"I am dreaming of tornadoes again"

by ashli w

We've lived in our new place for about three months now and I'm kind of crazy about our little home



I spend a lot of time these days crafting things around the house and coming up with ways to show off the (way way too many) film photos I've taken over the year and new uses for the left over chinese lantern flowers from the wedding (like in that wine bottle right there and little mason jars and tin crates) - I'm also really happy that I've finally gathered up some places to show case the beautiful old film cameras that had been collecting dust in a box for way too long.


I've also been baking and cooking non stop lately! It's been really kinda killer to have so much time to play around with recipes I had been dyin' to try. My parents got me this beautiful pistachio kitchen aid mixer for my birthday and it seriously rules - I honestly whip that baby out at least three times a day.

Me and the dude were a little nervous on getting our first apartment, and although it's not quite all the things I spent my time dreaming it up to be, I really really dig our place. It's so close to his work so we get to have lunch together every day, we live right on the river where there's this great path for me and the mister to go bike riding, down the street is this perfect little old time grocery store and deli, the cutest coffee shop with home baked cake donuts and breads that we buy in brown bags (and seriously fiend over 24/7), and we have Wonder Years marathons on a daily basis while eating cinnamon toast on our living room floor. I've been trying to get together the scrapbook that I've been going on about forever - and also working on opening up a little shop sometime soon!

Sometimes it's strange to think about this being home. I remember the first apartment I moved into when I left my parents house for the first time and how that never felt like home. I think I talked about that very seldom because it was kind of a sad place, this weird transitory time in my life where I couldn't figure out how to get to where I wanted and how to be happy with where I was. I remember vividly that it just felt like a place to keep my things, how I'd kneel down on that old rug in my room with the window cracked while I'd punch furiously at the keys on my typewriter trying to pull the words out of me. And now, here, we dance in the grocery aisles, cook dinner together while singing terrible pop songs that come on the radio, craft things around the house using left over fabric used in our wedding and the chinese lantern flowers, filling wine bottles with the petals and piling book shelves with photographs that mean the world to me and cameras that belonged to my great grandfather. We sprawl out on our beautiful red couch, limbs crossed, laughing at silly and poorly made supernatural tv dramas from the 90's. Legs and arms all braided together in the middle of the night during the lightening storms when we both blink awake and just smile, tell each other knock knock jokes that aren't even funny but laugh and laugh until we get sleepy again. This is our home.