thesis-writing break again

www.greenweddingshoes.com

i can't wait to get married.

wait, scratch that!

i can't wait to fall in love.

i mean, i can wait. i will wait.

but reading the green wedding shoes blog makes it kinda hard. also, watching "Say Yes to the Dress" doesn't help!! pair the two together, and bada-bing... two sam posts in a day!

all i can say is i want to throw one awesome party with my man. holla!!

a great pair of heels makes me go from frumpy to fab: a break from thesis-writing

"but sam, you're already tall!"

well then i'll just be an amazon!! i wear heels because it makes my proportions all right.

the fluff in my middle turns to workable curves in all the right places, or at least it does in my head :)

my obsession has been the little black boot, and i'm on the prowl.

take a look at these beauts! only $23 at gojane.com



and these, too!! only $19



these are the kind of heels that scare you away. but do not get scared! they don't seem practical or wearable, just something you see in advertisements. try them on and you'll see... it makes a LOT more sense with the right styling! they are totally wearable and a fun piece to play around.

the key to styling these is to keep it simple! a nice pair of skinny leg, mid-to-dark wash jeans and a barely-fitted v-neck tee will do the trick!!

think these items: jeans, loose tank, and bootie trio would look amazing. (substitute black bootie from above in place of these skyscraper heels)

(courtesy of whowhatwear.com)

or this jean, vee, bootie trio!

(courtesy of whowhatwear.com)

my goal is to find something like these in the same price range before the show tomorrow night. impossible? hopefully not. i didn't want to venture into the black friday craziness today, and i've been holed-up in my parents house writing my senior thesis. hopefully they'll still have good sales tomorrow and things won't be horribly picked-through!

ah yes, that's it... my reward for finishing my research paper is a saturday morning shopping outing. wish me luck (on the thesis and the shopping :)

t-giving was great, update on next semester to come!

tuesdays

my morning has consisted of:

losing my app card, and then taking the most beaaaautiful back road to get to the appcard office to activate an old card.

parking by melanie's and the nice walk up west king street.

an impromptu stop at daylight donuts for my FAVORITE blueberry donut!

hot "wild sweet orange" tea from the scholar, which is playing new norah jones.

SUN.

my nerdy glasses.

getting excited about raleigh, even though i'll be doing homework most of the time.

seeing my little nuggets - ryry, anna, and dash!

okay, class time. go go gadget brain.

exposure at length, take one

for a short moment tonight i thought to myself, while looking in the mirror (and seeing the effects of this semester in my hips and midriff), "just decide to be anorexic. people love that control. you could totally do it." and then i pictured God smiling. i love food.

and then i thought, that probably everyone has had thoughts like that. just like suicide, it's not such a stranger in our heads. sure, it's thought of in varying degrees, depending on the person. it's not a stranger in my head. just an awkward acquaintance.

let's be honest. i think depression worsens itself when (and because) we feel like we can't, we shouldn't, talk about it. i'm suffering from a chain of depression now. and it's okay. i'm in a season where a lot of things in my life trigger it.

i have dire thoughts when i feel dire and my feelings are affected by the [many] things going on. i don't want to disappoint, worry, or freak out people if they ask "how are you?" and i say the simple, not-really-all-that-scary truth. and let's get real, we suck at convincing each other we're okay.

i'm a bad liar when it comes to that, but we can't very well say "i'm depressed." it's a lone affliction. we suffer in silence by its nature.

but i write this to say this is actually how it is. this is honest. honesty is often the most uncomfortable luxury and commodity of our society.

and i'm here to say i do not wish to expose this state in brief, to be followed by an eloquent paragraph of re-cover. this is not a flash, nor a streak. this is pulling off the robe, exposure at length, so one might inspect the details and artfully work at their rendering of what is there.

i am afflicted, but i survive. is this how it should be? i do not know. do we choose depression, or does it choose us?

i survive not by me, but by grace. i do not understand the finer details of this, but i understand that there is nothing i go through truly alone. there is no feeling i have which he does not comprehend, no feeling he wishes to pass over quickly with me.

i wallow in low points, and at the time they seem irreversible. but, i carry on. these points are not, nor have they ever been, my demise. some might even say the greater you struggle, the stronger you become. i can't say that i'm very strong. in fact, i think i'm a big baby most of the time; the first person to feel sorry for me is me. but i live with me, so i have to carry on.

___________

after i wrote this, i read mark, chapter one. i had a lot of questions. but mostly, i was touched by the short verses about Christ in the wilderness. After Jesus' baptism,

"The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him." English Standard Version

in the wilderness, alone, for forty days. over a month in complete solitude, in the elements of nature, not just being tempted by evil in general but Satan himself. it is not too outlandish to think that perhaps Christ knows depression first-hand.

and the part that struck me the most - and the angels were ministering to him.

so i prayed for that last night.

promise

at the beginning of time the good Lord knew that today, at precisely 10:27am, sam crowder would walk the small brick lot from the bookstore to the coffee shop and, after days of rain and gray, (after a night of fitful sleep and rock bottom-ness), He would shine a few brief moments of sunshine right there and say, "hi."

thanks LC, thanks kipling.

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

.....

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!



photo cred: my polaroid blog

the one-hundred and seventieth post

i've been volunteering at this school 45 minutes away, nestled in the mountains, far away from anything "bustling". the school is for kids who have grown up in abusive and dangerous family situations, and instead of living in foster care, they live in "group housing" at the school. they're called cabins, and each one has RCs, resident counselors. these RC's act as families to the children, and from what i could observe, created a wonderful atmosphere to live in.

aaaanyway, all of that to say, there are a lot of behavioral / learning disorders, and since all of the kids are concentrated together in all the areas of their life, sometimes things get crazy. so the staff has developed these really great mechanisms at control.

they make each kid, and likewise each staff member (teachers, RCs, even the principal) aware of his or her "triggers" to anger, sadness, depression, etc. and then they make each kid and staff member develop a "SAFETY PLAN", which is a set of 5 steps to do when the you feel triggers. these steps are things you enjoy personally, that you know will calm you down. they write their safety plan on the back of their nametag, which everyone on the campus has.

and it got me thinkin, i should do that! so, here goes.

triggers:

stress

busy-ness

staying up past midnight

boy situations


safety plan!

take a short minute to intentionally talk to the Lord, not just in-head discourse

take a walk outside

listen to nice music on my iPod

take a quick nap

talk to a friend

dream 11.10

since i left my little black reporter moleskine (which i keep records of dreams in) at crossnore last friday and won't see it until tomorrow, this will have to suffice.

i had a dream that i was on vacation with my boyfriend (who was at first a realistic person to be dream dating but morphed into mat kearney, hahaha) and with a bunch of our family/friends...

and our older lady family friend was all "i bought you tickets to that MEGAmore show!!!"

she meant to say paramore but she was older, you know.

and boyfriend and i exchanged glances and we were like, "oh my gosh! they're on tour with mute math and PAT BENETAR! yesssss!!!!!"

so we went to the show and guess who the opening act was?

marilyn manson.

and as soon as he came out i yelled "YEAH MARILYN MANSON!" really excitedly! because he's kind of a music icon you know? but i realized i was only 1 of about 3 people in the crowd cheering and the rest were booing. and i felt so bad for him that i said "MARILYN you do what you do WELL!" and he looked at me with this piercing look of thankfulness and realization that his days were over. we just looked at each other for a long few seconds and i pitied him so much. and then i kissed my boyfriend mk on the cheek.


zach, it was all those seasoned fries i ate last night.

music? music!

to keep up with my music goings-on

i started a new blog! on a new blog site.

wordpress.

ah!

here it is.

samanthasound.wordpress.com


i hope you like it! i do.

sometimes i watch party in the usa for fun.

sometimes i can't wait for tomorrow.

sometimes i think i would get a nose job.

and since we're being honest here, sometimes i want to move to nashville
to make music and fall in love.

there. i said it.

how to have a bad day.

get two shots, one in each arm.

make sure to have to wait at the infirmary for 2 hours, missing both classes of the day.

get your car towed.

be late to work because of the aforementioned,

and then make sure to work dining room, thoroughly using
both of your sore noodle arms.

the end!

nonsensical

i had a really wonderful sunday.

i went to blowing rock and settled in at this ↑ coffee shop. there was good coffee, a good muffin, good baristas, funny locals, funny tourists, a fireplace, frosty windows, and a good book.

shopping, made a great dinner, arranged, and had a good practice with ear candy.


i'm getting really close to graduating...


!!!!!!

i.....
finished season 2 of gilmore girls, again.
finished reading eclipse.
picked "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" where i left off and am loving it.
am enjoying cooking.
am enjoying people bundling up.
am dreaming the craziest dreams lately (eisley, mat kearney, new york penthouses with elevators that come up out of the floor...)
am writing so many lyrics.
more on that later.

i pray that there will be one good fat snow before i leave this town.