After a While

In the mist of healing from the latest and most painful heartbreak yet, I received this poem from my father. 

The timing of it's arrival could not have been more perfect. These words completely resonate with me, as I feel like I am in the process of discovering these truths for myself.
I received it a few days ago, and have read it every day since. It has brought me strength, perspective, and hope each time I read it, so I wanted to share it with whoever may still read this - if no one else, my future self - in case I forget.

After a While

After a while you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul,
And you learn love doesn’t mean leaning and company doesn’t always mean security,

And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts and presents aren’t promises,
And you begin to accept your disappointments with your head up and your eyes ahead with the dignity of a woman, not the grief of a child.

After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much,
So you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure, that you really are strong, and you really do have worth,
And you learn, and you learn, with every goodbye, you learn.

Note: In researching this poem, I learned that it is an abridged version of the poem "After Awhile You Learn" by Veronica A. Shoffstall. The whole thing is also definitely worth reading.

So, I Went to Hawaii... Again.

Yep, this was my third time finding my way to the Hawaiian islands. I went with Mary and Annie this time and saw a new island, the big island, which I loved!

We spend the first few days on Oahu and our last few on the Big Island. It's amazing how different they are, but both so great... can hardly wait for another 3-4 years for tradition to send me back again!

Here's a quick video that sums it all up:

He Made it for You

This too shall pass.

I find myself repeating this phrase in my mind as I sit here on my bed on a beautiful Friday evening in the middle of august… sick. Sick with a head cold that has seemingly taken up permanent residence in my body and has invited its new best friend “nausea” over to check the place out. I sit here when I should be outside on a mountain top, a walk, a bike ride – doing anything really, anything but sitting here.

With this down time, I’ve had plenty of time to reflect. It’s been an interesting summer, not at all what I expected it to be. It’s been more stressful than most and with that I’ve somehow let negativity dictate my thoughts and feelings.
Work is definitely not fulfilling these days. I’ve had just about all I can take of empty promises, and the information I deal with everyday isn’t exactly cheery. My back is acting like it’s 81 and my love life isn’t going exactly as planned – but what Mormon girl really plans on not being married, or at least close to it at age 31? With most of my friends being in serious relationships, I’m seriously lacking in my traditional summer adventures and my never ending goal of losing “that last 10 pounds” has just been modified… to 15.
Life can be a real bummer sometimes.

But even with all this going on, I can’t seem to get a certain recent relief society lesson out of my head. The lesson was basically about considering and realizing what you live for, and that if it’s anything but love, it’s probably not going to be that easy to be happy. While listening to this lesson I couldn’t help be relate love to beauty and I really began to think about all that is beautiful in my life. I’ve been blessed to have seen and known so much that is beautiful in this world and I’ve been blessed to know from who it comes from.

Though, I could go on about each individual thing that I recognize beauty in, I’m going to consent to the notion that a picture is worth a thousand words, so view below to see a few of 'my beautiful.'

My beautiful desert and the Great Salt Lake

Rain Forest of Costa Rica

Glacier National Park and my beautiful sissy

Beautiful Lover's Beach - Mexico

Ireland

Kauai- Hawaii. My happiest place on earth.

Havasupai, Arizona. This sight literally brought tears to my eyes.

I really like to see my Dad really laugh. In fact, I love it.

Majestic Big Sur, CA

Florida wilderness and hiking with sibs - So beautiful

Babies! My family sure makes beauties.

17 J. - the house I grew up in. It's hard to believe it doesn't exist anymore,

but it was beautiful to me.

Last but not least, the perfect example of beauty.

Never has there been a more beautiful woman inside and out.

She's my proof that there is a God and he does love me because I got her for my mother.

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. ~Mark Twain

In approximately 30 days I will be 30. Yep, thirty.
In a lot of ways this fact seems unreal to me and when I say it out loud, I feel like I’m telling a joke.
How did I get to 30, and so fast!? I don’t feel 30, I certainly don’t act 30, and from what people tell me, I don’t even look 30. But, regardless of the stigma that is generally attached to this age, I am surprisingly okay with this fact. It could just be a serious case of denial, but I feel like I’ve whole heartedly conceded to the notion of “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” – I can’t slow down or stop time or rewind time and then press pause on age 23 (though I dream of that almost daily) so, I’ve decided I’m gonna live up every year I have, exploring, learning and loving.
Now, this generally uncommon peace with turning 30 definitely didn’t happen naturally or over night. Actually, I think I hit the trauma of it all prematurely - when I turned 29. It was a rough birthday because I knew and feared what was just 1 short year away! But, after having a year to reflect on all of this and having some great examples of 30 year old attitudes (some positive, some negative – both very educational) I am totally and completely okay with this new big, round number.
All in all, I have found that there is no good reason that I can think of to put on my bitterpants on my next birthday just because of a number. It’s not like I was cheated out of anything or that life is doing me wrong in anyway- it’s just doing the same thing to me that it has done, or will do to everyone else! At the same time, I’m also not going to try and claim that 30 is the new 20. It’s not. 30 is old.
Instead of worrying about the amount of years I’ve spent on this earth, I am going to love them and look forward to even more of them!
So cheers to 30 - and hopefully to 30 more!

So This is the New Year..

January 2009 is a month I have been looking forward to for awhile now -mostly due to an upcoming cruise I'm going on which departs in about 2 weeks - but as this new year got closer, I've reflected on the past year over the last week or so more deeply and thoroughly than I have in any of the years before.

2008 was a good year. I started a new good job, I had a few great little adventures and I experienced the highest highs and the lowest lows spiritually and emotionally of my life.

Because of that I learned a lot valuable things about myself, but it was exhausting! It feels fantastic to be starting a new week, a new month and a new year - for the first time ever New Year's really does feel like a fresh start.
Part of this fresh start feeling included a move I made this week. I moved just a few blocks away from my old house, so I'm still downtown SLC and really close to work, but it's with a friend - Megann Reece aka Slim of Team Hardcore! It feels great to be living with a good friend again.

Anyway, as new years day went by I couldn't help but ponder throughout the day on what this new year will bring. I considered many things, jobs, grad school possibilities, travels, relationships, adventures, personal development etc. but strangely enough, none of them included an electrical fire starting inside the wall of my new home at 11:30pm on new years day.


I was extremely blessed to be home, awake and in the room that the fire started in so it could be quickly extinguished. The fire started and seemed to be contained to the inside of an outlet box right beside my bed. Although we were fairly certain the fire was completely out within the walls, we called the fire department to come examine the situation and help us figure out why it started and how to prevent future possibilities of our house burning down. We learned that luckily the problem wasn't too major and with the help of an electrician could be easily remedied.




Needless to say, the whole experience was quite an adventure.. and if it was a foreshadowing for the events of 2009, it should be quite the year!

Dam, What a Beautiful Man

I vividly remember the first time I heard Mason Jennings music. It was thanks to Dave House in early 2003. We were hang out in his room one day after school and he told me that he had some new music he thought I would like. Little did he know how right he would be. The first song he played me was “Darkness Between the Fireflies” and by the time the song was one third of the way through, I knew that I was experiencing the closest I will probably ever come to love at first sight… or sound.

For a good solid year, I had little to no interest in listening to much of anything else, as his music seemed to not only completely satiate my musical appetite, but I experienced something I had rarely if ever experienced before - his music not only spoke to me, but it seemed to speak for me. With his unbelievable ability to express his thoughts and emotions so simply and yet so poignantly, I found that Mason Jennings’ lyrics were the words to many of my similar thoughts and feelings that were previously indescribable.

Over the last few years I have been fortunate enough to see Mason Jennings perform live many times and privileged to even meet him a couple times. I am happy to report that he is very much down to earth and personable – he even remembered me the third time around. :)


Though my Mason Mania has definitely died down over the years, his music is still among my favorites and the songs I’ve heard hundreds of times are still just as moving and stirring at times.

Last night I went to see Mason Jennings play again in the Murray theatre. This was my 9th time seeing Mason perform and he is still just as brilliant and captivating as he was the first time I saw him play. He had a whole new band who were great, the sound was very crisp and clean. He also had the opening performer Zach Gill come in and play the piano in many of the songs which provided for a richer, fuller sound to many of his songs, as it’s usually Mason who is playing either the guitar OR the piano – but never both until now.
Man, these shows definitely provide nourishment for my soul.

If you were part of the unfortunate billions who were unable to attend last nights show, this is a little video made by Kyle Clark recapping the evenings events.. enjoy!

Sure, I've got pictures of my own

Still pictures have always been fascinating to me. Not only can they be extremely artistic in capturing moods and altering perception but they also have the ability to do what many of us long to do; they press pause on time.
My interest in photography initiated in high school but it wasn’t until about 5 years ago that I finally bought my first SLR film camera. I fiddled with it for a while, but then left it to collect dust as the digital scene became more prevalent. For the last few years, I have been content with the little point & shoot digitals as they do take fantastic pictures, but slowly and surely the desire to learn technique in photo taking and the process of developing and printing resurfaced. So, as of this summer I finally realized one of my long standing goals of taking a photography class. The class turned out to be everything I was hoping for and more. I was reminded what it’s like to be more careful with each photo – making sure the subject matter, lighting and my positioning were all in check before snapping a shot. I also fell in love with the whole dark room experience. It was thrilling to create my first print and from there learn about all the different methods of altering photos with filters, light exposure, sizing etc.
I am by no means nothing more than an amateur at this point, but it’s been so fun to begin in the development of this new skill!
Anyway, here are some of my favorites from this summer: