A Dusty Travel Journal

You know how some dates are just seared in you memory? You can't forget them no matter what. The weeks leading up to the date are full of expectation. You know something big has happened in your history, just because of the way your brain treats the date. 

Today is one of those days for me. 

Today is the 7th anniversary of this blog.

So...big deal, you say. What's that got to do with anything? 

Seven years ago, I got on a plane by myself for the first time. I'd traveled with groups before, sure. Never by myself. Never across the ocean. But now, I can't say that any more.

As the years pass, the memories start to fade. Some things I will never forget, like stepping foot in C. S. Lewis' church, seeing his home & his grave. Sitting in the warm rooms of The Bird & The Baby on a cold and rainy night.  Seeing London from the top of St. Paul's, the city stretching out as far as I could see in all directions. Attending a show at the Globe, in the freezing cold fall weather. (Honestly, I don't remember the cold; I just know it was. I remember that night and know that it was a supremely happy memory.) Feeling the breeze from the rushing train approaching the Tube platform; feeling thankful that the train had finally arrived and praying that you might actually make it to class on time. Seeing and falling in love with Scotland in a single moment. Praying desperately to God when I felt lost in the city and watching him answer in a big way. Sunday lunches with the Diamond's and friends from St. Giles. Bible study and Christmas party with the student group at KCBC.

Seven years ago, I started this small blog to keep my family and friends up to date on my life while I was in England. It's become so much more than a simple travel blog to me. Thank you for sticking around during the months I don't write and the ones that I do, for putting up with silly posts about fall weather & coffee and literature & theologically deep ones where I try to process different thoughts in my head. 

This blogging thing continues to be an adventure for me, so thank you for sticking with me. Thank you for the encouragement to keep writing and exploring things, even if it is simple every day things. Because really, the big stuff is great and memory making. But it's the every day stuff that makes life full and rich and worth getting up for in the morning. 

So here's to more coffee dates with friends, knitting projects accomplished, and half miles run with my niece. Here's to learning what it means to be content in the life you've been given but not sit back and watch it pass you by. Here's to staying out with friends and sleeping late. 

Here's to more adventures!

Movie Nights

I've been in my new place for well over a month now. Yay! 
And while everything looks basically moved in, I have boxes in every room that still have stuff in them that need to find a home. I'm getting better at ignoring it, but every now and then, in a quiet moment, when I'm sitting with my tea watching a movie or reading a book or just existing in my place, the boxes start to get loud. Insisting they need to be put away. 
They are extra loud recently because, as I am in my place longer, the more I realize its just me in this place. It isn't bad. Not at all. But when I was living at home I had built in community, if you will. Days could pass before I saw my mom, due to our schedules, but we would leave notes, things would be moved--something to let me know that another person inhabited the space with me. I don't have that any more and it sometimes makes me lonely. 
To combat that feeling, and cause I love her, my friend Rachel and I started a weekly movie night. Ish. She's in Massachusetts and I'm here. Using Skype makes the distance feel not so far. (I mean it still is, and nothing quite is the same as real person interaction, but I'll take what I can get right now...) We did it last week, and again last night. When we started, with cult classic Shaun of the Dead staring the hilarious Simon Pegg, I don't think we planned that it would become a thing. I hope I'm not jinxing it by writing about it here, but I love that we do it. This week it was Sliding Doors. It was a movie that she brought with her to London. I think her opinion of me went down a little when she found out I'd never seen it before. We fixed that and I now own it. And love it. For me, it is as much about London as it is about friendship and love. Rachel and I love the same bits, loathe the same bits and laugh at pretty much the whole movie. It would have been ten times better if she had actually been here, sitting on the couch with me, but ya know? Watching it with her, laughing with her, making sad faces at the not so happy parts? It felt like she was here. 
Now I'm off to get ready for work. There is an AED training today...I think those are the right initials. I have no idea, really. I do know that I have all kinds of feels from the latest Lizzie Bennet Diaries (can we just get those two crazy kids together?! Also, I need to see Darcy. Not just hear his voice...grr...) and the coffee is just starting to hit me in the best way possible. It's not spring yet, but I have the window cracked to let some fresh air in the place and it is making me feel kinda happy.