downtown colorado springs
About 5 minutes ago, I sat down on my big bed with a cup of green mango tea to write this post and my phone started blowing up from one of those annoying group chats. I had every intention of ignoring it, but I looked anyways- in case it was important. One of the other FOTF interns had posted on our GroupMe chat: “YALL (she’s from the south) if you have not seen the sunset go outside right now”… In the back of my mind I think “ok, these people have never seen a northern NY country sunset so of course they think whatever is goin on out there is epic”, but since I have a big window in my room I looked out. I will tell you, I had no words. I ran downstairs and out the door with my phone to take pictures of that thing. Its a good thing my host family was busy putting their 3-year-old to bed or they would have thought I had never seen a sunset before. I honestly haven’t seen anything like that though, the sun setting behind Pikes Peak, filling the sky with a million different colors. The landscape artist in me was #blessed.
Anyways, today was day no. 4 on the job. It’s a new sort of feeling- strutting in to my cubicle at 8am, wearing 6 inch heals, checking my emails for meetings and carrying a little notepad and pen around with me all day. The first couple days I felt like someone was shoving a firehose down my throat with the information overload I was getting, but they didn’t drown me completely because I’ve continued to come back for more. Its such a good feeling to be working in marketing for a company with Christian values. The frugal and slightly minimalist person that I am takes huge issue in the marketing industry sometimes- like, why would I want to convince someone that they need something that they really don’t?…but promoting FOTF is great because the stuff I am trying to sell is making people’s lives better and it makes me feel like I am helping people in a small way.
One thing I have been thinking about lately though, is how hard it is to feel satisfied with my time usage at the end of the day. (And this is a good spot to make note that I am super tired currently so this blog post will probs be shortish… we shall see). Its like I work 8am-5pm and I have a few hours to myself then I go to bed and repeat it all. Those few hours have consisted lately of working out, eating, doing photography work, playing with Ellie..etc. None of which are bad things, its just… I’m in COLORADO! I have a desire to get out there and do stuff and make the most of my time here. Its just, I’m such an introvert (no shame- I am perfectly content with being alone) and it really is exhausting working these hours and doing more. (I’ve seriously gained a new respect for all ya’ll who work these kinds of jobs and have little kids like Ellie. If thats not love, I don’t know what is).
Now this is not a rant I promise, it is going somewhere… So I really love stories- most people do. And one of my favorite authors, (who I will reference once again- he wrote “Blue Like Jazz”) Donald Miller also really really loves stories. In his book “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years”, he talked a lot about the difference between thinking or dreaming about and reading stories verses living a story. He realized that he spent more time living in other peoples “stories”- aka reading about their adventures and accomplishments, that when he tried to think about his current story, he didn’t have much to share. There is a lot more to that book than I just wrote, but you can read it for yourself if you want the rest. The point here is that God calls us to be part of a story, and he has doors wide open for us to walk through if we just take a few steps. We just need to live in the moment and own our own story.
So here I am in CO for the summer. I’ve already made a ton of great memories, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve decided to make a great story out of it. Sure, I’ll be tired and I’ll want my introverted alone time, but sitting in my room drinking coffee and editing pictures isn’t going to make me great memories, and God probably won’t work through me if I’m doing that sort of stuff (I suppose we’re not supposed to put limits on God though). The stories that last will be those of hiking adventures, walking around downtown with people, and great conversations at local coffee shops (like fifty fifty) with friends. Like last night, the intern group was planning on going to a local Mexican place for food, but when we got there, they didn’t have space to seat 20ish people for another hour at least… so one of the interns found a sports bar and called ahead to make sure they had seating- which they did. On the way there I googled the place and discovered that it had a 2.5 star rating…. not the greatest, but its fine. The restaurant/ bar was super small, nestled right next to a pot shop in a sketchy plaza and the inside was complete with the smell of beer and cigarettes. Honestly though, I loved it. The waitress was super great- she told us that we were the largest group we’d ever had and the chef was so overwhelmed by how long it was going to take him to cook all the food that he was currently out having a smoke. Later, the chef hand-delivered my salad because he had been so careful with gluten cross-contamination. And my friends, well, we haven’t even known each other a week and we’ve bonded so well. Our conversations were both silly and serious. So even though I was tired when I got back home last night and still had stuff to do, I was totally ok with it. I had just made part of my story and lived the moment.
-Ella
And because I’m now all professional, here is a quote I currently really like:
“If you don’t build your own dreams, someone will hire you to help build theirs”
-Tony Gaskin
Anyways, today was day no. 4 on the job. It’s a new sort of feeling- strutting in to my cubicle at 8am, wearing 6 inch heals, checking my emails for meetings and carrying a little notepad and pen around with me all day. The first couple days I felt like someone was shoving a firehose down my throat with the information overload I was getting, but they didn’t drown me completely because I’ve continued to come back for more. Its such a good feeling to be working in marketing for a company with Christian values. The frugal and slightly minimalist person that I am takes huge issue in the marketing industry sometimes- like, why would I want to convince someone that they need something that they really don’t?…but promoting FOTF is great because the stuff I am trying to sell is making people’s lives better and it makes me feel like I am helping people in a small way.
One thing I have been thinking about lately though, is how hard it is to feel satisfied with my time usage at the end of the day. (And this is a good spot to make note that I am super tired currently so this blog post will probs be shortish… we shall see). Its like I work 8am-5pm and I have a few hours to myself then I go to bed and repeat it all. Those few hours have consisted lately of working out, eating, doing photography work, playing with Ellie..etc. None of which are bad things, its just… I’m in COLORADO! I have a desire to get out there and do stuff and make the most of my time here. Its just, I’m such an introvert (no shame- I am perfectly content with being alone) and it really is exhausting working these hours and doing more. (I’ve seriously gained a new respect for all ya’ll who work these kinds of jobs and have little kids like Ellie. If thats not love, I don’t know what is).
Now this is not a rant I promise, it is going somewhere… So I really love stories- most people do. And one of my favorite authors, (who I will reference once again- he wrote “Blue Like Jazz”) Donald Miller also really really loves stories. In his book “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years”, he talked a lot about the difference between thinking or dreaming about and reading stories verses living a story. He realized that he spent more time living in other peoples “stories”- aka reading about their adventures and accomplishments, that when he tried to think about his current story, he didn’t have much to share. There is a lot more to that book than I just wrote, but you can read it for yourself if you want the rest. The point here is that God calls us to be part of a story, and he has doors wide open for us to walk through if we just take a few steps. We just need to live in the moment and own our own story.
So here I am in CO for the summer. I’ve already made a ton of great memories, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve decided to make a great story out of it. Sure, I’ll be tired and I’ll want my introverted alone time, but sitting in my room drinking coffee and editing pictures isn’t going to make me great memories, and God probably won’t work through me if I’m doing that sort of stuff (I suppose we’re not supposed to put limits on God though). The stories that last will be those of hiking adventures, walking around downtown with people, and great conversations at local coffee shops (like fifty fifty) with friends. Like last night, the intern group was planning on going to a local Mexican place for food, but when we got there, they didn’t have space to seat 20ish people for another hour at least… so one of the interns found a sports bar and called ahead to make sure they had seating- which they did. On the way there I googled the place and discovered that it had a 2.5 star rating…. not the greatest, but its fine. The restaurant/ bar was super small, nestled right next to a pot shop in a sketchy plaza and the inside was complete with the smell of beer and cigarettes. Honestly though, I loved it. The waitress was super great- she told us that we were the largest group we’d ever had and the chef was so overwhelmed by how long it was going to take him to cook all the food that he was currently out having a smoke. Later, the chef hand-delivered my salad because he had been so careful with gluten cross-contamination. And my friends, well, we haven’t even known each other a week and we’ve bonded so well. Our conversations were both silly and serious. So even though I was tired when I got back home last night and still had stuff to do, I was totally ok with it. I had just made part of my story and lived the moment.
-Ella
And because I’m now all professional, here is a quote I currently really like:
“If you don’t build your own dreams, someone will hire you to help build theirs”
-Tony Gaskin
1) Fifty-Fifty coffee shop- local CO Springs coffee 2) view from my run today 3) sunset from the backyard.