i love this quote

"In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express." - Romans 8:26

Sometimes it's hard to see that our prayers are answered, because they aren't always answered how we want them to be. But I think there are blessing aplenty in everyone's life.

Sweet Spring Saturday

Picture that entire grassy expanse full of people, food sellers, and tents set up for a variety of purposes, most of them educational in nature. My University was hosting an event called [State] Day (I'm omitting what school I go to, but a few sleuths will probably figure it out anyway with this picture I posted).

The event was a blast! Hot dogs, Sno Cones, making homemade Gak, cool giveaways, it couldn't have been better. I spent the rest of the day shopping with a dear friend, and some mexican dinner. After we parted ways in the oppressive heat, I went on an errand and a thunderstorm came in! The cool air and heavy smell made my night ever so lovely.

Wait it out. No, seriously, wait it out.

I went to a workout class for the first time in months, possibly years. After my last attempt at a workout class, I went through a running phase, but I think I like classes better because you are forced to work for an hour or so rather than giving up after twenty minutes because your lungs are screaming at you and there's no one around to tell you to keep going.

The workout class was a step class. Seemed easy enough, I'm in reasonable shape, and the step box didn't seem so intimidating. I was fine for the first fifteen or twenty minutes, even enjoying it. The steps were hard, but I figured them out soon enough.

Then we got to about twenty-five minutes.

My heart was pounding. Sweat accumulating. Every inch of my body begged, pleaded for me to stop. I seriously considered walking out, but with twenty other people there including two friends, I knew I needed to keep going. A brief reprieve at the half-time mark allowed me a trip to the water fountain, refreshing my body and spirit. But it wasn't so far into the second half when I was pushing myself again, as the steps got harder and my knees started to ache from overwork.

And then it happened.

I got to that place. Runner's high, they call it. Maybe it was the right song coming through the stereo system, or the promise of finishing in less than one-quarter hour, but something clicked over. I began to enjoy the steps, I began to want more. Another part of my mind drifted to happy thoughts. I was in the zone. Sure, my body still ached, and I still wanted to be finished, but my endorphins were running high. I thought about all the happy moments of the day and the week and my life. I thought about the happy moments of my future. With my energy level high, I got to thinking about plans I wanted to make and I feel like I was reinfused with a desire for better things, something I've been lacking in the past week or so of virtually sleepless nights.

I'm already planning on next week's class, and a few more classes in between.

I think I'm going to like this working out thing after all.

I'm a winner!

I won my first ebay auction today.

!

I've been trying to win an auction for weeks. I recently realized that you can get cheap yet cute jewelry on ebay for a much better price than they sell them in the stores. However, bidding is like a full-time job. Especially when auctions run several days and you happen to be the owner of a particularly impatient brain.

I began to look bleakly at this whole online auction business. Too much for me, I said. I'll just have to settle for the over-priced instant gratification of store bought jewelry.

And then I won something!

Sometimes life is good. Really good.

Life in slow motion

Last week I said I was going to start all my blog entries with lyrics and then I wrote like 5 entries in a row with nary a one lyric. Silly me.

My mind works in music videos. As in, when I think about the future or the past it's usually some poetic 4-minute vignette that fits with whatever song is on my ipod. Sometimes I listen to songs over and over until I've edited and directed and clipped all the thoughts into an organized verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus pattern that fits the lyrics. I think it's my own rudimentary form of self-therapy, because I get a little cranky when I go too long without having time to zone out on my ipod. It's not even my own thoughts I do this to; I do the same thing when people tell me their life stories, or something I'm learning about in my umpteen history courses, or a movie I saw or a book I read (yes, I was overjoyed when YouTube came out and I could look at fan-made videos to my heart's content, and no, I've never made one. I'm not good with fancy technology).

Nothing makes me happier than music that fits my life/someone else's life/a fictitious life.

There are only a few songs that can blanketly cover a variety of situations. One of them is the title of this entry. "Slow Motion" by David Gray. They (ironically) only had homemade/fanmade videos of this song on YouTube, but check this version out:

Now, if only these songs magically played in the background at life's most heartfelt moments. I feel like life would be a lot easier to deal with if it was accompanied by perfectly chosen music.

Grace in Small Things: 4 of 365

1. Conversations with people that are as passionate as you are about a particular topic.

2. Getting to dress up for interviews. It knocks the edge off the nervousness. Somewhat.

3. Care packages.

4. High heels.

5. Walking in the rain, with an umbrella of course.

crafty sunday

after a handful of warm days we had rain. rain rain rain. but the good thing was, we also did crafts! i made this totally rad box:

I don't know what I'm going to do with said box, but I just think it's totally adorable. Maybe I should start a box-making business.

I also experimented with some lip color:

Ignore the fact it's a bit rough around the edges. I still think it's a pretty lil color. It makes me feel classy and timeless.

All in all a pretty sweet weekend!!

Deoxyribonucleic acid

"When you look at your life, the greatest happinesses are family happinesses." -Joyce Brothers

I take after my grandmother in a lot of ways. We both have the same color blue eyes, we're both short, we both laugh at inappropriate times, we're both quiet and feel awkward sometimes, we both love God, we both love this guy:

swoon-worthy Frank Sinatra

I've known my whole life that I want a life just like hers. A young marriage, a big family, forty-five years in the same home. A strong conviction and a place where children always feel loved. I feel so blessed to have her in my life as an example for what I want and how to be. Maybe I'll never be exactly like her, and in many ways I will gladly be my own person, but it feels good to have an unwavering knowledge of how I want my life to play out.

Sometimes I get overwhelmed by my faults. There are days when nothing I do is right and I can't quite figure out what I'm doing here on earth. But then I remember that I've got coded in my DNA the spirit of my grandmother and hundreds of generations of women that didn't always feel like everything was right but did the best they could. What weaves us together are a series of inherited traits and characteristics that make us beautiful in the eyes of God. And even if I have a million and one faults, I've got inherited, innate goodness. And for that I am worthy. It is my God-given gift to carry on these traits and spread the gifts in my soul as far and wide as I can. Hopefully, one day God will send me my own babies and I will rock them to sleep and whisper in their ears how lucky they are to carry in their blood and hearts the legacy of their ancestors.

Love

Sometimes I see married couples, or couples in long term relationships, and I wonder,

How do they know how to act? How do they know how to act in private and how to act in public? Was it something learned when they were thirteen or fourteen, when a boy wouldn't look at me with anything other than disinterest or disdain? Is it something you read about in a book? Will I ever feel comfortable in a relationship?

Tonight it occurred to me that I have nothing to be afraid of. Because I think that nobody really knows what they are doing. We operate on love, just as we operate on crimson-red blood. Love is pumping through our brains and our hearts and our spirits. It is the one thing we are equipped with by God. Sure, some of it is learned, but it's mostly just there.

And I think that when you do fall in love, your body falls in step. You dance a dance you've never danced before, executing almost all of the steps with ease and grace. That's not to say we don't fail, but we do the best we can, and I think that in and of itself is graceful. You just know.

spring has sprung!

This picture is pretty much what it looked like outside today. After two days of solid rain, the sun came out to vast patches of the brightest, lushest green grass you've ever seen. To top it off, the sky was the most beautiful shade of blue, not a cloud in sight. These are the days they write songs about.

Walking back from class I passed a patch of purple wildflowers over a patch of green grass, and the natural colors looked so beautiful together against the backdrop of the woods. There is nothing more beautiful than the blooming of a new season.

Spring has sprung, and so has my soul.

*image from google images.

Grace in Small Things: 3 of 365

I won't be doing this every other post. I just like it lately.

Anyway, here goes:

1. A gorgeous new graduation dress from Anthropologie

2. Missing the worst of the rainstorm

3. Getting to go to my favorite smoothie place!

4. Feeling pretty for the first time in a while

5. Fun weekend plans to look forward to!

be a light to the world.

I'm having a lot of fun with picnik. This is another quote from a Philosophy product. I really really love their quotes. I'm sure you'll see more on this blog as time goes by.

One of the simplest but most delightful pleasures in my life is pens. Not the fancy ones, just the twelve-pack bics or something. I take so many notes, so I like when the words just flow right from my hand without my letters looking sloppy. Today my favorite blue pen ran out in the middle of a test. I had another one handy but I mourned the loss of my favorite pen. Que sera, sera.

In unrelated news, my hair recently got long enough for me to pull it into a ponytail after seven long months of a sweet little bob. I loved my short hair, but man do I like ponytails. Especially when I'm having an unfavorable hair day.

To add further to the randomness of this post, I don't think there's anything Taylor Swift can write that is bad. She could probably write about...well, blue pens and ponytails and it would sound so pretty. Not to mention she's got a killer head of hair. Blonde and curly, the antithesis of my head.

...well, at least my hair doesn't puff up on rainy days. that's the one blessing of stick-straight hair.

One song I really like is "Fifteen" by Taylor Swift. My favorite line is "'cause when you're fifteen and somebody tells you they love you, you're gonna believe them" it's so true. At that age everything is life or death and you are so sure that what you feel is true love sent straight from God. Seriously, listen to that song. It reads almost verbatim of my freshman year of high school. I look back on that time fondly, because everything was so new and exciting. As much pain as there was, when it was good, oh it was good. I'm glad to have the experiences I did.

I've been having trouble lately keeping my head above water, for reasons not worth mentioning in my blog about positivity. The reason I say this is because I recognize some of my posts are going nowhere and aren't particularly blogworthy, but I'm scraping at the bottom of the barrel. So please bear with me as I desperately try to cling on to the beauty in life.

Grace in Small Things: 2 of 365

1. Sunshine.

2. Impromptu dinner dates.

3. Good music. Any music, really.

4. Overcooking my lunch and realizing it tasted even BETTER overcooked. It was crispier.

5. Latte bowls from Anthropologie. They make eating so much more fun. (I had really boring bowls before.)

I see you leaning, you're bound to fall*

Hey check out my new header!! Okay, totally not that exciting but I've never made a header before. I'm quite proud of myself. I made it on picnik. That's my mouth, which I guess is obvious, but just thought I'd clear that up.

Happy Easter everyone! I had a really awesome day. It didn't involve any eggs, bunnies, or plastic grass...but it was great. I'm happy. I hope everyone got their fill of chocolate and marshmallow.

I've had such a good time lately exploring where I live. I feel really lucky to be able to spend time in such a great place with so many great options for what to do that don't involve the normal college fare of too much alcohol and too much suggestive dancing (aaand now I sound about 30 years older than I am.) I've been all over, and not had

to spend a dime. Well, I haven't HAD to spend any money, but I did buy these totally rad shoes at 70% off (in black and white to save you from my super pale legs):

And I had a vanilla scone from Starbucks, one of those little ones that don't make you feel too guilty. Come to think of it, I don't think I've had anything I didn't like from Starbucks. No wonder they have about 50 million stores.

*The title of this entry is lyrics from "Better than a Memory" by Kenny Chesney. I am so bad at picking my own titles especially when I'm constantly listening to music, so I think I will just use music all the time. But I'll write the artist, to give them credit for their ability to string together words better than I can :-) Anyway, I'm considering a major change in my life. I don't want to be too specific yet, but I'll write it when I'm good and ready. Anyway, I've been bad about doing something about this potential change. Based on other events in my life, I'm worried it will be a terrible decision. So I'm leaning, but I'm bound to fall, because I've been mulling it over for months now and I'm more and more certain that it's the right decision. We'll have to see what happens.

Friday I'm in Love

I went to the local art gallery today. It was warm outside, and the gallery was blissfully quiet (it's normally quite crowded.) I wandered about, falling in love with art and my city all over again. The evening ended with dinner at my favorite restaurant with close friends.

After dinner we went to Target, and I managed to not spend any money, which, I don't think I've ever entered a Target without spending money. I love that store.

One of the best things about today was that it was one of those days where I realize that I am doing what I want to do and that is enough. There are 100 things I could pick apart about today, but instead I think I'll just be proud that I did what I wanted to do, and I didn't feel bad about it.

I'm learning to love my life. It's a slow process, and hard, because I have spent much of my youth wishing to have any life but my own. But I really do love my life. Really.

Further indication I was born in the wrong decade.

As a preface, I am a history major. I have spent the last four years of my life entirely devoted to, and entirely in love with, history. But it makes you wish you could go back and live during those times. Except, there is one thing I like about living right now. 2 words: Indoor plumbing.

Anyway.

I really like Claude Debussy's music. It's so beautiful and romantic and timeless. It makes me wish I could go back in time 100 years and be in a big ballroom with a gorgeous dress on sitting next to a handsome man in a tux while the piano music floats across the floorboards. I want to go home in a carriage, the music still playing in my ears, and shut off the gas lights before going to bed. I want to write hand-written letters and have tea parties and go through long walks through gardens with parasols.

I want my life to be a scene out of The Age of Innocence. It seems so romantic.

Until a time machine is invented, I will sit here and listen to the music and imagine all the lovely things that history has to offer.

Grace in Small Things: 1 of 365

I'm trying out this new thing...it's apparently every day for 365 days, but I am woefully bad at keeping up with things like that, so I will get to 365 eventually, but it won't be in 365 days. Anyway, here goes:

1. Today, I carried a little bowl of syrup to my desk and it fell on my computer. Thankfully, it rolled off and upright before any syrup dripped out. Sometimes my clumsiness ends well.

2. At Subway, the lady accidentally put mayo on my sandwich when I didn't want it. I brushed it off, thinking what's done is done, I'm not allergic to it or anything, but they made a new one anyway.

3. I got more of my paper written today than I thought I would.

4. I thought I was going to miss the bus today, but it ended up being late, so I was able to catch it.

5. I was able to catch a show I wanted to watch. I chronically lose track of time and miss things.

The post where I turn into a fangirl.

I'm in my twenties. The years where I could get obsessed with a celebrity are behind me.

However, did you know how adorable Jackson Rathbone is?

Check it:

I noticed him in Twilight. I (entirely inadvertently, I swear) saw that movie in the theater more times then I should have. As much as I love the series, seeing it more than once makes your eyes wander. Especially if there's a guy like Jackson as a supporting character! Even if he's only on screen for about 30 seconds! Besides, rough-around-the-edges guys are more attractive to me. Robert Pattinson is cute and all, but I've got eyes for the scruffy man above.

(I am officially embarrassed by this post. But I'm still going to hit publish. Apparently I have no shame.)

I live approximately 3000 miles from him. I was in California recently, but I have enough sense about me to not stalk him (and, for what it's worth, I do have my own life, even if this blog entry isn't making that case) I'm not an actor. I will never in this natural life meet him. But here, tonight, on this blog, I admit to having a huge crush on him.

(Let's pray he doesn't ever stumble across this blog.)

*picture from google images.

Well.

March was a wash. April is a new month, therefore I will bring more posts! Promise!