Summer.....

This blog has been neglected for a LONG time! Im so sorry blog! I will not forsake you any longer! I guess some of my lack of blogging has been out of lack of things to say. Or rather, fear that I have nothing to say that anyone else will want to read. But maybe just maybe I don't have to write anything epic on here for ya'll to like it. Maybe i just need to write about the thoughts and happenings of ME. Emily.
I started this blog I think back in 2008, lower bunk bed below Abbey Christiansen. Every night when I went to sleep in the london center that sits in Notting Hill directly accross from Kensington gardens, I just felt like I was the luckiest girl in the world. And i would look up at the wood of my bunk and see all of the advice from the girls that slept in that bunk before me like "blade or die!" and "eat piggies from Marks and Spencers"......usual london advice. And I just remember everything that that place held for me. I am a person that really loves art. not just LOOKING at it, but CREATING it. That summer i was in a drawing class, a watercolor class, AND a conceptual art class. I will never forget those conceptual art projects.

One time, Joe (thats what we called our professor...he's so cool) gave us each a small plastic jar. He told us to fill the jar with 100 related things throughout the week. And it had to be meaningful to each of us. Some people filled it with 100 rain drops, or 100 threads. I filled mine with 100 colors, and i remember walking around the streets of london picking up pieces of trash in array of colors, as well as painting the inside lid with different colors of nail polish from the local drug store :) When we presented our jars, Joe had us move to outside the London National Gallery, where we stood with our jars outstretched. We created a blog with stickers and stuck them to ourselves so we coudl give them to people as they walked by. But the point is that we were a living art gallery outside the National Gallery. And our blog actually got hits! All of us were so stoked about it, and it just felt glorious to be a part of something so artistic.

I remember random outings with my friends painting by river sides, or sketching in the galleries. And even just the times when we got to create beautiful music for our sunday firesides. I got everyone together and pulled something out of my music stash, and we just had some glorious moments singing Prayer of the Children, Come thou fount, and Defying gravity with voices that still have plenty of soul in them. And i remember those moments and wonder where my passion for music got lost, and what I need to do to reconnect with it.......

London Changed my life so much, in so many ways. And that was why I started this blog. Because of my fulfillment by that place, and those people, at that time. And i wrote on it religiously until I left for Hong Kong. I owe so much to london. My passion for life and all art forms. My decision to go on a mission. My search for happiness and how to be BETTER. And that fulfillment led up to an experience that I could only dream I would have on another continent. And since I've come back, I feel like that part of me just died. The creating part of me was given over to tiredness and fatigue and the "just get through school" mentality. And why do i wonder why i think back to those times and just wonder where the good times went? when i felt like i was my full complete self and nothing could stop me. I know i need to re-find this part of myself. The part that runs through the grass in bare feet. The woman that is not afraid to tell people how she feels, or that she is scared, or express the love in her heart when it is scary. The woman that runs away to different places and writes poems and paints on canvas in the front yard on the grass with the sprinklers on. And all the people that always made me feel so alive when I was with them.....like when we were drivin' down the road in unbridled freedom with the windows down and "Marching Bands of Manhattan" on high.....what happened to them? what happened to me?

I really think there is only one thing that can save me now.

"In the depths of Winter, I finally realized that within me there lay an invincible SUMMER."
--Albert Camus

http://jarart100.blogspot.com/

THE SECRET

Have you ever heard of this book? "The secret" By Rhonda Byrne? Its a book that I actually heard about for awhile but never bought because it was only in hard back. On my mission I had several investigators ask me about this book, and if it was true. And i couldn't really answer them since i had never read it. i mean its just a BOOK right. How can one flimsy little book hold the secret to life?
Well....this one does ladies and gents!

The secret talks about the secret to live and success in Relationships, health, wealth, etc etc. And it kind of just talks about the laws of attraction in the universe. Basically, if you have positive thoughts, you will attract positive things into your life. If you have negative thoughts, then you will attract negative things. you ATTRACT what you think about most. SO, if you are always scared that you are going to biff the big stair at school and fall on your face in front of that crush of yours, guess what, you are going to do it. Just because it is what your mind is focusing on. So we potentially ATTRACT our fears into our lives! So interesting! And i really believe this to be true because thats why life is always so ironic. If I spend all of my free time thinking about something I DONT want to happen, then it always happens! The person I was always afraid of being companions with on my mission, yup they were always my companion.

OK OK maybe im playing into some hype a little bit. But there seems to be some truth to the power of positive thinking. Just like in the Placebo affect. Sometimes we can make our body sick just because our mind convinces it that it is.

One example goes like this: A man in the book really wanted to find someone to marry, But he could never find anyone to even go out with. So the author of the secret came to his home to interview him. And he had portraits that he had painted everywhere around his house because he was an artist. But all of them were of strange women with their backs toward the painting, kind of looking over their shoulder as a side thought out of the painting. The author told the man "all of these women have their backs to you in the paintings. Why is that?" the painter explained that he just liked the paintings and hung them around the house for his enjoyment. "well, I want you to take them down and paint new ones. In each painting paint three women that are looking straight out of the painting right at you. If you do this, then you will have three dates every week" So the painter did just that and within a couple of months, he was getting more dates with beautiful women than he knew how to handle! All because of his own influence on his own thinking through his paintings. Then the man said "These dates are great, but I want to fall in love" So the author told him to paint it! And he did, and within a few months he met the woman that is now his wife.

Think of what is posted around in your room...are those the kinds of things that you think about alot? Or maybe the paintings on the wall where you grew up? I knew a woman that told me of a painting that used to hang on her mantle in her home. Her children saw it every single day of their childhood. It was a huge painting of a large boat, rocking on a tranquil sea. And she said that every single one of her children went off to join the navy, or live on an island, or work overseas. And she believed this to be due in part to that painting that they saw every day.

Now im kind of getting off topic here. But i DO believe that our thoughts make us who we are. They send signals and invisible airwaives to people. And i think all that the secret really boils down to is......get ready.....Faith. Simple old faith. If we believe good things will happen in our lives, and that everything happens for a reason, It will. If we believe things won't work out, they won't simple as that.

Wow.....

insanity

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HARRY POTTER!!!! im goin CRAZY hERE!!!! I WANT HARRY!!!!!! And he should like me instead of cho chang cause he's so hot except for the part where he takes his clothes off on television (so i hear) and isnt very hot at all. DANG i even tried to watch this so called 'a very potter musical' on utube last night when i should have been writing my paper and that was just 10 minutes of the life that i want BACK please. Nothing beats the real thing. HARRYYYYY!!!

ghosts and patchwork

SO TELL ME......

if you died, and you could immediately go to the after life, or stay and haunt people, what would you do?? and yes i am judging you by your answer lol.

I would haunt EVERYONE if i died cause MAN i want to know people im alive! so if i die, im comin to see YOU and YOU and YOU and ill be writin 'emily wuz here' in the steam in your bathroom mirror. just get ready for it. And if you could haunt people think of all the people that you ever had the slightest itch to get even with (COUGH COUGH NUSKIN)...think of their faces when its you flickering their fireplace on and off, or slamming all the doors mysteriously at night.OH MAN! or even the people that you know peeing their pants with when you show up hiding in the closet. so entertaining :) im snickerin to myself right now just thinking about it. hehehe

But i think we all need to be remembered. Cause we all want to be loved. I dont care if you admit it or not. You want it.


so lately my sister and I, when we want to have bonding time, we go to jillaynes house. My sister is a sophomore that lives at liberty square with all of the 'just off the mish' boys and sophomore girls. and whenever i tell boys that i have a sister, the response is always
just barely post adolescent boy: 'so wheres your sister live?"
me: liberty
j.b.p.a.b.: I live there too!
me: yeah stay away from my sister. she has bad breath ok. and there's no cure for that.
boy: weird looks.

Ne who jillayne is Dylan's mom, who is my sister's missionary boyfriend. And she is a MAStER quilter. i mean these quilts are pieces of art like you have never seen! not your average triangle patch work quilts here. these have swirling lines of fabric and buttons sewn on top and just QUILT EXPLOSION i call it. yeah im cool. we go there and quilt for like hours. and she makes us amazing spaghetti and homemade rolls and its just so nice to be in a HOME> with a mom. and its not even mine. and it feels so right. The other night over dinner on a saturday night the three of us talked about our childhoods, and our parents, dating, love, forgiveness, our spirituality, our imperfections and how they are just dang comical because none of us are perfect and we are totally content with admitting that......it was one of those conversations that just keeps evolving into itself kind of like the quilts that jillayne makes. It all fits together so naturally and beautifully. We were laughing and tearing up and bustin open. and suddenly i realized that i hadn't had one of those kind of conversations in a LONG.TIME. how did that happen? and sometimes i check my heart and it feels like its goin numb....past feeling. and i go a whole week without feeling moved by ANYTHING. thats not me. ANd this last week i finally went nuts and just cleaned out the closet and stuff had to go. people had to go. I got fired because god kept tellin me to quit and i wouldn't do it myself. Thank God for watchin out for a girl thats blowin free wherever life takes her. SO here we go:

I am strong as hell. stronger than darkness. bring the heat.
i am beautiful
my heart is full. and it is compassionate.
I am deep and full of contributions to this world
I do not need another person to complete me. unless that person is God
I am proud. And i wont back down from how i feel, who I am
I am honest. and genuine.

alot of changes are happinin and im just refinding who the real me is. Something big is being set up in my life. And im rediscovering who is important to me, what i love and not what PEOPLE tell me i love, what makes me feel alive. And i stole back my heart, my compassion, my love. Im not letting anything take that away. especially a job, or a man, or satan. NOTHING. I am more than acceptable. I am extraordinary. And so are you.

my treasure box

Recently i made a necklace for my best friend that i call the "treasure box". Its really beautiful. and i wish that i had taken a picture of it so that i could show you guys. But it had a little crystal that looks like the big mirror that the evil witch looks into on the disney version of snow white. Ya know when she's like "Mirror Mirror on the wall..." and all that jazz. Yeah well it had that, along with a firey orange crystal and a purple pearl hanging from it on a really pretty double stranded chain. And it just reminded me of a treasure box. Especially the clash of the blazing crystal and the smooth pearl. Kind of like the clash within all of us. But which part wins?

today I was reading my friend's note about how she needs to 'move on' from her mission...But i wrote that she should just tuck it away in her heart, and when ever she needs it she can just pull it out and look at it, draw strength from it, remember it. And it reminded me of myself, of my own heart. And of all the little things that are tucked away in there. Its my treasure box and i hide so many things in this box that i hide from the world. Things that i hold dear that im afraid to let go of. LIke the night my first love kissed me. The day I saw my first baptism. The friends that are far from me now. The moments from my childhood that our family didn't feel so broken, and we celebrated just being together. The first time i heard my favorite song. The day I opened my mission call....and how I cried on the front lawn for like an hour that night. My trip to london. The night on my mission after curfew that I thought I might die because my heart was breaking so much, and I looked down and saw the message on the floor from God. The notes that my sister used to write me when I was away at work at Sonic. So many moments in my treasure box. And its times like these that I pull them out and stroke them, remember them like when you find a little memory at the bottom of a drawer, and you just pause and let your mind go to the place that it takes you. And sometimes you don't want to come back. And I try to remember who I was in those moments. And how it was so easy and yet so hard for my heart to love. And it makes me wonder how i could be so confused about who i am. And why I don't want to belong to someone. Because I have God so close to my heart, it seems as if that's all I need. But I think i need more than that. But still no one reaches for the treasure box. Doesn't anyone care whats in there??? . so it lies untouched. And some nights Im too afraid to open it myself. Afraid for the way that my heart beats and the sting i get from reminiscence. Sometimes Im just afraid of the future. Is it ok to admit that? There, I said it. IM AFRIAD. And it makes me latch my heart up tight. Why am i like that? Why does human kind need to pretend complacency to cover up the fact that we CARE about something? Because I do care. I want people to love me, not because the box seems nice. But for whats inside.