please be my hurricane.

I try to say that I let the wind blow me wherever I should be, but I’ve let my roots grow too deep in a cul de sac. my branches miss your salty breeze.

351/365 :: Monday 17 December 2018
I don't like making decisions, but you can often count me in on bad choices.

352/365 :: Tuesday 18 December 2018
IKEA trip nearly successful.

353/365 :: Wednesday 19 December 2018
found at the lake.

354/365 :: Thursday 20 December 2018
​new rug in my favorite place.

355/365 :: Friday 21 December 2018
new rug is still acclimating. waiting again for the sun to come back.

356/365 :: Saturday 22 December 2018
IKEA trip also made it possible to get a cute frame to finally hang another Luna on my walls!

357/365 :: Sunday 23 December 2018
I can't tell if it has stopped growing or not.

344/365 :: Monday 10 December 2018
I bet you didn't guess that this was taken at a cemetery.

345/365 :: Tuesday 11 December 2018
I am an annoyingly sentimental person. I've had these gloves for five years and they are literally falling apart at the seams. I finally bought a replacement pair, but they are boring heather grey and nowhere near as warm, so sometimes I just wear two pairs of gloves. why, winter?

346/365 :: Wednesday 12 December 2018
Sankta Lucia prep was reading Swedish children's books with a chai latte and then baking!

347/365 :: Thursday 13 December 2018
I finished this book today and definitely underlined many quotes. (yes, my coat was hanging on the living room wall for a few days.)

348/365 :: Friday 14 December 2018
when someone randomly sends you a bunch of used vintage stamps.

349/365 :: Saturday 15 December 2018
I wasn't impressed with A Unicorn Named Sparkle's First Christmas, but The Little Reindeer is beautiful.

350/365 :: Sunday 16 December 2018
seeing those sunrise colors again brings me so much joy.

337/365 :: Monday 3 December 2018
​it's always a good day when a TWLOHA order arrives.

338/365 :: Tuesday 4 December 2018
the sun came out on Tuesday.

339/365 :: Wednesday 5 December 2018
I love the Little Owl books and their beautiful illustrations, and I was so excited to get to read the sequel to The Five People You Meet in Heaven so soon after finally reading the first one. (the first one is better.)

340/365 :: Thursday 6 December 2018
a few of my favorite vintage Door County postcards.

341/365 :: Friday 7 December 2018
sending more love letters. I had to get these cute notecards from Target!

342/365 :: Saturday 8 December 2018
it's been a while since I've gotten to see the sunrise colors. it has been so cloudy in the mornings lately!

343/365 :: Sunday 9 December 2018
no more black pumpkin, and now some Christmas cheer! (I am forever creeping on the rest of Third Avenue.)

330/365 :: Monday 26 November 2018
​it just keeps growing and growing... I've had this one for over a year and am still surprised that I haven't managed to kill it yet.

331/365 :: Tuesday 27 November 2018
I like sparkle. and new-with-tags dresses from second-hand stores.

332/365 :: Wednesday 28 November 2018
​Wednesdays are for reading the next chapter.

333/365 :: Thursday 29 November 2018
I stole this hat from my dad years ago, and I wear it when it rains or snows because I don't really care for carrying an umbrella or getting water on my glasses.

334/365 :: Friday 30 November 2018
​it's the little things that make a home.

335/365 :: Saturday 1 December 2018
​one day the sun will return.

336/365 :: Sunday 2 December 2018
the clouds couldn't decide if it should rain or if it should snow, and so we got some slush and a little snow.

the sun came out on Tuesday morning. it felt like it had been weeks since the sky was last blue and bright. it's been grey for too long, and I didn't even notice or believe it at first. the sunbeams stretch across my hardwood floors and the rainbows dance on the walls again.

I knew I needed to walk around the corner to the post office anyway to drop off the mail that I had written in the past nineteen hours. there were ten postcards for Postcrossing (eight international - Netherlands, Germany, China, Belgium, Finland, and Taiwan; two domestic - Kansas and Massachusetts), one postcard to New York, and two notes for More Love Letters.

the sun was shining, and after I put on my coat and scarf and sunglasses, I popped in my earbuds so I could continue listening to the TWLOHA podcast. this week it's an interview with Hannah Brencher, the founder of More Love Letters. I've read both of her books, so I knew a lot of the story that she shared, but it was even more incredible to get to hear her speaking the story instead of letting my eyes just read the words from a page.

I often find it hard to speak my mind and tell people how much they mean to me, but there is something so healing about sending handwritten words of hope. some days they're words that I need to hear myself. most days, I add some of my favorite quotes from a journal full of sparklets and I share other people's words too. we have a hope for the future, and a hope for each other. it feels so much better to write them down rather than to just send a text. it's so much more personal. you can hold it in your hands and know that someone took a little extra effort to connect with you.

last year during TWLOHA's suicide prevention campaign, they partnered with More Love Letters one day and you could write a letter to yourself that they would mail back to you a year later. when I received my letter in the mail this September, I cried before I even opened it because I remembered the Teresa from a year ago and her pain, but her hope for future Teresa. "you deserve all the best, but you need to be the one to give it to yourself."

and who knows, maybe if I have your address, you might someday be surprised to find some handwritten hope from me in your mailbox. or maybe you already have.

"you're both the fire and the water that extinguishes it. you're the narrator, the protagonist, and the sidekick. you're the storyteller and the story told. you are somebody's something, but you're also your you." - Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

"so many of the things you think and want to say to a person never spill out in real life. they stay locked in secret rooms inside of you. they live for tiny lifetimes inside the hearts of people who don't have the courage to say what they meant the whole time. some people leave, and go, and die, and change, without you ever getting to tell them how you truly feel about them." - If You Find This Letter by Hannah Brencher