First Birthday Fun

My nephew Gavin celebrated his first birthday this past weekend. Surrounded by family and friends, we celebrated his first year of life and the joy that he brings to all of us with cake, presents, and lots of laughter. I am often amazed at all that this little guy has gone through already in his short little life and find myself taken aback by his strength, his happiness, and that way his eyes light up when he's smiling. I love the way he laughs when his Mommy plays "This Little Piggy Went to the Market" with him, and the way he only cuddles with you when he's really sleepy. I love to watch him figure out how to do something new and see that look of victory when he realizes his accomplishment. He really is a great addition to our family and I am looking forward to watching him grow and change as he gets older. For now, though, I'm enjoying him as a cute little one year old with his first few teeth and new found mobility for getting around!

After the cake

My favorite shot of the day.

The Birthday Boy with his Mommy.

Look at those smiles!

He'd really rather just eat the card

Birthday Boy!

New Year, New You

Yes, New Year's and all of its celebrations are over. January 1st is now two weeks behind us and in its place has come the frigid cold of winter. In the past few weeks I've seen all the sales on fitness clothes and equipment as people prepare their New Year's Resolutions to "lose weight" and "FINALLY get in shape". By February, however, I am confident that those same people will be splurging on Valentine's Day chocolates and cleaning the dust off of their "must have get-in-shape-faster-than-ever" machines. I've been thinking of those resolutions and those people and while getting in shape is always a good thing, I want my resolutions and goals for the year ahead to stand for something more. So, instead of calling them resolutions and instead of pledging to lose weight with the rest of the world, I have decided to skip the usuals, enjoy the Valentine's chocolates guilt free, and set some goals and things I would like to focus on this year. Here are a few that I've been thinking of:
1. I want to live on less. Less money, less stuff, less everything. Just less. I think this will be a good thing all around as I try to simplify my life and get back to focusing on the things that really matter to me. Most of those things, I've learned, don't involve money or stuff at all. Instead, they involve time and people and energy. I want more of those things and less of the others.
2. I want to become a more aware citizen of the world. I want to know about war in Africa and the Middle East and how it is effecting me and my life. I want to feel for people suffering all around the world and I want to be equipped with the knowledge to do something about it. It seems that educating yourself is the only way to begin to understand the world as well as to contribute to it and this year I'd like to be a better contributor and more engaged citizen of this country and the rest of the world.
3. I want to volunteer more. Throughout college I was given so many opportunities to volunteer and give back to the community. Whether it was on my summer break, part of my studies, or through a club or group I was involved in, it seems I was always finding ways to help the people around me. In the past year or so my volunteering experience has dwindled and with it so has some of my fulfillment. I want that back. So, this year, I'm aiming to find a way to volunteer and spend some of my free time giving back to the community and the world.
4. I want to spend more time loving unconditionally. You hear about unconditional love all the time: it's preached at you from every church pulpit on Sunday morning's; it's shouted at you from the homeless person begging you for change as you stride past him trying not to look; it's shown to you through that person you expect to be by your side all throughout your life no matter how ugly your insides turn. Unconditional love. It's the root of so many things in our lives yet it is nearly impossible to find. I don't see it in churches or in relationships or in communities. I don't read about it in my books or see it on the 6 o'clock news. Instead, we look at people for their differences and we don't love them even though we may want to. And we don't give things without expecting nothing in return. We expect, at the least, a smile or a thank you. But why? We don't need those things, those words, to make our deed worth doing. We just need to do it. Thats it. The end. So, I'm striving to do more loving and less judging, to give without a single expectation or acknowledgement. I'll find a way. After all "in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make."
5. I want to spend less on Corporate America and more on local business. I was driving around Metro-Detroit not long ago and noticed that they had built a Kohl's department store directly in front of a near-closing Ford plant and I paused for a moment, looked at the site and said to myself "this is Corporate America at its finest." The truth is, there is not much that I need in my life that I can't get at a local store. I don't need to go to Kohl's, even if it may save me a few dollars. Plus, since I'm hoping to live on less hopefully I'll be buying less anyways!
6. I want to learn from my entertainment. I spend so much time watching silly television shows and reading Women's Magazines that I don't get anything out of. This year, I'm striving to watch movies and read books and participate in discussions that I can learn and grow from. If I am going to spend time reading and watching movies I want them to be things that force me to ask questions about the world and help me to grow and think beyond myself. I'm sure I'll still sneak in some stupid reality TV show, but hopefully just a lot less!

Some smaller goals that I have this year:
1. I want to run everyday
2. I want to learn a new hobby
3. I want to cook more and learn to cook more things


I'm sure there is more but there is a quick little snippet of what I hope to fill my life with in 2009!

Time Flies

Christmas has come and gone and we have welcomed 2009 with high hopes clouded by great uncertainties. For me, this past month has been full of activities and taking a much needed break from work to spend time doing things that I love with those that I care about most. I am finding that words are in short supply as I reflect on the end of 2008 so I will leave you instead with lots of pictures:

New Year's Eve feast at my place.

Gavin giving Mam-ma kisses on Christmas day

Gavin's first Christmas!

Sisters. Christmas Eve dinner.

Christmas Eve...he loves the telephone!

Skiing up north with my Dad.

Mom in her snowmobile gear after we went out on a beautiful snowy morning!

Out practicing our photography skills. Brandie shot this one of me.

Picture of the future photographer.

Happy boy playing in his basket.

November Adventures in Thankfulness

Hard to believe it is already the 1st of December. November flew by so quickly it left me unprepared for the cold of winter that is already upon us. Almost exactly one year ago I received my first real job offer and began the process of finding a place to live, purchasing furniture to fill the place, and packing up all of my childhood to move to Ohio. And now, here I am, almost a year later writing to you in my cute little condo nestled on the lake shore in Celina, OH. And I am reminded of all that I have to be thankful for in the past year:

-my job. I am thankful to have a job and an income and to be able to pay the bills that sneak in month after month. In a time when so many are laid off or jobless-even people in my own workplace, 60 of them, laid off indefinitely-I am beyond thankful to have the means to support myself. The means to put a roof over my head, clothes on my back, and food in my stomach. The necessities of life, really. And here I am 12 months and I've never gone naked, hungry, or homeless while people all over the world are all 3 of those most days of their lives.

-my family. I am thankful for the addition of Gavin to our family this past year and the joy he has brought to all of us. He makes everything brighter and more full of joy then you would ever think possible. He is the epitome of strength, the image of hope, and the sound of survival. He is reason for the rest of us to never stop believing in tomorow. And I'm not only thankful for him, I'm thankful for the rest of my family and the struggles that we all continue to face head on with the supportive insight of love that surrounds us, and the new-found innocence of a child that keeps pouring itself into our ives.

-my friends. Many old friends have crossed my path in the past year to brighten up my life with memories of the past and new adventures for the present while new friends have made their way into my life helping me to experience so many new and exciting things.

and now the little things:

-my camera and the way that photography has brought a new aspect of creativity to my life

-my newfound love of running

-the continued communication that I am lucky enough to have with the girls in Romania
-the passion for children in need around the world that continues to be reignited in my life
-people that make me smile everyday

-my own place. Sometimes it's quiet and lonely here these days but I am thankful for this time of growing in my own independence. I think I'll look back and really appreciate these days.

Really, I could go on forever about all of the things that I am thankful for but I'll stop there and leave you, instead, with some photos from the past month or so. I hope, though, that you will stop for a minute and make a list of your own of all that you have to be thankful for. Have shoes on your feet right now? Be thankful for those. Have a family that loves and supports you? Man, you're a lucky one. A job that pays the bills? Thats really something to be thankful for. Think of the little things and maybe you'll be surprised by all that you have to be thankful for in your life.

Okay, on with the pictures!!

Gavin trying to read one of my favorite books!

Computer time with Ben

My Mom picking out the chosen Christmas tree!

Fondue with friends in Dayton....DELICIOUS

One for One

One for One. Thats their motto. A pair of shoes. You buy one pair, they give one pair to a child in need. A child in Argentina. Or a child in Ethiopia. Or a child right here in the USA. Children who don't have shoes. Who play soccer in their bare feet while running around on damaging turf. Children who will suffer diseases ingested into their bodies by wounds on those bare feet. Some of them will die. For those who don't, they will face terrible sickness and crippling illnesses. All that because they don't have a pair of shoes. Will you help?

I've been following these shoes for months now and finally ordered my first pair. I ordered them a few days ago and have checked my email 95,000 times anxiously awaiting that glorious email that tells me they are headed my way. And lets not forget the tracking number so I can check that another 95,000 times to know exactly where my shoes stop on their long journey to my doorstep. That package filled with my brand new shoes isn't only a Christmas present to myself, it's a Christmas present to a child. I think of the children I saw at orphanages in Romania who didn't have properly fitting shoes on their feet because all they had access to were hand-me-downs that were well warn and full of holes. I'm giving a pair of shoes for those children. I think of children I met at a particular gypsy village (picture yourself in the middle of a Feed the Children commercial you see on TV) who didn't even have clothes let alone a pair of shoes. They walk around their village of dirt huts nearly naked and entirely barefoot. All of them. Babies. Toddlers. Children. Adults. The whole village. I'm giving a pair of shoes for those children. And I'm giving because an orphan child with nearly nothing of her own gave me a pair of shoes for my 20th birthday in Romania. A pair of green tennis shoes that are slightly too small and have a few tiny holes in them. One pair of shoes that changed me forever.

And now I get to give back by participating with Toms Shoes.

One for One.

Just Another week

Some exciting things from the past week or so:
1. I got to talk to a bunch of the teens I worked with in Romania last week. It was good to hear their voices and realize that I still have a presence in their lives 2.5 years later.
2. My new computer came with photo software :-)
3. On a trip home last weekend I ran into my old swim coach / teacher / mentor / all around amazing person who I wanted to grow up to be just like. I don't think I'm quite there but who said I was grown up yet?!
4. I have a HUGE family and last weekend that was made clear when I got to see tons of different cousins totally unplanned!
5. My grandma cooked biscuits and gravy Saturday. It's all made from scratch and absolutely delicious.
6. Thanks to my mom, I officially own a Christmas tree and can not wait to put it up in my own place.
7. To go along with the Christmas tree I purchased my first gift and listened to my favorite Christmas song already
8. I've gotten a few new CD's and am totally addicted to the new Jason Mraz, Margot and the Nuclear So and So's, and the Juliana Theory. I love music and the new stuff is definitely a good addition to my music library.
9. Last week I finished the book Long Way Gone...A phenomenal story about a boy who lost his entire family to war in Sierra Leone, Africa and ended up becoming a child soldier capable of killing TONS of people. The book is his story; memories of his childhood, documentation of how war first took his family and then how he took the families of others, and a testament to his recovery and eventual forgiveness of himself when he is given a second chance at a normal life. If you're up for the heartwrenching read, it comes highly recommended :-)
10. Also, thanks to my mom, I have a new shirt with a GREAT quote on it that I'd like to share with you here:

"Love this life... is about celebrating the moment
and that we're not guaranteed or owed another day
and how cool it is that what we hide can actually be
the fuel towards our glory
and that it's not so bad to be proven wrong

LovethisLife...is about welcoming the blind turn
and the possibility that there's no such thing as coincidence
and that empathy is incredibly sexy
and that it's never too late to pick up a guitar or paintbrush
or to make an amend
or to make a new friend

LovethisLife...could be about rekindling a past flame
or igniting a new one
or shapeshifting from a dreamer into a doer
or savoring the caress of a love long gone

LovethisLife...means whatever it is you want it to mean because

LovethisLife...is a celebration of you and your path

LovethisLife'cuz it could go at any second

you rock."

I think it is one of my new favorites actually. It's filled with great truths and a challenge to get out and live. That is something I aspire to; something I search after with all that is in me. I want to be a doer and a thinker and a feeler. I want to do all that I can, experience all that is out there, be challenged to grow and to change, while getting the chance to feel all of the happiness that this world has to offer. Yep, its a great quote!

And now, 3 cool pictures from my weekend in New Boston:

Sporting my Dad's Crown Royal hatBathtime with Gavin
Gavin loves his Grandpa!

a better version of your old self

An old friend got in touch with me this week. One of my very best friends in High School and Middle School. Somewhere over the past few years we sort of lost track of each other. It has been over a year since I have even seen her. In her message she was asking me what I was up to and where I was these days and all of that good stuff. I quickly responded"not much is new" but then I realized EVERYTHING was new! In the past year since I have seen her I have graduated college, moved to my own place in Ohio, and started my first real job. I have travelled to new places, embraced new challenges, and have made new friends. I have run a half marathon, become and aunt, and started working on a graduate degree. And that is probably just the big things. It is amazing how quickly things change even when it seems like they haven't at all yet it only takes a quick "hello" from an old friend to remind you how much has changed and how much hasn't.

Change isn't so bad. It isn't always easy, but in changing anything you learn more about yourself and who you want to be while staring in the mirror at exactly who you are. When you look past the exterior and into your heart of hearts you begin seeing pieces of yourself; pieces that you don't like and pieces that you do. Some of those pieces you may not want anymore. They may be old, they may be bad, or they may be pieces that are far from the person you have become. Those pieces you slowly throw out and replace with something new and better. A new accomplishment, a new experience, or facing a new challenge. At the same time, you see all of the things that you like, the things that are at the core of your being, and the things you hope you never lose. You tuck those pieces away for safe keeping as the world spins on around you and the changes continue. We are never complete, really, and instead, are always staring back into that mirror re-evaluating where we are, who we are, and who we want to become.

It was nice to hear from my friend this week. It's always tough to lose track of someone you care about, but when your paths cross again it is a nice refresher on friendship and change; a subtle reminder of all the ways you have grown to be a newer, better version of your old self.