P E A C E

I found a place 

Where peace resides 

Where mornings come with bible 

And runs come with conversation 

Where church is a community 

And I can read before bed 

There are late nights in the pool 

Hot evenings on my bike 

There are letters from friends 

And texts every day 

There are pets sitting in my room 

And audio books on my phone 

There’s a new comfy quilt

And criss-cross socks 

It's a pink casset player 

And old cassets to go in it 

It's a play with beautiful sunset 

Where dragonflys don't fly away 

And deer stay in the backyard

Maybe those things aren’t peace 

But together they are

I never thought of peace like this 

But now it's here 

I want to hold onto it forever 

W O R D S

Words 

Aren’t helping anymore 

Words 

Aren’t helping to describe 

Or to empty the ache anymore 

Words 

Aren’t filling me up 

And helping me heal 

But it’s little things 

That words don’t seem to describe 

Like when a bird 

Sits outside my window 

Or a kid 

Smiling up at my 

Sometimes the moments 

Feel like heartbreak 

Like seeing a photo 

Of a long time ago 

Or sending a text 

And getting no answer 

The healing and the hurting 

Are all mixed up now 

But maybe they are the same 

And I’ll know it later 

So for now I’m looking out 

For all those little things 

That words can’t describe 

Until I have words 

For all I want to say 

I have recently started keeping a gratitude journal and it has been the funniest thing to search throughout the day for all the good things. I highly recommend it. <3

June Highlights

June was a complete mixed bag of both amazing, and bad. It's one month I don't really know how to define, but I am so grateful for my friends who hung with me through it. 

Since the beginning of June is not horribly hot, I took a day and read in my hammock. Which was a win-win since I needed to read the book for review and it was awesome to spend time outside. Sometimes when work is super busy, it's hard to remember to spend enough time outside, so it's nice to take the summer and hang outside more. 

Since we live pretty far away from everything, I have three library cards for the library along my work rout, so my mom and I took a day, and renewed all of them, which was really fun! We went to the Austin central library, which is huge, and that was a blast. 

I'm working on sorting through my old photos, which is a lot. In June I sorted through most of my backlog from 2017-19 that was unsorted, and in July I'm hoping to tackle 2020-22. If I don't sort, and get rid of the useless photos, they become unmanageable really fast. 

A few months ago my favorite Half Priced Books was destroyed by tornado damage, and this month they finally reopened! I was so excited, I magaed to get a stack of books for an epic price. =D 

My sister and I starting babysitting for two new families, one with four kids, which was fun and chaotic. Rebekkah played an elaborate game of monkey in the middle for hours on end with them, and I read a lot of books to the younger kids. =) The other which was just one baby, which I rarely get the chance to work with, so I loved it!!

For fathers day, we had a family lunch at Whataburger, since that is his favorite restaurant. Then we hung out Sarah and Scotts apartment, and just enjoyed some time as a family. 

I decided it was high time I took back up biking, so I pulled out my bike. After cleaning a pound of dirt off of it, I took it for a ride which was awesome. I have missed it emencely, so I'm hoping I can get back into the habit of going on a regular basis. 

A dear friend had us over for a swimming party. This pool had a diving board! It was pretty epic. We enjoyed a day of swimming, and hanging out. We did a lot of "sycronyized" jumps, and had fun coming up with wacky ways of jumping into the pool. On a simular note, we finally got a pool again! It is an epic above ground one, and we are still working on setting it up, but I am very excited!

Rebekkah, Grace, and I made a time capsole together. It's some letters and a SD card to be opened in ten years. It was weird writing something that I knew wouldn't been seen for a long time! 

Well, to end the month off, my sisters and I passed around a cold. I spent four days curled up on the couch watching movies, and listening to books. I dug out an game of Rollar Coaster Tycoon and played that. Thankfully it was a light cold, so it didn't interrupt to much. =) 

My favorite new book was Kate's Informant by Sarah Holman. <3 That book was amazing! My only re-reads were the Romeo and Juliet code books (I'm getting better) and they were an enjoyable re-read. 

I got a month of Netflix to watch a movie with my friend Kate, so I tried out some stuff on there!

Carmen Sandiego: This show lived up to all the dreams of childhood. I loved playing Carmen Sandiago games as a kid. While I was a bit sceptical of making her a good guy, they totally rocked it. They kept with the fun education, and awesome puns. I would definitely recommend this show!

Bookworm and the Beast: I needed something one night and this looked very hallmark-esk. It was. Honestly, there was nothing wrong with it, but there was also nothing to make it fun. 

Captain America: Okay, so unpopular opinion here: I'm not big into superhero's. After high recommendations though, I decided to try Captain America and it did not live up to the hype. Cap was a good guy, but that's about all that's good about this movie. The bad guy had no definable motive, the supporting cast was either annoying, or quickly "killed" off (I say "killed" because I know no one truly dies, so it's hard to get sad). I found the bad guy to creepy, and the magic cube's abilitys to undefined. Also, the overarching theme was pretty bland. *Shrug* I didn't hate it, I just didn't find anything to like. 

Enola Holmes: I watched this with Kate, and really enjoyed a movie with the fourth wall broken so much. The plot and mystery were very enjoyable, and the characters fantastic. I found the violence to much, and some of the repeated actions a bit annoying (How many times does she need to swap clothes with someone??). But otherall, it was a cute movie! 

Magic Schoolbus: I revisited a bit of childhood here. Some of it was better then I remembered, some of it just downright weird. I remembered how much I hate them pasting kids faces on to animals. XD

Magic Schoolbus rides again: I thought this was an adorable re-boot series! They kept with the originals fun, while adding some new elements that made it even better. But I do miss the original catchprashe. "Be what you see" Just isn't inspiring like "Take chances, make mistakes, get messy!" 

Home: Kate watched this with me when I was having a bad day, and it was a cute little movie. Nothing hugely moving, but the music was epic, the characters very cute, and the ending sadusfying. 

The Railway Children: I loved this as a kid, so it was fun to re-watch and enjoy the characters journay all over again. 

How was your June?