The question I’ve been asked the most frequently since I announced my school plans i — Are you excited??? Yes, super excited. Even more so now that I have my house leased out and a place to live once I get there. In fact, I might even be more excited than I am terrified at this point, which is a huge improvement to a month ago. The second most popular question has undoubtedly been — Are you changing your blog name? I’m…
People tend to show their love and wealth through possessions. One of the first things I did when my Dad visited this past weekend was to hand him a few trinkets I bought him from Japan. Even as I bought them, I knew that they weren’t items he wouldn’t be able to live without but I felt it necessarily to come back with something. To me, coming back with a few items in plastic bags with foreign script says I was…
In the past six months, Eliot has turned into a much older dog than he was a year ago. Earlier this year, he lost his hearing seemingly overnight. I feel like one week he was coming when I whistled, and the next I was trying to teach him hand signals for “come.” He’s not the first deaf dog I’ve had. BT couldn’t hear or see for the last year of her life, maybe more. Though Eliot losing his hearing didn’t bother…
Earlier this week, I posted a kind of gloom & doom post outlining my anxieties about my upcoming move. As I hope you knew, those aren’t my only feelings. Today I’ll share a much happier posts – the things I’m stoked about! I Get to Focus on Writing More Than Anything Else. Writing has always been important to me, but it’s never been allowed to be the star of my life. Even in undergrad, creative writing was my minor so…
Alternate titles to this post include: Say Hello to Lauren’s Anxiety! Holding Readers Captive While I Panic About My Life Choices Join Me on a Compelling Journey of Pre-Move Jitters Mostly, I’m excited to quit my job, start school and move halfway across the country on my own… mostly. Still, this is a huge life change that’s happening in a month and a half. Though I’ve done huge moves before (NC to MA, MA to TX), I always had Tim with…
The place I was most excited to go in all of Japan was the Fushimi Inari shrine outside of Kyoto. It’s a Shinto shrine dedicated to foxes, which the Japanese believe are messengers that connect people to the world of spirits. Fushimini Inari is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Kyoto. Its path up the mountain is lined with red Tori gates, making for probably the prettiest hike you’ll ever go on when it comes to architecture. Since…
When telling friends and family that I was moving to southern California for school, people’s first question was often what I was going to do with my horse. To me, Simon has been one of the easier obstacles. Once I get settled, I’ll look for a barn in CA and ship him in. Though there are still a lot of details to work out for Simon, I was more concerned with finding housing for me and the dogs than I…
It’s been a pretty whirlwind week over here in SMTT land. Between getting my house ready to put on the market for lease, writing some posts for Jumper Nation, riding nerd horse, looking for apartments in California and smattering in some social activities between all of that… my blogging power is fairly zapped at the moment. Because I need a bit of a zen break, I’m going to share some photos from my Japan trip today. These were all taken…