My First Attempt at Being a Fashion Blogger

Well, I knew it would happen eventually, and tonight's the night.  I drew the slip that says "What You Wore Today."
*Insert monkey-covering-eyes emoji here*
Despite my feelings regarding selfies, I do follow a number of fashion bloggers, so I figured I might as well do this thing right, hence, my first attempt at fashion blogging:
and a few things I learned while I was at it


Y'all.  It is NOT easy to take self-portraits.  As natural as I hope this looks (who am I kidding...) it does not feel natural at all.
Also, you'll have to try multiple different camera angles, and move every lamp in your house to different locations.

This morning, I went up to the hospital to take some more pictures of my dear friend Christa and her brand new little family of three.
A sampling of those pictures may be forthcoming! But no guarantees around here...
I don't know about y'all, but I always freeze in Hospitals, so I opted for long sleeves and boots.  Good choice, considering that it turned out cold and rainy all day.


After about 20,385,830,257,943,750 pictures, you might begin to feel a little more comfortable.

Shirt//Belk   Jeggings//J.C. Penney   Boots//Sold Out Similar Here


If you do this long enough, you'll end up just laughing at yourself, and that, my friends, is the sweet spot.
And you might even finally understand why your dance teacher always said you had chicken arms...

I was so excited to finally have the chance to wear this shirt, because the sleeves actually fit my crazy-long arms.  I always end up cuffing the sleeves on button-downs because they end just above my wrists in a super awkward spot, but these - no such thing.  They end exactly where they should!

On an entirely different subject, please excuse the less than stellar carpet and wall color in my dwelling... I only rent, so tearing up and replacing permanent fixtures is frowned upon.
Someday, I will fulfill my dream of flipping a house or two, but, sadly, this is not the time or place.

I'm Probably Crazy

Today, I drew the paper that said "Something you miss."

The fact is, I miss a lot of things.  Some of them are actual physical things you can hold in your hand, and some of them are more figurative, and don't even get me started on the people I miss...

But the paper asked about a thing, and as materialistic and silly as this may seem, my first thought was this dress.

I only got to wear that dress once - on my college graduation day.  I paired it with my string of pearls, and felt exactly like Audrey Hepburn.

It was the perfect little black dress for me - simple, clean, and classy.

Unfortunately, though, in the post-graduation-moving-halfway-across-the-state shuffle, it (and several other nice dresses) got donated instead of packed.  Camp life didn't require me to attend a ton of events with the little black dress uniform, so I didn't discover that it was missing until several months later.  I actually went to the Women's Shelter store to see if I could find it, but no such luck.  I told one of the employees what had happened, and how long ago it had been, and she looked at me like I was truly crazy.

Maybe I am crazy, but 5 moves later, I still find myself hoping it might mysteriously turn up again one day.

Sometimes Things Just Work Out Perfectly

Today, my childhood best friend had a baby, and I was the designated photographer at the hospital, which was a complete joy, but I am tired - I can't even imagine how exhausted she is!

As a result of that tiredness, I'm grateful that the slip of paper I drew for tonight's blog said "Put your music player on shuffle and write the first three songs that play and what your initial thought is."

Easy breezy lemon squeezy:
Not entirely sure I've ever said that in real life, but I'm going to leave it there anyway.

1. Next to Me - Emeli Sandé - I have a very distinct memory of taking the backroads home from a friend's house in my early years post-college, feeling entirely young and wild and free, with this song playing on the radio - that memory is the reason I bought the song, so that's what I thought of.
2. Movie Loves a Screen - April Smith and the Great Picture Show - This song is just a make-you-happy-no-matter-what song, also, my go-to dance-like-crazy-in-the-kitchen song, so just a general flood of happiness ensued.
3. Put Your Records On - Corinne Bailey Rae - My ultimate favorite song ever.  If I tell you a different song is my favorite, it's just a temporary thing, and I will eventually return to my first love.  Really - this is the first song I ever fell deeply in love with.

Aaaaaaaand, that's all, folks!

Reality Check

Well, I could tell you about what I'd like to think my morning routine looks like
OR
I could tell you how my morning actually went down today

OR
I could do both:

I've never been super attached to the idea of a set-in-stone routine, and though I've been at the same job for a little over a year and a half now, my schedule has pretty much changed constantly over the course of that time - nothing that could be helped, and quite frankly something I've enjoyed about my job.  As much as I'm really not a fan of change (I like to have a plan), I do tend to get bored with the same thing over and over.  All these schedule changes gave me the opportunity to pursue various new things as different time-frames during the day opened up.

With my most recent schedule change, I ended up not going to work until 11, and I know myself well enough to know that, just because I could, I would sleep away my morning until such time as I had to get up to go to work.

That being so, I designed this morning routine that would make me actually get up at a decent hour, and laid it all out in my journal:

• My alarm goes off at 6:45, and I let myself snooze it until 7ish - I'm working on learning to get up before my alarm goes off if I wake up feeling rested
• I always keep my water bottle by my bed at night, so first thing when I get up, I drink whatever water is left in there
• Make coffee and have a quiet time - write out gratitude/answer Bible Study questions for the week.
• Make a green smoothie (theoretically, every Sunday, I stock the freezer with "smoothie packs" for the week - all the fruit I need for a smoothie in a plastic bag with the amounts of liquid base I'll need and any ingredients that shouldn't freeze listed on the outside of the bag)
• Get dressed + ready for the day + make bed + tidy bedroom and bathroom

Sounds pretty great, right?  And it really is when I actually carry through and make it happen, but some days that just doesn't work out so well for me.  As an example, here's what my morning actually looked like today:

• Dragged myself out of bed at 6:45, drank my water, and discovered that I was out of coffee creamer.  Now, my love for coffee is pretty strong, but rather conditional on the availability of cream and sugar...
• Curled up on the couch, mourning the loss of morning coffee, checked emails, and might have dozed off for a minute or two?
• Looked at the clock to discover that it was 7:41! (Yoga class is at 8...)
• Suddenly realized I was starving, and hadn't made smoothie packs for this week, so raided the cabinet and found graham crackers and almond butter
• Threw on work-out clothes and headed out the door, except no!  The "tidying" part of my routine hasn't been happening this week, and I just tossed my keys somewhere when I got home last night, so I can't find them now
• Found my keys on the bedside table, and looked at my bed, considering whether I should or should not make it - I'm washing linens today and I'm already late, so might as well not.
• Hit the gym

Side note:  I just really wanted to say that... I'm still such a newb at the whole "working out" thing.  This month, I bought my first gym membership, mostly for the fact that there are yoga and ballet exercise classes in the morning, but I have some time between the two classes, so I'm trying to learn how to use at least the basic equipment.  

This morning, I felt like I was handling the treadmill like a boss, then I did the whole fall off the back of it thing, so that was great...

• Ran to the grocery store for creamer, and while I was there, remembered I need toothpaste too.
• Felt like I finally got my life back on track, then got home to realize it was body wash I was out of, not toothpaste...

I guess you win some and you lose some.

Let's discuss the fact that I'm not married.

My topic for today was "Your current relationship; if single, discuss that."
Well, I'm single, and I have a lot of thoughts about that, and I actually already had a draft all about it, so here's a long-winded post for your Tuesday:

*I wrote this a while back, hence the titles of old articles that aren't really floating around any more.  It took me awhile to decide to post it because hurting anyone who loves me is the furthest thing from my intentions. But sometimes people who love us say things with the best of intentions and still end up hurting us, so here I am, hoping that I can be gracious and make my point at the same time.*

Lately there have been a lot of articles and blog entries shared on Facebook about marriage - "5 Reasons I Got Engaged Before 23", "23 Things To Do Instead of Getting Engaged Before You're 23",  "26, unmarried, and childless", and "I Wasn't Ready For Marriage" to name a few.

Apparently 23 is a trendy age at which to get married?  I remember when I was 20, and signed up to work on Sumer Staff at camp, and a well-meaning friend of my Mom's said to me "That is such a great idea!  You could meet a really nice man there!"

I was recently asked "So, are you engaged or married?"

Apparently there wasn't a "single" option.

Once, I off-handedly mentioned to someone that three of my closest friends were married to men they'd met at camp.  She replied "And I'm sure you will be too, one day."
(Not the point of the conversation, in case you were wondering.)

Some time back, at a wedding shower no less, I ran into someone who hadn't seen me in a while, and she innocently said "I can't remember, are you married?"
Before I could even open my mouth to respond, another lady jumped in and said "No. She's still waiting."

This list could go on...

Really, though, I know that none of these women meant any harm by their words.  They were just trying to be friendly and encouraging.  Regardless of the intentions, though, it's hard to hear things like this all of the time.

If I'm honest with you, as I try to be on this blog, I have to admit, sooner or later, that The-Thing-I-Really-Want-To-Do-With-My-Life is to be somebody's wife, and mother to a few somebodies.

That's it.

Yes, I want to write and write, and write.

Yes, I want to get a Master's degree eventually.

And yes, it is a big dream of mine to someday teach college students who hate English to love it and express themselves well through writing it.

These are dreams and goals that I have, and am pursuing.

But the biggest dream is one I can't accomplish on my own.

It's one I may not accomplish.

Did you catch that?  I just said I may not ever get married or have kids.

If you think that was easy for me to say, let me tell you right now, it wasn't.

The fact is, though, that I have no assurance, no firm promise, that I will have those things that I want so much.

Jesus and I have had a lot of conversations about this, and my poor mother has had to answer her fair share of weepy phone calls about it.

And you know what?  I've received a lot of encouragement through those conversations with Jesus, and phone calls with my mother, but assurance that "my turn" will, in fact, come "one day"?  There's none.

Zip, Zero, Nada.

I'm learning that just the fact that I have a desire for something doesn't mean it's going to be a part of my life.

I may end up being the awesome old English teacher who lives in a house full of windows, where the tea kettle is always boiling, with a Cottage Garden in the front, and a yard full of dogs in the back.

(I'm allergic to cats.  Otherwise, I'd probably include "Cat-lady" here...)

Right now, as I write that image, I'm smiling.  I'm learning to be okay happy with it.

Ultimately, friends?  Jesus is enough.

I am, in fact, happy with this point in my life, with the extended (maybe life-long!) chance to invest in the girls that surround me without feeling guilty about taking time away from a family, to speak truth into the lives of many others, and be available 24/7.

I am happy to play "Auntie" to my friends' wonderful children - those who are already here, and those who are coming.

I am happy, so happy, that I have the freedom to travel whenever I like, and visit my friends who have gotten married and thus been scattered to the 4 Winds.

That has not been an easy road.  I didn't willingly rush into the arms of this new kind of happiness.

I have drug my feet, and this road has even been made a little harder by all the well-meaning women in my life who tell me things like "Don't worry.  Your turn will come."

Simply put, I'm happy here now.  I'm not worrying.

But if you tell me not to worry, I'm going to start worrying, and I'm going to fix my eyes on things other than Jesus and where He's leading me.  If you tell me my turn will come, I'm going to start clinging to a false assurance that is not from Him. 

The hard thing about all of this is that these people who love me may be fully convinced their words are true, but the fact is, at this point in my life, those words are not true for me, and are not what I need to be focusing on.

My family and my friends have never pushed me into matrimony.  They've never told me that it was my only choice, or even that it was the best choice, but, regardless, we live in a world where marriage is such a huge focus.

It's such a huge focus, that we're choosing sides about whether we should be engaged before we're 23.
It's such a huge focus, that we assume everyone who wants to be married is going to be married eventually, and we talk in those terms.

When I say "we," I'm talking to myself too.  I'm just as guilty of dishing out these platitudes as anyone else.  It's almost an automatic response in our society.

But, I want to suggest a better way.  Let's not discuss the fact that I'm not married yet.

Let's just discuss the fact that I'm not married.

Let's discuss the fact that there are lots of good things about this time.

"But that's the discussion we've always had," you may say to me.

Yes that's true, but these discussions almost always end with "And when you are married..."

Let's not do that.

Also?  Please tell me funny stories about your kids and grandkids.

Tell me about that hilarious moment you had with your husband last week.

And, if you're really ready to trust me, tell me about that argument you're in the middle of.

I have friends who are married, and who have children, and I've managed to keep up these friendships through receiving and giving this type of transparency.  It may seem weird to talk to a single, childless woman about your marriage or children.  But really, think about how boring life would be if we only talked about things we both fully understood or were comfortable with.

A dear friend of mine put it perfectly the other day when she said "Sometimes I feel like a non-person."

We're not Moms, or wives, but neither are we just waiting around or in between.
We are people, fully formed adult people with intelligence, and self-control, and understanding, and empathy.

Even though our lives now look very different, there's no reason we can't relate.  We're both human, and, ultimately, have the same struggles, just in different environments.

And when I trust you enough to bring my heart to you, handle it with care, knowing that you (and I) have no idea how my life will turn out.

I will try to give you that same respect, because, honestly, we could have this discussion about any number of life stages.

Let's Talk About Social Media

For my first topic in this November challenge, I ended up drawing the slip of paper that corresponded to the first day of the challenge - what are the odds of that?

Seriously, somebody *cough* mathematician-brother-in-law *cough* figure that out and tell me, because I actually kinda want to know.

I'm supposed to write about "Five Problems with Social Media" and it shouldn't be too hard for me to come up with those, but really?  Could we not start this out on a more positive note?

Let's just see what I can do with this:

• We're constantly competing with our friends' phone screens/social media accounts for their attention.  I personally don't watch movies for entertainment.  I could count on one hand the amount of times I have sat in my house by myself and thought "I really want to watch a movie."  This is something I do with friends as a way of spending time with them, but lately I've noticed every time a friend suggests movie night, we're not sitting around looking at a glowing screen and talking about what's happening 10 feet in front of us.  We're really just each individually absorbed in the glowing screen one foot in front of us instead.  Same goes for dinner out - this was once a time reserved for spending face-to-face time with people, but no more - we're constantly checking our instagram, twitter, facebook, blog, etc.

What is the deal here?  Are we afraid they're going to disappear if we don't connect with them every 5 minutes?  What about the actual friends in front of us?  What'll happen if they really do disappear because we ceased connecting with them in significant ways?

• Social media is a great vehicle for jealousy.  We're all putting our best foot forward, so to speak, and we're all afraid to put our mess out there for everybody to look at.  Consequently, we think we're the only ones in the world that have a mess, because we don't see anybody else's mess on social media.

Preaching to the choir, but seriously.  What kind of messed up logic is this that we assume we're the only ones masking our life here.

• Social media inhibits our ability to acknowledge each other's basic humanity in a major way - it's so easy to shoot off a quick, maybe cruel, comment or message when all you're looking at is a perfect smiling face on a 4.7-inch screen.

Let's all just agree to take a breath and re-read before sending anything that could be even slightly hurtful. Just consider for a minute how we, in all of our tender thin skin, would feel if somebody said exactly that to us.

• People find you.  Creepy people can find you, and you can even engage with them thinking that they're harmless.  This is a reality a lot of us become numbed to, because social media is so easily logged out of or locked, but it's also super easy to unwisely put too much out there and get into trouble for it.

Sometimes even, as sad as this might sound, you just need separation from a person in your past - maybe a past relationship that will keep holding you back unless you cut ties, or just someone who has hurt you emotionally.  These ties to our past are So. Much. Harder. to cut than they were before the advent of facebook, etc.

• Social Media is MURDERING good grammar.  Maybe I punctuated that last sentence in the above paragraph the way I did because I wanted to make a point here, or maybe I did it just because it somehow seems appropriate since everybody else does it.

I'm as guilty of this as the next person, but that doesn't mean it doesn't make me sad that "proper grammar" may be a thing of the past by the time my children are old enough to learn about it.

People, what if a sentence someday becomes just an old-fashioned convention nobody uses anymore?!

Somebody please stop me before I really become a drama queen about this.

Whew!  I just wrote a list of five negative things about social media!  Where's my award?

But really, I couldn't close this post without saying a few good things too:

Social media keeps me in touch with people I would have lost contact with by now if I'd lived a generation ago.

In my past, I was blessed to work with people from all over the world (I'd like to think I'd have housing, or at least connections, if I wanted to travel almost anywhere on this big planet).  My mom at my age would never have been able to keep up with as many people in as many different places as I have.

I can make friends with people anywhere - I'm not restricted to meeting people in person.

Before I say anything else about this, let me be perfectly clear - no one should ever have only online friends - there is no substitute for an actual make-eye-contact, touch-your-hand, buy-you-ice-cream friend in your real world, but I am learning that online friends are fun too.

Remember pen pals from when we were little?  I have one of those that I met on Instagram, and I am so happy we're in each other's life "for real" now.  Maybe I'll actually get to buy her ice cream someday.

Also, no one should just throw personal information out there willy-nilly because they think they made a friend - always always be careful and wise in your actions and words.

And finally, networking! Most of us could theoretically get a job anywhere on this green earth through just putting out feelers to our friends on social media. 

In more personal aspects of life, even - tonight, I sent an email to a random blogger, just to tell her she'd sprinkled a little inspiration onto my life, and she actually replied, expressing interest in supporting me along the way.  How wonderful is that?

Social media is truly amazing if used wisely.

Wow. It has been a little while.

And I have seriously missed blogging, but obviously not enough to take a stab at creating more than one measly draft in the time since my last post...

I think I miss blogging in a weird way - I don't necessarily think about it when I'm not working on it, but I know my life is just a little happier when I'm taking advantage of this great creative outlet.

I recently happily discovered this blog where a fellow alum of my University is chronicling one year of her life.  I don't know what she'll do on her next birthday, but I seriously hope she'll continue.  Everything I've read so far is delightful, and she has inspired me to do the same with my 28th year.  I've heard that each decade's -9 year is the most difficult, but I have a sneaking suspicion that 28 may not be my favorite, just because of the fact that my worst years have generally been the even ones.

All that to say, making a point to write once a day will only make it better, no matter how it turns out.

I'd been tossing this adea around in my head, and looking forward to starting on December 8th, when I saw that another friend was starting a November writing challenge - not NaNoWriMo, which I have never tried to conquer - just a simple topic each day, all except one of which looked like they would be fun to write about.  Since I'm starting on November 2nd, I figured I'd just leave out the one that seemed less-than-pleasant to me...

Theoretically, there's a topic for each day of November, but I decided, rather than following the pattern (because really, when have I ever done that well), I'll just write each topic on a slip of paper and draw one topic a day.

So I've got that going for November, but then I have 7 intervening days before my birthday.

What to do, what to do?

Friends, I have 10 drafts sitting in this entire blog, three of which were never really intended for publication anyway.  What's 10 minus three?

*DING* *DING* *DING* *DING* *DING*

It's SEVEN!

So, you can now look forward to hearing from me every day until New Year's Eve, 2016.

Bah!  We all know that's a lie - I'll fail and skip days in there somewhere, but if there's one thing I've learned from past resolutions, it's how to dust myself off and pick up where I left off instead of just sweeping the whole idea under a rug.

Here's hoping you'll join me on this little adventure!