I’ve moved :)

Hello there! 

Yes, I know it’s been a while.

…but not really, because I’ve started a new blog that I’m super enthused about. 

It’s called fashionably light and you can start following it here: http://fashionablylight.com

see you there!

xo xandra ★

See you soon!

Hi there,
I’m taking a blogging sabbatical this week to get ahead on work. Have a cup of tea and I’ll see you next Monday when I’m all refreshed and stuff!

XANDRA

7 Places I Want to Visit

These are seven places I have yet to experience. Another day I’ll do a “7 Places I Want to Revisit,” which is why some cities aren’t on here.

1. Paris, France

screenshot from "Paris, Je T'Aime"

I love French food. I love French art. I love French music. I love berets. And my fictional [and real] friends seem to be hanging out there. You know, Ginny. Anna. Etienne. Even Abby Hayes! I’ve wanted to go for ages.

2. Telluride, Colorado

Photo by Sasha Stone, Awards Daily

I have wanted to go to Colorado for a while because of the mountains, but Sasha Stone’s Telluride Film Festival diary has persuaded me that this is the town to check out. It balances epic and charming. How fluffy + edgy :)

3. Saariselka, Finland

Hotel Kakslauttanen

I’ve wanted to see the northern lights, and after reading Bed in Tree, I discovered Hotel Kakslauttanen. Yes, I would like to sleep in a glass igloo, please. And no, I’m not looking at the prices…

4. Patagonia (Argentina & Chile)

from Tumblr

I was looking for Patagonia the outdoor clothing brand and instead the internet led me to this beautiful place. I’ve been obsessed ever since.

5. Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Amsterdam, from uh, Google.

I think I saw it in a John Green video. And it was in 13 Little Blue Envelopes and such. Then I spent about forty minutes at the airport there on my way to Scotland, and it was my first non-UK European city. Technically. It’s pretty.

6. Pompeii, Italy

Pompeii ruins and Vesuvius

I want to go to Italy in general, and because of my Latin studies, Pompeii is distinguished in my mind. It doesn’t even come up on the “top twelve cities to visit in Italy” but since when have I been conventional? Of course I want to visit Rome and everything, but more because It’s Rome than for any specific reasons.

7. Tokyo, Japan

Seibuen Yuenchi theme park

Japan, home of my role model, Hello Kitty! Although, you know what? Technically, Hello Kitty is English, born and raised in London! But okay, cartoon cats aside (no matter how awesome they may be), Tokyo is something that can be described. It can be viewed. But it needs to be experienced.

 

So where do you want to visit?

dinosaur t-shirts are so in

I heart dinosaurs. Lately they’ve been all the rage as the subject of graphic tees. yes!

T-Rex Hates Push-Ups (Delias):

“I love you this much!” “That’s not very much.”(Delias):

Poor brontosaurus. Also note that this is designed for toddlers. (Threadless):

Herbivore. *represent* (Zazzle):

and finally…

THE RAPTOR HOODIE (Think Geek)

Now I don’t really buy t-shirts because I only need about two and I have more than that. But for dinosaurs? If an exception were to be made it would be for those lovable critters.

because the most important thing is the food

sel de la terre

delicious georgetown cupcake surprise from my cousins

i want to sleep beneath the stars

every night i open my front door (thanks, logan, for reminding me to do this). although it is a daily ritual, still i manage to be surprised to feel the comforting summer air, to see the purply dark sky, and if i’m lucky, those gleaming pinpricks that are the stars. despite the amount of time i spend at r.e.i., or hearing about various friends and bloggers heading out to the woods for the weekend, it is these couple of minutes each day that cause me to crave camping. the midnight trail challenge and spontaneous stargazing in the field in outdoor adventure. the tent my family would set up in the backyard for fun. even the nights when i had a lot of homework and decided to sit outside on the roof with a flashlight to make writing assignments more interesting.

this image has been one of my favorites in my iPhoto library ever since i saw it on the everyday minimalist. oh i would love to live here.

i’m still a teenager.

when i turned 19 i felt as if i had finished teenagerdom. i had lived an entire year as a legal adult after all. it wasn’t until i read a birthday card from my friend that said “enjoy your last year as a teenager!” that it hit me – nineteen is still a teen.

(at this point, many of my friends would probably say that they made this mistake because they’re not good at math. i would disagree and say that it is a mistake more relevant to language. “teen” is in the word itself, is it not?)

regardless, measuring age, experience, maturity is a strange thing. i consider myself to be the same age as everyone in my same year of schooling to be the same age as i am even though we could be as many as two years apart (or maybe more, who knows!) and for some reason it’s hard to determine the ages of people from other countries. i know people younger than i who seem years ahead of me, and adults decades older than i who sometimes act like children.

i want to be a teenager and i want to be an adult. i want to do something great and be commended for doing it at such a young age. i want the respect we grant people of a certain age just for being a certain age.

why do these things matter? they’re just labels, ultimately, and being young shouldn’t make a great thing any more or less great. as i get older i lose perspective on what children, younger teenagers, can do. they’re smarter than we give them credit for, i think. when i was five i directed a play. when i was seven i wrote a chapter book. at those ages i didn’t have a sense of what age you’re “supposed to be” to do those things, so i just did them. it was actually easier when i wasn’t as aware of how other people do things, what i’m expected to do.

the other day someone made the comment that these days adolescence has extended to the age of 30. whether or not this is true, what IS true is that adolescence is what you want it to be when you want it to be. there isn’t a turning point in which you’re thrown into adulthood, forced to leave your hello kitty toys behind. tomorrow i’m not a teenager. technically. but at heart? i can dream at whatever age i please. let’s shed the labels, including the burden or blessing of age, and live how we please.

today i read a book

i’ve been home for a few days now, just enough to be settled, almost enough to sink into the routine of waking up late, finding something to watch on tv, playing the sims, thinking that it would be more productive to just relax and get a fresh start the next day, and putting off doing anything of value.

uninterested in any of today’s dvr options, i sat in front of the shelves of dvds, thinking of returning to an old, light-hearted favorite. one of my choices was the sisterhood of the traveling pants. ‘but it’s not as good as the book,’ i told myself. then i decided to go up to my room and retrieve the paperback itself from the shelf of books that i have held onto because i might reread, but in reality never do. today i changed that reality. i sat outside on the cushioned lawn chair we own apparently for this type of thing, and read the entire book. and i might pick a new one and do the same thing tomorrow.

insight from today’s reading:

It was the first time in days she had felt that particular feeling of looking forward to something. […]

Maybe happiness didn’t have to be about the big, sweeping circumstances, about having everything in your life in place. Maybe it was about stringing together a bunch of small pleasures. Wearing slippers and watching the Miss Universe contest. Eating a brownie with vanilla ice cream. Getting to level seven in Dragon Master and knowing there were twenty levels to go.

Maybe happiness was just a matter of the little upticks – the traffic signal that said “Walk” the second you got there – and downticks – the itchy tag at the back of your collar – that happened to every person in the course of a day. Maybe everybody had the same allotted measure of happiness within each day.

Maybe it didn’t matter if you were a world-famous heartthrob or a painful geek. Maybe it didn’t matter if your friend was possibly dying.

Maybe you just got through it. Maybe that was all you could ask for.

– The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares

 

excerpts from my journal

i have been keeping a journal since i was 11 years old. daily, since i was about 13. i think i’m on my 26th book or something. i only have two with me at the moment, and forgot to number them. people ask what i write about. the answer is, anything. everything. it’s sorta stream of consciousness.

i never let anyone read my journals. not because they’re super secret and private – they are, at times – but because if i knew that people would read them, i would write differently. and i don’t want that. so if i am negligent enough to leave my diary underneath a tree, please be more considerate than the guys from bread.

i was flipping through my most recent journal and found it amusing. i don’t remember thinking a lot of the things i did, let alone remember writing them down. as a thank you in advance for not reading my journals without my permission, here are some sentences from my two most recent journals to give you a sneak peak into the craziness of my mind.

 

Writing seems more genuine without lined pages.

It would be so cool to make a Sim Beowulf!

Tomorrow will be my actual work day.

Siiiigh cake. I want to sit in a café and read.

I was in the same town as James Franco. I was about 15 feet away from Dan Radcliffe. Again. This weekend wasn’t bad.

And I return to the question. And I don’t think I want to answer. They’re both lovely boys.*

Why am I so lethargic? Well, I haven’t eaten anything. It could be that.

I’m now procrastinating on sleep.

Tomorrow’s Wednesday. Wednesday Zoop!

But hey. I wrote a song and it was swell.

This pen does not agree with this paper. Shame. I like this pen and I like this paper.

I don’t want to break the awesome with a slap of awkward.

I WISH THAT I HAD JESSIE’S GIRL. Not really. I don’t know any Jessies, or any with girls, let alone girls I wish I had. It’s a song.

 

*Peeta and Gale.

on defying the terror and just sharing my songs already

there are parts of my childhood that are still completely me. not only me, but very very important to me. when i was little i would gather my friends together and put on plays. instead of playing on the playground i would climb on top of it. when i found a book i liked i would read it over and over and read everything about it over and over. i would sing songs and write songs and perform them for my friends.

well pretty much everything about that still applies to me except that i climb rocks instead of playgrounds. and, until very recently, i would write songs and not share them with anyone.

i was proud of the songs i wrote, songs that evolved over time, and i would sing them to myself and they would make me happy. it took years before i finally gave in and played one of my songs for my songwriting client (i am her agent) and amazing friend tori, who encouraged me to share them with more people. i didn’t take her advice for another couple of years.

after spending a month or so at home playing more guitar than ever i returned to uni and missed it. perhaps it was this deprivation that made me realize how important to me songwriting and performing really is. i finally got a hold of a guitar (thanks eternally, rory), and played a few of my songs for my friends.

i should clarify here that i did post some songs on youtube a couple of years ago. but they were silly, and while i was proud of them and their wittiness, i was still shying away from sharing anything remotely personal.

i grouped four of my songs together and called it this:

and the songs are these:

and i even posted my first actual single here:

i almost backed out a couple of times. things like

PEOPLE WON’T LIKE IT

PEOPLE WILL GUESS WHO THE SONGS ARE ABOUT

AND THEY’LL BE RIGHT

OR THEY’LL BE WRONG AND THINK THEY’RE RIGHT

I’M NOT ACTUALLY THAT GOOD AT GUITAR

MY LYRICS ARE WHINEY

THEY’RE ALL ABOUT LOVE AND THAT’S KINDA SAPPY

most of the insecurities had to do with other people’s reactions. and in the end, people’s reactions don’t matter that much because they’re my songs and i like them and they make me happy. but maybe they will make other people happy too. they can – but only if i share them.

and as for the content, i went all out and called it tales of unrequited ♥. so that’s what you should expect when you listen to it. the songs were written and rewritten over years to the extent that they aren’t really about anybody. they are about experiences and maybe about your experiences too – that’s why we write songs and share, or at least that’s why i decided i should.

so thank you for listening, if you have, or thanks for reading, which you are. thank you especially to my friends who encourage me to write and perform. this has been sorta a serious important-stuff post, so just to prove that i’m still silly, here’s an exclusive outtakes video just for you. it’s not going public on youtube for another week or so, but i thought i’d share it here first :)