blogging hiatus

Hello all! Needless to say, this blog has been absolutely silent as of late. I've been doing a lot of organizing and planning for the big move to Bloomington. Last Saturday I packed up all my stuff in La Crosse and transported it to Sun Prairie, so I'm home now until the 24th. I have A LOT of photos to share in the coming weeks, and I'm going to get back to my weekly stellar shops and poetry Sunday posts. I just needed a little breather. Extreme busy-ness and the cocktail of excitement, anxiety, and apprehension that a monumental life change brings combined with a feeling of why am I blogging? Is anyone even reading this? I'm spending too much time and receiving crickets...

I'm curious... Who is reading? How did you find me? Do you have a blog? What would you like to see more of here in this space?

I love the interactivity that blogs provide and I'd like to facilitate more of it here. Comments have been a big motivator for me to continue coming up with new material and taking the time to write in this space. I was a longtime creeper on blogs that I love without officially becoming a follower for about a year, so I understand. It can be awkward to announce to a blogger (especially a beginning blogger with only a small amount of followers) hey, I'm here! But I would truly love to know who is reading--even if it's just my lovely "real life" friends :)

So: I owe y'all pictures, anecdotes, documentation. This won't be hard to provide, as my picture-taking hasn't exactly slowed down! I'm jumping back into blogging starting tomorrow.

day trip to viroqua: part two

After plotting our next move at the Optimo Cafe, JohnaLee and I headed to the Tobacco Shed to see what treasures were trapped inside. She kept gushing about it, but I didn't realize how awesome it would be until I saw it with my own eyes.

$4 aprons heaped messily on top of one another.

Endless records to paw through.

Quilts & assorted blankets in various stages of finishing.

Hand-embroidered Norwegian pillow. I lingered over this baby for a loooong time.

Light filtering through dirty, dusty old milk bottles.

Trunks, patchwork quilts, purses.

My violet quilt!

Glassware.

Every time I find a set of these rose glass sherbet cups I stare at them longingly. There's no room in my life for breakable things like these currently... I'm uprooted soon enough from WI for a few years, and I could end up anywhere after that, so these will be a someday purchase. When my life is stable enough to include a pretty cabinet to display these in I'll know the timing is right.

Tempting tablecloths. WHY, oh why do I love bright colors? Why can't I be a minimalist who only likes blue things, or, even more specific, plaid items in the shade of cerulean? As it stands I love a frenzy of colors and patterns, making it hard for me to avoid a variety of objects. My style can best be described as calamitous. I embrace it; it's my burden to bear. Still, I'm not sure that certain individuals in my life really get it.

No matter.  I will happily live alone in my refurbished farmhouse filled with books in floor-to-ceiling bookcases, old lady cabbage rose wallpaper on the wall. A cat named Hector constantly underfoot. Tall windows and huge couches stacked with soft quilts on the arms. Jars of buttons, cloth napkins, one TV in the house hidden away in a cabinet upstairs to watch the occasional movie/season of Mad Men. Large rooms filled with light. Land outside, space to grow and room to think, a big vegetable garden.

Along with daydreaming about my future home, I've been thinking a lot about what I want out of life. I feel like I have grown this summer, at least insofar as realizing what sort of life I want to live.

1. I want to live simply. 

Cutting out factory farmed meat. Growing my own vegetables when I have the land. Joining a co-op. Never having cable again. Creating things myself. Most of all this is mental: don't overcomplicate things. Don't get unnecessarily worked up. For the most part, life is pretty easy if you keep a laid-back mindset. There are challenging, ugly parts too, but facing it head on is all you can do. I would rather live with a lighthearted, snarky attitude. Pointless negativity without making a change doesn't get anyone anywhere. It just poisons those around you.

2. I want to feel my emotions freely

This means not telling myself "I shouldn't feel this way" for whatever reason: because it's improper, it will lead to a tough change, I don't want to confront that emotion, someone will laugh at me, etc. If you are honest with yourself you will grow. If you're not, you will likely shrivel up, emotionally speaking. I can't speak for others but whenever I've tried to dismiss an emotion it has come back in full force in a way that is even more challenging to deal with.

Obviously this doesn't mean blurting out some rude, unnecessary comment just because it pops into your head - dealing with emotions takes careful consideration. It's common to feel things that can seem out of control. Jealousy was always the one that got me. It would sneak up on me. My heart would beat so fast that I thought it would jump out of my skin. I could feel the adrenaline. I would practically snarl, tongue so sharp you could cut anything on it. I know from experience that it takes knowledge of oneself to utilize the non-animal part of your brain, to know what you can do to make yourself okay. (Yes, you; it's your crazy human emotions, after all - not someone else's. Personal responsibility first and foremost.)

So, what's the solution? Music? A moment of fresh air? Forcing your mouth into a smile that will puncture the tidal wave of whatever you are feeling? All of the above?

Sometimes we disappoint ourselves and each other. Apologize fast, and I mean fast. Pride is worth nothing at the end of the day. Forgive the worthy and forgive yourself.

3. I want to adapt

Life requires constant adaptation. You need to grow or the result is a stagnant life. I think the amount of books I read keeps my mind in a perpetual state of growing and changing. (Shameless plug for books!) I especially see adaptation as vital in terms of romantic partnerships and other relationships. People will be affected quite differently by life's circumstances. Sometimes it is worth weathering the storm, but sometimes, well, it isn't. Only you can make that call.

I don't want to be afraid to make that call. I don't want to fear mess and upheaval so much that I sacrifice valuable minutes, hours, years. I just want to live the best way I can. If I don't, there's no one else to blame.

4. I want to remember that it's okay to be alone

I have always loved to be alone. Yes, I have a group of people that I adore, but I can never have too much time to myself. I see a lot of codependency in my peer group and it makes me cringe. Relationships with others are important, yes, but only as important as the relationship you have with yourself. Get your mind out of the gutter - that is not (exclusively) what I am referencing. To me this means mostly that if I want to go do something and everyone else is busy, I do it anyway. Time spent alone is truly a luxury. I will teach my children this. By embracing your imagination you will never be lonely.

Watch this video. Right now. Do it.

5. I want to remain in awe

To me this means treasuring the small moments. Feeling grateful to my parents, friends, family - all those who help me, encourage me, make me laugh. It's easy to be weighted down by life. Bills, debt, hurt feelings, unfairnesses small and large, awful things you read on the news, costly mistakes, politicians of every stripe, death. There's really no getting around it: life is overwhelming. For some people, remaining in awe means giving thanks to their particular god. For me, I just try to actively recognize how beautiful our world is. I feel lucky every day to be healthy, educated, surrounded by inspiring people. Even on bad days, there is an endless list of things that are JUST SO AMAZING. Of course, it can be easy to forget at times. I'm no paragon of virtue, but I do know that gratitude takes a conscious effort. It won't just show up one day. It's not something you wait to adopt at a later point. You integrate it into your thought patterns and it will change you almost instantly.

----
Whoa. Sorry if parts sounded a bit Dr. Phil-like, or Hallmarky. I've just been pondering a lot and I enjoy using this space to write it out. Verbalizing holds me accountable and it makes me feel powerful. I am a college graduate, I can legally drink, I have been deemed an adult by society. It's a really empowering thought to grasp that I can construct whatever sort of life I want for myself. I can be active, not passive, in creating and realizing my ideal life. Perhaps this is obvious or self-explanatory to some, but for me right now in this moment it is wildly new. Tender and thrilling. Joyous.

faux-summer

I graduated from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse with a BA in Rhetoric and Composition a week and a half ago. I still can't quite wrap my head around the fact that I'm a college graduate, which sounds suspiciously like real adulthood. Heck, I'm even a member of the UW-L Alumni Association. A college grad at twenty, I feel a very old young; the boyfriend and I argue like an old married couple, my hobbies are decidedly grannyish, and I'm heading off to grad school well before any of my close friends (who are older than me) have graduated, but at the same time, I'm TWENTY. Oftentimes I forget that.

I raced through my undergrad years in 3 years, coming to UW-L from high school with AP and retrocredits. I smashed all sorts of activities into my years here, this past year being the most hectic. I applied to four graduate programs in library science (all with exorbitant application fees and infuriatingly different requirements, naturally). I had an unpaid library internship on campus. I was awarded a grant to complete research on women and the UW-L newspaper, the Racquet - research I presented orally and submitted in writing to UW-L's Journal of Undergraduate Research. Plus I worked 10-15 hours a week, volunteered Sunday evenings at the Writing Center on campus, and sewed pillows for a local women's shelter. Oh yeah, and took 15 credits both semesters... and 3 over J-term. Maybe somewhere in there I had a social life, I can't recall :)

I write all this out now and I have no idea how I stayed sane. If I had the chance to do it over again in 4 years, I cannot imagine how much more I would be able to accomplish, but overall I am proud of my 3 years at UW-L. Beyond pride, though, I'm delighted to finally have a summer at my disposal. You see, graduating in a mere 3 years necessitated that I take summer classes every June/July; I haven't yet had a completely free college summer, so this is it. I'm working 40ish hours a week but nights and weekends are mine alone and I will greedily hoard them!

The boyfriend and I have started settling into the house we're living in over the summer, and the commotion of commencement has waned. Already my days at work, 9-6, are a blur. The weather hasn't been humid and sticky yet so it still feels like a strange interim period, a faux-summer, an impostor. This blog is part of my plan to keep myself organized and engaged during this time of odd uprootedness in my life.

why blog?

I started this blog for a lot of reasons... as a hobby, a place where my family and friends can come to see what I've been up to when I leave my home state of Wisconsin for Bloomington, Indiana, this upcoming fall. As a replacement for the journals I used to scrawl in addictively, chronicling the days' events and my feelings and the way the world was during a particular time and place. And as a way to connect to an online community of like-minded individuals. I'm completely in awe of the many crafty, creative, stylish bloggers out there and every day I look forward to the glimpses they allow into their lives. So I thought to myself, why don't I have a blog? I think if I can survive the initial awkwardness of writing to a nonexistent audience I should be fine...with no readers it does seem like a rather indulgent exercise to ramble about your life, but after I get into the habit of writing here I plan to alert people to this blog's presence, give it a debut of sorts. 

I can't exactly say my previous blogging experiences have been the most positive. I currently have two other blogs; one is my "professional" library blog and the other chronicled a project I undertook to sew pillows for a local women's shelter this past fall and spring. With the latter, my posts were coming at a trickle, then not at all. I was sewing pillows (and ended up donating approximately 50) but writing about it didn't seem particularly necessary. As for my professional blog, I'm not giving up on it and I'm hoping to have more material to cover this fall, when I begin attending the School of Library and Information Science at Indiana University. I've often felt stilted and dull and ungenuine while writing it so far because I knew it would be on my resume and that the admissions committees for grad schools that I was then applying to would judge me based on what they read. I struggled with finding my voice, and deciding where I wanted to draw the line between formal and informal tone. Did I want to expose my inquisitive, irreverent self or stick to writing in a safe (albeit detached) way that doesn't show the many, many things I don't know about the world of librarianship? Ultimately, I opted for the safe route, and who wants to read that? I know that when I read blogs I want the juicy bits, I want life.

So, I return to the blogosphere with a little bit of wariness, but mostly excitement. This will be a lifestyle blog. I'm taking inspiration from bloggers that write about their day-to-day lives: their friends, their outfits, their moods, all accented with big gorgeous pictures. I'll likely write about style, decor, crafty things (scrapbooking and quilting, primarily) and also books. A random, uncategorizable assortment of topics... I can't wait.