5 lb Gone, til November

I just bought really cool plates at anthropologie yesterday that look like a tree stump's annual rings that measure it's age. I got an oven mitt and matching potholder too. They're pretty sharp looking in a lime green, cream, and blue pattern. They're very anthropologie, with that modern, sugary sweet country flavor to them that looks good in modern or vintage spaces alike.

I'm not really a spender, I do not hoard anything at all (I'm what my mom would call a "thrower") and I definitely don't have my own place to use them in.

Today I started my day off writing my usual Designer Pages blogpost piece after having almost finished it last evening. This morning a major internet mishap took place right when I was almost finished, so I jetted to the Caribou near downtown St. Cloud with what some might consider an "artsy, disheveled" look - which was actually just the outward appearance of my stress balling up inside - with mismatched cropped khakis and a pair of adidas sandals with windy t-shirt and cycling sunglasses on. Needless to say, I got it done and apologized for the tardiness.

It's weird. Sometimes I feel like my entire life comes together. It feels like it's one big design - all orderly, thought out and fluid from one minute to the next - even when it throws me off track and puts me on a new one. It just constantly exudes this grounded feel to me and other around me, even when the truth is - there's nothing secure about it.

Life has permission to take me from one place to another, leading me from one job into the next, and allows insightful words of people, both random and beloved, to affect my path as they weave in and out of my daily life.

Other times, like now, I feel like I just buy cute designed oven mitts for an oven I don't have... and go even further to convince myself that eight tree plates are practical. There's no design to that. In fact, it makes little to no sense. Doesn't even fit into what feels like my lifelong suitcase.

But I had a moment yesterday where I wanted to feel something special just for myself. I didn't want everyone telling me that my life is incredible because I've lived abroad. Because I work from home. Because I have been able to ride a bike, road trip all over, etc. Although I do not take anything for granted and I feel so grateful that my "lose control of your path to pave a new one" mentality has proved itself positive, I crave the kind of life where I can keep things that I like. Where I can feel something about the world I choose to surround myself with. Where I have some sense of control, even if it's only perceived control, for a moment in time.

I had to invest in my sanity, even if it means I forfeit 5 lbs of my 55 lb life.