happy hallo{meme}.

Left to Right: Belle, Tinker Bell, Snow White, Ariel

Inspired by a popular meme by the name of Hipster Ariel, we've spent this halloween weekend channeling our inner disney princess hipster exuding our best hipsteresque anguish in Hollywood... Happy Halloween, friends!! 

{special} eyes.

Mom, will I get a new body when I get to Heaven?
No, Christopher. Your body will stay here and your soul will go to Heaven.
But I want my body!
Why, Christopher? You won't need a body in Heaven.
But will I get to come back? To a new body?
You will not want to come back when you get to Heaven; the Bible promises you that!
But will I get to see you again?
Yes! In Heaven!!
...because I will have eyes when I get to Heaven?
Yes, sweetie! Won't that be wonderful? That you will get to see when you get to Heaven?
...but isn't it harder sometimes that I cannot see now? That they can't create eyes for me?
Yes, but you have special eyes. You see through your heart. And you know what that boy in your class that is in a wheelchair will get to do when he gets to Heaven??
Get up out of his wheelchair?!!
Yes!! Won't that be wonderful??
Wonderful.

less than two months til christmas...

{source.} 
and this just makes my dreams so happy... 

SoU(L)Cast

SoU(l)Cast- little time-outs in LIFE to remind myself that it’s okay to be brutally honest. It’s okay to make mistakes. It’s okay to hurt. It’s okay to be human…

I did it. I found her. That happy-go-lucky lover of life. Oh, she’s back alright, with a heightened sense of awareness for the things that truly matter. An awakened old soul that has catapulted right out of that less-than-incredible-rut, finding incredible beauty in the smallest of places now more than ever. It feels so fabulous to be genuinely happy again… and it radiates from every essence of my being. 

The scared and shattered unhappiness that jaded my view and catalyzed a sequelae of losing sight of who I really am, falling deeper and deeper in the depths of a cold, dark winter… is gone… and has taken all her insecurities with her. In its place is a restored confidence that has allowed me to forgive myself for the mistakes I have made and let go of what cannot be undone, with a rediscovered pathological optimism that makes me excited for the uncertainty that comes with each new day.

The world is my oyster and my goodness, is this renewed outlook on life a pearly, bright one. Seizing every opportunity that comes my way to be more… be better… be me. A rich life, full of strengthened friendships and meaningful travels, making amazing memories along the way. I have learned where I struggle and where I shine and am forever trying to balance my strengths and weaknesses. Give and take. Grow and fall. Ebb and flow.

hipster.

I've been doing a little research for my costume this evening and if there is one thing my google searches have taught me, it is that I am going to be so incredibly ironically cool this Halloween, without even trying... well at least I'm going to try really hard to try to look like I'm not trying.  Ha! I'm ironic already... 

In googling "how to be a hipster" I came upon the Verbal Vomit's advice and I couldn't stop laughing so I just had to share all the lovely resources I am using to get in the zone this Hallow's Eve. There is even a handbook. If you are unfamiliar with what a hipster is, this article is a pretty accurate representation but my favorite quote comes from TIME: 

Hipsters are the friends who sneer when you cop to liking Coldplay. They're the people who wear T-shirts silk-screened with quotes from movies you've never heard of and the only ones in America who still think Pabst Blue Ribbon is a good beer. They sport cowboy hats and berets and think Kanye West stole their sunglasses. Everything about them is exactingly constructed to give off the vibe that they just don't care. 

Bingo anyone? I think I already have the first 4 steps of wikiHow's How to Be a Hipster down.... 1. I want to be a hipster to add an extra element of cool to a traditional child's costume. 2. I am twenty-five. Perfect. 3. I live in Seattle three blocks from Pike & Pine... the intersection where hipsters roam free. 4. I am seeking a Master's degree to expand upon my intelligence. Fifteen steps more to go by Friday... 

Wish me luck with my method approach to this Halloween {Read: me spending this week eating vegan, thrifting for a few non-mainstream costume essentials, and listening exclusively to indie-rock you probably have never heard of.}  

{peachy} keen.

oh hello there, 0% body fat.

All right. ALL RIGHT. I guess I do have a type... the defined cheek bone, 5 o'clock shadow, 0% body fat kind of type. 

Aside from what was under the polyester and padding, other things I ruminated about while at the Canucks games last night included...

1. They serve beer in a cup with a straw... a team after my own heart.
2. Wow! This level skates so much faster. I should have brought my glasses.
3. My favourite moments are the 10 sec clips of great music in between the plays.
4. I loved attending the game in an oversized jersey, flats and my hair in a messy bun.
5. I am the only person in the stands hoping the refs stop the fight... before I start crying.

Game Two tomorrow night... Go Predators Canucks Go!

locks of good luck.

I woke up this afternoon to a delightful breeze blowing through my window accompanied by the most invigorating rays of sunshine... a shot of Vitamin D straight to my soul. 

You know I am a sucker for sunshine so I took my last minute study session to the locks here in a little borough of Seattle. It was fabulous watching the boats enter the channel--water rise up---boats depart & new boats enter---water level recede--little boats sail on to the Pacific--repeat!

The locks must have brought me good luck because I only missed one question on the exam I wrote this afternoon {in between night shifts, mind you!} My mind is currently in nursing-information-overload as I have three exams to write in ten days and I am super celebrating the lovely little fact that my first of the three went so fabulously!! Hopefully, I can keep the mojo going!

Enough about school. On to the weather and all the yellow, orange and red leaves that make my heart so happy. Although I do miss the incredible high of an endless summer, I am embracing the winding down that accompanies Fall and all the little things that can be celebrated in these shorter days as the year comes to a close and I finish dotting all those i's and crossing all those t's of the life list I set out to accomplish nearly a year ago... Create a home, starting with a new roommate. Read a few more books. Invest in my true passions. Write 'til my fingers bleed. Exercise routinely. Let go. Let go. Let go. I'm almost there and it feels so fancy and free.

Off to Vancouver to cheer on the Canucks with their #1 fan and shower Sammi in sexy, little things!! ooxo   

bring me the horizon.

 Took a study break on Saturday afternoon to release some stress. No place provides peace of mind like open water... watching your worries fade in the distance while you sail off under the sun and attempt to touch the horizon...  

c'est la vie.

Mid-week rant. I took this picture Sunday night in high hopes that I would establish a really awesome routine this week that would grant me the ability to balance school, work and the bare necessities of eating + sleeping + physical activity... but seriously, it's already only Wednesday and I think I've fallen down the stairs {metaphorically speaking} like fourteen times. I give myself little pep talks: "You like yoga AND you are a Libra. You are one tightrope shy of being a balance masteress. You got this!" and then 72 hours goes by {three of which were spent scouring Seattle in search of the perfect pot & pan} and I've yet to accomplish anything.    Le sigh.

Monday. Spent most of the day sleeping from working the previous two nights {Seattle weather has worked wonders on my ability to sleep during the day! Good riddance.} only to wake up, do some homework & get ready for my third shift just to get canceled 25 minutes before I had to be there. Not knowing what to do with my unexpected time off, I talked with Carly for two hours before falling back to sleep to add eight more hours to the seven hours of zzz's I had already gotten earlier in the day.

Tuesday. Although I have since drawn a line with a Sharpie through all the taunting boxes  on my to-do list with the word "gym" next to them {Amy Aerobix, if you are out there, please return to me!}, I did manage to {STOP THE WORLD} turn on my stove and boil water to make a pasta dinner with my swirly pumpkin parmesan sauce!  Feeling fully satisfied {Read: sans motivation!}, I did what any logical person with too much on their plate would do: take a hot bath, drink a glass of wine and read my new favorite book and then crawl in to bed watching this and this... My head was still spinning after a little bit of R & R but there was something much more satisfying knowing it was a combo of piping hot bath water + vino that made my vision blurry and not the hours prior to that that were spent trying to comprehend the complement  system of immunology. Is it totally ironic that my pathophysiology course may be the death of me?

Wednesday. While most of Earth prefers to wake up to the gentle sounds of Jack Johnson Banana Pancakes, my current song obsession is loud and has a super bass that gets me pumped up to tackle the day...only to fall back asleep one hour later until after noon... say whaat? I had big plans to take a ferry to a little island and study in its adorable coffee shops taking little breaks in art galleries and tasting rooms {don't judge. your brain only functions at full capacity for fifty minute increments, anyways.} so you can imagine my anger disappointment when I looked at the clock and it said 12:58 {I had been asleep since 8:30 p.m. the previous day +/- that hour when I thought I was getting up for the day}. Since it was overcast and near dark when I finally did get up {and just thinking about the wind on the ferry boat could not lure me out of my pajamas}, I spent the last 10 hours of today watching lectures and posting to discussion forums from the uninspiring, uncomfortable chair at my dining room table.  C'est la vie. 

The latter half. This week will improve. There's an exciting, new job opportunity in the works.  Halloween costumes are being a'brainstormed. There's professional sporting events to attend. There's less than one month til I am in Winnipeg celebrating Sammi & Ryan with my +1, Deidre... followed by some post-wedding-little-cousin-cuddling! And colour me red &green but the holidays almost here! Oh, and if you still reading this and could take thirty seconds to vote for my friend's elementary school here, her class would sincerely appreciate the support! They are a special culture of kids that will retain almost anything put to the beat of the latest hip hop song and if you watch the video, you'll know just what I'm talking about! =)  

Gatlinburg, TN.

Between cuddling Ella Bella and chasing Reesey Roo, my week in Tennessee was full of lovely little moments full of squishy newborn goodness and funny one-year-old antics. Kara & I had a sister*date and saw Sugarland and Sarah Bareilles which was fabulous! Loved every day of last week. 

Kara spent part of last week in Gatlinburg at a PA conference {have I mentioned how badass she is? ya, she removes screwdrivers from people's hands and ish...} and Grams and I decided to take little Reesey Bird up for the day while Kara learned about chest pain and head trauma. In a feeble attempt to describe Gatlinburg, a variety of words come to mind: tacky vs. homey, Southern town vs. redneck Vegas,  nature vs. neon lights. 

There are tourists attractions, galore. From Dollywood to Hillbilly Golf to the Salt and Pepper Shaker Museum to the Rootin Tootin Shootin Gallery. But tucked among all the arcades, haunted mansions and wedding chapels, there's this little bit of small town goodness that permeates the cobblestone streets. Everything is handmade and homegrown and its one-of-a-kind-ness warmed my heart, kind of. I spent all morning wandering in and out of shops full of eclectic assortments from fudge to flannel... trying to decide if this place was cute & quaint or downright gaudy & disturbing. I think I'm leaning towards the latter...

We started our very early morning at the Pancake Pantry where there is always an hour line to get in... unless you get there at 7:45 like us and then you get seated right away! The blueberry pancakes were delicious, smothered in butter and blueberry syrup.

It was the most beautiful day full of the spirit of Fall. The leaves were changing. The air was crisp. The town was dressed to the nines in its best Autumn attire: straw-stuffed scarecrows and festive ghords of every size, shape and colour. The sun shone bright. By noon, we were combating the heat with an ice cream cone freshly churned at Kilwins. I heart fall.

We also stopped in the aquarium to ogle over the penguins and spy on all the sharks. 

We stopped at an outlet mall for a little bit of shopping before heading back to Knoxville for a Girl's Night Out! You can imagine my heart's discontent leaving for the airport at 7:40 the very next morning. I could spend every day of the rest of my life going on adventures with these five ladies!! =) 

be still {my heart}.

money shot.

paradigm shift.

I'm a dreamer. Since I was a little girl, I've had a wild imagination with an insatiable desire to do more. To live in Italy. To sky dive. To write a novel. To move to California. To run a marathon. To pursue my professional passion to the very top... but as all the dreams of my limitless, child-like imagination come true, there is still a resounding emptiness that has catalyzed a shift in my paradigm. The concept of do less, be more has been reverberating inside my soul recently. Lately, I find myself dreaming with just as much fervour but on a much smaller scale. I want to foster lasting friendships and dream of Sunday brunch rituals with the besties. I want to be a wife and dream of meeting someone to spend the rest of my life with. I want to be a mama and dream of starting a family. I want to settle down and dream of creating a home to call my very own.

I went back to Tennessee for a quick visit with Grams, Kara + Reese, and Jess + Ella the past four days and I'm currently writing from the sky, surprising myself by just how much I am dreading my return to Seattle this afternoon... back to the grind, as they say. When trying to decipher exactly what it is that irks me about coming back to the coast that I truly do fancy the most, I've come to realize it's the ginormous amount of miles that separates me from the feeling of home that makes my heart ache. As I watch from an aerial view as said miles melt in to the distance some 34,000 feet below me in the form of perfect squares, rocky mountain ranges, and fluffy clouds... I find myself fighting back tears looking out the window of 11A as the comforts of being home, that intangible feeling I've relished in all week... dissipates in to the indistinguishable layers of the atmosphere.

You lose that sense of belonging flying back to a city where I hardly no anyone. Where my sole purpose is to work and go to school and live my life for myself... And while these are both incredible opportunities I've worked hard to get to, they are just stepping stones to the grander things in life... the utopia in my dreams... full of love and babies and family traditions.

I used to think it didn't matter where you lived, that every friend was a phone call away and every family member was a plane ride away no matter where you were in the world. Home was where you were in the moment and life was about exploring new places and meeting new people. 

But as I grow up and the paradigm shifts in this new quarter of my life, my ideas, or more so ideals, of what really constitutes a home are evolving in to something more.  

It's not the place, in particular. Or a certain smell. Or the firmness of the mattress... that emulates the rich feeling of being home. These are all constants that can easily be recreated wherever you go. It's so much deeper than that. It's the quality found in the day-to-day. It's the interconnectivity of the people in your life; the engaging conversations had over a pitcher of sweet tea. It's the reminiscent moments where you're smothered in nostalgia looking back, all the while creating memories that turn in to stories we'll tell our grandchildren someday. It's the security that envelops you when the simple elements in your everyday hold so much meaning that they will carry you through to your forever.

Forever, I will be a product of my grand/mother, a best friend to my sister, an auntie to the most adorable niece. Forever, I will have a close knit family made up of incredible friendships that are founded on the principles of love and loyalty. Forever, I will be inspired by the ordinary but striving for the extraordinary. Forever, I will dream. 

The circle of life is a tangled web of the unique forevers that define you and when all of the particles that you live for are perfectly aligned in one single corner of the world, that is when you will know you are home. 

A girl can dream, right?

stay hungry; stay foolish.

Steve Jobs: How to live before you die | Video on TED.com

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.


Stay hungry; stay foolish.

instant memories ala instagram.

Welcome, October!! How the helck is it already October?! The end of the year flies by so fast. Its like I turn another year wiser and then Halloween comes to welcome November and then Thanksgiving Day happens and after I'm done stuffing myself to a comatose state and counting my blessings, the holiday season arrives where each and every day is full of so much cheer and delightful treats and then just like that... Christmas Day comes and a short week later, the new year arrives to promise new beginnings among all those resolutions you vow to make to guarantee a happier, healthier life. 
Seriously life, you are flying by too fast. Want to slow down a bit? I'm having a hard time keeping up. Laundry is piling up in every corner of my apartment. My inbox is out of control (I'm really sorry to those who have e-mailed me and I have failed to respond). My to-do list keeps growing longer and longer.  


But the fulfilled-life-living... oh, that I never procrastinate about. My one friend here in Seattle and I just so happen to have birthdays four days a part and we have been celebrating since Sunday... First, the cupcake celebration at work last Sunday (thank you, again!). And hiking on Wednesday. Thursday night we enjoyed a few too many beers at Jake Owen/Keith Urban and last night we went out to a delightful dinner in Bellevue before heading to Kerry Park to take in the breathtaking view of the cityscape all lit up and sparkly. Carpe diaximum: seizing the day to the maximum.

Have I told you lately how much I love the Pacific Northwest? Well, I do. Immensely. And that growing love makes me even more excited to stay here through March to attend classes/clinicals and plan out where I will be going from here. California? Alaska? It's one part scary and three parts super exciting how up-in-the-air my future is at the moment. 
Life really is a whimsical ride on the scenic route to happiness. 
The windows are open; the air is cool. The sun is hidden behind the nimbostratus; the perpetual Seattle drizzle is in full effect. The coffee is piping hot. I have unpacked all my sweaters in to my oven + officially sleep in my slippers. I believe this means in PNW lingo that it's official! Fall is officially here.     

Farewell, sunny skies! I'm really going to miss you + all the beauty you have brought to my life. We had a wild romance, you + I. One that made me relaxed, giddy and incredibly intrigued... making it nearly impossible to let you go. I'm not sure if I will ever feel a love as deep as ours {you captured my heart in the rarest, most special way!} but my goodness, am I glad for the time we got to share together. The dreams we imagined together. We made a lot of memories full of genuine happiness, you + I. Perhaps, our lives will cross paths again... in the way they inevitably do. Perhaps, next year? When we're a little more settled, a little more wiser.  I promise I will not lose myself in the greys of this winter if you promise to wrap me in your sunbeams for forever someday soon.  Here's to hoping history repeats itself. Until we meet again... So long, summer!