Cadmium Orange Latté

Remember when summer used to mean something? No school...going on vacation...being exhausted by all the sleeping in...green hair from so much chlorine in the pool (maybe that was just me?). Being an adult has killed any happiness I once had in the summertime. I hate adult summer. It's an annoying, fat, sweaty man standing between me and autumn (the best season of all, clearly).

Maybe if I didn't live in Florida I would feel differently about summer. My positive outlook on life is directly related to the level of sweat I am experiencing at any given moment. My hair wasn't made for humidity (and if yours WAS, I probably don't like you). I don't like being surrounded by crowds of tourists reeking of sunscreen and body odor. I hate that Florida summer throws down pieces of hurricane every time I need to walk out to my car.

All of these confessions probably don't come as much of a shock, but there is one confession that generally does. Before you read on, remember that God made us all different for a reason, so don't hate me for having opinions.

I hate the beach.

CLARIFICATION: I like the beach when it's slightly chilly and I'm watching the sunrise on the east coast or the sunset on the west coast. A Florida sunrise or sunset is beautiful enough to make you cry. Watching the sun sink into the ocean or slowly wake up from out of it is inspirational enough to make you re-evaluate all your priorities in life (or at least inspire you to sing the opening song from The Lion King). Walking along the edge of the water with rolled up jeans and a hoodie is a dream. BONUS: the sand exfoliates my feet. It's like the beach wants me to have flip-floppable feet. I oblige.

However, between 9am-ish and 5pm-ish (the ocean's business hours are similar to that of man), I despise the beach. Despiiiiiise. No matter what, I end up with salt in my eyes, sand in my mouth, some part of my body burnt, I'm coerced into wearing less clothing than I want to wear, I see others wearing less clothing than I want THEM to wear...it's just awful. Last time I went to the beach, I suffered my first bout of heatstroke! I lost the ability to see, hear, or stand. Three things that I do with regularity. So...what part of sitting in hot dirt is fun?

But now...September is here! Thus the reason I'm currently sipping on my third pumpkin spice latte this week while planning my fourth. As a designer and creative-type, I must commend autumn for having the best color scheme. Yellow Ochre! Dark Sienna! Cadmium Orange! Van Dyke Brown! Yes, I get all my colors directly from the palette of Bob Ross. I'm gonna need to plan a road trip to see some of these lovely colors in nature. I want to wear scarves and boots! I want to squeal at the sight of red and yellow leaves on a tree! I want my hair to say "hey, thanks for the lovely breeze that allowed me to stay straight all day!" I want to be drunk on pumpkin and my house to smell like we've been brewing apple cider as if our lives depend on it.

My current favorite song is "I Will Wait" by Mumford & Sons. I LOVELOVELOVE this band, and am thrilled about their new album coming out later this month. This newest track from them is as close as your ears will ever get to understanding the joy of tasting a Pinterest pumpkin bar recipe. I lovingly dedicate this song to autumn. The Florida weather may think it's still summertime, but I will wait, I will wait for you, autumn!

Look at how wonderful Mumford & Sons is! All boys should wear vests, flannel, casual ties, rock some sweet facial hair and carry around banjos. Right?

Did you realize that "casual ties" is just "casualties" with a space in the middle? Weird. Who knows how words are formed.

Bring on the Fall, y'all.

Bears, Dogs and Popcorn

About two weeks ago, I started a new job. I'm excited about it because:

• I like new things. It keeps life exciting. Variety is the spice of life, and I am kind of a Spice Girl.
• It's a new job - but at the same place I've been working - which is my Alma Mater. I love that place. I'm surrounded by people who challenge me to "woman up." (Is that a thing?)
• I'm now getting paid to do what I studied in college - Graphic Design. I think this makes me a rare breed. Who uses those expensive pieces of paper anymore?

Honestly, if I could choose ANY job in the world...I'd either host a show on The Travel Channel or I would be a bear. Ok...I realize "bear" isn't a legitimate career option, but bear with me here. (You see what I did there?) Anything that keeps people from attacking me and allows an annual hibernation fest would be high on my list of desired lifestyles. Not to mention my little sushi obsession. I'm jealous that bears always get the freshest tuna and salmon. Lucky Yogi.

Every new job comes with new challenges. I am incredibly, completely, obstinately non-confrontational. If cutting my leg off makes you more comfortable, then please...pass me the saw. God has been revealing a lot of the dangers of this attitude (other than losing a leg) to me this year...I might talk more about that at another time. For now, it means that I have to learn how to tell someone "NO, you may NOT send out a poster with Word Art from 1997 to promote our college." I'm probably going to hurt people's feelings. People really love ugly things sometimes. I am proud to report that my first (self-assigned) duty as the Director of Communications was to literally BURN a sign on campus that was covered in Comic Sans.

Stop using Comic Sans.

Speaking of sin...(trust me...using Comic Sans is "missing the mark")...sin recently made me nauseous. I heard an unfortunate story about an old friend who is currently dealing with the ramifications of a horrific, is-she-going-to-jail type of sin. To say the situation shocked me would be an understatement. I wanted to throw up...as if the truth of the matter would be expelled and flushed away. This is the first time I can ever remember having an automatic puke response to sin. The more I have thought about it, the more I wonder why I don't always want to puke when I hear of or think about sin. Sin really is barf. I wish I always saw it that way.

Like a dog that returns to its vomit is a fool who repeats his folly. ~ Proverbs 26:11

Random confession: I LOVE popcorn. So much. I've had this love since I was a kid. I still have my childhood diary on my bookshelf - and yes, I mention popcorn throughout it. I apparently thought it was important to log what I ate every day in my diary (typical chubby kid), and many of my entries end with:

I had popcorn for dinner today. It was a good day.

One of my favorite things in the world is to be sitting in a movie theater with friends and a GIANT bag of popcorn. What DOESN'T make me happy, however, is PAYING for movie theater popcorn. I mean...seriously. How much does it really cost to heat up some seasoned birdseed?! I can just see Colonel Kernel, sitting on his buttery-golden saddle on his popcorn-white high horse, mocking my love of this salty snack. Anyways...a couple weeks ago, I went to see a movie, and dropped some obscene amount of money on popcorn. After the film, I went to the ladies room. While there, I remembered that I was out of toilet paper at home, and no stores would be open on the way home at that hour to replenish my supply. So...I...may or may not have rolled up a mile or two of their toilet paper to stash in my purse. Is that normal? No. Does the movie theater owe me something because of their ridiculous prices?! No................? Clearly, I am a modern-day Robin Hood.

Bears never have to deal with this kind of thing.

A Lobsterman's Wife

I think I'm becoming an adult.

• I find myself talking about the weather. But for real...summer in Florida. Ugh.
• I sometimes take a longer route to drive somewhere so I can "see some nice houses."
• I can't seem to sleep past 9am.
• I'm going on vacation!

I don't know if #4 is actually an indication of adulthood or not, but, for the first time in my life I feel like I actually NEED and DESERVE a vacation. A time to get away. Time to do whatever the heck I want to do while using my brain as little as possible. I'm finally adult enough to have a job that gives me days off -- that they officially declare as "vacation time."

The goal was to get as far north as possible within a reasonable budget. Is that not the way everyone else plans their vacation days? The winner of this game was Portland, Maine. Farewell, Florida heat and humidity! Bring on the scarf weather! I leave on Monday with one of my roommates and BFF's, Rachel Hale. I'm not entirely sure Rachel has realized that we aren't going to Portland, Oregon...but I'm not sure either of us would know the difference.

Who cares? Look at what comes up when I search for images of Portland, Maine:

Um, hello.

So far, our plans include kayaking to tiny islands, renting bicycles along the coast, hiking in the nearby mountains...and eating enough butter-dripping lobster to make up for all the health-conscious activities popular to this area. I also purchased a Groupon for an obscene amount of crepes at a local fancy-pants restaurant. I think the root of the word "vacation" is "Nutella," so it's not technically a vacation without that glorious chocolate hazelnut spread. Right?

Side Note: Is it acceptable to bring home a pet lobster? I would rubber-band his claws and everything... Worst case scenario, a pet lobster would be horrific enough of an experience that you would eat him and end up feeling much better about life overall. I'm just weighing my options.

Thanks to the wisdom of Shawn Grant, I believe that every trip needs a good soundtrack and at least one good theme song. Whenever you hear that song later in life, the memories of those moments come flooding back. I've been working on a soundtrack for when we hit the road in Maine. Perhaps I shouldn't use the word "hit" when referring to what will happen with our rental car?

Our theme song....(drum roll please)...is "Far Away" by Ingrid Michaelson.

What other song in the world talks about lobsters?! Seriously. The lyrics pretty much sum up my wildest dreams for this trip:

I will live my life as a lobsterman's wife on an island in the blue bay.

He will take care of me, he will smell like the sea,

And close to my heart he'll always stay...

Far away far away, I want to go far away.

To a new life on a new shore line.

Where the water is blue and the people are new.

To another island, in another life.

Most of the Maine soundtrack is made up of any song in my iTunes library with the words "Boat," "Road," "Mountain," or anything similar somewhere in the title. I even added the song "Seaglopur" from Sigur Ros because it came up when I searched for "Sea." It's an Icelandic word that means "lost at sea."

I'm really smart.

Well, smart enough to use Wikipedia and Google Translate to decipher Icelandic song titles.

If I never come back from this vacation, now you know where I am. With my rugged, New England man-of-the-sea who looks like he belongs on a box of frozen fish sticks and our pet lobsters.

Social Awkwardness

My assumption is that there was a day in middle school where my teacher taught the secret to relationships and how to achieve success in social interaction. Surely it happened, and surely I was sick at home on the couch that day.

Meeting new people does NOT come naturally to me. I count myself lucky that I have a good amount of friends who stuck with me through the initial awkwardness and are now all entertained by my shortcomings.

Back when I was a professional Christian (i.e. "missionary"), I knew I needed to get over some of my social fears. The way I started was by committing myself to go to the grocery store at the same time of the day...on the same day of the week...every week...to get in the same lane...so I could see the same cashier lady. I wanted to become one of her "regulars" that she looked forward to having a short chat with. I don't know if I ever made an impression on her other than "wow, this girl buys a lot of cheese," but I do think she helped me work through some of my fear of small-talk awkwardness. Or at least embrace it as part of my personality. I really need to get back to finding those sorts of people that I can encounter during my week. For right now, that group probably includes the guy at my local Starbucks drive-thru, the breakfast shift girl at my Chick-Fil-A, and the window girl at my favorite food truck in Orlando. Trying to slowly build intentional relationships with strangers is giving me diabetes.

Another way I've tried to challenge myself to meet new people is by taking a class at my favorite local art store. So far, I have only attended this class twice...but I'm killing two birds with one stone there. I get to challenge myself creatively and challenge myself socially. I'm going to murder those two birds.

Sometimes I take colloquial phrases too far.

This is some of the stuff I've done after learning basic Zentangle patterns in class. My new goal in life is to sell an original textile at IKEA. That's right. I see you, Sweden.

I just realized that I'm wearing 23 buttons today (15 on my shirt, 8 on my pants). Twenty. Three. That seems excessive, right? Both my shirt and pants are in the genre of "fashion" where it's as if they created flaps just so they could button them down. Why?! This reminds me...when I was in 5th grade, I wanted SO BADLY to glue a bunch of buttons onto a shirt and write "cute as a button!" on it. Yeah...a shirt like that would at least give people a head's up on social awkwardness heading their way.

Alpha

I have no discipline.

Whenever someone asks me, "Why don't you have a blog?" my usual answer is:

I have bad luck with blogs.

That is a lie. Well, a lie with some partial truth to it...but please don't let me get away with this ridiculous excuse. 

This blog is...I think...my 7th blog.

XANGA 

sisterhutch.xanga.com

Xanga was a horrible/amazing website that defined most of my college life. I LOVED my Xanga. It was the Facebook of "my" day. It kept us connected to each other on campus without having to go through the awful process of practicing face-to-face conversation. It kept us entertained, distracted from homework, and filled with a daily dose of drama. Still, reading through my posts (and the comments my friends made on them) is like jumping in Doc Brown's DeLorean. Some of my posts on Xanga were very deep, heartfelt essays...but I'm pretty sure my "blogumentary" on Little Richard and my random science experiments on frozen raw egg could've won me a Pulitzer.

MAGICAL SKIRT

skirt4.livejournal.com

My college roommates and I anticipated post-graduation separation anxiety, so we set up a shared blog that we all promised to update once per month. We purchased a skirt that *magically* fit each one of us, and promised to mail it around to each one of the 4 bloggers. There were rules, there was a contract, there were signatures...it was very official. However, most of us usually forgot to update about our lives on the blog.

I need to get one thing straight: only two girls were actually ever in possession of the magical skirt. Those two girls are now the only two out of our group who are married and have kids.

I'm not bitter. Just stating facts.

LIVEJOURNAL

sisterhutch.livejournal.com

I don't remember why I had a LiveJournal. I think it just made me feel significant to write down insignificant things. Still does. Not many posts made it on here...just general thoughts about working in an office and how annoying eye twitches are.

ALL TIED UP IN NOTTS

sisterhutch.blogspot.com

Modern-day missionaries are expected to have a blog, so when I became an official, visa-toting missionary for two years, I attempted to keep a blog of what was going on in the UK from my point of view. I felt a lot of pressure to be overtly spiritual, so most of the words on that blog don't always sound like me. Most of what was actually going on in my life and mission work never made an appearance on that blog out of fear that I'd lose all my financial support if people found out how crazypants my heart and mind were becoming throughout the process of learning to live in a spiritually desolate culture.

COUNTDOWN TO THE GREATEST DAY OF MY LIFE

countdownwithcrystal.blogspot.com

I had been looking forward to one specific birthday my entire life -- 11/11/11. Right after 11/11/10, I set up a blog to update everyone on how awesome my life was going to be on 11/11/11. However, a couple of months after this blog was created, I was given a job that required me to be at work for about 12 hours on 11/11/11. I was devastated, and I refused to update the blog any further.

I'm such a baby..."My stable job ruined my birthday plans." #firstworldpains

Turns out, 11/11/11 was actually the best birthday I've ever had. Perhaps I'll blog about that some day. Or perhaps some day I'll learn to not stomp my feet like a child when my expectations in life aren't met.

CRYSTAL IN CAMBODIA

crystalincambodia.blogspot.com

I planned to go on a mission trip to Cambodia, so I created a blog about it. The purpose of the blog was to raise funds while saving money on postage...and to be green. But mostly to save money on postage.

Then, the mission trip to Cambodia was unexpectedly cancelled.

Is my blogging journey cursed?

Here I am again. I didn't create this blog for any specific reason, so I have no excuse to suddenly stop writing. I DO, however, have reasons that I need to blog. Mostly, I love writing. I'm a creative person, and writing is yet another creative outlet that I need to challenge and discipline myself in.

Discipline.

Ugh.

So, if you're looking for a consistent place to find a challenging message from a deeply spiritual, mature voice...it ain't here. However, if you don't mind some random, frantic posts about Little Richard or eye twitches while I experiment with my ability to write about things worth writing down...I'm your girl. :)