a reminder

forgiveness looks like taking back your truth

Something about this time of year makes me want to step out of my comfort zone and make changes in my life. My birthday always leaves a cage around my heart that leaves me anxious and struggling to accept myself. At 18, I got my first tattoo days before my birthday after moving back home from Savannah. Nineteen brought Julio and all the mess and chaos that followed after. When I was twenty, Justin and I moved in together. In 2015, Justin and I got engaged in an attempt to try and save our relationship after everything about Julio came out. Last year, I tried to get a new job and when that didn’t work, I chopped off most of my hair. 

This year, I bought myself a god damned engagement ring and when it gets here, I’m giving it to Justin and I’m just gonna tell him, “Whenever you’re ready, babe.” Something I’ve realized since the first time we got engaged and then called it off is that you don’t just wake up one day and suddenly find yourself in the fairytale you always dreamed about. Our first engagement was a grand gesture of commitment. It was us saying, “I’m choosing you forever. We’re gonna fix this and come out stronger on the other side.” Repairing our relationship shattered our idealism of each other. It forced us to look at ourselves, as broken and fragile as we have ever been in front of each other, and accept the other person for their faults and promise to put in the work toward forgiveness. 

Forgiveness also comes with its fair share of letting go. Matt is leaving Hardee’s, maybe for good this time. Ever since finding out, I have been riding the emotional roller coaster and hoping to God I can at least make it off the ride before I puke my guts all over the place. We’ve been doing this dance, him and me, almost since I started working at Hardee’s. 5 years later and it feels like I’m saying goodbye to a part of my heart that never got the chance to flourish. 

4 summers ago, I was lost and broken and Matt was there. Justin was refusing to speak to me instead of actually confronting me about what I was doing with Julio, and every time we had a fight I would walk up to work, eyes puffy and voice cracking from crying. Matt and I would sit in his car, chain-smoking and talking until I was okay again. That was our chance. In his Frankenstein car, cigarette smoke and the eventual sound of laughter wafting from the cracked windows, that connection between us blossomed into something powerful and dangerous. 

Moving forward and leaving him in the past where he belongs feels like the ultimate test of faith. For the last 4 years, he has been the standby in my life. The placeholder. The prospect of an “us” had always floated around in the periphery of everything. We had our chance in that smoke-filled car and both of us were too scared, too comfortable, or too exhausted to reach out and take it. I stayed with Justin to work on our relationship, and he settled down with an old friend and they have a beautiful baby girl together. 

He grins every time someone hiccups because they remind him of me. It’s hard for me not to see anything with a tiger print and not think of the one he has tattooed on his forearm. We have learned how to passively care for one another and honor the boundaries the other one has set to protect their own relationships. Saying goodbye feels like the next step on the right path to forever, no matter how scary it may feel. 

This feeling of being on the precipice of a huge life change is terrifying enough to curl your toes and just reassuring enough to make your heart feel like it’s flying. Remember to forgive yourself, too. Give yourself Grace for your fuck-ups and reckless, heartbreak-fueled decisions that you can’t build your life around anymore. Forgive yourself for giving a man the power to define your life. That’s what forgiveness really feels like: the power of taking back your own truth.

Once you take back your truth, live inside of it. Eat, sleep, and breathe it because it's that truth that will decide where your next steps lie.

My truth? I can do anything I want to do. I just have to want it badly enough to put in the work to get there. (And you can too.)

dear january

I always consider you a "30-day free trial" of the new year. We got off to a bit of a rocky start, you and me, but now I realize why you were so melancholy and gray on the inside, and sky blue and sunny on the outside.

You brought the addition of my first successful cowl to my handmade scarf collection and got me caught up on Coffee With Chrachel and Dear Sugars. I cast on another blanket made from the same yarn that made a cowl filled with tenderness in 2015. Miniscule callouses litter my fingers, tiny scars of using my hands every single day to make something I will love and keep in my eventual home/craft museum. I'm learning that this blanket is going to take me forever—the smaller the yarn, the more stitches, the more hard emotions I can knit away and call it some form of therapy.

I scribbled down, "Hold fast to your pockets of joy" on a Monday morning. Simple pep talks to celebrate a day when I dragged myself out of bed and went for a walk in the backyard. The sun was out, and it was 30 degrees—a heat wave compared to the negative temperatures we had been dealing with for weeks before. I danced in the backyard to Tegan and Sara and felt gratitude for quiet January mornings.

Later on that night, at work, I dropped a giant roll of Saran wrap on my big toe and could only laugh at my happy thought from hours before. That was the beginning of my melancholia. Days of the week blended together, and I stopped showering or making any efforts to do above the absolute bare minimum. Depression made its way into my every day again. Slowly at first until there were days when I was laying in bed for hours, whispering, "I need to go to the store" over and over until the sun sunk down below the horizon. Admitting defeat, I muttered, "I'll try again tomorrow."

On the days that I did manage to make it out of the house, I greeted opportunities that felt like Grace congratulating me for making it out into the world. One of my childhood theatre friends reached out to me about wedding photography. A former co-worker of mine asked me to collaborate with a small business downtown for a portrait event. I felt the tiny inklings of community around me—a network of dreamers and doers that encourages me never to give up and follow my dreams.

Emily Jeffords, one of my favorite artists that I follow on Instagram, posted "Progress is always quiet and slow" on her story one day, and it stuck with me, whispering in my ear whenever I felt stuck. I stared at a lot of blank documents, willing words to come whenever I tried to write. I typed a few lines, backspace, delete, rewrite, scrap the whole thing and eventually just save it as a draft and vow to return to it in a few days or months or years. (The artistic process, in a nutshell, everyone.)

The words did come back though, on a Monday night in the mundane routine of closing at Hardee's. It's always the little things that simultaneously break your heart and bring you comfort all at once that bring whatever you've lost back to you. Finding peace and closure in moments that would have put butterflies in your stomach in a previous season of life reminds me of how much growth I have established in only a few years time. The power of choice is a potent weapon if wielded correctly. Love is fickle in her passing moments of desire, but you cannot build a relationship on a foundation of threadbare moments of passion and hidden smiles around tiled corners, concealed away from the rest of the world.

Mourn the passing of what could have been. Propose a toast to lost opportunity and new beginnings, to the next chapter of this life. Maybe in your next lifetime, or the one after that, your paths will cross, and you will get to try again. It will feel like bumping into an old friend. A simple, "Hello. Where have you been all my life?" in the midst of the chaos of the next world when you need someone to shelter you from the storm of your own creation.

In the darkest parts of my life, I will always come back to the sky. Pastel and cotton candy skies, slightly obscured by winter's silhouetted trees marked January's beginning, middle, and end. Every night at work, even if it's only for a few seconds, I lean out the drive-thru window and breathe for a second. Take in the magic that always comes with the sun saying goodnight and the moon greeting us for an extended stretch of darkness ahead. We're at that point now where every day I petulantly ask, "How many more days until Spring?"

Winter is hard. December through March always seem like the longest part of the year solely for the darkness alone. My mantra the last few weeks, when things have suddenly become more stressful and overwhelming has been, "This too shall pass. The light will come back." I have been struggling with the sharp upward and downward slopes of the precarious roller coaster I call my mental health journey. I had to write pep talk after pep talk after pep talk to pull myself out of my darkness.

"You are kind. You are important. You are worthy. Don't listen to the lies that your darkness feeds you. The only way to live a long, happy life is to get back up again when it seems like everything is doing its best to kick you while you're down. If you need a little encouragement, this is it. You can do this. I believe in you."

January, thanks for the sunsets and the pep talks and the small blips of encouragement and goodness amongst all the heaviness of life. See you next year.

fear is the heart of love

Four years ago, I got this Death Cab for Cutie lyric inked into my skin forever. Every single day, I uncover a little bit more of what it means to be vulnerable. I learn more about what it means to have intention behind your actions. Fear is the building block of love. It's in every decision leading up to a relationship: the will we or won't we? The "Do you like me? Do you really like me?" question that lingers on everyone's tongue but no one ever says out loud.

Vulnerability has always been a sore subject for me. Does anyone really enjoy having all of their insecurities and baggage on public display? It has taken me a long time to really accept that just because fear lives inside the decision-making process, doesn't mean it has to scare the daylights out of you.

Fear lives in the butterflies that have taken up permanent residence in your stomach at the beginning of a new relationship. Their wings caress and mingle like your fingers on your first date. Your eyes are alight with possibilities of things come, the prospect for a future that seems so far off in the distance. My teenage years were ripe with star-crossed loves, and every boy that was not right for me taught me something valuable about myself and the pieces I gave away to them.

In the throes of young love, I forgot that it's okay to be soft. The memory of being fifteen and heartbroken taught me to constantly build up my walls. Never lose those tender parts of yourself. Never let anyone diminish those times when you truly learned what it meant to love and lose someone and still go on living your life. There is power there. There is healing there. Listen to your emotions. Identify them and sit with them for a while. They will teach you more about the ways you need to be loved than any book ever could.

Eventually, with the wisdom and perspective only time and experience can bring, you learn not to give away all the pieces of yourself that you did in the beginning. You learn to hold back the parts of your brokenness that you don't like talking about. But one day, light will shine on the jagged edges of futures not meant to be, and the right person will fit their equally broken pieces beside yours. Together you will create a future you never imagined could be possible on your own.

Being vulnerable isn't always a horrible thing. It's not always confrontation and facing the big, scary things in your life like they don't scare you. Sometimes it's just letting down your walls and relearning how to be comfortable with people, forming connections and saying, "Hey, shit happens. Let's help each other move past it."

Fear is the Heart of Love.

a note to my past (and present) self

I unearthed this scarf from the basement last night. I made it in winter 2015 after Justin found out I had cheated on him. It’s my first project that I knitted in the round, and it’s twisted and littered with mistakes. Wearing it all day today made me feel a certain kind of way. 

Remembering the tender moments where all of your softness and emotions come spilling out is an exercise in boundary setting. 

I have learned that it's okay to come close to the things that hurt you. 

Get lost in your memories. Sit with the things and the memories that hurt you. But you must remember to come back to your present. Come back to your life here and now. Come back to the people that are here, loving you right now, instead of living with the ghosts of your past in your head. 

Come close to the things that hurt you, but come back when your heart starts to hurt too much.

Don’t be afraid to let it out. Write down your feelings. (And then burn them if you have to.) Cry when you're all alone in the shower. Cook yourself a delicious meal, and take out all the emotions you're feeling on the veggies you're chopping. Call your best friend and have a three-hour catch-up call between kids and life and all the messy things in between. Reach out to your people. They will be there to catch you and lift you up when you are doing the messy work of getting into the mud.

Listen, I know you're tired. I know you're dirty and there's mud caked in your hair and all you want to do is give up and quit and go back to things being "easy."

But you have to keep going. 

The mud is going to swallow you whole for a while. It will consume you and become all you can think about for days and weeks at a time. You can sit there with your phone in your hand, scrolling through Instagram and Twitter and Facebook and back again shaking your head at me, but the stuff that wakes you up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat because you keep dreaming about it is no coincidence. The half flashes of memory that come to you in quiet moments are begging for your attention, inviting you to dive deeper.

You must confront your demons.

The only way to start thriving instead of surviving is to go through your demons instead of shoving your fingers in your ears and screaming, "LA LA LA, I CAN'T HEAR YOU." Your bare bones survival methods are not made to be how you live your entire life. There will come a day where the darkness becomes too much for you to bear. You can't take the solitude and the cold comfort of only your own arms for warmth anymore. You can't take the strange noises and the things that go bump in the night anymore. You will long for the light and passion of connection and community. You will find yourself stumbling around, asking yourself, "How on earth did I get here?"

Eventually, you will take your fingers out of your ears. Your voice will be hoarse from shouting and your arms will hurt from trying to keep everything and everyone else out of your proverbial eardrums. The exhaustion from running away from your problems will overtake all of your senses, little by little, until you have no choice but to fall to your knees in the mud and start the hard work of getting into it.

When you're ready, go all in.

happy november

Some words I wrote on Instagram this morning:

“Being rejected stinks. There’s no sugar coating the feeling of your heart dropping because that little life you envisioned in the gray areas of waiting and transition has suddenly evaporated in the blink of an eye. Now you have a choice to make though... Will you sit back and live a half life inside that bubble in your head, wallowing in the prospect of what could have been? Or will you go have a good cry in the shower and then dance it out and use the yellow towel because it makes you happy? You can surrender to your soft, tender moments where your world feels like it’s caving in. Just remember to pick yourself back up again.”

saturday pep talk

It doesn't matter that yesterday you didn't put on real clothes or leave the house at all. It doesn't matter that work was less than ideal the night before last. It doesn't matter that two people quit tonight. Let the bad stuff go. Today is your fresh start. Today is your Day One, if you need it to be. 

find the joy

Today is the first time that I have been in front of my own camera since 2014. All at once, the feelings of anticipation and nervous excitement from trying to get that perfect shot for my first 365 came rushing back. I texted my best friend after I got home and said, "I have missed taking pictures so much. I feel like I'm seventeen again, and I think I'm going to spend the rest of my life chasing after this feeling. (And the good light!)"

I spent a solid hour and a half in the woods taking pictures tonight. The familiar act of pulling my tripod out of its bag and fumbling for my remote came right back to me like three years haven't passed since I last got in front of the camera. Joy filled my heart as I swooned over the sun and danced in the clearing. Don't forget what this feels like again, I thought. Hold onto this joy and never stop.

Find your joy and then keep doing it forever. I think that's what life is really all about.

three hundred sixty five days

Some words I wrote on Instagram this morning: "You can ask someone to take a chance on you all you want, but you cannot control whether or not other people have the courage to step up to the plate for you. You can control the chances you take on other people. Show up for your people today. I bet they need you more than you think." 

Tomorrow is death day. I can't believe my dad has gone for an entire year. My Waupaca friends and I are road tripping to Burlington tomorrow. Best of both worlds: they get to meet my fam & friends they've heard so much about, we get to go to Adrian's (the entire reason for this road trip), and I get to mesh my two worlds together. I'm hoping tomorrow will be full of laughter and good things. 

take two

I sat on the front stoop to drink my coffee this morning. I stood in front of Tammy's petunia's hanging over the porch railing and tried to make some artsy composition with my coffee cup. Scratch that. I sat on the stoop, drinking my coffee, waiting and looking for something to take my picture of this morning. I came back to the petunias after I finished my coffee, but this time I went the opposite direction. From my perch on the stoop, I lined up the shot, pressed the button, and went back inside. When I pulled up the photo to edit it, I saw the focus was off. It bugged me so much that I went back outside to retake it.

When I showed it to Justin, he said, "You always find beauty in plain sight."

I'm trying to focus on the little things today. Celebrate the little victories. Breathe through the hard things. Remember that the only person you need permission to be happy from is yourself. Most of the time, you are often standing in your own way.

Happy Sunday.

do one thing each day that scares you.

Justin and I were watching Naruto last night and I got inspired by one of Shikamaru's wartime pep talks. I tweeted out, "Write the pep talk that you need to hear." And then proceeded to get engrossed in battle scenes and flashbacks and the ever-present conflict of peace vs. suffering, light vs. dark. 

I woke up this morning in a mood. I was excited to get out of bed right away and drink coffee, but when I actually got up and started thinking about my day, the anxiety beast ensnared my heart. I wrote in my journal. I took my usual morning walk around the yard. I called Justin's dentist about possible dry socket. I went to the grocery store and my heart pounded as I needed to tell the clerk that I needed to put stuff back because I didn't have enough money on me. 

I did things that scare me today and I haven't even gone to work yet. That has to count for something. 

I'm learning that these small moments of courage really add up. 

One step at a time, looking fear in the eyes is getting less scary. One step at a time, telling it to back the hell off is getting less scary. One step at a time, my willpower to say "yes" to the fun stuff is growing stronger again. 

Do one thing that scares you today. 

And then go buy ice cream for a reward! ;)

a birthday present

l e t i t g o

Washing your hair for the first time after you take a lot of it off is always the most surreal thing. I knew my hair wasn't going to be all there, long and tangly anymore once I was ready to rinse my shampoo out and yet I still expected it to be there anyway. 

Cutting my hair never fails to be an important life lesson on letting go. 

I have done so much letting go in the past nine months (since the last time I got my hair cut... an hour before my dad's funeral). Most importantly, I have been grieving and trying to accept the loss of my dad. I still have my days where missing him lays a huge weight on my heart. Those days I am extra gentle with myself—or I try to be, anyway. Grace is never turned away by those who welcome it into their lives. 

I have learned the importance of Asking for Help. I have slowly relearned how to rely on other people after ten years of tearing down and constantly reconstructing emotional walls to keep my insecurities and vulnerabilities tightly bottled inside. 

I lost a parent, but I have really gained an authentic version of myself. I have taught myself how to deal with the hard stuff—the moments we don't post to Instagram. The arguments we start with the people we love over nothing because we're too scared to identify and say out loud what we actually want. The nights you toss and turn in bed, trapped by an anxious brain playing leap frog from one thought to the next. The times you lock yourself in the bathroom just so you can cry for 5 freakin' minutes alone–and then get back out there and keep giving your grace back into the world because your people and your community need you too. 

The vulnerability you are terrified to let go of could mean the difference between you fighting your demons all day long because you refuse to let them go, or fighting off fits of laughter because your friends are hilarious and they will be there for you when you open up. Your fears will become someone else's grace. Your dark parts will be someone else's moment of clarity. The "Oh, you too? I thought I was the only one." that everyone needs in their lives when everything feels like it's falling apart is the best thing you can offer to somebody else. 

Take care of your community. They will help you to take care of yourself when you are stuck in the trenches of your suffering. And then step up to the plate and offer a hand when your community needs help too. 

peaks & valleys

Peaks and valleys is all life is ever made of. Everything ebbs and flows and we are always constantly trying to obtain equilibrium, and every time we are always knocked on our asses because some obstacle always stands in our way. Whether something comes up at home or at work or at school, something will always be obstructing that "so close you can smell it" view of happiness that society and the media have planted in our heads. 

Life is always "in progress." If it wasn't and everything went exactly the way we wanted them to, day in and day out, things would get a little bit boring.

The best example I can think of for this is art. Creative inspiration ebbs and flows like waves lapping against the shoreline. Making breeds making, but sometimes your energy shifts and then you're just in an ebb. Your inspiration will always come back. You will always find your flow again. 

hot showers & pep talks

Yesterday I left my lights on at work. (#gome) Three of my coworkers alternated spending 10 minute shifts with me trying to get my car to start. After almost an hour of standing in the cold, waiting for Starr's dad to come look at my car, I looked around and thought, "God damn it, is this what this is going to feel like every single time something goes wrong with my car from now on?"

I wanted to call my dad and I couldn't. He is not there, on the other of the phone line, waiting to pick up anymore. I took a shower last night and let huge, ugly sobs escape from my chest. I broke down in the most vulnerable way I know how: alone, naked, with myself in the shower. It was how I finally accepted that my first relationship had to end in order to make room for growth. It was how I tried to cope with being 1,000 miles away from a familiar face in college. It was how I reconciled with myself and forgave myself for my young and stupid mistakes. After I forced myself to take deep breaths so I wouldn't have a panic attack, I reminded myself, "It's okay to feel things. It is okay to feel this way. You just miss your dad. You are still grieving, and right now you miss him like hell. It is okay. You are okay."

I realized this last night, while trying to give myself a pep talk: You don't need to listen to your darkness. I stood in the shower and repeated, "You deserve to take care of yourself. You deserve to be clean and take care of your body. You are allowed to be vulnerable." 

I repeated those words until the "You" statements turned into "I" statements. 

I deserve to take care of myself. 

I deserve to be clean and take care of my body. 

I am allowed to be vulnerable. 

I am allowed to be vulnerable. I am allowed to be soft. I am allowed to take up space. I am allowed to think good things about myself and I am allowed to make the choice about what kinds of thoughts I let stay in my head. 

Last night, it was a choice between getting lost in the depression because all I wanted was to just have one more conversation with my dad, or doing what my dad would have done if I had called him. He would have listened to me freak out and then he would have given me a pep talk. A gentle, "I believe in you. You can do this." He taught me how to do that for myself now that he is no longer here. I think that's what all parents want for their children: the ability to pick yourself up when the ones who raised you are not physically there anymore. 

Thankful, beyond thankful, for faith. Faith in love and words and suffering and the power of growth. And for my dad. And for what losing him has taught me about family and the bonds you have with other people. About the time we spent together and the lessons he taught me. They are what I will carry with me for the rest of my life. His legacy, locked away deep in my heart. 

Love you, Dad. Miss you. 

thirty second dance party

Justin and I were watching Naruto: Shippuden last night and episode 210 got to me. I was still thinking about it when I went to bed. How strong memories are and how much the way you remember things vs what actually happened affects you. And then I started thinking "WHY?" in terms of the traumatic things that have occurred in my life. 

My first thought went to Cody, which surprised me at first. But then I realized that the anniversary of the first time "Nice shoes, wanna fuck?" is August 19. AKA right around the corner. It's been 7 months since his three sentence Facebook apology and this is the first time I'm staring an important anniversary in the eye. I don't know how to feel about it.

I don't know whether to be heartbroken for my past self because I remember her hurt, or empowered because it's been ten years and more importantly, I SURVIVED TEN YEARS of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Bad Decisions and Intimacy Issues and Trust Issues and let's not forget the Breakdown Inducing Anxiety. 

I want to tell my past self to put on some red lipstick, stop listening to the acoustic version of Three Cheers for Five Years on repeat, and put on Tegan & Sara. Let go. Dance it out. That has truly been the motto of the last few weeks: Dance It Out. 

It doesn't matter that today is Tuesday and the last time I showered was Friday. That today it was a chore to drag myself out of bed just to be sad in the chair. That somehow I found the motivation to go to the grocery store. I sat in my car in the parking lot, pulled up "Where Does the Good Go?" on YouTube and danced it out in my car when I was done. 

The ins and outs of why things happen don't matter in the long run, I've realized. What matters is how you get through it. 

ch-changes

It's a season for change. I can feel it. 

My mom tore down the garage that has stood in the backyard of my childhood home for almost 50 years today. Seeing all the demo pictures on Facebook tonight made me wonder "What would my grandma say if she were here?"

I worked an unexpected 12 hour day. I knew it was already a long day when I started thinking about taking a nap when I got home after lunch rush today. Little did I know, the closer no call no showed and left me scrambling to find someone to come in to cover. I clocked in at 6:56 this morning and finally clocked out at 6:52 pm.

Remember when I actually had a sleep schedule? That's all about to change too. Lately, work has had me mostly on first shift with maybe a couple of closes every few weeks to cover when people request off on inconvenient days. It seems right now that I'm going to be transitioning back to second shift again like I was all last summer. 

I'm realizing more and more lately that life is really just a series of patterns. You find them, you adjust to them, and then something happens that blows everything apart and you have to start all over again. It's frustrating, yes. It's sometimes (mostly) inconvenient to you, yes. You're frustrated and exhausted and all you want to do is hide in bed with Gilmore Girls on Netflix & a plate of microwave nachos. (Trust me on this one, this was exactly the picture of me yesterday.)

Turn off the tv. Get out of bed. Wash your face and brush your teeth. Go carve out your new patterns. If you're overwhelmed, take it one step at a time. Don't let the anxiety yelling at you in your head stop you from taking the steps you need to take to find your stable ground again. 

You can do this. 

I believe in you. 

Have faith. xo

fear & ice cream

Last week, I took Justin to the dentist. His teeth have been bad since before we got together. Recently, I had to take Justin to the emergency room because of an infection deep in his mouth. It was Sunday so we couldn't get to the dentist. Justin looked at me and said, "Enough is enough. Can you start looking for a dentist?"

Because Justin is exhausted from constantly dealing with the pain from his teeth. From having constant anxiety of something getting stuck in them and causing an infection. From having his life revolve around his teeth. He is being so brave and I am so proud of him. 

Justin and I went to DQ after the dentist. That may seem like a walking contradiction, but it’s a tradition my mom started with me after I did something that scared me. Got shots at the doctor? Let’s go get ice cream. First therapy appointment? Let’s go get ice cream. Moving out? Buy all your favorite flavors at Adrian’s and have a frozen custard party. (Because at that point, it felt like sacrilege to go anywhere but Adrian's.) 

I wanted to share this tradition with Justin because it means a lot to me. It means closeness and vulnerability and "You are not alone in this." It means sharing the hard parts of yourself—your fears and if you stay to fight them or if you pull the blanket over your eyes and pretend everything is fine. It means adding another strand in the unbreakable bond between you and your people. (And you get ice cream out of the deal!)

As Mei Ratz says, "Nervous means do it." So get out there and do it. Face your fears, unmask the ugly parts of yourself, tell your people how much you need them and how much you love them. And then dry your tears and go get ice cream. 

#babevibes

Be delicate. Be soft. Be vulnerable. Get as uncomfortable as you can stand to be and still fight your battles. You'll love yourself more, I promise. And then you'll have something you never knew you had: strength. 

my first mini book

Supplies used: computer paper, Sharpie markers, Excel X-acto knife, scissors, craft paint, cone wrapper from my trip to Adrian's, masking tape for binding 

I was in a mood yesterday, where I was just stressed to the nines and it felt like I wasn't accomplishing anything I needed to, so I went into my office and started cutting paper. I needed to give myself a pep talk to pick myself up, and thus this mini book was born. 

I drew inspiration from Elise Cripe's mini book selection and processes, and gathered some of my pep talks from her and from Kara Haupt's #karawroteherselfanote hashtag on Instagram. 

I used an old torn out journal cover for the size template and cut out 15 pages. I ended up using 13 of them to make this little book. The whole book is 4.5x6.5 inches. 

All together I think it took me about 6 or 7 hours to make this, and I love it.