Inspiration in Ithaca

I really am growing to adore Ithaca. It's funky blend of metropolitan and rural, chic and dirty hippy, small town and big culture is quite appealing to me. I love the citywide emphasis on recycling and repurposing, and it fits in altogether too well with my seriously low budget lifestyle.

    I never thought I would say that it is a blessing to make so little money but in this instance it is. Even though my apartment and all of my utilities are paid for I still make so little that I qualify for foodstamps and that is a major blessing because regardless of my living situation my school loans still snag more than half my monthly salary as fast as I can earn it. So because my food is free as long as I eat at home, I have spawned a new love for cooking. I have always loved to bake but now the kitchen is my new hobby (as well as my new employer, the Kitchen Theatre :D). My roommates have no objections, seeing as I frequently get home before they get out of rehearsals they get to come home at least once or twice a week to dinner on the table, and I get to try my hand at whatever Pinterest recipes catch my eye. Cooking can easily be an expensive hobby, so I am feeling quite spoiled.

   I have also been diving into the free and bargain bins whenever I get a chance. One of my favorite new stores, Funky Junk, has a great trunk full of free "junk" which consists of small things they have picked up at estate sales that they know they can't move as regular merchandise in the store. I am more than happy to regularly take an arm load off of their hands and see what can become of it. Last weekend it resulted in this adorable skirt made from old curtains and some curtain ties replaced the sleeves on this adorable vintage blouse that I rescued from our artistic directors garage.

I have three or so other projects in the works and no sewing machine so LOTS of hand stitching being done around here! 

   The weather here has already changed, there is real fall here! The leaves are changing on the trees and it feels like I always imagined autumn would. It is really fueling my desire to heat up the oven and sit in our comfiest chair with a cup of tea and my needle and thread! Here is a glimpse of the trees from my apartment window, isn't it just so picturesque?

Living Vicariously

   Recently as I have been going on my many adventures, moving from this place to that, meeting new people, experiencing new things people have been asking me to keep them updated on my life through facebook, skype (aishinjumegan), instagram and this blog (which I update on occasion...) My family says to me, "Take more pictures, I want to feel like I am there!" And this has me thinking about living vicariously through another person.
   In the past, I have watched other people's facebook statuses and such and thought, 'Ugh, you are so lucky to get to (fill in blank with awesome activity here)." But recently, I haven't been felling that way. It's not that my friends aren't doing incredible things, they are -so many of them are jet setting around the world, working at their dream jobs, getting married, having kids, and living life abundantly. So, it's not that my friends are living hum drum lives, it is that I am finally really living mine. I have found that I can live vicariously through them without being sad about my own circumstances because I have finally stepped out. I no longer feel like Rapunzel wondering when my life will begin, I am living it and now when I look at my friends pictures and hear about what they are doing it is not a source of bitterness for me, but a source of joy. I can thank God that I am on my way down the path towards the extraordinary career that I have been created for and rejoice for my friends who are following their dreams.
   In my time of waiting for the next step in life I couldn't see how I could ever get to a place where I wasn't resentful of where I was and how everyone else seemed to be beyond me. Obviously I had no clue what God had in store for me, but there will always be something that is just beyond the horizon, something to be waiting for. So right now I am blogging about this as a reminder to myself for the next time that I am in the darkness before the dawn, just because you don't get what you want right when you want it or think you need it doesn't mean you won't ever get it, it just may be that you aren't ready for it yet and there is a time when you will need it more.