8,240 Days Young

I saw this posted on one of my best friend's pages; please read, enjoy, and ponder. Life insights.

     There is something about being in my 20's that makes me grateful. I recognize that I am quite privileged in today's society and I strive to use this privilege to make the world better. I (hope) know that I have so much more life to live and yet, if I don't, I know it was not for naught. I am proud of my life thus far, I try not to live with regrets because every decision (wrong or right) is an opportunity to learn and grow. 

What have I done thus far? 

I believe I have made a difference in others' lives. I graduated college and got to study something I love, I got to go dancing with friends and visit a beautiful island with family; I have tried fun foods, I have been to concerts and I have helped others find God. And I have laughed! Oh, how I have laughed. Laughed so hard that I am on the floor in the fetal position crying and unable to breathe because a good friend ticked my soul. Sure, I could go on but I think you get the point, I am glad to be in my 20's with so much of my life left to live, so much more love to give and receive. I look forward to the rest of my life because I can already smile about my past.

     I may be young, and society tells me that I am too young to do some things (rent a car?) and too old to do others (restaurant play grounds and kids meals?) but I am experiencing some of the most incredible years of my life, no matter how long I live. I try to embrace the world around me, to grow from change and challenge, to be proud of myself and put my talents to work. I try to look at the bright side, to see the glass half full, to believe in the power of education, kindness, and love. I love myself, I love my family, my friends, classmates, professors, coworkers, strangers, and God. I am privileged with a perspective that puts others first, that forces me to ask myself "how can I be and do better?". 

        
    Being 22 and a half...very important...is a privilege, it allows me to be silly like a child and mature like an adult, to be delighted about going to both DisneyWorld and also a History Museum.  While I try not to base my life on the lyrics of Taylor Swift songs, she did hit the nail on the head when she writes "We're happy, free, confused, and lonely at the same time

It's miserable and magical, oh, yeah."

I try to focus on the happy and magical parts.

So here's to being 22 and looking forward to the rest of my life. 

Here I come Syracuse!!!! 

(Well, in a month.)

Love, Hugs, and Coffee Mugs

I love:

• the smell of campfires
• teddy bears
• cereal and milk
• swinging on a playset
• having long conversations
• pasta
• cleaning
• Disney
• running
• cooking/baking
• thunderstorms
• coloring in coloring books (crayons preferred)
• rearranging rooms
• dark chocolate
• diagonal lines
• trains and airplanes
• organizing
• salt and vinegar chips
• squirrels
• thrifting
• giving gifts
• sitting on people
• my dad's special cookies with butterscotch chips
• long drives in the car
• writing letters
• wine
• puppy dogs
• breakfast
• Precious Moment figurines
• photo frames
• country music
• lemon poppy seed muffins
• Nativity sets
• the smell of cedar 
• watching movies and reruns of TV shows
• cheese
• colors! particularly magenta, teal, seafoam green, coral, and navy
• taking walks with friends
• laying in the sun
• reading a good book
• getting my hair cut
• hugs
• and coffee mugs!
• (and that was the short list)

The title of the blog was not hard for me to come up with, granted there are lots of titles that would fit, because it sums me up well and I like the way it sounds. It kinda has a jingle to it if you say it multiple times in a row "love, hugs, and coffee mugs...love, hugs, and coffee mugs...love, hugs, and coffee mugs". hehe 

     There are three important pieces of this title though that I would like to explain.

     FIRST, I love LOVE! I do not believe I have ever been "in love" as some distinguish but that has not stopped me from loving love! I am very passionate about working with people, about exploring my faith, about challenging myself and learning from mistakes. I believe we are made for relationships, relationships built on love and a desire to be our truest selves with other people. I say "I love you" more often than most people but each time I mean it with my whole heart. And yes, there are times when I need to tell myself that I love me because life isn't always the greatest. Loving is one of the things I (hopefully) do best. 

Loving love is lovely.

     SECOND, for those of you that know me well, I am a "touchy feely" kinda person, aka my personal bubble is rather small and I love holding hands, sitting real closely on the couch, and most importantly HUGS! I had a rather rough transition to SLU and upon relfecting on it one of the moments where SLU started to feel like an OK place to be was when I was given a hug by someone who quickly became a lifelong friend. Until that moment I could have told you that I love hugging, and have honestly been told that I am a pretty good hugger, but looking back and reflecting on that moment made me realize the importance hugs have in my life. Hugs make me feel safe, loved, and cared for. (Yes, I know that is probably true for many people.) In a time that I was very sad, lonely, lost, confused, and to put simply very homesick, a hug from someone brought a little bit of home to me. The embrace of a hug told me that everything was going to be okay and that SLU would become a place that I felt comfortable, safe, appreciated, and loved. (Newsflash, I am beyond sad that now my time at SLU is over because it did become a place of all the above mentioned and so much more!) Now I have that feeling again, that I am going to be moving away from home, away from where it is safe and comfortable and although I believe I will be alright, I believe that this is the BEST thing for me to do right now with my life, it is definitely still scary! I have my fingers crossed that my housemates will be open to hugging, open to showing each other that we matter in whatever ways are best. I am looking forward to that last hug goodbye and the first hug hello that tells me I am in a new home.

     THIRD, I LOVE coffee! And I LOVE coffee mugs!!!! Most mornings I have coffee in hand in less than 30 minutes of being awake. I like coffee with a generous amount of french vanilla creamer, just until it turns a soft brown color and tastes delicious! Occasionally I will allow my taste buds to venture and I like the vanilla caramel flavored creamer and peppermint mocha for wintertime but french vanilla takes the cake for sure! Grabbing coffee is a great way to get to some someone, to have a conversation that warms your heart while you warm your insides too. And a coffee mug is a great conversation starter! I started collecting coffee mugs years ago, and I started drinking coffee even before that (sometime around 7th or 8th grade it became a regular thing). I have a few favorite mugs and I even painted a ceramic one of my own that had it's own little funeral when it broke. I am hoping that some of the blog posts in the future will be written in some cute little cozy coffee corner with the delicious beverage in hand, contained in a delightful and inspiring mug that warms my heart, soul, and belly. :)

Why now?

     As my first post began, I am no good at this. I have a little tickle inside me that wants to journal, to allow me to write and in the future look back at what I was thinking, feeling, and doing in moments I know I will want to hold onto and inevitably forget. While journaling allows me to be more private, blogging allows me to share myself with friends and family that I unfortunately cannot be with all the time.

    With graduation comes the question "What's next?". I am grateful I have an answer to this question otherwise the conversation turns into an awkward fumbling of words and sideways glances that are all too uncomfortable. So my answer? In August I will begin a year of volunteer service through the Jesuit Volunteer Corps and moving to Syracuse, NY! I will be 9 hours from home, 4.5 hours from NYC, and 5 hours from Boston (where one of my best friends will be for grad school yay!). I will be serving at Samaritan Center which is a soup kitchen/food pantry for those in the community in need of a meal but more importantly a place where people can come and be accepted and embrace the unique community around them. I will be organizing the over-700 volunteers a month that come to assist with meal prep, organization/stocking the pantry, and of course serving meals. (I hope I get to eat the meals!) All of this information has been told to me by my future boss, the program coordinator for JVC, and from a former-JV who had the same position a few years ago. Samaritan Center will be undergoing a HUGE transition right around the time I begin working because they will be moving their facility to a brand new building and I will be assisting with the transition to ensure everyone still feels welcomed and the environment is friendly. I am anxious to begin but also quite nervous. 
     JVC offers me more than a wonderful work opportunity (essentially a 40-hour a week job that I don't get paid for); JVC is founded on four principles: community, spirituality, simple living, and social justice. I will live in a house with about 7 other people and we will each be given a $100 stipend each month for our own purposes and the little money we make at our separate jobs will be pooled together to pay for rent and groceries. We probably won't live in the best neighborhood, and definitely not a new up-to-date house, but we will have what we need and live through conversations and game nights instead of channel surfing and hours on the internet. 
     My year begins in August and ends the last day of July 2014. The point of the blog is to help me document my time in Syracuse, my happies, my sads, my smiles, my cries, etc. Also, it is for family and friends so they are able to stay updated on my happenings since I will have minimal communication (a form of simple living!). My goal is to add a picture/post each week but this is absolutely NOT a promise of that since I am still only working on an idea of what my life will be like. I am looking forward to this, I have the desire and the dedication and the time (for once!). I am listening to that little voice, the Spirit that is telling me to find something good and wonderful in each day and document it, for life is far to short to only count on the big moments.

Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.

-Robert Brault 

Where I Am At

    I am not good at this, I just want to warn you all now!
    I have a desire to journal, a desire to express myself with words but I am normally disappointed with myself when I put pen to paper, or in this case, text on the ever-intimidating internet! However, I am not one to give up on myself that easily and I am going to give this another try. Yes, I did have a blog before but kept it private for fear that someone would find it online and expect daily posts...I think I posted 4 things in 12 months. Woops! This one will be different, this one will be a (hopefully) weekly opportunity for me to decompress, reflect upon, and experience my week through written word that can be shared with friends and family. I shall begin by giving you a brief look at where I am at in my life right now and hopefully launch myself into a writing frenzy that showcases the equally boring and exciting life that I lead (well, sometimes it seems to lead me).

     This May I graduated from Saint Louis University (SLU) and although it is June and I graduated three and a half weeks ago I have not yet had time to fully process my emotions, delight in the joys of friendship, and cry about the sadness and anxiety of this huge life transition that I am embarking upon. The weekend of graduation came and went too quickly, I cried through most of the wonderful moments because of the complete joy I felt having my friends and family together in the first place I have truly loved and called home (other than my childhood home of course). I laughed with my best friends, said "See you later" not goodbye to far to many beautiful people, and I packed....oh goodness, I packed. It took two cars and a full minivan to transport all of my "stuff" six hours from St. Louis to Ohio. At the end of the packing and hugs it was time to leave, but, as I told myself, not for forever. I will be back St. Louis, you can count on it!
        

     I got home, barely unpacked as many boxes as I could and then packed another bag full of clothing suited for all seasons as I was taking a trip to Marquette, MI with my high school best friends for a week! Let me tell you, the excitement was through the roof as we began our 10 hour drive at 12am one Wednesday knowing that we had not been able to spend quality time together like this since high school, aka 4 years ago! One say it rained, one day it snowed (very lightly for like 5 minutes but it still counted!), one day it was warm enough we laid in our bathing suits on the beach! The week went by quickly, again leaving me no time to be completely happy or completely sad or completely present since my heart was being torn between the loss of leaving St. Louis and my SLU experience and best friends from college behind and the excitement of being with my closest friends from high school who know me almost better than I know myself. To sum it all up, for the past couple of weeks I have been an emotional mess; if a sad song comes on the radio or a happy clip is on TV I am instantly balling and if someone else is laughing I am bound to join in even if I don't know why. (No people, this 22 year old, boy-friend free, independent lady is not pregnant even though my emotions are crazy!) :) 

  

     To fast forward, I arrived home from vacation and helped my mom get our house ready to accept family members from Kansas City and Cincinnati and also throw a wonderful graduation party for my beautiful little sister who, two weeks after my college graduation, graduated from high school. We are a proud household right now to say the least! And even before the festivities concluded I began my summer nannying position, and I am currently sitting at a kitchen island that is not mine, sipping on coffee writing this as the little boy plays with friends next door. If you think that was a quick explanation of the past (almost) 4 weeks you better believe it!

     I am happy, I am proud, I am slightly tired, I am attempting to live each day to the fullest, and I am thankful you are here reading my thoughts and I promise to you, and myself, that this is the first of many posts!