1. I haven’t posted much since I started my new job (long story short: I love it!) because I’ve been so busy. The good kind of busy where you’re equally happy and tired at the end of the day. 

    Last week on my day off, I went to the Botanical Gardens (which I affectionately call The Botans) and drank Grapefruit San Pellegrino amongst the flowers. Tomorrow I’m headed to visit my grandmother in Atlanta and drink Grapefruit San Pellegrino with her. It’s an exciting life I lead. 

    If you think about it, call/write/email/visit your grandparents soon. I’m realizing now how crazy it is that we live so close to each other and I don’t often get down to see her. Life is busy, for sure, but some things are more important— more than even flowers or gardens or Grapefruit San Pellegrino (though it delicious and I am obviously obsessed.) 

    May 8, 2013
  2. That is the face of someone who has their last day of work tomorrow.  Me.  !!! In my new job, I’ll be continuing my role as a graphic designer + some other extra special duties that involve hanging out with my favorite teenagers and talking to them about Jesus. It’s literally a perfect combination that doesn’t make sense outside of divine intervention.  Full Job/Life/Excitement Update next week, but until then, enjoy looking at this cartooned version of my face. HOLLER HOLLER HOLLER. 
    High Res

    That is the face of someone who has their last day of work tomorrow. 

    Me. 

    !!!

    In my new job, I’ll be continuing my role as a graphic designer + some other extra special duties that involve hanging out with my favorite teenagers and talking to them about Jesus. It’s literally a perfect combination that doesn’t make sense outside of divine intervention. 

    Full Job/Life/Excitement Update next week, but until then, enjoy looking at this cartooned version of my face. HOLLER HOLLER HOLLER. 

    April 25, 2013

  3. Life in the Classic City is good. It’s always good. But especially lately (see above :) . 

    Spring finally decided to show up and my pasty white skin has started to look a little more alive. You can no longer see the veins through my translucent skin! JK. But seriously. 

    Everyone’s always talking about spring as a time for renewal: new buds on the trees, out-with-the-old-in-with-the-new-spring-cleaning, fresh sunburns, long sunny days, the surge of vitamin d in the body… 

    I’m always excited for spring and all it’s newness. But there’s a lot of scary newness/change on the horizon too… many of my friends are leaving Athens after this summer—- new jobs in DC and internships in Colorado, folks headed to the Big City and folks just moving on… 

    And so with all this freshness is a sense of sadness for me too. This place that I love so much is facing so much change. I am facing so much change. 

    It’s a little strange to be staying in the same place when so much is going to be different around me… but I’m excited to see where this crazy road of life is leading… 

    April 1, 2013

  4. The thing about having something you’re supposed to do every week (grocery shopping, laundry, exercising) is that sometimes, you just don’t do it. (I think that’s why they call that “supposed to do.”) The Friday Mixtape is a little less dire than those other 3 (I see you, piles and piles of laundry I have been stepping over for days on end. I see you. I see you.) but sometimes, more important things call your name. Like going to get one of your best friends all married-up and stuff. 

    A & D have a particularly lovely story, having met as a bridesmaid and groomsman at another of our friends’ wedding a year and a half ago. SO CUTE am I right?

    This group of friends that gathered this weekend to celebrate is a particular kind of wonderful: we met at camp as strange little children and somehow, despite time and changing and not living in the same cities or going to the same schools… we grew up and we did it together. There is a rare quality amongst us that only comes from having seen how far we’ve all come: from our summers of braided hair and sunburned skin in the North Carolina mountains to being grown-ups with college degrees and jobs and houses and now, husbands.     

    So even though it’s late… it was for a good reason. Here’s the mix! 

    February 11, 2013

  5. I have always, essentially, been waiting. Waiting to become something else, waiting to be that person I always thought I was on the verge of becoming, waiting for that life I thought I would have. In my head, I was always one step away. In high school, I was biding my time until I could become the college version of myself, the one my mind could see so clearly. In college, the post-college “adult” person was always looming in front of me, smarter, stronger, more organized. Then the married person, then the person I’d become when we have kids. For twenty years, literally, I have waited to become the thin version of myself, because that’s when life will really begin.

    And through all that waiting, here I am. My life is passing, day by day, and I am waiting for it to start. I am waiting for that time, that person, that event when my life will finally begin.

    I love movies about “The Big Moment” – the game or the performance or the wedding day or the record deal, the stories that split time with that key event, and everything is reframed, before it and after it, because it has changed everything. I have always wanted this movie-worthy event, something that will change everything and grab me out of this waiting game into the whirlwind in front of me. I cry and cry at these movies, because I am still waiting for my own big moment. I had visions of life as an adventure, a thing to be celebrated and experienced, but all I was doing was going to work and coming home, and that wasn’t what it looked like in the movies.

    John Lennon once said, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” For me, life is what was happening while I was busy waiting for my big moment. I was ready for it and believed that the rest of my life would fade into the background, and that my big moment would carry me through life like a lifeboat.

    The Big Moment, unfortunately, is an urban myth. Some people have them, in a sense, when they win the Heisman or become the next American Idol. But even that football player or that singer is living a life made up of more than that one moment. Life is a collection of a million, billion moments, tiny little moments and choices, like a handful of luminous, glowing pearl. It takes so much time, and so much work, and those beads and moments are so small, and so much less fabulous and dramatic than the movies.

    But this is what I’m finding, in glimpses and flashes: this is it. This is it, in the best possible way. That thing I’m waiting for, that adventure, that movie-score-worthy experience unfolding gracefully. This is it. Normal, daily life ticking by on our streets and sidewalks, in our houses and apartments, in our beds and at our dinner tables, in our dreams and prayers and fights and secrets – this pedestrian life is the most precious thing any of use will ever experience.

    image

    My little brother moved to California a few weeks ago (Yes. THAT California. ALL the way across the country. Is someone cutting onions? My eyes are watering…) and though it’s strange not to have him right down the road in Athens, I am inexpressibly proud of him for doing something so brave. I could never have done what he did, and I want him (and you) to know that you’ll survive these cross-country moves and hard times o’ growing up. You will. 

    Those of you who have been following this blog for any amount of time (or, like, have ever met me in real life) know that this growing-up things has been the ultimate struggle of my first few post-grad years. There were many nights of lying on the floor, eating entire bags of chips and wallowing. There were breakdowns in the grocery store, the laundromat, and the car. There were so many unknowns, so many fears, so much loneliness and too many Netflix + Soup In Bed nights to count. It was hard a lot of the time and I felt so lame… but. I got through it. 

    And I think that’s the ultimate lesson here. No one really tells you how hard Becoming An Adult is. Or, they do, and you’re too busy living your awesome collegiate years to hear those old, wise folks trying to speak to you. But somehow, just KNOWING that it’s going to be hard makes it easier to deal with. Like getting a shot at the doctor’s office and the nurse warns you it “might pinch a little bit.” Sure, it hurts like hell and you’re not sure where she got her idea of “pinching a little bit” unless she spent time wrangling lobsters before nursing school and therefor has a completely different frame of reference for pain… but you’re thankful you at least knew it wasn’t going to be all sunshine and butterflies. You slap a bandaid on and go about your day, thankful that now you won’t get the flu and have to hug the toilet for a few days like the rest of your friends.

    But I digress. 

    Let the record stand that I am telling you IT WILL BE DIFFICULT. But it won’t last forever. Soon, you’ll figure out how to make it through the workday without craving a nap. You’ll make friends, you’ll enjoy having money to spend on trips to visit your old friends, and being in bed at a reasonable time not only sounds appealing but it will be a habit. You’ll get to do so many cool things with your homework-free hours. You. Can. Do. It. And it’s actually pretty nice. It just takes a few bags of Tostitos and a Netflix account. 

    If you’re like me and just want to know that you are normal and everyone feels this way… check out some of my choice moments of these funfun years of Growing Up and Figuring It All Out. 

    Original Quote source: Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines

    (Source: ktmel, via morgangster)

    January 28, 2013


  6. Monday Love: This Poem

    There she comes down the road

    I wonder what she thinks of me

    As slowly I move toward her

    What will she think of me? 


    Will I see a spring in her step, 

    A gleeful gleam in her eyes; 

    Will she sing and laugh as though

    Behind her a happy life lies?


    Will her body be straight and strong, 

    Her face have a healthy glow; 

    Will she be loving, kind and friendly, 

    Can her conversation easily flow?


    Will she remember the fun she’s had

    Meetings, camptrips and dances? 

    Will she have had a normal life 

    With friends, relatives, romances?


    Will she thank me for what I’ve done

    In making her honest and true; 

    For keeping up her spirits 

    Until each task was through?


    Will she always be surrounded 

    With friends made in the past; 

    But along with those, can she make more

    That kind that will always last?


    Will her ideals be on a pedestal 

    High above the ordinary kind; 

    Will her ambitions be headed right 

    And her future correctly outlined? 


    Will she be tactful, courteous, polite; 

    Have the manners that she should?

    Will she be serious, cheerful and active, 

    Having been helpful whenever she could?


    Will her talents be well developed 

    From them, all flaws sifted;

    Will her eyes be turned to heaven and God 

    And her heart be upward lifted?


    I wonder what she thinks of me, 

    of how I’ve traveled life’s way. 

    Will she be pleased when I see her 

    What will she have to say?


    There she comes down the road, 

    What she’s like someday I’ll see. 

    It’ll be quite long before I meet her

    For you see that girl is me. 


    -Estelle Anderson (Sherman), my grandmother. Painting of her by Lucy, my mom.

    January 14, 2013

  7. Today is my Grandmom’s birthday- 12-12 in 2012. We call this her Super Golden Birthday! 

    When I think about my cool G-mom, I think about the times spent running up and down the stairs in their big 3-story house, playing baseball in the expansive backyard and climbing the old fireplace where another house once stood, and of course eating her life-changing French Toast at the corner table in the kitchen. 

    My love of canoeing, of reading, of adventuring, of writing, of photography, of music and of riddles and crossword puzzles and art and building things and solving puzzles and shooting guns and climbing trees and not being afraid of things like bats and snakes and spiders… all of that can be traced back to my Grandparents. (Sadly, no love for Chemistry or Calculus for me, but we can’t win ‘em all.) 

    Happy Birthday, Grandmom. I’m thankful for everything you’ve shown and taught me over the years and for giving me my cool Mama and for making, quite literally, the best French Toast on the planet. I love you! 

    December 12, 2012
  8. Hesed.  I didn’t know what this word meant until this weekend. Not in some metaphorical way… like “I didn’t know what Love was until I met you” sort of thing. I literally had never heard of it.  Which is strange (even though it’s Hebrew) considering I have experienced it so many countless times. I am often blown away by new words… words that until the moment of hearing, I only knew of their meaning, not the name. Words like feuille-morte, crepuscular rays, petrichor. (Look those up if you don’t know them!) Hesed is one of the most beautiful examples of that. I’ve studied the book of Ruth before, but only in the context of Relationships and Boys and Waiting For a Boaz Kind of Man. Never in the context of Hesed. Sunday morning at Adult Sunday School, studying Ruth, I learned the word I’ve spent my life discovering.  Hesed is a quality that moves someone to act for the benefit of someone else without considering “what’s in it for me?” The word hesed is usually translated “kindness” or “lovingkindness.” Hesed is difficult to translate because it stands for a cluster of ideas—love, mercy, grace, kindness. It wraps up in itself all the positive attributes of God.  Hesed is one of the Lord’s most treasured characteristics. But it is not merely love, but loyal love; not merely kindness, but dependable kindness; not merely affection, but affection that has committed itself. It is steadfast, strong, and good.  By all accounts, the last few weeks have been some of the most fun I’ve had in a long time— wonderful birthday, crazy Thanksgiving with the family, a youth mountain retreat with some of my favorite teenagers, unbelievable Sufjan concert, Georgia Football, supper club, community group, Halloween, fall leaves, hot beverages, pumpkin spice everything… but understanding this word is maybe the best.  God’s act of hesed leads us in a chain of hesed for others: We love because He first loved us. If I can remember one thing from this season of my life, I want it to be that. 
    High Res

    Hesed. 

    I didn’t know what this word meant until this weekend. Not in some metaphorical way… like “I didn’t know what Love was until I met you” sort of thing. I literally had never heard of it. 

    Which is strange (even though it’s Hebrew) considering I have experienced it so many countless times. I am often blown away by new words… words that until the moment of hearing, I only knew of their meaning, not the name. Words like feuille-morte, crepuscular rays, petrichor. (Look those up if you don’t know them!) Hesed is one of the most beautiful examples of that.

    I’ve studied the book of Ruth before, but only in the context of Relationships and Boys and Waiting For a Boaz Kind of Man. Never in the context of Hesed. Sunday morning at Adult Sunday School, studying Ruth, I learned the word I’ve spent my life discovering. 

    Hesed is a quality that moves someone to act for the benefit of someone else without considering “what’s in it for me?”

    The word hesed is usually translated “kindness” or “lovingkindness.” Hesed is difficult to translate because it stands for a cluster of ideas—love, mercy, grace, kindness. It wraps up in itself all the positive attributes of God.  Hesed is one of the Lord’s most treasured characteristics.

    But it is not merely love, but loyal love; not merely kindness, but dependable kindness; not merely affection, but affection that has committed itself. It is steadfast, strong, and good. 


    By all accounts, the last few weeks have been some of the most fun I’ve had in a long time— wonderful birthday, crazy Thanksgiving with the family, a youth mountain retreat with some of my favorite teenagers, unbelievable Sufjan concert, Georgia Football, supper club, community group, Halloween, fall leaves, hot beverages, pumpkin spice everything… but understanding this word is maybe the best. 

    God’s act of hesed leads us in a chain of hesed for others: We love because He first loved us. If I can remember one thing from this season of my life, I want it to be that. 

    November 27, 2012

  9. Last week my dad and I went to Boston for a chilly, history-filled vacation. We mapped out the best restaurants and pubs, which museums and historical sites we wanted to see, the highest views of the city and the lesser-known local gems of the bustling and cobblestoned streets of Beantown. We saw Fenway and the Freedom Trail, ate famous pastries and freshly plucked oysters, rode the lines of the T and ducked into coffee shops for warmth. Day 1 and I was already exhausted, but the good kind where you could probably fall asleep with your shoes on and wake up feeling like you didn’t move. 

    Vacations are a strange thing. You enter into a world that is completely not your own for an abbreviated amount of time in order to experience all the great things that place has to offer. But amidst the heaps of local food and brews, towering edifices and iron statues… people live and work and walk and move past you like you don’t exist. You’re just there briefly, soaking in the cultural flair for a weekend or so and then… you’re gone. The only evidence that you were actually there is a photo or a t-shirt or chapped lips.  

    I always wonder about the people I see when I’m on vacation, the locals who ride the trains not for the sport of people watching but for commute. The folks who serve the heaping mounds of oysters and hold the door open for you at the museum. I am equally as fascinated by the history of Boston as I am with the Irish woman who served us Guinness at Mr. Dooley’s Pub. Vacation is information and sensory overload in the best way possible.  

    Vacation time is good for you, not just for getting out of the office or experiencing something new… but it’s good for your soul to see the world. I guess I like vacation for the same reason I like people: always something new to discover that makes life that much richer. I’m never going to know about the man playing the fiddle that looked like a pony-tailed Irish version of my pastor, but I will have known for just one moment in time that he exists on this earth and has purpose and a story…and I think for that, I am made all the better. 

    November 12, 2012
  10. Fall has been quite delightful here in the Pretty Little City. There has been an abundance of boot wearing, pumpkin flavored food eating, and bonfirey goodness. But tomorrow… I head to another fun city. The City on the Hill. Beantown. Boston.  Tomorrow I embark on an adventure with my Dad to the land of Red Sox Fans and Lots of College Students. I cannot wait. We plan on eating our way through the city, hitting up museums and historical sites along the way and people watching galore. I am also hoping to visit the Dunkin Donuts where Matt Damon ‘How-Do-You-Like-Them-Apples’-ed Scott William Winters in Good Will Hunting’s best scene. (My boy’s wicked smaht.) It’s the little things in life that really get me excited.  Lehgo. 
    High Res

    Fall has been quite delightful here in the Pretty Little City. There has been an abundance of boot wearing, pumpkin flavored food eating, and bonfirey goodness. But tomorrow… I head to another fun city. The City on the Hill. Beantown. Boston. 

    Tomorrow I embark on an adventure with my Dad to the land of Red Sox Fans and Lots of College Students. I cannot wait. We plan on eating our way through the city, hitting up museums and historical sites along the way and people watching galore. I am also hoping to visit the Dunkin Donuts where Matt Damon ‘How-Do-You-Like-Them-Apples’-ed Scott William Winters in Good Will Hunting’s best scene. (My boy’s wicked smaht.) It’s the little things in life that really get me excited. 

    Lehgo. 

    November 1, 2012

  11. Monday Love: Post-Birthday Ruminations 


    I’m not a big “birthday person.” I don’t think I was always like this… in fact, when I was younger, I used to think that Halloween was all for me— the costumes, the candy, the abundance of friends that showed up at my house and the kindness of strangers giving me hundreds of tiny wrapped presents in the form of sugar and bars. Those were the days. Mom always made a red velvet cake and homemade costumes and we always carved pumpkins (which I also thought was all for me) and had scavenger hunts and played the greatest games until we were so tired we couldn’t move from exhaustion and sugar overload… 

    I think my lack of enthusiasm for birthdays arrived after my disastrous 13th birthday party (but what WASN’T disastrous about being 13, amiright?! The bangs, the braces, the American Eagle graphic tees…) It was a slumber party nightmare of hormones, too much sugar and too little sleep. I never had another birthday party again until college and even then I wouldn’t let my friends plan anything crazy. 

    Last year I was too busy worrying about turning 25 to really enjoy it (though it was pretty epic and involved buying knives, eating Mama’s Boy, hitting the outlets, buying lotto tickets, skipping through the leaves, high school football and a surprise visit from LEL all the way from Nashville…) but this weekend was different.

    I had breakfast foods a total of 4 times in 3 days and more pumpkin pancakes than an IHOP on Thanksgiving. I received a beautiful book in the mail from my parents, donuts spelling out “Happy Birthday” and a trip to ATL to reunite with the besties from college. I shared meals with my Athens Fam, with the Ladies’ Supper Club, with church friends and with my lovely youth group kids (and tonight, more partying with a Mexican Fiesta!)! We had a scavenger hunt, I wore sparkly shoes and the weather finally got cold! What more could I ask for?! I have felt supremely loved and cared for on a day that has, in the past, not meant a whole lot to me. I think I’ll have to change my view on birthdays back to the days of yore. Oh. And the Dawgs won. Teehee.

    It’s a bit strange to get so much love on your birthday— after all, it’s something I didn’t really have anything to do with (thanks Mom and Dad!) and sometimes it makes me feel strange to have so much attention. 

    But I’ve learned to just smile, say thanks, and enjoy the ride (and the pancakes.) Thank you to everyone who made me feel so special on this random October day where 26 years ago I came screaming and crying into this world. I’m just hopeful that this year will hold less screaming and crying and more laughter and awesomeness. 

    Here’s to 26! 

    October 29, 2012
  12. Somedays, the cardboard box that holds all the tiny pieces of your life gets left on the front porch during a monsoon and when you go to pick it up, the bottom falls out. All the varied minutia that make up You are scattered on public display.  This is OK.  This is OK when it’s Life… and it’s OK for when you are moving all your junk from your office because they’re remodeling. Sometimes the box just breaks and it’s a mess for a little while, but you get up and pick up the pieces and if you take the time to sift through the wreckage… you can find some pretty cool stuff you’d forgotten about. 
    High Res

    Somedays, the cardboard box that holds all the tiny pieces of your life gets left on the front porch during a monsoon and when you go to pick it up, the bottom falls out. All the varied minutia that make up You are scattered on public display. 

    This is OK. 

    This is OK when it’s Life… and it’s OK for when you are moving all your junk from your office because they’re remodeling.

    Sometimes the box just breaks and it’s a mess for a little while, but you get up and pick up the pieces and if you take the time to sift through the wreckage… you can find some pretty cool stuff you’d forgotten about. 

    October 3, 2012

  13. Some days you just need to take a trip to Crazy Mountain and feel the threads of your life unravel and whip around in the wind up there. It can be a nice place to visit for a time. Just don’t plant roots. 

    When you eventually come back down, get yourself a good book and a glass of red wine and some fresh flowers and just enjoy the chaotic rhythm of life as you sip and read and think about how blessed you are to get to play a part in the madness that is being a human person in this wild land. 

    September 13, 2012
  14. My family is pretty hardcore.  There’s no lounging by the pool or catching a show on a C-family vacay. There is no sleeping in, no whining, and no mercy. There are mountains to climb and rocks to scale and lakes to skip stones in. There is fun to be had!  Unfortunately, the only preparation I did for this epic of adventures was to sprint through the Atlanta airport and try to make my connection flight in under 6 minutes (which, if I do say so myself is QUITE impressive.) My flight from Greenville taxied at 7:14 and my flight to Denver was leaving at 7:20.  I have never felt so alive.  Upon dramatically traversing the entirety of the A-terminal (gate 2 to gate 28), I felt like I won the gold medal in Badass-Sprinting Through The World’s Busiest Airport Whilst Navigating A Hellacious Mine-Field of Rolly Suitcases and Lost Tourists. I couldn’t be stopped, I was the best. Why yes, I would like some biscoff cookies. And a water. Maybe 2 waters. Actually make that 3, and can I get a sweat towel?  Needless to say, the mountains, the lakes, the adventuring with the family… all breathtaking. Both in beauty and in lack of fitness. 
    High Res

    My family is pretty hardcore. 

    There’s no lounging by the pool or catching a show on a C-family vacay. There is no sleeping in, no whining, and no mercy. There are mountains to climb and rocks to scale and lakes to skip stones in. There is fun to be had! 

    Unfortunately, the only preparation I did for this epic of adventures was to sprint through the Atlanta airport and try to make my connection flight in under 6 minutes (which, if I do say so myself is QUITE impressive.)

    My flight from Greenville taxied at 7:14 and my flight to Denver was leaving at 7:20. 

    I have never felt so alive. 

    Upon dramatically traversing the entirety of the A-terminal (gate 2 to gate 28), I felt like I won the gold medal in Badass-Sprinting Through The World’s Busiest Airport Whilst Navigating A Hellacious Mine-Field of Rolly Suitcases and Lost Tourists. I couldn’t be stopped, I was the best. Why yes, I would like some biscoff cookies. And a water. Maybe 2 waters. Actually make that 3, and can I get a sweat towel? 

    Needless to say, the mountains, the lakes, the adventuring with the family… all breathtaking. Both in beauty and in lack of fitness. 

    August 2, 2012
  15. After a very long day of moving my sweet baby brother out of his apartment with mi madre yesterday… making this poster is the only thing that seemed appropriate to get the creative juices flowing this morning as I stare zombie-like at my computer. WAH WAH. 
    High Res

    After a very long day of moving my sweet baby brother out of his apartment with mi madre yesterday… making this poster is the only thing that seemed appropriate to get the creative juices flowing this morning as I stare zombie-like at my computer. WAH WAH. 

    July 17, 2012