I won!

Hello everyone! So, something very exciting has happened to me since I last posted. If any of you know me well, you'll probably know that I'm slightly obsessed with the British singer Kate Nash. In fact, I've posted about her and how amazing I think she is before. Fan girl status. No shame!

Anyhow, she posted to her social networks on Valentine's Day that she was putting on a contest. She wanted her fans to send in an email, poem, story, etcetera, about who their valentine was this year. She would go through them and pick her top 5 favorites. The winners would get a signed photo from her. Since my boyfriend and I have a pretty good story, I decided to send in an entry.

A few days after I sent in my email, I got a reply saying she loved mine and that I was chosen as one of the winners! It was so exciting I had trouble breathing for a few moments!!

I've had a couple requests to see what I entered so I figured I'd post it on the blog.

Here is what I sent in (WARNING: it's really cheesy):

Hi Kate, so this year my valentine is something like 3,700 miles away. I live in Grand Rapids, Michigan and he lives in Carlisle, England. We started out over 2 years ago as snail mail pen pals. Ten months after communicating only via mail and internet, I flew across the Atlantic to meet him... BEST DECISION EVER. He's absolutely amazing and worth every mile. He's coming to visit me in 29 days and I can't fricking wait. I'm hoping one day soon we'll get to permanently close the gap.

Anyways, after my last visit (in November 2013), I wrote this poem with him in mind. It's based off a photo I took standing outside his front door before a walk into town one day. 

41 Dalston Road

autumn leaves beneath my feet;

heavy, damp air

sticks to my skin,

exposed.

clouds

close to earth --

not oppressive --

embrace tree tops.

branches droop.

my lungs expand

and I breathe in 

his scent,

lingering.

Thank you so much for being such an amazing person/artist and for taking the time to read this! Hope you have a lovely Valentine's Day. :) x

-Tess

So that's the entry that got me into the top 5! I'm still kind of in disbelief that she chose mine. Super happy about it. I guess Tom and I really do have a great story though!

-teddy x

30,000 feet and above

Since meeting my boyfriend back in 2012, I've been lucky enough to get to travel to the UK three times to see him. Before that, it had been about five or six years since I'd been on an airplane and I'd never been out of the country (except to Canada which doesn't really count because it's so close and to a border city in Mexico for maybe two hours). I've grown to love being up in the air and I wish I could just go travel for an indefinite amount of time. Maybe one day...

Here are my favorite photos taken from airplane windows over the past couple years. I tried to narrow them down but honestly, I couldn't. Each one makes me think of a different moment in time and each one makes me happy. :)

June/July 2012

March 2013

November 2013

"We must take adventures to know where we truly belong."

-teddy x

fresh look!

So I made a huge breakthrough tonight. Major technological advances going on in my world. . . I learned how to download a font from the internet and make it available for me to use in Photoshop!! Seriously so proud of myself. Much thanks to YouTube.

Anyways after figuring out how to do this I made myself a new blog title and changed things up a bit. I'm not 100% sure what I think of it but it's after 1am so I think I'm going to be done with it for the night.

If you have any feedback (comments, questions, suggestions) I'd love to hear it!

Thanks much :)

-teddy x

safe sets

In case any of you reading this didn't know (which you probably didn't), I've recently joined a (very) recreational volleyball team with the YMCA.
Wooo Safe Sets!

We only play once a week and we had one week canceled due to weather but so far it's proved itself to be a ton of fun! Literally hadn't
played volleyball in 10 years so it's been interesting remembering
how to do everything.

Tonight we had a double-header and we played at an off-location and
all in all it just turned out to be a pretty eventful night,
so I thought I'd do a recap for you guys:

• I have concluded that every other team takes this more seriously than ours (which is not a bad thing-- we laugh more than every other team!)
• A guy on the first team we played took a dive for a ball which turned into somewhat of a face-plant which ultimately led to him not finishing the game and supposedly losing a piece of his chin (I can't stomach that ish so I chose not to check it out while everyone else did)
• We've all complained about playing at the YMCA because of how busy it is. . . And then we played in a completely quiet middle-school gym with one court. Definitely prefer tons of people around us doing zumba, running, lifting weights, etc., compared to that silence. Awkwaaaard.
• The ref we had knew little to nothing about volleyball. I think someone just briefed him on the rules before the night started. . . He was also sitting on top of a ladder.

That's really about all I can think of now.
Oh and also, I've re-discovered why knee pad use is recommended! 

Hopefully next week proves to be just as entertaining!

-teddy x

tomorrow // photos

This is essentially a post of photos and nostalgia. 

Watching Harry Potter tonight made me miss the UK a lot.

Tomorrow I would like to be in England, 

having a full English breakfast 

and tea with sugar cubes and milk

in some tiny, remote village in The Lake District.

These photos were taken by me in March 2013,

with 35mm Fuji color film.

Don't really know how anyone could deny the beauty of this place.

-ted x