Lovely*Brave E-Course!

Hello everyone! I said last month that I'd be debuting my new e-course in March, and true to form I procrastinated till the last day in March to open registration for it! Well, part of it is procrastination, but mostly I've wanted this e-course to be really amazing, and as such, didn't want to rush creating the content. This will be my first e-course of this kind and I'm excited to finally release it!

I believe that there are three areas of our lives that can contribute to living a whole and fulfilled life. These three areas are Adventure, Beauty, and Love. The adventure of chasing after your dreams and pushing yourself out of your comfort zone to achieve great things, the beauty of loving yourself and living a healthy life, and the love which teaches us to care for ourselves and others in a meaningful and effective way.

Adventure consists of chasing after your goals, whether they're career goals, physical goals, emotional goals, etc. Chasing after your goals involves tapping into your passions and pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. I believe we'll never reach our full potential as human beings as long as we live ensnared by fear. We must confront our fears in order to grow, and as uncomfortable it may be at first, once we step into growth, we incorporate new skills and enjoyments into our lives which we wouldn't have had we stayed in our cozy, safe comfort zones.

Some examples of sessions we'll be moving through in the Adventure section of the e-course are:

Your Comfort Zone & Growth Zone

A Personal Mission Statement

30 Day Challenge

Lies we believe, Truths to combat them

Beauty is about embracing ourselves wholly, not just our exterior appearance. Beauty is about the person you choose to be, and this beauty expresses itself in many ways. Obviously appearance is one way that beauty can be expressed, but it can also be expressed in kindness, service, confidence, etc. I believe that beauty is an essential part of life. Beauty comforts (why do we bring flowers to those in the hospital or to those grieving?), beauty inspires (think about all those gorgeous inspiration pictures in your pinterest boards or on your walls), beauty invites others in, and beauty is everywhere in nature including in us! And I believe beauty is most found in our vulnerability, when we let down our guard and allow others to experience our true selves.

Some examples of sessions we'll be moving through in the Beauty section of the e-course are:

Character and Strength

Personal Style & Confidence

Unconventional Sexiness

On Body Hate

Love isn't just about men or finding a husband/wife/companion, certainly not! It is so much more, and we do a disservice to love by pigeonholing it as just romance. Love is the will to extend one's self to nurture your own or another human being's growth towards becoming their full, whole self. Sounds a lot different from what we see on TV and in movies, where love is purely selfish and focused on immediate pleasure, eh? We must actively revamp our views of what love entails in order to grow ourselves, and in order to be able to enter into relationship with other people in a healthy and nurturing way.

Some examples of sessions we'll be moving through in the Love section of the e-course are:

Your Love Language

Ways to Love Well

What Love is and is not

Your Communication Language

Ways to Love Yourself

In this E-Course we will spend one month on a journey towards expanding ourselves towards the women we want to be. It will be extremely introspective and meditative, push you to stretch outside of your comfort zone, as well as have activities and journal prompts relating to each of the 3 growth areas where you'll put the things we're moving through into practice in a practical way.

Lovely*Brave includes...

One month –30 whole days– of growth inducing lessons, videos, and activities.

3 Live Chat Sessions (1 for each section) where you can login and chat with me live to ask questions, share stories, and more!

Access to the Lovely*Brave forum, where you can share your experiences, make friends with other Lovely*Brave ladies, and learn from each other's stories!

Videos, articles and DIYs to accompany each section.

The format for this e-course is 2 session posts each day for one month, so it's not an e-course where you'll have all the sessions available to access once you complete registration, like the INDIE Blogger e-course. I wanted this e-course to move slower to give time to absorb the sessions and to allow for introspection, growth. Once each seminar is posted you'll have access to it for the duration of the e-course, so you'll be able to review past seminars but you won't be able to skip ahead! The course will start on April 15th, and until then there'll be a fun (and optional) DIY project for you to work on to prep for the course! Once you register, I'll email you the login info within 1-2 days so you can start working on the DIY project. Registration will be open until April 14th for this session and will then be closed until the next session starts. If you have any questions about the e-course, go ahead and email me at delightfully-tacky@hotmail.com, tweet me at @delighttacky, or leave me a message on facebook!

Life Lately

When I was in Austin, my poor Nokia 6010 got drenched in the rain one day and the buttons weren't working very well, and when I told my mom about it she said that they had one of my Dad's old iPhones that they were going to give to my little brother, but he ended up getting an iPhone from his friend... long story short, lo and behold an iPhone came to me in the mail the other day. My Nokia has been working better, so I haven't switched over yet. Plus, I really don't want to have mobile internet (twitter, email, facebook, etc.), to both keep the cost down and because the thing I love about my Nokia, besides the fact that it's virtually indestructible, is that it's just a phone. I can text, I can call. That's it. The only thing I've ever really missed from my old iPhone was the ability to take photos, so I've been playing around on this new iPhone in instagram! Here are a few snippits from this last week...

New shoes from Blowfish // My favorite bagel sandwich // Attempting to feather my hair // Puddle jumping // Coffee dates with Dan // And finally crushing a V3 I've been working on for about 4 days, Woo!

10 Tips for Traveling Well: Air Travel

This past trip to Austin reminded me of all the little things I try to do to streamline the airport experience, so I thought I'd share some of my personal tips for air travel!

Pretty much every airline gives you the option to print your boarding pass at home now (and I think some let you show your boarding pass on your smart phone...), which means you can totally bypass standing in line to get your boarding pass! I like to arrive at the airport as late as possible so I'm not waiting around for hours for my plane, and skipping the lines to get your boarding pass is one way to shave down that time!

Nothing is more frustrating than having to wrestle with your shoes when you're trying to get through security, or to have to go through the metal detector 3 times because you're wearing metal accessories. Make sure to plan ahead and wear shoes that are easy to slip off and on again, and avoid wearing metal belts or accessories.

I almost always will only pack a carry-on. I like being able to have all my stuff in my sight at all times, and it makes getting to and from the airport way easier (no waiting in line to check bags, or waiting for bags to arrive at the baggage claim). Plus, your bag will never get lost when you carry it on. I've gone on two week trips with only a carry-on, so it's totally doable to pack a carry-on for longer trips! Here are some tips for packing just a carry-on:

-Plan remix-able outfits. Pack things that go well with each other and can be worn in multiple ways. For shorter trips with various events (like the TxSC conference, or NYFW) I like to plan my outfits beforehand and then draw them out so I don't even have to think about putting outfits together during the trip, they're already planned!

-Use space well. Fill your shoes with socks or other accessories. Pack big, bulky things and then fit the smaller or thinner fabrics around them as filler. In my bag to TxSC this past month I had 2 pairs of chunky heels, 2 pairs of flats, 2 hats, my flat iron and blowdryer all in my carry-on, along with all the clothes I had to wear. Also, roll up your clothes instead of folding them, to make them smaller. You can also invest in those vacuum bags which make your clothes super small! Most hotels have an iron, so you can get rid of any wrinkles when you arrive.

-Wear bulky items on to the plane. Instead of packing a big coat, or a hat, or that pair of cute boots you just have to have on the trip, wear it onto the plane. Even if I know a big coat will be too hot on the plane, I'll wear it on the day-of anyway and just take it off when I get on the plane. That way you can still have your coat, but you don't have to try and fit it in your carry-on when it'll probably take up half of your whole bag!

Before you even arrive at the security area, prep for going through security. You don't necessarily have to do this if there's a huge security line (since you'll have plenty of prep time while you're waiting), but if it looks like it'll be pretty quick getting to security:

-have your boarding pass and ID out to give to the TSA agent.

-take out laptop while you're still in line, so you don't have to fumble around for it as everyone is rushing to put their stuff in bins.

-have your bag of liquids easily accessible.

As soon as I'm past the TSA agent I'll usually try to grab some bins and start putting my shoes, jacket, laptop, and liquids in them. I'll even do this if I'm not to the security table yet and just prep on the ground, so when I get to the table I can just put my bins and bags up there, all ready to go!

Make sure you know where you're going! If you're going to arrive or have a layover at an airport you're unfamiliar with, have a map of the airport with you. If you have to take the subway in the city you're visiting, print google maps of the routes you need to take to get from the airport to your hotel, from your hotel to locations you want to visit, etc. I used to print these out and keep them in a file, or I'd write down the directions in a journal. Nowadays most everyone has a phone which has map functions, so that also works!

Once you've made it through security, quickly grab all your stuff from the conveyer belt after wards and head to a less chaotic and congested area to re-pack all your stuff and put your shoes/coat/accessories back on. I find that people usually try to do this right after their stuff comes through the x-ray machine and it creates a bottle neck and a bunch of chaos, so I just grab my shoes, bags, and everything from my bins and move to an area away from it all to repack. There you can take as much time as you'd like to repack and get everything re-situated without feeling frantic.

Remember that most airlines allow you a "small personal item" as well as a carry-on bag which can be a laptop bag, purse, etc. This bag needs to be able to fit underneath the seat in front of you, so you can have another pretty large bag as long as it can do that! I use that second bag for my laptop, camera and oftentimes more clothes, snacks or just stuff that won't fit in my carry-on. And since I will want to have smaller purse when I get to my destination, I usually pack my daily purse in my carry one or personal item.

If you don't have a checked bag to claim, have the person picking you up get you at the departures/drop off area. It's less crowded than the arrivals/pick up area and you'll be easier to find because pretty much everyone else is getting out of their cars and going into the airport. You'll be one of the few people standing on the curb waiting to be picked up.

Have your computer, phone, ipad and any other electronics you want on the plane fully charged. Especially make sure your phone is charged, as you'll likely want to be able to call someone once you land. I always make sure my phone is easily accessible so that once the plane lands I can turn it on and call the person coming to pick me up to let them know we've landed. Or, if you have any delays, you'll want your phone charged to let people know you'll be late. It's also nice to have your laptop/ipad charged up so you can do work/watch movies on the plane, as most planes don't have any sort of plug-in for chargers.

The food and snacks at airports and aboard planes is marked up quite a bit, so if you have a longer flight where you'll want more than the complimentary tiny bag of snacks and a drink, bring your own food with you. You won't be able to bring any liquids through security, so if you want something to drink on the plane, you'll have to buy that at the airport (or, as a commenter suggested, bring an empty waterbottle through security and then fill it on the other side!). Bring a snack like trail mix, or something that can be easily shoved into a carry-on.

Do you have any tips from your own air travel experience?

Blowfish Shoes Giveaway!

Today we have a fun giveaway from Blowfish Shoes. They just came out with a ton of really pretty spring shoes (I just got those black floral lace-up heels and they.are.awesome). The winner of this giveaway gets to pick whatever shoe they want! Yup, winner's choice!

To Enter:

Like Blowfish Shoes on Facebook and then come back here and leave a comment on this post letting me know you've done so, as well as with a way for me to get a hold of you in case you're the winner.

For additional entries, you can comment with your favorite shoe from Blowfish, and/or follow Blowfish on Twitter. If you do either or both of these, make sure to come back here and leave an additional comment for each letting me know you've done so.

One entrant will win their choice of shoe from Blowfish. Open to US & Canadian entries only. The giveaway will be open until Sunday, April 1st at 9pm PST.

Featured Sponsor: The Charming

Hello! My name is Amy and I am the blogger over at The Charming, where I blog about life and love: my love of the world and of all it's charm. I started blogging for various reasons: as a creative outlet, a journal, etc. But I keep blogging because of all of the wonderful people that I meet, each who have their own beautifully written story, like Elizabeth!

I talk about so many different things on my blog and, like many lifestyle bloggers out there, one of those things is fashion. I love it, don't you? One of my favorite parts about fashion is all the many different options and colors and patterns!! It's one of the awesome things about being a girl (because my fiancé has a very boring fashion palate of button downs, polos, and pants!). Inspired by the lovely changing of the seasons and Pantone's spring 2012 fashion color report, here is an outfit that I put together that I hope to soon recreate!

Well, thank you Elizabeth and everyone for reading! If you're interested in sharing dreams, thoughts, recipes, inspiration, adventures, fashion, art, or just about anything else, hop on over to my blog to say hello! I would so love to meet you!

Find more of Amy over at her Blog, Shop, and Twitter!