{photo credit}

This week I'm grateful for...

* new friends {and pushing myself outside my comfortability}

*traveling again, even if it's just to Las Vegas

* god's grace with me {and his sense of humor}

*a warm bed and food on the table

* deep tissue massages {sigh}

*rainy california weather

* the countdown to 3-0 has begun!! 

The thing about a long California commute is that it allows you a lot of time for reflection and thoughts. The past few weeks I've had a lot of wonderful, new people appear in my life. With that comes opening the Italian door, what my experiences were like, the food, the people, life in general and the dreaded question ...of what brought you to Italy.

Maybe it's the long week I've had, a happily full plate of projects at work but tonight on my drive home I wanted to escape work-mode reflecting back on all the conversations I've been having lately about Italy, and my experience there. It reminded me of how much I miss zia- among so many other things. In between pacific coast highway and the five freeway,  tears began to roll down my cheeks as I remembered this woman. A lady unlike any I've ever met and with a heart bigger than the world. I was immediately family, it didn't matter that when we met I didn't speak Italian, I was family. Tonight I missed her like I would miss my own grandmother, with so much else from that bitter-sweet experience.

{me-pre brunette- and zia}

Music Monday

I'm joyfully enjoying  a rare day off, and deciding which {if not all} posters to add to my collection from UK based music philosophy. 

Which one will you choose?

close call

I'm having a {Rilo Kiley} kinda day, so enjoy this little blast from the past.

I want to be just like {Jenny} when I grow up

Vegas roundup

I'm back and very thankful to come home to a three-day rainy weekend! The trip was a huge success, lots of editor meetings, too many delicious dinners, and new Canadian friends.  And while I haven't quite figured out how much I should share about my job here, here's a recap through my phone:

 

{My Valentines day dates}

{My other V-day dates}

{sneak peek}

{Black Rebel Motorcycle Club}

{into pans labyrinth}

I'm off to Vegas!

{photo credit}

Ok so it's really for work, but what better place for me this v-day than having a hot date with editors at the new STK at The Cosmopolitan hotel {and then hopefully sneaking in here!}

Monday Music

Appropriately enough this song was playing on my way home from the previous post. Driving down pacific coast highway, sun roof wide open and windows rolled down, wind breezing in while catching a glimpse of the surfers head out for some late afternoon waves, makes it impossible not to feel joy in heart and have a smile {and sun} on your face. 

All regrets
Let go, forget
There's something that
Mends all of it

Such a thing to give away

It began filled with so much anticipation, overwhelming hope, passion and excitement. Embarking on a new adventure in a foreign country, ready to conquer life and the world together. Nothing was going to stop us...

And yet it ended with betrayal, and deceit...with broken promises and crushed dreams. Life showed me it's one-sided unfairness, and peoples selfish choices, and it arrived again at my door in crushed boxes.

My dad protected me as much as he could for months in his Emily safety bubble, keeping me from having to deal with the beat-up boxes bursting at the seams with painful memories and a lost life.... until today.

Today as we moved the boxes in the California storage. I realized that I'm not the woman who excitedly packed up those boxes in anticipation for our once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I'm not the woman who was forced to leave Italy due to someone else's choices. I no longer look at those boxes and see the brokenness of that woman, or of the world, but a woman who has overcome dauntingly overwhelming odds, a woman whose life isn't packed away in those broken boxes, but who's life is happily in this moment. A woman who's able to walk into a room and hold her head up high, who's learning to fall in love with her new life path, a woman who's learning to accept another person's free will and choices made for her life. Learning to fall in love with herself and God all over again. A woman whose boxes may still arrive shattered, but she herself is no longer so.

{photo credit}

How is it February already?