life

adventure awaits.

January 26, 2014

We booked our plane tickets to the west coast last night and I AM GIDDY. I can’t tell you how long I’ve been wanting to travel out to the Pacific– to see the coast, and the culture, and the sights and the sounds. I am smiling like a fool just thinking about it.

Our trip will be in April, during my spring vacation from school. We’ll be there officially for 8 and a half days and we will fill each one to the brim. Tentative plans are to spend 2 days in Big Sur, 3 days in San Francisco, 1 day in Napa, and 2 days in Seattle, with a half day of travel built in to fly from California to Washington.

I have a few ideas {including Muir Woods and Pike Place Market}, but would love some recommendations if you have any– we’re going to be complete tourists and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Views we MUST see?

Attractions we can’t miss?

Food that’s the most delicious?

Give us all you’ve got. We are ready and waiting.

Mostly, I want to take all the photos and eat all the food.

Building up my dream to-do list HERE.

Giddy giddy giddy. West Coast! I love you already!

50 Comments · Filed Under: life, travel, west coast ·

shine on…

January 14, 2014

“This is the year I will choose a word.”

That’s what I decided when 2104 rolled around. You know, the whole, choose a word, live the word, BE THE WORD. I liked the idea, this phenomenon. But you want to know what I did? When I first started this project, this idea of a word, I scoured the internet for hours. I googled “New Years Word”. I scrolled through all my instagram, pinterest, twitter. I looked at my friends’ words, I looked at strangers words. I looked to everyone else for my word, but you know what? I hardly even looked to myself.

So then I stopped and took a deep breath. Because I’d literally gotten myself in a tizzy over picking a word. Because this sort of thing— this sort of comparing, and measuring, and looking out into the world for the answers? This is the thing we do now. All of us. Definitely me. And this is the thing that I try so so hard not to do and not to be.

I am constantly telling myself and trying to believe in myself {succeeding in believing, and failing to believe}, that just being me is enough.

JUST DO YOU. BE YOU. YOU YOU YOU.

And so,

Shine.

That’s my word.

And I’m not sure exactly what it means for me just yet, but it’s the single word that I thought up myself, and it spoke to me, and I feel something for it, and best of all, it just seems right. I don’t want to overanalyze it, or beat it to the ground. I just want to bring the light to my life, keep the light, shine the light. That quote up above? That’s the kind of life I want to live this year. That’s the kind of person I want to be.

Shine in, Shine out, Shine on.

37 Comments · Filed Under: blogging, life, quotes ·

dear 2013 // a year in review

January 4, 2014

year in review 2 year in review 8

Dear 2013,

Even though you’re technically gone, I still wanted to take a moment here to recognize you. To thank you for being such a big, challenging, joy-filled year for me. I am SO THANKFUL for all the adventures this year brought me. When I look through these pictures I get this crazy strong nostalgic feeling. Happy and sad and everything in between. Happy because you brought me so many significant memories, and sad because you’re gone for good.

I opened Dear Friend Shop. I can’t believe I got my act together and really did it, but I did! It proved to be fun, but also overwhelming for me. Since it’s not my full-time job, I haven’t spent as much time with it as I ultimately would have liked to {or more honestly, had the energy to}, but that’s okay because it just means I can work on it more in 2014. I think I’ve started to find my niche, and will use this new year to build on it and bring it alive in my creative work.

I visited Denver, a brand new-to-me city with the very best of my friends. This showed me how much my heart wants to see so much of the rest of this country. I want to see the world, I want to see everything!, but it was this trip that made me realize how much of the US I yearn to see. Oh my goodness, I want to see it all. It also showed me how much I love my friends. How much happiness I feel when I’m with them, and how much it means for me to find the time {and money} to see them. I’m really pretty terrible at keeping in touch {on the phone and email front}, but I am committed to making get-togethers happen, so this I will try for each and every year to come.

I left my old teaching job, and began a new one. This was probably the biggest and most significant change for me in 2013. It came upon out of the blue and challenged me to my core. It was both sad and exciting to leave, and honestly a little hard for me to transition, but I’m really coming into my own now, and I know it will just get better and better with time. I miss my old teaching friends {but can and do still get together with them} and am also starting to make new ones. I look forward to the day second grade feels as natural to me as first grade did– the curriculum part of it I’m still getting the hang of– but the kids are still as fabulously funny as ever. I can hardly wait to see how far they’ve come in June!

I have so many amazing people in my life. The photos above speak volumes to that. Zan, my sister, my parents, my extended family, Zan’s family, my friends. I love them all so much I could cry. How do you measure a year? In mighty, mighty love.

And! I turned 30. I feel… kind of different? Not really different at all? Some days I feel older. But mostly, I feel the same. My eyes have been opened to how lucky I am. How much I have and see and do. How blessed I have been with my experiences and also with my sense of appreciation. I hope I never lose sight of that. I want to be grateful until forever. And long after forever, too.

Oh, life, I can’t help but think– it really is so amazing.

Here’s to the good, here’s to the better, here’s to the best.

Cheers to you, 2013. So long, sweet memories.

17 Comments · Filed Under: life, nostalia ·

goal 9: travel to 5 different places.

December 29, 2013

Out of the 10 goals I choose for 2013 there are two that were hands down my favorite. Two I joyfully surpassed more than any of the rest. Two that I will scratch onto my list {either typed out or in my head} for years and years and years to come.

Can you guess which two?

Read All The Books — and — Travel!

If I had my way with time and money {mostly money}, I would have loved to go to 5 places that I’d never been, preferably across the country or oversees, BUT, I had to be realistic with my travels and easy on my wallet.

Here are the 12 places {technically 10, since I went to NYC 3 TIMES!} I traveled to in 2013. All by car, with the exception of Denver which was, without a doubt, my favorite adventure of them all…

connecticut