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November is almost over?

21st November 2012 | everyday life, friendlies, travels | 0 comments

 

This morning my One Direction alarm woke me up stupid early. Well, I had set it to wake me up stupid early but it doesn’t make it less stupid or less early. After hitting snooze once (just once!) I got out of bed, went to the bathroom, read Teen Vogue (not even apologizing) and then put on cozier pajamas and got back in bed. Which is where I am now.

I could not come to terms with the fact that I was awake and the sun was not. And by sun, I just mean that the sky was still black because we haven’t really been seeing much sun over here.

Then I realized that next week – NEXT WEEK, PEOPLE – is December. Month 12. Of 2012.

You know what that means.

HOLIDAYS.

and you know what that means………..

The Salvation Army gets all busy. This past Saturday we had our Kettle Kick off, where our laughter kept our hearts warm (didn’t do much for my hands) and we played Christmas songs.

I’m excited to be a part of The Salvation Army this holiday season. I have the opportunity to help sign up families for Christmas assistance, we’re doing some cool stuff at our corps, there’s a camp Christmas concert that is now Facebook event official… and I am thankful to be in the storm of busyness.

After the Kettle Kick Off, I drove straight up to camp to deliver a birthday present. I wished I could stay longer (a feeling I experience everywhere I go) but Rhoda and I went to Seattle, picked up Emily and stayed at Shevaun’s house.

I got to paint something for Jordan’s birthday to support the Reardon’s adoption, and a trip to Seattle provided the opportunity for a bunch of us to get together in at a Starbucks in Lynnwood, laugh and share and (as always) leave too soon. But it was good to sit there with people I adore.

 

One of the biggest lies of the enemy is that I am unloved and without friends. I am thankful for preventative maintenance that comes in busy weekends where we have to say goodbye before we’d like to, where Rhoda decides to come along for a ride even without a change of clothes for the next day, and where I fall asleep exhausted with happiness.

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22/31 days of madeleine – friendship.

26th October 2012 | 31 days of madeleine, everyday life, friendlies, travels | 0 comments

You are sanity in an insane world. You’re reason where there isn’t any reason.

 

Things that make me super happy:

• driving in a car
• Eatonville, WA
• Rhoda
• Seattle
• Emily
• the Q Cafe
• coffee
• thrift stores
• Driving in a car to Eatonville, WA and picking up Rhoda to drive to Seattle to get Emily. Then going to the Q Cafe and drinking coffee right before going to a thrift store.

 

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{005/365} create

11th August 2012 | 365 | 0 comments

emily and i have spent the past 5.5 hours in the craft house, watching the hills and painting. and i’d write more, but really it’s time for a second coat of paint and another episode. {oh and also we ate way too many cheez-its and golden oreos, but that’s fairly irrelevant to this picture.}

 

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{001/365}

7th August 2012 | 365, camp arnold. | 0 comments

okay. i have tried this so many times, but i find that in retrospect life is more memorable and fun when i am in the midst of this daily photo taking attempt. emily and i decided we should try it together again. so today was day 1. we went on a walk all around camp, exploring trails we’d never been on and places we’d only heard about. we even took a trail map.

anyway. follow emily’s at her blog learning to breathe. follow mine right here.

 

 

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march 12th, 2012 {back to the sun, back to the shore}

12th March 2012 | travels | 1 comment

the minute i saw that bailey hanks would be reprising her role of elle woods in a production of legally blonde the musical a short drive outside of san francisco, i knew two things. #1. i must go. #2. i must take lauren. so i went, and i took lauren. it was a much needed few nights with the birksfam and in california. i think emily and i both underestimated how much we actually love california until we were back.

{one} our trip obviously started at starbucks, where we got coffee and breakfast. while we waited for our order, i wrote directions on the sandwich bag.

{two} it was funny to be welcomed to california with snow. we took the 101, which was absolutely BEAUTIFUL, especially compared with the rather flat, yellow path of i5 through northern california. the redwoods… so beautiful.

{three} suddenly the pacific ocean was just right there. big and beautiful and expansive. we pulled over to look at it, and emily got really emotional. so i took a picture, of course.

{four} i don’t know what magic they’re talking about, but that’s alright.

{five} when we told stacy about willits, she knew exactly where we were talking about and said that willits is about the place where you start to go crazy, which made us laugh hysterically because we went crazy in willits. this is for emily more than anyone else, so we can always remember the insanity we experienced in the two miles of willits. maybe three.

• “willits willits.”
• yum yum tree
• great! chinese food
• “this is so weird, i’ve worked here for 6 months and this is my second time having someone pay by debit card.. the other one happened today!”
• pinecone motel

….did i miss any??

{six} the grand finale of our 101 trip was the crossing of the golden gate bridge, something i’ve only done one other time. we were so excited about it…. until the signs for the toll booths had two options: fastrak or cash only. we had no cash. so the $6 toll ended up costing me nothing immediately, but $31 by mail thanks to a ticket. oh well…. {ain’t nobody gone break my stride, ain’t nobody gonna hold me down.. oh no… i got to keep on moving}

{seven} and then the next evening i went with lauren and graham to see legally blonde. and during the musical i decided that i absolutely could see the musical every night of my life and never get tired of it. it was brilliant, the choreography was awesome.. except that at one point, elle woods put a black computer bag on her shoulder and lauren and i both quickly began an exchange about how awful that was. my exact words were “that is FOUL.”

{eight} graham, myself and lauren. you can’t tell, but graham was wearing a pink shirt. he is just that fantastic.

{nine} lauren and i waited at the stage door to meet bailey. she won the mtv reality contest “legally blonde the musical: the search for the next elle woods.” i was team bailey from episode 1, so it was really exciting to see her be elle woods. and it was even more exciting to share it with lauren, who was already aware of who bailey was.

{ten} as we were leaving, we saw frankie mulcahy, who played warner, and decided to get a picture with him. he was like.. ridiculously beautiful.

{eleven} on our way back we were in desperate need of a pick-me-up around medford, oregon. so we stopped at starbucks. when we would drive from pacifica to camp redwood glen, we’d always stop at starbucks first and get frappucinos. for the most part, i only get frappucinos in the car with emily.

 

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31 Days of Song {24/31} – Hey, Soul Sister

24th October 2011 | 31 days of song | 6 comments

Song 24 - Hey, Soul Sister by Train

 

I will admit: I only recently learned all of the words to this song. Sometimes Train just puts so many words in their songs!

Train is great. I love Train. Drops of Jupiter has been one of my favorite songs to play on the piano since… well, high school. So duh I loved this song the minute I heard it. and I saw the video, and whatshisname {sorry} reminded me of David Garza in the video, so instant extra love.

What is this song even about? I have no idea. I don’t know what 90% of the songs I listen to are about {except Gold Digger – totally hard to miss the point of that song}.

But you know what – no, who – this song makes me think of?

My very own soul sister, Emily.
 

If you were to magically transport yourself back in time to when this song first came out and was in heavy VH1 rotation, you will find that most of the correspondence between Emily and myself has the subject “Hey soul sister!” Because that – soul sister – is exactly what Emily and I are. I do not have her lipstick stains on the front lobe of my left side brain, there is no smell of her in every single dream I dream.. but in three words, our entire relationship can be summed up. “hey, soul sister.”

and in case you didn’t know, I LOVE Emily Birks. LOVE HER.

Since I know she reads this…

 

Hey, soul sister.

ps I have so much I wish I could have written about, but I’m DETERMINED to go to bed before midnight tonight. baby steps to getting back on a good sleeping schedule.

ps again we ran out of milk {okay by “we ran out of milk” I mean that last night I made two boxes of banana pudding and that’s why we ran out, so it’s my fault} and so I decided to use water for my hot chocolate… no. Never again. Milk hot chocolate ftw.

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the long road home.

19th May 2011 | everyday life, travels | 5 comments

This is a few days overdue, but I am home in the Pacific Northwest. Pulled in on Saturday night. I held my cat and walked around the house, relearning all of the little details.

En route to home, I stayed with the Birks for a few days. Next week I will go back because that girl in the picture is graduating from high school. Seems like just yesterday she was 10 years old. But no, next week she is graduating from high school. We will spend the summer working at Camp Arnold… and then she’ll be a college freshman at Seattle Pacific. CRAZY. Back to the plans: I’ll get to be around for Graham’s birthday, Memorial Day/my birthday, and will stay to play at the Birks house concert. So making it home was slightly anticlimatic. I’ll be in San Francisco for almost two weeks.

But speaking of San Francisco. Like I said, I stayed there for a few days.

I arrived on Mother’s Day. We made Stacy a cake. You can’t see the cake, but we really did make it.

One day I went to pick Emily up at school. I texted her and said “What time do you get out of school, again?” she replied, “12:12.” It was 11:10, and I thought she was out at 11:11, so I sat in the parking lot and started reading Redeeming Love. At about the same time, Andrew texted me to tell me that he was at Starbucks doing homework if I wanted to hang out. After Em got out of school, we went and hung out. My friend Nicole was working, so when she got off she came and sat with us.

Six months ago, only 1 of those people lived in Pacifica. Now 3 do. and then there’s me.

Remember Frappucino happy hour last week? Took advantage of it often. Brought her back one, but it made her cold. so that was solved with a Snuggie.

On Saturday I got breakfast with Caleb and Jen in Sacramento. My GPS took me over the Golden Gate Bridge. My 12th trip to San Francisco and I finally saw it!

Yesterday something really cool happened. Justin Bieber tweeted his cover of my friend Ernie’s song. I wrote about Ernie on my old blog. A few days ago, someone shared a video of Justin singing the song live, and that was exciting… but then Justin Bieber himself tweeted a recording! Ernie Halter was blowing up on Twitter last night.

This morning I woke up and had an insane amount of mail, which was odd because I’d checked it fairly late and had cleaned it all out. This is what I saw when I looked in my inbox:

That’s a bunch of notifications of new followers from Twitter. I was really confused, until I saw the one at the very bottom. See that? Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) is now following you on Twitter! Including Justin Bieber, I’ve gained 103 new followers so far today. one hundred. What the heck. {that image is appropriately titled “what the heck.png}

Here’s Bieber’s cover of Ernie’s song:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QmTqVXXjhQ

 

Speaking of videos and my friends. I’m glad to be back in the northwest for many, many reasons. Here’s one of them… Justin Klump.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivu4Kd9FrYg

 

Today I woke up and made a mental list of things to do. Things like “clean out my desk” and “go to the store” and “write letters” and “go on a walk.” However, it is 4:30 and all I have done is prepare dinner, play the piano, start catching up on Criminal Minds.. oh, and make these.

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