Note to Self: Follow My Bliss

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Wine Bottle Ideas

I've been collecting wine bottles. I wanted to use them for our wedding.. when I thought we were having a winery wedding. Now I've gotten it in my head to use them for lighting and decorating our outside space. Oh, I haven't told you about that yet, have I? We have this little flat space nestled into the side of the hill next to our house (which is on top of the garage, also nestled into the side of the hill). It has an old fireplace at one end. We want to make it into a cozy space for bbqs, dinner parties and just hanging out in the warmer weather. Anywho, these are some rad ideas I've come across in my search for inspiration for our special outdoor spot. I admit it, I was watching Hoarders: Buried Alive today and subsequently looking around thinking about what I've been 'collecting.'

image linky: one two three four

Dress Up

All this Bridesmaid/ Maid of Honor dress perusing (for my own and my plp's wedding) is bringing me close to the edge of
'the only thing in my wardrobe this spring/summer shall be feminine, fun, flirty dresses!'
I guess as far as the edge goes, it's not a bad way to go, eh?

1. Dance Card 
2. Confetti Celebration
3. Geraldine

Thankful Thursday

Today I am thankful..

That I can cut and dye my own hair whenever I want
That things are going swimmingly while my boss is on his vacation
For the new wine bar and restaurant that just opened nearby. To die for!

For all the fun things coming up next week, like:
High Tea at Brambleberry Cottage with Mom and Sisters
Wine Tasting at the Arbor Crest Cliff House
Trying out the food at Greenbriar Inn (and hopefully choosing them to do our wedding food!)
Nate's pizza and wings
Hugging my mom
Watching a ton of movies
Having Andrea cut my hair
Hanging out joking around with my brothers (Brad, Nick, Jeff, Pete, Jacob)
Getting Rachelle out of the house without the kiddos
Playing Poker and various other games
Going dress shopping with my sisters (and Mom?)
Getting up early and having tea on the deck with Dad
(Nick reminded me that it's going to be way too cold to be doing anything on the deck :P)
And that I'm getting into a sleep routine. It's kinda nice having a set schedule for two weeks! 

You can glimpse my dorkwolf tattoo before it was finished in the above picture.
I adore Sword in the Stone.. I have Archimedes the owl too~
he and the wolf are my two favorite characters!
Also a peak at my stick figures tattoo on my wrist.
She's feeling low so he's cheering her up with a daisy. Cute, no?
Everyone always thinks it's a bicycle. I guess I can see that..

A Delicious Morning

Sometimes soft morning light, a soft boiled egg and toast and a favorite tea combination* are all I need.
Mom, I still love the teacups you gave me.

*Any of the sweet teas from Brambleberry Cottage steeped alongside good ol' English Breakfast :)

Thought for Today: Love First

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Snaps From an Idaho BBQ

I love this deck...   (Hello, reception dinner view!)



My brother Jeff (Brother #3 of 5) can't wait to be 21.



Silly sister moments. (And a snippet of a tattoo! Why yes, yes that is Archimedes!)
(psst.. more silly sister moments)



My niece Skyla leading her friend, Cousin Chad, around the party.



Love the flowers. Mom always has flowers.    :)

(These were taken last September, after the Hillbilly Nationals.)

Thankful Thursday

Thankful:

:) My Mother-In-Law lets us borrow her car when my Mustang is being worked on. What a nice MIL.

:) I've been doing great with my body appreciation quest. The days I 'break the chain' I feel off. Yay, that means it's a habit now!

:) My families are so excited about having our wedding up in Idaho. So are we! My bestie even said that's where she imagined it.
Everything is falling into place. Even though it's a year and a half away, there's still plenty to be planned and done and it's definitely a fun family affair!

:) Tomorrow I'm booking flights for PLP and I to go to San Francisco in April for our first time (and only our second trip together ever in 15 years of friendship!)

:) My boss just started his 13 day vacation and I couldn't be happier or more confident that our staff and I will rock it out while he's gone.

:) The day he gets back, I immediately go to Idaho for a week!

:) I'm pretty sure I found my wedding dress. SO easily and for thousands less than I expected. Fingers crossed, it's on its way to me as I type!
(Good luck to PLP, she bought one she hopefully loves too, hers is from the BHLDN line!)

:) Food. Balancing healthy with not, and making it all taste good.

(Photo: The Sausage-Stuffed Mushrooms at Christmas)

Lessons Learned

The past 24 hours have been about lessons for me.

I have learned:

1. It's always, always better to write to the offending person
in a word document or notepad or some such place.
Never a good idea to draft an email~
I may click send accidentally.
Or I may feel great in the heat of the moment
about sending it and then regret it.
If it's not in the draft already addressed
it makes taking a minute to let it go much easier.

2. It may take dozens of drafts piling up 

in that notepad document to sift through my feelings. 

No matter if I have said the same thing a million ways, 

if I'm not feeling good before I actually say or send something, 

it's not time to say it, or it simply needs to be released, not delivered.

3. It's not a good idea to take offense 

on someone else's behalf 

unless I have the details 

of their feelings on the matter. 

They may not be offended at all! 

Waste of energy.

4. Venting is best done to either an impartial party,
or the person/people who can give me the full story.
People with bits and pieces can just complicate things.
People involved closely can get emotional right back.
Just messy.

5. When I react strongly to something/someone, 

there's a good chance that I am in fact 

being what I'm accusing the offender of being.  

(i.e., accusing someone of not thinking of others 

while I am bringing those I love down 

with my ranting and raving.)

6. I knew this, but I got a reminder. 

The universe is about inclusion, not exclusion. 

When I am reacting to an event or a behavior 

I am not excluding that from my experience, 

I'm including more of it by railing against it so vehemently. 

Venting has its purpose: 

to allow me to let go of feelings and thoughts 

that don't represent me. 

If I hold on to my venting 

I'm making the situation much worse.

7. There are a few very wise souls in my life.
I will be wiser and happier
if I listen to them before I throw a fit.
Or at least listen to them, throw my fit in private,
and then listen again with open ears.

8. No matter how right I think I am 

about a situation, 

it's never a good idea to send out negativity. 

Does it really help the situation? 

99.99% of the time, no.

9. Just call Mom. Don't wait, just do it.

Yup. There you go. You guys learn anything about how you want to live lately?

Gathering Momentum

I first started getting into the Law of Attraction when I read Ask and It Is Given. That was a definite turning point in my life.
It was as if a light bulb clicked on in my head. Duh! I create my own reality.
I love finding others who live this way intentionally as well.

I love that Jessica Mullen calls it Life Design. And she breaks it down beautifully I think. Makes it a fun process!
Her Valentine's Day gift to us is a fabulous worksheet to use to get our positive, creative juices flowing.
I had so much fun doing it, I had to share it with you too!  
You'll have to sign up for her email list. 
If you want to unsubscribe later you can of course, but you probably won't want to!

Scenes From Family Funday

{Above: I love that the Seagull is flying in formation with the helicopters!!!}

So yesterday I had a Saturday off (!). We were supposed to go see Brian Regan for our anniversary, but it was too expensive. SO Shawn had the brilliant idea of going down to Seaport Village to watch the Naval Show. 100 Years in Naval Aviation~ tons of aircraft we haven't seen except on the History Channel! Since we are both into flying (admittedly Shawn much more obsessed than I) it was such a fun way to spend a day. The whole family came out~ his Ma and Pa and sister. We got good spots on the wall overlooking the bay and roasted in the afternoon sun. (Sister, who gets waay darker than I, actually ended up burnt, while my blinding whiteness was unaffected! I guess reapplying the sunscreen actually worked for me this time! I was surprised) It was so fun and peaceful at the same time. Good thing I bought a fabulous big floppy straw hat, because I don't own sunglasses currently and it was BRIGHT out there! In fact, that was our only complaint~ our eyeballs were hurtin from squinting up into the sun at the planes! By the end we all felt like kids after a day at the beach~ warm, content, and exhausted in a good way.

{P.s. Good Lord Shawn's hair drives me nuts in the pic of him with his mom. Apparently I forgot to trim the back of his neck last haircut! Sorry, it doesn't usually look like that!}

I Miss My Pink Bangs

They were so pretty with my magenta-ish/reddish hair.

P.s. I don't know what I changed about my makeup, but I like it better in these pics than it's been looking lately. 

Thankful Thursday: Ramblings

I'm thankful today..

If I have to work, at least I love my job and everyone I work with.

Spring (and then summer) is only two months away.

I got to have a PLP date the other night. Involving a self-grilled burger, sauteed mushrooms, mac n cheese, and trying a new cocktail.
{Whiskey and red wine together? Who knew??} It also involved the first chick flick in a looooong time that actually cracked us up
and I would see it again! {Was not expecting this after the previews}

Wedding planning is in full swing, with much more participation from my nearest and dearest than before we made our big decision. It's fun!

I'm about to have a new engine in my car. After that, ball joints, transmission, shifter, rearview mirror, new hood, body shop.
I know that sounds like a lot but we've come a long way baby! Piece of cake.

After our vehicles are dialed in, we are thisclose to Shawn having a shop.
His shop means income that doesn't feel like work.
It means my days of 'working' are numbered too.
It means building his airplane will be so much faster and easier.

I have wonderful friends in my life. More friends than free time! So blessed.

Tomorrow is our eight year anniversary. Almost the entire decade of my twenties, dedicated to this man. And vice-versa.
And hopefully many more almost-decades to come!

Idaho in less than three weeks!

Photo by my friend Adam. Of his life mate Zion. I heart them both.

Scenes From an Idaho Walk

These were taken back in 2008. I call the rock in the above photo 'Camo Rock.'

Gorgeous Flower Tattoos

Aren't these flowers breathtakingly beautiful? {The third one is such a cute idea!}

{First and third images saved via Ink It Up, no credits were listed at time of posting. 
Second image is Ashley Duncan. Her flowers were done by Scott Duncan. }

A Wonderful Twist of Fate

I am so ecstatic I just had to share this recent development with you guys.

Where do I start?

Shawn and I agreed there is only one place we would want to get married in the San Diego area: South Coast. So we've been planning on having a winery wedding. And not having lives or accomplishing many goals over the next year and a half because we have been committing ourselves to the financial burden of it.

Our parents and families think we should do whatever we want, and they support us no matter what, which is amazing. My dad made me cry with the sweetest email about how weddings are blown way out of proportion and simple can be much sweeter.

We've been talking about it more since we got our quote and package info. And neither of us has been very excited. It just felt like something we had to do. Something that was going to be a huge pain in the ass and cost a lot and we had to try to please people we didn't care all that much about pleasing.

When we got engaged (which some of you know happened on Mothers' Day while we were visiting Idaho last year) I immediately pictured getting married on my parents' front lawn. And that image has been lingering. I kept bringing it up to Shawn, and the more we've been talking about it the past few days, the more it was making sense to have the wedding there instead.

So this morning, we got to the point in our discussion that the only thing holding us back from doing that was not wanting to put pressure on the family. I finally texted my mom, 'can we just get married on your front lawn?' and her response was  'Sure!'  I showed it to honey and we both grinned as I texted her back,  'Done!'

SO we are getting married at my parents' house in Idaho! And I could not be more stoked! It feels so right. I'm so excited. Planning now seems like FUN. We can actually picture the event (whereas with SC we were both just picturing generic weddings) and the people we love there. See the pic above? I want to walk down the stepping stones and get hitched right there. It's going to be amazing. I feel like the biggest weight has lifted!

Now I feel like we can truly be US and don't have to conform to a 'package.' The people there will only be the most important in our lives, and it is going to be the best party EVER! We can do whatever we want, even ride motorcycles!

I can't even tell you how blessed and excited I feel right now. This is how you're SUPPOSED to feel planning your wedding I think! Like the planning will be almost as fun as the event itself! It just feels right.

Simple Dinner

We've been hooked on variations of this simple dinner lately. Can't wait to make it next night I'm home. Basically it's just steamed veggies, rice, chicken, and a simple butter/cream sauce {every cook should know how to make a cream sauce. Thanks Mom, for showing me when I was young!} The beauty of it is that you can change up the kinds of veggies and rice, and change the herbs on the chicken and in the sauce, and it always tastes new! We were {ok, I was} on a big eating out kick for a few months. But lately I find myself drawn to simpler, homemade foods. Which is good because not only do we have a wedding to finance we have a ton of trips planned over the next year, so the more we eat at home the better! {and better for us, I'm certain} This particular meal was amazing. Ginger carrots and broccoli, garlic chicken, and rosemary sauce. I promise it wasn't a trainwreck of flavors, they blended perfectly! And of course a nice beer tops everything off. {I miss drinking! It's been a couple weeks since my last glass of wine, and over a month since I went out last~ I was trying to be 'good' for vacation and then ended up being sick the whole time, go figure} I always forget how easy it can be to cook at home! I'm going to remind myself this year. {There's another intention for my 29th lap around the sun!}

Thankful Thursday: Wedding and Life Musings

Today I'm Thankful:
~the flu is fading and my health returning
~my wonderful man who takes good care of me, sick or not
~my coworkers who light up my day
~Whole Foods is a 4 minute walk away from work
~thought we couldn't reserve our wedding date til August, found out we better get our deposit together NOW. Good thing I asked early!
~after seeing the price tag for our wedding venue and reception, grateful we have 18 months to save!
~my everyday life has so much freedom
~my mom and my sisters are an awesome help de-stressing the wedding guest list process
~I've been playing my piano more
~we've been getting into making simple, delicious meals at home
~even though plane tickets are expensive, we can make them happen, and they will take us to Idaho! {in less than a month}
~soon I will feel well enough to drink wine again
{it's been over a week, which feels like an eternity to me, plus there are four shiny new bottles from the wine club staring at me from the counter!}
~I have a big, loving family who never cease to amaze, comfort and make me smile
~my car is running very nicely right now
~the break I've been forced to take from caffeine is undoubtedly doing me good
~my wedding is going to be fun and easy to plan
~we have all kinds of opportunities to begin making a lot more money this year
~I feel less pressure to find 'my way' and more confident in finding 'our way' together

*please excuse my hair in the above pic. yikes. at least I was happy though :P