Why hello 2018. And hello blog world. It’s been a while huh? Life has been quite the whirlwind since I last posted. Last time I checked in I had bought a house! A wonderful, beautiful, mid-century house that had all the potential for wonderful projects, exciting decor choices, and many wordy, picture filled posts.
Well all of that has happened…minus the posts. Life in my home has been a dream. It is for sure my happy place, my escape from the world.
When I was spending the first month in my home not living in it and fixing it up, I dreamed that all the work would be worth it (SO MUCH PAINTING), and I would eventually be sitting on my couch, sipping tea, and just enjoying the beauty of my home and my hard work.
Thankfully, that happened — and still happens daily. I’m telling you, there is nothing more that I love than just sitting in my living room (which is one giant space of a kitchen, dining, and living room) and just breathing deep, exhaling, and appreciating with wonder this beautiful home that I bought all on my own.
The other night I just turned off all the lights except my burning candle and my salt lamp night-light, with two dogs on the couch (I’m dog sitting another dog this week), and just sat there and thought. It was heavenly, and where a lot of the thoughts you will see in this post came together.
Anyways, that was just a long way to say I love my house and my life in my house. I’ve just been trying to live the best, biggest life I can in it. Hence the drop off of the blog posts.
No matter how wonderful life was in my home, for the first time in my life, I have to say, 2017 was a doozy. Every year in my life has been great – challenging, full of growth, but all-in-all culminating in a fantastic year. I’m not saying this year wasn’t that, it was, but it was its own breed. This year tried to tear my down more than any other year, both mentally and physically.
Which is why I have come to the conclusion that I am going to MAKE this year happen. I feel like I LET last year happen. Nope. No more. This is the year of living with intention. Of setting goals, making a path for myself, and not waiting on anything to start living. I am going to start living now.
I came to all these conclusions after a rough year, followed by a recent weekend where I felt broken down, lost, and floundering in life. I felt like I didn’t see the strong, confident Megan I was use to being.
It is through working through all the confusion, pain, and questioning where BIG things happen. This feels big. I feel big. These goals may be small, attainable goals (which is important) but I feel like a big person again.
All of a sudden my self worth is visible again; I love the person who I have fought so hard to become, and I am ready to make her even better, starting right now, with the following…
Read a book a month (currently reading three: this, this, and this)
Take a trip somewhere I’ve never been
Investigate starting a podcast
Join a new gym to build muscle mass (joined January 10, 2018)
Word of the year:
Audacious: showing a willingness to take surprisingly bold risks
Quote of the year:
I feel really good about these goals, the word, and the quote. Like these are inspiring me to push my life to the next level.
I don’t know what that means for posting here on the blog. The urge to post is coming back to my heart, but I am also exploring the realm of podcasting, so we will see where I land creatively.
I would love to hear about your thoughts, goals, and inspiration for 2018! I would also love to know if you would be interested in a podcast by me!
PS – I am all about Instagram stories these days, where you can see a lot about my life, especially at home. I post about a lot of home updates. So pop on over to Instagram and follow me at Rhapsody in Rooms!
I am pretty sure that I started to think about listening to podcasts when you wrote about liking them so much. Now I listen a lot. I think you should look into starting one. I’ll listen!ReplyCancel
Thank you Paula! I hope you have an awesome 2018 too! That’s so great you listen to podcasts now! I am actually pretty heavy into my development of the podcast so I’m 90% sure it’s HAPPENING!!!ReplyCancel
Kristen
Love that quote you used! I enjoyed reading your post, hope to see you soon!!ReplyCancel
Glad to see this post! We all go through hard times whether it be illness, a death, divorce, loss of job. They force us to make choices that we aren’t always prepared to make, and to walk a path we didn’t think we would ever take. And they become our new normal…congrats on making it through and embracing your new normal! There will always be things that are beyond our control, breathe, take the time you need and set a new course..you’re doing beautifully!ReplyCancel
For years people kept telling me I needed to start listening to podcasts and would ramble off some of their favorites.
For years, every time I heard that said to me I would inwardly roll my eyes and think “How boring”.
Then, a few months ago, all it took was one.
It began with my favorite morning radio show. I love listening to The Bobby Bones Show on my morning commute. However, I would miss so much outside my 45 minutes in the car. Then he started hosting a podcast in his home interviewing country stars. That sounded interesting to me, so I found that podcast app on my iPhone (fun fact, it came preloaded on the phone) and subscribed to The Bobby Bones Podcast. By doing that I also subscribed to the podcasts of his morning show too.
And that’s how it all began. I started listening to his interviews, and then the morning shows.
Then I started searching in the podcast library and a world of podcasts exploded upon me.
There is a podcast for everything! Things that educate you, make you laugh, blow your mind, drop your IQ, and everything in between.
I found myself listening to these instead of music. Then I started replacing TV time with podcast time. I listen to them while I workout, do the dishes, clean, shower, etc. There is a podcast for whatever mood I’m in.
Since the world of podcasts is so new and exciting to me, I thought I would explore the subject with you here, and also share my favorites (right now).
S-Town (Listen to this now! It is 7 episodes just released! I listened to them while painting my house!)
These are just a few I listen to. I randomly search through favorites when I’m in a mood for something different, listening to an episode here or there, wondering if it will be my new favorite.
Do you have any favorite podcasts? I often find new ones by starting this conversation with a fellow podcast lover and usually get a treat or two of a podcast from that discussion. I would love to hear your recommendations!
PS – Yes, I bought a new house. Yes, I’ve been working like a MANIAC on it. Yes, I have been taking a million pictures on the progress (SO MUCH PROGRESS). No, I haven’t really had time to breathe and sit down, much less download the pictures and write a post. Patience, though, it’s coming and it’s oh so beautiful!
To help us all get by before my giant post of what my house looks like, here is an iPhone process picture of my living room prior to moving in. 🙂
I have got to check out podcasts. I know I’d like them because I love talk radio. Bobby Bones is what I listen to in the morning, but like you, I only hear part of the show. Do you use ear buds when you listen at home? You know I am old and need a young friend like you to tell me exactly how to do this.ReplyCancel
I didn’t know you listen to Bobby Bones too! I love that show and him! I went to his stand up show when he came to Roanoke! I listen at home with my phone connected to my blue tooth speaker. But sometimes I listen with my earbuds when I workout. It’s super easy to use the podcast app on your iphone. You just search and subscribe and new episodes pop up when they are available. You should start with S Town. It’s enthralling and sad and beautiful.ReplyCancel
I sit here staring at a white screen with all the emotions swirling in my head, but I don’t know the exact words with which to share them.
I BOUGHT A HOUSE.
Yes, I’m yelling, but it’s out of excitement and wonderment.
As you know, I’m a big fan of homes, decorating, and projects.
So to find this glorious little home to call mine, that I bought all by myself, that I can decorate all by myself, that is my own, is a dream. It’s more than a dream, it’s a fantasy – one I wasn’t even looking for.
The story of how this house found me is one for another post, which is coming, I promise, but for now I just had to gush over this place I now call home.
There will be endless projects and posts and pictures coming about this house (which I will name, but I haven’t fully decided yet), but for now, here are a few sneak peeks.
I will be in major project mode for the month of March, so I still may be a little MIA on here as I get down to business. Your best bet is to follow me on Instagram (rhapsodyinrooms) and Snapchat (megaubrey01) to see real-time updates.
Thank you so much! I can’t wait to share more!ReplyCancel
Candy Walsh
Congratulations Megan! How exciting for you! I’m sure you’ll do some beautiful things there and make it wonderfully and perfectly yours!
God Bless,
CandyReplyCancel
Thank you so much! I’m SO excited! It’s already becoming more beautiful! Well, actually, it’s a disaster zone right now but that is because it is progress on it’s way to beautiful!ReplyCancel
Yesterday I left my friends, I vanished from society, to crawl into blanket sheets that keep me too warm even in the winter time.
I left a place that was supposed to be happy to find happiness on my own.
My world is changing, and I needed to be alone, to find my happy place, to swath myself in blankets, and feel. To feel the change, to fear the change, to embrace the change, and to recognize the change.
Sometimes you just have to sit back and watch the feelings, the emotions cross your existence. To say hello and goodbye in the same mindful, fleeting instance. To watch them fade like vapor in the sky.
The journey home last night came in an Uber. I needed to leave, but my friends had driven me, so I decided to take the $6 Uber home to allow myself the freedom to feel, alone. Yet that drive was an essential part of my journey that night.
To open the door to Christian music, to hear the man speak so eloquently and sweetly, to only have his voice eclipsed in a stutter when asking me if I liked the music. The way I said “yes” and the look of peace that softly swept upon his face. The way I felt love in that $6 drive home.
That was part of the journey.
The way I saw a father walk his son to the handicap bus, delivering him like he must every morning. To see arms reach towards this radiant face of love as he took each stair one at a time.
That was part of the journey.
The way I see kindness, caring, humor, and love in the faces of my friends, who are my family. The way we all care for each other, even though we’ve only known each other months. It’s like they’ve always been an essential part of my life.
This journey is amazing, unexpected, painful, sad, and the biggest blessing I could ever know.
I accept the pain with the joy. I love how pains acts as a tool to bring me one step closer to who I was born to be.
These words I write, they are poetry, they are true, they are inside me yearning to be let out. To share these feelings I have in the hope that they too touch you, make you feel, embolden your yearning for understanding, betterment, and acceptance in this world.
As changes envelop me, it brings everything into question. Why is that? Why do I question completely unrelated items when one change happens in my life?
But yet, I’ve come to love it. I love to reassess all I thought I knew, I wanted, I loved. Actually, I’ve come to reassess me. To make myself become the best person I can be.
I want that for you too. I want you, that struggling, beautiful, wonderful person you are, to realize it through and through. To rise up and see your unbelievable being that is so needed in this world.
I hope to someone, I hope especially to you, that these thoughts tumbling out of my head and traveling along my arms until they reach these fingertips that won’t stop tapping these black keys, will be a part that helps you in this journey of life. These small journeys that add up into one incredible sum called life.
Megan,
I don’t know what you’re journey is right now, but you are now on my prayer list. I believe there is nothing more powerful than the power of prayer with the exception of the hand of God.
I started crying when I started reading your first words and saw the first image and continued throughout your post because every word and image resounded with my life, especially the past two and a half years.
I can’t thank you enough for sharing this, it will stick with me forever and it’s one post that I’ll never delete and will go back to time and time again when I need to and I definitely needed it right now in my life.
Forever grateful and blessing to you,
CandyReplyCancel
Candy,
Now you’re the one making me cry. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your words. It means the world to me. I don’t know what you are going through either, but to know that my words in some way touched you and even helped you, makes me feel like I’ve reached my purpose in life.
Thank you for being you! You’re amazing!
MeganReplyCancel
I hope you are ok, Megan. You have had a lot of change in the past few years and I’m sure that any new change for you is scary. I am here for you if you need me!ReplyCancel
I’m definitely okay! I’ve had a lot of change (so have you!) but there is a lot of good change happening too! It’s just change, whether it’s good or bad, that makes you think!ReplyCancel
I wake up and I can’t move. My neck is stuck in place, and I feel like I haven’t rested at all.
We’ve all been there right? When you have a bad mattress, you know it. It’s the worst and affects your daily life, because we all value our sleep! Well, rewind eight months ago and that was me every morning. It was not good. Thankfully I was able to fix that problem pretty quickly by the few quick clicks of a button at the Casper website. A week later a box showed up at my door and one swift flick of the wrist with a razor and out sprang (literally!) a mattress. With 100 days to test it out and send it back no questions asked, it was a zero risk purchase. Thankfully, I’m still sleeping like a baby eight months later, and am so happy with the purchase.
Now, that’s the basis of my bed, my Casper mattress, but it’s not what people see. It’s the pretty pillows, covers, and headboard that make a bed. Let me tell you, making those decisions has been so much more challenging than the actual mattress buying process! Who would have thought.
Sometimes you know what you want and sometimes it takes trial and error. Well my bed process has been both of those.
My next step in building my perfect bed, after the mattress, was picking a headboard. I have built headboards before but I had a very specific image in my head. Also, I was okay paying for exactly what I wanted and not compromising. I wanted a tufted, velvet, wing back headboard.
I scoured website after website looking for the perfect headboard. There was one I kept coming back to, but I kept dismissing it. Could I really commit to a navy headboard? Spoiler alert: the answer was yes. After months of looking at headboards online, I knew I had to go with my gut: the navy headboard. I found it on Target’s website. I also knew from the months of stalking it, that it would come on sale. So I waited it out and grabbed it on sale.
I got it in the apartment and it was perfect. PERFECT! I knew it was right, and I was so happy I spent a little more and followed my heart.
Now it was time for a new duvet cover. The current duvet was at least seven years old, the style didn’t fit anymore, and it was getting stained.
I asked for a new one for my birthday, after months of stalking. And it was wrong, all wrong. I put it on and then immediately took it off and returned it. I put the old one back on and lived with it for five months.
It wasn’t until I was in a West Elm store with my mom that I found the perfect white patterned duvet cover. It was perfect! It had a subtle pattern, a clean look, and I knew I could make it fun with pillows. My mom got it for me for Christmas, but we opened it at Thanksgiving when she was visiting me in Roanoke.
However, once it went on, I wasn’t thrilled. I knew I liked the duvet but the bed wasn’t there yet. It was time to pillow shop. Mom and I hopped online and actually found some amazing ones at….Wal-Mart for about $30 total (faux suede pillow and Greek key foil pillows). Then I scored the matching Euro pillow covers on Cyber Monday on a crazy sale West Elm rarely has.
Finally, I did some bed composition research and took inspiration from Emily Henderson’s formula. When I stepped back, I had found it. It was PERFECT!
Now every day I look at my bed and grin, actually grin! My bed looks beautiful, elegant, fun, and true to me! It has style and personality. People even call it a “Gucci bed”. I’ll take it! I couldn’t be happier! It took some trial and error and almost a year, but finally, my bed is everything I want it to be!
I hope you have a most awesome 2018!
I am pretty sure that I started to think about listening to podcasts when you wrote about liking them so much. Now I listen a lot. I think you should look into starting one. I’ll listen!
Thank you Paula! I hope you have an awesome 2018 too! That’s so great you listen to podcasts now! I am actually pretty heavy into my development of the podcast so I’m 90% sure it’s HAPPENING!!!
Love that quote you used! I enjoyed reading your post, hope to see you soon!!
Thank you so much Kristen!! The quote is squarely posted on my refrigerator now too. It’s just the best! See you soon!!
Glad to see this post! We all go through hard times whether it be illness, a death, divorce, loss of job. They force us to make choices that we aren’t always prepared to make, and to walk a path we didn’t think we would ever take. And they become our new normal…congrats on making it through and embracing your new normal! There will always be things that are beyond our control, breathe, take the time you need and set a new course..you’re doing beautifully!
Hi Cheryl. Thank you for your wonderful words. They are exactly what I needed to hear (and brought a tear to my eye). Thank you so much!!