a guest post at moorea-seal

good morning!

i'm so very excited to share with you all that i am currently featured as a guest blogger for moorea-seal.com, one of my favorite blogs of all time.

when Moorea asked me if i would be interested in creating a guest post for her blog i was absolutely thrilled. i'm such a fan of her blog and her etsy shop (she makes amazing jewelry!) and of Moorea herself. she is the kind of woman that really knows who she is and isn't afraid to be just that. she is beautiful, inspiring, kind, generous, creative and talented. and seriously so much more.

i'm so pleased to be sharing about our new home at her blog and i'd love it if you could all stop by and check it out, even say hello. and if you are not already following M O O R E A S E A L, you should be!

have a happy friday!

xoxo,
a

my post // moorea seal blog & shop

on the cusp.

i'm just so ready for a clean slate. i'm yearning to purge excess material possessions. i want white walls and clean counters and organized closets, cupboards, and shelves. i want minimal. i want warm blankets and a garden. i want hanging pots and pans and jars of wooden spoons. i want light flooding in through curtain-less windows and a screaming tea kettle on the stove and a nook to read in.

i'm on my tiptoes in anticipation for reinvigoration and change.

(this topic of change is obviously becoming a theme with me)

this year

we saw Bob Dylan and i saw Sigur Rós live

we traveled to Washington D.C. and Sedona

sold our condo in Carson 

moved in with my mom

lived out of boxes for over half the year

we finally found a home we will be moving into soon (more on that later).

 

i started working at anthropologie again

founded a fantastic book club

read over 20 books this year alone

wrote my first ten minute play

began writing my first full length play

wrote my first two short stories

acted in a wonderful play alongside a few favorites

saw amazing performances and worked with talented people

and i took up jogging which has taught me to breathe, to look up, and to notice. it has inspired much of my writing.

i spent the entire year in a recovery program (i don't think i've mention this here) 

met amazing people

learned more about myself in the last year than in the last 29 years

forgiven and been forgiven

am learning to accept what sometimes feels unacceptable and intolerable

loved more and let myself receive more love

i've learned how to let go and how to surrender.

and i've watched David grow even more into a man

observing his patience and feeling his support in the pain and the joy of my own growth.

for both of us, i think, this year has just felt like a year for growth and change

we are reaching and climbing toward bigger things

but trying to love the little moments that sometimes get lost in between.

here's to a new year, whatever it may bring.

"It was late afternoon 

and the sun had just begun to cast golden flickers of bright light across the tops of the shop windows 

and buildings on the busy street, 

and a faintly icy breeze swirled the dust and dead leaves near his feet in a lazy tornado."

- excerpt from my short story, The Chase

denied.

welp, today we found out that yet another offer we put in on yet another house (i've lost count at this point) was denied, yet again.

this marks month 4 (or is it 5?) of our house hunt. thankfully we are blessed enough to be living with my mom while we continue this on-going search, but we're ready for a home. like now.

it had gotten to a point where we just stopped expecting that any of the offers we put in would ever go through and we had put all of our faith and trust in the Lord (we still are) that he will provide us with a home when the time is right... but this one felt really good and we honestly thought we were going to get it.

but, of course, we didn't.

i'm trying to not be too upset about it and i even sent a prayer of thanks to the big guy because i know there's something better out there for us, but it's still quite discouraging and very frustrating. i am so ready to begin the process of decorating and nesting again. every interior design photo i pin (on pinterest) gets me more and more excited and inspired to make a house a home... but we'll just have to continue to wait and pray and trust that it'll all work out eventually, that we are where we're supposed to be right now, and that this is all for the best.

and in the meantime i'm just going to keep drooling over these photos and many more like them.

all photos | abode

a new home.

these past couple of weeks have been kinda crazy.
we sold our condo and have to be all moved out in exactly three weeks. yikes.

we put in an offer for a house that we both absolutely adore... but we don't think we got it, so now we have to keep looking. all of the houses we love/like are back up offers, which means we most likely don't have a shot at them. our options are running real low real fast and we're kind of in a pickle.

i'm pretty bummed that we didn't get the house we wanted. i knew it was a bad idea, but while we were waiting to hear from the relator i started decorating the house in my head. i even drew up crude floor plans to get my ideas on paper. even as i was doing it i knew i was probably jinxing our chances at this home, but i couldn't help myself, we want wanted this house so bad. i also started researching affordable new furniture since i kinda hate what we currently have. pinterest has been my bff these days and i've been littering my Design Sponge and Domino books with mini post-its, i've started to draw up a decorating budget... it's becoming an obsession. i know what we like and what we want and i want to make it happen.

it's just frustrating to not know where we're going to put all of our boxes of possessions or where we're going to live in three weeks... but i'm trying to trust that it will work out. God's got it. i don't.

therefore i need to just let go and trust.

in the meantime, here are just a few (and i mean only a few) inspiration photos i've been pinning like a madwoman (i literally have 1,110 pins just for my decorating board... as of right now).

click here to see all of my decorating and domesticating inspiration photos.