I’ve been trying really hard for some time to clean out my closet. At the beginning of the year, I went through a minimalist phase — which I would still like to continue to do but have admittedly fallen off the wagon — and got rid of so. much. stuff. It felt good and I couldn’t wait to get rid of more. But then life happens, as usual, and I haven’t kept up with it as well as I would have liked. Each day I take a long, hard look at my closet and try to grab at least one thing that I know I can part with. It’s hard because I like my clothes, otherwise I wouldn’t have bought them, but some of them just don’t excite me anymore.

This is as boho as I get. This skirt is about 4 years old and a tad too big.

Then I read this blog post by the amazing Alissa of The Adored Life about how she got rid of half the stuff in her closet. She describes how the woman her closet reflected wasn’t the woman she sees in herself because her clothes were from a different point in her life. This resonated with me SO. HARD.

When you ask someone who their heroes are, they’ll probably answer with super inspirational people who’ve done amazing things for humankind, like Martin Luther King, Jr. or Mother Teresa. And, of course, those are awesome heroes to have and I’d jump on that train any day. But if you ask Nikki Crews who her heroes are, she answers with the two most awesome blonde women in the world: Shakira and Leslie Knope!

Listen, I will drop everything to sing and dance along to a Shakira song AND most of the time, I’m quoting the greatest show to have ever existed: Parks & Recreation.

via GIPHY

Friends, I’m making some changes. Nothing major, just a few things that will help me the person I actually want to be.

I care about a lot of things in life, and it’s very important to me that I do my part to leave the world a better place for my son and the rest of humanity. I worry about climate change, the environment, animals, food waste, etc., as well as my other social justice causes.

I’ve been very bad about food waste for a long time, and I’m ashamed of it. I really dislike eating leftovers so they sit in the fridge unless Nick gets hungry on the weekends. Cooking is fun but the clean up is so time consuming that I’d rather just dine out. Then I buy lots of vegetables because I know the importance of eating healthy but they sit in the drawer in the fridge until they grow seven kinds of mold. Out of sight, out of mind. And who wouldn’t want to grab some chips or cookies instead of an apple or carrots? Being healthy is hard. Additionally — and this is what I’m most ashamed of — I was so excited to start our little garden and reap the harvest of our hard work AND THEN we barely even ate the produce. Cucumbers, peppers, and tomatoes sat rotting on the counter. HOW AWFUL IS THAT?!

My calendar gets me…

Settle in for a little story.

There are two elevators in my new office building. The building itself is fairly new so the elevators are clean and well-kept. I work on the top floor of a three-floor building and I take the elevators daily. The first few times I rode the elevator car on the right, I noticed that it took slightly longer to get to my floor that you would expect for such a short ride. And when it did get to the floor, it felt like it took a few extra seconds to find the right place to come to a stop. It seemed weird to me but both cars had updated inspections so I didn’t think much of it.