I'm sure you've seen this. I saw it recently via the blog world and I thought it was awesome. It made me feel good about taking the little blogging break that I did. I love to blog. Simply because I love you and I want you to KNOW and feel that although we left you so very long ago, we still want you to be in our lives. Or, I guess, we still want to be in yours.

That's why i blog. My first blog, i began when I left CO 10 years ago for college in California. Then, for my friends in CA that I left behind, I blogged when I returned to CO. Then... well, you've maybe been following since we lived in Kenya, then CO, then Illinois, and now we are beginning our 3rd year in Utah. So, you see, we do a lot of leaving which translates to the never-ending blog.  Neither of us have lived in our home towns since we graduated high school and Landon has been especially far away from GA loved ones (which are now my loved ones just as much!).

So I do feel obligated to blog. But I also LOVE it because I so dearly love you and feel like this ties us somehow...

But sometimes.... I find myself enjoying something and needing to document it with detailed step-by-step pictures for the blog. Or, I  am in an amazing moment and without noticing, I realize I am drafting a post here on the blogosphere. How dumb. Life is not for sharing online to those you love and miss. Life is to live and love and enjoy and learn.  And i honestly sort of lneeded a few months of keeping every little thing to myself - everything non-consequential and everything brilliant. My thoughts were only for me and my life was something that I reserved for my husband and I.

And I missed you. Honestly, I did. But it was also good for me to just go out and live a bit (or a lot - we've been having a heck of a good time!) without writing it down.

I love you though (have I made that clear?), dear family and friends that we never see... We both love you.

New Dress a Day

So this woman is brilliant.

Crafty, on a budget, and with a thirst for style, this chica buys a dress from the thrift store for each day and makes it into something fashionable and wearable. And she shares it on her fantastic blog: new dress a day.

Here's just a taste:

before

after

Pretty inspiring. Don't know how she does it again and again.

Harry Potter is kind of a big deal around here

Doons and I were not two of the bazillion people to see the midnight showing of the final "Harry Potter" movie (we're way too old for that kind of thing these days!). But we do love the movies, and we saw it opening week. And in order to get us ready, I made us t-shirts of the Deathly Hallows.

(oopsie, dooney's is a little crooked)

 It was easy. I just printed out a Deathly Hallows symbol that I found on the internet.

Then I took FREEZER PAPER and traced the symbol onto it and cut it out exactly. 

Did you know that freezer paper can be ironed on to fabric easily? It can. It was my stencil.

I painted a couple layers of white fabric paint within my stencil and the next day I just peeled the freezer paper off of the tshirt. Very easy. 

Wait. 

Before you think I'm too awesome, you must know that I simply followed Dana's instructions. Her tutorials rock.

And that's pretty much the only craft I've done in the past two months. 

It's been a long while since I've been blogging. I've been busy working and having fun, honestly. And just feeling unmotivated because of my lack of blogging ideas and I haven't been taking pictures much this year.

so.... I'm going to try to do this again. No, no, no - i'm going to DO this again. But maybe just a few days a week instead of every day. And to start things off easy, I'm going to share some things that I found online that matter to me. That way I don't have to be too original just yet ;). But we'll get personal soon.

If you actually are reading this - YOU ARE AMAZING - for sticking with me. You truly are. THANK YOU!

Things I'm Loving Lately

Well, spring brings a whole new assortment of things to love. Here's just a few of what i'm loving lately:

Wearing White Eyelet

"Friday Night Lights"

I just started watching this show in instant Netflix. It's awesome.

Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver

This has been one of my top five favorite books for the last five years and I thought it was about time to pick it up again. And I'm loving it even more upon the second reading.

Sleeping with the Windows open

Having home-grown (and birthday) flowers in the house

Seeing the birds come to life at the Aviary - chicks all over the place and beautiful mating displays. It's awesome. (photo by Anna McBrayer)

Riding my bike to work

Spring Skiing

For those who grieve...

I wanted to share this song with you today. I was in a band in high school that was formed right after the shooting at Columbine and God really used singing, the fellowship and the amazing fun with those guys as a huge agent of healing in my life. This song is a song we would do at our gigs. One reason I like it so much is that although it was written about and for students at Columbine, it is not written about the shooting itself, but about the process of healing and grief. After moving away, now several years later, this is the only song from that year in the band that I can remember enough to play.

Brick by Brick (written by Blair Thompson)

Brick by brick, tearing down the wall
Stone by stone, rebuilding it in its place.
Mile by mile, down a dark and drifting hall
Step by step, backwards into space.

It's like pouring salt on already aching wounds
Cutting back a flower that was just starting to bloom

And Oh Lord, is this the peace that I've been seeking
Just to know that I'm falling once again?
Is this the moment that I'm reaching
Just to know that I'm screaming at the wind?

Word by word, destroying the broken
Tear by tear, stripping them dry.
More and more, finding nothing can by spoken
Tear by tear, watching them cry.

It's returning to darkness when the light was just getting bright
Already losing without putting up a fight

And Oh Lord, is this the peace that I've been seeking

Just to know that I'm falling once again?

Is this the moment that I'm reaching

Just to know that I'm screaming at the wind?

The Faithful vs. the Reasonable

I've been wanting to blog on this for months now. And this will NOT even graze the issue, but I want to address it anyway.

Here in Salt Lake City, the religious vs. non-religious dichotomy is numbing. The religious culture and the anti/non religious cultures are the two predominant cultures here in the city. One is a backlash from the other. In Kaysville (where we lived our first year here), we lived in a town that was highly Mormon. I never even saw a different culture besides the religious, except that I felt that I didn't belong.

Here is how the two predominant cultures seem to view each other:
There are "religious" people (Mormons) who are seen by most as boring and judgmental and only care about money, trends, procreation, and each other. On the other end of the spectrum, there are the environmentalists - those who perceived as staunch atheists, a backlash from the Mormon culture who care only for parties, green living, and social reform. One group is "Faith" the other, "Reason", and there is no overlap without compromise and lack of devotion.

I am personally very committed to both faith and to reason and can not understand or achieve one without the other (not the "Faith" and "Reason" categories mentioned above, but actual faith and reason). I don't understand how the majority of the people here will pursue faith and reject reason or pursue reason without any compulsion to believe.

At work, a coworker and I were talking. She asked me about my cross-cultural experience. I told her I was a missionary. "But you have a nose ring," she said. "Are you still religious?" I explained to her that I was not on a Mormon mission. I told her that I believe in evolution, environmental stewardship, and a loving Christian God. "So in other words," she said, "you believe in a God with intelligence?" I was so surprised that my version of belief was so far-fetched to her.

Is it really impossible for people to see that there is the possibility of a Creator who loves us and whose glory is revealed in his unique and diverse creation of which we are made stewards? That he is the same in his love and forgiveness as he is in his power and justice? Is it too impossible to believe in a supreme deity that wants us to ask questions always, arriving at a true belief - one that is not blind or coerced? I do not believe in "blind faith". Our God is so real, that knowledge of him can be achieved with eyes wide open, with deep prodding questions. 

Neither "Faith" nor "Reason" should be clung to blindly in retaliation of the other.

funny face shots

dooney's new facial 'do.

i have a hard time taking him seriously.

Although he looks like a Civil War Soldier and a Ski Bum, he's actually working really hard and accomplishing his dreams.

I dressed up to go to a nice Gala last night.

and sported a goggle tan the whole time.

Amazing.

Free live streaming by Ustream