Things We Don't See Coming: More Parrish Announcements.

Good morning everyone! It's July! Can you even believe it?! I have to mention it every single time, but I LOVE wake up to overcast chilly foggy Napa mornings. It gives my morning routine just a little something special. I don't know, my coffee tastes just a little better.

ANYWAYS! Thats not what I wanted to blog about! I don't normally blog on Saturdays, but today I have not so normal news... or maybe it is... I don't know.

I don't think we really understand our absolute inability to know the future. We make plans, and we think we might know how things are going to go down, but we literally have no idea. At this time last year we were really excited about Nate joining a band called Kutless. This past year with them has been nothing short of adventure, and we are looking forward to as many adventurous years as the Lord allows. But if you've followed the Parrish's on social media, you have seen that this past year has also handed us it's fair share of serious challenges (you can read about that here if you're curious). These past six months have forced Nate and I to really look at our life and seriously pray about what God has for us. For most of that time, I never once gave a single thought to the fact VCS may not be the plan for my entire life. I loved my kids, I loved my co-workers, I loved my principle, I loved my classroom, I loved literally everything, and I rocked at being a teacher. There was no thought of leaving. Until Nate said that we should put out a resume´, so thats what we did.

We thought we'd get some feedback, but we really had no idea that God would put Hingepoint Church in our path. Our first interview with them was weirdly great. We knew that this wasn't a chance meeting, we knew that God was up to something. Our three Skype interviews were more like conversations (I've never laughed so much in a job interiew). But the deal was sealed for us when we actually met them all in person. Hingepoint people were our people, and without even knowing it yet, in the hard times, God was actually molding us and making us into Hingepoint people.

So, the original idea in the beginning was that Nate would be "the" guy and I would help. BUT our actual position is a gift that only God could have given us. What sold us and confirmed in our mind that God was putting these pieces together, was that we were BOTH being hired. We were offered the position of Worship and Creative Arts Directors of Hingepoint Church on June 20th, and with happy and grateful hearts, we have accepted :)  Nate and I are for reals walking into our dream job. Our deepest desire forever has been to make music and lead worship together. yay!

Finally, the last piece of this CRAZY puzzle, is that Hingepoint is in Bakersfield CA. So while we are CRAZY excited, we are so so sad to leave our loved ones in Napa, Vacaville, and Sacramento. Bakersfield is about 4.5 hours away. We are embarking on a WHOLE NEW ADVENTURE. New people, new city, new house, new church, new everything. We would absolutely appreciate your prayers as we go forward into this next step. We leave Napa July 16th, and will be in Bakersfield early August.  These next few days will be such whirl wind. Packing, Getting dinners in with good friends, Kim Kardashian level ugly crying, so much to do...

Wow, guys. Who knew? WHO. KNEW?!  See you soon!

Valentine's Day Adventure

Hi Everyone!

I hope your Valentine's day was nice! Nate and I were leading worship at Church, so we didn't really get much of a chance to do anything on the actual day of Valentine's day, though we did get a nice hearty Sunday afternoon nap in. Instead we tooka advantage of my Friday off and went up the valley to the little town of St. Helena. 

Napa Valley is postcard perfect. Every single thing is beautiful, so even just a little drive is romantic. It's wonderful. Also, Napa CA proper, doesn't really have all the wineries and restaurants, there are a lot of them of course, but the really big nationally known ones are up the valley in Yountville and St. Helena. Of course, we have never been to any of them, they are crazy expensive. BUT St. Helena has the cutest downtown, and it really is just fun to walk and see and look at all the shops. Here are some of the pics of our outing.

This really is what Napa looks like. Right now. It's a dream world!

I wish my slip hadnt been showing in this picture, but I really dont care all that much. This  old church that Nate and I parked by was so beautiful. It was built in 1859. Our walking date consisted of walking around downtown, and stopping to look in some of the shops here and there. It was just nice to be outside. It was a perfect 70 degrees as we were walking. You couldnt have asked for better weather.  It was such a fun date.

We'd never really been there on a date before, but we'll definitely be going back. This was more like a scoping out, rather than really taking it in. Can't wait to go back! How was your valentine's day? Did you do anything fun or romantic? Do you have valentine's day tradtions? 

Summertime At Last

Hello world! It's officially summer, and I have plans on plans on plans... to hang out in the vacation world of Napa CA. It's crazy to think we've been here a year. We survived the earthquake (the biggest since 1988), I survived the school year and all of its many surprises, I gave the commencement address for our high school graduation, and now, here I am ready to take on Napa valley. 

...But first a day of catching up on rest. I plan on working on our ever growing succulent garden, reading and starting the She Reads Truth Bible study, Women in the Word, drinking a crazy amount of coffee, and playing tons of music. It's gonna be a great start to Summer.

Also, I lost my cell phone and I am in process of upgrading to an iPhone for the first time. And my process, I mean PROCESS. Come on people, it's not like I'm buying a car, or adopting a baby. Anyways!  Welcome me, world of device addicts, I am about to join you.

Dress: Anthropologie (old) Mug: Urban Outfitters (old)

She Reads Truth

Spring Break Bucket List (Budget Edition)

Spring Break is upon VCS! Yay! You can image if this is how the teachers feel, what my kids must be feeling. I feel sorry for both parties. We want break, but I still have stuff to teach! Please! Please stay engaged, students, whom I love and adore! Just a day and a half to go! And while this time is only 6 school days long, I am soooo tempted to just turn on Friends, New Girl, Parks and Rec, you name it, and veg. But no! I will not veg! I'll sleep in for sure, but I wanna be creative and productive, and grow as well. Here's how I plan on spending my spring break, while spending as little money as possible.

1) Write a full song.
2) Finish The Autobiography of Elanor Roosevelt (I do it all for you, Leslie Knope)
3) Post 3 Blog Posts (over the course of the week)
4) Read My Bible Everyday by the river-walk downtown
5) Go to the beach (duh)
6) finish my taxes (so not fun)
7) Coffee with friends. Lots and Lots of coffee.


Also, Easter is upon us, there shall be a separate post on that for sure as well. See you soon!

Walking Dates in Napa

Hi Everyone! I hope you had a great week. Mine was so very busy! I couldn't even take one second to even to jot down a single thought. Life gets crazy for me in this part of the school year. I have two huge field trips that takes a ton of energy organize and prepare for, and three other classes to maintain. It's a lot. Not to mention Spring break is five weeks away. I'm not counting or anything!

This past Saturday we walked downtown to Model Bakery in the Oxbow District for breakfast. This place makes the best breakfast Sandwiches! I get the chipotle breakfast sandwich, and a mocha every time. Sometimes you have to wait in a long line that goes out the door, but it is so worth it. Also, it's just really nice to be able to walk from our house to Model and chat with Nathan about life, and Jesus, and music. He tends to be the best for that :)

We talked about how, Right now the Lord is really showing me the true desires of my heart, which I have been praying that He would do for a while. It's started with the fast, and it is slowly but surely being more and more confirmed as I proceed through the school year. My real desire and passion is ministry and music, and I am praying about the most effective way to do that VCS, and how to make sure the students are being ministered to in the way that they need. I know what the Lord is saying for me to do, but it's about me trusting him and taking that next step. I know he will take care of it. If there is one thing I've learned over these past few years, is that, if it's what God wants, He makes it happen. So I'm trusting Him. Then our conversation moved on to really deep stuff... like which Marvel action figures Nate needs to finish his collection.

See you soon!





Saturday's and Succulents

It's a no makeup kind of Saturday. Nathan's away recording vocals for the kingdom album that's coming out this spring, so I'm just kinda hanging out at the house. We only have one car on the weekends, typically, so it's a good oppertunity for Bible reading, music playing, Friends DVD watching, and chore doing... The first three were already checked off the list, so the chores are all that are left. Oh yeah, I can check off one of my New Years resolutions... I chopped off my hair. 

And I Thought To Myself, "I Can Do That!"

When I was in high school, I was told by a Choir Director in passing conversation that he never gave solos to anyone who asked for one, because it meant their heart wasn't in the right place. He also said if you were good enough, you would just get asked to be in leadership/get a solo/get to lead worship. At the time I agreed, and acted in accordance with what I thought was a really righteous way of selecting leaders. This eventually formed me into a person so scared of looking prideful, I never ever put myself out there musically. This lead to me to being overlooked (not in a mean-spirited, or poor-leadership kind of way), wondering why I wasn't moving forward, then ultimately wondering if I was good enough.  I was at the point where I was thinking that maybe I had been fooling myself my entire life. My senior year of college was a time of questioning, and a lot of soul searching. 

The point of that weird anecdote is this: I was holding on to a lie, and it grew in my heart into debilitating fear. It wasn't until very recently that I began to pray in earnest for the Lord to change my heart and my thinking on this. 

Music comes very naturally to me. My piano is an extension of my arms. I can't not sing a song I know while riding in the car. God doesn't give us gifts and talents, so we can hide it away. I had a little light and I was hiding it (under a bushel...no!).

It was being at Desperation conference in CO where God really broke the chains in my heart. I had honestly thought that song "Break every chain" was silly emotional crap until then. It was watching people doing what they were obviously called to do, and doing it confidently and unapologetically. 

My stream of thought went a little like this, "Oh my gosh, Lord please forgive me, I have been so wrong. I have been so resistant, and so falsely humble.... I can do that, Lord, I'm gonna do it....(tons of crying)." 

So, here I am now. I'm not doing it on a huge stage with thousands of people. I'm not writing instant hits with viral Youtube videos. But I'm doing it. Nathan and I are writing for real for the first time. We are leading together for real for the first time. We are as poor as we were in the beginning and there is fear in stepping out...but there is provision. I guess the ultimate point of this blog is this:

There is peace in obedience, and no money can buy that.

Find You When I'm At My End

Hi Everyone!

If you follow me on the social medias, you've seen that I participated in 3-day fast with my church. I've done fasts before, and for much longer, but I've never fasted all food before. If you've never done a fast, read the Word and see what it says. God actually tells us to. Now I know why!

What a sweet thing it is to be desperate for the Lord.

That's what I took away from this fast. Besides the fact that I am in prayer for some very specific things (I'm praying about being ready to share them with you here, I should probably tell Nathan first!), the biggest take away, and the most important lesson I learned was absolute dependence on God. Depending on him to help me resist temptation; depending on Him to be my physical and emotional strength, depending on Him to help me keep going. Fasting is hard (who knew!).

I was hungry sure, but really, for the very first time, actually hungry to be near to God, and to hear from Him and really obey. I've never wanted to just read and rest in the Word like I do now. I can't say it enough, it such a sweet, sweet thing.

Countless Second Chances We've Been Given

Hello there everyone!! It's been way way way too long since I've updated my blog, I realize this. It's also been a very crazy time of transition life change. I kinda kept my blog up over the summer, so it's not really news that Nate and I are no longer in the Sacramento area. We now live in Napa CA. We moved in June, so we experienced the earthquake. If you saw the news on the quake you saw a lot of damage. Nate and I were spared...big time. We didn't have to move, we didn't lose anything expensive or special, and most importantly we were completely safe. It was scary, but we survived.

With the new year already in full swing, I actually have thought of a few goals I'd like to accomplish to this year! Here they are:


1. Write more songs. In my former life I was a singer/songwriter and did a significant amount traveling/performing. I'd like to do more of that. Nate suprised me by getting me the ukulele of my dreams for Christmas. I had bought a cheap one online so I could learn to play, but the one Nate got me is so beautiful and sounds so much better. They're also a lot easier to travel with than a Piano; which is my primary instrument. I've been playing for about a month now... I'm okay. I'd really like to get super good. As you can see, Oscar is way impressed with my rendition of "Rainbow Connection".

Nate an I did some recording this year. This has been an awesome addition to our married life. Being creative together has helped us learn stuff about each other we didn't know before. It's been really fun, and challenging writing and playing together. I've never wanted to punch someone I loved in the face before :)

2. Take more pictures!
I found an old Polaroid land camera in my Grandma's stuff after she passed away this past year in November. I also found this little green camera at an antique store. I wasn't sure if it worked or not, so I did a research and bought some film for it. Turns out this little camera is broken, but it sparked a new interest/hobby in vintage cameras and film photography. Don't expect any "Parrish the Thought Photography" instagram account or anything, but I do need to get better at taking pictures of stuff that matters,

3. Get a hair cut. A real one.

This is a screenshot of my iPad. It has taken me 5 years to grow my hair to this length from a close-cut pixie cut. I've endured the shaggy Justin Beiber phase (featured here). I venteured away from my very trusted hairstylist and received one of the WORST haircuts ever, and recovered. 

Sometimes my long hair looks awesome, like this:

but usually it's really dirty and gross and looks like this:

The truth is, I really just don't have the time necessary to have long hair. Not to mention that my hair just isn't healthy, and it needs to start over. I'm thinking bob with baby bangs.  It would be easy and still way stylish. I dont know. But my goal is to get a significant cut. I like this one... we'll see...maybe not so short. See, there I go.

4. Blog more. This has been my goal for a long time. I love Parrish The Thought. I know it doesn't really seem like it. But I do. I don't have a lap top or the internet, so finding time and resources is hard. But I think if I were to have a lap top it might be easier to get this kind of thing done.

Anyways, lots of new things on the horizon. New music, new hair, new... everything! I have spiritual goals as well, but that is post all it's own. See you soon!

Walking Adventures in Napa

Hello there folks! Hope this glorious weekend treating you well. I'm still in the honeymoon phase of living in Napa, AND I'm on summer vacation, so basically every single day is Saturday for me. I often lose track of the date.  ANWAYS! Nathan and I went on a glorious walking date around downtown, and let me just say; our date was not disappointing. This is what I wore on our little trip. I found this little Free People gem at Freestyle in Roseville, and I've been waiting for the perfect moment.

There's only trees for days everywhere you walk downtown, and it makes for the best walks. Nathan and I often walk to the Oxbow Public Market. Among the other beautiful shops and resaurants in the Oxbow, I
would have to that my favorite one is Three Twins Organic Ice Cream. These pics are from my walk yesterday with friends ho came to visit.



I am a person who gets a "usual." I only ever get the same thing over and over, and I get the Chocolate Peanut Buttercup. It is by far my very favorite, but I will say, I have yet to try a flavor that I didn't like. Oh Three Twins, you genius ice cream sibblings.

Nathan and I also walked into some Vintage shops, and I found some seriously wonderful treasures. This coat was one of my finds at Wildcats Vintage on Coombs.  This shop isnt that huge, but it is packed with tons of beautiful things.

We also walked into Napa Vintage Market, Alice's Antiques. It is so great. I coudln't get over this little camera that I seen afew days ago, and I had to go back for it. I'm pretty sure it still works, I just have to find some film for it. Just look at the color. I coudn't not get it.


Haven't really ventured out into the restaurants  yet. They are a little out of our budget, but you better believe this blog will be giving you the details on how to do Napa on a budget. There's so much you can do, and it is so fun. Anwyas, hope you loved thhis wayyyy-too-long post! See you soon!

Mother of Pearl

Hello everyone!! Two posts in a row! Hope you're having a great Thrusday, I am! I Just found out that idont have to do Jury Duty! Yay! The perks of having just moved three counties away. Anyways, This is what I decided to wear today. It's blaringly obvious that I dont have any of my camera stuff unpacked otehrwise, I would not be using my sorry ol' ipad camera. C'mon Ipad, what the heck! The quality is so bad.

Anyways! I'm really not a fan of the cropped look, I can't do the bare midriff. Even wearing spaghetti straps is a little out of my wheelhouse. It's not because I'm self-consious in my own skin (not any more than anyone would be I suppose), I just dont think all it needs to be showing to look cute. I know it's just my arms and décolletage, but its the principle! 

Can I please comment on the architecture of our new place? This space is actually the entry of our Bedroom. I'm just obsessed with it right now. 

Now, I'm probably dating myself quite a bit right now, but when I was a little girl Sam&Libby wasn't a Target brand. These little bow flats were the shoes of my childhood, so when I saw this on the shelves at Target, I had to have them.

Well folks, there you go! I'm not entirely sure what today has in store for me. I've been eyeing this great vintage shop that is only steps away from my house. There is actually 3 of them all within walking distance from my front door! Oh, Napa.

I'm A Part Of This Now

Hello everyone! It has been over a year since I've posted anything on this little ol' blog, and quite frankly I am ashamed. However! If you are social media savvy, and you are following me on other forms of internet narcissism, you have not been left out of the loop. I am still teaching and doing ministry with my husband and we are loving it. Which does bring me to my next announcement I guess, we have moved! Yes, we are living in Downtown Napa, CA now, and for the 7 days that we have lived here, we love it. I thought I would share a little bit of our new home with you. Please stay around for future posts, as I am wanting to get back into blogging. I've missed this little piece of my life :)

So, the place isn't really finished obviously, but I was so excited about the place I had to share something with you all. 

I really love older homes. Mostly becasue they just have so much more charm and character than newer buuildings. I believe our place was built in the 40's. What made mee want the place from moment I stepped in was this Hutch, and the built-in shelving. They are the perfect places for Nathan and I to put all of our treasures. And because the place is all white, my cerditos, and nate's Marvel collection really add the perfect amount of color

I know it's not a lot to show now, but once the place is really put together, I'll not hesitate to share again. It's Summer! Which means, I am on vacation, and will have plenty of time to blog. In between my new  town adventures of course! If you're familiar with Napa and have a favorite resaraunt, or vintage shop, or coffee place! Let me know! I am in the mood for serious exploration! see you soon!