#youarebeautiful

What is beauty? How is it defined? What makes a person beautiful? Beauty is so much more than your physical appearance. It is not measured by your weight or pant size.  It's not defined by your "hot" body or your hair.  Or by how others perceive your worth.

I believe that beauty comes from inside. It's in your heart and it's what you do.  It's the way you carry yourself. It's the things you do for others.  It's the kind words you speak to others.  It's the way you treat others.  It's the positive self talk within yourself and the love that you give yourself.  It's the kindness, forgiveness, and grace you give yourself.  It's knowing that you are ENOUGH.  It's knowing that you are worth something and that you are special.

So, I'm looking at you. Yes, you.  How do you define beauty? What makes you beautiful?

For me, it's doing the things I love.  It's challenging myself.  It's creating things for others and giving.  It's telling myself that I deserve happiness and to believe in the journey. This is when I know and feel beautiful. 

I had the great opportunity and honor to be the photographer for the  "YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL" shoot at work.  Wow…editing the pictures for these lovely women gave me so much joy! What a blessing it is to be part of their journey and to know them. 

Sleep

 The conversation J and I had while he was sleeping:

J: Do you want me to install Javascript on your computer?

N: Yeah, sure.

J: I'll do that right now.

Ladies and gentlemen, that's what happens when you are married to a Jerber.

Rainy

DAYS.

// Walk around Target looking at everything but buying nothing.  Sometimes you just like to imagine which picture frames would look good in your room. 

// Use your Starbucks gift card and order your favorite Cheese Danish (quite exquisite and just the right choice of dessert for a rainy day). And since you don't drink coffee, you try to get creative with the menu and end up ordering something that just doesn't make sense. 

// Accompany your husband to Best Buy and talk TVs with him even though they all look the same. And they are all big. 

// Go to the best Mexican restaurant in town (Las Tortugas) and order the same thing you have always ordered. Could there possible be anything else on the menu as delicious as this? Heck no. 

// Make a to do list and watch it get longer and longer by the minute.  Then you think to yourself how can one person possibly do everything on that list. Priorities. 

// End the day with a movie at home, cuddling with your husband on the couch, and everything in the world makes sense. 

Space

One of the main reasons why we bought this home is because of the lighting.  In March, we came to see this house on a rainy, cloudy day but the amount of light that was coming into the house was remarkable.  It was then that we knew this was going to be our home! J and I are very similar when it comes to home decor and we knew this is exactly what we wanted to do!  I've always wanted to do a family gallery and thought it turned out pretty good (unfinished)...just need to add a picture of JD! We are finished decorating the living room and I wanted to show you guys some pics! Enjoy!!!

Now...time to finish up the rest of the house. Eh..this might be a lifelong project. 

Nashvegas

Well, I promised I wouldn't use the obnoxious term NASHVEGAS, but it was toooooo easy! J and I headed out to Nashville this weekend for a romantic getaway...oh yeah! JD got us some tickets to see a concert in the area.

We stayed at a bed & breakfast for the first time EVER.  You will laugh but somewhere in the process of booking our stay they picked the bedroom with TWO twin beds!  Obviously, with it being Valentines weekend, all of the other rooms were booked so we couldn't switch rooms.  The breakfast at the bed & breakfast was super fancy!

In true Castagno fashion, before we went out to Nashville I googled good restaurants and, man oh man, it did not disappoint!  We ate some delicious stuff and we even went to Jackson's Bar & Bistro TWICE for their dessert.

The rest of our stay we visited museums, fancy mansions, and art galleries until our feet couldn't walk anymore.  When we moved to Memphis I was disappointed to find out that there was not an H&M here! I made sure we went to H&M while in Nashville and I got a couple of cute tops! These are pictures of us at the Parthenon with the giant Athena.  And we even whipped out our tripod to take a picture of ourselves because, sometimes, when you ask a random person you will never know what you are going to get! RIGHT????

For what it's worth...it's never too late, or in my case too early, to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit. Start whenever you want. You can change or stay the same. There are no rules to this thing.  We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it.  I hope you see things that startle you.  I hope you feel things you never felt before.  I hope you meet people who have a different point of view.  I hope you live a life you're proud of, and if you're not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again.

F. Scott Fitzgerald 

home

The holidays are over and now it's just us two left in our home.  We have been lucky and fortunate to host Christmas in our home our fist year living here.  My favorite part about Christmas was spending time with family and establishing new Christmas traditions. Jeremy and I have been married for only two years so every year we try to figure out what our family traditions are.  We both grew up celebrating Christmas in different ways and this year we found ourselves trying to figure out how to best combine both of our old family traditions. Our house has this huge window in the front and we decided to put our tree there. It was beautiful looking from the outside in and seeing our tree.  I hope everybody had a good holiday season. 

Loved

Hey friends!

It's been a while since I have written on the blig blog.  We have been quite busy here in Memphis! Just wanted to share this piece I created for a friend's baby shower. She loved it! 

And I'm just sitting here typing this while listening to Josh Groban. Oh gosh, how I love him.  You all know how much I love October and I just can't believe there are only 3 days left of this glorious month. 

Peace & blessings y'all!