free flow thoughts

so, as jason described in yesterdays post, thursday we left redding, california and our lovely new friends there to head up to portland, OR. it was sad to leave, but the drive up was incredible! northern california and southern oregon are full of beautiful mountains, forests, and rivers. it never ceases to amaze me how beautiful nature is and how different each place looks from the one before. i even got to choose the music so we were listening to a lot of chill music that i havent been able to listen to while driving (because it usually puts everyone to sleep because we have in the past had a tendency to not leave till like 5pm) so we listened to some alexi murdoch, brooke waggoner, fleet foxes, fiction family, sigur ros, and coldplay. i love music and i feel like driving music should fit the location and my mood, you know like a soundtrack..... and i just felt like those artists were so right at that moment. anyways.... heres N. Cali....

...... and here we're driving into S. Oregon.... ..... and here we enter into Portland, OR.... where it rains 9 months of the year and is known for its coffee shops, breweries, and hippies..... we are staying with our good friend meggie. her sister owns her own coffee shop in town, her mom is the pastry chef, and meggie is working as a barista there over the summer... i think its so cool that it is a sort of family run business. and its a really lovely little coffee shop.... very comfortable and open and has lots of natural lighting through the big front windows, its really family friendly - they even have a play room for kids! and the food was excellent! i had a dirty chai latte and a piece of pumpkin loaf and it was sooo good. i really really like coffee shops :) we hung out there for a good while, talking with meggie and friends and just enjoying spending time together we went geocaching next and just wondered around and also got to talk with some different people and hear their thoughts on love. i'm getting so excited about our show and being able to share all of these really wonderful thoughts on love that people have relayed to us! people are so inspiring and encouraging.... i feel like often we individually are too hard on ourselves and feel as though we have nothing to offer or maybe because we aren't experts on something we have no advice to add. Frequently when we've asked people what they think love is they shy up and say "ohh i don't know, i'm not the right person to ask," but they usually go ahead and right something down or tell us something while we're recording and i am always encouraged by what they have to say. I can't wait to share them! each new one expands my thoughts on love. at the end of this adventure i'll share mine... its gets longer every day.

I've been thinking a lot about the future and my purpose and my dreams the last couple days, and thinking about how love is the key to everything and how love should be the leading force behind all of my dreams....

i was reading a friends blog the other day and they had a quote up that said,

" don't ask what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive, then go and do that. because what the world needs is for people to come alive." - J. Eldridge

it really got me thinking about self confidence and identity. things that most people struggle with through adolescence and even as adults.... second guessing whats in our hearts. i saw this poster up on the side of a building today....

and i was just thinking about how when you're in love you're sort of living a dream.... you hearts alive and you're not worried about what other people think of it. and to live your dream (your destiny, your purpose, your passion) you have to live in love... in love with where you are, who you're with, what you're doing.... love drives out all fear of failure.

i'm not sure if any of that made sense.... i'm sitting here just typing off the top of my head and its 2:30 in the morning and we are getting up early and going to the market tomorrow..... sorry if that was all over the place! O_O anyways..... we headed into downtown portland just as the sun was hanging itself low in the sky making the shadows stretch far across the ground.... its my favorite time of day because the lighting is just amazing, everything is warm and the long shadows create a beautiful contrast. looking at the world at this time everything just seems more friendly and easy going. we found a park and played on the swings and the slide for a little bit :) and we walked and ended up at Powells Bookstore.... which is an amazing place. its so huge. i didn't make it any further than the paper sculpture and cooking sections :) meggie found a cool devotional book and a couple others, and em and jason spent some time in the childrens books section :) then we wandered the steets in search of some fooood and we ended up at pita pit.... it was really good. i love how fresh everything is. i do not know why we don't have these in sarasota...

Our portland project is comprised of these disposable camera that we are leaving at meggie's sisters coffee shop, Posies Cafe..... they will be sitting on the counter along with our business cards with the instructions:

-take a camera

-take a picture of yourself

-take a picture of something/somewhere/someone that you love

-return to Posies Cafe we figured if this sort of thing would work anywhere... portland would be the place :)

its been really really lovely to spend time with meggie and explore portland.... and do you know, it didn't even rain today.... i guess we brought a little bit of the california sunshine with us :)

tomorrow: Tacoma, Washington

until then, good night and good sleep :)

ginger