Joy

"Do not look for rest in any pleasure , because you were not created for pleasure, you were created for joy. And if you don't know the difference between pleasure and joy you have not yet begun to live."
-Thomas Merton

photo shennanigans

So, I've decided to accept the challenge to take one picture every day and post it to a blog as part of the 365 Project. Simply put, one picture a day for three hundred and sixty five days (one year).

I love taking pictures and this will keep me doing what I love and keep the creative mind fresh.
If you would like to be awesome and join me in the 365 challenge... Please go to blogger.com and set up a blog. Then come here and leave a link to the blog so we can follow each other.

Follow my daily photo shennanigans here!

here's a sample with today's photo.

Ordinary Inbetween

"It's not the big things, but the ordinary in between and maybe this is not the time at all to be waiting for any better reason to be glad that I'm alive at all." -Late Tuesday

For what it's worth, I feel like I've always had an appreciation of the little things. I find joy in the little things. Among these little things are hand written letters, a favorite song on the radio, a familiar voice on the phone, watching coffee pour from the french press, the way the sun sets warmly over the trees and hills, and laughter at any age. I think when I encounter something so small yet so lovely, my heart tells me to stop and acknowledge what is right in front of me. I've learned to make time for these moments in my day and if I don't, I keep going about my day feeling like I missed out. If I see the sun pouring through the window in a certain way and happen to have my camera, but move on without taking the picture, I bum myself out. If I pass a sweet chalk drawing on the sidewalk and just walk by without looking to see what it was, I'll wish I had.

The more I stop for these moments, because they really are just moments, the more joy I find in life. I have a ball tromping through the leaves, taking pictures of things that make me smile, swinging in the park, and just enjoying life in general. It's been fun to bring my camera with me out and about. I've always loved taking pictures, but for years, I was that girl that would always have my camera with me and never use it. It's amazing the difference it makes when I actually use it. Who would have thought? Just having my camera with me makes me look at the world different. I look at everything or everyone as the possibility of a great shot. I look around more. In Seattle, I used to walk twenty or thirty minutes to school with my ipod in and just making sure I wasn't going to trip and hardly making time for random conversation, which has every possibility of being hilarious and a good story later by the way :) I would hardly engage with people I passed on the street. Window face was as far as I got, haha. Now, I look at the world different and look around more, engage more. The more I actually see, the more beauty I find in the people and places I go. I find joy in the ordinary in between and I like that, because life is beautiful in the most extraordinarily ordinary ways.

"I still get wildly enthusiastic about little things...I play with leaves. I skip down the street and run against the wind." -Leo Buscaglia

Love note on a love bug?

No one can resist the swings

I can't resist the swings, either.

To the unknown..

photos from mom's visit to pdx

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my mom came to visit a couple weeks back and these are a few of the photos from our portland adventures. i just love her. she's precious and adorable but also a little spitfire. haha.

holy hot city

I am melting. Portland is so HOT right now, and not in the Zoolander sense. It's five bazillion degrees in my apartment. I think I slept maybe an hour or so last night. A couple friends from out of town crashed my itty bitty studio on the way to Cannon Beach. I felt so awful that they had to lay in the misery of thick air that is my apartment at night. I went through a couple packs of frozen veggies last night, cooling me a tiny bit as they defrosted on my face. I am such a wimp when it comes to heat. My day might have been ruined when I looked up the forecast for the next few days at 3:30am only to see that today is supposed to be 105 and tomorrow a cooler 103 degrees. Ugh.

...

too hot.

i went to the beach last week and in looking at those pictures i want to rewind to the overcast and cloudy misty day that it was, glorious. maybe if i look at them long enough, it will just magically be cooler. here's to wishful thinking...

bigger than a building

Quiet. I've been reflecting a lot lately. I've been outside, enjoying Portland, enjoying the trees, enjoying the water. And I'm reminded that I love the outdoors. I see God in the outdoors, more so than in a church building and stained glass windows and I like that. God is bigger than a building. He cannot be contained in a building. He needs something much bigger and wilder than that.

love this photo

I love the National Geographic photo of the day. I get it on my google homepage and i get so excited to check it everyday. The anticipation is kind of like Christmas. Well, maybe more like checking my horoscope or the soup du jour. Anyhow, I love this shot. That golden sunshine goodness and the silhouettes and America's favorite pasttime. so good.

what's next..? enjoy today..

It’s a bit surreal, the whole being done with school. Of course everyone’s question is “…what next?!” ha. If only I knew... That was the easy part when I graduated from the U of W; I knew I wanted to go into social work and so I could forecast grad school in the future and it was great to be able to tell people my plan. Oh, and my parents are all about “the plan”…everyone must have a plan and not just one plan, but two or three as back-ups. I’ve tried to function around plans, I have, but that’s just not how I roll. My plans consist of not having a plan.

I’m a fly by the seat of my pants kind of girl and I kind of like that.

So…with that being said…here I am, graduated and done. At the moment, I am content in taking some much needed down time; to hang out with friends, to take walks, to tote my camera around, to ride my bike, to sleep-It’s been wonderful.

I’ve been mulling some thoughts around to write about but that will come later I guess. I thought I’d throw in some pictures of my last week or so since I’ve been taking my camera with me everywhere.

After graduation = happiness

my favorite ladies and boys came down to ptown!

Fro Yo..or frozen yogurt with good peeps

when I have time to look around on my walks through the neighborhood, i see the coolest things, yeah positive propaganda!

found these cute little birdies on my friend leisha's houseboat in Scapoose, OR

the houseboat. i could so live here.

perfect Sunday afternoon.

forever a cheese.

there was fishing, but not by me

seriously, water feeds my soul.

the new bike, isn't she pretty in that golden sun?


I've been exploring Portland, via bike and loving it!

i pretty much love trains, tracks, sun and portland

shadow trees

my absolute favorite time of day


the view from a bike is the best


this makes me feel like i live out in the country, i like that.

i was born to explore. i'm a happy girl