50 states of brave introduces: ms. california!

We are pleased to announce Ms. California...

Aarean of The Color Issue!

If you're just joining us, 50 States of Brave is a blogging project that celebrates the little opportunities we have to be brave everyday and the women who make these habits a way of life. As part of the project, everyone blogger is sending in a story of the bravest thing they've ever done for all of us to get to read, which makes us pretty excited. 

The whole project is sponsored by Favoring Brave, my Etsy store. Each lady gets to pick an item from the store to model in her post and keep as a souvenir of her bravery!

Wanna see all of the brave ladies already featured? 

Visit our lovely archives or Pinterest page of bloggers and their Favoring Brave picks!

Wanna join in the fun and represent your state? 

There's more info about that at the bottom of this post.

Alright here's the good stuff from Aarean:

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Aarean is modeling the Sea Green and Bronze Earrings by Favoring Brave.

Throughout my life, I have always considered myself to be pretty brave. I've gone scuba diving with sharks, spear fishing at night, sky diving...I've even attempted motorcycle stunts (thanks go my dad) that usually ended up badly ha...I feel like I had the whole brave thing down. However, that was until I got pregnant with my first baby girl. I was petrified in every sense of the word. So many doubts and questions came flowing into my mind on a daily basis. What if I wasn't a good mom? How was I going to take care of this little baby that God entrusted me with? What will I do when she gets hurt or sick? Oh my gosh, how am I going to give birth?! Well my friends, she is now two years old and I have another little four month old. It was the greatest thing I've ever done. My husband and I always talk about how our life really wasn't complete until these little ones came into it. It was the bravest thing I have ever done. It will be forever the bravest thing I've ever done. It made me a better person. It made me realize what this life is truly about. It's about family, love and making your life worth something so that when you grow old you have others to share it with and who will carry on your legacy of these same values.

Life is to precious to not be brave. Being brave makes you go out of your comfort zone and explore things you never would have had you not taken a step out. I love color, which is why I started my Color Issue blog. To me, being brave adds color to your life! It makes it so not everything is so black and white. Come on over and visit...

xoxo

Aarean

Think you have what it takes to represent your state? Awesome! Here's what you have to do to apply:

1. Follow Favor the Brave through GFC or Bloglovin.

2. Send me an email at favoringbrave@gmail.com with your name, you blog address, what state you're from (Don't forget this!), and why you should get to represent your state as it's resident brave lady!

3. For a complete description of project requirements or to visit our past honorees gallery please visit the 50 States of Brave Blogger Search page.

Some states are filled already, but there are lots of openings left!

All opinions in this post are the opinions of the blogger featured, and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of this blog. This is a forum for openness and acceptance, so please be kind. Any derogatory comments will be removed at the discretion of the blog editor.

in the meantime

Jacket: Penny's (Ireland), Sweater, Skirt, Leggings: thrifted, Booties: Charlotte Russe, Earrings: Color Diamond Earrings

Last Monday I wrote about my goal to lose weight and I received so much supportive feedback. Thank you for reading and thank you for your support. It's gotten me through some workouts in the last week already! 

It has been tempting for me not to style blog while I am trying to lose weight because I don't feel like I'm at my best, but I am trying to remember that feeling comfortable with myself is a choice not dictated to me by a scale. Do I want to lose some and will I work to do it? Yes. But is the day I reach my goal going to be some mythical day of perfect self esteem fulfillment? No. That day can be any day I chose for it to be.

So long story short, I'm still going to be style blogging. Hoo-rah.

50 states of brave introduces: ms. oklahoma!

If you're just joining us, 50 States of Brave is a blogging project that celebrates the little opportunities we have to be brave everyday and the women who make these habits a way of life. As part of the project, everyone blogger is sending in a story of the bravest thing they've ever done for all of us to get to read, which makes us pretty excited. 

The whole project is sponsored by Favoring Brave, my Etsy store. Each lady gets to pick an item from the store to model in her post and keep as a souvenir of her bravery!

Wanna see all of the brave ladies already featured? Visit our lovely archives or Pinterest page of bloggers and their Favoring Brave picks!

Wanna join in the fun and represent your state? 

There's more info about that at the bottom of this post.

Alright here's the good stuff:

***********************************************************

Jill from Favor the Brave!

I am modeling the White Stone Earrings by Favoring Brave.

Which is me... because I wanted a chance to share with you a little about myself and why I started this project. It has been a amazing to read the stories of other strong and brave women, and I wanted to add my voice to the mix.

So first, a little background on why this project exists. I named my blog Favor the Brave on a whim.

That's it, opened and closed. I liked it. No hidden nefarious plans, no deep personal meaning. At least at first. But then things changed. Favor the Brave across my title bar came to be a constant encouragement to myself, a mantra of sorts that urged me on to do the hard things, the dream things, and ultimately the brave things I was supposed to do. Renaming my business Favoring Brave came after this transformation, and this time the name was loaded, which I'll be going into more in depth in a later post.

I think fashion and lifestyle bloggers are a lot braver than even we give ourselves credit for. Stereotypically  a lot of people think that we're a shallow species, but I have always found the opposite to be true. Bloggers are some of the funniest, most thoughtful, encouraging and supportive people I have had the pleasure to know, and of course, they look awesome while doing it! So that's when it clicked for me - bloggers are already being brave, and it's high time we celebrated that. 50 States of Brave was born.


What's the bravest thing you've ever done... When I first wrote it, I knew it was a loaded question for a lot of people that would raise others: What does it mean to be brave? Do I even consider myself brave by my own definition?

To me, bravery is staring down your fear, looking it in the eye and saying, "I see you, but you're not stopping me." It is doing anything worthy that you thought you couldn't. It is doing the harder, right thing, when the easier, wrong thing would be so much, well, easier. I think bravery is one of those virtues people forget about. It's associated with medieval battle,  firemen, and cliff diving, not putting yourself out there, making sacrifices for a long term goal, or choosing to love another human being. But I think this mindset is wrong. Bravery is a virtue we need to make our own, today, wherever we are.

So after that long-winded introduction, it's time for my bravest moment, which was actually hard to decide on. Was it leaving home and going to college? Was it flying to Ireland by myself for a completely solo summer abroad? Was it acting in all those shows through high school and college? I ultimately decided that no, it was none of these.

It was getting married.

Marriage is strange. You meet someone awesome, sparks fly, you hang out for two or three years, and then you promise to keep doing that until you die. Strange, right? But so important.

My husband and I had both spent a lot of time thinking about marriage before we got married. We are both on the same page about the meaning of marriage and why it is important, which is because it makes both of us better people than we could be on our own. That doesn't mean that marriage is for everyone or that being married is better than other vocations, but for the two of us, it's exactly what we need. Our strengths and flaws mesh together in such a way that we can grow, alone and together through our relationship. It will be the struggles that help us grow, just as the good times, but the most important thing about marriage, and I think the truly brave thing about it, is that we vowed it would go on, till death do us part.

This marriage has no exit strategy. There is no out. Marriage forces you to stop being selfish, to give of yourself, sometimes until it hurts. Marriage is hard. It is work. And that is good. That's how we grow, how we become someone better than we were when we started. And that takes bravery, because at the end of the day, we don't always want to change for the better. It doesn't always feel good. But bravery helps us go on.

I met an elderly couple once, married well over 50 years and I asked them if they had ever considered divorce. "Heck no!" the man said. His wife smiled and added, "Murder, maybe, but never divorce!" That's my goal for my marriage. A felony, maybe, but break this promise? Heck no.

Think you have what it takes to represent your state? Awesome! Here's what you have to do to apply:

1. Follow Favor the Brave through GFC or Bloglovin.

2. Send me an email at favoringbrave@gmail.com with your name, you blog address, what state you're from (Don't forget this!), and why you should get to represent your state as it's resident brave lady!
3. For a complete description of project requirements or to visit our past honorees gallery please visit the 50 States of Brave Blogger Search page.

Some states are filled already, but there are lots of openings left!

peace&love,

Jill

balancing act

Once again the urge to write ends up with me on the internet, scrolling through Google Reader, checking the sales on F21 and Free People, and checking in on my old stomping ground, College Fashion. A wasted opportunity.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the internet. Without it, how would I be so inspired? Between Pinterest and the many love ladies whose blogs I read on a regular basis, I never run out of ideas. But here’s where the problem comes in—so often my inspiration never makes it to the doing phase because I’m wasting time on the internet collecting even more “inspiration.” I pin outfit after outfit but don’t take the time with my own clothes to thoughtfully combine them. I decorate my house on Pinterest but the poster I’ve been meaning to hang since the honeymoon is still propped against the wall.

Perhaps this is strictly a problem with me, as I do suffer from a lack of discipline to stop looking at pretty things and go make and do pretty things. Either way, I believe that an artistic life needs to intersect with the internet only briefly, glancingly even, because life, especially an artistic one, cannot be lived digitally. The internet is a fabulous tool, but I must use it consciously, rather than letting it use me. There must be balance, as in all things.

Maybe everyone else has gotten the balancing act down, but I’m still working on it. I find it a lot easier to mindlessly absorb than to purposefully create, and that’s one thing I am working daily to change. It’s time to start using the inspiration I find and then passing it on to others.

Art is gift giving to your audience, and it’s time I start focusing on the gift.

peace&love,

Jill

book it

The New Year has also brought with it many new projects, and I am especially excited to share this one with you! I have been a life long lover of super fat little spiral notebooks, and it is so hard to find good ones that aren't too skinny, aren't traditionally bound, and don't have some generic geometric design on the cover. So what did I decide to do? Make them myself!

Let me introduce Old Magic notebooks from Favoring Brave.

Each book includes a sheet in the back with information about how the book was made, how old it is, where it was found and what book number it is - book number being the number in which it was made. That means I'll be able to keep track of how many I make total over time!

The first five are available on Etsy now! Here they are - click the picture for a closer look.

i'm back, but different

All my favorite blogs have been humming lately with everyone's new years resolutions and plans for a brand new 2013, and that has been awesome. I've loved reading what everyone is excited about - the changes they will be making and their commitments to be more authentic, happy, and whole this year.

And I suppose it's time for me to do the same. I haven't felt much like myself on the blog lately because I feel like I've been hiding something  - how I feel about my body. I was tiny in high school, and at 5' 2" that felt about right. I gained a little in college, but nothing crazy, and now I am quite a bit above where I want to be. It has made me not want to get dressed lately - and that's how I knew something was really wrong!

So, although it's not a "resolution" per se, I'm making some life changes. I'm eating healthier. I'm Zumba-ing (so fun)! And I'm trying to remember that this push to feel more comfortable in my own skin is ultimately a quest to be a better steward of the body and the life God has given me.

Here's to a wonderful 2013. Many blessings to you and yours.

free ad space to start the year!

That's what I said! Free ad space! All you need to do it swap ad with me and you'll be featured for one month in my right sidebar. Go to my SPONSOR page and link up! Hope to see you all smiling at my from my side bar!

But HURRY! This deal will only last a little while!

All swaps are subject to my discretion. Only blogs that are in keeping with Favor the Brave's values and audience profile will be selected for swapping.