Whoa.

I've known that violence exists in this world. I know that in my own city, people get mugged, raped, shot in the street. We all know that things like this happen. But a great deal of us will never be exposed to such violence. The violence that exists in our own cities will remain an abstract, far away concept, like the things we learned about in history class.

The other night, something happened which made all of this vividly real for me.

Someone was shot on our street this past Friday night, so close we could hear people screaming for help.

Believe me when I tell you, friends, you will never feel so helpless as when you hear someone begging for the help you know you can't give them.

Please, don't ask me if I'm okay, how I'm doing. Don't pray for me because of the neighborhood I live in.

Pray for your own city. Pray for God's mercy.

Too many pretty pictures!

 This is going to be another "I'm going to brag about how awesome my life is now" post. So if you don't like gloating, then you can go away. But on the other hand, there are going to be pictures. So if you like those, stick around.

Basically, on Saturday I spent all morning at the Missouri Botanical Garden. It's free for St. Louis residents on Wednesdays and Saturdays before noon. I went with my beautiful, amazing roommate Renee. Here is some of what I saw:

Ducks!

It was so beautiful. I wish you all could have been there, friends!

You should be jealous of my life.

Two weeks ago today, friends, I moved back to St. Louis, into a 3-bedroom house occupied by Renee, who is one of my oldest friends, and Jenny, who is shaping up to be an awesome new friend and roommate.

It's only been two weeks, but it already feels like home here. My bedroom is poorly insulated and is hot all the time, but I love it.

Look! I've even got pictures and stuff hanging up!

See? Isn't it cute?

Oh. And? Jenny has a dog. Meet Lottie.

Adorable!

Bottom line is, friends, I'm already having a blast.

I'm finally here!

I'm trying really hard to write in complete, understandable sentences and not do a complete word vomit about how excited I am right now.

Because this time last week, I was living in Branson, with most of my things still in boxes.

But today? Guess where I am. Just guess.

If you guessed St. Louis, in my cute little bedroom in a cute little house that I share with two other awesome women, you'd be completely and totally correct.

I'll post pictures eventually. Right now it's still kind of a mess, and I have plans to transform it into a big girl bedroom that looks completely wonderful and feels like home. And when I do, rest assured that I will brag about it to all of the internet.

It just seems all a little surreal. I've been talking about moving back to St. Louis for more than a year, and now I'm finally here.

Great things are in store for me, friends. I can feel it.

Is it really August?

I'm freaking out, you guys.

It's August now, and so I'm freaking out. Not because I start school. Are you kidding? I'm done with that for a long while.

It's because I move at the end of this month!

I'm freaking out because I'm so excited to be back in St. Louis, to start at my new store, to be closer to my parents and my friends.

But I'm also freaking because YOU GUYS. I still don't have a place to live.

I know that all of the stressing about it is completely unnecessary, that I'll find a place. But we all know how irrational and emotional I can be, so for now I'm FREAKING OUT about it.

That's all I have you guys, except this little nugget of magic I discovered this week. It's not really relevant to anything, but completely beautiful: