Little changes...

I took this at Sufi camp last summer... playing with the dim room, italian lights, camera movement, and slow shutter speed.

I've been reading lots of great blogs recently, and they've got me thinking a bit about my own. I've also been having a lot of thoughts about my life and a few things I want to adjust or change or add. This post is going to be the start of the change.

Whenever autumn rolls around I get really excited and feel like so many things are just beginning- kind of ironic because technically everything is coming to an end before winter. For some reason, though, I always start feeling very creative and inspired and hopeful and excited when the leaves start changing color and the days are a bit colder and shorter. I have so many great memories of these feelings, like being 17 and skipping my first class on crisp, nippy mornings and sitting in my car sipping a spicy chai from Cuppers (my favorite local cafe in Prescott) while writing in my notebook and listening to the Spring Awakening soundtrack. Or going to local band shows at the Catalyst (the only infoshop in Prescott) dressed in thick black tights, orange miniskirts, and fingerless knit gloves. As I've said a million times before on this blog, I love autumn.

This year I haven't been having these feelings as much and I think it's made me feel a little depressed. It's almost definitely because fall hasn't really set into Tucson at all. It's still sunny and hot. The nights have gotten colder, though, and I'm grateful for that because it means sleeping all cozy under covers instead of under sheets with multiple fans on.

Anyways, just because Tucson doesn't look like it's the middle of October doesn't mean that I have to compromise all my fall fun and excitement this year. The creativity and inspiration is still there, I just have to dig it out a bit. Also, I get to go up to Prescott next weekend where it IS chilly and colorful, so I'll get an extra little boost from that :)

Well  that was a whole lot of writing to say a very simple thing... I really shouldn't write these things at 4:30 on a Sunday afternoon while I'm killing time before Stewie gets off work.

On with the changes.

This has been a mostly food blog, and I want to change that. I really like cooking and posting recipes on here, but it's so limiting. After all, the whole premise was a blog of many different things- literature, art, music, fashion, food, and anything else that caught my attention... that's why it's "girl of a thousand faces". I've recently been looking at other people's non-food blogs (a change since I usually only look for food blogs) and I've really been enjoying them. For instance, the blog Sometimes Sweet is written by a 27 year old woman who lives in Prescott (and happens to teach English at my old high school... I never had her as a teacher myself but I always heard really good things about her) and is expecting a baby in the next month. She writes about all sorts of things- other people's blogs, tattoos (she has several herself), her small-town married-and-expecting life, and general things that she does or finds interesting. I really like the style- it's kind of like a diary with added features. She also writes almost daily, which is pretty much impossible with a food blog. I love to cook, but there's no way I'm going to be cooking amazing things EVERY day and taking pictures of them. And so... I want to change this blog to be a bit more like that. I want to post more often with a larger variety of content. I want to be able to sometimes just post about things going on in my life. I still want to post the occasional recipe, but I want to up the amount of posts with books, music, art, fashion, people, and current events as the topic.

I want to get healthier. I think I'm already healthier than the majority of the American population, but recently Stewie and I have been slipping a little bit. We've both discussed going back to a healthier lifestyle. I try to be mostly vegan already, but I want to go back to being a bit stricter. I also sleep waaaay too much and I never go to bed or wake up at the same time. I need to get my sleeping schedule more regulated. I also want to start working out again. I already ride my bike to and from school twice a school day, but I still don't feel as fit as I'd like to. In Portland I went to the gym almost every day for at least an hour. I felt really healthy back then. I'm not sure how I'm going to go about it down here, since I haven't found the U of A gym yet and it's not a quick 5 minute walk from my house... but I'll figure something out. I also want to incorporate hikes and runs into my activities. My mom came down to visit last weekend and we went to two really great and beautiful hiking areas. Being out in nature and being active made me feel really happy and I want to keep it up.

I've been thinking a lot about what the next few years have in store. I plan on trying to study abroad in Greece next summer- originally I wanted to take a semester to do this, but with the transfer it just doesn't make sense any more. The plan is to continue majoring in Media Arts, possibly minor in Classics, go to Greece next summer, do an internship the summer after that... and then graduate with a BA. It's pretty crazy that I'm already almost halfway through college. After that, I plan on getting a Masters or some other type of secondary degree... because having a bachelor's just doesn't really cut it anymore for the best jobs. By the time I'm done with all my schooling I will be 24. That seems both old and young to me and it's weird that it's only 5 years away. After that, who knows? Hopefully I will be able to find a career that I really love and eventually get married and start a family. I plan on keeping this blog the whole time though... because even when I was a kid I loved looking back on the past and remembering times gone by. When I'm old I hope to be able to read this blog and remember this early part of my life.

So to recap, the changes are:
-write more often
-write about more things, including my day to day life
-eat healthier
-work out more
-spend more time in nature
-think about the big picture
-I didn't talk about this, but I really want to procrastinate less. I need to be more motivated to do things like school work and chores. I think it will all around improve my quality of living.

There we go, that was nice. Now I feel like I've gotten all that off my chest. Since I wrote it all here, I think it will help me actually make the changes. I'll be back a little later with some pics of Sabino Canyon, where my Mom and I went last weekend.

For now, a few pics I found on the net and enjoyed:

It says, "And there I met a traveling circus... But there was nothing peculiar about it. Nothing peculiar at all."

Hoping you had a nice, lazy weekend <3

Love,
Emily