decompressing

summer is flying by! this summer i was selected to sit on a grand jury for 5 weeks. only 2 weeks left now! it has been a really amazing and educational experience! i am learning a lot, hearing some terrible things, and feeling like i'm contributing something to society. but it also rearranges my schedule and this throws me off.
this week has been a little bit stressful. this weekend will be the third in a row i have an event to help out with. i haven't been able to have lunch with my husband as much as i usually get to. the weather is terrible. the sun is gone, it's even chilly!
 we have a wedding this saturday that my husband is ushering in and i'm helping with the setup/teardown. last night we set up the reception area and tonight is the rehearsal. i din't get very much sleep last night because i had to work early.  we didn't have much of a dinner because we had to go right to the church. same thing tonight.
i suppose i am a routine person, so if one or all of my routine is disrupted, i get a little stressed and quite anxious. then i don't feel like doing anything! so i've just been going around, doing the bare minimum but not accomplishing much. not working out. not folding the laundry.

but, life goes on of course. life is made of exciting moments, new adventures, lessons, helping others with something like wedding plans. there isn't a lot of room for routines. yet, i need something to hold onto! something to keep me grounded in all the crazy things that come our way.
since i was feeling a little stressed, i decided i needed to clean up the apartment. just a little bit. pick up the clothes, do the dishes and do a quick vacuum. a messy, cluttered home makes me more stressed than i already am. does this happen to you?
with order restored, i know that, even though we won't be home for most of tomorrow, when we wake up everything will be nice and clean. and when we get home, we will come home to a clean, uncluttered, stress-free home. cleaning your apartment might not be your idea of stress relief, it might not seem like the answer, but it works for me. it's how i decompress this bottled up anxiety i
am holding onto.
my husband will be coming home a little early, so we can have a routine real donner!
now with a few hours till dinner, i can work out! *sigh* i feel better already!

waffles and wildflowers. (no falafel)

 well, i attempted to make my falafel i talked about, but i ended up burning it... smoke detector went off and everything. word to the wiser than me, when you are cooking something in hot oil, don't turn your back to shape pita bread dough. make the pita bread before or after the thing on the stove. so we ended up going to five guys when ez came home, after a few tears from me. it was interesting. i was really looking forward to falafel!


i did make some really good waffles saturday morning. i used a recipe from my vintage better homes and garden's cookbook, sour cream waffles. they turned out really good. they were light and fluffy, and i put some fresh strawberry slices on them. the batter is a little thicker than i'm used to for wallfles, but once you add the egg white it really fluffs up the batter and it's easier to pour out. speaking of waffles, someday i want to try experimenting with "savory" waffles instead of sweet breakfast-type waffles. anyone ever done this?

sour cream waffles
1 cup sifted flour
1/2 tablespoon sugar
1 tsp baking powder

i'm not really sure what year this is from, i'm guessing the 50's

1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg yolk
1 cup sour cream
1/4 cup milk
3 tbsp melted butter
1 stiff-beaten egg white

mix first 5 ingredients in a bowl. mix next ingredients up to egg white. add to flour mixture. fold in egg white and cook in waffle iron. makes 4 waffles

i took a jog and decided to pick some weeds by the side of the road and put them in a jar. i like this look, i find it very rustic and unfussy.

enjoy what's left of your weekend!

"penny" moments

new video up. are you embracing the little moments every day has to offer? you should be! take in your daily dose of serendipity today!

ps- in this video you can see how my flexi rods turned out!

New Adventures

Lots of new changes going on around here...

1. I am coming back to blogging!

2. I am not going to interior design school. Long story short, I don't want that career anymore. I  have different goals now and I'm happy

3. While I am back to blogging, I will mostly  be "vlogging"! I'll post my videos here and on my youtube channel. follow me!

4. I'm doing something I've wanted to do for a while- make videos of things I do like I'm teaching you how to do them too! Like my own variety show. woot! It shall be a fun adventure. 

It's nice to know the world still revolves even when we drop out of it for a while. It teaches us that we can go on from anything. That we can pick up where we left off and not have to feel like a failure. 

Thanks for reading!

gray day's aren't all bad

Today was really gray and cold. Ezra worked and I had the day off. I really had no drive to do anything.

We've both had colds all week, and the apartment was a mess, and there was laundry to fold, but I didn't feel like doing anything! Even though we are going on a date tonight, it is soo far away!

 I put on some 50's doo wop music, which usually gives me a little energy boost, and it helped a little, I got through cleaning. Then I ate a sandwich, and had to have one of those cute cupcakes Ez brought home last night from work, They were seriously so cute! but eating it must have sent me over the edge cause I was nauseas right after for a while. I moped around and grumbled for a while, then told myself I had to do something constructive! So I made this collage

  It's something I started a while ago then dropped when my creative juices ran on empty for a while. wow. I feel soo much better! I want to create and design and make and craft and whatever you want to call it! I feel.... Well,  I don't know what I feel, but not nauseas! Funny how something little can brighten your day. How finally doing that thing you have been putting off can give you such renewed energy! 

 Sometimes you have to force yourself to do something. To pick up something you left off, or start something you've been wanting to do. Or spend some time talking to Jesus. You know you you like doing it, you know it will feel good and be good for you, but for whatever reason you are hesitant. But you have to say to yourself  "after you do this, you will feel all sunshiny inside! You will probably get out of that funk! You will feel good afterwards!" Yep, sometimes talking to yourself is ok :)

ps that poem on the collage is"trees" by Joyce Kilmer. looove it!

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

Here I am again.....

This last week I spent in California at my old school for Landmark conference. It was so great to see my sister in law Shannon and old roommate/best friend KristaJoy, and all my other friends. I stayed in my old room, sharing my roommates bed, which was quite an experience. Everything was smaller than I remember! My husband had to stay behind because of school and work, so I was able to have a little vacation on my own. Now I know other wives like being away from their husbands for a week, but I'm not one of those people.

Being back at that school was such a strange experience. I don't regret leaving school, and I thought it would just be a nice little trip (which it was, don't get me wrong), but as I began to look around and see how everyone had changed without me, and how I wasn't a part of people's everyday lives anymore, I got this overwhelming feeling I couldn't put a name to. I tried to explain it to my friend, and to my husband, but I couldn't. All I could say over and over was "It's so weird being here again" to which they would just shrug and say something like "yeah, I bet" I didn't really expect them to understand how I felt. I didn't even know how I felt. Not until I ran into my aunt at the Ladies day service, and I said the usual "It's weird being back here" and she understood right away how I felt. I was out of place there. I was married and moved away, and everyone treated me differently. Not in a bad way, my friends were still my friends. I just wasn't part of anything anymore. There were new students and new jokes and new restaurants, and all I had were the old memories. Everyone had grown up a little bit more, they are doing amazing things since I last saw them. It was like seeing a child you haven't seen in a long time, and noticing that he's so much taller and older looking than the last time you saw him. You notice because you haven't been watching the growing process, but his parent's might now be as keenly aware. It was just like that, only not physical, something you could feel rather than see.

Anyway, after I realized I wasn't alone in feeling this way, I felt as if a weight was lifted off my shoulders and I began to enjoy myself more.

Aside from my personal moment of drama, I had a great time. My sister in law took me to a spa which was really fun. And we went to San Francisco to my favorite restaurant, Chutney! I miss my sister and sister friend KristaJoy! I feel so blessed that I was able to see them all!

do you ever....

listen to a song and find yourself listening to that song for the rest of the week or month? as i was cleaning the other day i found and listened to a carpenter's album, and now my song of the week is "rainy days and mondays." i know it's a tad depressing, but i love it because of this line:

Funny but it seems that it's the only thing to do

Run and find the one who loves me.

What I feel has come and gone before

No need to talk it out

We know what it's all about

so true... do you ever feel that way? this happens to me from time to time, i just feel bleh for no reason. nothing is really wrong, i just feel out of place, lost, bored.

whenever that feeling comes over me like a wave i just have to say to my husband "i'm feeling melancholy." he knows exactly how i feel. he gives me a hug and lets me cry if i need to. the only thing i can do is run and find the one who loves me. we don't need to say anything, we know what it's all about.

today was one of those days. but it wasn't rainy, and it's not monday... just one of those days.