"i am going"

When people ask how my trip to Paris was, the only thing I can say that is truly honest is that it was a lot of things.  and many of those things weren't positive, but no one really wants to hear that.  They want to hear that you had the time of your life and you didn't want to leave and that it was magical.  And maybe for some people it is, but for me, this time, it wasn't.  

I love travel.  I feel pretty pro at travel.  Growing up in Alaska going anywhere meant flying there.  Or road-tripping for about a week.  My first solo flight was when I was in 6th grade (I think) and I was so used to flying that I didn't realize that traveling as an unaccompanied minor was different.  I filed off the plane with the rest of the passengers, met up with my mom at the gate and we went on our merry way until the panicked flight attendants caught up with us and confirmed that I was leaving with the proper guardian.  I've flown to countless cities and road tripped from Alaska to Florida and back to Washington State solo.  

With international travel, though, I'm not as experienced.  I went to Guatemala once with a group in high school, but I don't really count that because we were mindlessly shuttled around and I didn't have to figure out a thing.  It wasn't for lack of desire.  I was all set to attend the American University in Cairo for a month during college but my passport with my student visa didn't arrive in time for my flight so I cancelled the whole thing (a boyfriend also may have been involved in my lack of wanting to leave home too.  Lame).  Since I had to cancel that flight, I was able to re-book a new flight and arranged to go to London, which I also didn't do, for reasons I don't remember but I have a suspicion have to do with that boyfriend.  Years before that my entire family had a huge trip to Europe planned, but the day before we were set to leave my grandma got in a car accident that nearly claimed her life and so the entire trip got cancelled.  

So, when I found a super cheap flight to Paris a few months ago I heeded the words of Clarissa Pinkola Estes in Women Who Run With the Wolves, "'I am going' These are the best words ever.  Say them, then go."  I booked the flight for my birthday and re-upped my passport.  It felt like something I needed to do.  Travel in the US no longer pushes me out of my comfort zone, and I needed to get out of it.  I needed to prove to myself that I could.  That I could do something brave.  I knew that a lot of the things I do, like traveling solo cross country in a 1973 Winnebago Brave, look brave to outsiders, but to me felt squarely inside my comfort zone.  International travel, though, that was new.  And definitely outside my comfort zone, in what a friend once called the "growth zone."  

I researched like a crazy person because I like to be prepared, tried my best to re-learn the french I used to know in high school, and waited with so much excitement that at times I thought I might explode.  My husband Dan drove me to the airport that chilly morning, and I kissed him goodbye and got on the plane.  

It was hard.  I'm a solid introvert, but being in a foreign country alone, not being able to speak the language, with no one to share the experience with was difficult.  The jet lag was brutal, and I didn't do a lot of the things I thought I would just because the language barrier gave me a lot of anxiety.  I spent half of one day hidden in my Airbnb watching Netflix and crying.  After some encouraging words from friends I pulled it together for my last few days in Paris and released myself from the pressure of having The Best Time Ever.  I read my book in a cafe while enjoying my petit dejeuner, walked around the Musee D'Orsay, and ate a nutella filled crepe under the Eiffel Tower.  I realized that I didn't have to fit everything into this one trip.  I didn't have to have The Best Time Ever, because there would be other times to come to Paris.  I could come with Dan or a friend next time and be able to laugh and talk and share everything with someone.  

I'm glad I went.  I feel like I broke through whatever it was that was keeping me from traveling abroad.  And I feel like I opened myself up to the universe, letting it know that I my passport was broken in and ready to go.  I already have tickets to Iceland and Ireland (and maybe Paris again) for 2016.  Elizabeth Gilbert writes in her book Big Magic about ideas being sentient beings on the lookout for people who are available and willing to take them on.  One of my dreams for the next year, as both a photographer and a human, was to travel more both domestically and internationally for work and self-enrichment.  I was tired of waiting around for it to happen to me, and this trip to Paris was my stake in the ground.  "I'm here.  I'm ready to go.  I've got my passport in hand!"  Like being a good host for a creative idea, I feel like you need to make yourself available and ready for those big dreams and not in a sitting around and thinking about it way.  Like a, "Hey Universe!  I'm on a flight to a place farther away from home than I've ever been.  Your move!"  And as soon as I made that shift, the Universe felt like it shifted a bit too.  Doors started opening.  Little ones, but ones nonetheless.  So even if my trip to Paris wasn't the Most Magical, Best Trip Ever, it was a little flag that I waved to the universe letting it know that I was open for business with my bags packed.  And my comfort zone is a little bit bigger too. 

"I am going" those are the best words.  Say them, then go.

consume less, create more

Well, the weather outside is frightful and I'm curled up on the couch with a cup of lukewarm tea listening to the wind whipping against the house.  It's late and I'm waiting for sleep to sound enticing.  I was scrolling facebook, clicked a link that took me to a video of a ballet routine and then at the bottom of the article they posted the ballet video that went viral earlier this year to Hozier's Take Me To Church, which I'd seen months ago, and I watched it again.  It struck me how that song was played over and over and over again on the radio back when it came out.  I liked the song.  I felt it was moving.  I enjoyed when it came on the radio.  But the forces of consumption require new things to take the place of older things and that song was eventually taken out of the regular play cycle, relegated to who knows where.  I haven't heard it on the radio once in months.

Perhaps it's the time of year.  Consumerism runs rampant during the holidays.  I can barely listen to ads they're so obnoxiously pushy about selling me All The Things.  Events like Black Friday and the general climate anywhere near a shopping center this past week make me disheartened.  I don't get the need to buy things for people that they don't need, just because it's a thing we do.  I understand that giving gifts communicates love.  I'm not a gift love language person, so gift giving is relatively unnecessary in my world anyway, but I understand the concept of showing love through giving, whether it's items or time or acts of service, etc.  But that being said, Christmas these days seems like an extension of our fast fashion, fast food, made-to-break (so you can upgrade), cultural obsession with consuming more more more.  Kids want the new toy from the super popular kids movie that came out that year, marketed to them during their cartoons, plastered on their cereal boxes, blasted in their eyes and eardrums at every possible moment.  You have to have this movie and all associated toys.

Christmas makes it super obvious, and it gets a bad reputation for it's transparent consumerism here in the states, but really, it's just a symptom of the culture we've created that devalues everything so that we feel like we must buy more.  Clothes aren't designed to last more than a year or two because, well, they won't be in style after that, and because it's easier to sell you ten cute dresses that are cheap than one nicely made dress that costs more.  And the goal?  Sell you things.  Lots of them.  So businesses create a system in which things are designed to break or become obsolete.  Why do we need a new phone every year when the old one is perfectly functional.  Waste from our discarded tech toys is filling up landfills all over the world.  3rd world countries don't even want our old second hand clothes anymore.  There are simply too many of them and they are too poor of quality.

Dan and I haven't done much in the way of Christmas gift giving in the four years we've been married.  Neither of us are gift giving love language people, and we feel a bit silly giving each other things neither of us need.  That might change when we have kids.  Christmas morning is a pretty magical experience as a kid, I will admit.  But I'd rather foster my kid's sense of creativity and wonder through their presents, by getting them things like art supplies, building sets, and books, rather than toys from a movie that will go out of fashion in 6 months.  I know, I'll be singing a different tune when my kid is dying for THE toy from THE movie in 2020.  The most noble parent is the one with no kids.

Still, I want to opt out of the consumption madness.  I want life to revolve around making things and being content with what we have (which is so so so much).  I want memories of times spent together, not silly gadgets unwrapped around a gussied up fir tree.  I want to hear music on the radio that came out last year, or even 6 months ago. I want to create a world where musicians don't get chewed up and spit out after their big hit starts to fade from the charts because the next viral song is amping up.  A world where fads in fashion don't change every few weeks because someone in a factory in Bangladesh that's one tremor away from collapse can pump out H&M's new trend capsule in a week flat.  A world where kids aren't targeted by ads telling them to want want want need need need.  I want that world.  I need that world.  I'm not sure how to create it, but for now I know I can opt out of the consumption as best as I can.  Consume less.  Create more.

dubliner brandy apple pie

I'm flying out to Paris today and I'm kind of freaking out.  

I have a feeling I won't be blogging while I'm there in lieu of just taking it all in, but I'm pretty sure I'll be 'gramming like a fool.  I won't blather on about how my insides are a ball of excitement, instead: here is a delicious pie recipe.  

Apple pie is a pretty standard pie, but this recipe, is my favorite so far. Mostly because: cheese crust.  I've heard of people serving apple pie with a slice of cheddar, but I prefer this method of baking it into the crust.  I don't know why I haven't done this sooner because the idea sounded amazing when I was watching Pushing Daisies years ago, but I finally got around to it and yum.  I mean, adding cheese to almost anything is a sure-fire way of making it more delicious.  I almost just wanted to eat only the crust, but the brandy apple filling was a nice compliment.

Crust Ingredients:

3 cups All Purpose Flour

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups

Kerrygold Dubliner cheese

6 tbsp cold unsalted butter

1/2 cup vegetable shortening

1/2-2/3 cup ice water

Filling Ingredients:

3 1/4 lbs apples peeled, cored, + sliced (appx 9 whole)

3/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 tsp Apple Pie Spice

1/4 cup boiled cider

1/4 cup Pie Filling Enhancer

1/8 tsp salt

2 tbsp lemon juice

2-3 oz brandy

To Make Crust:

1. Whisk together the flour and salt.  Add the cheese and toss to coat.

2. Cut in the butter and shortening, mixing until well combined.

3. Drizzle just enough water over the mixture to make it cohesive, tossing with a fork until it starts to come together.

4. Fold the dough over on itself until it holds together, then divide it 65/35 into two flat discs with smooth edges.  Wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

To Make Filling and Pie:

1. In a large bowl, stir together the filling ingredients, mixing until the apples are well coated.  

2. Preheat the oven to 425ºF.  Roll the larger disc of dough out to a 13 1/2 inch round and lay it into your pie dish.  Spoon in the filling.

3. Roll out the second disc either into a flat disc and cover or roll it out and then use a pizza cutter to cut strips to make a lattice top.  Brush the top with milk and sprinkle with coarse sugar, if desired.  

4. Bake the pie on a parchment-lined baking sheet in a preheated 425ºF oven for 15 minutes.  Reduce the heat to 375ºF and bake for another 45 minutes, or until the top is brown and the filling is bubbling.  Remove the pie from the oven and cool completely before slicing.

(gr)attitude

I hope you guys, whether you're celebrating the holiday or not, are cozied up with your loved one(s) today.  While Thanksgiving itself has a troublesome history, giving thanks and expressing gratitude is always a wonderful idea and that's what I'm spending this day doing.  There is so much to be thankful for.  I'm most thankful for my sweet love and our little floof.  They bring me so much joy and happiness on a daily, hourly basis, I can't imagine life without these two

Living in the Pacific Northwest and being a part of a creative community puts me into contact with so many incredible artists, entrepreneurs, and makers.  One of those people is Tiarra Sorte and last Saturday we met up here in Tacoma for an in-home photo session.  Dan and I hadn't had photos of us together (other than tripod photos that I took of us) since our wedding, and I wanted to have photos of just us together before we decide to make a tiny human.  We've also been talking about moving to Seattle sometime next year for a new adventure, and so I wanted to have photos in our very first (owned) home.  

The session was so fun and I'm totally in love with the images Tiarra created for us.  I didn't realize how special it would be to have photos in our home and around our little neighborhood for us to look back on and remember our time in this house forever.  It will be so fun to show our kids what our first house looked, and a peek at our neighborhood.  Whenever I'm in Sacramento with my parents we usually do a drive-by of their first homes.  One I don't remember because I was a baby, and one I just barely remember living in before we moved up to Anchorage.  I imagine driving through Tacoma with our kids showing them our first super tiny house, and then this house just a few blocks away.

I hope you are with people who love you today.  If you aren't, or if the holidays are stressful and your family situation isn't awesome, just know that you are loved and that you are so worth loving.  And I am thankful for those of you who come take the time to read my little blog and comment, or follow on instagram or facebook.  Blogging and social media can be weird, but it's so nice to have connections with other humans, even if it's just over the web.  So here's a big internet hug to you guys. 

What are you grateful for this season?

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.