Whew!

Sooo I agreed to painting a three piece fabric wall cover thing for a friend and her new apartment and did not realize the difference between a large canvas and canvas-like fabric!  Stupid of me to think they would share alot of similarities though, right?  Anyways, after figuring out that she was leaving for college not August 30, but July 30 I was a little nervous.  I have not been home a solid week straight it feels like since summer began so I was anticipating a stretched schedule for finishing this piece!  However, I thankfully put in a good 5 hours or so a day and finished it all in 3 days - and it turned out great!  I've never painted something this large so the garage was my studio but after clicking on my Needtobreathe station on Pandora and turning on the fans I was focused on one task only.  It was definitely challenging, but I think I just opened up a new door of ideas with this new project- I liked the way it turned out and covered so much area and although it took a heck of alot of paint.. the fabric was tremendously cheaper than canvases that size! Let me know what you think!

Nosy Pets

I am a firm believer that pets have their own personalities... especially mine.  I also believe that they cannot stand to be alone or in the dark about anything, and curiosity could indeed kill all animals.  As I was working on this mother load of a piece in the garage, I felt these little eyes gazing and creepin' the entire time. haha

                                                                                             

Times a Travelin'

It is starting to hit me, yup... I am actually going to college.  I am even starting to get a little pathetic.  All this time I was sure i was ready for it- this new chapter in life.. and maybe I am I just don't want to embrace it just yet.  Thankfully, I still have a few weeks left before it's really time to go but after adding the finishing touches to my dorm shopping and planing things around whether I will be home or not is taking a toll.  I never realized how comfortable I am with what I have and it has occurred to me that I am not very accustomed to change- or maybe just not right now.  Time has never moved this quickly and as I look around me I cannot imagine being so far away from the people I love the most!  

   I went to my best friend's lake house this weekend and along with her family our matching name boyfriends tagged along with us.  It was there that these pathetic emotions started to hit me.  As I was lounging on a tube on the lake I looked around and soaked it all in.  Honestly, I think I could have laid there for hours and never moved because the peacefulness was just amazing.  Anyways, I looked around at my boyfriend, my best friend and her boyfriend and just wanted to snatch them up and put them in a place where time would never touch us and we could just hangout without growing up.  I realized that I could not ask for better friends like them and their involvement in my life has been nothing short of crucial.  I have finally found people who love me for exactly who I am and we all just understand each other to the point that being around each other is never a hassle.  It's the same with my family, and after realizing how great my friends were I wanted to race back home and be with my amazing family too.  I am so thankful for the people close to me because I have been able to love and be loved back without any "strings attached."  I can be myself without worrying whether they will approve or leave me.  I feel like I am just finally at a place of balance in my life and I guess that is why I am scared for anything about it to change.  My life is about to be altered whether I like it or not and after typing all this out I realize once again how perfect the Lord and his plans are in my life.  I don't think it would be as easy to go and live in another place if I was not peaceful at home!? He has built such a strong support for me so that I can handle being away because I know those people will always be there! Wow, I have been worrying myself sick and thinking, dreading and anticipating so much that I haven't tried to sit back and understand what the Lord is doing.  He always takes care of His children and would never give us more than we could handle.  I am thankful that no matter where I live I can turn to Him in an instant- no voicemail or 3G problems... instantly.  

Once again, I have proved to myself the therapeutic process of writing does indeed help.  I am going to treasure the rest of this summer and invest even more in these relationships God has placed so closely in my life.  Having faith that He will carry me into the next day is all I can do when time is moving so fast like this.  

Peru

I went on a mission trip to Peru last summer and as the time rolls back around for another group to go I can't help but reminisce through all my pictures of that amazing place. 

What's on your mind?....

There's something about the open air that does a person good.  I was at the lake with my best friend and her family this weekend and although we were blessed with the comforts of their cabin, I enjoyed being able to take in the natural scene of trees and water that surrounded me.  I love going to the lake because when I get out on the water I feel like I am in the middle of the wilderness and for a moment, civilization is forgotten.  The whole idea of escaping to a vacation house it wonderful to me because a person can get lost in the business of their own life and if we don't refresh ourselves, we will just run on empty until we pass out.  I have to say that nothing feels better than laying down on a boat and soaking up some fresh vitamin D with the wind blowing just enough to keep you from burning up.  Ok I take that back, laying out on the beach with a perfect breeze, sand at your feet and ocean waves in your ears is near perfection.  I tell you, if I could sit next to an ocean for the rest of my life I think I would be content.  It's funny that we now make noise machines that replicate the sounds of nature to fall asleep.  God knew what He was doing when He made each sound and obviously we are the ones messing things up by trying to prevent ourselves from hearing them! Although, I do not think I could sleep if I knew there were as many bugs as I hear on my noise maker right outside my window.. haha Anyways, there is just something about nature that, once surrounded, our bodies feel more at ease.  I feel like I can breathe deeper surrounded by mountains or on a beach with only ocean and empty sand in my view.  I hate traveling to places filled with tourists because I cannot relax.  It was nice being able to wake up and look outside the window at a huge lake and know that my internet on my phone wouldn't work.  As much as I like the internet, knowing that I don't have it gives me a little feeling of peace because I can escape any busy gossip or pointless status/tweet and clear my head.  It's weird that when I am reading those things I don't mind, and even enjoy seeing what goes on in other peoples lives but knowing that I can't eliminates the option and leaves me with opportunity to use my time elsewhere.  I feel like my generation especially has become so dependent on status updates and picture files to keep up with each others lives that the process of calling someone up and asking themselves has become almost unnecessary.  Why ask the person if you already know from their facebook page? I do this ALL the time and it's even to people I don't know!  It's so addicting!  I think after this I'll go delete anyone I don't personally know.... hahah or maybe I will just train myself to not be a creeper- I love that facebook has brought a new lighter meaning to the word "stalker" - because now when I hear it I don't picture the scary guy with binoculars but the girl clicking and clicking through some ones pictures on facebook. I almost feel like I am breaking the rules of my human nature by being able to see what someone is doing all day everyday.  It's like twitter has made us partially omniscient.  I wonder what Jesus would have put as His status? I don't know but I would have "liked" it.

"One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain"

What is it about music that makes us go crazy? If we think about it, we are surrounded by music whether it be the commercial tunes, elevator music, the man whistling while he works, and even our ringtones on our cell phone, music is EVERYWHERE! And being as weird as I am, it affects me.  If I listen to a sad song, I start to get a little gloomy, and then again if I listen to a happy-go-lucky song I feel a bit more cheerful.  How can music do this to us?  I read this little bit of info off a website and it made some sense to me:

According to Hope Zabriskie on the article Top Ten Knee-Jerk Reaction Songs, songs are like beings....that not only create visceral reactions but may help or enlighten us. They help us translate unspeakable emotions into tangible communication. Those deeply rooted feelings we have can be awakened by the tune and lyrics of a particular song. Like for example, if a person is still suffering from loneliness and hurt although unable to express it to people around, music is a way to escape. By listening to a song, a person can express how he or she truly feels or thinks. It can be a better expression if he/ she would sing it....in a way the lyrics and tune have a deeper impression on that person's thoughts. Then after that song, its like a breath of relief because unexpressed thoughts and emotions dont linger that often anymore.

Doesn't that make sense? I can remember times when I was angry and wanted to listen to more angry songs, or I was upset and wanted to just sulk in a slow depressing song.  I mean, when you are in love you get all giddy for sappy love songs, right?  How funny is that!  It just confirms how beautifully creative the human being really is whether he/she knows it or not.

bah na na na banana rap

I dare you not to get this song stuck in your head

Octopus's Garden

Once in a life you find it

Around your heart you bind it

Ripped and pulled it never frays

Lasting strong throughout your days

Hidden and secret it may seem

Yet appearing consistently in your dreams

Smothered by others, wanting to scream aloud

Fight, you must through the crowd

Right or wrong you can't be sure

So you search all over to find the Cure

Don't give up, if its what you want

Or it will not stop it's everlasting haunt

It cannot be replaced, no. not at all

It's real. It's true. It's right. It's your call

Transparency

To me, getting my thoughts out on paper or in a blog is almost therapeutic because in a way I am letting the overflow of ideas finally stick to something that I can see in front of me and be able to dissect and understand them better.  It is as if I can relax and realize how stupid something sounds only after I write it down.  I was mainly just thinking this because I wondered tonight if I should keep my blog or not.  Part of me thought how weird it seems to type all this out and not know who comes across it, and then I realized that I really don't care.  There's something about getting your thoughts out and being able to share them with others that completely makes sense to me and helps me to feel like I can explain my head a little better if they see my thought process along the way.  I love experiencing something and then being able to gather all my thoughts about it into my blog so someone close to me can know exactly what was going on in my mind.  I just know that I enjoy reading others thoughts, opinions, struggles and honest words so I figured that it doesn't hurt to be a little transparent myself.  I admire the people who can share their world with others so easily and think that it is a gift to be so honest and down to earth.  Acting like everything is perfect and being scared of someone finding out that you struggle is not healthy, and in the end isn't worth it, to me.  Judgment is overrated and trust me, I am not a stranger to it- I find myself judging and hurting people's feelings way more than I thought myself capable of and it sucks.  We are our own worst enemy and as I talk about things, I realize that I am mainly talking to myself.  It's like I am trying to teach myself these lessons and help myself understand how I should have handled or how I can work through a situation.  Anyways, let me end this ramble and just say I highly recommend keeping track of your thoughts whether it be in a blog, journal, song or whatever - to go back and see how you jumped through some things and grown is extremely neat!

I'll Remember the laughter as we go our seperate ways, but there's so much we're learning and we can not be afraid. There's a world outside our door and nothing in our way. But if it's not what we're both looking for we'll meet again someday - Author Unknown

Dreamy

Do dreams really mean anything?  I am one of the rare ones who has a dream almost every night and usually can remember what they were about the next day.  Lat night, I basically took a coma and fell into the deepest sleep I can ever remember having and in that sleep I had the strangest mix of dreams.  One of them was actually a nightmare in which I watched all the people close to me get attacked by this evil random woman and as I tried to kick her my legs would barely miss and it was as if I were moving in slow motion.  It was the most random, scary and frustrating dream!  I woke up 1) having to use the restroom 2) scared to death because I thought the dream was still real and 3) struggling to get out of bed to go to the restroom because I feared that any movement would make her attack me... so I laid there, considering all my options and before I knew it I was back into another deep sleep.  This time my dream was on a more lighter scale and was obviously not as traumatic because I can barely remember it.  However, this still brings me to the main question of whether dreams actually mean something or not?  I know God spoke to many people back in the day through dreams, but does that have anything to do with the ones we have today?  For some reason, I always find myself taking my dreams a lot more serious than others because mine are so real and involve situations that I might have recently struggled with or need to settle.  And what does it mean when you consistently see one person in your dreams each night? I always have the same characters and sometimes it can be so random because I will not have talked to that specific person in a long time but here they are each night when I fall asleep! I have often heard the explanation that our dreams are our sub conscience screaming for attention.  They reveal things that we push down inside or try and avoid.  This makes sense to me in some cases because often if I have a disagreement or a relationship has been troubled, I will dream of myself and the other person reconciled and living happily ever after ... that is until I wake up to realize that the situation never changed.  Dreams are such teasers- we can be anyone and do anything in our dreams and a lot of the time- our dreams are hard to wake up from.  How amazing is that to think that our brain takes us into different worlds and makes up things we actually never were apart of in the real world.  Our creativity is overwhelming us and we don't even realize it or do it on our own.  It just blows my mind to see how intricate every single thing about the human body really is.  We will never master the body because there is just too much going on all the time and it all works together perfectly!  How can you deny a creator after seeing what all the brain can do?  This is such a random post but I was just going to see if there were any other people out there as fascinated with dreams as I am. Oh, and heres a trippy picture because that's what I consider dreams to also be.... trippy.

Send Me

Well, needless to say, I decided to ditch the computer and soak up the rest of my travels with my family without stressing over whether I will have time to blog or not because frankly, I was exhausted!

It was so nice to see my family, especially in Scotland, and be able to unwind with a more comfortable surrounding.  Just when one filled trip was finishing, another was just beginning.  As a family, we traveled to Rome, Paris and back to London - spending a few days in each place.  I definitely think that you cannot spend enough days in each place because there is just too much to see.  For example, even just walking around Paris and looking up at different buildings older than my own country brought me to such a state of fascination that I wanted to know everything about each specific one.  It is just crazy that there are monuments and fountains that once served the greatest significance to their country, and now are simply a place for Joe and Nancy to sit and eat their hotdogs.  I don't know, I am just overwhelmed when it comes to historical places that I try and picture exactly what was going on the moment each building was erected or a king was crowned, or a traitor was beheaded.  Time travels by so quickly and our society is moving so fast that it is scary to realize that in this world, value is relevant and what material items we treasure today will not last forever.


Let me get off my soap box and say that London was my favorite, I think.  I don't know whether it was the fact that I absolutely loved figuring my way around on their tube system a little too much or that Abbey Road was there, but I absolutely want to go back for an even longer stay.  Something about the way people carried themselves and the history behind all the cathedrals, I felt like I had gained knowledge just physically being there.

My journey all throughout Europe has enriched my knowledge of the world and only fed the traveling fire I have in my heart.  It is trips like these that keep me focused on what is it that I want to do with my life and where I want to be.  It is funny that after I got home, I sat down and realized that this world is HUGE and I did not even touch the surface!  Just being in the Amsterdam airport made me feel small because of the different ethnicities surrounding me.  I am an amateur, that's for sure, but I know God did not give me this love for running around the world to sit around and watch the travel channel- Lord willing I will continue to go and see and learn.

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" -Isaiah 6:8