cheap goodbyes

I might begin a Music Monday thing or something (yes today is Tuesday, but maybe I'll start it next week).

Nicole showed me this song after we spent most of the weekend together fidgeting over life and love.

dream life

A week ago yesterday, Em and I were headed home from beautiful San Diego. As the conversations of a 22-year-old friendship and roadtrip music had died down and as we drove through sleepy Utah, she asked me what my dream life would be.

When my sisters and I were younger and we played The Game of Life, I always wanted to have the Country Cottage with its white picket fence and two cars full of kids. I was going to be an artist with a paycheck of $100,000. I had a great imagination then.

Over the years that dream has been reshaped often. In the beginning years of college it was often formed and carved upon by whoever I was dating, with a few small parts of what I had wanted as a kid. I was easily swayed by what they wanted. Maybe not swayed. I formed who I was based on them. I hadn't really found myself yet. All I knew was that I wanted someone. And a family. And a house. I didn't really care about the details.

But as I've gotten older and found my own footing. As I've discovered all the parts of me that have been hiding, the parts that will be forever here to stay, the parts I love, I've started to recognize the value in having some insistence on the details.

I don't think I'm picky, most importantly I want to marry and start a family with someone who loves me and if what comes with it isn't exactly how I had imagined, I don't care. As long as I'm happy and he's happy and our children are happy.

But as Em and I drove through the soft light of dusk, the green hills of central Utah twinkling with farm light, I told her what I wanted my dream life to be, because I finally really knew what I wanted. I finally knew the lifestyle I desired and hoped to create...

I'll marry someone who's fitfully, patiently, warmly in love with me, and I him. We'll have kids, four or five. Though maybe we'll give ourselves a year to travel and just be the two of us taking on the world.

We'll have a house with a big porch and a bit of land some place green. There will be a garden, maybe a barn, but definitely a shed with a worn down old VW bug for the kids. A pair of dogs and maybe chickens.

We'll have a studio split in two with one side for my writing table and another side for his desk for whatever he does. My heart still yearns for a creative soul, but if he's an accountant I'm sure I'll manage.

We'll go on adventures as often as possible. We'll conquer mountains and explore the deep waters. And every now and then we'll go live some place exotic for a year while I research and write a book.

We'll raise our children to love God and the earth and all that is in it. We'll nurture, guide, and protect them to the best of our abilities. We'll start our own family traditions and give them some place safe and cozy to always come home to.

And we'll continue loving each other and doing good in the world. Kissing the scrapes and bruises, wiping the dripping ice cream from our chins, and forever holding hands. Fingers intertwined.

a conversation post running

Marathon training is a lot harder than I expected it to be.

I recognize that I am in my prime but dang it if my body doesn't vehemently hate me right now!

I got back from running yesterday and proceeded to have this texting conversation with Jacob. Mind you this was after THREE MILES. THREE. ONLY THREE. Ten minutes into my run I had to take a minute to walk and passed this crazy lady on the sidewalk who proceeded to talk to me, with one hand in her armpit, the other tucked in her pants. She asked me how long I had been running and guessed an hour (an hour!), and as I was panting and trying to keep my legs under me I realized how terribly pathetic I must be that after TEN MINUTES I looked like I had been running for hours.

I lied. And I told her about a half hour, because, well, it was better than ten minutes.

I finally made it home and as I lay on our hallway floor directly under the swamp cooler, half dead, decided to try to get some sympathy from a dear friend. I failed. But did manage some internal hysteria.

Conversation:
"Me: it took me 40 minutes to run 3 miles today :(

Jacob: you are tired. Let's work on your form.

Me: my knees hurt. it didn't use to be this hard!!!

Jacob: they are not the bees. hot bath

Me: ugh that's the last thing i want to do right now. it's ROASTING outside.

Some moments later...

Me: I don't know why I'm listening to you. But here I am sitting in our twice-scrubbed-yet-still-filthy-tub, pretty sure I just flashed our male neighbors through the open window, wondering what I ever did to you to deserve this.

Jacob: are you talking to your knees?

Me: no i was talking to you.
I WAS BEING A LITTLE DRAMATIC."



I don't think he quite got the fact that I needed sympathy. Though it will be nice to have someone help me with my form. My 26 going on 76 year old knees need some help.

a sneak peek at last weekend's adventures and the current music obsession

Haven't flown in THREE YEARS!!! So I figured I'd provide an airport photo with my sweet new rucksack and leopard shoes.

(I really can't wait to tell you about last weekend)

Also this fabulous song that I'm currently crushing on:

Little Bribes by Death Cab for Cutie

because art

Meg, Court and I ran up to SLC for the Dream Press Dreamathon last week at the old Granite High School. It was spectacular. Whole rooms completely taken over, lockers turned into murals, classrooms turned into dark rooms. So wonderful to see the varieties of art and the whole community's contribution.

It was so much fun seeing where people's imaginations took them...

The Jungle Room.

I loved the butterflies. They were EVERYWHERE!!!!!!

The stairs = rainbow-bricked road

One of my favorites was the lockers turned into a Sendak story

Near the end they had a huge "dream banner"

Everyone wrote down their dream on a vinyl sticky note and placed it somewhere on the banner.