My mind is full and coincidentally so is my heart.  Full of thoughts and feelings that want to spill out onto you.  I'd give you my all if you would just let me.  The angels glisten in the snow innocence and fun surround the thought of them but only you and I know the escape that went into them.  The tactful avoidance of emotion and careless thought.  The angels helped bring the smiles back and brought my heart back to the place where I want it to be next to you. 

battered and bruised.

I'm scared.  There's probably no emotion that I feel more right now than fear.  It's like I'm standing  staring it in the face.  Sometimes it overwhelms me.  Sometimes it consumes me.  I can't help it.  My mind runs out of control and before I have a chance to catch up with it I'm standing staring down a huge giant.  I can't really put my finger on why and the only way that I know how to get rid of it is to stand up to it and try to do my best to hold on tight. 

I'm learning a lot about myself even just in packing boxes.  I've held a lot in.  I'm 80% made of fear.  I'm having a hard time trusting.  A hard time handing over my heart and saying "here take it, it's a little battered, it's a little bruised, but I love you and if you can just hold it and love it despite those areas that I can't really help then love me with all you got, because regardless of those bruises and tender spots it's full of nothing but you."  I'm scared that it'll be taken but not fully realized.  I have to trust and more times then not I do. 

What a journey, an adventure really.  I anticipate the next couple of weeks.  Spending Christmas in a new city.  Starting a new job.  Learning. Loving. Laughing.  I'm excited to be new again and not let the baggage that has felt like it has held me down for so long hold me back.  To top it off, I can't wait to do it with you holding my hand. 

So much craziness in my life right now.  It's good.  Change is good and healthy.  It feels like it's about time.  As though I've been living in limbo for the past year waiting for open doors, waiting for an opportunity to come along.  I'm scared, I'm not going to lie, but I don't feel like I'm doing a bad thing I feel like this is right.  I feel at peace.  And  it feels valuable to me because it's a decision that I'm being backed in doing.  That may seem cheesy or shallow, but the way people responded when I made other decisions 2 years ago makes me take a second glance at things because I saw how that ended up. 

I'm in love.  It's not some fake, shallow feeling that comes and goes.  It's solid.  It's there when I fall asleep and when I wake up.  It's always on my mind.  It's real.  It's crazy to me how I once thought I knew what the word meant and now I look back shaking my head wondering what in the world I was thinking.  I was young, naive, and thought that certain things would fix themselves.  Never did I think I'd end up where I am, but the hope that's inside of me and the dreams that have been given back to me, I could never wish for anything else.

bats to bunnies.

Bunny prints through the snow.

These are the coolest sprinkles ever.... they are BATS!

just a random shot of me sitting waiting at the bus stop... nothing special but I think I kinda like it.  

The Worms in my tub look like this.... that's my pinkie. 

The Bible talks about being thankful in all circumstances.  I think that with the things I've been thrown in my life I have learned that I don't just need one day to really sit back and think about what I'm thankful for that every day is something new and something to give thanks for.

Every breath we take.  Every morning we wake up.  The simple things like grass and birds and clouds in the sky.  I'm thankful for love.  I'm thankful for loss.  I'm thankful for beauty and the pain that goes along with that.  Every day I wake I'm faced with the things that I need to be thankful for because I feel so close to the fact that I could in fact not have that opportunity if I hadn't changed things. 

Thankfulness is held close in my heart for without it we don't realize what we have.

Lost in all the chaos in the corners of my mind

Trying to see an open gap and not sure what I'm trying to find

Walking through a fog too thick to see my hand

Wanting to run the distance but barely able to take a stand

Holding out for something more

Not sure what I'm looking for

Wanting more than this

Stood along the sidelines many moments of my life

Wandered around aimlessly torn by pain and strife

Lost myself along the way and didn't seem to care

I was left giving pieces of me that I didn't want to share

Living life for something more

Trying to find what I'm looking for

Wanting more than this

Fought for love and to be loved and ended up on my face

Learned that that wasn't the way, the time, nor the right place

Found out what I needed to do and found out how to be free

Learned that the key to my happiness was just simply being me

Found my peace in something more

No longer am I searching for

Or wanting more than this

I would love to write with authority, sincerity, and wisdom.  To have my heart pour out onto paper and have it touch the lives of others.

I would love to have words pour out of my mouth with knowledge and be respected for opinions, thoughts, stances that I have.

I would love to be a person who is held at high regard followed for my humble acts and fun loving, happy spirit.

I want to be known as a person who follows her dreams and pursues her passions wholeheartedly not letting minor road blocks stand in the way.

I want to be me and love every part and moment of it.

My heart goes racing when my minds on you, which is almost all the time.  I just might have a heart attack.

I'm scared that I'm going to loose you and that you don't want a future with me. I know that you love me it's not a question of that... I'm just scared that you're going to walk away because you find somebody else that you want or decide that everything with me is too ridiculous to keep working at.  These may seem stupid but they feel so real. 




" I pray that we will never tire of the work that lies before us.  I fear that I will be the weak one and that you will have to carry me.  I hope there never is a phone call to say it's too dark to keep trying.  I hope there is time left to discover how to cry at all the beauty."  -Hawksley

My heart hurts.  I'm angry.  I'm sad.  I want to run, scream, cry.  I hate being at points like these.  Where I don't know where to go, what to do, what to say or how to be.  I'm a big bundle of frustration.  I don't want to be where I am and I'm scared of where I want to be.  How stupid.  I often feel like I never get specific direction to what I'm suppose to do.  Every body has ideas and opinions.  It's frustrating, but also reassuring because I know that I'm not in this alone and that you too struggle with some of the same things.  I feel ridiculous as I type this.  Ashamed.  I should be happy with where I am.  Happy with how far I've come, but I'm in fact frustrated with myself for not being farther, not understanding more.

I'm a mess.  Blah.

I will choose to not be bitter... and believe that God will open another door for me somewhere... this just might be a little difficult... here I go.

It's a bird eat bird world.

On my way to my job interview I encountered an interesting sight.  A magpie feasting on another magpie.  It was quite gross, but me being the weirdo that I am I took a picture of the encounter. Enjoy.


The dead bird is there on the left... and the cannibalistic...dare I say "magibalistic" bird is hopping away on the right.  ---->

The dead bird carcass... yum.   ---->

The culprit.  Ick.   ---->

I love taking pictures.  Some of them still surprise me in how beautiful they turn out.  

Change is in the air.  I see it in the leaves.  I see it in the gathering of the birds.  You can smell it.  The air is crisp at nights.  I can see my breath in the morning air.  It is indeed a season of change.

Not only do I see it all around me in the evidences provided by nature but I feel it in my bones.  I feel it in my heart.  A deep, resonating change is happening and as reluctant as I may be, it feels refreshing.

I've been waiting for what feels like so long to step out of the old that has been holding me back and into the new.  Waiting patiently for the signal.  I'm not saying that I have yet obtained it but I have been going to the necissary lengths to try and step out onto the new paths that lie ahead.

New and exciting opportunities.  New explorations. 

Change.

It's like revamping the soul into something new.  Cleaning out the closet and getting rid of all the dusty unused portions of your life. 

Usually change scares me, but just as I have fallen in love with the change of summer into fall I have become accepting and embrace the changes that can happen within my life.

Just as the leaves of fall are vibrant and awesome so I feel like the next year(s) of my life will be. 

I just can't wait to see what's next.

hitchhiking.

It feels like God prepared me.  He molded me.  He showed me.  I began that journey and started to drive down that road so to speak.  

I was on a road in a very specific direction.  Now it feels like I have been thrown out of the vehicle. I am at the side of the road.  I'm standing there and other cars are driving past me.  Some fast and some slow but they are all passing me.  I am left standing there not knowing what to do.

It feels like I'm trying to hitchhike because standing around is not going to get me to the destination.  I know that my car is  long gone and not coming back. 

When you are left hitchhiking you do not really know how far you are going to get with any particular vehicle you just hope and pray that somebody will take you at least part of the way.  You hope that that car that pulls over will be going the entire leg of the journey but sometimes you just do not know.  Sometimes you only get taken part of the way. 

I feel like I am left with the decision to stand around, try walking the distance by myself, or I also feel like the option of getting into another vehicle has been given to me.  It's scary to get into that car.  You have no clue what's going to happen but sometimes it is worth it.

I wrote this a long time ago in my journal.  

I miss you so much I can't stop crying.

If I think back one, short year ago it's as if another stands in place of me in my memories.  I'm not the same person I was back then.  I'm so thankful for that.  I am still just as fragile.  I still am more emotional than most, however I've learned to think more critically and accept the things that I've done wrong.  I'm proud that my eyes have been opened and I am able to reevaluate the steps that I have taken and see where I should have treaded more carefully. Sure I've been slightly jaded, and my heart is still in the process of healing but I've learned.... err am learning.

One year later.  

I can't wait to look back in 5, 10, even 15 years.  

All I can pray is that I never stop growing and transforming that and that God continues to take control even when I royally mess things up. 

I am convinced that one day the trials that we have gone through, the tears that we've cried, the pain that at the time feels life shattering will be masked by the greater of these which are the pieces of life that have brought us joy.  


It is this ideal that makes life bearable when I'm being ripped apart and dragged under by life's currents. This as well as the certainties that the sun will eventually shine, the seasons will change and that I will never be the same person tomorrow that I was today.

Re-reading this it kinda sounds like a weird proverb or something I got out of a book... but it was all me! lol.

You're not here... but I carry you in my pocket so to speak... it's like my camera is you so just in case I run into images like this I know that you'll be with me to experience them. 

I got hit by a cascading block of memories tonight.  As I sat in the silence and thought about the various steps I've taken in life, the many paths wandered I was reminded of the people I have encountered along that winding trek.  


It's funny how some people you meet make such an impact in such a short amount of time.  Some, one only encounters for moments and yet memories are ingrained as though they were in your life for years.  Others, you loose contact with yet they are still, in your mind, one of the best friends you will ever have.  


My memories, though most include people because it's what I surround myself with, are scattered today with moments spent at camp in the early morning sitting on the dock sipping my coffee at 5am listening to the loons and watching the fog lift off the water.  The world quiet yet I know that in a couple of hours it will be bustling with young kids running around laughing in excitement.  

I think of the moments I've spent frog hunting with my sister around the slough on our farm, or the times I'd spend buried in a bail watching while anticipating the birth of a baby calf.  Excited eyes watched every movement the momma cow made wondering what color and gender the calf would be.  The best part however was watching as the mom cared for her new babe as she licked him/her clean and watched as the first steps were taken.


I often get bogged down when I hear the word "memories" these days.  I get distracted by my distant past and get overwhelmed to the point that I forget the good.  I rob myself.  


I'm thankful, so thankful for where I've come from and excited to see where I'm going.  It's like what I was reading today in Philippians (3:13):  "Brothers I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.  But one thing I do:  Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead."  The past that I have lived I cannot change and if I stare toward the future I get too distracted so the lesson is to live for the now regardless of how stupid that sounds and savor these moments.    

Remarkable insight taken from "The Regamuffin Gospel"  by Brennan Manning, pg 31.

Because salvation is by grace through faith, I believe that among the countless number of people standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands (see Rev 7:9), I shall see the prostitute from the Kit-Kat Ranch in Carson City, Nevada, who tearfully told me she could find no other employment to support her two-year old son.  I shall see the woman who had an abortion and is haunted by guilt and remorse but did the best she could faced with grueling alternatives; the businessman besieged with debt who sold his integrity in a series of desperate transactions; the insecure clergyman addicted to being likes, who never challenged his people from the pulpit and longed for unconditional love; the sexually abused teen molested by his father now selling his body on the street, who, as he falls asleep each night after his last "trick," whispers the name of the unknown God he learned about in Sunday school; the deathbed convert who for decades had his cake and ate it, broke every law of God and man, wallowed in lust, and raped the earth.

"But how?" we ask.

Then the voice says, "They have washd their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."

There they are.  There we are - the multitude who so wanted to be faithful, who at times got defeated, soiled by life, and bested by trials, wearing the bloodied garments of life's tribulations, but through it all clung to the faith. 

My friends. if this is not good news to you, you have never understood the gospel of grace. 

Sometimes I'm scared that all I will ever get to do is dream.  That all my hopes and desires will always be within an arms length away from me, never attainable just flaunted before my eyes and that all I was ever created for is to spur others on as I get to sit back and hope in the distance. 

you and me and hot air balloons in Australia?

I want to go for a ride in a hot air balloon. There seems to be something magical about the thought of floating way up looking down as a colorful balloon carries you to a destination.

I've been dreaming a lot lately. I think for awhile after everything happened with Josh I lost me. I lost my dreams. I lost my desires. I lost hope. It sounds ridiculous but the minute I made the decision to leave I felt like I was leaving everything I had ever wanted.

I see that it's not really like that. God's been giving me back my hope and my joy again. The possibilities are endless and I see that the only thing that holds me back is me. Really.

I want to one day fly up in a hot air balloon. Yesterday while walking to my bus stop I decided that one day I wanted to go for a ride in a limo. Australia will happen. I want to swim with dolphins and explore the Great Barrier Reef. I've thought of what it would be like to go for one of those canal rides in Italy and see the volcanoes in Hawaii. I want to learn how to skate. I've been thinking about my Master's a lot more lately. I like the idea of school I'm just not sure if I want to do that yet or not. I'd like to study Hebrew a bit more.

All these things are in my heart and mind tucked away for the appropriate time. I share them only because they are things that I could see myself doing with you. Experiences that I want us to be able to treasure together. It might sound stupid but for so long I've known that I want to be along side you as you fulfill your goals and dreams, and if anything I want to help encourage you to follow through with them... but now.... I've got some of my own that I hope you can share with me.

There were little bunny poops on the sidewalk outside of my house this morning... they made me smile because I think that Mr. Bunny was coming to eat some of the apples in our yard, I should really give him a better name but that's really all I got after 12 hours of work... so Mr. Bunny it is.

Change is like pulling teeth.

Help I'm scared.

I'm sitting here at 3:30 pm, should be sleeping, gasping for air.  A mild panic attack I think.  My mind is all over the place and for the first time in a long time I'm scared of which step I need to take because I'm scared of what's going to happen.

Opportunities to move to be with somebody I love were already afloat in my mind.  I was excited about the possibilities because they seemed endless.  I was sure to pace myself and not let my brain jump 14 steps in front of me.  Timing is everything.  This is all I keep telling myself. 

Now, a position at work opens.  THE one I've been telling myself for a year and a half I would love to have.  It's hard to discern my feeling toward what's going on and if I feel like God's inching me to move on from that place.  For the past few weeks if asked I would have said that I was.... and now.....

Also a good friend has asked me to consider the possibilities of moving with her to a new big city.  One where I've said that I would love to end up.

Too much change.  Too fast.  It feels like I'm being left to decide the roads in my life again and it's scaring me more than anything.  I never thought that it would all happen so soon.  And now I'm left with trying to figure out where I'm really at in all of this.

In all reality I think after everything I've learned that no matter where I go God is going to be with me, but I put so much pressure on myself, on making the "RIGHT" choice that I become so scared by ANY choice.

I want love.  I want YOU.  Timing is everything.  I don't want to mess this up because of impatience.  I want you to be whole before we put the pressure of us on your shoulders, but at the same time I want to know intentions and plans.  I'll wait for you hands down.... I guess I want to know the certainty in us.  That I have you.  I need you behind me 100% just as I am behind you... because right now I'm writing in tears at the thought of losing you.

Today is hard.
My mind is going a mile a minute thinking about so much.
It probably doesn't help that I feel like puking my guts out....
My bed felt too big last night and I wanted to just lay there crying. 

It'll be ok and I'll pull myself together.

I miss you.

the dishes can wait.

I've lost all of my motivation.  I'm not sure where it went.  I guess after such a busy weekend of go go go it's nice to sit around, drinking coffee and planning something exciting, that at least doesn't make me feel guilty for all the dirty, smelly, dishes in the sink.

I feel at peace and haven't felt this way in a long time.  I think I'm learning to find a nice balance in my life.  Learning from people that it's ok to live spontaneously every once in a while and not have everything so structured and planned out because believe it or not that's who I was.  I had a 5 year plan and everything was suppose to go accordingly.  I guess that's the funny thing when God is involved because plans can become obsolete.

I know that I'm where I'm at for a reason.  I've known that God has called me to my job and has given me this crazy opportunity to help me grow, but to also heal me in a time where I didn't think things like that were ever possible.  I see the things that I've been equipped with and when I consider the possibilities they seem to be unending. 

The best thing about where I'm at is that I'm falling in love in more then one way.  Falling in love with you, with me, and with Jesus all over again and that feels like a good balance.  It's like the more I get to know you and see your strength, determination and talent I love you so much more and loving you helps me to love me because you see so much of me and love so much of me that I've never appreciated.  I don't know if that makes sense, and you making me see these things about me helps to point my attention to God and helps me to seek out and to see who He's made me to be.  That's neat.  I've never had that before.  Thank you. 

I found some sort of centipede in my bathtub today, although I don't think it had 100 legs... maybe it was like a fiftypede.... or a quarterpede.... either way he had to be some sort of Pede. I didn't want to touch him though... so I washed him down the drain.

I watched Tianna as she crawled around the living room today. Those big eyes looking around excitedly at the world around her. She grasped for everything in sight looking at everything intently then shoving objects in her mouth as she drooled all over them discovering the tastes and textures.

The world is so big, so bright. Those eyes remind me of the simplest things. The important things. The smiles when she sees somebody she knows and loves walk into the room. The excitement when eating her banana's.

I love that little girl so much and can't imagine what it will be like to have my own babe one day. The things that come out of your heart when you love somebody that much. You want to protect that person from everything that could ever harm him/her. Hmm... maybe that's part of what Paul is talking about in 1Cor 13:7 when it says: It (Love) always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

I haven't felt this way in many relationships before but my heart is exploding with all these feelings just as you see in Tianna's eyes as she encounters a new object... and just as I want to protect her from all the things in the world that could harm her, I want to protect this, the things that I have now.

I'm praying with my whole heart.... trying to discern what God wants. Waiting. Hoping. I'm excited.... and I don't have words that could express everything in my heart but with all these hopes that I'm waiting so patiently for I feel as though I've encountered a whole new world... and seeing for the first time love and what it is and how it feels, it's too big to stick in my mouth though... maybe that's a good thing!

testing one, two, three.....

I've promised I'd write for a long time. Often my mind gets lost between the difference in the things that I should write as opposed to the things that I want to write. I want to share my heart, but that vulnerability scares even me so how could I expect somebody else to accept the true contents of what's buried deep in there.

So much has happened in my life. I look back now and see mistakes that I've made. I see steps taken that I regret, but I also know that it's in those steps where I have grown into shoes that I never thought I could fit into.

I thought I found love. I thought I found what it meant to be loved, and it turned out that I was wrong. It's only in finding out what love isn't that I found out what it is. It is only because of those steps that I so often regret taking where I also find a peace knowing that there was a reason for them.

In the brokenness is where I was made whole. That statement makes me cringe a bit knowing that it seems so cliche, however I feel so much truth alive in it that I can't deny it.

I'm learning. I'm not perfect. I thought I had some things figured out and I thought that there were clear black and white answers, however I'm learning more and more that those my not exist. All I can do is continue to take my steps in Faith, as retarded as I feel if God is as big as I believe Him to be and as powerful as I proclaim Him to be things have to work out for His glory. I guess it's in those moments when I just have to step back and remind myself that as much as I get overwhelmed by my problems and my life it's not about me, it's about Him, another cliche yes, but I know that without God I am nothing I have found this to be true so many times in my life I can not deny it.

So I take more steps. Sometimes I feel like I'm blindfolded, but even with a wounded heart I still believe in the love that I've been shown, and I know that that is worth taking that step because that experience is worth something far more amazing then I could have ever imagined.