Day in the Life 25

This morning we woke up and re-visited a church close to us. When we left, both of us had different thoughts, but we'll be going back again to get a better feel of the place and people. I know that what is important to me is community, diversity, and the message itself. And I feel like those are met or able to be met at this place. We are taking our time though and not jumping into anything too quickly, because we've made that mistake already and it was an awkward situation afterwards.

After church, we came home and ate lunch. Day 13 of Whole30 and I am not doing too good at this point. I've been struggling to get to sleep for the last week or so. Yesterday night (or this morning) I was up until around 4:30—ugh. I've read some articles and it seems normal when you're body is adjusting, but this didn't happen to me last time.

After eating lunch, I left T to play board games with the guys and I went to go see a movie. Moviepass has been such a blessing. I love it and hope it's here to stay. After my movie, I visited TJ Maxx and picked up a few things that made me happy. A quartz candle holder, a new little trash can with a lid for the main bathroom, a stationary box, and an acrylic organizer for my overflowing makeup. I'm so happy. Right now as I'm writing this I've put a tea light in the quartz candle holder and I love it. I'm just imagining taking a comfortable bath with my bath salts and candles going in the dark.

I also need to write here that my word of the year is JOY. It was my fortune when I visited L in Minneapolis and it was on an ornament gifted to me. I've struggled with joy since 2014. That's four years-ish of my life that I've been struggling. Why did I let that person do this me? How could it have changed me so much? I hate that it has, but I am going to work on being joyful and understanding what brings me joy and realizing that I already have joy, I just need to pay attention—all this year.

Hope you are having a joyful weekend and that we are all ready for the week ahead!

PHS: Question #1

Write about your name. Where did it come from? What does it mean?

Not sure what Jamie means and I couldn't find anything fun on Google to share. I was named after my father and his father. I do love that I'm named after my dad. 

Day in the Life 24

 Today is another day filled with snow! And that to me is just crazy.

Couple being raised in California with living in Memphis for 10 years and experiencing this just blows my mind.

It's a very welcome, unexpected vacation from life. And I am appreciating every second of it. (Appreciation—maybe that should be my word of the year?)

Most of it has been spent planning for Italy. Accommodation planning, travel planning, packing planning...I am a little anxious about being so far away from home. For light packing for a little over two weeks, I plan to bring mostly Piko tops of neutral colors and jeggings. Here's one set of outfits re-wearing the same shirt:

We did book a place with a washer and dryer so we'll have any opportunity to wash some clothes. Also, cardigans, a chambray top, sneakers, and a light scarf. This Fjallraven backpack is on my wishlist, but I may just end up using the backpack I already have.

Also want to note here that after a year of not being able to use my second generation Kindle after resetting it and having trouble getting it to update, Amazon must've fixed the problem. On a whim, I took both of our second generation Kindle's off the bookshelf, plugged them up, and signed on with no problem. For a whole day, we couldn't get passed the "cannot connect" message. It was frustrating! So now we have 4 Kindles all together :/ Anyone need a Kindle?

Going to see if I can plan out a little bit more of the trip—au revoir!

Snow Day

So on Friday we got a...

Snow day! So exciting!

I woke up 6:00 when my alarm went off and turned it off for another 30 minutes. Then at 6:30...dun dun dun...the text came to stay home!

I was really surprised and really happy. T and I don't get many mornings together. During the week, I get up earlier than him and then on the weekends T gets up earlier than me. So, for this morning, T and I snuggled deeper under the warm covers and talked about the wonders of having a snow day, which made us think about previous vacations and staycations (other times we were able to sleep in). The dogs laid quietly in the corner.

Then we watched as thicker snow came down, me from my heated blanket in the recliner and T from the couch. We had fun watching the dogs. Poor little Paris ran around and then slipped on the cement deck, but bounced right back.

Next task of the day? Plan for Italy! I spent most of the day trying to work out the schedule for our upcoming weeks in Europe. I feel like we got a lot done, but there's still so much to do!

When trying to plan things out, I am most thankful for these apps:
-Ulmon CityMaps2Go
-Google Sheets
-Sygic Travel
-Airbnb

And with that, there are only 89 days until the fun begins!

December Intentions Recap

Read more about my December Intentions here.

Scoring:
(+) Did Well
(-) Could have done more
(+/-) Inbetween

(+) Be unoffendable
This intention was really, really beneficial to me. I think I became very paranoid and therefore overly sensitive because of K to the point where I was taking everything personally. It really helped to step back, readjust, and assume the good in everyone. It was a burden off of me. I wasn't wasting energy on the potential conversational misfires or what I was interpreting through them. I definitely want to incorporate this into my life long term.

(-) Read one book all the way through
Oh, I have such good intentions! But horrible follow through, especially when it comes to reading. I used to be able to read a book in its entirety. Welp, not anymore. I start or skip around depending on what sounds interesting. A few books I started reading include You Learn by Living by Eleanor Roosevelt and Unoffendable by Brant Hansen.

(-) Meditate for 5 minutes every day
I didn't meet the 5 minutes every day mark, but I did manage to stop myself regularly and for a moment, remind myself to breathe in, exhale, and to listen to the sounds around me with my eyes closed to ground me. This was helpful, even if minute, and I really do want to continue to be more mindful.

(+) Do something nice for 3 people
I can't remember what all I did, but I know this intention gave me license to do lots of nice things. For my teammates, for our Starbucks team, for our ITS partners--I think I'm forgetting some, but that's okay. I really just had fun spoiling people and letting them know they are special and/or appreciated. And I definitely want to continue to be generous.

(+) Stay off my personal Instagram
I went on my Instagram once- and that was really to enter into a contest. I feel a lot better not looking at it and even when I looked at it afterwards, I immediately felt the same feelings of not feeling like enough come straight back. So I hung up my Instagram hat for now. I am going to post significant pictures to me, like when my friends M and B visited, to remember certain things, but definitely not everything like I once did. At least not for now. It may change one day, but for now I won't worry too much about it.

(-) Find one thing to be grateful for every day
I didn't do this one very well. I tried to be more conscious of gifts and blessings, but couldn't seem to capture it every day.

(+/-) Write something every day
Definitely didn't do this one well! As you can see for the month of December, hehehe.

January Intentions

Happy New Year, all! Time for my January intentions! You can see the December intentions here.

Make listening more important than speaking. I so desperately want acceptance that I am quick to takeover the conservation with "I" statements. Instead of connecting and relating, it alienates me from the other person. It sounds like I'm being selfish, so they disconnect. In conversations this month, I want to deliberately focus on listening instead of waiting for my turn to speak.

Take care of myself and don't feel guilty about it. I have a hard time putting myself first. I feel like when someone asks something of me, I need to give it. I want to focus more on taking time for myself and not feeling obligated to spend time with friends and family. I need to find a balance.

Reflect on my accomplishments. My accomplishments matter. When something good happens, I normally push it aside. My humility is poisonous sometimes. I never give myself credit for my hard work and I never let others give me credit either. It's like compliments; I don't accept compliments well. Like everyone, I usually deny them. No more this month! I can have a cute outfit, I can be funny or kind, and I can do amazing things. Plus, wisdom comes from experience. If we are the grand sum of our choices, I need to focus on not just the bad like I'm used to doing, but focus on how I've pushed through and come through.

Keep a clean home for my sake and for my husband. I normally come home and throw all my crap down wherever I can. I always intend to clean everything up later. The problem is later never comes and my poor husband is forced to sift through piled up clothes and dirty dishes. I need to make an effort to put things away as I finish with them. This will help my husband and me, because if we clean as we go then the house is always presentable and enjoyable.

Put down the phone during quality time—unplug! My husband always gets onto me about being on my phone while were together in the evening. I'm never on it during the day at work, so at night is when I go through Instagram and Facebook. What I'm slowly learning is none of it matters. At least not to be seen daily. I think social media is good at making us think if we miss a day, we miss out on everything, but seeing everybody else's life should not take precedence over living mine in the moment. If I'm with friends or my husband who I haven't seen all day, they or he should be my priority. Not the social media accounts.

Stay motivated for Italy—exercise! I need to get my game up if we're headed to Italy! Stepper, climber, elliptical, whatever is is, I need to get on it! Can't miss out on seeing the world just because I couldn't prepare properly.