I cringed when I started to write my ‘About Me’ page. As I sat there I thought over and over again “Well, what do I want to say?” “What about me?”  I looked over how others described themselves and their blogs but still found myself struggling to type, even just a starter word. When I began this blog nearly a year ago my intention was to express myself without a filter and also share different lifestyle choices that have worked for me all while making genuine connections.

But as I started to dive into the blogging world I found there were successful and unsuccessful ways in which to structure a site, useful and useless ways to gain followers. The original freedom I felt seemed to diminish with the more I learned. So here we are today, making my own rules and letting go of the reigns I was gripping to tightly.

I am a Walt Disney sort of dreamer you could say. I have many dreams, many interests, many passions which at times can feel exhausting trying to water them all, giving them each a life of their own. On the other hand I find it exciting to feel that spark of wonder in many aspects of life. Which brings me to share the slightly more in-depth ‘About Me’ so here we go.

I am 26 years young living on the Western Slope of Colorado. I moved to Colorado when I was 18 to attend college in the valley where I now reside. But to be perfectly honest I moved to Colorado to heal. While most people my age were excited to start classes and pursue their future dreams, I was anxiously awaiting an environment that would nurture me and my process. So I chose a 9 block town with no street lights, a speed limit of 15 mph, 1,600 residents and the most space I had ever seen.

I also chose psychology as my major as a means to understand myself and well, photography wasn’t offered as a major or a minor.  I made it one semester working 3 jobs until I developed such altering anxiety it became clear I had been distracted from my intent to heal and nurture myself so much so, my body responded in ways I could no longer ignore.  I kept the jobs and left college with a hefty loan left to pay but I rekindled parts of my inner self within that time.

Remembering how deeply I loved being of service I became involved in local issues. Advocating no lifts on a southern facing mountain, no molybdenum mine on Mt. Emmons, water treatment and clean up where mines had come and gone, and at this time the legalization of medical marijuana. All things that brought meaning to my existence and allowed me to use and hear my own voice which had been suppressed for many years before. Being an advocate for what I believed in encouraged me to advocate for myself as well.

I should mention I met my boyfriend/now husband during this time. Neither of us wanted to commit to a serious relationship but love had different plans. The energy was moving me back east to further my healing journey, facing what and who I feared. My husband moved with me, 1,800 miles away from his home and into a whole new world.

Life has a funny way of taking us many places even if we didn’t ask to go, especially if we didn’t ask to go. 

We lived in Delaware, where I was born, for nearly 4 years. In that stint of time I worked at a tanning salon (don’t recommend it), a dental office, I babysat, and eventually found myself modeling. My husband worked with landscaping companies, began woodworking i.e. making cheese boards, book cases and more, and finally on a farm with a vineyard.

We did a lot of surviving in those 4 years. We were taking a life course in how to care for ourselves as adults, how to build a foundation. We didn’t always pass the tests but we made it. Once we were able to balance our day-to-day tasks we expanded our areas of growth and consciousness.

We started to learn about the foods we ate, what was in them, how the food was produced prior to being placed on our plates and so forth. A lot of this came into focus as my husband learned about the chemicals used in the vineyard and read the warning labels (YIKES). Although we lived off of a 4 lane highway we started growing what food we could on our own and began composting to reduce our waste and amend our soil.

Our path there came full circle and again it was time to move on. Colorado called to us both.  6 months into our life in CO, Bear, a 14 1/2 year old abandoned dog made her way into our lives. She changed everything for me. She mirrored me, reflecting my own behaviors and energy. She became my world and showed me the infinite nature of my love and hers.  Her and I, we did a lot of healing together. (Read more about Bear)

And when she passed a year and half later I knew she had left me with a task. I started ‘Bears Mission’ where I would take homemade dog treats to local shelters and visit with the animals. I started using my voice to advocate for shelter animals which led me to volunteer and to photograph the animals waiting for adoption. I prefer the tough cases we seem to get along all right.

And today, Alex (my husband) and I own our own company, The Maintenance Company, LLC. Were starting our 3rd year behind a growing small business. We chose the title Maintenance because we were able to practice a slew of different jobs within that genre. We manage large projects, complete remodels, carpentry & custom woodwork, we amend soil, sell our compost tea & worm castings, teach sustainable living at high altitude, do snow removal and more. We were not certain what direction we would want to take our company so we’ve tried many things and now focus on the most fulfilling.

So while I love (LOVE) photography I couldn’t just use my blog to display my captured images as that only fulfills a fraction of my whole being. And there are so many more interests that I haven’t highlighted in this already incredibly long post, one day I predict they will all diverge into one. Maybe I should have called my blog ‘A little bit of this, a little bit of that’ but instead I chose to call it by my own name.