I have a confession to make. I have not been keeping up with my routines on vacation. When I am at school, routines are so much easier. I know where everything is in my apartment and I know my schedule and when stuff needs to happen. Here at the island house (read my post about that here) my routine has been all screwed up.
Continue reading “How to keep up with your Routine on Vacation”
Recently (in September, after the easiest person to help move left for school) my dad moved from the city to a small island in the Puget Sound. Where it’s nowhere near as remote as Nim’s Island (comment if you remember that movie), it is still very different than city life. For Thanksgiving break this week (a week off from school! Yay!) I am home and living with my dad in the building we called out cabin when I was growing up. Now it’s apparently the house.
Now I wouldn’t necessarily say I’m confident without makeup (or with makeup), but I’m working on it. I don’t wear makeup often. Occasionally, I decide that I want to put on lipstick or fill in my brows, but it is very occasional. And yet, 4 years ago I wouldn’t be caught dead without makeup. In fact, I even was late for school a few times because I either convinced my parents to turn around or I turned around myself to go back home to put on makeup (sorry mom).
There are many reasons I don’t wear makeup. The main reason is that I’m just lazy. Well, I guess it’s not necessarily being lazy, more selective energy usage. Another reason is that it’s not on my countertop in the bathroom anymore. Although I can’t really say this attributed, as my makeup was on my counter at home and I didn’t use it. Continue reading “How to be confident without makeup”
Do you have things in your living space that you want to use, but never do? This could be something like a coloring book because you’ve read all about the benefits of mindfulness coloring and are someday going to sit down with a cup of tea and color for hours. Or a set of ice skates that you bought because you took one ice skating class and decided you were going to be the next Olympic skater (or just thought you’d be good). Maybe makeup, because you just know that one of these days you will start waking up with a smile on your face and putting on a full face of makeup every day! Yes, these might be (slightly embellished) things I have or used to have that my fantasy self would use.
Okay. Here we go, another ‘real’ post. I mentally did this whole post last night in my head while trying (unsuccessfully) to sleep. Another tentative title for this was ‘The one thing I hate about having a cat’, but I thought that might be a little long. So, here we go; the one thing I hate about having a cat.
A few weeks ago, I went to a hotel for a conference with my dad. I left on Friday afternoon after school, and I came back on Sunday afternoon. I didn’t really have to bring anything special. Dobby was traveling with me, but he doesn’t require much. My dad was taking his cat as well, so I didn’t have to bring a litter box! (Although he forgot a water bowl….)
I was only staying for 2 nights, and still, I overpacked. It’s easy to tell when going from your room down to the car takes 3 trips! Why I brought my huge makeup bag, I don’t know. I have this fantasy that I am going to wear makeup all the time and look super good! The reality is that I hardly ever wear makeup. When I do, a little bit of lipstick and filling in my brows goes a long way. Did I touch my makeup bag at all? Nope.
I’ve been feeling this way for a while. Who am I to be writing a blog when there are so many other bloggers out there writing amazing content? Even if I have a blog post that I really want to make, I feel like it’s already been done before and I would be stealing their ideas. It’s not just with blogging; I feel this way with photography. There are so many great photographers out there and so many things have been photographed. Who wants to view anything by me when they could look at anything by just doing a quick Google search? Yes, I probably do have some unique perspectives, but there are almost 7.5 billion people on this earth (found by doing a quick Google search); I can’t be that different and unique.
For a long time, I’ve been caught up in the idea of making routines. I believe I first encountered a night routine or morning routine mentioned in a book when I was about 7, and I went through that phase of life when I watched seemingly all the morning and night routines on YouTube.
And yet, I never could figure out how to create one for myself that I could stick to. Sure, I could type one up easily right now including on it a timeline of when I want everything to be done by, but sticking to my routine is another story. I always seem to get a big burst of productivity and create a routine that I’m proud of, saying ‘I will start this perfect routine tomorrow’, and when tomorrow comes, all my motivation is gone and I struggle to attend to the basics – getting clothes on and eating breakfast – before meandering out the door (with smudged glasses, might I add).
By the evening, I am way too tired to adhere to my scheduled night routine, and I either stay up late and go to bed without showering or I shower and am so tired that I just fall into bed in whatever pajamas were left out from the night before. Continue reading “My Night Routine in Progress”
I have a confession to make… (maybe I should start all my posts this way?) I have been a procrastinator since, well, probably since I was 3 years old. I have always liked doing my own thing, in my own time. For example: with homework. If it’s an assignment I am interested in, you can consider it done. However, if it’s not, I will drag my feet until literally the last minute. (I once had an auditory presentation to do in honors biology about ethics and I totally winged it. I thought about it for about 5 minutes the night before. BUT I got an A.) Even if the project is something fun (like blogging), I will procrastinate for forever. I am still trying to figure out the why, but for now, the most important thing is the how – how do I get on with my life and beat procrastination.
Otherwise titled ‘I have a problem…’ I want to do everything! Okay, so maybe it isn’t as ‘problematic’ as we usually attach to that word, but it’s kind of a big deal to me and has been exhausting trying to figure it out. A renaissance woman is someone who has many talents and wants to have a lot of hobbies and not just focus on one thing. Emma Watson mentioned it in one of her recent interviews (I believe it was for Beauty and the Beast, probably on the special features) that she wants to do it all. My dad also had ‘being a renaissance man’ as the tagline to his website when I was growing up, so I first learned the term when I was really young. This was originally called ‘I have a problem….’, but I changed it after I finished (probably also to save that title for any number of posts that may come after this one – lots of areas in my life could be considered problematic.
So what are the problems with this? Why is this titled I want to be a renaissance woman instead of I am a renaissance woman? Continue reading “I want to be a Renaissance Woman”
February through August 2016 was a whirlwind of self-help books, trash bags, and trips to the GoodWill. I had heard a lot about minimalism on YouTube (the ever growing new Google), read a few books (most notably The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up), and threw myself into minimalism. I’m sure my dad thought I was crazy. I was at a point in my life where I needed a change, so I decided to get rid of almost everything. When I say almost everything, I mean almost everything. Sure, I kept a few things that, by the words of Marie Kondo, ‘sparked joy’, but those things that I kept were few and far between.
The largest areas of decluttering were my bathroom and my wardrobe. So many bottles of lotions and body washes were thrown in the trash, along with my multitude of impulse-buy makeup palettes. With my wardrobe, I really wanted the 10-item wardrobe (that I read about in Lessons Learned from Madame Chic), so skirts, shirts, and even jeans went into the boxes and boxes that I donated to GoodWill. Now, this was a mistake, as I wear jeans almost exclusively at my jobs. I got down to 2 pairs of jeans, about 10 shirts (not including my work shirts), 1 pair of leggings, 7 pairs of underwear, and 5 pairs of socks. You can imagine, I was doing laundry several times a week. Now, this wardrobe did make it easy to move to college, however, it was not at all practical for my lifestyle.
I learned my first mistake with the 10-item wardrobe around then, when I wanted to explore my personal style and leave behind the style I had in high school: I was trying to be someone I was not. Yes, a chic life of all monochrome colors and only 10 items in the closet is great for some people, but it was not practical for me, and it did not spark joy in me every time I went to get dressed. Continue reading “I failed at minimalism?”
Okay. So I’ve been absent on this blog for a few months. Spring semester of school was very busy. I kept telling myself that I would work on my blog, and I never got around to it. Mostly because I was afraid to post something that wasn’t perfect, and the fear of imperfection stopped me from even trying to work on my blog. Continue reading “I have a confession to make… About Perfectionism”
I haven’t blogged in over a month. I have a lot of ideas, however, my mind goes crazy with the thought that it has to be perfect. I have to find the perfect cover photo and the perfect caption. Yes, it is hard to overcome the need to have everything perfect before I post anything, but if I wait for perfection, I will never post anything. There will be a time when I can put an amazing cover photo on every post that I write and include lots of content in my posts that support my ideas. But for now, I just need to get my ideas out and just do it. Continue reading “Perfection”
Nowadays it seems as though New Year’s resolutions are a bit of a joke. They never work, and just lead to people being disappointed in themselves. Also, why do we need the start of a new calendar year to start working towards a new goal? Continue reading “Do you really need a New Year’s resolution?”
I have a love-hate relationship with online shopping. It’s great in the fact that I don’t have to drive anywhere and go into crowded stores to do my shopping. However, is online shopping really that great? Read on to discover some of my tips for online shopping, as well as the pros and cons of shopping on the internet. Since it is December, I will be putting an emphasis on holiday shopping, but these tips will mostly work anytime. Continue reading “A Quick Word about Online Shopping”
With everything that’s shared on the media lately, it’s easy to start to compare yourself to others. And with this comparison often comes the thought that some part of us isn’t good enough. It’s all too easy to come up with things we hate about ourselves, especially during a time associated with sharing memories and being social. What about liking ourselves? It isn’t conceited to love yourself. And yet we have been convinced that if we say something remotely positive about ourselves, we will come across as arrogant and the world will end. I say we challenge that belief. Self-love and self appreciation are important for life. In a time of being grateful for others, we mustn’t forget to be grateful for ourselves.
Good morning, afternoon, evening, or whenever it is that you’re reading this. It could be in the middle of the night for all I know! In fact, I might be glad that someone else sometimes stays up all night to peruse the internet from time to time. We all do it; I won’t judge.
Given that it’s the week before Thanksgiving, I thought it would be the perfect time to delve into some psychology. Positive psychology is the study of psychology where, instead of studying what makes humans unhappy and different, it focuses on what makes us happier. Gratitude is a large part of positive psychology. Continue reading “Benefits of Giving Thanks”