ANOTHER YEAR WISER.

{obviously not another year more photogenic. thanks for the adorbs tank top bets!}

it's may 9, which means i am 27 years old!

this past year has been totally insane.

in my 26th year i did things i NEVER thought i would do. i: quit a job, started a freelance business and followed a man to the pacific northwest.

i also had dreams come true that i never thought i would be so lucky to see realized. i: got engaged, found a job i loved, stood beside a best friend as she got married, learned my sister is really my sister and my friend, had people i love come to celebrate our upcoming wedding, fell in love with b's family and so much more.

i feel like it was a year of much learning. i definitely know i do not have it all figured out, and my life is far from perfect, but i am so happy today that it doesn't even matter.

and that was probably the biggest takeaway from the past 365 days. i tend to get so bogged down in the details of life that i barely lift my head to take a look around.

this year, i promise to enjoy the view. and oh what a gorgeous view it is.

CH-CH-CH-CHANGES.

it was the famed lyricists the spice girls who sang "too much of something is bad enough." they went on to express something profound about love, but in my case, it describes a lot of what's been going on these past few months. or really, these past few years.

moving to denver was a huge change. but, making friends happened relatively quickly and finding a job i loved happened on only my second try. it was a lot of change. especially when we were living in that 400-square-foot apartment. there was not a lot besides change in that apartment.

then, we got engaged! it's not only a change in your daily focus, but also preparing for upcoming change.

and then, seattle. which really came out of nowhere. a new job, no friends, learning a new city.  

i am a fan of change. but sometimes it's overwhelming. and that's where i am at today. and where i've been for the past few months, which is why i haven't been blogging. 

i love having this blog and being able to look back at what we were doing on a random weekday in 2011. so, i'm going to try to make time for it again.

see you soon, loyal readers, aka b, sandra and spammers.

WEDDING WEDNESDAY: I HATE MY DRESS, AND OTHER CONCERNS.

as previously mentioned, i picked out my wedding dress online. have i already talked about how i went dress shopping with my family and it was terrible? i feel bad about how i look right now {hello extra 30 pounds}, and i hated everything i tried on. my fam was like... silent... with every dress i walked out in - no offense to them, i know they were just waiting for my comments and wanted to be supportive and not insanely opinionated like the people on "say yes to the dress" - but it was just not a great experience.

so, when i got back to denver it was crunch time to order a dress. i went to a local boutique, tried on three dresses and bought the one i had been checking out online for months. and then almost instantly had feelings of regret. like i rushed into it, or should have had someone {anyone!} with me.

my dress came in the mail this week and when i tried it on i still had all the feelings i was having about it after i purchased it. plus, it doesn't help that all people who i've sent a photo of it to say "wow, that's traditional!" or "classically beautiful". {no offense to the ten people who have told me that who all read this blog!} they mean it in a positive way, but it doesn't feel good to me.

and now, my manic thoughts about my dress are rolling up to everything wedding. i never was a girl who envisioned this day. i just am ready to be married. and as i sit here in month one million of our engagement cutting out envelope liners {WHY is that even a thing?!}, i wonder how i got so caught up in it all. 

sigh. fellow and former brides: is having cold feet about your dress a common occurrence?

OUR UNSPOKEN VOWS. PLUS, INFO ABOUT A FUN NASH EVENT!

my friend marie - who i met through twitter! - is a marriage counselor. she is putting on an amazing event called "vowentines" this february in nashville, which is a lovefest to bring the spark back into marriages with the activity of rewriting wedding vows. um, i love this. marie reached out to me to help her spread the word to my friends in the internet world.* {the event is now on super sale through january 31!} so, i get to write this post with the prompt: "when have you stuck around (like you promised you would on your wedding day) for worse? for sicker? for poorer?"

well, obviously, b and i haven't said our vows yet. but - that doesn't mean we aren't living out promises to one another every single day.

i think we are good at this - at commitment and selflessness - because we have seen it lived by our parents for our whole lives. i, personally, have witnessed my parents live through poorer, sicker and worse than you can imagine in the format of losing their parents, raising my cousins {just the change that came with basically adopting two preteens - my cousins themselves are pretty great}, moving to tennessee and more. it makes me want to have a marriage that can face anything and come out the other side of hell stronger.

luckily, b and i have not experienced hardship during our four years together. when i read marie's email, the decision to leave denver was the only thing in my mind. you can probably tell via the blog that this is something i have been struggling with. my feelings for my job and the people i know here are stronger than i anticipated. i think what makes it harder is that i am not knowingly jumping into something worse... we are headed into the unknown.  

but, you know what? b has already done the same thing for me. i think it is important to note that it was my idea to move to denver in the first place. b quit his job right along with me, he left his friends just as i left mine and we drove into a city where we knew no one. he never needed to remind me of that - to guilt trip me into coming. he simply asked me to. and i agreed. because that's a part of our unspoken vows. we will stand beside one another, be each others biggest cheerleader and always share the last bite of dessert.

so, when we read our personal vows at our wedding in five months, there are a million other vows behind it that don't even need to be said.

*i was compensated lots of money to write this post.

**haha, no i was not. but, it did inflate my ego at no cost to marie.

***marie also suggested that the post topic be humorous, so sorry so serious! 

****photo by our amazeballs engagement photographer ross bothwell.

WEDDING WORRIES.

 {photo from pinterest}

in this era of pinterest dreams and facebook comparisons - combined with a perfectionist personality - i've spent the last couple of months doing a whole lot of worrying. from small things that aren't important {what will my something blue be?!} to big ones, like budget, i've been up at night thinking about all that could go wrong. and don't get me started on the actual "becoming someone's wife" part of getting married. yikes!

i think there's a lot that goes into wedding planning that you won't find on anyone's inspiration boards. thus, my month-long blogging break. but, there have been some amazing things happening, too.

get ready for some wedding wednesday goodness coming your way!

NEVER BE ASHAMED OF YOUR DREAMS.

like most middle-aged couples, we spent all day yesterday watching the us open.

i actually worked at a country club all through high school, and my dad is a really good golfer {he once hit a hole-in-one on a major course!}, so i know enough about golf to hold a basic conversation. watching 12 hours of it isn't exactly my cup of tea, but big championships are pretty exciting.

anyway, one of the first things i caught on to was that the announcers were lightly poking fun at one of the golfers who had said at a press conference that he believed he had a chance to win the open. it took me a bit to get the full story, but they were talking about beau hossler. why was this seemingly chuckle-worthy to my beloved bob costas? because beau is 17. and an amateur golfer.

when asked if he could win, beau said:

"absolutely. there's not a doubt in my mind."

spoiler alert: beau went on to finish +9, nowhere near the top of the pack. but, it still really bothered me that his ambition was seen as audacious.

if people heard most of my goals, they would probably laugh, too. i'm sure many of us are too embarrassed to share what we hope to do with our lives. cheers to beau for being eager, driven and honest. let's all promise that not only will we not judge others' dreams as unreachable, but agree that our own are worth it, too.

QUITTER.

i quit my job today.

there's no applicable photo, dead-on quote or deep thought that can make me feel good about it at this point.

you know that big movement where all bloggers are writing posts about things they're afraid to tell their readers? even though most of the people who read this blog are my family, there are truths that even i don't want to admit to myself. this job was not right for me from day one. i am terrified i will never figure out what my career path should be. i think quitting is such a cop out and i'm embarrassed that i did it. i'm worried about money and do not want to depend on anyone to take care of me.

but, the biggest thing i don't want to speak out loud, the ugly thought ringing in my ears almost every day, the sentence that simply typing out makes me cry: 

i'm afraid that moving to denver was a huge mistake. 

a good life lesson, or how the best things we do in life will never be awarded.

{something b should be awarded for: his awesome pizza!}

the other day i got a panicked text from one of my bff's shari. she wanted to talk on the phone. i was at work, but could tell she was upset, so i called her. last year she relocated to las vegas for a job {i went to visit her here}. before that, she had been at her previous job since we graduated in 2008. a project she had worked on was entered for a big award. it won. awesome, right? well, her former boss didn't include her on the application, thus, it's like she never won.

i think we all agree that sucks. it's rude and disheartening and really unfair. but, i told shari that she has two options: contact her boss and tell her what's up or just get over it. after all, she knows she worked on the project. she knows she won. so do i. so do her parents. and now so do you.

i think she was surprised i was so calm about it. but that's because some of the best work i've ever done hasn't had my name on it. articles i've ghostwritten, newsletters with no bylines, designs with no mention of the designer. and, i've learned that probably the most award-worthy stuff we will do in our lives will never earn us a round of applause.

so, cheers to the great moms, awesome friends, best sisters, volunteers/employees/genuinely good people that never get the recognition they deserve.

and a high five to you, blog reader, you make my day.

people will surprise you, or what you learn when you move across the country wilth no prospects.

{the sun setting somewhere in kansas.}

moving to denver has been a lot of things. shocking, for people who know me as little miss planner. a leap of faith, definitely. and eye opening, most of all.

i have never been unemployed. i have worked since i was 16 years old and i had one day between college graduation and starting my first real job. so, to come out here without any prospects of employment was definitely a risk. and it has been very hard. i easily could do a post on how lonely it is to have no close friends out here, how frustrating it is to spend 14 hours a day on the computer looking for jobs or how sad it was when people looked me in the face and told me that it was a huge mistake to move to denver. i could talk about all of that.

but, that has not been the most common response.

people have come out of the woodwork to help me. my professor michelle opened her rolodex to me and introduced me to 10+ amazing people. those amazing people have given me advice, offered me guidance and nudged me in the right direction. former supervisors i haven't seen in years have contacted me to say they'd be a reference. a friend from nashville welcomed us into her home and took us into the mountains this past weekend.

it's hard to blog about life as it unfolds. it's easier to look back and say "here was this experience and here is its perfect ending". it's nerve wracking and messy to write about things before you know the happily ever after. so, while i'm still unemployed, don't have a denver bff and am not sure how things will all fall into place, i know they will.

because people surprise you in the best ways.

and life has a way of working itself out.

pretty much the quote of my life.

{said by musician ryan adams; found here.}

a life less predictable.

{pinned}

while the decision to move to denver was not made lightly, it was made quickly.

i am not unhappy with my life in nashville. if you've been a reader of this blog, you know i love our downtown, our growing food scene and our concerts.

but, i had a sense of unsettledness that i just could not shake. a lot of people chalked that up to quarter-life crisis, which, i'll admit, may play a part in this.

then, we visited denver. and i said, for the first time out loud, "what if we left nashville? what if we moved here?"

and, at first, b was hesitant. neither of us are the kind to throw caution to the wind, and he especially is comfortable with what we have here in nashville.

but, he's going. i think he knew i was serious when i said that if i didn't try, at least TRY, i would regret it.

so, we're leaving in less than two weeks. neither of us have jobs. we've yet to sign a lease. no close friends live there.

we are leaving a good, good life for the unknown.

i've never been so excited.

on hold.

{pinned}

well. honestly, i was hoping i'd have different news to blog today.

but, i don't.

until at least the end of the week i'm going to be spending my free time thinking {read: worrying} about a big decision that b and i need to make.

i'll be back with the outcome {whatever that may be!} next week.

rules to live by.

{pinned} 

do you have personal guidelines?

i read an interview of melody godfred, a writing consultant, on the blog i want her job.

a great read, by the way.

{and, um, how awesome does "writing consultant" sound for a gig?}

one of the questions is, "do you have rules you live by?" melody's answer is basically, "heck yes!" and she goes on to list them out.

i particularly love #1: "don't wait until you know who you are to make things."

that speaks to me a lot at this point in my life.

i need to type up my list and use it as inspiration to keep on keepin on.

here i am.

{print via}

now is kind of a funny time in my life. i'm trying to decide what i want to be.

writer?
graphic designer?
business woman?
grad student?
xxx?

it's hard to write a blog that has a focus when your life doesn't really have a focus. 

but i'm making moves to figure it out.

and i'm in it to win it.