Here’s my mom on the couch, loving the way the Vicodin courses through her veins.  At any point in time during her recovery naps, you could find at least one animal sometimes 2-3 curles up beside her keeping watch.  My job… keep them from sleeping on her foot.

I swore to myself that no matter how open and honest I strive to be here there are some subjects that are just too personal to discuss. However, I can’t help but gush to you about the new love in my life. He’s got dark hair and eyes. He’s sweet and cuddly and makes me oh so happy.  All of my family is head over heels in love with him, and I would give anything to make him mine forever.  But, alas, our love will never be (stupid apartment complex rules). Meet Hendrix. Isn’t he a doll?!?!

There’s a park in Spearfish, SD with a creek running through it and a hatchery and more green than an Arizona girl has ever known what to do with. I was worried with my grandma’s health that we wouldn’t get a chance to dip our toes in the water and visit this spot of so many of my best childhood summer vacation memories. We had picnics in the park with chilled watermelon and laughing cousins. We inner-tubed down that creek one summer day and chased one of my shoes down it another. Yet, somehow in my childhood wonder, I never quite grasped the beauty and serenity of that green oasis. Sometimes it takes returning to such a place as an adult to really cement what it was to you as a child. For a few hours on our last afternoon, we were kids again. We walked in the creek, picnicked in the creek, fed the fish at the hatchery, and enjoyed each other at the creek. Our souls didn’t feel the aches of our adult lives. Our love ones were missed but not mourned. It was the best way to end an amazing experience and remind us exactly who we were together and how no matter what that would never change.

I’m posting from a picture message from my cell phone because I know I won’t be ready to divulge the details of my trip tomorrow.  More than likely, I’ll either be sleeping, cleaning, or pep-talking myself into returning to work on Monday after a 9-day (!!!!) hiatus.  I have so many stories, thoughts and pictures to share over the next week, but for now I’ll leave you with the lone image I took on my cell phone camera.

(I took this last night at around 8:15 pm.  Proving that we were all smarter than a 5th grader exhausted the grandparents… Or maybe it was putting up with their Arizona grandkids… hmmm.)

Walking into the grocery store the other night, I had to hang up on my mom to take a picture of the sky.  There’s just something about this time of year that makes you want to stay outside as the sun sets in hopes you’l get the gift of such a sunset.  In typical Flagstaff fashion, by the time I exited the store 15 minutes later it was raining so hard the 50 foot jog to car had me soaked through a sweater and two tank tops down to my bra.

Hello Everyone!

I, like Cory, feel very honored that our lovely Laurel asked me to guest blog!  We are missing her very much, as I’m sure all of you are too (Don’t worry Cory, we’ll get through this together…maybe at the Monte V? *wink wink*).  Well there are so many things that I SHOULD be doing right now.  Papers that need to be written, chapters that need to be read, work that needs to be done, people that need to be called and sleep that needs to be had, but instead I am so glad that Laurel gave me something to get distracted with, because none of those things sound too appealing.  I know that Laurel just shared a few of her favorite websites that she makes a daily stop to, but I figured I would tell you about a few of the websites that I could get caught in for hours, wiki-style.  Most of the time when I’m bored at work these three websites win over anything productive that I am actually getting paid to do.

The first, and my favorite is foundmagazine.com.  This is a collection of items that people find anywhere such as, love letters, hate letters, to-do lists, drawings on napkins, photographs, old receipts and so much more.  The reason I love this is because it gives you small glimpse into people’s lives.  Now, I know what you’re thinking, ‘This girl is a huge creep!  Why am I still reading?!?!’ But I promise that I’m not!  I’m just a people watcher and the things that people do and how they interact with eachother is so fasinating to me!  (Yes, the fact that I chose to major in Sociology probably makes so much more sense now).  I’ll stop rambling on about my people watching, so you can go check it out for yourself.  I guarantee, at the very least, you’ll be amused.

The next one isn’t an everyday visit, it’s a once a week visit.  You’ve probably seen it, or at least heard of it: postsecret.blogspot.com.  This website is where people make an anonymous postcard of a secret they have and send it in.  Every Sunday a new batch of secrets are posted, some are funny, some can almost bring you to tears and some are therapeutic because you feel like you are reading your secret too and there’s just something about seeing it written out that makes you feel okay.  This would definitely be worth 10 minuets of your time to check out.

The last site I want to share with you is deviantart.com.  I love this site because it is a place for artists of all different kinds to share their work!  It ranges from body art to photography to collages to film and animation and everything in between.  This site has something for every person to appreciate.  I think you’ll enjoy it.

Well thank you for reading and accepting me and my random thoughts (oh geeze, I sound like JM). 

Have a great day! Lauren

Who would have known decor found within the aisles of Target wasn’t for educational purposes.  Guess Mom won’t be using this for her 7th grade class.

Late, late, late Friday night Zac and Victoria arrived on my doorstep for a weekend full of introducing her to our favorite places in Flagstaff and hanging out with all of our friends.  Amazingly enough after her 60 hours in Flagstaff, none of our ‘eccentric’ friends had caused too much of a scene, and Flagstaff had a new fan.  Of all of the pics we took over the span of three days, these are my favorite.

Sometime on Saturday Zac asked me if I would mind taking a picture of Z and V together to prove that they had ‘dated’.  Victoria wasn’t too pleased that he had phrased the question in the past tense.  “Don’t you mean dating?” she asked.

The story behind this picture taken from inside my car involves a man stumbling across the road before passing out, my friends and I convinced he was dead, Joe playing ‘tough man’ and giving relationship advice, Zac trying desperately not to laugh, and the rest of us laughing til we cried.

Zac’s always been photogenic.  I’m not too sure Victoria was that impressed.

Somewhere on a back country road this past weekend, we found ourselves gifted with this backdrop. It always amazes me how a scene like this can unfold and then disappear in seconds as the sun finally goes fades away.  You just hope that you can slow the car down and grab your camera before it’s too late.

My new office is almost done!  Paint touch-ups, a good vacuuming, and locks on the doors and my work-sweet-home will be ready to go.  Since I came to campus eight years ago, this white board has remained unchanged  Those dry erase markers have kept their color even if they have lost their meaning after all that time.  Now that my new room has been built around it, it’s time for a therapeutic cleaning.

A few weeks ago in preparation for the fall semester my students workers and I roamed the halls of more than a few of our dorms mapping out the signal strength of wireless on campus.  Somewhere on the third day, I found this sign on the door of a RA.  These words are the reason that I’m writing two weeks worth of blog posts on this Saturday afternoon to post date for the days that I won’t have a second to put words to page.  They are why I plan on spending more hours at work than at home, and why my loved ones and friends knows that I’ll be ‘unavailable’.  It takes something like 1200 hours of work by thirty student workers and four full-time staff to do what we plan to do in the next four days, and when it’s midnight and I’m just walking in the door for the first time in 16 hours… this is the purpose and passion I’ll cling to.  Pretty cool, huh?

With the school starting next week and my neverending list of things that has to be done before the first day of classes, Lauren and I decided to spend a lil quality girl-time together on Saturday (while we had the time) and treat ourselves to manicures and pedicures.  As always the people watching was epic, and it was nice to just put away the stress of work, relationships, and life and enjoy each other’s company.  We realized we might be spending way too much time together when we chose each other’s favorite colors for our pedicures. (Lauren Blue for me.  Laurel Pink for her.)  I’m pretty much in love with my electric blue toes with their little pink flowers.  So in love, I had to share.  Even though the salon’s owner might have a minor anger issue, she’s an artist.  Now if only I could find a way to not cower in fear everytime she walks by shouting in Vietnamese…

Confession #39: I’ve lived in Flagstaff for the past eight years and have NOT been to the Grand Canyon.

Don’t freak out.  I have seen the GC but not since I was ten years old. It seems that every time someone was going, I was working or too busy to tag along. So since The Bee had never been and the monsoons had squashed our idea of walking around anywhere, we found ourselves driving to the Grand Canyon on Sunday afternoon. Of course, our impromptu trip meant that I didn’t have either of my cameras, but Heather’s camera and my cell phone camera did a pretty great job.  Sometime in every one of your lives, you need to take the time and see this world wonder.  Despite my overwhelming fear of heights, you can’t help but sit as close to the edge as possible and observe the beauty of our Creator.

Not sure when the last time I witnessed something so adorable and loving as M taking her lil brother for a ride today. He couldn’t have been happier with his sister’s generosity, and she just looked up at me and asked, “I’m a good big sister, huh?” I think we all know the answer to that.

I turned in my keys to my old apartment yesterday. It still amazes me how different it looks empty than it did with all of our stuff and countless kids. Those four walls stood strong while I learned a lot about who I was and what the world was like. We saw more bad times than I could possibly recount but also laughed so hard we cried on more than one occasion. For 51 months it was my home… and now it’s just an old house of mine. Funny how life works that way.