Burn Bright

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After reading a post by Brandi over at Not Your Average Ordinary I thought I might share some thoughts of my own.

The subject: intimidating women 

I am not a heartbreaker (that I know of), I don't find myself to be drop dead gorgeous, and up until recently I didn't think myself to be much smarter than the masses. Many have told me otherwise since I was born (first parents and then those who didn't have the first baby stars in their eyes...) but my own brain, often the perfectionist enemy, wouldn't listen.

I, like many other women before me, have found myself change slightly (or exponentially) when interested in certain guys or even certain friendships with other women. I've grown quieter with some, louder with others... I've tried to censor what I talked about, I've tried to keep out certain parts of my life and it's always left me feeling exhausted and frustrated.

I found early on, well, maybe in high school, that when I changed who I was, what I liked or what I thought for other people, my motivation to do things and enjoy life would diminish. Soon I stopped apologizing for who I was, what I liked, and what I wanted to do.

Soon I found myself wondering: Why would I tone down who I am? Why would I soften my shine? 

If someone finds me to be intimidating and can't get past the intimidation to get to know me then it's not meant to be anyway.

Yes it's frustrating to constantly feels like I am scaring guys away. To not know if they disappear because they want someone dumber, less enthusiastic or less expressive. But it's even more frustrating to dumb it down and then eventually let it out and still have the person walk away. 

When I try to dumb it down, when I leave things out or hide parts of who I am I feel like crap. I feel like I'm only showing part of who I am and that I'm telling a lie. I have learned time and time again that starting out a relationship hiding things isn't going to work for me.

So here it is:
I will not dumb down my enthusiasm, my mouth, my occasional vulgarity, my willingness to be silly or my wants in life just to keep a person around. It’s surprising to me how many people stick around (some of which even fight to stay in my life) and so I figure I’m doing something right at least part of the time. I will apologize when I have offended someone or have done something wrong, but change who I am or dull it down? Where’s the fun in that. 

I feel like dulling my shine is like giving someone almost in season berries when I could be serving them, in season, bursting with flavor fruits. No one would order the dulled version of their perfect food... The person (or persons... who knows in this life) that I am suppose to be with are attracted to my qualities already, they aren't looking for some half baked me, just like I'm not looking for a dulled down, less passionate, contained them. 
While my passion, my excitement, my facial expressions, my intelligence, perceived  beauty, hair color or tattoos might intimidate or scare people off, they also draw other people closer. Someone out there will love my enthusiasm and may even have a boat load of his own, and we’ll mutually intimidate each other and giggle about it for years to come.

Ladies (and gents) have you found yourself dulling down what you are, what you do, what you like etc so as not to intimidate someone you want to be friends (or more) with?

xoxo

52 Photos in 52 Weeks: Weeks 31 & 32

week 31:

Sad to say I neglected the Lady Rebel the 31st week of the year. I don't think I took one single picture with her. She was sad and almost held it against me but week 32 I made up for it. At least a little bit.

This week was busy, busy, busy with hours upon hours of work. I'm not really surprised I didn't get a chance to take pictures with anything other than the iphone. These were both from spending the weekend with my sister at my dad's house. That was a good end to a ferociously busy week.

 

week 32: 

Still busy but less with work than the week before, more with friends and catching up. It was definitely nice. And then Sunday dinner with the fam was good too.

xoxo

Happily Wasted

There it is, the famous In- N-Out burger and fries. There was a milkshake that day too, but it didn't fit in the frame very well. I was also in my car while taking this picture. Kids, don't try this at home.
I'm still not over the moon about In-N-Out's burger. I wish I was, because they have far better business practices than most other drive through burger places, but I just feel less than full after I eat it.
But that's a story without much of a point and this is Happily Wasted which means... click on the links and enjoy what some might call "wasted time!"

look at this poster! in love.

i love fake eyelashes! here is some helpful info for the new to lashes bunch!

"I’ve found that when I am involved in a pattern, my emotions run a bit stronger..." A post about our patterns and how we can recognize and change them

"Sometimes you just have to put on lipgloss and pretend to be psyched"

A little tough love for your excuses

I love seeing what ladies do to get ready... makes me want more make up though...

I love this project, Pantone skin colors

What posts caught your eye this week/last week/whenever?

xoxo

A Day in LA - Part Two: Renegade Craft Fair

Ah yes, here we are, part two! We made it to the craft fair with more than enough time to walk around and get a feel for what we might want to purchase. I must admit, Lisa (Let's Move to the West Coast) had a little more wiggle room on what she could buy, but it wasn't so bad just looking around and enjoying what I saw. It's been quite a learning process (mentally rewarding, surprisingly enough) to go places and not buy everything I want immediately. It gives me a chance to process, to pick and choose and to really love what I do purchase. 

Tangent, I'm good at those.

Back to the story...

We walk around for a little bit, we talk to some shops and I get incredibly sidetracked by one shop in particular called The Red Swing. I was first distracted from my walk by a print hanging up like the one in the last picture above. Screw cautiously, I thought, well yes, I try to tell my friends that often. Love shamelessly, well I think that's something my friends try to tell me often. Simple, perfect. 

So I looked around more. I loved the set up of the little tent shop so I browsed. Susie finished her conversation with another browser so I asked if I could take a picture of her set up. She graciously accepted and then asked what I do. If I was a photographer (I still don't consider myself that) or what. I told her about the blog and she was excited to check this little place out. Basically she was rad. So we chatted for a second, I took a couple of pictures (the ones of the school desk and then the scale) and then continued on.

After walking for a bit my shoulders became a bit hot and I wasn't exactly full from lunch, happy, but not full (oh that delicious Pier Burger). We had seen food carts when we walked in so we went back in search of something cold and sweet. I went to the coffee cart and Lisa waited in line for a popsicle. 

The coffee... sooooooooooo good. I didn't ask for decaf (I had very few hours of sleep before this adventure day) and I was a little worried what the outcome of me with coffee caffeine might be, but I said yolo* to myself and ran straight into the unknown. 

Good news: no panic attack and best of all, no horrible coffee aftertaste in my mouth. WHAT?! I have since kept myself from getting iced coffee drinks from Starbucks since because I know that gross taste will just bum me out.

From what I could tell, Lisa really enjoyed her pop though she was battle ants during the eating of it so the change of a food grade was lost.

After our time in the shade with a party of ants we continued on to see what we hadn't seen before. So much awesome artwork and some delicious tea. I almost bought some tea, but my pocketbook was limited and I was really thinking about some prints still. So after the tea we hit up the photobooth (uh duhhhh). While waiting in line I saw two girls with awesome style and while I should have asked them if I could get a picture, I just snapped one while standing there. Creeper status. One day I'll get the lady balls to just ask people. One day.

(Oh yes, just in case you are wondering, our little chalk sign said "Click.")

I've taken pictures in a Magnolia Photo Booth before at Renegade before and I remembered how well they turned out so I was quite excited for these. And let me tell you, they lived up to previous success.

Photoboothing led us back to the beginning of our tent walk to purchase the final pieces. I went and purchased from a lovely illustrator named Nan Lawson (link below) and then of COURSE I went back to The Red Swing and purchased the lovely print that stopped me in my tracks before. 

All in all, our L.A. Adventure Day was great. Fantastic. Wonderful... other descriptive words that mean radical basically. Lisa and I chatted a lot and I'm so stoked to have a new friend. I mean, she'll go on photo adventures with me! Brilliant!  

Did anyone else go to Renegade this year? Did you happen to be at the L.A. one and know what the coffee cart was called because I want it back. 

xoxo

Shops that made me swoon: The Red Swing (letterpress), T-We (tea), Strawberryluna (prints and posters), Fomato Cards (incredibly off the wall greeting cards), Let's Be Friends (paper and stitched things), Bird of Virtue (jewelry), Unicorn Crafts (cute little things), Maiden Voyage (clothing and prints), Two Tone Press (letterpress printing), Nan Lawson (illustrations), Front Porch Pops (popsicles)

A Day in L.A. - Part One: Santa Monica Pier

Last Sunday Mrs Lisa and I got in the car and took a nice little drive up to Los Angeles. Our main goal was to hit Renegade Craft Fair but I've been meaning to get myself to Santa Monica Pier for ages now so we stopped there first for pictures, burgers and a little self loathing at Muscle Beach. Just kidding, we didn't really go to see Muscle Beach, that just happened to be there... and guys were definitely doing push up on parallel bars. It's cool bro, my maybe once a week exercise routine doesn't feel inadequate at all...

But I digress..

So I drive, we chat, I miss exits due to chatting and eventually we make our way there. I already know that it's a place I will visit again. We stroll down the two lane sidewalk knowing there's an ocean to our left somewhere... but there's so much sand that it's hard to see. This is nothing like Encinitas beaches that take maybe two minutes to cross from parking lot to water. 

We arrive at the pier and decide it's time for food. Burgers are the craving of the day.

We see one burger place but keep walking to find a bathroom first, I mean, nature calls, and happen upon an even better looking burger place. 

I'll just say now, for the record, I'm so glad natured called. It gave us excellent burgers after.

The place: Pier Burger. I thought it might be a tourist trap but while in line I looked at yelp and was surprised to see excellent ratings. We grabbed a table somehow and then got our food. 

It was soooo good. I'm going to say it, please don't stop following me here, it was WAY better than In n Out. Like, I can't even describe how much better. In fact I went to In n Out a couple of days ago just to make sure and the facts help up, Pier Burger is the best. 

Clearly the downfall of the whole thing is that it's in Santa Monica and I obviously live no where near there. 

Definitely an adventure spot for the future.

Food in tummy we walked a little more, saw a cute little malt shop by an indoor carousel and some fabulously painted buildings. We walked back down the two lane walkway passing interesting creatures left and right (and by creatures I mean humans) and took another long look at Muscle Beach. Seriously people? Is it a rule that guys have to have their shirts off here? We swore with our burger and fry filled bellies that we would work out more as we left the sweaty beings behind.

All in all our stay at Santa Monica Pier was not long. But I definitely took some amazing pictures and well, it's been said like 3 times already, had some awesome food and so it was time to move on. Next stop: Renegade Craft Fair... 

xoxo

Welcome August

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This morning at breakfast I read a note from mom. The note made my brain start whirring almost uncontrollably trying to crunch numbers and figure out how I am going to move the eff out and let her live her life. You know, with out the 26 year old kid she still has at home ;)

The numbers are very tight right now despite the 3+ jobs I have going. I have to keep reminding myself that new things have been happening fast for me, since January I have started four (and a half) jobs and only left one. In six months I have gone from not working at all to working 40+ hours a week, back to not working much and now I am currently working very frequently.

My enjoyment of the jobs has changed too. The ones I don't like as much don't get as much time and the ones I love are very prominent and take up more of the hours. 

I just have to take deep breaths and remember that progress IS being made toward an awesome future, that I am making payments toward my credit card, that I am not using my credit card to buy anything, that I am meeting new people, seeing new things, writing better posts, reading good books, taking a lot more pictures and allowing myself to dream bigger.

Is that a good amount of progress? I sure hope so. 

With all that being said, it's time to move on, or live in the now. August is here, all that has happened this year up until this point is already said and done. Everything that has happened has laid the groundwork so August can be about making things happen. 

Here are my high hopes for this month, and, let's be honest, the next couple after that...

-August is about evaluating my life and money goals to see what I am going to be taking care of before my absolute can not be later move out date of January 3rd, 2013. (Because I hope to be in Mexico again for New Years.) 

-August is for saving up, paying off more of my debts, and planning a future budget.

-August is for scratching previous wants that only slightly aligned with overall goals (read: probably not going to Alt) and making moves towards acquiring or planning for wants that are. 

-August is for learning to balance what I affectionately call my 3.5 jobs. Some weeks will be more hectic than others, all weeks will be busy.

I think what I am trying to say is, August is for learning and getting organized. Two of my favorite things.

Welcome August, let's be friends.

xoxo

Little Reminders

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