Life Lately

Since I don't quite know how to manage photos via blogger yet, you will just have to make due with my slew of photos, in no particular order:

My reunion with Emily at the Flying M

Our family photo Fall 2012

Fugiyama lunch date with Sam {and the chef's specials made just for us}

Friends coming to visit in La Grande!!

& a dinner chef Jeff made for all of us

J's hair after a bike ride home from campus

At the gala with the newest issue of Oregon East literary magazine where I intern

and more!

stop signs

i'm so glad that you and i
stop at stop signs

when the rest of the world
just drives on by

living free and cavalier
is nice once in a while

but we have to care
because we have a reason

we know what happens
when we don't stop.

we know because
we've done it before,

we've been there
and we're not going back.

at least,
i'm not

Testing Day.

I don't have any lucky socks, jeans, or ponytail holders. I've only got what is in my mind and I can assure you it is stuffed to the brim with Spanish adverbs, uses of the impersonal and accidental "se," imperfect vs preterite verbs, and lots of vocabulary that has to do with different sicknesses, body parts, and the doctor's office. Ironically I have a bit of a resfriado myself. Hmmm....

I'm pretty lucky in that with my particular major, I don't have a lot of scary tests at the testing center. Do not be fooled, however, because I've got to read more than there is time in the day, and write until my fingers fall off, but I love it.

What do you love about what you do?

These people around me,
are underestimated to say the least.

Their intelligence and worth
are hidden behind their potty mouths,
which make me want to hide from them.

I know they are more than they allow themselves to be.
I pray that they are. Because as for now,
they make up the world
as I know it.

I don't have to hide from them,
I don't have to isolate myself
from this strange melancholy,

because when I step inside
and get to know their interior,
I find diamonds in the rough.

Happiness is....

..getting through a week you thought impossible

..waking up to a text at 6 a.m. with word and picture that your newest niece has been brought into the world. And not being able to fall back asleep because you're too excited

..friends coming to visit, so excited to see you and venture the place you call home

..fall photo shoots full of laughs

..the complete dive of Nell's Drive In, but dreamy cream drinks and deliciously greasy food.. and more laughs

..24 hours of fun and feel good with some of your favorite people that you couldn't have planned better if you tried

..feeling loved and that you have enough

..somehow getting your homework turned in by midnight without completely crashing the party

..facetime with family, where you are so excited to talk you keep interrupting one another

..hardly being able to hold back the tears talking about the newest little Thompson baby (name TBD)

..the smell of baked pumpkin cookies filling the apartment, and for once not stuffing yourself full of them

..crisp, fresh autumn air that somehow makes life feel new

..wanting to freeze time, but knowing you can't because there are more good things to come

This is happening happiness

we don't do this
because we have to
but because we want to

in ten years we will look back
on our twenty-something selves
and laugh while we hold our screaming children
on the front porch

we will remember when we used to go on dates
the two of us
and when it was quiet
when we tripped on shoes
instead of toys

but we will know
we have never been happier

and we know it now.

We can do hard things.

I have loved to write from the very beginning. Each year in school I looked forward to the writing assessments. I always anticipated prompts they might ask. With my big family, life was never boring. I always had a fun story to recall, and loved getting to construct it and put it on paper.

And then came academic writing. Though research papers were not initially as fun, I have always been able to still find my own voice and be proud of a paper to call my own. Until my Lit classes....

Not only do I have to read something that makes little sense to me (the first three times), but I have to put it into context, summarize it, tell about the parts that were most interesting to me (and why), and then interpret the piece as a whole, and relate it to other things we have been learning.

Doing said assignments is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do in my life. It takes every bit of  my concentration and patience. It is as though I have to squeeze out every single sentence from my brain until, one by one, it is complete. And then I pray very hard that it makes a bit of sense.

Don't get me wrong, I always feel better after these assignments are complete, but while they are in the making, you may as well chain my arms and legs down to the edge of a cliff and torture me.

This is a lesson for me. I hope to instill in my children a love for literature, so when this part comes around they are more worried about having too much to say. Fantasy? Yeah.

Warning: Dramatic Post Ahead (and apparently cheesy)

Have you heard the phrase, "Hit the ground running?"

After a long summer, such was my plan for the upcoming academic year: particularly Fall term.

Well, I coined a new phrase instead: hit the ground, fall on my face, then comes that classic weight out of the sky and boom, I'm stuck. (Drama at its best)

I believe (or have thus convinced myself) that it is okay to feel resistance during school. It's okay not to swoon over every single assignment, and it's okay if you don't connect with every single classmate and professor, but as a whole it should be positive.

The thing is, I usually love school. At least after a week or so, I feel so glad about what I'm doing, and soak up everything I get to read, all the lectures, and that feeling I get when I finish an assignment.

This time around? I'm distracted. In fact, distracted is the perfect word to describe my whole life right now. And you know what? It's distracting in itself, because my mind is wandering to other routes, other options, and it can't do that! I've already been there. I've already done that...

After my first week of school I was so completely and utterly disappointed with my classmates. I felt that all they did is complain about every single reading and every single assignment, and I felt that they did not care about getting to know me, or making the best of school and all that comes with it.

But then I realized, that student is me too. And I'm embarrassed. I don't want to talk to anyone about what I read for class, because I can't seem to wrap my mind around it. I don't want to talk about the assignments, because I don't know where to start. And I also don't know where to end this post, because I haven't come to a conclusion yet. But I will......

Stay tuned.

What's important changes when J is ruthlessly sketching and cutting away in hopes to finish an art project that is due in just minutes time. I can no longer tell him about the things that happened so far in my day, because they pale in comparison. i.e: the bugs that kept hitting my face on my walk to school, the girl in Lit. class who was picking her ears and eating it (what????!), and, "Does my ponytail look ok?" or "do these jeans make me look fat?" So I sit quietly reading in my office and peek at him wishing there was something I can do, but really can't, because he doesn't even have time for me to dip this delicious parmesan garlic & herb pita chip in hummus and put it directly in his mouth. Chewing is of least importance and the crumbs can jeopardize the quality of the art. And then I notice he is whistling to the reggae song as he works away and I suddenly realize that even now, even though there is good reason to lose it and get frustrated, he is still calm.

So I step outside of me and observe my pita chip eating self, reading an article about the zillions of ways people make grammar mistakes, and wish I could be more like him. But we all know I can't, so I look up and say, "Thank you for J," then try to act like him, like I'm keeping my cool for just a few moments, until I run off to class and more bugs start flying in my face.

Sunshine.

Today I do not want to do homework. I want to dream of the weekend, DIY projects for my future home, plants I want to buy and display, pumpkins on my porch, starting a family, and so much more. There's something about looking out the window and seeing colorful trees, beautiful mountains, the sun shining, all while the apartment is the perfect temperature. Moments like these make life sweet and are irreplaceable. You can't necessarily plan them, or tell how long they will last, all you can do is embrace and enjoy them. (Though you can always count your blessings)

It makes sense that all of life can't be this way. It makes sense that we have to have ups and downs in order to tell the difference between the two. I think the trick is knowing when to take hold of a moment and turn it into a happy one, because sometimes try as I may, I can't make myself feel cheerful.

Which brings me to the kind of opposite subject: gloomy days. It's okay not to be happy all the time. I was always one of those people who only felt worse when someone told me to smile and just be happy, or not worry. Oooh it could make my blood boil. While I know they mean well, it is not always well received. If I am down, it always means the most to do things like write in my journal, call a family member, or talk to Jeff. All these things help to put life in perspective for me and are things I appreciate very much.

Don't get down if you don't have the urge to click your heels after every single day, but rather find things you look forward to. Take a trip to the local library and pick out a colorful book, choose a movie/television series you can look forward to every week, make a special trip to the grocery store for a treat, try a new recipe, or see how much cleaning done you can get done in 5 minutes. You'd be surprised...

Whatever the case, know that you are loved. At least by me. (insert a picture of a pretty red heart)

The Same Lessons.

You may have heard the phrase, "not all that glitters is gold." I love that.

It comes from a poem written in 1748 Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat (yeah!), the following is an excerpt:

Not all that tempts your wandering eyes
And heedless hearts is lawful prize;
   Nor all that glisters gold.

"Wow, almost three hundred years ago," you might think. But it is not so long ago when you consider these lessons have had to be taught and learned time and time again. Shakespeare teaches us that, and many, many more. This poem is actually quite sexist by today's standards: directed towards women and their love for shiny things. Erring them to be cautious in that which they consider a worthy prize.

What does that say to you?


To me, it shows that humanity is the same. Sure, we have progressed by leaps and bounds in some aspects, and digressed in others. It shows that I was not born in the wrong era, but that I need to conquer my own. We need balance and a higher order in our lives to give it purpose and meaning, because try as we may, material things do not.