High Museum in The ATL, yo. #throwbackthursday

Once upon a time I did not dig it, but I've grown to love Atlanta. Mostly this transformation was made possible because two of my besties live there, so I can navigate the best parts of it with them. On a trip in 2009 we went to the High Museum. I still remember this piece so vividly and I still love it very much.

Love and grits,
me

Grandma's memorial #throwbackthursday

I'm in Iowa right now for my Grandma Marion's memorial service. It seems only appropriate that this Throwback Thursday post share my memories of her and share the beautiful obituary written by my aunt Nyle.

Marion was smart and sassy. My memory of her telling me about the courtship with my grandpa Otto says it all:

When Otto proposed marriage... "I told him that I still wanted to teach. I liked to teach. He had two choices: Take it or leave it." Otto waited five years, courting her in the meantime, and helping her open the schoolhouse on early winter mornings to start the fire before the children came. Only when she decided she was done teaching did they get married in 1942. {read the full post here}

Jessen family farm in Iowa

Love you, grandma.
me

Who am I? #throwbackthursday

For my first Throwback Thursday post, I clicked way back into the archives and selected a post at random. The first post that pulled up was a photo meme that went around the web in the summer of 2008. It was about answering a set of standard questions by selecting a Flickr photo. Your answer was the search term and you picked a photo to represent it. Some of the questions I would answer in exactly the same way. Some I can't even remember how I answered, even when trying to job my memory with the photo. I thought it would be fun to share the 2008 photo and answer the questions again.

Left to Right, Top to Bottom.

1. What is your first name?
2008: gail.
2013: still gail.

2. What is your favorite food?
2008: I think I was going for curry?
2013: I still love Indian food.

3. What high school did you go to?
2008: Timpanogos.
2013: No way to change that.

4. What is your favorite color?
2008: Don't know what I was going for there.
2013: Turquoise.

5. Who is your celebrity crush?
2008: Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal. Yes, both.
2013: Ditto, and so many more.

6. Favorite drink?
2008: Some sort of smoothie?
2013: Lots and lots of cold, cold water.

7. Dream vacation?
2008: Paris.
2013: Denmark.

8. Favorite dessert?
2008: Flourless chocolate molten cake with house-made gelato? Sounds like me.
2013: Salted caramel anything and/or berry pie.

9. What you want to be when you grow up?
2008: Now this is fascinating to me. I don't know the exact answer I had, but the fact that it pulled up globes shows me how late I am to this party. I've blogged A LOT recently about my shifting perceptions around success, my career, creativity, etc. I'm slowly owning the fact that I want to write and photograph and travel for real, like for a job, forever. I've always felt that way, but it took until 2013 to realize that may actually be possible sort of maybe to upgrade that from a hobby to a life.
2013: Passionate and tuned in. See above.

10. What do you love most in life?
2008: Travel.
2013: Travel.

11. One Word to describe you.
2008: Did I say balance? Peaceful? Calm? I'm not sure but I also find this fascinating. This post would've been when I was a program coordinator, pre-grad school, and traveling either for work or pleasure every couple weeks or so. Turns out that's more balanced, peaceful, and calm than the tailspin grad school left me in as an executive director who travels whenever she can but it's not nearly enough.
2013: Creative.

12. Your flickr (or other online) name.
2008: fourthirtyam.
2013: fouthirtyam, which I've had since the internet was born + my madeleines since 2007.

Love,
me