Lazy Sunday

Favorite things of this very moment (4:14 pm CST):

• Watching the sunshine slowly change colors as the sun sinks slowly in the west
• Funfetti cookies
• The pink goose glass filled with water
• Coors Light commercials (yes, they're cheesy and ridiculous, but they make me smile)

I'm currently listening to the sound of football on the TV, my own typing, and the sounds of my parents sleeping on the couches. Sunday is a wonderful thing. The lazy Sunday aspect is something that usually gets messed with around here, but today we actually all just got some time to sit around and do a lot of nothing. Just as well too because energy is seeping away like the sunshine, and soon all I'll want to do is sit around and watch a movie. I might even watch "17 Again" for the 2nd time in the past 24 hours because it really cracked me up last night. We'll see how that works.

I allow myself to forget, all too often, that sometimes you really do need to just sit in the sunshine and soak it in. Life goes by quickly, but not so quickly that I shouldn't find time to slow myself down. Life's no good if we rush it, and I'm very good at trying to rush things.

With any luck I'll find ways to lazily enjoy the rest of my afternoon. I hope you have the same good luck. Enjoy a little time of lazy nothing.

ps. I made the following mix for my friend Jay a year or 2 back, and I think this is the appropriate time to share:

Lazy Sunday's New Theme Songs:

• Faith - George Michael
• Am I Missing? - Dashboard Confessional
• Mushaboom - Feist
• Recluse - Cursive
• Getaway - Train
• Bring the Night On - Eve 6
• She's so Heavy - The Beatles
• Beautiful - Marvelous 3 (either that or Butch Walker...I'm blanking today)
• Hurricanes - Five Iron Frenzy
• Heard 'Em Say - Kanye West feat. Adam Levine
• All Fall Down - OneRepublic
• Makes Me Wonder - Maroon 5
• Maybe It's Just Me - Butch Walker
• io (This Time Around) - Hellen Stellar
• Lullaby - Matt Costa
• Rollin' Home - Tyler Hilton
• Where to Begin - My Morning Jacket
• Supposed to Be - Jack Johnson

Eowyn

I just finished watching Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. I had forgotten how much I genuinely enjoy those movies. The constant fight to keep hope in the midst of despair, to hold to faith in your friends and your own strength, and rising up to meet your fate even in the face of fear. To fight for those you truly love. What is better than to know you've done all you can do to care for and protect the people who mean everything to you...?

Eowyn is an incredible woman. As much as I love Arwen (she is awesome), I finally realized Eowyn is even better. A woman of honor and valour who refuses to turn aside from the fight to protect those she loves. Her courage is inspiring and incredible. I want to be courageous and strong and true. To be a woman of integrity and valour. To stand firm when others' hearts fail. To prove myself worthy of something more.

How strong is my heart?

Docks, Rocks, & Ripples

The dock stretches out in front of me
I watch the water ripple as the rock skips along
It only takes one small rock
to change the look of the water
turning it into a million tiny new ripples
thousands of new waves and changes
Just one little rock...
and to think,
I hold the rocks in my hand...

Focus

This morning I sat trying to read a friend's poem for about 5 or so minutes before realizing all I was catching was the briefest and most random of phrases and bits...it was like I was just seeing random words flash in front of my face. I couldn't for the life of me focus my attention on that poem. This type of distraction seems to happen more frequently all the time. I am sure that this is mostly my own fault. I tend to multitask a bit more often than necessary. Listen to music or watch a movie while I'm trying to read or talk on the phone or IM or email someone or play with Mira or check on Cal...the list grows continuously.

For instance, right now I'm typing this and listening to "Anyone Else But You" sung by Michael Cera and Ellen Page. I keep swinging back and forth between listening to them and thinking about what I want to say. It's genuinely much easier to listen to music while typing than most other things.

I don't know. Last night I was talking to Dan Bliss (father of the Prince Harry look-alike winner, Matthew Bliss) and he was telling me he use to stay up all night reading a good book. Realize he was still up at 4:30 in the morning when he had to go to work at 7:30. (*It's 11:11 am. I'm going to make a wish. I wish that the guy who keeps showing up in my dreams would actually be real and show up in my actual waking life.*) I told him this was something I understand well. I do. If I find something I truly love nothing can stop my focus.

And maybe that's the key. I need to be in love with something in order to focus. Fear often makes me lose focus, but love drives out fear. Even in the simple things. If I fall in "love" with a book I will read it without thought to how it might break my heart by the end, and the same often applies to movies.

That's such a cheap example.

What about friendships and people? If I truly love a friend, little, if anything, distracts me from them. Projects for people I love are the easiest most often because I do them for the silliest of reasons...and sometimes for just plain good ones.

Crazy though I am, I firmly believe in showing love. Even if that love never gets returned. There's no point in holding love inside you when it needs to be given to someone else. When you love someone, that love no longer belongs to you anyway, it's theirs. Make sure you give it to them. That's my thought at least.

Well...that's trailed off a bit from where I started, but...that's not a huge surprise. This, after all, is just my jumbled heart and thoughts.

Favorite things of this very moment (11:20 am CST):

• Fairly Odd-Parents! (makes me miss my own personal Cosmo though...*sigh*...if only--let's skip it)
• My cellphone
• iTunes' shuffle function
• This blog, even when I'm a blithering idiot (which is more and more often it seems...)
• Tyler Hilton, Foreigner, soundtracks, and Coldplay

Searchers

"You seem like a person use to consequences."
- Princess Ithaca, "Princess"

I find it amazing how often situations go wrong because we don't tell the truth.

If we were honest with ourselves and each other, so many complications could be avoided. It's the many secrets and masks we wear that cause problems. that's what breaks hearts and tangles us in webs.

If we were honest with each other, life would be easier. We would not be broken by false hope. Life would still be just as romantic.

I realize that the pain we feel often allows us to feel joy more deeply, but...I do believe that we should be more honest about ourselves. Why do we not ask questions or give true answers?

We're scared and we're searching. But if we're all scared and we're all searching...shouldn't that be all the more reason to be honest? To be searchers together?

After all, what is any good story without a search? Every life contains a quest. A search for meaning. A search for love. If a person is smart, it seems that they realize those two searches are actually intertwined.

Silence

Favorite things of this very moment (9:27 am CST):

• Ugly Mug's Vanilla coffee
• The perfect green mug from Nikky
• The cover of my newest notbook...so many designs and such simple color (sadly, it is a store bought journal, not a creation of my own, so I can't claim the beauty I find in the cover as my own)
• Finding out that one of my favorite authors (Patricia C. Wrede) wrote several book series I had never known about which means that I will soon have more reading to do....
• The worlds softest pajama pants, even if they are bright, crazy colors and covered in coffee cups and the words "Need caffiene" in bright pretty script
• Seeing David's new car parked outside knowing that my car is now officially my own again, and that all I need to complete this joy is to get the stupid hood fixed...
• Bright colors of fall leaves
• Jack Johnson's melodious voice

I started up this morning when my alarm went off. I can honestly say it was the first time in a long time that the alarm was really what woke me up. It's been awhile since that's happened. Normally I'm in that state of conciousness where I am no longer asleep, but can't quite grasp a full state of alertness. I wasn't dreaming either, so I was pretty far in.

The weirder part was getting up and realizing the house was perfectly quiet. All I could hear was the rain which blended into the background easily as all it's done here for the past 24 hours is rain.

I put my contacts in and grabbed my hoody, but was suprised to find my thoughts confirmed when I walked into the living room to find it empty. Outside of David sleeping upstairs, no one is here. This is genuinely strange. Mom doesn't work until 11 this morning, so I assumed she'd be here, and as Dad is on vacation this week, I thought he'd be here too. My guess is that they went shopping, but I'm not concerned enough to call and check. They'll come back yet this morning.

It really is strange though to wake up to silence. It is a bit unnerving really. I've never been fond of it. I love being awake in the still quiet part of the night. To know everyone in the house is sleeping, but it's different to wake up in the quiet. The night's quiet is more friendly. You know someone is there, but in the morning...more often than not, I find myself alone.

If there is one thing I understand about myself, it's that I don't like to be alone. Not in the traditional sense anyway. I may sit alone in my room while reading in the evening when my family is home, but I always have the security of their being present. I'm not really alone. There's something about knowing they're close that makes me feel content. It's because of this that a long time ago I realized I'd never do well living alone. It would just make me slowly go crazier than I already am.

To combat the silence, I've allowed the shuffle on iTunes to take over and already done all my facebook and email checking.

I am a strange creature.

Debussy's soft melody floats in the air
the soft piano plays on my heart
and as the rain hits my window
I find myself asking for hope again tonight

Just on more day
help me find one more reason to smile
Let me lose myself, with hope
in Debussy's melody

I just keep struggling to hang on
fighting to stay sane in all the darkness,
all this rain
Trying to remember the stars

They tell you pain and heartbreak ease in time
that love will come to call
So many promises, unfounded as they are
If only proof or hope would truly possess my heart

Yet, the seasons change,
and soon the rain and Debussy will go with them
for change,
change is the only deliverable promise