Earlier today Dan and I celebrated with a delicious Indian buffet. We usually go to Umami Burger on Valentine’s day but decided earlier this month we’d keep today low key. Dan and I both have February birthdays, and Valentine’s is just right smack dab in the middle, so we figured it doesn’t hurt to be a little frugal. We do however have cards to exchange later tonight. We’re big card people and love giving each other love letters. Our collection of love notes is pretty extensive for having been together for only four years and inspired me to create a fun video all about our love letters. It’s a sweet reminder you don’t have to wait for Valentine’s Day to give your loved one a letter, nor do you have to spend a lot because a letter has lifetime value.
BONUS FEATURE:
In the video, you will see that my first Valentine’s Day card from Dan has two dates on it. The February 7th date is because Dan had given me my Valentine’s Day card a week early having forgotten that Valentine’s Day is February 14th. Since he works in retail, a customer had come in and purchased something remarking it was for Valentine’s Day. The customer’s comment put Dan in a panic. That night when I went to see him, Dan apologized for not getting me anything for Valentine’s Day but handed me the card. I started cracking up and told him not to worry because he had 7 more days to figure it out. I didn’t open the card until the 14th, but I’m so happy I wrote the 7th on the envelope because it reminded me of this little story.
2015 VALENTINE’S VLOG
Like I said, our normal Valentine’s Day tradition is going to Umami Burger, but sadly we just couldn’t make it happen this year. Here is a vlog of our 2015 Valentine’s Day adventure in DTLA with Loulou who we had adopted two days prior. She look’s so little in this video!
Remember Valentine’s Day is a holiday created my a card company…and I’ve totally bought into it.
Dan is currently making popcorn and we are going to spend the evening together, so I’ll make this short. I have all these inspired ideas this week for Valentine’s Day and tonight as I go to execute one of them in an attempt to upload it tomorrow morning, I realize I won’t be able to film until tomorrow morning. Unfortunately, my light set up just won’t illuminate my scene the way I imagined. So I have to shelf those plans until the sun rises and instead surrender to a romantic evening with Dan. Aww shucks!
So what is this wave of inspiration? I have three ideas for videos this week…
A stop motion animation of a few of the cards Dan and I have given each other over the years. We are suckers for romantic stationary.
A few recipes using Moon Juices’s Sex Dust powder, “a lusty edible formula to ignite and excite sexy energy in and out of the bedroom.”
A Q&A video with Dan and I – now I don’t even know if I have an audience interested enough in my relationship or love life to ask questions, but if you’re curious ask by Wednesday!
Even though I have mounting work demands and a rewrite of chapter one of my young adult novel on my plate, I feel I’m caught in a wave of inspiration I must ride. Until tomorrow, I hope you’re having a lovely Galentines or Palentines!
After having filmed my video and reflecting on the concept of new age, consciously knowing that many of the new age concepts are really just remixed adaptations of eastern cultures and philosophies, I still decided to name this Friday Favorites a new age edition because it sets a tone for what I’m talking about and hopefully inspires independent research. New Age is scoffed at, but honestly, some of the principles that have been adopted into this western movement from eastern thought are very powerful and are needed during this time of turmoil. I’m all about that higher consciousness while having a little fun. Let’s not forget about FUN!! Check out a few more of my favorite things that are all about a cleaner, happier, wellness or “new age-y” lifestyle.
A few of the links below are affiliate links. this means that if you make a purchase through the link I get a small commission, it’s like a friendly finders fee. Affiliate links are marked with an *.
Good Vibe Earrings: These adorable earrings from Ban.do are too perfect because I’m all about putting out good vibes. The price is a little shocking ($70), but they are super unique and if you have the funds – treat yo’ self.
*Jade Yoga Mat: I was lucky enough to receive this mat for free at a fitness convention, but I am genuinely obsessed with it. If you want to take your yoga life to the next level of comfort, invest in this amazing mat.
*Aura Cacia Awakening Yoga Mist: It’s made for your yoga mat, body, and room. And I seriously spray this stuff EVERYWHERE! Especially, in the morning when I walk into my home office. I love to spray the room to awaken my mind and senses.
Yoga with Adriene: If you are looking for awesome at home yoga videos, Yoga with Adriene is my favorite. She’s incredibly relatable, welcoming, and all about finding what feels good for you. She encourages you to create your own space on the mat and her current yoga revolution challenge is becoming a daily (almost) practice.
My empties video triggered an existential crisis, but then so does my morning coffee and the mail person.
Below are affiliate links to a few of my ride or die products mentioned in the video. If you purchase any of these products through the below links I get a commission. Consider it a finders fee for recommending awesome stuff!
It’s day 15 of Vlogmas and I’m feeling some burnout. This has been a busy holiday season. One weekend, I was even uploading videos while driving to different holiday gatherings. But, I feel like I have no idea how to make my day to day interesting – am I too self-aware? Perhaps. I’m looking forward to 2017 when I’ll be posting regularly on my channel, but it’s not my day-to-day. This year, I really committed to YouTube in a new way, I attempted to create series and a regular upload schedule. I improved in my editing and hit 100 subscribers!
Last year, I learned a lot about myself while doing Vlogmas. This year, I’m not coming across very many revelations. I’m sort of bopping along making videos, trying to create better stories. Test out different editing techniques. No real direction. Well, not until next year. After Vlogmas will be my time to really stretch my wings and see what I can bring to the platform.
It’s a question I struggle with a lot, what’s YOUR take away? Yes, YOU! The reader, viewer, follower – what do you take away from seeing what I’m thinking, writing, posting, sharing. Let’s just say, I feel like I finally know who I am on the internet, now I just have to make sure you’re happy with the relationship. Although, like even in romantic relationships, please DO NOT make me responsible for your happiness.
Anyways, if you wanted to know how my December has been going – here you go!
Summer and Fall Recap of Gilmore Girls Revival while eating Chinese food and apple pie!
I was anxiously waiting for ‘Gilmore Girls: A Year In the Life’ on Netflix like every other twenty to thirty something who watched the cult status worthy television. My sad attempt at last-minute binge watching took me half-way through the last season and a few Brit and Co recommended episodes. But mostly I relied on my steel trap memory for recall when triggered. To celebrate the revival, I made plans with one of my best friends to eat like a Gilmore and watch Gilmore Girls: “A Year In The Life”. She was kind enough to allow me to record our gastric adventure and post-episode discussion. We had SO MUCH fun making these videos, and I hope you enjoy watching our thoughts and feels. Fall and Summer recaps are live now!
Winter and Spring Recap of Gilmore Girls Revival while eating pancakes and cheeseburgers!
I was anxiously waiting for ‘Gilmore Girls: A Year In the Life’ on Netflix like every other twenty to thirty something who watched the cult status worthy television. My sad attempt at last-minute binge watching took me half-way through the last season and a few Brit and Co recommended episodes. But mostly I relied on my steel trap memory for recall when triggered. To celebrate the revival, I made plans with one of my best friends to eat like a Gilmore and watch Gilmore Girls: “A Year In The Life”. She was kind enough to allow me to record our gastric adventure and post-episode discussion. We had SO MUCH fun making these videos, and I hope you enjoy watching our thoughts and feels. I currently only have the Winter and Spring recap of Gilmore Girls: “A Year In The Life” ready, but make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel for Summer and Fall.
At the beginning of this year, I started a series on my YouTube channel called ‘Little Things‘. It was supposed to help me focus on the little things that make life great every day and it did for a while. But ‘Little Things’ got derailed in the spring and never had a full reboot until now. I’ve done two ‘Little Things’ videos in the past two weeks and intend on continuing the weekly upload. Instead of one thing a day, which can be daunting when work chains me to the desk, it can just be a mixture of small moments that a brought a smile to my face throughout the week. When times are tough it’s easy to see the whole sum of days as a series of unfortunate events, but the truth is that life is filled with beautiful sparkling micro-moments and if you don’t stop to appreciate those, they will be soaked up by darkness instead. So I hope you enjoy my “Little Things” and reflect on your own mico-moments of happiness throughout the week.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m on a mission to tie up all the loose ends of my stories and footage. I want to go into 2017 completely fresh and with a blank canvas. So here are my Coachella Vlogs – 7 months later.
For the last 2 years, Dan and I have worked at the Coachella Record Store together. At this point, I’ve been to 4 different Coachellas, one as a festival attendee and three as a working member of the lower level staff. Both experiences are great, but being staff is definitely a different experience with its perks and disadvantages. Obviously, you don’t get to see every act from beginning to end, as your shift might land in the middle of their set. I’m still upset about missing Ghost of Sabertooth Tiger last year because of a freak inventory glitch that was fixed by the time I returned to the record store.
Since I’m really into vlogging now, I thought it would be great to vlog Coachella but weekend 1 I had no strategy for filming. The wind was terrible, destroying any possible audio and I couldn’t just talk to the camera. I stumbled through capturing clips of the day when I could and creating some sort of story structure. The result is a fumbling mess of footage, that even while editing I had a difficult time seeing the creative vision.
However, weekend 2 was a different story. I had created an outline of how I wanted to tell my Coachella story. I no longer wanted to break it up by day, but break it up by activity. I had more of an idea of the shots I wanted to get and how long to linger on an artist or food item. Then while I edited the footage together I realized it would feel completely unnatural if I didn’t have some sort of voice over describing the scenes. After creating video one, I knew what I wanted to do different in video two. I did my voiceover in one take, I know I flub some words and maybe didn’t fully enunciate – but in all honestly I wanted to finish the story. That’s the thing about working on something 7 months later, it loses its steam. My brain thought it was interesting and wanted to share it, but my heart is thinking about Desert Trip this weekend and strategizing how to film the vlog.
So, what did you learn Dorothy?
I learned that when you don’t have a plan, you plan to fail. Creativity is very spontaneous, but it also flourishes within some sort of structure. Occasionally, there are moments of total creative bliss where things are unplanned and result in a cohesive beautiful piece – but more likely than not, one has to have an idea of what they are doing and can see the final picture. Weekend 2 is a clear result of having an idea of what I wanted to create. Weekend 1 is a total rough draft. Both videos are this clear distinction of progress and growth that can be used for a metaphor for life. I know I see everything as a metaphor for life.
So why don’t you go back and fix Weekend 1?
One, I just don’t want to spend the time on it. I don’t want to get lost in the correction and perfection of one video at the expense of new stories. And second, in life, you don’t get to go back into your awkward phase and change it. You have to live through the awkward. I can’t go back to my High School self and tell her that you can get blow dries at the hair salon for $20 bucks on picture day, or that you could pull style inspiration from the sixties and feel way more confident in clothes. Nope, I have to look back and see my poofy hair plus sweatshirt and dixies phase for what it is – uncomfortable and awkward.
Final Summation
I’m so happy these videos are complete. I’m so happy to cross off Coachella vlogs on my list of videos to upload. I’m so happy to see myself moving forward and learning more about storytelling with each video. I’m excited that I’m finding my voice in the void. I’m happy that people are finding me and sticking with me despite my awkward phase. My final summation is that weekend 2 learned from weekend 1 and I strive to always have that awareness throughout my life.
The second episode in my Little Things series is live. I am so excited to have started this series and even with a broken vlogging camera, I’ve pushed forward with my camera phone. Little Things is a passion project that has brought daily joy into my life. It’s week three and I’m still afraid I won’t find a “Little Thing” and then I do! I wonder if that fear will ever go away. I hope my little things are helping to bring a little joy into your life. Last week we (my fiance and I) were hit with some bad news, but life goes on and we have to appreciate the little moments that make it sparkle in the darkest of times.
