Life Can Spring Again

I get a devotional eMailed to me every morning and today's words were powerful...I just wanted to share them. It grows terribly burdensome when you just "don't look" at your sin so that you don't have to deal with it. But there is sweet freedom that comes in just saying "It's my fault." The first sentence really speaks to me. Take a minute to read:

"When we call sin what it really is, we can embrace truth, sin can die at the cross, and life can spring again through Christ's resurrection. Confession makes us real. It stops us from creating a web of lies to cover up our sin, and allows us to acknowledge our shortcomings to ourselves and those around us. This humbles us, but living in humility is living in honesty. Trying to hide our fallen-ness only makes us think more highly of ourselves than we ought...Jesus is so good to forgive us though. When no one would cast a stone at the woman caught in adultery, Jesus' words brought shock and relief: "Neither do I condemn you." How sweet these words must have fallen on her ears. Jesus had just saved her life! Then Jesus added, "go, and sin no more" (Jn 8:11)."

Life can spring again...I just can't get that beautiful phrase out of my head! Thank you Jesus!

Mmmmm...

Can I just say that I am so proud of this photo!? Is that strange? I mean, I know it's a stack of cookies, but I am in love with it! The lighting, textures, colors...everything is perfect! Doing this cookie shoot yesterday for Jerita (the owner of local cookie biz, One Smart Cookie) kinda made me want to go work for Martha Stewart Living and take pretty pictures of food all day long :)

Enjoying the Blog

First of all, I feel like I should apologize for the profuse amount of blogging that I've done since I've re-opened this blog. I never realized how much I missed it! I blog for many reasons, but one big reason is so that I remember (and focus on) the good things in my life. It seems like if we don't record the things that go on in our lives we easily forget them...and for some reason we tend to forget the good things first! Maybe I'm just in a strange stage or something, but since I've started blogging here again, it is SO MUCH easier to be thankful, content, and joyful! I love it :)

Anyway, I came across this post from Jessica Claire's blog the other day, and really appreciated it. So I though I'd share it with you!

Saturday Happiness!

On any given morning, as soon as I'm awake enough to roll out of bed, my tired feet walk my tired body over to the window for some sunshine. It's deliciously rejuvenating and refreshing! Saturday morning, that sunshine was especially appreciated.

I was up and at 'em super early, getting ready for a photoshoot and a long (but happy) day. My dear friend Cherith had scheduled a shoot with me for her beautiful growing family. The day before, when I was getting all my inspiration together for the shoot, I was just becoming more and more excited! Family shoots (especially with little kiddos) have got to be one of my favorite things to do! There's just so much love and happiness that come through in the photos. Life gets hard and stressful, as we all know, but the thing I love about a photo, is that it can absolutely remind you of the good. Looking back though my family's photo albums, I remember we had hard times, but the photos show all the good. And there was so much good! We need to be reminded of that sometimes, I think. Anyway, here are just a couple of my favorites.

After the shoot, Cherith invited me to come over for breakfast. It was so great to spend some time with her!! We've been friends since middle school, and I love it that we still keep up :) Good times. Anyway, I had to be back in town by 11 for my *yoga* class and it was great! After being thoroughly stretched and strengthened ;) I jumped on over to Starbucks to edit, edit, edit. I had the most productive time up there, getting ALL my recent photo sessions completely and totally edited and finished. Man, it feels good! Once finished with that, I went home and had a lovely afternoon nap (which I NEVER get anymore). Afternoon naps are indescribably wonderful :) To finish off this great day, Scott and I went to see The Dark Knight at 9:45! IT WAS SO GOOD! If you haven't seen it, you must go!

So Saturday was just an all around good day. Don't you just love good days? :)

Megan's Birthday!

Megan's birthday was on Thursday, so on Friday a few of us girls took her to the Homeplace for dinner! We had the most delightful home cooked meal! This place is just so West Texas, and I love it :) After dinner, we explored a little bit, and then sat on the porch and had wonderful conversations about where we are in our stage of life. Yay for girl talk! Here are a few photos!

Roomies!

I love these girls!!

Yoga-licious!

So on Wednesday, I joined a gym! Oh boy! This is a gigantic step for me. I'm not afraid to admit it: I'm one of those "my-volleyball-career-ended-on-the-7th-grade-C team-in-shame-and-embarrassment" girls...a.k.a NOT athletic! If I saw an organized sports game going on, I would energetically run the opposite direction. :)

But, there's hope! In high school I discovered dancing, gymnastics, swimming, and *sigh* yoga. Now those were my sports! I was on a swim team for a while, a gymnastics team for a couple of years, and in dance classes for a few more years. So I did get the whole "athletics" experience...somewhat. :) But once I graduated, there were no more teams to be on. What to do? YOGA CLASS!

It only took me 4 years, but I finally joined and am taking a yoga-licious class! (technically "Body Flow") Oh. Man. I. Love it. Yesterday was my first class and, yeah, I'm pumped. I'm so excited about getting my bum whipped into shape!

All this fitness talk has got me thinking about the Olympics. Can't wait! Beijing '08! Are there any (cough)nerds(cough) out there who want to come over and watch 'em with me?

:) Hope you enjoy today!

Decor*Eight!

I'm loving my room right now! I got it all cleaned and organized a few weeks ago, and I put the finishing touches on it yesterday! This first photo is of my inspiration board and chandelier--my two favorite things in my room!

Next up are the new bookends that I got for my dresser! I've been wanting cute bookends for a while and, well I finally found some! And they are BIRDS! Can it get much better? No. I finally broke down and got some "office supply" things for my "home office." Not to mention, how cute are they?

And finally! I've been wanting new knobs for my dresser for YEARS and YEARS. I walked into Hobby Lobby the other day and they were marked way down!
Here's my hand-me-down, normal dresser BEFORE the knob transformation...

And here's my custom designed, classy dresser AFTER the knob transformation!!


Lovely!

I also finally got another curtain for my window. For the longest time I had just one curtain. It worked alright, but now I have a nicely framed up window because of the TWO chocolate brown curtains!

San Antonio Trip :: Part 2!

After a lovely lunch at McAllister's Deli and a spur of the moment shopping trip to this sweet modern furniture/decor store "Motif Studio," Scott and I jumped in the truck and headed homeward.

On the way home from San Antonio, we most definitely made a stop in Fredericksburg to do a little walkin' and shoppin'...not that we could actually buy anything...or at least not anything I wanted! :) I fell in love with this little antique side table/mini dresser, but check out the price. It was also pretty much the least expensive item in the store, so just imagine the price of the other lovely things.
We also stepped into this anthropologie-like store called "Root." It was so inspiring and fun (and girly...Scott was a good sport), but alas, expensive.Then we got photo happy and started snapping away. I personally love this one. You can see in the lower right hand corner the date the building was built. 1889. Cool!I wanted to do a little photo collection, but couldn't figure out what to do...until we had passed store after store with adorable "Open" signs! So here you have it, a sampling of the "Open" collection. So as not to wear you out with too many photos, I've hand selected my favorites. :)

When people say they "hand selected" something, you know it's going to be good. :)

This trip was just what I needed. Fun and relaxing, with the most awesome family ever!

Have a lovely day!

San Antonio Trip!

Hi friends! Last Thursday I headed out of town with Scott to visit his oldest brother's family+his twin brother in San Antonio. What fun we had!! We spent Thursday swimming with all the family at the neighborhood "Rec Center" (It was gigantic! Even had a lazy river...and we took full advantage of that!). Since Scott's oldest brother has 2 kiddos, we played pool games that I haven't played in years! Diving for sticks, the color-dunking game, handstand contests, Marco Polo, racing, tag, and general horseplay :) It was a bbbblast! Swimming has got to be one of my favorite activities ever! We loved it so much that we actually all went to the pool every day of our visit!! Anyway, after being thoroughly waterlogged, we headed back to their lovely house and cooked out for dinner.

I had my two cameras with me, so Scott and I each had our fill of photo-taking...thus the extravagantly long photo post :) Here we are just lounging around at the house.

This is Scott's nephew, Heston, playing Playstation!


Here's Noah, Scott's other nephew.

Friday, we all went to the Alamo and Riverwalk (and we got to do the fun boat tour!). Check out how cool the Alamo is!!

Kidding! :) Here's a real one...

We wanted a cool jumping picture, but it took a few tries.

We finally got one!

This is Scott's twin brother and his wife. I got a little hungry on the Riverwalk... Noah was contemplating. That green grass was just so inviting! How could anyone say no?!

Saturday night, Scott and I went to the Riverwalk again, but this time it was just the two of us. It's such a different experience at night! Gorgeous! All the lights reflecting off the water were mesmerizing. We found a sweet little table at a deck restaurant upstairs (so there weren't tons of people walking around) and enjoyed the night talking, laughing, and taking photos. I was amazed at how well my camera did in such poor lighting conditions! My favorite story of the night though, was how we got shivved at this one restaurant. We put our name on the list, waited and waited, watched people walk up and get tables, and finally left, moving on to a restaurant where they really care about people.

:)

By the way, "shivved" as defined by the urban dictionary means "to be stabbed with a piercing instrument, like a screwdriver." :) What an amazing word.

We wandered into this hotel lobby with the COOLEST furniture around!
What a great night!! But wait! There's more. Watch for Part two, coming just as soon as I can get the photos loaded :)

Things that make a Life good...

Things that make a Summer good...

• 1. Fourth of July plans: Plan a little trip to float a river with friends the weekend before. The day of, head to the pool and then cook out on the back porch. Have a contest to see who can jump into the pool the craziest or who can get the most dive sticks. Take pictures!


• 2. A concert: Buy tickets in advance to someone you're dying to see. Bring snacks and a camera.


• 3. Potted plants: Have at least one potted plant to take care of and to make your porch happy.


• 4. Re-arranged bedroom: Freshen up your bedroom by re-arranging! New is good!


• 5. New Movies: Plan on going to see all the big summer blockbusters.


• 6. Weddings: Take advantage of the opportunity to dress up, dance, and see old friends!


• 7. Walking at dusk: It's the best part of a summer day, so make sure you are not to be found indoors! Go walk through ACU. Who knows? You might even find a sprinkler or two to run through.

Things that make an Autumn good...

• 1. Office Marathon: Host a party on a business casual Friday to watch the new season of the Office, out on DVD.


• 2. The Balloon Fest: Head over to Rose Park and enjoy the sounds, sights, and eats.


• 3. A Photo Day Trip: Travel a little bit to get photos of the gorgeous trees changing colors.


• 4. School/Church activities: Everything is back in session, so take advantage of them!


• 5. Local Music: All the locals are back so keep your eyes out for their upcoming shows.

Things that make a Tuesday morning good...

...a starbucks date at 8:09 AM. :) Happy Tuesday!

P.S. Some of you may know that my car (new 4runner, named Simon!) was acting funny for a little bit. Well, I dropped him off at "Car Camp" on last wednesday...aka the Toyota Repair Shop, and he got a brand new transmission. What!? Yes, you read that right. Three month old car...brand new transmission. So weird! But it was under warranty and all, so I didn't have to pay for it. Anyway, he's doing fine now!

P.S.S. I have a trip to San Antonio to blog next! Lots of photos! Be excited! :)