Stop this train.

Stop this Train

I want to get off and go home again

I can't take the speed it's moving in

I know I can't but honestly won't someone stop this train.

(Lyrics by John Mayer)

There are some days that life moves so quickly. And on those days, I find myself wishing for a pause button because I see how quickly time flies and life changes. This becomes so evident to me on days that I step away from my usual routine and away from my to-do list. Time slows down. The small things matter. Life looks different.

A couple weeks ago, we took a trip up to Buena Vista with some of our close friends, along with their pup, who is Shep's very best lady (dog) friend :) The 4 (or shall I say 6) of us rented a cabin and spent the weekend hiking, playing outside, grilling, and lounging in the hot tub. It was heaven! We found ourselves almost unsure of what to do with ourselves because our cabin was so quiet and free of usual life distractions.

The dogs were in heaven too! On our first day up there, we took them on was perhaps the closest either of them have gotten to doggie heaven. The perfect temperature, coupled with the fact that they could play together and run on the trail off leash (a big treat for Shep!) made for quite an experience for them - we don't know that we can remember ever seeing them so happy!

Below are a few pictures from our trip, including our hike!

The cabin that we called home for the weekend!

Shep's best friend, Dakota :)

The train won't stop. Life will continue moving at top speed. But this trip was our reminder that it's our choice to create the moments of pause in our life to slow down. To reflect. To be thankful. And to remember today since tomorrow is sure to look a little different.

Blast from the Past.

Chris and I took this past weekend for a little getaway up to Vail, and we remarked about how different our life is now, than it was five and a half years ago when we got married. Though I was happy then, I find that each year I love our life just a little bit more and feel so thankful for where life has brought us.

The things we've seen, the places we've lived, the ways we've grown in the last 5 or 6 years is pretty crazy. Our life looks remarkably different than it did 5 years, which really just makes me even more excited to see where we'll be in 5 more years.

In the spirit of nostalgia, I dug out some of my favorite pictures from our honeymoon and couldn't help but laugh at how young we looked. But I do remember on our honeymoon feeling like I had finally arrived....to being a grownup.

I don't know that you really ever "arrive" to becoming a grown up but these days I think we're a little closer. But I still look back happily to these times when things were, admittedly, more simple and we were basking in our newlywed-ness.

Enjoy :)

The Story of Real Simple.

Let's just start out by getting the obvious out of the way: I am an organizational geek.

I make no qualms about it - I love organizing things (in fact I just had my latest organization frenzy this last weekend), and I love reading about news ways to organize.

It's not because I think that label makers and excel sheets are cool. Well, actually that's not true. (I do think those things are cool.) More than that though, organizing things makes me feel like I'm making a better home for Chris and me and that organizing things will help us be happier.

Enter Real Simple.

Talk about an organizational junkie's crack. This magazine arrives each month and without fail, that evening it arrives will be spent with me meticulously going through each page. Because I love the story it tells.

When I read Real Simple, I am a good homemaker. I am a loving wife who can whip new recipes up. I am part of a happy, organized world.

Except, that I'm not really.

Sometimes our bed goes a few days without being made. Sometimes we order Chinese takeout for a couple nights in a row (even with a fridge full of healthy food I bought). And sometimes, I go to bed at night with my house not exactly looking like the shining model of organization.

But the truth is, Real Simple makes me happy. Even if my best intentions for giving our garage a makeover doesn't exactly go as planned, I still tried. And even if the Guide to the Simple Veggie Garden ended up not being all that simple (and I didn't look all the glamorous doing it) I still spent Saturday outside working on something new.

When that magazine arrives, I'm confident that perfecting my organizational and home making skills a tiny bit each month is still a step in the right direction.

Even if it is just one cupboard at a time.

It's the small things.

It's the small little things in life that brighten our days. And thanks to one of my best girlfriends, I recently discovered one of my new favorite things!!

Lollia Handcreme.

Seriously, this stuff is made of pure heaven and is the best handcreme I've ever used! It smells delicious and will make your hands feel like new. I personally like the "Relax" scent (honey and lavender) but there's others that are great too.

Happy Monday!

It's a Beautiful Day.

After a string of unexpected circumstances, on Friday afternoon, Chris and I found ourselves picking up tickets to the U2 concert that happened last night at Invesco Field. To say that we were excited, would be a MAJOR understatement!! I saw U2 under the Brooklyn Bridge back in 2004, but seeing a U2 concert has been a major item on Chris' bucket list, so we were both THRILLED for the opportunity!

Though we had been excited to see U2, words can't express how unbelievably powerful their show was. The show itself was beyond amazing (HUGE!!!) and made even at a show at Invesco field seem intimate. The band was so inspiring with their message of social justice and our ability to make a difference in the world. Though not one of my favorite U2 songs, "Beautiful Day" was one of the most powerful songs of the show. There was one particular point in the song that struck me...just two simple lines.

"Touch me, take me to another place

Teach me, I know I'm not a hopeless case"

For some reason, hearing Bono sing these words in the midst of such a powerful, beautiful show really struck me. The world is so full of beauty and things to rejoice about and yet, somehow, we find ourselves mired down by the things that we worry about and we get stuck in the day-to-day stresses of life. I felt like the U2 concert was the breath of fresh air I needed to see that as big as the world is, there is beauty in it and I indeed have much to learn and rejoice in. It was one of many wonderful moments in the show!

Here's a fun article that has some great pictures (close up) and some of the show highlights. You can check it out here

And last, but not least, here's a not-so-fab picture of us right before the concert, along with a fun video clip (also, not so high quality, but better then nothing! :)

Licorice and the unexpected path to true happiness.

I love licorice. Particularly the extra special kind that they carry at Whole Foods (it's called RJ's soft raspberry licorice if you're interested :) I'm convinced I could literally eat bags of that stuff.

Which is when I realized I had a problem. (Yes, the first step is admitting you have a problem. And indeed, I am a licorice addict.)

In all seriousness though, over the last six months, I've learned some pretty important lessons about food. After struggling with my weight and just about everything else I could find wrong with my appearance, I woke up one morning and realized that enough was enough and something needed to change.

About 4 years ago, I went on a diet program and lost about 25 lbs. I'll never forget how accomplished I felt and how proud of myself I was. I felt like my outside appearance finally matched the happiness I felt inside.

But somehow, those 25 pounds plus some more found their way back to my body. Not overnight, but one pound at a time. And although I'm always quick to say that I don't have regrets about life, deep down I consider this one of my biggest failures.

Because the truth is, it's not about those 25 pounds.

It's about failing and wondering where my discipline went.

It's about the fact that I didn't feel like I deserved to be thin.

And more than anything, it made me question why I wasn't strong enough to stick to it.

In the other areas of my life, I think I'm a pretty disciplined person. I work hard, I keep my house clean, I walk my dog every day and I do things that I don't want to do because I know it's just the right thing to do. (Wow, do I sound like a rule follower or what?!)

So how did my disciplined self let 25 + pounds creep back on?

Because for me, my love of food isn't really about food. Such was one of the lessons I learned when, on a whim, I picked up the book "Women Food and God." As I slowly read my way through this book, sometimes in tears, I felt like it had been written just for me. And as I read one chapter after another, I was slowly picking up small pieces of my heart and putting them back together, one at a time. I realized that food had crept into the hidden, dark parts of my life and acted as my distraction. Food wasn't just food anymore....and that's a problem.

Shortly after finishing this book and realizing how my perspective on food was impacting my battle to lose weight, I started hearing chatter about the "Four hour Body" diet, written by Tim Ferris. I took note because a number of friends in my photography community started doing this diet and were finding great success. After carrying around disappointment in myself for 4 years and expecting that I would fail if I tried again, I decided I'd give it a fair shot and I started this eating plan.

It's been three and a half weeks on plan (if you're interested in the specifics you can read about them here) and I've lost about 11 lbs as of today. And although it's a daily choice to stay on track, I'm succeeding because I understand the role that food plays in a healthy life.

These two books unexpectedly came into my life and have inspired and challenged me. So I'm putting it out there to the internet world (whoever you are) in hopes of hopefully encouraging someone (maybe you?) to get over your failures and start again. The reason I'm highlighting both of these books (rather than just one) is because they each represent different pieces of the "health puzzle:" the first book helped me realize the emotional components I was dealing with when it came to thinking about food, while the second book gave me a practical, easy-to-follow guide about how to start making healthy changes that I could stick with.

**Important Note: (Licorice is still my favorite. I now enjoy it responsibly only once a week which is totally allowed on my plan cheat day!)

Getting up and starting again after failing over and over is the unexpected choice. And these days, I'm finding that sometimes I even surprise myself.

Life in Between

When I decided to actually start writing this blog and take the leap of putting my thoughts to paper (well, computer) it was because I realized that I want to remember NOW. As we are living in between.

In between life as newlyweds and life as a family with kids.

In between being idealist 20-somethings and becoming grounded in grown up realities.

In between feeling finally settled in our life but feeling restless for change and growth.

In all things right now, we are in between seasons.

But I think it's when we are in between phases, in between dreams, in between changes that our true life really starts to take shape. So rather than always looking to find my way out of the in between, I'm committing to be ok living in this season. This blog will be a glimpse of life as it is now. Life in between.

(Photo above from our wedding in 2005. Though only 5 years ago, it seems like we've lived a lifetime since then!)