10 Ridiculously Little Things That Make Me Smile

1. Watching an entire storm move through while out on the porch  
2. Drinking margaritas in the pool on a 100 degree day 
3. Finding the perfect antique picture frame for the perfect modern photo
4. Filling the house with jars of freshly-cut Queen Anne's Lace 
5. The pair of mini horses I pass on my way to work (borderline obsession here)
6. Hearing about my friend's absurd dates
7. The fat grounhogs (aka whistlepigs) who sneak into our yard and steal veggies
8. A super-clean kitchen with super organized spices 
9. A goofball guy who likes to get up and dance and sing early in the morning
10. Farm stands with warm peaches, alien heirloom tomatoes, bundles of dahlias, and yellow plums

How about you?

Ryn's Summer Mixtape

In summer, the song sings itself. 

-William Carlos Williams

Ryn's Summer Mixtape

Side A:

1. "You are a Tourist"- Death Cab for Cutie

2. "Rumble '69"- Link Wray

3. "Faded High"- GAYNGS

4. "Little Red Corvette"- Prince

5. "Summertime"- Dj Jazzy Jeff & Will Smith

Side B:

1. "Battle of Evermore"- Led Zeppelin

2. "Dangerous Weapon"- Storyhill

3. "My First Lover" - Gillian Welch

4. "Sunshower"-Chris Cornell

5. "If I Should Fall Behind"- E Street Band

What are your fave summer tunes?

Recently...

I am listening to this .  I am tasting this .  I am wearing this .  I am sweating to this .  I am amazed by this .  I am going to submit a photo to this .  I am growing these .  I am comforted by this .  I am in awe of this.  I am annoyed by this .  I am coveting this .  I am daydreaming of this .  I am feeling a little like this .  I am working on this .  I am hoping for this .  I am learning about this.  I am missing this.   
    .ryn
How about you? 

Leap

"We're alive all of a sudden, for sure now, yes, ready or not here we come. Stronger and weaker, bluer and blacker, happier and clearly more sad-we are being swept along toward the end of our lives and there is no point in looking back just yet. Ride. This is why: we are looking for something undeniable. (We really believe this stuff.) Somehow when we gather all of our stories together, (yours, hers, his, theirs, ours), it is a way of peering out of an upstairs room into the distance, the distance within, the distance without.
Leap.

God lets us make a mess in the kitchen, a friend once said. So make the first move. Our boat is leaky, but it's the right boat. (We're out on the lake now.) This gift is for us. You will be my diary. I will be your mason jar full of backyard flowers.""

-Linford Detweiler

"It seems to me that almost all our sadnesses are moments of tension, which we feel as paralysis because we no longer hear our astonished emotions living. Because we are alone with the unfamiliar presence that has entered us; because everything we trust and are used to is for a moment taken away from us; because we stand in the midst of a transition where we cannot remain standing. That is why the sadness passes: the new presence inside us, the presence that has been added, has entered our heart, has gone into its innermost chamber and is no longer even there, - is already in our bloodstream. And we don't know what it was. We could easily be made to believe that nothing happened, and yet we have changed, as a house that a guest has entered changes. We can't say who has come, perhaps we will never know, but many signs indicate that the future enters us in this way in order to be transformed in us, long before it happens. And that is why it is so important to be solitary and attentive when one is sad: because the seemingly uneventful and motionless moment when our future steps into us is so much closer to life than that other loud and accidental point of time when it happens to us as if from outside. The quieter we are, the more patient and open we are in our sadnesses, the more deeply and serenely the new presence can enter us, and the more we can make it our own, the more it becomes our fate." 
— Rainer Maria Rilke

Friday Video Inspiration

SHIFT v2 from mirari on Vimeo.

Memorial Day Snapshots