A Few Words Written, A Few Words Read, & A Cup of Clean Water

The internet is a huge place. For my explorer's heart, there's a lot to discover. One of the best things that has come from the Start Experiment is a ton of new blogs, ideas, internet spaces that I can explore. I feel like over the past few weeks I have learned a great deal from people that just a few weeks ago I did not have any knowledge of them, their stories, their hurts, their causes, their fears, and what makes them come alive.

It's funny. I saw the simple tweet from Jon Acuff when I was sitting on a hotel bed pondering a life altering decision and decided 'Why not?'. A simple tweet, a quick email back and a lifetime changed is how it has turned out. I've been reading his stuff for years now. It's amazing to have seen a community connected just through his writings rally around each other to support each others' dreams coming true.

One of the fantastic things I've run across is Cause Pub which is a 'for-profit crowd-book-publishing company that partners with nonprofits to help them achieve specific goals within specific causes'. For their latest venture, they have gathered 127 storytellers together to share the moments when they have been pushed outside of their comfort zones to experience the world around them.

The best part? You get to read tons of awesome stories and help people around the world through Blood:Water Mission to help provide clean water in Africa. Why clean water? Because water is life giving.

Another really cool thing? You can read and vote on some of your favorite stories to be in the book. Would you rather write or photograph? CausePub provides those options too. How cool is that?

Their newest release, Couch Rebels, is coming on August 14. Go ahead and purchase it. I know I can't wait to get my hands on it!

Christmas Just Snuck Up Again

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post from Justin Fricke. Justin writes about adventures and life outside the office on his blog, Justin The Weekend Warrior. Give him a follow on twitter @JustinLFricke.

“Christmas just snuck up again.” We’re all going to be hearing that in that in the next four to five months because believe it or not, Christmas is on December 25th this year—again. We all know Christmas is going to be on December 25th every year, so how does it just “sneak up” every year?

I think it’s because when most people think of Christmas they think of presents under the tree and we all know what that means—spending money. Presents just don’t buy themselves or appear under the tree. They take thought and preparation, but this also stresses out a lot of people. In reality, this should be a relaxing time to spend with friends and family while celebrating the birth of our Savior.

Here are a few suggestions that are easy enough to start implementing now to help you keep the Holiday Season relaxing and enjoyable.

1. Budget: Set a budget for what you’re willing to spend. This will vary for everyone because everyone and every family is different. If you’re a parent with kids and your kids know what the budget is, they can decide is they want the one big and expensive item or multiple, less expensive items. This helps to prevent those “sad” faces on Christmas morning.
2. Planning and saving: In order to make sure you have enough money to make a budget for Christmas shopping, you actually need some money. More than likely, you won’t be able to save enough from one or two paychecks to get your loved ones what they want, unless you want to go into debt which isn’t recommended. Now is a perfect time to start setting aside money for your Christmas budget.
3. Cutting back: we all have our “guilty pleasures” of what we like to spend money on. Personally, it’s vinyl records for me. I feel like I hear the majority of people saying they can’t go a day without their favorite coffee from their favorite coffee shop, I disagree. If froo froo coffee is your guilty pleasure, that’s about $25/week that you could be saving ($5/day x 5 days/week = $25). That comes out to be about $100/month and if you started now, you could have about $400 saved up for your Christmas budget.
4. Change Christmas: How many gifts do you really have to buy? Do your relatives that you see all of once or twice a year really need a gift from you and do you really need a gift from them? The answer is no, so why not have some fun? Years ago, my family quit buying presents for distant family members (not in your immediate family) and we started having fun. Everyone brings a gift card with a set value, (I think $25) so you at least get to pick where you want to shop, and then a $10 or less wrapped gag gift and we do a White Elephant Gift Exchange. We’ve also done Secret Santa, which is a lot of fun as well.
5. Stock up: Start buying gifts now. I know all the “deals” happen close to Christmas, but really—are the deals really that irresistible? I have yet to find an actual deal worth splurging on during the Holiday Season. Not to mention there’s a deal for every holiday. We still have a Labor Day Sale and Halloween Sale to look forward to from retailers trying to get us in the doors.

These are just a few tips and ideas, but the point is: to find what works best for you and your family, don’t overspend, and don’t stress when you don’t have to.

What are some of your tips and ideas?

A Little Breathing Room

A new friend of mine from the Start Experiment and I've been messaging back and forth. The other night she sent me these words of wisdom: "Give yourself a little breathing room - you've got a lot going on IRL". (IRL means 'in real life') This is in response to trying to get my new site up and having everything ready by Monday. It's Tuesday and I'm not ready to introduce it yet (although a few of you have already found your way over there).

This is an old photo from my Project 365 that I did awhile back which perfectly describes how I'm feeling today - stressed and rushed. I'm going to listen to that friends' advice because I do have a lot going on in real life. I'm working through some major changes which will shake up where I'm living, my friends group, my daily eating habits, my morning routine, my career, and pretty much everything else tied into all of that. In addtion to that, my Dad's been sick and I've been helping out with my sister which cuts down a bit of my hustling and dream time.

Right now though, there's not a deadline. There is no finite date. Jon Acuff won't be mad at me and say I'm never allowed to read any of his blogs ever again because I wasn't able to get my new site up how I wanted to by yesterday. That's just ridiculous. He has different things he should worry about. There's a deadline for some of the other things going on in my life which I really need to figure out.  The whole situation is overwhelming like a nightmare of ending up in a Calculus Test unprepared.

The reality is that sometimes, real life gets in our way and we have to attend to some other things first. It's easy to focus on the one thing that we feel like we can control in a time like this. For me currently, it's the layout of my new site. There are other things that I am desperately not in control of in any way. Those things I definitely can't change because I'm not in control, but I am in charge of how I react to this situation.

How am I going to react? I'm going to react by deciding to act on the things which most need to take precedence. I've got things I need to take care of. I've got things that I wish had already been taken care of. What can I do now? I can stop feeling rushed about things that don't really need to take place now and focus on things that need to be taken care of more immediately. It's time to focus on dealing with the real life stuff rather than a layout because at the end of the day, this real life stuff matters a whole lot more than the layout of a blog.

What do you need to stop focusing on? What do you really need to take care of this week?

Seeing Past The Excuses

Ever had an excuse so brilliant that you had to listen to it? An excuse that seemed to speak so much truth that it was impossible to ignore? I have.


My Favorite Excuses to be Wowed By:
1. You don't really have time for that.
2. If it's not perfect the first time, you should wait.
3. What kind of value does that even have in the world?
4. But he/she/they did it better than I ever could, so why try?


Let's Dissect This a Bit:

1. You don't really have time for that. Yeah, that could take like 30 minutes to 1 hour, but you have some emails to write so why not pop in a season of Friends and answer emails. You can turn off the season whenever you finish the emails and go do something else. The reality is that you will have answered those emails during the first episode and will still be watching when it's time to put in the second DVD. You had time. 

2. If it's not perfect the first time, you should wait. Where is the standard of perfection here? Perfect for who? Is your college professor going to look over this work? Will there ever be a perfect time, place, situation or what for you to complete this? If I wait forever, will it ever get done? Probably not.

3. What kind of value does that even have in the world? With so many idea people, storytellers, film makers, creators, bloggers, leaders, etc. etc. who am I to try to step into any of these roles? What can I contribute when others have contributed so much already? What area of expertise do I really have in the matter? I'm just a kid straight out of college still trying to figure out the world around me.

4. But he/she/they did it better than I ever could, so why try?  I follow some tremendous bloggers. I follow designers who I could only dream of designing something that great. I follow four filmmakers who made award winning movies while on summer vacation during college. I follow photographers who travel the world and have I am surrounded by people whose lives seem to be so much more, so much deeper, so much more impactful than mine. Maybe those people should do this, not me. 


You know what lives in these excuses and the questions that they back? Fear.


This Fear doesn't have to control you. You're the one that gets to decide if it does. For me, it's regarding my blog. I love to compare it to blogs when I know the stats in my mind aren't real. Maybe if I do this or that to make it better. In reality though, I just need to write. Writing takes more time than I always want to give it. I want my writing to be perfect and if I'm not feeling inspired, I just can't write. Writing could get me judged though. I judge my own writing against others who are more established and have written longer.


Why haven't I written in the past? I have accepted the excuses fear has given me.


It's time to write because I love writing. It's time to blog because I want to be a blogger. I want to punch my fear in the face and do the thing I love regardless of the excuses. That my friends is what I am going to do.

The Horizon

You know those times you are sitting on the beach overlooking the water and seeing all the way until the blue of the ocean meets the blue of the sky? What about those times when you're driving out in Texas and you finally 'get' the joke of being able to watch a dog run away for two days because you can see forever away? It's all about the horizon and it's so much fun to look at my personal horizon and see what's in the distance and what's in the not so far distance.

On the horizon:

- creative projects
- job changes
- location moves
- possibly a new blog site

There's so much swirling around my head right now. This week has been filled with tons of prayer in regard to what is on the horizon for my life. I'm at peace with where God is leading me, but I want things to be a little more in place before I give y'all a shout as to what the next adventure may be as it may be a huge adventure.

I can't wait to tell y'all everything. It's killing me holding it in, but I can't even bring myself to write about anything else. Once I spill the beans though, I've got some fun stories to tell!

Unpacking the Unpacked Adventure

If you've been reading here at my little corner of the internet for awhile, you'll see that things have changed stylistically (is that even a real word?) in the last 48 hours or so. I've decided to go undergo a new me, a new blog and become a new dream chasing girl - one that I've always wanted to be but what scared me so.

You see, it all started back in the days of xanga when I would read my high school friends blogs and posted one of my own. The problem with high school xangas is they are very high school. I say this in love though, I've volunteered with teenagers for over five years now and adore the age group no matter how awkward and confusing it is. As I moved up to blogger and wordpress though, I began to see true writers that posted hours and hours of content - funny, engaging, brilliant, thought provoking, life affirming stories and encouragement all surrounded by great designs and beautiful photography.

Well y'all, the comparison game is a thief of joy and I have been its' captive way too long. 

I'm at a definitive crossroads (I guess you really could say I have been at one since I graduated college) and it's time to step up and be the true me here. I don't know where it's going to take me. I know that there's a lot of adventures ahead. I'm currently on one now. Jon Acuff of Stuff Christians Like has been a writer of one of my favorite blogs for years now and he tweeted out the other day that he would like information sent to him about his followers. He wanted real information emailed to him to take us on an adventure that may include a machete and a passport. I don't usually respond, but I did.

He's invited me and 2000ish other friends to go on an adventure to punch fear in the face and start what we have wanted to start all along but have been too afraid of. He's named it the Start Experiment after his book I'm currently reading entitled, Start: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average and Do Work that Matters, which I highly recommend (along with his other books - I'm a bit of a fan). Here goes my START!

Unpacked Adventure. It's a weird name. How do you unpack an adventure? Don't you usually pack for an adventure? Unpacking isn't the fun part - it's the thrill of getting everything together before a journey, packing your necessities and heading off. I don't know what the adventure looks like. I know what I hope it involves: transparency, a deeper level of writing, a consistent blog, some encouragement, a less fearful me, a few crafts, some reviews of some great restaurants, books and digs along the way, a few fashionable moments, a few thoughts and adventures, creative projects and photography.

Here's to dreaming!
Here's to hoping!
& Here's to STARTing!