Not Merely Living

Fresh Food from the Farmer's Market

This month, I'm focusing on eating Fresh. I feel very lucky to live in beautiful California where we have such amazing access to fresh produce. Before I moved here, I had no idea of the variety and quality of produce that existed. 

DIY Tissue Paper Balls

There's probably a much fancier name for these. Poms, maybe? (#badcrafter) Buttttttt, I just call them tissue paper balls. :)

My First Quilt

Before I made this quilt, I always loved everything about the idea of quilting. I have always found quilting to be such a moving art. Women (and men!) who carefully and patiently sew colored fabric together to tell a story, to paint a picture, to provide warmth and comfort and love.  The quilt has been on my life list for a while.

30 before 30

As of today, there are officially only six months left until I turn 30 (yesterday was my half-birthday). This milestone has inspired me to create a 30 before 30 list. I was so swept up in my Golden Year project that I never thought about making one before. 

The great thing about this list is that it mostly just came to me stream of consciousness.

A Golden Year: April

Ever since I turned 29 on the 29th of October last year, I've been celebrating my "golden year" by honing in on some key fun things I want to do/see/be each month before I turn 30. Already Five months in, I'm really loving my golden year. My priorities each month feel more targeted than just monthly goals, but they also add a bit of random/fun into my monthly routine. In the past I've always had so many swirling ideas of things I wanted to do or try, but I never had a system to help me prioritize them and tackle them.  

Each month I've designed a different visual framen (like the one below) for my golden priorities. In the past I've always made these in Photoshop Elements, but this month I decided to take my design out of the computer. I brushed off my new watercolors and went to work. All of the images in this month's frame were painted by myself and then scanned and moved around to create this design in PSE. Obviously, I'm not a painter or a graphic designer, but I sure had fun practicing my painting and seeing it come to life on the screen.

Here's what I'm focusing on this month:

I Think I Can // Line Dancing for Homeless Youth

In January, I started a fundraising campaign to support an incredible local non-profit organization, At the Crossroads, that supports homeless youth. The awesome thing about their annual I Think I Can Campaign is that they challenge folks to pursue their personal goals and dreams much in the same way that they encourage homeless youth to pursue their own goals and dreams.

DIY Tea Box

My craft for the month was to make a Tea box to organize all of our tea. I am so pleased with the end result of this simple DIY. I've been trying to come up with a way to organize our tea for months, and lucky enough, I've also been trying to think of some way to use the wooden briefcase that we DIYed as the card box for our wedding:

Eat // the French Picnic

My food theme (Eat) for Golden March is French food, and I am loving it already! To kick off the french food party, I put together my favorite version of french cuisine: the french picnic. I've never been to France, but I imagine that everyone is just eating on the ground on blankets in sunny parks. Is that how you imagine it too? :) There's something about the idea of the impromptu picnic that I just love. Grab some bread, wine, and whatever else is at hand and make yourself a beautiful picnic. Here's how ours turned out:

A Golden Year: March

Today is one of my favorite days. All three of my amazing brothers were born today. 

I'm a very proud Big sister.

Happy Birthday Bros!!! March is always Golden because of you. :)

Love you guys.

Not Merely Reading (My Book Bucket List) // Part I

Nothing inanimate has had as staggeringly significant an impact on my life as books. I assume that most people feel similarly. I grew up with my nose in a book. All the emotion/confusion/fascination that I carried as I matured was challenged and encouraged by my love of reading. 

I always had a book with me, and I read at all the impolite times--at the dinner table (at home or out at restaurants), in the car, at recess (yep). My father had a rule for almost all of my childhood and teenage years that I couldn't read while I was in the car with him, because he wanted to have a chance to talk to me (#rulesfornerds anyone?). 

My love of books and a well written turn of phrase drew me to Literature in College, and so I lovingly majored in English. And I did pretty well. However, I wasn't successful because of some raw talent or intellectual prowess, I excelled because I had an unquenchable passion for the power of a great story. I believed at my core then (and still do) that a well written story changes the way we see the world. Instantly, I can "empathize" with others in a way that I haven't experienced through any other medium. The great story is our shared story. It's one that speaks to us all and connects us. I believe in it. So much so that my love of great literature lead me to Chile, home of so many great poets, novelists and artists. And I fell in love with the power of a story in a new language. It was transformational.