Justin and I have spent some time really making our house feel like a sanctuary from the world. For us that involves positive attitudes, incessant laughter, love and a lot of really great items that remind us of all the things we find beautiful... and surrounding ourselves with all of that.

Here's a photo roll of some of the little details that really make a difference in it not being just another place, but our very own home.








And how could it feel like a real home to me, without a pet or two?

Hey Guys,

I'm seriously in love with my new creations. I want to buy them all for myself! Don't you just love them? I know I sure do.

Hey, here's a thought... why don't you buy one for your lover for Valentine's day? I wouldn't be offended in the slightest.  You know they'd love a throw pillow (you can never have too many), or even a bag to carry their books in, or a clock to remind them of when they need to call you and tell you they love you. BECAUSE WE ALL NEED THOSE THINGS.

CLICK HERE to view larger product images, product details & pricing at my Society6 page! You can also follow my Facebook page for new product updates: http://www.facebook.com/bylanalou

I look at you right now from the beginning, wondering what you'll become. You have all the potential in the world to be wonderful, even with the hardships that are possible, and that I know are coming. I know that I can't plan for anything to happen the way that I exactly want. I can't expect certain things to happen, all I can do is try as hard as I possibly can to make sure that I roll with whatever you bring me, and make my life the best that I can!

Here's what I'm hoping to find from this year:

A new opportunity
A finished goal
A new positive habit
A successful break
An answered prayer

And probably a few other things, like... for my cats to become besties.

I'm being cryptic. I know. Time will reveal all of this to you guys. I promise.

Just say lots of prayers for me this year. I AM GOING TO NEED THEM. We all do, and I'm sure you've got a lot of people on your prayer list already, but please remember me, too, if you can. I need more strength in my legs, more breath in my lungs, and more spring in my step to make it through this year to come!

Oh, 2014... is it possible to skip you?

Justin and I watched the movie About Time last weekend. I absolutely loved it, and wish I had the ability to time travel like he did. I just want to go back to this day... just for the whole year. Has time travel been invented for everyone yet?

Taken in the Gulf of Mexico by my future husband Justin.

So I'm off to spend the next week with family and relax before 2013 comes to end.

I don't have a lot to write. Work has been insane. Job security, but awfully busy and miserable. But tonight was our work party, and it was at the Grand America hotel in SLC. Fancy and fantastic. It's crazy how well our company is doing these days. I'm lucky to have such a great job at the moment, but I couldn't be more excited for a week off with my family right now.

I. AM. BURNED. OUT.

So... here is a before and after photo sequence of a chair I redid this year and have been meaning to share with you all. This will suffice as a post for now! It was a super cheap thrift store chair that must have come from a huge set of old office chairs because there were several of them.

I had to rip off all the gross fabric (2 different layers of it), rip off the dirty 50 year old foam that was full of skin cells of tons of people and put new foam and fabric on. It was.... GROSS. Justin bought me a simple staple gun, and some gloves and I dug in. It looks great now! If I could do it again, I'd have bought more than just one!

So what do you think?

The title of this post is one of my favorite hymns. It's short, sweet and speaks of how I feel on a regular basis. Utah is full of beauty everywhere I look -- the mountains in any given season, the valleys, and the sunsets. We truly live in a beautiful state. While driving home from my parents' house to ours after Thanksgiving, my husband and I encountered the below scenes. Excuse the poor quality pictures, we were driving in crazy holiday traffic so they are all through the car windows. Also note, there is no filter.

God is a master artist.

I'm obsessed with art lately. Aaaaaaaahhhhhhh. Someone, please stop me from looking at the Society6 site. I CAN'T MAKE MYSELF.

Here are a few of my most recent discoveries on there. (Click the art piece name to see the artists' gallery/store.)

Bill Murray - by replaceface

Tonari no Totoro - by Victor Vercesi

Pulp Street - by Beery Method

Moon Flight - by rubbishmonkey

I'm obsessed with this print ---- Bon Iver - Analog Zine, by Hugo Barros

I am a sucker for all things artsy. I recently discovered an art site called Society6.com. When I first discovered the site, I sat gushing tirelessly over the pages and pages of art prints for days. I finally became obsessed with one in particular (pictured above) and ordered the largest size of it that was available.  (The artist's Society6 page is here if you want to see more of their work. They are ridiculously talented.) I am now searching for the perfect frame for this piece.  I have the spot picked out for it in my living room so I just need to find the right frame. Maybe I'll thrift store one and paint it to match.

After researching the site a little further, I found out I can have a page on there and sell my own artwork without losing the rights to my pieces.  After battling my "I'm no artist" and "who am I to think I can sell my stuff?" thoughts, I figured, "why not?", and created one myself.  I mostly have it loaded with photos I've taken while traveling and just a few things I painted myself. I'm currently in the process of drawing and painting more, so keep checking back on my page because you never know what you'll find! I definitely feel vulnerable to this, because letting the world judge what you consider to be a masterpiece is opening yourself up to rejection. But... I'm going to be bold and see what happens.

So... I painted the image for the new blog header a while ago. Some of you may remember it from THIS post.

I scanned it tonight and tweaked it with some cool edits, and came up with the lovely new header you see above! I happen to love it. It's weird, but it's my own creation, and I like that.

Also... the blog address you visit each time you come to my blog is changing. I am getting my own domain name! YES! I don't know why it took so long to do this before now. I guess I just had other things to do at the time... or I'm lazy.

Anyhow, by this weekend, you will need to update your information to my new blog address.

Details to come soon!

Life isn't fair, that's one thing I know for sure. It seems sometimes that it's dead set on beating a person down. Someone that didn't deserve it, and really wasn't expecting it.

I wrote this poem tonight during an angry-at-the-universe journaling session. It feels like sometimes that faith isn't enough. I will keep at it though. But honestly, it's not enough sometimes. Things happen and regardless of the faith you have, they will happen and that's life. That's the grit of life. You can't magically erase someone's pain. You can't magically heal cancer. You can just love the person that needs the love, and you can put your head phones on and zone out for an hour with sad music to help you get your emotions out so you won't take them out on your husband in the wrong way.

This is part of what came of my angry-at-the-universe journal session. Analyze it how you wish. This was my very first poem I've ever written just for the hell of it. I don't know why but part of my brain was thinking poetically tonight. Sorry guys, my life is full of greatness and hardships and that's reality. Today happens to be a day with some hardships and I happened to really need to get it down on paper... er... internet paper.

Photo Credit: Google Image Search

Tonight I watched a TED talk about a man who searched for the man who broke his neck. The name of the talk alone intrigued me but what I found was an exceptional story teller, who in the process of telling his story of hardship, pain, and a lot of loss you could see in his face and eyes that he was on top of the cliff he'd fallen off of by accident. He was in a car accident in Israel when he was 19. His neck snapped and he spent the better part of his life healing and learning to walk again. Years later he now walks with a cane. He's become a writer even with limited use of his hands.

He went back to Israel last year and met the man who had driven the car that upon hitting the vehicle he was in, snapped his neck. The man's reactions during their afternoon together showed him that life isn't about what happens to you, it's what you do or how you deal with what happens to you. He quoted Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning." He went to that man to get an apology. But when he met with the man, he could see that he would never get one, and that the man had spent his life trying to forget the mistakes he had made.

He left that meeting knowing he was ok and knowing the man wasn't ok. It was quite an inspiring story.

Then I pulled up another one that is a commencement speech at a Harvard Graduation ceremony, given by JK Rowling. She talked all about how she believes failure is something we should all experience because it teaches you what you really are made of. She said when she was at the verge of homelessness, had lost her husband to divorce and had nothing, she knew she could focus all her energy onto the things she truly valued because she had nothing else to distract her. My favorite thing from this first section of her speech is this:

"Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life" - JK Rowling, Harvard Commencement speech 2008.

It is true, what happens to you doesn't define you. You are how you deal with and what you do with the things that have happened to you. I love this process of thinking. I believe it is truth.

My favorite part of the end of her speech was her closing statement. "As is a tale, so is life. Not how long it is, but how good it is."

Both speakers are writers. Both have such a way with words that they are worth listening to if you get the time. I have posted both videos below so that you can choose to watch none, one, or both of them.

This is the story of my life right now. I used to draw almost daily in high school and then stopped for 10 years once I moved to college and got distracted with life. Since getting married, I have discovered I love making art again. Sure it's super amateur, but it's mine and I made it. I'm extremely proud of it. Here are 2 of my fun little stabs at being artistic. I even painted that frame!