Out With the Old

You were fun sparkles but it's time to move on...

Feeling Creative

A few days ago I wrote about my addiction to Pintrest and how awesome it is but this site is changing my life. All of a sudden I have this immense amount of information and images of projects and parties and design and decorating and architecture and style and just color and texture. And with it comes this extremely effective way to organize all this information and keep track of these things with very little effort. I'm feeling so inspired in regards to everything. I want to make stationery, throw endless parties, paint, wear my hair in something other than a messy bun, I want to design a whole entire house and decorate every single corner of it. I want to visit Spain and Greece and Italy. And I all of a sudden have such a passion for all of these things.

If I were the kind of person who flit from thing to thing I would feel excited right now but also know this was likely a phase. Instead I feel a genuine change happening. Trust me, I realize how silly this sounds, but I'm starting to picture myself gardening or buying a house or...building things. It's crazy.

These are some of the things inspiring me right now but really, it's just a tip of the iceberg.

Uh Oh...

I went puppy supply shopping this weekend and found this toy. At that point I was still considering the name 'Cupcake' for the new little guy and thought this would be super perfect if that ended up being his name but pretty dang cute regardless. Tangent...do you know how much merchandise for dogs is littered with images of cupcakes? It's like, a whole thing. There are toys and collars and clothes and bandannas...Cupcakes are cute so I could see some things with that image emblazoned on them but the pet store has an entire section devoted solely to things with mini cake on them. It's weird. Anyways, I also bought this thing because it was $1.17 and I don't really know how you can beat that.

Unfortunately, this has happened.


He made a noise when I touched it. He's already stealing toys from the sibling he doesn't even know he has.

Guess who's getting a puppy...

...me! He'll be here Memorial Day weekend. Coming from CA on a road trip with Tova who happens to be going down there anyways and offered to be a puppy shuttle. I have wanted a dog for a long time but not felt like I was at the right place in my life. I finally feel like this will be good. I can't wait to spend the spring and summer on walks with this little guy. I haven't decided on a name yet so if you have any ideas throw them out. I tend to like weird names. If you hadn't gathered from my naming my cat Javier.

It's Valentines Day! And this has nothing to do with that!

I know there are a lot of single people who get all worked up about Valentines Day and feeling lonely and blah blah blah but I like this holiday. I like the decorations, I like celebrating something positive, and I just love love.

Unfortunately I don't really have anything exciting to offer you that has anything to do with the holiday. Probably because I am single. I do have hair inspiration photos to share though because, whatdayaknow...this girl wants to change her hair. Again.

Asking For Help

So, I don't usually write about "serious things" but lately I've been feeling really thankful for my friends. This week alone I have a friend who brought my packages into my apartment for me when I wasn't there, another friend who is hanging a chandelier for me and putting up with my not understanding tools or wiring or anything at all related to this light and my impulse to buy it, and another friend who is going to come over and sit in my apartment and wait for my groceries to be delivered because I'm not only too busy to grocery shop but I'm too busy to wait for groceries to arrive. And while my friends are truly amazing and deserve bunches of thanks a part of me is really proud of myself right now because I'm asking for help. Which is a new thing for me.

There's a long back story but basically my parents are a little (read: lots) nuts and kicked me out of the house when I was a teenager. I know it sounds hard to believe but I honestly was a great kid and hadn't done anything wrong. I've made a few attempts at a relationship with my mom but it's just never been worth all the ups and downs and headaches that come with it. I've always described it to people like, if that was a relationship with a friend or boyfriend everyone who loves me would be telling me to get out. And while some people have lovely families the one you end up with is really arbitrary and mine just happens to not be that awesome. I'm not going to let the fact that I'm related to someone mean I need to make myself stressed and upset over a relationship I get nothing beneficial from.

So, this relationship, or non-relationship, I have with my parents has sort of fucked me up. Not like extremely but enough that I have a major part of me that insists I must be able to care for myself in every aspect of my life. It doesn't really lend well to asking for help with anything. And it sort of sucks because I won't ask for help until I'm at my breaking point and by then it's too late to really matter.

This past year was really rough for me with a lot of friends leaving my life which left me feeling all those feelings I had with my parents again. I felt even more determined to do everything myself and a bigger refusal to let people into my life, because, in my mind, they all would leave anyways. And then, I was driving one day and I couldn't breathe. It was pouring rain, really hard even for here, and I couldn't pull over and I just felt like I couldn't make myself do the most natural of things and just take a breathe. When I finally did start breathing again I realized it was time to ask for help.

I know this is maybe a sort of taboo thing to reveal but I feel it's important to be open about this. I don't think making people feel bad for getting help does any good whereas being open may allow someone else to feel well and that would be awesome. So, I started seeing a therapist. Who was really bad at her job. So I stopped seeing her and started seeing someone else who is amazing and everything I thought I didn't want. I was not keen on seeing a male therapist because I thought I wouldn't be able to be as open as I would with a female doctor and I didn't want to see a psychiatrist because I'm not that cool with taking medicine for a cold so I didn't think I'd want to be taking something daily. But after some time and some of the medicine I was so opposed to once upon a time I started to feel better and realize how not normal I had been feeling before. I started relaxing and not feeling like any mistake I made would make people leave me and I stopped being so insane about schedules. And all of a sudden now, I'm able to ask for help. Which may seem like a small step but is huge for me. And luckily I have amazing friends willing to give me that help.

Home Sweet Home

Guess who has a new home...

And by "home" I mean place to live, not an actual house. I signed my lease papers this weekend and will get keys on December 1st. I cannot wait to have an actual separated bedroom and living room and a kitchen where more than one person can cook without being crowded. I'm also pretty excited about hardwood floors, the most giant closet ever (with the exception of one, Miss Mariah Carey's), two whole walls of windows, and a view to die for. Not to mention the incredible location.

I've never really decorated a home, another thing I'm way excited for. My current place was sort of a victim of circumstance in that I originally didn't have the money to be putting into decorating and then, once I did, I didn't want to put too much into what I knew was really temporary. I mean, there are some things I did and love that will definitely carry on to this new place. Now though, I can't wait to pick rugs and furniture that I'll plan to have for awhile. Things that have character. And I'm so looking forward to both creating and buying artwork for the walls and going fabric shopping for curtains and just really making this place a home. My home. I want someone to walk in and feel like the place I live is me and that somehow they're experiencing something intimate in being there. Like learning someone's secrets but feeling so endeared to that person you don't have any desire to reveal them.

A New 'Do

Once upon a time I was blonde. I mean really blonde. After awhile though I got tired of the upkeep and how I felt I needed to wear serious clothing to be taken seriously and the kind of boys who are attracted to blondes specifically. I went brunette and swore I would never be blonde again.

Then I started craving red hair. And I've done it a few times, usually a very dark red or a brunette with some red in it. I've never just gone full fledged red head. The other day I was looking for sweaters online and I found a picture of a strawberry blonde haired model and I knew I couldn't resist any longer. I had to try it.

I already had a hair appointment set up so I decided instead of my regular root touch up I would request a hair makeover. Luckily my hair stylist thought this would be really fun rather than annoying. After three hours of bleaching out my hair, correcting roots, adding highlights, and then all over coloring and having my hair washed and blow dried three times, I ended up with this:



I think any time you make a drastic hair color change the first reaction is to not like it, and true to form, that was mine. I spent Saturday and Sunday stressing about how I could pull off this hair color and worrying I looked ridiculous. This morning though, I woke up and decided I may just be okay with this.