Feeling So Blessed

Today, I think I received one of the most thoughtful gifts anyone has ever given me. (If not number one, it's definitely in the top ten!) A great big sketchbook arrived in the mail today from my friend Bethany, a long running friend of mine who used to live here before she moved away. I thought to myself, "Cool a new sketchbook!" with a twinge of guilt for all the other unused sketchbooks and notebooks I own. But when I opened it, I realized the sketchbook was already full! 

It was a "Life" book, brimming with miscellaneous fliers, to-do lists, scraps of poetry and sermon notes and class notes and chicken scratchings and letters and doodles and original Starbucks recipes.

 I was so blessed reading through it this morning! What a beautiful, transparent, funny, interesting snapshot of life! I was humbled, encouraged, cheered up, and inspired that this special notebook had been in the works for me for several months (Since September!). Bethany had told me about her project awhile back, but I never expected that I would be the recipient of such a gift!

For sure, the highlight of the week! And now I feel inspired to start my own "life" book to bestow upon another. Just don't mind me while I sit over here and sigh nostalgically all day, dreaming up thoughts and ideas and feeling oh so very blessed by the friends God has put in my life.

This Week in Photos

Not all of these photos are for the May Photo Challenge, partly because I got behind and partly because other things besides photo-challenges actually happen. Weird, right?

 Day 1: Chives

 Day 2: Sky, and little brother's first high school dance

 Dad took me out in the backyard for a lesson in night photography after our run. We don't have the right lens for it, but some of our pictures still turned out pretty good.

 Day 3: An Animal.
Believe it or not, there is a rabbit in this picture if you look at the center. It is running away from me. Almost all of my rabbit-hunting pictures look like this, some blurrier.

Day 4: Fruit. Blended in a cup after a Sunday morning run.

Day 5: Time. This is the whimsical clock that Grandma Ingrid gave us. It doesn't work anymore, but we've become quite fond of it.

 Day 7: Books


I missed day 6 (family) but as you can see, I have definitely been flexing my photography muscles and loving it every step of the way! More to come!

Day 1: Chives

Dear Chives,

You are so beautiful.

Love,

Misha

I know I said I wasn't going to post pictures every day, and that's exactly what I intended! But this morning's photos came out so nicely that I couldn't resist posting them today!

The prompt for today was "flower" and I'd originally meant to photograph some stunning cacti flowers I saw down the street a day or so ago, but when I went out this morning, they were all closed up and droopy! I've learned my lesson and next time I see something like that catches my attention like that, I will photograph it right then instead of waiting.

Nonetheless, I'm pleased with my "backup choice" of Mama's chives. I've been admiring them for awhile because they remind me so much of dandelions (or Truffala trees), but never stopped to take their picture until now. 

The Best Things in Life...

I am convinced that the best things in life are the little things. Like my brother serenading me to sleep with his ukulele last night. Who cares if he was just making up a song about his favorite ugly sweater? I certainly didn't. (And plus, I was too tired to be much of a critic.) It's moments like this that make me forget how annoying he normally is. Love you, Cam! ;)

I love my job

I don't normally talk about my work, and I have reasons for that, but I think it'll be alright to forego that rule this once. One of the best tasks I get to do for work is search for images for use in course materials (think background slides, etc.) Sometimes, (on days like today) I feel like I am getting paid to fuel my wanderlust. Today I was introduced to several new websites for finding free stock-images! There were so many beautiful visuals. My favorite so far is called UnSplash and it is a serious load of eye candy (and not like attractive men or anything like that) for an artist/dreamer/creator like me.  

Beautiful Things

I have a confession to make, lately, I've been floundering a little bit with a sense of aimlessness. When I wrote my autobiography for school, I was thinking a lot about purpose, particularly the journey of discovering my purpose. But when I looked back over the purpose statements I had written during my years of affiliation with CollegePlus (as a student, since I am now employed with them.), none of those statements resonated with me. My latest ideas, though not a written statement, toyed with the idea of helping girls understand their value. Maybe my purpose, I thought, is to use my struggle with self-esteem to help other girls going through the same thing. It seemed to fit, since I have the opportunity to mentor freshmen girls on Wednesday nights and helping out at the youth group is one of the most satisfying ministries I've had the pleasure to participate in.

And yet, something wasn't quite right.

At the back of my mind was the niggling thought that this wasn't it. I couldn't see myself advocating this message for years to come. I'm not the next "Beth Moore" or motivational speaker. I couldn't see myself devoting my life to this "cause." Of course it is a very worthy endeavor and there are so many girls who need to hear such a message, but just like God wasn't my Healer when I wanted to tell people about God being "the Ultimate Healer" (my very first purpose statement), somehow I didn't believe that talking about self-worth was my primary message. So what was it?

The truth is, I didn't really know. And when I finally realized this (literally in the last week), I freaked out a little. For a tiny moment, I felt so lost. What am I supposed to do?

Then today, over tea, I got a fresh perspective on it when a friend of mine asked the table, "What are you passionate about?" The question took a career-spin on it as people went around talking about what was most important to them--teaching, being a doctor, friends, Mom, history... Of course when it got through to me, I said, "I am passionate about art." That is a no-brainer, I've known that about myself for a long time. But as I kept talking about it, I realized that art was a narrow definition for what I am passionate about. It is so much more than art.

I am passionate about making beautiful things.

Art, yes. Writing, of course; that is my major after all. But it's also so much more than that. It's moments and memories and highlights and photographs and table settings and birthday cakes and interior design and conversations.

When I said, "It's so beautiful!!!" for probably the tenth time today, my dad pointed out, "That's been your catchphrase lately." I am drawn to beautiful things, and I think on some level everyone is. Why else do we have such an image-obsessed culture? But I think I am even more drawn to creating beautiful things and making the world around me a more beautiful place for myself and for others.

I may not change the world, ever. But you know what? I can help someone else see the world differently by making it more beautiful. And that is something my soul gets excited about! That is something I will do my entire life no matter where I end up in the world or how old I get. And that is what I believe my purpose is because I may not ever become a writer or an editor or a teacher or [insert whatever career here] but I will always be an artist and I will always love beautiful things.

The Best Love Story of All (long)

Circa 2009

Jake's family has been somehow connected to ours for over 12 years. His mom, whom I affectionately called  (and still call)"Miss Jessica," taught my Sunday School class when I was six years old. Since her youngest son Joe was also in the class, she moved up every year with us and I grew under her tutelage. To be truthful, I don't actually remember when Jake first came on my radar, since he was older than me.

It could have been our sudden frequent exposure to the Coffin's three children, for reasons unbeknownst to me at the time. Mom and Dad constantly took us over to their house to play while the adults all went off to dinner. Cam and I weren't complaining though; we loved having playmates. We'd play hide-and-go seek in the house or huckle-buckle-bean-stalk or we'd watch veggietales while feasting on the hugest batches of popcorn we'd ever seen.

But I believe it was Fish Tales-- a cute little children's skit in which we both had the lead parts and the characters were in constant competition with one another. (Actually, the majority of our childhood friendship consisted of competition, most of which I think I initiated.) On one particular day while practicing the script my character had the parenthetical direction "lovingly" written before the line and somewhere deep in my 11-year-old mind I thought something along the lines of, "well I might as well start now!" Thus began a massive and enduring crush that lasted three and a half straight years. I was "madly in love" with Jake Coffin (secretly, of course!).

Magic Moments

There is something indescribably magical about finding oneself in a bakery on a rainy day, surrounded by warmth and the smell of freshly baked bread with Tangled music playing over the speakers. Such was the situation I found myself while I waited in a line that stretched out the door and spilled onto the sidewalk outside. As I edged toward the register, my turn nearing, I wished that the music would re-orchestrate itself and continue and I could linger a little longer in this moment.