Desktop Wallpaper: Yosemite View

GUYS I'M SO EXCITED. H is coming to visit tomorrow! And it's only been two weeks since I've seen him so that's not really a huge deal, but I'm really excited to show him around the town where I grow up and work and live for part of the year. It's one of those places that I know inside and out and it's so dear to my heart. And naturally, H is so dear to my heart and I just need him to meet my town.

I've actually gotten sort of obsessive about it--I've already made a detailed itinerary for what we're going to be doing for the next five days--cherry picking, pizza at my favorite place, bike riding, visiting the state park, going to the beach, walking in the 4th of July Parade, going to the Tabernacle (church) with my family, etc. It's a big deal! So already, I can tell that July is just going to be swell.

But June was pretty great too! Among the highlights, I graduated, went to California and settled in Michigan for the summer. Tomorrow I'll recap June a little more thoroughly, but today I just want to share one little bit of my California trip (since apparently I'm never going to get through all my pictures).

The natural beauty in CA was just gorgeous and this was one of my favorite spots in Yosemite. I know it's not a particularly creative shot but guys. It was impossible to take an ugly picture.

Even more than just the view, I love the story behind how these mountains came about--through rivers and glaciers freezing and melting over thousands of years. What a great reminder that good things really do take time. 

To download, just click through on the picture and save the full-size photo which is linked. Then set it as your desktop background!

Enjoy the wallpaper and the rest of your Tuesday!

California in Color Palettes: Pt. 1

I've been home for more than a week and I still haven't gone through all of my photos from California. I'm bad, I know. But I still wanted to share them, so I decided to make them into color palettes! In my own design, I'm a big believer in finding inspiration from natural things. This can be the shape of something I see or the feelings that come out or just the colors. The funny thing about colors in nature is that they never clash. Never. And these color palettes can really work for anything, from your blog to your home!

(taken on Alcatraz Island)

(somewhere in San Francisco)

(Lombard Street, San Francisco)

(somewhere, San Francisco)

(Alcatraz Prison Garden)

I hope you all enjoy them! If you do, feel free/please pin them on Pinterest. Which color palette is your favorite?

Weekly Goals #34

(photo by me, San Francisco)

Hey y'all! Happy Monday! I just want to give a big thank you to everyone who has left comments on my post the other day about why I'm choosing not to schedule my blog posts anymore (for the most part). I know scheduling posts is super convenient at times + it's certainly a good idea for some bloggers! But I decided that it's not the best thing for me or my blog right now.

I've got a fun but pretty relaxed day today. Earlier today, H and I went out for lunch at one of my fave Italian places in town. They're famous for their Nutella Pie! Yummmmm. This afternoon, my mom and I are getting our nails done--they need sooo much repair after two weeks of hiking and rock climbing and whatnot. So that really needs to happen. And then tonight I'm flying to Florida for my orientation! I'm super excited about seeing my future school again and meeting future classmates but I'm also a little anxious about it so we'll see how it goes.

Then as soon as I get home, I have to pack for Michigan (for the whoooole summer), which naturally takes forever. So I'm kind of really dreading that. Anyways: weekly goals.

LAST WEEK'S GOALS:

+ Have fun in California! Duh, I did. I'll post a recap...someday. No clue when. Life's crazy right now.

+ Take pictures! I did pretty well at this! The first week or so I was a bit shutter-happy and took sooo many pictures. But towards the end of our trip I got lazy and just told myself that someone else would take the pictures and I'd get them later. But I still have lots! I'm thinking about picking the best and offering them as a free stock photo pack. I know I'm not an expert photographer or anything but I thought I'd put them out there! The post photo from this post and the post before are both from my trip. 

THIS WEEK'S GOALS:

+ Give my room a thorough cleaning before leaving for the summer. If there's one thing I hate, it's coming home to a mess. It's gonna be tricky finding time before I leave, since I'm home for, oh, approximately 24 hours in the next week. But it needs to be done.

+ Write thank you notes. I feel like I'm drowning in thank you notes...but kind of in a good way, if there is a good way to drown. I received soo many lovely gifts + checks for my graduation and need to, ya know, thank people for giving me their hard-earned money. I've written like 25 but still have 15+ to do...so yeah. There's that.

+ Practice hand lettering at least twice. I absolutely love practicing my lettering, whether it's with a pen + ink or a brush (even though I struggle so hard at brush lettering). I'm hoping to start making some projects out of my lettering + I need to keep practicing even though life is kind of crazy right now. Even in 45-60 minute chunks, I can feel myself improving and that's exciting!

+ Respond to comments! Okay so my cardinal rule of goal-setting is to make sure I don't make too many goals...but I just have so many things to get done this week! I haven't responded to any comments since I left for my hiking trip (sorry everyone!) and I feel so bad! I've been reading them all but I want to get back to all of you ASAP!

What are your goals for the week? How do you stay sane when traveling a lot?

THE CASE AGAINST SCHEDULING BLOG POSTS

(photo by me, at Alcatraz)

There are a lot of great reasons to schedule your blog posts ahead of time. By writing posts ahead of time + scheduling them, I've been able to take time off to study for exams, vacation or just busy times. Any of you bloggers who have tried scheduling out posts ahead of time know that it can be an extremely convenient practice.

But over the last few months as I've been scheduling posts as much as two or three weeks in advance, I've felt more out of touch. Some days I don't even know what post is going live, only that it's a Monday/Wednesday/Friday so there must be one!

I find that I don't mention much what's really going on in my life...because it would be weeks-old news by the time it went live! For example, in the last couple posts, I haven't mentioned that I've been in the Sierra Nevadas on a hiking trip for the last two weeks. But that's because I wrote those posts a month ago!

Somehow, that just doesn't feel right. I want you to know what's going on right now, and in the same way, I want to be updated with you and my favorite bloggers. If I was just writing for a newspaper or something, scheduling would be fine. But because blogging is about community, I'm feeling the need to add that little life update back into my posts.

I'm not saying I'll never schedule posts again! I probably will when I'm on vacation or during exam weeks. But I'll try to write my posts less than a day or two ahead of time when possible so that I can stay in tune with what's currently going up on my blog. Make sense?

I will still keep an editorial calendar (which I recommend all bloggers do!) and will probably plan out posts ahead of time to some extent. But I want to make sure I focus on sharing more of the day-to-day details, and that just doesn't happen when I schedule posts. 

So I mentioned that I wanted to share more of what was going on in my life, like right now? Here's what I've been doing lately:

• I graduated, just over two weeks ago. Super exciting! Super crazy! Super busy!
• Two days later, I flew to San Francisco with my family.
• Over the last two weeks, we've been hiking through Sequoia, Yosemite, Big Sur, Kings Canyon and Lake Tahoe. We've been swimming and rafting and sleeping in yurts (no, really!) and ziplining and driving (so much. How is California so big?!) and so much more!
• I'm currently in Sacramento with friends, getting ready to fly home tomorrow.
• It's been crazy exciting but I'm ready to come home to NC.

Now that I've updated you, I want you to tell me. What have you been up to? Do you schedule posts? Tell me why you do or don't!

Monthly Goals

Helloooo! Happy June! Today's our double day: weekly and monthly wishes! Man, it has been a heck of a week!

I've only talked about it a little bit but I had something big happen this week...I graduated! Yay! Side note: can I just say that graduation caps are officially the ugliest hats ever. Like serioiusly, America, is that the best tradition we can come up with? Other countries have gorgeous tribal or ethnic clothing and meaningful traditions (my family's half-Swedish and I've always loved St. Lucia Day). And while I know the US has other beautiful traditions, wearing flat caps on your head for graduations is pretty embarrassing. 

But aaaaanyways, all the family-and-friends socializing sort of overshadowed my goals this week. But I still didn't do half bad!

Last Week's Goals:

+ Make a to-do list every morning and actually get things done. So I started off great, but come Friday (when graduation festivities started) it was just not happening. My room's a bit of a mess and I've got approximately four thousand and seven thank you notes to write, but whatever. I graduated, homeskillet.

+ Read at least 15 minutes a day. I did great on this...until approximately Wednesday when I forgot I made this goal. Uh, oops. But then I remembered it on Friday and did pretty well the rest of the week so it's all good, guys. Plus, my genetics book = super interesting. I'm a nerd.

This Week's Goals:

+ Have fun in California! I haven't mentioned it in awhile, but my trip to California is this week! I leave tomorrow. As a reminder, in case you've lost your binder full of the details of my life, my family and I are celebrating my graduation by going to CA (I live on the East Coast) and visiting all the National Parks/beaches/aquariums we can fit in 12 days. I'm gonna see big trees. Anyways, this isn't a goal, but more an excuse to talk about my trip. #sorrynotsorry

+ Practice taking pictures! So I officially break the cardinal rule of bloggers: I don't take pictures. I don't even own a camera. Except my phone and a (largely unused) digital camera from approximately 2004. But I'm telling myself that it'll take a lot of skill to screw up pictures of such a gorgeous area. So even if it's on my iPhone, I want to actually take pictures of things for once! Maybe I'll get bold + take out that digital camera ;)

This Month's Goals:

+ Well let's look ahead to what June includes for me. First part of the month, I'll be in California, chilling out with the trees. Then, I'll be in Florida for a few days on some school business. Then (with literally less than 24 hours in between on either end of Florida), I'll head to Michigan for the summer where I work at an ice cream shop and listen to way too much indie pop music on my walks to the beach every afternoon. So it's gonna be crazy in that I have too much vacation planned! Jokes, jokes.

+ Form an actual morning routine. During summer (aka when I don't have 8am classes), I'm terrible at actually forming a good sleep/morning routine. Most days I get up between 8-9, but some days it's 7am and others it's not till 10 (which is actually embarrassing). This month, I'll form a morning routine that will involve a consistent but reasonable waking up time (with an alarm as back up!), exercise at least a few days a week, stretching, being productive, designing, etc. 

+ Work on my super secret project! How annoying is it to you guys when bloggers announce a project, but title is something like 'the super secret project'? Like why am I telling you about it if it's a secret? Mostly because it's not a sure thing + it's my way of knocking on wood. I hope to share more about it with you soon...if I can get enough of it prepared first!

What are your goals for the week + month?!