Today is my 25th birthday. Man do I feel old. Everything seems fine until you hit your mid twenties and realize you’re technically supposed to stop eating an entire box of cereal in one sitting. I’m so not ready for this.

Beyond the startling fact that I’m just as close to thirty as I’m away from twenty, I’m pretty excited about this next year. It feels like I’m finally starting to shake off all the insecurities and self-doubt I’ve felt through my early twenties. I’m beginning to settle into myself, feeling more self-assured, and ready to see what comes next.

I’m at that point in my life when a lot of my friends are still gripping onto college, refusing to abandon multiple day hangovers and dead-end jobs. When Alex and I moved to Grand Rapids it felt like we skipped ahead twelve spaces in the game of life. We found ourselves living a life another fifteen years down the road, right now. It feels like a dream and I’m trying not to blink.

My twenty-fourth year was an amazing one. I got married. I settled into this new home and lifestyle. I took bigger risks with my business. I also failed a lot more. Yet I feel all the better for it and more ready than ever to try new things in my twenty-fifth year.

So what’s on the agenda. Our first craft show is in just two days with three more following throughout summer. We’re attending more conferences and have travel on the books. We’re also eating better, taking care of our relationship, and sending as much time with family as we possibly can.

So although the number is scary, I can’t wait to see what happens next. So here’s to 25. 

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately on a personal level and figured if I’m experiencing it, I’m sure someone else is too. You hear it all the time about going to the gym and getting healthy, but “making the time” should be applied to a lot more than just working out.

I seriously enjoy photography. I love the challenge of setting up a shot, making sure the lighting is right, and capturing a moment in the exact way I’ve envisioned it. Even when the photo doesn’t work out and I have to start over, it’s exciting to see if I can accomplish it. Every time I pull out the camera to take blog photos I think, “Man, I should do this more often.” And I should.

Whether you’re actually busy or just feel that way, if you wish you had more time to do something, you can make the time. Watch one less episode on Netflix or skip watching Buzzfeed recipe videos on Instagram. Carve out a chunk of time in your schedule every week that’s uninterrupted of other things, even if it’s just for thirty minutes. There’s always a way to squeeze out a few extra minutes in a day or a week to do something that brings you joy.

So I’m going to work on taking the time to do more photography. Flat-lay photography is kind of my thing, but I don’t want to be a one-trick pony. I want to push myself to try new methods, new subjects, and new environments. I remember the first few weeks when I picked up a camera. I hadn’t a clue what I was doing for high school newspaper class, but I took photos of anything and everything. Sure a lot of them were of flowers, but you have to start somewhere.

So this is your reminder to do more of the things you love. Knit more. Read more. Bake more. Sing more. Whatever it is that gives your life passion and excitement. Do more of it.

I’ve been meaning to do a tour of our guest bedroom for ages now. Right around the time I finished it my dad came and stayed with us for a few months as my parents moved, making it difficult to get a camera in there to film and photograph the space. My parents are happily in their new home now and the guest bedroom is available again for copious amounts of bed-desking and photo taking. 

My biggest goal for the room was to keep it as affordable as possible without losing any comfort or coziness. I wanted the space to be welcoming without feeling cluttered. I wanted a theme without it being shoved down our guests’ throats when they walked into the room. I think I’ve accomplished a lot of what I was hoping to achieve but of course, the space still doesn’t feel truly done. It’s unlikely it’ll ever feel that way I’m sure.

Since it has been quite a while since I purchased a lot of the pieces in the room, most of them aren’t easily available anymore. Luckily inspiration never goes out of stock so maybe there’s still something in this room to inspire your next interiors project. I have linked what I could find in the description of the video however. 

A few months ago I decided to take on the project of knitting a snake. Alex requested it from a book of stuffed animals and I set off on the task. More or less I just wanted to share some glamour shots of my really awesome snake, but I also learned a lot over those few months that I felt worthy to share.

Knitting is just as easy as it is complicated. The actual process of knitting isn’t terribly hard, but it’s when instructions throw in tons of acronyms you’re just supposed to know that things get tough. Over the course of this project I learned out to do a lot of knitting techniques I didn’t even know existed. Youtube became my best friend as well as asking my neighbor and knitting guru Amy for tutorials.

Knitting this snake also taught me that it’s ok if the project becomes a collaboration. Amy helped me loads on this snake from helping sew it together to figuring out how to make the eyes work when they looked completely wrong. At first I worried that the snake wouldn’t mean as much to me since I had a fair amount of help making it, but as we finished that final eye I couldn’t be more thrilled with what we accomplished. The project made me and Amy closer, made us spend more time together, and ultimately made the snake better. I’m definitely learning that asking and receiving help has its benefits. Just took me nearly 25 years to learn that!

There’s also a lot of spontaneous aspects to knitting which I definitely did not expect. To me knitting is just following instructions, but when the eyes looked seriously messed up, we had to get creative to salvage the whole project. There was a lot of “does this look right?” being thrown around those last few minutes of the project until we finally got them to look like eyes. Phew.

I also didn’t realize how long projects can take. I live in a world where if I’m working on something it’s usually done within the week (I’m looking at you stickers), but this project took literally months because I didn’t want to rush through it and make mistakes. I’m sure I could have finished it sooner, but there was so much I didn’t know about knitting that I wanted to ask questions and learn during the process. And I like that it took a while. Now that it’s finally finished I feel such a huge sense of accomplishment over something I labored over for longer than a week. It’s now on display in one of our guest bedrooms.

I may not knit anything to such a large scale for the next few projects, but I can already tell I’m much more of a knitter of stuffed creatures rather than scarves. Next on the docket will probably be doughnuts because well, why not?

Are you a knitter? What are your favorite things to knit?