ON DESIGN | MINIMALISM:

So, I was going to jump onto Photoshop last night & play with the border around that round image to the right here that is my head shot for the blog.  I was going to match it with some fancy scribbles around the name Boardwalk To Eden ... but instead I found myself eating a fine meal of lavosh pizza, home made whiskey sours, & becoming even more obsessed with fashion & interior design while watching hours of Mad Men.  

(Nice crotch-shot, Cal.)

The newest piece of clothing outside of my comfort zone are those tribal print, teal & black, harem pants.  I love that they're not overly Hammer pants looking, & that the drop crotch doesn't hit my knees.  I absolutely love that I now have a pair of stretchy pants that I can wear to work & pass off as work-appropriate.  &, like usual, I just have to have anything tribal.  (I think my Bueno key necklace goes pretty well with it, too!)  The Bueno sisters are opening shop again this weekend with new necklace designs, & new rings (which I have to have!) - I can't wait to see what they've come up with!

In the world of home design, I've been obsessed with Mid Century Modern before it was a thing.  After graduating high school, I was able to attend 3 years at art school, & even though I left before graduating, I gained a keen eye for textures, patterns, colors, & simple, elegant lines.  With the idea of green design planted in my head (along with my fond love of both nature & antiquing), I was enamored with the look, style, & feel of Mid Century Modern.  Enamored, because honestly, at 19 years old how was I supposed to afford anything near that style of furniture?  Learning all about Eames, Herman Miller, Greene & Greene, & Frank Lloyd Wright added even more to this lust over good design.

I think it's odd that I've never mentioned my background in either design or the concept of green on this blog before.

Anywho, my academic director introduced me to Biomimicry.  She got me into the style of design that makes you want to use old before new.  We went to the Gamble House, we visited the Hollyhock House, & while in Barcelona, we saw original Barcelona chairs!  The school itself was just down the street from a Room & Board, which enabled us to see these historically modern pieces of furniture in person.  This is the stuff you'll see at Ikea or Anthropologie now.  This is what we were taught was good design.  & with her influence of both green design, & reusing the old, I became obsessed with the concept of green.  That idea of saving this planet's resources, which will save the planet, while providing aesthetically pleasing design to clients.

It's why I blog.  It's why I'm now majoring in Environmental Studies, & it's why I just can't escape the want for minimalism.  I guess when anyone goes to art school, they come out as perfectionists in one way or another.  Explaining this is so hard.  Making people understand why my standards for fashion, beauty, & home design are so high is frustrating.  I don't want to sound like a know it all, but I wan't to inform people of what I know.

I guess this is why I've never mentioned it here before.

Good design is everywhere.  Know that.  Also, know that you can create beauty with the simplest of things.  You don't need millions to make a house a home.  All you need is a keen eye, & the ability to know what you like.  This is the same with fashion.

So, I guess I better take my own advise.  Soon, I'll be updating this space to be a little more "me," while still being a minimalist's dream.

I'll also have updates on making my own house a home.  On how I've gotten my closet down to just a few items that all work together.  On how I pack for a trip (pairing & sharing!).  & how my obsession with makeup has grown larger, instead of smaller (which sort of contradicts the minimalist thing...).

Now, please enjoy this song about society, which reflects my own ideas of "things."  ♥

BACK TO BASICS | A BTE MAKEOVER:

So, I've been pondering for quite some time at the idea of this blog - where it's going, what it's doing, & why I'm still at it.  Why I just can't quit you!

The fact that I watch YouTube videos relentlessly now might have something to do with my lack of posting, lack of inspiration from other blogs, & lack of good blog parenting, if you will.

I want to get back to basics here.  I'd like to introduce myself from the beginning, again.  & I'd like to tell my story.

(I've also finally got around to getting on Bloglovin!)

Follow my blog with Bloglovin



Videos like this inspire me SO much, it's just ridiculous.  All of a sudden I'm highly attracted to makeup videos, clothing hauls, ridiculous amounts of consumerism & beauty.  I just love it all!

I'd like to start networking again.  I'd like to get back to a sponsored blog where my posts are about more than just life & journal entries.  I'd like to host an art journaling class.  Or maybe start doing vlogs every so often.  A pretty background, & some fun content could go a long way!

I want to meet people through blogging again, create connections, create a space for more creativity.

Up next:

I'm going to do a 50 Facts About Me post.  I'm not sure if that will just be a written post, or a vlog, or some sort of photo/word combo - but it'll be here, & it'll be paired with a new look.  A more me style, & a perfectly genuine desire to get this blog going!

Thanks for sticking through it all.  It's like I've been trying to navigate my life while walking in mud ... does that make sense?  It's what it feels like.

Anywho!  Have a great day lovies, & I can't wait to be back on here really soon!

♥

Have you ever had one of those moments when you realize that a band or a song that you've come to love means more to you than you could have realized?

It might sound silly but it happens.  I'm not talking about a teenage romance where a super angsty kid listens to a song on repeat because it make him/her cry out all of her feelings, or want to get angry & take control.

No, not that.

I'm taking about a song that pulls the heartstrings.  A band who's entire album could be your soundtrack to life.



As a lover of long road trips, the open sky of the southwest, the mountains of the west coast, & even the ravens at the rest stops ... I feel as though First Aid Kit could be my soundtrack to life.  Why on earth I hadn't discovered them before beats me.

While listening to Pandora's "Indie Folk Revival" station they kept being played ... I had to know who they were.  I did know who they were.  I just didn't realize how good they were!

I know tastes in music vary a lot between people based on a lot of things.  But if that Pandora station sounds like anything you'd listen to, then maybe you might like these free spirited Swedish girls.

This has been my soundtrack of the week.  It'll probably carry on through the weekend.

More than anything, I can't wait to get this album on vinyl & be able to dance like a hippie in my living room.

“We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.”  Friedrich Nietzsche

"Keep close to Nature's heart... & break clear away, once in a while, & climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean."  John Muir

This past weekend Jonathan & I had the pleasure of being invited on a camping trip to June Lake, in the Eastern Sierra mountains.  

Whenever I find myself up highway 395, between Death Valley & Mt. Whitney, I am humbled.  I am honored to live in the same state as many great explorers once have, to fall in love with the same wilderness they did, to live just a day's drive away from these peaks & rivers & trees.  

The Sierra mountains are a great love of mine; I feel at home & at peace while I'm in them.  The ease at which they are accessible allows me to visit them whenever I'd like, for the most part. & for this great privilege, I aim to protect those glorious mountain peaks, those lakes, those gigantic trees, that idea.  The idea of a clean, pure wild.  I recently joined the Sierra club as a first step in my environmental journey, but more than anything, majoring in environmental studies, & being able to preserve the wild, everywhere, for everyone, is my main goal.  I want these open spaces to be just as glorious & meaningful to my grandchildren as they are to me.

I was honored to have gotten to visit this wild space over the weekend.  & even though I clumsily left with a bruised up, sprained ankle, it was one of my favorite trips to the Eastern Sierras, thus far.  (From the photo, it looks like Turbo enjoyed it, too.)

"Man must be made conscious of his origin as a child of Nature. Brought into right relationship with the wilderness he would see that he was not a separate entity endowed with a divine right to subdue his fellow creatures and destroy the common heritage, but rather an integral part of a harmonious whole. He would see that his appropriation of earth's resources beyond his personal needs would only bring imbalance and beget ultimate loss and poverty for all."  Linnie Marsh Wolfe

I have recently become slightly obsessed with YouTube.

It all started while watching a friend's drunk cooking show.  In the suggestion box was a show called My Drunk Kitchen.  The snippet showed a cute, short-haired girl ... holding a plate of nachos!  So of course, I had to click over.  At once I was hooked on her silly drunken show.  I discovered her not so drunk confessions, her coming out story, how to spot a straight girl, & other videos such as her draw my life story.  She makes sure that her viewers are encouraged to embrace themselves, to love themselves, & to not be afraid to be silly as fuck.

In one episode of My Drunk Kitchen, Hannah had a guest on her show ... Grace Helbig, aka DailyGrace.  & again, I became immediately addicted to watching these ladies & their YouTube videos during my lunch hour on a (mostly) daily basis.  (Which is great since Grace is about the only YouTuber who uploads daily ... & because I had years of their videos to catch up on!)

While watching another episode of My Drunk Kitchen, I spotted another recommendation ... My Drunk Sex+.  It was a video featuring Hannah Hart, on a channel called Sex+.  Again, I was hooked.  Now, while the other channels I was watching were funny, & usually a bit drunken or ridiculously geeky, this channel was (while still funny), completely informative.

Laci Green's videos brought me back to a lifelong issue that I've had as mostly an inner dialogue.  The issue of where we ALL stand in today's society as humans, as female, as male, as whatever gender you identify with.  When I was in Girl Scouts, my mom (also my troop leader) had me complete a research project in gender studies, & how women are portrayed in the media.  Back then you couldn't simply look up a video on YouTube or find a documentary on Netflix, so we went to her college's library & did some video research on how photos of women are altered.  On how the standards for women are unreachable at times because they're simply not even real.  We also looked at obesity standards, & the falsities of the BMI scale. How obesity standards are very low according to this scale, so that people are made to think they're overweight when this scale does not even take into account a person's bone size, or muscle mass.  Big pharma uses this scale to make people buy weight loss drugs (especially in the 90s), & from friends, I hear that even the military uses this as a scale for weight management.  While in the military you must be fit, or in shape.  Using the BMI scale is crap, when it comes to this.  Personally, my cousin's husband is 6'1", 235lbs of large bones, & dense muscle.  The dude isn't a normal skinny type.  According to the BMI scale, he should weigh a measly 185lbs.  Just imagining him at that weight makes me cringe.  He has no body fat, his muscles aren't ridiculously big ... he's just a large boned person.

During my first year in college I took a sociology class on Women in American History.  In this class, I was introduced to the movie Iron Jawed Angles, about the women's movement of the 1910's in America.  They also held a production of the Vagina Monologues at my school.  I was introduced to a very in-depth teaching of women's health, sexual health & safety, & the idea that sex wasn't dirty, or wrong - but pleasurable, normal, & that it should be embraced.

Now why the hell hadn't I learned this in school before I was sexually active?!  Why does the public school's teaching of safe "sex" promote abstinence, when, honestly, we all know that isn't going to happen ...?  & why on earth, with all the information available, are they STILL teaching these same antiquated ideas to kids.  Why don't they actually educate them?  Allow them to grow, & become adults in a safe environment.

While attending the Bioneers Conference last year, I noticed a lot of focus not on the environment, but on gender issues.  At the time, this irked me since this was supposed to be a gathering of people in support of the environment, & issues on the grass roots movement.

After watching Laci Green's Sex+ & rekindling a passion for gender equality (that never died, but simply got side tracked with my obsession with the health of this earth), I am now excited to attend Bioneers for the purpose of seeing if they have anything on youth & gender (besides earthy stuff).  I've also looked at the school I'm aiming to attend to see if they have anything on gender.  I think minoring in Women's & Gender Studies, while majoring in Environmental Studies, might bring me to an odd focus about gender roles & how society dictates to us who we're supposed to be & how we're supposed to behave as women or men.  I like this idea.  I'm super excited to learn more, to continue to grow with my knowledge of what's out there in relation to this topic, & to hopefully one day bring this knowledge to others.



Up next:  let's talk about the terms "boyfriend" & "girlfriend" in contrast to "partner" "lover" & whatever else you guys & galls call your significant other.

Thanks for reading!  Have a happy hump day!  ♥

"Who looks upon a river in a meditative hour, and is not reminded of the flux of all things? Throw a stone into the stream, and the circles that propagate themselves are the beautiful type of all influence. Man is conscious of a universal soul within or behind his individual life, wherein, as in a firmament, the natures of Justice, Truth, Love, Freedom, arise and shine."  Ralph Waldo Emerson

I know what I need to do.

I need to quit wanting support & community, & just do it myself ... I think I know what "it" is.

I'm so reliant on approval, love, & acceptance ... when I should just go, be. 

I have so many good ideas & my own stubborn resistance sets me back from accomplishing things.

From here on out I will live to be wild & free, & completely me.  Without the confines of society, of communal acceptance, without preconceived notions about who Cal is.  I know who I am, deep down in my heart.  & I am here to live my life as me.  As who I am completely.  

Anne LaBastille, via:  Tumblr

Pictured above is a hero of mine, Anne LaBastille.  She was an ecologist, an environmentalist, & an American author.  She was a contributing writer for the Sierra Club, & National Geographic.  She traveled around the world working with many non-profit organizations to study & alleviate the destructive effects of acid rain & pollution on lakes & general wildlife.  She was also a noted wildlife photographer, & her work appeared in many nature publications.

Soon, I will begin reading her Woodswoman series.  I hope to become further inspired.  To gain further insight, knowledge, & excitement for where I'm taking my life, where my life is going, & where it is now. 

"A Man needs to feel the rhythms of the earth; he needs to have in hand something real — The tiller of a boat, a set of reins, the roughness of rope, or simply a shovel. Can a man live all his days to keep his fingernails clean and trim? Is that what a boy dreams of?"  John Elderedge

"The spiritual life cannot be made suburban. it is always frontier, and we who live in it must accept an even rejoice that it remains untamed."  Howard Macey

Here in sunny Southern California it's about that time where we get our perpetual Summertime.  It's pretty awesome if you ask me, although I know some people who would object, roll up their windows, crank the a/c, & hide from life for most of the year.  I love the element, I embrace them, & I can't get enough of our dry Southwest heat.  Sometimes I even follow the lead of lizards & lay out on the cement with a nice towel barrier to soak up the sun without burning my back.  It's amazing ... as long as I remember the sunblock.  A burnt Cal is not a happy Cal.

Spending so much time outside has me for a bit of a loss of words.  But I would like to share one thing with you; from my childhood, this is, & has been, the pinnacle of my Summertime world.  Please enjoy some dreamy, Muppet-filled music: