One more thing. I was journaling about the chaos that has encompassed my year thus far--all of it, the good and the bad-- and I think it's only right to write about how great it's been to have the apartment.

It's allowed me to get to know my new roommate Maria better. I'm really thankful for her and the way we've gotten so close so fast. I'm still not over the "Woo! I live with Maria" phase of moving in and it's been absolutely wonderful. Plus--and this is when you know you have a good roommate--we shop the same way at the grocery store. True roommie love? Yes.

I'm bad at blogging. I forget to do it. A lot.

Recently I've been really into music which itunes classifies as "easy listening". I find it incredibly soothing and open.

Here's a playlist I've made for myself.

Release- Helen Jane Long

(my favorite right now)

Your Hand In Mine- Explosions in the Sky

Requiem For A Tower- Escala

Sex On The Docks- David Byrne

3055- Olafur Arnalds

(minute 2 particularly but the whole thing is beautiful)

Glimpse- The Durutti Column

Hoppipolla- The Vitamin String Quartet

Leaving Paris- Craig Armstrong

Lux Aeterna- Clint Mansell & Kronos Quartet

The Winner Is- Danna/Devotchka

Thursday- Takenobu

It finally rained today and broke the heat for a little while.

It felt so good that my friend and I went outside just to be in it and enjoy the way the wind felt for a while.

What keeps you going isn't some fine destination but just the road you're on, and the fact that you know how to drive

-Barbara Kingsolver

I've been thinking about this upcoming year a lot--what I want to get out of it and what I want to pour into it--and I keep coming up blank. I can't decide if it's because I don't feel very settled with myself right now or because I genuinely just have no clue what to expect. Barbara helped me out a little and I think for a while I'm going to just breathe and not try to figure things out. Instead I'm really trying to be satisfied with just the fact that I'm in such an interesting part of my life and with the opportunity to enjoy it.

I get to see my girlfriends tomorrow!

I've missed them since leaving for Africa but hopefully we'll all get to hang out and catch up. I love it! There's something really good about sitting down with people you've known forever and who really know you well and just being that really makes me happy.

Movie with Amy tonight!

Already a good start to the weekend.

Restless.

I keep waking up at 7:15. If I had something to do at 7:15 or even at 8, I would be okay with that. But I don't have anything most days until at least 9:30 (usually cycle class which I don't need to get ready for) and would rather sleep.

Maybe this will make all my 8 a.m. classes more bearable?

I think I'm overdo on a post and a lot has happened since I last updated.

To start, I made it home from Africa a few days ago. My time in Kenya was fantastic and I'm already trying to think of how and when I'm going to make it back there. I think if I could describe the people I met there in one word it would be colorful: they had an overwhelming sense of joy and contentment, they were beautiful, they were welcoming. I wish I could process my time there in a more coherent way but I think I'm still working through it myself. I learned a lot; it was surprising to me to see how much reflection the trip inspired and there are some definite ideas I need to apply to my life that I learned there. Should be challenging but rewarding too.

We became such good friends this trip. I'm really pumped to see Jenni again when school starts!

This is Habram (one of my favorite Pokot boys) with some of the other kids in him village.

Us again.

This is Grace. She was one of the women in the slums who was kind enough to let us into her home. See what I mean about the beautiful thing??

My camera died in Pokot so I'm relying on fb for a lot of pictures but these were some of the ones I took.

In other news, I'm giddy with the idea of getting to live with Selena and Maria. For one, I missed them while I was in Kenya and the whole not being able to talk to them thing was weird. Not to mention that I just love them both and am ready for us to all be there and have a house!

There's actually a dwindling amount of time before I do move back to school. I have so many people to catch up with.

I have this continued obsession of going back through my journals to see what I was doing/thinking exactly 1 year ago from whatever day it is. Today's entry (a year ago) was a series of emails sent back and forth between my friend Antonia and me. According to her, this marks our "friendaversary" because it was the first time we had a deep conversation one on one. It's weird to me to think that we've only really been really good friends for about a year--maybe a little more, but still. Anyway, what made me laugh about it is that I had emailed Tonia a part of my journal from the previous week.. and I write a TON in those things. I was so surprised she even got through all of it I think I knew on the spot that the friendship was destined for greatness.

In other news, I believe that this is the beginning to a very long end of the week. For all the time I spent being bored at the beginning of summer--you know, before real life started to hit and when all I wanted to do was find some sort of an activity to entertain me?--I'm going to miss the pace just a bit. To combat the frenetic attitude I'm developing, I'm making a playlist based off Jaymay's song "Gray or Blue." If you haven't heard of her, check her out!

My cousin gets married today!! Her and her fiance (soon to be husband) have been together for the last 7 years.

Congratulations to you both! I can't wait to see where life takes you!

(pictures from the wedding to come soon!)

Well, I am once again home from a weekend in Waco and, once again, it was great! Not only did the weekend come at an ideal time as a get away for me, but it was also full of friends! Here's about how my time went down:

1. Get to Waco

2. Get the keys to my apartment!

(I cannot wait to move everything in and start decorating!)

3. Head over to see Landon and chill there until we decided to make dinner.

4. Dinner and dessert!

(Landon truly does make the best chocolate cake and all of us sitting around and eating it right out of the pan was probably my favorite part of the trip)

5. Kelly's! with Maggie, Tonia, and Jenni

6. Laughing way too late into the night

(Fitting 3 of us into the full sized bead is a huge contender for favorite part too)

7. Getting up way too early (4:35) to work the garage sale

(Which was actually a big success)

8. Brunch at CafeCap

9. Bananagrams at Common Grounds

10. Making new friends with some Orientation Students

11. FROYO

12. Heading home!!

Times like this make me really excited for this coming year even despite the fact that I'll have school work to do.

2 things:

1) I started my painting today. I think there's something about art that opens my soul up a little more. I was driving with my sister while taking a break and we listened to some Crowder and I found myself content listening to the words and the melody. I haven't been able to let myself be completely absorbed in a moment in a long time. It was fantastic. On that note, tomorrow is craft day! The goals are to make a tree like this one but a little model one on a cork boar... and then maybe implement it in 4 days!!

2) I was looking through my diary last night and I realized that I had been writing in it for 1 year today (The one on the mac. I have 4 different ones.. What? You never know when you may need to jot something down). It's entirely too long but I had the awesome idea of reading back through all of my posts last night to see how the year had gone. It was funny and refreshing to see how a lot of the things that I was stressed about ended up not being a big deal at all. And, it was interesting to see how unexpected life really is. In all, I would advocate journaling to just about everyone.

Then again, I'm a huge fan of writing in general. Words to me, feel something like this. But seriously. I am this girl. I've kept all my letters since high school :)

Mmmm... yay words!

I just got home from a great long weekend in Waco! I had a lot of fun getting to see a lot of the people I've missed since coming home and it has made me all the more anxious to move into my apartment! Seriously. I was jazzed before but chilling with Maria these past few days has me more excited than ever.

So, in the next few days, I'm hoping to channel that energy into some sort of a painting to go with the one that's in an earlier post. As it turns out, the colors go pretty well with my bed spread so I'll get to take both paintings with me when we move in on Monday. Less than a week!!

Hopefully, I'll have a picture of this painting soon!

This is mostly because I want to brag about the girl I get to eat lunch with because I realized how much I miss seeing her. Her name is Paige, she's 5, and she's awesome!

Every Tuesday and Thursday we would get together, rush through eating lunch, and then read a book or color or even make our own jewelry some days. Mostly I think I just miss that she's so honest. I think that little kid's honesty is actually a really cool phenomenon: they say what's true simply because it is--with no ulterior motives.

Luckily, I get to see her again in the fall!

In other news, I haven't blogged in forever and so much has happened since then I wouldn't know where to begin. But, in the past few weeks, I've had a great time hanging out with my college friends who visited and my high school friends who I hadn't seen in a too long.

It's been great!

...But I'm ready to do something productive so hopefully that will start up soon!

Here are some pictures from a walk I went on today. Enjoy!

(This is my favorite. I really liked the texture)

I'm so excited that tomorrow is the weekend!

That's basically all. My attention span is down to an all time low.

Examples:

This is me, finishing my book

And here I am writing an essay

And these are my notes from class today

(Amy, I used that verse you sent me for this one)

By some form of mercy (found mostly in caffeine to combat sleep deprivation), I still got everything done. At least it's fun, right?

StompFest Tomorrow!

and Jamba Juice. at some point.

Well, right about now, I should be reading All the King's Men with some form of diligence considering my procrastination over the past 2 weeks was at an all time high, but I just can't bring myself to it and needed this to stop from falling asleep. As it turns out, the sophomore slump is a reality.

But, I have really been enjoying this semester and this break (kind of break--I've done more reading in the past 48 hours than in all of last week). It has been really good to hang out with my sister. She's 16, a high school sophomore, and has it way more together than I ever have in my life. Which is cool and gives her this alien (to me) sense of direction that is actually pretty inspiring. Today we went to see The Last Song. We both have a sort of sweet spot for Nicholas Sparks despite the fact that he tends to make us cry... a lot. I liked it. And, as always, I liked our drives where we gawk over new music the other one has found and wants to show off and intermix the listening with conversation that can just be honest and unguarded. Being with her is like being safe to be vulnerable.

Other good things that happened this weekend were:

Getting to hang out with Mon and Kels. They're my two best friends from high school (slash kind of junior high). It wasn't until we were all together again, sitting outside of Marble slab because they had closed and we were still there, just talking, that I realized just how much I missed them. I mean, we talk and I miss being able to see them but I realized how much I missed just being with them yesterday--which made really ready for summer to get here.

Selena, Maria, and I signing on a place to live! It was a HUGE relief to know that we had something and now I'm just really antsy to get in there and start decorating. Not to mention that now I'm going to be super ready to get out of the dorms!

Having a good talk with my mom the night I got back.

Anyway, I'm going to attempt to go back and ready another 100 pages of this book before calling it quits for the night.

HAPPY EASTER

I'm really glad it's the weekend. This week has been one of those where it feels like the wind sweeps everything up in the first few days and you spend the rest of your time trying to figure out where it came from and what changes it made. But, for now, it's the weekend. Which is a good time to try to be still and appreciate the breeze.

To do so, I thought I'd go over some of the better parts of my week.

I heard from my sister. She's out being amazing in New York and fell in love with the city. We basically planned out our lives for the next 5 years and decided we could both move there and be happy. She could go to Columia and I could find some grad program there and it will be all set and perfect. Here's a little insight into our conversation:

"Well we're going to have to go to broadway a lot. But it's cool because we'll become friends with the ticket people so they'll let us in for free. We're also going to go to H&M a lot. Because it's freaking awesome!"

The Wickett girls are just going to be so happy in a few years we won't be able to stand ourselves.

I had a really funny and ridiculous night out with Claire and Kelly. It started out with us making muffins and ended with a series of random events. Both of those girls are great. And I love them.

I got to eat at Homestead, which is always a treat.

Tonia and I went to see Macbeth. We both enjoyed it. The evening was followed with a run to Froyo. So good!

One of my morning classes was cancelled!

And today we went to go see Green Zone, shop at Roots, grabbed a great dinner, and made lots of food (for a bake sale) with friends.

Oh! I heard a quote that I really like: A loss of innocence is often followed by an increase in humanity.

Tomorrow should be a day full of homework, but probably won't be.

I'm hoping for a little Cameron Park visit, some bike riding, and a movie.

...is it really Saturday?

Well, the housing expedition did not go expected. But, it looks like we found something great all the same. Basically, we might get to live in a 3 bedroom apartment, which would be awesome. I'd get to live with Selena (who I live with now and is great) and Maria (who I've gotten to know over the past semester and who is also wonderful). Things are definitely looking up!

Basically, today is the last day of my spring break and I don't know how it flew by so fast. I've had a really good time so far and I'm just not ready for the week to be over with and for school to start back up. However, I am interested to see how the next semester (side note: I basically call the rest of the time after we get back a new semester. I think Tonia and I were talking about it and it just caught on) goes because every time I come back from a long holiday break, something always changes. And, from conversations I've had with a few friends, things are going to be changing a lot. Should be fun!

Speaking of fun... my day today was full of it. My parents took me to Ikea, then out to eat in the West End, and, to top off the greatness, to the Art Museum. My dad, while we were walking around, said that today reminded him of when I was little and we would go on trips to the museums in Houston. Looking back on my childhood (ok and now too when I'm honest), my parents were (are) pretty awesome at fostering creativity. There's one huge example of this that always sticks out in my head as one of the coolest things my parents did for me when I was little: They bought one of those turtle sand boxes for me but, instead of filling it with sand, they put beans and macaroni noodles and little beads in it and would give me empty containers to make instruments with in it. They kept it in our kitchen so I could play while my mom and dad cooked dinner. I later found out that they kept it inside the house because it was one of the only ways to keep me from complaining about not getting to go outside to play. Apparently, my favorite activities as a kid were playing with sidewalk chalk (basically drawing all over our driveway), and going to the pond to feed the ducks with the left over bread from whatever meal we were eating.

I think I'm safe in saying that not much has changed in that aspect of my life.

Ok so the last few days have been a bit of a blur. I think this is mostly due to the fact that I was strangely inspired and excited after talking with Claire. I think we stopped talking at about 11:30 and I then spent the next 4 1/2 hours painting out the excitement. I love random spurts like that. I get them at school but I don't even have any of the materials I need or the time to devote to it (due mostly to the joy that is interdisciplinary study). But last night, I had all the time I could stay awake to use... although I still lacked paint, so I had to use what we had left over from when I painted my room this summer. I still like it though!

Sadly, I forgot all about pictures with Tonia... But the day itself was AWESOME. I love going to Cafe Brazil in the mornings. That, followed by a great portion of retail therapy made the first half of my day exceptionally great. The second half--or maybe I should say thirds considering the time I spent on the picture...whatever, halves are workin for me--of my day was good too. I went on a walk with my mom for about hour or so; we used to go on them all the time so that we could just be outside (I think she just know how much I like being outside and goes on them for me really, she's a good mom) and hang out. I had really missed them. Then I went off to spin class with my dad and when we were back we all had dinner. I had also really missed home cooked meals.

Speaking of which... tomorrow I'm headed to Waco for the day to check out some houses for Selena and myself to live in. Wish us luck! I'm expecting something really great to happen: mostly because I was really bummed that the duplex we were going to live in with a bunch of our friends fell through. But, the more I look back on my life, the more I realize that a lot of the disappointments I keep coming across are really more like great opportunities for something better than I would have planned.

Humbling?

Yes.

The World's Moving Backwards

Today was a great day. It was my first one back at home over break and I got to sleep in for the first time since school started back up. I had forgotten how great it felt to lay in bed and not feel like I needed to start on work. Basically, the feeling continued on throughout the day and I ended up making granola for the first time in way too long, making lunch for my mom and myself, cycling, and reading while it rained. I'm gearing up for a great day with Tonia tomorrow. I'm hoping to take some pictures with her--because we have next to none together.

Fingers crossed.

Moving Backwards- Ben Rector

This is the current song that I'm obsessed with. I talked about this with Claire a few weeks ago and we both agreed that songs can sometimes just speak to people; for now, this is the one that is really synced with the way things have been going this year (although, not in a sad way, more of in a, I'm just ready to be honest way). Anyway, the song is by Ben Rector. I like a lot of music but the thing that I like the most about his is that the lyrics are so honest and original. Not to mention that his songs include the piano which makes me incredibly happy.

And one more thing

I forgot pictures from this weekend. Kelso turned 20 and I was lucky enough to be on break to head down to Stillwater for her birthday!

There's something great about hanging out with people who you've been friends with for forever. I think Kels and I have been friends for 7 years now. Being around good friends is like being home. It was a great weekend!

Well I finally caved

I figure that after my constant nagging and obsession with everyone else's blog, I should probably make my own. After spending an awesome weekend with my best friend Kelso for her birthday, I think I'm just inspired enough to start off whatever this is with my happy list (compliments of Taza, of course).

10 things that make me incredibly happy:

1. Finding puddles with great reflections in them.

2. Hitting all green lights on a drive.

3. Sending and receiving letters.

4. Nature stories.

5. The smell of vanilla and jasmine.

6. Eating dinner with friends.

7. The way it smells right after it stops raining.

8. Reading too late into the night.

9. Going on walks.

10. Rays of sun that make their way through the clouds.