Quotation Wednesday {17th ed.}

I love this quote (I say that every week, I know!). As with most quotes, there are many ways it can be interpreted. I think of it as a way to indicate that the true places are not destinations, but rather the feelings that you get from being in a place that moves you. Beautiful towering trees do that for me, the ones that can encompass you and make you feel like nature has you wrapped in a loving embrace. The feeling I get from sitting under a gorgeous tree with only the smells and sounds of nature surrounding me, there is no place truer than that for me.

"It is not down on any map, true places never are."-Hermin Melville

Isn't this picture gorgeous? I want to live under that tree!

Random Simple Pleasures {8th ed.}

Simple Pleasure #8 ~ The smell of rain in the spring

I have always been really in love with rain....until I moved to Seattle! :( I was upset about this until I realized that rain in the summer and rain in the winter are 2 very different things. In the midwest it only rains in the summer, its hot and sticky and the air has that pre-storm feel, so when it finally rains its a beautiful relief. Here in the Pacific NW though it rains in the winter, so it is always a cold drizzle that chills you to the core, blech! But, every spring when the first real "warm rain" comes along I am reminded of why I love it, that glorious feeling of cool rain on a warm day, and the wonderfully indescribable smell...yup, I love that!

Happy Monday {31st ed.}

Happy Monday my lovely readers! Here is what is making me happy....

This shirt

I love lacy items in bold colors and I just think this is gorgeous!

find it here

This "Alpha Dog" picture

How typical...

I love that just his butt is on there...comfy!

Vegetarian options that really truly taste better than the original!
Im a vegetarian mainly for animal rights reasons, meaning that I do did love meat! I like most of the meat substitute products, but I love when I find one that is so good, it actually beats the original. Take that carnivores!!

Yum! These are awesome! I know many non-vegetarians who eat and love them :)

Flo from the Progressive commercials
Usually when a company sticks with the same commercial theme for this long I get annoyed, but she is just so freakin' cute! I love the one when they are talking about things that go together and she says "Unicorns and glitter!!"...makes me laugh every time! Plus I have a serious dork crush on her :)

That is all for me this week, kinda random :) What is making you happy?

Random beauty

I really love seeing random acts of beauty, particularly when someone uses an opportunity to complain as a medium for art!

Turning potholes into sweaters!

see more Parisian sweater streets here :)

...or flower gardens

via here

this one is right here in West Seattle
(we have far too many potholes, so someone got creative!)

Or, one of my favorites...

Random acts of knitting!! 

both in my beloved West Seattle as well! link here

such a cozy tree :)

They all just make me want to find my creative bone so I can commit my own random acts of beauty! What would you guys do to make your neighborhood more interesting?!

Oh, and Happy Earth Day!! :)

Quotation Wednesday {16th ed.}

Living in the present without fretting about the past or future can be really hard for me. This just makes it sound so beautiful and blissful though...

"Live in the present, launch yourself on each wave,
find your eternity in each moment." -Thoreau

I love the line "find your eternity in each moment," isn't that just beautiful?!

Book questions!

My blog friend Lisa does a "Ten on Tuesday" post that I love reading every week. This week is a book theme again, so I'm taking the bait.....

1. When someone asks you for a book recommendation, what is your go-to book?
This is a hard one to answer because it depends on the person and it changes with whatever book Im most excited about at the time! In general though, I have recommended these books more often than any others; The Perks of Being a Wallflower (to all the emotional introverts out there!), A Million Little Pieces (yes, even though it was all a lie..gasp!), and Eat Pray Love (to all the women who are afraid to be alone). I did just read Room though and loved it, I am recommending it to everyone!

2. Do you buy your books, or are you a library patron?
I would say I am mainly a library type of person, mainly though because the King County Library System absolutely rocks!! I buy them though when I am like 1,000th in line and I don't want to wait, or it's one that I know I want on my bookshelf. When I do buy them though it is almost always from Half Price Books, which is one of my favorite places in the world to be! :)

3. E-readers, yay or nay?
Nope, they are just not for me. I was ambiguous about them for a long time, my mom finally bought me one (probably so I would quit fretting over it!) and I just couldn't get comfortable with it. I like the idea of a book collection always right at hand, but I just get so much joy out of the aspects of real books; the look of them on my bookshelf, the excitement of a good used book store, and most importantly...the smell, I just couldn't give up the smell! 

4. What was your favorite book as a child?
Well, I read the Babysitter's Little Sister series religiously, so I would have to say that. My dad and I would have monthly dates to B.Dalton to get a new one and I think its that aspect as much as the books themselves that made the series so memorable to me. 

5. If you could be any character in a book, who would you be?
Oh wow.....this is a tough one! Im going to show the polar sides of my personality here and give 2 answers, either Ruth from Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe...

...or Lisbeth from the Millennium series! 

6. What book would you love to see turned into a movie?
I just read A Dog's Purpose and think it would make a really cute movie :)

7. What is your all-time favorite book?
I always have a tough time with this question! I think I would have to say Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg though. Its just a really good entertaining book about love, without judgement on the details of the type of love. Plus the movie version didn't butcher it, and its rare that I love the movie almost as much as the book!

8. How many books do you read at once?
2, sometimes 3, but one is always an audiobook in my car. 

9. What is your favorite book genre?
I really like books about animals, does that count as a genre..?

10. Which Harry Potter book is the best? Or haven’t you read them at all?
As a bibliomaniac, I am ashamed to say that I have not read the Harry Potter series yet! *hangs head in shame* The first one has been on my TBR shelf forever, I always stopped myself because I know I will probably want to read the entire series in 1 sitting!

Happy Monday {30th ed.}

Happy (30th!) Monday everyone!

Rolly Polly Little Owls :)

So cute! I love their eyes...

shop here

Color drops
These are awesome, they were created by putting ink on a speaker and photographing how it reacts to sound! Aren't they beautiful?

more info here

A book planter
Awesome!

buy one here

Kettle Corn
Its a perfect mix of sweet and salty, what more could you want?! :)

Summer dresses
Im obviously itching to break free of the sweaters!

from here

from here

I love love love this one!! 

Quotation Wednesday {15th ed.}

I heard this on Oprah, she said that one of her guests said it and it stuck with her. I really like the idea of it because its not saying "forgive and forget" but to accept and let go. Sometimes I feel like being asked to forgive means I am expected to act like whatever it was that hurt me never happened. This is different, to me it means that you can accept it and honor the pain of it, but move on. There is just something comforting for me to think that the pain can be honored and respected, but it doesn't have to overcome me. I can accept that something horrible happened to me, but it doesn't have to become me...

"Forgiveness is letting go of the idea that the past can be changed."
-Unknown

Happy Monday {29th ed.}

Happy Happy Monday my lovely readers!

A tree bookshelf...awesome!
My friend Rachel reblogged this from somewhere and I love them! I would need an entire forest though to hold all of my books :)

Naughty Bits
This etsy site is hilarious, she makes little pins out of excerpts from trashy romance novels. I love the idea!

more naughty bits here

Garcia and Reid from Criminal Minds

How awesome is she?! I just love her!

Oh Reid, I just love his brainy and quirky charm :)

Cowboy boots and tights
A friend recently gave me her much loved cowboy boots and I have been dying to find a fun way to wear them. I love these ideas...

Cute!!

Asymmetrical hair
Its cute, its fun, and it screams, "what? I have the personality to pull this off!!"

Hilarious post about it here on one of my favorite blogs!

Ok, that is all for me, what is making you happy?!

7 fun things!

Ok, Kym tagged me so here it goes...

The Rules:

Thank the person who gave you the award

Share 7 random bits about yourself

Pass the award on to a few of your favourite blogs

(And don't forget to let them know!)

1) I have recently come to the realization that I really truly am a country girl at heart. I love the opportunities provided by a city, the excitement of so many things to do....but I need silence and privacy. When I finally own a house it will need a good balance of a nice open yard and peaceful solitude, but close enough enjoy some "city time." (and really, I would give up the "city time" aspect way before I gave up the solitude part!)


2) The sound of people chewing drives me absolutely crazy! Its really a problem...


3) I really really really want a baby alpaca! I mean seriously, how cute are these guys?!

4) If I was staying in Seattle and not going somewhere snowy I would totally trade my car in for this...

Gah, I love it so so much!

5) I keep a dream journal (not religiously, but when I think about it) and when I read some of the old ones over, I actually can see and feel them again, its crazy and a little creepy. Does anyone else do this?

6) I have recently been thinking that it would be cool to have my therapy practice in a tree house in my yard. Thoughts...? I think it would be really peaceful.

My private practice plans are a long way away, but its fun to dream...

7) When I am overwhelmed, stressed, sad, or just emotional there are a few fool proof things that never fail to make me happy again; watching an episode of Friends, taking a walk along Alki (or somewhere serene and by the water), or my dog coming up and asking to be pet. So simple :)

Ok, Im going to tag;

Lisa

Rachele

Benny and Lily :)

Rachel (if you want to tumblr it!)

Sometimes I wish I was a bird...

Yeah, its a Forrest Gump reference, but god flying far far away can seem so damn appealing! Im having a crappy day. My hormones are out of whack, I just had a horrible confrontation with my neighbors about their kids throwing rocks at my dogs (rocks GD it!!), Im feeling distant and overwhelmed.

I am so sick of this limbo that I am in right now. I have a couple of months until moving, its close but not quite close enough to start looking for places or to do any packing. My relationship is in a post-havock state and is very uncomfortably ambiguous (granted Im the one dragging my feet, but with good reason).

Oddly though, the most difficult part of this limbo is the fact that I am in the middle of this between coursework and internship state and I hate it....I should be enjoying the freedom and lack of "hustle and bustle" but Im not, which actually makes it worse because then I have to examine my own inability to enjoy it. I feel useless. I have been in school and working since...well, forever (literally!). I was so stressed out for so damn long, thinking that I can't wait until its over and Im free of deadlines and papers and tests....and now I just feel lost. I have this set amount of open time and I should be so productive on what is left of my dissertation, I should be enjoying Seattle, enjoying sleep, and whatever I want to do with the 75% of my time that is left over after my very part time work.

But Im not. I just want to move and start this internship so I can, what? Work like crazy again until I retire? What is wrong with me? Ive spent my last few therapy sessions talking solely about this, but alas, here I am on a beautiful and completely open day with about 1 hour of edits to do on my IRB and a million outdoor adventures, or a shelf of books in front of me and instead Im crying to my computer.

Wow, that was depressing, sorry. Like I said, crappy day...

Quotation Wednesday {14th ed.}

(Oops, late! I forgot it was Wednesday...)

I like this quote, I like the idea that courage does not have to be a huge thing, but just continuing...

"Courage does not always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice
at the end of the day saying, I will try again tomorrow"
-Mary Anne Radmacher

I want...

I really want my bedroom to look exactly like this!

more pics here

I love it! Its just so calming and serene, and there is an adorable owl lamp! I want the entire thing recreated in my bedroom! Apparently it is from a themed room bed and breakfast place in Italy, but their website is painfully slow so I couldn't book a trip, shucks! :)

Happy Monday {28th ed.}

Happy Happy Monday Everyone!!

Jennifer Nettles (oh, how I love her!!) in a purple jumpsuit!!
I know I have gushed about her before, but she is just so adorably quirky and unique and Im pretty sure she wore this outfit just for me :) Be still my beating heart...

Herbert the Owl Loves a Good Book
Im not joking, that is the name of this print...absolutely awesome!!

see all of Herbert's tale here

This adorable gosling

He looks so cozy and cute :)

from the West Seattle blog

Cats and their eternal search for sunlight

I want to be a cat! Their day consists of following the sun and sleeping in it....sounds perfect!

Comfortable? No. Sunlight? Yup!

Yoga church
My yoga studio has a Sunday morning class with a Bhatki focus, meaning it is basically "yoga church" and I love it!!

Ok that is all for me, what is making you happy, my lovely readers?!