I'm terrified

I spend a lot of time trying to look like I have it all together. Sometimes I even work hard to make it look like I don't try hard at all.

It's Junior year. It's more than half way gone. It's late in my college career. I still want more change. I want more.

I am so tired of being nervous to try and to put myself out there. I'm beyond the point of wishing I could just start college over. This is my life. I never want to wish to go backwards again. I want to embrace today. I want to accept my flaws and accept the flaws of the ones I love. and the ones I don't. I want more love to give.

This semester has turned out to be most joyful 6 months of my life. Nothing is particularly "magical" or different. I've just learned to appreciate the little thing. I've learned or at least, have begun learning how to place my joy in the Lord.

I don't want to stop here. Anything I'm worrying about loosing, isn't worth worrying about. What matters to me is the people that I love.

I'm trying to figure out exactly what it is that makes me feel truly alive. Part of me just wants to throw everything I've learned in the past that tells me "You can't" out the window.

Christmas Break is right around the corner. Two finals left to go. Naturally, It's almost 3 AM and I'm sitting here in bed, listening to a combination of Jon Schmidt, The Temptations, Otis Redding, and John Mayer. I bought Vonnegut's, The Sirens of Titans, and I can't wait to read it.


I love staying up all night. I love love love it. Something about being the only person awake is incredibly romantic to me. Of course, I know the word romantic should only be used to be described a situation between two. To ensure that my use of the word isn't mistaken for a form of self love, I merely mean, I can hear myself think.


The middle of the night is when I dream big. It's when I imagine my life being meaningful and something that I'm constantly giving away. It's inspiring.

During the day, I love to nap. I love napping while I'm supposed to be somewhere else. But at the same time, going to bed around 10pm makes me feel like I'm missing out on something. People are out there. They are doing something.

but in the middle of the night. Everyone else is asleep...and it's like having 4 extra hours of the day. They feel surreal.

It's almost as if they don't exist for anything other than laughing by oneself, contemplating life, and one's hopes and fears.

Happy Thanksgiving

What am I thankful for? While I know some of these are quite silly, here is a small list of a few things I've been thankful lately

-reading outside on the patio on days like today
-having my beautiful German shepherd run up to me when I come home to madison
-my family that loves me unconditionally
-just the ability to walk, run, jump, dance, leap around with joy
-the freedom to read my bible and worship openly
-that I get to go to college and continue learning
-starbucks cups and the quotes that come on them
-the temptations and their pandora station
-cowboy boots
-bright finger nail polish
-the christmas tree that we put up upstairs and the one we're getting from jack's tomorrow
-decorating the christmas tree- but mostly watching mom decorate the christmas tree
-gluten free pie crust
-my mom that loves me so much that she works extra hard to make me gluten free food
-yoforia with high school friends
-peace in my heart and assurance from the Lord
-the younglife christmas party and planning our costumes
-harry potter wyldlife club
-giving my younglife talk dressed as hermonie granger
-a big comfy bed that I've had countless hours to sleep in this week
time to relax
-looking at old photo albums
-all the bright yellow leaves
-watching the leaves fall and birds migrating south in a magnificent pattern
-the georgia bulldawgs
-harry potter movie 7 part 1...and now eagerly awaiting part two
-internship with isa next semester. just getting to encourage something I loved.
-sharing. sharing what I've learned, what I have, and my joy with others. somethings are too great to keep to myself.
-dueling banjos
-hulu
-the keurig downstairs. and having hot chocolate 4 times a day
-my beautiful, lovely, amazing, encouraging, talented, and inspirational girlfriends
-just how my friends love me regardless of anything I could ever do
-classic city church
-highlighting everything important and wonderful in my bible and watching it grow more and more colorful over the years
-coffee dates with JCon and being thankful for my yl community
-teaching perfectly polished and all the wonderful people I'm blessed with interact with -thanksgiving leftovers (already on my 2nd plate of the day)
-looking at maggie's france pictures and thinking how classy and beautiful she is and how blessed we are that she came back and didn't stay there!
-HANNAH COX. need I say more?
-national geographic magazines.
-reading fortune magazine and realizing how much more there is to learn
-being happy that i've figured out what I want to give my friends for christmas! whew!

Get back up, nick vujicic

bookshelf

I rearranged my bookshelf a few months ago. I came home from class and felt the need to take everything off and rearrange it all. I was so please to be finished that I took a picture.

I've been looking nonstop for my harry potter book 7 since seeing the movie. I'm home at my parent's house in Madison and fortunately I was scrolling through old pictures and realized it's in Athens!
Whew. It's nice to know exactly what's there and what's here!
See it? Left hand bottom corner.

quick rant

I cannot study well  under bright lights.
that includes overhead lights and sunlight
heaven forbid I attempt to study outside.

well this afternoon was perfect. I arrived at the slc and headed over to a booth in jittery joes and all the overhead lights were off. no fluorescent light sallowing out my skintone or reminding me of the 3rd grade caferteria which I walked into in a line behind the coveted position of a lineleader, where I slurped down vitapups, which are nothing but sugar and ice and icky syrup to coat your insides and clog up your arteries.

Darkness and lamp light is ideal. It creates the allusion that it's very early morning or very late night. that notion associates with the personal belief that everyone else is sleeping. or doing nothing.

I got 2 hours in of  sleepy, dismal, studying. I was a drudge. I could tolerate it.

until.
here's the thing that kills me. this girl. flips the lights on. It's 3pm. it's not like she's syncing us with the daylight hours. and she wasn't even one of those cheerful peppy types.

now people are starting to move around. make loud noises. chat. one is even laughing and giggling.

I'm the most easily distracted people on the face of this campus. this is torture. I need a study carol at the science library. you literally have your livelihood sucked out of you the moment you walk in the door.

yes. im waaassting time blogging about this.

I did find this funny though. I do imagine if I was wearing this child's costume...no one would flip the lights on. 

hp7

I'm not going to lie....I can't wait. Harry Potter has been absent from my life for so long now....and I can't force myself to reread another book...because it would be at least the 5th time....or for some of the earlier ones...the 12th....

We're having a harry potter themed club next. you can guess who I want to be.

yikes, she grew up fast. I'll have much better luck pulling off the girl the on the left.

be your self

rules of advice
be your self

be your self

be your self

 and oh, ummm.. yeah? Just be your self.

It's the go to answer. and you know what? my biggest problem with it....it's SINGULAR.

be your self....implying that there's just one particular side of me. Ridiculous. Preposterous. absurb. outrageous. ludicrous. farcical. humorous. probably perfectly practical. nonsensical. and something that would make my life much easier.

Seriously. I'm going to start responding to every single one of these over used words of advice with "which one"?

Gosh, I'm a different girl at 8 in the morning than at 8 at night, before and after coffee, in winter boots vs. sandals, goodness gracious, I promise you the moment I slip into a sundress I'm going to feel drastically different than I do in flannel.

It's not even 5 o'clock

This has been one of the busiest weeks of my life. Am I stressed? grumpy? thinking about joining the circus? lighting a match to my textbooks?
No! I'm absolutely loving every minute of it. I've been up at 6 or before for the past three days and overnight nannying in addition to daytime nannying. But I love- it, because packing your schedule full of commitments and responsibilities stretches you. It proves to you that you're capable of so much more than you think you are. Responsibility is just an opportunity to get to know yourself better.

It's not even 5 o'clock, I have zero classes on Wednesdays, and I've watched absolutely zero television and I feel that I've learned so much...
- a man told me about what life was like here during the vietnam war at the hospital this morning
- I got to read an entire fortune magazine- I'll be spending my time on the khan academy website watching biology tutorials. This finally trumps sporcle.com
- I learned the best way to let two 4 year old girls drink chocolate milk is straight from a bowl like kitty cats
-that sarah peters is one of the kindest, most encouraging, and interesting indivdiuals I know...even at 7 o'clock in the morning
- that the homeless sell quarters for a dollar downtown. I imagine it's almost lucrative. I absolutely never have quarters for parking meters. I paid 2 dollars for 2 quarters.
-that perhaps kids shouldn't be scolded or threatened into doing what you tell them to do. chasing them down with a can of silly string works wonder. and it's a lot of fun.
- that pretend weddings consist of crowns, wands, purses, silly bandz, barbies, and glitter. woody, from toy story also attends. watching ella and her playdate mary frances have the time of their lives getting ready for their weddings made me wonder- perhaps I should have all these essential elements at mine?
- playing dress up still rocks.
-the study abroad office still has the magnetic devices that drive me crazy because I can't stack them all up in a straight line. over all...trips there at still not enjoyable.  study abroad is life changing and amazing...someone over there should at least be a little bit excited about it.
-enthusiasm is my favorite thing to encounter. especially in strangers.
- a man told me about the costa rica trip he works with- and you could just tell that he loved it. I'm tempted to go and I know hardly anything about it.

Enthusiasm really could change the world.

twenty one

It's been a weekend of birthday celebrations, homecoming festivites, celebration of dear friends winning two crowns, dance parties, dance classes, cooking new foods, a trip to the county fair, a ride on the ferris wheel, and overall joy and silliness.

graceful

 I always end up distracted during study hours because I feel the need to stretch and once I start...I can hardly quit. I suddenly become aware of how tight everything else in my body feels and I just love pushing past the initial pain until it becomes comfortable.

I've always wished that I could be a ballerina. Not a "baller"rina- but a timeless, classical, graceful ballerina. I took ballet for a few years growing up, along with tap and jazz and just about every other childhood activity you can think of (I rarely stuck with anything longer than a year or two). Ramsey offers ballet classes and I am just dying to take one. Along with a hip hop class. But they are COMPLETELY different. I have to take both. Sometime before I graduate. I think I'd really like to take ballet even after college.  I mean, why not?

Mostly, this just makes me think of how in high school.....get ready for this....I WANTED to be awkward. Somewhere, someone, or something implanted in my brain that awkwardness was desirable. It seemed more "real" and made you more approachable. Perhaps it was a little too much Seth Cohen. So, I actually tried to intimate awkward movements. I already said and still say the wrong thing at the wrong time and to the wrong person and all of that. I have that down pat.  But I've never been clumsy and I wanted to be!

Isn't it crazy how as different points in our lives we dislike the silliest things about ourselves? I use to hate being taller than every one else and my long skinny legs. Nowadays? I would LOVE to grow a few more inches.

I used to beg my mom to let me high light my almost black hair blonde. Blonde high lights? Are you kidding me?  I also had a color contact phase. Along with a sunless tanner phase. Now I wouldn't trade my black hair and light brown eyes for anything else. I've learned to love myself exactly the way that the Lord made me.

Since everybody is an individual, nobody can

 

be you. You are unique. Your life is your own.

 

You mold it. You make it. - Eleanor Roosevelt

via-www.nouvellesimages.com

frustrated

I'm FRUSTRATED.

I just bought a half gallon of coffee icecream. I'm not sure if this is the first step in the right direction but it certainly feels like it.

for you I'd write a symphony

waiting for sunrise

 I'd absolutely love to be back here right now...

Tonight is one of those times, where I'm all curled up in my bed, I'm completed relaxed, there's no school tomorrow, I'm not working tomorrow, and it's 3 43AM and I'm nothing but anxious for night time to hurry up and end. I can't wait for tomorrow. I want it to be here now. I want to go ahead and jump in the shower and start tomorrow...but I can't because it's still the middle of the night and there's nothing I can but wait for sunrise. 

alms

Today was my fourth Wednesday morning volunteering at the hospital...and the first morning that I didn't pass out or get helped into a chair. I had a heart warming experience with a four year old boy coming out of surgery. Absolutely broke my heart to have him crying and being afraid because he couldn't see.

Leaving the grocery story, I felt so convicted- There I was, face buried in a pint of coffee icecream that I couldn't wait to dive into so I was attempting to eat spoonless when I saw a man, clean cut and responsible looking, holding up a sign asking for help. It said he'd been convicted and had 2 children and needed help getting food. I haven't cried in literally months and something inside of me just twisted up and made my eyes tear up...because there I was...in an suv loaded down with groceries, icecream dripping off my chin and drizzled down my shirt, thinking of all the things that I needed to be doing and the long day I had volunteering and babysitting and how late I'd be up studying...because I'm in college...and my parents pay for almost everything...and in reality I have NOTHING to be worried about. and there's this man, probably embarrassed as he can be, holding up a sign because he has no where to live and children to feed.

I wish I'd stopped. Or turned my car around and given him part of my groceries. But I didn't. I pitied him. I spent time thinking about him and his family and how I wish things were different...but I didn't actually do anything.

I felt the need to look up these verses to remind myself of what the Lord so clearly directs me to do.

Deut. 15:7. If there is a poor man among you, one of your brothers, in any of the towns of the land which the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart, nor close your hand to your poor brother; but you shall freely open your hand to him, and generously lend him sufficient for his need in whatever he lacks.



Luke 3:11. And [John the Baptist] would answer and say to them, "Let the man with two tunics share with him who has none, and let him who has food do likewise."

Mt. 5:42. Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you.


What's even more amazing- I found these because I was googling- is the blessings that the Lord promises to those of us that serve the poor.


Prov. 22:9 He who is generous will be blessed, for he gives some of his food to the poor.



Deut. 15:10. You shall give generously to [your poor brother], and your heart shall not be grieved when you give to him, because for this thing the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in all your undertakings.

Prov. 19:17. He who is gracious to a poor man lends to the LORD, and He will repay him for his good deed.

Luke 12:44. "Sell your possessions and give alms; make yourselves purses which do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near, nor moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

^This one is my favorite. Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. 

perfectly polished

So many of you that know me know that I absolutely adore perfectly polished and that I always look forward to teaching it- Well good news! They officially have a blog- So I
wanted to share it with you all- I have a feeling it's going to be a really great one to follow and read!
http://perfectlypolishedofathens.blogspot.com

i know my god saved the day

Goodnesssssssssss....I'm sitting in my bed...eating rice crackers and peanut butter...and yes getting crumbs all in my bed. and just day dreaming about life. Not so much the future...but just now.

I've been thinking about starting to sew and sell my own aprons. I've spent the last 20 minutes looking at these from anthro. Don't they just inspire you to simply want to run to the kitchen and whip together something delectable? I have one from anthro that I just love. It's almost too cute to be an apron. I forget to wear it way too much. I really think it improves my cooking abilities.

I'm really just dying to try out tons of new things...I'm completely open to suggestions and I would love to have them!


*On an exciting note, I just found out these Swing Dance Nights that UGA holds on campus- swing dance lessons- and I just can't wait to go and try it out. All are welcome to come with me!

today

It's one am, i'm finally home and showered. I debated showering for quite some time but after recalling not only all my sweat but all the sweat from everyone else that's picked me up and hugged me or even stood above me in the bleachers...it was a must.

Today was just such a great day. I'm so blessed to have such amazingly awesome friends. "They're cooler than cool" - Chapman

I have an AWESOME one shoulder dress tan line.

I got to spend the weekend with two girls that are au pairs in Atlanta that are from BRAZIL. Ridiculously cool. We sat outside the credit card house on the porch lit with tiki torchs and talked about the differences between Brazilian boys and American boys. All too amusing.

It's been a blessed day of sun, football, tailgaiting, sweat, friends, friends and more friends, new people, game night, 21st birthdays, lots of walking- which sounds like a pain- but really- think about it! Just that we have the ABILITY to walk. I couldn't imagine life any other way. Sometimes I'm just blown away from the most everyday blessings. It's usually the everyday mundane things that I take for granted that end up just wowing me., catching up with old friends, reminscing with Tim Felz about me being an impulsive 16 year old, being blown away by Maggie Allen's heart and desire to serve, Zach Hogue's insane Spanish skills, Clark Boutwell's loving spirit, Jenna Bush's party hosting skills, Hunter Chapman's inability to complain, Wart's relectance, but overall final admittance that we are best friends, or at least he's one of mine ;) Hannah Cox's studious, hard working self ( She was even spotted reading a book at the game- dedication right there people!), lots of water, cranium, and 5 fans in one room

oh and Tram Jone's overall ceaseless ability to be entertaining