“The beginning is the most important part of the work.”
– Plato
It has been months since I last wrote a post on here. Although it makes me feel decently ashamed of myself for not keeping up with something I truly love doing, I need to accept that this whole blogging/writing/journaling thing will take a bit of time to get the knack of. It is a learning curve, after all.
Excuses for why I haven’t been writing are unnecessary. Life happens, priorities get off track. All that matters is that I’ve come back to it and have not given up blogging for good.
This past summer, my body was in the absolute best shape that it has ever been in. I was exercising regularly, eating well, and just giving my body some much-needed attention. It was definitely the definition of a self-care summer.
So, to no surprise, I spent the summer taking a record-winning number of mirror selfies. And, not just any mirror selfies. I had my (almost) abs exposed and my leg muscles flexed. I felt good, baby! During those months, I actually enjoyed wearing crop tops and never passed up the opportunity to take photos at the beach.
Seeing genuine evidence of my personal growth made me feel incredible.
It may not look super pretty, but it definitely was super yummy :’)
I don’t know about you, but I always see these BEAUTIFUL photos of smoothie/acai bowls plastered all over my Instagram explore page. (Then again, maybe that’s just because I’m obsessed with stalking through food accounts.)
I always used to make smoothie bowls at my friend’s house after we got back from the gym. Well… I suppose I truly wasn’t the one making them. My friend would simply give me an assortment of ingredients to choose from, and then mix up the creation herself. The bowls always turned out tasting, and looking, amazing.
However, when I moved back to school (away from my smoothie goddess of a friend) and tried to recreate these bowls myself, my first few attempts were absolute failures. Even with the same ingredients that we used, I still always ended up with too thin of a consistency or too chalky of a texture.
This was taken at the beautiful “Path of Life Garden” in Windsor, Vermont.
I miss my mom every second of every day.
I feel it most at night, when I’m laying awake by myself. There are only so many things that can distract your mind when you’re in the silence of a darkened room.
It happens with long car rides too. Car rides can actually be the worst. I have an hour and a half drive from my university to my hometown, and doing it alone is enough to drive me mad some days. Podcasts aren’t so effective if your brain chooses to ignore them, no matter how hard you try to listen.
Some street chalk-art that I came across in Boston 🙂
This summer, my boyfriend and I got lost driving through Canada. And, I mean lost. No cell service, no maps, and very little knowledge of the French language.
This may sound like an opportunity for adventure, an opportunity to just throw our heads back and have a spontaneously care-free drive until we somehow stumbled upon our destination.
But, that’s just not how life works (at least mine, anyway).
My mother was an incredible gardener, filling our yard with gorgeous flowers season after season. And, to this day, my father works wonders in our vegetable garden, growing all of the beautifully delicious vegetables that feed us all summer long. Yet, even with their talents in tending to plants, I have never been one to have a green thumb.
I bought a cactus and another small succulent last summer to have as decoration in my dorm room. However, I over-watered my cactus, rotting it out only a short two weeks after buying it. Then, I almost killed the remaining succulent the exact same way (because I clearly didn’t learn anything from it), until my dad came to the rescue. Here we are a year later, and he has kept my little “succy” alive and well. Though, he did not let me take it back to college with me.
So, inevitably, this summer I got three new plant friends as replacements. Does my dad know? He sure does. Is he going to end up caring for them when I begin to kill them off? Absolutely not! I am determined to not let it happen again.
Because, no, oatmeal doesn’t always have to be gross.
When I was little, I remember trying really hard to like oatmeal. My mom had it for breakfast almost every morning, and of course, I wanted to be like her. Yet, no matter how much brown sugar and cinnamon I dumped onto my bowl, I still could never understand her love for it.
Flash forward to a few weeks ago, and a friend of mine was now raving over this new-to-me creation called “overnight oats.” I was oh-so excited to try out her recipe, until I actually tasted it… then the excitement went away completely. I figured I was out of luck- it was just meant for me to dislike oatmeal. That is, until a few days ago.
I’ve been a vegetarian for almost nine months now and have loved every second of it. However, like any other major change in lifestyle, it has come with a wide array of questions shot my way.
Most of these are harmless inquiries from people just genuinely curious as to why I chose to swap over, but then there’s also the people trying to put their two cents in. That’s when it can get a wee bit frustrating- if it makes me happy and doesn’t affect you, then why bother commenting on it?
Anyway, I digress. Because of all of this, I’ve decided to answer a few of my most frequently asked questions to share why I chose to go vegetarian, as well as all of its glorious benefits!
It has gotten to the point where I have simply forgotten how to take care of myself. Funny, because this blog is all about empowering people to take part in self-care and self-love, yet I can’t even do it myself.
I’ve always wanted to be a writer. Little did I know, that it didn’t have to be your actual, fancy career title in order for you to be one. I’ve been one my entire life.
