ON BEING AN ADULT

I was in the shower the other morning and having incredibly deep and philosophical thoughts, like you do, and I was thinking about adulthood.

Adulthood and I have had a very interesting relationship. I used to think being an adult was the dumbest thing I'd ever done. And slowly I adjusted to thinking that maybe being an adult wasn't actually that dumb after all...and then I lost my job and went right back to thinking being an adult is completely stupid.

But you know what? It's not really. I got a new job. I was able to pay my bills. I didn't end up living in an old refrigerator box in the back alley of somewhere, as is my worst fear, and life kept going. Life didn't suddenly stop and turn completely on its head like I'd always imagined it would if something catastrophic happened to me.

It's a weird thing about life, how it just keeps marching forward. I know that when I was little I knew this, but I didn't really comprehend it until I was much, much older. I used to think if something went wrong that that was just the end of it. That there was no coming back from that, it was just over. You missed out. You lost. Time to head another direction. And really, that isn't the case. I'm so glad I know that now, but I'm still not sure why I didn't really grasp that then, you know?

Whatever.

So anyway, back to my shower thoughts. Because that's what we're here to talk about anyway, right? Right.

I was washing my hair underneath the steaming hot water in which I have to be surrounded by or else I somehow feel...cold. And as I lathered the suds into my scalp, it occurred to me that I am not really a real adult. Because occasionally I still feel like I'm just a little girl playing pretend at the adult thing. Sometimes I find myself in situations where people think I'm this grown woman, when really I feel like a six year old flailing around down inside me screaming "I'm too young for this!"

And you know what's crazy? I'm not a little six year old girl. I'm actually a pretty well adjusted adult...but then again, fake it until you make it, right? I wonder if I will ever feel like an actual adult and not like a little girl at a masquerade ball.

I'm sure that as time goes on, I'll feel like a more adultier adult, but I guess that just like all things in life, it just takes practice. And then I read Stephanie's blog post about being the one that actually makes your dreams happen and my mind exploded.

You see, even if I am just a little girl pretending to be an adult, I still get to do all the things I want to do. Talking to Nathan, our plans for the future seem crazy to me still. Like, am I really old enough to talk about buying a house? Am I really old enough to move across the country if I wanted to? Am I really old enough to get married and travel and do all of the things that Little Natalie dreamed for Big Natalie to accomplish?

And the craziest part is that I totally am. I am able to make these things happen. I just have to be willing to put in the work and file the papers and do whatever else it is I need to do to make things happen. I tend to let myself get overwhelmed, but if I just take it one step at a time, before I know it, when I look back at my life, all the things I want to do get done.

And that is what I love so much about being an adult. It's more than just making my own bedtime and prioritizing my budget so that I can pay rent. It's the fact that I get to make my own dreams come true. I am the master of my fate - in a manner of speaking.

Plus, to have a partner that has the same goals and plans for the future that I do, it just makes me more excited to keep going. So, yay for being an adult and things. Yay! Confetti! I can do whatever I want!

HELLO FROM THE OTHER SIDE

It has become increasingly difficult for me to sit down in this space and crank out my thoughts like I used to. I open the page, read some posts and then exit out as if I was never a writer at all. I'm beginning to wonder if that means I should shut down or if I should launch a new space, one that's different and fresh and blank. One that isn't full of memories and stories already, an empty book with blank lines. It'll even smell crisp, like a new notebook purchased in the fall for the impending start of the school year.

Or maybe perhaps that will be too much work and here, I already have my friends. All three of you that read my blog. (Hi Dad!)

So who knows. I just know that 2015 was a terrible year for the blog! Sorry guys! It wasn't as if I had bad intentions here...my follow through this year was just focused on other things. I mean, it has been a wild ride I think.

I started out the year working for the juice bar. I worked what felt like a billion hours a week (which is just a slight exaggeration) and it just started to burn me out on the job. I started as a barista when I was 17 years old, and even though I worked in a school for two years post college, moving back to the juice bar (while fun) still felt like a giant step backwards as much as I tried to convince myself it was just sideways.

And then in the summer I made a remark that I shouldn't have, it got blown way out of proportion, and so I had to walk away. Actually it was a huge blessing in disguise. Sure, I worried about how I was going to pay my bills and buy my groceries, but it also helped me realize the incredible support system that I have here in my little Idaho.

In late August, just before I turned 25, I started working for a photographer. He's a photographer that I've admired for years and years and meeting him was a little unreal for me. He had only lived in my head and on my computer/phone screen for so long that you kind of forget that he's a real person. But honestly, the shock only lasted for a couple days and then we were into the real stuff. Especially because my backup left me after three and half days on the new job and I felt like a complete idiot 90% of the time.

Transitioning from juice bar barista to photography studio manager was a much steeper learning curve than I had anticipated. Plus the lack of training and the being right at the tail end of the busy season left me in a kind of "sink or swim" situation - which I feel like is my whole life. But it got better. It didn't get easier, I just figured out how to do more stuff. And my relationship with my boss started to develop away from him being upset that I didn't know what I was doing, to him being appreciative of all the things I do there now. It's been a little bit of a roller coaster, if I'm being completely honest.

I would tell myself that I just had to get through today. I just had to make it until five o'clock and then I could breathe a sigh of relief. Or I just had to get through the next hour. I just had to get through this phone call. I had to set up little goals for myself or else I think I would have lost it.

But looking back at how far I've come in just a matter of months, and even though there are things that still terrify about this job, I'm mostly just excited about it. It shows on my face. My dad says this is the happiest he's seen me in a job in a while. And it's true, I am happy. I'm even, get this, joyful.

I'm joyful for a multitude of reasons, all of which were made that much sweeter having gone through the juice bar battle and the photography manager goal setting.

I'm joyful because I have a family that loves me and is willing to back me in any I want to pursue. I started making custom gifts this holiday season, and I got a way higher response than I had anticipated I would. I made quite a few gifts this year and I hope to just continue on with that. I would like to ship things across the country, not just the state, you know? And my dad has expressed an interest in helping me do that. I can't thank him enough for just how incredible he's been to me.

I'm joyful because I have developed an interest in designing fabrics, which was helped along by the love of my oma. She has been such a source of encouragement and even sent me Christmas presents made out of the fabric I designed!

I'm joyful because I have a great relationship with my boyfriend which just keeps growing and growing. He's such a rock of support for me and he pushes me to make tough decisions. He's smart and ambitious and I don't know what I'd do without him.

There are a few other important people in my life that have helped to finish this year out nicely for me. It's amazing after how tumultuous my summer felt, to be this happy at the end of the year. But you know what? I'm glad. I'm glad there's snow and skiing and family surrounding me this December. I'm usually such a grinch this time of year, and I expected to feel annoyed all month. But then it started with a windstorm in November and then it's snowed practically all of December and maybe I'll be really tired of the snow in February just like every year, wishing it was summer time, but also maybe I'll just like it because that's how it is.

I've learned a lot this year. I've grown a lot this year. And I honestly am just excited to see what the new year brings. Happy 2016 kids. May it be exactly the year you need.

A HEARTY THANKS

I feel like I say this every year, but this year feels especially fast. Maybe it's just the second half of the year that has been so incredibly...unique, or it could just be that time passes faster the older you become. I mean, not that it really matters anyway.

But since this year has been totally out of the norm, it's shaped me in ways I didn't know I could move. It's stretched me and grown me and pulled me in different directions. It's made me more confident in some areas and also shattered other parts of me beyond recognition. And I guess that's what happens when you go out into the world and try to be a functioning adult. Limits get tested, patience is worn thin, grace and humility become your best friends and you are forced to figure shit out. Welcome to adulthood.

As weird as it sounds though, it's actually something I really enjoy. This year I lost a job in the stupidest way possible and had all sorts of negative things spread about me (I can only assume, based on the situation, as it was not peaceful) which was a complete and utter first in the Natalie department. But through that situation I came out with a different and better sense of self.

As an artist, I started designing fabrics and have even sold some to people who are not my family - which is, as they say, the mark of success. As a girlfriend, I got to understand just how much Nathan loves me through all the stress that we've dealt with the past few months. As a daughter, I have witnessed just how much my parents care about me and my wellbeing and how readily they will sacrifice for me when I need them to. As an employee, I have learned that it's not the amount of money you make, it's the experience you get doing it. Which could also be in the art category too, you know, starving artist and all.

So as we've just finished Thanksgiving and are about to head into the Christmas season, I have been filled with a spirit of thanksgiving. Or at least I want to be filled with a spirit of thanksgiving but sometimes I am filled with a spirit of hunger and crankiness - I am only human after all.

But I'm thankful for quite a few things this year, including but not limited to: my family, who keep surprising me in all the best ways; all my friends, who are supporting me in all my artistic endeavors or who listen to me rant about things without judgment, (you guys are amazing!); my oma, who has supported me and offered a lot of advice and who has been my biggest cheerleader when it comes to designing fabrics and creating art; and Nathan, who is so much more to me than a boyfriend and even when I'm crabby and impossible, for whatever reason, he still loves me and surprises me with little things all the time. I couldn't have asked for anyone better to have by my side.

And as we head into the land of greens and reds and jingly bells, while you are all taking the time to make a unique gift or thoughtfully pick one out at a store, remember who it is you're buying for and why you are so thankful for them.

Christmas tends to make me really grinchy and irritated with all the people in all the stores buying all the things and paying absolutely no mind to the world around them. Sometimes I get so annoyed feeling like I'm the only one paying attention to my surroundings, that I lose track of the fact that these are humans too. And they are somebody's mom, grandma, dad, sister, brother, aunt or uncle. And they deserve to be treated like a human being too.

So goosfraba this holiday season, my friends. And a Happy Christmas to you!

MAYBE IT IS POSSIBLE AFTER ALL

I've often written about how utterly stupid I find being an adult to be. You know, how much bills suck and how making big decisions is hard and all the stuff all the adultier adults already know about. But lately, this whole adult thing has been growing on me. As in, I think maybe I'm starting to figure out things. Gasp.

By no stretch of the imagination do I have all of the answers to anything, but I guess maybe I don't go around proclaiming that being a grown up is the stupidest thing I've ever done anymore. Instead, I'm actually rather enjoying this season of my life.

I used to sit and daydream about when life would actually start and when would I have a place of my own and when would I this and when would I that and yada yada yada. I used to walk through home goods sections of stores and wonder about the sorts of things I would have in my own house someday. What kind of plates would I eat off of? What kind of couch would I come home to sit on? Always imagining, never knowing anything other than eating off of someone else's plates and sitting on someone else's couches.

But recently I've been watching the HGTV shows that Netflix has obtained and it has caused me to do some rather large thinking. Nathan talks about buying a house in the area and coming up with timelines and we're talking about buying cars and taking trips and doing things that I knew someday I would be doing but all the while feeling like maybe it wasn't as real as I hoped it would be. Does that make any sense?

Like you sit on the front porch swing when you're little and you dream up all the big plans for your life and as you go through the years you think maybe those plans might actually never come to fruition and then you wake up one day and realize that actually, yes, you can go out and do those things and there's nothing stopping you anymore. Can I just say how freeing of a feeling that is? Like, is this even real life?

I used to believe that I was too little for a real house. You know, a "real" house would be too big for me. I wouldn't be able to reach the top shelf and people would come to my door and ask for my parents and I would shake my fist and be all indignant and say sassy things. But now, having a "real" house, (not just an apartment or small living space) seems like less and less of a distant daydream and more and more of an impending reality.

It wasn't as if I really believed that I would never have my own house, it's just that...I kind of believed I would never have my own house. Or car. Or what-have-you. Like it was all just beyond my finger tips. I could look and I could smell, but I couldn't touch it. Not yet.

And now, maybe, I'm the closest I have ever been. Dreams are starting to become reality. Adulthood isn't looking so stupid anymore. It's like, what is even happening to me these days, you guys? You guys! I mean, I still have no idea, but it feels awesome!

PEOPLE BE CRAZY

Recently at the juice bar we found ourselves in the position where we needed to let one of our employees go. These kinds of situations are never fun for anyone and I was dreading the actual conversation we were bound to be having. As the manager, I am part of the hiring process and that means I'm part of the firing process as well. I have never been fired, but I have been laid off. I know it sucks. I know it makes you angry and feel like you've been treated unfairly. It's not fun for your employer either.

I am not a very reactionary person. I tend to clam up in uncomfortable situations, which keeps me from saying something I might later regret. I have not been witness to people who generally fly off the handle and spew word vomit like a teenager when something doesn't go their way. Mostly because this behavior is reserved for children, not thirty year olds.

It was shocking for me to sit through that conversation as this employee argued and interrupted with excuse after excuse about how this was unfair and we were playing favorites and no one provided a chance for improvement or been honest. I couldn't believe that this employee absolutely refused to take any responsibility for their actions, but instead kept throwing the blame back on us and how terribly we were treating them.

I'm sorry, but in what world is being fired or let go ever fair? When is the timing ever good? I will argue some people may be let go unfairly but that is maybe the exception and not the rule. Whatever the case may be, it is in your best interests to keep your damn mouth shut. Employers and business owners talk to each other. If the community finds out that you are a juvenile disrespectful employee who constantly makes excuses, no one is going to hire you.

If you want any advice from this situation, it would be this: bow out gracefully. Keep your dignity. Don't leave a bad conversation and then text mean, unnecessary comments to your former employer. It just makes you look immature and reaffirms that they made the right choice in letting you go.

Anyone that needs to tear down other people in order to make themselves feel better has a lot of growing up to do.

But even though that was a rough day, I'm glad to have gone through that experience. Not only is it a vibrant reminder of how not to act in a serious situation, it shows me how other people with different temperaments react to the world around them. Not everyone is a dignified, classy member of society. And also, some people will never learn.

THAT FAILING FEELING

I used to be a teacher. In a high school. In a small town in north Idaho. And there were things I loved about that job and there were things I hated about that job. It wasn't perfect but it wasn't awful and now it doesn't matter.

I wasn't fired from my position. I didn't do anything crazy or irrational to make my administration go "hmm, maybe we shouldn't bring her back next year because of X." I wasn't fired or hated or anything ridiculous. It was all sort of very sad - my being let go. It was a budget cut and a "we like you but we're going with the teacher who has more experience" kind of deal.

And yet, it still leaves me feeling as though somehow I had failed. I reflect back on that job and I think to myself that I must have just been this giant let down because I wasn't good enough to keep my job in the face of a slimmer budget. I just realistically didn't have the years experience and knowledge to thrive in that situation and even though I know it's not the same as being fired from a job for poor performance, it still stings when I think about it.

So I try to go about my daily life and forget that it ever happened.

Which works for me, most of the time.

To be honest I have been dreading the day when I would have to look someone in the face who I used to work with at the high school and ask them which drink they would like and what our specials at the juice bar are. I know that I am so much more than a barista, but when faced with the girl asking to take your order, I felt like the stereotypical "would you like fries with that?" persona.

You guys, I still feel as though I have failed.

Failure is a big thing for me. It is a big motivator, a big fear, a big fat "to don't" on my list of life. And even though I was technically laid off instead of fired, it still feels like I was a big fat failure. I didn't go from teaching there to teaching here, but instead I went in a completely different direction. Most days I feel pretty good about it. I love my job. I love combining my sense of nutrition with my sense of artistry and I like flexing my manager muscles.

But from the outside, I can't help but notice that this looks like a giant step backwards.

So when one of the secretaries who worked in the school office of the high school where I used to teach walked in to my little juice bar, it was as if my worst nightmare had just come true. I looked at her and it was like I was staring my own failure directly in the face.

And then she asked me if I had graduated last year.

I laughed and brushed it off because I always get those stupid remarks. I'm almost 25 years old and people are constantly asking me what year of school I'm in or if I need to go study. But inside it stung on a level I've never felt before. Like, geez, did I really make that little of an impact? Shoot.

She didn't mean any harm by her comment. She was simply just trying to figure out why she recognized me, but it still really hurt my feelings. After she left and the juice bar was empty, I found myself trying to prep spinach bags through blurry vision.

You just never realize how truly deep the hurt stings you until someone who has no idea makes a comment without thinking.

But it caused me to really think about why it is that I am now shying away from teaching. And that sting of failure, that feeling of "you're too young to handle this and we need someone different because you're just not good enough," it hurts. And I think that's ultimately why I don't want to go back, and why I shy away from people who present me with teaching opportunities.

That school didn't believe in me, so why should I believe in me?

I know that's ludicrous and that that's the kind of thinking that will keep me from climbing the tallest mountain, but it's also a legitimate feeling. Teaching is hard. People just don't realize how hard of a job it is. How demanding it can be on your time. You have to be all-in or you're just not good enough. There's such a standard. And I was just so young and so inexperienced that it's no wonder they let me go.

And so, I think, maybe I will never go back to teaching because maybe I don't want that stress in my life. But I also am going to have to get over how that encounter with the secretary made me feel. I am more than just a juice bar manager. I am more than just "do you want fries with that?"

I may look like I'm only 18 years old, but if you really know me, then you'd see this wasn't a giant step backwards, it was just a side-step down this path of life. It doesn't look the same for all of us, and we all have different routes intended for our own selves.

I don't know if that lady looked at me and thought "wow, I can't believe it's come to this for her" but I know that it triggered some deep down feelings that I haven't processed all the way. I love my job. I love what I do at the juice bar. I like being in charge and having responsibility and being the constant in my regular customers' mornings.

I like that there are no teacher/parent meetings. I like that there are no lesson plans. I like that there isn't a group of teens invading my space everyday waiting to see what knowledge exudes from my being. But also, I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss it.

Being laid off still makes me feel like I have failed. I still feel like I let people down. Like I let myself down. It was everything I said I didn't want to do. I didn't want to teach for only one year and end up in the statistic of teachers who never make it past year one. And it's partially that feeling of failure that says "why do you even think you could try again? you suck" that holds me back.

Someday perhaps I will overcome that annoying little voice in my head. Someday maybe I will return to teaching on a regular basis - just probably not in a public school atmosphere.

If I'm being honest, my dream job is to just create art and work from home anyway. My dream job is not to be a teacher. But that doesn't mean it's any less fun to feel like you've failed. Maybe I'm just rationalizing. Maybe I'm just trying to wrap my head around feelings I don't understand, but if there's one thing I know to be true on this earth, it is that in life there are not necessarily "rights and wrongs" but more or less there are "lefts and rights" and it takes a lot of prayer and careful consideration to know whether or not you should go through this open door or that open window.

I always thought there was a set course for my life. That there was going to be one thing after another that I would end up doing. School was always that way for me, so I expected life to be that way also. But the most shocking thing for me to find out as an adult is that I get to make my own choices. I get to choose my own path. I get to live my own life and there's no one else out there who gets to call the shots.

So it's hard to deal with feelings of failure, but I do know that comparison is the thief of joy and if I keep comparing myself to others then I will always feel like I'm failing. And with that, I promised myself that I would just keep doing me. I am going to go down my own path of life and wherever that takes me, I know that it's just for me and not for anybody else.

BE A DO-ER

I was sitting on the couch after work one day when a restless feeling washed over me. I was a woman possessed, in need of something to do besides stare at moving pictures on screens. Life can somehow warp into this mindless repetitiveness where you feel as though you are doing the same things over and over, day after day, and suddenly I had had enough of it.

It's not as though my life is terribly mundane and it's not as though I never do any new things, but it was just feeling all sorts of one tracked and I needed an excuse to step out of the flow. So I got up off the couch and I boiled some water in a pot and I poured it into these old candles I had laying around telling myself for forever that one day I was going to clean them out.

And at that moment, something dawned on me.

Something that I should have realized a bit sooner in life and something that I'm mildly embarrassed to admit right now. But that would be the idea of "stop talking about doing it and just do it already."

Everyone always says things like "Oh, I really want to do that" or "Hey, this is on my bucket list! I should do this!" or "eventually I want to go to here and do this thing."

Well you know what? You're never gonna check things off your bucket list simply by saying that you want to do the thing on the list. You have to actually go do the thing. I tell you, it was the strangest of ah-ha moments because I kind of just wanted to smack myself on the head and go "well, duh Ralph."

So I did clean out those candles. And then I figured out how to peel the labels off so they are pretty glass jars now. And then I went and bought stuff to make sugar scrub to put in my nice clean candle jars as a gift.

And since then, I have been doing the things on my Pinterest boards instead of just letting them sit out there in the land of the internet waiting for that magical "someday" to appear on the horizon. Someday doesn't exist though. It's a thing that we've made up in our heads. I love the quote I've read a billion times in the way of fitness motivation that says "there are seven days in the week and someday isn't one of them." I mean, preach it sister.

Also, among my duh, Ralph epiphanies, is that when I am doing these things that I have been saying I will get around to doing for forever, there is this incredible sense of accomplishment that comes along with it. There is just something about being able to cross things off the list or put them in the "done" pile, or whatever your preferred method of organization be.

I've found that I am happier for having accomplished making/creating things instead of accomplishing finishing all the series of TV shows in my Netflix queue. In addition to my jars, I designed a pair of kick ass shoes for my roommate as well as the new spring coffee menu at work, made cold-brewed coffee, and tried some new recipes.

If my goal is to live a joy-filled year, this is definitely the direction I want to keep pursuing. I want to be a do-er instead of a say-er.

CYBER SPACE TIME TRAVEL

I recently downloaded the Timehop app on my iPhone and it has been bringing me lots of laughter these days. This time travel thing has reminded me of just how darn funny I used to be - and possibly still am.

Like today, for instance, 3 years ago I posted the status "If you can't make money, make out with somebody" and I kind of scrunched up my brows and wondered what the heck I had been talking about. So I took to the googles and typed in my status.

Turns out, it's lyrics to a song. David Bradley, more specifically.

 

Three years ago on January 12th I apparently posted "I plan on staying in bed and dying today." Which just, if you know me, I was channeling my inner Lilo that day and avoiding my college classes and any semblance of responsibility because three years ago I could pull that kind of crap.

Lately, because it's January and February, my timehops have consisted of my really obnoxious break up with Matt statuses and holy buckets you guys, I just want to apologize all over again for that. I was...I don't even know how to put it... Pathetic, maybe?

And I literally posted almost every single thought I had onto Facebook - did I have no boundaries? How even did I retain my friends because good golly I was just dragging it oooouuuuutttttttt. So, thanks for not getting sick of me and never speaking to me again.

I have been thinking about that time in my life though. For the obvious reasons and the not so obvious. You see, when I first had a Facebook, I was also still in my myspace phase as well. I was just fresh out of high school and there weren't really any rules for the internet yet. At least not in my world. So I used my Facebook page as an online mini diary to supplement all my lamenting on my blog about this terrible, horrible, no good thing I was going through. I never realized at the time that those things would live on forever inside the bowels of the interwebz.

Now, I look at people who still post every little thing that pops in their head or post every picture they take on the cell phone and I think, why? Why are you doing this? Why do we feel compelled to share every aspect of our lives with people we really don't hardly know?

And maybe I'm hypocritical because here I am, posting a blog essay and sending it off into the world wide web where people I may or may not know can read my own personal thoughts. But hey, these days I am more careful about exactly what I'm putting out there.

I mean, I could write about all the things I've done lately and how work went and what sorts of things I ate today, which actually would just be coming full circle to when I started writing and was still trying to figure out my voice and just exactly what I was going to do in this little internet corner.

But you know what, there's also something stupidly beautiful about seeing the sort of annoying things I used to put into cyber space because it reminds me that I used to be this little naive person who still believed in all the good in the world and had a lot of growing to do.

It reminds me that I've come such a long way, and I've overcome so many obstacles.

And even though those days were hard to live through, I came out on the other side stronger and with a clearer vision of what I wanted out of life and how I was going to do it.

So maybe I was crazy and a little pathetic and incredibly naive, but I was also displaying my very human emotions and learning how to be the girl that I was created to be. Am I glad I posted all those obnoxious statuses to Facebook all those years ago? Not necessarily. But I'm also not really mad about it, so there's that.

AND FINALLY: PICTURES

So my brother went and got married way back in July (way back. HA) and they have been keeping their wedding pictures hostage over in the greater Seattle area, and I finally just got ahold of 256 of their giant photo collection. They tried to tailor the CD to the pictures I would want to see and they did a fantastic job.

I bring this up because they were here for the weekend - the first visit since they left for their honeymoon at 10 o'clock at night on July 11, 2014. That's the sucky thing about living 5 hours away from each other. I sat down with Rylie and looked at the pictures on computer, talking about the people in them and reliving their wedding. It was just such a magical night, I mean, honestly.

Those crazy kids are two of my very favorite people and I wish we got to spend more time together. It's been a great ride watching my little baby brother grow up and become a man. He had the chubbiest cheeks and this little rotund belly and the cutest little voice. And now he's tall and thin and handsome. I mean, how did that even happen? Shoot.

And so now I give to you, the picture portion of the post because that's what you're all really here for anyway, right? Right.

 possibly my favorite picture from the morning

 this picture makes me think American Gothic. 

 the family! (it's still weird to say sister-in-law haha)

 don't be alarmed, this is a recreation of one of my parents' wedding photos. 

 i love the looks on both of their faces in these two photos. katie captured their love for one another perfectly. 

 and then it was time to party - with nerf guns and bride kidnapping. way more fun than a money dance, oh yes.

 i super love this guy. 

and just like that they roared off into their new life together in a convertible bumblebee camaro. 

THE JOURNEY

Growing up I always thought there was a right way and a wrong way to do life. And I was always terrified that I was going to be that person who did all the things wrong and ended up in an ally somewhere living in a cardboard box. If you ask me what my biggest fear in life is, I will tell you one word: failure.

To me that meant losing my job, my ability to provide for myself and ending up homeless and smelly and wearing someone else's donated clothing. This image of my future life, had I picked all the wrong things, started when I was in elementary school.

We live our whole young lives preparing ourselves for adulthood. I believed it was my duty to go through school, graduate, continue on to college, graduate, get a job, get married and live happily ever after. I honestly had never planned on what to do after I was married other than be fabulously rich and travel the world, which, obviously, is still going to happen. ;)

But on a serious note, I have been learning and relearning that the world does not work in rights and wrongs like my brain initially thought. And when I lost my teaching position last year it rocked me down to my core. I had to learn to shake the feelings of failure and convince myself that this was not the end of the line and that I was not going to end up in a dirty refrigerator box somewhere.

If I'm being honest though, that was a change for me that I had never planned to go through. I mourned my lost position and cried myself to sleep, scared and wondering what I was going to do with myself once my contract was up and I was no longer getting paid a teacher's salary. As low as a teacher's salary might be in this state, it was still more money than I'd ever made in my life.

Plus, I have bills to pay and an apartment to care for and it was all piling on the pressure so fast. Sometimes if I sat and thought about what was happening to me, my chest would get all tight and I wouldn't be able to breathe. So I did what I knew I had to do.

I went back to the restaurant where I worked last year and finished out this summer doing the same thing I did back then - managing nights. And then when the summer ended I just stayed on staff because at least it was income and the atmosphere and the people are great. It is truly a good place to work.

And then I got all this art stuff and chalkboard things to help out on the side.

I was all sorts of certain that I was going to fail. That this was a step backwards for me and that this was somehow "wrong." But if I've learned anything, it's that life never does what you want it to. Just because I'm not teaching this year doesn't mean that unemployment and back ally living are in my future. I'm smart and resourceful and something is always provided to allow me to take care of myself and to pay for the things I need to pay for.

It's in the realm of authenticity too, these life lessons that keep showing up. I feel like I am maybe more myself than I have been when I was trying to convince myself that I was a teacher. I am much better at being an artist and creating the things people look at than I felt I was at conveying to other people how to produce a great work of art. Partly because I am maybe still figuring that out myself.

To go from school straight into a career I felt like I was skipping a step. I have always been a step skipper, if we're being honest. If I can smash two steps together, I probably will. So part of me was proud of myself for going right into the career path and part of me was kind of exhausted and I've been telling myself since my sophomore year of college that I just wanted to take a year to not be in school. To not have homework. To not have to worry about being in the school system.

But then life happens, and job opportunities come up and it would be stupid not to take a full time salaried position that is standing right in front of you, so I kind of went against myself and took the job anyway. And what I've realized in the past couple of months is that maybe losing that job was actually good for me.

It has forced me to bend in ways that I didn't think I could. This path has started to show me what I'm really made of and it's begged me to at least start to question what I really want to do with my life. I've known from the beginning that I wanted to be an artist - but I also knew that I never wanted to end up like van Gogh, or become that typical starving artist. So I never truly believed that art could take me where I actually wanted to go - which is all around the world, if you remember. And yet, here I am, working in a restaurant (stereotypical job liberal arts majors end up doing!) but still creating and sometimes getting paid for it.

The more art jobs I do the more I am realizing that that is where my heart is. It's where my passion lies. I feel the most at home when I am creating something with my hands. It allows me to think in ways that I don't get to when I'm doing something else. Now, if I could only get paid for blogging as well. HA!

I haven't been 24 for very long, but it already feels like it's going to be a year about shedding my layers. It's going to be a year about doing the things I want to do because I want to do them and not because I feel obligated to do what everyone else is telling me, or at least what I perceive everyone else is telling me to do.

I have always wondered how old you have to be before you're really an adult. Sometimes I still feel a little like a child, striving for approval from other people and unable to make my own decisions. But you know what? The only approval I need is my own, really, and I am more than capable of making my own decisions. It is a process, to learn to live unapologetically and out loud, but it will be beyond worth it.

This is the journey to becoming myself and every day brings me one step closer.

ENJOYING THE RIDE

My dad started his own business when I was nine years old. It was called Northwest Testing Company and since its humble beginnings in a small shop in North Idaho it has since expanded (along with a name change) to five locations (I think it's five?) and a welding school. 

Being the daughter of a business owner I was exposed to the frustrations of handling rogue employees, dealing with clients who were not-so-nice and sorting out scheduling conflicts among a myriad of other situations that come with owning a business. And I remember telling my dad that I never wanted to own my own business because I didn't want to have to deal with all of that responsibility. 

I am a person who likes to have as little responsibility as possible, if we're being honest. I am so not a typical first born child in that respect. I would much rather have someone else be in charge, but let me be second in command or something. I mean, I do like to be bossy sometimes. 

And yet here I am, eating the words of nine year old Natalie and contemplating starting my own business. But unlike my father's LLC, this is just for me. Me and my artwork. 

I was contacted by an old family friend to do some commercial art for a local business. I happily accepted the position as a way to get paid for art and also to get my name out there as a local artist. I mean, breaking into the art world is not as easy as you might think, so I practically jumped at the chance to get to work with The Wellness Bar. Since then, I have taught a class there, worked on the coffee menu (which will be finished sometime this week) and contacted the owner of a nail salon to do some chalkboard art for her. 

Walking into her shop today, she gave me her business card and since I am lame and without my own little info cards, I had to have her write down my name and number on some yellow pad paper. Suuuuuuuper professional. And then I went home and called my mom about getting some business cards and maybe it would be a good idea for me to keep track of what all these people are paying me for my talents. 

This is starting to sound like a business. I'm starting to do something I said I didn't want to do. This is a crazy world we live in, folks. And I think the even crazier part is that I'm actually excited about it. If this could turn into something bigger, it would make working at the restaurant supplemental income instead of the other way around. 

In college, even though I majored in art education, being a teacher was the part I tacked on so that I could pay the bills. I went through the college of art and architecture instead of the college of education so that I could be an artist who teaches, not a teacher of art. And while I do love teaching, I am definitely more artist than teacher. 

So it kind of hurts me in the world of education that I'm only certified in art because it makes me less marketable than some places would like. But in the world of art, it's a fantastic thing because I don't just do one type of art, I have worked with many different mediums and in many different styles so where in one world I'm singular, in the other I am versatile. 

At 23 I was a full time teacher, which is crazy. I mean, I was in charge of and responsible for the artistic education of high school students. This year, at 24, I am a restaurant hostess and manager who freelances artwork on the side. It's crazy how fast life can change and it's also crazy that life never goes exactly how you think it will. You just have to hang on and learn to enjoy the ride. 

And just so you can fully appreciate my experience as a nine year old entrepreneur's daughter, here I am slaving away for free. 

Okay, so it was actually for a science project in fourth grade, whatever whatever. 

Also, a close up of the first image. Please to appreciate our 90s fashions and the fact that I am still the tallest of all of my siblings, which is no longer the case since they've all passed me up. 

LIFE IS SHORT: MAKE THE MOVE

Every year about this time I really start to day dream pretty hard about moving somewhere warmer. Usually I'm looking up places to live and work in San Diego and how much it would cost and how realistically do I actually want to live there? But you guys, I have said time and again that I don't want to live in Idaho forever.

I have trouble making commitments to things here and the other day I realized why that is. I am living my life with 'temporarily' in mind instead of 'permanently.' I'm living in this apartment for now, I'm working in this location for now and I'm doing this job for now. I was in school for now, I was living with my parents for now, you get the idea.

It's almost as if I don't even know how to live my life for the putting down of roots or the anchoring of my ship or whatever your cliche phrase of choice may be. I just want out of here so badly, to move somewhere different as soon as I'm able that anything I might do to make this feel more permanent makes me instantly shy away. My heart starts to race, my mind goes in scribbles and my words completely disappear. I don't like to feel tied down to any obligations. I like to have wings, not roots.

Growing up always taught me to think of the next step. I wasn't going to be in high school forever, so I needed to plan for college. I wasn't going to be in college forever, so I needed to plan for life. I'm not going to be in this place forever, so I need to plan for the future.

In the summertime, when life would slow down a little with the absence of school, I was pressured into finding temporary jobs in order to "stay busy" and "pull my own weight." I just wanted some time off. I felt like I just needed to drop everything and take a big restful sigh so I could figure out what I wanted. I feel like I am constantly doing something and that wears me out.

Plus, I don't know if I'm making the right choices for the future anyway! I mean, talk about scary. Welcome to life where the paths are made up and the rules don't matter. I usually talk big decisions over with my parents before I pick what move to make. The idea of making a decision without their input can actually be crippling. So I'm trying to change that. I'm trying to take over my own life and make my own choices without always having to do what they think I should. I know how that might sound, but if I keep relying on them for everything then I will never be able to assert myself as an adult.

Being a "grown up" isn't about reaching a certain age, it's about acting a certain way. I'm still trying to figure out exactly how to do that, but the longer I'm floating out here in adult-land the more I'm learning.

It's interesting to me that when I was little I had all these ideas about what it would be like to be a great grown girl. I had all these dreams about where I would live and what profession I would have. I used to wish I could live all over the world and travel to a lot of different places, and what kind of freaks me out now is that living in different places and traveling around the world are actual possibilities and not distant future hopes.

Sometimes we say that parents think your growing up years fly by but that for you they drag on and on - and well, I just don't know if that's true. I feel like it was yesterday that I was this 17 year old blonde girl who just graduated from high school and now here I am at 23, my wishes and hopes becoming realities. Life feels so fast paced for me, like how did I get here, right?

I used to wonder when my life would begin, when would I finally be living my real life? And guys? Here I am. My time is now. My life is happening this very minute. And that is completely terrifying, can you imagine?

//images from pinterest

summer after summer

Because sometimes you just need to photo-vomit all over your blog. Enjoy. 

This summer has been busy. It has been full of going here and coming there and seeing friends and laying in the sun and swimming at the beach.

Every summer since I graduated from high school has been different. The summer between graduation and starting college I spent in Germany and Utah, the next two summers I worked as a day camp counselor and the summer after that I stayed in Moscow to do some summer school. Last year I finished up two summer courses and then moved back in with my parents to start my student teaching in the fall.

It is amazing how different things are in a year. How different things will be in a year from now. How different my life will be from here on out in general. What people are in my life now, who will leave and who will stay.

This time last year I was starting my job at the theme park, spending around 12 hours a day making coffee in a small cafe with a large influx of tourists - some very particular about their caffein and others who just wanted a warm cup of joe. I had just started dating Nathan and TLily and I were scheming up grand plans for the future. I was so unsure of everything in my life at that moment. Where was I going? What did I want to do? What would the future hold for me? Who was I?

And now here I am, a year later. Graduated. Waiting to start my first year of teaching in the fall. This life is one adventure after another, never seeming to slow down, never seeming to settle into a nice groove. This life is so different from the one I was imagining last summer, and even though there are some things about it I would change, it's really not so bad.

Sometimes being a grown up is stupid and sometimes I wouldn't have it any other way.