The Switch

I have decided to end this blog and switch it over to my photography blog. So I am starting today with a personal post on my photography blog, about gratitude. For me, today, I'll seek out peace by searching my heart and uncovering life's sweetest blessings at this season in my life. I believe that in doing so, I will find the power it can have to rewind negativity, and introduce light, happiness, and love.
I hope you find inspiration and transformation today. And I hope you'll follow me at http://malloryhurstphotography.blogspot.com/. Thanks everyone!

Here is the post from today:
http://malloryhurstphotography.blogspot.com/2012/11/my-highest-form-of-thought.html

Not Just a List

A few of you may understand, but most of you will just have to nod your heads and make recurring "awww" noises. Or maybe "ewww" noises depending on how you're feeling today. Cranky maybe. But I hope not.

So.

I've had a lot of time to go over the qualities I wanted to have in a husband.
A lot.
I mean it's verging the ridiculousness of mambi-pambi land...

For instance, today.. drum roll.. is the FIFTH anniversary of my first date with Don. The man who, among other things, has above all taught me patience, and its true applications and virtues.

Would I, or should I, have known 5 years ago that I would be writing this blog 5 years from then? Unmarried, but certainly not unaltered? Redefining everything I thought I knew about love and ITS applications? Well..

Let's start from the beginning. The List of what I wanted in a husband; in all its glory. Created along the path of adolescent naiveté, and broken-hearted outlets. A bright red Phoenix rising from the ashes of the excruciatingly burning break-ups and goodbyes; And polished into finality with the unexpected clarity.. that came from surviving lost and let go, love. An iron-clad fortress. (Or so I resolved.)

They are in no particular order.


1. Strong - independently
2. Whatever strength I lack, he makes up for it
3. Love of God more than of us; Love of us more than of me; Love of me more than of himself
4. Honest and trustworthy above all consequences
5. Appreciates my voice, my talents, and my dreams. Beyond reason or measure.
6. My number one supporter, encourager, believer
7. Not too serious, but not too sarcastic or embarrassing
8. Dances with me - even if there's no music
9. Kindhearted, and generous towards others
10. Complimentary. Always.
11. Looks for the good in everyone, including himself
12. Tall (I mean he'd have to be.. right?)
13. Handsome
(I didn't say it wasn't at least a little shallow)
14. An amazing voice; to melt away the sadness
15. Passionate (This one is underlined. BOLDLY underlined.)
16. Athletic and healthy
17. FUN
18. Hard-working
19. Romantic. Hopelessly.
20. Treats me with respect, dignity, and delicacy
21. Sympathetic and caring
22. Patient, especially with me and my fragile, sensitive nature
23. Protective, providing "shelter from the storm"
24. Good with children. Having an equal love for them as I have.
25. TRUEST friend I've ever encountered
26. Real with me - true to himself
27. Returned missionary
28. Worthy of, and wanting a temple marriage. At all times.
29. Capable of keeping sacred covenants to the Lord
30. Realistic, from his heart
31. Original and creative. Loves to surprise me.
32. Holds himself well in an argument
33. Charming
34. Deep. On so many levels.
35. Patriotic. Love of country.
36. Intelligent, with a great desire for learning
37. Inquisitive. With an open heart.
38. Hungry for adventure.
39. Loves his family, especially his mother
40. Brings out the best in me. The truest form of me.
41. Repentant. Accountable. Willing to correct the wrong.
42. A morning person (so I don't have to be)
43. Holds and keeps a strong testimony
44. Humble
45.
(It's left blank intentionally. It will never really be complete or unchanged. A symbol of some sort I suppose.)

What started out as hopeful thinking, and pleasant dreams.. has over the years became more and more of a security blanket, and in some cases a shield! My way of keeping control over getting hurt again. As if, finding a man who was honest meant that he would never lie to me, or finding someone who was patient and kind-hearted, meant that he would never hurt me. But I'm starting to realize more and more than I'm not even sure if I KNOW what I want or need for myself.

Does this mean I'm throwing out the list?.. HEAVEN'S no. Have you SEEN that list? It's pretty much genius. Golden genius. But maybe it means I'm ready to be surprised by life and all its complexities.. and God and all his mysteries. I mean, I love Don BECAUSE of his tone-deaf nature. He can't sing a single note in its correct tune. And I couldn't live without it.

He's IN everything and LIVES everywhere inside my life, and inside my heart.

He's the ticket stubs in my wallet. Every single blue Jeep Cherokee that passes by. He's the song in my head, cuz he probably introduced me to it... He's the missed notes; for good measure. ;)
He's every summer day, the weekends and the holidays. He's college football (BYU). The color blue. The color orange. A grilled cheese sandwich; hundreds of them actually, and a cold glass of milk. He's Kirra cologne. My Dog Mazie. Fish Lake at sunset. He's the pictures in my camera. He IS my camera. He's December 2nd...

I know him. And every room in my house knows him. Here, and here, and here. And every chamber in my heart knows him. Here, and here, and here.

For reasons known only to the Gods, and perhaps on occasion myself, I absolutely love him. I love him wholly. and fully. and sometimes against better reason.

And I've loved him throughout. 5 years and counting (it was love at first sight). The ironic part?.... Even though I'm in a better place to accept love's struggle and forge through, uninterrupted.. stronger even...............; For me, that struggle has come in such an unexpected form: time. But I know that passion and patience have the same Latin root word and I have found both truth and solace in that.

*redundancy warning* or maybe I should be warning you of the gushiness you're about to step into. Either way you were warned*

i love him...
...because though he isn’t perfect, he is to me. If you had asked me what I wanted in a guy... what i needed... I might have shown you the list. But instead all I have to do is say his name.
...and it is a daily devotion. It is that hard — and that simple.


---------------
I hope sappy, romantic love letter writer is on Don's list... or I'm in big trouble.

Bucket List; 50 Fold

Alright. Here's the deal...
I'm going to die sometime. I'm almost 24 years old and I'm incredibly aware of my inevitable death. (We'll talk about this in another blog, or maybe my therapist and I can work it out later.. :) Anyway... starting to panic about the "have's" and "have not's" of my life.

So I did the only logical thing I could think of. I wrote a bucket list. It's pretty great.

And, as I was writing this list, I realized that I was able to cross an AWFUL lot of things off my figurative list when I went to Africa in 2008: Bungee jumping, rafting the Nile, seeing Africa, going on a safari, seeing the source of the Nile River, repelling down a 300 ft waterfall, volunteering in a third world country, living in another country, work in an orphanage... etc. I was also able to cross things off I could have never even KNOWN I wanted to add, like... delivering twins. (Who could forget THAT story?)

Anyway, I hope to be able to post as I cross them off, and create stories that I can take with me to the next life... satisfied with my current life and how I lived it. ENJOY!

1. Travel all over the world: Paris to explore the Louvre, back to London, Florida, back to Africa, Australia, the Caribbean, Hawaii, Scotland, Texas, Spain, Alaska, Dubai, Italy, Sweden, Japan with all its cherry blossoms, India, the middle of nowhere, somewhere GLORIOUS.......
2. Go heli-skiing
3. Make clay pigeon shooting a hobby
4. Volunteer more and in different ways
5. Learn to hang-glide and then GO
6. Get my photography website up and running
7.See and experience the northern lights, maybe in Finland
8. Get married in the temple
9. Buy a house
10. Start a family: Three girls, two boys
11. Go on a cruise, maybe the rock boat!
12. See a killer whale in their natural habitat
13. Start working out and eating better to achieve my ideal weight
14. Ride a gondola through the canals of Venice
15. Enter and win a photography contest
16. Go see Northern Idaho, Coeur d'Alene and Wallace, and ride the Hiawatha Bike Trail
17. See ALL 7 Wonders of the World
18. Attend the summer Olympics
19. Drive Highway 1
20. Teach a child to read
21. Go to Washington DC for the fourth of July
22. Buy a sail boat and learn to sail with the love of my life
23. See fireflies, and then be surrounded by them
24. Create a room I love that’s JUST FOR ME wherever I live someday
25. Own a cabin in the mountains, maybe McCall
26. Go outside for at least an hour everyday in the summer time
27. Write the novel I know I have inside me
28. Travel around San Francisco in a cable car
29. Host a costume party and have EVERY ONE of my friends attend
30. Make and keep more close friends
31. Sleep barefoot in a hammock
32. Fly in a hot air balloon
33. Take a pottery class
34. Have dinner on a rooftop outside, overlooking an entire city
35. Bury a time capsule with important memoirs in a secret location, and then open it 10 years later
36. Go on a scuba diving expedition in a WARM oceanic location; maybe the barrier reef in Australia
37. Get a bachelor’s degree in anything
38. Spend the day at a spa
39. Meet and shake hands with the President of the United States
40. Sit in the front row at a Broadway musical
41. Attend a fashion show
42. Fly first class
43. Have a "girl's night" with all my girlfriends where we all travel and meet in one place and enjoy each other… maybe make it an annual get together
44. Learn to ballroom dance
45. Plant a garden, and/or a tree
46. See the Broncos or Cougars go to National Championship and attend the game
47. Learn how to REALLY cook
48. Sit around a campfire with JUST my siblings and laugh, talk, cry, drink hot cocoa, eat wonderful food and love…
49. See every one of my blessings on my Patriarchal Blessing be given and then expounded upon
50. Put my name down to be a passenger on the first tourist shuttle to the moon

I want to encourage everyone reading this to make a list of their own. It's not set in stone, it's not like I can't add to my list as I cross things off, and it's not as if I'll feel like a failure if I DON'T accomplish all 50 endeavors. But... it's a start to my feeling fulfilled and well-lived. (If that's even a word) SO DO IT!

Love You Wouldn't Understand

This is the last thing on EARTH I should be doing right now. Really. If there were ever a compiled list in the universe of things I should be doing at this very moment, writing a blog, especially this blog, would be at the end of it.

But here I am. Defying lists of destiny. And here you are reading it. I think that's pretty significant. Glorious really.

So... to start.... I have to remind the 80's kids out there of this poster/shirt/picture/wherever else we saw it:

*

*Overwhelmed....in case you wondered.

Anyway, I was editing a thousand pictures on Don's desktop today... most of the time in utter intense creative silence... and the thought popped into my head that I wanted to listen to music. I opened iTunes looking for a good playlist, Don always compiles great playlists, that would exactly contradict the overwhelmed mood I was in. The playlist that was highlighted was a new one. It was entitled "Soundtrack of Don". I couldn't help but smile a lot when I read that. Of course I HAD to listen to it.

The first song on the list was by Owl City. A band I recently introduced him to. The song title was "Fuzzy Blue Lights". (It's the song in the upper right corner if you want to hear it. His whole playlist is!) It's actually what prompted this impromptu "should never have been written" post. Actually, it was *smug *hopeful and *lovestruck that did it. (Thanks guys)

My boyfriend's adorable!

The song started playing, it fits him perfectly, our entire 4 year life together did a flash in my mind, and I had one of those "don't know how it's possible but now I love you more" moments.

I wish *choked up and *caught off guard graced the picture above... cuz that's how my jam session ended. The last song on his list was "Everything's Right" by Matt Wertz. If you haven't ever heard it... do. (upper right hand corner) Hearing it in those circumstances shook me from my little complacent corner and slid a knowing smile on my face. I love Don, I love my life, I love my life with Don in it, and everything couldn't be... more right.

Point your fingers.
Scoff.
Laugh at me.

Whatever.
:)

And THEN, just when you thought it was over.... I caught glimpse of the playlist just below "Soundtrack of Don" to see.... "Soundtrack of Mallie".

There was only one song in it.
"Inevitable" by Anberlin

*happy

Change........

... it's all we have left.

The REAL Reason I'm Not Married Yet

I'm a self-diagnosed OCD person who has denial about being OCD. Yeah.

You may have already guessed, but that presents quite a few problems for me on a daily basis.

I was watching "Friends" the other day, and realized that I have a new imaginary best friend, and her name is Monica Geller.


Yesterday, I tried to put my movies in order alphabetically. Alright... mildly OCD right? Wrong. I couldn't stand them in alphabetical order because none of the colors matched. So I went back through and re-organized them by color. I seriously considered making new cases for them so they could be organized by letter AND color....

I organize my shoes by height, then by purpose, then by color. If they aren't perfectly straight when I look over, I go and budge them a centimeter or two until they are.

Everything on my desk at home is perpendicular and evenly spaced.

I hate odd numbers. No really though. It doesn't feel right when I'm turning up the volume on the TV and it stops at 21. It HAS to be 22.

However.... my favorite number is 11. Why? When I was little I held a lot of animosity towards odd numbers because, well, if there were odd numbers, some one would be left out. I adopted 11 as my favorite because it represents two people. Two happy little stick people, glad to have a buddy. Why not 22?, because in my OCD brain 1 is the most clean and precise of the numbers. To me, 11 is EVEN because there are two of them. However 33 is not.

If I misspell a word or write the wrong thing when I'm typing, I can't just let it go. Even if I don't notice it until three paragraphs later, I will ERASE everything I just wrote and re-write it. And those little squiggly red and green lines that Word puts under words it thinks are wrong.... even if I know it's right, I'll right click and hit "ignore" or "add to dictionary". Before I save anything, there mustn't be ANY red or green lines. I do all this with other people too. Don won't let me watch him type anymore.

In fact, we used to chat on IM when we first started dating, and every time he sent me a message with a misspelled word or a grammatically incorrect sentence, I'd close the window and start another fresh one because it wasn't "perfect" anymore.

When texting, I always use correct grammar and punctuation. It usually takes me ten years. But if I don't do it that way, I will go in and delete it from my archives.

Everything has to be rhythmic and aesthetic. Especially when it comes to the way I write, speak, or walk.

If I'm in bed and scared, my feet CANNOT be sticking out of my blanket or I will FREAK.

I'm a BIG people watcher. I like to sit down in crowded places and watch people walk and interact with each other. I rate people's moods and personalities and make judgments about what kind of person they are.

I hold my breath when I walk past someone who doesn't LOOK clean.

If I'm ever in a room that's really messy or cluttered, I get really sweaty and nervous, and my stomach starts to hurt. (Probably the ulcer I don't know I have yet. Or the heart attack I'll experience when I'm 24.) No. Big. Deal.

When eating, I will gag if my soft food, like mashed potatoes, yogurt, or salad, isn't also accompanied with something crunchy like a roll, granola, or croutons.

I count my steps. I NEVER step on cracks. AND, I have to alternate feet when walking up stairs...even if it throws off my rhythm.

And if none of that is enough to frighten you, I just recently started doing this.......
to my toilet paper.

The Pale White Wings of a Friggin' Bird

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from the danger of love is Hell.

Thank you C.S. Lewis.

To give you a concrete example of what I think vulnerability in love happens to entail, I'll tell the following "love" story.

Once upon a time I had a boyfriend named Don. I also had a favorite song named "Hurricane Song". I loved them both equally. (Caveat: I originally loved "Hurricane Song" more, but it was never meant to last. You'll find this song in the upper right hand corner.) Anyway, one day, I was driving in the car with Don when the song came on. And I started to sing along,

"I caught the sound of a distant word
On the pale white wings of a friggin' bird."

Sadly, I didn't get any further than that. I was interrupted with, "Did you just say 'friggin' bird?" followed by spouts of laughter. My thoughts were as follows, "Laugh it up sweetheart, you are SO sleeping on the figurative couch tonight!" but what I really said was, "Yeah." To which he replied, "It's frigate bird! Not friggin' Bird!" Followed by more evil laughter.

Turns out they really do say frigate bird.

Thank you Virginia Coalition.

But frigate birds don't have pale white wings. Do they. No.*
*(I hope you're following my outbursts of raging sarcasm into the cracks of my little broken heart, because indeed, that is from which they stem.)

So what do frigate birds have to do with love? Well..the reason (however silly) I fell in love with "Hurricane Song", was because of the friggin' bird. When it suddenly became frigate bird, I was upset. Even a little brokenhearted. Oh yes. I still sing it my way. I always will. But will it ever give me as much happiness as it used to? I submit that it will not.

Thank you Don.

So...even though we had to wade through the sarcasm to get here, this is what I know of love:

Unless we're open to opportunities for growth inherent in not only love, but every association in life, we unconsciously allow our hearts to remain dormant. Closed. Unable to experience joy. We miss out on the moments that shape us into who we're intended to become.

On the other hand, when we get to a point where we see the value in opening up our hearts, and sing at the top of our lungs, we might just find that we've come to a place outside the fear of tragedy. A place where our circumstances do not determine our choices, and our past no longer dictates our future. Love can only disappear when we let our fear and uncertainty overtake it.

Sure, it might happen that one minute you're singing your heart out, and the next you're having to pick up its pieces. But isn't it beautiful? When its all said and done we come away with different colored shards of experience that, when viewed through the right lens, give us a kaleidoscope of possibilities.