Why I chose to start Blogging

First off–thank you guys SO much for the support. It literally means the world.

If you’ve followed me on social media, you have seen some of my DIY projects, my recipes/lack thereof when cooking & baking, and all things faith and inspirational. If you are just joining in I want to give you a little back story on the important things in my life.

1. I have a super crazy, complicated family
   • Like, don’t even bother trying to keep up with all my siblings and cousins, you will probably just get confused.
2. I am a dog mom of two rescue pooches.
   • Nikita, a german shepherd who is somewhere around the 8 year mark (we think)
   • Benelli, a “black mouth cur” aka mutt–who is a little over two and 55 pounds of pure psycho, toy shredding, obsessive kisses monster.
3. I enjoy lots of busy hobbies. I like gardening, crafting/DIYing (much to my husbands annoyance), reading, going to the gym, and just about anything else in between.

Perhaps the most important aspect of my life, though, is my husband Shane.

Cheesy, right? Brutally honest.

Shane and I met at church camp somewhere around the 6th grade/7th grade mark. Well actually, we met at another church event that was a weekend long trip to South Dakota–but I don’t remember meeting him (sorry hunny).

Summer after summer, Shane and I would be inseparable from the moment we met up at camp until the goodbyes the last day. The same thing would follow suite at the variety of other church activities throughout the years.

LITTLE DID I KNOW that Shane was actually secretly in love with me for, well, years. And as we grew older his strengths and dependability became something I admired more and more.

When we got to college, I visited Shane at Concordia with our friend Kenzie, and Shane came to visit me over homecoming with a friend who also had friends at Dickinson State University.

We used to have this pact that if neither of us were married by the age of 30 we were just going to elope and marry each other.

So, we did the distance thing for about six months, Shane transferred to Dickinson State and we began our lives truly together.

October 2015 we put an offer in on a house in Dickinson.

The housing market here was OUT OF CONTROL and we wanted to get away from the high rent prices, so we purchased our home and rescued Nikita a few short months later.

After about a year in the house together, Shane tied a box to Kita’s collar and proposed to me at home.

We were married September 1st, 2018, but it was just the next step in our big adventures together.

Sounds pretty great, right? Remember that these are just highlights. There were tough times, lots of yelling (on my part) and quite a few tears (also on my part) for us to become stronger and truly equal partners. More to come on that later.

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So, why did I start blogging?

Shane has ALWAYS pushed me to be a better person. He has loved me when I was hard to love, and taught me so much about growth and focusing on what I enjoy doing. And, one of the things that I most enjoy doing is helping others.

So, what I am here for is to share the real world.

Call it a lifestyle blog, a DIY blog, a faith blog, a motivational blog–you name it. My aim is to remind others that we have this natural tendency towards comparison. I get it, I do it too–what if I was prettier? What if I was nicer to that person when I was stressed? What if I was smarter?

It is time to stop comparing someone’s best to your every day. What you see on social media isn’t the struggles most people go through, its their triumphs and their highlights.

Your triumphs and highlights are pretty great, too.

This is your reminder that we are all unique, and we all have room to grow. The person that my husband fell in love with fifteen years ago is no where near the person that I am today, but I sure hope she would be proud of the growth I have made.

Everyone says “we are all perfect in our own way” but we aren’t,; we are flawed its okay to admit those flaws.

Its more than okay to want to change the bad things you don’t like about yourself.

Take the next week to focus on ONE positive thing you can do to improve your daily life.

Wake up five minutes earlier and make yourself a cup of coffee or tea. Read a new book. Take a ten minute walk around the block.

Make each day better than the last.

Thanks again for sticking around so far.