Making a Mighty Life

Okay, guys.

If you're new here, there's some quilts to look at. If you only care about quilts, or art, or books about quilts and art that I originally set out to write about on this blog...you might want to peace out for this post.

But I'm going to break some boundaries here and talk about something that I don't often talk about.

Anxiety.

I'm going to talk about this because it's part of who I am. I am a wife, a daughter, a sister, a friend. I am a quilter. I am many things.

I have anxiety.

I hope it will help you see my work from a different perspective. I hope it will encourage you to be brave and talk to someone about your ugly parts that you don't want others to see. I hope it will maybe inspire you to make art or to write or to create despite the nasty naysayer in your head that tells you not to. Maybe saying it "out loud" on the Internet will also help me.

We make this life.

We only make one.

It's hard to make a mighty, beautiful, joyful, fun, brave life with anxiety.

I'm on antidepressants. I take Xanax when I feel like my body is going to explode in a million pieces. I do yoga to help me find a quiet place in my mind. I read every night before I go to sleep to fall into someone else's story and give my own a break for awhile. I text my friends or call my mom. I hug my husband. I quilt.

These things have generally worked and I am very thankful.

But I had to ask myself...isn't there more? Is there maybe something else I haven't really tried yet that might work better or differently?

I had my first session with a new therapist today.

I did this for many reasons. But the biggest reason is that I'm going to make myself better so that I can make a mighty life.

Her name is Amy.

She wore orange.

Layer Cake Lattice Quilt

Freedom! Summer! Sunshine! Naps! Quilts! Books!

Safe to say, I am living the dream.

Because I was doing too many things at once as the school year wrapped up, I hadn't posted my most recent finish. 

I took a class at Material Girl this spring and made the Layer Cake Lattice Quilt! 

Photo and Patchwork by E. Henning.
Free Pattern by Fat Quarter Shop!

This was my first experience using pre-cuts and I fell in love. For my non-quilty friends, this is not real cake but almost as good. Almost. 

Layer cakes are 10 x 10 inch stacks of glory containing about 40 squares or so. It made cutting so quick and easy!

I used a layer cake from Rashida Coleman-Hale's Moonlight collection that I found on Etsy. The colors make me think of bubble gum and unicorns and sleepovers and friendship and joy.

And check out the cute backside on this one...

Photo and Patchwork by E. Henning.

Pattern by Fat Quarter Shop.

Here's more eye candy. Enjoy!

Last Stitch

I turn the binding and sew by hand to finish my quilts and each time have experienced that:

The Last Stitch = All the Feels

*Excitement- whoa, I'm one stitch away from being done with this!

*Joy- colors and shapes and patterns and designs bring so much happiness to my life.

*Reverence- this quilt making is some straight up magic...I made a thing that didn't exist until now!

*Relief- holy crap, it took a long time to make that thing.

*Gratitude- I'm so thankful I have a precious human body with hands and a brain and eyes that make.

*Wonder/Awe- did I really make this?!?

*Pride- hey, look, I really made this!!

*Confidence- hey, if I made this, I can make other cool stuff!

*LOVE- explanation not adequate to capture this. 

I will share a photograph of the finish (maybe my fastest yet, done in 44 days!) once it stops raining and my model comes home. I have the house to myself tonight. So naturally, I will be listening to music too loud and cutting some fabric in my pajamas and eventually watching chick flicks under a brand-new, finished quilt. 

I also may or may not have bought a bottle of wine and a pint of Half Baked Ben and Jerry's...

Cheers! Saturday! Yes!

 

Sewing Space

If you are anything like me, getting to poke around someone's home is super satisfying to you.

I thought I would let you mosey around in our "office"...which, let's be real, is pretty much exclusively sewing space at this point.

Have a look around!

Ignore junk pile.

I love my OttLite so much I had to put heart magnets on it.
Ignore the weirdo stickers on the radiator in our rental.

Threads and rulers-- and pretties, of course.

WIP Over Here.

"Home is where you make it."

All of the neon labels and fabric stash bins
 (organized by color) are new as of last weekend. 

It makes the whole room feel more organized!

"Organization system" cost 8 bucks at WalMart.

Highly recommend it.

I love my Making Headquarters.

My machine is M.I.A. from the sewing room (oops, I mean "office") because it has been working hard on our dining room table finishing some straight line stitching. I decided to post the husband photo bomb edit because he really deserves a shout out for letting my fabric and pins and machine and quilts take over the house.

Bryan's blog debut. I can't look at this and not giggle.

Now, get outside! It's May! Go hug your mom! May rocks.

Time Travel

Do you get snippets of time in your day where you feel like you "go somewhere" without really going anywhere? Moments or minutes or hours where time seems to be transcended somehow? Do you ever experience that weird, freako, deja vu vibe? Do you ever fall face first in your work or your play and get lost there for awhile?

If you don't, I hope you start because it's a friggin' strange but awesome thing we can do as humans.

Mystery fabric from my ever-growing stash.
Weird and Beautiful. Kind of like time travel. And Life.

Recent Time Travel List:

• I am a speech-language pathologist in an elementary school and when I score standardized testing, write reports, crunch some therapy data, teach some kids...I am sometimes able to get in that Flow. I love looking at the clock thinking...where did that hour go? Oh yeah! I was in my hustle head space, doing my work. Cool.

• Alone in the house, I moved a bunch of furniture from the middle of our living room last weekend to make some space. I taped fabric to the floor. I smoothed wrinkles. I poked pins between layers of quilt. I chugged La Croix with loud music on. I. Jammed. Out. 

• A lot of times my brain is too full of garbage to "go somewhere" during this yoga pose but a few weeks ago I time traveled in Savasana on a sunny Saturday and it was legit (major understatement). Ommm to my Yogis out there!

• Last night I finished Modern Lovers by Emma Straub. Fiction novels got me like heart-eyes-emoji face forever.

• I walked in warm weather with my husband through my hometown that is now again my town where home is. Isn't it divine to think that Spring is strong enough to smell and you can walk around in flower fragrance for a short, special time each year?

• Scouring quilt blogs while scarfing lunch. 

• Cutting the ends off green beans before baking them in six cloves of garlic.

• Driving to Ohio with my mom, eating gummy bears like nobody's business.

• Hearing that machine hum, hum, hum under my hands....we're taking up the whole dining room table to quilt straight lines and squares this week, baby.

Make time for that Time Travel.

It's the good stuff.

A Quilt That Looks Like Me

Today is the day. On Facebook you go, Blog!

Here is my latest and greatest to get you newbs to think about sticking around or coming back.

Photo and Patchwork by E. Henning.
Pattern by Vonda Davis (Quilty 2016).

Photo and Patchwork by E. Henning.
Pattern by Vonda Davis (Quilt 2016).

In case you need a little introductory course in why quilts matter (and in this case, why they matter to me), this essay I wrote will maybe help. I entered it in a contest at the end of March. It didn't win. But that's okay.

My essay is personal. It is gushy. It seems like the kind of thing I would never, ever post on Facebook to encourage other people to read.

This crazy idea is Elizabeth Gilbert's fault. Have you read Big Magic?? GO READ IT RIGHT NOW. I'm going to review it on my blog soon. But it's a book for everyone. It's a book about Creativity with a capital C and it is seriously amazing. Seriously. It just might make you share your blog on Facebook with everyone you know. It can do crazy things like that...

Okay, wait! Maybe read this essay first before you dive into some magic with Liz.

Have at it, Reader. Enjoy.

***

This sixth quilt of mine is different. I fully believe in the giving of quilts and have found such unbridled pleasure in watching my girlfriends open boxes with handmade magic inside. I would never trade those countless hours of making for them. But this quilt will not be wrapped, gifted, or given. This one is for me.

I’ve named it “Mine” for now because that is the best way to describe how it feels. It’s made of bright, saturated rich colors that I like-- teals, reds, mustard yellow, and navy. Some blocks look like crazy joy, like happy nonsense, and others look like a quiet kind of sadness. This concept and idea is kindly borrowed from the one and only Mary Fons-- I made a quilt that looks like me.

I was initially looking for a way to burn through some beloved prints in my fabric stash. I wanted to include a large variety of designs and colors, while still maintaining a sense of structure to the quilt. A traditional nine-patch block was the answer. The pattern is from Quilty’s Fall 2016 Scrappy Issue and was originally crafted by Vonda Davis. Nine-patch blocks sit beside solid squares that help to anchor the quilt. I loved that the nine-patch blocks took a spin on their heads by being set within the quilt diagonally to create a different look. It was quirky but classic and maybe a little like me, I’d like to think.

Something unexpected happened to me while making Mine. I was going through a rough time to tell the truth-- feeling overwhelmed with the daily grind, handling a stupid bout of ugly anxiety, fighting those winter blues. In the process of sewing my 70 nine-patch blocks, I eventually experienced meditation through patchwork. Coming home after a shitty day, I would plop at my machine. That hum on my old-school Singer would drown out all the annoying things that happened. After sewing square to square to square, row to row to row, I would feel better.

I started Mine after Christmas, when the dreary days of January were just starting to gnaw at me. While cutting and sewing and pressing, I got this hammock idea. My husband and I have a great yard with big, old trees. I started visualizing myself in a hammock with this quilt (that wasn’t and isn’t yet a quilt). The meditative process of sewing and this daydream helped me dig my way out of a hard couple months.

Tomorrow is the first day of spring. My quilt has a lot left to go. I spent much of this morning assembling blocks to form the top corner. I haven’t picked out binding but got real obsessed with this solid pink fabric that makes me giddy just thinking about it. This quilt made me realize that creativity can change things. It inspired me to start a blog and take another quilting class. It made me realize that even the ugly days contain beauty when set in the context of my life as a whole, when looking at the entire quilt and not just that one dark, flawed block.

This April or May, I will swing in that hammock with Mine and a good novel and I will smile in the sun.

I did it. And I will keep doing it-- keep quilting-- because this making is making me.

Making a Wedding (An Imperfect One That I Loved Anyway)

Awhile back, I received an email from a lady who worked for Chicago Style Weddings Magazine. I was excited but also confused-- why would anyone want to feature our wedding?!

I'm still not totally sure of that...but they have featured us!

Photograph by Holly Donovan.

Click here to check it out!

My husband and I got married last June and had a very modest, simple wedding outside with dear loved ones. We didn't have a videographer. We didn't have a cajillion dollar photographer. We didn't have a chocolate fountain, or plated meals, or a decadent expensive wedding cake. I bought my dress from David's Bridal because I couldn't sleep at night knowing my bridal gown cost more than almost any other thing we own. My bridesmaids wore whatever they wanted for dresses and jewelry with simple guidelines to pick navy outfits that made them feel good. We didn't take fancy photographs in the hotel room before the wedding. 

Not that any of those things are bad!! But wedding industry B.S. makes it seem as if their way is the only way. 

It's not the only way.

We did it our way.

And we are still featured on a blog! Which is cool!

We made the day our own. 

I am still obsessed with our flowers. I loved my veil. The vintage pieces we rented from Forever Birdy in the Harvard Starline Building still give me goosebumps. Even though it was an undertaking, I made a giant fabric banner to hang between the trees in the park where we were married because I wanted something to hold onto in our home to remind of us of the vows we made. 

Photograph by Holly Donovan.

Many parts were perfect. And I thought I would want to wipe out or hide the parts that weren't. But instead, to prove that nothing on the Internet is exactly perfect, even when it looks that way...I'll share some secrets.

There were unexpected PortaPotties in the park that were in the frame of view when my family and myself walked down the aisle. 

It was HOT. It was in the 90's, sweating your head off, kind of hot.

We cried like freaks. Like snot-nosed, ugly-cry. Tissues were necessary, not optional.

Weddings aren't perfect. And either are marriages. It made realize that the things people make and post on the Internet might seem perfect but indeed actually have flaws, too.

So for the posts I write that seem just "perfect", please kindly remember, I might have had to move a pile of dirty laundry first or crop out empty beer cans. 

Big Duh Moment Here: Life is Not and Will Not Be Perfect.

I lost the Mary Fons Essay Contest. The blocks I whipped out like a madwoman are not quite exactly 10x10 like they're supposed to be. Instead of proofreading this five times like I normally do, I'm just going to hit publish. 

Because here's something I've figured out-- sometimes it's the act of making, that moment of making when you are IN IT that matters more than what everyone (including yourself) sees afterward.

Make Friends (with CLMQG and Suzy!)

So I did this scary thing I was afraid to do. I joined a Quilt Guild!

Image borrowed kindly from https://www.themodernquiltguild.com/

I was going to attend as a guest first and then I decided to just go for it.

It was amazing meeting these generous, kind, creative people who just do their damn thang.

I am so excited to be part of their group.

My bravery was partly inspired by the opportunity to meet Suzy from Suzy Quilts.

I hope this isn't a weirdo creeper pic but I think this helps
demonstrate the fact that Suzy looks as cool as
I will (hopefully) make her sound.

She was laid back, kind, down to earth, funny, and real. Suzy made us laugh and let us touch and hold her quilts. She encouraged us to ask questions. Suzy was very humble. And cool! She was really cool.

And her quilts were seriously beautiful. I loved her colors. I loved her design. I love seeing things I've stared at on the Internet come to life in person with my actual eyeballs looking the actual thing and not just a picture of that thing.

Here's a stack of Suzy's quilts. A stack of quilts makes me freak out. Every. Time. There is something so impressive and awe-inspiring to me about a whole big stack of magic. I am aware that I may tend to overuse "magic" but one day on this blog I will talk about Elizabeth Gilbert's book Big Magic and you will know why I am so obsessed with that particular word.

A woman in the guild pointed out the running stitch in the binding.
We loved it!! Funky and fun.

Suzy has created these really neat, eclectic patterns in a series called "Sew Mojo" where she encourages quilters (and other artists alike) to play and find joy in imperfection and just go for it. Here is one of hers below on my beloved all-things-life journal. I take it with me anytime I'm prepared to be inspired. 

And oh goodness...I was.

Sew Mojo Quilt Art by Suzy.

As you can see, I bought pretty much all the things. 

And am so glad I did.

Koll Quilt

Sunshine on Saturday and Sunday makes the whole weekend feel like magic.

I wanted to share this quilt before I box this baby up for another one of my dear girlfriends joining the Mom Club. She is going to be such a caring, loving, fun, sweet, nurturing, goofy, amazing mother.

I can't wait to meet you, Baby Koll!

Pattern by Amanda Jean Nyberg in
Beginner Friendly Quilts: The Best of Quilty.

I. Love. Colors.

Scrap City!

Lots to come soon!

I am going to my first Modern Quilt Guild meeting today AND oooogling at Suzy Quilts showcasing her work in a trunk show. Woo! Her blog is super inspiring and I'm so excited to meet her. Go check her out!

P.S. I love her dog.

http://suzyquilts.com/

I also started another class this week with Darlene. I think I might be brave and tell her about the blog today...

I have been pinning and sewing and pressing like a madwoman this weekend after some heavy inspiration on Thursday night.

Here's a sneak peek of my new project from class...

Pin. Sew. Press. Repeat.
I love that meditative magic.

Baby Buckeye Quilt (With Binding Tip!)

Until 2017, I totally sucked at making, attaching, and turning binding. Super sucked.

All thanks to Darlene, I am now competent in this important step.

Part of completing this important step includes coffee, of course, and free weekend hours.

FYI: Binding is the outside edge of the quilt
(for those dear friends of mine who I've roped into reading
and don't know what this is).

I almost exclusively use funky beer cardboard to hold my binding because it happens to be found in our recycling bin. Nearly all the time. Don't judge.

Previously, I would cut way too many strips of fabric when making binding but now know there is actually a way to figure out exactly how much you need for this. Credit goes entirely to Darlene at Material Girl Fabric Shop:

Measure your quilt all around and add that all together. 

E.x., For my current make, it is a square top measuring 38 1/2 by 38 1/2 which equals 154. 

Divide that total perimeter by 42 because that is the length of a cut of fabric from the bolt

 (I think...something like that...just divide it by 42). 

That number, 3.667 in this case, is the number of strips you need. 

Round up to the nearest whole number and ta-da! 

You now don't have way too many strips!

Taking quilting classes has been a game-changer for me. If you quilt or want to learn, the usefulness of sitting down with a great instructor and a bunch of enthusiastic learners shouldn't be underestimated.

Check out this finished binding! I used to do a sloppy whipstitch all the way around. Not so professional. This is much better. ...Just don't look too closely at the knobby corners as I haven't quite perfected those yet.

This quilt is a baby gift for my dear friend from graduate school who helped me through some of the toughest parts of my twenties who is going to be a MOM soon. She doesn't know about this blog yet so SHHH! Don't tell her!

I can't wait to give this to her Baby Buckeye.

Ohio Star block crafted with the help of
Jeni Baker's Half Square Triangle book.

Fake It 'Till you Make It

Here's a secret...

I entered a contest. 

An essay contest. 

An essay contest by MARY FONS. 

TO WIN MARY FONS PATCHWORK!!!!!! 

I made a (apparently fleeting) promise to myself I would not abuse capitalization or exclamation marks on this blog to help prevent people from being annoyed by me. Oops. I'm sorry but they are necessary in this context!

Instead of hemming and hawing and potentially chickening out or second guessing, I wrote the essay yesterday and sent it today. I went with my gut. I was acting like I wasn't nervous when I sealed and stamped the essay yesterday. But then I got up to the mailbox to send this sucker and I froze a little bit. I almost didn't plop it in that slot there, guys.

Check it out.

Mary is my quilting hero. I sent something very personal and very real and very me to my quilting hero who would definitely open it and look at it and read it. 

Let's not dwell on that. Fake it until I make it? Yes, I will!

Here are some tulips sitting pretty on my table to celebrate. Happy First Day of Spring!

Two lips are better than one, they say, and I agree.
X's and O's for Bravery!!

Beauty

This quilt still lives in my mom's linen closet.

My mom and I met for BBQ and beer and went to see Beauty and the Beast over the weekend.

It was so much like the original Disney movie. The music was perfect. The CGI didn't look too bizzaro. Emma Watson was seriously enchanting as the real life version of my favorite character from childhood. It was amazing.

One of my favorite surprises about quilting is the way it has changed the way I experience other things, sometimes when I least expect it. During the movie, I found myself in awe of the colors in Belle's blue dress, the way the fabric in her yellow ballgown seemed to float around her while she danced.

It makes life more like an adventure-- seeing things from a different perspective, noticing beauty you wouldn't have necessarily taken in before.

And don't we all want adventure in the great wide somewhere?

One more reason to Make!

A Love Letter to Mary Fons

There is something you should know about me. I have a major, full-fledged, epic crush on Mary Fons. Almost everyone in my life knows about Mary Fons even though most beloved people of mine are not quilters and would have no reason to know who she is. My husband Bryan refers to her as "Fons" which I think is cute and hilarious.

When I first began quilting in the fall of 2015, I was learning most things from my grandmother Carole (who is the most amazing grandmother you will ever meet). My grandma is a Wonder Woman. She happens to be a rock star quilter who used to be a home economics teacher. This makes my whole learning experience that much more fantastic because not only does she know many things, Gram C also knows how to teach them. My primary quilting teacher does unfortunately live a couple hours away and when I was first starting, I would get stuck on many different things between our visits. I needed to start outsourcing.

And I found Mary.

Photograph from Mary Fons's website: www.maryfons.com.

I happened on her by accident at a Half Price Books. Make + Love Quilts found its way into my hands and on my nightstand. I would hop into bed as usual with my novel but find myself eventually opening up Mary's book before closing my eyes for sleep. I would read parts over and over and stare at those pictures. I had never bought a book with quilts in it. It rocked my damn world. For those of you who don't know this book, it is full of freaking magic. I had not ever seen quilts like this. Naturally, this led me to look up Mary Fons online. I found that she had a magazine and a television/internet show to help beginning quilters figure out what in the world they were doing at their machines and on their cutting mats. Quilty (Mary's magazine and show) taught me a ton of skills that have made me the creator I am today.

I have seen Mary speak twice and both times, I was a total fan geek. I took a personal day in January to see her speak at the opera house in Woodstock, IL near where I live. She talked about quilt history, her famous quilting mom, and her own path into the art. Here are my top three things I loved about her Creative Living talk:

3. It was super informative. I was scribbling notes like a weirdo. Mary talked about a lot of things I didn't know that were crazy fascinating. Did you know there were very few quilting books even available before 1970 but that the craft has been documented as early as the 1800's? Did you know that the Industrial Revolution was a primary force in the quilting explosion because of the increase in fabric manufacturing? That the Whitney Museum in New York City showcased quilts "off the bed" and in the art world for the first time? Did you know Mary made her first quilt when she was 28? It is shown below...I was ungodly incredulous that this was her first quilt ever.

Photograph from Fons and Porter's website.
Pattern originally appeared in Quilty Magazine, Spring 2012.

2. During the talk, there was a lady in the audience who accidentally had left her phone on. This poor lady's phone was blaring a repetitive, beepy alarm that was impossible to ignore. On top of that problem, she could not for the life of her figure out how to silence it. Mary was up at the front and made it clear she was trying to ignore it, but when she couldn't and when everyone in the audience couldn't...do you know what she did??!? She-- kindly, sweetly, and with grace-- left her post on stage to walk into the audience and help turn off the lady's phone. Mary made everyone clap and laugh instead of feeling annoyed and angry at the poor women who couldn't get her phone to shut up. It was amazing.

1. At the end, Mary showcased a number of her quilts and when one of them was held up and unfolded, people in the audience literally gasped. Loudly gasped. Including me (duh). Gasped! It wasn't until that moment until I really appreciated a good gasp. A gasp is that feeling of absolute wonder in action-- so much so, you lose your breath for a hot minute.

Not only is Mary a quilter, she is also a fantastic writer. Please stop what you are doing right now and leave this blog to go read hers. Part of the reason I decided to start a blog is because her blog is so amazing and if I can inspire and comfort one person the way she inspires and comforts me, it's worth it. Mary shares her life vulnerably, bravely, and beautifully...and she can be quite hilarious, too. So go! She is really, really cool.

http://blog.maryfons.com/

In case you read this one day, Mary...thank you.

You changed my life.

Monday Making

Lined Drawstring Bag pattern designed by Jeni Baker.

This week has been a mess at work. I am a speech-language pathologist by day and I work in an elementary school. I love my students. Seriously, I love them. But sometimes it is just insanely, emotionally exhausting to manage work responsibilities. Ammi right, working women of the world!?

But let's not talk about that. I'm "making it work" and that is not what I want to share about. Ever. Especially on this amazing blog that will be dedicated to joy and creation and quilts and general cool stuff to make and think about.

So.

Sew.

I left work in a huff yesterday and went straight to one of my happy places. My favorite fabric shop is Material Girl in Crystal Lake, IL. Go there-- it's amazing! It has bewitching healing powers. I mean it. I go in there and sniff and touch fabrics of all colors and feel a unique kind of calm. Bonus-- Darlene was there and she is absolutely amazing and helped me reset myself. I'll tell you about Darlene another time. You'll love her.

Anyway. I made myself a lined drawstring bag. For all my non-sewing peeps who I will (hopefully) convince to read this blog, School of Sewing by Shea Henderson is an outstanding manual to learn some rockin' fundamentals about sewing. It kicks off with 52 pages of information about the founding of the book, as well as a long list of resources on machines, stitches, supplies, and fabric. The rest features beginning projects, starting with a pillowcase. A quilt is the "final exam". It is a wonderful book!

I had to laugh at myself while making this bag because although the directions are very clear and helpful, I made a bajillion mistakes. I lined up the interior fabric where the exterior ones should be, cut 1 1/2 inch squares for boxed corners on the wrong side, and could not for-the-freaking-life-of-me figure out how to put the drawstrings in it so that they would actually work.

But. I did it!!

It is a sincerely magical feeling I get when I'm about to finish something that I made with creative joy on my sewing machine. I get a little shaky and giddy and...proud. In a different way than I do in other parts of my life. It's special. And it's changing me somehow, little by little and bit by bit.

And come on-- look at this shade of pink that peeks out at me from the inside of the bag. Doesn't it make you want to squeak with silly delight!!?

Squeak!

Make a Blog

Here's my first post!

Okay. I need to be honest. I'm not really an Internet person. Which is why I was really nervous about starting a blog. HTML?!? Cookies (...but you can't eat them??!)!? Analytics!? Gadgets and widgets and links, oh my! We're going to pretend you don't have to be "techy" to have a blog. We'll see if that is true.

Make with Might has been an idea long in the making. 

I have become a woman obsessed with a short list of other blogs by women and wanted to contribute my own ideas to this wonderful world of quilts and cooking and crafting and general life-making. But mostly quilts. Quilts are good. So good. This will mostly be about quilts.

I am a modern woman who, like many, is feeling a little burnout by the responsibilities of a busy adult life. And I don't even have babies! Or a dog! But work can be hard. My newest habit has been to tumble into images of quilts and fabric on the blogs I love and on Pinterest during my (too short) lunch hour to briefly escape my daily grind. And I gotta tell you guys...it's working. 

I sincerely and truly hope someone out there will find similar inspiration, comfort, and joy over their coconut yogurt while taking peeks at this blog on their (hopefully not too short) lunch hour. 

Cheers, friends.

I promise I will not generally advertise yogurt.
But this is the first post so just go with it.