Beauty.

What does that word mean? What deserves it's name? Is it the shape of a face, the color of hair, the style of clothes? Is it flowers and mountains and oceans? Is it love and laughter and compassion?

It is often so easy to forget what true beauty is. To remember that beauty is: Courage and love and joy and acceptance and sharing those things with those around you. It's loving with your whole life, the one that created it. It's looking at yourself and the person you are and seeing a perfect child of the King and accepting who that is. It's letting go of expectations and stereotypes and letting yourself be truly you, mess and all. It's the daily fight to take that next step to being the person you know you were created to be, no matter how hard or scary it is. It's seeing the beauty in the small and seemingly un-beautiful. It's laughter and sharing your deepest parts of yourself with someone. It's trust and abandon. It's serving and putting yourself last. It's thanksgiving and awe. 

That is beauty. Those things are worthy of the name. Let us not forget today. Let us be beautiful.

Fall-ing?

Normally around this time of year, I start getting excited about Fall. The sweaters and the leaves and the warm drinks and fires and smells and the promise of the Holidays. People around me, and those on the blogs I read seem to have caught the fall fever, but not me. Not this time. Not yet.

I'm not ready to give summer up yet. I'm not ready to say goodbye to the days that last into the night. To every evening spent out on the patio, grilling or just sitting while we drink a cold beer. To the warmth of the sun stinging my skin and the glow it gives it. Not ready to say goodbye to the dresses and sandals. Mostly not ready to say goodbye to the feel of summer. The easy, go lucky, adventurous feel of it all.

Maybe I feel this way because it has rained seriously like every weekend this whole summer so I haven't got to fill all my summer needs. OR because I hate being cold. I hate it and I feel like I JUST said goodbye to the constant cold. Maybe it's just because this has been a hard, but wonderful summer and I'm just not ready to see it go quite yet. Whatever the reason, I am just not on the Fall train yet. It can hold off for awhile as far as I'm concerned. Summer forever!

What about you? Are you ready for fall?

Currently

Reading:  Not getting to do this enough. I have a few books that I am wanting to read, and I just haven't had a chance to really dig in. I plan to change that this weekend/week though! PS I'm always looking for  new book recommendation, so if you've read something awesome lately fill me in!

Eating: Trying to eat something new every night while Steve is gone. This week ended up being pretty busy, so it didn't quite go like I planned. BUT tonight I did make the most delicious quinoa with roasted cauliflower and mushrooms and goat cheese. YUM!

Thinking About: Lots of things on my mind lately actually. How quickly I want the next 11 days to go. How much I need to do in those 11 days. Friendships. What I want my career/life to look like in the next 5 years. and on and on and on.

Enjoying: Sleeping in a bed again. Thought it means that Steve is gone and I don't enjoy that sleeping on an air mattress for the past month was starting to take it's toal on my body. It's been really nice to sleeep on an actual matress.

Watching: Fringe. Guys, oh my gosh. I started watching it because my sister in law suggested it and said that they answer LOST questions, so I just HAD to check it out. And just like I always do I got totally addicted and invested and I LOVE IT. You have to kind of get past the first 10 or so episodes and get used to the kind of gross beginnings to the episodes (those eventually stop) but then, its so good. The story line is good and interesting and just weird enough that you don't have to worry about those things actually happening to you. And guys, the acting is so gooood! The characters are perfect and there is just enough comic relief to make the craziness bearable. If you are looking for a new show, I would recommend it, especially if you are a JJ Abrams fan. It's on Netflix, and Hulu Plus. Enjoy

Listening to:  Like the rest of the world, I am listening to the new Civil Wars album. Oh my. It's gorgeous and painful and real and you can hear the tension and hurt in every note and it's beautiful. I pray (not only for our sakes and the sake of good music, but for them and their personal lives) that they can work out and mend whatever happened between them. They make such beautiful music and they seemed like such good friends that it breaks my heart to know that it's broken.

Loving: The fact that it's the weekend. While it will have it's fair share of business and packing, I also plan to read some and rest and take a nap here and there. I felt so burnt out by the end of this work week, I really need to recharge and rest up. Plus, it means that I only have to endure one more weekend before that cute boy of mine is finally home.

Counting Down

If you don't follow me on Instagram or I haven't talked to you in the last month you might not know that Steve is gone for the next 15 days 26 minutes 33 seconds (but whose counting). He is doing a little Canadian tour with Eric Lee Beddingfield (if you happen to be into NASCAR Eric just sang the national anthem at the Pocono race Sunday. Pretty cool!).

While I am SO proud of Steve and so excited that they are getting to do this tour and what it all could lead to, I am not the best with separation. I have always been horrible at goodbyes and poor Steve can tell you I am still no good at it. The guy had to watch me cry at least 3 times on Friday as he prepared to leave. I was Little Ms Waterworks.

I'm looking at it as a good thing though. It just means I love him a whole heck of a lot right? ;)

While he is away, I am trying to keep myself as busy as possible. I am moving in 12 days and so packing will take up a lot of my time (such a great distraction). But I am also trying to refocus on some things that I have let slip away from me. Things like, a consistent bible study and prayer time (this has been SO important. Leaning hard into my Savior and finding comfort there has been so good for my soul), a consistent work out schedule and getting back on track with eating healthy.

I have also decided to take on a little cooking challenge. I am going to cook something new that I have either seen or Pinterest or online somewhere or in a cookbook, that I have been wanting to try but didn't want to risk it when Steve was here (it's one thing if you ruin your own dinner, but ruining two peoples dinner is just a drag). I plan on printing out the winners and starting a little recipe binder with go-to recipes I know we will love. We spend so much time trying to figure out what to eat every night I think it will be so nice to have a place we can go to find recipes we love. I'll keep you updated on delicious meals I find!

All of that to say, I miss him everyday and CANNOT wait until he is back home and I can do little things like hold his hand again (I'm so dramatic, he's been gone 3 days). But I know this time is good. We are learning to communicate better while he is on the road (something we may have to get used to) and I'm getting all kinds of things done that I may not have done other wise and I'm learning absence really does make the heart grow fonder.

Just Write

Well here we go again. The famous "I'm really gonna be a better blogger" post.
I'm not even sure you can say I'm a blogger. How many posts do you have to post a month to be a blogger? 1? Shoot..I didn't make the cut.

The truth is, I really like blogging, but there are so many great blogs out there, so many that I read, that I get intimidated and wish my blog could be as good as their blog and then I just don't blog at all.

Well here is another attempt at getting back in the swing of writing about my life on here. I was talking to Steve the other day and he said "I think you would really enjoy a writing class". I thought, "You're 100% right. I would LOVE a writing class".

The thing is, I think that I should write first. I think I should get in the habit of writing on this, writing in my journal, writing on napkins and post its. Just write. A writing class isn't going to do me any good if I don't write.

So, if you used to read this and have long since moved on, please come back. Read my ramblings and jumbled thoughts and emotions and fears and joys, cause I'm gonna write about them. I promise it will be messy and raw and not well punctuated, but it will be written.

()

I am doing a very dangerous thing tonight. After a rough couple of days I am watching Eat Pray Love. Which means, I have an INTENSE desire to pack up, grab my man and travel the world for a year. I long to live in a slower paced society. One that knows how to take pleasure in things, to enjoy them deeply, I feel like we have lost that in America. We know how to be entertained, but we have forgotten how to take pleasure in things. 

That's all. 

Life in a Musicians World

It's Sunday afternoon and I am sitting in a coffee shop just up the street from CMA fest, where I just dropped Steve off to play his last CMA gig of the week. Today marks the 7th show he has played this week. As I sit here, waiting for the call to go pick him up I think about the life I find myself living. When I was in high school and all through college I said I wanted to end up with a musician, and if you asked anyone I knew they would have told you the same thing. It seemed so wonderful and exciting and somewhat "glamourous" in a poor musician, gypsy lifestyle sort of way. I remember saying, " I don't need money, just love of a boy who plays the guitar." There is some truth to that, but there is some hard lessons to learn in that statement as well.

Loving a musician isn't the easy path to choose. Is it wonderful? Is it worth every second? Yes. But it's also hard and discouraging at times and lonely at times (none of these things are Steve's fault, it's just part of the life.) 

There are late nights spent standing in the back of a smoky bar by yourself, surround by people who have clearly had to much to drink and watching a set you've seen and heard a hundred times. There are months where money and if there will be enough of it are what consumes his thoughts, and yours as well (even if your not married yet). There is fear of the future, will we ever be able to get married? Will there ever be steady income? Will I ever be able to be a stay at home mom? Will I have to be alone many nights while he is on the road? There is the acceptance that his guitar and good tone and amps and mics and all things music will always be his mistress. 

But there are so many wonderful things about this life. There is joy and pride in watching him take the stage and do what he does best and loves so much. There is laughter and more pride in hearing the people in that smoky bar rave about the blond guitar player and how great he is, knowing that, that is the man you love, and who loves you. There is a house filled with the warm sounds of a guitar or the smooth notes on a piano or a record spinning on the needle. There is adventure and faith. There is a whole deeper part of your relationship that comes with having complete faith that things will work out, that you are both in the hands of a good God and that he will not let your drown. There is those moments when you get to see his dream start to really unfold and take shape and times where you learn to comfort and encourage in the times it seems to be falling apart. 

It's not a life for everyone. It comes with many many ups and downs and struggles and triumphs and joy and pain, but I am so glad it's mine. I wouldn't trade a second of it. Not for anything. There have been and I am sure there will be many more people who disapprove or doubt this choice I've made and I can see their point in many ways. But to them I would reply " I was born for a life of adventure, and for a man who lives his dream as wild and crazy as it may be. This is the life I was born for, you see I really have no choice at all. How could I ever argue with the plan the Creator of the universe has written for me. How could I ever go after anything less. No, this is right where I am meant to be." Right in the middle of a love that is wild and deep and real living a life that is just the same....