Tag Archives: Inspiration

Tea Love

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I’ve never been a coffee drinker. I tried for awhile, but ended up only getting the iced blended stuff or sweetening it so much it didn’t even taste like coffee anymore. I think it was about senior year of high school going into college I really fell in love with tea. I always associated it with fond memories like a cold night sipping it and watching a movie.

Now that I’m working, I feel like I need to have tea every morning. wakes me up, gets me warm, and helps me feel better. Green tea is my favorite! and a plus: the used bags are great for composting!

Here are some amazing tea products that have me going crazy.

From Courier Journal, these cute teacups:

Tea storage from the brilliant Martha Stewart [link]

Submarine tea holder: on amazon for $13! [link]

Origami tea bags designed by Natalia Ponomareva:

This cute tea set on on etsy from ninainvorm for E50,000: [link]

Tea party supplies inspired by travel troll:

Tea-inspired cups: I can’t find the source, let me know if you know it:

 

Active Tea from Cafe Tea’s “Tea for Health”:

Hanger tea-shirts from Soon Mo Kang:

This robot tea holder! This is so amazing! From GreenFeet – $9

Super cute packaged tea bags from Tea Forte’

 

These tea bags are designed to look like cigarettes: I’m not a smoker, but that’s pretty clever!

And if that’s not enough, here’s how drinking green tea has many health benefits:

Doesn’t this make you want to drink tea?!

Anthro Love

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A couple of days ago, Martin and I went to Victoria Gardens after work and had a nice date night…and since I LOVE Anthropologie, we made it a point to stop there!

Their store decorations are so artsy and creative. I want to try to copy some of the cool things they do in there. I Don’t know how they can come up with these things:

We had fun taking pictures and looking at all of their cool stuff…they always present everything in a nice way. They even have super cute gift boxes when you buy some of their nice cups. I’m a sucker for good packaging.

And they even have some pretty awesome gardening-themed items!

I wish I had the money to buy things from there! But I just like to look at their decorations and see what they can come up with. Someday, if I can afford to spend some of my savings, I’ll buy ONE thing from the sale section. lol. For now, I’ll settle for window shopping and creative copying. That’ll do for me.

Garden Inspiration

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Earlier I said that I wanted to post some of my inspiration pictures for gardening, including some ideas I had on what I want. Today is the day, my friends! I’ve been so excited to start working on my garden – I’ve been to Home Depot more times this week than my whole life combined. I just wanted to look around, get some ideas, and buy some small pots and plants. Martin took me and bought lots of flowers and pots for me. Yaaayy! I love him.

On Saturday, we went to Armstrong Gardening Supplies to get some ideas and it just so happened to be across from our favorite dinner place, Honda-ya. We found a lot of cool stuff!

Isn’t this planter cute attached to the wall?

I hope I can get a fountain!

I want tons and tons of pots too:

A walkway kind of like this:

And succulents just like Anthropologie:

I’m so excited! I need some of my friends to come and garden with me, I promise it’s fun! And I’ll even let you eat one of the strawberries from my garden! But there’s only like 3 right now…so first come, first served! Hah.

Look What Came in the Mail Today

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My diploma!

It’s quite amazing how 3 1/2 years of your life is ultimately defined by a small 7×8 piece of paper.

Many people ask what the whole point of college is – when all they get is this little piece of paper. All those late nights, 10 page papers, PowerPoint presentations, group meetings, projects, and hard work culminates itself in this teeny piece of paper. Is it worth it? Like, really?

yes?

I’ve come to realize that one’s whole college experience is not in this finished product, but the journey itself. “Peace is not a distant goal we seek, but a means at which we arrive at that goal.” I’ve grown so much through my experiences in college - not just in school, but the time spent with the people around me. Sure, I would have loved to move out, lived in a dorm, live a few crazy nights and gone “college crazy” drinking and partying or what have you. But where would that have gotten me? Growth is not in trying “new” things or experiencing life and making every mistake that could “define” you. No. It can also be in learning through shared thought, growth of the mind, and spiritual foundation. These things have gotten me through my college years. Being in Crosstraining has set a place mat for a mindset of peace and wisdom that no party or crazy expereince could ever do. I’m fully content and happy having been at home, close to my friends and family, and have experienced mild, less exciting college years. Many people say that you have to go crazy and that would be the only time with no obligations and no consequences. But really, simple is good too.

Don’t get me wrong, I really wish I could move out and learn to live, pay, and expereince how it is to be a full-pledged “grown up”- and one day I will – But as I wait for that, I find that I’m happy with how my college years turned out.

I still want to do a lot of things before life happens and I settle down. I want to travel to Europe again, go to Vietnam and the Philippines. Learn a new language. Live on my own, pay my own bills. Many of these things aren’t likely to happen in the next few years, but wouldn’t it be nice if I was able to?

Anyway, these things have been rolling around in my mind since I’ve received my diploma. And one more thought remains…

What now?

From Within

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image: unknown

I want to share a quote that’s inspired me today:

“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.” -Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

Sometimes I get so caught up with all of the small things: what I need to do, how people perceive me, or how I should act. I forget to think about my faith as a way to help me through the struggle. The beauty and the colors of your actions, like the colors in a stained glass window, is just a mere reflection of what goes on in the inside. You can’t radiate the beauty of life if there is nothing that truly inspires you from within.

I think being in ministry for so long, I forget to become grounded – to look at my core values and reflect that light. My stained glass windows are often clouded, especially recently. I’ve been wanting to have the light come from the outside, but I forget that it needs to come from somewhere inside…from the place where peace and calmness settles.

Maybe I’m not making any sense at all. But when I heard this quote today, I felt a sudden realization that I can’t expect the light to come from anywhere else. It has to come from within myself – a personal conversation with myself and God. I’ve been waiting for so long to feel something. Just to sit in chapel and have God actually speak to me. But first, the inner peace has to come from me. Just me. Another one of my favorite quotes say that “peace is not a distant goal you seek, but a means at which you arrive at that goal.” This quote actually inspired the name of this blog. I wanted “pax” to be in the name somewhere.

I want to find this pax. I will try to make it come from within, and shine out for others to see.

Lovely Organizational Techniques.

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Hello world!

Today’s post is all about organization. What is it? Why do it? What causes it? Any thoughts?

If you know me, you know that I’m an organization freak. I don’t show it often because I don’t want to look crazy, or I just don’t want them moving my stuff around, hah. I organize everything, from my high-heels (which are hung nicely with its own separate compartment) to my clothes (organized by dress, shirt, and colors, often changing) to even my underwear drawer (by color, type, and style, each with its own dividers). I get weirded out when things are left out or doesn’t have its own drawer. When I have time, I like to organize my closet all over again and clean my room, in an orderly fashion, with lists. Call me OCD, but I really just love the feeling of everything having its own place. I love boxes. I love storage containers…and I love the Container Store. My friends tell me that I like “boxes-within-boxes-within-boxes”. Which is true. And weird.

Not many people know this about me, of course, because that’s just plain embarrassing. Haha. I think it all started with my dad. Growing up, he never really kept the house the same. The furniture always moved around, new arrangements were made with our DVD’s and CD’s, our TV’s would move back and forth, upstairs, downstairs, and so forth. I think I grew up with his influence, and every once in awhile, I feel the need to move my stuff around and find a new place for everything. I’m just crazy like that.

On my pinterest page, I have a section for organizing, in which I posted a few of my favorite pictures found on the internet.

Organizing makes me really happy… is that weird? I like the feeling of an organized house and room…but life goes on. Things pile up, and the house gets messy. Life just happens. We can’t control the things that happen to us, and it may get unorganized. But every once in awhile, just like our faith, we need to rebuild it, clean it, reorganize, arrange it, and make it new again. Faith, just like our lives, can get tricky, complicated, and well, unorganized. But at the same time, there is beauty in its randomness, spontaneity, and adventure-ness. I don’t always keep up with this organized lifestyle…but I wish I could. I wish my house would look like the pictures above, but it doesn’t. Nothing is perfect and nothing is always organized. You kinda just have to go with the flow of things. Let things get a little messy, because that’s just life. You can’t have a mess to clean up without the adventure that put that mess there in the first place. But every once in awhile, it’s nice to make things neat and clean and start anew.

Brand new.