the sunset tonight from outside the library. #noiphone #notinstagrammed #nofilter #allnatural

why are my weekends so good? yesterday after work i went to go run the basalt/snowmass trail that i like a lot and was super pumped and made a new mix and got to the trail head and realized my shoes weren't in my car like they had been the past two weeks. cool. so i talked to amy breth and she told me to run barefoot. cool. so i did and i felt super bad a and like i belonged in colorado being a hippie and was texting amy updates about how i scraped both my big toes and bled everywhere and how i was running on a dirt path and how i hoped i wouldnt die. i didn't. i laughed a lot. then i went and sat outside the library and watched the sunset and it was beautiful and i was dwelling among the Most High and called sarah thomas and made her cry and called chelsea to tell them of my beautiful life. came home to the boys dancing and laughing. soaked my feet, had some laughs. danced. got dressed and dressed the boys and we went to aspen. scored a sweet table at the brewery, met some chicks and enjoyed good music. went to little annies and enjoyed life some more and ate a lot of popcorn, went to a club and danced a lot, went to another club and danced and came home at 2 and fell asleep in my sleeping bag on the couch watching friends. went to bed at 5 and slept in my sleeping bag and slept till 9 when i heard justin and then laid in bed till 12 sleeping and talking to steph and watching friends which was so good for my soul. drove all over the mountain and smiled in the sunshine and enjoyed it. lived the mattress life on the porch with justin and had a heart to heart which was cool and nice and weird because i haven't had honest conversations here in a while. napped. justin and i drove to the top of the mountain that i had never been to before and listened to more than a feeling by boston and lived life and it was so good. napped more. george hooked up a hose and got me a bucket and i washed my car outside the office blasting sublime. showered and read in my hammock till the sun went down here and then drove to basalt to the library to catch the sun. listened to tallest man on earth and it was so good. walked to my river and enjoyed it a lot. walked past a liquor store that sold the only beer in the world i like so i walked back to my car and got my wallet and back to the store to buy sunshine beer. drove back to the spot justin and i went to today and watched the sky turn pink and shivered. came home and watched the new girl and drank sunshine and am content.

today justin asked me if i was stoked to leave. i said stoked to leave camp but not colorado and i think that's true. i really do like it here. i like the mountains and i like trail running and the basalt library stoop i watch the sun set on every night and i like going out and dancing and meeting people. i like living in this house. i like figuring life out for myself. i like finding freedom and feeling free. i like the simplicity of my life here. i like doing the dishes and blasting john butler with all the doors and windows open. i like seeing more stars than i've ever seen in my life every night. i like seeing god in small ways and having that bring me immeasurable peace. i like listening to the counting crows morning noon and night.

today i got to run a lot and get a banana slurpee and sit on my favorite bench outside the library and talk to mary on the phone. it was so good for my soul.

and really, i don't know that i'll ever get over how amazing it smells and how pretty the river sounds at night with the windows open right next to my head.

and how excited i am to be in cdh. and how i get all the good parts of colorado with cdh. i get to live with funny boys (i assume) and get to tan outside next to a pool (probably still on a mattress because i like it a lot) and watching movies a lot, and laughing a lot, and running a lot, and still having a river to sit by (SO CLOSE I CAN WALK TO IT EVERY DAY OH MY GOSH)

and i get to be with my best friends and not across the country.

and colorado chelsea found out today that she can come here one last time! april 13th. so soon. yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy praise the lord. spring break 2012 lives on!

today my friend stephanie said...you hated colorado? i would of never known from your facebook or your tweets....

thanks god. thanks for giving me a heart of eucharisto. i don't know how she didn't know i hated it but i'm glad that wasn't the message i was conveying. i don't htink it was intentional to not complain about it, maybe it was. i wasn't trying to hide my disdain. i guess she didn't know i had this blog where i complained all the time haha.

i listen to a lot of counting crows. i think the song Round Here was written about me

Says she's close to understanding Jesus
She knows she's more that just a little misunderstood
She has trouble acting normal when she's nervous


it's funny thinking that i used to have to count the good days I had because I had so few. now I don't know the last time I had a bad day. hmmmm. oh yeah it was last tuesday when zachary yelled at me and my computer broke. zachary and i talked our problems out and i only spent 2/3rds of my paycheck fixing my computer. then spent the other 1/3 on my tattoo. which i am in love with. but it only itches when i'm in bed trying to sleep which is real not cool. but it doesn't hurt and i've been running and it doesn't hurt which is nice. i ran 5 miles on sunday (from my house to the highway downhill) and justin came and picked me up and we listened to Round Here. then 4 miles today on the Rio Grande trail that marques' roommate brett told me about. i'm learning how to be honest again so i've had some hard conversations this week but they have all resulted in laughs and love. it's true, sometimes really all you can do is laugh. 


i got accepted into CDH today. i will be moving back to BS in august for a year! so pumped. glad to finally know. glad the lord said it was good. i danced around my office to bone thugs and kid cudi and sublime. work is busy and i get praised a lot but don't really feel like i deserve the priase because i'm mostly pretty lazy and play draw something all day. 


i also met my soulmate. his name is dan. updates to come when i see him next tuesday again hahahaha 


kari is reading mocking jay, chelsie is on facebook, i'm on facebook and blogging and reading blogs. we've been in bed since 830 and the boys went to bed at 7. sometimes i'm grateful for this house. 


today i realized that i will miss the mountains. i will miss the trails i run on. i will miss sleeping with the windows open falling asleep to the sound of the river. i will miss making my bed every day because i'm bound to never do it again. i will miss coming home to messes that make us call this place home. i will miss the sunshine pouring in our room at 8 am every day waking us up. (forreal it is SO bright and beautiful and i praise/curse god every morning for it haha)




sometimes deaf people have really shitty english when they write because they write how they sign which is crazy sentence structure anyway and today chelsie wrote "it scared shitless out of me" and i amost fell out of my bed laughing. not in a mean way. 

i'm currently shut in my office because interviews are going on in the hallway so i can't leave. since my door is shut anyway i figured it's a good time to blog. and i just got real fired up talking to emily on gchat.

sometimes i think christians worry so much about trying to do life the right way they do it all wrong. they dont love people well. they are quick to judge and say things are wrong. they are quick to be cynical and not joyful. i don't have life figured out by any means so this is just my opinion and probably not going to be backed up by anything except life experiences of myself or people i know. i've been one of these people. probably even today. but i hate it. i hate that we only celebrate things we are supposed to celebrate. i hate that we don't trust our friends, families, and peers judgements and are quick to shove our own thoughts and judgements down peoples throats (oh wait is that what i'm doing right now...) not everything is cookie cutter. life is messy. people are messy. life is funny and i think god is funny too. sometimes things can go so beyond the realm of acceptable and turn out to still be okay. sometimes people have to make their own choices and mistakes. chances are god is still there and still loves them and will turn things for good because that's what he promises.

philippians 1:6 says There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears.

Romans 8:28 says That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.


every detail. every mistake, every choice we choose that we know is wrong, everything. i'm not saying we should screw everything and live not exemplary lives because we know we have grace but sometimes things happen. sometimes we decide to take risks. i don't think we were made to not take risks. we weren't created in little plush boxes. god created this crazy sweet world to live in.

i think christians forget how to have joy. in choices i've made and friends have made lately many first reactions from our friends are hard questions or negativity or disapproval. why can't we trust each other? why can't we celebrate that people are taking risks and living life. you really do live and learn. why can't we celebrate the things we learn? i know that the things i do always lead me to see god better. to know my creator better. to trust him better. why isn't that celebrated or acknowledged? i'm not saying we should throw a party when people mess up but we should be more gracious and be excited that we are learning.

this is a rant and a poor one at that and i don't know. sam says i'm starting to sound like donald miller because i live out west and it really is crazy out here. maybe i am turning radical. maybe i'll get dreads in the next 6 weeks and more tattoos and start living a crazy radical life. i don't know. but i want to learn and love and seek the lord as much as i can and that's not going to happen if i don't take chances and risks and life a life full of eucharisto. if i sit in my room all day there's only so many things i can be grateful for. if i get out and live and experience life and people there is so much more i have to be grateful for, so much more of a scope of life and all these people that god created. because he did, he created all of them. so i'll choose to celebrate that.

my life is absurd. my droid doesn't get service here but i can use it to play games like draw something, this ipod touch doesn't belong to me...well maybe it does by now but i use it to look at instagram pictures, and that silly flip phone is my lifeline because it gets service on the mountain but not much place else because it's at&t. 

"oh sorry i smashed your napkin...i was too busy cheering for you." i took a shot of vodka tonight out of my dolly parton shot glass while listening to Jolene. my life is weird all the time

last night i got off work late and pulled my car close to my house and opened all the windows and blasted a sweet sweet mix i had made that day and laid in my hammock and read bossypants by tina fey. this bliss only lasted ten minutes because justin adam and keenan came home and asked if i wanted to go get a tattoo. we had talked about doing it this weekend so i said yes. justin drove my car and the sweet mix continued and was absolutely perfect. the mountains were huge and the sun was warm. drove to glenwood, justin and i were the only two that got tattoos (i got a sick anchor on my foot next to my HOPE that got touched up) and justin got lyrics from mrs potters lullaby on his forearm. went to the bar and the boys tried to play pool but sucked a lot. they got some drinks. i drove home. the music was loud and the windows were still down and We are Young by fun. blasted and it was perfect for our lives. got home and read some and laughed some and woke up at 9 to crazy sunshine and the boys on mattresses on the porch tanning. its hot out! sooooo nice. so it's been a slow easy morning of john butler, bob marley, counting crows, beer, tanning, laying inside because we got so hot, napping, and dancing in the kitchen.

grateful for sun, for easy lives together, for the lord doing things in my life-even through this little blog, and some janky form of community that i have.

today my sister FREAKING DOMINATED cancer. she's done with chemo. done with radiation. praise God. i am so proud of her and in awe and so grateful.

i wrote this post last night and wasn't sure if i was going to post it or not. but i can do what i want. 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Neon shines through smokey eyes tonight 
It's 2 a.m. I'm drunk again 
And it's heavy on my mind - grace is gone by dave matthews


it's not 2 am and i'm not drunk- only 10:30 but my mind is heavy. when i was 16 my best friend died. she had brain cancer. tonight my friend eric, who was also best friends with her, and i talked about her. we don't really talk about it often. he was one of the pall bearers. he carried his best friend to the grave. he writes a lot and tonight we talked about how he would of never started writing if it wasn't for jessica. she lived a crazy beautiful life. she took incredible pictures, she wrote incredible poetry, she lived in love more so than i ever will and i don't think she knew jesus at all. 


i want to be more like her. i want to be a better listener. i want to not talk so much. i want to love people who are hard to love. i want to give people grace more. 


i'm city lights. 
i'm shining bright, but only when everyone is sleeping. 
so turn me on, turn me off.
i hope they don't see that i'm flawed. 


i'll try so hard to build back what i'm losing


but here comes the pause, the confessions
body image, this desire for perfection. i'm tired
i'm restless
and i still feel rejection. 
you'll see, once i'm shining, more than anything; i just want to be your reds, your blues, your greens
so turn me on, turn me off. 
i'll try hard to build back what i lost


city lights- jessica randall. 

growth/grōTH/

Noun:

The process of increasing in physical size. The process of developing or maturing physically, mentally, or spiritually.

well, i haven't increased in physical size since like middle school so i guess i'm developing mentally and spiritually. except justin just played 10 minutes of fart sounds and i laughed so hard i almost peed. so maybe not too much developing mentally...



perspective. humility. acceptance. growth and change. thats big girl stuff, sweetie -- and big god stuff - erica christensen's commentary on my life.

i don't hate it.

"We are not called into knowledge. We are not called to be able to draw out a map of where we are headed with perfect precision and clarity. We are called only into the depth and length and height and breadth of the love which is Jesus Christ, who is all the road-map we need. " -emily thompson

so here's the deal. i've kinda made a little mess of my life.in processing the mess and walking through it good things have come. i felt like i had to start at square 1 with my faith again. i felt like everything i ever knew was erased from my memory and there was nothing i could do about it. i felt like i didn't deserve to go to church on sunday and that i didn't deserve to go to young life last night. i believed 1000 lies at once. felt like i didn't deserve grace.

then i remembered love. i remembered how big it is. and how jesus was tempted as well. and how i'm not alone. and how god promises to work everything for my good. even the bad choices i make. crap can be called good because of God. mercies are new every morning. i just have to choose them. i can choose to accept the love that has been give to me today and not live in the feelings i had yesterday. i don't have to make a walk of a shame back to the lord, i can run unencumbered to him. grace upon grace upon grace has been given to me.

i can still have eucharisto in the midst of hard things. grateful for an ounce of willpower if nothing else. grateful for best friends and family to walk through things with. grateful that i don't have to live legalistically. grateful for promises that things are going to be normal again. grateful for friends that leave their cell phones on loud all night so i can call them. grateful for grace. grateful for young life aspen. grateful to be in a place i can pray outloud again. grateful that my faith can be new every morning. grateful to call things what they are and learn from them. grateful for the ability to laugh, because sometimes that's all you can do. grateful for the river in basalt that i can throw rocks in. grateful for Love that pursues me above all else.

• today i saw the Wailers (bob marley's band) in concert in the middle of a snowstorm. don't worry about a thing because every little thing is gonna be alright
• i went hiking by myself yesterday in shorts, a tshirt, and chacos. killed that mountain. it was so beautiful and perfect
• i bought macy gray's cd for one dollar
• i've watched more basketball in the past 48 hours than i've ever watched in my life
• evan weinzierl is finally following me on twitter
• my couch is too comfortable to move off of to go to bed 
• strawberry gatorade rules
• peanut butter cheerios rule more. 

my best friend chelsea mailed me a pomegranate like a month ago which is weird and funny and wonderful and i texted her and said why'd you send me an apple. #welcometomylife and i kinda forgot it existed until today when i was looking in the fridge for a beverage which keenan drank the last of last night. i watched some videos how to chop it up and went to work. it was a commitment! there were a lot of seeds. "when in doubt put things in the fridge" is what chelsea told me. now we know why puppy chow, cookies, cake, week old toast, cheez-it's, ect always ended up in our fridge. it's a good life motto we think. well now i'm cuddled up on my couch watching how i met your mother and eating the seeds and they are yum yum yum.

this post was pointless, just to share the fact that chelsea mailed me some fruit with the world.

I feel like my life here has been defined by full moons. It was a full moon the first night I was here that George and I dropped my dad off at the airport and I cried so hard on the way home and saw the full moon and said okay God make this good you have to make this good and I did have a good night that first night. 

The next full moon (feb 7th) as seen below, life was getting better but was still hard. Keenan was still acting sketch towards me and my heart was all weird about it and I wanted to go for a drive to chase it and he said no. Grateful for that in hindsight. 

 The next full moon (march 8th! Tonight!) life is so good here. It's 32 and I'm sitting on my porch listening to coldplay with two pairs of socks on but it's not too cold. it's beautiful and the river is rushing strong. I'm chatting some high school girls I miss a lot and being content. I've had a sweet sweet week at work and some actual honest life conversations with Kari and Chelsie and it's been so good. and I got my eyebrows waxed and got a discount and Chelsea comes tomorrow so life is real great.

i'm just in awe of the lord and how big he is and how good he is and how good he makes everything even when it's crapcrap and real hard. so grateful.

eucharisto.

last night adam was drunk and we hung out at big hoss and like two weeks ago he messed up his tailbone snowboarding and he's still hobbling around and always complains of being bedridden (he's saying this as he's at a bar--clearly not bedridden) but was like hannah you really don't know what you got till it's gone why is it so hard to be grateful for things and so easy to take everything for granted?

drunk adam, you're onto something.

the past year after reading the book One Thousand Gifts i've been challenged and challenged others to be grateful for things every day and sometimes i'm better at this than other days. it is hard though. it's hard to remember to be grateful for our bodies when they are working fine. it's hard to be grateful for sunshine when we see it every day. it can be hard to be grateful for the community we live in until we don't live in it anymore. it's hard to be grateful for babycar until it gets stuck in the ice and i can't drive it.

trying to be grateful for things i have. trying to remember to be crazy grateful for the boys i live with because they move out in a month and i'm sad about that. trying to be grateful for times like last night when i came home at 10 and chelsie was sitting on the floor inbetween kari's bed and mine and we shopped for earrings. trying to be grateful for the days i can drive babycar. trying to remember to be grateful for my body on the days it's not broken down. trying to be grateful for colorado even though it's been hard.

it's still absurd to me that people read this blog.

That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good. Romans 8:28 msg


I think I love/hate this verse. I love it because when things are good it's so easy to give God credit and glory and be like yesssss my life rules. but then when things suck people (including me) are like no it'll be okay god works everything for good but if you're in a crap crap mood that's not really what you want to hear. 


i think i also hate (struggle) with it because it's so hard to believe all the time. I can easily look back on my life and see junk situations that are good now but somehow in the minute of my world going to poo i forget all the past situations that have been redeemed. so maybs i should pray for a better memory. or more trust. who knows. i got distracted by texting and rolling around my bed not wanting to go to work. 

i'm listening to the song Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen and I blame emily thompson for my addiction to this song. listen to it while you read this, you're bound to love (and by love i mean hate) this song :) or listen to the song brighter than the sun by colbie because it's actually a little bit better.

MARCH!!!!!! 9 weeks to go! praise god.

last night i texted chelsea hearne and said tonight i love it here. big deal. i haven't said that yet. last night was so good though! after work i was going stir crazy so i told kari and chelsie i was going to rent hugo because it came out yesterday in redbox and it won about a brazillian awards so we had to see it. so i drove and listened to the radio (which i miss a lot) and bought peanut butter cheerios and rented hangover part 2 for the boys, the Tree of Life, and went to another redbox to get hugo! the stars were bright and the moon was big and it was such a good drive for my soul. then i stopped and bought some tequila because on monday kari found some margarita mix and clearly we had to use it. so i came home with my cheerios and tequila in hand and adam and keenan were here and were like oh god it's going to be a good night. it was! they were drunk and funny and antsy and we all sat down to watch hugo. we've never all hung out before! who knew all it would take was some margaritas, blankets, girl scout cookies, and a movie. i was so grateful for community and fun.

last friday lesa told me i should work on my relationships here and engage more and ask more questions and clairifications so people know i understand them. i don't really want to engage more but i said i would and it's been good. i ask stupid questions that i know the answers to but apparently it works because i've had better conversations with chelsie kari and even mario (who we are still convinced hates me but eh) so i've had some laughs which i've been lacking so that's been fun.

adam started reading the hunger games! he finished the last book i lent him (born to run) and i gave him my kindle to read the hunger games on and he was like you trust me?! and i said uh yeah and then he put it in his case and inside two hats in his backpack just incase. hahaha he likes it! now i have someone to see the movie with in 22 days! holllaaaaa