Maine

My favorite children's book of all time has to be Miss Rumphius 

It's the story of a young girl who has three dreams. She wants to travel all over the world, live by the sea and do something to make the world more beautiful. She ends up doing them all. She travels the world, settles in a little town on the coast of Maine and eventually she spreads lupine seeds all over her tiny village so that the next spring there are beautiful flowers everywhere.

I have been feeling very discouraged the last few weeks. I feel like my dreams - going to college, traveling all over the world and becoming an interior decorator - are out of my reach, for the simple reason that college and travel both cost money - a lot of money - and I can't become an interior decorator until I've gone to college and learned how. Now "a lot of money" is pretty vague and I think that that is what has been frightening me. But last Saturday I woke up with an idea. I'm not sure where it came from but I think it had to do with Miss Rumphius, because the idea was this.

Get a job, save 2,000 dollars (or more, depending) and sometime next year get on a flight to Boston, take a train North to Maine and head up the coast. I'll stop when I find a place I like and stay there for about two weeks. 

2,000 dollars. It's a lot of money but it's a finite amount. I can do it. 

I spent about three hours today going every where I could think of, getting applications for jobs in all sorts of places. Places where I don't really want to work for very long, but places that would regularly send me a paycheck, so that eventually I could save that $2,000, buy a plane ticket and go to Maine.

I can do it.

18 Things Everyone Should Start Making Time For Again - Brianna Wiest

I found a really interesting article today that I thought I would share with you all, seeing as it's on a topic that I really agree with.

18 Things Everyone Should Start Making Time For Again

1. Writing things by hand. Letters to friends, lists for the store, goals for the week, notes for lovers, thank you cards and memos to coworkers. Digital communication is easy and convenient but ask anybody: there’s a huge difference between texting someone to say that you love them and hope they have a great day and writing it on a note and leaving it next to their bed.

2. Savoring time to do nothing. Taking a cue from pre-industrialized society and cultures that enjoy siestas and long, drawn-out, sit-down teas that serve no other purpose than to spend time enjoying the time you have.

3. Thinking before responding. We’ve become too conditioned to require things immediately. Someone asks a question, and we have to respond that second. Such was not the case before instant messaging and comment threads. A sign of true intelligence and confidence, I think, is someone who takes time to consider the question at hand in a little more depth, and then offers a response.

4. Cooking a nice meal just for the sake of doing so. It really trains you to defy your need for instant gratification and of course puts you in touch with something that’s very human and can be lovely if done right.

5. Getting really dressed up for no other reason than just wanting to.

6. Books. Actual hard copy books that you can scribble notes in and mark off sections of and smell ink through and hear the sound of turning pages and bending spines while you read.

7. Making phone calls to relatives for no other reason than to just say hi, and to ask how they’re doing.

8. Disconnecting from technology frequently enough that we won’t be anxious and feeling like we’re missing something when we try to do so for an extended period of time.

9. Celebrating things with long, multiple course dinners that we hold for people as opposed to just drinking ourselves into an oblivion and being belligerent (that has it’s time and place, of course, but having thoughtful, celebratory dinners is a dying art).

10. Cleaning because it’s satisfying and doing things like painting walls or getting fresh flowers just because it’s therapeutic.

11. Spending time with kids, and doing kid things with them. They just know what’s up.

12. Answering things in a timely fashion, not putting off invitations and requests just because we can.

13. Making sure relationships are actually based on time spent with one another. People seem to be sustaining them through only digital means with increasing frequency and I can understand how that’s important if it’s temporarily long distance but in general, physically being with people is the only thing that will give you that sense of human connectedness.

14. Just sitting and listening to music. We’ve made music background noise in our everyday lives, but now and again we should just sit and enjoy it like people used to.

15. Traveling by train, or if that’s not possible, at least exploring places that you pass everyday. Especially if you live in a big city, there are always little hidden gems around that you won’t believe you lived without seeing while they were a block away from you all along.

16. Putting personal health and well-being first, as it often falls to the wayside in importance. This means, aside from the obvious, taking those personal days and using them to just relax. We’ve made such a quirky commodity out of enjoying napping and relaxing, as though doing so makes us boring and old. It doesn’t, it’s healthy.

17. Planning something, especially with someone else, as simple as dinner or as grandiose as a long vacation next year. You always need something to look forward to.

18. Stopping to talk to people throughout the day. Connecting with them genuinely, as such interaction is really important but is becoming increasingly less common. Turning our phones off when out to dinner (who even turns them off anymore?) and learning to not spend all of our time documenting whatever we’re doing for social media. It often takes away from the experience itself. 

The window.

I was reading a semi old book the other day and I came across a phrase that is used quiet commonly in older books.

"Joanna finished breakfast and went to look out the window."

For what ever reason this time I read it, it made me stop for a minute and think. It's your turn. Stop for a minute and think. How often do you see people look out the window?

Not often. Now a-days they finish breakfast and...look at their phone. Actually scratch that, they are looking at their phones all the way through breakfast. What does that say about the way people look at the world,(quite literally) versus the way they used to look at it. The same goes for when you wake up in the morning, or when you're in a room with someone you don't like/know/want to talk to. We used to look out the window, but now we look at our phones.

Why?

Because the interesting world, used to include; who is walking past the house (especially in small towns like the one the story I was reading was set in) how the yard/garden looks, what the weather is like, or just the way the wind is playing with the trees.

The interesting world has become; what the very latest thing is on instagram, what was posted on facebook, who texted me, and so on.


Am I the only one who finds this both interesting and a little alarming? If things continue like this than someday our children will think the sky is just blue. They won't know the endless, change-full glory of the canopy above us. They won't care about the intricate beauty of a butterfly's wings, or the fierce joy that comes from standing out in a strong wind. They won't know, because there will be no-one to show them. If we let ourselves get sucked into our technology, and forget to go out and see the beauty that we are so surrounded by we will become dead to it. We won't know any more. We won't care.

So put down your phone and go look out the window.

Just gotta say...

I miss Karen's hair.

The hair

Last Sunday two friends from church - Nate and Heather - came for lunch, Brennan's basketball games (both of which he won!) and then the 49rs game in the evening. Neither Heather nor I are especially into football, so we staid the main house (the only working TV on the property is in the granny-flat) and Heather did my hair. And when I say "did" I mean "DID" my hair. It was quite fabulous =). She trimmed the split ends, layered it all and then started styling. She sprayed it wet, and then blow-dried it curly, then she blew it out straight and then she gave me a sixties bouffant. It was awesome =D

The First Dance of the Year

I've been quite excited, for quite sometime because the first dance of the year was announced a little while ago to be Great Gatsby themed. Needless to say, I went all out =). This was also my younger brother Brennan's freshman year and so his first dance. I think he enjoyed it a lot, but he's just "to cool" to admit it. Stinker. He looked very nice though, and danced like Fred Astaire (he really is awfully good). Anyway, my mum absolutely had to take pictures before hand so here are a few of my favorites.

The cutest animals ever

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. PLEASE!

It's official. I WANT CHRISTMAS!!! Please? But it's still months away =(. Actually the truth is that I want Tree Day.

...

My mum hates shopping, so I didn't know that the day after Thanksgiving is, in most houses "Black Friday". In our house it has always been Tree Day. My favorite day of the year. It's the day when we all pile in the car and drive up the mountain to Apple Hill and Robert's Christmas Tree Farm, and cut down a sweet smelling Douglas fir. The last few years my brother(s) have played football with friends on Tree Day (The Gravy Bowl...silly boys) and I decorated the house and baked Christmas cookies while they were gone, and we got our tree in the afternoon. I don't know if that's happening again this year.

So last night I had an awesome/faintly sad Christmas dream. How can something be both awesome and faintly sad you ask? (see Great Gatsby for best example ever! But that's not at all faint in it's sadness. I digress) I will tell you.

So the sad part was my entire family (and several of my friends families) decided to be jerks and disappear  for a tiny part of November (starting on Tree Day) all of December and a little bit of January. But that's ok! Because some how the chicken coop just down the hill from my house had also done a little bit of deciding, but it had decided to turn itself into an adorable little cottage. So my friends (Julia, Sam, Matteus and Rebekah) all came and spent over a month with me =D. That was the awesome bit.

They were supposed to arrive on December 1st but surprised me by getting there really early the morning of Tree Day so the five of us all went and got our tree and then decorated the whole cottage (there was a fire place!) with tons of twinkle-lights, greenery and paper chains plus the tree and all. We still had like two weeks of school to do but we had the nicest time any way =). We would do our school and then in the evenings someone would play piano and Sam would play guitar and we all sang Christmas carols (and sounded really good. Way better than we would have realistically =P) And we made tons of super yummy food, and ate it all (the wonderful thing about it being a dream is that none of us got fat on all of the cookies, pie, gingerbread, candy-canes, hot cocoa, popcorn and ice-cream we ate. (Not to mention all the savory stuff! Soups and stews and bread and potatoes and stakes and pork-chops and all sorts of other things I don't remember. Oh and breakfasts...yum!) We went caroling in Rebekah's neighborhood, and to Christmas parties at other people's houses. We mixed Christmas traditions and had an all 'round wonderful time. And then on Christmas Eve, just before we were gonna turn out the lights and stuff each-others' stockings it started snowing! So we went out and sang Christmas carols at the top of our lungs =). And the next day it was a white Christmas!

OK so some of it was a dream from last night and some of it was embellishment added this morning. But it was still fun =).

"Your graciousness is what carries you. It isn't how old you are, how young you are, how beautiful you are, or how short your skirt is. What it is, is what comes out of your heart. If you are gracious, you have won the game."

Photo shoot

Last night my mum was incredibly brave and invited four of our neighbors over for dinner (and yes that was super brave. One of the couples is rather...odd and the other although Robin is the sweetest, Gary is a JERK). I am not as brave as my mother so I called a friend and asked if she wanted to do a photo shoot. Well she couldn't go out, but I was welcome to come over there. I ended up spending the night and we did the photo shoot today. It was so much fun! Here's a few of the pics we took.

There was a very creepy looking guy walking up the ally we were in. Rebekah managed to get a picture of my face...=/

Look at this lovely lady! 

Her red shoes.

My red shoes =). 

Wouldn't it be lovely if...

I could spend my days like this?

Except of course when I was riding my beautiful horse that is.

If I could dance like this 

 And people sent me flowers like this

or even better, like these.

If I owned a boat like these,

And dresses like these.

 And a big cozy sweater like this one

and awesome boots like these. 

If I had shoes and mad skills like these

and hair this color

 and a room like this

in this house

on this canal.

But I don't. And I'm happy. Do you know why? Because all these things can be bought. All of them. I could dye my hair. Or buy a meadow and a blue VW beetle. What I have here in my own home can not be bought. I am surrounded by a wonderful family who drive me gloriously mad. My house is not perfect but it is filled with memories. Cracked and broken memories some of them. Of cracked and broken people. Memories of fights and tears and pain. But oh so many more memories of laughter. And love. Dancing and singing. Pumpkin pies with Daddy for Thanksgiving. Long talks with Mum about everything and nothing. Living and laughing and loving with my brothers and sister. These are things that can never be bought. And that is why, even though it would be lovely to have all this stuff, that's all it is. Stuff. And in the end it will be gone. 

Matthew 6:19-21 says "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:

But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves doth not break through nor steal.

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."