This is the part where I tell you, like everyone else does, that I’m not really into resolutions, but…
Here’s the thing—I don’t need to make any resolutions. Did you read my last post?? Enough is going to change in 2016 on its own. Other years, resolutions have been important. This year though, the concept is utterly unnecessary for me.
That being said, however, I love a list of goals. I love a good bucket list. So instead of resolutions, I’m going to write a to-do list. And I want to encourage you to do the same! This is a list that only includes one-and-done items. There’s nothing (well, not much, anyway) about this list that encourages a habit. I think that’s the important distinction between a list of resolutions and a to-do-list.
So here we go with my list of 25 things that I want to do in 2016:
Have a pot-luck style brunch party with my friends.
Take a long road trip with my husband.
Really, really figure out how Evernote works.
Monetize this blog.
Bring a new plant into the house.
Drink a Sazerac in New Orleans
Send out gift cards randomly to people.
Do a 30 Days of Yoga Challenge
Have a BBQ.
Interview my friends.
Go to an Indian Restaurant for the first time ever in life.
Meet Jamie for lunch ½ way between where we both live.
Walk all the way from Wall Park to Lakeside Park on the walking trail (it’s not hard, it’s just something that I’ve always wanted to do and never done).
Find a perfect lipstick.
Donate a bunch of clothes.
Explore cool things in Kansas.
Explore cool things in Kansas (I want to do it at least twice).
Put away all of the laundry in the bedroom (it has literally never all been put away before).
Have my nephew, Owen, stay the night.
Pay off my dental bill (this one might actually not be very reasonable).
Paint—this time with watercolors, maybe.
Finish a book (I didn’t finish many books last year and I mean to change that).
Bake something with a kid.
Make a really good homemade pizza.
Make choux pastry.
Full disclosure: there are a few other things that I am going to do this year that I’m just not going to tell you about but they will happen and when they do you’re going to be so pumped! Probably. If I know you like I think I do, and I think I do.
What do you think? Are there any one-and-done things that you want to make sure that you try this year? Anywhere you want to visit? Any food you’ve been dying to try?
I really do hope that all of your most reasonable (and a few of your wildest) dreams come true this year.
XOXO, Lib
I’ve made my bed and this is what sleeping in it looks like.
It looks like me sitting at my dining room table with a notebook to my right and a coffee to my left, a batch of dishes soaking in the kitchen and my hair up in a towel. And I’m at work.
Not pictured: my anxiety asking me, “Just who in the hell do you think you are?”
Last week I had my last day at my full-time job. My husband came by and spent the last hour with me and then he took me out to lunch where we ordered strong cocktails in celebration.
And on the way home from lunch, he grabbed my hand and told me that he was proud of me and reminded me (like I’ve been asking him to do every day for the past three weeks) that everything is going to be okay. And suddenly I was struck with this silent flash of the reality of this situation. I felt something deep inside of me come out and say the words, “I can’t… believe… I quit… my job.”
Well, I quit my job so that I could be a writer like I’ve always wanted to do. I was in college for five years (that first Freshman year was just a very expensive trial-run) and the whole time people would ask me, “What are you going to do with your English degree? Teach?” And I would recoil and say, “Ugh, no! I’m going to be a writer.” I said that for five years. Until I got my first, post-grad, to-pay-the-bills job and then I completely forgot about it. People would ask me about my writing and I’d wave it off saying that I had a hobby blog but that was it because I’m an adult now and people can’t live on words alone. And maybe they can, maybe they can’t, I can’t say whether or not it’s possible for me yet. But I have kind of learned that you can’t live very well by denying what your spirit needs either.
So here we are. We aren’t rich but it’s now or 30 years from now and I can’t wait that long. Our life is changing big because of this decision. But I don’t know if I can keep myself healthy and keep denying my creativity any longer.
One thing I know for sure is that I couldn’t do it without Ryan. I didn’t know how crucial it is to have a supportive partner until we started tossing around this idea. I want to take a little space here to publicly tell the world that I don’t know if there’s a better person in this world than this man who married me and loves to build me up.
I pray that one day I’ll be able to hold back the curtain so that he can explore his dreams, too. Thank you so much for loving me in this deep and tangible way.
Here are a list of my doubts, just so that I can get them out there and come face to face with them. I might not conquer them all right now but here they are:
1. Is this something that people are really allowed to do? How am I allowed to do this? 2. Is this horribly irresponsible? Aren’t we supposed to work hard and save all the money that we possibly can when we’re young so that we can make all of our dreams come true when we’re old? 3. What if I’m not even successful at it? And what does success even look like to me right now? 4. Other people aren’t allowed to do this so why me? Why do I get to be the one?
I don’t have answers for all of those questions but I don’t really need them. If you can put words to your anxiety you’ll quickly see that it’s pretty unreasonable and only serves as a distraction.
One thing that I know for sure is that when doubt looks at you and says, “Just who the hell do you think you are?” make sure you answer that question.
Thank you for coming on this journey with me. Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for sharing my words. Thank you for your input. Keep it coming. You’re a crucial part of this, too.
If you’re anything like me, you’ve been fully adoring the exceptionally warm weather this winter. Thanks El Nino! Sixty degree weather got me driving with my windows down, belting out Adele songs (yes, still) and ordering iced lattes.
And then one day it got a little chilly. We pulled out our coats, looked at our calendars and much like the McCallister family who suh-suh-slept in (!) we all realized at once that Christmas is in, like, FOUR DAYS! Like, Christmas is soon enough that we might not even have time to order things from Birchbox or Sephora for our mothers and our sisters and best friends. The horror! The horror!!
Oh, but my friend. I’ve got you. What I have for you is not one but two glorious DIY’s. A very easy one and an even easier one. Are you ready??
First things first, the easy one. A decadent Vanilla Brown Sugar Lip Scrub:
Ingredients:
1 Part Olive Oil
2 Parts Honey
2 Parts White Sugar
2 Parts Brown Sugar
A smidge of vanilla or a little bit of scraped vanilla bean seeds
Method:
Mix all of this together in a bowl and then disperse into little jars. In fact, I’ll recommend tiny jars. I used small jars but judging about how little you use each time you use a lip scrub, this small jar will last for decades. I’m not exaggerating.
It should be very thick and sticky when it’s through.
I’ve used homemade lip scrubs in the past. I’ve decided that I really don’t like coconut-oil based products for this because coconut oil is so persnickety as far as temperature is concerned. This olive oil based lady maintains her texture over time.
Just scoop out a tiny bit, rub it into some damp lips and rub and rub and rub. It feels so good and I love it. And if you swallow some, you’re fine. You don’t need to call poison control.
Pro tip: If you can, try to gift this along with a glorious lip balm. I recommend this Mango+Ginger balm from The Grove Collective which is accessible through ePantry.com or this delicious TokyoMilk Femme Fatal Dark Salted Caramel Bee Balm and Jasmine Lip Balm that I got from Birchbox (but, again, if you’re working on a strict time-budget, just tell your gift recipient to finish up with a lux balm for best results.)
Second things second, the even easier one that may not even require a grocery trip. A Sweet, Dirty Hands Scrub:
Ingredients:
3 Parts White Sugar
1 Part Dish Soap (I used that pink kind that has Oil of Olay in it to keep your hands nice and pretty but I’ll bet that Miss Meyer’s Basil Dish Soap would be so incredible, too, especially for gardeners.)
Method:
Dump it all into a bowl and pour it into medium-size jars.
This is so, so great for people who get exceptionally dirty hands. I intend to give a jar to my brother who works on his car a lot and a jar to my mother who spends a good amount of time in her garden. But it’s also really, really nice if you just really want to get down with a good hand-scrub. It’s relaxing and really does an excellent job of exfoliating.
If you can, pair it with a delectable lotion that is good for sensitive skin–time allowing, of course. I, personally, don’t have any recommendations for this as I am constantly on the hunt for a lotion that will not only not set my sensitive skin on fire but will also keep me from feeling greasy. Now accepting suggestions in the comments section.
And now, a few photographs that I took and want to use even thought they didn’t necessarily fit:
Do you have any go-to last minute gifts?
Do you have a suggestion for a lotion that will keep me feeling like a human?
What do you think of DIY gifts? Are they cheap and unwanted or are they extra thoughtful and delightful?
I hope you have a wonderful holiday. Maybe even a couple’a holidays. I’ll see you after the new year with my very, very exciting list of New Years Resolutions! Twenty-Sixteen is full of so many exciting things that it hurts me to not tell everyone about it right now but let’s keep you guessing.
The holiday season is well upon us, my friends! And along with that comes parties. And along with THAT comes at least one White Elephant Gift Exchange. Some people call it Dirty Santa or Nasty Christmas or Yankee Swap?
I remember my first White Elephant Gift Exchange. In college, I got an invitation to a party. The invitation said that the party would include a White Elephant Gift Exchange and I had no idea what that meant. My friends tried to explain it to me, “You just bring something funny.” Okay, well, this was not very helpful. And I was a college student living on about $64/ mo so I had to get really creative. I was overwhelmed and went to the thrift store and found a stuffed Gizmo from Gremlins. Surprisingly, he was a hit!
I always have a ton of fun at these parties though they do come with their own levels of anxieties. It’s always so much fun to see what everyone else brought but there’s so much pressure to impress with your gift! It has to be funny and something that would appeal to everyone since anyone could end up with your gift! And when you’re talking about, say, an office Holiday party—there could very well be a large cross-section of the general population represented in that group and sometimes humor is just not a universal characteristic. With so much pressure it’s easy for your mind to go blank. But don’t give up! Let me help you with some ideas. Try one of these out and let me know how it goes!!
1. DIY is an obvious way to keep costs low but what if you kind of half-assed it? Give an incomplete DIY project. Knit half of a mitten, frame a ½ finished paint by number, or wrap up a bottle of Elmer’s glue, a bag of popsicle sticks, and some printed instructions on how to build a bird house.
2. Go big or go home, go way overboard in the DIY department! Take on a very simple project and make it a big friggin’ deal. Transform an ordinary photo frame into something covered in feathers, glitter, and crystals. Go further and include a photo of yourself.
3. If you’re like me and it pains you to give a useless gift, look to the internet to find a silly version of something useful. A few years ago, my best friend gave us a pair of wooden spoons that looked like drumsticks (my husband is a drummer). Another time, my sister in law gave me a set of measuring cups made to look like Russian nesting dolls. Here’s a link to the Fred and Friends website which is chock-full of silly versions of useful things. Including my favorite, the Pizza Boss 3000.
4. A big play on an inside joke. If you’re close with all of the people at your party (if it’s with a group of close friends or a class or office party), odds are pretty good that you all have an inside joke or two that would be funny to bring up. Maybe you can cross-stich a sampler with an oft-quoted phrase amongst your group.
When my older brother worked for a company in town, they held Christmas parties where the employees went all out for their White Elephant gifts. My brother took this very seriously and one year he created an entire new-hire manual that looked past all of the obvious how-to stuff about work and, instead, focused on the things that you learn after time at your new job. Things like, I don’t know, who is the one who always tries to leave early, catch phrases, and hilarious tricks for maneuvering the social landscape of the workplace.
5. The ultimate, classic White Elephant gift is an awesome thrift-store find. Something that is heinously tacky but so perfect that you can’t ignore it. And for this example, I will share the best gift anyone in my life has ever received. This gift was won by my sister at last year’s office party. I give you The Backstreet Boys Clock:
BONUS IDEA: Have you ever thought of just giving a White Elephant? Here are a few to consider.
I hope this helps! Let me know what you think. Have you ever gotten or given a White Elephant gift that you’ve been really excited about??
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Ryan and I have been deeply in need of a bit of a get-away. My full-time job doesn’t offer a lot of paid vacation time and so we decided to use the four-day weekend that comes along with Thanksgiving as our own mini-vacation.
We weren’t sure where, exactly, we wanted to go. Just that we wanted to go somewhere that we’d never been before and we wanted to be able to relax. So we hopped on Air B&B’s website. I’d never used Air B&B, before, and I didn’t really even believe that there would be much in the way of results for Central Kansas. But I was wrong. We found the listing for The Loft at The Volland Store in Alma, KS and booked it immediately.
We took a lot of photos and I wrote a lot in my journal. So, here’s what came of all of that.
Thursday (Thanksgiving Day):
Every time it rains in November, it’s noteworthy. I really love the way that it fogs up the glass. And it sounds like classic rain. It sounds like the kind of rain that you get when you select the “rain” feature on a white noise machine. It continued as we packed our bags and as we put those bags in the car and as we drove the two-and-some-change hours to Alma, KS. The rain continued as we tried to get into the room that we rented and then the security alarm went off and I had to call our lovely host (Wrenn) and surely disrupt her Thanksgiving dinner to come and help us. And it continued into the night–stopping a few hours after the temperature dipped below freezing.
Driving on the freeway in the rain can be a challenge. At a certain point, the road is the same color as the sky is the same color as the water splashing all around is, somehow, the same color as nearly every other car on the road. When we were passing through Salina, I heard Ryan say, “Oh no!!” And we started slowing down. He had caught sight of a pickup truck and watched it lose control and collide with a guard rail. We took the next exit to turn around to make sure the driver was safe and hadn’t flipped or fallen down an embankment. But it was a great big pickup, sitting right side up in a ditch. Some other drivers had stopped to help. Everyone was safe, it seemed, so we felt okay moving along though we felt bad that their Thanksgiving plans were likely ruined.
Friday Morning
It continued to rain all night and the weather isn’t expected to get above freezing for the next few days. Our original plan was to go into town and explore a bit. Every time that I told someone that we were going to Alma, KS for our trip, there was one of two reactions: 1. Where’s that?! 2. Alma is so cute! I was excited that anyone who had ever been there had good things to say and I was anxious to explore every square inch of it. But then we woke up this morning and the whole world is frozen like Narnia. Once the sun is up, we will have to start by exploring the building that we’re in and then the grounds. Maybe after that we’ll go explore the town after all! But there’s 8 miles of hilly, curley-q roads between here and there.
Our AirB&B is delightful. It’s this warm, little cubby hole in the middle of an iced-over patch of prairie. It’s a legitimate retreat. With barely any cellphone reception and a persnickety wifi signal, it was exactly what I was looking for. It’s also gorgeous. Beautiful! It’s rekindling my dream of renovating a loft in downtown McPherson.
Last night we re-heated leftovers from our Friendsgiving dinner that we’d had earlier in the week. I love that there’s a kitchen here. It was a game changer as far as saving money goes on this trip. We brought food to cook for all but one meal. If we make it into Alma, today, we hope to try out one of the few cafes in town.
Friday Evening
The building where the loft is at, The Volland Store, is so cool. In the early 1900’s it was a general store but now it’s very different. We got all bundled up and set out to explore the grounds of this place. This room sits atop an art gallery. The exhibit is near and dear to my favorite parts of my heart. It’s entitled “Women’s Work” and it’s an exploration in textiles. It’s beautiful and minimal and magnificent. I promise that I didn’t touch anything even though there was no security guard to go “BAHP bahpbahpbahpbahp!” when I got too close.
This is the view from one of the floor-to-ceiling windows that looks out over the gallery.
The concept of women’s work is something that has been weighing heavy on my mind lately–since becoming a wife and since making the decision to quit my job and work from home. But in the end, I want to say that this trip has taught me that my husband and I are equal partners in this relationship. At least so far. And I know we’ll both work to keep it that way.
Since we didn’t fall down while w were out exploring the property, we decided to make the 8-mile journey into town. The road was covered in sleet and snow and it is very curvy without much of a shoulder. But it was beautiful anyhow and we stayed safe.
Alma, KS is a cute little town. Though I will say that on an iced-over day after Thanksgiving, there isn’t that much to offer. The Alma Cheese Factory was sadly closed–as well as the cafe. However there was an enormous antique store. What is it with Antique stores? They always seem small and normal at first glance and then all of a sudden you realize that the whole thing spans a city block. When we were there, we picked up some holiday ornaments and secretly took some photos of things that I wanted and things that I hated. When we were checking out, the owner pointed us in the direction of the Alma Bakery. We stopped for turnovers and bierocks (delicious–nearly as good as my mom’s) and headed back to the loft.
We came back to the apartment and warmed up, took naps, watched Friends DVD’s and read books. In a few minutes, I’m going to crack open a beer and put on a pot of Velveeta Shells and Cheese for our last dinner here. I am grateful for this kitchen on this particular trip.
Saturday Morning:
It’s our last morning here and we are being our typical selves. Ryan is making the most of that glorious, down-filled bedding and I’m making coffee, mowing down this bag of chocolate chip cookies from the bakery, and writing.
Since this was a Thanksgiving trip, a list of gratitudes: -I am grateful for a husband who adores my mind and my body and my heart and who is moved by the things that move me. And may I strive to see his pure heart in everything that he does. -I am grateful for the opportunities to do things like this. For families who don’t make us feel guilty for choosing to use our vacation time for some R&R rather than big family holidays. And may I make space for others to be themselves the way they need to, as well. -I am grateful for the freedom that comes from having been born within the borders of this country–which is something that I never really felt until recently. And may I provide others with safety and warmth and freedom wherever I can.
The sun is coming up. They’ll be opening The Volland Store soon and we will need to be on our way.
Thank you, little loft, for holding us warm and safe these past few days.
How did you spend your Thanksgiving? When was the last time you really got some good rest and relaxation? Could you use a weekend away? If you’re in the area, you should consider staying at The Loft at The Volland Store.
XOXO, Lib 