pajama day

There is a wonderfully unique kind of joy when one spends the entire day in pajamas. It utterly trumps the kind of hectic stressful pressure that life brings some mornings and allows one to fully enjoy a relaxing day doing nothing sort of things. To wake up and have breakfast at a leisurly pace, lay on the couch and read or put a puzzle together on the floor in ones pajamas is to my heart, pure bliss.

I was given the opportunity to spend a day like this last week with one of my favorite people. We had so much fun laughing with each other, talking and just enjoyed the free time and laziness of the day. We read, drank a lot of tea and organized a game cupboard. It's amazing the things that are transformed from ordinary to wonderful when a best friend is around.

young

I love being around old couples. By old I mean, the relationship and not necessarily the people themselves. I had the privilege of spending some time with a couple who have been married about 60 years this last week. It was delightful.

He still makes her giggle, they sit close to each other at the dinner table and they finish each others sentences as they remember together. They can list off the names of grandchildren and great grandchildren with pride. He still plays with these great grandchildren and she cooks for a house full of people. Their house if full of old knickknacks and gifts from children over the years and pictures from the beginning until now.

Unexpectedly we found ourselves back in their home last Saturday evening, and upon our arrival were offered chocolate milkshakes. Pass that up? no way. We sat with them in silence for the most part, and watched the lights and ocean out their windows. They talked about their memories, first moving into the house and some funny moments over the years.

She said, "I love my new house. It's not really new of course, the floors creek and the paint is peeling in places, but its my new house. It's been a good people house."

one week

There is something about seeing someone for the first time in a long time. A nervous excitement almost. At first its a bit strange, surreal really, that they are present with you. Soon however, that unfamiliarity and strangeness melts away into knowing that brings joy- joy that overflows at being able to see and laugh with such a friend.

My heart has been so full of this joy recently.

another one bites the dust...

Computer number two down. I repeat computer number two down. 

I'm really just trying to finish. It's proving to be a little bit difficult. 

ready to be done

This evening I am just really, done. I'm tired and have been for weeks it seems like. I feel like I could curl up in my bed and fall asleep for two days. I have this last paper for my Latin American Literature class (the one I created for myself by the way) and I am struggling with having any motivation to get it done. It is supposed to only be 5 pages- pie. On books I've already read and have an opinion about- cake. But as I sit here tonight, so close, all I want to do is read a good book. The pile of them on my desk is ever growing.

last paper snack

Russian orange tea and chocolate chips. Thanks Sharon!

rainy day memories

a) Sophomore year Sam and Bethany and I tried to go to Alta for a rainyday cup of coffee. About 9.00 at night, on our way there my windshield wipers break. On the way home after discovering they were closed Newport Blvd is flooded out and water is going over the hood of my car, everyone involved screaming for their lives.

b) One night that same semester it was raining and our friend came up to our quad screaming for us. He was wearing a wetsuit, and covered in mud. 10 minutes later we were out on Heath lawn sliding and covered in mud as well.

c) I went to an outside high school, so many mornings I stood in the rain with friends. Some of which I still see almost every week.

e) Walking home up Parks Road and Banbury from the Bodleian Library and walking into the house to find dinner and tea waiting for me.

f) It was raining the day I got to Oxford, and a Jonathan Kirkpatrick opened the big red door and said to me, "well what are you doing standing out in the rain?"

g) Reading books and drinking tea while listening to the rain with James.

f) Today I went to the Gypsy Den in the rain and got adobe stew and cornbread for Ryan and I, and then hung out with her in the res life office for a good three hours. Beautiful afternoon.

llueva

It's raining in Costa Mesa today. I have so many incredible memories in the rain.

I am sitting on the big red couch downstairs with the front door open. I can see the rain in the park, on our front steps and dripping out of the trees near our home.

It smells fresh and new.

I successfully helped Tiffany roll up her drivers side window this morning, it does the same cool thing that mine does, where it refuses to roll all the way up.

I'm going to wear skinny jeans, green strappy boots and a pcoat today. Puddles beware!

an artsy day

This morning I woke up around 7.30 and went with my lovely Fula (I introduced her in a picture here about a month or so ago) up to Lakeview Community church in Pasadena to talk to a youth group there about Krochet Kids. It was cool, we got a little 10 minute slot to share and answer questions and then hung out and talked with the kids afterward. Such an adventure getting there and finding the place though, sheesh. But I was with Fula, and shes a great kind of person to take on an adventure.

Then we drove back down to Costa Mesa and stopped by The Camp, where Vanguard was hosting some sort of global awareness fair, to drop off our remaining hats. To see Bethany and Nic was a joy and Cristina was there with De Paz necklaces as well. I sort of budged off of her lunch and got to chat for a while, something I really love to do. She ordered something or other from Native Foods, and whatever it was it was wonderful.

I came home and showered, and then went to Vanguard's play with Noah and Katie Jenks, Mona and Ryan Mcgrady and some other friends. It was a Christmas comedy entitled "Expecting Carol"- a play within a play that in every way goes awry. Lets just say there was one Carlos Fernandez in a diaper on stage, can't get much better.

After the play I made tea for 5 or 6 people at our house, wonderful.

Now I'm studying, or about to start. The end is so close I can feel it.

again? really?

I tripped on the stairs, with my computer in my hands on my way down to the couch. It landed on the tile upside down. Forever to be plunged into a black abyss.

Enough said.

family christmas breakfast

A breakfast full of laughter.
Love these blue eyed boys!

No boys allowed in Bekah's room.

Boys attack!



Bekah and Bethany, new best friends.



Thanks Cristina! We had such a blast!

Photos by Cristina Robeck.

so bad.

Ok, so, in light of my most recent post (see below) in which I thought The Hobbit could sit on my desk and motivate me- wrong.

I just had to take it downstairs to Becca, and tell her not to give it back to me, because I started to read it...and it started to captivate me.

Don't worry, it's in good hands.

Back to homework...

in which I escape for a little while..

I went on a little personal retreat today, to a retreat center north of Long Beach. There were gardens and benches and it was quiet. Thats all I really have to say, it was relaxing and I am definitely a little more collected than I was this morning before I left.

On the way home I decided to drive down the PCH. There was traffic, but the 405 was probably the same way so I thought I might as well drive the interesting way. I was driving through...umm, somewhere and I saw a Barnes and Noble up on the right. So I forced my way through two lanes of traffic and turned in (I've noticed that when you make eye contact with the driver you want to get in front of they normally let you, its like, oh there's actually a person in that car).

What to get in Barnes and Noble? I decided a few weeks ago that I wanted to read the Lord of the Rings trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien and a professor recommended I read The Hobbit first. The guy I asked to find it for me is actually taking a Tolkien class currently, so we had a fun little discussion. I walked out with it and skipped to the car (cause I was excited).

I can't wait to lay in bed and read- escape into another world. Until then it will sit on my desk as motivation to keep going until I'm finished.

more.

bethany grace

I'm constantly stepping over a guitar case.



Picks are a normal part of life, I find them in the most random places.



I helped lug an upright piano up a set of stairs.



I hear the phrase, "I really need to record some of this stuff" often.



I live with a singer and songwriter. She, in my opinion, is amazing. Since a trip to San Francisco last year my days often consist of walking into a room to find her spread out on the floor with bits of paper, a journal and computer around her writing or singing with her guitar. I sit at my desk reading while she works out lyrics and chords. "I wrote a song today!" she says, "well, part of one..like I have most of it I just need to figure out this one part." I get to be the first audience. Lately when she plays I sit with my book and either mouth the lyrics or sing along, because yes, I know all of the words to all of them. However my favorite is when she puts her pen down and just plays and sings, expressing feeling or frustration through her music and then forgets what she played after she's done.

brilliance.

my anthem for a week.

Carry on my wayward son
There'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more

Once I rose above the noise and confusion
Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion
I was soaring ever higher
But I flew too high

Though my eyes could see I still was a blind man
Though my mind could think I still was a mad man
I hear the voices when I'm dreaming
I can hear them say

Masquerading as a man with a reason
My charade is the event of the season
And if I claim to be a wise man, well
It surely means that I don't know

On a stormy sea of moving emotion
Tossed about I'm like a ship on the ocean
I set a course for winds of fortune
But I hear the voices say
No!

Carry on, you will always remember
Carry on, nothing equals the splendor
The center lights around your vanity
But surely heaven waits for you

Carry on my wayward son
There'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry (don't you cry no more).