goals – tide & bloom

whatever will be, will be

Tide & Bloom officially became one year old last week. One whole year. I honestly hadn’t even thought about what that meant until WordPress sent me the “congratulations, your blog is 1!” notification. In some ways, I’m kind of happy that I didn’t notice or anticipate it creeping up. It shows how comfortable I am with what this is, how it exists, and the purpose it serves. I do not write as a business and I do not plan on how I’m going to be inspired. I can’t say I’ve accomplished everything I’ve wanted since I began this site, but I can say that it’s given me a great deal of joy and pride. It’s not very often that things like that come along in your life, particularly for someone like me.

This journal has been a catalyst for internal growth and a way of reconnecting with what I want for myself in this life. Through trial and error and lots of contemplation, I feel closer than I’ve ever been to figuring out the formula. Yeah, that formula. That mystical holy grail that all us twenty-somethings are desperate for that’ll usher us into full-term adulthood with grace and contentment. One year ago, I had no idea what that would look like or whether or not I had the strength or patience to craft it. Today, I feel like I can breathe easier knowing that great things are worth waiting for and I’m on a path towards finding them.

So, like any other blogger might do, I give you a list of the posts I’m most proud of from the past year. Sure it may be cliche, but I think these deserve a second look since they all were such important moments, all key to making this blog what it is today.

/ preserving your significance
/ parish foods and goods
/ ALL of my Creative Masters and Creative Makers interviews. Can’t pick between them!
/ good italian, pure and simple
/ dear me
/ tips for creating a gallery wall
/ still looking to the wonder

And I also look to the future of course, and set a small list of goals for the second year of Tide & Bloom:

/ more amazing interviews with people near and far who are worth admiration
/ less pinterest and tumblr, more insights into my drawing and sketching
/ lady crush style posts featuring the many inspiring women in my life
/ a recipe post or two? eeeeek
/ if i can manage to get people to let me, more home tours. real homes – full of love and life, not perfectly styled
/ guest posts on food, style, and culture

But I’d also like to hear what you think. Which posts have resonated with you the most? What would you like to see more of?

art is life: beginning a new year

So it’s that time of year. You know, the beginning. And everywhere you look – tv, social media, blogs – you are reading or listening to something about crafting goals for the year ahead. As always, I’d like to think that I’m different than everyone else, but really I’m not. The start of a new calendar year is a ubiquitous marker of time and instead of being cynical and ignorant about it’s importance, I’d rather join the bandwagon and do whatever it is I need to feel like I’m ready for what’s up ahead.

I don’t think I can go a traditional route of making a list of all the little goals I’d like to accomplish because it just feels too mechanical and all the more difficult to follow. There are generic things I’m always trying to improve in my life no matter what the month – trying to eat healthier, trying to be more patient, trying to be active, trying to be a better daughter/friend/partner. The turn of the year doesn’t really mark a new motivation for any of these things because I’m always in progress, always working on getting better at them.

four simple goals

Cath and Lar inspired me by their sweet and simple lists of goals for the rest of 2013. There may not be that many days left in the year, but that doesn’t mean we should just resign to complacency until we’re coerced into having resolutions. There’s no better time than now to begin working on the everyday awesomeness of life. Do what you can and don’t feel guilty about the rest. Here are my own little goals to complete before the new year…

resolutions

With the leaves falling and the chill rapidly growing, I’m reminded of the passage of time and the irrefutable need to re-align my perspective. My life has found itself once again in a foreign landscape, this one being solely focused on working. Yes, clocking in and clocking out, that kind of working. While I stand behind my decision to do this, I can’t deny how hard it’s been to make this transition. My days are never ending and I’ve barely even had a single day off to do my own thing in the last month. That being said, I think it’s time I make some fall/winter resolutions. Who says you need to wait until New Year’s to begin working on yourself? Ideally, I’d like to keep track of these self-assigned initiatives through the blog, but I can’t make any promises right now. To start, let me just give you an outline of how I foresee this happening. If all goes well, it may even transform the way my blog is written and organized…

i am a princess

Sometimes I like to end the tiring work day with a movie; an escape from reality. A reminder of the poetic beauty in life we seem to forget in the day to day grind. Last night I decided I would pop in a childhood favorite, A Little Princess. Please tell me you’ve seen it. If you haven’t, it’s totally a must see (I’m serious) for every daughter, sister, mother, and best friend. I had been feeling stumped on what to write for this week’s linkup until I was reminded exactly why I loved this movie. The main character is sort of like the spirit guide or guardian angel that we all deserve to have whispering in our ears; her unconditional faith in the magic and beauty of the world is more poignant to me now than ever.

I fully realize the level of cheese I’m at when I’m spouting sonnets about how much I love this movie, but I’m just a sucker for films/books/anything that reminds me of the hope we all used to have when we were children. We believed we could be princesses, we could be artists, we could be anything we want if we just believed in it hard enough. Where does all that optimism go when it disappears? Does it transform into resignation and regret? Could it ever turn back into what it once was?

starting small

One of the biggest mental setbacks I have is the fear that I’m not as great as the people I admire and aspire to be like (artists, bloggers, entrepreneurs, etc). Those beautiful creative professionals seem like they have everything together so effortlessly and they continue to surprise me with their ability to stay fresh, relevant, and inspirational. Despite knowing that they all had to start somewhere, I always find myself feeling so far behind with so much left to go. Why do I feel like I have to start big and so close to the end?

I keep forgetting that you don’t begin a success. You become a success.

know thyself

Every few weeks I tend to experience an identity crisis. I have the awful plague of being a creative and ambitious individual which means nothing is ever good enough, including myself. In order to pull myself out of this hopeless hole, I have to do something that will lead me back to remembering who I really am. Sometimes it’s rambling on to my boyfriend about how I’m too far behind to do anything worthwhile in my life, to which he usually responds with reassuring words about how everyone loves everything I do. Other times it’s chatting with best friends who usually tell me how much they admire my strength and courage.

Today it happens to be that I’m reminded of who I am by my birth date. Everyone loves reading descriptions of themselves and their potential futures, in hopes that their own self-image and desired goals will be confirmed as what destiny had intended for them. While I do believe that we are in control of our own lives, I also think you can’t get anywhere without knowing thyself.