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Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Christmas Is...

Sometimes I feel like Christmas is all about relaxing, spending time with family and making special memories- by way of adding a ton of extra work and busyness! After my Christmas Burn Out last year, my goal has been more of the former, hopefully without any of the latter. Being a Doer-of-All-the-Christmas-Things this is especially challenging for me.


So rather than curled up under the covers in the fetal position waiting for Christmas to be over I’m hoping my Christmas [and yours!] looks a lot more like this:








What are some of your favorites?


Friday, December 6, 2013

Into the Pensieve: The Story of My Life

Well, it really isn't worth telling, Mrs. Cadbury but if you let me tell you what I imagine about myself you'd find it a lot more interesting.” Anne of Green Gables

How do you choose which moments in your life define who you are today? How does a painter choose which colors to bring to the limelight and which to blur in the background?


Every person has a need of a place, somewhere that is truly home, a place of belonging. For me, that place will always be the Rocky Mountains. Never am I truly at peace, truly complete as when I stand in the mountains, surrounded by pines and aspens, the big open sky above me.

Sadly much of my life has been apart from my beloved mountains, instead I've been placed in a jungle-y valley. Sticky rice and fish sauce became staples in my diet and words like “sabai” and “aroi” were adapted into my vocabulary. The mountains opened my heart to truth, living in Thailand opened my eyes to it.

The jungle isn't all bad, really

Pizza became a rare and exotic meal, and the joys of city life became known to me. Malls and public transportation. Crowds and bazaars. Food stalls and dysentery hand sanitizer, now all constants in my life.

Snow was no longer an annoyance, but something I dreamed and longed for. Snakes, roaches and centipedes became dreaded but all too common. I became an adventurer.

My heart was suddenly and irrevocably split into two parts.

I was still forever a silly love-sick girl, hoping for prince charming to come along and rescue me from my perils. My heart was fickle, and I was caught heavily in a one-sided love. My life had more drama and love circles than Days of Our Lives, and poor decisions after poor decisions were made.

Midst the rebellion were some of the most profound and real experiences of my life. Painful, rich, awe-inspiring. Tarnished then polished then tarnished.

I quit Thailand and returned to my beloved Colorado. I bought my first car and got my first job. I discovered the joy of weekends, and the pains of a regular job.  I quit Colorado and returned to my beloved Thailand.

Then the most unexpected thing of all happened. For, quite literally, the first time in my life I found no joy in the prospect of meeting a guy and falling in love. I stopped looking and stopped wanting to be “found”.
Here we are, all young and blurry

So then, how this became the optimal time for the man who would become my husband to enter the picture must remain a story for another time. [muahaha!]

With marriage and becoming a mom I discovered a love that words cannot describe and an ugliness that I would rather not have known of myself.

The truth is I have always struggled to share my story, particularly my life story.  So I took on this challenge to share briefly [which turned out to not be so brief] the story of my life. I know I could have imagined far more interesting things for my life to be. But also far less interesting things. I know when I was 14 I could not imagine living anywhere but America and knew I would never live overseas.

This is vague and simple account but I look forward to more Journeys Into the Pensieve to share with you some moments from my life, good, bad or otherwise!

In the meantime, thanks for sticking with me in this endeavor!