disney cruise surprise!

not sure if you have seen the ridiculously cute youtube video of lily's parents telling her she gets to go to disney world...today!
well, we are finally taking a family vacation and we thought a disney cruise would be fun for both kids and adults. my sisters and i always reminisce about vacations we took as a family. of course we loved going to a beach but it was more about the intentional time making memories with the family. it is especially great when there are kids involved. watching them play in the ocean for the first time and see them get excited about the littlest things. even if they might be too young to remember it when they are older...the rest of the family will remember.

we have been talking in code for the last month or so (saying 'cosco' instead of 'disney cruise') "before we go to 'cosco' we need to do this..."- we wanted to wait to tell my nephews. we thought it would be fun to tell the kids they were going on a cruise in a creative way...jackie and i thought up fun clues with rhymes and puzzle pieces and then we made a little scavenger hunt with the final clue at my parents house. they are super excited...although i dont think they fully understand, not having been on one before. they understand that mickey mouse will be there...which alone is exciting enough :)

almost over...

traveling is a drug.

and i am going through withdrawals.

“Of all the intoxicants you can find on the road (including a "national beer" for nearly every country in the world), marijuana deserves a particular mention here, primarily because it's so popular with travelers. Much of this popularity is due to the fact that marijuana is a relatively harmless diversion (again, provided you don't get caught with it) that can intensify certain impressions and sensations of travel. The problem with marijuana, however, is that it's the travel equivalent of watching television: It replaces real sensations with artificially enhanced ones. Because it doesn't force you to work for a feeling, it creates passive experiences that are only vaguely connected to the rest of your life. "The drug vision remains a sort of dream that cannot be brought over into daily life," wrote Peter Matthiessen in The Snow Leopard. "Old mists may be banished, that is true, but the alien chemical agent forms another mist, maintaining the separation of the 'I' from the true experience of the 'One.'" Moreover, chemical highs have a way of distracting you from the utterly stoning natural high of travel itself. After all, roasting a bowl might spice up a random afternoon in Dayton, Ohio, but is it really all that necessary along the Sumatran shores of Lake Toba, the mountain basins of Nepal, or the desert plateaus of Patagonia? As Salvador Dali quipped, "I never took drugs because I am drugs." With this in mind, strive to be drugs as you travel, to patiently embrace the raw, personal sensation of unmediated reality--an experience for more affecting than any intoxicant can promise.”
― Rolf Potts

from the book "vagabonding."

Top Albums of the Year.

my opinion.


1.) adele
2.) florence and the machine
3.) foster the people
4.) youth lagoon
5.) bon iver
6.) gungor
7.) james blake
8.) young the giant
9.) black keys
10.) motopony

runners up...M83, kurt vile, other lives, ryan adams, the weeknd, fleet foxes, st vincent, starfucker

thankful for friends.

november sucked...but it would have been a lot worse if it wasnt for great friends. i always have fun with chris and josh and they conveniently live right down the street. most nights in november we were either sharing a pitcher at matchbox, listening to live music at the medowlark, dancing at the shag lounge or watching funny youtube vidoes at home. even though where we live is a bit sketchy, its nice to have friends i can call anytime.

celebrating thanksgiving...

same changes.

the last couple of months have been interesting.
i have learned over time that i (and most people) evolve and change unknowingly and inevitably.
i mean there are those people that you run into from high school and you just think - you are the exact same person. you look the same, your beliefs are the same, you havent moved and, im not even kidding, they are dating the same person they were in high school.
part of me cringes because even though they might be "successful" and happy...i cant relate. i like the quote from catcher in the rye where holden visits a museum he used to go to when he was young,

"The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody'd move. You could go there a hundred times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south, the deers would still be drinking out of that water hole, with their pretty antlers and their pretty, skinny legs, and that squaw with the naked bosom would still be weaving that same blanket. Nobody'd be different. The only thing that would be different would be you."

I feel like life would be nicer that way. it would be simple and idealistic if everything just stayed the same. when i was younger i didnt handle change well at all. even rearranging my room made me nervous. i never threw anything away. i loved tradition and i was very controlling about every christmas and fourth of july being the same. we moved houses when i was six and i remember it was a pretty emotional time.
and then, one day, around my high school graduation i just snapped out of it. i realized nothing stays the same and i learned to accept it. i knew that if i had expectations of things or people staying the same, i was guaranteed to be let down.

although this attitude can prevent me from getting attached or making commitments it seems completely necessary for my current lifestyle and jobs. some changes are not always good but are also not in your control. i have to embrace them and accept that my reaction is important in shaping who i am and who i will become.

recently a few of my best friends have moved to portland and san diego to start new lives. the house i grew up in is being renovated and taken over by some family. its the house that built me. there is no place i would hope to stay the same more than this house. aslo this last week our apartment got broken into. ransacked. they took cameras, a computer, winter coats, my backpacking backpack packed for argentina, my journal, my wallet.
it sucks.
but at the same time. its just a reminder of what matters. i am so grateful for my family and friends and my health and my circumstances. i am extremely blessed and i dont deserve it.

and although friendships change and material things are lost...its sometime sad but it only makes me want to cherish my time with people more. i am excited for the people in my life who are being brave and adventurous and embracing life. and honestly i would expect nothing less from them. its why i feel honored to call them my friends.


Every day I want to freeze frame
Scrambling my sleep to keep this fragile frame
From the wind, from the driving rain
Soon as it begins it begins to change it's strange changes

-the weepies

i am young i run wild and free.