WHAT I'M LISTENING TO: The City Harmonic

powerful belief, declared from the rooftops. from the top of my lungs: amen!

bible belt collections

greg laswell's doing good things for my soul today.

and guess what? i've added another thing that i like about texas (although i'll admit i don't love this one all the time, there are sometimes i really really do love it).

bible-belt road signs.

they're everywhere.  absolutely everywhere!  you can't drive for more than a couple blocks anywhere in the city without being reminded...

God is good.
Save me Jesus.
Come have a Spiritual Explosion!!

they are all over and they are such good reminders.  okay, the spiritual explosion one has me laughing every time i see it on my way to church, but most of them are actually inspirational - good reminders to keep God in every part of life.  these signs have me thinking a lot about worship lately.  we all do it differently, every single person on the planet worships uniquely.  some devote their life to scriptural text, others to christian rock music and some simply make a reverence out of going on hike.  although i do believe in truth, as in some things are right and others are wrong, i also believe in degrees.  good, better, best, if you will.  in some things, we are commanded to worship - renewal of covenants with God, study of the words He's prepared to guide us through life.  and in some things, we are simply left to find things to do with our lives that are right - find ways in our unique situation to worship.

for me, i feel closer to God while i'm hiking and enjoying the grandeur of nature than almost any other time.  music helps me feel closer to my Savior, too.  sometimes hymns and music of peace, sometimes christian rock or a simple line of truth from an everyday artist.

sometimes i struggle to feel truly worshipful at church but i know that it pleases God when we serve in his church and participate in the rituals he has created for his children so they can feel a part of his family.

in the end (or..beginning) it comes down to figuring out what things bring you (personally) closer to God and what things create more separation.  then, doing more of the first and less of the last!

and back to bible-belt signs.  i don't know what most of those churches teach, specifically.  i know there are many similarities and many difference in our beliefs.  but in the end, we're all believing in something.  and i love their signs, their reminders.  they take my mind closer to Christ, lift my thoughts out of the mire of this world that they so often get stuck in.  and i love that these messages are proof that people are (in their own various ways) worshiping God and encouraging others to do likewise.

in decision, i'm going to start a collection of pictures: my favorite signs from that time i lived in the bible belt.

oh yeah. that's still now.  i better start carrying my camera everywhere.

now, for your listening pleasure, some greg laswell.  enjoy :)

music and homemade bread

burned bread again today.  well, at least the tops.  i haven't seen the inside yet, but one thing is certain: baking bread in a toaster oven is tricky business.  our almost-dead ancient horrible oven died for real last night.  i wanted a BIG pan of roasted veggies!  but...when the heating element caught fire and started sparking all over the place, i decided it was time to retire the thing for good.  at least the veggies were finished by the time i saw the sparks, right?

also, this has nothing to do with vegetables, ovens or bread, but wesley blaylock's new ep is absolutely beautiful.  here are a couple of my favorites.  i especially love hannah blaylock (featured in the second).

thanks to taylor for finding this gem!  ....on repeat :)

thinking of painting tonight... it's been a while and i'm itching to get back at it lately.  also i'll probably have three more slices of that bread.  while in the middle of writing, i already had one and it was glorious.  for some reason the toaster oven always turns the tops of the bread black, but it's never really burned....?  the bread is so moist it doesn't get hard at all.  and it doesn't taste too done at all.  horrah! for another toaster oven success.  really, sisters.  thank you.  it's because of you that i've been able to cook anything in the oven at all these last six months.  love you! :)


ps. chopping all my hair off is now inevitable.  the next time i'm even remotely close to lubbock, it's all coming off.  all of it!

get things done day!

today is my productivity for life day.  that means that my main goal is to get all the basic things done - the rest of the week has been productivity for work, so i'm super happy it's thursday and i have a little room to breathe.  i've already gone to the gym, cleaned the office entirely, and eaten breakfast.  now, i need to take a shower, put clean sheets on my bed, go to the art museum {free!}, grocery shop, do some laundry {first, figure out this laundry card business}, go to an interview, and hopefully find some time to read.

it's a long list for one day - especially when you can never really say how long it'll take to peruse an art museum. my productivity would skyrocket if i skipped the museum and decided to go next month on free thursday, but really. . .i just love art.  i can't decide what to do yet.  because i absolutely have to find time today for groceries...and laundry.  because really, that whole thing called living on oatmeal is just getting ridiculous!  so maybe i'll hold off on art till work slows down slightly in a month.

also, i learned a song on the guitar yesterday!  it's about time i pick up another instrument.  no matter what it is, it feels darn good to make music again.  it's simple and cute - and i'm still working on this whole "i can sing and play at the same time" deal.  but it's coming, and i love it!

happy thursday!

music

hours past midnight, and i really ought to be sleeping.  i have a drive in front of me in the morning - quick trip home and i'm already on my way back up to happy valley - and if i'm going to stay awake on the freeway, i need some sleep.  why am i awake, you ask?  well, it's because of music.

see, one of the more valuable things i lost when my little green laptop decided to die was my entire {and extremely cherished} music collection.  i say collection because it truly was that. i had  music on my ipod from early high school {mae, all-american rejects, relient k}.  i had music from every good friend who agreed to a music exchange party for years back, things like taylor the latte boy and pink martini.  i had a unique section from most of my lovers through my dating years - some really bizarre, some i listened to regularly.  artists as random as cartel, sea bear, and the byu men's choir.  the disney song kiss the girl from the little mermaid, the intro song from mission impossible II that my mom loves to dance to, a massive chunk of sabrina's music that she was generous enough to share with me {sufjan stevens, lady gaga, the shins}.

i had never listened to quite a bit of it.  a large portion of the never-listened-to section was given to me by a boy with language that wasn't quite up to par.  this part i'm happy to be rid of.  it sat there going stale because i didn't want to sort through it to find what was actually good and what was sour.

. . . i'm getting sidetracked.

to get to the point, despite the fact that i hadn't even listened to all this music, and that ninety percent of it wasn't actually mine, it was absolutely a part of me.  this itunes collection told a story.  the story of my friends, the story of my difficulties, the story of my twitterpated fantasies, the story of my lovers, the story of my heartaches and successes.  it told my story.

and it's gone.

is it really lame that this is the part of my old computer i miss the most?  i had papers on there that took me hours and hours - sucked the life out of me for weeks.  i had lists of everything important i'd accomplished in life and everything i wanted to someday check off.  years worth of budgets, creative writing, pictures. . .etc.  and yet, the part that seemed the most me was my music - because it told my story.

"this will be good for you!" chimes natalie.  {as she's helping me sort through a package of music i'd given her a while back to restore to my possession.}  "a new start!  you don't ever have to be reminded of that one horrible relationship again when his music starts playing on your computer...because it won't be there!"

and i guess that's just it.  i like memories.  i like the good and the bad - knowing where it came from, where i came from.  music is a big reminder for me - of all things good and bad.

a new start really is a good thing.  i think it's coming at an opportune time, a time when i needed to have my memory hard-drive wiped clean, slightly...metaphorically.  it scares me to let those things go, i think.  i hold on to them tightly because they're mine to remember.

but the last while i've felt very. . . new-start-ish.

i remember specifically, february 13th, coming home at about 10:00 pm and telling genni, "it just feels like the start of something new.  a new chapter. i don't know why yet, but something's different.  i can feel it."

and then i think of all the things life's forced me {against my will, more often than not} to let things go the last while.  it's been quite the load.  things i've lost, things lost on me, people i'll never see again, things i'll never read, little mementos that triggered memories - all gone.  and i think, maybe it's a good thing, this losing.  some of those songs were the only tie left to certain memories.  when i listened, i would remember things i otherwise wouldn't be able to recall at all.

and maybe it's a good thing those memories have been bound to my subconscious.  i think it's a not-so-subtle hint that i need to move on.

because if i expect to give a new chapter in my life full attention, i need to let the old ones stay old.  stay in the past.

and maybe the best way to do that was to wipe my hard-drive clean.  it seems a little brutal to me still.  but i guess drastic times call for drastic measures.

well.  the drastic measures have been made, and i'm waiting to see signs of drastic times.

don't get me wrong.  things are swell.  yes, even abnormally or drastically swell!  and i want that to keep going. but i'd also like to have a little foresight and understand why it was so important that i lose all that music and all those memories.

because really, i'm missing all the albums of jimmy eat world pretty tremendously right now.
but then. . .i think i've already found some more than decent substitutions. . .

here's to future music. . .and drastic times and drastic measures.

and also, natalie just suggested that sometime i write a comical version of this post outlining all the music i received from each boyfriend i had.  man, that'd be a list, for sure!
and yes, comical is a good word.

but that's another day. :)
goodnight, music-lovers!

ps. my cat just ate a really big bug.  ew... second thoughts about sleeping with her tonight... ew.