Crafting

At first glance this may seem like a trivial "adventure", but over the past week what began as a decision to take the time to be more artsy has quickly turned into an epic battle against spray paint. When Chelsea and I hiked to the "top" of Mount Baldy (see previous post) we vowed that instead of spending days this summer laying on the couch watching One Tree Hill, which is what we both seem to find ourselves doing quite frequently, we would spend more time with the people we love, doing things we love. One of these things that neither of us had really spent any time on recently was crafting, so we decided to have a crafting party at my house. 

Chelsea had this great idea to make "bucket list boards" by glueing chicken wire behind empty picture frames and clipping on papers with our "dreams" written on them with mini closepins. Sage and Nicole came over and after some minor struggles with hot glue we got our frames down pat. Our "dreams" for our bucket lists were very telling of our individual characters... mine were more realistic (Run a marathon, Drive across the country, Pass Chemistry) while Nicole's were very adventurous (Go on a real-life safari, Go Zorbing), and Sage's were a little eccentric (Float around in space). It only seemed fitting that we each titled our Austin-inspired dream boards with "Do It For The Story."

Chelsea and I also made crayon art! We hot-glued crayons to canvasses and melted them with a hairdryer. We had to deal with rebel crayons that decided to splatter all over the place and cause minor 3rd degree burns, but the result was totally worth it!

Finally, Chelsea's internship for a wedding planner has been keeping her extremely busy, so the other day Shannon and I decided to help out. We each learned the valuable lesson of NEVER EVER USING SPRAY PAINT when it took us hours and hours (and hours) to paint wood boards on Shannon's front lawn. Our artistic journey ended with an epic paint fight, which was so much fun it was totally worth the time it took to get paint out of our hair....

All this carpe-ing the diem has got me thinking about the incredible, adventurous life Austin lived, and I stumbled upon this quote which (though a bit long) is amazingly applicable to both Austin's point of view on life and the attitude that we're trying to adopt now: "The fulfilling life, the distinctive life, the relevant life, is an achievement, not something that will fall into your lap because you’re a nice person or mommy ordered it from the caterer. You’ll note the founding fathers took pains to secure your inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—quite an active verb, “pursuit”—which leaves, I should think, little time for lying around watching parrots rollerskate on Youtube. The first President Roosevelt, the old rough rider, advocated the strenuous life. Mr. Thoreau wanted to drive life into a corner, to live deep and suck out all the marrow. The poet Mary Oliver tells us to row, row into the swirl and roil. The point is the same: get busy, have at it. Don’t wait for inspiration or passion to find you. Get up, get out, explore, find it yourself, and grab hold with both hands." -David McCullough 

Love, 

Sarah, Chelsea, Nicole, & Sage