Just Amber

Just Amber This is Amber beyond the shop. It's going to be messy, raw healing. It's picking up the pieces after closing Erstwhile. Learning to live again. Finding ME again.

I hope you choose to stay for Amber beyond the shop. We are located right across from Pete's Thai on 5th!

Welcome to the first installment of my monthly journal prompt series. Each month will have one theme, with a new journal...
09/01/2026

Welcome to the first installment of my monthly journal prompt series. Each month will have one theme, with a new journal prompt about that theme each week.

This month (my birthday month) is all about change.

Feel free to journal it out, discuss with friends, reply in the comments, or just think about it for the week. This isn't homework. There's no grade. It's completely optional.

But as we move through this process, let's do it together. That's what my first goal was back in 2018, to create community and it's the one piece (for now) that I've come to realize is still very important to me. This community that we've built here is such a beautiful and amazing thing. So let's heal alongside one another and see if we can figure out how to move forward, together too.
- Just Amber

This is something that I've been thinking about a lot lately. A way that we can heal together out loud. Many of us feel ...
08/30/2026

This is something that I've been thinking about a lot lately. A way that we can heal together out loud. Many of us feel stuck. We aren't sure how to move forward. Some of us heal more quietly, but I want you to know you have a place here too. You deserve to heal, to exist, to move on. I still want to be a part of that in the small ways I still can.

So I hope you join me in taking up some space on the way to becoming a version of ourselves that doesn't need to heal. A version we don't apologize for. A version that gets to exist and find joy in the small things. I want that for all of us.

I still love you all very much.
Just Amber 🩵

Let's take a look on the bright side. I've been home for almost a month now. Some days the walls feel like they are clos...
08/27/2026

Let's take a look on the bright side.

I've been home for almost a month now. Some days the walls feel like they are closing in and others I feel overwhelmed by the possibilities. But I'd like to voice some of the positives since I've been off. Because I'm learning and in some cases remembering who I am.

I love vintage typewriters. I love that classic feeling of sitting down and just writing. No backspaces, no spellcheck, no second chances. You just write until you can't anymore. The sound of the keys tapping brings so much peace to my mind.

I love road trips. Getting out of town for a few days, a few hours of road time, some good tunes or an audio book, and road snacks are my recipe for happiness. The destination doesn't even need to be anywhere fancy, just somewhere that calls.

Thunderstorms and rainstorms. They silence my mind and wash away the bad. Ever since I was a little girl there was something I loved about the rain, the thunder, and the lightning. The mixture of the calm of the rain and the chaos of the storm has always soothed something in me.

My hammock plus a good book are the cure to sad days. Being able to be outside, a warm breeze blowing, while I read a book off my TBR shelf is magic. It's the embodiment of slowing down. It's a reminder that not everything needs to be fast and loud. Sometimes it's okay to just be.

I miss Oregon. I miss the ocean. I miss the trees. I miss the salt in the air and the cool breeze. I miss being able to walk the beach barefoot in shorts and an oversized sweater. I miss foggy mornings and the sound of waves crashing. If I ever decided to move, I'd go back there. I'd let my tired soul know peace.

Open windows. My god, to do I love open windows. There is probably no better way to spend a day or night at home. I love a day when I can shut the AC off, open the windows, pull the curtains back, and feel the fresh air flow in. It's the best way to reset the energy in a home. It makes my heart happy and I get more work done than I do without them open.

Fire pits, campfires, bonfires, whatever your version is, I love it. I haven't quite found the right recipe for sitting out by my fire pit alone. I've tried a few different times. This is probably the one area where I've realized I miss people... friends. There is nothing better than a night by the fire with my friends. It's too bad I don't have many. Either ones I feel comfortable enough with or ones that make time.

Working with my hands. I'm not exactly very good. I'm okay for the most part. I take pride in knowing my way around a variety of power tools. I like knowing that I can build things with my own two hands. I just wish I had more of the patience needed for some of the things I want to make, create and build.

I process my healing through tattoos. I got one years after my assault. I got one after my great grandmother died. I got...
08/23/2026

I process my healing through tattoos. I got one years after my assault. I got one after my great grandmother died. I got one when my abusive relationship ended. I got one when my dad passed away. And today I got one to celebrate and memorialize Erstwhile. That might not make sense to some. It may not be the way you choose to process, grieve, and heal. But for me it’s apart of the process. It’s an important piece of my journey.

I heard it said a while ago from someone I thought respected me that people didn’t want to support Erstwhile or me because I would cry on the internet about needing money and then I’d go and get a tattoo. I find that interesting. Tell me, when you own a business do you stop doing things for yourself? Do you stop your healing? Your self care? Or are you judging me because we don’t grieve and heal the same way? That doesn’t feel very “love and light” to me. That doesn’t seem very spiritual.

Also let’s talk about the process of getting a tattoo. You find an artist, you discuss what you want, you put down a deposit, you schedule an appointment months away, and then you save until the day. In lieu of buying myself fancy coffees, new shoes (even though they were desperately needed), getting my hair done regularly, getting massages, etc. I chose to save the little bit of extra money I had for another step in my healing journey.

My tattoos remind me of where I’ve been, who I was, what I’ve been through, and how I’ve healed. Don’t judge my process just because you don’t understand it. Don’t make it shallow and ugly just because you don’t agree with it. How about we all just understand that we’re all humans just trying to survive. I ran my business very transparently. I didn’t pretend things were fine when they weren’t. I didn’t put on a mask just to make everyone comfortable. I chose to live and heal out loud and I was/am pretty well loved for that very fact.

So here’s my new selfish endeavor. I paid for it with the money I saved after selling off everything I’d accumulated for my business. This piece cost me time to figure out what comes next. Every penny I spend is real time I need to figure out my life. And you know what, it’s worth it. It’s a beautiful piece of my story and I hope when I’m old and gray the young men and women caring for me in the nursing home ask me about my art. I’ll tell them about my store and the beautiful Lilly (LmaeTattoos) and how she was the only one I trusted to help me remember and honor it. 🩵

Three weeks ago today I handed over the keys to our building at 510 5th Street. When I realized we’d b closing my first ...
08/22/2026

Three weeks ago today I handed over the keys to our building at 510 5th Street. When I realized we’d b closing my first thought was, what will they all do? Where will they go? Who will they have? My second thought was, what will I do? Where will I go? Who will I have? I decided to give us all time. Time to process, time to grieve, and time to heal.

I spent those three months carefully picking through, selling off, and packing away six years of my life’s work. It was hard. My goal was to save up enough money to give myself time. To have a few months to get on my feet and figure out what comes next. I did that, with all of your help. I was able to give myself the gift of time. My hope was that I’d allow myself to rest and work on my house while I decided what to do next.

In the last three weeks I’ve done… nothing. And I’ve felt like s**t about it. I’ve sat and watched endless movies, I’ve let dishes pile up, laundry form mountains, and I’ve felt guilt like you wouldn’t believe. I’ve reached out to friends to let them know that I was struggling only to realize I don’t have quite as many friends as I thought I did. I’m realizing that for some my place in their lives was directly tied to what services I could provide. Remove the service, remove the relationship.

I’ve also realized that my own internal worth is directly tied to my ability to serve others. I don’t know how to be me and continue to love me without destroying myself for others. If I’m not of service I have no value. I’m sitting in that. I’m unraveling where that comes from. I’m trying (and most often failing) to give myself grace about “being lazy”. I’m trying to remind myself that from the age of 12 (yes twelve) I’ve been grinding myself into the ground. At 25 my life got hectic and demanding and I pushed harder. At 30 my Dad passed away and I buried myself in Erstwhile, where I gave the final pieces of myself. The remaining fire I still possessed was extinguished under a mountain of responsibility.

Three weeks of rest is nothing compared to the last 8 years of my life. I needed this time to just be. To figure out who I am outside of ersthwile. To be comfortable doing something new. To not feel guilt over never doing readings or reiki again. To know that what I’ve already given was enough. That even if I spend the next 20 years with no real close friends, that it was all still worth it. It doesn’t mean they weren’t real. It doesn’t mean I don’t have value now. It means that we outgrew each other. Having boundaries doesn’t make me a bad person. I’m allowed to expect to be treated well. I’m allowed to treat others the way they treat me. I’m allowed to be sad and miss my old normal while embracing what comes next.

Most importantly, I’ve realized it’s okay that I’m scared. I don’t have to have it all figured out. It’s okay that I feel angry and frustrated. It’s fine to not have a plan yet. Sometimes being alive is enough. I deserve to be just Amber. Big life changes are never easy and we wouldn’t want them to be. They wouldn’t have the ability to transform us if they did. We’d stay the same, never learning, never growing, never evolving. The human spirit was meant to do those things. We’re meant to break and to heal so we can learn and grow. It’s so important.

I’m learning some hard lessons and I’m trying really hard to be grateful for that too. 🩵

I’ve been tinkering with some old and some new recipes. Trying to decide if I want to sell things here, do vendor market...
08/20/2026

I’ve been tinkering with some old and some new recipes. Trying to decide if I want to sell things here, do vendor markets, or just sell and trade with friends and family.

The things I’m most proud of right now are:
• Elderberry Elixir
• Fermented Lemon & Honey Infusion
• Dry Body Oil
• All Natural Pin-Sol

The things I’m thinking of playing with:
• Fermented Orange Spiced Honey Infusion
• Writing a book about what Erstwhile taught me.
• All Natural Cleaning Supplies

The things I need to focus on:
• Getting my house in order.
• Creating a home office.
• Decide what to do with my Social Media Accounts.
• Figure out my joy.

Elderberry Elixir Update. I decided to add organic lemons and ginger for additional benefits. They’re all bottled and re...
08/19/2026

Elderberry Elixir Update. I decided to add organic lemons and ginger for additional benefits. They’re all bottled and ready to sit for six weeks. I’ll be doing some math tonight to see how much I’ll have leftover. When I strain them off, they’ll go into pt size mason jars. 🌿

How long do you think it took me to turn 1/2 of a 20 gallon tote full of elderberries & stems into 2/3 of a massive soup...
08/18/2026

How long do you think it took me to turn 1/2 of a 20 gallon tote full of elderberries & stems into 2/3 of a massive soup pan full of just elderberries? I’ll give you a hint, I did them alone, by hand, and only got about 4 hours of sleep. 🌿

Harvested a tote full of elderberries at my mom's house. Elderberry Elixir is a late summer tradition in this house. It ...
08/18/2026

Harvested a tote full of elderberries at my mom's house. Elderberry Elixir is a late summer tradition in this house. It should be ready just in time for fall. I'm thinking the first or second week of October. I'm considering sharing a few of the bottles our family doesn't keep. Let me know if you're interested in preordering.

Elderberry Elixir is made with freshly harvested elderberries, alcohol, honey, and cinnamon. Must be 21 or older due to the alcohol. It's packed with vitamin c, antioxidants, and is the perfect cold and flu season companion. 🌿

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