time for real talk, guys.
i decided to ask my close friend, Joanne, from ENCARNACION PHOTOGRAPHY, to share a few things on
love and marriage.
p.s. i love this couple for being so candid and so genuine with me always. their friendship means the world to me and i’m so damn lucky to have them in my life. below are images they took themselves with a tripod for a little anniversary session. love you, joannathon. #tcogtfo
“I wish someone told me that there was a manual on marriage before I got married to my dearest husband of now almost 5 years. But none the less there was never one written. My mom warned me that marriage was going to be a little rough. It now makes sense when she asked me, “Are you sure you’re ready?” I remember looking at her and thinking about Airis our 9 year old, we weren’t ready to be parents and oddly enough we survived that together. “
“I never thought that relationships were supposed to be easy. I’ve always seen them to be challenging in ways people can’t imagine. Two very different souls who have differences coming together always seems to cause some type of friction. Lucky for me the man I ended up marrying is easy to love, despite his Gemini ways. Jonathan and I have been married for 5 years in those five years of marriage I have learned to be patient, understanding, and forgiving. These skills and wisdom were a result from a roller coaster of a journey bringing us through ups and downs, dips and turns. We have fought with each other, cried with another, laughed, and shared many first amazing moments as a couple. Our children are some of the biggest teachers we have to thank. Because of them we have grown into two nurturing adults and have also learned to be more childlike in our marriage.”
“It would be a lie if I said that our relationship was perfect. It’s far from it, but I believe thats what makes every relationship and marriage special. The imperfections and nuances of love is what makes it all so beautiful. I may not have the answers to love and marriage, but I do know in order to be able to survive through marriage always believe that love still exists.”
“So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, “The good outnumber you, and we always will.”" – Patton Oswalt
photo credit: Juan Maclean from his instagram
days like yesterday do a number on all of us. heartbreak, sadness, anger, denial, frustration- only just a few emotions we all felt yesterday. the most disheartening feeling is does this really surprise any of us anymore? what evil humans are capable of? we have maniacs who go on a shooting rampages in elementary schools, movie theatres and through an entire city. so the fact that someone picked the happiest place from a marathon, the finish line, doesn’t surprise me. it’s just sick. the shock of when it happens will always surprise me, but the fact that that much evil exists doesn’t.
despite all this, the best things that come to light out of of all of this, is how much good there is. when the explosions happened yesterday, you saw people running towards those fences and ripping it down to get to the helpless. you saw someone taking off his belt to help make a tourniquet to stop the bleeding on a victim. through these tragedies, all of these small acts combine together to make such an incredulous surge of believing in goodness of humans.
my heart hurts for Boston and those affected. i will be keeping those affected in my thoughts and prayers this week, that’s for sure. my heart hurts that such evil exists. but i will always have faith and hope in humans cause no matter what tragedies and what evil happens, the good will always prevail.
that being said, we all have hearts. let’s try to use them better every day.
it’s no surprise that i’m fan of Pickwick & Weller (not just cause I’m proud that my Dad contributes to their amazingness), but because i love their comfy t-shirts and i can wear them always with everything and anything. so i’m really excited about their women and men spring collection with fresh spring colors added too!
here’s a few to take a look at:
the nouvel
the hanna long fit
the madeleine
the following three are available for pre-sale and i’m super excited to get my hands on one or all of those!
the harlan, the sonia, the wren
go ahead and go check out more of Pickwick & Weller’s new collection!
do some spring cleaning and get some of these staples for your closet this year. if you’re not sure about the fit, don’t forget to try their “try it on home” kit. this is where you pick three to try on for free, then the ones you like you keep and pay, ship the rest back on the house.
consider this my OOO.
i’m off to Hawai’i for the first time ever…since i’ll be out and about frolicking, i’ve decided to not post anything til i’m back next week. need to focus on being where i am at that moment. but feel free to follow my tweets or instagram!
*throws confetti*
yes, that would be me having THE time of my life throwing confetti after dear friends, Jonathan and Joanne from Encarnacion Photography , renewed their vows. i literally threw about two bags of confetti outside the Cosmo. sorry, Vegas street cleaners… at least the pavement looks pretty for once. many thanks to Jeramie Shoda from ShodaLove for attempting to capture the blurry craziness i was that night. more about wppi another time.
til then, aloha.
just wanted to take a moment to remember today.
it’s unbelievable that it’s been two years since this. even more so that while the damage clean up has been amazing, there is still so much that has been lost and needs to be fixed over there. a lot of it has been left alone and just now sits like ghost towns. nevertheless, it’s just as important to acknowledge and remember what happened that day and the weeks and months after. important to remember the lives lost and the survivors on that tragic day.
i’ll never ever forget what we did. FOR JAPAN WITH LOVE will forever be something that’s so close to my heart. every so often, I have to pinch myself and whisper, “Did we all really do that?” i’m still not sure how to ever thank everyone for all that they did to help with this whole fundraising campaign. it just really showed what a caring and compassionate community we have- not just the wedding industry, but the blogging industry and more. i took a moment to scroll through the names of who donated last week and while for the most part, i recalled who had donated back then, i saw some names i didn’t realize had helped and now they’ve become personal friends. quite honestly, i wish i could meet all of you and thank you personally for what you did.
i still remember the texts between Utterly Engaged and i that first day we launched FOR JAPAN WITH LOVE. “We raised $845!” and i texted back “My hands are shaking!” little did we know that the goal of $5,500 we had set for us (which we thought was too much) was practically a joke. i remember telling my family not to donate yet til the last minute, just in case we didn’t reach our goal at all. seeing the amount jump up $1,000 every hour was…i don’t even know…i sat there in disbelief and blank stared at my computer screen. my thoughts were “who ARE these people? and why are they so amazing?!”
$66,733
that’s what we ended up with for the first round.
a total of 1,407 individual donations.
unbelievable.
on top of that, the Bloggers Day of Silence had about 1,200+ bloggers involved. it still stops me in my tracks and tugs my heart strings to know that from our little corner of the world we were able to reach so many.
after help from our Bay Area friends and their benefit event, the grand total ended up being approximately
$73,000.
all raised within a month.
i definitely have to thank ShelterBox for being such an easy and truly amazing organization to donate to and to work with.
so thank you again from the very bottom of my heart.
so let’s just take a moment today to remember what happened two years ago today.
for all those who cannot speak anymore and for those who lost so much that day,
our hearts and minds will always be with you.
well i’ve finally succumbed to being sick. all this traveling and running around eating at every place possible and hanging out with friends as much as i could has finally caught up with me. plus, practicing singing every day at the top of my lungs with the funniest and most awkward voice exercises. thank goodness this is LA so my neighbors aren’t surprised that maybe a struggling singer lives next to them. and by struggling, i mean not so great with her voice.
despite the sickness, my long weekend was great. hung out with Anne, met Emily, hiked with a co-worker, hung out with a friend at the beach, had an Amazing Race viewing party cause my friend is on it (!!!) and met up with Chandra. p.s. did you know she’s my neighbor? so awesome having her near by. also sidenote, walking along the beach is super therapeutic, i’m so glad i live near the ocean. i’m a cancer so i guess i am always drawn to the water.
Chandra also kindly lent me her screener of Silver Linings Playbook. have you all seen it? if not, you must!
two of the songs have been on my playlist this week. love Dave Brubeck Quartet’s Unsquare Dance and i’m obsessed with Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash’s Girl from North Country. the other three are random and of course, i like the lyrics. so enjoy.
hope you all have a great weekend! oooh and enjoy the Oscars!!
…i love you.
some trips are just so good for the soul.
even if it means you bring with you a cold front with some major windchills. about a month ago, i took a trip to nyc to have a change of scenery, hang out with good friends and meet up with wedding photographer friends. well actually,let’s be real, i just wanted to eat my way through another city. the entire week revolved around eating at some amazing places and my taste buds had a party all week and my tummy developed a food baby. all worth it though. my favorites included: the doughnut plant, russ & daughters, pies n thighs, shake shack, tea and sympathy, willow road, french roast cafe, balthazar, bella blu (for their tiramisu), pj clarke’s , the belfry, rosemary’s. my mouth is watering just thinking about all these places again.
also got the chance to meet up with some dear college friends. thankful for my dear friend that put up with me an entire week which included my delusional outbursts of cries and complaints about the cold weather. met up with blogger friends- Alison from The Knotty Bride (and her Bambino!!) and Shoko from Sho and Tell. no trip is any trip without meeting photographer friends face to face too and this time around it included Brian Furbush, Katie Osgood, Chaz Cruz and Casey Fatchett.
my heart was made full.
anyways, rather than bore you with words. here are glimpses of what happened that week. check out my instagram for more.
and this last one is my most favorite from this trip. what do you think?
i’ll be back again, new york. most likely when your wind chills don’t make it feel like 2 degrees.
