Making it a Happy Day

I'm cold and I'm sleepy, and it's gray and rainy out. So today, I'm gathering my own cheer.

I'm listening to great music.

I'm wearing my famous cheery yellow sweater (pictured on the right). I'm drinking two cups of french vanilla coffee.

I'm window shopping.

I'm reorganizing. I'm skipping a free lunch because it's unhealthy and I'm not upset about it. I'm pretending to understand how Daylight Savings works.

I'm wishing for one of everything from Katie's shop - the cutest shop ever.

I'm looking at this face.

What are you doing to gather cheer?

Haiti - Take 2

Last week I was asked to return to Haiti this summer to lead a trip for the church youth group. If you are a regular 'round these parts, you know how much I loved my trip to Haiti. It completely changed my life.

Because of all the hubbub surrounding Straw Heart Project, I was unsure about saying yes, initially. I wanted to be available for SHP and didn't know if Haiti would interfere with that. Finally I made the decision to go, and I am SO so glad I did.

I cannot wait to get back to Haiti and experience this joy again.

Though, I'm hoping for a boot and crutchesless trip this time.

Random Things I'm Thinking About Today

You know in those cheesy interviews with people wearing turtlenecks, when they turn toward the camera at the beginning and say something like, "oh hello." Like maybe that camera crew surprised them. But they already had an interview ready to go, just in case people showed up. Well, I always have a bit of an urge to start a blog post that way... Well, hi! Fancy meeting you here, on my blog that I write so people will come read it! I can't believe you're here; in that case, let's gets started! And then I'd continue.

This is the time of year when people on facebook get very angry with winter. At the beginning, everyone's like, "oh man, this snow is beautiful!" and "I'm loving being bundled up by the fire" but then come March they're quite through. It's like, "winter, if you don't get the (bleep) out of here, I'm going to go crazy." And I'm pretty sure they mean it, because they're not actually bleeping.

There are few things in life (unfortunately) that get me really fired up, things I decide to take a stand on. I am not a parent. I don't know how difficult it is. I do know that I'm not supposed to judge people for the decisions they make as parents. But sometimes I judge. One of those things I get all judgy about is allowing little kids to watch certain R rated movies. One time Dave and I went to see a triple feature at the drive-in theater. We didn't want to watch the first movie, so we got there about halfway through. When we arrived, there was a dad watching Rob Zombie's HALLOWEEN with his probably 3 or 4 year old daughter. First of all, yikes. Second of all, that movie is 30% bloody murdering, 30% nudity, and 40% F-word. And there she is, sitting on the top of her dad's pickup truck soaking it all in. I was outraged. I kept asking Dave if I should offer to "babysit" her and take her over to the concession stand to play with her while the movie finished. He decided that was probably a quick trip to a black eye. It makes me sad for future generations to imagine that their sweet little minds are already exposed to that kind of trash so early. And... rant over.

Having a game night is one of the quickest and best ways to get to know people better. Some of my closest friends have game night pretty often, and it always always involves tears from laughing too hard. Why do people not play games more often? We should institute a world-wide game night wherein everyone has to play telephone-pictionary for two hours once a month. More, if you're so inclined. (Which I am.)

P.S. Telephone-pictionary is a game where you write down a phrase, or a thing, whatever you want, basically. Then you pass it to the person to your right. They draw a picture of that thing you just wrote down on a new sheet of paper, and pass their drawing to the person on their right. That person then writes down what they think the picture is. And so on until everyone is cracking up. You should try it.

A Big Story about a Little Idea

Once upon a time, there was a lady who called her self gypsy-hearted because she bounced from passion to passion and couldn't ever find "the thing" that made her happy for a long time. Well, I mean, her husband and her family and her friends made her really happy... but the other "thing."

Sometimes people would ask her, "If you could have any job in the whole world, what would it be?" And she was like, "ummm.... well... I don't really know...." and she felt confused about her gypsy-heart. She couldn't understand herself and that was sad because movies and tv had taught her that she couldn't be happy until she figured her own life out.

Then one day, she went to Haiti and learned the names of 30 orphans. She held them and played with them and sang songs in Creole with them. They loudly knocked on her heart and marched themselves right in. And there they sat for months and months. The girl had dreams about the orphans, told stories about them, looked at pictures of them over and over. She wanted to do more.

After months of thinking about her friends in Haiti, she finally had an idea. She could help them. She couldn't adopt just yet, but she could help other people who could adopt. So she made t-shirts and tote bags and coloring books. She had about 70,000 other ideas of ways to raise money for adoptions, but she was "too busy" to put the ideas to use.

After another couple months of having new ideas, she had one big idea. One idea that made her very excited and very nervous. She thought, "surely I'm not the only gypsy-hearted artist who cares about orphans and about adoption. There have got to be more people like me." That day she wrote up an outline for a nameless idea that would put artists and adopting families together to raise money. Her wandering soul was so happy. She could keep coming up with new ideas, bounce around from project to project, help families, help orphans, meet new people, and be creative every day.

She began to tell people about her little idea, and they got excited too. They said very nice things about her idea and encouraged her to keep going with it. Friends and strangers offered to help and wanted to learn more. In just a few days, her little idea went from a fun personal project to a website with almost 800 views in one day. Her heart was exploding with happiness and thankfulness and excitement.

The End. Except it is not actually the end. It's just the beginning.

That's A Lot of Stuff

There was such a time when I had Bible study on Monday evenings, pottery class on Tuesday evenings, youth group and mentoring on Wednesdays, health coaching on Thursday, and anything else I had to do during the week on Fridays, such as grocery shopping or seeing my husband. I was also trying to get pregnant, keep two art shops and three blogs alive, start a non-profit business, completely change the way I care for my body, and you know... have a life. You might imagine that this was a bit of a hectic time for me. You'd be imagining correctly.

But several of those things are done now, and I keep sitting at home lately and thinking, "it's Tuesday. What is it I'm supposed to do on Tuesday?" And when the answer is 'nothing' I kind of breathe out and dance a teeny jig or make up a song (which I do ALL the time.)

Speaking of making up songs, the other day I was at Target looking through the clearance racks with my friend Amanda, and I sang out, "I love CLEARAAAAANCE!" I turned to Amanda who, turns out, wasn't Amanda but a mid-40's frowny woman who only slightly nodded when I sang her my clearance song. I couldn't decide if I should tell her I thought she was someone else or to just let it slide, but by the time I stopped figuring out a way to recover, I figured it was too late to be smooth about it anway. Which was realistically impossible, I'm sure.

So anyway, I'm cooling down. I'm thinking and living purposefully and I like it a lot. Who would've guessed?

Good Things Come

Things I've been waiting for that are finally happening:

I rotated my fall/winter albums out and filled my cd-holder with spring music.

I had frozen yogurt last night.

The sun is out in the morning when I wake up and in the evening when I get home.

The drive-in opens up this weekend.

My computer background is a floral picture again.

I'm wearing open toed shoes often.

My little sister is about to finish cosmetology school and is thinking about MOVING TO NASHVILLE OH MY GOODNESS OH MY GOODNESS.

Three and a half years ago, I moved to Nashville. 8-9 hours away from my family. Since that moment, I've been trying to talk my family into moving here. Subtly and not so subtly. Finally, one of them is considering it. And it's the Bean! In my head, this is the greatest thing ever. We are very very good friends. And I miss her dearly.

Website Design for SHP

Kelli has been mentioned on this blog a few times. She's really cool. Also, she's really talented. She just made the Straw Heart Project website and it. is. awesome.


http://www.strawheartproject.org/ is up and ready to go!

From this website you can print applications to volunteer, an application to be considered as our next adoptive family, learn about our current projects and upcoming events... it's just awesome.

Can you tell I'm a little excited about this?

Best Friends

Without getting overly emotional or personal (ha, like that's ever stopped me from posting something on this blog) I want to say a quick thanks to my friends and family. I have some really great friends and family. So, this is an open letter to all my closest friends.

Lately I have been flighty, "too busy" and preoccupied. I've been quick to getting angry and/or hurt and I've been slow to show grace and thankfulness. I've been kind of a suckity friend lately. And I don't use the word suckity very often... unless I really mean it.

I did not forget all the wonderful things you've been doing for me lately. I didn't overlook your emotional support, your words of affirmation, your enthusiasm for my life, and your sweet and constant friendship.

If it weren't for you, I would be lost and lonely. I mean that. I tried life without friends once. It didn't really work out.

So thanks. I like you quite a lot.

(I want you to know that our relationship is important to me. If you're not pictured, it's not because I don't appreciate you; it's probably because I don't have a picture.)

*note: this is sparkling grape juice - which is like, my favorite ever beverage and the fastest way into my heart. also, please note I have lost weight since this picture, thankyouverymuch.

Office Stuff

I've had the early-spring (technically it's not spring yet, but whatever...) urge to organize everything. Every. Thing. So I went on a mental shopping spree yesterday to buy organizational things for my imaginary office, because that's what you do when you're trying to pay off debt and have a savings, etc.

These are the items I put in my shopping carts before I deleted them.

1. Cutie file folder boxes. I'd stick with brown, I think. 2. Elegant file folders. Because if you can have a pretty folder over a plain folder, why on earth would you pick plain? 3. Retro pens because they match. 4. Jadeite Desk Set because it's one of the colors I'm obsessing over now. and 5. The camera pencil sharpener because ARE YOU KIDDING ME with that cuteness? And the fact that Dave and I have started inadvertently collecting vintage cameras... and my current pencil sharpener is broken. If that wasn't sold out, I would have actually purchased it maybe.

But since my shopping is imaginary anyway, I'm going to go ahead and put this on the list.

Nice Weather

This weekend was exactly what I needed. I did a whole lot of this.

I met some new friends, did a little thrifting, a little clearance shopping (hello $6 jeans!), and a teeny bit of project accomplishing.

I've been itching to make one of these Food Passports since I first saw them over here, and this weekend I finally made it! I'm in love with it.

The amazing weather, the fun friends, the cheap shopping loot, and the minty green nail polish really made for a great weekend.

So Stinking Much

I have a friend that I meet with every week or so for mentoring. Last night we met for coffee and I tried to give her the recap on the past couple of weeks and ended up talking basically nonstop the entire hour and a half. Seriously. So much talking.

But it made me realize just how jam-packed my life has been lately. I've had time for nothing because I'm trying to make time for everything. Know what I mean? I'm sure you do, if you live in America. So this weekend, I had planned on painting the bedroom (and I may still) but what I really want to do is relax. I want to play outside, cook my own meals, take a nap or two, watch old movies on tv with my favorite quilt, and relax.

Because if it takes me an hour and a half to recap the past two weeks, that's too much stuff.

People are Sweet

Yesterday was a strange day. There was a lot of awesome in the morning, some really great around lunch time, and a moment of pretty significant disappointment in the afternoon, and then when I got home from work I had a beautiful surprise. No, not another headboard.One of the sweetest people I ever had the chance to meet is Kelli. She's been helping me all along the way with Straw Heart Project stuff, and she decided to send me this beautiful copper wire Straw Heart Project logo. I'm in love. Because of the aforementioned disappointment in the day, coming home to something like this was such a sweet surprise. Shocker, I teared up, but they were happy tears. Thanks, Kelli! For just being so awesome.

It's My Favorite

If you don't follow me (or design*sponge) on twitter and you're not my facebook friend, you don't know that yesterday afternoon, Grace of design*sponge retweeted a link to my blog to show the amazing headboard Mr. Hagen made for me for Valentine's Day.

First of all - holy flippin' smokes, that lady has got some pull. TEN TIMES my highest ever daily traffic came through the site yesterday. That is blowing my mind. Still. And secondly, that means that if any of you happened to stick around, you know nothing about me. So, because my mind is completely elsewhere this morning AND because you don't me, I think a "my favorite things" post is fitting. If you visited because of Ms. Grace's tweet, thanks for stopping by. If you visited because you know me and you like me, also thanks. I like you, too.

My current list of favorite things

1. Annie's Organic Cheddar Bunnies. For real. That's where it's at.

2. This nursery design. I'm not currently decorating a nursery, guys. So quit it with the assumptions. But it is perfect! That chevron light fixture is seriously a DIY waiting to happen. And that ottoman! For heaven's sake.

3. This phone picture. Yesterday as Dave and I drove to dinner we could not stop talking about the sky. The WHOLE sky was impressive. Not just the sunset part. We tried to take panoramas on our phones because we're Hagens and that's what we do. This is the image I got.

4. Straw Heart Project love. I know, I know, I said that a couple days ago. But it's STILL one of my favorite things. I've had several people offer to help on projects in the past couple days and that is huge! Without volunteers, this won't really work. So if you're thinking of volunteering to help with a project, let me know. I promise I won't make you do something you really don't want to do, like the "turn to your neighbor and tell them you're thankful they're here" part of church on Sunday that no one enjoys but we keep doing it anyway.

5. This Food Passport by the cool ladies over at Spotted Fox. It's a little bit of an issue with me and my friends that we eat at the same 5 places over and over and over. When my parents come to town, I generally convince them to eat places, "because I really like it, but the HBC doesn't really so we never get to go there." (HBC is what we call our neighborhood... we realized a few months ago that we all think "C" stands for something else. I think it's crew. Some say community. Whatever. To each his own, I suppose. We eat most meals together. Like... several a week.) So, I suggested to the matriarchs of the HBC that we make a food passport to encourage us to branch out.

6. This light fixture. What's my deal with light fixtures today? I think this is totally DIYable too. Gorgeous.

7. Super amazing handmade watches that I posted about over on SimplyTooMuch. Go check them out. They will floor you.

What are some of YOUR favorite things lately?

He's Kinda Cool I Guess

I asked Dave to take a few pictures of the Valentine's gift he made me "so I can show everyone how awesome you are" and he said, "right. Because THAT'S what your blog needs more of."

So because it has been mentioned by several people that maybe I talk a bit too much about liking my husband (you're welcome, Dave) and because he gets a little bit embarassed by that kind of thing, I'm going to keep this as non-flowery as I can.

I came home from work yesterday and Dave was almost finished building this.

Be still my heart. He had remembered this post and decided to get to work on the headboard while I was out. It was such a great surprise and the end result is beautiful. A perfect Valentine's gift from my handsome Valentine. And that's all I'm going to say. Even though I wanted to say more. See? That wasn't too flowery?

Um, Thanks.

I've mentioned a few times how much I love Google Analytics. I can track blog stats and readers and all that fun stuff.

Here are some things I learned from Google Analytics, I have had visitors from 6 continents, Tennessee and Missouri are my top two states for readers, followed by West Virginia (shoutout to Kelli, Brittany, and Amy!), most of the people who read this blog click through from facebook, and that the love you friends showed me last Friday was actually very very much love.

Several of you passed the word along about Straw Heart Project. You put up links on facebook and twitter, you sent me encouraging words, you showed an interest that I wasn't expecting. You tripled my normal blog stats. TRIPLED! Just because you cared about what I'm doing.

This weekend, I went to a youth camp for girls and we learned about love. We talked about loving others well, loving ourselves well, and the love God has for us. The night we discussed loving ourselves well, the speaker (my friend Ellen) said, "we tell lies to ourselves over and over. The things we think about our lives are not always true. When you find yourself believing a lie, replace it with truth." The lie I keep believing about myself is that I can't do Straw Heart Project. That I'm not good enough or focused enough, that other people won't care about it, and I'll be trapped into doing it all on my own and the whole idea will fail because I don't have what it takes to keep it afloat.

Those are lies. The truth I had to see was that you, friendly blog folks from 6 continents, really cared about what I was doing. You believed in me enough to tell your friends about it. You liked my idea enough to say, "This is a great idea. I can't wait to see the work you do." I was in tears several times on Friday and this weekend because of the words of encouragement you sent my way.

I get sappy on this blog pretty often, I know that. And I know that some of you are probably sick of the serious posts and want me to get back to writing about whatever ridiculous things I think of (i.e. Garth Brooks) but I HAD to tell you thank you. Thanks for your support and encouragement over the past few days. Thank you for reading my blog when it's normally filled with nonsense (i.e. Garth Brooks) and for coming back to see what else I'm up to. This little space started as a way for me to keep friends and family updated on our lives in Tennessee. It has turned into so much more than that. It's therapy. It's encouragement. It's a way to make new friends; it's an idea springboard.

I love that. And this sounds super-incredibly cheesy, but I love YOU, blog readers. Thanks for making my Friday the biggest blog day ever and the biggest boost of encouragement I could never have imagined. I rather like you folks.

Straw Heart Project

This has been a very unique few days. A great few days, definitely, but quite out of the ordinary.

Wednesday, if you said a prayer for me, it totally worked. Thank you! The whole day was filled with encouragement and what felt like purpose. It was so good. So good in fact, that I want to finally tell you some more about this whole "nonprofit business" idea I keep hinting at. Right now I haven't taken the steps to becoming a business - I'm just in the "let's do this and see how it goes" stage. Which is a very fun stage!

The name of the thing is Straw Heart Project. This is our logo.

Our purpose is raising money for families who are in the process of adopting. We're raising money through different creative projects, and that's basically it. Easy right? I'm starting small - one or two families at a time, doing what I can to help them bring their kids home. Creative projects can be anything from making necklaces to sell, to holding an art fair, to hosting a benefit concert. Lots of ideas in this ol' head of mine.

Several months ago, I had the opportunity to create coloring books, tote bags, and t-shirts for a family adopting three kids from Haiti. It stirred something up in side of me that I can't ignore. So now, here I am. Plowing forward with Straw Heart Project and doing my little part to bring families together. Because, for heaven's sake, why not?!

Also... if you're an artist, writer, photographer, graphic designer, musician, dancer, painter, or creative person of some sort and you want to be a part of Straw Heart Project, email me! I'll always be looking for creative people to help with new projects. And if you're a family who is in the process of adopting a child or children and you're looking for fundraising projects, shoot me an email at strawheartproject@gmail.com because I WANT TO HELP YOU!

God has paved the way big time for this little idea of mine, and I cannot wait to see what He does next. Again... thank you all for the prayers this week!

Overhaul

My art studio is in SERIOUS need of an overhaul. Mr. Hagen was in a pinch for some rubbermaid containers, so he raided my closet. Did you know that raiding a closet tends to empty all closet contents into the middle of the room? Because evidently, that's the case.

I have a super-duper ugly dresser in my room that is beyond being fixed with a can of paint and some new knobs. The first time I saw the dresser I thought, "No way." But there it was, being hauled into the back of Dave's truck. I've really had a problem with it ever since but was at a loss for what to do with it. I saw this image on Design Sponge and thought, well this may work!

I'm thinking I'll put the ugly facade of the dresser drawers underneath and leave the blank wood up top. Maybe I'll paint the top then - that could work. And then I was thinking about the empty shell of the dresser with no drawers. (I've used "ugly facade" and "empty shell" in this post already. It's starting to sound like an emo song.) And I thought, "I'll bet Dave could put some plywood or something in there and make an open faced storage unit." And guess what, that would DOUBLE the storage! DOUBLE IT. Now... to have the time and motivation for this project.... I'll get back with you about that.

Prayer Requests

I'm popping in to say hello on my coffee break this morning because I had a super busy weekend that didn't involve much blogging. Or any. One of the things I got to do this weekend was an event called The Movement set up by high school kids who are starting to raise awareness for orphan care in their high schools. Amazing and inspirational. I'm so proud of those kids (I know a few who are involved) and what they're doing. It helps that I'm riding an adoption and orphan care wave right now as well, and this upcoming week is exciting for that very reason.

This week is a big week for me for a couple of different reasons, and I just wanted to let you know in case you'd like to say a prayer for me. I've got the day off of work on Wednesday, and I crampacked it with meetings and non-work working and brainstorming sessions and all sorts of things to that effect. All sorts of things that I'm filled to the brim with excitement about.

I'm praying that God will take my tiny seed of an idea and grow it into something awesome. I'm praying that bits and pieces of things in my life that haven't always made sense will finally fit together. I'm praying that I'll be able to make my thoughts come across well and make sense to other people, and I'm praying that I won't be discouraged and blocked by my own self-doubt. Join me, if you're the praying type. I could really use it on Wednesday!

An Unbreakable Bond

The interesting thing about Garth Brooks... well, wait a second, I shouldn't say THE interesting thing about Garth Brooks. Because do you remember Chris Gaines? What a mess. That might be THE interesting thing about him. But the thing I was going to say first is also interesting. It's this: even people who don't like Garth Brooks like to sing along to Garth Brooks. They get excited when they hear that low grumble, even if they really don't like the song. Amazing. How does that work?

image from Google

Last night, I was at a concert in Nashville that I will hopefully blog about soon, but while we were waiting for the show to get started, "Friends in Low Places" came on overhead and I got FAR too excited.

I do have lovely fond memories of listening to that album as a kid in my room. Playing "The Thunder Rolls" on repeat and trying to get my elementary school girl voice to get as low as Garth's, which realistically is impossible but it's still fun to try.

Even though the nostalgia of that song is fun for me, it's something more. It draws me in. I was surprised when I didn't hear everyone start in on "Blame it all on my roots..." and I still feel that I should allow myself to not feel guilty over the level of disappointment I experienced when I was the only person I heard singing. Slowly but surely, more and more people began to confess their love for Garth and his magical powers. You could hear people singing all around the venue once the chorus started in.

It was like we all shared this moment, unified in our love of cheesy, twangy, country gold and that bond can never be broken. We should have held hands and cried after.

Simply Too Much

Just a quick little note today and a friendly hello. Hello, friend!

I finally let my new blog out into the world last week. I've only got a handful of posts up, but I hope you'll stop by and take a look. It's a totally different feel than Rest On Me... which is fun for me. I like to switch it up, you know.

The blog is called Simply Too Much and it's a little more professional (or something). I'm hoping to update it several times a week, and I'd love for you to check it out.

As a side note, I got the trench coat in the mail that I mentioned in one of the posts... and it is glorious. GLORIOUS.