Isolated {the film}

On Wednesday I went on a mini road trip down to Santa Barbara.  We {brother, cousin, roommate, and friend} zipped down, did dinner and a movie, hit up an after party and then zipped back.  My cousin Geoff is a movie producer and we went to the Santa Barbara International Film Festival to see his film, Isolated.  This film is one that he’s been working on for about 5 years.  It was so exciting to be able to watch the finished product and know how hard he had worked on it.

 

The premise of the movie is a surf documentary, but the pro surfers end up discovering that they have been placed in a position to share the story and voice of a people.  How thankful I am that we have the freedom of speech in the United States.  I am not going to debate or argue with someone who questions what having the freedom of speech entails.  I will say that I am incredible blessed to not live in fear of what I might say my put me to death.  It’s a hard thing to think about.

I don’t know what the next avenue for this film is, but if you get the chance I would highly recommend it.  Check out the website for more information about the film and to learn more about giving a voice to the people of West Papua. Please consider “taking action” and becoming an Ambassador for Peace.

 

A Reason to Dance {Pep Talk}

A sweet woman posted this on her blog today for a little extra encouragement.  Kara has been fighting cancer and she is sharing her journey on her blog and helping to share others' stories as well.  It made me smile and reminds us " you were made to be awesome" and that there is "a reason to dance."

 

Enjoy:

 

Elfin Forest Adventure

When I was Italy I had 4 months to do everything…and I didn’t know what I wanted to do until I was there, in it all.  And now I have 5 months of college left…and in some ways I deny the fact that there is such a short timeline.  5 months.  That’s it.  Done. I’ve started making a list of things I want to do while I’m in this place and this community.  Some of them I’ve done before want to do more often, and others it will be the first time.  On that list was going to the Elfin Forest.  Not the Elf forest, but the Elfin forest because there was some confusion.

My friends Katie and Alison and I went on a Saturday afternoon adventure.  We went and got Costco samples as treats, then hit up the coffee shop for some warm beverages {otherwise known as hand warmers} before heading to the beautiful town of Los Osos.

The Elfin forest, not what any of us expected.  But it was beautiful and we took pretty pictures.  We watched the sunset and talked like girls do.  We laughed and looked at Morro Rock.  We saw the low {too low} tied of the marsh lands.  And we breathed the fresh air.  It was marvelous and one thing off the do list. 

Yay for Saturday adventures…and many more to come!

Music Makes Me Happy

Source: thebluepeonyblog.blogspot.com via Haleigh on Pinterest

You know what I love, that I have had a song stuck in my head.  I make sure to have it come on whenever I get in the car this week.  The voice is rich and the lyrics are strung to a melody that lets me sing my heart out.  For a few minutes it’s just me singing…to my car.  And I have learned that it doesn’t matter if the neighbor is walking past me, or if the guy in his giant truck laughs at me, or if the little old lady looks at me quizzically.  I am using my voice in a sweet way.

I have a fun fact about me; I sing in the car, when I’m alone, and especially on car trips.  It keeps me awake, focused, and makes the miles go faster.  This last car trip that happened just a few days ago was a flashback through my life in music.  I put the ipod on shuffle and sung.  There were 90’s worship songs, boy band sagas of elementary school, some 80’s hits, and then some indie, even some instrumental to round out the mix.  It was eclectic.  Life is eclectic. 

I have been thinking about what it means to have variety in life and this is one of the ways that I see it so clearly.  Music is a memory maker for me.  Certain songs are associated with certain events.  Music speaks to me and I learned a long time ago that it is a language. 

If you’ve been around here you would know that I am not a language person in the fact that I don’t pick them up easily.  But I feel languages.  They ring in the depths of my heart and my ears perk up when I hear an unfamiliar tone.  Music is a language to me.  I feel it, I can move to it, I can even speak it…but I am not fluent.  I can’t read or write it, but it speaks to me and I speak back.

Do you speak music?  Or language?  Or maybe you speak art?  Maybe you speak math or chemistry?

What do you speak and have you truly spoken it from the depths of your soul lately?

This is the artist I am loving and one of my favorites by her

Writing again

I look and there are so many Word docs that are titled some variation of “blog in progress.”  It’s a little sad.  I love the blog world.  I am a reader and it spices my life up a bit.

This was a post that I wrote before the New Year.  I wrote it in the middle of my I don’t want to write and let eh world see it, I don’t know if I can write phase of the last month.  Even if it wasn’t the beginning of a year, there is a bit of a new beginning in my life.  I’m ready to move on to the next thing.  It’s a new sensation for me as a typical dweller.

Without further adieu, the post from the past…

So my intention of posting everyday or every other day…yea, not realistic.  I love writing but I have learned I need to go at my own pace.  So far this break I have so many things I could talk about.  I am so blessed.  I have finished a scarf, a book and am working on a few more {books and scarves!}.  I have made some desserts that we only make at Christmas.  And the Christmas parties! 

Every year we go to what is called ‘soup and sing’ which means there is soup for dinner, singing of Christmas carols, and then desserts go around.  Then there was the Christmas party of people we see about once a year and as is tradition we had chili pile up.  Yum! 

Christmas day my family drove to LA to be with family.  It was a generally relaxing day and grandma was waiting at the end of the car ride.  The day after Christmas was the celebration of 30 people… and they are all related to me in some way.  I love my big family.  I don’t know if I’ve written about the odd tradition that we have in my family but we don’t have traditional Christmas dinner.  This year was   Mediterranean food and we had baklava for dessert.  It seems that the holidays involve a lot of food!

I am a person who enjoys quality time with people and it is something I treasure.  I got to have time to go on a walk with some of my cousins and aunts and uncles.  The youngest of our group was 20 months and she was so cute.  She walked a good chunk of the trail.  We saw horses and she squealed and squealed.  I love the little ones!

I got to babysit some little ones the last couple of weeks.  I will have to remember to make indoor snowballs for my someday children.  The 2.5 year old would throw the paper balls in the air and say “It’s snowing!”  in her singsong voice.  I love the joy of a young child.  It does my heart good to be able to rock a baby and I have had the pleasure many times this break.

While in So Cal I went into the heart of LA to visit sweet Megan.  It was exactly a year since we had seen each other and she had dropped me off at the train station in Rome.  What a year it has been!  We got breakfast one morning and then the next day we rode bikes on the beach at sunset.  I got to try her mom’s egg rolls that I heard about the entire time we were in Italy.  We shared memories and caught up on life.  I told you, a lot happens in a year!

I also got to see my friend Rachel and hear about life for her.  We have such a fun friendship and although we don’t hang out often, we always find something that we have in common.  I have had the opportunity to see my friends from high school and there have been old school style conversations on the phone to friends from college.  One of my friends from high school is going to teach in Guatemala and I got to see so many friends from high school group at church when we got together to say ‘see you later.’  I love that so many people are dreaming and going on adventures.

 Lots of writing…thanks for making it to the end!