get out your camera (eleanor at 6)

A few weeks ago, Eleanor and I went to Point Defiance park to walk around the rose garden. We were working with prompts from Chapter 2 of Inner Excavation and using our senses to explore.

It was awesome. I let her use my phone to take photos of whatever she wanted, giving her the prompt of "find your senses," which she quickly expanded to "find flowers in every color of the rainbow." 

While she took photos and ran around, I took photos too. With my "big-girl camera." I snapped lots of flowers but also captured Eleanor at 6.

What I found on my camera today made me so very happy I got my big camera out and just had fun.

Capturing everyday life through our lens helps us gather evidence of the beautiful, messy, real life we're living every single day. This evidence in turn pushes us to see the ways we're already living the life we sometimes long for. We see examples of the ways we slow down and really enjoy our loved ones, how we take the time to notice the simple beauty around us, and how we honor our own needs. And sometimes a photography practice actually invites these moments of mindfulness and love into our lives. 

Gathering evidence is one powerful way to navigate The And Space. Try it and see what happens. Then come back and let me know what you unearth. 

the peonies are here.

My love affair with the peony continues.

Last year, I tried to articulate why they affect me: "These huge heavy bursting blooms are an access point to wonder, to that unwavering truth that spring comes again even when our hearts try to convince us it won't."

This year, I find myself just whispering, "Yes, yes" whenever I walk by them in my new house.

Follow along on my love affair with peonies on IG at #allpeoniesallthetime. 

xoxo,

Liz

the dahlia garden

On Sunday we wandered through the dahlia garden at Point Defiance Park. And as I literally couldn't stop myself from talking out loud to the dahlias about their beauty, I was reminded how much getting out into nature, into the wonder, into the truth that I am one small being in this universe grounds me and helps me come back to center.

May these photos serve as the beginnings of that reminder to you too. Get outside honey. From sitting on a bench in a park near your home or outside your office to taking a walk to even just sitting on your front step and listening to the birds, get outside. Get outside. Get outside.

Yes.

PS If you want an excuse to get outside and take some photos, the prompts in my In This Moment Field Journal might be an awesome fit for you. It's like a mindful photography ecourse. But it comes to your mailbox instead of getting lost in your inbox.

here

Here. A special package that kicks off a new project I'm starting over here inspired by Lori Portka's 100 Thank Yous Project. Getting out of the house using my Action Journals (and Staedtler pens) to kick the overwhelms to the curb. Candlyland (and this week so many rounds of Uno). Huge granny square blanket. Somehow always getting to that place of love and cuddling and just being together by the end of the day. The altar that's beside me as I chat with the ladies in my new one-on-one offering (in the beta testing phase - will be open to anyone in June!). A card that pretty much says it all (sending me a card in the mail is a way straight to my heart). Ellie's favorite evening activity has become these beads by B. Toys. A peek at the current studio altar. And I just keep rounding those corners as I granny away over here in the evenings while watching Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries on Netflix.

Gathering up photos like this is a way to really see evidence of the ways I'm living over here. It helps me to push aside the old stories and the shoulds. And it helps me see the textures and colors and rhythms of our days in this little house. 

In This Moment: Field Journal and Photo Album

 

I'm becoming even more passionate about getting our photos out of our phones and computers and into our hands. Ellie loves to look through my photo albums from my childhood, from when Jon and I were first dating, and from the trips I took before everything went digital. She also loves it when a new set of Instagram photos printed from the various sites I use comes in the mail and she can hold a photo of herself and put her favorites up in her room.

Printed photos are a way for us to hold tangible evidence of our lives in our hands. We can literally hold a piece of our story and then put it someplace to remind ourselves of the feelings, the true stories, of that moment.

And when we pair these photos with words that help us go even deeper into the story, we hit a frequency that helps us feel seen.

I really believe this is why I used to sit in the guest room/office in my childhood home and slowly, repeatedly, flip through the photos from when I was little. I was feeling seen by looking through these pieces of my story. 

That isn't to say that we can't feel seen sharing our photos through Instagram and Facebook. These moments of feeling seen do happen in real ways online. I love Instagram for the connection I feel there. And in the Facebook groups I use for my ecourses, I see real, deep connection happening when stories and photos are shared.

But the connection to the memories, to sharing these moments, can be fleeting online. And when we only share on social media, we sometimes forget to take that important step of feeling seen by ourselves that happens when we interact in more hands on ways with our own photos, with these pieces of our stories.

In This Moment: Field Journal and Photo Album

Helping you capture the beauty and realness of your everyday moments by printing out your photos + pairing them with words to share even more of the story is the reason why I want to get the In This Moment: Field Journal and Photo Album into your hands. It is one way I'm saying: It's time to stop talking about how we want to find ways to tell our stories and start doing it.

This field journal is a beautiful book you can fill with your photos and your words that tell the story of where you are right now. It is your reminder to see and to notice, to root yourself deeply in the beauty of your everyday life (even on the messy, rainy, tough days). The 27 prompts throughout the journal are the prompts I turn to daily, and they give you a place to begin. There are also blanks pages for you to come up with your own prompts and ideas.

In This Moment really is a mindfulness meets photography ecourse that arrives in your mailbox. You can actually hold it in your hands so it doesn't get lost in your inbox.

 

Previously, In This Moment was available only through The Gift of This Moment Home Retreat Kit. But I now have about 100 of them in my studio ready to be sent to you. You can buy it in my shop right here. 

glimpses {2}

oh mango popsicles, i adore you

i couldn't stop myself
(these colors are making there way into the 1993 Collection)

i made an alchemy deck with mindy this month
(it was awesome. more about it soon.)

i took this photo to remind me that:
somewhere between the push and pull, between the gentle sweetness
and the fierce growth, there are pieces of summer.

viv always spots the love (in PDX)

there was so much crazy joy in this moment at WDS

jedi or jawa?

date night. remembering why we moved here 10 years ago.

*****

Over on Instagram, you can find me sharing "the true stories" with glimpses of my world. I still think it is the best social media community out there. And it somehow feels like this really safe space where I can process the real and the beauty and the hard stuff with a circle of kindreds.

If you're on Instagram, come over and say hi. I'd love to connect with you there.

i want to tell you about... nashville

I want to tell you about how I let myself just be a tourist and bought teal cowboy boots and tried on hats and sang out loud to every single country song on the Prime Country XM radio station from the time I got into the rental car until I dropped it off five days later.

I want to tell you about how nice the people of Nashville are. So damn nice. As in I couldn't stop talking about how gracious they are and how they seem to simply open their arms to the tourists who want to pretend they are part of this gorgeous town for a few days.

I want to tell you about the moment we were about to leave the stage of the Grand Ole Opry and I said, "Wait, I really want to be in a photo all by myself." And I stood there and thought about Dolly and Patsy and Loretta and stood taller connected to the women who came before me.

I want to tell you about the heart opening, silly, honest, lovely conversations I had with my friend Vivienne as we explored and did the tourist thing and had drinks in the middle of the day because we could!

I want to tell you about Curve Camp and the magic that is the safe space created by Anna Guest-Jelly and how sacred it felt to be in the most body positive environment this always body and heart of mine have ever been in. Magic. It was pure magic!

I want to tell you about the coffee. Yes, the coffee. And the best hamburger I've ever had in my life that involved blackberry jam.

I want to tell you about the absolute awesome ridiculousness of standing in front of "Deacon Claybourne's" house and just for a minute pretending. Just for a minute.

I want to tell you about how important it is to get away for even just a day to a place where you can just be you. No roles to play. Nothing to do but wander. And when you combine that with gathering with women to tell your stories and deeply connect...well...your heart is going to open in ways that will change you. Yes.

And Nashville, I heart you big time. Can't wait to come back! 

glimpses {1}

Evidence I do sometimes cook pancakes from scratch

She's been wearing them indoors too. Makes me so darn happy.
(We found them at Old Navy.) 

As summer arrives, the 1993 collection will be returning to the shop soon because
I love going back to my high school jewelry making roots.

Called on my tools on the Tuesday that felt like a Monday:
glitter glasses + unicorns + poetry + coffee. 

Celebrating Jonny's birthday

Soul Mantras all in a row waiting to be polished.

tea + watercolors + listening to Pixie Campbell's wisdom from her Boundaries Bootcamp class
This is how I #fillitupbuttercup 

Part of being a parent is just forgiving yourself again and again. When you have a triumph, like being able to take in the waist of the special pajamas she has to wear for her pajama party at school tomorrow and you save the day, well, you have to hold that triumph close.

*****

Over on Instagram, you can find me sharing "the true stories" with glimpses of my world. I still think it is the best social media community out there. And it somehow feels like this really safe space where I can process the real and the beauty and the hard stuff with a circle of kindreds.

If you're on Instagram, come over and say hi. I'd love to connect with you there.