out with the quarter-life crisis, in with the champagne-infused celebration.

Twenty-six: my golden year. Wednesday was my birthday + ohmyword was it one marvelous weeklong celebration with every one of my favourite people here in the PNW. I don’t usually celebrate my birthday with anything more than a fondue dinner with my small net of friends but there was something about turning twenty-six on the twenty-sixth that needed to be given a proper welcoming. There was a hopeful feeling connected to my birth month this year that promised me fresh starts, quality sleep + a restored peace of mind. Feeling sorely exhausted after a year-long quarter-life crisis, I spent most of this past month trading overtime shifts for early bedtimes, sweet tea for water + time in the library for day hikes in the outer city limits. It felt good to be turning another year wiser + I needed to just relax, put on a shiny, sequined jacket, raise a champagne flute + let twenty-six know how happy I was to see her arrival. If this past week was any indication for how incredible this next year is going to be, I think it is safe to say it's going to be as good as solid gold.

Happy Fall from Friday Harbor.

Over Labor Day Weekend, Heather and I took a ferry about an hour north of Seattle over to the San Juan Islands. I couldn't have dreamt up a more perfect {read: relaxing} way to spend my first weekend off... of all of summer. I was a little bit in Autumn Heaven as signs of an approaching Fall were hidden along the island's emerald coast...

...a cool, salty breeze offset the intense heat of an everpresent sun, pumpkin ales were found on tap + a few red + yellow leaves peppered the hiking trail. With no real agenda, we made a detour to Orcas, a neighboring island that is less populated and has stunning views of the nearby Mount Baker. To pass the time on the ferry,  we leisurely pieced together a puzzle, in between conversations + quiet moments taken to soak in the blue skies + even deeper blue water.

We visited Nash's lemonade stand to refresh with a couple of Arnold Palmers'. We perused lavender shops which is locally grown on the island. We ate fish + chips on a sunkissed deck and watched the seaplanes land + take off for the latter part of the afternoon.

Perhaps the highlight of the trip was grabbing an ice cream cone and strolling along the docks dayreaming of sailing away on one of the yachts when the local celebrity of a seal, Popeye, popped up from under the dock to greet us. I can't be certain but I'm pretty sure I heard him whisper, "Happy Fall, y'all!"

dear seattle,

...you rattled my bones this week. After enabling a criminal (who stole a car and proceeded to crash it in to a parked vehicle in the sleepiest of neighborhoods in this city) to flee from the crime scene by helping his mangled, bleeding body from the overturned car to only be woken up the very next day to the reverberating sound of a high speed getaway that ended as the truck ducked down the alley + slammed in to the my apartment building just below my window {they were running from the cops who were trying to pull them over for littering, of all things}, you have left me shaken + scared.

Of living alone in Belltown. Walking through the basement of the hospital to my car. Showering with the curtain closed. Sleeping without lights on. Life, in general. Every noise makes my heart jump in to my throat. And the sounds of sirens + hums of traffic that usually lull me to sleep at night, wake me up every twenty minutes, as I sit up trembling... wondering what medical emergency will traumatize the pathological optimism out of me next. I'm a little bit frightened...

... but not just of living in this city... but ironically, leaving it, too. It has been my home for the last fifteen months and I have fallen so madly in love with every niche of this beautiful city. I have never felt more in my element, with every day a wild adventure surrounded by the incredible views that the Pacific Northwest boasts about... + the even more incredible people that inhabit this Seatown. I have a network of friends who make happy hours extra happy. I have a job that I genuinely enjoy getting up before sunrise to go to for twelve hours at a time, sometimes for five days in a row. I have a masters program that challenges me in ways that makes my brain hurt but is beyond adequately preparing me for the next, big chapter.

I have five weeks left before I kiss my farmer's markets + beach bonfires + dayhikes to waterfalls + hazelnut lattes {they are the best these lips have ever known} good-bye. And while I feel a constant, overwhelming anxiety as some proverbial clock hangs over me counting down the days until I will be gone, I must shake off the crazy antics of this past week + go on relishing in all the good this city emulates, on a daily basis... because my days here are numbered. 41 to be exact. 

My dear Seattle, you are the best thing that ever happened to this girl. A girl who was lost when she arrived at your city limits.... but has found so much of herself here. She has found that nature {particularly mountains + water side-by-side} is her religion. She has found the meaning of life wrapped up in organic living, education + perfectly mixed cocktails. She has discovered her dreams within your coffee houses + the paths that will take her to them through cerebral conversations with the quality people that are "Seattlites".

You, my sweet Seattle, are loved beyond sun beams.

sincerely,

the girl whose heart you stole + is really, really going to miss you... so. very. much.

call your girlfriend.

the only way her heart will mend is when she learns to love again... 

the anticipation of fall @ ebey's landing.

I stepped on a dry, red leaf this morning + as the crunch of a subtle sign of changing seasons sent a childish grin across my face, with it came a sigh of relief for it’s finally en route… Fall is coming.

I waited rather impatiently ‘til the 4^th of July for the rain to let up + summer to arrive (as Seattleites swear the mid-summer holiday in all it’s red, white + blue glory is the Pacific Northwest’s official start to the perfect summer)… and while there have been a few beautiful, albeit fleeting, moments peppered amongst the chaos where I have literally stopped in my tracks to pinch myself as I take in the breathtaking views that surround me here…

...this slut for sunshine is uber reluctant to admit that I am secretly really excited to say sayanora to one very balmy summer + its tamale-hot finale that is: August 2012. Instead of the carefree floating on that usually rolls in with the amazing weather… where mindless reads by the beach with an iced cold michelada are a daily staple… this summer has yielded very little opportunity for rest and relaxation.

The last three months have consisted of work and clinical nearly every day and the insanity that ensues when you work + attend school full-time for fourteen months, only being afforded the opportunity to feel the everpresent sunshine from behind a hospital window, makes for a nonfunctional, permaexhausted, sleep-deprived version of myself that cannot wait for the restful idle of Autumn + all the essential elements of relaxation that accompanies its arrival.

Cooler evenings + cozy sweaters. Pumpkin-spiced lattes, wooly socks tucked in to my favourite boots + five entire weeks off from school. As the calendar year begins to wind down, the loose ends of those wishes + dreams I made nine months ago begin to be tied up, the scales suddenly tip and I find the balanced bliss the Libra in me spends the first three quarters of the year pining for.

And just as college football rivalry picks up turning every Saturday in to a collegiate walk down memory lane, I suddenly spend Sundays feeling ironically sentimental about another year that is flying by, too quickly of course. 

September is my birth month + I will finally get to shake off this quarter-life-crisis that has subconsciously taken over this past year, and consequently made finding the right words to express growth, discovery or just about anything painfully scarce… and the time to put said few words in to complete sentences even slimmer. Twenty-six on the twenty-sixth, I’ll turn + I have already adopted a brighter outlook for this sunshiney, golden year ahead…

...a year that promises a temporary inhabitance on a Hawaiian island, a snowy, magical roommate reunion in Park City, the experience of Christmas morning through the eyes of an angelic two-year-old, the addition of squishy newborn nephew goodness in the new year, the attainment of a masters degree, a backpacking adventure through Europe with my best friend and somewhere along the way, finding a place to call home...

Twenty-six. Sounds pretty wild + precious, huh?

by no means a waste of time.

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time. 

absolutely perfect.

Feels like its some kind of ride but it's turning out just to be life going absolutely perfect.

Never quite sure when the wild ride I am currently riding on in Seattle is going to come to a screeching halt + I will be forced to disembark, I made a list of all the things I want to see and do as a Seattle resident before the summer is up... a bucket list of the seattleite variety, if you will... including but not limited to bike to a brewery, have a bonfire on the beach, do yoga on a paddleboard, go sailing in the Sound, watch a concert at the Gorge, become the owner of a glassy baby, kayak through the San Juans, hike to a waterfall... and #1 on my list: ride the Great Wheel! =) My only day off in all of July, Celeste + I had a wonderful day date on the waterfront first taking in the gorgeous views from the top of the Wheel before walking over to Crab Pot for bloodys + seafood. It was absolutely perfect. 

the one about wine, cartwheels + daydreams by airstreams...

While wine tasting in the Santa Ynez Valley last month, Carly + I visited our most favorite little tasting room... Sarloos & Sons... where they carry on their family legacy by perfectly pairing wine with cupcakes by Enjoy!... and when you make this your final stop after an afternoon of spritzing some of Southern California's most delectable vino + happen upon the most adorable airstream you have ever laid eyes on right outside, you start snapping photogs... and sipping more wine... and you begin to daydream about the memories past + the many more moments to come... and your heart beams with happiness as you relish in this perfect summer day with your best friend... The I-love-my-life-so-very-much feeling radiating so vibrantly from your core fills your body with so much glee, you just want to do cartwheels... so you do. In heels.