I’m the worst when it comes to hearing about the latest trends or happenings. Usually it takes my husband or a friend to fill me in on current events. Maybe it’s just this season of life I’m in right now where I’m head-down-laser-focused on raising little kids, but whatever the case is I’m glad I discovered the world of podcasts.

For those who don’t know, podcasts are basically like listening to a radio show except that you can listen to whenever you have time. Even though my days are filled to the brim with baby and toddler life, there are snatches here and there where I can listen to part of a podcast episode. The time I’ve found work best for me to listen to podcasts are when I’m doing housework which means that most of the time, it’s after the kids are in bed or taking naps. I definitely don’t listen to podcasts every day, because I have a few other hobbies (my husband would likely say I have too many…) that I also enjoy doing.

Here’s a list of the podcasts I’ve been listening to lately. Full disclosure: I rarely ever listen to episodes right when they come out. Many times, it takes me days or weeks to listen to an episode. And I don’t always listen to each episode — it just depends on the podcast. Continue reading →

You know one thing that has been funny to me about reading books to our almost 3 year old son? How he gets obsessed with a small handful of books and will only want to read those same books for weeks (or months) at a time. It’s funny in a way that if you even try to skip a page or skip a line, watch out. There is no wrath like a toddlers wrath.

Continue reading →

After I published this post last week, I realized (and thanks to some prompting from my girl Ali Grace!) that I had more to say on the subject of social media so that’s where I find myself right now writing down the rest of those thoughts.

Like I mentioned, I absolutely had ZERO intentions of quitting social media let alone for as long as I did. If I’m honest, I had no intentions of even mentioning it after the fact. However, the more I thought about it, the more I felt convicted to speak out about what I learned from the experience.

You see, something funny happens when you realize and admit that you have a problem. Step one is admitting you have a problem, right? The problem here for me was that I was letting social media enslave me and control my time. I was not being a wise steward of the precious commodity of time that I have been given.

Continue reading →

So, hi. Hello there. Insert my awkward half wave right here.

I didn’t mean to suddenly disappear like I did, but it sort of just organically happened and here I find myself again…it is 2016.

While the couple months break I took was so good, I’m ready to slowly get back to writing and sharing here in this space again. Sometimes you just need to regroup and re-prioritize life, right? Plus, as weird as it is to write things down and send them into the dark hole of the Internet, I kind of still enjoy it.

Hopefully it isn’t strange to pick up where I left off, even if so much time (practically a year, by Internet standards) has passed since I last wrote. In November, I was sharing my life gratitude project. So fun and also so challenging for me especially most of last year with 2 kids under 2.

December arrived in all it’s multi-colored, jolly glory. With it, there were extra play dates, Christmas parties, date nights, family visiting, and the buzzing anticipation of Christmas day itself. For no reason at all, on the first of the month I deleted all the social media apps on my phone and mostly stayed unplugged (except for texts and phone calls) the entire month. IT FELT AMAZING.

Which of course, got me to thinking and realizing how much time I’d been spending on social media and wanting to make an intentional change about it. How does that look for me? I’ve been deleting all the social media apps every weekend (starting late Friday afternoon through Sunday evening) off my phone and let me tell you, I can’t believe it took me so long to do this. Honestly, as cliche as it sounds I am enjoying living life and being present in every moment, without thinking that every moment just has to be documented. There is no mindless scrolling through news feeds or wondering where half hour just went when I could have been reading a book or having an actual conversation with my husband. I love the freedom to not feel like I have to share every single moment of my life online.

January has historically been my least favorite month. I think it’s mostly the weather (cloudy days that never seem to end) and the letdown after all the excitement of the holidays, which sometimes make me dread getting back into the normal routine. Of course, I’ve also realized that a lot of this angst can be kept at bay simply by changing my mentality and perspective on it. Simple in theory, a little harder in practicality. I’m a work in progress, for sure.

So, there you have it. I don’t have a tidy, put-a-bow-on-it and wrap it up prettily ending to this post other than to say that I’m looking forward to thriving a little more this year than last year. 2015 was all about surviving. My hope is that this year will be more about thriving.

More on that in the coming days…stay tuned.

Thank you for reading along, always.

xo