A New Week, A New Story.

Honestly, today, I am overwhelmed. I am searching for my peace in Christ, which I did a pretty great job maintaing in the days prior to last night. I'm trying to push back all the negative thoughts and emotions, but it's also resulted in my pushing back all of the yucky work I have to do too. Everything feels so fuzzy in my mind. Opaque and uncertain. I am trying to rush through everything with the mentality that I'm taking it slow and being still. I'm overanalyzing everything to the point where I'm not sure what I think anymore. I'm letting things get to me, plaque up my heart and weigh down my soul. I can feel myself becoming heavier and heavier and addition to all the mental and physical clutter I lag around, I feel like I'm dragging myself as well.

 I feel like I just need to breathe.

And getting away for a bit would be nice too. I honestly cannot wait until Campus Harvest because a life transformation is something I need. I want to feel renewed, like I have a fresh start, a clear mind, soul, and conscious. I AM READY!!! Until then, I am going to just work on building up my spiritual warrior on the inside of me and appreciate each day for the magnificence it is in God's glory. I'd been doing really well about not sweating the small stuff... which is just about everything in this life. So I don't intend to let it keep me down now! I need to return to Psalm 46:10 and really meditate in the word this week, and I shall! Lent starts on Wednesday and I feel like this year it's vital that I choose something really big to give up. I want to fast from something that has a stronghold over me, so that I am really broken down and made and kept vulnerable and weak so that I keep my concentration affixed on God and can really listen to what He is saying to me.

In church we are covering a series on faith, which is perfect for me right now, to be honest. My mom just bought me a beautiful new journal, which I am going to make the conscious effort to write in daily because I feel like things are so much clearer to me when they are written down. Verbal words are not my forte.

Despite everything running ramped in my mind, this weekend really was wonderful. It started off with me eating at a new Mediterranean restaurant on campus called Grip, with a cute little lady named  Rebecca who I truly admire! She has such a sense of respect for herself and her happiness, which really is something to be fascinated by.

 Then, that afternoon, Victoria and I went to the Botanical Gardens to take some "not so surprise" photos of one of my first friends at college, Elizabeth, and her boyfriend Jay! She had planned a cute surprise shoot for their 1 year anniversary, but he caught on a little quicker than we'd hoped!  Regardless, we had so much fun with these two!

I'm so blessed to have such a sweet, funny, and playful business partner and best friend. And though it may seem like all we do is goof around... we did get a few good shots of the sweet, sweet couple in there too ;)

Afterwards, we met up with some amazing friends at my new favorite place: Brewed. It's this awesome coffee shop/ brewery with mouth watering sweet potato fries - and let me tell ya, I've had my fair share of sweet potato fries.

Mirror pic in a bathroom taken by two photographers. Can I get a triple whammy?! But then you see how beautiful the mirror and bathroom are and how magical this place is and you can't help but forgive us and love us again, right?!

It was such a fun time with Mandeep and Naureen, two beautiful people who I rarely get to see. Mandeep is basically the next President and filled us in on his encounter with Jay-Z --- seriously, the fist bumped and Naureen told us all about-- well a lot of things. Naureen is like me hahaha we tend to talk, a lot. We enjoyed our conversation over featured delicious Korean BBQ sliders, Gourmet Mac & Cheese, Vegetable Soup (Victoria said yay, Naureen said Nay) and my amazing sweet potato fries (Mandeep got the regular fries, which weren't bad but seriously, common! SWEET POTATO FOR THE WIN!) We also had this delicious Leprechaun apple cider wine, that actually makes me think there's hope for me to one day leisurely enjoy the beverage. And last but not least, we might have met the coolest person on the face of the earth. He was our waiter and I have no clue what his name was and I, regretfully, didn't snag a photo with him of his incredible tattoo. Like seriously, my new favorite person. LEMME TELL YA WHY:

He had this beautiful tattoo of three apertures on his left arm. Unknowingly, I asked if he was a photographer. He responded with an obvious yes, haha, but my curiosity only stemmed from there. One of the apertures was red, while the other two appeared to be black in the dim lit venue (I later on found that one was purple). He explained to me that the three apertures represented the Holy Trinity. The first, the red, stood for the blood of Christ. The middle one was purple, standing for loyalty. And the last one was wide and black, representing how he needed to keep his focus on God, allowing everything else in the background to be blurred out. This was the general gist of what he told us. There was definitely more in depth things he said, but I can't remember it all. All I know is that's now officially the most beautiful, meaningful tattoo I've ever seen. LOVE. 

[ imagine picture of me and sweet souled waiter with beautiful, inspiring tattoo here ]

 On Saturday, Victoria and I had to take a few group photos in the morning in Dallas. It was freezing, so afterwards we went to get something hot for our bellies!

We found ourselves nestled into Opening Bell Coffee, with two warm mugs of frothy, Vanilla Chai Tea! It was definitely a nice little place to step back and relax on a foggy, chilly day.

Later on that day, I got to spend some time with my mommy which included a few of my favorite things: hot tea (courtesy of Beep, also known as Rebecca mentioned earlier), McDonald's apple pie, and gold foiled cards! <3

Here's to an awesome week. I hope all of you have one too! <3