WAKE UP SLOW

 (running on Tubbs Hill last night)

I sit on my yellow stool at work sometimes and dream up wonderful things to write about on my blog. Often times it's a deep revelation I've had about something on which I am totally considered to be an expert, and sometimes it's just a flitting thought that goes something like "oh hey, I should blog about that."

And then I come home and I open up my computer and Facebook sucks my time away and I forget that I was even going to write anything at all and then before I know it, it's nine o'clock in the evening and I have to go to bed. Because getting up early in the morning for work puts a real damper on my late nights these days.

But today I felt like writing instead of binging on Netflix. So here I am.

I just read a book by Gary Chapman called "Things I wish I'd known before we got married." And it is a fantastic book whether you are single, dating, or in a committed relationship. It talks about all sorts of things and one of the things it talks about is morning people vs night people.

And dudes, I am so not a morning people. Getting out of bed bright eyed and bushy tailed is never something I have really been able to do consistently. I mean, let's be real, there are certain exceptions where I'm tooooooo excited tooooo sleeeeeep and so morning comes and brings along with it a sense of impending adventure. But when it is just work for which I am awoken at the inhuman hour of six o'clock in the morning, I am loathe to get out from underneath my nice warm covers.

I know there are things I can do in my daily routine in order to force myself to become a morning person, but I just do not want to do those things. Instead of trying hard to change my body, I would rather just change my work schedule. Right.

One of the things Chapman says in his book though, is that morning people will never be night people and night people will never be morning people. And so I was thinking about that this morning on my drive to work as I tried to force my brain to begin to function. I kind of like that about myself, that I am not a morning person.

Because I didn't choose to be that or not to be that, I just am that. And I think it's kind of important to take the things that you just are and own them. Obviously not everything is something to keep around, like say, if you are quick to anger you maybe want to work on that. But as far as morning people vs night people goes - I say you are what you are and why force yourself to change it?

Morning people will never be night people in much the same way that introverts will never be extroverts. I find that I am most functional after nine o'clock in morning, just as I find I am most functional when I have had some time to myself before I am expected to positively interact with other people.

So what if I am not a Wake-Up-And-Sieze-The-Day kind of girl. I am actually more of a Wake-Up-And-Go-Slowly-And-Try-Not-To-Think-Too-Hard-Until-Coffee kind of a girl. And I like it that way.

Waking up too early, maybe we could sleep in. Make you banana pancakes, pretend like it's the weekend now. We could pretend it all the time, yeah. Can't you see that it's just raining, ain't no need to go outside. Ain't no need, ain't no need. Rain all day and I really, really, really don't mind. Can't you see, can't you see? You gotta wake up slow. 

HOMEMADE EASTER EGGS: PINSPIRED

I know it's a little early to be thinking seriously about Easter and eggs and things of that sort, but I stumbled across this blog post and got really stupidly excited about coloring eggs that I just went and did it yesterday afternoon because obviously.

My sister came over and together we followed the instructions on the aforementioned blog to create our own naturally dyed easter eggs.

I have been falling in love with things that are natural and homemade. I think there is something to be said for the sense of satisfaction you get when you can look at something and be like "hey! I made that!" And so, we boiled eggs and we boiled vegetables and then we soaked our eggs for a ridiculous amount of time to get juuuust the right saturation of color.

We only colored a dozen eggs, six brown ones and six white ones. They turned out glorious.

I boiled purple cabbage (which created the blue color), grated beet (which created the red color), the skin of a yellow onion (for yellow, obvs) and then I also used red wine to see what would happen.

These eggs I soaked in the wine first. It didn't really color them how I had imagined, so then I soaked them in the purple cabbage dye, which turned them into these masterpieces. They are my favorites of the bunch!

These eggs, believe it or not, were dyed from the purple cabbage. These were the brown eggs. The white ones were a little lighter and more evenly colored. They didn't get the awesome green swirledge that is happening here to make these eggs look like mother earth.

This is the white egg that was in the yellow onion skin dye. I love how rustic it looks.

On the whole, this was a great experiment and I probably won't go back to dying eggs out of a box ever again. Not only are these colors absolutely brilliant, but the potential for using all sorts of different types of vegetables makes me nerdily excited about all these easter eggs.

The only thing I have to say is that if you're coloring eggs with kiddos this year, these eggs have to sit a good long time in the dye, unlike those out of the box. So if the wee ones are impatient, this may not be as fun for you as it was for me. I mean, I let these suckers soak for a good three hours just so that I was sure they would be good and colored.

My kitchen may have been rank with the stench of sauerkraut since I was boiling cabbage and onions, but dudes, it was totally worth it.

HEY NATALIE JEAN

I just got Hey Natalie Jean in the mail today. I went out for lunch with Nathan and when we returned to the apartment there it was, in a little brown cardboard amazon box sitting on my porch. I unlocked the door and immediately ripped open the package, too full of excitement to think about anything else. And then, Natalie and Huck were right in front of my face, in all their grey hard covered glory.

You see, in 2008 my aunt got a little bit into blogging. As a self proclaimed writer, I had to check it out for myself and haven't really stopped since. Back in those days I was big into checking out the Blogs of Note, secretly crossing my fingers that someday my little blog would be among them.

One day, and I'm not quite exactly sure when it was, I clicked through different blogs of note and stumbled by accident upon a one Nat The Fat Rat (which just goes to show how long I've been reading her blog). It was a picture of Natalie standing next to the giant sign that says "Welcome To Moscow" and my insides got all excited since hey! that's where I live too! So I clicked on her links and read her posts for probably a stupidly long amount of time and I fell completely in love with her.

She was hopelessly optimistic and I absolutely adored the way that she would find meaning in the mundane. It drew me into her world, all the silliness that she was creating by just writing her honest little thoughts about stuff and things.

If you've never been to the little town of Moscow, Idaho, then you have no idea what a different world it is down there. There is a chapter in Natalie's book where she writes about her own private Idaho. Having lived in Moscow for four years, I can say that she put my feelings into words better than I could have dreamt. That little town in all its boringness is also quite beautiful in a really dumb way and sometimes I miss living there more than I care to admit.

Now Natalie inhabits a little apartment in the big New York City and just, hello. Nathan talks sometimes about moving to NYC and I can't help but think of her every time he brings it up. I feel like maybe sometimes I am just two or three steps behind her. Or maybe four or five, but who's counting?

Anyway, this book you guys! In the short amount of time I've had it in my little hands I have read well over the half way mark. She is funny and serious and incredibly relatable. And while I'm not big on the fashion part of Natalie's world, all the other stuff is just so exactly on point with how I feel about a lot of life or have felt in the past. It's vaguely like reading my own words and not unlike finding out that wait a minute here, maybe I am normal after all because other people have large feelings about small stuff and big things as well.

And in the words of Natalie herself, this book is exactly the ham sandwich I was looking for. Who needs a rueben anyway?

INDIGNATION

I saw something on Facebook recently that irked me in a large way. It actually shocked me at how much the remark made by a stranger caused me to be so irate. I debated writing a comment in response, but how ugly does that become? A Facebook comment war is fun for no one and usually does more harm than good anyway.

So, here we are, I suppose? I blog post directed not at a single person, but at a single way of thinking.

You see, this isn't your typical high school he said/she said drama that has me so mad, but rather something of much greater importance. I see online all the time the arguments between political policies, personal beliefs, vaccines, etc. And when it comes to people advocating taking foreign missions on in their lives, there is always always always that one naysayer who is wont to make the comment that people in America are in need of domestic missions too.

While there is nothing inherently wrong with the idea of going on a domestic mission, I find great offense in being made to feel bad about going on a mission abroad instead of helping the people in my own country. That is an incredibly rude and selfish thing to say to someone who is traveling to another country to volunteer their time for a foreign people.

How dare you belittle my experiences.

I believe in foreign missions. I believe that traveling to a third world country while you are currently living in a first world country will change your perspective on life in ways that you had never imagined. We like to take plumbing, electricity and internet access for granted from our spots on our couches in our comfy living rooms. The ability to drink our tap water, take a shower, and flush our toilet paper down the drain are things that other people across the globe go without daily.

Even our homeless in America have better living conditions than a large population of the world.

Traveling to a third world country will help change your thoughts towards the people in your area. It will help raise an awareness in your being for helping those closest to you - so then, why not go travel the world?

And so, with this knowledge in my own life, that there are people out there who have quite possibly never taken a shower in their lifetime, how can I believe that they are not important? How can I let you sit in your comfy office chair behind the screen of your computer and let you tell me that I need to be taking care of the people in my own country first? Why is it that you somehow think I am ignoring the needs of my country and that I have no idea of the conditions here if I should express my desire to travel or live abroad? I think that is what make me the most mad - that you think I don't know about the people in my own country.

But that's where you're wrong. And I can't be silent while you bring up the fact that you believe domestic missions should come first and that I am in the wrong for not working in the local soup kitchen before I pack my bags for Honduras/Guatemala/wherever. If that is truly where your heart is, then go down to the soup kitchen yourself. You go and help those that have the least of the country and when I get back from my trip I might join you.

I have done both foreign and domestic missions. I have helped people in my hometown, in my home country, and in other parts of the world. And I am here to tell you that helping people wherever you are at should never ever be something to be ashamed about.

Don't let anyone ever make you feel bad about traveling to a foreign country to help out people who were not given the same life we were. And also don't forget that there are already lots of missions happening here in our great country to help those out here who have no voices.

You go wherever you feel led to go and encourage the naysayers to go with you and offer them a little perspective on their narrowed viewpoints.