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.

Oops. I'm back.

Um. Hello blog.



I guess I'm back. I didn't intend to be back, but here I am.

A few weeks ago I found myself on pinterest a lot. Pinning like a mad woman you could say and still not feeling satisfied. At some point I realized what I needed was blogs. I started reading blogs again, but told myself I wouldn't start blogging myself. I'd been taking a break from blogging. I was fine with out it!


Why did I take a break? Well, here are a few reasons.

• It was taking up too much time. I was finishing up college, working part time and later doing an intern ship.
• I was getting my priorities out of order. I love the inspiration from blogging, but was getting too caught up in the follower counts, giveaways and the like. 
• I feel like there was another thing, but I forget...

So this time around I'm going to try to focus a little better. I'm going to write about things that mean something to me and not worry about getting followers. Also with writing for me, I'm not going to let blogging get in the way. If I don't have time, I won't blog. If its not satisfying me, I won't keep doing it.

So there is your warning, I may disappear again. But for now...

La Mer.