This past weekend, my hubby and I celebrated our one-year wedding anniversary. It has been an eventful year with many ups and downs, through our move to Colorado, unemployment and job searching, financial stress, and establishing our lives in a new city. It’s also been a growing experience in learning how to lean on and depend on one another, and realizing that’s okay. One thing about marriage that’s been really special for me is becoming each other’s family. Before that binding commitment, I always felt the need to maintain my independence and keep a tiny part of myself still guarded. There is a special bond and trust that exists with family members, and adding your spouse to that group creates a new kind of connection. I feel like I’ve gained a partner in life, and that we are building our own identity as a little family here in CO.

To celebrate, we visited Crested Butte for the weekend, which is called the “last original mountain town,” due to its ban on chains and focus on all local businesses. It’s a fairly small town in a country valley, surrounded by mountains in every direction. Time moves more slowly in Crested Butte, and the colors of surrounding nature are like nothing you’ve ever seen before. The iPhone pics don’t even do it justice.

We had a wonderful weekend hiking, relaxing, and flying by the seat of our pants!

Dusk on our last evening

Our exhausted baby after a day of hiking – check out those rocks!

Looking back on our big day one year ago brings back the fondest memories, which were captured by my dear friend and amazing photographer, Jennifer Reeves. View more of her work here. Also, her beautiful photos landed us on a few wedding websites (below) and in an upcoming bridal magazine issue. She’s the real deal!

The Knot

Borrowed and Blue

Midwest Bride

Here’s to many more years of adventure!

I would call my memory of childhood a vague one. Unfortunately, most of my vivid memories are tarnished by a family situation, and somehow seemed to consume that allotted space in my brain and push out the happier, less important ones. As a result, I’ve found in my adult years that I have significantly fewer memories of childhood than my friends and family. I figured the most likely situation was just something specific to my brain, whatever that may be, until my younger brother (and only sibling) expressed the same discovery to me only about a year ago. He brought it up to me in casual conversation and said he feels like he “can’t remember anything compared to other people” and attributed it to the dark cloud that unfortunately shadowed many years of our young lives. I was surprised at how much I struggled to recall a childhood memory of a “happy place” or a place that I felt at peace when I sat to write this post. As I thumbed through the files of my mind, a memory popped out at me and I could recall the details so clearly. It was as if I was almost standing there again in that spot. I contemplated for awhile about why this memory had stuck with me, and I still don’t have an answer. Nothing significant happened in that place and time, but something significant must have taken place in my mind.

It was dusk as I stood at the end of the gravel road near my grandfather’s shed. The rest of the family was in the house just 100 feet from me, but I was completely alone in that space. Not lonely, just alone in the quiet. If you’ve ever spent time out in the vast country amongst fields and farms, you know the profound silence and stillness that you can experience. I saw nothing move around me and heard nothing in those few minutes of reflection. I remember staring up at the sky, and realizing it was vaster and wider out there than I had ever seen. The shade of blue immaculate and constant, until reaching the orange and pink clouds gathering over the setting sun in the west. The sun could no longer be seen from my viewpoint, but the radiating dark orange light signaled its departure. The day was closing in a beautiful and graceful manner, and I was just one little morsel standing there. The crisp cool air of the fall brought a sense of lightness to my being. I had no breakthrough revelation, just a deep experience of peace as I felt my existence in those few beautiful moments.

My mind nowadays is so busy and full of emotion, that I can’t imagine being able to experience such a feeling of peace and ease again. All of the clutter disappeared standing there on my grandparents’ drive and I felt complete comfort. No movement, no trouble, no hurry. I was free to just be.

I’m making a commitment to myself to have more moments like these. However I can find that peace, those times are so important to refocusing ourselves and appreciating the gift of life.

As a kid, my hands were message boards. Every day I had some kind of reminder drawn onto the back of my hand, whether it was a school reminder, a personal motto that I was striving for, or a drawing that lifted my spirits. I temporarily inked my hands to bring my focus back to some idea throughout the busy day. Once I realized how juvenile this looked in college and how much it clashed with my new bracelet, I broke the habit. For many years now, I’ve kept reminders on post-it notes, a digital list, or as the wallpaper of my cell phone.

While I would not encourage someone to tattoo their grocery list on their bicep, many people use permanent ink as an eternal reminder of their personal mottos, lessons, or beliefs. Although I don’t have a tat myself, I believe in the importance of surrounding yourself with daily reminders of the person you want to be. We have the freedom to express ourselves individually through our fashion, our homes, and our other surroundings. Whether an object speaks to your heart in a deep and personal way or is simply a material item that you enjoy looking at, we paint the world closest to us in our own colors.

This necklace originated as a playful gift from my husband, who knows me all too well, but has a deeper importance to me. While “Like a Boss” is a light-hearted phrase, every time I clasp it around my neck, I’m reminded to be confident in myself and my abilities. I look in the mirror and remember the kind of person that I want to be and prepare myself to conquer my own little corner of the world. Since I’ve often battled with self-esteem and confidence, it’s a fun (and super cute) way to lift my spirits and make me smile.

Sometimes it’s the simplest of things that knock us back on track and re-focus us in the busy, stressful life that surrounds us.

Necklace from Etsy here.

Recently, I’ve been taking on the daunting task of switching over my closet to my spring and summer wardrobe. I’m about halfway through because you never know what the early spring weather is going to bring — today I’m working outside in shorts and flip-flops, and Thursday we are expecting snow! Mother Nature is so moody sometimes…

Beyond my clothes, I think of the change of seasons as a time for a beauty refresh. It’s time to bust out the shimmery eyeshadows and nude lipsticks that had to be separated from my pasty white skin all winter. This year I also decided to freshen up my look even further by changing my hair. I’ve never been a fan of doing anything drastic with my hair and prefer an overall-natural look. Luckily, the newest color trend in salon is balayage.

Balayage = hair painting

Loving my new color!

Balayage is a hair technique where the highlights are hand-painted on by the stylist, sans foil. The stylist scatters the highlights throughout the hair, often focusing lightness around the face, to create a more natural look than the linear pattern followed in standard foil highlighting. Balayage also follows the ombre-like technique of beginning the highlight a few inches from the root, to again create a soft, sun-kissed look. This also means that there are no glaring dark roots and less upkeep!

Overall, it’s a great option for the beauty girl who wants to brighten up her look, while maintaining her natural “I woke up like this” style.