New year, new blog post! I thought a good way to start off 2019 would be to make a list of all the things I want to do this year. Some of these things are new to me or an interesting way to continue bettering myself–ways that will inspire and drive me to continue. Life is too short for the typical new year resolutions like, “I want to lose weight,” or “I need to get a gym membership.” If you engage yourself in fun goals and activities that truly interest you, the other stuff will fall into place.

I also want to take a moment to reflect and celebrate the things that happened in 2018:

• I got my hair used to only being washed once a week! (Though now, it’s just been every 3-4 days.) My hair is so much healthier now–it’s thicker and more shiny!
• I baked a lot of stuff from scratch this year: a few pies, a few cakes, French macarons, candied nuts and cookies.
• I got my septum pierced! Something I’ve wanted to do for a long time but was afraid of what everyone would think. Then I decided that it didn’t matter what anyone else thought. If I liked it, then I should do it!
• Got into the groove of raising and keeping succulents and cacti alive. Finally! It took me doing a bunch of reading on the subject, but I think my black thumb has become a little greener!
• I got really into embroidery this year and made a lot of pieces for gifts. Everyone loves them!
• I finally found some beers I like! (Sours!) With that, I learned I have expensive taste.
• My gal pals and I did a few vintage thrifting days this year, and I finally found a vintage dress that fits!
• Jake and I got lots of walking in this year, just checking out cute neighborhoods, grabbing groceries, and walking to brunch places. It’s become one of our favorite things to do.
• Experienced my first migraine ever! Thankfully, they don’t happen often, but boy, they do a number to you! My personal remedy for migraines is sleep and a pot of black coffee.
• Added a new tattoo to my collection. (The blue crystal on my arm, for the Final Fantasy series, because I’m a huge nerd.)
• Celebrated my friend getting hitched by making a chill girls trip to Seattle.
• Got to ride (sort of, because I was a little chicken!) a vintage Vespa scooter!
• Was gifted a giant stack of vintage magazines from the 1950s to the 1960s.
• Busted my buns and achieved a promotion and certification at work.
• Attended a My Favorite Murder themed birthday party. (If you’re into podcasts and True Crime, you need to check out My Favorite Murder!)
• Had a blast planning and celebrating my 29th birthday in Portland with my best gal pals by attending a terrarium workshop, getting ice cream in a quirky creamery and exploring the weirdness that is downtown Portland. (Which I love!)
• Researched and did stake outs with a friend in an attempt to catch the “Serial Cat Killer” in the area.
• We relocated to a new place that we love! Jake and I are close to pretty much everything now.
• Visited a pumpkin patch for the first time in years. (I actually can’t remember the last time I went to a pumpkin patch.)
• Booked an international trip that’s happening in early 2019! I’m so stoked!
• Scored a beautiful 1960s vintage silver platter set for Christmas, courtesy of Jake. ❤
• Welcomed a new family member–my adorable niece!

Wow! Looking at that list, a lot awesome stuff has happened! I’ve got a good feeling about 2019… It’s gonna be rad!

Here’s my 2019 To-Do List:

1. Hike more – I’ve been wanting to incorporate more physical activity into my life, so I thought hiking would be an excellent way to do this. A few of us are talking about tackling Staircase as our first target, which is located in Olympic National Park.
2. Visit a haunted historical site – I’m a big scaredy cat, but I do love the thrill of spooky things. I’ll have to do some research to find our first few places to scope out!
3. Drink more water – I am awful at keeping up my water intake. Which is funny, because I dehydrate easily!
4. Bake and decorate a naked cake – My Pinterest these days is covered in naked cakes because they are just so. Darn. Beautiful! I’m a fan of simple design, especially since I’m clumsy when it comes to frosting and decorating my baked goodies. If I could nail down a naked cake, I’d be ecstatic! If you’re not sure what a naked cake is, check out this neat post from Kitchn about them!
5. Open up an Etsy shop – I’ve received so much love and praise for my simple embroidery designs. A few people mentioned that I should try having an Etsy shop for them. Stay tuned for that in the near future!
6. Take more Polaroid pictures – I love my Polaroid camera to pieces! I’ve got four albums dedicated to my Polaroid pictures right now (going on five soon!), and have a few of them in frames throughout the apartment. It’s been such a joy to look back at all of the amazing and quirky photographs, and guests love to look through them too. Although we live in a digital world right now, I still find myself so drawn to tangible photographs.
7. Tap into my creativity more – Since I’m planning on opening up an Etsy shop, obviously I’ll need to have some quirky pieces to sell! I need to keep my creative juices flowing. When I’m feeling inspired or driven to create, I need to listen to that and get to crafting!
8. Visit a museum I’ve never been to before – I love museums and feel like I’ve been to all of the ones in my area. I’ve been wanting to do more traveling for a while now, so making a trip out of seeing a new museum elsewhere will be an adventure!
9. Practice yoga at home – I’ve been going to yoga classes on and off for many years now. Since we moved, I haven’t been able to find a studio I really like… so I decided that I’d just start practicing at home on my own! Shout out to everyone who got me yoga stuff for Christmas this year, because I now have everything I need for a successful session on my own.
10. Get back into journaling gratitude – A few years ago, my therapist recommended that everyday, I should write down three things I’m grateful for, three good things that happened that day and three good things about me. It’s been a while since I’ve had a gratitude journal, but I think I’ll get back into it for 2019. Gratitude is something we should always practice and what better way to do it than write something down each and every day? There’s always something or someone to be grateful for!

That’s just ten of the things I have on my personal list for 2019… If I’m going to accomplish all of this, I better hop right to it! Do you have any personal goals for 2019? Do you have any recommendations for spooky places or museums? I’d love to hear your thoughts! Take 2019 by the horns and have an amazing new year!

❤

Badass Femme: Kumander Liwayway

For most of my early childhood, I grew up with my grandparents. My grandfather was an intellectual introvert with an accounting degree, and spent most of his career working with the military in some capacity. I remember him as the strong, silent type, but he was also witty and fun. He enjoyed card games, motorcycles, muscle cars and music. He frequently listened to AC/DC, The Beatles, Queen, Guns…

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You might remember from a previous post that since last year, I’ve decided that I would actually start doing things for my birthday with a group of friends every year. And by actually doing things, I mean going to shows, going places, exploring new things–an experience!

I think it was in the springtime when I had decided (with input from friends that we needed a “girls only trip”) that we were going to a terrarium building workshop in Portland, OR. Because why not? I love plants and I love learning how to do new things, just as my friends do too! I called around a few places and fell in love with Artemisia – Collage with Nature. From what I saw on their website, they were absolutely plant-centric and offered small, intimate workshops. I put down the deposit for our party of five and waited.

As the event approached, the five of us excitedly texted each other how much we were looking forward to hanging out and just having a blast. And the day came, and we did just that!

I brought my Fujifilm Instax Mini 9 camera just for the occasion, so this post will have pictures on film from that camera or the spiffy new Fujifilm Instax Share Smartphone Printer I got for my birthday! (Eeep!)

Speaking of my birthday, can I just say that I have been absolutely spoiled rotten this year? I got new plants, a new laptop, the Fujifilm Smartphone Printer, beautiful opal earrings, gift cards, sewing kits and guides (for my future dressmaking), a hand lettering guide and calligraphy pens, new dresses, sassy oven mitts and tea towel from Blue Q, the cutest itty bitty Erlenmeyer flasks and beakers, dinner by the water, an awesome trip with some of my most favorite people, and a bunch more! And every single birthday card has made me teary eyed.

I am so very fortunate to have amazing people and wonderful things in my life. I love you all very much. ❤

We live 2+ hours away from Portland, OR, while Brittney (not pictured here) lives closer to there–so we started with just the four of us. We left around lunchtime fine, but got hungry as we got closer. We stopped by a burger joint, which Brooke and I now swear to not eat there ever again. The stomach discomfort we experienced just isn’t worth it!

We didn’t have time to check into our incredibly adorable AirBNB by the time we got into the area, so we headed straight to Artemisia with some time to look around before our workshop began. It was an adorable little shop that reminded me of what a cute green witch’s den would look like. The place was brimming with plants of all kinds, crystals, tumbled gems, and other neat objects. This was the first time I actually got to smell sweet grass too! I was so tempted to buy a braided bit of the stuff, but hesitated, knowing that I’m going to spend more money later during our trip. I’ll have to get some next time. It smelled heavenly! Who would’ve guessed that grass could smell so good?

Gorgeous, isn’t it? Since we had some time to kill before the workshop started, we visited a neat ice cream shop across the way called Fifty Licks, that had the most amazing menu! Here’s one part of it:

Chocolate As #*&$ was calling my name, but I had to go for the Coconut Lemon Saffron they offered. It was so incredibly lemony and bright!

After treating ourselves at Fifty Licks, we walked back over to Artemisia, met up with Brittney (our fifth party member!) and met our workshop guide, Crystal. (Her is perfectly appropriate for such a shop!) We also met the shop’s pet, a dove named Paloma.

Yes, that was Paloma on Crystal’s head!! While Crystal educated us on caring for certain plants that would soon be housed in our terrariums, shared with us her journey as “The Fool,” experiencing a “sign” through an experience she had with caterpillars that invaded a white rabbit foot fern she was caring for and more, Paloma glided, fluttered and cooed all about the back of the shop. Eventually, he nested on the top of her head and we just had to document the magic that was happening right before our eyes.

Crystal, assisted by Paloma’s singing, provided us the history of Artemisia. The shop was created and still owned by Amy Bryant-Aiello, who is an avid naturalist, photographer and installation artist. The shop in its first form was more outside than inside, but eventually moved entirely indoors. The benches that are now inside the shop once belonged to the park where Artemisia first began to take root. Through and through, the shop still resonates with its wild origins.

We got to making our terrariums after we were introduced to the different substrates we had available to fill them with. Our choices included actual ground up garnets from India, garnets from the Pacific Northwest, mineral grit sand that’s made up of ground up hematite, white quartz sand, and Monterey yellow sand. We also learned how to remove our plants from their plastic boxes safely for transplanting, and how to place them in their new homes properly. I went into this workshop with an idea of how to make terrariums, but I learned all kinds of new tips and tricks!

The workshop was truly an unforgettable experience for a few reasons. It really was fun! And we all got to make and take home our own unique terrariums–each were very different and exuded our personalities well. Lastly, our terrarium gurus, Crystal and Paloma were intriguing and very kind. Crystal was an ardent plant whisperer, a crystal healer and I’m pretty sure she’s an aura reader–she just had this air about her that made us feel like we were really glimpsing into the soul of natural mysticism. I’ve never encountered a dove in real life until that workshop either! Birds kind of freak me out sometimes, but Paloma was very gentle and it really was soothing to hear his cooing and singing. At one point in time, he was dancing to the music that was playing in the shop! Pretty cute, right?

The night was young when we finished up the workshop so we went about and explored downtown Portland. In the morning, we lazed about in our cutesy AirBNB house (seriously, it was so adorable–I’m hoping Jake and I can have a little house like that one day!) until we decided we were ready for breakfast at a wonderful gem called Sanborn’s. Sanborn’s had a variety of options on their menu and everything really was delicious! And because the girl gang mentioned that it was my birthday celebration weekend, they gifted me with a hibiscus rose mimosa. How sweet! And downright yummy!

That weird dish that’s pictured with all the pretty colors is actually a bunch of pickled veggies, fruits and a sliced up egg from a German delicatessen we ran into while we were about town. Ever had a pickled grape or pickled apple? No joke–they were surprisingly delicious!

By the time our trip had come to an end, we were already planning on a foodie/exploring adventure in Portland in the fall. Ha! I’m so looking forward to many more adventures in the near future with my best friends! Thank you to everyone who made my birthday a stellar welcoming of my 29th year on this planet. ❤

This summer has been busy for me! I recently started a new position at work, which I love, but has kept me very much on my toes! I got to thinking that I needed to engage myself with some equally exciting and nice things to do for myself when I wasn’t at work. So I’ve compiled a short list (which isn’t in any particular order) of just a few things I’ve enjoyed this summer and hope to continue doing with each summer going forward.

#1: Adopt New Plants!

I’m a sucker for cute plants–especially succulents and cacti because I’ve got a brown thumb when it comes to caring for most plants, so I need hardy plants that can put up with that. It fills my heart with joy to bring a new plant into our home. They’re just so adorable! This particular beauty was given to me for my birthday from my gal pal, Brooke. The big terracotta pot is one she had when she lived in Rochester, NY and she had hunted down these massive succulents. The flowers haven’t bloomed quite yet, but hopefully they will soon!

#2: Brunch with Friends. Often!

Anyone who knows me knows I love a good brunch! I’ll brunch with friends, family and even sometimes by myself if I’m really hankering to go out for breakfast food and get some reading done. I’m the foodie friend who will recommend all the best places to eat in town. This particular brunch was special because it took place at my pal Dawn’s house before we went antiquing. By the way, Dawn is an amazing host and cook! The lady needs her own show!

#3: Go Antiquing!

This summer has been chock full of antiquing adventures with friends! So far, we’ve explored Centralia, Tacoma, Ballard and Seattle. I’m hoping to get some Portland, Astoria and some other locations under my belt for antiquing in the future. (Hopefully this weekend during my birthday girl trip to Portland, we’ll get to do just that!) These pictures are from my trip to Centralia with fellow sassy ladies, Dawn and Jeannette. We were gawking at all of the crazy finds in each shop we visited! Downtown Centralia sure is cute!

It was Dawn’s clever thinking to have me pose next to the giant rooster display in town. “Erika, go take a picture with that cock!”

#4: Bake Delicious Goodies from Scratch!

I’ve been telling people lately that my baking from scratch is me putting my degree into use! (I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Chemistry.) I have really enjoyed baking cakes, cookies and pies from scratch this summer–it’s been a great exercise in experimentation, flexibility, and piecing together how and why ingredients are necessary in recipes I find. It’s also been an adventure in trying to figure out ingredient alternatives when I’m baking for people who have food allergies. With the holidays approaching, I’ve been already brainstorming what I’ll be making: sweet potato pie, apple pie (mostly because we have been especially curious about this weird phenomenon of people putting cheddar cheese on their apple pie… it sounds zany!), sugar cookies, and naked cakes!

#5: Get Stitchin’!

I’m pretty proud of my little embroidery creations lately! I’ve been cross-stitching for a number of years now and decided to kick it up a notch by teaching myself embroidery. The lazy daisy, the french knot, the running stitch, the satin stitch, the stem stitch… I had immersed myself into all of these techniques and free-handed designs on stretched out fabric to get these crude yet cute creations.

#6: Check Out Festivals!

This GIF makes me giggle for a few reasons. First reason is that Jake was so occupied with helping me get pictures of me making bubbles that he didn’t realize his fingers were visible in each shot! I can’t blame him though–he deals with me demanding that he photographs me and never complains, and he really does try! ( ❤ ) Second is that as I was waving the bubble wand in the air, some of the soap got in my eye and I thought I’d look like a buffoon–but this turned out cuter than I was expecting. So, this was from when we went to the local Brewfest in town this summer with a group of friends. It was a blast! Just imagine a big, cleared out golf course in high 80 degree Fahrenheit weather, with a handful of food trucks, a few interactive activities, and dozens of tents that offer locally crafted beers and ciders that you get to sample, and can go back for more as long as you’ve got tokens. I’m still working on expanding my palette when it comes to beer, but I do love me a good cider. And actually, I did find a few beers I liked! We haven’t had a chance to attend too many events this summer, but I’m looking forward to checking out more later!

Summer’s almost over, but there’s still time for fun activities. Besides… with each season, there’s always new and exciting stuff to do!

Earlier this year on January 20th, I did something I had been wanting to do for a long time: get my septum pierced! I took the plunge after pondering on it for several years, asking for opinions from friends and family, most of which were actually notinto the idea of me having a piece of metal sticking out of my nostrils. It’s funny because I had my right nostril pierced before and everyone…

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It’s Okay to Make & Take Space

As your friendly neighborhood positivity advocate, I’m here to tell you that making and taking space for yourself is acceptable. It is okay. In fact, it is encouraged. Let me explain:

When I say making space, I mean giving yourself some me-time. Focus on your needs and wants. Take the time to sit down with yourself and just be there. Have an internal conversation with the kid version of yourself…

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Not Today, Satan: Being Your Own Cheerleader When There Isn’t Anyone Else

Life’s been keeping me busy lately with new responsibilities, trainings, changes and challenges. It’s all good stuff, I assure you. But since I last chatted with you, reader, I’ve encountered a handful of people that seemed to have been stuck in a rut and needed some help digging themselves out of it. After listening to them explain to me all the awfulness and suckiness they were constantly up…

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One of my best friends is getting marriedalready married! She decided to have her reception/actual wedding at a later date–they had opted for a quick courthouse shindig, which I think is groovy. I sense that has relieved some pressure from her and her spouse, considering that wedding planning can be a seriously stressful time. Every time I’d ask her how it’s going, the reply would be a deep sigh…

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This was a day full of good surprises. It was one of my best friends’ birthdays and her husband asked that we surprise her and whisk her away out of her house. This friend of ours is quite the homebody, but she enjoys a good time with good company, so I was determined to make this happen for her. The rest of the girl gang got us a table at one of the many awesome brunch spots in the area while I…

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New Detox Idea: Say Goodbye to the Toxic People in Your Life

Some gal pals and I met up at a Mexican restaurant recently to catch up and hang out. We all showed up individually, coming in at various times within the span of two hours and stayed for a good chunk of time to chum it up with one another. The restaurant was buzzing with energy, but honestly, I think our group was shining the brightest with how much lovewas beaming from our side of this giant…

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