some green for your thursday.

i love the green popping up everywhere!

especially outside my front door (we didn't even plant those!)

even the weeds creepin through our sidewalk are welcome :)

i double dog dare you to go outside and take a long deep breath,

oh yes, i do believe spring is here

it's here!

remember when B and I started our 42 day challenge?

yes, it was some 75 days ago....

well we finally did it! We made our goals into habits and have rightly rewarded ourselves :)

how did 42 days turn into 75? easy: our goals were hard. especially mine. Brandon has more will power than I do and latched onto his easily. I, on the other hand, avoided my goal. Like many things in this big ol' world, my goal frightened me. It required me to step outside my little comfort zone. It required me to trust people, some I know nothing about. It required me to be brave. It required to to ask for help. But I did it! And although it took a lot from me emotionally, physically, and even spiritually, it's like a big weight has been lifted. A weight that has been lingering around far too long.

it's as though i'd lost some of my muchness

and now it's found again.

hopefully that "muchness" will show through my blogging again :)

(i could just eat him up)

we opened up Mr. Crosley at B's parents and it felt a little like christmas morning.

B's face was all a glow and I'm sure mine joined in soon after I heard my first ever record playing. Do I sound like a total cheeseball by saying it was magical? well it was. and i'm hooked. Mom white was laughing about how excited they were when tapes and CD's took the place of records.

guess we naturally live in circles.

always coming back around.

hope you all have a lovely friday :)

xox

kitty

p.s. thank you all for your advice and well wishes in sleep! I'm going to try every idea until I find something that works :)

p.p.s. if any of you pledged your goals (or even if you didn't) and have accomplished them let me know and I'll send you a treat! Even if your goal is long term, let me know when you've met it! I really think all goal gettings deserve rewards :)

wide-eyed dreamer

lately I've been doing most of my dreaming awake.

sounds pleasant but let me assure you: it is a NIGHTMARE.

it's funny to me how in my modern art class I can easily turn off my mind and drift into the most lovely of sleep. undisturbed. rested.

it's unfortunate that my modern art class only comes once a week cause it's likely the best sleep I get. Most nights I lay awake for a good two hours. lately it's been more like 3 or 4 hours. It may sound like I'm exaggerating. But it is the sad truth. I had grown accustom to it but it drove B crazy. He's like a professional sleeper. he hits the pillow and bam: insta-sleep. once he's been rested, he wakes, easily, routinely. I, on the other hand, toss and turn and huff in frustration. yes huff. and the tossing turning and huffing wakes B. which he doesn't care for much. So he's attempted aiding me to sleep. We've tried relaxation techniques, light hypnoses, reading extremely dull books in poor lighting etc. etc. They may work for a night or two (or not at all) but it never lasts. and the poor boy needs his sleep too. so I lay. trying so hard to be still and not huff. Listening to the tick tock of our new crosley clock as it collides with my husband's breathing and my own heart beat.

i can't turn my mind off.

too many ideas.

too many goals, desires, inspirations.

too many wide-eyed dreams.

{i miss the kind where my eyes are closed}

and yet, at the same time i'm in awe with my mind. it really is an ambitious mind. it's determined to not waste time. it's always working, never allowing its self a break {even with eyes closed}. it's constantly coming up with ideas. silly ones. oh so many silly ideas. but i do admire it for trying. trying and tempting every idea that comes it's way, knowing that someday, one is going to be just brilliant. that one is going to make a big difference somehow. that one will make all those silly ideas and restless nights worth it. it understands that good ideas don't come without practice. that good ideas get missed every day because we fail to consider them. it knows that a good idea means action. and it knows that the rest of me is often scared of that. so my mind pep talks me every morning. it tells me to be strong and get out of bed, even though it gave me a rough night, because it knows how important learning is to it's cause. it tells me to pay attention in school, to learn and try out some of the ideas that it's come up with. it encourages me when those ideas flop, to try more. it sees my frustration in my oil painting class and tells me not to compare myself. to keep trying. keep learning. keep doing. and so i try. i learn. i do.

and i stay up late in the process.

delightful images from Maia Flore

stash

in an attempt to find a decent photo of myself, i chanced upon these bad boys:

(taken during our honey moon mind you!) B's aunt and uncle gave us a pack of sticky mustache's in a honeymoon basket they made for us. they know us too well....

it provided a good hour of entertainment when paired with photobooth

does B's mustache look familiar?....oh yeah...he sports a REAL one like it these days :)

completely unrelated to mustaches: sorry I've been....not here.

school has gotten the best of me.

hoping to have some worthy artwork to show for it!

xo

kitty

green jello

I swam through a pool of green instead of the typical (and sadly overused) BYU blue on my way to the library a minute ago.

yes: trying to navigate one's self through intersections on campus in between classes is like swimming through a pool of jello. green jello today.

yes: the color of choice for byu students is navy blue. which is actually a pretty classy color. but when played with sweat pants, faded jeans, tennis shoes (even for the anti-athlete) and the beloved modest lace tee undershirt.......the class is hard to find.

yes: I'm in the library. weird.

I'm not in elementary school anymore...so I guess it's understandable why I completely forgot about this holiday. back then i used to be witty and would wear yellow and blue and call it good. {but I'd always wear green undies just in case someone still felt the right to pinch. If i remember correctly, I'd even show people my undies just so I could pinch them back twice. how was that ok then?} today I'm counting myself lucky that my peachy peach hand embroidered shirt from our honey-moon in cabo has a green thread in it so I don't have to show anyone my undies. which, for the record, aren't green.

:)

and now for some awkward library photos!

{which I actually followed through with this time! key is sit in the corner so you feel 99 times less awkward about snapping photos of yourself.}

ok still kinda awkward.

deer in headlights maybe?

{really though, it's awkward smiling and keeping completely sill at your computer when someone could be looking...}

the red balloon

I'd like to think I only remember the most important things from my past, but the truth is I remember so little, so there's no way to telling whether my memories are significant or just the ones that happened to stick around.

Although I don't remember kindergarten or 1st grade much, preschool is something I'll never forget.

It was in preschool that I met two of the most amazing friends I'll ever have

(and they are still my dearest today).

It was in preschool where I was first sent to the "principles office"

(the first of a shocking number of times, all of which deserve their own post).

It was in preschool that I decided I liked art because I could draw the best circle

or so everyone said.

It was in preschool that I first saw The Red Balloon,

a movie that affected me in unexplainable yet profound ways.

And it was in preschool where I realized that although very young and very timid,

I was capable of doing very big things and feeling very big emotions.

My life felt bigger than me.

It still does.

I first saw the movie The Red Balloon in preschool and later received it on VHS for christmas when I was maybe 12. I was so tickled yesterday to find it for instant play on netflix. It's less than 40 min. long, and there's barely any talking (it's in french). I don't know why it stirred those emotions in me so long ago but as I watched it last night, the tears came and I felt some crazy sort of love for it and for life. And although it probably won't make sense, The Red Balloon captures that bit of me I'm unable to explain. Perhaps it has something to do with the way I view the world. That life, ideas, love, pain, everything we feel is deeper, bigger, more than just us. With all the turmoil that is going on right now throughout the world I am happy to be reminded, in a humble way, of how small I am, but how big life is.

My thoughts and prayers go out to those hurt by last weeks events, and although I feel somewhat helpless in aiding, I am thankful to be able to feel such a deep love for my brothers and sisters on the other side of the globe. And I'm more determined than ever to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity of LIFE i've been given.

while you were out...

B and I are still at my parents house.

we've been watching way too much tv and getting fat.

besides that it hasn't been much of a vacation.

school. work. school. work. school. work.

we are kinda ready to go back home.

But before we head back to the cupboard, we decided that we'd do a full blown make-over in one of my parents rooms (my old bedroom). We are talking painting walls the opposite color, moving beds around from 3 different rooms, pulling out buried furniture from the shed etc. etc. As I type this I can envision my mother's friends reading this and thinking if their own child even attempted such a thing they'd:

_________________

(fill in blank with some sort of torture to inflict).

i know.

I KNOW!

but i've watched my fair share of TLC. And I happen to know my mother trusts my opinion on these sorts of things. And although she will be completely surprised, I doubt she will be shocked since we had mentioned doing this sort of thing in the past.

plus, how mad can she be from changing

this color

(my old room. note that this photo was taken 2 years ago. now it's basically turned into a giant storage closet. not cute dresser or bedspread or suitcases. just icky green and a full bed and a bunch of junk.)

to this color!

(inspired by The Royal Tenenbaums)

right?

ok in all honestly I'm a little nervous about what she'll think....

I'll be posting the before and after photos next week....that is if I survive potential punishment

wish me luck?

xoxo

kit

vacationing with the stars

B and I are enjoying extra leg room this week. We've deserted our 300 sq. ft. cupboard to house sit for my parents while they enjoy the sunshine in the cayman islands (and we suffer snow storms...). We'll probably gain lots of weight cause there is an endless supply of food here, not to mention many-a-neighbors who would willingly feed us. There is also a dishwasher. food. Washer and dryer. food. TV. TV set. food. heater THAT WORKS. did I mention food? It's not like B and I starve usually...it's just when you have to spend $200 on art supplies over the weekend (true and very sad story) you have to think not just twice but 3 times about what you are going to buy (although my teacher did say I could totally van gough it up and eat my paints. they aren't toxic?)

starving college student has a whole new meaning now....

anyway,

home feels so good :)

And we are trying to treat it like a vacation of our own. We've had ourselves lots of food (key for a good vaca right?) and have plans to watch lots of movies! Old classics to be exact :) My mom really spoiled us, we came home to a collection of oldies classics!

including:

I love me some old movies. Something about the simplicity of black and white, the innocents of 2 twin beds, humor with class, girls in dresses and gents with parts in their hair....

oh how I wish we could be like Lucy and Ricky, roaming the highways of USA in one of these:

now thats what I call vacationing!

(we secretly wish we would have done this for our honeymoon)

until we take our dream vaca, we'll be living in the movies

do you have a favorite classic?

Please share!

lunch date

had lunch with this lady today

soaking up every minute I can of her before she leaves for 18 months! (including every last blog post!) Oh how I'm going to miss her!

Scared

I'm scared of writing papers.

Particularly LONG papers.

like the one I should be writing right now.

I've done all sorts of things to avoid the problem

(the problem being that paper not written)

like stalk blogs

facebook stalk

online window shop

etc.

I even got so pathetically desperate that I commented on my own facebook status (twice), just cause things were getting boring around there and I needed something new to look at.

I suppose I'm scared of writing papers because it means my words have to sound good and mean something important. Each word has to be well thought-out and strategically placed.

It's not at all like blogging.

can't start a sentence like this one.

can't end it without punctuation like this one

can't bold it and make it 5 times bigger when you want to emphasize something

or use colors to reflect your mood

{yellow, although my favorite color, is also my anxiety color}

and you can't use that cute little swiggle {} that looks like fancy parenthesiz or make up words like swiggle or spell things wrong like parenthesiz.

and you most certainly cannot save your dull writing with an exciting photo

i just attempted taking a photo on photobooth, in the middle of the library, and felt very awkward about it so pulled this out of the archives instead:

{exciting isn't it?}

the fact of the matter is I'm really insecure with my academic writing.

I'm much more confident with blogging.

cause even though you may grade each post in your mind, or in the occasional bold comment, it wont affect my GPA which annoyingly has been drilled into my head as an important and forever affecting thing.

somehow the lack of finality of these silly meaningless posts calms me down and allows me to express exactly how I feel at a given moment

which at this moment is

scared.

frustrated.

incompetent.

(wow...such a big word for me!)

as silly as it may be, academic writing is one of my biggest fears.

What are your silly yet reasonable fears? and do you deal with them the same way as me, by pathetically running away?

blue skies

all I needed today to make me smile was a sky full of blue

and thats just what i got!

{w/ some added white}

Welcome March.

I've been waiting for you.