MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

I love being home. When you leave the country for a period of time and land back on American soil, there is a feeling you get that I can't really describe; it's like love and pride all mixed into one. When my friend lived in the Ukraine for a few months, I remember her telling me that as she went through Customs once arriving in the Chicago airport, they stamped her passport and said welcome home. It made her cry. And I know this may sound funny, but I honestly felt the same way.

However, I've got to be honest... after watching this video earlier this morning I felt like packing my bags again. This makes me want to travel and travel and travel and only come home after I've seen all there is to see,
(watch the videos eat and learn, too - both so inspiring!)
But school starts in a few weeks, work resumes on Monday, and I have a lot of friends with a lot of catching up to do.

So I guess this will have to fall into the category of: One day.

devonport.

I think I could live here.

The charming coffee house, Auckland city by ferry, Viva la Vintage, the oldest movie theater on the island, and every amazing restaurant lining the most darling Main Street that you could ever imagine... (including a Greek bistro where you can dance and smash plates!)

I've picked out my house already.

kelsie christensen (insert last name later)

Like every other seventh grader who watched the movie A Walk To Remember at age 12, I immediately began a quote journal. If I ever fell victim to leukemia, my Shane West look-a-like boyfriend would surely need to be able to read me love quotes near my hospital bedside, and I would be prepared.

(I'm pretty sure the first quote I wrote down in my seventh grade quote book would have been something like: "Find who you are, and do it on purpose," - Dolly Parton)

Needless to say, I have read thousands of love quotes since that time; some kind-of awful, some I absolutely adore, but it's funny how most quotes I find nowadays that relate the most to love are all under the category of friendship.

When I was young, I wanted to marry Chris Trousdale from the boy band Dream Street, because naturally, he could sing and dance, and one day, I was going to be famous, too. When I was even younger, I pretended that I was going to marry an imaginary boy named David, and he looked like my dad, had glasses like my dad, and had a job like my dad (and we had five to seven children and a maid just like Alice on the Brady Bunch).

But then I grew up and a lot of those things changed. For starters, I didn't know his name or what he'd want to be. I didn't know when or where we'd meet - if it would be fireworks, or a lot of late night phone calls that would eventually turn into something more. The only thing I guess I already know is that he'll be my best friend - before he's famous, before he wears glasses, (and before he's a lot like my dad, which is okay, because I ended up a lot like him anyway.)

And the reason I'm talking about all of this mush is because I wanted to share my latest, favorite love quote. I first read this a few months ago, and have shared it with nearly every friend/foe I have (just kidding about the foes) - and I think this perfectly sums up what friendship truly is, what love has/will be like, and what I plan on sharing with whoever I'm going to have forever with one day too:


Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away.
-Dinah Craik

--

photo of my craft corner and the latest version of my marriage book (which has no dolly parton quotes ... yet)

to-do list.

When I am finished with spring semester, I will live on my bicycle and in cafe west.
When I graduate, I will never, ever live in Utah County again. And I will avoid University Avenue and Parkway like the plague.
When I get married, my husband and I are going to join a bowling league.*
And when I take Megyn Kelly's job on Fox News, I will spend a week every summer vacationing here, here and here.

Daydreaming is what happens when you work afternoons and it's sunny outside.

--

*We'll nickname our bowling balls and wear sweet matching bowling shoes, too.

*I discussed these specific details over dinner last night with already married friends planning on joining my league.

And yes, I drew that picture for all of you.

a little bit of my bucket list.

I started compiling a list of things I wanted to do before I die my freshman year of high school,
(which is why at age 15 I included "go clubbing" and "wear leg warmers"... really kelsie?)
Since then, however, the list has grown to over 14 pages long, and thankfully, it's a little bit more ambitious as well.

And just a few months ago, I came across the following quote:

It takes just as long to be great as it does to be mediocre.

I don't know who said it, and I don't know where I read it, but I swear that it was as inspiring as meeting Mahatma Gandhi or Diane Sawyer. Like fireworks exploded.
(and okay, maybe that's pushing it...) but reading that made me realize that it takes just as much time to actually do something, as it does to not do something... if that makes sense.

I initially thought a lot about this ongoing bucket list of mine when I read the quote above, and I started to think a lot about what I really wanted to do as well. And as much as I'd love to drive the Autobahn or own a pet monkey (again, think: age 15) - I narrowed in on some of the things that were 1. financially possible and 2. actually feasible.

And just so you know, running has equaled death in my book for most of my life. But just like the rest of the world, that didn't mean I didn't include "run a marathon" on my own to do before I die list.

So after a combination of the quote above, a new pair of running shoes, a whopping $80 dollar registration fee, (and after several months of training so far), I just registered for my first-ever marathon in St.G this upcoming October. And I can hardly contain my excitement.

In fact, I'd even go as far as to say...
that this has all been more exciting (and rewarding) than wearing leg warmers, owning a pet monkey, and eating a whole bag of marshmallows (yes, that's #23 on the list) ... alllll combined.

ambiguity.

One by one the petals drop
There's nothing that can make them stop.
You cannot beg a rose to stay.
Why does it have to be that way?

The butterflies I used to chase
Have gone off to some other place.
I don't know where. I only know
I wish they didn't have to go.

And all the shiny afternoons
So full of birds and big balloons
And ice cream melting in the sun
Are done.I do not want them done.
-Judith Viorst
I consider myself having some sort of a mix between a Peter Pan Complex and a Martha Stewart Syndrome (I kind of invented that last one).
I sometimes hate the idea of change, or at least the change that I wasn't planning on.
And sometimes I decide (a little too early on) how my life should and shouldn't turn out, and that basically boils down to me being tremendously idealistic.

We should be friends forever because that's what it's like in the movies.
I need to marry him (yes him!) because we fell in love when I was only 17.
I have to graduate with this degree, because, after all, my blonde hair makes me look the part.

And fortunately or unfortunately, depending on the day, I'm realizing more and more and more that life does not go according to plan --
And it's not as if I was ever naive enough to think that it did necessarily, but in my mind there was one road map to my life, and the detours and back roads were only a little part of the picture. Everything else would still inevitably fall into place of course, just like I had planned.
But I've been proven wrong.

Admittedly, it was a little hard for me to swallow at first, but for whatever reason over the last little while I've not only come to terms with it, but have sort of grown fond of the idea that I really have no idea where I'm going to end up.

So the Martha Stewart Syndrome is kind of fading, my desire to never grow old is being replaced by some of my other hopes and dreams --
But one thing that isn't changing (and maybe I kind of hope it never does)
is the fact that I remain tremendously idealistic.
Tomorrow always looks better that way.

wedding dresses.

as long as i can jump on the bed in my wedding dress,
any wedding dress will do.


*first two photos vera wang
third photo via

chasing summer.

"The Endless Summer" was a documentary that came out in 1966,
which follows two young surfers who basically "chase summer"
around the world for an entire year.

When I first heard about this movie, I was sitting in a diner in California and decided that instead of making my trip back home to Utah, I would instead, forget finals and chase summer.
(common sense usually gets the best of me though,
and the end of this story is: I ended up driving back home to Utah)

I forgot about this movie until the other day,
and now that my summer is really coming to an end,
I've decided that,
(at least when money and school don't get in the way)
I will be chasing summer one day.

Until then, my never-ending
summertime soundtrack will have to do.