people i do not know that have changed my life {or pidnkthcml fer short} part uno

welp sir or ma'am

{first of all, i hope i didn't just make you feel old... bcuz i sure as heck feel old when people call me that. or "lady".}

i love people.
i really do.

i love inspiration. and beauty. gosh they are amazing.

so here is to people!

i am in love with this woman.
i want to be her friend.
best friend.
as in BFF.
like we could have a cheesy necklace duo of a halved sandwich. or a lock and key.
that dealie.

she is so so so lovely.
so empowering.

the first book i found from her took my breath away.
wreck this journal.
it changed me in ways that i cannot describe.
i bought another one.
and another.

now we have just about all her books in the house.

she. is. brilliance.
reading things that come from her brilliant little mind have made me do the closed-mouth-smile on many occasions.
the one i don't like.
i just can't help it.
she's just too beautiful a person.

one of the most striking things i have taken away from her is to look at life as a museum.
not in a serious-black-ties-and-don't-touch-signs kinda way.
but as though everything is something to be admired,
as though there is beauty in everything,
even mistakes,
and messes,
and garbage.

your life is your art. 

notice the smaller things in life that have always been there, silently making the world funnier, brighter, more lovely.

my beautiful sister just got me this book for Christmas:
living out loud.

it's quite possibly her best book {ahhh maybe tied for this one}
and i am loving every page.

it's hard for me to get through it because every page is absolutely drenched with the best medicine i have ever tasted.


one of the first pages i had read brought me some of the best insight i have received in a while.
it advises us to look to our childhood when we are feeling lost.
remember how fearless and uninhibited we were.
remember what inspired us,
what books we really liked,
what they were about,
what we wanted to be when we were older,
how we looked at adults,
what frightened us,
what made us giggle so loudly people turned their heads.
that's who we are.
in our purest, untainted forms,
we knew what drove our souls to happiness, to dream, to be afraid, to live for each day.

i love her.

so here is to keri smith.
i am truly blessed to be sharing the planet with her beautiful soul.