In all honestly, I’m not 100% bought in on religion. Try as I did for years, I could not drudge up the passion for God that I felt I should have to identify as Christian. I mostly lean towards Agnostic. But there are times when I feel like someone must be running the show. The way that miracles can just come out of nowhere or you can be thrown into so many situations and your limits are tested, pushing you past what you thought you could originally handle. The day this post was originally scheduled to publish, I had one of those days that just rocked me. August 11th, 2016 marked 731 glorious days that my two little blessings have been on this Earth; it was James and Emma’s 2nd birthday. And I was so prepared to celebrate and dedicate the day to this wonderful beings. I wanted to take in everything they had to offer and just fill myself with appreciation for them.
Category Archives: blogging
Money Matters
When I started this blog, I had the idea that it would be your typical lifestyle blog with a green twist. I would blog about beauty products, skincare, recipes, all of which would be geared towards safer, healthier options. Eventually it would morph into a money-making opportunity with lots of sponsored posts and ads. I wanted it to be like those aspirational lifestyle blogs you follow because they’re beautiful and you want some aspect of that in your life. The problem with this type of blog is that it is consumer-based. And I am not someone who wants to encourage people to buy what they don’t need. Once you purchase the items you saw that one time in that flat lay, your life will not be perfect. You will just move on to wanting that scarf from your favorite Etsy shop or that field jacket you were never really into, but now you see EVERYWHERE so you feel like you MUST have it in your life. This is not the person I want to be, and this is not the person I want to inspire other people to be.
30-Step Minimalism Challenge Week 1 Update
Today begins the 2nd week of my 30-Step Minimalism Challenge. Here’s an overview of the tasks I completed last week.
5 Things I’m Loving This Month (July Favorites)
Happy Friday, y’all! Today is the last day of July, and for the first time in SEVEN YEARS, I am totally not stressing about the month of August. This time last year I was starting maternity leave early due to preterm labor (don’t worry, everything turned out fine in the end!) and the five Augusts before that were always some combination of summer finals, moving apartments, fall semester, and TURN. As a former student housing professional, Turn is the time of year when you work like a mad woman (100+ hours/week) to prep the units for new move-ins. It was always exciting and challenging and total bonding time for you and your co-workers. I miss my co-workers with ACC so much, but I am so happy that all of my Augusts moving forward are about celebrating my babies instead of dealing with vendors and employees who sometimes act like babies.
New Month, New Purpose
I have been thinking about starting a blog for…..ever. Actually, I attempted 2 blogs previously, but I never really fully dedicated myself to them. Posts were sporadic, topics were not focused, there was a lot of emotion; overall, they were not what I wanted them to be. Suffice to say, I put A LOT of thought into this 3rd blog. I have been following a bunch of lifestyle bloggers on Instagram for awhile, and I love how they find ways to make daily life beautiful. Injecting vibrant color, sparkle, fun into moments here and there is as simple as putting sprinkles on vanilla ice cream. I’ve made it my focus to make the world around me simple, yet inspiring. And because I knew I would be spending a lot of time at my desk, I started there.
My desk is a repurposed IKEA Hemnes vanity. I removed the mirror and moved the storage boxes to the side and voila! The wire basket holds my Beautycounter marketing essentials (I’ll be sharing more about Beautycounter in a future post!), and the green leather notebook is perfect for writing down my daily to-do list. If you ever stay up at night thinking about what you need to accomplish the next day, take a couple moments in the evening before you go to bed to jot it all down. Your mind will be clear, and you will already feel on track when you wake up in the AM.
Today’s to do list (and this month’s purpose) is focused on starting this blog and being dedicated to the process. As a self-professed perfectionist, I spent too much time planning and not enough time doing. Giving myself specific deadlines with short planning periods (aka blog posts every Monday, Wednesday, Friday) is how I’m going to get out of my planning comfort zone and just do it (thanks for the encouragement, Nike slogan).
I would love to hear what your purpose is this month! Are you vowing to exercise more or work smarter on the job? Share with me your monthly goal(s) so we can make it happen together!
Lauren, Etc. 