drumbeat :: magnify

{via pinterest}

a precious breather occurred this weekend. i was going to apologize for not blogging in two days, but i'm refraining.

i'm honestly not sorry. 

i love this place i'm in right now. it's a breathing place, a place where Light overwhelms and rest is finally accepted.

it's a dancing place, a place of scarves and bells and so much leaping to the music of glory as this soul magnifies again and again.

this year is barely twenty-two days old. and it's already the best year of my life. perhaps a cliche, a redundancy that everyone speaks in moments of joy. but this is more than this heart can bear.

:: i'm pregnant ::

these are words i still struggle to speak because of their newness and the awe that accompany their presence against my tongue. as the weeks are ticking by and my exhaustion is deepening and my appetite for every food in sight grows, i also start to smile broader. as this little one gets bigger within me, i cannot help but magnify.

:: i'm going to Europe ::

i'm boarding a plane to Germany and Prague with my little sister in April. i still am in utter awe to the point of falling to my knees with elation and wonder. in a matter of hours it went from maybe to impossible to official, and this trip is now in the middling stages of planning. and again, i magnify.

my soul doth magnify the Lord

and my spirit rejoices in God, my Saviour. 

{via pinterest

there are times when i feel that my level of blessings overflow above and beyond anything i could have ever anticipated.

and then in the moments of darkness when hope seems barely fingertips from reach, i remember this.

these dancing moments where glory brushes the earth and i find myself streaking cheeks with earth in lines of warrior paint and the drums of pounding hearts set the beat for my soul to leap.

oh, i am brave, soul doors thrown open to let the sun warm the broken corners.

oh praise Him.

:: EDIT :: Europe has fallen through. and though my heart broke all afternoon and tears flowed like water, i am still rejoicing. because there is something here for me, something to which i should cling. and home is where i should be now, i see. and i am still magnifying. 

casa

{via pinterest}

i'm home again.

it's a weird feeling, being back in my little apartment with all my own trappings and comforts of life.

traveling seems to transform my view on the world a bit more each time. showing me new corners, but then reminding me of the comfort of my home when i finally do return.

currently, it's freezing outside. it's the kind of day where i want to just curl up with a mug of soup and a really great book. perhaps even close my eyes and tuck myself under a quilt for a little winter's nap.

florida was warm and tropical. waving palms and crashing ocean waves onto the sandy beach. sand everywhere, wind in my hair.

in that place, my best friend became a wife. family was bonded and friendship for all of life to come were forged amid the dunes and ocean spray.

now the Midwest winds are blowing and the skies are so grey that the blue of summer is almost forgotten.

but my travels brought me back to this.

there is not home. there is a moment away.

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this is my place. 

this is my corner. 

blue skies and sand are for some, and i love it when they bring me in and share their scrap of glory.

but cold winds and winter's swift coming

this is my place now. 

so i will find my comfort in worn novels and steaming mugs of tea. in patchwork quilts and bubbling tureens of soup. in the fall lineup of television shows and the caress of familiar laughter.

this is my corner 

my dwelling.

and i will grow here. shiver here.

love here.

Driver

No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.  ~Lin Yutang

I really do love driving.

Yes, I do prefer other methods of transportation far more than being driven anywhere.

But when I am the one behind the wheel

for whatever reason

it's different. 

i don't think i know why.

Today, I spent eight hours in the car. 

For three of those seemingly endless moments, I was the passenger. The blissful remainder, I was the driver. 

It was cruelly hot. The sun was ridiculously bright, and even my overhead shields did nothing to ward off its pounding rays against my arms and cheeks. 

My car radio has a weird quirk, in that I cannot play a song too loud or else it crackles horribly. 

But honestly, I didn't care. Not even a little.

The windows were down, and the music was as loud as my stereo's odd personality would allow. 

oh, the freedom.

a car is one thing. but my life...

that's another thing completely. 

It's a relief, I think, to not have to drive my life. 

when i'm the one behind the wheel of this vintage-styled

 rachel lee 1990

i tend to wreck it more than i should. 

What a relief to know that the wheel is in His hands

and I am asleep in the passenger seat. 

The mind of man plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps. ~Proverbs 16:9

Sunkissed

"Four things I would have been the better without: love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt." ~Dorothy Parker

I don't tan.

As much as I would love to sport beautiful skin like that of my peers, I simply do not possess the talent.

The closest I have ever been to "tanned" was the summer that I was eighteen...and only after spending hours in a tanning bed to lightly change my skin tone for my aunt's wedding.

I simply do not tan.

I burn. And I freckle.

The freckles have been my "gift" since I was very little. A light smattering of these tiny brown spots have covered my body from nose-tip to toes ever since I was old enough to gaze at my own pale arms in wonder at the marks I beheld.

And now, today, after spending a day in the gaze of the sun, my nose and cheeks are the faintest hint of red, and my face and arms now sport even more of these all-too familiar "beauty marks."

Freckle-faced dreamer
Photo by: DramaticElegance

Perhaps it has something to do with my "Snow White" complexion and hair...or maybe it is the barest reminder of the redheads in my family, and my own natural auburn highlights that compliment my own chocolate brown locks.

Or maybe I'm just over-analyzing the natural pigmentation of my own skin.

Either way, freckles are my own summertime souvenirs.

They are graffiti that I wear...summer was here.

They are my sunkisses....pastel skin and watercolour beauty marks.

And honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way.


Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Bucket

In dreams, we enter a world that's entirely our own.  ~Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban


I have a Bucket List. 


Actually, I think more people have bucket lists than they're willing to admit. 


After all, at first glance, it might seem silly to have a little list of all our secret hopes and dreams...


...some tiny, some huge, most insignificant to those around us.


In fact, I never planned on sharing my own personal Bucket List with the world. My list is eclectic, artsy, random...maybe, to any eye that isn't mine, it might even seem trite or foolish.


But then a post & fabulous Bucket List themed giveaway over at (life's too short not to)wear red shoes inspired me to stop being so selfish...so insecure...so uptight. I bear my soul on this blog all the time...no reason that I cannot share my dreams with the world, as well.


And so...here is a sampling...a taste, if you will...of the dreams I must meet before I "kick the bucket," some of which were born when I was a very little girl.

1.       Visit every continent AT LEAST once (North America and South America have been achieved...the rest are still to come)

2.      Read every Brian Jacques novel ever written

3.      Visit “The Wonderful Wizarding World of Harry Potter” AND buy my own wand.

4.      Cook my way through “The Art of French Cooking” by Julia Child

5.      Have dinner at the “Eagle & Child” in C.S. Lewis' booth

6.      Take AT LEAST one semester of classes at Oxford University

7.      Go skydiving, bungee jumping, or SOMETHING that requires me to leap from a very high location

8.      Visit every state in the Union.

9.      Adopt a Peruvian child

10.   Get a tattoo

11.    Learn how to make French macaroons PERFECTLY

12.   Have a handwritten-letters penpal with someone I have never met in real life.  (Grace Doolittle, June 30^th, 2011)

13.   Visit the Holy Land

14.   Write a novel that actually gets published.

15.   Make it onto the New York Time’s Best Seller list

16.   Learn how to French braid

17.   Ride an elephant

18.   Perform as the Witch in Into the Woods

19.   Perform in Wicked as ANY role

20.  Visit the Eifel Tower

21.   Visit Machu Pichu

22.  Have dinner at Caprial and John Pence’s Supper Club

23.  Meet Paula Deen AND cook with her

24.  Meet J.K. Rowling

25.  See Owl City in concert (June 30^th, 2011, Summerfest 2011)

26.  See Imogene Heap in concert

27.  Attend culinary school

28.  Get. My. Degree.

29.  Stand on a Broadway stage

30.  Meet Douglas Gresham AND have a conversation with him

31.   Meet Adam Young AND have a conversation with him

32.  Take an art class and actually apply myself this time

33.  Get to the point that I am reading my Bible every day habitually

34. Perform in "Les Miserables" in some capacity

35.  Direct a theatrical performance (Hansel and Gretel, Opening Night 9/24/2010)

36.  Open my own Etsy shop

Yes, these things may seem silly. Odd. I know they are truly a random collection of dreams, woven of my own heartstrings and overly vivid imagination. 


But I don't care. 


These are my dreams. These are my goals. 


And you can't make me smaller. 


My heart is just too big.


Let go of the world you know, and plug in the party lights / Soak your cares in the solar flares that light up these island nights / Orange eclipse, I can taste your lips in the citrus afternoon / If you can fly, don't stop at the sky, / 'cause there's footprints on the moon ~The Yacht Club, Owl City