"Let's Take a Walk"

"Let's take a walk", she said. 

"It will be fun, short walk", she thought.

Well, apparently my whole family interpreted my words as an express desire take a walk that would burn off all the calories we ever ate in the whole 5 days we were there visiting my sister.

Yeah, so we sat out on a walk Christmas Eve to go down the lane from Alyssa's house... Kiki and I were about 20 minutes behind everyone, so we thought we would walk until we met up with them at a certain point by the creek. Not sure where we got that idea, because we never ran into my parents. And by the time we realized that they were probably walking the whole loop, we figured that we would walk more miles by turning around than to just go ahead and walk the whole loop as well. We found out that it was only a piddly 4 miles... ;P But trust me, it felt like 6 or 8. It was still really enjoyable, though.

I videoed the first section of our walk with the GoPro on my head and I had my DSLR taking pictures of scenery... I created a little video with the combined video and pictures. Because I have nothing better to do. jk.

But here are the pictures :)

And the video!

Part of the walk triggered so much déjà vu... back to our many vacations to a certain special cabin in Colorado. Mostly because you can hear the creek bubbling as it moves along swiftly... hidden behind the dense pine foliage. But also little things like these rusty old mailboxes, the little shack-like cabins built close to the road because they are crowded by the steep rise of the mountain, and the wet road we walked on all reminded me of Green Mountain Falls, Colorado! :)

Basically, I'm saying that it was just as good as any vacation to Colorado. Except there is no cell coverage... which is spotty in Colorado anyway, but you can rest assured that you will never have a chance of getting any in Pocahontas County, WV! ;)

And I actually used the compass on my phone for the first time. :P

When I got off the flight, the only directions I had to find my car was that it was on the East end of the second garage level. o.O How is someone directionally challenged supposed to find that!? LOL

Thank goodness for the iPhone!

I had a wonderful time... being with family and my sister's "second family" (basically everyone out in Green Bank), skiing, and flying home. It was all lovely! ;) 

And I got paid to do it all. It's a blessing to get so many weeks of paid vacation time. So basically find a job you love, or find a job with lots of vacation time. LOL, just joking... I love my job!

-MarLeahJoy

Oh Happy Day!

This is the day I've been waiting for! I've been planning for a few months to make sure I have all the skiing gear I needed, and I even had it laying out in my room for the last week (And then I just threw my iPhone on top of it to keep it classy for the picture ;P)

Yesterday, I almost got a little jittery thinking about it. I started panicking in my mind thinking: "What if I just totally loose my touch with it???" That would be horrible! But I know that's not going to happen. I think I just can't believe that I was so daring the last time I went skiing and went on such steep slopes... So I might have to ween myself back into it tomorrow. But I'm sure as soon as I get the skis on it will feel normal again.

-MarLeahJoy

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like...

So I still think it is pretty sweet that my sister's new house was completely furnished with everything when they got it. Yeah, maybe a few things in the house are a little older and she plans on trying to update somethings... but they have quite a few vintage gems - like these chairs. We had our first meal together after church Sunday.

Then we sang and played the guitar and piano. I felt like a super star... just saying ;P 

And ever since VHS went out of style... we really haven't had any "home videos" made around our place. So it's really nice to have my GoPro so I can easily record our family time, and it was fun to see everyone passing around my GoPro and recording different things :)

This is just a little screen shot from the video of the duet Kiki and I did :)

At night I asked Marty to build a fire -- they just make everything more cozy!

While we were sitting around the fire, it made me think of the new song by Pentatonix, "That's Christmas to Me" when it says: "The fireplace is burning bright, shining all on me..." :) Yep, it's Christmas alright! :)

Christmas wishes!

-MarLeahJoy

Birthday Wishes

I took this picture of my room with the bouquet my mom surprised me with at work before my birthday. I love it so much because it is such an original arrangement. I had to leave the bouquet to fade away on my dresser :( but there are more exciting things ahead! :) 

If I had one birthday wish left, it would be that we are already at my sister's house. It's been one loooonngg day :P

- MarLeahJoy

Almost Time

I can't believe that tomorrow marks the last day of work... for a week! :)

I also can't believe that me -- the last of all people on the totem pole -- got the whole week of Christmas off! I'm normally not excited about packing my clothes and getting everything ready for a trip, but I am so ready for this trip to West Virginia to see my sister's new house, to have Christmas as a family, and to Ski! So eager that I laid all my clothes out, and even tried on my whole skiing outfit. 

Speaking of eager... Tuesday was my birthday and I couldn't have been more happy to have a birthday! lol It normally doesn't excite me very much to simply turn a year older, but this year... I was hyper days before Lol! My dearest friend and cousin, Heather, sent me this for my birthday. It is a little globe from Target (right Heather?) that I have almost bought for myself at least two times before.

If you are Katelyn or Karissa and you are reading this... you should stop now. Or you may as well open your present now. Hehe ;P 

I love just a little bit of giving here and there! It's just so right! It's not about what you get, neither is it about what you spend... it's only about the attitude of your heart! <3

I hope to see you all soon!

And I severely hope it is with a video from my GoPro with some fun skiing stuff.

Crossing my fingers that all my ideas work out!! :)

-MarLeahJoy

Thankful Much

Sometimes I find myself being thankful about the most off-the-wall things.

This morning -- not so much -- it was a pretty normal thing I was thankful for. Just hot water. You know that feeling that takes your heartbeat away when the water in the shower isn't quite up to temp. yet? Well, it only lasted a few short minutes, long enough to make me thankful for the hot water we have. I normally don't think about stuff like that, but it must have set me off in the thankful mood or something. And tonight I relized that thanksgiving is only a few short days away -- how fitting. Since I never participate in the "rage" of those thankful posts for the month of November, I might as well get my thankful thoughts out all at once, while I'm on a roll. ;)

So this is when my thanksgivings shift a little more to different things - you know, to all the complicated things in my life that God has blessed me with, but I don't even understand them, I can't fathom them yet. 

At work, I've been learning to be more of the type of person that people don't forget. Not in a selfish or vain way... But I only say that because there have been complete strangers in my life that I will never forget simply because they made me feel special. Anyway, that's one of my biggest goals right now... And today I found myself feeling thankful for learning another little lesson on how to brighten someone's day. It was actually waiting in the drive through after the person taking my order really misunderstood me. I didn't really care so I pulled up to the window anyway. The thing was, I waited forever for the most piddling little thing. Finally I turned my car off because I was waisting gas. I knew that it would have probably indicated to those inside that I was tired of waiting and if it was going to camping out her for another half hour, I might as well turn off my car. Yeah, so I was slightly irritated that it was taking ten minutes in a fast food drive through for one simple thing but I really wasn't that upset. When they gave me my food and apologized for the wait, all I said was, "thank you," and I started my car and left. Immediately, I knew that I could have practiced some of that "make people not forget you power" and who knows? -- maybe I would have turned a bad night on the job into a good one! Really all it would have taken was a smile, assuring them that it was no problem at all, then saying thank you. And I find that sometimes a smile is the biggest key, since they are after all contagious. :)

Well, today was also the second day that one of my sweet cousins stopped by and gave me something at work... This time it was chocolate (yum!) and the thoughtfulness of it just melted my heart that someone would just think of me when they are out and about? :) yeah, just terribly sweet!

That's not an odd thing to be thankful about either, but it does trigger a different level of thankfulness in me... It makes me thankful for humanity, and the little ways our hearts feel and perceive love. It's just a beautiful thing -- something I can't comprehend at times.

Another thing I'm so thankful for, and something I can't understand, is the plan God has for my life. There are places I want to go, things I want to accomplish, and a woman of good character that I want to become... And sometimes the thought of it wants to weigh I me because those three things right there reminds me that a lot of my life is up in the air right now. I feel like I'm barely getting to the point where I can start accomplishing some of it in the near future and it might be scary to think that one moments decision can change it all. But... 99% of the time I am just excited for the future and thankful that God really has a good plan for my life. And a quote my Sunday school teacher gave us:

"God gives his best to those who leave the choice with Him."

One last thing... ;) I'm thankful for animals: monkeys, elephants, puppies, big wild cats, and then your good old regular kitty-cat. They just make my heart bigger! :) Most of that is in reference so some of Devin Graham's latest videos in Nepal. I mean seriously... how cute is this monkey at 1:12 of this video???

Well, it's Thanksgiving and I didn't even realize how spot-on my thoughts were to the season...

Anyone else have any to share?

-MarLeahJoy 

To Everything There is a Season

So, I admit. I haven't been as content with the place in life that I am in like I should be.

It's all about school... college. I really don't like it at all.

It's not like it takes that much time, but I just can't focus on it. Which, in turn, makes for a lot of procrastination and wasted time.

Tonight has led me through a series of thoughts on this matter.

1) My mom advised me to try to have a better attitude about doing my homework. Which I scoffed at, but I know that it will solve a lot of things if I do...

2) I was looking through my Flickr account (that I haven't posted to since the fourth of July) :/

I found this old gem.

Yeah, that was like the best little camping trip. Just me and my cousin, but it was awesome because I took photos the whole time.

3) I was going to post this picture here on my blog and whine and complain about how I can't do what I really love to do because of school. But then I stopped and realized that maybe this season is a blessing after all. Because it is showing me what I really love to do. Where I should be. And what my focus should be on. 

Honestly, that's something a lot of people don't figure out until their mid 20's.

I know that I certainly have had my struggles with photography. Wondering if I really love it, or if it's just a little hype-thing that I'm going through that will pass. But....

Sometimes they say that distance makes the heart grow fonder.

Well, I think it's true. 

-MarLeahJoy

Yep, life and it's seasons... sometimes all I can do is shake my head and smile.

Most of my smiling is at my humanity and small understanding, though.

All I Can Do is Smile

I've never had someone do something for me and feel so much like God had a hand in it.

Today, we had a rough time closing up the bank, but we finally got out of there nearly an hour late. I had a cloud of dread hanging over my head because something was wrong that I had done that day and I didn't catch it until time to close. So all I could do is just hope that tomorrow, when management looks everything over, the issue will turn up and everything will be okay. But I know good and well that that might not. 

When I first realized there was a problem, naturally my thoughts turned straight to God and I started asking of Him that He would fix it and make everything right. But just as this song says, so many times we ask God to be with us in our times of distress, yet we haven't been close to him in all the other times. As I was crying out to God, I thought of this whole week and how I really haven't spent much time with the Lord because I've let homework and the cares of life take away from that special time with Him. So I was kind of like, "Well, I really don't feel like I have much room to ask for him to make everything to be just okay", though I know God can still do it if we truly have a repentant heart and if it is part of the lesson He wants to teach us. 

Needless to say, I was leaving work feeling gloomy, and it was really dark and cold outside to add to it. As I got to my car, I saw something was on the windshield of my car and I hollered back to my co-worker that someone had left me something. It was some flowers and candy from my cousin, and so I was like "How did she know I was having a rough night?!?" My co-worker and I just laughed at the irony of it and then parted ways. Of course, I knew that she had no way of knowing, but God did!

On my way home, I was thinking about it, and God just let me know that if He could orchestrate so that someone would think of me and send me a special gift on the same day that something went wrong, that he already knew all about the situation and it would be okay. And I can't even fathom what it means for God to know ALL about it -- that's a lot of "knowing"! ;) But it give me a calm assurance about the whole thing, that it would all be okay no matter how it turned out.

Then, as I pulled into the garage, and looked over to pick up the flowers and carry them in, I was just overwhelmed with the love of God. That He would really love me so much to give me flowers. Oh, it was such a wonderful thought! I know some people might argue though that it wasn't God -- it was just my cousin being nice to me. No, God works through the hands of his children. I'm also not trying to discount the kindness of my cousin, either. But it was just so strongly impressed on me that it was God who did it, he really cares and wants to have a relationship with me just as if He were my best friend here on this earth. 

Maybe I'll just leave it at that, because my mind can't even really take it all in right now. I'm overwhelmed with it all, because it is also a direct answer to the desire I've had in my heart to really know God like a friend, a really close friend.  :)

-MarLeahJoy 

Fall

There is nothing like the pure joy of a child.

-MarLeahJoy