Sunsets and Parking lots

Today was full of family and laughter and warmth. I don't have much to say other than that I am entirely blessed. I took more pictures with my sisters and we all went out to dinner as a family tonight and ate way too much (as usual). Afterwards, a few of us stopped at Walgreens to drop off my film roll and get some nail polish. We girls came back and painted our nails all the same glitzy, sparkly, golden color. And now I'm blogging as we are all playing a board game around the dining room table. SO much fun and so many laughs. I cannot get over how happy this feeling is. Some of the pictures of the ridiculous amount of fun we had today:

Genuine laughter. The best.

Sister shoot

Well, first off Merry Christmas. :) We got back from skiing a few days ago and jumped right into Christmas. Yesterday was spent making homemade pizza and watching It's a Wonderful Life and eating yummy cake and singing to Jesus for His birthday with the family. Then all of us kids (who are not really kids anymore) slept in the same bedroom together last night as we have on every Christmas Eve for as long as I can remember. This morning was full of fun as we opened up all the gifts and shared in a huge delicious Christmas feast. Mom was wonderful and made separate dishes for me that were dairy-free so I could eat them pain free. She even made me dairy-free whip cream out of coconut milk so I can enjoy some pecan pie with a scoop of cream on top. It shall be amazing. Afterwards, my sister, Brett, along with my sister in law, Ani, went on a small photo shoot down the street in a small foresty area. It's always a blast when she's around. She is a blogger, herself, and is a huge inspiration to me (her blog is http://whosthisani.blogspot.com/. CHECK HER OUT. It's good stuff). I hope everyone around the world is enjoying this beautiful day with their families like I am. Here are some of the pictures from this afternoon:

Seriously, isn't my sister, Ani, so gorgeous?!

Brett and Ani together. So beautiful.

Christmas dinner with friends

Today I am thankful for Christmas break, no work, no school, and friends. I cannot believe that today is a week from Christmas Eve and that 7 days from right now I will have been to Colorado and skied and already be in Texas with my wonderful family. It's going to go by wayyy too fast, I just know it. Trying to enjoy every minute of this before having to go back to school.

Today was filled with hot biscuits, shopping with friends, buying a skirt for what I thought was 16 dollars that ended up being 10 (woohoo!), listening to *Nsync and Justin Beiber loudly with Brett and making all my friends yell at us because of it, sunset photo shoot of Brett and Mitch for their 2 year anniversary coming up on Monday, getting dressed up for a delicious fancy dinner, Mitch and Ethan tickling Jordan and Austin while crammed in the backseat of Brett's car, writing on the paper on the table to the waitress that she was awesome and placing all the silverware on the table perfectly around the note so she would spot it when she came back to the table after we left, getting dairy-free ice cream for me and Ben & Jerry's for Brett and Jordan at Hyvee afterwards to go home and eat it while we watch Horrible Bosses together. Today felt like the summer time when we were all always together. Happy to spend all day with my handsome boyfriend now that he finished his first semester at the University! So proud of him!

I am about to go eat way too much ice cream, but before that I shall leave you with pictures from our evening. :)

ethan's chicken parmesan! Look's delicious. :)

My filet mignon salad with red wine vinaigrette. So amazing!

Still kind of a date night even if we were with friends! <3

Ethan is so adorable hiding in the background there! haha

goodnight!

I am blogging from my living room. It's so warm from the heater and I could not be more thankful that I have a bed in the next room over in a warm space away from the frigid outdoors. Today was one of those days that if you didn't know it was December, you would have woken up, looked outside, and just assumed it was May and sunny. The sun was out from behind the four days worth of cloudy/rainy-ness and was shining just enough to tease me, when I walked outside and realized immediately what a bitterly cold day I was entering into. It was freezing, to say the least. Anyway, Brett and I went to our favorite juice shop and got a huge raspberry smoothie to share and then we headed over to Walgreens to attempt to develop my year and a half old film. I have two rolls that I decided to wait forever to develop for the sake of pure excitement when you finally get it done and don't remember taking any of the pictures. It's Kodak black and white 36 film, and come to find out Walgreens, nor Target, nor Wal-Mart develop that kind of B&W film anymore. Needless to say, I got really psyched up for total disappointment. Hoping to check in at the local camera store in the next day or so to see if they can help me out, otherwise I'm going to have to figure out how to develop these pictures myself. There's an unmatched feeling you get when you initially get your hands on the prints of the pictures you took with a film camera. The digital age has certainly spoiled us, and I can't complain because I would be nothing without my digital camera, but I truly wish there was some sort of film revival that could happen. I would definitely want to be a part of that.

Speaking of revival. I was talking to my friend, Austin, today. We both agree there needs to be a poetry revival in this generation. Poetry has lost so much attention (not that I ever knew of a time where it had more attention) but I wish schools, English teachers, writers, America would place more emphasis on poetry. Why has poetry become something that a lot of people do, but no one ever wants to share? Poetry is personal, deep, private. Lots of people write poetry in their journals or diaries but would never admit it or show any one. But poetry is the way we express so much in such few words; the way we connect in the white space. There is poetry going on before us every day of our lives; in the very way our breath dyes the air a dusty white when we exhale outside in the cold, or the familiarity of your sister's voice, or the way our sinks run cold clean water every time we turn them on. How beautiful is that? My English students are going to love me someday, aren't they? (Not. I will ramble on and on about poetry all day long.)

The rest of my day was spent working and cooking myself dinner when I got home. I am anxiously awaiting Saturday night's Christmas dinner with my best friends, Sunday's Christmas with my boyfriend's family, and then Monday when we head to Colorado for my first ever ski trip. There will be much too much to post about on this Christmas break! I will leave you with a poem of mine:

She would sit in the light all day long

Her body grew more on the right side than the left

Due to the direction the sun hit

Sometimes she favored the rain

And would swallow it through her toes

Other days the earth spun too fast

And the sun was white

And its stay was short

My how she longed for summer

Just like the school children

When the light got tangled in her lemonade eyes

And for months all she would see were diamonds

Poetry Growing in my Spine

Poetry growing in my spine

I can feel it when I bend

And when I flex my hands

They notice all the lines

Asking over again why so many

I tell them:

All the lines hold metaphors, rhymes and similes

Invisibly

Holding the weight of words

Every time I close them

But they don’t believe me

That my lungs stick to my ribcage

Because Language is oxygen

And there’s poetry growing in my bones

It's raining out, so I had to write

How small it makes me feel when it rains

Breaking open pomegranates underneath

Full bowls of crystal clear water

As not to stain everything with liquid hues of blush

By the time you finish

The water is light red

The bottom of the bowl is covered in seeds

Like dozens of tiny rubies gathered for warmth

My hands sink to the base of the porcelain

Tossing around the red beads

Between my fingers and the water (splashing a little at times)

Imagining myself underneath all that rain

And having only rubies to cling to

Words that came out at 8:45 this morning

I’m slipping my bones into the water

This water is navy blue like the night sky

Right in the middle of the woods

Looking up, there are branches

Arching and dangling twilight over my eyes

The water is dark and cool

My feet are sinking deeper in the mud below

My hair now tastes salty

As it has every night for a week

Coming here to bathe

I let myself float

Letting the curve of the earth

Bend my body, and my spirit

My chest is exposed now,

So I open outwards my ribs

And let the fireflies pour in

I’m glittering golden, the only light for miles

Until the water extinguishes the fire they started