Walking with Life

* Wake up every morning with bright eyes.

* Love your family unconditionally.

* Investigate new and old things :)

* Don't worry about how you look.

* Be outside as much as you can.

* Protect and watch over others.

* Treat every single thing as a new and exiting gift.

* Forgive others for their wrong doings toward you.

* Be truly sorry when you have done wrong.

* Live in the moment every minute.

.....Be like a dog today.


Inspired by my amazing pup Diesel.




Dedicated to Toad, Max, Lady, Angel and your dog too.

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginnings end."

If it is not already obvious, I have moved back to Silver Spring and have been tackling the task of starting from scratch. Major transitions are exhausting. This is why it has been about two months since I have even looked at my "Crazy Dog in Utah" blog. I needed to put all my energy into starting fresh. But now things are being put back into a comfortable place.

I have found an inspiring job that could turn into a career. I am recovering nicely from knee surgery. I am making plans to get a place with the love of my life. I am setting and obtaining goals that are immensely important to me. One of those goals being writing (shocked?). I may write a novel one day. I may try to have a piece of my writing professionally published. I will never say never to my ambitions. This blog is a perfect start; an outlet to my inner most rational thoughts and feelings.

I have private diaries with writings that are mostly unclear and obscure; writings that seem to be versed in an unconscious state of mind. When re-read they seem senseless and reckless or too personal and passionate to reveal. But here I desire to share my beliefs and experiences constructed in useful ways to you, the reader, which in turn allows me to digest my own perceptions in healthy doses. This blog is just as much for me as it is for you. And if my words only touch one person, my goal is achieved.

I suppose this entry is a prologue for my entries to come. I will aspire to write weekly posts. I would like my topics to be more interactive. This week I will pose the question - what should my new blog title be? Ironically I can fill an entire body quite effortlessly but when it comes time to create a title - blank.

Happy Living

-Steph-

Closing Thoughts

There are only a few weeks left until I pack up the Neon and truck it back over the country. If there is one thing I have learned on this mini-move, it is to appreciate what you have, when you have it. 

When will there be another time I am in Utah and can visit The Great Salt Lake?

When will there be another time I can move across the country and work at a premiere mountain resort with some of the best snow (and people) in the world? 

When will there be another time I live alone for a month and have the time to foster a dog and kittens, watching them grow?

I say do what you can when you can. Don't have the mentality that you'll have a second chance because chances are, you won't.

See you soon Silver Spring, hope you're ready to get Sprung ;-)

Walkin' the Talkin'

It's the simple, attainable and creative ideas that make our days exceptional. The only thing standing in the way of these days is us.

                                                                       Epic Day :)

~ Steph

Wringing the Sponge

The excitement of this huge undertaking has dimmed. As the season comes to an end, the snow begins to melt, many people leave, I find myself replaying the past few months over and over in my head. What if I had done things differently? What could I have done better? Did I fulfill what I came here to fulfill? All hypothetical questions that have no real significance to the amazing journey I've been having.


I don't exactly know why our minds work this way. Well I shouldn't speak for everyone, but for me at least. Why have I decided that this adventure is over and more importantly when did I decide this?


As much as I am excited to come home, the future can not cloud the present. When I was in Silver Spring I used to daydream about being somewhere else. Now I am somewhere else and I day dream about being in Silver Spring. Where is the balance? 


I realized that today. I realized the sponge I was upon entering Utah had seemingly soaked up all the water it could. As time passed, the most unfamiliar places became familiar. Routines set in. Opinions were made. Things were winding down. Life in Park City was becoming ordinary.


Well I'm wringing my sponge out today and forever. Even the most ordinary day can be extraordinary if you allow it to be. I realize that sounds corny and cliche but the point is, I don't ever want to feel a day is common or regular, whether here in Park City, back home in Silver Spring or anywhere I decide to go for that matter. 


Today I went to a local animal shelter and found out I can foster a dog for a night. I found a church to go to for Easter Sunday tomorrow. I found a beautiful hiking trail I want to check out on my next day off. 


For the next month and a half the adventure stays in Park City. Then the adventure moves back home :) 


The adventure never ends.


~ Steph

Red and White

I apologize for the delay between posts. It is unlike me to have writers block but the past month has been eye opening in so many perplexing ways that I've had no words to express. The intricacies that make up the web of life are simply stunning and continue to amaze me in so many disguised ways. Life is truly a tapestry; a seemingly muddled mess of color and string, turned over to reveal a masterpiece.

We live on that tangled side, each thread representing a strand to our lives. There are moments when we get a glimpse of the unfinished product, the beautiful picture that is being created and it gives a restored faith in the path we are walking. But these moments are short and few because our minds live in fact, not in hope like our hearts. Fact being what is in front of us, what is "real". Hope being faith, belief that we are ultimately creating the picture we have always dreamed about.

I went into this adventure hoping to find myself and through the mysterious curves of the tapestry, I have found that and so much more. We all get hurt. We all have bad relationships and experiences that influence our decisions and feelings. We all fall victim to the tedious game - should I or should I not?
I've been playing this game for years and I've never won. Finally somebody has come along to close the box for me.

Fears, doubts, mistakes, regrets - only exist if you want them to. To some, this won't make sense. But that does not matter. It is I who write these words, it is I who lives this life and it is I who had a glimpse of my picture, a restoration of faith. I have found something infinitely special and I am going to follow it.

:) Steph

"plants are life, are you against life?"

Adventure: (noun, verb) 1. An exciting or very unusual experience. 2. Participation in exciting undertakings or enterprises. 3. A bold, usually risky undertaking; hazardous action of uncertain outcome.

I have been referring to the great migration to Utah as my adventure. But tonight I realized life is the adventure. This move is a change, a chapter. In my opinion, life should always be an exciting or unusual experience with bold and risky outcomes. Why else are we alive? To bore ourselves to death, literally?

I refer back to childhood so often in my thoughts and writings. If there is one thing theatre taught me, it is to acknowledge the cascade of wonder that we experience as a child; the feeling of the first time. The first trip to the ocean. The first day of school. The first slumber party. The first campfire. The first airplane ride. The first crush... Then as the years tally up, new experiences become quite rare. Life seemingly becomes mundane. We start to take things for granted.

It takes a major shift to shake the soul awake.

When I was a little girl, I would write scenarios on pieces of paper and hang them on my bedroom door weekly. Scenarios such as, 'three friends form a rock band and tour the entire world', or, ' a girl goes on an adventure and discovers a secret waterfall'. One day my mother was standing outside of my room, reading the dream door and said, "Why pretend when you can do it?" I have never forgotten those words. 

Maybe I don't want to make movies. Maybe I have just always wanted my life to be like one.

~Steph