Sadly, I realize that I'm not seeing my not-so-new state with fresh eyes anymore. Don't get me wrong, I still gasp when I see the sun rising behind Mt. Hood in the morning. I still love the fog in the hills. And oh, those trees.
But what once surprised me no longer does and sometimes I have to look harder to see things as they are, rather than what I remember.

I tend to put off things that I don't enjoy (or even the things that I do enjoy). While I know we all do that, I felt like lately it has been holding me back.

Instead of letting things pile up, why not be proactive? Instead of internetting, why not paint? Why look at my phone, when I have a book?

I'm breaking bad habits and starting good, new ones.

"I hadn't yet discovered that I lived in a sort of transparent balloon, drifting over the world without making much contact with it, and that the people I knew appeared to me at a different angle from the one at which they appeared to themselves; and that the reverse was also true. I was smaller to others, up there in my balloon, than I was to myself. I was also blurrier.” 

I have been listening to this book by Margaret Atwood while painting. It's small stories about life and those thoughts that just slip in and out of your consciousness. I understood this statement instantly, rolling it around in my mind. How do I seem to others? What do I not understand about them?

Tis the season.

I haven't been paying attention lately. I'm always doing something, while doing something else, while doing something else. I haven't been paying attention fully to one thing for a while now. This could sound like I'm being super productive, but I have to say it feels the opposite. I think I'm ready to focus now. I'm ready to put down all my devices, work on a thing, not some things. I mean, really, who needs to check their phone 50 times a day?

Today, I have been alive for a quarter of a century.

All week I've been wondering what have I done with this time?

The only answer I can give myself is not enough, do more.

I love quiet moments, alone.

For many living in Portland, the rain might of been the first clue that fall is here. 

For a few, we saw it coming.