To: All the single ladies

This one is for all the single ladies out there (cue Beyoncé).

I've had this one on my heart for a long time but to be honest I've just been afraid to share it. Why? I'm not really sure. I think that my fear is in people's opinions and what they might think of me or say about me. I'm ready to put that behind me and share the things that are on my heart and the things that I think others might need to hear. 

So here it goes - 

I've been single for quite some time now. Some days I love it and other days I absolutely hate it. It's hard being 24 and single. Heck, it's hard being any age and single. I SO often find myself angrily scrolling past engagements, weddings, fancy dates, and baby announcements on Instagram. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for you all, but there's also a lot of bitterness and jealousy. 

I was never the girl who wore singleness proudly. I was never the girl who confidently did things on her own and didn't bat an eye. I was the girl who would turn down hanging out with friends if I knew I'd be the only one there not in a relationship. I was the girl who felt like I HAD to be "talking" to someone. I was the girl who rolled my eyes at all the girls who were confident in their singleness. See, I was jealous of those who were in relationships and those who were not. That's not a good place to set up camp.

I've grown since then. Does that mean I don't get jealous anymore or sad? No. Does that mean that I've given up on love? No. Truthfully love is something I long so deeply for. But the growing has looked more like acceptance. I'm accepting that singleness is for me right now. I'm accepting that either I'm not ready for the man that God has for me, or he's not ready for me. I'm accepting that this time isn't a punishment but actually a blessing. I was listening to a sermon on my way to work the other day and it was a sermon about relationships, the pastor and his wife were both speaking about their own dating journey, and the pastors wife said something that really struck me. She said (not a word for word quote but something along the lines of) that she spent most of her time of singleness just waiting for a relationship so that her life could start. She mentioned how she thought that that was the one thing she needed before she could really live, and that she wished she had spent those years finding herself and figuring out who she was on her own rather than just waiting for what she thought would be something better. I don't think I realized I did this until I heard her say it. I've found that when it comes to love, it can be easy for that to become all that we think about, all that we focus on. We may not do it intentionally but because we want it so bad we just can't shake it. 

(I say we hoping that maybe there's someone out there who feels the same so that I don't seem crazy!).

I've been in love once in my life so far. When our relationship ended I thought that was the end of love for me. I couldn't imagine ever feeling that way about another person and I was SURE he was the one. Even years after our breakup, I never would've admitted it, but I was still holding onto hope that maybe just maybe we'd still end up together in the end. In case you're wondering, we didn't end up together. In fact, he's married now. And the moment that I heard he was married was the moment that I decided to (finally) leave the past in the past, where it belongs, and invest in myself. No more mourning the relationships that once were or could've been, but instead focusing all my energy on loving myself. And I'm not talking about "self care" type of love. I'm talking about.. God literally molded me in His hands and chose every single aspect of my being and personality and character and why would I place all of my value in what a guy says or sees or wants. It all really came down to realizing that I had put my relationship with God on the back burner so that I could find a boyfriend. 

Cause that seems like a good idea, right? 

W R O N G. 

You see, God knows what he's doing. He knew that I wasn't ready for a relationship. Even though I felt completely ready, I wasn't. I'm still not. Relationships are hard. They're even harder if you go into it not knowing yourself fully. It's almost impossible to love another person when you don't love yourself. Cliché, I know. But it's true. 

Just because your life isn't going how you want it to, doesn't mean that it's not going anywhere at all.
Don't waste your singleness. Don't wish it away. Instead, try to start trusting God with it. I feel like when it comes to relationships we tend to keep that separate from God, because we think we know exactly what we want and need. In reality, we have no idea. Instead of investing SO much of your time on finding "the one", start investing your time into your relationship with THE ONE who holds your entire life in the palm of His hands. As hard as it is to do sometimes, when we surrender our lives over to God and give up trying to control things on our owns, that's when we truly see the blessings and the things that He has in store for us that only HE can give us.

Be encouraged and know that you are not alone in your singleness. While it can a lonely time, remember that it's not forever, and that there is a lot that comes in the waiting. Be open. Find yourself and learn to l o v e the person that God created you to be. Wear it proud, girl. Own it. 

New Year, New Everything

Hello again! It's me, back from my almost full year (unintentional) hiatus. 

I have no real reason why I stepped away from the blog. I think it was a mixture of things, to be honest. Not only did life get busy, but I think that I lost sight of myself a little bit. Meaning that for me, 2019 became a time of really trying to figure out who I am, what I like, what I want to do, who I want to be, etc. This involved me stepping away from the things that once brought me joy to try to figure it all out. But here I am! Back and better than ever. Ready to take on the whole blogging thing again, and this time, I feel really excited about it. 

Over the last year I fell into a routine of waking up, going to work, eating dinner and going to bed. Just to wake up and do it all again the next day. If I can be honest with you all.. I don't love my job, so this routine really drained me of all happiness. 

On New Years Eve I promised myself that I wouldn't deprive myself of happiness in this new year. I don't have to just go to work and come home and sleep and eat. I can do things that make me happy. I can make time for the things that bring me joy. It's essential! 

So here we are - two days in to 2020. A new year. A new decade. 

This year I want to be more intentional about the goals that I'm setting. More realistic about them and about the ways that I plan on achieving them. It can be easy to think up cliche goals that everyones posting on Instagram (come on, you know we all have done it), but I don't want to do that this year. This year it's time to get serious! Time to buckle down and achieve the things I want to achieve.

As I mentioned above, I'm excited for this year.

I plan on being more active on here and sharing more of the things that are on my heart.

I'd love for you come along for the ride! 

thoughts on self care

Self care has been on my mind lately. Mostly what it means to me. There is so much stuff on the internet about self care, and ways to do, and things to buy to achieve the "best" form of self care. But my thought lately has been.. 'what does self care look like for me personally?' With so much being put out there online about it, I think it can be hard for us to form our own opinions and form our own thoughts. It's great to look online for inspiration, and to even get ideas from others and such, but when it comes to SELF care, I personally think that that is something that is unique and looks different for everyone. 

We've all seen the Pinterest posts saying "self care isn't selfish." And while that's true, I think our society makes it selfish. I don't think that we should view self care as something that we need to share with the world. My generation has a big problem of feeling the need to make everything Instagram worthy. And if something isn't, we pretty it up so that we can post the absolute best version of whatever it is we are doing, even if in reality it doesn't look that glamorous. I know for me personally, I find myself seeing peoples self-care posts on instagram and think to myself 'ugh, I wish I had a pretty blanket like that one' or 'why can't my bedroom set up be that perfect?' or 'I wish I had a picture perfect latte and work setup right now so that i could be just as productive as that person.' When I think back on thoughts like that, I kind of laugh at myself, because its like... wait what? 

Anyone can make something look good online. And the concept of self care isn't about doing something that says hey world look at me im doing something cool! Self is care is about doing something that makes YOU happy. Something that brings YOU joy and a sense of fulfillment in some way. If you are spending all of your self care time waiting for likes and comments on your post, you aren't truly letting yourself fall into a state of relaxation, rest, or feeling recharged. 

I think that we all (meaning, everyone in the world.. myself included) need to learn how to put our phones down and live in the moment. 

Recently I discovered the Screen Time thing on my iPhone. Basically it tallies up ho much time you spend on your phone, and tells you how long you specifically spent on certain apps. If you have never looked at this, or turned this on.. I highly encourage you to! It really woke me up to the reality of how much time I spend mindlessly scrolling. As I figured, most of my time was spent on social media apps. And don't get me wrong, I love Instagram! I love getting to share experiences and photos with the people that care to see them, and I enjoy seeing other peoples posts about their lives or businesses or just pretty pictures they've been taking. I also find a lot of inspiration and creativity through certain accounts that I follow, but I also feel like Instagram is where I do most of my comparing. She's way prettier than me, they have so much more money than me to do cool things with, I wish i could go on a vacation that nice, I wish my room was as cute as theirs, I wish I had those clothes, they're such a better photographer than I will ever be. Toxic. It's toxic. 

There's a setting within the Screen Time feature where you can set time limits on certain apps. I decided to give this a try this week by setting a time limit of 45 minutes on social networking apps. After the 45 minutes are up, it basically locks me out of the app. You are given the option to ignore the limit for 15 minutes at a time or you can choose to ignore it for the rest of the day.. so you aren't entirely locked out of it, and you always have to option to just go in to your settings and turn it off completely. But I tried to have some self discipline and really push myself to be diligent, and really only use the 45 minutes. The first day, I was so annoyed haha. It wasn't even 9am yet and I had used the 45 minutes. Locked out for the entirety of the day. I selfishly thought, what am I supposed to do while I eat breakfast if I can't go on instagram? What will i do during my lunch break? 

Again... I laughed at myself for thinking these thoughts. Even typing them now I feel ashamed and embarrassed for ever even thinking like that! Because it seems so silly. 

I decided to start using those times as self care times. The time when I would normally be numbing out everything around me, every thought in my mind, and every situation going on in my life currently by scrolling through an app.. I started using to do things that brought me a little more joy. Things that made my mind work a little bit. Things that make me think more creatively and things that challenge me a little more. And ultimately.. things that wouldn't cause me to compare myself so much to someone else. I started reading while I eat breakfast in the morning. Talking to my co-workers more at lunch. Spending time with my family in the evening uninterrupted by a phone. Thinking of more creative things to do with my time is a very freeing thing. 

Self care doesn't always have to be bubble baths, face masks, and spoiling yourself by spending a bunch of money. Sometimes it can, because we all deserve it sometimes, but we don't need to be doing that all the time. I encourage you to remember that self care is about you. It's a personal thing. It might not look like someone else's, and really, it shouldn't. It's okay to put your phone down every now and again and just disconnect and unwind and quiet your mind for a little bit. It's okay to truly let yourself recharge by just being offline. By just being by yourself or spending time with a loved one or a good friend. uninterrupted by what's going on on the internet. 

Something I've learned by being online less is that I really don't care that much. Earlier in the week when i first started cutting back on my screen time I definitely felt like I was going to miss something. I don't know what exactly I thought that I would be missing.... but I just had a fear of being left out on some sort of information. By Friday I didn't have the desire to pick up my phone and just veg out after work and get caught up with all the thousands of posts that I missed during the week. The desire to go online decreases when you start filling your time with more things that makes your heart happy. 

The point of this post is to encourage you. To encourage you to live life and not feel the constant need to post it online. If it's an important life event, or something super exciting or just a cool thing you want to share.. go for it! I'm not at all against instagram here, like I said up there i love instagram! I just wanted to encourage you to not be afraid to put your phone down. I was, for a long time, and thats why i wanted to share my experience in decreasing my screen time, and implementing more daily self care techniques into my life. Do what makes you happy. Not what you think other people want, or what other people say should make you happy.

After some time away and a lot of life changes (all good things, don't worry!) I have *finally* made up my mind about this little blog. To give some context.. and just be honest and open with you all.. I have been at a loss of what to do with this page. Which is why it's been unused and untouched since early December. I have always viewed this blog as nothing more than a creative outlet. But when I found myself comparing and feeling like I wasn't measuring up to other, very successful, and aesthetically pleasing blogs, I fell into a slump. A slump of 'what the heck am I ACTUALLY doing here.' I was saying it was a creative outlet, but I wasn't doing anything creative with it. I was trying to compete with other, better, bloggers. Bloggers who put time and money and a lot of hard work into their blogs. Blogging is not my job. I don't think that it ever will be, no matter how appealing that may look, I never see myself turning this into a business and that truly was never the goal - 

When I was in high school I started a blog where I would write small devotional-type posts. Putting my whole heart into them brought me so much joy, even if it was only my mom reading them. But recently I came to the realization that this blog doesn't bring me much joy. Trying my hardest to come up with content and scouring Pinterest for the top 1,000 blog topics of the year was getting really annoying. And that's not what I wanted this to be. I didn't want this blog to be annoying to me -

So I have decided to go back to basics. To use this blog for what I have always wanted it to be.. a place for me to share my heart. My thoughts on life. Encouragement. A place to be open and to be honest and to connect in whatever way I can with you who are reading this. To be real. To let you know that you are not alone in this or that. Back to basics. Back to what brings my heart JOY. 

So, to whoever you are out there reading this.. (hi mom).. I hope that you continue to follow along. 

Thanks for reading.

What's on my wishlist -

It's FINALLY starting to feel like Fall (even though the forecast says high of 85 today.....)!

Fall has never been too high on my favorites list, but I do really like the clothing and fashion that comes along with the season. Which is what I wanted to share with you today!