some things never change.

My love for The Killers being one of them.

Here are all The Killers' Christmas songs in one place. Thank you!!!! 

free download

I made this pretty photo into a phone background for the holidays. 

Feel free to save it and/or share it!

(simply save the above image to your phone's camera roll and you're good to go!)

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

This week I totally blew through this book called Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. 

It. Was. Awesome. I think it's my favorite book of the year and it was probably the most interesting love-story-but-not-a-love-story I've ever read. It was so surprising and thrilling and heartbreaking and I wanted to scream a couple times! If Christopher Nolan reads this he is going to be all up on the movie version. 

Being VERY vague and not giving anything away, it's basically about the impact of our choices. The main character, Jason is abducted by a masked person and wakes up in a completely new life. He is still Jason, but everything around him is different. Does he like his new life? How does he get back to his old one?

I read it at a really appropriate time, as Shae and I are making decisions about where to go for dental school and all that, and really wanting to make the right decision because we know whatever side of the fork in the road we take will have a lasting impact. It's kind of exciting and kind of terrifying, and I just think this book has some interesting morals about decisions and what actually matters most.

Plus it's also such a crazy mind trip and it totally sucked me in. 

FIVE OUT OF FIVE STARS. READ IT.

gratitude

I went to World Market on my lunch break the other day. I love that store, and it's too far away from my house to justify going there. But now I work minutes away! While I was there I was looking through greeting cards, and I saw one with a quote from Charles Baudelaire on the front that said, 

"A multitude of small delights constitutes happiness."

I've posted a similar quote on this blog before, and I'm working really hard to internalize it. It's the small things. It's noticing. It's being grateful for tender mercies. It's about not comparing your bloopers to someone else's highlight reel. It's remembering that I'm infinitely harder on myself than God is. Every day is a mixture of sadness, anxiety, doubt, tiredness, and small happy moments. We have to try and focus on the happy, and not apologize for our other daily feelings. 

One of my favorite movies is called About Time. It's about a time traveling Domnhall Gleeson and it's so delightful. Something he talks about in the movie is that he lives every day as normal, and then he travels back in time and lives the same day all over again, but without the worries of the day because this time he knows the outcomes of every situation. He lives it again and enjoys the small delights that he didn't notice the first time because they were shadowed by worry and uncertainty.

It teaches kind of a deep principle, and it's my goal this November to time travel, in a way. To recognize that it's normal to have worries about the future, both short and long term, but to trust in an infinite God who knows the outcome, and who sent His Son to comfort me and reassure me that everything is going to be made right, and to be give more energy to the small joys.

So here's what I'm thankful for today: That cute neon "entrance" sign. Jacques Henri Lartigue photographs. Sparkling lemonade. The rainy day smell. Dark chocolate. The sound After Effects makes when it's done rendering a project. When a Killers song comes on the radio during my commute. When you accidentally press the button on your phone while talking and Siri grossly mishears what you said and you and your husband break into fits of giggles. Finding an important quote on a greeting card at World Market.