She Likes Purple

Thanks + Thoughts

Thank you for all the kind comments and emails, after my hard announcements that the Lush sites would be (sort of) closing this week. (I say sort of because I absolutely intend to pay to host them until forever, so we can access all that wonderfulness long after this Friday.) I've felt a lot of love since Friday, and I hope the other writers have too. It feels like a part of my family is scattering away from me, and that's scary and sad, but all the love and support from the readers (and the writers, too) make the scattering feel less scary and more exciting. We have new things ahead of us! The goodbye is bittersweet, but as my smart friend Caitlin said, it's mostly sweet and that's a good time to walk away.

You know how some people exclaim that this will be the year (whatever year it happens to be) when they say yes more? Yes to ziplining! Yes to mid-week dinner plans! Yes to new groups and activities and intimidating opportunities! Well, ask anyone who knows me, and I have saying yes down. I say yes a lot, to a lot of different things. (Including ziplining, which I can assure you I'll never say yes to AGAIN so help me.) While this isn't necessarily a bad thing--oh the beautiful things I've gotten to do because of this quality of mine--I think 2013 is unfolding as the year I say yes slightly less often. Or, say yes to much slower, calmer things. Yes to more books, to cooking, to closing my laptop when I get home so I can be at home.

I hope all this newfound time inspires me to share new and different things here, I really do like this space a lot, but I also hope this time just gives me a little extra breathing room. It's what I'm looking forward to most, more time to breathe.

Still, this week has been tough. (I hope you're reading all our last posts, please say yes.) I expect next week to be a little tough, too. Change, man. It's kind of weird, with all its possibilities and fresh starts and "the best is yes to come"s while also being a total bitch.

I came here to thank you, though, so that's what I'd like to end on. I hit publish last week, with a lot of worry, and as the comments came in, that worry just rolled away. Your words, they've always been the absolute best, and I'm so grateful for them. I started blogging almost six years ago and while a lot has changed since then (Twitter was just a baby! I was much skinnier! VERONICA MARS WAS STILL ON!), my gratitude has never wavered.

I talked to Kyle tonight about gratitude, and he told me he was grateful for milkshakes. Well, even though that's not a bad thing to be grateful for (milkshakes are delicious), I told him that today I am grateful for you.

A Few Hard Goodbyes

I have a couple hard announcements for you today, and you can read about them officially at Style Lush and Food Lush.

Last year was a year of many questions. Some of those were: Was I doing too much? Would I ever find the time to do more? Should I step up? Or step back? Should I just give up sleep altogether or should I give up the things keeping me from sleep?

This year, there have been answers.

Simply (but sadly) put: I don't have the time to manage the Lush sites any longer. It was a painful realization, a painful answer to a few questions, and it's been heartbreaking to set in motion. I know this sounds a little dramatic. They're websites! What little advertising money they brought in dried up a while ago because I stopped having the time to seek out advertising opportunities. The ideas I had for the sites kept piling up but the time to devote to those ideas either never came or came at the expense of my offline life.

Rationally, it makes a lot of sense to shut them down. It's time. It's been time. But, emotionally. Oh, emotionally, I'm a mess. I have made such incredible friends and memories directly because of the sites. I can't tell you how proud they've made me over the years. I really wanted them to take off, to fill the writers' pockets with money, to catch the attention of important people. I believed they could do all that (and would). I still think they could, if only circumstances were different.

Kyle will be four the week after next. It stuns me. He was a baby and now he's a boy, and I've never loved anything more than watching that kid grow, but he's still growing too fast. I can't make time slow down, but I can make me slow down. 

When I told Mike my decision, he actually tried to talk me out of it. He might not get blogging but he gets when I'm happy. I told him all my reasons, all my thoughts, and the next night he said to me, "You know, I think this is the right choice for our family." That's all I needed to hear. Any doubt I might have had over these hard goodbyes went poof. Mike would never ask that I walk away from something that's taking time from him, but he still deserves that I walk away anyway.

There will be new posts up through next week, and I hope you'll visit and then go on to continue supporting the team of writers as they move on to new things. They are something else, those women. They are rock stars, stylish role-models, inspiring women, and all-around incredible friends. I love each of them, so much, and I could never say that enough. 

I talked to Natalie about this too because I tend to talk to Natalie about a lot and she asked if I thought I would regret this decision. Absolutely, without a doubt, likely every single day. I will regret giving these sites up for a long time to come, I'd be willing to bet.

But something I'm learning as I get older, regret doesn't necessarily mean you made a mistake. It just means you need a little time to be sad that things didn't work out differently.

Thank you to every single one of you who ever visited, who ever commented, who ever told me at a dinner party or in an email that you liked such-and-such post or that you bookmarked the sites or that you shared them with your friends. That never got old. Something we built entertained you. Oh, that was always such a fun feeling. So, thank you a million times over for supporting me, supporting the writers, supporting the sites. I'm so grateful.

It's hard to close doors, but I have great faith there are new ones opening as I hit publish.

A Weird Shopping Declaration

I added something to my 2013 to-do list. (Also, hey, I've already crossed off a couple things! High-fives to me.) In 2012, I got a little out of control (mostly before vacations and big events) with online shopping. I needed a new pair of shoes to match a dress here and a new beach cover-up there and there are only so many times you can ignore the 40%-off sales at Lands End, am I right? The thing about online shopping is that everything looks good online. Okay, not everything. Not this:

It's amazing that there were actual human beings behind the decision to charge $278 for this thing.

Anyway, back to my point. You find something online and think it's just adorable on the 95-pound model and you order it and excitedly wait for it to arrive and then it does and then....huh? Well. That's interesting. It's less adorable and more "could be part of a Halloween costume." Ideally, for me, it would go right back to the store for a refund/exchange and it often would but not always. Sometimes the not-at-all-adorable thing would get tossed into my closet to re-sell or donate or hope that if I miraculously lost 45 pounds, it would somehow become adorable. 

It's easy to mis-spend your money through online shopping is what I'm getting at. How did I come to this groundbreaking conclusion? Well, last night I saw a skirt online that I really loved and it was something like $60 and I found that to be a little too much. But then I thought, Well, if I loved it and wore it often and through many seasons, it could be worth the investment. Then I went on to think, The only way I'll really know if it's worth the cost is if I try it on first. 

LIGHT BULBS! ALL THE LIGHT BULBS!

(You have begun to roll your eyes, haven't you? At 31, these light bulbs just went off for me. I know, I'm special.)

Yeah, so, to sum it up, I've decided no online (clothes) shopping in the year 2013. I'm making an exception if I find something in person, love it, and find it cheaper or in my preferred color/size online. That fine print just makes sense, don't you think? I mean, it'd be a stupid goal to say "ONLY SHOP IN STORES EVEN IF IT'S MORE EXPENSIVE AND NOT WHAT I WANT." Yeah, that's stupid. 

So, no online shopping (for the most part) and I hope this means I'll be more thoughtful about what I'm looking for and less "oh THAT'S cute in a thumbnail image, gimme!"

Anyway, you may not care at all about this shopping declaration (I'm now thinking why on earth would you?), but I'm still really excited about it. I want to feel good about the clothes I wear (inspired by Elizabeth, of course) and that means making sure those clothes actually look good on me before spending my money on them. And since I'm not tossing free time around my life like confetti, if I'm going to take the time to seek out something at a nearby shop, it's got to be something I think will really bring value to my closet. (I just said "value to my closet" like some kind of ass. Sorry about that.) Basically, if I'm getting off the couch for it, I need to want it. 

First up, I need a pair of jeans to see me through the spring. I don't have a pair that really fits right or flatteringly at my current weight. I don't want to drop hundreds on a seeing-me-to-a-hopefully-new-weight pair, but I don't want to get a crummy pair online at Old Navy, of course. So, I'm off to find a filler pair of jeans this weekend. Wish me luck!

***

PS: Very randomly, and not at all on topic with this post, did you watch the Golden Globes? Then you'll want to read this hiliarious photo recap. Especially this part: "I'm sorry you can't appreciate joy, Tommy Lee Jones." 

Nine

Last week, Mike and I celebrated being together nine years. (eight, seven, six, five, four) (He really thought I'd stop talking about our dating anniversary once he married me but sometimes even Mike underestimates my dedication to nostalgia.)

If you had told us nine years ago, on that first night when we were--fine--drunk and awkward and nervous, that we'd be celebrating nine years together with a trip to the pediatrician's office and then an imaging office for chest x-rays for our nearly four-year-old son (spoiler: Kyle is doing better, but I officially hate croup as much as I used to), I would have probably thought you were very specifically lying and then I would go ahead and ask you what we decided to name him, that boy, and also what color his hair turned out to be. 

These kids, they had no idea they'd make their own kid, their own life, their own fun together.

We had no idea nine years ago...

Okay, maybe a little bit of an idea. We weren't nervous for nothing.

Nine years! I still like him a lot.

Seven Quick (January Seventh) Takes

1. Phew, we're through Christmas and New Year's and my birthday and we can finally stop eating, am I right? Well, I can stop eating. I'm sure you have enough will power to have stopped already. (Show-off.) Anyway, the Biggest Blogging Loser starts today, so I start my own new year too. I'm loosely doing the Whole30. I say "loosely" because I have a few (work and personal) dinner commitments I can't/refuse to cancel or suffer through drinking water at and also because I won't beat myself up over missteps or allow myself to go hungry rather than eating something non-Whole30 compliant. I'm going to try my best, I'll say, and I'm mostly just trying to use this month as a tool to become re-aware of what I eat after (so many) months of getting disconnected with that.

A couple things I'm giving up for the duration of the Biggest Blogging Loser, though, are alcohol and chocolate. I know! That's 12 long weeks without a glass of something or a slice of something, but I think I enjoyed my fair share of both over the holidays and this will be a good re-focus for me on fruits and vegetables and healthy dishes.

I was texting Holly tonight about eating wholer--and I hope she's okay if I share this--but she said to me "don't let anyone police you." This is just what I needed to hear. You put intentions out on the internet and you can feel (maybe just me?) that the internet then gets a say in those goals. So, I'm repeating those smart words to myself over and over. It's really empowering.

I'm doing my best! We'll see how it goes.

Anyway, here's my January menu, if you care to see it. (By the way, I love this template I found for 2013 monthly calendars. Maybe you'll like it too.)

(Click to enlarge!)

2. I've somehow managed to watch a ton of movies over the last couple weeks and while I'd like to sit down and write out thoughtful movie reviews for each, I never seem to have the time, so I'll quickly recap a few:

Go see Silver Linings Playbook. Oh, it's so refreshingly good! I found it funny and heartwarming and dark and romantic. Bradley Cooper just owned his particular character and Jennifer Lawrence was perfect, too, although I felt she had less to prove. She's done small, independent films and she's done The Hunger Games but she's just good, you know? You don't doubt this girl can act, and I now don't doubt that about Bradley Cooper, either. So, if you're looking for a (likely-to-be-nominated) movie to see in this particular awards' season, see this one. (Although I haven't seen some of the other awards' contenders, so maybe take actual critics' recommendations now that I think about it.)

So, I had heard a lot of buzz about The Cabin in the Woods for a while now, and I had been wanting to see it. I finally convinced Mike to watch it (with my sister and her husband) over the holidays and, wow, what am I missing? The twist was kind of in the trailer, so as not to be all that shocking. Anything beyond the trailer was...not good. It was ridiculous. It was campy but not funny (which I was told it would be!). I just didn't get the appeal, and neither did the three other people I watched it with. 

We also watched Lawless over the holidays and I really enjoyed it. Sure, it's kind of violent but I can't imagine you'd go into a movie about outlaw bootleggers and be surprised by that. For the violence, you also get a healthy dose of Tom Hardy, so go ahead and give it a try.

3. This is the point in the year where I go from Holiday Mania! to Planning My Child's Birthday Party! and somehow I'm always surprised by this. It's like the holidays are a buffer for the weird feelings that Kyle turning a year older bring, and now that the holidays are over, I can properly feel all of them. I try never to let myself get too sad because I have a healthy, awesome kid. I wouldn't trade that for anything. But it's still weird, you know? He's nearly four! I sometimes just can't reconcile that. Anyway, he is nearly four and we're throwing him a dinosaur birthday party (although who knows WHERE yet because we have a very small house and he has a February birthday--one of the few notoriously cold months in Texas--meaning we can't just let the birthday guests run loose in the yard and that always makes our at-home parties feel super cramped and chaotic, but we'll figure SOMETHING out) and he is very excited about it, and I'm very excited about it, too. Four! I just don't know.

4. For Christmas, I bought myself Young House Love, and while I know they are a Very Big Blog (which bring Very Big Blog Opinions), I mainly like this book because I'm a home decor idiot. I'm bad at DIY and bad at decorating and bad at thinking of ideas while looking at my ugly walls. They broke down ideas and simple fixes all in one easy-to-reference place, and they also made it easy for me to show Mike "THIS! I WANT OUR HOUSE TO LOOK LIKE THIS!" and he understood what I meant without me fumbling through blog archives or Pinterest boards to show him photos. He's become re-inspired around our house (in part because of the things I've shown him from the book, I'd be willing to wager) and it makes it fun to dream up Home Fixes together. I love this book, really I do, and I'd recommend it to you, if you're anything like me.

5. Oh, hey, my college team won their bowl game, and I got to watch them do just that at my birthday party Friday night. That was a lot of fun.

We had a house full of Aggies, and it was a lot of fun to high-five and cheer together. I recommend watching your team win with friends, drinks, and snacks. (I just invented game-watching parties, didn't I? You're welcome!) 

6. One my favorite birthday gifts was a gift card to Target. I don't really understand people who don't like getting (or giving) gift cards. You're telling me I get a piece of plastic and can buy WHATEVER I WANT from one of my favorite places with it? THANK YOU, THAT IS FABULOUS, GIVE ME THAT GIFT ALWAYS. I don't want to buy groceries or things for Kyle or anything I would already pick up at a trip to Target with this gift card. I want to get something fun and something just for me. I've been looking at a necklace for ages (that of course isn't online since the Target website is THE WORST), but if it's still there at my next trip to Target, I'm getting it. What would YOU buy if you couldn't spend it on groceries or household things or anything you'd have to buy anyway?

7. I've been trying to think of a seventh thing for too long and it's time to head to bed, so let's just end by saying I have a super stressful week at work and I'm back to cooking and working out (I'm exhausted just thinking of getting to Saturday morning) so please diffuse the stress with some fun things. What are you most looking forward to this week? 

Thirty-One

I turned 31 yesterday, and it was a lovely, perfect, warm (on the inside) day.

I love birthdays and while I know that's not a universal feeling--just ask my husband who grumbles through his day each year--I still wish for you a birthday like I had when your day rolls around. We all deserve tacos with extra hot sauce and the fancy kind of champagne and co-workers who buy us flowers and in-laws who buy us Target gift cards and best internet friends who surprise us with a book straight off our to-read list and husbands who clean the bathroom while we lounge on the couch. Or, whatever your favorite things happen to be. Yes, that's what we all deserve on our birthdays: our favorite things. 

I'm about to bring this post down, after all that sweetness, you've been warned. See, every year, on my birthday, I think of a girl I went to high school with. I knew her, was friendly (enough) with her, and we even ate lunch in the same group for a semester when we were dating guys who were friends. We then went on to the same college, and we were waved-hello-from-across-campus, kind-of friends. We weren't close, by any means, but I knew her. I knew her.

She died right after she graduated, in a car accident. 

I don't know why her death hit me as hard as it hit me or why it stayed with me for so long. Why it's still with me, in a way.

See, every year on my birthday, I think of her. I think that she will never see 26 or 29 or 31. I think that her family would do anything to see her at those ages and that it's cruel, in a way, to complain about my own age when a girl I once (admittedly, barely) knew will never know the privilege of being 31. 

I don't know why her death stuck with me when countless tragedies happen every day, every minute. When Connecticut just happened last month. But every year on my birthday I think of her, and I think I owe it to her to enjoy this privilege of aging. 

This all sounds a little superior of me, I fear, especially when complaining about aging is normal, it doesn't make any of us wrong or awful or ungrateful. I think of her every year, though, and thinking of her keeps me from thinking about much else besides being glad to be whatever age I happen to be. 

I am 31 now, and I am just so glad to be.

Last night, at age 31, while Mike bought me queso and margaritas and Kyle held my hand. Yes, glad to be, indeed.

January Goals

Are you sick of hearing about goals? You probably are. Unfortunately, I'm not. I love goals, I love lists, I love making them and reading them and bookmarking them and on and on. But if you're unlike me, go ahead and skip this post (and the last one too, in case you haven't read that one yet). I promise to return with a Christmas recap soon and maybe even a post about a weekend trip I took in early December, something I meant to actually write in early December but Kyle got pneumonia as soon as I got home and, I'll tell you, pneumonia does not make a person more productive.

So, anyway! In an effort to really make this year my bitch and to be super-duper successful with my to-do list, I'm breaking down my list into monthly to-dos. (I'm also breaking my bigger to-dos into monthly chunks, so I can be sure to cross everything off.)

Here's what I'll (attempt to) do (or start) this month:

1. Make an eye appointment
2. Start the Couch to 5K
3. One Pinterest project
4. Finish our second family yearbook
5. Read three books (including Wild, from Elizabeth's best of 2012, and maybe The Great Gatsby)
6. Read a little of the Bible
7. Menu plan
8. Pick out frames for our above-the-couch travel photos
9. Clean out and organize my kitchen drawers
10. Buy new champagne flutes
11. Go to 7 yoga classes
12. Make 4 cookbook recipes
13. 31 emails to Kyle

Phew! Wish me luck.