OUR HOME // living room update

Mid-summer I got the idea stuck in my head that we were gonna split once Dan got home from Alaska, move out of our house into the Winne and sell all our stuff.  After my trip up to Alaska to visit him I came home and started selling our furniture.  I sold and donated quite a bit of stuff, including our couch, but then after Dan came home he got a new job, I got invited to join the Gritty City Sirens and staying in Tacoma started to sound appealing again.  Our house was still in a bit of a jumble from my purge fest and our living room always felt like it was in a state of being unfinished.  

We're still thinking of moving, but that won't be happening until at least after I return from the Wildbride Retreat west coast tour.  So for now, it made sense to make our home feel homey again.  We got a couch again, and I set up the living room into an arrangement that I've never had it in before!  I've always liked the idea of the couch being on the black wall, but I wasn't sure how that'd work with the front door being right there.  I figured I'd try it out anyway and I really love how it feels!  Plus, there's a perfect spot for our Christmas Tree!

See the other ways I've arranged our living room here.

Almost everything is Ikea, thrifted, or Target.

halloween queen

How was your Halloween weekend?  Talk about a crazy day to have Halloween, not only was it on a Saturday, but it was also Daylight Saving night, which meant the partying lasted an extra hour!  I had the most fun Halloween I can remember in recent years.  My burlesque troupe, the Gritty City Sirens, put on a Halloween show and it was so much fun.  We had an awesome bluegrass band open for us, then all us girls did our halloween inspired acts, and we finished the night with another band for people to dance the night away!  I was blown away by how many people came and celebrated the night with us, it was such a blast!  If you follow on facebook you probably saw a peek at my costume, I was a Black Widow Queen so I got super spidery and creepy.  Dan was a wizard.  Dusty didn't get a costume this year, though I almost bought her a cape.
Now that the Halloween show is over I can finally focus on some other fun stuff!  I have some big news coming this week for both Wildbride and Liz Morrow Studios, so stay tuned for that!  And of course, I'm now costuming and choreographing my Christmas burlesque act, so the sparkle train doesn't stop!


 



all items old except shabby apple dress + moorea seal shades | photos by Liz Morrow Studios

pumpkin beer and cheese tasting party

Halloween, I think because we're not yet in the parent demographic, doesn't mean tons of fun size candies and other sweet halloween treats.  For us, Halloween season (and fall in general) means the beginning of all the breweries releasing their pumpkin beers!  It seems like every brewery has a seasonal pumpkin beer on in their wheelhouse and no two pumpkin beers are the same.  Instead of having a sweets laden halloween party I thought it'd be fun to have a pumpkin beer tasting party instead!  

I picked up a bunch of different pumpkin beers (and I threw in my all time favorite ginger cider from Schilling for good measure), laid out a cheese platter for people to snack on between beer tastings, and everyone sipped on beers!  Whether or not you want to get really into picking apart the tasting notes of the beers is up to you, we found that by the end, the actual tasting notes started to devolve, but it was still a really fun time!

Beers we tasted:

Uinta Punk'n / Dogfish Head Punkin Ale / Elysian Night Owl / Rogue Pumpkin Patch Ale / 21st Amendment He Said / New Belgium Pumpkick / Southern Tier Pumking (and Schilling's Ginger Cider)

Cheeses:

Kerrygold Dubliner / Blarney Castle / Skellig / Dubliner Soft Cheese Spread

tasted on Rustic Rosemary Loaf

sacred femininity

The response to Wildbride has been so wonderful!  Everyone has been so encouraging and I'm so excited for it to grow and to expand and bring it even further than the west coast!  My favorite thing about Wildbride is that every woman comes to me with a story of why they want to do a Wildbride shoot.  Each one is so beautiful, and it feels really special and honoring to be trusted with those stories.  I think sometimes as women we're used to hiding our stories.  So often in movies and television the main stories being told are men's stories, or the stories of women surrounding men.  It's not very often that we hear women's stories purely told by women, about things that are central to being a woman moving through the world.  Sure, sometimes that involves men because men are humans who we interact with, but there is so much more to women's stories than how men fit into those stories.  
Sometimes I get men joking with me saying things like, "why aren't men allowed to do Wildbride shoots?  I want a Wildgroom shoot, LOL!" and it makes me pretty salty.  Like, hey guys, can this one thing not be about you?  This is a space for sacred femininity and you are not invited.  Go find a photographer whose calling is creating photos for sacred masculinity, that's great.  But I'm not that photographer and I'm not about that.  I feel like it can be hard for women to feel comfortable and safe enough to be vulnerable with their stories, bodies, and femininity.  A lot of women have been injured by men, physically or emotionally, and the idea of men being allowed to enter into the Wildbride space creates a space that is no longer safe for women to be vulnerable in that way.  The thing I love about Wildbride is that it's for women.  It was designed and crafted to be for women.  Something magical happens when women are around other women.  Walls come down, hearts open, laugher reverberates.  


 


 



All items thrifted or old.  Photos by me | Liz Morrow Studios

broadening horizons

It's always funny to me how different pieces in my closet want to be worn depending on the season.  Technically this Dear Creatures dress was from their summer collection a few years back, and it's a pretty thin fabric despite having longer sleeves, but I always like wearing it in the fall rather than summer.   But enough about clothes.  I'm so excited for my travels this next year.  Right now I have my travel schedule up on my Studio Website, and I can't wait to add more locations to the schedule as I make more plans for 2016.  I feel like 2016 is a big year for me.  I turn thirty and I'm like, it's time to get this show on the road!  Dan and I have been discussing moving into the Winne, living in a friend's yard for a really affordable rent(/parking space?), renting out our house or possibly selling it, and saving our money for travel and savings.  It's an idea that we've been throwing around for a long time, and I think we'll make a decision soon-ish, but since I'm taking the Brave on my Wildbride tour, it probably won't happen until at least Spring.  I have a feeling that I'll get to Paris and be like, "Why the hell does anyone live in Tacoma!?" Even though I do like Tacoma, I've started, on my bike rides here and there, thinking about how plain Tacoma is in some ways.  And not just Tacoma, but the US in general.  I mean, there are so many incredible cities and geographically gorgeous areas in the US, but the streets with the houses and lawns and such... I'm ready to experience something else.  I like yards and neighborhoods, but I also don't feel like relinquishing to a life of that being my reality.  There are so many different ways to live in community, so many ways community looks so different from what we have here.  And honestly my neighborhood doesn't feel like a community, anyway.  We all hide behind our doors and fences, keep each other at arms length (which is fine by me because my neighbors are some weird folks, and not in the good way.  Like literally as I am typing there are people screaming obscenities and threats at each other in my neighbors' front yard). I always go back and forth between wanting to live in a big city for a year, and just moving to the country, or back to AK.  I love nature and feel like being in a natural setting is so healing, rejuvenating, and inspiring for me.  But I also crave the cultural growth and experiences that come from being surrounded by a big city.  Dan and I have talked about moving to New York for 6 months to 2 years, or somewhere like that.  Maybe after I visit Paris I'll start pushing for an overseas city.


 


 

All items are old (2+years) | Photos by me (Liz Morrow Studios)