Madness, I tell you...

The lack of posts has a reason: life is C-R-A-Z-Y as of late.

For one thing, we're moving.

Again.

Justin and I realized that this will be our fourth living space in the span of two years. That's right - by the time we settle into our new abode, we will have lived in FOUR different places since tying the knot in 2009.

That is four times of packing boxes, crossing our fingers that nothing gets damaged in said boxes, breaking down furniture [ or not...because it's sooo not worth it to attempt to reconstruct those IKEA pieces sans the original instructions...], loading / unloading U-Hauls, re-assembling non-IKEA furniture, unpacking those mountains of boxes, figuring out how to best organize new spaces and places, and waiting for weeks until our new home actually feels like home.

However, this time we're doing things a little differently.

We always knew that at some point we'd have to do a major purge of our possessions since we've been planning on paring way down once Justin heads to med school. However, we didn't expect that to happen until at least next summer, so now we're scrambling to purge unnecessary items. Due to renting an actual house, we've I've gotten into this nasty habit of -ahem- acquiring [ and creating ] more items than we I maybe should have. Some vintage Ball jars to use as vases? Sure, I'll take four. Perhaps a decorative wall hanging? I'll craft some and then also take one for free from my mom! This has resulted in a few too many items than we actually need and I'm feeling just a bit overwhelmed at the sight of them as I mentally pack items into imaginary boxes.

"Please chase a peony, love"

I'm going to make a confession: I don't always do the greatest job of looking on the bright side. I realize this isn't the most ridiculous thing in the world since there are a lot of people who tend to be self-proclaimed "realists" [ c'mon, in all honesty that's just an excuse to be a negative Nancy ] and don't always consider the glass half full. However, a huge part of my motivation to revamp this blog was to change the name to Chasing Peonies, which was actually a metaphor for me to lean more towards optimism on a daily basis.

I used to be a bubble of flowers and butterflies, hopes and dreams. But somewhere along the way, for a myriad of reasons that need not be delved into, I transformed into a dark hole filled with nothing but shrewdness and negativity. While I've since come out of that [ thank goodness ] , a small part lingers and threatens to take over when I lose sight of what is so good and real in my life now. In fact, it probably comes out more than I realize, considering all too often Justin will encouragingly remind me to change my attitude with one simple phrase: "Please chase a peony, love."