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!