by Joey | Dec 28, 2015 | Throwback
My family is held together with glue. She’s often clear, transparent, unobtrusive. Reliable and sturdy, always hard at work keeping us all together despite the miles and mistakes. She’s never weak, never falters. We call her Mom.
Traditions change, bend, break. But the glue is always there, steadfast.
We’ve fought over Christmas trees, a teenage meltdown for the books–a chapter closing on tradition. We’ve balanced, fighting painted-shut windows to hang the wreaths. We’ve collected angels, loved ones we carry now only in our hearts. We’ve survived ice storms, the birds in the window our only entertainment. We’ve sipped coffee on the porch, watching the family of deer grow, her new friends.
This year we wanted to give her, the glue that keeps us all together, a gift that symbolized all the memories she’s given us.
Stories. Moments. Memories.
Collect them all.
by Joey | Dec 24, 2015 | Throwback
The exhaustion is real, my friends.
Therefore, there isn’t much from me today.
Instead, I’d like to wish you all
A VERY VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!
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by Joey | Dec 17, 2015 | Throwback
This week is going by too quickly. It’s been a busy one, which has been good because at least its kept my mind off Thursday night.
>>What’s happening Thursday night? Oh, yeah. So the apartment complex I live in hired me to be the photographer for an event they’re hosting. I’ll let that sit with you for a moment. I’m not really sure how it happened, but I’m excited slash super effing nervous. I know it’ll be just fine; I know how to take pictures. But this is the first time I’ve been hired to do it. I’m rollin’ with it.
>> This year’s Christmas is officially sponsored by Amazon Prime. Okay, no, not actually. I mean hey, Amazon…if you want to sponsor me, I won’t say no. But I have done 99% of our shopping on Prime. I was using my sister’s account, but I went ahead and signed up for our 30 day free trial (and I’m pretty sure we’ll purchase it afterwards) so that J could use it to. Life. Saver.
>> Lauren tweeted a few days ago that because of adult coloring books, Crayola colored pencils are the Tickle Me Elmo of 2015. She was totally right. I gave one of those for a brunch white elephant gift along with a Starbucks gift card and what were supposed to be colored pencils (tell me that doesn’t sound like a perfect relaxing outing?) but I couldn’t find the pencils anywhere! I finally stumbled across a set of erasable ones that were more expensive that I wanted to pay, but what was I going to do at that point? Supply and demand, supply and demand. Sheesh!
>> Blogging has been and will be sporadic until the New Year. I’d apologize for it, but I’m not sorry. I do appreciate that you all hang around here though, and I do want you to know what to expect. Stuff & Things will be happening every week regardless of anything else. But posts will be here and there until the first week of 2016 (let it be known that I only caught this when I was editing. I’d initially written 2015. D’oh). Go! Enjoy this time with your families and friends! We’ll all be here after the New Year, right?
>> ATA and I did our gift exchange and sushi date tonight (Wednesday, as I’m typing this) and I’m so glad we made time to sneak this in before she heads off to NY for xmas break. Can I just say I think Nannies need an Xmas break, too. In fact, I think anyone who works with kids need a good 2 weeks off. Instead, I’ll be working extended hours. But anyway! J managed to find a Luke Keuchly jersey on super duper sale and insisted we grab it for her. Good choice, husband, she loved it!
>> I’m getting back into my running groove and it’s been so good. I’m trying to get back into my every other day habit. My life just makes more sense when I’m running. I was terribly confused, though, when my fitbit buzzed on me at 3PM today. Oh. Duh. I went for a run this morning!
Okay friends, that’s it for me today.
by Joey | Dec 15, 2015 | Throwback
I’ve started living by a new rule. I don’t should the bed.
Wait, what?
Hear me out. We all do it. We all think we should do this and should do that. It’s the way we’re programmed. Society expects us to behave a certain way. Family and friends put a certain amount of healthy pressure on us. You put an ungodly amount of pressure on yourself. And usually, when you’re feeling that pressure and you speak it, what word comes out of your mouth?
Should.
Stop it.
Lately, my thoughts have looked a little like this:
I should be using my degree.
I should make more money.
I should own a house by now.
I should have started a family by now.
I should have my shit together.
But what’s wrong with the life I’m living right now? Nothing. There’s literally nothing wrong. But I feel a certain amount of pressure from the world to be different. I’m definitely on a different path than most people my age. And I’m not exactly where I thought I’d be when I was sixteen dreaming about my life. But then again, I was naive then, as I should be. But we have this habit of making our situations wrong. We put all this pressure on ourselves, and we turn anything that isn’t dreamy or ideal into being wrong. Because those damn shoulds get in the way.
I’ve been dealing with a good amount of shame and guilt lately over all these shoulds. Like somehow I’ve failed because my life looks different from yours. But the reality is, this is my reality, and there’s nothing wrong with it. And there’s nothing wrong with your reality, either. But it’s easy to not feel like you’re enough when you start to play the comparison game, when the shoulds creep in.
But I think that’s why it’s important for us to share our stories, our real truths. Because we’re not all that unique. I don’t mean that in a bad way, no. I mean that we’re never actually alone. If you like certain things, there are others out there like you. If certain ridiculous things make you giddy, there’s a tribe out there who shares your enthusiasm. You’ve just got to find your people. And I want to be your people.
So my truth? Well. I guess that’s a story for another day.
*This post contains affiliate links.
by Joey | Dec 11, 2015 | Throwback
*Julep is a monthly subscription service that you can skip or cancel any time you like
**Note. This polish was nearly impossible to capture on camera. I’m still not happy with how the pictures came out. This is a duo-chrome like you’ve never seen before. For those of you who were all head over heels for Essie’s The Twill Of It, this is like that but better.
You guys? I’m going mad. I spent the last few days manically searching for a song that I knew none of the lyrics to. The only word out of the entire song that I could remember was “hideaway” which is only slightly unfortunate since there are two songs out at the moment devoted to that word.
Do you have any freaking idea how hard it is to find a song when you can’t google a sound in your head? Yeah, it’s next to impossible. The song is nice and all, but there’s an instrumental bit in it that I just love. I did everything from search full albums of artists I thought the song might belong to, to stalking the radio station playlists like it would save my life.
Finally, last night at nearly 11PM, I found the song. I don’t know why it was so important to me, it was just a song I liked. But there you have an inside look into my brain where apparently music is really, really important. For what it’s worth, the song was Roses by The Chainsmokers.
Speaking of music being really important, I have a strange relationship with it. It 100% fuels my writing. So for weeks on end, I’ll listen to songs that make me feel a certain way, trying to capture that emotion from every angle so when I sit down to write, it pours out of me. Like a strange masochist, I’ll dive deep into the hardest and saddest moment of my life, the memories I’ve pushed outside of my head, sometimes ending in a puddle of tears in a coffee shop corner, all for the sake of a good scene.
Currently, songs on repeat:
Happy Friday, friends!
