be still has moved!

It's 2015. Which means that it's been a whole calendar year since you've seen an update from yours truly. Gold star, Kat.

But! Good news! This little blog has now merged with my business website, & you can follow along! I'll be blogging about much of the same stuff with some new things too, like works in progress, delightfully designed products I come across, etc. So go jump on the bandwagon & hang out at RWS. Besides you know you've missed my sarcasm ;)

P.S. To make your life easier, I'll include an updated Bloglovin' link for you to follow as well:

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

So go on. Say your goodbyes to this space & move on... to the new one. See you there :)

dipping my toes into something new...

Love the simplicity & beauty of that statement.

It seems only fitting that since it's August I should be gearing up to learn new things. It's a season of life that I embarked on for 18 years & that seems habitual enough that it should stick for good, I think. 

I must admit, however, that since graduating college two years ago, this is the first August that I feel that way. Perhaps my mind + body + soul was going through that break-up period that you often hear about: it takes half the time you were committed to something before you can truly be over it. Well, I was in college for a grueling 4 years, and while they were the best years of school I ever had, by the time I graduated (as most feel I think) I was stretched pretty thin, had my planned-to-a-T future all stomped on, and left with a diploma & a giant hovering question mark regarding what to do from there (except to me it felt like an interrobang <-- There's your typography lesson of the day, folks. You're welcome).

It was just one of those times in life called "growing" and grow up, I certainly did. I got married to a pretty awesome guy. I moved away from the only place I've ever called home. I left all my friends & family half a day's drive away. And I started to figure out what this new season of life holds, and so far it is has blessed me greatly. 

I have learned that it's okay to not know what the future holds & that things change. That the idealistic dreams I cultivated at 18 aren't necessarily what I really want at 24. That the support of a loving spouse is all I really need to feel like I can do anything. That stress can really color a situation into one of fear & doubt. That taking the time to exercise & eat real food is better suited to my longevity than filling it with things that have no worth. That sometimes my type-A perfectionist personality is my biggest enemy. That happiness & success is measured in something other than namesake & dollar signs. That faith is always something you can cling to when you're not sure what's even going on.These past two years have taught me to be content with who I am & to really think outside the box. 

My entire life I've been cursed with good handwriting (I say cursed because once people found out I had it, I usually became the scribe of all group projects, note taking, & presentation boards), but that curse has evolved over the course of life into something that I love. So lately that curse/gift has led me to learn calligraphy, play with fonts & techniques, draw all sorts of things requested by friends... and eventually to start a business!

I'm in the final stages of getting it ready, but basically I'm just an open book as far as pen & ink designs & calligraphy go. So far I've done some custom shower invitations, wedding monograms & paper items, personalized stationery, & even dabbled in architectural drawings. And I've loved doing it all! Hopefully in the next few weeks I'll have nailed down the final details (finish a website/etsy, packaging materials, finding a trustworthy printer (the thorn in my side), etc.), but I'll let you know when it's finally done! Also for any artistic types out there, say a little prayer for me as I learn from scratch the inner workings of Illustrator (consider it my fall schedule).

So here's to new beginnings and an excuse to buy more pens, paper, & ink!

a postcard from paris

Perhaps it's because we're almost two weeks away from passing our first milestone as a married couple {woohoo one year anniversary!}, but I couldn't help but think back to the way our little relationship started. 

See back in the day, husmate & I would hang out with a ginormous group of friends over at a lovely place called the Purple House on a regular basis. This group of friends was so large that it would take over the living room {sofa, loveseats, floor, stools, etc.} and it was pretty hard to actually know everyone really well {to the point that husmate & I pretty much knew each other's names}. In this group, husmate was sort of in the inner circle and I, being a semi-newbie, pretty much existed on the fringe {hello Peanut Gallery co-member, Kelsey!}. So yeah, basically he was the cool nice guy & I was the sassy & sarcastic know-it-all.

But as coincidence would have it, one day {about this time three years ago} the Peanut Gallery got to be too much to handle for everyone else {picture us as a funnier version of the old men commentators on the Muppets except that we laughed... A LOT}, and Kelsey & I were told we had to separate ourselves. Sad face emoticon. But that coincidence forced me to sit next to {you guessed it} the cool nice guy. 

So the cool nice guy, being nice {duh, it's in his personality}, leaned over & tried to start a conversation so that me & my blushing cheeks would stop being so ridiculously red {I get embarrassed easily folks- one of the things that husmate loves to this day}. He really was very sweet, and somehow it came up that he was traveling to Paris that summer. Well, lo and behold, that is a subject in which my nerd status comes out. Come to find out, this kid was going with no clue of ANYTHING about Paris: history, museums, churches, Versailles, anything. So I took it upon myself to help him out a little {because holy croissant he was going in blind!} & proposed that I would create him an itinerary of sorts to help him & his friend out on their journey. 

That little itinerary turned into eight pages single-spaced of nerd adoration of Paris & everything that this envious know-it-all had ever dreamed of seeing there. eight pages, you guys. You can bet that those cheeks were on Super Blush Mode when I sent it to him, too- SO EMBARRASSED. But because he was the cool nice guy, he didn't make fun of me in a mean way, but was instead appreciative & amused that I would take so much effort on something for a guy I barely knew. I, myself, was equally amused with this behavior & thought that was that.

Except it wasn't. And when he sent me a postcard from Paris that summer {in French, mind you}, I got a few butterflies. So I guess my nerd moment had its consequences {just like his did when he recited pi that day}. 

I did marry him after all. 

remember the time... {vol. I}

{lately}

+ Saturday midday rolls around, and it occurs to husmate & I that we don't know where his apartment keys are. We check his jeans, jacket, & and the bowl that sits on our dresser holding all his miscellaneous stuff... which turns up nothing. On a whim I tell him to check our door... wellwouldn'tyaknowit? FYI, we haven't used that door since 5 pm the previous day... Glad we have such trustworthy neighbors. Oh, and that we're brilliant and on top of things 24/7.

+ While mindlessly perusing IKEA and all its Swedish cleverness, I look over & catch husmate setting all the kitchen timers to go off in ten minutes time. We're talking at least 15-20 of those annoyingly high pitched things. I. am. mortified. I stomp off as fast as I can in any direction away from the ticking time bombs as to distance myself from any ensuing embarrassment. Meanwhile, husmate creates a stake-out one section over so as to witness the cacophony of sounds and the innocent victims who will undoubtably be confused by all the commotion. I married a forever 9 year old. I am convinced of it.

+ We went from having one Victorian chair & a coffee table in our den to adding a big ole comfy couch, a reading chair, & a side table in the course of a day. And we hung pictures?! It's as if we finally moved in two months later.

{auld lang syne}

+ So in order to move to Alexandria, husmate & I puffed out our chests & decided to move ourselves in a u-haul. We are adults, hear us roar. So everything's going great, and we're in the process of moving our old couch onto the truck. After walking backwards up the u-haul ramp, husmate is trying to be all Superman-like by opening the door while maintaining his hold on the couch. Andddddd he falls off the ramp. It is both slightly frightening & hilarious at the same time, but I am proud to say I was concerned for his safety wayyyy before I started laughing. The best part? The couch ripped his jeans from his belt loop all the way to his knee, and the rest of his pants had already been packed.

+ It was something of a joke back then, but I think husmate's friend, Dr. Nic, might have been right: Nic said that I would fall in love with husmate due to the fact that he could recite pi to the 50th decimal place. Said it had something to do with my nerdy behavior (Cue my inevitable blushing cheeks). But I did later that year. Hook, line, and sinker, and I suppose it might have stemmed from that little comment.

11/12 of a new year's resolution: being intentional

Fact: I never make new year's resolutions. Mainly because it's a little cliche & so easy to stop caring about them come MLK weekend. But I think this year there's a bigger underlying movement that's calling for a resolution of sorts: being more intentional with our health & wellness (physical, mental, spiritual, etc.). Two things have come to our attention in the past few weeks that have brought upon this change in attitude. 

one: we visited a dentist in the area who laid things out so black & white that it kind of clicked for me. He introduced himself as Dr. D, and he was just a neat dude {His back story was that he helped start a dental clinic for HIV patients in NYC who otherwise would have had nowhere to receive treatment, but at one point in his life he thought about dropping out of school to become a cabinetmaker in Vermont. Can you tell that he's cool to talk to?}. Anyways, he literally shows you your teeth in a mirror and points out everything. And when you talk to him afterwards, his approach to health is you either do it or you don't. He asked about my flossing habits (who really does that everyday anyway?) and instead of advocating for better gum health, he merely said "You'll either do it or you won't. It's up to you." And by golly, he's right! Who else should care more about my health than me?

two: out of the blue, we watched Hungry for Change on Netflix. Whoa, you guys. Conspiracy central. You think you're eating food? You're not. And it's cool, I'm not about to turn all vegan, organic, or gluten-free, and neither do I think you should either. But the fact remains that there are higher powers at work (cough lobbying groups, industries, and governments cough) whose best intentions are not to always look out for a consumer/constituent but rather for a big name employer/economy. Frankly, we're all eating food-like products, but not food. Isn't that slightly disconcerting to think about? I mean think about it: what are the origins of Coke/Diet Coke? Can you visualize the produce/grains it comes from without looking? And doesn't it creep you out what the shelf life of some products are? How do they last that long?? 

All that to say, we Berry's are about to start getting healthier around here. We've already noticed a change in lifestyle in where we live in Alexandria to how we lived in the south. First off since parking/traffic is a nightmare, we walk a good bit more (whoo more walking and less carbon emissions!), and due to that, we never get fast food anymore unless we're road tripping somewhere {speaking of, hey gas stations, can we start getting some healthier food in your convenience stores? pretty please?}. But we're actually starting to take all this health nonsense to a new level by eating more fruits & veggies and less processed foods. We're actually going to run a half marathon that I will not talk myself out of, while in the process start to really use the Mt. Vernon trail running a quarter mile from our apartment (hey warmer temps, can you start up soon? K thanks). 

Because you know what? No one else is going to care about your health as much as you will one day. That day that health complications start to show up or the day you can't really play ball with your kid because you never exercised the 10 years prior will be the day you regret the decision to not respect your body. And I don't really want that for myself, and I know husmate doesn't either. So we're going to start caring about our health now and hope for the best later! 

So... anybody want a carrot? {fun fact: I have already done a callback to when cartoons were GOOD and chomped my carrots while saying "Ehhh... what's up, doc?" Fingers crossed you recognize the reference... I know, I'm a nerd}

P.S. I know I ragged on Coke, but for those of you who really know me, you know I won't be giving that up for life. But I'm going on the mindset of the Europeans who view Coke as more of a treat than as an understood meal companion. Water is quickly becoming my new BFF. Gasp! 

a lovely wooden bench

Some of you might have wondered why the header of this blog is an empty bench in a seemingly empty park... yes? Well, long story short that bench is where my sweet husband proposed to me two years ago today. But who ever likes a long story cut short? Not I said the fly. Of course, I hail from the days of Chi O's having candlelights every week, so perhaps I just enjoy a good proposal story... I can't help it. So if you don't care to hear about how we started this little journey of wedded bliss, you can skip this post. If you're a diehard romantic, you may want to stick around... ;)

Well, two years ago good ole husmate pulled the wool over my eyes and led me to believe that he needed help finding an apartment up in DC for when he started his job. Somehow it was simultaneously important enough that my advisor (sweet Dr. A) excused me from a mandatory Alumni Delegate function and common enough that my usually detail-oriented always-asking-questions mother simply said "be sure to take a camera!" Hmm... red flag, anyone? (Actually my mother being so keen on the idea from the start really did send up a red flag, but I just brushed it off and asked my dad if she was okay. Haha!). I then emailed all my professors that I would be absent on Friday (one of them told me it was my decision if I wanted my grade to suffer... I think I made the right decision in the end) and started to get excited to fly to my favorite city!

Since I now had a free weekend, I packed my bag and flew with then-boyfriend to DC eeearrrly Friday morning. He told me that the schedule consisted of job interviews on Friday morning and apartment hunting on Saturday, so when he left me at the hotel to go to his "interviews" I thought nothing of it. I climbed back in bed and took a nap, while the boyfriend was actually walking around the city memorizing his route for that night's plan & calling some friends to calm his nerves. He came back that afternoon saying his "interview" went well, and we got ready to go to dinner.

Boyfriend was super smooth in that he "let me" choose where to eat knowing that I would choose a restaurant we went to the previous summer while he interned up here and I was visiting friends. So still no red flag had been raised in my head. After dinner, I begged him to walk around the monuments at night because it's my favorite time of day to view them (again part of his evil plan). Still no red flag. 

As we're walking towards the monuments we pass the DAR Constitution Hall and see all these people milling about. By nature, I do not get curious about what others are doing but he does, so he asks if we could go see what was up and I agreed. As we're nearing the steps I see someone pull out tickets to be admitted, and I make a remark about how we don't have tickets and can't we please keep walking to the monuments? I got shot down pretty fast while also being pushed towards the door. Turns out he has tickets to some mysterious show that he won't tell me what it is until we're sitting down in our seats. Red Flag. 

Oh, it's just the Avett Brothers. My favorite band. Ever. No big deal. He tells me he discovered that they were playing here earlier this week and he bought the tickets on stub hub (can you tell how gullible I am with him?) and I totally believed him! Red flag is at half mast. Avett proceeds to play an incredible show, and naive little me- I comment during their song "Murder in the City" about a lyric saying "Always remember, there was nothing worth sharing/Like the love that let us share our name" that one day we'd share that bond. Ha! I crack myself up at how soon that was going to come true. 

So the concert ends and I beg again to walk to the monuments; obviously I am playing into his master plan... So we're walking and talking and heading towards a park that we both had mentioned we wanted to see. I start rambling on about how cute the ducks were in the pond being paired off, and he just lets me go on and on in my merry little nerdy ways. By this point we reach the Bench. We sit down and start chatting, and he tells me he has a small surprise for me. Now you would think that this would cue a red flag? Yeah, weirdly it didn't.

He pulls out a puzzle and tells me to put it together but not to flip it over. Hmm, what was that? Don't flip it over? So there's a part two to this? But that little train of thought exited stage right as I started to put the pieces together. Super sly one over there had collaged together all of the ticket stubs and receipts and trinkets from our relationship (even though he adamantly told me not to be sentimental about these things earlier in our dating relationship), and I was simply put quite mesmerized. He had to interrupt me from my trance to even remind me of part two of the puzzle. Ha, whoops... So I flip it over, and it was a picture of a little boy and a little girl kissing him on the cheek. And there was a speech bubble in the picture that said "Will you marry me?" WHOA. Hold up. Read that again... Yep, it definitely says that. I did not string this together out of my imagination... I look over and he's on one knee. He told me he loved me and asked him to marry him! 

The romantics of the story don't even stop there (I know, right? He's gooood). Inside the box was a gorgeous ring surrounded by yellow rose petals that he told me he picked the same night he told me he loved me for the first time. That night he had given me a red rose, and on our wedding night he gave me a dried white rose (also from the same night). Yeah, he thinks really far in advance...

After he put the ring on my finger, he told me there were a few more things. My mind is completely blank by this point. Can't even fathom what is going on. He hands me our journal and tells me that he wrote about his entire planning process, and in the binding was a scrap of paper I once gave him several months back of a quote by e.e. cummings: "Unless you love someone, nothing else makes any sense." 

After reading our journal, he said he also had a letter from someone that I might want to read... He hands me an orange letter in a wonderfully familiar handwriting that's addressed to Mr. Jordan Berry (and KB). My sweet big sis, Laney, had been tipped off and wrote a beautiful letter that brought on the first wave of tears. Her letter made our engagement real for me, and I couldn't have asked for a better way to come to the understanding that I was getting a new last name and wonderful husband to spend the rest of my days with. I was so numb from emotions by this point that all I could do was thank God over and over again for all of my many blessings, most of which were sitting on a park bench holding my hand. God is so good.

To end this scene on a note typical of us Berry's, my now-husmate looked at me before we left our little bench and pulled his hand into the shape of a gun and said "Boom!" as if to shoot the starter pistol my dad had always joked about (Boys only get to determine the start to the wedding, girls do alllllll the rest). 

Funny, funny boy whom I get to love for the rest our life. I am a lucky girl.