The girl in the picture

In case you haven’t heard, we’re moving (to the Nora Ephron apartment, by the way). I’ve been fighting the temptation to throw everything in the back of the car and call it packed and so I’ve been digging through drawers and emptying shelves in an effort to consolidate things. And I ran across this picture. I have no idea when it was taken, although my mom thinks I was about two years old. Every time I started to pack it away with the rest of the photo albums, I kept pulling it out and staring at it.

I kinda love this picture. Somehow, I guess I think that everything that is essentially me is in this picture. The girl in the picture is serious but maybe kind of hopeful, too. And I guess I feel that way a lot. Serious and hopeful. The girl in the picture has no idea what’s going to happen in the next 23 years. Or maybe she does. She kind of looks like she might. I find this photograph comforting. Like maybe if we’re essentially who we are when we were little, we’re not that far away from our real selves. I find it reassuring to recognize myself in her.

love, elizabeth

staring down my childhood

Yesterday was my second day in Colorado visiting my parents. One of the main purposes of my visit this summer is to go through my many belongings in storage and consolidate so that my mom and dad don’t have to drag my stuff with them when they move this year.

There’s something kind of a sadness digging through these boxes. Fortunately, I had Sarah around yesterday and she kept me laughing, reading diary entries aloud and drinking tea out of my extremely practical tea cups.

Sarah and I have been friends since 8th grade and sitting in my old bedroom, on bed sheets I bought in high school, reading old notes we passed each other, and finding trophies from summer camp and Avril Lavigne posters…it felt a little like time travel.

I don’t know why it’s painful exactly but it is. Sweet but ache-y.

Here are a few of my favorite things we uncovered. Things like my learner’s permit, my grandmother’s brooch, and one of my first love letters from Kyle…

What have you uncovered from your childhood?

love, elizabeth

Me and My Juice Box: A Valentine’s Day Giveaway

If you’re like me, you mostly think being a grownup is awesome. But then there are those days when you think, ‘The only thing I want to be responsible for is me and my juice box.’ Remember all that stuff that made being a kid so great?

So just in time for Valentine’s Day, I am giving away a box of sweet, sweet nostalgia. I’ve put together a whole bunch of kid things and I’m sending my favorites to one of you…

Included:

- 24 Crayola Crayons, fresh in the box. I read a study that said sniffing Crayola’s regularly lowers your blood pressure. I can’t disagree.

- Absolutely legit and authentic Barnum’s Animal Crackers.

- Brand new 7-foot jump rope.

- A scrunchie ball.

- Pixy. Stix. You heard me.

- Lip Smackers. Surprise flavor.

- A handmade Valentine to keep or give.

- And… (are you sitting down?) a make-up bag from every seven year old’s favorite designer, the queen of posh and purple kittens, Lisa Frank.

Like a freakin’ time machine.

 

So how do you win this little box of happiness?

Four possible entries (leave a separate comment for each):

Be a follower of Love is the Adventure using Google Friend Connect (only mandatory entry).

Tweet about the giveaway and include a link to this post.

Mention this giveaway in a blog post and include a link.

Like Love is the Adventure on Facebook.

 

The giveaway will close on Friday night (2/3/12) at midnight and I will announce the winner on Saturday morning!

What do YOU most miss about being a kid? What thing makes you really nostalgic for that time of your life?

love, elizabeth

A Wedding 5 Years Ago

With Beth’s wedding just days away (and me packing to leave for it), I’ve been thinking a lot about my own wedding. It’s mind-boggling to me how quickly the last five years have flown. I imagine the next five will fly even faster. This afternoon, on an impulse, I pulled out the wedding cd our photographer made for us. I haven’t actually looked at it since the wedding and I found myself crying, especially seeing the pictures of my grandfather who passed away a year ago, seeing the tenderness on Kyle’s face, the look in my mother’s eyes. It’s hard to believe I could have this many wonderful, loving people in my life. I am so thankful for them. And I’m thankful to have these pictures…

 

 

via Candy Apple Photography

If you are a Colorado bride, be sure to check this amazing photography duo out.

They’re absolutely the best.

I love seeing pictures of Beth and Zach together at our wedding long before they started dating. My friend Kacey took this photo in a car on the way to the wedding. That’s Zach and Beth in the front seat! And five years later…they’re about to get married themselves. This picture makes me so happy.

Photo credits: Kacey Stamats

Two of my favorite people in the universe. I should have known then…If we could only see what the future has for us!

Have spent some good nostalgic cry-time this afternoon. Hopefully I’ve gotten it all out of my system and can stay dry-eyed through the entire wedding week. (ahahahahahahahahaa…)

What about you? What wedding memories make you tear up?

love, elizabeth

PS: I’ll be leaving Tuesday but I have some sweet guest-posts coming up that you don’t want to miss!

Oh, and the Don’t Worry, Be Happy Giveaway closes Sunday night at midnight…want some H&M accessories? ENTER HERE.

The Fitzgeralds: Weathering the Storm

I think most of us have an historical period that particularly resonates for us. For me, that decade is the 1920's. I am kind of fascinated by all of it - flappers, prohibition, censorship, women's rights, jazz, art deco, modernism, Freud, the Charleston, the speakeasy, talkies...I'm hoping that at least part of my dissertation will be focused on burlesque and circus in the 20's. There is something about this era of photography and music that totally gives me goosebumps. It's ghostly and almost frightening in its intensity. There is a kind of wild forgotten-ness about the period that I really like.

And my favorite couple of the decade...F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Though F. S. is the famous one for his many novels (esp. The Great Gatsby and This Side of Paradise), Zelda was also an artist and a novelist. F and Z were definitely the "it" couple at the time and their passionate but tumultuous relationship was well-documented. And even though I'm pretty sure Kyle and I have a healthier relationship than the Fitzgeralds, I sort of relate to them as two people who were very much in love and yet faced a great deal of sorrow and pain and fear. I guess it's not the storm but how you weather it.

"I don’t suppose I really know you very well - but I know you smell like the delicious damp grass that grows near old walls and that your hands are beautiful opening out of your sleeves and that the back of your head is a mossy sheltered cave when there is trouble in the wind and that my cheek just fits the depression in your shoulder." - Zelda Fitzgerald

"I fell in love with her courage, her sincerity, and her flaming self respect. And it's these things I'd believe in, even if the whole world indulged in wild suspicions that she wasn't all she should be. I love her and it is the beginning of everything."

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

F and Z were buried together and the epitaph on their grave is from The Great Gatsby:

"So we beat on. Boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

Stay tuned everyone! Tomorrow I will be announcing my VERY FIRST GIVEAWAY!!!

A Peaceful Home

One thing I’m learning is how connected a peaceful home is to a peaceful spirit. I do really love the way certain things in the house make me feel…the beautiful books…the old window frame…the painting of Kyle in the hall…my new record player…But creating a peaceful home isn’t just about the lovely things you put in it. It’s about cleanliness and organization – nothing like a sparkling stainless steel sink or a dust-free bookshelf to make me smile! But I think really, a peaceful home is mostly about the love with which you keep your home and the people in it.

What about you? What helps make your home feel peaceful?

Operation: Coffee Table

When we left Colorado, we had to leave behind one of my favorite pieces of furniture, a large coffee table that Kyle and I had made together the first summer we were married. It’s something that used to receive tons of compliments (and even offers to buy it!) but it was just too big for the truck and too big for our new, smaller apartment. We’ve been making do with a small used coffee table from the thrift store. But YESTERDAY, I was inspired to recreate our first coffee table on a smaller, more apartment-appropriate scale. Thought I would share the before and after pics with you! This is an easy, inexpensive project and turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself.

Coffee table: $6.99, Goodwill

Mod-Podge decoupage glue and foam brushes: $7.77, Hobby Lobby


 Second-hand books to cut up: $13.41

I went through and chose images with color, texture, and text that resonated with me. Then I cut, tore, and ripped them out of old books from the thrift store.

This project is fun for me because you can be so liberal with your use of glue. The most important thing is overlap things, to layer contrasting images or colors, and to press in the creases with the end of the brush or the side of your finger.



The finished product! Total cost: $28.17 and 5 hours.

Anyone else doing any fun DIY projects this summer?

What It Was Like To Be 17 And In Love

Let’s just say that spring makes me nostalgic. And spring nights make me nostalgic for the period in my life in which I was doing the most wonderful, frightening thing I have ever done…falling in love. There’s just something about the way the leaves sound at night, the way the grass feels on your feet, the way everything is so still and dark, the way the ground smells sweet and kind of sad after it rains. If I close my eyes for a second, I am seventeen all over again and I am full of blushing-crimson-heart pounding-achy-secret smiles and I don’t know where to even BEGIN to store all the happiness in my heart. I just remember sitting on the front steps at nine o’clock at night and thinking, No one has ever felt as terrible and wonderful as I feel right now.

Tonight feels like that.

 

 

What about you? What reminds you of falling in love?