Happy Christmas, everyone <3

1. I want to feel that thrill again - I hope it's waiting for me in the near future.
2. I love my students. <3
3. SO excited to give gifts tomorrow!
4. Start shooting photos tomorrowwww
5. Going to NYC soon! Can't wait!
6. Finally relaxing.

Thank You, Jesus, for everything You've done for me.

<><>?

It was you and me against the world
And you promised me forever and more
Was it something that I said?
Was it something that I did?
Cuz I gotta know what made me unbeautiful.

I had a dream about you last night. It would have been six years soon. Sometimes I feel like I lost my best friend; things can never be the same. Usually it doesn't bother me; usually I'm over it. Something about the Christmas season always reminds me of you and I don't know why. At least this year I won't have to cry over not seeing you... for the fifth time. I am happy to be seeing you without attachment. I am glad the hurt is over, but sometimes I still wonder what really happened. This trend has become poison in my veins.

I have been trying to think of a good New Years resolution: I will stop blaming myself for things that weren't my fault, and I will start living again.

I also should stop biting my nails. I hate that it's my unconscious de-stressor.

A Day Late________//Anberlin

I wonder if great people have ever thought, "Can I really do this? Do I have what it takes?" It seems as if these people have always been destined for success. Because we, the onlookers, know the outcome of their story, we tell it as if they themselves always knew of their inevitable success. But I think all of us are plagued with doubt most of the time, working vigorously to shove against it and prove ourselves wrong in the end. I am terrified that I will always only just say, "Oh yes, I will do that someday." And then that someday will come and it will pass me by. I cannot allow that to happen.

Getting my camera tonight, and I am just thrilled. <3

But thoughts they change and times they rearrange
I don't know who you are anymore
Loves come and go and this I know
I'm not who you recall anymore
But I must confess you're so much more than I remember.

"Give it time, give it space

and be still for a spell

When it's time to walk that way

We wanna walk it well

Love is waiting 'til we're ready...

'til it's right."

Just taking the steps as I see fit until I bump into you.

Fish in the Sea?

After finishing 5 commission pieces for my boss, I cannot put my book down... it's 1:30am and I have to be up at 6:50am and I can't put it down. I LOVE this series <3

I wonder why I am so preoccupied with love... or my lack thereof. It seems like all of my friends are falling in love and getting married and having babies. If you had asked me a year and a half ago what my life would look like now, I would tell you this: "Married, California". Now, the reality: "Single, Central PA". Surprising.

If there is anything I have learned in the past two years of my life, it is that life is unpredictable and that you can't count on anything but yourself and Jesus because you can think you've got everything you wanted one moment and turn around to find that you are alone with nothing but yourself. I know that that sounds terribly cynical, but I believe it to be true to the core. I have written about it many times here, and I think about it at least a few times a day. I am alarmed at my lack of faith in men, though I am not surprised that I think this way: all evidence points me to believe that men will inevitably wreck you, while your girlfriends help you pick up the pieces. Can you blame me? The media feeds it, my parents are evidence, and so are my past relationships. I am skeptical that I will ever find someone who will be as honourable as they say they are. Honour is a huge thing with me. I want to find a good man who will honour his words with his actions. People say, "You're 22, you have plenty of time", and I know they're right. But this is a real fear of mine... I am not sure even finding that person will fix it. I recognize the residue from my parents' divorce and I think that it is ironic that after all this time when I've really thought I was "over it", I am not over it at all. I think about all of my friends who are engaged... I have forgotten that feeling of being able to trust another person like I would trust myself, to find real comfort in them. I am afraid that I will find the person, but look at them only through a veil of terror. The realization that I can no longer recognize the sensation leaves an empty place in my heart. I want to believe that there will be someone who will prove me wrong about men. I don't need someone perfect, who never messes up and never wants a 'boys night' and always does the dishes for me. I want someone who will be my buddy.

I miss having my buddy.

I bought kickin' gold heels tonight <3

One of my favourite things to do is to go sit at Borders with a happy little cup of coffee or tea and look at art magazines/books and draw in my sketchbook. I have admittedly never been very good with keeping up a sketch journal, though I have lately found it extremely helpful and revitalizing, as well as incredibly relaxing and rewarding; it's wonderful to have a space where I can mess around and make mistakes and not care where my line goes or why. I have been doing a lot of art lately. My heart feels alive when I create beauty...

Lately I've been experimenting a little; I usually idealize the human form, but I would like to start exploring the figure in its complexities. Tonight I was at Borders and found a book of the best photographs of National Geographic and found a lot of inspiration there. I am tired of drawing the same beautiful woman over and over again: I want variety. I want to find the beauty in "ugliness".

"The Dream"

Please Help Support Others <3

Go to the link below and play a fun game to donate rice. This is a win-win situation, so you should do it ;)

http://www.freerice.com/

If I Had My Own World, I'd Build You an Empire

Let me feel you

Carry you higher

Watch our words spread hope like fire

Secret crowds rise up and gather

Hear your voices sing back louder

--

I want to run as fast as I can until my lungs burn so badly I can't take a breath, until my knees disintegrate, until my feet threaten to shatter, until my heart pumps wildly out of control, until I fly, until I catch up with God.

Today is one of those days where I feel my own hungry, creative energy dripping from my fingertips and eyelashes, begging to be unleashed in a torrid flood.

I miss being kissed.






















Tiro! El eria e mor.
I 'lir en el luitha 'uren.
Ai! Aniron...

I just want to make beautiful things in this world and to be understood as someone with a beautiful mind and talented hands.

I think of you from time to time and wonder how you are.

I am so disappointed after this weekend.

I cannot wait to go home for Christmas and have some relaxation.

Sometimes I feel like everyone else is writing poems while I'm scribbling a grocery list.

FREEDOM --

There will come a day when the courage of men fails; but it is not this day.

Good day. It's snowing, I've got fabulous pasta for lunch, I'm listening to Return of the King Soundtrack, and only 4 more hours of work to go in which I get to FINALLY clean my desk <3

Asleep Awake

I feel that my blog will most likely become a sketch/photography blog and that is okay with me. <3

"[ I N F I N I T E ]"
















"What Do You Know?"

Sometimes there's just so much beauty in the world I can barely take it. <3

"Blood Orange"
















Tomorrow will be a fun, fun day!

1. Get presents with Carly at Williams Sonoma
2. Get Starbucks <3
3. Meeting on campus
4. Art Sale for more presents!
5. Into the office I go where I have the whole afternoon to organize, tie up loose ends, and plan the holiday party.
6. Calling shift with my ROCKIN callers
7. Home to relax and make more art because Friday is my day off! <3

You're beautiful and I am awakened by the force of your eyes.

Love.

"Love like the world we know is over in a day."

Upper respiratory infection. Lots of medicines. Lots of sniffles. Art doodling in my art journal. Phonathon calling. Praying. Achiness. Calling mom. Wondering. Green tea. Crazy dreams.

I currently live in a beautiful and feverish haze.

I know I must make art to be happy.

Grandma

Sometimes I really feel old. Not physically old, but I feel aged. I feel used up. I feel spent. I feel like I am looking back at everyone else, wishing to be in their shoes: the world at their feet. No, I wouldn't care if the shoes had holes in them from the places they've been, or dirt caked onto the side from the messes they've admittedly made, stepped in, and then walked off; no. Just the chance to breathe free air again: the chance to make of me whatever I would wish at that moment.

I look down and see my own shoes. Why don't I recognize them: the shoes with the holes and the dirt that I've developed and watched and ironically loved? Someone once said that we let people take pieces of ourselves, we give them away. I still feel you, gnawing at me like a ghost, even though I try to push you away. I feel like a grandmother, watching all of my children live with the freedom and the rapture and the boundless energy that I once had, smiling to myself that I was once in my prime, oh yes. Once I jumped without fear of not landing square on my feet, once I loved with a heart brimming with hope, once I sang at the top of my lungs and didn't care. But those times are over now.

Are they?

I keep trying to tell myself, "No, this is just the beginning; don't be fooled into thinking you're all used up. You are at a new beginning, a different beginning. One admittedly more terrifying, but wonderful and exhilarating." But then I catch sight of my worn shoes, pick them off of my feet, and examine their flaws - my flaws. I look down at the dust on the road, down at my scabby old lady knees who've seen a million years of spills and getting-back-up-agains, down at my weathered hands, down at my aching, wishful heart.

God sees beauty here, I think. Because when I see my worn shoes with their holes, God sees the times that He has carried me because my own two feet could not withstand the journey. When I see the lifeless dust on the road, God sees my past and loves me despite my mistakes. When I see my scabby old lady knees, God sees the twin instruments I bend to, fall to, and am thrown to in times of need. When I see my weathered hands, God recognizes their grip from when He has pulled me upward. And when I see my aching, wishful heart, I hope that God sees someone who is just scared and needs Him, more than anything, and loves Him more than anything.

I love to hear You say
Who I am is quite enough.
You make me worthy of love
And beautiful.

You make all things new.


When time and space are through,
I'll be found in You,
Still standing.

I'll be found in You.