life is meant for the living

FAMILY. FRIENDS. ROOMMATES.

Disneyland!

Here are some fun memories from last summer. I think I am getting Spring Fever! I can't wait for it to be warm again and to be done with school for a few months! If you click on the link below you'll see pictures of the people and places I love. Enjoy!

dress up

      There's a stage in a little girl's life when she loves to play dress up. Not only is she dressed up at all times, but she also does so without batting an eye. She speaks her mind and doesn't worry that it isn't appropriate, or that someone will judge her. For a moment you get a glance of who she really is; how she sees herself in her own mind. She'll come out wearing a tu-tu, a sheriff's badge, butterfly wings, and holding a bow and arrow and she'll say that she's a superhero-ninja-fairy-princess. She loves all things girly when it comes to princesses and fairies. She listens as you read tales of  her heroes before she goes to sleep at night. She wants to be both; princess and hero. In her eyes the possibilities are endless. The world is her oyster, and the sky's her limit. She'll go anywhere, do anything, and be anyone. Imagination; that is the key to her world of fantasy and adventure.

 All too soon she'll grow out of this phase. First, she's girl in elementary worried about boys with cooties and how to write in cursive. Then she's teenager who worries what the other girls think of her clothes and now she thinks boys are cute. Eventually she'll find the man she wants to marry (one you approve of , of course) and you'll give her away to another man to weather the tests of marriage together. But she'll never forgot how she used to dress up and save people from the bad guys. You hope that she learns that life isn't about being someone else, it's about remembering who she is. She's your precious daughter. You'll love her forever.

       

 You may be asking why I am writing this. I don't have kids. I'm not a mom. I'll tell you why. The other day I heard a father telling this story about his little girl. Most of the last two paragraphs are his words; the other parts are me. I really liked his analogy, so I wrote it down. I hope you enjoyed it!

all in a semester

my name is Melinda Moon. you may know me as Mindy. i was born in Salt Lake City, Utah.  i have five brothers and two sisters. i am 20 years old. i am an Art History Major at Brigham Young University.  i plan to graduate in April 2013. i am single, and i love to take pictures, laugh, and travel.

Here's what I learned this semester: papers aren't that bad, procrastination stinks, roommates will always be messy, the Ensign is the best magazine in the world, i'm not a sophomore anymore (bummer), no matter how hard you try time keeps rushing by, cinder block are lethal, i love my family, making art to please someone else isn't fun, i now understand by people skip class, it's better to be busy than bored, i still love getting letters, i barely get on facebook anymore, worrying isn't worth it, living four blocks from campus is too far, unlimited texting is  amazing, being a friend can be the hardest thing and the best thing, working a ton gets old but the paychecks don't, and i went home almost every weekend this semester. 

Art is a shadow of what a person is thinking... a small glimpse of what they hold inside. Little secrets, regrets, joys... every line has its own meaning. ~Sarah, Los Cerros Middle School, 1999

Five Days in the Sunshine State...
                I went to San Diego to take pictures for a friend’s wedding this past week. It was a beautiful sunny day at the San Diego Temple; the perfect kind of day for a sealing. It was so sunny that I found everyone squinting their eyes in their pictures. Later on at the reception there was dancing, food, hot chocolate, S’mores, pies of all different kinds, and of course wedding cake. Inside there was a variety of soups and warm rolls to eat before delving into the variety of sweet things outside. There were fire pits filled with warm crackling fires, divine hot chocolate with whipped cream on top, marshmallows for roasting, and pumpkin, pecan, lemon, lime, and banana cream pies! All the guest’s stomachs were pleased with the yummy food. 
                As we sat by the fire warming our hands we talked, laughed, made new friends, and became reacquainted with old ones. We watched the dancing through glass doors and heard the music as it wafted on the soft breeze through the twinkle lit trees and to us by the fire. As I sat watching and listening, I found myself in wonderment at the amazing world we live in and the great lives we lead. It’s a world where people talk, laugh, and dance the night away. True, we may meet our far share of troubles along the way, but ultimately we lead quite happy lives. It was like heaven was on Earth that night; everyone joined in the festivities. Nothing else mattered. Only the warmth of the fire and watching happy people, young and old, dance late into the night occupied our minds. The only way I can think to describe it is being completely relaxed and ready to face whatever came next. I had a belief in myself that I had never considered before
               Each day we find little things to laugh at and moments that make us smile. These instances remind me of Rob Thomas’s song Little Wonders. “It’s these little moments, the little wonders and twisted turns of fate, when time falls away; it’s these small hours that remain” with us. Time seems to speed up and there’s nothing to hold it back, so we make the most of the time we have together and part after lengthy goodbyes. Even then we aren’t gone from those happy moments, they stay with us as we turn them around and around in our minds. We moll those few days of heaven, family, and friends over in our heads, soaking up every last ounce of warmth and laughter before placing them on a special shelf in our brains to be revisited when we are in need of comfort. They will also come in handy during those rare times when we meet an old friend and reminisce for hours of those days we spent in the Sunshine State. 

Painting is just another way of keeping a diary -Pablo Picasso

This semester in school I took a Studio Art class, which I enjoyed a lot. It's a course to introduce Art History Majors to a little of what it's like to work with each medium we study in our other courses. Instead of quizzes every week, our professor assigned us a visual journal. We were to spend a minimum of three hours on it each week, then turn it in on Wednesday nights, when he would look over them and give us a grade out of 10.

Week 1 (Colored Pencil, Printed Pics)

art washes away from the soul the dust of every day life - Pablo Picasso

These are pictures from the watercolor
art class I went to this summer with
my Mom, Aunts, and Cousins. My
Aunt is a Utah Artist and she was the
one who taught the class. The picture
on the right is one of my cruciform 

abstracts. We also used different
kinds of rice paper to give our art
texture. It was hard at first, as I
believe all abstract is, but we got the
hang of it after a while. This is one of
my favorites from the first day of class.
Later we painted flowers and then
abstract flowers in vases. I learned that
I am more of an artist than I realized.
It's in my blood I guess.   

Dream On Dreamers

Tonight as I sat watching a movie instead of writing a much needed paper for a class I started thinking about what I was actually doing. The American Dream is what every American, and immigrant to America, dreams for. But that's just the problem; if we dream all day what do we have at the end of it? Are we better for dreaming about that American Dream rather than working for it? I may dream about the day when I have graduated from college and am married to the man of my dreams....ah, again there's the word dream! Should I be looking for the man of my dreams, or the man of reality? Yes, I should be writing my paper right now, instead of writing this post, but that's what blogs are for, right? They are places for us to express ourselves, a place to put down the things we ponder and wonder about. That is what I am doing here. I am putting down the most recent thought that came to my head that I thought was worth writing about. 

Now, I don't want any of you to think that I am not a dreamer, because evidently I am...or I wouldn't be writing this post. I dream probably 80% of my life! Yes, I realize that I have to do the work and go through the struggles so I can appreciate the life I am working towards. I am so thankful for the hard times; because without them I wouldn't enjoy the great times as much as I do. Life is great isn't it? We can be sitting like a couch potato in front of our laptops and a thought like the American Dream and what it stands for pops into our heads. The American Dream was the last thing I thought I would be writing about tonight. Just a nonsensical thought that came into my mind as I sat dreaming. So, keep dreaming, dreamers! It does more good than you think. Living life without dreaming is like childhood without an imagination. I think my feelings are described best by one of my favorite characters, Elpheba from WICKED:

Every so often we long to steal to the land of what might have been, but that doesn't soften the ache we feel when reality sinks back in. 

a few of my favorite things

rain

The House of the Lord

The Ghost's Have Arrived!