During our road trip, we visited Devil’s Tower. Seeing it up close again made me want to rewatch Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. We finally did that yesterday and it was so cool to see it again. We were able to say things like, OH! We were there! That’s the gate! lol, and we were able to notice it was a set. 🙂
Have you ever seen a place and wanted to watch a movie filmed there? Or have you seen a place on a movie and had to go?
For about a year, I’ve been meaning to do a few things. Since I stopped photographing weddings, I wasn’t maintaining my Facebook page. I created new pages for new ventures (a new website, a new Facebook page, etc.) but they all were pretty much placeholders. I ended up going on lots of adventures, worked new jobs and just put them on the back burner.
This week, I feel like I finally caught up on a few things. I felt fully “back” after vacation, I typed up my notes from Essentialism and created my personal essential categories in life. I have been doing so many things I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. I’ve almost completely transitioned my to do list into Asana and off of my iCloud calendar. Now, that’s just for events. Ahhh, just the sense of relief at getting these things done is amazing.
Well, today, I finally updated my blog header, description, avatar and Facebook page to reflect the new direction of the blog. I say new, but it’s been here for about a year. I even put up a post on my photography business page.
So here we are, updated blog and in some ways, updated life.
As I created the new header, I was reminded that I am in no way a graphic designer, but I love that Jenny Lake is my header. 🙂
I love living a minimalist life. It was one of those things that came out of nowhere but it makes complete sense for our lives. In the last few days, two experiences stood out that made me want to write this post.
First, the apartment was a little messy and impeding my ability to work. It was still morning and I wanted to get to work. So I set a timing for 10 minutes. In TEN minutes I cleaned the apartment. Not a “shoved everything into a box or a drawer” cleaned but actually straightened up. Since we have so little, everything has a place and it’s easy to get it there.
Second, I was able to spend about 3 hours last night finishing a book. I read about half of the book in pretty much one sitting. Now, this is more a time freedom thing, but I think it still goes along with our minimalist life. Because my responsibilities are light in the home and in life too really and I can carve out time on a Friday night to finish a book. It is amazing freedom.
What about you? Are you living a minimalist life? Even if it’s just one aspect of your life. What are the benefits you’ve found?
This is the book I finished last night. Great story by the way, I can’t wait to get the next book. This guy also write The Grimm Sisters series.
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Mostly because I can walk through streets like this!!
Ah, the last post on our road trip. Did you see all of them? Here’s a link to each:
Road Trip Part 1 – Baltimore to Philly to PA to Chicago
Road Trip Part 2 – Minnesota to The Corn Palace To South Dakota To The Badlands
Road Trip Part 3 – Bear Country To Rushmore To Crazy Horse
Road Trip Part 4 – Devil’s Tower To Montana
Road Trip Part 5 – Yellowstone to Jenny Lake
Road Trip Part 6 – Leaving California to Arizona to Zion National Park
Road Trip Part 7 – Arches National Park
Oh and this post (How To Go From “I’ve Always Wanted To Do That!” To “I Did That!”) is good to read before today’s post. Mostly because of the “I’ve always wanted to do that” section.
Ok, now that you’re all caught up!
We left Arches….bye Arches!….to go to Denver.
One thing I love about driving cross country is seeing the changing landscapes. In a matter of hours, it can change completely. Sometimes, it’s a matter of minutes. Our transition from South Dakota to Wyoming was like that. It was crazy how quickly it changed. Look at how different the landscape is as we transitioned into Colorado!
But you still have those red rocks. Ah, so beautiful.
Another cool thing about driving cross country is seeing things you never expected. This lake was just such and example. I’m not sure why I didn’t think I’d see something like this, looking back, but there are sailboats in a mountain lake! So cool!
We arrived in Denver at sundown. Seeing the sunset over the Rockies was just plain amazing. This was another time I wished I had a professional camera and not a phone. Because phone pictures aren’t as good at capturing how things really were.
We arrived at our friends’ place and what incredible hosts! We took showers and just relaxed and chatted while Jen made dinner. Now, I want to take a minute to talk about Jen and Jeff. These two are such cool people. They embody the “I’ve always wanted to do that, so I’m going to do it” mentality. They have had several dreams of doing things and they have attempted to do them. I met Jen at a photographer meet up in the Baltimore/DC area and we became friends. She does amazing photography work in Denver now. Ha ha, as I pulled the link to her website, I was distracted for a good ten minutes. 🙂 Anyways, as we were talking about many things (I think all told, we talked about 8 hours between the evening and the next morning), I mentioned how I was excited to write a blog post about “I’ve always wanted to do that,” Jen echoed many of my same thoughts on the subject. Later, I asked why they moved to Denver. Jen’s response? “I’d always wanted to live here, so I did it.” THAT my friends made my heart sing. 🙂 I’m so grateful for the time we spent with Jen and Jeff. I’m also grateful for friends in Denver now! 🙂 Bonus? Friends that can cook! I was the FIRST to get seconds AND I cleaned my plate! I’m normally one to leave something on my second plate and give the rest to Bret. Nope! All mine!
It was like home away from home!
Our next stop was Garden of the Gods. It was a quick loop to see everything, so it didn’t take too long. But a nice side trip.
And then…everything got flat. 🙂
Kansas wasn’t as hard to drive through as I expected. I think because we broke up the drive with some fun side trips. The first was a giant Van Gogh painting! Fun, quick stop only about 5 minutes off the highway.
Since we weren’t stopping at another hotel on the way home, we decided to splurge on meals. We stopped at a local restaurant and I got a WHOLE catfish. Oh baby, it was delicious. Melted in my mouth. Mmmmmm.
Our last big stop was Casey, IL. The town has a TON of “world’s largest” things! What a smart way to get tourists into your town!
There was the windchime, which you could RING!
The rocking chair….which, you couldn’t sit in. 😦
The bird cage you could sit and swing in!
The mailbox that you could go in AND actually mail things from! The flag goes up too!
The shoes…
The pencil…
The pitchfork…
Ok, I’m not going to lie to you. The last part of the drive was really hard. Ugh. Took forever.
365daysofmarriage 