A Bucket List for Fall

As previously mentioned, fall is most definitely my favorite season every year. I love once everything begins to cool down a bit and I can dig out my boots and scarves. I love the changing that occurs within this season: the leaves, the holidays that are right around the corner. I love the prospect of a chai or latte early in the morning on my way to work, anything to keep me sane while working at a desk all day and longingly wishing I could be outside or anywhere else. 

I decided to create a bucket list of sorts. I'm a list girl. This is how I will always role and what better way than to dedicate this list to all things fall related. 

1. Buy pumpkins. (Already accomplished this on Sunday, but figured I place it on my list anyway.) 

2. Make this hot toddy. 

3. Take a drive through the mountains and take some photographs. 

4. Bake something fall-ish: pie, bread, scones, anything. 

5. Make s'mores and sit around our fire bowl out back, all bundled up and under the stars. 

6. Find a new scarf for the new season. And maybe some new boots. 

7. Make chili. Lots of chili. 

8. Make a fall sangria. 

9. Cook something involving butternut squash. Soup perhaps? 

Clearly, I will be cooking, baking, or drinking through must of this season. Can't complain really. 

Bring. It. On. 

Weekend Project: The Front Door

We own our home. I love it really mostly all of the time. Being a home owner also gives you the ability and opportunity to paint whatever nook and cranny of that home that suits your fancy. I always love how a coat of paint can completely transform something. 

This past weekend's project: The Front Door

Our front door was bland, predictable, and the same color as the rest of the house. Boring. What fun is that?

Somewhere in the midst of building our front porch, I was looking through paint swatches to find our perfect door color. I feel that red has been fairly overdone and wanted to find something unique to us. I've been placing more orange into our house over the past few year or so and have been trying to get away from red. (Nothing against red, but I've just used it far too long!) 

Here enters: Maple Leaf. The color of our freshly painted door. In the course of a few hours we had a spruced up door, some pumpkins to go with it, and my wreath hung up on the front door. Home Sweet Home.

I love it. For an inexpensive, weekend project: this is it. Aside from cleaning the door off and making sure that it was ready to be painted, this project was seriously a piece of cake. You just need a bit of patience in making sure the first coat is dry before you add the second, but other than that: easy as pie. (Clearly, I must want cake or pie, or really any dessert of any kind, due to my use of sayings today.) 

I need to quit thinking about dessert. 

I really must fix the number on our sign. The crooked two pretty much drives me nuts. 

I also managed to get some decorating done on the inside of our little home as well. 

I love this season. 

I Once Left My Heart In Longview

I've felt like such a jet-setter these past few weeks. After the California trip with The Piggies, I worked for three days and then promptly hopped on another plane early Thursday morning, bound for Longview, WA. I lived in Longview during my college years and it was probably the most difficult, life-shaping season of my life thus far. I met amazing people, played tons of music with tons of wonderful people, made some mistakes, had some triumphs, and then moved home to pick up all of the pieces after a few years. I don't regret any of it, at all. That time in my life has become part of who I am and I don't take that lightly for a second. 

Certain seasons change you and stay with you always. Longview is my ever-enduring season. 

My friend, Nate, was getting married, and my dear friends Katie, Brian and I took to the air and arrived in Longview for a swiftly passing, yet wonderful weekend. I was able to see old friends and meet new ones along the way. I stayed in the home in which I resided for the first few years I was there. We mapped out our expedition based only on where we wanted to eat. It was a weekend full of old and new. It passed far too quickly. 

Portland. Still one of my favorite cities ever. 

Katie. My best friend. We have been through thick and thin together. I am blessed to call her friend. 

Longview, WA

Being there though was good for me. I think at times I hold Longview with such nostalgia that I forget that times were tough then and I went through a lot to get where I am today. Times have changed, people have moved away, people have gotten married, and moved on with their lives. The homeless population has quadrupled and the drug presence has only increased. My heart aches for that little town. The heaviness over that town has only gotten worse.  

My old room, my old bed. So many memories in this house.

From being there that weekend, I can say with upmost certainty that the life I have now is completely where I am supposed to be in my life. I have it made. I work for a good company, we own a house, I'm married to an amazing man, we get to play music with some of our best friends. Longview is a season that is now the past and I think that I'm finally alright with that statement. It was good for me to visit so that I could finally come to that realization. It's a healthy journey. One that must be taken. 

The Wedding

In the northwest, you have to drink coffee. It's a must. 

Birthday Celebrations with friends young and old. 

Bruno's Pizza. I waited all weekend for this. 

Bound for home. 

(I apologize for all of the iPhone photos. I didn't have my camera with me nearly as much as I should have.) 

The Piggies Take California

I am a musician. Not nearly as much as once was, but nowadays I hold on to that statement with every ounce of intensity that I can. Life gets in the way. Work gets in the way. Routine gets in the way. But, through it all, one thing always remains the same: in order for me to have some sort of sanity in my life-  I must play music. Period. With that said, sometimes life throws an opportunity your way, if only for a weekend, to do just that. I know to take that opportunity and run with everything I have in me. Weekends like that are fleeting. 

One of the bands I play in is The Piggies. We are a group of people who have all played music in other bands with each other at some point down the road, or engineered our other projects, or helped us along the way to fill holes in our projects. We have each others backs. I have a ton of fun playing music with these gentleman. I try to not take that lightly. 

We have been working hard at being the backing band for Fort Collins favorite: Johnny Hickman. This guy is the bees knees and playing music with him is a great gift. He has been playing music for longer than I've been alive and his fans have such devotion to him. Being able to share a stage with him is always a treat. 

We were asked to play at the Cracker Campout in Yucca Valley, California. It was held at Patty and Harriets.  It's pretty much a festival out in the desert with a bunch of people who really love the bands that play there.  We felt so much love. The amazing fans of those bands actually flew us out there and bought our rooms in order for us to play for a weekend. People are awesome. Especially people that get music. I am very thankful. 

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It was a sleepless weekend, full of free vodka tonics, going to bed at 3 am nearly every night, waking up to the hot desert sun, and anticipating the next night that we get to play. We played with Johnny Hickman the first official day we were there and then The Piggies played the following night. I realized how old I really am in the grand scheme of things because by the end of the weekend I was wiped out. 

But, it was worth it. Totally worth it.