heart to hearts Archive

Today, I turn 27 years old.

It’s not a special age by any means. I’m not 25. I’m not in my last year of my twenties or turning the big 3-0. I’m just 27. Yet I feel like this is a good number for me. It fits. I’ve felt so much clarity leading up to 27 and for the first time in a while feel content in my own skin. I have a small business that I adore, goals and dreams I’m working towards, an amazing husband, and a family and group of friends that’s small, but I’m a quality over quantity kind of girl anyways (unless it’s a bunch of blooms; you can never have too many blooms). I can’t emphasize enough how much I mean it when I say my life is far from perfect but leading up to 27 I’ve accepted – and learned to love – the imperfections.

My Mom asked me last night, what my plans were for today. I told her I wanted to take Zoe for a walk, get caught up on some laundry, take a trip to Target for some new foundation (and a new pouf for our front porch that Andrew doesn’t yet know we are bringing home) and enjoy a 3:00 pm surprise that Andrew planned for me. Maybe we’ll enjoy a nice dinner later and then I’ll prep for a new work week starting tomorrow. It’s funny how our birthday celebration desires change from year to year. But ultimately, my birthday wish for this year? To be happy. 27 I think I like you already.

Photo above from the incredible Mindy and Ben at Studio 6.23. Can’t wait to share more from our session :)

I have to write this today. And just let the words flow out, yo!

Not to sound like a broken record here, but last year around this time now I was an emotional mess. I had a hard exterior and everything in my life put together but inside I was sad, sad, sad and frustrated more than ever. Did I mention sad? One day I’ll share more on why I felt this way but for now it’s not important. What’s important is what I am about to tell you below. Forgive me for so many words but I’m a big advocate for making decisions in life that are in line with living your best life. I didn’t always think this way but I do now and it’s a good thing. I’m a super sensitive, wear-my-heart-on-my-sleeve kind of girl and can easily get upset over something insignificant or temporary so I’m often thinking of ways to maintain my positivity and focus on the good. Sometimes, that doesn’t always happen. Sometimes life sucks and you have to kick yourself in the ass to regroup. Here’s what I think and wanted to share.

Define What Matters. You know what matters to me right now? My husband matters. Our marriage really matters. The third year of marriage is the hardest. I know this because that’s where we are right now in our journey together. Marriage is like the female body in a sense. Yeah it sounds wacko but stick with me here. In high school some girls have these rocking bodies and a metabolism that can process McDonalds and late night pizza runs like a boss (I wasn’t one of those girls FYI). We buy teen mags with airbrushed women posing provocatively on the front and constantly feel like our worth is determined by how we too look; in real un-airbrushed life that is. Then we get a bit older and life catches up with us. Our hard as hell work outs don’t seem to do much. We think man I had it GOOD in high school and didn’t even have to walk a mile before dropping five pounds. As time goes on you realize you can’t just sit around and expect to feel or look good. You have to WORK at it. Marriage is like that to me. You want to reap the benefits of a healthy and loving marriage? You have to WORK. And the work is so so worth it as I’ve learned in the past month. Do. Work.

My family matters. My future family and whether or not it involves babies matters. My job and my business and my clients matter. My home and how it feels and looks matter. Yup how it looks matters to me. This doesn’t mean it’s perfect. It doesn’t mean we have the nicest or most expensive things. It just means it’s where I am the most physically, as a working-from-home-professional and self-proclaimed home-body, and if I’m going to live here and make memories here, I want it to be in a way that makes me happy. My health, our crazy pets, our well-being, our space, our free time, all of these things matter. My close friends, the ones who call to check on me, who listen to me on the phone, who send sweet notes and give me love love love, these people matter. Everything else? Does not matter. Not important.

You Are Enough. Why do we tell ourselves we’re not enough? Why do we let others make us feel like we aren’t enough? This sweet thing wrote a post on instagram yesterday that reminded me of the post I wrote over here. I’m ALWAYS feeling like I’m not enough guys. Maybe I don’t share it publicly but it happens often especially as of late. I’m not skinny enough, pretty enough, rich enough, successful enough, my two college degrees are somewhere out there (seriously, I don’t even have them framed and couldn’t tell you where they are right now. I’m embarrassed) and not doing much for me, I’m not saving lives, I’m not making serious bank, I’m shopping at Hobby Lobby during my business hours looking for the perfect shade of soft ble ribbon for a ceiling treatment. What? I can’t cook a carrot cake from scratch, I can’t wake up at 5:30 am to go to the gym like some women do. I can’t stay up past 11:00 pm because I get sleepy like a baby. I can’t remember my times tables past the 5′s. I can not run a mile if I tried. I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t. I’m sick of it.

Because I am. I am more than enough. I am a good wife. I am a good fur baby mom. I’m not a real human mom (ha that sounds funny doesn’t it?) because right now wouldn’t be a fair time to bring a life into this world and I think that means I’m enough in and of itself. That’s a decision Andrew and I have made together as a team, and that’s enough too. I’m not saving lives but instead I’m enriching them. And helping people make beautiful and special memories. I’m not rich but I’m fulfilled. I’m so creative and have so much to give it hurts sometimes. That’s plenty. And those Hobby Lobby trips, as trivial as they feel, are what I’m paid to do. So I should embrace it and know that I am enough. Enough already with not feeling like we’re enough as women, business owners, moms, wives, teachers, people, friends, whatever. We are all enough. More than enough most days. We need to start believing it and telling others to know and believe it too.

Define Your Own Version of Success. I was on the phone with my sweet friend Leah this morning for almost an hour. God I love that girl and am so thankful our paths crossed early last year because she’s become a true friend and such a bright spot in my life. Leah is a perfect example of focusing on what matters. She inspires me DAILY to just let go. New followers? More weddings? More overtime in the office? More superficial being? Hell no. Ain’t nobody got time for that. We talked today and I told her the only thing holding me back these days is MYSELF. Because I have this stupid crazy hard time defining my version of success sometimes. Success so often is what everyone else makes it out to be. Success to some is more followers, more features, 25 weddings a year, more comments on a post, more money, more friends, more more more. I’m sick of that too. Because more is further away from enough and the only way you’re going to live a fulfilled, happy and menaingful life is to define your own version of success. Write it down. Memorize it.

With that being said I’m off tonight to the airport with my husband. We are meeting my parents, my brother, and an old neighbor friend of ours, in sunny, beautiful, Jamaica. I had to write this post before I left because the jumble of words above has been heavy on my heart. I hope whoever you are, wherever you are, whatever you do or are planning to do, that you know you’re enough. The photo above was taken in Chicago by my sweet friend Shalyn. Who just announced her business’ new name. Hooray! Head over to her blog to check it out. Enjoy your day and I’ll be back next week xoxo

I’m sure you’ve heard of the Pay It Forward movement. You know, cover the cost of groceries for the teary eyed mom with three kids in front of you when her two cards decline. Or help carry the elderly man’s groceries to his car in the pouring rain. Or my personal fave because it’s so easy and unexpected, pay for the person’s Starbucks drink behind you in line just to make them smile. What’s a couple extra bucks every now and then, right? They always say, the best way to lift your spirits is to lift someone else’s first. It seems an unlikely truth but one that certainly holds its own weight.

This morning my sleepy behind ventured out to my local Starbucks nice and early to tackle a pile of work that needs my attention. I stood in line behind seven people, with not one person coming in behind me. It wasn’t until I gave my card to the cashier that I felt someone finally step in line at my back. I turned around and asked the middle aged man standing there what he wanted. I had to actually ask him a few times because he was so surprised I wanted to cover his order. “Why are you being so nice?” he asked carefully. I simply told him that it’s important to pay it forward in life.

I come to find out that this man was buying a Skinny Caramel Macchiato for his wife. His wife just lost her Dad and was feeling really down so he was getting a drink for her. I told him that I hoped her drink brought her a sliver of comfort in this tough time. And when I sat back down at my table to open my laptop I saw him stand in front of the Starbucks window and wave bye to me. He mouthed ‘Thank you’ again and nodded his head to me before hopping in his truck to leave. That’s when I noticed he was wearing my alma mater’s mascot and letters on his sweat shirt and hat.

The world has the potential to be so so great. I believe it and know it’s possible with something as simple as buying a stranger’s coffee. So whose with me? I encourage you too to pay it forward somehow today whether it be a big or really small gesture of kindness and love. Let me know below what you love to do to pay it forward! Above photo from the amazing Shay Nelson who is one of my faves to enjoy coffee with. Go give her a hello! Happy Tuesday, guys xo

Over the summer mentioned in Part II I had to decide what to do next. After only three months in Chicago with Andrew who was my fiance at this point, and unable to find a job in my field, I found myself back in my parent’s basement. I hadn’t been there since high school and had to get used to a new lifestyle and routine. Frustrated, lonely and feeling like I had taken five steps backwards, I needed to focus on moving forward instead. For a few weeks my Dad and I sat on the couch in the basement and together we drafted up a preliminary business plan for my bakery. Seriously though. Guys, I wanted to open a sweet little bakery and make delicious and gorgeous cupcakes and cakes for weddings and events. We ran numbers, checked out potential locations, I started branding myself through my blog and then I realized, crap I have a fiance 14 hours away waiting for me to come back sometime soon. Making an investment like opening a bakery seemed like a sure fire way to distance myself even further from ending up with Andrew so I decided to head back to school. Talk about two complete opposite directions right? But I just felt like I owed it to myself to give the journalism thing one more go, especially after four and a half years of school and at this point, around five internships.

I applied to a technology college 20 minutes from my parents house, starting coaching recreational gymnastics again (at the same place I worked at in high school five years prior) and felt inspired and hopeful that this would be the way to finally get what I was after; except looking back now I wasn’t even sure I knew what that it really was. I bought a few back to school clothes (well I bought a new pair of flats if that counts), a new back pack and found out on the first day of school that the fast track new media program I enrolled in required a Mac Book laptop. Oy. Looks like the laptop that had gotten me through college wasn’t going to cut it anymore. And neither was my long hair which proceeded to make me look much younger than I already looked (no good for someone who was hoping to land a reputable on air reporting gig). By October I had chopped 13 inches off of my hair (I cried). And I was hardly getting used to only being able to chat with Andrew every night on the phone (I cried much more getting used to the reality of our relationship).

Guys, I was a miserable you know what here. I would have never admitted this to anyone but Andrew during it all but I was just angry at anyone I could blame. Everyone around me seemed to have more good in their lives. Friends who had just gotten engaged were living with their fiances, planning their weddings, going to their 9 to 5′s and having fun on the weekends. I was after more than a year of being engaged wondering if I’d ever be a bride, barely getting to talk on the phone with my fiance, going to my classes 9 to 9 so I could head to my part time job on the weekend. I felt cheated out of the plan I had envisioned for so long. I started to even get envious of Andrew who had seemingly desirable things happening over in his world like bills, the freedom to do whatever he wanted in the apartment and the silly list goes on.

There was one point over my year at school in the spring semester where I think Andrew and I hit our lowest point as a couple. We went nearly three months without seeing one another, school got incredibly busy for me, work got busy for him and we just sort of stopped trying when it came to our relationship. Thankfully we regrouped, carried on, spring came to Chicago, I graduated with honors from my program, won the Best Reporter award, landed a dream internship at a magazine in the heart of Toronto and spent that summer working my tail off between an unpaid internship and a part time job that barely paid for the expenses of our upcoming fall wedding. I was tired tired tired. Did I mention I was tired? The only light I could see at the end of the tunnel was our wedding and finally getting to marry Andrew.

Our wedding day came on September 24th, 2010. It rained twenty minutes before our ceremony. And stopped 10 minutes after. I wrote a lot about planning here on this blog. And had so many of you cheering us on. Your love was felt! And appreciated. You can see more of our wedding here. Our wedding day was mad chaos, to put it lightly. I took on so much myself. After helping plan friend’s weddings and my sister in law’s wedding prior to my own, plus years of experience in heading events and organizations in college I knew I could pull off an amazing party. But I was too stubborn to let anyone else help execute things on the day of. Hey you live and learn right? Let’s just say my own experiences as a hard headed bride are absolutely a benefit to the clients that hire me as their planner and designer.

Andrew and I set off to the Bahamas for a heavenly five day honeymoon on September 26th. And I thought everything would finally fall into place. Everyday we’d head down to the beach to relax and in between some serious sea shell hunting, I’d open my notebook and sprawl out new business plans and packages and ideas and pricing and the list goes on. I finally knew what I had to do and it was learn to be in charge of my life and my decisions. That always sounds easier than it is though right? More coming next in Part IV! Photo above taken by Amanda Wilcher.

Oh my GOSH. Last week guys? Oy!

If you follow me over on Instagram you’ll know it was brought to my attention last week that I fell victim to a terrible instance of brand theft and logo infringement. A woman in Cape Town, South Africa stole my logo claiming to have designed it herself (she did remove the hummingbird and word ‘Events’) and decided the Hey Gorgeous brand name was awesome enough to become her business name too. She launched her business exactly one month after the new Hey Gorgeous Events went live in December and the worst of all, has been using my logo on her labels and packaging. I was absolutely devastated to see everything in front of my own eyes and a bit shocked that people like this even exist.

“The threat of theft is the cost of business.” I read this on Unfettered Ink last year and immediately saved it to my desktop. I’m very honest, transparent, giving and kind both in business and life, and owe a lot of my success to that. But then there’s days like last Thursday where I feel like it’s easier to have your identity, photos, work, ideas, logo and even your business name stolen from you when you put your heart out into the open. So maybe I should scale back on my blog posts to prevent more instances like this. Design less editorials. Talk less about going after my dreams. Or get rid of the authentic and beautiful brand I’ve worked so hard to build. It’s easy to settle when we feel defeated right?

Here’s what I think though. Now that I’ve had a bit of time to calm my heart and think clearly.

Instances like mine from last week fuel you up and motivate you to be that much better. They drive you to protect yourself and your ideas more intently. They bring to light how incredible friends, family, clients and acquaintances are when they do the right thing to support you and stand together in a fight for what’s right and what’s fair. And best of all days like last Thursday teach you about grace and holding your head high when you feel like you’ve been punched in the gut. I’ve also learned that you can be the nicest, sweetest, hardest-working, most talented, quirkiest, funniest or established individual the wedding industry, or any industry for that matter, has ever seen and someone is still always going to have a problem with you, find someway to bring you down, and take what yours. Don’t let them.

My dear friend and colleague, Courtney Dellafiora, recommended an amazing book to me last week in the midst of all this craziness. As someone who has experienced her own share of copy cats and thieves, she told me that the best way to make it impossible for people to copy you is to implement so much of YOURSELF into your brand that there’s no logical way anyone could get away with stealing. And I’ve always believed so fully that my brand is what it is because it’s so personal. So I’m going to keep sharing, and keep being me because I sure don’t know any other way. I hope all of YOU will tweet this post and facebook it and pin it and email it and share these words so that artists, creative types, business owners and authentic, good, true and honest people can thrive and succeed just like they are meant to.

So whose with me?

Photo above by Leah Mullet. Complete with MY logo on MY tote bags for clients :) Isn’t it pretty?