Thrift Shopping

I love thrift shopping. 
Some people cringe at the idea of using old things. They think it's icky because the stuff is used. 
I think that is what makes it so interesting. The stuff you buy at thrift stores is timeworn. It's already been somewhere. These objects have history. They are antiquities from another life.

Red floral dress; thrifted from Garage

Red Sweater; Thrifted from SmartSet 

Book; Catherine the Great, Portrait of a Woman by; Robert K. Massie

Book; Masterpieces of Fantasy and Enchantment by: Nelson Doubleday

Book: (Oxford Edition) Poetical Works of Robert Bridges

Green Dress; Thrifted from Ardenes

 Book; The Moon in the Cloud by; Rosemary Harris

Book: The Harvard Classics; American Historical Documents (Deluxe Edition) (1000-1904)

In a few weeks I will see the Ocean for the first time! I saw these two beakers at the thrift store for 25cents each and thought they were the perfect vessel to store my souvenir of the ocean on my book-shelf. 

Blue Top; Thrifted from NewYork

Blue Flannel Shirt: Thrifted from George. I love getting comfy flannel shirts to wear over my clothes when I'm painting. Soon this one too will be covered in paint!

Book; The Golden Compass by; Phillip Pullman

Book; Masterpieces of Mystery and Suspense Compiled by; Martin H. Greenberg

Meraki

I will never sell this painting because it is too precious and money can not buy it. 
I love the way the pebbles glow and the way the paint shimmers when the light hits it.
I painted this one in my Art class a while back with my best friend. 
I called it Meraki. 
Meraki is a Greek word that does not exist in English. 
Meraki means to do something with soul and with love. It means leaving something of yourself behind in your work.
This painting sits in my room and to me it represents the soul and love the two of us have invested into our friendship. 
A long time ago me and my best friend agreed that, despite our many differences, and despite the distance that is now between us, we would not give up on our friendship even when life got difficult. 
Even when life gets busy and we haven't talked in weeks I know that friendships such as these are far to rare and precious to let go. 
It is the beauty of two people that decide not to give up on each other. Friendships such as these are priceless. And therefore, so is this painting. 
   

 

Wishes

"May you get all your wishes but one, so you always have something to strive for." ~Someone Irish ;)

There is this cliche phrase that claims you can wish for the world. 

I think this is silly simply because there are far greater things than the world that you could wish for. 

If I were to claim that my wishes are so grand that the they could compare to the world then everything I want has become something earthly. 

I will dream of heaven and wish upon far greater things.

I am satisfied with blowing dandelions for a little while longer; Content with counting a few more shooting stars; I'll save these wishes for much later. Locked away for safe keeping in dusty corners on my shelf. I'll memorize the constellations and I'll know just the way they dance. 

 I know that I will never be as happy as in the midst of striving for this endeavor. 
Let me dream a little while longer. A few more foot steps up the hill before I climb my mountain. The adventure's always the best part of the story.

And every time the fight is beyond bearing I will remember not to let drifting dandelions and falling stars go to waste. 

The one who gives me the spirit to make wishes also gives me the courage to pursue them.  
He has given me these dreams, and I will fulfill them in his name.
 

The Anatomical Shape of a Heart

I was really disappointed with this book because I thought the title was really cool. 
The main character was dull. She really didn't have any depth. I couldn't feel for her at all throughout the story simply because she was incredibly annoying. 
She is a classic example of the typical "pixie dream girl," and I hate the pixie dream girls. 
In a nut shell, when Bex Adams isn't drowning in her own self pity, she is usually out and about thinking her small little world revolves around her. She is the type to way over think insignificant things without actually doing much at all.
The only thing that made this story remotely interesting was that the deuteragonist, and of course the love interest of the story, Jack Vincent, actually had some amount of depth to his character. Despite the fact that even the depth of this character was fairly shallow, I would have enjoyed the book a lot more if it had been from his point of view. 
You simply cannot tell a good story with characters like these. 
The title is about as good as it gets with this one. 

Picnics

Last week I took off the afternoon to have a picnic with a friend. It was too beautiful a day so we decided to take a moment off to appreciate it. Lemonade, blueberries and good talks in the shade. It is simple things like these that make life abundantly beautiful. 

Regrets

"Dead people receive more flowers than the living ones because regret is stronger than gratitude." 
~Anne Frank  

Regrets are a very personal thing. Regrets are the mistakes we don't talk about and the secrets we pretend not to have.
Regrets eat you up inside. They grip your heart until it's just an aching muscle. But no matter how many times your bitterness consumes you, no matter how many times you overcome the remorse, that regrettable place in the story of your life will always be lacking the mountain you wish you'd climbed. It will always be a mistaken footstep, a choice reversed, a dream left behind, a moment forever slipped away.
But, when it comes down to it, the days in which I did something "regretful" are the days that I regret the least.
Yes, I still prefer to hide my regrets, because after all, they are still my mistakes. 
But my mistakes have allowed me to feel things, things like anger that is beyond taming; sadness so deep you forget yourself within it. 
My mistakes have allowed me to experience first hand what regret can do to a person. When everything good becomes twisted in the nicks and notches of a croquet heart. 
So, to conclude my story of regrets, my biggest regret is trying to push these emotions away instead of embracing them. 
I regret seeking to numb myself when I felt broken inside.
There are still parts of myself that I have lost because I tried to run from the things that hurt me. I thrust away the most vulnerable pieces of my heart. I buried it all like corpses in the ground because I had always believed pain to be a weakness.
I had traded away the broken pieces of myself because I thought that if I rid myself of that which had been crippled I would no longer feel the pain. Instead I would simply feel empty.
Now I have found that it was those very pieces of me that were most precious. The most frail and fragile pieces of our souls need the most care because they are so priceless. They are invaluable, inestimable. 
Pain is not our shortcoming. We are not incapable of living. Pain is when we must be strongest. 

Photo Credit to Heinrich Nikel Photography

 

I regret running to the wrong things for comfort. But my biggest regret in life is trying not to feel. I would rather feel pain and sorrow than to feel dead inside.
If I could live any day again I would choose to feel every aspect of my pain. Because once pain is felt it goes away.
It is when we try not to feel it that it stays.