Happy Soul.

I woke up this morning to a cozy apartment filled with morning light.  Perfection.  

I'm so excited to be on my own again, living in my perfect apartment, I'm basking in the freedom and happiness.  Serious amounts of happiness.  Finally!  I think this place agrees with my soul. 

I love how friendly people are here.  Strangers smile at me on the street, and strike up conversations in the grocery store, and hold the door for me.  Even though it's 10 degrees outside, people are still smiling.  I had forgotten the contagious power of kindness. 

I'm officially a Chicagoan now!  Just signed my lease and picked up my keys.  Feels good to have a new place to call home. This is definitely a step towards better things.  Somehow, as soon as I touched down in Chicago, all my whiny, heart-break pain and shit just vanished from my head.  I realized how amazing it is that I'm doing this, making this move, and following my passion.  I probably never would have done this if I hadn't gone through all that crap this Fall.  I would be stuck in a little town in the south with the same handful of places to go with the same handful of people.  Granted, those people are really cool people, and those places are pretty cool too, but I know there are bigger things out there for me.  There is a bigger life waiting for me, and it begins here... now.  I guess I just needed to make a real move across the country to really move on.  Goodbye 2009, old loves, old broken hearts, old dreams.  Hello 2010, new chances, new experiences, new people, new passions!

New Life.

It's been a couple of days, clearly I've been super distracted! This is an iPhone shot taken Friday night from my new place. I am beyond excited about this! I met up with an old friend for drinks at Sepia - their Old Fashioned is amazing. We walked down to Province after that for more wonderful cocktails and food. It was delicious. We got completely hooked up by another friend who manages the place now. He sent out so much amazing food, and mixed us up some incredible cocktails. (vid below) We had gorgeous brown butter roasted brussels sprouts, super decadent blue cheese fondue, and some yummy little butternut squash tacos, among other things. Jeff took GREAT care of us. It is VERY possible that I'm going to make myself a regular at Province.

It was so good to reconnect with these people in a new city. After dinner, I convinced the door(wo)man of my new building to let us up to check out the view at night (I don't move in until Monday). It's magical! The sky was foggy so everything lit up with pink. Such a beautiful city. This was definitely the perfect way to be welcomed to this new life chapter.

This is Jeff with some magical mixology and fiery cinnamon!

Killing time in the airport, I'm thinking about my hair... of course. I've always wanted this look, but never had the guts to do it. Maybe this year? I've been growing my hair out, intending to find my long luscious locks again, but at about this point I always question it. It's a few inches below my shoulders and now I start thinking... do I really want to keep waiting for long hair when I could get a fresh new short look immediately? I've been told by my friends that I should grow it long now because "Guys like long hair" Blah! Is that really always true? Plus, why should I care? I'm not planning on using my long hair to shake around and dazzle a man into submission anyway.

Thoughts?

Bicycle Life.

via I Can Read

Marshmallow Floors.

On my way to my new life. I have the basics necessities, down coat, yarn, and red bull... and my old rusty computer. This thing I'm typing on is nearly 6 years old, I should call it old faithful. It sat in storage for almost 5 months, I was sure it wouldn't turn on again, but here I am!

I had a bit of a rough night last night. Rollercoaster dreamland. Some were heinous reminders of Gaylord and company. Some kind of terrible situation where I was watching a movie of the two of them. It was edited with music and super artsy shots of their whole relationship. Kissing in the park (gonna vom), exchanging keys, yada yada yada. It was disgusting. After that, they were wonderful, glorious dreams of giant spaces with soft marshmallow floors and hot steamy showers falling from the ceiling. Trampoline rooms where the floor was so bouncy you could jump so high almost like flying. EC was there for those too, that's much better than Gaylord. Thank goodness my brain got ahold of itself and pushed out the nasty to make room for the bouncy wonderland.

Hmmm... I think I'll go see what culinary delights ATL airport has to offer.

Backup.

Backing up my computer for the big move up north. Not losing any music or photos between here and Chicago. Dang, I am going to miss this machine for the next couple of weeks though. :( It's amazing how much we get attached to our computers.

I want a new camera. A super amazing camera that takes incredible pictures. One that I can really play and experiment with. I know nothing about photography, but I love the emotion that can be captured in a photo. Some day...

Another gorgeous photo blog. French, fashion, fantastique!

I Saved Latin.

My favorite Style Rookie's Tumblr photo blog. Fantastic!

Slow Motion Crawl

Countdown to Chicago: 2 days. Getting excited! Was getting very anxious, but a huge worry weight has been lifted! I no longer have to bring my cat with me immediately. Thank you parents! Now I don't have to worry about bringing my cat into an apartment already filled up with two dogs. That would have been one giant hairy mess. And there's no telling how Kitty would have reacted. Now the process will be so doable. I'm not really anxious about it at all anymore!

By Thursday morning, I'll be apartment hunting in a puffy coat and gloves. Searching for my beautiful little, perfect for one, pad in the heart of a great city. It's waiting there for me, I can feel it!

Butter.

So, my previous post about my new china was posted on twitter by "ButterChallenge." Apparently, they must have searched for "butter", noticed my post about butter dishes, and just had to let people know that I'm talking about butter. This is equal parts creepy and hilarious. I get one tiny bit of publicity and it's from a butter tweeter. Oh dear. After the amount that I've used the word "butter" in this, I fully expect them to post me again. Butter.

Up-sa-Daisy.

We got into the storage units today to shift around some things. Pull out my puffy coat for the frigid Chicago air, put all my boxes of yarn back in to be moved, etc. I'm most excited about one box though, my antique china! I know it sounds ridiculously nerdy, but this is the first time I will have a full set of china. And I adore it! The pattern is called "Up-sa-Daisy." , It belonged to my great godmother, Helen. When she passed, I was in my early teens but somehow had enough sense to call dibs on this set of china. I couldn't remember what it looked like all these years later so it was a wonderful surprise to see it again and fall in love with it's kitschy cool look. I love the oversized graphic flowers and the avocado green accents. It's perfection! I'm not sure how complete the set is, but I do know that I'll probably have at least the plates, bowls, cups & saucers... and the cute little butter dish. I love butter dishes. I have never owned one until now, but I always pick them up in antique stores. I just love the old-fashioned look of them. I rarely use butter, but I want to build a collection of the dishes. I can't explain why really. I'll definitely make sure I always have a stick of butter in my refrigerator now that I have the appropriate dish for it.

Flying machines.

Dreamed of old friends and old loves last night. And a flying machine made of paper, wood, and brightly colored yarn. It was complicated to manage, but once I got the hang of it, I was flying up into the clouds. Sitting on an invisible seat pumping the wood and paper wings, and steering with the pieces of yarn. It felt freeing. I found myself then, in a wild old-timey town with dressed up tigers and giant barn doors. I was afraid of the tigers, so I was going to escape in my machine with my friend at my side, until the angry circus man with the handle-bar mustache cut my steering yarn strings. Once those were cut, the wings came apart and the whole thing was useless. Running away with my pieces of flying machine, I landed in a field where the circus man couldn't see me. I tried to fix the machine, but there were so many strings of yarn in so many different colors. I couldn't figure out how to tie them back together and every time I tried, they would break again. The longer I worked, the more the machine fell apart. It was over.

Promising.

Need to pack today. Dreamed about apartment hunting all night. I'm starting to get anxious but also excited. I need this change to happen. I need to jumpstart my life again and jump back into reality. Everything in this place reminds me of too many things of the past 4 months and I need a change of scenery, a new social calendar, and a new life. It's definitely time. There is too much empty time here, not enough distractions to keep me moving forward, moving on. Still haven't been able to move on entirely. Probably because I have all this time to think, remember, replay, wonder, and wish... and miss. It's embarrassing that it's all still there in my head, but I refuse to lie about it. You don't have to read it.

Chicago will be a deep breath after a major turning point in my life. One that was forced upon me, but one for which I am grateful nonetheless. I may never have gotten on this path had I not been forced to break in half and put myself back together. My horoscope said that 2009 was going to be my gold year. A year when all the groundwork for the rest of my life is laid. I was going to make new deals, grow professionally, discover life changes, and find lasting love (or at least meet lasting love). Well, I think that some of those things happened, but not all. Obviously not the lasting love. If I was going to meet the person I'm meant to be with, it was supposed to happen within the past 12 months... there are 3 more days left until the golden zodiac love passes me by. I don't think it's going to happen. Fortunately, I refuse to believe that these past 12 months were my only chance at finding a life-long love. Or maybe I do believe that a little. It's nearly impossible for me to comprehend the existence of anyone else as close to perfection as I have had.

Either way, I am on a journey filled with promise and fulfillment now. I may not love the fact that I'm traveling without, but I trust those beings that know more than I do. I trust that this is what's best for me. If it wasn't, the circumstances would be different. Only time will tell me why.

Beautiful photography (warning... some are more disturbing than beautiful)

Devastation & Gratitude.

via NYTimes

via NYTimes

Associated Press Via NPR

Associated Press Via NPR

Associated Press Via NPR

Associated Press Via NPR

Associated Press Via NPR

The devastation that has happened within the past 24 hours is unimaginable. The photos are nauseating, but real, so I can't turn my eyes away. I can't even comprehend what this means for the country there. So many children left parentless, so many families ripped apart, so many people killed. So many left without... As I pray for the people dealing with this tragedy, I feel so compelled to also thank God for everything in my life. Things like this rip a painful sense of perspective through my own reality. I have everything I've ever needed. I have wonderful people in my life, a comfortable place to lay my head tonight, a hot shower whenever I want it. I have more than I need. I am safe, I am healthy, I am loved. I am so grateful for the things, people, and experiences that have built my life.

Newly Listed.

New at ElseyElle. Hair pins. Painfully cute in a ponytail/updo.

nice.philosophy.

I love this blog. nice.philosophy

So much emotion, so much melancholy in these single photos of unknown people. I find myself staring at them for hours, wondering about their stories. Putting myself in their situations, feeling their emotions as my own. Maybe they're just too familiar somehow. Anger, love, attraction, emptiness, loneliness, confusion. I can see a roller coaster of all of these page after page. I think it's my passionate soul that draws me to this blog, adoring the aching emotional worlds in these photos and characters.

Style Rookie.

Style Rookie

This girl is my hero. I am in such awe at her style wisdom, fearlessness, and creativity. Not to mention her brilliance as a writer. If I had had blogs and rampant internet searching as a 13 yr old, would I have been as unstoppable as this? Probably not, I didn't have the fearlessness in me. I adore everything about her and her blog! Also... I need those black and white tights now.

Had to Kick It.

I woke up at 5am this morning rapping Salt N Pepa's "Shoop."

Here I go, here I go, here I go again
Girls, what's my weakness? Men!
Ok then, chillin', chillin', mindin' my business word
Then, Salt, I looked around, and I couldn't believe this
I swear, I stared, my niece my witness
The brother had it goin' on with somethin' kinda...uh
Wicked, wicked, had to kick it...

Shoop shoop ba-doop
Shoop ba-doop
Shoop ba-doop ba-doop ba-doop
Shoop ba-doop
Shoop ba-doop
Shoop ba-doop ba-doop ba-doop

For your 1990s viewing pleasure.... I'm thinking I should bring back knee pads.

Bows: Fashion Week 2010.

Hair Bows as seen in Fashion Week Spring 2010. I love these. I love the ridiculous scale and messy quality in Marc Jacobs. I love the messed up look given to such a typically dainty and feminine accessory. In the Luella show, it's beautiful how the bow adds a slimy, shiny texture to the matteness of the entire look. The textiles are matte, the makeup is matte, the hair is matte... and the bow is glossy glam. It's brilliant.

Marc Jacobs


Luella

Submission.

I just officially submitted my application for enrollment in Paul Mitchell the School Chicago for the March 2nd class! I'm so nervous, but so excited. I really hope I'm making the right decision. I'll never know until I try...

See you soon Chicago & Paul Mitchell the School!

Hopeful.

The minute you think you're going to lose something, it suddenly becomes the most important thing in your life.

And the minute you've lost it, it's hold becomes permanent? Like it's encased in resin... stuck. Preserved for life.

"Any day now, I shall be released..."

Shameless Etsy Plug.

Finally got a bunch of headshots done for my new ElseyBow colors tonight. Phew!

Here's a little taste:
ElseyBow(MochaSass)


ElseyBow(BlueBelle)


ElseyBow(Sangria)


You better get over to Etsy and check them out before they get snatched up!

Officially Chicago.

It's OFFICIAL! Just bought my plane ticket (And Kitty's plane ticket-eesh!) to Chicago! It's all happening! I will be arriving on January 20th and I'll hit the ground running with the apartment search. I'm getting very excited! I have so many people to catch up with once I get there, my first few weeks are going to packed. Then I'll be starting at the Paul Mitchell school on March 2nd. Hooray! I can hardly believe I'm finally doing it, here I come world!

Toasty Bows.

It's COLD outside, so I posted warm colors today on Etsy. Here's a wee little preview:

ElseyBow(Sangria)


ElseyBow(Eggplant)


ElseyBow(Ballet)


ElseyBow(CherryBomb)


I also added all my Etsy images to Flickr. Now I'll have a record of every different bow I've made!

No Pants.

For all my NYC Friends! Don't miss this!

NYC No Pants Subway Ride

Douchey Dream.

Oucchhhh! Day #2 with muscle spasmed up back. I'm getting tired of it. It did NOT however, stop me from listing FIVE new ElseyBows today. Hot Hot Hot new Colors!

Between that and my new ElseyElle business cards that I had printed yesterday, I'm unstoppable! I think I need to get a blonde model though. Some of these colors just don't work on my dark hair.

Last night, while sleeping on a heating pad, I had a pretty disturbing dream. I was in a bar with my BFF in Chicago, Ally, and we were just having a few drinks. Nothing weird, just random people coming and going. Eventually, I saw my previous, most heinous ex show up. We can call him "Douche" because that's really the only appropriate name. He started trying to hang out with us and talk to us, etc. I wasn't having it because... well... he's a douche, so I kept moving to other parts of the bar. Ally on the other hand, just stayed where she was while he followed me around being obnoxious. He was telling me things like "You're such a fucking bitch..." "You're a whore..." etc. Then he finally went to talk to Ally who humored him for longer than I did. The bartender started talking to me and asked me something about the worst sex I've ever had and I screamed "HIM!" (pointing to Douche) "He was TERRIBLE in bed and I put up with it for three years!!!" At this point Douche sprang from his bar stool and with lightening speed attacked me. He pinned me against the bar with my hands behind my back, got in my face and started screaming at me. "You fucking cunt!! You're such a whore!!! You deserve to die!! I'm going to kill you!!!" And on and on. I just kept trying to fight back and beat him up, but he was too big. I don't know how, but I finally got away thank goodness. The next thing I knew, we were in a car, driving to another bar. I was with Ally and some other old friends, when I got a text message from him. He told me that he and Ally had hooked up that night. I was disgusted! Gross!

WTF? What a weird and terrible waste of a dream! Thank God, Douche is long gone and 100% out of my life. He was terrible in so many ways. At least I can breathe a sigh of relief that I got out of that one alive!

Magic Wands & Sleigh Bells.

On a happier note: Thank you to my creative genius friend Whitney for turning me on to some musical awesomeness. So magically happy :)

Magic Wands is my LOVE.
You must listen.

Sleigh Bells is the hotness right now too.
You must listen.

the Beatles.

Made a sad realization last night. The Beatles have been ruined for me. JUST as they were beginning to grow on me, their music took on a new, uninvited, and unexpected sadness. And chances are, that feeling will always be there when I hear their music. Dang, what a waste.

Even Here Comes the Sun...

Leap after leap in the dark.

"Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what's next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong but we take leap after leap in the dark." - agnes demile

As seen on Jen's FB page :) I love it.

I'm a dreamer.

via How Enlightening

Babies and Salamanders.

Hot jasmine tea, tall black Uggs, and a hot pink snuggie.... it's COLD in Florida! It's been freezing gardens overnight and I haven't run in a week because of it. HOW am I going to force myself to stay in shape when I'm living in the 10 degree temperatures of Chicago? Oh... I think the hot and sweaty co-eds in the UIC rec center just might keep me coming back ;) I'll be that cougar on the treadmill staring inappropriately at the muscly boys working off last nights pitchers. The funny thing is, I don't really like muscles in real life. I would never date a super muscly man because I don't want the personality that is often attached to those muscles. I can't stand the idea of having a boyfriend who goes to the gym to "work out" all the time. Those muscles mean hours spent in the gym every day lifting. Gross. I want a man who is active - running, sports, biking, etc.- NOT a gym rat. That doesn't mean I don't like looking at them from afar though ;) I'm not going to lie and say I wasn't one of the millions of women who gasped at a 17 yr old Taylor Lautner when his hot, sweaty body popped up on the screen... Yowsers! Moral of the story: Lovers for Elle: active men, yes. Gym rats no... unless she's just watching them from the treadmill. :) Cougar town!

You may be tired of hearing about Elle's dreams, but I don't care. I like having a record of them. There were some CRAZY ones last night!

I don't remember the back story, but I was in a pool that was really more of a man-made lake with murky water and a concrete floor. EC was there and he was holding a baby and trying to play catch with some other kid. He kept dropping the baby and I would have to dive down and catch it. This was a challenge because the baby felt like it was filled with lead and its skin was so slippery! I kept hearing it cry from under the water and I was so afraid it was going to inhale water and drown. Once I would get it's head above water, it would slip out of my arms again and I'd have to dive. Finally, I got it to the edge of the lake where there were steps. By then the baby had turned into a salamander and the other kid was gone. So EC and I were hanging out trying to keep this salamander from slipping away under the water. I had to dive for it a few times then it finally turned into a leach, jumped onto my neck and started sucking! EC had to yank it off and throw it. Weird. Then all of the sudden, we heard trumpets playing and we turned to see the processional of the "Nivea" (pronounced Ni-VAY-uh) statue. It was being escorted from Europe by all of the leaders and royalty of the entire world. There were kings and queens in white wigs and ball gowns circa Marie Antoinette. It was so beautiful that EC and I just stopped and stared. It turned into a big event on the stage that had appear next to the lake. Everyone looked like they had been pulled right out of the MA movie. It was pretty awesome.

There was another scene where I was on a tiny plane flying around a city with massive tower and amusement parks. Everything was deep purples and dusty blues but the sky was bright. We were about to land on a dirt runway when the pilot saw a giant puddle in the middle and pulled up. We ended up going straight up and completely upside down. I was completely freaking out, screaming, hyperventilating, but everyone else acted normal. We finally landed and the pilot was laughing about it all and blaming it on some other old man in the airport (which actually looked like a run-down cabin at camp). EC was about to get on the same place but I forced him to stay and we decided to walk home. Hahaha! I think some other crazy stuff happened during the walk, but I can't remember. Doh!

Newly Listed.

Three new ElseyBows just listed! Head over to Etsy and check them out!

ElseyBow(SkyBetty)


ElseyBow(Lucky)


ElseyBow(HoneyDew)

ElseyBows Sold!

Three more ElseyBows sold this week! I'm saying goodbye to ElseyBows (GrayParty), (Vinca), and (GrayMini). Bye bye girls!

Perez Hilton was the receptionist.

Yikes! I slept 11 straight hours last night without even realizing it. If that's not the definition of laziness, I don't know what is. Dang! I think I should start setting an alarm because apparently, I will keep sleeping through the entire morning if left to my own devices.

I know I had tons of dreams last night, but I can't keep any of them straight enough to write down. It's all just little blurry images of places, people, things... Ooh it's coming back to me. A winding old house with teeny skinny staircases that start 1/2 way between the floors and lead to nowhere. Half rooms with 5' ceilings in between regular floors. There must have been 50 rooms all with several beds dressed in flowery antique bedding. Each room led to the next and I was lost. I was with my roommates looking for our room - it was a sorority house. All filled with people and children. One of my roommates had a baby with her.

Oh yes, and I was wearing a bathing suit (left over from a previous scene including a huge pool a male swim team and Tom Cruise). My skin was hurting all over because Tom and I had gotten into a fight and he had pushed me through a glass door. There were tiny shards of glass stuck in me everywhere. That made it much more difficult to squeeze through the teeny doors and hallways of this crazy giant house I was in! We never found "Our room" but we settled on one that would work. Then, on to important business, we had to put on our fake nails (????). But they were all used, so we had to sort through a pile of random nails painted in different colors and see which ones would fit. Gross.

Eventually, I ended up in my high school physics class on the last day of school. We were all eating brownies and the school advisor came in to announce that I would not in fact be graduating because I had not taken a required "Statistics & Logic" class. I remembered that dream me had failed physics and had to retake it, thus throwing my semesters off.... I couldn't believe that after all this time, I still wasn't going to graduate high school. How was I going to get into Paul Mitchell without a Highschool Diploma? I knew that I still had a bachelor's and a masters... but without finishing high school, I was screwed. That is hilarious. Oh the things dream Elle will worry about.

Oh! There was another one where I was at a Paul Mitchell school with piles and piles of laundry. Trying to make it all fit into a bag, but I just couldn't. And Perez Hilton was the receptionist. Bwaaahahaha!!!!

I love the wild places that my brain invents and the intensity of passion in every encounter in dreamland. Sometimes I think that if I really wrote down every detail and sketched out the places in my dreams, I could write scripts for wild Tim Burton-esque movies. Maybe that will be my third career. When I'm worn out from the world of hair, I'll sit and write it all down and see what I come up with.

Song of the Day.

• Happy by Nancy Sinatra

More Nancy Sinatra music on iLike

Etsy Love.

OOOh I love these cable 'knit' vases from Etsy Seller alyssaettinger

tu veux ou tu veux pas?

You can't go wrong with sequins in heaven

Some serious craziness in my sleep last night. There was one terrible Gaylord dream that isn't even worth mentioning. It involved begging, being laughed at, and losing my dignity. Gross. I did have another pretty fantastic dream after that one thank goodness. Everyone was on roller skates and dressed in fancy clothes. We were all getting ready for a roller party (I invented that) for some celebrity and the whole place was white with icey blue lighting. My BFF was there wearing a fantastic silvery cocktail dress. My Ex-Coworker ("EC") was there in an all white seersucker suit. He was supposed to be my date, but I looked down and realized that I was wearing jeans, uh oh. And they weren't my jeans. So I rolled down a ramped hallway completely out of control (I guess in my dream I was terrible at skating) and into a room FILLED with gorgeous designer cocktail dresses. They were all for me! I tried on a few, but of course none of them were right... then I woke up. Dang. I'm always waking up before the big party! Someday I'd like to actually be able to finish a dream. Has anyone ever actually finished a storyline in a dream? It's like a cliff-hanger every night and nothing ever gets resolved! Maybe that's what heaven is. All your good dreams get to finish playing out. I'll finally get to go to the fancy roller party in my Betsy Johnson dress...

This is the one I would choose:

You make my dreams come true.

YES!
FuckYeahHappy makin' my dreams come true

Dixie cups and Irish Dancing.

What a weekend! A bit of a roller coaster, but in comparison, this year has started off way better than last. Maybe the fresh decade is bringing about a fresh sense of purpose and motivation? Potentially.

Lessons learned during NYE weekend:
1. free champagne served out of a dixie cup is just as good.
2. ringing in the new year with all of the worst (yet undeniably sing-able) music you can think of is a GREAT idea.
3. at 3 am, any pizza available will be deemed 'vegetarian' as long as I don't look too hard at it.
4. texting and/or calling an old crush after midnight is not ALWAYS a bad idea... (although, typically it is.)
5. I'm not as much of a Wii Tennis champ as I thought I was
6. I am however, a much better Irish dancer than I thought I was (see above photos)
7. shiny black leggings are always a good idea
8. rhodamine on the lips is always a good idea also
9. No matter how much control I think I have over my emotions, seeing photos posted of Gaylord and Candy all over NYC (OUR city) for New Years is fairly devastating. ***Note: I hate Twitter, FLickr, etc. - or at least I hate Gaylord on Twitter, FLickr, etc. No amount of unfollowing and blocking can keep anything from being public. Doh.
10. I have had some of my favorite times with these two girls, but no matter how much I wish it, I can't bring them to Chicago with me. Sadness. :(

So I still hate the idea of making a New Years resolution, BUT I do believe in making goals for the next year. So here goes:
1. let go and let life surprise me - stop planning and forcing and let it all happen
2. call my distant friends more often
3. write more
4. practice patience
5. trust my own judgement
6. try worrying less about things I can't control
7. trust my journey
8. keep running
9. keep breathing deeply
10. smile more
11. being open-minded - towards people, situations, changes, myself
12. say goodbye to the past but recognize lessons learned

The past 4 months have been some of the worst of my life. I feel like I skidded crashing into the end of the year like an out of control biker. The good news is that 2010 was the tree that stopped it all and now I'm ready to get up and brush off and start again. My parents may see these failures as a sign of weakness or immaturity, but I'm just doing the best I can. No, I'm not following the traditional path of College, career, husband, family. My path looks different and I have to learn to accept that despite their clear disgust with my choices. Sure, maybe I have a pattern of making changes every couple of years, but maybe that's just me! I'm really ready for my family to stop criticizing and start embracing the fact that maybe this is just who I am and it looks different than they expected. I am a passionate person and I am capable of so many things, what if it is just my journey in life to make frequent changes and moves. Maybe I'm just not meant to settle in one place forever. The beauty of life is that I get to make choices about my own life just as they all did about theirs.

I am welcoming 2010 with open arms and a fresh perspective on life.