessings in others' lives are gifts as well. These things of 'home' 'foundations' and 'the process' are things that are going to be constantly worked in my life...and I'm ok with that. I am really really ok with that. It might be possible that I might feel like a broken record...but it's nice to think back on things. It's like driving home.


Turning past the old blue farmhouse on the corner. The fence you used to climb with the neighbors. The patch of dandelions that seem to grow all year long. That old oak tree with the swing that's used as a landmark instead of signs. The trickles of limbs reaching down for you through the narrow two lane into town and around the corner by the railroad tracks where you used to skip rocks on the wood. These stones are places that visually bring me back to places that I know. Places in my life that are meaningful. Places in my life where lessons were learned. Things were gathered in my memory and heart that I feel important to share as gifts because they were blessings to me. When stuck between a rock and hard place, these nostalgic 'things' wedge me out. Yet, they are brought about not by me nor any other human being.




When I'm here, home, things just seem right. Life is calm. Life is right. Life is straight with flat ground so that I can see clearly over those hills that were once there. Life is how I once knew it before new things creapt in to make me sometimes feel like an awkward sulky teenager again. I miss these good things-When that patch of dandelions was just right around the corner ready to be blown throughout the air.

Home.

Aug 1

Two months...two months and I will be able to let myself go. Carrie Bradshaw style. I can't wait. Grannit, it won't be blue, but the green is so much better.


Goodbye old.





Hello new.







Look for actual updates in two and a half months.

Choices

Dear blog,

I miss you.
I am sorry I have neglected to write anything of worth in a great deal of time.



On the brain since last post...choices.
As humans, we make choices. Always. Constantly we are in a state of making choices either consciously or not, we make them. What I don't understand is how we, as humans, have the ability to make choices that harm others. I know we are able to do so, but I just can't see the justification in consciously choosing to make a choice that would harm someone else. We see it happen everyday.(FYI: this has not happened to me lately, just observations). I think back to elementary school on the playground. One child consciously chooses to push another out of the way so that he is now the first person in line for the #1 tether ball court or the best four square game. We make choices-often times, for what we think is the betterment of ourselves...but I've just made observations lately of how easy it is to make choices (consciously) that turn out to be extremely selfish and harmful to others.

The cure?
...I don't really know.
Don't be ridiculous I suppose. Make the effort to put your better foot forward? Try to understand the way others might respond to situations-not the same way that you would. Extend a hand? Indiscriminate acts of kindness? There are so many options...but to choose just one?

...In my mind, there is no need to only choose one answer as to why a person should make positive choices for the betterment of not only themselves, but what I feel is often times much more important: for the betterment of others...

Two To-Do's for this summer to add to my 'learning list'.

a gift to be given...

...is this song.

close your eyes.
then, push play.

well, wait. just kidding open your eyes again, i made a mistake.

ok.
take two.

push play.
quickly, close your eyes.

k. we're good. now-listen.



take a second.
open your eyes.
think.

i have such memories with this song.
i know i've posted it before...or at least i feel as if i have.
though the above might be true-i don't care.
list and share the things that you love more than once.
if something moves you to share...share it. and share it as often as you feel it should be given.