Sooo I have written a little stuff for the blog here andthere but have never gotten done enough to post it. Maybe that will be tommorow. But for now, I have lots and lots of new photos on flickr. In order, like I always do with my photos:

OC and Huntington Harbor just some odd shots from my drive up to Orange County for a wedding two weekends ago.

The Artsy Fartsy photos got updated quite a bit lately.

My friend Laura and I hung out on Beach Blvd for the day and took lots of silly photos.

Hayley and I took some of our 8th grade girls shopping one afternoon last week (this was mostly to use up film from the weekend, but got some fun shots!)

During a day Jason had to work, I took some long over due photos of Downtown Greensboro . These only make me want to go back down there and take more.

So these could be part of the downtown Greensboro set, but I think they deserve their own. There were some amazing cherry blossoms down there that were so easy to take photos of.

I have one more roll to develop too, so look for those and actually blogging soon. Oh also, yes I did go to NC and yes Im back in CA now.

Last night was a mix of emotions for me at youth group. Some parts of the leadership group have made me grown weary of even being a part of the group at all over this past year. A long over due meeting was held and lots of ideas shared. I felt feeling accomplished of it all and prayed the thoughts that were put down on paper would be followed through. I saw a week come and go and nothing. But last night there was a step forward in helping the leadership grow to help one another to care for the kids with support, encouragement and accountability. I hope it continues or else I can see the ministry just getting torn and us leaders holding onto threads again.

The kids just piled on top of my heart last night with heartache after heartache they are going through. Just seemed to come all last night. Like finally, they these group of girls feel close enough to Hayley and I to share their struggles, their sadness, their real stuff. Not that hadn’t at all before, but it would be like pulling teeth to get them to talk about anything deeper than “Jesus bible God”. We wanted these girls to think for themselves instead of the “right” church answer. To support them in their questioning of the faith they find themselves believing and hating all at the same time. Why would God let their families get ripped apart? Questions like those they almost seemed to afraid to say outloud. But if your new hair cut wasn’t up to their standard, they had no problem letting you know. What I love about them, bluntly honest when it comes down to it.

The stories of their last week lives they were sharing made me sad and angry. Sad because I wish I could do more to help them feel like someone cares about them. Angry because so many of their parents seem to take little interest in their own kids. I don’t say that flippantly. I say that as a constant stream of downward I have seen these girls go through this past year. I don’t view their parents like I do because of the kids point of view. In fact, their personal struggles never mention their parents. To me, the lack of care given to these kids is right where I see a parents love and support to step in. I guess I’m tainted having grown up in a house with parents who love each other, love my brother and I no matter what. Not to say its an easy thing to raise kid (especially some of the kids in my youth group) but you have the kids, lets try to do best you can.

I’ve been having a constant theme ringing in my ears this past week of being selfless. Looking to others needs before your own. In church, in my relationship with Jason, with my family and the kids. So to me, the first gut reaction to hearing the pains of my girls stories was “Why are their parents so selfish?” I know a lot of these kids comes from broken homes and so their parents are going through a lot of stuff themselves they have to deal with. But that doesn’t mean they can toss aside the needs of their kids. I don’t know if I even have right to say any of this not being a mother myself. I cant being to understand what a parent goes through and I’m not claiming to. For a handful of my friends, lives right now is babies. They share this love they never understood before. So between my not so screwed up family and friends sharing deep love towards their children, I cant find the missing connection for my youth group girls.

Today was an exciting day here. It rained really hard after hours of threatening rain clouds. Hard rain? Not very exciting, everybody has seen that. But during my morning at work it started out sunny then those threatening clouds started to show again. I asked my coworker Mike to take out the trash before it started to rain again. Not a minute out the door, it starts to hail. HAIL! According to a customer who came in, it dropped from 55 degrees to 43 degrees within 5 minutes. I felt so bad when Mike walked back up with hail sticking to his head. It hailed for about 5 minutes straight of pea size hail coming down. It was so chilly that it stuck on the ground in piles, most in the planets and on car windshield.

Its our “snow” and I cant remember a time hail sticking that long here. So exciting. All day long customers came in with their hail or “snow” stories. Last one I got before I left today was that his kids were building a little snow man in their front yard. Now that doesn’t happen everyday in a beach town now does it?

One of my guilty pleasure (your allowed to have more than one, right?) is McDonald’s french fries. I went to indulge in my guilty pleasure this afternoon. Pulled the box of fries out of the bag, I could feel the warmth seeping through. Then, I move my finger slightly to see there was nutrition facts on the side of the red box. I know there are a lot of calories in McDonald’s fries but I don’t need to have it staring at me while I eat my hot tasty salty, way too many calories fries! Why America?! Why did you conform McDonald’s to do this? I was happy knowing there were not good for me, but now I have to see just how not good for me they are. I didn’t want to know…nor do I need to know like my mom says “You need to be an informed fat consumer”. This is a sad sad day.

“We also stop for coffee a lot. Well… let me clarify that: We stop for me to get coffee. I have what some would call a “problem” or an “addiction.” I like to think of it as more of a relationship.” ~Justin McRoberts

When I first held you I was cold
A melting snowman I was told
But there was no-one there to hold
Before I swore that I would be alone forever more

Flowers in the Window by Travis

This song has almost a Beattle sounding music to it which only makes it fun to sing and move your foot too. Travis is a band I randomly found on Jim’s (yes, from the Office. I have a star crush but its okay casue Jason has a crush on Pam) iTunes playlist. Jim has good taste in music. Actucally, I think its due time for a music post from me. I will work on that, untill then, check out Travis on iTunes, they are fantastic.

Oscars on Tv, rum and coke along side some licorice in my hands. This is gonna be a good Sunday evening.

I think it was, of all people, Oprah who said what you wear the most you should spend the most money on. Meaning, if you have a career that wears suites, buy expensive suites. If you are a stay at home mom who wears jeans, buy high end jeans. You will wear these pieces the most, giving them the most wear and tear. The most bang for your buck basically. Well, I’m no stay at home mom, but I wear mostly jeans outside of work. As much as I think this is a good principle when it comes to clothes I can not bring myself to pay good money for clothes I am just gonna get coffee smells on. My work clothes are differently from the bargain stores mostly. Anyways, being a short girl I’ve always had problems with length on jeans being too long. Fitting everywhere else, just too long. TLC’s What Not to Wear’s solution to this problem is “get a good tailor”. For some reason I have had this fear of tailors, that these great jeans I love, long but still love, would be ruined! But during Christmas time I used a GAP gift card and got some of the new curvy (cause I’m kinda curvy) jeans on sale for I wanna say $18 bucks. Good deal for GAP jeans and this is something I should spending like $40 on(the most I spent on a pair of jeans, which apparently is not a lot still). They fit perfectly everywhere… but the 4 inches of extra fabric at the ends. I found a tailor downtown that said they’d match the thread and everything for me for $8 dollars. According to my mom, this is pretty average for hemming, so off I went with my jeans. I walked in and it seemed very Italian which I hope isn’t stereo-typing, I don’t mean it in a bad way. I was actually quite comforted by this fact. I put on the jeans to get measured and think of the Friends where Chandler goes to Joey’s tailor who goes up way too high to measure. Lucky for me, they were staying way south of that area cause I just needed length off. The nice lady pinned and chalked me up and I left my jeans in their hands. When I went to pick them up today I was still worried something would turn out wrong. But I tired them on and I’m now officially the biggest fan of tailoring! Why didn’t I try this sooner? Fear, silly fear which I over came today. Here’s to good tailors and new jeans!