been doin’ stuff. ain’t been bloggin’.

Huh.

I slacked off, I did.

Oops.

Want some photos?

Really, I don’t know how else to introduce this. “Have a slice of life! Go back pre-Christmas wid I!” Or, “I know people. Here’s their muggies.” Maybe even, “Have fun going back to school, cuz of I aint!”

Did I mention I’ve graduated college?

Ok. Party time!

But before that, some stuff happened. Because Thanksgiving evening, the sibs were swing dancing in the living room and yeah, that’s pretty epic. Have you ever seen a mug shot of people’s feet?

Black Friday is the Official Christmas Decorating Day. Mum’s like, OCDD about it. [Ahahaaaaa bad pun. Sorreh. But not.]

But the point is, KK darlin’ and I put all the pretty red all over Bruno, and I think he actually liked it. Dad did too for about a second and a half and then it had to go. Then there’s this chile, who’s basically amazing and I love her and why can’t she come over right now and interrupt me and make me all smiley and stupid? Baby doll child, come home. An order.

{Today I move from imigraaaaant / to high society!}

Fortuosity, by Tommy Steele, on “The Happiest Millionaire”. That’s what came on spotify at the moment. Go listen to it.

Going forward. The graduated thing! Mumsy had me a surprise party! I love surprises. They got me home and I opened the door and saw the broski! He’s supposed to be at college, so that was a surprise.

“You having friends over?”

“Yeah, cuz that’s – ” but I stopped him; I saw a cake on the table and assumed it was for my sister.

“For Christa’s birthday?”

“No, that’s what you do when there’s a graduation!”

The first realizing begins to happen – snail-paced.

“A party? Why wasn’t I invited?!” #stupidstupidstupid

“Because… it was a … surprise…?”

Oh!

Wow. Some grad I make. Can’t realize when I’ve been given a surprise party! Ha. The lit major failed at Taboo. (That’s I: laugh.)

Kape, get this.

My bestie gotted me coffee, and chat time, AND a SECOND surprise party! May have been some of my best moments this year. But honestly, darling, who doesn’t like coffee and games and surprises and cake and mugs and The Hobbit Premier and all that for a surprise party present?

This is my fave. The peeps are re-doing their floor. So they painted me a graduation congratulation mural on the unfinished floor. And signed it. And yeah.So. Wassa uppa on your end, eh?

Use the Dusty Dreams

Well I’m going somewhere soon.

Far.

I’ve never left the country before. Now I am. I’m going to India. It’s a bit wild and crazy, and we’re not just going all touristy and happy to spend money and what. We’re going to learn about human trafficking and heart ache and sad things.

It’ll be hard, and I don’t know how much hurt I’ll come back with. I don’t know how I’ll have to handle that hurt, but I know I want to use it for others. Other people hurt and that’s why we’re going – to learn about their hurts and show them we care and to come back and do things to prevent and rescue and heal their hurts.

Anyway. Helping people’s a bit of a dream. Cheering and encouraging and all? It’s a happy thing. I love when I send a little text (in which I often look a little stupid) and seeing “Pahahaha! Laughed so hard I almost peed!”

It’s like a score. I made a laugh! I made something happy, and it cheered a person! I love that. Hopefully this will be something like that. I know it’s different. It’s tough and hard and old and strong and it breaks people. Trafficking breaks people. But God? He puts people together. I want to be part of that.

Dream, people. Make a goal and dream. Hard dreams are good. Do them hard things. It’s worth it.

Here – this video? It’ll maybe motivate you. Go pick that dream up and dust it off and make a plan for it.

Oh yeah. I meant to say – don’t look here too often in the next two weeks. Won’t be much, darlins. My jet-lagged, learning-busy brain won’t have time for the putting together of many words. But look on Instagram! I’ll be posting stuff there and trying to keep track of all the amazing things happening.

One project: done

Or almost done anyway.

Actually, it was a hard project. Last summer, after the 5k that I and some college buddies hosted, I wrote each of them a thank you card for all they did. B’lieve me – they did lots. I had left over cards. Nice ones. That, and I’d heard of Hannah Brencher‘s project More Love Letters. That, and some other blogger I think wrote about doing thank you notes as a project. All together, it seemed like a good way to use up those nice looking thank you notes.

So I made a list.

Mom. My boss. My little sister-by-love and my older one. My friend. Another friend. Another lady.

Just people who I love. Just a chance to tell them so.Thanks, everyone.

Thanks for the little things, and the big things. Thanks for the things you taught me, the times we were silly, and for loving me. Thanks for goofing off and playing with my hair and moving to California. Thanks for introducing me to Dr. Who and giving me haircuts and helping me plan a 5k.

Thanks for reminding me to delegate, and thanks for being my silly encouragement on hard days, and thanks for interrupting my school to show me Lego projects, and for being nonchalant about skydiving and staying up late because you wanted to talk to me. Thanks for being weird. Awesome. Annoying. Sweet. All those things.

I got a card like this myself once. It said “Thanks – not only for the big things, but also for the 32 million little things. You didn’t know I kept track, did you?”

So to you readers and commenters and people who I love – thanks. Thanks for the big things, but also for the 32 million little things. You didn’t know I kept track, did you?

So yeaaaaah it’s September

September! It thrills me from toes to tipppy top – gots the power to stand my pixie up, it does. It’s like the sky opens up just to make space for my wandering soul and things change colors to satisfy the craving I have for different. It’s September’s wanderlust makes me want to make eat the apples just layin’ on the sidewalk, take photos of the swimming trees, and make acorn necklaces (ok, perhaps that was really truly Anni’s idea).

Speaking of the girl, she came for a wee small visit last week. Really truly she deserves her own post, but (insert some lame excuse) so you see, I couldn’t. Or maybe I just selfishly want to keep my pictures of and with her in a secret, pretty place.

We grew up on playing lava-tag, and climbin’ up fire-poles, stepping across the bridge with pinched feet, and climbing up the slide. Why wouldn’t we do it again?I didn’t realize how much this post will be full of people I love. Yay! So meet my brother.

Blog, meet Josh. Josh, blog. Also Josh, meet Cherry Berry. I may be somewhat sold on fro yo. It may be what I treat myself to whenever I pass a test (hint – I passed a test.) Lucky I, it was proctored on the campus where Josh attends. So I made him got him to like fro yo. He be like “I don’t like frozen yogurt. Well, I’ll try it. Oh, chocolate! Oh, Strawberry! Oh, it comes out SOOOO slow. Oh, sprinkles! Oh, M&M’s! Oh, brownie bites! Oh, skittles! Oh, chocolate chips!” I be like “I told you so.” But yeah, celebrating with a yummy something and a loved somebody is just a happy thing. Try it sometime.

I was in a city the other day, so I did a thing. I walked on a dike, and listened to a band playing Brown Eyed Girl and Sweet Home Alabama, and did some selfying with my shadow, chatted with my sister, … yeah. It was a cool day.

I am here. Gosh that’s good to know! The things they didn’t tell us, starting out!I don’t know why I love this so much! Maybe it’s because the “When” is washed off – by rain (presumably.) Maybe it’s because it’s simple. Maybe because it’s so familiar, but it means something different when it’s all by itself. Maybe because it was just in the kind I don’t of park that needed sweet graffiti, and … well I read after a rain.

I don’t like football. This lucky child still convinced me to come to her powder puff game. Gosh I love her. I feel old, thinking that the last pp game I came to was when I was a senior, and she wasn’t in high school even, then. She’s amazing anyway, though. 

Dad, do you miss farming?

Sometimes.

Why?

I miss being able to look back at a day, and being able to see what I did.

Yeah, there’s a swath here, and another, and a field changes color once when it grows, and once when it ripens, and again after harvest and after being plowed. A whole piece of land rotates around and moves from one side of “to-do” to the other. All the time the sky watches and your fingers get wide and calloused and strong and your soul shapes to the clouds and something of the land grows and ripens and becomes something of you.

I think this and do not say it. I look at those calloused hands holding a steering wheel out of the corner of my sight and I think of me – we have the same need for sunshine and outside and breeze in the short-cut hair. We have the same need for putting something wild and chaotic into rows. We have the same desire to look back and see a field, and another, razed and bountiful and golden and done.

And how is September to you, so far?

 

Lovelies by Others

So I’m stalling.

I’ll admit it.

I’ve got projects going which aren’t finished and just need a girl to sit and do them. But let me mention that usually, twenty-somethings have a lot of somethings to sit down and do? They don’t all always happen.

So what’s happening is some stalling, and some hopefully-I-actually-get-to-that-tonight-ing, and some blogging about other stuff. Let me start – no I’ll end with that. Let me start with an adorable person – Kaylah.

This sweet pic is copied from that post – obs I can’t take any photo credit. I had to though. Look at that sweet tattoo on her right leg. The sheer amount of animal prints and designs in her outfit makes me happy.

So it was ridiculously handy how recently I graduated from highschool, cuz my face ain’t changed. So yeah – that’s a senior picture over there on the profile side of things. But uh – the hair’s changed. It’s mostly gone. I think the most I can claim is about three inches when I stretch it out. Summers? Amazing. Feels like I have shed a wool blanket. Winters? Um. Shivery. Fortunately there’s a good solution that’s all the rage right now. Ain’t I lucky?

Yay for cowls! I just picked up some yarn to make this. But like I said – there’s projects just wanting a girl.

I did actually make something like this last year, not knowing how handy it would be THIS year. (And you said you wanted to see my short hair anyway, right?)

Now – I’ll be honest. (It appears to be something I do well, if awkwardly sometimes.)

Much as I want my coffee and cocoa, there’s a yummy recipe over at Paper’n’Stitch for popsicles that sounds heavenly. Can we have another few days of summer just for this please?

Getting back to that amazing thing I wanted to use at the beginning. Actually there’s two things.

I love mountains. I love camping. This person understands. (photo credit to Oleg Grigoryev).

This is one of those things I will do, if I have any say in the matter. Right away? Perhaps not. Maybe not even soon.

 

And this song – Oceans, by Hillsong United

Both these things just speak to the soul that is down there, waiting for mountains and fearless living.

What makes you happy this weekend?

Gratefulness

Perhaps it’s an awkward title, but I like it. There’s the because. I sat and listened and lost focus and tried to pay attention in a Bible study, one night. We read Isaiah 53. Mark chatted about it as usual, and then introduced the awkward silence by asking us what our reactions were.

“Gratefulness, I guess,” Caleb said meditatively.

Gratefulness – what an awkward word! my brain spat out. (I didn’t actually say it.) Why not say gratitude?

Yeah I slapped myself for that. Caleb’s a friend, and Christ is my savior, and I wanted to hear a different word? Oh Gianna. I repented then and haven’t stopped. So now I say gratefulness, and count grace, and smile because Caleb knew what was important more than I – Jesus and his mercy.

Thanks for that lesson, dude.

And that’s basically this post. Gratefulness. Happy little things. Learning to count God’s gracious gifts and number them – impossible as it is – in photos and words and happy moments.

So anyway. Here’s my grateful list of today.

I am grateful for blog ideas. Don’t read too much here. Spoilers, wot! But mostly I took a picture of what I’ve already posted.

I’m to be a legend folks. That’s just exciting, wot. Time to go #liveacrazydream (more on that when it actually happens. 🙂

So maybe, when I take a hand off the steering, I get swerve-y and off and it’s weird, and maybe I almost went in the ditch. But maybe not, if you’re of the gracious ones. But the biking was a fun time, anyway.

And sunsets are always a good time. Especially if you’re biking. And picturing. And smiling. And it’s autumn. Win-win-win-win-win (and yeah, I just actually counted all that.)

Yeah so it’s cocoa weather, and pleasepleaseplease don’t try to tell me it’s still 70 during the day, because it’s cocoa’n’coffe’n’hoodie weather, which is my favorite. Have your seventies, sweeties. I’ll drink my cocoa.

These people are awesome. Like on the right, there’s KK. She’s my awesome sister, as somebody boldly pointed out the other day. But yeah, I’m already aware. I mean – she’s the one taking herself a selfie, here, with a phone she didn’t have permission to use. (Darn you, girl.)

Then on the left, there’s a bestie (so maybe my bestie and I both blog) and I really didn’t know it was possible for anybody besides God to know me so well. Gosh, girl. How does you does it?

Speaking of that girl, she gave me this book, which has been designated the thankfulness journal. Lookit all the writing there. God is good, isn’t he?

Oh um. There’s dirt under my nails. I play ultimate and do crazy outside stuff. So it happens. I’ll be grateful for that too. *awkward grin*

Note coffee on that list.

Yeah. I really like my coffee.

Tell me something you’re grateful for. I’d love to hear.

Just a Little Life

I’ve got this lovely idea to tell a coffee story and include an iced coffee recipe, but I can’t seem to get the right pictures. Rawr. So instead you get to know what I’ve been doing lately.

Lots, for one. I’ll illustrate. 

 

Ah, mornings. I got me a lap-swimming pass, some goggles and a new suit. Time to make them all pay for themselves. I wake up at 6 and begin to doubt every shred of benefit I’ve heard comes from exercise. Really, GG. You are stupid to be up right now. Then I swim. Then at 7:30, I can pat myself on the back for having eaten, worked out and showered all so early. So yeah. This early morning photo was AFTER I swam. Crazy me.

 

So I had a half-hour of time. I went for a walk. There was a half-squishy (not turribly squishy, just a little soft) apple lying on the sidewalk. Looked yummy enough on the parts that weren’t squishy, and I felt adventurous. I also found a bottle cap. So the walk, the apple and the bottle cap became a picture. That is all. (By the by, I was right. The apple was sweet and tangy – everything an apple should be.)

 

You must remember hearing how much I love food.

It hasn’t changed. This photo grew out of the fact that we had tomatoes, chicken, peppers, spinach and mushrooms in the fridge, but no idea what too eat. KK googled a recipe. We ended up sauteing onions and mushrooms first (while cooking chicken separately), then adding in the above mentioned ingredients. We finished by layering it in a 9×13 pan with uncooked spaghetti (shoulda been lasagna…). It was good, but we definitely should have waited for lasagna noodles. The spaghetti stuck together and didn’t cook thoroughly. But hey for adventures and mostly-yummy meals and creativity!

Do you blow bubbles? I blow bubbles. It’s amazing. It’s also very difficult to photograph.

Mmmmcamping. I am sweetly endeared to places where we’ve been camping. I get a bit possessive of these places, especially after we’ve been there several years and I know them well. I’m thinking of Frost.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –

I took the one less traveled by

And that has made all the difference.

 

All weekend I was trying to put my phone down and spend time with my family (gosh we have a good time together). At the same time, I just wanted to take pictures of so many things! So I compromised by showing them some of the photos and asking for adulation. Satisfactory, right? They’re such a great crowd. Oh, and notice the little brother in blue, posed like he’s gonna catch something. So my family’s weird too. Dad didn’t want to carry everything from the truck (he was standing beside me) to the table. So he tossed it to my siblings.

Campfires. That is all.

It’s september, and the word is magic. The first day rolled in bright and chill and the last shred of grudge I held against the early-turning leaves dissipated in the joy of autumn. Autumn. The word rolls over my tongue in a sweet sigh.

 

KK! You have to get a picture of that crazy car! Isn’t it just amusing?

I am completely taken with his asymmetrical ears and that soft, soft fur. Beorn, you amazing puppy, come home with me please? (Also, what better name than Beorn for a full German Shepherd still growing into his sizeable heritage?!) He didn’t come home with me. But we’d have been perfect for each other, I know.

How was your weekend, everybody?

Happy autumn!

Thai Noodles and Sapphires

Happy Thursday!

Let it be known: I like food. Much.

I also love reading.

So maybe this post makes sense, somehow?

First, the review.

Ruth Reichl’s “Garlic and Sapphires” is the book making me all sleepy-eyed and coffee-cravin’ in the morning right now. I was all gonna make this a classy review, but I’d rather be honest than try to fool you. I’ve only ever written one book review (years ago, and probably poorly) so I’m just going to follow Sarah’s example, and use Goodreads’ blurb, my own thoughts, and what the writer in me learned.

Goodreads: Ruth Reichl, world-renowned food critic and editor in chief of Gourmet magazine, knows a thing or two about food. She also knows that as the most important food critic in the country, you need to be anonymous when reviewing some of the most high-profile establishments in the biggest restaurant town in the world–a charge she took very seriously, taking on the guise of a series of eccentric personalities. In Garlic and Sapphires, Reichl reveals the comic absurdity, artifice, and excellence to be found in the sumptuously appointed stages of the epicurean world and gives us–along with some of her favorite recipes and reviews–her remarkable reflections on how one’s outer appearance can influence one’s inner character, expectations, and appetites, not to mention the quality of service one receives.

My thoughts: Each character Reichl discovered makes me wonder what other people might be hidden inside of me. I’ve made acquaintance of a few, I think. I like them. But what else could I be with my next haircut, job, project, trip? Might more people be like this with characters in onion layers or rainbow stripes? It’s an interesting concept. At the same time, it’s interesting to see Reichl underneath each one, just trying characters on for taste. I notice that often, after she finds a disguise that emphasizes one extreme of her character, she defaults to to some antithical trait. For example, after dressing and acting as her mom (who sent almost every dish back as unsatisfactory), she discovered Brenda, who saw everything in rose-colored glasses and who brought out the best in anyone she met.

Also, Reichl makes food interesting. I have always like eating, but Reichl makes fuelling oneself into a panorama delight of texture, color, taste and even fellowship. It seems lovely. Perhaps that was meals were really meant for. Of course not all lunches are feasts, but might food and company be more pleasant than boiling another batch of potatoes?

As a writer: It’s a fabulous and important concept to be different in writing. I’ve always  striven for a different style. Something poignant and unique and lovely and varied. Reichl is not. She writes bluntly about the facts and descriptively about the important details. The difference is that the story she tells is different. Obviously, people who do not write well won’t get hired for the new York times. That said, I don’t particularly like Reichl’s writing style. However, she takes a story (that anyone could chalk up as “just life”) and tells it like the odd, sweet, crooked, colorful story that it is. I take it as a reminder that each charming little life is that – a story. A palette. A set of words, just waiting to be put in order and written down.

Now for those that love food like I do.

Here is a recipe that seemed to me like something Reichl would have liked.

 

Spicy Thai Noodles

Recipe credit doesn’t actually to go Reichl – I found this recipe on pinterest and traced it to LeAnna. (Sorta kinda imitated her photo. It was lovely, what can I say?)

Combine 1 tsp. crushed (or ground) red pepper with 1/4 cup vegetable oil and 1/2 cup sesame oil. Cook over medium heat for 2 minutes, and then strain the pepper out of the oil – save the oil! (I used ground red pepper, and put a coffee filter in my colander to strain it.)

Whisk 6 tbs of honey and 6 tbs of soy sauce into the oil. Now, this will separate a little as soon as you stop whisking. The point is to get the honey thoroughly mixed in, and then before you combine it with the noodles, whisk it up a bit.

Boil and drain a package of angel hair or thin spaghetti.

Poor the oil mixture over the noodles and toss it together.

Chop: 1/2 cup green onions. 1/2 cup cilantro. 3/4 cups peanuts.

Shred: two peeled carrots.

Toss these last four ingredients in with the pasta, and enjoy!

My family loved this dish, but the noodles did get a little hot. I may have simmered the red pepper too long, however. Make sure it’s only 2 minutes, or use less if it’s too much for you.

So. Got any favorite ethnic recipes, or books?

The Dailies

There’s a lovely soul I know. She (Ann Voskamp) talks about counting grace and giving thanks and trying trying to keep your pen and grace-list up and speedy with God’s grace to you. It’s been a struggle for me – me who loves and ponders words and holds laughter like a mis-timed jack-in-the-box that springs up unwarranted. Me who answers pastor’s “Are you in love with life” pulpit question with the slickest, happiest “yes, I love life”. Me who counts blessings separate in each little leaf and moon-beam and joke.

But much as my little heart wanders from joy to thirst with the quickness of a deserter, so also God’s grace is something I cannot stop declaring.

It’s in my name.

Gianna. God is gracious.

My existence, my handle, my identity all declare his glory and generosity.

I love it that way. I love the way my name testifies to his love, and my pen can testify to his faithfulness in all the little daily things.

So that’s what this list is – the dailies. The sweet, the spicy, the beautiful and ponderous and laughable and shocking and happy and intelligent (maybe.)

Happy Monday!

Giant bubbles with rainbow skin shrinking back in a slow, soft pop? Yes.

This happy, random story. Ah, but to be there. (Photo cred to Inna at Paperraindrops).

Society6 has lovely art, and Takmaj has some of the loveliest. Find some of it here.

Those lyrics, and that cheer. Amen.

Then rain came down an artist, and painted everything bright and beautiful.

Grace always!

-GG

Sunshine on my Shoulders

The crickets are going wild, sweet things. My feet hurt from running, and my heart is happy from bent-double laughing with friends.

Daylight is sleepy-gone. I lay down below the window and grope for starlight. Searching out the faint light in my room has become a relaxing ritual. There are stars most nights, and in the winter they settle into the netted branches of the trees like voluntary Christmas lights. The yard light shines on a photograph of my older sister and I, and there is another faint twinkle where light catches a certain curve of the window-latch. Sometimes moonlight settles across my bed and onto the collage on my closet doors.

I am enthralled by light – enchanted. Taken. Excited. Thrilled.

John Denver gets me –

Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy

Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry

Sunshine on the water looks so lovely

Sunshine almost always makes me high.

(Sunshine on my Shoulders – Denver).

 

 

 

Sunshine is why I don’t close the kitchen blinds even when I can’t see for the glare of the sun on the dew. It’s why I hate wearing sunglasses, and why I may have missed catching the Frisbee for admiration of the sunset in the park.

The yard light silhouettes the trees against my window in a fluid, friendly shadow. Even when the stars are dancing privately behind a curtain of clouds and the moon has sailed around the curve, I will still have the rustling, light-imprinted leaves on my window and the soft square of light reflected by the photo of my sister and me.

Why is it I cling so to light? Why do people love the sun so much that we have a specific disorder for sun-deprived depression? Why do people I love find the least joy in months where there is the least sunshine?

I think there’s a heavenly reason for this bright, heavenly bliss we name summer afternoons. What if we were made to look at the sun and think of the Son? What if we’re meant to grow under this light to the world, and so also our souls deepen and strengthen under the Light of the World? Perhaps, just as without luminance of some sort, we cannot see, so also our spirits are blind without the illumination of the Spirit?

What if our God was brilliant enough to give us a symbol of himself in the form of simple joy?

Oh happy sunshine.

Grace always,

-GG