Turbulence

It has been 3 months since I blogged. Wow.... Many things have changed. Seriously, looking back, I'm so glad these months are over. I felt like I was in the midst of a tornado. I moved back home, started going to a new church, many other things happened, but aren't worth the trouble they would cause by blogging about them! I was placed in a weird situation where moving back home was really my only option. Living at home is good and bad. Bad because I'm 25, and shouldn't be there; good because I'm saving money. Started going to a new Church in September, and I LOVE IT. It is exactly what I need and was in perfect timing. They have a woman's study there that is seriously, so incredible. I started going to the young adults group too. It's just nice to have a church I want to go to.

I started eating gluten free again, along with trying casein free too now. Not sure if the casein free will stick. Dairy was bothering my stomach so my doctor said to try this. I feel like I'm eating nothing, literally. Fruit, veggies, nuts, and meat. I like to think of myself as "me-gan" instead of vegan, since I'm still eating meat, but everything else is vegan. Found out "non-dairy" isn't always true. The coffee creamer I was using every morning was dairy free, but still has casein in it. I lost hope at that moment...and after a week of using almond milk in my coffee and hating it, I then I discovered coconut milk creamer. My coffee tastes good again. Love almond milk, just not as creamer. Used a mix to make my first gluten free, casein free cake. Had to make do with what I had, so I turned in into a coffee-cake. It turned out delicious. Even non-gluten free people liked it!

So this was the condensed version of my life the past three months. They've been wild, emotional, but most of all monumental. It's all been a huge growing experience, and it's bittersweet. I like that God uses everyday life to teach you lessons. He's pretty creative!

Bay Area.

San Francisco came and went and now that I'm back, I thought I would update. We went through an organization called CSM, Center for Student Missions. We hung out with kids in Richmond, served food to the homeless in Oakland, packed up medical supplies, delivered meals to home-bound people, experienced the Tenderloin District in all it's glory, mind you 3 days before welfare checks came out, packed up rice to feed hungry families and all kinds of other things. Also celebrated my birthday up there, sort of; but I turned 25 the first day we were there. It was bittersweet. Isn't 25 always that way? All in all it was an amazing trip, I know San Francisco is neat, but Oakland really stole my heart. Such a sense of community everywhere. It was awesome. So are here some, maybe a lot, of the pictures from the trip!

Birthday lunch and Joe's Cable Car Restaurant, saw this place on food network, so glad we did!

First night they take you on a prayer tour of the city. This was the view up at the Fireman's Tower.

We got a tour of West Oakland which was amazing, there's an awesome organization called World Impact. If you are interested google them. They are all over the place! But side note, if you notice the boy in the far left of the picture, in the Orange shirt, he was a kid from the community that decided to join our tour, and generally be a hoot. His name was Willy and he was hilarious!

More reason to love Oakland, signs/grafitti like this!

DeFremery Park.

China town!! All our excursions on our own were at night...meaning a lot of stuff was closed.

Haight area.

Tenderloin District, by far the place I felt most uncomfortable. Not a fan of seeing open sores and stuff on people walking by. Or being offered/asked for drugs.

And this is just all random stuff. Have plenty more pictures...but this was already a blog I took in increments, started this morning, put it off and am now finishing, 10 minutes before I leave work!

less than entertaining

It's been way too long since I've updated. I feel lame because I don't have any pictures or anything special to post. Just an update. Life has been up and down, as it always is. Just when I get comfortable I get thrown for another loop. Most of it is other people's situations that I let affect me. It seems so hard for me not to take on others worries.

I got a new bike. My coasting bike was a horrible decision and I am very regretful I bought that bike, it's insanely cute, but far too heavy and slow. So I upgraded somewhat, to a road bike. And I love it so far, I mean I've only done 2 rides. But it's so much lighter and faster. I can even carry the bike up my stairs with 1 hand! So excited about that.

Although life has been somewhat stressful, it's everything I could have hoped for. Summer doesn't really matter to me since I work all year long, but this summer is proving to be a good one. Just got back from an awesome houseboat trip with the high school group, and will be heading up to SF in August for 8 days with some of the same high school kids to feed the homeless and help as much as we can. Not to mention I've been surrounded by amazing people some old and some new. It's great, regardless of the trivial things that I let bog me down.

I've been listening to a lot of podcasts lately. Mostly 2 speakers, occasionally I'll throw in something else. But just mainly 2. Mark Driscoll from Mars Hill in the Seattle area and John Mark Comer from Solid Rock in Portland. The last few days I've been going through a short series from the Mars Hill podcasts called Pray Like Jesus. It has been incredible. I love, love, love this series. It's short, only I think 5 or 6 sermons. Most happen to run as long as mine and Buckley's evening walk so it works our perfect. Some are a little longer, which just means I get to listen to them in the car. I was finishing up one in the car this morning when he posed some questions to ask yourself about your own prayer life. I thought they were relevent to what is going on in my life and I wanted to put them on here so I don't forget them. Here they are for both you and I to think about:

1. Do you pray to get from God or to get God?
2. Do you pray to move God or for God to move you?
3. Do you pray to get out of pain or through it?
4. Do you courageously punctuate your prayers with “your will be done”?
5. Do you pray out of holy or unholy depression?
6. Do you pray in faith that God is not the author of sin but is the author over sin?
7. Do you ask your friends to pray for you even if you know they will fail?
8. Do you pray to both hear and accept God’s will for your life?
9. Do you accept that God will answer your prayers with “yes,” “no,” or “later”?
10. Do you know that knowing God’s will is far easier than walking in it (Heb. 5:7–8)?

Holga Adventures, Part 2

So here are my last 2 rolls. I was way happier with the results of these ones. Color wise I think I will stick to Kodak. Fuji just wasn't my cup of tea, for color at least. I like warm, orange, yellow colors and that is what Kodak does best. I shot Fuji for this black and white roll, it's cheap and I wanted to give it a try; I taped a paper mask on the inside of the camera to create that torn paper looking frame. My next 2 rolls I doubt will be as successful, my flash wasn't firing for a lot of the pictures. But I fixed that with some pliers and a little hammering, it now sits right and has been firing perfectly!

P.S. I think I've fallen in love with this camera. And most medium format cameras for that matter, just ask Candice, we mention these camera's at least once a day!

Holga Adventures.

My pictures we already mediocre at best, but somehow the scanner here at work made them even worse. I'm still learning, which is half the fun. I learned from both of the first 2 rolls I shot that I didn't like either of their results in the color or contrast. The b&w film wasn't very good contrast, and the fuji film was way to bluey-green. This last roll I shot with was a higher ISO and Kodak. I'm anxious to see how it turned out. And I tried Fuji again, but b&w. It's cheap and wanted to see if I liked it. I used the flash with most of the pictures since it's a super low ISO. Pretty anxious to see how that roll turns out too. It's like christmas when you take the film in, you never know what you'll get back! My 35mm was a pretty big debacle. The guy at walmart didn't understand a word I said. I shot one roll with the 35mm adaptor and so those were somewhat regular pictures. I shot the other roll with no adaptor. So it took the pictures over the film sprockets. I asked him to print the film with the sprockets on it, even wrote notes on the envelopes...he didn't do it. And he proceeded to cut every picture in half somehow. It took over an hour, but he still charged me for an hour. Lesson learned in more ways then one. Don't take my 35mm film there, and 35mm film in a medium format camera is kind of a hassle. Having to stand in a dark closet and wind my film back up, kind of annoying, especially for the results I got. Anyways here's my 3 sorry looking pictures. Enjoy!

New hope

I pray for you always, and I hope you never get treated the way you treated me. I understand the heart of the matter and I hope you do someday too.

The months of April and May have completely warn me out. I thought May was a new start, freedom; somehow those chains found me again and wrapped their links ever so tightly around my neck and heart. Weighing me down. But I made decisions, and I'm happy with them. The links loosened with every guided decision I made, and soon enough the weight was lifted.

I've found peace again, it was there all along, I just buried it. But I dug through the rubble, and there it was, as perfect as ever.