Blog-Tember Day 5 | T Swift and friends

Today’s prompt: Put your iTunes/music player on shuffle and share the first 10 songs that play.

To be honest I was a little nervous about this prompt. I know very well what music I listen to and I know even more what kind of music I actually buy on iTunes. I really want to be perceived as more intellectual and hip when it comes to my music preferences, but the truth is I love this stuff! I love the cheesy, pop, upbeat stuff. I’m probably just a teenager at heart.

      1.     I’ll Be Home For Christmas by Michael Buble

      2.     This Love by Taylor Swift

      3.     Beautiful by Carly Rae Jepsen and Justin Bieber

      4.     Falling In by Lifehouse

      5.     Hurt So Good by Carly Rae Jepsen

      6.     Since U Been Gone by Pitch Perfect Soundtrack

      7.     Flood by Jars of Clay

     8.     The Saltwater Room by Owl City

     9.     Bellas Regionals by Pitch Perfect Soundtrack 

     10.  Bad Blood by Taylor Swift

Blog-Tember | Day 4

You know the Greeks didn't write obituaries. They only asked one question after a man died: "Did he have passion?".

I’m sure most of you have either heard this quote or seen this romantic comedy Serendipity, with John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale.

Spoiler alert: the Greeks did write obituaries but I do love this quote. Quite honestly I wish when you met someone for the first time, this was the question rather than “what do you do?”

I had a really hard time narrowing down my passions so I am just going to go with a few. If you want to read more about my “favorites” hop on over to this post.

Here are a few of my passions:

Relationships

My friends and family are so important to me. And my husband, Scott is my best friend. I am still stunned that I get to spend my life with him. I am so blecky. (lucky+blessed)

Creativity

I love being creative! I enjoy stationary and water-color pencils and journaling. My husband and I made candles last year and it was really fun to be creative together.

Exploration

I love exploring new places, spaces and cultures. If I can’t swing a plane ticket to travel, I can visit a new coffee shop. I love exploring new blogs and books!

Books

I love love reading! I dream of having my own library someday.

Faith and Spirituality

I believe I am created in God’s image and so I treat my body, soul, and mind with kindness and love. I am grateful Love wins.

Helping others heal and see that they are loved and enough.

This is why I went into the profession I did. Therapy has made such a difference in my life and I hope it does the same for my clients. But it’s not just my clients, I want my friends and readers and fellow bloggers to know their intrinsic and stunning worth. We belong together! We are so loved. 

Blog-Tember | Day 3

Today's prompt:  Create a collage or inspiration/mood board that describes your blog.

This is my very first mood board! (confession: I had to ask how to create one) I'm still getting the hang of it. Rather than creating a mood board for my overall blog I just created one for my overall "desired mood"

This week I started my new job with an hour plus commute. After a summer of sleeping in, it has been quite a shock to the system to get up early and have to drive in San Diego traffic for an hour. I'm pretty overwhelmed with all the new protocol but am trying to take it one day at a time. I am a therapist at three different schools so the learning curve is steep. Also, the night before I started new job I thought it would be fun  crazy to take a self-defense class I purchased on groupon. 

It was some kind of combination of self-defense+kickboxing+taekwondo situation complete with an overly large white uniforms that looked like spa robes but were in fact NOT. I have not been this sore in a very long time. I walk like a penguin. It is almost impossible to get up after I have been sitting. My calves no longer work properly. Therefore this board shows you how I would love to spend my time: resting, relaxing, soaking up some self-care time and staying in bed. 

Can't wait for the weekend! 

Blog-Tember | Day 2

Today's prompt: Describe your ideal day. Where would you go and what would you?

I have been pondering this one with much joy and anticipation. Creating my ideal day sounds like the perfect remedy for an ordinary day. It’s hard to decide the setting first of all, should I be on vacation in Italy or flying off to Hawaii? Or should the ideal day be where I actually live?

An ideal day would begin with me sleeping in and waking up to the sound of rain. And it would be Tuesday because who has Tuesdays off of work? IT sounds sneaky and amazing. Also I love rainy days when you don’t have to work. I would hear it pitter-patter against our window by our bed. Scott and I would get up and perhaps he would make chocolate-chip pancakes and bacon. Our apartment would be naturally clean and pristine because on #idealday you don’t want to clean.  Then we would go to our neighborhood coffee shop, Dark Horse. Maybe it’s fall and their pumpkin syrup is available now. We would bring out books and read and drink our coffee in cozy solace. I would wear a scarf, yoga pants and a hoodie or sweater because it’s cold. #dreamingofcoldweather #summerproblems

After reading and drinking our coffee, perhaps we would head to the beach because the fog+clouds+no crowds=favorite kind of beach day. Maybe we would go visit the lighthouse or just go exploring. We would take our rain jackets.

One of my favorite things to do on a rainy days is go get PHO which is a Vietnamese noodle soup consisting of rice noodles, broth and beef. Words cannot describe how much I love this soup with all it’s savory deliciousness. It’s the perfect things to have on a rainy chilly day. They serve tea in the cutest quaint cups and you feel absolutely charming drinking from them.

Since this is an idea day I’m going to just assume we have some extra cash and we decide to go shopping (because rainy day=shopping day). Scott and I’s favorite stores are right next to each other, Anthropologie; where I would go hunting for candles or a dress and he would go to Sur La Table hunting for some new and exciting cooking utensil. Maybe I would buy socks at Madewell because they are so cozy. I would stop in to JCrew to visit my good friend who works there. She is the Visual Merchandising Manager and she always knows what I would like and what is aesthetically pleasing as well as artistic and fun.  Scott and I would meet up later to debrief our glorious shopping trip.

Now that the rain has died down we would go back to our place and go for a walk in the neighborhood. I love seeing the world after rain. All the trees and flowers look refreshed and everything smells brand news. Maybe we would walk to the monastery garden and maybe we would see a “for sale” sign on a cute cottage or condo and buy it immediately because I forgot to mention we won the lottery today as well. #idealday

Later I would meet up for happy hour with some of my favorite girls for wine and cheese. I can’t decided whether we would meet at my favorite neighborhood wine spot called Vino or go to one of our homes, wear our pajama pants and braid each other’s hair and watch a sappy movie complete with chocolate and popcorn and puppies to squish.

Since this is my #idealday I have elongated the day. It is still only 6pm. I go home and Scott and I get dressed up to go downtown to Café Chole which is an urban café that serves boutique wines and has a French cuisine inspired menu. They have the best macaroni and cheese. At night, you can sit outside and it’s all twinkly and glamorous looking out over downtown under candlelight. (side note: it’s not cold anymore, this weather is crazy! Balmy evening folks)

If this was a “choose your own adventure” type day but with “choose your own weather” and my #ideaday was now sunny I would probably choose to go paddle boarding in place of shopping. ONLY on a random day of the week, not during summer because dealing with parking and crowds and tourists is not your relaxing cup of tea. I love paddle boarding.

I had so much fun writing this.

Excited to hear about your ideal days! Anything you would add??

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!