Summer Is Coming

I love summer.
But even more than I love summer, I desperately love Calvin and Hobbes.
I highly recommend that you read this lovely comic.
It is life changing.
It is good to be back.

To Write Love On Her Arms

Hi again!

Tonight I’d like to share with you another charity related tidbit; my personal favorite nonprofit, actually. To Write Love On Her Arms is its name, and it is dedicated to finding help and providing support for those who are suffering from depression, suicidal thoughts, self harm, and addiction. While these things may be rather foreign to some people, they are definitely very real and not very foreign to me. I have known many, many people and had many friends go through at least one- if not more- of the things To Write Love On Her Arms (abbreviated TWLOHA) fights against. Because it has affected me the most personally, it is probably the charity that I am most passionate about. But more about that later.

I would sit here and try to tell you all about what TWLOHA is about, but I would like them to tell you their vision in their own beautiful written words: http://www.twloha.com/vision/. I plead you visit that site and at least give it a look over.

I’ve known about them for a while, and I can’t even quite remember how I came to first hear about TWLOHA. I think it was either through one of their shirts that I saw someone wearing, or possibly from seeing others participate in To Write Love On Her Arms day, which is a fan created day in which everyone writes love on their arms for a day in support of the charity. However so, it has become a part of my life that I can’t help but brag about. Not only does the group have their own day, but they also have their own conferences, called MOVE conferences, in which anyone can attend to learn about their vision, how to help themselves, and how to help others. I can only imagine that To Write Love On Her Arms has saved hundreds of lives through these, and also the stands that they keep open at various concerts throughout the year by sponsoring bands.

To Write Love On Her Arms also has a fancorp community, a street team that they wouldn’t be able to do much without. This street team is there to not only support TWLOHA , promote it, and gain new supporters, but also to help complete TWLOHA’s vision by completing outreach projects. The street team can give support by doing everything from sharing TWLOHA on various social networking sites to wearing a TWLOHA shirt while volunteering somewhere. The team also gives support to the community in little ways: one of the orders that I have done recently involved writing something encouraging on a post it note and leaving it in a public place. Whatever the thing is, big or small, the biggest reward comes in the form of the feeling that you are helping others, and maybe even actually helping someone out by volunteering or referring them to the organization. They also hand out reward points which you can spend to get merchandise from their store, but nothing compares to how awesome it is to support the charity.

I would suggest you at least check their main page out, and if you’re interested, just keep exploring the site to find out more. If you’re really into it then I definitely suggest you join the street team and become active. Whatever you do, I’d also like you to share your personal favorite charities with me below. I’d be really interested to see what everyone is passionate about.

Until next time,

Sarah.

What's Going On.

Hello all.

I honestly don’t have much to say today, just a few little tidbits about what I’ve been doing and what I’m going to be doing.

Over the weekend I went camping at a place up near Erie in Pennsylvania called Camp Judson. I’m always a fan of getaways, but Judson is a pretty special place. We had a small group of people with us, twenty or so, and it may be the first group of people I’ve ever been camping with where we all got along the whole time, which was pretty miraculous. Usually someone gets mad at each other when I go camping with lots of people. It was probably one of the most relaxing atmospheres I’ve been in in a really long time. It was so natural to be with the people there that it was like being around family. So, yeah. They were basically one of my many mini families. Which are very nice to have. It’s wonderful to be able to go somewhere else away from those who actually share your blood and have such a strong bond that’s unique in a way that your bond with other friends isn’t. I hope someone understands what I’m saying. It’s really fantastic actually. I love my families.

On other notes, there are a couple of things that I am going to be starting. The first is that I’m going to attempt to make a violin cover of Echelon by 30 Seconds to Mars (which my friend helped me in deciding, thank you), but it might take a while. Hopefully not too long, though. I’m somewhat of a perfectionist when it comes to these things so I won’t let it be anything but so, and that can take me a while. But I hope it comes out wonderful whenever I’m done with it. The second is that I have decided to learn to juggle, as to knock off one of my bucket list items that I can actually do during the winter. I will be documenting my struggle to juggle on here, so stay tuned. Hopefully that one doesn’t take me too long to learn either, but knowing my excellent coordination skills it could take a while.

That’s really all I have for you for now. I hope you’re having a great time living life.

Ti amo,

Sarah.

A First Week's End

Hello all.

I’ve decided that the end of the week will just be a time for updating how things are going, letting everyone know what the plans for the future are, and probably sharing something cool depending on whether or not I have something cool to share. This particular week I will be doing all three, so everyone should be excited and show me their excitement.

First and foremost, I’ve got a little tale to tell. My “new year resolution” (it is put in quotation marks because I don’t exactly believe in making new year resolutions) this year was to start running every morning before school again, like I had been doing for the first couple months of the year. I would’ve continued my (very) early morning physical routine had it not been for an unfortunate event that sort of, quite literally, stopped me in my tracks.

Back then in the fall before Pennsylvania gets cold I would run outside on the streets around my house. The problem with this is that it was very, very dark, as I would usually run before six in the morning. Not only am I rather terrified of the dark (a little fact I forgot about when I started, but it didn’t stop me) but it being so pitch black outside made it rather difficult to see. One morning I decided I was going to lengthen my running time, so I took a different, longer path. As I was running on the side of the road, little did I know this new path had a drainage ditch about my height that went straight down right smack in the middle of it. Needless to say, one minute I was running and minding my own business, the next I was staring into a drainage pipe and wondering where the heck I was and why I was sitting in a puddle of water.

Woops.

Needless to say my new found fear of big holes sort of stopped me for a while, but I am fully intentional on starting to run again in the morning, though this time at a local gym. Hopefully no magical holes appear on the treadmill or I might give up running forever.

On a lighter note, the cool thing I would like to share with you this week happens to be one of my favorite websites of all time. It is called www.wanelo.com, and I think you should all go check it out because it is worth every second that you spend browsing it. It is a shopping site, but not exactly an average one. Instead of selling their own products, wanelo has its users post whatever they like that they’ve found on the internet, and every other user and the public can browse through. It’s sort of like polyvore or pinterest, I’d suppose, though I find wanelo’s set up much easier to use and navigate. Plus, most of the items are there are quirky and unusual, things you really wouldn’t find on any other site. I would recommend it to anybody, as they have everything from clothing to cooking utensils and books to furniture, but it is especially directed towards those with a flair for indie style.

Check it out, it’s pretty sweet.

Before I wrap up, I’d like to tell you one thing that’s on the bucket list that is going to take me all year to do. I saw it on a blog somewhere, though the name of said blog is now lost to me. From now on in my end of the week post, I’m going to be posting the phrase “I love you” in a different language. I think it’d be fun to learn to say such a common and wonderful phrase in 52 different languages; one for every week of the year. So this week, we’ll keep it simple and just start with plain old English.

I love you guys.

Have a great next week, and fill it with adventures beyond your imagination.

Sarah.