Sept.28th- Ventura, Thousand Oaks, Santa Barbara,Ojai

I sit once again in a Starbucks. Beloved Starbucks, I feel like I should greet the people walking in "welcome to my home away from home," because I spend more time in Starbucks as a whole than anywhere else on the road. I'm directly under an AC vent, however, and its frigid.

I sat by the ocean for an hour before this. Walked around for a bit, found a perfect bench and sat and read for a good length of time. It was peaceful with the waves sloppily hitting the rocks beside me, I could even feel the ocean mist every so often. (((Side note- I don't know what I hit but this blog box just got big and became a different font....))))) As it was peaceful and beautiful, a perfect place to read, I'll probably smell like beach scum when I go out for dinner later this evening. Ah the price to pay for reading spots.

The last few days have flown by in a blur of family, driving and food. Since no church ever got back to me about Sunday to my dismay, and my families delight, I ended up having Saturday and Sunday to devote solely to them. It was awesome, and the perfect timing within my trip to have some more familiar faces around as I was hitting that extreme loneliness that sets in after two weeks alone. Needless to say, we ate, a lot of good food all weekend. We saw a lot of good people, and we caught up on a lot of good life stories. So much can change in a year, so I can't even imagine how much had changed in the eight years since my mom had been in Ventura.
Smell is equated with memory. Walking into my grandparents house, the distinct smell of their home feels like coming home. Walking into that familar smell brings back warm memories, memories that I probably couldn't even describe because I don't really even know what they are, but it more or less brings back a feeling of, home. Safety. Comfort.
Speaking of smells make me want a large dose of Wild Pear mop water to sniff in my room, not in a drug addicted way...well, a little bit. It's such a glorious smell, lemony fresh. Mmm... I love it.

I'm still on the search for a grey dress. I realize grey is one of those words that can be spelled with an E or an A, and that the majority of individuals use the A, however, I don't like the A. I use the E, and I use the E with purpose. Anywho, I tried like four more stores today for a grey dress and am having the hardest time finding one anywhere. Maybe as it gets closer to Christmas and winter, and Oregon, some grey dresses will start popping out of the woodworks because so far I can only find boodilicous ones with heaps of giantic glitter, or business suites fit for a lawyer. Neither of these I would particularly like to portray as a bridesmaid. Amazon.com hasn't even come to my rescue on this one, and we all know that really is my favorite place to shop. The excitment of first buying it online, and then secondly, receiving it in the mail. I'm basically paying Amazon to buy me a gift wrapped in a cardboard box. They might not splurge on the wrapping paper and bows, but they sure come through with exactly what I want, everytime.

I could go for a nap right now.

The fair in Santa Barbara last night was so hot. I'm not even kidding when I say the room we were housed in for the whole fair was probably 110 degrees or hotter the entire time. Since it was in an old school building, we first had to drag our bags and display cases up three flights of stairs, a feat in itself...and then schools were split into groups and placed in individual rooms. I for instance, had two other schools in my tiny math room. Then students and parents were free to wander about and pop into whichever rooms they'd life. We stayed fairly consistent, probably not nearly as busy as any CA schools there in the others rooms, but made some great connections. I had a mom stop by after and whisper to me "I just wanted you to know you were the best sales person here..." As much as I dislike the term salesperson in regards to my job, she meant it in the most complimentary way and was just trying to express her gratitude. That always makes a girl feel like thousand degree classrooms has a purpose and an end result...especially when I didn't intend to sale anything, I just told her the truth.

I've always known that I am a sower. I've never been much of a reaper or a harvester, but I can sow. This came to more of a realization when I was sitting talking to another Admissions Counselor from a small Christian university in the midwest. We'd been next to each other at every fair thus far, and have learned a lot about one another. Before you women get your mind wandering, it hasn't been romantic in any sense, purely platonic as he is engaged and I'm pretty sure we'd make great friends and nothing more even in other circumstances but he's an incredibly nice guy and a great person to chat with during slow times at fairs. So after days of sharing tables, hot rooms in Santa Barbara etc he said to me, "you know, what is God doing in your life? I feel like you know everything happening in my life and my story but I don't know anything about you yet." He continued with " you are a great listener. That's a really great quality in a person, especially a woman of God who wants to listen and ask questions in response, someone who is quiet and listens first, speaks second." I took a few thigns away from this conversation. 1- What a nice comment from someone I barely know. I always wander what someone walks away thinking about me. Not in a I care what people think about me but in a, was I a person I'd be proud of or respect. Would I think, that girl has someone I've got to have, she is so kind, etc. 2- I suppose I do listen more than I talk. To some regards. Some friends might beg to differ on that opinion, but in the general consensus of people. 3- I am a sower, not a reaper. Not a harvest, but a sower. What does that mean in my life. So much of what I think about on the road is application. Who am I becoming and who do I want to become. Is that the same thing, or on opposite sides of the spectrum? 4- Why do I have such a hard time answering the question "what is God doing in my life." Is it just me that has a hard time with that. Specific or general, intimate or just surface level. Maybe because I find relationship wtih God intimate, I find it an intimate topic in my life, that if someone really wants to know its going to need explaining in more than just a few simple words because a few simple words wouldn't even scratch the surface of intimate. I answered him of course, and more or less I told him some stuff I've been contemplating on the road and forcing willing people to read in this blog but these things go through my mind from even that simple question.

As another funny note, I've had headphones in since I got to this Starbucks, quite awhile ago. I just realized I never turned music on, and the music I've been listening to is the Starbucks music in the background. I agree more and more with my moms thought on me sharing some qualities with Katherine Hegel in the movie Killers. How did the station DooWoop get on my Pandora, what the heck is DooWoop. Deny.

That's all I got for now. As Gavin Degraw says- "You have to follow through." Granted, he's talking about feelings for someone, and giving your heart to someone, but it is true that in all other cirumstances in life we have to follow through. Words without action are pointless.Print on a paper. So I go with Gavin, my buddy and pal, we have to follow through.