What I wish I knew when I was younger....

This morning while I was at the gym I got to thinking, I wish I knew what healthy looked like when I was younger....which got me thinking, I wish there was a lot of things I knew when I was younger. So I thought I'd write some of them down, and someday maybe I'll come back and read these just to remember and look back laughing at how much I missed.

1. I wish I knew that healthy looks different on all different kinds of people. I was a rail growing up, and often times people commented on it saying I was "too skinny". I was not, I was the healthy that God made me at the time.

2. I wish I knew not to worried about what people thought of how I looked but instead work on doing what made me feel healthy and good about myself. Self-explanatory.

3. I wish as a teen I knew how meaningless all the dating-drama was. Looking back I always feel silly about how easily my heart-ached after boys who didn't care about me.

(myself and my sister)

4. I wish I knew how my parents actions (whether it was grounding me or letting me know they didn't approve of certain relationships) were out of love and they never did things just to be mean. It seems so silly now but I remember truly thinking my parents must not love me if they weren't going to let me go to a movie.

(I am the one on the far right with the orange leggings)

5. I wish I knew that the best time to establish a healthy lifestyle is when you are young. Habits are hard to quite and it would have been so much easier if you never started them, establishing a healthy lifestyle as a child or teenager would take so much aggravation away as an adult.


There you go. I am sure there are many more things but those are definitely the first ones that pop to mind and probably the ones that would have made life much more manageable as a teen and again as an adult.

Come shop with me: At the gym edition

at the gym by thecarrotflower featuring a no sleeve hoodie

I have one outfit that I wear to the gym. It is the only one I ever wear, probably because it is the only one that still fits, everything else has gotten to be to big. If I had the money to buy myself a new gym outfit, I wouldn't mind at all if it looked something like this. Although, I do have to say I really like my crop bottoms from lulu. I guess I just would love to have a new look for the gym.

Oops.

I've been trying so hard to be consistent and have a more set out plan when it comes to my blogging, and I have been pretty good, but it seems I have fallen off. No worries, I am sure I will be able to pick it back up in no time. Perhaps I'll try to get everything I've been meaning to get down all week in one post.

Or maybe not.

Here we are already into December and I have yet to write a post with regards to the whole lovely season and time this Christmas is. Have I ever mentioned my love for Christmas? Well, I love it. So very much. I am not the most fantastical decorator and I am not a huge baker...I am sure I will learn to be...but goodness do I ever love the season.

I have a small collection of children's Christmas books. I love drinking the hot cocoa and eating the gingerbread cookies. I love the snow, if and when we ever get any, and I love the spirit it brings. It is a most wonderful time.


So, I think I am going to go and enjoy some hot cocoa and maybe read a lovely Christmas story before leaving to work. Oh and by the way, my job....I get to work with Santa everyday as children line up to get a photo with him.

Some Truths....

Truth: Being married is awesome! Truly, I love being married and I wouldn't have it any other way. I have a loving husband who is completely taken by me and whom I am completely taken by.Truth: Being married is HARD. That is another truth and often times is forgotten or left out. Being married takes a lot of work and give-and-take, it is a constant work in progress. You can never just "get it" when it comes to being married, as soon as you "get it" you inevitably get hit with a hard ball of truth and you realize you never really got it to begin with. It is almost as though this ebb and flow of waves just goes through your life. Things start to get smooth, life is simple, and then....it is not. 

These past few weeks have been a hard ball. Not to say I ever really thought I understood, I didn't and I still don't, it is just some truth: Life has been rather hard lately. I wouldn't say our marriage is suffering, but I wouldn't say it isn't either. We are in a state of discomfort and stress and it is starting to get to both of us. Well, starting is an understatement. It started a few months back, the mid to end of October. We have both been dealing with an immense amount of stress and we deal with it differently. It has taken it's toll. 

Our lives have been very segregated as Ben finishes up his semester, and at the time being that is just how it has to be. I am a distraction to him while he writes papers so I've been spending most of my time away from him, and the home. Most of my evenings I either spend at the gym or at Ben's parents place. Both are lovely and positive things and I really don't mind at all. I go to bed before him, I wake up before him, and I leave to work just as he begins to get up. Our longest conversations are in text message, and even those are pretty short. I just miss my husband and I look forward to things getting back to a somewhat "normal" state. (We really don't have a normal, things turn upside-down on us all-the-time!) 

Truth: Marriage is tough but it is definitely worth the work. Even though life has been tough and we have had to deal with some not so awesome things I wouldn't change it. It is our life, our story, our journey, and our marriage and I enjoy just being able to be his wife. Someday life might be a different kind of hard and I will look back on these days with fondness; Just as right now I look forward to those days with eager anticipation. I think of myself as lucky because, at least I have a partner through these tough times and I don't have to deal with it all on my own.

Come Shop With Me: A Casual Romantic

I am a romantic. I have this mind that creates the "perfect" seen in my head and I will have to re-create it. I look for the perfect pieces for the outings of my dreams. I am still looking for the perfect picnic blanket, I already have the basket. That said, I like to have the perfect outfit too. I want it to look just so, as though if someone was to take a picture it could be right out of a perfume commercial. So without further adieu, meet the wardrobe for reading at either a coffee shop or on a bench in a lush green park. Perhaps, on could stumble into a kind and handsome stranger in such a cute outfit. Oh and by the way, all of the items are fifty dollars or less.