Category: Raves

Lots of love over here!

I’ve been going non-stop this week! Lots to love floating around & not a lot of time to sit down and write about it unfortunately, but heyo, I made it!

weekly loves, Sept 4 – 10

Puppy love

Moose has been at peak cuteness this week. I didn’t think it was possible for him to get much cuter but dang it, every day he somehow makes it happen!

Photo Sep 06, 4 24 56 PM
Photo Sep 04, 9 59 58 PM

As the weather has gotten cooler, we’ve been getting him used to wearing sweaters. I love it so much, and I think he’s tolerating it… Just the cutest thing ever. He’s close to being totally potty trained {so close… stubborn Frenchies!} and has been SO loving & cuddly this week. What a good squish.

What Made Maddy Run

I finished this book up on Monday. It was a pretty quick read & was written well, so I would definitely recommend it. Warning, though, it’s about a sensitive topic. It dives into the life {and the end, specifically} of a new college student Madison Holleran, who struggled with depression, the pressure of school athletics, & perfectionism. Her story was intriguing to many, since she put on a front of total happiness via her Instagram, and lots of people could relate to the intense stress of being a student athlete. No happy ending here unfortunately, but we can all learn from her life to spend each day doing what we love & to reach out when we need help.

{If you are in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline @ 1-800-273-TALK (8255)}

Community

On a lighter note, I have been feeling the love from my friends & family lately. I am so grateful to have a network of supporting & loving people surrounding me, both near and far. I posted this week about how I’m making some substantial changes in my life and how I spend my time, and have been feeling warm & fuzzy from all the positive responses from my people. Thanks, y’all.

Also, Ben and I {and Moose} spent the evening at the WYSO Community Concert at a park in downtown Dayton – lovely weather, lovely music, & lovely vibes! Yay for loving local. <3

 

 

5 things I like right now

I always want to do monthly favorites posts. I keep notes in my planner of things I’m loving, but by the time the end of the month rolls around, I have new things I’m loving already! So, I think I’m going to start doing weekly posts to share what I’ve been loving lately. Check out my weekly loves! {is that a weird phrase? I feel like that’s a weird phrase. hm.}

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6 things I’ve been loving in June {+ updates}

Just like that, the year is halfway gone!

I feel like I blinked and missed June – it’s been a busy month full of working, reading, attempting to organize my life, and working some more. Oh, and did I mention working?

Continue reading “6 things I’ve been loving in June {+ updates}”

9 books I’ll be reading this summer

Since I’ve started working in the children’s department of a library, summer reading is just about all that I can think about.

summer readingOf course, most of those thoughts are centered around children’s books and programming, so I thought it’d be a nice idea to give myself a break from the endless piles of picture books and focus on some picture-less books that are actually written for adults. Don’t get me wrong, I love children’s lit, but there are only so many repetitive rhymes and cartoonish illustrations that one can look at.

Being surrounded by all kinds of books has made my to-read list grow longer and longer every day, yet I’ve been struggling to give myself actual time during the day to chip away at that list.

If you follow me on Goodreads, you may notice that I’ve only been adding books to my Currently Reading section but not completing them for the past few weeks… whoops.

So, I thought it’d be a fun idea to get together a list of books I’ll be reading during the upcoming summer months, and that hopefully it can motivate me to cross them off my list. Follow me on Instagram, as I’ll be posting more updates on my progress there!

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Why you need to rent camera gear before you buy

I’m an amateur photographer right now, but more of my friends lately have been asking me to take photos for them – which I’m LOVING!

For a while I’ve felt that my camera bag is missing something, but I couldn’t figure it out. There are about a million + one options of cameras and lenses out there, and for someone who barely knows how to shoot in manual mode, the choices can be a little overwhelming. Continue reading “Why you need to rent camera gear before you buy”

Dayton Coffee Crawl: A visit to Ghostlight Coffee

Ah, Ghostlight. You were the first coffee shop I visited in Dayton, the first one I found in my Google search, my first Dayton coffee love. Thus, I think it makes sense that it’s the first stop on my Dayton Coffee Crawl!

Let’s start with the basics…

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Dayton Coffee Crawl

I don’t think it really needs to be said, but I love coffee.

The first thing I do when I go to a new place is to search for a coffee shop to try out – & the second is to try to find a bookstore, so I think my priorities are set in the right places.

When I found out we were moving to Dayton, I was so concerned that for some reason, they wouldn’t know how to do good coffee in this random spot in Ohio. (I was spoiled by my east coast upbringing, I think) But after doing a quick Google search, I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised!

Once we arrived in Dayton, we made pretty quick work of checking a few coffee shops I found off of my list. Somehow, though, I still haven’t managed to get to them all! Now that we’ve been here for over a year, I thought it would only be appropriate to do a series of posts that I’m going to call the Dayton Coffee Crawl – visits to every single local coffee shop in the area, with an overview and my thoughts on each one. Traditionally, “coffee crawls” are single-day tours of a number of coffee shops in an area, resulting in some SUPER CAFFEINATED people. But I don’t have the time for that and goodness knows my heart can’t handle too many shots of espresso in one day!! It’ll be a slow crawl.

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Tea time

“Tea is always a good idea.” – some very very intelligent person

I know I talk big coffee game sometimes, but I’m a tea drinker at heart and always have been. I love all kinds of tea, especially herbal teas, and have been building my tea collection for a while – it just keeps growing and growing, no matter how much tea I drink! And don’t get me started on my mug collection…

tea-4

Different teas carry with them different memories for me. Mandarin Orange Spice by Celestial Seasonings instantly brings me back to my childhood and drinking tea at the dining room table with my mom, who’s a big tea drinker. She has a dedicated tea drawer that is always stocked. The smell of certain rooibos and chai teas make me think of her, as those are her favorites. A nice English breakfast tea transports me to crisp summer mornings in London with my family when we traveled there for a few days back in 2012. Yogi’s Throat Comfort tea reminds me of college days when I was sick and would’ve rather been sleeping but had to go to class – specific, I know!

I thought it was only right to go through my tea collection that I have here and pick out a few of my favorites to share with y’all. Some of these are classics that I always have lying around, and some are new & fun discoveries. {disclaimer: this post contains affiliate links}

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