pay me in elephants and gratitude.

i am taking another break from the joys of textual analysis. i need to do something more creative to keep my brain from turning into mush from overuse :P

but, before the title confuses you too much, dear readers...

i drew an elephant in my gratitude journal. ta-da! and i've been meaning to post about my gratitude journal for like the past week. ooops.

isn't she cute? she's my elephant necklace, Walter's, wife!

anyways, i was proud of myself. but drawing her led me to drawing a giraffe, and then drawing a visual representation for every "i am grateful" statement in my journal. luckily, i haven't been using this one for long, otherwise that could have been an hours long affair.

"He was the visual equivalent of a Sunday morning..." - The Nature of Jade, by Deb Caletti

my elephant, my giraffe, and another Nature of Jade quote: "If is a beautiful word. If is the key to any locked door."

more recent entries, along with the doodles from today :3

THAT is my latest gratitude journal. i got it from my mom (who got it from our friends who i still need to make that baby blanket for... oops!) for my birthday, and have been writing at least five things i'm grateful for every day since.

i've had a gratitude journal off and on ever since i learned how to write. but i somehow manage to never keep one when i really need to - where i'm going through patches where i'm morbid and going through self-imposed solitary confinement and i'm brooding and refusing to communicate.

which is probably why i started this one when i did.

i knew as soon as i opened that present what this notebook would be. it has a picture of one of my favorite places in the world on my favorite day to be there - the winter solstice. and i always feel so much better and so -haha- grateful after i've been there. so it only makes sense that it would become my gratitude journal.

some days i will sit down with a cup of tea and some soft music and take my time, coming up with some deep things that i'm grateful for. that happens a lot when i've had a bad day and i actually have to think to come up with something to be grateful for. how sad is that? actually having to THINK to write something down that i'm grateful for. it should take me, like, thirty seconds to write fifteen things.

and sometimes it does. on the days where i'm happy-go-lucky and feeling good about life but want to go to bed as soon as i can, i can write five things i'm grateful for that day in the blink of an eye. sometimes they're petty, like "i'm grateful for caffeine" {well i AM!} and sometimes they're the deepest thought i have ever had. either way. little things like caffeine or someone calling me pretty or a friend reacting to something i tell them the way i want to can make my day, so why not write them down?

HappyRissa equation: coffee/tea=writing. writing=love. love=happyrissa. therefore, coffee/tea=happyrissa :P

please ignore the horrible manicure. i plan on fixing that asap.

one of my favorite books. i love jade. i love bo. i love the elephants. ILOVESEBASTIAN.

cartoon depiction of what kenzie told me she'd do if she wanted me to. aka kenzie kicking he-who-will-not-be-named's butt.

and some days, some days i'm so filled with gratitude and want to spill my heart out that i write ten, fifteen, twenty things down. those days are my favorite. those days mean i'm happy, not just content.

i always, always write it at the end of the day, though. it might not be right before i go to bed, but it's always the latest i can do it without forgetting it. you have to let the day happen to be grateful for the day you had. and i always write in ink. part of that is because i have a very strong dislike for pencil (i refuse to use traditional pencils. ever. REFUSE. only pencil you'll get me to use is eyeliner or mechanical.) and because the things you're grateful for don't get erased in real life, so why should they even have the possibility of being erased in a notebook? (that also applies to all of my writing. my god, i hate pencil SO MUCH!!!)

anyways, i'm thinking about challenging myself this week, starting with tonight. i'm going to go CRAZY with taking pictures every day, especially of things i'm thankful for. but just pictures in general, too. i need to get into the swing of taking the camera i share with mom with me more places, anyways. that way i get more than just pictures of myself and my woods.

and then i might be able to get my dad to get me a camera.

happy weekend! what are you thankful for?

felice venerdi

it has been a long week.
even with taking monday off (i.felt.like.hell.) i'm still exhausted and have been catching up on sleep (the woes of being a theatre nerd basically = sleep deprivation) all damn week. add in that we started a full lab in chemistry today and i have a paper due on monday on Their Eyes Were Watching God in pre-ap english and i had to quit nanowrimo yet again and i've not been the most pleasant person.

plus there are a couple of people i would LOVE to allow myself to lose my temper on and have wanted to all week but i can't. siiigh. 

i have come to the conclusion that most boys are assholes.

anyways, i'm hoping for a happier weekend... i'm going to write this entire paper (i have good ideas for it, i'm just writing this to destress before i start) by sunday so kenzie and i can proofread each others' papers before they're due in second period on monday and i'm going to do laundry and possibly do my nails. maybe even tidy up the chaos that my bedroom is in to help tidy up the chaos that is my mind. even if it means i can't go to my volunteering meeting tomorrow (*sob*).

and now for your weekly fill-in-the-blanks from lauren at the little things we do... 

* a nervous habit i have is biting things. writing utensils, my knuckles, the sleeve of my shirt... nothing really disgusting. for the most part it's my knuckles. i also tend to really over apply chapstick when i get anxious.

* something that makes me sad is ignorance and abuse and how petty and materialistic people are becoming with every generation.


* today i am thankful for a weekend and then a two-day school week and then another longer weekend. my cat. my mom. my best friends. cute guy friends who smell good and tell me i'm pretty when i haven't been having a good week, let alone a good day.


* my favorite room in my house is either my momma's bedroom (that's basically our family's living space :P), our kitchen, the loft area that's almost always the toastiest room in the house and has all of our books (where do you think i am right now? :P), or my bedroom when it's not a horribly chaotic mess.


* i can't stand homophobes. people who put up walls and refuse to listen but then complain that you never talk. people who stereotype me because of the way they think i act and the way i dress. PeoPlE wHo TyPe lyKE ThiS in a piece of writing on a writing community. people who can't accept that there are other ways to do things other than their own.


* if i had an extra $100 to spend on whatever i wanted today i would quickly rebuild my closet. i have too many clothes. i want to get rid of almost all of them and get it down to where, while i might have to do laundry once every week and a half (*gasp!*)(i have enough clothes to last much longer than that right now....) i feel like it would be worth it. too many material things. i want a couple of really cute, really comfy dresses for each season :P


* the last person i hung out with was my momma. we watched BONES together. preggo bones = weepy rissa. since when is brennan actually smiley and reachable and ioqhrwetjrgbkdfn?!?!?!?!?!?!!! it makes me all snuffly.


now, off to write that stupid paper.