Blog-Tember | Day 1 is HERE!!!!

Today's prompt: Introduce yourself however you like! Pics, vlog, collage, your choice :)

Hello! My name is Heather and I am excited to be doing The Blog-temper challenge over at The Brave Love Blog for my second year! Thanks for doing this again Bailey!

I live in San Diego with my husband and our Betta fish, Melvin. I moved out here 7 years ago from the Midwest (Minnesota, Nebraska) to pursue my masters in Marriage and Family Therapy. We live in an area that apparently has one of the “highest walking” rates in San Diego. Meaning: a cement urban jungle. But we really do enjoy all the art, fun-hole-in-the-wall eateries, coffee shops and neighborhoods we can walk to.

I am a Marriage and Family Therapist Intern and about 250 hours away from my 3,000 hours. Meaning I can finally start studying for licensure! What a long road this career has been. I am very excited for this upcoming year as I will be a lead therapist at 3 different schools, including an elementary school and a middle school. My bias is towards adolescents as that is where most of my experience lies. But I am super jazzed about the idea of being able to do play therapy and work with small humans and their creative brains.

My husband is currently starting a new job with Young Life. He is going to be the Young Life College Coordinator. He loves college ministry and is looking forward to more mentoring and building community among smaller colleges in the San Diego region. We are currently working on fundraising!

I got into blogging during graduate school as I have always loved to write and this seemed like a good outlet for me. I received my Bachelors in Interpersonal Communication. As much as I dreamed up being a journalist I just couldn’t force myself into loving that style of writing. I just wanted to write what fell out of my head (which wasn’t exactly what a dry journalistic story was about) I had journaled for years, going through full notebooks in 2 months. So when blogging came into the picture, imagine my thrill! Only now I try not to write everything that falls out of my head. Heheheh.

My lovely family is spread out all over Southern California, Northern California, New Hampshire, Florida, Minnesota, Oklahoma, South Dakota and North Dakota. (am I missing any?) Needless to say my phone is pretty important to me as well as traveling and my Airfare Watchdog app. I have nightmares about dropping my phone and being unable to reach anyone constantly. My sisters are some of my best friends and I can’t imagine what my life would have looked like without them. I would say I got my sense of wonder and travel from my dad and my sense of cozy, warmth and grounded-ness from my mom. So it’s worked out to be a pretty good balance. 

I am grateful to have some pretty great friends as well. We play a lot of games together (think board games and lawn games) as well as movie nights, art nights and the occasional mini-golf night. We share a lot of dinners together. We talk a lot about growth and the HARD stuff and I am so much braver because of their presence in my life.  On days I am living out of security and less out of frantic hustling, I tell people I am rich because of them. They have made me rich more than any mansion or savings account could.

Favorite things include; cold brew lattes, yoga, the smell of Anthropologie, nature, the monastery garden near our house, the beach on a rainy day, chocolate almonds, books, writing, highly sensitive people, water color pencils, pedicures, movies and popcorn, a good story, essential oils, therapy, thunderstorms, birthdays, Parks and Recreation and the Mindy Project, the smell of lavender, Labrador puppies, self-compassion, learning, gourmet waffles, the Fall season, teaching on body image, anything cozy, libraries and bookstores, cucumbers, cabins on lakes, crafts, massages, hand-written letters, dusk, body positivity, comedy, lighthouses, sarcasm, Italy’s pasta, sleeping in, Darling magazine, windows, all the colors,  pumpkin spice candles, photography, paint, weird faces, light-bulb moments, deep breathing, flowers, peppermint oil, sharpies, being able to see the stars, planners, shopping for gifts, lists, the clouds, and every time I experience Love winning.  

Non-favorite things include: getting up early, not having coffee, dark carpet, headaches, ticking clocks, the sound of sirens and garbage trucks, turtlenecks, kidney beans,  geometry, being too warm, dealing with insurance, feeling judged, milk, itchy wool sweaters, the DMV, sweating, feeling shame, sexist TV shows, injustice, having to call CPS, mosquitos, THE FAIR, traffic, hospitals, car shopping, baking for large groups of people, horror movies, long lines, humidity, tight clothing, airplane restrooms, paying a parking ticket.

If you want to know more about me you can go HERE and if you want to read more about my love of books you could explore over HERE. :)

Anything you find in common with me? I’m excited to get to know you too and am looking forward to meeting all of you!