Last Christmas

I can not believe how quickly 2014 flew by! Christmas is in just over a week, and our annual Christmas party is in one week exactly!

I have been so busy with school, work, and life in general, but I linked Mackenzie's video of our Christmas party  below. This year it is going to be 1000x better and I could not be more excited! I can not believe that we were planning our first party over a year ago. It is truly remarkable how the time passes. 

Happy Holidays! http://vimeo.com/82973040

Until next time xxx. 

In the Autumn

It is fall. Everything is falling. The leaves fall from the trees and sprinkle the sidewalks. The stars fall from the sky as the nights grow longer. I fall. I fall into who I am becoming. In light of recent events in my life, I have been given no other choice but to fall and trust that I will land safely. Maybe not to even land. Perhaps I am trusting that while I am falling, I will learn to fly. 

Here I sit on this school bus, and I feel alive. It is unseasonably warm for October, and the windows are cracked. As the bus flies down the freeway, my hair rustles in the crisp  fall breeze. The colored trees flash past the windows, enveloping me in warmth. The laughter of children floats throughout the bus and out the windows, a blanket of innocence and hope. It is beautiful and I am alive. 

Fall is perhaps one of my favorite months. Not only are the holidays fast approaching, but the earth itself is burning with life. Of course, they say spring is the time of life. Flowers blossom, rivers run, and animals are born. But I find fall much more promising. 

The plants know that death is in their future. The ground is turning cold and the air is bitter. It's becoming harder to survive. Despite this, the leaves burn crimson, igniting the world. They know their time is up, yet they chose to be most beautiful of all. 

That is how I want to live. I want to be full of perseverance. I want to ignite the world, even when it is coldest. 

Until next time xxx. 

a sad but necessary post

I owe you all an explanation to why I have been such a crappy blogger later. "Crappy" isn't really a strong enough word, but it's what I'm sticking to for now. 

I owe my readers more than just the typical "I've been busy," or "school has been really stressful." Yes, all those things are quite true. School is as stressful as ever, and now that I have a job (more on that later) I'm a busy bee. 

In reality, I haven't had a sufficient amount of time to sit down and post a proper and interesting post. 

Sadly, that isn't the core reason I have not been blogging. Yes, those things are all factors, but there is a much bigger issue in my life that I should address. 

You see, something damn sad has happened to me and my family. To you, it may be no big deal, but to me this is a lot to handle. 

I have had nothing to post, because lately I have been overcome with sadness and stress. 

My parents are getting a divorce. 

Divorce. It's such an ugly, bitter word. A word I truly find disgusting... Divorce. Divorce. Divorce. 

It's as if my whole life is circling around this major event. It should not be, of course. That is not healthy. But it is okay to grieve while I am trying to sort this out. 

Divorces are ugly affairs my friends. I wish no one ever had to go through what I'm going through right now. 

It is hell. No, it's more than hell. It is heartbreaking. 

So, yes, I am sorry I do not have any recent posts up. I'm working on it, and I even have quite a few ideas. 

1. Favorite fall recipes

2. Fall makeup tutorial

Stay posted. I'll try to have one of these up within the next week! Until next time xxx.

For now, some brighter memories...

The Truth About Love

If you stumbled across this post, I hope you stay awhile and try to discover what the honest truth about love is with me. 

I do not know all about love and what it means and how it makes others feel. But I do know a few things firsthand that can maybe help you and I piece together this little mystery that is love. 

In my personal opinion, having to constantly proclaim your love is not real. Yes, it is important to be proud of your love and to show off the ones you love, but love should not always be about shouting it out for the whole world to hear. Sometimes love is a whisper and other times it is absolutely silent. Of course it can be loud, but it can also be soft. See, beautiful loves remind me of soft classical music. It's never irritating or annoying, just simply soothing and breathtaking in it's own quiet way. It doesn't beg for the attention of others, instead it plays on it's own, bringing a smile to the faces of those who happen to catch it's tune. 

Love is caring about someone unconditionally and never wanting to hurt them. Love is caring for someone like they're a delicate piece of glass that could shatter at any moment in time. You are careful to not break them. 

Of course, we always hurt the ones we love. Sadly, that's something inevitable. In a twisted way, we hurt them because we love them. Almost never on purpose, hopefully, but life happens and messes are made. 

You always hurt the one you love

The one you shouldn't hurt at all
You always take the sweetest rose
And crush it till the petals fall
You always break the kindest heart
With a hasty word you can't recall
So If I broke your heart last night
It's because I love you most of all

To me, a part of love is getting hurt. How much did you truly love if you never get hurt once in awhile? The tenderest hearts feel the most pain, but they are also the ones who love the most. So if you're going to really love others, you have to expect to get hurt every once in awhile. 

Love can also be looking at someone and seeing everything you've ever wanted. Suddenly, it isn't something you want in your life, but something you need. One day you just crave the presence of something else in your life. You wonder how you lived so long without something like that in your life. 

Then there is the type of love where you need just one person. You don't need anyone else to take care of you and you don't want to take care of anyone else. Just two people who are willing to be together forever. That's a beautiful type of love and I hope that whenever I find it I never lose it. 

Also, there is the love we have for our family and close friends. You can not imagine a life without them and even when you're mad at them you love them so much it feels like your heart will explode. 

Love should be explosion. No matter what kind of love it is, you should always feel as if you are about to explode. You'll explode of happiness, or explode into tears. Your heart will explode from being so full. You will just explode and become one with the stars. That is love and that is the truth. Until next time xxx. 

The Future Ahead

Lately I have been thinking a lot about this small moment I am in and how it is passing me by. High school will be over before I know it and I'll be thrown into the real world. 

This really hit me this past Saturday when I went up to CU Boulder for the football game and was able to see Hannah and Mackenzie. It seems like just yesterday we were playing tennis and planning our Christmas party. Now, the Christmas of 2014 is fast approaching and Hankenzie is no longer around to see on a daily basis. It's scary but also incredibly eye-opening. The more I think about it, the more annoyed I get. The real world is so much more exciting and.. Well, real. I crave all the knowledge and experiences that await me and feel like I'm wasting my time with pointless moments and forgettable people. 

Only a select few people have truly touched my life. Only a few people and things are worth remembering. The real memories begin in college, and even a lot of those will slip my mind once I have a family, have traveled, and have actually lived.

Stopping by CU, even for just the evening, really opened my eyes to how quickly we are expected to grow up. The memories are worth making, but they're going to all be forgotten. That's just the way life is. Things I used to think about day after day never cross my mind anymore. It's fascinating and just so interesting how we change. 

Sometimes people change for the worse, others for the better. Change is change but I refuse to settle for an ordinary life. I'm living my life how I want and am never changing myself for anyone. The future is awaiting afterall, and I want it to accept me for me. 

The future out there, but for now I am in the present. Until next time xxx. 

P.S. Enjoy a couple photos from the football game. Look at those beautiful mountains. 

We Are the Universe

***I began to write this weeks ago, during summer.  I was spending the night in a hotel, and what else is to be expected than to have all sorts of thoughts while in a mysterious hotel.  I have had some posts similar to it, but this one started in the early morning hours.  I barely thought about anything at all before typing it.  So here it is, thoughts in the rawest form:

Stars.

No, not the stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I'm talking about the real stars that hang in the sky. So small from down here on earth, yet so magnificent and bright up in space. They're powerful in their own way. So small, yet we can see them from millions of miles away. I think that's something special. I think that says a lot about the universe we live in. It's a brilliant universe with so much of it unexplored. Untouched. No one really even knows how big the universe is or how many stars there actually are. Yet we are here on Earth. One relatively small planet in a vast universe full of lots of stars. It almost makes this all seem somewhat unimportant. All the silly things we stress over seem like nothing compared to the entire universe. It makes the world seem like a speck of dust, if not invisible entirely. 

Yet before I left California (I'm in a hotel in Nevada now, heading back to Colorado) I was looking at a map my grandparents have on their wall. There's a map of the United States beside a map of the world. It showed me how fairly small this country is when compared to the rest of the world. It helped me realize that maybe California and Colorado aren't too far apart after all. 

That got me thinking even more about how strange this world is. Somehow all of us were put here for a reason. We were born where we were into our different families for some unknown reason. When you think about how large the world is and all the different possibilities there are, I  find it pretty outstanding that we are where we are. 

We may just be less than .00000000000001% of something when compared to the universe, but we are all have some sort of purpose and I find that fascinating. That, when you look at the night sky and see all the stars twinkling way out of your reach, you're still something. Even with all the other people and the oceans and the planets you still matter.  There may be wars and heartbreak, but then there is you.  You can turn yourself into whatever you like.  Your piece of the universe can be a beautiful, sparkling piece that is brighter than the biggest stars.
In this big universe we are all something.  We make up the universe.  We hold the universe within us.

Until next time xxx. 

The Spectacular Now

The Spectacular Now is such a wonderful film that is beautifully shot and has an important lesson behind it. Starring some favorites of mine, Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley, the movie chronicles the lives of two vastly different teens, how they fall in love, and the lessons they learn from one another. What's that lesson? To live in the moment because now is spectacular. Oh, how true that is.

I'm sure you have heard "I fell in love with him the way you fall asleep. Slowly and then all at once." I'm sure falling in love can be that way. I wouldn't know... I relate this statement more to growing up instead of falling in love.

Growing up is a long process that doesn't last that long at all. As a child, all the days would drag by. Summers seemed to last for years. I was pretty sure I was in 3rd grade for about 3 years. Life seemed endless. Growing up came slowly. 

The older I get, the shorter life seems. While each boring day at school lasts forever, I look back on Friday and am shocked how quickly the time went. The summers go by in the blink of an eye and school years fly. 

As a child I felt so big and important. I was somebody- this child with a bright future blossoming with potential. I was a part of the future. 

Now the future is here, standing right before me, and I don't know what to do. I'm paralyzed with the fear that I will not amount to the person I dreamed of. 

For example, I can remember being a freshman so vividly. Finally I was separated from the little kids and thrown into this "adult" world. I looked up to the juniors and seniors in awe. They were so old looking and acted just like adults. I wanted to be them. Now I am them. 

Yet, I stand before the mirror and see the same person I saw ten years ago. There is no change to me because I'm so used to myself. I look at my friends and they too look the same as they did freshmen year. Of course, they have changed. So have I. I am blind to recognizing any change because we have all grown at the same pace for the most part. Whenever I visit my family they say the regular, "you're so old! So big! Such a young lady!"

Wait. What? No I'm not! I'm just me. 

It's even weirder to me to know I've never actually seen myself. Sure, there are the photographs and mirrors, but I have never and never will see myself. I will never know exactly what I look like when I'm laughing, or crying, or even sleeping. We never actually see ourselves, but everyone else does. Isn't that interesting? 

Growing up comes slowly, but once you're finally more grown up everything goes by so fast. It may take a flower a long time to bloom, but once it does it's petals fall soon after. 

You are blooming right now. You're alive and breathing and you are in this moment. There are a million moments in the past and there will be moments in the future. The number of moments our futures hold are unknown and limited, so it is important to open your eyes and realize that you are blooming. Right now. You bloomed in the past and you'll bloom tomorrow but right now is a moment you will never get back. It will slip into the past and fall with a collection of other moments. 

The future from your childhood is here and your future now will come sooner than you would like. One day, high school will be over. College will come and it will go. Then you'll be living out in the world somewhere and you'll remember this moment as just another from the past. 

So enjoy this time for what it is, even if it is the most difficult time of your life. Time gets used up so there is no point in wasting any of it. 

Until next time xxx.