Excerpt from Escape to {Venice} :: part one    Four hours into our 'nap', we awoke to sounds of men talking and laughing directly below our tall, open window. Evening had come, we were awake and finally ready to start exploring this beautiful Floating City.  I put my feelings of homesickness in the back of my mind, and we started our Italian Adventure. 

It was the movie that did it.  The movie convinced my husband to say the 6 most romantic words that I had been dying to hear for years and years and years ...

"Let's plan a trip to Italy."

All I could say was, Thank You "Under the Tuscan Sun"!

In 4th grade I thought my life would include being a secretary, a mom, a piano teacher and a nurse. I'd be married with at least 2 kids and 1 cat {I *hated* dogs}.

In 1999 I married the guy I fell in love with when I was 9 {it took him many more years to return my love…could it have been the gigantic peach glasses? or mullet-like hair?} Jonathan wanted a dog, so we got a kitten. I worked in a few places, all behind a desk and didn't like it. But I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. We had to give up our kitten, Jonathan asked for a dog, and I said no. For years we tried to have a baby, but with no luck. I said no again to a dog. I was finding myself having trouble functioning. Getting out of bed in the morning was a struggle, friendships were falling apart, and crying became a normal part of my day. I was at a point where I didn't care if I died. In June 2009 we had answers when I was diagnosed with Clinical Depression. After a few months on medication, I started to feel like I had hope…I was being lifted out of the quicksand. Jonathan asked for a dog. I said no. We went to the humane league to pick out a kitten instead.

June 2010 marked a turning point in my life. A year prior I didn't care if I lived, and now I was flying off to South Africa on a missions trip to the World Cup without my Love and with a group of strangers. It was there that I found my passion, Photography, thanks to my host family who let me borrow their fancy camera with lots of lenses! I started school a few months later, not knowing the outcome, just following the doors the Lord opened for me. Shortly after we learned it was unlikely we could have kids naturally. 

I spend my days studying, taking pictures, dreaming of returning to Italy, England and South Africa, and wistfully thinking of the next country we'll visit. I still struggle with depression, and wondering exactly what the rest of my life will look like. But what I do know is that all of that doesn't matter. Am I following where God leads? If yes, then I just need to keep on going. If not, then I have to stop what I'm doing. I'm daily learning that I'm here to serve God, whether I'm a mom, a photographer, or {__fill in the blank___}.

Oh, and that trip to the Humane League to get a kitten? We came home with Charlie. A puppy.