9.14.2011

A little laugh


Seeing things like this make me not so scared to get old.

9.07.2011

It's 1:51

I can't make my packaging project to work.
The box won't stay together.
It just keeps busting apart.
And that, right now is the biggest of my worries.
So sad, isn't it.
Just a year ago I was trying to figure out how to cross cultural, sanitary, mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual boundaries.
All in the Spanish language.
Now all it is is school.
I guess I'm just going on with my life.
I've moved.
Forward.
Also across the country.
What I'm really trying to say is this:
I haven't read or written for Contemporary Art. I'm trying to put it off.

and././././././././

I

need

COFFEE.



















I also miss this little wonder.
And wonderful moments like this.

7.24.2011

Every year

Every year I get like this. Camp just takes me over and there is no time for me. There's really no time for anything - especially writing. My 'free' time is taken up with laundry and taking people to Walmart. It's been really different having a car. I'm usually the one who is mooching the rides. And now people are mooching off of me.
I love camp, though. Just being around kids all day every day makes me feel like those days really weren't so far away - which, in all actuality is the truth. But more than that, it allows me to put myself in their shoes. And it's been quite the journey down memory lane.
This past week with my Tweens I was trying to think of what I was thinking when I was their age.
Being with them reminded me of how weird of a kid I was.
And I loved it.
I know this was a totally boring blog, but bear with me. It's been a while since I've written.

P.s. Donate a chair! Search Facebook for Chairs for Church.

5.29.2011

New blog

I have a new blog.
+ In addition to this one. 
= Here it is

5.22.2011

A tough swim

I’ve now been home for a week and I still haven’t sat down and written my final refection on the year. I think I’ve been scared to. I felt like if I wrote out my final reflection. The last blog. The last journal entry. It would be over. It would be over for real. And I don’t want it to be. My year in Peru was the best thing that has ever happened to me. I don’t want to move on - not just yet.
Life back in the States is different. But actually I think it’s just different to me. For everyone else it’s exactly the same. I’m the one that’s different. I’m the one who’s changed. And I feel like an outsider in my own land. I hear people talking about movies and cell phones and facebook and new apps and...I can’t take it. I’m back in the rat race and I feel like I’m swimming upstream. It's hard to get a breath of fresh air. 
I am thankful to live in America. God has blessed my family beyond measure and I am grateful. But now that I have seen, and touched, and breathed, and lived in another world - I just want to go back. I want to do more. Since I’ve been back, this verse has been really bugging me. Luke 12:48. “From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required...” I read that verse with new light now because I have seen the need and because I know that God has blessed me with so much. There's just so much to be done.
I can’t just sit here and do nothing. But I'm scared that I will. I'm scared that this fire is going to go out. But I pray with everything in me that it doesn't. Especially when the time is so close. God is going to come. And it’s going to be soon - I just know it. He is going to ask EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US what we have done with the time and talents and blessings He has given us. And what are we going to answer? What am I going to tell the King of the World who gave EVERYTHING for me? What is He going to see when He looks into our lives? When He looks at Hanna Melara? A life filled with love and sacrifice? Or one filled with self?
I'm scared.
Because the battle against self is the hardest one to fight.

And win.

5.20.2011

Soup 14!

Today my mom sent my sister Allison and I to Costco.

The list:

- strawberries
- blueberries
- blackberries
- iced tea
- tomatoes
- fish

Not a lot of stuff, no problemo. We get into Costco, I'm freezing my butt off from the air conditioning in that place. I guess after not feeling any sort of moving air besides the wind from a moving car or motorcycle for 9 months everything feels like ice hitting my body. I hate going in that one room, the one that has all the vegetables and is way too cold, so I make Allison go in and get the berries. She can't find the strawberries so I go in after her in a full run. The strawberries aren't in there. They were right in front of our faces outside of Antarctica. We switch all the tomatoes in the box to get all the prettiest ones and I snatch up a lemon cheesecake sample while Allison pushes the cart. She doesn't know where anything is so we end up in the toilet paper and cleaning supplies aisle looking for the tea. I take over navigating and we get the drinks and now all that's left is the fish. My mom wanted halibut which is the only fish, I have learned, that Costco doesn't carry. So we got some other kind of fish. Talapia. We stand in line to get checked out, a little nervous because we know the rule and we're breaking it. The rule that says that you have to have a Costco membership to shop there. And that the cardholder him/herself has to be present at the time of purchase. Yadda yadda yadda. Well clearly neither Allison or I are my mother so we get the look and the question when we present the card to the cashier.

"Where is Linda Melara?"

"Umm, not here. She's home sick."

"Sooooooooo, she's not here?"

"Correct. Not present. At home. Sick. We're the kids."

"Yes, I understand. But she's not here. We can't allow you to purchase these things if you are not her."

The next thing she did made me bust up laughing. Well, for one, she acts like we're committing the unpardonable sin. But then she started shouting SOUP 14! SOUP 14!

What?!

Your code for breaking the law is SOUP?! Bahhhhhhhh.

The person who was supposed to respond to the Soup 14 code was half deaf or something so the cashier just started shouting louder and with more frequency. Which made it even funnier us. Soup 14 guy eventually came over, everyone was looking at us, and then he repeated exactly what the other lady had said. Yeah, I understand. I'm not supposed to buy the food without being Linda Melara. He let us go through, making sure that we knew that this was just a one time thing. Thank you, Mr. Soup 14.

I stacked the food a little too precariously in the back seat of the minivan (oh yeah, we ride in style) and took a corner a little too sharp. The tomatoes and berries took a tumble. When I opened the door of the van the tomatoes fell onto the garage floor. Allison just laughed at me like she always does.

5.15.2011

In 10 hours

I'm leaving on a jet plane. And I really don't know when I'll be back again.

I don't know how to feel about this.