mini therapy session

The past couple of months have been far from ideal. At the root of it all is this struggle to motivate myself, which honestly gets harder the longer this rut goes on. The only difference between this rut and previous ruts is that it's actually keeping me from making a living. So it needs to end, and I think I'm taking steps to get past it.

I'm not an extremely religious person anymore. I've been to two weddings this summer and that's the most I've been inside a church for months (maybe even years). I don't necessarily believe all of the teachings of the christian church, but what I do take from it is a sense of comfort. Comfort in the people who attend my church, who've seen me grow and despite my absence always make an effort to know how I'm doing when they see me. Comfort in the feeling of just walking into my church. That one is hard to explain, because I feel the same way any time I go to visit the Synod office (Lutheran church head office) where I used to work. It isn't just familiarity that comforts me, but every time I'm in either of those places I feel warm and unconditionally welcome. The people there are genuinely happy to see me.

Another thing that has always brought me comfort is this belief that if you step back, let things take their course, everything will eventually fall into place. It's happened several times that I can remember in my life. I've gone through this process: Unfortunate/inconvenient event happens, I lose focus, I stress out, I have a little breakdown, and soon after I'm presented with a newer (usually better) opportunity. It's happened so many times to me, on a much smaller scale, that I can't help but believe there is something or someone that is in control and looking out for me.

There's a hymn I've turned to in the past that pretty much sums up that belief. I have a couple versions of it on my iTunes, and I was listening this morning when both versions came up back-to-back. This is just the first verse, but it most closely encapsulates the way I choose to believe.

Be still, my soul...the Lord is on your side.
 Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;
 leave to your God to order and provide;
 in every change God faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul...your best, your heavenly friend
 through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

The above drawing was really just something for myself, because I haven't just drawn for myself in a long time.

pure evil?

All right, I may be going to hell for this, but I couldn't help myself. This was one of those situations where I wish I had my camera with me, or an opportunity to take a photograph, because it was one of those moments in life that I will remember forever.

Laura and I were walking around Clay Terrace and decided we wanted to get some ice cream, so we step into Cold Stone and we're standing behind this guy holding a baby and his (presumably) wife. Now, the guy was actually very attractive...but the baby. Oh my god, the baby. There really aren't words for how scary this baby looked.

So I made a little sketch.

I swear, every time I looked at the baby I started laughing. And every time I started laughing, Laura started. We managed to cover it up enough so that (hopefully) the couple didn't realize we were laughing at their baby. The line was painfully long too...so this baby was staring at me for a good 10-15 minutes. It was the greatest exercise in self-restraint I've experienced in a while.

I'm a little scared

Models are frightening.

Actual picture from an agency's webpage....




I wonder what she's thinking....

the internet is an amazing thing.

I'm pretty sure everybody's Googled their name or somebody else's name at some point in time. I, for one, have found that there is another Lauren Smith working as a graphic designer in California...he's a middle-aged man, though. But anyway, I decided to try Googling my dad's name the other night after talking to him on the phone. Granted, with a name like Steve Smith it's hard to narrow any search results down to find information on my dad in particular...but I was rewarded with my perseverance by this:



That, my friends, is a car that was modeled and skinned by someone on this forum to specifically look like my dad's race car. I have pictures of myself with that car when I was about 5-6 years old. I just thought it was a really neat find...I couldn't find any video of races on youtube, but oh well. I still think this is cool.

Kung Fu Panda!

This is what it took to kick me out of my blogging lull.

I've seen Kung Fu Panda twice in two days and I have a feeling I could watch it again tomorrow, and the next day. There are really only a handful of movies that share that quality for me. The Incredibles, The Producers, Singin' in the Rain...and others. Okay, honestly, I probably couldn't watch all of those every single day, but you get my point.

Kung Fu Panda has it all...beautiful scenery, awesome character design, brilliant animation, exciting cinematography, simple endearing storyline, and plenty of laugh-out-loud moments. Of course it's not very hard to make me laugh, but everyone else seemed to be laughing at the same parts with me, so there!

Some of the things that struck me the most were pretty subtle...stuff like the animation of Oogway, the old turtle. He doesn't just stand perfectly still, he has the slightest tremble in his head and hands when he's talking...that sort of unsteadiness that comes from old age. I just haven't seen that little detail incorporated in any other elderly 3D animated characters before. Not only that, but anytime there's a moment where a character doesn't say anything, but you can tell exactly what progression their emotions are taking, I'm just floored. That's masterful animation right there.

And since seeing stills from the movie, and the official website, I've been in love with the scenery. I want to find an image of just the backgrounds used in the movie, because they're gorgeous. The colors! I wish I could see places in real life that had colors like that.

I'm gushing, I can't help it. I expected this movie to be entertaining, but I didn't expect it to be THIS entertaining. I know some people will probably be very critical of the movie, but oh well. Who cares if the storyline isn't completely groundbreaking? Its beauty is in its simplicity.










See?