i wanted to be a rockstar

one of my most favorite things about summer
is the desire to make and do that just seems to be everywhere.
everyone seems to cook more often,
people are more eager to get outside and run around,
and i feel like creating my own everything:
clothes, bracelets, barbecues, beauty products... everything!
the weather makes me much more productive.

this creativeness certainly has to be tied to the added mood-boost we get during summer,
and i also think it's a part of the inner-child in us.
when we're younger,
we create daily.
we color in coloring books, we make friendship bracelets, we learn to sew and to take pictures,
we want to make our own lunches and create our own recipes.
now that we're older, it's labeled as DIY this and make-your-own that
and the internet is full of tutorials
and how-to-do-this-thing-you-did-a-thousand-times-when-you-were-ten.
plus, when we were younger we wanted to brag about it for entirely different reasons. 
i'm pretty sure our inner-children would be cross with us
for forgetting about all that work we put into learning how to make a boondoggle.
how dare we lose that knowledge?!

this weekend it got so hot outside
that the sprinkler was put underneath the trampoline
and my sisters and i played on it for nearly three hours.
we bathed our dogs outside,
we made our own popsicles,
we hung out in just our bathing suits for an entire sunday,
we made plans to make a music video,
and we invented this killer lemonade cake recipe.

all of the experiences in life,
all of the knowledge we gain and things we love are just compounded as days go by.
so this "inner child" we speak of
is really just you.
why abandon an entire portion of your life for another?
i've struggled with the modern concept of "growing up" for years now,
as i really am not in favor of leaving things behind.
don't leave twelve years of your life in hindsight,
because for twelve years you were totally awesome and talented and wanted to be a rockstar.

i completely believe in staying true to who you are,
so why not count those awesome formative years?
you can still pretend to be gypsies and talk in fake accents and be a successful, contributing human being.
don't simply cast off the cool parts about childhood for practicalities and responsibilities.
life can be a wonderful cocktail of the uninhibited desires and talents of childhood
mixed with the maturity, knowledge, and experience you've gained along the way.

so the next time you're at the pool this summer,
play marco polo or something.
because i gotta tell ya,
being wild and free made me feel like i really was a rockstar.

xo.

freckles

someone once said
"a girl without freckles is like a night without stars".

then I learned in seventeen magazine
prolly like 4 yrs ago
that big percentage of guys would NOT date a girl with freckles.

it's a debate.

my freckles,
and I have lots and lots of them,
are imperfections.

hundreds of tiny imperfections.

I'd fit in with the weasleys,
farming families of the south,
ragamuffins in orphanages.

my freckles are a lot of things.

we have become acquainted over the years.
I know exactly which summers some of them appeared.
I know just what I was doing when my skin said "no more!" and freckled out.

they mark me.
they rid my skin of the porcelain perfection i was born with.
they tell my life story.
just like scars, scrapes and bruises.

my skin is a silent diary of my life.

it may not be pretty to look at
but my freckles make me who I am.

and I'd rather be me than somebody else.
freckies n all.

early memories of plain yogurt

{photo via}

i remember this vividly.
reminiscing,
whether it's my life or another person's,
is one of the greatest things to do with your time.

childhood memories, stories, loves...
they give a lot of insight about a person.
there you are in your purest form,
acting and reacting in virtually the same world, on the same planet you exist now.
i never want to forget these things,
so it's best to pin them down onto this little corner of the internet that i call my own.
just in case.

when i was 5 years old
and in kindergarten,
we began exploring the art of taking data, surveys, and graphs.
in a very simple way, mind you.

my teacher, mrs. riggle,
brought three different types of yogurt:
strawberry, vanilla, and plain.

she introduced each flavor,
noting that she had acquired the strawberry yogurt from her sister's farm,
the vanilla from the grocery store,
and had made the plain yogurt herself.

she passed out tiny cups of each flavor for us to try.
strawberry was good.
vanilla was good.
plain was a.w.f.u.l.

we were each given a piece of paper
and told to mark which flavors we liked,
and which we didn't.

i most definitely did not like the plain yogurt,
but mrs. riggle had made it herself,
and i couldn't hurt her feelings.

she led us in tallying up our findings,
stopping on my paper.
she looked up and asked me directly,
"miss ayley, did you really like the plain yogurt?"

of course, i hesitated.
i was caught.
she knew.
i had to play it off.

"yes, mrs. riggle. you did a good job making it."

she chuckled and put a tally mark on the board,
the only "yes" tally mark under "plain yogurt" for the day.

later,
before we headed to the library,
she pulled me behind the rest of the group
and gave me a quick hug.
"you're a sweet little girl," she said.

i remember feeling a slight sinking feeling,
knowing that she could see right through me,
yet feeling comforted that she knew.
i didn't need to try to be altruistic by lying to her about something so trivial.
she released the hug,
and grabbed my hand.

as we walked,
she giggled again,
"no one in their right mind would have liked that icky, bitter yogurt, ayley.