Hey guys,
So I’ve been gone for a HOT minute, and I am soo sorry for that! I hate the fact that I haven’t been able to blog consistently because unfortunately life has been crazy and I’ve had to reorganize my priorities to get other things done. But I’m backkkkk, and I hope that this time it’s for good! In this post, I wanted to share a bit of a life update with you guys so you can hear all about what’s been going on the past few months.
For starters, we finally moved into our first home back in March!!! It was the MOST exciting thing to happen to us, especially since we had been waiting for it to finish being built for what felt like an eternity. It’s a one bedroom + den condo, and it’s the perfect size for the two of us. I have to admit though, getting used to life outside of my parents house was a HUGE challenge for me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m totally used to the house work portion of it – I love to cook and I’m great at doing laundries, cleaning, etc. But what really took me by surprise was how hard it was for me to be away from my parents and most of all, my sister. I’ve never lived on my own before, so I’m quite used to coming home and seeing my parents and talking to my sister all night. But living on our own, and with Shawn doing shift work, I often felt lonely being at home by myself especially when he would work evening shifts. I would be on the phone with my mom and sister pretty much all evening because I missed their company so much. In the past few months, it’s gotten a lot better and I couldn’t imagine not living in our condo. We even got 2 pet fish that keep us company – Bubby and Jamjam. So life at home has been amazing!
Over the past few months, I’ve also been trying to create a healthy balance in my life. Personal wellness has become SOO important to me over the last year and a half, and as someone who spent the better part of the last 10 years fully immersed in schoolwork, I’ve been trying really hard to incorporate all the wellness that I can into my current routine. I’ve had a lot of days where I just feel like a robot – going from work to home and then to sleep, only to repeat it all the next day. That took a huge emotional toll on me, so I had to make self-care a priority for me. I had started going to the gym and working out with a personal trainer last year, and I’ve continued with that this year. I’ve even started doing boxing which I absolutely LOVE! For me, the gym is a place where I know I’m doing something good for my body, I can physically see changes towards my goals, and I can burn off some steam after a stressful week. It’s a win win win! I’ve also started doing something that I have wanted to do for years now – I became a volunteer at our local children’s hospital. To me, this is one of the best forms of achieving personal wellness, because it’s something that I am so passionate about and I feel the hugest sense of personal fulfillment from. I do a shift once every week, and every time I enter that hospital my heart feels so FULL! For most of us, when we think of personal wellness, we think of spa days or curling up to a good book and a cup of tea, and while I definitely agree that doing things like that are soooo important and beneficial for us (I try to do something small everyday that is just for me), finding something that you are passionate about and pursuing that is equally as important.
Another huge leap that I took a few months back, shortly after we moved was starting to build an all-natural, plant-based lifestyle – ditching my normal store bought products that contain a ton of harmful chemicals and toxins, and switching them out for natural products that are safe for us. What led me to this path was essential oils. I became a distributor for Young Living Essential Oils back in April as I’ve mentioned in a previous post, and using these oils really changed my life. I was SO blown away with how well these oils support our bodies’ needs and how quickly they became my go-to products rather than over-the-counter products. Because of that, I started to branch out and use more of Young Living’s other products such as skin care, cleaning products, health supplements, etc. And I haven’t looked back since. You could definitely say I’m obsessed with them and the greener lifestyle that we are now living.
In terms of my blog and “brand”, I’ve really been struggling with it the past few months. I absolutely LOVE blogging and building my brand. But I had to put it on the back burner as I mentioned earlier because I had so much else going on and had to re-prioritize. During that time, I did a lot of soul-searching regarding my blog and the direction that I want it to go in. I love that I can use my blog as an outlet to explore my interests such as beauty and wellness, but I’ve struggled with how exactly I want to share those things. Do I want to continue doing tips/advice type posts like I’ve done in the past, OR do I want to make this more personal while still sharing tips and tricks along the way? For those of you that follow me on Instagram, you’ll notice that I rarely post pictures of myself on my blog page. Part of that was because I’m afraid of really truly putting myself out there for people to critique. BUT lately I’ve tried to overcome that fear and be more true to myself by sharing more and more of myself and my personal side.
I guess you could say this year has been the year of changes for me – both big life changes and smaller personal changes. My emotions through all of these changes have been insanely up and down – I’ve gone from tears of frustration to tears of joy, and then back again. But although life has thrown some curveballs at me, I truly think that I’ve grown and become mentally stronger from those experiences. Right now, I feel like I’m at a great point in my life. I wrote this post 2 weeks ago while sitting on a train in Italy, going from the Amalfi Coast to Rome and in that moment, I felt SOO grateful for everything in my life right now. In my next post, I’ll be sharing all the highlights of our Europe Trip, but for now I hope you’ve enjoyed the glimpse into my last few months.
Ciao <3
