The Happiest Place on Earth

This past weekend was one of the best weekends of my life.
Everything was perfect.
Friday was a chill evening spent with nachos, spicy salsa and a quiet evening watching family movies/tv shows and catching up with everyone in my family.

Saturday was an impromptu trip to the Pierce Street market that had multiple vendors and crafts and samples and food and we had never been before. It was perfect weather and it was a perfect day. We got thai tea and I had a delicious smoothie and just everything was great.

Then on Saturday we decided to plan an even more spontaneous and grand plan to go to Disney's Magic Kingdom the following day. It was totally random and the best thing ever. In case you don't know this already, I am a HUGE Disney fan. It's one of my favorite places in the world to go. Not only this, but they were having an offer where for a discounted price you could visit three of Disney's park up until June. That being said, we're most likely going to go back and visit two other parks which I haven't been to since I was ten. So, it's more than a little exciting to me.

Sunday was full of magic. I got to go on my favorite rides, eat some of my favorite foods (mickey's pretzels man, mickey pretzels), meet extremely nice people, got souvenirs for friends and watched magical fireworks over the castle. It was also perfect weather and we got to breeze through some lines although it was crowded. It was just really great and I know we can't recreate memories but we sure can treasure them and I'll always treasure the memories created this weekend.

There's nothing in the world more magical than Disney.

All you need is a little faith, trust and pixie dust.

Here's a few photos I've uploaded, but you can bet there were plenty more. :)

Adventure - Roadtrips - Travel

I've got a wandering soul.

I really do.

Someday, if the Lord allows, I'd love to be a travel photographer.

See the sights, soak them in, have adventures, go out and truly live.

I want to bloom and grow with the flowers in the field, stretch and lengthen like the roads, be as still as the mountains, as free as the wind, larger than life like the elephants, as strong as my cup of coffees, and as beautiful as horses in the wilderness.

I want to be wild and lose myself to find it.

I want this adventure in the great wide some where.

And maybe I won't get the chance to.

But at least I can dream about it in case I do get to.

(listen to "Hopeless Wanderer" by Mumford in Sons to get wanderlust)

Don't forget what surrounds you.

Because it's beauty, friends.

That's what surrounds you.

Beauty.

(all pictures found on pinterest/

so thanks pinterest)

Hurting Hearts

A large portion of my life, I felt like I was always loving people more deeply than they loved me.

As I've grown older, I've learned not everyone can truly show how much they love the ones they love.

Some people have a harder time showing it.

I've also learned that sometimes people don't realize how much they love the ones they love until later in life when they look back and truly appreciate the people who have been there.

I think they always have loved those people but I don't think they realized how much they loved them or at least realized how much they needed to be shown that they were loved.

Love is always a tricky subject and one I'm still learning about every single day.

However, in getting rejected and shown that the love I had for some of my friends didn't match the love I had for them, my heart hurt and bled and grew a little gate around it.

Sometimes I still have to convince my heart to open it.

I think somewhere in the midst of realizing the different levels of love, I began to withdraw the love I had for them.  I loved them still the same but I stopped showing it as much. I think a part of me realized it would hurt to care or love them more than they loved me.

This is something I didn't really realize until recently but it's happened.

I realized it when I thought about writing one of those friends from awhile back and letting her know I missed her but then I hesitated because I didn't think she felt the same way.

But then I realized, what does that matter?

If I miss that friend, I should still tell her.

I should let her know I still love her and think about her because I do.

Even if she does not feel the same way back to me, that doesn't change the way I feel.

I still love her and I should not stop showing it just in case it's not reciprocated.

I think I was so used to being hurt by the lack of reciprocated love in different areas of my life, that I stopped being as willing to show my love in fear of the hurt.

That shouldn't matter though.

As I said, there are different ways people show love and some people won't appreciate it until later, but does that mean we withhold our love?

No.

We should love them more. 

More often than not, they need that.

Hearts may bend and twist in the process, but they won't actually break.

God's love is all I need and His love is boundless.

If God's love is in me, I should love in the same way.

And I'll let you in on a secret, Jesus was not and is certainly not always loved back but that does not stop Him from loving every single sinful and hateful human being on this earth.

Pour into me that love, Oh God.

May I only need yours and yours alone.

Hollow Men

["We are the hollow men
    We are the stuffed men
    Leaning together
    Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
    Our dried voices, when
    We whisper together
    Are quiet and meaningless
    As wind in dry grass
    Or rats' feet over broken glass
    In our dry cellar."]

---

This excerpt is from the poem "The Hollow Men" by T.S Eliot. The whole poem is extremely great and thought inducing so I highly recommend reading it although it's too long to post the whole thing here on my blog.

We are the hollow men.

Headpiece filled with straw.

Dried, meaningless voices.

It's a sad poem, yes.

But it's also quite vivid with imagery and also full of reality.

The world is full of hollow men.

Hollow people.

Scarecrows made only of straw.

Voices spouting words that mean nothing when they should mean something.

We are people in desert land skipping around the cactus.

There's a lot to this poem and a lot that resonate with me in this day and age.

We are a world full of self.

And self is craftily created for the sole purpose of "likes" and comments which symbolize popularity and determines our self-esteem.

We create life in the form of pictures, statuses and relationships and call it meaningful when it's not.

If I could only make it seem like I'm living the dream then I've made it in life... right!?

Wrong.

Just like the blemishes on my forehead, I'll take the blemishes of my life and touch it up with a bit of make-up and make believe.

That's what we're taught.

Smile.

Look like you're living a grander life than everyone else.

Look beautiful.

Be popular.

Be hollow.

This world is a mess.

The human race is a mess.

And we're hollow.

Don't become hollow.

Your life has meaning and His name is Jesus.

Seek Him.

Drink from His fountain of mercy and love.

Listen and obey His commands.

Take hold of the joy that is truly joy.

Leave this hollow world behind.

Leave it's fake and unsatisfying promises of happiness behind.

Sip joy and abound in it and abound in love.

Love is meaningful.

Take up your cross and follow Jesus.

Leave self behind.

It makes all the difference,

Trust me.

---

[The eyes are not here
    There are no eyes here
    In this valley of dying stars
    In this hollow valley
    This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms]

---

The world has nothing for you.

This hollow valley.

These lost kingdoms.

There's only one kingdom that is everlasting.

Hello, I am alive

Hey folks,

I know it's been awhile.

To tell you the truth, I've been sick for two weeks now and counting.

It started as the flu which turned into a sinus infection and now the antibiotics I'm on has kind of been messing with my stomach.

Today, though, thankfully, I've been feeling a bit better.

I think I just need to hang on until I'm finished with the antibiotics.

That all being said, I've kind of been worn out and tired and a hermit for awhile.

I've also been thinking a lot while being sick and I've got to say that I did not have the best attitude while being sick.

I kinda felt like I didn't really care about anything.

I didn't care about other people and how they were doing.

I didn't care about things I'd normally be excited for.

I just felt like a lazy blob just trying to make it through the work days and sleeping/resting when I wasn't.

I know to some degree, you do have to rest up and take care of yourself to get better.

But I guess the point is that I didn't really pay attention to other people, just myself.

And kinda just complained and was annoyed that I was sick.

I know it's probably a normal thing to go through that, but looking back I'm thinking that maybe I failed a trial of mine. Because we still have a choice with how we act when we feel crappy and I wasn't really acting very nice. I was just being self-centered and kind of making excuses because I was sick.

I don't know, I guess there's not a huge point to this except that I was not relying on God's strength very well through this sick period and I wish I could go back and change that but I can't. So, I'm just going to try to hang on and rely on God's strength through the rest of it and work on not complaining and work on caring about other people than myself no matter how I feel.