Oh hello there. 

Today I'd like to talk about inspiration.

Last night I was needing to write a 6 page paper about my passions in life, and I was lacking inspiration. I knew what my passions were and what inspired me in life, but I was having a hard time streamlining it into one paper. I had begun, typed one page that was all over the place talking about beautiful sunlight, inventing things and all kinds of other giberish when my computer froze. I restarted, lost everything. But in the long term it was okay, because a much better paper cam out of it. I ended up recounting the discoveries of some of my passions in the last ten years of my life. The latter part of the paper was primarily about what I find that inspires my life today. So let me share a bit of it with you.

"It is small beauties like these that make me happiest. Seeing a beautiful flower as I walk home from a long day at work brings a smile to my face that cannot be replaced by any television show or complex painting. There is a power in the simplest things of the world.  The things ignored in daily life. Few stop to look at the glimmering rock that has been trapped in the sidewalk. Not everyone sees the benefit of collecting bottle caps in a jar on your counter. I will pick up, or stop to inspect all kinds of things when I go for a walk. I find it wonderfully inspiring to find little forgotten treasures in the dirt. Little beauties nobody else bothers to notice. "

I would include more, but the paper still needs editing and I am too impatient to post this first. 

is a little addition though.

I am currently sitting in my favorite coffee shop. It is located not one block from my house, in my favorite neighborhood. The coffee is the best I have tasted in the world, and priced accordingly so I unfortunately do not come here as often as I would like. Here I love the tiny spoons they serve with the coffee. I love slowly scooping the beautifully swirling foam from my latte and savoring the burnt marshmellow flavor of the espresso mixing with milk. I love the small vases of  flowers they have on every table. Every time I come here they are slightly different, sometimes nothing more than a few beautiful blades of grass. Today they are small clippings from Raspberry bushes. These people, I tell you, understand the small beauties. 
The last few days I have been wishing I had fresh flowers in my house. Yesterday as I walked home I spied some weeds along the side of the road with beautiful golden flowers growing off of it. A plant so often disregarded as a nuisance and I had found a beautiful flower. I picked a handful and carried them home. Of course upon arriving home I became distracted, dumped the flowers on the table and came back hours later to find them completely wilted. But the point is still there, they were beautiful. I had chosen them when few others would have. 


And to end this post, here is what I wore today. I am a fall faerie. That leaf crown will be on etsy soon, by the way. 

EDIT: The crown I am wearing in this outfit can now be purchased on Etsy! 

La Mer.

Also...

Something I forgot to mention, I started an Etsy shop! I've been posting some little pins/brooches I've made along with some other miscellaneous things.

Le Mer.

Thats that.

Today was laundry day.

Also I went to the grocery store.

I'm boring when left alone.

But I'm content.

I made some things that are spiffy.

And I wore something pretty.

And thats that. 

Red Bed Head

Hello! I have so many things I want to write about, but not much patience for any of it. I think the gist of it is

• I've been sick and lost my voice for about a week. I was described by a friend as a Darth Vader Telletubby (and there was some other rude thing in there too) 
• I read a book I didn't think I would enjoy but feel amazingly inspired by it. The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer. Its a wonderful book of self journey and the importance of being conscious of your own life. 
• I was inspired to have a wonderful outfit today, but its too hot out, so I must change it when I actually leave the house. :( 
• I ordered myself a pretty present that came in the mail today! But you don't get to know what it is. 
• My room is getting cleaner every day and I'm appreciating the space I've created for myself.
• I saw some meteors last night and they were quite pretty.

Anyways. Here I am. Enjoy me. Goodbye. 

I've never had too much trouble coming up with interesting outfits. Clothes are fun, and I don't like to be boring. I have a lot of clothing, and have trouble getting rid of things. Lately I've been wanting to add some sort of consistency to my style, primarily through color. I've liked for a while the idea of having a pastel/earth tone summer wardrobe and a dark/earth tone winter wardrobe. Realistically I don't think I can commit to limiting myself like that, but its a goal. 

Above is my try at a consistently pastel outfit. I've been buying more white colored clothes to add in to my wardrobe including this lovely white skirt. I'm a little wary to wear too much white, what with my hanging around with messy kids all day. Though today was just errands so I risked it. Plus, no running after babies ment I could bring out my favorite wedges. 

I think after a bit more inspiration hunting I'll do another wardrobe purge and see what I can consign. The more I consign the more new, pastel things I can buy!

Small houses and Lilting white curtains.

Today I reflect on clutter and my favorite book

I was looking at multitudes of pictures of tiny houses and thinking about how much I would love to simplify my life down to that minimalist of living. I looked around my horribly cluttered desk and as a test thought about what things on my desk I could get rid of. I saw my abundance of pens and pencils, half of which probably don't work. I saw reciepts that need to be recycled. I saw a plastic container of cheep bubbles. I saw a paper cat. I saw random peppermint candies. But as I thought I realized its the random crap that makes life a bit more interesting. I could get rid of my bubbles. I rarely use them. What if instead I made an effort to use them. When I'm bored or stressed, or (goddess forbid) have people over. I should blow more bubbles. Now that doesn't mean I shouldn't get rid of a lot of this random crap. But many of the random things I should get rid of are the fun, random things. I suppose I've always tried to fix this by having junk drawers. Now that I'm older my junk drawers have turned into craft drawers. I've got my paper drawer with all of my cool scrap paper I may someday use. There is the string scrap drawer with every type of rope, yarn or string I've found. Lastly there is the true craft crap drawer with everything under the sun. From feathers, stickers and tiny boxes to denture cream (it was a theater project, I swear.) But there inlies the problem that I excuse my random crap for the sake of art. I say I'll use it for an art project someday.

Mayhaps I'm just too connected to objects, but who isn't in our society. I think in a few years when I'm done with college I'd like to get rid of all of my stuff. Pack the little bit I've got left and travel. I'll be Amanda in the van and hopefully my Jean Paul will still be here to ride his motorcycle behind me.

Anyways. To my favorite book. Since we were required to read it in high school, The Great Gatsby has been my favorite book. The lilting peace and slightly unsettling mood strikes something in my heart. I adore the two past movies made of the book, they both perfectly capture the calm before the storm. Thus far I've been looking forward to the new movie, I didn't think it would be horribly perfect but I thought it would be good. I just watched another preview of it though and I am a little wary. They seemed to be making the statement that their world was moving too fast and crazily which led them to rash choices, which is completely the opposite of the point. This book is about the sticky quiet heat. Its about lounging on a couch with a wind from nowhere blowing the white curtains. The preview kept the color scheme in a deacent earthy, 1920's area, but The Great Gatsby deserves more then your usual 1920's colors. It needs uncomfortable pastels. When the color deviates from those pastels thats when something really strong is happening. The darkness of the garage, the vibrance of T.J. Eckleburg's eyes. The stark contrast of blood on a white blouse.

Since I'm going into the colors of the book. I wanted to tell you about my favorite cover. Not that all of these colors match up to my theory above, but it still strikes something in me. I'd been thinking about getting a Great Gatsby tattoo sometime. I've seen images of people with the face from this cover tattooed, but it dosn't seem quite right for me. I am however quite attracted to the city scape and swirls around the bottom of the cover. I imagine those could be quite beautiful around an ankle or wrist. Maybe even an upper arm. Who knows. We'll see what happens.

Good bye.
Merr.