Emma Lou Writes: Hodge Podge

Well friends, it is 11:14pm on Sunday and I have been staring at this blank blog post all. day. long. I’ve been waiting for inspiration to strike and to be honest, I got nothin’. All I have are a few random tid bits to start your Monday off. So today, no deep, thought provoking post to start your week, rather an interesting poem, a picture of me as a child, two inspiring quotes, and at the end a video that will make you smile so much your face will hurt.

My birthday is Sunday! Hip, hip, hooray! This evening, my parents and I were talking about the poem “Monday’s Child,” which describes qualities that children supposedly have based on the day of the week they were born. I think it’s cute and interesting, here is the poem so you can check and see which you are:

Monday’s child is fair of face, Tuesday’s child is full of grace, Wednesday’s child is full of woe, Thursday’s child has far to go, Friday’s child is loving and giving, Saturday’s child works hard for a living, But the child who is born on the Sabbath Day Is bonny and blithe and good and gay.

(I was born on Saturday, hoooooooray for hard workers!)

I know, I know, it just isn’t really fair that I was this cute as a child.

While I was browsing Pinterest, hoping to have a post idea pop into my head, I pulled these two quotes as potential inspiration

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It wasn’t until I went to upload them here that I noticed they are both by Kurt Vonnegut, I did a little Wiki research and found that he is the author of Slaughterhouse-Five (among other things). I’ve never read any of his books but I absolutely love both of the above quotes. I think they are great reminders of the way we should look at life, a good reminder on a Monday, I think.

And last but not least, some of you may have already seen this video, but it is worth watching again. This wedding, this couple, is so amazing. If nothing else, you have to watch just the first two minutes to hear their vows. I don’t even have words to describe how wonderful they are.

That’s all I’ve got for you today friends, have a wonderful start to your week. I hope these quotes and the video encourage you to do a little extra lovin’ on those you care about today.

Emma Lou is Blessed: April 26, 2013

Happy, happy Friday friends! I hope that most of you are looking forward to an awesome weekend! I am looking forward to Sunday because it will be the only day I have off from all of my jobs in the entire month of April. To say I’m excited would be an understatement.

Before I head off for another work day, I just wanted to drop in and remind you all to be thankful for your blessings this week. After perusing my Instagram feed for the last week, I finally settled on a picture from last night. Not only does this picture represent how blessed I am to have found a hat that fits my head (I have a very large head) but it represents how blessed I feel to live in this country.

I’ve tried countless times to write a post about how I felt in the aftermath of the Boston bombings this month, how I felt after the West, Texas explosions, and how I felt after the ricin letter scare. But I just cannot seem to get the words out. All I know for sure is that I feel blessed to live in a country where these people will be brought to justice, where countless citizens are reaching out to comfort each other, and where we will continue to fight against the evils that are attacking us more and more often.

So today, I’m thankful for this country, and all of its citizens.

And I’m thankful for this hat, because I mean, just look at it, its awesome, right?!

Emma Lou Reads: Darling Magazine

I read a lot of blogs. And guys, I mean a lot. At one point I think my Google Reader had over 150 blogs in it, most that updated at least once a day. That is a lot of reading. After attending MTH, I decided I needed to seriously cut back on my social media intake, so my  blog reader (I switched to feedly since Google Reader is closing, womp womp) only has 42 blogs in it now. But guys, they are GOOD blogs. As much as I love the good DIY or the adorable engagement session, I also love hard hitting, soul stirring, just amazing writing. I even have a board dedicated to ‘blog posts to remember.’ Today, I was perusing that board, and decided it was high time I share some of these gems I’ve come across.

Today’s blog post is from back in November, from a darling little magazine, adeptly named Darling! The post is titled “Reclaiming Delight,” go ahead, click that link and read it real fast, it’s only a few paragraphs long.

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Back? Promise you read it? Ok, lets continue.

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I. love. this. post. I love the pictures it creates in my head, the lines that made me nod and go, yep, I do that, and the energy I felt by the end of the post. The piece is essentially divided into two parts, describing how we have lost our whimsy, and then discussing how we can reclaim it. For the former, the part that most struck home for me was:

“Adventures are replaced with lists, love is replaced with pressure (after all, everyone else is married) (amen to that part) and our dreams are replaced with a watered down, red-pen covered version- what everyone else thinks is realistically ‘do-able.'”

This is so true, right? So many of us spend days and days pinning pictures of places we want to travel, talking about how much we’d love to play outside in the rain, reminiscing on water fights as kids. Why don’t we just do them? Why does growing up mean we can’t have fun anymore?

The best part of the post? The last sentence..

“The world is beautiful and fun and ridiculously funny — and I can’t think of a better way to enjoy it than to tromp around with dreams in our head, cake in our hair and shoes left far behind.”

Tell me that doesn’t make you want to walk barefoot everywhere this summer, with balloons in hand (no cake in my hair please, I get enough of that at work!)

So today, I challenge you to do something FUN. Reclaim delight. EMBRACE WHIMSY.

 

Seriously, do it.

Emma Lou Loves: Birthdays!

Alternating titled: Emma Lou’s obsession with balloons.

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I LOVE birthdays. I just love them. I think there is nothing more beautiful than spending an entire day letting someone know how much you love and appreciate them and just how darn happy you are that they were born. I’m always looking for new ways to celebrate birthdays, I have an entire Pinterest board dedicated to them!

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One of my favorite parts of birthday parties (or any celebration) are the balloons!! And there are so many great ideas out there for fun ways to use balloons as surprises! I love this box of balloons at your doorstep idea!

Last year, I graduated from college the day before my 22nd birthday, so my parents were gracious enough to throw me a wonderful backyard party to celebrate all these big things! There are dozens and dozens of great pictures from that night, but my favorite is below. First of all, it has balloons. But mostly, it has all the wonderful people that came together to help me celebrate, in my parents backyard, one of my favorite places ever. It was just such a good day.

The point of this random, balloon filled post, is to remind you that birthdays are important. They are milestones but most of all, they are a special day, just to celebrate the people you love and remind them how blessed you are to know them.

So, wish somebody a happy birthday today, ok?

Emma Lou Believes In: World Vision

On Sunday, I had the opportunity to attend a new church, Grace Community Church, with a sweet friend. I had been looking forward to this visit all week long, I’ve been looking for a church that is more diverse (both in age and race) than the one I attended last year, and my friend encouraged me to try Grace out with her. Boy, oh, boy was I floored by this community. More to come about the church as a whole, but this Sunday was so special it deserves its own post.

This particular Sunday was Compassion Sunday and there was a young woman, Olive, visiting from Atlanta. Olive was born in Uganda and was a part of the Compassion International Child Sponsorship program. She came to Grace to share her story and to provide a real life example of the change sponsorship can make to a child’s life. Olive spent a little over an hour telling us about her life in Uganda, her family and friends, the literal horrors they endured running from the rebels who would kidnap children to make them child soldiers. She told us of disease and heartbreak and encounters with pythons (PYTHONS!). But through it all, her joy, her hope, and her faith shined through.

I currently sponsor a little boy, Freedom, who lives in Zambia. I’ve sponsored him for almost two years now, but aside from the initial introduction packet provided, I am sadden to say I haven’t communicated with him at all. To be honest, Freedom has just been another charge on my credit card for the last two years, rather than a sweet little boy on the other side of the world. That changed on Sunday. Olive still has the first letter her sponsor family sent her, it is 25 years old now. Hearing her talk about how much her life changed due to the program, not just because of the monetary aid, but because of the love and support she felt from the other side of the world, was incredible. With tears streaming down my face, I vowed to write Freedom more often, to truly value him as a person. If letters from me can help this little boy grow into a responsible, determined young man, I can spare a few minutes each month to write them.

There are multiple organizations through which to sponsor children, I go through World Vision right now but Compassion International is another well known non-profit. For only $35/month you can literally change these children’s life. I know I sound like an infomercial right now, but I’m completely serious. I know most of my readers are like me, not far out of college and fairly broke, but I’m positive there is $35 each month that you’re spending on something you don’t need.

Make a difference, chickens. This world won’t change unless we all work together.

Emma Lou Writes: A Love Letter

Happy Monday, chicken noodles! I hope you had wonderful weekends, mine was full of hard work, best friends, a cocktail shower for Leah, a visit to a new church with a dear friend, and a trip or two to Target.

This is the first Monday since I started the new format on the blog that is not focused on MTH, and if I’m being honest, I’m a little bit nervous. I have so many different things I want to discuss and a billion words all jumbled up in my head, so I think I’m just going to go for the first thing that comes to mind.

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I was born in the third largest city in North Carolina. A weird little city, not quite a college town (though it is home to 7 colleges and universities), not quite a bustling metropolis, and still not quite a quiet, quaint one stop sign town. In high school, it was basically a rule that you hated our city and couldn’t wait to get out. The thought of going to the local college was a terrible, terrible one. My best friends and I scattered across the country, to other in-state schools, Indiana, New York City, basically anywhere but here. After a year, I returned home (NYC is really freaking expensive when you’re 18) and enrolled in the dreaded local university, I moved back in with my parents, and went back to my high school job.

I’d be lying if I said I was excited. Embarrassed? Check. Lonely? Check. Bitter? Check. I spent a little while wallowing, letting self-pity take me over. But I’m a happy person at heart, the bitterness didn’t last long. I started to invest more at my job and have since met dozens of women who have changed me, each of them teaching me something new. I embraced living at home and have a relationship with my family that I wouldn’t trade for the world. Some wonderful friends welcomed me into their social lives at a nearby school and gave me that real college experience I craved. My senior year, I really fell in love with my school, after falling in love with a boy. I moved into my own apartment (but only two blocks from my family, they just can’t get rid of me). And slowly but surely, without even realizing it, I came to love this city. I love its diversity, its delicious food, its trees, its churches. So many little things make up this city.

And now? This isn’t just the city I was born in. It is the city I was raised in. The city I became a first generation college graduate in. The city the majority of my family lives in. The city my best friends and I will always return to. The city I fell in love in. The city I found God in. It is so, so much more than just the third biggest city in North Carolina, it is home.

Emma Lou is Blessed: April 19, 2013

Wow. What a week. From the Boston Marathon bombing, to the West, TX plant explosion, to ricin laced letters to President Obama and Senator Wicker, and now the bomb suspect manhunt that is on-going in Watertown, MA. I have so many thoughts about these events, so many emotions I’m trying to process, I don’t even know if I can really put it all in to words.

What I can express is how blessed I feel to be safe. I have friends in Boston and the terror that they must have felt (and continue to feel today) scares me to death, I cannot imagine what everyone in Boston (and in West, TX) is going through right now.

Today, all I can do is pray for Boston, for everyone touched by this tragedy. For our country. Right now, that is all most of us can do.

Emma Lou Reads: Harry Potter

Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re thinking. Here she goes again about Harry Potter. Most of the people who know me know very well that I have an undying love for Mr. Potter and all of his friends. And we’re not talkin’ just the kind of love that means you reread the books every now and then, we’re talkin’ the kind of love that involves carrying a copy of the first book in your car at all times (you never know when you’ll need it!), getting a Hogwarts Graduate bumper sticker for Christmas (best brother ever), and wearing an Expecto Patronum necklace on a regular basis (sorrynotsorry). It was only fitting that J.K. Rowling’s masterpieces make an appearance during the first month of Emma Lou Reads.

I started reading Harry Potter when I was eleven, the same age as Harry in the first book, and Harry and I remained the same age for almost all of the installments of the series. I went to almost all of the midnight releases of the books (and then all of the midnight premieres of the movies). Rowling created such an amazing story with the best characters and I (along with most of the world) waited with bated breath for each new book. But I don’t love the Harry Potter series because of the magical stories and the thrilling adventures, no no, while the plot of the series is incredible, that isn’t what makes the books stand out.

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The characters, the feelings, and the relationships are what stand out the most to me. The lessons I learned from each character and how they treated one another have stuck with me ever since.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione taught me that friends are forever, through thick and thin. They taught me that loyalty is one of my most treasured values. Fred and George showed me the importance of a sense of humor and taught me that mischief and curiosity are to be valued. Lupin and Tonks taught me not to judge others for their differences. Bellatrix LeStrange….well she didn’t teach me anything, she just scared the pants off of me (and continues to to this day). Professor McGonagall reminded me just how important our teachers are. Snape showed me the power of love. And Neville taught me to be brave.

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These characters, the lessons they taught me, they have stayed with me over the last 12 years. I dream of sharing Harry Potter with my future children, of reading the series aloud to them like my mom did for my brother and I.

These books remind me why I love books, why I value reading so deeply. Being transported to another world and coming back a better person with new lessons learned is the most amazing treasure. Harry Potter reminds me why I read.

I will love these books, all books, until the very end.

Emma Lou Loves: Mumford and Sons

If you could go to any concert in the entire world, just one, who would you see?

If you could only listen to one artist for the rest of your life, who would it be?

At which concert do you think you’re most likely to cry?

My answer to all of the above is without a doubt, no question about it, Mumford and Sons. Every. Single. Time. Haven’t heard of Mumford? (Grandma, I’m talking to you….) Then listen up:

Funny story: My mom is obsessed (OBSESSED) with this song and my brother once walked in on her sitting in the guest room, with this song blasting, reading the lyrics off her phone and singing at the TOP of her lungs. If you know my mom, you know how hilarious this must have been for him.

But anywho, I love this band. It is made up of Marcus Mumford, Ben Lovett, Winston Marshall, and Ted Dwane. These British lads have a way with a banjo and English “folk rock” music. Whatever you want to call it, I love it. Their music literally stirs my soul. I can pick a line from almost any song that has truly moved me and made me think and feel much harder than any song has done, well, ever.

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They are just the best. The best. I cannot even properly put into words how much I love them. Do you have an undying love for Mumford as well? Or is there a different artist you would be happy to listen to forever?

Emma Lou Believes In: Kid President

My thoughts and prayers are with Boston today and all the people touched by this tragedy. While we mourn and try to understand of this senseless act, let us not forget the good in the world. 

You know two things I adore? Kids and inspiring content. Want to see a video that is CHOCK full of both?

That video has been viewed on YouTube over 18 MILLION TIMES!!!! Can you believe that? I can. Watching that video fires me up, it makes me want to go conquer the world. And it makes me want to go watch Space Jam.

After watching the above video for the first time, I decided I need to know more about this AWESOME kid, so I did a little research. Kid President was created by Robby (Kid President himself) and his brother-in-law, Brad. The two of them together decided to create these videos (see them all here) because “we believe kids can change the world. We also believe grown ups can change the world. It just takes all of us working together.” Yes, yes, YES.

My favorite part of their website is this:

“It’s just us having fun and hoping we create something that makes people happier than they were before they clicked play.”

Isn’t that a spectacular thought? I hope that this post leaves you happier than you were before you clicked, and a little more hopeful, too.