Archive for: My City

My City: Francetown, New Hampshire

December 10, 2012 - Author: admin

One of the best things about living in New England, is that occasionally we’ll get to sneak off into the woods on a weekend retreat and I’ll inevitably feel like I am in some kind of Jane Austen novel (do I need to explain that one, or do the pictures suffice?)

We came to this resort last year on my birthday (random Internet find) and I loved it so much we decided to make it an annual trip. I mean, come on: secluded cabin in the backwoods of New Hampshire (with modern amenities) in the middle of a golf course, private hot tub just outside the master suite, 2 fireplaces, kitchenette with every kitchen tool you can think of, cable TV, board games, king sized bed… To top it off, we brought lots of goodies like panera bread bowls, cinnamon rolls (that we waffle-ized thanks to pinterest), fruit smoothies, apple cider, hot chocolate, herbal tea. But the best part was just spending time with my favorite person and not having any competition for attention. In short, it was heaven.

-Jones

No Comments - Categories: Live, My City

Thanksgiving #latergram

November 29, 2012 - Author: admin

There is a place that I recently discovered in Boston, a place that feels so far removed from the hustle and bustle of city life, that I almost forget where I am. With a mile long causeway into a little known peninsula town named Nahant, panoramic ocean views engulf you on both sides, and within seconds you get that feeling of driving down PCH between Sunset Beach and Newport coast. It is a place that feels so much like home in California that I can’t believe that I am an entire continent away from it. And this discovery is all thanks to my new friends Hal and Suzi, who had the good fortune to move to Boston on a prompting, and subsequently took ownership of one of the most beautiful, peaceful, serene houses I’ve ever seen.

Brigham and I met Hal and Suzi when we went to their house a month ago to help them with their family history, and well, the rest is history! We hit it off so well that they invited us to spend thanksgiving with them, and soon enough we roped in a few more couples and small families to join us for the festivities. I could not wait to get back there and take pictures of the breathtaking views, the charming furnishings they collected and imported from France and other places abroad (where they lived previously for the past decade) and just enjoy the fun of it all. We spent the entire day cooking our individual “family tradition” recipes, of which I made Aunt Norma’s DELICIOUS orange rolls, and a few jello salads for the first time ever…all without a hitch!

All in all, I think the pictures tell the story better than I can. What a fun thanksgiving!

-Jones

No Comments - Categories: Live, My City

30 before 30

November 12, 2012 - Author: admin

In just a week from now, on November 20, I’ll be celebrating my 29th Birthday. But, for the past year or two with all the stress in my life, I’ve already felt 30…so I guess you could say it FEELS like I’m getting a year extra boost to get everything done that I want to do in my first 30 years! The 365 countdown will officially begin in 7 days, so here goes 30 goals to accomplish in the next year…

But, before I do that, I think I need to pat myself on the back for a few notable things I’ve already knocked off the list that I am super proud of myself for. This blog has certainly helped document a few of my small victories this year, but my decade of being 20-something has been fraught with unexpected obstacles and in many ways I’m excited to wrap it all up with a bang.

DONE (in the first 29)

backpack through europe (alone! thank you very much)
serve a mission in Hawaii
get hitched! And very happily mind you.
start an etsy shop
graduate college
be 100% financially independent (that was a big one for me)
stay close with best friends
re-learn piano (thank you 3+ years of piano church callings)
get to know grandma Jones with weekly visits (so glad I did before she passed away)
go white water rafting with Brigham
help Brigham get 2 masters degrees (yes, they’re mine too! I’m claiming them!)

There was a time when I was starting to come into my own, that I was incredibly gutsy and bold- almost crazy bold. People usually didn’t say the types of things that I would say. I told people (boys, authority figures, girls, whoever) exactly what I thought of them, or things, for better or worse. I loved to feel everything, and let every bit of life filter through every sensation I had, and then analyze ALL of it for hours, days. I felt comfortable venturing out of the country, or to the bathroom (you know how girls are) by myself. I loved analyzing intense social issues and bringing them up in day-to-day conversations, and I found out that other people found that refreshing. I was known to say on a regular basis “who gives a rats butt?” and I really meant it. When people asked me what I wanted to do for a living, I’d reply with 100% confidence “Whatever I want, of course” – and they bought it, and so did I. Whenever someone told me I was beautiful, I couldn’t accept the compliment unless I felt they really knew me, and were talking about my character. I still can’t. I loved people who didn’t love me back (which actually turns out to be a pretty great skill to acquire), almost defiantly, just to prove that ‘charity never faileth’ (even though a few times it did). And even though my life didn’t make a ton of sense to me at the time, or to anyone else, I LOVED being me. I was totally in love with life. I was constantly fascinated by everything. I was so faithful and prayerful and believing and I always just knew that things would work out. My best friends at the time loved me, and I loved them, and it was a big giant love fest of genuine friendship. I absolutely loved feeling authentic and alive and making my own personal touch on the world, and I loved watching each one of them do the same.

However, adult pressures and responsibilities and the need to make things work has watered me down quite a lot in the past 10 years, and I realized that I can’t always live my life not caring what others think, that I don’t really get to always do ‘whatever I want’ – and that sometimes it is nice to turn off feelings and be numb from time to time. But when the going got really tough, I went completely numb…I strove to be normal and easy to understand and I threw myself under the bus to appease people I could not please any other way, which totally didn’t work. It was miserable. And as I chucked all the quirky parts of me to the wayside, so to went my joy and lustre, and all my winning smiles (wink). The glitter that brought fascination and optimism to my life, my perspective, and my choices was hard to come by, and things that made me excited eventually burned out as I lost (so much) confidence in myself. It kind of felt like Fall was happening to my whole life, after the best, most vibrant summer and spring ever.

But if there is one thing I have observed about living in Boston, that I never could never quite grasp in California…it is that the seasons ALWAYS change! (thankfully!) Just when you have had enough of one season, there is another completely different one just around the corner – just waiting to invade your life for better or worse. And if you really miss your favorite season, it is totally legitimate to look forward to it coming back. And speaking of trees, I’ve been feeling around for my roots pretty actively since I got married and moved to Boston and especially since I started this blog, and I’ve come to the realization that the closer I get to the girl I had the courage to be at 19, the happier I am. So, here’s to being me…and blooming where I’m planted…for the next three decades!

30 BEFORE 30

Apply for Grad School!
Take the GRE and get a high score
Buy a house with Brigham and fix it up
Have a baby (but you know…can’t put a deadline on these things)
Have our first christmas at our own home (no traveling!)
Get my family genealogy names to the temple
Go on a carribean vacation with friends (cruise? Puerto Rico? all-inclusive?)
Go to a live concert (rock, classical, whatev)
Visit the best 5 museums in Boston
Get my ‘little boston print shoppe’ items featured on craft daily deal websites at least once.
Go camping in Vermont
Go to NYC to research genealogy (guess what! 90% of my ancestors came through NYC and stayed there! I guess I am an east coaster at heart…it’s in my blood)
Remember birthdays of friends and family and send them cards/gifts this year.
Go Dancing with Brigham (Zumba @ YMCA counts btw)
Go zip-lining through trees
Visit North Carolina to see Brigham’s mission
Take a tour of Mormon Church History on East Coast
Read ALL of the Harry Potter books
Read the Book of Mormon cover to cover (last time I did this was years ago)
Be a best friend and a hot wife to my husband (it’s trickier than you’d think)
Run in a REAL race
Wholeheartedly forgive everyone (or anyone) who has ever hurt me
Send hand-written notes to friends/family when I think about them
Offer some kind of service or volunteer work in the community
Make a trip back to Hawaii to visit my mission (and my brother)
Go to estate sales with Brigham
Design 10-15 more items for the etsy shop (at least)
Eat a Maine Fresh Lobster (have avoided it so far – not a huge fan of seafood)
Visit every state in New England/North East at least once
SMILE at everyone All the time.

-Jones

3 Comments - Categories: Insight, Jones, Live, My City, Write

The Winner, Maryland, and Sandy

November 6, 2012 - Author: admin

I had quite an eventful October. Fall wrapped itself up just like a present, and just as fast Sandy ripped it open. By the time she was done spreading her wrath, only one solitary leaf remained on the tree outside our front window. This was the sidewalk outside my front door during the storm.

And my neighborhood was “this close” to getting baptized…one storm surge and Boston would have been born again!

But we survived unscathed thankfully. And here are some more memories that prove New England is still just a beautiful place to be.

{walking through Charlestown}

{Backroads of Maryland}

Who wouldn’t want this commute to work? (ahem, Jessica)

Oh, and here is the winner of the giveaway. Congrats to Jenn Roth! And thank you everyone for participating in this giveaway and complimenting my creations. It really does mean the world to me!

Jenn you have 24 hours to respond to this post to claim your prize! Email me your shipping address to baybajones@gmail.com

And for those of you who did not win, I am still offering FREE SHIPPING this month- if you want to pick up a pillow of your own use code FREESHIP on checkout.

thanks a million for the love

-Jones

No Comments - Categories: Live, My City

Guest Post: On Hallows and Halloween

October 16, 2012 - Author: admin

One of my goals for my 30^th year is to be more festive and celebrate more with my kids. So yesterday my husband and I took our kids to the pumpkin patch to pick out our Halloween pumpkins. I got to thinking about Halloween celebrations because of some Christian friends who posted on Facebook about their objections to celebrating Halloween. My first thought was that anciently, Paul counseled people not to eat meat from idols only because it could confuse others. In the US, there isn’t much risk of people thinking that we are celebrating the evil spirits or what-have-you, since pretty much no one does anymore.

But aside from the fact that it doesn’t do much harm, there is another reason I think we celebrate these non-religious holidays. It’s from The Family: a Proclamation to the World:

“Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities.”

Holidays are a time for us to celebrate and do activities and spend time as a family. Family is, indeed, hallowed (as in holy, not haunted!). It doesn’t matter if I decorate my house to perfection or have the cutest Pin-worthy porch, but it does matter if I am spending time together with and growing closer to my family. And so I will relish and celebrate all these non-essential holidays, because in this world where so many things pull us away from our families, I want to hold on to the things that remind us to come together.

So Happy Halloween!

-Meg

No Comments - Categories: Guest Bloggers, Insight, Live, My City

Apple Picking and Blogging

October 15, 2012 - Author: admin

Oh hey! You thought I got lost under a heap of mundane life tasks for the past few weeks…didn’t you? Well, then, you’d be correct. But, we’ve also had lots of fun! We went “apple picking” only in our version, due to poor planning (I accidentally bought an entire costco package of apples earlier that week) we really just ate pumpkin donuts and enjoyed some hot apple cider on the most adorable little family owned farm in Boston! So, cheers to fall!

In my few weeks off, I’ve done some thinking and remembered something rather important while not posting anything. I’ve said from the beginning -at least to myself- and want to put it out there again (if I never have stated this clearly publicly) I am not a “blogger” at heart. I don’t dream of the entire world being privy to my personal affairs and details, nor do I attribute that to success. I am fascinated by people who actually have the gusto to do that, and are who are so committed to posting regularly – and I absolutely love reading their blogs. But I’ve got other fish to fry. This is by no means a personal diary, and everything I do post about are things that I purposely WANT to share with an audience, as a writer, or as an artist. But more than that, the one sole purpose of this blog is to create a SPECIAL place where old friends don’t lose touch with one another, and where new friends can find inspiration from one another, and where everyone finds it in themselves to reclaim some old lost forgotten part of themselves that USED to be so so important to your identity. In short – guest bloggers welcome!! Please, by ALL means, make something amazing and share it. Don’t hide your light under a bushel.

So, now that that’s out on the table – I want to say a little about what I DO dream of. I dream of being so talented and sharp with at least one or two talents that Heavenly Father has blessed me with. I dream of being an incredible, authentic, warm-hearted, talented person who can invite anyone into her world and leave them thinking higher thoughts, have a little more insight, and just a little bit deeper thoughts on life. Most of all, I dream of being successful in becoming the person that Heavenly Father wants me to be.

And yes, I have been buried under a myriad of tedious tasks this month, but I’ve also been hard at work rearranging my tiny living room, building a pretty awesome built-in desk (posting soon), and ikea-hacking an old TV stand, enjoying fall, navigating tricky car and budget annoyances, and TRYING to start my printmaking shop and getting ready for my FIRST craft fair on OCT 26th! I’ve always been a procrastinator (the pressure of deadlines makes me work smarter and faster), so I suppose the fact that it is only less than 2 weeks away and I have nothing accomplished is par for the course. But watch! And see! I will make the deadline if I have to pull an all-nighter.

2 Comments - Categories: Live, My City

Old Friend//New Friend

July 31, 2012 - Author: admin

This weekend I had the utter pleasure of hosting my old friend Sarah, who traveled up to Boston on a whim just before she finishes up her last 2 weeks of interning…in NYC…in advertising…on the CoverGirl account. Swoooooon. Anyway, I hadn’t seen her in about 3 years (since I was single and she visited my old ward), and I hadn’t spent any quality time with her in 4, when she was a sister missionary in San Diego, and when those were the only people I hung out with…(good times).

I picked her up at South Station at about 1am on Friday night, and we talked until almost 4 in the morning, got up on Saturday morning and hit the town! I had so much fun with her. The weather held strong all day and was basically perfect by Boston’s standards, and then in the evening we headed to a Music Festival (Brigham was excited about that) where we got rained out, but it was still fun. We ended the night on a makeshift dance floor, in the middle of many middle-age possibly drunk music lovers, in front of some Columbian band who sounded like Mana but who for the life of me I cannot remember the name of. We haven’t been dancing for 2 years (since we went to singles ward dances – I miss those by the way – am I the only one?) so it was a night to remember, even though the dancing only lasted about 15 minutes and then we were over it.

Sarah – you can come back anytime! Way to upgrade that ‘weak tie’ to a ‘tie’ (inside joke). Good luck with the job search I’m sure you’ll land something amazing!