Happy Monday!

It seems a little early for a Life Lately post but I know I’ve been quiet the past few weeks, so I thought this would be a good way to check in. Life has felt both boring and hectic at the same time this whole month. Do you know what I mean? I’ve been really busy with work and family and life and once the day is over, the only energy I have left is reserved for sitting on the couch, binge watching Queer Eye and eating ice cream from the carton. Even though there was a lot going on, it still felt pretty boring because we were in a survival mode of sorts.

via GIPHY

I’ve seen several bloggers create a 19 in 2019: A list of 19 things to do in the year. I know I’m a few months late since we’re now in March, but I thought this ideas sounded like a fun way to help me tick off some of the items on my New Life Resolutions list, so I decided to do the same.

So, in no particular order, here are my 19 things to do in 2019:

1. DIY a big boy bed. Nick thinks we can put together a toddler bed for Sebastian pretty easily. We’ve found some detailed plans on Pinterest so we’re going to give it a try. Wish us luck!
2. Attend a wine tasting. I’ve done this before but I want to do it again! Taste all the wines!
3. Complete one big house project. I swear this one was on our list before the flooding mishap, so I’m leaving it on this list and will count our new floors toward this one.
4. Go camping. My family went camping a lot when I was kid and I have very fond memories of toasting marshmallows on campfires. I also love being outdoors, especially at night when you can hear the tree frogs and crickets playing their beautiful songs. I’d like to pass this love on to my own family.
5. Volunteer. I’d like to do more volunteer work in my community and include Sebastian, especially as he gets older.
6. Read a classic. There are a lot of classic novels out there that I’ve missed out on so I want to read at least one now that I’m an adult.
7. Complete a landscaping project. Namely, our back yard. We need to clean it up and put in better drainage. The back yard is one of the features that sold us on our house but a lot has happened over the years to destroy it so we need to take care of it. This is the year we do it.
8. Participate in a yoga challenge. I don’t know what kind of yoga challenge yet, but I figure this might help me get back into practicing yoga more regularly.
9. Host a small, fancy dinner party. I just think dinner parties are fun. And I want to host one where we can all dress up, because I feel like I never get to dress up anymore!
10. Paint/renovate the laundry room. We’ve wanted to do this since we moved in so it’s about time we do it.
11. Konmari my closet. If it sparks joy, I keep it. If it doesn’t, I thank it for its service and move on.
12. Bake a fancy cake. Maybe it’s all the cooking & baking shows we’ve been watching lately but I want to try my hand at baking a fancy cake with pretty icing, fondant, and decorations.
13. Do at least 3 new things. It’s time to get out of my comfort zone!
14. Create a new family tradition. Because we’re a family of three now and it just feels right.
15. Take a photography/Photoshop class. I’ve had a nice camera for a while but I need some guidance on taking (and editing) truly awesome photos.
16. Catch up on my scrapbooking. I love scrapbooking and have several of them, but after Sebastian came along, I didn’t have much time to devote to them. I have a ton of photos and things to put in my scrapbooks, so I’m going to intentionally carve out some time to spend with my glue sticks and books.
17. Plan a weekend away/staycation. How fun it is to be a tourist in your own town? Or even to visit the next town over that you hear good things about but you’ve never actually been. For example, I’ve heard lovely things about Hillsborough, NC but I’ve never been there. It’s only 20 minutes away, so a weekend get-away there is a perfect way to have a vacation on the cheap.
18. Send a hand-written letter/card to one person each month. There’s nothing better than receiving a hand-written letter or card in the mail, and I find writing and sending them to be just as fun.
19. Write a short story. I want to be a writer. I have lots of ideas. But I have a lot of confidence issues that keep me from writing. So this year, I want to write a short story. I don’t care if it’s good or bad, I just want to write one.

I’m looking forward to doing all of these things and make this the best year ever.

I was sitting at the kitchen table on a sunny late-summer afternoon, feeding my son lunch, when I was overcome with an amazing feeling of contentment. As Sebastian peeled the turkey and cheese off his sandwich and shoved them into his mouth, dropping some turkey onto the floor in the process, he looked up at me and grinned.  And I realized that this, right here, is exactly where I want to be. It’s really all I need in life. A loving partner, an adventurous kid, a goofy dog, a cozy home, and some fun experiences are what truly make me happy.

This isn’t turkey, but you get the idea!

Thinking about now, I’m not as surprised as I would have been a few years ago.

I’ve been thinking about this here blog for the past few weeks. It seems I’ve developed a blogging pattern that consists of getting really energized and having a lot of ideas, and all I want to do is sit and write and share with you, but then I lose steam and feel like nothing I write about is very interesting or worth reading so I disappear for a week or two until I get energized again. I don’t like that pattern and I’m sure it certainly isn’t fun for my readers, but impostor syndrome and feeling like a fraud is really hard to shake. If you experience it, you know what I mean!

But I’ve really started to evaluate my role as a blogger — or, more accurately, my desire to be a blogger — because I was watching Instagram stories the other day and I found some of them to be riveting. And that made me wonder what it is about these stories that caught and held my attention, and I realized that it’s because I could relate to them in some way; my stories aren’t that much different from theirs. So maybe what I have to share really is *that* interesting… or maybe not since it’s already been done. Are you catching on to my thought process here? It’s exhausting to think this way all the time.

I’ve been thinking about the blog because I want to write more consistently. But blogging takes a lot of work and effort. Sometimes I feel that if I spend too much time blogging then I’m not being truly present in my life and I’m missing out on time with my son. But then I’m neglecting my blog and my passion. So how do I find that balance of being present in each moment but still devoted to blogging about those moments? How do you other bloggers do it? A few of the bloggers I really like have given birth recently and I love seeing stories about their beautiful new babies. I have a baby, and I’m sure that sharing stories about our day and the silly things he does would be pretty entertaining.

Anyway, this post has been a draft for a while now. Why? Because it wasn’t finished. It wasn’t perfect. It didn’t have the right pictures. I didn’t think anyone would care. Any maybe no one does care. Maybe I’m yelling out into the void. But if a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one there to hear, does it still make a sound? You betcha. So, I’m pressing publish and making my sound. I just hope there’s someone out there in the forest who wants to hear it.

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…