Busy Bee

As always, I've neglected the one piece of the internet that I love so dearly. Too many of my blog posts start out like this, unfortunately. We moved houses at the end of May and have been ridiculously busy since then. Traveling back and forth, setting up the house to make it feel like a home, searching for jobs, dealing with car troubles and Pippa troubles (the latter of which is, thankfully, over with and our little girl is feeling much better).

This isn't to say I haven't had the time to do a quick update now and then, I just got out of the swing of things and it's been difficult to get back in. It makes me much sadder than it probably makes you, my lovely readers. I won't promise I'm back to blogging every week, but I'm definitely stepping up my game. I have an exciting plan for my tiny plot in internet city, and feel like I have to put in more effort to accomplish my goals.  This is purposefully vague.

In lieu of an actual post, I'm going to give you some of my favorite house related Instagrams. I'm calling them HouseGrams... Just go with me on this.

1) Pippa packed up and ready to go (with a fresh haircut to boot)! 2) Taylor and our new (rented) place. 3) The most gigantic bathroom mirror and the duck collection. 4) The closet I could live in. 5) Taylor's side of the room and how we spent a week watching Spartacus. 6) A new kitchen for new food -whipped cream!

It's a very happy home. I walked around for the first few weeks saying "You know, I really love (insert random point here) about the house." Everything from the giant closet to the gas stove, the big backyard to the little frogs that inhabit it. The house has good energy and I've found elderflowers in the backyard, a sign that the fairies are near. We also have a gorgeous crepe myrtle and a "pond" where turtles swim, but mosquitoes like crazy. I'm going to plant some mosquito repelling plants out there soon to see if that helps. It's been busy, but we're really enjoying ourselves and I'm loving having an empty canvas to decorate. Also, the designers of this house were genius -the lighting is wonderful! See, just one more thing to add to my I-Love-This-House List.

Possibly an outfit post soon? I have one that needs to be edited from a couple weeks  ago. We'll see. XOXO.

Avoidance is Not a Dance

     I'm sitting here with three large papers looming over my flower and glitter and sunshine filled head, with no urge to complete any of them and a deep need for summer to arrive. One is about pagans, the other about women on the American prairie, and a third is about Weetzie Bat.
     Which is how I got so distracted tonight and didn't end up writing about any of the three, though feeling quite inspired to write. You see, pagans made me think of "Shit New Age Girls Say", which brought me to Youtube, where I had to watch the new Florence + the Machine video. And then Weetzie Bat had me looking up the brilliant author, Francesca Lia Block, which led me to the Wildfox Couture-run blog featuring a wondrous story written by her -seriously, go read it right this very moment, stop reading my silly ramblings and read what I only dream my writing will sound like one day. And lastly, the prairie made me think of wildflowers and wide open spaces, and I was sucked from one imagery wonderland into the beautiful world of photography on this blog. So you see, I haven't been just avoiding my papers, I've been letting my paper topics inspire me. I've been in what you could call a rut lately, just going through the motions, not feeling inspired and feeling fairly overwhelmed. A lot to do, not a lot of time, and a sense that everything is moving too fast. Classes are ending and signing up for new classes has given me more than one headache these last couple weeks (which still haven't sorted themselves out, ugh). So spending an evening with magical images and enchanting songs and bewitching stories has calmed me, enlightened me, and lifted my spirits to where I think I can make it through until the warm summer days lingering in the distance.

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     So if you're in the same water-logged boat as I am, take a few minutes to explore something lovely. Except don't do what I did and go outside to take your puppy out and then almost run into the biggest spider web ever in existence complete with yuckiest looking spider in the entire world. That would be bad. Instead, sit on your bed and cuddle with said puppy and eat something delicious and drink some tea. Much better. Feel relaxed and inspired yet? XO.

The 52 Dates of 2012

Once upon a time, there lived a girl (me) and a boy (Taylor). They did a lot together, were rarely separated really, and liked spending time with each other, but they began making the same date night choices every week. Let's go to [insert restaurant we've been to a hundred times here], watch some TV, and then go to bed. Sounds good? Alright.

Two thousand & Twelve is going to be a year of magic, of love and newness, and of changing my ways to better myself. I want to relish in the delight that a new year brings, look at things from a different view, change my habits up and discover wonder around every corner. And because I'm selfish and need someone to hold my hand along the way and because I really love Taylor, I've involved him in some of this.

Introducing: The 52 Dates of 2012

The idea came to me from a few places. Firstly, I've been doing my own goal-like lists the last few years, and Taylor has loved helping me cross of 21 Before 21 items. Secondly, I was super inspired by Elsie at A Beautiful Mess and her 12 Dates of Christmas. I love the idea of pre-planned dates and the excitement of randomly selecting one. I tweaked it a bit so it would last all year, one date a week. Some of them are silly and simple (Write letters to our future selves), some of them are a little more involved (Order the fanciest drinks off the menu at dinner), and still some are things that we would normally do but are simply making them special (Go to the beach and take Pippa).

Taylor came up with 26 and I came up with 26, and I typed them up, cut them out, and placed them in a leftover mason jar I had from Christmas crafting. Every Sunday night, we're going to choose one date to have over the week. We've also made rules, like if it's expensive and we're broke or if we can't do it that week for some reason, we can put it back and choose again. The point isn't to be strict about it, it's to explore our town and our hobbies in a new and invigorating way that keeps us in love and keeps us from saying "I'm bored, what should we do?"
For our first weeks pick (!) I let Taylor do the jar pulling, since I had just finished cutting (and let me tell you, cutting out 52 little strips of paper is a lot more time consuming than you would think). The winner for this week is:

Build a fort and read stories with a flashlight! Ding ding ding! 
I'm really enthusiastic about this little project right now and hope that I can blog about quite a few of them. I've got class in a little bit and need to tire out Miss Pippa, so until next time my loves, XO.

Sweet Nothings: All Shook Up

And not just of the Elvis variety.. har har har. Har. Har?
Alright, lame joke, but for real. My life is so topsy-turvy right now, my clothes are still not unpacked, I'm trying to organize and organize and get everything well, organized. From school to money to vacations to the house, I've been thinking a lot and worrying a lot and doing a lot. And you see.. it's a lot. So I'm finally updating ya'll real fast with a couple little pictures. My Sweet Nothings for the week:

This is our room right after I moved all of my whatnots into it. If you can believe it, there's even more on the other side of the room. Eek! Most is unpacked and put away, but there's still a lot left to accomplish before it's up to my standards.

And our room after! Much better with the super industrial bookshelf that my parents got me. I can fit all of my books on just two shelves now with room to spare for knickknacks. Sorry about the ridiculously bad photo quality, I thought of this post last minute and our lighting in the room is less than stellar. You know you're a college kid when the main lighting in your room comes from upcycled Christmas lights!

I'm trying real hard to maintain a sense of girly and Viking balance in our room. My flowery pink quilt takes up quite a bit of the visual space, but his posters take up the majority of the wall space, so we're fairly even. One thing that won't be even? Our closet space. While his clothes fit on a few hangers and one hanging shelf and a small dresser, mine are currently taking up two thirds of the closet! I need to have a clothing intervention soon I suspect..

I've had a lot of free time here with no job yet and Taylor working and in class so much (added to my clothing purge procrastination), so I've been making friendship bracelets to keep my hands busy. They're so terribly easy once you figure the knots out. I love the tutorial on PurlBee for making them! Her's are so beautiful and such an inspiration.

Something else keeping me super busy around the internet? Pinterest! Such an amazing photo site, I love it for making boards and as a lovely idea keeper. Follow me and I'll return the favor!

I drove home over the weekend and encountered this massive storm. The power of nature constantly amazes me. (The weird reflections in the corner are my Ariel and duckie dashboard friends!)

I had such a wonderful time back in my home town. My parents and brother and I did so much and unfortunately I didn't take many pictures of my own. Thursday was Pat's Place Tuna Greek Salads (the best you'll ever have!) and lots of shopping, followed by homemade pizza with my dad's family. Friday was a long day with dentists and visits with old friends, then dinner at Skewers, a scrumptious Mediterranean restaurant beachside. Saturday we celebrated my Granma's 70th birthday at the Kiwi Tennis Club, complete with a delicious meal and good company and followed by a hilarious trip to Wendy's for Frosties and a ride on my dad's new Harley motorcycle! And now I'm back in my new home sweet Jacksonville apartment, staying up way too late writing this! I miss my cute little home on the internet, and really hope I'll get to write write write some more in these next few busy albeit exciting weeks.
XOXO.

Excuse My Absence

I'm in the midst of a work/cleaning/packing/organizing/lazy procrastinating frenzy. I'm trying to do nine thousand things before The Big Move, and it's all getting a bit overwhelming. I'll update again when I have the time and mental capacity to do so. I'd leave you with a photograph of my room right now as evidence, but I'm way too embarrassed to do so. Instead, I'll link you to my Pinterest account so you can look at some of the pretty ways I've procrastinated..

 This is like my room, but replace the balloons with clothing and boxes and packing junk, oh my!

Click here! XOXO.

Dear Florida,

Sometimes, I really miss you. Scratch that- all the time I really miss you.

Growing up there, I didn't really appreciate you. The beauty of sunny days, of always being able to wear flip-flops even in "winter", driving over the causeway to "beachside" and seeing the vast ocean unroll before my eyes. Every time I go back to visit I relish in the delight I get from just a single warm, sunny day, a single peek at the waves, a single toe dip in the cool water. I roll my windows down and crank my music up and think "Gosh, why did I ever move away from this place?" So really, Florida, this is an apology. I'm sorry I neglected you when I lived there and I'm sorry I didn't realize how beautiful you really are. Now that I'm here in Georgia, I miss you. I tell people about Melbourne and "The Beaches" as if you were a long lost friend, one I greatly loved but sadly moved away from. I'm proud of being a Florida Girl and being able to say I grew up in a place that most people will only vacation to. Melbourne may not be famous Miami or the Keys, but it is still Florida and there is still the ocean and the Sunshine State and I still love you.

This is getting a bit depressing, so I just want to tell you that I'M MOVING BACK! Not to the exact place, but I will soon enough be back in your loving, albeit very hot, Florida arms. I'll be rejoicing in the fact that I will never (and this is a fact) be more than 60 miles away from a beach at any given time. Despite my paleness, the beach will be a sight for sore eyes. Florida, I love you. And I cannot wait until we meet again.

All My Love, Skye.
XO.

Stealing is bad.

Which is why I'm gonna go ahead and link to all of the places I found images, stock, etc. for redoing my cutesy bloggy. Thanks goes out to all of these talented people for so kindly giving their work to people like me for free!







Pugly Pixel- So super cute and so many freebies!

MellowMint from deviantART.

And! I used Picnik and FotoFlexer to edit everything (bounced back and forth would be a better way of putting this). Both photo editing sites are free, they just have different features I like so I mix and match. Most fonts I use come free from DaFont or are found via the two editors. SO happy with how everything came out and can't even say how excited I am to start blogging again. I've neglected my baby for far too long. XO.

21 Before 21

Finally (Finally!) I've decided on twenty-one tasks I want to accomplish before my 21st birthday rolls around next March. A lot of things have occurred since March of this year and I've been horrendous to my poor blog, neglecting it until just yesterday. BUT! That shall change, I pinky promise. So here it is, the official (may possibly change again but probably not) list:

1. Pet a llama.
2. Go to Hogwarts.
3. Gamble at a Casino.
4. Buy and play a ukulele.
5. Have a picnic.
6. Go to St. Augustine.
7. Plan my 21st Vegas Trip.
8. Bake a rainbow layer cake.
9. Get an iPhone.
10. Go to NYC.
11. Perfect one dinner recipe.
12. Go to at least one big museum.
13. See a fortune teller.
14. Visit NASA.
15. Finish my Ariel cross-stitch.
16. Eat a yummy banana Split.
17. All A’s and B’s in my classes.
18. Find Sailor Moon on DVD.
19. Camp in a tent.
20. Revamp my clothing collection.
21. Buy a Diana Lomo camera.

There ya go! Now just to wish and wish all of these lovely things into my life. Some are slightly easy and others take a lot more work, but, if I'm sure of anything, this shall turn out to be one exciting year! XOXO.

Here Goes..

Everything? Nothing? A lot?

This feels like my world right now- super pretty but SO big!

So So So! many changes are happening at the moment that I can't even describe them all. Wonderful, amazing, fabulous, heart-attack-inducing, kickass, lovely changes! It's weird to finally take down my 110 in 2010 list but it is MUCH overdue. I'm trying to figure out my 21 before 21 list but narrowing things down is so terribly difficult. Perhaps I shall simply write a "Things-I-Want-To-Do-Sometime-In-The-Future" list?
Anyway, much is happening and I'm trying to stay on top of everything whilst keeping my head and heart and all in the right place. Looking forward to my next big moves.
XOXO.