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Lately I've had the itch to entirely redo some of the rooms in our house. We still need to put in new flooring as part of our basement renovation, I'd love to completely remodel our master bath, and we are in desperate need of a new backsplash in our kitchen, which is what we had said would be the first thing to change when we moved in. Four years later, we still have a black backsplash, and we haven't even painted our master bath.

However, home projects start to get expensive, and after spending most of our summer finishing our patio remodel, a new bathroom and flooring don't seem to be part of the plan in the immediate future. As a darker season creeps in, I am beginning to become more and more irritated with how dark our kitchen feels. Currently, it is a bright and rich salmon/coral color on the paintable walls, exposed brick on another wall, and a cream with a hint of nutmeg color for the doors and trim. The colors are warm and inviting, but have been that way for 4.5 years now, and I'm ready for a change.

Most of our kitchen utensils, pots and pans, and other such accessories are turquoise, which is a great compliment with the current wall color. However, I think I'd like to lighten it up a bit. We're big fans of color and don't like white walls, so I've started looking at some light peach options that would compliment the turquoise theme and could be brightened with whiter trim and doors.

Here's a look as some of the fun spaces I've stumbled across that have incorporated peach while searching for some inspiration.

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What colors are you drawn to when you want to brighten up a room? Do you repaint your rooms often when you're inspired to make a change? What other light colors do you think would compliment our turquoise accents well?

A little over a year ago, we returned from our epic adventure in Australia. At that time, I wrote about perspective. Spending three and a half days in the desert surrounded by red rock and enveloped in heat was perhaps an almost spiritual experience as it was juxtaposed with the hustle and bustle of life we had just experienced in Sydney. When we returned, we had been refreshed from our travels and were ready for a new start. I wanted to stay on the positive side of things, as the positivity that we encountered in Australia was almost contagious. And to stay positive, I needed to cut out the negative aspects that were infiltrating my life.

1 // I thought about the people that brought negativity to my life, and if they weren't positive influences in my daily life, I cut the ties without looking back. I evaluated these situations in both my personal and business life. Some of the situations were one-sided relationships, where I contributed too much with little respect back, people that put me down or dismissed the validity of me or my business on a regular basis, friendships that weren't really friendships to begin with, or other people who just generally never had a positive outlook on life. I worried that I would offend people by cutting these ties, but I ultimately decided that keeping my life positive was more important than the possibility of offending people.

2 // I introduced new activities into my daily life that made me feel good about myself. I started exercising more frequently, waking up earlier, spending time for myself, eating lunch outside, partaking in other activities in the evening that didn't involve tv. Changing my daily habits made me feel more positive because I was getting more out of each day.

3 // I pursued product ideas for my business without worrying about whether or not I'd be stepping on others' toes. Over the past few years, I had a lot of ideas stewing around in my brain, but I always worried that people would think that I was copying or piggybacking off of an already used idea even though I had began developing a similar concept months before. In fact, I even had some strange scenarios, where other people in my business network would elude to me doing so in a very passive aggressive way. A lot of times, this caused me to not follow through with an idea that I'd been perfecting in my idea book, for fear that I'd offend someone. As a result, I was feeling creatively stifled and extremely negative about myself. I was allowing others to dictate what I did or did not do with my business, and that wasn't okay.

I realized that I should still be able to follow through with the ideas that I had thought of even if others produced something similar before I had had the chance to make my idea public. Letting others dictate what I was or was not doing with my business was making me feel horrible, so I let go of the fear of being perceived as a bad person and dove head first into some really fantastic projects I'd been brainstorming for months and months. My printed pencils were one of those things, and I'm so glad that I just went for it!

4 // I started being spontaneous. Meet up for drinks on a random Monday night with neighbors? Sure, why not! Take up a last minute offer for complimentary tickets for a dinner cruise? Absolutely! Take Lilah for a walk along the water after dinner, even though she already went on a walk in the park? Most definitely! Decide to try out a new corner bar at 9:00 on a week night? Yup! Decide to share a studio space with a letterpress printer? Heck yes!

Being spontaneous is something that would give me a fit of anxiety previously because I didn't have a plan. While I'm still not entirely over that, I've learned to let go and just do things because I feel like it, not because I need to follow some societal rule that you can't get out of your house on a weeknight. And doing so has made me a much happier and positive person.

While I still have days where I like to wallow a little (but don't we all!), after making these changes in my life, I have spent the last year feeling much more free as an individual. As my favorite set of pencils say, I do what I want!

Have you had to cut ties with negativity in your life? What sorts of things did you do to bring more positivity to your daily life?

Blue is my favorite color. While I prefer shades of aqua and turquoise, there is also something so classic about royal blue. I especially love the color in various housewares, perhaps slightly biased as I think back to the pitcher and tiles that my mother always used in our kitchen. Royal blue feels rich in tone and soothing as blue often feels, yet it can make a bold statement.

1 // Rika Dinner Plate, 2 // Solar System Poster, 3 // Blue Bottle Collection, 4 // Kate Spade Mini Carson Crossbody Bag, 5 // IKEA Table Lamp, 6 // Converse All Star Ox

 

Do you like royal blue? What's your favorite shade of blue?

We are seasonal cooks and eaters, and even more so this year as we joined a CSA. Since June, we've spent a portion of our Saturday mornings at one of the farmers' markets excitedly choosing that week's fruits and vegetables and crafting a dinner menu to incorporate them all. In the beginning, we selected strawberries, zucchini, spring onions, snap peas, and other spring items. As the weather has shifted, we have our choice of squash, greens, potatoes, and other root vegetables.

Recently, we opted for a butternut squash. We decided to pair it with some of the spinach we had picked while at the apple orchard along with some fall-like spices and a some sausage. The end result was a hearty fall dish that left us with full bellies and the sure feeling that fall had most definitely arrived.

This recipe makes two glass pans full of stuffed shells. I usually bake one pan and freeze the other pan before it gets baked.

What you'll need:

• 1 box of jumbo shells
• 1 butternut squash, peeled and cubed
• 1 pound of mild pork sausage
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 cup of chopped spinach
• 1 cup of ricotta
• 1/2 cup of heavy cream
• 1 teaspoon of ground sage
• 1/2 teaspoon of ground nutmeg

Directions:

Preheat the over to 375 degrees. Place the butternut squash in a pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil, and cook until tender. While the squash is cooking, bring water to boil in a large pot and cook the jumbo shells. In a frying pan, fry sausage and onion together until browned. Add the chopped spinach and stir for several minutes until it wilts.

When the squash is tender, drain any excess water, and transfer to a food processor and blend until smooth. Place the processed squash in a bowl and add the ricotta, cream, sage, and nutmeg. Mix thoroughly and stir in the sausage mixture. Using a spoon, fill each of the shells with the squash and sausage mixture and place them in a greased glass baking dish. Bake the shells for about 30-40 minutes or until slightly browned.

 

Are you a seasonal foods eater? What are some of your favorite fall recipes?

When I first started my business, I have to admit I had no idea what I was doing. My idea of being organized was throwing all of my receipts into a drawer. That was all perfectly fine until year two came around and preparing taxes became that much more difficult as I had to sort through said receipt drawer.

1 // Nate Berkus File Folders, 2 // IKEA Letter Tray, 3 // Greenroom Binder, 4 // Sugar Paper Daily Planner, 5 // Striped Expandable File

 

When I made the transition to running my business full time, I also made the decision to be a lot more organized in those less exciting areas of accounting and record keeping. I now use a combination of standard office items to keep track of receipts, invoices, and Etsy records as well as Outright. Outright has been one of the most useful tools I've used because it automatically enters data from all of my online sales through Etsy, my website, and PayPal. In addition, it helps me calculate quarterly estimated taxes and categorizes all of my expenses. They also have an app I use to keep track of gas mileage as well as snap photos of receipts.

I use all of the items pictured above to stay organized throughout the month with a very simple system. I file papers in the letter tray as I go and use the planner to keep on top of due dates and reminders. At the end of each month, I update anything I need to in Outright, I print any records I need, and quickly file away my receipts and invoices where necessary. While this aspect of my business is the part I dislike the most, getting and staying organized with a very simple system makes the process much less painful than it used to be.

Do you struggle with staying organized in the less creative aspects of your business? What are some of your favorite tools to stay organized?