a word for 2017

hello universe!

I've spent the last week recovering from almost strep throat. I, unfortunately, get sick quite often, far too often for my taste, so it was nice to take some time to recover and get over it. I spent the weekend snuggled up with Ashley, who was also sick, taking Mucinex and antibiotics like candy, drinking Theraflu like water, and sleeping as much as possible. Thankfully, it appears it is finally moving on out, and we can get back to the month ahead.

Tomorrow, I should hopefully have news regarding a new position in North Carolina. I know I am anxious to get that final piece of the puzzle figured out. Once we have all of that figured out, I feel like we can finally steam ahead towards our move, getting everything situated, and worked out for this whole thing. I hate leaving all of this to the last minute, and it's been driving me crazy we don't have everything planned out and scheduled, because we are waiting to hear back about my job. It's hard to plan on spending money on things if we don't know when one of us will get paid next after the move, you know?

But, to move on to the main focus of this post, which actually has to do with our move, is that I have recently figured out what my word for 2017 is going to be. New Year's has always felt like a mixed message; a beginning and an end wrapped up into one, and January always seems to have a certain gloom about it to me, like a depression period post-holiday season. I usually like to look forward to the changing of the new year as an opportunity to start new, try again, and look forward to what's to come. Instead of focusing on resolutions I will probably break anyways, having a word gives me a chance to have something to think on, meditate on, and allow the universe to utilize to do work on me as well. Over on Susannah Conway's blog, you can actually use her week of exercises to find your word if you want to try it out. I highly recommend it, particularly if you are kind of bad at resolutions like me, but still love that idea of having something to look forward to.

So what's my word for 2017?

I picked this for my word of the next year simply because it ties into so many other aspects of things I am trying to improve upon in my own life. To me, flow is defined as "to proceed smoothly and readily; to readjust to disruptions and change under stress without cracking." I tend to have a hard time with patience, accepting things for what they are and will be, and letting things go and letting them be. Flow embodies a lot of that to me. It means greeting the next year of big changes with the idea that I can accept what I cannot change, and I can redirect myself around the things I can change. It means not cracking under stress and learning to find new ways to find patience and ease. It means looking at the forks in the road ahead and saying, "I've got this," and not stressing myself out into an anxiety-induced panic over the things I cannot change.

I am hoping this brings patience, balance, and ease to my life in the next year. I know there are quite a few big changes happening for me in 2017, so I am excited to see what it brings. To end, here are a few quotes I am loving that I can utilize for inspiration throughout the new year:

(1, 2, 3, 4)

So do you have a word for the new year? Any goals and plans for the next 365 days?  I would love to hear about it!

a love letter to Georgia

I'm going to admit something to you that most people probably don't know about me: I am not a Georgia native. Technically, I was born in Jacksonville, FL and I lived there for the first two years of my life. Do I remember it? Not a bit, really. The last time I lived there, I looked like this:

Adorable, right?

We moved to Georgia in the early 90's, before I even started elementary school. Growing up, I lived in a wide variety of houses. We settled in a small town called Snellville, your quintessential suburban oasis, complete with picturesque parks, a multitude of neighborhoods, and two main roads that cross each other at the center. Our first Georgia home was a townhouse, located at the end of a cul-de-sac. Our neighbors used to babysit me occasionally and feed me frozen dinners, and my first 'best friend' lived just up the road. That townhouse, I first learned to play pretend in that front yard, imagining I, too, was Belle from my favorite Disney movie, sitting in the patch of dandelions by the driveway. I shared a room with my older sister, and believed strongly that either David Bowie's Jareth or that the Wicked Witch of the West lived in my closet, waiting to strike as soon as the lamp was turned off. It was the first place I saw snow, the first place I learned to ride a bike at, and the first place I made friends. That townhouse are where my first memories came from of Georgia.

From there, my parents bought a much larger house down the way, with an enormous backyard ready for my imagination to take over. That house on Oak Grove Lane was where I grew up. I went to school from that house for the first time. I spent the best Christmas as a child in that house, the one we videoed that we still, twenty years later, reference at Thanksgivings and Christmases. That house I had my own room for the first time, sang into my hairbrush handle various Spice Girl songs, and tried to crash all of my sister's birthday parties because I thought she was the most amazing person in the world to me (I still kind of think that, seester). Oddly enough, that is also the house I saw the whirlwind spin-out of my parents getting divorced. It both holds the best and worst memories of my childhood at that house, the exceptional mark of the parade of time moving from child to teenager.

Following that house on Oak Grove Lane, we bounced around a bit. My mom, bless her, was a single mom again and this time had two children to worry about, though my sister was hardly a child at that point. The three of us depended on each other and banded together to accomplish the impossible. Those years were not always full of plenty, but we got by and thrived on the love we had as a family, which often made all of our cups spill over. Those years are what I feel are a testament to my character as an adult, crafting my resilience to carry on no matter what, making the present as joyful as possible, and sculpting the idea of working hard to achieve the things I've wanted.

After the various moves and numerous boxes and collective houses we have made home, I left them all to go to college. I am the first woman in my immediate family to have gone away to university, lived in a dorm, experienced campus living, and come away from it, granted eight years later, with a Bachelor's degree. I was always raised to believe that college was the goal, but more than that, that whatever I wanted to do with my life, I could do it. Anything I wanted to accomplish, anyone I wanted to be... I could do and be and have, I've never stopped being grateful for that. 

[Sidenote: I'll admit, college wasn't an easy course for me. I absolutely adore learning, but I loathe and detest feeling like I have to validate myself with testing. I enjoy so much about the academic sphere, yet the technicalities that seem to cloud it have always annoyed me.]

But this is a love letter to Georgia, my home state for my whole life. And it would be amiss if I didn't talk about my love for the Peach State. Georgia is all I've known to live in. I've never known or remembered living anywhere else that didn't include a drive down 285, 85, 75, or 400. I've never lived farther than an hour from my family. All I've known are summers at Lake Lanier and Stone Mountain, getting sunburnt and watching laser shows and fireworks. King of Pops while walking in Little Five Points, fighting the intense humidity any way possible.  Mild winters and gorgeous autumns, complete with our annual trip to the pumpkin patch and apple orchard in the Blue Ridge Mountains. 

For the majority of my life, I've gotten to call the suburbs of Atlanta my home. While I'm no stranger to being able to just pick up and go [see every time I moved in college and that time I said, I'm studying abroad in London and actually made it happen], this is the first time I've moved to another state, outside of my comfort zone. I'm definitely excited about it, but I'm going to miss it here at home. Even the traffic, which is abhorrent. This place will always be home.

And I know we will do our best to make North Carolina our home for the next few years as well.

I love you, Georgia. I'll see you soon.

what am I up to / 001

There's a lot going on here lately with me and my little corner of the world, but I feel taking some time to reflect on the simple things right now is really something I need. I've been so anxious about this move and waiting to hear back about some career prospects that I've had trouble focusing on anything else. So let's worry about the positive and get in tune with the small details. I love the details anyways.

watching The Crown and Call the Midwife on Netflix, which I recently caught up on both, so definitely need to find a new show to watch. Or I might just forego it, since I need to get a jump on the holidays. Perhaps some National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation will be on deck later. It isn't the holidays without it.


listening to Keaton Henson & Lisa Hannigan's duet of How Could I Have Known and I'm obsessed. I've had a lot of Gavin James playing in my ears lately too.  

reading Voyager by Diana Gabaldon. I borrowed the first two books from MJ before she went to Austraila and I've been desperately trying to finish the third book so we can talk about it. We both love the Outlander series and I wanted to read the books. Being an English major, I've always had a thing for the book over the film.

planning our big move to Raleigh. There's still so much left to plan and purchase and figure out, it's hard though without some stability in the job department. Hopefully, we will have our answers sooner rather than later.

missing my sister, Caitlin, MJ, and Jessi. I probably text all 4 on a daily basis and I've been missing them all a lot lately. Caitlin lives out in Texas, Jessi in Florida, and MJ is in Australia for the next 8-10 months with her husband Zach (in fact they have a fantastic blog detailing their journey, you all should check it out!) Both my sister and Jessi are pregnant with boys, Caitlin is trying to settle into a new position in Austin, and MJ has been traveling all over, enjoying life in the best way. All of these people have been having an amazing stroke of good luck lately, and I wish sometimes we were all a little closer in distance so I could hug them each for an ungodly long amount of time.

wondering about this new position I am hoping to snatch up at work if possible, if Ashley and I will be able to get everything together we need for the move, and whether December will be the positive end to such a crazy year. Lots of thoughts about couches, decorating our apartment, getting into the Christmas spirit, when things will settle down...

playing entirely too much Candy Crush and Gardenscapes (a game similar to Candy Crush). It's my absent thinking, keep my hands busy and my brain engaged, kind of app to use, and I admit, I am all about it sometimes. I'm working on pulling away from my phone more.

cooking not nearly enough! With us living with Ashley's mom for now, and both of us getting home from work around 7, it's hard to get home and cook and still get in bed in time to get enough sleep before our super early alarms. Ashley's mom tends to cook a lot, which makes me extremely grateful, but I'm a little overly excited to get back to cooking dinner in our new apartment. Plus, our new kitchen is really pretty.

loving this weather recently. It hasn't rained in Georgia in over a month so the past two days have been filled with grey skies and raindrops falling down the windows of my office, and I absolutely adore it. Also, just loving the feeling of so much that is wonderful right around the corner, and it's a bit intoxicating to think about what all can be. I'm also really loving that I get to decorate our apartment soon too. Hands down one of my favorite parts of moving.

not trying to stress myself out more over the uncertainty in my life right now. It's hard, I enjoy being in control and at least having some idea as to what is coming next, but this move is hard to predict because I'm still waiting to hear back about a job. I'm also not decorating for the holidays yet, because we are about to move, and it kind of dampens my holiday spirit. 

drinking a lot of water. Usually around this time of year, I tend to celebrate everything with a craft brew or a glass of cab sav, but in an effort to save money, I've been trying to not get too festive and instead ramp up my water intake. Ashley got us some Nalgene water bottles last year with an Amazon giftcard her boss gave her, and we both use them religiously. With each bottle being 32oz and has a wide mouth, it's easy to fill up, easy to track how much you're actually drinking, and it's easy to use. I probably fill mine up about 3 or 4 times a day, and I hate going anywhere without it, so it's absolutely an investment. I used to have a Camelbak water bottle that was double-insulated and had a spout, but that mouthpiece is very much prone to mold, and it's really difficult to clean, so as much I loved carrying it around campus last year, I'm in love with my Nalgene.

crying over Living Rosa on YouTube. I've been following them for a while, Tara and Mandi are a married couple from Long Island that have a daughter, Lennon, and are currently trying for another. They started their channel to document their journey to motherhood, and they are both so refreshingly honest and wonderful people. If I lived in the NY area, I would want to be their friends for sure. It's just so wonderful to see a lesbian couple in the world happily married, happily parenting, and happy in living their lives. They definitely give me hope for when Ashley and I pursue that route (not any time soon guys) and I'm an emotional person who enjoys seeing people happy. 

wearing entirely too many cardigans. It's my thing in fall and winter, I simply take my summer and spring wardrobe, slap a cardigan, a scarf, and some fun tights on underneath it, and I'm out the door. Also, my boots that I need to repair yet again. I wear them that much.  

obsessing over a lot of things right now, including: Gavin James' music, home decor ideas for our new place, looking forward to more adult purchases like couches and curtains, trying to revamp my wardrobe to reflect the fact that I am 28 and not 21 anymore, onion bagels and caramel macchiatos from Einstein's Bagels, the Jones Market new holiday line of necklaces (I need like five right now), Holl & Lane magazine (please check out this amazing publication here), finding the right journal to start bullet journaling in, and looking at pictures of my wedding dress my mom so graciously bought for me this past month...y'all, it is so gorgeous.

working really, really, really hard on trying to get a job in North Carolina. It's really tough. Also, my budget. When you've worked for years and years in the restaurant industry, it's hard to transition from getting money every day of work to only twice a month (but at least my paychecks mean I have insurance and stability and it's usually much more than what I was making in restaurants.) But I've been working at it and lo and behold... it's working. Things are slowly but steadily working towards being healthy financially. Let's hope this position I'm eyeing works out and then I will really get to move towards a healthy financial future!

writing more and more on the blog as best as I can. I've really been wanting to submit some of my writing to Holl & Lane or try to work on putting together something. It's hard to find time to write lately, but my goal in 2017 is to make the time I need.