Pondering on Paper
…outside in nature.
I love soaking up the ambient sounds of home.
I will forever love this backyard.
* turn on volume for a sense of what it’s like 🙂
Yes I’m still here!
Ahh yellowww… hi there. I know I’ve been M.I.A. for a while, but I’m still here! It’s been a long while since I’ve really sat down to catch up on my blog. I’ve been living offline a lot more these last few weeks since coming back home to the island. Heck, even when I was traveling and before then, I haven’t been pulled to the screen as much to meander in my mind. Instead, I’m doing all my pondering on paper…
OoOoh, a moment of appreciation please for these alliterations…
Meander in my mind…
Ponder on paper…
Yes, yes… very satisfactory indeedy.
Anyway. Just wanted to post a casual HELLO! But not too aggressive like that. So more like, helloooo 🙂
Mmm, much better.
I am hopped up on a delicious coconut smoothie that my Mr. made… he scraped the meat out of a young coconut after we drank the coconut water, then blended it with a little bit of milk, and that was it! No sweeteners needed because the young coconut is already quite sweet.
But I digress.
As I was saying, I’ve been expressing myself and documenting my life on paper every day these days. I haven’t brought out my camera in a little longer than I want to admit. I think because of the lockdown we’re living in too, I’m not taking photos as much since I’m at home all the time and I feel sometimes like it gets a bit repetitive. Also, I’m working from home and I guess my mind and my body demands a balance… to separate my 9-5 work from my personal work. I’m sitting at my desk. The one that my Mr. made me many years ago (under my supervision haha)… and it’s been my sanctuary. I love love love working from home. I love my office/studio… it has so many functions. It’s the other room in my two-bedroom home. It’s my studio space for creative projects, it’s where I look for birds with my binoculars at the window, it’s the ‘atelier’ as Ian likes to call it when I’m sewing cute new ‘fits, it’s an extra bedroom if we have people over (which we won’t for a long while, because the lockdown remember?), and of course, it’s an office space for getting our work done at a proper desk when we decide to be professional and get off the couch and wear clothes to attend meetings… and more!
I have been journaling like maddd the last few months. I’m very happy about it. I feel like I’ve reconnected with the muse version of myself from my youth. I’ve fully accepted that I’m a total nerd, who loves scrapbooking and tape and glue… and stickers! Oh my god, stickers! I will forever fondly remember the days when my prized possession was a sticker binder I carried around everywhere, and for my 12th birthday, everyone knew I was a sticker geek, so everyone gave me sticker sheets for my birthday!! I was very happy about it, but also a little annoyed because at the time there was only one place to get stickers on island so I got a whole lot of the same spongebob sticker sheets, and I love me some spongebob, but the sticker variety was quite limited back then. I felt like I rekindled a bit of my love for stickers when I made my own stickers to sell a couple years ago. I’ve been meaning to make more! I will make more! Just gotta make some time for it, so I’ll add it to my list of goals for the next month. I’ve been pretty good about meeting my monthly goals. Anyway… yeah, I have been in my Travelers Notebook literally everyday, documenting my daily life through scraps of paper and random packaging and magazine tear-outs. I even ordered a heavy duty book-binding stapler so I can start making my own notebooks as thread-binding them is quite a chore and I like to make life easier for myself 🙂
I have a ton of photos in my lightroom catalog that have yet to be edited and sorted. I really don’t love my external hard drive filing system. It works, but I think I need to get some smaller solid state drives so it doesn’t feel so clunky when I’m editing photos and using my chonkers LaCie drives. Here are some iPhone candids my husband took of me the other day so you have photo proof that I’m still here… and pondering on paper. 😉
LA Christmas prep
12.09.2021 — A few days after we arrived in Los Angeles, Ian and I got in the Christmas spirit. My in-laws usually host a big family dinner on Christmas Eve, and me being a lover of festive holiday decorations, we got to work early to put up the Christmas tree and lights all over the house. Ian’s parents have the cutest ornaments they’ve collected over the years, and it was like unboxing a little bit of family history. I also thought it was cute and funny that all three stockings had Ian’s name on it.
Throwback to 2018, while aboard the Sea Casa for a pleasure cruise, thanks to Captain Connor. This landscape view of Tutuila and the ocean glitter still makes me sigh happy sighs.
Lunch at Alcove Cafe
12.26.2021 — The sun finally came out in Los Angeles. We went for a long walk down to Ventura Boulevard and stopped for a late lunch at Alcove Cafe. I ordered the pan roasted salmon salad and it was probably the best salad I’ve had in my mini food tour of Los Angeles so far. Ian’s avocado toast and poached egg was also delicious. For drinks, I had the fresh squeezed grapefruit juice and Ian got a latte.
You are an explorer
This mood board is pretty much exactly my mood the last two weeks.
Lately I’ve been doing a lot of art journaling, scrapbooking, collaging… whatever it’s called.
It’s been a meditative thing for me to do daily; rummaging through my piles of scraps, stickers, and clippings, and the simple act of gluing, taping, and arranging it on my traveler’s notebook in a way that feels ikigai for me.
It makes me feel like I’m traveling through my everyday life in a new explorative way.
Wherever you are, hope you’re well, healthy, and getting fresh air and sunshine whenever you can.
xoxo, Nerelle
Pacific Roots Open Mic 2020 – working the art booth.
Flight to LA
I am never not taking photos out the window whenever I fly/travel.
Pics from my iPhone camera roll December 7, 2021.
The first taste of travel
I’m a pisces, and I guess one of the traits my star sign is known for is that pisces can sometimes be escapists. I suppose in this way, I am in constant need of a break, a vacation, a sort of temporary sanctum to let my soul rest and reset.
Two years of this pandemic had me parched… thirsty… starving for time and space away. Even though I live in a beautiful paradise, the border lockdown made me feel like there was this invisible cage around the island suddenly and I couldn’t stretch my wings. My rock fever was high.
When my husband and I booked flights back in September for a December trip, the flights weren’t even confirmed, and it wasn’t exactly an enjoyable process because we were so anxious that we were spending all this money (the costs of travel are still outrageously expensive) and we wouldn’t even be able to go. Thankfully, things worked out.
Just the act of driving up to the Pago Pago International Airport felt like an adventure. Standing in line with our packed bags to check in for our flight felt like we had a golden ticket (we later realized we could have stood in the shorter first class line because my husband was a Pualani Gold member, which we did end up doing but after an almost two hour wait). The flight was delayed, but that’s okay because it meant we were still in travel mode, and it was exhilarating. The plane arrived and we eagerly walked the tarmac with our bags heavy and our spirits light.
We sanitized our seats, stowed our bags, and buckled up for the getaway we’ve been craving. Airplane food tasted better than it had in years, and Ian and I imbibed on the complementary hawaiian rum punch to celebrate.
I swallowed in the air of excitement and tasted color more vividly… I was rejuvenated.
And this was just the first leg of our flight/layover through Hawaii!
Back from a long vacation (a journal entry)
Hello and Taaaaalofa!
I’m back in American Samoa now, waiting out my government mandated quarantine at the Fatu O Aiga quarantine facility. It’s strange not being allowed to go outside really and being in a “real” lockdown. I’m currently on day 12 of 14, and I’ve tested negative on every antigen, PCR, and nasopharyngeal covid test I’ve taken over the past two months, which is wild!
And it’s been two months since I last came on here because whewww-I-really-needed-that-vacation.
I feel like I’m in some sort of third life crisis or something because I hadn’t really been feeling myself lately. I think I’m feeling… old/older?? Like, I want to take naps constantly and just do nothing a lot more often now. I don’t know, maybe it’s the covid fatigue but I’ve been so lazy that I couldn’t even get on here to share an update or a photo or two.
Vacation has healed me in some ways though. I’ve been reconnecting with analog journaling (travel journaling always makes me feel so nostalgic!) and it’s been lovely to be so excited by new stationery and scrapbooking journal spreads — using my hands and imagination, and mostly enjoying the process more than the final result. I’ve truly truly missed it.
But yeah — today I finally uploaded most of the photos off my camera’s memory cards… Hmm, see, that’s how lazy I’ve been! I hadn’t even off-loaded my memory cards until now from my trip and it’s two weeks after I’ve come back from said trip. I took quite a few photos as usual, but it reminded me that I need to put them somewhere so I don’t turn into one of those people that takes a zillion photos and does nothing with them (literally, everyone with a smartphone these days). So over the next days and weeks and maybe months I’ll slowly share photo journals from this very lovely, very needed vacation.
My little frazzled brain has been in hiding so if what I share looks/sounds like gibberish, oops sorry — please bear with me!
If you’re reading this, and made it this far. Thanks for being here.
xo, Nerelle
