juxtaposse.

Hey there blog.

Remember how I used to have an Etsy? Remember how I stopped updating that Etsy (cause I lost focus like I do with most things...) Well I've got a new one.

But see the great thing about this Etsy attempt is that I'm not doing it alone! I joined up with some lovely ladies from my work and we are selling some pretty fantastic urban inspired accessories including hair clips, combs, earrings, necklaces and bejeweled beanies!

I am continuing to sell my classic button-y accessories, focusing on clips and earrings.

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And check out some of the other beautiful things available from The Juxtaposse!

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These ladies make such lovely things, I may just have to break my not spending money thing and get a new accessory or five. 

♥ ♥ ♥

Mer.

wet bathrooms.

Such an inspiring title, I know.

I took a moment to reflect the other day and realized I have become a person who gets excited discussing composting toilets. This was in the middle of the week I spent with my parents where I talked about very little that was not to do with buses.

I'll admit, I may be a crazy bus lady.

Anyway, since I've admitted it, I'm going to swoon a bit about wet bathrooms.
What are wet bathrooms you ask? Well, I can't decide if they are the worst or the best thing, so if anyone has any real experience with them I'd love to hear what you think!

The basic gist of a wet bathroom is the whole room is the shower. Or I guess you could think of it as the toilet being in the shower. You basically save space by combining the two big bathroom things into one space. Downside I guess is having to sit on a wet toilet sometimes.

Anyway, have some swoon.

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(this link is pretty cool for an alternate tiny house structure)

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I have to say one of my favorite things about doing these specific things posts is I actually check out where some of my pinterest images come from. Sure I click back to other websites when its an article or just an image for a larger post, but when I am just pinning for the inspiration picture, I don't often check out the full website. So hooray for source links for making me find more cool resources!

♥

Mer.

going home.

Good morning blogity blog. I am a happy thing typing this post because I am currently on a train headed through beautiful snowy southern Oregon on my way to visit my family.

A few weeks ago I was having a grumpy day and my mentor told me I needed to go home. I was not planning to go home for thanksgiving because it was too quick of a trip and would cost too much, but she said I should take the time and she was right. 

Rivers and Roads by The Head and the Heart

I have been listening to this song a ridiculous amount lately. Maybe that should have been my hint that it was home I needed. Just a moment ago staring out the window at the beautiful Oregon landscape this song came on and I just about cried.

That was a lie, I totally cried. 

This fellowship continues to be an excellent experience for me between working at a professional theater company and living in a bigger city, but another huge thing I'm taking away from it is that I really want to move out of the city when I'm done. The country is calling my name.

♥ ♥ ♥
Mer.

let's go adventuring.

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living goals.

After college I was faced with the big question of where and how to live my life. It was so exciting to have many options open to me. While I am glad I chose the option I did, I am also looking towards the future and getting very excited for next summer when I am faced with that freedom again.

All this future stuff has me thinking about what would make my ideal life, so I've made this handy list about how I would ideally live. This list will definitely be helping to inform how I'll create my life next year with a bus, but I am also trying to incorporate as many of these things as I can into my current life.

So anyway, the list.

Off the grid.

I would ideally like to use less energy in my day to day and even better I'd like to be generating that energy myself. 

Mobile.

After college I sat around trying to decide where I wanted to go. Portland? Seattle? Bay Area? Realizing I will have that decision facing me again next year I decided I don't want to make a permanent choice. I'd much rather be able to live in lots of places! I'd also really like the ability to take off for a month and live in the middle of nowhere, on the road or maybe just back in my home town. 

Affordable.

I think this one is pretty obvious, but I'll go into it anyway. In college I was lucky enough to live in an affordable and beautiful house with some wonderful roommates, but moving to the bay I've realized most housing is not affordable. For what I can/want to pay I'm not getting much. I've heard that you should budget half of your paycheck to housing, which I accepted for a while, but now I'm not. I don't want to be working all the time to pay for a house I won't be in. I also hate the idea of wanting to buy a house some day and having to pay way more than it is worth by way of interest. Why do all of that when I could just build my own house and own it outright?

Companion.

God damn it I want a dog. 

Things.

I've got a lot of things. I've always had things. My family has things. We like our things. Moving away from college was ridiculously stressful as far as getting rid of things. I still get anxiety about it, feel guilty for getting rid of some things and not of others, its no fun. When I moved down to California I think I was pretty practical. I originally moved down with one suit case and one backpack. I've gained a bit more from family visiting and bringing me things and from some packages from home, but I think (read: hope) that when the time comes I'll be able to pack up one car's worth of stuff and head back to dear old Oregon. The point of this is- I still like my things but I think I'm getting better. I'm appreciating quality over quantity and enjoying what I have instead of wanting more. 

Independent. 

This is something I've been struggling with, debating about and getting multiple opinions of. I like being alone. I'm an introvert and would much rather spend time by myself than with others. In college I always said it was good I lived with other people because if I didn't I would never come out of my house. I still think that is true and if I hadn't had that encouragement to actually go out and do things my college experience would have been much different. However I also have been making efforts to stop thinking about being an introvert as being a bad thing. I do not have to go out of my comfort zone to do things that don't actually make me happy just because other people say I should. I think it is time to live alone.

♥
Mer.

new project.

I start a lot of projects that I don't finish, this blog is a good documentation of that. I've got an etsy I don't update anymore (though I'm hoping to change that), I post here in random non specific intervals, I've got a yoga mat I rarely use and countless other abandoned things.

Well, I've got another project and this time I'm determined to see it through. It will be a rather large commitment. I'm talking about a 45' long, 10,000 pound commitment.

I want to buy a school bus.

The last few months I've been going crazy for tiny houses. I always thought they were cute, and after watching the documentary Tiny (you can watch it on netflix!) I was sold. I got some kick ass books about tiny houses from the bookstore and kicked up my pinning another notch.

Looking at where my life is going right now I feel like I've got the perfect opportunity to actually make this crazy dream come true, so I'm going to take it. Currently I'm doing a fellowship that includes an okay stipend and free housing so while I'm not making a lot of money I'm able to save a bit and not worry about housing for a year. In addition to this, next summer I've got a month and a half between my two other homes (Oregon Country Fair and Burning Man) to do whatever I want and it sounds like the perfect time to start a big crazy project.

Since I've got a bit of time before my anticipated build next summer I am going to be using this time for research (oh so much research), planning, saving money and getting everything ready so come July I can hit the ground running.

So be prepared guys, this blog may be turning into a bus blog.

Much love,
Mer.

cozy sock love.

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yellow sweater love.

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hike.

In my old life (collegey life) I had a usual hike I would do just about every weekend. It was a 10 mile loop that took me about three hours. Perfect for a Sunday morning. In my new life I had yet to find that hike, but I think I may be onto something.

I took a bus up to a large regional park and hiked around for quite a few hours. There was some decent elevation gain and variety of terrain. I think I hiked a total of 7.5 miles. A good start says I.

Parts of the hike were along an enchanting little creek.

There were some beautiful colors to be seen. 

Unfortunately the bright green lichen didn't show up well in this picture. 

Some rocks are just begging for decoration. 

Up along the ridge you could see the San Francisco skyline. 

Mer.

halloween.

Well, happy belated Halloween everyone.

One fun thing about my new job is we sometimes have some spare time in the day when we can work on our personal projects. Round Halloween time that mostly meant working on our costumes!


So, about the costume. I'm a huge Harry Potter fan and have made a handful of HP related costumes in the past such as...

Dobby and Winky- at a New Years costume party.

Draco Malfoy for 'fictional character day' at my old summer camp. Pardon the expression on my face...

A Quidditch player at the same camp for 'sports day'.

This year since I was hoping to dye my hair pink again soon, I decided to dress as Tonks!

I am sadly lacking in a good ootd taking spot right now, hence the cut off feet.

Since I was able to build a few things for my costume at work, I went ahead and added some extra bits to go with the clothes I already had and the pink hair.

First I made a wand, because what Witch is complete without a wand. I remembered a professor in college telling me how he made a bunch of wands for his daughter's Harry Potter themed birthday party (her name was also Amelia!) and tried out the technique he had used. 

The next thing I decided to make was a pig nose. Since Tonks is a Metamorphmagus (can change her appearance at will) and has been known to dawn a pig nose on occasion, I thought it was only fitting I had one too. I sculpted my nose out of cardstock and masking tape, then gave it a good paint job. Lastly I added elastic (unfortunately we were out of white) and a nose ring, so it would match my nose!

My Order of the Phoenix patch was thrown together at the end of the day with a bit of spare time. I drew up a little phoenix symbol on red felt and stitched it onto black felt, then onto my jacket it went!

And that is that! I hope everyone had a lovely Halloween!

Mer.

bus.

I'll give you a hint what's been on my mind lately...

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I do not lay claim to any of these images. If you'd like to see more like this you can check out my Tiny Homes board on Pinterest!

weekend.

In my new routine I've been focusing all my adventuring energy to the weekends, mostly because I'm too lazy/tired after work on the week days to do much other than cook dinner and watch netflix.

A key part of my weekends is getting up early and, you know, doing things. I'll often come home at 11 or 12 to find my roommates just getting up. I think they are a bit confused that I've been up doing things all morning already. 

One of my favorite weekend routines is going to a coffee shop in the morning and reading, or more recently, blogging. When I first moved here I was trying out a new coffee shop every weekend trying to find my perfect spot. Now I've more or less settled on this little shop a few blocks from my house. Their coffee is tasty, the atmosphere is nice and they have a tasty yogurt and granola bowl for breakfast.

This weekend I also went adventuring in the hills of Berkeley with my friend Patrick!

We explored some little meandering pathways in the neighborhoods up there, climbed some big rocks and marveled at the view across the bay.

Not the cutest path we saw that day, but a path none the less.

After wandering we stopped in a nice little pub for beer and board games! I always have to check if it is board games or bored games. Is it named because you're bored when you play them or because they are on boards? I prefer bored games. :)

So many vowels! 

How was your weekend?

-Mer.

Little update.

Since I've been gone for a while, I thought I should do a little update on my life, cause so much has changed!

Lets see. I graduated from college. That was a big deal I suppose.

Such a big deal...

Even before I graduated I had started a really amazing internship and continued working there for the summer after graduation. 

I made some odd things at my internship.

The next big news was that I was awarded an even more amazing fellowship!

Luckily my apt. came fully furnished, cause this is all I brought when I moved down.

My fellowship is at a theater in Berkeley California, so I hopped on a train and moved to the Bay. 

So that leads me to now. I'm working away at this new fellowship and crafting myself a new life here in California. Hooray!

-Mer.