Seen It, Heard It, Read It

Seen It

Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Seasons 4-7

Heather and I finally finished watching Buffy! I think I liked how the series ended, but I'm still in mourning that it's over. I'm almost tempted to start watching it again. How silly am I?

Date Night

I had to watch this in two separate sittings because our Netflix disc was scratched and we had to get a replacement. I thought it was hilarious! My parents really enjoyed it too! I wanted to watch it again, but it got sent back before I could.

Beyond A Reasonable Doubt

This was a movie Netflix had suggested for me. I figured I'd give it a shot based on the actors and besides that, it sounded kind of interesting. I can't believe how anxious and intriguing it was! It kept me on the edge of my seat and had it's share of twists. I'd definitely recommend it. It's on instant Netflix if you want to check it out.

Morning Glory

This was a pretty well rounded movie. Not just another chick flick. It's a great story about someone who is doing their best to achieve their goals. It had a great cast! I love Rachel McAdams and Harrison Ford!

Heard It

Wicked Soundtrack

Surprise! You already knew this! Some of my favorite songs include: Popular, I'm Not That Girl, Defying Gravity, No Good Deed, For Good....so basically all of them!

Ray LaMontagne Station on Pandora

I love the Pandora app on my phone. I've been listening to this station while taking wonderful hot baths & reading. It's so relaxing!

Britney Spears: Femme Fatal

I got this cd from the library a couple weeks ago. It's addicting and catchy! I listened to it on repeat in my car while driving to and from work.

Tyrone & Elina: Different As Can Be

You know how there are some couples who are just like too cute? Meet Tyrone and Elina. They made this album together and it's great! There's a good mix of funny, sweet and serious songs. Elina sang with Tyrone when at his show last fall.

Read It

Extraordinary Faith by Sheila Walsh

I bought this book a couple months ago and got around to reading it this past week. It was everything I needed to hear. Sheila is honest, insightful and funny. She did a great job of bringing in Biblical references and relating them to her different stories.

Redemption by Karen Kingsbury

I've been wanting to read all of Karen Kingsbury's books and so I asked Heather where to start. She recommended the Redemption series. I finished the first book and have the other four on hold at the library. The series follows the Baxter family through trials and triumphs and ties in the relational teachings of Gary Smalley. I can't wait to read more!

looking back

I was inspired by Heather's post on Monday. Three years ago this month change was stirring in my heart and would soon be working it's way into my life. On April 6, 2008 I posted a blog on my LJ that included an excerpt from Donald Miller's book Through Painted Deserts. This is what it said:

"It's a living book, this life; it folds out in a million settings, cast with a billion beautiful characters, and it is almost over for you. It doesn't matter how old you are; it is coming to a close quickly, and soon the credits will roll and all your friends will fold out of your funeral and drive back to their homes in cold and still and silence. And they will make a fire and pour some wine and think about how you once were....and feel a kind of sickness at the idea you never again will be.

So soon you will be in that part of the book where you are holding the bulk of the pages in your left hand, and only a thin wisp of the story in your right. You will know by the page count, not by the narrative, that the Author is wrapping things up. You begin to mourn its ending, and want to pace yourself slowly toward its closure, knowing the last lines will speak of something beautiful, of the end of something long and earned, and you hope the thing closes out like last breaths, like whispers about how much and who the characters have come to love, and how authentic the sentiments feel when they have earned a hundred pages of qualification.

And so my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you, about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it?

It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out.

I want to repeat one word for you:

Leave.

Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word, isn't it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don't worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed."

Little did I know that about a week after that Heather would find out her internship placement and Jenny and I would decide to move to California with her. Actually, I announced it officially on my LJ 3 years ago TODAY. My life changed so much when I moved to California and it's changed so much since then. Here are a couple pictures from April 2008.

Easter weekend fun with the girls.

Making dinner with Valerie for our friends. The night Heather called me with her placement.

Hike with Megan and Aimee at the end of April 2008.

cold tangerines

As I mentioned on Tuesday, I recently read Shauna Niequist's book Cold Tangerines. It was incredible and I wanted to share some quotes from the book. I would quote the whole book to you if I could. I hope you enjoy these little gems.

"To choose to celebrate in the world we live in right now might seem irresponsible. It might seem frivolous, like cotton candy and charm bracelets. But I believe it is a serious undertaking, and one that has the potential to return us to our best selves, to deliver us back to men and women God created us to be, people who choose to see the best, believe the best, yearn the best."

"This pedestrian life is the most precious thing any of us will every experience."

"I don’t want to wait anymore. I choose to believe that there is nothing more profound than this day. I choose to believe that there may be a thousand big moments embedded in this day, waiting to be discovered like tiny shards of gold."

"Family gets made when the you decide to hold hands and sit shoulder to shoulder when it seems like the sky is falling."

"Friendship is acting out God’s love for people in tangible ways. We were made to represent the love of God in each other’s lives, so that each person we walk through life with has a more profound sense of God’s love for them. Friendship is an opportunity to act on God’s behalf in the lives of the people that we’re close to, reminding each other who God is. When we do the hard, intimate work of friendship, we bring a little more of the divine into daily life. We get to remind one another about the bigger, more beautiful picture that we can’t always see from where we are."

"We can’t stand in the way of death, but when it comes, we can stand in its face together, and celebrate life and celebrate family and celebrate having loved fiercely and expressively.
I thought I might burst at that moment, so full of sadness and beauty, so thrilled for this new family, this new symbol of possibility and life, and so heavy with the grief I carried with me. And that moment felt like a rare gift, like the essence of life and love and family was sitting in my hand, like a tiny bird."

"One look at a baby’s fingers and you just know that those little bundles of flesh and tiny bones are more sacred, more spiritual, than any thought or idea or theology could ever be."

"It’s rebellious, in a way, to choose joy, to choose to dance, to choose to love your life. It’s much easier and much more common to be miserable."

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Pure Drivel

You may have seen Heather's blog post last week about her books lists or this post she did of an excerpt. She's been reading Steve Martin books lately and sharing some funny things with me. I'm so very excited because my family got tickets to see Steve Martin perform in July!

Here's an excerpt from his book Pure Drivel that Heather shared with me. He's so funny!

Schrödinger’s Cat
A cat is placed in a box, together with a radioactive atom. If the atom decays, a hammer kills the cat; if the atom doesn't decay, the cat lives. As the atom is considered to be in either state before the observer opens the both, the cat must thus be considered to be simultaneously dead and alive. - Erwin Schrödinger's Cat Paradox, 1935

Wittgenstein's Banana
A banana is flying first class from New York to L.A. Two scientists, one in each city, are talking on the phone about the banana. Because it is moving in relationship to its noun, the referent of the word banana never occupies one space, and anything that does not occupy one space does not exist. Therefore, a banana will arrive at JFK with no limousine into the city, even though the reservation was confirmed in L.A.

photo of the week

This photo definitely summarizes my week. I spent a lot of time cleaning things out and organizing my life. While I still feel like I have a long way to go, I have to remind myself that I've gotten a lot accomplished. I wish I had a before picture of these shelves in my bedroom. It definitely wasn't very pretty so I got rid of almost everything that had been here. The bottom left and top right are the only shelves that stayed the same. Our family has way too many dvds and not enough room for them all, so Heather and I moved some of our tv shows on dvd back to our room since the parents will never (and should never) watch them. Haha! Now if my whole life could always stay this neat and tidy.

Inspiration

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5 Things I Love: Summer

1. NOOK: Our parents got Heather and I Nooks for our birthday on Sunday! I absolutely LOVE it! This past weekend we ended up getting covers for them. Mine is a little boring, but I couldn't justify spending $125 ($90 on sale) for the gorgeous Kate Spade cover. One thing that I love about the Nook and Barnes and Noble is that we can download books from different resources, not just B&N. I found this website that has a bunch of free books. PLEASE let me know if you have any other resources (free or otherwise). We ended up buying a couple new books too and I just started reading Sense and Sensibility for my 25 before 26 list. What's a great summer read?

2. Bright nail polish: I love bright, fun nail polish colors for summer! These are a few of my favs. The top three are Sonia Kashuk for Target: Ocean Breeze, Purple Rain and Tutti Frutti. The bottom two are Chinese Glaze, Pink Voltage and Sinful Colors, Innocent.

3. Victoria's Secret PINK pjs: For my birthday last Sunday, Heather and I decided to get ourselves new summer pjs from VS. Since we're an Angels card holders, we get $10 giftcards for our birthdays. But we had also got $10 giftcards in catalogs, so we each had $20 to spend there. I know the shorts I got are a little creepy (my mom hates them), but they were the best choice and I love them a little more every time I wear them. I love how the lacey design on the shorts go with the print on the tank.

4. Platinum Beauty Lounge: I'm kind of picky when it comes to my hair, well picky when it comes to who I have cut it. I think it's because I had the same woman cut my hair from the time I was in elementary school through high school. When I was in California, I found an amazing stylist, Melissa, at Urban Renewal in Claremont. I was extremely sad to say goodbye to her and unsure about finding a new salon and stylist in Idaho. I asked around and heard about Platinum Salon in downtown Boise. The salon opened last fall and has a great feel to it. Karina is my new stylist and I LOVE her! My first time I went I just got a cut, but the last two times I got cuts and color. She's fabulous and fun!

April 2010

July 2010

5. Kind Campaign: A movement and documentary, based upon the powerful belief in KINDness, that brings awareness and healing to the negative and lasting effects of girl-against-girl "crime". "Look, we know it's hard to be a girl sometimes. We aren't asking for everyone to become best friends...that's simply unrealistic. However, we are suggesting something very simple: to STOP the competition, STOP the cattiness, STOP the hate, and to BE KIND."

The documentary will display the often-cruel way in which females treat each other, and shows the detrimental effects those relationships and experiences can have on girl's self-esteem and personal growth.

Kind Campaign is currently entered to win the Pepsi Refresh grant for $250,000. Pepsi Refresh is looking for people, businesses and non-profits with ideas that will have a positive impact. Please go HERE to vote for Kind Campaign. You can also text to vote, text 101818 to Pepsi (73774) (standard text messaging rates apply).

Find Kind Campaign:

Twitter

Facebook

Youtube

My amazing friend Amanda is selling bracelets here to support Kind Campaign. Heather and I ordered some and we LOVE them!

Things I Want

great books to read

coffee

to take a trip to the beach

a cute guy (haha, a girl can dream)

cute, comfy shoes

a cute kitty (okay, i already have two)

a hand to hold

a cupcake

an awesome camera collection

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