simple summertime

2:33 pm. 

Passenger seat of a beat-up Volkswagen, sitting on a towel because the leather seat burned my legs. Nike shorts and a bathing suit, bare feet, tangled hair down. Windows down, 85 degrees, scrunched noses burnt pink. Freckles and sparkle eyes and no makeup. Speaker blares country music and our lungs tighten from singing and laughing. Limbs tired from an eight hour work day, but shoulders are light and relaxed because the beach is ahead. 

Bathed in steady, California sunlight, it was a near perfect moment. A moment that felt like the stereotypical summer you see high schoolers having in the movies. A moment away from work, from adulting, from college, from thinking about the future. 

One drive. We drove from work to the ocean. A healthy dose of happiness to brighten my life. 

It's that simple. Happiness comes in the small things. 

summer 2k19 has been moments like this. small happy moments amongst a messy, messy life. but the small happy moments make the messy ones seem less messy. 

Freshman Year

I've been planning on doing a freshman year recap post since like February. I've been planning on doing the usual; a list of random little lessons I learned or moments that made me happy throughout the year. 

But thinking about it, a list doesn't cover it. So here's some of my raw, unrequested thoughts on Freshman year of college (lol). 

Confidence. I didn't really have a grasp on the word in high school. By senior year, I'd come out of my shell a bit and was able to be outgoing around classmates I'd known for years. And at the time I compared that to 13-yr-old me who could barely get out a whisper and was pretty proud of how far I'd come. I thought I had the confidence thing down. 
But other people's opinions of me consumed me still. I let everyone else decide different details about me, and gave others the power to control so much about myself, including my moods and emotions. Whether or not I had a good day was entirely out of my control because I let it be so. I was so dependent on others for happiness and verification. 

This was my biggest struggle. Everyone else had so much power over me, and because of it, I felt bruised. Everyone else's opinions hit me like punches. 
It's a common problem for teenage girls I realize. Throughout social media you can see the surface-level attempts to right the issue. Cheesy self-love poems and artsy quotes about how I am enough are so popular, it seems excessive and, yeah, I've wanted to gag a few times. It sometimes seems ridiculous, but maybe look a little deeper at what these Pinterest quotes are trying to correct. Thousands of teenagers who are kept up at night wondering why they aren't enough of this, of that. Why they aren't enough. It hurts. 

This year, I've finally outgrown that toxic way of thinking. I’ve found people to surround myself with who support me and love me and who grow with me. People who don’t pretend around me, or make me feel like I have to pretend around them. I don’t feel guilty for just being myself anymore.

I’m not blind to how imperfect I am. I see on the daily how much I need Jesus, and how much I need Mary to get to Jesus. I recently reconsectrated myself to Mary, and if you’d like a post just on that experience I’d love to write one. 

I know I lack so much, and that I need to rely on God for so much. I know this, and I’m working on it. But I’ve grown to see also how much God has blessed me with, and this has given me the strength to grow into more of who God wants me to be. I’m not there yet, but with His help I get closer each day. :) 

But it wouldn’t be a freshman year recap post without a list of some kind, so here are a few moments I’m going to miss: 

// dorm nights where me and my friends eat Trader Joe’s snacks in one of our rooms and play music and talk for hours

// walking to a dance and hearing the music gettting louder and louder 

// late nights out, laughing dileriously 

// hitting the “wow” moment in class that just blows all our minds because God is so simple yet so complex 

// sitting down after demonstrating a Euclid prop (the BEST feeling) 

// hiking every Friday after class to the top of the hill and looking down at the campus

// bundling up for colder weather 

// coffee and thrift stores on a Saturday

// beach sunsets as often as possible

// reading in the courtyard

// sleeping in and waking up slowly on a Saturday morning, showering and listening to music 

// bonfire smoke that lingers on our clothes

Words can’t express how crazy and amazing and life changing this year has been. <3

The Lupine Lady

Im a firm believer in the little things of life. 

Anyone who has been with this blog for a good amount of time will know this. I write about it all the time, because I’ve trained myself to start to notice them. No one will ever truly be capable of noticing every little blessing God showers on us each day, but I want to seek out as many as I can. 

My favorite book when I was little was a book called the Lupine Lady. I don’t remember all the details of the story, but I remember the watercolor illustrations of a woman planting lupines. She would travel the world and plant lupines wherever she went, making the world a little more beautiful. 

Looking back on it, I’ve realized how much this shaped me. Life is a gift. I want to use every ounce of it. 

I’ve struggled so much the past few months with where I am in life. I’ve gone through so many days where I think of choices I’ve made the get me here and I feel like they were safe. In August I moved out, and at the time it felt like a big deal. And it is, but at the same time, I only moved 45 minutes away. To a college that ive been so familiar with my whole life. And I go home at least three times a month, even just for dinner. My friends from high school are scattered around the country, or even the planet. And I’m still in California, where I was born and raised, doing what felt like nothing special. 

Most of this hit me last semester, and around November I was itching to leave. I love my school with all my heart, and the curriculum here actually surprised me; I realized I wasn’t as familiar with the college as I thought. I’m in love with what we do here. But at the time, I wanted to travel. I wanted to experience the world. 

I was frustrated because I knew I couldn’t leave. I took it to God so many times, and every time I knew He was telling me to stay. And yeah I was frustrated. Frustrated that Gods plan for me was so slow. Frustrated that Gods plan for me always seems to involve me waiting for something. Again and again God asks me to wait. 

2018 was the first year in forever that I’ve spent the whole year in one place. Yes, technically I moved to school, but I didn’t travel anywhere. The farthest I went at all in 2018 was LA, which is less than two hours away. I think a lot of me feeling eager to get out into the world was because of this. 
So I started off 2019 with a weekend trip to San Francisco with my friends. It was a little taste of the world, and definitely helped my travel bug. 

I’ve always believed happiness is a choice. Not to say it’s like a light switch, which we can turn on or off at any given moment. Not even to say that it’s a choice to see the good or the bad. But it’s a choice to see the good despite the bad. 
I believe that if you train yourself to notice the little blessings God sends you each day... THIS is the secret to happiness. It’s not practiced enough. Life isn’t about changing the world, but seeing God in the world. And God is loudest in the small moments. 

My campus is nestled in these lush green, rolling hillsides. I went on a hike and found a whole field of beautiful purple lupines. It brightened my day, and made me remember why lupines are my favorite flower. Because they remind me that life is the little things. Life is finding God in the little things. 

I still have a passion for travel, but God has already begun opening that door to me. This year is going to be unlike last—I’m going to experience a bit more of life I think. And I’m excited to find God in new ways throughout it all, and try to make the world a little more beautiful along the way. 


“You must do something to make the world more beautiful.” - the lupine lady 

Beautiful exhausting day

Today was exhausting. The kind of day where I found myself thinking, wow, literally everything that could’ve gone wrong today did.

How wrong I am.

Here are a few things about my day that made me smile:

// sunshine after weeks of rain

// churros

// afternoons lying on the grass soaking up the sunlight

// texts that made me laugh

// friends that make me forget about difficult classes and annoying obstacles

// my roommate who helped me out cuz I was so busy  (she’s the bomb)

// baby plants (SO CUTE)

// dogs

// lemon poppyseed muffins

// lavender lattes

// the beautiful chapel that echoed our prayers to heaven

// poppies

// a really good tuna sandwich

// hugs


What a beautiful day :) take the time to step back and recognize that no day is completely without a happy moment, no matter how small.

Stay positive and be kind today.