At the beginning of 2020 (how was that two years ago already?!) I packed my bags and headed up to California with family and friends for a week-long trip, full of wine tastings and memories that still feel like yesterday. ♡

Soon before the world shut down we lived every moment to its fullest, enjoying quality time with each other and some wine. Starting in Sacramento, we all filed in a van and made our way to Amador for the weekend, first stopping through Tahoe for a day...we were on a mission to see snow and when we did we made the most of it, even stopping in someone's backyard to take some pictures! 

There's a wine weekend every year in Amador, CA called Behind the Cellar Door, and if you ever have a chance to go I'd highly recommend! Once you pre-purchase a wine passport online you can visit all of the wineries in the area that include wine and food tastings, not to mention an experience that's just beyond. Since things have changed a bit since 2020, there are more limits now including a maximum of 4 wineries a day. I won't say how many we visited in one day during our trip...but it was at least twice that, haha. You'll be surprised what just a few wine tastings can do! 

❤

While I hope to make it back one day, because things have changed some and we're all over on the opposite coast, this year we're reconnecting and spending a week in North Carolina instead to explore and get in some wine tastings! 

The trip in 2020 was what we all needed to get away from everyday life for a bit and enjoy the simple things, including each others company. The wineries were the best time, but it was also the evenings spent gathered around a table playing card games and telling drunk stories and being beat in foosball by people more than twice our age (in our defense, they cheated) that make the memories of this time so close to my heart. 

If you ever have a chance to drop everything for a week, or even just a weekend, and spend time away with people, take it. We take this life and our experiences for granted every single day. Often lost in the hustle of just getting by, before we know it life will have passed us by. And it's not the day in day out of clocking in for work that we'll remember fondly, but the times that we just enjoyed life and the people around us. This blog is called a happy blur for a reason, because that's how I want to remember life. Of course not every moment is happy, and there are hard things, and there is the mundane that I too find myself in more often than I should. But it's the memories that just feel like a happy blur that make this life worth it. I know I'll look back and be thankful for times like this. I already do. 

Being okay with not being okay. Finding peace in the unknown. Living when you don't know how. 
It's all things that we learn and adapt along the way. 

There's times like this that I just want to wish away. Nothing feels okay. I'm stuck in the gray, some kind of middle ground will it work out or will it fade. But it's times like this that most people don't see each other dealing with. What most of us see is the person on the other side of the struggle. And while it can be motivational to hear how they got to where they are now, sometimes I just want an inside look of how it felt and what they did in the midst of it. 

If you're in the middle of the unknown, the hard part of the story, I want to give you hope. Even as I sometimes feel that lacking. It's hard, I know. You struggle to see past this time...how days, months, years from now it will all look different than how it is in the moment. What is this teaching you, where is this leading you, what will be the outcome? It's all questions we want to answer now. 

But can I tell you something? You're most likely not going to find the answers yet. While you're still in the middle of it, just do your best to find peace in this. It's okay to feel what you're feeling. I know how it doesn't feel okay, but your feelings are valid and they hold true to you. Whether it's pain, heartache, confusion, confliction, anger, lost...these are all things that remind you of the human that you are. And that’s okay.

We're human and we're not always the ones in control of our situations. But, we can control how we handle the things that life brings us through. So feel every ounce of what you need to. And then, find peace in doing your best through this and in whatever the circumstance may bring. It could be more heartache, or it could be better days. But eventually, just like those we see who are on the other side, you will get there too.

It's okay if all you can bring yourself to do right now is the minimal. That's enough. I know it's said a lot and some find it kind of cliché, but God is working through this and He already knows the outcome. So while you can't bear to do much, He is holding the weight, working in better ways. Yes, it very well feels like such a hard thing. You don't know what's coming or how it will come to be. But the One whose hand is in everything, protecting, guiding, is making a way for you and for me. 

So try to release the tight hold you have on things and give the situation and the burden up to Him. Full peace can only come with surrender of everything you've been feeling. Right now you don't know how it will work out, but because He does you can sit in tranquility until it begins to look up again. Finding peace begins with letting go of control. 

And when the days look bleak, like there's nothing good up ahead, find the little things to look forward to. Plan a coffee date with a friend, put on that playlist that makes you feel nostalgic, dress up for no good reason or for a night on the town if you're feeling it. Look at the small things that remind you of how good it is to be alive and incorporate them into your day to day life. Every day should be filled with the little things, especially in times when you're longing for peace. 

Right now it might not feel okay, but that is okay. Because as long as you choose peace in the situation you're in, you can get through any circumstance.

"but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. they will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." Isaiah 40:31