Kady Curtis

Cultivated Life: May Goals

April 29, 2018 Filed Under: Making It Happen, Powersheets 2018

When April wanes into May, it always brings about a conflicting sense of joy and melancholy. Joy for things like true spring, for beautiful days and blooming flowers, for rainy afternoons and cups of tea while hunching over a good book. On the other hand, there is a simmering sadness under the surface: my birthday (another year older, another year closer to death, to regret over wasted time and potential), the bizarre mid-year slump, feeling behind in life. It’s a challenge to not let those feelings overshadow true joy and appreciation for life but this year I am choosing to focus (imperfectly some days) on the fresh start each day brings.

I can’t ignore that I essentially dropped off on sticking with my blog and especially monthly updates. I am struck with comparison syndrome again. I am my own worst bully and I let the lies slip in: I’m not good enough. I’m not interesting. If I’m not perfect right off the bat, I’m not worth writing about. I get discouraged by the sheer magnitude of how much I need to “do” before I reach the level I want to be and instead of appreciating the process I resist trying. I feel like I can’t authentically encourage others while I don’t live out the truths myself. Impostor Syndrome is when you feel like a fraud in your own life, that you don’t belong, that no matter where you end up, you believe you stumbled in on accident.

My true dream is being a writer, both here in my own little corner of the universe and as a published author. Despite my deeply ingrained critical nature, I’ll never move forward unless I take even a small, timid step.

Well friends, here I am. Broken, imperfect, hyper-critical, and somedays struck with the freezing feeling of the vastness of a universe where I don’t know where I belong or how I should get there.

Here is what I want to work on in May:

Powersheets May Goals

May Goals

Monthly Goals (big, one time projects that contain multiple steps)

Take starting fitness progress photos + measurements. The best way to measure your fitness progress is to take visual progress photos and body measurements. I did this in January, haven’t consistently taken care of myself, and want to start over. What better time than my birth month?
End May at less than 170.0 lbs. I keep bouncing between 165 to 174 pounds. I’m great for a week or two, and then drop off. As everyone can discern, I am awful at consistency.
Put an extra $500 towards my student loans. I’m down to $27,694 (I started 2018 at $34,655! That’s $6,961 less.) This will become immensely harder once Dane’s grace period ends, which is pretty demoralizing. His payments will suck up most of that and freeze our dutiful progress we’ve been making.
Prayer with Dane. It brings us even closer, both to each other and God, and interesting insight into what is weighing on our minds. I want us both to have a thriving prayer life.
Clean out our second bedroom. We both want office space, and this bedroom has been a dumping ground for the things we don’t know where to place here in our apartment. It’s time to purge and simplify again.
Sell one craft. I may sell some of the stuff I made for our wedding, or I might make something new. Stay tuned.
Develop + Implement + Maintain a morning routine. I’m a “wake up as late as possible” type of person. If I woke up at 5:30 every day Monday through Friday instead of 7:00, I’ll have an extra 7.5 hours to put towards what matters: cultivating my fitness, spiritual life, or future writing career.
Read two books. I’m a “read multiple books at once” type of person. I’m currently reading The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon, Uninvited by Lysa TerKeurst with some of my friends, and Grace Thus Far by Ginger Millermon. I saw Ginger speak at our women’s retreat and her story was incredible.
Prayer and trust in God’s timing. This one’s hard to measure. I am stuck in a season of confusion and feeling unsettled. Many of the “next steps” in life feel impossibly out of reach right now. I’m not sure what I should be “doing” right now with my life. In a moment of ultra vulnerability, it feels inconceivable to ever have a family (pun intended) unless several things in our life undergo a drastic change. Can’t afford day care + student loans. Student loans will take ages to pay off, even with our intentional effort to pay them off faster than the loan service plans. People always say “oh there’s never a good time to have kids” but we want to do things wisely, and if the numbers don’t add up, they literally do not add up.

Flower vase, rustic decoration, wedding decorations, teal vase, lace vase
I made a ton of these as wedding center pieces
and I still have them stashed away. I’d love to sell them.

Hand letter chalk lettering chalkboard lettering calligraphy crochet

Two of my latest endeavors:
Improving my hand lettering and crocheting a blanket.

Weekly goals (habits to complete a few times during the week)

One week of Couch 2 5k. I am so excited for running outside in nice weather! Time to restart the program (again…).
Uninvited Bible study on Mondays. Doing this with a group of girl friends and I’m so excited.
Memorize the Word. I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. (Psalm 119:15)
Four blog posts. Even if it’s imperfect, I am worthy enough to get it out there. I will learn as I go.
Encourage someone. An antidote to my own sadness and discontent is to lean in and love someone else.
Sunday power prep time. Prepare well for the week ahead.

Uninvited Bible Study Lysa Teurkeurst and She Reads Truth Bible

Daily Goals (good habits to develop)

Daily fitness journal. Writing what I eat and what I do for work outs will give me valuable insight into my own health.
Chronological Bible Reading Plan. I am about a month behind. I will do quiet time in the morning to do this first thing.
No spending money. Impulse buys and lazy fast food eating sucks up so much money. A small pinhole in your spending adds up to a huge puddle of wasted money better spent on something long lasting and intentional.
Intimacy with Dane. My marriage with Dane will outlast many other things in life: friends, career, hobbies. He deserves my first and my best, not the scraps at the end of the day. Marriages are nourished when you love your spouse well and intentionally every day.

Couch to 5k Progress Tracker

Here’s to fresh starts, and doing what I say I will.

Tell me in the comments: What are you working on right now? How are you improving yourself?

Cultivated Life: February Goals & January Recap

February 1, 2018 Filed Under: Making It Happen, Powersheets 2018

The older I get, the more time really can get away from me if I’m not careful. One minute, I’m ringing in the new year with friends and the next day it’s February and maybe it’s time to start thinking about being a “has it all-together-sort-of” wife and do something about Valentine’s Day. Don’t tell Dane, but I totally bought him the most perfect card all the way back in the first week of January. I think about how things used to be when I realized what time of it month it was by being surprised at expiration dates on food. Like: “Huh, I just bought those eggs and they expire in early February, which means early February’s coming” and then ope, there she is. Pack your bags, January. See you in 2019.

A disheartening 80% of New Years Resolutions are abandoned by the second week of February. Which means I’m not all about those vague, wishy washy “want” goals, I’m in the game of evaluating the needs in my life and drawing myself a road map to take care of them, which means making progress inch by inch. I give myself SMART goals in manageable, bite sized pieces. I set myself up for success by being realistic, reasonable and grounding my goals in a firm “why.” And do you know what?

It’s still really freakin’ messy. Messy as in “completely forgotten, pushed aside, backwards stepping shame riddled” mess. It’s unchecked boxes, scribbled out plans, projects unstarted, laundry festering, food bought with the best intentions of “having it all together” mess. It’s “wow I deemed this the most important goal of the year and have scarcely touched it” mess. But this mess?

It’s beautiful. It’s a hap hazard, confusing, contradiction, hypocritical, worthy, grace filled, shameful, and freeing mess. It looks like belly laughs until you’re crying. It sometimes looks like waking up way too early to the sound of your husband breathing. It’s a lot of things—all at once, not enough, good enough, slow as a snail, fast as a cheetah, and accomplished through the grace of God. Most of all, it’s me doin’ things, good things, to be present and enjoy this life I was given.

It’s February, y’all. Let’s see where we’ve been in January!

Highlights:

Dane graduated with his MBA and we spent a weekend at a B&B to celebrate!
We paid an *additional* $2,000 towards our student loans. If January was like every month, we’d have all of our student loans paid off in 3.6 years!
I was very intentional in reaching out and connecting with others.
January was very restful, a good lead up to the craziness of February!

Our paper chain counting down to being debt free. I was very excited for the first time I got to pull a ring!

January Goals

Monthly Goals (big, one time projects that contain multiple steps)

Attend one new fitness class at Genesis — well, I decided on a Saturday morning spin class. But I didn’t muster the courage + motivation to go. (0.50)
~~Decide which FBC Bible study to attend for spring semester~~ — we’re doing The Story of Us as a small group and Steadfast Love with the women’s ministry. (1.0)
~~Confirm what Dane’s new student loan payment will be~~ — Mostly painless. (1.0)
~~Celebrate Dane’s graduation from grad school!~~ — Heck yeah we did! (1.0)
Do all of our laundry — Yikes. Did not touch this (0.0)
~~Blog: Yearly & January goals~~ — Nailed it! (1.0)
Blog: Draft a version of a weekly/monthly content calendar — I started drafting ideas, but nothing set in stone. (0.25)
Blog: Create new category buttons to match my theme — Maybe February. (0.0)

Weekly goals (habits to complete a few times during the week)

Work out at the gym 4 times — The best intentions, the worst execution. 0/4 weeks.
Do 1 week of Financial Peace University — 1/4
~~Distribute money into four savings categories~~ — 4/4!
~~Weekly family meeting with Dane~~ — This was SO GOOD. It deserves its own blog post. Hang in there, y’all. (3/3)
~~Connect & hang out with a friend~~ — This was so encouraging for me. 3/4
~~Attend church service~~ — Best way to start the week. 3/3

Daily Goals (good habits to develop)

Damn Early Mornings — This ended up being a “not right now” canceled goal. Instead of feeling disheartened about not checking this box off every day, I’m tabling it for a time when I can focus on it.)
Chronological Bible Reading Plan — I got to read through the book of Job, which was a great insight to suffering and dealing with difficult and trying times. I’m not “caught up” so to speak. (15/31)
No lazy fast food runs — Great way to not spend money! (24/27)
No spending money — This process also is SO. GOOD. And deserves its own post. (22/27)
5 minute clean up session — Let’s not talk about this one… (4/27)

Total goals = 142
Total done = 83.41
Completion = 59%

February Goals

Monthly Goals (big, one time projects that contain multiple steps)

Catch up on my Bible in a Year Plan. I am about 15 days behind.
Register for the Beautifully Woven women’s retreat.
Use our $4,000 tax refund to make additional student loan payment. (insert praise hands and sobbing face here. Truly a great example of “mixed feels”).
Complete Financial Peace University Weeks 2 + 3.
Celebrate Valentine’s Day.
Establish blogging/writing “power hour” daily.
Draft monthly/weekly content outline.
Five exciting adventures! (Video directing training x 2, IF: Topeka, Valentine’s Day, ski trip!)

Weekly Goals (habits to complete a few times during the week)

Attend gym 3x/week. I cut back from 4/week, February is very intense.
Attend Steadfast Love women’s Bible study on Monday nights. If you would have told 2012 me I’d be leading a group of women through a Bible study I would have laughed in your face. Alas, God’s weird like that.
Financial Freedom Fridays. $50 to long term savings (down payment fund!) and left over money into the student loan repayment pot.
Family Meetings. Truly has been a blessing and a joy. I can’t wait to share more!
Post a blog post. Heyo! One down.

Daily Goals (good habits to develop)

Water (100 oz.) + medication + 10,000 steps. Good, healthful habits!
No spending money. Carrying over from January. This has been such a blessing of a challenge that has allowed us to really cultivate contentment, delayed gratification, using what we already have and coming up with a lot more money to throw at student loans. We’ve really flourished at budgeting and look forward to improving further.
Intimacy with Dane. It’s important to not let anything drain us so much that we don’t have time or energy for each other. Dane deserves the best of me, not my worst. Things like acts of kindness, meaningful kisses, and close intentional connection are examples of this.
30 minutes of writing. If I want to be a writer, I need to get it out of my head and into the world. I need to stop letting the “not good enough” feelings stifle my words.
Time with God. Prayer, study, what-have-you.

I have a lot of ideas churning in my head about where to go from here, which is much better than writer’s block for sure. I am excited to really start slamming the ins and outs of my goals and progress here—ESPECIALLY everything I’ve uncovered about successfully repaying student loans and making progress. See you in a few days… not weeks this time like January. February is going to be a fairly intense month, so my words of wisdom are “leave some space so you can enjoy what matters.”

Tell me in the comments below:
what do you want to read more of?

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Word of the Year

January 4, 2018 Filed Under: Powersheets 2018

Cultivated Life - Word of the Year

If you were to take a peek inside of my house, one thing you would find is a lot of notebooks. Journals in every which way and size, color and style, brands ranging from the cheapest dollar store variety to the high end specialty stores. I really, really like journals. What might look like chaos from the outside looking in actually has its own meticulous system and function. I operate well in madness, some might say. On my good days, I dare say I thrive in it.

I have one notebook for my fitness goals, two for my Bible study notes, one for my meal plans and grocery list, two for my thoughts as I read a particularly good book that gives me pause to think, an everyday notebook I tote everywhere. I also have plethora of others started and stopped, scribbled in, stashed away out of sight or towering on my table. I take great enjoyment out of writing.

Being Enough.

The theme I might be presenting here may suggest “wow, you’re organized!” Or perhaps “Wow, you have a stationary aisle addiction.” What I feel when I look at my collection of notebooks is a life spent stopping and starting, restarting, moving in a different direction, retracing my steps, giving up, giving in and stashing things out of sight. I move on in favor of new things. I give up. I get flustered or embarrassed that I’m not “enough”—smart enough, creative enough, thin enough, fast enough, wise enough, put together enough, making enough progress, not enough success. I have always been my own worst bully.

I find myself chastising myself, saying if I’m “not enough” then I shouldn’t bother to try. I should pack up my things and slip off quietly into the night. No fanfare, no acknowledgement. Just awkward embarrassment and another page turned in favor of the next new thing. Onward to the next project. Time to hit the Target aisle for a new notebook for new thoughts and ideas.

Despite all of that, largely the themes of my life are very consistent even if the mechanism I use to nurture them differs as wildly as the weather. I want to take care of myself, I want to love others well, I want to deepen my relationship with God, I want financial freedom, and I want to pursue creative passions. The end goal is clearly in sight, but the road I choose to take often does not take me far before I take a turn in a different direction.

I don’t want to wander in circles this year.

Word of the year

The idea of a choosing a word to make up your year is by no means a new concept, but the popularity of it has appeared to be peaking in interest the last few years. I see it flood my social media from November to the present as people explain why they feel like words like “courage” and “perseverance” are their words of the year. It might seem strange to think about, or even downright bizarre to think of “one word” that you want to focus on for the year when there are so many characteristics out there that make you a good, whole person. We strive for many things: loyalty, honesty, faith, endurance, strength, joy, bravery, contentment. Why narrow down to just one?

Two years ago, I thought it was silly too. I went through the motions of choosing a word because I felt like it was “the thing to do.” Like if I didn’t, my year would be aimless. I went with “courageous” because I felt like I was weak and needed to live up to something. Last year, I went with “nourishment” because I felt like a lot of my life was being neglected (and honestly, I don’t feel any more courageous. My first word of the year was long forgotten until I unearthed the notebook with the notes about it.)

As I dived deeper into introspection and uncovering the parts of my whole, I realized that choosing a word of the year is valid, and often incredibly helpful in guiding how I want to move forward with life. However, the word of the year concept can be expanded to meet you exactly where you are: living month to month, season by season, or thinking in terms of a whole year. Wherever you are, be reasonable with yourself.

How do you choose a word of the year?

Take your time. Spend some time going over where you were last year, season, or month. Reflect on where you are now, and where you want to be. Have you been neglecting something? Are you unhappy? Do you feel like you are not in control of your life, but instead floating through it? Do you suffer from guilt about not being “enough” (see: me.) Wherever you are, be honest with yourself. You don’t do yourself any favors by sugar coating or lying to yourself.

Where do you want to be? Imagine a set period of time (for me, a year). What do you want it to look like? What type of person do you want to be. Visualize that person. What are they doing, how do they spend their time, what have they made progress on? Write about that person. Lean into the feelings and sit with them, because it may reveal the parts of your life that may not be easy to face.

Word dump. Write down adjectives. Reflect on that visualization of the person you want to be and think of words to describe them. Make a list, with no shame nor sense of comparison. Big words, small words, words that don’t make sense, words you hate (that becomes relevant for me later). Be unrestrained. Be fearless in pursuit of finding your fire.

Put it aside, and come back to it. It took me a month to decide on my word of the year. I scribbled and scratched, restarted and backed up and finally after sitting in my own discomfort, settled on my word. I came back to my list multiple times. I knew I found the right one this time because it made me afraid. It made me uncomfortable.

Remember you’re not on a deadline. Don’t focus on what other people are doing. Don’t feel pressured to hit a certain day. Don’t focus on the first day of the month, don’t focus on the next Monday to hit the ground running. Spend your time intentionally, and the timeline you’re on will be perfect. Once you’ve chosen your word, the next step is to…

Make it a visual. Keep it at the forefront of your mind by whatever means are most effective for you. Phone lock screens, lettered prints, post it notes, metal stamped bracelets, and notecards plastered in the common areas you spend your time are some of the more common ideas I’ve seen. Whatever it is, do you. If you try to do what someone else does because you feel like you “should” you’re probably not in the right place.

What word did I choose?

I went through Powersheets prep work (there are still some left!). They helped unearth a lot of feelings I had on how 2017 went. I read several Pinterest posts on the subject. I Googled “Word of the Year Inspiration” and read over what other people chose. I scoured blogs. If I was going to do this hooplah this year, I wanted to do it right. I wanted it to stick.

Think back to my notebook diatribe. I start a whole lot of things and quit. When things get hard I give up, shy away, or shrug it off in favor of something else. I don’t see things through to the end. I’m inconsistent, I lack the courage to try, I fail one day and don’t pick up on the next because now I am not “perfect.”

On my word dump list, I wrote the following attributes:

Bravery, consistency, endurance, strength, perseverance,
loyalty, persistence, steadfast, faithfulness, courageous,
boldness, fortitude, determination, dauntlessness.

I followed the rabbit hole on the synonyms of all those words. I noted the overlaps and strings that tied them together because when you really put all the floweriness aside, they all are very similar in nature. I noticed one word appearing over and over again.

To be honest, I hated it. I hated the sound of the word. I hated the way it rolled around my mouth when I tried to explain it as an option. After time, the words to explain it just came to me. It felt like coming home, a sign of relief, tension abated. From that point onward, I couldn’t get the word out of my head.

I want to lean into the hard things, and endure them for the common good. I want to be brave and courageous to not shy away from difficulties. Instead of giving up when I don’t feel like I am “enough” I want to persist and keep moving forward. I want to see things through to the end and be consistent in what I start. I want to persevere, even when it doesn’t feel good and sometimes even downright awful. I want to be loyal to what matters. I want to have steadfast resolve and determination, keeping my eyes on the bigger picture, not temporary instant gratification. I want to be bold in pursuit of the life I was destined to lead. I want to be faithful. I want the fortitude to do what is good for my little family and the strength to resist succumbing to the person I am not proud of. I want to be the type of person that dauntlessly seeks to improve all areas of my life, because I am given but one life, a blip of time, to make the most of the time I was given.

My 2018 Word of the Year is:
Grit Word of the Year WOTY Virtue Powersheets

grit ( /ˈɡɹɪt/ )
Courage and resolve, strength of character, firmness of character; indomitable spirit; pluck. fearlessness, fortitude

Whatever it takes for you to make the most of your life, feel inspired and encouraged to wake up every day, do it. Don’t waste another second wishing you were “enough” because I promise, you already are. Find your muse and be fearless in pursuit of what lights your heart on fire. Friends, I very much am preaching to myself, but I’m trying to make the most of this year, and I hope you will as well.

Tell me below!

Are you doing a word of the year? What word did you choose?

Side note! If you like what you see, be sure to subscribe to keep up with all of the blog happenings. 2018 is a big year for me putting myself out there and imagine how awesome it will feel to say you “read that blog before it was cool.”

Like what you see? Pin it!

6 Tips to Choose Your Word of the Year to make the most of 2018

Cultivated Life: Yearly & January Goals

January 1, 2018 Filed Under: Making It Happen, Powersheets 2018

Cultivated Life: Yearly and January Goals

I cannot feel my fingers, which has kept me from forgetting that January is here! I’m rocking the double whammy today: heating pad and a heating blanket. Our apartment doesn’t heat itself, it heats the outdoors apparently. So ’tis the season for ALL. THE. LAYERS. We rang in our new year with some good friends J + L at their home. We made tacos, queso & lots of snacks, played Cards Against Humanity and scarcely made it to midnight. Old age is definitely setting in.

The elephant in the room is “it’s been a while.” I had great intentions to be an intense, regular blogger this fall and the arch enemy of the creative process set in: comparison. It ate at the back of my mind that I wasn’t good enough, I wasn’t like “X” blogger I admire, I didn’t get as many views as I wanted, I worried I wasn’t “interesting” enough. So I slipped away in the night, thinking about the posts I’d write if I was brave enough. Well, I am tired of not doing what I want because I’m afraid. So I’m back to putting myself out there, allowing myself to fumble along the way, and I’m going to just be real and authentic. There is SO MUCH to learn about blogging and being successful. I hope to sum up 2018 twelve months from now being able to say I learned how to make this blog successful.

January 1st means breaking in my new Powersheets! I’ve spent the last few weeks slowly and meticulously working through the prep work to uncover what I value right now. I spend December brain dumping what I wanted to do, and have spent the last two weeks making sense of the common themes and I have uncovered the eight big themes I want to cultivate this year. I have a lot of small baby steps under each goal, but I’ll include some of the bigger goals underneath each theme. As this series progresses, each theme will have its own post explaining the steps and effort I’m taking more in depth.

Yearly Goals

Regain control over my physical health. I have made progress on this in 2017, but I am still not back to where I want to be: fit, strong, nourishing my body consistently and taking care of myself for longer than one spurt at a time.
- Go to the gym four times per week.
- Register & run a timed 5k
- Lose 30/40/50/60 pounds
Have an intimate & personal relationship with Jesus. This is an ongoing theme in my life. I made a lot of progress in this over 2017 as well, but want to dive deeper and mature my faith
- Write about my faith on my blog
- Read the whole Bible in chronological order (the order of events as they happen)
Achieve financial freedom from our student loan debt. This is a bold, scary goal. My mind says “there’s no way you’ll accomplish this in a year” but I’m not letting fear stop me from giving it my all. We have $85,000 in student loan debt between the two of us, and our payments combined are greater than a mortgage on a house. Our student loans have made many “next steps” in marriage completely out of reach. Instead of feeling sorry for myself and wallowing, I’m choosing to do something about it.
- Religiously track every dollar spent
- Use a modified “cash envelope” system
- Lower our student loan premium by $10,000.
Nourish & love my husband well. We’ve been married for a whole year and real life has set in where we need to intentionally communicate and love each other well, meeting each other’s needs (see: 5 love languages) and growing deeper as a couple.
Cultivate a warm, inviting & life giving home. It can be discouraging to live in a tiny, unsatisfying apartment that isn’t “ours.” Instead of living in the future and the false belief in “someday” I want to love our home well, make it our safe haven and take care of it now. Our own home is a million miles off, but life is too short to be uncomfortable where you live.
- Clean, purge & organize all of our spaces (no “junk” spots!)
- Regularly invite others into our home
- Maintain a clean, furnished and welcoming home.
Pursue my creative passions. I dream of living as a writer, blogger and artist rather than “live and die by the corporate world.” This is out of reach if I don’t put consistent effort into it. My heart has always been in creating things and writing that connects with others.
- Consistently blog my Powersheets updates (hello friends!)
- Create a blog content calendar
- Outline my book
- Make $1
- Learn photography
Connect & establish a tribe of close friends. I struggle with bridging the gap between “acquaintance” and “friend.” I have social anxiety that makes it hard for me to put myself out there because I am afraid of rejection. My mind goes to “no one actually likes you.” I’ve isolated myself because I don’t try. Life isn’t meant to be spent alone and I commit to being a good, reliable friend.
- Make effort, lean in first, initiate. Don’t wait for people to come to me
- Attend Fellow’s various women’s events
- Don’t bail last minute when your brain is acting like a jerk
Stay consistent in doing the tasks that bring wellness. There is an abundance of “little things” that make me feel better about life, ranging from physical health, mental health & feeling put together.
- Complete Damn Early Mornings (segue: maintain positive morning routine; use mornings wisely)
- Take medication & supplements
- Wear makeup daily.
- Maintain twice daily facial routine

January Goals

Monthly Goals (big, one time projects that contain multiple steps)

Attend one new fitness class at Genesis
Decide which FBC Bible study to attend for spring semester
Confirm what Dane’s new student loan payment will be
Celebrate Dane’s graduation from grad school!
Do all of our laundry (sort: keep/donate/pitch? Wash it. Hang it!)
Blog: Yearly & January goals (look at me, completing a thing now!)
Blog: Draft a version of a weekly/monthly content calendar
Blog: Create new category buttons to match my theme

Weekly goals (habits to complete a few times during the week)

Work out at the gym 4 times
Do 1 week of Financial Peace University
(I did this a long time ago, I am repeating to do a blog series on how effective it really is)
Distribute money into four categories:
(long term savings [$50], emergency fund [$50], bills account [varies], student loan pot [1/2 of whatever is left over the day before a pay day, to hold money for the once a month “massive student loan payment”])
Weekly family meeting with Dane
(Cover finances, plans for the week, emotional check in, etc.)
Connect & hang out with a friend
Attend church service (or stream if we are out of town)

Daily Goals (good habits to develop)

Damn Early Mornings
(waking up at 5:00 a.m. to make the most of my mornings: quiet time, fitness, etc.)
Chronological Bible reading plan
(I am using this plan)
No lazy fast food runs
(Going out with friends to catch up is one thing, hitting the drive through because I’m too lazy to grocery shop and cook is another.)
No spending money
(We are attempting to save money by devoting one day a week to be a “spend” day. We do our groceries, errands, get gas, whatever during this day only and try to spend $0 [other than bills] every other day that week. We did this one month last year and it was AWESOME.)
5 minute clean up session
(I hate cleaning, so smaller consistent effort is easier than one big lump of effort)

How we spend our time is how we spend our life and I intend to spend it the way I want to, not the way I spend it on accident. I plan on expanding on all of these at length later, so consider this an intro. If you have any similar goals I would love to connect with you and support each other!

Next up: to reveal my “word of the year.” Stay tuned!

Fall Bucket List: Fall in Love With Your Life

September 2, 2017 Filed Under: Fall in Love with Your Life, Making It Happen

I lost my summer to a river of excuses, depression and apathy.

September came bursting in at full speed, and to me it signifies the “end” of summer. Sorry to the rule abiding folks out there who demand the pumpkin spiced lattes stay away until the the fall equinox on September 22nd, but I’m ready for boots, pumpkins, bonfires and chilly mornings. I’ve been reflecting on how my summer went this year, and to be frank—I squandered it. I wasted the long humid nights that should be spent around a pool with friends and instead spent it inside on a Netflix binge and refreshing Facebook. I just have not been feeling myself lately. I swam in a pool one time. I saw my friends a handful of times. I didn’t have adventures. I didn’t lay outside under the blistering sun (hopefully with sunscreen) and reading a book. I didn’t make the most of my days, and in many ways I regret it. So quickly can I lose track of time, and the opportunities pass me by.

How can I encourage others to live their best life when I am not following my own advice?

September means new beginnings for me. In order to make the most of this season, my favorite season, I wrote out a bucket list of the most important things I wanted to do between September and November to really feel like I make the most of my life. To be honest, days can slip by me without even being noticed. I’ve hit a funk where I wake up (too late), go to work, get exhausted, come home and just feel too drained to do anything but veg out on the couch in a fit of indifference. I wasted my nights doing things that didn’t fulfill me. They didn’t give me joy. I laid in bed at night feeling unsettled and disappointed that another day has passed and I haven’t done what I want to do.

So, I’m making a list. I’m planning things out. I’m keeping myself engaged and present in this short blip of a life I have been given. I don’t want to spend another season feeling like I’ve not made any progress on my life. I’m sharing this list because I plan to update you all every week or so as I make progress on my list. I hope it encourages you to make your own (or print off mine—I’ve provided a download link below to a high def version that would look great on a desk, fridge, or cork board).

Make homemade apple cider
Go to the renaissance faire
Make a wreath for our front door
Make pumpkin cookies
Go on a romantic trip with Dane
Drink warm tea on a chilly morning
Make brunch for some friends
Go to a fall festival/corn maze
Make chili for friends
Go to the farmer’s market
Watch a Halloween movie
Do a random act of kindness
Take a walk & get coffee afterwards
Make homemade pickles
Have friendsgiving dinner
Go apple picking
Try a new soup recipe
Bring treats for coworkers
Wear cute boots & a sweater
Go to a live sports game
Carve pumpkins
Open our windows
Take a hike in nature
Write ten thankful cards
Sit around a bonfire
Take fall photos
Upcyle a table
Listen to live music
Listen to the rain
Read a good book outside
Movie on the lawn
Learn a fiber craft
Lay outside on a blanket
Have charcuterie for dinner
Burn a fall candle
Blog our season together

Follow along our “Fall In Love With Your Life” series (that pun is very much intended). Make your own journey and share it with your friends. Live the best life you can live, because we are only given a short wink of time to cherish and treasure the good things right in front of us.

Please subscribe to my blog to get updates and inspiration on how to execute and incorporate all of the fall possibilities into your life to make the most of your season. Please also consider sharing on Facebook & repin on Pinterest to encourage the rest of your friends.

What fun things do you want to do to make the most of this season?

Click HERE to download this fall bucket list printable!

USE THE HASHTAG #fallinlovewithfall2017 SO I CAN FOLLOW ALONG WITH YOUR JOURNEY 🙂

Fall Bucket List

It’s Not Goodbye It’s See You Later

July 1, 2017 Filed Under: Making It Happen

I’ve been asking myself a lot of heart questions, gauging if I am meeting my own standards of excellence and cultivating a meaningful life. Am I working out as much as I want to? No. Am I reaching out, leaning into awkward, or connecting with people as much as I want to? No. Am I eating healthful foods, drinking water, or respecting the body I have been given as much as I want to? No. Am I bettering myself, challenging myself or improving myself as much as I want to? No. Am I practicing my artistic talents to move forward with someday being able to profit off of my writing and art as much as I want to? No. Am I nourishing my heart and taking care of my spiritual health as much as I want to? No. I have made a lot of progress this year, but there is something that holds me back that makes me feel sad, depressed and unfulfilled. The overwhelming sense of “not enoughness” has kept me discouraged and disheartened.

So what’s the cause?

Wasting away on social media. Especially Facebook. I spend hours—hours—of my day refreshing the same soul sucking program. I live for those little red flags that light up my notifications all day long. Easily 100 of them. But if you track them, 99% of them would not even pertain to me. They provide no connection with the people I care about. They don’t bring that feeling of closeness I’m searching for. They don’t cultivate those positive relationships I’ve been seeking. They’re absolutely pointless. They’re network marketing group name change notifications. Invites to online party after party. So-and-so from the random group I’m only somewhat interested in letting me know a stranger has made a post I’ll never read. I’ve tried to unsubscribe and unfollow these impersonal notifications, but while they have been culled for certain—it’s been hard to beat the hydra. Cut one, two more pop up in its place.

Additionally, my newsfeed has been taken over by reposts. It’s not even about our personal lives anymore. They’re the Tasty videos of food I’ll never make. Inflammatory, poorly researched “political articles” that don’t back up their outlandish claims with the original source they’re referencing. They’re the self righteous, passive aggressive “Friendly reminder…” posts that scream “make me go viral” not “make the world a better place.”

Beyond just the content, it leaves me feeling like I am not enough. Like I’m unloved, unworthy and unwanted. I see the outings I’m not invited to, being reminded I haven’t done anything with friends for weeks. It’s the weddings I’m not invited to even though I thought we were close. It’s that reminder of not getting “I love this girl!” friend tagged posts. It’s feeling perplexed about why the person I thought I connected well with denied the friend request or deleted me, making me wonder what it is about me that offends them enough to cut me out or keep me at a distance even though we run in the same circles. It’s that feeling of being sad, but still somehow spending hours a day refreshing the same, stupid page.

You might be saying “Girl, it’s just Facebook, why do you even care that much? Get over it.” And you’re right—it’s not healthy. It’s not productive. But it’s the nature of an extrovert who feels lonely easily, who wants to feel connected with others in a world no longer built for that. It’s the crippling anxiety I try to beat but have yet to conquer. Which is why I’m here, slamming out this post on the holiday weekend instead of lounging by the pool.

I’m not saying goodbye, but see you later.

So it’s time to fast, sort of, to take a step back and reset my heart. I’m setting a countdown alarm on my phone—60 minutes—that I reset everyday that will place a limit on my time here. I’m not going full stop because it’s just impossible to connect with everyone thanks to distance, time and schedules. but I need to use my time wisely and if you go look at that “battery usage” section of my iPhone, you’ll see I spend hours upon hours a day here. Six days with four hours of usage adds up to one whole day of time used that doesn’t even make me feel fulfilled. I’m placing a limit rather than a complete black out because as much as I hate it, it’s often the only way I do generate blog views (thanks y’all! You were readers before it was cool). It’s the only way I’ll see your baby grow up, hear about your new job, or hear your bad news. It’s just simply impossible to see everyone I want to see and catch up with who I want to catch up with. I want to use what time I do allow myself to have to be intentional and add value to my life.

One of my July goals is to step back from my online identity and refocus. Instead of endless refreshing, I will be:

Texting you to ask how your day has been rather than reading your post about it.
Asking you to grab lunch, come over for coffee, take a walk to catch up, going to things together.
Leaning into awkward and asking for help even when it might be easier to take care of it myself.
Reading, working out, following my creative passions, nourishing my spirit, serving, loving others well.
Being present with who I am with, not focusing on other things. Seeing your eyes, not my screen.
Listening to podcasts, conquering my to do list, building our new house into a warm loving home.

July will be an interesting month and I am excited to use it well in a way I have never been able to do. So, don’t be surprised if I try to engage more personally. It’s way, way, way out of my comfort zone to initiate. To be the first one to reach out, to open up or be vulnerable. To not wait for relationships to grow themselves and come to me, but to make the effort.

If this speaks to your heart, and you want to join hands and support each other on this journey together to use our lives in a better way, I’d love to hear from you and connect.

June Powersheets Goals

June 1, 2017 Filed Under: Making It Happen

Well y’all, it’s been a hot minute or two. I somewhat fell off the wagon for my Powersheets for the month of May and I’ve struggled with a sense of melancholy towards life and making progress. Life is full of phases and I’ve been planted in the “I’m imperfect so I should quit!” lie, which has really sent me off kilter. I’m not really feeling like myself lately, and I’m not sure what the problem is. Life has been really good, so why do I feel so blah about everything?

I’ve slacked on my goals. A little bit. I am thankful I haven’t succumbed back to the worst of the worst old habits, but I’ve stagnated by being inconsistent. I haven’t been following through with the things I say I will do. I make these lofty goals, and then when the time comes I make excuses and rationalize my way out of it. I’m feeling quite downtrodden by just how far away everything seems to be. Getting my craft business off the ground seems to be an infinite journey away when my work doesn’t seem “good enough” in my mind. My goal weight of 110 pounds seems impossible some days when I don’t hit my milestones. Paying off bills, saving for a down payment, and buying a house seems like something we’ll never accomplish in our short blip of a lifetime. I come home from work everyday just feeling so mentally drained and exhausted that sometimes even feeding myself seems like an impossible chore.

It is very, very clear that failing to plan means planning to fail. And by leaving my Powersheets untouched for stretches of days at a time, skipping my weekend planning days, not meal planning and not utilizing my daily planner as I should means I fall into a funk where what matters to me gets tossed to the wayside in favor of too much Netflix, too much pizza, and too much Facebook.

I believe that sharing a journey and sharing progress keeps you accountable. And I want to encourage, inspire and motivate others to make positive changes in their life. The years we are allotted on this earth are limited, and I want to inspire others to live the life they want instead of looking back when they’re 80 and regretting the life they had. On a personal level, I want to be more vulnerable and open. The best relationships grow when you allow yourself to be vulnerable, and I’m trying to be very careful about crafting that perfect Instagram facade.

I took a good hard look at my goals and culled things. I pruned and weeded the list and narrowed it down to a few things I want to focus on this summer. I want to take this summer slow, and really reset and get my progress back on track. I chose “resetting” as my focal word for June. I need to get back to the basics of what matters to me and set reasonable goals that I can tangibly achieve so the long stretches of red marks don’t discourage me from trying at all. I also allowed myself to get a little messy, which is quite counter to my nature.

There’s a lot of “big” goals happening in June, which means I left blank spaces to keep myself from taking on too much, getting discouraged, and quitting. In my mind, empty lines equates to a failure, which has been a struggle to overcome that natural inclination to view myself as a failure for not being 100%. But I’m choosing grace this June to not become a slave to the check boxes for the sack of having check boxes. What’s on my Powersheets actually matter.

MONTHLY GOALS

Publish three blog posts. Having a successful writing career has been a burning desire in my heart since I could, well, spell. Being paid to have people read my silly internet words would be a dream come true. It’s time to make blogging, and learning how to be a real blogger, a big priority.
Lose four pounds. I can’t accomplish any goals unless I’m healthy enough and feel good. Poor eating habits, not exercising, not drinking enough water and getting enough sleep can derail my entire day by making me feel tired, bloated and sick. Health above all.
Move into our new place. So many mixed feelings about this. I’ve moved every year since 2009. However, I’m not too keen on our current living arrangements (reading between the lines, I really hate our tiny apartment). We’ve applied for and have been approved for a 2 bedroom 1.5 bath townhouse on our favorite side of town, for cheaper than our tiny one bedroom. I’m excited to have more space and feel better about our home, but the packing, moving and unpacking is mentally daunting. Oh, and cleaning. And expenses. And dealing with all of the utilities and changing addresses. I know it will be worth it in the end, but it’s such a big task to accomplish in such a short amount of time. And, uhm, we haven’t started the physical tasks at all yet.
Create my student loan payment attack plan. I have a $35,779.09 weight hanging on my shoulders. It’s keeping us from accomplishing so much. We can’t buy a house with this. We can’t have kids. We can’t do anything. Next year the payments will be around $800 between the two of us. So, it’s time to attack. I have a goal of paying off my student loans in under 3 years. That’s a payment of $1000 a month. We are reevaluating everything. Cutting our phone plan down. Cutting our fast food and eating out budget. Making a goal of not spend any money every day but ONE day on the weekend (see daily goals). Centering our fun around free or very cheap things to do. I’m working on figuring out a side hustle I want to do to hopefully bring in a couple of extra hundred dollars a month. Tax refunds, Christmas bonuses, every dollar I can spare gets thrown into that money pit (don’t go to college, y’all!). A few people have scoffed and said there’s no way, and I can’t wait to prove them wrong. So thanks for that inspiration.
Read three books. I currently have, uhm, like 30 to 40 unread books to read. As a part of my “don’t spend any money” thing, I’m committing to not buying any new books until I read them all! This month’s features include:
1. I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist by Norman Geisler
2. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
3. Miracle Mornings by Hal Elrod
Keep food budget <$100 per week. Real talk, we spent $650 on fast food and eating out this month. We are changing that habit by leaps and bounds! We started using Blue Apron ($50/week for three meals) plus plan on being very meticulous and consistent with weekly meal planning and shopping on the weekends. We are aiming for salad, fruit, and having one crock pot meal to help with the other days.
Start summer Bible study session at FBC. This summer’s session is doing Finding I Am by Lysa Terkeurst. If you’re local, we’d love to have you! Check out the details on the website.
Have a servant heart. I am trying to focus on being content with what I have, being present and serving others. I will be a good and present CASA, serve at church, reach out and love others well, give my money and time to be a light in the lives of others.

WEEKLY GOALS

Attend church at FBC on Sundays. I’ve slacked a lot over the last few weeks. I like sleeping in. I always feel better when we go.
Complete one week of Couch 2 5K. I keep starting, getting half way through, falling off the wagon and restarting because I am a perfectionist. So, here I am restarting the program again. I want to run a race sub 35 minutes!
Deposit $50 into Long Term Savings + $50 into the emergency fund. This has been a long term goal. One is for our future house down payment. The other is to be prepared when things abruptly go wrong. Can’t afford to NOT have an emergency fund!
Use my weekends wisely. Control the social media usage. Curb the random days where all I do is nap and watch Netflix. I need to use this time to prepare for good weeks. Grocery shop, meal plan, run errands, clean up, do laundry, keep my life on track. A little effort goes a long way in making the rest of the week go smoothly.

DAILY GOALS

Don’t spend ANY money! This is going to be quite the challenge. We are allotting one day a week (Saturday or Sunday) to grocery shop, get gas, or do whatever spending needs to be done (beyond paying actual bills). No fast food, no coffee runs, no Amazon splurges. The goal is to end the month with as much money as possible.
Don’t eat fast food/restaurant food. Too many useless calories. Too expensive. Remember that $650 from above? Yeah, we are aiming to ax that down to $0.
No social media until I spend time with God. Prayer, Bible study, meditation, pod casts, whatever. I waste a lot of time refreshing the same stupid pages with little to no change. I can’t even touch it until I do something to feed my soul. And if that means I don’t do it until 9:00 at night, well, I guess I’ll miss out on the poorly researched political posts and cute cat photos (I’ll miss one, I’ll let you guess which one it is.)
Bible study. Kind of varies on what I do, but I’ve got to do something. I keep slacking on the read the whole Bible in a year thing. I bought the She Reads Truth Bible and it’s so pretty to use I feel guilty even touching it.
Complete my healthy habits list. 120 fl. oz. of water, take medication, skin care routine twice daily, 10,000 steps. I measure success by hitting 4/5 daily tasks.
Start my day with my Powersheets and Planner. Everything goes much more smoothly and I feel more centered when I start off my morning in my Powersheets and Day Designer Planner. When I center myself around my daily goals, write out the top three things I want to accomplish today, and keep track of my time I end my day feeling less stressed and more content.

I look forward to attacking my goals this month, making progress and bettering myself. I look forward to actually following through with my progress on June 30! (See, two blog posts all planned out already. Look at me go, doing stuff.)

What are you working towards this month? Shoot me a comment below. I would love to connect and encourage you!

This post contains Amazon affiliate links. Making purchases through an affiliate link doesn’t cost you a penny more but it helps offset the blog server costs and my rapid Chipotle burrito addiction.

Am I Not the Sum of My Parts?

May 14, 2017 Filed Under: Life in the Trenches

I am the type of person that reads four books simultaneously. Each book always gets its own loving attention and nurturing as I work my way through its pages. Each book gets its own place in my world, and its own role in my day. On the other hand, I am the type of person with commitment issues. My journal is a timeline of started projects with good intentions that never see the finish line. I am really good at planning for things, not so stellar at starting.

I am the type of person that has all of these ideas tumbling in my brain but I’m too afraid to start, knowing I’ll mostly certainly quit along the way, and it will just be “one more thing” I started in a fit of mania that stumbled to a halt when the fog clears. Anxiety brain tells me everyone is keeping a running log of my discarded projects and each one chips away at my credibility. Anxiety brain tells me that each new idea and venture will be met with “Well, remember that one time when you…”

I am the type of person who tries to radiate a casual sense of self confidence, the ol’ “fake it ’till you make it” aura while simultaneously over analyzing each action. Nothing feels natural anymore, anxiety brain has made sure the simplest of interactions must be something I critically review and ponder before making a move. It ensures I must rehash every action and reaction both given and taken. And my anxiety brain is quite good at making me feel like I have done everything wrong in the equation that is normal interaction with my fellow human pals.

I am the type of person who wants to feel connected and close, surrounded by friends with the group photos and the smiles and the “I love these girls!” while somehow keeping everyone at a safe distance. Anxiety tells me that my place in the world is dependent on perfect actions and reactions. That any slight I may do will send me tumbling from good graces, cut off, shunned, no longer welcome, thank you very much.

I am the type of person that never invites anyone to anything or initiates anything out of fear of rejection. Anxiety brain tells me that I am “that girl” that no one actually likes, no one really wants around, everyone secretly hates me. Anxiety brain notices each and every wedding that I don’t get invited to, each lunch date left out of, each adventure without me in the pictures. Anxiety brain conveniently discards and blocks out the list of experiences that doesn’t fit my brain’s narrow narrative.

I am the kind of person that wants to pour myself into my creative ventures paralyzed by each failure and each imperfection. I am the person that tries photography but only sees the ugliness in places, not the beauty and potential. It’s reminiscent of how I see myself as a person. I am the kind of person that hides behind self depreciating humor because somehow the idea of me laughing at my own faults and failures gives me some sense of power over them.

I am the type of person afraid to say a word out loud when I’ve only read it in books, too afraid to mispronounce it and look stupid.

I am the type of person that wants so dearly to feel normal and human but instead get stuck with this weird sense of anxiety that isn’t quite so debilitating but just inconvenient enough that it causes me to skip events because my anxiety brain has told me “You know what? No one wants to be friends with someone who has stupid looking eyebrows” (What?)

I am harder on myself now as an almost-26-year-old than I ever was at 16, 18, 20, 22. I’m not sure what’s happened to me. But the rational side of my brain knows it’s a complete waste of my mental energy. Rational brain knows life is far too short to dwell on stupid things. Rational side of my brain knows that no one thinks about me nearly as often as anxiety brain tells me they do. Anxiety brain tries to convince my that everyone’s intentions are bad. The rational side of my brain tells me that people are, generally, good people that don’t seek opportune moments to hurt others.

I just kind of feel off today. I’m stumbling around my house in a daze, not quite nonfunctional but still not functioning either. I feel like my body is electrified with pent up energy. I had all these grandiose ideas for how I wanted this Sunday to look and the reality was not so Instagramworthy. I became a couch barnacle. Covered in the pethair I told myself I’d clean but didn’t. I pace, back and forth, anxious for no tangible reason. Eating canned ravioli even though I told myself I was going to go to the grocery store and meal plan. Canceled plans. Did not follow through with my self imposed rituals that I define a day’s “success” by.

I just hate that I am the kind of person that can be thrown totally off kilter by my brain for no tangible reason at all.

I hate that I am a walking contradiction.

I want to be whole, inspiring, close, intimate, connected, loving, warm, in control, ambitious. I don’t want to be the type of person that spends their Sundays picking cat hair out of the succulent garden because anxiety brain tells me that it’s the ultimate failure to have anything imperfect in my presence.

I did not want mental illness to become a “theme” of my blog. I want it to be bright, cheerful, inspiring full of life giving words that encourage others to get out there and make what’s important to them happen. I want my fitness journey to encourage others to make positive changes in their life. I want to make people laugh. I want to be a good force in the lives of others. But some days, anxiety controls me. So I guess that means sometimes the part of me I try to shuffle away pours out into here.

It’s a harsh reality to greet: Am I not the sums of my parts?

An Interaction I Never Imagined Having

April 1, 2017 Filed Under: Life in the Trenches, Spiritual

File this one under: things I did not anticipate experiencing today.

I try to devote a portion of my Saturdays to walking my ten year old Australian shepherd on a longer walk now as a part of my “fitness and bettering my health” goals. I use that type to listen to the NPR Politics podcast or the Around the Table podcast. Which is kind of funny because one irritates me because the state of the world ain’t that pretty right now, and the other speaks words of grace to the soul and leaves me feeling good. I guess that means I try to maintain some resemblance of balance in my life.

The second necessary backstory nuggets here is that as much as I hate living in my current apartment, I love that I can literally cross the street and walk through Gage Park. My usual route has been taking us about 2.25 miles in a circle past elephants (seriously, for you out of town readers), a pond, a rose garden, a children’s play ground, a train—all sorts of cute, interesting scenic views. However on this particular day, Sadie the wiggle butt was being, well, quite the butt. She barked at her own shadow, she barked while we walked past the Phelps family protesting (although, I’d argue, what a good pupper yes very good doggo), pulled on the leash like crazy and was just overall not being that great of a walking partner. So on a whim I decided to hang a right at the opened gates of Mt. Calvary Catholic Cemetery on the western side of the park thinking anywhere would be better than my current route.

Truth be told, I had no idea this place was even there. It’s not exactly a place you’d particularly drive past unless you had a reason to be there. As I researched it for this blog, I learned it’s 53 acres with 18,000 burials. It opened in 1873. I did not see a soul in sight on this sprawling patch of land, so it seemed to be a perfect place to hike with Sadie with minimal interruption.

We walked all the way to the back and hung a left to follow the circuit. As I walked I noticed that many of the flowers and decorations had blown over thanks to the recent bouts of rain, storms and wind. So as we continued our much more leisurely and pleasant hike, I’d stop and return the stray flowers to their homes. I’d done this about a dozen times and as I focused on scanning the field I wasn’t paying attention to the van sitting on the side of the road. As I approached, I noticed a woman moving her arms in an animated fashion and presumed she was real fired up about whatever conversation she was having with her husband.

However, as I nearly passed them I heard the window roll down and both the elderly woman and her husband trying to flag me down. I approached the window—which if my mom knew that she’d probably flip. However the inhabitants were two elderly Hispanic people that, should they try to wrestle me into their van, I could probably easily fight them off.

The pair spoke very limited English, so I am thankful I studied a very basic amount of Spanish in college, I was able to understand a portion of what they were saying. Between my shoddy Spanish and their limited English, I had an interaction I’ll probably remember for the rest of my life.

The woman motioned towards the third to last grave’s flowered I had just fixed and explained that her and her husband could not walk well, and since it was muddy it was hard to navigate. So they drove in their van to sit on the side of the road to visit their family member who had passed away. She repeatedly said God bless you, God bless you, thank you so much. She motioned towards the loaf of crusty bread her and her husband were eating from and asked me if I wanted to share in breaking of bread with them. I said sure, and together we ate on the side of the road near their relative. We parted ways shortly there after, exchanging several more “God bless you’s. She handed me another chunk of bread and they drove away. We didn’t even exchange names.

I was so interesting, I thought, as I continued my hike. Because while I was hiking I was listened to the Around the Table episode centered on being stuck between a rock and a hard place, and dealing with situations that just seem to have no truly good option. It seemed so applicable as I walked through a place that was often a place of grief and despair for many people. I pondered it in the context of my own life. It’s been a hard year filled with grief and loss in my own way. Losing friends, friends losing family members, dealing with the fear that I was going to lose my mom a few weeks ago—it all just seemed to apply so much. Even with that couple’s grief, they were able to find some good in their situation by connecting with a stranger and sharing in the breaking of bread together.

I walked towards the other end of the cemetery, noticing the sudden shift of gravestones completely devoid of all decorations. Many of the headstones were covered in moss and utterly unreadable. The ones I could read belonged to people who had passed away over 120 years ago. I noticed many belonged to babies and children. It appeared to me that there was no one around to remember them anymore and it made me feel very small and suddenly very aware of my own mortality. Thinking that eventually I would be a grave that no one remembered, no one visited, and no one decorated or maintained anymore.

In many ways, we are so desperate to find meaning in our experiences and what happens to us. We try to rationalize that things don’t just happen and that surely there is some intention in these everyday, albeit unusual, experiences. I choose to believe that those people were placed in my path because I needed that reminder that there is good in all things, sometimes buried deep down and indiscernible, and those people needed a reminder that people out there care beyond their own circle of needs.

PS: I ended up walking 4.24 miles with my old elderly girl Sadie and she probably hates me now. I anticipate that she isn’t going to move around much more the rest of the day.

Enjoy what you’ve read? My dream in life has always been to be able to write full time. It would mean the world to me if you’d share and subscribe to my updates. If I ever become a famous writer you could say that you totally read me before I was cool!

8 Things I Wish I Could Tell My Social Media Marketing Friends

March 29, 2017 Filed Under: Editorial

They’re everywhere.

They are invading our timelines with the exuberant selfies showing all of the “free time” they have thanks to the many blessings of their direct sales company. They’ll slide into your private messages with a “Hey girl!” where you think you’re about to connect with an old friend only to learn you’re getting the same copy and paste message sent to hundreds of other people. You can’t walk through a bridal expo without being assaulted with lose weight now! Make up that can outlast a nuclear blast! Here is this magic potion that is 100% guaranteed to cure you of that pesky acne!*

(*hormonal acne sufferers need not apply)

We smile. We nod. We halfheartedly hit that “maybe attending” button your blast Facebook party invite. Maybe we’ll buy, but here are a few things we wish we could tell you.

1. We really, truly want you to do well.
Whatever you do to make a living, I want you to be happy. I want you to find fulfillment, a healthy work/life balance and have joy in whatever you devote your waking hours to. Life is far too short to do things that make you miserable and if your Facebook party makes the difference between your kid doing that awesome extracurricular activity and not, by all means—you do you! Real friends won’t tear you down, won’t make fun of you or be unkind. We love you! We’re proud of you and understand your “why.” And we want to support you in the ways that we can, but…

2. We really wish you would respect our “no.”
Going through the product sales pitch almost always evolves into a “You’d be so great at this, why don’t you join our team?” And we’ll smile, and politely say no thank you. Our go to excuse is often “We don’t have time” because our culture does not accept “No” as a complete sentence and we idolize busy-ness. We have to rationalize and explain our reasoning and hope it’s enough. But please, don’t use our “no” as an opportunity to criticize our life. “I don’t have time” does not invite you in to tear into my daily schedule and say “Well, you’re on Facebook right now so imagine how much money you can be making during that Facebook time!” I enjoy capping off my evening lounging in my Lularoe leggings flipping through social media looking at cat pictures and browsing Reddit. I don’t need to make money every hour of the day.

3. Some of us actually like our 8 to 5 jobs.
I’ve worked at my company for almost five years now. And I love it. I love what I do, and the people I work with. The environment I work in could not be emulated in house parties, Facebook groups, one on ones or through daily sales Facebook updates. I have no aspiration to quit my day job to go into sales. I have no aspiration to “retire at 30!” The amount of money I could potentially make does not offset the evening hours I would have to sacrifice to make the investment worthwhile.

4. It’s really weird when you come out of the woodwork.
We’ve probably all had it happen. You feel your phone buzz, maybe a ping! and you have a Facebook message. Someone wants to TALK to you! But wait, it’s someone you’ve literally not talked to since high school (and that was ten years ago) starting out with that generic “Hey girl! How are you doing?” Does this girl not remember calling me fat in sophomore year? You send back a tentative “Hey, I’m good, how are you?” With an impressive rapid fire response time you get, “I’m good! Hey, have you considered…” and then boom. That copy paste message I mention before. It’s really weird, and we see right through you.

5. It’s misleading when you’re not honest with us.
So you claim you make $500 for one hour’s work. It sounds awesome on paper, and it’s a great talking point, but it’s misleading when you omit many important details. You don’t explain the hours of preparation you put into it: the phone calls, the emails, the follow ups, the Facebook messages, the organizing, the buying merchandise, office expenses, the travel time, the training—it all adds up really fast, and paints a vividly different picture than the $500/hour claim.

6. We’re cautious and defensive because many of us have been taken advantage of before.
We have had friends exploit us, use us and then convenient disappear and drop off the radar when we aren’t a source of income for them. We’ve been lured in as young, fresh high school graduates with the promise of $15/hour with no experience necessary only to find ourselves in weird group interviews where you’re not allowed to ask questions. We’ve had people we were close to get really, really pushy and become upset when we don’t support them. You may very well not relate to any of these issues, but others we have encountered way before you have left a sour taste in our mouth. It’s not fair to you, but it’s our experience.

7. Some of the practices you do are really, really weird.
I see you posting on Facebook advertising your products and when someone asks a simple, generic question and it’s always “I PM’d you!” What you don’t know is getting thrust into a one on one private conversations like this can be very uncomfortable and place extra pressure on us. Why not just answer these generic questions where everyone can see? Also, what’s the deal with the emoji BINGO? I’ve seen posts with as many as 30 unique emojis attached to them. Or how about asking people if they want to lose weight, fix their skin blemishes, or tone their stomachs with magic unicorn dust laced cling wrap? Or taking selfies with a half full of $100 bills (conveniently around tax refund time…) Like, it’s really really weird.

8. You need to be honest about your health claims.
Many of the products boast about how their products are good for improving health. These companies slap “all natural!” or “organic!” or “plant based!” front and center under the guise that “natural/organic/plant based” is a synonym for “safe.” It does not absolve you of the real, legitimate risks and dangers that your products may have. Essential oils can be dangerous and should not be used with reckless abandon just because they are “natural”. Taking supplements have dangers. Exercise plans have risks. And you are putting your customers at risk by throwing out blanket statements about how your products are good/safe for everyone.

So, my dear friend, keep inviting me to your parties because odds are I will buy something. Post your cute, adorable selfies with your products. Keep on keeping on, get yourself that extra money that cushions you between pay days. I never want to rain on anyone’s parade when they are trying to better their lives. But remember the human on the other side of the wallet. Don’t let your business come between you and your relationships.

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