Hey Little Birdie!

Everyone knows I love paper products. I don’t know what that says about me, but let’s imagine it means I’m super cool and uberly unpredictable in my unique and quirky nature. I am also holding on to the potentially awkward assumption that because I find these things to be pivotal to my day-to-day survival (it’s good that I don’t overstate regularly), you will equally jump on board with me.

So… who’s ready to embrace this new reality alongside me? Because honestly, Cute Tape has such a fun selection of decorative tapes and baker’s twine and rubber stamps that I feel certain that all resistance to falling head over heels for this site will be in vain. Just sayin.

Go, check it all out, and then come back to tell me your new favorites.

Last week at book club after we finished discussing the book Honolulu (which is good), the conversation morphed to our kids, which with a table full of moms often happens. The topic at hand was how to reinforce positive female traits in our girls with our words. You know, we want them to feel pretty but not just pretty. We want them to feel smart, but also important and strong and kind. One mom referenced The Help‘s character Aibileen’s mantra to little Mae Mobley, “You is kind. You is smart. You is important.” See, it all comes back to book discussion; we’re a legitimate book club… most of the time.

I went home thinking about how I can encourage Lyla in many different areas. How I can help her reach her fullest potential, but not at a sacrifice of childhood fun. Soon after that, I found these prints on Etsy. I love the collection of them so much.

We can BE lots of different things. As females, it is often called upon us to wear many hats. We do it. Sometimes at varying levels of success. But I think it’s a beautiful thing that we can be and do so much. I don’t want to be defined by one thing. A mom. A wife. A employee. A friend. A sister. A blogger. I love that my life consists of many roles… and within all those nouns, even more adjectives. It rounds me out into a complex and interesting person whose multi-dimensional self is indeed complete in my Creator’s vision of little ole me.

And hopefully, as I model that, my little Lyla will see that there is always room to be smart and curious and nice and happy.

It seems more and more frequently I am dazed by people’s ability and desire to band together to change circumstances, to offer support, and to give freely. I think we have a horrible propensity as humans to isolate and manage our lives alone. But I also think that is the opposite of what we are supposed to do. I believe we’ve been created to live alongside people, offering and receiving help whenever and wherever needed. I’ve been convicted lately to purposefully reach through my bubble and to daily choose to be engaged, surrounded, and accepting of the people God has so graciously set around me.

Jessica of Allora Handmade has a lifelong friend, Sharlie, who is battling Cystic Fibroris. And as you can guess, in her fight she has accumulated a daunting amount of medical bills (read more of the story here). Out of a deep love and concern for her friend, Jessica and her sister Mique have rallied the creative masses to open Shop for Sharlie. It has tutorials, printables, and advertising opportunities for you to purchase at nominal rates. All the proceeds go to Sharlie’s Angels. Go, buy something, and in the process help Sharlie as she waits for a double lung and heart transplant.

If you want to donate directly, go here.

So my morning started early and abruptly. My little Lyla woke up before 5am sick as a dog. Ah, someday these will be fun memories, right? Anyway, because of this derailment in all things planned for Thursday, this post will be of two attributes – short and sweet.

Awhile back, somehow I stumbled upon the state mottos collection called 50 and 50, and I was enamored. It is a curated project of 50 designers’ individual modernized takes on each of the 50 state mottos. A slight confession: I didn’t know the state motto for Arizona, which is Ditat Deus, Latin for “God Enriches“. I like it. Then layer in beautiful typographical artwork, and you could say I really like it. Plus, there are so many other interesting options… like 49 others.

So go check them all out, and buy a print for a fellow citizen who might appreciate “something steeped in history but completely modern and unique: A kind of designer’s atlas” (taken from the State Mottos Project website).

So, it’s been a tricky few days lately. The seamless transition we’ve made to a big-girl bed for Lyla was an illusion that has since morphed in to a newer, fresher nightmare. Do you ever have those times as a mother, wife, normal-person-going-through-life when you feel like you have no idea what the correct answer is to your mounting dilemma? (That wasn’t supposed to be dirty.) You can test out all kinds of scenarios in your head… maybe tweak this or that, maybe eliminate this from your life completely… but deep down you wonder if any of that will really make a difference. Oh, you don’t ever feel that way? It’s just me? Awesome.

Anyway, I have decided to stop obsessing over what I might not be doing right, and just try my best to be my best in each moment. I am going to take more deep breaths, and I am going to nap if I need to. Oh, and I’m going to buy this print, because… it gets me.

Don’t forget this Saturday is the first ever Hey Little Birdie Meet Up! We are meeting at 9am at the Starbucks at Thunderbird & Tatum.

This month’s give away winner is Marsa! We will contact you shortly and get you gift certificate to you asap! Oh and we can’t wait to hear how you use it! Congrats Marsa!

Alright sweet readers, it is time for September’s giveaway! This month in honor of all things fabulous and office supplies-y we are giving away a $25 gift certificate to See Jane Work! If you are not familiar with See Jane Work, it is a wonderful site that supplies us with stylish office supplies. I could gush on and on and reference the multiple HLB post containing their fabulous product but you should probably just go see for your self! I am jealous of the winner already.

How to enter you ask? Let me tell you!

1. Leave a comment below to enter

BUT you can do even better than that by earning extra entries via the following

2. Sharing this giveaway on Facebook:

and/or

3. Tweet about it on Twitter
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If you do any of the extra credit entries, let us know in the comments, so we count them!

New(ish) Rule: You can comment and thus enter the contest each day from here until next Tuesday night (9/13). If you tweet and facebook it too, that’s multiple entries on multiple days…we really want you to win.

The winner will be announced next Wednesday!

This is one of my favorite times of the year, clearance-wise that is. I love strolling through the remains of back to school supplies and stocking up on clearance notebooks and pencils and crayons. I am excited I can buy crayons legitimately again, because opening a new box of crayons may be one of the best experiences this world has to offer. I miss that fully stocked JanSport packed with neatly sharpened pencils and fivestar folders in separate binders (all color coded, mind you.) Everything is all clean and ready for the new school year. There is no clutter nor mess yet, just a fresh start. I may not be able to say I have a real need for a 50 pack of erasers for 98 cents or half of the stuff that I just can’t pass by, but I think everyone should have a grown up back to school fresh start.

Here is my grown up back to school wish list:

1. Swarovski Crystal Push Pins 2. Crayola Crayon Nostalgic Tin 3. X-acto Vacuum Mount Pencil Sharpener   4. Crocodile Embossed Leather Merriam-Webster Collegiate Edition Thesaurus 5. See Jane Work Basic Pencils 6. Kate Spade Roseland Calista Laptop Case 7. Vintage Ace Pilot 404 Stapler 8. Mustache Erasers

It’s one of those Mondays. The kind where I would prefer not to get out of bed. It’s taking all my perseverance not to be completely depressed right now since it seems as though the medicine Claire is currently taking is doing absolutely nothing to stop her bad seizures. Having your child wake up each morning to a violent (although short) grand mal seizure is indescribably heartbreaking. And this morning is doubly worse because I’ve seen a second one. I know it is naive, but each time we try a new medicine I put so much hope into that little pill. Hope that it will finally free my beautiful little girl of these awful things. But it never happens, so we keep trying. I just keep reminding myself of that phrase I hold dear- “We can do hard things.” Although some days, it is almost too hard to do hard things.

Another thing contributing to my melancholy state of mind is finishing up the book, Room, last night. Oh my. Reader beware on that one. It is a fascinating, gripping story but so disturbing and challenging at the same time. Have you read it yet?

Now that I’ve got all of that out, on to the meat of my post. Besides the venti americano (delivered by my too-sweet-to-be-true husband this morning), here are a few things that are helping me clear my head this morning:

Lovely music video from Mindy Smith and Daniel Tashian (if more country music was like this, then I would listen more!)

25 fun party supply ideas from Poppytalk (lots of inspiration for future party endeavors.)

Retro inspired illustrations of movies and books from Claudia Varosio (I love these! Would be so fun on a gallery wall.)

This before and after of a dining room turned library on Design Sponge. (Drop dead gorgeous. I want that chandelier!)

Well, that’s it for now! Here’s to hoping our day gets a little brighter!

Do you sometimes feel like life is jogging nicely right beside you? And then sometimes you are sprinting just to keep up? And that the vacillation between those two extremes can come instantly and shockingly, just to completely throw and unnerve you. I feel like I’ve been living in a crazy chaos for a little while now. I’m not sure if it is completely circumstantial, or if my mind’s begun to play tricks on me, making seemingly mundane things into a brighter bedlam. Either way… I’ve felt overwhelmed.

So we’re on this adoption journey, and we’ve reached a point where we sit and wait. We sit and wait to be chosen either by the agency or by a birthmom. When rampant anarchy is surrounding me, and then my phone rings from a BLOCKED number, there is a stillness in the air. You see, that’s the code for someone from the agency calling you. And they could be calling about … fill in the blank … anything. But more pointedly, during this time, they are potentially calling about a potential match between you and a potential baby.

So earlier this week, I was running around doing a myriad of things that I literally don’t know how they were completed on a regular basis when I worked 40 hours a week, when I noticed my phone ringing with a BLOCKED number. I froze. Time stood still. Quick prayer: “If you think we can handle this right now God, then I’m in.”

False alarm: It wasn’t the agency or anything that required me to make decisions about the rest of my life. But for an instant, my world slowed down. It had to.

There is an rare quality to this period of time in my life. It’s something I was talking to a new friend about the other day. You see, she was in our adoption class (with her husband), and she has quickly become a very important part of my life… for many reasons. But one in particular is her understanding of every emotion I am going through on any given day when it comes to this adoption adventure.

We were drinking coffee, and she was telling me about how she is trying to hold on to the uniqueness of this moment. We aren’t ever going to be in it again. This period of time when we don’t know what our child will look like or where they will come from or what the birthparent situation might be. Has my baby been conceived yet? Is their birthmom caring for them? Does she know how to? And the list goes on.

It’s enough to keep you up at night, but as so many other things in life, it’s out of our hands. And instead of trying to control it with a bunch of unanswerable what-if’s, it’s a discipline, but also a treasure to let all of those answers rest in my God’s very capable hands. Then I get to take in the moment surrounding me and be truly appreciative for the uncommon quality of it.

As if the realization of all of this wasn’t enough to change my behavior, fate would have it that I accidentally found this visible reminder as well. It’s funny how that God works. Sometimes He knows you have to be smacked across the head to really understand what He is saying to you. And although this bowl shouldn’t be used to pummel anyone, it is beautiful to gaze upon on a daily basis. So, I bought it, for me and my new friend.

And if you are in need of a reminder to appreciate the place where God has you, maybe you need this too.

Paloma’s Nest is amazing. Read more about this husband-wife team here, or check out their brick and mortar store in Austin.