This is the view...

...in my room.

Jealous?

I'd be surprised if you weren't. ;)

This has been my summer-long project. My good friend Maestro and I started this at the end of June, with ideas and practice sketches and paintings on paper, collaborating ideas in May, and putting the first strokes on in June. 

We started with the grass and a dark base coat on the oak (?) tree. The "shadows" you see of the branches are leftover paint I had from painting the rest of my room the light blue you see on the left.  This took a couple hours.

This stayed for a while as both of us traveled during July, then at the beginning of August, Maestro's sister Skipper joined us and we got this done:

The two outside trees are aspens, with a dark blue/black base coat.

Skipper did the mountains and...trees? Plus great technical support. ;)

That's us and the wall after a few hours of work...and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix paying on the laptop in the foreground...in case you were wondering. ;)

Rock. And grass. and flowers. :)

Maestro. ;) She did the trees, mountain texture, field texture, and flowers. And probably some sky.

Who knew I could have something like this? ;) I did basics- grass, sky, and supplied the wall.

After 5 hours of painting on Monday, we were done. :)

I learned a lot doing this. How to have a different kind of patience, how to blend things, I got to see another style, and experienced more boldness that turned out to be the greatest masterpiece of a painting that I could hope for. We may add leaves later on, but for now...I like my view. :) Thanks to all the lovely ladies who helped with this project: Mom, Maestro, Skipper, Martha Stuart for your paint, and families....  Maestro was phenomenal during all of this. She'd take my ideas in and understand my vision, then paint something I never knew we could. I'd be like, "Maes, I know blue and yellow makes green. But I'm getting grey! Help!" and she'd make green. I'd say "Can we add flowers?" and ka-ZAM there were flowers. Thanks, Maes, you're a lifesaver, and a great friend. :)

Basically, I love this. It's turned out even more amazing than I could have ever dreamed of doing on my own. And it's taken a lot more time than I thought it would....which is why we faded out the rest of the wall. If we want to add on in the future, I'm sure we could. For now, though, I've had a good time, and have lots to show for it.  By the way, for those who know where Arco is, does the mountain remind you of anything as you're driving from the Junction to Arco? I think it does. ;)

Sometimes adventure doesn't have to leave your home. :)

Love, Me.

Waiting...

Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting........

What am I waiting for?


Hmm.








Let's put a pin in this one.

Love, Me.

Life

Sometimes I don't know what to do.
Should I sit? Sing? Dance? Draw?
So I get on here, and blog.

Sometimes my insides just sit there and wait,
Just sit there and sit there,
Doing nothing. Barey moving, barely noticable.

Others a part of my soul is pushing at all parts of reality,

Trapped,

And can hardly contain a gut-wrenching scream to all parts of the universe.

Sometimes a part of me wants to sit in a hammock,
In my own little corner of the world,
And sit there and weep and breathe and cry.

Occasionally I'll get anxious, and restless,
And my fingers will play long, fast scales up and down the keyboard.
So long and hard it makes my arms ache.

Sometimes I stay up late into the night,

Because I can't sleep, can't dream.

Can't dream. For all the sweetness it brings, waking hurts.

Once I sat out with a friend, watching a movies under the stars.
I sat for long periods of time watching the sky,
And the moon, and the stars. Forgoing the movie. Just observing.

Sometimes I just want to talk.
Just talk. Remember. Nothing else.
Just, talk.

Of course, just as often I'd rather listen.
Hear others express themselves.
Because it's nice to be heard.

Sometimes I wonder, how can someone be so torn, so confused?

Content, and filled with longing at the same time?

Wonder, and yet know the reason why the whole time?

One day I'll know. I'll be fine.

Til then, I'll keep walking down this long, dusty road.

Longing, Listening, Loving. Learning.

Love, Me.

The most beautiful place on earth...

...and I get to live here for the next few days.

Idaho is amazing. I am absolutely in love with it, and have been since I was born.  I'm up here on the "King Farm" in Moore...a town outside of Arco and Lost River...where the famous King Mountain is that hang-gliders lift off of.  The sunsets are spectacular, the air is clear, the weather wonderful...and up here, you can understand the phrase in America the Beautiful: Amber waves of grain. Truly, beauty in one of it's best forms.

Tuesday I had a neat experience. Backing up, I went to the Single's Branch with three of my boy cousins, and the oldest of the three said he was going to do Baptisms for the Dead with the youth of the Arco ward.  So I got to ride with him, and do some family names, and go inside the Idaho Falls Temple for the first time.  Wow. So beautiful. They're doing construction work outside on the Temple grounds, but I got some good pictures of the Temple itself...and the falls across the street were magnificent.  Tristan said they were especially pretty when they had rocks at the edge of the falls, but still, I thought they were nice.

 

I drove my little brother on the three-wheeler over to the river down the ways, and we waded in it for a while on Monday.  The water was cold...but you didn't notice after a while. ;) We did manage to lose one of his sandals, and despite our best efforts to retrieve it...nada... Oops. :P BUT!!! We went back yesterday, and it had gone down some, and we found it stuck on a piece of wood! Hallelujah! :)

This place has completely taken my heart...I wonder how I'll be able to return to home in Utah on Monday. :-/  I love Orem, and the people and where we live...but I can't seem to get over how this place is.  I've seriously thought about living up here in a few years when I'm older and perhaps out of college...course, I could always transfer to BYU-I. Right? Eh... Not completely sure. I guess I'm just loving this change of pace.  This scenery.  The love of family and friends that is up here.  Something.  Blogger has been frustrating me for the past few minutes, as I've tried to add a few more pictures a few days after I first posted this.  I had things ready, we stopped to get lunch, and I came back and my tumbdrive wasn't working, and my post had been deleted. (Gah!!) Thank goodness for ctrl-Z. :P Anyhow, here's the updated version. :)

...Here's some more pictures.

When Nathan and I went over to the river yesterday, we'd planned on coming home after about an hour. Nice amount of time to get a nice little tan, right? Well, then our family came, and we stayed for another couple of hours. I'd gotten sunscreen on before we went...but you can see how that went. This is how I am now...semi-red on the arms, and red and white on the top. :P

We went out to take some updated pictures for grandma's wall...but the wind was blowing, so we'll probably wait until later tonight. We got these this afternoon.

These are some evening shots of the farm...

This one is my favorite right now. :)

Utah is definitely good. But it's nice to know that I can always call Idaho Home. :)

Love, Me.

"Nice.....jinx."

I think blogging comes in spurts. Here's an actual play of events from today, between me and my brother...

Me [Singing]: "Tomorrow night the lights will appear. Just like they do on MY birthday each year..." [I had just realized that my life fits quite well with Rapunzel's from Tangled.] (mutters) Unless my birthday's on a Sunday.

Guido: What?

Me: The song? From Tangled? Lights will appear in the sky tomorrow, like they do every year, unless my birthday coincides [HA!! (See a previous post if you're confused)] with a Sunday.

Guido: What?? What's the date tomorrow? It's not the Fourth!?

Me: I know. Tomorrow's the 2nd, and it's the Stadium of Fire. They're having David Archuleta sing.

Guid: Who's that?  (HA! again. Movie quote.)

Me: He was on American Idol. It was between him and another David. The other David won.

Guid: So, in other words, they're having a loser sing?

Haha, so, that was it. I thought it was funny, and hope it brightened your day some. :)
Ps. If you're a David Archuleta fan, I'm sorry to have offended you.

Happy 4th of July celebrations!!! :D Yay for FREEDOM!!!

Love, Me.

Sometimes Poems Don't Have Words

Sometimes poems don't have words,
and a phrase can be understood in a beautiful landscape.
Maybe it's a wave in an ocean,
or Perhaps the song of a bird.

Sometimes the swelling of a song,
That gentle and sweet breeze of sound
Can tell you more in a moment without words
Than a thousand dictionaries in the world ever could.

Sometimes a simple smile. A friendly hug.
A touch, a wave, a moment of laughter.
All exchanges. All magical. All poems in their own.
None requiring words.

Sometimes poems are recognized for their length,
Or perhaps the Honor of those who write them.
Some are known for their rhythm or rhyme,
Or the intricate stories the author weaves in them.

Sometimes a poem is as simple as a person
Pleading for someone to stay, to live,
And to hear that tender reply,
"I have."

Sometimes poems don't have words.
This one does,
So you can hear what you may not see.

"Your life is an occasion. Rise to it."

Love, Me.

And..then..there was..a title...!!!

You know when you kinda-sorta want to blog, and things have been happening since the last time you did (and even before that), but you don't really know what to talk about, so you just get on here and type whatever typical nonesense you want to?

Yeah, that'd be about now.

Mmm. Roses are blooming, there's some on my desk in a vase. :) My older sister is in Ireland and will tour Europe ("Ear-up" as my little sister would say) for the next six weeks. Lucky. ;) The Gospel is True, the sun still shines, the wind still blows, and somehow we manage to move happily on with each day of our lives.  Well, I try to be happy, anyway. I suggest you try it- it's more fun that way. ;)

Oh!!! I remembered!!! I had a wonderfully happy email this week...three scholarships to BYU!!! 1/2, 1/2 and a grant. THAT made my day. :) Many happy dances and thank-you prayers going around and around here.

I'm going to start painting my room this week, I hope. I'm thinking a mural...I'll post pictures if it works. :)

So yeah, that's life. Basically. Teaching lots...smiling lots...going to the Temple lots...yeah. :)

Oh, yeah. Happy first day of Summer.

Love, Me.