NOTE TO SELF: fourteen

This. This idea: to not let things get to you. figure out who you are, and what you contain, and then just learn from everything else. let it flow through you, but don't bottle it up. you don't have to process everything. sometimes you just have to let it run by like an icy stream on a summers day. it bubbles and pulls at your feet but you stand there. you don't let it affect you other than to let it make your bones ache and your skin cool and remind you that you are alive, and you are who you are.

MOVING ON:

guys. i am the worst. blogger. ever.

i just up and leave and decide to drop by to post these notes....

YES I AM FEELING GUILTY FOR LEAVING YOU HERE WITH NOTHING TO READ.
(on the other hand i'm kinda half tempted to be like what? go fend for yourself! i'm totally not responsible for your blogger feed being full and up-to-date. i won't do that though, because i know the feeling of an empty blog feed. *so sad*

me feeling guilty, the lack of posts here, this is soon to change. (translation: if i don't sit down and write soon, my brain and my fingers are going to run away on permanent vacation to the Bahamas and then where would we be?) (Answer: we would still be here, in montana, with semi-gorgeous weather and a 3.7 mile long to-do list buried underneath a full-time job and the incessant craving for coffee that i have tried (and failed) valiantly to curb.) (and we would so much rather be in the Bahamas, now wouldn't we?)

two more NOTE TO SELF posts, and then Kate at the Goodness Revolt has graciously offered to let me guest post on her blog about said note to self series. (i am equally terrified and thrilled. i've never guest posted anything before, so i'm getting that jittery feeling in my gut that happens when i go over to someone's house for the first time and all i can think is i really hope i don't break anything.) (wait. can you break things on blogs?) (*worrying intensifies*)

WELCOME TO MY WORLD.

after this....I have absolutely no idea what i'm doing.

(other than the if places were people series because i've got some sparking ideas for that.)

this is gonna be great.

NOTE TO SELF: eleven

NOTE TO SELF: the sticky notes series

i am feeling SO overwhelmed.

i love to blog. really really really love to blog. i would do this all day every day if i could make a living off it.

unfortunately i can't.

so - i'm cutting down. you may have noticed already that i'm not posting as much as i have been. (october was kind of a post overload...so aside from that.) i want my blogging to be real - not just something i pump out every once in a while because i feel like i should keep this up.

i want to post the highlights. the stuff that sticks.
old stuff that i love, new things i think are awesome.

things i would change, things i love and hate at the same time.

i would love to have red hair.
i fail at bible time but its a new years resolution to remedy that.
as much as it tries to kill me, i want to start running.
and i want to look at the good things.
i want to learn the little things and remember them.

i therefore introduce to you:

i will be doing two series at the same time. Note to Self as they come, and then If Places Were People every other week.

Note to Self  will be the little lessons that i learn that i don't want to forget. these lessons are actually written in my horrid handwriting on my bedroom walls, but i want to share them with you.

because somedays we just need little sticky notes that say it's gonna be okay.

I may not post as much. but hopefully these posts will be less of me blabbering and more of
look what i learned today! what do you think? 

plus - you know - these are probably gonna be on canva things so AWESOMENESS.

stay tuned, lovelies.

a wandering post about winter.

note: this also counts as day 19 of blogtober: share a diy. (you should be proud of this little blogger, doing it herself and hibernating. or if that's not good enough for you, i scrape my own windows when there's frost and snow on them.)

there is snow on the ground.
christmas music can make me either disgruntled or gruntled. (its a word, look it up.)
and it's so COLD.
its winter.
winter means scraping ice spiders off my windshield and
the dull thud of my boots on the frozen ground.
it means that the house gets cold at night anyway
but this year its colder than normal.
when i woke up this morning, my nose was cold. cold as if i'd been outside for 10 minutes.
i hate cold noses.

it means waiting for my car to warm up but lets face it, the heater sucks.
(you had one job, heater...one job.)
and the house, even though its almost 80 degrees, still feels like its only 55, and the cold beats at the windows like a chant.
cold cold cold cold cold
the sun seems so much brighter in the winter, taunting us.
"come outside and play...it's lovely out here!"
but then you open the door and BOOM
winter shoves in like an army at the gate,
like the uninvited to the party
the cold air billows in like snow before the plow.
everyone seems to be strapping their snow-pushers to the front of their mud-splattered pick-up trucks
the minute we get a skiff of the white stuff.

its my second favorite season (autumn is first). i love the white stuff.
i love the tingles you get in your toes whenever you see the christmas lights
and the giddy laughter that bubbles up when you think of your family's faces on christmas morning
because you got them some awesome gifts this year.

i love the bonfires that you have in the snow,
and life-threatening sledding in the dark - or even in the daytime.
i love the way the streams freeze over but then bits of the ice break off
and you can see the black water tirelessly sprinting on beneath the white cover.
the rivers do the same, but bigger water means faster water means thinner ice,
so its more like elephant skin, wrinkled but white, edging up on other ridges, pushing up the banks.

i love christmas. i love the holiday season. even in january, there's skiing and
there's hot tea and leggings (so awesome)
and you have the perfect excuse to bundle up and cover your skin
and you don't have to worry about finding tank tops that fit
because "what the heck ITS SWEATER SEASON frumpyness is actually semi-acceptable and visual comfort is expected"
and reading for hours on end is legit because what else are we gonna do? sunbathe?

the snow keeps coming and then it melts and the ground turns into one cohesive puddle of mud and yucky water.
the garden is kind of melted, but the sunflower stalks from last summer are still standing
and when the wind rustles their leaves it sounds like brittle newspaper being torn.
they wait like dirty giants, non-anticipatory of their fate, unmoving and solidly firm,
dead to the world around them.

sometimes we get rain, but it can't decide whether it wants to be rain or snow.
somehow i got all my christmas present shopping done before thanksgiving
but i can't buy anything because both my birthday and christmas come this month, dang it.
so i sit here, and i read, and i write, and i work, and i wait
because its winter.

but dang it dang it dang it 
why does it have to be so cold?

screw it all.
i'm going to hibernate.
don't wake me.
(unless its food time. or you plan on kidnapping me and taking me to somewhere lovely. or you've found a dragon and you want to give it to me. *whispers* someone please get me a dragon...)

DAY 24: lazy days. what to do?

watch the rain fall. as far as i'm concerned, rainy days are the epitome of lazy days.

drink tea. preferably earl grey.

Source

read books.

Source

sometimes, i'll go for a drive because there's nothing else to do.

Source

but usually, on a lazy day, the best part is when i let down my guard. i feel good, because i'm not stressed. i'm okay, because i'm able to rest, just for a day. just for a day. because in my world, lazy days come one at a time.

Day 11: RANT: what if we were Jesus-oriented

ours is a performance oriented world.

doing your best is no longer the standard that you live up to.
it used to be. God is happy with our best.
if we give him everything
if we let him work through us
but for everyone else, it isn't enough.
the new standard is everyone else's view of your best, which is labeled "perfect"
in a scrawling, ridiculous, unreal script.


When we step onto the stage of life,
the lights blind us.
we stagger, dazed, confused, disoriented.
until someone pulls the rug out from under us.
and then we know exactly what happened.
our best - our dazed, disoriented best -
that trying in a tough situation
wasn't good enough.
and someone said so.


it doesn't matter that they don't know what it feels like to be you.
they said it. and it hurt.
like stubbing your toe, or hitting your funny bone.
enough to bring tears to your eyes and attempt to curl into the fetal position.
but not enough to kill you.


They say.
its not good enough.
you're not good enough.
work harder.
do better.
because otherwise we will throw you to the crowd
and who knows what they'll do to you...

You wonder why you are even on that stage.
you wonder why you're there.
who put you there.
there's a faint memory of wanting to be on the stage
of wanting to please.
but now it just doesn't seem to matter
it's pointless to try to please someone who can't be pleased.
they'll only make fun of you
as they rip the rug out
once again
and laugh as you fall flat.

So why try?
because suddenly
as you're laying on the floor with a sore bum and
a sore pride
you wonder why their opinion matters
why you ever used their measurement, their standard
in the first place.


We weren't made to be successful.
We were meant to be faithful.
We fail at it; we are faithless
and yet we serve a faithful God
who's standards never change.
who never changes.
who does not judge performances
because they will never be perfect.

our value to him is not what we can do
but the fact that we are us
and nothing can really change that.
the fact that we are a work in progress
a blob of clay
that will be put through formation,
burning heat in the kiln,
drowning in glaze,
and then burnt again.
sometimes we are even shattered and then pieced together again.
but that is what makes us beautiful
we are art.
we are ever changing,
when he is not.
we are us
and he is him.
can we be Jesus-oriented,
rather than performance-oriented,
focusing on the journey rather than the applause?
we serve a God who loves us
because we are messed up.
not because we are perfect.
Why can our value not come from God?
that the value is I am a work in progress.
I'm not perfect.
But I'm better than I was yesterday
and I'll be even better tomorrow.
Why can our value not be based on whether we nailed it
or not.
but on the fact that it's been worse.
why can we not be valuable because we are us?
Why can our value not be because Jesus was nailed?
because our ledger no longer runs red.
because it is as clean as a new driving record.
a blank cd
an empty wall
or a white canvas.
Why can our value be the fact that we have jesus
tattooed across our heart.
not the fact that we fail to have perfect
tattooed on our foreheads?

It seems this is the struggle of our generation.

forever looking to others to define us.
what do you think of me? my writing, my room,
my weird art projects, my future, my strange taste of music, my *insert whatever here*.
we care about what other people think.
But is that right?
what if unimportant opinions are being applied?


what if we applied the opinion that mattered.
the one that shaped us into our very literal best on the standard that mattered.
not the one that didn't but was used anyways.
what if we used correct
rather than incorrect.
and left the rug, the stage
the facial tattoos that were once so critical
behind.
because they didn't matter.
and we were jesus-oriented
rather than performance-oriented.
what if.

stop and look

I was thinking about how when my family is on vacation, or visiting friends that we don't see often, or doing something unusual, we tend to slow down. Little things are funnier, we do stupid stuff and get a kick out of it...we SLOW DOWN.

And then we get back from the vacation and everyone gets back into their bazillion-mile-an-hour routine.
We start creating invalid excuses, such as "I'm too busy", "I will finish this first", or "I'm too tired".

The thing is, we have to stop and look. If we don't we miss the little things.

For example: my older sister was 12 weeks pregnant with her second baby, had sever morning sickness, her 20-month-old baby girl loves to yank chains, and her lab-cross puppy loves to chew.

My older sister was craving bagels.

I had bagels.

I could have said "I need to go home and do homework, practice piano, do laundry, read the passage for Bible Study tonight, blah, blah, blah..." 
But when I texted her telling her of the bagels, and she got excited, which never happens when she isn't feeling good, what could I do?
So off to big sister's I went. Later, she told me that my niece was running around the house yelling "Nam! Nam!", which is little Jo's nickname for me.

I could have made excuses. I could have tried to get something done on my never-ending to-do list.
Instead, though, I did something for someone else. I slowed down, and breathed and enjoyed my sister and brother-in-law and niece for an hour and was completely blessed. Sometimes we have to stop and look.

Because if we don't, we miss out on the precious, priceless things that life hides from our overview glances. We miss the things that don't come into focus right away. We have to look for some things. And if we don't, we never see them.

So, these pictures - most of them, I took them thinking "These are going to be cow-pie pictures because of __________". (And the careless part of me took the picture anyway...) Fortunately, I was wrong! They turned out just fine... :D Enjoy!

Kona was on my lap when I took this...I didn't think it was going to turn out, because this lens doesn't zoom out AT ALL. But it worked! And turned out very nice, if I do say so myself... ;)

You know, for this picture being taken from the car, it turned out pretty good...

What can I say? I'm a messy cook ...I thought the spilled popcorn kernels looked pretty...

A glorious Montana view, just for you!

lessons from a storm cloud.

Yep. Life can be dull.
dull: (adjective) not lively or spirited, listless; causing boredom; tedious; uninteresting.
There are such things as flat spots in life. Quiet days, when Pinterest and tea suddenly lose their allure. Silent moments, when you realize that life is not a "roller coaster that only goes up". (Thank you, John Green and Augustus Waters).
Sometimes, life has to rest on the plains.
There are days when all I wish for is to travel. To see the world and buy trinkets to send back home. But I can't. I stay and sit at my desk. I marvel at how time flies when you are sitting still.
Let me clarify. Time doesn't fly when you are sitting still. It crawls, inching along like a pond full of molasses, wriggling and squirming and taking it's sweet little time getting somewhere interesting.
There are days when I am BORED.
And that is when I am reminded of storm clouds.
Yes, storm clouds. As in storms? As in, the calm before the storm?
Because they always come. There is always that breath before the rain comes pouring down, and the lull before the snow blocks out all vision beyond 20 feet. That pause when nature rests because its big moment is coming soon.
And I am reminded by these storm clouds that I, too, must rest before my storm.
Because in one week I have a photography class that I'm taking with Dani and my college class starts up this week which means homework and I work and I have to start practicing for the musical that starts in April (which really isn't that far away) and I have two dentist appointments in the next two weeks and a friend wants to have coffee andI'mtryingnottolosemymindandstillfindtimetoreadforpleasureandspendtimewithmyfamilyandmydogandmysisterandmynieceandholyfreakingcowI'mgoingtohyperventilate...
*inhale deeply*
Thus the reason why I'm grateful for storm clouds. And boring days. Because there will come a day when I will be busy again. And I will hate it and wish for nothing to do. And then the boring days will come, and I will wish for something, ANYTHING, to do.
But today is my calm day. My wishing day. And because they only come around every once in a while, I'm going to enjoy it.