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?

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!

Another One Bites the Dust

My long, and rather unexpected hiatus from blogging has really bummed me out. Well not only blogging but life in general.

Granted, I feel like I have a pretty good reason. Basically the last 3 months of my life have consisted of sleeping and sitting (in no particular order). Not only did my first few months of pregnancy leave me tired and nauseous but it also drained the life force out of me. I just did not have the desire or the will to do anything.

Now I am beginning to feel more myself. My brain still feels cloudy, and thinking is more difficult, but then again that may have nothing to do with being pregnant.

I am still a little leery about committing to a full comeback, as its hard to know what tomorrow will look like let alone next week but I can say I am going to put an effort into posting more regularly.

Thanks for sticking with me!

Christmas in July

So a few months ago I decided I was really going to take this blog thing seriously and start posting more consistently. Then, I actually started posting less frequently. Actually I have just been doing a lot less lately, partly due to putting more time and energy into exercising more and eating better, which has actually had a bit of a pay off!

Also the last several posts have been more serious, with me just sharing my heart, which I love to do- but it also intimidates me a lot. So, I am going to mix it up a little today and just share a few things that I am excited about.

Ender’s Game

Finally this amazing novel has been made into a movie. More often than not I hate movie versions of books [i.e. The Golden Compass, Eragon, etc] and there’s a huge chance that will be the case here. However, it is one of my all time favorite stories. So I will definitely take a gamble and go see it when it comes out.

The Civil Wars

They are soon to be releasing a new album, even though the band has split, it will be nice to have some fresh music from them. I pretty much listened to their last album to death, if digital music could be killed...

The Third Kingdom

This book is a sequel to a whole sequel series of Sword of Truth, which is one of my favorites. I guess I just really like sequels. This is what I keep hoping Rowling will do with the Harry Potter series. Sure, You-Know-Who is gone but I can’t believe there’s a shortage of evil wizards that need to be fought off. Not the point though, the point is at least one of my favorite authors is giving me what I want: more!

Christmas

I know, it doesn't make sense, but lately I have been really wishing I could turn up the Christmas music in a living room softly lit from excessive strands of lights hanging from the ceiling. Have hot chocolate and make sugar cookies. Maybe its because last Christmas I burnt myself out and didn't really enjoy it. Maybe its just cause I miss my family. I think iTunes can sense it too, it keeps popping up with Christmas music and sometimes I just let it play.

SAMWISEtheWADE

I have this friend who is super talented, and cool, and hilarious. She has a vlog and it is pretty great, so I’d highly recommend heading over to Youtube to check it out. I’ll make it super easy for ya.

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC60m9mK0Npx7HIWqWJViAUg

What are you excited about?

Bye Bye Google Reader

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

As a Google Reader user myself I am pretty bummed out that, starting Monday, it will be out of service. Finding a replacement has been frustrating, cause let's face it, nothing is exactly like it. Google searches will bring up blogs upon blogs of people's recommendations, so no need for redundancy here. I will, however, share which ones I have tried out and which ones you should be able to follow this blog on.

Bloglovin so far has been easy to use. I think it will become my permanent replacement of Google Reader. What makes it different, though, is rather than reading the posts on the Bloglovin site, it will open the post in a new tab, directing you to the actual blog. I guess this is good, as you can see the design of the blog and interact more easily. If you're into that...

I've also tried out Feedly.com which also has its pros and cons. Other than just transferring my subscriptions from Google Reader, I haven't found a way to follow this blog on Feedly.

So those are my rather simple thoughts on the matter. And maybe, just maybe, this whole blog entry was so that I could paste the Bloglovin link. If you're still reading, thanks! If you've come this far with me I'm sure you'll find a way, in spite of Google Reader's failure to us all.

Expelliarmus!

Into the Pensieve

Sliding onto the smooth wooden bench; my back straight, shoulders back, chin up. The wooden cover clapped together as I folded it back, exposing the rows of black and white keys. The hollow vibrations of the strings echoed and hummed in anticipation. The music sheets, browned from wear and age slipped onto my lap as I picked through them. I found what I was looking for and spread the sheets across the music stand in front of me, overlapping each one in order to fit them all. Gently, my fingertips rested on the cool ivory keys. My foot found the pedal and for a moment I wait. The sweetness of the wood mixed with a mustiness that spoke of time and use. A moment is all I needed, before I pressed the keys to produce a beautiful soul-binding sound. In that moment I would wait, my fingers resting, preparing to take the plunge. A deep breath and I’d close my eyes.

At the time I could not have said why. But now I have come to know that moment well. The moment before I create, before I pour my heart into whatever I am doing. The moment before I know a piece of my soul is about to have a physical representation, something that can be seen or heard.

Joy and possibility, nerves and excitement, a moment of peace and turmoil. Then the moment was gone and my fingers laid into those keys, the notes resonating within me.  What it sounded like didn’t matter, what other’s thought was of minor note. Lost in the moment, bound for a moment with the artistry of a true master and creator, I was in another realm.

My first journey on the roads of art and expression, and the beginning of discovering something I would never be able live without. A second language; the language of souls.

Why Blog?

Writing has always been something I’ve loved doing. However, as my biggest critic, I don’t believe that my “hobby” of writing will ever amount to anything. But there is a small, tiny, little spark nestled within me that hopes I can write something that will inspire someone, or at least make them smile.

This is not to say I haven’t dreamed of writing a best selling novel but reality can be harsh [even harsher in my mind]. If you know me at all, you’ll know that I tend to be a little reserved, more than a little awkward, and quite the introvert. For me, writing is my best form of communication. I’m not saying that I am a great writer by any means, but in terms of communicating, it is easiest for me to share my thoughts in written form. Particularly when I can post it on this blog and pretend that no one reads it. [who knows...]

My fear and own self criticism has kept me from pursuing and accomplishing many of my goals and dreams. From a young age it was a dream of mine to study at Stanford [apparently when I dream, I dream big]. When it came time to request applications I, of course, requested one from Stanford. I poured over the brochure and application, meticulously filling out every detail. When it came to the essay portion, I choked. I knew that whatever I wrote would not be good enough, and with one rejection letter all of my hopes and dreams would be finished [I may have a dramatic flare...shhh] Instead of taking a leap and trying, I just didn’t do it. I justified it by saying that I didn’t want to waste money. After all it is an expensive application to submit just to be rejected...

Allowing myself to fall into defeat, I only submitted one college application and that was to Payap University, 20 minutes from my house. Now, I’m not sharing this because I regret that decision. Truly I love my life and where I am at now, and all of the experiences I was able to have because of that decision. What I regret is how easy it was for me to doubt myself and give up so easily on my dream. This will be an ongoing struggle for me, but is one I am choosing to continue fighting. If I do that by sharing my thoughts once a week on the internet, then that’s what I’m going to do.

I want to believe that I am capable of so much more, as well as inspire others, inspire my son, to work hard and fight for what they want.

Or as Rowling would put it:

“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live”

Yours Truly,

Kara