I wanted to start taking more photos just for the sake of it. Photos of our life, adventures, and everyday shenanigans. I’m always taking photos of products and blog posts that I wanted more organic photos. I started snapping random shots and put them in this post to save and collect. Now I realize in the hypocrisy as I’m now starting a series with them, but I’ll only be posting when I have a few photos in each draft worth publishing.
There may be thoughts and explanations attached to each post or it may just be a series of photos of what I’ve been up to lately. I won’t be defining it too much, but I’d love to know what you’d like to see.
The first photo is from a small shop called Art of the Table in the East Hills part of Grand Rapids. You can see more about it in
this vlog.
So here’s to trying new things with this blog. Constantly switching up content and never really knowing what the heck I want to do with this space. I wouldn’t be me if I ever felt satisfied.
What do you think about this new post style? What kind of snapshots would you like to see?
I’ve never had trick-or-treaters come to my house growing up. Not once in the span of my memory has anyone come to our door. So I was pretty dang excited for this year’s Halloween to finally know what it’s like to have little ghouls and goblins come to my door. I wasn’t disappointed.
My Louise costume is my go-to when I’m in a costume pinch. We’re in money saving mode for the holidays (as I’m sure everyone is) so we decided to just break out some vintage costumes rather than splurging on something new. Plus I doubt the kids even cared that we were in costume anyway.
Ever since we closed on our house back in March I couldn’t wait for trick-or-treaters. The excitement got a little out of hand a few weeks out when I realized I hadn’t a clue how much candy we might need. I talked to some seasoned neighbors about Halloween’s past and got a lot of mixed responses. A lot of our close neighborhood friends also moved in this year so we all spent many evenings trying to decide how much to buy. We went as far as to try and do the math to figure out how many pieces we might need per average American household. We managed to have enough, plus some of the good stuff left over for ourselves.
To make the first Halloween in our house even better, my mom came with the two dogs. Alex and I are in hardcore “convince my parents to move to this side of the state” mode so it was so nice to have her there to help keep tally of kids. We really took the accurate trick-or-treater count seriously. Close to 200 hundred kids later we crashed on the couch in a sugar coma. Happy, hopped up on sugar, and ready for a scary movie to end a perfect Halloween night.
I was never crazy about Halloween in the past, but I can definitely seeing it become a family favorite when we have kids. Alex has already purchased a lot of on-sale decorations for next year. So from our spooktacular family to yours, I hope you had a very scary Halloween.
Earlier this week I went to my first neighborhood book club meeting. The introvert, anxious mess of a person in my head kept telling me to just skip it. I wasn’t feeling that well and I didn’t think there would be anything to even talk about at the meeting since we had already discussed a bit in our Facebook group. Yet I knew a few of my friends were going and I didn’t want to flake out on them. The ultimate struggle of an introvert.
So I went a number of houses down and arrived a bit too early. Classic Kayla. At the very least it was at a house where I had been before, and I really enjoy spending time with the couple and their kids. All easing me into this book club thing. That’s the trick for anxious introverts. There are certain things that can make a very anxious situation easier. A familiar place, some familiar faces, and being prepared.
This definitely wasn’t like school where I never read the books and had to pretend I knew what I was talking about. I thoroughly enjoyed Kristin Hannah’s
The Nightingale (
review if you’re interested) and had a lot of opinions on the topic.
Yet it still was a very nerve racking experience to sit down in a small circle with women from my neighborhood all of which seemingly have their life more together than I do, to talk about a book. And you know what? I didn’t suck. All the pieces came together for me to be comfortable enough to push my anxiety aside, at least for a few hours.
Nothing went terribly wrong and I didn’t make enemies for life. That’s the funny thing about anxiety. The worries and concerns don’t necessarily make sense or are rational, but they still grip to you like a needy preschooler who doesn’t want to go to class without you.
I managed to talk and participate and share some of my differing opinions on the novel. I spoke up during periods where a few people started to talk (you know how it goes in group discussions) and people allowed me to speak rather than talking over me. I was an actual part of the discussion and it felt really great.
Afterward I felt proud walking home and didn’t find myself running over the whole evening in my head like I usually do. I didn’t analyze everything I said, and just let it be. It was a somewhat alarming, yet comforting experience not stressing over what people thought of me or if I said something weird. I just let the evening be.
And I’ll definitely go back and do it again. Look out world, Kayla’s in a book club now.
So I’m here to tell you that anyone can knit. When I started about a month ago the only thing I had was a faint memory of knitting failures from middle school. Seriously how can someone start out making a scarf then end up with a jagged looking triangle from accidentally added stitches?! Yet knitting has totally become much more doable all thanks to the internet.
It’s crazy to think that I sucked at knitting because I didn’t have the handy dandy internet to help me, but it was just getting started during my initial failed attempts. All I had was a crappy tutorial DVD and a little book that came with the beginner supplies. Now you can literally look up anything and everything and have tons of how to videos to guide you.
Plus the patterns. I never even knew about all the patterns! I was turned on to a lovely website called
Ravelry where this cute little (and pretty straightforward)
owl pattern just waited to be made. There are loads of free patterns with handy guides next to the instructions to explain all the knitting jargon us newbies never understand. If I still didn’t know how to do a certain step, I would just google it and watch a tutorial. Now I know how to add stitches, on
purpose.
Now I’m definitely no expert and must admit I also have a knitting guru in my neighborhood helping me out when I twist something or get into a panic. Hopefully as I get better I can provide some actual tips, resources, and tricks to people who want to get started. Until then though all I can do is share my projects and encourage you to give it a try, it really isn’t as hard as you think it is.
The truth is I’m not the same person I was yesterday, or the day before. I’m barely the person I was last week. The same goes for you. Who you are today is not who you were yesterday. And I have to realize that being someone different is ok. It’s not a case of the body-snatchers 180 personality switch, but in smaller, almost unnoticeable ways.
I’ve been reading more, I’ve started knitting, I’ve put more effort into baking. I’m taking care of my relationships more, my house more. I’ve been working less. My family is going through a terrifying shift that none of us expected, but could be exactly what we need.
I think it’s pretty obvious that I’ve been going through an existential crisis lately. Things that were once working just aren’t now, whether it’s outside factors or me. It boils down to the fact that I’m just not happy with how things have been going the past few months. I’m not content with this blog space or what I’m writing about, my YouTube videos feel uninspired while my subscriber count continues to drop, and I can actively feel my interests changing.
And it’s caused me a lot of panic. All of this self-doubt and fear that everything I’ve worked so hard for is slipping out of my grasp. It’s crippling, paralyzing. Am I not interesting anymore? Have I said all that I can say in this space? Will people not care what I have to say if I’m not talking about the same things I did when I started out? Will people still like me if I’m not the same person I was? You know, the usual stuff.
But I can either destroy myself with fear or adapt. I can face this weird shifting period head on with an open mind and see what happens. That’s very unlike me in every sense of the word. But what else can I really do? I’ve already been subconsciously making a content shift while still feeling almost an obligation to continue writing about the topics that interested me in the past. Amidst the usual content there are posts that I’m really passionate about. There are videos that get me more excited to post than others. It’s those things I need to focus on. Sure it’ll probably be a rocky transition filled with readers/viewers saying a silent goodbye, but if I don’t do this for me there may not be any content left.
Thank you all who have stuck with me thus far as I refused to acknowledge to myself a change needed to happen. A bigger thank you to everyone who’s going to hang on while we go on this new journey. Let’ snow be the same people we were yesterday. Let’s be better.
Since nearly all of my hobbies have magically turned into my job, I am on the hunt for new ones. I need something completely separate from my sticker, YouTube, blogging life to keep things interesting and to fill any (rare) downtime I may have. Enter knitting.
I learned how to knit on one very strange trip in middle school with my best friend/maid of honor Lauren. Her grandma got us supplies and we spent a good week knitting terrible-looking scarves we never actually finished. Fast forward to present day during a game night with a few new neighborhood friends. Amy showed me some of the stuffed animals she’s knitted for her two daughters and I about died from cuteness overload. I had to create them.
Amy was kind enough to bring over a few extra knitting supplies to practice with the next morning when I couldn’t get the knitting desire out of my head. I relearned everything I didn’t really know how to do in the first place and she and I talked about what pattern to start out with. I’ll be knitting an adorable hippo stuffed animal in no time.
So far I keep dropping stitches a little too often, but it’s been a great way to get to know one of my neighbors better while giving me a pointless project to work on. I’ve also joined a neighborhood book club to get me back into reading and Alex and I are having more fun preparing unique dinners.
I never really knew how important hobbies were until I no longer had them. I’ve missed doing things just for the sake of doing them, not because they put food on the table. And who knows, maybe I’m a knitting savant and just haven’t uncovered my talents yet!
