Takin' steps.

This feeling that I have right now, this overcome emotion and love and desire gives my heart the peace and comfort (I don't know if I needed) but is so reassuring that I am doing the right thing next year. I am so ready to get started with this next part of my life beginning! Feeling more alive by the minute, I am so thankful and grateful. I am ready to pour my heart out and love these people, these youth, with everything I have. In a way I'm ready to move and unpack my life in a way that I don't think I ever have before. While I've moved before and lived with different people, I am taking the first step into my professional career and life. With that will come trials and errors, there are sure to be hardships and it won't always be as fun and glamorous as it can sound when explaining it to people.. but somehow I feel like I am ready. While this will be a great new responsibility for me, it is also the most relationship oriented job that I have ever worked in... and that is a lot to take in. I think I need to be honest and real with myself in these next weeks and months as they unfold. Work on diving deeper and listening harder, seeing between the lines and truly finding out who people are. Not that I need to necessarily 'work on it,' but instant love and unconditional love. I've felt my life be ripped away from my hands and scrambled to pick it up, yet I have never felt the pain and devastation that these teens have faced in such a short time. With love and laughter, honesty and truth, this is an entirely new adventure, one that I need to be honest in how hard it will be at times.

City Adventures

Part of the reason I love going a new place or getting a new job is that they just know you, for who you are and present to them. In the simplest terms, to them, right now, I am a ginger. A red head. They never saw the natural hair color of strawberry blonde or the bleached out summer blonde I rocked this time last year. And in more real terms, the true friends are the ones who don't have to question, doubt or wonder who you are. So maybe right now I decide that I like the deep auburn color of my hair and in a few years it will be different: no big, right? In the same sense, people who meet you along the way will know you with the information that you present them with.

Not sure if this makes sense. I told my mom today on the phone that I need to move to Denver because I need to find friends who will go to the farmer's market with. While that is exaggerated and dramatic, it is also somewhat true. My friends have a special place in my heart for certain reasons, but at the same time I am missing a few different things. I want someone to be adventurous in the city with! And I feel like I barley know or appreciate Omaha for what it has to offer. Today I checked two things off my list that I have been waiting to do: 1- farmer's market! and 2- the 13th street coffee shop! I plan on driving down to that coffee shop at least once a week, even if it is just to find out the latest fun happenings in Omaha. I saw a poster and absolutely loved what a United Methodist Church was advertising and now that is next to do on my to do list! In the same way that IV caught my eye at school: good graphics and social justice.


"You'll find that life is still worthwhile if you just smile"
-Smile, Charlie Chaplan

One Day You Will

So I started running again! With a few breaks for water/lunch and brief walks Amy and I reached 7 miles today! Although it is 3:30 am, I have plans to wake up tomorrow and get the day started (before the rain!) with hopefully another nice long run.

So I don't know what it is about coming and going... but I tend to be good at it. Wonder if there is some underlying commitment issues involved here?
Lady A always gets me... and a few particular lines of an older not well known song keeps coming to mind, thought I'd share...

Down the road the sun is shining.
Every cloud there is a silver lining.
Just keep holding on.
Every heartache makes you stronger
It won't be much longer.
You'll find love,
you'll find peace,
and the YOU you're meant to be.
Know right now that's not the way you feel...
But one day you will.

So true. So, so true. And I want to believe I am on my way. Somehow. Not sure where it will be or how it will turn up, but I do believe that eventually I will wake up and where I am is where I will want to be. Maybe I will go to grad school. Maybe I'll become a licensed counselor. Maybe I'll travel. Maybe I'll write. Maybe I'll surprise myself with some decisions. The best things will always travel with me, maybe that is why I have always been so obsessed with pictures.. so that my friends & family can always be held close with me.

So the rest of this week... more running, more writing, more positivity. More people, more looking into future options. Find a sewing machine, read more, clean up and make room. As always, more love, more patience and more hope. Always, hope.



Find the strength to rise above... you will, find just what you're made of.

Re-Evaluate.

We'll keep this short and sweet since it's been so long, I'd much rather ease back into things... but today is July 1st, which means half way through the year 2010! Now, I got up and ran this morning before realizing this, but I am hoping it is a good sign of what is to come the second half of the year (not that I'm complaining about the first half!)

It is time to re-evaluate and follow up as well as check on some of my new year's resolution. Now if I were say, an organized person, I'd have this written out in a place that is easy to find. And while I'm sure it is written out, I am also aware that through the moving and my less of an organized more of a mess home currently, that finding this might be impossible at such time. We'll just leave it at one key thought that I feel today: lighter. Things are brighter. More hopeful. Lemon water tastes better, fresh air sweeter and things are on the up and up. Today shall be a good day.


Picture of the day: stretching beneath the shade of three amazingly large trees in my front yard.



Till next time! [Tomorrow!]