Highlights

Posted in Life, Series by C.

day21ATG

{Day 21: A year old & still going strong. My version of those elusive ruby-red slippers, circa 2014.}

TGIF! This has been a long week. There’s much going on as of late, particularly on the career-front and I’m loving the challenge. I get bored rather easily, so it’s always nice when a change of pace is in the works. I’m being pushed to think more creativity and critically about the process of storytelling, while brushing up on some of my post-production skills, and learning about a whole new subject matter. Needless to say, it’s going to be a busy next couple of weeks. Unfortunately, I haven’t been feeling too great over the last couple of days so I know it’s the universe’s way of telling me to slow down and get some rest. This is exactly what I intend to do this weekend. I don’t have any plans and that’s precisely how it’s going to stay.

It’s now day 25 on the 100 Happy Days challenge. Here are my favorite images/moments since we last caught-up.

Have a nice weekend.

Day18ATG

{Day 18: A rare Friday out attending the L.A. Theatre Works performance of Henrik Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People.” It was fantastic.}

p.s. The L.A. Theatre Works hold lives performances in front of an audience of top-notch actors dramatically performing some of the most renowned plays ever written. They are audio recorded and made available online for download or you can tune in every Thursday night on KPFK 90.7 FM in Los Angeles. See full schedule for times in your area. I encourage you to check them out. It’s pretty cool.

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{Day 19: The LA Times Festival of Books. Read more here.}

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{Day 24: Ready for the Scandal season finale last night!}

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{Day 23: My first ever Naked Juice green protein smoothie in an effort to combat how not so great I was feeling this week. It’s quite yummy. I could feel the health flowing through me!}

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{Day 22: Indie films on Tuesdays nights. Recently saw David Gordon Green’s new film, Joe. It won’t make my top 10 of the year, but interesting nonetheless.}

11Apr2014

Highlights

Posted in Life, Series by C.

Day13ATG

{ #1 – Day 13: Farmers’ market happy.}

One of the things that I love about this time of year, is how much I look forward to being outdoors. One of my favorite ways to spend a weekend afternoon is a walk along the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica (frozen yogurt in hand, of course) while window shopping, people watching, and gazing at the ocean in the distance.

And when I can muster up the strength to get out of bed early enough before it gets too hot outside and the trails too crowded, a hike is always something I like doing that I wish I did more of, but find myself preferring to sleep in, taking a more leisurely approach to my weekend mornings. And yet, when the beach is involved (my absolute favorite thing to do on warm weekends) it seems much easier to get out of bed bright and early to grab a good spot on the sand. Somehow that whole exercise part of hiking hinders me more than lazily sitting on the beach with a book. (Hey, it’s the California girl in me.)

A ritual that seems to reoccur around this time of year and through the summer months is finding myself on Sunday mornings even doing my grocery shopping outdoors for the week’s produce at the local farmers’ market. Though the farmers’ market goes on all year, there’s something about the next few months that find me particularly more excited to stock-up on fresh strawberries, lettuce, and my other addiction (besides lattes and Hot Tamales) freshly made, still warm in the bag kettle corn.

Last Sunday found me at the farmers’ market for the first time in months not only due to the amazing weather, but because this is the time of year when strawberries and other types of produce taste better. It’s certainly more of a process gathering groceries for the week at the farmers’ market than making my structured weekly trip to Trader Joe’s, but I like the atmosphere that comes with buying from local merchants – there’s a relaxation to it that you just don’t find walking the aisles of the grocery store.

Reflecting back on this week, the highlights were largely based off that one trip to the farmers’ market. I smiled to myself often as I chopped up my salads, made smoothies for breakfast using fresh strawberries, and happily snacked on Kettle corn while blogging or watching TV. It’s something that I hope to continue to do.

It’s supposed to be another sunny, but more temperate weekend ahead. There’s plenty going on around town this weekend, but I have a rather long to-do list, so I don’t know how much I’ll be able to squeeze in. The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books event starts tomorrow through Sunday at USC and the bookworm in me has always wanted to go and check out the festivities: exhibits, talks, poetry readings, live music, and of course be around books for an entire afternoon!

I’m starting the weekend with a very rare visit to (*in my best British accent*) “The Theater.” My boyfriend scored free tickets to a play in Westwood tonight, making it a welcome change of pace to our otherwise more typical boring Friday nights in watching Shark Tank.

I’m now on day 18 of the 100 Happy Days Challenge still going strong. My top 5 favorite photos since we last talked are also other random highlights of life lately.

I hope you all have a good weekend!

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{#2 – Day 16: I’m becoming fast friends with the Barista at my go to morning coffee spot. My iced latte was served more decoratively than usual, much to my delight.}

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{#3 – Day 14: I finally bought a new fun polka dot notebook to keep handy to jot down blogging ideas no matter where I am!}

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{#4 – Day 17: A new straw clutch for spring. And it doubles as a cross-body. Win, Win.}

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{#5 -Day 15: Fresh farmers’ market strawberries. Smoothies and Belgian waffles were especially delish this week.}

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4Apr2014

Highlights

Posted in Life, Series by C.

{Day 8: The sun, the clouds, blue skies, and fresh clean air after an unexpected overnight rainfall.}

I can’t believe I’m already penning another Highlights post – this week flew by! And what a week it was. Knock on wood, things are going well in life. I can’t complain (well, I can always find something to complain about – ha!).

I think what has been a fun addition to life lately, is partaking in the 100 Happy Days Challenge. I’m on day 11 today, posting the challenge exclusively to Twitter and I’m adoring it. Not only for the challenge of completing 100 straight days of posting (because we all know I love a challenge), but because it forces me to find something happy to post about. It’s pretty funny, how I stop a few times a day and ask myself what my “#100happydays” post will be for that day.

I’m not too surprised at how easy it is to find one thing a day that brings a smile to my face. In part, this is why I started blogging to begin with. As a blogger, you’re always looking for inspiration and ideas for posts, forcing you to pay attention to the world around you, go out and interact with said world, look for what speaks to you, and write about it. It’s also specifically why I started the “Highlights” series, where I share the highlights of my week. So the idea of joining this challenge is icing on the cake. While blogging forces perspective, it doesn’t have to always be in the good or the positive necessarily, you can write about something that gets under your skin or you disagree with altogether, and that’s awesome too.

However, this challenge is strictly in the happy only. So the last 11 days find me constantly looking for what that might be, snapping a quick photo (sometimes slapping a sexy filter over it), and sharing it with people from all over the world.

It’s also fascinating to follow the “#100happydays” posts on Twitter and Instagram to see what others are posting. As expected, it’s usually in the small things: indulging in ice cream, appreciating a cup of tea, spending time with a loved one, starting a new book, going jogging (though I don’t personally see anything happy about that!); or a little bigger: booking travel, dyeing your hair pink and green (no joke), and I even saw someone post a picture of an ice pack after some sort of mishap (still, no joke).

In effect, it’s nice to see people from all walks of life looking for the good, capturing it, and spreading the joy. It’s quite infectious.

You’ll likely start seeing many of my “#100happydays” posts as apart of my Highlights blog posts because some of the moments captured will likely also be Highlights of my week, naturally. As I move toward my 3rd week on the challenge, I thought I would share my top 5 “#100happydays” photos thus far.

Have a great weekend! And do let me know if you’re taking the challenge, I’d love to follow you.

{Day #1: Just because flowers from my guy are always the best kind of flowers.}

{Day #9: Still loving my Gosia Meyer single initial delicate necklace, a little gift to myself earlier this year. It’s one of my favorite pieces.}

{Day 4: A memorable afternoon spent visiting the Journey of a Dress exhibition, celebrating 40 years of DVF’s iconic wrap-dress. Full post to come next week – this was too much fun! Stay tuned.}

{Day 10: All about these tofu soft tacos (and I don’t even eat tofu).}

28Mar2014

Highlights & Milestones

Posted in Blogs, Life by C.

{Screenshot from my phone of when I hit my Twitter milestone.}

I started blogging August 1st, 2012 and it’s been quite a journey. I won’t go into much detail today about what I’ve learned thus far, that’s a post for another day, but I do want to talk about milestones. Suffice to say that for reasons mentioned here, I spent the bulk of my start doubting myself – a really nasty side effect when you’re a total perfectionist like I am. I wanted things to be perfect before I started promoting my site, particularly when you see the competition out there. I mean, there are some really great blogs in the world.

I’ve always been a writer in one form or another since I was really young. I had a passion for words and stories. I fondly recall making outlines for murder mysteries when I was a kid. I even remember sitting at our family computer (on Windows 95!) for hours writing chapters for a fictional novel. I kept journals on-and-off for years, and wrote another private blog just a few years before All That Glitters that I never told anyone about (though I guess I just did now).

When I was younger, I wanted to be a journalist and study journalism in college. I actually ended up in film school, but I that’s a long story. What’s pretty funny thinking back as I write this, is that out of all the cinematography, editing, and technical classes I took in film school, the classes that I loved most where either in screenwriting or film theory (which required a lot of interpretive writing about film – combining my love of writing with my love of cinema).

I had always been consistently told time and time again by my teachers and professors that I was a great writer. (This is not to brag, just to emphasize a point to come.)

So, writing wasn’t what held me back in the beginning, it was more or less learning about the “business” of blogging: how to make yourself stand out in a crowd of millions, how to promote yourself, how to develop an aesthetic and tone, how to shoot and edit more visually appealing photographs, how to create a blogging schedule, and most importantly, how develop engaging content (which takes more than being a good writer). Ultimately, it was these aspects that I was looking to perfect first and then put myself out there – what in the world was I thinking? Learning is all apart of the process when cultivating a hobby. Realistically, I know that there can’t be perfection, but you can learn to fine tune this train of thought into becoming more experienced, rather than perfect.

The point is that it’s an on-going learning process and one, that if you’re doing it right, will always be. If you’re perfect at something, then there’s no where for you to grow and wouldn’t that be kind of boring after a while?

What still surprises me out of the nearly 300 posts that I’ve written, is that the post where I took the plunge, bought a domain name, and shared a bit of my blogging journey at 10 months, is still my most commented post to-date. I got comments from many bloggers saying that they were going through the exact same thing. There’s that gentle reminder again that we’re all more alike than we think.

Yet, I have a confession to make. Yes, I did become more active in networking with other bloggers and building a community after that post – but no I can’t say that I was giving 110%. I started blogging as a hobby and initially, promoting my site after that post felt like work.

(I already have a full-time job, thank you!)

So while I kept blogging and sharing content, loosely networking with other bloggers, a more solid effort could have been made on my part. Some of that was due to my perfectionism trying to make my site more “perfect,” some just due to sheer laziness (it’s A LOT of work to promote anything – I don’t care what it is), some due to time constraints, but mostly because I wasn’t truly using the resources available to me.

I knew I wasn’t where I should be having been blogging for nearly 2 years! Let me preface that this was okay with me because it was (and is) just a hobby for the time being, but for some reason as of late, I wanted to take things to the next level.

So the biggest highlight of my week is blogging-related, when I made the conscious decision to really start networking more strongly and consistently with up-and-coming bloggers. I wanted to educate myself through other bloggers and blogging websites as well. I also set two milestones: 1.) more followers on Twitter, and 2.) more page views on any given day.

I met both milestones.

I doubled my Twitter following in a week and a half! The page views on my site have seen an improvement, and I was a Blogionaire on March 14th making it a great day on All That Glitters.

I hit my goal of 100 Twitter followers (and am now even over that!). To some this may seem pretty laughable, because if I really want to promote my site I need to be in the thousands, but the reason that I’m sharing this milestone is because it’s a testament to what you can do when you set your goal and go for it. No, my Google Analytics aren’t stellar by any means, but baby steps are okay. Blogging is supposed to be fun and it wouldn’t be for me if I got too wrapped up in those types of numbers.

I do often wonder how much further along I would be had I done what my original plan was. That plan was to blog for a month (to test commitment and build content first) and then start actively promoting it. This never happened. It took a year before I REALLY put All That Glitters out there and since I’m still writing about it – it’s taken even longer than that.

What I can tell you as I’m learning how to navigate the world of promotion more seriously on social media specifically, is that Twitter has been the biggest and best resource to meet others and build a following. Facebook is A way, but not THE way. In fact, I only keep a Facebook page for those who prefer to use this medium to follow me, otherwise, I’d likely cancel it. Twitter is much more open and active when it comes to networking – hearing from a complete stranger is common and welcomed, jumping into the middle of a Twitter chat or Twitter party does wonders, and those annoying hash-tags (#) and retweets actually do something!

Though I consciously realize that there is no such thing as “perfect,” I suppose I have to accept that this is just part of who I am. I’ve been this way my whole life and it won’t likely change overnight. Admittedly, I like this about myself. It pushes me to always want to do and be better. However, I’m aiming to remind myself to seek experience over perfection, while still doing what works for me.

Given where I am in life right now, what works is publishing 3 times a week (as opposed to everyday as I did when I first started…and burned out quickly trying to keep up with others); spending time connecting with other bloggers (more so in consistency than in quantity to really get to know them); using the resources available to me; continuing to learn tips and tricks (because believe it or not, marketing is a game, and you have to learn how to play); and finally, writing about the things that I love.

The best advice I read recently was from another very successful blogger on emerging industries and her advice was to “write the blog you want to read.” I can’t think of a more simple way to alleviate perfectionism in any creative endeavor. If you would read it, then that’s good enough. If you would eat it, then that’s good enough. If you would wear it, then that’s good enough. It’s really all you can do.

I don’t know where the site will take me. Perhaps blogging will always remain just a hobby – though it’s truly growing into an industry onto itself with lots of career opportunities if you can seize them.

No matter what happens, these 2 years so far have taught me skills that will carry me down any path I choose and I think setting milestones is the best way to keep moving forward.

Thanks for indulging a rather lengthy post today and please share a comment on how you deal with the 3 P’s: perfecting, promoting, and publishing in this crazy world we call blogging.

Have a magical weekend!

I’m off to hit my next milestone…

26Mar2014

Inspired. Again.

Posted in Inspiration by C.

There are those days where things just don’t seem to fall into place from the moment you step out of bed. You woke up late, stubbed your toe, the coffee machine breaks, you can’t find your favorite shirt, every other car on the road feels the need to cut you off for some reason (and then give you “the bird”), your computer greets you with tons of emails (some less than pleasant in tone), and when lunchtime rolls around – only then do you realize that you forgot your wallet at home. “Ugh. It’s going to be one of those days,” you think.

Then are those days where everything is just fine on the surface, you can’t complain – you have a roof over your head and food in the fridge. You’re working toward something, dreaming, and believing in whatever aspirations are important to you. And yet somehow you still feel like you’re going in one big circle in life, while others seemingly run laps around you, moving faster, sweating less (those bastards!). 🙂

I’ve come to learn that there are all kinds of days. Some good, some not so good, some life altering, but many in the middle. What has always helped guide my perspective, despite the type of day that I’m having, is collecting quotes. For half my life now I’ve always kept a collection containing advice that I’ve heard or read and written down; but in more recent times, an image with just the right words that I came across that resonated with me and started collecting them online. (Thank god for Pinterest.)

I wrote a post like this last summer and thought today is a good day to share more of my favorite quotes with you, perhaps turning “Inspired” into a new series for the blog. What I always (ALWAYS) appreciate no matter what mood I’m in: is good life advice, words of encouragement, and wisdom from others that uplift and motivate you to live better and be better.

Considering these words even exist to share, is a gentle reminder that we’re all in the same battle if you think about it – perhaps at different rankings, fighting on different fronts for different causes, but ultimately for the same end-goal. I think that goal is to have lived life to the fullest in whatever capacity that means to the individual.

So if any, or all, of these bring a smile to your face, or give you an ounce of encouragement and motivation to see the beauty in whatever is going on in your world – no matter how you started or ended the day – then I’ve used my blog and done good.

Here’s to inspiration…

1-Blend #1 1-Blend #2redo

21Mar2014

Highlights

Posted in Life by C.

highlights balboa lake

{Lake Balboa at sunset.}

The best thing about this time of year is daylight for a few extra hours after work. There’s something so motivating in that to me. When I leave the office and it’s still bright outside, I’m inspired to be active. Oh, who am I kidding? It also vainly helps that “legs weather:” shorts, dresses, and skirts, start in 3,2,1…

Admittedly, when it’s dark at 5:30pm after a long day, the last thing I want to do is hit the gym. Between that and the holidays (where all you do is eat anyway), I inevitably start slacking on exercise in favor of my couch. I mean, it’s so much more gratifying to head home, wrap yourself in a blanket, and eat dinner in front of the TV, right? Trust me, this train of thought doesn’t give me solace on the nights that I do opt to do this. The point is, no matter how much I try to talk myself out of it, I always feel better after a sweat session.

Fast forward to Monday evening, and on one of the few nights a week I spend alone, and I didn’t want to simply go home and veg. I wanted to be outside, to feel the remnants of a sunny day on my face, be around something beautiful, and just move my body. I got home, quickly threw on a t-shirt, some leggings, and sneakers and out I went. I mean, I didn’t even sit down and have a glass of water. I knew that if I did, it might be hard to get back up.

highlights sneakers

{Sneakers are on!}

Not only did it feel nice to get out and move, breathe in some fresh air (while trying not to choke on all the gnats flying around), but watching the sun set over Lake Balboa (pictured above) was the icing on the cake – and one of the highlights of my week. While I’m a pretty health conscious person, and aim to make the right diet choices (but if you put a french fry in front of me, I’m eating it!), there’s certainly room for improvement. I’m making the choice to use the official change to spring temperatures, the extra daylight, and the vanity of “leg weather” to do better and to be better.

Here are a few more highlights from my week – interestingly food/beverage specific…so I clearly have some work to do! Have an amazing, motivating weekend. Get outside and grab some fresh air if you can! xx

italian soda

{Enjoying my first peach Italian Soda this year, and Essie’s “Watermelon” nail polish.}

spring lunch

{Veggies for lunch + a book outside = a perfect mid-day break.}

shorter hair

{A little hair chop feels good. The selfie in the car (since I hate taking pictures), debatable.}

“You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming.”
― Pablo Neruda

17Mar2014

With Gratitude…

Posted in Life by C.

with gratitude - atg

{Saturday mornings.}

You couldn’t have asked for a more gorgeous LA weekend! We just might skip spring altogether and head straight into summer at the rate that we’re going. No kidding boys and girls, my air-conditioning was on most of the day on Sunday to combat 90° temperatures just outside my door.

While it turned out be a rather lazy weekend as to be expected, I did manage to get out and have one of the best deep tissue massages I’ve EVER had (I’m still slightly sore from the “work-out” Pietro gave me, but I literally floated through the rest of the day I was so relaxed). After a successful stop at Trader Joe’s (meaning I actually found a parking space without having to growl at anyone), then an all too successful stop at Target for the essentials (and those not so much, because, hey – it’s Target)! I was on track for an amazing weekend.

And yet, though the sun was shining and I had everything I needed around me, I couldn’t shake this small funk I found myself in on Sunday for reasons I won’t bore you with. Nothing in particular happened (though as I write this, I can pinpoint where things took a turn Saturday afternoon). I suppose it’s just the ebb and flow of being human. We must embrace the highs with the lows and not beat ourselves up over it.

I know the best thing to do when you feel yourself slipping into a pity party for one, is to stop, take a deep breath, and focus on the good. It’s not exactly helping that it’s also Monday – you know, my favorite day of the week (enter sarcasm). I thought I would start the week with 10 things (large and small and in random order) that I’m grateful for at the moment to shake things up, lift this nasty funk, and get me back to the light.

With gratitude for…

Everything about the picture above from Saturday morning. French toast with fresh-cut strawberries, eggs with avocado, and an iced coffee I made for breakfast. Add in my kindle on “Chapter One” of a new read I’ve been waiting over a month to start (because I was #22 in line on the holds list at the library forever) and I couldn’t have been happier.
The universe put a sweet guy in my life (and he made me dinner on Saturday AND Sunday AND brought me macaroons for dessert).
Steady employment (always a good thing and in the industry I actually studied in college – go figure!).
Essie’s “Watermelon” nail polish. My at home mani/pedi over the weekend have my nails ready for spring.
My health! Duh. (This should probably have come up sooner on the list).
My “little” brother. He’s not exactly little anymore (though he always will be to me). Who knew the little guy following me around bugging me all day, everyday, incessantly as a kid would turn out to be a best friend?
All I have to do is think back to the days when all I wanted was a car to go anywhere my heart desired. I watched with much envy in high school as friends of mine got that freedom much sooner than I did because I couldn’t afford a car. Hands down, this is STILL one of the best parts about being an adult: having a car I LOVE to drive with a full tank of gas to go anywhere I want…and I don’t even have to ask.
Hot Tamales (yes, you read that right).
The art of cinema, my obsession.
Blogging. At this moment, that funk that I was in when I started this post has somehow, someway…just evaporated.

Let’s not forget the small things and live in gratitude. It’s the only way. Have a great week!

Love & Light,

Candi

14Mar2014

Highlights

Posted in Life by C.

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{A scene from my desk, currently.}

Not a bad week here, which is always a good thing to report. I find myself ready to embrace the change of seasons. Though the weather is already channeling Spring, I can’t believe that it’ll officially be here 6 days from now. I’m so ready.

The highlights of life lately were in the small things that celebrate the warm sunny days ahead: a new pair of sandals in a cheerful color (and on serious sale!), bright flowers around my apartment, and enjoying juicy sweet strawberries for the first time in months among them.

Being on a budget (as always) makes it hard to really go after all the ways that I’d like to celebrate the arrival of Spring, but I’m happy with these small inexpensive pleasures to start. Of course, there are other ways to enjoy the days of spring for free and that’s outdoors: walks around Balboa Lake, hikes to the Hollywood Sign, and lazy days on the beaches of Malibu.

It’s expected to be a quiet weekend on my end. I’m looking forward to starting a new read on my Kindle and running those rather mundane errands that you tend to have to do on Saturdays, but will dedicate some time for an at home mani/pedi. The one thing about this time year is that you have to be a bit more attentive to those toes when wearing sandals. Unquestionably, what I’m beyond excited about this weekend is finally cashing in on a Groupon I purchased awhile back for a deep tissue massage. It’ll literally be my first professional massage in two years! Massages where one of those heavenly indulgences I gave up when I moved into my own place and had to cut back on expenses. I can’t even describe the joy.

Happy weekend!

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{In love with these Kelsi Dagger sandals. An unusual color choice for me, but I’m feeling very “Spring” at the moment.}

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{More gorgeous flowers from Trader Joe’s around the house.}

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{The model from Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel currently on display at the Arclight in Hollywood.}

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{There’s nothing like California sunshine.}

7Mar2014

Highlights

Posted in Life by C.

Screenshot_2014-01-24-09-04-56

{Shhh! But don’t tell anyone.}

Happy Friday, All! Is it just me or was this like the looongest week everrrr? And yet, I can’t believe it’s MARCH already. On top of that, it seems like everyone is getting sick, and the total germaphobe in me finds me being completely comfortable taking a more anti-social approach to life for the time being. I’m avoiding sick people like the plague, I’ve had enough health drama this year!

This is where I share a bit of superficial, yet great news… my life is filled with lattes once again (though decaf and not daily…I’m easing my way back in). Thank GOD, the lingering annoyance with my stomach has been improving. I know I need to continue to take it easy to give my body a chance to fully heal – but man, did that first iced latte put a pep in my step. It’s the small things.

I’m going to keep it short today. I’m looking forward to a weekend filled with bacon for breakfast, 80 degree weather (be jealous), a good book, and a splurge on something I want (not something I need). What that is, I don’t quite know yet. All I know is I feel like celebrating. Things are looking up!

Don’t forget to spring forward on Saturday night before bedtime. Sunshine filled days and 7:30pm sunsets are just around the corner again.

Have a good weekend…

latte

{My first latte in what felt like forever. And yes, I reveled in it.}

rain

{Taking a moment to watch a rare rainy day.}

sunset

{…then an amazing sunset the next.}

5Mar2014

You Can’t Eat Beauty

Posted in Inspiration by C.

Believe it or not, I can remember a time before the introduction of that little thing we call “the internet” made its way into the common household. I can’t even imagine what life would be like today if I couldn’t simply jump on-line to stay in touch with friends near and far with a simple Facebook “like,” email, or Google Hangouts session; check traffic to plan my way around town; catch-up on current events; pay a bill; peruse the blogosphere; or find nothing less than inspiration (overload) on Pinterest.

What has to be one of the most powerful things about the world wide web as I see it, is not only the ease of accessing any bit of information with the click of a mouse, but how we can share wisdom, what we’ve learned as we navigate through our days, never knowing how our message impacts those who find it in cyberspace.

On a rather ordinary Monday evening, I stumbled across this video in my Facebook news-feed of a recent speech from Lupita Nyong’o at the Essence Black Women in Hollywood Luncheon as she accepted an award for Best Breakthrough Performance. As I’d come to expect since following her career, I was prepared to hear her speak eloquently and thoughtfully. But THIS, I did not expect. Her take on how she’s learned to find beauty in herself in a world that traditionally celebrates pale skin and light eyes, floored me.

I’ve watched this video at least 4 different times now and it gets me every single time. I’ve shared it on Facebook, Twitter, and decided to dedicate some space on my blog today to spread the word on what has to be one the most poignant, profound, yet simple messages I’ve ever heard on the subject of beauty.

I can’t stop thinking about it.

Of course, we all want to look and feel our best. Essentially, we just want to be our best. And I don’t personally think that there’s anything wrong with that. However, the pressure to fit into a mold is where we need to learn to draw the line. Eight words from her mother and years spent reflecting on them before she found her way, was all it took. Lupita shares her story in the short clip below.

It’s moments like this that make that little thing we call “the internet” more than just a tool to make the day-to-day easier or a source for staying connected while equally creating disconnection. It’s moment’s like this that make the world wide web not such a big place after all.