must see

We flew directly over sea world when we were in florida. It made me think of Shamu, and when we came back, I ended up finding this online:

http://www.shamu.com/ca/shamu-cam/

I could watch it for hours!

photobooth friday

The weekend before our trip, Adam and I spontaneously went to the Tuttle Mall to find the photobooth there. We walked the length of the mall; I could swear I'd seen the booth somewhere in the middle aisle of the ground floor. We searched the entire mall and were ready to give up, when for some reason Adam said “lets just walk down this way again, just to check.” We strolled on in the direction we'd already been. Suddenly, I spotted it tucked behind a bunch of plants near a kids play area, like a tiger hiding in the grass. They'd moved it to a new location, and it was a stroke of incredible luck that I noticed it at all. (That's what I call teamwork.)

It was not an authentic, vintage photobooth but rather the new kind that prints two perforated strips of color digital shots that you can choose various “fun” backgrounds for. Fortunately, we could select plain, black & white shots. And we did.

I had hoped to search for photobooths in Florida, but we had little time on the ground to explore. We didn't leave Columbus until Friday morning and had to come back on Sunday. (I had actually tried to post this photo before we left on Friday, but technical problems prevented it.)

But the brevity of the trip hardly matters to me, because I got to travel with my favorite person. On our journeys, we share the adventures I have always craved. The talks we have as we travel, the fun of just sitting next to each other watching the scenery pass, the glimpses into new places, the memories we make, these are things I live for.

I think this idea of “enjoying the journey” is the very reason I'm so drawn to photobooth strips. Not only do they capture a moment, but they capture a series of moments. They represent perfectly the moment-to-moment variety, spontaneity, and unpredictability of life itself. Just like traveling.

savoring

What a fabulous trip it was. I had to pounce right back into regular life immediately afterward so I haven't had much time to catch up on writing, but I am working on starting a flickr account to post my many photos from the trip. It was just a three day trip, when I had originally hoped it would be five. But I lived it up for those three days. Best. Spring Break. Ever.

It's that time of the semester when I have to figure out what classes I'll be registering for next semester. I always find it so exciting. I know I sound like such a nerd, but I love school, learning new things every day, switching to a completely new schedule and new topics every semester.

My mother, who has been an unhappy person for as long as I can remember, is always attributing the passion I have for my life to youth, thus, she is convinced it is out of her reach. Which is funny because the people I'm in school with can't even believe how old I am (26 is, after all, closer to 30 than 20), yet I'm far more passionate about what I'm doing than many of them. I have to believe it's all relative. I have professors and friends in their 50s who are more energetic and alive than my mom probably was in her 20s. This is helpful for me to keep in mind when those negative ideas about aging that were planted in my brain during childhood creep up on me. Youth isn't about age, it's about digging in. It's about savoring moments. Like when you have just 20 minutes to spend at the beach. If you breathe deeply and take it all in, those 20 minutes last as long as a full day.

I have no idea where this quote is from, but it's one of my favorites of all time:

“It is ordinary to love the marvelous, but marvelous to love the ordinary.”

zen sandwich

Still in Columbus. Trip to Florida delayed again until tomorrow.

But I am at peace with this. Yesterday I got a little emotional and disappointed, but I worked through it. Today, I'm having another nice day at home catching up on some correspondences and some school work, and just taking it easy.

For lunch I decided to make myself a sandwich, but not before I took a bite out of one end of the croissant I was going to make the sandwich with. After I sliced the croissant, I realized it looked like a whale, or a paisley pattern, and then I realized I could make a yin/yang symbol out of both slices. I looked at it. I took a picture of it. I ate it. I pondered.

Leave it to me to find spiritual significance in a my lunch.

spring break: day six

Well, it didn't turn out to be the weather that delayed us, but business logistics (that's code for “Adam's co-workers are big fat poopy-heads”). So, even though we were supposed to be flying to Florida today, it looks like it won't be until either tomorrow or possibly even Friday. I'm handling my disappointment well, though. It helps me to give Adam frequent reminders that I am the best girlfriend ever for being so understanding and patient about the delay of a trip I've been exploding with excitement about.

Here are a few of the things I've done today instead of flying to Florida:

1. drove to the municipal office to drop of Adam's grant proposal for the conference he's in charge of. Took Lucy with me, just to get her out of the house.

2. wavered between laughing and crying at the fact that it snowed last night. Laughing because I'm going to be leaving the snow for florida. Crying because I didn't leave today.

3. took Lucy for a walk around a park that we'd never been to before. They had a cool looking skateboarding-thingy. I don't know what you'd call it, like a big paved area with ramps and curves. It made me wish I could skateboard.

4. had a bowl of cereal back at home.

5. watched an episode of Judging Amy. That's right. I watched television. *gasp* ok, I actually watched two episodes of Judging Amy. I'm on spring break. I can indulge a little.

6. had my favorite kind of salad: field greens with dried cranberries and butter toffee glazed sliced almonds in red wine vinaigrette dressing. mmm...

7. picked out my outfits for each day of the trip, and put in a load of laundry.

Next on my list is to take a shower, have a cup of coffee and some of the yummy blueberry bread Adam made yesterday (do I have the best boyfriend in the world or what?) and catch up on some reading. This vacation thing isn't so bad.

spring break: day three

So, over the last couple weeks, I've been really busy. A couple weeks ago, I went to Pittsburgh for the Jubilee conference and had a great time downtown with Taylor and Kelly. For that weekend, downtown Pittsburgh had been overrun with about 2,000 Christian college kids, perhaps making it temporarily the safest city in America. The three of us had a great time taking pictures of the cityscape, until a security guard came up to us and said there are security cameras all over the place watching us and we've got to stop taking pictures of the tops of buildings because he's getting all kinds of calls about us. After September 11, he said, you just can't do that.

So, then we went to a pizza shop and discussed how we didn't like the idea of Christians converting Muslims and other spiritual ideas that we realized would make us even more suspicious if the security guards were still listening in on our conversation.

Other than that, though, life has just been moving quickly. I'm already on spring break, and am for the first time excited about being on vacation from school. Today I'm headed down to Circleville for a recording session with Lift, and tomorrow I'm driving to Michigan to take my friend Josh to a monastery. Tuesday I'm going to do schoolwork all day to get caught up on work. Then Wednesday, assuming the weather is good enough, Adam and I fly to Florida.

Now, of course, when most people say they're flying somewhere, they mean they're getting on an airline and being flown somewhere. But not us. Adam is piloting the plane, I'll be his navigator, and we shall get into a little plane like this one and fly down first to North Carolina, then to Miami, then Cape Coral for his cousin's wedding on Saturday.

It's already only three days into spring break. Technically, only two days into it, but Friday was so much fun, I'm counting it as day one. I spent the evening with Kelly and Bobby, watching a movie (Adrienne also joined us for part of the movie) and heading out to Bono's Pizza in Kilbourne, and just having an all around fun evening. Yesterday, Adam and I stocked up on delicious food for break, and visited a photobooth in the mall so I can finally start contributing to hula seventy's Photobooth Friday (but you'll just have to wait till Friday to see it!), had dinner at Chick-fil-a, and laughed a lot.

Already, it's been the best spring break ever. And the rest of the break is promising to be even better. As long as the weather holds out...

craziness

I haven't forgotten you... honestly, I do still love you, dear blog. Life, however, has of late been very demanding of my time. My mind has been scattered in every direction, all the different facets of life coming to a head at seemingly the same time.

Next week, my coming salvation, will be spring break. This is the first break from school that I have looked forward to, throughout all of college so far. I will have time to write then. Promise.

(This picture is of my reflection in a mirrored stegosaurus. As I snapped it, a security guard approached and asked us to stop taking pictures of downtown Pittsburgh, as it was a risk to national security. More on that next time.)