Author: Libby

What I Love About Noonday + Giveaway!

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I was introduced to Noonday Collection a few years ago and immediately fell in love with the company. Even I–I who hates direct sales parties, hosted my own Noonday brunch and invited my favorite local people to eat sticky buns and look through jewelry with me. That’s how much I love Noonday. It’s strong, you guys.
I’m even hosting one, now! But who has time for an in-person trunk show? It’s all online and if you want to shop through it, click here. That party will run through March 2 if you want a lil sumthin’ sumthin’ for you or a loved one.

So when Alana Murphy approached me and asked if I’d want to host a giveaway so that my readers could get their hands on a beautiful piece from the new Storyline Collection, I was immediately on board.

You know that in this family, we champion women and so does Noonday. When you shop through Noonday, you’re providing work and livable wages so that artists all over the world can raise their families and change their communities. Women are not only able to put food on the table but also employ others in their communities. Lives are changing is what I’m saying. It’s cool.

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Image Description: A selfie featuring Libby and her partner on vacation. Libby is wearing her favorite, gold, Noonday Collection necklace.

In addition to being a world-changing company, Noonday also just makes some very legit, beautiful jewelry and accessories. I don’t own that much jewelry but when I do wear it, I find myself reaching time and time again for my Noonday pieces. I have the Small Cow Horn Hoops (which go with exactly everything in my closet–even basic t-shirts) as well as the Edgewise earrings (which are so subtle and pretty). I also have a favorite necklace which I’m not finding on the website. This leads me to recognize that it’s been way too long and I need to place an order soon. I really, really want this Editor necklace and one day I’ll save up for a bag (having seen them in person, I promise you, they’re worth saving up for).

 

But wait–it gets cooler because for the Spring 2018 Collection (which launches today!), Noonday is teaming up with The Starfish Project. If you haven’t heard, The Starfish Project is an organization that exists to care for people who have been affected by Human Trafficking. They care for both the immediate need, by offering shelter and safety, and in the long-term by providing counseling as well as education and even employment.

By teaming up, together, Noonday Collection and The Starfish Project have created the Storyline Collection. The Spring 2018 Collection drops today! So head over to check it out. You’re going to need to do that anyway to enter the giveaway.

And if you want more than the Belonging Necklace we’re giving away, I’ve got a party open! You don’t even have to leave the house to participate Use this link to go through and place an order and you’ll be added to my trunk show (which is open until March 2, 2018).

OH YEAH! GIVEAWAY TIME!

To celebrate the launch of this new collab between Noonday and The Starfish Project,  Noonday Ambassador Alana Murphy is giving away one Belonging Necklace from the new Storyline Collection.

Use this link to get to the Raffelcopter where you’ll be directed to answer a question in order to enter the giveaway. There are options to get more entries. Those options involve visiting our Facebook pages (and while you’re there, give us a follow so you can learn about new exciting things happening in our spaces) but even if you don’t have Facebook, you can still enter the giveaway.
The giveaway will be open for one week and the winner will be contacted shortly after it closes.

Good luck! And have an incredible week.

XOXO, Lib (and Alana)

Meet Me Monday: Brooke

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I met Brooke on Instagram last year. I was initially super intrigued by her waste-free lifestyle. Honestly, I’ve never seen anything like it and I’m super interested in reducing waste–I just need to see some examples. You know? So that’s why I was following her, at first.

As time went on, I was more and more intrigued by the way that Brooke gave herself so much grace and permission to take the time she needs and be gentle with herself regarding the way that life sometimes throws out a curveball. She lives an example of walking in grief, joy, pleasure, trust and everything else that we encounter along this journey. And that’s why I’m still following her and look forward to seeing her new posts every time they pop up in my feed.

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How do you want to introduce yourself?
Hi, everyone! I’m so glad you’re here. Firstly because Libby is great, and I’m glad you found her blog. Secondly, I’m honored to share a bit about myself with you today! I’m Brooke, creator of the blog A Simple Alternative where I write and share what it means to live from my values in everyday life. I’m a big fan of simplicity, communication, laughter, and life’s sensual offerings, from a juicy meal to a sweet kiss! Much like Libby and my dear idol Glennon Doyle, I consider myself a teller of the truth, in all of its raw, delightful, and uncomfortable forms. Recently I’ve taken a break from publishing content to dive deeper into my current life experience of healing a broken heart. You can find me on Instagram where I post daily about grief, heartbreak, healing, and juicy living. More blog content will be coming soon!
What gets you out of the bed in the morning?
Trusting what God (life, the universe, the force, you know what I mean) has in store for me. I trust that I am here to learn, grow, and love.
What word/ phrase resonates the most in your life?
Grace and Trust have been my go-to soul words recently. Especially Grace. Everything in my life is enhanced by my ability to be in flow with Grace, to trust Grace, to melt into Grace, etc. I don’t mean Grace in with any specific religious tone, however (nor do I dislike grace in a religious context). For me, Grace names my underpinning commitment to trusting in love and integrity.
My favorite phrase is an excerpt from a Mark Nepo poem: “… It is the way I would have chosen had I been born three times as brave”.
What does your ideal day look like?
My ideal day is when I get to go with the flow, nothing particular scheduled. It involves eating nourishing meals, laughing with friends, being by water or in nature, walking, hiking, or swimming, reading a good book and writing. From start to finish: Waking up to no alarm, going for a solo hike followed by lunch with my best friend, reading, and writing by the Boulder Creek for a while, laughing with dear friends over food again, then headed to bed early.
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Brooke–thank you for coming here to tell us a little more about what drives you through the world.
Everyone else, if you want more of Brooke’s perspective in your life, go follow her on Instagram and subscribe to A Simple Alternative.

If you know of someone that we should hear from, hit me up on Instagram or Facebook! Let me know who the cool women are in your life and we’ll try to get a conversation going!
XOXO, Lib

5 Things That Are Making Me Happy Right Now

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We went on vacation at the end of January and when we came home I was nervous that I’d fall into the whole “everything in my house is lame because it’s not as fun as when we were on vacation” rut. You know what I mean? So I started doing this gratitude challenge on my Instagram stories. I set an alert in my phone to go off every night to remind myself to think about the ways I’m #blessed on purpose.

And then I got the flu and that job was hard because when you have the flu you don’t have the energy to be grateful BUT you also don’t have the energy to hate everything around you. You just lay on the couch and wait for time to do its job to either kill you or heal you while you stare at the ceiling and wonder about exactly nothing. So while it wasn’t a step back, it wasn’t exactly a step forward either. Bonus: when you’re finally well, gratitude is at an all time high!

Now, look, I’mactually not the kind of person who thinks that you have to be happy all of the time. I’m usually the kind of person who sees those gratitude posts in November all over Facebook–you know the ones, right? And rolls my damn eyes and scrolls on because some days I just can not be bothered by everything that’s going right in Susan’s life. Okay? Haha! But also… I bet it makes Susan feel really great to be intentional about that stuff and if she needs it, she needs it. That’s why I scroll on and don’t, you know, leave a comment that says, “No one cares, Susan!!” I feel bad for Susans out there. If your name is Susan and you’re reading this–it’s not directed at you. I just plucked a name out of the thin air. Sorry, Susan!

So, sometimes we do have to dig deep and talk about the big and small things that are keeping us alive right now. So here we are in the deepest, darkest depths of bleak winter, making lists of five things that are making us happy. Ready? You do it, too, if you want to.

  1. My New Balance [affiliate] sneakers. Ryan surprised me with them. I had seen them in the store window, went in and tried them on, found out the price and then told Ryan all about them, knowing that I wasn’t really going to buy them.  I just wanted a little taste of them. I almost never ever buy shoes. Especially at full price. Because of that, I have some really embarrassing cross trainers in my closet. Rather than bring those with me on vacation, Ryan came home from work one night with these under his arm to surprise me. I love a gift that intersects at the point of romance and practicality. And these shoes go with everything. Very handy.
  2. Reading Who Thought This Was a Good Idea [affiliate] by Alyssa Mastromonaco. I’ve been hearing about this book for months, now. It always sounded interesting and when it came to looking for something to read on the plane, it sounded perfect for me. Not something that required too much deep attention but something that was light hearted. Apparently I wasn’t the only one with the idea that it was a good plane read because my neighbor across the aisle was reading the exact same book!
    Mastromonaco tells really funny and exciting stories about working in Obama’s White House. I definitely recommend it.
  3. Cozy, hyggee scarf/ blanket. This one [affiliate] is nearly identical to the one that I bought on clearance at ModCloth at the beginning of the year. Under my coat, it has brought softness and comfort into these most harsh days of winter. I love adding it to my typical leggings+tunic uniform on warmer or at-home days. I’m a very tactile person so just wrapping up in it makes me instantly more happy.
  4. Searching for new recipes after being sick and only eating toast and applesauce. There’s still a lot of food that doesn’t appeal to me but I’m really interested in this recipe for Shrimp Tacos with Pineapple that I found in my most recent issue of Bon Appetit. Ryan and I have also been interested in trying our hands at making potstickers from scratch, sometime. I think we might use this recipe from Half-Baked Harvest and make an at-home date night of it? Eat some potstickers, watch a little Alpine Skiing? Ooh lala. Romance.
  5. Stepping out of my comfort zone has been huge for me this month (and, if we’re being honest, my horoscope told me it would be). I’ve found myself stepping into insecure spaces to say my peace or advocate for myself or someone else, recently. It’s a practice that I am grateful for even if it does require so much energy to do it. But here’s the thing–we think that stepping out of our comfort zone means stepping into a place of uncertainty or fear. But that’s not it at all. Or, rather, it doesn’t have to be that. We’re stepping into a place of vulnerability. A place where our faith is the only thing holding us steady. And that, my friends, is a great place to be.

What sorts of things have you been grateful for lately? Big or small, celebrate them. It’s important.

XOXO, Lib

Meet Me Mondays

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Overwhelmingly, the thing that people keep asking me about in regards to my blog is if I’m ever going to bring back Feminist Fridays. My answer, for the longest time, was something between a very polite, “Oh, I’m not sure…” and Michael Scott realizing that Toby is back at work in Scranton. It’s not that I didn’t love doing Feminist Fridays–I really, really did. But it took a lot more labor than I ever expected and it only took a few months for me to feel completely burned out from it. I also feel like Feminist Fridays has served its purpose around here. At least, the way that I was using the interviews to, essentially, show that “feminist” is not a dirty word and there are so many facets to it.

But I hear you. You were loving the interviews and the reliability and learning about new, ordinary, super cool women on the regular. That’s what I like, too! So that’s why I’m introducing a new series called Meet Me Mondays.

Meet Me Mondays was inspired by this book [affiliate] that my brother-in-law gave to me for Christmas. This book is incredible and I whole heartedly recommend picking it up for yourself. The thing that I first loved about this book was that every woman who was interviewed was asked the exact same questions. I think that was a brilliant choice by the authors. When you ask everyone the exact same questions, you’re focusing more on her humanity than on her accomplishments or things that have happened to her outside of her control. Whether the person is a best selling author or an actress or an activist or a mom or a teacher or a meter-maid–they’re all on the same playing field. I’m not directing the conversation in any way–the person we’re talking to is the one in charge. And I love that. There’s no preconceived notions or right answers. There’s just, whatever you want to talk about. Wherever you want to go.

I already have a few cool women lined up for interviews and I’m psyched for you all to meet them! If you want to be interviewed, hit me up! Or if you know of someone that you think more people should know, let me know! This isn’t about celebrating women for the cool things they’re doing–it’s about celebrating women for being women and showing the world that there’s so much treasure in ordinary people.

Anyway, I hope you’re as excited as I am. I am v excited, after all.

XOXO, Lib

Virtual Book Club: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

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This post contains Amazon affiliate links—thank you for supporting businesses that support people like me who are working hard to make their dreams come true.

I’ve been looking forward to reading this book since the day I finished reading Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You in the spring of 2016. I just happened upon that book randomly at the local library. I’d been in a bit of a dry spell, reading-wise and Everything I Never Told You all at once flipped the switch inside of me and made me hungry for books. I went back to the library to find more books by her but there weren’t any. She hadn’t written any! Until now. *rubs hands together*

I’ve always had a love affair with first works by an author. It’s kind of like a musician’s first album—here’s the piece that’s been living inside of them for ages and they’ve had a lifetime to turn it over and make it perfect. Or, at least, that’s how I imagine it. And when the second book comes around, I’m eager to read it but not often as enchanted as I was that first time. This time was different. Little Fires Everywhere held me just the same.

Ng is a master storyteller. She is exactly what I’m looking for in literature. She can take all these individual strands and move them about in ways that make you eager to follow along, not sure where she’s taking this and then at the end you can see this magnificent braid with just a few fly-aways because she’s not afraid to leave some questions unanswered.

Sometimes I believe in spoilers and sometimes I don’t. For this particular book, I’m not going to tell you much. I don’t want to tell you any of the plot secrets and I don’t want to tell you my interpretation, either. Because I really want to hear how it spoke to you.

But in the first chapter, we more or less open on a house on fire. One of the fire inspectors knew that it was arson because there were “little fires everywhere.” Hearing the title of the book in the very first chapter piqued my interest in the direction of fire. So for the rest of the book I was noting when anything was described with fire language. This set me on a path of seeing what was living at the heart of this story: obedience vs rebellion.

As a girl who’s spent the past few years intentionally following my own arrow (and thusly repeatedly disappointing a certain type of people while also empowering another type of people)—this theme resonated with me in powerful ways. But who knows—it could just be this very thing in my life that saw that theme in the first point. Maybe it’s not there? Maybe it is? Who could know?

I can’t wait to have our book club meeting and find out (I’m writing this early and setting it to post after we’ve had our book club meeting but at the time of this writing, it has as of yet not taken place)! Our book club meetings are always so fun. I’m always in a weird mood and don’t really want to do it but the second we all start talking, it fills my joy-tank all the way up. Nothing fills me up like a book discussion does.

Anyway, go order Little Fires Everywhere. It’s just as good as Everything I Never Told You. Hell, order them both.

For the month of February we’ll be reading Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly. I’m really stoked to get into this story. I haven’t seen the movie, yet! I know, I know. But I’m really excited to get into this one.

XOXO, Lib