Photos, root beer and a jigsaw.

A few days before Christmas I had the fun of having my friend Mariah over for a sleepover and photoshoot.

She was such a good sport as I ordered her around. "Now flip your hair. No don't just shake your head; flip your hair." etc. etc.

And my favorite of her:

And the day just kept getting better. Rebekah arrived after about half an hour and joined in the fun.

Since her hair was up I was denied the fun of making her flip it all over the place, but she was still - and always will be - absolutely gorgeous so it all worked out just fine =).

I was more in photographer than model mode, so there are only a few of me. 

And my favorites are these

As we were beginning to run out out of energy the last member of our little party arrived and marked the end of the official photo shoot. When Sam's around it's more fun to talk than pose for pictures. 

Plus he brought root beer with him. So we adjourned to the house and drank root beer and finished daddy's jigsaw puzzle. It was a very nice day =).

The day after Christmas

The day after Christmas is traditionally reserved for reading your new book, wearing your new clothes, playing your new games etc. and who am I to mess with tradition? So this morning at breakfast I drank tea from my new mug, and read one of my new books. Can't wait to finish it and start the second =).

I hope you all had a very merry Christmas.

Christmas ornaments

The ornaments on our tree are all a little old and a little worn, but they are all so full of traditions and memories. Honestly one of the saddest things in the world to me is a tree covered in brand new ornaments.

Every year for as long as I can remember my parents have given each of us an ornament for Christmas. Someday, when I have my own home I'll take them with me, and when I decorate my first tree there will be some new ornaments - like new traditions they are always a good thing, but there will also be old ones, gifts from past Christmases and little pieces of past traditions.  

Merry Christmas

Joyeux Noel

C

Je vais aller au Paris!

I'm going to Paris!!!!!! It's happening =). I got an appointment at the Consulate in SanFrancisco for this Monday to get my visa, I'm in touch with a couple families who might hire me as an au pair, I gave notice at my job; it's real guys and I can hardly believe it's true. I wanted to go for New Year's but that's not gonna happen so I think I'll be leaving around the 15th that way Shane (my boss) will have time to replace me and I really like working for him, he's super chill and one of the other waitresses is leaving too and I don't wanna just leave him in the lurch.

But guys, PARIS! Like really. Paris. I'm really having a hard time grasping this as a reality. Like in theory I have lots of plans and ideas and so on and so forth, but in reality I can't. The fact that I will live there; I will (probably) catch a cold, I will ride the metro and I will be too cold and too warm. I will buy socks (I always need socks) and eggs and milk. I'm not going to be visiting Paris, spending all my time running around to museums and monuments. I'm going to live there and eat breakfast and work in the day and go out in the evening. I will (hopefully) make friends and have lazy days and stressful days and good days and bad. It's going to be life; just normal life...but in Paris.

Slough of Despond vrs. Rose Colored Glasses

For the past month or so I've been planning and praying and scrambling after a dream that suddenly seems a little less iridescent, a little more substantial. 

Paris. 

Ever since I can remember I have wanted to go to Paris. France in general really, but specifically Paris and this semester I've realized that a traditional four years at college isn't really what I want to do. It's so much time and so much money, more really of both than I need to spend to become what I want to be - an interior decorator. So I'm going to be using some of my college savings - time as well as money to go to Paris in January. I'll be working as an au pair or nanny/English teacher while I'm there. 

My mom has been blogging for a long time now and she has introduced me to several of the blogs that she reads, including one called Tongue in Cheek. Tongue in Cheek is written by a woman named Corey who lives in the south of France. I've been reading her blog off and on since I was about 13 years old and I've always loved it. She is a wonderful writer, and an unbelievable photographer and she lives in such a wonderfully cool place, I've always found it intrancing. Two days ago I emailed her, with great trepidation. I'd read her blog so long she'd become this unreal character in my head. Someone who I loved rather the way that Julie in Julie and Julia loved Julia. I really wasn't sure it was the real Corey who I loved. But today when I checked my email I found that she had responded. And not only did she accept my invitation to join me for a cup of hot chocolate (she doesn't like coffee either! Or at least she didn't a few years ago when she wrote a blog post about it) she invited me to come STAY WITH HER FOR A WEEKEND! Never in a hundred years would I have been so presumptuous as to ask for such an invitation, but she offered it! All on her own, I didn't even hint at it.

When my dreams come so close to fruition as this one has, I tend to get pessimistic. I sink into the Slough of Despond. Things like this don't happen to me. They don't happen in real life. I won't get to go to Paris. I've wanted to for far to long for it to actually happen! No way. But then things like this happen and my rose colored glasses go right back on the bridge of my nose. My confidence comes back and I am once again confident that it will work. 

So here's hoping for Paris within a month!

And another win for the Rose Colored Glasses.

Christmas wish

Guys, know what I want for Christmas. I want a Fennec Fox.

It's so cute! I would name it Georgy. 

Accurate.

Dejeuner du Matin

Last night in my French class my professor Mmd. Vivi read a poem to us. It was called Dejeuner du Matin (Breakfast) and it was so simple, and yet it was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever heard. It's by Jacques Prevert.

Il a mis le café
Dans la tasse
Il a mis le lait
Dans la tasse de café
Il a mis le sucre
Dans le café au lait
Avec la petite cuiller
Il a tourné
Il a bus le café au lait
Et il a reposé la tasse
Sans me parler

Il a allumé
Une cigarette
Il a fait des ronds
Avec la fumée
Il a mis les cendres
Dans le cendrier
Sans me parler
Sans me regarder

Il s’est levé
Il a mis
Son chapeau sur sa tête
Il a mis son manteau de pluie
Parce qu’il pleuvait
Et il est parti
Sous la pluie
Sans une parole
Sans me regarder

Et moi jai pris
Ma tête dans ma main
Et jai pleuré

(Translation) 

He put the coffee
In the cup
He put the milk
In the coffee
He put the sugar
In the coffee and milk
And with a little spoon
He stirred it
He drank the coffee
And put back the cup
Without a word to me

He lit a cigarette
He made rings
With the smoke
He tapped the ashes
Into the ashtray
Without a word to me
Without looking at me

He got up
He put his hat
On his head
He wore his raincoat
Because it was raining
And he left
In the rain
Without a word
Without looking at me

And I took my head
In my hands
And wept

Beautiful November

The weather yesterday was so wonderful! It was cold all day and rained for hours and then in the evening it got misty!

And now this morning's sunrise is beautifully misty, although difficult to capture with the camera.

Last night

Yesterday was not a good day at work. But it was also the season 4 premiere of Once Upon A Time. Rebekah came over and we drank hot cocoa with cinnamon and watched. It was a very nice way to end the day.

Happy Birthday

Today is the birthday of one of my all time favorite authors; Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald

(Did you know he was named after his distant cousin Francis Scott Key who wrote the poem The Star Spangled Banner which was later put to music and that we all know and love as our National anthem?)

Did you also know that he died thinking himself a failure? He truly believed that his work would die away and he would not be remembered. Oh, Scott, how wrong you were! I wonder if his life would have been different if he'd known what an impact his work would have. How popular and classic it has become. I'd like to think he'd have been happier, but I suppose we'll never know.

Edit: It is no longer Fitzgerald's birthday. I should have posted sooner. His birthday is the 24th.

Halloween costume selection time.

I love dressing up in any way, but I especially love costumes. So Halloween is an awfully fun day for me, and the planning process is at least half the fun. So a few days ago I began thinking about it. I decided that my parents should dress up as the Weird Parents from Audrey Wood's book Weird Parents, and my brother is dressing up as a Mutant Ninja Turtle with his friends. But what am I to wear? I was thinking I'd be Alice from Alice's Adventures In Wonderland but I wasn't hugely excited about it. I like costumes that have a nice full skirt so that was the main draw. But today at work I was shelving books in the children's section and I came across one I'd never seen before. The Princess Who Had No Kingdom. 

The story itself is darling. It's about - shocker - a princess who has no kingdom. She travels about the country in a cart, with a pony named Pretty and a red umbrella when it rains and she looks for her kingdom. She earns money by delivering packages like ostrich eggs that are close to hatching and cranky old grannies.

In the end she marries the court jester and he sells old jokes and she delivers packages and they travel around and are adorable.

So this year for Halloween I am going to be the Princess Who Had No Kingdom.

I now officially work in a bookstore.

I wanted to post a video of a specific scene, but I can't find it so I'll have to just tell you about it. One of my family and my favorite movies is You've Got Mail with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. Meg Ryan plays a young woman named Kathleen Kelly who owns a childrens book store called The Shop Around The Corner. Tom Hanks plays Jo Fox whose massive chain Fox Books comes into the neighborhood and threatens the life of The Shop Around The Corner. No spoilers but there is a scene near the end of the movie where Kathleen finally gives in and goes into Fox Books and up to the children's section. While she is there a woman comes in asking the clerk "do you have the shoe books?" of course the typical Chain Store Employee has no idea what she is talking about. And of course Kathleen knows all about them. She suggests beginning with Ballet Shoes "It's my favorite. Although Skating Shoes is perfectly wonderful too." She tells the Chain Store Employee how to spell the author's name "Noel Streatfeild." and the scene ends. I have since read Ballet Shoes - although none of the others sadly, and it is indeed perfectly wonderful.

One week ago today I worked my first day at the locally owned bookstore Face In A Book. And last Saturday a woman came in and asked "do you have the shoe books?" I don't think I've ever smiled so hard in my life. I of course am not the typical Chain Store Employee and so lead her straight to them. As she left I thought to myself "I now officially work in a bookstore."

"The Road Not Taken"

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood 

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I - 

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference."

- Robert Frost

"The Road Not Taken" is my favorite poem, just above "Oh Captain My Captain" and "Invictus". (Neither of those are because of the movies they are in, although I also love the movies. I love the poems for their own sake, as great works of art and literature.) But tonight "The Road Not Taken" feels more applicable to my life than it ever has before. Today was my first day of college. I don't like school. I have never liked school. So the idea of spending yet another four long years on it before I can get into the real world and - ideally - finally be able to do what I love is not a fun one. It feels like today was my first day setting off down "the one less traveled by" and I can't help wondering if the "road NOT taken" would be better. Decisions are hard, 'cause what if the other option was the right choice? I will never get the chance to make this choice again, what if I'm screwing it up? What if this isn't how it's supposed to go for me? I've started down a road, one that I'll be able to step off of at any time, but I can never go back to the beginning of it.

The truth is I'm scared. I've been in such a comfortable little niche for so long, even getting a job, buying a car so on and so forth, those things were part of my niche. But college? Yeah not so much. I took French last semester as a senior in high school, but other than that I've spent almost zero time in a class room. In some ways I have to deal with the culture shock of both Freshman year of college and 1st grade.

Plus it's after mid-night which is prime freak-out-about-life-and-impending-doom time for me. 

So I never posted the promised pictures, largely because there weren't really very many. Little Brother took some on his iPod so I'll post the only ones I have access to.

The week was fun, but it was so long ago I'm not going to post about it. I'm only finishing this because I promised and I want to write something else now. Sorry I'm such a negligent blogger.

The week ahead.

Heading to church, my little brother's basketball games and then American Authors, The Script and One Republic concert tonight! 

Plus, my flight leaves at 8:15 tomorrow, with Little Brother, Daddy and I on board heading to Seattle for two days, to see my beautiful grandmother. The day/week ahead are gonna be awesome =D. I'll post pictures of all the events when I get home. So look for an update Wednesday-ish.

For now here's a picture of my Nana and one of her and her husband Roger.

Prayers would be appreciated for both of them. They both have cancer, and this may be the last time I see one or both of them. If you could also pray for my dad, Nana is his mom and losing a parent is not nor ever will be easy. Doesn't matter how long they've been ill, or how long you've had to "prepare yourself". It's hard. So please pray.

Prom 2014

Prom was last friday night. It was an absolute blast! I have a friend who has a friend who's in beautician school and so stuff is super cheap, so I went and got my hair and nails done; it was tons of fun. Mum wasn't home when Sam was supposed to pick me up, so she'd asked my dad and older brother Rex to take pictures before we left. He's a little protective =).

We met up with Julia and Mattias at Cafeteria 15L in Sacramento and took a few pictures in the courtyard before eating.

The food was so good! I had chicken and waffles - not very fancy, I know, but absolutely delicious! And we got two desserts to split, Julia and Mattias had skillet s'mores and Sam and I got a butterscotch brownie sundae, which was just butterscotch brownie still in a little skillet (a very hot skillet) with icecream on top. It was amazing.

We walked through Capitol Park again before Mattias put out a "ping" with a program called Lift. If you've ever seen those cars driving around cities with pink mustaches on their front grill you've seen a Lift car. It all works through an app; you put out a "ping" and within moments you get a page showing a picture of a car and a picture of a person and you decide whether you want them as your driver or not. If you decide you do - as we did - then you except it and it alerts the driver of where you are. He or she picks you up and you direct them to where you want to go. We had a very nice driver whose name I unfortunately do not remember.

We didn't have a camera with us this year so we don't have many pictures of prom itself other than the formal shots they took. Despite being absolutely adorable and quite photogenic Julia dislikes having her photo taken and down right refused to have it taken alone. But all the rest of us posed and they got some nice ones of her and Mattias.