God Bless my Underwear

As we venture around these trails, laugh out loud, tumble, stumble and wreck hardcore, nature seems to speak comfort to us as we continue to shred tread and head to bed...

This week has been exhausting to say the least. After my month and a half of recoup from the last three years of student/camp life, I find myself both loving the way I feel and hating the way I feel. I love the way I can just fall asleep and really be out cold. I enjoy knowing that the little ones are getting tired out by me and myself by them, with our daily adventures. I hate how my mind wanders to wanting sleep and zoning out while riding the lift playing "A my name is..." Along with counting the hours at times until I can go home and take a hot shower. Those thoughts are rather rare compared to the thought that made me laugh loud today... As we cruised down Delaware (a more popular blue square) I wondered to myself what each by-standard on the side of the trail must be thinking, what they will tell their families when they saw this little purple jacket, pink face masked, speckled helmeted, cruisin little ball of sass belting out "God bless my Underwear! My only pair!  I adore them! But I tore them! On the seat of my old rocking chair!" (in the musical sing-a-long selection of "God Bless America").

Or another thought of how much I love it when a 7 year old little woman who is as tall as my hip but can get lower than low in a carve that could make Ted Ligity say DAAAANG, with a powder blue helmet and hot pink goggles, beat boxing as we dance at the top of West Slope.

Getting blown away on the coldest of days. Chatting and joking while waiting for the feeling to come back into our cheeks and little fingers. Hot chocolate drinking fools who love, love, LOVE building snow castles and even after sprawling out across a trail after an epic wipe out, seeing their smiling giggling faces after racing to check on them, their words are usually as follows..." That...was...AWESOME!!!"

These little buggers teach me more than they know. And I am blessed. Sitting after a long but stellar day of skiing, I continue to wonder how I am so incredibly blessed and brought to these situations in my life and why? Why should I be the one who gets to have all the fun? The laughs, the jokes, the smiles, the love?

I don't know but I pray that He keeps pouring out of me, what I see pouring out of them.

Frozen Precipitation

I Skied the morning away in the bitter wind. All while tucking down straight aways with bits of majestic flakes finding temporary hiding places in goggles and boots. Admiring the snow globe in which I was so blessed to be in, good company and enjoying one of the many things I love about seasons, conversation. Topics floating from subject to subject in between floating to destinations.

Skiing is probably my all time favorite sport besides running along with countless others. There is something specific about alpine that just moves me in so many directions of thought, motion and heart. However it's not the snow, though it is beautiful. It is not the gear, or the slang talk of riding some wicked "pow pow" (if that's what you could even call it on the East coast). It's not finding loop holes to be able to ski for free or putting warm "comfy" boots on after they've spent a night in the hot room. I love this sport so much because of the people who share the passion with me. Gravity, force, adrenaline, spirit, body, breathe. These are just a few things people can relate to. To be sitting on a lift with people who get that same amazing feeling, that spiritual uplifting from playing in the Lords creation, fully being apart of its raw beauty, I get chills even though I left the mountain hours ago. There is something so unexplainable about standing at the very top of that trail, looking out over so many different things, feeling the cold air on your lips as your breathe in winter at it's finest. While massive flakes that you fall in love with all over again as they brush against your exposed rosy cheeks and nose. Hearing your own heart beat as the deafening sound of bliss and silence enters your ears in the midst of impacting skis to snow letting your toes lead the way.
I know there are many who understand and many who will one day understand. It is another home for me. With family to whom you can relate on many different levels. Appreciating the little things like the squeaks in the snow and smiling eyes behind tinted lenses. The feel of the carve and knees scrapping corduroy (those rare moments).  There are many things in the midst of this community that I have learned, experienced, loved, hated, laughed, cried, lost, found and just simply been blessed to have encountered.

I am finding that the more passion you have for the things that surround you, by truly enthralling yourself in the seasons you are given, you gain a lot more than you realize...You learn to embrace so much more than you can imagine during this short stay.


So I came home today to realize I was in the mood to clean...I'm telling you, I was a cleaning machine! I've found that when I am home my room is a disaster zone, when I'm not home I am usually an extremely neat person. Clothes folded, dirty laundry where it should be, vacuumed, swept, and organized. My room has been a war zone lately. Christmas gifts scattered and wrapping paper battling book shelves with a lamp post being used as a lovely coat rack. As I continued reading 12 Extraordinary Women, I suddenly had the erge to go crazy. I finished the paragraph, and headed straight to my room and began to sort. I got rid of so much stuff vacuumed the ever loving heck out of that carpet and threw a load into the washing machine. It was crazy how much stuff I had gone through and how much I still could go through...Since then I have lost my ambition.

While I was cleaning though, between ripping up old bank statements and super old receipts that you couldn't even read they were so old, I found this list of rather interesting facts...Apparently when I had worked at Kohls (yes...yes I did) I found out some really random information from who knows where, but just happened to stumble upon it 4 years later! Yikes

"Things They Don't Teach you in School":
1. Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
2. The longest syllable word in the English language is, "Screeched".
3. There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
4. Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
5.There are more chickens than people in the world.
6. An Ostrich's eye is bigger than it's brain.
7. No words in the english language rhyme with: month, orange, silver, or purple. (Sorry Barney)
8. Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
9. In most advertisements, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10.
10. It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
11. A Polar Bear actually has black skin, and clear fur.
12. More people are killed by Donkeys than in plane crashes each year.
13. Shakespeare invented over 1700 words used in the English language.
14. No president of the United States was an only child. (Is Obama?)
15. The average Chocolate bar has 8 insect legs in it.
16. Eskimos use refrigerators to keep food from freezing.
17. A ducks quack does not make an echo.
18. Woman nearly blink twice as much as men.
19. A cockroach can live nine days without it's head before it starves to death. (Sick!)
20. A snail can sleep for 3 years...(How do you even know?...Was he snoring?)

The random things you find amongst old memories...

"We should enjoy here while we're here...'cause there's no here, there!"


ooooo!!! Touche my friend...touche!

Hearts on Sloppy Sleaves.

I am a nut case...simply said. Emotionally I have been completely all over the place! As I left lunch today, driving away with what felt like an empty heart. I am so tired of this. I am so tired of my heart and my brain yearning for it to be different. I am tired of the way things were. I am just tired. When I'm tired I enjoy listening to music that fits my mood. Roaming from Ben Harper's Forever to Jack Johnson's Home, I contemplated crying at how crazy this phase has gotten me or to laugh because it's all just a bit absurd with hearts on sloppy sleeves mixed with tree house paint and grass stains...I am in a whirlwind of life, and there's nothing stopping it.

As I left the bank, I looked into my rear view mirror to see a very fragile woman who I had helped open the door for at the bank only 10 minutes earlier. One car stopped to let her pass. She waved with her over sized knit royal blue mittens with a huge smile, thanking the driver so kindly. She looked around the car to see what other cars were coming and who else would stop for her. As the next one did she also waved with her massive mittens as she scuffled her little legs across the rest of the intersection. I don't know why...but I began to cry. It could have been the fact that Kim Walker's How He Loves us was playing on my ipod, but I lost it. She was so gracious, so thankful and had such a beautiful smile on her face from the moment we met eyes till after I drove away. I'm sure she's still wearing that smile as I'm letting my thoughts flow through my finger tips to type this right now...as we speak.

It's been the little things lately. Commercials that are less than 10 seconds long get me teary eyed. Like that payless commercial where the girls running in slow motion and tackles a guy who's getting out of a cab... He came home from the armed forces....watching Finding Nemo!! Common! ....I am a hot mess......

So heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss and my heart turns
violently inside of my chest
I don't have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way...
He loves us,
whoa, how He loves us

The past is the past...
Forgiveness is forgiveness...




"My heart stumbles on things I don't know,
My weakness I feel I must finally show"

Gray Days.

My feet and hands are cold today. As I think about this I remember something being said that because my feet and hands are cold, it means all of the blood that should be rushing through them is rushing through my heart with love. I'd like to believe this. My heart has been aching all day. My indecisive mind and things I should do. My mind and thoughts have been getting the best of me. It's a very odd thing really.

Should I...Shouldn't I? I feel as though I don't have any ambition. I want to enjoy it all but there's a rather big part who would rather just stay hidden and not venture and discover today. There are many things that I have taken in and things that I have let go in my time of being here. I feel more disconnected than ever this afternoon from myself and everything around me. And yet, I wish to do nothing but warm my hands and feet. I believe that my toes are icicles... My core feels as though there is an ice cube in the pit of my stomach that wont melt. and currently the things around me are frozen and asleep.  I have noticed in the midst of all this cheer, my disliking of cold weather and windy moments...

But this book. This book sitting beside me. It's so hard to explain. The words, they certainly don't come from my perspective. Raining down on me like a summer days shower. Sun shining through the darkest of clouds, seeking comfort and refreshment. As cold as it is, it is a reminder of being able to feel. Not only the sunshine, but the rain. To not only feel the nip of Jack frost but truly feel the bite of this life and how raw it really can be at times. All while still wondering why signs on roads say "bridge may be icy" even on the hottest day of summer. 

I must strip these complex layers to feel bare and vulnerable. To fall and know that I am not invincible...again.

....Joshua 1:8-9....


 Heavenly Father: I believe that your grace is more powerful than my label. I believe Christ died to pay for the sin my label represents. I believe that you've offered me a new label: "forgiven, accepted and loved." Teach me to live my life in accordance with who you say I am.

Sunday

A way to describe my Sunday... Not only was the sun shinning, not only did I get to rejoice in worship with strangers at church, not only did I get to go for a run this evening surrounded by dazzling lights... Today I got to hang out with a good friend making Christmas cookies whose Mother also happens to have been my 1st grade teacher. So indeed it was an awesome day being 24 years old and getting to sit down in community and chat with my 1st grade teacher. How many people can say that?!

I am so truly blessed to have such wonderful community flow into my life. Prayers are answered for sure and I am so thankful for all of it.

...My lungs feel good today.

Sunny walks and Old Women

I took a walk this morning and it was so warm out! Well... compared to the weather we've had lately it felt tropical. Stepping out into the sunny 34 degree late morning, I headed off to the post office again where I was mailing a few more things a long for friends/ family. As I walked in I noticed a big line...I didn't mind at all. the sun was shinning and everything just seemed delightful. So I stood in line and I saw this old fragile woman. She was so adorable with her old Christmas sweater and her wonderful gray knit hat, while looking at various packing material. Her daughter, I presume was calling to her to come back in line... in Russian. So she scuffled over and held onto her daughters arm and they chatted and giggled. It was absolutely wonderful. I couldn't help but smile, nor could my heart. Many people know that I adore old people. I really do, I love them. I believe that a lot of old people don't even realize how cute they are.... But, they are.

As I walked back to the house through town, the streets were busy with people in their cars venturing out into the chaos that is Christmas shopping. People moving and singing in their cars to the music on the radio. So nice. As I turned a corner and started walking down through the neighbor hood, I looked at the lights on the bushes and trees. I wondered how some people got their lights on some of these trees because when they aren't lit they look like an absolute mess... Thinking about it as I walked, I thought about how a lot of peoples lives can be like that, all tangled and twisted, including mine. When you look at a tree with a bunch of lights all over it, everything just blends together. It could be extremely hard to figure out how to take those lights off if you didn't put them up yourself, if it wasn't your tree. However, you know your own roots better than others. But looking at that massive ball of tangles cords and branches, wrapping around and knotting in various places, it's interesting to see how tangled we all feel until our light shows. How crazy chaotic our lives can be until we see the complete beauty shine through later on, making us realize why we wrestled with those branches and un tangling the knots to begin with.

The hard work certainly paid off... Don't you agree?

Hustlin

With in the next two weeks I don't believe I have fully wrapped my head around how busy/merry/joyous/exhausting/fulfilling things that are soon to come. Tis the season that has quickly approached and with each passing day it becomes more and more exciting. Friends and family coming home, wrapping paper noises from behind closed doors. Kids out and about with their Rents seeming a bit antsy as the days will soon dwindle to numbers that fit on one hand.

But it's greater than that and I am so thankful more than ever to see more than ever what a true celebration it really is. Possibly party hats and noise makers should be on the list too...Birthday cake perhaps?

...mmmmm cake.

Socializing Hermits.

My legs are FREEZING! I just went for a walk up to the post office to drop off a letter to a friend and decided to take the longer way back. It was just beginning to get dark out when I left so it was a wonderful time as I walked past houses as their Christmas lights came bursting into the new born evening.

It is 10 days until Christmas...WHOA... 10 days? wait that means there are (putting up my fingers to count...even though I'm typing?) 16 DAYS! left to this year?...I could have sworn 2010 just started, what, just a couple of months ago...say 11 give or take a few days? How can this be? It has for sure been a year. And an incredible one indeed! I don't believe I have yet encountered a year such as this one. But I can't say that anymore now can I?

Me, me, me...I,I,I...My, my, my...Do YOU think it's strange that blogs even exist? I was trying to explain the concept of a blog to my mom the other night and she just doesn't seem to fully grasp the idea. It was a very random occurance actually, out of the blue she asked me what a blog was so I told her and she went on to ask me some other questions but she told me she was asking because Brian Williams on NBC always says, "You can check out more stories on my blog" and she never understood why he said it.

Our generation are the true elders of the booming technology period in which we now live. Ready for a throw back? "Back in my day!" I can recall not every house hold having a computer. I can recall my Dad getting his first pager. When you had to purchase tapes for your answering machines, Original neon colors in all their glory and cartoons being legit cartoons, animated and talented artists who truly enjoyed what they did instead of just trying to make a buck!

Yep now instead of a diary or a journal that you write with paper you can Blog it up all you want! Put yourself out there for everyone to see. Welp folks, I'm not building this all up to say that I'm quitting the blogging world along with facebook, no, I'm just stating that we strive to know so much about eachothers lives. Clicking here, Scrolling there, Don't you find it a bit silly that we say, "Oh I saw on your facebook the other day that you were doing this" or "reading that". Yes very true, we don't always talk to everyone and it's nice to update everyone. Don't you find it slightly strange how you can't hear anything? We are all soooooo loud and sooo talkative...and yet no one makes a single peep... We communicate, but not how we were created to. We say we use our voices...but our voices can't be heard amongst the abbrev's, and text tones. We say we want to make an impact, but what good can typing down your voice be, when you can just delete it?We spend so much quality time with eachother and talk through the internet, and texting more than we actually use that same phone to talk into...How strange is that? I'm sure many people could say that if they could trade in their talk minutes for text messages, they would.

Over these last couple of months I have come to a realization that each new gadget that comes out creating quicker, faster, highspeed communication, is slowly regressing society. If you think about it we used to socialize in person, but now we can socialize...online... Many extroverts are actually if you can think about it from a different stand point, becoming introverts...Does that make sense? Perhaps with everything else that is being created in this rapid moving world, there will be a new word invented for hermits who love to socialize. We want private lives except for everything we put on facebook and other social networks that compete, compete, compete. Update, update, update. So intense.

I enjoy reading peoples blogs I also at times, enjoy, writing one. If I didn't, I don't think I would continue. But like I've mentioned so many times, it's a pretty neat place to move words around to try and create how selected thoughts may feel in the naked eye. Being interpreted and translated. Most thoughts, if you can imagine, actually stay and will continue to stay unheard and unseen.
...But that's just me.

...

...I want to read more C.S. Lewis...

...I want to read a lot more in general...

...Consider it done.

Mocks and a Fleece Lined hat!

While the weather had cats and dogs splattering on my windshield yesterday...the current temperature for tonight is 13 degrees...how ever the weather channel claims it "feels like" -3 degrees.... Welcome to NEPA.

"Whether the weather be fine
or whether the weather be not.
Whether the weather be cold
or Whether the weather be hot.
We'll weather the weather, whatever the weather,
whether we like it or not."

I'm must say I'm looking forward to wearing my mocks, track pants, track hoodie and my fleece lined Elk Mountain hat to settle in and catch some Z's tonight... My Mom loves reminding me of the times she would wake up and see her breathe when she was little... Us Middletons' like to suck it up... I might add that I will indeed have my fan on tonight too!...There's something about getting out of bed at 3:47am to clumsily find the bathroom then sprint back to that cozy warm spot in your bed.

I love Winter!

Fickle Weather.

I have been extremely quiet yet again today... It's not a bad thing, honestly. However in the midst of my reading and writing, I have been becoming more and more overwhelmed with compassion and heart ache of how much I want to understand it all more deeply than ever. As I sat in church this morning next to my dear friend, listening to what was being said. How Ruth lost so much of everything and still seeked refuge in the Lord. That is what we need. to be saved. Everyday. It was clearly spoken to me again this morning, that sometimes the strongest prayer can be asking for help, breaking down and being the most vulnerable. Being vulnerable and ditching our pride...We're only human. I will be the first to admit it. But the truth is I can't do this on my own.... And why would I want to? At times we forget what we cannot see. If you would just open your eyes you can see that it is written in each snow flake, or a Broadleys Flat Lizard

I have been missing some family members lately. Brothers and Sisters who move my heart every time I think of them and their amazing souls. You conveniently wander into my head at the best times. Helping remind me that though we will meet again, sooner than we can imagine, my time is meant to be spent here right now. I have struggled with that recently. Things are certainly different than they were before. But it has been a promising different. Again I know I can't do this on my own, and I have been digging deep to let go of my pride, my fears, my doubts, and my walls. I felt overwhelmed a month ago being surrounded by so much new. It continues here and even being in my own home town, everyday is a new blast of growth and understanding the lessons that are being taught.

The Parable of the Sower
 ¹ That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. ² Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. ³ Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. ⁴ As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. ⁵ Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. ⁶ But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. ⁷ Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. ⁸ Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. ⁹ Whoever has ears, let them hear.” Matthew 13: 1-9


As I read this passage tonight, Christine St.Hilaire (Block) came into my head. I can recall a moment in my college career when she spoke of this passage. As I read more and more I find my self second guessing myself when it come to interpretations... "The bible is not about me, it is mainly about Jesus." However I noticed how my college years I struggled with where my seeds were. Mentally I had struggled. My mentality was choked out, or withered. Now looking back on it, and reading that passage tonight, I have been so blind. Seeing it now from this perspective I am beginning to understand more. And I am thirsty for more. Thinking about Christine and how she has been with me from the very beginning of this journey, it has made me realize who else has been there and who has recently appeared and I feel will continue to be on my "Home Team" for quite some long time. I am so thankful. My seeds are deeper now in more fertile ground than I have ever had. However, the weather has been fickle and I must continue to proceed with caution, being sure to nurture and tend to any weeds. Even then I need to be extremely careful. Yes, weeds shouldn't be there, just like in "Parable of the Wheat and Weeds".

It has been so interesting. I am not so much surprised as much as I am more calm about things I just don't understand. To see that a lot of things I didn't understand I understand why, now. However there are plenty of things I will not understand for a very long time... or ever, for that matter. But that's just one of the countless reasons why this is all so incredible. This is why He has continued to rip open my heart and open my eyes. We can't understand everything. And I'm all about it.

Very interesting things...

Unexplainable

I go through phases. At times I love taking photographs. And at times I love creating a mental memory of exactly how I saw it..Something a photo can't always capture. However some photographs create that amazing portrait of the inner and outer beauty of everything amazing.

I can not tell a lie... I have been on and off facebook very rarely for the last couple of weeks and I plan on staying that way until the new year. It has indeed been nice. But it has also been hard. I went on a little over a week ago to find an email  address and I found that my friends in South Africa had written me! It was very exciting, because I was overflowing with wonder of what they were up to and if they were ok. If I hadn't gone on I wouldn't have been able to write them back or even see that they had gotten in touch with me. So wonderful to hear from them!

I went on this morning to spy around on updates and noticed Jennifer Spears had updated her profile picture and her status only 2 hours before...I clicked on her picture and was instantly brought to tears. Some pictures just hit you right in the heart... What a true raw love that was pouring out of this photograph. So beautiful...So real. Words can not describe what an awesome photograph this is. How much of an impact it has on a single human heart....Miss Jennifer it is written in your eyes, the amazing work that has been done. And the incredible love that is raining down on you and that little sister in which you hold.

Photographs are incredible. When you capture small glances of our Awesome Creator, you can't help but feel so joyful... It can be unexplainable many a times...You'll just need to see if for yourself...

C. 2010

Bubbly Lights

I walked out my front door tonight to see that my neighbor finished putting up her Christmas lights. As I walked down the front walk, even in the bitter cold, I felt so warm. With a smile on my face, I decided that bubbly big lights are the best kind of Christmas lights.

They always take me back to when I lived in that little blue house, each winter whether there was snow on the ground or not (usually the weather predictions were more simple back then) My Dad would always get out those bubbly lights and string them upon the massive pine tree at the top of our drive way. It stood next to another pine tree that was directly next to it, but we always only put lights on the one. I never understood why. My brother and my Dad would wrestle with those lights all afternoon...Then when the sun went down we all held our breathe as the plug went in to that little blue house...As the colors hit my face and sparkled off my eyes, I can remember the same feeling that I felt tonight. Filling me up, causing my heart to giggle.

Tis the season...

Twinkly Lights and Childhood

My mind is not here nor there but somewhere in between.  I have had songs tickling my brain, all while trying to comprehend the blessings that have been my life. So much has happened in such a small amount of time. At times it is greatly overwhelming. All while I sit here, in the midst of it all wondering where I have come from to be sitting here... talking to you. I haven't a clue who I'm talking to. Sometimes I feel like this entire thing is a bit silly. I mean, why? Why type your thoughts only to critique yourself for how terribly worded you've made your thoughts to be? And yet I enjoy it. Perhaps it's because I enjoy the challenge of trying to express these collections in my head. I feel at times there are no combination of words to describe them though...

I put little twinkly lights up in the cold air today...Smiling at the thought of how easy we can be to forget what we have learned and how impatience can get the best of us, which caused me to realized these days have been moving much more slowly than before. And yet it's already dark out. How did this happen?

In recent events I had mentioned music and how much I love it. New stuff old stuff and everything in between. I have my spot on the couch while my Mom sits in the chair next to me with a big quilt on her feet while we watch T.V. While we chat and I work on various projects, a commercial always catches our attention. Such beautiful music and then this voice. It catches us so off guard. So I decided to search it today. And found that from this commercial, an artist by the name of Joanna Newsom. It's such an odd song, yet it gives you such an interesting feeling of childhood wonder and discovery. Simple and blunt, yet brilliantly imagined.

I want to write more yet... there are things I would rather not type....

Flurries and Foot Paths

As the snow lightly fell through the cemetery and the breathe that left this blessed body froze and fell, I ran. feeling rhythm, I rounded the corner as I read each head stone saying a prayer under every other deep breathe. I wonder what these people would say if they were above the ground. I wonder who they would talk to. I use my legs to carry myself through this hotel of eternal rest.

I've always wondered why we put the tents we shed in the ground. How odd it is to talk to a head stone. Yet I do it all the time. I often say hello to stones as I slowly move my way up and down hills, on and off various paths. My friend Janet is buried here. I talk to her. It's been six years. "I'm beginning to forget the details of her face", I think to myself . Cresting the next hill, I run by a tenderly old man who frailly  gets down on his knee and kisses the head stone of his beloved wife... I take in a deep breathe.... and let it go.

There's so much of this world we don't understand. So much that we discover everyday. Today in this quiet cold, humble afternoon I rediscovered love. It makes my heart ache. It's not a bad thing though. It's real. Love is so intense, at times it hurts. It's bold. It can shine through the darkest of valley's. Emotions often try to imitate it. But like joy, it can't be copied, plagiarized, or manufactured. We as beings, at times, misinterpret it.

Love is real and there are so many places my heart...my soul, continues to feel it. How incredibly blessed to be able to love and be loved.

As the snow lightly falls, while the cold air hits my lips. I move my face towards the sky and smile.
Thanks so much for this continued journey with seasons and discovery. Thanks so much for what you show me and what you show through me. I am but a blank book with only a few pages written upon my heart. I know you will continue to write and make your work come alive in me just like a pop up book with color and dimension. Bursting with life and purpose. A teaching tool. A growing tool.
Blessed is this life.

Home

Today it happened.
While driving on a back country road.
While seeing the snow fall.
While feeling the sunshine through the clouds.
While saying a little prayer.

As the smell crept into my nostrils, waltzing with my olfactory sense. As it slid up into my brain and down through my relaxed lungs. As it filled me up inside to the very brim.

Chimney smoke from a distant house up on the hill.
The hill that is so firmiliar.
The hill that has experienced so much.
The hill that has taught so much.
The hill where we have grown older.
The hill where love has grown deeper.
The hill that I call home.

...It's finally winter. And I am excited.

In Love...Not in Like.

You enjoy music, right? You have your music library that you have built over the years and you might discover something new all the time or you might take new in dosages. Can you riddle me this though?
Between the music that you've listened to for years, the music you recently discovered. Amongst play lists and most recently played, can you actually come up with a list of songs you could honestly put onto one CD and listen to on a desert island for the rest of your life? Music... Songs that you could honestly admit you could listen to and with out fail have it give you that same incredible feeling or a rush from the heart, a calming of the mind or just a really good laugh? Music that you don't get sick of after you've played it into the ground because you like it so much. No ladies and gentlemen I'm talking about being in love...Not in like.

As I was driving the other day, I noticed that my Ipod is always on the "recently played" playlist. Often I skip over songs while I listen to a few new ones (Itunes got the best of me 2 weeks back). Then while I was skipping, skipping, skipping...I heard it... The heart tugging acoustic guitar  building momentum to a cymbal and a crash with electricity into the intro of Coldplays', Yellow. This song which if you haven't heard it before, you can very well take a moment and go check it out straight away....Coldplay, Yellow...I can wait. Honestly.

This song with out fail I could listen to and not get sick of. I don't believe I have ever skipped over this song. I feel that jump in my being, that aching of love and fidelity. I can easily recall the first time I heard it on the radio in 7th grade. Instantly falling in love with the music and the language of the way each note and lyric danced into one another. How I so terribly wanted someone to sing to me the way Chris Martin pours his heart out in stating he would literally bleed himself dry for for the one he's singing for. That was the first time I had ever purchased a CD based on a single song that I knew the rest of it was going to be SUPERB. And well it was. It also introduced me to the world that is Coldplay. That world is EPIC. Each album recreated and invented that feeling. The only way I can truly describe it is ELECTRIFYING. Two of my bucket list items were to see No Doubt in concert and Coldplay in concert. Check and check...2 summers ago I saw both in concert with in a month of each other... E-P-I-C... Coldplay was such an overwhelmingly worship session for me. So many times I've been running, driving, sitting and have been listening to Coldpaly. Praying, thinking about people, places, yelling the lyrics and just loosing myself in the music and how alive it makes me feel. That concert moved me. Arms in the air, knees buckled, ready and willing to just sing, and praise how great God is for letting me feel this way and how much it moves me. And Coldplay isn't even my favorite band! No doubt is. That was an experience in it's self. However I have to be in the mood to listen to No Doubt.

As I'm looking through my music I see a lot of stuff that I like to listen to often. As of late I had been on a Fray/ Brandi Carlile kick. Whatever moves me. It's like listening to a really good friend talk and converse with things that you have in common. It's like revisiting an old place for a short time and just remembering how incredible that little moment in time was. Or even dreaming to the future possibilities. It's all relative. I love music...and music loves me. So it's all good.

As of right now I can't quite thing of another song to add to that specific list. I'm sure if I heard it, I would know. However I'm not going to sit here and go through every single song. I feel that would be a bit of an overload on love. Could you overload on love?...No, but I'd rather talk about what I've been listening to that's currently on my top 5. Songs that really get me going and that really calm me down. Slow me down and help me look at everything differently.

5. Eddie Vedder- Hard Sun
4. Basia Bulat- Heart of My Own
3. Mumford & Sons- The Cave
2. Matt Costa- The Road
1. Paramore- Looking Up

I wanted to make a longer list...However I somewhat enjoyed narrowing it down to these specific genres. However the list it's self is a lot longer.

Current songs that make me think of specific people?
3. Down With Rowland- Track 5 (Miss Jennifer Spears)
2. Mumford & Sons- Awake my Soul (Miss Ryan Michelle Coury-Scavo)
1. Barry Manilow- Can't Smile (The lovely ladies of Glen Iris)

This rain and wind is killin me, Smalls!