if I were home...

With barely more than a month left in England, "if I were at home" runs through my head quite often....

 

• If I were home, I would head to the nearest gas station/grocery store/px to buy some Cheetos ASAP. Crunchy, puffs, both, I don't care!!

• If I were home, I would most difinitely eat Mexican food, also ASAP. Probably Chuy's, but honestly at this point anything would do!

• If I were home I would cook for Drew a lot. (I'm sensing a theme here...) but I really do have a list going! Three of us share a mini fridge and a tiny kitchen, and we only get one grocery trip a week so planning and cooking has become a strength of mine!

• If I were at home, I would go to Target, buy an icee, and wander around for at least an hour. And I'd probably buy stuff.

Actually, I'd buy these!!

• If I were home, my phone connection would frustrate me sooooo much that I want to chunk the thing across the room. I mean, thank the dear Lord for giving people the brains to invent things like viber and facetime, but relying on just that for a super long distance connection gets old.

Now that I type that out, I feel like I should delete it because I'm SO thankful for how much I get to talk to Drew, my family, and my friends

• If I were home, I would be all caught up on Grey's, Modern Family, Once Upon A Time, and Pretty Little Liars. I only have an ipad here so I can't stream anything, and Netflix UK is a force to be reconned with....I COULD however watch every episode of Dr. Who ever if I so desired. But no, not Sherlock. Hmph.

• If I were home I would never ever ever EVER make instant coffee again.

• If I were home I would hug EVERYONE. For awkwardly long amounts of time. And cry.

• If I were home, I wouldn't be holding on to some pretty exciting news!! How's that for a cliff hanger? Now you have to wait 30+ days too. Wahahahaha ;)

 

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noises in the night

I have this really great ability to fixate on sounds. 

It's probably helpful since I'm a flute player, but sometimes I feel like I hear EVERYTHING.

For example, Drew used to have this watch that just killed me. He loved the dang thing but it was just SO LOUD!! I could hear it everywhere. Click click click click (metronome marking quarter note equals 60). Once he lost his beloved watch (and no, I did Not hide it). I'm not sure how long the thing had been gone, but I remember once he stopped the car to run inside and a grab something and I stayed in the car. After a few seconds of silence, I started to hear the dreaded "click click click click" and just about had a cow.... So I dug through the back seat, found a box full of odds and ends, and there is the box, with a closed lid, was the stinkin Timex watch. Needless to say, I completely freaked Drew out, but hey! Found the watch!

Back to my fixation on repetitive sound....this talent of mine is extremely heightened when sleeping is involved. Of course. 

It's been raining here in England for eternity, which makes for a really nice sleeping background, but last night was a little different. The mist was just enough to roll off the roof and make a marvelous Drip Drip Drip Drip at about quarter note equals 120 (I know this because I was singing Stars and Stripes to it at 5 this morning). As I lay there awake at 5am, my hearing finally started to haze over and after an unknown duration of silence I thought "hey I haven't heard the drip for a...."

"Drip drip drip drip drip...."

an unprovoked argument for letter writing

I'm taking a break from my unplanned blogging hiatus to scribble out my feelings on the importance of letter writing.

(HELLO BLOG! It's been over a month! Oops...)

The decline of handwritten letters has been an unfortunate result of, let's face it, the internet. Now, by no means am I complaining about the wwww (Wondrous World Wide Web), so hear me out!

Without the internet I honestly say that would not be in England right now. Without the security of (fairly) easy communication with my family and being able to see Drew's handsome face at least once a week...

(flashback to the October when we didn't have internet and I thought I was going to die and be shipped home to my parents in a box)

...there is absolutely no way I would have had the courage to take this crazy life detour. I love that I can check in on my friends via Facebook and twitter. I adore the fact that things like iMessage and Viber exist. I enjoy documenting my travels and oversea experiences on Instagram. FaceTime is my best friend, etc.

HOWEVER, I am mourning the loss of letter writing as an art form in our generation.

As a lifetime note hoarder and personal journaler (yeah yeah, "journaler" isn't really a noun but I am by no means a "journalist" so whatever) it was easy for me to transition into letter writing when Drew left for bootcamp this past summer. Since we weren't able to communicate at all apart from the coveted weekly letter, those letters became conversations. Conversations with ourselves about struggles of the day, longings of our hearts, the bitterness of separation, prayers for strength, and as much encouragement as written words can possibly provide.

Hooray for an email or text message than can be read one whole second after the writer hits the "send" button, no denying that! But what is to be said about the time and energy that goes into physically writing a letter? The character of personal handwriting? The anticipation of actually having REAL mail in your mailbox? The beauty and detail of stamps....I mean there's a reason people have entire collections of the silly (expensive) things! There's a reason why "evites" still haven't really caught on and there's a reason why writen cards, invitations, and thank-you's are still the social standard.

*sidenote, ecards should NOT be a thing. No one likes them. No offense.

That reason is personal connection.

When our parents were in college, they wrote and received letters from their parents! How awesome would it be to have those to reflect back on your relationship? Wouldn't it increase the gratitude and affection that you feel for them?

When our grandparents were young, the wrote love letters to each other during the war....imagine the history and love story in those letters!! BOOKS are written from letters, history is discovered through letters, inspirational quotes are pulled from personal letters...and what are we giving ourselves? Super crappy, disorganized, and eventually deleted archives of emails.

I fell 100% more in love with Drew by exchanging letters with him this summer, and still enjoy writing him letters while I'm in England even though we are lucky enough to talk on the phone daily. I feel more connected to those that I've had the time to send notes to, and I need to do more of that. I feel 100% more affection and more connected to people who have bothered to send me even a short note or a Christmas photo card while I've been here. I appreciate you all more than you know and will cherish your written words of encouragement for the rest of my life! (Like I said, serial note-hoarder).

So, end dramatic rant of the day. Go write someone a letter letting them know how much they mean to you! I promise you won't regret it.

PS- HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 

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Mary Did You Know

Life has been seemingly busy and stressful the past few weeks.

The music has been hard, practicing sometimes seems ineffective, and we have this mammoth paper due in just a few days...

We don't have Christmas decorations, this English village doesn't seem very in to decorating, and we don't get out enough to witness any Christmas-y festivities....

All in all it does NOT seem as though Christmas is less than two weeks away.

Every year I try to get my heart into the spirit of Christmas, really contemplating the meaning. I've found it difficult this year since we are in such an isolated place and environment. EVERYthing is different than what I'm used to. Absolutely everything.

BUT, Drew sent me this video yesterday and BAM, Christmas. I hope you enjoy this as much as we have!!

 

 

Also, can someone buy me that floral cap please? (seriously...)

 

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December means...

When I woke up this morning I realized that it is DECEMBER already, y'all!!! 

Can you believe that? It's pretty much time to wave goodbye to 2013 because I'm quite confident that this month will just fly by...

 

December means that I have officially been in England for two whole months. It also means I'm a little more than a third of the way through my flute course here with Trevor Wye.

December means I finally have to do something related to school work (oh, good morning to you, cow that just moo-ed quite loudly outside my window...). Writing a paper over the origins of the flute up until the 1700s will take a good bit of time...

December also means I have several things to look forward to in the very near future! Liiiiiike a tour of the HARRY POTTER STUDIO! I'm going to fangirl more than I ever have in my whole entire life and I just need to finish that paper before I can go. Good incentive, right?

December (this is more of a "December downer"... Sorry) means that I have been away from Drew for 61 days and away from my family 72 days. Double that and that's how far I have to go before I see them again. 

((If you've been a reader of mine for awhile, you might have noticed that I don't mention Drew quite as much as I did when he was gone for BCT. Pretty much because it's too stinkin sad, not going to lie- Yes, if you let it, long distance can be absolutely soul crushing, but we're doing great! I just don't feel like being the person who constantly talks about how much they miss their SO, because if I started doing that I'm pretty sure I'd just cry for the remaining four months and I absolutely refuse to be that person!))

Thanksgiving away from home was hard. Special, but hard. I can say now that I'm More thankful for my family, especially the fact that we Do get together every year. I'm very thankful for such loving and uplifting people :) 

 

 

But finally, December means being reunited with one of my soul people IN PARIS of all places!!! I'm so so so excited to spend Christmas with my lovely friend Darbi, to see Paris for a few days, and to be refreshed for the second half of this flute class!!

So- cheers to your December. I hope you make something meaningful and memorable out of the last little bit of 2013!!