that time i stayed up for 33 hours...

This night HAD to be documented because I haven't had a night/morning like this in a lonnnng time. I am going to start out this post with a question for you....How often do you take time out of your day to truly get to know someone?

"VV" drinking coffee at 4:30am.

Don't get me wrong...I understand that most of us are too busy to even get to know our own families...we are consumed with work, figuring out our own problems and being robots stuck in the same routine. I quit my job for 2 reasons and two reasons only: 1- to spend my day doing something I love...it is much more rewarding. 2- to make my own schedule so I could get to know people in my life and meet new ones. Well this weekend I cleared my schedule and just went with the flow.


I got ready at 1pm for a wedding I was shooting [TreeHouse Wedding Studio - Dallas, TX] in Weatherford, TX. We got to wear cowboy boots and jeans cause the wedding was in the sticks. 


Here's how the night played out after that....

Wedding in Weatherford, TX.

• 6+ hours of shooting and meeting new people at the wedding.
• Changed my shirt & headed out to Fort Worth with some friends to go country dancing. 
• My friend VV (pictured above) and I were the only ones left over at 2:30am.
• We spent close to an hour listening to Taylor Swift & talking about life. It was really the first in depth conversation we've had since we met a year ago. Sad but happens often.
• Waffle House at 4am. 
• 5am: Met an old lady named Francis (see old lady head in picture above.) I told VV i was gonna kick myself if I didn't know her story. She was from Portland, Maine & enjoyed breakfast by herself most morning.
• 6am: impromptu trip to Walmart for grocery shopping? haha
• 6:30am: our 9th cup of coffee that day on the patio.
• 7:00am: my first motorcycle ride on the street. The sun was rising. I was scared to death but made it out alive.
• 8:00am: More coffee & hang out time with Ali.
• 10:30am: Fuzzy's tacos and acting ridiculous.
• 11:30am: Random trip to the driving range haha

I calculated the next day that I had my cowboy boots on for 26 hrs straight.

Moral of this story...take time to listen. Take time to be random. Be spontaneous and laugh a lot. Soak up every moment. Make memories. Enjoy your friends...they could be gone tomorrow and you're gonna wish you got to know them better.

Hide in a raincoat when things are falling apart.

This band from my home town [Young the Giant] is too good not to share. Young the Giant & Lucy Rose...my 2 newest obsessions. I am currently in the TreeHouse burning a hazelnut cream candle & drinking coffee. I am so beyond excited for the Fall. I am also looking forward to "Thursday Paint Day" a weekly activity that I have added to my schedule. Watch for more paintings HERE.

speechless over this music...

but you know I'll write anyway.


Seriously folks, there are just some nights where I sit in my room with low lighting, my big headphones on & search for new music....until I get THAT feeling. The one that makes me speechless. The one that makes my heart feel like a sack of mush...the music that makes me look forward to tomorrow more than I already did. The one that makes me feel lost but found all at the same time. That feeling that makes me want to hug someone. The feeling that makes me want to be alone...right here in this moment. Where the only thing that matters in life right now is this song. THAT feeling is one word...and I am searching for it.

Truth be told...I have fallin in love with music, with scenery, with feelings, with being alive...it's so easy. SO EASY. Many things in life come natural for me...others, not so much. Every day is a step closer to figuring out the unknown...little by little paint is added to the canvas of my life and soon I will understand & it will be beautiful.

Listen to the feeling behind what she is saying. Get lost in every expression. I want to reach out and grab what she's feeling inside...just once. Goodnight<3

here in this moment...

i like taking photographs because, for those of you who don't know, they freeze an exact moment in time. i look back at it and can feel everything that was going on in that image. I can remember smells and I get that warm tingly feeling in my heart. Brain snapshots are my favourite...I make them all the time when I don't have my camera around.

I am sitting in my mostly empty apartment...on my pull out couch bed listening to Bon Iver and remembering when I moved here from CA a year ago. It's almost surreal. I think back on how much I have gone through in a year, how much I have learned about myself and how many things I have accomplished. I have survived a year on my own...doing what I love and have met amazing people. Looks like I'm staying in Texas for awhile and I am so excited for a new chapter in my story. Night!

in love.

i am not even joking. here's the thing...i LOVE bonnie raitt and usually i am not big on covers, but this one makes my heart ache and makes me want to cry for some reason. Probably because it's the morning and I am happy eating a warm blueberry muffin in my studio and drinking a cup of hot Foldgers coffee. Love is a crazy thing...it makes some write happy songs and some write songs that will leave your without your breath for awhile. I like what Adele said when writing her album...one song was about anger and frustration and the next was about giving in and letting her heart really deal with the issue. Music is my escape...music is my life.
<3

remember that one time i...

summed up 2010 in iPhone photos? [next post...a few photos summing up the first 6 months of 2011] I really can't believe I am packing up my apartment and moving out this month after being in Texas a year.



pretty much explains my life:

words from 2009.

sometimes i go through my drafts folder in my blog and find words strung together that got lost in the abyss.

mildly exhausted
from tiresome clichés
the only things inside of us
are the words we did not say

Remember that one time i...

sang Jason Derülo? I havent love ballad-ed in a long time. I should get back on that.

thinking about my house.

So...in the back of my mind [since that's where I get most of my blog material from anyway] I have been stashing away thoughts of when I own a house and how I will decorate it. I get the most excited when I think of my backyard. When I close my eyes at night I see pictures like the ones above...I see friends sipping wine, dinner parties...soft music, lots of laughter and conversation. It makes me so happy to know that one day I will make this happen. One day when this is actually happening I will sit back and watch from a distance and think of this time when I blogged about it.

Also, I watched 17 Again for the first time tonight and I think it was sweet...what I don't think was sweet was that they picked Chandler to play Zac Efron. Mistake.

One more thing, I am going to start a topic on here called "remember when..." since I haven't blogged consistently in forever. I will catch you up on my life with old stories and photographs. I looked back to 2007 & 2008 and realized sometimes I would post twice in a day. What a loser;)

remember that one time i...

went to NYC in January 2011 but got stranded in a snow storm in Chicago and knew absolutely no one there and had to stay overnight? I made this video of my trip and the fun people I met along the way. [fun fact: i ended up sleeping in a rad loft overlooking Chicago and that silver egg thing in Millennium Park.]