Childhood Memories

Yesterday afternoon, my mom went to Seattle Pacific University's graduation ceremony to watch a family friend's daughter graduate. It's so crazy to see people graduate from college who you remember so distinctly as a kid. She and I used to play all the time in our backyard with Breyer horses, or setting up horse jumping courses by setting broomsticks across two chairs around the backyard and seeing who could complete the course fastest. We also were the "directors" of an ongoing production of "Cats," whose cast boasted us and all our siblings. There are multiple home videos of this, and yes, they're pretty awesome/incriminating. Seriously though. We knew every lyric and all the choreography. Our parents were forced to sit through countless showings. It's funny to think that I'm probably closer to my own kids pulling those kinds of antics than my own childhood.

dress + shoes/courtesy of Modcloth :: jacket/lulu*s :: vest/H&M

belt/thrifted :: bag/fossil :: photos w/vest by my mom

Usually commencement speeches are boring and longwinded, but I quite enjoyed the speech at SPU's graduation. It touched on much of the things I've been thinking about for my life in recent weeks, including simplifying and really figuring out my identity. It was also great to be able to talk to my mom. I miss being able to talk with her since we live so far away from one another. There's something so grounding and refreshing about talking with someone who knows you so completely. There's no need to explain the background story, or try to get her to understand what I mean because she knows how I communicate, my character, and my faults. I think that's what's so hard about making new friends. You want to find someone you can have that connection with, but really it's something that can only be built over time. Starting the process of finding someone who "gets" you and is trustworthy and compatible with you is just so hard sometimes.

Simplify

Wow, unintentional blog hiatus there!  It's crazy how life sometimes takes the reins and you have to ride the wave.  I'm up in Seattle tonight with my mom to go to a family friend's graduation tomorrow morning.  We hung out, got some beers and walked around Queen Anne before heading over to the University Village to do some window shopping.  Well, mostly window shopping, I got a couple things  from H&M.  Then, we had dinner and headed back to the hotel for the night.  It's so great to see family and hang out when I have the opportunity, since we live so far away from each other.  Thankfully, from Anchorage, Seattle is the closest place you can fly to in the lower 48, at a mere 3.5 hours in-air.

Anyway, I don't have any photos from our adventures uploaded yet, but here are some pretty things to look at that I've pinned recently.  Most of these are from my Simplify board.  I've been enjoying pinning images which remind me of the simple joys of life.  Click the image to find the source.

Life Lately

I've been feeling rather productive this past week.  I think I'm getting in a groove.  I'm working on an illustrated blog design currently and it's so nice to work with a pencil and paper again.  I'm on the computer so much these days that I miss out on that simple pleasure of feeling graphite glide along paper.  

Dan and I have started budgeting, which is exciting since we've been meaning to for quite some time, but I finally just sat down and started doing it.  Dan really wants to save up for a trip, and I'm excited to pay off school loans and such so we can be debt-free.  I got a sweet budgeting app, called Home Budget, which is really nice.  It lets you input all your income and budget and you can budget everything into different categories.  Then, throughout the month, you input your expenses in each of your budget categories and it'll tell you how much you have left in your budget for each item.  And it has a graph that compares your income, expenses, and budget.  I'm a fan.  I know there are tons of budgeting apps out there, though.  It's nice having a budget in app form, so it's always with you.  If I go to the grocery store I can input my grocery expense right after checking out, so I don't forget between the time I leave the store and get home.  

We're also reading "Financial Peace Planner," which is the present my Mom gave me at my bridal shower.  When I opened it, I looked at my mom and she goes, "There's nothing sexier than a debt-free marriage!"  Haha!  I think budgeting will be a good addition to my efforts to simplify life.  It might not be fun at times, but in the long run we'll be glad we started budgeting now instead of later.

mint harvesting // boots weather // curls // breakfast // a sunny outfit // drawing for a client

Libraries of Threadbare Garments

It's that time of year again.  The time of year when my moccasins are pretty much the only shoes I wear.  I love how moccasins "petina" over time.  When I bought my bridesmaids each a pair of moccasins for my wedding, I bought the exact same color that I have, but they were so light that I thought I'd bought a different color!  One of my bridesmaids just posted a photo of her moccs on facebook and they're now the exact same color as mine.

I was talking with a friend about this part in Walden where Thoreau talks about clothes being worn thin and having to patch them and we were joking about this shirt Dan had that was literally disintegrating.  He was saying how he loves seeing wear and tear on old, loved items of clothing and remembering how each mark, tear, or imperfection got there.  A whole library of life stories in each weathered item of clothing.  I love that about clothes.  With blogging, it's easy to think back to the last time I wore a certain item of clothing, or significant events linked to certain pieces of clothing.  I haven't worn this skirt on the blog a ton, but I remember one of my favorite outfits involving this skirt from two summers ago, when I was living in AK right before leaving on the Winne trip.

top / forever 21 :: skirt / thrifted :: cardigan / courtesy of modcloth :: shoes / minnetonka

Lately I've been thinking a lot about moving back to Alaska.  Who knows if it's ever going to be in the cards for us, but I think I'd probably be sad if I never lived there again.  Maybe it's just all this thinking about simplifying life, reading Walden, my visit last month, and poring through Backwoods Mom that's got me all atwitter for the last frontier again.  I've been reminiscing about my time hanging out in Talkeetna with friends who were living in a yurt for the summer.  Dan spent a summer in Talkeetna back in 2008, and while I've spent quite a bit of time visiting friends who were living there, I've never lived there.  I'd love to try and spend next summer up there.  But we'll see.  That's a long time off.  I don't even know what we're doing when our lease is up in September!  Dan keeps throwing out there that we should live in the Winne, which I'd love to do.  I haven't been able to figure out how to do it while living in Tacoma, unless one of our friends wants to rent out a 22 ft patch of backyard to us and let us use their hose and electricity.  But man, would that be magical. 

Mint Harvest

For the longest time, when I was taking photos in this alleyway I kept smelling something minty.  I figured it was probably just some weird combination of plants, but upon closer inspection I discovered that nestled among the weeds and grass on the side of the road there were a ton of mint plants!  I think there might be some other herbs scattered around because when I was laying in the grass I smelled some other herb-like scents, but they weren't as obvious as the mint.  I may investigate further on a later date.  Anyway, since the mint is just growing on the side of the alley I grabbed a couple sprouts and have it sitting in a jar full of water on my kitchen window sill waiting for it to sprout some roots so I can  plant it!  I've heard mint grows like mad, so I might keep it in a little window box.  Or, since our backyard is already a jungle, I may just let it run wild.  Either way, I sense mojitos in my future!

dress/courtesy of modcloth :: top/courtesy of free people :: tights + glasses/target
boots/thrifted :: bag/courtesy of nikolette bags