♥ blog love ♥

Over the past couple of weeks, I have received three blog awards from three remarkable women.

The Blog With Substance comes from Carrie, blogger of the stylish, evocative This Free Bird. 

Carrie's posts are often giggle-out-loud funny, as she shares her superb (and totally accessible!) sense of fashion with her readers (not to mention yummy food finds and touching moments). Full of personality and with a flair for snark, visit This Free Bird for your daily pickmeup.

Blog With Substance Award Rules: Select five words that describe your blogging philosophy, motivation, and experience.

Philosophy: I'd describe my blogging philosophy as upbeat and pretty and honest. I try to keep the mood upbeat, share some prettiness to make you smile, while simultaneously trying to keep it real. I love language, so language often ties all this together. 

Motivation: I'll aim for just one word to describe what motivates me about blogging: (sharing) happiness. It's a vague word, really. But it's wonderful in that it covers everything. I want to share bright shining moments with y'all. Happy may not even be my state of mind as I start writing, but I've found that in exhaling little moments of happiness brightens my day as well.

Experience: All I can say is it's been an exciting, beautiful journey. This started out as a rarely updated travel blog, after I left the States. I recently breathed some life into it, and it's been breathing life back into me. Your sweet thoughts, comments and support make me smile big every day. 

I'm passing the Blog of Substance Award on to these fantastic bloggers...

and flowers pick themselves

Bicoastally

Dolce Vita 

It's Gonna Be a Lovely Day

Loved From the Start

The (first) Versatile Blogger Award hails from Claire at Bicoastally. 

Claire is my friend in real life, and she is one of the most phenomenal people I've ever known. She's a tough + tender poet + teacher (she taught poetry to inmates at San Quentin! for example) with amazing taste in heels and dresses. All this shines through in her musings at Bicoastally.

The (second) Versatile Blogger Award was a lovely surprise from Nicole at Scraps of Color. 

I recently found Nicole's blog, and it never disappoints with healthful doses of gratitude, wide smiles, inspirational bits of loveliness and adventure. If you're not already familiar with Scraps of Color, check her out!

Versatile Blogger Award Rules: Share seven things about yourself, and then tag 15 blogs. I tagged a few more, since I received the award twice. 

Seven things about me in the order they were written...

1. When I was little, my mom taught me how to put my shirts on inside-out (backwards through the neck hole first, and then pushing the sleeves out from the inside by cupping and opening my kid fingers). I suppose she taught us how to do this out of laziness, hence making that extra right-side-out step in folding obsolete. But I prefer to think that she was practical! This is how I put my shirts on to this day. (And I'll likely teach our children the same method.)
Edit: When I originally wrote this I was thinking of family traditions. Now my aunt just wrote to me saying that Nana (my great grandma) taught all of them to put their shirts on that way. Gotta love family!

2. I speak English and Spanish fluently, and I'm trying to learn Turkish (though I've been a little lazy about it.)

3. I once took a vow of silence and sat in meditation for 10 days. And I'm doing it again at the end of September (with my husband! Still can't believe he's going to do this with me!) The method of meditation is Vipassana and they hold these 10-day courses all over the world. 

4. I'm originally from California's Bay Area. On the auspicious St. Patrick's Day of 2007, I traveled to Chilean Patagonia on a two-month solo journey throughout South America. I kept my (essentially) dream job at Yahoo!, but upon my return, I quit, donated my car, sold off a bunch of my stuff, and left again to continue my travels. Many stories and many moons later, I met my husband. We're planning to move to the States within the next year.

5. I can't say that I had any real sense of home, until about a year after I left. And I'm slightly obsessed with "home" and what it means.

6. I've started over and gotten rid of just about everything I own more times than I care to think about. But throughout all these transitions, my mother's hope chest always accompanies me. As does my ever (slowly) growing collection of books. The hope chest and several book boxes collect time in my aunt's garage, awaiting my eventual return.

7. I went to poetry school in San Francisco and earned an MFA in Creative Writing. I love calling it poetry school. 

Tagging these blogs of awesomeness with Versatility...

& baby makes three

Acquainted With the Night

Bluebird Notes

creativitae 

Darjeeling Dreams

Express-o

Fashion, Art and Other Fancies  

going glam with gi gi

Hello, I love you

ilovemyhouse

Inspired Design

It's Simple Love

Los Grovers

One Crafty Fox

Poppies and Sunshine

Scraps of Color

Simply Life

The Art of Living Beautifully

The Five Senses

The Simply Luxurious Life

This Free Bird 

Village 

Whew! That was a mouthful. Another huge thank you to the lovely ladies who gave me these awards. Hope you all have a wonderful week ahead!