Roughin' it Ranch Style

Well, my dear Matthew finally got me up to the family ranch this last weekend. We have tried a few times since we have started seeing each other, and it just kept not working out. When he talked about this place, it was like the magical place I'll never actually see with my own eyes. We were driving and driving, and the farther we got up there, he started to turn into this old cowboy, an 18 year old who was excited to see his long lost friend, and a historian all in one. He was so giddy when we pulled up, and I was breathless. I got out of the truck, and it was silent. The silence was deafening. I looked all around and there was nothing but the sound of snow melt, and my heart pounding. We went up to close up the ranch with his Aunt and Uncle. It was such a treat to get to know them. Without internet, television, and cell service, there isn't anything you can do but chat, eat and drink, which we certainly did. He has such special people who care so much about him, I wish he could see what I see, but I will do my best making it known to him.

I could tell you all the details that I will cherish about this trip forever, but I am going to keep a few so people will actually ask about the trip. All I know is I fall more in love with this man every time I see different parts of him. And I am so thankful for this weekend that he took me along for, because it was much needed, and I feel much more grounded after this weekend with him.  



PS. that picture of him looking at me, MELTS MY HEART!

XO

Loving Lauren

This is a hodgepodge entry of a lot of my thoughts from my personal journal that I’ve been writing in the last year about my best friend. 

I have been tossing with the fact that, in your twenties apparently is the time for people to change the most. Their hair, their boyfriend/girlfriends, their home, their future jobs, their sense of style and taste in music. Everything changes, and nothing really sticks. Friendships come and go in waves. Mainly not being that they are bad, just for the fact that was all you could learn from those people. I moved away to a little town for college about four hours away from anything I’d ever known. I moved away from my parents, my brothers, my dog, and it was hard, but I was ready to go be on my own. Since day one of getting here and watching my parents drive away, I was in search of my “new best friend”.  You instantly want someone you can hang out with and joke with and talk about the latest Grey’s episode and how INSANE it was. But among the people I moved away from, was my best friend. Lauren is one of the most adorable people I know. Never puts herself first, ever.  Has shockingly badass taste in music compared to her sweet natured presence. She is the toughest person I know and I admire her in so many ways. She challenges me to stick up for myself, tells me the truth when I don’t want to hear it, and always listens. When I moved out here, I figured I would find someone to numb the pain of not having her around, and I have. Every girlfriend I have met in this town, are all good hearted, and have special places in my heart, but none of them really know me. Lauren knows when I am lying about being “okay” and she knows that sometimes you need a target and Starbucks fix, just so you can get something’s off your chest, not to shop. The way she loves people, her work, her family, and her passions is inspiring. She has every reason to guard her heart so closely, yet, she craves adventure. She is never shy about sticking up for herself, or me. 

I guess what I have come to realize, is that there isn't going to be new best friend here where I am, not like Lauren. I have found a good about of men that I confide in and look to when I am needing anything. I am thankful for these friends. They have helped me grow and achieve better confidence. But finding another person in this world like my Lizzy, it's just not going to happen. 

No more pressure on people I meet, no more pressure on myself to find someone to fill my Lauren void. I need to find contentment with those who I adore around me, and keep loving Lauren, and making sure she knows how special she is, as best as I can.

(Isn't she stunning?)

I wish I could just be this way.

Talking to Strangers

Since the time any tiny human can walk, they are lectured repeatedly, " Do not talk to any strangers." Right? (I remember the first time I walked home from school by myself, and thinking sub-consciously to not even make eye contact with someone I didn't know for fear of a white van magically appearing and the thought of a lost puppy would lour me into that van... thanks Mom).  For the longest time I would be perplexed by strangers just saying "hello", or "how are you" when I would walk past them. As a teenager I would be embarrassed when my parents would just start up a conversation with a random person as if they were family. It is so funny to me now, because I am that person now. Who will crack a random joke, (even though it takes a very special person to understand my humor) I will start talking to them about their children, their dogs, their jobs, their lifestyle. As I have grown older I have realized most of my best friends, mentors, now, were at some point, strangers.


For example, my true soul mate, Lauren, (BFF since 1993) was just another girl at the day care I went to. When kids are in a class room full of little humans, who ARE strangers, they just become friends. They don't ask how old each other are, how much money their parents make, what color their bicycle is, they just start to play. They start to share, and they go into that friendship, with no judgements. They don't know, and don't care to know if Johnny pushed Susie on the play ground yesterday, they just know Johnny as the kid who shared his fruit snacks. I have tried to emulate this into my lifestyle, because a few things.

One: Everyone has a story, more than the story you think you know. I have been slammed with this fact over and over right to the face so many times in the last few years. I do what normal humans do, which is JUDGE. I think, "Oh, they must be this way, because of that." And thankfully I have been proven wrong every single time.

Two: That story that you didn't know about that person? Has a right to be heard. Everyone's story is unique, important, and most of all, not yours to tell.

Chances are what has made my life continue. Chances on dreams. Chances on people. Chances on adventures. Chances.

I gave a chance on a heavy eyed, 6'6, long haired, bearded man about 6 months ago. He was a complete stranger when he told me Happy Birthday. He was a complete stranger when we went to go get drinks and go dancing. He was a stranger when I invited him over to make cupcakes. This stranger was a stranger to my memories, but a familiar story to my future. He intrigued me, he made me feel more comfortable to be myself than anyone's ever made me feel.

He started out as someone who didn't share his heart openly, only through music. We became friends fast, we giggled so much, I felt this kinship with him because we didn't share how we were feeling openly, only through the albums we were feeling spoke the words better than we could. Finally I found someone who has just as big as walls that I had. Had been hurt, was stubborn, was very independent, but terrified of being alone, but all in different ways than I was. This man became my best friend, and then as walls fell, we became an unit.  The last 6 months have been hard, we have experienced death, new jobs, family issues, old wounds, and new wounds. He loves the Lord, his family, and now, me. But the thing about this stranger I met 6 months ago, is he is worth fighting for, and sometimes worth fighting with. All I know is I need this man in my life, and I sure hope he is there for awhile.

Most days...

Most days I just want to chop all my hair off, basically to look like the one and only, Norah Jones. It might be my next ode to being a bad ass that I'll never be able to achieve.
 
But then I realize cutting my hair won't give me her skills and I stick to youtubing the crap out of her lovey performances.



Happy Tuesday.


http://youtu.be/2IrWoKOLjQI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CWUA8H01UI&feature=youtu.be



Makes my heart happy.

Morning Doves

Life is rich, confusing, difficult, but in the midst of life at its finest, the sound of morning doves remind me of when I use to breath in the air and I believed it was pure, when I would look up to the sun, close my eyes and let the warmth of something so far away fill my soul, and most of all it was when I believed that people only have good intentions.


A lot has changed from those days in my life and one of the things I miss most about when I was younger was when I didn't know morning doves, and pigeons are the same bird...

End

All songs come to an end.

All books, all seasons, all dreams.

End.

But my question is when does it all start?

Awful preface.

You know when a really good song comes on; your mind gets lost in itself, you get in a groove. And then it comes to an end.

I feel like life has been like that of recent.. That chapter of your life feels like that moment you hear a good song. You want to keep listening and hit repeat a bunch... But then that chapter of life comes to a stop.

The best part is knowing another good song is soon to follow, but life can be so painful in those in between moments of stillness.

That's where I am in life right now. Everything's going well, and will go well, but I'm in an awful preface. I'm awaiting the next exciting thing to happen, and it feels like it will never come.

Maybe it won't.

Be Here

Don't let your mind get weary and confused
Your will be still, don't try
Don't let your heart get heavy child
Inside you there's a strength that lies

Don't let your soul get lonely child
It's only time, it will go by
Don't look for love in faces, places
It's in you, that's where you'll find kindness

Be here now, here now
Be here now, here now

Don't lose your faith in me
And I will try not to lose faith in you
Don't put your trust in walls
'Cause walls will only crush you when they fall

Be here now, here now
Be here now, here now

My life of recent, in pictures.

My Heart.

I feel it being successful at it's main purpose; keeping me alive. There's moments I find myself in the midst of chaos stopping to listen.

I remember I'm working. I remember everything is okay.

How many times to people in this lifetime confess to their heart being broken? Maybe it's not our hearts that's broken, maybe it's our hopes. Maybe it's actually the embarrassment of the hopes we once had. Maybe it's the fact we now have better hopes for ourselves.

Maybe that's why our hearts pump so fearlessly; because maybe our hearts did break, but they never stopped.

Being a seeker of His truth and love.

Once again I have ignored my online journal; for good reasons. One, I am poor as a college kid...wait.. (haha I crack myself up) and I have no internet and the internet I was "borrowing" stopped working so... no internet for me. It's refreshing really. Two, I have filled three paper journals in a few months. Which is incredible. It was just a few years ago I had about 5 journals that were all started, but never finished. Which was exactly how my life always felt. Well here comes the switch up of my life. God. My faith. My new found hope. Knowing I am worthy of love, my thoughts on life are more positive, being happy, actually laughing, and it all boils down to the fact that my soul has been restored. And I am certain that it is not the last time it will be. (Which makes me so excited.) The last few months haven't been the hardest, but for sure not the easiest. I have been given the challenge of loving people, without the certainty of being loved back, because that is what He does. I have been challenged to find myself, without myself being the number one priority. Making my faith the center of all that I have, or want to have. I have always been cautious. But now, because of this new found love, I feel like I can be confident in who I was made to be. I have been writing like a nut because I have so much to think, process, pray about, and I honestly feel like my brain might explode with the joy that my new heart has been bringing me consistently.

I have been blessed with the best group of guy friends at school. They are the funniest, encouraging, talented, lovely, honest, kind, and most of all they have challenged me to be a person of my word, and they always strive for themselves to live consistently in His word. I appreciate that they were my first true friends at school, even though it took me a year to meet them, it was worth all the struggle to find what they have given me. On the catch 22, myself being a female, I find the need to ask if I looked cute today, or to vent about a boy the hour before I go on a date, or who will venture to TJ Maxx without "needing" to purchase anything. As you can imagine my sweet friends have a hard time being that for me, and it usually ended up in one of them farting to make me stop talking. (Kidding, I am just kidding... well not really.) I was really craving to have females who could encourage me through life differently and a little more tenderly than my trusty male friends do. (I was forgetting that I needed this, because I've always been one to have more guy friends than girl friends, but in that time of my life I always had my best friend Liz at my side. Who would have thought that not having your best friend, the girl you have known since you were 2, not at your side was going to be such a struggle?! That was complete sarcasm; I miss her everyday.) The point I'm getting to is, that even though I have the best of guy friends, and a heart that has been made new, I was needing solid girl friends. I prayed for these ladies for awhile. With a lot of patience and trusting completely in His plan, I now have an incredible little circle with the most beautifully spirited women I've come across in awhile. Some of the friendships are fairly new, but feel as if I have known them my whole life. I have opened up to them more than I have to just about anyone, and with that I am grateful. I am so thankful for everything that has been given to me. They make this place home, and make me feel complete. My friends have become my family away from home and make my heart feel so full, and my soul is at ease with the way life continues to ends up working.

Where I am going with this is that God is good. "My thoughts are completely different from yours," says the Lord "And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts are higher than your thoughts." Isaiah 55:8-9 That verse is one of the many that make me feel as though, with all that has been brought and will be brought before my path in life, I can move forward confidently knowing a plan much grater than mine, is in my future!

Recently I've confidently turned to a few things, one of which is my art; which has never been so much work, but the best release of my thoughts. Music; I've been exploring playing guitar more than ever, singing for hopes, prayers, whatever really comes to mind. Most importantly sharing love to people. Diving into peoples hearts and souls, good or bad, has been always something I've had a passion for but recently I am seeing how to love people different than I use to. In the past when I get hurt, my heart gets hardened towards people. (Being human is what that is called.) There is a time in most situations where you can not allow your self to be selfless anymore, and allowing your self to guard your own heart. Everyone is worthy of happiness. One of the biggest life lessons I have learned in the last few moons is that finding contentment in the greater purpose of life is such a better way to go about life. Not allowing your self to get distracted by the trials of life, and allowing negativity to take over your mind. It is for sure a more challenging way to live life, but rewarding. When people decide to ignore negativity, I have found people surrounding the situation squirm a little, it's not comfortable for people to let negativity float away. Some people cling to it. I am not about to say I have perfected this craft, but I have learned, and am continuing to learn, that leaning on a greater thing than anything man made, will result in making my heart feel completely and utterly content. My life purpose is to make Christ the center of my life.  To get to the point, showing people God's love and grace is one of the biggest life lessons I have learned in my adult hood (which is still very new to me).  The best part for me in this chapter of my life is the fact I am not feeling any bitterness towards anyone, and there is only one reason why. I am not living for myself anymore.

Now this has been a process, not an easy one, but the most rewarding one. And definitely still in progress. Ultimately what has changed in my heart is that I am a seeker of His truth and love. And with that, I can confidently say that I am ready for whatever comes my way.