An Important (and Sad) Announcement

Oh, sweet Spring readers....We have an announcement that saddens us. After 13 months, this will be the final post.

 

Back in November, the 4 of us realized that our schedules wouldn't allow us to devote as much time to Spring as we would have liked, so we took a bit of a Spring Break (get it?) with plans to start back up after the first of the year. When 2011 came, we exchanged multiple emails trying to find a time for us to discuss our game plan and come up with the specifics for the new year - but we weren't able to find a time that worked for us all! It was then that we faced up to a truth we've been trying to avoid for a while now: We could no longer keep up with Spring.

 

We started Spring with the intention to create a community of like-minded creative women to have discussions about the themes around our lives. Whether it was time management or religion or money, we loved talking amongst ourselves and hearing your thoughts on the topics at hand. We were thrilled to open up this blog to guest post-ers and artists and others who wanted to share their viewpoints with this same community, and we'll always be touched with the response we've received here from the very beginning. 

 
We absolutely do not want this to be the end of the discussion, or the community, or of our connections to each other. Please please please, come on over and visit us anytime:

• Tiffany: website, blog, twitter
• Jess: website, The Declaration of You, blog, twitter
• Carolyn: website, blog, twitter
• Michelle: website, The Declaration of You, blog, twitter

Thank you for all your comments, all your support, and all your encouragement. It's meant so much to us all.

being generous to yourself.

Hi friends and happy friday! 

I thought we should talk a little bit today about the importance of being generous to yourself. We talked a lot about this when during self-care month, but I really do think that as women, we tend to be so hard on ourselves.

Here's what I wonder:

What if we all treated ourselves the way we'd treat our best friends? Our mothers, our sisters, our loved ones? What if we forgave our mistakes the way we'd forgive the mistakes of those closest to us? What if we were willing to let ourselves off the hook every once in a while for making a mistake or doing something not so perfect?

What if we let ourselves just be?

I can only imagine the kind of love that we'd feel, that would fill our hearts and spill out into the world.

Sorry, I'm not normally such a hippie, but I really do believe in this. So, let's ponder this for a while and just cut ourselves some slack. We all work really hard at this thing called life and we all deserve it.

Even you.

It's Week 4 of Generosity!

Happy almost-December friends!

We took last week off in honor of Thanksgiving and I'm here now to wrap up our generosity week! Did y'all have happy Thanksgivings? Do some shopping? Eat a lot of turkey? I hope that however you celebrated, you were surrounded with lots of love and good cheer. That's what the holidays are all about isn't it?

As we leave Thanksgiving (one of my favorite holidays since it's all about gratitude!), I thought it would be fitting to ask this question for Spring into action: when have you been on the receiving end of generosity and how has it affected you? I'm really excited to hear what you all have to say on the topic!

Here's how it works:

:: The Spring Into Action details ::

-> Respond to the weekly prompt on your blog (each prompt will be posted on Monday morning). Respond using any method you like! Paint something, or take some photographs, or write a mini essay, or maybe even a stream of consciousness blog post. Whatever strikes you in the moment, go with that! 

-> If you plan to post about the prompt share your blog with others! Use Mr. Linky to Spring Into Action! You can post a general link to your blog and/or a link to your blog post on the specific prompt. This fun little tool will allow others to join your conversation. Mr. Linky is at the bottom of this post.

-> Use the badge above (Spring Into Action) on your blog to let others know about your participation in this challenge. If you use the badge, we ask that you link it back to either this post or Spring's main website.

When/how does generosity lead to being taken advantage of?

It's our second week of Generosity, which means it's also the second video of Jess, Tiffany and I being in the same place for Carolyn's wedding! There's also a special appearance by Whitney Ahneman, our lovely videographer from last week's video (and a super awesome lady!).

When/how does generosity lead to being taken advantage of? from Spring Inspiration on Vimeo.

How are you generous in your life, and what does generosity mean to you?

As you may know, Michelle, Tiffany, and I met up in West Palm Beach, Florida a couple weeks ago to attend Carolyn's wedding. We planned to tape some amazing videos for you when we were all together, but we were having way too much fun NOT working!

We did end up recording some videos for November about generosity, but they're maybe a little sillier than we intended. :) Check out the first one right here!  

We also recorded a video when we returned to our hotel room (at the Ritz-Carlton!) after the rehearsal dinner for the wedding, but upon watching it we realized there was no way we could share it with ANYONE. Why? We may or may not have had about 8 glasses of wine each that night, and the video is ridiculous, including me singing the "Fifty Nifty United States" song. I think we'll just keep that video amongst ourselves. :)

So please enjoy this significantly less drunk video about generosity! The next one will be posted next Tuesday. We're so sad that we can't record ALL our videos in person-- we had so so much fun together. And big congrats to Carolyn again! Her wedding was beautiful, and we had the best time. xo