a month of superbness

this past month has been absolutely wonderful. i feel inspired, full of joy, and full of hope. and although i have noooooo idea what 2006 will bring for travis and i, i am able to enjoy this moment. this month i decorated our apartment for christmas, played in the snow, learned to snow board (thanks to the pagitt kids), went iceskating, enjoyed a local hip-hop concert (which was very fun!) made christmas cards, went to oklahoma where it was 60 degrees, and worked way too much.

i have learned to have hope, not in things, but in God. and that sounds very cliche', but it is true. i think for so long i would hope in what God would give me or how he would bless me. but i have been learning over the last few months what hope looks like. the hope that is in the psalms...find rest, o my soul, in God alone, my hope comes from him.

and i have all of this creativity stirring inside me...i am about to burst.

walkin' in a winter wonderland

have yourself a merry little christmas

i have been listening to christmas music nonstop...i just love it...i like the old classics.
and here is one that makes me smile everytime i hear it

and here is the station that i have been listening to online...

wahooo! i love christmas!

...It came without ribbons! It came without tags!
It came without packages boxes, or bags!
And he puzzled and puzzled, till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before!
"Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store.
Maybe Christmas… perhaps… means a little bit more."
...And then the true meaning of Christmas came through,
And the Grinch found the strength of ten Grinches… plus two.
...He brought everything back, all the food for the feast.
And he, he himself, the Grinch, carved the roast beast.

it will just get colder!

It's 7 degrees out! brrrr!!!

a walk to the walker

even though it was freezing out (actually 20 degrees) we decided to walk down to the walker's sculpture garden....isn't the snow amazing! i love it! (although the walk was a little cold!)

winter & planes

Here are some pictures of trav's plane before the de-icing in ottawa, canada. It took an hour to get it off!

welcome to minnesota

this week

Life is good.


No news on what is going to happen with trav’s job (other than he will still be furloughed in February…yep a 100% pay cut for good ol’ trav) so nothing new in that department…but somehow I am maintaining a positive outlook…here’s what I’ve been up to…

I spent this past week celebrating thanksgiving with trav’s family, which I always enjoy. And I managed to get everyone to take the enneagram test and discuss personality types for a while, along with countless other great topics…(I love my in-laws and I love having a job I can take with me wherever I go)

I’m on my way to see my family in Oklahoma for a last minute trip for the weekend. (why not, I say?) and I might be able to see my brother and sister-in-law, too!

I finally finished my logo and business cards for substance creative. (my design business, if you can call a one woman shop a business) and I’m in the process of working on my website and other “collateral”…hopefully I can finish soon.

I am VERY excited about the Christmas season in a climate that actually FEELS like Christmas…and I think I’ll be buying a tree for the first time…so it will be fun to decorate our apartment for Christmas!

church & buck the truck

i'm still in the middle of Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott and i just finished the chapter about taking her little boy to church. i started thinking about my childhood experiences at church...at least when i was around 4...here is what came to mind

i hated the song Jesus loves me because i thought it was childish!

my mom would roll my hair in the pink sponge rollers on saturday night so my hair would be curly in the morning and i loved it!

my dad would fix a big breakfast every sunday morning with eggs and bacon and biscuits, but i never ate the biscuits

i would get lifesavers to suck on during "big church" to keep me quiet and still

my mom wouldn't let me bring my doll into church because she thought i would play with it. but really i just wanted my doll to experience "big church"

i would always go by and say hi to my old sunday school teacher, Mrs. Tucker. wow, what an amazing lady.

and of course being 4 reminds me of my dear old friend Buck the Truck...I'm sure many of you who know me have heard this story...but for those who haven't, here it is.

My dad had an old green truck when i was little and we called him Buck the truck. my dad let me play in his truck bed and pretend drive him. so i used buck like my playhouse...and we were buds. but one day i thought that buck needed fuel. so, i looked around to find what i could use as "gas". I found a bunch of rocks. so, i put as many rocks as i could find in his tank...buck didn't drive as well after that. my dad took him to a mechanic to find out what was wrong with him...the mechanic finally figured out that there were rocks in his gas tank. my dad didn't have to wonder how they got there.

hope remains...and it is finally november!

well, it looks like travis will be furloughed, we just don't know when. should he wait it out or find another job? who knows. things are pretty uncertain and we have no idea what the future holds. we hope to stay in minneapolis, but we don't know at this point.

but somehow in the midst of all this uncertainty, hope remains. not hope that things will get better or hope that we will stay in minneapolis. but a hope that we will get through this. that circumstances aren't everything. but i have to say my attitude sucked for a while. and it took me a while to get to the point that i could say this.

i'm in the middle of reading anne lamott's traveling mercies. she talks about grief and even though i don't think this is really "grieve" that i'm dealing with, i feel like i can look at this situation in the same light...

"...don't get me wrong; grief sucks; it really does. Unfortunately, though, avoiding it robs us of life, of the now, of a sense of living spirit. Mostly i have tried to avoid it by staying very busy, working too hard, trying to achieve as much as possible...But the bad news is that whatever you use to keep the pain at bay robs you of the flecks and nuggets of gold that feeling grief will give you. A fixation can keep you nicely defined and give you the illustion that your life has not fallen apart. But since your life may indeed have fallen apart, the illustion won't holdd up forever, and if you are lucky and brave, you will be willing to bear disillusion..."

i guess i feel that i have embraced where travis and i are at. i'm not going to deny it and pretend that everything is just fine and that everything will be just peachy. but at the same time, I'm not going to let this situation rob me of the present. i have done that way too many times in my life.

right now, i'm surrounded by a great group of people. i'm in a great city. and i'm going to enjoy that as long as i can. i have to say that the people of solomon's porch have been life to me. i love that community. and when i walk into church on sunday, i feel peace and it soothes my soul. but it is so much more than that, it is the relationships, the unique people that i meet and am getting to know. and i'm very thankful!

shooting stars

i love the stars...and i love watching meteor showers. i could lay outside and watch them all night. well, travis experienced a meteor shower, WHILE HE WAS FLYING LAST NIGHT!! He had a front row seat to one of nature's most brilliant performances...he said he has never seen them so bright. I'm so jealous!

is it november yet?

last night our apartment was broken into. i received a call from our apartment's caretaker as i was posting last night's blog. seems a little ironic...i'm writing about being positive and something else happens to bring me down.

i'll be ready for this month to be over...

grandpa george

God used my grandpa to speak life into me. I'm in oklahoma visiting my family and i went out to see my grandpa at "golden oaks", the assisted living he lives at.

he had no idea that i was feeling so hopeless. not knowing it, his words were life to me.

I'll try to explain what happened, but i can't seem to put words to what happened...

my grandpa made furniture and we were talking about that...I asked him if it was really hard when he had his stroke and he wasn't able to do what he loved anymore.

tears filled his eyes and he told me that he hadn't been retired very long and he had his workshop all fixed up...and then he had a stroke and his hobby was gone.

his response to me is something i have heard many times before. but what he said came from experience and was filled with such emotion and passion. he said..."i learned quickly that i couldn't look at the stuff i couldn't do, but i had to look at the stuff i could do. if i just look at the negative, i'm not going to enjoy it very much." i roll my eyes when i hear my mom say that i need to just look at the positive and not dwell on the negative. but i have to admit it is true. because me dwelling on the bad is not going to make the bad go away...and i'm not going to enjoy it very much. i was fighting back tears, because i knew that it was so true and something that i needed to hear at that moment.

i had the best time with my grandpa today. he is one of the funniest guys i know. he is so ornery...he says it "breaks up the monotony". and through that he brought life to the old folks and he brought life to me.

the last few weeks...

wow. the last few weeks have been hard. and i haven't really wanted to share my negativity on my blog...but as heather told me, it is my blog and i guess i can write how i'm feeling and what i'm going through. but it seems like when bad things happen to you, people don't know how to respond. they try to make it better by teling you it will be okay, that it will work out. they just can't handle the negative or maybe they just really are that optimistic. if anything makes me want to punch somebody in the face, it is hearing the words "it will all work out". why? because there are plenty of things in my life that just haven't worked out. i don't think that everything works out. i think that you (or God, rather) can pull good things from the bad...but that isn't exactly "working out". life isn't all sunshine and flowers...and i'm okay with that. i'm not going to pretend that it is. although i would take sunshine and flowers right now in my life, but that is just not how it is "working out" right now, unfortunately. i was hopeful and life has a way of crashing that hope and spitting on it.

okay, okay, i'll stop with the negatively. there are good things happening...

this weekend was beautiful and I managed to get out and enjoy it. it is amazing what a little sunshine can do..one of the days by the lake, i listened to a guy compose music. he had the coolest voice and rhythm...not sure what to call it, but i appreciated it. i'm curious if he plays anywhere locally...i didn't go and ask him.

travis and i had a great time while he was home, although we couldn't ride bikes like we usually do, because mine was stolen last week...but we found other ways to enjoy the weather. and last night we went to paliminos downtown to celebrate my birthday. i'll be 27 this week. i've always had a thing for 27 so, i'm very excited for this 27th year of my life. I want to go places i've never gone, experience new things, set some goals...i wish i was going into this new year with a little more in place, but i guess i'll just have to make the most of what i have and enjoy it...

pictures from labor day

here are pictures from my labor day trip at the lake. i had so much fun with my college friends...i'll be able to see some of them again at oklahoma state's homecoming at the end of october!

bankruptcy smankruptcy

i have been reading way too many articles on the airlines lately...here's the latest...

article on mesaba

being present

well, it seems that things have changed drastically in the last few weeks. not too long ago travis and i were actively looking for a house here in minneapolis and now we are just hoping we will be able to stay here. the uncertainty of travis' job right now makes me feel very unsettled. unfortunately, it seems to effect my entire world and my perspective on everything. i'm just ready to feel settled somewhere (and i would like for it to be minneapolis!). i have had to be content with everything up in the air for too long and i just don't want to deal with it anymore. but maybe that is just life, maybe things will always be up in the air. maybe i need to stop trying to plan everything and enjoy where i am at, no matter what comes next. it seems to be the lesson i'm learning in life over and over again. it just doesn't seem to stick.

there is a quote by richard foster that says,
"God wants us to be present where we are. he invites us to see and to hear what is around us and, through it all, to discern the footprints of the holy."

42 degrees

well, it is 42 degrees outside...colder than the "winter" ever is in phoenix. i love cold weather (i realize this really isn't cold, but it feels great!) but from the stories i hear, i'm not sure i'm tough enough for minneapolis weather. i'm just excited to have hot tea, i'm excited to actually be able to wear layers. I'm excited about coats. (I just bought two today!) and hats and boots...but i know there will be a lot of bitching coming from my mouth this first winter. complaining about my snot freezing and my nuckles cracking because they are so dry...but hopefully i can find good in it, too! talk to me in january and see what i say, or march or april.

weekend retreat

this past weekend travis and i went on a retreat with our church. i never seem to get enough pictures, but here are a few. (isn't travis' expression great!) it was a really fun weekend and i'm glad we were able to go.

24

travis and i are currently in the middle of watching the first season of 24 on dvd. we are on hour 7 and the tention is killing me! i love the show. in phoenix a group of us...kati, israel, errol, travis, and i...and sometimes seth, who just made fun of the show, would gather every monday night together. we would get so into it. i miss my friends in phoenix.

images of the lakes

thought i would show some images of the area i live in. the first two images are of lake of the isles, just west of our place. the next two are of lake calhoun southwest of us....both within walking distance. i love having these great lakes in the middle of the city. (sorry, this is boring for the solomon porchers!)

the uncertainty principle

I just read an article in my real simple magazine that really resonated with me called "a (not so) sure thing". with the subtitle being " Can any of us be certain we are 100 percent right about anything? Life is less stressful, one writer has found, when we admit we actually just might be wrong about everything."

now, i don't usually go to real simple for my answers to life's deep questions. i was reading on how to declutter and i stumble on this cool article.

the author talked about Werner Heisenberg and his Uncertainty Principle..."which is the idea that you can determine the position of an object or the object's momentum with 99 percent accuracy, but you can't measure both without losing a degree of precision. In other words, even science can't always prove everything with 100 percent accuracy."

i am the most indecisive person. i agonize over every decision i make, taking every precaution to make the "right" decision. and then after making the decision, i constantly question whether i really made the best one...pretty stressful. and i'm not sure my worry and fret really does me much good. maybe i should make a decision/form an opinion knowing it is very possible that i might be wrong and i'll just have to deal with it. i think life would be much more enjoyable that way. i need to leave my perfectionistic tendencies to the side and just enjoy the things around me, mistake or not. (ha! much harder for this girl to do, but i think i'll try)

a hate technology

it's days like today that i just want to throw my computer out the window and go back to the drafting table. I have been messing with font issues all day and even had to reboot my entire operating system because of the font issues...and particularly the font helvetica condensed bol. yep, evidently the version i had corrupted everything. (well, and maybe a little user error, too.)

I missed two deadlines today, didn't get to go to the art discussion group tonight...all because i added a font to my computer...and now i'm trying to catch up.

okay, i guess i'll get back to work.

i hope tonight things get better...

personalities

so, i love personality tests. (and sometimes i hate them because i don't want to be put in a box.) but they really intrigue me...so, i took the test that is on doug's blog...

http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/

and i'm freaking tied on 1, 2, 4, & 6...3 & 5 are close. the one thing i know is that i'm definitely not 7, 8, or 9...how can this be? and i can't really figure out which one i am. i'm a little confused. i thought these things were suppose to bring clarity? maybe i'll have to read the book...

it's raining outside and i love it. i missed the rain when i lived in phoenix. i know a lot of people don't like rainy days, but i love them. they are better than sunny days in my book! : )

enjoy being

i stumbled across this picture not too long ago. this was on the sidewalk right outside the art building where i went to school. i passed by it often and it always made me smile...

always learning...

i'm sick of people thinking they have everything figured out. i feel like every year i know less and less. i love learning new things, but it seems like the more i learn, the more i realize that i really know nothing. i didn't really like school all that much. i wasn't the sit in your seat and take good tests type of student. i needed to experience things, move around...and well, my teachers were pretty frustrated with students like me. i had a geography teacher who really got frustrated with me...gave me afterschool study a lot...and so i didn't like him very much. in fact, i refused to enjoy or learn anything in his class...and this day i still am not very good on my geography & i blame him!! but something happened my senior year in high school. i realized that i hated school, but i didn't hate learning. one of my teachers opened up the world of learning to me and i am very grateful. i loved college so much better...man, i miss college. but now i just learn things by reading good books. i love to check out a bunch of interesting books from the library...then i don't have to feel guilty i don't finish them all. but it doesn't seem like mlps library gets in as many new books as my beloved library in phoenix.

friends from college

I’m on my way back from a trip with 6 of my college friends. We stayed in a lake house in Oklahoma and it was a great weekend. I have to admit I was kinda’ reluctant about the trip with all the traveling I was doing. But it was so great. It has been a while since we were all together at once and I just love the way we all interact….our personalities shine through and we laugh…a lot. Deep conversations and laughter are probably my two favorite things in the world…and there was a lot of both this weekend (and a lot of sarcasm, which you can never have too much of) In our circle of friends, I’m known for wanting deep conversations…especially late at night. I wish I was better at initiating them, allowing them to just “happen”, like Christi seems to be so good at…But I don’t seem to have mastered the art of asking good questions in groups. So, instead, we play a game called “fish bowl” where I write a bunch of questions on little pieces of paper and throw them into a bowl. We go around and you draw one out and you ask someone the question and you answer it yourself. I try to have some deep questions and some simple ones, for those that just can’t take all the deepness at once….people groan about the game, but I know they really like it…especially when they are the ones that bring it up at the lake and they want to finish up the leftover questions the next night! What I loved about it this weekend is that we didn’t just answer the question and move on, we would answer the questions, tell stories, go on tangents, make a bunch of jokes, and then get back to the questions. It was great.

Another great thing about the weekend is that two of my friends were pregnant. I didn’t realize how much I love pregnant women until recently, especially with people I’m so close to. It is just so exciting to hear what they are experiencing, although I found out this weekend that pregnancy is just a hassle and the only good thing about it is that you get a baby at the end. : ) But it just seems to have so many spiritual metaphors. They idea of expecting, waiting and preparing....and so many things that I can’t even begin to understand…pregnancy is not something I’m use to. (I've never been pregnant or around people that were pregnant) Rachelle brought her 4 month old, Jackson this weekend, it was so fun to see this cute little boy and listen to the baby talked! I guess I have gone through life being oblivious to women having babies and to babies. I’ve never really even liked babies….but I have to say things have drastically changed a year ago when our friends from phoenix had Dylan…and then I lost my desire for wanting our children to pop out of the womb at age 4!

traveling again

I had such a fun time on the camping trip this past weekend. it was so good to see our friends in phoenix. i miss them. it felt so comfortable and it really was like i never left. but i have to admit it feels good to be back in minneapolis. but my month of traveling isn't over. nope. i am going to the lake this weekend with my some of my close college friends...it's kinda' funny we are going to the lake, because two of the girls are pregnant and one will have her newborn baby with her. but i could just hang out in the lake house all weekend and be perfectly content.

this month has been good, taking a break from the adjustments of minneapolis....and remembering how blessed i am to have friends and family all over the place.

red box dvd

here's one of our coolest discoveries in minneapolis....a dvd vending machine where you can get movies for $1!!! pretty exciting!! and it is close to our apartment, so we can walk to it. oh, the joys of minneapolis...

the month of august

right now i'm sitting on my friends' couch in phoenix. it feels good to be in a place of familiarity, i have to admit. it is good to be back. i've only been gone 2 months. in some sense it seems so much longer and it other ways it feels like i still live here.

i'm leaving to go on a camping trip with my old church tomorrow. we'll be in northeast arizona. i'm very excited. there is nothing better than sitting around a campfire having good conversations with friends, staying up late, smoking cigars, and just hanging out.

this month has been a little crazy. i've been in virginia (for my brother-in-law's wedding), north carolina (to visit family), arkansas (to visit my best friend from college), oklahoma (for my grandmother's funeral), and now arizona (for a work meeting and camping). that is just crazy. everything has been fun, except the funeral and i'm glad that i am able to travel so much. my new ibook has already been put to good use. i've been working and traveling. it will be good to be back to our little apartment in minneapolis next week.

but i'm stilling thinking a lot about my grandmother. she has suffered from alzheimers for the last 10 years or so...and the last few years she has gone down hill fast. in one way you'd think that her death would be a blessing, that she isn't stuck in that lifeless body anymore. but it was much harder than i imagined. i grieved that i wasn't able to know the amazing lady for the last 10 years, i grieved for my grandpa, who was married to her for 69 years, i grieved because i love her so much and death seems so final. my brother spoke at the funeral and i loved what he had to say. i feel like there is so much i can learn from emma....especially that she laughed and smiled a lot, even through her disease.

a new mac

this past week i finally gave in....after much ridicule from every designer i meet, i finally bought myself a mac. but i didn't just give in because of the marketing and all its followers. i really gave in because i needed a laptop. now that i travel so much, i need to be able to work wherever i am. no, i didn't get the best out there. i just got me an ibook. and it seems to be working just great for me. i just got back from seeing travis' parents this week....my first trip with my new ibook. it was great. i feel like a whole new person. my office is the world!! pretty exciting stuff!

exploring

yesterday, i went exploring....i was driving around lake harriot and i stumbled upon a rose garden. i quickly parked and got out of my car...i was hoping to smell roses, but instead i smelled horse crap used for fertilizing. it was a beautiful view, anyway. what a beautiful place. i will have to go there often. it was a great place for me to pray, to think, to be inspired. i walked around and it just seemed to be park after park. my heart needed that. i love finding new places in this city...and i love this city. i sat under a tree for a while. found a few cool sculpture thing...(see the picture on the right)

shortly after that i got turned around in a lot of neighborhoods trying to get to costco. i'm sick of costco. too crowded, too many tempations to buy things that i really don't want in bulk...and they won't ever give me a box to carry my stuff out, unless i ask. anyway. that was my monday. pretty exciting, huh?

so, i'm still trying to figure out how to make the pictures look good on here, just deal with the ugly design for now.

well, here's a picture of travis in the cockpit...yes, it is real.
he is officially an airline pilot!! kinda' crazy!!

I just went to the walker art center tonight. they have "target free thursdays"...so why not enjoy a free night at the art center? i went for a tour on the mix of film and sculpture. it was great. it was so cool to see the other pieces they have there, too. i love how art can cause a reaction in you...that it can make you feel a certain way. i'm going to try to go there every thursday, if i can. they have different things going on.

i'm really enjoying minneapolis. i wish i could put better words to what i'm experiencing. i love being in the art of the city and close to so much going on. i love driving through the amazing neighborhoods close to where i live. i love being able to walk places. i love riding my bike around. i have found myself proud of this city, like it is a part of me...and i have only been here a month...pretty amazing....is the city really that cool or is just the place i'm suppose to be right now? maybe a little of both.

God's doing some cool stuff in my heart. i think this time alone came at a really good time. he is breathing life into me in a fresh new way.

well, here i am in minneapolis. i love the weather. i love the city. it really is inspiring.