new day, new dream

So much has happened this summer. So much has changed in me in the past few months. We had the chance to let my little sister take a retreat from home life and live with my husband and I for a few months, that was a huge blessing. I went through a tv and gameboy binge after she left. I felt a brief condensed period of what newly empty nesters must feel. Now awaking from that and diving into creating. I've been weaving, sewing, drawing and gardening.

Today I woke up, drank my morning cup of coffee and got ready for the day as my husband serenaded me with his new songs. He has taken this year off so far to work on his music, writing and recording (at home). He has been creating handmade home recorded albums (an ep and full length) to send to friends when he's finished them. A season of pursuing creating as it were. I felt like going to an antique store this morning, so that is what we did. Jamin had recently visited the downtown of the town we recently found our home church in Gladewater, Texas. He goes on prayer walks around the downtowns of local towns, a practice we picked up at our last church in Orlando, FL "City Beautiful Church". It's really rewarding, take some time and intentionally walk around an area and pray for it, for the people, for awakening, expecting the Holy Spirit to move. He'd taken a prayer walk recently in Gladewater and recognized that most of the downtown is made up of Antique stores. So we drove there and visited every one of them and ate lunch at the local taqueria. He had noticed this one empty space, one floor, open loft retail space with a back room, concrete floors, high ceilings, glass store front and door. He showed it to me when we visited today. My mind started reeling with ideas for the space. "I could hold classes, it could be a gallery, coffee shop, creating, vintage store." It's up for rent, so we called and it's just $400. We got home with a list of what we'd have to do to make our dream a legitimate business, what we'd need, what we could do, brainstorming. I'm excited, I really want this to happen. God showed it to Jamin first and then me separately shortly after, so I say He planted the dream. 

All day I was taking pictures of my favorite finds at the different antique stores, this giant 6' by 7' shelving unit made up of little 5" cubbies, this circa 1920 mini printing press, little bottles, linens, a rug, juice glasses. I found a lot of stuff I really liked but have gotten better at waiting to buy. God had a present waiting for me at our last stop, this little missions thrift store. As we talked to the guy working there I saw out of the corner of my eye some boxes of polaroid film. I asked him if those were for sale and he pulled out 2 polaroid cameras and 2 unopened boxes and one unopened foil case of film. I bought the Spectra system Polaroid camera and he threw in the two 779 packages of film (a professional  quality version of 600 series film)(which doesn't work with the spectra camera but i have a few 600 series cameras it will work in) I've been wanting a spectra camera for a while and the patience paid off because I got one for $5. Thanks God for such an awesome day of old stuff and new dreams. 

my test picture of the trees outside our current apt.

photography

I've been thinking about my photography lately. I haven't gotten any developed since we moved to Florida. I have 7 rolls I need to take somewhere. I heard of a few local labs I'm gonna check out soon. This summer I cataloged my film negatives. Most of them. A few I'm sure are still hidden amongst the unorganized art supplies. For the first time this summer I've felt a desire to pursue having my stuff up in local coffee shops and in galleries. I've never done either with my photos. But I think I'm ready. Not quite sure how to go about that. But I've buit up a small portfolio.

Lately I've been thinking about getting my etsy stores back up since we got our new studio space. I have a list of things that I need and want to dive into that. One of which I think is pretty necessary is a digital camera. Today one of my studio mates asked us today if we could make a photographing station for stuff some us want to sell on etsy and ebay. He'll provide the digital camera, flash & umbrella, tripod, etc. We just figure out the settings, the best setup, most productive photographing station for everyone to use and prove so with good photos of some sample items and in exchange he'll give me a Pentax Spotmatic with two lenses. This is such a blessing since I've been needing a way to take pictures to get my etsy back up and rolling and for blogging. I hate using instagram pictures, but it is all I have, unless I take a film picture, get it developed and scanned to post it online.

Florida

 

some polaroids I took this summer, since we moved to Florida in May. I love how big the leaves are, they are giant. like a large fern leaf, you could hold out your arms and the leaf is larger that the length of your arms. they are smooth and vibrantly green, full of life and beauty. 

raining

it's raining today, overcast and peaceful. We moved and now live in Orlando, Florida. It's very different from Austin, Tx. I like our new place though. We have been cooking and there isn't a bug problem that i can tell yet. We were able to get a bigger place. So we will both get a little studio area. I'm excited about that. We put all of our stuff in storage when we drove into town and just got our perishable items back and they seem to be unharmed. Praise the lord. I was trying not to think about it but i was kind of worried about my film and Jamin's Vinyl. But everything's ok. yay! I got a skein of sock yarn and some needles and some paint and paper to tide me over till i get everything unpacked and buy a desk. We gave away most of our furniture when we moved. Our truck was too small. So we opted to keep the stuff and get new furniture, although we did keep all of our bookshelves. We have a kind of obsession with bookshelves. I wish there was a half priced books here in Orlando. We will have to find a good used book store here. I still need to find a photo lab here and art supply store. And make a friend. I'm kind of excited about being a homebody though although i do miss the live music and of course my friends in Austin. Nothing can replace that. It feels like a new start. Now to see how this blind leading to a new place plays out. It's odd but in a good way how we never know what lies ahead. We can get settled and feel comfortable in a place to where it doesn't seem new anymore but in the end our everyday lives are a mystery. The sunsets are and night sky are beautiful here. I don't know when i'll open up my etsy stores again. I'm gonna focus on creating for now and put the selling on the back burner. So here is to this adventure we call life. 

mountains

a few mountain-esk pictures i've taken and a post card.

this last one is by Nirrimi from her blog http://weliveyoung.blogspot.com/ she is pretty inspiring, awesome. these are the blue mountains of Australia.

My heart longs for nature so much. This morning I awoke and remembered this picture I had seen on Nirrimi's blog of the blue mountains of Australia that she lives by. How beautiful a place to live. Maybe one day we will live by some mountains or visit her mountains. Texas has hills around Austin and we've driven by plateaus in New Mexico and the red rock pile mountains of eastern California. I've also been to snowy mountains, the alps in France and Mountains of colorado. My favorites are mountains covered in vegetation, in growth, in life.

cold polaroids and life

So this is what happens when you take pictures in weather that requires you to wear leggings under jeans and multiples shirts and sweaters and socks to keep warm. where sitting right next to the camp fire after the sun has set with a blanket around you is too cold to be comfortable so you run off to your tent to snuggle into your sleeping bag that you pull up over your face to feel a sense of warmth. but don't get me wrong, you love every minute of it. living in the wild with only the sound of rain at night coming off the lake, the breeze in the branches of the trees above and around you. You get out of your tent in the morning to see the most beautiful morning light shining so delicately thru the branches of the evergreens around you. God, i hope to live in michigan some day or that it be a place I go back to often to experience the company of again and again like an old good friend.

SXSW

So south by is over now and i'm left to confront our situation trying my darndest with prayer to not get overwhelmed by it all. Everything we went to was awesome but the local band "Dikes of Holland" rocks my world every time. We got to go to 4 out of their 11 shows they played for south by. I'm really gonna miss them playing when we move. We also got to see doomtree records and peter wolf crier.

Did you know that u-haul trucks are between 700 and 1000 to rent. I had no idea. I want to plan. the human in me wants to prepare or be prepared. It says "don't move till you can afford", "don't move till you have prepared" inserting deceiving reason. In a reassuring way that can also be scary as walking blindly (also known as faith) God will do what he has planned and everything will work out accordingly. I know this but I have spurts of overwhelmed-ness. It's a different feeling than I used to experience before I was a believer. My peace rests in my chest, firm and unmoving. It is there and never leaves me. This fleeting anxiousness is now experienced as almost not a part of me, like it crawls around on my shoulders wanting to get in to destroy my peace and makes me question doubt momentarily but then my core reminds me that we can call Him Father. All my peace comes from Him and just to be reminded of his sovereignty brings that peace that passes understanding, peace without reason, peace that only comes from God.

up in the air

it's raining and it kind of suits my mood right now. I feel i've felt so much in the past few days i'm kind of drained. 3 days ago whilst driving home from work with my husband I told my husband i needed to tell him something. I felt it was time to go, all the sudden pretty strongly. His response was "that is so weird" in intervals on the way home. he had received the leading the day before. Like all of the sudden we don't belong here anymore, out of place that has been our town for the past three years. I feel like our upbringing has prepared us with equally nomadic spirits & our faith. For we live here on earth but our hearts are with God and one day we will die like everyone and everything does and then we will finally truly be home with Him. If you aren't a believer this more likely seems insanity and stupidity to you. We perceive things differently. For we are of a different nature. Everyone who believes had to be brought to belief by God. For he is the only one who can change your heart. Then one day by a step of faith entering the unknown you say ok to God and everything changes.

So here we are, a few days have past and so far just the ideas of possibilities that are in front of us. I want things to happen quickly to be where we are meant to be. I say "God i said yes, now what, what is next" and to request intricate details. but in the end I know "be patient". God has all eternity to work out his plans. So with bear hugs and laying on the floor in conversation my husband he comforts me and reminds me of this, of patience and peace. We need not worry, for we are not in control, we have only the perception of control.

i'm tired

i'm tired and smell of burnt frying oil. i took some of my sibling to the mall earlier today. a horrid place, i really don't understand malls with all their florescent lighting and bad smells of bad cologne and loud pop music being thrown at you with every store geared toward luring children in to spend their parents money. now i reek of frying oil from the food court i sat in while they ate.

I wish to smell of fresh rain. the sky was sprinkling a little as i drove them back to the house they are living in and as i came to where we live. i want the skies to open and pour down rain in buckets full. to see the wind blow it diagonally and see the ripples as new drops hit the growing pool of water that accumulates on our sidewalk every time it rains. the clouds make me sleepy and happy. overcast days seems to wrap me in a warm blanket of peace and comfort and childlike joy for rain reminiscing of days when i was a child who would throw on her swimsuit and her parents scuba diving goggles and run around outside in the wet outdoors. i miss moments like this that rarely seem to happen as an adult.

i have to go to work in a few hours and feel as though all my energy is spent. i have a thyroid problem that leaves me drained constantly a perpetual state of feeling my arms are too tired to lift to type or that breathing is taxing such a simple task. I love being in nature, i wish i could just live in a forest away from all human buildings that seem to drain their surounds of warmth and beauty and leave them stale like cardboard, bland and unfeeling void of joy and beauty. it really wears on me to live inside so much. to work inside and sleep inside and live inside. at times i despise it with a passion. i long with such a longing that my heart aches to go camping and leave humanity behind to be full of wonder with breathing in air rich with the smell of soil, the childlike wonder of exploring the before unseen searching for pinecones and mushrooms. studying the growing things that seem to cover every inch of ground in a lush woods.

i want to be outside more, it fuels me. to walk more, to live more. i feel i get stuck in this american way of living inside. inside our cars, inside our homes, inside our work. why is everything inside. anyways... i'll get off my soap box, and just say my heart wants to live amongst nature where i feel closest to God.

hi

so the more i'm on flickr lately i find more photographers whose work i admire. i recognize that my work has improved in the past year that i've delved into photography. but you will alway come across peoples work who you are like "that would be a memorable experience to have done that or wouldn't that be cool to have that opportunity" so yesterday i came across such an artist that captured my attention. i found her blog by following the link from one of her pictures on someones tumblr.

her blog we live young leaves you aspiring to a greater go getter attitude. she decided she was a photographer at age 13 and now at 19 is a professional photographer, world traveler, gipsy/hippy at heart who just had her first child a little girl recently. it makes me feel so old and lazy. I feel like scarlett johansson's character in lost in translation when she is in her hotel room alone. I've spent so much of my life completely alone to a point of seclusion or solitude. Now i have a peace about life from knowing God and i have Jamin in my life.

I'm no longer alone but i still spend many of my days alone when jamin's working but i have the day off. I lounge around our apt. checking my flickr, watching movies i've watched before, drinking coffee and spiced plum tea, venturing onto our stoop and admiring the plants. especially lately the dwarf peach tree & passion flower vine that are in bloom right now. And one of our neighbors has a succulent collection they've placed in the courtyard of our apts.

I want to take more pictures of people. so i've started to take more pictures of jamin. i love candid pictures people take of friends at parties. i have two friends here. i've never been one to have many friends or a group of friends. in elementary school and middle school when i was in school i had a best friend most years. so i'm taking more pictures of him and i've been thinking of taking pictures of a local actress/model girl who did a play wit him last fall. I've been collecting a list of pictures of people i've found on flickr and tumblr thinking about what i'd do with a photo shoot with her.

We ate jalepeno pepperoni pizza tonight. We walked there...well i walked and jamin skateboarded most of the way getting ahead of me and then waiting for me and then skateboarding on ahead and then waiting till i caught up. we both listened to our own music along the way singing out loud at moments the tune or lyrics to what we were listening to.

now i'm watching yet again "lost in translation", a classic.

New music

We went to see "my neighbor totoro" today. One of our favorite and i'd say most classic Miyazaki film playing at the alamo draft house. Next week they are playing their final movie in the series "Nausicca". I've been on an anime kick lately and have found a few series i've enjoyed recently. On netflix i watched the series "ghost hound" about these kids that slip into wandering the spirit realm and relates it to phycological conditions, it's 2 seasons long. And I like this series about this girl who goes to live with her grandmother who runs a bathhouse which is called "hanasaku iroha".

Today i went on a lovely, quiet, solitary walk down the street my siblings live on today. It was an overcast day where the blue sky at moments dared to peak thru. a perfect light for taking pictures. i wanted to wear my sweater but it was just, to warm, just. I tied my sweater around my waist like I was nostalgic for the 90's. I finished a roll of film. I've been more adamant about taking double exposure pictures. I love how they can come out with my yashica camera but i've yet to master the wind the film till it stops, forward the film, press the button that releases the film, rewind the film for that one picture and take another picture where they overlap perfectly.

We treated ourselves with a trip to waterloo for this spring today. I got a few albums I felt like sharing with you. I was inspired by fieldguided who bought the albums above.

CRAFT SPELLS - IDLE LABOR

TYCHO - DIVE

LAURA GIBSON - LA GRANDE

TAMARYN - THE WAVES

FIRST AID KIT - TEH LION'S ROAR

Jamin said my taste in music is becoming much more specific, honing in on atmospheric reminiscent of 80's, folk. obviously this covers a few genres but it made me smile for some reason. i guess it feels like growing up, in a way.

flower crowns

I've been in love with flower crowns since I saw Wiksten and Odette wearing them at a studio party of theirs in Brooklyn, NY. the one above is the one I made for my friend Adrienne to wear for her birthday party as a birthday crown and the ones below are the source that inspired me from Odette's studio party. I found the pictures on her blog.

I noticed that Mariam Sitchinava is dooing a photo shoot series based around flower crowns. she released this picture recently. An artist who's artwork I admire but my personal experience with her leaves much to be desired. She's not a good person to buy prints from. I'll just leave it alone and say that much. But does a good job at capturing femininity.

Oregon in 98

found some pictures i took in 1998 when i was at "not back to school camp". i was 13. i guess i loved photography back then too but didn't think of it as an art form till later. i think i felt it was more a way to keep track of things, document life along with my obsessive journalling i did back then. you can view all of the pictures i found here.

camping

a lot of camping is getting to your destination. I took a bunch of photos while we were driving the endless miles cross country to get to a location of both beach and forest. blurry trees passing by my car window. I'd snap the picture and hope I had set a high enough shutter speed. listening to cd's and talking in the car. rest stops and gas stations with orange flavored push pops and glass bottled cola. wide stretches of road where you seem to be the only one on the road. And then getting to your destination, setting up camp and forgetting about your car for a week. cooking your own meals, hiking all day, stopping to eat a sandwich, to take a picture, to gaze at the scenery, to inspect close up something growing on the ground: a mushroom, some moss, a fern. wish I could live in a perpetual state of camping. I love it so much, nature.