My Three-Month Spending Challenge

As I shared in my 2019 goals, I decided to start off the year by challenging myself to make ZERO purchases other than food and essentials for three months. I considered essentials to be just replacing everyday items if they ran out. For example, I wasn’t going to stop washing my hair because I ran out of shampoo and was doing a spending challenge. Same with household products. But I wanted to add nothing new to any shopping carts. So even though I usually wear makeup, purchasing new makeup beyond just replacing my staple items if they ran out would be against the rules of the spending challenge. It’s a little bit flexible in terms of the rules and definitions, but it made sense to me.

Let me tell you one thing that surprised me: the three month spending challenge (January 1-March 31) FLEW by! I thought I would be painstakingly counting the days until I could go to the Target home section, but it was such a good discipline for my heart because I realized how much I really didn’t miss buying stuff. That was even true for clothing. I have officially not purchased any clothes since 2018, and I even perused the spring clothing collection at Target with Grace the other day and had very little desire to buy anything.

The other thing that surprised me: how much this spending challenge and consciousness regarding buying things changed my overall financial perspective. These first three months of 2019 have radically changed Grace and me in terms of finances. I will be honest and tell you that we did not keep a budget whatsoever for the first 5 months of marriage. Thankfully it was fine, but as we dream and talk about our lives as a married couple we realized how much we are going to need to intentionally save to be able to do the things we want! There were definitely tears shed in the early discussions about budgeting, and we’ve had to sacrifice and make tough decisions. But we’ve also been able to joyfully say YES to a big trip this summer because we know how we’re going to afford it, and we’re so excited about the dreams we’re building towards by being disciplined in this area.

The spending challenge has helped me turn my perspective around from focusing on the sacrifice of saying “no” to something I want, to focusing on the joy of saying “yes” to things I want WAY more in the big picture.

So it’s now April and my spending challenge is technically done! So far in the first couple weeks, I’ve only bought a new mascara and some small home improvement items for our house. I’m happy to say that doing this challenge has really reduced my desire to online shop or just want a quick fix of retail therapy. I initially thought about what it would look like if I kept the challenge going the whole year, but I think I’m going to ease up for the spring/summer and then maybe end the year with another three months of it.

A couple tips if you are interested in doing this (I highly recommend it)!

• When you get a desire to buy something specific (like “oh I NEED a new houseplant for that windowsill” or whatever), write it in a note on your phone. I kept a note of things I wanted but was saying “no” to for now, so I wouldn’t forget to grab them if I really still wanted them at the end of the challenge. On my note are a grout pen to touch up our grout on the tile floors (exciting stuff huh!), this book so many people have recommended, this beauty product a blogger I like recommended, and these monogrammed PJs. I might pull the trigger on the grout pen because it’s only like $11 but everything else can wait or maybe go on my birthday wish list!

• On that note, I think easing back into buying stuff after your spending challenge is done is really helpful. I personally would feel kind of bummed if I just went out and bought tons of stuff to make up for lost time. So far I’ve just bought things that I know are useful and I’d been consciously waiting to purchase, and I feel good about it!

• But before your spending challenge, I say go all out and have one last spending hurrah if you feel like it. Leading up to the start of my spending challenge was the holiday season followed by our decadent trip to New Orleans, and so by January 1 I actually felt pretty ready to take a breather from buying stuff. I think it helps to know that you can grab that one thing you “need” right before starting the challenge.

If anyone has done a challenge like this or wants to try it, I would love to hear from you and connect!

My Winter Bucket List

This post might seem seasonally out of place (it’s April! Flowers are blooming!), but here I am with my Winter Bucket List recap. This first year of being married, I started a tradition of seasonal bucket lists, inspired by the blog A Beautiful Mess. Back in November, I shared all of the progress on my Autumn Bucket List, which helped me have my favorite Fall of my whole life! The Winter Bucket List was no different—I am not a winter-loving gal, but the intentional celebration that a bucket list helps with made me savor the season like never before.

Even though I’m a bit late posting my recap, I’m writing this post for myself and posterity if nothing else. Next winter, I absolutely plan on doing another bucket list, and I want to remember some of my favorite seasonal things from this first one!

You can see the items above that were on my list—if it’s highlighted in blue, that means Grace and I crossed it off! There were a few I didn’t get to (honestly there is no excuse for not making crock pot hot chocolate-I just somehow forgot!), and the squiggly lines means I somewhat completed it. Here are some of my favorite memories from the items on the list!

Decorating our house for Christmas for the first time was SO fun. Looking back through photos made me feel sooo nostalgic. Our house has never felt cozier. I posted a Christmas decorations house tour here.

We also mailed out our first ever Christmas cards (a tradition I had always looked forward to for my first married Christmas!). I loved how they turned out and plan on doing something similar in years to come.

Matching PJs (which, as it turns out, Bean loved climbing into like a baby kangaroo) were a highlight of the season too.

Also Christmas-related on the bucket list: attending Christmas Eve service at our church, St. Aidan’s. It was the sweetest night. I’ve never attended a midnight candlelit Christmas Eve service before, and even though I was super sleepy, it was magical to be huddled in the sanctuary at midnight as Christmas Eve turned to Christmas Day.

This picture was actually taken at our church a couple days before Christmas :)

Lots of good food and drinks on the bucket list! We made Christmas cookies using the same recipe my family has used my whole life, baked homemade Chex Mix (anyone else with me that this is totally a Christmas thing?! Grace had never heard of it being specific to Christmas), and made mulled wine. I think I need to work on my mulled wine recipe a bit. But it was good!

Although my list was very Christmas-focused, there were a few post-Christmas things too! Of course, one of the highlights of both 2018 AND 2019 was ringing in New Year’s Eve in New Orleans at the wedding of two of our dear friends. You can read a recap of that trip here.

In January, we drove to find snow in Southern California and ended up having the CUTEST snow day in Wrightwood! We brought Willie and it was his first time seeing snow (that we know of). So special! I wrote a recap of that day here. We’ll definitely be making Wrightwood snow days a tradition in our house.

Last but definitely not least, in February we hosted the First Annual Nicole Kidman Appreciation Film Festival! Yes, you read right. This was Grace’s idea as she is a huge Nicole Kidman fan, and we had SO much fun bringing our friends together for a weekend of Nicole Kidman film screenings at our house. We rented a big projector, fired up the popcorn machine we got as a wedding present, and were just generally very over the top about it.

It was a great Winter! Two things that weren’t on the bucket list, but should have been:

First, I cut off half my hair. It’s funny because even now in April, I’ll see people who are like wait - did you get a haircut? YEP, I chopped my hair length in half in December and it’s been great! I love long hair so I’m growing it out again but cutting off a ton of it just made it feel so healthy.

Second, I made my very first Buche de Noel and I was so proud of how it turned out! I spent almost all day on Christmas Eve making it, and it was so fun. It gave me a lot of confidence to try complicated baking projects in the future.

I loved this wintry trip down memory lane! I made a Spring bucket list last month (and posted it on my Instagram stories—if you look you can find it in my “favorite things” highlight) so we are slowly working through that!

Have you ever made a seasonal bucket list?

Why I Changed My Last Name

In the seven months since I became a Baldridge, I’ve gotten a lot of questions about that decision! Not about my decision to marry Grace—I think most people who know me know that’s been my dream since I met her—but to take her last name in place of mine. I think this is an interesting, layered question, as is my answer to it. So today I want to share a little bit more about my heart on this topic.

I’ll start by saying that growing up, I always imagined I would change my last name. I grew up in a place where it was extremely common for women to change their last name after getting married, and that’s what my mom and grandmothers had all done. That said, I also grew up with friends, family, and role models who got married but did not change their names, so I’ve always seen that as a valid, great decision too. But I was predisposed to changing my last name from the start.

To me, a person taking their spouse’s last name in place of theirs is all about two families becoming one, a brand new start of “who you are” as your identity takes on the component of being 1/2 of a married couple, and honoring tradition. That’s why I’ve always been surprised at how often I get questions about why I still changed my last name even though I married a woman. Don’t the reasons why most people change their names still apply just the same in my situation?

I know there is (understandably) some backlash to the idea of changing one’s last name at all. But I would like to challenge that—to me, if it is an intentional, thought-through decision, I believe it can be beautiful, an act of selflessness, and even feminist to change your last name after getting married. And of course, anyone can make this kind of intentional choice to change their last name, not just ladies.

I LOVE having the same last name as Grace. Absolutely love it. I’m so proud of the fact that our little family is the Baldridges. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Another question I get a lot is - “Why didn’t Grace change her last name to yours? Or why didn’t you hyphenate?” The truth is, we didn’t really talk about those options, which I think just means neither of them felt like a natural choice to us. I think focusing on this kind of misses the point. Of course hyphenating is awesome for those who choose it. But I never felt like I needed to know that Grace would change her name for me, too, because now that we’re married that just isn’t something we keep score over. Grace serves me and sacrifices for me in a million ways. This “sacrifice” of changing my last name (which I was actually very excited to do) doesn’t really have an equal (unless you hyphenate and both change your name), and that’s okay. That’s what (I’m learning) being married is all about!

Want to know what the way harder decision was? What to do with my middle name! I knew I didn’t want to have 4 names (I like odd numbers and just didn’t want to have that many names), so it was either drop my maiden name entirely, or drop my middle name and take my maiden name as a new middle. I ultimately decided to drop my maiden name entirely and keep my middle name (Holland). My middle is my grandmother’s maiden name, and it’s very special to me (as is my relationship with her). I also love that Grace and I both have our maternal grandmothers’ maiden names as our middle names (Grace’s middle name is Semler). I felt like if I dropped Holland, it would vanish, never to be spoken again. Why would it? No one ever asks what your middle name before you got married was, if you took your maiden as a new middle. Whereas my maiden name will always be my maiden name, and basically everyone I’ve known in my life up until that point knows me with that last name. And of course, my whole immediate family still has that last name. But I’m the only one in my immediate family (or in my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, etc.) who has my particular middle name. I also liked the sound of Elizabeth Holland Baldridge better than Elizabeth Capel Baldridge.

At the end of the day, these choices are so very personal and as long as you are making the decision intentionally, with respect for your new spouse and your parents/other family, I don’t think you can go wrong. I just wanted to share a little bit of my “why” in making the decision I did. Also, if the complication of changing your name is a mental hindrance, don’t let it be! As of 6 months out, I had changed everything from my driver’s license to social security card to credit cards to passport to business cards. And with very little headaches along the way. It’s surprisingly easy. Now that it’s done, booking hotels or making dinner reservations under my new name feels like a dream come true.

If you are wrestling with the decision, I encourage you to go with your gut. Getting advice from others is helpful to a point, but it’s hard when you get conflicting opinions (I know I did). It’s your NAME, so make sure you can own it with pride :)

Did you change your name after getting married? What about your middle?

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas and thank you so much for reading Have Dog, Will Drive this year! This is a pre-scheduled post that I wrote because if you’re reading this on Christmas (or any day, really), I want to share a Christmas poem with you that I have loved for years. It’s almost a hundred years old but still perfect today in 2018.

Keeping Christmas

There is a better thing than the observance of Christmas day, and that is, keeping Christmas.

Are you willing...

to forget what you have done for other people, and to remember what other people have done for you;

to ignore what the world owes you, and to think what you owe the world;

to put your rights in the background, and your duties in the middle distance, and your chances to do a little more than your duty in the foreground;

to see that men and women are just as real as you are, and try to look behind their faces to their hearts, hungry for joy;

to own up to the fact that probably the only good reason for your existence is not what you are going to get out of life, but what you are going to give to life;

to close your book of complaints against the management of the universe, and look around you for a place where you can sow a few seeds of happiness.

Are you willing to do these things even for a day? Then you can keep Christmas.

Are you willing…

to stoop down and consider the needs and desires of little children;

to remember the weakness and loneliness of people growing old;

to stop asking how much your friends love you, and ask yourself whether you love them enough;

to bear in mind the things that other people have to bear in their hearts;

to try to understand what those who live in the same home with you really want, without waiting for them to tell you;

to trim your lamp so that it will give more light and less smoke, and to carry it in front so that your shadow will fall behind you;

to make a grave for your ugly thoughts, and a garden for your kindly feelings, with the gate open—

Are you willing to do these things, even for a day? Then you can keep Christmas.

Are you willing...

to believe that love is the strongest thing in the world—

stronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger than death—

and that the blessed life which began in Bethlehem nineteen hundred years ago is the image and brightness of the Eternal Love?

Then you can keep Christmas.

And if you can keep it for a day, why not always?

But you can never keep it alone.

-Henry Van Dyke

Christmas Decorations House Tour!

Decorating for my first married Christmas is something I’ve looked forward to for a really long time. This year, Grace and I are celebrating Christmas in our own little house (our first time not being with our families). A big part of this is because we’re traveling right after Christmas through the New Year, but also, it’s sweet to start our own traditions as a married couple.

Fun fact: for the past several years I have wanted to wait until I was married to get a Christmas tree (I’m not even really sure why, it just seemed like a romantic idea) so this is my FIRST ever Christmas tree of my own! And I love it so much!

So, welcome to my Christmas home tour!

Getting fresh greenery for Christmas was my favorite thing about decorating. I know artificial trees, garlands, and wreaths are popular, but nothing compares to the smell of the real thing. I love getting a festive pine scent from our wreath every time I walk in and out of our front door.

And here’s our lovely Fraser Fir! We picked a nice round tree and I have loved having it in our house. It still smells amazing and is the perfect size for our still-growing collection of Christmas ornaments. Speaking of which, here are a few of my favorites:

Even though it’s just the two of us, I’m very excited for Christmas morning. Every year up until now, Grace and I have chosen to give each other Christmas gifts of no monetary value (like something we write for each other, or a song from Grace). This year, we decided to do presents for the first time which I am actually so excited for-I hope Grace likes what I got her!

And the stockings were hung by the chimney with care . . .

This is the same stocking I’ve had since I was a baby. Last year, Grace was with my family on Christmas Day, so they had one embroidered for her too. This year, we have them both in our house!

We have a few other little details in the living room:

Our running list of Christmas movies to watch!

This is a fresh garland from the same place where we got our Christmas tree. I took a few small ornaments and threaded them through the strands of pine needles for pops of color.

For this, I took some of the trimmings from the bottom of our tree and just put them in a vase with some gold spray-painted branches! And you can see my chocolate Advent calendar in this shot too :)

This bowl of ornaments has a few leftover fairy light strands from our wedding exit in it! It’s so cozy and festive to me to turn on the lights at night.

I also changed out our usual throw blanket for a red plaid Christmasy blanket (which the dogs oddly LOVE laying on much more than the old one), and added a “Home for the Holidays” throw pillow to our couch!

In the dining room, I changed out our usual table runner for a seasonal one, and placed some more tree trimmings under our centerpiece.

I also got some Christmas Crackers for a Christmas Day feast we are having with a few friends! I think this is more of a British tradition but I love them, so I just had to get some :)

I also added the same type of garland by our TV to our piano!

I dressed up our bar area with some greenery too.

In November on a date night we went to our favorite record store and picked out a few Christmas records. I think the Charlie Brown one in the picture is our favorite, but there are so many good ones! Willie Nelson’s Pretty Paper album is so good too.

As a final touch, I used some leftover decorations to add a little festivity to some of our house plants! They make me smile every time I see them.

And of course I had to put up some mistletoe!

Merry Christmas! xoxo

My Autumn Bucket List

Today I am sharing all about my Autumn Bucket List, which has brought me so much joy this season! I got the cute template for the list through A Beautiful Mess, one of my favorite blogs that I have been reading for years. They send out these templates each season to their newsletter subscribers.

A little backstory: I am NOT a Fall-loving gal at heart. I love spring and summer. I had wanted to move to California since I was a little girl specifically because it’s warm almost all the time (later, I realized it has other amazing qualities, but the biggest draw for me was always the weather). I have a distinct memory in 5th grade of trudging through dead leaves in our driveway thinking, Fall is so depressing. I think this was the first time I ever thought of anything as being “depressing.” My whole life I have struggled with major blues when it starts getting darker and colder. I don’t love Fall colors, I have only recently started enjoying Fall foods, and I typically look forward to absolutely nothing about Fall. I guess these are all probably signs of seasonal affective disorder, but as I have never been diagnosed with anything like that, I hesitate to use any official terms.

Although I cannot change how Fall affects me, I can change my approach to it! Last Fall knocked me off my feet with feeling sad from the change in seasons. I was so busy I didn’t have any time to counteract it. But this year, for my first married Fall, I wanted it to be a happy time. Making a fun Autumn Bucket List and intentionally checking off the activities has made the BIGGEST difference in my attitude toward Fall this year. This has been the happiest Fall of my whole life!

Also, I am married to a Fall-obsessed Scorpio, so it’s been a lot of fun to do the bucket list together since she already enjoys the season so much.

If you can’t read my handwriting above, here are the items on my Fall bucket list:

• Haunted Hayride

• Try a new WeHo (West Hollywood) restaurant

• Light our fireplace candelabra

• Refresh guest room

• Bake something festive

• Add some indoor plants

• Make a home office

• Send lots of happy mail

• Make pancakes

• Semler album release (Grace’s musical project is called Semler)

• Take dogs on a day trip

• Plan our New Orleans trip

• Spooky movie night with our popcorn machine

• Have friends over for brunch

• Put flannel sheets on our bed

• Homemade soup

• Donate extra kitchen stuff

• Trip to DC

• Make our wedding album

• Read a cozy book

• Order our first ever Christmas cards

• Slow cooker meals

• Buy candy corn

• Journal more often

• Hot chocolate in our “B” mugs (B for Baldridge)

• Underwood Family Farms

• Autumn stove simmers

• Open the windows in nice weather

• Host a dinner party

• Decorate seasonally

The ones I’ve highlighted on the list are ones we’ve already completed (but some we’ll do again for sure - like homemade soups and sending mail to friends).

Not all of them are strictly seasonal—like going to DC or making pancakes—but all are designed to help me savor the season.

Here are some photos from us doing the things on my bucket list

Adding more indoor plants:

Semler album release (we had a fun release show at the studio where Grace recorded the album). These are the guys she recorded it with. And yes, Grace dressed as a skeleton:

Going to Underwood Family Farms (our favorite pumpkin patch—and so much more. It’s about 45 mins out of LA and SO FUN. They have tractor rides, tons of cute goats, all kinds of produce to pick, pumpkins, seasonal food booths, and more):

Going on the Haunted Hayride (we went with a few of our close friends and although I shut my eyes the whole time, it was really fun):

Hosting a spooky movie night with our popcorn machine:

I was super proud of my orange-and-black Halloween snackboard I made for the movie night.

Making pancakes (using a pancake mix our friends brought us back from Hawaii recently!):

Decorating seasonally:

Making my home office (still not totally done, and far from done in this photo):

Baking something festive (these are pumpkin-granola muffins, and I also made pumpkin bread this Fall):

And although not on the bucket list, everyone in the family dressed up for Halloween!

Bean and I dressed as Toto and Dorothy

And for a friend’s party, Grace and I went as Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein (perfect newlywed costume, I think!)

Bean went as a hot dog for our spooky movie night

And Willie was the cutest pumpkin

Another really fun thing was that we got our first trick or treaters this year!! Even though we were living in our same house last Halloween, we didn’t get them for whatever reason. Our house is in a neighborhood without that many kids, so I’m actually surprised we had any, but it was so fun and sweet! I think having our Jack o Lanterns lit up on our front steps helped :)

It’s only the beginning of November, so I’m excited to keep checking off more of our bucket list items all month long. We are actually trying out a new West Hollywood restaurant tonight, so I can check that one off tomorrow!

We keep our bucket list taped to our fridge and I really do think it helps me focus on enjoying the good stuff this season. I’ll be making a winter one too—I’ve already been collecting ideas for it!

Hope you are enjoying Fall too, and if you normally don’t, try making a bucket list to see if it helps!

Our Experience with Flytographer on our Honeymoon

As I mentioned in my last honeymoon recap, we decided to get some professional photos taken while we were in Kauai staying at the St. Regis! And when I say “we” decided, I mean me. Grace took some convincing. But I’m so glad we ended up doing it, because I really love how the pictures turned out. I think there are at least a few compelling reasons to get professional honeymoon photos taken:

• You spend a lot on wedding pictures—and your wedding is 1000% more important than your honeymoon—but wouldn’t you want at least SOME nice quality photos of arguably the most special vacation ever? I definitely did!

• Knowing we were getting professional photos taken later on the trip kept me from stressing about not having many pictures of the two of us earlier in the trip.

• Our honeymoon is something I will hold near to my heart for the rest of my life. Photos are a love language for me, and a way I crystallize memories and tangibly cherish them. So having nice pictures from this time in my life was a no-brainer for me.

• I love the idea of our kids looking back at honeymoon pictures of their parents! Maybe they won’t care at all, but I know I’d love to have beautiful pictures like this of my parents on their honeymoon.

Also, the cost wasn’t too bad! To be candid, we spent about $350 on our honeymoon photos. That’s a lot of money for some things, but for anyone who’s paid for professional pics, you know that’s very reasonable. We used a company called Flytographer, which matches you with a professional photographer in the area where you’re going on vacation. I looked through a few galleries of Kauai photographers and selected Brigitte, who had great pics and had taken portraits of some gay couples before (my fellow LGBT travelers, you can probably relate that it gives peace of mind to know someone you’ll be working with is a friend to the community). Here’s a link to Brigitte’s profile if you’re interested in booking her. She was so great!

I’m not sure if there are other services out there like Flytographer, but we were really happy with the experience and I would totally recommend them. Of course, every photographer would be different, but our experience was great.

By the way, if anyone wants to use Flytographer, I have a $25 off referral code for you! Use this: CODE9385 :)

Anyway, our pics! We met up with Brigitte at our hotel and headed out to the beach. She lives nearby and has experience shooting at the St. Regis, and she actually showed us to a beautiful hidden cove we hadn’t seen yet! No one else was around and we got some great photos.

Next, we walked around the Hanalei Bay cove and got pictures in some more locations. One of Grace’s hesitations in doing these photos was that she didn’t want everyone to be staring at us if we were getting pics taken in a busy location. So I was thankful that Brigitte knew exactly where to go—even on the grounds of a popular resort like the St. Regis, she managed to find gorgeous hideaway spots that served as amazing backdrops for our pictures.

I also appreciated how much direction we got—Brigitte took plenty of more traditional portraits (like the one above), but she also did a good job getting action shots and would give us ideas of what to do since I definitely tend to get kind of stiff in front of the camera.

And of course, some classic prom shot pics :)

All in all, Brigitte took photos of us for about an hour, and we got 60 pictures back. Not bad if you think about it as a picture a minute! And those are 60 pictures that she culled and edited down—in reality she took many more than 60. Another one of the best things about the service was that it only took 1 week to get our pictures back, and they even sent us a couple of “teaser” shots after a day or two.

If you are considering getting professional pictures taken on your honeymoon or any special vacation, I say GO for it!! I didn’t realize how easy it would be, but I’m so glad we did it. Thanks for reading!

Thoughts on Grieving the Loss of a Pet Long-Term

Next month will mark one year since Casper died. Casper was our first dog together, an old brindle gray, black, and white pit bull we adopted from the West LA Shelter when he was probably about 8 years old. We had just under three years with him, and those years changed our lives forever. We have a huge painting of him in our house that Grace commissioned for me as a gift while Casper was still alive, and Grace always says to our other dogs, Casper is the only dog that gets a painting. He started it all.

A few weeks after Casper died, I wrote this post about fear and anxious thoughts after losing a pet suddenly. It is actually one of the posts that I've gotten the most emails about, and I was thinking that it would be worthwhile to post an update on how I'm feeling. SO much has changed since Casper died. We've adopted not one but two new dogs, we got engaged, we moved in together and made a home in our little house in West Hollywood, and honestly, life is good. I don't post much at all on this blog, or on IG or anywhere else, about continuing to grieve Casper because, well, it's not easily explained and doesn't feel right to solicit sympathy months and months after the fact. Without any ill-intention, people do expect you to move on. 

That being said, I know that the loss of a pet can stay with you for a long time (and really, forever), so I just wanted to write this post to say that you are not alone if you're not "over" the loss of a pet! I also want to share a little bit of my feelings in case anyone reading this is just now experiencing the loss of a pet and is wondering how they might be handling it in several months. Of course, everyone's way of processing is different, but here's how I feel a little less than a year out:

I still sometimes, out of the blue, feel like a shot of ice water floods my veins remembering losing Casper and the fact that he's not physically on earth any more. Random little things can make me feel this way. Recently, on the first day of spring this year, I just had this sick feeling of time being relentless, of another season without Casper, and how spring was the last season we had with him. Last fall, when I went through a couple of months of the worst anxiety I'd ever felt, I remember crying my eyes out and thinking that Casper had never seen me in such a dark season, and he would have protected me from this. I know this all sounds like TOTAL crazy dog lady stuff, but Casper was like my little baby and my big brother all at once. Without him, I would (and sometimes still do) project hard feelings onto his absence and feel like I would "feel better" if only he was still here with me.

One of the most persistent, unbearable thoughts I had after Casper died is imagining my life stretched out in front of me--decades and decades, if I'm lucky--and never seeing Casper's face again in all that time. Being an old lady, still lonely from missing my first baby (and I have a huge lump in my throat typing this). Feeling like his exact features and quirks would become a distant memory is too painful to dwell on. 

One thing that I think less and less about is the actual day he died. I grappled with a lot of trauma after that day, but that has subsided. Though I realize this post is probably coming across as BEYOND extra if you're not as much of a dog person as I am, Casper's death was nonetheless very traumatic for me. He literally died in my arms, in the back of Grace's car in the middle of nowhere, and I held his (80-pound) body for two hours before we could reach our vet to get him cremated. It happened so fast--only three days from the first sign of illness (after which we immediately took him to the vet, but they said he was okay for the time being)--and only about an hour where he was actually dying. I had never witnessed any death before that, except maybe a bug or something. So this was huge for me. I'd had family members and family pets die, but I'd never been there. After we took Casper to be cremated, Grace and I went home alone and just cried beside each other for so long. I felt like we were so impossibly tiny, and that the huge powers of life and death had just ripped through us and left us like little leaves blowing in the wind. I have never felt more drained. I replayed what had happened thousands of times in my head, and I had to tell the story to so many people who were as shocked by his sudden death as we were. But actually, telling it helped. It got easier each time. And writing it out was so healing. So even though I felt like I would never get my strength back after what happened, I of course have.

Lastly, I am definitely okay. And if you've lost a pet, or are worried about losing one in the future, you will be okay too! It's a bit overwhelming to think about losing either of my current dogs, because as this post shows I'm not done grieving Casper . . . so I don't know how I could handle going through another loss. But, I know I could. Also, my best advice is to adopt another dog or two as soon as you can :)

If you're going through this, hang in there!

Q & A With Grace

Hi everyone! As you might have seen on my Instagram, we are now less than 100 days out from our wedding! I'm feeling all kinds of sentimental these days and relishing this season of dating/engagement that is about to come to an end (to make way for the best chapter of all). We are almost all done with our premarital counseling, so I feel like we know each other better than ever and have really gone over the ins and outs of our relationship, dreams, goals, personalities, etc. With that in mind, and in response to questions I got in my reader survey from a few months back, I thought it would be fun to do a little Q&A with Grace on our relationship. We answered the questions separately and then I pasted them into this post, so we weren't influenced by the other person's answers. Enjoy!

Do you remember the first thing you said to one another?

G: I don't remember the first thing we said to one another, but I do remember the first time we saw each other. We were in a class so it was probably our names.

E: Yes, I remember the first second I saw Grace and exactly what we both said. It was December 2012. I walked into a pre-semester meeting for a new class we were both signed up for in the coming spring (also side note what was wrong with that professor?! Having a meeting before the semester started? That's not right, haha). Grace was there already, which looking back is funny because I'm usually more on time than she is. I'm pretty sure she was wearing purple sweatpants. The professor was going around and asking where people were from, and when I found out Grace was from Belgium, I asked why she didn't have an accent or if she was faking an American accent. COOL. That's not weirdly judgmental or nosy at all... Then Grace put on a perfect French/Belgian accent and started talking like that to show she could do both (she's very interesting in that Belgian people can't tell she's a native English speaker and Americans would never guess she's also a native French (Belgian) speaker).

What is your favorite quality about each other?

G: Lizzie goes above and beyond to make the people in her life feel special. She never forgets a birthday, and can't wait to throw you a dinner party. She's also a great listener. She will be as attentive to friends going through a rough patch, as she will to me complaining about the Hellraiser franchise.

E: If I had to pick one, I would probably pick Grace's easygoing, trusting perspective on life. Even though we both get the blues every now and then or get anxious about something specific, Grace is SO good at keeping perspective, not sweating the small stuff, and snapping me out of it if I'm ever in a spiral of worrying or negative thinking. Grace really does trust that it will all work out in any given situation, which is such a good quality for me to be around.

Who said I love you first?

G: I did. I was waking up from a nap and it just came out.

E: Grace did, a month after we started dating, right after waking up from a nap.

Who is the messiest?

G: She is. I'm not kidding. That's the gag of the season.

E: Me, which is SO CRAZY because I never in a million years thought I'd marry someone cleaner than I am. I am pretty clean, I probably clean the house a couple times a week and generally like things to be tidy. But Grace will not sleep if even one thing is out of place. It's kind of fun being the "messier" one, because I never imagined that could be the case.

What is something people don't know about your (soon to be) spouse?

G: She has just as many weird voices and characters as I do. Ask her about The Yukon Shrew.

E: This is hard, because I feel like Grace is a pretty open book. I guess I would say one thing that some people might not realize is how sensitive Grace can be. People might guess that I'd be the main one needing a shoulder to cry on or getting hurt feelings easily, but I'd say it's about equal between us.

Do you ever fight?

G: Not really. We disagree plenty, we are very different people. But we don't get into fights with each other.

E: No, we've never had a fight. I don't say that as a way of bragging or a badge of honor, it's just true. I don't think fighting means you're necessarily in a bad relationship. It's just not in either of our personalities to fight. We've raised issues with each other and had tough discussions every now and then, but we've always gotten over it within 5 minutes. Grace is so so forgiving and humble, she would never make me try to earn forgiveness if I did something to bruise her feelings. She just forgives and truly moves on and never brings it up again.

Between the two of you, who would you generally say is the money spender and who is the money saver?

G: Lizzie is great with saving and budgeting. We both like to splurge, but I would say I can be more of a spender than her.

E: We have actually been talking about this a lot lately in premarital counseling, because I know that financial struggles are one of the biggest sources of conflict with newlyweds (so we want to address it beforehand!) I would say that we're both generally savers who have no problem with treating ourselves and choosing nice things when it matters. For instance, when we were furnishing our first house together, we rarely made decisions based solely on price and finding the cheapest option--we made decisions based on how long things would last, the quality, and whether they fit our style and would be something we'd be proud to have in our home together. Same with our wedding and honeymoon. These things happen once in a lifetime so it's just not worth skimping for the sake of skimping. I also really cringe at being cheap when you don't have to be. So I guess we're practical people, with a touch of champagne taste :) But for daily decisions and ongoing payments, we try to be frugal and wise, and we have some exciting goals for how much money we want to save as newlyweds. I trust Grace completely; we are combining our money into a joint bank account asap after we're married and I have no worries at all about doing that. 

Who takes longer to get ready?

G: Me because I change my outfit at least 3 times before deciding on anything.

E: I think usually Grace, but we might be tied. Neither of us takes long to get ready. 

What was your first road trip together?

G: I think it was to Kern River. My first camping trip too!

E: A weeklong trip in summer 2015 from Sonoma (Northern California wine country) to San Diego. We slept under the stars, had a private tour and tasting at a hilltop winery all to ourselves, played on the beach with Casper in Big Sur, saw Joshua Tree for the first time, fell in love with Pismo Beach (which we'd never heard of previously), treated ourselves to a night at the Ojai Valley Inn and Spa, and started a lifelong hobby together of road tripping with dogs.

*Note--Grace is right, Kern was our first road trip... I was thinking along the lines of a multi-part trip I guess.

What part of your wedding day are you most excited for?

G: I'm excited for all of it - but I'm especially excited to celebrate the day with some dear friends and family who are coming to Malibu from all over the world. We feel really blessed to have such a great support system.

E: Our vows. We wrote them recently and they're so good. After saying those words, I'll be on cloud 9 no matter how the rest of the day goes!

Thanks for reading! xoxo

Favorite Podcasts for Road Trips

I don't know why, but it look me a LONG time to get behind the idea of listening to podcasts in the car (or at all). It just was not appealing to me for a while. I had heard that there were all these great podcasts out there, and people seemed to really like them, but I felt like I would be bored.

Well, I finally opened my mind to this awesome medium a few years ago (mostly through Grace intentionally choosing podcasts for our drives), and today I want to share what some of our favorite podcasts have been for road trips! In my experience the best podcast recommendations have been through blogs or word-of-mouth, so I hope you find something new that you enjoy listening to. If you have suggestions you think Grace and I would like, I'd also love to hear them!

Here are some that we've gotten really into:

Generation Why - the two hosts get together and discuss a case or mystery each episode. They usually discuss famous/infamous murders, but they also discuss mysteries like the Titanic conspiracy theory (that they totally debunk), Princess Diana's death, and others. This is one of the few murder mystery podcasts Grace will listen to (because she wants to avoid parallel thinking for her show Murder with Friends), because it's a different-enough concept. That said, if you like her show, I'm sure you will love Generation Why.

Young House Love - actually, this is one that I'm just into on my own (I haven't had Grace listen to it but it's more my style than hers). It's a married couple who are somewhat of experts in home decor and renovations, and each episode they discuss common questions and new ideas related to those concepts. I was skeptical when I heard about this podcast--how can a non-visual medium deal with design and decor in an interesting way? But trust me, they really do! If you're at all interested in DIY, home decorating, etc., check out Young House Love.

Serial - this one kind of goes without saying, as it really revamped the whole podcast genre and was incredibly popular. I'm guessing you've already listened to it. If you haven't, this is a great introductions to podcasts and will convince you of how riveting they can be. Note: I tried listening to Season 2 and didn't like it, I'm sorry to say.

S-Town - initially along the same lines as Serial (same producers, I believe), S-Town is a captivating and wildly fascinating podcast. It's the first podcast Grace and I listened to on our Alaska trip, and we were both completely engrossed for hours. I will say, without giving anything away, the themes and topics were VERY different from what I was expecting, and very different from Serial. I promise, this one is worth listening to.

Criminal - this podcast has one of my favorite narrators, Phoebe Judge. Just love her voice. She discusses different crimes and a whole variety of things that somehow involve criminal justice (the theme is very broad). Every now and then there's an episode that's a miss for me, but most are hits. They're pretty short episodes, which is nice if you just have an average-length commute and want to hear a good story.

You Must Remember This - one of Grace's all-time favorites. It discusses the secrets and forgotten histories of Hollywood's first century. Grace is an old Hollywood fan and knows all the old movie stars' names, which I think most people have forgotten (which is kind of the theme You Must Remember This explores). If you are interested in old Hollywood, this is a great podcast.

In the Dark - Grace and I each (separately, on our commutes) recently listened to this podcast, and we agreed it was one of the most riveting we'd listened to in a long time--for us, up there with Serial and other "greats". It's been out for a couple of years, but I hadn't heard of it until recently. The subject matter is dark (as the name might suggest), but it's incredibly compelling and highlights an important area of criminal justice/social policy from a perspective I had never thought about. Season two (about a different case) is coming out next week, and I'm looking forward to listening.

Heaven's Gate - we listened to this podcast last weekend on our drive to Jamul (check out my recap of that trip here). Sometimes the narrator was a little cheesy or overly dramatic, but the basic topic (the Heaven's Gate cult and the mass suicide in San Diego) is SO interesting. I didn't know much at all about the cult, so I was hooked on this podcast and learned a lot about a strange little slice of history.

Honorable Mentions - these are a few that I wasn't glued to, but definitely still entertained us on our long Alaska drives (and I'm sure they're exactly someone else's cup of tea):

Up & Vanished - this podcast is about the disappearance of Georgia beauty queen Tara Grinstead. The story is horrifying and compelling, but the narrator just wasn't my favorite. We didn't end up listening to the end of this one. I also felt like there were entire episodes that didn't go anywhere and could have been cut out of the series. That said, if you have a particular interest in this case, the podcast goes really in-depth about it.

Someone Knows Something - kind of the same issue; slow podcast, not my favorite narrator. But again, very interesting case, and took place in Canada, where we were traveling at the time.

Missing & Murdered - we listened to this because it deals with Alberta Williams, who (it is suspected) was murdered on the "Highway of Tears." We drove the Highway of Tears (a highway in rural British Columbia where a high rate of women have gone missing and/or been murdered) for a couple of days on our Alaska trip, and--I have no idea why--we thought it would be "fun" to listen to a podcast about it. Well, we didn't get up getting scared, which goes to show you the podcast was a little dry. Side note - you can find out more about the Highway of Tears here. We felt perfectly safe our whole drive.

Happy podcast listening!