When I was younger, I always classified myself as an extrovert. I thought I liked talking to people, being involved in all kinds of clubs and organizations, and constantly wanted to have multiple conversations going on at once across a multitude of social media apps. I never truly felt like I was as popular as I thought I wanted to be since I was always seen as the smart girl in school, and we all know there’s an unspoken ceiling to just how cool you can be with that title.

It’s crazy to think that just 5 years ago, I was a sophomore in college trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. Fast forward to now, and I would’ve never guessed I’d be married with two dogs by now. I also never thought I’d have my own small business and publishing a weekly blog. While I’m still figuring things out, I can say I understand more of what I want in my world and life.

January has been one of the coldest months ever. Off the top of my head, I don’t remember one month in particular having this much consistent arctic air in my lifetime. The lows have been brutal and the highs haven’t necessarily been any better. Of course, since I was always closer to Florida than Atlanta, I never really experienced true cold weather like I experience now.

Time is an interesting concept. It’s one that’s both here and gone in a second. It’s also one of the hardest resources to acquire since it’s always in motion. Time is of the essence in life threatening situations but somehow manages to stand still in certain situations. We must carefully find the balance of time that works best for our individual lifestyles and families.

No matter what I do, I never want to make a decision that’s not in line with the plan Jesus has for my life. I know that whatever is written in my life story is designed to teach me lessons, provide me with life skills, and sometimes even test my faith just to strengthen it. With that in mind, when I’m thinking over a major life decision, it calms my nerves to just give all my trepidation, worry, and anxiety about the situation over to God.

Popular society and social media will show that plenty of people prefer the 30 inch bust down middle parts and the extra, extra long nails with super elaborate and bold designs. However, with so much expression, we have to take special care that we aren’t allowing these optional additions to define who we are. While we can adorn ourselves with the best grade human hair and the latest and greatest nail product, we have to remember that those items don’t represent us in our natural form.

Social media is one of the most consistent forms of entertainment for the vast majority of us. We aimlessly scroll through timelines to keep up with friends, family, and even celebrities. It’s also how a good portion of people stay up to date on world events since headlines on IG posts can provide information quicker than traditional news outlets. Content creators and regular, degular people are going viral each day for funny, informative, or touching content that resonates with the masses.

Over the years, my hair has gone through a whole bunch of transitions. From fully natural, to always being in braids, to having damaged, broken ends, to being completely chopped off, my hair has evolved with the various stages of life that I’ve gone through.

Personally, there are few things that I despise more than the HOA in my neighborhood. For those of you lucky to not know, most homes built in subdivisions today have a Homeowners Association that you can’t opt out of. My biggest gripe is that the HOA isn’t run by the actual homeowners, but instead run by an outsourced community management company that’s usually far removed from the neighborhood itself.

At the end of the day, my blog is a passion project. If one day in the future it’s able to get monetized and be a passive money maker, cool, but that’s not why I consistently write these posts. I write because I genuinely enjoy getting the words out of my head in a creatively engineered sentence, paragraph, passage.

For someone who was determined to go out of state for college, I’m a huge UGA fan. It was the only university I applied to in Georgia, and not once have I regretted that decision. Fun fact, I applied early action to UGA but since I actually misspelled my name, I had to wait on pins and needles until the regular decisions went out. My initial mark on UGA will always be Jesssica.

Talk about embarrassing lol.

And with that much content to read, we are pretty much locked in for years. We read at a decent pace, but we definitely don’t like speed reading. Back in my day, I had a competition going with myself to read books as fast as possible. I loved getting new books but knew that to buy a new one, I had to finish one.

There’s one tea that I got from Trader Joe’s that has stuck with me for many years. I deeply enjoyed it, but only purchased one box. It was a reddish purplish color and smelled of flowers but had a sweet, light, airy taste. It was a pomegranate white tea with hibiscus flowers and lemongrass but I don’t think it had any caffeine. To date, that was my favorite tea that I’ve ever tried. I could drink it any time of the day and not get tired of it.

Out of all the doctors and health professionals I have to see annually, I dread seeing the dentist the most. Maybe because I have to see them more often than I have to see my primary care doctor or eye doctor. I prepare a whole month in advance by flossing almost every single day to avoid the typical “Your gums are bleeding. You might want to floss more often” lecture that I used to get pretty often.

While some internal timelines are beneficial, some definitely cause more damage than good. For example, an internal timeline can let us know when it’s time to work out again or when it’s time to push ourselves to get a little bit better each day. An internal timeline can become detrimental if we’re using that timeline to compare to other people’s highlight reel. We’re all human so we all wonder if other people are going through the same things at the same pace as we are. More often, the answer just isn’t that simple.

I used to be a leave everything in my suitcase and just rumble around for things I need girl, but I unpacked during this trip just to see how it was and I liked that method waaaaaay better. And it makes it incredibly easier to pack when leaving. I used the hour of free time we needed to burn to unpack all of our clothes and set up the bathroom with our hygiene stuff since I seriously didn’t want to do it when I was tired later that night.

My options for the replacement car came down to a Lexus RX 350 and a Honda CR-V. I was initially drawn to the CR-V, but when I thought about what I wanted most in a car, the RX 350 fit the bill better at my budget. The first couple we went to see in person were a bust. The very first one wasn’t well maintained, didn’t have a backup camera, and needed more repairs than we were willing to take on. The second one ended up being over budget once taxes, tag, and title were taken into account and it had more miles than we necessarily liked. The third one was unconventional and maybe a little risky, but it ended up being the best option and the one I’m driving today.

My 8 AM to 5 PM has been working my nerves this week. Okay, that’s dramatic. Maybe not working my nerves, but I’ve been having some conniptions about it. There are major issues that seem oh so simple to fix along with too much information floating around in my head.

Over the past few months, I’ve really noticed that my creativity, motivation, and drive waxes and wanes similar to the moon. There’s times when I’m bursting at the seams with great ideas just waiting to be put into action. That’s when I crank out a new design or put some time aside to make edits to my website verbiage or even try to update some Etsy listings. And then there’s the other side of the coin when I ~want to be creative, excited, and motivated, but I just can’t get into my groove.

Brain fog is real. Being so busy that you can’t see the trees from the forest is real. Having boundaries and understanding that there are just certain situations that you have to push through are vital pills to swallow early. I definitely still struggle with all of the above.