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!